Chapter 31 Melodia

When we first arrived at the construction yard, the place had been full of unfinished buildings. Most of them had been nothing but metal skeletons, without floors or walls. There were two at the far end that stood out from the rest, mostly because they actually had walls and windows.

Now they stood out even more, as the only buildings that didn’t look like they had come straight out of a warzone. We all ran towards the source of the explosion to see Shatter hit the ground in front of us. He looked up at us and narrowed his eyes.

“I’ll have to retreat for now,” he said as the black vortex appeared under him. He started to sink as a green blur shot out from the half destroyed building. Shatter got away as Rashell planted her foot where his head had been.

“Darn it,” she pouted as three dolls floated over to her. Marvin’s dolls, not the kind we usually fought. Maybe we should start calling them ‘fake-dolls’?

“We’ll get him next time,” Anna patted Rashell on her shoulder as Marvin started walking towards us. Floating behind him were a parade of dolls. I really hoped he’d started putting them away or something, because there were only ten of them.

“You alright man?” Arturo asked Marvin who stropped in place and looked up at the sky.

“That may have been the longest, most dangerous fight I’ve ever been in,” he announced as one of his dolls landed on his shoulder, “and yet somehow I walk away feeling like I lost.”

“I think you did pretty well mister,” Rashell zipped behind him and loudly slapped his back, “shatter had so many of your dolls buzzing around him, I barely got a chance to get in there.”

“Mister?” Marvin raised an eyebrow. “I’m only a few years older than you.”

“That’s enough to make you a mister to me,” Rashell laughed as Marvin sighed. Off in the distance I spotted two more of his dolls pick up the big wooden box and start carrying it over to us.

“So is this your secret?” Anna suddenly cut in. I turned to her to see who she was talking to…

Oh she was looking at me, that question was for me.

“The reason you feel so much stronger than the rest of us. Is it because you’ve had these other magic users teaching you?”

What? What was she…? Oh. So they did notice the difference between us too. Or at least Anna did. I guess without context, help from other magic users made the most sense. It was still super wrong though.

And now I had to explain to Anna without putting my foot in my mouth like I always did. Okay no pressure. I had to say something before things got weird. Do anything at all except stand around in silence like I’ve done for the past few seconds and oh my god she’s looking at me again and…

“Nope,” Tina popped, interrupting the tense atmosphere before it could start to form. I looked at my savoir and swore I’d watch all three seasons of Magical Huntress Artemis as thanks. “We only met yesterday. Whatever it is you noticed, it didn’t come from us.”

“Well what are your training schedules like?” Arturo pointed out as…

He was helping me. He was helping me after I told him not to. I wanted to do this on my own. Why would he…

Oh right, he told me next time something like this happened in front of him, he was going to do something about it. Something about stabbing me in the front instead of the back I think.

“I mean, Melodia spends a good portion of every night studying magic and learning spells, and then spends the weekend practicing those spells.”

Anna’s jaw dropped as the other two girls stared at me.

“Well we don’t really… train like that.”

Stolen story; please report.

Now it was my turn to stare at her as she awkwardly coughed and the two other girls looked away. They didn’t train? Like, at all? Well that explained a lot.

“We kind of hang out a lot. And just, fight the dolls when they show up,” she shrugged her shoulders. “How did you start learning magic anyway?”

I glanced over at the sky to see if Pickati was flying back towards us yet. With any luck I’d be able to point to him and let the two of them explain everything. If they wanted to help me so badly, I’d let them.

“Well Pickati taught her, he just started teaching me too,” Arturo explained as Pickati flew back to us.

“Oh, everyone’s still here,” he blinked, “I figured the three of you had taken off like always.”

“Pickati!” Anna shrieked before sprinting towards him. Claire and Reshell looked at each other dumbfounded.

“Did you know there was a fourth holder?” Claire asked Rashell who shook her head.

“Anna said something bad happened to him and that it was Melodia’s fault or something,” What? Why would she think…?

Oh right, Pickati had been pretty beat up the night I met him, and Anna had asked me about him after fighting the doll. And since he hadn’t been able to tell me his name until later, I didn’t know who she was talking about.

No, it was totally understandable she thought he was gone. She came to a stop right in front of him and reached out to hug. He darted back out of range and she flinched back a little. She blinked a little before moving on. “Pickati, where have you been? I thought you didn’t make it after that doll beat you up.”

“No, but it was a closer thing then I would have wanted,” he admitted as he looked up and narrowed his eyes. “And here comes a conversation that should have been had a while ago.”

“Anna, did you manage to get the…” three more figures flew over to us and stopped as soon as they saw the huge group gathered in front of them. The one who had spoken was a white and pink cat with white bird wings. Unlike Pickati’s deep voice, the cat sounded like she could have been one of our classmates. She stared at all of us before screaming. “Who are all you people?”

The other two figures floated forward into the light. The one to the left was a green and white hummingbird that released green sparkles where they flew. The one to the right was a tiny blue and white lizard with big feathers around its face. I was pretty sure the animal had a real name, but I couldn’t remember what it was.

“Oh, hello,” the humming bird said shyly in a little boy’s voice.

“So there were other magi around,” the strange blue lizard muttered in the voice of an older girl.

“Vitati, Sobeti, Melati,” Pickati greeted from left to right with a worrying glint in his eye. “It’s so good to see you.”

The other three figures gulped.

“Oh hey Pickati, good to see you again,” the cat, Sobeti if I got it right, waved with a nervous chuckle. “It’s been a while huh?”

“You’re right about that,” he nodded calmly, “and this conversation has been a long time coming.”

“And it’ll have to take longer,” Marvin suddenly interrupted with his big wooden box back on his back. “I don’t know if you four haven’t noticed, but the fights here caused a lot of damage. We probably shouldn’t stick around.”

We all looked around the now wrecked construction yard and paused. Hopefully the fact it was all abandoned and mid-construction would help blunt the damage to the seal.

“You may be right about that Marvin,” Pickati admitted before turning back to the rest of the holders. “Okay, this can wait until we’re all at a safe location. Marvin, could we use your place?”

“It’s all set and ready to go. Clancy was even nice enough to set up a first –aid station there in case anyone needed some patching up,” Tina chipped in as Marvin’s expression soured at the mere mention of the other girl.

I glanced down at my now slightly bloody outfit as well as the various scratches on my body. I was pretty sure I also had my fair share of bruises under all of it too.

“Wait where are we going? And what’s this about being able to learn magic from the Holders?” Claire asked as the other two girls nodded.

“We’re going to our base,” Marvin explained as he pointed at the van, “Tina can provide transportation.” With that, he started walking towards the van.

“Wait, aren’t you going to tell us where we’re going?” Anna demanded as he turned back to them.

“The location is a secret for a reason. To say it out loud out here would be too…”

“It’s one of the café’s on shopping street,” Tina quickly interrupted Marvin who then pouted at her. She rolled her eyes at him. “We don’t have time to argue with them. The faster we can get everyone there, the better. The only issue is figuring out how to fit everyone in with that big box of yours.”

“I can take Melodia and Pickati with me on the motorcycle, if that’ll help,” Arturo suggested as I nodded in agreement.

“Okay I’ll guess I’ll go,” Anna said, still sounding unsure, “are you two coming?”

“Yeah, sure,” Rashell brought her arm around her shoulder, still looking nervous.

“I have a lot of questions and this might be our best shot at answers,” Claire added.

They gave each other a nod before walking towards the van.

“Wait girls, don’t you think you should talk to…” Sobeti started floating behind the girls only for Pickati to fly in and intercept.

“Oh you three will be joining,” he said as she got right into Sobeti’s face, “this is not a negotiation, you will come with us to the café.”

The little pink cat backed down a bit, the hint of fear on her face. I would have felt bad for her if I wasn’t sure Pickati was justified.

“Okay,” She quietly squeaked. Before the rest of the guardians joined the rest of the girls on their way to the van.