Ronnie could hardly make out anything in the dark attic. He could only see a few feet ahead of him, the soft light of the hallway coming up into the attic. Covering his mouth and nose with his right hand, he took a few stumbling steps in the dark, until he found a long, thin string, and pulled.

The bare lightbulb lit up the room, and the attic brought more questions than answers.

More strange symbols, the same scribbles he had seen on various parts of the house were there making him confused. These were more varied, of various colors, and a few of them began to pulsate softly.

Ronnie’s confusion turned into fear once the symbols started to glow, back and forth, in tune with his heart, faster and faster. They glowed dimly in the room, behind the old furniture, on the floors and ceiling. He froze in place, but slowly relaxed once he saw a small, tiny, brown cardboard box.

Barefoot and careful not to step on anything sharp or one of the strange glowing symbols, Ronnie approached the cardboard box. It was wedged underneath a painted green table which was between an old easel and a frayed red couch.

The moment Ronnie came within a few steps of the box, he suddenly felt like he was surrounded in a room full of people.

Many people.

It was a party!

A party in the attic!

Ronnie was woefully underdressed in only his underpants!

He covered his chest with his arms and then felt quite silly, blushing, under the dim light.

The feeling of the many eyes, the numerous people, all disappeared.

“There’s nothing going on here,” he whispered to himself. “Nobody here. Time to go.”

Yet the innocuous box, the most boring part of the attic marked with strange symbols screamed open me.

Ronnie mentally prepared himself by taking a deep breath and then he immediately regretted it once he started coughing from all the dust in the attic. He took a few steps, pulled the box out from under the table, and a soft, iridescent glow emanated from it.

He opened it up, and inside he found...a blanket.

A blanket, the edges torn, and numerous pieces of it in the box. They all shone along with it, and immediately, Ronnie recognized the little cloth pieces.

Bracelets.

Ace always wore a bracelet made of cloth. Years ago, Ronnie remembered Ace telling him that it was taken from the blanket he was found in as a baby. But one day, he stopped wearing it, and switched it out for a gold and silver metallic one.

Ronnie never asked, assuming he had possibly wanted to put that part of his life behind him.

As Ronnie squatted, looking into the box, little things started to click into his head.

“Ace is the messiest person in the world, but that bracelet always looked new, ” Ronnie realized aloud.

Suddenly, a warm hand was placed on Ronnie and he froze in place. He didn’t turn to look, completely vulnerable in only his underpants. His first thought was that someone had finally broken into the house, yet his panic subsided the longer the hand was on his shoulder.

“Hi Ronnie!”

Without thinking he turned quickly, recognizing the voice.

Ace’s voice.

It was a man that looked like Ace, but wasn’t him. He was much taller, blonde, and surrounded by many other younger versions of himself. Ronnie’s mouth went dry when the man, dressed in what looked like ridiculous fantasy armor, gave off the same wild grin Ace did whenever he made a joke.

“How do you know my name,” Ronnie asked.

“We’ve been with Ace for years! We know everything he knows about you,” they said in unison.

“Yeah. No. No free rent is worth this, I’m calling Ace.”

He got up to leave, but all of them, in their ridiculous make-believe outfits, silly wizards, jesters, and knights, they watched him with their eyes, sulking, and caused the room to shake.

The strange marks started to pulse back and forth, straining against the anger of the many gods inside Ace’s attic, starved for attention and love, and they weren’t going to let Ronnie just leave.

That isn’t what friends do.

“I’m staying,” Ronnie shouted. “I’m staying!”

The groans slowed down, the light show ended, and the many strangers in Ace’s attic disappeared except for one.

The eldest.

His cold, dead eyes locked in with Ronnie’s and he sensed his weakness. His potential for power, unfulfilled.

He gave off a wicked smile.

As he slowly walked towards him, pointing at him, furniture moved aside for the malevolent knight to make his path.

“You’re a mule,” he said with glee.

“ How do you know this, ” Ronnie said in awe. “I just tell people I’m not an astral.”

“I can tell how weak everyone is, because it makes me stronger.”

Ronnie looked at the floor in shame, but he was assured, everything is fine, nothing is wrong.

“You’re perfect just the way you are,” the man said.

Being told these words, by a man with Ace’s voice and similarity in face made his cheeks burn and fidget with his tongue piercing. The man took great pleasure in Ronnie’s confusion and took advantage of the moment.

“Everyone’s strong in their own way, you know. You can do something that even I can’t do,” the man said, trying his hardest to sweeten his words.

Ronnie eyed him with suspicion.

“You want me to take you out of here, don’t you? There’s a reason you’re in here,” Ronnie said.

“Yes! I was left in here because Dad forgot about me! He always comes to visit! At least once a month!”

“Holy shit, you don’t know…”

Ronnie informed the glowing knight in Ace’s attic that Tyreceus had died about two and half years ago.

And for the first time, the knight no longer took joy in the weakness of others but felt so small. So small, as the first real human emotion he had shown in a long time, flowed forth in many years in the form of tears.

Ronnie was always weak to tears.

Especially Ace’s.

The strong similarity they had made it easy for him to suddenly change his mind.

And so, Ronnie made a compromise. That he would only take the eldest with him and that at any time he would put him back in the attic, his decision being final.

The tears of sadness turned into joy once Ronnie, always wanting to find the best in others, took the blanket down stairs with him, happy to be away from the dust and must of the attic.

After pushing the ladder back into its place, taking another shower to get rid of the dust, Ronnie got dressed in black jeans and a white polo.

He was in the guest room he had commandeered, inspecting the glowing blanket and trying to figure out how to make it not sound crazy when he called Ace. It was even harder with the strange man staring at him, standing in the corner, with his dead, cold eyes.

Trying to break the uncomfortable silence, Ronnie tried his hardest to be friendly.

“So uh, what's your name. I know you already know mine,” Ronnie said nervously.

“I am Invictus the Leech and Subjugator of the Weak.”

“Ah. Cool...”

Ronnie’s conversational skills were already limited and he decided to call Ace before the magical knight in the bedroom corner decided to eat him whole, as he was already regretting his decision.

He grabbed his phone off the wooden bedside table and called Ace, hoping that it wasn’t too late in Atlaan, and that he would pick up. Ronnie waited a full ten minutes, being routed through various services for an inter-planetary call, and sighed.

“Service in this area sucks,” he sighed.

It was a long time to wait to make a call on a different planet, after all.

Finally, the other line picked up, but it wasn’t Ace.

“Who is this? Why are you calling at this time!?”

“This is Ronnie! Who are you? I need to speak to Ace, something weird is happening at his house!”

“Oh. I see. ”

The other line went silent.

“Are you going to give the phone to him,” Ronnie asked.

“No. Don’t call him in the middle of night.”

Ronnie put two and two together very quickly.

“Oh its the guy. The guy that makes promises but still hasn’t left his wife ,” Ronnie hissed into the phone.

“Don’t be jealous.”

“I’m not jealous.”

The Leech grinned with glee as they squabbled over the phone, over nothing of any great importance, their egos at risk more than anything else in the moment.

“Fuck you,” Ronnie said cooly.

“No thank you,” Leviathan replied.

Ronnie flared his nostrils as The Leech mocked him in the corner, his cape turning yellow in joy as the absurdity continued.

“I’d like it if you stopped calling him,” Levi said.

“Or what? You’re going to use your blood money to kill me,” Ronnie asked.

“My family made all the hard choices to protect everyone, and now you make us look evil, ” Levi sighed. “Anyway, I don’t need my blood money to kill you, I would do it myself if I wanted to.”

“He’s going to leave you eventually.”

“Even if he does, what makes you think he’ll go back to you?”

“Because he always has. I’ve known him longer, had him longer. ”

“So you are jealous,” Levi snickered.

“Jealous of what? Besides, I’m sure he’ll leave you before he comes back for his yearly visit anyway.”

“Why..is that..?”

“Because that’s what happens every time.”

Levi’s heart sunk into his stomach when he learned that Ace lied just like him, just simply by omission.

“Every time he came back from that weird school during break, or he left that stupid witch for a short time, he was always with me. Who are you, even?”

“I’m—”

“It was the same last year when he visited,” Ronnie laughed.

Levi quickly did the math in his head and said it was totally cool because it was before they were together.

“Well I’m not fighting you,” Levi replied.

Levi hung up once Ronnie continued to chuckle on the other side of the phone, and he decided that Ace didn’t need to know about any of the times that Ronnie called. So he promptly blocked his number.

Ronnie gripped his phone once he realised that he had gotten nothing done but argue about a man he wasn’t sure he wanted since the summer of 8th grade.

“I need to get my life together,” Ronnie said to himself.

“No, no, keep doing what you’re doing. You’re fine,” The Leech said.

Ronnie immediately knew that he should possibly never sleep with Ace ever again because The Leech seemed to approve of it.

Suddenly, The Leech’s cape turned black, his armor slowly turned dark, and it gave off a red hue.

“Enemies are incoming,” The Leech said. “Downstairs.”

Ronnie looked at the blanket, now pitch black. For some reason, he grabbed the blanket, instead of one of Ace’s many baseball bats, or Tyreceus’s guns, or even a knife from the kitchen.

He could feel that somehow it would be the best option, as illogical it seemed in his own head.

“You know something, right? Tell me,” he said.

“ Go downstairs to meet our guests. I can feel them moving...through the tunnels…”

Feeling as if he was there, but not really there, with his phone in his left hand and a blanket in his right, Ronnie felt quite ridiculous walking down the hallway, slowly, down the stairs, and into the kitchen.

The blue and white kitchen was quiet, as was the rest of the world at that special hour, 2 AM, when the worst things usually did happen.

“This is fucking stupid,” Ronnie mumbled.

A wide, oblong dark portal opened right above the large, wooden table in the center of the kitchen. Ronnie’s mouth hung agape as a young man rolled out of it, screaming and shouting.

“I hate you!”

He tumbled onto the floor, groaning, landing on his back.

The handsome man only had nine fingers, and was missing his ring finger on his left hand, replaced with a hastily made wooden prosthetic that didn’t match his brown skin. Scratches were all over his face and bags were under his eyes, a mismatch with fine clothes.

“‘Sup,” Chad said.