Jesse blinked at Olivia.
Back at Ellegaard.
Then back at Olivia.
"... you... you can't see it?"
Olivia frowned, glancing from Ellegaard to Jesse. "I can sense she's kinda got some negative energy aura going on, and I don't exactly wanna get close to her, but... there's no strings anywhere."
Jesse looked between Ellegaard- mired in a web of angrily hissing and screeching and humming whispers and dark strings that oozed such malevolent energy that even approaching it honestly made Jesse uncomfortable- and at Olivia, who seemed confused.
"... oh."
There was a long pause.
... they could use light magic to try to free her.
They'd used it twice before; once it was kind of lumped in with a healing spell so not quite just light magic, but it would work.
"... I'm going to try using light magic," Jesse mumbled to Olivia, wiping their nose again, before lifting their hand and beginning to recite the little spell that Romeo had taught them through howling wind and screaming storm around them.
Olivia blinked, as if about to cut them off, but then a little glow emitted from Jesse's hands and flitted to the web, beginning to seep into the dark ooze and cut through it, peering through the dripping, oozing strings-
And immediately crushed out, as if someone had thrown burning embers onto a pile of leaves and promptly stomped them out with no mercy.
The demon stared, completely boggled as Jesse kept repeatedly shooting the spell at the webs with limited success.
Okay, fine, no success.
"Light magic?" Olivia blinked at Jesse, who was still using the spell that Romeo had taught them, but every little blast was swallowed by the sticky, oozing strings, much like the time Aiden had been hurt and lying there and Lukas and Maya had been unable to do anything except watch. "Since when did humans know how to use light magic?"
"Since I had to use it to help Lukas..."
Olivia watched Jesse repetitively use the spell before she shook herself out of a slightly stunned stupor and grabbed their wrist before they could fire off another one. "No, listen- you're wasting energy using a bunch of little spells. It's like... like throwing a bunch of little stones into a lake to make a big splash rather than just shoving a boulder in."
Olivia had no idea if her analogy would work, since sometimes kids came in and they were glued to their smartphones, but Jesse's eyes lit up in understanding.
"Oh, I see..." Jesse wiped their face quietly. "... then a light spell would work, but it would have to be really powerful."
Olivia nodded, frowning over at Ellegaard. "Go big or go home, right? I'd grab the spellbook, but since the door's locked..."
"Oh- I have one!" Jesse reached into their little backpack and pulled out the tome, starting to flip it open.
Olivia blinked.
"I thought humans didn't use magic in your world," she said, rather bluntly.
"We don't, Romeo gave me the book..."
Jesse flipped through about seventeen more pages before they stopped and poked the page with their finger, checking the spell description.
There.
One of the most powerful light purification spells in the book-
And it required redstone as a component for the spell to work.
Jesse stared blankly. They absolutely knew what redstone was; Harper used it everywhere, but how were they supposed to get ahold of it? Go around to every machine in the building grabbing handfuls of it? They'd undoubtedly break something.
"Something wrong?" Olivia's brow had creased as she watched Jesse stare blankly down at the page. "You just... kinda froze up."
"..." Jesse frowned, considering the question and turning it over in their mind, before hesitantly peeking up at her. "I found a spell... but it needs redstone as a component."
"How much?" Olivia asked, reaching into her pocket. "If it's just a few pieces, I can spa-"
"Enough to sprinkle on the floor around me in a circle," Jesse said meekly.
Olivia paused. In any other situation, it would've looked comical, with her half-leaning to her left to get deep into her right pocket, but it wasn't, and neither of them were laughing.
"... ah."
A short pause.
"I do not have enough for that."
She pulled out what she had- which looked like a few fistfuls- and began to count, her lips forming the shapes of the numbers as she silently ran through them- then looked up to meet Jesse's eyes. "I've got six. Assuming you want a solid line and not something with possible gaps, we need three more."
She handed over the redstone, getting glittery dust on the blanket that would undoubtedly remain until kingdom come, and looked around, giving the room a cursory look before muttering six swears in a row. "Fuck. Yeah, sorry, I don't think I've got any..."
Jesse looked at Ellegaard, who was still working on a blueprint despite being weighed down with strings that Olivia couldn't see. They weren't close enough to hear the whispers anymore, but they could still feel what felt like slimy fingers running down their spine and sending chills up their back.
"... would... would she have any?"
The dark-skinned demon looked over at Ellegaard, tilting her head to the side. "... give me a minute."
Jesse obediently nodded, but when Olivia started to approach they grabbed her shirt. "Wait, you can't see the strings..."
"I'm not gonna reach into her pocket or anything. I'm going to see if I can talk to her," Olivia said, with a confidence that surprised Jesse. She looked so serious all of a sudden.
(Truthfully, Olivia was sweating bullets, but Jesse didn't exactly need to know that.)
After a moment longer, Jesse slowly removed their fingers from the hem of her shirt, taking a hesitant little step back and letting Reuben snuffle against them.
Olivia knelt next to Ellegaard, her throat bobbing as she swallowed what was undoubtedly a nervous lump. "Ellegaard?"
The woman's eyes flickered up to her briefly. Otherwise, there was no reply.
Olivia's voice was firm- not harsh, or strict, but despite her voice being soft, there was a definite solidity to it that made Jesse feel like they could reach out and hold onto it like a tangible object. "I need to use some redstone. You're... well, you haven't been yourself, so I think... I think Jesse could help with that."
Ellegaard stared emotionlessly.
"I know, you want me to bring my own. I did bring my own, but I didn't think I was about to make a circle with it like I was repelling a demon or something."
It was likely that Jesse was hopefully imagining things, but they swore they saw Ellegaard's lips curl up the tiniest amount at that.
"... actually, never understood why humans thought that works. It works for spirits but not demons. Anyway." Olivia focused dark red eyes onto Ellegaard's face. "Can I have just three pieces? I promise I'll bring my own next time."
Ellegaard's expression almost darkened. To Jesse's horror, the strings began to thicken, coalescing and oozing and the whispers intensifying.
Olivia jerked back for a moment, but then her shoulders slumped.
"Please?" Olivia's voice had dropped to a whisper.
The girl leant forward slightly, almost pressing their forehead to Ellegaard's but hardly daring to touch her, stopping a whisper away from actually making contact. Her heart was flitting about in her chest like a butterfly. "I miss you."
It was difficult to say this, knowing how dumb it sounded- she'd been right there the whole time, how could Olivia have missed her?
But she had.
She'd missed snark and sarcasm and getting corrected every two minutes and the occasional hug or nudge to the ribs. She'd missed papers piled up on the stairs and getting breakfast in the morning and watching Ellegaard walking through the doors with a mess of hair. She'd missed having Ellegaard attack her hair with a comb.
She'd missed her. Even though she'd been right there the whole time.
She got shoved away, something dropping into her lap, and she reeled backwards before landing hard on her butt.
Ellegaard was glowering down at her papers, which made Olivia's heart sink; but Jesse was smiling.
"What're you smiling 'bout?" Olivia muttered, scowling at Jesse.
"You got through a little," Jesse said softly, pointing at her lap. Olivia's eyes trailed down to see what Jesse was pointing at.
There, in her lap, resting on top of her legs and glittering in the dim light, were three pieces of redstone.
A/N: yaaaay xD
I'm back at school and working on a game jam again, so I probably won't be able to update for a week or so.
Wow can't believe the last time I edited was last decade. xD
RQTC: How often do you like to go out?
When I'm at school, sometimes I just wanna stay inside- mostly when I have work to get done.
Lately, I've been struggling to continue writing, and I've found it's mostly due to the number of reviews I have to reply to. I really am super grateful for everyone's support, and I love talking to you guys, but unfortunately I don't have time to respond to every single remark comment, and the idea of having to do it is starting to make me procrastinate on publishing new chapters. So I'm limiting my review replies to questions, remarks that I just have to reply to, or new people who I've never seen before; and maybe a couple remarks. I hope you guys understand; but thank you so much for your support! I really, really appreciate it.
Responses to reviews (new):
Toni42: Django did not tell you that xD
Northern Goshawk: A little bit. I was just kinda teasing haha.
TheAmberShadow: That's okay, I gingerly expected that there was a misunderstanding there. / I wasabi under the impression that I didn't talk about the Witherstorm? It was all negative energy. / I'm sushi amused by the whole matter.
Saran: People usually can feel the malevolence it gives off even if they're not physically seeing the strings, thus they avoid the strings. Which drives the strings crazy cause they'd love the attention xD
That's all for now! See ya, so long, and g'bye!
x.X. A.L. X.x
"Another one of these weird 'omake' things..." Aiden sighed and cleared his throat. "Well, okay. Most of the time the author doesn't have anything new to share- no old snippets or taken-out-parts- so they'll just be using this as the omake."
He took a deep breath, and then began.
"A fun fact about development is that Lukas can see through the blindfold, but that's not revealed until later. Like, really later on. I mean, you infer that he sees, but you don't know the reason is-" Another censoring by static. "- until pretty late on. So... whatever, I guess."
Aiden paused. "Oh, yeah. Another fun fact is that the character of Sirena was named off of a character that the author once made for a comic. It was never released, publicly or anything, but it was a name that stuck with them, so here we are. Also, Jesse has no canon appearance, so any art that the author makes can and will vary wildly for them."
Another pause.
"Another fun writing fact was that Petra originally had the eyepatch too. However, we eventually stuck her with the tattoo on her arm to differentiate her from the others and for... other reasons that we're not getting into since I'll just get censored again."
He paused.
"That's really it for now. Though, if the author sold MCSM fan-merch, how would people react to that?"
