Freedom.
Oh, finally, after weeks of being stuck in her own wretched bag, Charmcaster was free from her imprisonment.
Through a stroke of luck or ironic twist of fate, her constant encounters with a certain saviour of the universe had inadvertently allowed her to participate in what she thought was a monument to his ego. A game show dedicated to winning the right to be one Mrs Tennyson.
Pfft, as if she would entertain such nonsense.
But she wasn't the type to give up, she hated seeing others win but she especially hated to lose. And oh, she would win and do it at any cost. An ache in her heart as her father's disapproving gaze burned in her mind. What would her father think now, seeing her in this mess? She shook her head. She had failed though. Sent to the Null Void and teamed up with her fellow contestants to overthrow Charles Zenith along with Tennyson.
And here was her due reward.
A face full of sand and dirt, out in the middle of a FUCKING desert!
Still, she was free.
Well, free was relative in the eye of the beholder and luck only ever got her so far.
She brushed herself off, looked around her surroundings and decided her best course of action was to find civilisation. She chanted a spell to reveal where the closest city was and a bright pink arrow shot from her hands, spinning dramatically in the air before it pointed right.
The arrow evaporated into fine mist and so did her energy as she sunk to her knees, sweat from her brow as she sucked in air.
Why was a directional spell taking so much out of her?
She was the ultimate magic user! She had conquerored Addwaitya and was the Ruler of Legerdomain! It was preposterous for her not to have magic! Her imprisonment didn't drain that much of her energy and her little participation in the game show merited the smallest slivers of effort so what was causing this?
A rune glowed in the palm of her hand and that was when she knew who was behind all of this.
"Oh, that precocious little bitch!"
Gwen, her archnemesis, had taken precautions and had linked a sealing rune to her, in case she escaped. Worse, it was a conditional seal, so she had no idea how to be free of it if she didn't know what conditions to fulfill.
Her eye twitched dangerously, as annoyance evolved into seething, boiling fury at once again being duped. That's okay, though, she was free. She breathed in and out through her nose.
A broke, homeless master magician that had no magic in the ass end of nowhere. Still, there was always a silver lining. At least, they didn't know where she was.
"It's okay, Charmcaster. You'll just have to figure out a way to bypass the seal and get your magic, get your bag, come up with another plan to get back at dear old Gwendolyn and let the bitch get what's coming to her. Positive thoughts, Charmcaster, positive thoughts." Her positive thoughts were positive for her but graphic and gruesome to the general public (and redacted for the sake of this story).
Once that was done, she began her confident stride towards civilisation.
An hour into her trek and that march became more of a lumber as the sun beat away at her. Her skin-tight suit and meticulously designed purple coat did nothing to alleviate her situation. She shucked it off to use it as a cover from the heat. Now, here she was, stewing in misery at her situation.
"You only got yourself to blame for this situation, Charmcaster. If only you'd listen to me, you'd be lording your victory over lovely Gwen and be the most powerful wizard to ever grace this earth." She said, imitating the voice of her ex-boyfriend.
"Oh, like I should be taking lessons from the guy who couldn't even beat her once, while I managed to successfully kill her." She argued, in her own voice.
"Yes and quite shortly after, revived your father from the dead, repulsed him to the point that he declined coming back to life and called you a worse tyrant than me, and I enslaved Legerdomain." She said, in the imitation of her father's killer.
"Yeah, well..." She stopped in her tracks. Was she talking to herself? Was she pretending to be her ex? Was she so far gone that she was pretending that Michael and Addwaitya were there just to give her back a sense of normalcy.
"I'm insane." She said, a small fit of giggles burst from her. As she kept thinking more and more about her recent relapse into villainy, everyone probably thought she had lost the plot.
Her giggles had now evolved into full blown laughter as she guffawed and rolled around on the floor. Her sides aching painfully as she continued to laugh. Somewhere along the line, her laughter was no longer a laugh. She had curled into herself, wrapping her arms around to give her some semblance of warmth and comfort as sobs wracked her body.
She didn't know how long she had stayed like that. The heat of the desert vanished with the fiery sun and all that was left were the stars in space, distant and cold.
Cold.
'Hope, is it really you? You've grown.'
'Daddy, I've missed you.'
'How is this possible?'
'I've studied every spell, collected every talisman to bring you back. I sacrificed every living thing in Ledgerdomain, all for you.'
'You did what?'
'I had to, it was the only way.'
'How could you conceive of something so evil? I sent you away from here so you could be free of this life.'
'But daddy, I-I missed you so much.' She reached out to hug him, tears streaming down her face.
'I know.' Spellbinder said. His hands coming into hug her instead they encircled themselves around her neck. Hope choked, falling to her knees as her father's eyes bled away to red.
'I should have killed you when I had the chance, knowing the monster you would become.' '
No, daddy, please.' She begged futilely, pushing back to no avail.
'Shh, it'll be all over soon.'
'Stop!' A surge of power exploded from her hand. The pressure on her neck subsided and her darkening vision brightened.
She wished she had died then and there.
Her father stood there, a gaping hole in his chest.
'You will always be a monster and monsters need to be put down.'
His nightmarish form dissolved into a puddle of inky blackness as it raced along the ground. Hope shot a mana bullet but it did nothing as its form simply reshaped itself around it. It latched onto her foot, climbing up her leg in its grip. Hope fell, as if the jaws of death had taken a bite out of her and she could do nothing as it crept up higher.
"No! No! NO!"
She screamed, waking up to the coldness of the barren desert, the little fire she had made reduced to mere cinders.
"Daddy."
She continued to trek through the night, uncertain of who she was but not of her destination. As dawn peaked over the horizon, she saw the sign of civilisation.
A road.
And where there were roads, there were cars.
She jumped onto the road, her body sagging in relief at finally achieving something. She almost didn't see the van pull up to her. A woman in the driver's seat with strawberry blonde hair and freckles in a checkered shirt rolled her window down. She had a thick Georgian accent.
"Howdy sister! You need a lift?"
"Of course I need a lift!" Was Charmcaster's snappy response and at the woman's raised eyebrow, she realised was not the best move. "Sorry, I''ve been stuck here for a while, I'm just…I'm just tired."
"Aren't we all, girl? Hop in." Charmcaster let out an easy breath, opening the van door as she sat in the front seat with the stranger. The woman grabbed a bottle of water from the back, tossing it to her. "Help yourself."
"Thank you…Where are we going?"
"Just a little holiday to Cancún for this gal. Hope you don't mind the destination."
"Cancún?"
"Yup, popular holiday spot in Mexico. The best in R&R. Or at least, that's what my cousin tells me."
Charmcaster mulled over it, she didn't need R&R. She needed her magic back. She needed her power back. She needed…a break.
"What the hell, why not?"
