[RP] Witches of Aether

Katyusha​


The girl, who introduced herself, somewhat quietly, as Lily grabbed Katyusha’s hand. At first, she was surprised, but then she realized that she actually appreciated it. Lily seemed to be rather thoughtful, and it was nice that she was willing to lead the way. Sure, Katyusha could see, but Lily didn’t know that… she couldn’t know that. What would Lily think if she suddenly found out that she could see? Would she be angry? Or would she be curious? Or would she simply not care? Either way it went, it was probably for the best that Lily never knew.

One little white lie wouldn’t hurt anyone… would it? “Found one,” she said. Katyusha saw it too. A car shaped outline in the distance. Lily started walking towards the cab, pulling Katyusha behind her. It was a very nice change in pace as far as she was concerned. If she were still completely in the dark, she would take ages crossing the street, and even with her stunted form of sight, she couldn’t see the words on the cab, or the paint.

If it weren’t for Lily, she would have never even known there was a cab around. She would have just seen a car that looked like every other car. As they made it to the cab, Katyusha jumped the gun and opened the door. She completely forgot, yet again, that she wasn’t supposed to be doing things for herself. Hopefully, Lily didn’t pay it any mind. However, the tricky part was yet to come. Once she stepped for inside the cab, her sight would be gone again.

Technically, steel was made of earth… but Katyusha couldn’t use it to see. Her theory was that it was far too… diluted and impure. Nevertheless, she was going to have to get in. She slowly sat in the cab and scooted over. Her vision went off like someone turned off a light. Suddenly, she was feeling around and trying to make sure she had her bearings correct. She scooted over to ensure that Lily could sit down next to her in the back.

Katyusha couldn’t help but continue to feel around. She had a horrid habit of whispering the names of things she was touching as she touched them. “This is… the front seat. And that is the arm rest. This here is the… door handle… I think…”, she whispered. Her hands drifted to things around her as she tried to make out what they were, what they did, and what they were called. She touched the glass on the window, “glass… I think.” Even with her sight she couldn’t see glass. It made things difficult, especially if there was a sliding glass door. Sight or not, she always bumped into them.

Finally getting her bearings, she smiled. “Sorry about that, I’ve got to feel my way around things,” she laughed nervously. Katyusha told the cab driver her address and then turned to Lily. “Lily is a very pretty name, if you don’t mind me saying.”
 
The girls got in the taxi just before Emily approached Fred, moving over to the driver's side, careful to keep part of herself in the light. In the shade, she'd be next to useless - he'd get away before she had finished with him. She was in no mood for a chase.

"Morning, Fred." she said casually, stiffly, careful to keep her tone as neutral as possible.

"Emmy." he said, using the pet name they had for her that she despised so much, "Lissen, 'bout Eric layin' you off...a lot of us ain't happy 'bout it, y'know. Rather that scumbag John or someone else, but my 'ands are tied. Boss never liked me all that much, and..."

"I'm not here to talk about that." Emily cut him off abruptly, already irritated. She should have just blown the bastard off, bugger the two girls in the back, who were listening intently. This was going to need to be quick, or they'd call for help. That would be extremely annoying; Emily was on a deadline, she didn't have time to fuck about with the police.

"Well, then wot are you after?" he asked, scowling, "Emmy, I got customers-"

He didn't finish his sentence, however, as her first blurred through the open window, impacting with his nose, sending his head snapping back in a spray of blood. "I'm here, you piece of fucking shit," she hissed, "to see that you and the rest of all you bastards get what you deserve for stabbing me in the back."

She wrapped her hand about his neck, wincing slightly as her knuckles cracked - bastard had a nose like granite, damn near broke her hand to hit him that hard - and, with her free hand, drew in Light energy from the Sun; partially concealed as she was, she'd have to do this the hard way, but it would work out. Her hand tightened on his neck as she unleashed the energy, lighting him up like a christmas tree and making him painful to look at, as his head began to glow, features losing all distinction but for the mouth, a gaping black hole open in a silent scream.

With light inevitably came small amounts of heat and radiation and, whilst Emily could not control either of these forces directly, she could control the Light, which determined how lethal they were. Both of his hands were about her wrist, but it was far too late for that: even if she let go now, he'd be dead within the day, she'd pumped him full of enough radiation to kill him already. She withdrew as his head seemed to literally melt, eyes bursting like balloons, blood and worse pouring from his mouth, nose and ears, skin blackening and then peeling off. The grip about her wrist slackened as what was left of him thudded forward, onto the steering wheel, setting off the horn. Irritated, she shoved him to one side, cutting off the sound.

Disgusted, she wiped her hand on his jacket. God, that was fucking disgusting! She knew now why she killed them from a distance, and privately promised herself that she would never do something like that again. It was a bloody good job there was a door between them, otherwise he would have splattered across her coat, and that would have really pissed her off.

People were staring, and some, now just realising what had happened, were screaming and pointing. Emily sighed inwardly. She should have probably erected a disguise over her face, or remained invisible. Looked like the cat was out of the bag, or whatever the fuck it was the English said at a time like this. Bit late for that now, unless she killed the entire street full of witnesses...she thought about it. Like hell was she living the rest of her life with an illusion over her face, or on the run.

The girl in the car was screaming like a fucking seagull. The other girl, she saw now, was blind. Lucky her. That meant she had missed all that had just happened...and all that was about to happen. Might make things a little easier. Emily moved away from the car, then sent a ray of searing light towards it, igniting it in a fireball. She had one good look at the girl's face - still screaming - before it vanished in the explosion. The car leapt into the air, then descended again in a fireball, the crash echoing painfully loudly across the silent street; the crowd, having witnessed the spectacle, had fallen silent.

"Christ, I thought she'd never shut the fuck up." she said, loud enough for her voice to carry, "Now it's your turn, you pieces of shit."

---

"T-thanks..." Lily sat nervously in the back of the taxi. Why was she being so nice to her? It made her feel distinctly uncomfortable, and she stared awkwardly out the window as Katyusha felt her way around the car, acquainting herself with her surroundings. The driver assumed that she going to the same place, and she didn't contradict him: anywhere was better than here.

A woman approached , and they conversed in low tones. The man sounded apologetic; the woman, strangely odd, as though she was fighting back anger. Lily leaned forward, curious, then jumped back in alarm as the driver was propelled backwards, his nose erupting in a bloody spray.

She heard the woman hiss something as she wrapped her hands about his neck. Inexplicably, his head began to light up, quickly becoming too painful to look at. She shielded her eyes, heart hammering in her chest. This could only mean one thing. Seconds later, it was over, and a foul stench filled the taxi. Lily looked at the driver, whose head was now barely recognisable, and at the woman, who was wiping her hand on his jacket. A witch! A witch had come for her! Just as she knew she would!

Lily went mad, as her world collapsed around her. Here was her worst nightmare come to life: a witch, in the flesh, out for her blood. What the Horned King had warned her of, barely three months ago: here, to collect her powers. She was going to die. She had no power whatsoever; she couldn't possibly stand up to a woman that made people's heads explode! She screamed, the sound ripping at her lungs, leaving her throat raw, mindless with fear. This was it. She was going to die.

Inexplicably, the woman turned away then. Lily continued to scream, almost certain of what was coming next. She was right. Light, painful, hot, and blinding, swept towards her, and suddenly the air was alight around her as the car went up in flames. Lily screamed again, her hand somehow finding Katyusha's. I don't want to die, please, I don't want to die...someone, anyone, get me out of this...

Darkness, blessed and cool, took her then, yet it was not the oblivion she had thought she would face. She could still feel Katyusha's hand in her own, warm and oddly comforting, yet she couldn't see or hear her...perhaps she wasn't even there, and her touch was but a memory. All around her, nothing but darkness, yet she felt safer than she ever had in her life. She could quite happily stay here forever...for the first time in her life since her mother had died, Lily felt secure, and utterly at peace. She never wanted to leave her. To be save, forever...this was all that she had ever wanted.

Yet it seemed it was not to be. Lily felt herself pitching forward then, and was thrown hard onto the pavement, light rushing back to fill her vision, feeling every bone in her body rock with the response, the wind driven her as though she had been punched in the stomach. Groaning, she struggled to raise her head, blinking. In front of her was the smoking, flaming wreckage of the taxi they had just sat in. To her left, hand still in her own, was Katyusha, in much the same condition that she was in; battered and shocked, but (hopefully) otherwise unharmed. Her hearing suddenly started working again, and she could hear people screaming as if from a distance, as the witch obviously turned her attention to the crowd, believing her task to be complete.

But...why wasn't it complete? Had Katyusha done something? Lily wondered then if she WAS a witch, after all...but if she was, why would she have saved Lily, her enemy, as well? Darkness was Lily's element in any event, and she didn't think two witches could have the same element. Had the shadows just...saved her? That didn't make any sense, though - all they wanted to was rape her, just as she had been raped all those years ago. She could feel their intent; always watching, waiting for her to slip up. She had no control over them at all...how had this happened?

"A-Are you-you a-alright?" Lily struggled to get the words out, her chest suddenly racked by a coughing fit. She needed to get away from this. She needed to help Katyusha as well - this was all her fault. Thanks to Lily, she was the target of a psychotic witch. Whether she liked it not, she was stuck with her. But, in her dazed confusion, Lily wasn't as quite as upset as she would have thought she would be.
 
Katyusha​

“T-thanks,” Katyusha heard Lily say as she slowly stopped feeling her surroundings. Strangely, she never heard Lily say where she was going. It was odd, but she simply assumed that she was too busy figuring out what things were to hear her. Once she was done, she could hear the cabbie speaking to someone. It was a female from the sound of her voice… and an angry one at that. They were speaking about someone being fired. From the sound of it, someone named “Emmy”. Was that the woman that was speaking to the cabbie?

He mentioned that he had customers, and that’s when she heard the woman get even angrier. Then she heard a loud impact and something crack. From then on, Katyusha couldn’t make out what was happening. Lily started screaming which only caused Katyusha to freeze up. She didn’t have a clue what was going on… but it was bad enough to make Lily scream. To make matters worse, her scream sounded horrific. It was as if she were being stabbed or something.

Katyusha panicked again as she desperately started trying to remember where the door handle was. It was there just a second ago, and now she couldn’t find it. “W-what’s going on? Lily? What is it?” Her voice was shaky and quiet as she tears welled up in her eyes. If she could just see what was going on… Why was Lily screaming like that? Who was the woman that the cabbie was speaking to? What happened to the cabbie?

As Lily kept screaming, Katyusha started trembling and crying. She was absolutely terrified. Then all of a sudden, things got really hot and Lily grabbed her hand. And after things got hot, there was… nothing. But Katyusha could see again. Her feet that were once on the floor of a car were now on the ground. She was lying on the ground in what appeared to be an alley way. However, it felt as if she had just been thrown to the ground. It was almost as if she had been pushed by something; hard.

This did nothing to make her feel better. She was still scared, if not more scared. Lily wasn’t screaming anymore, but now Katyusha had no idea what had just happened. One second she was in a car next to a screaming Lily and an angry woman and the next thing she knew she was in an alleyway and able to see again. Not only that… there was more screaming in the distance. “A-Are you- you a-alright?” She heard Lily ask, but she was far from alright.

Katyusha couldn’t say anything. She was confused and scared and she had no clue as to what just happened or what was going on. All she managed to do was shake her head and start crying again. Her sobs weren’t even that loud as it was mostly just tears. She didn’t know what to say… she didn’t know if she should say anything. What if that woman came back? Katyusha started looking around the area for her stick. She couldn’t find it. It was in the car when they both… vanished out of it.

Just in case she started patting the ground around her as she sniffled and sobbed quietly. “M-my walking stick…” She said as she tried to wrap her head around what just happened. Her walking stick was, as sad as it seemed, her only friend in the world. She had to find it…

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Alyss​

She walked quite a ways when she heard it. There was an explosion in the distance… another one… and screaming. Was it another situation like the pie shop? Alyss didn’t know, but one thing was for certain; something had to be done about it. The Knights were obviously useless if they were still letting a Witch get away with things like this. The police didn’t stand a snowball’s chance, and it appeared as if the Witch in question wasn’t going to stop anytime soon.

Alyss started running towards the screaming and pushing her way through waves of panicked people. Normally, she was one for diplomatic solutions. However, from the way things were at the pie shop, and from the way things were looking now, the Witch responsible for this wasn’t one for diplomacy. It had to be the Fire Witch that was doing this. So far, everything Alyss had seen was based off of explosions. It was a logical conclusion to jump to. It was also logical to assume that diplomacy was out of the question. Explosions and murders and now more explosions only meant that the Witch had no intention of stopping.

If Alyss stopped to try and talk things over, she was sure she would end up splattered on the pavement. After a few steps of fighting through crowds of people she saw the one responsible. She was much taller than herself, and wore a long coat. Her hair made it hard to see her face, but it was clear that this was the woman responsible for what was going on.

Without warning or hesitation, Alyss lifted her hand and fired lighting at her target. She didn’t want to have to get things to that point, but she didn’t have much of a choice. Alyss didn’t want to kill if she didn’t have to… but if she couldn’t avoid it; then she simply would have to deal with it. “Stop this at once!” Alyss said as sternly as possible. What was causing this woman to behave like this? There simply wasn’t an excuse for this kind of destruction.

Alyss put her hand back down… but she stayed ready. If her calculations were correct, she could manage nineteen more shots like that before she had to go get more power. They were in a city, so it shouldn’t be hard in the slightest. There was electricity everywhere.
 
Peal after peal of light struck the ground as Emily systematically annihilated the crowd of people in front of her. They tried running. She simply sent the light after them in a wave, incinerating everything in it's path. No witnesses. She’d had enough of being chased by the police, of being chased by those freaks in armour, of being screwed over, again and again, by humanity. She’d teach them a lesson: nobody fucked with her. She turned to deal with those on the opposite side of the road, just in time to see a bolt of lightning crackle past her, inches from her head, making her hair stand up on end. Infuriated, she spun back round. In front of her stood a girl, quite small, dressed all in black – fantastic, she was one of those fucking emo kids who were always whining about how bad the world was! – and looking more afraid than anything else. She spoke then, trying to make her voice sound as stern, although the end result was more comical than anything else to Emily.

She laughed. A hollow, cold sound without any feeling to it. She hadn’t laughed in years. But this…this was too much. This pathetic little girl…she dared to confront her like this? Were all witches this ignorant? If they were, perhaps she should start collecting their elements; it wouldn’t take her very long at all. Emily had no real interest in the other witches – the Horned King could go and fuck himself with his pathetically cryptic warnings about them – but had wondered for a while now where the rest of them were hiding. What were the chances of another one being in little old London? But then, she had caused quite a scene. Perhaps she’d drawn her here. In which case, too bad for her.

“Who the fuck are you to tell me what to do?” she spat, snapping her fingers for emphasis. Behind her, a building exploded in a billowing cloud of dust and flames as a shaft of light pierced it, collapsing it and shaking the very ground beneath her. A second snap, and a nearby car – abandoned in the chaos – erupted into a fireball.

“You should have aimed better, princess, because you aren’t going to get a second chance. I’m going to rip out your fucking heart with my bare hands.” she snarled. She was somewhat annoyed that she had allowed a witch to get the drop on her like that…she could have seriously injured her. Emily wasn’t indestructible – untouchable, yes. Indestructible? No, she was just as mortal as anyone else. But she wasn’t going to give the little bitch a second chance. Attacking the Witch of Light in broad daylight? The little whore had just made the last mistake of her life.

She refracted the light around her, disappearing completely from sight, whilst simultaneously creating a copy of herself fifteen paces to her left, so she appeared to quite literally teleport, and sent a pillar of light across the ground from where the copy stood towards the girl, scorching a deep groove in the ground as it swept towards her. She must have more tricks up her sleeve than just pathetic lightning bolts, and Emily wasn’t about to let herself be caught off-guard a second time. She’d test her a little before she took her – after all, she was going to end up with her abilities. Best if she knew what to do with them first. She still had time, anyway, and this wouldn’t take very long.

---

Lily watched, unmoving, as a second figure moved up to confront the first – she could see little through the smoke and flames of the taxi blocking much of her vision, but she knew what she was seeing: a battle between witches. Perhaps the first of many, perhaps the last one ever to be fought. It didn’t matter which, because she as caught squarely in the middle of it and, as surely as night would come, it was the end for her.

Behind her, a building collapsed, a thunderous detonation in her ears that made her whimper with fear, and shook her entire body where it lay on the ground, prone and unmoving, for she was too terrified to do anything else. It was the end of the world. The witches had found her, and now they were going to destroy the city as they battled for the right to claim her for their own. But in reality, she probably wasn’t even that much of a prize – just another casualty. A weakling given powers she couldn’t even control, powers out to destroy her. Powers she would soon lose, along with her life, when the witch came back to finish her off.

Katyusha said something then – she caught the words “walking stick”, although she could make no sense whatsoever of what she was saying – reminding Lily of her presence. With great effort, Lily pulled herself up into a sitting position, her entire body aching, but nothing broken…she hoped. She pulled herself over to Katyusha, who was flailing around, perhaps even more helpless than Lily herself.

“W-we need to l-leave.” Lily said, as if saying the words alone would make it so. Yet she could not possibly imagine how she was going to walk away from this…that witch would finish whatever it was she was doing and then kill them. Nothing could stand against her, especially not Lily…she was far too powerful. Fresh tears ran tracts down her smoke-stained face as Lily began to cry again. Why? Why did this have to happen now? Wasn’t her life bad enough already? Did she really deserve to die? There was so much she hadn’t done! All those things she had wanted to do – get a full-time job working with the NSPCC, make a few friends, find her big sister, maybe even get married if she could ever overcome her fear of men – she would never get the chance to, because her life was moments away from ending.
 
Alyss​

Was she… laughing at her? A lightning bolt just flew by her head and she turned and laughed at her. Was she aware that she could have died right there? Either she was mentally unstable or she didn’t care, or perhaps she didn’t consider Alyss to be a threat. None of those options were particularly good. The woman obviously had no intention of stopping and didn’t care that she could have died if that lightning bolt had hit. “Who the fuck are you to tell me what to do?” She snapped her fingers and as if to punctuate the end of her sentence, a building exploded in the background.

Another snap of her fingers and a car erupted into flames. Was the Fire Witch really that powerful? A building and a car erupted at the mere snap of her fingers. Alyss couldn’t manage to do anything like that at all. It was a bright day outside as well, she couldn’t even make lightning strike if she wanted. “You should have aimed better, princess, because you aren’t going to get a second chance. I’m going to rip out your fucking heart with my bare hands.” Her vulgar choice of words were laced with the venom of her tone.

Then without warning the woman teleported; one second she was there right in front of her, and the next she was a few steps away from her original location. It made no sense at all… the Fire Witch shouldn’t have been able to teleport. Before Alyss could think about it more something was shot at her from the woman’s location. She barely had time to dodge it as she quickly jumped to her left. Something was really off. That wasn’t a fireball, and the Fire Witch, by definition, shouldn’t have been able to teleport.

Unless… this was… Alyss’ eye widened as she realized what was going on. The woman attacking her wasn’t the Fire Witch, she was the Light Witch, and Alyss had attacked her in broad daylight. She was fighting her on bad terms in the middle of her battlefield. Alyss fired another bolt of lightning from her fingertips at the Witch only to find that they went through her. She wasn’t even real! It was an illusion. The lightning continued traveling until it hit an empty car parked on the street. The car blew up and caused a few shop windows to break nearby. The heat from the lightning must have made the car’s gas tank ignite.

If that was an illusion, then where was the real Witch? Alyss looked around desperately for her but saw nothing. Her black hair whipped around as her head turned looking for her. Had she run away?

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Katyusha​

She could hear things going on behind her… but Katyusha wanted to find her stick. There were explosions and the sound of fighting and screaming going on. It sounded awful… and she could only imagine how it looked. She wished her vision would go back off. However, that wasn’t going to happen as long as she was maintaining contact with the ground. Katyusha’s tears picked up again as she started to panic more and more. She could very well die here, and she couldn’t find her walking stick, and she hadn’t the slightest clue as to what was going on.

Her panicking must have been the trigger for making her sight shut down again, because shortly after her tears picked up she found that she couldn’t see anymore. Once again she was thrust into pitch black darkness. There was another explosion which only made her heart pound more. This wasn’t good… and now that she couldn’t see she was completely helpless. She remembered that she was in an alleyway with Lily. “W-we need to l-leave.”

Lily was still there! She had thought Lily would leave while she was looking in vain for her walking stick. Slowly, she felt her way around the alleyway crawling on all fours. She kept patting away at the ground hoping that she could find Lily. Eventually, her hand found Lily’s. “I-I-I want to go home…” Her voice was a scared mess as she forced the words out through sobs.
 
OOC: Screw you all and your long, quick posts. :mokken:

IC: He was like a man possessed, judging by the way he was flicking the pages.

Jacob Ponter – no, it was Smith within the Grey Order – was leant against the cold brick wall of the library, his wise brown eyes scanning every word on the journal he was holding. It was brown, somewhat aged, a red pentagram scorched into the front cover as if it was burned into the vulnerable leather material. He rose to his feet and walked to the nearest table, sitting down almost immediately. He removed his glasses and rubbed his forehead. Shaking his head, there was frustration etched across Jacob's face. Something was wrong, terribly wrong. It was as if his world had been crushed, or he had discovered a startling revelation.

A scholar nearby stared at him intently, almost as if Jacob was committing a cardinal sin just because a witch's symbol was on the book he was reading from. Jacob caught his gaze and looked up at the suspicious old man with a furious expression. As quickly as he had turned his direction at the young Knight, the scholar quickly walked away. Finally able to breathe, Jacob closed the journal. He sighed, feeling somewhat relieved that the scholar had chosen to walk away instead of the last one that had directly confronted him and almost sparked that unbreakable anger deep within the very darkest depths of his tormented soul.

Jacob hadn't meant to lose it. The very mention of witches existing in this accursed world made his blood boil. But for someone to accuse him of being in league with them ... he lost it. He had snapped. The scholar very narrowly escaped his wrath with just a cut on his lower lip from the punch he'd received. Thankfully enough, Jacob had escaped punishment. A senior scholar had cleared his name and so he'd gotten off with a caution. But Jacob knew he had to be very careful. His temper was deadly and with each passing day that the witches were out there, it was harder to control.

Perhaps this was why he was elected to be a Knight early on?

He thought about the topic that was pressing against his brain. Could his anger really have had something to do with his early graduation into Knighthood? No, his dedication and determination had to be the answer. That was the official reason for the selection. But was there another reason that the Order had chosen to keep from him? Whatever the case, it had always been a matter that hardly ever slipped his mind.

"Jacob, if I may be honest, I think the other scholars are somewhat ... nervous from last month's incident," said Franklin, a scholar that was almost always around in the library. He took a seat opposite Jacob when he motioned his hand. "Are you sure that scanning these journals is the right thing?"

"These journals are the reason I joined the Order, Franklin," replied Jacob coldly.

He hadn't meant to be so crude, but he wanted to be honest at the same time. If there was someone he felt he could be truthful with in the Order, then it was this very scholar who seemed concerned for the well-being of everyone around him. It was unusual, considering they were a huge organisation that aimed to hunt down witches. But then the silence and few words were a part of Jacob's complex personality. There were moments he would offer words of kindness, but these were rare. If anything, he was the silent type. Brooding. Mysterious. Unusual.

"Are you not required elsewhere?"

"I wouldn't be here if I were, Franklin." He snapped the journal shut and put it in his bag before putting the strap around his shoulder. "I'll see you around, old friend. Perhaps we can talk once I'm done ... being required elsewhere."

And off Jacob went, heading out of the library towards his next destination: Covent Garden.
 
Emily walked casually past Alyss, tempted to walk up tap her on the shoulder, although that'd probably be a bad idea. Looks like she'd figured out that she could cast illusions. She created a second clone right next to her, then a third a little way off. Three turned into four, then five, then six, and continued at an expanding rate - it wasn't too difficult to create illusions when there was so much light. Her clones seemed to literally split apart, walking about casually, some taunting her; being a product of her mind, they tend to imitate her surface thoughts, at least until she gave them a specific instruction. Once created, they were basically apart from her, until the point that she dismissed them or they came into physical contact with something.

Finally, she focused her attention on the sky above her, creating a similar bubble to the one that she had created around John's car...only not quite as powerful. It'd take time for it to reach deadly levels of heat and radiation...time she had. The shimmering only amounted to a slight heat-haze at the moment, but it would get worse. Emily, she was immune to the effects. The little bitch in front of her wouldn't be quite so lucky, would she? Wasn't that a pity?

"What's the matter, princess? I thought you wanted me to stop." all of her clones snapped their fingers, and a second car parked at the side of the road exploded. "Come on. Make me stop. Just fucking try. I dare you." she laughed again, enjoying the feeling. It had been a long time since she had some fun with someone who pissed her off, and this stupid girl had just jumped to the top of the list. Attack Emily whilst her back was turned, would she? She'd learn some manners. Fucking English snob, she was going to pay.

---

"We j-just need t-to g-get away from h-here." Lily said, trying and failing to pull herself up. It was so hot all of a sudden; everything in front of her was a blur. The shadows had fallen oddly quiet since they had rescued her, and she despaired. Why couldn't they have taken her far away from here, as far as possible? She didn't want any of this! The witches could kill themselves for all she cared! She just wanted to go home, as well.

"S-s-s-sorry. This is my-my f-fault." she gasped, each word coming out as though it were her last - it was so hot! The air was becoming difficult to breathe, and already Lily could feel herself sweating. What was going on? Was this another one of the Witch's powers? "My...fault..." she shook her head, feeling a familiar dizziness overtake her once again. If this kept up, she'd pass out...
 
Alyss​

More illusions? This wasn’t fair in the slightest. But then again, fighting typically wasn’t set to be fair. Illusions of the Witch kept appearing around her. One after the other until they surrounded her; but it was impossible to point out if any of them was the real Witch. Some of them walked around her; circling her like sharks. Others were verbal and throwing out insults and taunting her. Alyss fired lightning at two of them, but four more just seemed to take their places.

As if things weren’t bad enough… it was getting really hot. Sweat started beading down Alyss’ forehead almost as if someone splashed water in her face. It wouldn’t surprise her if this was also the work of the Light Witch. Alyss fired five more charges at five more illusions and ten more just took their place. It was like a Hydra out of Greek Mythology. If you cut the head off of one, two more took its place. This was no different at all. She felt like Hercules… only she wasn’t winning.

The heat was getting to her. She could feel the inside of her sleeves getting wet from sweat. She had to stop this quickly. “What’s the matter, princess? I thought you wanted me to stop.” Was that another illusion, or was that the real one saying it? It was impossible to tell as they all snapped their fingers at once. Yet another car blew up on the side of the road. The heat from the explosion rushing over her as the heat from whatever the Light Witch was already taking its toll. “Come on. Make me stop. Just fucking try. I dare you.”

Alyss had clearly picked the wrong day to wear an all black suit. It only helped in making the heat much worse than it was. She needed to find a way to stop all of the illusions at once. One of them had to be the real one. It was then she had her idea. It would use up all of her energy, but it was severely harm anything it touched. She put her arms out and fired electricity from one hand to the other and clapped them together.

This created a large electric blast that surrounded her and spread out further. It consumed illusion after illusion until they were all gone… but it left Alyss tired. The bright blue blast vanished as Alyss fell to one knee grunting and gasping for air. She looked around, but once again saw no sign of the Witch. That had to have worked… it just had to.

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Katyusha​

“We j-just need t-to g-get away from h-here.” She said. Of course, Katyusha couldn’t have agreed more. She wanted to go home and hide under her bed. If she had known this was going to happen she would have never left the house. Her parents were right when they told her that the world was a scary place. Just today she had gotten lost and a woman tried to kill them and then she vanished in the alleyway alongside another girl. To make things worse it was really hot all of a sudden.

“S-s-s-sorry. This is my-my f-fault.” She was gasping as she spoke. Was it the heat? Katyusha was sweating hard. In fact, it was the hardest she had ever sweated in her entire life. Even now, the girl seemed to blame herself. “My… fault…” It wasn’t her fault… that crazy woman showed up. Katyusha slowly stopped crying. She was too tired to cry. It would be a lot easier to just fall asleep. Maybe if she woke up she would wake up in a comfortable bed. Or maybe this was all some kind of dream? Her eyes started to close a little as things continued to heat up.
 
Summer mornings were no longer something to look forward to. In long periods of time, all intense heat brought was mess, fatigue, and in some cases, aggravation. That was why the loft was kept at a temperature no higher than 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Jennyver was now taking comfort in the coldness in the atmosphere. Not to say that she didn't have her days where she enjoyed playing around outside majority of the day, or used up a lot of energy having to run away from her father when playing a game of tag, filled with the heat of energy and the love of the only friend she had outside of her school. But for the time being, he was dead to her, and due to some... circumstances, she no longer liked being sweltered by the heat. Who in the right mind did anyway?

Lukewarm water rapidly hit against her skin as she bathed herself, as she knew exactly what caused this change, and it was something she would have to keep to herself for a while. All her life, she wouldn't have imagined she would be anything like a witch. She and other girls in the city were sometimes taught stories that related to the occult and supernatural beings, but she never believed them, and sometimes thought the other students were insane for thinking it was real. Back as a child, she had no faith or belief in any kind of enmity. At least not until now. What she had experienced four years ago seemed all too real.

However, the sudden weather adaptation wasn't the only thing that Jennyver had to deal with. She had gained phenomenal abilities that she didn't use often, but had a good idea of what they were capable of. If she didn't have them, her room probably wouldn't be as cryptic as it was, even with the AC going on. There was never a situation where she had to use her powers for defense or offense; at least there wasn't one yet. She was aware that she wasn't the only one that had met contact with the Horned King.

Other girls, including herself, were confirmed to be witches as well. Who or where they were, she didn't even know, but she would be lying to think that it wouldn't be interesting to see one in person. However, seeing another witch could produce the 50/50 chance that she was dangerous or she was just as interested in Jennyver as she was to that particular person. This was all assuming that that girl would know that Jennyver was a witch as well, but she wouldn't give away her role to just anyone. The other person would have to say so herself first. Turning the faucet to shut off the water, she wrung out her hair before stepping out of the shower, grabbing a towel before she headed out of the bathroom.

Sharp light had shined through the blinds that hanged over the window. Silver eyes narrowed over to the window to make sure the blinds were only slightly open, for who knew what kind of disgusting people in Covent Garden tried to see through other people's windows for a sight worth seeing. Wiping off some wet drops that she had missed while drying off, her skin had even radiated a chill from the pores down to the dermis while in the shower. Getting herself dressed for the day, the doorbell had rung through the halls, and Jennyver wondered who would want to visit her this early in the day. A light sigh had escaped her mouth as she stepped out of her room to see that there was no shadow seen underneath the gap of the front door. But she did see a sea green colored enveloped slipped onto the graphite floor.

There is a mailbox, you know. She imaginatively told the mailman. Delivery services didn't know whether to stick to the usual method or not. Just as she was about to walk towards the envelope to pick it up, a rather disturbing rumble had shook the walls of her loft. What in the world was that? A small earthquake? They rarely had those here. Quickening her pace, Jennyver walked up, and picked up the letter, and scowled at what was written for the return address. It came from her old home, where her father now lived alone. If it was a letter, it probably wasn't worth the read - at least it wasn't right now when something big clearly happened not too far from her homestead.

Not opening the envelope, she set it on the desk near the front door as she walked up to it to open the door to glance around her surroundings. To her surprise, there were many people on the streets, looking at one particular direction as they were clearly alarmed by something. Taking just a few more steps out of the loft and into the driveway, she got an even clearer view of what was happening. Ignoring the rays of the sun, she saw that there was an immense amount of smoke coming from one of the shops farther down by the corner. But just when Jennyver made this discovery, a large - no, enormous explosion occurred right in the middle of the street, sending bodies flying, obliterating the flesh of them, and sent the crowd of people in a large panic. The explosion was so blinding, Jennyver had to shield her eyes with her arm for a brief moment as she stepped back, feeling the force of the blow erupt through the ground like it had with her house.

This couldn't have been a coincidence for the blowups to happen so suddenly. People were going in all sorts of directions now, but the white haired woman only walked towards the end of her driveway, leaning an arm against the mailbox as she stared in awe in what just happened. She had began to hear the sounds of sirens wailing, some from the officials not too far from the gardens, the louder one usually sounding if an evacuation was needed. But it definitely wasn't just an accident that these explosions occured. Something, or someone, must have triggered it.

As Jennyver stood in her place, still wandering in her thoughts, a hand had suddenly tugged on her arm. Looking to her side, her eyebrows rose as she saw a little girl in dungarees grinning up at her, with a small hand grasped tightly around her arm. "You're cold, big sister. I'm cold too, let's go somewhere fun."

"Sister?" Jennyver asked, clearly puzzled. But then again, the girl did look rather young. Some kids often like to refer to people as their relatives when they weren't. But she had never seen this girl in her life.

"What's your name, big sister?" She then asked. It was surprising to see that in comparison to all the of city residents in a flight of panic right now, this girl was completely calm, as if nothing happened. Either way, she wasn't safe out here, but neither was Jennyver or anyone else for the matter. She might as well make an introduction so that the girl knew that she was someone she could trust. But seeing that she just came up to her all the sudden, that probably wouldn't be too hard.

"Well then, my name is Jennyver. You don't seem too scared of what just happened out here. Were you out here alone?" She asked. She was holding a watering can in her other hand, as if she was just outside watering plants. Whatever the case was, Jennyver would have to take her under her wing for now. "And may I ask what your name is?"
​
 
“Jennyver…” Poppy said, trying the name out. She didn’t like it. It was too…fancy. She wrinkled her nose, tried the most logical (and, in her expert opinion, cuter) variant: “Jenny.” Yes, that sounded much better. “Of course I was out here by myself, silly. I’m a big girl now. Nothing to be scared of.” She said confidently, grinning. She was being more truthful than the girl would suspect. She thought this was destruction? She should be thankful that Poppy didn’t show her what she was capable of. She’d have the entire city running screaming within the hour, and no number of silly armoured people would be able to stop her. But telling her this was probably a bad idea…people always seemed to react badly, for some reason. Poppy couldn’t imagine why: after all, she only punished the bad people. Nobody liked bad people. Everybody liked Poppy. Where was the issue here?

“Poppy.” She replied then, when Jenny asked her for her name. She was awfully stiff, she reminded Poppy a bit of one of her grandmother’s friends, who she had met a couple of times when she was small, and not special. She didn’t mind, though. She had been one of the nicer ones, and she could work on Jenny and get her to loosen up a little. Later. “I’m thirsty. Can we go get a drink?”

It wasn't particularly difficult to get the girl's trust. But then, it never was; Poppy knew she could charm anyone. She expected she could probably even charm other witches, if she wanted to. She’d have to test the theory on the one causing all these fires…after she punished her, of course, because fire was bad, and Poppy didn’t like bad things.

She glanced up at the sky, scowling at the Sun. It was far too hot, and there wasn’t a cloud in sight. She’d have to do something about that when she was safely undercover. Poppy didn’t mind getting wet, but home was a long way off, and she didn’t want to be walking around in wet clothes all day; she’d catch a cold. But that other witch had made it far too hot, and Poppy was concerned about her flowers back home, just outside her shop. Too much sunlight and they’d wilt. They needed a little rain, as well…

---

Emily walked past the girl, standing just behind her, watching as she tried desperately to figure out which Emily was the real one…unaware that the real one was standing, invisible to the eye, directly behind her, and could have easily blasted a hole through her by now. But a thought had occurred to Emily, and she decided that she didn’t want the girl dead just yet. If there was one witch here, there were no doubt more nearby to draw her here; Emily had been too low profile for her to have been noticed before today. Meaning this one had come here seeking others. After she killed her, Emily could set about tracking the others down. She wasn’t going to give the little sluts a chance to come after her like this one had. She’d see them all dead first. She was having none of this bullshit war The Horned King obviously had in mind.

The girl then hatched her master plan, unleashing a wave of energy that swept through the street, taking out each one of Emily’s clones. She wondered if she could accomplish a similar thing with a burst of light energy…it was possible. It’d probably be easy, even. Much quicker for crowd clearance…she should have thought of that before! Well, at least the girl had done something useful for her. She dropped to one knee, clearly exhausted, and Emily decided that now was as good as anywhen else.

She walked in front of the girl and dropped her illusion, reappearing before her.
Before she could react – if indeed she could react - Emily pulled her up head by her hair, as if she were going to slit her throat – unfortunately, she didn’t have a knife handy, and she wasn’t about to try something like that with light; it’d make a terrible mess all over her coat, and she liked this coat – and brought her leg up, smashing her knee into the girl’s face. She threw her to one side, contemptuous. She had expected more, since she’d dared to put herself forward. Overconfidence. That was a dangerous thing to have when you had powers like that. Fatal, as she was about to discover.

“Too hot to handle, you fucking whore?” she breathed, feeling a slight tingle in her fingers. Bitch probably still had some small charge left in her, but Emily didn’t care. She’d clearly used herself up with that pointless blast, and now she was completely at Emily’s mercy. Unfortunately for her, Emily was fresh out of mercy today, es-pecially after the crazy bitch had almost killed her earlier with that fucking lightning blast. Why should she show her any mercy at all after that? She had never been interested in other witches – she had started it, not her. Everything that happened now was entirely her own fault.

She knelt beside her, pulling her arm up behind her back, not hard enough to hurt her…yet. “I think it’s time we had a little chat, you and me. You can start by telling me who you are, and what the fuck you think you were playing at. Talk. Now.” She twisted her arm for emphasis. She must have been planning something; that had been too easy. She couldn’t possibly be idiotic enough to take on Emily in broad daylight and not have a backup plan.

The air shimmered around her; now that she no longer had to maintain her illusions, Emily could focus her attention on her little bubble. She could bring the radiation and heat up high enough to kill this girl in a matter of minutes if she needed to. But first, she wanted information, and she was going to get it, one way or another.

---

A slow gasp told Lily that Katyusha had either passed out, or was close to it. A bright blue glare washed over Lily then, and she felt a slight tingle rush through her body. That she could still feel anything at all was nothing short of a miracle; she felt as though all of her energy had been literally sapped from her, and was on the verge of passing out herself.

Struggling, she raised her head, just in time to see the witch that had attacked her earlier appear as if by magic in front of the other girl, who was dressed entirely in black – of course it was magic, she thought to herself – and smash her knee into her face. Lily let out a soft gasp, her own body jolting in sympathy. She was…brutal. A monster, devoid of all feeling and humanity. Were all witches like that? Was that what Lily was like? No…

Her mouth was moving, but from this distance Lily could hear nothing, other than a high-pitched ringing, growing steadily louder as consciousness slipped away from her. If she blacked out, would she then return to the place she had been before – the place of darkness, peaceful and cool? She certainly hoped so...

---

Explosions and screams. There were plenty of those to go about this morning. Yet when an entire building collapsed, it gave even Rosaline pause. She had never seen a witch do anything like that before: with the first scene, part of the building was still standing. The entire building had collapsed, billowing out in a dust cloud that made it look as though it had been hit by a bomb, and a second explosion sounded nearby to follow it. This was getting out of hand. She needed to find this witch and put a stop to her rampage, before anyone else was killed. She quickened her pace down the street, forcing her way through the crowd, all of whom were heading in the opposite direction.

What she arrived to was complete pandemonium, and something out of her worst nightmares: a witch battle. A lone girl – no, not a girl, she corrected herself, but a monster - dressed entirely in black stood before an army of women, each one mocking and taunting the one in front of her. She was quite tall, and her features were mostly hidden by her hair. Rosaline momentarily panicked, but then remembered the tasteless angel illusions she had seen earlier – those must be illusions, as well. Meaning that this was the Light Witch after all. But what was the element of the other one?

Seconds later, she had her answer, as lightning shot from the creature’s fingertips, eliminating all of the illusions in front of her. Lightning. Rosaline breathed a little easier – she had faced the Lightning Witch before, and she knew exactly how to handle her. In any case, it didn’t look like she was going to be a problem for much longer – the real Light Witch appeared directly behind her then, and brought her head up, brutally smashing her knee into the girl’s face before tossing her aside. This battle was already decided; taking on the Light Witch in broad daylight was suicide. She’d already demonstrated her power multiple times this morning; she was the strongest witch Rosaline had ever seen. She doubted anyone could beat her in a straight fight, meaning she’d need to be taken by surprise, before she had a chance to use her powers…

Rosaline was faced with a difficult decision. Should be attempt to attack the Light Witch now? She could cross the distance between them within ten seconds and have her blade through the monster, and put an end to it. The Lightning Witch was as good as done; Rosaline could kill her afterwards…or could she? Was the witch bluffing? She didn’t think so, but if she was, she could easily paralyse Rosaline with the charge she carried within her. Could she take that risk? But surely a witch with two elements would be far deadlier, and the Light Witch wouldn’t be vulnerable until night…a vulnerability she would lose entirely if she acquired a second element. Could she kill the Light Witch immediately after she killed the Lightning Witch? It seemed unlikely.

Something caught her eye then; faint movement, off in the shadows of the building. She glanced over, and swore under her breath. Civilians! Two girls in their teens. It looked like the Light Witch was going to get her kill after all. Sheathing her blade, Rosaline edged around the battlefield, trying as hard as she could not to attract attention; fortunately for her, the witches had other things on their minds. She should be able to get them out of there without either of them noticing, and after that…well, she would have to hope that one hadn’t killed the other by then. The heat was sweltering, forcing Rosaline to draw upon her will just to keep her feet. She needed to get those girls out of there…
 
[FONT=&quot]O Day of Judgement, have you decided to pay us an unexpected visit today? This was certainly no adequate day to be running around. The sun had tightened its grip, its powers accumulating by the minute and the city below it at the mercy of the iron-hot heat. Freya could visibly make out the ripples of light in front of her, on the road, on cars, on manhole covers, on traffic lights – it had grown unbearably warm. It had been [/FONT][FONT=&quot]28C[/FONT][FONT=&quot] when she left the apartment. It was surely now way into the 30s with little sign of the temperature deciding to stabilise anytime soon. This terrible heat wave had clouded the city and now smog began to thicken in the air above central [/FONT][FONT=&quot]London[/FONT][FONT=&quot]. Yet it was not the unnatural heat that had the entire city wreathing and wailing. Freya had received word from [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Georgia[/FONT][FONT=&quot] on her Blackberry that the explosions in [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Covent Garden[/FONT][FONT=&quot] and the Next store several miles away was only the beginning. Now she heard word of angels appearing in the latter location and inciting their divine judgement on the nearby area. What was worse, there was another development happening nearby. Whatever it was, it made [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Covent Garden[/FONT][FONT=&quot] look like a non-event. This was bad; Freya thought to herself as she leaned against a pillar, panting from the searing heat, this was definitely a witch. The media could harp on about terrorism as much as they desired, but it was becoming obvious to her. Only the Fire Witch could be capable of such pyroclasmic carnage. For waves of suicide bombers to have been able to attack half the city now, that surely felt improbable. Not even the most inept of security and intelligence forces could fail this badly, right? [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]While Freya’s agitated mind rested on the conclusion that the Fire Witch was here today exacting her rage on the city for whatever reason, [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Georgia[/FONT][FONT=&quot]’s excited call detailing to her reports of angels outside Next had astounded her. Angels, Freya had replied to her earlier, incredulous. Yet the reports of angels were no figment of her friend’s imagination. They were much-touted as she was wandering around the streets. Angels with wings and halos had appeared and were literally wrecking the surroundings. God must have been really pissed then, Freya bitterly thought to herself as she continued down the road, pushing against the wall of heat as if she were battling against a hurricane. It was a little funny – she would be immune in the event of a hurricane yet was this feeble against the heat. She never liked the heat that much. Part of why she enjoyed [/FONT][FONT=&quot]England[/FONT][FONT=&quot] was because it rarely ever received exceedingly painful heat waves. It would remain temperate or below, as it should do even in the summer seasons. With the unnaturally horrific heat at the moment, Freya expected anything to happen next. Perhaps this was the harbinger of God himself seeking to descend from the skies and begin the day of rapture. Either that or – the thought suddenly occurred to her – there was either another Witch, or the same Witch possessing a second, and a more peculiar element. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The moment she wandered into a (mercifully cool) coffee shop to find a seat, she found herself almost crashing against a larger figure. Whatever this figure was, he was wearing something hard. Was it normally this painful when you bump into somebody? It was like the person was wearing chainmail or something…[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Oh.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]No sooner had Freya uttered “Sorry! I wasn’t paying attention! Do excuse me!” did she look up to see just who she had bumped into. She wished she had never bothered now. In fact, she wished she didn’t bother even entering the store now. What she saw was not the sight she wanted to see. The man, as far as she could ascertain, looked like he was approaching middle-aged. His greying hair was combed back and was relatively short, that was also well complimented by his thick moustache comfortably situated below his nostrils. He was a towering presence and what disturbed Freya more than anything was his armour. He was literally wearing white steel armour with some presence of grey in the middle of a coffee store. Goodness, he surely stuck out like a sore thumb. A less-informed person would probably believe this gentleman to be attending some form of World of Warcraft convention or something of the like. To Freya, this man was unmistakably part of the Order, and by the looks of the armour, a Knight. The armoured man’s response to Freya crashing into him and her imminent apology was lost on her as she began recalling that evening in Trafalgar Square – the two greyed figures by Nelson’s Column that she swore, were monitoring her while she and Georgia were walking by the fountain. She did not remember the figures clad in armour in the manner that this person standing in front of her was, but they were all unmistakably affiliated within the same organisation. For the first time in a while, Freya was actually horrified. An emotion she had not felt for so long, even in the face of the Horned King’s presence two years ago, she was suddenly met by horror right here in this very coffee store.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]She started stepping back towards the door. What should she do now? Run? Hide? If this knight could somehow immediately recognise the fact that she was a witch, she would have no choice but to use her powers to defend herself. Yet she had hardly ever used her powers, so who knows what form of destruction she could bring upon this shop and the surrounding area? It would probably make her no better than the real likely cause of the attacks on [/FONT][FONT=&quot]London[/FONT][FONT=&quot] now – another witch. What surprised her however was the fact that this man did not look like he was unsheathing his sword and seeking to impale her right there and right now. Compose yourself, Freya frantically thought to herself, as she battled to contain the easily panicked side of her that was ominously growing stronger by the minute, this knight is probably none the wiser. The last thing you want now is to lose your composure and just lose control of yourself. You’re stronger than this – you’ve suppressed that other side of you for so long now, do NOT allow it to take control now and land you in real jeopardy! Taking her own advice, Freya’s feet stopped where they were. It was a long shot, but perhaps he could use this opportunity to her advantage. Everyone knew of the Order’s presence and its businesses on the surface, but Freya wanted to deduce once and for all just what their relationship was like with witches such as her.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“Erm,” she quietly muttered to the armoured gentleman, determined to sound as genuinely harmless and innocent as she could, “A knight, I take it?” It was a stupid question as it was painfully obvious what he was, but Freya preferred the gentle approach to questioning.[/FONT]
 
Alyss​

It was still too hot outside… that wasn’t a good sign. That blast had hit all of them. It should have hit the real one too. If it didn’t, Alyss knew the next few moments of her life wouldn’t be pleasant, and most likely would be her last. She was just about to get up and start running (if that was even possible, considering just how much energy she used), but it appeared, quite literally, that the Light Witch had other plans.

Before Alyss had time to do anything, the Light Witch was directly in front of her. She had obviously made herself invisible and was just waiting for Alyss to slip up. And slip up she had. There was nothing that Alyss could do to attempt to stop her. The Witch grabbed her hair and pulled upwards, causing a gasp to escape her lips. Shortly afterwards, the Witch brought her knee into Alyss’ face. Alyss screamed out in pain and then the Witch threw her to the side as if she were a common piece of garbage.

Alyss fell to the ground with a slight thud on the pavement which was already hot from the heat that the Witch had unleashed earlier. “Too hot to handle, you fucking whore,” she taunted. Such vulgarity… how could someone be so angry? The Witch knelt beside her and grabbed Alyss’ arm, pulling it up behind her back. It didn’t hurt much… but Alyss had the feeling that it would be changing very soon. Blood dripped from her nose onto the ground. Was it broken? It certainly felt as though it was.

“I think it’s time we had a little chat, you and me. You can start by telling me who you are, and what the fuck you thing you were playing at. Talk. Now.” Alyss felt her arm twist behind her as the woman spoke the last two words. After a gasp and through gritted teeth, Alyss answered. “I was… only attempting to stop you. Your killing is needless, mindless, and without reason. I was not trying to kill you, only stop you.” Even though that was the truth, she highly doubted that the woman would let it go at just that. She suddenly wished she had taken that Knight up on his offer…

And it was still far too hot. The heat alone was making this more painful than it should have been. Her blood had mixed with the sweat that was now dripping to the ground. If she made it through this, a shower was definitely in order.

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(OOC: Katyusha is kind of out cold at the moment, so do what you need to. :gasp: )
 
[OOC: Shall do :ryan:]

She considered breaking the girl’s arm when she answered, but decided against it – too much pain and she’d pass out, and she didn’t deserve to get off that easily. Snarling, she spun her around, punching her hard in the stomach to double her over, and then forced her to the ground with one leg, pushing down on her chest with her foot to keep in her place. She looked down on her coldly, taking no real pleasure in this. No, this was strictly business.

“On second thought, shut the fuck up.” She said then, already irritated. Did she have any idea of the peril she was in? What did she give her? Lies and bullshit. Not tried to kill her? She’d damn near blown her fucking head off! “You English think you’re so much better than the rest of us, don’t you?” she spat on her, surprised she had any saliva left; all this fucking smoke everywhere was starting to make her lungs ache. “I’m not going to listen to your arrogant preaching. You’re a sheltered, stupid little bitch who decided she’d try and play hero, and now you’re going to bloody well get what you deserve for fucking about with me.”

She pointed at her, focusing energy in her finger, so that it erupted from the tip in a fine thread of light. Pushing down harder on her chest – she wasn’t going anywhere - she directed the beam onto her shoulder, and watched as it slowly began to burn a hole through her. She applied more pressure – not so much that it’d go much quicker, but so that she wouldn’t get bored here standing over the girl, keeping her pinned down. Not that she really needed to – the heat had drained her strength entirely. She’d pass out from dehydration in about ten minutes if left alone. Too bad she wasn’t going to be left alone, wasn’t it? The wound began to smoke, the smell of burning flesh filling her nostrils. This time, it was oddly sweet.

“Having fun, princess?” she asked casually, moving her finger when it had burned through her, moving to her other shoulder, watching the thin stream of smoke. Baring her teeth, she pointed at the girl’s midriff then, before tracing across her torso, leaving fairly deep cuts in her, but being careful not to mess with her organs. Couldn’t have her dying before she was finished. Maybe she should draw a pattern onto her or something. “Tell me, what do you think that lightning bolt you fired would have done to me? You must have some idea, being able to control the things. Shall I tell you? My head would have exploded like a fucking nuke, that’s what. Shall I return the favour?” her finger twitched up to her face, burning a neat line across her cheek.

“How does that feel? Anything like what you would have done to me? Or perhaps I’m not measuring up to the great and powerful Lightning Witch. Does this help?” Light erupted from the tips of her other fingers, tracing multiple burns across the girl’s body.

“I was never interested in witches.” She said then thoughtfully, waving her fingers around lazily across the girl’s body, “If you must know, I was out to pay some people back for screwing me over. You and those fucking armoured idiots or whatever they are caused all this by pestering me. I don’t like being fucking pestered. You think I give a fuck about you people? Don’t flatter yourselves. But if you’re going to insist getting my face…you think I'm going to just sit back and let you fucking kill me? Think again, little bitch. Think again.”
 
Allowing the woman in black to leave, Richard waited a moment before he began to leave the coffee shop too, before he could do so however another another woman bumped into him. Before he could apologise and let her past she started walking backwards, from what he saw, out of fear. Taking a step forward to try and calm her, he quickly thought against this, not wanting to scare her moreso, not long after she stopped stepping back, seemingly recovering from her moment of terror.

[FONT=&quot]“Erm, A knight, I take it?”[/FONT]

"Why yes, is there a problem ma'am?" Richard tried to appear as warming as he could, in an attempt to relax her as he pulled up a seat "Would you like to sit down and relax?" taking care to have a smile on his face to ensure he didn't come across any more intimidating.
 
The woman hadn’t broken her arm. In fact, she let it go. However, the snarl that escaped the other Witch’s mouth spoke volumes on what was coming next. She spun Alyss around and punched her hard in the stomach. While Alyss may have been tall, she was still slender. Not only was she not prepared for the blow, she couldn’t have tensed herself up much for it even if she was prepared. Alyss had literally no fat and very little muscle. Needless to say, the punch winded her as she doubled over gasping for air.

Alyss was forced to the ground next. The Witch sent her downwards with her leg and once Alyss’ body hit the ground with a thud she placed a foot on her chest and pressed down. Not only did Alyss’ head hit the ground, she was having an even more difficult time breathing. It was horribly hot, she had just had the wind knocked out of her, and now there was a foot on her chest. She grabbed at the Witch’s ankle in an attempt to pull her foot off of her, but to no avail. She was far too weakened for something like that.

“On second thought, shut the fuck up.” Her voice made it clear she wasn’t happy with Alyss at all. “You English think you’re so much better than the rest of us, don’t you?” The woman spit on Alyss’ face. It was insulting and degrading. However, it wasn’t the first time Alyss had been treated as such, but it was the first time it was done to her by anyone other than her Mother. “I’m not going to listen to your arrogant preaching. You’re a sheltered, stupid little bitch who decided she’d try and play her, and now you’re going to bloody well get what you deserve for fucking about with me.”

Why could she not listen to reason? Alyss had only meant to stop her. A simple stun and perhaps a talk could have solved everything. Yet, here Alyss was, paying for her naive concept by having a grown woman insult her, spit on her, and beat her. Alyss attempted to roll away from the woman, but the weight she was putting on her chest was heavy to the point where it hurt. Her finger was lightning up, and suddenly Alyss was even less happy with the way the Light Witch was looking at her.

“W-wait, n-“, her voice was shattered by the sound of her own scream as the small beam of light hit her shoulder and began burning it. In just a few fractions of a second, the light burned through her clothes and into her skin. Alyss was shrieking and screaming as she threw her head from side to side; her hair flying everywhere as she kept thrashing it about. There was the faint smell of her own skin burning, but Alyss was in too much pain to distinguish what it was for herself.

Of course, the heat only made it worse. Alyss was screaming so loudly that her mouth had gone dry. She felt like passing out, but couldn’t due to the pain. Tears streamed down her face as the Witch only applied more pressure. “Having fun, princess?” More taunts, but Alyss couldn’t be bothered with them. She was clutching the Witch’s ankle out of pure desperation. Of course, Alyss couldn’t manage to make it budge, and the pain was only getting worse. The Witch had finished with her shoulder… and Alyss could swear it felt as if she had just drilled through to the other side.

But this was far from over… the beam of light moved to the other shoulder. Once again it burned through her clothes like a hot knife through butter, and once there it started going through her skin. It burned and it blackened while Alyss continued screaming and writhing in pain. The light then jumped from her shoulder, to her torso; cutting holes in her clothes and her skin. In a few parts, her skin was almost as black as her shirt. Alyss was soaked in her own blood and filled with holes.

“Tell me, what do you think that lightning bold you fired would have done to me? You must have some idea, being able to control the things. Shall I tell you? My head would have exploded like a fucking nuke, that’s what. Shall I return the favor?” She burned a line into Alyss face as she finished her sentence. “How does that feel? Anything like what you would have done to me? Or perhaps I’m not measuring up to the great and powerful Lightning Witch. Does this help?”

More light came from the rest of her fingertips as she started bringing them all over the rest of Alyss’ body. They hit her chest, her thighs, her arms, and almost everywhere in between. Alyss’ clothes started to look like black rags dyed red with her blood. All the while, Alyss just kept screaming and screaming. Eventually, she no longer had the strength to hold on to the Witch’s ankle. She no longer had the strength to writhe in pain as she was doing before.

Her arms collapsed on the pavement that was already scorching hot due to the heat. Without a doubt, Alyss was going to die here. “I was never interested in Witches. If you must know, I was out to pay some people back for screwing me over. You and those fucking armored idiots or whatever they are caused all this by pestering me. I don’t like being fucking pestered. You think I give a fuck about you people? Don’t flatter yourselves. But if you’re going to insist getting my face… you think I’m going to just sit back and let you fucking kill me? Think again, little bitch. Think again.”

At this point, Alyss’ body was twitching, her tears were only making it hurt more as they soaked through her eyepatch, and she could barely manage to beg through her screaming. “P-please… stop…”
 
[FONT=&quot]Well, she never quite expected this. The man certainly looked intimidating, clad in that armour and perhaps armed somewhere with a blade forged elegantly enough to cleanly pierce through her without an obstacle. Perhaps another man would have done the same, but at the moment he spoke, the man instantly shed his initial aura of intimidation. He sounded like an ordinary person. Upon hearing that warm and inviting voice, Freya realised that she may as well have been speaking to an ordinary colleague at work now. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“Why yes, is there a problem ma’am?” was the knight’s response. The sheer warmness of his voice and response briefly threw Freya off. She wanted to respond as naturally and as succinctly as she could, but was momentarily lost for words, only to watch him pull up a seat for her.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“Would you like to sit down and relax?” he added, his face gently contorting slightly to form a curt smile. Freya needed a moment or two to consider. On one hand, she was cautious about how she looked, sitting with a man who was as conspicuous as day and one who was a lot older than she was. Nevertheless, the need to remain natural was the primary goal at this moment in time, so she quietly thanked the man, before taking the seat.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“There is no problem at all,” Freya said, determined to maintain an unwavering voice, though was subconscious that she must have sounded like a regular shy girl, “it’s just that, I don’t normally see people in armour around that much and it just brought something back in my mind. Sorry, I guess I was just surprised…”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Despite the fact that the man projected no actual air of intimidation with his demeanour, Freya could not stand looking directly at the attire. It was so imposing that it was impossible to stare directly at his face without a significant portion of the armour squeezing into view. It was not the man she was wary of, Freya realised, but the armour – the attire – the whole affiliation to the Order. For two years she had been a witch, bestowed upon with the powers over the wind by the Horned King. Two years was long enough for her to realise that it was not only other witches that she had to look out for. She also learnt to look out for members of the Order, even the acolytes. No doubt that the last thing they wanted was for the presence of sorceresses with destructive powers that could wreck death and destruction. Therefore, the Order could well be her enemy as well. What Freya sought now, was to learn a little more about the Order and the driving force behind their relationship with the witches. She could have easily found the answer elsewhere – she acknowledged this – but it was not until after the [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Trafalgar Square[/FONT][FONT=&quot] moment that she finally determined the Order to be a sinister presence that she had to watch her back for. Now, how to get some answers out of this man? As a knight, who knows what kind of feats he had accomplished. Normally she would consider fleeing, but now, she was seeking to ask questions. Freya could not believe she was doing this.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“That armour…” Freya began, concocting a hastily thrown together anecdotal story to start things off, “it reminds me of my boyfriend. He was affiliated with the Order. In fact, I believe he was even part of it, desiring to work his way up to where you probably are now. When I saw the armour, I just had multiple flashbacks of him, of him telling me that dream. He had his down moments when he felt like he badly screwed up, but I was there to encourage him to earn his position. He and I agreed that it was certainly cool to be able to don armour like that,” she looked to the side, a little cautious as to what the knight’s reaction to this little anecdote was, but she still dared not to look directly at the armour. Cool, Freya bitterly thought to herself, hardly. It managed to horrify her, how on earth was it actually cool? Still, she had to keep up the game and continue the anecdote, “He then moved away to [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Edinburgh[/FONT][FONT=&quot] and despite how often I tried to get in contact with him, we completely drifted apart. I’ve not heard from him since.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Realising by now that the knight probably did not offer her a seat just to hear an anecdote from a stranger, Freya quickly decided to move on and begin with the questions, “Oh err, sorry about that. You probably didn’t want to hear a random anecdote. I get carried away sometimes, but when I saw that armour, that was just what came flooding back into my mind. I don’t often see members of the Order you see, so that had a bit of an impact on me. I’m sorry if I’m wasting your time…”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Goodness me, Freya thought; this was hardly natural was it? Since when would strangers exchange anecdotes particularly if they were predominantly to do with personal lives? Still, this was a necessity to give her an excuse to start asking.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“I hope you don’t mind me asking but, what do knights like you actually do? My boyfriend never wanted to be say uhh, a policeman, but a knight like you. I always wondered why, but I never found it in me to ask him for some reason. I kinda want to understand now, what do knights do anyway? A particular someone you’re tasked to defeat or something that regular policemen and soldiers can’t?” by now, she had completely forgotten to order a coffee – the very elixir she sought for in the first place.[/FONT]
 
“Jennyver... Jenny.” The girl recited. Jennyver only grinned slightly in response, as some people made variations of her name all the time back then, whether if it was 'Jenny' or 'Jen', so it wasn't a bother to her. “Of course I was out here by myself, silly. I'm a big girl now. Nothing to be scared of.” Well, she sure didn't look scared. The explosions might as well never happened from the looks of her personality. Even though she looked young, the exact age couldn't be figured out without asking, but Jennyver wouldn't ask of it, for the sake of respecting personal info. The girl was shorter by several inches than the white-haired woman, but she would take her word that she was grown enough to be out here.


“Poppy.” She then said, responding to Jennyver's question. It was a unique name, certainly one that wasn't common around here, as far as she knew. There certainly weren't any girls at her old school that were just as approachable. “It's nice to see you.” Jennyver replied. Her back was starting to get slightly warm in comparison to the rest of her body, and she simply moved some of her hair behind her head to cover it. She wasn't sure if the temperature was getting hotter or if she just wasn't keeping her powers balanced. Whenever she stepped outside on a hot day, she would keep her body temperature at a cool level, but it sometimes became unbalanced when her attention is directed to something else.


Jennyver could hear disturbances from afar. It was definitely odd for tragedies such as the ones that just occurred to happen on their own, several times in a row. Someone had to have caused this. There shouldn't have been any military forces around, and it may have been suicide bombers – yet the chance was very slim in this part of town. For all she knew... there could be another Witch living in this area, causing this madness. She moved her arm off of the mailbox, staring afar at the motionless bodies that were laying on the ground. Even from this distance, Jennyver could smell the blood and organs that were splattered and exposed to the atmosphere.


“I'm thirsty. Can we go get a drink?” Poppy then asked. Jennyver didn't mind doing this, yet she didn't think it was possible at the time to drive around the corpses covering the road, and there was no way in hell she was going to take the time to move them out of her way. The only options there were was to walk or go further near the community lots and get a taxi to someplace; assuming that Poppy didn't want to go into the loft for a drink.


“Sure we can.” Jennyver responded. She moved her hand so that it was holding onto Poppy's so she wouldn't lose track of the smaller girl. At this rate, it probably wasn't safe for either of them to be out, but it didn't look like anything else was going to happen around these parts. As long as they steered clear of where the rest of the noise was coming from, they'd be okay. But if circumstances got too rough, Jennyver would probably be forced to use her powers. She wasn't too sure about how Poppy could possibly react to knowing that she was a Witch, but if Jennyver only used her powers as means to defend themselves, she would have to adjust to the fact. But hopefully, it wouldn't reach that point.


“Is there anywhere in general you would like to go?”
​
 
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t quite hear you. Did you want me to stop?” Emily looked at her coldly, and then stepped off her. She kicked her as hard as she could in the side, rolling her over, “You fucking arrogant bitch! Would YOU stop if our positions were reversed? Did I even attack you in the first place? Who fucking started this, huh? You want me to stop just because you bit off more than you can fucking chew?” she raised her hand, intent on giving the girl a matching set of wounds on her back to go with the ones on her front, although for some reason, the light wouldn’t gather at her fingertips quite as readily as it had before. She frowned. Now what? It wasn’t as though there was any shortage of light about here. Something splattered and sizzled on the ground. Rain.

She looked up. Rain? How the fucking hell could it be raining? Annoyed, she turned her attention away from the girl for the moment, directing the force of the light towards the slowly spreading clouds instead, intent on burning them away. She’d done it before, she’d do it now. However, the clouds continued to spread, not only resisting her influence, but defeating it entirely. Someone else was controlling them…someone extremely powerful, to be able to force Emily back like that. Another witch? So, the little whore did have plans! Emily turned back to her, deciding to just kick her head in now and have done with it. She wasn’t wasting the energy she’d need to gather energy to kill her slowly; she’d had enough. Stamping on her head would kill her just as well.

A blur of movement caught her attention then. That bitch in armour! She’d followed Emily all the way here? Why couldn’t these people just leave her the hell alone?! It was none of their fucking business! None of them! Was she the one doing this? If so, why wasn’t she attacking? Was she waiting for her to kill the Lightning Bitch and then take her by surprise? No, she had someone slung over her shoulder…oh, how noble. She was saving people. Evidently she did fancy herself some modern-day messiah. Emily would turn her into a martyr instead; she was sick of being followed.

She looked down at the girl. She wasn’t going anywhere. She didn’t even have the strength to stand, and there wasn’t anything for her to draw power from. She could afford to leave her be for the moment. If that armoured hag called up more of her people, Emily would have to disappear in this weather; she wouldn’t be able to take them all on. She was in no mood for running today.

“Fucking interfering bitches, everywhere I go.” She muttered angrily, building up energy from the rapidly dwindling Sun. She’d take out this entire street in one blast. This was a fucking inconvenient time for rain, and there was going to be hell to pay when she found out who was making it…

---

Poppy grinned again, reaching up on tiptoe to kiss her newfound toy on the cheek in response. She was so adorable! Her father had always impressed on her good manners, and it was nice to see that she wasn’t the only one who knew how to speak nicely to other people. People never used bad words to Poppy, but she heard them all the time, and it was…saddening. It was rare that she found someone so nice.

She asked where she would like to go. Well, that was easy. “That way.” Poppy said then, a little imperiously, pointing west, the direction she’d seen the old lady in armour running off in. If she was running that way it meant that the bad witch had been spotted that way, and Poppy wanted to be there; the witch would kill her, of that she had no doubt, but she wouldn’t kill Poppy when she found her. Not to mention there was a Costa in that direction (although to be fair, there was a Costa in every direction) and she was in the mood for coffee. She liked how it tasted, and made her feel giddy for hours afterwards. She often wondered if that was why adults insisted on having some every morning: so they felt giddy through work. Adults were silly sometimes, there were much easier ways to feel giddy than that; Poppy knew of several natural herbs that did the job even better. But as she had none of those on hand, coffee would have to do. “Do you like coffee, Jenny?” she asked aloud then, a continuation of her thought process, “I like coffee.”

The first droplet of rain splashed on her nose, refreshingly cold in the stifling heat. She glanced up at the sky, grinning at the dark clouds that were slowly spreading across towards the Sun. Had she done that without thinking about it? It seemed likely. The weather reacted to her mood sometimes, and whilst Poppy wasn’t par-ticularly upset – not yet, at least – she had had enough of the Sun for now. It was time for a little rain, to balance things out…and give some much needed relief to her flowers. She wondered, would the bad witch like her little gift? Probably not.

“Do you live here, Jenny?” she asked curiously, peering up at her. Finding out about her would be a good idea – it’d mean she could have more fun with her later. This one would, it seemed, be worth keeping for a little bit. She was accommodating and polite and, as her hand tightened about Poppy’s in return, she knew that she quite liked her, and was glad she'd picked her out of the crowd. But she was still very cold, and she couldn't figure out why that would be...she'd never come across anyone so cold before. Poppy knew it wasn't her; her power over water kept her moderately cool, as it kept her skin moist. The mystery (if indeed it was a mystery) intrigued her, and she wanted to keep the girl close by for a while. She could ask her about it, but Poppy liked guessing games. It was much more fun to think up interesting explanations anyway, since the reality may end up being disappointing. Poppy didn't much like being disappointed by her toys, and she wasn't ready to throw this one away just yet...she'd only just got her, after all.

---

Rosaline picked up the unconscious girl, heaving her over one shoulder. She looked down at the other one, raising her head to look into her eyes, since she seemed to lack the strength to even do that. They were wide and full of fear and, upon seeing Rosaline, they widened further. She shook her head, smiling reassuringly, alt-hough what came out instead was a grimace.

“I’m here to help, sweetheart, don’t worry. Can you stand? We need to get you away from here.”

The girl shook her head very slowly, trying to speak through cracked lips, but all that issued forth was a soft croak. Rosaline cursed softly. She was no medic; she couldn’t tell how injured these girls were. They looked like they’d been caught in a car explosion or something, they could be bleeding internally. She couldn’t afford to carry them both in case she damaged one or both of them. She’d have to take them out of this bubble the Light Witch had created one at a time. This was just getting harder and harder.

“I’ll be back in a minute. Sit tight.”

Without another word, she turned away and sprinted, risking a quick glance over to where the Light Witch stood. Light was pouring from her fingers, raking across the Lightning Witch’s body – she felt no sympathy for the girl whatsoever, it was no less than she deserved – and she seemed not to have noticed her. She set the girl down and turned back.

Something was happening from where the other girl stood – when had she managed to stand? – and now shadows were staining the ground, spreading inexorably outwards from where she stood, like ink on water. A witch! She was a witch! Rosaline swore. How many of these things were there?! How had three managed to find each other? The odds of this were astronomical; there couldn’t be more than ten witches at most – that she knew of, there were six, possibly seven – and somehow three of them had managed to find each other in London, of all places.

She considered the other girl then. What if she was a witch as well? Rosaline had just lost the one opportunity to take out the most powerful witch she’d ever seen to save a creature that was just as destructive! But no, she’d have to deal with that if it ever came down to it. She needed to question the girl before she decided on that. She stepped back into the bubble, and noticed the Light Witch approaching her. She seemed unmindful of the slowly spreading shadows, or that rain was starting to fall, hitting the road like sizzling bullets. She strode directly towards Rosaline, hands raised.

Why wasn’t the Light Witch attacking? Was she building up for something? Oh, she needed direct sunlight to unleash those destructive blasts instantly, did she? Rosaline smiled savagely. It looked like she wasn’t as pow-erful as she had first thought; if she was quick and careful, she’d be able to take her out easily. The illusions would be a problem, but Rosaline’s sword had a long reach. She’d catch her out eventually. This increased confidence bolstered her will, and she felt new energy rushing through her body. It looked like she was getting her third witch kill today, and perhaps two more afterwards. Rosaline smiled grimly, drawing her blade and raising it high.

“You’re mine, you filthy creature.”

She charged, just as shadows raced across the scene in front of her, yanking the Light Witch down as if a giant hand had just reached up and snatched her. Rosaline skidded to a halt just in front of the spreading darkness, taking a nervous step backwards. She had no way to defend against that, and she wasn’t about to risk being pulled into some godawful place. Whatever was happening now was, she hoped, far worse than what she could deliver. The Light Witch had time for a scream of frustration before she vanished. The motionless witch in black also vanished, pulled slowly into the ground, and shadows wrapped themselves about the other girl, causing her to disappear from sight.

She stood alone. All three Witches had vanished, and the bubble the Light Witch had created had vanished, making the air breathable again. Evidently that girl – the Dark or Shadow Witch she surmised, another new one – had taken them all away somehow. Good. She hoped they’d all gone back to wherever the hell it was they had come from. A light steam rose from the street and her armour as the rain came pouring down in earnest then. Rosaline sighed, and then moved to collect the girl from where she left her, cradling her in her arms. This wasn’t over yet…but for the moment, it looked as though they were out of danger. She was going to need backup for this one.

---

Lily opened her eyes. She wasn’t sure what had happened, or how she had ended up here. She knew that someone in armour had spoken to her, but the words had made no sense, and sounded oddly distant, and that she had somehow found the strength to stand, and had then been consumed, once again, by that place of blessed darkness. She had wanted nothing more than to leave…had the shadows responded to her desire? Strength had flooded through her as though she had never been injured at all, and now here she was, lying on her bed at home in Camden, alone, just as she had wished. She felt like laughing, but found that she was too exhausted to manage it. She was alive! Somehow, she was still alive! She rolled off her bed, and her feet nudged something when they hit the floor. Dread flooding her, she looked down.

Lying on the floor was the witch in black. But of the other witch there was no sign, and Lily breathed a silent sigh of relief that she hadn’t taken her with her…which caught in her throat when she realised there was still an-other witch lying on her floor. Why had the shadows brought her with her? She was just as dangerous! She didn’t look particularly dangerous now, but she must be, to still be alive after everything. Lily squeaked, reach-ing under bed for the kitchen knife she always kept there, in case of burglars or attacking shadows…not that it would do much good against either, but it was better than nothing. She clutched it to her chest, not sure what else she could do. Should she try and cut the girl’s throat whilst she was helpless? She couldn’t do that, she wasn’t some kind of murderer! But if she didn’t, the girl would eventually recover and kill her…

She spared a though for Katyusha then. What if the armoured woman hurt her? But…no, she’d be fine. She wasn’t a witch, and the people in armour only hunted witches. She was just a bystander in all of this, and she was better off where she was. Lily was sorry she had mixed her up in all of this, and was relieved she was gone, and out of danger.

But why was the other witch here? She couldn’t figure any of this out. It made no sense. But she needed to do something. She could think about it if she survived all this. She took a deep breath, oddly relieved; at least she was out of that inferno. If she died, at least it would be in the comfort of her own home, and not crying on the street.

“T-Tell me w-why I-I shouldn’t k-kill y-you.”

Her voice shook, yet her hands remained steady. Lily tried to keep her face steady, but her lip trembled and her teeth chattered. She was terrified – just saying that could get her killed! She was dealing with a psychotic maniac out for her life here, and she was threatening her! But else could she do? She couldn’t exactly kill her…could she?
 
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I’m sorry, I couldn’t quite hear you. Did you want me to stop?” How could the woman keep taunting her like this? Alyss had had enough. Her shoulders had holes in them; her skin was cut and burned all over; and to make matters much worse than they already were, the heat was making her disoriented. It seemed as if the woman was going to do just that up until the moment came where she kicked Alyss in the side so hard that she turned over onto her stomach. Alyss let out a hard scream as she turned over. She was sure that she heard a rib crack with that last kick.

“You fucking arrogant bitch! Would YOU stop if our positions were reversed? Did I even attack you in the first place? Who fucking started this, huh? You want me to stop just because you bit off more than you can fucking chew?” The woman was beyond angry. She obviously didn’t understand that Alyss was only attempting to stun her to get her to calm down. She also didn’t seem to understand that killing innocent people was generally frowned upon. Alyss was sure that the woman would continue her assault… but no pain ever came.

Alyss would have looked up if she had the energy to do so. However, it wasn’t long until she noticed that it was getting dimmer outside. In just a few seconds, she felt the sweet coldness of the rain on her back. Compared to the burns on her front, the rain was a godsend. She was on the verge of passing out as she lay on the ground, but she was, unfortunately, a little stronger than that. Alyss wasn’t the type of person to black out like that. Not being able to see the Witch and whatever she planned on doing bothered her, but it wasn’t as if she had the energy to roll around, much less pick her head up.

It was then that something washed over here. Whatever it was, it was somewhat frightening… but Alyss feared it far less than she feared the Witch that almost ended her life. In a few moments, she had found that the harsh, unforgiving, and warm pavement she was laying on was replaced with soft, gentle, and somewhat cool carpet. She didn’t know how she had gotten there, but she didn’t care. Anything was better than where she was at before… and what was bound to happen if she had stayed.

Suddenly, something hit her softly on her side. Her side still hurt somewhat from the kick earlier, but whatever just hit her was soft enough to not hurt her any extra. She heard a squeak and saw someone moving out of the corner of her eye to grab what looked like a knife. “T-Tell me w-why I-I shouldn’t k-kill y-you.” It was the voice of a girl; a terrified girl. Was she the one that brought her here? She was the only person around, so it had to be. Then again, Alyss wasn’t sure she should keep making assumptions. Her last one almost got her killed.

Alyss rolled over on the ground to lie on her back. She winced in pain as pressure came off of her wounds, but she wanted to see who she was speaking to. It must have taken a full minute for her to turn herself over. She looked up to see the face of the girl with the knife; who was now holding it at her chest. She looked to be somewhat younger than Alyss. Her eyes looked to be an amber looking color, but Alyss couldn’t be too sure. Not only did she sound terrified, she looked it as well.

Her voice cracked as she tried to answer the girl. “Y… you are n-not killing people. Th… therefore, you are not a problem, I do n-not mean you any harm.” There were a few pauses as Alyss struggled to breathe through the pain. She then chuckled somewhat, “besides… does it look l… like I can hurt anyone given my c… current situation?” Surely a look at Alyss’ current form would show her that Alyss really couldn’t harm anyone. “I-I think I am bleeding on your floor… terribly sorry.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Most people assume that blind people can’t dream. What they don’t know is that they can. Katyusha was dreaming about the sounds of her mother baking sweetbread in the kitchen. Of course, there weren’t any images to go along with the dreams; it was just the smell and the sound. Her mother was humming like she normally did when she cooked things. And the smell of the bread was wonderful. It was almost as if the dream were real. It surely felt as such.

However, something kept bothering her. There was a tiny pain in her side, almost as if someone were poking her with something dull. In fact, that’s what woke her up. Her feet weren’t on the ground; someone was carrying her. It couldn’t have been Lily, for Lily was just as tiny as Katyusha. But someone was holding her and whatever it was they were wearing was poking her in the side. Katyusha’s eyes opened, but as per usual since the day she was born that proved to be a redundant action as her eyes simply looked at nothing at all.

Who is carrying me? She thought. Normally, she would feel around… but every fiber of her being was still panicked after what happened. It was then she realized that if she was being carried here, then Lily was elsewhere. Katyusha couldn’t help but start shivering. She had awful thoughts. Did that crazy woman get a hold of Lily? W-what if I’m being carried away by that crazy lady?! Katyusha started crying again at the mere thought. “Don’t kill me… please don’t kill me. I didn’t do anything; I swear I won’t tell anyone about you! I just wanted to go home… I’m blind; I didn’t even see your face so I don’t have anything to tell to the police.”

Tears streamed down her face as she started struggling to get free. When she did so, she noticed that the person carrying her was wearing something made of metal. Katyusha couldn’t make out what it was but it was most definitely was metal. “Y-you’re not that lady… are you?”
 
Not a problem? What did she mean by that? That she’d be able to kill Lily with ease if she chose to? What kind of girl was this, anyway? Lily had never encountered someone with such a stiff manner before; she was a cold and unfeeling monster. A witch in truth, then. She meant her no harm, did she? That was certainly a lie; witches never meant anything but harm. Even Lily, no matter how she tried to distance herself from people, was exactly the same, much as she tried to fight it. No, she wasn’t falling for it. She wasn’t buying into any of it.

“You’re a Witch.” She said then, surprised to find that her fear was evaporating. She was, in fact, becoming quite hysterical, “You’re a liar! All you do is kill people and hunt other witches so you can kill them and steal their souls! Like you were trying to do to that other witch! Like you would do-“

Lily bit her lip, unwilling to finish her sentence, biting back her hysteria, although fresh tears ran down her cheeks, as much out of pain from biting her lip as the renewed panic and bleak despair coursing through her body. All this monster wanted to do was kill Lily, and every other witch she came across. That was all any of the witches wanted to do…except Lily. She just wanted to be left alone…

…or did she? Now that she had the opportunity to take more power for herself, Lily was momentarily tempted. Surely the more power she had, the safer she would be from attacks from other manic witches after her souls? If she took this girl’s power here and now, it wasn’t like she’d be murdering someone…witches weren’t people. It would be self-defence: it was kill or be killed. There was no reasoning with witches; they were all vicious monsters. But what did that make her? Lily shook her head. She couldn’t afford to think like that! She was human! She was cursed, and whilst other witches like this one at her feet had openly accepted their powers, Lily would never accept it. She would do all she could to find a way to get rid of it.

The shadows flinched, and she glared around the room. Yes, you heard me. I will be rid of you, one way or the other. “I’ve suffered enough thanks to all of you.” She said, very quietly. She suddenly felt very weary, and realised she hadn’t slept; it was approaching midday, she should be fast asleep by now. She couldn’t deal with any of this, she had never asked for these powers, this curse.

The one in front of her looked a mess…but she was still a witch. She could be faking her injuries, to draw Lily into a false sense of security. She could stand up at any moment, heal her wounds, and kill her. She had no idea what this witch was capable of, or what she herself was capable of…assuming she was capable of anything. But why wasn’t she? Was she that worried about Lily’s powers? Lily couldn’t even control her powers; her powers controlled her. They dominated her in every way possible, and so long as she had them, she’d never break free. Death was the only release for her, and she was too cowardly to embrace it. She was trapped in a hell of her own making.

She might deserve the suffering she had gone through, but…surely there was a limit to how much she should be punished. Was she truly such a bad person that she deserved to be put through all of this? The thought was truly depressing. What had she done? Why would nobody tell her, and how could she learn how to stop if they didn’t? Did this witch and the Horned King and everyone else enjoy seeing her suffer? Perhaps that was the only reason she existed; perhaps her very existence was what was wrong with her, and why she was continually punished. She didn’t know, and she just couldn’t figure it out. It hurt to think…

“You’re a liar.” She said again, to reassure herself as much as anything else. “All you can do is lie. Why can’t you all just leave me alone?” Unwilling to look at her any longer, she turned her head, still sitting on the edge of her bed. She found that she no longer cared if it was the end. This – all of it – was just too much to handle anymore. If she was going to die, she just wanted it to happen, so she could stop worrying about everything.

---

The girl stirred in her arms, and Rosaline was forced to shift her grip to stop her from dropping the girl as she thrashed about. Her eyes opened, and Rosaline saw with a flash of anger that she was blind. Had the Light Witch done this? Even if she hadn’t, kidnapping and tormenting a blind girl was unforgivable. Although with this at least she had confirmed one thing: the girl was not a witch. If she was, she would have used her powers immediately to free herself…or she would have been taken with the other three. Still, she was of the right age…Rosaline dismissed the thought. Innocent until proven guilty. In this case, she could afford to shelve her automatic distrust of young woman.

“No, I’m not her.” Rosaline said through gritted teeth. That sadistic bitch had terrified this girl. She was blind, for crying out loud! Was there no low these monsters would not stoop to? She would hunt this creature, this Light Witch, to the ends of the earth if she had to for this. “My name is Rosaline, and as long as you’re with me, she won’t hurt you anymore. I promise. Relax. It’s over. You’re safe.”

She hesitated then. She hated this part of the job; questioning traumatized people for information was never fun or easy, but it needed to be done. Blind as she was, the girl must have heard something of the commotion, even if she had no idea how it had all happened…just as well for her, she thought grimly, “I know it must have all been confusing and terrifying, but I need you to think back for me, sweetie, it’s extremely important that the one who attacked you is stopped. Did you hear anything that might have sparked all this? Was the girl you were with your friend? Can you tell me anything about her: her name, where she lives? She’s not in any trouble, but the one who attacked you might be coming after her, and I can’t help her if I don’t know anything about her. She could be in a lot of danger right now.”

If she could get anything out of her, anything it all, it would be a place to start. She had gotten a good look at all three witches, but a name would go much further than her descriptions. She had absolutely no idea what had happened to cause all this either, and even just remnants of a conversation vaguely heard would help her. Searching the city for three nameless women would take a very long time, especially since all three had likely gone to ground, assuming they were even in London anymore. Those shadows could have taken them any-where...it might have even killed them all, although that was likely wishful thinking. She had to assume they were still somewhere in the city until she saw their corpses.

Yet something else troubled her. Rosaline had been hunting witches for decades, and she had never seen more than two of them gathered in one place, and she had never seen them confront one another like this. These three couldn’t be the only three; this was no coincidence. Were they all gathering here for some unknown purpose? A Convergence hadn’t hap-pened, as far as the Order knew, for over five centuries, and records of that period were shaky – mostly because it had resulted in the destruction of an entire city, and eye-witnesses were few. A Convergence in Lon-don would be nothing short of an unmitigated disaster; it could even make the existence of witches known to the general public, and that would incite panic and killing on a terrifying scale. They needed to be tracked down as quickly as possible and eliminated; they had already caused far too much damage. But could a single Witchslayer really track down and kill that many witches? There were only three Witchslayers and, whilst Rosaline knew another was in the city somewhere, the third was out of the country, and the Order was not ready to take on – most of the younger Knights and Spiritwalkers had never faced a witch before, and in Rosaline’s opinion, they were nowhere near ready to. The Nine could not help them; their numbers had already been reduced by two, and to lose any more of them would be a disaster they would not be able to recover from, for there were none experienced enough to replace them. It was, quite literally, just the two of them. The thought chilled her. Why now, of all times?

Well, they would have to do. After she had seen to this girl, Rosaline would need to find the second Witchslayer, and the two would have to formulate a strategy to counter all this carnage based on what information they had been able to gather thus far. He must be somewhere nearby; it was a bloody madhouse down here…
 
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