“WOCAO!”
“What in Mao’s name…”
“Eee!!”
“Gwen!”
"SHAA! SHAA!"
“LUYI! Come back!”

“GWEN! Stop that at once!”

Caliban expanded to twice its usual size, bloating with Void-matter as it answered its master’s submerged psyche. Likewise, Ariel assumed its oppressive draconic-mien, fluffed with rage and vengeance, crackling with viridescent shunts of tyrannical lightning.

Behind the livid dual-elementalist, the Spirits belonging to her peers descended into fight or flight mode, straining against their Master’s mental leashes, desperate to flee from the Dragon-fear.

There was Wanli, Lu Fung’s Thunderhawk, and Luyi, the deer-Sprite belonging to Eunae Lee, the Korean exchange student, as well as half a dozen others who had joined Chen’s Advanced Bestiary Course, snarling, growling, scratching and biting maddeningly.

The reason for their peer's sudden hysteria was their second instructor. After re-introducing himself, Instructor Chen had invited in a Master Magister with ‘two decades’ of experience in raising a Spirit-Familiar to join them.

Though the Magister proved a perfect, well-dressed stranger to the rest of the class, Gwen recognised his unforgettable face at once.

For the first few seconds, the revelation had stunned her into silence, too startled to command her motor-synapses. But not so her Familiars. Sensing their Master's descent into the abyss, they drank from the fathomless hostility she had buried since the Sydney Incident.

“ERIC WALKEN, YOU BASTARD!”

Her voice reverberated across the empty training hall like a thunderclap, forcing those standing close to her to cup their ears.

“Gwen Song.” The old Magister made no move to defend himself. “Fancy meeting you here, how fickle karma must be.”

“You know Magister Walken?” Chen was incredulous. “But…”

But why are you looking as though you're ready to Consume him, was the question on Chen’s lips. When Luo had introduced Walken, Chen had expected a jovial, almost serendipitous meeting between the two Australians. Gwen was a talented student, and Walken was an Ex-member of the Oceania ruling council. Though he did not know why Walken left his post, that the Dean had wrangled a tier 7 Conjurer-supreme away from the Commonwealth Mageocracy was a miraculous feat in itself.

“What... are you doing here?” Gwen's tone dripped with murder.

Intellectually, she knew there wasn't a snowball’s chance in the Elemental Plane of Fire that she could maim or defeat the Magister in public, especially not in the university. Nonetheless, her subconsciousness persisted in its wilful, meteoric desire for satisfaction.

Each time she reminded herself of the time, the place and her company, her Familiars loosened guttural bouts of shrieks and hisses, informing the others exactly how she felt about Walken. Her new-found honesty was as distressing as it was irksome. The ability to bear and grin life's cruel injustices with poker-faced masochism had been her calling card, but her Master’s face, pale and loitering, quashed her feeble efforts. Beside her ear, a waspish buzz intensified until the memory of yesteryear howled with the tenacity of ten-thousand Furies baying for blood. She didn’t even hear her Master’s last words! Not even a proper goodbye!

And the source of her agony could be linked to one man.
Eric - FUCKING - Walken.
The erstwhile leader of Oceania’s Grey Faction.
The man who had put Sydney Tower into a Lockdown; invited the Mermen right into the city’s midst, preventing her Master from accessing the Grot, activating the Tower's defences, and eradicating his cunt of a wife!

If Sobel had been the murderer of Henry, then Walken was her foolish, unknowing accomplice. Though the Magister had escaped prosecution, he had not fled from disgrace. Thanks to Gunther and the Middle-Faction’s influence in the Mageocracy, Walken had been thrown from a position of power, never again to be included among the shakers and movers of the Commonwealth.

And now, the man was in front of her; his soul ripe for the reaping, his face blanched and resolute, ready to meet his maker.

“Gwen, what the hell do you think you’re doing!?” Lu Fung was the first to recover, snapping at his family's money-tree. Wanli rose into the air, ready for action. "Don't make trouble for the Clan! We still need you!"

"What's gotten into you?" Eunha hugged her doe. She had known Gwen for half a year now, and she had never seen her 'senior' completely lose her faculties.

“Lu, shut up and stand down! The rest of you, back off!” Chen howled the other students into silence. “Gwen, what’s your problem with Magister Walken?”

Walken waited for her answer, his expression that of a man having found a mildly-interesting butterfly.

“This man.” Gwen forced the words from between clenched teeth. “Is the reason I lost my Master and my home.”

The curious students suddenly wished they hadn’t heard her answer. Getting involved in someone else's blood-grudge was always a recipe for disaster, especially when that somebody could duel Wonsoo Liu under the arena.

“Gwen.” Chen placed himself between the Magister and his student. “Put away your Familiars.”

“I've been trying.” Gwen willed her Familiars to back off, but both Ariel and Caliban fought her tooth and nail. The saying went that the mind was willing, but the flesh was weak, though in her case, the brain was deceiving itself, and her body was entirely too honest.

Both of her Familiars owed their existence to Henry's signature Conjure Familiar. The Lord of Oceania had been one of the first human beings they had seen and interacted with upon their entry into the Material Plane. He had been the first to feed Caliban and Ariel, the first to accept Caliban not as a monster, but a companion, even before their Master herself. Though Gwen had no idea if her creatures were intellectually capable of processing Walken’s cock-up in Sydney, they translated her loathing perfectly and without reserve, their minds too simple to blunt the raw hostility pounding their elemental animus.

“Huonu!”

Chen’s Salamander came roaring into the Material realm, becoming a sizable wall between Gwen’s Familiars and Magister Walken. It was the first time Gwen had seen Huonu in its entirety. Stretching almost four meters from head to tip, the humanoid Fire-sprite had vaguely humanoid facial features, a pair of well-muscled arms spluttering magma, and a powerful, barrel-thick serpentine tail.

The stench of sulphur and cinder made the air impossible to breathe, forcing her to back away.

“Gwen, pack your beasts away, NOW, or I pack them for you.”

Cowed by Huonu, Gwen was able to retract both of her Familiars.

Chen waited until he was sure the dual-element sorceress had regained her faculties before he retrieved his Magma Spirit.

“Class is cancelled today!” he barked at the students. “Dismissed!”

Usually, the haughty Conjurers would be full of high-sentence before they dispersed, but after a display like that, none of Fudan's best and brightest Conjurers had any desire to linger.

“Gwen.” Lu paused at the door.

Clan Fung's latent fortune-finder looked to her fellow Spirit-Conjurer.

“Clan Fung will give you its full support.”

Hugging her arms to prevent a wayward misfire, Gwen returned Lu's offer of support with a subtle nod.

“Gwen, stay here and keep your Familiars contained.” Chen then turned to Walken and bowed. “My deepest apologies on behalf of the administration, Sir. I had no idea there would be history such as this between a student and yourself. We have not done our due diligence.”

“It’s quite alright, Sir Chen.” Walken waved his hand. “The full extent of my shame and the reason for our shameful circumstance is known only to the highest echelons of the Commonwealth. By that same measure, I find no fault in Gwen’s anger. In her place, I would have done the same, perhaps worse. As for her outburst, it may be best to speak with Dean Luo in person.”

“I see,” Chen thanked the Magister. “We’ll await the Dean.”

Forcing herself to breathe, Gwen glanced at Walken's despicable mien.

“Of course, there is no rush.” Walken’s smile reminded Gwen of the very first time they had ever met in the Tower. Despite what he had done, the bastard dared to appear self-assured and faultless. To Gwen, the satisfaction gained from punching that face would have been therapeutic.

The reality, however, was that she was in enough trouble as it was.
Since her troubles with Bai, the Dean had warned her several times to keep her composure. By that same measure, she vaguely recalled that the Dean had stated he was on the lookout for potential Instructors to help her out.

Bloody oath, she mentally face-palmed. Fuck!

Even if Luo had found a Ravenport, she would have felt less inclined to murder the man. She couldn't give a shit who Luo dug up, but please don't let it be Eric-fucken-Walken!

“This is your new Instructor, Gwen, to help you temper your unique disposition.” Dean Luo pointed his finger at the villainous, smiling Walken.

Bastard! Bloody, heartless villain! Remorseless, treacherous, soulless, kinless ass-hat! Her mind continued to riot, heedless of the Dean's soft-spoken words. What an ass she was to stand and stare like a whipped bitch! She should be tearing him apart with her teeth!

“No way in hell,” Gwen refuted the Dean’s offer with absolute certainty. “He should be so lucky if a wayward you-know-what doesn’t strike him in the face.”

Magister Walken remained perfectly calm, as though their conversation was about groceries. That he looked good and had his shit together incensed Gwen even more. Though fallen from grace, Walken was the sort that groomed impeccably. His greying hair was slicked back, leaving a wayward strand hanging over his right eye. His face as well retained a certain youthfulness unbecoming of a treacherous scamp. To Gwen, the old schemer reminded her of an anthropomorphic Scar to Henry’s Mufasa.

The Dean's patience had a shorter fuse than she anticipated. Had the man been expecting, and indeed, dreading their present circumstance?

“Gwen, be reasonable.”

“This man… is responsible for the death of my Master!”

“Unofficial Master…” Walken coughed gently.

“You..!”

“Gwen!”

“Sir!”

“Not another word!”

Her blood boiled, as did her Almudj’s Essence.
Her mind grew white with wrath.
She couldn't think.

FUCK IT!

A spell came to her lips.

"Force Cage!"

The Dean was on her before she could utter a single spell.

Though the barriers were invisible, Gwen was sure she had been confined by unseen-partitions because the surrounding air grew suddenly stale. Gingerly, she moved a foot forward, sensing the extremities of her 'dunce' prison. Force Cage was a Monster-hunting spell. It blocked simple teleportation like Blink but allowed Mage-specific translocations such as Dimension Door.

"Cool your head!" Luo raised a finger, then another. "You're on two-strikes."

Fuck! She backed away from the wall. Stay calm, she told herself, repeating the words like a mantra. Evee. Evee. EVEE!

“I can see why the Dean is so worried,” Walken continued. “Henry never did train you properly, did he? Your Master was rearing you up in a green-house, taking his time, hoping you could fill the hole a certain Elizabeth Sobel had left.”

Gwen’s complexion grew as red as pippins. Were she not behind a Force Cage, she was sure a strengthened right-hook would have disconnected Walken’s jaw from his face right about now.

“Tier 6 Lightning… a rare talent. Not to mention Dragon Essence from a Thundering sub-species. How interesting.” Walken returned to the Dean. “You know, Luo, when I first saw her, she was barely scratching tier 3 and 4 in her spells, and her affinity for Lightning was 3 at best. I suppose in the end, despite everything, my suspicions regarding Sobel was right.”

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

By now, Gwen had held her breath so long it felt as though she would pass out. If her Instructors had paid closer attention, they would have seen her aristocratic veins throbbing with a life of their own.

“Eric, do you have to tease her so?” Luo furrowed his brows. “I read your report to the High Council. Your case for clemency would have been stillborn were it not for the data coming out of Wen’s testimony.”

“What about Magister Wen?” Gwen looked to Dean Luo, a vague but horrifying realisation engendering in her mind. "What testimony?"

Luo sighed.

“Gwen, if you want to know how this came about, I’ll need you to keep calm.”

“I am calm.”

The two men glanced at one another.

“Ellen, keep an eye on her. Gwen, don't you dare hurt yourself.”

The Air Sprite nodded, drifting a few meters, acting the part of bodyguard and ditsy secretary. Gwen had no doubt Ellen could vacuum-pack the Force Cube, knocking her out. Of course, she could D-D the fuck out of here, but that would also spell the end of her University career. It's a test, the rational part of her mind informed her, stay calm and think of Evees.

The frustration of her dilemma was exquisite.
This time, the distress in her rapidly swelling eyes was genuine.

“Shall I?” Walken offered.

“Sure, why not?” Luo found his way back to the alcohol cabinet. He needed a fucking drink. A worried educator and administrator spent personal favours, pulled weight, called in debts and burnt goodwill to get a Mao-blessed trainer for his protege, and she repaid him by spitting in his face. If the girl had been his daughter, he wouldn’t have minded giving her a good spanking or have her kneel over bamboo grates for a night to set her priorities straight. Was Walken responsible for the girl's Master's demise? Only by chance and association. For a child who knew so little of Walken and Kilroy's history, Gwen's hyperbolic reaction was for Luo, equal-parts sympathy and frustration.

“Gwen, you want a seat?” Ellen asked.

“I’ll stand.” Her green eyes followed Walken around the room.

Walken patrolled Luo's Force Cage, taunting her, mocking her intemperance, inspecting the reason why he’d once again found gainful employment.

“First, let me apologise for what happened in Sydney. Events were obfuscated, and politics had clouded my better judgement.”

Gwen swallowed her next words: they involved Dimensions, Doors, and AoEs- but the Dean was watching.

“As for our story, you should be aware of it. After the battle, I was arrested - by your 'unofficial' brother-in-craft. After that, I became the target of a non-too-friendly interrogation by the Magisters present: Lin, Uther, Ferris, and of course Magus Shultz. They put me under a great deal of Enchantment, you must understand, and to be perfectly honest with you, I am not sure what I told them either - only that by the end of a week-long inquest, I was transferred over to Hague, to the International Mageocracy Tribunal there, presided over by the three Factions.”

“Then, weeks later, I discovered that it was you who saved me from Stasis-”

“What are you…” Gwen protested.

“- your discovery of Sobel’s method of entry into the Tower.” Walken raised a finger. “If you recall?”

SHIT! NO! She recalled Gunther’s casual mention that ‘you may have saved Walken's life,’ when they had convened in her brother-in-craft's office in Sydney.

“Indeed, my emerald-eyed Lady Luck. I owe you one. Thank you for saving me from the disgrace of being nailed with a betrayal I did not commit.”

“…” A Displacer Beast caught Gwen's tongue. She felt sick, but what could she say? She should have just stayed quiet. Loose lips sink ships; apparently, they also save your worst enemies from being put into Stasis.

“Then, at my official trial months later, you ratified my theory once again, quite serendipitously, I must add, with your contributions to Fudan.”

“Wha?”

“That would be Wen’s submission of your Void Element’s Consumption properties to the Pudong Tower.” Dean Luo reminded Gwen. "We did tell you the papers were shared with both Pudong and the CCP."

“Oh, yes. Imagine my shock when 'Initial findings on the Void Mage Gwen Song' was able to vindicate my motivation for turning against Henry, having suspected that he was trying to create yet another Sobel. To draw an analogy, your Master was the originator of the first Flesh Golem, 'Lizzy' von Frankenstein, so I’d thought him eager to create a second. Thinking that perhaps, with you being so young, he could keep you under this thumb.”

The Magister waited to see how Gwen would react. When the girl remained stunned, immobile and silent, he smirked.

“Very good. Your improved temperament astounds me. At any rate, when details emerged of your ability to consume Mages to usurp their affinity, the Grey Faction managed to reduce a castigating exile into a more amicable parting from the upper echelons. You see, though I had acted in bad faith, my motives were not wrong. The world certainly did not desire another Elizabeth Sobel, and had we left Henry to his devices, who knew what old Deathless would have knocked up, hmm?”

“I-I… saved you?” Gwen’s hands clenched and unclenched. The mention of her Master’s old moniker, so ironically called Deathless Henry, was too much. Her lips moved as though possessed. “Because of me… you’re walking free?”

“Yes,” Walken bowed. “Thank you, Gwen, for the unbidden generosity.”

“Oh…” Gwen tried to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Touching a hand to her face, she felt an unusual patch of wetness. Was she bleeding? No, it wasn't another nosebleed - it was worse. “O… I… Oh God… shit… you bastard…”

She began to cry.
A grown woman, wailing away her frustrations.
A daughter with a father slain, showing weakness in front of her dire enemy and her heartless Dean.
Was this her punishment?
Was that it?
This sad and sadistic state of affairs, had Jiang Luo planned it?

If only her Master had been here, Henry with his wisdom would have made things alright. He would have taught her how to manage her affinities. He would have tempered her spells, blunted her jagged edges, polished her confetti-collection of spells she’d picked up by chance, charity and choice. Henry, a father she never had, a Master she’d thought she’d share the better part of her life with: a mentor, a friend, a confident - a captain.

Gone! Thanks to this man.
And somehow, she saved his ass.
Not only that, she was forbidden from kicking his ass.
Irony, frustration, bewilderment, self-loathing, grief and melancholy, the weight of her confused emotions broke over her mental-levee.

Across the room, her two educators regarded one another. Luo exhaled. Tears were good. Tears were proof of the girl's humanity, of her malleability, of the fact that she wasn't yet a sociopathic drake.

Then came the sound of the girl's choking sobs, and the men's scalps grew numb. Here was a girl, seventeen or so, bullied by two old men into a river of tears. She moaned, hacked, snuffled and choked.

Luo dispelled his Cage.

“Ellen, can you..?”

Ellen shook her head. She had adored the girl once, but her familiar Caliban was a Spirit-eater. As far as Ellen was concerned, the girl was a usurper, and the Air Sprite had no desire to be any closer to the girl.

With a solemn awkwardness, the two men waited while Gwen wailed and dribbled, leaking liquid emotion over the Dean’s plush, pale-pink Persian carpet.

As for Gwen, the expulsion had been cathartic.
After the unbidden purge of pent up emotions, her mind returned to its usual self; cold as ice and sharp as a tack.

“You owe me,” she stated rather rudely the moment her face regained a semblance of control. Now that her fever had passed, she had to reassess the situation logically, rationally, advantageously.

“As I said.” Walken nodded. “I owe you my freedom.”

“So what can you teach me?” Gwen forced the words between her lips. “How can I control... this?”

“Meditation, attunement, practice, knowledge,” Walken stated each word, pronouncing every syllable. “And of course, the improvement of your mind and your Familiar.”

“I can do that myself,” Gwen snarled.

“You can't.” Walken grinned. “You'll only dig yourself deeper.”

“He’s right,” the Dean interjected. “Ordinarily, such esoteric knowledge is carried on between Master and Apprentice, passed down between generations. A mercenary Instructor at the tier you require does not exist.”

“How do my peers deal with their affinity problems?” Gwen pointed out the Dean's logical fallacy.

The Dean scoffed.

“Gwen.” Luo regarded his protègè critically. “You’re naturally affinity 6, and you’re running a juvenile draconic-Spirit that may very well gift you with another 2 to 3 magnitudes once it matures. How many Mage do you think will ever possess that level of affinity?”

“Which is why Luo found me.” Walken made sure there was enough space in the Dean’s office before raising a hand toward the sky. “Couatl!”

A flash of brilliant Conjuration later, a Winged Serpent fully three-meters tall filled the chamber from the ceiling to the carpet. Its wings were a splay of rainbow-hues, multi-coloured and resplendent. A draconic head opened its maw to reveal a row of backwards-facing teeth, from an equestrian skull, its sky-blue pupils regarded Gwen.

“A Winged Serpent!” Gwen gasped, sensing a strange kinship with the creature. “A dragon?”

“A Lightning-type pseudo-dragon, yes.” Walken studied her response carefully. “Aella the Couatl. My partner and companion. Not too dissimilar from your Ariel.”

The serpent lowered itself until it could coil around Gwen’s waist. It sniffed her, tasting her skin with its forked tongue.

“Aella elemental-shifts Air to Lightning,” the Magister explained. “During the showdown in Sydney, it was Sobel's first victim during our battle. I hadn’t known then how Lightning countered her Void. As a result of my lack of knowledge, our battle was over before it even began.”

Gwen touched a finger to the rainbow-hued feathers. For some reason, the anger she felt for Walken subsided. Did the Familiar possess a calming-aura? No, it was something else, something akin to a strange endearment. Its feathers reminded her of Almudj’s rainbow-hued scales.

She pushed Aella's inquisitive snout from her face.

“Your Familiar won’t make this any easier.” Gwen lied. She did feel better. Cute pets were most definitely her soft spot.

“Regardless, I am engaged by Dean Luo for the duration of the IIUC,” Walken announced. “I was the Adjudicator for the Oceania region between 1997 and 1999 and I will be looking after your team whether you like it or not. If you wish to fight me every step of the way, that is also acceptable to me.”

“…”

Gwen glared at the man impotently. How long would it take for her to gain enough competence to stuff him down Caliban’s maw? For a normal Mage, the answer was likely never. She could catch up, but she could never surpass a Magister four decades ahead of her. But for herself, wasn’t rapid empowerment just a matter of convenience and ethics? Why she could visit Tianlanqiao tomorrow with Wen!

"..."

Shivering, she snuffed the thought before it could germinate.

“Gwen, I offer an oliver branch to you." Walken's voice was deep and smooth, resembling a talk-back radio-host. "I believe we got off on the wrong foot, as so to speak.”

What appeared to be an Ioun Stone drifted through the air.
Gwen recognised the mana signature instantly.

“This is… from my Master!”

“From Henry to me, of course, from a very long time ago. May it help you find some solace.”

Gwen regarded Walken suspiciously but took the Ioun Stone anyway. From the looks of it, it was an old 'recorder', from a time before Divination Towers grew prevalent, a type of Ioun Stone that imparted essential messages, spells, and documents.

“A memento, worthless to me,” Walken added, his thin lips pressing to form a red line before continuing. “I have your Master’s rarer collection, after all. All twelve of them.”

Walken's humblebrag struck her like a bolt from the blue.

Her Master’s Ioun Stones!

Her almond eyes widened until they were the size of an Emerald Rhomboid, a rare variant of Ioun Stones capable of neutralising poison and other chemicals effects on the body.

She had never wanted to possess something so badly in her life.

“BUT - I am afraid our audience is at an end,” Walken suddenly broke off their mutual gaze. “The Dean and I desire a private audience.”

"Wait... hey! Stop that!"

Aella the Couatl pushed against her with its snout until she exited the office, at which point Ellen boomed shut the double doors, leaving her with an arm full of feathered snake.

“Show!” Aella nudged her. “Show! Show!”

Walken's Familiar can talk?! Gwen brushed a feather from her hair. A fucking talking winged snake.

‘Show?’

It wanted to see Ariel, Gwen realised. The Couatl cared not about the gripe between herself and its Master, nor the politics involved between the Factions. It wanted what it wanted, as honest as any spirit Familiar could be.

“Fine,” Gwen agreed, her hand gripping the Ioun Stone. There was no point taking out her feelings on someone else’s good-natured ophidian-retriever. "I'll show you."

“So, what do you think?”

“There's a lot of work to be done.”

“But also potential." The Dean’s admitted his protègè was a handful.

“If you say so.”

“Well, can you do something about her predicament?”

“Isn’t that why I am here?”

“Now that you’ve seen her I mean.”

Taking a minute to mull over his answer, Walken walked over to the cabinet and poured himself a glass of bourbon.

“Oh-ho, how’d you get the American stuff.”

“The usual channels - well?”

“I am afraid it's not so simple.”

“That’s a no, then?”

“Yes, and no,” Walken answered cryptically. “The girl has problems beyond her pride. She was unhealthily attached to Kilroy, you understand. The ol'Deathless died both ironically and very suddenly, I am afraid. Left her an orphan; all that power, all that potential, untempered, raw, undirected.”

“And you’re a part of the reason why.”

“Yes.” Walken took a sip. “We're strangely entangled, don't you think?”

“I doubt she'd think so." Luo chuckled. "That girl's out for blood.”

“Absolutely.” Walken nodded. “Amongst other things, it's strange how if it weren’t for that girl, things would be very different right now. I’d be dead, for one. Or in Stasis.”

“So?”

“As I am responsible, I’ll sub Kilroy in his stead.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I'll be... a facsimile if you will. Something to cling on.”

“And how do you propose to resolve her affinity problems? You've got six months.”

“Trial and error,” Walken explained. “I’ll teach her everything I kno- OH! GOD DAMN, WHAT THE DEVIL?!”

“Walken!” Luo closed in. “Are you alright?”

“The girl just fed my Familiar her Dragon-essence!” Walken spat. He had splashed the bourbon all over his vest. “Is she daft?! Why is she giving out Essence treats? Does she think she's Henry's Dryad?”

Luo laughed.

“She did that with Ellen as well. Careful she doesn't steal your Spirit from under you! She's a charmer, that one. A born negotiator.”

“All the more perfect for an induction into the Grey Faction.” Walken regained his sensibilities once he adjusted his mana wavelength to negate the new stimulus. “Judging from the actions she's taken to establish herself, she's far better suited to our Credo than that of the Middle Path.”

Gwen returned home late, shared a takeout dinner with Petra, then retired to her bed.

From her Storage Ring, she cupped the Ioun Stone with her Master’s mana-signature between her hands.

“!”

She attempted to activate its glyph. These were simple devices, and Walken had left it untethered and unlocked.

Slowly, the egg-sized quartz rose into the air.

A Message began to play.

First, the air around the polished surface shimmered, then an image formed from thin air, pitting Gwen face to face with Henry Kilroy.

“Eric,” the recording started.

Gwen had to cup her mouth to stop herself from screaming. She gazed into the face of her Master, its ghostly form flickering, while the stone delivered its payload.

“Old friend, I am sending you this private Message to apologise for the actions taken by my protégé, Alesia de Botton. She's both young and talented, making her prone to the usual trappings of Fire Mages. As you know, it takes years to temper that arrogance and presumptuousness of theirs. I know you’re still recovering from your injuries, so I’ve sent over some of Sufina’s Mead along with the Ioun Stones I promised, I hope you’ll take care of them better than I did, not trading them away when one of your students berserk, haha...”

“... On a serious note, allow me to thank you for holding back against Alesia. She’s got a lot of room to grow, and I know you could have ended her life if you wished. That you held back in deference to me, enduring her insults out of respect for our working relationship, makes me glad. As for what Alesia had uncovered, I hope that it was a misunderstanding and that in the audit to follow, we can account for the source of those ‘goods’ the Grey Market is using to acquire Creature Cores...”

“Old friend, I know we’ve grown apart since you joined the Grey Faction, but I want you to know that I’ve never forgotten those days we served together during the Coral Sea War. You were as good a Lieutenant one could have asked for during those desperate times. I don’t begrudge your social climbing, nor do I fault you for suspecting Elizabeth. I think, in the end, we would have gone the Path we did anyway, with or without your interference. Lastly, let me ask after your wife, Audrey, and your girls Beatrix and Angie. I hope they are doing well. If you need some Golden Mead or a Vitae-fruit for Angie, don’t hesitate to ask. Having mana-asthma at her age is no easy feat, especially for a child...”

“Thanks, Eric. I expect to hear from you soon. Hopefully, your wounds won’t leave a scar. Your friend. Henry Kilroy.”

After the last syllable dissolving into air, Gwen buried her face in her pillow.
She activated the stone again, allowing the message to repeat.

“Eric… your know how Fire Mages are…"
"Going after Elizabeth…"
"Your friend...”

After the third playthrough, she gave up trying to stifle the moisture escaping her eyes and resigned herself to a tear-soaked pillow as she drifted off to sleep, dreaming of yesteryears when life seemed so much simpler.


"You've got my support, whatever you choose." Petra paired her assurance with a maternal peck to Gwen's forehead.

"Cheers." Gwen massaged her puffy eye bags. "Thanks, Pats. I'll sleep on it for now."

When a minute-long hug from Petra in the morning failed to dispel the vitriol churning in her chest, she knew she was in no condition to make rational choices. As such, emulating the Prince of Denmark, Gwen opted for procrastination and delay.

For the next few days, she continued her Conjuration, Translocation, Utility-Divination and Evocation as before, restrained to the front row, passively running her Invisible Familiar.

Her old friends from the previous year, Lily, Jon and the unfortunately named Pu, accompanied her, watched over enviously by the rest of their cohort as an irksome Magister Birch delivered his lecture.

“Ah~, I want to see Ariel!” Lily moped, running her hand across an invisible belly, looking ridiculous as she stroked the air.

“After the class, sure,” Gwen promised.

Ever since the Fudan DC incident, she had suffered incessant requests to see her Familiar wherever she went. Sometimes she entertained these demands. More often than not, she politely declined or fled.

“You know, Gwen, you’re the talk of the campus,” Jon, the Enchanter aspirant, observantly remarked. “They say you defeated Tei Bai and that you’re going to enter the IIUC on Fudan’s behalf.”

“Woa, you’re entering the IIUC?!” Lily cut in. “That's super elite!”

“Gwen’s an elite, not like us,” Pu reminded their companion. “Who else you know can tap into both Void and Lightning, possess a Mongolian Death Worm _and_ a Kirin?”

“Maybe we should follow Gwen from now on?” Lily half-joked. “What do you say, Gwen?”

“You’re welcome any time,” their elite companion laughed, her mood improving. “I’ve got no Clan and no Tower though, we’ll be vagabonds!”

“How about a Quest or two?” Pu pushed to see if their alumna was merely modest or genuinely interested.

“Sure, if I’ve got time. It’s always good to stretch out my legs,” the object of Pu’s enquiry returned. “I’ve got a party of my own, but I’d love to do something with you guys as well. My magic isn't going to improve being cooped up all the time. So long as you pick a weekend, she'll be right.”

It took a few seconds for her slang to sink in.

“Ooo! I look forward to it! Adventuring with an _elite_!” Lily, the least bashful of the threesome, was shameless in taking advantage of Gwen's generosity.

Pu laughed awkwardly, knowing full well that anyone who could give Tei Bai a run for his crystals wasn’t likely to think much of folks sitting on tier 4 magic.

Beside their Evoker companion, Jon’s face grew flushed. Like his friend Pu, Jon had a feeling that whatever danger Gwen faced on the regular wasn’t going to be for mundane students like them.

Watching Lily's boisterous optimism, Jon reminded himself to admonish his companion. While Gwen was their friend and associate, she would never be a comrade; their distance, as it were, was unbridgable. If anything, a Mage with Gwen's prospects and family connections could only be their superior; believing otherwise would bring calamity, both now and in the future.

While Gwen flitted in and out of her third week of classes, rumours had spread of the Black and White Kirin of Fudan, attracting curious stickybeaks both local and Districts away. Thankfully, Orientation was officially over, leaving visitors to ponder where Fudan DC's new mascots had gone.

As for those lucky enough to happen upon Gwen's duty-hours, they managed to catch a glimpse of a noble Kirin and a God-awful creature that made the viewer ill even from a distance. Indeed, if that netherworld abomination could be a black Kirin, a Displacer Mauler could be an Shíshī.

“Sir Caliban is an acquired taste,” a Fudan student haughtily informed his Jianqiao opposition. “You wouldn’t understand until you see its owner in the flesh - we’re calling her the Kirin Lady now.”

“What did you use to call her?”

“The Worm Handler.”

“Hahaha, what?! That sounds like-”

“SHHH! Don’t let the Duelling Club members hear you. She’s their idol on a pedestal now, well - her Familiars are.”

“Okay, okay.” The visitor looked around conspiratorially. “So, where can we see the owner?”

'The Owner' was halfway across the campus, agonising over Eric Walken’s help.

“No!” Elvia’s lament poured through LRM Device. “No way!”

“YES WAY!” Gwen groaned. “And then, he told me that I was an ‘unofficial’ Apprentice!”

“Bastard!”

“I know, right?”

They had already spent the rare hour conversing about Gwen’s latest encounter. One by one Gwen had consulted her peers for advice. The hardest and longest came from her brother-in-craft. Gunther’s final opinion was that he would be keeping this quiet from Alesia and that anything other than Spellcraft from Walken should be taken with a grain of salt. With Yue, Gwen's unexpectedly collected companion intimated that she too would be keeping this latest travesty from her Master- that and Gwen should engineer 'training accidents' at every opportunity.

“He’s bound to let his guard down. Maybe suddenly drop your top or something, and while he’s surprised and horny - POW! Right in the kisser.”

“… Thanks for the advice.” Gwen took Yue’s word with a fistful of salt. “I am not equipped for that strategy, unfortunately. I'll pass.”

As for her friends and family in China, their advice concurred with Gunther’s most rational assessment. If she turned down Walken, where the hell was she going to find another pseudo-draconic, high-affinity Conjurer with two decades of experience working with her old Master? As for Richard, her cousin was all in.

"Use 'em and dump 'em." Richard gave her a thumbs up. "Suck 'em dry, Champ."

Elvia was her last port-of-call. The last member of her immediately intimate companions from that incident. She had wanted to contact Surya as well, but her Enchanter maternal-grandfather lived way out in the tablelands with his hands full looking after refugees. Getting Surya to travel to the Tower or Alesia's apartment was a chore in itself.

“Gwen, between you and me.” Elvia suddenly leaned in conspiratorially. “What did you get from Yue around Xmas time?”

“Oh?” Gwen materialised the hairpin. “I got an opal hairpin. What about you?”

Elvia’s profile grew strangely withdrawn.

“Well?”

Wordlessly, Elvia produced a box from her Storage Ring, then opened the rectangular container to reveal a set of ivory chopsticks.

“Wooo, nice,” Gwen cooed. “Same material as mine. It’s got a little curvature to it too. Monster-teeth?”

“Oh, Gwen~.” Her friend touched a hand to her temple. “It’s a set of Lizard-kin _baculums.”_

“What the hell is that?” Gwen cocked her head. She had neither Google nor a dictionary in her apartment.

“It’s a p…”

“P?” She twirled the hairpin between her fingers expertly.

Elvia looked around to ensure no one could hear her next words.

“It’s the PENIS bone found in humanoid species of Lizard-men!”

With a sudden jerk of her hand, the penial-fashionista hurled her baculum with the revulsion of one suddenly finding a fat, foreign phallus prodding one's fingers.

‘Thunk!’

The business-end, weighted for pleasure, stuck into the drywall with a thunk!

Like a rudely-erect sundial, Yue’s ill-humoured phallus mocked her from up on high. Holy shit! Gwen felt ill. She had worn that thing in front of everyone! She had boasted of how well it matched her outfit!

“That Yue…” Gwen recalled her Uncle’s discomfort while they conversed. Her face burned. “I am… going to pay her back. We must pay her back!”

“Count me in!” Elvia’s eyes grew swollen.

“Why, what did you do, Evee?” She wondered if Elvia too had been using the sticks as a hair ornament.

Evee's lament erupted with anguish.

“Sylvie caught on to what they were, but not before I ate lunch...”

By the week's end, at the Dean's polite behest, Gwen consented to a meeting with Walken to discuss what they would be doing. Before she could invest in Walken's venture, she had to rationally and logically consider the boons and banes. With a few months until trials for the IIUC started, and roughly six months before the IIUC itself began within the Inter-Asia region, those choices came with weighted consequences.

“Come at me.”

She blinked.

“You want me to attack you?”

“I do.”

“You are sure?”

Gwen couldn't believe it. She didn't even have to drop her top or nothing.

“Absolu-.”

“Lightning Bolt!”

A streak of arm-thick lightning flashed between them.

“Elemental Anchor!”

A swirling mandala appeared mid-air. Where Gwen’s Lightning had struck, the invoked plasma harmlessly drained into Walken's revolving glyphs, glowing only for a second before her energy faded.

She stared then glared at Walken with equal parts resentment and awe.

“A tier 5 Transmutation spell, useful for defending against Mages with conforming Elemental alignments.” Walken grinned. “Did you forget that I am a Magister? Is that all you have?”

Gwen had indeed forgotten that Walken was a Magister. The last time she had seen him, the prick was in the midst of being bitch-slapped by Sobel. But the man was indeed a Magister. As such, Walken should have at least three Schools of Magic at tier 6 and above. If Conjuration was his Major School of Magic, what were the others? Transmutation was a possibility, and Evocation most likely. Walken never did invoke Illusion, Abjuration did not favour Air, and Creature Mages seldom took high-tier Divination or Enchantment.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Elemental Sphere!” Gwen pumped out a second spell before Walken even finished.

“Shield!”

Her sphere struck Walken’s Lightning barrier.
Rather than imploding, her sphere melded into Walken’s Shield, seemingly consumed by its surface.

“Childish!” Walken sneered.

“Void Bolt!”

A dark sliver sped toward Walken.

She shouldn’t have, but taking a hatchet to Walken's kisser would make her very happy indeed.

“Aegis!”

For a second, Gwen wondered if Walken was an Illusionist after all. A portion of the Magister's Shield detached itself, incandescently hovering half-a-meter in front of his body before catching her bolt like a baseball mitt.

The two energies collided, the Lightning neutralising her prideful bolt without so much as a sizzle.

“You’re a long, long way from Sobel if you want revenge, girl,” Walken snorted. “As for your battle-instincts, I have to wonder; what did Henry see in you?”

“Void Sphere!”

“Ha!” Walken dropped another Aegis. “That's more like it!”

This time, her two-stage Evocation imploded.
She watched as a nova-ring of paper-thin ink washed over Walken’s body, filling her heart with jubilation.

"Ha-" She spat.

Rationality returned in the next moment, draining the warmth from her bosoms. FUCK! Her fingers clenched and unclenched. She’d done it again! Did she go too far? What kind of trouble was she in now? But she was goaded! Could they blame her? He was using her dead Master to drive her into a corner!

After a split-second of enveloping darkness, the Void-matter consumed itself.

Walken was gone.

Staring at the space her adversarial Instructor once occupied, Gwen baulked. GONE?! Her mind performed a double-take. Shouldn’t he be cut in half?

“That was wonderfully executed, Gwen Song.” Walken’s voice came from above.

She raised her head to see the man standing upside down on the vaulted ceiling.

A last-minute D-D? An Illusion? Mind Magic? But she has her earrings. Gwen reminded herself. If that was an Illusion, her wards should have chimed.

“You seem surprised.” Walken looked down at her. “Didn’t Henry tell you that at our level of mastery, we supersede the need for audible low-tier Invocations?”

“You must feel so superior up on that ceiling,” Gwen retorted even as the hateful Magister invited her to launch another assault. “It must feel great bullying a novice like me."

“Such an inane humility. ” Walken drifted from the ceiling via Feather Fall, landing with a grace that put Gwen's flight to shame. “Would you feel better if I had praised you? Patted your head? How is it that you still think yourself an Acolyte?”

“Am I a Magus then?”

“You’re knee-deep in carcasses, for one,” Walken mocked her, watching the girl flinch. “And you’ve consumed Monsters that would take Magus-tier casters, working in tandem, to defeat. You must be the most ill-informed Acolyte in the world to think of yourself so lowly. Does our little celebrity of Fudan not recognise her majesty?”

Gwen bit her lower lip until it bruised.

“Glad to see our training paying off already.” Walken’s speech grated on her nerves. “Tell me truly, do you desire to master your Affinity, Gwen?”

“I do.” Gwen raised her chin defiantly. “Are you here to help? Or were you selling snake-oil to the Dean so that you could have a bed and roof over your head?”

To her disappointment, her sarcastic riposte failed to connect. The man's ego was part-eel, part-ass.

“There are three reasons for your imbalance,” Walken began, suddenly serious.

The shift in atmosphere caught her off-guard.

She waited for Walken to continue.

“Well?” the Magister demanded.

“Well, what?”

“Didn’t Henry teach you any manners?” Walken scratched his neatly-cropped beard. “If you want help from someone, a little politeness could go a long way.”

“From you?”

“Is there another Magister here?”

“Are you senile?”

“I see,” Walken sighed. “I am sorry that we’ve wasted each other’s time. Good day, Miss Song. I am sure Mister Lu and the others could benefit from my efforts with a more assistive attitude.”

To her surprise, Walken turned to leave.

It’s a trick!
The arrogant bastard!
He knew she needed his help!
Well, fuck him. Gwen rebuked Walken mentally. She could ask Ayxin!
The Dragon-kin seemed like she had her shit together. Furthermore, she hadn't asked uncle Jun yet; maybe he'll figure something out.

That makes no sense, you nincompoop! The better part of her brain screamed that Ayxin was a fucking Dragon-Mage. Why the fuck would a Dragon have problems with their nature? Being arrogant and prideful was the same as breathing. What could Ayxin teach her? How to hoard crystals? How to take over a mountain? How to use political clout to ensnare her uncle Jun? Which follicle on Ayxin's body showed that she had humility and control over her arrogance?

On the other side of the training hall, Walken had arrived at the threshold.

“Wait!” The better part of Gwen called out. She would have to give the old bastard this round.

Walken's backward glance had the manner of a Bond villain.

“...” Her voice caught in her throat.

Walken reached for the door.

“T-teach me!”

“That’s my intent.” Walken's gaze turned her complexion as pink as pippins. “But its good to know we’re off to an amicable start.”

She slowly exhaled.

“Both in a professional capacity, and private capacity, I do wish that you may benefit from our relationship,” Walken spoke with a solemnity that surprised her. “To that end, I am going to be very honest with you, brutal even.”

Though not entirely convinced, Gwen nodded.

“Good, take a seat.”

Her Instructor raised a hand, conjuring a table and two seats.
The same trick as Dean Luo, Gwen recognised the chantless Conjure Object. The signature was distinct and familiar. Were the two related somehow? How did they know each other?

She sat.

A dark Grot.
A circular table and two chairs.
Herself, and a mentor.
The nostalgia was too real.

“Listen well.” Walken caught her attention by tapping the table audibly. “There is no 'cure' for your affinity.”

“I am sorry?” Gwen stared at Walken.

“There is no helping it.” Walken met her eyes. “That’s how it is.”

“Are you fucking with me?!” she spluttered bewilderingly.

“Language, young lady,” Walken chided his unhinged protégé. “Not to mention you should let others finish before blowing up. It looks to me that you have a patience problem too, do you possess excess Fire as well? A spot too much of the 'Yang', as the Orientals say?”

“I…”

Her teacher made a shushing motion.

“I said there's no 'cure'. I did not say Affinity-traits are unmanageable.”

Gwen pursed her lips.

“To begin, there are three factors involved in your condition.”

Walken raised a finger.

“One - you are too young. Your body, as it were, isn’t capable of managing both the Draconic-essence and the Lightning-affinity. Take, for example, your exceptional strength and agility. No boon exists without consequence. If you exercise powers beyond what your natural body is capable of, then these very same powers will influence you in subtle ways. If you wish to have the proportional constitution of a Dragon, then you will suffer the arrogance of one. Such is life. Nothing is ever so convenient as a gain without a cost.”

Gwen guiltily thought of all the times she had taken advantage of her new physique. Morning runs, moving furniture, punching Richard, pushing Dai, walking in four-inch stiletto heels around campus without so much as a pinched toe.

“Two - your Spell List and theory-craft are atrociously mismanaged. A Mage, even a genius one, slowly acquires spells throughout his or her long years. Take, for example, Magister Larsen. How long did you think it took for him to progress his Signature Magic? I’ve met the man in person so that you know. He became a Magus at twenty-three, perfected Lightning Sphere at twenty-nine, then Ball Lightning at thirty-four. How about you? Buoyed by your affinity and your draconic body, you throw around spells that took the man three decades to achieve-”

“I learned the spells before-”

“The point,” Walken interrupted her protest. “Is that you’re a supernaturally-powerful child wielding a sword twice your height. You possess no finesses. You are a brute, a bruiser, a copy-cat abusing powers beyond your ken, throwing invocations like boulders. Neither your physical nor your Astral Body has had time to accustom itself to the growth of your affinity, which is why you’re so easily influenced.”

She groaned. Walken's advice was connecting all the dots she couldn't previously align.

“Finally, though this is only a theory. I suspect Henry never intended to let either of your Elemental Affinity exceed the other to this extent.”

“Master had arranged for that?”

Walken leaned in from across the table.

“What affinity were you while under your Master’s care?”

“3-Lightning and 3-Void, then 4-Lightning and 4-Void…” Gwen tried her best to recollect Henry’s estimate. She never did receive an exact numerical value then, nor did she obsess over her ‘statistics’. Other than her very first evaluations, she had never recalled Henry fussing over her numbers like her instructors in Fudan. Likewise, he had restricted her to a pragmatic set of useful spells. She had never felt rushed or short on time, not even when the Inter-high competition loomed. It was heaven and hell compared to her present state of affairs.

“Do you believe there was a purpose to it keeping your affinities so closely aligned?”

Gwen blinked.

Was there a ‘purpose’?
She had no idea.
Alesia and Gunther both possessed single-elements. Alesia was a Fire Mage through and through; even her Master had been worried about how she reacted around others and had shielded Alesia from situations where her temperament would adversely impact her Quests.
As for Gunther, his affinity appeared more boon than bane.

For his youngest Apprentice, her Master had always favoured her wit, intelligence and charm over her ability with spells. Gwen had taken Henry's adoration as the natural way of things. After all, Gunther took care of the big problems, while Alesia was always available as a battering ram when the need arose.

How plausible was the application of her Master's Middle Path to her Elemental Talents? Could the two even correlate? Balance in all things? Had Henry ever mentioned anything like that?

“I see you know nothing,” Walken’s cynicism resumed. “Shame. I'd thought the two of you closer.”

“What would you know about that?” Gwen fought down a taste of bile, fighting a thorn digging at her bosom.

“Enough to suspect that Henry knew what he was doing,” the Magister candidly apprised her past. “Your Master wasn’t one for academic publications or CCs, though he has been around for a very, very long time.”

“What do you mean by that?"

“Oh come on, Henry didn't even tell you his age? How old do you suppose someone called Deathless Henry could be?”

Swimming upstream against her simmering ire, Gwen hazarded a guess. Since his tryst with Sobel happened in the 1970s, she’d place her Master as an early 1940s guy.

“Seventy-something,” she declared. "Elizabeth was almost a decade younger, I recall."

Walken laughed.

“A keen estimate.” He snickered. “The data I obtained from the Ministry of Records for Sobel showed that she was born in 1952, making her twenty-four when Noosa Heads happened in 1976. A young noblewoman, at the prime of her life! As for your Master, records state that the late Marshall Kilroy was thirty-six at the time.”

Eh? Gwen wrinkled her nose. If Sobel followed her Master out of London a few years prior, wouldn’t that mean 'Lillybird' was in her twenties, perhaps her teens?

“Mages, especially powerful individuals, have no difficulty in accessing life-extending ingredients,” Walken continued. “If your Master perished in his seventies, why was his appearance so venerable? Why the ironic moniker?”

“Elizabeth had mortally wounded him,” Gwen remarked, withholding details in case Walken was attempting to milk her for intelligence.

“Of course, we all know that. The man drinks his Golden Mead like water!” The Magister knocked the table with his fingertips. “How is it that we call him Deathless Henry?”

“He’s a Plant Mage,” Gwen retorted. “He can regenerate wounds and tap into the essence of life via Sufina. I've seen it!”

Walken admired her impetuosity with amusement.

“How presumptuous you profess to be! Are you suggesting that you know more about Henry Kilroy's magic than I, who has been his rival for a decade? How much time have you spent with him? Less time than he and I have had meetings!”

Gwen stared at her fingers, refuting Walken’s goading, refusing the satisfaction the man must derive from degrading her.

“Think about it, child,” Walken implored. “Your Master: so wise, so powerful. He was there when the Tower System was founded, you know. That was in 72’ after humanity managed to wrestle our capitals from the Beast Tide. Do you recall your history lessons? First to activate was the converted Tower of London, then Paris, Munich, Rome, The Acropolis in Greece, by the time Sydney got its Tower, it was 1982. When in 68' me and my alumni erected Oxford University's faux-Tower, you know who I saw? Henry Kilroy, not a young man, but certainly a man much older than I was. Mid-thirties, perhaps? Who knows? Already, he stood beside my House-master. Imagine my surprise when I met him again in 73’ during the Coral Sea Reclamation! He had held jurisdiction over the entire northern Front of the Brisbane Line! First as a Commander, then a Marshall!”

“I don’t understand,” Gwen interrupted. So much of Walken's words abrogated her knowledge of Henry's past. “What are you trying to say?”

“I am not too sure myself.” Walken leaned back in his chair, then faced her with both hands splayed. “Sobel, Kilroy. Void Magic. There’s history there that you and I do not know and lack the means to excavate. I doubt even Gunther knew your Master's history.”

Gwen opened and shut her mouth a few times.
Walken was right, the bastard was a prick, but he wasn't wrong.
She vividly recalled that Gunther had been caught flatfooted by Paul Chandler as well.

“At any rate, good talk.” The Magister patted his knees. "Let me know if you want to continue."

Walken studied the girl's conflicted, confused eyes, then rose so that he stood over her. When after a minute an answer failed to present itself, he walked beside his pale-faced mentee.

“You know, I was there when you first came to the Tower in April. I saw you teleport into the Tower along with De Botton. I had my eye on you then. The scent permeating from your body was unmistakable."

"What do you mean?" Scent? She gave her collar a quick sniff.

“Imagine, Gwen, if Alesia hadn't acted her insane self. You could have come to see me right after Henry. I would have offered you so much more, Gwen, knowing who you are and what you could do, I would have-"

"No!" She pushed herself from the chair, turning to face Walken with her amber-emerald pupils. "Don't you dare!"

"You and I..." Walken raised a hand both to summon his Familiar and to Message the Administration Desk. "Operator, Instruction mode."

Walken’s Winged Serpent materialised, immediately flocking to Gwen with a passion unbecoming of someone else's high-tier draconic-Spirit.

“Tssss! Gwen! Treat! Treat!”

Gwen battered the serpent away. She wasn't in the mood.

The room thrummed.
Two Astral Projections appeared on the floor.

“!”

Her gasp was audible. She could see Walken’s refraction below! The Magister was opening himself to her, showing her his Astral Soul! What was the man thinking? She was an enemy! She wanted his head on a silver platter!

Unlike her dancer’s sculpture, Walken’s Astral silhouette was a sagely male figure surrounded by his elements. Within surrounding streams of companionable Air floated thunderous clouds that sparked and glowed with Lightning.

An Air Mage! Gwen observed. And via Aella, Walken tapped into the Gate of Lightning as well. From what she could see, Walken and Aella's Master-Familiar sympathy put her and her creatures to shame.

But more than magic, it was Walken’s candid transparency that stunned her. Not even Gunther had shown her his Astral Soul. She had never seen Yue's or Elvia's this distinctly. It was only her Master's and Alesia's that she'd ever witnessed up close and with such intimacy.

"Bring out Ariel, Gwen."

Obedient and dazed, she obliged.

"EE! EEE!" Ariel flowed toward Aella, muzzling the serpent's wings as Aella nuzzled Ariel's horns.

“You and I…” Walken willed his Winged Serpent to approach Ariel.

A viridescent spark passed between them.

“EEeee!” Ariel flew into a frenzy of uncontrollable joy.

“Kin! Kin!” Aella hissed, dancing back and forth.

"EE! EE!" Ariel followed suit, swishing its tail.

There as no mistaking the smell of eucalyptus and sea salt permeating her senses.

It was the Essence of a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains; of rugged mountain ranges, droughts and flooding rains. The Essence flowing from Aella was mana drawn from a red earth singing and Dreaming of a vast brown land.

“I wonder.” Walken stood with both his hands behind his back. “I wonder what would have happened then if you had not fought my invitation. If De Botton had not attacked my men, and we had the opportunity to begin as allies. Would it have been possible, that you would have become my Apprentice, my Kin? If so, would Sydney have happened at all? Would Henry still be alive?”


“It’s called creative-art therapy.” Dr Siobhan Monroe ignored her client's laughter, bearing her ridicule with the patience of a saint. Her client, as usual, wasn’t taking her disorder seriously. “I am not making fun of you, Gwen, give it a go.”

“Fingerpainting? Really?”

Siobhan pointed at the overlarge canvas.

“You did say you couldn’t paint even if your life depended on it. Nonetheless, the therapeutic outcome is valid.”

“Oh, come on.” Her client gave her the biggest, broadest smile she could muster. “I’ve been doing very well, you should know. The Celexa’s keeping a tight lid on things. It's fine.”

“My job is to wean you off the pharmaceuticals, not make you dependent,” Siobhan reminded her client. “Now be a good girl and let's dredge up some of that abyssal oil you keep talking about.”

“Siobhan, I paid for an hour with you - I am literally wearing Chanel in white, and you want me to finger-paint while you talk shop about my father. Really?”

“I got you a single-use raincoat.” Dr Monroe pointed to the clear plastic overcoat. “Don’t forget, you’re paying me very well. Imagine all that money going to waste. Your tendency for disassociation isn’t something I made up, Gwen. You’ll drown in it if you never touch the bottom.”

“Arrrgh! Fine! You know me too well,” her client grumbled. “What are you, my psychologist?”

The two women laughed. Siobhan knew she shouldn't be getting close to her clients, but Gwen was exceptionally personable. Across the table, Dr Monroe's patient obediently slipped into the transparent rain-coat.

“I hope you’re ready.” Her patient stuck her hand into the cold, congealing acrylic. “I am in the mood for Edvard Munch.”

"Would Sydney have happened at all?"

Time dilated.

At first, her mind grew hot with incandescence. Every word, every spittle issuing forth from Walken’s mouth added fuel to her raging bushfire. Her retorts blurred and blended until each refutation she had prepared to rebuke Walken’s accusation grew fuzzy and indistinct.

What had been anger blossomed into doubt, then from doubt came fear, viscous and sticky, clinging onto her conscience with the consistency of tar, slinking up her thighs, throttling her throat.

Meanwhile, looming above her, Magister Walken watched like a rock-spider.

"Would Henry still be alive?”

Gwen wilted at the weight of his allegations.
Instantly, her complexion grew pallid; her pupils contracted, her petal-pink lips gasped; the blood in her torso froze, cold perspiration permeated the sheer fabric of her blouse, and her feet grew weightless.

Then came a vertiginous sensation of falling and whirling, and that was when she recalled the portrait she had painted for Dr Monroe.

She had wanted to do 'The Scream', but instead, she painted a big black vortex, round and round, swishing and swirling until half the canvas was black.

"That's your panic attack." Dr Monroe was beyond satisfied. "Now you know what it looks like."

How strange that she had forgotten all about it.
Dr Monroe had even billed her for the second hour.
Was her Almudj's Essence the source of her superior recall, or her Ioun Stone of Clarified Thought, or something else?

"Gwen?"

At the sound of the Magister's voice, her mind grew as cold as a slice of eldritch ice: shame, regret, remorse - all of her stifling, maddening emotions suddenly drained away as though a plug had been pulled.

Her vertigo receded.

Two years ago, she would have folded like origami, then from that compressed space would emerge a hungering Void, seeking to consume something, anything, trying to fill the uncertain emptiness.
But the Gwen of today wasn’t the mewling girl-child of yesteryear.
She had friends: Elvia, Yue, Lulan, Mia and the others.
She had a family: Babulya, Petra, Richard, Mina and Tao, Guo and Percy.
She had companions like Alesia and Gunther.

As for Walken, the man was and still is a lying sack of lukewarm shit, and she shouldn't trust him beyond how far she could blast him.

What dead and unenterprising eyes the man possessed, Gwen cocked her head slightly to get a better look. Where’s his conviction? If she had to convince someone that their loved one had been a liar, a crook, the black hand behind a world of misery, her pupils would burn with belief, her irises aflame with fervour.

But Walken’s orbs were two lumps of deadened charcoal.
It was the mark of a man who had never believed in anything in his life, living from day to day, making faces to meet the faces that he meets.

Creed without credence lacked all credibility.
It was Henry who taught her that.

Comparatively, her Master was a firm believer in words. By both their reckoning, great men with great oratory had changed the flow of history, made possible the impossible, freed the million-multitudes from slavery, ignited dreams, incited revolutions, immortalised their ideas for better or worse.

In her old world, anyone with the inclination and the interest could become a student of history’s greatest wordsmiths. Some were fictional, crafted by old Masters to inspire and teach. Others were the vanguards of progress, freeing others even as they remained imprisoned behind walls of segregation and prejudice.

Thusly shielded by the great wisdom of her old world and bulwarked by the love of family and friends, how could Walken’s venom work its sinister virulence? Did he expect that she would turn to him instead?

Now caught by the cold logic of hindsight, she reeled from the onion-stench of Walken’s lie-strewn mouth. As a young girl, she wouldn’t have recognised his ploy, but how could a 21st-century woman with a half-decade long history of therapy have missed an arrogant prick’s attempt to gaslight her?

Within Walken's play, she was Paula Alquist; Walken fancied himself the insidious Sergius Bauer, the murderer of her mother, and her fealty was the jewel he sought. Through insults and rewards, Walken was wearing her down, using everything she held dear as ammunition, tossing in morsels of truth to dim her lights, telling her that she was crazy, insane, unstable, while convincing her that her beloved Master was a liar.

Had Walken taken her for a child?

But of course, that was the point. Wasn't it?
She was in the body of an adolescent.
Her comely face and nubile body were naturally disarming.
What had Walken said? That she was a supernaturally-powerful child wielding a sword twice her height? Wouldn’t it be a riot if he knew that she was wielding a mind twice her age, filled to the brim with otherworldly knowledge?

Gwen moistened her eyes to disguise the fact that her lucidity had returned, then took the instance of Walken’s smug satisfaction to lay down plots and inductions of her own.

Walken had the knowledge she wanted, but she wasn't willing to pretend none of this happened, nor could she tell him to fuck right off back to his swamp. Rather, she wanted satisfaction, retribution, and to see that smug smile wiped off his fucking face.

“Ariel! Get away from that thing!” she screeched at her Familiar to separate from Aella. “That thing may be kin, but it’s less than kind!”

“Shaa!” A materialised Caliban came between the Kirin and its amorous companion.

“EEE?” Ariel pulled itself away, unwilling to follow its Master’s unfeeling demand. “Eee! Eee!”

Her Kirin was upset, but there was no helping it.

The feeble essence emitted by Aella the Couatl was real. It possessed a smidgen of the rainbow serpent’s colours, like a long-lost relative one immediately recognised because she had her mother’s eyes. It was this specific energy that Walken had used to abuse her senses, to warp her sense of reality.

“Ariel, Caliban! Come back!”

Her creatures were honest to a fault and unsuited to deception. In hindsight, Gwen realised that was also why Walken had allowed his Familiar to become acquainted with her. It was because Aella was entirely ‘innocent’ and by association, she wouldn’t doubt his ‘honest’ intentions.

“Play!” Aella cooed at her.

“Sorry, Aella.” She brushed away one of its enormous wings. “I am not feeling well.”

Cycling a few motes of Void was enough to turn her skin ashen, effecting a snail-sheen of sweat across her face, her hands, and her thighs.

“Gwen.” Walken’s mask grew pregnant with worry. “Are you feeling alright?”

“I don’t know.” She smiled at him with trembling lips. Her hands were shaking. Was it attributed to her narrowly missed psychosis? Or was she unnerved by her attempt at deception? “I don’t know anything anymore.”

“Well, let me give you something to tide you over.” Walken took her hand, then placed something in the midst of her palm.

The touch of the hateful man’s fingers seared her skin like a branding iron. It took everything in her power to stop herself from gagging.

A Message Orb. It was another Message Orb.

So the positive reinforcement for her pliantness was another one of her Master's Ioun Stones.

“Sir?”

“I have many more.” Walken touched her hair in a fatherly manner.

Reflexively, she drew away.
It was too much.
Thankfully, her manipulator chose to keep his distance, likely not wishing to startle his victim.

“I hear you have made a lot of crystals Gwen.” Walken returned to his seat. "Your appetite for economics can only be described as draconic."

“I did, Sir.” Gwen lowered her chin, then peeked at her adversarial advisor in a way that emphasised her passivity. “A girl’s gotta eat."

“Ha, you’ve got that right. I mean no offence, child, but your Master’s Credo, the Middle Path, is not suited for one as naturally avaricious as you. Still, if you wish to persist, I want you to know I’ll do my best to help you.”

Unsure of what to say, Gwen touched a finger to a corner of her eye, smearing some of her make up. When she looked up again, she was the very picture of pity.

Opposite, Walken caught the despair and disillusion in her vacant pupils, swallowing before he could continue.

“I have a proposal: a hypothesis: provable only through practice. I do not know if the method will succeed, so you will have to trust me. I know that’s hard, perhaps impossible, but such is the hand you've been dealt. There are few people alive who possess the same affinity, talent and blessings as you and I.”

She hugged her chest so as to prevent herself from physically unscrewing the man’s head like a lightbulb.

Should she agree? She needed time.

“No, don’t answer yet.” Walken reached out, then with great gentleness, placed a hand on the stunned girl’s shoulders. His victim shuddered. “Think on it.”

Then cooly, his objective accomplished, Walken left.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

When Gwen felt relaxed enough to breathe again, she was alone. Suppressing her turbulent impulses, she cupped the Ioun Stone in her hand and activated the glyph for playback.

“Eric,” her Master’s voice floated through the air. He sounded younger, more robust than the previous recording. “Here’s the inventory I’ve set up for the Seventh Expedition. We don’t know if the Divination Towers will be up in time, so I am having this delivered to you in person. Here’s what I managed to commandeer…”

After a mind-numbing ten minutes of army rations, blankets, potions, low-tier magic items of convenience, clothing, transport and quasi-magical implements, Gwen confirmed her disappointment.

Walken thought a recording of Henry reading out a grocery list was enough to bribe her over?

Fidgeting with the stone, she evaluated her lack-lustre performance.

To think two years after she had a freak out at Hyde Park, Walken had almost triggered another Void-leak. Were it not for the friends and family she now had, she would have dived into that dark abyss and given herself to whatever old and forgotten thing that lurked in the Void. With her affinity and her vitality now, what would have happened?

Back in her old world, Dr Monroe would have called it a Depersonalization episode, a moment of manic hysteria accompanied by a sudden divorce from one’s physicality, becoming alienated from feelings and emotions, acting out in ways uncontrollable by the conscious psyche.

Likewise, Dr Monroe had said that if she could learn to trust, and if she could normalise her interpersonal dependencies, then her episodes would lessen, then cease.

Five years and one inter-dimensional reincarnation later, her psychologist finally earned her $300 plus GST an hour consultation.

As for what came next -

Boil, broil, grill or sauté?
How many ways could she cook the knowledge from Eric Walken?

“God you look tired,” Petra remarked during breakfast. “What happened?”

“Cutting back on my draconic-caffeine.” Gwen moaned, letting her head rest against the table. “Give me another cup.”

“I don’t think regular coffee is going to help.”

“Hahaha… well, there’s not much else I can do at this point. Can’t let it get to my head,” Gwen lamented.

“So, are you going back to Walken?”

“Gotta pay him back three-fold.” Gwen forced herself to sit with her back straight. “In the meanwhile, he can sweat.”

“Why’s he so interested in you?” Petra poured her another cup. "Here, I'll fix your hair."

“Maybe I am his ticket back into the good graces of the Grey Faction?” Her cousin shrugged. “Maybe he thinks he could do a better job than my Master, or maybe it’s because the man's afraid. I know that if Alesia were here, one of them would probably be dead by now. If I am on his side, I can keep Alesia off his back.”

“Now there’s someone with no concerns regarding their affinity-traits.” Petra chuckled.

“True, I can see why Alesia chose to stay in the Frontier when she could have lived an easy life in a tier 1 city. She’s affinity 5 or 6, I think, probably 6, and it was higher when she had her Scarlet Caracal.”

“What about your friend Yue?”

“4, when she started. Maybe 5 now.”

“And you’re edging toward 7…”

“Ergh…” Gwen groaned. “Don’t remind me.”

Petra laughed, pulling on Gwen's hair with a brush.

“Yeah, yeah.” Gwen produced the Message Orb. “Say, can you take me through this thing again?”

Gwen waited two weeks before she relented to booking Walken.

First, she wanted to have a go at managing her Essence usage. Since acquiring Almudj’s blessing, she had subsisted, consciously or otherwise, on the trivialisation all of her physical ailments.

More so than the euphoric pleasure of her Void Consumption, it was small blessings like not having to deal with menstrual cramps, fatigue, insomnia and indigestion that made Almudj’s powers endearing and highly addictive. It’s like Celexa and Buspar and Ibuprofen, taken together; a miracle panacea just like the old advert uses to say: ‘Have a cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down, and she'll be right, mate.’

Now removed from the creature comfort of her draconic-cocaine, she became difficult, cranky, snarky, tired, meandering and forgetful all at once, confirming that her Essence did indeed impact her mental faculties.

Her first slip-up occurred during overtime on Friday night, desiring to finish, she grew roaring drunk on Draconic-essence, high as a drake as she soared through the tedium of paperwork and practice, then took her co-workers out for all-night hot-pot.

By Saturday, she had to acknowledge that her inhuman schedule was impossible. Between her blistering metabolism, her unending hunger and her insomnia, the only thing keeping her stitched together had been Almudj’s blessing.

Meanwhile, heedless of her strained fortitude, classes continued unabated.

Working as Ma's Teaching Assistant was soothing in a way. While Professor Ma gave his lectures, she graded papers, wrote tutorial questions, composed hypotheticals, and provided graphical data. A few lessons in, a nasty rumour spread about her relationship with the squib Professor, but then a public trashing of the mouth-breathers from her Duelling Club seniors quickly put a stop to that nonsense.

Economics proved far more enterprising. As a socialist state, the CCP’s operatives ran most of its major industries as ‘state’ enterprises lorded over by Clan heads and ancient Scholar-bureaucratic families. As a land abundant with resources and low on Demi-humans, China had set itself up as the food-bowl of the South East Asian region, producing grain for export to the surrounding Frontiers. Though the course materials lauded the economic model used for mass-hydro farming, Gwen foresaw the very same mistakes Australia, America and Brazil had made in her world. When an enterprise or state began to pursue an endless annual increase to production, they turned to increasingly unsustainable methods to fuel supply. When expansion involved draining lakes, diverting rivers and flash-burning land for agricultural space, a downturn was inevitable. Like a coiled spring waiting to snap, the Demi-humans and Magical fauna pressed into the margins of what little wilderness that remained was a ticking Warding Glyph.

In Gwen's opinion, the Su-Hang region was a case of having all of one’s eggs stashed precariously into a big basket. In her old world, rapid economic elevation of China’s poor had consumed most of its arable land by producing 20% of the world’s food supply in 7% of the world’s viable agricultural zones, relying heavily on industrial fertilisers. As for her present world, what if an extreme weather event happened? Or an angry, ancient dragon came to visit? Even if Shanghai had stores to outlast the year, what about the Frontier? Where would their supply of wheat, rice and maze come from? What would the NoMs eat when rice costs an HDM a kilo?

Gwen proposed these enquiries to her fellow students and made them compose reports on the short term and long term economic outcomes of disaster-events. Later in the semester, she would teach them how to use data extrapolation for future-proofing.

If even a single one of her peers managed to save a single District on the Frontier, then her job was done. Her Master would be proud.

Concurrently, Divination progressed as well as could be expected.

The class took place in one of the Expatriate-designed ‘International classrooms’ west of the main Fudan campus, in a private ‘training’ hall filled with Creole fetishes. The Instructor was a Caucasian matron by the name of Madam L’Croix, a bloodline Diviner like Mayuree.

To improve her students' basic Detect Magic, the Instructor arranged incense burners with different incense sticks enchanted with an assortment of Schools of Magic. The students’ job then, was to use Mage Hand to pluck apart strands of magical-motes wafting through the air. The idea was to sharpen one's synaesthesia for Schools of Magic, discerning additional details like intensity, duration, and signature.

Gwen had found the bead-wearing Diviner Magus charming, though her Instructor kept a polite distance from the infamous ‘Worm Handler’ of Fudan.

When an opportunity arose, Gwen asked the woman if she had offended her in any way. The Diviner smiled and blinked her eyes unconvincingly. Just being professional, the Diviner informed her, though Gwen suspected her Instructor might have carelessly tossed some bones.

Diviners! She felt a little insulted. They should stick to teaching pragmatics and keep their noses out of other people’s futures!

“Everything alright, Miss Song?”

It took Gwen a moment to re-orientate her surroundings.

“Sorry,” she apologised. “I have no excuse.”

Magister Lee had caught her napping, and the whole lecture had tuned in to watch.

“Don’t burn yourself out.” Michio Lee’s face glowed with supernatural amiability. “You look like something my cat dragged in.”

Gwen attempted to laugh off her embarrassment.

She was truly sorry. Spell-shaping was one of her favourite classes at the moment. Michio was an excellent lecturer, and his contemporary theories were easy to understand. As for her coursework, the ultimate goal of the Advanced Spellshaping was for each student to genuinely attempt a Signature Spell.

Nine-months on, even the self-absorbed Magister Lee had heard of Gwen’s prowess. The reason he was so nice was that Lee had proposed she create an original, minimum tier 4 Void-spell.

“Lightning spells are a dime a dozen!” her instructor had informed her. “Now Void magic, that’s something to see! I want the characteristics of your Void magic used exclusively!”

But what should she create?

Two types of spells made up the Imperial Metric System.

One, Magical phenomena translated from old magic into the IMS.
Two, original spells created via the Imperial Metric System.

Some ancient arcana, such as the ubiquitous Fire Ball, Magic Missile and Lightning Bolt, has since straddled both worlds, each with distinct metamorphic variations when used by Mages of varying skill and talent.

Morden’s Hounds were a case-in-point for old, translated invocations. Lacking the pure pragmatism of newer magic, the spells of old tend to possess flair and flavour, persisting through the ages via a combination of mythoi, record keeping and tradition.

New magic pointed to the late Magister Larsen’s Lightning Sphere and Ball Lightning, which drew upon increasingly more complex sigil-stack, but whose effects were explicit and simplified.

In experimental theory, minor and major incantations were stripped and distilled into various effects. The effect, range, shape, area, form, time, duration and phenomena could all be customised if one knew the theory behind weaving a particular School’s arcane algorithm.

The complication, alas, laid in creating a spell stable enough to manifest without blowing up, or having its feedback knock the caster’s teeth out.

Most ‘creations’ did not succeed.
Those that did seldom proved useful.
And new invocations with safe, widely applicable utility were as rare as hen’s teeth.

Petra and Wen’s Spell Cubes were a sterling example of a successful Signature creation with niche application and limited public utility. Even with all their combined genius, the material and effort invested into creating unique spells weren't likely to provide a profit in CCs or Crystals. The pursuit of knowledge, alas, remained a labour of love.

But Gwen just wanted a high-score to pad her High Distinctions; if she could create a useful, original Void Magic akin to Flashbang, all the better.

So far, her choices were limited.

If she wished to create an original attack spell, she had to choose between Monster or personnel. Monster-wise, very few spells came close to the efficacy of Morden’s Hounds. As for anti-personnel magic, where was the line in the sand that separated useful utility and murderous psychopathy? Take, for example, her Void variant of Cloudkill.

The very thought made her skin crawl.

A tier 4 Void Magic.

Gwen racked her brain without success, too tired to think.

Maybe she could milk an idea out of Walken?

In all honesty, she’ll have to sleep on it.

“…”

For the second time, the rest of the lecture fell into a curious silence.

Magister Lee’s chiselled jaws clenched. His Radiant Aura flared, forcing those sitting too close to shield their eyes.

Luo’s pompous prodigy had fallen asleep, again! Not only that, it looked as though she was dreaming!

“If the Middle Faction outnumber the others, why not force the matter?”

Gwen sat demurely in a low-back chair, having her hair braided by Sufina’s long, twig-like fingers. Just now, she had been conversing with Henry about the Middle Faction’s ongoing feuds with the Militants and the Greys.

“That’s not how we work.” Henry sipped his Golden Mead. “The sensible centre isn’t a position; it’s a compromise. Even within our Faction, there are those who favour the Demi-humans, those who love or loathe the NoMs, and those hungry for conquest.”

“Wouldn’t that make our Faction’s influence unstable?” Gwen furrowed her brows. How can anyone get anything done if no one can agree on a position?

“Ah, good question.” Her Master amused himself with the sight of Sufina consulting a salon-magazine. “In truth, our vulnerability is also the source of our flexibility. Those from the Militant Faction owe us from when we had sided with them on matters of mutual benefits - like the Purge of Katoomba. Walken’s Faction owes us for barring the Militant Faction from the Central Coast, where the Greys had set up a commodity-exchange with the Sandskin Mermen Tribe. Each time, we benefit a little, here and there, keeping the peace, slowly ratcheting up our position.”

“Oh, I get it!” Gwen nodded enthusiastically. Sufina slapped her head, demanding she stay still. “We’re putting the other Factions first, going for win-wins wherever possible. That way, we build up resources and goodwill no matter which Faction is taking the initiative. By the same measure, we don’t have to commit too much of our resources, allowing us always to keep a hand in reserve!”

“And if we are not in agreement with our fellows?” Henry questioned his Apprentice.

Gwen paused.
In the next moment, her eyes flamed with industry.

“We’ll leave them be if they succeed. Negotiation support in the case of a pyrrhic victory, or save their asses to preserve the balance!”

“Excellent!” Henry ruffled her hair. “Well done!”

“Bloody hell!” Sufina screeched. “Henry! Really?!”

“Sorry, Sufi.”

“Haha, don’t worry, Sufina, maybe I can do yours.” Gwen shook out her voluminous dark tresses, turning, she caught a handful of Sufina's 'hair'.

Sufina considered her offer with scepticism, her prehensile, vine-like hair forming instantly into a stylish Scandinavian triple-braid.

“Alright, alright.” Gwen sat back down. “I am all yours.”

Gwen opened her eyes.
There was a group of students mobbing her.

Or rather, they were mobbing Caliban and Ariel, taking advantage of the fact that she had passed out to play with her materialised, no longer invisible Familiars. Ariel was receiving the benediction of its worshippers, while Caliban twirled her hair with its tail.

Her brain slotted back into place.

“Miss Song, you’re awake.” A guilty member of Lee’s lecture stepped away from Ariel. “We were… er… looking after your Familiars for you.”

“Oh? Ah…” Gwen opened and shut her mouth a few times.

Shit! She had fallen asleep in Lee’s lecture. What’s more, it was a Wednesday!

FUCK! She was late for work!

‘Ding!’
‘Ding!’
‘Ding!’
‘Ding!’
Her Message Device chimed now that she was awake.

Ruì's voice blossomed beside her ear.

“Ma’am! You’ve got a meeting with Magus Maymaruya at 3 PM!”
“Ma’am. Should I reschedule?”
“Ma’am, Magus Maymaruya says he’ll wait, but it’s been an hour…”

“God damn it!” She pumped herself full of Almudj’s Essence, then bolted from the room.

“Ruì! Tell Dai and Ken I’ll be right in! Tell Magus Maymaruya I AM SORRY!”

March came in like a lamb, filling the campus with blossoms, dispelling the long winter.

Gwen took her time getting to the training hall, draining an XL milk tea of human kindness along the way before tossing the emptied vessel into a bin. At the double-glass doors of the training hall, she examined her reflection. Dressing for conflict, Gwen had picked out a white and floral sundress with an off-shoulder neckline to accentuate her springtime youth. She even bought a broad-brimmed hat. Since Walken convinced himself that was she was an emotional, adolescent airhead; she would play the part and make an honest man out of her instructor.

This time, for round 2, she wouldn't be Antonio.
This time, she would be Portia, and he would be her Shylock.