Suddenly A Succubus-Chapter 45.3

Suddenly A Succubus-Chapter 45.3

As the two girls approached the quad, Amara began running through a mental checklist of all her powers. With Vee’s reminder that the Coven would likely be on high alert, it was more important than ever to keep a level head.
Alright, my clothes are illusory, which means I should avoid ripping them; I have no idea how much stress they can take before they vanish. No fire, no manipulating heat to make people warm, even if they’re shivering their asses off. I can keep my demonic features hidden easily enough, though I’ll have to be careful with my eyes. My strength is going to be the biggest problem; I still have no idea how strong I actually am.
Maybe I should finally take Nick on his weightlifting offer.
Once the open field came into view, along with a small crowd of students, Amara retracted the warmth she had been projecting around Vee. She immediately shivered slightly and pulled herself closer, which brought a smile to Amara’s face.
Scattered conversations and pockets of muttering filled Amara’s ears as they joined the crowd. It didn’t seem as busy as their previous meetings had been, though she had no idea who was missing. As she looked around, trying to place the faces of everyone around her, she saw Imani break away from a small group and run closer.
“Amara, Vee, hey!” Imani said, rubbing her hands together. “How are we doing? Truth be told, I wasn’t expecting you to show.”
Memories of her last encounter with Imani returned to Amara, and she wasn’t entirely sure what to say. Thankfully, Vee spoke up to fill the silence. “Well, it’s not like we had anything else going on, right, Amara?”
Vee nudged Amara, who awkwardly nodded. “Um, yeah. What she said. So, what’s going on here?”
Imani smiled. “While the other Coven Heads are busy with all the magical theory, Coven Head Tsopnang is going to start repairing the damage to the quad. Her magic is a perfect fit, but she’s going to need help with the manual labor. We’re actually going to be splitting up into teams, and I’ll be running around making sure everything goes smoothly!”
Hearing that one of the Coven Heads was here, Amara looked around to try and remember which one Tsopnang was. She eventually saw her standing in the middle of the quad, the silver cuffs at the end of her thick black hair glittering in the sunlight. She was ignoring everyone else, looking around at the ground and the trees, when she slowly raised her hands and closed her eyes. Amara felt a strange tingle run down her back as she watched Coven Head Tsopnang engage her magic, using it to clear away the snow that had gathered during the last storm.
The thick blanket of snow shifted and warped in response to the witch’s magic, her hands elegantly tracing the path it took. Not a single hint of frost remained on the grass she cleared, which quickly exposed the scars from their fight with Brandon.
Okay, so this is… Palesa Tsopnang. She’s got feelings for Liz, one of the other Coven Heads, but maybe it’s a secret? I still don’t know how they were in the same dream together. Unless they weren’t and Palesa was just dreaming about a secret rendezvous. Their conversation seemed weirdly grounded, though, and Liz noticed when I entered the dream…
“—is that alright, Amara?” Imani asked.
“Sorry, what?” Amara turned back, having ignored the last few seconds of conversation as she watched Palesa work.
“I said you’ll be over there with Ruby, Justin, and the others. Is that alright?” As she spoke, Imani pointed over to a small group of students standing closer to Palesa, near one of the larger trees.
Following the gesture, Amara saw the group in question. She immediately recognized Ruby, whose bright red hair and muscular figure stood out even in her winter gear. Everyone else in the group seemed to be bigger and muscular in their own ways, which seemed odd to Amara. “I hate to ask, but how are these groups chosen?”
“Like I said, there’s going to be quite a lot of manual labor today,” Imani began. “That group is going to be taking care of the heavy lifting! It’s mostly people with athletic backgrounds of some kind, and I figured with your martial arts background, you’d fit right in!”
“My what?” Amara cocked an eyebrow. “I've never done martial arts before.”
“You haven’t? That’s odd, I could have sworn… Eh, it’s no big deal. If the group needs some extra help later, we can easily move people around. Let me know if it’s too tough, alright?” With a bright smile, Imani jogged over to another student that was calling out.
“That was weird,” Vee said, stepping closer. “Why would Imani think that?”
“Beats me. Maybe she thinks that’s how I helped with all the cult stuff?” Amara sighed before looking back at Vee. “What do you think about all this?”
“Well, it’s obviously an attempt to foster community,” Vee scoffed. “There’s no way they legitimately need help clearing away debris. I’ll bet they have some long-winded explanation about how people working together form stronger bonds, and it’s supposed to help us heal or something.”
“Alright, well… let’s give it a shot, I guess,” Amara said. She pulled Vee in for a hug, who seemed to cling tighter than usual. Amara chuckled to herself, assuming Vee just wanted to steal her heat.
Once they split up, Amara walked over to join her assigned group. Ruby was busy chatting with the other students, and when she noticed Amara, she gasped before quickly averting her eyes. A powerfully sweet smell filled Amara’s senses as Ruby’s aura surged, which made her laugh quietly to herself.
She probably remembers that dream, but does she know it was actually me?
Amara thought about striking up a conversation with Ruby, but her attention was pulled back to Palesa when another tingle ran down her spine. The Coven Head was nearly finished clearing the quad of snow, which had taken remarkably little time. As Amara watched, the witch finished up completely, then moved to a large tree close to the center of the quad. She disengaged her magic, resting her fingers on the side of her face as she examined the branches above her.
She eventually stepped closer, approaching the base of the oak, and placed a hand on the trunk. Closing her eyes, Amara felt another tingle, then the branches of the tree began to shake. One by one, dead sections of the tree broke off and fell to the ground. At first, they were smaller, but soon thicker branches were falling as well. After a minute, Palesa stepped back with a smile.
She called out to the closest group, Amara’s, and asked that they start moving all the detritus to the center of the quad. Once this started, Palesa left them alone and began traveling around the field, approaching each tree in turn and repeating the process.
In time, all the students present were busy moving bits of dead tree around. Small pockets of conversation continued, with occasional bouts of laughter echoing around the field as everyone worked. Amara found it difficult to engage in any of the small talk going on around her, but found herself enjoying the menial labor.
The easier tasks came and went, and eventually Palesa began pulling down larger sections of the trees. The responsibility for these larger pieces fell to Amara’s group, which led to another problem: Amara had no idea how heavy they were.
When she first approached one, she found herself partnering with Ruby so they could lift it together. As Ruby rubbed her hands together, Amara stepped closer and quietly struck up a conversation. “Hey, Ruby. Awkward question, but how heavy is this thing? I need to make sure I don’t draw any attention to myself.”
“O-oh, Amara! Hey!” Ruby stammered. As she spoke, her words were unusually stilted. “It’s, um… I dunno, I definitely couldn’t lift it on my own. Just how strong are you?”
Amara leaned closer, then whispered “I could chuck this thing halfway across campus.”
Ruby swallowed nervously. “Wow. That’s really… um, never mind. How about I grab one end, you take the other, and just watch me for cues, alright?”
“Stare at your body and see how hard it is. Gotcha.” Amara smirked as she caught Ruby’s gaze, who immediately blushed before averting her eyes. The vibrant aura surrounding Ruby swelled again, and Amara took a deep breath to enjoy the smell before getting started. Working so closely with Ruby made the morning much more enjoyable. The smell of her arousal was delicious, and their proximity made it much easier for Amara to feign typical, human levels of strength.
Over time, many of the students began clearing out once the bulk of the labor had been finished. Amara’s team stayed the longest, as they were moving the heaviest pieces, and Vee even joined them once her own assigned team had been dismissed.
It was surprising just how many trees had sustained damage during their fight. Amara had been so focused on fighting Brandon and the reapers that she’d allowed her hellfire to run rampant. While some of the branches appeared to have snapped from physical impacts, quite a few had been partially destroyed by her own flames.
Eventually, they were no longer needed, as all the dead wood had been gathered in a large pile in the center of the field. Imani was incredibly pleased with everyone’s work and happily dismissed the last group. Amara, however, found herself curious about what was going to happen next. Rather than head to lunch with Ruby and the others, she asked Vee if they could stick around for a few minutes to watch.
With all the students gone, Palesa stepped close to one of the larger trees that had been near Brandon’s portal. She placed a hand on the trunk, closed her eyes, and Amara felt another tingle run down her back as she watched.
The tree shivered at Palesa’s touch, creaking and twitching as it reacted to the magic. A significant portion of its branches had been culled over the course of the morning, yet before Amara’s eyes, those sections began to grow back. Thin, green slivers poked out from the healthy wood, pulsing with magic as they stretched and twisted into new branches and leaves. These new portions looked quite out of place compared to the other, barren trees, but Palesa soon remedied that as well. Seconds after the branches had finished regrowing, the bright green leaves shriveled and fell to the ground, leaving the tree in a state that looked completely natural for the season.
Palesa soon stepped back from the tree, taking a deep breath before she opened her eyes again. She nodded in satisfaction, then with another elegant hand gesture, swept all the leaves into the large pile of dead branches.
Her curiosity getting the better of her, Amara approached the Coven Head. “Miss Tsopnang, was it? What exactly are you doing here?”
“The incursion left deep scars here, I’m simply trying to restore what was lost. Cull that which no longer lives, breathe new life into that which can be saved.” The Coven Head’s eyes remained fixed on her next target, another large tree, as she spoke. “You were more closely involved with the disaster than most, correct? I recall Miss Blackwood mentioning you in her debriefing.”
“Uh, yeah, but not by much,” Amara muttered. “Just an extra set of hands, really. So, what, you have plant magic or something?”
“I object to the oversimplification of my abilities as ‘plant magic’ but, if you must, I suppose there are worse descriptors. The trees here suffered greatly during the attack; I’m pleased they were not beyond saving. Some of their branches were drained of life by the entropic forces of Purgatory, some were snapped off by the reckless flight of those skeletal beasts. Curiously, I’ve also found small pockets of fire damage, which I’m struggling to understand.”
“Well, the portal thingy exploded when it collapsed,” Amara muttered, hoping to deflect suspicion.
Palesa walked over to the pile of dead branches, plucking out one in particular with her magic. It hovered in front of the two of them while she continued speaking. “These aren’t the burns of a planar explosion, but I’m having trouble placing what might have caused the damage. Still, it doesn’t matter in the end.”
The branch floated back to the pile, then Palesa held up a hand to urge Amara to take a step back. “Please keep your distance, child.”
She raised her hands once more, and after a few moments of concentration, the dead wood in front of them caught fire. The flames spread slower than Amara anticipated, but it seemed that they were being controlled by the Coven Head.
“Whoa, you can do fire, too?” Amara asked. Vee appeared beside her, holding out her hands to warm them.
“I’ve been a witch for quite some time,” Palesa explained calmly. “I had no interest in limiting my abilities to any singular field.”
“How much control do you have over it? If you’re a Coven Head, I’ll bet you’ve got some serious firepower under your belt.” Amara eagerly watched as the fire danced and flickered in the detritus, wishing she could flaunt her own abilities.
“Magic is not about raw strength, child. We don’t concern ourselves with matters of destruction, for much the same reason we seek to limit the spread of knowledge regarding our secrets. There are too many people who would see magic as nothing but a weapon.” Palesa turned to look at Amara, a solemn look in her eyes. “It is the most foundational of our principles, and our most deeply held belief: Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
The pile of branches cracked and shifted, finally releasing a small column of smoke into the air. Palesa shifted the position of her hands, and with another pulse of magic, the air above the bonfire began swirling with excitement. It dispersed the smoke a few dozen feet into the air, well before it might be noticed by anyone outside the campus.
“Then why take fire magic?” Amara asked, her gaze locked on the comforting flames in front of her. “Fire is destruction.”
Palesa shook her head. “Fire is a tool. Yes, it can be used to harm, but what of the forest wildfires? When controlled, they clear away rot and death, paving the way for more plants to grow anew. What of the fires we use to cook our food, or to create buildings and works of art?”
Amara said nothing. She thought back to her own experiences, to the joy she felt when Nick first pushed her to make popcorn without a microwave. She took a deep breath, muttered a quiet word of thanks to Palesa, then left side-by-side with Vee. Her conversation with Palesa had been unexpectedly poignant, and when she looked up, she saw that Vee had been leading them back to their apartments.
She stopped walking. “Vee, wait.”
“What’s up? Everything alright?” Vee turned back, gently grabbing Amara’s arm.
“I think…” Amara bit her tongue, trying to keep her emotions in check. “I think I’m ready.”
Vee gasped. “Are you sure? We can wait; this doesn’t have to happen today.”
Amara shook her head. “No. I need to do this. I’ve been putting it off for far too long.”
They looked at each other, Vee nodding solemnly, then they turned around. They started heading south, across the quad, towards Chloé’s dorm.

Chapter 45.3