WolfGear Presents: Negima? The mage and the Gunslinger
Pairings: Negi X ku-Fei Kaede X OC
Chapter 64: The cat of Christmas past
I don't own Negima
It was finally that time of year, it was the beginning of the Christmas season and for a certain childhood time traveling teacher mage, it was a time to relax from his stress full teaching job and settle down with his girlfriend with some nice hot coco. That is what Negi would like to do at least. Unfortunately he had to help with the Christmas festival and new student settle in.
"Miss McCoy I know that this is a big change for you, but could you please perhaps at least try to get along with the other girls." Negi pleaded with his new student.
Jesse McCoy, Jack McCoy's twin sister scowled at the little mage. She didn't want to get along with these ignorant fools! The ones like Kaede, Ku Fei, Sayo, Mana, and the twins were the only ones she could stand to be around. She swore she would go crazy if she had to listen to another idiotic speech from Ayaka.
"This is stupid! I never wanted to go to this dumb school! This place almost makes me wish I was back with that basterd vampire Dracula!" Jesse complained. Being isolated from normal people for almost her entire life, Jesse had become a bit of a social reject. For some stupid reason the dean, Takahata or someone who liked screwing with her life thought she needed to experience a normal life, and sent her to live with her brother here. So far the results have not been satisfactory. Jesse is anything, but normal, like most of the girls at Mahora. Her violent temper though had resulted in many earthquakes, and her bonding time with Jack translated as the two sparing causing not only more earthquakes, but many fires as well.
Negi sighed. The two truly where twins, Jack acted the same way when they first met, it was like the cowboy couldn't go a day without breaking something. The only reason he was the way he was now, was because of his girlfriend, Kaede Nagase. But Jesse might be a different matter, seeing how an all girls' school wasn't exactly the best place for a girl to find someone.
"It's Christmas break Jesse. Go have fun and make some friends, and I don't mean at the bar you and Jack go to. Real friends, I'm sure you'll find that your classmates aren't as bad as you think they are." Jesse huffed at the small teacher, but eventually nodded and left the room. Negi was her brother's best friend, and he was just trying to be nice, she couldn't stay mad at him.
Outside Jack was enjoying a casual smoke in the snow. Now being a fire user had its advantages and disadvantages when it was cold out. The advantage was that you were your own living thermos, the disadvantage was you tended to metal all the snow around you making quite the scene.
"Wow it's like spring!" Fuuka cried sitting one the nice dry grass that surrounded Jack. There was a complete five foot diameter circle around him of pure grass.
"Yeah it's so warm I don't even need my coat!" Fumika said shredding her extra layers, "Hey Jack why don't you help with the decorating? Don't you like Christmas?"
Jack smiled, guessed he was looking a little sour; it wasn't that he disliked Christmas, no in fact he loved it! It just the fact that… "The pine tree burst into flames to easy, if I get to close puff! Christmas tree becomes burnt charcoal. So it's better if I stay way." He emitted embarrassed, it had to do with the heater effect he has, just look at the area around him, how hot do you think it is around him?
A jolly laugh filled that air. All eyes turning in it direction and saw Thomas McCoy snowboarding down the sidewalk and throwing snowballs at his son Kataro, who followed close behind.
"Come on you got to be faster than that boy!" Thomas yelled to his son, jumping over Jack and the twins throwing a large amount of snow over the trio as he passed. He was using his ice abilities to make snow beneath his feet like iceman from X men.
"I'll get you!" Kataro yelled after his father running over the snow hill covering Jack and the twins. It began to melt and the three watched the father son duo ran off creating more mayhem as they went.
"Well," Jack yawned, "Better go check on Jesse at Grandma's. I have a feeling that Negi's little speech was met with resistance." Jack said melting the remainder of the snow off him and girls and made his way towards the cottage, it was weird to think of her as his grandma, but the evidence is in the genes.
Eva's Cottage
Jesse sighed as she nursed the cup of hot coco in her cold hands. She had actually done as Negi had asked and gone and help decorate, but things didn't go very well. The mere thought of it was vexing. She was a highly trained earth sorceress, and the greatest Earth user ever and she couldn't decorate a damned tree! All because the stupid glass kept breaking in her damned hand!
"You should really learn to restrain yourself dear," Evangeline scolded, "When you're in a foil mood, your magic tends to go haywire, which is why those blobs shattered."
"I know grandma, but I just don't fit in here! Why can't we just go have Christmas at the ranch?" Jesse whined. A giant tick mark appeared on Eva forehead at the grandma comment, she and Jake had officially married and now she was officially branded loli grandma by Rakan, course this might just be fate catching up with her too.
"Because Jack wants to spend Christmas with Kaede, and it wouldn't be Christmas without him, plus I still can't leave so that's all the more reason to party here." Eva said taking the seat across from Jesse. She wanted to help her granddaughter more, but she felt the same about being stuck in this school. "Listen Jesse don't judge the others on Ayaka's annoying attitude. Go to the party, have fun, and then enjoy Christmas with your family. If you keep this sour mood up Santa will leave you nothing, but coal."
"You believe in Santa?" That was surprising, Jesse thought to herself, Eva would have been the last one she would have suspected still believe in the child's tale, especially at five hundred years old.
"I know that look and I'll have you know Santa is very real. Why two hundred years ago on this day I had just finished breaking into this poor folk's house and stole it for my own. That night after I fell asleep in front of the dying fire a woke to the scent of good magic, but when I a woke there was nothing but coal stuffed in the stocking above the fireplace, which was good because the fire had gotten low and I needed more fuel." Jesse was stupefied by either the fact that Santa was real or Eva finally went crazy or more so that she was grateful getting coal was perplexing and had no idea how that was relevant to what they were talking about.
"So you're saying I should be bad?" Jesse inquired, she got a swift bonk on the head from Eva for that one.
"No you twit! I'm saying you should be good because more than likely you won't be stuck out in the cold, but you will be if you keep up this altitude!" Evangeline yelled fiercely. Suddenly the front door swung open with Jack and the twins standing in the entrance. "Oh good Jack you're here, please talk sense into your sister for me." Eva said sweetly leaving the room.
Jack sighed taking a seat across from his sister, he knew this was coming, he just had hope it wouldn't. "I see you took Negi's advice." Jack said indicating the numerous cut marks on her hands and fingers. Normally small cuts like those would have disappeared in seconds with their healing factor, but with Jesse in such a funk, her magic was swirling around confused.
"Why do am I forced to be friends with those fools. I don't understand why it's not enough that I get along with Kaede and the others." She didn't know this but the magic counsel (What's left of it) believed her to be a threat and had ordered the Dean to integrate her into modern mundane societally. Course when the Dean told Jack and the other McCoy's they were outraged, but thought Jesse should give normal life a chance, and if she didn't adept then screw the counsel, it's not like they had any authority to back up there decisions anymore.
"Just give it a few more weeks Jesse, and if you still hate it here we'll go get you set up at the Ranch. Now get on over to Rubi's place. She wants to give you one of mom's dresses to wear at the party tonight, so don't disappoint her." Jack told or rather ordered her. He breathed a sigh of relief when she nodded and made her way out the door. He really didn't what to do anymore, and hoped Rubi would have better luck, seeing how she looked exactly like their mother.
At Rubi's house with was another cottage similar to Eva's deeper in the woods. Jesse modeled one of her mother's few dresses. It was a simple red dancing dress with rose designs. Sayo her wonderful former ghostly cousin stood next to her similar white dress.
"You two look great!" Rubi said excitingly taking picture of the two. She was having a wonderful time teasing the two girls. Not that they weren't looking very beautiful, but making the two blush rosy red was just too much fun; it was like when she and Abi used to go out on dates. "Alright I'll see you too later have fun!" Rubi waved them off. She hoped Jesse would be alright, she was still so awkward with other people.
At the dance everyone was having a good time dancing, chatting, and just being plain silly. The Mahora girls quickly placed their calms on the attending males. Some girls many the ones of 3-A had placed their hopes of dancing with Negi, but their hopes where shattered when the child teacher arrived with Ku-Fei wrapped around his arm.
"Sorry girls she asked first." Negi cheerfully told them. He was glad not to be dragged into some ridiculous madness that always seemed to ensue when the girls got an idea in their head. As the couple passed by the refreshments, Negi saw Jesse out of the corner of his eye alone by the wall. He wanted to go over to her and encourage her to join but a cold shiver ran down his spine. Behind him was Jack dancing with Kaede. The cowboy was sending a very clear message to leave his sister be.
"Negi, leave her alone. She has to do this on her own." Jack said telepathically. Using his contract with Kaede Jack was able to use the bonds of friendship between the two couples to hack into Ku's and Negi's link. Knowing what would happen if Negi ignored Jack's warning Negi submitted to his friend and returned his focus his girlfriend and started to dance to Rocking around the Christmas tree.
Jesse watched Negi move away from her, and noticed the wink Jack gave her as he and Kaede spiraled on by. She was grateful for Jack intervening, she didn't know what made the child teacher think he could help her, but she didn't want it and it was getting annoying to say the least.
"Hey you want to dance?" A male voice asked snapping Jesse out of thoughts; a bunch of guys had formed a circle around her and were bombarding her with requests to dance. Jesse's head began to spiral and the room began to spin, she was nervous and when she got nervous she got angry.
"Leave me alone!" Jesse screamed, earth magic swirled around her and blew the boys back with a mighty shockwave. When she calmed down Jesse was standing in a five foot diameter crater. She waited for the screams of the others attending but when she opened her eyes everyone that didn't know about magic had fallen asleep, mostly likely because of a sleep spell by Negi or someone.
"Jesse…" Jack said approaching, but before he could get close to her she crumbed to dust meaning Jesse had already left.
Jesse ran, she ran as fast as she could through the snow. Her shoes discard somewhere far behind leaving her bare foot in the snow. She felt ashamed. Ashamed of what she had done, and ashamed for running from her brother. Finally she came to a stop beneath the world tree, it was cold out and she only wore the thin dress Aunt Rubi had given her, and unlike Jack she wasn't a walking heater, and soon emotion exhaustion and the cold set in and Jesse drifted to sleep.
"Jesse, Jesse, it's time to wake up Jesse."
"What who's there," Jesse said opening her eyes. The night sky was clear and filled with bright stars, and judging by the position of the moon it was about three A.M in the morning. Crap did she stay out here all night? Strange she didn't feel cold at all.
"Ah good your awake." A female voice said starling the earth user. Jesse whipped her head left and right and saw no one, it was then she felt something fuzzy on her head, which was strange because she was sure she wasn't wearing a hat earlier.
"Who are you, where are you?" Jesse demanded. A small orange paw appeared in her vision. Quickly she plucked the thing off her head and saw that it was an orange cat?
"Hello, you looked cold so I warmed you up." The cat said waving a paw. An aura of fire magic resonated from the small animal. This was clearly a fire cat, though a much smaller one then Aunt Rubi that was for sure.
"Who are you?" The cat turned up its nose.
"It's rude not to introduce yourself before asking for another's name, but I will overlook that if you tell me why you are running around dressed like that in this weather." The cat said lying down on the ground and began to clean its fur.
"I… I was running away. From my brother, from everything I guess. I just felt so ashamed that I couldn't fit in with normal people, and I felt like I disappointed everyone. You see I used to be a slave to Dracula and whenever I would disappoint him or disobey him he would zap me with this obedience spell and take away my freedom. I guess I was afraid that would happen again if I didn't learn to live with normal people."
"That's stupid," The cat said rolling on to its belly. "Why would your family do that? If I were you I would be more ashamed of believing they would hurt you like that then running way. Now you should get back to them. They'll probably worried about you." As if to prove the cats point the sounds of multiple voices call out for Jesse echoed through the woods. "See, now get going." The cat motioned with its paw.
Jesse sprang to her feet and began to run but stopped at the edge of the clearing and turned back to ask the cat its name but it had already disappeared.
"Jesse!" Jack yelled seeing his sister in the clearing. "What are you doing we've been looking for you for hours! Where have you been? And what the hell where you thinking running out here dressed like that? Hey are you listening?"
Jesse nodded. "Yeah I hear you and I'm sorry. Can we just go home now?" Jack pulled of his coat and draped it over Jesse's shoulders; he was surprised to see that she hadn't turned blue from the cold.
"Come on, let's go." He prompted leading the way down the path, using his heat effect to keep them both warm.
"Hey Jack?"
"Yeah?"
"Is truth what they say about ghosts being able to interact with the living on this day?" Jesse asked thinking of the cat, it just had to be her, who else could it have been?"
"I suppose. I mean Sayo once a ghost. Why did you mean someone?" Jack asked wondering where she was going with this.
"Maybe"
Author's note
Ok that is the Christmas story and I butchered to it kingdom come. I originally wanted to have something to do with accidently shooting Santa, either Jack or future Jack and then they try to deliver the toys. Then I started this one and I started this and I thought the ghosts of Christmas past, and then this happened because I wanted to get this done. By the way the cat was Abi. Anyways Merry Christmas and This chapter is not part of the main storyline. The story will resume where I let off, hopefully it won't take too long to get it out, but I've been working on my other story New Lagoon and still experiencing writers block for this story.