A Live Concert!

There was one place in the city that hadn’t been overtaken by this costumed curse. That was the cathedral, which people had been gathering inside of for shelter.

Once we were inside the church barrier, I ended up changing back to my Exceed form without the ability to become that big bird again. That meant the plan I’d been cooking up was likely to work in our favour, since I had access to my original abilities.

I had a spell called Curse Heal. It was exactly what it sounded like and destroyed whatever darkness was looming inside or around a person. In theory, if I could get its range to expand all over the city, I could destroy the demon domain.

That’s where Jess came in. My hope was that the two of us could resonate in song and have my spell cast over a much wider range. It seemed plausible enough that we were willing to give it a go.

Jess and I flew up to one of the topmost spires of the church and landed inside of it. There was a large bell here, as well as plenty of room for the two of us to set up some equipment that Jess claimed would help us out.

“microphones?” I tapped at the stand Jess had spawned in front of me. “Do we need these?”

“What, you wanna shout to the wind and hope your voice carries?” she said in a sassy tone as she was playing with wires, plugging them into the back of her hat. “These microphones should make us much louder.”

“Gee, never would have thought that was the point of a mic,” I remarked with a snide snicker. “I just wasn’t sure that you needed the mics to actually get our song out there.”

It seemed like her hat was going to project our voice out into the city. But that wasn’t all we’d be using, because I had another ability that we’d probably find useful for getting our voices out there.

On both my arms were auxiliary crystal hearts. Unlike the one on my chest, these two could be unplugged and help me do some interesting things.

I took the one off my right forearm and tossed it up into the air. It floated for a moment before a swirling disk of energy appeared around it and faced the two of us, like a cloudy eye.

“Okay, I know I was a little snarky when you asked about the mics, but what does that do?”

I pointed out into the city, especially toward the Satellite Industries tower, which had giant televisions screens all over its sides.

Jess peered out over the ledge of the church bell tower and saw that the two of us were being televised on those screens. But we weren’t just there, because I was sending a signal to every TV in the city.

“How are you doing that?” she asked in wonder.

“I have the power to hack into stuff,” I told her. “And my extra heart is recording us to put on every screen in the city.”

“It’s like a real concert.” Jess said, a little taken aback. “Everyone can see us…”

Her lower lip was folding in and she shied up a tad.

“You’re not getting stage fright now, are you?” I snickered.

“J-just a little worried they might judge me for the way I look.”

For her sake, I figured it was best I did the introduction here. Nobody knew who she was, and probably had revulsion toward witches, but if I were to explain everything, the people would be sure to accept her. At least, that was my hope.

“Ehem…” I cleared my throat. Once I was sure that we were broadcast all over the city, even in the bunkers people were hiding in, I put on a serious face and stood tall for the camera. “Attention, people of Urnan!” my voice echoed enthusiastically across the whole city, way louder than I was expecting. “This is the Eighth Star speaking to you live from Saint Kensington cathedral!”

“Woah! So much confidence!” Jess commented.

If only she saw some of my earlier speeches. Oh gosh, I used to be an absolute wreck! But I’d done thousands of public broadcasts at this point, so I wasn’t afraid of the spotlight anymore. Still got a little anxious at the start, but that wasn’t anything to keep me from talking to the people.

“So, I bet all of you have been having a pretty crummy Halloween so far,” I continued. “I wish it were sweeter than candy, but it looks like we got a sour trick instead." I paused for a little humor sake. “That was a joke. You’re supposed to laugh,” I said in a jokingly dry tone.

I had no way of knowing if they were actually cringing at my lame joke or not, but I just needed to keep their spirits up.

“Anyways, I’m not just here because I’m a comedian. The truth is, there’s a demon on the loose in the city, and he’s forced everyone to take on the powers of whatever costume they’re wearing. Sounds kinda’ cool on paper, but I can tell you it’s been a heck of a night.”

Once I got talking seriously, the butterflies in my tummy were completely gone.

“As the angel defender of mankind, I’ve already got this demon’s number. So in just a few hours, you’ll all be right back to trick or treating like nothing ever happened. But here’s the deal. I have to get rid of this curse before I can go kick his pumpkin butt. This nice girl with me is going to help with that bigtime!”

I gestured over to Jess, who pointed to herself in response. I was hoping she’d introduce herself, but her quietness told me she wasn’t getting that message.

“Uh…” she whispered. “You’re not saying I’m the demon, right?”

I snickered at her response. “Everyone, this is my good friend, Jessette!” I really put pep in my tone to kick up some good vibes. “She’s a musical genius. Maybe the best musician who’s ever lived!”

I really wanted to glaze her up for the public and set their expectations through the roof, because I knew Jess was going to deliver an outstanding performance.

“Whhaaa…” Jess’s face turned red and she waved her hands at me in a panic. “No! They’ll hate me because I’m a witch!”

“Aww, she’s got stage fright.” I giggled into the mic. “Isn’t she cute?”

“Yaah yoooaahh…” her face somehow turned even more red and she shoved her hat down as far as it could go to shield herself. “Y-you thi-think I’m cute?! This is sooo sudden!”

“Uh…” I tried to hold my composure, but her responses were really getting hard to follow up on. “Of course I do! You ever looked in a mirror, Jess?”

Guys in this city really liked shy girls for some reason, especially ones that cosplayed as anime girls. The people didn’t need to know she was a real witch, they just needed to think she was dressed like one and played into the persona a bit.

“Why don’t you say hi to all the nice people you’re about to help?” I held my mic up to her.

She was shivering and looking at me with wide eyes that kinda’ freaked me out a little.

“Ppp-ppppftt…” she made a series of noises that worried me a little for her mental health. “M-mmmm-mmmme…”

“You can do it…” I encouraged her. “I know you’ve got it in you, Jess.”

With her shameless introduction to me earlier, she definitely wasn’t afraid to have all eyes on her.

I honestly didn’t expect her to be so shy. But I had faith she’d overcome her concerns over others' opinions of witches.

Her grip tightened on her instrument. It lit up and began to change its shape. She then flung herself forward toward the mic. With a brush of her hand she strummed an electric guitar now in her clutches and it cried out with a powerful sound that echoed through the harrowing night.

“I’m Jessette, everybody!” she screamed like a rockstar overcoming her fear, strumming the guitar once more. “Jessette, the musical witch! I’m here to spread peace and love, so I hope you're all ready for me!”

Her fingers danced sharply across those six strings, shredding it like her last name was Hendrix.

Once she was finished, she held her guitar pick high up into the air and looked upwards, breathing heavily and covered in steaming green runes across any exposed skin.

“Okay! How was that?!”

Personally, I was stunned. That was an introduction like none before!

“Let’s give her a round of applause!” I clapped my hands. “And that’s just her playing around. When she gets serious, you guys’ll love her.” I slowed my clapping to a pause. “She’s been helping me a lot since this chaos started. A real hero to the core who I think you guys should keep an eye on. But before that, she’s gotta’ help me with one big thing. So I’ll let her music do the talking.”

I gestured for her to take up her spot in front of the microphone. Then set my mic back in place to get things going.

“I know it might look like we’re about to entertain you guys with a concert, but the real reason we’re up here doing this is because we’ve got to play a song in order to break the curse. So, are you guys ready to rock?”

Were we actually doing a rock song? I only said that because Jess still had her electric guitar in hand and got me all pumped up with her solo moments ago.

When I turned to Jess for validation, she just shrugged and nodded.

“Alright, I guess we’re rocking it up.” That was the most uncertain tone I’d used so far. “Are you ready, Urnan?!”

“Yeah!” I heard a barely noticeable cheer come through from the church under us. So clearly they were listening.

“Great! Let’s do this!”

I held out my hand for Jess to take for a moment. She blushed again and looked stunned at my offer to connect our fingers together.

“L-listen…” she shook her head and got all frazzled. “I-I know we’re getting friendly and all, b-but maybe this is skipping a few steps, you think?”

“What are you talking about?” I said in a hushed, but serious voice away from the mic. “We have to resonate in order to connect our powers.”

Resonating was when two souls connected and shared their mana. That also allowed us to share powers and spells too. But Jess was acting like I was offering up a marriage proposal or something.

“Oh…” she looked ashamed. “Well, you could have started with that, you know?”

Wasn’t it obvious?

Jess took my hand, then we both closed our eyes and drew upon our cores to draw out the echoes of our spirits. Soft, ethereal hums began around the two of us in a pleasing chorus of magical sound.

Waves of mana surrounded us, exiting our bodies and expanding out into the world. Once the waves collided there were sharp crackles and static that broke our concentration. Our first attempt to resonate ended in utter failure that almost blew out every speaker in the city.

“Yalda, let’s try again,” she said. “I’ll let you set the pace.”

“You sure?” I asked.

“I’m a mana witch. I know how to work my spirit to match yours.” She had a determined look in her eyes, like this was her calling. “Trust me.”

Our first attempt failed because neither of us were matching our mana signatures. We were just projecting it out into the air, hoping for the best. In order to do this right, we needed to have the exact same signature, as if we were one spirit.

“Alright. One more time.”

I attempted to resonate again. Once there was a steady beat to my spirit, Jess let go of my hand and began to strum her instrument along to it.

The sound was inspiring, maybe even enchanting. I’d never heard such a tone come out of an aggressive instrument. But we were finally resonating, and now I needed to do my part.

Since this was my curse heal spell being amplified, I quickly came up with words to match the level of vibe I needed for the occasion.

“♬There came a day when the world needed faith.♫”

“♪But the doves died, because we had lost our way.♫”

“♫A light appeared in the darkness of the night,♪”

“♬It said, Do not fear, we haven’t lost the fight…♫”

Stardust energy bloomed in my core, spreading across my synthetic flesh and causing me to sparkle. The spell was priming. Jess was so focused on strumming her instrument that she didn’t notice the same glow had appeared around her.

The resonating was complete. Our spirits were connected.

Even though I didn’t tell Jess the lyrics, she began singing along with me. Her tone was soft and supportive, echoing as if a choir of children joined our cries against the darkness.

“♪Once what was lost, is now found beneath the shame.♫”

“♬Grace and love, both things we can never tame.♪”

“♫We’re here to brighten the dark, and cut away what can break.♬”

“♬At last we see the peace that was always fake.♪”

Her playing kicked up, purposefully rough to really simulate the strength drawn out in the rock genre of music. The empowering sound, accompanied by our vocals bolstered the curse heal spell far beyond anything that I’d ever been able to achieve before.

The entire city came under our voices and the demonic domain over us was defeated, like a twinkly wind blowing away smoke. The sparkling energy of stardust rained down over everything after, like a glimmering flurry.

As our song began to conclude, the bell behind us rang, and Jess channeled the sound through her to join in the final verses.

“♫Day’s wasted in isolation, were just perfecting us for this occasion.♬”

“♪We saw the enemy was strong, but now the light of the world is in our song.♫”

And with that, plus a guitar solo from Jess, our song was concluded and the costume chaos came to an end.

I was thankful that we actually managed to save the city from the domain. Now I had the strength to go and finish the job.

Jess deserved a lot of the credit here. She was a powerful witch, there was no doubt about it. Her abilities to manipulate sound were truly going to make her something special in the eyes of the public.

“Jess,” I said away from the mic. “Don’t be afraid to show who you are.” I smiled. “You’ve been blessed with a talent, and it would be a shame if you didn’t share it with everyone.”

Jess was clearly inspired enough by my words to tear up.

“I will.” She grabbed the mic and held it close to her face. “Urnan… No… All the world!” she pointed to the eye of my heart. “From here on, nothing’s going to be the same. I’m going to be the greatest pop idol ever, and make the world a better place. Remember the name Jessette! The musical witch! She’ll be everywhere! You’ll be talking about her ‘till the end of time, and even after!”

Normally I would have been one of the first to condemn pride for the sin it was, but Jess’s words were inspiring. Her declaration to the world reminded me a lot of something I did rather recently, but that was a story for another time.

This was the beginning of her awesome domain over the music industry. I could feel she was going to be something special, so long as she never gave up.