Chapter 1: Cheyenne The Witch and Her Last Day of School

Cheyenne Eclair-Firebolt, did not have time for this. Sitting at the top of a bleacher seat crammed inside an auditorium with her fellow other witches and wizards in training, not even pretending to listen to what their dear old headmaster was spouting on about. If she HAD to be polite and guess, she would think it was something on remembering to use their magic responsibly, not bringing shame to their prestigious school of magic, any creative soul that fights back will be puni-oh blah blah.

No, she had more entertaining things to think about. Like last week's birthday adventure with Uncle Richard, that had been something. She'd asked for an ancient hidden possibly cursed sword for her birthday and he had been determined to deliver. Taking her on a magic cave hunt from some map he had won in a game of poker with someone that could totally be trusted. Everything was going as fine as could be expected on a totally not suspicious adventure, even the monsters were barely a 4 on the difficulty scale.

Things had stopped going fine when the map had burst into black evil cackling flames, monsters suddenly turned into 8's, the cave turned into a bloody water dungeon, of all things. And her poor stupid uncle had gotten nabbed by a swamp creature she couldn't swim after fast enough because of it's stupid minions ganging up on her.

It took 3 precious hours of her life to carve through the monster punks with whatever spells she deemed helpful and her favorite adventuring outfit to be unfairly ripped until she finally found them. Uncle was fine, the bugger didn't even have a scratch on him, just was struggling in a tank full of murlocks as the swamp boss laughed at him from it's throne cradling the sword Cheyenne had come all this way for. All it took was one short vortex of slicing currents and trapping them all in a bubble she then filled with poison, and they were done. She'd grabbed her new sword, scolded her uncle and they eventually found their way out and made it home in time to celebrate with the rest of the family for her cake. Everything was supposed to be wrapped up and done.

She glared down at her wrist from under her sweater where the stupid curse mark had appeared this morning, wrapping all the way up to her elbow and throbbing semi painfully through her blood. This was why she didn't have time for this, damn it. She was slowly dying because she hadn't had enough time to properly remove the curse from her new pretty sword and now the last thing she was going to hear in her life was this disappointing private school sermon.

"I'm sorry, YOU are the one dying??" said an annoying inner voice she had long grown accustomed to. "Because I could've sworn it was MOI, the demon trapped to your soul by no choice of her own, that will be suffering for it in probably an hour when it eventually seeps in fully to your soul but will hit and cripple me instead leaving your ungrateful butt just fine."

"Sure I'll live, but you're missing my point." Chey muttered, getting some weird looks from those close to her. "I didn't want to get the curse afflicted to me, I had plans to extract it from the sword itself and get to use it for something. Threats, deconstructing it for research, using it to punish someone pettily, whatever. The point is I had PLANS. And suffered through a dungeon to get it. And now it was all for nothing."

"While an unfortunate waste of effort, you could have saved yourself the strife by not going through it at all and simply asking for something easy." Said the second inner voice trapped in her, the one of reason, that she also didn't ask for. Perks of having a crazy but powerful great great aunt: you get lifelong curse gifts at birth that you never asked for or wanted. Yay.

Bah. She finally raised her head, done with all of this. "Alright screw this, I have things to do. It's not completely impossible to extract this from inside me yet, as long as no one touches the sword that's still emanating the curse, it shouldn't get any worse. I haven't even had time to tell what the curse really is yet either." Actually if she was being honest, she probably should have put it away in a safer location. She lived in this boarding school and people were stupid.

She got distracted when someone suddenly burst through the auditorium doors, screaming at the swirling black fire that had engulfed his arm as they ran to the center of the room-ahhh shiz.

"T-there is a death upon this castle!!" They shouted, falling in front of the shocked school council. "A-a curse is running through the halls in a fire we cannot put out-w-we do not have much time! Evacuate! E-evacuate the students before-AHHHHH!" Everyone watched in horror as the black flames swallowed the person whole, taking a second to process what had just happened. Mass hysteria kicked in a few moments later causing pure chaos with screams and and trampling as everyone raced to clog the doors.

Cheyenne stayed where she was sitting, getting a good view of all the panic and wondering how this week had gotten so bad and not really looking forward to how it'll get worse. It'd be a cold day in the Underworld before she forked over her sword she had worked so hard to get, but given the magnitude of danger, they'd call the Royal Constable of Magic to come in and try to take it from her because, consequences. Given that it's affected so much of the school too and that she had brought "illegal"' contraband on campus, she'd finally live up to her family's personal curse of getting expelled from this prestigious magic school for the 3rd generation in a row. Apparently she took her time, she was already 15. She didn't have the luxury of being completely heartless, meaning she had to take care of this all herself by absorbing it before it could kill everyone before she could make her escape. Because she certainly didn't have time to rot in prison at such a tender age either.

"Aww how sweetly belated of you to sacrifice your demon's weekend to save the people you doomed!" said the prick demon.

"Oh shut up." She got up and dusted herself off, whispering a spell that instantly took her from the auditorium to her room when she took her first step. She scowled at her pretty sword tainting her dorm room in it's angry black flames that were slipping out the windows, under the door and who knows where else. She hadn't expected it to go this far, she thought it needed physical contact to affect someone. Mayhaps this was why it was kept in an underwater dungeon and could only be found with a sketchy map.

"Damned if all my effort was for nothing though," Cheyenne promised it, taking her wand from her boot and aiming it at the evil looking dramatic sword, preparing to yank it and what wasn't burnt to a crisp immediately out with her after she put it out before authorities could come and punish her directly.