Alotr

Sometimes, it’s hard to pin down an exact beginning. Sometimes, that’s not a problem, the beginning is as obvious as the sky is blue. This story’s in the grey zone. The point between black and white that no one likes to acknowledge and even less want to speak of. The start is vague, yet exact. Spoke of, but unknown. History, yet still legend.

Few can say they truly understand how everything began, even fewer actually witnessed it. Witnessed the making of a great sorcerer, witnessed the undoing of the very same man, witnessed the forging of three unlikely heroes. But this is the full story, the story of four rings.

Three rings were made by a powerful necromancer, one by a natural talent. All made in an attempt to gain power, all but one unsuccessful.

The first was made with ivory and sapphire, held together with magic and a soul, much like the others. The second being gold and ruby, ring three was a silver band holding a great emerald. Each one held part of its creator’s magic. The elements split between them. Water for the first, then fire, and, lastly, earth.

The last, the most powerful, was created in the wake of the necromancer’s, well, not exactly death, more like disappearance. A young, but already corrupt, talent collected the last of the sorcerer’s magic to craft a final ring. This one was smaller, pearl and diamond. It held all the powers of the first tries. More power than the talent could have dreamed and none of it taken from his own essence.

This young mage did not stop there, he still wanted more. Of course he did, man always does. And if he hadn’t, well, there wouldn’t be a story, now would there? So, he sought out the only objects that could further his abilities.

Though he already possessed the control over all elements, he couldn’t help but want the other rings as well. The sorcerer would never have given his ex-apprentice any of the rings for fear of misuse, but that wasn’t really a problem given the fact that he probably didn’t even exist anymore. No one to stop him from using the necromancer’s most prized possessions for evil. Though, he couldn’t do anything with them until he found them. And that? Was much harder than it sounded, for the only time he could sense them was when they were manifested as humans.

Oh? Was that power missed in the description? A grievous oversight. Each ring could change forms, manifesting as living beings. The ability was possessed by all four due to the soul binding each together. The form they took greatly depended on what the ring bearer wanted to see, only certain aspects remained the same no matter what. This, of course, was difficult to realize due to them only having one real owner for most of their existences, but eventually they did.

Unnecessary details for now, back to the story. So, this mage was searching all across the globe for the rings. Mostly, it was a bland and fruitless endeavor. Until one day, decades after the necromancer’s ‘death’, it wasn’t. One moment there was nothing and then, suddenly, there was everything. Three pings in the front of his sight. The magical kind, of course. He had found his goal, and now all he had to do was get there.

Before this, though, there was another beginning. Three, actually. The births of three humans, each a year or so apart. Quincy was the oldest, he was born to two loving parents. Delphi was next, she was living in the house four doors down from his. Lastly, there was Rory, he was Quincy’s little brother. Now, if it had stayed like that the three never would have ended up as they did.

One day, that was all it took to set their fates completely. In that day, the day all three consider one of their worst, two things happened. First, there was a yard party, held at Delphi’s parent’s house. Then, there was a fire, caused by faulty wiring and an unlucky microwave. Only three of the twenty people attending survived. All beneath the age of ten, all destined for greatness.

Foster care wasn’t pleasant, but so few things are. The three were inseparable until they were, well, separated. It’s hard to find someone to adopt two brothers, let alone two brothers and their best friend, all of which were no longer babies.

Delphi was adopted three years after her parents died. Rory was gone in just two. Quincy was passed around from home to home; no one wanting a, by that point, fourteen year old boy that knew nothing but anger and sadness.

He wasn’t adopted, he only got out when he turned eighteen and then he was free. Well, as free as an eighteen year old college student could be. He remembered his brother and his friend, but he no longer waited to reunite with them. He no longer held the hope that, one day, they would show up in front of him and they would be like they were for the only good part of his childhood. Until, of course, they did exactly that.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Quincy said, staring at the cafeteria in front of him. There was an abundance of people, but, even with them aged, he would never miss the two faces on opposite sides of the room. Rory sat by himself, an apple and a book his only companions. Delphi, on the other hand, was surrounded by other people. Quincy guessed they were freshmen coming into the school this year.

He had no idea why Rory was here, though. Unless he had gone completely senile in his short twenty years of life, Rory was still seventeen, a high schooler not someone who would be sitting three tables away and scaring the hell out of his older brother. Also, the other two hadn’t seemed to notice him, or each other. That was about to be changed.

Quincy stood, giving his table mates an excuse to leave, and quietly approached his brother.

Before he even had a chance to say anything, the younger boy was talking, “I don’t care, I know you find it annoying that I’m here but I will not be leaving. I really need to ace this test to get credit and that means studying and that means I need to focus and that means you need to shut the f**k up and walk away.”

Quincy gaped and stood awkwardly, “Are you deaf? I know you think this table is yours by rite. But I’m gonna need you to get the f**k over yourself, just because you sat here a few days in a row doesn’t mean I can’t sit here, I told you that quite clearly the last three times you tried to make me move, so why don’t you just,” Rory finally looked up from his book as he prepared to finish his rant, “Quincy?”

“Yeah, well, I guess that answers the question of why you’re at my university. What class are you taking?” Quincy said in reply.

“No,” Rory said quickly, Quincy’s face dropped along with his stomach, “you cannot just walk up to the brother you haven’t seen for, what, eight years? And then ask him what class he was taking. There are much more important things to discuss here!”

“Uh, how are you?”

Rory shook his head, “You suck at conversations. At least that hasn’t changed. Hey, have you seen Del? I don’t even know what happened to her after I left.”

Quincy grinned smugly and grabbed Rory by the arm, pulling him towards the other person he was planning to talk to. Hell, the day was probably the best he’d had in a long time. It took less than ten seconds for them to reach her table. Ten more for her to actually notice them staring.

“Um, what’s up? Do you two need something?” She obviously did not recognize the two brunet brothers in front of her.

“Delphi?” Rory said excitedly, his eyes lit up with it. Confusion turned to recognition, it took a second but it was still pretty fast.

“Oh, my god! Rory! And, and Quincy! Why are you two here?” She shot up from her seat and hopped over the empty part of the table. It was barely a second of staring before she pulled them both into a hug. While the group hug continued for an odd amount of time and drew many eyes, Rory’s phone buzzed. It was one o’clock.

“S**t, guys. I have to go to my physics class. Can we meet up somewhere?” Quincy felt a pull of something heavy in his chest but he nodded and grabbed the phone out of his pocket.

“How about six at my apartment? There’s a lot of shops we could checkout, it’ll be fun.”

“Sure,” Delphi said as she took a step back and grabbed Quincy’s phone from him. It was a flurry of keyboard sounds as the three of them swapped numbers and parting greetings.

Rory left first, sprinting away from them. Then Delphi sat back in her seat and waved goodbye once more to Quincy. He realized that this was what he’d wanted, this was his greatest wish, he just wanted his family back. And with that thought he walked back to his seat and returned to conversing with his friends.

At that point, the three hadn’t even known how much things would change after reuniting. No, it took them a few more hours to figure that out.

Six rolled in and Quincy tittered about more nervously than he had ever before. A sharp knock was followed by a shout and a greeting. Obviously, Delphi and Rory had showed at almost the exact same time. He swung the door open wide and stepped out.

Smiling, Quincy walked to the exit and made his way outside, stopping for a second to be sure Rory and Delphi were truly following. A bit like Orpheus and his wife.

“Come on. I know a really cool antique place. I swear a couple days ago there was an actual sword, like the kind knights used,” Quincy spoke excitedly and walked faster.

“Stop being a nerd,” Rory said, Delphi showed her agreement with the laughs she let free. It was both good that they were keeping the talk light and bad that they weren’t talking like they used to. Easily and without care. Seven to eight years of radio silence can do that to a relationship, Quincy thought.

“Is this it?” Delphi asked curiously as she looked upon the large sign in front of her, ‘Antiques & Artifacts at A+ Prices’. Quincy nodded in response and opened the door before Rory could. The three walked in and glanced around.

An older woman was sitting quietly behind a large glass counter full of jewelry, she spoke carefully as if not to spook them, “Can I help you with anything?”

“We’re just looking, don’t worry we won’t break anything,” Quincy said, turning to look at the necklaces in front of her.

“Oh, I don’t know Quince, I’m more of a ring person myself,” Delphi said as she and Rory moved closer to look at the rings. Automatically, one drew each of their attention. All different.

“Can I try that one on?” Rory spoke first, pointing confidently at a small, sapphire encrusted, ivory banded, ring.

“Of course,” she said, smiling to herself at his enthusiasm.

As soon as she had the case open and the blue ring out, Quincy spoke as well, “Can I try that gold one there?”

“Wait! Me too, I want to try the silver and green one,” Delphi said, flashing a large smile to cover the fact that she had raised her voice unnecessarily. Oddly enough, each one of the rings fit perfectly to their middle fingers. It could be called a coincidence, or something else like maybe the rings wanted to be worn.

Though, unlike in that story of the hobbit Frodo, these rings did not, in fact, want to be worn. It was quite the opposite, really. They just wanted to rest peacefully in a case, to never touch another mage again. It was bad enough to lose the first ring bearer they had, but to lose another? Well, it would be a pain indescribable.

“How much for all of them?” Rory said seriously as he wiggled his fingers.

“Twenty bucks, used to be more but no one wanted ‘em,” the lady said casually.

“We’ll take them,” Quincy said as he slapped down a twenty and smiled. It was as charming as Delphi’s but it was still slightly startling to the older woman who so rarely held contact with the outer world. After all, not many people came into her shop.

The trio walked out, talking happily and examining their new rings.

“Wanna come over?” Rory offered quickly as they seemed to start heading towards Quincy’s apartment complex.

The older two exchanged glances, both responded quickly, “Yeah,” and, “Totally.”

As in all stories, there is more than one conflict for the heroes to overcome, their reunion was only the first step. At the same point that they were laughing and catching up there was an evil, evil creature seeking them out. Well, not them, more the rings. This creature isn’t the mage, it’s much less powerful and much more malicious.

Some may call it a demon, but that’s about as far from accurate as possible while still being on the plausible scale in general. This creature was an oddly familiar monster, it was a spellgaunt. The spellgaunt are a dwindling species that feasts on magic, usually they appear as huge arachnids. Most find them disgusting, it’s an easy observation to make and quite accurate, really.

Anyway, back to our, not yet heroic, trio.

“Hey, what do you think this is?” Quincy asked, thumbing at the large ring he had moved to his pointer finger. It spun easily, showing it was a little too big for that digit.

“The gem?” Delphi asked, trying to clarify. She looked up from her own ring and met his eyes.

“Maybe a garnet?” Rory suggested while he grabbed Quincy's hand and held it up to the light.

“That makes it a bit more lame,” Delphi said. They did a good job at pretending they weren’t separated for the better half of a decade.

If someone looked, though, then they would be able to tell it was all just acting. Just very convincing ac-, “It is not garnet you pathetic little worms! It is a ruby, I only say that because it’s become obvious you three are too stupid to know the difference between garnet and ruby.”

Everybody stared in shock at the new speaker, a gold skinned redhead with large cat eyes and gnashing shark like teeth. The ring was gone from Quincy’s finger and replaced by the boy at his side. It was a mildly terrifying minute before anyone moved.

Too bad the only movement was Delphi stumbling as her ring was replaced by a tall, very tall, green haired woman, “Reshi! I thought Serivi was quite clear when she said we couldn’t manifest. Was she not?”

Honestly, they weren’t even shocked when Rory’s ring turned into a blue haired human, too. Well, that's a testament to their adaptability, right? Thought so.

“Reshi, Ezmi, I said we were done with the humans. You are aware that I meant that, correct?” The redhead stood in shock and some other intense emotion, probably anger or something of the like.

“I wouldn’t have if that,” he pointed at Rory, then Delphi, “and that, didn’t say I was garnet! It’s quite obvious that I am ruby and gold!”

“I really didn’t mean to offend you, I was just asking what gem they thought it was,” Quincy said in a voice unbefitting of his size. Rory would have brought up how his brother had, all day, acted much more demure than when they were kids but a large spider happened to crash through his window before he got to it.

Instead he uttered a small, shocked, “What the f**k?”

“Seriously? Now?” Ezmi, at least that’s what the three believe to be her name, said in a disgruntled tone.

“Spellgaunts always were a pain,” Serivi said, cracking ivory knuckles loudly.

“Does that mean I get to kill it?” Reshi asked in a somewhat excited voice, all anger and bitterness towards the humans replaced by an odd form of bloodlust. He stood there, all panes of golden muscles, and waited for permission.

“Do whatever you want, it is not like it matters. If it eats us, we die. Nothing much,” Serivi said, settling on the ground calmly.

“Cool,” Reshi had said before fire burst from his outstretched hand and wrapped the dark purple arachnid in chains of crackling flames. The thing- a spellgaunt, if what they were saying was correct, screeched loudly before it grabbed Quincy and leapt back out the broken window.

“What the f**k?” Rory repeated.

“S**t,” Reshi muttered as he disappeared. A ring lying on the carpeted floor instead of a full grown human man.

“What the f-“ Rory started again only to be cut off by Delphi, “F**k. Yeah, we get it. Now, why don’t we actually ask these two people, they came from rings and obviously know what that thing was, what happened.”

“Um, we’re magic rings? That was a spellgaunt, they eat magic, and it took your friend because it was panicked. Whenever their panicked they just take whatever magic thing is the easiest prey. Which is why it didn’t take one of us. We had a way to fight it,” Ezmi nervously glanced at Serivi to see if what she said was too explicit. She only got a small shrug from the shorter ring.

“Okay, you have powers and you turn into rings! How can we save Quincy, can you two fight that thing?” Rory spoke quickly. Terrified that he’d lose the brother he’d just gotten back.

“Yes,” Serivi said, unmoving.

“Will you?” Delphi interjected impatiently.

“Well, why would I do that?”

“Uh, Serivi Maybe we should help out. They do seem to need us,” Ezmi added carefully. Serivi opened one previously closed piercing blue eye and sent a glare towards the green haired woman standing near Delphi.

“You know, just because you’re the oldest doesn’t mean we always have to listen to you!” Ezmi shouted, seemingly reaching her breaking point.

Well… maybe, it’s not exactly that. Instead it’s more like releasing a buildup of anger towards her elder sibling who always tells her what to do. Delphi understands but doesn’t quite relate, having never had any siblings in either of her families.

“Do whatever you want! It is not like I actually care. When you get as old as I am, you will not either,” Serivi sighed, rubbing a hand over the small shaved strip in the medium length blue hair. Rory stared, trying to figure them out. He could tell they were feeling something, he didn’t know exactly what, but it was definitely something.

“Fine,” Ezmi spat. She turned to Delphi and plopped down on the bed next to her. Rory broke his staring contest with Serivi’s eyebrows and turned to look at the two girls sitting across from him.

He fidgeted in the dark blue arm chair while he came up with what to say, “We need a plan. And to make a plan, I need details.”

Delphi grinned and started spitting off everything they had heard that even remotely seemed like it could help.

“So, what about that guy, uh, Reshi?” Rory asked as he started composing the strategy they would use.

“Oh, he can’t come out unless his ring bearer wears the ring,”Ezmi said good naturedly. She smiled and that drew Delphi’s eyes to her face. It was elegantly designed, everything almost classically made, except for one- no, two things. She had striking brow bones but no actual brows.

“Can I put it on to bring him into the game?” Rory asked as Delphi turned her attentions towards the person sitting in the middle of the floor, silently. Serivi seemed to have mostly normal features save for the fact that there was only one eye on their face. And it’s not like there’s an empty socket where an eye should be, there’s just a smooth patch of skin underneath a well shaped cobalt eyebrow.

“Nope,” Ezmi said, popping the ‘p’, “that Quincy boy is the only one who can bear the ring, Reshi, until he dies or gives it away willingly.”

“So, basically we have one magic chick that’s actually just a walking, talking, emerald ring, and two practically useless humans that can’t even drink yet,” Rory said, he dropped his head into his waiting hands, “we’re screwed unless you can kill the f*****g spellgaunt all by yourself.”

“Well, of course I can. I’m not weak, despite my appearance,” Ezmi said, straightening her back and clearly showing that she was the biggest person in the room. Rory had no clue why she thought they’d think she was weak based on how she looked.

“Okay, miss magic over here will kill the damn thing, we just need to find it,” Rory said heavily. At the same time, Delphi felt an odd amount of pride that her ri- the ring- was so sure of her own power.

“Serivi could do that, so could Reshi but he’s not really available? Anyway, Serivi is probably the only one with enough skill and juice to perform a tracking spell, but they’re not really helping, as you can see,” Ezmi said, a touch of disdain could be heard if listened for.

“Why would I help humans and waste my energy? It is not nearly worth it,” the quietest one in the room said.

“Why not? Why the f**k won’t you do this little thing when you have so much power and time? It’s not like it’d be hard for you, you just don’t want to!” Rory started at a normal volume but by the end he was yelling.

“Why not? Well, why would I help people I do not like, nor care for, when I could just... not?” Serivi’s eye opened and their head tilted, “Why should I help you when you will just die soon afterwards and leave me behind?”

It was then that Rory identified the emotion in Serivi’s speech; loneliness. He had no clue why, it seemed that the blue ring was always accompanied by the red and green ones.

“Why are you so certain I’ll leave?” Rory shouted, just the tiniest bit quieter than before.

“Because he did! And he was the one who made us, he was supposed to be immortal, we were supposed to accompany him forever! We were his, and he left us,” Serivi started tearing up and blinked quickly, the last ‘us’ said in a broken voice.

“Well, I’m not him! You don’t know me! And if you’ll help us, I’ll show you that I’m not leaving anytime soon,” Rory stated, completely serious and very determined.

“I’ll find him but you will not ask anything else of me.”

The discussion ended abruptly. Serivi stood just as abruptly, placing a steady hand on Rory’s shoulder. There was an awkward moment where he wanted to flinch away from the strong grip, but it passed relatively quickly. A tingle shot up his spine and settled easily on his shoulder where Serivi’s hand still sat.

“What you seek is not too far. Two paces to the north, fourteen west. Those direction only apply once you leave the house, of course,” Serivi sneered almost the entire last sentence.

Rory responded in much the same way, “Thanks so much, you’ve been a real help.”

“Rory, come on,” Delphi sternly interjected, “stop arguing with the animate, inanimate object. We have a damsel in distress that needs rescuing.”

Rory broke his stare down with Serivi and, laughing, he said, “Quincy is not going to be happy you called him that.”

“Well, we'll just have to keep it to ourselves then,” Delphi suggested, already halfway out the door, Ezmi close behind.

Rory got nearly into the hallway before he looked back, “Are you coming?”

He got his answer in the form of silence. And once Rory left the house, Serivi melted into the carpet only to be pulled back together into a band of ivory and sapphire.

Oh, Quincy regained consciousness at this point, too. He never did have good timing, but this was a new low for him, because he woke to the spider thingy gnawing on his hand. He didn’t even know spiders had mouths.

“Ahhhhh! What the s**t!” He screamed, ripping his hand away from the wet maw of the creature before him. One second it’s just a dark face sitting above two huge fangs and in the next, it’s fifty gleaming eyes popping open in sync.

“Oh, s**t. Ohhhhh, f**k. Ohhhhhhh, every expletive I know,” Quincy said as he shrunk away from the rapidly approaching monster. It easily stretched around twenty five feet in width.

He closed his forest-y eyes in a tight scrunch, willing himself to be back at his apartment. His eyes only opened when he felt cold saliva dripping onto his left cheekbone. Quincy panicked heavily once he realized that there was no chance he’d make it out safely. His breath sped away from him and he was left gasping and fumbling about with his hands for some kind of weapon.

His only thought was that maybe if he’d had that ring, then maybe, just maybe, the Reshi guy could fry the freakish beast in front of him. Oddly enough, he felt the sensation of cool metal upon the base of his middle finger.

It only lasted a second, but he knew what that me-, “Huh, your timing is incredibly bad. Very well, I suppose I’ll save you.”

Quincy wiped the slobber off his cheek and stood up. It wasn’t everyday that you get saved from a giant man eating-, “Magic eating, you idiot.”

Okay, it’s not everyday you get to survive an encounter with a giant, golden, magic eating spider.

“How did you even know what I was thinking?”

“You just got this look on your face and I could tell,” Reshi said, parrying a blow from the spellgaunt’s large fang. Fire burst forth from his, Yeah, no, Quincy can’t tell what body part it’s coming from, it just… appeared. The spellgaunt seemed to burn for a small time before it grew slightly and fought even more vigorously than before.

“Oh, my f**k. It’s absorbing your magic isn’t it?”

“Only a bit, it’s stronger than the last several I’ve fought,” ‘or maybe I’m weaker’ was highly implied but it remained unsaid, “one good hit to that drooling trap and it won’t live for much longer.”

“Wow, he really is a damsel in distress,” Rory said from beside Delphi, completely distracted by watching Reshi fight the weird a*s monster while his brother shook.

“Wait, how is Reshi even here?” Delphi asked, obviously pointing the question towards Ezmi.

“Oh, Quincy must have summoned his ring. It’s not that hard for a magic user. Though, it is kind of weird that he can do it when he’s never used magic before.”

“I am a f*****g idiot!” Reshi shouted as he jumped out of the way of the huge spider, “it’s not draining my magic, it’s draining yours! I should have known, the Magic’s f*****g orange not red. You need to stem the flow or I won’t be able to stop it.”

“What the hell is he talking about?” Rory finally snapped out of whatever weird haze he was in. He turned to Ezmi for information.

She just shrugged, “Serivi would probably know.”

“Isn’t that just fabulous, the only one that refuses to help is the one that could help the most!”

“How exactly do I do that? I’m not quite sure!” Quincy yelled, starting to notice the thin line of orange wrapped around the spellgaunt’s fangs, “Wait, I have magic?!”

“How have you not noticed that? How else would you have summoned me! Just.. please try to take your magic back. I’ll hold it off alright,” Reshi said, strain evident with every syllable.

“Quince! I think I have an idea.”

“Go right ahead, at least someone will be doing something useful!”

“I heard that, you jerk,” Quincy screamed. He was trying he just didn’t quite understand how he took something back that he didn’t even know he had.

Distantly, he heard Delphi hum and shout. All of the sudden, a large ball of orange slammed into his chest and dissipated into the flesh as he fell to his knees.

“Whatever you mortals did, it worked,” Reshi said as he once again set fire to the f*****g scary arachnid. This time, it burned.

“God damn,” Rory muttered as he fell forward, all of the previous adrenaline burning away as quickly as the spider had. Two arms shot out to catch him, weirdly solid and without an owner.

“Woah, there,” Serivi met eyes with an amused Ezmi and sighed, “It was the least I could do when his friend saved Reshi.”

Reshi shouted from his place on the grimy cave floor next to Quincy and Delphi, “I was not saved, it was just assistance. I still killed the thing.”

“Oh, my god,” Rory whispered and sat up, “we just killed a monster spider. How f*****g awesome is that?”

Serivi laughed, for the first time in about a century, “It was a spellgaunt, not a monster spider. And I am not really sure how you were involved in the undoing of it. After all, you just stood there and yelled.”

“The hell? Did, did you just… make a joke? I didn’t think you were capable.” Serivi smacked Rory’s head and stood, offering a hand to the boy still kneeling on the ground. Rory accepted and was pulled up in return.

“I am capable, I just usually choose not to use the ability to do so,” Serivi offered in response as they made their way to the others. Ezmi had already joined the other three.

“Now, my dudes, what is the plan?” The two older humans looked up to him, Delphi because she was shorter than him, Quincy because he was still sitting on the ground.

“We have a plan?” Ezmi asked curiously. Delphi laughed lightly and slung her arm around the ring’s shoulders. Or she would have if the green haired woman wasn’t like eight feet tall, it was actually only six foot three but no one cares for details here.

“Nah,” Delphi joked. Wait. Is it still a joke if it’s true?

Now remember, that wasn’t their biggest challenge to face. There’s still the mage, and though the recent encounter with an evil creature created a friendly relationship between our heroes and their rings, they aren’t quite yet prepared for the villain they haven’t even guessed is coming.

“Wait, Wait, Wait, wait, Wait. How the hell did you get here?” Rory asked in complete astonishment, finally realizing how weird it was that the sapphire ring had suddenly appeared just as he’d needed them.

Once it became apparent that Serivi wouldn’t be answering, Ezmi answered for them, “Serivi is the only one of us that can manifest ourselves without our bearer. We don’t know exactly why, but it does come in handy sometimes.”

“Yes,” Serivi smiled and glanced at Reshi and then Ezmi, “sometimes.”

“Let’s go home!” Delphi suggested happily. Everyone groaned their agreement.

“Uh, I hate to say it but we don’t live anywhere near each other,” Quincy reminded them quietly. Again Rory was struck by how different Quincy is now from how he was as a child.

“Come on, Rory! Last one there’s a rotten egg! Delphi, that’s totally cheating,” a young boy shrieks as his best friend tackles him. The smallest child just took that as the chance it was and sprinted towards the swings. Once Quincy realized what had happened it was already too late. He was the last to reach the swings.

“Being the egg sucks,” he shouted, “can I be something cooler?”

“Whatever you want, Quince,” Delphi said in the same way she always does. The boy grinned in response and pulled the other two people into a tight hug.

“Yay, I really didn’t wanna be the egg.”

“Rory,” Delphi said in a concerned tone, the same as when she was three feet tall, “you good?”

“Yeah, totally. I just remembered something, that’s all. Anyway! You’re right, Quincy. What should we d- ah, s**t. That thing broke my window! How am I supposed to explain that to my parents!” Rory looked at his friends for answers and found nothing helpful. Delphi looked sympathetic and Quincy looked absolutely, Rory couldn’t even identify the emotion. Instead of trying to unravel the mystery of his long lost brother, he just wandered towards what he was pretty sure was the cave mouth, determined to have a deep discussion with Del and Quincy the next time he had the chance.

Quincy stood there, completely silent, and bit his bottom lip, fists clenching, as he replayed Rory’s words. ‘My parents’, he knows he should be happy Rory found a family and had had a happy life but he can’t. It’s too hard to even think of pretending to be happy.. when doing so would mean admitting that his little brother didn’t really need him, probably didn’t even think of him as true family anymore.

Ezmi glanced back at Quincy, she was worried as soon as she had smelled tears. She would have said something to the distraught young man except for the fact that Reshi was standing there, quietly waiting for his ring bearer to calm down before he was ready to move forward.

Delphi grabbed her arm and tugged, bringing the silvery skinned ring back to the present. She smiled and continued walking next to Delphi.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m not the one who just fought a spellgaunt, and besides, why do you care? Don’t you hate humans?”

“I still do, you and your friends are just exceptions. At least, for now, anyway. And I’m not the one who had his magic, which he didn’t even know about prior to this, drained only to have it slammed back into him by a neutralizer with absolutely no practice under their belt. So, I repeat, are you okay?”

“It’s just hard to hear about Rory’s family, it’s kind of like being replaced.”

“Yeah, I understand, it was the same when my creator made Ezmi. For the first decade or two I was convinced that he’d decide to be rid of me due to Ezmi being good enough for both of us. Of course, eventually I did get over it.” He remembers a time when it was just him, Serivi, and the sorcerer. But he also remembers a century with only Ezmi and Serivi because his master decided life was too dull.

“I’ve decided.”

“What? Please don’t say we have to go to Rome again, last time they made me fight a lion,” Reshi whined, “not that it was hard, but still. A lion.”

Ezmi giggled while Serivi just looked on in vague amusement.

“No, not that. I’ve decided that this universe is done for me. I’ve already done everything I could. It’s just boring now.”

“What?” Serivi asked, brows furrowed in shocked confusion.

“I’m going to leave,” the man said, tapping his nails against the dark wood table.

“Okay, where are we going?” Reshi asked, an eyebrow raised in apprehension.

“Not we, me.” And then he was gone.

“We should probably catch up before they start plotting a rescue again,” Quincy spoke softly as to not disturb the fragile peace between them.

“You,” Reshi stopped and seemed to rethink his words, “are probably right.”

“Let’s go, then.” They walked quietly side by side; seeming to lack anymore words to bridge the silence. Both felt just a tiny bit lighter having shared what they had, though neither would openly admit it. No, Quincy’s too self conscious and Reshi’s standards for himself do not include openly expressing any emotions other than anger, annoyance, and disdain.

And so they walked.

“Thought you two were gonna need to be saved again,” Rory said as he saw them exit the oddly placed cavern.

“I already told you people,” Reshi petulantly interjected, “I was not saved, I was merely assisted!”

“Okay, whatever floats your boat.”

Delphi laughed first, Ezmi joined in for a few precious seconds before Rory continued on, “By the way. We’re gonna need a different hq this time round because I don’t think I should go home quite yet, they’re really mad this time.”

He held up his phone for the group to see around eight texts from someone named ‘Hela’ and another six from ‘Elle’. All equally angry and confused as to why his window was broken and why he had just up and left, because yes, that’s exactly what he’d done. He's truly sorry but somethings are more important than windows or angry parents sitting in fancy living rooms.

Quincy looked to Delphi, “No, don’t look at me. I have a dorm room that I share with the most irritating child in the world. It would be torture and really cramped.”

“My place it is, then,” he muttered in mildly unwilling assent, “let’s get walking before the sun decides to crap out on us.”

“That’s my boy,” Rory offered, patting his brother on the back harshly. Soon the group of three, sorry, six was standing outside an apartment door as Quincy unlocked it.

“Couch is over there, no feet on the coffee table, shoes off at the door, please don’t eat food in any room other than the kitchen, and for God’s sake do not break anything.”

“Such a buzzkill.”

“So I’ve been told,” Quincy said coolly, calmly opening an overhanging cabinet and pulling a can down, “do any of you want tea?”

“I’m more of a coffee person,” Delphi responded easily as she sunk into the beige loveseat.

“You’re disgusting,” Reshi and Rory spoke in equal disgust and horror. Quincy muffled a laugh as he scooped the loose leaves into his tea maker.

“I would like some, depending on the sort, of course,” Serivi said from behind and slightly to the left of Quincy, “hmm, lavender, I have not had that for some time. I believe I will accept a cup.”

“So, four including me?” He asked, just to be sure he was making the correct amount. Delphi hummed her agreement with his statement. The group lapsed into silence save for Rory commenting on every movie or book that he found on Quincy’s shelf.

Delphi sat on the loveseat, looking more exhausted by the second. Ezmi and Reshi draped themselves over the barely large enough couch and had some weird kind of staring contest. Serivi remained in the kitchen as Quincy moved about, grabbing four cups and a small spoon. Next he pulled out a jar of honey and opened the fridge to search for milk, he found a half gallon towards the back that he had to smell before he used in any drink someone might actually, well, drink.

“I prefer no sweetener,” Serivi added, just in case the younger boy was planning on adding honey to all of the cups. Quincy nodded in acknowledgment, pouring the steaming liquid into a cup and then setting it down onto a small mat.

“Milk?”

“Only a dash, I prefer the full taste of the tea to be there.”

“Alright,” Quincy splashed a small bit of milk in, mixed it, and then handed it to Serivi, “here you are.”

“Reshi, you may want to come in and tell him how you like your tea before he does it himself.”

Reshi broke whatever contest he was having with Ezmi, causing her to smile and whoop in victory, and stood before walking into the small kitchenette.

“I want three scoops of whatever you use to make it sweet and enough milk to make it slightly lighter than my skin,” he said, completely serious. Quincy balked at the change from how he was just acting with Ezmi and how he gave his order for tea.

“Uh, here?” He said, handing off the green mug and hoping for the best. At some point during his mildly panicky wait for judgement, Rory had walked in and made his own cup. Serivi sipped lightly and quietly but it wasn’t them he was worried about. Reshi took a mouthful and then no more, staring at the pot.

“So, does everyone like it?”

“Yeah,” Rory slurred, his energy seeming to evaporate as he sat on the carpeted floor.

“You two can take the guest bedroom,” Quincy pointed the words to Ezmi and Delphi; gesturing towards an oak door. The former nodded whilst the latter just mumbled; already half asleep.Ezmi moved towards the loveseat and lifted the darker skinned woman easily, moving towards the room Quincy had pointed out.

“What about me?” Rory asked quietly.

Quincy took a second to contemplate it before coming to a decision, “You can have my room, it’s down the hall, on the left. Uh, Serivi, you can sleep there too if you want. If you’re okay with Rory, anyway.”

The one eyed ring rose an eyebrow but made their way towards the door nonetheless. Rory set his cup onto the coffee table, half empty, and followed the blue haired person, uh, ring thing.The room was silent as Reshi sipped recently acquired tea and stared at the slightly taller human standing awkwardly in the kitchen.

“And then there were two,” Quincy said in a conversational tone.

“An astute observation. I assume you are planning to sleep on the couch?” Red eyes blinked, cat-like pupils narrowing. Reshi strummed lethal nails against the porcelain mug whilst he waited for an answer.

“No, you can have it. I’ll sleep on the loveseat, it’s not as uncomfortable as you’d think,” Quincy moved into the living room, his feet dragging with obvious fatigue. Reshi nodded and finished his drink in one go. He held it out for the green eyed twenty year old. Quincy just gave it a stare and took it from Reshi only to set it on the low table, his own cup already disposed of into the small chrome sink.

“You don’t need blankets, do you?” Reshi shrugged and Quincy took that as a no. Soon both were dozing carefully in their individual furniture items. A large clock ticked out in the hall and light snores could be heard from Quincy’s bedroom, courtesy of Rory. It was around three am when something eventful actually happened.

A gold light slipped through a crack under the window’s sealing, it seemed to hesitate for a second before dutifully carrying on towards its target. The sparkling stream of gold slipped over one edge of Quincy’s shoulder before settling over his eyes and seemingly absorbing into his skin.

“Are you two ready?” A tall woman with black hair and sea green eyes asked. The two in question eye each other and then nod. The older one pulled his little brother along after his mother.

It was a clear, bright, fall day and they had been invited to a party by their mother’s friend. Quincy and Rory hadn’t wanted to go until they learned that the lady had a kid around their ages that they could hangout with. After that, they had reluctantly agreed. Just as Quincy had left the house a man had appeared and suddenly the scene was changing, morphing into an office.

He was alone sitting across from a stranger with a very prominent jaw line.

“Quincy, my blood truly does run through your veins, how ironic. So, word has come of your location and I’m planning to head there soon. I’m only telling you so that you can fret and attempt to prepare, it’s always entertaining to see that.”

“Who even are you?”

“Oh? You’re rings haven’t told you yet. Well, I’m the big boss now that the necromancer is gone. And I am searching for the three thing missing from my collection, I’m sure you can guess what.”

Quincy gulped, “The rings.”

“Ding, ding, ding, give the boy his prize. Anyway, I was surprised to find out who held them now. Two of my descendants and a neutralizer? Fascinating.”

“What do you mean descendants? Who’s related to you?” He asked, even though he ought to have known already.

“Well, you and Rory, silly. Last ones, too. What luck! I’ve been meaning to kill you, I just hadn’t found the time yet. After all, no one should have this power,” the man held out a hand that displayed an orb of golden magic interspersed with black sparks, “but me.”

“What?” Quincy asked, clearly shocked.

“Oh, dear boy. Just listen. I am coming and you should be- no, better be- terrified.”

Quincy shot out of the chair and fell to the ground, nearly catching his head on the glass edge of the table. Reshi was awakened nearly instantaneously, instincts still honed from when he was tasked with guarding the sorcerer while he slept.

“What’s happened?” He asked in a fury.

“He’s coming.”

“Who?” Reshi persisted even though his mind had already jumped to conclusions based on previous events, after all, only one person continuously messed with his old master.

“The mage,” Quincy said, clearly shaken.

Reshi sighed and nodded. He then started walking towards the bedrooms. If what was happening was truly what he thought then they’d need as much time and brainpower as feasibly possible. He knocked on the first door, hiding Delphi and Ezmi, and then the second; easily awakening all four.

The group settled in the main room, though it was already around six in the morning when that actually happened.

“Serivi, he’s coming after us.”

“I knew it would happen sooner or later.” Ezmi watched in confusion as the two spoke solemnly.

“Who?”

“Our master had an apprentice before he made you. The apprentice had proven himself to be truly evil so our sorcerer refused to share anymore of his knowledge and skill. Unfortunately, the mage seems to be unsatisfied with that assessment, and now he is coming to argue the will,” Serivi spoke efficiently, and everyone listened carefully. Reshi had already looked oddly sad but as the eldest ring spoke he seemed to become even more despondent.

“Well, s**t. That’s f*****g sucky. But, uh, if you don’t mind my asking, why are we so depressed?”

“Because to him, arguing the will, means killing anyone who disagrees with him and just taking what he had wanted to start with,” Reshi said vehemently, Quincy thought that was better than before. At least anger fit his character better than sadness.

“And he wants us?” Ezmi asked, fidgeting with the white band on her thigh. Reshi was actually doing the same with the grey headband sitting in his ruby hair. Serivi looked as if they were forcing themselves not to touch the black collar on their own neck.

Rory noticed all three and was instantly curious, “what are those?”

Reshi looked up and promptly removed the hand from his hair, “they’re manifestations of what’s binding our souls to the rings.”

“What?” Quincy questioned.

“It’s like a tether to our ring forms, our souls would detach from the ring crafted by our master if we didn’t wear them,” Ezmi said, for once her serious words were matched by her tone.

“Wait. So, what happens if you lose or break them?” It was Rory that asked this time.

Serivi looked at him for a good long moment before answering, “If we do not have them unharmed on our person, our soul is not bound to the rings, which means our soul is not bound to anything on this earth.”

“So?” Rory prompted.

“So, we die.”

“Oh, s**t.”

And suddenly, the three humans were about as stressed as their magically made counterparts. Maybe it was the fact that the rings now seemed a bit more human, after all they had such an easy to exploit weakness, they were such fragile existences that if a single piece of fabric was cut or stolen they would die. But it might have also been the fact that the two older rings seemed so certain that fighting this mage guy was a lost cause. Either way, you could sense when the mood shifted from confused ignorance to terrified hopelessness.

“What did he mean by neutralizer?” Quincy asked, part trying to relieve the choking melancholy from the atmosphere and part genuine curiosity, “I know you said something about that earlier.”

“She,” Reshi pointed one long, oddly well kept, talon at Delphi before continuing, “is a neutralizer. It’s basically like having anti-magic. A good neutralizer is capable of anything from undoing a spell to removing someone’s magic completely. And to be good you need practice, of course.”

“Of course,” Delphi muttered, “And how do I get this ‘practice’?”

“Well, first you need a teacher,” Reshi spoke with oddly strong and determined words, “and I happen to know an excellent neutralizer.”

“Who?” Serivi asked, genuinely curious. Sure there were a couple of years where Reshi had been separated but it hadn’t been long enough for them to remember all that clearly.

“Gaharin, she lives in the alps but she’s the best of the best and probably one of the only well trained neutralizers still alive.”

“The alps it is,” Rory said, then gulped in realization, “oh, f**k. My moms are gonna be pissed.”

“Better to ask forgiveness than permission, right?” Delphi offered. Rory just shook his head.

Quincy thought for a second before asking another question, “can we learn magic, too? If the mage wants to kill us, then let’s make ourselves a force worth killing, you know?”

“That didn’t make sense, like at all,” Rory said sagely, nodding his head as if what he said was some kind of revelation from god.

“Frick off, you suck,” Quincy responded; very, very maturely.

“We can teach you,” Serivi spoke once the two brothers had stopped.

“We is?” Rory prodded.

“All three of us, with the mage off the deep end and the necromancer in another world, we’re probably the best you could get as teachers,” Reshi said, gesturing to his siblings. And then, suddenly, their talk was cut off by the door breaking open, busted off of its hinges completely, and two figures walking through.

“That was just too easy. I gave you a warning, you couldn’t have even barricaded the door? Given, that wouldn’t have helped, but still, it’s the thought that counts.”

“Well!” Quincy shouted, the group stood in mere seconds, “usually when you say you’re coming you don’t mean you’re coming in like two hours. Usually a threat like that gives you at least a day, have you never seen a superhero movie?”

The mage scoffed, “I must have missed that lesson in my villainism 101 class. How terribly rude of me, would you like me to give you a few more minutes to prepare yourselves?” Sarcasm dripped from each word.

Despite the obvious verbal irony, Quincy responded as if the mage had been serious, “That would be nice.”

“Nice? You want me to be nice,” The mage makes a small gesture and the other figure steps forward, “I don’t know the definition.”

In a flash there were chains of ice reaching out and pulling Quincy, Rory, and Delphi towards the shortest person in the room, someone with pearlescent skin and light purple hair that gleamed when the light hit it. Of course, neither of those were the most striking feature.

No, the most striking feature wasn’t the person’s hair or skin or even their eyes, it was the obvious lack of a mouth. It slightly resembled Serivi’s eye, in that it didn’t look like a mangled area in which a feature was removed, it was just smooth skin.

Observations aside, the three were being pulled in towards the obviously hostile second party. Suddenly, the chains melted away and evaporated in seconds.

“Did you forget that I can control water, too?” Serivi’s eye and hands were lit up with little explosions of indescribable blue. The figure shook her, Quincy doesn’t actually know if this person is a female he’s just going to think of them as one, head and flicked a finger forward. Purple sparks flew in the suggested direction, morphing into lightning halfway through before smacking directly into Serivi.

“My little pet here doesn’t care if you can control water, she’ll just use electricity, after all it is water’s worst weakness. And Reshi, if you use fire, my ring will use water. She can just counter all of your moves, isn’t she lovely.” The fourth ring looked vaguely nauseated or just downright uncomfortable, yet she still followed all of the mage’s commands.

Reshi shot out with ultra heated energy, lightning, and the ring countered with a wall of dirt, Quincy gaped at the mess it made of his carpet. Ezmi threw the dirt from the wall towards the ring and it was just liquified by a good dosage of water; destroying the carpeting further.

“This is getting us nowhere,” Quincy whispered. The rings were all occupying each other and that left the three young humans and an all powerful mage. Said mage caught Quincy’s eye and winked as he started moving towards them. In that instant, Quincy knew, he’d have to pull a miracle to get out of this one.

He turned to Delphi, and commanded her to, “try and hold off that ring’s power.”

Once she seemed to be working at it, once the mage was around ten feet away, Quincy dove towards the rings and pushed all three to the side, to the window, to the fire escape. The rings caught on and moved out of the window.

“Wait. Turn into rings,” Quincy’s words were met by confusion, “just do it, I have a plan.”

And so they did; one at a time Quincy caught each as it fell. He pushed all three onto one hand and turned back towards the fight that wasn’t really a fight anymore. Seeing that the ring seemed powerless, well, not powerless just magicless, he silently thanked his best friend.

“Guys,” he yelled, “come on.” Delphi released her control over the ring and broke away to join Quincy. With a look, she climbed out the window and immediately started running down the stairs. Rory attempted to follow but was caught about two feet away by a net of gold and black. Quincy recognized it as the mage’s magic.

Carefully he looked inside himself for that orange energy that he’d felt just briefly yesterday. Once he’d successfully located it, it was like not knowing what the address of where you lived was, you knew where it was but you couldn't tell anyone exactly where, he pulled on it.

To anyone anywhere near him at the time, the change was obvious. Quincy’s green eyes were being overtaken by orange and sparks of the same color were flying across almost all of his skin. Focusing the new power he had, it almost felt like another limb, he pushed it towards the mage.

There was a flash able to be seen from miles away and the mage was stumbling backwards; subsequently freeing Rory from his web, “Hurry!”

Quincy was the last one out of the apartment, he pushed just a tiny bit of the energy into the window frame to hopefully buy them just a little more time.

“You can switch back now,” He said breathlessly. The three rings on his left hand did different things. One flamed and then formed into Reshi, another melted off his finger and formed the eldest ring, and the last seemed to crumble, it’s pieces coming together in the form of a tall, silver skinned woman.

“How,” Rory breathed out heavily, “do we get away before he catches up?”

“Magic,” Ezmi simply stated. One second they were hunched over, gasping, and the next they were floating for one moment and then sprawled across the ground of a small cabin, a middle aged woman staring at them carefully.

“Sorry,” Ezmi apologized as she stood, “teleportation is not an exact science and it’s also not really my strong suit.”

“You could have waited and I would have done it,” Reshi whined, rubbing his shoulder and lower back in turns, seeming to have landed badly.

“Time is precious?” Ezmi spoke uncertainly. It earned her a glare, two laughs, and two stares of weird likeness.

“F**k you,” the fire controlling ring said, inflecting each word, “At least you actually landed us in her house, it’s better than you usually do.”

“Reshi,” The woman who was sitting in a wooden chair interjected, “why have you come?”

“Why do I ever come, Gaharin? I need your help,” he said, seriousness rolling off of him in waves, “we need your help.”

“I can see that,” she looked them all over from her corner before continuing, “you have a young neutralizer.”

“I swear to god, if someone calls me a neutralizer again, I will not hesitate to kill them,” Delphi groaned desperately.

“But why? If that’s what you are?”

“It’s annoying! And repetitive! Don’t you agree with me, Rory?”

He nodded slowly, worried that his answer may end up being wrong, “See! He agrees with me.”

“Very well. Anti-mage, is it training you seek?” Delphi nodded once, definitively, “then let’s get started, this may take a while.” And Delphi didn’t know if she should be offended or not. Either way, she was pulled out of the room by the older, shorter, blonder woman.

“And I suppose that marks the start of our work, too. Reshi teach Rory the basics, he will benefit from your teaching style more, What with all your theories and words. I will teach Quincy as he seems to have more of a feeling and instinctual way of doing. And that is my favorite kind of magic user, the natural. Afterwards, we will switch for learning the application of magic, Quincy needs someone who is good with dueling measures and we both know you are better than I am at those.”

Rory and Quincy stood, slightly frozen, before hurrying after their respective teachers. After all, they couldn’t very well fail at following when they’d probably have many more chances to fail at other things, harder things.

“Wait! You never said what I was supposed to do,” Ezmi said, though any words were pointless given the fact that no one was there to hear them.

She sighed and then marched off in the direction Serivi and Quincy had gone, “What, I mess up a transport spell a couple hundred times and now I’m an unteachable? That’s so unfair.”

Now, their training lasted seven days and seven nights but not all of it was exciting. So, instead of detailed explanations of each lesson, here is a summary of the best.

“You can’t just light it on fire! What if I hadn’t been able to put it out? My hair is important, you know!” Rory screeched as he stroked a hand through slightly singed, wavy, dark chocolate colored hair.

“That’s the last lesson of basics, you need to not only know all of the theories, but also put them to use. Example; using your magic to put out my magic made fire. And to encourage you to do it quickly I set fire to something important to you,” Reshi spoke every sentence as if it made perfect sense and Rory just stared at him with an odd mix of amazement and pity.

“What?” Reshi asked defensively, fidgeting under the weight of Rory’s stare yet still maintaining his pride. Or maybe it was closer to arrogance.

“You are completely insane.”

“No, you are,” he quipped, quite cleverly.

Before that there was one more memorable lesson.

“So, the third rule is balance. Balance is the key to magic use and if you’re off even a little, it’ll kill you. So, if you stay balanced you stay in control,” Reshi spoke calmly. A flame on each hand as he confidently walked across a tightrope. Rory’s mouth fell open, there was no way he could do that.

“Your turn.”

“No, nope. Sorry but I’m gonna have to pass, yeah, it’s a hard pass. Thanks but no thanks. No bue-“

“Shut up and walk the rope or you’ll never move onto the last two rules.” Rory gulped and moved his way up the ladder leading to his teacher.

“You are f*****g crazy. This? It’s f*****g crazy.” Yet he still got onto the rope and started moving. It’s a testament to how terrified he was that he didn’t even notice the tiny yellow lightning bolts that were flying across his skin, fighting to keep him balanced. He made it to the end and fell forward onto the wooden planks.

“Good, though using magic to balance wasn’t supposed to happen until next lesson.”

It wasn’t only Rory who was learning the basics though. Quincy was, too. Just… in a slightly different way.

“So, first you have to feel the sparks,” Quincy nodded and tried even harder to just feel the magic in him, “now try to move them.”

And slowly, then all at once, the little orange bursts converged over his hands, forming weird gloves.

“That was quick, it took Reshi two days to learn that,” Serivi offered, mildly impressed.

“You said it yourself, didn’t you? I'm a natural,” Quincy replied, flexing his fingers and marveling at how the sunset colored coating moved, too.

Serivi watched him, “That is true. The next step of this is being able to move your magic anywhere, try your legs this time.”

And Quincy focused and waited and waited and then, finally, the sparks transferred themselves to his legs. He silently cheered. Serivi offered him a small upturn of one corner of their lips. Though on anyone else it may not have looked like much, on the one eyed ring, it meant that they were very impressed, pleased, or humored. Wow, Quincy has spent too much time with Serivi if he can read them that well already.

And then there was the time where Quincy had nearly killed Serivi, courtesy of Ezmi’s quiet approach.

“If I asked, would you be able to tell me how much magic you had left before passing out?” Serivi questioned. Quincy made a noise of uncertainty, but considered it nonetheless.

“I think so,” trying to ascertain the truth in his words, Quincy dove into the odd energy source and tried to estimate how much there was.

Whilst he was doing that Ezmi had stepped up to him, “Hey, Quincy! What are you two working on now?”

And immediately after she spoke, he spooked. Yelping, he lost control of the untapped magic and it, thinking he wanted to use it, surged up, out. Serivi had mere seconds to get out of the way before there was a huge sphere of burnt orange smacking into the ground where they used to be, leaving behind a singed patch of black.

Quincy’s eyes flew open as he pulled his magic back into himself, “oh, wow. What just happened?”

“Ezmi almost got me killed,” Serivi said, barely more emotion audible than usual.

“I’m so sorry,” Ezmi and Quincy said in unison. Blue hair was flicked back as Serivi just shook their head.

And lastly, there was Delphi’s training. Gaharin had enlisted Ezmi’s help to teach her. Her help being throwing out magic spells and gestures so that, eventually, Delphi would be able to stop them with pure muscle memory.

“These lessons won’t be what you’re used to, there will be no books or a specific order in which we learn things. We will mostly do practical applications, if you know how to break a simple spell you can work up from there,” the blonde woman spoke sternly, Delphi nodding in understanding every once in awhile.

“Okay, what do we start with?”

“Ezmi, make a flower grow right,” Gaharin pointed to a splotch of dirt in between her and her new apprentice, “there, if you don’t mind.”

The ring obliged and the woman was speaking once again, “Delphi, try and make it disappear, it’s made of magic so it should be within your abilities.”

Delphi sighed and stared. Focusing on the pretty little tulip swaying slightly in front of her. Soon her stare turned to a glare and she no longer thought of the flower as pretty, after all, how could Something this mocking be considered beautiful?

Slowly, the petals dried at the edges and started crumbling, it was an almost peaceful moment before the oddly colored flower, it was the green of Ezmi’s hair with a stem the color of her skin, dissipated completely. Delphi grinned in triumph and looked back at her teacher.

“Now try that with a full grown oak,” was all she received as congratulations. The next few hours were excruciatingly exhausting, Delphi had had to make many different kinds of foliage evaporate and even had to stop a field of grass from becoming taller than the mountains they were living on.

Then, once she finally finished for the day, she barely made it back to her room before collapsing, boneless, onto the soft quilts of the spare bed. This was not the first time, of course, she’d already had two days of this previously. Also, she had only seen two people in the last three days, Ezmi and Gaharin. And all of those interactions were purely training based.At this point, she was ninety percent certain that she would go crazy by the end of the week.

Fortunately, that prediction was incorrect, unfortunately, what actually happened could very well be considered worse. At first, it was just another installation of the hero’s new routine, but then, something was intruding upon their peace, well, as close to peace as they could get when they were still being hunted by a crazed mage.

Halfway through Delphi’s seventh lesson, Gaharin sat up suddenly with a panicked look on her face. Immediately, Delphi was on edge, nothing shook Gaharin and if something did, it must be dangerous.

Just as Delphi was really starting to freak out, the older anti-mage spoke, “Get those rings you all seem so fond of. Come down the mountain if they understand, if not, do not come get me alone.”

Delphi was shaken by how determined her teacher had sounded, but she nodded, nonetheless. With a gesture from Gaharin, Delphi took off in the direction she knew Rory was, she didn’t even attempt to find Quincy first because they changed training places almost every couple of hours.

“Reshi! Rory! Something’s happening, Gaharin freaked out and then she told me to find you guys,” she had said as soon as the flaming red hair came into view.

“S**t, that sounds bad,” they spoke in harmony, Rory’s voice one octave higher. The ring stood first, better instincts, and Rory followed, after the two older people had actually started making their way in a clear direction.

“Quincy and Serivi should be over here, Serivi may be constantly moving but they usually stick to a pattern. If I remember this right, your friend should be in the west mountain peak, go find them. I need to help Gaharin, now,” Reshi said, breaking off from the other two, “Ezmi should be around here somewhere. If you see her, direct her my way.” And with those words, the cat-eyed demi-human was gone.

“Okaaayyy, leave the two vulnerable humans to their fates, when there is definitely something going on, to help the badass wizard woman thing, seems like a good plan,” Rory snarked as he and Delphi continued towards the peak they were directed to.

Delphi said nothing in return, she was still having a mild meltdown about how awful this situation was turning out. Luckily, the run to Quincy’s position wasn’t too long. When they arrived it was to a huge ball of orange being hurtled towards them.

And then the exclamation, “Ha! I told you I could do it.”

Then, finally, they were noticed, “why have you come? Do you need something?”

Rory stopped, breathing heavily, in front of the one eyed ring, “Reshi told us to come get you, apparently Gaharin sensed something and sent Delphi to get everyone.”

Quincy, standing partly hunched over in exhaustion, stared blankly at the two new additions before speaking, “What?” He asked, intelligently.

“We need to go, quickly. If Gaharin was concerned, it’s serious. And she’ll need help, more than just Reshi’s.”

Delphi considered that but not for long, something deep down had already informed her that Serivi was correct. Coming to the conclusion that they should offer aid with haste, they flew- well, not literally- towards where they knew the two not-quite-humans had rushed to.

They knew they had arrived as soon as a bulking purple and white body came into view,”Is-is that a friggin dragon?”

“Seems so?” Quincy answered, unsure and only a tich bit shocked at this point, “at least, it looks dragony…?”

“No, s**t,” Delphi scoffed at the two, moving forward towards the battle in the process. She seemed slightly miffed but not actually scared.

“Hey,” Rory offered, lamely, “at least it's not a giant, poisonous, magic eating bug?”

“Shut up!” Reshi yelled, clearly exerting himself to distract the oversized lizard from the ostentation anti mage that was currently glowing bright silver, “And f*****g help, you idiots!”

Quincy snapped out of whatever weird trance he had been caught in and started glowing himself, burnt orange. It wasn’t quite reminiscent of fire until Reshi began glowing a vibrant red, too. Immediately, the dragon was focused solely on the two eldest boys. Supposedly, it was on purpose, but, even now, nobody really believes them.

Anyway, the huge reptile snorted and swung its muzzle around to face the new addition. Quincy cringed as it blew a gust of heated air, leaving Rory to assume that dragons don’t frequently brush their teeth. Which, he guessed, was not something most people knew.

A black tongue rolled out of a maw full of glistening, predatory teeth. Quincy didn’t even seem affected. He just rolled his eyes and struck out with small shards of tangerine magic. The little pieces sprinkled across the purple scales, seemingly ineffective. That is, until they sunk into the hide and started sizzling.

Large gold eyes flew open, wider than expected, as the animal swung a paw down towards Quincy, clearly shocked that he ended up being dangerous. Reshi, noticing the dragon was preoccupied, launched torrents of gleaming flame. The beast shrieked in pain and lashed out with its muscled tail. Reshi narrowly avoided being crushed under the appendage.

Gaharin let out a shout, “Get down!” Seemingly, she had finished her spe- Well, not a spell, more like the exact opposite.

In a flash of platinum, the dragon stopped moving, Gaharin fell to her knees, and Delphi rushed forward to catch her mentor before she fell face first into the mud.

“Is it dead?” Rory asked, feeling mildly useless.

“No, it’s,” Gaharin gasped heavily before continuing, “just asleep, dragons can’t be killed, we need to leave now. I won’t be able put that thing back to sleep if we accidentally wake it up.”

Delphi laughed lightly, “where are we supposed to go?”

Bitterly, Reshi added, “she says we need to leave but she has no idea where to.”

Quincy tiredly smacked Reshi’s bicep, “Stop the negativities, we need to figure this out. Why did the dragon even come, anyway?”

Gaharin shrugged and silence prevailed until Ezmi spoke up, “Dragons, they are attracted to magic. Sort of similar to spellgaunt but not quite. They covet magic, they do not eat it. You would think this would mean they were less dangerous but in my personal opinion it makes them more willing to fight for something they want as each piece of magic is something unique to them and not just food. It doesn’t help that their completely magic construction grants them immortality. Hence her putting it to sleep instead of trying to kill it.”

“Wait,” Serivi spoke quickly, quietly, “I distinctly remember seeing a dead dragon in my youth, before Reshi was born, our master was an avid warrior.”

“Another dragon was involved then, that’s the only thing that can kill a dragon, a second dragon.”

“Doesn’t really answer the question,” Rory snapped, petulant, “Why did it come here?”

“Too much magic in one place?” Reshi spoke, seemingly finding the entire conversation dull, arid, even.

Despite his lack of emotion, Ezmi responded all the same, though anyone with working ears could hear her disdain for Reshi’s attitude, “I hate to admit it, but that’s probably exactly why.”

“What’re we supposed to do, then? We can’t just turn the magic off!” Rory’s words grew louder as his face grew more, and more, concerned.

“I,” Delphi started, a knowing look sitting solemnly upon her graceful face, “think we need to split up,” Rory attempted to cut her off, angrily, but she just increased the volume of her words, “Just stop and think about it for a second! If we split up then there wouldn’t be so much magic in one place. And! The mage dude would probably have a harder time finding them, too.”

Quincy would deny it for the rest of his life, but at that moment, he panicked. He finally had a family, better yet, it was his actual family. And then one of them wanted to them split up? Well, it was definitely not something Quincy was emotionally ready for. But also, he saw how the plan would, in fact, be the smartest thing to do. It would award them more time to prepare and they would be in slightly less danger overall.

Sadly, his brain would not listen to reasoning. He sat down carefully, earning all eyes currently able to open, and started breathing heavily. Serivi looked on in what seemed to be confusion, no one could say for sure, and then turned a slightly concerned glare on Rory and then Reshi, when Rory showed himself to truly be the most oblivious of the group, as if prompting him to do something.

Reshi furrowed his brows and made an incomprehensible chuff of confusion, it could’ve also been disagreement, though. No one could tell, not even Reshi. Nevertheless, he slowly moved towards the sitting form of Quincy.

“Morta- Quincy, what’s wrong?” Reshi said in probably the most gentle tone possible. Quincy just continued raggedly pulling in breathes, eventually he seemed to calm down. The red head helped him up cluelessly, when prompted.

The group remained impossibly silent, save for the heaving gasps Gaharin was making, until Quincy seemed to come to a decision, “I think that’s a good idea, but we need to agree on groups and have a set meeting place slash time. And at that point, we’ll try our best to stop the mage on our asses.”

“Anyone have any ideas?” Rory didn’t notice, or he was ignoring, what had recently happened, voice showing no response to the show his brother accidentally put on.

“Maybe, it should just be the ring and the bearer?”

“But what about Gaharin?”

“She could go with Delphi and Ezmi, Del needs her mentor after all,” Rory added conversationally.

“No, Delphi, I can’t teach you anymore, you need to teach yourself. I can stay up on the mountain and make sure no one finds the dragon. It’s all I can do anymore, anyway. I don’t have enough energy to continue undoing spells,” the older woman rasped, “not even simple ones. Here, take this. It’s the rest of my aura. It’ll help, I hope.”

She pulled a small crystal from her torn pocket and squeezed it. Slowly, it seemed to absorb something, the previously clear stone turning glowing silver. Delphi took the offered piece of jewelry and smiled, eyes just a bit misty.

“Okay, that’s settled,” Quincy’s voice only shook once and he was proud, “we will meet back here in six months, no longer no shorter, exactly six. Down to the day. Let’s go.”

They packed quietly, all affected by the change in their own ways. Gaharin was passed out in her bed, having already said goodbye, though she insisted it wasn’t a goodbye as they would see each other again, soon. Quincy and Reshi left first, with a solemn ‘fair winds’ and a despondent ‘see you’.

The other two groups left in much the same fashion, all hoping they would see each other in six months. Two realized that it was unlikely they’d see each other afterwards, being dead puts a damper on visits, and fighting a crazy powerful mage can do that, you know, kill you.

“I just- I couldn’t take it anymore, he’s in my head,” Quincy speaks fervently, reaching out for the newly tanned hand across the table from his own, “I’m so sorry, I know we promised not to meet before the time but, I don’t think I would’ve lasted that long.”

Rory blinks hazel eyes, brows scrunching in seeming sympathy, before speaking to his obviously distressed brother, “It’s fine, you tried your best. I just wish you would have come sooner,” suddenly the voice shifts, all gentle undertones replaced with wrongness, “then I would been even less prepared, I would’ve been easy prey. Though, I guess it doesn’t matter, does it? The mage will kill us all anyways.”

Quincy jerked up from the sheets he had laid upon the semi frozen ground below him. He wasn’t really sure where they were, somewhere in Russia, or how they decided to go there. All he could think of was how long he had left of this torture. Two weeks, Reshi had told him yesterday, proceeding to show Quincy the art of conjury. They would need to start making their way back to Gaharin’s mountain top home, soon.

Especially since they couldn’t teleport, not with the mage inside Quincy’s head like he was. They would end up teleported to a random place facing a random peril. The duo learned that the hard way, ending up on a completely different continent in front of a hydra's, yes they existed, lair, when all Quincy had been trying to do was bring them to a campsite nearby. Not even Reshi could teleport, if he tried, a jet of black tinted gold flew from Quincy’s facial orifices and grabbed him without release. They tried this twice, it happened both times. Clearly, the mage had something against teleportation.

Anyway, that took magical transportation out of the question. Meaning they’d have to hike and smuggle their way back to the alps. It was a long trip that would normally take much longer than two weeks, but magically enhanced beings helped out a lot with quickening travel.

Reshi looked at Quincy from somewhere behind the large fire and between about four blankets, apparently, being a fire elemental, it was completely natural to hate the cold, at least, that’s what Reshi claimed. Quincy gave him a look that was easily, but only for someone that knew him well, interpreted as confirmation. Yes, the mage had appeared again, and yes, he had tried to get Quincy to seek out Rory once again. It wasn’t news, it was just disconcerting and majorly irritating at that point.

The entirety of the five and half months previous had been spent similarly. The mage psychologically antagonizing Quincy, Reshi trying not to think of all the bad things that could happen if the mage broke him, and Quincy tried not to think about how easily this would end if he just went to Rory or Delphi and told them what was happening. It was hard, so hard, but they just trained and trained and trained, and didn’t even contemplate their problems.

If they had they probably wouldn’t have lasted this long, and they certainly wouldn’t be even slightly prepared for the upcoming battle. Luckily, they can both compartmentalize quite well.

Neither really remembered the gruesome trip back to the alps, they were better off that way.

When the two arrived, it was to a large reptile lounging in front of the entrance. Not asleep but not quite awake. Immediately, they were on high alert.

“Do you think it’s awake? Do you think Gaharin’s okay?” Quincy asked, worry bleeding into every syllable. Reshi shrugged, acting nonchalant even though the tension in his shoulders was obvious.

“Guys!” Rory shouted, the dragon’s eyes blinked open, and Quincy was immediately summoning an entrapment spell.

“Stop!” Delphi yelped as she slammed into Quincy. Suddenly, he could no longer feel his magic. It was odd, kind of like losing your arm randomly, pain included.

“Agh, What the frick is this?” Delphi seemed to panic for a second before all of Quincy’s power was flooding back into him.

“I’m sorry, I just didn’t want you attacking the dragon. It’s going to help us. And I really didn’t mean to take all your magic, just the spell, but I guess I need a bit more practice.” Quincy was mildly surprised, since when did Del ramble? And then he thought of who she’d spent the last six months with and it made sense. Ezmi must be rubbing off on her.

“It’s fine,” he said, brushing himself off, physically and mentally, and when he actually looked around, fully, he noticed Rory sitting cross legged in the grass next to the purple body mass, and Serivi watching on in vague interest.

Ezmi was probably somewhere but he had to address what Delphi had said, “Wait, what? A dragon is helping us? But why? And how? A-and why? Didn’t it attack us?”

Taking pity on the shocked Quincy, Gaharin appeared out of seemingly nowhere to explain, “Dragons are intelligent creatures, extremely intelligent, probably more so than the majority of humans. And so, it’s not too surprising that they can speak our tongue. It explained that it wanted to help and only attacked because it was welcomed with hostile magic.”

Reshi glared at the large, apparently talking, beast, in disdain. Once again. It snorted and a little wisp of smoke cautiously floated into the open air.

“I think you already knew,” it said, “and I think you still hate us. What happened to make you this way, darling ring?” Serivi and Ezmi were once again reminded of the fact that there was only a short period of time in which they were apart, and apparently in that short time Reshi had found a new master and met a bad tempered dragon.

“None of your business, lizard.”

“Fine, fine. I have no desire to fight,” and then the creature turned its gaze upon Quincy, “You asked why. Well, I’ll tell you. Dragons come about when there isn’t enough magic on earth. We are a manifestation of all lost magic. When the necromancer disappeared he took most of his magic with him, leaving this planet to a deficiency, creating a dragon.”

“Normally once a dragon is created it would live until there was too much magic and it was absorbed back into the earth. But that mage,” the dragon spat the word like it tasted rotten, “absorbed one of my kin’s magic. You may not be able to kill one of us, but you can, given the skill, take our power.”

“Then how can you help if he can just take your power?” Quincy asked, quite confused.

The dragon blew out a large puff of smoke, “I am the original. He may be able to take the power of that newly made child, but he will not be able to take mine.”

Reshi just kind of gaped, he wasn’t embarrassed though, everyone else was gaping, too. Apparently, the dragon hadn’t exposed that fact, not previous to now.

Quincy seemed to take a second to think, and his face looked it, before speaking, “Do we have a plan?”

And, wow, don’t get Rory started ever again.

“Do we have a plan,” he mocked, “Of course we have a plan. This is me we’re talking about. So, in order to have this work we’ll need a way to let the mage come to us.”

Quincy spoke, strain evident in each word, “I can handle that.”

“Okay! First our leathery friend here will distract the creep, at that point the weirdly glowy ring needs to be dealt with. If she-he-they? Help the mage he might get free too soon. So, you three need to work together, teamwork, I saw how it held you all up. All you have to do to change that is to go at it at the same time. Delphi, once the ring is held off, take its power. You can do that, right?”

Once he received a nod in confirmation, Rory continued, “Then we need someone that can neutralize the distracted mage. Now, this is what I took the longest to figure out. It can’t be a ring as they aren’t made to gain power, learned that from Serivi, and it can’t be Del as she can’t hold that much power, yet. So, it was between Gaharin, Quincy, and me. At first, I thought Gaharin but then I remembered that she couldn’t de-spell anymore. Then there were two.”

“I was trying to decide who should take his power when I realized that I couldn’t do it. I don’t think I could control that much more power, so, that leaves us with you.” He finished, meeting eyes with his older brother. It was a short battle of dark green vs hazel. Quincy blinked first and Rory finished with a flip of his slightly longer than usual, wavy, wild, and chocolate colored hair.

A pair of brown eyes watched the two brothers carefully, before being distracted by the appearance of a completely different set of emerald eyes. It made Delphi remember the past few months, well, the better parts, at least.

Delphi sighed as she ponytailed the rest of her curly black hair, “when do we get to be done?”

“When you can make me be done,” Ezmi said, smiling all the while. Delphi swore that, if the silvery skinned ring had eyebrows, they both would’ve been lifted in joy at that point.

“Can we at least take a break?”

“Oh! Are you really tired? I thought you were just bored, if you want to stop we can, it’s fine, I wasn’t tr-“ Delphi cut her friend off, “I can go for a bit longer.”

Ezmi’s smile grew accompanied almost immediately be a forest.

“You could help stop global warming with powers like this,” Delphi snarked before slowly taking down a few trees.

“Let’s try something new,” The older of the two offered suddenly, “I’ll tell you which, you have to take down that exact one or you restart completely.”

Ezmi started pointing at trees once Delphi gave her assent to the drastic change in training. By the end of the day, both were exhausted. But, it was a good kind of exhausted, the kind you are when you spend a day doing something fun and fulfilling. It was nice.

“When are we going to do this?” Quincy asked, tearing Delphi from her reverie, “and why does everyone but us know it already?”

Rory blushed and Quincy distinctly remembers a nervous neck rub, “We, Uh, accidentally got here a bit earlier than planned.”

“How much earlier?” Reshi asked.

“A- uh- a week?”

“Rory! We agreed not to tell them!” Delphi yelled, all female fury and stuff.

“Sorry! I’m not good at lying quickly. Given a second and some eye contact that doesn’t burn through your soul, than yeah, I could lie better.”

Delphi huffed before continuing on in her usual silence. That specific silence told of judgement and the willingness to jump in if you threatened to f**k stuff up. It was a loaded silence, but it was Delphi’s.

Quincy’s face fell and Rory tried his best not to notice, not to realize that something he’d said had upset his brother. It was difficult but Rory’s always been good at fooling himself. Meanwhile, Quincy was pointedly not thinking about the fact that he actually could have gone back sooner; that he could have stopped the torment so much quicker.

A voice in the back of his consciousness whispered haughtily, “I told you to come back sooner, too bad you never listened.”

Which was unfair because yes, Quincy did his best to ignore the evil mage talking to him via telepathic link, but he could never stop listening, said mage wouldn’t let him.

“Just leave me alone!” He had shouted, not yet aware that the mage was serious.

“Now why would I do that? You’re incredibly entertaining. And since you and your friends escaped, for now, I’ve been so bored. And being bored is the worst, wouldn’t you agree?”

Quincy shuddered in horror and confusion and anger and basically all other negative emotions, it was just a matter of opinion. The mage started humming, it was a recognizable tune, Quincy just couldn’t place it, until he did. It was a lullaby his mother sung to Rory before putting him to sleep.

“Don’t! Don’t hum that, you’re ruining it, it’s not for people like you. It’s my mom’s, she made it up for Rory, don’t even try to take that. It’s mine now that she’s gone.”

“Oh, dear boy. Anything in your pretty little mind is mine now, too. You just have to understand. I know what your first foster dad did, I know what your social worker suggested, I even know what you think of yourself, and wow is that sad.”

“Shut up!”

And then he awoke to Reshi worriedly shaking him by the ankle. That was only the first time; it went downhill from there.

“Let’s do this,” Reshi sighed through a clenched jaw. Quincy nodded hesitantly, still shaken by his memories. Lastly, Rory shook off all his problems and smirked enthusiastically.

“Let’s do this,” he agreed.

And ‘do this’ they did.

It didn’t take long, Rory and Delphi and Serivi and even Ezmi had already been preparing, all they had to do was find a spell to steal someone’s magic. It was dangerous, most things are, and difficult, most things are, and downright deadly, as most things recently have been.

Quincy could just barely do it, he was only guessing, of course, but he was still pretty sure he could do it without dying. Maybe he’d be paralyzed for life or maimed beyond recognition, but hey, he was pretty confident he wouldn’t die. Delphi didn’t share his sentiment and remained on edge constantly.

Rory blocked out the risks and just focused on the pros if they succeeded. It was probably unhealthy, but, like his older brother, his ability to compartmentalize was scarily developed.

“Are we ready?” Rory asked, oddly quiet for once in his life.

“Are we?” Quincy echoed.

Ezmi bit her lip, Reshi snorted, Delphi looked just as worried as Rory, and the only affirmation came from an unexpected source, or really two unexpected sources. Serivi nodded as Gaharin smiled from her place out of the fray. Though it wasn’t much, it was enough encouragement to get them going.

It took mere seconds for everyone to get to position. The three siblings stood in an arrow formation, Delphi standing just slightly behind them. Rory was with Gaharin just in case he ended up being needed, he hoped he wasn’t. And Quincy stood, as confidently as he could manage given what he was about to do, beside their large reptilian ally.

“Whenever you’re ready, Quincy,” the dragon growled out, preparing for the fight in its own way.

For some reason, Quincy hadn’t dwelled on how he’d get the mage to come, because, yeah, the mage was in his head in all but wouldn’t he just know it was a trap? Conflicted, he still tried to project his location and company as far as possible.

“Oh, hun, I know it’s a trap. And I don’t care.”

And then, suddenly, there was a large rift opening in the middle of the mountain top clearing. The rift closed almost as soon as it had opened, leaving behind two supercharged magical beings.

“Mage,” another word the dragon practically roared out.

“Dragon,” The new addition responded, a smirk sprawled across his features, “I have to say, this is surprising.”

For a second, nothing happened, and Quincy briefly considered that this was just another trick pulled by the mage, that he was still asleep, that he still hadn’t returned to Gaharin’s home. The worry wasn’t long lived, the mage was laughing, the dragon moving, and the fourth ring was sprinting towards the others. Apparently, it wasn’t too concerned for its master’s safety, at the moment.

Every strike of purple armor or white spikes seemed to send the mage back a few steps. Every gust of lava hot air seemed to tire the mage. Every second that the fight went on, it looked more and more like the dragon would kill the smaller magical being.

But, of course, that’s not always how it works.

The mage started laughing, high and hysterical, “I already admitted that the original dragon threw me through a loop, but, really, I was not expecting this. Still, if you thought this,” he pointed towards the creature in question, it stopped moving, Quincy began to panic just a small bit, summoning his magic as fast as he could, “would stop me? Then you’re about to be more surprised than I was.”

The dragon tried to thrash and tear up the ground, it only succeeded in making the mage laugh harder; louder, “I thought I’d see how strong you were, I’ve heard about you, you know. ‘The original’, ‘The classic’, I used to wish I’d meet you, until, I realized something. I didn’t want to meet you, I wanted to be you. So, I became this. And, now, I don’t need my role model anymore. I’m stronger than you, now.”

The mage sneered, “You’re nothing now.”

The dragon writhed in pain as it’s scales started melting into the destroyed earth beneath them. The mage seemed to decide that, at that point, the dragon did not matter even a bit anymore. Instead, the man focused all of his attention on Quincy.

The gold stream of magic that had been terrorizing Quincy as of late slipped into the half green surroundings, slowly making its way back to the mage’s hand.

“It’s been bugging me.”

Quincy responded through his completely arid throat, “What.”

The mage clearly didn’t mind the lack of emotion, “that! You think of my as ‘the mage’, I have a name. It’s Linksi, I don’t really remember my last name, it’s been so long since someone used it to refer to me. First it was boy, then apprentice, now it’s ‘the mage’. I can’t say it hasn’t gotten more creative.”

Quincy nodded, all nerves alight, “Linksi.”

“See? It’s not that hard to say! Now, we have to rumble, correct? Well then, let’s go.”

About ten feet to the left, water and fire and leaves were flying every which way, swept into a dangerously quick forming cyclone.

“Teamwork, sure, like it’s that easy,” Reshi bitched, preventing the oddly colored ring from trying to hit Ezmi with multiple bolts of opaque lighting

“It is!” Rory shouted from where he was frozen, on looking, “stop acting like you’re the only one who can protect your family. They’re just as capable as, if not more than, you.”

“He is correct, I could help so much more than you are letting me, little brother.”

“Fine, fine, just help. Let’s do, uh, number three? That’ll work. I hope.”

As if a switch was flipped, the three started moving in sync the moves as familiar as their own names. Luckily, the necromancer had been about as interested in teamwork as Rory projected himself to be.

“Me,” Ezmi said for no apparent reason. Roots broke through the top layers of soil and wrapped the ring’s ankles. Within seconds they were receding but that was enough time of stillness.

“Me,” Reshi growled. The lightning that had been brewing came down in flaming red streaks, smacking into the ground along with the intended target.

“Me,” Serivi whispered. Water condensed from the surrounding air, covered the burning ring, and then froze. The ring’s eyes were wide open in surprise, or maybe pain, who knows?

“Take it’s magic before it breaks out,” Ezmi spoke quickly towards the darker skinned girl standing on in vague interest. She nodded, coming back to herself. Immediately, a thin line of light purple and pinkish white was flowing from the large block of ice. Until enough magic had been taken from the piece of jewelery. And the frozen humanoid blinked from existence, replaced by a pinky ring made of pearl and encrusted with purple alexandrite.

The ice melted away and Serivi walked forward to pick up the ring. They slid the little swirled piece of stone onto their finger, looking an odd mix of sympathetic and disgusted. With the threat gone, all four turned their attention to the half fight, half conversation, in front of them.

“In case you haven’t noticed, our magic is so close in color, I think I’m winning. So, are you going to give up? I haven’t decided if I’m going to kill you when I win, you have provided so much entertainment these past months.”

A razor sharp blade of gold and black flew past Quincy’s head, just barely slicing his cheek. Luckily, it hadn’t only been magic that Reshi had taught him, combat was also a recurring theme, so the could-have-been-deadly strike merely glanced him.

“I’m glad you had fun, god knows no one else did.” Strike. Dodge. Strike, parry, strike- feint, dodge. It was a flurry of orange and gold, too fast to even attempt helping either party. Not that there was really anyone left to help the mage. (Not that he needed it, because he definitely did not.)

“You believe in god? Really?” The mag- uh, Linksi asked, completely off topic, as he tightened his grip and caused the bolt that skimmed his cheekbone to fly back and strike him in almost exactly the same way as before. Blood dripped down both sides of Quincy’s face. He grimaced, Linksi smiled even wider than before.

“No, it’s just a saying,” he replied, striking out with two brightly colored fists. It didn’t seem to affect Linksi very much. Even when Quincy landed a solid uppercut to the mage’s jaw, all that happened to him was a large blossoming burn mark followed by a light snapback of his neck. Quincy couldn’t take any time to worry about winning because that would mean giving Linksi an opening, and he could not do that.

“Whatever you say, dear,” Linksi said mockingly. He chose to keep to the magic side of things rather than the physical side like Quincy had. The much more human of the two barely had a second to react before black speckles were flying through his hair, burning everything in their path, Quincy was diving before he could think, the action completely muscle memory.

He struck out his leg in a sweep, knocking into Linksi with quite a bit of force, and then growled, “don’t call me that.”

The mage started laughing once again, pulling himself up in an all too graceful motion, like falling was just a nuisance and not a severe disadvantage in a fight, “I can call you whatever I want, hun, I kind of own you. Or, at least your mind.”

Quincy pushed his spare magic into his calf, swinging his leg around and into a roundhouse kick. This time, Linksi actually stumbled to the left a bit. Though, he didn’t seem to be discouraged or worried, he actually seemed to grow happier and more energetic.

“Oh, this is fun!” He squealed like a child on Christmas. So slow that Quincy didn’t even notice until it finished, a sword materialized in the mage’s pale hand. Apparently, he had gotten tired of just magical attacks, so much for not actually using physical force.

“Yeah,” Quincy said, it was supposed to be sarcastic but he found that there was a small truth hidden in his words. He actually kind of liked dodging Linksi’s every move or swing. Shaking off that particularly disturbing thought, Quincy started summoning his own sword. It was light where the mage’s was heavy, thin where the other was wide, the only thing that connected them was the glittering blades that promised danger. Said blades met with a clatter, both of their arms shook with the reverb.

“I knew you’d come around,” Linksi smiled less manically than before, pushing hard on the sword, putting magic in as well. Quincy stumbled and that was enough for him to smack the hilt against the younger one’s head.

“Too bad I still have to kill you,” and when he said that he sounded remorseful. Quincy was struck with a sudden thought, one that he was surprised hadn’t come earlier, he was going to die here. He was going to lose and Linksi was going to kill him.

Maybe, he thought, but he still has to weaken the mage more, so that his friends may have a chance to kill him after Quincy’s tapped out.

“I know,” he said, green eyes sparking with determination and just a little bit of sunset-y magic.

“I know?” Linksi echoed, severely confused. From all the time he’d spent in Quincy’s head he’d expected the boy to deny his own mortality until he was no longer able to, he’d definitely not thought Quincy would agree with him. The declaration made him pause and stare into the orange infused eyes.

“It doesn’t matter, ‘cause if I die, there’s still them,” the wounded boy gestured towards the small crowd that was anxiously awaiting the results of the battle laid out before them, “they’ll kill you, if I can’t.”

And with that, Linksi understood, he may win the battle but he’s probably going to lose the war. In a fit of sudden anger, his magic struck out. A huge metal and glass cage appeared around the two of them, Linksi still roughly pulling on Quincy’s shirt collar.

“Why? Why are you willing to die for them? They left you with your thoughts and me, they left you and then met without you. I’d understand protecting the golden ring, Reshi, but those humans? They don’t care about you! They don’t care if you die here, so why do you care if they do?”

Gold was creeping into Quincy’s still slightly singed hair. He lifted his oddly steady hands and gripped Linksi’s wrists.

“Because I can. And… what else would I do? I don’t really matter when it comes to anything else. So, if I can help them now, even if I die in completing it, than who am I to throw away the chance? Why wouldn’t I? And. Maybe, if I die, they’ll remember me and tell my story.”

The mage stood, pulling a strangely serene Quincy with him, “you stupid, stupid, human. I used to think similarly, but guess what? My mother sold me when I was eight. She sold me to an old witch for three pieces of silver, the witch wanted ingredients. I barely made it out alive and then I met this necromancer, the great sorcerer of the ages. And he took me in, I thought I had finally found a home. But no, he kicks me out as soon as I show promise. So, why, why ever would anyone do what you are doing so easily in a world like this?”

“I don’t know? Maybe, I am stupid. It doesn’t matter, I’ve already made up my mind.” And then Quincy head-butted the mage. Linksi stumbled back in shock. Quincy took it as the opening it was, just as Rory always did when they were younger. He placed his hand on the mage’s forehead and started whispering the spell, his other arm and all extra magic working to keep Linksi still.

“No! Just kill me, d-don’t take this from me, it’s the one thing worse than losing to- to you,” he spat, struggling as hard as he could in Quincy’s hold. A flash of tangerine was all that warned of what had happened.

The iron and glass melted away, revealing a sobbing Quincy curled around himself, wrist to his chest protectively. Reshi approached quickly, barely noting that there was no longer an evil looking mage laughing hysterically about something or other.

“Quincy.” It was a statement not a question. The boy continued bawling but he also lifted his head to look towards his friend. Reshi drew in a heavy, ragged breath when he saw Quincy’s eyes, one was green but… but the other was gold with little flecks of black.

“Reshi, I think I did it, aren’t you proud?” Quincy laughed wetly. Reshi’s brows furrowed and he nodded.

“We need to get you up,” he whispered to the still crying young adult in front of him. Reshi held out a clawed hand for Quincy and he pulled when it was taken. Quincy stumbled into Reshi’s waiting arms, not minding the fact that he certainly looked the part of damsel in distress once again, because that didn’t matter. He just saved the day, heck probably the whole rest of his life, and if that didn’t make him the hero than he didn’t know what would.

Rory rushed over as soon as the steam and sparks had settled, Delphi following closely, “is he okay?”

“Okay enough to answer his own questions,” Quincy said with one rough hack, “I was right.”

“About what?” Ezmi asked from her place between Gaharin and Serivi.

“The spell didn’t kill me, it may have wounded me severely but,” he coughed, “I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

That got a weak chuckle from Reshi, which Quincy smiled at because when they’d first met all the cat eyed ring did was curse and insult humans.

“About that,” Rory started, “what happened to the mage wasn’t the spell just to take his magic?”

“Well, I can imagine that he was old, very old, and if his magic, which was keeping him young, was suddenly taken… maybe he just ceased to be?” Ezmi guessed.

“Wrong, dear. We need to discuss these people jumping to conclusions,” a voice whispered into Quincy’s mind.

“Only his body, he’s still right,” Quincy tapped the side of his head where a long piece of straight brown hair hung, covered in blood, “in here. Probably always will be.”

“Oh,” Reshi let slip. He knew how hard having the mage in his head was, and now there was no way to stop it, now… it was very permanent.

“Can they stop calling me the mage? It’s about as annoying as it is currently untrue.”

“He’d like you all to stop jumping to conclusions,” Quincy quipped, laughing lightly at the deadly mage residing in his head, “and he has a name, apparently you should use it now that he’s not really a mage anymore.”

“So?” Delphi asked, ignoring the obvious question. Why was Quincy even telling them this? Why didn’t he seem more devastated? Which, while it was possible, seemed hard to imagine considering blood was running down Quincy’s face along with tears and magic burns littered almost all of his exposed skin.

“So what?” Serivi said, at the time no one knew why but given a certain almost of hindsight it was quite obvious, they had cared about what was being said.

“His name, what is the no-longer-a-mage-mage’s name?” Delphi clarified.

“Go on, tell them.”

Quincy just breathed for a second, lip wobbling and forehead wrinkling, “Linksi.”

And then he realized something, having Linksi in his mind wouldn’t be as bad as last time because... he understood him now. He understood even if he didn’t totally agree.

“I knew you would.”