Wɪᴛᴄʜʟɪɢʜᴛ {ᵃᵈᵛᵃᶰᶜᵉᵈ ʳᵒˡᵉᵖˡᵃʸ} discussion

This class teaches students about the Dark Arts and the dangers of it's evil magic.

Teachers:
1. Professor Archie Lancaster
2.

It was pure concentrated irony at its finest, but Skylar most definitely wasn't laughing. She inhaled a shaky breath as she entered the room. For some odd reason, she had thought this would be fun, but instead, the white board read, Dark Arts: The dangers of its evil magic. What if the teacher had some way of sniffing out dark magic? Skylar reeked of it. Her hands trembled as she reached the back corner desk, farther away from the teacher, the better. It wasn't like Skylar to be scared, if that was even the right word. She was anxious. She always knew what to expect, but this school hid surprises around every corner. Chills shivered down her spine, and a part of her knew that it wasn't because of the cold seat. She plopped another contact on her silver eye, hid her face in her coat hood, and slid down in the chair, propping her feet up on the desk basket in front of her. Just breathe. No one will suspect a thing.

Professor Archie entered the classroom like a puff of smoke. Only noticed when it was too late. Many kids had been fooling around as they waited for their teacher. Their not noticing him gave him plenty of time to write down the names of those students on the board and then lean on his desk as he waited for the class to quiet down. This took about five minutes and involved a lot of students shouting about their name being on the board. He silenced every one of them with a glare. "I'm sure you've heard from many of your fellow students that I am a lenient teacher. Well they always forget to mention that if you misbehave in my class, I will become the meanest teacher in your life. Which is why if your name is on the board, you get homework on the first day of school. If your name is on the board, I am your worst nightmare until next week. I advise all of you to not do something to get your name on the board again next week." He was about to be met with opposition for the homework, but Archie glared at them and it shut the students up.

Skylar stared at the man through her curtain of white hair. She smiled at his fearful approach, and her hood slid back to her shoulders. It was essential that her name stays off of the board. She needed to be on his good side, if he had one. Her hand climbed the air. "Sir, let's say hypothetically, if we run into some dark magic users, is there a way to detect such magic?" Skylar held her voice calm and steady.

Professor Archie frowned. "I don't know what would make you ask such a question, but the answer all depends on the Caster. But yes, in most cases it is possible to detect a dark magic user by their aura. Another thing would be after long periods of using dark magic, it would begin to show on their body. Sores, bruising, essentially their bodies would be rotting away and they would smell of rotting corpses. But that only starts happening after about two years of using dark magic. Two years is only an estimate, the longest known time a dark Caster had went without rotting was about three and a half years." Professor Archie rolled his eyes when a chorus of 'Ews' sounded throughout the classroom. There were other ways to detect dark magic as well, but they were less known and a little more gruesome than what Professor Archie described. He would get in trouble with the board of directors for teaching such things to his students.

"Ah." Was all Skylar could muster.
Rotting? Her heart stopped at the thought of it. It had been a while since she had been using dark magic. Would there be anyway to reverse it? This certainly would explain the sores forming on her hands--which was the only reason why she had gloves. Her hands fell silently to her lap.
And what was all about this aura? Could they see it? Could he see it? She swallowed hard at the information. Skylar sank deeper into her seat.
The smell? Skylar sniffed her coat and couldn't tell, but perhaps she was used to the smell.
"How do you sense or see their aura?" She asked in a small voice without raising her hand this time.

"Seeing in aura is not something I'm particularly gifted at so I wouldn't be able to demonstrate it to you." He replied naturally. "Air and water element Casters tend to be naturally prone to aura reading abilities, but there are still many powerful Earth and Fire aura readers." He paused to flick a student that was falling asleep on the ear. "Aura reading either comes naturally or it doesn't come at all. It is not an ability you want to over exert. A dark Caster's aura looks more and more black with every dark magic spell used. Auras are comprised of our emotions, our element, our species, our morals, and personal being. Once a caster has used too much dark magic, their auras are left entirely black and none of that caster truly exists anymore. They become and empty shell of their old self only concerned with evil and self preservation. They essentially just become a vessel for dark magic and are no longer a person anymore."

"Well black is my favorite color." Skylar laughed to herself. Her eyes scanned the room to see if there was any suspicion.
"Well, is there any way to reverse the physical damage of dark magic?" The pain in her hands grew stronger. The room felt smaller. Closing in around her. Her stomach churned. Skylar refused to be a tool for dark magic. She didn't lose. She couldn't.

"No." Professor Archie replied simply. "A rotting corpse is a rotting corpse and no amount of spells can change that." He pulled out his lesson plan for the day and went on with teaching the class. He also pulled out the assignment he had in mind for the students whose names were on the board.

Skylar refused to take no as an answer. She would find a way. She was running on limited time according to her teacher. The lesson passed by in a blur. The information just couldn't be absorbed. Skylar wasn't in denial. She just knew there had to be another way. The bell rang, students fled out of the classroom, but Skylar remained in her seat. "Sir, may I speak with you for a moment?"

"Yeah sure, of course. What did you need?" Professor Archie looked up from the papers on his desk. First day of school and he already knew that he would get more and more disappointed by most of the kids in his class. Every year they seemed to be more rowdy and have less of a brain. Maybe it was just because his classes always seemed better the longer it has been since he had them, but there was always the possibility that the state of things was getting worse. He blamed humans for their influence over Casters in this modern world.

"Listen," Skylar exhaled a shaky breath. "There is a way to reverse physical damage. There has to be. I have a friend who has been using dark magic for a while now, and I'm quite concerned about her. I don't want her to die. Or we have to find a cure."

Professor Archie frowned. "What? It would just be best to turn her in to the council. Stop using dark magic before it's too late. There just isn't a way to stop the rotting other than stopping the source. Reversing it just isn't possible, believe me, I've done plenty to try." How had this girl's friend gone unnoticed by the council? Then again, the amount of things that gets by the council is rather high. This wouldn't be a big impact to that list.

"I'm afraid stop turning her into the council and stop using dark magic won't be an option." Skylar gritted her teeth. "I have a way of finding loop holes. There is another way." A muscle flexed in her jaw. "I'm not giving up that easy."

"The dark magic is literally making your friend dead. They could use dark magic to stop it, but that would only slow it down. After a few years they would be rotting faster than they could say their spell. And if you don't stop using that magic soon, there will only be an evil spirit in that rotting corpse." Archie studied the girl as he spoke.

That was it. The last straw Skylar had. Poof. Gone. She slammed her fist down on his desk, heaving with fury. "I don't think you quite understand professor, I'm going to find a way to keep using dark magic. I will find a way, because honestly, I think you have done more women than attempts for a solution. The only dark magic you know is luring women to your company. They expect me to learn from a man who smells like an old rundown whore house?" She spat. Skylar never lost her temper, but she was willing to make an exception this one time. "Fantastic lesson today." She finished with a wicked smile.

In a brief moment, Archibald Lancaster did something he hardly ever had done. He lost it temper. In doing so, he raised his hand and slapped Skylar right across the face. "I don't think you quite understand. You are not the first, nor will you be the last to use dark magic." He rolled up his sleeves as he spoke bitterly, exposing his arms that were covered in sores. "There is a reason I teach this class. It is because I have a thing called experience." Professor Archie snapped his fingers and suddenly Skylar's name was burned into the board, proof that he would be on his list all year. "I drink to forget. I drink to forget how intoxicating dark magic is. I drink to forget that I will have to wake up every morning to teach brats like you that don't know the consequences. I drink to forget the Casters that killed their own husbands, wives, and children because they were no longer themselves. I drink to forget that I was once one of them." He spat out that last word like it was poison. "If you think I have not tried everything I could possibly think of to hide every reminder of my past that I could, then you are wrong."

Skylar stumbled back, tripping over a desk. She stared at her teacher in disbelief. Her hand instinctively reached her cheek. She was more in shock, rather than in pain. Her eyes flickered to her name on the board, and then back to Professor Lancaster. "Do you really think extra homework is going to scare me?" Skylar laughed bitterly. "A real man doesn't try to run from his problems. He embraces them with open arms. But you? You drown your sorrows in cheap alcohol." Skylar stood slowly with dark magic licking her fingertips. She wanted a fight. She needed a fight...A faint stream of crimson trickled down Skylar's lip. The dark magic, that once swarmed her hands, was now gone. The room spun before her. She quickly dabbed her mouth with a handkerchief, refusing to let her teacher see the blood. She fought against the dizziness and continued. "I will find a cure, but until then, why don't we make a deal?" A contract appeared between her fingers. "You tell me everything you know about dark magic, every encounter, and every attempt. Just sign below." She smiled and offered a pen.

Suddenly, Professor Archie felt sad. In his mind he knew he was talking to a girl, one of his students, but what he was looking at looked more like a pathetic excuse for a human being. Skylar had a crazy look in her eyes, like she had just spent her entire life locked in an empty room. "No." Professor Archie replied simply. "I'd rather die." She didn't look like she had long. A month if she kept using dark magic everyday. She wouldn't die, but her mind would become so corrupted that Skylar would cease to exist. And in her place, well, no one had quite figured out what happened when a Caster's aura became entirely black. Archie would speculate that it had something to do with demons, but they were long extinct by now.

The contract went up in flames, but her eyes never averted from her teacher. "Then so be it." She whispered as the paper faded into ash. Skylar refused to give up so easily. "I will not rest until this school is burned to the ground." Her voice shook. "And you with it." She gathered her composure and continued. "But before I do that, when I have this cure, when you're begging at my feet for this cure, I will simply say no, I would rather die."

"You won't find one." Archie spat and turned on his heels, storming out of the room. This girl was foolish, dangerous, and unreasonable. She was too power hungry to see that she was running herself into the ground. Soon she would start forgetting her past. Her family. Everything. Until the only thing left was hatred and pure evil. Then nothing would matter. Skylark would no longer exist and that black aura would use dark magic until her body was a pile of rotting flesh.

"Run, professor." Skylar laughed. "Run away from your problems like you always do." She watched the man exit the room. With all said and done, she was extremely surprised she hadn't received detention. Skylar was alone. Again. Her face twisted into a snarl as she pushed a desk over in pure fury. She wasn't angry at her teacher's response. She was angry that he could be right. Was she losing herself? She had to gain control somehow, but stop using dark magic didn't sound too appealing. Was there some sort of rehab program in the school that could help her?