Igne drew two cards from their deck, adding them to their hand. They looked through their options with a confident grin.

“First things first, my Structures give me 4,000 more Lustrum, putting me over 8,000. And I can inflict 3,800 damage – I attack you directly.”

Flow adjusted their counter, subtracting the damage from their own Lustrum, as they didn’t have any cards to counter a direct attack from Igne’s Structures.

“Next, I call Mechabomination Elgrach to the field!” Igne placed a card at the table, with a picture of a giant, formless, biomechanical blob. “Elgrach is a Bruiser, so it enters the field Activated and can attack this turn. Elgrach and Flaming Skull Chieftain both attack Flow directly!”

“Okay, guess I use Griffin Rider Marija and my Grisly Knight to defend me,” Flow said, pushing the two cards ahead.

“You already used Marija to attack on your last turn,” Matis reminded them. “She’s a Bruiser too, meaning that she won’t become Active again until the start of your next turn. She can’t defend you now.”

“Oh, right. I still get to use the bear though.”

“Elgrach’s attack connects first,” Igne said. “Since its Power is higher than Grisly’s, your card is destroyed. But his own Power is subtracted from Elgrach’s, meaning that you’re taking that much less damage.”

Flow moved Grisly Knight to the Dead Zone and subtracted the damage from the Mechabomination’s and the Chieftain’s attack, leaving them under a thousand Lustrum. 

“Elgrach’s special ability also gives me Lustrum equal to its Focus when it destroys another Character,” Igne explained, adding the amount to their own counter. It wasn’t much but it could really add up over time. “Okay, next I play two more Structures, Flaming Tower and Floating Mountain,” Igne continued with their turn. “Structures activate at the start of the turn so I can’t do much with them now, but they will give me more Lustrum and offense on my next turn… however, I can do this!”

They placed another card on the table dramatically.

“I activate the Tech card, Firestorm! It gives me Lustrum based on the Focus stat of all my Fire Structures… putting me at 11,400!”

They added the points with a satisfied grin, then discarded a card from their hand.

“I end my turn. Now, since one of us exceeded 10,000 Lustrum, the game enters the Showdown Phase. Both of us get five more turns, and whoever has the most Lustrum after that is going to be the winner, unless one of us decks out first. Your turn.”

Flow drew two cards and with a frown, looked at the cards in their hand and the ones placed on their half of the table.

“Maybe I should give up. Igne has such a massive lead, I don’t see how I could catch up.”

Matis peeked over Flow’s shoulder, looking at their cards.

“There are a few ways you could turn things around, but you’d need to get very lucky with the rest of your draws,” he said. “The thing is, my deck is just not that good as Igne’s – I try to keep it up to date so I can play with them every now and then, but I don’t buy all the newest expansion packs like they do.”

“It’s fine, thanks for borrowing your deck to me at all,” Flow said.

“Official sources suggest that while learning the game, new players should declare the winner whoever exceeds 10,000 Lustrum first,” Matis said. “The Showdown Phase is for added tension for players with enough experience to confidently turn things around in a few turns. But it can get frustrating for new players if they feel like the match was already decided and they can’t do anything.”

“It’s okay Flow, if you had enough, we can stop,” Igne smiled. They threw their cards at the table facing up, indicating abdication. “You win.”

“You shouldn’t do that; you were about to win. I should be giving up.”

“It’s just considered good sportsmanship when showing the game to new people,” Matis explained.

“Yeah, and you were the one indulging me and trying out my hobby, so don’t worry about it,” Igne said. “Thanks for playing with me.”

“It was kinda fun actually, we could play another time,” Flow said. “I just need time to process all these rules… Well okay, maybe the rules themselves aren’t that complicated. It’s just… games with lots of strategic decisions can get overwhelming. I always feel like I’m making obvious mistakes and looking ridiculous. Like should I use all my cards to attack, or save them for defending? I can never tell if I’m doing things right.”

“Playing Alpha Cross Arena is not about strategy,” Igne said. “It’s about following your instincts and expressing yourself through your game. Look at me for example – I’m filling my deck with the toughest and most powerful cards and going all out attacking. If you just believe in your cards, they will reward you with victory.”

“That theory is the reason I can beat them most of the time, even though they have better cards,” Matis whispered. Flow chuckled.

“Hey, what are you two whispering about?” the enby frowned at them.

“But really, Arena is pretty beginner-friendly in that sense,” Matis said. “Other than a few edge cases, you want to use your Bruisers to get in as much damage during your turn as possible. Your Tanks become Active at the end of your turn, not at the beginning, so if you don’t end up needing them for defending, you don’t lose their action. You can just attack with them on your next turn, then they’ll be ready to defend you again.”

“Makes sense, I didn’t think of that,” Flow said. “Guess strategy games just bring out the overthinking part of my brain too easily.”

“Saving your Bruisers for defending can be good in some specific scenarios,” Igne said, collecting their cards. “But unless you or your opponent use some very specific builds it won’t come up. And if you’re facing an opponent whose whole strategy is to turn on its head how the game is normally played, well, nobody in good faith could blame you for getting confused and not making the best tactical decisions. That’s the whole point of using such a deck after all.”

“Playing casually with friends sometimes does sound fun,” Flow admitted as they returned the deck to Matis. “Maybe I’ll check out the starter decks. You said no randomized booster packs for this game, right? I… still haven't recovered from my gacha-phase.”

“No, there are expansion packs that contain predetermined cards, but you always know what’s in them. The cards are sorted into Basic, Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Exceptive categories, kinda mimicking the rarity system of other games, but it’s not about the number a card is printed in. Instead, to enforce balance, there’s an obligatory ratio between Prestige categories that you must keep when building your deck. To add a single Exceptive card, you must add three Rares, and for each Rare, two uncommon ones and so on.”

“Technically you can cheat with that in casual games, but you need to be very good to not get suspicious and I don’t think many people go to that length. And of course, official tournaments with money-prizes and such always check your deck when entering. And we’re only playing casually anyway.”

Matis squinted at Igne.

“You know, with the cards you have, and with how much you know about the game, I think you could easily compete seriously. Only if you bothered to build a coherent deck and follow an actual strategy…”

“That’s not my style. And if I can’t express myself through the game, then what’s the point?”

The three friends were sitting at their favorite table at long recess, where Igne offered to show Flow their favorite card game, when a boy they knew all too well stepped up to them.

“What’s this bullshit?” Richard grabbed Igne’s deck from the table and raised it to his face. Then he grinned. “Are you still playing Alpha Cross Cards? What are you, ten?”

Igne was tempted to correct Richard, saying that the game was called Alpha Cross Arena , and the cards themselves were commonly referred to as Arena Cards, but pretty much nobody called them “Alpha Cross Cards”. But instead, they jumped up, trying to get their deck back from the boy’s hand. They knew too many people who lost valuable things to never have them back from Richard. The large boy flicked Igne’s forehead, sending them back to their bench.

“Don’t be a dick, Richard, give Igne’s cards back,” Matis said.

The boy ignored him, paging through the cards.

“You got a whole bunch… I wonder what they would sell for online.”

Flow balled their fist under the table. It would be so easy… Richard was big and strong for someone his age, but that meant nothing against an Enchanter’s strength and power. All Flow needed to do was stand up and confront him, and if Richard decided to pick a fight, they could teach him a lesson for life. But they couldn’t risk compromising their identity as Ruthen, and besides…

Flow peeked at Richard’s bracelet, the faded wooden beads on a leather strap he was wearing all the time. They still haven’t figured out what the bracelet could do exactly, but according to Artemis, it had a curse on it – it was the same kind of Artifact that turned Bianca into Poison Rose. It wouldn’t just subtly nag the wearer to go along with its intention but use them as a battery to do whatever it wanted. The last thing the school and the city needed was Richard suddenly being consumed by dark magic, because Flow pushed him to his limits.

On some days, being a superhero was the greatest thing. And sometimes, Flow just hated the whole ordeal and wished if there weren’t so many things to consider before trying to do the right thing. Part of them regretted that they insisted on saving Richard on that first day, seeing how many people he hurt. But they didn’t feel they could live with themself if they just left the boy in that vegetative state forever. Maybe they thought that Richard deserved some kind of punishment, but that didn’t mean they wanted to be the one to judge and punish him. There was a fine but important line between saving the innocent and punishing the guilty which they weren’t comfortable to cross.

If Natasha was the one making the call that day, they wondered, what would she have done?

“Not really a businessman, are you?” a blonde girl wearing camo shorts and a white tank top, with headphones in her neck stepped to their table. “You should know, used Arena Cards sell for peanuts. After all, why would people pay a lot for something they can just get from the publisher’s site in new shape? They’re only valuable for those who want to play.”

Richard squinted at her.

“I know you… Cinty or something. What’s your business, you’re not even in the same class as these clowns.”

“Want to see a card with real value?” the girl smirked. “Here.”

She held up a plastic card, with the image of a shopping center.

“A coupon card for North Star Mall. It’s charged for seven hundred lunars and can be used in any shops in the Mall – they used to distribute them when the place opened last year.”

“I remember,” the boy said with a suspicious look. “They sent them to a bunch of rich assholes as a PR trick and to some random folks as part of a prize draw. Where did you get one?”

“My mom works for the Mall’s management, high end employees get some sweet deals,” Cinty said with a teasing smile. “Why don’t we exchange cards? You give back Igne’s playing deck and can have the coupon card instead.”

“Wanna play the hero with mommy’s money, huh?” Richard gave her a predatory smirk. “But why would I make a deal? Why don’t I just take that and keep these ?”

“And let people see you parade around with those kid’s toys? I thought you had an image to take care of.”

Richard growled, but he dropped Igne’s cards on the table and snatched the coupon card from Cinty, sinking it in his pocket.

“Happy playtime, losers,” he said, jogging away.

“Thanks, but you really didn’t need to do that,” Igne sighed. “My cards aren't even worth that much.”

“Don’t worry,” Cinty chuckled. “That coupon card is almost empty, there might be enough for a meal, maybe. Richard can have it, my mom gave it to me the other day to buy food, when she didn’t have the time to pack me lunch.”

“I wish I could see his face,” Matis smiled. “Or maybe not. Hope he won’t come after you because of this.”

“I can deal with it.”

“Guess that still means that I owe you the price of a lunch,” Igne said. “We usually hang out in Café Velvet after school, don’t you wanna join? I treat you as thanks.”

“That’s really nice of you, but I’d take on the offer another time if that’s okay. Actually, before I noticed Richard was at it again, I headed here for a reason…” she turned to the third person at the table. “I wanted to talk to you Flow.”

“Huh?” the enby blinked, pointing a finger at themself, like they were asking for confirmation that they’re the Flow in question. “Me?”

“Depends. You wrote that essay on the ashcen that earned special commendation and got uploaded to the school’s digital library, right?” she asked with a smile, confident she got the right person.

“Uhh, yeah? I didn’t realize it was such a big deal.”

It was nice to get recognition for their hard work, but the idea that now a lot of people might recognize them in school, people they didn’t even know, made their cheeks turn red. What was this girl’s name again? Cinty? Flow thought she might be from Natasha’s class, but they weren’t sure.

“The thing is, I also agreed to do a project on the ashcen, as a voluntary thing to boost my grades a bit. I thought it would be a cool topic, with how mysterious they are but… turns out that means there’s not many good sources about them, except for some wild conspiracy theories. Then boom! There comes your essay, a real treasure trove. It’s exactly what I need, but I’d feel bad to just take advantage of your work, so I thought… I might come to the source and ask you personally? You know, like… could you help me with my work?”

“Oh! Well sure, but… I’m really not this expert on the ashcen you might think. I mean everything I really know about them is in the essay already, and part of the reason that it turned out so well was that Matis helped me with it. You can use it, I’m happy if it can be of help.”

“Oh,” the girl’s shoulders seemed to fall a bit, but her face didn’t say anything. “Well sure, of course I don’t want to waste your time.”

Matis subtly kicked Flow’s ankle under the table.

“Ow! Why did you do that?”

“You’re being too modest,” the boy said. “You worked hard on that essay and if the reason it was so good was really me, then you wouldn’t have gotten a better grade than mine. Sure, Cinty could just copy the information she needs, but if you told her how you did your research, that would help her to make her own take on the subject more rounded out.”

“Well, if you really think I could help,” Flow scratched the back of their head. “I’d be happy to.”

“Great!” Cinty smiled brightly. “Sooo, can I add you on Herald?”

“Sure.”

The girl pushed a few buttons on her phone, and soon Flow’s own buzzed with a notification. They quickly confirmed the request.

“Okay, guess next we could meet for a bit of brainstorming. I’ll try to get my most important questions straight, then text you about the details, how about it?”

“Sounds good,” Flow said, still confused about what exactly they’re supposed to do on that brainstorming.

“Thanks a lot! Well, recess is almost over, I’ll better be going now. Ciao!”

She jogged away with a little bounce.

“I’m not sure I know what just happened,” Flow said as the girl vanished.

“Me neither to be honest,” Matis said. “But she seemed excited to spend time with you. I wasn’t sure you noticed though, so I felt better intervening.”

“But why? She doesn’t even know me.”

“Yeah, but she wants to.”

“But why me? ”

“She found your Herald board almost immediately,” Igne pointed out. “I’m sure she checked you online before, she just wanted to talk to you in person before dropping in your messages from nothing.”

Flow didn’t even notice that, but it seemed logical.

“Most people don’t know each other by default,” Matis teased. “That’s why they do things like this.”

“Like… what?”

“You know. Like when you notice someone who seems cool and fun to be around, so you find a reason to talk to them. Maybe even exaggerate a bit about how important your problem is – not really a lie, just a way to get a conversation started. Then, if things work out well, soon you can just hang out without an excuse, or it being awkward.”

“Oh,” Flow said with sudden understanding. “So, that’s how other people do it.”

“Do what?” Igne asked.

“Make friends.”

“Well, some,” Matis shrugged. “Why, what’s your strategy?”

“Being their neighbor and being friends from childhood,” Flow said, counting on their fingers. “Being saved from a bully by them. Being dropped on them and pretty much commanded to be friends. Being friends with their friends by one of the methods above – those are the ones that worked for me so far.”

It was still hard to wrap their head around the whole thing – Igne already offered Cinty to hang out with all of them, but rather just accepting she went out of her way to make plans with Flow personally. They didn’t understand why someone would do this, Igne and Matis seemed to be much more interesting company than them…

“Wait, I’m putting myself down, I probably shouldn’t do that.”

After all, they were a superhero, even though others couldn’t know that. Flow remembered all those stories where having a secret identity, or other big change in someone’s life, inexplicably made them more popular among their peers, usually with some hand-waving about being more confident. Flow didn’t feel like they were acting any differently and they were always pretty sure that those stories were mostly about wish-fulfilling, not what would happen in real life. But who knows – after learning that magic was real all this time, maybe they should at least give the benefit of doubt to other weird things that happen in fiction. Maybe being Ruthen did rub off on their everyday self, somehow making it seem more interesting to others.

Or Cinty just really wanted to get a good grade.

<>

It was late afternoon and Vernon Crims’ index finger was slowly knocking on the steering wheel while he was sitting in the traffic jam usual in this hour. 

Tap, tap, tap…

His thoughts were far away, in his apartment, where he would take a quick shower and eat some dinner (probably instant noodles again – he didn’t have the spoons to cook anything for himself and he was ordering too much that month already) and hopefully he’d still have enough time before bed to play some games or watch a movie. Commuting felt soul crushing, it wasn’t enough he had to sacrifice most of his waking hours just to be able to afford staying alive, he was also expected to spend most of his free time behind the wheel just to get to his workplace at the morning then get home for the evening. He knew he was luckier than some, by being able to make a living in Pollapolis at all. After losing his last job, he thought his only option was to move to the Conglomerations, or to another city’s area altogether, but then the Knightfall Foundation announced its Perk Up Program, an ambitious plan to revitalize the city’s economy by providing generous funds to a variety of companies – to encourage them to stay in the city, expand, and thus employ. Vernon was grateful, he didn’t want to leave the city he was born to, pretty much the only place he had ever really known. But sometimes he really wished he could work for the Foundation directly, or at least for a fairer company.

… tap, tap, tap…

His employer, a subsidiary of Alexton Networks, had a handful of factories on the outskirts of the city and Vernon was working as a safety inspector. His job was to make sure that everything ran according to the rules – or at least accordingly enough for the factories to slip the official supervisions ordered by the city every now and then. It wasn’t a very challenging job. Pollapolis’ city council couldn’t really afford to kick into one of the city’s last big investors by shutting their plants down, so the inspections were mostly for show, they would put up with a lot of loose practices just to keep the money coming. Vernon tried to soothe his consciousness, reminding himself that at least he tried to make sure that the workers weren’t in too much danger, but he couldn’t do much when his memos were constantly ignored.

The company also didn’t offer accommodation for the employees and didn’t cover travel costs, despite the workplace being nowhere near to the residential areas. Vernon wouldn’t be surprised if most people sitting around him in the jam turned out to be his own colleagues.

… tap, tap, tap…

Whoos.

Pulled back from his own thoughts by the strange noise, Vernon looked up. Above the traffic jam a strange shadow seemed to cross the sky. It had a giant, formless black body with ivory white blade-like wings. The front part of the creature’s body opened, revealing some kind of orifice and Vernon heard a deafening screech.

His mouth agape, Vernon stared at the monster as it circled above the cars. Why did people just sit around, why didn’t anyone jump out of their cars to run away screaming?

Screech!

Oh, crap. Running away. Why didn’t he do that? He should get away from here, right? Feeling dizzy, Vernon reached for his seatbelt and stumbled to open it. It would be much easier if he could just look down for a moment, but he felt unable to tear his eyes away from the creature.

Whoop.

And then, as he was staring at the monster – the monster stared back. It stopped sharply in its circling and turned toward Vernon’s car, from an angle it could almost face the windshield. It opened its monstrous mouth again and this time Vernon could see inside. Spiraling in the creature’s body, he saw thousands of eyes, all staring at him.

Vernon froze, suddenly losing all ability to move. It was such a primal instinct, it existed way before his first mammal ancestors. It was something coming straight from reptilians, probably. The monster and human, predator and prey stared at each other for a seemingly infinite moment, full of suspense but somehow also peaceful.

Then the creature dived down, crashing right into Vernon’s car from above.

Instead of smashing the car and the young man inside to pieces, the monster’s strike seemed to simply push the vehicle through the concrete. Vernon felt gravity going crazy as the car spun around in freefall through darkness, then landed with a big jump.

He was back on the road, but on a very different one he used to travel every day. The gray concrete line cut through an infinity of darkness, continuing to the horizon, then looping back above like a mobius string. Black silhouettes of cars ran back and forth in both directions on the ghost-route. As Vernon sat there frozen, trying to process his surroundings, two shadow cars ran through his own. They phased through, continuing their journey, barely pushing the metal car ahead.

With a screech, the monster from before appeared above, only its white wings making it visible before the starless black sky. Vernon gulped and switched the stick shift to the highest gear. As the wings approached he stepped on the gas pedal. He ran through one ghostly car shadow after another, none of them stopping him, but all chipping away bits of his speed, and he didn’t drive a sport car to begin with. The white wings grew bigger and bigger in the rear-view mirror as his heart pumped ever louder.

He winced, letting out a loud scream as something landed on the top of his car loudly.

The monster was still behind, it couldn’t be the cause of the noise. Whatever it was, it pushed itself away from Vernon’s car, landing on one of the ghost cars ahead and facing him.

It was a humanoid figure, wearing a long purple cloak and holding one large saber in both hands. Their face was covered in a hood with, as Vernon noticed a moment later, cat-ears sticking out on top. The stranger looked up, finally making eye-contact with him, and Vernon found himself staring into the sparky green irises of a dark gray, grinning feline.

“Need some help, human?” she shouted.

Another screech echoed over the ghost road, as the monstrous bird came down on Vernon’s car. The cat-person waved her swords in an intricate pattern, throwing a human-sized whirlwind at the creature, pushing it back several meters in the air. With a furious growl it raised its altitude again, circling above Vernon and the stranger.

Still holding her sword, she pointed at the bird dramatically.

“Listen up pal, the Lower Realms are my hunting ground. You should’ve thought twice before dragging your prey to my doorstep, because now you’re on my menu. So get ready, cause…”

She sighed. She really liked improvising her speeches, but there were some traditions even she had to follow.

“… I, Narwia, Reaper of the Solena tribe will clean this world from your wretched spirit!”

Deciding that Narwia was a threat, the monster threw itself at her, but the felimorph jumped away swiftly. The bladed wings cut through the shadowy car, turning it into nothing, but then Narwia was already diving down, swinging at the bird from above. It had to push itself to the ground, rolling away awkwardly, while the woman landed squatting and in the next moment jumped on the top of another ghost car rushing her way. The monster pushed itself back to the air where it was at advantage and kept circling, trying to find an opening.

“Wh… what’s going on?” Vernon breathed through his wheezing and crying, trying hard to not lose control of his car. God, now he was grateful for his routine behind the wheel, or he’d have crashed long ago. “This must be a nightmare…”

Another cloaked figure jumped to a nearby ghost car and gave Vernon a gentle look from under their mask and silver scarf. They were at least familiar from the news, and he felt a slight wave of relief recognizing them.

“Sorry, but it’s all real,” Ruthen said. “But don’t worry, we’ll deal with that thing in a moment and get you home. You just keep driving; it will make it harder for it to home in on you. Don’t worry about running through stuff, they’re all incorporeal. Just don’t turn your car on its head, okay?”

“O- okay…” the man nodded nervously, trying to focus on the road.

Meanwhile, Nocturknight landed on a third ghost car, next to Narwia. While Ruthen was calming down the victim, she took a better look at their opponent.

“So that’s a devil too, huh?” she stared at the blade winged bird thing above. “They’re getting bigger.”

Narwia snorted.

“This is still small fry compared to the ones I usually get, but you’re right in one thing. Devils this level usually don’t come to the Human World to hunt this frequently. They’re getting bolder, which is never a good sign.”

“Could it be because of the Sorcerer too?” Ruthen asked, catching up to the two.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Narwia shrugged. “But given that the forest-witch blamed your trip to the Dreamlands on that bastard too, it’s certainly a possibility. The Human World was deprived of most of its magic since the Mistfall – his messing with humans puts the balance of whole reality at risk.”

“So, this thing is no big deal you say?” Nocturknight grinned, following the air-bound devil with her eyes. “Guess we just have to hit it hard until it goes down – nice change of pace from the warlovified citizens we have to bring back to their senses honestly.”

“Tsk, it’s no big deal for me ,” Narwia corrected. “You two are still at Combat 101, so don’t get reckless. Devils can be anything from dumb powerhouses to the most cunning hunters you’ll ever face, and there’s no way to tell which type you’re against by their looks.”

“It can’t be that smart, or it would realize that it’s outnumbered and outmatched and leave, doesn’t it?” the girl smirked.

“Hey, we’re only joining Narwia on devil-hunting so we can train,” Ruthen reminded her. “Let’s not take unneeded risks.”

“Relax, I wasn’t about to rush in without a plan,” Nocturknight rolled her eyes. “Okay, let’s bring it down to the ground, then it will be much more vulnerable. Can you take care of that, Ruthen?”

“On it!”

The hero spun their scarf and threw it at the devil, wrapping it around its black trunk. The monster let out a shriek and rose higher, carrying Ruthen to the air.

“Whoa, okay, not how I imagined.”

The silver hero clung tightly to their scarf, looking down at the ghost road shrinking beneath them.

“Good strategy, nice execution,” Narwia snarked.

“Let us know whenever you feel like doing that teaching thing,” Nocturknight growled. “Okay, guess that’s that about bringing it to the ground. We must fight it in the air.”

“Ühm,” Narwia nodded with mild interest. “And how you’ll exactly do that?”

Nocturknight touched one of her pins under her coat, an empty circle with a pair of stylized wings.

“Ascension!”

A pair of black angel-like wings with red highlights appeared on her back, allowing her to fly after the devil and Ruthen.

“Hold on, I get you down!”

“Cool!” Ruthen nodded gratefully. “Wind-blown hair looks good on me, but this ride starts to remind me that day in the amusement park with the teacups… not a good memory.”

The devil spun around, dragging her partner away from Nocturknight’s reach and coming at her with an open mouth full of inhuman eyes. The hero dodged, again and again, but the monster kept her on the defense and away from Ruthen.

“You like doing things the hard way, aren’t you?” she said, finally losing her patience. She stopped, floating right in the way of the creature’s next attack. “Singula-”

“Wait! Don’t do it!” Ruthen shouted.

With an annoyed groan, she dodged again, the creature only missing her a few inches this time. She made sure to get some distance before shouting back at Ruthen.

“Look, it won’t let me get to you! I’ll put it down then catch you – I know it seems like tight timing, but we’re very high, I’ll have time to save you before you can fall.”

“No, did you forget what Artemis told us about Enchant powers?”

“Oh. Crap.”

“Now that you’re used to the Enchants and your glow has developed enough, you can wear multiple Enchants safely, pretty much all the time,” the shopkeeper explained. “That’s going to be a huge advantage in upcoming battles, since it allows you to switch between different powers immediately, without the need to switch the Enchants themselves. You can just keep them all at the ready.”

“That’s something you’ll definitely need if you’re going to face warlocks on a regular basis, or whoever is behind the Knightfall Foundation,” Nox said.

“However, I have to ask you that you always make sure to not activate multiple powers at the same time,” Artemis took back the word. “That could have disastrous results.”

“How disastrous exactly?” Flow frowned.

“Hard to tell,” Nox said. “Enchant powers work predictably on their own but mixing them… that’s a different story. In one hand, you can end up discovering a completely new spell, something that is capable of things beyond the scope of any individual powers. But you’ll have no way to know what that new power will do beforehand… it could turn oxygen into acid. Do you see the problem?”

“Also, if your soul isn’t powerful enough to fuel that new power, then one or both component powers could fail. They could cancel out completely, leaving you without anything to rely on, like a short-circuit.”

“If you use Singularity now, it could break Ascension , then you’d fall! Or it could blow us all up.”

Right. Loosy god-damn magic. There are always more rules to remember.

“Okay, hold on, I’ll figure out something else.”

“Maybe I could climb up to its back?”

“No, that would just make it easier for it to throw you down. Okay, I got it. I’ll go closer, when it comes at me again, swing toward me as much as you can.”

“You sure that will work?”

“Yes! Yes Ruthen, I can see the future and I’m in fact a hundred percent sure this plan is going to work. Slash sarcasm.”

“Okay-okay, let’s try it.”

As the devil rushed at Nocturknight again, Ruthen found themself thrown back by the air resistance. They rode the wind, letting themself to be smacked against the flying monster’s formless trunk, then using their enchanted strength, pushed themself away. They swung toward Nocturknight, who managed to catch them, then immediately flew higher, making quick circles around the screeching creature. In a few seconds she warped Ruthen’s scarf around it multiple times, before dropping on the struggling monster’s back.

“Now we hold the rein!” the girl grinned.

“Good job,” Ruthen breathed, holding tightly to their scarf, trying hard not to fall off the devil throwing itself up and down in the air. “Now what?”

“Back to our original plan,” Nocturknight said. “We take it to the ground and deal with it there.”

She pulled the scarf, restricting the monster’s wings even more, and it started to dive toward the ground. It wriggled, trying to break free – normally it would take a swing of its wings to cut through the scarf, but it didn’t have enough room to spread them, and the magical fabric seemed to hold on for now.

They landed roughly, turning shadow cars into dark mist left and right. The two heroes fell off as the devil rolled on the ground, but Ruthen still held the scarf, not letting it spread its wings and take off again.

“Quick, I don’t know how long I can hold it!” they urged their partner.

Nocturknight let her wings fade away, and summoned her trusty blade boomerang, throwing it at the trapped monster. That was when the devil managed to tear itself free from the scarf and pushed itself into the air again. The boomerang missed and turned around on its trajectory to return to Nocturknight.

“Hey, look, you were right!” Narwia said nonchalantly, jumping next to the two teens. She pointed at the monster in the air. “It really knows when to fold ‘em.”

Further away, it turned back toward the ground. Right beneath it a large hole appeared in the ghost road – its walls covered in pale white mist; it led deep into darkness. The shadow cars turned on their heads and faded away as they reached its edge.

The devil dived downward, right toward the hole.

“No way,” Nocturknight growled.

She snatched the returning boomerang from the air and jumped on a ghost car, then from there to another and another. She rushed toward the hole, in a hopeless effort to intercept their flying enemy.

“Wait!” Ruthen called out. They crumpled their thorn scarf under their cloak and with the same move, pulled out another, undamaged one. They felt slightly weaker, as most cool things Enchants could do, summoning accessories came with a cost, but that didn’t matter now. Whatever Nocturknight planned, they felt like they should be fully prepared. Wasting no time, they went after her, jumping from car to car as she did.

“Kids these days,” Narwia sighed.

An old, dark blue car pulled next to her, and a shaking Vernon peeked out of the window.

“Is… is it safe now?”

Narwia laughed.

“Safe? Don’t be ridiculous, it’s never safe. The world is huge and full of awful and dangerous things. You think your human capitalism is bad? Imagine it on a cosmic level. The only reason that isn’t everything out to kill you is that they’re either ignorant or indifferent toward your existence – but just let them think you have something worth their trouble even for a moment and poof. You’re done for. There are beings that if you learned about, their image would come to life in your mind and eat you from inside. There’s…”

She stopped and took another look at Vernon’s expression.

“Oh, you mean the man-eating bird thing. Yeah, you don’t have to worry about that anymore. So just sit down and relax, I’ll be right back and put you back to your own world. Don’t leave your car. You might disappear forever if you do.”

She rushed after Nocturknight and Ruthen.

Man, who would’ve thought that teaching was this much trouble. She almost felt sympathetic for her own master now.

Almost.

 

Nocturknight kept jumping, letting her peripheral vision and reflexes take care of the coordination while her eyes fixated on the falling figure of the devil. It was about to get away.

No. Not this time.

This thing was hunting people randomly, anyone with a strong enough emotion to attract it, in hopes of finding someone with enough glow that it could take hold of their soul before they died. It took advantage of others’ weakness and now that it ran into someone capable of fighting back, capable of stopping it, it was about to turn tail, hide, then continue its games in another place and time.

She had enough.

She helped to destroy the Vessel, but now it was back, stronger, and more dangerous than ever.

She and Ruthen saved Bianca, but it didn’t bring them any closer to the Sorcerer.

They helped Igne too, just to be stomped over easily by Scarlet Wind right after and watch him leave with an Artifact that could turn someone invincible.

She defeated the Dream Beast for a powerup she can’t even use without losing her mind.

She managed to overpower all three warlocks, just for them to walk away freely, without revealing anything useful.

They knew the Knightfall Foundation was hiding information about Nash, but they were untouchable.

Narwia promised to help them to be stronger, but all she did so far was making them do her job while teasing them.

She had enough of being dragged around. It was time for her to grab the strings and pull them.

She jumped and spun around in the air for maximum force as she threw her boomerang at the devil, right as it was about to cross the perimeter of the hole.

The blade spun through the air with the speed of a fired bullet.

It passed right above the devil’s rear as it vanished in the hole.

Nocturknight felt helpless anger build up in her chest.

She had it. But it got away.

“No. It’s not over until I decide it’s over.”

She landed on another ghost-car and without missing a beat, jumped further. With a somersault she caught her weapon and spun face down, right toward the ghostly hole beneath her.

“What are you doing?” Ruthen shouted. They were trying to catch up to the girl, but they were still a few cars behind.

Nocturknight looked up mid-air, their eyes meeting for a split second. Then she turned downwards as she dived after the devil.

Narwia jumped next to Ruthen just in time to watch the girl vanish in the hole. For a moment she seemed frozen, staring at the empty spot Nocturknight left in the air. Then she turned to Ruthen urgently.

“How long is that scarf?”

“Usually as long as it needs to be.”

“Then get her out of there. Quickly. ”

 

Nocturknight fell through the hole with uncanny speed, but there never seemed to be an end to it. All she could see was the distant form of the devil deep beneath her, mist, and darkness. The ghostly fog creeping on the walls seemed to stretch out like it was reaching for her and it felt like the cold wind was cutting right into her bones. Her Enchants went crazy, pulsating under her coat, but she didn’t need the magical alarm to know she was in danger. She could worry about that later.

She squinted, trying to get a better view of her target beneath, but the wind and fog was clouding her vision. She couldn’t help but growl, making a creepy echo among the widening walls. It looked like whatever was lying at the bottom of this pit, they were getting closer to it.

The devil suddenly spread its wings, slowing its fall, and turned around. Its mouth opening, it revealed thousands of eyes staring hatefully at Nocturknight. Then the eyes shot out like torpedoes at the girl.

She shouted, trying to dodge, but the freefall left her with limited options to maneuver. The stray projectiles exploded on the walls around her, and the force of the explosions pushed her left and right, but at least she managed to avoid getting directly hit.

A silver scarf appeared from above, wrapping around her waist, but she kept falling. Then the foggy walls suddenly vanished and she found herself above open ground.

It was a gray plain of rock and dust, desolate and seemingly lifeless. She couldn’t see animals, grass, not even a spot of moss growing on the rocks below, even though she might be just too far away. At certain points, the wasteland was broken by black chasms, filled with some kind of darkness that seemed to be its own substance, waving and pulsating, instead of just the lack of light. There was no sky above, only white fog.

The devil was floating a few meters away, sending a hostile screech at her. It was probably preparing another assault with its eyeball-rockets.

Nocturknight felt the scarf tightening around her. Knowing this was her last chance, she threw her blade again. It hit the monster right between its jaws, cutting it cleanly in half, turning it into black and grey mist. She couldn’t help but let out a victorious shout as she was pulled back into the hole through the white mist.

 

Ruthen felt their scarf fixing itself around something – they really hoped it was Nocturknight – but the fabric kept running through their fingers. Even with their heightened strength, they couldn’t stop her from falling.

“I can’t pull her back! Why doesn't she use Ascension to fly back?”

Narwia grabbed the end of the scarf too.

“We need to pull her out before the hole closes.”

Together they managed to stop the fall and started to slowly pull her back, when like a geyser, white mist shot out of the pit.

“It’s closing itself! Pull with all you got!”

“I am! ”

“Then pull with more! On three… one, two…”

“Outburst!” Ruthen shouted without waiting for the felimorph’s countdown.

The concrete cracked under their feet as energy rushed through them, and with a last pull, Nocturknight flew out of the pit with a puff of mist before it vanished.

Suddenly feeling dizzy after the burst of strength, Ruthen fell on their butt, while Nocturknight landed on the concrete next to them with a thud. She spread out her arms and legs, laughing.

“Another job well done~!”

“What the hell were you thinking?”

The girl looked up to see Narwia towering over her, resting her hands on her hips. Regaining her composure, she pushed herself into sitting position and adjusted her coat.

“I took care of the devil before it could get away. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? Killing those things so they don’t hunt people and hatch into full-blown demons?”

“You were about to fall into the Crawl! There your soul would be an open feast for the first higher caliber devil you run into, then we’d have a demon on our paws armed with Nightmare’s Shadow!”

“The Crawl? So that was the plain I saw?”

The almost-nothing at the deepest level of the Lower Realms, the cradle and grave of all devils where they go on their hunting trips from. It seemed weirdly… normal. Somehow, that felt concerning. She just witnessed the closest thing to humans’ concept of hell, and it didn’t even faze her. It was just a place with a whole bunch of nothing. Kinda boring even.

Should she tell the others how close she really was to falling there? That she could see the place? It didn’t seem to matter. Wouldn’t help her with her argument in any case.

“Yeah, I took a risk, but it worked out, right? Maybe I went a bit overboard…”

“A bit? If Ruthen wasn’t there to save your skin…”

“Yes, but they did!” Nocturknight snapped. “I knew they would! Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do? ‘Trust your partner?’”

Ruthen squirmed awkwardly, hugging their knees on the ground. They weren’t a fan of being dragged into the fights, but that’s how these arguments usually went.

“Oh, so that’s what this was about? Trust? Then let me see!” Narwia demanded, reaching out her hand. Nocturknight frowned but raised her own hand (without touching Narwia’s) letting her see the ring on her little finger. Half of its crystally surface was completely black.

“That trinket can only do so much to keep the Shadow at bay,” Narwia said. “If you keep seeking out and throwing yourself into situations that trigger your power it will overwhelm you and blow into your face in no time – and by that, I mean our collective face, since you could take down half the city if you lose control.”

“Do you… seriously think that I want to get taken over by that thing on purpose? ” the girl stared at her with anger and disbelief. She pointed at the ring. “I agreed to wear this thing, I went along with your stupid training just to learn how to control it – why would I do all this then go and sabotage it? Where’s the logic in that?”

“For the same reason an addict throws away all their booze then goes to the bar an hour later. Do I believe you want to get better? Sure I do. But you’re not in control. And that’s okay, that’s the reason all these people are trying to help you. But you’re in denial girl. You’re still pretending you have it all figured out yourself, but only when you think you won will you realize that you were playing its game all the time. It’s not just about you anymore. You’re putting everyone at risk.”

“You have no idea what you are talking about,” Nocturknight snarled. “This thing isn’t in your head, babbling non-stop nonsense about consciousness, existence, and the Fireworks at the End of the World. If you think I want it there even a moment longer…”

She finished the sentence with a murderous look.

“Is that a thing?” Ruthen asked quietly. “You still hear voices? I thought it was only the other yous when you first touched the Spear.”

“It’s different…” Nocturknight said, now sounding uncertain. “I mean back then it was like memories of things I knew I never said or did. This is… not my voice. I think. I mean, I call it a voice, but…” She shook her head. “Sometimes I can almost convince myself that it’s just me, talking to myself. I don’t know, like my messed up thoughts, but it’s easier to pretend that it’s someone else talking to me. But then it starts to talk about stuff I never thought about before and… I don’t know which is scarier. That someone else is actually invading my mind, or that I don’t even know myself and never did.”

Ruthen blinked, trying to process everything and find to say something that could be of comfort. Narwia on the other hand just shrugged.

“It’s not that hard. Just be honest.”

Nocturknight looked at her.

“What do you mean?”

“You know, honesty? When did you do that last time? Just open your mouth and say what’s on your mind. Forget about who you are, and who you’re talking to, and what you’re supposed to do, and what could happen. If you do that you can be sure that whatever you say, you’re the one whose talking, right?”

When did she try that last time? Probably with Nash.

She was honest with Nash, right? They knew her, the real her.

Right?

“You’re saying that like it’s easy,” she said quietly.

“Well is there a better place or time to try it? You’re wearing a mask, and the only people here are another costumed weirdo and me who normal people can’t even see. You’re not even in normal reality. What are you afraid of, some random ghost eavesdropping?”

She looked at Narwia.

“You want honesty? Okay. I don’t like you. You’re smug, annoying, and I think you’re both full of shit and playing mind-games with us. You were a huge bitch to me for no reason since we started your training which did nothing so far to bring us closer to any of us our goals. Maybe you’re not the very last person I’d ever open up to, but if you think you’re doing a good job making me feel safe enough to do that then you’re just as stupid as your whole ‘not a cat’ shtick.”

Narwia’s ears twitched. Then she grinned and bumped her shoulder.

“There, was that so hard? Now at least we’re somewhere we can work from.” She stretched, her hood falling back. “Okay, let’s get you and car-guy home then we’ll call it a day. I need to grade tests and plan curriculums and probably eat an apple? Those are things teachers do, right?”

“You’re not making it easy to take you seriously either.”

“Okay, class is over, you learned your lesson. That’s enough honesty for today.”

<>

“Disenchant.”

They turned back into their everyday selves in an empty store building near downtown that they discovered a while back.

“You okay?” Flow looked at Natasha with concern.

“I…” she looked at her ring. The darkness already retracted a bit, but it was still covering a quarter of it. She closed her eyes and took some deep breaths.

Flow stepped closer then stopped. Their first instinct was to put a hand on her shoulder, but they still remembered the girl’s reaction when they tried to make physical contact last time. They didn’t want to invade her personal space.

(It was kinda weird how awkward they both could get around each other still, considering they did make a lot of physical contact already. They swung together on Ruthen’s scarf and ended up wrestling in close quarters on more than one occasion during their improvised combat training before. Being Ruthen and Nocturknight somehow made some things easier, things that Flow and Natasha clearly found difficult to handle. Flow still struggled figuring out why that was the case.)

So, they just stood there, wanting to help but feeling kinda helpless. The whole point of the ring was supposed to be so they could support Natasha through this, but the girl’s issues seemed to run so much deeper than she let in on, and Flow wasn’t sure if they should push her to open up more, or it would just make things worse.

Natasha eventually opened her eyes. Noticing Flow standing so close, she turned to the side, seeming a bit flustered, but she didn’t step away.

“I’m sorry,” she said eventually. “I know I was acting stupid. I was rash and put you in a terrible situation… I didn’t mean to do that. I just… I was so focused on winning the fight, I forgot about the consequences.”

“It’s fine,” they scratched their head. “I know that in the heat of combat it’s hard to find the right thing to do, I was there before. I’m just happy you didn’t get hurt.”

Was it a mistake, taking this lightly? She was clearly making an effort to let Flow closer, and they didn’t want her to feel like they were brushing it off. But an apology wasn’t what Flow expected and they weren’t sure how to handle it. They wanted her to feel better, not worse. Guilt certainly won’t help.

“I wanted to apologize earlier, but I couldn’t bring myself while she was around,” the girl crossed her arms. “Even if she’s right it feels wrong coming from her. She puts me on edge.”

“Yeah, I get it. But Narwia isn’t that bad if you give her a chance.”

“It’s easy for you to say that, she at least somewhat likes you. But she was on my case since our fight with the warlocks. I just don’t know what she’s expecting of me.”

“Maybe that’s the point.”

Natasha gave them a confused look.

“I mean, maybe she wants you to stop worrying about what she’s expecting. Or anyone else. You just want to please her to get her out of your hair, while she just wants you to be honest, so you end up rubbing each other the wrong way.”

The girl’s shoulders tensed up and she pulled her neck back, like she was trying to cover.

“That was stupid,” Flow scolded themself. “She was bullied and abused all her childhood, of course it became her second nature to please others and slip under the radar. Maybe I should talk to Narwia, convince her to give Natasha a break. Would she listen to me?”

“It’s not like she doesn’t keep teasing you too,” Natasha grumbled. “Sometimes I don’t understand why you put up with her, you don’t deserve…”

Suddenly she fell silent as a thought crossed her mind, one she really didn’t like.

“That’s what others think about me and Flow? They keep trying to be my friend and I keep pushing them away, being impatient and snapping at them. It must take a lot of patience to be around me too. If I don’t like how Narwia treats them maybe I should try to be a better friend first. How else I could say that they deserve better?”

“Huh?” Flow raised an eyebrow. “What you wanted to say?”

“You… will you guys hang out in Velvet today too?” she changed the topic suddenly.

“Uh? No, actually we decided to skip it this time. Chile had dance practice and Gregory visits her aunt in the hospital. Igne wanted to watch some videogame tournament, so Matis decided he would use the afternoon to do some extra studying for next week. But I’m free, if you’d like, we can hang out there. I think Bianca is working today, so we’d probably meet her too.”

“Bianca? Great! I mean, uh, sounds good, yeah.”

You could drop in sometimes. As your everyday self.

She shook her head slightly. What was this weird tickling she felt and why did the thought of hanging out with both Flow and Bianca at the same time excite her so much?

The Spear. It must be the Spear messing with her head again.

Yeah, that made sense.

Flow studied her face for a moment.

“Did she just… blush? Well, doesn’t matter. Relaxing and forgetting about the training and the whole magic war mess should be good for her.”

“Cool,” they smiled. “Then let’s head there?”

Their conversation was unexpectedly interrupted by music. It was a slow and somewhat tense violin piece Flow couldn’t recognize. Natasha took out her phone and turned the reminder off with a sigh.

“Sorry, guess we have to cancel. I’m running late. I’m supposed to be home in fifteen minutes.”

Maybe she should just transform back. Nocturknight might still make it home in time, even though she shouldn’t rely on that solution too often. It wouldn’t be good if the citizens noticed one of the heroes appearing around Natasha Alexton’s home too often and jump to dangerous conclusions.

“Oh right. Too bad,” Flow said. “Another time then?”

“Yeah, definitely.”

She forced a smile but couldn’t hide a hint of resignation in her voice.

“Hey,” Flow stroked their arm, hesitating, but then decided to ask. “This new caretaker your mother sent… how bad is he?”

“He’s bad,” Natasha wanted to say.

“I’ve dealt with worse,” she said.

What was preventing her from being honest? She really wanted to.

But she just couldn’t.

She put her hands in the pockets of her dark green jacket, one of the more casual pieces she bought while her mother was away. It came in handy as the days grew colder. She was trying to seem nonchalant, but really, she just wanted her ring out of sight, in case the darkness starts to expand again which Flow might notice. Of course, the enby knew about the ring, so it could be an entirely transparent gesture.

“Well, I shouldn’t hold you off any longer then,” Flow said. “Take care. If you need anything, you can always text me.”

“I know,” the girl said. “Thanks. See you tomorrow.”

“See you.”

And with that, they parted ways.

<>

“Thank you for walking with me Grego, but I really didn’t expect you to spend the whole afternoon with me,” Mary said, carefully stretching her legs in the hospital bed. She was exhausted, but every day seemed to be a bit better. Well, most days anyway. “I’m sure you could find better program than entertaining your old aunt.”

“Don’t be silly aunt Mary, it’s never a bother to hang out with you,” Gregory said, sitting down on a chair next to her bed. It was true that he’d have to leave soon, but he didn’t want to rush off. And it’s not like he was saying polite lies – he always enjoyed his aunt’s company, and not just because she was a safe heaven he could get away from his parents when they were being too much. He just wished he’d be able to manage his time better, so it wouldn’t always feel like he had to sacrifice the time with one important person for another.

“And how are things with your boyfriend?” Mary asked with a teasing smile, hiding a grimace. Relaxing her muscles felt nice, but now that her body noticed that the exertion was over, pain started to catch up more quickly. It was a constant reminder to not stretch her body’s new limits too far too quickly. A reminder that always came too late. “It was so long I saw him, I’m starting to doubt that he’s even real.”

Greg chuckled.

“He’s really excited to meet you again too, we’ll arrange it soon. Things were just busy for him with dance practice, and, well…”

He bit the sentence awkwardly. Mary caught on immediately.

“I see. How the girl is?”

“Good, good… well, better. She’s… Bianca is great. It’s just never easy to get caught up in others’ drama, I’m sure you know that with all the drama you got caught up between me and mom and dad. For a while, I really felt like I was intruding on their friendship, like some third wheel. But since we were able to talk more openly about the things that bothered us things are much better.”

“I’m sure she’s a wonderful person. But please understand, after what happened in the Botanic Garden, I was really worried for you. I understand she was just a victim like everyone else, but you others were victims too. It must be a terrifying experience, and I’m afraid you can’t process it properly, because of your fear of making her feel guilty.”

“The thing is, I barely remember it,” the boy shrugged. “I mean, I remember Chile falling unconscious, then almost immediately I blacked out too. When I woke up there was some chaos and everyone was talking about superheroes and villains, but everything seemed to be okay. Then Bianca showed up, she talked to Chile and before I realized what was happening, it was all black again . And by the time I woke up the second time, Ruthen and Nocturknight had already saved us. The part that was supposed to be really scarry was like a few seconds for me.”

“Even a few seconds can leave a mark for life,” Mary said. She forcefully prevented herself from looking down at her legs. She shouldn’t make this about herself.

Before she noticed, Greg held her hand gently.

“I know you can’t just magically stop worrying about me, but I’m in a pretty good place, I promise,” he smiled at her. “And I will continue to make it even better. You were always there for me, it’s time to give some of that good care to yourself, okay?”

“So you’re saying I should take my own advice?” she chuckled. “Oh, but it’s so much more fun to say mature and wise things to others than actually acting on it. But okay, I’ll give it a try, for your sake.”

Greg’s watch beeped.

“… but then you have to do the same. Go, get some rest Grego. Or have some fun with your friends, you deserve it.”

“I don’t have anything urgent. I can stay until visiting hours are over.”

“Absolutely not,” Mary said sternly. “In fifteen minutes I’ll get my medicine.”

“And?”

“And? And today that cute new nurse is on shift! How am I supposed to woo him if you’re sitting here, all handsome and charming? You already got yourself a suitor, give a chance to us old geezers too, won’t you?”

Greg couldn’t help but laughed.

“Okay-okay, I’m leaving now. Take care aunty.”

He waved then as the door shut behind him, Mary finally let out a painful groan, stroking her aching leg. Maybe she should ask for stronger painkillers, but those made her dizzy and sleepy all day. It was a constant struggle for balance that she never seemed to get right – if she didn’t push herself enough to get out of bed and walk, her muscles wouldn’t build up again but if she pushed too hard, she could worsen the damage. She knew she could take her time with recovery; nobody was rushing her – nobody, other than herself. She wanted to be out of here. She knew her life would never be the same again, she’d never be able to walk without a cane. But she wanted to go home, so she could at least start to figure out what her new life would look like.

She also felt a bit of a hypocrite, hiding her pain and playing that her state was better than reality before Gregory, but the boy was a bit too prone to place others above himself, and Mary didn’t want him to push his limits for her sake. She realized this line of thinking would be normally a straight path to a spiral of self-sacrifice where none of the parties would be actually happy, but she decided to excuse herself for that double standard on the basis that she was an adult and Greg was the closest she’d ever have to a kid of her own.

“So frustrating, when your own body turns on you, isn’t it?” a masculine voice spoke. “Maybe I could offer you some relief.”

Mary looked up to see that she wasn’t alone in her room anymore. Before the window, there stood the silhouette of a tall man, covered in swirling shadows.

“Ah,” Mary said with a frown, but sounding unamused. “It’s you.”

“I don’t think we had the luck of meeting before,” the man said with excessive affability. “Do you know me?”

“I know enough,” Mary said. She kept her eyes on the dark figure but was looking for the nurse caller from the corner of her eyes. The remote with the single big button was lying on her nightstand. What the man would do if she suddenly reached for it? “You’re the one calling yourself the Sorcerer, right? What do you want from me?”

“I can heal your leg with my magic,” the Sorcerer offered without ambages.

Mary fell silent for a moment. Then she laughed hoarsely.

“You don’t believe me?”

“Oh, I do,” Mary said. “I know what kind of things you’re capable of. Two of the people you ‘helped’ before are friends with my nephew – that poor girl, Bianca, and even though their identity didn’t get out I know from Gregory that the kid almost wrecking the shopping district a few weeks back was their other friend, Igne. And now you’re here, offering your help, surely out of pure good will, aren’t you? Let’s be real, this is not a coincidence. Why a man like you is after a group of teenagers? What are you want from them?”

The Sorcerer stepped closer, or more like slipped closer to Mary’s bed, his legs lost in the cloud of shadows surrounding him. He seemed to study the woman for a moment.

“I see. You’re worried about your nephew, that’s why you’re so wary of my offer. I can assure you; I won’t target Gregory. He’s not my enemy, nor a threat to my plans. I’m merely here to help a sick woman.”

“Then who is it? The Alexton girl?”

It was a wild guess. From what Greg told her, Natasha barely talked to anyone in their group, except Flow. Flow was friends with both Bianca and Igne, the two earlier victims from the group, and through Bianca, they were friends with Chile and Greg. There was obviously a pattern, a reason why the Sorcerer showed this much interest in this specific group of children. But they all seemed to be everyday teenagers, struggling with school and the normal amount of romantic drama for their age. Natasha Alexton, however, was kind of a celebrity, the daughter of a billionaire – she made the most sense to be targeted by a supervillain, as much sense as it all could make. She also led a pretty sheltered life, nothing surprising given who her mother was.

“What do you want, kidnap her for ransom? Guess even your warlocks must find it hard to get to someone as well-protected as her. So, you targeted her friends, since they could have the best chance to get her. Then, since you failed with two of them, now you’re coming for me, am I right?”

Her reasoning was full of holes and Mary knew that very well. She knew too little to figure out anything important – still, she put up her smuggest smile as she threw her conclusion at this threatening man, probably the most dangerous person in the city. She expected the Sorcerer to be arrogant, maybe arrogant enough to reveal something useful while pointing out the mistakes in Mary’s logic just to prove his superiority.

Instead, he slipped away from the bed, toward the wall without ever turning away.

“I can see you can’t trust me just yet. That is all well. I won’t revoke my offer; I will give you the time to consider it. If you ever change your mind, you can always call out for me.”

The man vanished from the room.

Mary let out a deep breath, just realizing how tense she was. She looked at the nurse caller. There didn’t seem to be any reason to use it now, it could even cause useless panic. She didn’t learn anything useful after all, but should she just keep this all to herself? Maybe she could tell the authorities later that she was visited by the Sorcerer, so they wouldn’t swarm the hospital, causing a ruckus. It’s not like the cops seemed to be able to do anything against him anyway, surely it could wait…

She sighed. Truth was, she was tired, too tired to deal with this now.

<>

“Witful woman,” the Sorcerer said, returning into his realm. “And potentially dangerous. I must take an eye on her, there must be a way to make use of her full potential later.”

“You expected her to refuse,” Scarlet Wind said. He was watching the full scene through one of the magical screens. “You didn’t even try to amplify her emotions to convince her.”

“There was a chance she would comply on her own, and I had plans to leverage such a scenario. But no, getting her to our side today wasn’t my main priority. This city is a monument of misery, there’s never a scarcity of suffering souls to serve our cause if needed. Today I want to confirm something.”

He waved his hand, moving the view of his screen away from the hospital. He scanned through the city, looking for a single teen. It didn’t take him long to find them.

“Be prepared,” the Sorcerer commanded Scarlet Wind. “Your part is coming soon.”

<>

“You’re late.”

Tims’ condemning comment came before the door could shut completely behind Natasha. The man was sitting on the living room couch, legs crossed, typing something into his notepad. He was talking without looking up.

“He made himself at home in record time, isn’t he?”

“Sorry, but despite my best efforts, I couldn’t convince Pollapolis’ traffic that I have to be home on schedule. Next time when my bus gets stuck in a jam I guess I’ll just have to try flipping my hands quickly and fly.”

“If public transport is so unreliable, you should’ve said so earlier. I can have someone pick you up at school right as classes are over every day and bring you home.”

The girl felt anger growing in her stomach, but she carefully avoided letting any of it show in her posture or voice. She knew Tims all too well, while he wouldn’t look at her twice if he could avoid it, he had an uncanny sense for the smallest sign of weakness. If Natasha let him realize that she was doing something important in the little time between classes and the 4 PM curfew, something she was trying to keep secret from him, there’s no more training sessions. And she couldn’t afford that. The infuriating Narwia and her idea of teaching were, Natasha never was so close in the past six years to learn something about Nash. She won’t be foiled at the last moment, not this time.

Luckily, spending part of her childhood with Tims and another with Mrs. Alexton made her an exceptional actress under pressure. Hiding all the tension she felt, she hung her jacket next to the door and walked toward the fridge.

“I’d feel bad to bother you with something like that, after everything you and my mother already do for me,” she took a fresh bottle of ginger-lemon soda from the fridge and opened it. “Guess I’ll just have to make an effort to pay more attention to the time from now.” She took a swig from her drink.

There. Acknowledge that you were on the wrong, so you don’t provoke them to reinforce their authority. But deliver it with enough sass, so they can’t smell your despair. There’s no mystery to unravel, just a moody teenager, trying to push the boundaries set by the adults.

“Hmm.” Now Tims looked at her briefly, raising an eyebrow. “We’ll see about that later. For now, let’s back on track with your afternoon program.”

“Program?”

The man turned toward the inner parts of the apartment, raising his voice slightly as he called out.

“Miss Coyote, if you’d be so kind…”

Natasha heard a door opening and a woman stepped into the living room. She had dyed black hair with some dark green and blue locks falling behind her shoulders. She wore a parakeet green outfit that looked like a wide polo shirt that turned into a pipe dress under her waist, with some sparkles making it even flashier, shiny black platform shoes with rainbow laces, and several bracelets on both hands, from leather ones to ones made of colorful minerals.

The girl stared at her. The direction the woman was coming from could only mean that she was in Natasha’s bedroom. Obviously she didn’t leave anything compromising there, she knew better than that, but such an open breaching of her privacy still startled her. At least she expected them to be subtle about it.

“Natasha, right?” With a wide grin, the stranger stepped to her, grabbed Natasha’s right hand with both of hers and shook it with great enthusiasm. “I’m so glad to finally meet you! I’m Anastasia Coyote, but please! Call me Ann. Everyone calls me Ann.”

“Miss Coyote traveled here from Terraropolis at your mother’s wish,” Tims explained, not calling the woman Ann. “She’s going to be your personal stylist.”

Natasha blinked.

“My… what?”

“I like to think myself more of a counselor,” Ann chuckled, still holding the girl’s hand. Natasha wriggled her fingers free and pulled her hand back.

Tims sighed, like the fact that the situation required any more explanation frustrated him greatly.

“We’ve talked about this. The way you behave and present yourself in everyday life have an effect on how people see your mother and her company. That, of course, includes your appearance. Maybe your sloppy choices of clothing fit whatever opinion you have of yourself , but it also reflects poorly on the Alexton brand. That’s unacceptable for someone in your position.”

“Brand?” What the hell Tims was talking about? The industrial empire that Alexton Networks was included all kinds of enterprises – clothing, cosmetics, jewelry, and media were no exception. But none of those companies actually ran under the name Alexton. That was probably a very conscious decision on her mother’s part. Putting her name on everything would make it blatantly obvious how much of everyone’s life she owned personally. Agatha Alexton liked to present herself as kind of a philanthropist – that is, a cheerful and well-meaning, but kinda clueless rich woman who’d rather spend all her money on buying houses for all the orphans and lost puppies in the world, if the cold and cruel realities of life let her. A bit detached, maybe, but easy to stomach and hard to hate – a fairy godmother in real life. Where all the money came from, and where all the good she supposedly did was, left blissfully vague. Knowing that she was the same person who you bought your cellphone from and paid your electric bills to, could stain that image.

So, what was all of this about branding suddenly? Did her mother have something in mind, something Tims already knew about?

“Thank you for the introduction, Edward, but I’ll take it from here,” Ann turned to Tims with another bright smile. “I’d hate to keep you from more important matters.”

Tims nodded but turned back to Natasha for a last word of warning.

“I hope you understand, Miss Coyote was chosen by your mother for her expertise. Her decisions are in no way up to debate.”

“There’s no need to be so serious,” Ann pulled her lips. “We’re just going to chat a bit, then look for something that you like and looks good on you. You’ll have fun, I promise!”

With that, she grabbed Natasha’s hand again and pulled the girl into her own bedroom.

“There,” she sighed with relief as the door shut behind them. “I don’t wanna badmouth Edward, but he can be such a drag sometimes. But don’t worry, on your mother’s strict orders, you’re mine for the next few hours.”

She turned to the girl with a bright smile who nodded. Just what the hell is she supposed to say to that ?

“I hope you don’t mind but while waiting, I made a quick inventory of your wardrobe,” Ann gestured inside the room.

Natasha looked at the still open wardrobe door, and a big pile of her unused clothes taking up almost all space on her oversized bed.

“I see.”

“But before getting to business, let’s talk!” Ann threw herself on the couch and invited Natasha to sit next to her. She reluctantly obeyed. “Tell me about yourself!”

The girl looked at her and shrugged.

“What do you want to know?”

“Well, anything. Who are you? What are your hobbies? What you like, what you don’t like?”

“I don’t like this.”

“I don’t have any hobbies.” She fidgeted with her fingers. “At least nothing I can think of right now.”

“I assume you do something when you’re not studying nor asleep,” Ann said in a tone that probably meant to be encouraging. Natasha shrugged again.

“Mostly scrolling Herald, I guess. Sometimes I watch some videos or binge a TV show. Or read.”

“So you’re into social media and videos?” Ann grabbed onto the topic. “Do you follow anyone interesting?”

“It’s just people rambling and arguing about stupid stuff. I only look at it to pass the time quicker.”

“And the shows and books? Do you have a favorite? Any fandoms?”

“No, they’re just…” Shrug.

“Another way to pass the time?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, that’s cool. Being a teen can be pretty stressful nowadays, it’s good you can just chill without being too worked up about stuff. What about your friends?”

“I don’t have any.”

If you need anything, you can always text me.

Do you think we could do this again sometime soon?

Her stomach churned with guilt. But this was the smart thing to do. The more she let those two parts of her life mix, the bigger the risk was that she’d lose everything.

“Okay, and what drugs are you doing?” Ann asked nonchalantly.

Natasha turned to stare at her.

“What kind of question is that?”

Ann shrugged.

“You’re a sixteen old girl who keeps getting in trouble for not being able to get home in time. Nothing unusual, but since you have no hobbies or friends my best guess is drugs.”

“I’m not doing drugs.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Ann winked. Then from a discreet pocket on her outfit, she took a small metal box and revealed what looked like a handful of handmade cigarettes in it. “Want some weed?”

Natasha kept staring at her silently.

“Just joking,” the woman closed the box without taking a joint for herself. “You can afford your own weed; I’m not sharing mine.”

 “I’m not smoking weed,” Natasha insisted.

“Your loss I guess,” Ann shrugged. “Look, I get it, sometimes it must be difficult being your mother’s daughter, living like this. Then I barge in unexpectedly, asking invasive personal questions, I wouldn’t trust myself either.”

“Then why do you do it?”

“Cause I’m paid for it,” she shrugged. “That’s my job, I help people step up their game when it comes to fashion and style, and your mom pays me crazy to travel across half the continent and do a makeover for you. You don’t say no to that kind of money.”

“Sure you didn’t,” Natasha scoffed.

“Yeah, but I’d rather do it working with you, and knowing that you got something good out of it too. I looked at your media pics before Alexton decided to hide you from the cameras and girl, they’re terrible. No wonder you’re wanna be as plain as possible, you were treated like a damm mannequin from two centuries ago, like you were only put there to show up your garbs. That’s not what I do.”

“Then what do you do?”

Without warning, Ann grabbed Natasha’s chin and turned her face toward herself, studying her intensely.

“Everyone is a work of art. My job is to find the perfect frame.”

Natasha moved instinctively before her mind could register what happened. She slapped Ann’s hand away and jumped to her feet. Her posture was almost relaxed, but ready to jump, her breathing automatically taking a steady rhythm, trained to pump as much oxygen into her brain and muscles as possible. Her Enchant remained inactive, she wasn’t in real danger – but the weeks spent training for combat left her reflexes almost as sharp as her blades were.

“Don’t touch me,” she said.

Ann grinned with delight, staring at her, and stroking the rose red spot on her hand where Natasha hit her.

“Beautiful,” she said. “You don’t like touching; I keep that in mind. Just promise me you keep being this honest while we’re working together and we’re going to have a great time.”

“Why? I still don’t have any reason to trust you.”

“No, but you have insurance, don’t you? I sneaked illegal drugs into a customer’s home. You could get me into reeeeal trouble… especially here, Pollapolis’ drug policies are a few couple decades behind most of the Inlands. So why don’t loosen up a little? If I try to screw you over, you can screw me over worse.”

Natasha thought it over for a moment.

“Fine,” she said reluctantly. She didn’t like it, but if entertaining this weirdo would keep her mother’s eyes off her a little longer, she was willing to play along for that.

“Fan~tastic!” Ann jumped up and dashed to the large bed, searching among the clothes piled there. “First, get out of those clothes.”

Natasha sent an empty stare to the woman’s back.

“No,” she said flatly.

Ann turned around with a slightly surprised expression, holding a bunch of clothes.

“Oh right, sorry. I got used to working with professionals, I forgot how shy teenagers can be.”

“You’re kinda creepy,” the girl said with a straight face. “How old are you anyway?”

“Twenty-two. I dropped out of university to be my girlfriend’s stylist, she’s Terraropolis’ most popular model nowadays. We broke up since then, but our relationship helped both of our careers greatly.”

She stepped back to the girl, putting the clothes she selected into Natasha’s hand and nodded toward the wardrobe.

“Go, try these on.”

Natasha looked at the outfit doubtfully.

“Why these?”

“Because you’re a piece of art,” she grinned. “And with this frame, people will see you .”

Natasha pulled her lips – that was something she very much didn’t want. Still, she grabbed the clothes and retreated to the wardrobe, pulling the door shut behind her.

She was left alone with her three reflections, staring at her from the full body sized mirrors built into the walls. The wardrobe had its own lighting, so she was surrounded with bright, cold white electric light. She undressed to her underwear, to which luckily Ann didn’t have any recommendations for, and took a deep breath. She grabbed the ruthenium pendant dangling against her chest.

“Just a little more. Once I have answers, once I find you Nash…”

Then what? She runs away again? Take Nash and escape the city, leave Flow to deal with the Sorcerer all alone? Leave everyone who helped her behind.

It’s not like she promised them anything. She explicitly told them to not have high expectations of her – she wasn’t a hero after all, not really. She was only in this situation by chance and only stayed so far in hopes of finding answers to her own questions. Once she has those…

Assuming Nash would want to go with her. It was six years ago, and as far as Natasha knew, they never tried to find her. Of course, as far as Nash knew, she never tried to find them either. Maybe there wasn’t any big mystery behind their disappearance. Maybe, unlike her, they just found something to move on to. She was ready to turn her back on anyone just to be free from her prison of life. Why should she assume that Nash wouldn’t do the same?

Once they said they wouldn’t want a better life without her. But they were children and people told lies to each other all the time.

 

After some time, right when Ann considered knocking on the wardrobe door, Natasha stepped out. She was wearing a black leather vest over a white dress shirt, held together by a leather belt with a silver clasp, white stockings and a black skirt ending a bit over her knees. Her face was forcefully expressionless, while Ann was beaming.

“Okay, one more thing!” She held up a shoe box and opened it, revealing something Natasha was positive wasn’t from her wardrobe.

“Boots?” she asked doubtfully. She liked boots, but her mother very much didn’t approve them.

“I take full responsibility,” Ann grinned.

“Why did my mother hire you?” Natasha asked. She waved toward her outfit. “This is not something she’d like. And you’re not the kind of person she respects, if she respects anyone that is. What’s going on?”

“Your mom has some conservative ideas,” Ann shrugged. “Guess I get it, she became a widow as a young woman and had to step up to lead her husband’s company, so his family wouldn’t dig her out of her inheritance. Maybe if I were in her shoes, I wouldn’t rock the boat as much as I do, being respectable was vital to her. But she’s not stupid, if I had to guess she’s starting to realize that if she wanted to keep the public have a good opinion on her, she has to prove that she can move with the times.”

“So that’s what she wants me for now? To be the poster girl of the new, hip and modern Alexton brand?”

This was bad. How is she supposed to lead a double life if she was put into the spotlight again? Being back in what was basically house arrest for years would screw her over, but being deemed to be ready to be in public again wasn’t necessarily better.

“I don’t know girl, I’m not her PR manager. I’m just guessing. Of course, she might have just realized that she was too strict in your childhood and now this is her roundabout way to help you find yourself or whatever.”

“Now you’re joking.”

Ann chuckled.

“Okay, now, I have to ask your permission to touch you a bit. It’s only your hair.” She held up some hair bands. “I know an awesome hairdresser in the city, but until I can get you an appointment we have to improvise.”

She tied most of Natasha’s hair into a bun, leaving a single lock falling to the side, giving a messy but cool look.

“Okay, one last bit of magic and you’re done,” Ann said, opening a box full of smaller boxes, jars and brushes.

“No makeup,” Natasha said. She wanted to sound firm, but it came out rather pleading. “It gives me rash.”

“I got some special brands for sensitive skin,” Ann reassured her. “And we only need a little bit. You’re naturally pale and your mother liked to paint you like a fucking mime for some reason, but I think warmer tones would work better for you.”

Natasha reluctantly applied the makeup, following Ann’s instructions. It was barely noticeable, only her cheeks looked a bit more flushed than usual. It also didn’t make her feel like her skin was on fire.

“And done! What do you think?” Ann asked, making her stand in front of the mirror. Natasha shrugged.

She liked the outfit. She’d find it cool on someone else. And she did like its look on herself too.

And that made her very, very uncomfortable.

It was like being Nocturknight, but without the mask, the magic and the made-up identity protecting her. Ann was right, if people looked at her in these clothes, they would see her for herself. And that was terrifying.

She felt exposed.

“Oh, what a cool design. Where did you get that?”

Ann was looking at the crystal ring on her left. Lost in thought, Natasha forgot to keep it out of her sight.

“Uh, it’s handmade. Gift from a friend.”

“Your friend is talented,” Ann scratched her chin. “But it looks a bit outlandish, not sure how it goes with the rest of your outfit.”

Natasha’s hand instinctively slipped over the ring.

“I’d like to keep it on,” she said, suddenly tense.

“Okay, we find a way to work it in,” Ann said nonchalantly, then winked. “We wouldn’t want to hurt your sweetheart’s feelings, right?”

“They’re not… I don’t have a sweetheart.”

Ann grinned widely at her.

“That’s okay, just keep following my advice and soon you’ll have more candidates than you can pick from.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. Suddenly, falling into the Crawl forever didn’t seem like such a bad option.

<>

Flow hunched on a public bench, holding their paper cup of hot chocolate in both hands for some extra warmth. It was getting a bit too these days to hang out outside, but their bulky hoodies seemed to protect them from getting a cold for now. They should buy a warm jacket, but that seemed like kind of a waste when they already had some warm clothes at home, buried in their pile of unpacked boxes. They just needed to get them out.

They sipped the hot chocolate they bought from a booth while thinking about what to do with the rest of the afternoon now that their friends were all preoccupied. They could just head home, but they already told their parents that they would start to exercise after school (strictly speaking, not even a lie), a good alibi if they had to stay out longer because of Enchanter duties. It’s not like their parents would get paranoid if they went home earlier today, but consistency made these stories much more believable in the long run.

Maybe they could perform some Enchanter duties actually. They could always turn into Ruthen and circle around the city, looking for issues they could help with. They didn’t do much of that with Nocturknight since Narwia stepped up their training schedule and took them on hunts with her. But the fight against the devil that day was pretty draining, and they didn’t want to run themself dry in case something serious, like a warlock attack came up.

They looked at Herald on their phone. Cinty said she’d text them; would it be rude to ask her about her project before she does? They weren’t sure. They opened their message thread with Al.

Hey, don’t tease me (I know u will) but how 

I talk to a complete stranger who apparently 

thinks I’m cool and wants my help with school?

 

Like I will probably embarrass myself anyway

but any obvious stuff I should look out for?

 

Anyaway what’s up in Lakeside? We didn’t

talk much lately, sorry, things got busy

Also Nora dropped in for a surprise visit

When was the last time you two talked?

To be fair, Al probably wouldn’t know that Nora joined a worldwide secret organization for the study and control of magic, but this made Flow realize they had no idea how much their sister and best friend interacted without them if at all. Maybe it would be time for them to pay more attention to those things.

(Al was still their best friend, right? Even though Flow spent more time interacting with other people lately, and technically now it was Natasha who knew more about them than anyone else, there were obvious practical reasons for that. Well, obvious practical reasons for the first, and somewhat vague, hard-to-explain, but probably well-founded reasons for the second. And it’s not like you couldn’t have two best friends, right? Whatever they went through with Natasha in these few, very intense weeks, wouldn’t erase everything that Al did for them over the years. Yeah, their two best friends. Who never met each other and might never will, and Flow had no idea what their interaction would even look like if they did. Probably lots of people had those.)

Their fluttering thought-process was suddenly interrupted by the firm pulsation from their Enchant. They dropped their paper cup and jumped on their feet, trying to locate the danger.

It didn't take much trying. Shadows rose around them, forming the silhouette of a tall man before Flow.

"What an exceptionally troubled mind you have," the Sorcerer said. "Under different circumstances it would be a real treasure trove for my magic."

"What do you want?" Flow growled, raising their fists. But they were unsure what else to do. It was probably just a projection again, not the Sorcerer in person, even if they attacked him, their hands were probably just uselessly punching through his shadowy form. Also, they weren't transformed, so they had to be careful about getting too much attention. The apparent lack of alarm from nearby bystanders suggested that they couldn't see the apparition, but they could probably still could see Flow. A confused kid boxing with thin air could draw quite a bit of attention and it would be really awkward ending up in an online video and having to explain it to their parents.

"Relax," the man said. "If I wanted to eliminate you, I could do it easily without having to reveal myself. Today, I'm merely here to talk."

"Talk," Flow repeated doubtfully, but they changed back to a more casual posture to avoid attention. They didn't want to let their guard down, but they also couldn't do much at the moment, they just had to trust that their Enchants would protect them if the Sorcerer tried anything else than annoy them. "So you want to ask us to join your side again? I thought we made our stance pretty clear on that. Or are you trying a different approach this time? You're here to warlovify me?"

"Warlovify? What a silly way to put it," the man said, but it was impossible to tell from his tone that he was sniffy or amused. "No, while that would be an interesting opportunity, getting through your resistance and the protection of your Enchants would be more trouble than it worth."

Flow frowned, admitting to a weakness like that seemed somewhat out-of-character for the Sorcerer. Sure, he carefully avoided saying 'I couldn't even if I wanted', but it could be a trick to give them a false sense of safety, or misinformation about their enemy's abilities. "No Flow, I really am only here to talk. I've been watching you since the time you obtained your first Enchant and I think I have a pretty good idea about what kind of person you are. You could give up on this dangerous life-style after saving yourself and repaying your debt to your friend, but you wanted to keep being an Enchanter. It's because you believe that magic should be used to help people, for the betterment of the world. And that's something we're agreeing on. You might not approve my methods..."

" Methods? You mean taking advantage of people when they're the most vulnerable. To threaten and endanger others? To give powers to people like Killer Kat or..."

As I just said, I understand you don't share my vision, and I can't really blame you for it. Young people prone to think in extremes, and you obviously see me as the villain of this story. But can you really blame me for merely revealing what lives in people's heart? As you said I'm just giving people the power to do what they want... that their first instinct is to turn to destruction and villainy, is that reflects on me? Or on the world we live in?"

"Bullshit," Flow frowned. "You go after unstable people, give them Artifacts that amplify their negative emotions, then say it's people who are evil. Why don't I, or Natasha turned into villains when we gained our powers then?"

"Because aren't your friend constantly on the verge of being overwhelmed by the darkness feeding on her own misery? And you, even though you were given the power of restoration, the first thing you used it for was trying to destroy - destroy the Vessel, a reflection of the worst traits of your kind. But the more fiercely you're fighting it, the stronger it comes back. Isn't that telling? Emotions are magic, and magic is emotions. If wasn't something deeply wrong with your world then why is that magic somehow always goes wrong when humans touch it?"

"I'm not saying that there's nothing wrong, I'm saying that you're part of the issue!" Flow snapped. "I'm not stupid, I know you're not doing what you do for money or power, you could easily get those with your magic without getting all theatrical about it. But then why? Why are you causing all this chaos and destruction?"

"So the world have to stop bury its head into sand. You might see the warlocks as my soldiers but each one of them is the product of society, a failed soul that would be normally ignored and forgotten about. Once humanity was denied of their magic for humans were too prone to what your Order calls 'dark magic'. But that was like putting a loose bandage on an infectious wound and expecting it to go away. Without the outlet of magic, humans kept building systems fueled by pain and misery where those in power could squeeze everything out of those beneath them. So, after watching in silence for millennia, I decided to intervene - with the threat of magic going loose hanging over the world again, people wouldn't be able to just ignore the cries of the desperate anymore."

Flow felt an angry grimace form on their face.

"So that's your story? It's all for the greater good? Why don't you just go and help people instead then? It would be much easier, with your powers..."

"To just snap my fingers and solve everyone's problems? Indeed, I could do that. But then the world would grow dependent on me, and what would happen when I'm gone? I could probably achieve immortality with a bit of effort, but who could say what I'd become from eons of ruling? No Flow, the world doesn't need a messiah, nor an omnipotent emperor to bring godly order to everything. It needs to heal itself, change through the willing acts of regular people. But only after facing our worst side can we hope to become any better, not a moment earlier."

The teen chewed it over for a moment before answering.

"I don't believe you. Well okay, I don't know if I should believe you. I saw some people with pretty fucked up ideas about morality, guess I can imagine that you really think that you're the good guy here by some weird round-about way. But whether you actually believe in everything you just said, or just trying to manipulate me, I know your wrong. I'm going to keep fighting you."

"I know, and I'm expecting you to. I'm not here to convince you of anything - in fact I need people to oppose me."

"W... then... what?" Flow shook their head. They started to feel like nothing the man said or did made any sense and it was all just a big troll show.

"Just because I decided to focus on the bigger picture it doesn't mean that I don't want to help people on a smaller scale," the Sorcerer explained patiently. "But I can only wear so many hats. Wearing the mantle of the so-called ‘big bad’ is useful in leveraging the cracks in our corrupt system, but it comes with the cost of regular people being wary of me, no matter how genuine my intentions are.

“However, being a villain on its own isn’t enough to redeem the world. People need to see the failings of society, yes, but they also need hope. They need to see that while things are indeed untenable the way they are now, but they need to see how they could be better, so they eventually rise up for change instead of sinking in despair.

“That’s why I kept the Knightfall Foundation around for so long. Their prudent attitude toward implementing magic can be frustrating at times, but they still manage to do good. However a faceless and influential organization like the Foundation hardly will be ever as inspiring as individual heroes who people can see, talk to, and cheer for.”

“I see where are you going with this,” Flow said. “You’re going to say that’s the role you intend for us with Natasha.”

“She’ll have her role too. But I’m not here to talk about that today. I’m giving you the chance to help an innocent - and isn’t that what heroes are supposed to do?”

He waved his hand through the air, summoning a magic window. It showed a young man Flow already knew, having lunch with a woman they didn’t see before.

“You’re familiar with young Gregory. The woman with him is his aunt, Mary - even though she was more of a parent to him when his own parents couldn’t grow up to such a role. Unfortunately, she suffered an accident not so long ago.” The image changed, now showing Mary in her hospital bed. She seemed to be asleep, but a painful grimace distorted her face. “It was no-one’s fault, really, just sheer bad luck. The day when the accident happened, they were supposed to be spending time together, but Gregory canceled at the last moment because of a date with his new boyfriend.” Now the window showed Greg, standing before the shut door of the hospital room. For a moment, he leaned back to the wall behind him and buried his face into his hands - then, as a young nurse came along with a try of medicines, his posture quickly changed back to normal and he walked away.

“They’re both trying to be brave about it, but it weighs on both of them more than they let it show,” the Sorcerer explained further, dismissing the window. “I can sense how it taints their souls. I’m afraid that without external help, things could take a bad turn for these two people.”

“And wouldn’t that be what you want? The more they suffer, the easier it would be for you to warlovify them.”

“As I said, it wasn’t anyone’s fault. Much of the misery in this world comes from the failings of social structure meant to help people, but however tragic it sounds, even in the best possible version of this world, bad things sometimes happen to good people for no reason. It’s not like the company that built the escalator Mary fell off from cut corners to save money on safety. She gets the best treatment modern medicine can offer to her, but human bodies are complex things and sometimes you just can’t perfectly fix something without causing more damage in the process.

“She gets psychological consultation too, to help her cope with her situation, but accepting that your life will never be the same anymore is always a long and laborious process. Gregory knows it’s unreasonable to blame himself for what happened and he gets support from Chile and Bianca, but it’s also a hard war to fight back your punishing voices. It’s just a terrible situation all the way and there’s no moral lesson I could squeeze out of it by taking advantage of these people’s suffering. So today, I offered Mary to heal her. With magic, you don’t have to worry about the limits of the human body as doctors do - I wouldn’t even need to make a Contract to fix her leg, I could just do it with a snap of my fingers and she could live her old life with no strings attached. But she refused. She just couldn’t believe I’d offer genuine help without some nefarious ulterior motive.”

“She’s probably right. You were perfectly happy only doing bad so far, why the sudden urge to help people?”

“You’re assuming you’re aware of all my actions. A grave mistake when fighting a foe you know literally nothing about. Or maybe you know me more than you’d like to think?”

Suddenly, the shadows vanished, revealing the Sorcerer’s form, and Flow found themselves locking eyes with their dad. He looked exactly like that morning, when they left for school.

“You think you became an Enchanter because others did so much for you and you wanted to do something for others,” Norbert said with a smile. “But did you really make that choice? You know that there are gods and wizards, ancient beings and shadowy organizations on the stage and you still think that you made any of your choices for yourself?”

Shadows washed over his form and now he looked like Al, a black boy with curly black hair, wearing camo shorts and a puffy jacket.

“To be fair, you don’t even like making choices, right?” Al said. “You always made me pick what we should watch, or play or where to go to hang out, so if we didn’t like it, it wouldn’t be your fault. The first day we met in kindergarten, I asked you if you were a girl or a boy and you said ‘I don’t know’. Then I asked if you were nonbinary. You made me explain what that meant, then asked if I thought you were nonbinary. I told you it’s something only you can figure out but you seemed so devastated, I ended up telling you that you could say you were an enby and if you realized you didn’t like it, you can tell people you have changed your mind later. When you were freaking out over trying to come up with a name you liked, I told you to ‘just go with the flow’ and you took it literally.

“You’re so afraid of messing up, it stresses you out much more than when you actually mess up. Maybe accepting that your life was railroaded up to this point, that there’s a plan to bring the whole world a happy ending and you just have to go along with it, wouldn’t it help to put your mind to ease at last?”

“Are you done?” Flow asked. “Sorry but I already faced the Vessel and the Dream Beast so this gimmick is getting kinda old. Why do bad guys think that having shapeshifting powers make their fake psychology bullshit any more appealing anyway?”

Ignoring the quip, the Sorcerer returned to his normal form, as normal as being a huge menacing shadow could count.

“This situation is quite simple actually,” he said. “You might believe that I’m ultimately motivated by good or you might not. I know you won’t approve my ways either way and as I said, that’s exactly how I wish. But none of that really matters. I’m asking you to help a person in need, someone close to one of your friends. That is exactly what you want to do. She’d probably accept the help from you.”

“And I’m supposed to believe that it’s not a trap.”

“Is the risk that it’s a trap worth the risk of letting someone down? The choice is, of course, ultimately yours.”

Flow bit their lips. What were they supposed to do? This quest from their biggest enemy screamed trap, he wasn’t really even trying to hide it - but a good lie was at least half-truth, the Sorcerer surely knew that. If most of what he was saying about Greg and his aunt was true, either or both of them could be the next target of the Sorcerer.

They checked Herald but Natasha was offline. Flow briefly considered going to her house and sneaking in again, but they deemed it too risky - unlike last time, probably everyone was still awake. Sure, even if they noticed them as Ruthen they wouldn’t be able to do much, but Natasha seemed to be stressed enough about her current home situation. Flow didn’t want to make it any worse for her.

They scrolled through the list of their contacts and started a phone call.

“Artemis Holmes, Antiquity and Souvenir,” the man greeted them in a singsong voice after two rings.

“Artemis? I’m Flow, didn’t you have my number?”

“Of course I do, but I worked hard on my greeting and I never get to use it. What can I do for you today?”

“Okay, this is going to be wild, but I just had a little chat with the Sorcerer.”

They quickly recounted the conversation through the phone.

“A puzzling conundrum indeed,” Artemis hummed through the phone. “Guess our sorcerous friend enjoys complicated mind games - nothing surprising, thinking about how he likes to manipulate innocents into doing his bidding.”

“So, any ideas on what we should do?”

“Tricky question. These things could lead into endless mental spirals all too easily. He might have some benefit from if we heal Gregory’s aunt, but also he might be playing on us thinking exactly that. Maybe he was planning warlovifying Gregory over his emotions, but realized that it would be all too easy for you to get to him - you’d just need to heal his loved one then he’d just hand you his Artifact out of grate. All wasted effort on the Sorcerer’s side. But now that he went ahead and asked you to do exactly that, you’d be obviously much more hesitant. Now if he targets Gregory in the future, it might be because he wants to push you to heal Mary - and somehow, further the Sorcerer’s malicious agenda by doing so. A pretty smart way to protect his future minion’s weakness by simple reverse psychology.”

“So the smart thing to do would be actually healing her, right?” Flow asked. “That way he won’t be able to warlovify Gregory to begin with.

“Maybe. But to be fair, if he just wanted to prevent you from healing Mary, there are less round-about, more reliable ways to do that. He could just place a spell on her that renders her injury resistant to your Disentropy . It’s entirely possible he’d really get something out of helping her. That’s the second oldest trick in the book after reverse psychology. Just straight-up tell your enemies what you want, they will be sure it’s a trick and do exactly that.”

“So… what’s the right thing to do?” Flow asked with growing confusion and with some frustration. They really just wanted an easy answer, just this once.

“No way to tell, at least not with the amount of information we have. But if I had to guess… there might be no right thing to do here. If Lady Serafine’s theory is correct, then the Sorcerer was manipulating humans and the mistfolk alike in the past centuries. He must be smart enough to plan for multiple outcomes and set things up in a way that he always gets something out of it. We might be in a situation to pick the lesser evil, but we know way too little to make an informed decision.”

Flow thought it over for a moment.

“He set it up to be this confusing on purpose, right?” they said. “I think he wanted us to go through all these hoops and end up with the conclusion that there was no right choice, so we’d just throw logic aside and follow our instincts. He also came to me…

“My instinct would be to help Mary and Greg. So I’m guessing that’s the outcome he’d prefer the most. Also, we know what could happen if we don’t act now - Greg might be warlovified. Not to say that’s not a  big deal, but we have dealt with warlovified civilians already, and even if he proves to be too much to us, we can still try and heal her aunt then. And if the Sorcerer prevents us with magic then we’d know that was all he planned.

“However, if he really has a plan for me to heal Mary, we have no idea what it is. Honestly it seems much smarter to wait for the Sorcerer’s next step, but be ready to act when he does. Maybe he does something to reveal his real intention. We shouldn’t be afraid to act if he really does target either Mary or Greg but for now… it might be safer to everyone involved if we’d be careful.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Artemis said. “You’re starting to think like a real strategist.”

Flow was sure he meant it as a genuine praise, but it didn’t do much to raise their spirit.

“Yeah, well,” they shrugged, trying not to sound too despondent. “You know, trying my best.”

And the false optimism didn’t do much to deceive Art.

“You really do want to help, don’t you? You can still do that. Even if it goes wrong, nobody could condemn you for trying to do good, and it’s not like we actually know what the Sorcerer wants. He might just want to trick you into questioning your urge to help others. Or just playing a game with you for his own amusement.”

“I know but it’s… it’s a bit more complicated than that.”

The man didn’t say anything and Flow took that as encouragement to continue.

“I know I could just go and heal Mary right now but… what about everyone else? I mean…” they hesitated a bit. “This city is full of sick and injured people, all of them whose lives could be improved a lot by the Enchants. By… by me. I was already thinking how much more good I could do if instead of patrolling to find random accidents and injuries I’d go to hospitals but… it’s just too much. Even if I gave up training and school and fighting the warlocks and dedicated all of my time to being a healer, there would be people I wouldn’t get to. And the people I wouldn’t be able to help…”

“It’s not your responsibility to help everyone Flow,” Artemis said gently yet firmly.

“I know. But I feel like if I took up that role… if more people realized that Ruthen could help them and not just with acute injuries, but I never made it to them… I’m just not sure I could handle that. With everything else going on.”

They had a too good of an idea how that would go. Most of Pollapolis was pretty unanimous in supporting the Enchanters, but there were always some loud weirdos online. Okay, Flow was pretty sure that the people complaining that Ruthen didn’t show up out of nowhere to fix their car free of charge, or Nocturknight wouldn’t open tin cans with broken openers for them were just joking, mostly. But some of the criticisms seemed much more serious.

Fighting warlocks is fine, but warlocks were just the latest and most severe symptom of the city’s decline. We have a district-sized crime nest in the Ghost District which the city just chooses to ignore. As long as that doesn’t change we can’t expect things to improve.

The root of the problem really isn’t crime though. For decades, the city council gave up the control of our lives to the Knightfall Foundation for their funds. Sure they seem nice, but do we really believe that a private organization that grows beyond any borders or jurisdiction has our best interests in mind?

We were so desperate to have some heroes, everyone seems to be ready to accept Ruthen’s and Nocturknight’s intentions as face value. But what do we know about them? Who are they taking orders from, who authorized them? Sorry but are we really at the point where we’re comfortable with some masked vigilantes taking justice and order to their own hands? Really what differs an ‘Enchanter’ from a warlock, other than having better publicity?

It was mostly easy to ignore, for now. Sometimes they still couldn’t get those comments out of their head. Thinking it becoming worse… Their cheeks burned, realizing how selfish all that sounded when they thought it over. There were so many people they could help, but they didn’t, just because they were afraid that it would put them under more pressure.

They suddenly found themselves wishing if Disentropy could undo words, if they could erase what they said, so Artemis wouldn’t realize how self-centered and pathe…

“I see. That’s really mature of you.”

“Huh?” Flow blinked. “Really? Don’t you think I should at least try and help as many people as I can?”

Artemis laughed weakly.

“Flow, we’re already asking so much of you. You should be worried about your grades, or what jobs interest you, or maybe your love life, but definitely not about the fate of the world. When I say you can’t help everyone I don’t mean just the hard limits set by the number of hours in each day or your physical limits. There are other, more subtle limitations on how much each person can do, something that can take a great deal of self-knowledge to recognize for ourselves. Honestly I’m relieved that you’re aware of your own - I’m constantly afraid that we’re pushing you and Natasha too far. I’m sure one day the Sorcerer will be dealt with, then, with much less to worry about, you can become a healer if that’s the path you wish to take. Or you could pass the Broken Whole to another wilder and pick another charm for yourself - or just live a normal life. For now, we all do our best and it would be ridiculous to ask you for any more.”

“Either way, I’d feel terribly hypocritical if I helped this one person out of personal interest… I know that’s ridiculous, but I just know myself too much. If I’d do it once I’d feel obligated to do it for everyone even if no one asked. But knowing that doesn’t make me want to help less… it’s like I got my own personal Sorcerer in my head, putting me into lose-lose situations all the time. I wish simply rationalizing my feelings made it any easier to deal with them, but I don’t really feel it does.”

Artemis hummed thoughtfully.

“Maybe you’re looking at this from the wrong angle. Did you try to think about it as Flow, instead of thinking like Ruthen?”

“What do you mean?”

“You can do amazing things as a hero, sure. But there are ways to do good other than swinging in on your scarf and throwing magic at people’s problems to make them go away. More… personal ways. The day we met I told you that what makes you a great Enchanter is that you have a good heart Flow. Last time when you were worried about Gregory, your first instinct was to use magic to solve his problem. I can’t blame you for that, that’s a tempting thing to do. I know better than anyone, that desire made me join this order,” Flow heard a smile playing in his voice. “But sometimes the only thing you can do for someone is be their friend. And sometimes that’s also the best thing.”

They scratched their head.

“Guess… I guess I get what you mean. First of all, I should check if anything the Sorcerer told me about Greg and his aunt is even true before freaking out about nothing… and if it’s true, I should think about what I can do… between reasonable limits.”

“Well at least I can help you with this one. I can confirm that what he said is true.”

Flow furrowed their brow.

“How you know that?”

The man tried to sound nonchalant but Flow couldn’t miss the tiny pang of guilt in his tone.

“The Sorcerer already targeted two people in your friend group, and the second, Igne, was a pretty obvious attempt to consciously hit you close to home. You also gave Matis an Enchant… a great decision! But after all that went down, Nox and I wanted to make sure…”

He hesitated.

“You ran background checks on all our friends,” Flow finished.

They really weren't sure how to feel about this. They and Natasha subscribed for this, but they never wanted to get their friends’ privacy invaded. And if Art checked them, what about their family? How much did he know about Nora and her affiliation with the Foundation? Having to juggling secrets between the people they trusted, it made them feel like dancing on thin ice.

“To be clear, we tried to avoid being too invasive about this,” Artemis said defensively. “We were only looking for obvious vulnerabilities the Sorcerer might try to take advantage of in the future, and disqualifying factors in case they need to be recruited at some point. Honestly in this day and age, if you know your way online, you can find more information about anyone than they would be probably comfortable to share… but as I said, we tried to be as discreet as we could be.”

“And?” Flow asked, even though they really weren’t sure if they wanted to get an answer.

“They’re all good people. Igne, Matis, Bianca, Gregory, Chile… as a member of the Order it’s my duty to prevent the Enchants from falling into the wrong hands, but if the need ever arises they can be trusted.”

Flow let out a breath they didn’t even realize they were holding. They wondered how much more Artemis could have found out about their friends, things they didn’t know about them. But they didn’t want to ask, and the man probably wouldn’t tell even if they did.

“Look, I won’t pretend that I’m happy about this, but I know you mean well and wouldn’t do it if you didn’t think it was necessary. Anyway, I think I’m going to go now, but thanks for the talk. It helped a lot, really.”

“Take care, Flow. And try to live your life, as much as you can, until we resolve this whole mess.”

<>

Oh, tell me more 👀

 

Like seriously my last info was that you're

on speaking terms with Natasha again

then nothing for weeks, and now you got a fan

 

I’m trying to maintain a shipping chart here

and you’re gatekeeping the affluent well of

juicy city gossip from me. Not cool

 

Anyway I know it’s banal advice

but basically, don’t push it

If they find you cool they got

a reason for that and as your friend

I can confirm they’re right by the way

So the only thing you can mess up is basically

playing what you think they’d find cool

instead of what they actually like in you

 

What I’m getting at is just be your usual

adorkable self and things should go smoothly

 

Okay I know you can get nervous about

social stuff. I try to come up with some

more practical advice when I’m less sleepy

 

Okay so in this situation some chatter is expected

but how much is depends on lot of things

Like do they seriously need help or it’s just

an excuse to hang out? You should look for an

opportunity to ask them about themself

but let them set the pace. Watch if they’re more

focused on the study stuff or just want to chat

and go along.

 

That’s all coming to my mind

Good luck and tell me how it went

 

Oh about Nora

We chat sometimes but she’s pretty busy

She’s been owing me a response in my

Crystal Empire PbP campaign for a week now

Tell her I say hi

 

Flow smiled slightly as they skimmed through the messages Al sent to them as they walked to school on the next day. (They were careful not to bump into anybody on the way, whatever others might say, they did learn from past mistakes.)

After the absurd encounter with the Sorcerer last day, they decided to go home early after all. Luckily their parents weren’t suspicious about them zoning out during most of dinner (it’s not like it was uncharacteristic of them) and even if Nora had noticed that something was up, she was too busy to answer all the questions her mom and dad showered at her about her internship, her studies and Capricopolis to try to get anything out of Flow. They went to bed early, hoping that a good night’s sleep would ease their mind, but their thoughts were stuck on the hopeless task of trying to make sense of the Sorcerer’s schemes and finding a way to help Gregory and his aunt without magic. By the time they fell asleep the sun had already started to rise outside.

They suppressed a yawn as they passed another student before the school entrance, looking if any of their friends were around. Specifically they hoped to find Natasha to update her about last day’s events before class started. They could have just text her but it would be better to tell her everything face to face, even though that required some privacy.

“Good morning to you too,” spoke a familiar voice behind them.

Flow turned back to look at the girl she just went past without looking at her twice.

“Natasha?” they blinked in disbelief.

“Oh come on,” she rolled her eyes. “I get it, I look different, but don’t you think this is a bit much?”

“Sorry, I genuinely didn’t recognize you,” Flow admitted. “Prosopagnosia, usually it’s not a big issue, but it can be difficult to recognize people in unusual clothes, or…”

They blinked a few more times, trying to figure out what else put them off about Natasha’s appearance.

“Are you wearing make-up?”

“This is my mother’s new ‘vision’,” the girl shrugged dismissively. She made a motion like she was about to put her hands in her vest’s pockets, only to realize it didn’t have any. “She got me a… stylist.”

She said the last word in a tone that most people would use to discuss awkward medical conditions.

“So wait, your mom actually approved this look?”

“Apparently she’s trying to reband herself and hoping to use me to connect to the new generation, or some deranged shit like that.” She turned away to look at the stream of students arriving at school. Doing so, incidentally, minimized her eye contact for Flow before she asked. “Okay, just be completely honest. How ridiculous it is?”

Caught off-guard, Flow opened and closed their mouth a few times, trying to find the right words.

“I mean… it’s not that bad.”

She turned back, giving them a measuring look.

“Okay, so it is bad.”

“No! I mean, like…”

“God, remind me, how did I make any friends to begin with.”

Natasha stared at them with increasing confusion. They took a deep breath to start over.

“I mean you look, uh…”

What was the right word?

“... pretty?”

They stretched the last sound a bit too long, making it impossible to tell if it was a statement or a question. Natasha blinked.

“Pretty.” She repeated.

She stared down at her outfit with a slight frown.

“Sorry, I’m bad at this,” Flow said with a sigh. “I mean clothes. Fashion. I don’t get… clothes. I mean, what makes them good or bad or…”

“Flow, chill out,” she shook her head. “God. I was asking for your opinion , it wasn’t a test. If you don’t know, or don’t care, that’s fine.”

“I care. I mean, it seemed important to you, so I wanted…”

“Why would it be?” the girl shrugged again. “My mother was using me as a doll she can dress to her liking for a couple of years now, I learned how to prescind. Even if I look stupid to others it’s not like it makes any dif-”

“Hey guys. Wow, Natasha, you look badass today!”

Bianca was wearing a simple flannel dress decorated with tiny cartoon frogs, with her usual black sneakers and long, white socks. She clipped her hair back on one side and let it fall freely beside her face on the other, and, a bit unusual, today she wore lipstick, its color matching her dark green locks.

“Hey Bianca,” Flow smiled, even though they felt stupid. They just missed their chance to talk to Natasha about the Sorcerer, and it might be hard to find an opportunity later, once everyone is arriving.

“H- hey,” Natasha nodded to Bianca then quickly looked away.

“So, is there a special occasion?” the older girl looked from one of them to the other. “Hope I didn’t miss any important news.”

“Occasion?” Flow asked.

“For dressing up nicely,” Bianca said, looking down at her frog dress. “I like this outfit, but it’s pretty casual.”

“No, there’s no occasion,” Natasha said quickly, then fell silent again.

Flow bit their lips, trying to come up with something to propel the conversation to a more comfortable direction, but their head was still full with sorcerers and their own embarrassed behavior from a moment ago. A few more seconds passed in silence.

“Uh,” Bianca looked from one teen to the other again. “If you were talking about something private, I can just…”

“No, nothing like that,” Natasha said firmly.

“Actually…” Flow looked at her, earning a quizzical look.

“... give you some space,” Bianca finished the sentence, already turning toward the school building.

“Hey, is that you Natasha?” someone shouted. “You look awesome!”

Igne and Matis walked up on the path leading to the school entrance and Igne was shouting at them from several meters away, drawing the looks of the students nearby - at themself, and at the girl.

“This is getting out of hand,” Flow thought with a sinking feeling in their stomach as they looked at the scene unfolding around them.

“Good morning,” Matis greeted them as he and Igne walked closer. He was already buried in his phone, seemingly he had no problem splitting his attention between reading and walking. “Is there some kind of event today? I didn't find anything on the school news…”

Bianca stopped and turned back to them, unsure if she really should just leave now that more of their friends arrived. Some students they didn’t know stopped around them too, sending curious looks at Natasha and exchanging quiet comments, but it was pretty obvious what was the topic - especially that some of them even ‘discreetly’ pointed at the girl.

“... who is she anyway?”

“You know, Natasha Alexton? Super rich, always grumpy, doesn’t talk to people?”

“Oh yeah, I didn’t recognize her! Isn’t she like, Richard’s friend or something?”

“Richard has friends?”

Flow looked around warily.

“Maybe we should go inside,” they suggested.

Natasha drew in a deep breath, trying to calm her rapidly pumping heart, imagining she’s somewhere far away from here.

Of course, the voice in her head didn’t miss a beat.

You are so angry at them aren’t you, and you’re not even sure why.

“Get out of my head.”

You mortals are amazing. Being so obsessed with reason and logic while your whole existence is built on contradictions.

You celebrate your emotions and say you should cherish them, but you will call each other toxic and unreasonable for acting on them.

You tell each other to stand up for themselves and try to knock down those who do.

You’re scared of those you don’t know but you will ridicule and destroy those who reveal themselves.

“Shut up.”

Aren’t you tired, playing these games you didn’t agree to and don’t understand the rules of?

Unlike them you have a choice. You could easily liberate yourself. Why do you keep refusing? You’re only fighting yourself.

Natasha grabbed at the crystal ring on her pinky and closed her eyes, painfully aware of the worried looks of her friends, especially Flow. After a few deep, calculated breaths, she opened her eyes again, forcing calmness on her voice.

“Actually I should be going, my first class is starting soon,” she said, even though she still had almost half an hour. “You guys just chat, we catch up during recess.”

Without waiting for an answer she turned to dash away toward the school building, and promptly ran into someone walking in their direction. The girl faltered and fell back on her butt.

“Watch it, you ass-” Richard growled, before making a double take. “Natasha? Is that you? ”

He let out a deep, guttural laugh.

“Did I miss a memo? Masquerade is earlier this year?”

A few seconds passed, with Natasha sitting in the dust, before she stood up with a slow, lumpy motion. She didn’t look up at the boy.

“Get out of my way, Richard.”

The boy grinned.

“Or what?”

Silence.

“What?” the boy repeated, louder. “You get a teacher and complain that you ran into me and I didn’t apologize? Maybe I should look for one of the student councils and report you for assaulting me. That would be rich, huh? I wonder if they even dare to put Princess Alexton into detention.”

Natasha’s hands clenched into fists, her fingers turning white. Richard leaned closer to her.

“Are you really looking for a fight this time? Is that what you want?” He looked at the group of Flow, Matis, Igne and Bianca standing a few steps behind the girl. “Let me guess, you got yourself a gang of little bodyguards and think that together you can beat me? Come on, you know I’m in. Do your worst.”

Flow felt a wave of sudden pressure rising around the group, but nobody else seemed to notice. A rhythmic pulsation resonated in their bones and after a moment, they recognized it was radiating directly from Natasha.

“Her Enchants are on,” they realized with panic. “They should only activate in emergencies. Technically Richard is wearing an Artifact right now, even though it’s inactive. Is that enough to trigger them? Or are they reacting to her emotions? Guess it doesn’t matter. If she really tries to fight Richard with her powers activated…”

“Well?” the tall boy teased. “Cat got your tongue?”

Natasha’s posture changed, slightly but noticeably. Her stiff muscles relaxed a bit and she moved her feet into a half-spread, ready to jump, parry, attack. She stretched her finger into a half-bend, like she was holding imaginary weapons.

She looked up at Richard, finally, but her expression showed little interest, like the boy was nothing but a minor annoyance now.

“I tell you again,” she said with calm confidence. “Step out of my way, before you get hurt.”

Richard didn’t say anything at first. Then he started to laugh at her again.

“Natasha,” Flow spoke barely audibly.

The girl’s head snapped toward them and their gazes met for a moment. Flow didn’t move or say anything to stop her. There wasn’t even any deprecation in their look. It was simply full of genuine, overwhelming concern.

She closed her eyes, her body filling with tension again. Suddenly it somehow seemed more obvious that she was the shortest person around after Flow, especially standing in front of Richard.

She threw her head back.

“God fucking dammit!” she shouted from the top of her lungs, successfully getting the attention of the handful of students who didn’t watch the scene already.

With that, she ran toward the school building, easily pushing through Richard. The boy was caught off-guard by the force of the push, almost falling over. He stared after Natasha for a second, contemplating going after her, but before he could make up his mind, the girl already vanished in the building, so he turned back, shrugging.

“Geez, guess someone must be on her period.”

“You’re such a prick,” Bianca growled and rushed past him without wasting another look on the boy, following Natasha.

“We should all check on her,” Matis suggested. “I never saw her acting like that, something must have really upset her.”

Flow nodded, already starting toward the entrance, but Richard stepped right into their way.

“Nuh-uh, not you three,” he said. “I got business to discuss with you.”

“What are you talking about?” Igne demanded with an angry frown.

“Did you really think you could get away with your little scam?”

Richard held up the coupon card he got from Cinty, then threw it on the ground.

“This thing is worthless. That means that you nerds owe me seven hundred lunars.”

“You can’t be serious,” Matis said.

“Oh I can show you how serious I am. That little bitch tried to scam me to get you out of trouble, and since I can’t find her , her debt is now your debt. You can start coughing it up.”

“Come on Richard!” Flow raised their hands, losing their patience. “Even if we had that kind of money, what would you do? Mug us, right in front of the school, with all these people around? Good luck getting away with that.”

“I don’t have to do anything that stupid. You will pay me out of your own free will. Because, maybe you forgot, but you’re stuck with me for the next two years. And that means that I can turn your lives into living nightmares until I get what I’m owed.” He gave them a predatory smile. “If you don’t have it all on you that’s fine, I’m nice enough to let you pay in installments. I will only charge a little interest for it too. But I’m expecting some down payment just to show me your good intentions. How about fifty per kopf?”

Flow gritted their teeth. On second thought, maybe Natasha was right, maybe they should have just let her beat up this asshole in front of the whole school, damn the consequences. It would be much better than just letting him get away with doing whatever he pleases.

“So what’s your pick?” Richard asked. “Easy way or hard way?”

Igne pushed through between Flow and Matis, standing defiantly in front of Richard with a wide smile.

“If you think you’ll get even a clips out of us, you’re even dumber than I thought. And for the record, that should be scientifically impossible.”

“Hard way then,” Richard said, cracking his knuckles. “For you, anyway. I'm going to enjoy it a lot.”

“If I could get his bracelet,” Flow thought. “Nobody would know what happened to him. They couldn’t trace it back… wait, am I actually considering this?”

“That’s enough.”

An older student from the staring crowd, a blonde boy with an undercut, wearing a silvery badge on his tidy white shirt, stepped up to Richard. Flow remembered he was called Ray, one of the students from senior year.

Richard took a look at the boy’s badge, decorated with Pollstar Highschool’s emblem and his grin only grew wider.

“Student council, huh?”

He made it sound like an insult.

Ray quickly scratched down something into a notebook and handed the paper with the student council’s stamp to Richard.

“Take this and head to the principal’s office, before you get yourself into bigger trouble than you’re already in.”

Richard didn't reach for the paper.

“Aren’t you council losers supposed to clean the school’s backyard or something?”

Ray’s already condemning look hardened on Richard.

“Sorry, I’m pretty busy with the pile of trash right in front of me.”

Blind anger flashed through Richard’s face. He swung his fist, hitting Ray right across the jaw. The boy fell on the ground with a groan.

“Hey! I’m your opponent!” Igne protested.

He jumped Richard, trying to hold his arm before he could hit Ray again. The boy simply raised his hand, lifting Igne easily, and swung, sending the frail enby flying through the air. They hit Ray, who was just trying to get up from the ground and they both rolled several meters in a big heap. Matis ran to them, crouching down to check if they were okay, while Flow planted themself firmly between Richard and the others before the boy could go after them again.

“Stop,” they said, staring coldly into the boy’s eyes. “Or we might all regret this.”

Richard scoffed, raising a hammer-like fist and hitting Flow on the left cheek. Just before the hit connected, Flow felt their power flare up, turning the blow that could normally give them a light concussion into a buzzing sensation as magic ran through their veins. They took the punch into the face, barely flinching.

“That’s all?” they raised an eyebrow.

“What the…” Richard growled, hitting them again, from the other side. Then again. He kept clobbering Flow’s head who didn’t make any effort to block or evade, just took the barrage of punches like it was a breeze ruffling their hair.

Eventually, Richard took a step back, breathing heavily with a look of complete disbelief on his face.

“Done?” Flow asked.

“Like hell we are!” Richard snarled at them, unsuccessfully trying to look not too confused or embarrassed about the inefficiency of his assault. “Don’t you think you got away. I will get what’s mine, and when I do, you’ll wish you just paid me.”

He stormed away and Flow turned back to their friends.

“Are you okay?” they asked, looking at Ray and Igne on the ground.

They met with silent stares.

Actually, the two or three dozen students hanging around the entrance who watched the scene go down, all stared at Flow with amazed or nonplussed looks. Suddenly, their confidence from a moment ago gone, they felt their cheeks burning and bullets of sweat forming on their forehead.

“Are… are we okay?” Igne managed to say finally. He was still sitting on the ground, while Matis looked at Ray’s cheek right next to them. “After a beating like that, most people couldn’t stand! Man, what the hell are you made of?”

Flow let out an awkward laugh.

“It must look much worse from outside, huh? Guess he blew most of his steam on beating you two and he was too tired by the time he got me. He must look much tougher than he actually is, huh?”

“Yeah, sure,” Igne said skeptically, then grinned. “More like you’re much tougher than you let us know, don’t you champ? You got some hidden depths.”

“You make it sound more dramatic than it is.”

Flow looked around nervously, people were still staring, and now that the initial shock had passed, the choir of whispers had returned too. Except this time they were discussing someone else.

“Is that… the new guy? What was their name again?”

“Dunno… something to do with water I guess?”

“Water? Is that a cultural thing in the Conglomerations? They live by lakes, do they all have watery names?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it is.”

“Aren’t they friends with the Alexton girl?”

“Does she have any friends?”

“I mean… apparently.”

“God, I hope I won’t regret this. But what should I do? I can’t just let three people get beaten up to protect my secret identity, am I?”

“Igne, Ray, you should go and check yourself with the nurse, just in case.” Matis said. “I’ll go with you, okay? Flow, you go and check on Natasha and Bianca, see if they are okay. I mean… if you’re sure that you’re not hurt.”

“Y- yeah, I’m fine. I’ll check on them.”

“I’m fine too!” Igne said, already jumping up.

“You got bruises all over you,” Matis said. “You should at least make sure that you don’t get any infection and that you didn’t hit your head too hard.”

“Fine-fine,” Igne gave in with a sigh. “Maybe if I go, I’ll get to skip first class.” Then they gave Ray a cautious look. “I mean, health and responsibility are important. I always eat my veggies too.”

The oldest teen was tapping cautiously the dark bruise on his chin, while looking at his council badge he held in his hand now. He seemed somewhat despondent.

“Thanks for your help guys,” he murmured. “Or more like… sorry I couldn’t be more of a help to you.”

“You were,” Matis shrugged. “Things could’ve turned even uglier if you didn't show up. And standing up to Richard is a pretty badass thing to do to begin with.”

“What’s the point if it doesn’t achieve anything?” Ray said bitterly. “He will get away with it again. Tomorrow he will keep terrorizing people. He will come after you again, or find another easy target. I just can’t believe it, how the school district can let this go on for so long.”

“We should be able to do something,” Igne suggested. “Like what if Matis recorded how Richard hurt people and we published a video online. It would rattle things up and the school couldn’t treat it as an internal issue anymore.”

Matis pulled his lips.

“Aside from the ethical concerns of recording people without consent and publishing the footage? Sure, we probably could start a scandal that way. Lots of people would get angry, and they would panic about the safety of their children. But witch-hunts like that rarely reach those who are really responsible. Most likely scenario is, a bunch of teachers and other school staff who can do little about the situation would get harassed. Some might lose their jobs if the district decides to throw some scapegoats to the crowd. The families who could afford it, would probably pull out their kids from the school and send them elsewhere, putting a strain on their studies and friendships alike. The rest of us, we’d probably get stuck here with Richard, with little actual change.

“But even if we managed to generate enough public outrage for something to really happen, that would probably mean that even more innocent bystanders would have to deal with the fallout. It can be done, but… it’s a dangerous game. And the chances of it paying off are low.”

“In other words, we can’t do anything,” Ray said. “We should just sit down and put up with Richard until he graduates and won’t be our problem anymore. Hope that maybe the criminal system deals with him, somehow. Pretty much what the school does.”

“Hey, I know that it’s unfair,” Flow objected. “It’s frustrating that we can’t root out the problem. But that doesn’t mean that what we do doesn’t matter at all. Who knows how much worse things would be if nobody even tried to oppose Richard like we did?”

“Worse than this?” Ray scoffed. Then he sighed. “Sorry. I shouldn’t be sitting here, whining to you. You’re good people, doing your best. People like you are not the issue.”

He stood up, putting his badge into his pocket and turned to leave.

“Don’t you want to come with us to the nurse?” Matis asked.

Ray waved at them but didn’t answer as he walked into the school building and vanished from their view.

“Poor guy,” Igne looked after him. “Looks like it’s getting to him.”

Matis nodded.

“Most people join the student council because they want to organize balls and sport events. They also do voluntary work around the school, but it’s mostly a social thing. Like a club where you can also feel important. Ray, since he joined, really went out of his way and pushed for changes to improve things for everyone in Pollstar, but the thing is, that’s just not the student council’s real purpose. They’re not really involved in making any decisions. The school mostly just follows the policies of the district and tries to push for more funds when they can. They can’t give much authority to students when they barely have any themselves.”

“Sounds tough,” Flow frowned. “Maybe once he graduates he can find a job in the school district? Then he can make some real difference.”

“Hopefully he’ll be fine until then. But for now, we should really worry about ourselves.”

“Right. Go to the nurse, I’ll look for Natasha. We meet up in class.”

They entered the building and soon parted ways, as Igne and Matis headed to the nurse’s office, while Flow went toward the backyard, hoping to find Natasha on her usual spot. But just as they took direction toward the door, they were stopped by a familiar face.

“Hi,” Cinty stepped to them with a friendly smile. She was holding a blue notebook with colorful post-its sticking out from it almost everywhere. She looked around. “Are you busy? I was about to text you that we could meet up during long recess to go through some of my notes when I saw you. If you have some time before class, we could sit down a bit in the buffet and get a headstart. My treat.”

Flow blinked and licked their lips to get a few seconds to catch up. There was just a little too much happening in a short time for their brain to process everything properly, so they struggled to come up with an answer that was both coherent and polite.

“Yeah?” They managed.

There could have been worse.

They meant to answer the girl’s first question, namely that they were busy at the moment. But apparently that’s not how Cinty interpreted it, as her smile widened.

“Cool! Did you try the new cherry pies? They’re godly, I’ll get you one.”

She grabbed their hand and led them away from the exit to the backyard, toward the buffet.

Flow’s head felt like it was filled with TV static where thoughts were supposed to be. They tried to recall the things Al told them about social situations, but it all blurred into gibberish in their memories. They looked down, staring blankly at their ha - at Cinty’s fingers gently curving around theirs.

They raised their eyes to the girl and found her looking at them with a sly smile.

“Just be careful,” she said. “It’s easy to get addicted.”

<>

Natasha pulled up her legs on the bench and rested her chin on her knees as she stared ahead of herself in the backyard. She put in her earbuds - she didn’t listen to any music, she felt like it would just overwhelm her even more at the moment, but she hoped it would keep people away from her. Not like usually anyone went out of their way to interact with her, but what happened outside made her feel like she was stripped from the veil of apathy she put between herself and others. She became visible. And what’s visible is up for grabs.

She shuddered thinking what would happen if news about the commotion made it back to Tims and her mother.

It didn’t keep long before someone actually came up to her. She stubbornly kept staring at the ground, but after the black slippers wouldn’t disappear from her view, she finally, reluctantly looked up.

“Hi,” Bianca said to her with a gentle expression. “Can I sit down?”

Natasha pulled out her earbuds and opened her mouth, only to realize, she couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t sound stupid in her head. So she just nodded silently and slipped to the side of the bench, making room for the other girl. Bianca sat down next to her and let the silence stretch for a few more seconds before speaking up.

“So, I don’t wanna bug you, but… you seemed upset back there. I just wanted to make sure that you’re fine.”

Natasha shrugged.

“Richard has a way to push people’s buttons. I’ll live.”

“Yeah, he really does. But to be honest, it kinda looked like it was just the last straw. There’s really nothing else bothering you?”

The ginger girl bit her lips, staying silent for a moment.

Should we write a list?

“It’s just some family stuff,” she said eventually. “Nothing you should be worried about, really. But thanks.”

“Okay, I believe you,” Bianca nodded. “Just wanted you to know, if you ever want to talk about someone, you can…”

“How you handle it?”

It felt like Natasha’s lips moved without her command. She felt her face turning warmer.

“Handle what?” Bianca asked.

“Nevermind,” Natasha shook her head. “It was a stupid thought.”

“Hm.”

Bianca pulled her legs up too and crossed them on the bench. Natasha had no idea how she did that, in her dress.

“I can sit here all day you know,” Bianca said with a smile.

Natasha let her own legs down and crossed her arms, staring into the distance for a moment.

“Being exposed,” she said.

“Exposed to what?”

“What I mean is… back, before the Botanic Garden. You were hiding a lot of things about yourself, things you felt, things you thought. Then, one day this asshole with a magic wand comes and strips it all away, revealing it to everyone and you can’t do anything about it. Now the people who saw you a certain way will always see you for what you were all along. Everything you ever did or said is put into a different light, and you can’t ever undo it. So how do you just go about your life, talk to the same people and don’t go crazy?”

Bianca scratched her chin a few times, thinking it over.

“I mean… being manipulated like that was terrible, sure, but otherwise… I’m thinking of it more as a breakthrough. It’s not like I was happy hiding all those things from my loved ones. Being seen as myself, is that really a bad thing?”

“For you, maybe it’s not,” Natasha said quietly.

“Look, I do get what you mean. Of course I was embarrassed and thought it was all over. But then look… it wasn’t the end of my life either. You had a bad day and snapped, so what? Nobody will think less of you because of it… or at least nobody you should care about. You’re human, these things happen.”

“And what if next it’ll ‘just happen’ at the wrong place or time?” Natasha said, now her voice tense. “If I can just lose control like that, what if I end up hurting someone? Or if I get the attention of the wrong people?”

“What wrong people?”

“There’s enough of them! A bunch of friends won’t always be there to coddle me whenever I have a bad day!”

Bianca frowned, looking at her. She tried to make a mental inventory of the things she knew about Natasha, which wasn’t much. But some pieces started to fall into place.

“So… family issues?” she risked asking.

Natasha took a deep breath and stood up.

“Look, thanks for the talk. Really. And sorry for being inpatient, it’s not about you, just… thanks.”

“Wait a minute,” Bianca said, and Natasha stopped, even though she was already walking away from the bench. “This might be overbearing, and sorry if it is, but… well. Don’t you think that running away from the people who are there and trying to help you right now , claiming that they won’t always be there is a bit counterintuitive? Kinda like refusing to eat, so starving will hurt less when you don’t have food. That doesn’t make much sense, does it?”

“Those are different things…” Natasha said uncertainty.

“Are they really tough? You won’t start on how being alone makes you stronger in the long term, right? You can look everywhere in nature and you’ll see that living things show the most growth when they’re safe and well-nourished. If you say you want to develop tools so you won’t be as vulnerable as you felt today, I understand that. But to do that you’ll need resources, you’ll need a safety net, or you’ll get crushed.”

She stopped to take a breath and tried to calm herself a bit.

“Listen. I know I’m probably not the best person to deep-dive into your issues. We barely talked before, you don’t know me that well, I don’t know you that well. I’m not saying to take a leap of faith and trust me with all your burdens. But I think I could manage a bit of it. And I’m sure that Flow, Igne and Matis feel the same. They’re probably already on their way here after dealing with Richard. So why don’t you just sit down and wait for them? We don’t have to talk if you don’t feel like it. Hell, you don’t have to talk to them if you don’t feel like it. But you also don’t have to hide somewhere alone and feel miserable. It’s up to you.”

Natasha stared at her, blinking a few times. Then slowly, she walked back to the bench and sat down. A few moments passed. When she didn’t say anything, Bianca pulled out her phone, and while pretending that she was looking up stuff online, she quickly composed a text to the others, telling them where they were.

“I think you’re really overreacting this,” Natasha said eventually, with forced grumpiness. “I can handle myself. But if this makes you less worried, then sure, let’s sit here for a while.”

Bianca chuckled.

“That’s nice of you, I appreciate it.”

Hearing her laugh, Natasha let out an annoyed huff and turned away. That way Bianca couldn’t see her cheeks turning bright red.

<>

Ray splashed some water on the bruise on his chin, hissing. The cold bit his skin but at least it numbed the aching a bit. He probably should check it with the nurse later, but for now, he was too embarrassed to talk to anyone about what happened.

Just what was he thinking, losing his temper and mouthing off a student like that. Even if it was a delinquent like Richard. He got into a fight on school grounds, how should he explain that to the others on the council? And worse, she got totally ass-kicked. Knocked down in a single punch, and a bunch of freshmen had to save him.

No, he scolded himself. That’s definitely not what he should be feeling bad about. There shouldn’t be a fight to begin with.

He was hiding in an unused restroom that was out of commission since last year, because none of the toilets actually worked thanks to a pipe break. The only gender neutral restroom on the ground floor, meaning that any student who was uncomfortable using gendered bathrooms would have to take the stairs to the first floor. Ray was campaigning for the school to get it repaired countless times, but their stance was that with multiple working bathrooms on the ground floor, there were just more higher priorities to spend their limited budget on.

He pulled out his council badge from his pocket and looked at it in his hand.

“Who am I kidding? Not like anyone takes the student council seriously, why would they care that one of the members got into a fight. Yeah, maybe the others would vote me out for it, then what? At least I don’t have to hear any more stupid arguments about decorations for the prom while the school literally falls apart.”

With a sudden pulse, he dumped the badge into a nearby trash can that wasn’t emptied in a long time. Yeah, why should he wait for those clowns to vote? Not like he could achieve anything as a council member. Better tell them that he quits.

He stepped to the door and pulled it, but it was stuck.

“Oh for fucks’s… there’s really nothing working properly here?”

He didn’t realize that something was wrong until the restroom started to turn darker around him.

“Hmm, a fierce young man, with high ideas. It’s a real shame he has no power to turn them into reality.”

“What the-”

Ray spun around to see the silhouette of a tall man standing behind him, holding his discarded badge in his hand.

“Greetings, Councillor. I am the Sorcerer.”

<>

“So, how you like it?”

“Huh?” Flow blinked.

“The pie?”

Cinty nodded at their plate, covered in crumbs of crust.

“Oh!” They didn’t even realize they were eating, their body just went through the movements mechanically while their mind was far away. “Yes. I mean, you were right, it was really good. Blueberries are my favorite.”

“Cherry.”

“What?”

“You were eating cherry pie.”

“Right.”

Cinty sighed.

“Flow, you were staring ahead of you in silence for ten minutes. I’m not saying I’m offended, but if you got something on your mind, how about telling me?”

The enby looked around in the buffet, trying to get their thoughts straight.

“I’m sorry, I just… I really shouldn’t be here.”

“Oh.”

The girl’s look seemed equally puzzled and disappointed.

“No, I mean, I want to be here, just not wi… I mean… I think a friend of mine is in trouble. Okay, ‘trouble’ is maybe pushing it, she’s probably not in physical danger or anything, but she might need me.”

“Okay,” Cinty said, closing her notebook. “I don’t get it though, why didn’t you say something before? I didn’t expect you to throw aside everything just to appease me.”

“Yeah, I know, I just wasn’t thinking,” Flow shrugged helplessly. “Or maybe I was too busy thinking and didn't realize that in the meantime I did the exact opposite I was thinking about… that doesn’t make any sense. Sorry.”

They buried their face in their hands.

“The thing is, I’m really bad at these kinds of things. Like, people-things I mean. My friend Al said I should be just myself and it’ll work out, but he knows me from our childhood. He knows what a disaster I am and when I mess up like this, he knows that it’s just how I am. But you don’t know me, so you probably think I’m just being a jerk on purpose. Sorry.”

Cinty laughed.

“Calm down, it’s not the end of the world. Go, help your friend. We’ll catch up later.”

Flow nodded gratefully.

“Don’t think that you’re off the hook though,” Cinty smirked. She touched her hands together above the table and rested her chin between them, giving Flow a teasy look. “You owe me one, so next time we hang out, it’s your treat. And you better give me your full attention then.”

“Sure,” Flow gulped. “I can definitely do that.”

That’s when their Enchant went off, alerting them of danger. Without thinking, they jumped up, pushing their chair behind and looked around, searching for any indication of what’s happening. People around gave them weird looks, while Cinty chuckled.

“Guess I was right,” she said. “You really are something, Flow.”

<>

Natasha felt all of her muscles tensing up as her Enchant started to pulsate under her vest.

“You okay?” Bianca looked at her.

But before she could answer, they saw lights. White and yellow rays erupted all around the school and met in the sky above them, closing the building in a giant cage of light.

“What the heck?” Bianca stared, even though she had a pretty good guess what the answer would be.

“The Sorcerer,” Natasha said gloomily. “He must’ve got someone from the school.”

“Dammit,” Bianca grimaced in helpless anger. “Does that weirdo have a vendetta against highschoolers, or what?”

Natasha jumped on her feet, but the other girl quickly followed and stepped in her way.

“Wait! You’re not planning to run off on your own, are you?”

Natasha bit her lip, thinking quickly of a good excuse.

“Look, I’m worried about Flow and the others.” She said. “Could you stay here, in case they show up? I’ll check the school entrance. Once I find them, or at least I make sure they didn’t get hit by that laser show, I’ll head back here, or text you.”

Bianca seemed uncertain, but finally she nodded.

“Okay. I’d like to stop you, but to be fair, I’d want to do the same. Just be careful, okay?”

Natasha nodded and turned to leave, but then changed her mind and stepped back to Bianca.

“Look, I… I really didn’t want to make such a big deal about this, but talking to you about it, it really helped. So, thanks.”

Firmly staring at the ground to hide her embarrassed expression, she quickly hugged the other girl, who blinked a few times in surprise.

“Huh? A- any time.”

Natasha broke away and avoiding any accidental eye contact, ran in the other direction. She really wished she could come up with something less awkward, but time was short and it worked. Bianca never noticed the pin she slipped in her dress’ pocket.

She wasn’t even sure if the Enchant would work that way - Bianca wasn’t technically wearing it, especially not by her own choice. Natasha still hoped that it would protect her if things turned dangerous. Leaving Bianca completely defenseless made her stomach churn, and she really couldn’t afford to be distracted by that (or thinking about what it meant), so she did the only thing she could think of to put her mind at ease. It had to suffice for now.

Now she just needed to find a good place to transform. The schoolyard was bustling with students staring and making photos of the phenomena so it seemed hopeless - running behind a tree as Natasha and jumping out as Nocturknight, while tempting, would be a dead giveaway if anyone happened to look into that direction. So she headed for the building, she should be able to find an empty bathroom or classroom pretty easily.

She barely stepped inside the main hall, when she quite literally ran into Flow, heading outside .

“Oww, there you are,” they enby groaned, almost losing their footing, but otherwise seemed relieved to see her. “Any idea what’s going on? I only saw some lights from the windows, so I was going to check it.”

“Our Sorcerer is at it again. Probably managed to warlovify another student and they seem to be locking away the school in some magic cage.”

“Huh,” Flow blinked dumbly. “That’s bad.”

“Yeah, agreed,” Natasha said, trying hard to suppress a frustrated sigh and not to roll her eyes. Trying to be a better friend could be so hard sometimes. Then she looked over Flow, noticing that their outfit was covered in crumbs. She raised an eyebrow. “Did you… stop for a snack on the way?”

“I got… distracted,” they scratched their head, seeming way too embarrassed.

Natasha guessed there was a story here, but they already wasted too much time talking for her comfort. More and more people noticed that something was up and they pushed through them to the back yard.

“Hey, the entrance is blocked off by those light-thingies! And all the windows on this floor too!” someone shouted from the other end of the hall.

“ What? Are you saying we’re trapped ?”

“Look,” Natasha whispered urgently. “We should find a place to…”

That was when the two giant holographic screens appeared, one above the main hall and one above the backyard. Flow could only guess that there were other, smaller screens as well, in various rooms on the upper floors.

On the screen there was a young, blonde boy, wearing a white tunic and a glowing white badge.

“Greetings, students of Pollstar,” he spoke, his voice rolling over the building with magical clarity. “I am your Councillor.”

“Oh no,” Flow frowned. “It’s Ray.”

“Ray?” Natasha raised her eyebrow, trying to recall the name. “You mean school council guy?”

“He got into a fight with Richard after you left. A quite literal fight. Guess I could have seen this coming.”

Of course they knew it was ridiculous, they couldn’t keep an eye on everyone who ever got upset, and even if they did, they couldn’t just make all their problems go away. There would always be enough people in distress for the Sorcerer to pick a target.

“Today a new age begins in Pollstar Highschool!” the Councillor announced, his voice trembling with passion. “For too long we put our trust into the school board, the district, into the city - and we were betrayed by every one of them! These people took on the duty to build a place where we could be safe to build our futures, yet, they keep pushing us back! Our voices were ignored, our issues hidden from the public - but no more! Today, we shall rise and claim independence! With my new powers, I’ll rebuild this place, not as a prison where we can be locked up until we’re old enough to be left to our own devices, but as a safe haven as it should be , where we can thrive and grow. A place of fairness, where valor is rewarded and wicked acts gain their just punishment!”

People exchanged uncertain looks - some of that sounded cool, of course, but more of it sounded like the delusions of someone potentially dangerous. The word “warlock” was whispered from many lips, but nobody dared to speak up when the Councillor took a break in his speech.

Nobody, but one tall, muscular boy.

“Punishment you say.”

People instinctively stepped away from Richard who stared up at the screen of the main hall with a wide grin. The Councillor returned a cold smile.

“So you’re giving yourself up? That’s almost respectable, from someone like you. I will take your compliance into account when deciding your fate - of course one noble act cannot overwrite countless nefarious deeds.”

Richard laughed.

“Dude, I don’t understand half of what you’re saying. Nobody talks like that. All I see is a wuss who got so worked up about being knocked down a bit, he turned into a giant glowy head to cry to everyone. How will you get me from the ceiling, huh?”

“This? This is not me, Mr. Skinner, even though that might surpass your understanding. This is merely how I communicate. I am in the principal's office - or more like, my office now - in the flesh. If you wish to discuss the details of your penance face to face, you are more than welcome to join me.”

“Is that a challenge?” Richard growled.

“It’s a mere invitation.”

Richard blinked as students and a few teachers stared at him from all sides. Then he sucked in a deep breath, pulled up his shoulders and pushed toward the stairs.

“Out of my way, losers! I’ll show that looney who he’s talking to.”

The slight shake in his hands was barely noticeable.

“Shouldn’t we stop him?” Flow whispered. “Ray’s got magic, Richard doesn’t stand a chance.”

“I’m not dealing with that jerkass again, not today,” Natasha said. “We should slip away and transform. We can get up there much faster, then Mr. Councillor won’t have time for him.”

“We still don’t know what powers he has, but his Artifact is pretty obvious. If we can get his council badge, this can be over before anyone gets hurt… but to get there before Richard, we need to climb the outside walls, and all the windows are barred off. How do we get out?”

“Singularity,” Natasha said simply.

In the meantime, Richard was about to step on the stairs, when a row of light bars lit up, cutting off his way.

“Heh,” he scoffed. “You see? I called he was a coward.”

“Not at all, Mr. Skinner. I’m merely a busy man, with higher priorities than playing your childish testosterone contest game. I will deal with you personally, if you can get to me. That is, if you get through my army first.”

“Army?” Flow flinched.

The Councillor smiled and snapped his fingers. Suddenly, several students in the crowd let out a shout as their bodies jerked. They were covered in white lightning, its source, Flow realized, the badges they were wearing.

“Student council members,” Natasha said, also noticing the pattern. “He affects them through the badges.”

The council students all changed into identical outfits of tight-fitting white jumpsuits with a futuristic, visored helmet and some kind of raygun attached to their belts. One of them stepped to Richard, pointing their gun at him.

“Hey, whoa,” Richard stepped back, his tough facade quickly falling apart.

The giant screens vanished, being replaced by smaller versions projected from the studenttroopers visors, making all of the wear a copy of the Councillor above their faces.

“Goodbye, Mr. Skinner,” the holo-Coucillors spoke in unison as the studenttrooper pulled the trigger.

Something lean, rainbow colored and blurry crashed into Richard with full force, tackling him on the ground. The ray of energy shooting from the gun missed, hitting the light bars closing off the stairs with a shower of sparkles. People screamed, trying to get away from the scene - this created a vacuum around the stairs in one end of the hall, while the other half became even more crowded. More people poured to the yard, while those already outside tried to get in to see what’s happening.

“Crap,” Natasha hissed, as she and Flow were pressed between the other students. They could probably push their way to the stairs, using their enchanted strength, but with the chaotic crowd around them, it was likely someone would get hurt that way. They had to try to make their way slowly, step by step.

“What’s the meaning of this?” the Councillor asked.

“Get the hell off of me,” Richard snarled.

Igne obeyed, slipping off the lying Richard, then got up and quickly adjusted their shirt. Then they turned to the holograph of the Councillor.

“That’s what I wanted to ask. What the hell Ray?”

“Ray is gone,” the Councillor said firmly. “And I do what needs to be done. If someone, you should…”

“I hate Richard as much as the next person,” Igne interrupted. “But you can’t just go around shooting at people who piss you off! Come on, you know there’s a better way. When did Ruthen and Nocturknight do anything like this?”

The Councillor scoffed.

“Your so-called heroes. When did they show up to help deal with people like him? Do you think that while jumping on rooftops they think about what we have to deal with every day? That we eat pigwash, that we’re overworked, that we have no future? They don’t care! I do!”

“So you turned to the Sorcerer instead?” Igne shot back. “I know how that magic can feel. It makes things feel easy. But that’s where you know that it’s wrong - because doing the right thing is never that easy!”

“Easy‽ You have no idea what you are talking about. I was fighting for this school for four years ! I gave my youth to the ideals you are talking about. You think it was easy to admit that all that amounted for nothing? Sometimes you just have to man up and do what has to be done, even if it seems cruel.”

“I see,” Igne said. “Then shoot me.”

“Huh?”

Murrmurr ran through the crowd and even the Councillor seemed to be taken aback.

“If you think this is what you have to do, then you better shoot me now.” Igne repeated.

“What is that idiot doing?” Natasa hissed, trying to push through between a middle-aged math teacher and a muscled athlete.

“Are you really protecting that scum?” the Councillor asked.

“Richard? No,” Igne shook their head. “I’m doing this for them.” They pointed at all the students standing around them. “And for you too Ray. Because if this is your bright new Pollstar…” they pointed at themself with their thumb. “... I’m not going to stand for it. So you better take me out before I become a problem to you… and you know I will .”

“I see,” the Councillor said quietly. “Shame.”

The studenttrooper raised their gun at them.

“Igne!”

Matis pushed through two students standing nearby and jumped between the gun and Igne. The trooper pulled the trigger and the white ray hit Matis at the middle of his back. People screamed again as the boy froze in place with a shocked expression. His form became transparent and blurry, like TV static.

“M… Matis?” Igne reached out, trying to grab their friend, but their hand vent right through his body. “Matis!”

“Out of the way!” Natasha pushed away the last few students blocking her and Flow’s path. They both ran up to Igne, grabbing them by the two arms.

“Run!” Flow shouted at them.

“But…!”

“You’ll worry about him later!” Natasha said, as they dragged them away from the trooper, toward a side-corridor.

A few more studenttroopers fired in the crowd, missing the mark widely. Some rays hit a few of the students, turning them into blurry ghost images as well. Panic started to take over the crowd, when the big screen with the Councillor’s face appeared again.

“Order!” He demanded.

The troopers all ceased to fire and saluted. It took a few moments before the panicking students and teachers stopped trying to stomp over each other to get away, but as all the corridors were closed off by light bars, they slowly realized their only option was obedience.

“We will deal with the delinquents later. First priority is to return the school to its normal order. Many of you have classes you are already late from. All teachers and students are immediately returning to their respective jobs and studies. Until further notice, everyone stays in their designated classrooms. If you need to use the bathrooms, notice the nearest council member, they will be nearby. The backyard and the mess hall are off-limit areas for now. I’ll make a public announcement soon.”

“Yes Councillor!”,

the troopers shouted in choir before starting to herd the crowd toward where they were supposed to be. Richard stood up, his legs still shaking.

“Oh, I almost forgot about you,” the Councillor smiled. “I’ve changed my mind. Bring him to my office.”

<>

With shots and screams behind their back, Flow, Natasha and Igne kept running for several minutes before they realized they weren’t followed and dared to stop to catch their breaths. Igne leaned on the wall, breathing heavily, their eyes tearing up.

“Matis… dammit, how could I be so stupid?”

Flow put a hand on their shoulder, trying to find something to say, but didn’t know what. They were really supposed to be moving, but Igne didn’t seem to be completely lucid. They clenched their fist and hit the wall with concerning force, Flow was worried they might break a bone.

“He always tells me to think before I act and I never listen. Why can’t I just… and now because of me he’s…”

“I think he’s alive, Igne,” Flow said.

Natasha sent them a questioning look, but didn’t say anything. Igne looked at them with hopeful eyes.

“Do you really think so?”

“Look, Ray might be out of it right now, but he’s not a cold-blooded killer. I don’t know how it works, but I think those lasers just put the people they hit into some kind of magical stasis. I’m sure Ruthen can fix them.”

They tried to give a reassuring smile, but it looked more nervous.

“Ruthen can fix everything, right?”

“Y… yeah,” Igne blinked a few times, trying to try their mind from the shock, but then they frowned. “Wait, we’re still closed in here. How will Ruthen and Nocturknight even get in?”

“They’re superheroes,” Natasha said, trying not to sound too impatient. “I’m sure they’ll find a way. If we want to make their job easier, we should make sure that as few people get hurt before they arrive as possible.”

“Okay,” Igne nodded, steeling themself. “How we do that?”

“By hiding and lying low,” the girl said.

“But…”

“If we get caught up in the fight, that’s three more people for the Enchanters to worry about,” Flow said. “I know it’s frustrating, but sometimes the best you can do is look out for yourself and wait for help to arrive.”

“I… understand,” Igne nodded reluctantly.

“Look,” Flow scratched their head awkwardly. “I’m sure if Ruthen saw you back in the hall, they’d be amazed to have such an awesome friend.”

Igne opened their mouth, not sure what to say.

“Come on, let’s move on,” Natasha said. “I know a hiding place.”

She led them to an old supply closet that wasn’t used in a while and opened the door. She looked at Igne.

“Get in.”

They looked at the dark room uncertainty.

“You sure this is a good idea?”

“We have no time,” Flow said urgently. “What’s wrong?”

“Didn’t you hear the story? Five or six years ago… two students were sent to this closet to get some chalk for their teacher. Then, they never came back.”

Natasha rolled her eyes with a groan and pushed Igne into the closet, then started to close the door, but they stopped it mid-way.

“Wait, where are you guys going? Shouldn’t we stay together?”

“You never played hide and seek as a kid?” Natasha asked. “If you all hide in one place then they only have to find one place. If we spread out, it’s less likely they’ll get all of us.”

“I guess…” Igne said, not completely convinced, but Natasha shut the door, then she and Flow quickly looked for an empty classroom where they could hide.

“This is a day,” Flow sighed.

“Yeah, tell me about it.”

Flow gave the girl a concerned look.

“Are you sure…” they started, but Natasha interrupted almost immediately.

“Look, it’s nice that suddenly everyone is so worried about me, but we have a job to do. Let’s deal with the supervillain now and talk about our feelings later, okay?”

Flow nodded, already holding their pin.

“Enchant me!” they called out in unison.

The familiar magic enveloped them, changing them into their costumes.

“So,” Ruthen said. “There’s a bunch of brain-washed bystanders between us and the villain. Sounds familiar.”

“Yeah, it’s like Botanic Garden 2.0,” Nocturknight nodded. “Except now the minions have laser guns .”

“But we’re much tougher now too,” Ruthen smirked under their scarf. “And we have more options.”

Nocturknight gave them a serious look.

“Do you think they can handle this?”

“You saw them in the hall.”

“Yes, I saw them almost getting themself killed. Is that supposed to be reassuring?”

“They just want to be able to do something. That’s exactly how we got into this,” Ruthen pointed out. “They just need a chance.”

Nocturknight thought it over for a moment, then nodded.

“Okay, I’ll trust you on this. We really could use the help, and they are the closest anyway.”

They ran back to the closet where they left Igne a minute ago and opened the door.

“Stay back!” the enby jumped out, swinging a broom at Nocturknight’s head, who stepped away without issue.

“Hey, calm down,” Ruthen held up a hand. “We’re here to help.”

“Oh,” Igne dropped the broom as they recognized the two. “Thank god you’re here. Didn’t you meet Flow and Natasha? They’re two other kids from the school, they were around here not long ago.”

“They’re fine,” Nocturknight said. “We ran into them just as we got into the building. They gave us a quick rundown on what happened, then made use of the opening we made to get out safely. They told us to look for you.”

“So you know everything,” Igne nodded. “I’m sorry. I thought I could stop Ray if I showed them if I believed in them, like you did with me Ruthen. But it didn’t work at all.”

“I know. Don’t beat yourself up. Different Artifacts with different people, you can never know for sure what would work. You just came across a random Artifact. With Ray, the Sorcerer probably tricked him into a Contract to create an Artifact custom-made for him. That means he got a much stronger hold of him like he did with you.”

“Can you still help him?”

“We will. But with all those ensorcelled students, we could use some help.”

Igne blinked at them.

“Are you saying…”

“Yes,” Ruthen smiled. “If you accept it. I actually picked this out for you a while back.”

They pulled a pin from under their scarf, silvery as most Enchants, in the shape of a stylized flame. They offered it to Igne, who took it without thinking and put it on their shirt.

“We’ll have to take it back after we’re done. It would be dangerous for you to use it for too long.”

“I won’t let you down,” they nodded. “Enchant me!”

They transformed, their outfit changing into a silver jumpsuit with an orange tunic, with two dark belts running across their chest in the shape of an X. Their hair, flashing in all colors, turned completely orange. An orange mask covered their upper face, and as it appeared, its edges lit on fire. They grinned, and held out their hand, summoning a long sword with an undulating blade. He gave it a few test-swings, then pushed it into the sheath materializing at his waist. Finally, flames erupted around their shoulders, running toward the ground, forming a cape made of fire.

“Awesome!” they looked over themself. “I could call myself… IgKnight! With a capital K.”

“No,” Nocturknight said.

“Huh? Come on, I picked it in honor of you!”

“It’s too much on the nose. You’re called Igne . You’re supposed to hide your identity.”

“You can come up with something on the fly,” Ruthen said. “Look, this Enchant gives you the ability to summon and control fire, by calling the word Blaze. It’s an intense power, so be careful, we don’t want anyone getting hurt. But it gives you great control over the battlefield, which will be coming handy against so many opponents.”

“Got it,” Igne IgKnight their new recruit nodded.

“Then let’s not waste any more time,” Nocturknight said. “Let’s go!”

With that, the three Enchanters were ready for action.

<>

“So, where are we actually going?” Igne asked as the three of them returned to the classroom where Ruthen and Nocturknight transformed not long ago.

“Second floor,” Nocturknight said. “We go to the principal's office, get the badge from Ray and everything returns to normal. Simple.”

It was, at least in theory.

“He said to Richard he’d be there, but he could be lying,” Ruthen pointed out. “It might be a trap.”

“Exactly, he said it to Richard , who he had no reason to be afraid of. Ray’s on a power rush and he was playing on Richard’s ego to humiliate him. It wouldn’t make sense in his mental state to not be truthful about his whereabouts, the point is that he can finally go full out, challenge everyone and everything that was frustrating him. Yeah, he was 100% honest.” She fell silent for a moment. “I know I’d be in his place.”

“Okay, but aren’t we going in the wrong direction then?” Igne frowned under his flaming mask.

Nocturknight gave them a flat look.

“Do you want to go back to the main hall, then up the stairs, fighting your way through all those ensorcelled council members before we get to the Councillor?”

“Well…”

“Forget it. We do this one right.”

“Back in the Botanic Garden we did trap ourselves in a closed stairway, enemies coming from all directions,” Ruthen shook their head. “Not a great time.”

“Of course, back then we were just getting the hang of this.” Nocturknight said. She stepped to the window, opening it. It was closed off from the outside by a row of light-bars. “Why use the staircase, when you can climb? Singularity! ”

She summoned her longsword and looked at the others.

“Ready?”

“You sure you can cut through the magic bars?” Ruthen asked.

“No point in not even trying,” she shrugged.

“How you guys got in the first place?”

“It was a bit complicated,” Ruthen said, hoping Igne wouldn’t push for it.

Nocturknight swung her blade, and it went right through the bars like they were just normal, harmless light. Then they bent out of shape, flickered, and even vanished for a few seconds, before returning into their normal shape.

“Well, that’s something I guess,” she pulled her lips. “We need to be pretty quick to get through though. Even with enchanted protection, I wouldn’t want to risk getting one of those bars across my body.”

But before they could think it over, they heard shouting and the noise of running steps from the corridor.

“Guess the time for sneakiness is up,” Ruthen said, turning toward the door. “Could the Councillor notice that someone has messed with his magic?”

“That, or he sent them after Igne and the other two. It was bound to happen, but the timing is pretty suspicious.”

Nocturknight readied her sword and Ruthen loosened their scarf. Igne tried to hide their smile while pulling out their own sword.

“So are we gonna fight them?”

“Yes, but try to keep your cool… bad choice of words. Your Enchant will protect you from a few hits, but it will weaken you, so guess it goes without saying but try to avoid being shot. The same goes for your power. Use it sparingly, don’t overpush it.”

“Gocha,” Igne said, their face a mixture of nervousness and excitement.

A squad of studenttroopers broke down the door, forcing their way into the classroom. The one ahead had the holograph of the Councillor’s face floating ahead of their own.

“Enchanters,” he said with a disdainful look. “Just as I thought, you wouldn’t make an effort to make the lives of the students of this school any better, but on the day of my revolution you show up to break it down and send us back into despair. You’re nothing but the dogs of this corrupted system. I’ll purge you, no matter how many more henchmen you recruit.”

“Hey, I got a name!” Igne said. “It’s…”

They looked around, then their eyes fell on the sword they were holding and they smiled.

“I’m Flamberge.”

“At least you got something right - soon, you will burn.”

“It’s the Sorcerer’s magic, or are you this corny all the time?” Nocturknight raised an eyebrow.

“Shoot them!”

They raised their guns to aim and Ruthen threw their scarf. They managed to tie up three troopers by the hand, preventing them from shooting, then using their scarf and enchanted strength, they swung them around, knocking down many more before they could pull the trigger. A few of them managed to actually shoot, but they all missed the mark as Nocturknight danced around, swinging her blade too fast for the human eye to follow, and cutting the lasers in half mid-air.

“Can I do that too?” Flamberge asked.

“Don’t risk it. My thing is cutting through things, your sword is more of an accessory. No offense, it looks pretty cool, and is probably useful in melee. Talking about range… Singularity! ”

She switched to her boomerang blade and threw it at their opponents, disarming the few still standing as the spinning double-blade cut their guns in half in their hands.

“That should even the odds a bit,” she grinned.

“I wouldn’t call this even,” Flamberge complained. “You’re kind of kicking these guys’ asses.”

They jumped into the fight as well, using the blunt of their blade to shatter the visors of the troopers’ helmets. They bumped around blindly, and got sent to the ground by a few well-placed kicks.

“These guys aren’t terribly tough, but there seems to be a lot of them,” Ruthen said. “Isn’t a student council supposed to consist of a handful of members?”

“The Councillor probably did some recruiting,” Nocturknight said. “All he needs to do is put badges on students, then he can turn them into his lackeys.”

Ruthen looked at the pile of beaten-up students, their faces hidden under the identical helmets.

“I don’t want to hurt them, but I don’t know what we should do with them. If we just let them lie around they’ll just get up and come after us. I’d rather not have them in my back.”

“Then I better make myself useful,” Flamberge said, pushing their sword back into its sheath. “Blaze!”

Their light hand lit up with orange flames. They touched the floor next to the troopers and the fire ran around them, closing them into a circle, then rose until it was impossible to jump over.

“Are you sure that’s safe?” Ruthen raised an eyebrow. “I mean, won’t they suffocate or get hurt by the heat?”

“I don’t think we need to worry about that,” Nocturknight said. “Look.”

She nodded upwards, toward the smoke detectors on the ceiling.

“If this was anything like real fire, the alarms would be blaring. There’s no smoke, and…” She held her hand close to the flames. “Yeah, as I guessed. You can barely feel the heat if you’re not trying to cross it. Which would be stupid. In short, it’s magic fire.”

She turned to Flamberge.

“You should still be careful, you can’t use it indefinitely.”

“You guys brought me in to help you deal with Ray’s minion-army. I’ll do what I can, then rest later.”

“Should we try the window?” Ruthen asked.

Nocturknight shook her head.

“No point. The whole climbing plan was about surprise, now that the Councillor is expecting us, it would be way too easy for him to get us sniped while we scale the wall. We’re better off going through the building.”

“He’ll probably put most of his forces in the main hall, that’s where they can focus the most firepower on us,” Ruthen reasoned. “That means once we get to the stairs there might be less resistance, but actually getting through the hall won’t be easy. Maybe someone should act as a bait - if we used Fortune we could make their shots just miss all the time. If we do that, one of us could draw the fire while the other could go for the Councillor with Flamberge.”

“Uh, that’s a good idea. Only problem is…”

“Enchanters!”

They all looked up to see another holographic screen on the ceiling. It showed the main hall, filled with so many troopers, they could only assume that the Councillor had converted most of the students by now. He himself, seemingly in the flesh, stood on the stairs leading to the upper floors, using them as a podium to stand out of his army. Behind him, a globular white cage floated in the air, containing someone they all recognized.

“Let me out, you freak !” Richard screamed as he rattled the white energy bars furiously.

“Enchanters,” the Councillor repeated. “As you can see, this school doesn’t need your so-called heroism. But if you have any integrity, I call you to stand before this student council and answer for your shortcomings! Your negligence. Your hypocrisy. Your lack of responsibility with the powers that were given to you. If you have the valor to admit your mistakes, take responsibility and penance for your wrong-doings, you can still take part in the new Pollstar we’re building. However, if you keep going the way you are now and putting yourself ahead of others…”

He looked at the cage. It slowly flew ahead, above the crowd of students-turned-troopers. White gloved hands reached up and grabbed the energy bars to pull the cage with Richard down, into the crowd.

“Let me go!” the boy screamed. “No, stop! Take your hands… stop! ”

The screen vanished.

“Guess… he got bored of waiting for us to make the first step,” Ruthen let out a breath they didn’t realize they were holding.

“We can’t let them hurt Richard,” Flamberge said. “God, I can’t believe I just said that.”

“This is the most obvious bait ever,” Nocturknight said. “He wants us to barge in without a proper plan, so he can crush us with the numerical advantage.”

“So what are we going to do?” Ruthen asked.

“Isn’t it obvious? We’re taking the bait,” she smiled. “After all, we are Enchanters.”

She looked from Ruthen to Flamberge. They both nodded, returning her smile.

“Let’s get cooking,” Flamberge raised their fist.

  <>

The three of them walked through the short corridor and stepped into the main hall to face the crowd of armed students that felt like the biggest firing squad ever ensembled.

“Where is Richard?” Flamberge demanded, sword in hand. Ruthen and Nocturknight stood at their two sides, readying their own weapons.

“You’ll join him soon,” the Councillor smiled. “Right after you gave up your charms and were purified.”

The three of them tensed up, taking up fighting positions. The studenttroopers pointed their guns at them.

“I’m not giving up, or anything like that,” Flamberge said. “But just in case this goes wrong… thank you for trusting me.”

“Wow, looks like you guys are pretty lucky that I came by.”

Everyone’s heads snapped toward another nearby corridor that seemed empty a moment ado. Now there stood a girl in black and green, with a pretty eccentric hairstyle, leaning on the doorframe and giving Nocturknight a sly look.

“Pretty smooth, I have no idea when you smuggled the pin in my pocket. But guess I arrived just in time, huh?”

“Nocturknight?” Ruthen looked at her questioningly.

“Ruthen, Flamberge,” the ginger heroine said, seeming a bit sheepish compared to her usual self. “Meet Clover.”

Clover smiled.

“It is my Fortune .”

“Fire!” the Councillor commanded.

And they fired. Hundreds of white rays scorched through the air and somehow, they all missed while the four targets stood there unmoving, engaged in conversation. Even B-movie extras had a better rate of hitting anything.

“Fire?” Flamberge grinned. “As you wish! Blaze! ”

They hit the ground with their flaming hand and summoned a wave of fire, cutting through the crowd right in the middle. The helmeted students screamed, trying to get away from the flames - then the fire parted, creating a clear path toward the stairs and the Councillor.

“I’ll shield you,” Clover said, running up to the others. “Go, get his Artifact before he pulls himself together.”

“Your power might not hold up long enough,” Ruthen objected. They spun their scarf around. “You avert the shots, I’ll disarm them.”

She nodded, they pushed their back against each other with Ruthen and took on the army of troopers, trying to shoot blindly through flames. Meanwhile Flamberge and Nocturknight jolted through the hall, toward the Councillor.

“You think you’re the only knights on this battlefield?” he barked.

A tall figure raised from the crowd of confused troopers, pushing through the fire like it was nothing. He was wearing a futuristic looking armor with no helmet over his buzz cut, only a large visor covering most of his face. He was swinging a gigantic sword in both hands that looked more like an oversized meat-chopper.

“Son of a…” Nocturknight growled.

“You talk like Richard is the worst thing that ever happened to this school, then you hide behind his back‽” Flamberge shouted at the Councillor accusingly.

“I told you, in my Pollstar, everyone can have a place.”

“As long they all become your brainwashed puppets that is,” Nocturknight snarled.

“End them, Mr. Skinner.”

“Yes Councillor,” Richard snarled, stepping ahead.

Nocturknight stared into his visor for a moment, then lowered her head.

“Flamberge?”

“Huh?”

“Would you handle this for me?”

They grinned, holding their sword in both hands.

“Gladly.”

Richard’s blade hummed and glared up with the same white energy the troopers were shooting from their guns.

“One strike and you’re out,” he pointed the weapon at Flamberge.

“Blaze!” they called out, covering their own sword in flames. They swung it through the air, striking a flamboyant fencing stance. “Let’s do this big boy.”

 

Nocturknight brushed past them and stood before the Councillor. She dropped her sword and let it vanish into thin air.

“Capitulating?” the Councillor raised his eyebrow.

“I’ll just need my hands free to get that badge off you.”

“Tsk.”

White dots glowed up on the floor, around and under Nocturknight’s feet.

“I’m afraid you’d need to be faster than light to be able to do that.”

White bars burst out of the ground, but she spun around like a dancer, avoiding all of them. Some of them looked like a narrow squeak, but it was always just enough. She gave an impudent smile.

“Don’t you know? Light travels fast, but when it arrives, it finds the night, already waiting.”

She jumped ahead, reaching for his chest. The Councillor stepped back instinctively, forgetting where he was and almost slipped on the stairs. He pulled up a new row of bars in front of him, blocking Nocturknight’s assault at the last moment, but drops of sweat formed on his forehead.

“Is this just a game for you‽” he snapped.

“If it was, I’d feel bad for beating an amateur.”

The older boy growled in frustration and dropped the bars protecting him, summoning more to attack Noctruknight, while she ran circles around them.

 

In the meantime, Flamberge sent waves of fire through the air at Richard who barely bothered to avoid them, trusting his armor to take care of it. Grunting under the weight, he swung his oversized sword at his opponent, but while the weapon looked terrifying, it was really slow. With their enchanted speed, Flamberge ducked under the cuts one, two, three times, then jumped over Richard, landing behind him with a somersault. With a sweep they kicked out his legs sending him to the ground. But as they swung down their waved sword, Richard blocked, his giant weapon like a steel wall.

The glowing and flaming blades collided with a loud clank and Richard pushed against Flamberge to get some breathing room. He let go of his sword with one hand and grabbed his opponent by their straps to pull them to the ground, while rolling over to gain the upper hand. The point of the giant zweihander was now hanging millimeters from Flamberge’s nose.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Richard whispered hoarsely. “The Councillor wasn’t forcing me.”

“What are you talking about?” Flamberge groaned, struggling to keep him at bay.

The large boy grinned, pushing a knee into their stomach.

“He didn’t wash my brain. His minions weren't restraining me while he turned me. He just offered me a badge and told me it would let me kick your asses. So I took it, and put it on my sleeve. The part when I was in the cage? It was all part of the show.”

He laughed.

“Why the hell would you do that?”

“‘Cause you wannabe heroes piss me off,” he hissed. “Oh-oh, look at me, swinging at rooftops, playing masquerade with my pissypants friends, I change the city! You don’t know shit about how this world works but you act like you have something to lord over us. You don’t deserve the power you have, so I’ll go and take it for myself! If I have to play along with a looney like Ray for a bit it’s well worth it.”

It was getting hard to breathe under his weight.

“You’re… such a dick.”

He laughed.

“Better than be a pretender. Look at yourself. Your flames aren’t even burning !”

Flamberge grinned.

“So that worked, huh?”

“Wha’?” Richard grimaced under his visor.

“My…” they coughed. “My friends used to tell me I should think more before I run head-first into everything. But that just didn’t feel sincere for me. Like it made me a faker as you said. But… if it means I get to fool arrogant assholes like you… maybe it’s worth it.”

The flames around their sword turned red. Sweat started to drip down on Richard’s face.

“Didn’t you think about it for a moment , how I’m ditching out all this fire without breaking a sweat? How I’m keeping it up while you’re crushing my bones?”

The flames turned blue.

“Did you think that was the full power of Blaze?”

The flames turned white.

The wave of heat hit Richard like an express train. His sweat evaporated, leaving his skin itching, feeling like it was peeled away from their face. His vision was blurry like he was weeping but his eyes felt dry. With dizzy head he noticed that something was dripping from his sword and a moment later realized it was molten metal. With a shout he dropped the useless weapon and tried to peel off his smoking gauntlets before his hands would be turning into a crisp.

As he pulled away from Flamberge, they kicked him in the chest with both legs, sending him off-balance. Then they jumped up, still surrounded by a clear, white halo of hellfire, and as he looked at them, just for a moment, Richard’s brain stopped processing reality. Instead of the school, they were back in their nan’s house before she passed away and he was thrown into the system. The old sack was a fan of church art and she had a huge mural on her bedroom wall, right across the door, so this thing was the first thing Richard would see when he entered. Which he usually didn’t because of that freaking creepy mural.

A cherub, guardian of the Pristine Gardens, holding judgment over humanity for their failures with its flaming sword.

“Fuck you Richard,” Flamberge said.

They spun around and hit Richard in the face with the hilt of their sword, shattering his visor. The boy faltered and slumped on the ground. Flamberge took a step ahead, holding their weapon ready, but there was no need. He was unconscious.

“Uh,” they pulled their lips. “Maybe I went a bit overboard?”

 

“Run around as you want, you’re not getting away now!” the Councillor snarled, summoning more white circles on the ground.

They were everywhere, covering the hall’s floor from the stairs he was standing to the fiery turmoil he stopped paying attention to a while ago. His focus was all on Nocturknight, trying to close every gap she could make use to evade his attack again. But it was over. No matter how fast she was, now she was stuck between the Councillor’s light and the flaming hell her own ally summoned up. There was simply not enough space between the circles to squeeze through. When they fail to avoid the light, shadows have no choice but to abide and perish.

“Any last words?” the Councillor asked with less grace and more anger he’d liked but whatever. He won. Without waiting for an answer, he summoned his light bars from the circles.

“Ascension,” Nocturknight said smiling and pushed herself in the air. Her black wings carried her well out of the reach of the bars.

“Oh come on!” the Councillor screamed. “That’s just unfair!”

“It’s called ‘strategy’,” Nocturknight shot back, circling above his head. “Try it for your next election campaign!”

She dived down like a bird of prey, pushing the Councillor on the stairs, and grabbed on his badge. She tore it away from his chest and rose right back before he could reach out for his Artifact. The boy screamed in helpless anger as he felt his powers slipping away from him.

“Yeah,” Flamberge said, walking up to the stairs. Their legs were shaking but they couldn’t resist giving their beaten opponent the widest grin. “Guess you could say you got fir-”

Before they could finish, they fell face ahead on the ground.

“Told you not to overpush yourself, idiot,” Nocturknight murmured. “But good job.”

And with that, it was over. A wave of magic brushed through the hall, turning back all the troopers into very confused students. The magic bars closing off the school dissolved into nothing, and as Flamberge ran out the last of their power, the flames of Blaze went out as well, leaving the still flying Nocturknight in center of attention.

“What the hell happened,” Ray, back to normal, stood up, holding his head. “I was in the restroom, then… it’s all a blur.”

Most students still remembered the events up to the point when they were turned into the Councillor’s puppets and were loudly discussing the attack, or posting online, snapping pictures of the Enchanters, or shouting excited questions at them.

“Well, guess that went pretty good,” Clover said, wiping her forehead. “All things considered.”

“Yeah,” Ruthen smiled, offering their hand. “Hope we’ll be working together again.”

“Same,” she grinned, taking the handshake. “However, I feel like if I don’t get a snack like, right now, I might pass out too. Would it be okay if I was holding onto the pin a bit longer, so I can make my exit? Nocturknight knows where to find me.”

“Sure, that’s fine. Take care.”

She nodded and dashed through the crowd, toward the exit.

“Students, please,” the principal tried to get some attention, standing in the middle of the crowd. “Ahem. Given the circumstances, I think it’s safe to say that school is canceled today. All I ask is to not leave the school’s property before we make a headcount, so we can make sure that everyone is safe. We also need to contact the gendarmery, they might have questions for you too. Until then, rest and try to calm down a bit. Thank you.”

“Igne! Where is Igne?”

Matis pushed through the people, looking for his friend. As the Artifact’s power was gone, he and the other people who got hit by the lasers all returned to normal. Ruthen was relieved, they were afraid they would have to revive them one by one using Disentropy . They stepped to the knocked out Flamberge and scooped them up from the ground.

“Don’t worry, your friend is fine,” they reassured Matis. “They and a few other students managed to escape before hell broke loose, so don’t worry if they don’t show up for the headcount.”

They hoped whoever Clover was, she’d managed to sneak back in her civilian form. (It seemed pretty likely she was another student.) Having the number of escaped students match the number of Enchanters who showed up for the battle might be a tad suspicious.

With that, they went for the exit too. The less they hang around, the less chance they give away too much.

“Guess we’re done here,” Nocturknight sighed and flew for the closest window. She dismissed her magic wings and opened the window, ready to leave, when someone called out for her.

“Wait!” the principal stepped up, surrounded by a few students and teachers. “The others left so quickly, we didn’t have the chance to… I just wanted to say thank you. It’s our job to protect these students, but with magic in the picture…” He looked away awkwardly. “... honestly, even without magic I often feel like we don’t do enough for them. But that’s neither here nor there. The point is, we’re all grateful for what you doing.”

“Yeah,” Ray stepped ahead, avoiding her look. “I still don’t remember everything I said and did after the Sorcerer got me, but I just wanted to tell you this. Seeing how you stand up to him, even though he seems to be holding all the cards, it’s a great inspiration to keep fighting for the things I believe in. I know that just because you have access to magic you can’t just solve every problem. But even if indirectly, you help people fight their own battles.”

Not sure what to say, Nocturknight nodded.

“Take care,” she said before jumping out.

<>

Ruthen gently set Flamberge on the ground, leaning their back to a tree in a relatively hidden place close to the school. After a bit of consideration, and trying not to think too hard about how it must look from the outside, they reached under their tunic feeling for the flame pin. They grabbed it and pulled it away, meeting a bit more resistance than they expected - Enchants tended to cling to their holders a bit, so they couldn’t be lost or stolen easily. Flamberge was pretty much running on fumes though, Ruthen’s own passive magic was enough to break the resistance. Igne’s transformation undid itself, and with the strain of keeping it up gone, they returned to their senses.

“Hey,” Ruthen smiled. They pulled an energy bar from their cloak, offering it to them. “Take it easy, you overworked yourself a bit.”

“Hey,” Igne groaned, taking the snack. “What happened? Did we win?”

“Yes we did. You were awesome. Thank you for your help.”

Igne grinned.

“Good, ‘cause I felt pretty awesome too. Up until the point it went all black. It would be a shame if we got our ass kicked after that.”

“You should be okay after eating and resting for a few minutes, but if you need, I can give you a ride home. Even though, there’s something I should discuss with Nocturknight.”

“Matis?” Igne asked, their face suddenly turning worried as they remembered how it all started.

“They’re looking for you,” Ruthen said with a smile.

Igne let out a relieved sigh.

“I’ll be fine. Guess I’ll go back to school after I catch my breath.”

Ruthen nodded and turned to swing away, then stopped.

“I almost forgot. I know it must be tempting to let Richard know that you were the one kicking his ass, but could you keep your involvement under wraps? I’d like to be able to call upon you again if we ever need it.”

Igne nodded with sparkling eyes.

“Sure thing.”

<>

Flow found Natasha on her bench, sitting alone.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

They sat down next to her and after a few moments of awkward silence, they opened their mouth.

“Look…”

“Sorry…”

They both fell silent again, waiting for the other to continue. Eventually Natasha spoke up.

“I know I was… touchy today. I wasn’t mad at you … Okay, that’s not true. I was mad, but I don’t know why. It was stupid, you didn’t do anything.”

“It’s fine…” Flow started.

“No, it’s not!” the girl snapped. “God, I know I can be a handful. It’s great you’re trying to be nice but you can tell me to fuck off when I’m being unfair.”

“But… I don’t want you to fuck off,” Flow stared at her. “I’m worried about you, yes, and I want you to feel better, but not because what you’re going through inconveniences me personally. You deserve to not feel terrible all the time. I’d like to help.”

“I’m trying ,” she huffed. “I know I need help. But if I can’t trust that you’ll set a boundary if I’m hurting you then how should I reach out to you? How should I know that I’m actually doing better at it, or you’re just trying to be polite?”

“Okay, that’s fair,” they scratched their head. “I’m just happy that you’re trusting me a bit more and guess… I’m afraid of losing that.”

“We’re friends, right?” she asked suddenly.

Caught off-guard Flow just nodded.

“Yes, of course we are.”

“But you keep acting like being my friend is some privilege you need to deserve by being the greatest, most understanding person ever. And all that makes me think of when will you realize that I’m not all that great and just… quit.”

Flow chewed that over a bit.

“Well, I do feel lucky that we’re friends… wait, just listen,” they raised their hand when Natasha scoffed. “I know you think I’m putting you on a pedestal here or something, but don’t you think… don’t you think that part of it is that you’re just not all that used to people caring about you? Not to say I don’t tend to overthink or work myself up over small things, but that’s not something exclusive to you, or our friendship. It’s just something I have to deal with in… pretty much everything I do. So yeah, I get it, it might look like to you that I’m trying a bit too much, because your friendship is important to me. But on the other hand, you know. You might not be that difficult to…”

They stopped just a bit too long, considering what would be the right verb to use, making Natasha give them a scanning look.

“... to, uh, care about as you might think.”

She looked away, chewing on her lips.

“Look, can you just take my apology?”

Flow nodded.

“Yes. Can you take it when I say it’s fine?”

She nodded back.

Flow slumped back on the bench, feeling their tension lessening a bit. Then she heard the girl chuckling. They looked at her, and that made Natasha throw her head back as she burst out in full laughter.

“What?”

“I just thought about it. We’re such disasters, both of us. And we’re supposed to save this city.”

Flow blinked and let out a chuckle too.

“Guess we beat the alternative.”

She took a deep calming breath and swung her legs, kicking up some dirt with her new boots.

“That reminds me, did you get back Clover’s Enchant?”

The girl nodded.

“It was a good idea to plant her… uh, no pun intended, before the chaos broke out. She really saved our butt there.”

“Yeah, I guess,” she conceded, not feeling like explaining what really happened. “Sorry, for not telling you about her earlier. She’s…”

“Maybe it’s better if I don’t know who she is,” Flow said. “I’ve been thinking a lot about our strategy against the Sorcerer lately, how he’s playing with us. Maybe it’s good if we have some contingencies the other doesn’t know about. Makes it harder for him to manipulate us.”

“I’m not sure how that helps, but… if that makes you feel safer, then sure.”

Part of Natasha was relieved, the evening with Bianca when she first gave her an Enchant still left her a lot of thoughts and feelings she needed to sort out. She could just give Flow the straight facts without going into details, but if they weren't asking she wouldn’t push to tell them.

“He visited me yesterday, after training,” Flow looked at her. “The Sorcerer I mean.”

“What? What did he want?”

“I still don’t know. On the surface, he wanted me to use Disentropy to heal Greg’s aunt. I refused because I think he’s playing some kind of mindgame, but I really don’t know if I’m doing right. Sorry if I’m acting paranoid about it, but guess he managed to get under my skin. He made me feel like whatever we do, we end up playing at his hand on way or another.”

“Good,” Natasha clenched a fist. “That means we’re doing it right.”

“What do you mean?”

“If we were somehow helping him, he’d want us to feel confident, so we keep going, right? If he’s pulling games to make us doubt ourselves then whatever we’re doing is trouble for him. He finally sees us as a real threat.”

Flow looked at her, the stubborn expression on her face.

“That makes sense. Still… it’s okay to be scared. I know I am. You don’t have to put up a strong face for my sake.”

She fell back, looking smaller.

“Tims is pretty bad,” she said eventually.

“Huh?”

“Edward Tims, the caretaker my mother sent. I knew him before, he was working in the same group home I lived with Nash and Richard. He knows me. My weaknesses, knows how to push my buttons.” She kept stretching and bending her fingers again in a rhythm as she was talking. “Mostly he’s the reason I was so much on edge lately. Of course, having a shard of a god stuck in my head while engaged in a magical war wasn’t exactly helpful either.”

Flow opened their mouth, trying to put the pieces into place in their head.

“You said his name was Edward Tims?”

“Yeah,” Natasha looked at her. “Why?”

“There you are!”

They looked up to see a blonde girl in camo shorts walk up to them. 

“Now that classes are canceled, we can make up for the morning, what do you think? Unless you’re still busy?”

Cinty looked at Natasha who tensed up, giving the other girl a cold glare.

“What do you want?”

“Oh, sorry Natasha, didn’t recognize you for a moment. I love your new style. Hope I didn’t interrupt anything, I just wanted to talk to Flow.”

Natasha looked from the girl to the enby.

“Do you know each other?”

“Actually…”

“You could say we have a project together,” Cinty winked.

“Yeah, it’s…” flow started, but Cinty pushed her index finger onto their lips, silencing them.

“Shh, don’t spoil it. I don’t want everyone to know about it,” she chuckled. “But I can tell it’s really cool, and actually I’m looking forward to your reaction, Natasha. I’m sure it will blow you away when I’m done.”

“Hoge I gan helk,” Flow said through her finger.

“Sooo…” Cinty gave an expectant look. “Natasha, would you mind if I stole them from you a bit? We have some stuff to discuss.”

Natasha gave Flow a questioning look.

“Well, actually, yeah,” they scratched their head. “I did promise Cinty I would help her out later. Maybe… can we continue this tomorrow?”

Natasha blinked.

“Sure.”

“Great!” Cinty chirped. She grabbed Flow, pulling them from the bench. “Since we have so much time now, we could even hit the library, do some extra research. You could show me your sources.”

She folded her arm around theirs and started to walk toward the school building.

“Uh, sure, that sounds cool.”

They quickly turned back toward Natasha.

“I’ll text you later, okay?” they said with a wave before walking away.

<>

Natasha decided to visit Artemis’ shop to drop Ray’s badge. Even though the shopkeeper offered to go and pick it up, she texted back that it was fine, she wanted to go anyway. After turning down some cookies from Nox, she asked for Narwia.

She found the felimorph in the gallery, napping in a pre-division noble’s bed in her house cat form.

“Psss-psss,” Natasha called out as loud as she could, throwing something on the bed next to her. Instead of the jump she was secretly hoping for, the dark tabby lazily opened its eyes, then got up and stretched, taking her humanoid form in the process. She picked up the object Natasha threw and looked at it with a yawn.

“A can of tuna? How original. Fish! In seven hundred years nobody ever thought about teasing me with fish.”

She used one of her claws to get the can open and started to snack from it.

“So what are you doing here?”

“Came for training,” Natasha shrugged.

“Did you hear about the concept of rest and recovery? You just had a warlock fight didn’t you? No training after fights, that was the deal.”

“It wasn’t even a real warlock, just a warlovified student from the school. Classes got canceled, but the school keeps the students in for now for various checks, meaning I can get away with being unaccounted for a few hours. I don’t wanna waste it.”

Narwia looked around in the empty gallery.

“And where’s the other one?”

Natasha didn’t bother to point out that she knew both of their names very well.

“Do I look like their baby-sitter?”

Narwia grimaced, leaning back on her palms as she studied the girl’s face for a moment.

“Something’s up huh? Are you looking for an excuse to talk about it?”

“No. I’m looking for an excuse to hit something. Really hard.”

Narwia grinned.

“Good. With that, I can help you.”

She jumped up, summoning one of her sabers and cut a rift into the Lower Realms.

“Let’s kill some devils!”

< ⋁ >

“I can stay until Miss Alexton gets home,” Miranda insisted. “The school was attacked after all.”

“I’m well aware of that, Ms. Grey,” Tims said with a hint of impatience. “Your job is done here for the day. Let me worry about mine.”

Miranda bowed her head, if only to hide the furious glimmer in her eyes. “As you wish, Mr. Tims.”

After the maid finally left, Edward Tims returned into his room to look after some business until the girl would arrive, as he expected, several hours late. The guest room was sparingly decorated, but it had enough room to store all his clothes and various belongings, so he wouldn’t have to worry about what to bring with himself to this assignment, he could move in fully. Of course his carefully curated habit to get rid of anything that wasn’t longer useful helped to keep his luggage to a minimum. He didn’t light the lamp as he sat down to his humming laptop on the workdesk to answer some messages.

“Hey, Edward. It was a while.”

Tims slowly turned around on his chair as someone turned up the light on his nightstand. A teenager, probably around sixteen, was slouching in his bed. They had a shock of messy blonde locks and didn’t bother to remove their shoes before invading their personal space.

“It was indeed, Nash,” he answered, not giving any sign of surprise. He usually liked to address people by last name, it helped to give the interaction a professional air. He made an exception with Nash Poll, calling them by their first name so he could avoid all those silly ‘gender-neutral’ honorifics. In return, Nash never missed to address him by first name - the only child who ever dared to do that. “Good to see your habit of breaking and entering haven’t changed.”

“Always with that cold, legal terminology Edward,” they smiled. “A friend of mine lives here, doesn’t that make me a guest?”

“Your friend isn’t home at the moment. And given the effort you put into avoiding her in the past years, I doubt you’re here to see her.”

“Sharp as always.” The enby pulled into sitting position and crossed their legs. “Why are you here Edward?”

The man raised an eyebrow.

“In my own bedroom?”

“Come on. You came back to Pollapolis, you contacted Natasha. Why? Why now? What’s your game?”

The man turned back to his computer, like he lost all interest in the visitor.

“I’m pretty sure you already know the answer to that.”

“‘Cause she told you, huh?” Nash scratched their chin. “So she’s ready for the next phase? Is she coming to town too?”

“That’s not my business, neither yours. What are you hoping to learn from me?”

“From you, who’s just following orders? You know Edward, you never striked me as someone who’d be content with being someone else’s lapdog. What’s your game in all of this?”

He looked back at Nash from the corner of his eye.

“I believe you’re confusing my loyalty for a goal to being loyal to a person. One of those will propel you forward in life and the other will tie you down into mediocrity. Of course, as someone who did everything in their life for one person’s sake, you wouldn’t understand the difference.”

“Look, you got my pronouns right!” Nash grinned at him. “You got a pretty cynical outlook on relationships. Kinda ironic, given how the one you’re working for got everything from love.”

The man turned fully around again, focusing his gray eyes on Nash.

“Love, too, is a form of power,” he said. “When it comes to power, there are only two types of people: the ones who control it and the ones who are being controlled by it. You have already proven which type you are - that’s how we all ended up here, aren’t we?”

There was a stretch of silence, and Tims turned back to his work again.

“Is there anything else?”

“Yes,” Nash stood up and stretched. “I was meaning to tell you one more thing.”

“You mean this is the real reason you’re here,” he corrected.

“I understand you got business with Natasha Alexton, and I can’t really interfere with it at this point. But please, make sure she doesn’t get hurt.”

“You’re asking me,” the man noted. “That is surprising. With all those adolescent hormones flooding your body, I was really expecting something along the lines of ‘If you hurt her, I’ll kill you’ from you.”

“Killing you?” Nash asked, playing with one of their locks. “I mean yes, that might happen. But that’s not the point.” They stepped behind his chair. “My point is, if you cross that line and hurt her, I’m going to hurt you .”

“Ah,” the man said, unamused. “I was celebrating soon. Here are the awkward threats.”

“No Edward, I’m not trying to threaten you,” Nash said earnestly, leaning on the back of his chair. “I know it wouldn’t achieve anything with a man like you. I’m just trying to play with open cards.”

“And why would you do that, with me from all the people?”

“Because despite everything I don’t like in you, there was a time when you were on her side when I couldn’t. I know it wasn’t for me , but you did and I’m grateful for that. So I really need you to understand this, so you can take it into consideration, whatever you’re going to do in the future. If Natasha Alexton gets hurt because of you, it might be beyond me to stop myself from hurting you in return.”

“All right,” Tims said after a moment. “I’ll take note of that.”

“Thank you. That’s really all I’m asking for.”

They stepped away and turned toward the door.

“Oh, I almost forgot. You lost something.”

They pulled a PDA from their back pocket.

“Hmm.” Tims tapped the small pocket on his shirt where he kept it. It was empty. “I’m not the type to lose my belongings, Nash.”

“Yeah,” they smiled, passing the PDA through the air. Tims caught it with one hand, without looking up. “Many people thought that, before meeting me.