New Moon Tower
Akko talked to Ursula about everything she has on her mind, namely how Lotte got hit by the Curse of Annabel Creme, how Diana tried to steal the Shiny Rod and the ensuing discharge of magical energy that got Red Coven into trouble. Lotte was going to bring up how Finneran is found to be biased against Akko for being a muggle-born, but was stopped by, surprisingly, Sucy, who covered the Finnish girl's mouth with a hand and just shook her head.
"So let me repeat what I just heard..." Ursula said before taking a sip from her teacup and swallowing the tea. "Firstly: yesterday, you girls went to Blytonbury to attend a Nightfall convention, where you found your way to a Trivia Game hosted by..." The blue-haired professor looked at Lotte. "...Miss Creme...?"
"No, not her..." Akko corrected. "Well, yes, it was Annabel Creme. Just not her..." She then pointed at Lotte. "And she isn't the host, just a 'special guest star' who was going to hand out a prize to whoever wins the Trivia Game." Akko finished her correction.
Ursula coughed into her right hand. "And the reason you and I are calling Miss Cre- your Coven mate Annabel Creme instead of her real name was because of the Curse in the fountain pen that was given to her as a prize?"
Upon hearing the fountain pen getting mentioned, Lotte produced it from her pockets and placed it on the coffee table.
"Yes, but not just that." Akko, eyeing the pen with venom, clarified. "It somehow made everyone, including Professor Finneran, believe that she has always been Annabel Creme her whole life!"
"Isn't it?" Sucy wondered out loud.
"But why didn't it affect you and I, professor?" Akko asked Ursula. "Not fully, since we're forced by the Curse to call her Annabel Creme. But why?"
Ursula racked her brain for an answer, and came up with nothing. "I... uh... have no idea..."
"Nightfall Mysteries, Case #123..." Lotte suddenly uttered.
"Huh?" Akko and Ursula turned their attention on the Finnish girl.
"In Nightfall Mysteries, one of the cases has the culprit, a bestselling author who is said to be a self-insert character of Annabel Creme, escape from her responsibilities by using a spell to swap her identity with one of her fans, causing everyone to believe that the fan has always been the author..." Lotte explained with a gloomy expression on her face. "Nightfall Mysteries is the only Nightfall video game where Annabel herself has direct input in the development process..."
"What were you saying, Miss Creme?" Ursula asked for clarification.
"That Mary-Ann Lait - the Annabel Creme before me - has been planning this for years already..." Lotte said.
"But why does she want to give up being the author of the world's most popular franchise? Akko touched her chin while thinking about it. "The only clue we have is that she sacrificed a lot to become Annabel Creme, and regretted it..."
"Perhaps it's because of the extreme workload?" Ursula offered her opinion. "It must've been exhausting to take over being the creator of the world's biggest, most successful franchise..."
"Is that so?" Akko wondered.
At the same time, Sucy, who hasn't paid any attention to the conversation as she added potions of...questionable nature...into her cup of tea, suddenly looked up from her indiscreet experiment.
"Professor Ursula, is it?" Sucy grabbed the blue-haired professor's attention. "You sounded like you know an awful lot about the exhausting life of being a world-famous celebrity..."
That seems to have caught Ursula by surprise. "W-what makes you think that?!" She nervously asked.
"Just a feeling..." Sucy answered before going right back to her indiscreet experiment.
Akko blinked in confusion at this brief exchange. Meanwhile, Ursula's white crow familiar who sat on its perch cawed in a way that sounds like a laugh.
"S-shut up!" Ursula called out to the familiar. "A-anyway..." She then turned back to the Red Coven. "I'm sure this... um... Mary-Ann Lait just didn't realize how tough being Annabel Creme is going to be..." She told them. "Have you tried asking the Shiny Rod about it?"
"As far as I can tell," Shiny Rod started speaking. "the curse that Annabel Creme has been afflicted with-" The Rod paused for a second when Akko and Ursula gasped at the fact that even the sapient staff is calling Lotte "Annabel Creme". "-is not really a curse. At least, not made as one."
"The Curse of Annabel Creme is... not a curse?" Akko asked in confusion.
"Annabel Creme - the previous one - may have called it a curse out of spite upon discovering that getting it resulted in her losing her true identity, as was what happened with the current Annabel Creme." Shiny Rod explained. "The original Annabel Creme knew her work would outlive her, so she presumably put a spell on her fountain pen so that whoever inherits it becomes the new Annabel Creme, in the most literal sense."
"But why does it have to overwrite the inheritor's identity and make everyone believe she has always been Annabel Creme her whole life?" Ursula brought up a concerning point.
"That, even I am not quite sure about." Shiny Rod informed. "I suspect Annabel Creme Number One was an excellent writer but a terrible witch..."
Everyone else are stunned by the Shiny Rod's remark.
"The 'overwriting identity and memory-changing' parts are a mistake on the first Annabel's part...?" Akko commented in disbelief.
"In that case, it would be very difficult to solve this problem..."
Lotte went into a depressive state upon hearing that.
"I will try my best to look for a solution to the Curse." Ursula said. She tried to pick up the fountain pen, only to receive a shock similar to that of when Diana tried to grab the Shiny Rod, causing her to withdraw her hand. "For now, let us put it aside and focus on another topic..." She massaged her hand in reaction to the shock. "About Miss Cavendish... attempting to steal the Shiny Rod? She wouldn't possibly-"
"They didn't make that up. The Descendant of Beatrix did try to take me by force, despite being shown to be not worthy..." The Shiny Rod informed Ursula.
"Why...?"
"She could never let go of her feelings about her mother..."
"In other words, Miss Perfect Cabbage has mommy issues..." Sucy butted in.
Ursula seems conflicted by what Sucy just said. "Mommy issues?"
"Though I have to wonder, has her mother died a long time ago, and she is still grieving about it?"
All of a sudden, something crashed through the window that the large telescope looked out of, impacting the telescope hard enough to deform its frame and shatter its lens. The noise came sudden enough that even Lotte is snapped out of her depressive state.
It turned out to be Amanda O'Neil, who then slid down the telescope like a bobsled on a snowy mountainside before landing at the bottom of it in a heap. What looked like an iPod then landed right next to her.
"Ow..." Amanda groaned as she picked herself up from the floor, and collected the iPod. "Sorry about that, Teach..." She apologized to Ursula.
"Amanda?" It was Akko who took note of the redhead's sudden arrival first. "What are you doing here?"
"Akko, is it? I should be asking you that instead." Amanda responded. "Anyway, has anyone here seen a red broom with an arrowhead for its tip?"
The moment Amanda finished that sentence, the broom in question landed by her feet with a thud.
"Ow..." A male, American-accented voice seemed to come from the broom. "And that's why we shouldn't listen to Led Zeppelin when broom-flying..."
The Red Coven and Ursula were not at all surprised to hear the broom speaking. After all, they've already met the talking sapient staff that is the Shiny Rod.
Amanda bent over to pick up the red broom. "You just don't like Jimmy Page's voice, jackass..." She gave the broom an accusatory pointer-finger.
"Oh, sure, blame everything on me..." The red broom argued. "Just like what happened back at San Fran..."
"You're lucky that suspension cable was unscathed."
"I had to spend the next five days in the SFPD's warehouse because of it. And damn, does the warehouse stinks!"
"That wouldn't have happened if you've known I was just joking that time."
Ursula then walked up to Amanda to interrupt her argument with the red broom. "Excuse me! Amanda...O'Neil, is it? I'm talking with some students about some private matters, so could you please-"
The red broom bent its tip to point the arrowhead at Ursula. "Oh hi, Miss Ch-"
Amanda punched the arrowhead, which had the same effect to the red broom as if a person was punched in the face. "Not now!" She whispered to the red broom. "Sorry about that, professor. I'll be on my way right no-"
All of a sudden, the red broom pointed its arrowhead away from Ursula, toward where the Red Coven girls are.
"Long time no see, Shiny Rod!" The red broom playfully greeted the sapient staff.
"You?!" The Shiny Rod practically screamed. It has no face to express with, but it definitely doesn't seem thrilled to meet the red broom.
Akko and Amanda both reacted with utmost surprise to how their respective sapient items seemed to know each other, and has a lot of bad history, going by how Shiny Rod reacted to seeing the red broom.
"Wait, Akko..." Amanda pointed out. "You have Shiny Chariot's iconic Shiny Rod with you, and it can talk like Shooting Star does?!"
"Long story..." Akko answered.
Amanda's broom, the Shooting Star, broke free of her grip, and went to meet the Shiny Rod.
"So I guess Shiny Chariot gave you the pink slip?" Shooting Star began.
"No. There is just some... complications." Shiny Rod answered with dissatisfaction in its tone. "What. Are. You. Doing. Here. Anyway?"
"Well, it wasn't my choice that I'm here today. I got pawned off in a shop called the Last Wednesday Society for some drink money, and has been gathering dust in a cage in that shop for 10 stinking years until Amanda O'Neil here bought me last year. We've been hanging out ever since."
"Were you pawned off because you tried to show off again?"
"Oh, come on! Maybe it is my fault that a previous wielder of yours took a Confederate bullet to the face, but that was just ONE time!"
And so everyone spent the next five minutes listening to the Shiny Rod and the Shooting Star arguing with each other like a minimal wage housewife and her celebrity ex-boyfriend.
Both sapient item's argument were only halted when their respective owners intervened - Akko by grabbing Shiny Rod and slamming its blunt end on the floor; Amanda by catching Shooting Star and then punching it in its arrowhead. Both sapient items let out pained groans upon getting "disciplined" by their owners.
"Long story, huh?" Amanda glared at Shooting Star.
"Just how many 'long stories' do you have...?" Akko shot Shiny Rod a curious but annoyed glance.
"At this rate, I'm sure we're going to get 'long story' as the answer for everything..." Sucy stepped in and shrugged.
Amanda gripped Shooting Star with both hands to ensure it can't fly off on its own.
"Sorry about all of this, Teach." Amanda then apologized to Ursula. "I'll be on my way right now, and you can have your chit-chat with the Reds..."
With that, Amanda hopped onto Shooting Star and flew out through the window that she crashed into the room from, where Constanze and Jasminka popped in for a bit to check on her. The redhead then promptly left the scene with her Coven mates.
"I never Amanda has a talking broom. One that has known Shiny Rod for a very long time, even..." Akko muttered.
"I'd rather be called Shiny Rod than to see that broom, ever again..." Shiny Rod complained.
Ursula then turned back to the Red Coven. "So where were we? About Miss Cavendish's... um... mommy issues?"
...
Unbeknownst to the Red Coven, Shiny Rod, and even Ursula, they are being spied upon by a certain cabbage-haired prodigy from right outside the office.
Diana, still desiring ownership of Shiny Rod despite what had happened yesterday, followed the Red Coven all the way here, as she found herself outside Professor Ursula's office yet again. Diana refused to believe that a klutz of muggle heritage like Akko could ever possibly be worthy of the legendary artifact that is Claiomh Solais (though it isn't because Diana is racist, as her belief has nothing to do with racism). Even if the Rod tells her straight to her face with utmost brutal honesty that she is not worthy, Diana will do whatever it takes to claim it.
She just couldn't believe that the reason she is not worthy of even touching the Claiomh Solais is because of her relationship with her mother.
Just how long does that woman have to haunt my life...?
Finally, I was able to get this posted after fighting through a bad case of Writer's Block.
So yeah, we're introduced to Shooting Star here, and like Shiny Rod, it can talk. Their relationship are like an old married couple, and like an old married couple, they argue with each other about stuff. [Shiny Rod X Shooting Star] ship, anyone? What would the ship name even be called? Shiny Star?
Anyways, with the Covid-19 pandemic getting worse and worse by time, do obey the quarantine measures, and stay safe at home. Your god forsake you if you decide to ignore the quarantine for whatever reason.
"Just remember: a believing heart is your magic..."
Afterwords end here.