Sin and Sanctum

Without wasting any time, Luna kicked the doll away from her! The doll bounced off the walls of the RV several times before landing perfectly on its feet. Luna started to slowly back up. "N-nice doll, we can b-be friends, right?" she let out a nervous laugh.

The doll twirled the knife in its hands before stabbing the ground and then pointed the knife at Luna, running its thumb across its neck in a chilling gesture.

"R-right, can't be friends. Got it!" Luna said, her face filled with nervous dread.

Alter let out a sigh. "Well, what are you going to do?"

Luna whipped her head toward Alter. "U-umm, g-get Sunny?" She attempted to walk toward the front of the RV, but the doll blocked her path.

"Got it. That's not an option," Luna muttered as she slowly backed away toward the kitchen, hoping to grab a knife or some sort of weapon. However, the doll quickly lunged onto the countertop, swinging its blade rapidly to keep Luna from grabbing anything!

"Uh, uh, uh," Luna stammered, her eyes darting around the room in panic.

Alter rolled her eyes. "Try casting a spell or something, Miss Teach-Me-Magic!" she said with a smug look.

Here's the corrected version of the passage:

Luna whipped her head toward Alter with a glare. "You make it sound so simple!" she snapped, quickly grabbing the book she had been reading. Her hands trembled as she frantically swiped to the page that mentioned the basics of mana and magic, searching for a solution.

"What the hell? Why does it just say 'naw I'd win' on this page!?" Luna's eyes darted from sentence to sentence, her nerves fraying with every second. "Fuck, fuck, fuck—Oh! There it is! 'Mana is the source of life and basic energy, blah blah blah... When using mana, you have to mold it in order to cast a spell.'"

As Luna read page after page, her frustration grew.

"Struggling?" Alter gave her a smug side-eye. "Need some advice?"

Luna whipped her head toward Alter. "Yes, kind of..."

Alter pointed lazily toward the book. "You're not on the right page. Try the back."

Before Luna could respond, Alter went quiet and began to fade away.

"W-what?!" Luna shouted as Alter disappeared. She quickly flipped to the back of the book, noticing a strange symbol on one of the pages. The symbol looked like it was drawn in ink or some kind of liquid.

Placing her hand on the symbol, Luna muttered, "The book says to let mana flow like a river or something. Then it says to bring forth your mana—"

Her sentence was cut short as the doll lunged at her, knife in hand!

Caught off guard, Luna gasped as the blade slashed her hand, causing her to drop the book. "Ow, fuck!" she yelped, clutching her injured hand. Blood dripped onto the page, soaking into the strange symbol.

In a desperate move Luna kicked the doll away once again, sending it crashing against the wall. She scrambled for the book, her heart pounding, as the symbol began to glow ominously beneath her blood-stained fingers.

Luna quickly grabbed the book, but as she did, it began to glow even brighter, engulfing the room in a blinding light. As the light dimmed, Luna felt an intense pain in her left hand. Strange rune-like symbols appeared, glowing with a fiery intensity.

After a minute or two, the burning sensation subsided, and the symbols settled, now looking as though they were tattoos etched into her skin. Out of breath, Luna looked at her hand. "W-what the hell just happened?" she muttered, confused and perplexed. She grabbed the book and flipped through a few pages. To her shock, some of the pages began changing before her eyes, and words that hadn't been there before now appeared as if they had always existed.

One of the pages read as follows:

"If you discovered this message, it means you have truly begun your journey into becoming a Hunter. To cast your first spell, simply point your conductor, artifact, or wand—whatever your conduit is—and repeat this spell in your mind or out loud: 'As bright as the sun and moon, I call forth LIGHT FORCE!' "

As Luna repeated the spell, she felt energy surging through her. A glowing, brilliant white ball of light formed in her hand. Without wasting any time, she threw it at the doll.

Before the doll could react, it was hit directly in its midsection. The ball ripped through the doll as if it were nothing. Luna's face lit up with pure joy, but her expression quickly turned to fear as the ball careened toward the front of the RV, where Sunny was driving.

"W-wait, there was a wall there! Wait—wasn't it always there?!" Luna stammered, shaking her head in disbelief.

Suddenly, Sunny caught the ball through the "wall" of the driver's area. Stepping through the illusion, Sunny looked unfazed. What Luna had thought was a wall quickly faded away, revealing Sunny with the cat perched on her shoulder.

"Congrats! You successfully hunted your first monster!" Sunny said with a thumbs-up.

Luna stared at her in disbelief. "What?! That thing was trying to kill me! And wait—how did that doll even come to life? And what the hell is with this mark on my hand!?" she shouted, her frustration boiling over.

As Luna opened her mouth to say more, Alter suddenly appeared, covering Luna's mouth with her hand. "Really? What the hell, Sunny!?" Alter snapped, speaking through Luna.

The floating woman turned her attention to Luna and spoke sternly. "Don't go telling nobody that I'm here. Got it? For your own sake!" Alter points at Luna to her shock Alters eyes are glowing white and red!

Sunny threw up her hands. "Easy, partner! I was just testing ya, and you did great!" She walked over and gave Luna a hearty slap on the back. "Besid—" Sunny's eyes caught the tattoos on Luna's hand, and her expression shifted. "Really, Teach... one last 'screw you' to me," Sunny muttered under her breath.

Luna raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Don't worry about it, partner," Sunny replied quickly, waving her hand dismissively. "Just, uh... please, um..." She rummaged through a nearby box in a hurry before pulling out a glove. "Here you go! Wear this. Those markings, uh... yeah, most hunter don't really like 'em!"

Sunny flashed Luna a sheepish grin before holding up her own hand, revealing similar markings etched into her skin. "It's a 'foreign way' of casting magic," Sunny said, throwing up air quotation marks. She let out a thunderous laugh.

"I see... lovely," Luna muttered, walking over to the kitchen to wash the blood from her hand. After dressing the wound, she threw herself onto the couch. "I'm gonna take a nap!"

Sunny let out a sigh after a few minutes and walked over to sit in the driver's seat. She facepalmed while sitting, muttering under her breath, "Really, Teach? Leaving a spell like that loaded in the book without me knowing? You're all kinds of messed up."

She slammed her head against the headrest of her seat, frustration evident on her face. "Good thing I'm here to keep her safe. That girl is more special than she knows—so much untapped potential."

With a determined expression, Sunny started up the RV once again. "Alright, Luna, hope you're ready because your life has just been flipped upside down!"

A smile spread across Sunny's face as she drove out toward the Colorado countryside, ready to begin Luna's training in earnest.