The Senshi Fairy Chronicles

11. Magic Channeling for Dummies (Mirta, Raye, and Roxy)

With the Guardian Senshi quartet now complete, the power dynamics within the Sol system Senshi group changed a bit. Roxy, as crown princess, still held the most sway in decision-making, but the Guardians' presence boosted Mina's confidence and allowed her to set herself in position as Roxy's right-hand advisor and sworn protector. Mackay still found the idea of other girls wanting her as a friend and sister foreign, and had trouble adjusting to dorm life after so much time on her own. Under Iris' careful instruction, Amy learned to put her brilliant mind to use in strategies not related to maintaining her stellar GPA (though her class notes were still the most fought-over of the group due to their detail). Haruka and Michelle ran in their own little world, more often than not, due to the age gap between them and the Guardians.

Mars, though, was having about as much trouble as Roxy with focusing her powers. The amount of power wasn't the issue—she's been conjuring heat and flames months before she ever transformed—but the manner in which she tried to draw it out yielded interesting results more often than not. Combat magic class with Griselda wasn't shaping up to be any different. The severe woman wanted fairy-type magic only, and her insistence on it frustrated the young Martian Senshi.

"It'd be more helpful if she'd just tell me how to do it instead of saying no each damn time," the raven haired girl growled as the class lined up, once again, for target practice. One bolt of magic thrown at the bullseye fifty feet away; three girls attacking. "How am I supposed to fix the problem if I don't know what I'm doing wrong?"

Roxy, who stood next to her, offered a sheepish grin. "I wish I knew how to help, but according to her, I sometimes have the same problem when I'm pissed or frustrated. Setsuna didn't sound worried about it, though…but she has a different interpretation of spell and energy ranking systems than most people here."

"We can't be the first ones to have trouble, though." Not in a school this large and old, she reasoned. Somebody had to have come through with these issues before their time. "There's gotta be something that can help us."

"Or someone, maybe." The Terran princess' lips drew into a 'thinking' frown. "I remember hearing someone tell me that Mirta started off at Cloud Tower. Maybe she could help?"

"You sure?" Mirta was sweet and friendly, but not someone Raye thought had issues channeling the "wrong" kind of magic. "She seems pretty fairy-like to me."

"The least we can do is ask her, and the worst she can do is say she can't help us." The pink-haired girl shrugged as Haruka and Mina stepped up to the target line. Both their targets ended up shredded or blasted to bits. "We can track her down after class; she's a TA this year so she should have office hours."

Michelle, Amy, and Mackay went next, Raye's amethyst eyes tracking them as they moved. Mackay and Amy had trouble conjuring offensive attacks at all—the first because she was so new to magic and the second because her magic leaned more toward the defensive end of the spectrum. Michelle took a moment after her turn to coach the other two into at least forming something resembling a combat bolt. Raye sighed as the scene wound to a close and they were asked to step up to the line with Krystal. "Fine, but if this doesn't work, I'm blaming you, princess."

"Whatever makes you feel better, priestess." The fairy of animals smirked.

Mirta's 'office' looked more like a cheap desk shoehorned into a supply closet, but at least she had her own space. Most TAs got shoved into a long, narrow 'office' in two rows of six, offering no room to hear yourself think and little room to get up from your desk without bumping your neighbor's. The redheaded senior offered the pair a tired smile as they entered. "Well, isn't this a surprise. I figured you'd go to someone else for help."

"No one else seems to know how to help, or else has no time to offer it," Roxy answered. "You were the first person I thought might know how to handle this."

"And what is 'this', exactly?" Mirta inquired. "I haven't even earned my Enchantix yet; there's not a lot I can help with."

"But you've studied two differing types of magic, right? Or was the transfer from Cloud Tower another example of Alfea's flourishing rumour mill?" The pink-haired princess asked. Mirta sighed.

"I did transfer here after my first semester, but I don't see how that relates to you two. You're both fully-transformed basix fairies."

"But you know how to channel different types of magic; what the types feel like compared to one another." This time Raye spoke up. "That's what we need help with."

"You're calling on something other than fairy magic? Both of you?" Mirta studied them.

"My people practice their own brand of magic and have since the first ones of our kind walked the Earth," Raye began. "I was trained to be a priestess in a shrine devoted to practicing such magical rites for the good of the tribe. It is real and powerful, but unlike whatever Griselda wants us to conjure up for combat classes."

"I'm drawing from an odd source too, sometimes," Roxy explained. "Whatever it is isn't classified as 'dark', but it's not fairy magic."

"Well, yours, at least, should be an easy fix, Roxy." The older Senshi smiled. "It's not uncommon for older untrained fairies to draw on a type of magic firmly in the 'neutral' category. Some can even use 'dark' magic, like me, if they draw on strong enough emotions. It'll take time and meditation, but once you get a feel for it, you can switch between the types with no problem. Wouldn't do it around Griselda, though, because she's a dark magic bloodhound and will give you detention faster than you can incant the spell."

"Noted. Now what about Raye?"

"I wonder…but in here isn't the best place to test that, not with your level of output." Mirta gave a single shake of the head before standing. "Come with me; I know a place on the border of school grounds we can use to test this out. It's a bit of a crazy theory, but if I'm right…well, the payout's worth the risk."

"Whatever you say, Glinda." Raye rolled her eyes before following the petite redhead out of the room.

"The main thing that separates magical beings from practitioners is the presence of a magical core." Mirta explained. The trio was halfway to a copse of trees outside the front gates but within the property line of the school. "Mages, fairies, the witches and wizards, even some sentient species like merfolk and pixies—we all draw our power from inside ourselves. Internal Magic, if you will. It comes easily and freely to us, but using too much without rest or a replenishing draught will land you with a nasty case of magical exhaustion and a possible coma. The risk of hitting that limit goes down as your power level rises; Enchantix fairies rarely experience magical exhaustion outside prolonged combat scenarios, and even those don't crop up too often if you aren't the Winx Club. On average, one in five freshmen fairies will land themselves in the infirmary due to magical exhaustion around midterms or finals."

"Why is that?" Roxy asked. "We shouldn't be doing more magic than usual around that time of year."

"It's because freshmen—and some seniors cramming for graduation tests—do a poor job at remembering to eat, drink, and sleep like normal people during times of high stress, like exams." Mirta smiled. "Your bodies wear down, and you expend passive magic trying to fight off diseases in addition to what's used in class. Some kids even sneak extra practice sessions to perfect their spells, which can further drain the core. I don't think any of us have to worry too much about that—according to Setsuna, Senshi have double the magical core size of a standard fairy or witch—but it's something to be aware of."

"And what does any of this have to do with us traipsing into the woods?" Raye asked. Mirta chuckled, leading the trio into a small area surrounded by brush and trees and an odd shrub with tiny white spiral flowers. Mirta stopped near the shrub, turning toward the Martian Senshi.

"Raye, when your tribe taught you their magic, they taught you to first feel the magic in the environment around you, yes?" The brunette nodded; Mirta continued on. "Like I said, I have a theory about why your magic is reacting the way it is, but I needed space to test it. Griselda's combat class…is she having you transform for it?"

"Always." Raye nodded.

"Hmm…it'll make it harder, but with your output…" Mirta's right hand hooked around her chin, the pointer finger occasionally tapping her lips. "Summon your aura—not your transformation, but an aura of heat or flames—and pour as much of your tribe's traditional power into it as you can."

"Won't that catch the woods on fire?" Roxy frowned.

"Nah, these plants are very green yet. They're way less flammable than my office, and I'm sure Raye can control what she's doing enough to prevent a disaster. Are you ready?"

Raye nodded, closing her eyes and trying to remember everything Grandpa taught her about the flames and how to conjure them. Tendril of invisible magic stretched out to the clearing as she powered up, each searching for something else to draw energy from. One of the flowering shrubs provided a lot of it, and the air grew hot and dry. She heard a humming noise off to her right, where Mirta stood, and a faint gasp from Roxy.

"Good job on control. You can power down now." The redhead remarked. Raye released the borrowed energy back into the clearing and opened her eyes. Everything here looked the same…except the little flowering shrub, which now had fiery red blooms.

"Why did the flowers change color?"

"That shrub is a distant magical cousin to your Terran rose bushes called the Artist's Palette. You'll study it more next year, but what's important for this lesson is that the blooms change color, grow, or wilt based on how magic is used on them. It's fallen out of favor as such, but in days past it was used as a perimeter alarm for important buildings because of those properties." Mirta smirked. "When you powered up, you pulled energy out of the Artist's Palette, causing the blooms to wilt. When you pushed your magic into it, along with what you borrowed, the flowers changed from white to red to reflect it."

"That's…wow, that's a special plant." Raye wondered how well one of those would do at the Shrine. Grandpa'd love it. "But why'd you have me do this in the first place?"

"Because the magic you're using isn't Internal, or not enough to register as traditional 'fairy' or 'witch' magic," the redhead answered. "You pull as much or more energy from your surroundings as you do from your core, like External Magic practitioners are well known for doing. It's a variation of an old External practitioner's rite that's suspected in granting the Wizards of the Black Circle their powers and what made them so difficult for traditional fairy magic to track. It's likely also why they didn't sense you when they were running around California chasing Roxy and Mina; you were using more External Magic than Internal and thus didn't register as a fairy until you transformed."

"Which is a good thing, I think." Roxy shrugged. "Light magic's all well and good, but… well, I get the feeling Senshi need to play really dirty sometimes to protect their realms. Being able to access a different kind of magic adds to your arsenal and confuses your enemies when you actually do use it."

"I'm sure Setsuna would approve of that logic." Mirta smiled.

"So would Aunt Nebula. Heck, she'd probably want me to take summer classes at Cloud Tower just to get a more rounded education." As a fairy of War and Peace, Queen Nebula was all about learning new types of magic. Roxy'd yet to find something her aunt wasn't willing to learn in order to protect her subjects.

"While this conversation is very interesting, I don't see how it helps me pass Griselda's defense class." Raye folded her arms across her chest.

"Meditation and lots of it, first off," Mirta said. "You're already more in tune with your source than most incoming freshmen; with more 'tuning', you'll be able to choose how you power your spells instead of mixing the two together. Maybe ask Miss DuFour about it? She'd probably be able to help."

"You think she'd have time between classes?" Raye frowned. She knew the silver-haired fairy taught more than one but hadn't had the privilege of sitting in one of those yet, since it wasn't on her degree plan for the semester.

"She teaches Incantations and Etiquette. Neither of those courses generally require full-length essays. Yeah, the advanced incantations classes have spellcrafting and research projects, but most of those are easy enough if you know what you're doing. Even accounting for when she's helping the upper-year Senshi, she has plenty of free time to tutor you in the short-term." She had full confidence that the Martian Senshi could manage on her own once she understood the basics. "Now, since I know you both have at least two papers to finish before the week's over, why don't we head back to the castle?"

"And here I thought you were the fun TA." Roxy pouted.

Mirta laughed as they started for the school gates again. "Fun is subjective and I used to be a witch; my definition's probably different than yours."