33: Witches of the Seelie
Phoenie had never felt so frustrated – or so embarrassed. The hooded strangers weren’t necromancers at all but something far worse: fellow student investigators. Fellow student investigators who were doing a far better job than Veritas. Fellow student investigators who, rather than being anyone Phoenie admired, were, in fact, two of the most air-headed individuals she’d ever known: purple-haired tomboy Ceres Mendoza and stupidly attractive sex-symbol and local pop-star Korrigan Wedekind.
It felt as if everything she’d been working towards had just been turned into a comedy show and beamed around the Seven Great Cities to the laughter of thousands. Amateurs had upstaged Veritas – and Phoenie was the only one who cared.
“It could’ve been worse,” said Theseus, “Could’ve been Chris and Lance! At least those two have got some kind of mysterious aura going on around them,”
“What kind of ‘mysterious aura’ are you referring to?” asked Phoenie, “The last time I checked Ms Mendoza lived in a tree and Ms Wedekind sings songs about love and peace to adoring pre-teens. Since when were either of them ‘mysterious’?”
“A little competition should be good for you,” said Theseus, “Now you know you’re not the only crazy freak around these parts!”
Phoenie growled and kicked another stone across the dirt and into the mire that could have been a lush green lawn centuries ago.
“They were certainly better prepared than we were,” said John, still studying the powdered contents of a canister Ceres had handed him, “This stuff should be potent enough to knock a decent-sized mutant out. Even Theseus would be down after a sniff of this!”
Better prepared indeed! Phoenie would show them Veritas was not to be mocked – or rescued! When Ceres exited the mansion alongside Phantasia and Dante, she tried to hide her scorn behind a brave face.
“Hey, Purple, can we go yet?” asked Theseus.
“Ain’t my problem you lot stayed behind,” replied Ceres, “I told ya to leave, but you had to wait for these guys, didn’t ya?”
“We don’t abandon our comrades,” said Phoenie, “Ms Celeste is a part of our team.”
“Well now that everyone is safe, we can all go home, right?” said Korrigan, her cheerful demeanour grating at Phoenie’s nerves, “I wouldn’t want to stay out here past sunset, if you know what I mean? There are all sorts of creepy monsters living in the wastelands that might come after us!”
“You should hook up with Phoenie here,” said Theseus, much to her dismay, “Poor girl thought there was some kinda ghost living in that bloody place, if you can believe that! And she thought those crackheads were zombies!”
“That’s what happens when you listen to rumours,” said Ceres with a prideful smirk, “You people need to stop putting yourselves into dangerous situations on a whim. You could’ve gotten yourselves hurt.”
“Who do you think you are, telling us what we can do?” asked Phoenie, doing her best to contain the rage building up inside her “Think you’re better than us, do you? Better qualified?”
“Not to be rude,” said Andromeda, “But why can you show up here and not us?”
“Because Mr Payne asked us to.”
Not gonna lie. I find Phoenie to be an immature brat, full of an undeserved (and unearned) feeling of self importance, who grates on my nerves everytime she opens her bloody mouth and is so taken with herself that she never seems to regard the facts with a realistic eye. Her dramatics endanger all of her friends, and she doesn’t even realize it. I find this character all around a bad egg.
This comment made me chortle XD
Yes, she is rather full of herself. At the rate she’s going, she’ll end up leading her friends into all sorts of hell – and they’re not going to thank her for it!
Well, having known a number of school newspaper enthusiasts or budding journalists, i do have to say it’s not far off. Though in our modern world Phoenie would probably end up working at some tabloid like the Sun or Enquirer. Thank god her world has very real mystic stuff, or she’d wind up creating the “bat-boy”, heh