Suddenly A Succubus

Amara let out a sigh of relief as she set down the unconscious body of Cassandra Davenport. The Headmistress was incredibly light, at least for Amara, but she was already feeling the strain of having teleported for the first time. She thought about sitting on the park bench she'd placed Cassandra on, but the thought of relaxing next to such a horrid woman gave her chills. Instead, she settled down on the ground a few feet away, next to a large lamp post. In her presence, the nearby snow sizzled and melted away, creating a small column of steam.

The walk back towards the entrance of the park was by no means a difficult trek, but after such an intense battle, all the girls fought varying levels of exhaustion. Vee followed closely behind Amara, but instead of sitting down, she paced back and forth to keep a lookout for other witches.

Tessa brought up the end of the party, carefully guarding their other prisoner. While Cassandra had fallen unconscious after being caught, Simone was awake and alert, silently fuming at her defeat. The nature of Tessa's victory, which had included many precise cuts to the tattoos covering Simone's body, ensured that the telekinetic Coven Head had lost her ability to channel magic.

Chloé, presumably, was somewhere nearby. Amara trusted her to stay close and assumed she needed a break from manifestation to regain her strength.

"I don't see Elizabeth or Palesa yet," Vee said, turning to Tessa. "Have you heard anything?"

"Not yet. They've never been great at checking their phones," Tessa replied. "Besides, they'll be here shortly. I'm sure they're eager to find out what's happened."

Vee nodded in approval. "Makes sense. While we're waiting, I've got one last thing I need to take care of." She walked towards Simone, then extended a hand towards the bench holding Cassandra. "Miss Gautier, please take a seat. I need to tend to your injuries."

"You're gonna fucking heal her?" Tessa said, shocked. "Need I remind you how dangerous she is with her magic?"

"Obviously, Tess," Vee said, rolling her eyes. "I need to ensure that all the injuries lead to proper scars, which should permanently disrupt the magic of the tattoos. The human body is remarkably resilient, and there's a chance the natural healing process restores her magic. Now Simone, sit down."

After one last glare from Simone, she reluctantly moved to sit next to Cassandra. Over the next few minutes, as everyone waited for Elizabeth and Palesa to arrive, Vee used the magic from her Enochian Texts to ensure that all of Simone's injuries resulted in proper scars. While she worked, Tessa moved to sit next to Amara, sighing in relief as demonic warmth washed over her. By the time Vee finished with Simone and turned her attention to Cassandra, the group heard rushed footsteps coming closer.

Upon seeing the group, as well as their relaxed state, Elizabeth and Palesa slowed their pace. Smiles appeared as they walked closer, glancing towards the other Coven Heads now pacified on the bench.

"I take it you have good news?" Elizabeth asked Tessa.

"Cassandra tried to teleport to some kind of safe room, but Amara stopped her just in time. The strain of channeling so much magic seems to have taken its toll, and I suspect she'll be unconscious for at least a few more hours." Tessa then gestured to Vee. "Both of their tattoos have been disrupted, and Vee is applying careful healing to make sure the magic doesn't come back on its own."

"That's a good idea," Palesa said, letting go of Elizabeth's hand to walk up to Vee. "Our tattoos are quite resilient, and left to heal on their own, it's very likely they would have reformed."

"I trust you're all safe?" Elizabeth asked, looking around. "I don't see your... spirit friend. Her name was Chloé, right?"

"I'm here!" Chloé said quickly. Although she didn't manifest, it sounded like she was hovering somewhere above Vee. "I'm just really tired after the big fight, and trying to manifest sounds like an absolute nightmare."

After one last smile, Elizabeth finally turned her attention to Simone. She walked closer, crossing her arms in front of her, and returned Miss Gautier's icy glare. "Simone Gautier. You and your co-conspirator, Cassandra Davenport, have been caught violating many of our Coven's core principles. Had you succeeded in your plans, you would have endangered every single student present at Aurelius University. You would have ensured a constant influx of incursions, every single one of which might lead to a break in the secrecy we fight so hard to preserve. What do you have to say in your defense?"

Simone spat on the ground, narrowly missing Miss Bishop's feet. "Power runs this world, Elizabeth. Yes, its presence corrupts, but without someone in charge, society breaks apart. By choosing to cripple ourselves for the sake of avoiding corruption, we clear the way for sadistic tyrants to ascend in our place."

"Not an ounce of regret," Palesa said, shaking her head. "Not that I expected better. If you have nothing useful to say, then I suggest you save your breath for the hearing."

"You expect the other covens to side with you?!" Simone hissed, jumping to her feet. "You attacked us in cold blood! You ally yourself with demons! Through your efforts, we have been prevented from making this campus a safer place!"

"You cannot withhold a solution to a problem, then claim it is just when you choose only to partially administer it!" Elizabeth shouted.

"Face it, Bishop," Simone said, stepping closer once more. Her tattoos attempted to flare, causing everyone to jump to their feet in response, but the magic fizzled out just as quickly as it appeared. "Without us, this coven isnothing. Say what you will about Davenport, but she knew how to command respect and demand order."

Another surge of magic appeared, this one coming from Palesa as she held a hand up. A series of thick vines sprang forth from the ground, wrapping around Simone's body and yanking her back to her seat on the bench. "That is enough, Miss Gautier!" she shouted.

The three Coven Heads stared daggers at each other for several more minutes before Vee cleared her throat, breaking the silence. "So, what happens next?"

The vines holding Simone down slackened, though only slightly, as Palesa turned to look at Vee. "In accordance with our traditions, we must call a conference between all covens in the area. We will explain the actions taken by these two, and a ruling will be made by council as to their fate. Given the mountain of evidence against them, I suspect their magic will be permanently sealed. There will likely be additional consequences to ensure they don't attempt to undermine us in the future. This incident is going to cause decades of headaches; I just know it."

"So, who handles all of that?" Amara asked. "Like, who's in charge now? I imagine it's not Davenport."

Tessa immediately looked to Elizabeth, as did Palesa. Although Miss Bishop initially seemed surprised, she immediately let out a sigh of defeat. "I have to postpone that vacation of mine, don't I?"

"Unless you want to put Tessa in charge, just to piss off these two idiots," Chloé said, chiming in from above with a soft giggle.

"FUCK no!" Tessa said. "As funny as that would be--and it would bereallyfucking funny--that sounds like an absolute nightmare. Do you know how much paperwork Coven Heads have to do? I've seen the stacks before, it's awful."

Elizabeth's dour mood lightened as she giggled at the thought of Tessa in charge. "Don't worry, Tessa, we'll be alright. I don't know if I'll be able to live up to the standard your mother set, but I'm confident I can do better than Cassandra. In the meantime, however, we need to focus on cleaning up this mess of ours. I couldn't help but notice that all our hard work on the quad was recently undone. Quite dramatically, might I add."

Amara averted her gaze to the ground, blushing in shame as everyone turned to look at her. "I... um... I'm willing to do whatever I can to help with that."

"I can help as well," Vee said. "I'm not as experienced with it, but there are spells in my Enochian Texts that can hasten the recovery of native plant life. Hopefully, when combined with Palesa's magic, we can finish faster than last time."

"I won't lie, I'm curious to see the power of an angel up close," Palesa admitted. She then turned to Elizabeth, saying, "I'll go to the quad with these two. Everyone else, please accompany Elizabeth back to the manor. She'll need assistance placing Cassandra and Simone under lock and key, then we'll need to meet up with the rest of the coven and discuss our next steps."

With a plan made, and everyone in agreement, the group split up to go their separate ways. Vee, Amara, and Palesa spent the better part of the next six hours repairing the quad. Under Miss Tsopnang's instruction, Amara focused on clearing all the plant life she'd accidentally killed during her rampage, carefully separating the living branches from the dead. She did her best to internalize Palesa's lessons on how to diagnose what she saw, eager to make up for her earlier callousness, but struggled whenever she tried to make judgments on her own. Thankfully, the nature of this repair effort allowed her frequent breaks to burn away piles of dead wood, a task she felt much more comfortable with.

She even attempted a variation on the methods she'd seen Palesa use at their last cleaning. While Amara couldn't manipulate air like the Coven Head could, she tried to use her immense control over heat to disperse the smoke as much as she could.

Palesa's words of insight were much better suited to Vee, whose understanding grew more robust with each passing hour. This knowledge made it easier for her to apply her Enochian rejuvenation spell, and before long, her skill was nearly on par with Palesa's magic, though Miss Tsopnang was quick to remind them that angelic magic was inherently better suited to raw creation. The two of them fell into a comfortable healing groove, with Vee providing the hastened creation of new life while Palesa shaped it into appropriate forms.

The entire time they worked, in between small botanical lessons, Miss Tsopnang went out of her way to explain various facets of magic as well as the coven's governing beliefs. The more Amara listened, the more she internalized just how vast the experiential difference between them actually was.

She learned about Palesa's own troubled past, about the circumstances that led to her joining the coven. She learned even more about the hostile environment Cassandra had created and how difficult it had been to find slivers of happiness in her relationship with Elizabeth.

Initially, Amara assumed Miss Tsopnang was simply passing time with small talk, but as the hours stretched on, she began to suspect it was actually a curated learning experience. Each story she shared, each hardship she described, served as a powerful reminder of how quick Amara had been to judge the coven as a whole. Perhaps, in Miss Tsopnang's own subtle way, she was trying to coach Amara to be better.

In those moments, Amara began to internalize just how young she was in the grand scheme of things.

By the time they finished, the quad had been restored to its proper pristine glory. If Amara had not personally witnessed the destruction of this field twice over, she never would have suspected any foul play.

With their work finished, they rejoined everyone else at the coven's manor. There, exhausted and sweaty following hours of hard work, they began catching up with everyone else.

Imani, Nick, and all the other rank and file witches had successfully kept the Forest Preserve clear of citizens during the big fight. On Elizabeth's command, many of the witches had returned to the site of the battle to remove all evidence of the struggle, which proved to be a daunting task. After all, Simone had completely uprooted several large trees and thrown a car halfway across the clearing, none of which were easy to clean up.

After Imani delegated a cleanup crew, she joined Tessa, Chloé, and Nick in contacting all of the students still on campus. They offered a simplified version of events, explaining only that a faction within the coven had gone rogue, and that the threat was now over.

It was quickly revealed that, as much as everyone hated Cassandra's actions, her knowledge of planar mechanics was the cornerstone upon which the repair plans had been created. After regaining consciousness, she stated in no uncertain terms that she would never lend her experience to the aid of a coven that treated her so poorly.

Repairing the Planar Gate, unfortunately, was no longer possible.

This knowledge forced the acting Headmistress, Elizabeth, into a tough spot. In a perfect world, she would be able to allocate extra resources to the protection of Aurelius University. However, after taking several hours to dig through the mess of Cassandra's old reign, she learned the coven she now led was in a sorry state. Resources were already stretched thin, and many facets of the organization had been restructured to allow Cassandra maximum influence. Her habit of gathering blackmail on fellow witches had not stopped at the other Coven Heads; she'd strong-armed many other people into various deals and trades meant to further consolidate control.

The other problem was a lack of clear information regarding Davenport's support. While it was clear she'd been manipulating things behind the scenes, Elizabeth didn't get the impression that the Coven had been completely unified against her.

"This coven is a fucking mess," Elizabeth sighed, sinking back into her chair. In front of her, mountains of paperwork lay scattered on a large desk, combinations of financial statements, field reports, and personnel files. "I knew money was tight, but this? It's a miracle we can keep the lights on, let alone keep tabs on magical occurrences scattered across the Midwest."

The large office was somewhat crowded at the moment. Palesa, Elijah, and Imani had been asked to join this meeting, as had Amara, Vee, Tessa, Chloé, and Nick.

Of all people, Chloé was the first person to speak up, surprisingly. Though she wasn't visible, her voice indicated she was resting next to Amara. "Um, how does that affect us? Are you saying we aren't gonna get any help with the soft spot here?"

"In a perfect world, we'd be able to reassign a small team of witches to this campus. They'd live in this manor, stay in communication with you, and keep tabs on Ekstàpoli to watch for possible leaks. However, with the state the coven is in, I don't see how that's possible. The biggest advantage of the Gate, apart from, y'know, holding the rest of the planes at bay, was that watching over the campus only required a single witch."

"We've got Tessa, don't we?" Amara said. "Isn't that enough?"

Elizabeth took a deep breath before responding. "You do, and she's not going anywhere. However, if I'm going to be Headmistress now, I can't ignore the fact that Tessa opted to obfuscate critical information from us for months. We're going to be under a lot of scrutiny from other covens, and I simply can't let the only witch at Aurelius University be one with a track record of insubordination." She looked at Tessa next, smiling softly. "Don't get me wrong, I know why you did it, but I need to act like I'm cracking down on this coven."

"Nah, don't worry about it," Tessa said dismissively. "I'm used to being the black sheep. Do what you need to."

"Headmistress Bishop, if you don't mind, I've got an idea of my own," Elijah said, stepping forward. He swallowed nervously, and the whole time he spoke he avoided looking anyone in the eyes. "I, uh, would like to suggest that we allow Imani to transfer to Aurelius University. She could act as our liaison while Altessa is on probation."

Imani gasped in surprise, but stayed quiet in favor of letting Miss Bishop respond. "A wonderful idea, Elijah, but that doesn't solve the monetary problem. We can't afford to put two students through college here."

"Ah, yes, um... about that," Elijah muttered. "You see, back during World War Two, when Hitler's regime was taking over, many common citizens did their best to gum up the works. They weaponized their own incompetence, they followed every single rule to the letter of the law, double and triple checking every step of the process to try and make things move as slowly as possible. It was a really effective way to slow down their efforts, and many lives were saved because of these methods. Actually, did you know some doctors invented a fake disease? They claimed it was horribly deadly, and the threat scared soldiers away, keeping hospitals safe from their searches, and in many ways that--"

"Mr. Jun!" Miss Bishop said curtly.

"Right, right, sorry. Anyways, um, what I mean to say is that I've been aware of Davenport's scheming for a while. While I never suspected that she would stoop this low, I knew she wouldn't hesitate to grab for power if given the chance. With that in mind, I... might have fabricated a series of financial statements and requests for material components."

Miss Bishop pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. "You mean to say you've been embezzling funds from the coven?"

"F-for good reason!" Elijah stammered. "I-I want to request that this money be used to fund Miss Mabaya's education here at Aurelius University!"

"You haven't spent it yet?" Miss Tsopnang asked.

Elijah shook his head. "No ma'am. I always intended for it to go to young Imani here."

Imani, with another look of surprise, finally broke her silence. "Elijah! Why would you do that? If Davenport had found out, she would have ruined you!"

"Oh, she knew the whole time. She held it over my head to convince me to help with her stupid siphoning plan." Elijah stepped closer to Imani, gently placing a hand on her shoulder. "Imani, you try to hide it, but ever since you came to this campus, you've been so alive! You love being in the field, studying problems as they crop up, not poring over books with a crusty old fart like me."

Tears sprang into Imani's eyes, and she leapt forward to throw her arms around him. "Ohhhh Mr. Jun! That's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me!"

After the two of them hugged, they both looked back to Headmistress Bishop with bated breath. She looked deep into Elijah's eyes, then into Imani's, and finally sighed in resignation. "Fine. If this means you give back all the money you stole, we'll consider it the first part of your punishment. You and I need to have a long talk when we get back, Elijah."

Imani leapt into the air. "Yes! Oh, this is so exciting!"

"This isn't a vacation, Miss Mabaya," Headmistress Bishop warned. "We'll be expecting regular field updates, and because I've formally reprimanded Tessa, you'll technically be in charge of keeping an eye on her."

Amara looked over at Tessa, who didn't seem all that worried about her new coven partner. In fact, she noticed a very slight stir of attraction in her friend's aura. After chuckling quietly to herself, she lost the fight against a yawn she'd been struggling to hold back.

After spending an entire day cleaning up the coven, she was feeling particularly drained.

"As for the rest of you," the Headmistress continued, "I'm formally designating you independent agents of the coven. It's your job to keep watch over this campus, to prevent harm from befalling everyone that lives here while also working to prevent the general populace from learning about magic. You are to include Imani inallof your planning, and the failure to relay information to her will be seen as a slight against the coven. Is that understood?"

One by one, all the girls, and Nick, nodded in agreement with Miss Bishop's decision. The rest of the evening was spent discussing details of their new arrangement: how the chain of communication worked, what resources they had available to them, as well as several in-depth discussions about various facets of planar metaphysics.