The City of Nerris

"I suppose I should help him out," Suzuki stated as she walked slowly over to where Renjou limping all the way due to her injured rib cage. She took in everything he said as she watched him put up a barrier around Satosha. When that was done she knelt beside Satosha and turned her head towards Nicholas. He stood silently now in a spot where active magic was nowhere in sight.

"Is it safe to have that guy near us?" she whispered to Renjou taking in the glare from Nicholas's fierce eyes. Her injury began to bleed again and she knew if Nicholas did attack them she would not be able to move away from him.

Nicholas voiced, "I don't know what you're talking of because I can't hear you from here, but do know that I can easily take you down. The only thing that's stopping me is that I've been given no orders yet. You better hope my master doesn't give me any or you'll die where you stand. I don't want to sound too threatening, but when you have a boss that can do what Halbert Zador can it's not wise to disobey him. I don't think Master Zador has any plans to kill you yet, but I'll be standing here on stand by just in case."

Suzuki ignored Nicholas's warning not caring anything for it at the moment. If he attacked she was sure this new person who'd stepped in for her and Satosha could stop him. On a second glance of the red haired boy she could tell that he was certainly around her age and therefore not probably lying about being from her school. She decided to ask two questions to him and said, "If Satosha is like this how is that other person you were trying to help? If Satosha is like this is that other person you helped much worse, what about the school is it okay?"

“My apparent desire to get you killed?” Aurelie looked at Miraze in mock-offence, or at least mostly mock-offence. “M... Alice, my job is to make sure you don’t get killed.” Aurelie decided not to point out that her reason for a codename was to avoid giving away information, and that she doubted that Miraze was her real name. “That’s part of why I got us out of there. That, and to give us an advantage, of course.”

“As for what I want...” She trailed off, thoughtfully. “If the Black Mages are going to win, then I want it to be you who wins the scrabble for power at the end. You’re not driven by your issues the way they are... you’re not crazy. Guys like that... want to wreck the world. Or maybe cackle over it, then realise they don’t know what to do next.” She smiled at Miraze warmly. “You don’t want to wreck it. You want to change it. Cast out the crap so that what's left is a better place to be.”

She considered thoughtfully, as lamp-posts flicked by outside. “Perhaps it’s more like Order and Chaos? Order seeks to preserve... whereas Chaos seeks to change? It just worries me that we all know we’re supposed to fight, but not why. Maybe the first mages years and years ago made it like that – ” She shook her head, getting back on track. “The question is, how long we can keep out of the war before being forced to pick a side. I don’t know if the White Mages would allow a Destruction mage to join them, even if you decided you wanted to.”

At last she lifted up her smartphone and got to work. Outside, the neat, box-like houses and clean streets indicated that they were passing through suburbia. Small gardens boxed by hedges or flowerbeds fixed with pretty fences, painted in nice colours. Every so often a leafy tree surrounded by railings or a patch of green grass would flash by. “If you want to change it,” Aurelie said softly, lowering her phone and looking out the window, “to make this a world where people have freedom, where they think... how do we do it?”

"Are you thinking about how I don't need to change my name?" Miraze asked, tilting her head slightly to acknowledge the momentary confusion in Aurelie's eyes. " Its because I've traveled quite a bit, and I'm known as Miraze to everyone who has ever met me. Even though Miraze wasn't my birth name, I am and will always be Miraze. That's why I don't want to give out that name, because even if I am the one who named myself that, its already my 'real' name now. "

Miraze stared outside as Aurelie - Dusk - went on about changing the world. She didn't understand things like that ...

"I really appreciate the fact that you think I could actually change the world. But to tell you the truth, I ... really wouldn't know what to change. I don't understand things like that. Most people aren't all that concerned with things like freedom. They just want their own greed satisfied. There are some, of course, who want freedom and a better world, but really, things like that are just high flung words the majority of the world wants nothing to do with it. You can never have real freedom, no matter how much you try. Even if I tried, I would just mess it up in a new way. I'm not half as efficient as you think. If we change things, they will eventually just turn back to what they were."

She sighed as the suburb came into view. Smiling a bit, "But. I agree that the way things are aren't really very satisfactory, at least to me. Even if people will go back to their own hypocritical ways eventually, I still want to change it as much as I can. I'm not aiming for the top, but it would be nice if we could find someone who is really eligible for that position. In that case, I am willing to lend my full support to them. And I wonder about that too. Whether we can work with the White Mages or not ... well, the best way to know is to ask them, I suppose. But I don't want to run the risk of being noticed anymore than we already have been right now. Maybe we should scout some more before deciding and approaching."

The girl and the Spell-link were talking to him. He frowned in annoyance but quickly shook his head and instead put a grin on his face.

“Well, Ossan!” He shouted at the Spell-link. “Never knew you’re a chatter box. But I don’t give a shit whether you want to stand there all day or not. And you.” He pointed at the girl. “Stop with all of the Q&A session. Didn’t you realize among all of the Spell-links and Mages around he’s the most critical one? He has internal bleeding because of his broken rib. A little late and this Satosha guy can say goodbye to the living world.”

He took out his cell-phone and dialing the ambulance. “Beside, my magic has limit. I can’t heal everyone in sight.” He mumbled quietly.

Indeed, the amount of magic he could perform was limited because of his half–contract state with Sirsi. If only he was a little braver and asked Sirsi to be his full fledge Spell-link. He shook his head, no time for grieving that now. To cope up with it he always carried a high compressed magic in the form of his hair pins but he never wore more than four of it. Carried it too much would damage the flow of magic inside human body.

The phone was connected and he talked to them, explaining the condition plus the state of the school, yelled at them for hurrying up and brought the damn ambulances. Several time expletive words came out from his mouth before he closed the phone. He sighed and observed the wrecked state. Fool Mages and their stupid battle, and he thought the evolution supposed to clean any stupid genes. Guess they missed out a few.

(sorry double post)

"Do you mean he's the most critical one to me?" Suzuki shot back at Renjou. She did not like how he had stood her to stop with all the Q&A she and Satosha could have died, Satosha could still die and it would be her fault because she still felt she didn't have a clue what was going on. "I'll stay quiet about this since you're the magic expert but I don't like what you've just said to me." Suzuki added letting him see her nose twitch and eyes squint. She wanted him to see her anger. She put on a frown for added effect in that regard.

Then she looked down at Satosha and said, "It'll be okay, hopefully I have healing magic... You'll be healed right here and now before the hospital's ambulance's arrive and then you can tell me how to get out of this mess permanently. I don't care now about who killed my father if it's going to lead me into situations where I would possibly die." she directed this at Satosha but she was close enough to Renjou that he could still hear him.

NIcholas just stoopd there and watched. Renjou and the girl could definitely not kill him with their current abilities, at least he felt so, and they were not a threat to him or his master it seemed. Nicholas turned and looked around for his master Halbert. "Sir, I wonder if we should leave here or wait and see what this girl does." he thought to himself. The police would be coming soon with medical personal, so he needed to leave soon. A guy with swords in the middle of an alley was definitely not a good looking prospect. He could, for the heck of it, wreck the coming ambulances once they arrived and then cause Satosha to die from a lack of medical care, but that would be dishonorable and would not work in Halbert's favor. Even if managed to erase all the memories of every normal person present at this scene the hospital that sent the ambulances would wonder what happened to them and there was the fact that the girl and this white magician would defend themselves, if they could.

(Hey, when did Sirsi arrive on the scene? I don't remember here being here at the scene.)

Aurelie nodded slowly. "Maybe we should think about stopping the war. That'd be a start," she said. "It's not going to make people live brighter lives, but at least they won't be at so much risk of death and suffering." She considered for a moment, toying with her phone again, and then said. "All right. I'm going to need your help here. You're going to need to keep a lookout and maybe cover us with illusions if necessary. And... I'm going to have to kick down a fence for this plan. I'm telling you now so you're not surprised. Hopefully we can make amends for it later." She grinned a little wryly at Miraze, waiting her approval.

"That would be a start. At least people who have nothing to do with this won't have to be hurt anymore." Miraze agreed, remembering the girl who had died. She might not actually care about people - six billion worms living and dying without any consequence - but it was unfair to them. Especially the expression on her face ... frozen into a dazed smile as she plunged to her death ....

"Umm ... I hate to tell you this, but I am probably going to need your energy for that. Apparently my own isn't strong enough to elude the level of Mages here, not to mention ... " she trailed off, glancing meaningfully at the blood covered handkerchief clutched in her hand.

She snorted softly at the mention of kicking fences down.
"Should have seen that coming."

Miraze usually didn't like being dragged into things, and she disliked going along with others even more, but Aurelie was smart enough that she could leave all the worries to her.

Besides, the real reason she had decided on Aurelie as her Spell Link was because she was interesting, and Miraze wanted to see how she ended up. If this was what she chose, she wouldn't interfere with her choice. After all, the consequences won;t be borne by her - even though Aurelie was at this moment inseparable from her, she wasn't going to stay with her forever. That was the promise she had made to herself. She would always be free. In fact, if there hadn't been a Mage after her, she might have chucked all this Mage-Spell Link business and gone her own, free way, and Aurelie probably knew this, even though she had never asked, and Miraze had never voiced it aloud.

Klaus stood there, with his arms crossed, as Vlad was jumping from tree to tree. He heard there was a word for that. Parkour, was it? It didn't matter. Vlad had told him the point of this exercise. He said that he hadn't quite mastered all his spells yet, so in the meantime, he might as well train physically, just in case he gets into a situation where he couldn't use his powers.

Klaus was confused, impressed and disappointed in his partner. He obviously had the power to become feared, and even, depending on how you view it, a god among men. The power to erase objects from existence. To control the very composition of space. And yet, he didn't utilize all of that potential. He could of killed Satosha, Suzuki, those two girls, everyone back by that building, with probably just a snap of his fingers. And yet, he chose not to because he thought that "they didn't deserve it". Was he right? Could people who opposed them with a fiery passion, a lust for justice and revenge, be spared? Or should they all be annihilated on the spot, for trying to stop the goal that the black mages wanted to achieve? Is life really that precious?

Those questions circled around in his mind as he began to recall the day he murdered people back in Germany. He remembered dark rooms, all splattered with blood, covered in corpses with destroyed body parts and familiar faces. He remembered taking the blood and writing various phrases and words that seemed disturbing to all but him. The most noticeable, however was "Diese Welt muss gereinigt werden. Ich wurde gewählt, um die Schüler der Schnitter sein. Gemeinsam werden wir die Verbreitung des Glücks des Todes", loosely translated, it means "This world needs to be cleaned. I was chosen to be the disciple of the Reaper. Together we are spreading the happiness of death". He was proud of his bloody accomplishment, as well. So was his uncle, surprisingly. His uncle saw him covered in blood, a psychotic look in his eye, surrounded by corpses. His uncle cackled, and even gave him a hug. Perhaps insanity was a common trait in the family. being hunted down by the German government, him and his uncle sneaked onto a boat on its way to America.

However, there was something unusual that happened right before they ran away, Klaus put down a scythe. The very same scythe he can transform into. See, some spell links don't have weapons, they become them. And they're not born like that either. A spell link of that kind has to choose a weapon (or weapons), and infuse said weapon with their life force, and reabsorb that life force, thus also absorbing the weapon into their soul. Some people may think that type of spell link is weak and useless. However, some view it as the ultimate test of trust between a mage and their spell link.


"Vlad, how much longer do we have to stay out here?" Klaus asked. "Well, I'm tired now, anyway. Let's go visit my brother." Vlad replied.

They teleported to a beat up old house. "Home sweet home." Vlad laughed, as they went inside into the living room. "Yo! Damian! Where you at, broski?" Vlad shouted with a laugh. They stood there in silence for about 30 seconds, then they heard someone taking slow steps down the stairs, then taking a big sigh. "Damn it, lil' bro... Why do you always have to bother me on my break?" his brother said. A young man, about 21, stepped down until he reached the floor. He didn't have the white hair and red eyes that Vlad had. Instead, he had short black hair and golden eyes, and he had a black snow coat with a dark gray fur fringe on the hood. He also had black jacket underneath, zipped up, and a white stripe across. He had dark gray jeans with black sneakers. He had similar facial structure to that of Vlad's.

Klaus tensed up. He could sense a strong aura of magic around this man. Could he also be a mage? Were Vlad's magic abilities hereditary?

"Hey Vlad. Who's this kid?" Damian asked, looking at Klaus, who stared at him in return. "This is Klaus. He's my new German friend. And he's also my spell link." Vlad chuckled. Damian chuckled back. "Ah, so you finally got yourself one. I like the getup, kid." he replied. "Hello. And thank you. I assume you are a mage as well?" Klaus asked. "Yup. It's a family tradition. We all decided to learn it, back when we lived on the streets. Now that we sorta have a home, we just use it for fun." Vlad's brother told him.

"Hey, I got into a fight before." Vlad laughed. "That's what that was, eh? I'm impressed. I heard the explosion all the way over here." Damian chuckled. "Show him what you can do, Klaus." Vlad told Klaus and he turned into a scythe and back again. "So you're one of those spell links. Interesting. I've heard of you guys, but the chances of meeting your kind are very rare. Anyway. So, did you win that fight, bro?" "Well, more or less. I kicked his ass, but let him live, in case he wanted a rematch. You know, Satosha?" "Satosha Quinton? You took him on?! I remember that kid. He was such a douche. Strong, but a douche. Nice job, little bro. Although I wish you could've killed him while you had the chance, to show him how badass the Scythus family is, but I digress. We all do things differently, right?".

Klaus studied Damian. Clearly, his moral code wasn't exactly the same as his younger brother's.

This was a quiet area, for the most part populated by moderately well-off pensioners with small, well-ordered homes. Aurelie found what she wanted soon enough. One such home, painted white and with a neat garden in ordered rows, with an elderly lady gardening outside it. Sighing inwardly, she readied herself.



Phyllis Brimer enjoyed the fresh air. Even after her husband had died, weeding was still a chore that she kept to firmly as her own. She knew that a lot of the other ladies on Cherry Close employed part-time gardeners, but not Phyllis.

Something about the earth, the fresh loam and the digging, made her feel young again. Made her think of happier times. She busied herself contentedly, and then was surprised when a shadow fell over her.

She looked up to see a ruffian blocking her view. A young man. He looked a bad sort, but what was most noticeable was his eyes. They were bright red, his hair a vivid white. An albino then, she supposed. There was a hideous maroon tattoo all over his right cheek, like a J’, and it stretched as he grinned at her.

Then he started kicking down her newly-painted fence. Deliberately. Staring at her, as if challenging her to say anything. “What are you doing?” she protested, tremulously. Hoping that he wouldn’t notice her trembling. “What the – ”

He smirked. Then he drew a knife, which he spun idly in his fingers. She screamed, and began to back off for the safety of the house.

Slamming the door shut and the safety latch on behind her, Phyllis steadied herself. Somehow it barely seemed real. Outside she could hear the vandalism and destruction continuing. The cops. She had to call the cops. She lifted the receiver, and dialled 911.


It took longer for the patrol car to arrive than Aurelie had expected. Presumably they still had their hands full dealing with the day’s events, and were a little short on numbers. She watched as one of them got out, the other remaining in the car.

As the old lady opened the door for the first cop, Aurelie stared hard and concentrated on the second.


Officer Beckley remained in the car. By the sounds of it the punk had long gone, but it wouldn’t be a smart move to leave the car unattended so that Vlad could take a joyride in it. Honestly, Beckley was actually surprised. He’d threatened the old lady, sure, but from what the dispatcher had told him he hadn’t even made the effort to rob her.

The kid had been just a regular dumb punk until a couple of years ago. During one arrest he’d pulled a gun... the cop who’d survived had sworn that he’d been searched already, but somehow there’d been an explosion. They hadn’t been able to prove it was him. Any judge would throw out a case where the officer at the scene had said on tape that the kid had been stripped of weapons and cuffed...

Since then he’d been caught up with a few times, and each time he’d been able to disappear without trace, losing his tails with ease.

Not that he, Chris Beckley, had ever met the kid himself. Actually, he supposed he’d better check the records. He moved over a little to better access the computer, then brought them up...

Yeah, there was the last mugshot they’d been able to get of him. ‘Scythus, Vladimir. Wanted for...’ A whole string of offences there. Wanted for questioning too. Lived with his older brother Damian, a bastard far worse than Vlad was. No cop wanted to go pick either of them up though, in case they were the ones that got killed in some mysterious... accident. He looked through the files. Usual haunts... former gang allegiances... currently registered for schooling at Oakley High?

That, Chris remembered, was the school that had been blown up. Regular set of delinquents there. His Julie, and he smiled as he thought of her with her pretty blonde hair, his Julie went to Everwood. He’d never allow her to even speak to the kind of kids who went to Oakley. Not that they were all bad, he had to admit. The few ruined the place for the rest of them, though.

He suddenly focused, and stared at the screen. Then he began to punch in a new requests.

S – A – T – O – S – H- A.

Oh, yes, he thought, as the records were flagged up. Quinton, Satosha. The kid went to Oakley too. He’d been in trouble a few times for fighting, nothing serious. Satosha struck Chris as the kind of kid who was a decent sort, a guy who could maybe straighten out with the right support. Still, he did have enough of a record to be on the system.

I – M – M – I – G – R – A – N – T R – E – G – I – S – T – E – R

G – E – R – M - A – N

K – L – A – U - S

Green card registration. Chris was... sure he’d heard the name before, maybe someone at the station had mentioned it or something. It was important. Definitely. There. Gemetzel, Klaus. Also registered at the same school and residing with his uncle. Questions over their residential status, which had been queried but not resolved.

Suddenly Chris shook himself mentally. Good that he’d checked on the details. His partner was coming back. Maybe they could go file the report and then grab some doughnuts.



“All right, we’re done here,” Aurelie said to Miraze. She felt bad for the old lady – it’s not like the fright had been good for her heart or anything – but it had been necessary. They could always send her money later, or even try and repair the damage. And it had been useful. Her head ached again, from the intensity of the control she’d needed for her dream-sharing. Reading was difficult in dreams, so she’d had to fade in and out to allow him to look at the records and then sink back into another dream. It would have taken forever with him typing in at the speed of a sleepwalker.

“We have names, addresses, convictions... even phone numbers. Old ones anyway, for all of them that picked up a record at least. We know they all went to the same school. Apparently it was blown up this morning, which might explain the gathering of mages we saw.” She passed over the notes she had made on them all. Maybe later they could get back to their apartment and transfer them to a proper computer rather than read them off the cramped phone screen.

The other participant had been surprisingly easy to uncover. In fact, Aurelie had thought she’d heard the name Zador before, and a quick search on her smartphone during the taxi ride had confirmed it. There was an article in Forbes describing him as one of the state’s most eligible bachelors. Another, a little more recent, hinting at his possible engagement with some socialite. Minor articles, for the most part. Still, that made him rich, with all the attendant power. He probably lived on some big estate in the better part of town, with serious security. Big gates, fences, patrolling guards, dogs. Whilst she hadn’t been able to dig up anything on Nicholas, his whole demeanour had screamed ‘professional bodyguard’. Presumably Zador was his employer as well as his mage.

‘Lord Zador’. She snorted. What a phoney. What an affectation.

The only person she had no information on yet was the Asian girl. It was possible that she’d be on some networking site, but she didn’t know the second name and she hadn’t spotted her picture on all the regulars.

Since Aurelie had become Miraze’s Spell-link, they had been living kind of outside society. Well, insofar as possible - few people were ever really zeroed in this day and age. At the moment they paid cash in hand to an old guy who rented cheap, crappy apartments, no questions asked. Sometimes they were on the streets, usually not, but they were always people who avoided the authorities...the electronic and paperwork trails that most people left behind. With Miraze’s shadow magic to disguise them when necessary and the money Miraze kept safe, they never even had to give their real names.

And neither of them went to school. Miraze had been a wanderer for a while now, from what Aurelie knew, and both of them caught up with home study whenever they could. Occasionally some obnoxious wealthy guy would sudden be overcome with generosity towards a huddled beggar, so they never starved. Aurelie even had a pre-paid credit card under a fake name, that she’d gotten registered by a businessman who honestly remembered it as legitimate. She topped up herself when it was needed.

All in all, good work. And yet there was something still niggling at her.

The dead girl.

Bonnie Payton.

Aurelie still had the purse that she’d taken from her before she was vaporised. She’d left the phone. She hadn’t wanted to take it and keep any sort of link to the people who would miss her. She hadn’t even wanted to touch the body, except that it had been necessary.

...Well, the dumb punk had evaporated it now anyway. Aurelie had looked her up too, found her on her social networking sites. No memorial pages for her. She’d be a missing person instead, her friends stopping leaving their comments, her body never even found as life went on without her...

Why had Bonnie Payton died?

Miraze stirred a bit as Aurelie's voice broke through her daze.

“All right, we’re done here,”

She still refused to take anymore energy than strictly necessary, and with her condition, her head was swimming from keeping them hidden.

“We have names, addresses, convictions... even phone numbers. Old ones anyway, for all of them that picked up a record at least. We know they all went to the same school. Apparently it was blown up this morning, which might explain the gathering of mages we saw.”

Blown up ... ?

"That's funny ... I didn't think any of them could blow up a school ... and the dark-haired guy doesn't look like he would, it probably wouldn't be enough fun for him without playing around a little first." she mumbled, remembering how he had left the two helpless people alone. "And Zador wasn't there, was he? I heard the noise of the school blowing up, and he was in the building by then. If he had tried to blow something that big up from this distance, I'd have felt the wave. Does that mean another Black Mage is here?"

How troublesome ....

She leaned back, rolling up the windows of the black sedan she had conveniently 'borrowed' of her own volition. True, Aurelie hadn't asked for a sedan, but hey, she was going to give it back as soon as they were done here, and she would like to be at least a bit comfortable while coughing her guts up, thank you very much.


She heard Aurelie snort beside her, and decided not to ask. It was kind of hard speaking right now. Leaning her head on the cool glass of the window, she stared outside, wishing they could compensate the lady they had scared in some way. Money ... they were a bit tight on money right now, and probably would be, considering how both of them had used up so much energy on this mission, and for that exact reason, she couldn't use her illusion on the poor lady either.

"Back to the dump?" she asked, sounding much better than she felt. She might have preferred resting a little before driving - especially as she was driving - but waiting longer meant shadowing the car longer.

Speaking of which ...

Rolling down the windows to make sure no one was watching, she lifted the illusion from the car, making it visible. Even if someone saw it now, they would only find a car registered to a prestigious rental service stalling. Except they hadn't really 'hired' it, but Miraze was pretty sure the owner ( who she had bypassed the clerk in favour of - she wouldn't want him to get into unnecessary trouble with his employer, would she now? ) could afford one little car for a little over an hour rent-free.

The only downside to this neat little arrangement was that they would have to go back to that apartment after this. The place, no offense meant to the man who rented it, was as dingy as dingy could get. It was neat, but nonetheless a dump, with only one bedroom that she had given to Aurelie, and a little sitting room. Thinking of it only reminded Miraze how much she hated these tiny boxes that seemed to have sprung up during her absence. Even living on the streets was better than this.

Vlad admired his brother. He thought he was really the only one who understood him. Over the years, when Vlad began learning how to use his magic, his older brother acted as a mentor to him. Even though they both had different powers. Damian had the power to make things from his imagination and the imagination of others become part of the real world. Also, he knew some illusion magic, and the ability to animate objects. And the last technique, he could make it difficult or easy for someone to imagine something, basically replacing or erasing memories. One could argue that the magic he knew was about as constructive as black magic could get. And, unlike Vlad, he often sought to severely harm anyone who got in his way, whereas Vlad would fight someone and probably leave them alone. Vlad had heard his brother say that his spell link had something to do with guns. Whether he or she was like Klaus(ability to transform), like Nicholas (ability to use weapons) or possibly even both, was unknown.


"Well, lil' bro, I'm bored, what about you?" Damian asked. "Same here, bro. Hey, wanna go sightseeing?" Vlad replied. His brother chuckled in response. "Sure, why not?"


And with that, Vlad teleported them to the top of a nearby building. Vlad extended his arms to his sides, and breathed in air, with a sigh and a chuckle. "Ah, I love the fresh air. Don't you?" He said. He surveyed the area. Things looked small from his angle, but big enough to make out some details. Klaus walked up next to him. "Vlad, do you think anyone sees us?" Klaus asked. Vlad laughed loudly. "Well, I would be disappointed if they didn't! Hello Nerris! You all look like ants from up here, you know?!" He cackled.

Klaus looked over to Damian, who sighed, chuckled, and shook his head, as he was laying down on the roof.

“I’ll stay quiet about this since you're the magic expert but I don't like what you’ve just said to me.”

Ren’s grin got wider along with her frown. It was good she wasn’t a cry-baby-and-pathetic girl. She was angry. He could tell by the obvious spark of her magic and the more obvious expression she put.

“Heh. You’re interesting.” He chuckled lowly. She talked more but his attention was elsewhere.

The faint sounds of the ambulances were heard. They were still pretty far from the school but he could hear them alright. He wondered why they let a bunch of sluggo worked in the hospital. Even though normal human couldn’t hear the sound for such a distance his Psycho Kinesis power managed to enhance his senses a little. And with that he also heard the all too familiar foot steps which only belonged to the person he least expected to meet right now. Shit! Kami-sama do you hate me that much? He wailed inside his head before the foot step sound stopped right behind him.

“I assume this ‘absurd situation’ isn’t your doing, Shirogane Renjou?”

He turned really slowly and met face to face with a man around his mid sixty, looking at him in disdain under his spectacle. Renjou scratched his head and grinned stupidly. His constant way of tapping foot made Ren’s discomfort more noticeable.

“Uh…heh hehe. Fancy meeting you here, Sensei. But I swear this time I’m completely innocent.”

The man Ren addressed as ‘Sensei’ clicked his tongue and talked again with his icy cold if not biting voice.

“And the poorly done memory alteration isn’t your doing too, Shirogane? But, although destroyed, I faintly feel a familiar weak barrier had been put here.”

Ren could felt it. He was in big trouble, heck scratch that he was in giant megaloom humungous trouble. His shoulder slumped a little. A loud sigh escaped his mouth. Any excuse he put now would only make his punishment got worse. The old bat always made him do excessive training whether he was guilty or not. May as well take responsibility. Less hurt that way. He took a deep breath and bowed to the man.

“That….barrier….was my doing and the poorly-” Ren cringed a little. “-memory alteration too, Sensei. My apologize. The main branch will take care of the damage and investigate the ‘rogue people’.”

There! His money went away, fly away, good bye his precious bank account.

“Good.” His sensei nodded and averted his gaze to Suzuki girl and the fainted guy. “I’m sorry young lady I hope my apprentice didn’t cause you too much trouble.”

The man bowed a little and straightened out along with Renjou, never intending to say anymore words. He left the place with Ren following behind. But before Renjou got too far he half turned toward the girl and smirked at her.

“You know. Someday, IF you become a ‘real mage’ and we meet again maybe I’ll explain things properly to you.” But he doubted she would need that. After all, once you become a real mage, any ‘explanation’ from other mages usually only lead to traps and deception.

“Ja-ne~ Suzuki Rhodes” He waved and caught up to his sensei’s stride, hands inside his pockets.

“She’s a rare one. White mages, isn’t she? And her Spell-link too.” His sensei talked quietly to him.

“Yeah-…”

They walked away from the school ground. The gentle breeze was pursuing them and the leaves were dancing at the back. It blew Renjou’s red bangs. He took off the last two hair pins and dropped it to the ground.

“…-they are.”

They disappeared as fast as the wind.

The ending of a beginning, final line of a starting point.

"Back to the dump?" Miraze asked her.

Aurelie grinned. She knew that Miraze hated the place, but Aurelie actually kind of liked it. It was a box, but it was so grotty that it had managed to pass through the regions of boring mundanity into something that was a little like a dystopian mystique. Still, that was probably due in a large part to the fact that she wasn't sleeping on the floor. One of these days she'd have to start up the old argument with Miraze again.

"Probably wise. Sleep off our headaches, maybe make something to eat," she concurred. "We can walk back from near the car rental."

Nonetheless something was nudging at her. "If there's another Black Mage... could the girl have bee - no, she would have used some magic to defend herself at least." After a moment, she considered again. "I suppose we could check the place out, but for now at least it'll be crawling with cops."

"As for the information... well, however powerful the mage, they have to sleep sometime. Maybe we could go out to one of their haunts. Or we could offer it to the White Mages. If we wanted to ally ourselves with them."

She considered some more, as Miraze started up and they began to make their way back into the city center.

No response. Vlad laughed as he jumped off the building and teleported to the ground. He brushed himself off. "I'm more professional than mystery chick diving off of buildings." he muttered with a chuckle. His eyes widened and then he turned back and looked up. "Whoops. Sorry I forgot you, dude." He shouted to Klaus. Klaus then jumped off, transformed into a scythe in midair, which Vlad grabbed as he fell, followed by a chuckle as he spun him. "Please don't do that." Klaus growled. "Sorry. Yo bro! Sorry we have to leave, but I'm bored and I'm going to do more sight seeing." Vlad laughed. " "Whatever. Good luck, and make me proud." Damian yelled down to him. Vlad and Klaus teleported away.

The two reappeared in a nearby alleyway. "Damn, there are a lot of alleys in this city." Vlad whispered. "Indeed." Klaus replied.

Vlad looked ahead as he heard the voices of two girls. "Shhh... I hear people." He said. His eyes widened as he saw the same two girls from earlier. "Are those the two girls from the other alleyway?" Klaus asked. "Apparently so. Let's go pay them a visit." Vlad chuckled darkly. They suddenly teleported in front of Aurelie and Miraze's path. "Well then. Afternoon, ladies. What a pleasant surprise it is to see you again." Vlad chuckled with a bow. Klaus transformed into his human form. "Guten tag." He mumbled after Vlad's introduction.

'Vladimir Scythus. Klaus Gemetzel. Black mage extraordinaire and state of the art spell link. At your service." Vlad chuckled, extending his hand.

If there's another Black Mage... could the girl have bee - no, she would have used some magic to defend herself at least."

"The girl looked more like she would be a White Mage ... well, unlike most Black Mages I have ever met, at least." Miraze mumbled.

"I suppose we could check the place out, but for now at least it'll be crawling with cops."

"I suppose so .. and there's no way I could hide us right now ... I could go check up on the scene tomorrow, pretend to be a student, I'm sure there will probably be a crowd of students visiting the place as soon as the disaster management squads and police thin out a little." she considered.

"As for the information... well, however powerful the mage, they have to sleep sometime. Maybe we could go out to one of their haunts. Or we could offer it to the White Mages. If we wanted to ally ourselves with them."

Miraze nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She hated allying with anyone, besides she didn't entirely support the White Mages either. Come to think of it, what did she want? Sometimes it unnerved even her, how she was whiling away her life without an aim, though it could be quite advantageous at times.

Distracted by her thoughts, she didn't notice when suddenly two figures appeared in the car's path. Miraze let out an uncharacteristic curse as she swung the steering wheel hard to the left to avoid hitting them, causing them to crash into a wall. Thankfully they weren't injured, and they would live. The car, on the other hand.

You alright?" she asked Aurelie, before swinging open her door. "Care to tell me exactly how am I going to explain this to the owne - " her words trailed off when she saw who exactly had appeared in front of them.

"Well then. Afternoon, ladies. What a pleasant surprise it is to see you again." the dark-haired Mage from before chuckled, as his scythe transformed into human form, mumbling a "Guten tag."

German, then?

"Vladimir Scythus. Klaus Gemetzel. Black mage extraordinaire and state of the art spell link. At your service." the Mage offered them his hand.

She might have been a bit annoyed at the showing off, but she already knew that he was being nothing but truthful. They were both quite powerful. A bit too powerful, if it came down to a fight.

Miraze raised an eyebrow. "I hope you won't find me terribly rude, but are you here to attack us, or just play around for a bit?" she asked bluntly, eyeing his hand a little warily. She made it a point never to touch anyone, especially a Mage. Some forms of magic couldn't be triggered without contact, and at her current exhausted state, she was willing to take every bit she could get. "Or were you just being civil and saying hello to a not quite old acquaintance?"

Vlad chuckled as she eyed his hand. "Smart girl. Although, my powers aren't just touch based. If I wanted to, I could vaporize you from a couple feet away. But I don't want to.' He said. "And second, we just wanted to stop by and say hello. We have nothing better to do. And besides, I only hurt people if they did something that really bothered me. You're safe." He looked over at Klaus, who was staring them down, obviously sizing them up. " "This is my friend. He doesn't talk much."

So far Aurelie had waited whilst Miraze spoke on the simple grounds that she had already covered the bases nicely. Vlad was annoying, not solely because he bragged but because he bragged whilst assuming too much. Well, she wasn't going to let herself be bothered by being patronised. Let him think what he would.

Instead, she stared first at him, and then at Klaus. Not exactly hostile, but making it clear with her body language that she would be ready if they started something. The German guy's eyepatch bugged her especially. Sewing it onto the skin must have hurt, and there was nothing sane about someone willing to hurt themselves like that. She wondered why he'd done it.

He stared back, obviously sizing the both of them up.

"Mmm. Well. Hello, Vlad," she said, turning her attention back to him. "So what was it that girl did to bother you?" She knew full well that it hadn't been him who'd killed her, but she hoped to get him talking. "The one you vaporised, I mean."

Vlad grinned at her slyly. "She was littering with that dead body of hers. I may be a black mage, but I'm one with standards. If you're going to go on a rampage filled with mass murder, at least clean up after yourself. Am I right?" He laughed. Klaus perked up. "Fraulein, are you implying that we killed that girl? Nein. It was a fellow black mage, Halbert Zador. We were not there when the event happened, but we know that he did in fact use mind control based black magic to make her commit suicide. I sensed the same magical residue on her and on his fingertips. Of course, my albino partner here just assumed that it was him without any evidence other than the fact that a mage was nearby. It was a fair guess." Klaus explained. Vlad's eyes widened and he chuckled. This was the he'd heard Klaus say to someone other than himself.

"He has a point. Why so defensive? If we wanted you dead, you would of been a pile of dust by now."

"That's as maybe," Aurelie replied evasively. "Besides, I always make a point of being careful around dangerous people. And I'm curious as to why Zador killed her. She didn't seem much of a threat." All that bragging made her suddenly glad that she was female and didn't feel the same need. She narrowed her eyes at Vlad, although not in anger.

"Did you 'clean up' after your fight with the White Mage?" she asked, genuinely curious despite her wariness.

Vlad chuckled. "Well, aren't you witty? I like that." He said slyly. "And as for Zador I'm pretty sure he did that just to show off. He may seem charming, but deep down, he's a deceitful, egotistical, manipulative douchewaffle. It's like, 'Ooh, look at me, I can make people kill themselves after I play tag with them'. His spell link is much worse. I never did care for mind manipulators. Klaus and I, if we want something done, you can be damn sure we'll do it. And especially if we have an audience. Because, I admit. I'm a show off. But I'm an honest one. If I wanted revenge on someone, I would hunt them down, play for a bit. Not sit there and plot for like two months."

"As for the fight with Satosha, no. One, because he wasn't already dead. This girl, whoever she was, was. And second, Klaus only destroyed part of a building. The only way I could fix that is if I was a white mage. But I'm not"

"Or maybe he was just testing his powers." Miraze pointed out. The idea actually made much more sense to her, since she herself had done the same thing as soon as she had discovered Aurelie, nearly killing herself in the process.
... not that Aurelie would know, she had made a point of never mentioning that to her.

She nearly rolled her eyes as Vlad rambled a bit about Zador. What was it with boys, if there were two powerful men around, they would invariably hate the other. She put it down to the male ego and shrugged. It had nothing to do with her, at any rate.

... though come to think of it, even she strongly disliked this Zador person. No matter how much she tried, she couldn't wipe the frozen smile on the dead girl's face off her mind. It had to be the single most disgusting thing she had ever seen, and she had seen way too many of those.

"As for the fight with Satosha, no. One, because he wasn't already dead. This girl, whoever she was, was. And second, Klaus only destroyed part of a building. The only way I could fix that is if I was a white mage. But I'm not"

Oh, so they didn't kill the boy either? That was good, even though it was baffling as well.

"Since you are feeling charitable," she said evenly, "I wonder if your generosity would extend to inform us of your motives? Are you just having fun, or do you have some method to the seeming madness? And would I be too wrong in assuming you don't care much about the Black Mage alliance thing?"

Maybe she was pushing her luck, but she already felt a little better. Besides, Miraze had never been one to mince her words. She wanted to get as much she could in the open, as soon as possible.

Aurelie frowned slightly. Whilst she appreciated Miraze's directness, she didn't think much of these guys. As wildly destructive, violent and impetuous as they were, they might be an asset as allies but they were far more likely to be liabilities. Honestly, she thought they were immature.

She didn't say so, however. Instead, she murmured a single objection to Miraze. "If he was just testing his powers," she muttered, "why didn't he just get her to do something for him instead?" Shaking her head, she shut her mouth to let Vlad - or Klaus - answer Miraze.

Miraze nodded at Aurelie, acknowledging her objection even as they were waiting for Vlad's answer. She knew Aurelie didn't like these two guys, but she wanted to get certain things into the clear. She wasn't looking for allies, but simply sizing up the situation to see whether this duo would face them as enemies in the near future. Hopefully they wouldn't.

"Because of what he is. Besides, making someone die for you requires more power than simply making someone do something for you." she smiled tightly, "And somehow I really think watching her die would be fun to him." Her smile widened into a sweet one - most people would probably find it innocent and nice, but it was in reality a cover for her anger. The more she thought about the incident, the more riled up she got. Nobody had the right to take a life without any provocation or necessity, and while Miraze rarely cared about things that didn't directly concern her, there were some things that were just unbearable, even to her.

She turned towards the other two, waiting for an answer and mentally preparing herself for a backlash, should one come. Though she doubted it, seeing as how Vlad didn't seem like he was going to attack them, and had even denied any intention to do so. Still, it always helped to be prepared. She cast a seemingly bored glance around the street, making sure no one was watching them as well as taking a quick note of the spots with the darkest shadows available.

Vlad raised an eyebrow and grinned. "Alliance? What alliance? Nobody wants to side with me. They think I'm inferior or some shit. I mean, I've been alone my whole damn life. I grew up on the streets, you know. Just me, my brother, and a small group of friends. And Klaus here got abused as a kid. He had to kill all of his bullies. No big deal." He laughed. "Although, I like you two. So, if you ever need us for anything, we'll help. We're just used to being around idiots and such."

Klaus looked at Miraze. "As for what we want, it is simply to test our powers, and do what we want, when we want it. Correct?" Klaus asked Vlad. "Yup. We're not looking to take over the world, or whatever stereotypical Saturday morning cartoon villain bullshit the other black mages want. Weo just consider magic a gift, white or black. And if you have a gift, it would be best to have fun with it and try to improve upon it." Vlad continued.

"Plus, Zador pisses me off. So unoriginal." He chuckled.