Chapter 9: Fighting Spirit (Part 2)

Up high above the magic school, Momo had just gotten back to trying to deal another blow to the giant ghost that took up much of the surrounding skyline.

Even now, she still didn't know or understand why the ghost that stole her book made itself the way it was at that moment. If anything, she didn't really care. All that mattered was that the ghost stole a book that held powerful spells and was about to do something no good upon its use. Knowing that the ghost threw away the book once it was done was already a bad sign. She already didn't want to know what the ghost was planning to do if it moved in on the rest of Pure Heart Valley. All that mattered at the moment was taking it down here and now.

She waved her wand tirelessly to keep up with the patterned spells she was trying to cast, trying to make them powerful enough to take the ghost down for good. Of course, while the more diverse forms and patterns in an offensive spell, the better, the real cincher to executing that spell to its most devastating effects is the lightning bolt. It worked effectively back inside the school and she had considered using it immediately upon this battle. The only problem was that it took most of her energy whenever she did, and she couldn't afford to tire herself out now. She had to make it count.

"Okay! I think I'm all charged up!" she thought out loud, pointing her wand at the ghost at the ready. With a final swish, she drew a lightning bolt in the air and sent a real one crashing down on the enlarged spirit's head, putting it in another bout of pain that was evident on its visage. Momo smirked. "Yeah, that's it! Just need a few more of these electric babies and it's goodbye ghostie!" She watched the giant ghost try to approach her again, so she slowly backed away on her broom to maintain distance while she gave herself a little bit of time to recuperate. She just needed to land in a few more hits with that same spell to defeat it, at least as long as she didn't have to use her remaining energy on any more of the smaller ghosts.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" she yelled when she saw the little specters flocking to her again. This was getting really old. She redirected her wand to the ghostly masses and prepared to shoot another spell when she heard Mao Mao again. She looked down to see if he was all right, only to be surprised at seeing him still able to put up a fight against the ghosts. "Huh?" she gasped as she saw him punch every ghost around him into nothingness. "How's he doing that?" She looked a little more carefully to see the little gem inside the hand he was punching the ghosts with. "Is that what made that old magic gun work?" she thought. She didn't have time to give herself an answer as she turned her attention back to the giant ghost.

The gargantuan tri-ocular spirit lunged forward with a widened mouth, determined to catch the little flying black kitten between its teeth. Momo pushed herself to think fast as she zipped away from each attempted bite as a means to dodge, commanding the broom to move as fast as she could make it by yanking back the stick as hard as she could pull it. But by the time she stopped and steadied herself again, the smaller surrounding ghosts had already gravitated to her. Momo shivered. She could draw out her wand again, but how long could she keep this up?

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Mao Mao was having a little too much fun pulverizing ghosts. He had to admit that despite the pleasant feeling of getting his fighting power back, he still felt miffed by having to resort to such a crude method of combat. Oh well, he was willing to put aside his glamor as a proficient hero for brutal practicality here, since it was the only thing that actually worked. He just had to remember to keep his eye on Momo up above.

"Alright! Just need to take out some more so little miss Momo will have less to deal with!" He dashed at another ghost as he thought this. He knew the gem only worked as a bludgeoning rock because it was magic, and he was once again using a source of magic to take out an equally magical terror. "I was wrong," he quietly spoke, directing his words to Momo despite her not hearing him, "I had no right to judge you, tell you your magic is wrong. You've proven so much coming into your own with it." He took a moment to give a gentle affirming nod in her direction. "Show 'em who's boss!"

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Momo juggled the best she could between operating the broom and using her wand, trying to avoid getting hurt by the small ghosts and getting swallowed by the giant monstrous one. She was sure that for a few of the small ghosts that got too close to her for her to use a spell, she had to whack them away with her wand like a regular stick – it made her think of how she saw Mao Mao using the broken gun's gem-like power cell to hit ghosts too. She only hoped she had enough left in her to take out the giant ghost in one or two hits. "I'll try not to hit you too, Mr. Sheriff," she whispered in his direction, even though she was too far away for him to hear her. With a deep breath, she waved her wand again and formed another chain of geometric swishes that ended with a lightning bolt, stunning the gargantuan spirit. The giant ghost cried out in pain from the strike, but was still undeterred, apparent by how quickly it recovered. Momo got ready for another spell again, but was caught off guard by the biggest wave of ghosts she had ever seen.

The giant ghost gave another deafening roar that caused the entire school building to rumble, shaking the students, Camille, Honey, Badgerclops, Adorabat, and even Mao Mao himself off their feet. The roar apparently was strong enough to cause all the windows to shatter, with swarms of ghosts pouring out of the broken glass openings to rise to the rooftop to the giant's aid like bubbling tendrils.

Momo's ears flattened against her skull. This was so not good. These were more ghosts than the number she had been fighting off since this whole thing started, or at least that's how it looked. The way she had to pay close attention to her position on the broom, she would be swamped before she even got the chance to land another hit on the boss ghost. What was she going to do?

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Mao Mao didn't like the look of so many ghosts coming from everywhere all at once. He felt nervous, not so much for how he was going to beat this but rather how Momo was going to beat all of this. After all, she was the one with the most magic firepower while all he had was a partially charged gem. Either way, he knew that both himself and her were going to need more than what they had right now.

"You heard that ruckus, Honey? I swear, those ghosts don't have it enough being restless!"

Mao Mao swung around from hearing the faint but loud sound of a cranky old lady's voice to find Camille having arrived at the rooftop, with Honey following close behind her.

"What? You two?" Mao Mao exclaimed indignantly. "Why are you here?"

"Why we heard a noise and came to investigate," Camille replied with a calm sass in her tone and a hand on her hip, "plus it's our school, so…why are you here?"

Mao Mao growled at the old lady's sass. He didn't have time for this. He especially didn't have time to come up with a retort as he spotted a random ghost coming straight for the aged magic technician and her apprentice. He zipped in the air over and right between the two to take a swipe at the ghost. As the ghost he struck dissipated, he accidentally struck the gem against the rooftop's brick flooring, making a sound which made him stop to quickly examine it. He looked closely at the stone to see that a large crack had formed and had already begun creeping across the once-smooth surface, leaving a few little pieces crumbling off it and tiny electrical sparks popping from the deepened areas.

"Oh no," he quietly gasped, feeling faintly mortified at seeing that he damaged his only remaining weapon against the ghosts. For a second, he tried, though however vainly, to close the crack, even considering finding and picking up any crumb-sized fragments on the brick floor to piece the gem back together with. But right away, he could tell that he shouldn't bother.

"What's the matter with you now? Cat broke something?" Camille butted in once again, ever the curious one.

"Ofcourseit'sbroken!Don'tbugme!" Mao Mao yelled in rapid fire, leaving no spaces between his words. He nervously braced himself when he saw that the ghost hordes remained as relentless as ever. With a move that was slightly more half-hearted, he took another swing at one ghost to find that the gem still worked on it.

"Okay, it still works," the sheriff noted to himself, having noticed the crack in the gem widening slightly, "but how much longer can I do this until it's useless?" He closed his hand around the rock, unsure if he wanted to know the answer.

He didn't know whether to be annoyed or relieved when he heard Camille trying to talk to him again. "Oh, careful with that gem cell," she called to him. "That thing's perfectly stable for magic use as long as it's protected in perfect condition! That's why it was built inside the handheld magical cannon…well, as long as that's also not broken…" Mao Mao grit his teeth and growled from hearing the obvious, though he was hoping Camille wouldn't notice the destroyed gun and ask him about it… "What's with all these metal pieces everywhere?"

Mao Mao facepalmed.

Unbeknownst to him, Camille was immediately interrupted by Honey going up to her and gesturing to her regarding the gem in Mao Mao's hand. "Well, that's awfully inconvenient," Camille responded to her apprentice with her hands on her hips. She turned to call to Mao Mao again. "Hey sheriff! Try not to use the gem cell the way you're using it too much! That thing doesn't look stable anymore!"

Hearing that made the sheriff immediately stop what he was doing to look the chameleon dead in the eye with a widened pair of his own. "What!? Stable!? What do you mean 'not stable anymore'!?"

Unfettered by the sheriff's combusted reaction, Camille answered him as a matter-of-fact, raising both her arms in a seemingly blasé manner. "Well, that gem's cracked, isn't it? That means there's magic residue leaking out of it. If it gets completely destroyed from hitting something hard or magical, there's a chance it'll EXPLODE!" She made sure to emphasize that last word with a wide open swinging of her arms, accompanied by a little arching of her back (though that almost cracked it).

Now Mao Mao looked nervous. "Explode?" He turned to look back up at Momo casting her magic away at the giant ghost, seemingly unable to pay attention to the masses of smaller ghosts closing in on her position. "Explode…"

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Momo managed to unleash another lightning spell at a few small ghosts that got in her way. But it wasn't anything gratifying to her at the moment. She was using up precious energy, both physical and magical. Taking down the head ghost, the magically super-powered one, was all that really mattered. She just had to save her strength when it really counted… if it weren't for those other pesky ghosts.

"Momo, get back!"

Her eyes widened as she jumped and gasped from hearing the sudden telling from below. She looked down to find Mao Mao being the one who yelled to her. "Mr. Sheriff? What are you doing!?"

"Just get back!" Mao Mao hollered. "Trust me!"

Momo neither had any idea or had the time to figure out what the sheriff was trying to do, but looking at the multitudes of ghosts coming her way, she only hoped there was something better than what she could come up with. With a hard tug, she pulled her broom back and flew away from the ghostly mass. That was when she saw, to her surprise, Mao Mao doing something even she thought was professionally reckless:

"Oh ghosties, over here! Come and get some!" Mao Mao taunted the ghosts above at the top of his lungs. Immediately, the ghosts were drawn to him by his yelling, even noticing that he was waving the cracked gem in the air like it was a tasty pet treat. "Yeah, come closer, will'ya?" He waited until enough ghosts drifted to the spot he wanted that he, without hesitation, threw the cracked gem as hard as his arm muscles were able.

He hurled the colored rock into the ghost- filled cloud with such speed and force that upon impact, a blinding explosion erupted and spread out across the air like a hot pure white bubble. It was bright enough that everyone was shielding their eyes and bracing themselves against the ground they stood on to avoid getting blown away by the resulting wind, or in Momo's case, moving against the wind on her broom.

Momo cracked an eye open, but the snapped both of them completely wide to see that the air looked devoid of ghosts, or at least there was now a gaping hole in the once-ghost swarm. Seeing what that meant made her feel elated. She could finally get at the giant ghost with no more interference.

"Now, Momo! Get 'em while it's down!" she heard Mao Mao yell up to her. Momo happily obliged, as she was already about to do so anyway. Readying her wand, she began to save it in shapes again, drawing them rapidly with no stops in between while making as many as she could come up with in order to make it the most powerful. Once she finished, she capped it off with a lightning bolt and sent the giant spirit in another bout of pain. Momo waited for it to finally go down, but to the surprise of her and everyone else, it still came back for her.

"What!?" everyone cried. They just couldn't believe it. How was that ghost still kicking?

"Gee, that ghost's gotta be an eager reader to be loaded up on magic like that!" Camille quipped with both hands on her hips. She along with Honey at least figured that it had to do with the spell that turned it big to begin with.

Mao Mao, on the other hand, was just outraged. Like, how dare that ghost continue to survive, and after all the work and trouble he and Momo went through in trying to stop it! He looked back up to the sky to where a lone black kitten sat on a flying broom. He couldn't help but begin worrying again.

Momo couldn't believe it. She used her strongest spell yet and the ghost was still alive despite that. Did the ghost really gain that powerful of a form? Her ears lowered against her head. "I'm so tired," she sighed in her mind, "I'm sorry, Mr. Sheriff. Is this it?" She slumped forward a little, feeling like she could just rest on the flying broom here and now, even with the giant ghost preparing to swallow her whole.

Mao Mao gasped when he saw the phantom poising itself to devour the kitten. He could see that little Momo was in trouble, given that she wasn't trying to fight back anymore. He couldn't blame her though, as from what he had already seen, she had been working herself trying to cast her spells, and now he understood that she needed rest right at that moment. He had to think fast.

How was he supposed to defeat a magic being without magic? He already used up the only magic weapons he could use, so all he had left was his sword Geraldine. All that time since he met Momo and got to know her only just several hours ago, he thought he didn't need anything like magic powers, that he worked too hard to be a hero to just resort to cheap McGuffins to get the job done. He prided himself on his hard work and equally hard-earned merit and if it meant having to take the long and difficult path, then so be it. That was him, right?

But Momo was different. She was a black cat just like him, but unlike him, she used magic freely as her modus operandi. Mao Mao would have thought she was his antithesis, but the longer he spent with her, the more he understood that she was simply a different kind of hero. Magic for her wasn't any different from Geraldine, at least when it came to her wand. Given that she was also a good person, she had not, in any way, used her magic for ill intent or purposes. The way she defeated the ghosts with ease was proof that the magic she learned was indeed important and she understood that. She came into her own thanks to learning how to use it properly and well, and Mao Mao had to respect her for it. He understood it now. She used her own power. Now he had to do the same.

Brandishing Geraldine, Mao Mao focused his inner strength and energy. Then, he raised the golden blade and pointed it to the sky, which glowed a fierce yellow light while he simultaneously let out a resounding shout.

"LUNAR...LASH!"

A vortex of blinding golden light erupted from the sword Mao Mao held up into the sky, creating a luminous flaming pillar radiant enough to affect the surrounding ghosts. When Momo decided to open her eyes again, she saw that every ghost present, especially the giant three-eyed one, was utterly mesmerized by the flow of light shot out by Mao Mao's sword. Their eyes were wide open, their pupils dilated, and so slack-jawed that they were almost top it off, they no longer moved, but instead floated right where they were as if they were no more than lanterns tied to posts to prevent their ascension into the outer atmosphere. Momo had to admit, she was pretty mesmerized too, and she would have stared at that beautiful curtain-like pillar of light for hours…

"MOMO, NOW!" she was instantly snapped out of her enamored state by Mao Mao himself yelling to her through the light's waterfall-like roar. "IT'S DISTRACTED! TAKE IT DOWN BEFORE IT SEES YOU!"

Momo shook her head, clearing her mind of the distraction she had only moments ago. She knew Mao Mao was right, she knew he could only hold that display for so long, and she knew that this was perhaps her only chance to finish this. "This is it," she prepared herself, raising and steadying her wand for what would be a final time, "here goes!"

Without further hesitation, Momo began to form the same geometric shapes she had been using the entire time, only this time, she formed them in rapid succession much faster than she had ever done so before. She needed to form them as many and as fast as she could, to form the longest and most powerful spell she could make. Once she felt it was ready, she finished it with a lightning bolt and hurled the accumulated magic right at the giant ghost's distracted visage. The impact of the strike appeared to almost punch a hole in the phantom's head, but the ghost still stood. So Momo prepared herself to cast one more spell.

As she prepared the spell, she could see the ghost trying to go for her again, but it moved much slower than it used to, thanks to Mao Mao's pillar of light still distracting it from her. Momo liked that very much and repeated the same spell as before, only opting to add in a few more forms despite feeling the strain in her body.

While Momo formed her spell, Mao Mao was sweating and strained to keep his arm upright despite how tired it was getting. He had to keep it up, long enough for Momo to finish off the ghost and take it down for good. "Come on now, Momo," he called to her silently. "Hurry up."

Momo could see the drops of vapor evaporating from the giant ghost as it got closer to her. She sweated, knowing that the ghost was about to make its move on her, but she kept extending her spell despite the sweat forming on her brow. "Just a little more now," she whispered to herself while she composed an extra set of wand-waving forms. She tensed a bit when the ghost opened its mouth and prepared to close its jaws over her.

"MOMO!" Mao Mao cried out in terror, reaching his remaining free hand out to her however vainly that proved, but his fear was quelled before long.

As soon as the ghost widened its maw completely, at the last second, Momo released her charged-up spell with the lightning bolt and sent it right between the ghost's teeth, piercing its vaporous being with concussive force. The giant ghost crumbled, letting out an anguished roar while its ethereal body violently dissolved. Surprisingly, there were not just streaks of white that left its body. There were also what appeared to be masses of smaller ghosts erupting from its giant form, as though it achieved its gigantic transformation by absorbing them into its being. None of that mattered now as those smaller ghosts immediately dissipated, leaving the main ghost finally shrunken as well. It stayed in the air for a second, twirling in the air, and then fell straight down onto the hard brick floor of the rooftop.

The air was quiet for a moment, considering that the ghost's de-powering was finished and so was Mao Mao's Lunar Lash.

"Did I do it?" Momo wondered. She slowly made her descent back to the rooftop floor on her broom, hovering right next to a tired but still standing Mao Mao. "Are you okay, Mr. Sheriff?"

"Okay? I'm exhausted," Mao Mao panted, his arm holding his sword hanging limply at his side while he was hunched over slightly but managed to give a thumbs-up, "Exhausted but terrific. Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Momo answered quietly with a nod, "Just tired, maybe. I used a lot of magic up there." She turned to look at the toothed ghost still lying incapacitated on the rooftop floor. "Did we do it?"

Mao Mao gave out a little tired chuckle. "Really, Ms. Momo? Did you do it?" He then sounded much louder this time, "You did it! You really did it!" He was back to his exuberant self as he went over to Momo and gently clasped her by her shoulders. "You defeated the ghost all by yourself! I'm so impressed!"

Momo smiled, even blushed a little, when she heard him say that to her. "Oh, thanks Mr. Sheriff. But I couldn't take all the credit." She took one of Mao Mao's hands in her own. "If it weren't for your distraction, I never would've been able to beat that ghost. You also fought off lots of ghosts back inside the school with me. So, thanks a lot too!"

Mao Mao smiled, and so did Momo. They finally stopped the ghost threat, and they did it together. They were interrupted by the sound of loud cheers coming from the other four students who had somehow made their way up to the rooftop as well. They apparently seemed happy that Momo had beat the ghost for good with her magical skills and wasted no moment hoisting her up on to their hands and bouncing her up and down in the air in an impromptu hip-hip-hooray.

Mao Mao watched the fanfare quietly, but then looked over to the side to where a little blue book laid on the bricks. He went over to it and picked it up, then went over to where Momo was being showered with praise by the students. "Here," he interjected, placing the book in Momo's hands, "I think this belongs to you."

Momo looked at the book in her hands with wide eyes, taking a second look at the sheriff and then a third back at the same book, and smiled. She hugged the book even while still being thrown up in the air by her classmates.

What no one noticed was that the downed ghost was getting back up, snarling once it noticed the ones who defeated it. It would have tried to attack the group too, if it weren't for a stream of blue energy shooting through the air and zapping the ghost, which alerted everyone to what was going on. Mao Mao was almost ready to swing his sword again, but found the ghost trapped in a net of solid light. He looked in the direction the light beam came from to find Badgerclops and Adorabat standing at the top of the preceding staircase.

"Hey guys!" Badgerclops called out, a bit of smoke trailing from the barrel of his arm-cannon. "What'd we miss?"