The Ripple Effect

7. I Spy

It took a couple days for Icy to come up with a working combination of crystals and runes, but eventually a pale lavender quartz derivative and a combination of Domithrian and Terran runes directed toward clear vision and astral travel became the definitive choice. They'd tested them by communicating between the two dorm rooms (which were in opposing towers) before voting the communication crystals functional enough to plant at Alfea. With that out of the way, all Mirta had to do was find a good hiding spot for them.

This proved trickier than expected. For one, Deputy Headmistress Griselda didn't want to let the tiny redhead out of her sight once the witch stepped on grounds. Second, the tour of campus was far longer than Mirta anticipated and had it not been for the fear of what the Trix could do to her if she failed, she might have scrapped the entire job. As she'd rather not be transfigured into something slimy so soon in her scholastic career, Mirta soldiered on and managed to sweet-talk her way into the Alfea ballroom.

"Wow." She breathed. The decorations leaned a little heavy on the color pink for her taste, but the streamers and wall sconces and the mirror balls on the dance floor looked incredible. She hated having to ruin everyone's night and for a moment felt really bad about what she was about to do…but no one invited the witches. Not even the specialists dating witches were brave enough to bring their girlfriends to the dance; they just avoided the event altogether. She'd have at least liked to have the option of going to the dance (even though she wouldn't have), so Operation: Crystal Drop continued as scheduled. "I wish we could do something like this..." It was the one thing about Alfea that Stella seemed to miss, and now she understood why.

"Personally, I think it's kinda mean to not invite a third of Magix' magical students, but I didn't get a vote in it." The upper-year fairy acting as her tour guide shook her head. The woman had dirty blonde hair, brown eyes, and a stockier build than most fairies Mirta'd come across, but radiated an aura of calm acceptance. Mirta couldn't recall her name, but the woman seemed nice enough.

"Yeah. I think the only reason we prank the dance in the first place is because nobody invites us." She shrugged, playing the role of a confused, innocent transfer student as best she could. Truth be told, the Trix (and possibly Stella…never could tell with her) might have caused a big scene even if Cloud Tower students were invited to the dance. "The least they could do is get us a mixer with that wizard's school on the southern continent." Oskuria School for Wizardry, though technically a Magix-realm school, was on a different continent than the 'big three' and more secretive about their training practices than Cloud Tower. Many forgot it was even there, but Mirta had a cousin who recently graduated and wouldn't let her forget it.

"They won't go for it; they never did when we tried to invite them." The older girl shook her head. "I think their headmaster feels that keeping the boys away from attractive females will help them pass their classes easier."

"Probably." That and their tendency to hoard knowledge and tuck it into vaults where others couldn't access it, she added mentally. They probably didn't want anyone to have an excuse to snoop around the school. Shaking her head, she moved closer to one of the potted plants in the corner. "Are these real or magical constructs?"

"Real as Griselda's need for reading glasses." Her guide smiled. "All the plants are courtesy the herbology greenhouses. Professor Triticale keeps a special group reserved for the opening mixer and prom every year." When she turned to gesture to some ivy twined around one of the lattice arches, Mirta dropped a crystal into the planter. The question and answer session led her around the room in a circuit, giving her time to inspect the decorations (both real and conjured) and plant the other six crystals in their designated spaces. She set the crystal network in place; now the others just needed to activate it.


Crystal-array look-in spells varied from other runic and non-anchored variants of the type in many ways, but three made it superior for their cause. While they could cast a non-anchored version of the spell, it only showed one narrow view of the room. The crystal and runic arrays offered a view of the entire room and could be directed to focus on one particular part of the network for maximum effect. Second, the magic inherent in the crystals remained static until the array activated and required less draw from the environment once in play. Other types or rune-etched materials would have lit the array up like Yule tree lights, even in the magic-saturated ballroom. And, last but certainly not least, the crystals used for the viewing array at Alfea didn't absorb the magical signatures of the witches using them. It was a unique property of that type of crystal and something that would keep them from being positively identified by the Alfea staff. Better still, since no one could prove Mirta planted the crystals, if someone came pounding on their door about it, Griffin would claim discrimination and send them on their way.

The Jinx coven piled into the Trix's suite to watch the festivities, boxes of snacks and bottles of soft drinks brought as tribute for entrance into the spacious senior dorms. Stella immediately claimed a bean-bag chair for herself and watched as the others did the same. Though still looking nervous about the entire affair, Mirta managed a polite smile to her hosts before settling into a comfy position with her head on Lucy's shoulder. Bloom, by contrast, appeared supremely confident in their plan and scooted her floor cushion as close to Icy's spot on the couch as she dared.

Stormy sneered and rolled her eyes at the invasion of firsties, but the other two seniors were too excited to see the runic crystal array in action to worry about the freshmen uncovering any deep, dark secrets of theirs. It's not like they could break through the protective wards on their various contraband hiding spots on their own, even if working in unison as a circle. Icy and Darcy scored the highest in their year on the warding tests last semester, and Stormy wasn't as bad as her test scores indicated when properly motivated. Hiding tomes on magic dark enough to qualify as honest-to-goddess Black magic provided said motivation.

"Everyone, get settled in. It's time to open the connection," Icy spoke. Her guests' comfort wasn't usually at the top of her priority list, but casting the spell while uncomfortable was a literal pain in the ass.

At any given time, three witches were needed to maintain the open connection. The Trix lead off the casting, but if the show went too long Bloom, Lucy, and Stella would cycle in if the older witches tired. Only the three of them possessed enough power and/or skill to power the array from their end if the Trix couldn't keep their focus.

Their end of the crystal relay lit the room with a faint glow as the Trix chanted. In the center of their circle, a small orb of iridescent light appeared. Though initially the size of a ping-pong ball, it grew and clarified into a viewing sphere roughly the size of the dormitory's lone window. Girls lined up in carefully-ordered rows stood inside the sphere as young men in fancy suits handed them golden eggs.

"Ooh, this is going to be epic!" Stella bounced up and down on her cushion, hands rubbed together in unfiltered glee.

"Would be better with snake rats." Stormy pouted.

"Yes, well, we couldn't afford a fatality tonight, and given how many people seem to be allergic to their venom, that plan would have ended with one." Roxy folded her arms across her chest and glared at the older witch out of the corner of her eye. "You'll have to settle for horror movie monsters instead."

"Shush you two, they're opening the eggs!" Lucy hissed. Both witches stopped talking but neither appeared apologetic about their minor squabble. Mirta sighed, angling her face away from the viewing bubble. No one commented on it, knowing she'd need some degree of plausible deniability if someone actually cottoned onto her part of the plan.

Inside the bubble, the girls in fancy dresses tapped the top of the golden gift eggs. Their expressions of awed pleasure quickly morphed into ones of abject terror as the eggs turned black with veins of sickly green, dissolving not into butterflies but cockroaches and spiders. The flowers that were supposed to 'pop' out of the dissolved eggs never appeared, but a varied assortment of mismatched holographic creatures soon began causing their own intangible brand of havoc. Some resembled were-beasts with the tails of scorpions and wicked spiraled horns; others seemed sewn-together leftovers from more famous monsters. Arm of a mummy, gorgon's hair, feet of a harpy—and those were only a few of the options Bloom's imagination captured on canvas. Oh, there were a handful of Earth's varied mythical creatures as well, but few scarier than the miniaturized hybrids. All the illusions were overlaid with a fear-heightening jinx, making them seem more formidable and terrifying to anyone not trained in mind magics. As the dance-goers screamed and upended several tables and chairs in order to escape the illusionary beasts, the witches cackled.

"Look at them all!" Stormy's smile lit her face with a menacing light. "What wimps!"

"Ooh, that one girl just fainted!" Bloom crowed. "And the one kid just set like four people on fire trying to 'kill' the monsters!"

"If they hurt each other in a blind panic, we can't be blamed," Lucy mumbled into Mirta's ear when the smaller witch flinched at the descriptions the other girls gave. "Someone should have realized they weren't real by now."

"Won't stop me from feeling it, but thanks," the redhead whispered.

"I think the one kid in the dorky glasses just wet themselves." Stella grinned, oblivious to her dorm-mate's conflicted feelings. She'd been waiting for this night for weeks and intended to live it to the fullest. "Oh, this is just perfect! Would have been more perfect if the monsters were real, but beggars can't be choosy."

"I wonder if you could make them real, though?" Darcy tilted her head to the side, her golden eyes trained on the images relayed through the sphere. "A few of those look like legitimate cross-breeds."

"A monster arsenal would be nice to have around." Roxy shrugged. She'd thought about getting Artu a playmate for a while but hadn't found the right candidate for the job. A small monster might be just what she wanted. "But I don't know how long it would take to breed them, let alone grow them to maturity. Some of those are crosses with one or more magically-resistant species so we couldn't speed the process up the usual way." Magical creatures weren't technically on the curriculum until next semester, but it hadn't stopped the pink-haired witch from plundering the school library of its various and sundry texts on beasts and their care.

"We'll put it on our agenda for next semester, when we have time to pick Dr. Hackett's brain on the subject." Stella waved. It wasn't like their tentative plans to overhaul Magix couldn't wait that long.

"I think he might actually have a few of them." Icy studied a tri-horned creature with feathers and scales. "I know I've seen one like that in his workshop before."

"Then I might go ask him tomorrow," Roxy said. "I'm the witch of animals; it won't look odd for me to show an early interest in the subject."

"Aww, I think Griselda's about to rain on our fun." Stella pouted, her eyes fixed on Alfea's head of discipline.

"Only if she finds the right counter-spell." Darcy smirked as the brunette woman in the sphere sent a blast of white magic—most likely a standard dissolution spell—at one of the constructs. Rather than dissolve into nothing, the construct wavered in and out of focus before splitting into two monsters. "Better try again, you old bulldog."

"And there goes a table. Those phantoblades really do cut through what regular swords can…well, except the monsters." Bloom refused to look away from the viewing sphere. Specialists were attempting to slice and dice the monsters, only to destroy the furnishings when their phantoblades met with empty air. One clumsy sod slashed his friend's date's arm when he couldn't stop the swing fast enough.

"Figured you'd be more into the burning tablecloths, pyro." Lucy teased.

"I can burn tablecloths any time I damn well want, but watching a show like this only happens like twice a year." The fire witch snorted. "And it looks like the white-haired lady and the old woman with the funky red hat figured out how to reverse Darcy's illusions."

"Headmistress Faragonda and Professor DuFour." Stella narrowed her eyes at the pair of older magic-users in the viewing sphere. Both women cast spells of pale yellow light, muttering the incantations so low under their breaths that she couldn't make out what was said (but suspected it wasn't in Sol Standard). Ths time the monsters hit with the spells vanished completely. Trust those two to figure it out. "Miss F looks about twice as old as her file says she is. Don't know why; maybe she thinks it makes students trust her more or something. She's powerful, though, and not averse to using grey magic in combat." Most fairies stuck to 'white' or 'light' magic because they thought it was 'better'. Idiots. "But of the two, we stand a better chance of taking her out than DuFour. I don't know what her power is but she's strong and at least six hundred years old. No telling what nasty spells she's learned in that time. She was at one time the Royal Adviser and Governess for Solaria, though, so my mom might know some useful information about her."

"Stell, if you put half as much effort into your research papers as you do memorizing realm-wide gossip, you 'd be top in our year." Roxy shook her head.

"Research papers won't help me sneak contraband items into the dorms or know who to avoid at boring dinner parties," The blonde remarked. "Knowing the right bit of info on the person you're talking to could mean the difference between successful negotiations and starting an inter-realm war. Now, be a dear and pass the popcorn; we had two other good prank ideas between us and I don't see any reason not to use them if possible."

A smirk slid across Icy's face as she watched the exchange. The little Solarian brat was turning out to be a far more valuable asset than she first thought—one worth more alive and under her rule than broken and powerless. "I recall someone mentioning a nightmare beast. That sounds like a fun place to start…"