Chapter 1- Say My Name

The witch raised her hands to the sky, the steel barrels of many aimed rifles encircling her. Police cars filled the city block, and every officer fixed their gaze on the hooded witch. Her violet hoodie did well to mask her eyes, but not the cheeky, giddy smile she wore. Not that she cared at all. She wanted to ensure that every pig in the vicinity knew that she was having a good time. After all, blaring sirens and loaded rifles were a recipe for a wonderful Saturday afternoon for the now fifteen-year-old Aurora Salem.

“Slowly remove your hood! And keep your hands in the air!” The officer’s voice boomed from the megaphone.

Sheesh. How can I take my hood off and keep my hands raised? Pick a lane. She slowly reached for her hood and pulled it down, revealing natural scarlet curls and emerald eyes. 

The officer with the megaphone, boasting a head full of gray hair, looked to his armed subordinate once he got a clearer view of the girl. 

“Bill. Did we find our little witch?” the elder officer asked.

“Short, scarlet hair. Green eyes. She has the maroon scorpion tattoo around her neck too. And that crescent moon charmed necklace she’s wearing. She matches the description to the tee, sir,” the younger officer confirmed.

“Crimson Witch! You’re under arrest for illegal use of magic in a robbery and ensuing property damage!” the elder officer yelled into the megaphone again. “Lay down on the ground and put your hands behind your back!” 

Aurora’s eye twitched. They’re using that name again. She glanced around at her one last time, counting in her head. Ten, eleven, twelve . . . twenty-five punching bags.

“Hurry it up, witch!” 

Aurora scoffed and began to lower her hands. 

“On the ground, now!” the officer barked again.

Aurora showed them all the gleam of her teeth from her wide smile. “Come on! You sure you don’t want to talk this out? I mean, all this for one measly apple?” 

“You cut an entire vendor stand in half! Not to mention, that truck!”

Aurora shrugged. “It shouldn’t have honked at me! That’s rude.” 

“You’ve been terrorizing not only Westtown but all of Verona for years! Your illegal use of magic has gotten so far out of hand that—” 

Aurora released an exaggerated groan. “Fine, fine. I’ll surrender. But only if you can say my name.”

Rifles clicked in response. 

 Aurora snickered. “Fine then. Fireworks it is.” 

She swiftly put her hands into her hoodie pockets, and the city block blazed with gunfire. Bullets sprayed around her, yet Aurora remained spotless and still through them all. She stood calmly inside a small, translucent green dome formed from her own aura. Their bullets failed to penetrate her forcefield, as it often did. No matter what city in Verona she made into her playground, the police always resorted to those pathetic guns. Aurora wondered if any of the various precincts even shared information with each other. Despite her handy work the past several years, they always seemed so ill-prepared.

The elder officer signaled for his men to hold their fire. Once the dust settled, Aurora got the clearest view of their collective slack-jawed expressions. One of the many faces that gave her life.

She gazed down at the wasted bullet shells on the ground, giggling to her heart’s content. “Look at all this wasted tax money!”

Swears and slurs echoed at her from every direction. Music to her ears.

Aurora pulled out a shiny red apple from her hoodie pocket and munched away. She made sure to chomp loudly as if she were eating it in their faces. “I don’t know why Minerva keeps funding you guys. She may be better off having the U.M. deal with crime instead of you clowns, ya know?” she said with a full mouth.

“Damn,” the old officer swore. “The rumors are true. She knows aura shaping and can create barriers.”

 “Rumors?” Her eyes lit up, and the corners of her mouth stretched upwards. “C’mon guys! You heard of me so you should’ve known better than to use bullets. There’s gotta be a witch or two amongst you humans. Step up, will ya? Let’s make this fun!” 

Their groaning and complaining turned into bickering. Some argued that they needed more funding to deal with magical threats, while others cried about how they weren’t getting paid enough for military-grade work. What started off amusing got dull rather quickly. They were supposed to be fighting her, not each other. It was time to change that. She finished her apple and tossed the core. Blair always said to strike first and strike hard. 

Without warning, Aurora sprung through the police perimeter like she was being shot out of a cannon. Her fist rammed into the jaw of the elder policeman, launching him and his megaphone into the air before anyone could even register what happened.

Another officer flinched and stumbled to aim his rifle. Aurora kicked the weapon out of his grasp and fed him a volley of blinding punches. The poor man collapsed in a blink.

“Two down, twenty-three to go!” Aurora mumbled with a smile before they opened fire again.

She evaded the gunfire and knocked out cops one by one, keeping a mental count. Aurora tossed the officers around like ragdolls, each smack harder than the last. Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen. 

Six officers remained, and they had all ditched their guns. Aurora noticed they all had ears with pointy tips, identical to her own. They weren’t ordinary humans, who toted round ears and no affinity for magic or wielding aura. 
Aurora’s excitement only elevated at the sight of the bright blue auras that surrounded each of them.

“Finally, some sorcerers and witches! Capturing me would be a hell of a lot easier if there were more of you and less of those useless guns.”

The magic-wielding officers drew their batons while forming a circle around the witch.

“Don’t let her escape!” one of them shouted. The rest charged. 

Aurora evaded their swings and fists with relative ease. Failing to land blows, the officers fired magical blasts. Flames and blasts of water zipped at her faster than the earlier gunfire, and she struggled to dodge them all. Perhaps she’d overestimated her ability to hold off so many magic wielders at once. Things worsened when they mixed martial arts with offensive magic.

A punch from the right. A kick from below. A blast of water from above. A fireball from the right. Aurora’s dodging became sloppy. Their attacks became quicker and sharper, to the point that Aurora couldn’t predict their movements. Then, bang! 

Flames struck her in the abdomen and flung her backward. She tumbled on the rough concrete, tearing up her arms and legs. Aurora quickly hopped back up to her feet, though she quaked from the pain. Her heart beat like a drum. Her arms and legs throbbed from the freshly torn skin. Everything stung, but that rush. The thrill! Even the pain that came with it all! She yearned for more! 

Alas, she had to focus. Her skin reformed over her scorched abdomen and scraped limbs. In mere seconds, all of her wounds were gone. 

“She healed!” one of the officers noted.

“That rumor’s true too then,” another one said while fixing a nasty glare aimed Aurora’s way. “She’s one of them.”
Aurora’s body tensed upon hearing that. However, her attention snapped to the hole in her hoodie. Oh fuck! Blair’s hoodie!

“No, no, no, no!” she cried.

The magic-wielding cops fired their elemental magic at Aurora again. Aurora put up another translucent bubble shielding her from all their attacks. Her face reddened the more she looked at the scorched, blackened fabric. All amusement left her psyche. She didn’t want to drag this out a second longer. A green aura shrouded her body in a violent rush. Only one shot at this, and it has to be quick. The fastest element should do. 

The tattoo on her chest lit up like a lamp, shining bright green. However, her chest felt as if it were burning from the inside. Again, she shook off the pain. She put her hands together before her, the influx of energy making her hair stand. The police ceased their fire. One of them stumbled backward, recognizing Aurora’s stance, as well as the sparks popping around her.

“Don’t let her use that element! Destroy that barrier!” One officer shouted as they sprinted towards her. 

The street beneath them quaked and cracked, the splinters in the pavement growing out directly from where Aurora stood. Before the officers could reach her, Aurora released her dome barrier and fired streaks of lightning from her hands, so intense that they struck all six officers at once, and scorched the ground beneath them in the process. They all flew backward from the blast and crashed into parked cars, metal poles, and nearby buildings. Pieces of rubble rained from the sky like hail.

“Twenty-five,” Aurora muttered with a slight grin.

Now that the performance was over, her burst of strength quickly faded. Her arms vibrated from numbness, and her chest pain slowly subsided. She wiped the coating of sweat from her forehead with her forearm. 

Aurora approached one of the unconscious policemen and pressed her fingers against his vein. She felt a steady pulse and sighed with relief. Her mind began to rest easier, but only momentarily, as his eyes flashed open. He immediately started to squirm and hyperventilate, staring at her with bulgy eyes. He reached for the pistol on his hip, but Aurora struck him in the nose and pinned him, her foot on his wrist. 

“Don’t move. It’s over.”

The injured officer winced, a stream of blood flowing down his lips from his nose. “Is this all you ever do? Just ruin lives for fun? Why?”

“Why? Say my name.”

He remained silent. Aurora shook her head. “If you or any of these clowns died, no one would remember you. No one important, anyway. Hell, I’m gonna forget your face tomorrow. I refuse to let anyone in this world say that about me.”

He groaned. “What the hell do your parents think? You’re just a kid.”

“You think, after all this, I have parents? Come on, dude.”

Even through his tremendous pain, he managed a chuckle. “Don’t know why I bothered asking a demon like you.”

Aurora hesitated, her stomach beginning to sink. She averted her eyes from him and frowned. 

“When the United Military gets a hold of you, it’s your ass, you monster.”

Aurora kicked him in the face, knocking out a few teeth and putting him to sleep. 

A sizzling heat permeated through her blood. She glanced at her hand and saw those familiar claws forming from her nails. Her crescent moon charm on her necklace flashed with bright purple light. Aurora closed her eyes and took deep breaths. Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one. The glowing dwindled and eventually stopped. Her sharp claws dulled, turning back into her regular nails.

Once she could think straight again, she snatched the radio off the unconscious officer’s chest. 

“Attention, please send about uh . . . twenty-five ambulance units to Aries Street. Over and out,” she said. 

With that, she crushed the radio in her hand. Aurora blew a whistle through her fingers, and a broom materialized right before her. She hopped on and flew off into the clear blue sky.

Aurora made her way to a familiar alleyway with comfortingly thick walls littered with various posters. There were recruitment flyers for the United Military, mixed in with propaganda signs and wanted posters. The poster with a crystal cluster covered by an X, reading: ‘A Magic Nation Is a Hellish Nation’ stood out the most. She could find at least one of those on every other block. 

Aurora eventually stumbled upon an old wanted poster of Blair. A big stamp reading DECEASED covered her godsister’s face, with her name scratched out entirely. Bad enough they etched out her face, but her name too? Damn it all! She fumed as she snatched the poster off the brick wall. When it was gone, crumpled in her hand, she realized all her energy had left her. She curled up into a ball with her back against the wall. 

Helicopters circled high above the towering skyscrapers. They were likely looking for her, but Aurora didn’t care. Her eyes remained buried in the hoodie she had in her lap. She fixated on the scorched hole. 

“Sorry, I got your hoodie burned. Guess I got carried away again,” she mumbled with a light, pained laugh. “Wish you could’ve been here to see it.”

As Aurora fought back tears, cars zipped on nearby roads, blowing trash and debris into the narrow alley. Her face was met with a flyer, soaring from the street wind. She quickly snatched the paper off her face and wanted to incinerate it out of irritation. However, she halted upon registering the poster’s content.

“No way,” she uttered.

​

​

WANTED

dead or alive

​

(picture of Aurora. BUY The Crimson Witch to see artwork!)

THE CRIMSON WITCH

60,000 gold coins

​

Aurora leaped with joy. “My own wanted poster! Yes, yes, yes, yes, YES!” she cheered. “It even has a good picture of me! I did it, Blair! I did it!” 

She raised her fist to the sky.

When the initial thrill faded, she took another look at the poster, particularly the name and price on her head. She grumbled. Maybe it still deserved to be burned to ashes. 

“They’re still using this nickname and not my actual name, and this price is so damn low! This is half of what Blair had and not even an eighth of what Medusa had before she died!”

Surely, the poster would be much more to her liking if she had more strength and control of her various abilities. “It’s a good first step, but if I genuinely want a place in this world, I need to get stronger. I need the whole world to know my name . . . and keep Blair’s dream alive. At the very least, this bounty on my head will send some stronger fighters my way. Stronger than the cops at least. Real competition will up my stock and strengthen me. But first . . . let’s get this hoodie patched up.” 

***

With the sun blazing overhead along with police choppers searching for her, Aurora discreetly made her way to the eastern part of Westtown. The avenues were bustling, full of mostly humans. 

Aurora blended in with the crowd, keeping her head down as she sped-walked. When she reached eastern Westtown, everything around her looked as though it were from an entirely different region. The small part of the city was mostly residential, with small buildings covered with cracks and thick vines. Trash littered the streets, full of potholes devoid of vehicles. 

There was also a distinct lack of humans as compared to the rest of the city. Dwarves scampered around. Giants sat near buildings they couldn’t fit inside. Beastmen–people with animal appendages and features–ran from bar to bar. Despite it not being as clean as the inner city, Aurora felt more comfortable around other magic wielders. Here, she was likely to find a greater challenge, one she could use to sharpen her own skills. But for now, this trip was just to patch a fabric hole.

Aurora flew over to a small corner shop. Upon spotting the neon sign for Salem’s Needle, she smirked. 

She kicked open the door and marched straight in. The bright colors and sparkles nearly blinded her, all shining from different garments that hung in midair. There were suits, dresses, overalls, kimonos, robes, sets of battle armor, and gowns, all with gold, sparkling pixie dust falling from them. An elderly witch sat at a desk in the back of the store, with prune-like dark skin and long, straight silky hair the hue of a spider’s web. 

Aurora slammed the hoodie on the desk. “Ria, I need you to fix this hole in my hoodie, pronto!” 

The witch blinked at Aurora before popping a cigarette into her mouth and shaking her head. “I’d call ya one of a kind if my niece wasn’t the same way. Neitha’ of ya take care of ya clothes. Always getting ’em torched or shredded.”

“Yeah…” Aurora scratched her head and looked down bashfully. “You can fix it though, right?”

Ria held her hand out. 

“Oh, come on, Ria! Don’t I get a Salem family discount?” Aurora batted her eyes.

Ria stared at her blankly. “Family discounts are for family.” 

“Oh. Right.” Of course, it was going to be another one of those times. 

Aurora dug in her pockets and pulled out a small brown pouch tied together with black string. Turning the pouch upside down spilled a series of gold coins onto the table. Aurora counted them one by one, the pair of wings on one side of the coins facing up. 

“Shit! Thirty coins is all I have!” Aurora cried.

Ria shook her head. “Ya act like you can’t steal more. It’s what ya do. Fork it.”

Aurora handed the thirty coins and returned the empty sack to her pocket. Ria had always been able to see right through her.

For the next few minutes, purple threads spewed from Ria’s long hair, changing colors as she moved. Her narrow, pointy nails were precise as they stitched and sewed the hoodie. The silence smothered Aurora, even though it was always this way.

“Kid, ya made the news again,” Ria said, after a few minutes of silence.

Relief overtook Aurora. Finally, the silence was over. “You saw that? Ain’t it great? Wish the cops weren’t so weak—”

“How many corpses?”

Aurora rolled her eyes and took a deep breath. “None. I didn’t . . . you know.”

“Good. It’s working.”

Aurora tried her best to keep a straight face. “Yeah.”

Ria shook her head. “Ya know, if those police-folk were anything like the United Military, you’d be dead by now. All these stunts you pull . . .”

“That’s the challenge though. I do all this to send fighters my way to get stronger.” She glanced around the shop as she considered the problem of her legacy once more. “I need my name out there, ya know?”

“Omni almighty, ya sound just like Blair.” Ria shook her head. “I asked her this once, and it’s high time I asked you. Why do you seek power?”

Aurora fiddled with her crescent necklace as she sat on the thought. The question reminded her of her talks with Blair after their raids. She clutched her charm firmly in her grasp. 

~ Never Stop Fighting ~

​

Blair’s last words rang fresh in her ear as if she just heard them. The thought alone tugged on her heartstrings. Truth was, aside from her hoodie, the promise of strength was all she had left of Blair. She couldn’t afford to let Blair’s name or dream of power die with her. 

“Who wouldn’t? The strongest make their place in the world. Euryale, Arthur, Icarus, Cleopatra, Minerva, and even Eira are all respected and feared. Why? Cuz they’re Demi-Gods. The strongest. Their magic is second to none. Not that it matters, cuz imma surpass them all.” 

Ria didn’t even raise an eyebrow. “Kid, that’s a tall order.”

“Is it?” Aurora twirled her finger, and a droplet of water appeared, along with a small flame, a spark of electricity, and a small pebble in rapid succession. They all danced around her finger swiftly before colliding and turning into a cluster of blue sparkles. “How many magic wielders do you know can use all the elements?”

Ria blew a puff of smoke from her mouth. “Most magicians are lucky to wield an element at all. You’re wasting your unnatural talent, doing all this. You’re a thug with no vision.”

Aurora’s eyebrow twitched. She hadn’t expected validation from Ria, but the woman’s directness was frustrating. “I got a vision, and I got a plan.” Aurora reached into her pocket and pulled out her wanted poster. “I’m already halfway there!”

Ria stopped stitching. She squinted at Aurora’s wanted poster for a long moment, too long, and then shook her head. “I don’t know why Blair didn’t just let me raise ya. Keep this up, and ya gonna end up like her.”

Aurora’s grip tightened on the edge of the poster. That incident was the last thing she wanted to be reminded of today. “Not like you didn’t have a chance to.”

Ria scoffed. “If ya insisted on bein' a fighter or street rat, there was no way you’d grow under my roof. Dealt with enough stuff like that in the war. Don’t put up with it no more.”

“Stuff like what, Ria?” Her heart rate picked up. That familiar burning feeling returned as well.

Ria blew out another dark puff of smoke. “Relax, kid. All the same, ya should hang the gloves. Bein' wanted with your abilities . . . and that one specifically, ya gonna end up hurt. Or worse, you gonna hurt someone else and have to live with it.”

Aurora’s hands quaked. Her impulses roared at her to swing on Ria, elderly or not. “So just because I’m different, I can’t fight? That’s bullshit, and you know it. You let Blair do all those things and didn’t say a word. I want to be like her. No, better than her. But just because I wasn’t born a Salem, you think I can’t?” 

“That ain’t the point! We were soldiers in times of war. We had to fight. That damn war forced Blair on that path. But ya didn’t grow up during the Great Wars. You weren’t forced to fight. You chose to live that life, you chose to follow that girl, you chose to waste all that talent. And then it’s even worse that you can’t control that rancid—”

“OK, I get it!” 

Ria stopped stitching. Aurora’s eyes flickered red and her necklace glowed. She closed her eyes and counted backward from five once. Then, a second time. The glowing stopped. Her blood simmered down.

 “My point.” Ria slid the finished hoodie toward Aurora. She put out her cigarette and tossed the butt into a nearby bin. “Ya should cut it. Make some friends. Get a trade. Start over with a new identity and go to school. Do something productive with all that power. Anything is better than livin' on the streets or doing whatever the hell you’ve been doing.”

Aurora’s necklace glowed again. “But I can’t live here though, right?” 

Ria averted her gaze. “It wouldn’t be right. Not after . . .” She drifted off, staring at the small, framed photo on her desk. The image displayed herself and a much younger Blair in United Military uniforms.

“Noted.” Aurora bit down on her lip, her face burning. She stared at the hoodie with soft eyes, remembering when it was drenched in blood. Ria was wrong. Blair’s greed didn’t kill her. The truth was far more heartbreaking. Aurora shook her head and snatched the hoodie from the desk. “Thanks, Ria. I’m leaving. Bye.”

Aurora turned toward her and pulled the hoodie back on. “By the way, I’m plenty strong, even without my curse. I can handle myself by myself. I don’t need anyone, and I especially don’t need you.” 

She stormed out of the shop and slammed the door behind her. 

***

Aurora walked quickly through the streets with her head down and hood on, weaving as best she could through the thick crowds. She heard the whispers, which steadily grew louder all around, echoing over the honking cars and the footsteps of all the metropolitans.

Did you hear she was out again? The Crimson Witch hospitalized twenty-five people. She’s a monster. When will Lady Minerva deal with her? Some say her eyes turn red and she grows fangs. She needs to go back to the Gates of Tartarus where she belongs. Monster. Monster. Monster! MONSTER! Aurora covered her ears and was picking up the pace when she slammed into someone accidentally. 

A young girl in a turquoise hoodie, her wired headphones hanging out, stared at her.

“Oh shit, sorry. You okay?” Aurora fumbled with her hood but quickly realized it was too late. The girl looked up at Aurora, and her face drained of color. 

“You, you were on the . . . news. And in the ads . . .”

“I—”

The girl jumped up and ran, screaming to call the police. Everyone surrounding them jumped back at the sound and intensity of the situation, and when they all realized what was going on, they began to run as well. Aurora sucked on her teeth, summoned her broom, and flew away.

When the coast was clear enough that she wouldn’t be followed, Aurora returned to the alley she’d rested in earlier, leaned against the side of a building next to a large dumpster, and buried her face in her knees. After a moment, she turned her gaze to the orange and blue sky. If only Blair were still around to train her. Her grip tightened on her kneecaps. She needed to get stronger, and she needed to do so quickly. The stronger she got, the closer to Blair she could be. Rather, the closer she could get to achieving the dream Blair fell short of, but what was the difference anyway? 

Never stop fighting. She couldn’t afford to forget those words.

As she watched the sky with dampened eyes, her god sister’s memory vivid, Aurora spotted some strange creatures high above. Curious, she summoned her broom. Was this a bad idea? Perhaps, but regardless, she ascended to get a closer look. 

As she drew closer, more details came into view. There were six of these winged creatures.

Are those . . . birds? No way. Too damn big.

Aurora flew in closer and saw them for what they were: large, scaly creatures with wings, spikes, and horns. 

“Dragons? What the hell are dragons doing in Verona? They aren’t allowed to fly here. . .”

They were wyverns: winged dragons with only two back legs. Aurora saw men riding the backs of the scaly creatures, and one wyvern even pulled a flying carriage, which she saw emerge from a nearby cloud. The burgundy carriage brimmed with gold spokes around its circular wheels and gold, sparkly dust falling from its underside, likely due to an aviation enchantment. Red and gold. . .those colors are. . . 

Aurora gasped. A burgundy shield with a scorpion at its center, and a pair of golden swords in the shape of an “X” behind it. 

“I know that crest anywhere. That has to be a royal from the Pearl Kingdom. A Gorgon! Either we’re going to war again, or. . .” Aurora snickered. “It’s time to blow off some steam. Maybe even increase my stock.” 

Aurora waited for them to cross the sky to see where they were going before following from a distance. I’ll show you, Ria. I’ll keep Blair’s name alive and become the baddest witch this planet has ever seen.