Momo: Mages of Pure Heart

Chapter 2: Mao Mao, meet Momo

In the library area of the academy, a little black cat with yellow eyes and dressed in a simple grey robe was sitting at a table, thoroughly deep in her reading. She was surrounded by other similarly-dressed students who were doing their own thing. A frog was scanning the bookshelves for something new to read. A dog practiced wand-holding positions while holding his wand in his teeth. An owl was hunched over on the table next to the black cat, napping. In another corner, a peculiar pumpkin-headed student was doing some reading too.

The black cat was concentrated on memorizing an unfamiliar spellcasting technique in the book she was reading when her ears flicked at the sound of someone approaching. Judging from the voice, it sounded like someone was yelling. She looked up, along with the other accompanying students, to turn their eyes to the main door of the library, seeing five people walking through. Two of them were familiar – she had seen the chameleon lady and the other lady squirrel in photos mounted on picture frames in one of the school's main halls. The other three she didn't recognize – there was a badger with an eyepatch and mechanical arm, a little blue bat, and a black cat with green eyes and dressed in red. It was that last one that got the little black cat student's attention, her eyes widening at seeing something so much like her.

She tried to get back to reading, trying to ignore the seemingly unimportant realization that she wasn't the only black cat in Pure Heart Valley. She even started mumbling what she read out loud to convince herself of what was more important.

"Hey there."

Before she knew it, she lifted her head back up to stare at the red-clad black cat looking down towards her. "Hello?" she said back.

Mao Mao appeared to look her over for a moment, his face reflecting that of a subtle intrigue, as though he was having the same realization as the other one did only moments before. His eyes then slowly trailed to the blue-covered book on the table. "What are you reading?"

The smaller black cat looked back at her book. "It's a book on magic spells. You wanna read?"

Mao Mao turned away with a shake of his head. "Ah, no thank you, studious one. I don't do magic. Too cheat-y for me."

Before she could say anything back, she saw his badger compatriot smack him on the shoulder. "Come on! Really? Right in front of her?" she heard the badger say.

"I'm just being honest!" Mao Mao shouted back.

"To her or to yourself?"

The little black cat girl watched the back-and-forth bickering between the badger and this elder male black cat for a bit. She felt somehow both happy and disappointed, happy that there was another person just like her but disappointed that he showed this kind of behavior. Well, you can't win them all. She saw that the older black cat had finally settled down from his arguing tirade with his badger friend and turned to look back at her, clearing his throat.

"I'm sorry about that," he said with his hands on his hips macho-style, earning him another smack from Badgerclops, making him glare back. "Sorry about not respecting the, uh, 'enlightening' art of magic powers."

The black cat girl almost felt an urge to laugh, but settled with a half-smile instead. "It's okay," she replied. "It's just learning methods someone else already came up with. Nothing new."

Badgerclops, Adorabat, and Mao Mao laughed for a bit at what she did. Then Mao Mao leaned forward to address her. "What's your name, kid?"

The black cat girl paused, eyeing the other carefully before she spoke. "Momo."

For some reason, hearing that name made Mao Mao suddenly have a bewildered expression on his face. Adorabat and Badgerclops, on the other hand, started giggling. "Hey," the black cat girl named Momo said, "What's so funny?"

She caught Mao Mao giving a piercing glower to his two friends behind him but heard Badgerclops speak. "Sorry, just...he hasn't told you his name yet," he pointed to his black cat compatriot.

Momo looked back to the black cat in front of her. "What's your name?"

The red-dressed black cat let out a low spluttering growl, likely directed towards the bat and badger, and then answered Momo, albeit without looking her directly in the eye, "Mao Mao."

Momo paused. "Oh. That makes sense. Our names kinda sound like each other's." Unlike Mao Mao's friends, she didn't laugh, but still did seem more amused than insulted.

"Yeah sure, except I know someone who says your name when he gets my name wrong..." Mao Mao muttered.

Momo shrugged her shoulders, thinking about how simultaneously amicable and awkward her first encounter with Mao Mao, Pure Heart Valley's esteemed sheriff, was going. She turned to notice a chameleon and squirrel coming onto the scene. She greeted them both, "Hi, Madame Camille. Hi, Ms. Honey."

Honey waved in response to Momo's greeting. "Well hello to you too, Momo," came Camille's reply. "You're still reading that book?"

"Yeah," Momo said. "The spells written in here are really powerful, but a bit complicated. I might read some of this stuff again." She looked back to the book she was referring to, but her eyes widened when she saw that the book was no longer on the table. She briefly panicked as she tried to figure out where it went until she saw Mao Mao and the others looking up. She followed their gazes to find that the book was floating above her.

"Whoa," Adorabat gasped with saucer-wide eyes. "Is that magic?" She looked to Momo. "How are you doing that?"

Momo was confused. "That's not me..."

All of a sudden, something materialized in the air behind the floating book. It looked wispy, round, and had a malevolent toothy grin. It let out a distorted evil laugh.

"Ghost!" Everyone screamed as soon as they saw it, with the exception of Adorabat and Camille who looked like they saw something amazing and Honey who didn't make a single sound.

The ghost seized the book and slammed it shut, revealing the star on the front cover. It then extended out a hand to blow a whistle through its fingers, causing the windows to shatter and books to fly out of their shelves as many more ghosts came flooding into the school. The other students ran and screamed, looking for places to hide. Momo ended up getting knocked off her feet while Camille, Honey, Mao Mao, Adorabat, and Badgerclops were in disarray.

"Chaos magic!" Mao Mao exclaimed. "Evil powers, like I SAID –!" was all he could holler before he got knocked over by a stray flying book.

It took a little while, but all the ghosts had finally started clearing the library a bit, a portion of the ghosts leaving for the rest of the school while leaving the library not as crowded as it was before. The first ghost that appeared before the initial chaos still remained by the time Camille, Honey, and the Sheriff's Department had regained their bearings. They looked to see Momo wrestling with the ghost for her book, but the ghost won, yanking the book away from her and flying away.

"My book!" Momo cried.

Camille turned to the rest of the group, prompting them to do the same with her. "Didn't I mention that the academy has an annual ghost problem?"