It Wasn't Me! (Ridgecoffee)

Nano stood at her oven, carefully burning saplings and other ingredients into essence and dusts she could use for her witchery. She was planning a complicated insanity spell that needed many different ingredients. It would make a nice little gift to three certain nuke-loving annoyances, and seeing them running around fighting non-existent monsters was more than enough to make up for how expensive the spell was. As she worked her hut grew very hot and stuffy, but she only had a few more bottles to make, then she could leave and let it air out.

The young witch finally sighed in satisfaction and wiped her sweaty face with a purple hand. She looked over her worked once more before she turned and left, keeping the windows opened to let the smoke out. She could check on her alter and favorite animals while she waited, then she’d go get Lalna and preform the spell. Just the thought of revenge gave her chills of excitement; she could hardly wait for it.

This mood ended the second she walked back into her hut. All over the walls were splattered essence and scattered across the floor were bits of fired clay. Mutandis was spilled over all the furniture and created a thin layer of dust across the uprooted Spanish moss and broken tag locks. Her hut and all her hard work were destroyed.

Nano’s tiny hands curled in fists and her blood boiled with fury. Who would dare mess with her?! Who was she going to kill for this?

“LALNA!” she screamed angrily. She spun around and dashed to the hidden door to Panda Labs. If he was responsible for that mess, he was going to pay.

She found him working at the computer, doing something for the reactor.

“Lalna!” she snapped, hands on her hips.

The scientist jumped and nearly tripped over his boots.

“Oh, hey, Nano, what’s up?” he asked, ignorant of her mood.

“What’s up? What’s up!? I’ll tell you what’s up!” she yelled, jumping in his face, eyes wild. “Someone ruined my witch hut, Lalna! That someone wouldn’t have been you, was it?”

“Me? Why would I do that?” he said, offended. “Besides, I’ve been here all morning.”

“How do I know you didn’t just sneak over there and trash it?” Nano asked, suspicious.

“Nano, I’m telling you it wasn’t me! Why on earth would I take the time to sneak into your hut, without you knowing, and ruin your witchery stuff? What would I gain from that?” said Lalna, logically.

The flux girl thought it over; eventually she deflated and sighed reluctantly. “Fine, I believe you, but if you didn’t do it, then who the hell ruined my hut?”

Lalna shrugged. “Hatfilms maybe? They seem to be good at causing trouble. And weren’t you planning on cursing them? Maybe they found out about it.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think they’d just sneak in and ruin my brews. They like their nukes way too much,” said Nano, rolling her eyes. “Ugh! It’s going to take forever to get all those ingredients back! Whenever I find who did this I’ll—!”

“Until then, we can fix up your hut and I can help you make all the ingredients again,” assured Lalna, calmly. “Just calm down, okay? We’ll figure this out.”

“Yeah, whatever...” muttered Nano, sulking off to clean her work off the walls.

Lalna followed after her, but when he hopped the fence he paused and frowned. His teal eyes swept the dark trees curiously. He didn’t know if it was his instincts or just the flux that infected his body, but something felt off. He felt like he was being watched.

Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he shrugged and went into the hut, where Nano was raging at the mess.

Hidden behind one of the massive dark wood trees was a man watching the scene in utter amusement, and snickering at his own mischief. It was such a petty thing to mess up the girls little shack but it was satisfying in a childish way. He didn’t hate the girl; in fact he envied her, because she had one thing he didn’t. One thing he wanted desperately above all else.

She had him.