The Superstition Spectrum (Danny Phantom)

Chapter 12

The front door of the coven house opened and closed softly, admitting a weary Kordelle with a thoughtful look on his face. He had only just hung up his jacket on the coat rack in the foyer when a teenaged boy's voice called out his name hopefully. "Yeah?" Kordelle answered, and all of a sudden Dude was there, talking and gesturing animatedly in what Kordelle subconsciously knew was Ancient Greek. 

"Why didn't you tell me we could learn new languages at the drop of a hat?" Dude exclaimed, his opalescent eyes positively shining. "This is so amazing! How the hell is this possible?"

Kordelle smirked mirthfully at that and followed Dude back into the kitchen, where Allie was busy bottling up pungent potions with a funnel and ladle. "It's something all witches can do, Dude. How many languages did you know before you met me?"

"Uh... Four," Dude answered after taking a second to consider whether both sign languages should count as their own. They did, of course. "English, Spanish, ASL, and SSL."

"And how many people can say they know four languages by the time they're sixteen?" Kordelle asked knowingly.

"Prooobably other witches?" Dude guessed.

He gave the green-haired boy a congratulatory finger gun. "True. But don't try to learn more than one every couple of months, okay? Your brain might explode." He left the kitchen on that note to get away from the smells of Allie's brewing potions. 

Dude, with a puzzled expression on his face, followed him from a few paces behind. "You mean that figuratively, right? Kordelle? Right?"

~

Day One: botany, herbology, and the basics of potion-making. 

Allie was a good teacher, especially for a girl that had just barely reached teenagerhood. Dude, as eager a pupil as there ever was, asked all of his questions without hesitation, and what Allie couldn't answer confidently was researched until a conclusion could be reached. In a way, they were teaching each other little by little as young witches often do. Her otter familiar was also a very big help by fetching smaller items and turning pages when their hands were full. Since Dude had only just learned how to summon his familiar and it was still very weak and inexperienced, he didn't really go the extra mile to bring it out and use it. 

However, there was one incident where he did call out his familiar. Allie's otter had been scampering around on the counter, weaving between and around vials of ingredients, when one of them was bumped into and sent toppling over the edge. Its glass container made a wobbly scraping sound as it was knocked over, and Dude instinctively reached for it even though he was clear on the other side of the kitchen. Allie yelped as a reflex, but the bottle didn't shatter on the ground. In fact, it didn't even touch the ground at all. 

Dude's familiar, extending from his right shoulder and hovering an inch and a half off of the floor, gripped the bottle with all five fingers to keep it from slipping free. Allie released a pent-up breath in a loud "Phew!" and beamed at her firmly concentrating student. "Dude, that was amazing!"

"It was?" he asked. His familiar began to retract, bringing the fallen vial closer and closer until he could reach out and grab it with a flesh and blood hand. As soon as he held it safely, he let out a breath he didn't know he was holding back.

"Yeah!" she cheered. "Don't you remember yesterday? You were concentrating so hard just to summon it, and today you just, y'know-- whoosh! Bam!" Allie struck a confident pose with both hands balled into fists on her hips and her chin jutting out triumphantly. "Here it is, world!"

Dude grinned at her antics and crossed the kitchen to set the vial back where it had been standing. "I mean, I was practicing practically all night."