It had been 8 months since her Fuel Spirit plan blew up spectacularly in her face. 8 months since she first was entered into the Solis Facility as punishment. 8 months since she threw herself into research on curing Wagandea Sickness as penance. 8 months since she last saw Chariot in person.

It wasn't for lack of trying on Chariot's part. She had contacted Croix every now and again with short letters and quick calls. Croix bitterly noted it was the most she could do. The Solis Magic Correctional Facility was located on a Ley Line, which Chariot no longer could access without the ability to fly. Which was, of course, Croix's fault. In their infrequent and impersonal conversations, Chariot entertained the idea of forgiving Croix. She spoke of how Croix could redeem herself and how Croix was a good person at heart.

Ludicrous. She always had been too kind for her own good. Croix had not even come close to earning forgiveness yet. Had the positions been reversed, had Croix been the one with her abilities ripped away from her, she knows she would never have forgiven Chariot. So how could Chariot expect her to simply pretend like things could be better when she wasn't even able to fly out to Solis and say it to Croix in person?

No, the best either of them could hopeful would be to put things as close to how they were before she had attempted to unlock the Triskellion. Back to when they had not seen each other in ten years and thought of the other as a relic of their pasts. Only this time when everything was done, Croix wouldn't be coming back to bother Chariot ever again. They would be on even footing once more, and the only way Croix could hope for that to become reality would be to cure Chariot's Wagandea Sickness. In her time since she had promised to cure her, Croix had begged and pleaded with everyone she could at the Solis Facility to gain access to anything she could to help her research, getting second-hand books on hexes and outdated volumes of medical encyclopedias. She had been satisfied with that for a while, but none of the information she could get would net her any progress into making things right. It was too old and too little to make any headway on developing a cure. She knew she needed more than what she could get at Solis. After months of sucking up and good behavior she had been granted a special chance; she had been given a week's access to the library of Luna Nova.

As the most prestigious magical academy in the European continent, the library was an invaluable hub of magical knowledge, possibly one of the biggest resources in the western world. To say this would be a boon to her research would be an understatement. The archives at Luna Nova would grant her access to all the latest and most accurate information she could hope for, and if she hoped to do anything to help Chariot one last time before they parted forever, it would be done here.

Of course, given that she had attacked the school, threatened the life of a freshman, attempted to incite an international conflict, been convicted and locked away, and had also been fired, Croix wasn't exactly allowed to just stroll up to campus free as a bird. There was one major stipulation of Solis granting her a short research excursion onto campus. Croix would have to be escorted and monitored at all times.

She had been assigned a probation officer would watch her every move for her to put but a toe out of line, where upon she would lose access to this library, as well as just about any magical campus in the world, for good, and with that, her only hope of helping Chariot. The officer was a wizard, highly trained and exceptionally skilled. He specialized in containing and neutralizing magic users, would dictate where Croix was allowed and not allowed to go on campus, and would give the final word that she would return to Solis permanently if he thought Croix was endangering a single person at Luna Nova.

His name was Keith. Croix didn't like him or his name.

She had been cleared for her probation and finally, after all this time, she left the Solis Facility for the week, joining Keith on his specialized broom as they made their way back to the school. They had exited the Ley Line, and for the first time since she launched the missile, Croix set foot on the grounds of Luna Nova Academy. She and her escort would be staying a short flight away from the school, and would generally be restricted exclusively to the library without explicit permission. Which suited Croix just fine, as she had no intention of doing anything apart from researching here. Anything else was a waste of what little time she had.

Upon getting one last security clearance from Headmistress Holbrooke, and one last assurance that Croix did not have any wands, rings, or any magical artifacts on her person, Keith finally escorted Croix to the library. It was surreal to walk these hallways once more. Students gave them odd looks on the way there, some of them seemingly recognizing Croix from last school year's debacle, some just surprised to see her escort at the all-girl academy. Croix simply ignored them and opened the double doors to the library. As her eyes passed over the large bookshelves that stretched to the ceiling and the students at desks and tables quietly reading, a strange wave of nostalgia overcame Croix.

She never actually went in here during her brief tenure as a teacher. Hadn't been much reason to. She thought she had all the knowledge she needed for her plan to succeed. In hindsight, there were pretty massive holes she overlooked, but it was too late for that now. Coming back, with the intention of pouring herself into a long study session…how long had it been since she had done this? How many days and nights had she spent in here with Chari-

She shook the thought from her head. There was no point to thinking of that. She didn't come here to reminisce about happy memories, she came because she had a sentence to pay.

It didn't take her long to find a few thick textbooks to begin her research. The layout hadn't changed much in a decade, and the type of books Croix would need were highly unlikely to be touched by anyone but those in highly specialized classes. Quite a few of these shelves were almost exclusively accessed by alumni. She picked out an especially heavy doorstopper of a book. Of Magic and Biology: A Comprehensive Study on the Effects of Magic Flow on the Human Body. Croix would start with the basics. It wouldn't be a whole lot she didn't know, but if she didn't understand completely how magic coursed through a witch's body, restoring that flow would be all but impossible. She stuffed the book under her arm along with her notebook, filled with what meager notes she had been able to get from the books at Solis.

"Ready to begin, Meridies?" Keith asked her as they sat down at a small table tucked into the corner of the room. She didn't look up at him.

"At least now I can make things right." She glanced through the lengthy table of contents for a starting point. If she only had a week, she could not afford to waste a second with anything other than research. There was no telling if she'd ever get another chance at this.

"And curing Professor Du Nord is the only way you can do right?" He looked at her blankly, waiting for answer to dissect. She wanted to snap at him, but thought better of it. She had too much to lose and not much leeway and she didn't want to sit here and be psychoanalyzed again. Ignoring the officer, she focused solely on the text in front of her. This was the only thing that mattered now. She could rot forever in Solis, but as long she could get this right, Chariot would be better off. Croix thought Keith looked disappointed he wasn't going to get to write yet another comprehensive report on her personality flaws, or at least she hoped he was. Eventually, he pulled out his own paperwork and the two worked in silence, with not a sound from either of them but the scratching of pen on paper or the turning of pages.

They continued like this for the better part of two hours. Croix didn't truly learn much, but this was giving her a good baseline to work from. A small refresher would help her help Chariot. She was concentrating on an explanation for how magic could grow with age and practice when suddenly-

KRR-CHUNK!

They both whipped around at the sudden mechanical noise. Despite being in the corner of the library, it inexplicably had come from behind them. Even more inexplicably, however, was the fact that the source of the noise appeared to be the fact that a section of the wall had opened up to reveal a hidden passageway. From out of the new hole in the wall stepped a short blue-haired girl carrying a literal armful of electronics. It took Croix a moment, but she knew who this girl was. A student who had attended her class back when she had masqueraded as a professor. She would be a sophomore now. Constanze Albrechtsburger.

She had other surnames, but god, who could remember them all?

As the hidden door closed behind her, Constanze had turned and suddenly realized she had been seen. Frozen in place, she quickly glanced back at the secret entrance behind her, and stared unblinking at the two of them.

"Uh." Croix was at a loss for words. "Hello?"

Keith raised a brow. Dryly, he said, "I see you're not the only one with an evil lair, Meridies."

Constanze didn't say anything back, but then, she never really did. She was still rooted at the spot, beads of sweat starting to form on her forehead. Croix was confused by the reaction for a moment, but soon realized what the matter was. "…You know, I'm not a professor here anymore. I'm not going to tell anyone about your secret hole there."

Constanze let out the breath she was holding, relieved that her secret passageway might remain so. From the corner of her eye, Croix saw that Keith didn't exactly look approving of this exchange, but it didn't actually break any of the rules he had set, so thankfully he didn't speak up.

"So…" Croix figured she'd better make conversation here, because it's not like the kid was going to do it. "…You don't have a bag to carry that junk in?"

Constanze bristled at the word junk, and spitefully placed the things she was carrying right on top of Croix's textbook before planting her gloved hands on her hips. Looking down at the offending machinery that now obscured her work, Croix realized the parts all seemed to be part of a single device, one that she had seen with the girl before.

"Oh, hey. This sort of looks like one of those little robots you have." Her…Stanbots, was it? From a glance, Croix could see that this appeared to be some sort of upgraded model to Constanze's old design. It was obviously unfinished, especially given that it was currently in several pieces, but with her own expertise on inventing, it would be smaller and sleeker than its prototype, and it wasn't far from completion at this point. The design seemed quite brilliant, especially for a student's budget. Notably, there was odd scoring on the battery compartment. It looked like the regulator had been overloaded and fried the whole circuit.

She picked up the machine and inspected the circuitry closer. "Huh…This is magic powered, right?" Constanze nodded. "Looks like you put too juice into the regulator. If you're going to use straight magic on something this size, you're going to need some better resistors, otherwise you have too much magic current. Otherwise, what you could do is use a lighter spell to power it, but the battery won't hold the charge as long."

She briefly thought about taking the kid's wand and showing her how to do it, but she was pretty sure Keith would tackle her if she even touched it. Looking back up from the robot, she noticed both Constanze and Keith looking at her oddly. Honestly, she felt a little insulted.

"What? Don't tell me you've forgotten that I'm an engineer. I invented magitronics, and those were a lot smaller than this thing."

"Magitronics?" Keith raised an unapproving brow. "As in, what your missile you shot was made out of?'

"Ah…" Croix looked abashed for a moment. Leave it to Keith to go and make this more awkward than it needed to be. She laughed nervously. "…that'd be the one."

"And you're using this to give advice to a child?"

"…Well…"

"In front of a probation officer?"

"Wh-I wasn't telling her to go build a nuke! I was giving her basic circuitry advice!"

Keith didn't look approving, and briefly Croix feared that she had crossed a line and Keith would change his mind and escort her from the building. But he didn't make a move or voice anything more than a silent reprimand, so for now, Croix's work was safe. Relieved, she turned back to Constanze and noticed the concern stitched onto her face.

It was always a puzzle to figure out what was on the girl's mind, what with the fact that she never talked, but judging from her eye line flashing between the pieces of the robot in front of them and Croix sitting across from her, it wasn't hard to guess. Back when she had been acting as a professor, she had actually found herself sympathizing with the young witch, to whatever degree she could sympathize with anyone. Just like Croix, she was mixing magic and technology, and just like Croix, everyone was too enamored with traditions and their own fear of change to see it as anything other than heresy. She doubted the little German girl hadn't noticed the sideways looks and subtle scorn in people's voices as she dabbled in their blasphemy. She too, probably spent sleepless nights wondering if she even should continue her work, before deciding to tune out all the hate and prove the naysayers wrong.

The problem then, was Croix would've just proved them right. Her Noir Rod had mixed immeasurably old magic with 21st century technology, and she had used it to endanger thousands of people. People would be pointing to her for years as the prime argument for why things should never change, because when someone tried to do things differently, she ended up being an awful person who tried to kill a teenager. Indirectly, Croix had just spat on Constanze's life work. They were going to look at the innocent girl's inventions and see Croix and all the problems she caused in them.

Constanze looked between the gadgets in her arm and Croix as a choice between giving up her dreams, her love, her talents and succumbing to centuries of tradition, or somehow choosing to continue and enduring being in the same league as someone like her.

God, she wasn't even the kid whose life she was trying to ruin, and Croix managed to do it anyway. Luna Nova's hiring staff must've been absolutely braindead.

"You think if you build your robot, you're going turn out like me." Croix didn't bother to phrase it as a question.

Constanze blinked in surprise for a moment. She seemed to deliberate how to respond, but after a moment, she gave a slow hesitant nod of her head. She then looked away suddenly, apologetic about having admitted such a thing. Croix just snorted. She'd need an insult a lot worse than that to get under her skin.

Picking up the pieces of the robot from her book, she knelt down to Constanze's eye level and handed the work back to its owner. Constanze accepted it with some confusion, and seemed even more bewildered when Croix placed a hand on her shoulder. From behind them, Keith tensed, preparing to move in a moment's notice.

"Look, kid." Croix said to the sophomore. "Sorcery and magitronics aren't bad. Neither is your little robot. I'm bad. There's not…technology isn't good or evil. It just is. There's good people and evil people who use it. Same deal with magic. There are witches who use it to do good things, and then there's people like me." Constanze was taken back, and Croix let out a long, guilty sigh.

"I…probably ruined a lot of things for you with my technology. People are going to think like you did, and they're going to see all your inventions as evil and blasphemous or whatever." The younger girl seemed sullen at the confirmation, but Croix squeezed her shoulder. "But they're not, alright?"

"Your robots and devices and…whatever aren't going to be bad unless you're making them bad. My magitronics weren't the problem. The Noir Rod didn't just become evil out of nowhere. It happened because I was using them to hurt people. You just…you just need to be a good person. Don't listen to anyone who cries about how technology is evil. You just keep on inventing stuff to help people, and soon everyone's going to forget about me and what I did, because all they're going to be thinking about is you."

Unseen by the two witches, Keith's shoulders relaxed, but he continued to watch the exchange intently, with the intention of keeping both parties safe, but also with some fascination. In her stay at the Solis Correctional Facility, Croix rarely interacted more than she strictly had to. She had spent every second of her free time researching, and was never one to seek out social interaction. She claimed to hate it. This was one of the only times she had spoken to a non-staff member since she had been entered, and that was both good, and very concerning. He made a mental note of the conversation, and would definitely write it down and analyze it later. For now, he watched Croix interact with the young girl with muted interest.

Croix gave Constanze the closest thing she knew to a reassuring smile. "Who knows, maybe one day, you could take the science behind my Sorcery Units and Fuel Spirit devices and actually redeem them. Show the world that technology and magic can do some good together. I'd like to see that, someone using my stuff to make someone's life better for a change. You don't have to, or anything. But don't give up just because I made life harder for you."

Constanze seemed to think over this idea. Ever silently, she weighed her thoughts, and looked to the pieces of the Stanbot resting in her arms. She picked up a small panel, and clicked it back into its casing on the machine's exterior. She had made her choice. Constanze was going to finish building this Stanbot, and every other project she was working on. She would let people say what they wanted to say. She didn't need words to follow her heart. Satisfied with the progress she had made on the device, she decided to thank Croix before she went about her business.

If the kid's expression wasn't neutral, it was grimacing. She wasn't the kind of person who wore her heart on her sleeve. But when Constanze smiled, she absolutely beamed. It was shining and genuine, the way that only a smile so rare could be. Croix couldn't explain the emotion overcoming her as Constanze bright face impacted her. She could barely bring herself to smile back, because how could she ever hope to match such a brilliant expression?

"Y-you're welcome, kid." Croix felt overwhelmed. "Good luck with your work."

Constanze left pretty quickly, renting a book on her way out, presumably what she had come to do in the first place. Croix's eyes followed her as the kid left the building with renewed vigor, her Stanbot hanging from her arms almost like a beloved teddy bear. With a small content huff, Croix stood up and returned to her desk, taking a moment to brush off the pages of the book. As she picked up where she left off, she didn't notice Keith staring at her, barely registering the parole officer until he eventually spoke up.

"She seems like a good kid. I hope you didn't just talk her into supervillainy."

"Shut up, Keith…Wait, don't write that down, I didn't mean it!"

AN: So I felt a bit burned out by my last story, where I pretty much was just making fun of it by the last chapter. I felt like I needed to write something different...which ended up a 4th LWA story, but this is a different style at least! Keith, I have decided, is the wizard dude from Ep. 25. This is who he is now. I have adopted him.

Anyway, you can probably guess from the format how this'll go down. Constanze was chosen first because she seemed like easiest character for Croix to open up to. The next chapter is "Sucy". We'll also see Chariot again next time too, which is gonna open all sorts of problems.

I should also mention there are 8 chapters. One for each of the 9 New Witches...except one.