Lucky Rabbit

Even before Pandy stepped foot in the lab, she could feel the small hairs on her arms and the back of her neck lifting. The air smelled of ozone, and as soon she could see, she knew why. Tempest was larger than Pandy had ever seen her, but she’d also lost cohesion. Little more than a ball of lightning only vaguely shaped like a tortoise, she blocked almost a quarter of the right-hand wall. The light she gave off was flickering and oddly hazy, like a strobe stuck in a witches’ cauldron at Halloween. Movement around her was marked more by shadows blocking her miniature lightning strikes than by actual progressive vision.

“Isidor?” Pandy called, but the only reply was a sort of coughing grunt. Tempest shifted, her shape morphing until redder patches of electricity that might once have been eyes were aimed in Pandy and Augustus’s direction.

“A little more light would be helpful,” Augustus murmured as he slid around to the side, heading for the direction from which the cough had come, which lay right behind the bulk of Tempest’s form.

Pandy nodded, stepping a bit further into the room. She didn’t want to set fire to the stairs. Again. It cost six gold and some unknown amount of previously-gathered Wood to repair the steps last time. she thought, causing a hot, bright ball of flame to burst into existence just above her outstretched hand.

At level twenty-three, the flames of her fires were remarkably steady. While shadows still lingered in the corners and behind the scattered kindling that were all that remained of her practice tables, Spark definitely shed some light on the situation. Nox was here, his scythes flickering out toward a man who moved like water, never quite where the elemental struck. The interloper bore a black blade, much like the one that had belonged to Ms. Wellington, and he wore the same skin-tight getup as the other Shadows, except that he also had on a half-cape. Pandy recognized that cape.

In Gacha Love, there were a few mid-bosses scattered throughout the murdery portions of the story. As Clara and her companions got closer to discovering who was behind the deaths, they faced stronger and stronger opponents. One of them, as Pandy had told Augustus when he and Beeswick summoned the students with Dark magic to the library, was probably either Miller Oakden or his older sister, Bertha, who was no longer a student.

Known as DeVille, the mid-boss was killed when they were caught quite literally red-handed. Their mask was removed, but they were never named, and apparently Millar and his sister looked very similar, so Pandy couldn’t be sure which of them was actually ‘DeVille’. Miller’s actions at Matilda’s dinner party had pretty well made up her mind for her, but his presence here, now, very clearly well-trained and willing to commit murder cemented the idea.

“Miller!” Pandy shouted, and the masked and caped figure wobbled. One of Nox’s slicing tendrils caught the side of his arm, opening up the fabric to reveal the pale skin beneath, and he grunted. Unfortunately, he was too focused to respond, and he even managed to dodge a flash of actual, tortoise-fueled lightning. Was it even humanly possible to move faster than literal electricity?

While Pandy was creating light and trying to distract the nimble figure, Augustus continued to move around the edge of the room, warily eyeing the elementals and Miller. Pandy watched him out of the corner of her eye as she tried to find another chance to interfere without risking the elementals, so she saw the moment he stumbled over Isidor’s body.

Augustus caught his balance almost immediately, and knelt by the boy, who was still wearing the school uniform he’d been so proud of. The light from Pandy’s Spark turned the blood staining it to a wet black smear. The chancellor pressed his fingers against Isidor’s throat, looking grim. “Eurydice!” he called, which drew everyone’s attention to his presence. Miller paused mid-motion, then had to roll out of the way of a thick swathe of lightning. His cape caught the electrical current, standing out from his body in a very super-villainy way.

The way Miller was fighting changed. Before, he’d almost seemed to be playing with the elementals. Nox’s strikes never hit him, and while the two elementals might have been able to pin the boy between them, Tempest seemed to be fighting a primarily defensive battle. While her lightning arced around the room, the tortoise herself hadn’t moved, and now Pandy knew why. She was remaining between Isidor and Miller, and she probably couldn’t unleash her full strength without hurting her boy.

Somehow, Miller started moving even more quickly. His shadow seemed to stretch out toward the remaining patches of darkness, pulling him along without him actually having to cross the space in between. The natural darkness that lay within creases and the shadow of his hood deepened, and his black-bladed weapon started to smoke.

Pandy knew she was too far from Isidor for Minor Heal to reach him, but she also knew this room like the inside of her eyelids. Miller wasn’t the only one who could cheat. she thought. Pushing off with one foot, she launched herself straight for the caped figure. It wasn’t a woman who bounced off the middle of his chest, however, it was a rabbit, and one who had a bone to pick with him.

She instantly recognized the chill surrounding his body, and it was a good thing she was on a direct flight when it reached her, because she probably would have wobbled otherwise. Her powerful hind feet struck the dead center of Miller’s chest with the full force of a level twenty-five Hop, blowing the boy straight out of his own elemental.

The smoky thing hung there as Pandy Hopped up, ricocheted from the ceiling, and came back down just as hard, striking a second blow. She was pretty sure she heard some ribs crack, and Miller’s breath exited his body in a wheeze, but she was barely even paying attention. Instead, she was watching the black shape she’d just passed through.

She had her suspicions about what it was, though it was mainly through the process of elimination. It wasn’t any of the Dark elementals she’d encountered before, and it didn’t look like the Ascyra from her vision of Grace Conroy’s death. That meant it was probably an Echowretch, the Dark elemental people used to track blood. She knew it could also be used to create Bound, but maybe not human Bound? Honestly, the whole thing was a bit wibbly, and she should probably ask about it when she wasn’t fighting for Isidor’s life, even if it was gross and creepy and also taboo.

As soon as Miller was separated from the elemental, Tempest went into overdrive. The colors surrounding the tortoise shifted into a whole new spectrum, making her look a bit like she was hovering in the middle of an aurora borealis. Then those colors coalesced into a single unnameable shade and zotted the Echowretch.

The thing emitted a sound that could only be described as somewhere between tearing metal and a particularly operatic feline and curled into itself. It spun in place, coalescing into a much smaller and more solid shape, only to have Nox slice through the center of its ‘body’ with one of his scythe-arms. This time the sound it made was higher and leaned more heavily toward shredded metal.

It split into two parts, but even that didn’t seem to be enough to destroy it. The halves were already reforming into a slightly smaller whole when Pandy saw Miller’s wicked-looking weapon lying beside his twitching hand.

Pandy thought, well aware that she was rapidly running out of thumb-time. She didn’t even bother to use Dual Wielding – which wouldn’t have worked, since she only had the one evil knife – and just scooped up the weapon. Ignoring the stinging sensation in her palm, she thrust several inches of blade into the coalescing clot of cloud. It released one more screech, and when the tip of the blade emerged again, it was coated in an oily layer of ash.

You have been Poisoned.

Poison is ineffective.

You take no damage.

When the ash didn’t change into yet another, smaller form, like a horrible nesting doll of an elemental, Pandy threw the knife toward the corner furthest from everyone before running toward Augustus and Isidor. Somewhat to her surprise, Tempest didn’t even try to stop her, though she also didn’t withdraw her electrical field quite quickly enough to keep Pandy’s arm-hairs from sticking straight up. For the first time, she was actually glad she didn’t have any hair, or she probably would have looked like Albert Einstein after an argument with Nikola Tesla.

Pandy chanted as soon as she was close enough for the spell to work.

Minor Heal successful.

Healed Isidor for 20 HP.

Minor Heal successful.

Healed Isidor for 20 HP.

Minor Heal successful.

Healed Isidor for 20 HP.

Minor Heal successful.

Healed Isidor for 7 HP.

Remember you haven’t recovered from using all your Mana yet.

Okay, that was both good and bad. Good because obviously Isidor wasn’t dead, but bad because in Pandy’s experience, even adults were in Very Bad shape if they lost sixty Health Points. That meant there was probably more wrong with the boy than just a little blood loss and maybe a stab wound.

Stab wound.

Pandy glanced toward the corner where she’d thrown the knife, and with a sinking feeling, she thought,

Innate Magic successful.

Halted poison.

Three hundred and eighty-five uses remain before level 24.

Maintenance cost -.25 Mana/sec

I’m not going to say I told you so, but…

Pandy staggered, sitting down hard on the ground. That felt so good that she went ahead and laid down, too, and while she was there she decided to check how much Mana she had left. One hundred. Oh, no. Ninety-nine. Ninety-eight.

Augustus had been leaning over Isidor, his arms stiff as he pressed hard against the boy’s chest. He was soaked in blood, which pooled around Isidor’s body. A sodden lump lay in that pool, a knife sticking out of it. Pandy could just make out part of the title: Edge of the Sto- The book Pandy gave him as a gift on the Day of Gratitude. Why was he carrying it around, and why had he stabbed it?

Augustus’s jaw flexed as he looked over at Pandy, but he didn’t release the pressure on Isidor’s wound. Oops. Pandy was so used to casting her spells silently that he didn’t know she’d healed the boy, and he probably didn’t dare check.

“Okay,” Pandy rasped from her place on the floor. “Just poison now.” Eighty Mana left. She couldn’t let herself pass out this time. She’d have to start using Corruption Points.

Finally allowing his arms to relax, Augustus reached into his cache pocket and removed what was possibly the most beautiful thing Pandy had ever seen – a potion bottle. Tearing the cork out with his teeth, Augustus tilted Isidor’s head back and poured the contents into the boy’s mouth, then rubbed his throat until it convulsed, forcing down the fluid. Isidor’s eyes flew open, and he rolled onto his side, coughing and wheezing.

Seventy Mana. Sixty-nine. Sixty-eight. Sixty… Still sixty-eight. Isidor caught his breath, gasped, nearly vomited, managed not to, and it was still sixty-eight. Very, very carefully, Pandy thought, She would have time to cast it again if she needed to, right?

But Isidor didn’t start dying again. Instead, he sat up, stared from Augustus to Pandy, who was still holding the floor down while the ceiling spun over her, and said, “He stabbed me in the back. Did you get him?”

As one, Augustus and Pandy turned to look toward the spot where the broken and battered Miller had last been seen. It wasn’t empty, but Miller wasn’t the one lying there. Instead, the mortal remains of Lord General Preston Avington had been dragged or pushed from their resting place. His beard was askew, and when Pandy finally sat up so she could get a better look, she knew instantly what had happened. The necklace was gone.