The tele-stop whirred to a halt, dumping Mattie on her rear.
"Oof!"
Momentarily disoriented, Mattie sat on the ground and rubbed her back, groaning. Of all the mistakes to make...
"Please stand clear," a disembodied female voice boomed. Mattie covered her ears with her hands, wincing. The automated voice echoed about the station from sound-conducting crystals embedded into the walls. "Arriving."
Realizing she was about to be squished, Mattie leaped off the platform, blinking white and purple, and nearly falling down again. Afraid of being found, Mattie stuck to the chrome walls of the station, breathing heavily. If she had been a moment late, she would have been caught in the teleportation and collided with the arrivals. A brilliant violet flashed through the station, accompanied by a blaring siren. A gust of wind blew, whipping Mattie's hair into her face. She spat out her red locks, coughing. Moments later, half a dozen people materialized on the platform.
Arriving? Her brain slowly began to register what she was seeing.
Yellow Flower was too small a place for there to be both an Arrivals and a Departures station. It had to be a city, or somewhere busy enough to need both stations. She spotted a large sign that read "Mekto: Lower-Tarajen" in big black letters. In the next moment, the letters were replaced with "Arrivals Station." Heaving a sigh, Mattie dusted herself off and began towards the rotating doors that would lead outside.
"Please stand clear. Arriving," sounded the voice over the speakers. A breeze swept the inside of the station, along with the tell-tale purple flash of the tele-stops.
Inwardly, Mattie sighed and nibbled on the inside of her thumb, trying to decide what to do. It was pretty easy to understand what had happened.
Taking a tele-stop was just a matter of thinking of where you wanted to go and staying motionless. The psyche spells would have detected where Mattie wanted to go, and then directed the spatial spells which would teleport her.
It was a technique that took a couple tries to do right, but it was simple enough for even children to do. It was against the Magical Ordinances for children under the age of twelve to go on their own—precisely because of what she had just done. Mattie had prided herself on being able to use the tele-stop on her first try where it had taken Tara several times. Because she had been so preoccupied, the psyche spell hadn't detected the proper destination and instead took her to Mekto, where the woman had wanted to go.
What a mistake to make at such a crucial time.
Outside, Mattie found herself in a vaguely familiar busy street filled with the smells of roasting gumdeer and baking bread. All around her were the sounds of merchant stores and animals and the chatter of mages and nonmagicals alike. She had only been here a few times before but never on her own. This was Mekto, a bustling but not entirely legitimate business branch of lower-Tarajen. The woman who had used the tele-stop with her disappeared into the crowd of people.
At least the weather was nice. The sun warmed the back of her neck, but the slight breeze prevented her from sweating too much. Biting her lower lip in irritation, Mattie began down the street towards the Departures Station.
"Self-watering plant! You'll never have wilted flowers again!"
"Try the King's Feast All-In-One Food Capsule by Alisto Incorporated! A pack of thirty for a hundred Heliots—limited price!"
"Bargain-price tablets! Choose from seventy texture varieties!"
Annoying as it was to have to adjust her walking speed so she wouldn't bump into people, she was secretly glad she was invisible. The merchants here were relentless in trying to sell their goods. At least she wouldn't be stopped by them or smell any odd medicines.
A slim body hurtled into her, causing her to lose her balance and fall onto her butt for the second time that day. Mattie clapped a hand over her mouth before she could cry out in surprise. She pulled herself up using a ledge. And then all hell broke loose on the streets of Mekto.
Shrill screams and terrified shrieks from mages and nonmagicals alike echoed around her. More than once, Mattie was jostled by moving bodies, though in the confusion, no one gave her a second glance. Loud cracks boomed through the street as food vendors and street merchants quickly closed down shop and took cover. Those who had the mind to, used their own spells to get away from the scene as fast as possible. Others forgot about magic completely and scattered in every direction to avoid getting hit.
On the other hand, Mattie was frozen in shock, rooted to the spot. In her mind, she screamed at herself to follow them and run away as far as she could. Her initial reaction was that she was being targeted by the same people who had killed her father. The thought passed when it was obvious the mages were after someone else. Dozens of the heavily cloaked figures ran past her, hands outstretched.
All around her, spells spiraled through the air, hitting both people and shops indiscriminately. Hysteria doubled when people began to drop like flies after being hit by stunning and paralysis spells.
"Someone call the DOS!"
"Has anyone alerted the DOS?"
"Get out of the way!"
"What about the Department of Safety?"
"Call the DOS!"
More shrieks as lightning-fast stunners whizzed through the air, causing cracks in the pavement where they struck. Among the screams, Mattie could hear raucous laughter from the mages responsible for the mayhem.
The escaping crowd kicked up puffs of thick dust. Mattie accidentally inhaled a particularly dense cloud of dust and nearly coughed her lungs out.
"Don't move," gasped a voice from behind her.
Mattie sucked in a sharp breath, eyes watering from the dust clouds. Slowly, she moved her head to the side, hoping fervently she had imagined the voice.
"Please," the voice plead. "Just until they leave."
She hadn't imagined it. There was a boy crouching behind her, tucked into a small nook between Thomas' Best Wizard Wares and Berry Sweets Shop. At her stare, he quickly covered himself with a raggedy black cloak full of holes and haphazardly patched. He was small enough to hide underneath it. Mattie swallowed nervously.
How had he gotten there without her noticing? And more importantly, how had he known she was there?
The second question she answered for herself. Her coughing could probably be heard by anyone in a fifty foot radius. The only reason no one else had cared was because the streets of Mekto had exploded in pandemonium.
Her brows furrowed in thought. She was hiding because she couldn't be seen by the mages, but why was the boy hiding instead of running? A thought occurred to her. A thought that sent shivers crawling up and down her spine. The cloaked mages were after this kid?
Ren's pale face as he recounted the story of the girls in Nipon rose to the front of her mind.
Again.
It was magic yet again.
Store signs lay broken on the ground, trampled by the frightened horde. Shop windows were cracked under the pressure of continuous spells. Buckets of soap spells, self-writing pencils and self-brushing brushes, and magicked brooms and bicycles were scattering along the main street, broken and shattered. Colorful Yum-Teas and Perfect-Temp lattes, along with all sorts of pastries, crackers, and steamed buns littered the ground, spilled or stepped on. Those who had been unfortunate enough to have been hit by stunners lay frozen on the ground, unable even to close their eyes.
Bile rose in her throat and blood roared in her ears. For a long time, Mattie thought she had come to a sort of bittersweet understanding with magic. As unfair as it was to not be able to use it, Mattie knew magic was vital to her world. It was not inherently good nor bad but a tool. A tool like any other. Those were words she had repeated to herself over and over again every time Tara took a shortcut using magic or Inness got to practice magic for homework.
Her fists clenched tightly with rage.
Magic might be a tool, but it was one that gave certain people leverage over another.
"—something here?"
Mattie snapped out of her thoughts and turned her attention to a cloaked mage who was a mere ten feet away.
The mage pulled back her hood and shook her short red hair, cropped to her earlobes, free. Her eyes were narrowed in suspicion as they glanced around the street. Another mage, about fifteen feet from her, materialized to her side in an instant. The short-range teleportation, or as Tara called it, tele-stepping, had whipped his hood back, revealing a heavily scarred face. This mage, tall and brooding, had a mess of silvery-blue hair and a sharp nose. Both the female and male mage kept tele-stepping around the debris on the street.
Afraid of being found, Mattie held her breath, momentarily forgetting she was invisible at the moment.
"Maybe you've imagined it, Meredy," drawled the male. They had paused maybe five feet away from Mattie and the boy. He glanced around the street, glowering at the stunned people. "Or you've mistaken these scum for the brat." He tapped a girl's leg with his foot with unnecessary force. Bending down, he wrenched a book from the girl's stiff hands. "Look—A Guide to Simple Spells: Housekeeping Edition." As the witch named Meredy sniggered, the stunned girl's eyes filled with tears. "You want it? You could do with some learnin'."
Meredy took a step in the man's direction, one small hand outstretched. "So help me, Drax," she snarled.
"Now, now," he said, grabbing her wrist, whipping her around, and digging her arm painfully into her back in one, swift movement. Meredy whimpered and struggled against his grip. "Let's do what we came here to do. That kid's a slipp'ry one. He must be hidin'."
Behind her, the boy's breathing suddenly quickened. Wanting to reassure the younger boy, Mattie reached for his hand. He gripped her hand tightly.
The one called Drax released the female mage, who looked absolutely livid. The air around her crackled with magic. Her lip was curled back in a scowl.
"I'm trained in tracking magic," she growled. "Don't underestimate me."
"Trainee," Drax said, his lip pulled up to one side in a smirk. He crossed his heavily muscled arms in front of his chest. "C'mon, then. Show ol' Drax what you can do. What's the new generation capable of?"
The female mage closed her eyes and mouthed something Mattie couldn't quite make out. She began to glow a faint orange, her cloak billowing with an invisible wind. Her palms were out in front of her, as if she was holding a sphere in her hands. In between her hands Mattie could see a brighter orange glow.
"Passable," remarked Drax, looking unimpressed. "Well, trainee? Have you caught a scent?"
Mattie swallowed nervously. This was magic she had never seen before. No wonder the DOS and the House of Orange had been having a hard time with the illicit mages and tracking their whereabouts.
"I smell peaches," said the female in a singsong voice. "Someone's been using the Peach Cream soap-spell."
-
This chapter gave me a headache like no other.
It was about 5 days of editing, rewriting, editing, and more editing.
Please enjoy ;-;
it was written with my tears
I need some coffee