Chapter 7: The Lost Hawk
The evening was warm and the late summer sky devoid of clouds. Phantasia was half-walking, half-dancing back to the church after an afternoon stroll when she felt the concussive blast of a nearby explosion of negative energy. She was on her guard in an instant, scanning her surroundings for signs of shadowy entities, but the corruption was different to that surrounding the gluttonous autonomy of an emotion-draining spectre. It was alive. Denizens of the Underworld didn’t cause corruption, they merely fed off it – it was human emotion that poisoned mana. Whatever was causing the miasma of misery Phantasia was sensing was human in origin.
She followed the beacon of darkness to a derelict street, where houses were decayed wooden skeletons patched together with sheets of dull canvas. The source was obvious: Astrid Garland, daughter of Bishop Wotan, and her ever-present posse of friends: the short, spiteful Vespa, and the tall, extravagant Elizabeth. Vespa, with a cruel smirk on her face, kicked a curled up bundle of white a black clothes. Phantasia steadied herself against the waves of malice coming from the girls, and despair from their victim.
“It won’t be long now, witch,” sneered Astrid, “This time next week, we’ll have both of you. You’re going to suffer for the evil you bring down on my father’s land!”
“I-I…” whimpered a girl’s voice from the quivering pile of tattered cloths.
“Shut up, you snivelling little freak,” said Vespa, placing another boot firmly into the girl, “Your mummy’s a whore. She sleeps with devils. That’s where you come from! You and mummy and your demon orgies, you sick bitch!” She kicked the girl again, and she cried out weakly.
“Vespa, there’ll be a time for that later,” said Astrid, “Once Daddy has the proof he needs, there’ll be plenty of exorcism for all of us,”
“That’s enough!”
The three girls turned to see Phantasia standing in the middle of the street, her white eyes glaring at them. They looked surprised, but not as much as Phantasia felt herself – how she’d managed to keep herself from confronting the bullies on her very first day, she didn’t know.
“How can you do something like this?” she asked, “What you’re doing is wrong!”
Astrid looked quizzical, hitched her skirt up and walked over to Phantasia. “You’re that new girl, aren’t you? Didn’t anyone tell you about us?” she smiled proudly and waved over to her friends, “We’re Inquisitors. We take care of Heretic waste like that thing down there,” she motioned towards the girl, who was looking up at Phantasia from behind mangled black hair, “What we’re doing is for the good of society! People like her will only bring down the same terrible plague that ruined the world a thousand years ago!”
“You’re hurting her!” said Phantasia, “You’re not helping anyone, and you’re making things worse! How can you be so blind?”
“I knew you would be trouble.” said Astrid, her arms crossed as she sized Phantasia up with a single eye, “Most students at that pathetic ‘Academy’ are. If we weren’t around to keep the situation under control, it would be anarchy. You’d better watch your back, Albino,”
Wow! I hate Astrid now more than before. I love the names you come up with. I recognize a lot of them from Mythology and stuff, and I like how they always seem to perfectly fit the characters they’re given to. They kind of help form a mental picture of their appearances, too. The story, too, just keeps getting more and more interesting. I love it!
The logic with the naming was “what names will survive a thousand years?”. I figured mythological names and those associated with science and the arts. Some of the names are symbolic of the characters, others not, and a few were placeholder names that just ended up too ingrained in my head to alter!