Chapter 159 – Their accident

Sophia and Fen played around with magic, and something went terribly wrong. While combining their powers, the wolf lost control of it, and the magic developed a mind on its own. It formed into a black sphere that destroyed everything around it while continuously growing in size. Eventually, it had swallowed the gigantic plain whole. It didn't stop here, though, as it went for the duo, as well.

A few hours since those events had passed. Sophia and Fen were still there but had yet to regain consciousness. They were barely saved after being bathed in a white light, and the black sphere was gone once the light dissipated afterward. It seemed to have collapsed right before it was too late. Everything in front of them ceased existing, though. The gigantic plain was entirely gone.  All that remained was the unconscious duo, a lot of destruction, and a crater where even the capital could fit into. Many times, that is.

"Urgh..." Some hours had passed, and the two were slowly regaining consciousness. "Fen...?" Sophia looked at her wolf friend next to her in the dirt. Nothing around them was intact anymore. In front of the duo was a crater so big and deep that it was too much to put in words. The vegetation around them, too, had turned into a barren wasteland.

"Mmmn..." His reply was slightly muffled as his head was shielded by his paws. Readjusting his posture, he glanced back at the tiger. "Still alive...?"

"I... I think so...? What about you?"

"Probably?" The two weren't sure after everything that had happened.

"..." Still feeling somewhat confused and disoriented, Sophia looked around. It didn't take her long to notice the gigantic crater. "Did... Did we do... that?"

"The creepy black sphere did that... it basically ate the surroundings... We created it, though..."

"I-Is that thing gone...?

"I think so..." Fen nodded. "I can't see it anymore, and the loud noise it was making is gone, too..."

"G-Good..." She looked incredibly relieved. "Where did it go... W-Why are we... still here...?"

"Luck." He gave her a short answer. "Honestly, I don't know... Maybe it grew too much and collapsed? I don't even know what that was!"

"Yeah... Have we found an actual limitation of magic...? We went above its capabilities and everything... collapsed...?"

"Maybe... I doubt anyone ever used this much magic at once. No, nobody's able to use this much. Maybe magic doesn't support this much power and went berserk..."

"It definitely went berserk..." Sophia shuddered while remembering the events.

"Y-Yes... I'll take a break from experimenting for a long while..." It had left a deep scar in the wolf.

"Hum!" The blonde responded with a big nod. "Fen...?

"Yeah...?"

"My magic fully recovered... I'll make a portal, and let's go home, okay? I want to see Maya... and hug her... and never let go..." She was still as white as a sheet and slightly unsteady on her feet. The near-death experience was too much for her. It wasn't the first one she went through, but Canir saving her the other time wasn't nearly as scary because she hadn't noticed that she was about to die.

"Yes." He had nothing to add.

Afterward, she created said portal, and once the wolf shrunk in size to fit through it, the two were soon back in their mansion.

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"Welcome back, you runaway children." Maya was still with Aura in the living room and spotted the two first. "You sure took your- What happened!?" She only then noticed how beaten up the two looked. Sophia was still as white as a sheet, and Fen also seemed really disturbed. The duo also was still covered in debris, their hair and fur full of dirt, twigs, leaves, and various other stuff.

"Maya..." Sophia immediately walked up to the cat-girl, threw her arms around her neck, and almost crushed the girl in a hug.

"Seriously, what happened!?" Maya started to panic.

"..." Without saying a word, Fen got closer to Aura and buried his head into her side, completely sinking into the fur there.

"Okay, I'm getting scared..." The female wolf wasn't sure how to interpret this situation, either.

"Tell me about it..." Noticing that something wasn't right, Maya first picked out the stuff in the tiger's hair before she returned Sophia's hug for the time being because she could feel that the blonde seemed to be needing it.

"I'm sorry..." It took around ten minutes before Fen distanced himself from Aura again.

"It's alright..." She didn't seem upset whatsoever. "What happened, though? I can't remember you looking this distressed before."

"..." Sophia flinched for a second, but she had no plans of letting go of Maya anytime soon.

"The two of us... We messed up..."

"I don't like the sound of that." Maya and Aura were on the same page.

"We experimented with combining our magic powers... We succeeded in it, and one of us could use both powers, but... It went wrong... extremely wrong... Everything went wrong..."

"How much did you try to use...?" The female wolf tilted her head. "I can't even use all of mine at the same time because it's impossible to control."

"Well..." He paused for a moment. "Before that... We also found out that Sophia's magic power is different... It's about twice as potent as mine in comparison..."

"Seriously?!" She was shocked. "Though, it would explain why her power decreases so little and how it's generally beyond belief when she uses little of it and still almost causes doomsday. Wait, how did you find out about that?"

"Sophia poured all of her power into me while I was using my own to prepare magic..."

"With hers twice as potent... on top of yours... d-doesn't that mean you tried to activate magic with twice as much power as I have at my disposal?!"

"Y-Yes..."

"Are you insane?!" She started yelling. "It would've killed both of you for sure if it had activated!"

"..." He turned his head away.

"D-Don't tell me..." She noticed that something was up with his reaction.

"It did activate... It did go out of control... We almost... died."

"No way..."

"Sophia!?" Maya panicked even more and peeled the tiger off her to look her in the eyes while her face turned into the same color as her hair.

"I'm sorry..." It was all she could say. "So... incredibly sorry..." Tears started to form in the corners of her eyes.

"Eh?!" The cat-girl was overwhelmed by this revelation and her reaction. She didn't know what to do at first. A moment later, she teared up, as well, and tightly hugged her girlfriend again. "Y-You idiot..."

"Yes..." Sophia agreed with every fiber of her being. "I'm never going to play with magic without you ever again..." She'd become terrified of it.

"Why... Why are you not dead...?" Aura looked at her wolf again.

"We don't know..." Fen hung his head. "Stuff happened... Everything got destroyed... We woke up a couple of hours later... Somehow, still alive..."

"Wow..." She didn't know what to say. "Wait, everything got destroyed... What do you mean with that...?"

"..." The duo in question stayed silent. The two needed a while to calm down. Fen got closer to Aura once more, and Sophia never let go of Maya for the next two hours. The couple, especially, had gotten quite emotional, and the two spent a lot of the time wiping any tears that kept forming while thinking about how they had almost lost the other girl.

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Once Fen and, even more so, Sophia were somewhat emotionally stable again, Aura wanted to see the place where it happened. Sophia was against it. Not only because she wanted to cuddle more with Maya on the sofa to recover, but also because she didn't want the cat-girl to see it. Unfortunately, Maya sided with the female wolf, and the tiger eventually caved in. Reluctantly creating a portal in the basement once more, the group soon arrived at the scene.

"..." Maya and Aura were speechless. They weren't sure what to expect, but a barren wasteland and a crater so enormous on can't see the other side simply was too much.

"..." Fen and Sophia stayed a couple of steps behind the duo while sharing an awkward expression, not knowing what to say.

"Are... Are you sure you're not dead...?" Aura turned around to look at the two after a while. "Aren't you just ghosts?" The scale of the destruction was too much for even her, who used to fight dragons in her free time.

"No... I mean, you felt it when I touched you, right...?" Fen looked back at her.

"That's true..." Aura remembered. "Ah, so that was behind the massive earthquake I felt in the capital, huh?"

"Yeah... I would've been surprised if it hadn't traveled that far..."

"Sophia..." Maya faced her.

"I-I know, okay... More than anyone, I know that I messed up, okay? That's why I didn't want you to come here and see just how bad it was..." She had a rough idea why the cat-girl addressed her

"Thank god you came back!" She wasn't angry, just glad and overcome with emotion after seeing the destruction. She jumped at the tiger and tightly hugged her, showing no sign of letting go anytime soon. The roles had reversed from the previous time.

"Me, too..." Sophia returned the embrace. "Again, I'm sorry..."

"I'm glad, too, by the way." Aura faced her wolf. "I only just reunited with you, and losing you again is the last thing I want. Especially because it would've been... forever this time."

"Yes. So am I. To the point where the last thought that went through my head before losing consciousness was... you, Aura."

"Hehe." Despite the circumstances, this made her very happy.

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Both couples were wrapped in a very pink aura for a while, and they needed some time to come back from their own little world again.

"Say..." Sophia recovered quite a bit and looked at the gigantic crater she and Fen caused with her magic going out of control. "Do you think we can fix that?"

"Fix...?" Everyone stared at her with big eyes.

"We're not that far from the capital, and it looks horrible here... Also, I don't want to deal with the king and everyone once they find out. I'm sure they'll link it to me in no time." Her real motivation leaked out.

"Ahh..." The group understood the problem.

"Hmm..." Aura looked at the crater. "Nope, impossible. It would take weeks to fill that up with earth magic again."

"Ugh..." It wasn't what she wanted to hear. "W-What about water...? If we can't restore it, turning it into a pretty, albeit gigantic, lake wouldn't be so bad, either..."

"Well, if we all pull together, we could fill it with water in maybe two days. Water magic costs way less, after all."

"Great!"

"How is an enormous lake appearing out of nowhere any less suspicious or bothersome to explain...?" Maya didn't understand her logic.

"I don't care!" Sophia had a solid explanation ready.

"Fine..." The cat-girl also thought a lake would be prettier to look at than the current situation. She agreed with the plan, and the group immediately got to work.