A Dead End for Me and You

Cerise was no stranger to stories. A good portion of her spare time was wasted buying or trading second-hand novels that were barely worth the pulp they were printed on. The ones she had read were prone to dramatics, with epic final battles between handsome and beautiful heroes against villains as ugly as they came, in locales that were as dramatic as they were ridiculous. Killers confronted at the top of unfinished buildings, and armored demons struck down on the slopes of an active volcano. A few particularly ambitious novels contrived of flying fortresses, hidden by perpetual storms or otherwise, not unlike the one Cerise was forcing her way through.

Against such dramatic scenery readers clamoured for, there was something both strangely laughable and deeply disappointing that Cerise was facing her own nemesis in a squat, oblong former stable-turned-garage.

It was an undignified, dirty place designed just to hold wagons and carriages that transformed into self-propelled machines once Breath was mastered to make it capable, its horses and troughs ejected to make way for the future, with one wall replaced with a number of shut gates so wagons could just be driven straight in and out.

Cerise quietly hid behind a tree, letting her dark shape merge with all the shadows of the rainy night so she could spy the garage unimpeded. None of the doors had been opened up, and it wouldn’t be easy for one old woman to push a pair apart – but not impossible. Through the windows, the lights could clearly be seen turned on, so Sanarsmark was definitely inside, likely trying to get her own vehicle ready to drive out.

A small part of Cerise wished that her impending tete a tete with the headmistress could have taken place at the University’s legendary clocktower, just to round out the nonsense of her scholastic year. But perhaps Robin Sanarsmark didn’t deserve to be afforded such a legendary last-stand.

It didn’t really matter at this point – the witch was more than ready to put an end to things, here and now.

Cerise didn’t take the side door, which was far too obvious and would have ended with her getting jumped by the old woman swinging around a blind corner with a weapon, surely.

So she instead carefully rounded the building, and found a darkened window on one far end. Pressing her hands against the edges and then pushing gave her enough leverage to work the cheap sill open, giving her admission into a dark supply closet that Sanarsmark apparently didn’t think to secure.

A few minutes of groping about in the darkness got Cerise’s hands on a door knob, letting her exit the closet and into a long hall full lined with dormant carriages that lay in the gloom. In the distance, a few lamps were set about one specific vehicle, and Cerise could see Robin walking in and out of view, trying to prepare the large machine for operation all by her lonesome.

Slowly, the witch approached, moving from the shadow of one carriage to the next, waiting until Robin turned her back to inspect one part or another of the large machine to close in.

Cerise wasn’t sure how polite to make her opening move. Even now, a part of her felt a little queasy at making a senior bleed. That was why, when she got close enough, she saw the back of Robin’s neck as she bent over something, and decided to lunge forward to put her arms around it.

A good squeeze could put even a grown man on the floor when they fought to breathe.

But as the witch shot out towards Robin, the older woman was already swirling around, cane in hand. Cerise arms barely registered the hard wood striking her forearms as she blocked them, tempered as they were by countless fights, but when she instead aimed for Robin’s own arms to wrestle the woman under control, the headmistress turned out to be surprisingly agile, the limbs and hands of the two women twisting about as they tried to work around each other, with Cerise’s own wrists getting trapped by both Robin’s impromptu weapon and hand that squeezed tight like a vice.

It was enough to make the witch grimace at the sudden spike of pain that shot through her arm through the compressing bones, and she quickly brought a knee up to slam it into the knot of limbs hard enough to free herself, even if it meant Robin was also now able to jab the end of her cane into Cerise’s chest hard enough to send her stumbling back into the the doors with a heavy thud.

“You’re sopping wet, Cerise,” Robin explained. “It’s hard to miss your feet squelching no matter how slowly you move.”

“Oh, so those ears of yours work,” Cerise chuckled for a moment, as she rubbed her assailed wrists. “Good grip, too. Not what I’d expected from someone your age, and definitely not what you can retain even with exercise. Got a little extra help somewhere?”

Robin afforded herself a little smirk of her own, as she reached into the pocket of her coat to produce a glass bottle that rippled with a familiar concoction. From the way it shifted, Cerise knew what it was, having made plenty herself over the years.

“Unfortunately for you, Cerise, your mistress liked me enough to share some of her notes with me,” Robin answered, before popping the hinged cap on her bottle to take another quick sip. Cerise could imagine it working its magic on the old woman, making her blood run fast and hot, giving her more strength and speed, with Breath amplifying it to levels beyond the mundane.

“So you got a little Problem-Solver of your own, huh?” The witch harrumphed, even as her mind quickly started recalculating how to deal with a combatant who was no longer just a frail practitioner of manipulating Breath, but someone who could move like the wind and strike like a bull.

“You’ll find my version has the benefit of years of research to smooth out the rough spots. If only you had the patience to put in the work like I had.”

“Oh, and you couldn’t be bothered to share your stunning breakthroughs, huh?” Cerise retorted. “Had to have a little secret?”

“Move aside, Cerise,” Robin warned one more time. “You have nothing but two beat up hands. You won’t win against me.”

“I’m not doing this to win,” her interloper spat, and her expression only darkened with intent. “I’m doing this because you nearly killed me. That’s never going to change.”

Robin didn’t answer after that. Instead, her cane lifted, and all the patterns inscribed on it came to life in blue light. Cerise leapt away so that the wood panelling of the door behind her crumpled and splintered from invisible force.

The older woman watched her opponent scuttle away between the parked carriages, which only inspired her to tell the Breath to burst forth with another invisible wall of force. The thin wheels of the vehicle in front of the headmistress squealed as it slid sideways, its wide body a battering ram that tried to crush the woman between it and the carriage behind her.

Even as the two vehicles collided, spraying more wood and lacquer in every direction, Cerise, soaking as she was, found it no trouble to roll under the carriage with its high clearance keeping it far off the ground.

Robin seemed to have accounted for it, having had her cane already pointed downwards at the floor around where she expected the younger witch to tumble to.

Cerise did indeed fall into her line of sight, but even as she rolled, she turned her motion into a low spin, hands and feet pulling her across the ground until she lanced out with a leg that was longer than Robin had imagined. The boot collided with Robin’s hand and sent the venerable cane flying away into some corner of the building.

Robin didn’t hesitate for a moment, simply kicking out on her own to slam her foot into Cerise’s grounded leg and sending her collapsing to the ground.

With time room she had gained, Robin looked behind her, desperate to find her tool and regain her range advantage, but the moment’s glance away from her opponent, Cerise merely used the opportunity to throw herself across the ground and put her whole weight into the headmistress’s legs.

Even if her muscles and bones were temporarily fortified by a potion, Robin couldn’t keep her balance when so much mass and force slammed into her shins, and she fell on her back, with Cerise rolling across her legs to put her body right above the old woman’s torso.

She punched Robin in the face, knowing full well that the aged face would hold up with little to show but a bruise

“You scheming–”

The opposite fist.

“–Manipulative–”

The first fist. Blocked this time.

“--Intrusive hag!”

Robin raised both her arms above her head to cage it and keep it covered from the falling hammer fist that Cerise slammed down.

“I can’t even be grateful for Ruben being my friend knowing you led him like bait on a line!” Cerise growled, before driving her hands under the guard to put her fingers around Robin’s neck.

“For a moment I was willing to give up what I had because you sold me on the chance of being a better doctor and instead you were thinking of having me smile at someone’s death?”

For all her anger, Cerise still didn’t squeeze the old woman’s flabby neck. It was frighteningly warm.

In turn, that moment she relented allowed Robin to bring her arms up, grab Cerise by the collar and drag her face down so her nose collided with the headmistress’s venerable and hard forehead.

The witch made some choked, nasally cry and pain, and Robin took the opportunity to roll around so now the witch was pinned to the ground, and eating a punch, courtesy of the headmistress.

“I was thinking of the best for you!” The old woman shouted back, even as she kept punching in Cerise’s face. “You don’t even give yourself a chance to have a normal life! You, Ruben, and all your friends… this nation itself, could have a golden age, just for the life of one, obnoxious, warmongering, walking disaster – who you just saved!”

The Problem-Solving Drink fuelling Robin seemed to have petered out to some degree, judging by how she suddenly keeled over to catch her breath, leaving Cerise with a bloody face… and a slow laugh.

Robin stared down at the witch, nose and teeth stained with her vitality, and somehow all the more vivacious for it as she sneered up with awake eyes.

“I see what this is all about,” Cerise cackled and grinned. “Being old gave you a big head, and now you think you’re the smartest person in the room. That’s why you did all of this: you think you’re too good for the rest of us, and that we ought to be happy you’re killing or pampering us as you please.”

Before Robin could respond, Cerise’s legs hooked around and found enough purchase on the headmistress’s sides to push, sending the two apart. Robin stood without trouble, while Cerise spat blood and climbed the wheel of a carriage that had been left untouched during the melee.

“Just because you shared some good times with my mistress doesn’t mean you’re entitled to me. You barely know anything about me, anyways. If you did, you’da known right away I’d say your plan was stupid beyond belief,” the witch concluded.

“Let me go, Cerise,” the old woman flatly requested again.

Like before, her opponent just chuckled. “No way, I’m not letting you walk away from this and have some cushy retirement elsewhere.”

“You can barely walk away from this right now,” Robin groaned, as she reached into her jacket. She needed another dose. “What have you got? I’m more of a witch than you with how I at least have a potion–”

“You mean this?”

Cerise said that just as the headmistress’s hand brushed over a breast pocket that had somehow become extremely flat and empty.

Robin lifted the edge of her coat long enough to confirm there was nothing there, before looking back at Cerise, who was swallowing mouthful after mouthful of the Problem-Solving Drink. After gasping for air, the witch ungainly wiped her mouth and then threw the bottle to the ground as hard as she could, shattering the glass so that the few remaining dregs splattered across the dirt.

“We’re a wicked bunch, you know. They used to accuse witches of stealing children, eating souls, and whatever else they wanted,” Cerise said, vigour filling her again. “Sorry, Robin – the mistress may have given you a few notes on potions, but she taught me a lot more about how to survive as a witch. We live on the edges because we’re not saints. Now, let’s finish up.”

Robin knew how potent her mixture was. She had used it plenty – but it was something used to prop up an aged near-retiree. Cerise had all that, and a body yet to fail.

She was a blur.

Robin threw up her guard as best as she could, a meager defense as Cerise simply swerved and juked around, punching around the sides to tag the older fighter, who struck back as best she could, even if her ingested strength was leaving her.

For a moment Robin wondered if she could simply wait out Cerise’s newfound energy – it too was just temporary, but…

The headmistressed fired several hooks, trying to bait Cerise into a pattern before she dove in with a rising uppercut. The witch, rather than be caught off guard, brought her elbow right into the path of the fist, and Robin outright screamed as she felt her fingers crumple against the sharp hard bone.

No. Robin understood acutely, cold sweat spilling down her head. If things continued, she would lose. This was the truth.

She held onto this fact even when Cerise put her full force into a pushing kick that sent her sprawling. Gasping and struggling to roll onto her stomach, it was only out of the corner of her eye that the headmistress saw her missing cane lying only a few paces away from her.

So she scrabbled forward, grasped her tool, and pointed it right at Cerise, who halted mid-approach.

“Stay back!” Robin wheezed.

Cerise glared at the old woman as she gathered herself to her feet while she kept her gaze – and her cane – aimed straight at the witch.

“Sounds like you got two choices, Robin,” she warned. “Shoot, or give up. But I promise you, if you go full force with that, I’m gonna finish this in one shot.”

For a moment, Robin considered actually surrendering. The odds were so against her, now. Was there even a chance to escape, having wasted so much time?

But there was also the thought of what would come after. Prison, perhaps. Her few meager remaining decades wasted in a stone cell…

Was it the fear of the future? Or a surprisingly burgeoning hatred of the girl she had tried to cherish, in her own way, and who had chosen to reject her?

“CERISE!” Robin found herself yelling, and the Breath of the World followed in her wake, causing the tip to erupt in a torrent of flame that swallowed up Cerise and the whole garage behind her.

Fire consumed the interior. The carriages were so much kindling, turning into individual pyres.

The world was orange light and smoke, and a bolt of fear struck the headmistress, who realized what she had wrought on herself, and the child she claimed to care for.

“Cerise–!?” She cried out, half-worried.

Something dark could be made out from within the flames. And then the witch blasted through. Though her skin was now scorched as much as it had been stung, most of her clothes seemed fine, merely bending in strange dry patterns, rather than catching alight.

Oh yes, Robin recalled. Cerise was sopping–

Said woman didn’t waste a moment hurtling through the air to drive a knee into Robin’s face, with a final short-lived groan, the fugitive crumpled to the ground with a certain finality.

Cerise rolled to a halt behind her, catching her breath.

“Stupid, stubborn…” the witch muttered off-handedly, before taking stock of the situation around her.

“How am I…” she added, even as she reflexively grabbed her unconscious opponent and pulled her over and away from the flames.

Just then, her answer came with Ruben’s voice as he shouted from outside, followed by the noise of the doors behind her being pounded on.

“Cerise? Cerise!? Are you inside?”

“I’m here!” She shouted back.

Without any further warning, there was the sound of tearing steel, before the garage gate was thrown open.

Hands grabbed Cerise and dragged her and Robin out of the building for several seconds, and once the dizzying and frantic grasping withdrew, she found herself sitting on the wet lawn, surrounded by Ruben, Damon, and Andrew.

Around the burning building, men in armor, students in sleeping clothes, and bedraggled professors argued about how to deal with the flames, while others tried to invoke Breath to call ice and water to fight what fires they could.

“Cerise, are you alright?” Ruben panickedly asked, dropping to his knees first to check his rescued compatriot.

“Came just in time, huh?” The witch returned, weakly smiling at the trio who had come for her, before frowning as she suddenly sagged, a deep-seated exhaustion overcoming her, no matter how hard she tried to resist.. “Ah, crap, I’m passing–”