Vol.4 Ch.36 – Team Building II
Chapter 36: Team Building II
Mare was sitting back, content to observe the others. The angel had tried her best to teach Aurora magic but she was having a hard time breaking down her knowledge to where it would actually help Aurora, causing Elaine to step in. It would have seemed amusing to Mare but she was too interested in watching the angel. The woman was a puzzle she was beginning to assemble and it was fascinating.
She'd called her torn earlier and that had been right on the mark. This woman hated the position she had been forced into, Mare was sure of it. She didn't know if the problem was her partner, this job of being necromancer hunters or something else but she was sick of it all. She was torn between her sense of duty and her desire to be anyplace, anytime or anyone else. And that was further emphasized by her being completely useless at teaching magic despite allegedly being great at it.
She almost felt bad about being so suspicious of her earlier. The woman didn't have any nefarious secrets to hide, just the fact that she didn't want any of this. At the same time Mare didn't know what to do about it. She kind of wanted to, now, but this wasn't like with Aurora, where the best way to help her was to simply be there for her and make her feel like she belonged.
Speaking of Aurora, being slightly dumbfounded and frustrated by a teacher unable to break down her knowledge enough had clearly dispelled her terror of the angel and she was now seeing her as just another person. And with the angel now holding back and only interjecting when Elaine didn't explain something clearly enough Aurora was finally making progress.
“Focus on the shape you want to create,” Elaine said.
“But what should I create?” Aurora asked again.
“Whatever comes to mind,” Elaine said. “Let your magic guide you. Whatever comes most naturally is the most likely to work.”
“Okay,” Aurora said, then took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
The girl drew the Winds to herself, cocooning herself in them, and finally she began weaving them together. Gray-green magic gathered around her, the magic forming an aura around her about an inch thick, except where it bunched around her wings. She opened her eyes and raised an arm, pointing her palm downrange. A moment later a lance of gray-green air blasted forward and slammed into the target.
Mare had never seen someone cast like this but it had looked gorgeous.
**
“That's not normal,” Kaja muttered from behind Elaine and Elaine couldn't disagree.
She had never seen anyone infuse their aura with magic when casting before. The closest to it she'd seen had been Alexis firing lances of light out of her Dominion of Eternal Summer but Alexis was at a much higher level as Aurora was.
“Maybe it's got something to do with her Soul Shard,” Elaine mused as Aurora flung another spell.
“What Soul Shard does she have?” Kaja asked.
“Fairy Queen Alisha,” Elaine said. “Never heard of her. Maybe from another world?”
“That would explain it,” Kaja said. “Soul Shards from other worlds can get strange.”
“You know a lot about Soul Shards, then?”
“Everyone in Heaven or Hell does. They're fairly common topics of conversation, with how in tune we are with them.”
“Which do you have, then?” Elaine asked.
“Aphrodite,” Kaja admitted, “same as your nurse.”
“You know Rachel?”
“There aren't many Arch Fiends,” Kaja said. “And there aren't many Cherubim either. We know each other, by reputation if not personally. But of all the Arch Fiends Rachel is one of the least objectionable.”
Elaine ached to ask more about that. The idea of gossiping about the upper echelons of Heaven and Hell had never occurred to her but now the topic seemed fascinating. “So you don't hate all of Hell?”
“I try not to hate anyone who hasn't betrayed this world,” she said. “But to give you a proper answer, yes, there are demons that are pleasant company. Just... don't get involved with Behemoth and his entourage. The only Arch Fiend of Gluttony that isn't entirely unpleasant is that little assassin he keeps around and she nearly took my head off the first time we met.”
“Charming,” Elaine said.
“Indeed,” Kaja said, then asked quietly: “The girl was involved with Caulder, wasn't she?”
The shift in gears was jarring, like a swift slap to the face, but Elaine recovered nearly instantly. “She was. How do you know? Did your scan tell you?”
“It didn't,” Kaja said. “And I don't need the scan for that. The skittishness, the wings, the way she avoided eye contact with me specifically, at least before this...”
Before the conversation could continue Aurora rushed over to them, gushing: “Did you see? I can do magic!” She paused. “Oh, were you two busy?”
“Don't worry about it,” Elaine said, taking a chance and patting Aurora's head. “Yes we saw and it was amazing. We've never seen anything like this before.”
“Really?” Aurora looked shocked.
“Summoning an aura like this isn't normal,” Kaja said. “Does that come naturally for you?”
“Um,” Aurora said, slightly taken aback, “Aura?”
“Try to cast that spell again,” Elaine said. “Let's see if we can show you.”
And so they did. It took some experimenting. The camera feature of the CARD, which essentially took perfect screenshots of what the eye was seeing, couldn't pick up the aura and neither could a phone. Eventually they resorted to showing Aurora a mirror, which worked.
“It looks beautiful,” the girl whispered when she saw herself wreathed in gray-green magic.
“You do,” Elaine said, causing Aurora to blush.
**
After teaching Aurora the basics Elaine started grilling the angel about magic and, honestly, this was what Mare had been waiting for. In truth her own knowledge of magical theory was also advanced enough that what they had been teaching Aurora had been too basic for her. The only reason she hadn't offered to do the teaching was that Mare knew full well that, while people found her slow way of speaking irritating at the best of times, in a teaching context it was positively aggravating to experience. And so she'd held back. Even now she was holding back, acting as a shoulder for an exhausted Aurora to lean on while she sipped from a carton of fruit juice and listening intently to what Elaine and the angel were talking about.
The angel was apparently adept at light and ice magic while her partner excelled in water, iron and shadow, elements that were usually described as blood elemental.
“Just please don't call it blood magic in front of him,” the angel said. “He hates that term and is sensitive about it.”
“Why?” Elaine asked.
“Bad connotations,” Kaja admitted. “It's silly but as the protege of Angel Lord Gabriel he tries to avoid anything that comes across as sinister. And calling his magic blood magic would definitely fall under that.”
Elaine frowned and so did Mare. “Why?” Elaine asked aloud and Mare did it in her mind.
“I hear that things from Revelations came up for you before, is that true?”
Elaine nodded. “Caulder sent a monster called the Red Rider after us and it was eerily like Revelations.”
Kaja nodded. “Revelations also speaks of a dragon that will fall during the Apocalypse. The dragon the text refers to is Angel Lord Gabriel. And so both Gabriel and Omega do their best not to feed into the suspicions that text caused.”
“Any chance the text might be right?” Elaine asked.
“None whatsoever,” Kaja said instantly. “Omega and his master can be insufferable, self-righteous, sanctimonious and exhausting to be around but their loyalty is beyond reproach.”
If she'd heard those words just twenty minutes earlier Mare would have called bullshit but after observing the angel with Elaine and Aurora she was sure the angel was telling the truth. And the reason she was so sure was that she'd started figuring the angel out.
She felt suffocated and caged. And her partner was clearly a huge part of that. Mare was sure that part of the angel would celebrate if her partner betrayed Heaven because it would free her from him. But that only made sense if...
“Is Omega not your lover?” Mare asked.
The angel spun around, a faint blush on her cheeks. She'd clearly forgotten Aurora and her were still there.
“Heavens no,” she finally said.
“He's not?” Elaine asked.
“Omega is asexual,” the angel said. “He has no desires in that direction whatsoever, no romantic feelings either. Our relationship is strictly based on trust.”
“So you're constantly around someone who barely speaks and has no feelings for you?” Mare asked.
“No romantic feelings,” the angel corrected. “We do care about each other. Just not in that way.”
“But you're not asexual, are you?”
The angel stiffened. “Can we change the topic, please?” The words weren't angry, exactly, but they were strained. Mare had clearly hit the very sorest spot of this girl and had kept on digging. Oops.
“I apologize, I didn't mean to pry.”
**
Ice through her veins.
When Kaja had thought that the gypsy princess had figured her out earlier she had clearly underestimated just how right she'd been. The woman had cut right to her core with just a little observation. She had managed to unravel her in a way nobody in Heaven or Hell had managed in centuries.
The last time anyone had managed to figure her out like that had been the short campaign during the Fae Wars when her and Omega had been posted alongside Jun and Iria, a pair of Arch Fiends.
They had offered to let her share their bed.
She'd been tempted. God, had she been tempted. Handsome, gorgeous Jun with his turquoise hair in a bushy ponytail and lovely gorgeous Iria, exuding confidence and sensuality, her dark red hair fanning out behind her.
But she hadn't taken them up on the offer. She'd been too scared of Omega calling her a devil fucker. It had stung when he'd used that same slur on Jeanne just for finding someone who could take the emptiness away.
The phrase “millstone around my neck” once again bubbled up inside her but she squashed it down. She'd been this close to running away from all her responsibilities and spending a couple decades on Earth right before the Invasion had dashed those plans. She'd sworn to herself not to think like this while reality was at risk but somehow this girl had seen right through her bullshit in just a few minutes.
“Apology accepted,” she said softly, feeling more torn than she had in months.