Defending a Cursed Girl

The sun was setting off in the western part of the sky, clouds gathering around it and turning hot orange with the last of the daylight.

Much like the clouds to the sun, a crowd had naturally gathered around a field featuring a particularly heated battle between a fire mage and a witch. Flashes of orange and purple magic painted our faces, causing great suspense as to who’d win this fantastic match.

My name is Yalda Asamo. I’m a seven year old Exceed who's on a journey to meet back up with my dad. That way, we can stop demons from taking over the world.

Today’s been a crazy day, what with battling sleep paralysis demons and shapeshifting cultists…now it was getting capped off with a pretty crazy battle between my friend Indena, a fire mage, and a witch named Melpomene, who happened to look like a cat right now.

BOOM!

Indena jetted herself up into the sky with fire. With a quick twirl she launched down a volley of fire bolts that scorched the earth.

The witch Melpomene managed to evade the blaze with her feline body, scampering to a position where she breathed an opaque bubble into the air. The bubble left her cat lips and floated upwards, quickly scattering into thousands of little weightless spheres.

Quickly they climbed up toward the fire mage as she fell back down, her flames easing the drop. The bubbles popped close to her and sent out a paint-like substance to cover over her skin.

Indena tried to ignite her flames, but couldn’t. Her tattoos were unable to activate with this strange paint all over. Without them, she was in a freefall back to the ground.

CRASH!

She landed hard, kicking up a lot of dust.

“Indena!” I shouted, worried that she’d be finished. “She dropped like a rock!”

But Indena wasn’t any normal human. Her mage powers granted her body a higher step on the evolutionary chain. She was more durable than most.

She rose up from the dirt, rubbing the gunk off her tattoos.

“For the record, I hate rocks!” Indena shouted back at me. “That the best you got?” she smirked at her opponent, her eyes lighting up bright orange.

“A witch always has a new trick up her sleeve.” She winked, raising her tiny hat up her cat head.

Indena scoffed, launching a fireball at Mella, who jumped out of the way. Our fire mage hoped for that reaction. She stomped her foot into the ground and a rift opened up under where Mella was about to land.

Volcanic ash erupted from the rift, blasting the cat high into the air!

“Oooh!” went the crowd.

A purple bubble appeared around Mella to moderately protect her from the intense hot smog.

“Damn!” Indena shouted. “Still can’t make lava shoot up yet!”

“Fortunately, you’ve tapped into my element,” Mella taunted.

Mella spawned little wings and morphed into a bat-like form. As the smog lifted up into the air she gathered it around herself and enhanced her aura with the super-heated ash. She scattered it around the field, keeping it just out of the range of the audience.

Indena couldn’t see through the thick black smoke.

“How the hell can you move smoke?! That’s got nothing to do with poison magic!”

“Elements are versatile, bending to the imagination.” Her voice appeared to come from all around Indena, making it impossible to locate her. “Where do we draw the line of man-made ash becoming air pollution, which is well in my domain?”

Harsh fangs bit into Indena’s arm, causing it to go limp from poisoning.

“Gah!” Indena grunted.

Mella quickly let go of her and flew back into the fog. She then flew in for a swipe of sharp claws, leaving another poison wound on the fire mage.

Toxins were spreading quickly. Indena had to act or go limp.

I was getting antsy, thinking I should jump in.

“Maybe she needs a little help.” I started moving in, but the mother of one of my friends held me back.

“No. Let’s see what happens. Trust your friend.” Miss Lauri said.

She clearly didn’t understand what was at stake here. Her own daughter’s life was on the line!

I looked over at a cinnamon haired girl with her hands desperately clinging to the railing before the field. Her nervous eyes glued to the fight. That was Yamin, and she was the prize in this fight. If Indena won, she’d be spared. But if Mella won…let’s just say she didn’t have the best intentions for her.

Even if I stayed out for now, I’d have to help when Indena couldn’t fight any longer. I can’t let a human come to mortal harm.

While considering that mess, Indena closed her eyes and grit her teeth.

She dodged out of the way of one of Mella’s hidden strikes!

With haste, the witch turned back around and tried to attack again, but Indena was tracking her.

“What?” I said in shock. “How can she do that without seeing?”

I could easily see through this fog using my Identify Friend or Foe tags, but Indena was a normal human mage. Without her eyes, seeing shouldn’t be possible. Unless…

“One thing about fire mages,” Miss Lauri spoke up, “they’re able to see infrared light.”

“Oooh…”

Indena’s actually told me about that before. It’s a really useful skill, especially when it’s too dark to see.

“Can you see what’s going on?” I asked, since she seemed pretty able to determine what they were doing.

“Nope. Can’t see it at all!” she shrugged with a silly smile. “I’ve just been around enough of them to know how they work.” She gave me a wink.

Uncle patted me on the head. “Have some faith in her. Indena’s tougher than she looks.”

If anyone knew Indena’s toughness, it was me. That girl could cook anything but a good meal. We were stranded in a valley for a few days and had to rough it out in nature. I never really thought her appearance deceived her strength, especially considering her body was covered in oriental tattoos.

“But Uncle, she’s getting hurt really badly. Why aren’t you worried?” I asked.

“Haven’t you noticed? Neither of them are trying to kill the other.”

It did seem like they were holding back. I don’t know if Mella had to kill Indena or just knock her out to get to Yamin, so this was uncharted territory in a way.

Speaking of which, their battle was kicking up the heat. Indena scattered fire across the ground and lit the grass ablaze. Heated air billowed up, forcing all the haze Mella manipulated to rise with it.

“Clever.” Mella’s glare became deathly. “But I’ll end this now!”

Mella was back in her cat form. The fur on her stuck upwards, like quills on a porcupine. They launched from her body like projectiles.

Indena rose up a flame aura around her hand and deflected the incoming quills. Then she raised the temperature of the ground in certain spots and caused a sudden gust of super-heated air to redirect the tiny missiles.

Needles scattered everywhere, even toward the audience. Mella quickly rose up a wall of sludge to protect all of us from taking any damage.

While distracted, Indena moved in and punted the cat witch into the air, then blasted her with a fire bolt.

Finally she summoned a powerful wall of nearly solid flame to catch the witch as she rocketed away, slamming her into the hard blaze.

“Gah!” She grunted as she hit the wall.

The flame wall moved around Mella, trapping her inside its clutches.

“Oi, why don’t we call it, witch?” Indena intensified the fires surrounding Mella. “I’ve been wondering something. Why aren’t you using that mana magic of yours?”

“The dim witted mage finally notices?”

“I’m brighter than you right now!” The fire around Mella grew hotter and more violent, momentarily suffocating Mella. “Before you were able to turn off my magic completely. Now you’re struggling to keep away. You get nerfed or something?”

Not more than a day ago, she was actually using her mana magic to summon spirit animals. But she made it clear that she wasn’t able to use her poison magic.

Now the situation seemed reversed. Mana magic was out, and poison magic was in.

Was it possible that in her cat form, she could only use poison magic? And in her human form, mana?

No, that couldn’t be it. When we first met her she used both at the same time, so this was just weird. For as pigheaded as Indena was, she’d absolutely notice that too.

“Very perceptive, but do you really think I’d tell you why and give you an advantage?” The cat witch had a taunting smile.

“Stupid pussy-cat witch.” Indena replied.

Is it just me, or do they both seem to enjoy taunting one another?

-☆◇☆-

The fight between the two concluded when Mella gave in. At this point, both of them were pretty tired out from the fight, with Mella looking especially drained. Probably because she was so small and much weaker in that cat form.

“Yet again, you thwart my efforts to bring peace to this world,” Mella said.

“Deal with it. I ain’t letting you kill someone to bring peace. It’s not her fault this happened to her.”

“Believe me, if there were any other way…”

That’s about when we all approached them. The audience was cheering and clapping their hands at how exciting the fight was to watch. Apparently, this field was made for magical battles, so a mage came through every day and cleaned it up for the next people who wanted to duel in it.

Mella took a long glance at Yamin, then closed her eyes and tilted her head down, covering her face with her hat.

“There’s been enough battles for today. I am exhausted.” Fighting in both dream and reality had a way of tiring all of us out. “The longer you let The Evil One roam free, the more likely she is to be found by someone worse.” Mella gated off into the tree line, leaping up into a high up branch. “But if anyone changes their mind, go through the fire mage first.”

We weren’t going to take Yamin’s life. That being said, we weren’t going to stand around and pretend like we didn’t need to figure out a way to get that evil energy out of her.

Some sort of evil soul lives in her heart. Another thing on my to-do-list was to find a way to free her from that curse. Otherwise, it might end up corrupting her and turning her evil.

“Don’t come back, ya’ here!?” Indena shouted, shaking her fist in the air at Mella. “I hate that witch.”

Yamin came up to Indena when it was all over, carrying a sullen look in her eyes.

“Thank you so much for fighting for me,” Yamin said. “But, I thought you hated me.”

“You’re not as annoying as that witch. I’m not protecting you because I care about you or anything, it just ain’t right to take someone’s life when they didn’t do anything to deserve it. Besides, it’s your religion that pisses me off.”

“I appreciate everything though.” Yamin’s eyes looked down to the ground. “I’m not a fighter, and honestly, I just want this all to be over so life can get back to normal.”

“Of course you do. Now make yourself useful and go get me some water.”

Yamin was about to turn back and go get Indena something to sip on, but Miss Lauri suddenly stepped up behind her and halted her progress by grabbing her shoulders.

She was blocking the evening sunset, looking very menacing from Indena’s perspective.

“Eh?” Indena’s brow furrowed. “The hell are you?”

Miss Lauri had a smile on her face and closed eyes as she pushed Yamin behind her.

“I’m this fine young lady's mother.” She leaned in and opened her eyes ever so slightly. The warm mother-like spirit she had was set ablaze as she gazed deep into Indena’s soul. “Thank you for protecting her…but she owes you nothing. If you need something though, I’d be happy to get it for you instead...” her eyes widened, “...only if you say ‘please.’”

Indena instantly felt a rush of fear, knowing that the woman before her was a wolf in sheep’s skin. Her flesh broke out into an unusual cold sweat.

“Do…do I know you?” she said in a shaky voice.

“Do you? It seems a lot of people today know who I am.”

Miss Lauri was a little scary. Anyone who could put Indena in her place was someone who deserved some respect. I don’t exactly feel bad for Indena either, since she was being bossy.

“Now…” Miss Lauri stood prim and proper with an excited tone, “would someone like to fill me in on why my daughter is being hunted by demons and witches?”