‘Let’s begin,’ the president said. ‘Sebastian Ranta Voll, please come to the lectern.’
Sebastian rose as Pascual stepped to the side and started for his seat. Up on the steps at the side of the audience seating, the blonde girl reached down and flicked her skirt aside, reaching for something strapped to her right thigh. She was not moving quickly. In fact, the girl was taking her time, as though no one could see her raising a spell pistol and aiming it at Sebastian as he got closer to the lectern. This was not a MagiTag weapon, but a general-purpose spell enhancer. Nava did not know what spell the girl planned to use, but nothing she could think of was likely to be good.
Raising her arm, Nava fired off the weakest version of her Magic Burst spell she could manage. It hit the girl’s hand and exploded into a sphere of white light which washed over the girl and then hit the three people nearest to her in the seats. There were screams, and the girl, who was now missing her right hand, bolted for the door even as Nava bolted after her. Nava hit one of the lower doors and then turned, charging up the corridor outside the auditorium, but she reached the door the girl had left through and could see no sign of her target. There was nowhere she could have run to in that time, but she was gone.
Turning, Nava pushed through the door beside her. The room was in chaos, but the SSF people were holding everyone inside. Nava glanced at the three people her spell had hurt. None of them were badly damaged, but the effects of raw magic were akin to burns and would be extremely painful. She was casting the last of three Active Recovery spells when Courtney, in a thunderous mood, stormed up the steps to reach her.
‘What the Hell was that?’ Courtney more or less shouted.
Nava simply pointed down at the pistol lying on the steps nearby. The shell was partially melted, but it was still clear what it was. ‘I assume you couldn’t see the shooter?’
‘There wasn’t– Invisibility! How could you–’
‘It’s a cantrip. For me. I’d imagine you’ve got the power to do the same. A blonde girl in school uniform. These skirts are really quite useful for concealing weapons. She was aiming for Sebastian Ranta, but I don’t know what she was aiming to fire. She could have taken out the stage and the front two rows with something like Fire Blast.’
‘You didn’t recognise her?’ The anger was gone. It was like flicking a switch with Courtney. One second she was a flaming demon and the next she was all reasonableness.
‘She looked familiar. I assume I’ve seen her somewhere on campus.’
‘There’s a fourth year in the Arts Club who’s good at getting images from descriptions. You’ll work with him. We’ll find her.’
‘I’d suggest checking that pistol for fingerprints. She’s badly wounded. She can’t have got far.’
‘How badly? She wasn’t outside when you looked?’
‘She’s missing the hand that was holding that pistol. And, no, she wasn’t outside. I don’t know where she could’ve got to, but there was no sign of her.’
The Captain frowned, her eyes fixed on the fallen pistol. ‘Teleportation? Teleportation and invisibility.’
‘That would explain her ability to vanish, certainly.’
‘So, all we need to do is catch an invisible woman who can disappear at will.’
Nava shrugged. ‘It may be easier than you think. She’s an invisible woman who can vanish at will, but she’s lefthanded now.’
~~~
In a capsule apartment more or less identical to Nava’s, the girl with the blonde hair flexed the fingers of her right hand and contemplated her failure. It was apparent from the video stream playing on one of the display screens that the debate was going ahead more or less as planned. It even looked like Sebastian Ranta Voll had gained a little from being the target of an assassination attempt.
It was annoying. Very annoying. However, she was going to have to report her status. She might have preferred to have good news to send, but the situation was what the situation was. It was apparent that her invisibility was not as effective now. Someone had figured it out and employed countermeasures. That girl had figured it out. The other SSF members would be deploying the same spell where they were able, which meant operating far more carefully.
Placing her hand on a device which rested on the dining table, she composed herself, formulated her message, and activated the device. Magical communicators were almost impossible to intercept and extremely hard to detect, but she kept her message concise anyway. ‘Operation failed. Target intact. Operative compromised but effective. DH fourteen confirmed.’
She took her hand off the device. There would be no response. Not now anyway. She might receive further orders at one of the scheduled communication times, or she might be left to continue her mission with the same parameters. In truth, she did not care which. She had plans to make and people to kill.
235/2/17.
‘Overall,’ Mitsuko said over breakfast, ‘I think that went quite well.’ Her eyes were glued to the rolled-out screen of her ketcom portable unit which was displaying data compiled following the debate. ‘Sebastian Ranta is up in the
