Miss Midnight

Chapter Six: Voracity

Chapter Six: Voracity

The girl was a troublemaker, everyone agreed on that. Her blazing red hair was just as fiery as her hyperactive, capricious personality. The magic she absorbed on the fateful Walpurgis Night she arrived into the world doubled itself with every year that passed. It remained trapped inside the small, petite shell of her body, swirling in her muscles, bones, and blood, full to bursting within every cell. Yet it was inert and unawakened- all potential, no energy. But the more magic she gathered, the more that spilled out in her energetic outbursts.

Before she learned to fear them, she spent her time with the fairies, telling her parents all about how she played with them in the garden, and even met one that became her best friend.

They thought nothing of it at the time, simply that she was just a child with an overactive imagination. The great waves of magic surged within the little girl, but never made it to shore. She was a tangle of mischief, trouble, and curiosity, and every new prank she pulled astonished everyone who knew her. She tried to ride cats and dogs, tried to fish with her bare hands and nearly drowned in the pond. Thankfully, her father was there to save her.

She climbed trees, wrote on walls, played tricks, and ruined new clothes within minutes of wearing them. Her wavy crimson hair was always a ratted, knotty mess, and even when it was cut, it seemed to grow back to its extraordinary length mere days afterwards. She was a unique child, no one who knew her could deny that.

But could any of them have known she was a witch?

Miss Walpurgisnacht sat perched at the summit of a tower, overlooking the skyline of Tobari City. Such a bright, bustling metropolis, even at night...it reminded her of her own home. That was, before it became reduced to little more than a pile of ash and rubble. She ran a finger over her bandaged eyesocket. "Damn witch. She's not getting away with this."

Garnet stood by her side while Magenta was bunched up at his feet, fast asleep. "What shall we do now, Mistress? Those witches are protected. We can't attack them outright like we did last time."

Walpurgis reached into the folds of her dress and extracted a radiant, tear-shaped golden gem. "I'm aware. There aren't many witches left in this area, but still...I only need a few more Mystics to complete my plan. All of them...they had powerful Mystics."

Garnet nodded. "What about that one witch- Miss Midnight? She may not yet know how to control it efficiently, but she possesses immense amounts of dark magic inside her body. I can't begin to imagine how powerful her Mystic would be. She might even have enough strength to become a Goddess."

Walpurgisnacht nodded slowly. "Mmm, yes. So you've noticed her potential as well. As much magic as she has, she has no way of controlling it, not on a level like the Timespace Witch.

She's only recently awakened, she doesn't yet know how to take advantage of her full strength. She's like a toddler with an atomic bomb. Her body and mind is unstable...and we can use that

to our advantage. We don't have to face Miss Midnight and her coven on our own- at least, not right now, anyway. For now, we'll see how good her skills really are."

She tossed the golden gem into the stagnant nighttime air. It morphed into a long, thin streak of energy that shot out over the cityscape- in search of its next victim.

Back at Witch's Brew, Kirsten, Miyu, and I sat in the smoke-shrouded den, trying to recover from our encounter with Miss Walpurgisnacht. Miyu rested her hands over Kirsten's wound.

Her fingernails shone a bright blue as the gash in Kirsten's stomach began to regenerate and heal up before my eyes. The skin grew back and overlapped the cut, making it look as though she'd never been injured to begin with. I wondered if I could learn healing magic. But if what Kirsten said about me being a Witch of Dark was true, I highly doubted that.