On the 19th of March I asked who would want to write with me and gave out a writing prompt for people to have fun with. I didn't get any responses admittedly...
So! To make up for this I wrote what would be the first chapter of a story rather then just 500 words. Hope you enjoy Ava's last day in the world.
"Be safe Master."
"I will Ava." His old hand patted me on the head, "I shouldn't be gone more than a few weeks. Be good, keep up your studies."
"Of course." I smiled.
My old Master gave me an approving nod, his silver beard shifting slightly as the concealed mouth underneath smile. He got in his horse-drawn carriage and I waved him off as it rumbled down the dirt road away from the castle. Away from home.
If I'm grateful for anything in life, it's that I got to see my Master off that day. My last memory of him got to be that bearded smile, a pat from the wrinkled old hand. Blissfully ignorant that it would be the last time I would ever see him.
He didn't die. I didn't die either. It was...I suppose I should just start the story huh?
Well, it started a few days after he left. The castle was lonely without him. People were always scared of me, having magic does that to people. They were nice to my face, maids still made my bed and cooks still cooked my food but they were only nice because Master would be mad if he heard otherwise.
They all liked Master, but that was because he had spent years using his gift to make people happy, advising the crown and pushing the country int a time of peace and prosperity.
I was still very much an unknown quantity. Blow up one castle tower and everyone suddenly doesn't trust you to wield the gifts you were born with. (No one even got hurt, it was fine!)
Anyway. I got sidetracked again...
It was a few days into this lonely time before my days of study and magic practice was interrupted forevermore.
I was in the library at the time. I sat at a desk, back to a roaring fire a wall of books between me and the entrance. I had been copying out lines and lines of ancient runic script but at some point, I must have drifted off.
I heard the door open. It was a big a heavy door, I always appreciated it's wake up call so Master never caught me taking naps.
I blinked my eyes to darkness confused, the long rim of my pointy wizard had making a great pretend night sky. I kept my head down and listened.
Whoever came in tried to close the door behind them, the old hinges had a distinctive squeak for both ways you see. They gave up halfway through, the floor didn’t vibrate with the clunk of it being put back into place before heavy footsteps scrambled away from the door.
I lifted my head, wincing a little at the light. Holding the rims of my hat down to the side of my face like that would somehow let my hide I peaked out from around the wall of books to the door.
Whoever had come in was nowhere to be found and sadly the door was ajar in the wrong direction, I couldn't see what was outside.
Quietly as I could I pushed my seat back and made a gentle jog for the towing bookshelves on my right; the left of the person who came in and where I thought I head them run. I didn’t hear them now, but rubbernecking past every column of books I eventually found them.
They were curled up, cowering, crying. I recognised them though. It was Sven, he was a gardener, an apprentice like me. I crouched and quietly went up to the blond boy that clutched at the loose cap on his head, teeth gritted.
"Hey," I whispered.
It looked like he tried to jump to his feet but he didn’t quite get his footing and fell right back down again. He looked at me fearful but then recognition finally dawned on him. He smiled.
"Young Mistress." He smiled.
I frowned. People only smiled at me like that when they wanted something.
"Where's the fire?" I asked.
"T-there are people, in these strange outfits, they're attacking the castle." He said quickly, yelling every other word but then realising he was trying to quiet and stopping himself.
I frowned, can't say I've had to deal with intruders before. Can't say Master has for a while anyway, no one is usually dumb enough to try and fight a wizard in their own home.
"What kind of weapons do they have?" I asked.
"I-I don’t know. One had a sword I think and the had these...wands? Black and bent, they point it at someone and there is a loud bang and they fall over." He tried to explain.
I titled my head, thinking. I hadn't heard about anything like that in my studies. How do you even point a bent want anyway? I shook my head. We did have guards, albeit not many but if Seven had felt the need to run and hide in here then obviously this had been too much for them to handle. As the mistress of the castle on a technicality of my Master being out...I guessed it was my job to deal with them. That's what Master would have done anyway.
I straightened, took a deep breath and drew my blue paintbrush shaped want from his holster at my waist. Sven didn't try and stop me as I strode away. I wish he had at the time, I didn’t want to have to face scary known enemy wizards when I was still an apprentice but, nor could I let his castle fall while Master was away. For his pride more than anything else I left the library and made my way to the entrance.
I found them in the entrance hall. They indeed were strange. There were three of them that I could see peeking out a door and through the bannister at the floor below. My view wasn't great, there could have been more but I took the chance to take in the ones I could see.
Their outfits were all different but all the same colour, black and while. One was a woman, tight black pants with plain white shirt, she was wrapped in a padded black, fur-lined coat. She was pale, her hair a vibrant red and her face set in a bored glared that made her look like she'd rather be anywhere than here.
The other two were men. One had an outfit that looked familiar to me at least. He had a twin tail overcoat, a fencing sabre at his waist. A white shirt tucked into black trousers and a create topped it off. He looked fairly relaxed, kind eyes wandering over the castle with admiration. (Which he should. The entrance had some great paintings Master had acquired from people grateful for his help)
The last had a long white coat, stripes of black down the sides. He wore black trousers that reached the quarters down his leg, matching boots, a shirt with a hard collar and a black tied piece of fabric around his neck. He looked around, green analytical eyes under messy brown hair.
I saw no signs of these bent black wands but then, wands could be easily concealed. I closed the door a moment and tried to think. What would Master have done in this situation?
He probably would have confronted them, tried to talk to them, come to a peaceful solution if possible. If not, he would defeat them.
Sounded easy enough but the man had years of experience on me. I wasn't overly confident that I could do such a thing. But! Who else was going to? I couldn't let the castle fall while Master was away, I couldn't let him down like that.
So. I took a breath and opened the door loudly. I took a deep breath to yell loudly but the woman in the fur-lined coat grinned at me, I scary twisted grin that instantly made me regret my last action.
"Found her." She said and with a single leap she was standing on the bannister before me, her hand like claws her grin bearing fangs.
"Alter!" I vaguely heard one of the men downstairs yell but honestly, the only thing on my mind was turning tail and running because as far as I was concerned what I barely dodged the swing of was not a woman, it was a monster.
My feet pounded the long hallway I came from, and the woman was probably hot on my tail but I wasn't willing to look back and check. Luckily, at the very least I hadn't dropped my wand, I tried to get some kind of train of thought together, tried to pull up some of the studies I had been so diligently going the past few years. (Study is much easier than battle)
It took me a while, but I managed to get a spell in my head. I turned and hesitated a moment. She was so close. She was ready to pounce again, I stumbled but luckily the spell I had thought of didn't really need good aim.
"S-Srent!" I managed to bark out.
An invisible force knocked her back, shattered the windows in the hall, knocked tabled off this legs... looking back on it now I know I used a bit too much force but I was panicking, couldn't help it.
The woman was thrown all the way back to the start of the hallway and rolled until she hit the door. I stood breathing heavy. Stunned a moment. What was I supposed to do now? I really really had hoped I could just talk to them. I don’t want to kill them.
I was breathing heavy, watching the woman get on all fours and shake off my attack like a dog shakes off rainwater. The door behind her opened and the man in the long white coat look down at her.
"Use your damn gun, Alter." He snapped at her.
"You use your damn gun." She snapped back and he shook his head with a sigh.
As gun? I wondered what a gun was....
He pulled his hand out of his pocket and my answer was the strange wand. It was bent, but it was also thicker than any wand I had seen. He held the bent part like a handle and pointed the other end at me. I narrowed my eyes.
I didn’t expect the monster woman, I hadn't prepared for that. This though, I had been going through spells in my head. Over and over I repeated the shield spell in my head. I changed my stance ready.
The problem was I didn’t realise just how fast these bent wands were. The man pulled the trigger, there was a bang, I started to move my wand in an ark, I started the spell but I felt a powerful force throw me back.
And then darkness.
My time in that world was over the moment the trigger was pulled. It sounds pretty pathetic after writing it, I didn’t put up much of a fight at all. In fact, for those three it was probably the smoothest mission they had ever been on.
I woke up later in a cold room. I had been placed in a metal chair, slumped over a table. I blinked a few times, the darkness of my large rimmed wizard hart not as effective with two rips in it.
Must have been that woman...
At that memories rushed back to me. I sat up so fast my hat nearly fell off. I grabbed it and looked round in a panic. After my hat was secure I checked my wand holster.
Empty.
I wanted to cry. What the hell was going on? The room was small, cold and white. There was a table in front of me, a chair on the other side and eventually, I registered the man sitting there.
He looked pretty relaxed, waiting for me to slowly catch up but I wasn't. My breathing just kept getting quicker and panic threatened to coak me.
"Ava." He said cautiously.
"Where am I? What's going on? What happened? Can I go home? Who are you?" At his voice I found mine and a stream of questions burst from my chest as tears escaped my eyes.
He put his hands up, "In that order. HQ. You were a target for capture on one of our missions. One of our men shot you with a tranquiliser, kept you out cold long enough to get you back without fuss. No, sadly you can't go home and My name is Miles, nice to meet you."
I tried to slow down my breathing as he answered my questions. HQ? Mission?
"I know that was all pretty vague but I don’t really want to explain until you've calmed down," Miles admitted honestly.
He seemed pretty harmless, this Miles. I nodded, tried to reassure myself that the thin man on the other side of the desk was friendly. That my situation wasn't insane. That I hadn't been kidnapped....
"Alright." I took a deep breath and wiped my eyes, "What in the world is going on?"
Miles tilted his head, frowning as his blue eyes scrutinised me. After a few moments, he nodded, approving me as calm enough to hear the cold hard truth.
"We are WEPS. World Ending Prevention Society. Our job is to stop the premature destruction of humanity or the world or universe and to that end, you have been removed from the timeline. It was decided to remove you from the timeline due to the fact that in 30 or 40 years from now, you were destined to destroy the world." He told me, calmly and clearly.
But even though he did I stared.
What kind of explanation was that?
I enjoyed writing this. The adventures of WEPS is something I've been wanting to write about for a while but haven't had time to plan a solid idea or the overall plot. It's very much inspired by The Chronicles of St Mary's by Jodie Taylor.
P.S if I ever do continue to write about this, character designs and names may change. Ava will always be a wizard though cause I wanted to write about a wizard
As explained is inspired by the book series Chronicles of At May's which I have blogged my love for here. I highly recommend it!