“You have an interesting aura” is the first thing Jacqueline Marie Espiritu-Picar said to me. She just saw me and started talking about my aura. How forward!
In return I told her that I liked her shirt because Ultrabeast told me that with a woman a compliment always has to be returned or there’s going to be trouble. He’s been married 7 times so he knows these things.
There’s still a part of me that thinks thoughts like “Why would someone skilled at magic be working a customer service job out of her home?” Which is stupid because look at me. I’m getting punched in the face for $70 and no insurance. I should know better.
J-MEP has both her hands, which made me think things weren’t going to work out but that’s where the interesting aura came into play. “You’re fractured Grace, that’s good, we can work with that.”
What she meant is my spell for summoning a fetch.
It’s crazy to think that I taught myself that because I wanted to “cheat” at my job and it turns out to be a very rare powerful spell that few people can master. I’ve heard people say that penicillin is the greatest accidental discovery. I think it’s like that.
J-MEP explained that while she did study under Royale’s exorcist friend she was a terrible apprentice and never learned to do much magic. What she did gain was a good understanding of magic theory. She thought that she should guide me through what I needed to do to help Cura. That didn’t instill me with a lot of confidence at the time but she was right.
The next day Henry Fong led us into a holding cell where he was illegally detaining Cura. Seeing her handcuffed gave me a bad flashback to the girl with the tattoo and the Redacted assholes but J-MEP said that we needed her restrained because she was going to freak out.
J-MEP asked if there was a way we could to keep her still beyond that and Henry Fong made a snide remark about it not being a mental hospital, if they want someone to keep quiet they just kick their ass until they shut up and stop moving.
Henry Fong did stuff a towel in her mouth which only made me more uncomfortable. I wish there was a way to keep someone from screaming that didn’t seem super rapey.
It doesn’t really make sense to say anything involving magic is simple, but the idea was simple. The fetch could reach into Cura and pull out Sangris the Serpent because the fetch is all spirit hand if that makes sense. J-MEP’s mentor cut her hand off so she could use her phantom hand for things like this. Because I’m so great and powerful though I can summon a whole phantom me.
To be clear that was sarcasm. I don’t think I’m powerful.
It was the worst time I’ve had maybe ever. Not sure because I’ve had a lot of epicly shitty times but it was one of the top 10 worst at the very least.
Summoning the fetch and having it do stuff instead of just existing takes a fuckton of energy and concentration. Adding on top of that having it do something like this made me feel like I was having an asthma attack and a heart attack and going blind and being burned to death all at the same time. For a second I seriously thought I was going to die.
That wasn’t even the worst part. The worst part was that it was obviously agonizing for Cura. Henry Fong was trying to keep her from thrashing around but even with cuffs on she was bucking like a wild animal.
And bleeding like a stuck pig. As I ripped Sangris out of her all her scars came back. No, not the scars, the wounds that made the scars. None of us were expecting that, it was like some Freddie Kruger shit where cuts were appearing on her body.
The whole thing was a fucking nightmare. But I did it. And it worked.
