Fantasy A Witch(er) in Time [Luxim x unais]

[Luxim]

Schmoozing wasn't exactly one of the few things he could put on his short list of proficiencies. Rather, it was one of those things that he knew he had to do to keep his head on his shoulders when faced with someone more powerful and influential than himself, or to get information out of someone that'd crumble too easily when approached with hostility and threat of violence. Knowing what to say wasn't quite as effective if you couldn't play up the part to make it look convincing. Despite all of his mentor's attempts to teach him, Lark still might as well have had his tongue swapped out for a donkey's for as much as he made himself out to be a jackass every time he opened his mouth. In this case, however, it was a fair sight easier. Phone contact always was.

"Thank you for calling Claybon General Hospital. This is Lacey, how may I help you?" The girl on the other end sounded young. There was a chipper sort of bounce to her tone, probably the result of either trying to keep up the spirits of fretting family members all day or being so whipped that she'd forgotten how to let a smile drop.

"Yeah, uh, I'm lookin' for a buddy of mine. I heard she was admitted about a week ago for illness, but I was out of town and just got back. I wanted to check up on her, see how she was doin'. Her name's Panyin ―"

"Ah, yes, just a moment." Lark drummed his fingers on his bike's handlebars as Lacey tippity-tapped away at her keyboard. "I'm very sorry, but it looks like Miss Panyin isn't here anymore."

His heart skipped an anxious beat. "What do you mean?"

"It looks as if she checked herself out a few days ago."

Lark released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding in. "So she's okay?"

"Yes, she's made a full recovery."

"Thank God. And you too, Lacey. Thank you so, so much."

"Not a problem! Have a nice day!" Click.

It hadn't taken long for him to find the hospital she'd been admitted to. There were only two different hospitals in Claybon, and a handful or two of general clinics. Panyin wasn't the only one who had been ill and seemed to have recovered recently, though; Lark, similarly, had been bed-ridden for a week, but no one had had the consideration to get him to a hospital. His mentor had... left shortly before he fell ill, and they hadn't said a word of where they were going. All he'd been left was a promise and a picture.

"I'll accept you as my equal if you track this woman down and kill her."

Killing wasn't necessarily his style. Never had been, really, but he'd put in the work where he'd had to. Larceny was more his forte. Paid better, too. Didn't help that he was the smallest member of the gang he ran with, and the best with his hands. He'd started out with being forced into the role ― "You're the smallest, so you go in there first!" ― before growing into it more naturally. (Maybe that was part of a funny thing called "fate".) Being considered his mentor's equal, though... earning their acceptance... just the thought of it sent an electric tingle through his synapses.

Lark tucked his phone into his back pocket and flicked down his helmet's visor. He revved the engine once, twice ― it purred like a kitten, roared like a lion, then streaked off down the street like a cheetah. If she wasn't at the hospital, then that narrowed it down to the college he'd been told she attended.

Twenty minutes and two near-collisions later, the college came into view. Insofar, it hadn't crossed his mind exactly how he was going to find her. If he asked around, there was chance she'd be alerted by someone she knew. After all, they were strangers. He'd want to be given forewarning if a stranger were looking for him too. He brought the bike to a halt on the sidewalk as he gave the place a good once-over. According to what he'd been told, there were only vague time frames in which he could find her in specific places. Most of them entailed physically going inside of the building to find the labs, but there was also the chance that she was crossing campus to get groceries.

Lark revved the bike again. It was a huge gamble, but he didn't want to have to storm inside of the college itself if he didn't have to. (He had no fucking clue where the labs were.)

Through the parking lot.
Past the main building, into the central courtyard that separated both halves of the college.
Students either cussed at him or screamed as he blazed past them, not making even a single attempt to swerve or to avoid missing them. He was focused on one thing and only one thing: finding that damned girl. Either by luck or extreme coincidence, his gamble paid off: Panyin was, indeed, crossing the campus for groceries. He'd stared at that picture his mentor had given him for long enough. There was no chance that he was mistaking another girl for her. Besides... there was a... funny, familiar smell to her. Something he didn't quite have the knowledge or know-how to place...

Lark grinned, shark-like, as he pushed up the speed to the danger zone. He nearly ran over sandy-haired student who had his nose buried in his cell phone. The student let out a sharp cry of frustration (and more than a few expletives) as he fell and landed on his elbow, tearing a hole in what was otherwise a nice jacket and sending his phone clattering over the cement. Lark didn't see the student's fingers twitch. One moment, he was speeding toward the target he'd been pointed at. In the next, his motorcycle jerked, as if it'd been shoved. It went careening across the walkway on its side, directly toward Panyin. One of its mirrors snapped off. Its fine paint was surely scratched up. Lark rolled as he hit the ground and was on his feet quickly. He hissed at the stinging scrapes on his knee and right arm. Whatever had happened, however she'd managed to do that, he hadn't the slightest, but he had bigger problems to contend with. His motorcycle would have to wait. Campus security was charging over in their direction. Fifty feet and counting.

"Stay the fuck over there!"

Forty feet.

"I'm telling you, stay back!"

Thirty.

Three strikes, you're out.

Lark made the only sign he actually knew how to use. It wasn't potent, but it was just potent enough to catch fire to the security personnel's clothing. As if the students weren't in enough of a panic, they began to scramble now. A magic user? Attacking them here? It was a veritable nightmare come to life! He knew, as the security personnel dropped and rolled in effort to extinguish the flames, that he only had a short time before police arrived on the scene.

Fine, then. Quick it'd have to be. Lark turned to face Panyin, and prepared to set agni upon her as well.

 

[unais]

Buzz...

There was a buzz rising behind her head. Like a fly in the window. She shook it out.

Everything was like this since the hospital. Well. No. Since.

The edge of her eye twitched. Since Valentine.

She exhaled. And as she did, she heard every bump in the mucus of her throat. Every mesh that air weaved through in her chest to get there. All the rocks and gravel bits rolling under her shoes and dropping away as she stepped. A musky perfume, with an oak and spice faulty chemical. That was fading,forty feet away, and that had passed by eight hours ago. It was all like this.

It was lucky how quickly humans got used to things. The overstimulation had died down until it all became a numb buzz, much in the same way as everything else had been before. How everything else was for any other people. Now there just was a deeper pool to dip down into. A pool that went down deep, deeper than she'd ever imagined to go. Always there beneath her, ready for her to drop down into it once she had decided to stopped treading at its surface. And it was a mirror that magnified everything to a hyper clarity; whenever she dared to focus.

And now the buzz was getting louder. The motorcycle seemed to be on campus, someone tearing through in an attempt for high-riding attention or the need to feel powerful in their trip down dangerous land. More than a few scatterings of posessions and yelps, she turned to watch what was clearly coming in her direction. She needed to know what way to move to get out of it.

Odd. If she could have made contact with what was in the visor it was like he was looking directly at her. She wasn't even in the middle of the walkway, yet his path came clear toward her. She started to edge toward the side of the walkway, and the the bike wobbled, as if tugged off its path by a string. Then it flew off its heels completely. The body of it came at her, with its underside exposed and its wheels still spinning like a blade.

She was lucky she hadn't been carrying much at all.

Her mind was fast. Sometimes creative. And nowadays it was faster.

The creativity, though, seemed unaffected. It came, still, in spurts.

She saw it. That it was going to come down, the edge of what was going to hit, the momentum that was not lost that would send it spiraling up into her as she stood there. Never before had she seen these things play out at such an early juncture. Not since the hospital. And even more so, there should have never been a time where she could move out of the way of a careening vehicle in less than a second.

She ducked down, flattened against the ground without her body spread out. The mirror clipped her shoulder. Shocked her, sending a bite of reality into the unreality of this circumstance. The crash was powerful, and only as it faded she knew it had stopped. She eased up from her position, looking back for it to leer intently at its smoking carcass.

It was gone. It was over. A sigh came in on shaken breath. There were some things about this body that were unclear to her. But now she knew it could save her life when she willed it. She helped herself up, happy that she wasn't carrying much on her to have lost or distracted her a willing moment. Well. Hardly. She felt the phone and keys still in her back pockets.

Then she turned to the man.

What an idiot. Had he really expected this to go well? Just flying through campus on a bike, even if he wanted to out someone, wouldn't it have sent his bike flying upon hitting someone anyway?

But he wasn't ashamed. Distracted, in fact, by trying not to be caught by campus security. Panyin felt this was the best time to start to jog off, away from the scene. To get away what was going to be full tackles and a mess. She also didn't want to be caught up in the due process of witness paperwork, almost victim paperwork.

'Stay the fuck over there!'

Yes, definitely time for her to get away, faster. Without looking back.

'I'm telling you, stay back!'

She felt far enough away to peek, her steps still jogging lightly ahead.

He wrote a symbol in the air, and from it, an explosion of fire arced into the security.

She faltered, nearly tripping herself as she stopped to confirm what she saw. Fire.

Yes. It wasn't illusory. Security was stuck trying to put it out of their clothes as he turned in her direction.

Ooh.

He was dangerous. Not just his bike.

And he came towards her. His steps with intent. He was drawing the symbol he'd done before.

"Wh--" She stepped back, back again just as a flourish of fire burned the air before her, singeing the breath she breathed before she ran.

"Wh-what the FUCK!"

Why.

Her feet beat the concrete hard. He gained on her, she could feel the footsteps just coming close. Her focus changed. Some part of her mind slipped back, directed the drive of her body, but allowing it more control. The steps became easy, streamlining to efficiency, beating to a rhythmn she'd never heard in hercadence before. The world hushed, sound pressed out to concentrate. Everything else seemed to slow, merely an interpretation of their movement trajectories. It was as fast as she could go; now, with this different body. Faster than she could ever have humanly gone.

But she could hear him. Catching up.

That annoyed her. She was not tall. She was not small, either, but the chances that he, a boy, were taller than her was ninety-percent. She glanced back, and pushed through a burst of found energy to get herself further from his range.

Ninety-nine percent. His legs were going to be longer than hers.

There were partitions and sculptings, beddings of plants and other obstacles all passing through this situation in her mind. This body did great work. More physical than she could have ever thought to have been. But she did not trust it now, right now, to perform feats of agility she'd never practiced before. On command. On intent. Repeatedly.

But running. She at least knew how to do that. It sounded like he knew how to do a little more however.

And there was a man in the path. Broader than most, dressed in black. A violin case. He'd been passed over in her sight, and hadn't been seen until now.

(That was odd.)

And he was not moving in the path. In fact, he had stopped walking as he'd seen them coming towards him. She wavered. She needed to go right, or left, or some way around him as the path had narrowed from the long lines of concrete planters partitioning the sides. And she was scared to take a moment to hop up onto the concrete blockings. It could be the moment he could catch her.

But the man left a movement to notice. And stepped aside just in the moment she needed to know what to do. Lovely.

She zipped past him and pushed herself.

Then there was a sound behind her, and she heard the footsteps had stopped. She bounced on a heel to turn, to see the broad man had stopped him. In some way.

She stayed away. Backed up a few steps. This man in could turn out to be on neither side. She felt she trusted him, the backside of him, but with the mysteriousness of the situation, there was no way of knowing if he wasn't on a similar path the motorcyclist was.

 

[Luxim]

"Goddammit, fucking move!"

Fire flared at the young man's fingertips. Nibbled at the leather on his gloves. Less controlled and more allowed to be in control. The fire was no more an extension of his body than the interloper that stood, unflinching, in the direct center of the path, and thus did neither move with silent obedience. It would have been a far simpler thing to waste a few precious seconds to go around, but no ― he refused to take anything but the most direct path toward his would-be quarry.

The helmet obscured the interloper's view of the pursuer's face, but he could easily imagine the possibilities. A widening of the eyes, awestruck. A slight parting of the lips, as if readying to speak but losing the words before they had chance to be spoken. Brief panic in the few moments the pursuer had before he would be forced to make a decision or risk a collision. Speculation, of course; the interloper had no more knowledge of what was going on underneath that helmet than any other observer, but judging by the immature way that the pursuer handled the spark of Agni's blaze, he believed his estimations to have some semblance of truth to them.

The pursuer lashed out with fire and fury again. This time, it did not have the intended effect. There was no ignition of flesh or fabric. The fire hit the front of a dome the pursuer didn't even know had been there and warped around the spherical, translucent shell. Without fuel, it dispersed. Without knowledge and proper handling, it hadn't the power behind it to keep itself alive. As the fire dissipated harmlessly, the pursuer tried to bring himself to a halt. To change his direction, at the very least. That, too, amounted to naught; he'd been at full sprint, with nary enough time to alter his course. Surely the boy thought he'd slip by if the stubborn old mule wouldn't allow him passage. The interloper's eyes flicked down as the pursuer's feet pivoted with intent to step to the right. Five feet, then four, three, two...

And then, within a few blinks of an eye, the pursuer was doubled over. Rasping, wheezing, gasping for air as he clutched his stomach. One quick jab to the stomach was enough to down him.

"A bit of manners would do you some good, young man." The interloper looked down at the young man with every bit the same sort of disappointment a father displayed toward a disobedient son who was brought home in a police car.

"Fuck you," the pursuer said. He coughed wetly. The interloper clicked his tongue as he turned, satisfied that the chase had been, preemptively, ended.

"Miss?" The interloper called to her, not at all surprised to see that she'd stuck around to see what would happen for herself. (She was like most others that were put into dire situations: a sense of urgency and survival bade them to fly, but a morbid sense of curiosity enticed them to stay. After all, if the threat were eliminated, there was no further reason to keep running.) She looked at him, clearly unsure of both of the foreign parties. In a gesture of good faith, the interloper gently set his violin case on the pathway and opened both of his hands. There were no obvious weapons on his person, but he doubted that would be enough to allay suspicions of malicious intent entirely. He could only hope that his body language and tone of voice would be enough to earn her trust, if only for a moment. "I believe it's ― "

Her attention was locked onto something more pressing than himself, the focal point of which seemed to originate from her pursuer. The next few seconds trickled forward slowly. He heard the shuffling of fabric, the scraping of boot heels against the pavement, the metallic click of a folding knife's blade flicking outward. He was glad that he hadn't finished that sentence. "I believe it's safe to relax, now." Wouldn't he have looked the fool?

He turned, sharply, before she had chance to shout a warning. As her pursuer rose and stepped forward to thrust the blade downward, the interloper grabbed his wrist, slid a thumb underneath the blade's cool metal casing and pressed it into his palm.

"Drop that, please. I don't want to have to break your wrist."

"Nnn ― " He let out a small cry as the pressure around his wrist, in his palm, increased. Something cracked, just the smallest bit, but was loud enough to be heard even at the short distance between the two of them and the unfortunate young woman who hadn't asked for such a rude interruption to what was supposed to have been another average day. Unwillingly, the folding knife slipped out of the young man's hand and clattered to the pavement. The interloper pressed his far foot down onto the knife and slid it out of reach.

"Thank you." But he did not release his grip on the young man's wrist. "Now, as I was saying, I believe it's safe to relax now, Miss." He jerked at the pursuer's arm, earning a second, lower, cry. "Is there something you wish to say to her?"

Between shaky breaths, the pursuer uttered just four words: "fuck you, damn bitch".

The interloper and the young miss shared a silent moment between them. She, angry and frustrated with no rhyme or reason as to why her; he, with a primarily placid expression and an accompanying flicker of a smile that changed the entire dynamic of his face. She edged forward carefully, eyes locked on the part of the visor where she believed his eyes to be. The gentleman assisted; he tugged the young man's helmet off, unveiling a wash of feathery yellow hair. A feathered earring dangled from his left ear. He glared at her, unabashed, and gritted his teeth.

"... what the fuck is wrong with you? Why were you chasing me?"

Though he refused to answer at first, another firm tug from the interloper persuaded him to say something. Anything. (The truth, hopefully.) "I was told to." He growled it through teeth and a jaw clenched tight.

"Who ― " By now, her frustration was corporeal. "Who told you to do that?"

But his eyes only narrowed. He said no more.

"Was it a man by the name of Valentine?" The young man tensed immediately at the gentleman's question. He bit down on his lip. It was more than enough of a tell to confirm suspicions. "I suspected as much."

That blasted fool had created an even larger mess than he'd anticipated. He couldn't keep himself from sighing.

"It seems there are many things in need of discussion."

 

[unais]

"Is that it?!" She stumbled, almost unable to reach the words through her anger. "That's the reason you'd fucking chase--" She couldn't grasp it through the surge. "Who?!"

Nothing. Hopeful. She shouldn't have hoped too much for answe--

"Was it a man by the name of Valentine?" His hesitance was enough to tell them fact.

Her chest and stomach tightened. Some fear, mostly confusion. Deep, sown, buried just before the poison took her to coma and it propagated now in her core as the conditions yielded it like a weed. The groan dropped from her lips as she crouched to the ground, head between her knees as she held it, squashed between her elbows.

Valentine. Why was he doing this to her?

There was a touch to her shoulder and she surfaced from her position with the hint of a start.

"A penny for your thoughts?" Oddly gentle. She didn't trust him implicitly, but she knew with some disdain that it was bordering on that.

She stared at him, collecting said thoughts she needed to wrangle into words.

"Valentine 's..." Where to even begin. "A guy who..." She had to work through her own malformed and uncertain conclusions, to explain to a stranger without giving it pause. "Pretended to be my friend... and had me research with him and then he..." Through a growing bramble of heated ire, "poisoned me and burned all my work and now he's trying to kill me I guess..."

It seethed. It burned. To be used clearly just used in a fake friendship was something to be seething for one; but to feel so angry, so irreparably, irrefutably angry, was a new feeling. But not unknowable. Like the feeling of panic, when air is robbed out from one's lungs. When the world falls out from beneath someone, and their stomach flops, the sensation of fear riding up into its place. It was anger. A pure and simple sense that she'd never experienced before. And there was nowhere to go with it.

A chirp of a mechanical noise broke her out of her ruminating fury, looking up to have noticed they were flanked by the school security, who had called the police. Unsurprisingly, for magical infringements took immediate precedence. The man, their interloper, was already engaged with them, affirming their situation as handled and their rankles could be slackened.

"And, you are, sir?"

He stood, not yet towering over them, but tall. His hand still held the blond kid, who was starting to twist about with a bit more ardor as the authorities seemed to close in. As the interloper paused for his ID, the boy fumbled with a mark on the air, which sparked twice and fizzled, to no fanfare from anyone.

Producing a license from his coat the man handed it over, the police inspecting it with the security over their shoulder.

"Gideon Madigan." He introduced himself with a nod.

"Witcher..." The police seemed wary, but his ID seemed to run through their systems just fine. Panyin was shocked. He really had been a Witcher. Though summarily it didn't mean he couldn't mean her harm. There was no end to debate on the neutrality of these men; whether for bad or for worse.

"Well. Mr. Madigan. What's your summary on this incident? Any more casualties than the young woman here?"

"A few frightened students, perhaps. Some singed security guards. Nothing that I've observed seems to be life-threatening, at least, despite all intents." Panyin found herself distinctly wishing she were still on her way to the grocery store. The schedule of hunger and dinner starting to impend. "I'm sure you'll find any security footage to support my statement."

"Of course. Well, then... being that it's a minor magic infringement, I suppose we'll take it from here." The officer gestured towards Blond Boy, who increased his struggle anew. Trying to snap the white signs into life, clumsy with what seemed to be his nondominant hand. Panyin stepped further away.

The Witcher relented, much to her notice. "May I have half an hour to discern the method in which the security guards were set aflame? If I cannot find proof of a more serious magical infringement, then I will gladly turn him over to you."

It was odd. But not. They'd both mentioned Valentine, someone this Witcher... that is, this man who introduced himself as Gideon, it seemed, had some sort of... disappointed father ties to. Likely.

She idled by as he examined the burn scars, signed leather and cloths of varying degrees from before. Blondie himself was one of the instances of examination, not by his consent. They then walked the fair distance to back to where the motorcycle lay, the area cordoned off at this point and having garnered quite a few onlookers for the spectacle of the wreck.

"Was there something off about the motorcycle?" The police seemed perplexed.

"There were indications." The Witcher stood and adjusted the cuff of his sleeve.

"What have you found?"

"The motorcycle seemed to have been taken off course by magical interference. It's not similar to the magic used to attack the students, or security. If you'd like, I could locate the source after another investigation, but for now I would hazard a guess that someone had tried to interfere with the driver. Possibly to stop his path." Certainly not something necessarily worth the effort, but it'd be up to these authorities. He turned somewhat towards the boy. "The magic, however, I can confirm as abnormal. Very similar to Witcher runes, actually, enough to warrant a closer look at these abilities." He stood, talking to them as if he were not holding a struggling adolescent in the one hand. "If there's no issue with it, I'll take this one into custody after giving a statement at the precinct. I'll also keep an eye on the young lady here, as to monitor any aftereffects of her encounter." Magical side-effects or delayed symptoms of abnormal magic were sometimes present with odd magic circumstances.

Panyin didn't know if that was true, the blond guy hardly touched her. But she knew it was to cover their actual explanation that they were likely to talk a long time about Valentine. What to do about him. Where to find him. What she'd likely researched and done for him. The authorities seemed satisfied with Gideon's explanations, if not relieved to not deal with an overly exciting night and the paperwork that would come with. The Witcher, unfortunately, did not get off so easily. But as they were at the station, the officers allowed them to handcuff the boy to himself, allowing the two of them to wait until he was finished.

By the time they were leaving, she'd tuned out the constant noise of the little jailbird beside her, had her head against the wall of the alcove and was drifting between worries snaps of sleep. The Witcher returned and noted the time for them, allaying all college students' temporary fears as he mentioned it'd be ideal to pick them up some food.

He called a ride, and stepped off of the curb as it approached, opening the door and having the boy in first. Then coming around to have her sit in the front. He paused, the door ajar. "My apologies," he looked at her a moment. "I seem to have momentarily forgotten my manners. As you've heard, my name is Gideon Madigan. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?"

Oh! She fumbled with the wallet she pulled from her pants to assure they didn't slip out in the ride over. "It's, ah, it's Panyin." She offered her hand, in her clumsy manner, which he took without a glance to her impropriety.

"Miss Panyin." He nodded, and opened the door for her.

Blond boy was quiet now. Dejected, if not surly, but now unlikely to flee seeing whom he was dealing with ended up being a true and real Witcher who had disarmed him without so much as an afterthought.

"Please, order anything you'd like."

Magic words. She was starving.

There was a shift in the blond one, who was stuck on the inner seat of the both with Gideon. "Don't want your fucking Witcher food."

Oh... kay.

"Then I'll order for you." Unfettered, Gideon picked a fairly sizable panini, it seemed, with all its sides. Panyin picked something smaller, knowing what she could handle. For himself, Gideon picked an ahi steak salad with eggs and a hot tea, Panyin then asking for the same to drink.

"Ah," Gideon began, as the waitress walked away with their orders. "Now that we have a moment, I think I should tell you our plans for the next step." A pause, "and if there's any concerns, please, feel free to voice them and I will do my best to address." Pregnant pause. "The fact remains, that I highly... recommend both of you to come with me, and gain some insight into your current conditions. Unfortunately, it seems that both of you somehow landed in Valentine's warpath, and you've both survived drinking a vial of the Grasses potion. This is typically... a turning point for Witchers in training, something a part of the Trial of the Grasses for adolescents. It is the final potion... which transforms their bodies into that of Witchers." He looked at them steadily. "You've both survived, and this means exactly as I say it to mean now. Miss Panyin... Young Man. You are both now bodily, as you may have realized, Witchers."

"Oh, whoa." She did not like that.

She looked at his eyes, knowing how obvious it should have been before. The plausible deniability had been so strong she simply did not want acknowledge it. The cat's eyes. The ability to see in perfect darkness and blinding light. The sounds beyond her sight. The increased physical aptitude. "Ah..." She didn't quite know what this meant for her. That she was stronger, sturdier, faster? That she could see and smell at a level she couldn't have physically attained before? Wasn't there a load of detractions that came with the body of a Witcher? Infertility was one of them, she recalled, but it was mostly in men as most Witchers were men. She hadn't planned to have kids and it was fine by her. But she was sure there was a whole slew of warnings to the label of Witcher.