Mirta Story by Cupcakedoll. Characters belong to Mr. Straffi, Rainbow, Nickelodeon, and whoever else.
Part 7
The homework was turned in, Mirta's bag was packed, and there was nothing else to do but wait for dinner, then bed, then waking up to catch an interdimensional ship first thing in the morning.
Sitting on the floor of her room, leaning back against her bed, Mirta read bits of the Guide to the Realm of Velka aloud to her cat. "There are no large land animals in the realm, except for cattle which have been reintroduced. They instinctively avoid the ruins of the cities."
Mirta thought about that. Cows were pretty stupid, in her experience, which mostly involved chasing them away from the poisonous plants in her mother's herb garden. They didn't have enough instinct to avoid henbane, and even nightcap mushrooms, but they'd avoid the cities on Velka.
"Brr... whatever the Velkans used to blow themselves up with must've been crazy potent."
She'd read about dead realms before, realms where the people hadn't been able to control their technology or magic or whatever, and ended up killing everyone, but it was still creepy. According to the book, several thousand years ago two countries on Velka had gone to war and all the Cloud Knights had been forced to join one side or the other. And in that war they'd managed to kill everything bigger than a mouse in the whole world. Now nobody lived there but archaeologists who carefully searched out the secrets of that great war.
So those intelligent devices they'd seen downtown, had they been used to destroy cities? Kill innocent people? Did they remember?
Hexen hopped into Mirta's lap and started kneading her legs with all six paws.
"Magic is creepy sometimes."
"Mrrt."
Next to them on the floor, Mirta's phone chimed. She opened it. Text received: Help me test potion? L.
Well that was something to do while waiting for dinner! Mirta hopped up, leaving the depressing guidebook propped open on the floor. Hexen at her heels, she made her way down to Lolina's room.
Lolina was showing off a tiny jar of what looked like glitttery lip balm to Katy and Selene. "What is it?" Mirta asked from the door.
"Lets you see magic. Help me try it out?"
There was a general shrug. "What do you do?"
Lolina demonstrated, "Close your eyes and put a little dot on each eyelid. And then... yep, it works! This is cool!"
She passed the jar around and everyone else put some on.
Mirta opened her eyes. The main difference was that everybody was glowing, and she could see their wings. Not super-exciting, since she already knew what her friends looked like transformed. "Hey, what do I look like?"
"Same as we do. I can see your wings."
"The question is, would wings still have shown up if we'd tried this before you transformed?" Selene said.
That was definitely a good question.
"Well you haven't got time to find a witch to look at; it'll wear off in half an hour. Let's go see what we can see!" Lolina managed to grab all three friends and hauled them towards the window.
Enough students were hanging out on the roof that there was plenty to see. The usual magic practice was a lot more showy with their special vision. When Kadija flung a spell, Mirta could see the faces of her guardian spirits appear in her shadow. Silycia blocked, and Mirta could see trails of light wrapping around the fairy's arms before they splashed out to become a shield.
Tecna landed on the roof with Digit hovering behind her. The pixie glowed like a small sun and Mirta blinked. She'd read that pixies were powerful magical beings but after living with Amore and especially Chatta bouncing around it was easy to forget just how magical they were. Tecna shifted back to her normal clothes but a strange outline still shone around her. It was a computer, Mirta realized. All Tecna would have to do was summon it into real existence and she could log on anytime.
Lolina, also looking at Tecna, let out a sigh of longing. "I totally need my charmix."
"I totally need to check out the dragonfire with this spell on." Katy said and launched herself off the edge of the roof.
Mirta opened her mouth to say she wasn't sure that was right. Somehow it seemed less polite to go looking for someone just to see what they looked like with spell vision. Of course she was looking at everyone who was up on the roof anyway so she wasn't much better.
Feeling a bit bad, Mirta dropped back down to the window and went inside. Hexen was waiting, grumbling. His glow was just the shape of himself: a six-legged cat. That left glowing pawprints.
"You're still mysterious."
"Myow."
Mirta wandered down to the main floor. She looked into the potions classroom and saw the jars of ingredients sparking and shimmering. She could see what the ingredients did. Anyone who had this kind of vision all the time wouldn't even have to label their bottles.
"Good evening, Mirta."
"Evening, Professor." Mirta turned and smiled at Professor Palladium. Looked at through the spell he seemed to be wearing golden armor.
"Ready for your trip tomorrow?"
"Yep, all packed. Including your assignment and Professor Wizgiz' assignment."
The teacher chuckled. "Have some fun too, all right."
"I will!"
A sudden commotion made them both look over at the main doors. Mirta saw something like a shadowy black cloud—and then billowing colors of spells being cast. At her feet Hexen's fur puffed out.
A ring of light rippled quickly over the room. It didn't touch Mirta but Palladium said, "Someone's been hurt. Wait here." He headed for the infirmary at a run.
Mirta followed more slowly, trying to put together what she'd seen. The ripple was a communication spell, to tell the teachers what was happening. The colors must have been healing spells. But what about the black fog?
Of course there was a shield around the infirmary, to keep curious or worried students from getting in the way. A crowd had gathered, drawn by the shouting, and they hung around waiting to make sure whoever it was would be all right. Students got hurt all the time of course—flying accidents, spells gone wrong, it happened to everybody and was almost never serious.
This time looked serious.
A ripple in the air nudged the students gently back as Miss Faragonda made a beeline for the infirmary.
Mirta's jaw dropped.
In her spelled sight the headmistress gleamed silver, like a statue washed with light in all the colors of the rainbow. Feathery wings set with jewels billowed behind her, insubstantial in the solid world but truly there. Faragonda's face was that of a young woman but her expression was mature and stern as she gestured the shield aside and entered the hospital room.
Wow. So that's an adult fairy.
"Who's hurt?" Lolina asked as she came to stand next to Mirta.
"I don't know." Mirta realized the fairies around her were losing their glowing auras. She rubbed her eyes. "I think it's wearing off."
"Mine too. Wasn't that cool? I'll make up another batch when we get back from Velka, if I can sneak the ingredients."
Mirta jumped. Lowering her voice to a furious whisper she hissed, "What? It wasn't a class project? Loli! You didn't tell us that! Miz G would eat us for lunch if she caught us!"
"Ah, yeah, sorry... hehe!"
Appropriate revenge would have to wait for a less public moment. "Where are Selene and Katy?"
"I'm here." Selene waved. She was tall enough that her blue hair showed over the now-large crowd of students.
"Haven't seen Katy since she went off looking for Bloom." Lolina finished the answer. "Let's get some food while we wait."
They weren't the only ones to have this idea, and the line in the cafeteria was as long as usual. They got food and ate, getting more and more worried as no teacher appeared to tell them how the injured student was doing.
Finally Miss Faragonda appeared. "Girls. First of all, I'm happy to report Katy Spika-"
Mirta gasped. Lolina stood up so fast her chair fell over.
"...will be quite all right." Miss Faragonda finished. "She was found outside school grounds, quite badly injured. Until we're sure what attacked Katy, you are all to stay within the school's wards after sunset."
The room erupted into a hubbub of voices.
Mirta pushed her way to the front of the crowd. "Miss F, what happened? Are you sure Katy's ok?"
"She'll be fine, Mirta."
"Can we see her?" Lolina asked.
The headmistress looked at the worried crowd of students and nodded. "If you promise to spread the word that Katy is all right. Just for a minute." She ushered the two girls into the medical wing of the school.
Katy was awake when they came in, actually she was yowling, "Whatever healing spell you did was not enough! Owwww!"
Dr. Ofelia merely said, "I'm sorry dear, but cracked ribs are cracked ribs. It's going to hurt for a while. Try to rest."
Katy flopped back on her pillows. Her chest was wrapped in a long bandage. When she saw her friends her sticking-up hair started to settle down as she got control of her temper.
Lolina gaped. "What hit you?"
"I don't know. I heard someone talking outside of the wall so I hopped over to see who it was. Then, bang. Someone hit me with a force bolt. Lights out until Professor Avalon found me. I guess he did a pretty major healing and brought me back. And it. Still. Hurts." She finished with a growl directed at whoever had hit her.
Hexen appeared and carefully jumped up onto Katy's bed, nuzzling her hand and purring at her.
Mirta had no idea what to say. Most of her brain was full of too much worry for words, and another part was calculating what it would feel like to take a force bolt full in the chest. It'd be like being punched by a giant.
"And I can't come on the trip." Katy said.
Lolina started to look like she might cry too.
"Um." Mirta said, and had to grab for the next words. "It won't be as much fun without you. But we'll go somewhere when you get better, for sure."
"Yeah... it's all right." Katy said, even though it clearly wasn't. "Can I keep Hex while you're gone?"
"That's up to him."
Hexen said a whole sentence of meows. Katy smiled faintly.
Doctor Ofelia stood up from the corner where she'd been waiting. "All right, visiting hours are over. We've got an injured fairy here who needs to sleep. The cat can stay."
Mirta and Lolina said hurried good-nights and left. Lolina made the requested announcement to their friends, "She's fine. Hissing at the doctor! I think she just ran into a pissed-off inugami out there."
There was scattered laughter at the idea of the cat fairy meeting a dog spirit.