Hell's Belles Chapter Two: Through the Looking Glass
Night fell on the Hellfire academy, but Gomurr could not sleep. Something was terribly wrong. He could feel it in his magic filled bones. He concentrated and his astral self left his body and floated over the campus, checking each student's room. All were actually soundly asleep, which was strange for this rag tag bunch of teens. Johnny Blaze's drunken snores echoed throughout his room. Puma11, the mysterious young mutant dreamed peacefully. Even the Black Queen, Nemesis's panthers were sleeping the sleep of the untroubled. Then as he checked the last room, he noticed that Bux was not in her bed. Only Rita and Jam were present across the room in the bunk beds, that were so obviously a violation of the rules of the academy. He looked again at the small wicker bed in the corner...Bux was nowhere to be found. His mind searched further, and he finally found the missing Bux, sitting in the garden with a twig in her hand, tracing patterns in the fertile soil. Not knowing whether to disturb her musings or not, he watched from above as she continuously traced the same pattern over and over in the dirt. Gomurr looked down and watched the twig follow well worn lines in dirt, wondering where he had seen the symbol she was tracing before. He watched as she traced the triangle with a triangle in each corner. He pondered speaking to her via telepathy and telling her to go inside and get to sleep. He didn't want to frighten her, and why should he? Bux was the most level headed of the three new students he jokingly had dubbed Hell's Belles (only to himself, of course). She was always the soft spoken and (most of the time) respectful voice of reason that calmed her two stormy tempered friends. Her only character flaw was her refusal to take the abilities she might one day possess seriously. But one can't teach a pupil who refuses to learn, so Gomurr floated back to his waiting body and remerged the astral with the physical.
Bux's arm continued to guide the twig along the ground, her body moved without thinking. The triangle pattern twisted and pulsed in her mind....three sides...then three more lines to close off the corners...locking a small triangle in each corner of the first. Her eyes were glassy and she mouthed words she did not understand, yet somehow, it felt right and good to her. She felt as if she were helping someone or something fulfill their fondest wish. She didn't know how she knew this, she just did. After all, wasn't it good karma to help others?
The next morning, classes rolled around and the three girls rolled in slightly late, as usual, and took their seats. Gomurr watched from the back of the room cloaked in invisibility as the English professor spoke about Victorian poetry to the class. He noticed that Bux had taken a piece of triangular folded paper out of her pocket. He watched as she opened it and took a smaller triangular piece out and passed it to Jam. Jam read it , unfolded it and then passed an even smaller piece to Rita, who also read it. What could those three girls be planning now. He pondered revealing himself and reprimanding the girls for not paying attention. Again noticing the intricate folds of the notes, Gomurr rethought his options. The delicate work it took to make such paper designs required steady hands and concentration as well as good planning skills. Maybe these girls were learning a useful skill after all. Origami could be a useful skill in centering the mind, and Gomurr reluctantly admitted to himself that Mr. Cronopolis's lectures WERE boring.
After the day's classes were over, the three ladies were walking out, when Bux told them she had something to show them in the garden. Jam and Rita followed her, good naturedly accepting their somewhat more innocent friend's infatuation with natural beauty. Bux lead them to a quiet spot beside the bench where she had been sitting the night before. She asked them to form a meditation circle with her, and though they had never been interested in Bux's dabblings with magic before, they felt bad for laughing at her previously, so they complied. When they were seated Bux traced the triangle again, with each of them sitting at a point. Jam began to giggle and Rita gave her a quick elbow to the ribs to shut her up. If this would make Bux feel better than they would do it.
Rita looked at Bux, who was again mumbling to herself silently. "Now what," Rita said.
Bux's mumblings grew louder and the wind started to pick up. Jam's eyebrows raised as she looked over at Rita. There was an electricity in the air that you could feel. Rita looked down and the hair on her arms was standing up. She was about to make Bux stop all this foolishness...when the triangle on the ground seemed to open up and a bright white light burst forth and begin to swirl and encircle the girls in its brilliance. Bux was the first to respond. She seemingly woke up from the trance and started to yell, but it was already too late. They were being pulled into the light and were helpless to prevent it. Bux thought to herself as she screamed. "this might be fulfilling someone's wish, but I'm sure it's not mine."
Gomurr, sitting at his desk across campus, felt the magical flare as soon as the vortex began to open. He leaped from his chair, and stepped out the window. Teleportation through the shadows would be much quicker, but Gomurr still wasn't comfortable with his new powers as Proctor of the Crimson Dawn. Air walking, which was also extremely taxing on his mystical abilities, was his only other option to get there quickly so off he flew towards the flare. He reached the spot where the light was spilling out of the ground just as Bux began to scream. He tried a spell of closure to stop the vortex from opening wider, but somehow he was being blocked by another. As he watched the girls begin to disappear in the light, he dropped his hold on the air and plummeted toward the vortex opening, following the girls in as the vortex resealed itself with the icy tinkling sound of broken glass.
On to Chapter 3.
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