A Unicorn in the Clover Kingdom

by LordBrony2040

Rating: teen
Tags: Comedy, Other, Adventure, Sunset Shimmer, Profanity, Crossover, Human, Drama, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 293793

Sunset lands in the Clover Kingdom instead of Canterlot High

After a fight with Celestia, Sunset flees through a magic mirror into a different world.

Without her horn, any direction in her life, the inability to simply go back home and surrounded by strangers, she has to go on a journey of self discovery to find meaning in her life as dark forces begin to threaten the world she resides in.

But, at least she still has her magic and plenty of instruction manuals to learn more from.

Published 2020-05-16 18:10:01 UTC
Last updated 2020-07-26 21:55:24 UTC

Page 1: Orphans

Sunset fell through the portal before a sense of vertigo overcame her and she found herself stumbling around in the dark. Her body didn’t seem right and when she tried to move one of her forelegs, it felt completely wrong. A second of concentration that should have lit up her horn with a basic light spell only produced a brief spark and made her head hurt just a but before she felt something beneath her.

Wood.

She was standing on wood. But, her limbs were...wrong. something extended from the end of her hooves and her hind legs extended past the point where they should have been hind hooves. Then there was the wood, which she actually felt. The greatest amount of tactile response for a pony was the nose, which had the least amount of fuzz and was why ponies like Cadenza liked to give Sunset a little nuzzle every day before they started their lesson. But what Sunset felt coming from her malformed hooves surpassed all of that. She might as well have been standing on the frog of her hooves for how much sensation she was getting.

Muffled voiced sounded from not too far away over what could have been rain falling on the roof of...wherever she was.

A door opened in front of her and Sunset realized she was in a small room that was barely big enough to stand up in as the mirror she had come through lay on its side. Some light came in from the outside, but it wasn’t very much and had a weird tint to it, like Celestia had decided to just stop the sun right when she had gotten to the horizon.

Outside the door, there were these three...creatures. They were large and odd looking, standing on the hind legs like diamond dogs, or immature dragons. But that was where the similarities ended, because the parts of their bodies Sunset could see that weren’t covered in cloth where completely hairless.

They looked absolutely freakish.

“Wha-What is that little urchin doing inside my wagon?” the one in the middle, a fat male with far too many jewels in his clothing screeched in a voice that sounded like someone tearing into a chalkboard. “Is she trying to steal my new acquisitions? Those are artifacts that were owned by the first Wizard King! Teach that little rat a lesson!”

Sunset blinked in confusion as she suddenly felt an odd stirring of magic around her through senses that felt like the unicorn had a bad case of horn blockage. Then, the two other bipedal creatures were holding a pair of floating books that glowed with magic. “What the hay are you two-”

The one of the left, thinnest of the three, began talking. “Chain Magic: Choking Chain!”

A slight length of chain flew out of the book the thin man was holding and Sunset focused her on power in alarm, only to be hit with another splitting headache a second before she felt the chain wrap around her neck and jerk her whole body forward until she fell out of the covered wagon and onto the muddy ground.

Sunset reached up to try and free herself, her frantic mind not caring for the moment that her hooves were now the same strange clawless appendages that the creatures above her had. She tried to talk, tried to just force some air into her lungs, but the chain wrapped around her neck prevented her from accomplishing either.

The other naked ape, which was the only description Sunset could ascribe to these creatures, held up his book with arms that were a good deal bigger than the other book user. “Enhancement Magic: Striking Shoes.”

Then, Sunset felt something hit her in the stomach, forcing out what little air she had left before she was kicked again, and again, and again. A...something broke in her body and pain started to fade away with her vision as her body went numb and the darkness began to close in around her.

This...wasn’t how things were supposed to go.

Princess Celestia...help me, Sunset begged through the pain as she tried to curl up into a ball to protect herself.

“HEY! JUST WHAT DO YOU JERKS THING YOU’RE DOING?” a rather obnoxious sounding voice cut through the darkness before the pain died away.

“More of these flea-ridden mongrels?” the fat ape said to his cohorts. “Get rid of them.”

Before Sunset blacked out, she felt a very strong gust of wind whip around her, followed by the fat man’s panicked screams. “AAAH! Put me down you filthy rat!”

Yuno frowned as he watched the fat merchant and his hired goons chase after their wagon and carriage as the two teams of horses galloped away. Although he didn’t let it show on his face, the teen was glad that Asta had thrown those rocks that ended up hitting the animals and caused them to panic. While the black-haired youth was the most powerful magic user in the village and for far as he knew beyond, it would still be almost another year before he would go to the tower that could be seen on the horizon and receive a grimoire to unlock his true power. Going up against a pair of full-grown men who already had their tomes of magic might have been pushing it.

They weren’t magic knights, but they had been impressive enough to at least get some self-important merchant to hire them as protection from bandits.

“Hey Yuno, I think she’s hurt!” Asta called out as he knelt over the redhead’s unconscious body.

The comment got a little groan from Yuno as he walked over to the much shorter boy with the gray hair.

Unlike Yuno, Asta had absolutely no talent for magic; less than none, in fact. While some people could at least perform some kind of mana manipulation, starting fires with a spark, creating water to wash clothes, or make slight grooves in the ground for planting crops, Asta couldn’t do anything. His powers would probably come through when he got his grimoire, but it was still rather odd.

“Of course she’s hurt,” Yuno told him evenly as he knelt down to look at the girl. She looked about their age...maybe. It was hard to tell with teenage girls. Especially since Asta and Yuno were the only children in their age range at the orphanage. Sister Lilly was in her early twenties, and the girl laying in the mud was a good deal younger-looking than Sister Lilly. “Not everyone does a million strength building exercises a day like you do.” It was hard not to call Asta an idiot, but Yuno wouldn’t be the one to lose and start with the insults no matter how Asta needled him.

Putting his sort-of brother out of his mind for the moment, Yuno knelt down and looked the girl over. The swelling had already started and from what his hands could tell, she probably had a few cracked, if not broken ribs. The big guy had also given her a good kick to the head before Yuno had been able to stop them from attacking. Her neck didn’t look in good shape either with the imprint of that metal chain still there.

The girl was dressed in some high quality leather pants and matching boots, while her top was made from good cotton. Whoever the redhead was, she wasn’t some poor homeless child. A runaway? Yuno asked himself as he tried to think of why a girl that had ten times more than he ever did would have left home. It didn’t make sense to him at all, so his mind settled on a much more likely possibility. Or a kidnap victim.

Father Orsi Orfai liked to tell the younger children that bad men might come and take them if they stayed out too late after dark. Yuno knew that there weren’t any people like that around Hage Village, but then...the people he had just chased away had only been traveling through the village.

Although he didn’t want to aggravate her injuries, leaving her in the middle of the road with night almost here wasn’t an option either. Hopefully, Sister Lilly’s healing magic would be able to undo the damage to the stranger’s body.

Yuno was about to tell Asta to help him pick her up when he heard the sound of something...vibrating?

There was a light coming from the girl’s backpack, which Asta immediately opened to look through and pull out a large book with a red and gold sun on one end and another sun on the other, albeit less stylized. “Hey Yuno, check it out! She’s got a grimoire!”

Unable to hide his surprise, Yuno looked up as Asta held a glowing magical tome almost too thick for him to put his fingers around at the edge as it shook in his hands. But, there was something different about it in comparison to every other magical book he had ever seen.

There was no clover on the front.

He remembered Sister Lilly telling him once that not every book out there had a clover, but it had just been an offhand comment and Yuno couldn’t remember her saying what symbol was there in its stead.

“Awww! I can’t read this one either!” Asta complained.

Distracted once again, Yuno looked back up at Asta. “Nobody can read grimoires,” he said in response to Asta’s ignorance before glancing back down at the girl. She still looked a little too young to have a grimoire.

Asta turned the book around so that Yuno could see the golden script. “Yeah, but this looks way different than the stuff in Sister Lilly’s and Father Orsi’s books.”

“We don’t have time to mess around. Now put that away and help me get her to the orphanage, she needs Sister Lilly’s healing magic,” Yuno told the shorter boy before looking back at the roll of cloth they had been sent into town to buy sitting in the mudd.

Sunset awoke to an unfamiliar ceiling.

It was a red wood ceiling that looked like it was about to cave in and patched in a dozen different places. All in all, it matched the rest of the building, made from crumbling brick and mortar. In short, the place was a total dump.

The haze of her mind quickly disappeared when she remembered what happened before sitting upward to reach for her neck. As soon as she touched it, Sunset felt her entire body scream in pain and she let out a cry. At least, she tried to, what came out was only a gurgle before she fell back onto the hard bed underneath her.

What happened to me? Sunset asked as she raised her hooves to find that they were no longer there. In their place were the clawless digits the other creatures had.

A second later, she reached for her face and felt around. Her muzzle was gone and air was coming through a misshapen protrusion that had the air holes pointing down instead of forward. The rest of her body had similarly been changed and with a great deal of trepidation, Sunset reached up to the middle of her head where a lack of sensory input already told her what the new appendages only confirmed.

Her horn was missing.

Tears swelled in Sunset’s eyes over the loss.

Her magic.

Everything that made her worthwhile.

How was she supposed to use magic without her horn?

I should have just let Celestia’s guards get rid of me, Sunset through to herself.

Or those stallions, they should have killed her while she was laying in the mud.

It would have been preferable to living without her magic.

Wait…

The stallions...hadn’t they used magic?

That small light of hope was crushed when she realized they had pulled out magical books first. Such things existed in Equestria, self-powering spells that were built around doing a few very specific things. But they were a poor substitute for a unicorn skilled in magic like Sunset.

“Sister Lilly, she’s awake!” the sound of a foal’s voice cried out before Sunset heard something scampering across the floor. It sounded wrong and unnatural not to hear hooves on stone.

A door to Sunset’s left opened and she watched as another biped came walking into the room. It was dressed in some kind of robe of black with a little bit of white on top. A strange t medallion hung from its neck, but gave off no magical power whatsoever. “Hello there! It’s good to see you’re alright. You took quote a nasty blow to the head. For awhile, I didn’t think my healing magic was going to be enough to save you.”

The female spoke in a gentle voice that reminded Sunset a little too much of Celestia. The old Celestia that had been gentle and kind enough to let a homeless foal into her castle before becoming demanding and cold while telling Sunset to do impossible things. Sunset blinked away her tears and opened her mouth to ask where she was. When she tried to talk again, she only made a tiny sound before a spike of pain stopped her.

“Whoa, hold you horses there,” Lilly told Sunset as she opened her book. “I had to concentrate on your head injury and make sure your ribs weren’t going to puncture a lung. It will still be a while before you’re well enough to talk again. But, I’ll do what I can for now.”

Sunset stopped any attempt to protest no matter how much she wanted to tell the bipedal creature to buzz off and focused all of her senses on what the female was doing. Despite her horn being missing and causing her senses to be dampened, Sunset could still feel the magic being used. It was...more crude than she expected, almost wild. Then, the woman’s mana was filtered through her book and snapped into place in a complete juxtaposition of what Sunset had felt before as moisture collected around Sunset’s throat. It’s some kind of matrix for directing the mana, she realized. There might have been some kind of amplification effect as well, but she would need more time to study the magic.

It also looked like the set output for naked ape magic were their clawless digits.

When the magic had finished, the spike of pain had faded to a dull throb. “There we go,” the female told Sunset before she started to get up. “Now, I’d recommend not talking for at least day before I can come back to heal you some more tomorrow. And even then, you’re going to be a little hoarse for the next two or three days after that.”

As the female started to get up, Sunset reached out and grabber her...well, whatever these creatures called a fetlock. The former pony opened her mouth again, but stopped. What was she even going to say? Ask for help back home?

She couldn’t go back to Equestria. She knew too much.

“Is something wrong” Sister Lilly asked.

But to be stuck here, looking like this and having no horn… Sunset eyes began to water.

A gentle touch enveloped Sunset’s digited hoof and the larger female knelt down to wrap her in a hug. “It’s alright. You’re safe here,” the female told Sunset as she held her close.

Memories from the night before played in her mind again, and it became impossible to see things through the tears as she began to cry. The anguish from learning the truth about Celestia. The fear from the night before. The pain of losing her horn and coming to this strange land. She let it all out, not caring how much her throat hurt as it simply let out the raw sound of how Sunset was feeling at the moment.

The hug only tightened as Sunset cried herself out. “There, there. It’ll be okay. Everything will be okay now.”

Another person came to see Sunset in the following hours, but communication was hard. They didn’t give her any paper, but all he asked were simple yes or no questions.

No, she didn’t know where her parents were.

No, she didn’t know where Hodge village was.

No, she wasn’t from the Noble or Common realms, whatever those were.

Yes, she was hungry. That was quickly followed by feeding her some kind of potato that made her thirsty.

When asked about her age and the creature telling her to demonstrate with her ‘hands’ she got nervous. It was obvious that they were in some kind of orphanage. Although it was tiny and run down compared the one she remembered from Canterlot, the sound of foals making noise all around was a clear giveaway. Ponies who were too old weren’t allowed to stay in an orphanage.

For some reason, the man was intent on learning if Sunset was fourteen or fifteen. Finally, she settled on the younger age. That seemed to confuse him.

“Then, that isn’t your grimoire?” Father Orsi asked as he pointed to the journal laying next to a satchel that looked like it was supposed to go across Sunset’s back rather than her midsection. Her saddlebags had apparently undergone alterations as well.

Sunset thought about it for a moment. The book was certainly magical, but didn’t have any of the properties the human books did. Unable to give a real response, Sunset opened her hands and gave the man a shrug before opening her mouth and moving it without making any sound.

The old man who looked a bit like Celestia’s majordomo Kibitz let out a sigh. “Well, I suppose there’s a story behind it then,” he said. “Strange, I’ve never seen a grimoire with so many pages that has been filled, but it lacks any of the affiliations. Well, I’m sure you’ll be able to tell us when your throat is full healed.”

Sunset knew she would have a story made up by then.

When it came time that Sunset needed to go to the outhouse, she saw it.

Filling the horizon was the skull of a giant creature that was equal in size to a small mountain, or a small mountain range if you counted the horns sticking out the side of its head. It looked like it had three eyes, and if it’s head had been so big, Sunset wondered how big it must have been when it had a full body.

“Hmm?” Sister Lilly said before turning back to the girl. “Oh, right, you were brought here in the back of a covered wagon. Well, that’s Hage Village’s biggest tourist attraction, not that anyone wants to come and see the remains of the demon that almost destroyed the whole kingdom. There’s also a statue of the first Wizard King at the very top. I’m sure once you’re well enough, the boys would love to take you.”

The rest of the day passed with Sunset learning a few more things from the humans talking around her and her own little experiments. The world she was in differed greatly from the one she left. For starters, there was a great deal more ambient mana in the background than in Equestria. Whether this was a natural occurrence or a side effect of not having environmental controls on everything from the weather to the sun, she didn’t know. Sunset had heard about places like the Everfree, where everything still ran wild, but the world around here didn’t look like a chaotic mishmash of death from which nopony could ever hope to escape.

So, she simply explored her new body and got used to moving it as well as pushing magic through her hands rather than a horn. All in all, she didn’t like the human form. Hands didn’t have the precision of a horn, the things on her upper midsection were much too sensitive, her eyes couldn’t take in as much light, her ears didn’t hear as well as they used to, and toes were just weird.

When night came, which meant she had less than twenty-four hours to go home if the mirror’s cycle had started the night she left, Sister Lilly applied her healing magic once again.

More importantly, Sunset had gotten a look at her book from the other side around after getting it across to Sister Lilly that she wanted to see the book. The characters were almost nonsensical, but there was a structure to them and she could feel that there was a logic to the magic just by seeing how everything connected.

She also met the two boys who had apparently saved her life...

“SO THAT ISN’T A GRIMOIRE?” the short boy with the gray mane shouted as he almost stood right on top of her and pointed to one of the books on the desk.

Sunset frowned at the boy. She had heard his name was Asta, one of the boys that had brought her back from the middle of the road the day before. If he wasn’t so loud and annoying, Sunset might have felt a bit of gratitude towards him. As it was, she considered not tossing him into the fireplace with her magic when she learned how to channel it properly would make them even.

The other boy responsible for her not dying sighed and ran his hand through his dark hair as he stood next to one of the candelabras providing light to the room. From what Sunset had gathered, everyone at the orphanage was sleeping in the same room, but she was being allowed to sleep in the priest’s office (whatever a priest was) to be given some time to recover from a traumatic experience.

Sunset had been very thankful for the day of privacy. It had allowed her to take stock of herself and see how her body reacted to trying to channel mana, not to mention just getting up and walking around despite the pain it caused. Because she hadn’t been wanting to do anything too flashy or blow up the building she was in, the former unicorn had restricted herself to using very minor amounts of mana. Thankfully, Lilly thought the wet sheets were just a result of Sunset spilling a drink.

Still, without the ability to actually speak, it was annoying to be spoken at as loud as possible.

“Can you try to be a little quieter, Asta?” Yuno asked him in a way that sounded more like a command. “Some people are trying to get to sleep.”

The comment got Sunset curious, so she pointed back and forth between the two.

Asta just looked confused, but Yuno apparently picked up on what Sunset was getting to. “Sister Lilly wants us to watch you tonight in case you need anything or have any problems,” he explained. “She a says head injuries can cause problems for days afterwards and you shouldn’t be alone. Falling in your condition could be very bad, if not fatal.”

“Then what is it and why can’t I read anything that’s in it?” Asta asked in a less eardrum-splitting voice.

Sunset just gave him a half-lidded glare. Did he really expect her to answer him?

For his part, Yuno just crossed his arms and looked over to Asta with a frown. “Most people can’t read what you write either, you know.”

As the boy’s started to argue, Sunset looked down at herself. She had seen some of the books in the office. Although the verbal communication they used was the same, the written word was very different that Ponish or even Old Ponish. Maybe her transformation had included some kind of subconscious translation spell, but that sounded a bit too simple for Sunset.

“AAAGH! I’m not made for just standing around and doing nothing,” Asta complained.

Yuno looked over to the nearby bookshelf. “Then read something. Father Orsi doesn’t want you waking everyone up with your exercising again.”

After thinking about it for a second, Asta agreed. A second later, he was holding a children’s book. “Hey Yuno, look! It’s that story Sister Lilly always used to read us when we were little kids! Hey Red, you want to hear it?”

Well you still scream like a baby goat, so it couldn’t have been that long ago, Sunset thought to herself evenly.

“I think she’s a bit old for that story,” Yuno told the shorter human.

Asta smirked back at him. “You just don’t want to hear it because it always made you cry!”

The reminder made Yuno frown at the shorter human. “Read the book.”

As Asta went on to recount how an ancient demon appeared one day to block out the sun with its darkness, Sunset rubbed her head where her horn should have been while wondering if going back to Equestria for a real jail cell rather than having to deal with the problems of two testosterone-fueled teenagers would be less cruel. However, as the boy continued with the story about how a mage stepped forward to banish the demon and bring on the sun before he was crowned the Wizard King, Sunset couldn’t help but draw a connection between the story and an old tale from her homeland.

“And I’m gonna be the next Wizard King!” Asta announced proudly.

Yuno frowned. “Sorry, but I’ll be the one take that position, Asta.”

As an argument started to build that was mostly Asta being loud while Yuno gave as few monosyllabic responses as possible, Sunset groaned and laid back down on her bed. Being turned to a garden statue couldn’t have been as torturous as it was to hear the idiots above her.

“My name is Sunset Shimmer.”

There was a bit of ruckus around the former unicorn as all the orphans made their introductions, although Sunset already knew the louder or whinier ones. There was the third oldest child in the orphanage, a redhead with bushy hair named Rebecca, a snotty brat by the name of Nash, a little girl with black hair named Aruru and an even younger blonde child named Hollo. It didn’t take long to nod to the children as they told her their names. Because her throat was still healing, Lilly had told her to refrain from talking too much after treating Sunset’s throat again when morning came.

Not that Sunset would need the nun for much longer. She knew that a few more demonstrations of her healing magic would show her enough of it to try it out for herself. Of course, if she was allowed to do a proper study of the woman’s abilities, it would go much faster. But it looked like Lilly was rather weak when it came to magical power.

In fact, they all were, with the exception of one.

“HEY THERE SUNSET, I’M ASTA!” the shorter oldest boy yelled.

Yuno looked away from the display as he leaned up against the wall next to the dining room’s fireplace. “She already knows your name, loudmouth.”

“Inside voice, Asta,” Sister Lilly told the loud idiot. The fact that she did it with a little smile and a gentle reminder was too close to Celestia for Sunset’s liking. At least, before Celestia had revealed herself to Sunset as a manipulative monster and destroyed any hope of Sunset having a real future in Equestria.

Father Orsi clapped his hands. “Alright now, that’s enough out of all of you. There are chores to be done today,” he announced before looking back to Sunset. “By the way, we managed to wash some of the clothes you had in that pack of yours, since you’ve been in that old shirt of mine all day yesterday I’m betting you want to get changed.”

Sister Lilly gave Sunset a little smile. “We didn’t find any extra underwear in your pack though. And yours is still dirty. I know it might be a little odd, but I can let you borrow some of mine. At least the bottoms. A bra might be a bit tricky though.”

What’s a bra? Sunset asked herself before she slowly got on her feet with the help of the table she was sitting at. “Do you have a bra I could use for an example and some spare materials?” Sunset asked as an idea formed in her head. She had tried any actually complex Equestrian magic since she arrived in the Clover Kingdom. So, now was a good time as any.

Not that what she was planning was all that difficult, but the lack of a horn made her a bit clumsy. So it probably wasn’t that good an idea to try performing magic when everyone was around to watch her work. But, Sunset had already started down this particular path, so there was no backing out now unless she wanted everyone to think she was a coward.

After leaving for a few minutes, Sister Lilly came back with a mangled sheet of cloth. “Will this do?” she asked. “We’ve had to patch some holes in our blankets yesterday.”

Sunset nodded before looking back to the woman. “And the bra?”

For some reason Sunset didn’t understand, the nun blushed as she pulled out the item in question. Studying it for a few seconds made Sunset realize what the thing was. Oh, I get it. It’s clothing to support their teats, she thought before looking down at her own chest. It was a bit smaller than Sister Lilly’s, so there would have to be some alterations made.

Getting to work, Sunset held out her right hand over the bra and let her magic run over the item, examining it down to the smallest molecule. Then she moved her left hand over the material and transferred all of the parameters from the first item to the second, accounting for the differences in quantity and size. There was a loud pop and Sunset’s vision was obscured along with everyone else’s by a dense cloud of gas that quickly disappeared.

When the smoke cleared there was less unrefined cloth, but a second bra sat on the table.

The children all looked impressed by the feat while Sister Lilly looked more happy to get her underwear back after Sunset reproduced the spell to make more duplicates. However, Sunset looked down at the under-clothes with a frown. Her spell had been sloppy. There was as much as a twenty-percent loss of original material that was consumed rather than transmuted into its new form. Stupid clumsy hands, the former unicorn thought to herself.

“Amazing! With you around, we won’t have to worry about providing new clothes for our growing boys and girls!” Father Orsi said with tears in his eyes.

“So, it’s some kind of thread magic?” Yuno commented from beside the fireplace. “Seems a bit complex for raw mana manipulation.”

Sunset didn’t really like the fact that she had just been demoted to being a simple seamstress, but she had come from an orphanage before Celestia snatched her up. She knew how things worked. Everypony who was old enough to do something had to pitch in to keep things going. And the dump she was in didn’t have anywhere near the resources of Canterlot, which included the volunteer from time to time and a charity or two to help provide for luxuries that foals could enjoy.

Which was why sticking around the dump she had landed in was repugnant to Sunset. As soon as she healed up, the former pony was going to be out the door and...well, she could figure out what to do once she was gone.

Well, better get into the right clothes, the less I borrow from these idiots, the easier it will be to leave without them wanting something in return, Sunset thought to herself before she started to take off her shirt.

She got it halfway up past her chest when Sister Lilly let out a horrified scream.

“I don’t see what everyone was so upset about, all I did was try to take off that old man’s shirt to put the bra on,” Sunset told Yuno as they walked alongside each other, both of them carrying a load of laundry in their respective magic. Although while Sunset had wrapped her basket in the tried and true unicorn method of levitation, Yuno was using a strange form of wind magic to create air pressure all around the objects with a less powerful side in the direction he wanted the object to move.

For the third time since she put the thing on, Sunset reached down and fidgeted with the bra as best she could since it was being covered by the green sundress that had been inside per pack, transformed to fit her bipedal body. The only options were that she had either gotten something wrong when trying to size it correctly, or bras were just evil torture devices that these stupid humans invented to make themselves feel more horrible than they already were.

And since the first option meant that her magical skills were in even worse shape than Sunset had thought they were, it was obviously the second option that was the case.

Yuno gave her an even look as they got near the oven that the orphanage used to heat the large pot where they put clothes to soak and boiled the water to help remove the stains. Apparently, the world Sunset had landed in never heard of detergent, or the orphanage was just too poor to afford any. “You took Father’s shirt off in front of everyone. In a church.”

“That doesn’t really explain anything,” Sunset pointed out as they set down their respective burdens. Like what the hay a church is. While she wasn’t pleased about performing menial labor, it was the least degrading task. And they wanted a girl to wash the clothes for the females while a guy took care of the men’s clothes for some reason.

While Yuno gave her a startled look for a second before he went back to a calm demeanor with a raised eyebrow, like some colt trying to keep his calm and look cool, Sunset took the opportunity to look around and see what she had to work with. There was wood by the stove and the river wasn’t that far off, so they had natural resources to work with. But it looked like she would have to make the fire herself.

“What do you mean, it doesn’t explain anything?” Yuno asked, a little more tense than before as Sunset went to work on her chore. “You don’t just take off your clothes in front of...other...people.”

As Yuno talked, Sunset reached out with a hand to guide her magic to gather water from the nearby stream and pulled it into the kettle, only losing a little bit on the way over with her less-than-perfect control before she levitated some wood into the stove and set it alight, then stoked the fire until all of the logs were burning. It was only after she dumped the dirty clothes into the small cauldron that held the water that she realized Yuno had stopped talking.

Sunset looked over to the boy and found him staring at her in confusion before she glanced back at the laundry, then to Yuno again. “I did something wrong again, didn’t I?”

“Fire. Water. The clothes. You just used at least three different types of magic,” Yuno told her in a curious daze. Then, the confusion seemed to wear off and he frowned at Sunset. “That’s impossible.”

Wait, so humans only have magic that relates to one specific thing? Sunset asked herself as she began to feel incredibly stupid. It was a like a cutie mark for unicorns. “Uh...I’m really...flexible?”

Yuno’s frowned deepen and Sunset felt the wind stir around him. “That’s a lie.”

Even though the accusation was true, Sunset found herself getting angry at the boy as he tried to intimidate her. “Oh come on!” she yelled at him. “So my magic is a little different than anything you’ve ever seen in your little nowhere town! Big deal! You live your whole life in a hole and think you know everything there is about the world you little twerp? And even if I am different, what does that even mean? You think I’m gonna go around eating kids or something?”

The expression on Yuno’s face faltered. “Well-”

Sunset didn’t give him time to finish. “You and Asta saved my life and Sister Lilly gave me medical treatment and food, which I notice you guys don’t have much of by the way,” she powered on before the teenager could regain his mental footing as her own thoughts began to catch up with her mouth. “It’s...well...it’s-it’s actually the best thing someone has ever done for me in a long time.”

Celestia had always wanted something in return for everything Sunset did, even if that return was a long-term investment. And if she had faltered on her lessons, the alicorn would have thrown the younger pony out on her plot. Just like she had been about to do the night Sunset learned of all her lies.

Her vision started to blur. “You guys have next to nothing, but you share it with a total stranger and waste your energy healing my injuries,” she continued as she found herself comparing what she had experienced in one day with her previous life. Celestia had given her the best food, dresses and everything else, but that was next to nothing compared to her true wealth. And when it came time to actually share real power with Sunset, she had tried to throw her out.

Or worse.

Sunset felt her legs wobble and she sat down on the ground before looking down at the grass. “So if you’re going to kick me out or beat me up, go right ahead. It’s not like I wouldn’t be here right now without you.”

The wind died down and Sunset saw Yuno slump before looking uncomfortable as he sat down. “Sorry. I just…” He reached up and touched the blue gem at the end of the necklace he was wearing. “People try to take advantage of us because we don’t have any money or anyone else to help. When I see something odd, I get suspicious.”

“So I’m odd, huh?” Sunset asked.

Yuno looked over to her with a deadpan expression. “You tried to take your shirt off in front of everyone and can use three types of magic. That’s even more odd than Asta’s complete lack of it.”

After a few seconds, Sunset laid back on the grass and frowned. “I’m going to be nice and not take that as an insult,” she told the boy before raising her hand with just a single finger extended and moving it in a circle. Wind manipulation was a bit too pegasi for her, but Celestia had made Sunset help out with Winter Wrap-up for the last few years, so it wasn’t that hard to create basic weather patterns and effects. Like a little tornado that flew into the boiling cauldron of clothes to swirl it around a bit. “And if you’ve got such a limited view of magic, you’ll never be the-what did you guys call it? The Wizard King?”

If Yuno was surprised by Sunset’s use of wind magic, he managed to not show it. “Okay then, just how does your magic work?”

Sunset looked up at the sky in thought for a moment. “Well, giving you a detailed explanation might be a waste of time. So, how about you tell me what you know when it comes to magic, and we can go from there.” That way, she could buy a little time to come up with something.

“The basic theory of magical manipulation states magic can be broken down into the four different elemental attributes of Earth, Water, Fire and Wind,” Yuno told her as if reciting from a long remembered lesson. “There are subcategories for each one, like weather magic being a form of wind, or ice being a form of water. There are also different talents when it comes to magic, like healing or defense. While people can do more than one thing with magic, a person who is a talented healer will probably have weak attack spells, while someone who specialises in combat magic probably won’t have any recovery magic at all.”

So that’s how it works, Sunset thought to herself while replaying some of her experiences in experimenting with the surrounding mana. Now that she had the basic explanation, a lot of what she tried to do and had trouble with made a lot more sense. Although her natural unicorn magic didn’t work along those lines, if the different types of mana just floating around had their own affinities, she would need to attune herself before trying to mess with them to any real effect. In theory, anway.

“Okay, so is a particular magic stuck to one element?” Sunset asked. “Like, can only people with water magic perform healing?”

Yuno frowned. “No. But the methods and success differ depending on the element,” he told her. “Fire is best at treating diseases and infection, but there’s some debate over which element actually heals the body better than the others. With water considered better at treating internal injuries and earth for taking care of external ones and mending damaged bones. But that doesn’t mean water can’t help cure the sick and you can’t use fire to close wounds. They’re just less efficient.”

Ironically glad that she had been forced to mentor Cadenza for so long, since it helped her pull off faking her knowledge, Sunset raised her hands and clapped them together. “That’s a good grasp of the basics. Although...why can’t someone just be intuned with magic, period?”

“Because that just doesn’t happen,” Yuno told her.

Despite the fact that she had no idea if it was going to work, Sunset slowly got up while doing her best to ignore the aching protest of her body and looked over to the dirty laundry that was still spinning around. She walked over to the cauldron and held out her hand while extending her senses. Now that she was looking for it, Sunset could feel that there were subtile differences in the magical energies swirling around in the water. Four different wavelengths in total. The motion caused by her tornado still had a different feel to it than the water around it, while she could also feel the clothes and heat each had a distinct flavor.

Unfortunately, the dirt and other blemishes on the clothes had the same feel to them as the clothes themselves. So Sunset’s original plan of just pulling the stains off of the wet cloth fell through the minute she got a good sense of things. Instead, she didn’t bother trying to align her natural magic with the differences and just reached down with pure unicorn power and pulled out a wet shirt that was still hot from the water and grabbed the bits of moisture that still clung to the shirt with magic directed from her other hand before altering it just a little and pulling the water with magic more intune with that particular element.

As soon as she pulled all of the water from the shirt and collected it above her hand, the dry shirt that was hot enough to have come from a modern equestrian drier fell back into the water, slipping right through the field of magic that no longer had the particular flavor of unicorn to it. Huh, guess it’s all or nothing then, Sunset told herself.

“Hey, you haven’t given me an explanation on how you can use more than one element,” Yuno said, some irritation entering his voice.

Sunset looked back at him before tossing the water to the side. “Yeah, you’re right,” she said before looking back at the laundry. Maybe if I have something holding down the clothes and just lightly tug on them, the dirt will come off. “But I never actually said I would.”

Yuno frowned as he followed Sunset back to the house, their clothes cleaner than they had been in a long time thanks to what had to have been earth magic pulling out the dirt while he held the clothes in the cauldron with his wind magic before Sunset drew out the water to leave them hot and dry. She tricked me, he thought to himself as he frowned at the girl from behind.

When they did get back to the orphanage, the two of them were sent to rest after Lilly took the clothes. With the need to look after Sunset last night, Yuno had to admit that he hadn’t gotten enough sleep and Sunset was still recovering from her injuries, so she was sent off to Father Orsi’s study to lay down. However, since Yuno didn’t feel tired he went to get a book from the priest’s office and found the girl looking at the pages in her magical book.

“Hey, did this thing glow and shake while I was still unconscious?” Sunset asked as she sat up with her back against the wall. The girl’s face had gone back to being miserable.

Yuno thought back to a few nights ago. “I think so, but you’s have to ask Asta to be sure. He was the one who grabbed it.”

Sunset closed her book and set it aside to curl up into herself. “Hey Yuno,” she asked in a dead tone. “If you had the chance to go back to your parents, even if they were horrible people, would you do it?”

The question was something he knew every orphan thought from time to time. Most of the kids in the orphanage liked to imagine their parents were good men and women, heroes that had to go away for some reason or another. Although the truth was that everyone living at the orphanage aside from Asta and himself knew where they came from. Hoge Village was so small that everyone knew everyone else and parents who died from things like accidents or going out hunting were a well-known fact.

“No,” he told her. “My parents left me here when I was a baby. I have everything I need in this church.”

Sunset put her head on her knees. “I’m an orphan too, you know. But I was...picked up when I was six,” she said slowly. “This woman, she brought me into her house and gave me lessons on magic. Taught me how to cast spells. Made me think I was special. But it all turned out to be a lie. She never loved me, she was just using me. And when I learned the truth, I ran away.”

How can you cast spells without a grimoire? Yuno wondered before he glanced over to the girl’s magic book. “But even so, you want to go back.”

Tears fell from the girl’s eyes to land on the ground. “Yes,” Sunset whispered. “Why is that, when everything I thought I knew was a lie?”

“A year from now, I’m going to go and take the Magic Knight exams,” Yuno told her after thinking it over and realizing what she was feeling had some similarities to his own thoughts now and again. “It’s the first step in becoming the Wizard King. I have to do it, but I’m also worried about what’s going to happen to me after I leave the orphanage. I’ve lived my entire life in this village. So I have no idea about what’s out there, aside from some old books Father Orsi has. Most of which are out of date. The fact is, I don’t know what’s out there, so I can’t even prepare for it. And that’s what you’re going through right now. Your old life might not have been the best, but it was familiar to you. But you don’t have to worry, you’re an orphan of Hage Village. That means you’re part of this family.”

Sunset looked up to the boy with wide eyes that had trails of tears falling from them. “Say what?”

The lost look in the girl’s eyes made Yuno turn his attention elsewhere as he reached up and rubbed his left shoulder with his right hand. “It’s just something I figured out after I talked to Sister Lilly a few years ago. If you stay here and want to be one of us, that makes you family. So, I’d be something like a big brother.”

Which turned out to be the wrong thing to say, as Sunset frowned at him. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m the older one between the two of us.”

Yuno was about to ask her just what her birthday was supposed to be when he heard a voice outside. “SISTER LILLY, PLEASE MARRY ME!”

Which made him sigh when a loud splash of water soon followed. “Hasn’t Asta learned that he can’t marry a nun?”

“What’s a nun?” Sunset asked.

Yuno blinked and looked back down at the girl. She’s serious, he thought as the boy saw the clueless look on Sunset’s face before she turned her head back to the book laying on the ground. “Not like I’d be able to find the mirror in time anyway.”

“You’re fourteen years old and you can’t read?”

Sunset glared at the smaller boy Nash, resisting the urge to smack him upside the head. Although Sister Lilly tended to knock Asta into walls with her water magic in the shape of a human fist, violence against other members of the community was frowned upon. “No, but I can get through a night of sleep without wetting the bed.”

The young boy’s eyes widened before his cheeks reddened. “T-That was just some fluke!”

“It’s alright Nash,” Sister Lilly told him. “Everyone has an accident now and then. And of course I’ll teach you Sunset. Just sit next to me during story time, and we can go through the books together.”

A month later, Sunset had gotten a firm enough grasp of the language to tackle the largest books in the church on her own. Although, the God character that was supposed to move the sun and moon across the sky sounded far too much like Celestia for her liking.

The grass crunched underfoot as Sunset followed Asta through the woods while Yuno trailed behind them with a scowl on his face. They had gone pretty deep into the forest, which was much too close to that creepy skull for Sunset’s liking, but it was the best place to hide what they were about to do. “Why in the world did you talk Asta into digging through the village mayor’s garbage last night Sunset?” he demanded with a scowl.

“Well I sure as hell wasn’t going to do it,” Sunset answered.

Asta looked down at the rotting apple core in his hands. “What is it about this thing is supposed to make Sister Lilly happy? And why did you want it?” he asked before exiting the mass of trees. “Oh, here’s the clearing I told you about. It’s where I do my sprint training!”

The proud declaration actually made Sunset pity the poor boy. In a world of unicorns, he seemed to be the only earth pony. So instead of working on magic that he swore would come with his grimoire, Asta ran off to exercise in the forest all day after chores before coming home close to dark, needing healing from Lilly half the time because of so many scrapes and cuts. The magic also helped keep his muscles from being overtaxed and needing to rest, which was why a fourteen-year-old boy looked more fit that most of the men in the village, even with the orphanage’s poor diet.

“I don’t actually need the apple core,” Sunset told them as she took it out of Asta’s hands with her magic to break it apart in the air. “It’s the seeds I’m really after.” There were three of them, more than enough for what she was wanting.

Sunset held the three seeds above her palm and studied them for a moment. They looked undamaged. “Hey Yuno, you were asking how to do spells without a grimoire, right?”

While Asta blinked in confusion, Yuno frowned. “Yes. Multiple times. For over a month.”

Despite the hypocrisy of it all, Sunset found herself smirking. It really was fun to play the all-knowing teacher sometimes. But Sunset actually had a reason for holding out, unlike some other pony that just did it to look cool. The trip to this new world had made her grow clumsy. While her hands still weren’t up to a horn’s level of control, they were more than enough to get the job she needed to do done. “When it really comes down to it, grimoires are just pre-designed spell matrices that people just pump mana into for a desired effect,” Sunset said before flicking one of the seeds onto the ground a good twenty feet away. “Magic very complex and complicated. It’s easier and faster to just pour something into a mold for a spell than to make a mold every time you want to cast something. Plus, humans are ridiculously clumsy when it comes to handling mana. A lot of it goes to waste, even when you’re doing the most basic things. People don’t really get stronger when they get a grimoire, they just don’t spill as much mana because it helps them focus, even when it’s in a carrying case strapped across their back.”

“Okay, that really doesn’t tell me any-” Yuno stopped talking as Sunset cast her spell a second before a tree erupted from the ground before he could finish. By the time he turned around to look at it, the plant was almost full grown. Apples sprouted from it nearly a second later.

Sunset took in a little breath. Although she hadn’t created a plant that overgrew and completely clogged up a tower, the spell had taken a bit more out of her than she was expecting. Had turning human been even more detrimental to her than she first thought?

“SO COOL!” Asta yelled before he looked back at Sunset in confusion. “But...you don’t have a grimoire.”

After flicking the two other seeds away to a place where there was more than enough room to grow two more trees, Sunset looked back to the shorter boy with a deadpan expression. “Were you not listening to anything I just said?” she asked evenly before putting out her hand to cast the spell two more times.

Asta took a step back. “You were talking to Yuno, it would have been rude to eavesdrop.”

“I was standing right next to-” Sunset stopped and took a breath to help clear her head. “Never mind, just help Yuno gather the apples. Because of the speeded growth, they’ll go rotten in about forty-eight hours and the seeds they produce will be useless for planting. Even the trees will completely decompose inside of a week. But I’m getting tired of eating nothing but potatoes.”

After pulling a dozen apples down with his wind magic and holding them in the air, Yuno looked back at the redhead. “Can you do this with any crop?”

Sunset pressed her lips together. “Yes, but trees produce multiple things to eat while something like a turnip only gives me one plant for the same amount of mana. And it also causes a strain on the soil. So we’ll need to find somewhere else if you want me to do it again.”

As the boys went to work, Sunset found herself wishing she had told one of them to bring a basket or something, because they couldn’t carry all the fruit with them. Then, as she looked up at her work, she watched a fat bird with black feathers, a white crest and red feathers on its face suddenly landed on the tree. It was a bit odd to see, since the animals of the Clover Kingdom didn’t seem to be as friendly with people as they were to ponies. A tree suddenly sprouting in the woods should have sent animals scurrying away, not flocking towards it.

I could swear she’s looking at me, Sunset thought to herself as she frowned at the bird, who frowned down at her in turn.

Sunset looked down at the ‘banquet’ of numerous potato dishes that Sister Lilly had created for what was apparently a yearly celebration at the orphanage. After nearly three months of living among the humans, Sunset had found herself adjusting well enough but managed to be caught off guard by some things that everyone just took as a fact of life. “So, you all just celebrate everyone’s birthday with one big party?”

“That’s right,” Sister Lilly told her as they set out the plates. “Unfortunately, we don’t have enough food to do this more than once a year. And while more of the children know when they were born, we still don’t have a date for Asta and Yuno. Which reminds me, when is your birthday, Sunset?”

The former unicorn blinked at the question as memories best left forgotten came to the surface. Back when Princess Celestia had first brought her to the palace, there had been a celebration a few months later. When Sunset had asked her about it, the white pony had told her that it was for her birthday. Only, it wasn’t her birthday. It was the day that she had shown up at the orphanage. The anniversary of the day she had been abandoned. It had also been the last time Princess Celestia had thrown a party in her honor.

“I don’t know,” Sunset told her after a long pause while she leaned over to rest her arms on the table. “My mom and dad didn’t decided to leave that information in my basket with they ditched me. Just a note with my name on it and basic medical information.” Not that creatures with this level of technology would know what a blood type was. If humans even had more than one. “So, birthday parties aren’t really my thing.”

A clap of Sister Lilly’s hands brought Sunset’s attention back to the nun. “Well I’m glad to have met you,” she said, getting a confused look from Sunset. “You know that’s what birthday parties really are, right? A lot of people just think they’re an excuse for presents. But what those presents really are is a thank you gift for being in that person’s life. So, thank you for being in my life Sunset.”

It was a good thing the nun had come up behind her and hugged the younger girl, because it was the only thing holding her up a second later as her vision started to become blurry. “I-I’m sorry, I...think I have to...get some air,” Sunset told Lilly before she tore away from the young woman and ran outside.

Once she had gotten outside and made it to the nearest tree, Sunset turned around to lean against the trunk and look up to try and clear her head. The sunlight shining down through the leaves didn’t brighten her mood any. Even if it wasn’t under Celestia’s control, she still hated the sun. It was too hot and bright. “Maybe the demon had the right idea when he wanted to blot it out.”

A rustle of leaves drew Sunset’s attention, and she looked up to see the bird with the mix of red, black and white feathers. The damn thing had followed her back to the church one day and disappeared from time to time, but she always caught a glimpse of it at least once a day. And for some reason, it felt like the bird was glaring at her.

“Well where I come from, the sun is run by an arrogant bitch goddess that demands everybody kiss her fat plot all the time,” Sunset told the bird. “So there!”

“Nine-hundred-ninety-eight, nine-hundred-ninety-nine, aaaaaaaaand, one-thousand!” Asta just about yelled as he finished his last pushup while Sunset sat on a nearby fallen log.

She didn’t bother watching the boy as she studied the liquid in the bottle Asta had shown her. He had called it mogro leaf juice. He said that it was supposed to enhance magic, but any such claims were completely unverifiable since only Asta drank it.

Because as far as Sunset’s continually developing senses could tell, Asta didn’t have any magic.

It had become more than just a curious oddity that Sunset had wondered about during her first few days in the Clover Kingdom, the whole thing was downright freakish. Everything in the world had magic, as far as Sunset could tell, except Asta. And what was really weird about it was how mundane he was. He wasn’t like a black pit that sucked in the magical energies around him or canceled out any magic that touched him. He just didn’t have magic. Period.

Which made Sunset feel conflicted whenever she watched him try so hard in preparation for getting his grimoire. Because grimoires didn’t give people magic, they just helped them focus it. And Asta didn’t have any magic to focus.

The thing he was preparing for would never come.

“Hey Asta,” Sunset said to get the boys attention as he finished drinking the cold tea that was supposed to help him develop his magical potential.

After taking the bottle from his lips, the boy looked over to her. “Yeah Sunset?”

Should I tell him? Sunset asked herself for what had to be the fiftieth time since she figured out the major flaw in the boy’s life plan. He probably wouldn’t believe her, no matter how she broke it down to him and spelled it out. Some of the other kids mocked him for believing he could be the best and, as much as she didn’t like to think about it, Sunset probably would have been one of them if not for the fact he helped to save her life. From the way Yuno told the story at least. That had made her put up with him long enough for the brat to grow on her.

Kind of like an annoying fungus.

Maybe she needed to try and ease him into it.

“You know...your idea to become the Wizard King,” Sunset said slowly as she tried to think of how best to get him ready for disappointment.

But Asta being Asta, took her hesitation as an invitation to start talking. “It’ll be cool, won’t it?” he asked excitedly. “I’m going to show everyone that even a nobody orphan from the middle of nowhere village like Hage can climb to the top of the magical world! Everybody likes to think money and status are the be all and end all in this world, but I’ll show them that by believing in yourself and working hard, you can do anything!”

Sunset froze, her mouth open just the slightest bit as she found herself experiencing a strange sense of dejavu. How many ponies from Celestia’s School had looked down on her because they had been part of the nobility? How many had thought themselves better than her by nothing more than the fact their several times great-whatever had done something worthwhile so they could coast through life? How many times had she proven that an orphan who showed a bit of talent had more potential than any of them?

She closed her mouth and hung her head. “I think that is the most sensible thing you have ever said,” she told the boy before the former unicorn stood up and started heading back to the orphanage.

What was she supposed to say after that?

But, wouldn’t Asta find the truth about the world when it came time to open his grimoire and find the spells didn’t respond? He would find his truth in a book he wasn’t meant to have, just as she did.

I really am just like Celestia, Sunset told herself before realizing she was still carrying the bottle of tea.

After taking a swig, she swirled it around in her mouth and drank it down. While certainly not the best drink, it was better than plain water.

“Oh man, tomorrow’s the day!” Asta said as he looked at the calendar in the church’s dining room while Sunset sat repairing the clothes the children had managed to tear and scuff the previous day while playing.

Despite living at the orphanage for the better part of a year, no one besides Yuno had caught on to Sunset’s multiple forms of magic despite using her abilities to fix the ceiling, walls, and some of the foundation as well as take care of other minor chores. While she didn’t advertise it like she did on the second day, anyone who looked at her work could tell she used more than one element.

Then again, when you had next to nothing, looking a gift horse in the mouth was the height of foolishness.

Sunset looked up at the calendar and saw it was the last day of February. She knew that the first of March was when everyone in the town who was of age would travel to the tower Sunset had seen on the horizon to partake in a ceremony that would grant them a tome of magic. It wasn’t the only such tower in the kingdom, but it would be the one several of the surrounding villages would be going to. So there was going to be a crowd.

“So, I’m curious. What happens if someone gets sick and can’t make it tomorrow?” she asked.

From his spot across the table from the redhead, Yuno looked up from the book he was reading, or trying to at any rate. Sunset never had shown him how to read the squiggles that were the Ponish language, and based on how basic the human alphabet was, nobody would ever be able to translate the research project that delved into unicorn weather management and if it was any better than work by the pegasi as well as any possible side effects. But Sunset had promised Yuno to teach him her secret if he ever figured out what the book said, so he had yet to give up. “If someone misses their chance today, they can just go whenever they can make it. March first is really just a marker for everyone who is fifteen this year to claim a grimoire and an excuse to hold a festival in some villages.”

So much for my merciful plan to give Asta another year of not having his dreams crushed, Sunset thought to herself as she nixed the thought of putting something in his drink at dinner.

“So, what’re you doing to do when you get your grimoire?”

Sunset blinked at Asta’s question and sat up a little straighter. “I...never really thought about it,” she lied. I don’t even know if I’m compatible with this type of magical item. Or what would happen if she did get one. Or if she could get more than one. A disturbing image ran through Sunset’s mind of all the books in the tower suddenly falling on the former unicorn and burring her in a mountain of books that would become her tomb.

“You should join the magic knights!” Asta said as he rushed over to her. “Then, you could be my subordinate when I become the Wizard King!”

After closing the book he was trying to read, Yuno looked up at Asta. “That’s going to be my job,” he said before looking at Sunset before Asta could argue. “But you should seriously consider joining. Nobody can deny you have a talent for magic.”

Unable to stop herself, Sunset snorted at the irony before glancing down at her right flank where her cutie mark was before looking back at the boys. “So, the two of you wouldn’t be mad if I beat you out for the position, huh?”

“Don’t get cocky! I’m the one who’s going to be number one!” Asta declared loudly as he pointed a finger at the redhead.

Sunset held up a hand to forestall Yuno joining in on the attack. “Don’t worry, I don’t have any interest in the job.”

But, that didn’t stop Yuno from talking anyway. “Why’s that?”

“Eh, it’s just…” Sunset blinked as something she had managed to avoid thinking about for nearly a year clawed its way up from the depths of her mind.

“MAKE ME A PRINCESS!”

“The idea of me becoming royalty brings up some bad experiences is all,” she said.

Asta slapped his hands down on the table. “That’s just because you don’t know how cool the Wizard King is! Don’t you know the story about how the first king saved the whole country from a giant demon?”

Repressing the urge to smack the boy, Sunset looked up at Asta. “Yes. Because you told it to me. Repeatably.” She could recite the whole thing from memory with every syllable exactly how Asta said it too.

“Well...hearing is one thing, but seeing is another!” Asta declared. “We should make a pilgrimage to the top of the demon’s skull so you can see how awesome the wizard king is!”

Sunset barely kept herself from cringing. Even though she had lived as a naked ape for so long, there were plenty of things that still creeped her out about human society. Like how comfortable they were around pieces of fried corpses and bones. But, since it was Asta, a few moments of absolute disgust were better than hours of having to listen to his very loud and annoying voice. So… “If I go, will you shut up and never ask me about it again?”

A powerful hand shot in front of Sunset’s face. “Deal!” Asta agreed.

“I think I’d like to see that,” Yuno said as he stood up.

The comment made Asta look over to his not-brother. “The memorial?”

“No, you shutting up. I’ve seen the statue,” Yuno told him.

Sunset groaned before she stood up and rubbed her head. “You know, it might actually be worth it to become royalty. Then I can make a decree that you idiots have to go without fighting for at least five minutes a day,” she said before heading to the door before either of them could continue their passive-aggressive feud.

Well, I suppose it’s better than them arguing over me, Sunset consoled herself. Asta was enamored with Sister Lilly to the point of being delusional and Yuno was about as cold as a fish. Which suited Sunset just fine. She might have had human hormones in her body, but she had about as much desire to get with a naked ape as they did to plow a farm horse.

Not that stallions had ever done much for her either.

Mares might have been okay, though. The only one she had ever really gotten close to had been Cadenza. And that would have been like sleeping with her little sister.

Which was another realization that had been an odd pill to swallow for Sunset. The former unicorn actually missed Cadenza. She had all of Asta’s enthusiasm and an inside voice. Even thought she had lied to Sunset about becoming an alicorn, she knew who the real culprit behind those actions was. The little pink moron just didn’t have it in her to be deceitful without a hoof prodding her along.

Once they got outside, Asta cracked his knuckles. “Okay, it’s a hard climb, but if we run as fast as we can, we can probably be up at the top a little past lunch. Then-”

“Yeah, screw that,” Sunset said before she grabbed both of the boys by their shoulders and popped out of existence.

Then popped back into the world at the top of the demon’s skull.

Yuno bent over and caught himself on his knees while Asta looked about ready to throw up.

“I still think you’re doing it wrong,” Yuno complained as he tried to steady himself.

Sunset put a finger in her ear and applied a little pressure, it seemed to help. Human bodies just weren’t made for the stresses of teleporting the unicorn way. Aside from the sense of vertigo that came with the instant change in location, a sudden alteration of temperature, air pressure, and a dozen other things made getting ones bearings with the internal compass a headache. “Okay, let’s see you pop us dow-oh wait, you can’t teleport at all, can you?”

While Yuno just glared at Sunset some more, the former unicorn looked over to the statue of the first Wizard King as it stood in front of them with an open book of magic, dressed in what was probably the royal fashion at the time.

“There he is, the man who saved the country, the whole world even!” Asta said.

It looked absolutely terrible. The craftsmanship was horrible, like a blind man had made it with a sledgehammer and a screwdriver while drunk. Although, judging by the height, the king couldn’t have been out of his teens when the statue was made, right after he died.

Sunset walked around the statue, then looked over its shoulder at the open page of the grimoire in its hands. Surprisingly, the book had been copied in such detail there was arcane script written on the page. Okay, that’s interesting, Sunset thought to herself as she examined the text and blinked. This is an actual spell. A spell that used light as a weapon, unless she missed her guess. “And it hasn’t been worn down by the rain or anything else.”

Still looking worse for wear, Asta looked up at the redhead. “Huh?”

“Hey, when did all this supposedly happen again?” Sunset asked.

Yuno blinked. “You mean the first Wizard King’s battle against the demon? It was around the start of the Clover Kingdom. So, about five-hundred years. Give or take.”

Sunset looked back to the Wizard King and gave it a once-over with her magic senses as an anti-bird landed on his head. “And the king has been here every since then?”

“Probably,” Yuno told her. “Maybe a year or two less. They would have needed time to make it. What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Because it’s not a statue.”

Both of the boy’s blinked at the statement before Yuno spoke. “Come again?”

Sunset looked back at them. “This thing has been up here for five hundred years. Which means wind, rain, snow, and everything else. But it’s still in once piece and possess enough detail that I can read his book. This isn’t a statue, it is the first Wizard King, turned to stone.”

Once again, both the boys were silent for a second. This time, it was Asta who broke the pregnant pause. “Oh come on!”

“Look,” Sunset growled. “I know what I’m talking about. My wannabe mom liked to decorate her garden with petrified psychopaths. This isn’t a statue, it’s your damn hero turned to stone by a spell.”

Both of the boys continued to give Sunset incredulous looks until a third, female voice broke into the conversation from a place behind them. “So, you really are a sorceress from Unicornia.”

Sunset just about jumped out of her skin as she turned around and harmonized her magic to better produce fire in her hand as she turned around to see who had gotten the jump on them, but the only thing there was the black, red and white bird sitting on the statue’s head.

“DID THAT THING JUST TALK?” Asta shouted as he pointed at the bird.

“Of course I did,” the anti-bird with the red, black, and white coloring replied. “What are you, deaf?”

Page 2: Grimoires

Secre Swallowtail had lived a hard life.

Born in a world where magic was everything, she had the fortune to have gained a magic that most people would have considered absolutely useless. That magic was the ability to both lock and unlock things. Doors, chests, gates, anything with a key had been hers to get into. Because of that, Secre had been considered absolutely useless and assigned to be the research assistant to Lumiere Silvamillion Clover, expected to spend the rest of her days fetching lab equipment for the eccentric mage. It had been the moment that changed her life, when she stopped being a useless mage and found someone who respected the girl for what she could do.

Then, everything came tumbling down within a single afternoon. She had to watch her best friends try to kill each other while a being of pure evil looked in from beyond with glee at what it had brought about. The identity of her friend who had become the demon vanished from history, while the friend who managed to stop his insane rampage was mortally wounded. So, she used forbidden magic that drew on the power of the netherworld to lock away her friend’s consciousness and ability to move, turning him into a statue.

And that was the true story of the First Wizard King.

But, it wasn’t the entire story for his supporting characters. Because of her use of the forbidden magic, Secre was transformed into a bird that had an unlimited lifespan. She would spend eternity alone, because even death would not reunite her with a man frozen in stone.

A condition for which there was no real cure. Because even if she did manage to release the king from the seal preventing his movement and return him to the waking world, he would be more akin to a moving statue than anything else. The kind of magic Secre was looking for didn’t exist in this world.

Until she saw a girl cast a magical spell without a grimoire.

Just like another magic user she and her master had met hundreds of years ago when he stumbled through Lumiere’s full-body mirror that had been hung up in his closet. Not that the magical nerd ever actually paid attention to anything he wore unless Secre made him.

So Secre had followed the girl to learn about her as she interacted with a pair of boys, one of which was loved by magic, and the other who was despised by it. She was young, but talented in the extreme. Hurt, but also hard. And a bit vindictive, but also kind when it suited her.

Which was why Secre revealed herself to the girl on the eve of what was bound to be a scandal unless she gave them a fair warning. And...to ask a question.

Sunset’s eyes narrowed as she condensed the fire in her hand, making the bird a little nervous. If she hit the king with her magic, would it actually damage the statue? “How in the hell do you know that name?”

“Then, you are from the same realm as Starswirl?” Secre asked, daring to hope as she looked down at the girl. “A member of the same...tribe, I think he called it.”

“NAME DROPPING STUFF THAT ONLY BRINGS UP EVEN MORE QUESTIONS ISN’T HOW YOU GIVE ANSWERS!” Sunset yelled.

Yuno raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been hanging around Asta too long.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Asta grumbled at Yuno before he looked back to the bird. “AND HOW THE HECK ARE YOU TALKING?”

With the girl still glaring at her, the taller boy with the usually bright eyes completely lost, and the loud one trying to draw the attention of the whole valley, Secre took a moment to regain her composure. She was the one needing answers, so it only made sense to give some to gain a little goodwill. “I was a research assistant to the First Wizard King. Because of the use of forbidden magic, I was turned into a bird and given an extended lifespan while he was turned to stone.”

Sunset frowned. “That’s impossible.”

“I thought you of all creatures wouldn’t question the existence of a talking animal, little nag,” Secre replied.

The result was just about what she expected. Sunset’s face turned red and she quickly glanced to the boy’s flanking her before glaring back at the bird. “Keep your mouth shut about that or I might just decide to take up eating meat!” the fiery teen exclaimed before pointing an accusing finger at the bird. “And you making people noises wasn’t what I meant! Starswirl vanished over eleven-hundred years ago, and Unicornia was absorbed into a larger confederation of nations before that! So even if you really were the Wizard King’s fancy parrot, there’s no way that you could possibly know him!”

Secre found herself at a loss for words. Does that mean our realms run at a different pace? the bird wondered, with Starswirl’s being nearly twice their own? Lumiere had said something seemed off when he tried to reconnect the mirror to go and visit the older wizard in his homeland. “So, let me get this strait, you meet a talking bird that knows of beings from another realm, and you’re skeptical because my math is a little off?”

“...” Sunset replied as she just glared at the bird.

“Excuse me,” Yuno suddenly said, breaking into the debate. “But would one of you please explain what’s going on? Even if everything you said is true, it doesn’t tell us what you’re doing here, or why you’ve decided to speak to us after what you say is five centuries of keeping silent. I would have thought a creature as old and knowledgeable as you would have been advising the current Wizard King, if not the ruler of the Clover Kingdom himself.”

Secre snorted, or tried to, it came out as more of a chirp. “The current royal king is a fat idiot and let’s just say if you do become Magic Knights and meet the current Wizard King, you’ll get why I stay clear of him,” she explained as best she could without stepping on their hero. In truth, the guy was a bit too much like her old master for Secre’s comfort. “And I’m not talking to you, I’m talking to Sunset. But since she’s always with someone from the orphanage, I had to go with the best option I could find.”

“Fine, why are you talking to me, then?” Sunset asked with annoyance written all over her face.

Despite all the waiting and planning on how to address the situation, Secre felt nervousness swelling up inside of her. Her orders had been to wait until the devil returned, but faced with the possibility of truly reviving her king, didn’t she have a duty to seek the best possible outcome? “I want-no, I beg you. Please, reverse the spell that I placed on Lumiere Silvamillion Clover,” she said as she bowed her head. “I could give you a hundred reasons. I could go on and on about the state of the kingdom, how the nobles that do their jobs are few and far between the ones that abuse their positions. You’ve seen the poor and downtrodden that need help for yourself. I could tell you how he could turn everything around and save everyone. But it would be a lie. The truth is, I just want him to be free to live his life again.”

Sunset rolled her eyes and held out an open hand. “Geeze, you could have just said that instead of making the stupid speech,” she grumbled as mana flowed around her to light up the morning sky, building up more and more until it became a blinding flash.

And then…

…

…

“Are you sure you’re doing it right?” Asta asked as he looked at the statue that hadn’t changed at all.

Sunset’s eye twitched as she found the eleventh slot on the statue. Now that she knew what she was looking for, it was easy to make out the ethereal magic circle around each one that was connected to the others in a complex web that joined them all together to form a large magical spell matrix. “You could have told me there was a lock before you had me blow half my mana on a flesh to stone spell reversal.”

“It was worth a shot,” the bird replied as she flapped her wings to stay just outside of Sunset’s swatting reach.

“So, we’re not going to be able to meet the First Wizard King?” Asta asked in a dejected tone.

Yuno crossed his arms. “Well if there’s a lock, that means there has to be a key, right?” he asked as the stone on the bottom of the necklace he was wearing swayed back and forth from the wind.

The bird looked over to the tallest biped in the group. “Don’t even think about it. I only asked Sunset because she might have been able to fix things easily. The magic stones that are required to restore The King were scattered and hidden for a reason,” she said. “Just go back to your lives and forget you ever talked to me.”

“NO WAY!” Asta yelled, getting a glare from the other two humans. “Just because we hit a little bump in the road doesn’t mean we just give up! This is the First Wizard King we’re talking about here! If we free him, then he might even make me the-uh...well…”

Yuno looked over to Asta. “Technically, he’d be Royal King, since he’d be higher in the line of succession than the current ruler. So the Wizard King post would still be open for him to appoint me to.”

Wow, they actually managed to turn this into an argument about that, Sunset thought to herself before looking back to the bird. “Hey Polly.”

“My name’s not Polly,” the bird replied.

“Hey Polly, these stones, you know where they are, right?” Sunset asked. If they were the catalyst for the spell, they would have had to of been present when it was cast. So she should have been there to see where they all went.

Somehow, the bird actually managed to look uneasy. “After the demon was defeated, the stones were divided up. Some of them were hidden away while others were given to groups and families for safekeeping,” she replied. “However, only a few, like the magic stone handed down through the House of Vermillion are still protected as they should be. Although I doubt they still remember its true purpose, just that they have to keep it safe. There are more things that those stones unlock than a simple statue.”

“Like what, exactly?” Yuno asked.

When the bird didn’t answer, Sunset looked back to the stoned king. “Well I guess if we’re never going to find the way to unstone him, then I can just throw this statue over the side.”

“Quit bluffing,” the bird told her. “You’re much too good a person do actually do something like that. Why do you think I watched you for so long before I asked for your help? You talk a harsh game girl, but I’ve seen candy less sweet than you can be.”

Sunset pressed her lips together and huffed. “Well, let’s get going. If there’s nothing we can do for now, I’d rather not be standing on top of a corpse that’s been around since before my grandfather was born.”

She grabbed the boys before bringing in the bird close with her unicorn magic, which made her let out a loud squawk before Sunset teleported them down into the nearby forest. While the three humans quickly found a place to sit down, the bird was held up by Sunset’s levitation magic while it got its bearings. When the bird managed not to throw up, it glared down at the transformed pony. “How in the world can a child of the Tribe that Understands Magic be that bad at spatial magic spells?” she demanded.

“Hey! They work just fine where I come from!” Sunset snapped right back. It wasn’t her fault humans were just too fragile to take a little upending of their stomachs.

“Which is where, exactly?”

Sunset froze so hard she lost the concentration needed to maintain her hold on the bird and let it go before glancing over to Yuno. Unfortunately, Asta had also stopped dry heaving in time to catch wind of the conversation and was actually paying attention for once. “You know, that place she mentioned. Far, far away.”

“And who was that Sparstirl guy she was talking about?” Asta asked.

Not seeing the harm Sunset rolled her wrist around as she leaned up against the log behind her. “He was a famous sorcerer from a thousand years ago that did some stuff before he just went missing,” she told them. Without really telling them anything.

Then, the bird had to open its little beak as it stood on a branch of the fallen tree Sunset was resting against. “He was the royal mage of the Unicornian Court and an expert at his craft. He was also the sorcerer who crated a magical mirror that allowed him to visit the Clover Kingdom. Aside from that, he did help us to build a better understanding of magic during the short time he was with us and aided my master in a few experiments.”

Yuno looked back to Sunset. “So, you got to this country by a magical mirror?”

“Yeah,” Sunset grumbled.

“That was a magical artifact created by a powerful mage in service to your country’s royal family,” he went on.

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “Are you getting at something, or just saying things we already know to hear yourself talk?”

After a few more seconds, Yuno looked over to the bird. “Sunset’s magic, is it on par with the other Unicornian you met?”

“She’s a bit younger than him, but I’d say she’s on track to be just as strong,” the bird replied.

Yuno went back to studying Sunset for a few seconds. “Back during your first week here, did you lie to me?”

Not seeing where he was going with this, Sunset just blinked. “Huh?”

“You have an amazing amount of magical power, an education must have been equal to any noble, training in magic that nobody in this entire kingdom would have undergone,” Yuno surmised. “That’s not something an orphan gets, no matter how much mana they have as a child.”

Oh, now I get it, Sunset thought before she made a hand into a fist. “You’re going to stop this line of questioning right now, or I’m going to knock your teeth in.”

Asta looked back and forth between the two as he sat on the grass. “What? What is it? I don’t get it.”

With everything needing to be spelled out for him, Yuno turned to Asta. “I think Sunset is really a-”

“LAST CHANCE YUNO!” Sunset warned the tall boy very loudly.

He looked back at her. “I was telling Asta, not asking you. So it doesn’t count.”

After holding onto some earth magic for a few seconds, Sunset let it go and slumped against the log. “Yeah, well I don’t want to listen about stupid theories. I am an orphan. Nobody wanted me.” Even after all this time, it still hurt to say that.

Silence reigned in the group for several seconds after that until Asta spoke. “So, is the whole Uni-thing why you can cast spells without a grimoire?” he asked.

Sunset made a displeased sound and looked away from the shorter boy.

And of course, the bird answered for her. “Of course.”

“How?”

“That’s a bit complicated,” ‘Polly’ replied. “You see, the races of this realm...we can all...work magic. We can even be inventive enough to figure out new ways to work magic. Lumiere Silvamillion Clover spent most of his time coming up with ways to lock magic into objects that would have allowed people with barely any magical power to do the same amount of work as someone with enough mana to make it into the Magic Knights. But our ability to use magic is instinctual. We simply can’t delve into the inner workings of mana.”

When the boys just looked at her blakely, the bird sighed. “Think about it like this, you can move your arm, clench your fist and wiggle your fingers. But do you know every little process needed to do those things? Could you put your arm back together piece by piece if it was taken apart? Most people know how to work their arm like they know how to work magic,” the bird told him before pointing to Sunset. “She knows how magic works on a basic level that people just can’t grasp because...well, you can’t just stop a piece of your arm from working at will.”

As the boys digested that information, Sunset took in a deep breath to help her stomach settle. “So, we’re going after the magic stones, right?”

“WHAT?” the bird yelled.

Asta pulled himself back onto his feet. “Yeah. If the First Wizard King is a rock, we really should...un-stone him? De-stone?” he said questionably before looking around. “What’s it called when you do that?”

Getting more upset, the bird flapped her wings and flew over to Asta’s face. “Didn’t you hear a single thing I said?”

“Of course we did,” Yuno replied as he regained his footing. “And I’d be a pretty poor candidate for the position of Wizard King if I ignored all the problems the Clover Kingdom is facing. You said it yourself, the current king is a poor ruler and things need to be done to clean things up. Even if I did become the Wizard King, it sounds like I still wouldn’t have the authority to fix everything without someone to help me rein in the royals.”

The bird few back around to look at Yuno. “You don’t even know where most of the magic stones are!”

Sunset raised a hand and surrounded the flying animal in a force field before pulling her back to where the not-unicorn was sitting. “But you do, right? Guess that means you’re just going to have to come with us then.” And come up with a better name than Magic Stones. Humans seriously suck at names.

“So you’re just going to take me along because you think I’ll point a few glowing rocks out for you?” she asked.

“No,” Sunset told her as she got to her feet. “I’m taking you with us, because you’ve been alone for five-hundred years and just reached out to someone in all that time. I’m sorry I couldn’t help your friend right away. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying to help him and you. So, are you going to tell us your actual name, or am I just going to keep calling you Polly?”

“...it’s Secre Swallowtail,” the anti-bird said after several seconds. At which point, Sunset released her field.

Asta looked back at the flying animal. “But you’re not a-”

“I am well aware of my current species!” the bird told the boy before she landed on his head to peck at him for the remark.

As Asta gave a discomforting scream from the assault, Yuno moved closer to Sunset. “So...what’s Unicornia like?”

Sunset gave a little shrug. “Eh, better weather, more musical performances,” she said before looking down at herself. “You guys are better at making pants and boots though.”

March the First came and the sky was filled with firefly dandelions. As was tradition, all the children of the Clover Kingdom who had reached the age of fifteen gathered at the nearest Grimoire Tower for the Grimoire Acceptance Ceremony. Outside the tower, numerous tents had been set up, selling hot food, trinkets and other little things that parents in the poorer regions had saved up all year to buy for their children to mark such a momentous day.

And because the place was nearly a mile away from Hage, combined with the fact that the Clover Kingdom didn’t bother to make paved roads in its poorer sections as well as everyone in the orphanage wanted to come, Sunset found herself getting up at the crack of dawn to walk down a muddy road at the back of a crowd of humans who had yet to invent deodorant while a smartass bird rode on her shoulder.

“So, out of curiosity, did Starswirl get one of these things when he came here?” she asked softly.

Secre did the best shrug a bird could manage. “We didn’t have time to check if he even could before the portal destabilized and he had to leave,” she said. “If a book doesn’t fly to you at the appointed time, grab one while they’re all still floating around. Just make sure its from the bottom level.”

The suggestion got a frown from Sunset. “Won’t that mean someone is going to be missing their grimoire when it comes time to claim it?” She wasn’t going to ruin someone’s destiny just to cover the fact she wasn’t really human.

“It doesn’t work like that,” Secre told Sunset. “The grimoires produced by the towers are blank. There’s no specific grimoire for a specific person just waiting to be claimed. Well, except maybe the four leaf books, but those are a special case and stored on the top shelf.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I was wondering about that. Every clover I saw in the village had three leafs. But the one on the front of the Wizard King’s book had four. Is it some kind of royalty thing?”

The bird looked over to Sunset and then back to the road as the kids from the orphanage continued on ahead of her. “Right, you’re not from here,” she said before taking in a deep breath. “The three leaves of the clover stand for Faith, Hope, and Love, the three virtues of the Clover Kingdom. Grimiores with a fourth leaf are said to possess good luck, and great things are expected of those who posses them.”

Feeling a bit of her old pride swelling up, Sunset stood up a little taller. “Well, maybe I’ll get a five leaf clover then.”

“Pray that you never see such a book!” Secre suddenly snapped at her, making Sunset jump in fright and look over to see the little bird glaring at her.

Sunset didn’t feel much like talking to the bird for the rest of the walk and increased her pace to catch up with the rest of the children so Secre couldn’t start a conversation either. Eventually, the bird just flew on ahead and out of sight.

When they finally got to the tower, the lack of funds in the church group had them ignoring all of the food stands and people hawking trinkets. Inside, the tower was just a single floor, with bookcases stacked to the ceiling that had to be at least five-hundred feet up, all of them filled with unclaimed grimoire of every shape and size. The only part of the wall that wasn’t made of bookshelves was the first seven feet, which was just normal stone. Those that were expected to get their books were brought to the center of the tower while their families and guests stayed at the edges of the circular room.

“AWSOME!” Asta shouted as he ran in to look around. “All of these shelves filled with grimoires. I wonder which one is mine?”

Sunset gripped her hands into fists. Just keep your mouth shut. Just keep quiet, she told herself while looking around at everyone who had come to claim their books. There were a lot more people than she had expected, but it was a meeting place for the region’s six villages. Most everyone was dressed in the same earthy clothes, although she did see a pair of well-dressed humans that had to be the local lord’s offspring and probably a friend. Either that, or the rightful heir and his bastard brother.

“The day I become a full-fledged mage, it’s about time,” the blonde noble in light clothes said as he played with his hair.

Beside him, the well-dressed boy in a vest sneered. “Look what the cat dragged in,” he said as he looked over at the orphans from Hage Village. “We shouldn’t have to give grimoires to anyone who just walks in off the street. Just looking at them makes me sick to my stomach.”

I wonder what happens if I burn their books to ash before they die, Sunset asked herself. Sunset knew that grimoires were linked to the user and would fall apart without that connection, but he never did ask Father Orsi if he was afraid of setting his book on fire with his own magic. They were probably protected somehow.

“You don’t think trash like that would be foolish enough to actually attempt the Magic Knight entrance exams in three months, do you?” the boy with the vest asked.

Which meant...they had probably seen Asta or Yuno around town at one point. They were both very talkative about what they planned to do, even if Asta was the much more...vocal of the pair. Which was later confirmed when they started discussing Asta’s lack of magic and laughing about it amongst themselves.

“Welcome to The Grimoire Tower, accepties!” an amplified voice called down from above before a platform descended onto another raised area above where everyone was standing to look down on the crowed. It was an older man, dressed in a gray robe and long point hat, with a gray beard that went halfway down to his chest.

As he continued his speech that got a little...eccentric, Sunset found herself feeling a little odd. She had never been much of a fan of Starswirl the Bearded. From the things she had read in history books, the guy had about four other ponies who helped him do everything he was famous for, with an text that Sunset wasn’t supposed to have read mentioning a fifth. As terrible a...caretaker as she was, Celestia had at least ruled Equestria on her own and taken care of plenty of threats without any help.

So, when a human of all things showed up wearing the same outfit as him, minus the bells, Sunset had to fight to hold in her cringe. Dear God, you let your humans pick up that idiot’s fashion sense?

“-And now, to accept your grimoires,” not-Starswirl said as Sunset felt a change in the magic around her. She could sense...tendrils of magic flailing around, linking with the fifty or so people in the middle of the tower with books on the shelves before the first grimoire started to glow and flew off of the shelf and into the air.

When some of the thousands of strands came to touch Sunset, they simply slid off of her and moved on. It felt like oil trying to mix with water. So, safe in the idea that she wasn’t going to get buried in books or have to explain two grimoires flying towards her, Sunset reached out with her magic and snatched the nearest one she could as dozens of the things were flying around the room and some people were getting theirs before others.

“Finally, my very own grimoire.”

“Check it out, mines bigger!”

“Yeah, but mines thicker!”

Oh my god, Sunset thought as a sudden revelation hit her as to why Secre had flown the coup before they got inside the tower. It’s a dick measuring contest. It’s a giant dick measuring contest.

“This is my grimoire, seriously?”

“Mine’s so small! Why? Why is mine so small?”

“I can feel the power just waiting to be unleashed!”

Then, as the noise settled down and Sunset stopped groaning, she started to hear everyone in the tower start whispering to each other. Which, didn’t really fit the idea of a big coming of age ceremony with ones family and friends. So when she looked up to see what was going on, she saw…

Asta.

Standing in the center of the tower with his hands raised.

And nothing happening.

“Uh...is my grimoire running late or something?” he asked as he continued to stand there, frozen.

Oh...that’s bad, Sunset told herself as she realized what was going on. The grimoires reached out to link with someone’s mana. A resource Asta just didn’t have. She had expected him to get a book and it be empty. They could have let him accept the fact of life gradually when no spells appeared. Not be hit with...this.

“Uh...try again next year?” not-Starswirl suggested pathetically as he sounded like he was trying to put a more comical spin on things.

“WHAAAAAAAT?” Asta screeched.

And that was when the chuckling and giggles started, which quickly developed into full blown laughter Followed by the usual comments. “Oh man, that’s so pathetic it’s funny!”

Sunset grit her teeth and held her hand in a fist as she saw the two people who ran the church standing there off to the side, if she blew up on these people...they wouldn’t like it. And what are you getting so angry about? Sunset asked herself. A year ago, she would have been right there with the rest of the humans, laughing at the boy with them.

Had being turned into a human changed her so much?

Or was it something else?

Sunset’s introspection was put on hold when there was a stirring in the air that caused everyone to look up.

A grimoire that had been stored in the highest shelves of the tower came floating down towards the crowd. As it got closer to the floor, the green book exploded with a golden light that filled the entire building while it got closer, and closer and closer to the floor…

To have Yuno step out and catch it when it floated down into his waiting hand not two feet away from where Asta had fallen to his knees.

“INCREDIBLE!” not-Starswirl shouted as the light started to die down. “A FOUR LEAF CLOVER!”

“And it’s his? that filthy little commoner?” the lead noble in the room spat.

Maybe it was the high from getting picked out of the crowd as the chosen one or whatever, but Yuno tucked the book under his arm and stood up a little straighter before clearing his throat. “I will be the next to become the Wizard King!”

As everyone in the crowd started to cheer and go on about the amazing declaration, including the father figure from the orphanage, Asta picked himself up off of the floor. His head still hung low, but his fists were clenched and shaking. “Yuno. You have have pulled ahead for the moment, but just wait,” he said before pointing his thumb at himself. “I’LL CATCH UP TO YOU!”

And then, the laughter started again.

As Yuno began to walk towards the door.

Just like Sunset knew she would have in his position...a year ago.

So, while everyone else was focused on the two of them, she made her way over to the exit and stood by the door and waited for Yuno to get close. “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” she asked through gritted teeth.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Yuno told her roughly as he looked away.

Sunset glared at the boy as she reached out to grab his arm. “No, I understand perfectly. Because the night I met the two of you, I was exactly where Asta is right now. You want to know what I was before I came here? I was someone who watched her mother give everything that I ever wanted to someone else despite working as hard as I could for it my entire life!”

After a second, Yuno looked back at her, his eyes crinkled in pain. “And would you have wanted pity from that person who got everything? When you received nothing at all?”

Sunset lost her grip when she couldn’t bring herself to answer.

Secre watched as the crowd of people started to leave the building. Centuries of people watching skills from across all of the kingdom kicking in to tell her everything she needed to know about them at a glance.

There was the happy family going home to celebrate their son’s coming of age.

The big fish that lived in the small pond that were really nothing special.

The young couple that looked ready to move in together now that they had their grimoires and could use their magic to its fullest potential.

The lone woman that was staring at her single spell, unsure of where to go in her life when her book didn’t come with any instructions on how to live it.

The creepy-looking guy in the hood that didn’t come with anyone young enough to receive a magical tome and probably shouldn’t be left alone with children or followed into a dark alley anywhere approaching night-time.

The tall child-prodigy that received a four leaf book, being followed by the natural genius that was probably going to give him a lecture.

The overly religious group, complete with nun.

But...no village idiot.

Where’s the village idiot? Secre asked herself as she looked around for Asta.

It was half an hour later when he finally left the tower as all of the vendors were packing up to go home and reopen their food stands for dinner or take care of their families. The valley where the demon had fallen didn’t have much in the way of dining experiences.

Asta ran out and looked around for a bit, then headed off of the beaten path, but in the general direction of home. Since being a bird meant it was rather easy for her to catch up with anything on the ground, Secre gave him another ten minutes to himself before taking off after the boy. She found him right as he got to the edge of the forest and landed on his head, which oddly enough, perfectly shaped for her to sit on. “Hey kid. Let me guess, no grimoire?”

The boy managed to take a few more steps. “Did you know this would happen?” he asked dejectedly.

“Well...not really,” Secre told him uncomfortably in a half-lie.

Because of her long life and dedication to Lumiere, Secre had spent several centuries in the valley, watching over her king and the people living around his resting place. Although there hadn’t really been anything exceptional about him over the years, it was hard not to notice Asta.

And she couldn’t bring herself to crush the heart of a boy she had watched grow up.

So, she pushed the burden off on someone else. “But if you want a real explanation, you should ask someone who knows how magic works,” Secre told him. “I saw her nagging Yuno on the way to town. You can probably save him from her if you hurry.”

Sunset was in a foul mood when she got back to the orphanage after having slowly chased Yuno into his little brooding area in one of the crumbling ruins that dotted the landscape in this particular area. Ruins that nobody seemed to know anything about of course, the Clover Kingdom was about as bad with keeping records of its history as Equestria.

But, Sunset wasn’t focused on the ruins around town. She wasn’t focused on anything, really. Even thought Yuno wasn’t jumping for joy over Asta not getting a grimoire or finding it funny like the majority of everyone in the entire region, completely ignoring the situation was only one step above laughing about it.

Still, I probably shouldn’t have slapped him, Sunset told herself as she walked through the doorway and into the main room of the church, with the wooden pews lining the sides and the pulpit at the end where the Father usually gave his sermons.

Even after coming to the human world and living at a church for so long, Sunset had never really gotten into their religion. She understood its importance from a logical perspective as a means of absolute moral control for society with a set of basic values written in stone. Two traveling preachers that stopped by the church on separate occasions had shown her those values could be interrupted in very different ways. With one of the men obviously twisting things to try and justify his own world view that went against some of the things Father Orisi tended to preach.

Of course, the big reason that Sunset had never got into the whole deity thing was that ponies already had a force that controlled their lives, they called it destiny. They got told of their destiny sometime between the ages of six and twelve with a mark on their butt that let everypony know what they were all about at a glance.

Humans just slapped a face on the thing before saying they couldn’t actually show you God’s face or agree on how many eyes it had. But, turning a nebulous concept that ponies just had to accept and work with into a creature that existed on a higher plane made it a lot easier to blame someone when things went bad instead of just learning to deal with it and move on.

Which was why when Sunset needed something to direct her anger towards, the ragged cross that sat at the back of the big room with all the benches looked like a very tempting target. Kind of like a big X turned on its side.

With human footsteps being so light, it was the sound of the squeaky door that alerted Sunset to someone coming into the room. She looked over and saw Lilly looking around before a bit of disappointment crossed her face. It was gone a second later, though. “Sunset. I was hoping Asta had come home.”

“Do you think he’s going to do something stupid?” Sunset asked bluntly as she sat down.

Lilly walked up and rested her arm on the back of the bench across from where Sunset was. “I don’t know,” she said after a long pause. “He’s always taken his lack of magic in stride-”

“Because he always thought once he got a little book, everything would get better. But it didn’t! And now there’s no light at the end of the tunnel,” Sunset grumbled in a harsher tone than she meant to. Which made her blush and looked away from the other woman. “Sorry.”

After a few seconds of silence, Sister Lilly softly asked a question. “Can something be done about it?”

The question got Sunset to look back at the nun in confusion. “What can I do?”

“I’m not blind, Sunset,” Sister Lilly told her gently. “I’ve seen you use nearly half a dozen different types of magic since you got here with an unheard level of mana control. The day you fixed the roof and helped in the garden, I wrote another Sister that lives in a small town I used to study at about you. She used to be a magic knight and still has connections to numerous squads. Including a captain, in fact. After reading about you, she told me about suspected experiments on children in the Diamond Kingdom involving trying to give someone more than one element. And there are other things, like stories of bandits that extract the mana from kids in ways that leave them magically crippled, barely able to produce mana at all.”

Sunset snorted. But internally, she filed the explanation away for later should someone ask about her magic. Although, she would probably need a bit more information if she hoped to fake something like that when it came to an actual conversation. “So, you think I’m an escaped lab rat or something?”

A hand touched Sunset’s shoulder and she looked back up to the nun. “No. I think you are a wonderful young lady, with an incredible talent and kind heart to match. But...do you know of anything that might help Asta because of your...experiences?”

“...no.”

It was almost sunset as Yuno stood with his back up against a wall, looking at his newest acquisition.

The four leaf clover grimoire. A sign of good luck and a special destiny. With it, Yuno knew that his goal of becoming the Wizard King was actually a possibility, rather than just some empty words spoken by a child that his parents hadn’t even bothered keeping.

So why do I feel so miserable about having it? Yuno asked himself as he stood in a decaying entrance to an old private garden that had been falling apart since before he had been born. Asta had his forests, but Yuno tended to find privacy in the ruins that had been left behind by the people who lived in the area when the Clover Kingdom was young.

Or maybe from before it even existed.

“So just what are you going to do about this, then?”

Yuno reached up and touched the cheek that was still throbbing from where Sunset slapped him when he gave his answer to the question. Not everyone can be special, he told himself again.

If wasn’t his fault that Asta had drawn the bad lot in life. He had secretly admired the boy a little bit. Because if their situation had been reversed, Yuno knew that he never would have found the strength to push himself forward while everyone around him did it with such ease.

Life wasn’t fair. That had always been the case for the two of them. A lesson he had learned year after year of sleeping in one room with half a dozen other people, barely eating enough to stay fed, freezing in the Winter, sweltering in the Summer, having to wear clothes that barely fit. So when one of them got a break that the other didn’t, it all just fell apart?

How did that make sense?

Asta wasn’t even angry at him!

So why did he feel this way when there was no reason to?

The crunch of long dead leaves that no one bothered to clean up underfoot had Yuno turn away from the garden’s entrance to see two of the boys from the entrance ceremony walking towards him. One was the local lord’s son, while the other was the child of the mayor from the next town over, where the local lord stayed. While the boy with the long blonde hair was pretty much the bottom of the barrel when it came to nobility since his lands were out in the middle of the Forsaken Zone of the Clover Kingdom, it still made him stand head and shoulders above everyone else as far as anyone important was concerned. Despite how the boy’s family line had bred with commoners to the point where the only thing noble about him was the title itself.

Yuno had such little contact with the other boy, he couldn’t even remember the guy’s name. I think it starts with an L, he told himself. The other town’s mayor’s son...Yuno had no idea what his name even began with. He was just a goon for L...something.

Not wanting to put up with whatever they were going to try and sell him on at the moment, Yuno tried to end things diplomatically. “If you're lost, turn around and take a right, then start walking until you get to the next village. I’m pretty sure you can find your way home from there,” he said before glancing at the two walls that flanked him thanks to some sort of ancient eccentric designer that wanted the entrance to their private estate to look like it was down a dark alley.

“You little bastard!” L-something yelled at Yuno. “You think just because you have a four leaf, that you’re better than me?”

Yuno frowned at the young man. He really wasn’t in the mood for this. “No, I think I’m better than you because I’ve heard all the stories about how you like to use what little influence you have to make everyone else around you miserable to compensate for the fact that you’re stuck out here in the middle of nowhere like everyone else, but have enough to get by without working for it. So you automatically think you deserve better than what you have.” Like any generic spoiled brat.

“HOW DARE YOU!” L-Something yelled while his goon started to back away from the raging noble. “I’m going to burn off every inch of your skin and leave you just alive enough to watch me turn that precious grimoire of yours to ash!”

Beside L-Something, Goon just got more nervous. “H-Hey, is that really a good idea?”

L-Something glared at Goon. “Shut up! We were supposed to be the stars of the stars of the show today,” he spat. “But then this dirty little commoner has to show up and ruin it, getting all the fame and glory.”

As the summation of the days events resounded in his ears, Yuno felt his anger build until something in his mind clicked into place. He wasn’t mad at the noble, at least, the spoiled brat wasn’t at the core of his anger. “Do you honestly think I’m happy about this right now?” he asked L-Something in a low voice. “Yes, I got a four leaf clover. But my brother, the boy you saw today, the kid who everyone laughed at, he got nothing. And it’s next to impossible to be happy when you get something that just can’t be shared with the people you care about. So go throw your little temper tantrum somewhere else, because I’m not in the mood to hear about how a brat who has everything he could ever need cry about how he didn’t get one little thing extra that he just wanted.”

“SHUT UP YOU DIRTY URCHIN! I’LL MAKE YOU PAY FOR LOOKING DOWN ON ME!” the noble screamed as he opened his red book to have it surrounded by a blazing aura of magic.

A dozen different discussions with Sunset Yuno had over the past year ran through the boys mind as flames shot out of the fire grimoire to speed along the ground towards him. Although Sunset never actually taught Yuno any spells, she did tend to ramble on about magic itself. And Yuno made sure to listen to every word she ever said on the subject.

The spell coming at him, if it could even be called that, was just a mass of flaming mana heading in a single direction. It wasn’t condensed into a single point or forced into a construct, like Yuno had seen with Sister Lilly’s ‘Holy Fist of Love’ water magic that she inadvertently slapped Asta around with whenever the boy wouldn’t stop asking her to marry him. Meaning that the core of the spell could be easily broken apart.

So, Yuno moved his hand in a circular motion as he sent out his mana and twisted it to form a tornado at the center of the flames that simply sucked in the spell and sent it skyward, where they dispersed high up enough the embers were out long before they got anywhere near the ground.

As soon as the two bullies were in sight again, Yuno frowned while L-Something just stammered. “H-He did that without even using his grimoire?” the noble sked before looking over at Goon. “You...get him!”

“Are you crazy?”

While the two boys argued amongst themselves, Yuno found himself at a loss about what to do. Keeping himself in one piece was well and fine, but counterattacking the local noble would be a big problem when it got back to the authorities. It was a sad fact Yuno had learned over the course of his life: people with money or a Lord in front of their name could literally beat a girl to death in the middle of the street without any repercussions, while people like him would be arrested for simply defending themselves against attempted murderers.

However, that point became moot a moment later with the walls around them rumbled and chains with spikes on the end shot out to wrap around both of the boys before dragging them back to hold them against the wall. “Now now, boys, we can’t have you go and destroying such a valuable grimoire,” a man in a hood said as he walked into the dark pseudo-alley where he had just pinned two children up against a wall while the third stood with his back up against what might as well have been a dead end. “Do you have any idea how much money something like that would be to a collector?”

Yuno frowned at the man in the hood as he removed it to let a wave of long, dark hair fall down to his shoulders while three large masses of it came down his face, past his hawkish nose to reach his chin. Some of the chains he had summoned, or created from out of the wall were still free and floating around on the ends that had spikes as his blue book glowed with magic, floating in the air alongside him.

“You can’t be serious. Nobody can use a grimoire but the person it’s bound to. If you kill me, it will disappear,” he told the newcomer while looking at the chains warily. The guy looked to have a good amount of mana, and didn’t seem to be quite as foolish as the other two.

His chains were physical objects, not just some outpouring of mana with an elemental attribute. Which meant Yuno would have to sever them with a windblade. Which...he wasn’t sure if he could do. As if fighting Earth with Wind wasn’t bad enough, magical metal was a very different thing than the logs he usually used such techniques on to chop firewood. Maybe I should have listened to Asta and tried to blow away a few boulders when we were growing up.

“True. But when they find some commoner nobody that got a big head has killed the local lord and his best friend,” the stranger went on. “Nobody’s going to care where his book went as he is hauled off to stand trial and sent to jail.”

...crap, Yuno thought to himself as he opened his grimoire to let it float in front of him and glanced over at the struggling teens that had just been told they were about to be murdered. Should I run away? Wind magic was one of the fastest speed enhancing elements, also enabling its user to fly on just mana control alone. And since the man in front of him wasn’t a light user, there was no way he could keep pace with Yuno.

Of course, that would mean leaving the boys to die.

The boys who just tried to kill him. Or, maim, at least.

Keep him talking, Yuno told himself as he tried to think of a solution. “You don’t really think some nobody bandit can take a four leaf grimoire, do you?” he asked before glancing down at his book’s open page. Towering Tornado, he wasn’t even sure what it did!

The stranger chuckled. “You may have the four leaf, but you’re still just a baby when it comes to magic, and I’m the man they used to call Chain Magic Revchi before I was expelled from the magic knights. Which means I know when a child is trying to play for time!” he shouted before half a dozen chains shot up from the ground.

With no command to his grimoire, there was no delay, no time to doge. The chains wrapped around Yuno’s arms and pinned them to his chest before one of the chains behind Revchi shot forward to wrap around Yuno’s grimoire and pull it back towards the former magic knight.

But with his hands still free, Yuno opened them up to send out a blast of wind.

At least, he tried to. But, nothing happened.

As he simply stood there staring at the failure of his magic, Revchi grinned back at him. “By the way, my chains also drain the mana from anyone they grab a hold of, preventing them from using magic. Sorry, but it looks like your luck has just run out,” he said before grabbing the green book and holding up. “Luck, four leaf clover, get it?”

“Jokes aren’t funny when you have to explain them, moron,” Yuno deadpanned.

Then, the criminal’s eyes lowered a bit to look at the blue stone hanging from Yuno’s necklace. “You know, I bet that I could get a good price for that little bobble of yours too.”

Wait a minute, Yuno thought as the thief began to walk towards him. This was his chance to turn things around. If Revchi got close enough to steal Yuno’s necklace, then he would be in range for a counterattack. While Yuno’s arms were chained down, his legs were still free. A hard blow to the right area on Revchi’s body could very well cause him to pass out. Which would free everyone he had chained up.

Hopefully.

Closer. Just get a little bit closer, he prayed while getting ready to strike.

“HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!”

Yuno grit his teeth as he kept himself from groaning. In the past few hours since he had gotten his grimoire, he had been chewed out and slapped by his know-it-all not-sister, attacked by two bullies, then chained down by a former magic knight that just happened to have been in a middle of nowhere town to see him get a four leaf clover grimoire. Then, just when Yuno thought he had a way out of this whole mess, the completely wrong person came bounding over the garden wall to make Revchi stop moving a good foot outside of kicking range.

It was then that Yuno had a revelation: His four leaf clover’s luck was obviously defective.

“Hey Yuno!” Asta said as he tried to strike a cool pose and grinned at the taller boy. “A little bird told me you were in trouble!”

And...shouldn’t she have gone to get Sunset then? Yuno wondered.

“Why do I have to peal the potatoes?” Nash demanded as Sunset stood over him with a frown on her face and her arms crossed under her breasts as he sat in the basement of the church, doing cooking chores.

“Because I heard you talking to the others, making fun of Asta,” she told him evenly.

Nash glared back at her for a moment before speaking. “But he’s a joke!” the boy declared. “He’s loud, stupid and annoying! He keeps saying he’s going to be Wizard King when he doesn’t have a bit of magic and now, he doesn’t even have a grimoire! He’s never going to amount to anything!”

“Probably,” Sunset told him. “But then again, neither are you. The only real difference between the two of you, Nash, is that Asta is actually trying to help people, trying to make their lives better. But I’ll take him any day of the week over a little shit like you that thinks because he’s stuck in this toilet of a little village that he has to try and tear everyone else down as well. No, wait...that’s the real difference between him and you, Nash. He makes the world a brighter place when he’s in it and you make the world a brighter place when you’re not.”

Secre sat on the stone fence, feeling rather conflicted as events played out below.

When Asta had arrived to try and rescue Yuno from the former magic knight, things hand gone about as well as could be expected. The knight laughed a little at the magicless boy, got attacked by Asta, and chained the boy up with his magic before pulling him up against the wall in a sitting position with chains wrapped around his waist. He didn’t even bother to restrain Asta’s arms, despite the boy’s freakishly muscular physique at just fifteen years of age.

“This isn’t over,” Asta growled as the shaper ends of Revichi’s magic cut at him on his legs. “I’m not done yet! Because I’m going to be the Wizard Ki-ugh!”

Revchi snorted as his bonds constructed around the Asta’s stomach, stopping the child’s little mantra that was probably being said to reaffirm his courage. “Wizard King? Are you kidding me?” he asked as he walked towards the boy.

What should I do? Secre asked herself as she looked down on the scene below. Getting help would take too long. Interfering was...suicidal. She might be able to do something like peck out one of the former knight's eyes, but then she’d be killed.

And she couldn’t afford to die.

She was the only one that knew of the threat against the entire world just waiting in the winds.

But just staying and watching the boys get killed was pure agony.

This is what happens when you get attached to people, the bird told herself. She had managed to hang onto her sanity for five hundred years by doing her duty. Then, one stupid little horse girl with a sun on her butt shows up and she throws it all away for a tiny hope that maybe, she could see the man she loved again.

A poet some five hundred years ago had once said that love was the death of duty. Secre would have liked to peck his eyes out of the man wasn’t long dead.

“Let me tell you something, boy,” Revchi said before he stepped on Asta’s shoulder. “My chains allow me to measure the mana a person has. And you, have zero. That’s why you never got a grimoire, and never will. You’re never gong to be anything, because you’re some kind of freak.”

Secre winced as she watched the fight practically drain out of Asta at the undeniable revelation, the tension in his muscles relax as he went from fighting back against his binings to just..lying there against the wall. Revchi even walked right up to where he was in reach and began kicking him, then stepping on the boy’s shoulder as he laughed. “You? Become the Wizard King? That’s the best joke I’ve heard my entire life! I bet your genius friend over there has been getting a good laugh out of you since the day you met!”

Then, Secre watched Asta surrender to absolute despair.

He simply lowered his head, shutting himself off from the world as it became too much for him to bear. Revchi probably could have cut off an ear and Asta wouldn’t have even cared to respond.

“HEY!” Yuno shouted, getting the assailent’s attention. “You shut your mouth you stinking failure of a magic knight! And Asta, it’s true. You will never be the Wizard King. Because that’s what I’ll be doing! AS LONG AS YOU JUST LAY DOWN THERE AND DIE LIKE A TOTAL LOSER! Now get up idiot! I thought you were supposed to be my rival!”

Distracted by Yuno’s speech, Revchi didn’t notice Asta’s hand slowly moving up until it grabbed onto the man’s leg, just above where it met his ankle. “You...get off of me!” the boy he was practically standing on yelled before pushing the man backwards and looking to the other teen. “Thanks for the pep talk, Yuno.”

Yuno groaned. “Asta, you could have tried breaking his leg or something when he was still in your grasp, you know.”

“Hey!” Asta snapped back at him. “Don’t tell the future Wizard King how to fight! I’LL DESTROY THIS GUY IN A SECOND!”

Not unless you can pull a miracle out of your butt, Secre thought to herself in annoyance as Asta struggled against the chains binding him. For brief shining second, they had a chance to turn everything around. And now, the boys were once again, going to die.

It was at that time a miracle occurred.

But it had nothing to do with God.

The air around the alleyway stirred as the area became infused with an unholy mana. For a brief second, the sky darkened as all light seemed to be sucked away inside as the ground rumbled. Then, a book pushed itself out of the dirty ground to float in the air in front of Asta as it opened up to reveal a different kind of arcane script than the rest of the grimoires were written in.

“What is going on?” Revchi demanded. “Where did that thing even come from?”

Secre watched as a large, black sword with a blade that was as long as Asta was tall slowly rose from the book to fall over and cut through the chains holding Asta like they weren’t even there. Because as soon as the sword touched them, they were destroyed at the point of contact. An anti-magic sword, she told herself before looking back to Asta. It was probably just her imagination, but for a moment, the transformed wizard could almost swear that she saw the boy’s shadow morph into a twisted reflection of a human being, with wings sprouting out its back.

Was it here the whole time, just sitting beneath the battlefield where Licht dropped it? Secre wondered. Had it just been waiting for someone that was comparable to come along? Or was it something else Asta had that called out to the dark grimoire?

Unable to stop herself, the bird’s eyes moved down to the dirty grimoire. She couldn’t actually see the clover on its cover this time around, but her memory wiped away the grime that hid it as a saying just barely younger than she was played in her mind. One that she almost repeated just this morning.

Faith, Hope, and Love, are hidden in each leaf of the clover.

Within the fourth, Good Luck.

And inside the fifth, dwells the Devil.

“But that’s impossible!” Renchi shouted. “You don’t have any magic! SO HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY HAVE A GRIMOIRE!”

“Because, it looks like not giving up,” Asta said as he lifted a sword that weighed as much as he did before legs toned from years of training launched him at the mage, whose defenses were sliced apart by a weapon wielding magic’s unnatural enemy. “IS MY MAGIC!”

As Asta struck the mage with the blade that was so worn it broke bones as it knocked him into the far wall rather than cut the man in half, the rest of the chains vanished and Yuno stumbled forward while the other two boys just dropped to the ground.

But, Secre knew it wasn’t over yet. She prepared to take flight and...go where? The emergence of a devil would most likely spell the end of the kingdom. She needed to get to the Wizard King so he could rally the Knights. Get the entire nation on alert! She needed to fly down and get Yuno out of there, or at least snatch up his necklace. The boy had no idea just how important it was.

She needed to...stand there as Asta touched the sword to the open book and watch it get drawn back into the demonic grimoire without any side effects whatsoever?

Secre blinked. There was no darkness creeping up his skin, no red eyes, no world-ending catastrophe. Just an overly energetic boy going, “hey Yuno, check it out! I got a grimoire! It’s pretty dirty and kind of smells, but it’s mine!”

What in the world is going on? Secre asked herself as the boy that should have been rampaging across the countryside at this point was jumping up and down while holding a five-hundred year old tome that at one time belonged to her master’s best friend.

It was well past time Sunset should have been asleep as she sat on the church’s roof, after being pecked awake by Secre and told to come outside so they could talk. The bird had told her of what had occurred outside the old ruin, not that she needed to since Asta hadn’t shut up about it since he got home and the whole town was talking about the arrest of a former magic knight. But she had also gone into details that the boys didn’t know, like where the book came from and how five leaf clovers were made.

With the full moon, Sunset could still see the head of the demon in the distance and frowned. “I thought that grimoires were supposed to disappear when their owners die.”

“That book was touched by the denizens of the netherworld. It breaks the normal laws of magic.” Secre replied. “But I didn’t just wake you up to talk about history, I want to know how something like this could even happen!”

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think I know?”

“Because you’re a fucking unicorn!” the anti-bird tweeted loudly. “You’re supposed to be knowledgeable about these things and what to do!”

With Secre being so belligerent, Sunset laid back against the roof and looked up at the sky as she thought about everything she had been told for three whole seconds. “Destiny. And nothing.”

“...what?” the bird asked as she cocked her head.

“Listen. Somebody decided to leave Asta here fifteen years ago, the one place where he might run into that book. Then, the kid without magic that gets made fun of every day of his life exercises and builds his body up to the point where he can swing a two-hundred pound sword around, and after failing to get a magic book from the tower, he goes to the one place in the village where it was buried under five-hundred years of dirt to find it right when he needs to, and turns out to be immune to being taken over, or whatever?” Sunset surmised. “Yeah, even if he wasn’t my friend, I wouldn’t dare touch something that convoluted set of circumstances had spawned.” Maybe if there was somebody obviously pulling the strings behind it all, but since there wasn’t, Sunset was fine with letting it lay as is. “Congratulations, you lucked out. The big bad monster you’ve been worrying about for five-hundred years just ended getting partnered up with the one kid in the world he can’t turn into a meat puppet. Go...eat a worm, or something.”

Secre didn’t give up. “He’s still dangerous!”

With her anger rising and not enough sleep, Sunset felt her patience that had been honed by having to deal with brats all day for a year slipping. “Well it’s a good thing we’re going to be watching that book for another six months before we go to the capital to take the Magic Knight Exams!” she said before her eyes narrowed. “Or are you actually being stupid enough to suggest I do something about Asta?”

“Of course not. I knew the boy long before you did, girl,” Secre told her before she landed and turned to look at the giant skull in the distance. “But, it looks like well have to go hunting for those stones after all. Something has been set into motion, and I have no intention of not having something in reserve for when we need it.”

Sunset snorted and got ready to jump off the roof. “Whatever, paranoid old bird. I’m going back to bed.”

Page 3: Diamonds

“The Magic Knight Exams can be broken down into three different stages,” Secre told the three humans standing in front of her as she stood on a branch in the deep woods, away from prying eyes. “The first will involve a flock of anti-birds.”

Asta gasped smiled. “We’re gonna meet your mom and dad?” he asked happily before Secre flew over to peck at his head. “OWOWOWOWOWOW!”

With the idiot taken care of for the moment, the bird flew back to her branch. “No moron! It’s a test to see how much mana you possess. Anti-birds have a natural sense for mana that let’s them sort out which animals make good prey, and which ones to stay away from. Since you have next to no mana at all, try and make sure they don’t peck out your eyes,” she told him. “This will also mark people as targets for the final stage of the exam, since everyone will see how weak or strong everyone else is at a glance.”

Sunset crossed her arms. “I don’t suppose there’s a way to bluff Asta’s way through it, like some kind of bird repellent?”

“Hey! I don’t need any cheating help like that!” he told them.

“I think I should point out the obvious,” Yuno spoke up. “If someone thinks Asta is weak, then they’ll probably underestimate him.”

Despite the logic of the argument, Secre frowned at the boy. “The Magic Knight Exams aren’t some contest where the winner gets the job automatically. It’s a sales pitch to the different knight captains. If they don’t think you can handle the job, you don’t get in. Period.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “So you can pass every test and still fail? That seems pretty unfair.”

“Have you lived in this world recently?” the bird replied. “The second test is always chosen by a random captain and is completely up to the individual. So, I can’t tell you anything aside from the tests can involve anything from something sensible, to a completely useless act in which everyone is told to drink a bottle of liquor and have to enter the final round intoxicated.”

All three of the humans stared at the bird.

“...you can’t be serious,” Yuno finally said. “There’s no way that someone who would do that could be a captain of a magic knight squad.”

Secre fluttered her wings in indignation. “Hey, you’re the one who’s lived his entire life in this little hole in the ground. You have no idea what the mages who have made a name for themselves are like,” she said. “One captain is a fiery loudmouth that likes to listen to his own voice, another one is a full-on sociopath, and the newest captain is a child of nineteen that from what I could tell during last year’s exam, still needs a babysitter half the time. None of them are what any sane person would consider normal.”

“And we’re supposed to work for these people?” Sunset asked incredulously.

“You’re supposed to join the Knights and build the connections we need to find the rest of the magic stones,” Secre corrected her before waving the question away with a wing.

“So what’s the third test?” Asta asked.

“That’s always the same. Two mages from the assembled candidates will agree to face off in a sparring match to showcase their skills,” she told them. “Don’t even think about trying to face each other. While losing your fight doesn’t mean you won’t get chosen, it still won’t look good. Nobody will care what your skills are if they can’t be applied to a combat situation. That is at the core of what the magic knights do.”

Sunset looked down at the ground in thought. Well, I shouldn’t have that much trouble if that’s the case, she told herself. Although ponies weren’t the best at violence, Celestia had taken a great deal of time in teaching Sunset magical combat. A lot of ponies, including her included, wondered just why that was when Equestria had been such a peaceful place. But, it had left Sunset with a quick reaction time and ability to analyse a situation when her blood was pumping so hard she could hear her own heartbeat screaming at her to run away from danger. “Guess that means we’re going to have to spend some time practicing on each other, then.”

Since it made little sense to just throw magic at each other when Yuno only had a single spell in his book and Asta needed to work on his swordplay, the three teens spent the next month mostly practicing away from each other and experimenting with new magic. While Yuno went about mostly on his own and did his usual chores with as much oomph as possible, Asta went into his usual place in the forest to just beat on rocks, trees, and anything else he could find. But, an unspoken agreement between the three of them made everyone keep their distance, since any spying would negate the surprise factor that a first bout would entail.

As for Sunset, she spent most of her time getting instructions from the bird.

“For obvious reasons I don’t think I need to explain, the element you use will determine the effectiveness of the reinforcement magic on your body,” Secre told the girl as Sunset sat beneath her on the grass. “All of them can give you a physical boost to one degree or another, but wind will make you faster than earth, while earth will increase your resilience better than the others at the cost of speed. Fire works best for physical strength, but most mages of that type surround their hands in magic to keep from breaking them whenever they need to throw a punch. The specialized elements like light, ice, ash, and so forth follow the same principles to some extent, but can also provide a little exception to the rule. Like light’s superior speed enhancement even though it’s technically fire.”

Sunset laid back on the grass and propped her head up with her arms as she tried in vain to get comfortable to no avail. “What happens if I channel two elements at once?”

“That’s not possible,” Secre told her.

“Yes it is...in theory anyway,” she admitted a minute later. “And I’m not talking about opposing elements. More like, fire and earth or water and wind.”

After letting out a chirp of a sigh, Secre landed on the girl. “Please don’t do something that’s going to blow yourself up. You’re the only sensible ally I have right now. If you die, those two idiots will lose their buffer. Just work on your specialization for now, you at least have an actual spell for that.”

“...get off my boobs,” Sunset told the bird before shooing her away and rolling onto her stomach while propping herself up with her arms. Over a year with the things, and they still felt weird. Especially now. “And leave the boys alone, they’re not that bad.”

Secre landed in front of Sunset on the grass. “You weren’t around before...you were around,” she said awkwardly. “Those idiots would spend all day trying to outdo each other. Yuno, just as much as Asta, but not as loud about it.”

As the conversation died down, Sunset found herself looking at the bird before she laid flat on her belly. And was quickly reminded how different it was for a human girl to do that than it was for a pony. So, she rolled over onto her side. “Hey Secre...do you ever get used to the change in species?”

The bird was quiet for some time. “Not really,” she finally said. “I’ve lived like this for hundreds of years, but I can still remember what it was like to have hands and teeth.”

A tiny bit of hope that Sunset had been feeling died out and she curled up into herself a little, despite the discomfort her body was experiencing. I guess I should say, thanks for being honest,” she said without much emotion as the world started to blur.

“What’s wrong?” Secre asked.

“...I started my monthly bleed today,” the redhead admitted. There was a fluttering of wings, and Sunset looked up to see the bird had retreated well out of range of her grasp. “OH COME ON! There’s not a lot of people I can actually talk to about this, you know!” Despite her usually sensible nature, Lilly got pretty...religious about such things since the church had attached a stigma to it. “Don’t you have any womanly advice for me? I’ll take anything at this point!”

After circling Sunset for a few seconds, Secre came back down to land. “Sorry. I uh...remember taking a bath in warm water helped me when I had that problem,” she said. “So...you didn’t have to deal with these sorts of things before?”

Sunset reached up to rub her aching head. “We had a breeding cycle that drove us to mate, but it didn’t occur once a month, except in the Spring and Summer.”

“So, you just masturbated for a few days?” the bird asked with a bit of envy.

The strange word made Sunset give Secre a clueless stare. “Master-what?”

Secre let out a small squawk before jumping back a few inches. Then, Sunset could swear she saw a blush on the bird’s face before she held a wing up and coughed into it. “Ahem! Um, okay...let’s...find a spot near the river where we can build a small area for holding water with some earth magic and heat the water. Then I’ll...walk you through it.”

“I DON’T CARE WHAT YOUR EXCUSES ARE! YOU’RE GOING TO COME BACK TO THE CHURCH AND EAT LUNCH EVERY DAMN DAY, OR I’LL DRAG YOU BACK HERE MYSELF!”

Yuno repressed a shiver at the memory of his little sister yelling at him and Asta the day after they got their grimoires and came home just after dark as he walked down the road towards the church.

While he could understand the need for food, having gone without it every now and then during a long winter, needing to stop every single day just to come home and eat was troublesome. Unfortunately, the king had long since decided that all the game animals belonged to him and killing one without permission was a crime. So he couldn’t just hunt for his own meals, or bribe the local magistrate to look the other way when a deer went down without any money.

The fluttering of wings made Yuno tense up before he felt a fat bird land on his shoulder. Although he didn’t react as badly as Asta, nobody besides Sunset could take a talking animal without some degree of hesitation. Not that he could let Secre know that of course. “Spying on me again?”

“For who? You need to stop being so paranoid,” the bird told him.

Yuno raised an eyebrow. “Well you do seem to be spending a lot more time with Sunset than me or Asta.”

“Yeah because we’re both girls, kid. Plus, you’re terrible at conversations,” Secre said. “Here’s a tip from an old bird. Trying so hard to look like the cool silent type makes you act really stupid.”

With the insult needling him on, Yuno found himself torn between asking a question that had been running around in his mind for some time and staying quiet. But since that would have only proven the bird right, he decided to ask. “Okay then, there’s something I’ve been wondering. You talked about how you and the Wizard King had tried to make magic items to make everyone’s lives better, but the magic items I know about don’t really help people farm and grow crops. So what happened?”

Secre studied the boy out of the corner of her eye for a moment. “The first few things we made were more just to see if we could create magic items, not much of it was very useful. Looking back, King Clover didn’t have much in the way of common sense, because some of those inventions should have never even been made,” she said. “And by the time we started making things like the magic items that are still in use today, our time had run out.”

“But he couldn’t have been the only person who wanted to do things like that,” Yuno pointed out.

“But he was the only person with the money, ability and position to do it,” she told him. “Plus, he wanted to help people. But magic determines your status in society. Nobody at the top, the people with all the resources, wants to help the people at the bottom stand as their equal.”

Yuno frowned. Not that the bird, but at the road ahead. “I do.”

“Says the boy at the bottom,” Secre pointed out before taking a breath. “Don’t get me wrong, there are some worthwhile nobles. But a good many of them are in the Magic Knights because they actually have a sense of duty. They spend all of their time making sure that people don’t get killed that they can’t actually do anything to improve the lives of the people they save.”

The conversation died as Yuno retreated into his own thoughts. The bird had a point. It was one thing to become someone with the authority to actually change things. But it was a completely different thing to use that authority correctly. It wasn’t just selfishness that could trip people up though, a wrong decision made with even the best of intentions could end up causing calamity.

Yuno blinked as he realized something. That was the real reason he needed to be the Wizard King instead of Asta. His not-brother might have been passionate and had a good heart, but he barely ever used his head for anything but hitting things.

“Hmm, that’s odd,” Secre mumbled as she looked behind Yuno.

“What is it?”

Instead of answering, the bird took off and flew up into the sky before circling around a bit before finally coming back down on the boy’s shoulder. “Usually, the two of you have your little race right about now, but Asta isn’t anywhere to be seen.”

Yuno felt a bit of panicked irritation. It would be just like Asta to get himself hurt right after getting his grimoire. “You don’t think he tripped and cut his own leg off or something, do you?”

“That sword of his is so dull it couldn’t cut butter,” the bird said. “Not that it really needs to, considering what it is.”

With the only logical worry dealt with, Yuno slowed his pace. Asta probably headed back early or lost track of time, there was no reason to be concerned about his absence. Although, Yuno’s concerns quickly rose back up when he caught sight of Sunset jogging along the grass with a smile on her face that was so bright it was like the air around her was sparkling. “Yuno!” she said happily before grabbing his arm in a deathgrip with both of her arms. “How’s my favorite big-baby-orphan-brother doing today, hmmmm?”

Yuno did his best to hold onto his composure as his definitely-not-older-sister hung onto his arm. “Is everything okay?”

“Awww! You’re so sweet for asking!” Sunset said happily. “And I was having a bad day, but after a good hot bath in the forest and doing this little trick Secre taught me-”

The bird was in Sunset’s face a second later. “Never mention that again, ever!”

Sunset rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she agreed before letting Yuno go and grumbling to herself. “Excuse me for being happy I no longer have to go through hell once a month after enduring it for over a year.”

Before things could get any more weird, Yuno hurried along. “Come on, if we’re late to lunch, Asta will probably eat half our food,” he said as he walked as fast as he could without running.

The three of them made it to the church in short order, but found the dining room rather quiet as the children were talking in normal voices without the gray-haired headband wearing one around. Father Orsi looked up from where she was setting out the food. “Oh, hello you two. Food is taking a bit longer since Sister Lilly isn’t feeling well today and needed to lie down.”

“So, Asta really isn’t back yet,” Yuno muttered before the bird flew off of his shoulder and out of the door. “Well, we can give him thirty minutes. He’s probably doing something stupid, like lugging that sword around for the extra weight to train with.”

“AAAAAH!” Asta shouted as he swung his sword and barely managed to keep himself from stumbling after he finished his attack that hit only air. After regaining his footing, the teenager looked back at the dead tree in the clearing he was training in to see that its shadow had moved to cover a nearby rock, the symbol that it was time to get going home.

He felt some irritation at remembering Sunset’s words. It would be simpler just to camp out in the woods while preparing for the Magic Knight Exams. That way, he wouldn’t have to take an hour out of his day to run to the forest in the morning, back home at lunch, then back to the forest and back home at night. Plus, it would give him some camping experience. Which he would need for his journey to the capital. The trip would take at least three weeks.

Not that there’s much point in it right now though, Asta told himself as he looked at his sword with a frown. While years of training his body allowed him to lift the thing, even he had to admit that it was just so damn heavy the weight was next to impossible for him to compensate when making a swing. If he didn’t hit something on the first try, he stumbled.

And if he couldn’t figure out a way to not stumble around after every swing, getting into a magic knight squad would be impossible.

Trying to figure it out himself wasn’t working and Secre said she had never even used a weapon when she was human. While there were some guards around town, they just laughed at Asta when he asked if they could show him what he was doing wrong.

But, that was a worry for another time. Right now, he needed to get home.

A plan that was put on hold when he heard some screaming before a naked man with dark red hair crashed through some bushes with a giant boar that was as tall as he was on his tail. “GET OUT OF THE WAY KID!” the nudist shouted at him.

Asta grit his teeth at the sight. “Don’t run right at me!” he screamed before taking the large sword in both his hands and setting up a swing while the old man with the red hair just continued to do so. “Okay fine! Then duck or something you weirdo!”

As Asta started to swing, the man dashing towards him went into a dive and barely avoided getting hit by the sword that smacked the boar in the snout. Although, just like the last time he hit a living creature with his black blade, the boar was knocked back instead of being cut in half. Then, it quickly got up and ran away, yipping more like a beaten dog than a monster that weighed close to five-hundred pounds.

Once it was out of earshot, Asta could hear clapping coming from behind him before the redhead, who also had some scruff on his chin, slowly stood back up. “Hey! Good job kid!” he said as he started to come closer to Asta. While completely naked. “I was doing some fishing in the river and the thing just kind of snuck up on me. I guess I was just too close to his territory or something.”

Not another one, Asta thought as he kept his eyes focused on the man’s face and nothing else. What was it with him and running into redheads that didn’t care to give a damn about how little clothing they had on? It was bad enough that Sunset had just walked in on him at one time when he and Yuno were in the bath, showing off that weird sun on her butt before asking if they could make more room.

“Oh come on! Lilly said the bath was ready and I could go on in. What’s the problem this time?” Sunset’s voice echoed in Asta’s mind.

“I suppose I should introduce myself, my name is Fanzell Kruger,” the redhead told Asta before holding out his hand.

Asta’s eye twitched. “No! What you should do is PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!” he yelled at the man. “AND JUST WHO IN THE HELL FISHES NAKED, ANYWAY?”

The man gave a nervous laugh and scratched the back of his head. “Well, I didn’t want to get my clothes wet,” he said. “And could you escort me back to my house? It’s in the woods and I don’t think it’s safe to head back there on my own.”

Asta blinked at the fact he was being asked to follow a complete and total stranger back to his home in the woods as the man stood in front of him, completely naked. “Yeah sure, no problem.”

A short time later, they made it to a two-story cabin in the woods that was looking pretty rundown that the redhead said he was squatting in. Once Fanzell went inside to get changed into some clothes, he came back out again, dressed in some pants, a white shirt underneath a green tunic, and a belt with the usual grimoire holster that held a green book half as thick as the dictionary Sunset had poured over her second month at the Church. “Hey kid, mind if I see that sword of yours again?”

Asta blinked, but pulled out his book to retrieve his sword and held it up with one hand. “Cool, isn’t it? It’s not really made for cutting things because it can cancel out spells. This old bird I know calls it anti-magic!” he bagged. “And I’m the only one that can use it!”

“Anti-magic, huh? That’s a new one for me,” the man said.

“Me too, but this baby is going to get me into the Magic Knights!” Asta said as he swung his sword, then let out a little cry as he stumbled forward. After catching himself, he gave a nervous laugh. “Well uh, once I figure out how to stop doing stuff like that.”

Fanzell’s face took on a thoughtful frown. “It’s because all your weight is in your knees. See kid, swordsmanship is all about footing. Without a stable foundation, your stance will crumble. Keep your feet facing the same direction as your sword. And just before you swing, take a half-step forward to shift your weight.”

After processing the instructions, Asta raised his sword up and moved his foot forward. The second he took a step, he swung his sword and...didn’t stumble. Just to see if it was all some kind of fluke, he tried it again. And then again, and again. Completing the move five times, he finally stopped swinging the weapon around and let out a victorious cry. “ALRIGHT! I DID IT!” he cheered. “WOOOHOOO! TAKE THAT YUNO!”

“Yuno? Who’s that?”

Asta calmed down after hearing the man’s voice and looked over to him. “He’s my rival. We’re both going to join the Magic Knights and go after the title of Wizard King!”

Once he had heard the boy’s answer, Fanzell reached up and rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Wizard King, huh? Why would a kid like you want to go after a prize like that?”

“Well...it’s kind of embarrassing to say, but...I want to show everyone that a nameless nobody with no parents, formal education, or noble title can rise to the top in this world,” Asta told him. “I look around at all these people without any hope for a better life. But the reason they don’t have a better life is because they don’t think they can make it better on their own, with hard work and dedication. So I want to give them the hope they have to see that.”

Fanzell stared at the boy for several seconds, his mouth hanging open just a little bit. “...huh.”

It was only then that Asta realized that things hadn’t gone like they were supposed to. “Wait...you’re not laughing.” Everyone laughed at him when he said he was going to be the Wizard King.

“Should I be?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

With great difficulty, Asta actually had to bring up all the things people said about him when he told them about his goal. “Because, everyone says it’s impossible.”

“Eh, Never know until you try,” Fanzell told him with a shrug.

Since the lack of mockery was somehow making things awkward for him, Asta decided to change the subject. “So uh, how do you know that trick?” Asta asked. “Do you use swords too?”

After a few more seconds of just staring at the boy, Fanzell got up and started walking, looking around his yard. “Well...not exactly,” he said before bending down to get a little twig from the ground and drawing out his grimoire that became surrounded in a green aura like Yuno’s did whenever he was playing with magic. “Wind Creation Magic: Emperor of Slashing Winds!”

The wind in the area thickened to the point of becoming like a really fast moving mist that swirled around Fanzell’s little stick until it formed a blade made of visible air.

“SO COOL!” Asta cheered as he looked at the man holding his big sword.

“It’s not really a sword, per say. It’s my mana coiled around a physical object and honed to a point at the ends. I call it Slashy for short,” Fanzell explained. “And since most of my magic takes the shape of swords, I decided to pick up a little swordsmanship.”

Seeing a golden opportunity, Asta grinned. “Hey old man, think you can teach me how to use my sword better?”

Fanzell gave him a look of disbelief. “Kid, I’m twenty-eight.”

“Yeah, but you look really old, and that’s what matters,” Asta replied. “So, swordsmanship, pleeeease? I saved you from getting rammed up the ass by that big pig.”

After a few seconds, Fanzell shrugged. “Okay, you got a point there. I can give you a few pointers,” he said before suddenly tensing. A frown crossed his face and he began looking up into the air before stepping in front of Asta. “Wait a second…”

The wind began to whip around again, causing the trees to rustle before a pair of people flew in from above, held aloft by wind mana. “Oh! Hey guys!” Asta said as he raised a hand to wave at Yuno and Sunset before suppressing a bit of jealousy. They fly now-no! You’re not going to think like that.

It was increasingly hard for Yuno to keep a straight face as Asta took the time to recant his tale about how he had met the wind mage in the forest.

Thankfully, Sunset was around to say what Yuno, as well as the bird on the window sill were thinking. “So, you just went off with the naked stranger to a secluded cabin in the woods where he let you watch him play with his sword?!” she screamed.

“Well, when you say it like that-”

Sunset didn’t let Asta finish as she advanced on him. “ARE YOU A SPECIAL KIND OF STUPID?” she screamed. “This is how all those stories Father Orsi told us go! Next, we’re probably going to find the corpses of half a dozen kids in his basement! Did you even think about the basement?”

When he found himself backed into a corner Asta held up his hands. “I don’t think he has a basement.”

Then, the other redhead that liked to run around naked foolishly decided to speak up in an stupid attempt to disarm the situation. “Kid, I get that you’re worried, but there’s nothing funny going on-”

“I’M NOT TALKING TO YOU OLD MAN!” Sunset yelled loud enough to shake the house as her mana flared in response to her anger.

Fanzell took a step back before Yuno saw his eyes narrow a little and his hand moved towards his grimoire.

“AND NONE OF THAT!” Sunset yelled before there was a bang when the magic book simply popped out of existence to reappear an inch from her open hand for her to grab it.

The move left Fanzell stunned for a moment, as well as Yuno. Wait, she can just snatch someone’s grimoire with spatial magic? he thought to himself in a second of shock before realizing something like that should have been obvious to him. How is that fair?

Asta had a slightly different reaction. “HOLY COW! Sunset, you’re little popping spell can just steal someone’s grimoire?” he yelled before blinking and taking his out of his belt’s carrying case to clutch it close.

“Okay, scary little lady,” Fanzell said before holding up his hands. “It’s just an old soldier’s instinct. I wasn’t going to draw it. No need to pop my head off.” Then, his attention turned to Yuno. “So, you’re the wind mage then? Pretty cool that you can carry another person at your age.”

Without actually putting any emotion into his words, Yuno gave the man a reply. “Just lucky I guess.”

Then the redheaded man looked at Asta. “And holding your grimoire like that won’t stop her from taking it. You need to activate it. That way, the mana flowing through it will disrupt her spatial magic spell,” Fanzell informed him before looking back at Sunset. “But as long as nobody gets the drop on you, they’re pretty much screwed.”

“Flattery will get you nothing but paranoia from me,” Sunset told him with a frown. “Now, how about you tell us why you’re living here, since Asta didn’t get around to filling us in. Which means I doubt he asked a combat-capable mage what he was doing in a middle of the nowhere dump like this that isn’t even in a middle of nowhere town.”

Fanzell took in a breath and shrugged. “I’m waiting for someone.”

Sunset tensed, her eyes glancing around wildly for a bit. “...is this the part where she jumps out and attacks us?”

“HAHAHAHA!” the other redhead laughed. “Wow kid, you are paranoid. “No, I’m waiting for my wife. We promised to meet up in this area if we ever got separated.”

As things started to relax a bit, Yuno took a step forward and noticed something out of the corner of his eye, which only he could have seen because Sunset was holding the book facing away from her. So she couldn’t see the symbol on the cover had nothing to do with clovers. A burst of will had his grimoire out of its case and surrounded by green mana before it flew open to the page of a spell he had recently added to the book after a month of hard work. “Is she still on her way here from the Diamond Kingdom, like you?” he demanded as the wind swirled around him in preparation for anything.

Fanzell stared at Yuno for several seconds before sitting down in a chair that was right behind him. “A four leaf clover too?” he mumbled. “Crap, what are they feeding you kids in this shitty little valley?”

Fanzell laid out his story to the three kids in front of him as best he could without trying to make it sound too unbelievable. Which he knew it would if he actually told the truth. He told them he was a rank and file Diamond Kingdom Mage Warrior rather than a commander in charge of training new recruits that used to command a whole army. After being stationed at a secret laboratory as security, he learned that the Diamond Kingdom was doing some very sick and twisted experiments on kids no older than the three in front of him. After a crisis of consciousness, he decided to desert the army and take his wife with him. Even though in reality, they hadn’t actually gotten married as of yet.

“...I mean hell, I had just got married a few months ago,” he told the three brats in front of him. “I wanted to have kids one day. Anyone who is worth being called a father can’t see something like what they were planning to do to those children and not feel sick.”

“Which is what, exactly?” the tall boy with the black hair and golden eyes asked. It made sense the four leaf had taken over the interrogation when things had gotten real.

The girl was a spatial magic user, which meant she probably wasn’t worth much in a fight. Although, it did explain why she didn’t even bother reaching for her grimoire when things got tense. Those types of mages didn’t actually need their books to throw their spells around, lucky bastards. Now, she was sitting across from Fanzell and actually leafing her way through his grimoire. Which was probably a disappointment to her, since only two of his spells had any pictures.

Although...there did seem to be something really odd about her mana.

As a wind user, Fanzell’s sensory abilities were among the best possible thanks to his element type. He could sense magic long before he saw the effects or heard the explosions. And what he sensed from her was just...weird. It was like she blended into the mana around her to the point where it was hard to pick her out of the background.

“Look, I only got to hear some stuff every now and then, okay?” Fanzell told them. “But there was talk of things like implanting mages with magical items to increase their mana storage and special training that removed their ability to think for themselves. They’d be like a really smart golem.”

After turning the page in his grimoire, Sunset looked up at him. “And the dual-element thing?”

Fanzell felt his composure slip and grunted. “Where did a brat like you hear about that all the way out here?”

“Dual-element?” Asta asked.

Since he really didn’t have anything at all to hide in regards to that, Fanzell answered. “There was some talk of...I don’t know, stitching two different grimoires together. Don’t ask me how they thought it could be done, I’m just a bodyguard, not a researcher.” Which was a lie since he had been involved in the project by means of teaching the children selected for the process, but had nothing to do with the actual operations.

“And you didn’t do anything to stop them?” Asta demanded.

Fanzell snorted. “Like what, kid? Break them out? Oh yeah, me and my apprentice against ten times our number of special soldiers. I have a wife, what do you think they would have done to her if I took off before she went to visit friends out of town?” he asked. “You said it yourself. People without any hope don’t bother to change things for the better. We just do what we can to get by.”

The frown on the girl’s face deepened. “How could anyone do stuff like that to another person?”

Hearing such naivety coming from the girl that was trying to act tough got a snort from Fanzell. “Not everyone in the world is as lucky with mana as you are, kid. On top of which, the Diamond Kingdom borders two hostile states, while Clover just has one. Here, you guys make sure your nobles marry other nobles and royals before they start popping out as many kids as possible. But Diamond's magical bloodlines are thinning. Even our top guys are nothing compared to just fifty years ago. So, the king is looking into other methods to enhance his forces.”

As Asta got all dejected and lowered his head, Mr Tall and Handsome spoke again. “So, you’re defecting to the Clover Kingdom?”

The suggestion was so insulting, Fanzell snorted at it. “Are you kidding me? You think I like this rat hole any better than my homeland? At least I got some history there. The Clover Kingdom is a fucking mess waiting to collapse in on itself. The only place worse than this hole is the Spade Kingdom,” he said as he looked to Yuno. The royal family had been knocked off about fifteen years ago, and the guys who took over made the worst of the worst in Diamond look like saints. “We’re heading to the Heart Kingdom to get lost in the mists.”

The three children shared an uneasy look. “So uh...do we believe him?” Asta asked.

Sunset sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Really wish I had some kind of mind reading magic right about now.”

“Asta, you were the one who met him first,” Yuno finally said. “You should be the one to make the call since you were the only one who talked to him when he isn’t under duress.”

Fanzell could have sworn he saw the bird standing in the windowsill rolling its eyes.

“Give him his book back,” the boy without mana said after a few seconds. “If he’s a bad guy, we’ll just kick his butt when he tries something.”

Strawberry-Red, groaned and did as he asked before sliding it over to Fanzell. Which he was glad for. It would have been a real pain on his ego to have to take it from such a cute girl. “Don’t come crying to me when this all blows up in your face.”

“Speaking of crying, we should probably get back to Father Orsi,” Yuno spoke up. “He began preparing your wake when you were late to lunch. Something about being eaten by wild animals.”

Asta gave a sound of discomfort. “Oh for-does that guy think I can’t do anything?!”

Several days passed as Asta continued his swordsmanship training under Fanzell. Not to let a golden opportunity go to waste, Yuno visited him as well to get some instructions on wind magic in regards to the less flashy stuff that most kids didn’t even know they could do upon getting their grimoires, like how to sense the flow of mana. Sunset would usually sit at a small table on the porch of his house, holding the man’s grimoire open and comparing it to a charcoal rubbing she said had been taken the day after meeting the man while acting as if she was watching him like a hawk for any sign of treachery. As for the team’s actual fowl, Secre found herself growing increasingly put off by the fact that she had to remain silent in front of the Diamond Mage.

She watched from the roof for any sign of pursuit that she knew the Diamond Kingdom would had to have sent after him while glancing down at the boys from time to time as Fanzell’s wooden replica of Asta’s anti-magic sword that they had to use since the boy’s black blade went through his magic wind blade like it was made of...well, wind.

“No, no! You’re too slow! Don’t pause between hits! What we’re after here is speed,” Fanzell told Asta as the boy stumbled after a strike because of bad footing.

Asta nodded. “Gotcha!” he said before starting to charge, then stopping after another step. “Anything else?”

The question had Fanzell thinking for a moment. “Well, you’ve got a solid defense and offense now. But you need to keep working on your footwork. Remember, half step just before the strike. But not too soon, or you telegraph the attack.”

“Right!” Asta said before grinning. “You know, you’re a great teacher Fanzell!”

The man who wasn’t much more than a boy himself reached back and scratched his head. “Well, I did a little teaching back in the day. But my students didn’t think much of me,” he said before scratching his chin. “Although...I got to say, you’re probably one of my top three pupils. Although, the number one is pretty out there. Mars never really used his sword himself, it was either through an intermediary or just moving it with his magic. So...I can’t say for sure if he really counted.”

A sudden presence of new mana heading in their direction drew Secre attention and she focused her senses to try and find out what it was. A few seconds later, she could practically see the outline of a slight girl in the trees, jumping from branch to branch in a direct line towards the house. She could have been headed for the nearby pond for its water, but that was rather doubtful since Secre could tell the girl was an ice magic user by her aura. “Ka-Kaw! Ka-Kaw!” she sounded. We really should have come up with a better signal. “Ka-Kaw, Ka-Kaw!”

Sunset closed the grimoire and looked up with a frown.

Yuno stopped chopping wood with his magic and raised his grimoire defensively as he walked to the front of the house.

Asta sat down next to the fire that was cooking the potatoes they had propped up on sticks to grab one and take a bite. And then when the small lady who was quite possibly an assassin sent to kill them all landed and took off her cowl to reveal a short head of hair that framed her face, he turned around with his mouth half full of food, after just putting his sword back in its book. “Who’s that?”

Don’t attack him, Secre told herself as she resisted the urge to fly down and peck Asta in the head. It’s not worth it. He’s about to die anyway.

The small woman in a dark robe that had been sent to kill them went into a crouch several feet inside the house’s clearing before she looked up at the redhead in the green coat sitting by the fire. “I have returned, master.”

Oh...well...he still shouldn’t have reacted like that, Secre thought to herself.

“Hey Mariella,” Fanzell said with a raised hand in greeting.

“Who’s she?” Sunset called out from the porch.

The other redhead looked away from the fire and over to Asta. “That’s Mariella, she’s my apprentice. I sent her out to look for Dominante when the heat got too much for me.”

“Hey Mariella, I’m Asta, from Hage Village!” the short boy said loudly in greeting as he raised a hand.

Off to the side of the house, Yuno frowned and looked around the treeline. “And what about the other eight guys that came with her and are now moving to surround us?”

Secre blinked at the casual comment before looking around, just barely noticing the men in white and dark blue hooded Diamond Kingdom robes that marked them as mages and hid their faces as they moved through the woods. She felt a bit of embarrassment, but quickly shook it off. Well, my magic was about opening my master’s door when he locked his keys in his room. I’m not a bloodhound.

As the girl Mariella took a step back, Fanzell sucked in a deep breath and sent a blast of wind from his hand to snatch his book from Sunset, getting an annoyed shout from the girl. “Yeah, that’s probably a Diamond Kingdom assassination squad. They’re not exactly what I’d call front line troops, but you don’t really need to be when your job is to sneak in and murder people when they’re sleeping,” he said before reaching up to catch his grimiore. “So, you went and turned traitor on me, huh?”

Caught off guard by being suddenly found out, or perhaps realizing that she hadn’t actually fooled the redhead in the green coat at all from the start, Mariella took a step back. “You think I had a choice about any of this?” she demanded. “Every other student you trained besides me is dead, and they would have killed me too if I hadn’t agreed to hunt you down to prove my loyalty to the Diamond Kingdom!”

Asta opened his book and drew his sword as the eight mages from the Diamond Kingdom came out of hiding to land in the field, their books out and ready for battle, showing a veritable rainbow of different magics. Three were approaching Yuno from all of his open sides, the two of them were moving towards Sunset from the other side of the house, and the other three came in to support the girl with the short black hair that had led them all here. “YEAH, WELL YOU AREN’T-”

Fanzell threw his grimoire on the ground and raised his hands. “I give up.”

“-SERIOUSLY?” the short boy shrieked at the slightly older boy who was just in his twenties.

Despite the battle being ended before it had even begun, none of the other mages put away their grimoires as Fanzell looked over to Marielle. “So, did you ever find Dominante?”

The girl reached into her robe and pulled out a wand with a glass orb on the end to throw it on the ground. “She’s dead. This is all that was left of her when the assassination squad was finished,” she told the young man. “That, and a great deal of blood.”

“...I see,” Fanzell said before looking up at the girl after watching the wand fall to the ground. “I take it since you guys didn’t come and slit my throat while I was in bed that you want me back on the project?”

Mariella nodded. “That’s right, the choice specimen has made it through the selection process. But, the project leads are wanting you back to consult on his final conditioning.”

A grimace crossed Fanzell. “That boy has a name! Use it when you’re talking about him. It’s pronounced Mars,” he told the assassin before he paused for a moment, his frown deepening. “And how the hell did you guys get him to go through with the final selection procedure? I put that girl he was sweet on in the same group as him. There’s no way he would have killed Fana.”

“Oh! That’s the best part, Master. The training you gave him kicked in automatically when she attacked him in desperation for her life!” Mariella told him happily. “Her body got thrown out with all the others, but her grimoire remained around afterwards to undergo the merging procedure. So the experiment was a complete success! That’s why they want you back, you see. A weapon that hasn’t been tempered properly isn’t of much use now, is it?”

The magical researcher in her made Secre grab onto the last part with interest. They found a way to stabilize a grimoire after its owner died? she asked herself. How? As far as she knew, that should have been impossible.

Unless, it was another five leaf. Or the Diamond Kingdom equivalent.

The possibility of another book like Asta’s out there chilled Secre to the bone.

“Don’t sound so smug when you talk about stuff like that,” Fanzell told her. “Now, I take it you all understand that if you hurt these kids, I bite my tongue off and you can all watch me bleed to death before we get home. Even if you can stop that from happening, I doubt I’ll make a good consultant when I can’t talk.”

Mariella nodded. “That is agreeable. Now, come along and we’ll take you back where you belong, to the Diamond Kingdom.”

But, that plan was quickly derailed when Asta lifted his sword to point it at the girl. “LIKE I’M GOING TO LET THAT HAPPEN!”

Sunset groaned and rubbed her head. “Asta, you did just hear the part where this guy said he wasn’t just a janitor at this lab where they experimented on kids before forcing them to kill each other? He was a fucking part of it!”

“Hey, I told you guys I was a guard,” Fanzell snapped at the girl.

“Eh,” Sunset said with a shrug. “Where I come from, that’s pretty much the same thing.”

Yuno looked back towards the other boy, making Secre want to hit her head with a wing as he took his eyes off the three dangerous people standing in front of him with their books out. “She’s got a point, Asta. Plus, he’s choosing to go with them. It’s not really our decision to make, here.”

“But our decision to do nothing about it is!” Asta yelled back at them. “And Fanzell ran away from these guys! Him doing bad things in the past just means that he has to take the time to make up for them now!”

As the two teens near the house shared a look of unease, Secre could already see where this was going. Unfortunately, the sheer inexperience in her charges was showing and she had to fly down to Sunset to land on her shoulder and give the young unicornian a little reminder just loud enough to be heard. “Get your book out, stupid.”

The girl’s eyes widened in sudden realization. “Oh right!” she said before her magic wrapped around the light brown grimoire that had the size and thickness of a good hardback novel, making it almost a match for that other magical book Sunset had back at the church Secre had seen her looking at longingly from time to time.

“...hey,” Yuno said uneasily after Sunset pulled out her empty grimoire. “Is Asta actually beating both of us in an argument?”

Sunset held out a hand towards the two mages that were focusing on her. “Yeah, so we better hurry up and get rid of the witnesses. Then we can deny it ever happened. So much for my big sparring practice surprise,” she said as the mana gathered around her to shine brightly. “Light Creation Magic: Divine Emperor’s Holy Sword!”

As everyone in the clearing tensed at hearing one of their opponents was using the worst magic they could they could possibly hope to face, Sere remembered back to the conversation that started Sunset down this particular path that ended with her wielding the same spell that had been used to cut down Licht five-hundred years ago.

-Three weeks ago-

“My cutie mark?” the girl asked as she soaked in the tub at the church alone, save for the bird that was sitting in the window. “Well, it’s a sun so...uh...it means…I’m...really good at magic.”

Secre couldn’t understand why Sunset was being so hesitant. Starswirl had gone on for hours about the thing on his butt and how it proved he was the greatest magic user who ever lived. The man’s massive ego aside, it was a little odd to hear another Unicornian not be proud of it. “Yes, but is it magic in general, or do you have a particular affinity for solar-related magic?”

“...well, I like fire more than the other elements,” Sunset admitted. “But that’s just a bit of a personal preference, and since magic is heavily dependent on the will of the user. It’s probably why I’m a bit better at throwing fire balls than water drops.”

“You do know the sun produces more than just fire and heat, right?”

And they already had the workings of a complex, powerful spell just sitting around for Sunset to study without bothering anyone.

Fanzell Kruger didn’t know how things had gone from where they had been ten minutes ago to where they were now. A bit of nostalgia back when his work at the mage enhancement project had been full of hope had made him take a look at the three kids and feel that again. Now, that feeling was gone and all he felt was terror.

Because the world didn’t make sense anymore.

That’s not possible, Fanzell told himself as the fiery redhead sent her attack flying almost too fast for human eyes to follow into the two members of the assassination squad that didn’t even have time to counter before they were struck down. That’s just not possible.

Sunset must have been feeling merciful, because instead of being sliced in two by the giant sword that was as large as the monster Asta swung around, it passed right through them both in a flash before cutting down a tree behind them. Then, they both just cried out in pain and dropped to the ground. Magic was an extension of the user’s will after all. While some spells could get out of control and cause unwanted damage, if a mage with a good amount of subconscious mana control didn’t want to kill their target, the damage done just wasn’t fatal despite how many vital points were hit.

“Oh God!” one of the members of the assassination squad in front of Fanzell yelled in a panic. “She’s a light mage! Kill her! KILL HER NOW!”

But...she wasn’t a light mage. She couldn’t have been. Fanzell had seen her pop herself and the boy’s straight to his house every morning with her wild spatial magic that left one of the kids puking their breakfast out about twenty-five percent of the time.

The three mages that had been focused on Yuno turned to aim at Sunset, which turned out to be a very stupid idea when the boy with the four leaf let loose his spell. “Wind Creation Magic: Towering Tornado!” he shouted before a controlled whirlwind appeared around Yuno, pulling the spells that the three Diamond Mages had sent towards Sunset before sucking their casters up at well. After getting hit with the disrupted effects of their own spells, the tornado cut off and let the three unconscious men plummet to the ground.

The remaining mages also fired a volley of spells towards the girl on the patio, but they were close enough to Asta that he was able to catch them all in one swing of his giant sword before they could get past him. “OKAY, NOW LET’S SEE IF ALL MY TRAINING PAID-”

“Retreat!” Mariella yelled as Asta turned towards her before she jumped out of range of Asta’s with the other three magic users, who quickly increased the distance with more long jumps aided by their enhancement magic until they were into the woods.

Asta blinked as the mages that were still conscious disappeared into the trees. “OH COME ON!” he shouted. “I didn’t even get to do anything!”

With the battle apparently over, Yuno looked to the three mages he had dealt with. “So, what do we do with-” he stopped talking when a series of spatial magic portals with a red tint to it opened beneath the unconscious mages to draw them in, which was followed by another pair that sucked in the ones Sunset had dealt with.

The familiar magic got a frown from Fanzell. So, they actually sent Galleo after me, he thought to himself. This is bad. While the man wasn’t much of a fighter at all, he was a spatial mage that could bring in a hundred troops to a fight when it was in the middle of nowhere. “Oh wow! You guys really saved my life just now! Sorry for all the trouble, but it looks like I should get going before those mages come back with reinforcements. I wouldn’t want to end up causing some big international incident that could start an all out war or anything!” he said in a voice loud enough to give Asta a run for his money.

Yuno just looked on confused. “Uh...okay?”

There was something off to Fanzell as the scariest little girl in the world gave him a considering glare before she moved out from under the shade of the house and walked over to him with her grimoire trailing behind her, floating open just above her head. “Well, just don’t lay down and die next time you get into trouble,” she grumbled before holding out her hand to make Fanzell’s grimoire float up into her hands and handing it to him. Which was another kind of magic she shouldn’t have been using. “Because, you know...we had to go to the trouble of saving you and all. It would be rude...or something.”

“Trust me, I always take the advice of terrifying monsters to heart,” he told her with a disarming smile.

Sunset’s face turned to confusion. “Are you making fun of me?” she asked.

To which Fanzell could only give another little laugh about before he looked back up at the house. He needed to get his things and head out before the Diamond mages regrouped and decided to try and launch another attack with a larger force rather than wait for him to lose the kids.

That was when something seen from the corner of his eyes made Fanzell realize what had been bothering him about Sunset after she came down from the house; impossible magic not withstanding.

Her book was in the wrong place.

Whenever a mage’s grimoires was open, it stayed within easy reach to be ‘read’ when they needed to cast a spell or turn a page. Sunset’s grimoire seemed little more than an afterthought to her.

And when Fanzell’s glance made him focus on the book, he understood why.

The pages were blank.

Which was impossible. More impossible than her using two different types of magic. He could have even written the apparent spatial magic as her just moving too fast for him to see. Light mages were supposed to be able to do that sometimes. But not when they didn’t have a single spell in their open grimoires, which never let open pages be blank when they were activated.

Fanzell gulped down the excess moisture collecting in his mouth and bent down to pick up Dominante’s wand before he was caught staring. As soon as he touched it, the wind mage noticed that there was an imprinted message that had been left in it, left there by its previous owner. Something Mariella should have detected as well.

So that’s what she’s doing, the young man thought to himself. It had seemed a bit off that Galleo hadn’t launched another attack, especially with Fanzell’s rather obvious bluff. But if someone was advising restraint...

“Well kids, I should probably get packing,” he told them. “Thanks for the save.”

Asta rested his sword on his shoulder. “Okay. Guess we’ll see you around old man.”

Fanzell’s eye twitched. I’m not old.

“We should head back to the village and tell the magistrate what happened,” Yuno said.

Although his mind was on other things instead of the little monster talking with the two twerps in front of the house, Fanzell walked up on the patio and caught sight of the charcoal rubbing Sunset had left on the little table that was in the shade. The arcane script was unrecognizable to him for the most part. Although, a little of it looked familiar, bits and pieces he had seen on the pages of his own wind sword spells.

It was then that something obvious hit him, and he turned to stare at the most terrifying thing he had ever seen as she gave the two boys a bright smile as she made a joke or something that got Asta riled up. She was reading my book.

Page 4: Tragedy

The bald man with the scar on his face known as Galleo was not a good man. He knew this himself. Good men played by the rules and were always outmaneuvered by those who were willing to do whatever it took to gain power. So, despite having little more than the ability to move others across long distances that would have regulated him to the position of a flunky, he had managed to gain the position of the Diamond Kingdom’s head of assassination by backroom deals, bribes, alliances to greater men, and outright abandoning the last head of the division when they had been sent to kill a powerful witch in a forest full of the harpies.

Still, he only kept his position by proving himself useful, and after losing track of Fanzell Kruger after months of trying to chase him down, he had to deliver something worthwhile, even if it was...less than what was expected.

At the very least, it would buy him time to find the man’s trail again. Even if it was too late to gain his assistance for training the new mages, the Diamond Kingdom couldn’t let traitors walk free.

“You were defeated by mere children?”

The man in front of Galleo turned to glare at the spatial mage, making the the bald man bow. “Yes sir. But these children were standouts! One wielded light magic and had already mastered creation magic to the point of crafting light spells with,” he said. “And the other, he had a four leaf clover on top of using wind magic!”

There had been a third boy, but he was nothing special compared to the other two. If they had only met him, Galleo might have had a bit of trouble talking his way out of his failure.

After a few seconds, the mage who stood above him snorted. “So, Fanzell is now instructing our future enemies, then?” he asked. “That...might be a weed worth snipping. Do you know of their location, or were they simply passing through the area a few months ago? I doubt such a pair hails from The Forsaken Realm. It is a place filled with nothing but trash.”

Galleo reached into his robes to pull out a record orb. As standard operating procedure, the person at the forefront of every mission always wore a recording broach. It allowed them to assess things after the battle was finished, and Mariella could hardly be trusted. “I do not know if they are still in the area, General. But we did find a third boy that might be able to answer such a question for us if asked...properly.”

“Hey Mariella, I’m Asta, from Hage Village.”

The sunlight coming through the windows brought Sunset out of her unconsciousness before everyone else in the room. With there being a teenage girl in the orphanage along with a pair of boys that were the same age, the men and women had long since been moved to separate quarters rather than everyone just sharing one big room at night to prevent temptation. Temptation from what, Sunset had no idea, but it meant that the boys she threw out of the old sleeping room had to pick up their bedding every morning. So she considered it a losing proposition.

After rising before everyone else in her sleeping quarters, Sunset headed out to take care of her morning duties. Which included cleaning the kitchen to make it ready for the morning meal, bringing up several potatoes from the basement, making sure any...rats hadn’t made it in from outside, gathering the dirty clothes from the previous day for a wash, and then making sure that the washroom had fresh water for everyone’s morning cleaning.

The first few months Sunset had taken part in such things had been hell on the former pony. Part of her understood the need for the work that she did, but it was fear of being kicked out of the orphanage for being a layabout that had kept her doing her duties, despite how they put her in a less than charitable mood. But lately, they were...comforting, a routine that she could fall into and just do rather than think about things.

Like how the brush she put in her mouth that was made from horse hair had been coated in a sodium carbonate compound that tasted absolutely horrid. After a little bit of scrubbing, she sat it into the wash basin and took a swig of water that had been created by her magic to rinse her mouth out. While looking at the archaic washroom facilities, Sunset remembered a very stupid question she had asked Celestia as a filly. “Why can’t everypony just be a unicorn? It would be so much better if we could all just use magic.”

And in a world of mages, Sunset had found herself missing things that those without magic had decided to invent.

Like air conditioning. Dear God, did she miss air conditioning.

And refrigeration.

Pies. Cakes...or, any type of pastry. The idea of eating meat still made Sunset feel she needed to take a bath just for thinking about it. Other than that though, there didn’t seem to be any options in the way of food besides the strange, bland version of potato that grew in the village and sucked all the moisture from her throat at the slightest touch. Of course, there were other fruits and vegetables available, but not when everything had to be grown locally and the orphanage needed to feed half a dozen-plus kids.

Basic medical care, since everything was done by magic and Lilly was the only healer in the village.

Sunset sighed and leaned over on the wash basin. She was doing it again, pining for what had been lost. That was a recipe for disaster. The way to survive was to keep going forward and focusing on what she still had on top of what had been gained.

The new magic she had learned might not have been as versatile as the kind she studied back in Equestria, but it had a real punch to it. Although, that might have also been on account of her personality. Magic responded to the desires of its wielder, so an attack spell cast by a unicorn who didn’t really want to hurt anypony wouldn’t cause much beyond a light bruise. Sunset’s desire when in combat was to put her opponent into a very short coma.

Plus, as embarrassing as it was to admit, she also had...creatures that cared about her beyond what she could do for them. Lilly was closer to a mother to Sunset than Celestia ever was. Although, considering the age difference it would have been more correct to say she was a big sister. While Yuno and Asta were something akin to brothers...she guessed. It was hard to tell without a reference since Sunset had never had anything like them before.

Except…

“Wow, that’s so cool Sunset, can you teach me how to do that?”

Cadenza, or...Cadance, to her friends.

But, Sunset had never been friends with the little alicorn. She never even tried despite how much the pink pipsqueak had wanted her to open up. Would she have found the same kind of relationship she had with the others.

Probably not. For all her smiles, Cadenza had been nothing but a lying little cunt that kept the truth about her origins from Sunset.

No dwelling on the past, she thought before getting a comb to tame her hair like she had to do every morning. Which was another thing most ponies didn’t have to bother with most of the time thanks to very good products and mane stylists.

By the time Sunset was done grooming herself, everyone had gotten up and was moving about. With sister Lilly making some kind of pancake variant with the potatoes, while the boys were clearing their poor excuses for beds out of the room they had been using. Breakfast was served shortly afterwards. Lilly made some kind of potato variant of pancakes and was passing out two for each person, their size varying slightly to compensate for the age of the person they were feeding.

“So, the three of you will be leaving us in just a couple of weeks,” she said before taking her own seat. “Are you nervous about the trip?”

From per place between the boys, Sunset looked back and forth, preferring not to answer. Because, she actually was a bit worried. While they could simply make water for drinking and other needs, the most basic of logistic skills told her there was no way they could take enough food to feed them for the whole journey. Which meant they would need to forage for food on the way there. And since Sunset learned the human pallet couldn’t include things like daffodils the hard way, that meant eating...animals.

“We should be fine,” Yuno assured her in his usual calm manner.

From his place at the head of the table, Father Orsi got to his feet. “For the trip there, maybe, but what about the trip back?” he said as histeria started to take hold and tears began to fall down his cheeks. “Asta will have to brave the wilderness alone on his journey back. Oh, I shudder to think what will happen to him!”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN JOURNEY BACK?” Asta yelled at the old man.

Sister Lilly held up a hand. “Inside voice, Asta,” she reminded him nicely.

Across the table from the three oldests kids, the next boy in line just snorted before crossing his arms. Then, Nash frowned at Asta. “You’re never going to get into the magic Knights. After all, how many times have you actually beaten Yuno or Sunset?”

The question got a frown from Sunset as she thought back to the past six months of events. Once the kids had three months of working through the basics under their belt, Yuno and Asta had decided to hold little combat matches to who had the bigger magical dick, which Sunset was drawn into because Secre told them that they really did need more practice using their magic in a combat situation. She also limited the kids to one match a month, as just coming home with bruises day after day until they could barely move didn’t help them at all.

So, because of all the contests, the rankings stood as…

Sunset: 10 Wins - 2 Losses

Yuno: 7 Wins - 5 Losses

Asta: 1 Win - 11 Losses

“Can’t believe he beat me,” Yuno grumbled as he turned his head in the opposite direction of Asta.

Says the kid who pulled a new spell out of his ass in the middle of a battle to avoid a bruised ego, Sunset thought to herself with her lips pressed together. It seemed pretty unfair to the unicorn who had to study magic to actually learn spells was stuck surrounded by people who just got magic by wanting it hard enough.

“And that was a fluke!” Nash went on.

Actually, it was because his sword had an effect we weren’t aware of at the time, Sunset said as her eye twitched. Yuno had gotten cut up pretty bad because of it too.

“You just run around, swinging your sword like an idiot with no magic!” Nash said. “But you think you can pass the Magic Knight’s exam? You’re going to fail!”

As Sunset sat, clenching her jaw to help her resist the urge to barbecue the little brat, Asta just gave a chuckle. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” he said with a cocky grin. “Now that I’ve got a grimoire, I just know I’ll get into a magic knight squad. Then someday, I’ll become the Wizard King!”

Yuno looked back at Asta. “Not if I-”

“NO YOU WON’T!” Nash screamed at him as he stood up from the table. “You’re just as poor as the rest of us! People like us don’t get to have dreams. You’re going to spend the rest of your life in this crappy town, eating the same thing day in and day out, just waiting to die like the loser you are!”

Before Asta could say something stupid, Sunset’s patience gave out and she opened her mouth with a little growl. “Wow, projecting much?” she said with a frown on her face. “Stop talking about yourself so much, kid. Of course, you left out the part that happens next. Everyone you left behind at the orphanage is going to go, ‘wow I’m glad that Nash kid is gone, he was always such a pain to deal with’.”

The boy jumped to his feet, tears welling up in his eyes. “S-SHUT UP! You don’t know anything about me!”

“I know that with Asta gone, you’re going to lose the one person you can look down on to make yourself feel better. And when he does make it into the Magic Knights, you’re going to realize that even a kid without any magic is better than you,” Sunset told him before she crossed her arms and smirked. “And that’s what you’re really scared of, isn’t it? Being shown how pathetic you really are.”

Nash took a step back. “I...I HATE YOU!” he screamed before turning around to run away, knocking the door open as he did so.

“Because I can fight back, Nash?” Sunset called out when she was pretty sure he was in range to hear.

As the door slowly swung back to close itself, Asta looked over to the redhead sitting next to him. “You can be a real bitch sometimes, you know.”

“Asta!” Sister Lilly scolded him before looking over to Sunset. “And you shouldn’t say such things to a child, Sunset.”

In response, Sunset raised an eyebrow. “So I should just let him attack Asta because he’s younger than me?” she asked. “How does lacking a few years give you the right to try and kill another person’s dreams and act like a brat?” Hell, if I had someone like the me of today around when I was a filly, I might not have even ended up here.

Father Orsi cleared his throat and lowered his head. “He’s just angry about his lot in life and knows that he’ll never improve it. We can’t all be lucky like you and Yuno.”

A snort escaped from Sunset’s nose. “Luck has nothing to do with it,” she said, earning a small glare from the adults in the room for her backtalk. “Okay, fine it’s got a tiny bit to do with it when it comes to a person’s mana pool, but that’s about it. If Yuno didn’t want to be a Magic Knight, all his book would be good for is doing laundry.”

“I’m going to be the Wizard King,” Yuno reminded Sunset under his breath before blinking. “Wait, what?”

Sunset looked over to the boy. “Don’t tell me you haven’t figured this out yet, especially considering the spell you pulled out of your...rear, three weeks ago when you were getting your butt kicked,” she said. When nothing but blank looks accompanied her statement, Sunset sighed and looked at Lilly. “How many spells do you have?”

The nun blinked at the question. “You’ve seen my grimoire, Sunset. You know I only know three spells.”

“Why?”

Still confused, Lilly answered the question. “Because those are all the spells God thinks I need.”

Oh...right, forgot who I was talking to for a minute there, Sunset told herself as she did her best to try and address the situation. She didn’t want to get into a theological debate with the nun. Aside from the fact it was a bad idea to start trying to poke holes in a person’s core beliefs, Sunset really didn’t have enough knowledge about the religion in question. The expert could easily pull out some obscure fact that she couldn’t repudiate.

But...just backing down from the argument wasn’t her style either.

Okay, you know what? Fine, if she ends up kicking me out of the orphanage...so be it, Sunset told herself.

Although...she could try and let it fit into the woman’s belief system, if only to be polite. “Lilly...God might have decided to give you a base in the water element, but you’re the one who decided how far to take it and what use to put it to. Magic develops according to the drive and desires of the person wielding it. You don’t have any other spells because you’re the one who decided you didn’t need any more spells. The amount of mana you’re born with may be the decision of someone else, but you’re the one who decides what to do with it,” she told the woman. “Yuno’s abilities are developing the way they are because he wants to be a Magic Knight. If he wanted to be a farmer, the spells he would be getting would be better suited to planting crops.”

Although, want was probably the wrong word. Plenty of people wanted something, but just wanting it wouldn’t make a new spell appear in a person’s grimoire. They had to believe they would achieve their goal. From what Secre told her, there were other factors too, like how desperation mixed with determination could provide a sudden burst of inspiration in the form of a spell. But for the most part, it was all about someone’s drive to do something with their lives.

That was the real reason Secre told them to limit their sparring. Yuno’s development shot ahead by leaps and bounds whenever Sunset handed him his ass.

“So excuse me when I get angry over a little punk running around telling everyone that they can’t be anyone important simply because he doesn’t think they can,” Sunset told her as she stood up and took her plate. “Now, I got magic practice to do.”

Yuno felt Sunset leave more than saw or heard her, aside from the slamming door. As soon as she was gone, the bad mood hung around and Sister Lilly let out a sigh. “That girl, I just don’t understand her sometimes.”

After sharing an uncomfortable look with Asta, the gray boy finished his breakfast and headed out, leaving Yuno alone on one side of the table while everyone else sat on the other. Except for Father Orisi, of course. He was at the head.

“Well...she’s not wrong,” Yuno said to the nun after thinking about whether or not to talk to her.

Sister Lilly blinked at the boy as Yuno felt a dozen conflicting emotions in his gut go to war on whether or not to just step back and let things continue, or speak what had been running through his mind for years. “Yuno?”

Well...I already started, might as well finish, he told himself. “Look, I don’t know your reasoning or anything, but I’ve watched the two of you put Asta down his whole life. And I get that it comes from the fact that you’re worried about him and don’t want to see him hurt, so I have kept my peace. But Nash isn’t like that and you guys need to stop just letting him run wild.”

“Yuno,” Father Orisi said gently. “Nash has had a hard life. You remember when he lost his parents in-”

“That doesn’t mean he has a right to go around, spreading his misery to everyone else, Father,” Yuno said with a little frown before letting out a sigh. “Pretty soon, him and Rebecca are going to be the oldest kids here, and he’s going to be the role model for everyone that comes after, because the three of us are not coming back. You need to get him under control, or the happy home that this church is right now will die.”

Secre sat on a branch as she watched Asta run around the field he was in, dodging invisible attacks from foes that were just in his imagination while also using his sword as a shield to get used to blocking in such a manner. Despite how ridiculous he looked, the old bird felt good about how well the boy’s progress had gone over the past several months. She had thought that losing nearly every single battle to his friends would have killed his confidence, but he was using every loss as a learning experience instead of something to obsess over in the wrong kind of way.

And boy did he have some losses…

-Asta VS Sunset, Match 1-

“And go!” Yuno called out as the three of them stood outside the church, with the tall boy off to the side by the entrance while Sunset and Asta were a good ten meters away from it.

Asta let out a wordless battle cry as he charged...only to be hit in the back of the head by a small piece of firewood from the giant pile near the church. “Hey, what was-oomph!” he said before another one impacted his stomach, followed by another one to his cheek. Within a second, he was being pelted by over a dozen little blocks of wood that were hitting him from all directions.

Then the boy started going after the wood instead of Sunset, who hit the back of his knees to bring him crashing to the ground one time, slipped a piece of wood underneath his feet when he tried to put some weight into his swing with a half-step to trip him up again, and a dozen other things.

“One of the glaring problems with your sword is that it’s just so damn big that you can’t hope to block multiple small attacks with it,” Sunset told him. “Either use it as a shield as you charge forward or keep it behind you to cover your back from attacks from the rear.”

-Asta vs Sunset, Match 2-

Asta charged forward as Sunset simply stood there. halfway to her, the floor suddenly gave out beneath him and he fell into a large hole that had been created with nothing more than earth mana manipulation. After a few seconds, Sunset walked up to the hole and leaned over. “Okay, so I know it wasn’t really fair since I didn’t have my book out, but when you’re fighting an earth element user, you need to be careful where you step,” she called down to him. “ Because now I can just drop rocks on you until you’re buried. Um...need a hand getting out?”

-Asta VS Sunset, Match 3-

The three teens were set up by the river, alone in the forest, when Asta ran at Sunset. Who waved her arms to bring up a massive amount of water from the river before freezing it almost instantly. Asta, who was carrying a sword that weighed more than he did, quickly lost his balance and slid along the frozen patch, completely out of control before falling flat on his face.

“I didn’t know you had figured out how to use ice magic,” Yuno mumbled.

Sunset looked back at the boy in confusion. “Huh? All I had to do was stop the molecules from mov-you guys have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?” she asked.

Both the boy and the bird shook their heads in confusion.

Although...they usually went better than the times Asta went up against Yuno…

-Pretty much every Asta VS Yuno fight but one-

Asta jumped up and down angrily as Yuno floated in the air, well beyond his reach. “Get down here Yuno!”

“No,” the other boy said as he went through his grimoire.

“Well, if you don’t come down, how am I supposed to be able to hit you with my sword?” Asta demanded.

Yuno held out his hand, palm opened. “That’s the point,” he said before sending a barrage of weak wind blades towards the boy with the gray hair that had to cut them with his sword. As well as the next batch, then the several dozen more until he was knocked off balance by a strong gust and taken down when the following attack got through his defenses.

-Present Day-

Of course, there was that one little accident they had that ended with Asta winning. But, Secre did her best not to think about it.

It was odd how she had become attached to the child. Even though the odds of getting into the Magic Knights were squarely against him, he still continued on as best he could. Considering the only measuring stick he had was a pair of abnormally strong magic users, Secre was surprised Asta’s perseverance hadn’t faltered.

Still, there were other concerns about him. Like the five leaf. Although Asta didn’t have magic, that didn’t make him immune to it. So it wasn’t that the demon in his book couldn’t possess him the way Sunset theorized, it was just...holding back. Why, Secre had yet to surmise.

Was there another requirement aside from simply coming into possession with the five leaf?

Secre just didn’t know. Even though her experience with devils was the greatest in all the Clover Kingdom, it had all been done in less than a day of activity. The devil had tried to break into their reality by claiming a host, but had been stopped before things could get out of hand. The cost of which had been high, but it had been a better option than a successful incursion.

Our happy ending involved the elves being exterminated, hundreds dead, my master frozen in stone and me nothing but a bird, Secre thought sarcastically.

Maybe the devil was simply using Asta to transport the grimoire somewhere, so it could take a different host.

Did who its host was even matter?

After taking a deep breath, Secret took to the sky to find another one of her kids. If she kept thinking about Asta, she would drive herself crazy. So, using skills learned after years of embarrassing failures, Secret banked to the right and flew over where Sunset was sitting by the river.

No enhancement was needed to feel the mana swirling around the girl, flowing through her and back out again into the world at her direction. It was almost eerie how quickly she had caught on when it came to the more advanced mana control techniques that usually took years of experience with magic just to begin learning. Although not quite a full master yet, since a couple more mana manipulation techniques were still unknown to her, she needed a supplement for the fact that her growth as a mage when it came to spells only came at the behest of others.

Because of her origins, she couldn’t link with a grimoire. Which meant that Sunset couldn’t learn spells on her own. Someone would have to share their grimoire with her. Something Secre didn’t think many mages would be keen on doing. If they ever even learned of her unique abilities that is.

Until then, all she had was a single light spell, a bunch of overly complicated wind spells that required her to use a focus and maintain a wind creation spell before she could cast them, a pair of water spells that were nothing more than a pacifist’s weapon along with a healing spell to take care of minor injuries, and some very basic fire magic she had gleaned from that crying priest. On top of her unicorn magic, that is. Most of which Secre found...somewhat ridiculous.

“A mustache? Seriously?” the bird remembered herself asking as she wore the new follicles while Sunset grinned at her

“So, I see you’ve just about gotten your control down pat,” the bird said before frowning. There was an odd difference though. Human mages just moved the mana around them instead of acting like a conduit for it. Did the change have something to do with her natural magical abilities being different? Secre worried doing so would put a strain on Sunset’s body.

Sunset looked up from the water. “Something wrong?”

The bird landed on a nearby rocky outcropping and shook her head. “Just making sure you babies don’t go blowing something up before we have to leave in two weeks,” she said. “If one of you breaks a leg, the pitiful healing magic you know won’t get you back on your feet in time for the exams.”

“What is up with that, anyway?” Sunset asked before laying back on the grass and kicking her bare feet in the water. “I’m way more powerful than Lilly, but when I copy her healing magic, it’s not much better than what she can do. And that’s only because I used about twice as much mana.”

“The spell was never meant to be more than basic healing,” the bird explained. “You can push the limits of a spell by adding more mana, but it can never go beyond its original purpose.”

Sunset pressed her lips together in an angry pout. “Well that’s stupid.”

After a second, Secre tried appealing to something she knew. “Well, you’ve never gone beyond ten miles with your teleportation spell.”

“Um, yeah. Because anything more than that means I have to recalculate the Ooomph to the negative ampersand and then divide by effort instead of perceived effort, while factoring in desire, multiplied by rationale,” Sunset told her as if she was explaining what any moron should have found obvious.

“...right,” Secre replied uneasily. She had learned shortly after meeting the girl not to talk about unicorn magic with her. It sounded like math, but it was based on nothing but emotions and feelings, with an opinion or two thrown in.

The disturbing part was, Secre knew that she wasn’t lying. Because she had heard a unicorn explain to her how magic worked before she met Sunset.

“So, you take the timey out of the timey-wimey-wibbly-wobbly and just cram it into the gaaaaa, but don’t shove it! If you try to shove it into the gaaaaa, it’ll cause you to go to a parallel world instead of an alternate one,” Secre remembered Starswril explaining to King Clover on how he made his mirror. “And let me tell you, those things really make you question the nature of reality.”

They had both needed a good drink after that, or maybe before. It probably would have made more sense if they had been drunk beforehand.

“So, what’s Yuno doing?” Sunset asked. “Still trying to pull off two spells at once?”

Secre sighed and hung her head. “I really shouldn’t have told him about that. The boy really is just like Asta when it comes down to it. He just knows how to whisper. But, he should know to conserve his mana until after lunch, this time.”

As the conversation hit a lull, Sunset looked closed her eyes. “Well, back to work for me.”

Before the girl could start back up, Secre cleared her throat. “Well, since we’ve got another two weeks, plus the time it will take you to get there from Hage on foot, we should probably delve more into a defensive technique.”

Sunset groaned. “I’d rather get this down first.”

“Hmm...I suppose you’re right,” Secre agreed as she decided to just go ahead and bait the unicorn. The bird turned away and looked off to the horizon. “This technique is a bit more advanced. You’re probably not ready for it.”

The sun seemed to disappear as Secre found herself in Sunset’s shadow, the girl towering over her with a glare that had something behind it, more than simple pride. “Start teaching bird brain.”

Seeing the three mages get their grimoires ready, Nash fired off his quickest spell to make them think twice about attacking them before charging at them. The thing in his hand wasn’t a stick, but a flaming sword of super death that he used to cut down the mage in the middle before spinning around to slice the one on his right in two as his super awesome mage skills let him throw another fireball to take out the third mage, easily burning through the shield he had put up.

“HAHAHAHA!” an evil witch laughed from behind the mightiest Magic Knight ever as he turned around to see Sunset standing there behind him. “Foolish boy, do you think you can defeat me? I am so smart and pretty, even Yuno loves me more than you!”

Knowing it all to be a lie, Nash charged the ugly witch and shot a fireball at her, which made her scream and duck like the coward she was, curling up into a little ball before he raised his flaming sword of super death. Then brought it straight down on her stupid head! “Take that!” he yelled at the witch as he broke her head open with his blade while she cried out in pain before hitting her over and over again and again. “And that! And that! And that!”

…

There was a loud crack from the broken branch that Nash had been using for a sword in his mind as he struck the rock one final time, breaking the stick.

Panting from the effort, Nash fell back onto his butt and onto the wet, white, rocky sand that was underneath the town’s only stone bridge. The slight bit of satisfaction he has gotten from the mental image of killing Sunset quickly fading as reality reasserted itself.

Sunset was still alive and well. All he had been doing was hitting a rock.

It wasn’t fair!

Why was a bitch like her born with magic, when Nash wasn’t? He deserved it so much more than her! Plenty of bad things had happened to him, so why didn’t something good come along too? Father Orsi said the more suffering they endured in this life meant their reward would be even greater when they passed on, but Nash wanted something good to happen to him now!

“I’m Asta, from Hage Village.”

Nash blinked at hearing Asta’s voice. Something sounded weird about it.

“I’m sorry but...I can’t help you,” a woman’s voice said before Nash heard the sound of feet moving quickly across the bridge above him.

Curious, the boy came out from under the bridge and looked up as a thin man with a sharp nose, chin and eyes he had never seen in the village walked around with a satchel at his side. Opposite of the one holding his grimoire, of course. The guy looked a little old in his white clothes, but not as old as Father Orsi, and his hair was a lighter blue than the sky, a bit wavy, and held up with a dark headband that had five diamonds on it that had to be fake.

“Hey, why’re you looking for Asta?” he asked.

The stranger looked down at Nash with the same expression most people wore when they noticed an orphan was around, like they were seeing some kind of parasite and wondering how to get around it without attracting its attention. “Yes, do you know him?”

Nash thought about it for a second. Nobody went looking for orphans, but the guy standing up above him looked pretty well off. If he could get some money out of it... “What’s it worth to you?”

The man gave the orphan a little smile. “Ah, a child after my own heat,” he said as Nash made his way up onto level ground with the stranger. “What would you say to...ten-thousand yul?”

The sheer amount of money being offered made Nash fight to stay on his feet. With that kind of cash, he could actually get out of Hage Village and do something with his life. But...Nash wasn’t an idiot. He knew if that man was willing to offer so much for Asta’s location up front...then he had even more money. “Make it thirteen-thousand,” he said.

“Ah, what a smart little boy,” the man told him with a slender smile. “Very well, thirteen-thousand. Paid after you lead us to your little friend, of course.”

Nash turned towards the forest, but stopped when he realized what time it was by the position of the sun in the sky. If Asta wasn’t already heading back to the church, then he would be there in short order. “I know where he’ll be soon. Just follow me,” he said before blinking when the old man raised his hand and gestured to a couple of guys standing on the other side of the bridge.

“Lead on, my fine young man,” the stranger told him as the other two men made to follow the rich guy.

Walking down the main street of Hage Village, Ragus didn’t know whether to be disgusted or insulted. He, one of the greatest mages who had ever lived, a beautiful mix of power, genius and grace, was being forced to trudge through the most filthy of places for the good of his kingdom. But what made it even worse was the fact that nobody seemed to recognize him, despite his many accomplishments.

Years ago, Ragus had read a book detailing the living habits of people. It said that those of low birth and pitiful mana rarely went fifty miles beyond the place where they were born for their entire life. But, that was no excuse for such common creatures not to recognize his brilliance for what it was on sight and stand in awe of its beauty.

So, he and his personal assistants, Valus and Thane, followed the street rat over the road made of dirt, to a faded, but mostly intact church. Considering how bad things were in the Clover Kingdom’s Forsaken Realm, he was almost impressed that it wasn’t a shack with two sticks at the top made into a cross. But then, that was like saying someone was glad they stepped in mud instead of cow shit.

Still, Ragus made his way into the archaic belief systems little white building behind the boy and looked around. After a few seconds, the priest who was obviously in charge of the place came out of a room in the back. “Hello Nash,” he greeted the boy before looking up at the person she should have addressed first before making an obvious study of their clothes. While Thane and Valus had on simple traveling attire, Ragus doubted that anyone from this stupid village had seen anything like what he wore. “And you sirs, is there anything I can do for you gentlemen?”

“Yes,” Ragus said before pulling out a crystal ball that displayed the one clue they had to the whereabouts of their target.

“Hey Mariella, I’m Asta, from Hage Village,” the image of a boy with gray hair said from within the orb’s surface.

As the priest became a little weary at the sight of what was probably the most advanced magic he had every seen in his entire life, a small urchin that was even more undeveloped than the trash Ragus had followed to this stupid hovel came running into the room from the opposite side than the priest appeared from.

“Is Asta back?” a little girl with short black hair asked before looking to Ragus and pointed up at him. “Hey Mr Man, your hair looks funny!”

Ragus’s whole body tensed at the insult before the child actually laughed at him! A stupid, filty little nothing of a child dared to insult him?

The priest’s eyes widened and he took a step back before looking down at the girl. “Aruru,” he said before crouching to talk to the girl. “How about you go and see if Sister Lilly has gotten started on lunch yet, okay? I bet Asta will be hungry when he gets back from his training.”

“So there are other people in the church besides yourself?” Ragus asked the priest.

After a few seconds, the older man nodded. “Yes, a nun who helps me take care of things and the children. Are you looking for-”

“Good,” Ragus said before he summoned forth his grimoire and held out a hand towards the girl. “Then we will have hostages to spare. Go round up everyone else in this little dump and bring them in here. Except for this one, of course. Lightning Creation Magic: Piercing Javelin!”

Secre kept her peace as she rode on her mobile perch that was Asta’s head while her three charges discussed their traveling arrangements. Thankfully, the tall one hadn’t completely exhausted himself like the other day and would still be able to go on into the night without problems. Sunset was fine, as usual. And aside from some sweat blotches on his clothes, Asta looked to be in well enough condition.

It was probably just her worrying over nothing, but with the Exam fast approaching, Secre grew more and more worried that something would happen to mess everything up before the children could even set off on their journey. Then, there were all the worries that came with thinking of what they would face on the trip. The Magic Knight Exam was actually what troubled her the least, even with a third of her little team to be completely magicless.

“Look, all I’m saying is, we’ve got two weeks. We do some odd jobs around town for a little yul, then use it to buy a tent,” Sunset told the boys as they slowly walked back towards the orphanage. “Hell, the church has more firewood than it’s going to use in a year. We can sell that!”

Asta looked over to the taller girl and raised an eyebrow. “Can’t you just earth magic up a hut or something every night?”

To which the redhead replied, “So we can sleep on dirt while also sleeping under it? Nevermind the bugs, rain and snakes.”

“Any tent we find in Hage won’t be of much use against a rainstorm and a tent wouldn’t keep out bugs or snakes,” Yuno pointed out.

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “What’re you talking about even the cheapest…” She stopped and groaned, putting a hand to her face. “Right, you guys haven’t invented nylon, plastic, or anything like that.”

With the girl making one of her complaints that the boys rarely understood, Yuno gave an annoyed groan. “You’re doing it again.”

“Sorry. But my point still stands, we need some kind of camping supplies,” she told him.

As Yuno was about to reply, the boy opened his mouth but suddenly stopped and looked up with a frown. “Do either of you feel that?”

On the other side of the group, Asta blinked. “Feel what?”

“You know you’ve got the best magic sensing range out of all of us,” Sunset deadpanned before looking in the same direction Yuno was. “Something happening at the church?”

Secre frowned and focused her senses. In the months after the Fanzell incident, she had practiced focusing her few useful talents along with the others after some three-hundred years of just getting by. While she would never match a wind user when it came to detecting mana, her abilities had improved a bit.

“There’s a lot of mana coming from the church. Three people. Two are a lot bigger than anyone around here, but the third guy has a lot more than them even. But...I don’t know, it feels different than what I’m used to picking up from people,” Yuno said.

Asta looked over the boy with black hair. “Man, this is so not fair. I should be able to sense people too, even without mana.”

While Yuno stood up a bit straighter, Secre did her best to extend her senses and try to tell what was going on. When she felt it, the bird gripped her claws.

“OW! Bird lady! That’s-that’s my head!” Asta cried out.

One thing that took mages a few months to realize after being trained in mana detection was that a person’s personality determined how their mana felt. Despite what others might think, many people at their core were a lot alike. They didn’t want to hurt anyone or do anything but live their lives as best they could. Which was why it took mana detectors so long to find someone with a different feel to their mana. People who were kind usually gave off a calming presence that had some effect on everyone around them to some extent. While the more heroic mages tended to inspire people better than others. But, there were also the monsters, people who were so twisted inside that on some primal level, any human being over the age of fifteen knew that they needed to get away from them.

Such a mage was standing in the church at that very moment.

“Wait here and don’t do anything stupid, I’m going to see what’s going on,” Secre told her kids before she flew off without letting them argue with her. Please do as you all are told for once.

Since it was Summer and rain hadn’t come in days, the windows of the church were all open and easily accessible for the bird. She landed in the tallest one, overlooking the room where sermons were held and...if Secre still had teeth, she would have been gritting them after seeing what was going on.

The second youngest child at the orphanage, Aruru, lay on the ground with a hole in her chest so big that most of her torso and stomach were missing from the smoking corpse. The fact that there was no blood and a dark black burn told her that she had been killed by lightning magic.

The other children were alive, but standing between the left pews and the pulpit with two men flanking them in clothes Secre expected to see on villagers from the Common Realm. Sister Lilly stood in the center of them all, trying to keep them calm despite the terror evident on her face.

Wait...one’s missing, Secre thought to herself before looking around to see Nash, sitting on one of the benches near Father Orsi on the other side of the room and trembling as he looked on in horror at the scene playing out before him.

Why wasn’t he with the others?

Then, there was Father Orsi. The man stood away from the children, by himself in the center of the room, just in front of where he held his sermons while a third stranger stood next to the man. Despite the fact that he was shaking and tears were running down his face, he still found the courage to speak. “Why are you doing this?”

The stranger turned around and Secret’s breath caught upon seeing his forehead.

Mages of the Diamond Kingdom had ranks, much like the Magic Knights. When one obtained a high enough standing in their forces, they were given circles with three diamonds to show that they had the authority to command a squad of troops. The more diamonds they had, the higher their military rank. The man in the church had five.

And based on his level of mana...he stood only a little below a magic knight squad captain.

“Hmmm?” the man replied, as if he had forgotten Father Orsi had been there. “Well, I suppose if you must know...a few months ago, about mid-spring, one of our assassination squads encountered a pair of children in the forest east of here while looking for a deserter. Because of the interference of them and one other, the target escaped and gave them the runaround for a few months before the trail went cold and the man in charge had to report his lack of success back to me. Not wanting to die for his failure, he offered me up information about a light mage and a boy with a four leaf clover. And because I am a man who believes the best path to victory is the one with the least effort, I’m here to deal with those two mages before they should learn enough about their abilities to become a threat.”

Father Orsi tensed. “Yes but...we don’t have a boy with the four leaf here, he left some time ago.”

The diamond mage nodded. “Yes, I suspected he might have been just passing through. A four leaf coming from this dung heap is rather laughable. But, we do have a clue to his whereabouts,” the man said before reaching into his bag and pulling out a record orb that began playing a moment later.

“Hey Mariella, I’m Asta, from Hage Village.”

“The reports say the boy is nothing special. In fact, if not for his friends, I never would have even bothered coming here and dirtying my shoes with your filthy little flea ridden hovel,” the lighting mage went on. “And you can thank your boy over there for leading us to this place. For some reason, everyone else we asked in town didn’t seem to know who we were talking about at all. I think I’ll go back and kill them for lying to me. That is supposed to be against your stupid little peasent religion, isn’t it, Father?”

For a brief moment, Father Orisi glared at the stranger. “You come in here and kill one of the most innocent of people, then threaten to do even more murder while mocking our faith? How dare you! This is a house of God!”

“God?” the man asked in a mocking tone. “Ohohohoh, what a cute little sentiment. An imaginary friend for adults too stupid to know better. I’ve seen more things that you can imagine old man, and not once have I seen proof of your so-called deity. But!” The wizard held up a finger and slowly moved it back and forth. “I am a man of the sciences, willing to admit that he might be wrong. And never have I looked for your god in a Clover Kingdom church. So, perhaps he is here! Let us see if we can lure him out, shall we?”

The man’s finger crackled with lightning magic and he pointed it at Sister Lilly. “Are you there, God? It’s me, Ragus. If you’re hiding up in the attic somewhere, you had better come down before I blow this nice little girl’s arms off, then her legs, followed by a blow to her stomach. Then, you can watch her die as I cook her alive from the inside out,” Ragus announced as his mana built up for an attack. “And just to be sporting since you may be, I don’t know, cowering in fear, I’ll give you a whole two hundred seconds. So...one...”

Secre was gone before he reached the number two.

Counting the time in her head, she got to her kids before getting to five.

Told them what was happening by perhaps the count of twenty.

And had to wait a whole five seconds for them just to process it.

Asta was the first to react. “WHAAAAAT? He’s going to kill Sister Lilly?” the boy said before his grimoire rose up and he drew the anti-magic weapon it contained out. “We have to go save them!”

He got two steps before Yuno managed to grab him. “Hold up idiot, if you rush in there. They’re just going to kill her and we don’t have much time. Whatever we do, we have to make sure we can save everyone. Sunset can you pop them-” he said before looking over to the redhead. “Sunset?”

Sunset’s were widened in absolute horror, her body shaking. “T-They killed Aruru?” she mumbled with a trembling voice. “How could...why...she...she’s barely more than a baby.”

Oh dear, Secre thought as she saw one of her suspicions about the girl confirmed. During the battle five months ago, Sunset had struck two of the Diamond Kingdom’s knights with a light sword and only knocked them out, despite the weapon she had used being one of the most deadly spells there was. While magic responded to the will of its user, Sunset hadn’t willed her weapon not to kill those men. It was that the thought of killing them never even entered her mind.

Despite her attitude and behavior, the unicorn girl was an unnaturally gentle soul that didn’t just draw a line when it came to some of humanity’s darker thoughts, she put up an iron wall that was to never be breached. To be confronted by just the possibility of murder was simply abhorrent to her.

“We don’t have time for this right now!” Secre shouted at the three of them, not caring if a passerby might notice her. “You need to turn around and run away as fast as you can!”

Because, according to her mental count, they only had about a minute before things went south in the church. Without Lilly to keep the kids calm, they would try to scatter and Ragus would probably put a few more down. Eventually, he would kill them all of course, but… No, don’t think about that. Use the time to escape.

Of course, Asta had something to say about that. “WHAT? NO WAY! We’re going to go save Sister Lilly and everyone else!”

“No, you are not!” Secre yelled back at him. “This is not a bunch of worthless killers that are used to strangling babies and children! This is a hardened battlemage. Maybe even the equal to a knight captain! You turn and you run, or you die!”

Yuno looked back down at his grimoire, taking it out to stare at the clover on it. “You know, when I got this thing, I thought it was nothing but bad luck. But if I hadn’t gotten attacked by three different people on the same day, Asta never would have been there to receive his grimoire. If something like that can happen, we can find a way out of this without anyone in our family dying,” he said before looking down at the girl. “Sunset, can you teleport them out?”

“That won’t work!” Secre scolded them. “He may not be a wind mage, but by the time we got in visual range, he would know she was there! We’re almost at the edge of his detection range now! Whatever attack we used would have to be from here, be accurate enough not to cut down the children too, fast enough to hit he mages before they could react, manage to not destroy the church in the process and…”

The bird stopped talking as something occurred to her that might actually have a chance of working...if they were insanely lucky. Which, according to legends, the four leaf was. “Okay, all of you listen carefully and do exactly as I tell you idiots,” she said while her internal count reached one-hundred-fifty. “Because I’ve got twenty seconds to spell it out for you if I’m to get back to the church in time to cause a distraction.”

Once they had slapped some sense into Sunset so she could listen, Secre laid out the plan and quickly took off back towards the church, flying as fast as she could.

She needed to get inside, then fly around the heads of the children and Sister Lilly long enough to make them cower in fear of getting their eyes pecked out by an angry bird before doing the same to Father Orisi. If she could get them all to duck, the coming attack that she hoped was aimed correctly would end up catching only the Diamond Kingdom mages.

Because if the caster was worried about hitting a kid, the spell wouldn’t be strong enough to hurt a child. But if the caster was willing to knock out a trained mage, it would gut the children if they were caught up in it.

Once Secre got inside the building, she saw that Ragus was still counting. “One-ninety-eight, one-ninety-nine,” he announced loudly.

Completely destroying the bird’s hastily thought-out plan as all the time she thought she had disappeared.

WHY IN THE HELL ARE YOU COUNTING SO GOD DAMNED DAMN FAST? the bird mentally screamed at the mage. By her math, she should have had a good ten seconds left! It was common knowledge that you were supposed to say one HUNDRED AND between numbers to get a full second. Everyone knew that!

“TWO-HUNDRED!” Ragus announced with an almost gleeful expression before he looked around for a second. “Oh dear, it would seem that your god isn’t home. Because, you see, he doesn’t really exist. And now, you’ll learn that the hard way.”

Father Orisi held up his hands. “No, stop this please!” he begged as he tried to move closer to the man, only to freeze when Ragus turned his magic towards the priest.

“Don’t worry, you can be next,” he promised.

Then, as time seemed to slow down, Secre got an idea. A very stupid, crazy idea that only proved to her that three-hundred years of isolation had driven her bat shit crazy.

But still, crazy was better than nothing. So, she flew up onto the cross in the back of the room, sucked in a deep breath, and spoke in as loud a voice as her little lungs could manage. “STOP THIS VIOLENCE WITHIN MY HOUSE!”

All of the humans, evil and innocent, turned to look up at her in surprise. A full second ticked by before Father Orisi stepped forward with a dumbfounded look on his face. “G-God?”

Glad that she no longer had a face, because Secre dubbed that she could have pulled this off otherwise, the bird spoke again. “YES! I...AM...GOD!” the little bird with the tiny devil horns sprouting from her head shouted before throwing her wings out in front of her as if they were hands. “TRUE BELIEVERS, PROSTRATE YOURSELF BEFORE ME, AND BE SAVED!”

All of the orphans who had grown up in the church, Sister Lilly, Father Orisi, and even one of Ragus’s goons got on their knees before touching their heads to the floor. “Oh savior, heavenly fowl! Please deliver us from perdi-” was as far as Father Orisi got before everything went to hell.

There was a giant flash of solid light that started from the back of the room and swept through the entire building, slicing through anything that stood more than three feet tall.

“I’m outta here,” Secre told everyone before the building could start to collapse on top of them from having its support beams sliced just above their base.

Doing her best to fight off her shock, Sunset focused on the pain in her cheek, actually biting it to keep her in the moment as she stood up and gulped. A child had died, it...it was hard to wrap her mind around the fact that such a thing was actually real. She knew humans killed, yes...but it was one thing to hear it happening far away and quite another to know the victim. She had helped take care of the little monkey for nearly two years and…

“Thirty seconds,” Asta said.

FOCUS DAMNIT, Sunset shouted to herself as she felt the wind begin to whip up as Yuno cast a spell that created an oversized bird made of nothing but wind to jump on its back while Asta grabbed the claws when it lifted off.

They didn’t move any closer to the church though. That would only alert the mage inside and get even more people killed. The first volley to give them all the opening the boys needed to save everyone was her responsibility.

Sunset cleared her mind and remembered her training.

“The technique I’m about to teach you is what marks the difference between a powerful mage from a royal bloodline, and a captain of the Magic Knights. With it, you will be able to increase both your offensive and defensive power exponentially, sharpen your mana detection abilities, and even predict your opponent’s next move,” Secre told the girl inside her head.

It had taken nearly four months of work to adapt it for her personal use thanks to the differences in the Clover Kingdom’s magic and her own, but after working longer on it than any spell Sunset had ever managed to learn, she had figured out how to do just that.

Sunset opened herself to the mana around her, letting it flow through her body as she guided it to become what she needed it to me. “Mana Zone, Enhanced Light Creation Magic: Demon-Slaying Sword of the Divine Holy Emperor,” the not-unicorn announced to anyone who was listening while doing her best not to think of who the hell came up with such overblown names.

More magic than she could ever produce herself flowed through the girl, making her feel like she was on fire as the spell took shape in front of her. The weapon was easily five times larger than the biggest weapon Sunset had made during practice, greatly dwarfing the last one she had used in actual combat. Once the attack was ready, Sunset focused her enhanced mana detection and frowned.

Despite the clarity the mana zone gave her, she still couldn’t tell much beyond the position of the children except for where they were standing. Elevation didn’t really factor into it. Then, the one that was off to the side for whatever reason suddenly moved to the left a good deal.

Sunset took it as a sign that something was going on and let the sword fly with all the strength she could muster. The attack flew forward at a pace nearly too fast to see and struck the church with a blade large enough to cut the entire building in two with a stabbing motion. Everything above the three foot in height mark was sliced in two.

A second later, Sunset let go of the mana around her and fell to her knees, panting from the effort of casting such a spell. I think I’ll...yeah...just going to stay here for a bit.

If such magic was going to keep putting such a strain on her body, maybe Asta could help her develop an exercise routine or something.

-Break-

As soon as Sunset fired her spell, Yuno was off on his Swift White Hawk spell with Asta in its clutches. The increase in altitude allowed him to see the church when he couldn’t before, so he caught sight of Sunset’s attack cutting into the bottom quarter of the building not a second later.

Once it had sliced its way through, Yuno turned his grimoire to one of his more versatile spells and pumped all the mana into it that he dared to. “Wind Magic: Towering Tornado!” he shouted before guiding the spell to include the entire church in its area of effect.

The green magic swirled around the building as it took hold of the wind, lifting the entire upper three quarters or more, where Sunset had cut the thing, into the air to reveal what was inside. By which time, Yuno’s hawk had taken them to the edge of his man made twister that was carrying the building away under his direction as it jumped into the air.

And just as Secre had predicted, there was one man still standing that had managed to weather Sunset’s attack. Although...he didn’t look much like a fancy asshole, as Secre had described him, just a person that might have been a well-to-do merchant.

That one, Yuno left to his little brother as he kept his concentration on the church being thrown into the air to make sure it didn’t land on anyone. The building might have been a loss, but as long as the kids were safe, that was all that mattered.

Behind him, Yuno could hear Asta just about screech at a wizard while the wind mage had finally gotten their former home away from the garden and everything else that had been around the church before finally getting ready to set his tornado down and get back to the others.

However, about two seconds later, Yuno felt a flare of the sickening mana from before and realized that they had made a mistake.

With some help from Yuno’s really big bird, Asta managed to launch himself at the only guy he didn’t recognize. Said guy was crouched on his knees, but looking up and around in confusion along with the kids while a guy in similar clothes was out on the floor with a bad burn across his stomach.

Just like Secre had predicted, it looked like the boss had managed to survive Sunset’s attack without much damage, if any. Although...his clothes didn’t look very fancy. Maybe running around naked for five-hundred years had killed the bird’s opinion of clothes. Still, the anti-magic boy put his part of the plan into motion.

While still in midair, Asta drew his sword and swug it before it was even out of his grimoire, negating its weight until the last second, when the two-hundred-pound-or-more weapon crashed into the man’s collarbone with a audible crunch as Asta shouted, “THIS IS FOR TRYING TO HURT LILLY YOU SON OF A BITCH!”

With the mage down and his eyes rolled up in the back of his head, Asta turned to the nun that was around the children and grinned. Since they all looked okay, although the fact Nash was over near the pews on the opposite side of the room instead of with the others for some reason made him wonder why, Asta grinned. “Hey Sister Lilly, what do you think about marrying me now?”

The woman’s unbelieving stare from what had just transpired in the last five seconds or less, broke into a small smile before Lilly visibly strained in forcing it into a shape that could just barely be called a disapproving frown. “Oh Asta,” she said before running over to him and hugging the boy so hard Asta stumbled and turned until he was facing where the church’s entrance had been.

A second later, the nun broke the hug and took a step back. “I think for once, I won’t discipline you for trying to pull me away from-” Sister Lilly stopped talking as Asta heard something on what had been the pulpit shift. Her eyes widened and...

“LIGHTING CREATION MAGIC: SKY SPLITTING MAGIC BOW ARMAMENT!”

Asta felt his feet fall out from under him as the woman’s expression became frantic while she pushed his shoulders hard enough to take him completely by surprise. “GET DOWN!”

Screams surrounded him as not even a second after he hit the floor, Asta saw a white hot lance of magical energy tear through Sister Lilly and leave a hole in her stomach large enough that Asta could have stuck his head in it. The smell of burnt meat filled his nose as she fell down, and looking at the hole, Asta couldn’t stop his dazed thoughts from considering something weird. Shouldn’t there be more blood?

Sister Lilly had a hole in her body big enough that it nearly cut her in two.

“Sis...Sister Lilly?” he asked.

There was no blood.

If there was no blood, then it couldn’t be real, right?

It was just an illusion, some sort of trick.

“Ast...As…” the woman said in what could barely even be called a whisper as her whole body shook.

It was only after Sister Lilly hit the floor that Asta looked over to ask the other kids that had been with her if what he was seeing was real.

The electrocuted corpses on the ground next to Asta that had been children just a moment ago didn’t have anything to say.

“MONSTER!” Father Orisi screamed, shaking Asta out of his daze and forcing him to look over at the old man standing in front of Nash, who was on his hands and knees, trembling while a puddle of tears was trying to form at his feet. “HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO CHILDREN?”

Asta followed the priest’s gaze to find another wizard standing in the ruins of the pulpit. From the way the wood had been destroyed, it looked like he had been knocked into it and some of the stage had fallen on him. Blood ran down half of the man’s face and one of his arms hung limp while several bits of wood stuck out of his left leg, staining his pants with blood.

He who strikes the fastest, wins. Throughout all of history in all four kingdoms, this basic idea was the key to numerous victories. Which was why light magic was considered to be so fearsome. There was no dodging the attack. You either had your defenses up in time, or somehow managed to read the attack before it was fired and parry it with another spell.

However, it was not the be all and end all of combat.

The term ‘fast as lightning’ was another saying throughout the four kingdoms. For when a thunderstorm occurred, the bolt of energy went from a mile in the sky to the ground instantaneously. Mages who had worked with lightning for a long time and were truly in-tune with such magic would gain some of that ability, greatly boosting their reaction time to levels impossible for others to achieve.

The difference being, while light mages could move faster in a straight line, those attuned to the lightning element could take turns a dozen times better.

So, when there was a bright flash on the edge of the room, Ragus’s godlike instincts kicked in. Without even needing conscious thought, his mana compressed around the mage to defend him as his body went limp and he was able to move the slightest fraction of an inch before the attack connected. Rolling with the impact, he slid under the giant blade that managed to drag him along with the force of its blow until he hit the stupid priest’s little stage, plowing halfway through it.

Laying in the wreckage, the most beautiful and brilliant mage of the Diamond Kingdom, greatest of the Eight Shining Generals, felt the damage to his divine form and spent a moment, trembling with rage as he collected his thoughts inside his ringing head. What had occurred had obviously been a light spell, and the wind magic that followed must have belonged to the four leaf target.

Both of the two he was seeking were still in the village.

Those...INSOLENT...BABIES! Ragus thought before gathering his mana around him in a skintight defensive technique before rising from the ruins despite the pain, his grimoire flying up next to him. The view he saw of the boy that was in the recording getting hugged by the nun while the children started to approach inspired Ragus, his grimoire already turning to a multi-target attack spell that would kill everyone in that little group.

He would kill the two responsible for his injuries, but before he did, Ragus would make them suffer a small fraction of the pain he felt over his damaged beauty. They would get to see all of the people in what was left of the hovel he was standing in die!

“LIGHTING CREATION MAGIC: SKY SPLITTING MAGIC BOW ARMAMENT!” Ragus shouted in anger as he put more mana than was necessary into his attack to strike down everyone standing in the left half of the building. It was only through sheer luck that the nun managed to push the boy down in time before Ragus’s attack ended the life of the little holy vermin and her spawn.

The priest said...something. With his head still ringing, Ragus couldn’t hear and didn’t much care to. He raised a crackling hand towards the older man-“Lightning Magic: Thunderbolt!”-and barely turned it to where he was feeling a mass of mana coming at him in time to strike at a giant eagle made of wind before it could sink his claws into his damaged flesh.

The resulting attack tore the wind creation to shreds before a tall boy in black clothes, with a four leaf clover landed in front of the surviving child that was still holding onto his oversized sword. “Wind Creation Magic: Wind Blades Shower!”

A dozen daggers made of wind that had hilts which looked more like the birds of a feather flew towards Ragus, who counted with a spell of chained lightning that bounced from one attack to the next, completely shredding them before they could get too close.

The ringing in Ragus’s ears lessened as the taller boy looked to the shorter one while he gathered more of his mana. “Asta get up! GET UP OR WE’RE DEAD!”

Idiot children, one should never take their eyes off an opponent, Ragus thought to himself as he raised his good arm and pointed to the boys. “I’d tell you I’d be sending you to meet her boy, but we both know there’s no such thing as Heaven,” the mage taunted the shorter one and gathered his mana for an attack. “NOW DIE! Lightning Magic: Thunderbolt!”

The boy in question looked up at Ragus a second before the mage launched lighting magic from his hands and actually had the completely moronic idea to take cover behind the flat of his blade! Did the stupid hicks in this village not understand how electricity worked?

Ragus threw his head back and laughed at the idiocy of it all before the attack connected.

-The One Asta VS Yuno fight that wasn’t like all the others-

“This time, I’M GONNA WIN, YUNO!” Asta declared as his big brother stood across him in the forest clearing they used to spar in since the fights around town had started to draw a crowd.

Well, I can never say he isn’t optimistic, Yuno thought to himself as Sunset gave them the signal to begin.

Like always, Yuno was in the air long before Asta could get within melee range, and as per a previous arrangement, the shorter boy didn’t try climbing any more trees to get up higher. Which meant Yuno wouldn't need to chop them down. The church had enough firewood for another two years after Asta had tried pulling that stunt.

So instead, the boy with the big black sword took up his usual stance made for cutting through multiple shots of magic. When it came down to it, Asta’s strategy was something only he would think up: just keep destroying Yuno’s attacks until the taller boy was too low on mana to even fly, then attack him when he landed.

Since Yuno had enough mana to send low level attacks to Asta for nearly twenty-hours straight, he didn’t see that happening any time soon.

Still, the battle commenced and Yuno sent wave after wave of low level blades, which Asta property slashed apart. As previous battles had ended with Yuno making a small tornado under Asta and throwing him off balance, the shorter boy began running, carefully positioning his sword to slice apart any winds Yuno might try to build up around him while also fending off the cutting attacks.

Nearly ten minutes into the battle, Yuno made his play for taking Asta down, sending half a dozen air slices at him from multiple directions while building up a little minor tornado under one of his feet to try and make him lose his footing. With the attacks coming from all around him, Asta couldn’t run out of the way and had to deal with the tornado first, leaving him open for the slashing winds.

With no real time left, Asta spun in a circle, cutting one of Yuno’s attacks that was just barely in range of his sword before going after another.

Then, whether because spinning around made him dizzy as hell, or by some bit of luck, Asta’s grip slipped on his sword and it turned sideways, the flat of the blade being turned into the swing rather than the edge. The sword connected with another attack, but instead of dispelling it, the magic was pushed along with the sword as it collected another wind blade, then two more before Asta faced Yuno again and sent the mass of slashing winds back at him.

What? Yuno thought, surprised at the current predicament of his own attack coming back towards him, passing through his defensive mana like it wasn’t even there that he didn’t cancel his magic and was struck by an attack four times stronger than what the girls of their group had determined to be a non-damaging dose of magic. He felt his own blade cut into him.

His whole body wobbled and Yuno fell from the sky and onto the dirt as his consciousness began to slip away.

“YEAH, I WO-uh, Yuno?”

Soft hands touched his skin. Hands that couldn’t have lived a hard life like he had. “Oh God! I think it hit an artery!” Sunset’s voice cut through the coming darkness in a panic. “It’ll be okay, it’s going to be okay. I’ve got you and it’s going to be okay.”

-Four Seconds Ago-

I’m such an idiot, Yuno thought to himself as he landed in the remains of the church and watched his eagle get destroyed almost casually.

After lifting the church, Yuno had used all his concentration to make sure that nobody else was caught up in his wind that he didn’t bother checking to make sure that things were going to plan. Secre had said that the head mage had a chance of not getting caught up in Sunset’s attack, but he should have made sure that the man’s goons didn’t avoid her sword either.

Asta had gone after the wrong guy, but it wasn’t his fault. He couldn’t sense magic like Yuno could.

But Yuno had been too caught up in making sure the building didn’t crumble, and for what? To make sure they kept a few meager possessions?

Now, because of his idiocy, his family was dead.

Yuno tried firing off a few attacks, but after half a day of training and putting more mana into a spell than he ever did before, he was nearly tapped out and his body was aching all over. Even with the damage the diamond mage had taken, Yuno knew he wasn’t going to be a match for the man.

He yelled to Asta, making the boy look up a moment before the mage began gathering power for a spell. Then, when the mage pointed his hand at Asta, the boy took cover behind his sword and braced himself.

Lighting flew from the mage’s hand after a short incantation to strike the black sword not even a moment before Asta braced himself and let out a raging cry. Then, the second-shortest living orphan in Hage Village pushed back on the lighting bolt and sent it hurling towards the caster.

“WHA-” the mage managed to say before several thousands, if not millions, probably billions, volts of electricity slammed into him, getting a loud scream in response before the smell of ozone filled the air and light blinded everyone present.

When Yuno could see again, the bunt corpse of the mage who killed his family was still standing where it had sent the magic to murder the closest thing he had ever known to a mother.

Asta panted, although if it was from the effort or some onset of hyperventilation, Yuno wasn’t sure.

Father Orisi simply stood there, his face looking more old and tired that Yuno could ever remember.

Nash was on his hands and knees, staring blankly ahead.

Nobody moved for several seconds. Yuno wasn’t even sure anyone was even breathing, aside from Asta.

Then, the sound of footsteps coming up the road drew his attention and he looked back to see his little sister running into the remains of the church. “Hey guys. Did it work? Is everyone oh...no,” she breathed.

With the battle finally registering as over, Yuno felt the strength slip from his legs before he hit his knees on the dirty old carpet that lined the space between the pews of the chapel. His eyes began to water despite how much he tried to make them not to.

He couldn’t cry.

He hadn’t cried since he was eight years old and Asta had to save him from a pair of men that wanted the worthless jewel on his necklace.

Ever since being saved by a boy with no magic while he had impressive talent even then and seeing Asta laying on what might have been his deathbed if not for Sister Lilly, Yuno had promised himself that he would never cry again. He would become strong enough so that nobody he loved would get hurt and protect everyone!

Only...he hadn’t been strong enough to protect anyone.

Soft hands touched Yuno, and he looked up to see Sunset standing over him, her own face wet with tears. “I’m sorry,” she told him before pulling him into a hug that buried his face in her chest. “I’m so sorry.”

No, it was my fault...not yours, he thought as the tears began to fall.

If he wasn’t strong enough to protect everyone, then he was weak enough to cry.

“-we therefore commit their bodies to the ground. Earth to earth. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust,” Father Orisi said before speaking the final words in the traditional burial service. A minute later, the cheap caskets that had been made from material the boys gathered from the woods and nails Sunset had ripped from the remains of the church were lowered into the ground before a wave of earth magic buried them.

Most of the village had turned out for the funeral. As a healer, Lilly had spent time with nearly every person there was, fixing some kind of problem when a person got hurt. The rest of the children though, only three of the people other than Orsi himself were there for them.

It had been two days since everything had changed. The first day, Orsi had the children busy themselves with getting what they could from the remains of the church while he prepared things for Lilly’s wake. Despite Yuno’s best efforts and Sunset’s care, the place had collapsed the day after it was moved. Still, at least the children had been able to take the few possessions they owned. Sunset had found her other magic book and hadn’t let the thing out of her sight since, carrying it around as if it was another grimoire.

The crowd started to disperse, leaving him alone with seventy-five percent of the children still under his care. The corpses looked like they had more life in them than the eyes of the three in front of him.

“It was my fault. I took out the wrong guy.”

The other three people looked over to Asta, a bit of energy returning to them. Unfortunately, it was for a purpose that Orsi didn’t approve of as both Sunset and Yuno looked down at him.

“No, it’s my fault,” Yuno said with barely any life in his voice. “I should have checked to make sure the leader was out of commission. I could have ended this before he got up again.”

Sunset quickly followed the tall boy in a tired tone. “I’m the one that’s to blame. I should have made my spell to kill-”

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” Orsi yelled at the three of them before they could begin arguing over who was at the greatest fault. “You will not talk like that here, not in front of them!” He threw a hand out at the graves, only one of which was a real headstone that everyone in the village had chipped in to get, while the others made do with simple wooden crosses that had been stuck in the ground.

As the three children flinched at his voice, Orsi moved to each one in turn. “Asta, if not for you, then that man we sent to the magistrate would have taken the children hostage, attacked Yuno from behind, or worse! Yuno, only a fool takes everything onto himself. If not for you, the building would have collapsed on us all! And you,” he said, moving to Sunset. “How dare you say such a thing, here of all places. Magic is a beautiful thing. A gift from God to lighten the burdens of the world. It is NEVER a weapon that should be used to take the life of another! Your abilities exist to help others. The only one who is to blame lies dead at his own hand, struck down by the magic he himself unleashed! And I NEVER want to hear any of you say otherwise again, understood?”

“Yes Father,” the three teenagers replied in unison.

After a second of silence, Asta looked around. “Is Nash still…”

The question went unfinished and Orsi looked over to the house that had agreed to take the boy in for a few days. All the children were staying with people around the village. “He hasn’t spoken since. No,” Father Orsi told them while doing his best to keep his voice civil.

It hadn’t taken more than a glance to understand what that man Ragus had been doing at the church, looking for Asta. Nash had led them there. And after going through the mage’s things to find a collection of nearly melted yul, it hadn’t taken long to figure out why.

“But, after we get to Nairn, I’m sure he will cheer up, seeing all the new faces at Mother Theresa’s orphanage,” Orsi assured them. It was a false assurance, though. He didn’t know what was to be done about the boy.

Yuno nodded. “We’ll do our best to stop by as soon as we have some time,” he assured the older man.

Orsi nodded. “Of course, I understand that being a magic knight will mean a busy schedule, there’s no need for you to go out of your way,” he told them before looking down at Asta.

A day ago, he had argued with the wizard in charge of the grimoire tower that he had been foolish to encourage Asta to take the Magic Knight Exam. Now, the boy-without-magic’s foolish dream might have been the only thing keeping him going. “And you will be a Magic Knight, Asta,” Orsi told him. “Lilly died to save you. Make sure that it wasn’t for nothing.”

“Yeah.” After a few seconds, the boy’s mouth ticked upward just a bit. “I’ll be more than just a Magic Knight, Father.”

Knowing where this was going, Orsi took Sunset by the shoulder to guide her away from the boys so they could start building each other up again, like always.

“...maybe,” the taller boy’s voice replied.

“OH COME ON!” Asta yelled. “DO YOU THINK SISTER LILLY AND THE OTHERS WANT TO SEE US LIKE THIS? WHEN I BECOME THE WIZARD KING, I’M GONNA COME BACK HERE AND SHOW OFF MY CROWN!”

“The Wizard King doesn’t have a crown.”

It was almost dark as Sunset perched herself on a branch and up against a tree. Asta and Yuno had only recently gone to the homes that agreed to take them in for a week or less. But Sunset didn’t want that married couple that was as young as she was, physically at any rate, to see what she was doing. Which was looking at something she hadn’t pulled out in a long time.

Her journal.

Since Lilly’s death, she had found herself wanting to talk to someone about it, anyone. But the boys needed someone to help keep them steady and Father Orsi just...didn’t get it.

The flutter of wings alerted Sunset to Secre’s presence and she looked up at the bird that Sunset noticed flew off whenever the priest was around the past few days. “Hey.”

“How are you holding up?” the bird asked.

“Well enough...I guess,” she relied before her mind thought back to that day. If only they had done something different…

Secre snorted. “Well, your ability to guess is terrible. You all suffered a loss, but you can’t let that deter you from-”

“Freeing your boyfriend?” Sunset asked evenly before she looked up at the bird. “That’s what you want us to do, right? Get him out of that statue he’s in? That’s why you’re here. What’re you going to do if we die? Go find someone else to be your errand boys? That’s what you immortal assholes do, right? Just move on to find another pawn when one of us crokes or runs away?”

After a few seconds of silence the bird raised an eyebrow. “Something tells me that this isn’t about me anymore.”

Sunset looked back to her journal. “Did I ever tell you what this is?” she asked as she ran her hand across the cover.

“The magical book that lets you talk to your adopted mother, right?” the bird asked.

Sunset pressed her lips together. She should have never told Yuno that stuff back at the tower. It had gotten out and now everyone in their little group kept calling Celestia Sunset’s mom. Which she wasn’t. Not then, or now.

“I locked it away for nearly two years. So why am I looking at it now?” she asked both herself and the bird.

When no answer came from within, Sunset looked up to Secre. “Well, it’s been my experience that when people face something like a close one dying, it puts their life into a whole new perspective. They reevaluate their lives in this new context. Sometimes the outlook sticks,” she said before shrugging. “And sometimes they go back to the old thought process within a few weeks when the shock wears off.”

Sunset opened the book to the last page with writing on it. “So you’re saying I should...what?”

“Wait for what? I’m not even sure what you’re asking about anymore,” Secre replied.

Neither am I, Sunset thought as she read over the last three lines.

It was so easy to lie on paper, but after today...

She looked down at the message that Celestia had left her nearly two years ago.

Sunset, are you there?

You can come back, all is forgiven.

Please, answer me if you are still alive.

Page 5: Lioness

The fourth day after the church had burned down, Sunset and her younger brothers set out on their journey to the capital of the Clover Kingdom. Because of the way the kingdom was designed, with the royals living in and around the capital city itself, the nobles a bit more spread out but still highly concentrated around the main city, the commoners with enough magic to keep the land fresh and bountiful with their magic dotting the land, and the almost magicless people of the Forsaken Realm that Hage Village was in, Sunset knew that they had a journey ahead of them just from the name of their starting location.

The map that Secre had drawn on the ground for them made her even more depressed. Hage Village was as far as you could get into the northern territory of the Clover Kingdom, with the capital being in the center of the southernmost area. “So, we literally have to walk across eighty-two-point-five percent of the entire country,” she deadpanned. Even that was assuming there weren’t half a dozen different mountain ranges in the way and the map was drawn to scale.

Which Sunset doubted. It was the closest thing that there had ever been to actual chicken scratches.

“Said all of your goodbyes?” she asked the kids. Although, the only person they had been close to left the day before they did. Even after all this time, human death rituals were a bit odd to her. Ponies carried their loved ones in their heart. They didn’t need to visit corpses.

“Yes,” the boys both said at the same time.

Sunset moved to the next thing on her mental checklist. “Visited Lilly’s grave?” she asked. Just because corpse appreciation wasn’t a pony thing, but she wasn’t going to step on their traditions.

“Yes,” they both said again, slightly more annoyed.

“Got the traveling supplies?” she went on.

“Yes Mom,” the both said at the same time...again.

“HEY!” Sunset yelled. “I’m not THAT much older than the two of you!”

Asta gave her a grin while Yuno...well, he didn’t do much...but it seemed a bit less than before.

“Alright Sister Lilly, the next time I come back, I’m going to be the Wizard King!” Asta yelled over to the grave markers.

Yuno...turned and started walking.

“Hey,” Sunset said as she quickly moved to catch up with him. “Everything okay?”

The taller boy spared the girl a look and tensed, then let it go with a sigh. “We’re fixing to leave everything I’ve ever known for as far back as I can remember to go to a place I’ve only heard about. Does that sound like I should be okay to you?”

Sunset reached over and took his hand. The human body was a mess of failings, but bipedal locomotion at least allowed for some kind of continuing contact. “It sounds like you’re nervous,” she said. “Nervous about new things is good. If you weren’t-”

“OUTTA THE WAY SLOWPOKES, I GOTTA HURRY UP AND BE THE WIZARD KING!”

The female of the trio sighed and barely kept her head from falling as she watched the boy race past her. “You’d be Asta,” she said after a moment of watching him run down the road.

Yuno looked back at her. “Should we try and catch up to him?”

“We will, and pass him. Pacing yourself is what’s important when traveling distances.”

And so began the journey of a thousand pains in Sunset’s ass…

-Night 1-

The one good thing about the church being destroyed was that Sunset and the boys could make use of the resources that had been left behind. So when it came time to leave, they were able to pack the sleeping bags that the church had for the children that needed to stay extra warm in the winter.

But of course, the boy’s found a problem when it came time to sleep…

“Damnit Sunset, PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!” Asta shouted.

From the place where she had put out her sleeping bag and undressed before crawling into it, the girl crossed her arms under her breasts in a way that pushed them up just a little. “No way, I’m forced to wear clothes all day. I’m sleeping naked. End of story.”

“Yuno, you’re the ladies man, back me up here,” Asta demanded.

Facing away from the other two in his sleeping bag, the taller boy groaned. “Asta, when have you ever actually seen me go on a date?”

Not to be deterred by something as silly as logic, Asta just kept going. “That’s beside the point! She’s a girl! She shouldn’t be naked around us.”

A second later, Secre landed in the middle of the three sleeping bags. “You know, for a guy who has a naked girl riding around on your head all the time, you sure picked an odd time to be bashful.”

Asta blinked. “...I’m going to go to bed, and hope I just forget I ever heard that.”

-Day 3-

Asta knew that Sunset was more than a bit weird. She didn’t wear clothes whenever she could get away with it, had a thing against meat he still didn’t understand after just about two years of living with her, and she had some crazy ideas about how the world worked that just didn’t make sense. If everyone was made up of Adams, then why didn’t they look the same?

However, the way she had been acting for the last few minutes was...just plain freaky.

We’ve got to run along
Off to the future ahead
We’ll take it all on, no matter what
Might try to stop us!

“Okay...I’m confused,” Asta said while Yuno looked around with a frown as their sister sang and danced, going on two-and-a-half-minutes.

There was a flutter of wings before Secre landed on the boy’s head and sighed. “Yeah, Starswirl did this one time too,” she told them. “Just try to roll with it.”

So you can be someone!
Just like the hero that was in my head
I know someday, I’ll find a way to write down the next page!

Yuno let out an annoyed groan as he continued to search the empty sky. “Where’s the music coming from?”

-Night 4-

Sunset sat in the nice, warm, relaxing bath that she had made with a combination of earth, fire, and water magics. After so many days of travel, a good, long soak was exactly what she needed. Unfortunately, it was a pleasure that two of her other travel companions didn’t look like they wanted to take part in.

“Get in the water,” she ordered the boys.

Yuno was all the way turned around while Asta looked up at the sky. “N-No thanks, we...we’re good,” the shorter boy told her.

A growl escaped Sunset’s throat. “We’ve been traveling four days straight. You’re both dirty and you stink! NOW GET IN THE WATER!” She shouted before resorting to drastic measures. There was a loud pop next to Asta before Yuno’s clothes, that were now vacant of the boy in question, fell to the ground before he appeared above the water and fell into it. As for Asta, he found himself floating in the air and his grimoire surrounded by a shield bubble before he could stop himself from being stripped of everything but his underwear and brought into the bath as well.

Then Sunset held up her hand to collect all of the dirt that had washed off her boys with the use of some earth magic and threw the muddy ball of muck out of the water to help keep it clean. “There,” she said happily before leaning back against the edge of her bath. “Was that so hard?”

“I see your control over Unicornian magic has improved,” Secre said from her place near the campfire, where the rest of their things were set up.

Yuno let out a groan and turned around to look in the opposite direction of his big sister that was actually shorter than him. “Wash my back.”

“Sure thing baby brother!” Sunset said happily before fetching a rag from their supplies with her magic.

Asta copied Yuno and looked in the opposite direction of Sunset from his side, which meant he was facing the opposite direction of the other boy. “Okay...I’m just going to have to ask, what is your deal with NOT wearing clothes?” he demanded. “I don’t even think you’ve put on a bra since we left Hage.”

“She hasn’t,” Yuno confirmed while Sunset scrubbed his back, blushing as he did so.

Sunset blinked before she reached down to cup her breasts with her hands, leaving the wash cloth on Yuno’s shoulder. They had grown a little in the time she had come to Clover Kingdom, and she may have put on an inch or two of height as well, but they weren’t so big she needed something to help hold them up. “Eh, I don’t see the point of the things. Or a lot of the stuff you guys wear, for that matter.” Socks and boots made sense, and maybe something to cover the skin, because humans tended to burn when exposed to the sun for too long, but something like a poncho would easily solve that.

“THE POINT IS YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO WEAR CLOTHES!” Asta yelled as he turned around, then froze, as Sunset was facing him with her bare body.

Rolling her eyes at the non-argument, Sunset used some earth magic to create a little bench against the back of their makeshift bathtub before sitting down, putting everything below her shoulders in the water. “That doesn’t explain anything. I can understand needing to protect yourself from the cold and the sun, but going indoors solves a lot of those problems. Back where I come from, wearing clothes was a rarity.”

“...that explains a lot,” Yuno finally said as both the boys momentarily froze at the idea of an entire country of nudists. “And stop asking for Asta to use logic. You know all his brain power went to his muscles.”

Sunset looked over to the taller boy. “Okay then, you give me a good explanation. I did my best not to stand out at the church, but now that I can talk to the two of you without anyone I care about overhearing, I wanna know.”

“I’m pretty sure Father Orsi said something about it,” Asta mumbled as Yuno remained silent.

“...men and women only get naked when they want to...copulate,” the taller boy finally said with some difficulty.

After a few seconds of processing the nonsensical answer, Sunset rolled her eyes again. “Well don’t worry, baby brother. I’m not going to be having sex with you or anyone else, any time soon,” she assured the boy. Sunset’s human hormones might have said that the naked apes were good for breeding, but her pony brain put a big X over that option. “So come and sit down or give me a good reason why you’re just standing there. And if you’re just uncomfortable with it, that can just be solved with some familiarity.”

Yuno stood at his end of the bath for several more seconds before finally taking a seat as far away from Sunset as he could get, which was only a few inches. Space that Sunset made disappear a second later, when she began to wash his face off. “I can take care of that.”

“Awww!” Sunset pouted before moving over to Asta and fetching another cloth with a bit of magic to slap on his bag and start rubbing. “The two of you are the only ones left I get to take care of.” As soon as the words left her mouth, Sunset knew she had said the wrong thing.

All three teenagers tensed for a moment.

“Sorry,” she said.

Asta groaned. “No. You don’t have to apologize,” he told her before moving back to the bench to sit down.

Taking it as an apology, Sunset created another outcropping on the other side of the bath to sit on. “Um...so…” she looked down at the water, unsure of what to say. There were plenty of things not to say, though. Unwritten rules Sunset had become very good at figuring out. She had needed to in order to fit in.

Never talk about what happened.

Don’t talk about any of the other orphans. Nash was okay to discuss though, he was still around.

Talking about specific events at the orphanage was also forbidden.

So, Sunset just said the first thing that popped into her head to end the silence. “I love you.”

Both of the boys blinked and stopped looking in her direction to actually focus on her, making Sunset go on. “Not...you know, husband and wife thing, but...sister...I guess?” she said, fumbling around with the logic of it all and looked down into the water at herself. “Huh...now that I think about it, that’s the first time I’ve ever said those words.”

At least, said them while knowing the weight behind them.

Sunset wasn’t certain, but she might have told the same thing to Celestia when she was so young they didn’t have any real meaning.

“Well,” Asta said, just as uneasy as Sunset. “Those aren’t the kind of words you just say all the time, you know.”

Yuno slid down into the water until he could lean his head back on the rock behind him. “Maybe they should be,” he mumbled. “I don’t think I told any of the kids that for years. Or Sister Lilly.”

“It’s not like they didn’t know,” Asta told him, and himself, most likely.

“But, it’s nice to be reminded,” Sunset said. Or just plain told, she thought to herself.

Looking back on her life before coming to the Clover Kingdom, Sunset felt a little odd. Ponies were an affectionate species. Hugs were given out like candy to casual friends. Sunset had seen this for herself from the window in her room when she hit a roadblock with her lesson and needed to clear her head. A little shame entered her heart as she remembered her mindset back then, looking down at the ponies just walking down the street as if they were inferior to her.

She had been one of them at the start of her life.

Worse than them, in fact.

Sunset had been an orphan. Nobody had wanted her. Even her own parents had thrown her away.

Princess Celestia...well, Sunset had thought the mare was willing to be the pony she wanted the alicorn to be, but that ended up not being the case. With so long separating them and a little more perspective, Sunset still didn’t know if it was because Celestia had just never seen her that way, or had found something wrong with Sunset.

Or why she even cared if Celestia did disapprove of her.

The old nag wasn’t even a part of her life anymore.

So why did it matter to her now?

“Please answer me if you are still alive.”

Sunset grit her teeth. It wasn’t fair that her memory of the fat horse was so complete that she could remember Celestia talking words she never actually said. And her stupid memory was making Celestia say it like she was hurt or something. A tone she never really used.

Curse her traitorous imagination!

Celestia wasn’t in her room, crying, thinking of all the things she had done wrong, looking over a book with her cutie mark on the cover, tears falling from her eyes as she waited in vain for a message that never came. She had never once acted anything like she cared for Sunset. Ever. It was always, rules, duty, lessons, friendship with a bunch of self-important assholes as she played the ‘do what I say, not what I do’ card on a daily basis.

Even their special tea times had become ‘this is what you’re doing wrong despite following all of my orders’ speeches by the end.

It had just been a trick! A pathetic ploy by an old nag too scared to come and get Sunset herself.

“So uh…” Asta spoke up after what Sunset realized had been a long pause. “We supposed to say anything now or…”

Yuno groaned. “After you asked something like that? I’m pretty sure the moment’s been ruined.”

A giggle escaped Sunset’s lips and she looked up to her baby brothers. “Well, I already said it so nah!” she teased them before getting up to take a step forward and wrapping her arms around her boys. Then, just to add insult to injury, she leaned over to kiss Yuno on the cheek.

Since ponies didn’t really do that sort of thing too much, what with the hair and all, Sunset found it an interesting experience. His skin was smooth, and the Summer air combined with the heat from the bath had brought some sweat out to add a salty flavor that did not endure her to the process of putting lips to flesh. Still, she finished with the tall boy and moved on to the other one before he could get away.

Like before, Sunset pressed her lips to the shorter human’s skin and…

“Gah!” the not-unicorn exclaimed as she backed up and grabbed the rag floating in the water, tossed aside by one of the boys to cover the offending child’s head. “Asta, wash your face!”

-Day 5-

“Hey Yuno, you ever wonder why we see the top of stuff before we see the bottom whenever you’re walking up to it from a long way off?”

Yuno looked over to his little brother, then back to the mountain range that they were headed towards. “Not really.”

From her perch on top of his head, Secre stood up a little straighter. “You’d see it a lot sooner if you could fly.”

Since the last member of their group hadn’t said anything, Asta looked over to her. “Hey Sunset, do you know-”

“We’re not having this conversation,” Sunset told him firmly.

“...huh?” Asta asked.

Sunset stopped and looked over to the boy. “Look, you basically just asked the ‘where do babies come from?’ question of archaic civilizations,” she told him. “And I don’t want to get excommunicated, burned at the stake, or answer any stupid questions like ‘why don’t we fall off into the sky then, Sunset? Why don’t we fall off into the sky?’. So you know what? Ask God when you die.”

-Day 6-

The winding mountain path ahead of her made Sunset groan. Although flying via magic without a medium to channel the energy through usually ended up costing more mana than it was worth when it came to traveling long distances, like running full out instead of pacing oneself, it looked very tempting when they started their trek up the mountain.

But before she could tell them this was one of the rare instances that they needed to put forth maximum effort, a boar came out from the bushed near them and charged. It was another reminder how different her world was from the new one.

Back in Equestria, even carnivorous animals didn’t really bother ponies all that much. There were some that would make a big show of things and beat their proverbial chest before chasing a pony off with a messed up coat, but that was all that really happened. They understood that ponies were critical to the balance of the world, and only what could be called monsters, which were simply animals mutated by dark or chaotic magics, did more than rough up an Equestrian.

Here, animals would kill. They cared about territory, but intruders to that territory were usually wounded in a fatal way rather than simply chased off. There was no basic understanding, just primal instincts that they acted on. It had taken Sunset some time to learn that little fact. And even after figuring out most animals would sooner kill you than just ward you off with a stare, the former unicorn still found herself hesitant to attack them.

Which was why Asta, who already had his sword out because he wanted to get some extra strength training in, was able to just jump in and hit the thing so hard Sunset heard a loud snap before it fell to the ground. However, the single blow wasn’t enough to kill it, and the beast was soon letting out screams of confused shock as it thrashed its head about while the rest of its body either refused to move, or didn’t move correctly. “Oh God! J-Just finish it off!” Sunset demanded as she covered her ears to the cries and closed her eyes while her heart thundered in her chest.

When it was over a few seconds later, the touch of Yuno’s hand made her look up and put her hands back to her side. “You okay?”

“Hey come on,” Asta tried to say in something approaching a sympathetic voice. “It charged at me.”

Sunset sighed as her heart started to slow down. “I know, I just…” she looked away, not sure of how to explain it. On an intellectual level, it was a simple matter. The boar had attacked, Asta had defended himself. End of story.

But...the creature’s screams…

And they wonder why I frown at them eating meat, Sunset told herself.

“We should probably stop a bit early today,” Yuno said before looking over to Sunset for a moment. “And, we shouldn’t let the boar go to waste.”

“...I suppose not,” she agreed.

It was already dead after all. Not eating it would be...wrong.

Right?

“Well, duh,” Asta told them before dropping his backpack. “So uh, which knife is good for getting all the skin off?”

Not wanting to throw up, Sunset looked around for a distraction. “I’m going to go get some wood for a fire and uh...go pee or...something,” she said.

“Translation,” Secre provided after landing near the put off boys. “I’m not really looking for wood. But don’t follow us, idiots.”

Sunset learned what she meant by us when the bird came flapping after her not long after. In truth, Sunset didn’t know what she was doing, she just pushed her way through some bushes that didn’t do anything to hurt the leathery pants she had on. That was when she found the boar’s lair. Little more than a large hole in the ground with a bit of elevation at the back to help stop any rain from washing him out.

There were no little baby piglets, thank goodness. That would have been a little too much for her Equestrian sensibilities. Although, her eyes spotted how the boar had managed to survive when travelers to this area were on the rare side. The rocks around its home were covered in a green, mossy slime.

Despite the stupidity of it all, Sunset actually found herself thinking about going back to the boys in order to save them from being marked as corpse eaters for the rest of their lives.

“Hey guys good news, you don’t have to eat meat, look at what I found. We can survive by licking slime from the rocks. We can live off slime!”

Not that they weren’t already guilty of what was considered to be one of the absolute worst things a creature could do in pony society. Lilly had happily told Sunset about one time in the past someone had given her meat in payment for healing.

“You know, if you went and told them what you were, they probably wouldn’t look at you like you were crazy every time someone brings up the idea of cooking something that used to move around under its own power,” Secre said after Sunset found a good place to sit down.

Sunset snorted. “Yeah, that conversation isn’t going to make things even weirder between us.” Humans couldn’t even get along with each other. The chances of them getting chummy with a completely different kind of creature? Never going to happen.

“But here you are, going to the center of human civilization in the Clover Kingdom. Do you have any idea how many tons of animal meat is cooked inside that city every day?” Secre asked, which made Sunset pull in on herself a little bit. “Can you guess how badly your nose is going to get assaulted when we’re there?”

Since the bird was misunderstanding her, Sunset felt to clarify something. “It’s not the smell I mind,” the not-unicorn grumbled. She had never even smelled cooking meat before coming to the Clover Kingdom. In truth, that was actually a little pleasant. “It’s like...oh God, it’s like my version of being naked. Isn’t it?”

After thinking about it for a moment, Secre shrugged. “Well, I can’t really make that call since I honestly don’t know enough about your society.”

“Well, you know we’re equines, don’t call us horses cause it’s an insult, that use magic to control every aspect of our environment down to the weather, right?” Sunset asked. Once she got a nod, the girl went on. “So, we don’t really need to wear clothes. Unless it’s the most drastic cold, we’re pretty good. For us, clothes are quite literally a statement made with fashion. That statement being, look how much money I have.”

“You know humans like to do that with what they wear too, right?” Secre deadpanned.

Sunset threw up her hands. “And I always hated that about clothing,” she ranted. “I lived in a freaking palace, and I had three dresses, three! It doesn’t matter what you’ve got to cover your coat, the only thing that makes you worth anything is what you can do with your horn. But now here I am, prancing around in clothes every bucking day after getting kicked out of the only home I had ever known for over ten years because somebody didn’t want me around anymore!”

“Oh, this is one of your getting things off your chest rants,” Secre said. “...are you done?”

After taking a deep breath and holding it for five seconds, Sunset let it out before not breathing anything in for another two. Then she looked down at the bird. “I guess,” she mumbled before standing back up. “Come on. I got enough things swirling around in my gut. I don’t need to add being hypocritical to them.”

By the time she had gotten back to the boys, they had managed to find some sticks to build a fire and were roasting meat they had carved off of the animal over it using a makeshift spit. The piece of meat was larger than both of them combined. Just the sight of it made Sunset tense. Which in turn had her wondering if that was what the boy’s felt when she flashed them her boobs. “So um...hey,” she said nervously.

But, before they could get into any proper resolution…

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Secre shouted at she flew down and flapped her wings in order to hover in front of the boys angrily. “Don’t you idiots know anything about cooking boar! Do you want to get sick? There’s no way a fire of that size is going to cook that pork all the way through! Not to mention the juices that are going to seep into any outside piece you cut off that does manage to not poison you!”

The moment delayed, Sunset found herself a seat while the old bird went on, instructing the boys how to properly cut the dead animal apart while the former pony forced herself to watch. It was easier, now that the corpse no longer looked like the animal it had been. She idly wondered what the boys had done with the rest of the body and if she should push for trying to use all of the animal as a small justification for its death, or just let it go for practicality sake since Sunset couldn’t think of a use for the bones, while she knew they didn’t have the means of treating the animal skin properly do it didn’t decay too quickly, not to mention stink.

In the end, she went with the self defense moral defense. The boar had attacked Asta, and he had killed it as quickly as he could after injuring it to the point where it could no longer live its life properly. Equestrians might have tried to heal the animal, but they just didn’t have the resources to do that.

And who was to say that it wouldn’t attack and kill the next traveler? Sunset asked herself before clenching her fists and bringing things to a halt before she could go to the next thought in that line. Doing mental gymnastics to turn what happened in a heroic act was a damn slippery slope.

After the boys had finished following the bird’s instructions, Sunset watched the meat cook with a bit of morbid fascination. Why does it have to smell so good? she asked herself before they took the first pieces off, then cut them apart to examine them better and make sure the color had changed properly.

Then, came time for them to eat.

At which point Sunset came by to take a piece and hold it in her hand. It felt...odd, and hot. “So uh...you guys are probably wondering why I’ve got a thing against meat.”

Asta got an odd look on his face and far off look in his eyes for a second, like he was thinking about something else before he shrugged. “Nah. After the way you acted when the boar died, I kind of get it.”

“It crossed my mind before now, yes,” Yuno added as he held his piece of meat on a long knife and took a bite out of it.

Sunset found a seat on the rocky path and took in a breath.

It was weird to try and think of a way to explain things to the boys since...it was just taken at face value. She could explain why the sky was blue, how the light from the sun is scattered after hitting the atmosphere, with blue being the color that gets sent around the most thanks to its particular wavelength. That was a provable fact. Even their own nudity taboo could be summed up as naked equals time to mate, so keep your pants on.

The Equestrian hesitation for not eating meat was...harder.

And it wasn’t just because Sunset used to be a little pony.

“So...the land I came from, things were a lot more bountiful there,” she began, trying to give a bit of needed background. “We didn’t really have a Forsaken Realm, although there were plenty of commoners. And they had a...talent, you could call it, for working the land. Because of that, we didn’t really need to kill animals to feed ourselves. Everything we needed was grown. Killing another living thing just to go on living when there were other options wasn’t something anyone considered right. Don’t get me wrong, we had controls in place to make sure the dangerous animal population didn’t get out of control, but it wasn’t anything really...inhumane.”

Asta stopped eating for a moment and looked down at his food. “You don’t like killing. I can understand that.”

“It’s not like we’re going to force you to-”

Before Yuno could talk her out of it, Sunset put the chunk of burned animal carcass in her mouth. It...didn’t taste bad, per se. It was...tender? Was that the word she was looking for? A bit chewier than expected. Not much...juice, wasn’t there supposed to be blood or something? Where were the bones you could choke on?

When Sunset looked back up at the boys staring at her and moved her eyes away from them. “Yeah well...if you guys can take a bath with me from now on...I can eat corpses with you,” she told them reluctantly. “That’s fair...right?”

“We didn’t agree to that,” Yuno told her.

Sunset snorted. “Well now you have. Now come up with something else to talk about, because thinking about this too much will make me puke.”

Mereoleona Vermillion, the Unconquered Lioness and member of the Crimson Lions sat in the steaming spring she had found two days ago while cutting through the mountains on the border of the Forsaken Realm while on her way up north on a mission. Her brother had gotten some odd reports about a town out in the middle of nowhere experiencing trouble and thought it best to send her to check it out based on what the magistrate had sent them. Because the spring she found was on a large ledge that didn’t connect to the ground or any other part of the mountain path that everyone else could reach without the ability of flight, the young woman had dropped her guard and allowed someone to sneak up on her.

No, she thought while focusing her senses to detect in incoming mana better. Two someones. Powerful, and coming in fast.

The redheaded woman jumped out of the pool she had been heating with her own mana and spun around while gathering an attack in her hand to launch a fireball right as what her mana senses told her was a wind user to explode directly beneath him as him and his partner just went over the tip of the mountain above her.

It was a move Mereoleona had discovered almost by accident during years of combat. If the air around a wind mage was heated, they tended to lose altitude for a few seconds and needed to reorient themselves. Which caused an opening, unless they were extremely skilled.

However, Mereoleona didn’t follow up her opening move when she saw the three teenagers drop out of the sky a moment after her flames dissipated. She simply stood there in confusion as a pair of kids that had enough mana to be mistaken for Diamond Kingdom generals and a third she didn’t sense at all worked together to get things under control. The girl showered the air beneath them with cold water before the boy that was obviously a wind user created another miniature tornado that slowed their descent to the point the three of them landed just fine, right as the third member of their pulled out a black sword from his grimoire that looked like it weighed more than he did.

“OKAY, WHO IN THE-GAAAAH!” the shortest of the trio, a boy with gray hair in a headband, shrieked. “Lady, PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!”

As Shorty was still looking around, before he shouted, the wind user pulled out his grimoire, and the girl began to coalesce the mana around her into a tighter defensive posture.

What? Mereoleona asked herself while she watched the girl form a very crude mana skin. Something nobody her age should have been anywhere close to making.

Since the newcomers didn’t attack and it didn’t look like there was going to be a fight, with two of the strangers so put off by her lack of dress that they could barely even look at her, Mereoleona crossed her arms. “No.”

The other boy looked to the girl. “What is it with you redheads and walking around naked all the time?”

“Oh for crying out loud,” the redhead in the group grumbled. “I JUST SLEEP WITHOUT CLOTHES ON...these days.”

Mereoleona blinked at the oddity of the whole thing. They obviously weren’t enemies, but the fact they were coming from the North when she was so close to the Forsaken Realm wasn’t lost on her either. She was practically in the longitudinal center of the Clover Kingdom. Any incursions would have been coming from the West, where the Diamond Kingdom shared a border with them.

Then there was the oddity of their mana. Kids with the level she was seeing appeared maybe once in a generation, the odds of two of them together was mind boggling. And the third kid went from odd to downright freakish when Mereoleona checked him over multiple times and found nothing. Judging by the sword he had just pulled out of his grimoire, it wasn’t because of some anti-detection magic that was used for something as cowardly as assassinations, the boy simply didn’t have any mana.

“Hey, where the hell did you brats come from?” she asked while feeling out for her grimoire that was still by the mountain spring with her own magic in preparation to summon it to her.

The boy with the gray hair opened his mouth. “We’re…” then he just stopped before frowning down at himself and grumbling something Mereoleona couldn’t quite hear.

When that was all she got, Mereoleona felt her very short supply of patience take a nose drive. “I ASKED YOU KIDS A QUESTION!”

“Isn’t the one who asks for something like that supposed to give her name first?” the kid with the black hair pointed out.

As the oddity of the situation hit her, with these brats with impossible levels of mana meeting Mereoleona in the middle of nowhere, not having any idea of who she was despite looks that should have given it away immediately, and a magical novice calling her on a lack of manners, the Crimson Lioness threw her head back and laughed before looking back at the children. “You know what, you’re right! I like you kids. My name’s Mereoleona Vermillion. I’m a Magic Knight of the Clover Kingdom.”

No reaction came from her family name, but the kids loosened the grip on their tension and introduced themselves simply as Yuno, Asta, and Sunset. Then the girl stepped forward and offered her hand in greeting while the boys, free from the assumption that Mereoleona was a threat, quickly turned their eyes to another direction from her. “Nice to meet you, ma’am. We’re on our way to take the Magic Knight Exam,” she said in a much more friendly manner.

There was no lie in her eyes, but the absurdity of someone not knowing who a member of a royal family after being introduced seemed ludicrous. “Where are you kids from?” Mereoleona asked before taking the girl’s hand.

She intended to give it a firm shake, but the feeling the older redhead was getting stopped her. The girl’s mana felt...different. Not wrong, per say, but not like other people she had felt before. It had a calming, almost friendly presence that Mereoleona would have thought was trying to ensnare her in some way if it didn’t feel so damn benign. It rolled off and around her own aura, almost like the girl’s magic was greeting the woman’s mana as well.

“Hage Village,” Sunset told her.

Mereoleona tightened her grip on the girls hand. “The town where General Ragus was supposed to have been offed by a pair of brats after blowing away a church?”

After a few seconds, Sunset blinked. “Who?”

It was nearly dusk as the woman with the fit body and slender facial features that had introduced herself as Mereoleona threw her head back and laughed at the ending to Sunset’s story as they sat in the unnatural hot spring that the woman was heating with her magic. “So, you’re telling me that idiot Ragus shot right at a weapon that reflects magic and got fried by his own attack?” she asked before erupting into laughter again. “Oh man! What I wouldn’t have given to see that.”

“Hey!” Sunset growled. “I just got done telling you how most of the people I care about are dead. You can try to use a little tact!”

Mereoleona stared at her for a second, then reached up to rub the bridge of her nose. “Right,” she said before looking back at the girl. “Sorry about that. Spending so much time away from other people makes me forget all my manners, not just the stupid ones. I’ll offer my apologies to the dead when I get to Hage as well.”

Sunset looked over to the sleeping form of the boys with an even expression. After meeting the woman and making introductions, there was some sharing of information as just what had happened in Hage and why it was taking her this long to get there since the trouble had been so long ago.

Instead of being angry with Sunset, Mereoleona gave the girl the sad truth. There just weren’t enough magic knights to send way out there to a sparsely populated place like Hage, with its natural defenses to the north and no important resources. The only reason she was even going was because the guy that had gotten offed was some important bigwig in the enemy kingdom, and if there was something else going on, like Diamond creating some kind of staging area, Mereoleona was to scout out the area and report back.

Then came the smalltalk, with Asta declaring that he would be the Wizard King, and directions given by the woman to make sure they were going in the right direction. Secre said she attended the Exam every year to look for trouble in the kingdom and listen to the captains gossip, but getting directions on where to go from a bird when their airtime was limited was just begging for trouble.

Which led to it being dinner time and the boy’s remembering the large piece of meat they had to leave back on the ground because the giant boar Asta had had more meat on it than all three of them combined. So, Mereoleona offered to teach the kids how to preserve their food, which took the rest of the day and led to them spending the night halfway on the other side of the mountain.

By eight o’clock, Yuno was tired out enough to sleep and Asta had worn himself out as well, deciding to train his muscles if they were stuck in one place for the night.

As for Sunset, she found herself considering the first real magic knight that she had ever met for most of the day, studying her as Mereoleona examined Asta out of curiosity and had him hit a fireball with his weapon before also cutting it. The end result of which was that she hadn’t been nearly as tired and joined the woman in the spring after the sun set.

“Mind if I ask you something personal?” Sunset asked hesitantly as she sunk into the water a little.

Mereoleona leaned back against the rocks and snorted. “Only if you stop asking if you can ask questions and just grow some balls so you can ask them right out.”

The woman’s crude response got a groan from Sunset before she sat back up. “Why did you join the Magic Knights, and why is someone like you way out here in the sticks?”

“That’s two questions, but at least you didn’t ask for permission again. That’s an improvement, I suppose,” she replied before her eyes got that look human’s did when they weren’t really looking where their eyes were facing, but into the past. “Why I joined the Knights pretty much boiled down to the fact I had power and power and wanted to throw it around. But as to why I’m here...it’s because I’m a coward.”

Sunset blinked at the unexpected answer from the woman. “Come again?”

Mereoleona snorted. “There are plenty of cowards in the world, kid. Not all of us cower in a corner when the shit hits the fan,” she said before looking down at the water. “It’s not bragging to say that I might be one of the most powerful Magic Knights alive, but I got problems with my temper and tend to blow up when I get pissed off...literally. I burned down my family estate during a heated argument with my brother. When my family tried to make me a magic knight captain, I got out of there as fast as I could and only come back for holidays and other important things. I can’t stand the politics of being in charge. But instead of trying to face my problems and better myself, I just ran out here to punch things and patrol the border.”

Then she looked back up at the younger redhead. “So why’re you joining the Magic Knights? People don’t ask a question like that unless they’re either looking for an answer outside themselves, or are hitting on me,” Mereoleona replied as she put her arms up on the rocks behind her, making her chest stick out a little more. “Not that I mind, but you’re a little young for my tastes.”

The casual comment about her sexuality was tossed aside by Sunset without batting an eye as she focused on the real question. “Well...that’s the thing,” she said before looking up into the sky. “When I agreed to do this whole magic knight thing, I had a specific goal in mind. Being a knight was just a stepping stone to that. But the more I walk towards that goal, the more I see it as not really being my goal. I’m just doing what other people want me to do...like always.”

“Hey,” Mereoleona said. “You can’t just leave me hanging like that you know. I hate it when people lay out a piece of verbal bait like that and don’t follow up on it.”

Sunset wiggled her toes in the warm water, enjoying the feeling of the alien appendages as she tried to think of the best way of explaining things. “Well, Yuno and Asta were telling the truth when they said we were all orphans. The part they didn’t say was that I wasn’t really an orphan for as long as them. Back where I come from, I was taken in by another woman around the age of six. She was rich and powerful, and gave me an education. The people under her domain are happy and lead productive lives. I’ve seen her pardon criminals for all but the worst crimes. But...I found out something about her, that she had been lying to me my whole life and when I demanded what I thought was rightfully mine at the time, she kicked me out of the mansion and I ran away using a spatial magic item that dropped me off in Hage Village.”

The seconds of silence that followed became a minute, then two, and then several. Mereoleona just stared at Sunset and the girl found herself wilting under her piercing gaze until she sunk back into the water up to her chin. “What was it you wanted?” she finally asked.

“I wanted…” Sunset froze before she could finish the sentence and dropped her head. “I wanted her to love me. I wanted her to prove it by giving me power and authority equal to hers. Looking back, I...didn’t say it in the best of ways, but Celestia is old enough to have known that. And she still just kicked me out of her house, telling me to go live in the nearby town.”

“...you’re not from the Clover Kingdom, are you?” Mereoleona asked as her eyes narrowed.

Sunset simply shook her head in response.

“Heart Kingdom...maybe? Talks about love and junk enough,” the Magic Knight went on, mumbling more to herself than asking Sunset. “Eh, who cares?” She looked back up to the girl. “Well, least it explains your personality. You’ve been a good little girl who’s gotten a pat on her head her whole life, never being taught to think for yourself, because the moment you did, the moment you saw your owner as something other than perfect, she kicks you out.”

With such a harsh summarization of what hat happened, Sunset frowned at Mereolenoa. What the hell did this woman know about anything? “That’s not what happened!”

Mereoleona snorted again and her frown deepened. “Oh really? Okay, so I’ve got a theory. Tell me if I’m wrong here. This Celestia lady, she’s running her fiefdom, and one day comes across you as a little brat. Seeing the amount of mana you got, she goes ‘Crap! This kid’s going to be a real powerhouse some day, and since I’m such a spinster, I better snatch up the bastard to make use of her’. Maybe those uses would have been good ones, I don’t know,” the woman told Sunset with a shrug. “Celestia’s nice to you, she might even be a nice person in general. You said she’s a good noble that helps her people, so I’ll take you at your word since I never met her. But there’s a big difference between being nice to your attack dog and letting it eat at the family table.”

“HEY!” Sunset yelled before standing up in the water with a clenched fist at the insult to...her? Celestia? She wasn’t really sure.

“What? Don’t like me talking bad about the woman who did things like make sure you can read and write, do math, and all that other stuff on top of magical training?” Mereoleona asked rhetorically before going right on. “Good! You should feel thankful to her for all those things. But from what I can tell, this wannabe mom of yours was no saint when it came to actually raising you. She gives you a good foundation, but doesn’t teach you anything you need to live on your own. You get kicked out of the house, but with no money or anything else, you would have been forced to live in the land she controlled. Hell, she probably expected you to come crawling back after finding lumps in the local bed and flies in the soup.”

Her anger starting to crumble at the logic of the argument, Sunset let her butt rest against the warm stones that surrounded the natural hot spring. “But...that’s not...Celestia’s too a good person for that,” she said without much heat in her voice.

Mereoleona sighed. “Good people can do bad things, especially when they have a reason they think is good to do it under,” she explained. “I’m gonna be honest. Just from looking at you kid, you’re fucking terrifying. You and that brat with the black hair have as much mana I’ve seen from kids your age and your skills are nowhere near fully developed. Five years or less and the two of you will be walking all over Knight Captains if you get the right kind of training under your belts. If I had to point to the next Wizard King, it would be either you or him.”

“Heh,” Yuno’s the one who wants to be the Wizard King,” she said before sinking back into the bath with a little smile at how him and Asta would fight over that. Which...she didn’t remember them doing on the trip, so far.

Was that something she needed to be worried about?

“Which brings me back to my original question before you decided to deflect me into talking about your wannabe mommy,” Mereoleona asked her, being as forward as anyone possibly could.

Sunset looked away and rubbed her arm. “I told you, I’m just...doing it because other people want me to.”

“That’s not an answer!” Mereoleona snapped at the girl. “You don’t walk through miles of untamed wilderness, on your way to a test where a ton of mages stare down in judgement at you just because someone else tells you to! A person with that level of conviction would have run back home before nightfall!”

The home comment made Sunset clench her fists. “But I don’t have a home anymore! I got kicked out of my first one, and the second I had found some happiness in the second, some bastard mage came along and burned it down with most of the people I love still inside” she yelled back at the woman. “And those two idiots you tried to barbecue are the only two that made it out!”

Mereoleona smirked a little before she leaned back again. “So, you want to stick with your family.”

“There all I have left,” she mumbled as the anger inside of her slowly seeped out. Nash was little more than a walking doll at this point, and Father Orisi had never really been that special to her. “Yuno and Asta are the ones that want to be the Wizard King, I just...want to be with them.”

After a few seconds of silence, Mereoleona smirked. “So, you’re exactly where you should be. That’s good.”

Sunset blinked and looked up at the woman as she stood up in the water. “Huh?”

“Kid, you’re fifteen,” Mereoleona told her. “If you actually knew what the hell you wanted to do with the rest of your damn life, I’d be worried. Sure, those two brats you’re palling around with got big aspirations, but wanting to be number one and knowing the path you’re supposed to take to get there are two very different things. There’s a reason we only have a single spell in our grimoires when we get them. Life doesn’t come with instructions, you figure it out as you go along.

“You want to keep the people precious to you safe? That’s admirable. Going with them to help them achieve their dreams is even moreso,” she went on. “But while you’re holding onto those ideals, trying to figure out what it is that’s going to make you even more happy when you do it yourself. Then see if you can reach out to grab it while you’re sticking to the path you’re on now, or if you’ll need to let the boys go their own way while you chase after what you really want.”

When it looked like Mereoleona had finished, Sunset gave her a little smile as she stood up out of the water. “Thanks for the advice, Ms Mereolenoa,” she said as the other woman got out of the water and simply burned off the water clinging to her with a fiery aura.

Since she was still trying to look like she had an icy aura, Sunset just used water manipulation to pull off the moisture clinging to her skin before getting her things. Her eyes wandered to the woman’s bright red grimoire, the only type of spellbook that she hadn’t seen with creation magic tied into its pages, as a farming community tended to have earth magic users aplenty. It was just too tempting.

“Say, mind if I have a peek at your grimoire?” Sunset asked sweetly.

The older redhead gave her a curious scowl. “Why?”

Sunset blinked at the question, not sure of how to answer. She didn’t want to lie to the woman, but telling the truth wasn’t really an option either. “Well...I guess it’s for...inspiration,” she finally explained, walking the careful line between truth and fiction. “Plus, I like to look at the illustrations. And seeing how many spells you’ve got is a good measuring stick to see how long a newbie like me has to go.” Which was the truth. Spells were easier to learn with an example to go off of.

“Yeah, I’m gonna call bullshit. But here,” the woman said before tossing her book to Sunset. “It’s not like you can burn the damn thing.”

It was well before dawn as Mereoleona stood over the three travelers she had run into on her way to Hage Village, which probably didn’t need her to go there anymore. But she had made a promise to the redhead to apologize to her family, so there was still a reason to go.

After spending a day with the children, she could see that they were holding up great.

And that was the problem.

Kids their age shouldn’t have been just getting on fine after losing everything.

If Mereoleona was going to have to visit the graves of a bunch of kids who had looked up to these three and the woman who had taken care of them, then she would need to make sure that she had done everything possible to ensure that they weren’t a bunch of ticking time bombs of pent of grief that was going to turn to rage and blow up in everyone’s faces.

Of course, Mereoleona had noticed a few odd things. Two years was a long time to obsess over some bitch that kicked you out after you found a replacement for her, and while she tried to hide it, Sunset did her best to not look at the dried jerky that the magic knight had made for them while explaining how to do it. Considering that her family had been cooked by lightning magic, Mereoleona could understand her wish to avoid things that reminded her. Out of the three, she was probably the closest to actually dealing with what had happened.

Yuno was withdrawn. She had seen his type before, the cool kid that hid everything that went through his mind and tried to be as stoic as possible. He would be the one to hold the most in until it was ready to blow. When people like him broke, they broke hard.

As for Asta...from what she could tell, he was in denial. He had plenty of practice at it. The boy talked about wanting to be Wizard King without an ounce of magic after all.

“OKAY YOU RUNTS GET UP! NOW! NOW! NOW!”

Mereoleona grinned to herself as the three little cubs groaned and slowly rose out of their sleeping bags. Two of them started to get up, but the female of the group just looked around before letting out a groan and flopping back down in her nest. The response to which was Mereoleona pulling out her grimoire and casting a spell that helped give form to her fiery aura. Then she extended her will and stood there as a lion’s paw reached out from said aura to grab Sunset by the head before yanking her out of her bedding and bringing her over to hang by her head in front of a frowning Mereoleona. “When I tell you to get up, I expect to be obeyed.”

Hanging naked by a manifestation of flame grabbing onto her head, Sunset didn’t seem that bothered, or even very aware of her situation. “Expectations…” she paused and raised her hand to let out a loud yawn. “Subverted.”

Mereoleona tossed the girl into the nearby spring, getting a squawk from Sunset before the girl came out of the water that had to be extremely cold despite being in the grips of Summer to glare at her. “Hey! What the hell’s your problem, old lady?”

“I’m thirty-two! That’s the prime of my life!” the older woman shouted back at the kid before moving so she could address all three of them while the girl made herself dry with some minor use of water magic. “Now, from what I calculate, you three brats are about a week from the capital if you can just hop over major obstacles like a mountain range or two. So, that means I can play with you for a good three days to make sure you’re ready for the Magic Knight Exams.”

There was a collective stare of disbelief from the three teens before Yuno raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think we’re not ready now, and how are three days going to change anything?”

Not used to being questioned by anyone, Mereoleona jumped into the boy’s face. “Because I’m a magic knight, and that means I know what it takes to get on a squad!” she roared before taking a step back. “Now listen up! To be a member of the Magic Knights, you need unshakable conviction, unerring judgement, and passion that lights the air on fire!”

“YEAH!” the Asta boy shouted with his fist pumped before both of his companions looked over to him with half-lidded eyes. “Uh...got caught up in the moment.”

Yuno rubbed his temple a bit. “And you want to do this, why exactly?”

Mereoleona gave him a stern look. “Because I made a promise to your big sister to go to your village and ask your dead family to forgive a slight against them,” she answered him firmly. “And I’m not going to be the one to tell them that you’ll be back to live in the ruins of your old house anytime soon. Of course, you can always ignore my advice, fail, and tell them yourselves.”

“You need to stop talking now,” Yuno warned her.

Almost immediately, Asta moved to back him up by stepping forward. “Yeah! I’m going on to be the Wizard King!” he said before half glancing over at the other boy for a fraction of a second, then back to Mereoleona.

The odd movement wasn’t lost on Mereoleona.

As for Sunset, she finished putting the pants on from the day before, but her top was a faded green dress that had obviously seen some wear. “So, we can take down a general of a rival kingdom,” she said, getting a small flinch from Asta, “but just getting into the Clover Kingdom’s defense forces is beyond us?”

“Pfft, a drunken monkey with a broken bottle can kill a Diamond Kingdom mage,” Mereoleona replied as she waved away the achievement like it was nothing. As she did though, her eyes detected another minute movement in the short boy’s body. It wasn’t that she had dismissed his accomplishment. Something else was eating at Asta. “So, I’ll spend one day with each of you while the other two are off gathering supplies for your journey. That way, you won’t have to waste time foraging or get yourselves killed by going through a lean area where there isn’t anything editable for miles.”

The three kids shared a look again before Sunset gave a pensive groan. “Okay, that...makes sense. The food thing I mean. So...who goes first?”

Since she already had an idea of what to do with the girl, Mereoleona pointed at Sunset. “I’ll take you kid. The rest of you, run along now.”

-Training Day 1-

Okay, maybe I was wrong about this girl, Mereoleona thought to herself as she watched Sunset’s mana condense around her body to form a tight layer of protection that was less than an inch thick. Calling her terrifying had been an insult. She’s downright nightmarish.

It wasn’t a stretch to say that Mereoleona was one of the top three mages in the country, counting the Wizard King. She was of royal blood, and unlike many of the powerful mages that just sat around and let their magic come naturally, she developed her powers on the battlefield, then took it one step beyond that by training her body and pushing herself even further past such silly things like limits. Her skills in mana manipulation were second to none, and there were times when she felt like she didn’t even need her grimoire to cast her most versatile spell: Lion’s paw.

But the child in front of her made what should have been a struggle look easy.

One hour. It had taken her a single hour to go from just hearing about the technique to getting it perfect without any outside influence to threaten her. Most newbies needed a high magic zone pushing down on their mana to help them focus and get used to the process. Mereoleona herself had learned the technique while staving off the killer heat from a volcano.

The girl in front of her had done it in the middle of a calm Summer’s day and completed the technique in the time it took most people just to get started on it. It would take an actual battle to see if she could keep calm enough under pressure to maintain concentration and provide mastery of the move, but Mereoleona didn’t see that being a problem for Sunset in the future.

“Well that’s interesting,” the little girl said as she examined her hand. “It’s more accurate to call it a cell wall than a skin. This would filter out toxins in the air and help regulate temperature too. I wouldn’t even be surprised if this could throw off enchantments other people might try to cast on me. Wait...this is why the mana zone was so stressful, I didn’t have a way to regulate it properly.” She looked back at the woman. “So, do all mana skins work the same, or does each attribute do things differently?”

Mereoleona blinked. Did that little girl just analyze the entire technique and break it down with a glance? It took actual experience to do that! Alarm bells started ringing in Mereoleona’s head like crazy and she found herself taking a step back. “Okay...what’s going on?”

The mana around the girl vanished from the visible spectrum and she looked over to the taller redhead in confusion. “Ms Mereoleona?”

Trying to find some kind of answer to the question of what the girl was in front of her, she pointed a finger as Sunset. “Nobody learns Mana Skin that quickly, especially without some kind of pressure pushing down all around them!”

Sunset blinked and took a step back. “W-Well, maybe you’re just a good teacher.”

“BULLSHIT!” Mereoleona roared.

After being called on her BS, the other redhead tensed before taking in a deep breath and letting it out. “You know what? Fine...you’re just some crazy lady out in the middle of nowhere, not like it’s going to make a difference, so…” Sunset said before taking another deep breath while Mereoleona prepared for some kind of trick. “I’m really a magical talking unicorn from another dimension that came here through an interdimensional portal after being kicked out of a palace by a pretty pony princess because I said I wanted to be a princess too and she was all like, no about it. Then I came here.”

Mereoleona...stood there. Her expression limp. Her eye twitching...slightly.

“He...hehe...hahaha….HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Mereoleona laughed before falling on her ass, the tension fleeing from her body at the absurdity of it all. When she was done, the woman looked up at the girl with a feral smile. “Okay yeah...you’re right. I was being way too serious there for a moment,” she said before standing back up. “Guess I’m a bit jealous. You’ve got some real talent.”

Sunset took another step back and put her hands up to try and ward off the larger woman. “Uh...thanks?”

After moving forward anyway and slapping the girl on the back, Mereoleona rubbed her head to mess up her hair. “Okay, now...you’ve got a good grasp of magic, but what about physical stuff?”

Still giving Mereoleona a cautious eye, Sunset gave her answer very slowly. “Well...I used to do chores at the orphanage, but...I’m starting to think I need to do a bit more to keep in shape.”

“Good!” Mereoleona told her. “Bunch of magic knights just sit on their asses these days, sipping wine and jacking off! You need to keep yourself fit if you want to make it in the Magic Knights. Oh, and...you should also probably get a bra if you plan to exercise regularly too.”

Sunset frowned and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Bras are evil.”

Hearing that bit of wisdom made Mereoleona snort. “I’ll give you the name of a good seamstress, she can make you some custom ones,” she said before moving on to the more serious topics. “Now, you mind telling me what’s going on with those two boys you’re hauling around. Not to sound like an ass or anything, but...kids your age shouldn’t be doing too good after just seeing everyone they love die.”

“That’s not really any of your business,” Sunset told her.

Mereoleona frowned back at her. “It is if you’re wanting to join the Magic Knights. The only thing worse and a layabout knight is one that’s unstable. I need to know you kids aren’t going to break down or blow up when performing your duties. I think I’ve got a line on the short one, but tall, mute and handsome is a little mystery. You wanted to get some things off your chest the other day, what makes you think they don’t?”

After sitting down on the grass Sunset sighed. “There’s something bothering Asta too?” she mumbled. “I thought I had Yuno figured out, but I’m an idiot for not seeing it in him as well. I guess because he’s always so loud, I expected him to just shout it out at me.”

“So you know what’s up with the pretty boy?” Mereoleona asked. “Think it’s something you can handle?”

Sunset took in another deep breath. “I’ve got to, don’t I? I’m all they have left.”

Seeing the girl tense up, the older woman pressed her lips together. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing that she wanted to be responsible for the boys. “You’re a bit young for all that.”

“So, I’ll just have to grow up fast then,” Sunset told her. “It’s past time I did, anyway.”

-Training Day 2-

Mereoleona watched the boy just go through the motions of swinging his sword in precise strokes in an obvious exercise to build up strength as well as muscle memory. She let her mind wander a little as she watched the boy, thinking of his chances of actually getting into the Magic Knights, despite not having a bit of magic.

The anti-magic he possessed was certainly no joke. She had gotten a demonstration of its abilities herself by having him cut through a flaming barrier like it wasn’t even there on top of her spells from the first day. It didn’t matter how strong a mage’s defenses were, the boy could tear right through them. Still, no mana meant he had next to no defense, maneuverability, long-range offense, or means of attacking someone at a higher vantage point. He had built his muscles up in an attempt to compensate and could get from point A to point B fast enough that he might as well have had some low-tier enhancement magic on his legs, but the natural abilities of the human body had their limits.

At best, the kid would always be stuck at the bottom of the barrel.

And, there’s his other little problem, Mereoleona told herself with a frown. “So kid, how’d it feel when you killed Ragus?” she asked right as the boy was getting to the hundredth swing of his sword.

Asta tense up at the last moment and the black blade slipped out of his hands, flying a few feet before landing on the grass. “I...it…” he mumbled before looking over to the taller woman. “What?”

For a second, Mereoleona thought about taking his sword and giving it back to him, but decided to be cautious and simply walked past it to get in the boy’s space. “That bad, huh?”

“I didn’t kill him,” Asta said without that fire in his voice before backing away. “He did that himself.”

Mereoleona stood another step forward and made sure to keep her voice calm. This wasn’t something that could be dealt with by intimidating the kid to confront the issue. “If you honestly believed that, you’d still be holding your sword.”

After taking another step back and finding a rock behind him to sit on, Asta looked at it for a moment, then frowned. “Okay! So I killed him, so what? HE KILLED SISTER LILLY! HE DESERVED IT!”

“Probably,” Mereoleona told him with a nod. The man had done far worse than kill a simple nun in the middle of nowhere. She was just the last on a long list of names, a good many of them from his own kingdom. “But that isn’t changing the fact that you’re letting it eat you up inside. You think the Magic Knights are going to let someone like that rise to the top?”

Asta tensed again before sitting down on the rock behind him, his arms resting on his knees. “It’s not that,” he said after a few seconds before looking back up at the magic knight. More time passed as his face told Mereoleona that there was some real thinking going on in his head. “Promise you won’t tell Yuno or Sunset?”

After giving him a quick assurance, Asta looked back down at the ground. “I’m happy he’s dead.”

When it seemed like that was it, Mereoleona gave him a ‘come on’ gesture with her hand to prompt him for some more. “Okay...and?”

“I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO FEEL LIKE THAT!” Asta yelled up at her before clenching his fist and looking back down. “My life, my entire life, I’ve had people look down on me and make fun of me because I have no magic. But Sister Lilly and Father Orisi have always taught me to forgive, to pity the people who think like that, because they’ve already closed themselves off to so many possibilities. And I have, I don’t hate the people that look down on me. But then...then this guy comes along and-and just...kills someone. And then I kill him. And I hated him. I mean, not right then, I didn’t have the time. But now, I hate him even though he’s gone. And I’m glad he’s dead and I’m not supposed to be like this, but I am and...and...” He looked back up at her with tears in his eyes. “Does that make me a bad person?”

Mereoleona walked over a few steps to find another place to sit down and crossed her arms in thought. “Kid, life is the most precious commodity there is in this world. More than magic, money, food or anything else. Each person only gets one,” she told him. “I’ve been on the battlefield for several years now. I’ve seen people take lives and I’ve done it myself a few times. When you kill a person, there’s a weight to it. It’s a weight you carry around for the rest of your life. Good people bear that burden and make sure it doesn’t get to be too much. Bad people choose to ignore it. You can be glad he’s dead. You can be glad that he can’t hurt anyone else. Because the fact that you’re worried the weight of his little two ounces worth of a life is going to weigh you down tells me you’re a good person. Better than a good many I’ve worked with over the years. And as long as you can remember that every life has weight to it, you’ll stay a good person.”

With Secre staying back with the redheaded woman to keep an eye on Asta, Sunset followed Yuno as they made their way through the mountains, collecting what they could in one area before moving on. Although Lilly had shown her things like what mushrooms were edible around Hage Village, Sunset wasn’t having much luck finding anything that would help them hold off starvation without some very interesting psychedelic effects added in.

So, since they had some privacy and the edible food hunt wasn’t going well, Sunset decided to go after a much more elusive prey: Yuno’s feelings.

“Hey Yuno, feel like talking about what’s bothering you?” she asked.

The tall teen said nothing for several seconds as he scanned the path ahead. “The lack of food around here, for one thing.”

Since the soft but direct approach didn’t seem to be working, Sunset decided to try and get a more autonomic response. “So, Mereoleona told me she thinks that Asta has what it takes to be the Wizard King.”

Yuno didn’t even bother looking back at her as he continued to lead them down the trail. “...meh.”

Not hearing what she should have, Sunset frowned as she considered her options. Was this just him being in a funk, or something worse? Should she be gentle, or go for the tough love approach? Just the thought of hurting the boy made Sunset’s heart ache...but sparing her feelings to just let the boy simmer in his...whatever it was that was going on inside of him was the coward’s way out.

So she took in a deep breath and steeled herself. “Wow. Lilly and the girls must be looking down at you in disgust right now.”

Yuno managed to take one last step before his entire body froze. “...what?” he whispered barely loud enough for Sunset to hear.

“So what exactly is going through your head? Are you trying to punish yourself because they died and you didn’t? Because you didn’t stop it somehow?” Sunset asked before frowning at his back. “I admit that I may not understand everything, but I haven’t you do your half of the Wizard King spiel with Asta since we started this little road trip, and the only thing that’s changed since then is a piece of trash came along to kill the closest thing to a family that I’ve ever had. So, are you actually using them as some kind of excuse to give up on your dream? Or is it something I’m not getting?”

Slowly, Yuno turned around to glare at her. But it was a halfhearted glare, with sunken eyes that just didn’t have any anger in them. “It’s not an excuse,” he finally said. “Everyone I cared about is gone. What’s the point of being the Wizard King if the reason I had to get the position doesn’t exist anymore?”

Sunset took in a deep breath and ordered her thoughts. “Huh...and here I thought Asta would have been the subjective one. But it’s really you, isn’t it?” she asked rhetorically as she leaned up against the edge of the mountain. “Did you ever even really want the job in the first place?”

“Of course I did,” Yuno told her before sighing. “But those were the dreams of a child. It’s one thing to say, we’ll make everyone’s lives better and protect them, when the truth is I couldn’t even think that big when I was six. I just saw my family in poverty and everyone else around me not much better off. The Wizard King was this big shining thing that would let me make it all better if I could get the title. I even had a dozen ideas of what to do when I became king, up until they day they all died. Now, it just doesn’t seem as important compared to holding onto what I have left.”

The declaration birthed an uneasy feeling in Sunset’s heart. His last words seemed very much like her own feelings at the moment. But hearing them from him seemed...wrong, somehow. Neither of her boys should say such things. “Yuno...please don’t be like me,” she begged him softly.

Yuno raised an eyebrow. “Hm?”

“I’m a lot of things. Dishonest, manipulative, but most of all, I’m selfish,” she said. “I’m going on this trip because I just want to be with the two of you. I don’t give a crap about the Knights, the Clover Kingdom, or anything else. I just want to be with my boys. When it comes down to it, the rest of the world could burn for all I care.”

Tears dripped from her eyes at the admission before Sunset looked up at him. “But you’re better than that!” she told him. “It hurts, for the people you care about to just...stop. I know it does! But don’t use that as a reason to not be everything you can be! I’m not saying that you have some kind of responsibility because you got a four leaf clover, but not living up to your potential, then looking back in a few years at everything you didn’t do...all you will have is a life of regret over what might have been.”

Like her.

Yuno reached down towards the redhead. “You’re not selfish, Sunset,” he told her before pulling the girl into a light hug. Considering how little physical contact the boy had gotten in his life it was rather amazing that he could tell she needed one. “But...if you think it would make Lilly and the others happy-”

Before the boy could finish, Sunset poked him in the side to get some room and glare up at him. “What I think is that everyone you loved wants you to be happy,” she told him sternly. “Maybe that means being the Wizard King. Maybe that means something else. But what it doesn’t mean, is sulking around and just settling to be mediocre.

“I know it’s hard. I know it’s not going to happen overnight,” she went on. “But, you need to stop...standing still. Stop just letting everything take you along. Even if it’s just a single step each day, you need to keep moving forward. Or they really will be angry at you, for letting their memories weight you down.”

Yuno gave her a bit of a smile. “Yeah, you have a point there. I need to be able to hold my head up, the day I see them again.”

It was a bit morbid, but Sunset supposed it was better than nothing.

The third day came and went, and although Sunset had no idea what Yuno and Mereoleona had done together, the teenager had met them at the base of the mountain with an annoyed look on his face and red cheeks that had nothing to do with strain or damage before bringing her and Asta back to the oversized ledge where the woman had made camp. As for Asta, he looked...a little more chipper than Sunset remembered him being at the start of the trip, but that could have been her imagination since she hadn’t noticed anything wrong with him to begin with.

Their last night was spent with Sunset managing to talk the woman into showing off some of the spells she had perused in the woman’s grimoire. Having an actual demonstration made understanding the theory behind the spells so much easier. Even if most of her magic was a little too close combat oriented for Sunset’s comfort, her cutie mark was a blazing sun. Fire interested her more than most of the other magics.

On the dawn of the fourth day, Sunset found the woman waiting for them to get up at their own pace with something in her grip.

Sunset looked down at the letter in the woman’s hand that was being shoved into her face. “What’s this?”

“I need you to give it to my stupid little brother, Fugoleon” Mereoleona told the three of them with a bit of annoyance. “Knowing that bonehead, he’s going to be an idiot and pass on a golden opportunity without me to point it out for him. Show the seal on the back to the guards at our estate and they’ll let you in.”

Sunset took the letter and slipped it into the pack with her communication journal. Since Mereoleona traveled the world, she probably had her ear to the ground and saw numerous trade opportunities that most people hadn’t even heard of. Humans didn’t really travel all that much.

Then the woman gave them a toothy grin before taking in some of the mana in the area and launching herself into the sky.

Once she was gone, Secre made her way over and landed on Asta’s head.

“Hey bird, how come you never told me mana zone lets you fly,” Sunset told her.

Secre rolled her eyes. “I was a lab assistant, not a combat mage.”

“ALRIGHT!” Asta yelled. “NEXT STOP THE CAPITAL, AND ME BECOMING THE WIZARD KING!”

After a second, Yuno snorted. “I think you mean, me.”

Page 6: Exam

To call the capital of the Clover Kingdom massive was an understatement. The collection of human dwellings was a mountain. Not built into the side of a mountain, like Canterlot, but a mass of buildings surrounding an elevated plane, that had its own lush mesa in the center, surrounded with hundreds of more buildings. For five levels of elevation, layer after layer of civilization went until at the very top, sat a castle the size of a small town in and of itself, with three adjoining buildings equal in height to a Manehattan skyscraper. It’s like a wedding cake of rock and people, Sunset told herself after looking at it for an hour while they traveled closer to the thing.

Now she understood why people simply called it ‘the capital’ instead of naming the damn thing. The mountain collective was a grouping of numerous towns that had eventually expanded to combine into a giant mass. And if they had also hollowed out some of the mountain’s interior, the population could easily be three to four times what it looked like it should have been from the outside.

However, Sunset didn’t think too much longer on the subject, as she had a conversation to get back to while Yuno was flying them towards the city in a weak wind that was losing altitude by the second.

“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU MADE US WASH OUR CLOTHES THIS MORNING!” Asta yelled right in Sunset’s ear, forcing the girl to resist punching him in the face. The wind whipping around them meant they had to talk a bit louder, but not that loud! “What if we’re late or something?”

Sunset gave him an even look. “The exam lasts a whole day,” she told the boy. Secre had said it was some kind of endurance test and people who left were disqualified from joining that year if they didn’t stick around till the end. “The two of you are at least going to start things off with clean clothes.”

There was a better reason of course, but Sunset didn’t want to get into it. Despite what Celestia tended to tell her, appearances mattered. The first thing both Canterlot ponies and humans judged others by was how they looked. One glance at a scruffy kid from the middle of nowhere who was covered in mud when the whole point of him being there would be to impress someone would tell the judges all they needed to know.

With there being a good deal of traffic outside of the human hive, Yuno put them down a safe distance from the road and looked over to Sunset. “Should we try to deliver the letter before the Exam?”

“You mean try to find Mereoleona’s brother in all of that?” Sunset asked as she pointed a thumb at Mt City. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.” The blasted woman could have at least told them where to look.

She might have been a rich merchant or something, but Sunset doubted that everyone in town could point to her house or anything.

The anti-bird of the group landed on Asta’s head and gave Sunset a disappointed look. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“What?” the former unicorn asked.

“You kids seriously don’t know the name, Vermillion?” the bird asked.

While Sunset shook her head and Asta raised his shoulders, Yuno gave the bird an even expression. “The village we live in was lucky to get a newspaper once every two months. A single newspaper that everyone has to share,” he said. “We’re not really in the loop when it comes to current events.”

“...you know what? Fine. I’m going to go see what I can learn about the goings on of the kingdom before the exam starts. You three go act like idiots. I’ll see you after the exams are over. The area where the test is held is in the back of Kikka Town. If you get to the second gate that separates the outer ground city from the inner one, you’ve gone too far,” she said before flying off.

As the bird departed, Asta reached up and scratched his head. “I think we’re missing something.”

Sunset groaned. “Stupid old bird.” That was one thing she really hated about immortals, they knew so much and just assumed everyone else had what they considered common knowledge. Celestia might have had a tiny crumb of a point when she said Sunset should have gotten to know other ponies better, but it wasn’t like the amber unicorn had been all that filled with sociable skills.

The thought about Celestia pulled Sunset into a sour mood as her mind wandered towards things that were better left not thought about. Her talk with Mereoleona might have helped Sunset realize she didn’t have to completely hate the horse, but that didn’t mean the old nag hadn’t ruined her life. The book in her pack seemed to become a little heavier and Sunset grit her teeth as she looked down at the ground.

Celestia had spent two years without getting a reply or sending anything else.

It wasn’t like saying something to her now would change anything.

She probably didn’t even have the journal anymore.

So...why do I keep it around? Sunset asked herself in anger as the dirt beneath them turned to paved stone and the sound of people got louder.

“Hey Sunset?”

“WHAT?” Sunset demanded.

Everyone on the stone street jumped back at the question and Sunset found herself glaring down at Asta. Then, a horrid smell made itself known and she looked back in the direction she had been going to see a cart loaded with refuse and other things that belonged in either a trash pile, or a compost heap. “Oh...uh...sorry,” she apologized to the boy as her face heated. “I was just...lost in thought.”

After getting around the cart, Sunset focused more on her surroundings. If not for the week she spent eating dried meat while trudging through light forests and an unnaturally placed desert while trying to rework the spells snagged from Mereoleona’s grimoire to fit her own magic, Sunset had to admit that she would have run screaming from the capital city.

It wasn’t that people were jammed in everywhere, trying to cover up their odors with nearly half a dozen perfumes that mixed together in the summer heat to form an oppressive miasma of terrible smells mixed with things horses left on the street. It was the food.

Meat.

Was.

Everywhere.

The streets were lined with stands that sold everything a medieval society could think of. People with some minor magical talents sculpted clay into poetry according to the customers wishes, while another woman was selling flowers that she grew right in front of the man wanting to buy some. Vegetables that were more than just a mutated variety of potato numbered in the dozens as Sunset discovered that humans possessed peppers, pears, oranges, some sort of mango, grapes, and at least three types of fruits that looked completely new to her. And then there were the people selling carved up pieces of animal carcasses for human consumption. They had everything, from boar to cow, which Sunset’s years at a church made her almost say a quiet prayer for, to more out there foods like snake, rabbit, and all types of birds.

A crying baby drew her attention, and Sunset looked over to what she thought was a young mother, but after seeing the five other children on her heels, Sunset went with the older sister possibility. They looked better dressed than Asta and Yuno, but not by much. I guess even here, there are poor people, she told herself.

As a bit of sympathy entered Sunset’s heart for what might be the family’s only provider, she couldn’t help but blink at the feeling. Two years ago, Sunset wouldn’t have given a second thought to the girl, and probably been annoyed by the sound of the toddler. It was strange how being poor for two years had changed her.

“Grilled violet snake on a stick! Raised humanely and sourced responsibly!”

“Hey, I wanna try some of that!” Asta declared before Sunset grabbed the back of his jacket.

Yuno assisted with the effort a moment later. “We don’t have the money, moron.”

Sunset looked over to the source of the voice and saw an old woman sitting at the street corner with a rather shabby stand in comparison to most of the others. Then something tingled at the edge of her mana sense, and she looked around in confusion before working with Yuno to keep Asta walking. “We still have plenty of stuff from the mountain. Just because I’m going to accept eating animals doesn’t mean you get to devour something else when we’ve still got some leftovers.”

The reason for the crowded street of things to buy became obvious when the three teens turned the corner to find the coliseum waiting for them with a large crowd outside. The structure itself was as high as the defensive wall around the city, towering over the surrounding two-story buildings by a good fifty to seventy feet. After making their way through the throng, Sunset saw there were some crowd control barriers in the square itself that separated people going into the arena and people just wanting to catch a glimpse of the future magic knights. That is, if there weren’t some kind of celebrities showing up later.

Asta seemed to think everyone was gathered to see him try out, waving at the crowd and thanking them for the occasional well wishes.

Yuno...not so much. “Pretend you don’t know him.”

The display of embarrassment got a giggle from Sunset. It was fun to poke the usually stoic boy. “I kind of like his enthusiasm.”

After the three made it inside, the mood became much more somber. There were no cheering crowds or even much talking going on as the interior had three mages standing behind counters, with three lines spaced ten feet apart. Each mage put their hand to an applicant’s grimoire before telling them a number. Based on the wide gap of numbers between each line, they probably had a pool to draw from when handing them out, so Sunset doubted there were really three-hundred-sixty-eight applicants, like the number she heard being called out. Once a mage got his number, he went down the curving hallway to the right.

“So...which line do we get in?” Asta asked.

Yuno walked forward to stand in the one on the far left. It was handing out the lowest numbers. “Keep Asta in the middle, it’s best if he doesn’t talk.”

“HEY!” Asta said, making everyone in the room turn to look at him with a glare.

Thinking Yuno had the right idea, Sunset got behind her littlest brother to wait her turn.

Which gave her a bit of time to think about something that had been bothering her since leaving the mountain. She still wasn’t sure which element to pick.

Light magic was an obvious contender. Playing around with it after learning mana skin to safely regulate her mana zone ability had yielded some very interesting results that still needed to be practiced quite a bit more before she would risk using them outside of experimentation. Plus, a single real spell didn’t leave her much in the way of options.

Wind magic was the element she had the most spells in, having days to pour over Zell’s grimoire and compare it to another sword crafted spell for reference back when she had still been getting the feel of human magic down, but they all revolved around needing a focus for the casting and the spell had to be maintained on top of a second spell if Sunset wanted to do anything else besides wave a fancy blade around.

Water and Earth were out. What she knew about them consisted mostly of farming techniques and things she had gleaned from Sister Lilly’s grimoire. The same for the specialized versions, like plant and ice magic. Sunset didn’t even know combat spells for them.

Fire was...risky. While her only other real viable option, Sunset understood how easily it could get out of control. She didn’t want to hurt anyone...permanently. Which fire could do in a very visible way.

Lost in thought, Sunset didn’t realize she was near the head of the line until hearing the man behind the desk.

“A four leaf clover?!”

Sunset looked up and blinked as the crowd started to go into gossip mode, talking among themselves about the rarity of such a book. You know, I wonder what would have happened if Yuno had decided he was good with just living his life out in Hage, she asked herself, imagining the boy holding a four leaf clover while a small farm decorated the background. It wasn’t like the book controlled his mind or anything.

Then came Asta, who handed the man in front of them his book, and Sunset felt a bit of worry. Oh crap! Asta’s book had five leaves. What were they going to make of something like that? Would they think it was fake? Call for some kind of investigation? LOCK HIM UP AND THROW AWAY THE KEY?

“Ugh! Is that mold on the cover? Just...don’t put it so close to me, kid,” the mage said as he looked away from the book and touched it with a single finger, as if it were toxic. “You’re number one-sixty-five.”

Okay...I’m going to have to say it. Thank you God, Sunset thought to herself before pulling out her grimoire and showing it to the man in the dark green robes. “Sunset Shimmer, also from Hage Village.”

“One-sixty-six, next!”

“Heh, a looker like you coming from a rat-infested swamp like Hage,” someone said from behind Sunset before she turned around to see who it was. The young man was a tall-ish blonde with a slender figure in a purple jacket with his hair held down by a band, even though the rear stuck out everywhere wildly. When Sunset turned around, he had the audacity to look down at her chest. “Strange, you don’t seem as malnourished as someone from the Forsaken Realm should be.”

Sunset pointed to the guy before looking over to the mage across the desk. “Will kicking him in the balls be grounds for disqualification?”

“Yes,” the mage replied before looking back to the man. “Name?”

“Sekke Bronzazza, from…”

Sunset didn’t stick around to hear the rest.

After following the hallway that curved around, there were some signs that pointed Sunset to the coliseum’s arena section. Out in the open air, she looked around to see what had to have been at least three-hundred people and growing standing around as several birds that looked a good deal like Secre flying around. Then, the first stage of the exam has already started, she realized while looking around through the crowd.

Yuno wasn’t hard to find. Height aside, most people were looking at him or making some comment about the kid who the birds wouldn’t come within ten feet of. She thought about running over to him for a minute, but...decided against it.

This was when all the other mages were supposed to be picking out their prey. Yuno deciding to just stand in the middle of everyone with a big sign that said ‘POWERFUL’ might have seemed like a smart idea to attract someone good enough for him to put on a show, but two such demonstrations would divide everyone’s attentions probably make the smarter mages stand back to let the big fish take the other out.

As for Asta…

“Get ‘em off! Get ‘em off! Get‘emoffget‘emoffget‘emoff!” the boy yelled as over a dozen of the birds chased him around the arena, much to everyone’s laughter.

Sunset groaned and held her hand to her face as she backed up to a pillar on the side of the area. With her back protected, she hoped that anyone looking and seeing her lack of birds, would just take it as partly due to her position next to the wall as she scanned the crowd to find someone that would help her put on a good show.

The results were...mixed.

Everyone in the crowd had a good deal more mana in them than anyone in Hage, as was to be expected. But the level of which varied greatly. Starting at the top of the heap was Yuno, at ten. Asta was a total zero. In comparison, citizens from Hage ranked somewhere between one and two. Most of the people in the arena were somewhere around the five or six range. There were a few standouts, but Sunset didn’t put anyone above an eight because there was such a sharp drop between someone like Yuno, and the next guy in line that she could see.

There were still more people coming in, but out of the three-hundred odd men and women that were already in attendance, nobody even came close to the black-haired boy from Hage. I knew Yuno and I were standouts, but is the gap really that big? she asked herself.

There was a sound from behind her, and Sunset blinked before looking back inside the shaded area of the arena floor that extended beneath the stands above them. A girl in expensive-looking white silks over a light purple dress that didn’t even come halfway to her knees stood by herself. Her white, almost silver, hair was done up in pigtails that were almost out on the side of her head rather than at the back. She was almost hidden by the support that Sunset had been leaning up against. The girl took a step back as Sunset turned all the way around to approach her.

“Hey, we can wait in the shade?” she asked before walking into the slightly cooler darkness.

The girl’s pink eyes went wide for a moment before she frowned and her stance changed to one of practiced disdain. “Do not address me with such familiarity, commoner! Do you know who you are addressing?”

Sunset’s face went from slightly friendly to pensive as she took a second to get a reading on the girl.

The snob was no Yuno, but she stood head and shoulders above everyone else. Well, looks like I found someone to pick a fight with, Sunset told herself. Since, from what Sunset could tell, the level of mana went hand and hand with a person’s magical skill, the girl in front of her might actually help her put on a decent show.

So, Sunset put on her best uncaring face and pointed at the girl. “A brat?”

The girl’s eyes widened and she actually shook with anger for a moment. “Why you!” she spat before inclining her head a bit more so she was looking down her nose at Sunset. “I am royalty.”

Sunset blinked at the declaration before the strangest thought ran through her mind. Is this what I would have been like, if Celestia had made me an alicorn two years ago? For some reason she just couldn’t fathom, Sunset didn’t like the image it created in her mind.

Wanting to get away from such thoughts, Sunset quickly moved on. “And you have to take the test too?” she asked before giving the girl a mocking grin. “Gee, I hope you do okay. It would be a real shame if a lowly commoner like me ends up spanking your bratty little butt in front of everyone here. That would be so embarrassing for both you and your entire family.”

Fear actually seemed to enter the girl’s eyes for a moment as she took a step back, making Sunset wonder what she had said wrong. This was supposed to be the part where the royal pain made some stupid comeback and said they would see each other at the final test. But the girl just stood there...frozen.

Sunset started to get a little worried. “Um...hey, you okay? Did I do something wrong?” she asked nervously.

The rest of Sunset’s thought process came to an abrupt end when she felt an oddly out of place presence in the arena behind her. It was strong, far stronger than any examinee had a right to be, a good deal more powerful than the man who had killed Lilly, and focused as well. Sunset turned around and frowned at the sight.

There was a big man in white muscle shirt and black pants with protective leather coverings, wearing an oddly curved sword on his hip. His body was muscular, but not overly so, while his hair spiked in nearly every direction and looked to be in need of a good combing. Sunset couldn’t see his face, as the man’s back was to her, but he seemed to be talking down at someone she couldn’t see at all.

Two men stood beside him, each wearing a ridiculously short cloaks with a hood pulled down. The first was an odd-looking man in some sort of uniform, complete with military hat, that had skin of an unnaturally pale color. The other had on a green shirt underneath his robes and a messy head of light brown hair.

“Ugh, what in the hell is he doing here?”

Sunset blinked and looked over to Royal Pain. “You know that guy?” she asked.

Don’t tell me he’s an examinee, she thought in disbelief. Sunset knew that people could try out more than once, but a guy like that failing seemed odd when compared to the rest of the examinees.

“That’s Yami Sukehiro,” she said, sounding like she swallowed something unpleasant. “He’s a foreigner from some unimportant island so far away it’s not even worth mentioning, and captain of the Black Bulls.” Then, the girl suddenly seemed to notice what she was doing and took a leap backwards, as if she was afraid Sunset was going to infect her with something horrible. “Gah! Why am I telling you this?”

After thinking about it for a second, Sunset decided to go with a somewhat complementary option. “Because, despite the way you act, your first instinct is to have a helpful attitude?” she suggested, remembering how Royal Pain had been a few minutes ago. The girl’s actions had seemed a conscious decision.

Royal Pain’s eye twitched before she crossed her arms and turned away with a sniff.

The whole thing made Sunset sigh in defeat when she heard fireworks start to go off above the arena and another commotion begin. Well, I can always try finding her during the last round. Now that they had met, it would be easier to just walk up to her and make a challenge when the time came.

With things fixing to start, Sunset made her way back into the arena and looked around for Asta, despite the difficulty of trying to find the shortest person there. With his luck, the boy would end up at the center of some kind of problem unless she was there to look out for him.

She found him near the center of the arena. talking to the blonde boy that had been behind her in line. “-same to you, I’m Asta,” he said while smiling at the taller man.

Sunset stopped and kept to the background of the crowd. There was no need to step in at the moment, so it was probably best to hang back until the blonde loser went his own way. Unfortunately the idiot stayed around and talked to Asta as nine people entered the stands to come sit in a collection of stone chairs that were spaced a good deal apart without making it hard to share a few words with the person next to them. It also looked like there was some kind of enchantment around the special seats, most likely to cancel out noise, but the look of it.

The idiot next to Asta began pointing out each one, starting with a man wearing a blue outfit under a stylized short robe that looked like it was made of large white feathers. He had the same hair color as Royal Pain, but his hung down the back of his head in long locks while a...short braid of odd design came down between his eyes at the front of his face. “That’s Nozel Silva, the captain of the Silver Eagles.”

After him came a man in a red cape, with orange-red hair that looked far too much like Meroleona’s to be a coincidence. “That’s Captain Fuegoleon Vermillion. Captain of the Crimson Lions...or are they going by the Crimson Lion Kings, now? Ah well, doesn’t matter.”

A sudden realization hit Sunset. Oh, that’s why she wanted us to deliver the letter, the non-unicorn thought to herself. Although, if the woman had known they were going to run into the man at the entrance exam, why mention all that stuff about their estate?

Then came a man in a short green cape that looked unnaturally thin, sporting a red mark down his left eyes from his temple to his jaw. “Jack the Ripper, leader of the Praying Mantises. It’s said that he can cut anything in two with his magic, but...who wants to be named after a bug, am I right?”

After him was a woman in a helmet and breastplate made to fit her breasts, wearing a blue robe with a rose as the broach. “That’s Charlotte Roselei. Her Blue Rose squad is nothing but women.”

Next to her sat a headset man, also in armor that Sunset could make out beneath his purple cape and other attire. The man’s large head was also protected by a mask that only covered his nose and eyes. “Gueldre Poizot, Captain of the Purple Orcas.”

Asa looked over to the taller boy. “That’s it?”

“Pfft, who wants to be one of those losers?” the loser next to Asta replied.

The next captain to be introduced was a woman in a pink cape and matching hat that looked like it belonged on a witch’s Nightmare Night costume. “Captain Dorthy Unsworth, of the Coral Peacocks.”

Sunset blinked. Is she...sleepwalking? the redhead asked herself as the woman walked with her head down and eyes closed. When talking about how weird the captains were supposed to be, it seemed that Secre had forgot to mention the narcoleptic.

Then came...a child. The little boy with poofed up white hair couldn’t have been out of his teens, dressed in his fancy white clothes beneath a cape of very light blue. The fact he was giving everyone a bright smile and waving did little to assure Sunset he was wise beyond his years when everyone else sat in stoic silence. “Rill Boismortier of the Aqua Deer. He’s the youngest captain ever at the age of nineteen.”

“Just nineteen and already a captain? Yaah! I’ll be the Wizard King before I know it!” Asta said excitedly.

The idiot next to him...didn’t seem to agree. “BA-HA!” he laughed in an annoying way. “You? The Wizard King? Well...you’re going to have to beat out someone else for that title,” he said before pointing up at the seats of honor.

Taking her attention off of Asta and BaHa Guy, Sunset looked up and blinked. While they had been talking, that Yami guy had also taken a seat on the far right. Glad I got that introduction to him from ms Royal Pain, Sunset told herself as the crowd started to get excited.

The person all the hype was about was a man of ordinary build, dressed in a red cloak under a fancy tan overly. He wore a mask of blue and sandy gold, with red and white decor that went around the back and two large feathers sticking out the back. “That’s William Vangeance, captain of the Golden Dawn, said to be the most powerful squad.”

Sunset took one look at the man, his odd attire, and ran the name of his group through her mind. It might have been the most prestigious group, but...No thanks. Maybe, if it had been something other than Golden, she might have considered it. But...it was just way too Celestia for Sunset’s taste.

As soon as the last person sat down, another group of people stepped up to stand behind them. Probably their aides, guessing by the fact the two people from before had been following the Black Bull guy around.

“And the Wizard King?” Asta asked excitedly.

“Ba-Ha! Like he would come to an event like this,” BaHa Guy said with a shrug. “It’s hard enough just getting the captains in one place. Let alone him and them.”

The crowd began to quiet down and the Golden Dawn captain spoke up. “Attention examinees, I will be your proctor for this year’s exam,” he announced. “After last year’s...incident-”

“-hey! Fighting when they’re a bit tipsy is a good way to judge a newbie mage’s adaptability!” Yami said.

William continued on as if nobody had spoken. “-it has been decided to rework the exam into a multitude of challenges, testing your ability within a specific field,” he said before opening his golden book and casting a spell of some sort Sunset couldn’t hear him announce.

There was a swirl of mana that caused the wind to blow before the clouds in the sky above darkened and swirled together at an unnatural speed. Then, a golden light shone through the center and a tree, of all things, began to grow towards the ground as it descended from above. As it got close to the people below, the branches joined together in some places, extending towards the examinees to form...brooms?

Sunset moaned in embarrassment as the tree offered her the mass of straw on the end of a stick, remembering that stupid series of books back in Equestria about a hidden school of magic for earth ponies with wands that let them use magic, and where they flew around on brooms. Everyone had said that it was amazing but the unicorn that was in the real magic school found it rather pedestrian and predictable.

Still, she grabbed the broom and frowned at it. Father Orisi had one back at the church, but Sunset had never been comfortable with floating on one. It rubbed her crotch the wrong way and whenever she asked Lilly how to keep that from happening, she got all red in the face and unable to answer. A quick inspection of the item told Sunset it worked on the same basic principles as the old man’s broom, but there were some distinct differences. The mana didn’t flow through it very well, meaning getting more than a few feet off the ground would be hard. And the higher one went, the harder it would be. The wood was also decaying at an extended rate. She doubted it would last an hour.

“For your first test, you must use your brooms to fly,” William announced as the young man behind him demonstrated the feat. “It is the most basic way to get from one place to another. If a mage can not fly on a broom, then they are not worth our time. Now, begin!”

Sunset winced as she looked to the cleaning implement in her hand while everyone else got on their brooms and began to rise into the air at different rates. Some struggled, some didn’t. Yuno did like he did back home and stood on the damn thing before rising up. Unlike him, Sunset chose the sane option and looked around to see how the other girls were getting up in the air on their sticks as some people fell off their brooms moments after getting on.

She also noticed something peculiar. The girl with the silver hair was still standing in the shade, clutching her broom and looking like she wanted to run away or go hide.

Sunset studied her for a moment as her knees shook while she looked up at everyone else from what had to have been a limited view of the test and…

“But I’m scared to try and use magic in front of everypony else, what if I mess up?” Cadenza’s words from one of their earlier tutoring sessions ran through her head.

“If that's the case, I guess you’ll never do magic, then,” Sunset’s indifferent reply went.

The memory made Sunset groan as she felt guilt,of all things, rise up in her gut. Cadenza had been young and stupid, not to mention talentless and a complete waste of time, but...looking back on things...Sunset had to admit that she could have done a better job with her. It was the principle of the thing. Not putting one’s best hoof forward at everything was just a way for a loser to live their life.

So, she could either not do the right thing to do, or...go help the frightened brat.

“Damnit, I’m just too fucking nice sometimes,” she grumbled before heading back into the shaded area to talk to the girl.

Since Royal Pain didn’t even seem to notice Sunset, the girl cleared her throat. “Hey!” she said a bit too forcefully.

The girl let out a startled scream before turning around to stare at Sunset with wide eyes. Then she got herself under control and gave the redhead a scowl. “Oh, it’s you. What do you want?”

Sunset’s eye twitched. Maybe this had been a bad idea after all. “I came to see if anything was wrong,” she said. “Are you...afraid of heights, or something?”

“WHAT KIND OF STUPID QUESTION IS THAT?” the girl demanded. “I’m fine!” Then she pointed a finger at Sunset. “I don’t see you on your broom!”

After taking in a deep breath, Sunset made a mental count. Okay...that’s two...give her one more try and...wait, I can’t hit her before the last part of the exam. So, Sunset put the broom between her legs and relaxed before pushing herself off the ground and moving mana into the object. “If you’re afraid of falling off or something, I could stay close to catch you. If that makes you feel better.”

The girl clutched her broom tightly. “Why are you…”

Sunset grit her teeth and looked away in embarrassment. “Because I used to know another royal pain-”

“What did you just call me?!” the girl demanded.

And...that’s three, Sunset told herself. “Okay, whatever. I tried,” she thought before turning her broom around...to see there was only one person left standing on the ground.

Asta was grunting with effort as he held the broom beneath his legs that refused to rise into the air. The sight made Sunset wince. Her first instinct was to try cheating a bit to help the boy, but the unicorn very much doubted that any action on her part would go unnoticed by experienced magic users.

Maybe if the levitation field was tight enough from a short range? Sunset wondered. Although, questions would quickly arise of the boy that couldn’t fly suddenly got into the air when Sunset got next to him.

“Ouch...that’s...in front of all those people,” Royal Pain mumbled, making Sunset look away as she saw BaHa guy flying up next to Asta to offer some instructional encouragement, of all things.

Sunset looked over to the other girl, feeling a little better about trying to help her. The fact that Royal Pain wasn’t laughing at Asta made Sunset think she was worth giving another shot...or ten. It wasn’t often someone didn’t mock the earth pony with two legs.

Then, she sucked in a deep breath as Sunset felt one of the captains approach the two of them from behind. “Well, here goes,” she said before looking over to Sunset. “Uh...you said you’ll catch me?”

Damnit, the more I’m with this girl, the less I think I can beat her up, Sunset realized. Which was a big problem, considering how magic was the will of the user made manifest. “Yeah,” she promised.

“What do you think you’re doing, Noelle?”

Instead of jumping out of her skin, the girl named Noelle cringed and sunk in on herself before looking back at the Silver Eagles’ commander. “B-Big brother,” she said in a depressed, nervous tone that sounded more afraid than anything else.

“You, get back to the arena, now,” the man with the odd hairstyle ordered before turning away from Sunset, as if not being obeyed never even crossed his mind. “And you. You are well aware that royals need not take part in the exams. Now, stop this foolishness and-” was all the redhead managed to catch as she pulled away.

Sunset frowned. Their interaction seemed a bit off, but...the guy was her brother. He probably wanted to...tell her not to worry, or something. So, Sunset turned and did as told, keeping herself pushed up on the stick between her legs as much as possible. It’s not going to be for long, just don’t try to move around too much, she told herself while rising up while keeping her mind busy by counting all the other applicants.

If Royal Pain, or rather, Noelle had been pulled out, that left...an uneven number of applicants by Sunset’s count. So...what, someone fights twice?

The end of the broom test was called, and Sunset thankfully let herself drop back to ground level along with everyone else. The brooms evaporated and the next part of the exam was set up, forcing all the examinees to clear the center of the arena while it was prepared.

Sunset managed to find Yuno in the crowd, although Asta was too short to pick out with everyone bunched up like they were. “So...it looks like we may have a problem.”

“I thought the bird said there were only three tests,” Yuno grumbled.

“That’s the problem,” Sunset said.

After a few seconds, Yuno took in a deep breath. “Well, there’s nothing that can be done about it now. If the worst happens, we’ll have to figure something out,” he said right before William began another announcement.

“Lady Sol, if you would please-”

“Hey!” the dark-skinned woman in tight clothes that left nearly half of her body open to the air yelled from her place behind the Blue Rose’s captain. “No man can order me! I only take commands from Char!”

From her place in front of the loudmouthed idiot, Charlotte groaned and rubbed her temple. “Sol, just do like you’re supposed to and set up the next test,” she ordered. “And call me captain!”

“Sure thing Char!” the woman named Sol said happily before pulling out her spellbook. A second later, five lines of thin brick walls had been created, with ten walls per line.

Charlotte groaned again as William began talking. “For your second test, you will release your magic in a destructive form, free of your grimoires. Try to destroy as many barriers as you can in a single shot.”

To try and get her mind off the Asta problem and Yuno do the same, Sunset stood up on her toes and whispered into the boy’s ear. “Bet mine can go deeper than yours.”

For some reason, Yuno’s face became red and his eyes widened as he took a step back to glare at her. “Do you have any idea what you just said.”

Sunset thumbed at the targets. “Yeah, I said I could beat you when it comes to blowing things up.”

As Yuno glared at her some more, people were being called out by their number, meaning that as the test went on, the brother and sister eventually found the third member of their orphan family to line up next to, as well as the BaHa Guy Asta had talked to earlier on top of some other idiot that had been in front of Yuno in line.

The idiot went first, managing to destroy three walls with his water attack.

When he did, Sunset realized something. I still haven’t picked an element.

GAAAAAH! Why did I have to waste all that time talking to Royal Pain? she mentally shrieked. Okay...so...so...I need something I can do good with…

Yuno let loose his power, slicing through ten walls with a wave of his hand. Of course, everyone was impressed with the display.

Then, came Asta’s turn…

“HA!” he shouted before throwing out both hands to...do absolutely nothing.

Okay, just hurry up and pick one then. Fire, water, wind or light, you’ve narrowed it down to that much at least.

“HIYA!” Asta shouted as he tried again.

On second thought, water is out. I don’t know enough magic for it to be impressive.

“Ultimate attack!”

Wind is...just a bunch of sword moves. I never really practiced with a weapon and now that I really think about it...I didn’t bring anything I could use as a focus.

“Oh, come on, just one time! Is that too much to ask?”

So it’s either light or fire. Light spells are impressive, but it's the same problem I have with water magic. Not to mention, considering how rare light mages are supposed to be, learning anything new would be few and far between, Sunset told herself. While the possibility of creating new spells was there, she was still just getting used to crafting mana matrices based on what she gleaned from someone else’s grimoire. Which wasn’t as simple as just reading the instructions, as they had to be adapted for her type of magic.

“Excuse me, but are you going to actually do anything?” a strong voice asked from up in the stands.

Both Asta and Sunset looked up to see the guy with the orange-red hair and red cape had stood up to address the boy. To which Asta replied. “I...I...guess not,” he finally said.

“NEXT!” Fuegoleon ordered.

Sunset took a step forward as Asta moved back and opened her right hand to focus her mana into it. Since it was just supposed to be throwing raw power, without any real form or crafting to it, Sunset condensed the mana as much as possible before her hand started to feel a burn, then let it loose in the direction of the wall in front of her. It burned through the first, then the second, third and fourth, losing a little of its cohesion by the fifth before tearing through six seven nine and ten with miniature explosions before continuing on. Then, after blowing through one more obstacle in its path, the bolt of fire finally exploded on the coliseum’s wall. Which had a hole it at the end.

“HA! That's that! Eleven walls and one column!” Sunset exclaimed as she pointed at Yuno before hearing the sound of falling stone and looking back to see the part of the structure that the pillar had been supporting collapsed. “And um...that part of the building too.”

Yuno gave the girl a frown. “That doesn’t count!”

Grinning that she was getting under her little brother’s skin, Sunset just kept going. “You got ten, and I got eleven! Which is one more. Looks like it counts just fine to me.”

Then came the magic control test, in which the examinees were told to shoot pieces of floating paper with targets on them. Not only was it a test for accuracy, but people were judged on how much paper was left when their attack got finished.

Yuno managed to hit his dead center while only cutting a slice through sixty-percent of the paper. Sunset burned through the bullseye and first inner ring before her fire went out. Asta...didn’t touch his target with anything.

After that was the creation magic test, with people sculpting their magic into basic forms and holding them for the judges to examine. While not actual creation magic spells, as the people involved had to use the utmost concentration just to hold the most basic forms together, it was a good test of control and imagination.

Yuno held up his bird made out of wind that was nearly half as big as he was on his arm.

Sunset petted the giant lioness that sat beside her, that was as big as the real thing. “Mine’s bigger.”

“Feh. Hawks are cooler,” he replied.

Up in the stands, Sunset’s ears twitched when she heard a rough man’s voice reach her. “Hey, look at that big cat. She’s like a little Sisgoleon! Were you stepping out on the town after you got your grimoire?”

Sunset looked up in time to see the redheaded captain glaring at the bit muscular one that had one of those smoking sticks she had seen the mayor of Hage with from time to time. “You know that’s not my sister’s name, right?”

Yami took the cigarette out of his mouth and looked over to the other man. “What? Don’t you guys just stick goleon on the end of your names, like...Sisgoleon, Brogoleon, Oldgoleon, you know, that kind of thing?”

“...my name is Leopold,” the much younger redhead standing behind Fuegoleon while the older brother rubbed his temple.

After that, came the magic evolution test, where the examinees were told to pump their mana into a seed to change the plant’s attributes to one based off of their personal mana…

“How did this happen?” Yuno asked as he looked at Sunset’s creation.

Sunset looked at the large crystal tree standing in front of them that seemed to sparkle as it reflected the light, creating a multitude of rainbows. “Well obviously, my seed was defective, or someone had already messed with it,” she said before grabbing Yuno by the collar and pulling him down to eye level. “Idiot, you know my magical baseline is different than yours! I can adapt it to fit certain roles, but this is what happens when you get my pure mana poured into something!”

“Pretty,” Asta commented as he stood off to the side.

Focusing her mana into a kick after giving it a fire attribute, Sunset hit the bad art project and shattered it at the base with a focused explosion, knocking it down and letting it break apart on the ground.

After everyone was done showing their stuff, everyone was gathered in the center of the arena once again to listen to William’s instructions. “Now for the final test. You will pair off and battle each other in one on one matches to show your combat ability,” he said in a tone that might as well have been discussing the weather.

“So prepare to duel!” Fugoleon shouted as he stood up from his seat and took a step forward. “As magic knights, combat is our duty! So show us everything you are capable of!”

William moved to pick up the explanation. “The test will end when one of the combatants is either too injured to continue or surrenders. If you should happen to kill your opponent, that will be taken into consideration as this is not a battle to the death. A magic knight must also be able to control their power,” he announced. “We have mages skilled in recovery magic standing by for the injured.”

And of course, the girl I singled out to take on fucked off before we got to this point, Sunset thought to herself. Which also brought up another point in her mind. “Excuse me!” she said while raising her hand.

The redheaded blinked and looked down to her. “Yes?”

“What happens if there’s an odd number of candidates and someone is left without a partner?” Sunset asked.

After giving a small chuckle, Fugoleon reached up to rub his chin. “While I can applaud your forward thinking, I can assure you that there is an even number of candidates. We’ve seen the rolls, and there are exactly five-hundred-and-fourteen of you down there.”

“No there’s not,” Sunset pointed out verbally as she stuck her finger out at the guy with the silvery hair physically. “He had one withdrawn during the broom test.”

Fugoleon blinked, then looked over to Nozel. “You made a candidate withdraw?”

The man with the braid crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat. “Noelle has no business taking the exam.”

“That failure actually signed up?” the woman behind Nozel, who was wearing the same style of clothes and sporting the same hair exclaimed. “Was she trying to bring shame to our family?”

William cleared his throat. “In the case of a candidate left out without a partner...we will provide a suitable opponent to the last person left.”

Everyone in the crowd tensed as what the man had just said.

“D...did he just say the odd man out has to fight a captain?”

“Or one of their lieutenants!”

“But if you lose the fight, doesn’t that tank your chances of joining a squad?”

The last question created a hectic scramble to find a partner among the mob, quickly turning the whole thing into a total mess that the captains had to stop before telling everyone to vacate the open air area while those who had already found a partner to prepare for combat. Surprisingly, it was Asta that went up first, along with that BaHa guy he had been talking to for most of the second stage of the exam.

With the actual fights starting, the crowd calmed down a little, and Sunset found Yuno standing in a corner. “So...found a partner yet?”

“No. And Secre told us not to fight each other,” he reminded her before looking up past her head. “Now quite down, Asta’s up.”

Now that he was actually doing something he might have a chance at, Asta’s attitude had gone back to it’s normal level of optimism. The other guy...whose name Sunset was feeling a little guilty of not remembering since he had actually turned out to be a decent person grinned down at the shorter boy. As far as mana went, the guy wasn’t anywhere near the top...a middling level mage when it came to most of the other examinees.

Sunset didn’t know if that was good or bad, considering Asta’s limitations.

At least he’s not a flyer, Sunset told herself. The guy had ‘bronze’ magic, which probably meant it was earth related.

“Okay Sekke,” Asta said as he pulled out his grimoire. “Let’s have a good match. No holding back because we’re friends.”

The other boy, who in all honesty looked a good deal older than he actually was, raised up his own spell book that had a dark green blow to it. “Ba-Ha! Are you kidding me? You’re just some grubby little gutter rat that’s way out of his depth. The only reason I even talked to you was so that I would have someone that would let me showcase all of my abilities,” he said. “I’ll be chosen by a top squad and live in comfort for the rest of my life! Now, let’s hurry up and get this over with, so I can send you back to the trash heap you came from, filthy commoner.”

A mage Sunset had remembered seeing from registration raised his hand. “Now...begin!”

Within a second of the match beginning, Sekke cast a spell that surrounded him in a glowing field of solid magical energy that looked like it had cannons for focusing points that would condense his mana for counterattacks. In theory, it was a nice spell, combining offense and defense at the cost of mobility. Although, a skilled magic user could easily tear it apart by creating a spell from underneath him, inside the boy’s defense, that took more ability than it looked like nearly everyone at the exam had.

But at the same time, he was nothing more than a stationary target.

“Well...this fight’s over,” Yuno commented.

“Yep,” Sunset agreed as she glanced over to the taller boy.

Which actually made her miss what happened next as the sound of breaking bone filled the air.

In the second it took her to look at Yuno, Asta had gone from more than thirty feet away from the other man to standing over him, his sword dawn and Sekke’s spell struggling just to continue existing from being cut it half. It winked out completely a second later.

Sunset breathed out a sigh of relief as everyone in the area gasped in surprise at the outcome of the match. Then, a thought occurred to her, and she took in a deep breath. “Oh my! Do you mean to tell me that little twerp was faking it this whole time to try and catch his opponent off guard?” she asked nobody in particular rather loudly.

“Do you really think any of them is going to fall for that?” Yuno deadpanned as he nodded up towards the captains.

“Oh my gosh! You mean he was just pretending that he didn’t have any magical power?” Rill, the child captain, exclaimed in surprise.

The rest of the captains groaned and rubbed their heads at the boy’s comment.

Down in the arena, all of this went unnoticed by Asta as he hefted his sword back onto his shoulder. “Unlike you Sekke, I’m not here to join the Magic Knights so I could just slack off and have a little fun. I’M HERE TO BECOME THE WIZARD KING!”

While the crowd was reacting to Asta’s latest declaration, Sunset moved off to find someone to pick on. She looked around, doing her best to gauge the person who ended up in her sights in an effort to find someone to beat up. With Noelle gone, it almost felt like she was a prize fighter looking to take down the least sickly child she could find in a professional match.

It was then that she came across what looked to be the perfect candidate. Just going by his clothes, the teen with dark hair that was combed upwards to a point was obviously a noble. His choice of dress was a poofy maroon shirt underneath a frilly white vest. The only sensible clothing that he had on was a good pair of pants and high boots that almost came up to his knees. But what really interested her was his magic. The man was leaning back against the wall as a pair of golems half his height that were made of mud were giving him a pedicure. Someone that could make autonomous enemies for Sunset to fight meant she didn’t have to worry about hurting him.

“Hi there,” she said to the man happily with a bright smile. “I’m still looking for a partner, would you like to fight little ol’ me?”

A young man opened his eyes to give Sunset glare. “Stupid little peasant. I’m not going to waste my time fighting you, Aquatius and I have already decided to settle our rivalry today and-”

Before he could continue, Sunset promptly spat in the boy’s face with as much liquid as she could build up during the idiot’s slow speech. The guy who Sunset decided to name Mud, after his golems, stood there in shock. “Awwww, you mad?” she asked while everyone around them gaped at the display. “I wonder what all these other examinees are going to think, letting a filthy little commoner do this to you and getting away with it because you and your friend agreed to fight a fake battle in an attempt to make you both look good?”

As the people around them began to whisper about things, such as the word fake, and how long the two boys had known each other, Mud began to shake with anger. “You...you little bitch!” he shouted. “I don’t care if this is just an exam, I’LL KILL YOU!”

“Come and get me big boy!” Sunset called out as she half-ran, half-skipped out into the arena.

Secre sat on her perch, above where the knight captains were seated as she saw Sunset practically dance her way onto the field and turned around after passing the judge. A young man came storming out after her, his grimoire glowing with magic. “Filthy peasant!” he shrieked.

“You’re the one that’s all dirty, Mud Boy!” she taunted with a gleeful tone.

“Ready you’re grimoires!” the judge commanded.

Sunset actually blinked in confusion, making Secre groan internally when she actually reached behind her to take the book out of its case and make it float up to her in an aura of light blue.

In the stands, the boorish captain of the Black Bulls chuckled. “Hey look, it’s Babygoleon,” he said with a chuckle as the mud mage created a trio of golems that were equal in size to him, but much more bulky.

Secre found herself wondering if Sunset had chosen wisely or made a foolish error. Mud magic, an odd mixture of earth and water, was rather resistant to fire attacks. It could smother flames rather easily and withstand great temperatures thanks to it being...well, mud.

“Oh, for the love of-Yami, would you please stop making that-” Before Fuegoleon could finish, Sunset wreathed her arm in flame and struck out in the direction of the approaching golems. The flames from the resulting explosion dried out the mud before the force blew away all threee golems less than a second later when they were caught by the kinetic energy of the blast.

All of the captains were silent for a moment, making Leo speak up from behind Fuegoleon. “Hey Brother, was that the Calidus Brachium? Because that looked a lot like Sister’s Calidus Brachium.”

Fuegoleon tensed. “Don’t be absurd! That’s...our sister’s spell is a forceful expulsion of flame and physical power. Rather simple when you get down to it. Anyone could develop-”

Down on the arena floor, Sunset pointed at the noble. “Hey Mud, don’t tell me that was all you got. I roped you into fighting me because I thought I could use you to show off my skills. Now hurry up and make another target, or I’ll burn off your clothes and let your friends watch me beat your bare ass all around this little circle!”

Yami took a drag from his cigarette and grinned. “She kinda sounds like your sister too!” he said in a joking manner before looking back down to her with a much more serious expression. “But that ki...it feels different than anyone I’ve sensed before. Almost inhuman.”

“Alright, this foolishness has gone on long enough!” Fuegoleon told them. “One similar spell and some red hair does not a relationship make! And I find your insinuations rather insulting. I had no time for women after I gained my grimoire for quite some time.”

Down on the floor, Mud sent a giant golem nearly fifteen feet tall at the redhead as she stood there, taunting the boy. Then, a lioness that had a head equal in height to Sunset’s took shape before firing a concentrated beam of fire magic right into the mass of mud that dried it out and made it crumble a moment later.

“...but I am beginning to wonder,” he said after a moment. “Father was a wood mage, so that leaves…oh no.”

Sunset glared at the boy across from her. “Okay, how about this then? I’ll give you a free hit. If I let you hit me, will you stop standing there like an idiot and attack?”

Secre could understand the confusion of the captains and their sudden interest in things other than the fight. Although magic developed differently in everyone that had a grimoire, there were certain trends within a family line. Nearly all of the Vermillion household were fire users with magic that took the shape of lions when it was given form. Each spell might have been different, but was there really that much variation in a blast of fire that was a gout of flame and one that was a spiral?

Sitting on the other side of William, Nozel groaned and looked over to the redheaded captain. “Fuegoleon, you can’t honestly be considering what I think you are,” he said. “Fire is a base element. Dozens of peasants have it and craft magic in the shape of animals. Just because one of them has red hair means nothing.”

Back on the ground, a twenty foot golem came towards Sunset, who took in a deep breath and condensed the mana around her body into a tight skin before the giant of watered dirt stomped down on her with a foot that completely covered the girl. It stood there for a moment as the noble gloated. Then the mud on the leg that had stomped on Sunset hardened up to where the knee should have been on the shambling mound of earth before it shattered from an outpouring of mana from inside the creature’s leg.

“Mana skin?” William muttered. “That’s not a technique you can just stumble across. Someone would have had to have trained her. And to be able to use it at her age. The youngest I’ve ever seen it used is at sixteen.”

Charlotte’s eyes narrowed. “This girl, she’s no commoner. She’s had professional training.”

As the golem began to tilt backwards, Sunset’s fiery aura took shape and formed a pair of arms with lion paws on the end that reached up to grab the golem’s hands by the wrists before drying it out and ripping off most of its forearms before it fell backwards on the man who cast it.

For his part, Fuegoleon sat in his chair, his face a mask of disbelief. “This...this isn’t...she...she can’t possibly be…”

Nozel looked over to the other man. “Fuegoleon, the girl is fifteen. Your sister would have had to have been seventeen when she conceived,” he said with a frown before an uneasy expression crossed his face. “When she visited Mother...and she told your sister what a blessing children are.”

“Come on, you guys can’t possibly be suggesting that girl down there is my niece,” the sixteen year old redhead commented.

In the arena, Sunset fummed as her opponent pulled himself out of the muck left by his own golem falling on him. “HEY! GET YOUR SORRY ASS UP! I THOUGHT YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE TOUGH!” the fiery redhead shouted as an aura of flames surrounded her while the noble trembled in fear at the monster in front of him. “AND QUIT CRYING YOU DAMN PANSY! I’M NOT DONE WITH YOU YET!”

“...so, who do you think the father is?” Nozel asked after a few seconds of watching the redhead yell at her opponent.

Most of the captains turned to look at Yami, sitting on the end. Who flinched under the gazes. “Hey! I would have been like, thirteen! Get your timelines straight!” he yelled back at them.

Charlotte jumped to her feet in defense of her fellow captain. “That’s right! Yami would have been much too young.”

“Heh,” the foreign captain laughed. “Knowing Sisgoleon, she probably raped a lion to make her baby after beating up all the men in all the bars across the kingdom one night and failing to find anyone tough enough to survive sleeping with her.”

After a few seconds, Fuegoleon hung his head. “I’d take that as an insult to my family’s honor if it probably wasn’t close to the truth. Knowing my sister.”

“...um, you guys do know how babies are made, right?” Charlotte asked in fear.

Rill looked past Dorthy, who was still asleep, and gave the answer. “Of course we do, they're grown in cabbage patches for the stork to fly them to a wanting family, right?”

All of the magic knight captains turned to look at the kid on the other end of the seating and stared. “Okay, why did the Wizard King make this brat a captain, again?” Jack the Ripper asked.

Down below, the noble was giving up, making Sunset fume before she put up her book and stormed her way over to the sidelines in a foul mood that made everyone standing in her direction scatter. Secre was just glad that the insanity happening up in the stands had prevented the knight captains from noticing the fact that Sunset hadn’t bothered to turn the pages in her grimoire when she was fighting.

A lack of calling out spells could be explained by the distance, but every grimoire only had one spell per pair of pages.

“Seriously Brother,” Leo spoke up. “Could Sister have actually hidden a pregnancy from Mother and Father?”

Fuegoleon rubbed his chin in thought. “Well, it’s possible. Mereoleona took Acier Silva’s death hard. She worshiped the woman after all. After the funeral, she disappeared for nearly a year. Nobody knew where she went and Sister didn’t give anyone any details. So we just assumed she went off training, like she tended to do every now and again with increasing frequency. Then, when mother offered her the captaincy, which would have forced her to stay in the capital…”

“So, the woman all but deserted the Magic Knights to raise her bastard child?” Charlotte surmised.

After a second of silence, William looked over to the woman. “What makes you think she’s a bastard?” he asked calmly. “I’ve only met her twice, but your sister seems exactly like the type of person to throw away tradition and decorum to marry a commoner. Which, the girl’s father most likely is.”

The next match was called, but none of the captains even bothered to look down below.

Nozel looked over to the redhead. “So, what will you do?”

Fuegoleon took in a deep breath to let it out slowly. “As much as it pains me, I’ll have to do the noble thing...and ignore it. The country is littered with bastards. One more isn’t going to make a difference.”

From his place between the two men, William let out a disgruntled moan.

“Won’t Sisgoleon be pretty mad if you snub her baby girl?” Yami taunted.

Tensing at the question, Fuegoleon looked on ahead. “I’ll survive...probably.”

Secre’s eye twitched as the captains finished their conversation and went to look at the next match. I forgot how stupid all these guys are.

Yuno felt an extreme amount of annoyance as the noble he had been up against fell to the ground with a loud thud, the lighting from his own spell still crackling from when it hit his body. Why couldn’t I have gotten a golem user too, he thought with a frown as the noble named Haberdashery, or...something like that, twitched on the ground.

When the battle had begun, Yuno had sent out the first spell he learned at full power, thinking that a noble willing to challenge someone with a four leaf would have at least been able to dodge or put up a defense. But instead, the towering tornado had sucked the boy’s attack up, followed by the boy, and hit him with his own magic before dropping his unconscious body on the ground.

Everyone was going on about how he had easily crushed a noble, but...the tryouts were supposed to be about showing himself off to the captains. The only person who really got help from short matches was simpletons with one trick grimoires, like Asta.

So, Yuno made his way over to where Sunset had managed to clear an empty space in the shade and was sitting in the dark next to Asta. With their matches done, it didn’t make sense not to spend the rest of the day together. Plus, Sunset had all the food.

“Hey, I think I figured out why Secre was calling us stupid,” Asta said as he looked up at the captains.

Sunset looked over to the boy with an even expression. “Please, enlighten us,” she said sarcastically.

Completely missing the point, Asta kept talking. “I think that Fuegoleon guy is whatshername’s brother.”

Resisting the urge to facepalm, Yuno just let it go and spent the rest of the day watching the matches. Some were interesting, others...not so much. There were no more great displays of power, although a water user that rode a snake made from liquid might have put up a better fight than the opponent Yuno ended up going with.

By the time the matches were over, with the final participant actually withdrawing before an opponent could even be selected, the sun was setting and torches had to be lit to send light into illumination crystals that amplified what they were given providing enough light to see. Captain William called for everyone to gather in the arena again, which took up the back half of the total area. Once everyone was there, including some of the mages fresh from behind healed enough to stand on their own two feet, he made his next announcement. “When your number is called, come forward to learn your results.”

Then the woman captain, Charlotte Roselei, stood up. “If you have been chosen, a captain will raise their hand. If more than one squad has chosen you, then you may pick which to join. However, you may decide to decline the invitation.”

“However, if no squad wants you, then you are to leave!” the captain with the red hair announced.

While Asta tensed in his spot next to Yuno, the other boy had something else going through his mind. It was obvious that everything thought the Golden Dawn was the best squad, but in his rush to join the Magic Knights, Yuno realized that he was lacking a crucial piece of information. I have no idea what the differences are between these guys, he thought to himself.

It had to be more than simple teams.

Did they cover different territories of the realm?

Or were there actions specialized, like the Purple Orcas taking care of guarding merchants and taking down criminals while the Green Praying Mantis Squad hunted down enemy mages active somewhere in the kingdom?

Then came the question of...what did he actually want to do as a magic knight?

Because if it turned out the top squad’s job was to sit around and guard nobles while the commoners were being killed in border skirmishes, he wanted nothing to do with the Golden Dawn.

That...was a bit of a revelation, Yuno realized. The old him would have taken one look at the Golden Dawn, and it’s leader, and ran straight at it to try and be the Wizard King as fast as possible.

“You stupid little twerp!” the memory of Mereoleona shouted at him back on the mountain. “The path you take in life is even more important than the destination you hope to reach! Who the hell cares if you become the Wizard King if the way you got the title was by throwing everything important away?”

Yuno may have not needed the whole lecture, but he understood what she was saying.

“Examinee number one, step forward,” the mage that had served as referee during the duels called out. “No hands.”

And so, it continued…

“Examinee number thirty-two...no hands.”

And continued...without a single person being selected…

“Number forty...no hands.”

On…

“Number forty-five...no hands.”

And on…

“Number sixty-seven...no hands.”

Until…

“Number seventy-one…” the mage called out, right before the fat mage in the little mask raised his hand. “The Purple Orcas.”

The crowd started to whisper among themselves, some talking about how lucky the guy was, while others… “I heard his parents bribed someone.” ...sounded jealous.

Seventy-eight got taken by the Crimson Lions.

Ninety-nine saw a hand raised by the sleeping captain with the blonde pretty-boy standing behind her.

“That counts! That counts, right?” the girl said happily. “WOOHOO! No more milking cows!”

They continued on, with some surprising results. Number One-forty-one, who made a rather good showing, was rejected.

Then came Yuno’s turn.

“Number one-sixty-four,” the mage called out before looking up to the captains.

All of whom raised their hands.

While the crowd began to whisper amongst themselves, amazed that the Silver and Gold groups were making offers for someone other than a noble, Yuno...didn’t know what to do. “Can I...have a minute to think?” he asked.

“Of course,” the man in the mask replied from the place where the stone chairs were.

Yuno felt conflicted. The old him looked at the Golden Dawn, the top squad that promised guidance by the man who was second in achievement only to the Wizard King. But...was that the right path to take? “Can I ask a question?”

Captain William nodded. “Go right ahead.”

“What squad was the current Wizard King on before he received the title he holds now?” Yuno asked.

Instead of the administrator of the exam answering, the boy that barely looked older than Yuno jumped up and waved. “Hey there! He was on my squad,” the boy said before becoming thoughtful. “Although, it was before I was even a magic knight, so could I really call it my squad? Oh, this one’s a toughie.”

Recoiling in fear from the idea of that being his mentor, Yuno went back to what he knew he would have gone with had all these new thoughts not entered his mind. “I’ll join the Golden Dawn!” he declared so quickly he almost tripped over his own tongue.

For some reason, a little shiver ran down his spine, and Yuno just knew that Sunset was glaring at him...somehow.

Then, after Yuno took his place back into the crowd that had shrunk considerably with all the departures, he did his best to ignore the daggers Sunset was sending at him with her eyes. After all, it was Asta’s turn.

He walked up after his number was called.

“Do we have any hands?” the mage on the floor asked.

…

…

…

“Number none-sixty-five…”

…

…

“...no hands.”

Yuno blinked. “Say what?” he asked himself.

That...wasn’t possible.

From her place next to him, Sunset grave a growl. “You knew this was going to happen. After seeing how all the tests went, you knew this was going to happen, you knew this was going to happen,” she whispered to herself over and over again. “So don’t blow up.”

The crowd started to get restless, but Sunset didn’t seem in too much of a hurry for things to continue and kept her own mouth shut.

“No...I’m not...done..”

“It’s no real surprise, is it?” a man with a gruff tone to his voice asked, silencing the crowd and making Asta look up at the man in the sleeveless shirt Yuno had seen manhandling the short boy at the start of the exam. “Nobody wants to touch a power as mysterious as yours, no matter how good you are at combat. What the captains want is magic power.”

As if to demonstrate, the man flared his magic. Thanks to his training with the three redheads, Yuno could feel the man with the odd facial features grab the mana in the area to affect things around him before using it to press down on his surroundings in a show of force. Then, he leaped down into the arena and approached Asta while his assistant in the stands looked like he was worried his boss was going crazy.

“The hell is he doing?” Sunset grumbled.

She made a move to go forward, but Yuno reached out to grab her arm. “Wait,” he said. “There’s something going on.”

Sunset glared back at the boy. “Yeah, he’s trying to embarrass Asta and make him run away.”

“Rather than just have him escorted out by the guards?” Yuno asked evenly.

An open mouth that should have given a response closed after a few seconds before Sunset turned her head. “Come to think of it, that guy is supposed to have the worst squad, but he hasn’t made a single offer,” she mumbled. “In fact, aside from you, nobody’s gotten more than one. And that privacy screen they threw up during the last exam...oh, it’s politics.”

Yuno blinked and looked over to his big sister as she put on a sour face. “Come again?”

“Don’t you think it’s weird that nobody has had more than a single hand raised for them?” Sunset asked. “If someone is really good, then they should get at least two offers, maybe even three. And Yami’s a foreigner, I heard a high up talking about him before the tests started. She didn’t like him very much. They all made deals during the matches to nab whomever they could, I bet.”

She says she’s not a royal, and then does things like this, Yuno thought to himself.

Back in the center of the ring, Yami continued speaking. “You said that you want to be the Wizard King? That means you think you can prove that you’re better than all nine magic knight captains. And now, standing here all pathetic and magicless, can you really say you’re strong enough to be the Wizard King?”

“Well, not today, old man,” Asta replied. “But I don’t care how long it takes, or how many times I stumble. Because I’m not going to give up and I will become the Wizard King!”

A second later, the man’s dark aura faded, and he started laughing. After catching his breath, Yami grinned down at the boy. “Okay kid, you can come with me and join the Black Bulls,” he said before his face got serious again. “And you don’t get to say no, got it?”

“Y-Yes sir!”

Yami bent down to get right into Asta’s face. “Because we’re gonna work you like a dog, day in and day out until you won’t know up from down,” he said menacingly before standing back up and taking the cigarette out of his mouth to blow some smoke. “And when we’re done...you’re gonna go on be the Wizard King.”

Asta stood there for several more seconds in a daze that didn’t even end when the crowd started yelling at him again. Eventually though, he finally moved on.

“Number one-sixty-six…”

Yuno blinked. A part of him realizing that for the first time in his life, he was going to be separated from Asta. A great deal of doubt began to fill him and he began to wonder if he had made the right choice. When he...didn’t know what squad Asta would be on?

It didn’t make sense, but he felt a little guilt for not letting Asta go first so they could be on the same team.

It was a childish guilt though, something he knew he should be feeling.

But at the same time, a feeling he couldn’t shake.

Lost in thought, Yuno almost missed Sunset as she walked forward and looked around as the captains...sat there...looking at each other nervously?

“..no-”

“Whoa, hold on just a minute,” the big man Asta was now under the command of said. “We’re still-”

“Ah, good idea,” Fuegoleon spoke up. “You can take her, Yami.”

“Yes, the foreigner should be the sacrificial lamb,” Nozel agreed.

“WHAT?” Yami yelled. “You guys can’t just make me take a recruit. Goldie, help me out here!”

Willian rubbed his chin. “It really wouldn’t be fair to have both of the best new mages on my squad. And your squad is rather lacking in members.”

After standing up, Charlotte moved to speak. “Now hold on every-mmmpth!” And promptly had her mouth covered by the sleeping Dorthy before she was pulled back down.

“Kekeke,” the thin man named Jack laughed. “We could just tell Mereoleona that you refused her girl membership in-”

“THAT’S PLAYING DIRTY!” the unkempt man yelled at them before freezing and slowly looking back towards the very confused redhead. Then, very slowly, raising his hand, he called out to her. “You can uh...join the Back Bulls...if you want.”

Sunset was silent for several seconds, slumping in disbelief at the display. Then she looked back at the two boys. “Well, I guess Yuno will be fine on his own,” she said before looking back up at the uncouth man. “Okay.”

“They think I’m who?” Sunset asked in disbelief.

“The daughter of Mereoleona Vermillion and...well, that’s where the story gets a little discombobulated,” the bird told her as Sunset hid in the bathroom to talk to the animal without getting caught. “You’re either the child of a commoner, the product of immaculate conception brought about by sheer willpower and lack of suitable males, or the offspring of beastiality...which is rather ironic, considering your actual origins.”

Sunset frowned at the bird. “I would like to remind you that I kill things for meat now.”

After clearing her throat, Secre went on. “Yes, well...perhaps it would be best to let them believe what they may for now. If House Vermillion will be open to your presence, then it will work in our favor. Fuegoleon wears one of the magic stones that we need to restore-”

With the utterance of the man’s name, a memory sparked in Sunset. “Oh! Right, I have to give him that letter!” she exclaimed. “With everything that happened, I forgot about it!”

Not forgetting the bird, Sunset ran to the door and let Secre out with her before looking around to try and find if the man from the Crimson Lions was still around while telling her to keep an eye on Yuno, since he would be by myself with the Golden Dawn. A squad that seemed destined to disappoint, in Sunset’s opinion.

By some stroke of luck, he was still outside the coliseum with another redheaded boy beside him and two examinees that managed to make the cut into his squad. “-and furthermore, you must show absolute bravery, even in the face of certain death!” Fuegoleon told the two newbies as Sunset approached.

The younger redhead, who was obviously Fuegoleon’s brother, tensed as Sunset ran up to him. “Um...can we...help you...ma’am?” he said nervously.

Fuegoleon looked back, his eyes widening a little upon noticing her. “Yes...can I help you...stranger, who I do not know?”

Seriously? Sunset asked herself before pulling the letter out from the book in her pack and handing it to the man. “Your sister wanted me to give you this.”

After standing still for several seconds, Fuegoleon blinked. “My sister...who you know is my sister.”

“Yes,” Sunset deadpanned.

“...crap,” Leopold mumbled before looking over to his brother as the man slowly opened the letter to read it. As he did, with deepening distress on his face, the younger brother looked to Sunset. “So...this is awkward.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “How so?”

When Leopold didn’t answer and simply took a few steps back, Sunset turned and saw Fuegoleon’s eye twitching before he looked down at her. “You’re giving this to me, now?” he asked with an incredulous expression.

“Well...we didn’t really know where to find you and...the exam was today, which was when we got to town, so…” Sunset told him rather lamely.

Leo gave her a disbelieving look. “You didn’t think to check the big house at the top of the hill?”

“With this, you didn’t even need to take the exam!” he exclaimed while holding out the piece of paper, that his brother quickly snatched.

Once Leo had smoothed it out a little, he began reading it. “Hey idiot, I’m sending this letter with one of three kids. Unless you want me to tear off your balls and feed them to you, put all three of them in the Crimson Lions. Two are extremely talented and the boy with the sword has his uses. I’ll be back in town to check up on their progress at the next promotion ceremony. See you then,” he read before looking over to his brother. “So, we were supposed to get all three of them, and ended up not even asking two. Brother...you’re dead.”

“She can hardly blame me for a lack of information!” Fuegoleon counted. “By any rational…”

When the older brother trailed off, the younger one rolled his eyes. “As if Sis would let something like facts get in the way of her opinion. So...dead.”

The declaration made Fuegoleon raise a fist. “Never say die little brother! If Sister will be here come the promotion ceremony, then I simply have to be busy that day! Gather the men, take every request for missions we have on the job board! Ask the Wizard King for anything else he has in stock!” the fiery man declared. “We’ll set up a forward command base and won’t even go back to the Crimson Lion headquarters until all our duties have been taken care of!”

“And it’s safe to come home,” Leopold deadpanned.

“Exactly!”

Sunset slowly backed away from the pair of brothers and turned to make her way to where the captain of the Black Bulls was waiting with the creepy guy in the military hat and the more normal looking guy in the green shirt were waiting. Asta was there, his eyes going back and forth between creepy guy and Yami, probably trying to decide which was worse. “Sorry, I had some business to take care of before.”

After taking a drag on his cigarette, Yami waved it off. “Meh, I know how long you girls need in the bathroom,” he said before looking at the guy in green with the squad robe that could only be called a hooded shoulder covering. “Okay Finral, get your spatial magic working. Shorty here can’t use a broom without any magic, so I’ll have to use you as our ride.”

“And what’s been your reason all the other times you could have used a broom to get where you're going by yourself?” the guy muttered too low for Yami to hear before he held out his hand.

A second later, a portal large enough to walk through opened up in front of the group, leading to...Sunset wasn’t sure. The only thing that could be seen on the other end was a mass of distorted white and black. “So...does the event horizon of the portal disrupt visual information, or do you need to open it to a kind of ‘between space’ and then open another once we’re inside?” she asked, intrigued at the process before looking over to the mage.

Finral shook with obvious effort from holding the portal open, actually holding his open grimoire, despite the fact that Sunset had heard mages specialized in movement magic didn’t need to do such things. “Is this really the time for playing twenty questions?” he demanded while straining with the spell.

“Then, we should hurry this along. Get moving, runt!”

Sunset stepped towards the portal, then blinked when Asta flew through it at an odd angle while screaming, making her look back at Yami. Did he just...nah, Sunset told herself. A guy who was supposed to be a military officer wouldn’t be like that. Asta was just being his overly enthusiastic self.

Although...he had seemed extremely odd at the exam, even when what Asta had been put through was probably some kind of special evaluation.

After stepping into the portal, Sunset felt...weird. There was some travel time, which made her wonder if someone could be intercepted mid-transport, but it was odd. There was no sensation of not being anywhere, similar to teleportation, but at the same time, she wasn’t at her beginning or end destination.

Then she stepped out the other side of the portal and...didn’t feel any sense of vertigo human bodies experienced with pony teleportation.

Did that mean the portal compensated for the disturbance in the inner ear teleportation caused?

Or did it simply not have such a problem in the first place?

She would need to experience it a few more times to make a decision.

In the time it took Sunset to make up her mind, the rest of the group came through and the portal closed. Taking a look around, Sunset could see they were no longer anywhere near the capital, as it was surrounded by grassy plains with the occasional farm. They were in a forest, with a very tall...building in front of them.

Sunset didn’t know to classify it. Not only did the thing look shabby and run down, some sections of the structure were made of completely different materials. On top of which, whoever had built the thing must have misread the blueprints or lacked any form of depth perception. In fact, Sunset wouldn’t have been surprised if it had been built by a bind person listening to a drunken yak tell them how the building should have looked. Parts of the structure big enough to contain whole rooms jutted out in ways that made Sunset wonder how they didn’t fall down from being exposed to gravity. Mismatched windows, a door on the second floor that just led to open air, and a sixth floor that looked to be just one small room when the place went up to nine stories total had her wondering just how anyone could live in such a place.

“Alright, the Black Bulls hideout!” Asta exclaimed.

Yami grinned. “Yeah, we got a real snazzy place.”

I’m starting to think this was a mistake, Sunset told herself.

Did the Magic Knights allow transfers?

Because she and Asta needed a transfer.

As Sunset was wondering if she could get into the Crimson Lions after all, Asta ran forward and opened the main door. “Hey, I’m the newest member of this squad, fresh from Hage Village, the name’s Asta and I-” was as far as he got into his introduction before an explosion sent him flying backwards and set the door itself on fire in an uncontrolled.

A scream of panic escaped Sunset as she ran to check on her little brother while Yami laughed about the whole thing and walked up to the two of them while taking the cigarette out of his mouth. “Welcome to the Black Bulls, the worst of the worst magic knight squads.”

“...yeah, I should have delivered that letter before the exam,” Sunset grumbled as the big man standing over her laughed.

Page 9: Shopping

Dawn had yet to come as Secre flew her way down to the halfway point of the seaside cliff and landed on a small rocky out cropping just big enough for her little body to stand on. There, away from prying eyes or any hope of being found by humans, was a small, hollowed out area which she had spent days making with her beak several hundred years ago to store one of the most important artifacts in the world. A small blue jewel with arcane writing at its center, containing the magic of another world.

Said artifact that was now missing.

Thankful for her ability to speak, the bird sighed as she sat on the little rocky outcropping and voiced her distress. “Well...crap.”

It was much too early o’clock as Yami heard someone stupidly pounding on his door. For a moment, he thought that he might have slept all the way through the day off, but one look at the calendar on the wall next to his bed told him that day was in fact, today. So, either someone really wanted to die, or he had forgotten to mark the day off on his calendar.

And since it was probably the former, Yami let out a groan as he got out of his bed, pulling up his underwear that had slipped off some of the way during his sleep. Then, we walked over to his room’s exit and put his fist through the door to rip the top half of the thing off and get a look at who was making all the damn racket so early in the morning. “What the hell is going on here?” the irate captain demanded as he looked around before finding out the perpetrator was the short newbie. “You ready to die, boy?”

Asta let out a squeal and jumped back. “AHHH! I’M SORRY CAPTAIN YAMI SIR! BUT THERE’S A LETTER TO YOU FROM THE WIZARD KING!” the half pint said before offering up a sealed scroll with an official mark of office on the front, confirming its authenticity.

With the brat’s voice resounding in his ears, Yami grunted and took the letter. From Julius, huh? he thought before tearing off the wax seal and unfurling the scroll. It was short and sweet, thank the Clover Kingdom’s crazy god. And after reading it...Yami realized a complete waste of time. “YOU WOKE ME UP FOR THIS?” he yelled at the boy.

“B-But it’s from the Wizard King!” Asta replied before backing up to the end of the hallway and looking around desperately after realizing he had nowhere else to go.

Which...probably explained why Finral or someone was able to sucker the kid into waking Yami up to deliver it. He vaguely remembered the brat saying how he was going to rise to the position some day, despite having no magic whatsoever. So, he probably thought anything coming from the desk of that magic-loving freak deserved to be preserved behind a frame or something.

Feeling the call of the morning’s duties, Yami grumbled and reached up to scratch an annoying itch. Since it would probably be faster to ask someone who’d already been awake for an hour or two where the bathroom had moved to in their crazy house, the man opened the door and went out into the hallway. “Fine. Whatever. Go and get the squad, we have to do this little award ceremony,” he said before ripping off the rest of his door so he could get a whole new one.

“Aren’t you going to put on some pants?” Asta asked cautiously.

Yami snorted. “No.”

With Magna already gone to take care of the other job around Saussy Village, he was the only Black Bull who was absent in the base’s common room while the rest of the squad stood there, most still holding their bags of yul in preparation to go blow it all as Yami stood in a corner of the room, next to a board with several black marks that looked like stars on it.

“And so, because of your efforts in protecting the people of Saussy Village, the Wizard King has decided to award the Black Bulls a star,” the uncouth captain of the worst magic knight squad said as Sunset watched him stand in his underwear while holding up a golden star that easily fit between his thumb and finger with one hand as he scratched his ass with another. “Now, where’s the bathroom today?”

Gauche pointed towards the common room’s left exit. “Third door on the right.”

As Sunset found herself wondering if perhaps the Clover Kingdom wasn’t that much different than Celestia’s nation of adult babies, what with them getting stars and all, Asta let out an excited cry. “ALRIGHT! WE GOT A STAR!” he exclaimed before his excitement suddenly stopped and he looked over to Finral. “Hey, what’s a star?”

Noelle groaned. “If you don’t know, then why are you getting all excited, idiot?”

“Context clues Asta,” Sunset told him while contemplating the hopelessness of ever getting that boy to think before opening his mouth. At least he could learn to use volume control. “It’s a commendation of some sort.”

Actually dressed for once, Vanessa walked up to the redhead in a pair of red-violet long boots and matching top that was skin tight, along with a short skirt that barely covered her hips. However, here looked to be more material in the fingerless gloves that covered most of her arms and boots that came up past her knees than there was on the rest of her body. The matching witch’s hat was a nice touch, though. “It’s a bit more than that, though. It’s part of a competition, with each squad’s members working hard to get as many as they can. Although you get credit for each star you earn as a team or individually, every squad’s total number of stars is tallied at the end of the year during a festival,” she explained before holding up a finger. “The number of stars each squad has will determine how effective they are, which in turn means how many funds are allocated towards them. At the same time, the individuals who earn stars move up through the ranks.”

“So it’s not just bragging rights,” Sunset surmised as she had to change her opinion on the whole star idea. Well...not like anyone can blame me, she told herself. Back home, teachers gave stars to little colts and fillies who were still in magic kindergarten. Since Clover didn’t have anything like that here, they wouldn’t have made such a connection.

“Right now, the Golden Dawn is ranked highest in terms of stars with a total of seventy,” Vanessa went on. Which made sense, considering how big a deal everyone made of them. If there was a set metric to determine which squad was best, they would be at the top.

Asta turned to Yami. “How many stars do we have?” he asked excitedly, practically jumping up and down with excitement.

Sunset reached up to rub her forehead before engaging in the futility of trying to teach her little brother to think. “Asta, do you see that board behind Yami?” she asked while pointing to the piece of wood hanging on the wall before counting the rows and doing a little math. “Considering we’re the Black Bulls and those are black stars, we’ve obviously got thirty-one.”

“Nope!” Yami was quick to tell her before he put the golden star up on the board where one of the black stars was. There was a brief surge of magic before the black star disappeared along with the golden one Yami had just added. “Counting the star you all just earned, we’re now at an even negative thirty stars!”

Sunset’s hair untwinged as she heard the news that she was so horribly wrong about something so basic.

Noelle was more vocal about it. “What kind of loser squad am I in?” she demanded in a dejected tone as she slumped where she stood. “How do you even get negative stars?”

Not knowing when to keep his mouth shut, the energetic boy Luck raised his hand. “I beat up the noble I was assigned to guard because he looked strong.”

“I didn’t show up for a job because the caravan I was supposed to escort went near the town my little sister lives in,” Gauche told them, obviously not caring about the black mark on his record.

“Drinking on the job,” Vanessa supplied. “Which reminds me.” She reached behind her to pull out a bottle of wine and took a swig.

Finral shrugged. “I didn’t think Lord Tully was going to actually catch me with his daughter.”

“I ate all the food on the whaling ship they put me on to fight off leviathans after it made its first catch!” Charmy declared.

Sunset blinked. Did Charmy seriously just say she ate a fucking whale?

“The people I was supposed to be guarding thought I was a bandit for some reason.”

Gray...just blew smoke.

Yami headed towards the door Gauche had pointed to him earlier. “Okay. I’m off to take a dump and crawl back into bed. Don’t bother me until tomorrow.”

Wow, that even breaks my sensibilities, and I spent eighty-five percent of my life naked, Sunset said as she watched the older man leave before turning to Vanessa. “So, we going by broom or…” not knowing what other options there be, besides Finral, Sunset left the rest of the question unasked.

“Hey Finral, be a dear and make us a gate to Kikka, would you?” she asked. “I need to help our fledglings get some clothes that aren’t threatening to fall apart at the drop of a hat and I want to show Noelle the uh...special shopping district.”

The portal knight groaned. “Okay, but you’re getting back on your own. I got dates to find.”

Sunset stumbled. The fact that he gave the plural was rather disturbing. While not the most traditional pony, she had been stuck with Cadance for a good amount of time and gotten plenty of unwanted advice when the little filly had tried to make small talk in the hopes of awakening Sunset’s long dormant desires and pair her off with a stallion with long, dreamy speeches about two ponies falling in love and spending the rest of their lives together.

The fact he was already looking for multiple partners was...weird.

“I don’t know what’s worse,” Noelle said before walking up to the portal. “The fact you actually said that, or the fact that you look eager to start.”

Sunset just followed her through, with Vanessa having Asta bring up the rear.

The section of the human mountain that Sunset took the exam in didn’t look like it had changed much since she had seen it a few days ago. Although, logic told her there were probably less people around then there had been back then.

After picking up some essential medical supplies, Vanessa took them to a series of stores that lined both sides of a street, showing off various clothes that looked to be of about the same quality as the dress Sunset had before it began to become threadbare to the point of hopelessly damaged. Although, she told Asta and Noelle to go into a different one than she showed to Sunset. “Noelle, I think we both know that guys have almost no taste, so could you help make sure Asta doesn’t just blow all his money on impractical clothes? We’re not needing a full wardrobe, but make sure it’s something he can do his job in.”

“I suppose,” Noelle agreed reluctantly.

“Hey, I don’t need any new clothes,” Asta told them.

Sunset groaned at the boy’s thick head. “Your pants barely come down past your knees and half of your forearms are showing,” she told him. “You can at least get clothes that fit properly!”

Vanessa couldn’t help but giggle a little as she reached her hands around Sunset to carefully measure the younger girl’s breasts to better get an idea of what size she would need for her bra; plus, it was a little fun to get a reaction for her while squeezing Sunset’s boobs. While her thread magic could make the minute changes needed to make it more comfortable, it was best to start with something as close to perfect as they could find.

The little room made for trying on clothes wasn’t big, but even if they had an actual fitting room to themselves, Vanessa would still have pressed her whole body up against the girl in a hug. An extra look at the little bench built into the wall beside them confirmed that they had matching sets for all of the lower underwear to go with the bras they had gotten for the currently naked girl.

But, it wasn’t cup sizes, or Sunset trying to hide her discomfort of another woman feeling her up that made Vanessa smile as she held the young woman close to her. “You know, I don’t think that I ever wanted anything more without knowing it up until now,” she said softly.

“Come again?” Sunset asked as Vanessa removed her hands and grabbed one of the basic white bras they had picked up before going to the dressing room.

“It’s just...I never really had anyone to care about until I joined the Bulls, or anyone really care about me, to be honest,” she said while helping Sunset into the thing and taking care of the back for her. “They’re my family. And now that you’re a part of it, so are you. That’s what I mean. I want you to think of me as a big sister. I know I tend to drink, but if you ever need to talk, I’ll always be here to-Sunny?”

Thanks to the mirror in the room, Vanessa could see the redheaded girl looked about to cry as she stood frozen, with an anguished look on her face. “Please, don’t say stuff like that. You don’t even know me.”

Vanessa didn’t ease up. Instead, she wrapped her arms around the shorter girl and kissed her on the head before pulling her back onto the little bench all personal dressing rooms had to help try on boots and shoes. With the naked girl sitting in her lap, Vanessa just held her gently, but with a firm grip. “I know enough. I know you genuinely want to help Noelle with her problems, that you’re smart and unbelievably talented. But here you are, joining the Magic Knights when there’s a hundred more ways to make better money. I know someone really hurt you in the past, and you’re afraid that it might happen again,” she said before kissing the girl on the head again. “You’re afraid, both of being vulnerable and losing the people you love. I heard from Asta about what happened at the orphanage.” She decided to leave out the part about hitting on him in the hallway to try and get a reaction from the boy. “And I heard from you about how someone tried to use you for her own ends.”

Sunset slumped a little in her arms at the last bit, but Vanessa simply pulled her in close. “Do you know what it means to be family, Sunset?” she asked in a whisper.

After several seconds, the girl shook her head. “Not...really.”

“It means to always be there for one another, no matter what,” she explained. “I’m not…” she looked for the right words after hearing about Hage from Asta the day before. “That woman Asta mentioned, Lilly? I’m not saying I’ll be the new her. For crying out loud, she was a nun and I’m drunk half the time. That’s not even a contest. But, I will be everything that I can for you.”

Sunset trembled for a moment before she raised a hand to try and dislodge one of Vanessa’s. “Thanks for the offer, but, I-I got it.”

Vanessa didn’t let go. She couldn’t. Maybe it was too soon, too sudden, too much and too alien to the new girl, but Vanessa wanted her to know that she had someone to help look after her again. “Sunset...have you even cried since that day?” she asked making the girl freeze again. “Asta calls you his big sister. That means you were the one always looking after him, always in control. The rock that everyone has to rely on. Even though you and him are the same age.”

“V-Vanessa, please...just…” Sunset whispered before trailing off.

Another kiss to the girl’s head made Sunset tremble before she laid her head down on the woman’s shoulder. “People may get their grimoires when they’re fifteen, but they’re still only one day older than they were the day before,” she told the girl as she moved a hand to stroke her hair. “You don’t have to be the adult anymore. At least, not when it’s just you and me. Okay, baby sis?”

Sunset simply sat in the woman’s lap, barely moving, if only just to breathe.

There was no dam breaking, or even a single tear that fell from her eyes. She simply sat there for several minutes as Vanessa held her, Sunset’s head resting on the bigger woman’s shoulder. “...can I really trust you?” she finally asked, her voice so low it could barely be heard.

Vanessa didn’t give her an answer immediately. It wasn’t the kind of question that should be answered right away, or just given a basic reassurance. “I’m not perfect, Sunset. But I’ll do my best to be someone you can rely on,” she promised. “And I will never, ever abandon you. That much, I can promise.”

When she didn’t move, Vanessa went to stroking the girl’s hair, playing with it a little as she thought of what types of products would help fix years of neglect brought on by poverty. She needed her nails done too. Big sisters took their little ones to get their nails done, right?

By the time Sunset moved again, Vanessa had their whole day planned out to every last detail. She stood back up, looking much more like a naked fifteen-year-old should look when standing next to their bigger, sexier elder sibling.

Since enough had been said for now, Vanessa went back to the task at had. Sunset could take all the time she wanted to process what had just been given to her. “So, what do you think?” the older woman asked as she brought up the straps that would help hold the thing in place.

After taking a moment to collect herself, Sunset shook her top half from the hips up a little, then bent over to put the full weight of her breasts on the lingerie. I’m not sure. It’s been awhile, but I think this is a little loose,” she told her big sister.

Vanessa reached back around and felt the girl’s breasts again, then reached inside the bra to test how much breathing room it had for her. “Well, you don’t want it to be too tight,” she said. “Although, having something fall out during combat is rather embarrassing, despite how good a distraction it makes.”

Sunset looked over to the other woman’s chest and poked one of her boobs. “Something tells me you know about that from personal experience.”

“Let’s try a strapless one next,” Vanessa told her before helping Sunset out of her current bra. “It gives you a bit more to work with when it comes to clothing options.”

“Now this, this will make it perfect,” Vanessa said as she held up a dark jacket made of...actually, Sunset wasn’t sure what the coat was made from. “These new zipper things are still catching on, but they make getting in and out of clothes without tearing them so much easier.”

Sunset gave the thing a careful look. “Do I really need two jackets?” she asked carefully.

The older woman giggled. “Sunset, you’re a combat mage, you’re going to need at least three sets of every outfit you own. It’ll help when someone melts your boots or freezes part of your jacket until it shatters, not to mention all the holes you’re going to get, but I can only repair clothes so many times before they wear out completely and we do have a backlog” she said. “The reason everyone at the hideout looks like they wear the same thing all the time is because we all have about five sets of the exact same outfit.”

Sunset didn’t know whether to comment on the practicality of such a decision or make a snide remark as Vaness helped her try the coat on before turning her around to look at the three mirrors. While hardly an expert in the world of human fashion, Sunset thought she looked good.

The clothes she had on were a mix of practicality and vanity. A pair of boots that stopped halfway up to her knees covered her feet, while a pair of good, long pants that hugged her skin covered Sunset up to her waist. However, the light green wide skirt she had on that was part of her top kept anyone from seeing her butt, hiding it with a collection of frills while a cut low enough to show off her boobs drew attention away from her face. Because the top didn’t have any sleeves, Vanessa had insisted on a jacket, despite it being Summer. Still, the thing was thin enough to be little more than a windbreaker. “So uh...how do you think I look?”

Vanessa hugged her again from behind. “Adorable.”

After rolling her eyes at the comment, Sunset couldn’t stop herself from smiling from the loving contact while trying to come up with something less approving to say. “You know, with all these clothes you’re making me try on. I’m starting to feel like a doll you’re playing dress up with.”

“I’ll have you know that I am taking this trip to buy you some much needed clothes very seriously,” Vanessa assured her before breaking the hug and sticking the tip of her tongue out for a bit. “Turning you into my little fashion doll is just a very enjoyable bonus.”

Sunset rolled her eyes, but the blush on her cheeks probably gave away her true feelings on the subject. Despite being older than she looked, it felt good to be taken care of in such a way. Lilly had been great, but they hadn’t really been able to do anything like go shopping together.

After moving around a bit more in the jacket to make sure it fit properly, Sunset looked back to Vanessa. “What’s this thing made of, anyway?”

“Cotton,” the woman told her before reaching to feel the outside material. “But, it’s been sewn and altered slightly with magic to help resist the rain. I doubt anyone would be able to make fabric this fine on a mundane loom.”

Sunset did one last check of her current outfit before looking back at the multiple piles that comprised what would be a third of her wardrobe. Aside from the clothes she had on, there was another set that consisted of a normal shirt colored pink that Vanessa had said she could add her cutie mark to when they got home, a leather vest, shorter boots that only went a little past her ankles and more tight pants; Sunset had said she thought a skirt would go better, but Vanessa advised her against it. Then there was a full top and long skirt combo that came down to her knees that was hot pink, a color Sunset admitted to liking with a good deal of embarrassment. It had a minor enchantment to cause it to sparkle a little in the sunlight. “And I’m going to need to buy three more of each?”

After tapping her chin for a moment, Vanessa walked over to start gathering everything up. “Okay, maybe...I’d say try them out for a few days, then see which one you like before buying a few sets,” Vanessa told her. “Although...since it’s Summer, you could probably go without the jacket and just use your robe. Keep the jacket for when it gets cold. We’re the warmest of the four countries, but that doesn’t mean it's not chilly in the winter.”

“It’s fine,” she said after putting the coat back on. While the change in species had done a number on her senses and every other norm in her life, ponies were used to wearing coats all the time. Having bare skin open to the air still felt weird, even two years after she’d been doing it.

Vanessa helped Sunset take all of her stuff up to the counter to pay for it, then they were out the door and across the street where Asta was supposed to be getting his new wardrobe. They found Noelle sitting with her back to the dressing rooms, her face bright red as she tried to dig her claws into her knees. “Hey girl, what’s up with you?” the older woman asked.

“HOW COULD YOU JUST LEAVE ME HERE WITH HIM?” the girl demanded in embarrassment as she pointed to where half a dozen different doors were.

Sunset looked over to Vanessa, who gave a confused shrug to show she didn’t know what was going on either before looking back to the girl with the bright red face. “What’s wrong?” Sunset asked before finally catching on. “He didn’t say something, stupid, did he?”

The question got a frown from Noelle. “What? No,” she said before she began to get embarrassed again. “You just don’t...you don’t leave a boy and girl together when they’re our age!”

While Sunset found herself still confused over Noelle’s distress, Vanessa let out a little gasp before her smile became something that was almost predatory. “Oh! I get it now,” she said with a widening grin.

Noelle took one look at the older woman and let out a squeak before jumping back and holding up her arms. “Oh no! No, no, no!” she told Vanessa.

“Well, it’s understandable,” the woman with the pink hair went on. “He did save you from drowning, doesn’t think any less of you for your magic problems, has a work ethic that will keep him from getting all fat when he’s older-”

The little royal raised her hand and gathered her mana. “One more word, and I flood the store,” she warned.

Before Vanessa could goad the girl into carrying out her threat, much to Sunset’s confusion over what was going on, one of the dressing room doors opened and Asta came walking out. “What do you think about this one, Noelle?”

Sunset blinked. “Asta, that’s the exact same thing you had on this morning,” she told the boy in the blue jacket and matching pants.

After looking at the two newcomers and apparently registering their presence in his brain, the boy frowned back at them.“No it’s not,” he said before raising a leg. “These pants go all the way down to my ankles and are loose enough to move around it without me straining the fabric.” Then, he began to swing his arms back and forth. “Same goes for the shirt and jacket. I bet I can swing my sword around way better, now.”

Vanessa slumped a bit as she gave Noelle a look of disappointment. “You spent two hours shopping with him, and the only thing you could get him to buy was a better fitting set of clothes he already owned?” she asked.

“What did you expect me to do, dress him myself?” Noelle demanded.

Sunset crossed her arms and tapped her elbow with a finger. “Based on what happened to me? Probably.”

As Noelle’s eye went to twitching, Asta went back into the dressing room for a moment, then popped his head back out. “Hey Noelle, can you help me get some of these things back on the hangers? We didn’t really have any back at the church.”

“Fine! But this doesn’t mean I like you or anything, baka!”

“Are those magic knights?”

“Ugh, it’s the Black Bulls, stay away or they might beat you up.”

Noelle tried her best to ignore the comments as she examined her fingers while walking out of the beauty salon. The quality of their workmanship was hardly up to her standards, but she supposed that was to be expected while slumming it. Sunny didn’t seem to have enjoyed the process very much either, although her mood seemed more curious than anything else as she examined her freshly lacquered nails. “I didn’t even know you could lacquer nails.”

“Trust me, the last thing you want is a broken nail in the middle of a fight,” Vanessa told the shorter girl. “Okay, maybe not the last thing, but it really is distracting.” Then she looked back at the boy of their group. “Everything okay back there?”

Asta rubbed his hands with a little frown before looking back at his palms. “I think they may have broken something.”

The comment made Noelle snort. “They did, they’re called calluses.”

After giggling at the comment in a way that sent a silver down Noelle’s spine, Vanessa looked around. “Okay, so we’ve taken care of our clothing needs for the lot of you, gotten a little hair and nail care, so...next on the list is something for you, Noelle.”

Although she appreciated the offer, Noelle reached up to toss one of her pigtails in a universal dismissive gesture. “Thanks, but I doubt anything here could actually be up to the level of quality I’m used to.”

Vanessa gave her a little smile. “Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure,” she said before turning the girl to look at...a dead end alley?

“...I don’t get it,” she replied.

Sunset blinked and scratched her head. “Huh, that’s weird.” With her comment drawing the rest of the group’s attention, she blinked when everyone looked at her for a moment, then continued on. “It’s a dead end without any trash or anything else.” Then she frowned. “And I think there’s something wrong with that wall.”

The wall in question looked like a dilapidated, crumbling wreck that had a hole big enough for a rat to crawl through and mold growing on it. “Yeah,” Noelle told her. “It’s old and about ready to fall over. The noble in charge of this area should have someone give him an earful. Kids like to play in out of the way places like that. What if it fell on them while they were messing around?”

“Oh, I don’t think you have to worry about that, Noelle,” Vanessa assured her as she led them up to the wall and stuck her hand through it. “This is just an illusion to keep up the tourists and know-nothings out. Now come on, I’ll show you around.”

After sharing a hesitant look with Sunset, the two of them followed Atsa, who ran right through the wall with a gleeful laugh while declaring it cool,before they made their own way through. Inside was another street that continued on ahead to an open area that had several stalls selling numerous wears.

In all honesty, the place weirded Noelle out a little. Why was something like this hidden away?

“Welcome to the Black Market,” Vanessa told them.

Oh, she realized as she looked around at the cheapskate vendors. They’re avoiding their taxes.

“What’s so special about this place?” Sunset asked.

Vanessa tapped her chin as she led them into the main vendor’s area. Numerous stalls had been set up in the empty square, cutting it up into little rows that was lined with dealers of illicit merchandise. There didn’t seem to be many customers, but that would change when most of the reputable merchants closed down for the night.

“Well, this is where magic items from places like the Forest of Witches are smuggled in to be sold, among other things,” she explained. “But be careful, there’s no guard presence, and reporting something stolen from here will only get you in trouble. So every now and then, a thief will try something.”

“There are reasons for those trade embargoes, you know,” Noelle told the smuggler-supporter with a little frown.

A little laugh came from the woman in the witch hat. “Oh yes, one little market square is going to crash the Clover Kingdom’s economy,” she replied. “Look, I get that the kingdom needs the tax revenue to pay for things like my wages, but most of the people here are exiles from their homeland and can either make next to nothing working as basic labor, or put their magical talents to good use for a decent living.”

Not wanting to get into a debate over the pros and cons of such things, like how not all of the people selling things were exiles hoping to make a living and without some kind of inspection or testing, magic items could cause some real harm, Noelle just crossed her arms. “Can we just agree to disagree?”

“Deal,” Vanessa said before leaning in. “Besides, this is the only place in the kingdom you might be able to buy something to help you regulate your power.”

Noelle blinked, already seeing where this was heading. “You think if I have one of these nicknacks, I can control my magic?”

Instead of giving her some sales pitch, Vanessa held up her hands. “I can’t promise anything. But at the very least, it will help you cut down on the collateral damage. Less power also means it’ll be easier to control where you want your mana to go.”

Her eyes lighting up at just the prospect of not being a walking disaster, Noelle let Vanessa lead her down the rows of tables until they found a woman with dark blonde hair selling numerous wands, broaches, and other items that would help lower the flow of mana out of a person’s body.

While they were looking around, Asta’s attention wandered over to another street that led to another open area, albeit much smaller than the one they were in. Several people stood around multiple tables and made an ongoing commotion under the light of some hanging lamps. “What’s going on over there?”

“Hmm?” Vanessa asked as she looked up. “Oh, you two should probably say away from that place. It’s the local gambling den. They take people for suckers all the time.”

Noelle frowned as she picked up a decorative wand and looked it over as Asta found something else to gawk at. “It’s illegal too, right?” If it was, every single game in there was probably rigged.

“Some people seem to be making money,” Sunset commented as she pointed to an old lady sitting at a table outside of the gambling hall with a large stack of coins in front of her while a man in a short green robe not unlike the one the Black Bulls wore let out an anguished cry before throwing down his cards and giving the rest of his money over to the old bag.

While the old woman cackled about her luck, the blonde young man with his hair held back by a clip got up to sulk away grumbling. As he did, Noelle noticed the Preying Mantis insignia on his cloak. “Well, good to see we’re not the only Magic Knights involved in illegal trade,” she told herself before looking back at the wand in her hand with its magical crystal on the end of the grip.

“Give that one a try,” Sunset said with an encouraging smile.

Still feeling nervous as hell about using her magic in public, Noelle focused her mana and blinked as a ball of water formed in front of the wand. It was much smaller than her usual output of raw mana, so...there was that, at least. Then, she let it fly...and sighed when it turned at the last moment to strike the man in the green robe, causing him to cry out.

“Good job, you didn’t break anything...I think,” Sunset added after a moment with a poor attempt at encouragement.

A brief moment of fear for the man was quickly covered up thanks to years of acting. She crossed her arms and looked away from him in fake disgust. “You should watch where you’re going, commoner.”

“...Ba-Hah…?”

Sunset blinked and looked back at the man. “Hey, I recognize you!” she said before walking over to help him up. “It’s um...Sekke-something? Right?

The Praying Mantis slowly got to his feet. “Oh, hey! Did we meet in line, waiting for registration? I remember talking to a pretty girl.”

After thinking about it for a second, Sunset shook her head while retaining a mostly innocent expression. “No, I remember you were the guy who was stupid enough to pick a fight with my baby brother,” she said before patting him on the back with a big, almost mocking smile. “Thanks for that by the way! He might not have gotten into the Black Bulls without a stationary target!”

“...Ba...Ha?” the man named Sekke laughed, sounding more confused than anything.

“Honestly, I should be mad that you tried to trick him into fighting you, but it all worked out so...no hard feelings,” she went on before becoming a little thoughtful. “I actually think I’m a little happy to see you made it in a squad too. Weird, isn’t it?”

Finally getting his bearings, Sekke managed to form a complete sentence. “Wait...baby...you’re the sister of that little brat with the cheat sword?”

While Noelle certainly thought that Asta’s weapon was a bit of a cheat, having it being called that in her hearing made the royal’s eye twitch. The thing had saved her life after all, and it wasn’t as if Asta didn’t have enough problems to more than make up for it. She actually got ready to defend the little brat when he came running down the lane.

“GUYS, CHECK THIS OUT!” Asta yelled as he ran over with a strange stuffed animal in his hand before noticing the Green Mantis squad member. “Hey it’s you, Baha guy!”

“My name is Sekke! Sekke Bronzia!”

Giving the man as much attention as was his due, Noelle pushed him out of the way to get a better look at Asta. “What did you throw your money away on?” she asked while Asta raised the small ball of cotton and wire, wrapped in cloth up to her face to squeeze it. “Take me to your leader, human,” it said.

And this is the guy Vanessa thinks I have a thing for? Noelle asked herself in a stupor. Just how low of an opinion did that woman have of her?

Sunset snorted as she crossed her arms. “Pfft, aliens sound nothing like that.”

“So, you’re on the Mantis Squad, huh?” Vanessa asked as she sauntered into Noelle’s view. However, any thought that the woman was going to ditch them to go get drunk with BaHa fell through pretty quickly. “Shouldn’t you be out patrolling the town? I’m pretty sure that’s the standing order for Jack’s squad these days.”

Not wanting to waste her time with the green boy everyone was distracted by, Noelle turned back to the merchant to pay for the wand. “Thank you miss...uh…”

“Dominante Code,” the woman supplied with a smile that seemed a little too...hungry. “Remember me for all your magic item needs. Repeat customers get a five-percent discount and up to twenty-four hours to return any defective products.”

Noelle took a step back from the woman and swept her gaze over the rest of the street to see if there was anything else she could buy to support the criminal underworld. It was then that she saw a little old lady that looked nearly as small as Charmy walking down the street with a bag of yul nearly as big as she was.

While the impossibility of the sight had her frozen, a man in a ratty cape with a hood snuck up from behind her to grab the old woman’s big bag of money before making a break for it. As he ran, the mugger pulled out his grimoire and cast a wind spell that created a flying cloud underneath him to help spirit him away.

“My money!” she cried out as the man flew away. “HELP! SOMEONE STOP THAT THIEF!”

Behind Noelle, the building fight between BaHa Guy and her group quickly ended, with Asta beginning to chase after the guy.

Down on the ground, the wrinkled old lady looked around, having fallen over when her bag was taken. “Someone, please help me. That man stole all my winnings,” she said as Noelle ran to help her up. A moment later, Sunset was beside her, examining the old lady.

“Hey, that’s the old bat who took all my money!” BaHa Guy said before looking down the road Asta had gone down. “Well...looks like I can get an easy refund, BA-HA!” A moment later, BaHa Guy pulled out his own grimoire and opened it to cast a spell. “Bronze Creation Magic: Sekke Shooting Star.”

Sunset blanched after his magic finished forming some kind of flying contraption that looked like it was ridden like a horse. The obvious reason for her unease was that the thing had a bust of the rider sticking out the front like one of the larger ships that sailed the sea. The whole thing seemed a testament to the man’s ego. “If I ever needed proof everyone has their own spin on magic here, that monstrosity is it.”

Oddly enough, the old woman seemed to actually be impressed by it, her old eyes shining a bit.

“You ladies just stand back and let Sekke do his thing!” BaHa Guy told them before blowing the three girls a kiss.

While Noelle was able to dodge, Vanessa had to pull Sunset out of the way before she was assaulted by the man’s gross affections. “Creep!” the older of the two women yelled.

As they were all recovering from the near miss, Sunset went back to checking on the old lady. “You might want to start with her eyes and head,” Noelle suggested to her friend. The bat looked like she had actually liked the look of BaHa’s freaky magic.

Then, as the seconds passed, Noelle noticed Sunset taking a bit too much of an interest in the old lady. So much so that grandma was starting to back away from her. “Something wrong, dear?” the crone asked.

“Hey Vanessa, can you make me some thread real quick?” Sunset asked as she held out a hand.

Although Vanessa did as she was asked, the woman gave a warning while handing her the material. “If she’s got a cut that needs to be sewn shut, we should get her to an actual healer.”

The redhead didn’t respond before she suddenly moved to bind the old woman’s hands to everyone’s surprise. Then, Sunset looked into the old bird’s eyes with a frown. “I probably wouldn’t have noticed it without seeing Gray’s transformation magic first, not to mention that static illusion protecting the entrance to this place, but...this is transformation magic,” she said before reaching out and flicking the old lady in her stomach, then stepping back a moment later.

Noelle starred in stunned silence as the old lady that had been there a moment before seemed to...shatter and be replaced by a golden light that twisted and expanded until what had been a little old lady standing there with her hands bound turning into a tall, blonde man with glowing pink string binding his hands, dressed in immaculate red robes with a mantle of white fur on the top.

Recognizing the man immediately, Noelle decided to tell Sunny how much trouble she was in. “Gaaaaaaah?”

Vanessa seemed to be in a similar state, her eye twitching as a smile froze itself on her face. “Eh?”

“Oh my,” the man, one Julius Novachrono said with an excited smile. “Tell me miss, how did you see through my disguise?”

Sunset blinked at the man before frowning. “Oh please, it’s not my job to explain things to criminals,” she said before holding up a finger using the hand that held Vanessa’s string. “Which you are by the way. I can overlook someone playing a game of cards and winning money, even against a fellow magic knight, but since you were hiding your identity to lull idiots into a false sense of security, that counts as cheating in my book. Plus, if you were using a transformation on yourself, you could have easily done something to the cards in your hand.”

Finally finding her voice, Noelle decided to save her best friend from getting herself killed. “SUNSET!” she yelled in the girl’s ear before pointing to the man. “Do you have any idea who this is?”

After giving Noelle a shrug, Sunset looked back to the man and sized him up. “Some, big important lord who thinks he can cheat people and get away with it?”

Vanessa was the next one to keep Sunset from having her life as a magic knight ended on the spot. “We’re very sorry about this, Sir,” she said as she undid the thread. “I’ll be sure to teach my little sister here a few things about how the Clover Kingdom works when we get home.”

“That’s right!” Noelle exclaimed, remembering how little everyone knew about Sunset’s past. “She’s just an ignorant hick from Hage that doesn’t know anything. You can’t blame her for being stupid!”

Julius Novachrono, the twenty-eighth person to hold the title of Wizard King, laughed as he rubbed his free wrists. “No need for that ladies. If anything, it’s very heartening to see a young knight so willing to carry out justice despite the position of the person she’s after. If anything-”

The Wizard King stopped talking when a communication projection suddenly appeared in the alley, displaying the face of a man with short blue hair done up in such a way that he reminded Noelle of a mushroom. “Sir, I’ve been trying to reach you for hours, where have you been? There’s papers that-”

Not wasting a second, the Wizard king quickly rebound his hands with Vanessa’s thread, much to the woman’s surprise. “I’m afraid there’s no time for paperwork now, Marx,” he said before holding up his hands. “I’ve been arrested.”

“WHAAAAAAAAAT?” the image of the floating head screamed.

The Wizard King nodded. “Yes, illegal gambling, it seems,” he said. “Now, if you would please allow this young lady to do her duties, I’m sure that there are other matters that need attending to. If you need me, I’ll be on my way to the local guardhouse for booking.”

As the Wizard King’s assistant began to have what looked like a brain aneurysm, the image faded away and he turned his attention back to the Black Bulls. “Thank you for that, ladies. Marx means well, but he can be such a slave driver sometimes,” he said before undoing the threads and looking at the girl with wide eyes that almost sparkled with interest. “Now, you have to tell me, just how did you see through my disguise?”

Sunset was hardly stupid.

Two minutes after having Vanessa and Noelle freak out about her arresting the old lady that had turned into the much younger man walking from front of her, she had known something was up. So, when they actually told her who the blonde stranger in the red robes was, it wasn’t too much of a shock.

The fact that he might as well have gotten down on his knees when asking her how she managed to see through his disguise was.

“Come on, pretty please?” the man begged. “I simply have to know how you managed to see through my disguise. I thought it was perfect!”

Sunset groaned and stepped back from the man. “If I tell you, then will you go away?” The last thing she wanted was someone like him looking into her for too long.

“Only if I have no other questions,” he promised.

Taking what she could get, Sunset took a moment to think of how to explain it like the man would understand. Human were pretty ignorant when it came to magic, after all. “Okay so...you know that people can sense mana, right?”

The man nodded. “That’s right.”

Sunset tapped her finger. “Well, you had the mana of an old woman, but...hmmm…” Looking around for a source of inspiration, Sunset caught sight of a man selling some paintings that didn’t look like they shouldn’t be put out in public. “Ah! You know how someone can paint a window on a wall, with a perfect picture of what is on the other side?”

“Yes,” the man replied with a nod. “I’ve seen paintings like that.”

“And it can be next to a real window,” Sunset went on. “And other people who are just walking by can’t tell the difference, but if someone stops and looks, it becomes very obvious that one is real and the other is just a very good fake?”

Then the man rubbed his chin for a moment. “So you’re saying, transformation magic can be detected by examining the person who cast it very closely using your mana sense?”

Sunset shook her head at the conclusion. Then, she realized her mistake and kicked herself for not just letting him jump to his own conclusions. But now that she had started, the explanation needed to be given in a satisfactory manner. “No. If you had cast the spell yourself, I probably wouldn’t have noticed it. There’s a transformation mage in the Black Bulls, and aside from one little error, his transformation magic is like a living, breathing thing,” she explained. “Yours was static and unmoving. Once I actually bothered to examine you, it became clear that something was very wrong.”

“Extraordinary,” the noble mumbled. “And I can see the logic behind it. Magic made by a person is alive. It flows with them, but a magic item is static, just doing the same exact thing every time, regardless of who uses it. Oh, might I get another question of mine answered?”

Tired of dealing with the idiot’s talking, Sunset crossed her arms. “No.”

Behind her, Noelle made a choking sound and Sunset looked back to see Vanessa rubbing her head. The reactions had her reigning in her annoyance at the absurdity of it all, with someone who was supposed to be the head of the Clover Kingdom’s defense disguising himself as a little old lady who took money from his own troops, how was she supposed to act?

It was like Celestia picking the pockets of her guards for crying out loud!

As for the Wizard King, he threw back his head and laughed. “Hahaha! Yes, I can see Yami has already warned you about me,” he said before looking off in the direction Asta had run.

“Well, I had wanted to get a look at that anti-magic boy,” he said before turning his attention back to the redhead. “But the more I look at you, the more I find myself becoming even more interested in all those layers you seem to have.”

Sunset blanched at the comment as the Wizard King leaned in a bit closer. Had the man noticed something different about her? He was the country’s foremost expert in magic, so it might have been within the realm of possibility. “Um...that’s not...uh…” Sunset gulped unsure of what to do.

Her first instinct was to run. It worked with Celestia, after all. And she had plenty of gold to get by on this time. Plus, her method of teleportation was unknown to the Clover Kingdom, so it shouldn’t be too hard to pop ten miles away and hide.

But...running would mean abandoning everything she had built up in these past two years. And if she did run, would that affect the boys? What about Vanessa and Noelle? She didn’t want to lose them.

“But, I guess that will have to wait for another time,” he said after standing back up. “Very interesting mana you seem to have, my dear. I hope to see how you use it in the future. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find something else to occupy my time, or maybe check on Marx. The man tends to take his job much too seriously. Good seeing you all. Oh, and would you mind taking that yul I was robbed of to the office of abandoned children? I tend to donate my gambling winnings, but with my disguise down until I can recharge my item, it would cause quite a ruckus.”

Sunset blinked as the man in the red robe disappeared in a burst of motion. It hadn’t been a teleportation spell. There were lingerings of...tempoal energies?

Once he was gone, Noelle managed to find her voice as she walked up to Sunset and looked up to the trail the man left. “Guess the rumors about the Wizard King being a magic freak weren’t just rumors after all.”

Julius Novachrono looked out his window at the sight of a magical carriage carrying some noble boy as he was being escorted by Willaim’s new recruits. Part of him wanted to go check things out, but he doubted Marx would let him make another trip out into the streets after what had just transpired.

The man looked back at the pardon on his desk with a chuckle as Marx stood off to the side of the room with a frown on his face. His assistant was far too serious sometimes.

But, he had enough of a mystery to ponder over for the moment.

That girl, Sunset Shimmer, he believed her full name was, she had too much time.

As a mage that specialized in the manipulation of temporal energies, Julius could tell how old a person was at a glance. It was a way he had usually used to see through a person’s disguise. But the girl he had met wasn’t wearing a disguise, he had tried to dispel one around her without anyone noticing and there was nothing there to undo.

Still, Julius was quite certain that she was at least twenty years old.

And her mana, just thinking about it made him almost giddy. She had mana unlike anything he had ever felt. It was almost blending in with the mana around it, adapting to the eb and flow while the mana around her also seemed to be responding to her presence in a way that put it in sync with her.

There were rumors about the girl being Mereoleona’s daughter, which just going by what the reports of what happened at the exam might have seemed like the case. But after meeting the girl, he understood that the truth was something much more interesting.

“Well, there’s no need to push it, I suppose,” he mused aloud. The girl had become absolutely terrified when Julius pointed out he saw she was hiding something. While worthy of some scrutiny, her previous actions had more than earned her a chance to prove herself a loyal member of the Magic Knights. Not many people would have bothered saving Saussy Village after being offered an out, like the report said.

Still, Julius would have to have a real talk with her sometime in the future to get to the bottom of what she was so nervous about. It wouldn’t do to let a creature such as Sunset worry herself to death over nothing. He could tell from her mana that she was not of ill intent.

The previous line of thought caught in the man’s mind. Hmm, now there’s an idea, Julius mused.

It was probably nothing, but with the girl being around longer than her age suggested and her mana being unlike any person who had ever come before, was it possible that she in fact wasn’t human?

Thanks to the spirit that had all but settled in Clover, there were several fairy tales of children being produced by a human and something otherworldly. Such stories tended to give the offspring some kind of fantastical mana, or a much longer lifespan because they aged slower, or other such thing. They were all just silly stories without any proof of course, people from distant worlds who met and fell in love being used as a stand-in for the vast gulfs the classes used to have before his term as Wizard King.

But...what if there was some truth to them?

Julius let the fanciful thought linger for a moment longer, then laughed it off as the foolish wish of a boy who went hunting for things like fairies and unicorns in his youth before having to settle for the amazing world of real magic.

Wearing a light on his head to see in the dark, the gray stallion called Cercus groaned as he trotted into the bowels of Canterlot Castle, following the creamy earth pony mare with the light blonde man as he carried a chemical dispenser on the opposite side of a nearly-empty saddlebag. The rather ironic job of exterminator meant that he was granted access to places and a good deal of privacy to do his work, but there were times when the job had its downsides too. Like getting called to a remote section of the castle where absolutely nopony of any worth was ever going to go.

“We’ve heard the racket going on nearly a week now,” the maid who he thought was named Melody said in a frightened voice.

Not even bothering to fake interest, Cercus just gave a one syllable response. “Yeah?”

Melody nodded her head with wide eyes. “Days and days, without stopping. We called the guard, but they said not to worry,” she told him before moving in close. “I just think they’re scared it might be...twittermites.”

“Twittermites aren’t real,” Cercus told her evenly before taking a look around.

The rooms they were going by didn’t have the same feel to it as the rest of the castle. Nothing around him was anywhere near as lovingly tended to as three floors up. Even the dungeons received more attention. “Hey, what is this place, anyway?” he asked.

Melody looked back to him as they turned a corner. “Old storage,” she explained. “Princess Celestia tends to hoard things, then needs to clean everything out about every decade or so. But she doesn’t throw anything away, so it ends up here. There’s also the lost and found collection that goes beyond thirty days without being claimed, old palace records, and Canterlot’s emergency book repository, but that has a level of storage all its own.”

“Emergency what?” Cercus asked.

“Something the Princess came up with a few hundred years ago after the Manehattan library almost burned down,” Melody explained. “She has an extra copy of nearly every book in Equestria stored in a vault two floors down.”

Cercus threw the information away. It wasn’t important to his job, so it didn’t interest him anymore.

They turned another corner and came to a door that Cercus could hear something rattling behind. It would go on for about three seconds, stop for another three, then start up again. He looked at the golden plate on the door and frowned. Spare library books, the wingless quadruped read to himself. “I thought you said the book depository is beneath us.”

Melody nodded. “Yes, but this is storage for the castle’s spare library books,” she explained. “Sometimes, ponies forget to return them or...Princess Celestia gets some frosting on whatever she’s reading. So, there’s a room for spares of nearly every book in the palace library that we put in as a placeholder until we can get a brand new copy. Between you and me, these are all a little old and musty.”

“Okay, I’ll take care of whatever’s making all the scary noises,” the exterminator grumbled before reaching for the door. Before he could even start to open it, Melody was already back around the corner.

Then, she poked her head out. “Just be sure to close the door behind you, we wouldn’t want whatever it is escaping!”

Cercus groaned and opened the door, wondering if he could get one of his brother’s to take this particular assignment for a little while. Canterlot ponies were ridiculously annoying.

Once he was inside the room, it was easy to spot the source of the noise. There was a shaking coming from a cart full of old books that looked rather worn and out of date. It appeared that Canterlot’s emergency library replacement books weren’t replaced that often, themselves.

Since the room itself was of little importance, Cercus left the listening devices in his satchel and dug around the bin until he found what was making the racket. A large tome with Celestia’s cutie mark was at the bottom, glowing golden as it shook every few seconds.

He took the book out and sat back as he opened it to see why a magical book would have been placed at the bottom of what amounted to a paper recycling bin.

It was a communication journal.

Between Celestia and…

Cercus blinked after going through three pages before finally finding a mention of the other pony who had its twin: Sunset Shimmer.

“Well now, this is certainly interesting,” he mumbled before reading page after page.

Since she had just gone missing one day without another statue ending up in the gardens, there had always been some speculation as to what happened to Celestia’s old apprentice among his kin. Especially since, by all reports, Celestia had been rather put off by the whole thing for days afterwards, before she proceeded to clean the castle of anything related to the young mare.

They had always assumed she had some sort of magical mishap and got herself killed.

But, after reading the last page in the journal, that no longer appeared to be the case.

“Hmmm,” Cercus mumbled to himself as he looked through the book again. Enough correspondence to build a profile and numerous horn-writing samples, he thought to himself.

Queen Chrysalis had been looking for a disguise she could use to lure out that pink pony princess that was supposed to be getting married in the following months away from her guards. And in front of him was everything she would need.

I’m gonna get a promotion for this, the changeling told himself before he slipped the book into his saddlebag, then headed out the door.

Page 10: Dungeon

Donald was a hard man. You had to be hard when you were living on the edge of the Forsaken Realm of the glorious Clover Kingdom that bordered the Diamond Kingdom for when those Diamond monsters invaded and took over some of the land. At which point those Clover pansies would invade the sacred Diamond Kingdom and steal the land he lived on from his wise and just king.

Not that either army stuck around much to help put the land back together after they were done.

Still, Donald did his thing and raised his sheep. Only idiots tried to actually grow any crops in a land that became a warzone every other month. Sheep could run away from big explosions, plants couldn’t.

However, Donald wasn’t tending his sheep at the moment, that was what he had fathered children for. He was walking through the woods, intent on getting in some fishing as he carried a pack full of food, fishing gear and a collapsed rod. The king might have owned all of the animals and decreed that hunting them was tantamount to theft, but he never said anything about the fish.

It was his one joy in the world.

But, those plans were cut short when the ground started to shake beneath him right as he came to the clearing in the woods where the lake was. “What the...what’s going on?” he asked right as the tremors went from something a large stampede could cause to rumbling so bad he had to grab a tree just to stay upright. “Is this an earthquake?”

In front of him, Donald watched the land rise and fall, changing at a moments notice as towers and walls seemed to just spring up out of the ground, covered in dirt and moss before they sunk mostly back into the earth again, only to have the ground split open, creating a path that led straight to an open door in the foundation of the wreckage.

At which point, the water from the lake that had been there moments before found its way down the side of the ancient ruin to create a small waterfall.

Seeing the one joy in his life destroyed, his wife long since having become a miserable old bat, Donald took off his finishing hat and threw it on the ground. “GOD DAMNIT!”

It was nearly sunset as Yuno sat at his writing desk inside his personal quarters while the talking anti-bird looked up at him with her perpetual half-dead eyes.

After listening to the bird finish her panicked story about how she spent a whole two days flying around the Clover Kingdom to check on the magic stones that were supposed to be able to revive the Wizard King, Yuno pointed out something that Secre might have overlooked after she finished talking. “Are you sure that a wild animal didn’t just make off with them?”

“Yes. I put them in places where animals weren’t going to bother them,” the bird told him evenly.

“But, you’re an animal,” Yuno pointed out evenly with half lidded eyes.

The bird’s eye twitched. “I can also talk and think about things other than how to catch my next meal.”

Yuno blinked. “Does that mean you really do eat worms, because Asta and I have a bet-”

“THAT’S NOT IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW!” Secre yelled at him. “I’m telling you, whatever organization those four mages in Saussy are working for have already collected all of the stones that didn’t have anyone watching over them. That means they have at least three, if not more.”

Still not seeing why this was so important if the Black Bulls had a stone, Yuno decided to voice his confusion. “So, what happens if they get all the stones?”

“...I don’t know,” the bird replied hesitantly. “To be honest, I’ve only seen them used twice. Theoretically, the stones could be used for a number of things. The magic they utilize is not of this world, and thus, is not bound by the normal limitations.”

With the obvious question attracting his attention, Yuno went for the bait. “So, what happened the last two times the stones were used?”

The bird took a moment to think, looking down at the ground. “The hell with it,” she mumbled before looking back at the boy. “You know that big evil skull outside your village? The one belonging to the legendary demon that nearly destroyed the world and everyone in it?”

“Are you actually expecting an answer to a question that obvious, or…” Yuno left the rest unasked.

Secre rolled her eyes. “Well, it used to be a person,” she told the boy, breaking his veneer of calm. “That’s what the stones did when they were used the first time. The second time, they supposedly violated the laws of life and death. But I haven’t seen any evidence of what they were supposed to accomplish in five-hundred years.”

His interest peaked, Yuno threw off the uncaring attitude. He knew the story of the First Wizard King about as well as anyone could. Which meant that the demon from it had given him plenty of nightmares back before he had learned to toughen up. “Do you think someone’s trying to pull off something like that again?”

“...that man did say, the end times are upon us,” she mumbled after thinking it over a bit. “And he seemed interested in killing off everyone in the village, even though it would have made more sense to question them about the location of the magic stone. Although, if they have a method for locating it, I guess they wouldn’t need help.”

Yuno thought back to what the bird had told him about that incident. “But if the stone had been hidden, it would have been easier for them to just walk into the village and grab it without anyone seeing them,” he surmised. The men Asta had encountered had gone out of their way to kill people.

While the idea of returning the old Wizard King to life no longer interested him, Yuno didn’t like the idea of letting people like the ones he heard about have their way. They were just like the man who had killed his family for no reason other than it had suited him at the time.

“So...that’s their goal? To just...kill people?” Yuno asked. It seemed rather simplistic.

Secre did the closest thing she could to a shrug. “I’ve seen people who do the same thing just because it suits them. Boys who get their grimoires and want to get revenge on bullies, or think that the girl who turned her down for years will change her mind because he has powerful magic. Then there are the kind of people who think the world owes them something and just want to hurt others to feel better,” the told him sadly. “While they don’t usually travel in packs, petty nature of such people would make them easy to manipulate.”

Yuno supposed it made sense. Sister Lilly and Father Orisi had done a good enough job raising him that such thoughts were hard for him to comprehend, but he remembered the young noble that had attacked him the day of the grimoire ceremony because Yuno got a four leaf and he didn’t. “So...what now?”

Before Secre could answer, the door banged open to admit the noble that had been a thorn in Yuno’s side since he came to the Golden Dawn. Klaus was a passable teacher, if an extremely annoying one, but the man’s inflated ego was a problem. He believed himself the superior mage, when Yuno knew that if the number of spells in their grimoires weren’t taken into account, the younger mage was the more powerful magic user.

“Yuno, the captain wants to see...strange,” he said before looking around the room. “I thought I heard you talking to someone.”

He was listening in at my door? Yuno asked himself with worry before looking down to Secre. Although he didn’t know what was so bad about letting others know the bird could talk, she sure as hell wanted it kept secret.

Then, inspiration struck and Yuno looked back up to the man with the glasses. “I’m teaching my pet to talk.”

Klaus snorted. “Ignorant commoner,” he grumbled. “You shouldn’t be wasting your time with such things. While some birds can mimic human speech-”

“Stupid Klaus,” Secre suddenly said in a much more...broken version of her usual voice. “ Klaus is wrong. Stupid Klaus, brawk!”

Keeping a straight face, which was rather easy after having to put up with Sunset and Asta’s antics for the past several years, Yuno stood up. “As you can see, I’ve made some progress.”

The man’s eye twitched. “Obviously,” he said evenly before pushing his glasses up on his face. “Now, get your robe on and come with me. The Captain has another mission for us after what happened yesterday. Try to follow orders, this time.”

Yuno did as instructed, thinking back to just last evening. Just the day before, during Yuno’s first actual mission to guard a noble on his way to the Heart Kingdom for some kind of training program, they had been attacked by a group of bandits and Klaus had told him to hold back and defend the noble Salem.

Instead, thanks in no small part from the training he had received from the wind mage back in Hage, Yuno had managed to subdue all four attackers by himself without much trouble. Then the bandits quickly confessed to being hired by Salem to kill Yuno. The noble, who Yuno remembered was his opponent in the magic knight exam at that point, was taken back to the capital. The whole thing had taken less than an hour, not counting the booking of the noble for the attempted assassination of a magic knight.

“What kind of mission?” Yuno asked.

Klaus looked back at the younger knight with a frown as he led them out into the hallway. “You’ll have to wait for the captain to give you all the details, but from what I understand, a dungeon has appeared.”

It was past dusk in the Black Bulls hideout as the day after payday party that the group held in the common room of the hideout was winding down. As was the unofficial custom, the group liked to splurge a little bit every time they got some cash and had a little celebration where everyone chipped in a little something to buy food and interesting trinkets to mess around with. The fact that they got three new members, one of which had no idea how to budget money thanks to her upbringing, meant that they had been able to afford some choice items.

However, there was one downside to the whole thing…

“Come oooooon, gimme more!” Sunset whined as she crawled over the couch in her new black lingerie in an attempt to get at the bottle of wine that Vanessa, who was also in her underwear, had her hands on.

“No,” she told the teenager firmly as she kept the bottle out of Sunset’s reach. There wasn’t much left in it, and needing a reason to get rid of the last few chugs, Vanessa looked over to the boy doing pushups on the floor. “What do you say Asta, care for a sip?”

After completing his eight-hundredth one, which was made all the more impressive by the fact Magna was sitting on top of the boy while eating his desert to add more weight, Asta looked over to the nearly-naked woman. “No way! Sister Lilly always said that alcohol is the tool of the devil!”

Sunset stopped trying to get the booze for a moment and frowned at Asta. “You’re the tool of a devil!”

Vanessa rolled her eyes. “Now, now kids, don’t fight,” she chided before a horrible realization hit her. With only three bottles of wine in her, Vanessa was just shy of sober and able to comprehend a terrible reality as she knew it was better to hold off on getting drunk tonight. Oh God...I really HAVE become the responsible one.

“Okay big sis,” Sunset said before practically collapsing on top of Vanessa, her head resting on the bigger woman’s boobs. Then, nuzzling them as she moved closer to practically wrap her body around Vanessa’s.

Okay, yeah. I’m too sober for this, she thought before finishing off the bottle of wine that she had taken from Sunset in a few gulps.

“Hey Magna, if I take your food, will you fight me?” Luck asked, centering Vanessa’s attention on the two of them. Things tended to get explosive whenever they interacted for more than five minutes.

Magna took another bite of his pudding that Charmy had put into a little bowl and frowned at the boy that looked a lot younger than he actually was. “Touch my food and die.”

The threat actually getting Lucky more excited, the boy got in closer. “Okay!” he said happily.

Sitting across the little table that Asta was doing his exercises right next to, Gauche looked up from the little picture he had made of his sister with a frown. “If any harm comes to my little sister’s mini-portrait, I’ll kill you both.”

“Hey Sunset, where’d your cute little bird go?” Noelle asked as she looked around with a box of crackers in her hand. “I bought some snacks I wanted to give her.”

The girl in question, moaned and picked herself up from Vanessa’s breasts. “That loudmouth? Pfft who knows?”

Not liking the answer, Noelle sat down on the other end of the couch. Which turned out to be a bad idea, as Sunset saw her pouting face and practically pounced on the other girl to hug her tightly. “H-Hey, cut that out!” she said while trying to fight off the inebriated redhead.

“Awww, don’t be sad,” Sunset told the Noelle as she overpowered the girl who probably hadn’t done a day of real work in her life with a body that probably worked from sunup to sun down on chores. “I still love you.”

Noelle froze to the point that Vanessa thought she might have actually been turned to stone. “Y-You w-what?” she stuttered as her face began to redden.

Despite the hilarity of the show being given to her, Vanessa felt the need to end it with a kick to Sunset’s butt that passed a shove over to Noelle. “She means as a friend, miss royal,” the woman told the other young girl that Vanessa hadn’t gotten around to really bonding with yet. “We all do.”

Instead of even getting even more flustered, Noelle continued to sit on the couch, completely oblivious to the outside world for several seconds before Sunset seemed to clear up just a bit and look at her. “Is that the first time someone’s told you that?” she asked before frowning when no response came. “Wow, your childhood was as bad as mine.” Then she fell back onto the couch, and Vanessa’s lap.

“The importance of family is important to the development of a child. It shapes everything you will come to be as a person. It saddens be to think that no one has ever said such important words to you growing up, but now that we’re friends you can rest easy knowing that you are surrounded by those who care about you.”

Sunset lifted her head and frowned. “Cut out the creepy mumbling, nobody can understand you!”

As Gorden went to get some comfort food from Charmy, who was making her way through another mountain of sweets, a spatial portal opened up and after a second of just floating there, Yami walked out of it, followed by Finral.

“Finny!” Sunset greeted the newcomer with a raised hand.

The Black Bulls lieutenant frowned at the greeting. “Clothes are off, unintelligible speech,” he mumbled before looking over to Vanessa. “Just how much booze did you give her?”

Somehow feeling guilty over getting the fifteen-year-old legal adult drunk, Vanessa crossed her arms and snorted. “It was just one bottle.”

Yami snorted. “Lightweight,” he mumbled before looking around. “Okay gang, listen up. The Wizard King’s got a mission for us that he wants our newbies on specifically. Also, we’re going to be breaking the traditional rule of three from now on as an experiment to see if teams of four perform better. Oh, and before I forget, a new dungeon has been discovered he wants us to check out.”

“Oh! Is there a dragon in it?” Sunset asked excitedly as she laid upside down on the couch, kicking her legs up in the air while everyone else became interested.

Finral looked back over to Vanessa. “How big of a bottle did you give her?”

“OH WOW! THAT’S AWESOME!” Asta said as he got up from the floor. “NOW WHAT’S A DUNGEON?” At which point, Sunset promptly threw a pillow at her little brother and missed by a good three feet.

Magna groaned. “Dude! Are you kidding me? Stop getting all excited for something you don’t know anything about!”

After letting out a groan, Noelle looked over to the boy. “Dungeons are remnants of ancient civilizations that pop up from time to time due to a magical disturbance or interdimensional anomaly,” she told him. “Sometimes, they’ve got ancient magic, riches, or something that can even change the course of human development. The last time Clover got a dungeon, we found blueprints for the camera.” To add to her point, she pointed to the little picture Gauche was fawning over.

“They’re also filled with all kinds of traps and monsters from who knows where,” Luck said, excitement evident in his voice. “So they’re seriously fun to play around in!”

Putting in her two cents, Vanessa got her baby sister upright and held her close to keep Sunset from making more of a fool out of herself. “Exploring a dungeon is like going on a treasure hunt where you can die at any second. You can see why it’s the kind of thing they would only have people like us do.”

Noelle groaned. “So the Wizard King has ordered me to go trouncing around a death trap,” she mumbled. “Guess it isn’t just my family who wants me dead.”

“So listen up!” Yami told them. “The dungeon has popped up right on the border between Clover and Diamond, so we know those guys are going to be after it too. That means you three newbies will be headed out at dawn tomorrow morning with...Luck, you’ll be in charge.”

“Alright!” the cheery boy cried out as he pumped a fist in the air.

Noelle groaned. “Well, I suppose as long as we have…” she paused and looked over to Sunset as the girl had become interested in Vanessa’s breasts, squeezing the things and commenting on their size. “...we’re gonna die.”

Sister Lilly, as it turned out, was wise well beyond her years.

This was the realization on Sunset’s mind as she let out a little whine when Finral’s portal spat them out within sight of an ancient ruin that looked as if it had been barfed from the ground rather than just fell down into it. Not even the fact that her cutie mark showed on top of her breasts thanks to Vanessa adding it to Sunset’s hot pink outfit that sparkled a little bit cheered her up. If anything, the tiny bit of magical sequins just made the thing give her an even bigger headache that despite what Charmy had assured her, coffee wasn’t helping with.

A warm wind blew through several trees that had been knocked over, Sunset didn’t much care that the skirt she had on was uplifted. That is, until someone opened his dumb mouth. “GAAAAAH! SUNSET, COVER YOURSELF-”

Fist met face and she glared at her little brother after knocking him on the ground. “SHUT YOUR DAMN MOUTH! I’VE GOT A HEADACHE!”

Luck laughed at the display, each sound coming from his mouth a jackhammer to Sunset’s skull, at least until she spun around and shook her fist at him.

A second later, Noelle got up close to the girl and talked softly. “Shouldn’t you have worn some short pants under that or something?”

Not in the mood, Sunset turned to glare at the girl. “At the moment, I would prefer to strip naked and run in there with nothing but my little boots because of the light reflecting off my dress. But, since that’ll offend your royal sensibilities, I think I’ll play through the pain.”

Noelle gave her a nervous smile as her eye twitched. “Thanks.”

With that, the group was off on a new adventure, each step making a reverberation inside of Sunset’s brain that had her wishing there was some kind of spell to…

Sunset blinked as they made it to the entrance. “Once second, I gotta pee,” she said before backing off and running around the corner until she was out of sight. Then, after readjusting her mana until it was a close approximation of the water element, she raised her hands to cast a healing spell on herself and lessen the effects of the alcohol withdrawal to the point where it was a dull nothing in her skull.

Two minutes later, she walked back out to the entrance where everyone was waiting. “Okay! Let’s get going, to adventure!” she said, thankful that magic had provided her with a solution.

“So...peeing cures hangovers?” Asta asked.

Noelle groaned and hid her face with her hand.

And with that, they were back on the adventure…

The entrance to the dungeon wasn’t anything special. Luck led the way into the dark and cramped hallway it opened to while Sunset followed, creating a small flame so he could see. Everyone behind her was nearly blind thanks to it being the only light they had.

On and on they walked for what felt like half an hour, long after the light from the entrance had been cut off. And when she finally got bored with the lack of anything, Sunset tapped the boy on the shoulder. “Okay so...aren’t there supposed to be traps, monsters and...stuff?” she asked. Although her only reference was a book called Daring Do that came out a week before her relocation, Sunset didn’t think diving into what most would consider a death trap would be this dull.

“Oh no,” Luck told her as he looked back at the girl with his perpetual smile that went from overly friendly to downright spooky, depending on his mood. “This is just the entryway. The real dungeon is on the other side of the wall. It feels like it runs in a circuit all the way around the place. I was just making the rounds to see if anyone might have beaten us here. That way, we can follow their trail and fight them right off the bat when we catch up to them!”

Sunset blinked. While the idea of a confrontation might have made sense, as Diamond could have sent people the night before, and chasing after them would mean any traps had either already been triggered or marked, the fact that there might have been an ancient and powerful magic hiding in the dungeon that could wipe them all out wasn’t forgotten by the girl either. She might have been drunk the night before, but the girl had been a power mad filly in her youth. So, she tended to remember things like that.

A second later, Sunset slammed her fist into the wall next to her and blew it out with an approximation of that flaming fist spell Mereoleona had demonstrated for her. With the stone knocked away, light came pouring in and Sunset “Oh look, a way in,” she said in a monotone voice. “I bet some nasty monsters heard the noise and will come running.”

The look on Luck’s face brightened up way too much for Sunset’s liking. “Really? You think so?” he asked excitedly before leaping through the opening while laughing like a madman. “Come here monsters! Come out and play! I wanna kill you!”

Noelle walked up to the edge of the hole and looked inside as Luck continued to jump around, making all kinds of noise. “That guy is supposed to be in charge of the mission?”

“Even I’m worried now,” Asta added.

Sunset groaned as she felt another headache coming on and stepped into the real area of the dungeon. As soon as she did, the not-unicorn felt the bottom of her stomach fall out at what she saw.

The inside of the dungeon was a massive mess of chambers, with a ceiling that went far beyond what should have been possible, based on what they had seen outside. While that would have been disturbing enough on its own, Sunset saw upside down stairs and water running up the walls, making the whole place look like a painting Celestia had shown her once, where the artist who painted it had reportedly gone insane. What it also told the magic expert was that some nutcase had decided to mix spatial compression magic with point of reference gravity, turning the whole place into a mess overflowing with mana that hung in the air so thick that it looked like bits of light from blue fireflies.

“COOL!” Asta yelled as he jumped through the wall and fell a few feet, making Sunset wince. Just because her hangover symptoms had been muted didn’t mean they were dealt with completely.

Noelle was next into the oversized chamber, taking her time to look around while getting more and more nervous. “How is this even possible?”

A second later, Luck landed right next to her. “It looks like the mana is warping the space in this area. There’s way more than I detected outside! The air’s crazy thick with it. Haha! I can’t wait to see what kind of monsters a place like this spawns!”

Finally following everyone in all the way, Sunset looked around without really focusing on anything in particular. “Okay so...anyone actually have a plan for finding what this place is supposed to be guarding?”

“Uh…” Asta replied before he began to walk around while looking at all the insanity.

He got a total of three steps before Sunset felt a surge of magic and reached out to yank him back by his robe’s hood before a mass of spikes that were more part of the floor than hidden rose up out of the ground to try and skewer him. “Asta! Be careful!” she scolded him while her heart tried to slow down after nearly leaping out of her chest.

Maybe we shouldn’t have brought him, Sunset told herself after seeing her baby brother nearly die.

“Thanks Sunset, that would have really stung,” he said with a little laugh.

Sunset’s eye twitched at how easily the boy had thrown off the near death experience. “No! That would have killed you, moron!” she told him.

Despite the seriousness of her tone, Asta gave her a grin and waved away the girl’s worries. “Oh come on, it wouldn’t have been that bad.”

“Yes it would have!” she snapped back at him before calming down a bit after taking a deep breath. “Asta, you need to listen to me. You spent years building up your muscles and that may help you survive a few beatings with a sharp icicle like in Saussy, but it’s still just flesh and bone keeping your organs safe. Mages have mana flowing out of them creating a protective shield. I could probably drop Noelle off a five story building and she’d have some major bruises, but be mostly okay. You’d have broken bones at the very least!”

Luck made another one of his inhuman jumps over to them. “Oh come on, you’re worrying a bit much. Asta would have been fine.”

After giving the boy another glare since he was supposed to be the responsible leader, Sunset took in a deep breath. “Look, I’m not going to discount the possibility that your anti-magic may blunt some of the damage cast at you from certain spells. It’s a good possibility. But I honestly don’t know and don’t want to try experimenting with something like that. Because if it isn’t the case, then you’d die,” she said before pointing towards the mass of spikes that had just grown up out of the ground. “But stuff like that? That’s a physical object. Anti-magic or no, it will kill you!”

“Oh...okay,” he said after a sobering moment. “I’ll uh...be careful then.”

Then, without even another second passing, Luck pointed to a symbol drawn on the ground. “Hey, there’s another one!” he said before leaping right on in. Before it could even activate, the boy with the lightning fast reflexes jumped away in time that a geyser that would have knocked the unfortunate person underneath it up onto the ceiling shot up hot nothing but air.

As Sunset groaned, Asta took out his sword and cut into the water, destroying the trap beneath it while Luck hopped around, triggering three more of the things in their general vicinity.

“Well...at least he’s setting them off so that we can find them,” Noelle said to try and quell Sunset’s building anger while Asta cut the traps down. “And now, we can just have Asta poke the ground in front of us to disable any more.”

Yeah, but will that work when we’re on the ceiling, or will it send us crashing to the ground? Sunset wondered as she looked up at the ‘floor’ above them.

With all the traps around them gone, Luck landed back in front of them and looked around for a moment. “Now, let’s see what we’ve got,” he said before closing his eyes and standing perfectly still.

Sunset blinked. Oh right, Vanessa mentioned that he’s got an impressive mana sense, she told herself. According to her big sister, the boy’s detection range was longer than even a wind mage’s; Yuno included.

After a few seconds, Luck turned to look up at an upside down doorway that wasn’t connected to anything. His smile got a little too wide before his grimoire flew up in front of him. “Lightning Creation Magic: Holy Lightning Boots,” he said, jumping up into the air before the spell was even finished forming. “Hey guys! Something’s popped up on my radar. So...go ahead and take care of the dungeon on your own. I’ll see you when it’s all done, okay?” Then, he rocketed off towards the door Sunset had seen him looking at without bothering to land.

Noelle’s mouth dropped. “D...did he just ditch us?” she shrieked as the boy’s gleeful laugh echoed out of the hallway he disappeared into.

Lotus Whomalt readjusted the circlet on his head of black hair with the three diamonds that marked him as a commander while he waited for the three underlings that were his men to finish clearing the traps in the area they had landed in. The air was a bit warm for the long, white coat he wore, but the protection enchantments it offered were worth a little sweat.

He would just need to wash himself off before heading home, or his girls would get all upset that their father wanted a hug upon coming through the door.

That is, if I make it home, the man thought to himself as he looked over to the fourth companion that had been assigned to him for this mission.

Dressed in a furry black cape atop of a nearly skintight suit of white that revealed his chest and the diamond embedded in the center of it, Mars looked like a fit nineteen-year-old man, if one were to ignore the three diamonds sticking out of his head beneath all the spikey white hair. However, spending five minutes with the man would creep anyone out.

He made no smalltalk, had no emotion on his face, and barely even breathed. The only sign that he was even a thinking person and not some kind of illusion was the fact that he would respond to orders and questions, usually with single syllable answers. Even his grimoire was creepy, a stitched together thing of white and red that was supposed to be a mix of his own magic book and another trainee’s that he had killed.

How the mages of the Diamond Kingdom had accomplished such a thing, Lotus didn’t know.

He didn’t want to know.

Asking questions in the Diamond Kingdom caused people to die from natural causes. Usually, from an overdose of iron in the heart.

While getting the treasure was important, he knew that the real reason they were here was to test the kingdom’s new type of soldier. If a man without any will of his own could be called that. He was more like a weapon than anything else.

And since Mars was a thinking weapon that was made only to kill things, Lotus didn’t want to be anywhere near him when he went off since he had no idea if the young man would stop until everything around him was dead. “Okay. This is where we split up. I’ll hang back while you go on ahead.”

Ten minutes into her first dungeon crawl, Noelle was afraid that things were going from bad to just boring. Asta was taking the lead, moving his sword around like he was a blind man with a cane, testing the ground in front of him while Noelle followed him and Sunset kept looking up, down, and all around.

Unfortunately, because her focus was mostly on Asta, it meant that was what her mind kept going over in her head, along with Vanessa’s totally wrong observations. Not that he wasn’t more amiable to be around than most everyone Noelle had ever met in her life, but...

Taking out another trap at the bottom of some stairs that were next to a fast flowing river, Asta moved on ahead. “Yeah! This place is no match for the future Wizard King!”

“Well, his enthusiasm is nice...I suppose,” Noelle commented to herself more than anyone else.

Sunset looked back down at her. “Hm?”

The reminder that there was someone else who could hear her made Noelle jump. “GAAAAH!” She spun around to face the other girl. “I mean, you know a-as an acquaintance and stuff. I mean, he is a commoner, after all.”

“Uh…” Sunset replied as a confused frown crossed her face. “Noelle, what are you going on about?”

Before she could come up with an answer that did involve putting on her usual airs, as Noelle understood Sunset didn’t like such things, a strange monster erupted from the river near Asta. Oh thank God, something’s trying to kill us.

It was a plant of some sort, with a large bulb at the top that opened up to reveal itself to be man-eating version of a fly trap with a pit of digestive juices bubbled at the bottom of the things ‘flower’ while vines that acted more like tentacles came out from underneath the base of leaves that could have doubled as blankets because they were so large. Asta slashed at the vines, and jumped back in time to avoid being grabbed a moment before Sunset raised her hand and flash fried the thing with a wave of her hand.

If the redhead hadn’t been her best friend, Noelle might have felt a little jealous.

Then, she blinked and smirked. “Awww, were you worried about your big sister?” she asked before turning around to look up at one of the doorways that opened up to just empty air. “That’s so sweet! Now, come down here and give me a hug.”

There was another mage in a Golden Dawn robe standing there with his grimoire open and glowing with wind magic. He actually flinched a little at the semi-command. “Don’t be silly,” he told her evenly.

Behind him Noelle could make out two figures, but there wasn’t enough light to see their faces. “The Golden Dawn?” she mumbled.

“OH, HEY YUNO!” Asta said as he raised his arm and gave them a wave.

“Hey Yuno, I was thinking, we don’t have any family, right? But we do have a lot of great friends, so I think we should take them and the ones we meet later, and make them our family.”

“Something wrong Yuno?” Mimosa asked as the two of them walked behind Klaus, down the cramped hallway that they had busted into after finding what, according to the Golden Dawn members who had scouted the area around the crumbled landmass, was one of several entrances into the dungeon.

Ignoring the girl for the moment, Yuno focused his senses even more to double check if what they were headed towards what he thought it was. Half an hour since the mission began, Yuno had begun sensing a very familiar source of mana.

Anyone else who felt it might have just put it off as another mage and left it at that. While there were several people who could tell another person’s identity by their mana when they were close, Sunset’s had a very distinct feel to it no matter how far away she was. A little worry entered the back of his head.

While Sunset could certainly handle herself and whoever else it was that traveled with her seemed powerful enough, curiosity combined with the odd thought that there might have been a very small chance that she would fall for a trap had him looking in her direction. “I’m sensing some powerful mana coming from that direction,” he said as they came to an intersection.

“Well, best to avoid it then, we’re here to-”

Yuno reached into the hood of his robe and grabbed Secre, making the bird let out a squawk before he tossed it down the path he could feel Sunset’s mana coming from. “Drat. My pet bird is escaping,” Yuno deadpanned before Secre managed to right herself in the air and turned around while flapping her wings to glare at him. “Come back girl.”

The bird rolled her eyes as Yuno jabbed at the opposite direction he was standing with a finger, then turned around and flew away as Yuno walked after her.

“Oh no!” Mimosa cried out in genuine fear as she ran after the bird. “Come back girl, it’ll be okay! I have some yummy seeds for you to eat!”

Klaus fumed at the two knights as one of them chased the bird and the other just followed her down the hallway at a much slower pace. “THIS IS HIGHLY IRREGULAR!”

When they finally did reach the end of the tunnel, Yuno managed to get his grimoire out in time to see Sunset fry the plant creature with a burst of mana that was much too concentrated and powerful to be taken for simple mana manipulation. As smart as she was, the girl’s tendency to forget that she was supposed to need the magical book strapped to her butt was going to get her in trouble one day.

Well, I guess I was worried about nothing, Yuno told himself before Secre went back to her resting spot and the redhead spoke up. “Awww, were you worried about your big sister?” Sunset said before she turned around and smiled at him. “Now come down here and give me a hug.”

“Oh, do you know that woman, Yuno?” Mimosa asked.

“OH! HEY YUNO!” Asta called out from down below.

Klaus made a disgruntled noise. “Ugh, members of the Black Bulls? What are those scum doing here?”

After a second of thinking how bad it would be to get anyone he knew together with Sunset, Yuno closed his grimoire. “If they’re Magic Knights-”

“Yuno,” Sunset called out sweetly again before her face took on a frown. “I said get down here. Now do it before I make you!”

Yuno gulped. “-we should probably say hello,” he told the rest of his team before jumping out into the air and letting the wind guide him down to the ground.

A second later, the young woman had her arms wrapped around his waist and let out a laugh while Yuno tensed up a little from her breasts pushing up against his body. However, there was something a bit different about them than he remembered from previous experiences. “You’re uh...wearing…” Realizing what he was about to say, Yuno cut himself off and hoped he wasn’t blushing too much.

Sunset took a step back. “You like it?” she asked before twirling around a little that made her skirt fly up a little bit. “I got it after my first payday.” Then, her frown appeared again and she lifted his robes to look at his clothes. “Which is more than I can say for you! How are you still wearing this stuff?”

As she began to examine his clothes like Sister Lilly used to do, checking for holes and making other comments, much to the boy’s embarrassment, Mimosa finally came to his rescue.

“Oh my Yuno, who’s your friend?” she asked before looking past Sunset and gasping. “Noelle! It’s been so long, not since the Royal Banquet, am I right?”

The girl with the silvery hair gave a very forced smile as she looked away from the cheery young woman. “Mimosa...it’s been awhile.”

Asta stepped towards the strawberry blonde girl. “You know each other?” he asked the Noelle girl.

“Yes...just a bit,” she admitted rather reluctantly.

After a second, Mimosa giggled. “Oh, stop playing around,” she said before looking over to Asta for a moment to answer his question. “Noelle and I are cousins. Our mothers were sisters.” Then back to Noelle. “I heard that the Black Bulls can be a little uncouth, are you doing okay in that squad?”

The Noelle girl’s eye twitched. “I think that’s what I could be asking you,” she asked before her tone changed to one of a superior talking down to a lesser. “Can you actually keep up with the elite members of the Golden Dawn? I heard Uncle had to pull some strings to get you in, after all. You are a bit dim for them.”

Sunset blinked and looked over to the girl with little frown.

“I’m doing fantastic! Everyone I meet is so nice to me and I can wield my magic knowing they will always support me,” she said while covering a giggle with a hand before opening her eyes and looking a little guilty. “Oh my, I shouldn’t have phrased it like that. I’m sorry, I remember how much you struggled to control your magic. Has that gotten any better?”

While Noelle’s expression changed from one to superior to something more like a cringe, Sunset looked blinked and mumbled to herself almost too low to hear. “Oh my God, she’s Cadenza.”

“...yeah,” Noelle replied evenly, which Yuno understood was anything but that.

Mimosa smiled. “That’s so great, it’s so wonderful that we’re both finding our footing as magic knights!”

It was at that time Klaus finally caught up to the group. “Yuno! What did you think you were doing, coming down here to speak with this riffraff?” he demanded. “We should not get involved with these…” He took a moment to look at the girl with silver hair. “People.”

Yuno pointed to the redhead. “Because she told me to.”

“Hello!” Sunset greeted him with a raised hand. “Who’re you?”

“Foureyes the Rude,” Asta supplied for her.

Klaus let out cry of shock. “FOUR EYES?” the man with the glasses demanded. “AND YOU THINK THAT I’M RUDE? DO NOT SPEAK TO A NOBLE IN SUCH A WAY, COMMONER!”

So much for not involving ourselves, Yuno thought to himself as the temperature around him went up a few degrees.

Despite the fact that his start in the Golden Dawn had been less than perfect, Yuno was a little thankful that Sunset hadn’t ended up there with him. In his mind, he could already picture how such things would have turned out…

“STOP BULLYING YUNO, YOU JERKS!” A somewhat misshapen figure of his big sister shouted as she proceeded to pummel and humiliate every single person that looked at him the wrong way. By the end of the first day, there would have been a pile of beaten and battered Golden Down knights with her standing at the top.

Unfortunately, the teenager's mind had another vision that quickly followed the first…

“Hey Yuno, let’s take a bath together,” Sunset, who was back to her usual sexy self, said before she grabbed him by his robe to pull the poor boy into one of the private baths. The clothes were off both of them a second later, and Sunset licked her lips before pushing him into the water, then ending up on top of him. Her soft, sensual skin that had no business being on an orphan from Hage pressing up against every inch of his body before she bent down with her red, uncracked lips to…

“You know, if that gets under your skin, I’d hate to see how you perform in a combat situation,” Sunset said, graciously popping Yuno’s thought bubble before it could go any further.

He tried to pull away, but Sunset held fast and took things a step further when he latched onto Yuno’s arm and pulled it between her breasts as she stepped closer to him. “Maybe we should all go together. I don’t want my little brother under the command of someone who can’t keep his cool in a fight,” she said before looking over to Yuno again. “By the way, did you guys run into a blonde kid on your way in? Tends to be surrounded by sparks of electricity?”

Yuno looked down at her as he focused on the conversation. Not...her body. “No.”

After that, he took in a deep breath.

“Ah yes, I was told that there would be another team of four mages for this mission?” Klaus cut in. “Where is your leader? Surely, he didn’t up and run away, leaving the three of you to fend for yourselves?” Judging by the man’s tone the remark was more snide over concern. “Or did he fall victim to a trap spell? Humph! You Black Bulls are worse than the city watch.”

“OH YEAH?” Asta yelled. “WELL THE WIZARD KING DOESN’T SEEM TO THINK SO. He gave us a star on our first mission!”

As Yuno blinked in confusion at the declaration, Klaus took a step back. “What? You lie!” he said.

What’s so important about a star? he wondered as Asta and Klaus yelled back and forth at each other, with topics ranging from the choice of dress when it came to their respective captains, to the hairstyle each of them had. And this is way past involved.

After they were both out of breath, Klaus gave a groan and turned to the members of the Golden Dawn. “Alright, enough of this idiocy,” said the man that was yelling before Asta started as he adjusted his glasses. “I’ll show you the difference between the top magic Knight squad in the country and the one who doesn’t even deserve the name. Mimosa!”

The girl took out her light-orange grimoire to begin casting a spell. “Plant Creation Magic: Magic Flower Guidepost,” she said before there was a bright glow and a giant flower the size of a small table with red pedals sprung out of the ground to unfold in front of her. After a moment, a magical image was displayed above it, showing the interior dungeon in its entirety.

The display actually made Sunset dislodge herself from Yuno to jump over and take a look at the thing, an action Yuno more than understood. Despite her personality, Mimosa was no joke when it came to her support role. The girl’s healing spells were able to close holes in people that should have killed them in seconds, with one not even needing her to stand around to do it.

“Wow, a three dimensional projection of the entire area,” Sunset commented as she examined it before looking over to the girl. “Does this just use a refined mana sense, or do you use some kind of medium, like microscopic plant fungi and other spores in the air to conduct your mana and feel things out?”

Mimosa just gave her a completely blank stare. “...I have no idea what you just said,” she replied before blinking and looking back to the map. “Sir, I’ve got a full map of the area and can probably find the treasure room from here if you give me a moment.”

In the three seconds that it took her to talk, Sunset had been staring at the image, making Yuno let out an uncomfortable groan. One of the things he really admired about the redhead wasn’t just her intelligence, it was the speed at which she could process and recall information that she had bothered to commit to memory. After just looking at Mimosa’s map for just three seconds, there was no doubt in Yuno’s mind that she had already memorized the layout of the place and found what Mimosa hadn’t even begun to search for yet.

“So it’s up up, down down, left right, left right,” Sunset quickly said to herself before looking back to the two Black Bulls. “Asta, put up your sword and secure your book, we’re going!”

Asta blinked as he pulled up his grimoire to sheathe his weapon. “Uh, oh-okay,” he said before following the girl’s orders.

“Hey!” Klaus yelled. “That’s our path to the center of the dungeon! If you think that you can-”

Completely ignoring the man, Sunset took in a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Mana Skin” The mana around her flared for a second before condensing, “followed by…” followed by a much larger stirring that caused her hair to whip about despite there being no wind in the dungeon. All of the ambient mana in the area followed towards her, into her, and then around her. “Mana Zone.”

Caught off guard by the display, Klaus took a step back while his cape whipped around, like everyone else’s gear. “W-WHAT IN THE WORLD!”

Sunset opened her eyes to reveal that they glowed white with an otherworldly light before she moved over to her little brother as fast as he could blink. “Hey Yuno,” she said with a voice that reverberated inside his skull before yanking him down with a strength a girl half his weight shouldn’t be allowed to possess. “I like Mimosa, you should totally try and get with her!”

Of course, much to Yuno’s embarrassment, the mana flowing through her made whispering quite pointless. Which meant that Mimosa let out a squawk of an embarrassed shriek before stepping back to cover her hand. “W-What?” she asked with a blush covering her cheeks.

Then, the redhead with the hair that was starting to look especially bright gave her little brother a messy kiss on the cheek and left a bit of moisture that actually felt like it burned a little before she flipped over the Golden Dawn members to land a little behind her own squadmates. One of whom looked resigned to a terrible fate, and the other of which seemed to be so out of it from the shock that her pigtails were standing up.

While Asta groaned and reluctantly wrapped his arms around Sunset above her shoulders while he stood behind her, she simply picked up Noelle in her arms and held her close before there was another explosion of mana that left a trail, showing Yuno which door she had flown off to, from which Asta’s screams could be heard. “THIS IS WHY WE ALWAYS HAD YUNO FLY US AROUND!”

Shaking off the shock, Klaus looked around. “W-WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?”

Yuno forced himself to adopt an even, half-lidded expression. “Yeah, my big sister can use some weird technique that lets her channel the mana in the area to greatly boost her abilities.” Secre had tried to teach it to him as well, but...it hadn’t gone so well. Apparently, you had to be a natural genius at figuring stuff out backwards to make sense of the bird’s teaching.

She was really bad at it.

“Oh, I’ve heard of that before, it’s Mana Zone, right Klaus?” she asked.

The man pushed his glasses back onto his face as he regained his composure. “I’ve seen Captain Vangence use that technique you spoke of, and that most certainly was not it.”

Yuno shrugged. “Eh. She kind of figured out a version that worked for her.”

“Y-You don’t just figure out one of the most complicated and intense mana control techniques!” Klaus sputtered.

After holding up a finger to help him point something out, Yuno shared his thoughts with the noble. “I said, kind of.”

Looking like he was seconds away from exploding, Klaus continued to bark orders. “Nevermind that!” he yelled before spinning to face Mimosa. “Is there a shorter way to the treasure room that we can take? I can drill through the rock if need be.”

Mimosa blinked, then looked back down at her map. “Actually, the route Sunset mentioned doesn’t go anywhere near the center of the dungeon.”

Luck finished off the third diamond mage that was wearing the right set of clothes before he turned to the final one that dressed differently than the others while holding onto the underling by his face. The room he had run into them in was a good place for fighting. With water flowing everywhere, blocks of stone coming out of the walls, unless it just floated there in the mana, and numerous dips in the floor.

Despite being unconscious, the man’s body continued to twitch since Luck had conjured his Heavenly Thunder Gauntlets to increase the power of his strikes, the oversized gloves wrapped completely around the man’s head. “Awww! Why is everyone with you so weak?” he asked before tossing the mage away. “If you’re the strongest opponent, then you should be fighting me.”

The man who had introduced himself as Lotus sat on some of the rubble the previous fight had created with his open grimoire wrapped in a black glow. “Well, what kind of leader would I be if I didn’t let my men get a turn in combat? Thanks for not killing them by the way. It takes too long to train up newbies these days.”

“Well, if I killed everyone I beat, then there’d be less people to fight the next time,” Luck told him happily.

Lotus took a minute to rub the hair on his chin. “And you went and showed me your magic too,” he said before looking down past the boy’s oversized loose tunic and down to his boots, then over to his arms. Both of which were covered by items created from Luck’s lightning, made to look like plate armor. “You enhance your speed and attack power with lightning magic. Quite a nice choice.”

His excitement building, Luck licked his lips before he went back to smiling. The anticipation was almost killing him! “And what kind of magic do you fight with?”

“My aren’t you eager?” he said before standing up. “Instead of going after the treasure, you came after me.”

Luck held up a hand, cracking with power. “That’s right. Now let’s fight!”

After thinking about it for a moment, the man spoke again. “I think I’d rather,” he said before turning away from Luck as he made to run away. “Beat a hasty retreat!”

The idea that someone could run from him on foot got a gleeful laugh from Luck before he leapt into the air and flew at Lotus. “I don’t think so!” he cried out before going after the man faster than anything on land could hope to run.

Not even bothering to cast a spell, the man turned and threw out his hand. The next thing Luck knew, the world had gone black for a second, and then he came out into the light again, his nose detecting traces of being clogged for a moment as he landed on a wall of the uneven room. When the boy turned, he blinked. A smokescreen?

That didn’t explain how Lotus had managed to dodge, though. Even though Luck hadn’t been able to see, his attack should have connected, and easily. What just happened?

“It’s not that I don’t understand you being upset,” Lotus went on. “Nobody likes their kingdom being invaded. But we are running a bit low on resources where I come from, and I have three little girls to feed.”

Luck launched himself at the old timer again, only to barely miss anything important before he leaped up to attach his boots to a column in the room. “Yeah, I don’t really care about any of that,” he said as he looked at the blood from a scratch that had been left on the other man’s cheek. “I just want to fight strong opponents.”

The stronger the enemy he fought, the more happy mother was.

“You’re a real piece of work kid,” the old man told him as his smoke continued to flow around the room, obscuring more of it from view.

Not that Luck cared, he could sense exactly where his opponent was standing. So, he launched himself into the smoke that the mage could apparently see just fine through, because Lotus dodged a second later as Luck blew a crater into the ground. “Hey, it’s no fun if you just dodge my attacks, fight back!”

Another leap attack hit nothing but air, and then old man Lotus started talking again. “Oh, I recognize that insignia. You’re a Black Bull. You know, I fought your captain,” he said before pulling back the shirt under his coat with its low V-neck cut to reveal a large scar. “He even gave me this little memento to remember him by.”

Getting a little excited this time, Luck’s smile widened. “Oh wow! You fought Captain Yami? Now I really want to beat you up.” Captain Yami never let Luck fight him, no matter what the boy offered the older man. It just wasn’t fair!

“It wasn’t really a fight. I wet my pants and ran as fast as I could after he just grazed me,” Lotus assured him.

Luck sucked in a deep breath to prepare for another attack and...felt his heart let out one massive beat that hurt his chest before his legs suddenly became wobbly and his arms felt heavy. “W-What the?” he mumbled before stumbling backwards.

After a second, Lotus let out a long sigh while he started to get a little blurry in Luck’s eyes. “Yeesh! Took you long enough, kid.”

Again Luck launched himself at the man, who moved out of the way, almost in slow motion.

“Sorry kid, you’re just too slow for me,” Lotus told Luck as he stumbled forward, his head starting to hurt. “Now, down you go boy. Deep into the abyss.”

What is this? A spell? I don’t remember him casting anything, Luck told himself as the world became more blurry.

Lotus went to stroking his chin. “Well kid, you’re done,” he told the boy. “You see, while you were fighting my men, I cast a spell that filled this room with a smoke too thin to be seen by the naked eye. Then, I just had to wait until you breathed in enough of my weakening magic for it to activate. I’m sneaky like that.”

As Luck fell to the ground, he began to feel...excited.

“Sorry kid, but this is what happens when you run around on your own without any friends to back you up,” Lotus told him before he began to walk away. “Since you spared my men, I’ll give you a slight chance to run away. These dungeons tend to collapse after the treasure is taken, so if you can recover in time, you might make it out alive. Next time, bring a companion or two with you when you get into a fight.”

Fighting to try and get more air, Luck did his best not to listen to the man’s words.

Because if he brought someone else to help him…

Focusing his mana, Luck pushed more of it into his two spells. Increasing his speed and power, causing the boots and gauntlets to become more refined, more powerful and deadly. With the increase compensating for the drain to his body, Luck leapt up at the man again, managing to rake him across the back and get through his cloak before landing in front of him as his armor turned the world around them blue. “It’s been a long time since I had a fight this interesting.”

“Win,” Mother’s voice told him. “Win. Keeping on winning, Luck.”

...Mother wouldn’t love him anymore.

Mother reached down and slapped him. “YOU MISERABLE LITTLE CHILD!” she yelled at the smiling boy. “Stop smiling like that! Get mad, cry, do something normal for a change!”

Luck smiled up at his mother.

He always smiled at his mother.

He smiled at everything.

Smiling was good.

So he smiled.

Always.

“WHY WERE YOU BORN A DEFECTIVE FREAK?” Mother yelled before raising a hand to strike him again.

And then, there was a flash of light, and Mother was on the ground, trembling.

“Whoa, no way,” Luck said as he took a step towards Mother.

He smiled at her.

Mother trembled.

He raised his hand.

Another flash of light.

And Mother was asleep on the ground.

Luck walked down the halls of his school in Yvon. Listening to the others.

Always smiling.

It was shortly after his village’s annual magical combat tournament.

And he won!

“My God, that little boy, did he beat a noble?”

“This has never happened in all the years of this school’s magic tournaments!”

“Regular people don’t win against nobles.”

“Oh man, I’ve been giving that kid a hard time too.”

“He is so creepy, the way he smiles all the time.”

Yes. He smiled, all the time.

He went to see Mother.

“You beat a noble using your magic?” Mother asked.

Luck nodded.

Mother moved.

Luck tensed.

Mother...hugged him. “Oh Luck, that’s fantastic. I’m so proud of you! Most people like us don’t stand a chance against nobles. But you’re special. And you’re going to win again, won’t you? Just keep winning Luck. Nobody will ever help you in this world. You have to do things by yourself.”

“I’ll do it Mom, if it will make you happy,” he told her.

With more mana piping through his system to counteract the weakening magic, Luck leaped at the smoke mage again.

“Win,” Mother told him.

“Jeez kid!” he said as he ducked into his smoke to avoid being attacked. “Despite being hit with my magic, you’ve only gotten faster and stronger.”

“Win,” Mother told him.

Luck chased after the man. “I can’t lose!” he told himself.

If he lost, Mother wouldn’t love him anymore.

He chased after Lotus through his smoke some more, almost catching him.

Almost winning.

Almost…

Lotus ran through his smoke screen again.

Luck chased after him.

And then…

“Smoke Creation Magic: Binding Cross Ribbon!” the man cried out before the smoke around him increased.

Luck blinked as he felt something tug at his legs. Then at his arms. A mass of smoke, solid smoke wrapped around his body, hardening further as it lifted him up into the air and holding him there as it spread up to his mouth. As the spell completed, Luck found himself unable to move.

After the spell was complete, Lotus let out a sigh before reaching up to scratch his cheek. “You know, I had hoped to avoid using this spell. It really does a number on my mana reserves,” he said before moving his hand down to rub his shoulder. “Still. I got responsibilities to tend to. Be seeing...well, since this place will definitely be coming down around you now, guess I won’t.”

Luck didn't pay much attention to the man, though.

Win. I have to keep on winning.

Luck was smiling.

It was raining.

Mother was gone.

Mother was in the ground.

Luck was standing over the ground that Mother was under.

“From what I heard, she just up and died.”

“She was under a lot of stress.”

“Left her kid behind too.”

“He must be heartbroken.”

“No, he’s a freak.”

“His mother’s dead, and all he does is smile.”

Fifteen...Sixteen...Seventeen...Sunset counted as she blazed a trail through the dungeon.

With her enhanced mana senses from being in her zone, Sunset was able to feel the hallways ahead thanks to all the open air being so full of mana. She took corners quicker than would have been possible and moved through the maze that made little sense as it looped back around and forced her to go higher and higher before heading down again, then alternate turns to keep going in the same general direction.

When she finally got to the next large chamber, Sunset came to a stop at the entrance to let Asta off and put Noelle down. “Are you both okay?” she asked before marking the count in her mind. Twenty seconds of power expulsion. That left plenty of time for fighting.

For how long fights were supposed to last, at any rate.

Noelle’s legs shook, making Sunset hold her gently. “Ugh...that was…” she stopped talking and moaned before looking over to Sunset with a frown. “What’s wrong with your voice?”

The question made Sunset groan. “My-ugh, not you too,” she mumbled before frowning back at Noelle. “There’s nothing wrong with my voice!”

“Yeah, don’t bother, she doesn’t seem to get it,” Asta said before he drew out his sword and looked down below them as the diamond mage raised his hand at a trapped blonde kid. “Oh crap, Luck!”

Not wasting another second, Asta leaped out of the entrance and down at the boy before swinging his sword into the black mass of smoke behind Luck, cutting into it with his anti-magic and making the spell disperse. “Okay Luck, let’s get him!”

The blonde boy fell to the ground shortly after Asta. “No!” the boy told him in a fierce tone that made Asta take a step back before Luck looked back at the Diamond mage. “I have to do this myself! It doesn’t count if I don’t do it myself!” Then, he took off at the mage at a speed that seemed way too slow for someone like him.

Sunset groaned at the sight. “Ah damnit,” she grumbled. “I knew he was crazy, but practically suicidal isn’t something I was ready to deal with.”

“So do something already!” Noelle told her fiercely.

After taking in a deep breath to keep her cool and focus. “I’d love to, but channeling mana like this takes a huge toll on my body. The more magic I use, the more strain it causes. As long as I don’t cast spells or move too much, I don’t have a problem, but when I do use magic, it’s like burning a candle.”

Worry showed on Noelle’s face. “Is it dangerous?”

Probably shouldn’t have given her an analogy where the item turns into a pile of goo, Sunset told herself. “No. But it does make me really sore afterwards,” she assured the girl. “It’s one of the reasons I started exercising.”

Noelle blinked before a smile crossed her face. “In that case, it’s probably best if you don’t do anything,” she said before leaping down to where the others were, leaving Sunset standing there, completely confused.

Huh? the redhead thought to herself.

Down on the floor, Luck launched himself the diamond mage again to no effect, as the man simply jumped out of the way and counter-attacked. Which made Luck jump into the air and spin around to go after him again, coming too close to dodge before the smoke mage let loose another blast.

An attack that would have hit if Asta hadn’t gotten in the way to strike it with his sword before he turned back to the blonde lightning boy when Luck started to protest. “YOU GO AHEAD AND DO WHAT YOU GOTTA DO LUCK, BUT SO WILL I!” he yelled at the boy. “And means not just standing by when a friend is in trouble.”

“I have to beat him on my own!” Luck told Asta, who was already running after the smoke mage before Luck had even finished talking. “If I don’t-”

“SORRY, BUT THAT JUST ISN’T HAPPENING!” Asta yelled as he cut into the mystery mage’s smoke, breathing a little of it in before chopping through another blast, followed by three more.

Okay yeah, now I know what I’m doing, Sunset thought before leaping down to stand behind Luck as while Noelle moved out in front and drew her book to simply stand there with a menacing scowl on her face.

She reached up to touch him on the shoulder. As close as Sunset was, she could tell there was some kind of spell running through him, centered in Luck’s lungs. “Luck it’s okay. You did good.”

The boy spun around. “You don’t understand!” Luck told her as he smiled at the redhead a bit too widely. “I have to win. If I don’t win and do it on my own, then Mother won’t love me anymore!”

Sunset blinked at the boy’s words. They weren’t the same but...how many times had she been a little filly, stressing over things like test grades, knowing that Celestia would get rid of her if she proved to be a waste of time.

Which...in the end...she did anyway.

Sunset grabbed the boy and ignored the lightning magic around him as she pulled him in close while taking a step back, pulling him off of his feet so he fell forward and rested his head beneath hers. “You idiot,” she told him. “Real family doesn’t attach conditions to the love that is given.”

“...what?” the boy asked.

After taking another breath. “I’m talking about your family, stupid. You know, the Black Bulls?” Sunset told him while wishing Vanessa was here. She was so much better at this kind of stuff. “Do you really think any of us are just going to abandon you if you get in over your head during a fight?”

Luck’s smile mostly disappeared. “...you won’t?”

The fact that she actually had to tell the boy that made Sunset nearly flinch, but she kept herself together. Losing focus when she had a ton of mana flowing through her was dangerous. “Actually, I think Magna would like it if you fought a little less around him.”

“That’s...I don’t...then...I won’t be alone?” he asked.

Good God, what happened to this kid to make him like this? Sunset asked herself.

“OF COURSE NOT YOU IDIOT!” Noelle yelled at Luck before she flared her mana and looked at the smoke mage as he retreated to a higher level of the room that was a bit out of Asta’s reach. “And you! You’re outnumbered four to one. But our guy isn’t hurt and yours are still breathing. Since this dungeon straddles the border between Diamond and Clover, I can’t really treat it as an invasion. Take your goons and go home, unless you want to mess with royalty!”

Luck broke out of Sunset’s embrace before he turned around and leapt over next to Noelle. “You know...it does sound a lot more fun to fight together!”

Sunset...blinked. Take what you can get, damnit. Just take what you can get, she told herself.

“YEAH!” Asta yelled.

After examining the area, Sunset surged her mana to spread it out over the area and push away the magic that was already floating there. “Don’t count on letting whatever crap you managed to sneak into his lungs to work on the rest of us. I’m already neutralizing it.”

The diamond mage reached up to rub his oversized goatee. “Hmm...good point. And it doesn’t look like my area affect spells we be of much use now either, with your mana flooding the chamber to interfere with them,” he told them. “Smart move.”

...really? Sunset thought as she blinked. I had no idea I could do that!

Although, it made sense. Human magic wasn’t concentrated in one place like a unicorn’s. It came from both inside and outside. If someone already controlled the mana in an area, the spells of other mages would have been affected as well.

“Okay then, I know when I’m beat,” he told them as he raised his hands before tendrils of smoke came out of them to wrap around the fallen mages like tentacles that pulled their unconscious bodies close to him while pages began to turn in the grimoire floating in front of him. “Smoke Creation Magic: Hustling Lazy Car!”

Sunset blinked as the man’s smoke reshaped itself to become an odd mix of a train engine, complete with smokestack, and a carriage that he set his men down in. It...made her a little nostalgic.

The man took another look at the assembled youths, then focused on Sunset for a second longer. “Kids today, I tell ya,” he mumbled before getting in the miniature train engine himself before the smoke stack actually started producing exhaust as it sped away.

...on the side of the wall...over the water.

Okay so...not the same thing as a mini-train, she told herself.

After the man left their sight, Asta looked back to the two girls. “We’re not gonna fight him anymore?”

Sunset let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding, then cut off the mana flow. Almost immediately, her muscles began to protest the strain they had been put under, and she reached up to rub her sore shoulder before sitting down on the floor to give her legs a rest. The damage hadn’t been too bad, but Sunset doubted she would be working out come tomorrow.

“Heck no!” she spat at the boy. “Just...give me a minute to rest, and we’ll get going.”

After a whole three seconds, Asta rested his sword on his shoulder. “Alright, next stop, the treasure room! We’ll beat those Golden Dawn posers yet!”

Noelle groaned. “Are you kidding me, we should probably just head out. With a map of the place, Mimosa has probably already led them to the treasure room.”

“NO WAY!” Asta yelled. “WE CAN’T JUST GIVE UP AND LEAVE!”

“Yeah!” Luck quickly agreed. “We still got that other guy to fight!”

The other three members of the group blinked as one before turning to look at the magic knight with the longest mana sensing range. “What other guy?” they all asked.

Page 12: Unicorn

Yuno managed not to yawn as they finally made their way out of the palace, his whole body aching more from having to stand there for hours and listen to the Wizard King and Sunset go on and on about magic than anything that had happened in the life and death situation they were just in the day before.

“Ah, so you have creation magic that isn’t fixed to an element, and the fact that you can use it without a grimoire means you can make just about anything,” the man said with sparkling eyes as he looked at the chalkboard Sunset had just created out of nothing.

Sunset blinked. “Uh...no,” she said before scribbling down some gibberish that Yuno didn’t really follow. “You see, I don’t actually create anything using this method. It’s a combination of transmutation and spatial relocation, bringing in the required resources from the surrounding air particles in a ten mile radius and then using them for materials that I used to create this to help with the instruction. It’s much more costly mana-wise, but it creates a permanent object, as opposed to mana that’s just been made into an item, which eventually decays. And I can only create items that bla bla, bla bla bla, bla bla bla bla.”

Yuno reached up and rubbed his head. That...probably hadn’t been how the conversation went, but he was too tired to care.

Of course, it didn’t help that Sunset loved to show off, and finding someone that could at least half understand the nonsense she was talking about only added fuel to the fire.

“Ah, I get it!” he remembered the Wizard King saying as the man looked at the chalkboard. “While the spells themselves follow a set principle, each person is different, meaning that each constant in the equation is actually a variable determined by the opinion of the caster and further affected by their emotional state.”

“Right, but my magic works on the principle of-” the memory of Sunset said before Yuno cut it off. He had heard it all before anyway, and it still didn’t make any more sense after listening to the lecture for a second time.

At the moment, Yuno was too tired to even be angry for the two of them apparently forgetting anyone else had even been in the room. He just wanted to crawl into bed and get some sleep.

“I’m going to recommend two days off to the captain so that your injuries have a chance to heal and your minds can recover,” Klaus said as they left the palace grounds. He looked up at the sun and grimaced. “Ugh, it must be close to eight in the morning.”

Despite being the one half-responsible for the delay, Sunset looked up from the scroll she had been given, and groaned. “Yeah, never going to get used to you people being able to tell time with the position of the sun.”

The group stopped moving, then turned back to look at the redhead as one. With the exception of Sylph, she kept flying ahead until noticing that everyone had stopped. “Wha-oh,” she said before floating back to land on Yuno’s shoulder, then lean into him affectionately.

If I ignore her enough, I wonder if she’ll go away, he thought to himself. As insane as it sounded, the wind goddess...thing that had attached itself to Yuno made being in the human world sound like some kind of vacation for her. If she got bored, there was the possibility that she might just up and leave.

“How does it work where you come from?” Mimosa asked.

Sunset shrugged. “Sun goes up into the middle of the sky at the start of the day and doesn’t go down until it’s time for the moon to come up. The whole thing takes about ten seconds,” she explained before rubbing her chin. “Makes me wonder, though…”

With the lot of them standing around for an extra second, Asta, who had been looking a little dejected since they left the Wizard King’s office for some reason, looked over to Sunset. “So, where exactly is your home, anyway?”

“You know it’s in another dimension, right?” she asked. “I’m not even sure there is a way to explain it in terms of actual location.”

Sylph stopped leaning on Yuno and perked up. “Yes there is,” she said, drawing everyone’s attention.

Then, when she didn’t volunteer anything else, Asta frowned up at her. “So, you just going to leave us hanging, or…”

“What do I look like, an encyclopedia?” she asked evenly before crossing her arms and looking away. “You want to know the secrets of the universe, go read a few dozen books!”

Sunset let out a dejected moan. “Oh well.”

The distressed redhead immediately got Sylph’s attention, and the sprite sighed. “Okay fine,” she grumbled before floating up into the air. “I’ll try and make this as simple as I can. Since we already used a tree analogy, we’ll go with that. There are four core realms of reality that comprise the trunk of the tree. They are The Nether Realm, The Mortal Realm, The Spirit Realm, and The Celestial Realm. Aside from these, there other minor realms that fall outside of a single classification, such as the one Sunset comes from. It falls between The Spirit and Celestial Realms, like a branch on the tree.”

Yuno blinked. Having grown up in a church, his mind latched onto one of those names more than others. The increase in attention pushing him to stay awake longer. “Wait, are you talking about Heaven? Because, one of those sounds a lot like-”

“See, this is why I don’t like getting into this kind of stuff,” Sylph replied before he could finish. “That’s outside my purview. I’m an elemental being, not...whatever you guys think inhabits the Celestial Realm. Of course, crossing over between realms is a lot harder than you all think. The only reason I’m here is because we have a workaround, with Yuno acting as an anchor for this body. The inhabitants of the Nether Realm require a host body, and celestials have an even harder time getting in because they’re even further away in the multiversal sense, so the environment isn’t as compatible to them as it is to all the others.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “Uh, does that mean I’m going to get sick or something, being here?”

After blinking at the question, Sylph held up her hands and gave Sunset a disarming grin. “Oh! You don’t have to worry about that! It looks like the process you used to get here caused a slight alteration, giving you more free will than the average Equestrian,” she told the girl nervously. “I mean, you haven’t gone insane from not doing what your cutie mark tells you to, right?”

An awkward pause followed the question, after which Sunset turned and began to walk away. “I’m going home.”

With that as the signal to disperse, the group headed to where a spatial magic user in a Golden Dawn uniform was waiting for them. Yuno recognized the curly-haired man from the headquarters, but didn’t know his name off the top of his head.

Klaus gave the man their destination, and a few steps later, they were a hundred miles away.

Stifling a yawn, Yuno clenched his mouth closed to keep it from coming out as he began to head to his room, only to be stopped with a word from Klaus.

“Hold up, Yuno. With it being a new day, and you about to be out of commission for some time, we should see if any new mail has arrived for you,” the older man told him.

Mimosa glanced over to the man in confusion. “Um, mail wouldn’t have been delivered yet, would it?”

After pushing his glasses up, Klaus didn’t budge. “Nevertheless, we should check.”

“Hey Spectacles!” Sylph yelled before she flew off of the teen’s shoulder to glare at the man. “My Yuno is tired and needs his beauty sleep! You make look stupid and old, but he has an appearance to maintain!”

Klaus’s eye twitched. “Be that as it may, I strongly suggest that we check the mail.”

Since Sylph was so against it, Yuno moved to follow. “Fine.”

“Hey, I’ve noticed something,” Mimosa said as she joined the other two knights while they moved down the hallway to look over at the elemental spirit.

Sylph looked over at the girl with an annoyed stare. “Congratulations, I understand that’s quite the accomplishment for you.”

“How come you’re a lot nicer to Sunset than you are to everyone else?” she asked.

The question actually made the sprite flinch. “Uh...that’s…” Sylph went back to sitting on Yuno’s shoulder before she pulled her knees up to herself and sighed. “Me and the others, we...made a mistake a couple years ago...or, centuries, maybe? Anyway, it caused some trouble for Sunset’s little cluster of dimensions. So, I kind of owe her, even though she was born long after everything was taken care of.”

Mimosa covered her mouth as she let out a little giggle, showing off those royal behavioral classes. “So, you are a good person, just a little rough around the edges.”

“I’m not a person at all,” Sylph told her evenly.

They got to the mailroom, ending the conversation. Klaus took the lead and walked up to the long desk. Although the man behind the counter wasn’t a member of the Magic Knights, he still wore Golden Dawn colors and stood up a little straighter when an officer entered. “I’m here to check and see if there have been any correspondence for our newest member, Yuno.”

Giving Four Eyes a nervous look before glancing to Yuno for a moment, the mail clerk looked back at Klaus. “S-Sorry, sir. But without the full name-”

“That is his full name, which I believe you are well aware of,” Klaus said before the man could finish. “Now, I understand that sometimes, mail is lost in the shuffle. So I would appreciate it if you would do your job and double check to see if there is any undeliverable mail. Or, will I have to inform The Captain that one of the most vital functions of our operation needs someone who can perform their responsibilities in the correct manner?”

The clerk gave a little gulp, then quickly hurried out of sight before coming back with a large basket, which he turned upside down to dump out two letters. “Well, it does seem that there is a letter addressed to a Yuno after all. I guess it must have been put in the undeliverable section since it only had the one name,” he said before giving the envelope to Klaus, who snatched it away from him.

“Two letters? Who is the other one addressed to?” he asked evenly.

After getting a bit more nervous, the clerk looked down and held it up. “It says...Sunset Shimmer? Do you know who that is sir, because I’m rather certain she’s in another squad,” the clerk told him before looking back at the letter. “Funny thing is, I’ve been talking to some of the other mailroom people, the squads that have them at any rate, and I think the Silver Eagles also got a pair of letters like this, as well as the Orcas.”

Yuno blinked. Who would write-wait, he thought to himself. Hadn’t Father Orisi promised to write them when he got to the village he was supposed to be moving to?

As Klaus berated the man for doing what every other member of the Dawn had been doing since Yuno joined, Yuno snatched the letter out of the man’s hand. It was definitely Father Orisi’s handwriting. “What about the Black Bulls?” he asked. “Did they get one of these?”

The clerk snorted. “HA! Like those idiots could even afford to hire the staff for a mailroom.”

He must have written to every single squad, Yuno told himself. It was strange that there wasn’t a letter for Asta, though. Maybe that one actually had been lost.

“I trust from here on out, you will perform your duties properly, or there will be problems,” Klaus told him before turning to leave.

Mimosa moved to leave with him. “This is why I use the postal portal services. Their owls and birds are much more reliable.”

As they left the mail room, Klaus looked back at Yuno, who hadn’t taken his eyes off of the thick envelope in his hands. “By the way, I would suggest heading to the capital come tomorrow to be fitted for a custom outfit made up like one of our uniforms. The one you might get in a few days will probably be a size too small.”

A minor amount of annoyance crossed Sunset’s face as she waited for the chain-smoking layabout to finish reading the letter pertaining to her ‘welcomed outsider’ status and all that it entailed while she sat in the common room. Vanessa was looking over the clothes she was still wearing for battle damage while Noelle was reading through the scroll detailing Sunset’s own rules of conduct. Annoyance both for the long time he was taking, and her dashed worries over everything. It didn’t help that she still needed to get some sleep.

Why in the hell did these stupid humans have to be so nonchalant about all the wrong things? Sunset had read in the Canterlot Times about an incident in Manehattan. A bat pony had decided to move outside of her designated enclave and half the city went nuts, citing safety concerns and imposing a curfew to ensure that she wasn’t going to be up to anything when all good ponies were asleep in bed. And that had just been a subspecies of pony!

Yami took out his cigarette and looked down at the girl. “So, you’re not really human, huh? Well, we were half-right about the Sisgoleon theory, at least,” he mumbled before glancing back at the paper. “Accommodations? What? You need a special toilet to take a crap in or something?”

A groan came from Sunset’s lips. “The dimensional translocation spell brought me here also included a reconfiguration that rebuilt my body into a more human-friendly version,” she explained, like she had to the Wizard King before him. “It’s not really transformation magic as you know it, since there isn’t any spell to undo and change me back to…” She looked over to Noelle, who went from half asleep to very interested in the conversation. “What I was before. But, I don’t actually need anything more than any other human.”

Noelle crossed her arms and pouted for a second before going back to read the boring legal document.

“So what are you anyway, some kind of magical creature? Like a kirin?” Yami asked before putting the cigarette back in his mouth.

“Well, with my temper and fire affinity, I did wonder if I had some-wait,” she said before going in a full explanation of a DNA test performed on herself when she was an older filly to look up at Yami with a frown. “How the hell do you know what a kirin is?” There was only a single village of them in all of Equestria!

Even the damn Clovers didn’t know what a kirin was, and Sunset had told the kids at the orphanage tons about the magical creatures of her homeland when Lilly needed help for bedtime stories.

Noelle looked over at the redhead again, her interest returning.

“Feh, they’re legendary creatures back in my homeland said to bring good luck,” he said before looking down at Sunset with a frown. Then, he reached forward and rubbed the girl’s head with one of his giant hands that he usually picked Asta up with before walking off to talk to their spatial mage. “Hey Finral, make a portal to the casino. I need to get there before my luck wears off.”

Sunset glared at the man as he stepped through the tear in space. “I’m not a kirin!”

A second later, Vanessa giggled and pulled Sunset back on the couch before she reached up to begin fixing the hair that Yami messed up. “From the way you sleep, I’m going to say that you’re really some kind of cat.”

The near-insult had Sunset looking back at her with a raised eyebrow. “What makes you say that?”

“Do you remember last night?” she asked with a small smile.

Sunset gave her an even stare. “No, I was drunk. I thought the whole point of getting drunk was to do stupid things and not remember them.”

After having to endure Vanessa’s worrying smile that slowly spread across her face for a few seconds, the woman responded. “Well, since it was obviously your first time, I took you to my bed to make sure you didn’t throw up and drown in your sleep. And when you fell asleep, you did this cute little thing with your hands that made them look like cat’s paws,” she said before holding up a finger as she added a point. “Plus, when you just woke up, you stretched just like a little kitten would.”

“I’m not a cat!” she said before looking around the room with a little frown. “Any other guesses before we drop this until the next forever?”

Gray pulled out his book to transform into a colorful giant bird of some kind. When Sunset told him, no, he transformed back and hung his head while blowing smoke.

Charmy went to thinking as she sat at a small table in the corner. “Yummy, or not yummy, I can’t make up my mind on a choice!” she said before she went back to eating.

“Are you like,” Magna began before raising his hands up like claws. “A giant she-demon, with red skin and spikey hair that looks like its on fire, that has these huge wings on her back?”

“No,” she said before moving over to look at Gauche.

The sister-lover snorted. “If you’re not something Marie would like to see, I don’t care.”

Sunset turned her gaze to Gordon…

“I think that you’re really a magical unicorn from an enchanted land that’s powered by friendship.”

...and went right to Finral when that turned out to be a waste of time. “Hmmm, are you one of those super exotic water nymphs, with giant breasts and impossibly smooth skin?”

The question had her throw a fireball in the man’s general direction. “If I just looked like a really hot human, why the hell would I bother saying I had a species change?” Sunset yelled as she jumped out of Vanessa’s arms.

As Finral fled, Sunset sighed and rubbed her temple. “You know what? I’m tired, and I still reek of effort, I’m going to take a bath, and go to bed,” she mumbled.

“Me too,” Noelle agreed.

After getting up from the couch, Vanessa stretched until something popped. “Think I’ll join you girls.”

Hearing the woman’s self invite, Sunset looked back at her in confusion. “Huh?”

Over in the corner of the room, Charmy looked up from the pile of food she was consuming. “She was up all night, waiting for you two to come home.”

Sunset blinked as Vanessa stood up a little straighter while a shiver ran down her back. Hearing that the woman had cared so much for her, Sunset felt...something move in her stomach. As far as she could remember, that was the first time anyone had cared anything about her wellbeing. “That’s um...thanks,” she said after a moment.

“Well...it was your first mission where we could actually expect danger,” Vanessa told her. “I had a right to be worried.”

“Okay, so what are the really big differences between the you from then and now?”

Vanessa smirked as Sunset gave her a little groan while the older woman washed her hair with some new products that promised to help bring out its shine. She was still undoing two years of damage from living in Hage, but they could start on the beautification treatments as well. “I’ll admit, I’m a bit curious myself.”

After several seconds of silence, Sunset let out a sigh. “You guys are just trying to figure out what I really am.”

Noelle shrugged. “Eh, if you’re not a mermaid, I don’t really care.”

“I still think you’d make a cute kitten,” Vanessa said before hugging her baby sister, who tightened up a little bit. As she did, something occurred to Vanessa that should have been obvious. “Oh, I get it...you’re adorable, aren’t you?”

Sunset looked back at her. “Say what?”

After letting her go to get some water running into a wash pan, Vanessa looked back to the girl. “You’re always going around like you’re all tough and everything, even though it’s mostly an act,” she pointed out. “Which means you’re overcompensating for something. So, I’m going to guess it’s because what you really look like is super adorable.”

Sunset gave the woman a frown as some of the soap ran down the side of her face. “My species finds body odor attractive and is one of the leading reasons that girls come onto guys,” she told the woman evenly. Which, despite probably being absolutely repulsive to humans, was the honest truth. Mares liked a stallion who could put in a hard day’s work.

“I’m going to take that as a yes,” Vanessa said with a victorious smile before she poured cold water all over the younger girl.

After Sunset’s screaming finished and she was fully woken up by the water, Vanessa took her two charges into the baths for a good soak to help them work out all the tension. Since she hadn’t focused on the other girl much at all, the older woman went back to hugging her baby sister and looked over to the royal. “So Noelle, how was your first dungeon?”

Noelle looked back to the other woman. It took her several seconds to even begin talking as a series of emotions played out on her face. “Honestly? It was terrifying for me,” she said as she sunk down into the water to pull up her feet and curl in on herself. “The actual dungeon part was okay, we handled that without any problem. But those diamond mages...they almost killed us.”

“Trapped in that room...if Yuno hadn’t gotten that spell, we would have been in real trouble,” Sunset agreed before she took a deep breath.

With both girls showing signs of going to some pretty bad places in their heads, Vanessa sighed and put her hands underwater. “Okay you two, enough of that,” she told the girls before splashing them. “It’s good to acknowledge your limits, but if you get hung up on every close call you have, you’ll worry yourselves to death.” Which wasn’t just an empty saying. Such thoughts led to hesitation, which got people killed on the battlefield. “You had a close call and got out of it by the skin of your teeth. Best to think of how to do better next time. And get some sleep. A few hours in bed will do you both a load of good.”

A finger poked Vanessa in the side, and she looked over to the redhead who was smirking at her. “Says the woman who was up waiting for us to come home all night,” she said.

“I was worried, I’m not going to deny it,” Vanessa told her with a shrug. “But now that you’ve popped your cherries, I can rest easy next time it comes for you to do something dangerous.”

Noelle stiffened. “Do you have to put it like that?”

While the royal got all indignant, Sunset just gave her a clueless stare. “What? What’s bad about cherries? Are they poisonous to humans or something?” she asked before a light-bulb came over her head. “Actually, now that you guys know the truth, I should probably come up with a list of questions like that I need answered.”

The fact that Sunset didn’t know about human slang terms made Vanessa smirk. “Oh, I’m going to have fun with you.”

A frown crossed Sunset’s face. “I’m not your toy,” the redhead deadpanned.

Vanessa smiled back at her. “No, you’re my family. Which is kind of the same thing,” she said before leaning back to sink into the water. “So, after all of this, I’m thinking we need a distraction or three. What do you girls say to going into one of the castle towns with me tomorrow?”

Both of the younger knights shared a confused look. “Why?” Noelle asked right on top of Sunset’s question.

“We just did that the other day.”

“Because it’ll be fun,” Vanessa told them. “And that was for necessities. What about personal stuff? Don’t you two have any hobbies?”

Once again, both of the girls shared a look before turning their attention to Vanessa. “Does magic count?” Sunset asked after looking at the mark on her butt.

“Practicing magic in my free time is all I do too,” Noelle added.

Silence filled the bath for several seconds as Vanessa just stared at the two girls. “Okay...yeah. You guys need hobbies.”

It wasn’t long after dawn that Yuno found himself deposited outside of what was supposed to be the Black Bull’s base of operations. However, considering what had been going on since joining the Dawn, it was rather obvious that wherever he was, it was not the headquarters for a division of the Magic Knights.

“Wow, this place is a dump,” Sylph commented as she looked up at the building that should have collapsed in on itself five minutes after being built while she sat on Yuno’s shoulder.

His company for the day came through the portal a moment later, and Yuno looked over to Klaus while Mimosa also blanched upon seeing the hideout that wasn’t really all that hidden. “Ugh. This is where Noelle lives now?”

“Obviously, the spatial mage that sent us here wanted to make things difficult for us,” Yuno said. “The Black Bull’s base of operations is probably miles from-”

“No,” Klaus said as he adjusted his glasses, cutting Yuno off. “This is it. Since they’re the lowest ranking squad, their budget is far less than that of the Golden Dawn. Plus, with their number of members only in the teens, they don’t actually require much in the way of room. Now, let’s make our delivery and be off.”

Yuno followed the man as they headed towards the door. “I could have done this on my own, sir. Not to mention, purchased new clothes.”

The comment’s true purpose seemingly went unnoticed by the man in charge of their squad as he moved up to the door. “Nonsense. Considering your background, I doubt you would be able to spot a reputable tailor from all the shysters. And I think it would be a good idea to check up on Asta. Not to mention the fact that if Sunset’s needs are not met, it could very well mean the end of our species.”

“Yeah, that does seem a bit harsh,” Mimosa agreed. “Not to mention some of the rules she’s supposed to follow. I understand the need for her to get married, but why by the time she’s one-hundred? People don’t live that long.”

Sylph groaned and rolled her eyes. “That’s the point, dumb-dumb. Some of the rules obviously aren’t going to apply to mortals.”

Klaus knocked on the door and waited for several seconds before it finally opened to reveal a man with light purple hair that only had one eye showing, with the other being completely covered by messy locks of hair. “Whatever you're selling, we only want it if it will fit a little girl and look cute on her.”

Stunned silence was the response for several seconds before Klaus became irate. “WE’RE MAGIC KNIGHTS, NOT DOOR TO DOOR SALESMEN!”

“In that case, get lost,” the door man replied before shutting the door in their faces.

Klaus’s eye twitched before he kicked open the door. “We are magic knights, and we are here to deliver a message to one of your members!”

Yuno followed the man inside the building and looked around. The interior of the Black Bull’s base looked more like a seedy bar than anything else, complete with beer lining about half of a wall. Another mage in a Black Bulls robe that looked more like a delinquent than a respectable person looked up at them with a frown. “Complaint department is out back and on the other side of the house, buddy. Just knock and wait to be buzzed in.”

“Hey Yuno! Want to fight?” the cheery blonde from the dungeon asked before he looked over to the man with the two-toned hair. “And, isn’t that the tool shed?”

The delinquent rolled his eyes. “Yes, which is exactly where guys like them belong.”

Ignoring the roundabout insult while Klaus fumed over it, Yuno looked around. “Are Asta and Sunset here?”

Luck looked up at the ceiling for a moment. “Yeah, she should be here in three, two, one-”

“But why do you want me to go too?” Asta’s whine came through the door at the back of the room before he was dragged out by Sunset, who was dressed in some tight pants and a top that hung down to the point of covering her butt with a skirt of its own. She was followed by the girl with silver hair he met in the dungeon, along with another woman who was much older and wearing a revealing outfit that didn’t leave anything to the imagination.

“Oh hey, Asta’s with them,” Luck said.

The boy in question blinked, then looked over to the three newcomers. “Sir Spectacles? What’re you guys doing here?”

Sir Spectacles touched his glasses with an irate frown. “That’s not-ugh, Yuno received a letter for your old caretaker as well as one addressed to Sunset and wanted to make sure she received hers, or if you got one.”

As the orphans looked on in confusion, the delinquent let out a loud laugh. “HAHAHA! Dude, we’re the Black Bulls, the only thing we get is hate mail.”

“And letter bombs!” Luck added before taking a broom and poking a large white bag leaning up against the wall that had several unopened envelopes sticking out the top. There was a loud popping sound before a small blackened hole was blown into the thing, followed by another on the other side, and a third letter that actually was showing went off as well.

As the entire thing caught fire while Luck laughed, the delinquent let out a screech before grabbing a pale of water and throwing it on the collection of burnt paper. “Are you trying to burn the place down?” he yelled.

Sunset gave the boy with the gray and white hair a disbelieving look. “Really? Coming from you Magna, that’s like a fish complaining that water is wet!”

“You got a letter from Father Orsi?” Asta asked Sunset as he walked over to the taller boy. “What’s it say?”

Yuno held it out of Asta’s reach. “So, you didn’t get anything at all, huh?”

“OH, SHUT UP! MINE PROBABLY JUST GOT BURNED UP WITH THE HATE MAIL!” Asta yelled at him.

There was a loud pop in Yuno’s hand and he blinked when the letter just disappeared, to reappear in front of Sunset before it opened itself. “Dear Sunset. I hope this letter finds you well,” she read. “Because I don’t know which squad of the Magic Knights you have joined, I am sending a similar letter to each of their headquarters. We have arrived safely in Nairn and have settled within their church, with Nash living at the local orphanage that is overseen by the nunnery. I hope to hear from you soon. Also, do your best to look after Asta. Because of the rules of the local orphanage, he can not come here to live with me and has nothing to go back to in Hage. If you have become a magic knight, then perhaps you can find him a job within your organization as a…” she looked up at the boy. “Well, that didn’t last long.”

Asta frowned. “What’s it say?” he asked cautiously.

The letter in front of Sunset burst into flame. “It mysteriously ended there for some odd reason and was set to self destruct fifteen seconds after being opened, I guess.”

“That’s funny, his letter to me said to try and find Asta a job at the Golden Dawn HQ as a janitor or something,” Yuno said before looking over to his brother with an even expression. “I think we may have an opening in the mail room soon...although, you may have a problem reaching the higher postal boxes.”

“THAT’S NOT FUNNY AT ALL!” Asta yelled at the other boy. “Okay then! I’m going to go write a letter to Father Orsi and my next day off, I’m going to go to that village and rub my magic knight robe in his face!”

Sunset giggled. “Hey, that’s not a bad idea. All three of us should go see what the old man is up to. And check on Nash. I know how hard it is to be uprooted and sent to a completely different place.”

The scantily clad woman in the witch's hat smiled at Yuno and practically sauntered over, making the boy blink as Sylph fumed at her presence. She leaned in a little, showing off her breasts and smiled a bit. “Thanks for bringing the letter, I know that Asta and Sunset have been worried about their old caretaker.”

Sylph blinked before crossing her arms. “Oh...uh...well...my Yuno is noble like that.”

“Oh!” the woman said, seemingly noticing Sylph for the first time. “Hello there, and you are?”

Sucking up the attention, Sylph stood up profoundly. “I’m Sylph, the Wind Spirit!”

“And Yuno’s wife!” Asta mocked from across the room.

Something Sylph didn’t take too kindly to. “CAN IT SHORTY!”

Klaus cleared his throat. “Yes, well...now that we’ve taken care of that, we should be on our way. We need to head to the capital and buy some necessities for Yuno.”

I can do my own shopping, Yuno mentally told the man in the glasses.

“Hey!” the barely clothed woman said. “We’re needing to go to the capital too! We can have Finral send the lot of us there.”

Klaus nodded. “Thank you,” he said with a nod. “We were hoping to make use of your spatial mage.”

“Great!” Sunset said as she suddenly latched onto Yuno’s arm. “Then we can all go together! You know, like how we should have done in the dungeon.” She gave the man a frown.

After pushing his glasses up, Klaus nodded. “Yes. That would be for the best. I would hate for you to cause some kind of trouble because of your cultural ignorance,” he said before clearing his throat. “By the way, Sunset, since you enjoy horses, I know of a fine stallion that you can ride all around my family estate.”

Asta looked over to Sunset as gave him an incredulous look, then back to Klaus while the man smiled at her with his offer. “Well, looks like you guys have a few too many people already so...I’M GOING TRAINING!”

Lucky bastard, the wind mage told himself as Asta slipped out the back before anyone could stop him.

Full of disappointment, Sunset made her way through the streets of Autumn Leaf Field, one of the many towns that had joined into the collective mass that was the capital as she, Noelle, and Mimosa followed the older mage Vanessa while she looked around the entire town that seemed dedicated to selling junk. Not actual junk, but the shops showing model kits and other hawking stands displaying a dozen or so costumes might as well have been trash, as far as Sunset was concerned.

Yuno wasn’t with them, unfortunately. Klaus had taken him somewhere else, saying that what they needed was a properly professional tailor willing to take a little extra to move the boy up in his work schedule. He wasn’t getting off the rack clothes like Sunset did. Which meant the girls were on their own.

“So, you’re trying to find them a hobby?” Mimosa asked as she walked alongside the equally busty woman. The girl began to think a bit. “You know...I don’t think Noelle ever showed much interest in anything before.”

The girl with the silver hair groaned. “That’s because I spent all my free time working on my magic!”

Vanessa looked back at the girl with an even expression. “And how well has that worked out for you?”

As Noelle recoiled at the question, Sunset stepped in. “Below the belt, Vanessa.”

“Mimosa, be a dear and distract Noelle for me, would you?” she asked before walking over to grab Sunset by the ear and pull her along across the street.

The odd and slightly painful experience had Sunset quite confused. “What the-ow! Hey, why’re you-ow! Stop it! I-ow!” she protested before raising her hand to begin to blast the woman but...stopped before she could even gather the mana to go through with it. Despite the situation they were in, stopping Vanessa by force like Luck and Magna did all the time just seemed about as wrong as Sunset could get.

So, the substantially less powerful woman ended up manhandling Sunset across the street, leaving the teenager staging there, rubbing her poor little human ear that was far weaker than anything a pony had. “Okay, what’s your deal?”

“Remember what we said about giving Noelle some easy victories?” Vanessa said as she shook her finger at Sunset. “Well, this is part of that. It’s not going to matter how much she practices her magic if all she can do is mess up at it.”

Sunset glared back at the woman. “She’s had victories, two of them. I was there for both.”

The perfectly valid point got a sigh from Vanessa. “Yes, and what did she do all that time? Two area shield spells, from what I understand. She’d do nothing but cast that spell during magic practice if we let her. So, while she’s still feeling upbeat, let’s get her something else to be interested in as an outlet for when her magic starts to go south again.”

Sunset had to admit, Vanessa’s reasoning made sense. “Okay, I can see how that makes sense,” she admitted right before something else occurred to her. “Sorry, I just...well, I never really had problems with magic for very long before. This is all kind of new to me.”

“Well, you are pretty much a genius,” Vanessa replied. “The struggles of us normal types probably don’t even register with you.”

Although she probably meant it as a complement, or at least some kind of explanation, Sunset found herself getting angry. “Hey! I struggled plenty back home,” she grumbled before poking the taller woman in her chest. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to keep up with the workload it takes to actually learn magic? No! You just get everything handed to you in a nice little instruction book that writes itself and does all the other work for you.

“Me? I had to stay up half the night every day for weeks on end to make sure I wouldn’t fall behind a schedule that just got more and more demanding each and every day! And with the line of other po-p-people, that were just waiting for me to stumble, trailing at my heels like salivating jackals! I didn’t have time for hobbies or friends, or any of that other crap, because the second I told my old teacher I needed a break, she would have replaced me!”

As Sunset glared at her, Vanessa’s indignant look increased and she looked about ready to say something, but let out a long sigh instead. “Sounds like somebody’s got some real resentment she’s been needing to get off her chest.”

After letting out a little groan, Sunset found a nearby bench to sit down on. “I don’t know,” she replied. “It’s just...this is just about the same thing that happened last time. I don’t need anything else.”

Vanessa sat down next to the girl and pulled her in close. The invitation had Sunset scoot in even closer and wrap her arms around the larger woman. The physical contact made the problems seem to melt away as she just held onto the witch. “It’s not about what you need Sunset, it’s about what you want,” she said. “What did you want to do back home when you were done training?”

“I…” Sunset paused and blinked. What had she wanted to do with her old life?

She had studied magic, but that wasn’t really an end goal, just the means of learning how to achieve it. Back when she had been Celestia’s student, all she had wanted to do was please the Princess, make her proud. But as Celestia’s praise sounded more and more like a record she just played of ‘Good Job Sunset’ whenever the unicorn had passed a test, that desire had declined until it was as hollow as the congratulations themselves.

Then there was what happened after she saw the mirror. Sunset saw herself as a princess, as the ruler of Equestria. A pony with power, a pony who knew what she wanted to do with her life. And after learning that it was possible to become an alicorn...was that the real reason she had wanted it?

For two years, Sunset had listened to how Asta wanted to be the Wizard King, but he actually had a reason behind that. Getting the title wasn’t the end goal, it was the means of achieving what he really wanted. Even his delusion of marrying a nun was supposed to have been brought about by gaining that prestige.

Sunset had wanted to become an alicorn...to become an alicorn. She had wanted Celestia’s love and acceptance as well, but that too would have been brought about by becoming an alicorn. Learning magic was fun and made her feel good, but gaining knowledge for knowledge's sake was just empty doublespeak when there was no good reason to use that knowledge.

As hard as she tried, Sunset couldn’t think of anything that she had wanted to do.

Did I really just go about my life for over a decade, following an old nag for an empty pat on the head? Sunset asked herself.

That was just...pathetic.

Sunset sighed and looked up at the sun. It was nearly midday, so the sun almost looked like where it was supposed to be. Then, she had to look away because the damn thing was so bright. That was another difference between this sun and Celestia’s, hers was dim enough you could look at it longer with the naked eye...or maybe pony eyes were different. I wonder what the difference is?

The thought made her blink. “Hey Vanessa, I think I know what I want to try as a hobby.”

Noelle raised an eyebrow as she looked around the little store that was selling numerous lenses, star charts and telescopes of varying sizes, along with various books with titles ranging from the academic to the more cringy things like ‘Your Guide to the Stars’.

After making her way down the cramped aisle that was full of junk she didn’t think was worth a royal’s interest, she poked her head over Sunny’s shoulder as she made a purchase. The price tag on the telescope looked pretty low, making Noelle glance over to the most expensive one the man had with a frown. If her best friend was really interested in this stuff, she really should have the best equipment.

But if it was just a passing fancy, Noelle didn’t want to make Sunny keep something in her cramped room that she was never going to use, either.

“So why pick astronomy as a hobby?” she asked the redhead as the four women left the store.

Sunset tensed up for a bit. “It’s not a hobby, it’s just a...passing interest in something I’m curious about,” she said stubbornly.

Before Noelle could argue that the whole reason they were in the shopping town was to get stuff for hobbies, Mimosa came up from behind the two girls and put her arms around them with a little laugh. “Oh my Noelle, I can see why the two of you are friends, you’re almost exactly alike.”

The observation had Noelle sputtering. “Wha-? No we’re not!”

A little bell sounded in Noelle’s ears, making her turn to see Vanessa walk out before turning her attention to the royal. “Okay, that takes care of Sunset. Now Noelle, did you think of anything that you wanted to get?”

Unfortunately, she had. After talking with Mimosa while the other two Black Bulls were having their conversations, Noelle realized that there was something she wanted to do. It wasn’t a hobby, but it would be something to fill her time and repay Sunny for all of her help with magic. “Yeah but...it’s something we need to build more than buy.”

“You will still need a new bathing suit,” Mimosa pointed out before tapping her chin in thought. “And come to think of it, so do I. When I went to the Golden Dawn’s recreation pool the other day, mine was a bit tight in the chest.”

Noelle’s eye twitched as she looked down at her cousin’s massive jugs. It so wasn’t fair that Mimosa had both the superior magic abilities and killer body. Compared to her, Noelle might as well have been twelve. And she’s still getting bigger too.

A second later, Sunset let out a grunt and patted the girl on the back. “I feel for you,” she said. “I suppose there’s something to be said for them not being as sensitive as smaller ones, but they probably get in the way all the time. Not to mention how much they must throw off your balance. But um...you people actually wear clothes when they’re in the bath?”

“And I was already pretty clumsy,” Mimosa admitted dejectedly.

Noelle stared at Sunset for a second. “Uh, Sunset, you’ve taken baths before. Bathing suits are more for…” the teen stopped before she could finish. If they let on what was going on, Sunset might not agree to it. “...recreational, public bathing.”

After a few seconds of silence, Sunset frowned. “You guys are up to something.”

With the tension building from the redhead’s stare, Mimosa let out a little giggle. “Well, of course we are. But, it’ll be more fun if it’s a surprise, right?”

Sunset’s face didn’t change for several seconds, and then, she finally let out a long sigh. “Well, I guess this hasn’t been an elaborate setup for you all to stab me in the back for being different than you, so...I’ll go along with it.”

“You’re seriously bringing that up again?” Noelle deadpanned before reaching up to rub her nose. “What kind of world do you come from that makes you think anyone besides yourself is a monster out to get you?”

Although she had been hanging back until now, Vanessa closed in on the group. “I’m actually curious about that as well.”

The question got a reluctant moan from Sunset as they started walking down the street, towards a shop Noelle had seen earlier. But, she decided to give them an answer to prove that she wasn’t just projecting. “Because where I come from, everything else is out to get us. There’s dragons, griffons, the mixed races of the south beyond the badlands desert, even the creatures that remotely look like me and my kind are mysterious and spooky. Plus, you guys eat meat.”

With Noelle so interested in Sunset finally divulging something about her origins, and mentioning two legendary creatures in the process that weren’t fictional in her realm, the hypocrisy of the last statement nearly caused her to tumble over. “Bwa? You eat meat!” she pointed out rather strongly.

Sunset crossed her arms and sniffed. “Only in the last few months. And even then, I only eat fish, chicken, and very minor parts of pigs or boar, depending on where the bacon comes from. You guys eat cows and sheep!” To finish, she even pointed a finger at them in an accusing manner.

The other three women shared a confused look before turning their attention back to Sunset. “So?” Vanessa replied.

“Where I come from, they talk,” Sunset told them before cringing a bit. Then, she took a deep breath and let it all out.

Mimosa blinked. “Do you mean like Secre or…”

The nonsense question from the dimwitt got a blink out of Sunset. “Wait. You mean she’s finally opened her damn mouth to other people?” Sunset asked, making everyone else confused. “But yeah, it’s like that. Full, intelligent conversations. Do you know how freaky it is to see people eating something I used to be able to hold a conversation with? Not that I did, we didn’t have any of them in Canterlot, but still…” Sunset shivered a little.

Although the girls reached the beachwear shop, they stood outside the door for a moment as the natural humans digested the information. Then, Mimosa came forward. “Wait...you mean that cute little birdie that sleeps in Yuno’s robe can hold full conversations and understands everything I say?”

“Uh…” Sunset cringed and gave them a nervous laugh. “You...meant something completely different when this conversation started, didn’t you?”

Noelle gave her a half-lidded stare. “Sunset.”

To which the redhead replied with an opening of the door, followed by a retreat into the store. “Excuse me! We’re needing some new bathing suits!”

Before Noelle could give chase, Vanessa leaned in and kept her from going inside after the redhead. “Don’t worry girls, we’ll have her cornered soon enough.”

Sunset stood in one of the many shop’s changing rooms, arms crossed under her bare breasts as she found herself boxed in by her three shopping companions, with Vanessa holding onto her dress and underwear while the redhead stood completely naked. “I should have guessed you girls wouldn’t let me ‘nope’ my way out of this conversation,” Sunset grumbled while standing in the buff.

“Sorry,” Mimosa apologized before giving her a big smile and bowed her head slightly. For someone who was supposed to be at the same level of society as Noelle, she sure did apologize a lot.

The enormous grin on Vanessa’s face said she was enjoying this all a bit too much. “Now, now. You’re the one that messed up. It’s only right for us to dig for information when you give us a juicy little tidbit like that. Just tell us what you know,” she said before holding up a little piece of clothing that looked as if it would just barely cover Sunset’s sex and nipples. “Then try this on, I think it will look good on you.”

Although, it made sense that such a small thing would be worn in the bath. Sunset could easily clean every inch of her skin without exposing the parts humans considered to be the most risque.

A scandalized look covered Noelle’s face as she saw the suit. “That’s barely more than strings!”

“Uh, you all are aware I’m perfectly fine with walking out of here completely naked, right?” Sunset asked. “And that’s even if I couldn’t just teleport my clothes back into my hand first.”

Vanessa nodded. “True. But let’s be honest, Kitten. This is more a statement of our willingness to go to any lengths to make you talk about that little thing you let slip,” she said before snapping her fingers. “Now grab her and force her to sit down. It’s time we showed Sunset how ticklish humans are.”

Secre looked out the window as she noticed the two approaching brooms that had the three missing Black Bulls on them. Although she would have preferred to stick with Yuno, as his squad was much less prone to blowing things up, the Black Bulls had the only magic stone in her team’s possession at the moment. They needed someone to look after it when only Asta was around.

Especially since he had gone off to play with his new sword after Secre had given him a rundown of its abilities. If it even still worked in such a way, that is. Being corrupted by a devil had changed the demon-slayer substantially, so it made sense that the demon-dweller might have also been affected.

And why had the sword appeared in a dungeon, of all places?

Secre knew that the magic of such places tended to pull objects of value to them thanks to the trap magic sucking up bait and other things from the earth, but the chances that Asta would have been sent on an assignment were astronomical.

Had this generation’s Wizard King known what was going to happen, somehow? Time mages were said to have an ability that allowed them to see into the future, but that only went a few seconds at most. Useful in battle, but not in planning things out long-term.

Was someone else directing events, then?

“Hey Luck, Magna, get out here, I want to ask you two something!” Noelle shouted.

The human voice drew Secre out of her thoughts and she moved over to the window, where she could look down and see the Silva girl was standing next to Sunset and the witch. As a descendant of the First Wizard King’s brother, the girl was...well, she was better than the current king, but wasn’t saying much.

“What the hell are you making a racket about now, snob?” the young man with the two-toned hair demanded as he walked out onto the grass from the hideout’s back entrance.

Luck came out a minute later. “Hey Noelle, how’s it going?” he said with a laugh before grabbing onto Magna from behind. “You want some help beating something up? I’ve been wanting to team up with Magna for something.”

A bit curious to see what was going on, Secre flew out of the open window and down below to land on the tool shed next to where Charmy grew a rather impressive amount of fruits and vegetables with such a limited plot of land.

Secre hated to admit it, but with the boys and girl branching out, she was getting a little lonely. Even though she was less than thirty feet away, Sunset might as well have been on the other side of the country for all of the good it did them when it came to communicating. And with Yuno now connected to that Sylph creature, her conversations were going to be even more few and far between.

Giving Luck a worried look for several seconds, the other man turned to Noelle. “Hey, did Luck hit his head or something in that dungeon? Because he’s been acting weird since he came back. For him at least, I mean.”

“Only you guys would worry about someone acting more normal,” Noelle told them before putting on what Secre could tell was an obviously fake smile. “By the way, I was wondering...which one of you is stronger?”

“Me,” both Luck and Magna said at the exact same time.

Sunset gave Noelle a disbelieving look. “Seriously?”

Then, as any idiot who had seen these boys together for five minutes could tell, things began to devolve into an argument rather quickly.

“I’m way stronger than you!” Magna told the blonde before a fireball formed in his hand.

“Nuh-uh!” Luck replied as lightning crackled around him. “I can easily take you any day of the week.”

Before the budding disaster could erupt, Noelle held up her hands and stepped between the boys. “Whoa, hold on there,” she said. “I asked which one of you was stronger, not who could beat the other in a fight. There’s a difference.”

A second later, Magna pulled back his sleeves. “Then check out these muscles!” he said before flexing. “Asta’s got nothing on me!”

“Magical strength,” Noelle corrected them.

Luck laughed before he held up a hand that lightning coalesced around. “Then that would be me. I’ve got way more than Magna.”

“Oh yeah? I’d like to see you prove that,” he demanded.

Noelle’s face brightened with an expression that was so fake, Secre had to wonder how the boys hadn’t figured out something was going on. Even if they were more stupid than a box of rocks, any moron could tell she was up to something. “Great idea!” she said before pointing to a large patch of grass. “How about we have a contest? Each one of you will take turns blowing a crater into the ground. The winner is the one who can make it the biggest.”

Despite the extremely asinine level of manipulation that Noelle was using, the boys immediately agreed before picking a spot much further away from the garden Charmy had been growing. Then, Magna pulled out his grimoire and jumped a good ten feet into the air once he had pushed a bit of mana into his legs to let loose with a fireball spell. It blew a rather large hole in the ground, more than deep enough for someone to crouch into.

“That’s nothing,” Luck added before his hands were surrounded in lightning gauntlets and he leapt into the center of Magna’s crater to strike the ground. The resulting crater ended up being a good ten feet deep and more than twice as long across.

Magna fumed at the boy’s action. “Hey, that was my spot! Go blow your own hole!”

Luck grinned at the other man. “Doesn’t mean I didn’t win!”

“Yes it does!” Magna told him vehemently. “You blasted through soft dirt that I loosened up for you!”

As the boys continued their argument, Noelle led Sunset up to the edge of the crater and had her use earth magic to make a few changes, instructing her every step of the way. Although the redhead’s spells related to the ground were all related to farming and basic home repair, she could still use basic mana manipulation to compact the dirt and change it into hardened stone. Or maybe it was a use of her more exotic magic talents. Secre had spent a few days learning how the girl’s magic worked and it was definitely more varied than what a grimoire provided access to.

By the time both of the boys noticed that something was going on besides measuring the depths of the hole, Sunset had completed her alterations to make it look like a much larger version of the hot tubs she had created on her way to the capital for the exam a couple of months ago. “Okay, I’m done, but...I still don’t see what you’re trying to do here, Noelle.”

“Hey! What do you two think you’re doing?” Magna demanded.

Noelle rolled her eyes and held out a hand before releasing her mana in a large torrent that made it rather apparent what she had everyone else build half a minute later, when she had filled the empty circular pool with water. “Well, how else am I supposed to teach Sunny to swim?” she asked before wrapping her arms around the other girl.

“Eh?” Sunset managed to say before Noelle pulled them both into the water with a loud splash. The sudden change in surroundings made the redhead panic, but that was short-lived, as the area they were standing in was barely four feet deep.

Then, once they were waist deep, Noelle began stripping to reveal a rather expensive swimsuit, with golden decor sewn into the two-piece, while Sunset had a much more modest-looking getup that had a white and gold sun that almost matched the marks showing on her butt. “Okay, now just hold my hand and start kicking,” the royal instructed.

Unseen by Noelle, Asta came running out of the woods a moment later with his sword. “HEY, WHAT’S GOING ON WITH ALL OF THE EXPLOS-” the boy said as he looked around, obviously expecting an attack, but getting something completely different. He looked down at the people in the pool and blinked. “Uh, hey Noelle.”

Like several times when she was suddenly embarrassed, the girl’s pigtails began to rise as her face reddened by the second. Then, she pointed her hands at the boy while turning her head in the opposite direction. “W-Who said you could look at me when I’m dressed like this?” she yelled before releasing a surge of magic that struck Asta in the chest to knock him on his butt.

“W-What did I do?” he asked in a daze.

The clank of glass, followed by a refined giggle came from below her, and Secre glanced down to see that Vanessa had come back out of the hideout with a bottle of wine and a towel around her shoulders. “I think those three kids have breathed some much needed fresh air into this old house,” she said before glancing up towards the bird. “Sunset let it slip that you can talk and are basically a person, by the way.”

Secre tensed a bit and looked down at the soon-to-be drunken woman. If Vanessa was true to form, she would probably be so plastered in an hour, whatever conversation they were about to have would have been completely forgotten. “Maybe I’m just an alcohol induced delusion.”

“That’s funny, considering I’ve been drinking about half as much as I used to, these past few days,” Vanessa told her before bringing her wine bottle up to read the label. “You wouldn’t believe what it took for us to make that kid give even the tiniest bit of you up.”

A nervousness settled in Secre’s gut. “And what tiny bit is that?”

Vanessa looked right up at the bird, confusion on her face. “I already said. That you could talk and were as smart as a person,” she said before her eyes narrowed in a frown. “Why? You’re not hiding some big, dark secret that could get my new little sister in trouble, are you? Because that would make me tell Charmy you look absolutely delicious.”

The threat had Secre rolling her eyes.

“HEY! CHECK THIS OUT!” Asta yelled back at the pool before he ran and jumped into the middle of the miniature lake. Then, he broke the surface in a panic as it became obvious that he had no idea how to swim.

Noelle let out a scream before she swam over to grab the boy. “Don’t jump into the deepest part if you don’t know how to swim, idiot!” she scolded Asta while they were Only to notice that his head had been resting on her breasts for the short trip, which further increased her irritation before she attempted to drown the boy at the edge of the pool.

“I keep my secrets for good reasons,” Secre told the woman. Laws that were just barely younger than the Clover Kingdom had been made after the incident that nearly destroyed the world, clearly stating what was to be done with anyone that had contact with a devil. Even if it had only been secondhand, most people would take one look at Secre’s horns and order her killed. “Wait...you’re from the Forest of Witches, correct?”

Vanessa groaned and opened her wine to take a swig. “Ugh. Don’t remind me,” she said before looking back to the bird with a frown. “Are you going to do your duty as a Clover citizen and try to get me burned at the stake?”

The accusation sealed the decision that Secre was mulling over. The Forest of Witches was a small independent area between three great powers that had managed to stay that way since Clover was created. Secre didn’t know much about the place aside from rumors, and some of those were so outrageous they couldn’t possibly be true. Like how a single woman, the queen of the witches, was actually responsible for birthing all the children, and the entire population was composed entirely of women.

What she did know about the place was that it produced several interesting magical items that were sold through intermediaries and produced mages known more for their exotic magic than the basic elemental kind.

After thinking it over for a moment, Secre fluttered over to land on Vanessa’s shoulder. “If I did, they’d be frying me right alongside you,” she told the witch. “To be honest, you would probably be executed just for talking to me.”

“Last I heard, talking wasn’t a crime,” Vanessa replied. “No matter how much some people want it to be.”

Secre snorted. “It is when you’re me,” she said before looking back at the pool.

In the short time that the two of them had been chatting, the rest of the Black Bulls had discovered the little side project and had decided to avail themselves of what was quickly proving to be too small of a pool. The extremely pale Gordon had decided to take up sunbathing. Finral had declared himself a bathing suit inspector and was examining Sunset’s outfit rather easily since the girl had absolutely no shame. Magna and Luck managed to rope Asta and Gray, who was disguised as another Asta, to act as shoulder-mounts for some kind of wrestling game. All while Charmy was trying to convince Noelle into making a fish farm on the other side of the hideout, so they could raise fresh fish to eat at will. Gauche was...probably still in the building.

“And it is when you talk to me as well,” Secre went on. “Sunset is actually protected by those agreements Clover got involved with some four-hundred-and-fifty years ago, but the rest of you could get in big trouble for associating with me.” Hopefully, the woman would air on the side of caution and back off. “Do you think any of them could keep that kind of secret?”

Vanessa raised an eyebrow. “Okay, one, the people you already trusted couldn’t keep your secret.”

“You’re not making a good case for me to spread it around, you know.”

The observation didn’t deter Vanessa in the slightest. “My point is, keeping quiet didn’t work. All it did was isolate you, like a bird in a cage.”

Not appreciating the joke, Secre looked over to the woman. “Keep up those kinds of puns, and you may wake up blind.”

“That’s how I spent nearly ten years of my life, you know?” Vanessa said before she took a rather large swig of wine and leaned up against the shed. “The Queen of Witches found out that my magic was special, so she locked me away in a giant cage and told me if I ever wanted to be free, then all I had to do was develop my magic. I was in that thing for years, looking out of a window that I could just barely see the outside through as other witches flew on their brooms, sometimes laughing and talking amongst themselves.” She took another long drink. “Then, when someone did come along and blew open the wall to open a hole to the outside and cut a hole in my cage, I still just stood there, like some kind of idiot.” Another drink finished off the bottle. “By then, the Queen didn’t even need a cage. She could have set me down in the middle of the village, or on the edge of the forest, and I would have been just as trapped as I was in that cage because of my own stupidity.

“So, you can stay quiet if you want, I won’t go telling anyone and neither will Noelle. Sunset begged us not to go spreading rumors about your gift of gab around everywhere we went and we’ll respect that. But, it’s a lot more fun when you can share your life with other people, no matter what you look like.”

Vanessa bent over to pick up the pack of wine that she had brought out with her before standing back up. “And two, who in the hell is going to think a bird can talk, unless you actually talk in front of them?” she asked. “I don’t know why you can talk, and I honestly don’t care. But you helped out my new little sister, so...just putting the offer out there. I won’t tell, Noelle’s not going to say anything to anyone except maybe Asta, and I think that you don’t have to worry about Mimosa-”

“Wait, that dunderhead knows about me?” Secre asked in trepidation.

After rolling her eyes, Vanessa gave the bird a glare. “She’s not that dumb, and one of the nicer royals I’ve met, so lay off.”

As the witch left her in peace, Secre went back to watching the antics around the pool. The three boys and Gray had given up on that game and were mostly a few improvements that needed to be done, like adding a stone walkway around the man-made lake. Gray had left the thing and was sitting by the water, since Vanessa had commandeered his large flotation chair and was currently getting drunk on top of it.

“Hey!” Noelle shouted at the wino. “Don’t expect me to save your sorry ass if you get drunk and fall in!”

Gordon was…

“Hanging out with friends in the middle of Summer. Truly, the ultimate experience of our camaraderie.”

...being his usual self.

And Charmy looked to be drawing up plans for a miniature fishery on the other side of the house as drool ran down her chin.

Which only left Finral and Sunset, who were still engaged in conversation. Although, they had veered away from how Sunset felt in her swimsuit and to other topics that the male member of the conversation had obviously chosen. “All we do is go to a nice restaurant and have something to eat, talk about ourselves, have a good time-”

“I know what a date is,” Sunset deadpanned. “Our worlds are almost pound for pound the same when it comes to social norms. Just because I haven’t been on one, doesn’t mean I don’t know what they are.”

Finral let out a gasp and took a step back. “That’s even more of a reason for us to go on a date! A girl of your age should have been taken out at least once in her life. Have some fun, learn a bit about this whole new world, maybe even...get her first kiss.”

Looking like she was actually considering it, Sunset reached up and rubbed her chin. “Finral, you’re supposed to be like...six years older than me. And my species doesn’t kiss.”

“Really? Well, you can now. And, age differences like that are common among couples,” he pointed out. “The guy is almost always older than the girl by at least three years.”

Sunset looked back to the royal, who seemed both miffed and depressed that Asta wasn’t looking her way more often, but shot him a death glare when he did and covered her breasts. “Sort of,” Noelle told her. “But that’s arranged marriages between royals and other high-ranking nobles. Don’t ask me how commoners do it.”

A little put off, Finral gave the girl with the silver hair a frown. “You know I’m a noble, right?”

Every single person around the pool turned to look at the spatial magic user in surprise. “Really?” they all said at the same time.

Finral’s mouth dropped. “Oh come on!” he said before looking at various Black Bulls as he continued to talk. “I can understand the newbies not being aware, but you guys have at least heard my last name!”

“Eh,” Magna replied with a shrug before he and Luck went to marking the area around the pool where they thought a stone walkway needed to be put in.

As the rest of the Bulls had a similar reaction, Finral went into a hopeless slump. “I hate you all.”

Sunset gave the young man a nervous laugh before patting him on the back. “Finral, I’m not even human. For all you know, I could really be some hideous monster that eats people.”

“She’s not,” Asta called out.

After turning around, Sunset glared at the boy that was drawing a line in the dirt around the pool with his sword. “How the hell would you know?”

Asta looked up and blinked. “Uh, because you nearly threw up the first time you saw us eating meat.”

“Anyway...okay, how about this,” Sunset said as she turned to Finral. “If you can guess what I really am, we can spend the day together on my next day off. Doing what I want. But you only get one guess a day.”

Finral considered the offer for a moment. “Two guesses,” he countered. “And you have to answer some questions.”

Sunset crossed her arms and frowned. “One guess, and I’ll let you guess again today. Take it or leave it.”

“Okay,” Finral agreed very slowly as he gave the girl a cautious look. He studied her up and down, taking a moment to walk all the way around the girl, studying every inch of her, as if that would give the young man a clue.

Or he was just being a perv and checking her out while thinking of all the twisted and raunchy things he wanted to do to Sunset’s body, but aside from Finral’s odd need to date as many women as possible, he didn’t seem to be that type of guy.

Like every other time someone guessed Sunset’s natural species, everything seemed to stop and she became the center of attention.

It was at that point that a rather odd idea entered Secre’s head. All forms of logic generated by the rational center of her brain told Secre that it was stupid and she should just forget it. But...Vanessa already knew something about her, as did Noelle. Sunset might not have told them the whole story, but Asta…

Oh crap, Secre suddenly realized. If she didn’t get out in front of this, Noelle might ask Asta what was going on with her! While the boy had a good combat sense and heart to go with it, his common sense was in the toilet.

Plus, she didn’t know what a royal would think about attempting to bring back the Wizard King when he would be in line to take over the kingdom. While House Silva didn’t currently hold the crown, that hadn’t always been the case. Each one of the three royal houses had been in charge at one point throughout Clover’s history.

So, since nearly half the people gathered at the pool already knew at least some of what she was, Secre flew down to land on Finral’s head. “She’s a magical talking unicorn.”

Finral tensed. “Uh...what just landed on my head?”

“Did Sunset’s pet just...talk?” Magna asked.

“I’m not a pet!” Secre yelled at the delinquent.

“You’re a what?” Noelle shouted.

“I knew it, and the fact that I did shows that we will become the best of friends.”

Charmy looked up from her diagram. “Huh, now I’m really glad I didn’t eat her.”

Sunset stared up at the talking bird. “Now you decide to be all open about stuff?” she demanded.

“WHAT IS ON MY HEAD AND WHY IS IT TALKING?” Finral yelled in a panic.

Asta scratched his head. “Wait, you guys named your country after yourselves? How does that make sense?”

“QUIET, PLAYING CARD BOY, I’M BUSY!” Sunset yelled at the shorter man.

Vanessa took a swing of her wine and blinked. “You know, it does seem strange that all the countries around here are named after suits of cards.”

“Hey! The cards are named after the countries, get your timetables straight,” Noelle yelled at Vanessa before she practically leapt out of the pool and ran up to Sunset. “Okay, so, you’re not a mermaid but...wait, you’re an entire society of horses? How does that work?”

It was then Finral decided to chance shooing Secre away. The bird responded by flying around to glare at him. “Hey, cut that out!”

“HOLY CRAP, IT’S A TALKING BIRD!”

Secre rolled her eyes at the man’s reaction as he jumped away from her. “Oh please, that’s already old news.”

“Do you unicorns make good opponents?” a confused Luck asked the man in the glasses.

“How the hell should I know?” Magna replied.

Luck looked back at the newcomers for a fraction of a second. “Do you think the bird is tough?”

“You know what?” Magna asked. “Screw this, I need booze. Vanessa gimme two of those.” Then, he promptly jumped into the water and went after the woman’s alcohol.

Sunset grabbed Noelle’s top and pulled her close. “Unless you want all of your clothes to mysteriously disappear, and you to be teleported into the common room every five minutes, you will never call me that again, got it?” she asked while glaring at the silver-haired girl. “I’m a unicorn. U-ni-corn.”

The threat didn’t seem to have much effect, as Noelle continued to stare at her in confusion. “You say that, but I’m still too confused as to how you had an entire society based around creatures that don’t even have hands.”

“That’s actually a good question,” Asta pointed out as he closed in on the growing mob of confusion.

Back in the pool, Magna had reached the flotation device that Vanessa was using, who gave up her wine with surprisingly little fight before she made her way over to the group to rest on the edge of the pool. “So, did you use to...eat grass?”

Sunset looked taken aback by the question. “What? No! Ewww!” she replied with a cringe. “I’m not a damn animal! And I didn’t look anything like a horse...mostly. I...Gray, can I borrow your grimoire?”

“Eh?” Gray replied before the object in question floated over to Sunset.

“Okay, so…” Sunset mumbled as she opened the magical book to the first page. “I’ve seen this done twice before and got to study the Wizard King’s item the other day...yeah, thought it was like that.”

The grimoire was tossed back to the giant, who only starred in confusion before Sunset took a deep breath and disappeared in a large puff of smoke. When it cleared, a four foot little creature that somewhat resembled a horse, with a slightly larger than normal head and overly expressive eyes stood in the woman’s place. The hair was freakishly similar, and the amber coat made sense, considering what little body hair Sunset had was that color. “This!” Sunset said as her tail swished around wildly. “This is what I look like, this is what I really am, okay? Anybody got SOMETHING THEY WANNA SAY ABOUT IT?”

Finral raised a hand. “Uh...did you just use another person’s grimoire?”

Oh, sure!” Sunset spat. “You get a talking bird showing up and a legendary magical animal that’s taken up residence at your house, but the first thing out of your mouth is asking if I can read a book!”

Another hand went up and Sunset sighed before looking to where Noelle and Vanessa were now standing stride by side. “Yes?”

Becoming the center of attention made Noelle look very nervous before she took a step back. “Uh...n-never mind,” she mumbled.

At which point, the slightly drunk witch Vanessa just went down on her knees and hugged the little pony. “You are just so adorable!”

Sunset let out a very human groan as she carried Vanessa up the stairs while the larger woman giggled, happily inebriated as she wrapped her arms around Sunset’s neck, while the shorter girl’s arms held up her legs. How the woman could down that stuff, she had no idea. A diagnostic spell performed on the wine the day before, after Sunset had awoken well past midday from being up all night the day before, said that there might be a chance for brain damage if consumed too regularly. After hearing that, Sunset didn’t want to touch the stuff and was a little worried that Vanessa did so much.

Then again, it was possible she had built up a tolerance to it.

“Did you really have to down so many of those bottles?” she asked evenly.

Vanessa just laughed. “Awww, but if I could walk straight, I wouldn’t be getting a pony ride.”

“Ugh,” Sunset groaned. She had heard enough horse jokes in the past two hours to last her a lifetime. "You are aware that one of the big reasons I didn't want to show you how I really looked like was because I knew you would all laugh at me, right?"

Then there came the explanations about grimiroes again, followed by more questions involving Equestria, another name that Asta questioned since it also had to do with horses. By the time she was done, Yami was back with a scowl on his face for having lost all his money, declared Sunset was a fake kirin after taking one look at her resting on the couch and headed off to bed, or maybe the bathroom. She hadn’t really cared.

By the end of the whole thing, Vanessa had been drunk off her ass to the point that she was scratching Sunset’s ears while Noelle looked on in envy, Secre had been all but forgotten by the majority of the squad, and that little girl Gauche had in his mirror had become very interested in the cute creature she saw out of the corner of the transmission. Thankfully, most of the guys had gotten interested in something other than the girly creature that had become the center of attention and found their own thing to do, while Charmy came in with various grains for Sunset to try.

The thing that stuck with Sunset more than anything else was the same it had been the first time. None of them had actually cared about her species. They had questions and a few jokes, but that was the only way they treated her any differently than another human.

They reached Vanessa’s room and Sunset opened the door with her magic to walk inside. After avoiding half a dozen empty bottles that were just laying on the ground, Sunset turned around and set Vanessa on her bed. Then, she let out a groan before raising her hand to cast a light spell and use her magic to gather up all of the trash that was just laying around.

“H-Hey!” Vanessa complained. “Bright. Too bright!”

Sunset rolled her eyes. Once she had all the garbage collected in the glow of her magic, she looked back at the witch. “Well, maybe you shouldn’t be plastered to the point where you can barely walk,” the not-unicorn deadpanned. “I swear, one of these days, you’re going to try stumbling up the stairs, fall, and break your neck.”

The scolding got a little laugh from Vanessa as she rubbed the back of her head. “Well, I may not be that drunk,” she admitted before standing up to pluck one of the empty bottles in Sunset’s magic out of the air. “And, could you fill this up for me? I need to get some water in me to help with the hangover, come morning.”

After letting out a groan, Sunset put her finger up to the bottle and released a steady stream of imitation water mana. “You going to be okay by yourself, tonight?” she asked. “I could...stay over again, if you want.”

Of course, it would be the opposite of the first time, with Sunset making sure Vanessa didn’t drown in her own puke.

Vanessa waved the younger woman off. “I’m not a rookie drunk like you. I’ll be fine,” she said with slightly slurred speech before putting on a slightly guilty, but mostly happy look. “And I might have been playing up my inability to walk.”

“...what?” Sunset deadpanned before teleporting Vanessa’s bottle collection to the refuse pile outside of the hideout.

An instant later, Vanessa jumped back on her feet with a laugh before wrapping her arms around Sunset to pull the girl down into her lap. Caught completely off guard, Sunset couldn’t even struggle as Vanessa wrapped her legs around the girl. “Well, how else was I supposed to get a ride from my little pony?” she asked before leaning in to kiss Sunset on the forehead.

As the woman gave her a light chuckle, Sunset froze.

The light laugher quickly stopped, and Vanessa looked down at the girl in her arms. “Sunset? What’s wrong?”

“That’s what…”

“There you are, my little pony,” Celestia said...Sunset couldn’t even begin to count how many times.

Just being a little foal, she had thought it meant that Celestia saw her as someone special. She had thought that for months on end. Years, even.

Until one day…

“Oh, I call all my little ponies that, Sunset,” Celestia told her with a laugh after she said goodbye to a mare much older than Sunset. “It doesn’t really mean anything.”

The memory of Celestia laughing and turning away as the little filly that thought she had proof Celestia cared for her more than anypony else looked up in astonishment as the big mare walked away, laughing at the little filly’s foolish delusion played out in Sunset’s mind, making her curl up into Vanessa’s lap. The laugher coming from Celestia sounded...crueler than it used to.

But then, she had tried to turn Sunset to stone just for reading a book.

“Vanessa?” Sunset spoke up softly as she grabbed onto the larger magic knight for support that had nothing to do with the physical world. “...do you love me?”

The older woman blinked. “Where did-” Vanessa paid, then pulled Sunset deeper into an embrace as the girl curled up on her lap before she kissed the girl on the top of her head. “I love you, Sunset.”

As Sunset laid her head against the woman’s shoulder, Vanessa took a drink of water, gulping it down until there was next to none left before she looked back down at the redhead. “You know I mean like family, right?”

A tiny laugh managed to make its way out of Sunset’s mouth. “Heh, yeah.”

“Just making sure,” she said before pressing her lips against the side of Sunset’s temple. “And...on second thought. I think I better have someone watching over me tonight. You know...just in case.”

Sunset practically melted into Vanessa’s embrace. “I love you too,” she said before Vanessa rolled them both onto the bed. After loosening the swimsuits they were still in, Vanessa pulled the girl up close until Sunset could feel the older woman’s breasts pushing up against her back while her legs wrapped around the redhead’s.

Page 13: Changeling

Cadance’s ears were still ringing from the welcome ceremony's song as she followed Princess Celestia down the hallway and up the stairs. Her cheeks were actually starting to hurt from keeping her smile going as she passed another maid in the hallway at the top of the incline. The house she had bought and moved into upon reaching eighteen looked much like what she remembered, despite being home for the first time in six years. It was good that the staff were keeping things in shape.

“How was your journey?” Celestia asked as they turned into the hallway of the oversized mansion to head towards her bed chambers.

With there still being ponies in the hall, Cadance gave a giggle. “Oh, you know how it is with airships,” she said in a happy tone. “A nice, relaxed pace that just lets you look at the scenery for hours and hours on end while finding things to keep yourself busy.”

The smile Celestia wore ticked up a little bit. “That’s good,” she said. “By the way, I’ve already arranged a party pony to plan for your wedding, and you should be meeting with the dressmaker two days before the festivities.”

“Oh Auntie, it’s so thoughtful of you to arrange everything without telling me,” Cadace told her in a cheery tone while giving Celestia a bright smile as they passed into her personal living space. “Because when I proposed to my fiancee a week ago…” She shut the door behind them and turned on Celestia with a snarl. “I actually thought I would be able to plan my own wedding!”

Celestia frowned down at the mare. “Perhaps if you had informed me of your intentions-”

Not even letting her finish, Cadance rolled her eyes and snorted. “Why? So you could try and outright deny me the right to marry whomever I bucking wanted?” she asked before trotting over to the couch in front of the room’s fireplace to lay down. The ancient Canterlot home had four of the bloody things. “If you had your way, I would have been sold off to the highest bidding nation! Oh, that reminds me, we have been been forever barred from entering Yakyakistan.”

“WHAT?” Celestia yelled as she took a step back before getting herself under control. “What did you do?”

Cadance gave the other pony a half-lidded stare. “I stepped off the airship with my left hoof, which is apparently the wrong hoof to use. And you know how much those creatures love their perfection! Well, that little thing made one of the yak musicians gasp and lose the tempo. So, after beating him half to death and breaking the poor creature’s instrument right in front of him, Rutherford banished all ponies from Yakyakistan forever. Looks like he’s even more crazy than his father was.”

As usual, the nonchalant attitude ruffled Celestia’s feathers. She completely did away with the mask of calm as she looked at Cadance with a flat expression. “You were sent there to help foster friendship and cooperation between our species!”

“Yes, which I failed at miserably. But you still seem to like sending me on these stupidly long journeys that have been agreed upon months in advance without my knowledge or consent. Which I would never agree to, except I never hear about them until a week before, and by then, it’s too late to alter everyone’s plans,” Cadance said before rolling onto her back. “Now, if you would please get out of my home that I haven’t been allowed to enter in nearly nine years, I need to unwind before we start shouting at each other, again.”

After several seconds of silence, Celestia let out a long sigh. “Cadance, why do you have such animosity towards me?”

Cadance’s mouth dropped as she studied the mare for a moment. “Are you kidding me?” Cadance asked before she turned her head just a little to look at Celestia out of the corner of her eye. “I sent you that book on dealing with senility as a joke. But if you’re seriously asking me that, I’m thinking you really do need to be hauled off to the old mare’s home!”

“I have done everything I could to mend our relationship!” Celestia told her.

The attempt to make herself look like the poor and abused victim of some unjust crime got a snort from Cadance. “Uh huh, sure. That’s why you sent me all around the known world for the past nine years, talking to a dozen different kinds of creatures that want nothing to do with us.”

“You have responsibilities, Cadance,” Celestia countered.

Cadance raised a hoof to forestall any more words on that particular argument. “Responsibilities that keep me out of Canterlot and away from anypony who is even remotely acquainted to me for years, as I get to float around in what is quite possibly the slowest means of travel in Equestria!” she spat. “No decisions to be made, no real authority since all the creatures I talk to want to know your opinion on whatever agreement we reach before they’re willing to sign off on it. I wouldn’t have even seen Shining Armor after graduation if he hadn’t gotten worked into my guard on a clerical error! You do remember how we were dating back then, right? Because I’m legitimately starting to wonder if your brain is working at all these days!”

After a second of silence, Celestia took a deep breath. “His talents would have been wasted in your personal guard,” she told the younger alicorn. “In case you haven’t heard, he was promoted to captain of the guard.”

“Yes, a month ago,” Cadance countered. “Which I only found out about from him after I proposed. Which I’m guessing your spies told you about, since I read on the way over here about how I was getting married in less than a week.”

Celestia took in another deep breath, and sighed. “Those ponies are your guards Cadance,” she said. “If you’ve decided to marry, then it’s best not to let the information linger. Unless of course, this all some big stunt of yours, like with the mirror.”

The mention of the first big incident that began the widening rift between the two alicorns got a frown from Cadance. She remembered it like it was yesterday. After two-and-a-half years of waiting, Cadance had the palace staff prepare the biggest welcome back celebration in all of Equestria. Cadance had bought presents, moved the crystal mirror into the palace ballroom and hired the premiere party pony in all of Equestria to decorate things.

Thanks to Celestia screwing things up, she hadn’t been able to get in contact with Sunset for over two years. So she wanted to show her big sister that somepony had been waiting for her to come home all this time. Even Celestia came.

Only...the mirror didn’t open like it was supposed to.

Cadance had waited in that room for three days, and then a week after that just to be sure, but the portal to whatever world Sunset had been thrown into didn’t appear.

When what she had been waiting on didn’t happen, the teenage filly tried a different approach. She went to Celestia’s school and enlisted some of the best teachers in an effort to make the portal open. A month of research later, they found what could have been an answer. Using something mystically connected to something else on the other end of the portal, a smart unicorn could theoretically force the mirror to forge a connection between itself and its exit point in the other world.

Only, when Cadance came to her with the solution, remembering a book Sunset had taken with her that was linked to one like Celestia’s, it turned out that Celestia had lost the journal over two years prior. Probably, during her rush to get rid of anything that even remotely reminded her of Sunset. Even the curtains of the castle had been changed from their original red with gold tassels to a tacky purple.

It was shortly after that, Cadance found herself off on her first visit to a forgien dignitary, if the head of another nation that was just under Equestria’s purview forgien. She stayed in Saddle Arabia for nearly half a year before coming home for a week, only to be sent off again to Maretania. Eventually, the pace of the visits increased to the point that Cadance didn’t even get a chance to come home.

Which meant she missed the last two thirty moon cycles. Celestia had said nothing had come of them, but the pink princess wasn’t sure how much she could be trusted anymore. Celestia had even rewritten the interactions with Sunset she had in her mind. Now, she said that the unicorn had ‘chosen a different path’ rather than what actually happened.

“Get out,” Cadance told her evenly.

Celestia sighed. “Cadance-”

“You stole my wedding from me. What was supposed to be the happiest day of my life is now going to be a bunch of political posturing,” the pink mare told the larger alicorn before she rolled off her couch and onto her hooves. “Do you honestly think I want to be in the same buildingas you, right now? I don’t care what you say, I don’t care who you lined up to make the dresses and plan the party, or what kind of ponies you put on the guest list. Because I sure as hay don’t know anypony in this whole bucking city aside from Shiny’s parents and a few foals I sat for years ago!

“Now, I’ll smile for the ponies and play my part, because the last fight we had caused a panic that nearly burned the castle down,” she said. “But in private? I want to be around you as little as possible! So, you better be featerhing sure what you need to talk to me about is worth it! SO GET OUT!”

The big horse gave Cadance one last reserved look, then turned to leave. Once she was gone, the pink princess took a moment to breathe. Maybe she should just grab Shiny and gallop off somewhere to elope. It would certainly make a point, leaving Celestia in a room full of snooty nobles to explain where the bride had gone.

But...there were things expected of a princess.

And she did want to see Shining Armor’s family again.

A quick glance at the luggage that had been moved to her room before her arrival got a sigh from Cadance. Locking spells kept ponies from going through her things, but it also meant she had to put everything up by herself.

So, like every time she came home, Cadance unsealed her bags and began to go through them. Most of the things, she just tossed on the floor for the maids to clean up. She had enough dresses in her traveling gear for three ponies, especially since she preferred to be naked. Even her regalia was worn more out of necessity than any other reason.

Makeup was brought into the bathroom and placed where it belonged, then came the other essentials a mare used for personal hygiene, followed by her combs and numerous mane-care products. Then came the most important things. Another pack was opened and a picture frame was pulled out to let Cadance look at the photograph that showed her and Shiny posing with a little Twilight in their forelegs.

It had been so long since she had heard from the filly. Cadance knew magic school was time consuming, but it hurt the alicorn that not a single one of her letters ever received a reply. What made it worse was that she had only learned of the Nightmare Moon incident from the papers.

Cadance understood it had been Twilight’s destiny to clean up Celestia’s first big mess. But she still resented the nag for not telling her anything about it until long after things were over. But then, that was par for the course when it came to Celestia. Despite the fact that they both had a Princess in front of their names, Celestia knew she was the mare in charge and Cadance was nothing more than a goodwill ambassador she sent around the world to keep out of her mane.

Then came the next picture. The only one of its kind, since Celestia had all the others even remotely like it removed and probably burned. On it, a little pink alicorn filly was hugging an obviously reluctant unicorn mare that placed one of her forelegs across Cadance’s back while rolling her eyes away from the camera and looking like she wanted to be anywhere else.

The fair had been too loud and flashy for Cadance’s tastes, even as a filly. And she had quickly picked up on Sunset’s dislike of the place as well. But the fact that she had been willing to take her was all the proof Cadance needed that Sunset really loved her. So, she had gotten the young mare to take a picture to commemorate the day, and then they left not even an hour after arriving.

After setting both of the memories down on the stand by her bed, Cadance went back into her bag to pull out a box wrapped up and tied with a pink bow. Inside was a collection of magical gems that played various music, all of which had come out in the last decade. She took the box to the back of her room and into the walk in closet to slide back another door, revealing a collection of eight different similarly wrapped presents on various shelves.

A very small part of her mind told Cadance that what she was doing was pure foolishness as she moved Sunset’s ninth missed birthday present up to join the others. That Celestia was right. That Sunset was never coming home.

That thought was quickly crushed underhoof as Cadance slid the not-so-hidden door closed.

Just because she hadn’t come back yet didn’t mean she wasn’t coming back at all. Although, it would be several months before the thirty moon cycle was up again, this year would be different!

A strange sifting sound out in the bedroom drew Cadance’s attention, causing her to leave her closet and look around. On top of the dull pink carpet, she saw an envelope with her name on it.

Her actual name that most ponies didn’t even know about.

Curious, she opened the door to look around the hallway to see who might have left it. Or paid the staff to have delivered it. All of her mail went through the Royal Guard, who then reported every word in those letters to Celestia. But after seeing nopony around, she looked back to the letter with a cautious frown.

There were spells that worked as a delivery system, but most ponies powerful enough to use them didn’t bother. The mail was a far safer means of getting the mail than letters that would simply float through the sky for anypony to just pluck and read.

Growing even more curious, Cadance checked the envelope for some kind of trap. Finding none, she opened it and began to read through it. “Hey Cadenza,” she mumbled. “As much as it galls me to ask you for help, I find myself running out of options. I’ll be in the caves beneath the mountain tonight for an hour after midnight. Don’t tell anyone I’m here. Directions on how to get here are on the back.” She moved her eyes down to the signature. “Sunset Shimmer.”

After a long pause to collect her thoughts, Cadance reread the entire letter from start to finish. Excitement surged in her heart, followed by caution, and then confusion. It certainly looked like something Sunset would send her, all demands and not much else.

The horn-writing...Cadance sighed as she pulled herself away from the paper. She wouldn’t have known Sunset’s horn-writing if it came up and smacked her in the face.

But...Sunset had vanished through the mirror. She couldn’t have been sending Cadance letters.

A very disturbing thought ran through Cadance’s mind. Has Celestia been lying to me? she wondered. Could it be that Sunset had not disappeared at all, as Celestia claimed?

No, the pink alicorn told herself. Celestia’s grief over Sunset’s disappearance had been genuine. She might have been younger at the time, but Cadance had seen the pain on the old nag’s face plain as day for a week afterwards and knew that it still affected her to some extent.

Even though Celestia was an idiot, she was an honest one.

...most of the time.

So, that left ...what? Cadance wondered.

It could be a trick of some kind. But the name on the envelope made that unlikely. Even so, what would be the point of it all? Some sick joke for Cadance to pin her hopes on?

She went back to the option of the letter being genuine to better figure out what was going on. Okay then...let’s say...Sunset is back...somehow, Cadance thought as she began to pace around her room. But...that how is the question!

Cadance began to review everything she knew about Sunset’s disappearance.

Sunset had fled through the mirror, cutting off any hope of Celestia or Cadance ever finding her. Then, when it came time for the mirror to open again...it didn’t work. Then Celestia had waited for a second time and told her for a third that the mirror failed to open while she was outside Canterlot.

It wasn’t really a failing on anypony’s part. It just didn’t work.

It didn’t work, Cadance thought to herself as a realization dawned in her mind. It didn’t work!

If the mirror hadn’t worked the first thirty moons since Sunset left, then why would it have worked the first time when she fled to another world?

Unless...it didn’t.

Unless it never worked.

“Oh...you horse!” Cadance cursed at the letter, as if it was actually Sunset herself. She glared at the piece of paper that her big sister had sent as if trying to make it burst into flame with her gaze alone. “You tricked us! You bucking little-and I know you’re little, I know I’m bigger than you now! I’m going to...I’m going to…”

Cadance stomped around the letter, not sure how to finish that sentence. She wanted to laugh, to cry, to throttle Sunset and break her legs so she couldn’t ever run away again.

The question of why she had run away was no longer an issue. Cadance didn’t care. Anything could be forgiven, provided the mare was willing to make amids.

How she was going to make amends, however…

Cadance put her muzzle up to the paper. “I am going to dress you in the ugliest bridesmaid outfit I can find and drag you to my wedding!” she told the letter with a laugh that went from joyous rapture to cackling evil and back again.

“Oh, this day is going to be be perfect,” Cadance sang as she imagined Sunset standing with some flowers clutched in a fetlock, covered in the most hideous green dress anypony could ever hope to come up with. “Everypony will gather round, see you in your hideous gown-” she paused as the clock in her bedroom hit four in the afternoon. “Hmmm...I better take a nap. Don’t want to miss the rendezvous because I fell asleep.”

Noelle groaned as she was led out of the hideout by Sunny and into the woods. Today was the eighth day in a row that they were practicing magic with little success. Which wasn’t to say that she hadn’t improved some. But being able to hit something ten feet away when the water Noelle created took up one of those feet on its own was hardly an accomplishment worthy of royalty.

Why was she so useless?

Unfortunately, it was a question she had asked Sunny once, who had given her an actual answer.

An answer that didn’t make sense in the slightest, because it was all about how grimoires were supposed to be readable as some kind of weird math with feelings. Which was where Noelle got absolutely lost.

Math was math.

Feelings were feelings.

That was it.

“Okay so, back to magic practicing,” Sunset said once they had gotten far enough away from civilization that Noelle wouldn’t smash anything to bits.

The feeling that this was an utter waste of time became the forefront of her thoughts before she pointed her wand at the nearest tree a good thirty feet away and let her mana build up in front of her, transforming into water before she launched it at the target.

Only to watch it swerve aside a few seconds before it would hit. Then, just to mock Noelle, it swerved away from another tree to splash some bushes. The next blast was even worse. And the one after that reminded her of what her family always said as it wobbled around, refusing to do anything.

“Useless.”

“Worthless.”

“Murderous scum.”

Noelle grit her teeth and gripped her wand tighter before- “Okay, hold up,” Sunset told her before reaching out to grab the girl’s wrist.

“Hey!” she said before looking over to glare at the redhead while coming up with a reason to just make her give up and go away so Noelle didn’t have to keep failing in front of her friend. “You use a whole different system of magic! Why in the heck would you be giving me instructions?”

After letting out a sigh, Sunset let go of Noelle’s arm to rub the bridge of her nose. “Noelle, I know your magic system probably better than anyone short of that little monster on Yuno’s shoulder,” Sunset told her. “So quit just throwing magic around and take a breather to calm down for a minute.”

Noelle blinked before she pressed her lips together and grumbled. “What happened to magic is all about emotion?” Remembering how much her family hated her made Noelle plenty emotional!

“Controlled emotions,” Sunset told her. “The reason you can’t hit anything is because-”

There was a rustle in the bushes, and Noelle found herself turning around so Sunset stood behind her as she looked in the northerly direction while a monster emerged from its hiding place of a large bush. It had red hair atop its head and nothing else covering the rest of its body. The very sight of it made her freeze up for an instant as Noelle’s brain tried to process the horror in front of her.

“Hmm? Fanzell?” Sunset mumbled in confusion.

“Excuse me, could I see your thing real quick?” the nude monster said before it approached them. “I just need to touch it for an instant to see if it’s what I’m looking for.”

With the completely naked man coming after her thing, Noelle screamed and quickly acted to protect herself, launching a ball of water into the man’s chest to knock him onto the ground.

Sunset looked over her shoulder and patted the girl on the back as the naked pervert was laying on his own. “Hey, that’s at least thirty feet! Good job Noelle!”

“Good job?” she asked before rounding on the redhead. “WHY THE HELL ARE YOU JUST STANDING THERE WHEN A WEIRD PERVERT IS JUMPING OUT OF THE BUSHES?”

After taking a step back, Sunset held up her hands and gave the girl a disarming grin. “Uh...because I...kind of know him?” she replied before looking past the woman to rub her chin as she gave the unconscious pervert another look. “Yeah, I definitely know him. Red hair is pretty distinct among your kind.”

“Red…” Noelle paused, her eye twitching as she gripped her wand tightly before she began grumbling again, her anger rising despite trying to tell herself that Sunset still had some more...horse traits about her. “Look Sunny, I know that these clothes things are a new concept for you an all since you used to just prance around naked, BUT PEOPLE GOING AROUND WITH THEIR THINGS HANGING OUT AND ASKING TO SEE OTHER PEOPLE’S THINGS IS A DEFINITE SIGN THAT THERE’S SOMETHING BAD ABOUT THEM!”

Sunset sighed and rubbed her head for a few seconds before locking eyes with the royal again. “So uh...I take it this means you’re not going to help me carry him back to the hideout?” she asked nervously.

When Noelle’s glare intensified, Sunset took another step back. “Right,” she mumbled before looking back at the guy. “So uh…guess I’ll carry him then.”

Noelle cringed at the idea of her friend having to handle a naked molester. “Ugh,” she groaned. But, try as she might, Noelle couldn’t come up with the strength to offer any assistance. “Can’t you just...poof him there, and us?”

“This close to lunch?” Sunset asked.

A surge of magical power conjured up a cloud of smoke as it altered the shape of Sunset’s body, increasing her total mass as her limbs changed. A moment later, Noelle was looking up at an altered version of Sunset’s unicorn form, something of a mix between a real horse and what she really was. Not that anyone who looked would have mistaken Sunset for a real horse. Her eyes were too close together and expressive, her hooves matched her coat to such a degree it was hard to tell where they started, and the extra long, but thinner horn was a dead giveaway as well.

When she looked at the naked man and started to levitate him, Noelle quickly spun around while her best friend secured him to her back. “You know, for someone who’s been hiding her real species and was terrified of someone finding out, you’ve been practicing a lot with Gray’s magic these past few days,” Noelle pointed out before she heard Sunset start to move and quickly stepped ahead of her to avoid looking back.

Luckily, Sunset’s neck was long enough to reach forward without Noelle having to look at the naked guy she was carrying. “Does this...disturb you?” she asked cautiously.

Noelle glared at the not-horse for a moment. “Of course not!” she told her before getting a bit more indignant. “Not you anyway. But the way you keep wanting to bring it up makes me wonder if you want you not being human to bother me.”

“I…” Sunset looked down at the ground as she thankfully kept pace with Noelle. “It’s just...hard to process for me, is all.”

The comment made Noelle roll her eyes. “Well, I’m sorry that me not being bothered by your species is such a pain.”

Sunset gave her a half-lidded stare. “When you say it like that, you make it sound like I’m the one with the problem.”

“Because you are,” Noelle told her frankly. “It’s like you’re looking for a flaw in our entire species that you can point to that will make you think you’re better than us or something. Just give it up already, Sunset.”

The big pony that was currently much too large to fall into such a category took a deep breath to let out a long sigh. “Huh...is that what I’m doing?” she asked.

Noelle bit her tongue. Any more talking along such lines might lead to an argument, and she had no interest to lose her best friend over something so silly as a ‘my species is better than yours’ contest on the grounds of morality. “By the way...what’s up with the half-pony body?”

Somehow, despite her face being covered by hair, Sunset managed to blush. “Uh...I was just...trying something out is all.”

Asta made his way into the hideout from the rear entrance with Magna behind him. Thanks to Secre finally opening her mouth, she had been able to inform other mages just how the Demon-Dweller Sword actually worked, which meant Asta was finally able to get some practice in with it.

The results were pretty mixed.

With its smaller size and subsequent lighter weight, Asta could swing it around easier . But it was also a good deal shorter than his first sword and couldn’t be used to reflect attacks like it could. There was also the fact it didn’t seem to cut through anything other than magic either.

Secre said that was because of something to do with his own willpower.

Although Sunset argued the point, claiming that it had more to do with the makeup of the sword’s anti-magic power than anything to do with Asta.

“Come on now, this is all just a big misunderstanding!” a familiar voice called out from the base’s main room, making Asta quicken his pace to see what was going on.

When he got there, the boy saw a man with red hair and dressed in some of Yami’s clothes sitting on one of the couches with his hands bound by glowing thread as Luck stood a little off to the side, his own hands crackling with electricity while Gauche glared down at him with a mirror floating in front of him. Yami was there too, standing in the middle of the two as he looked down at the bound man. “Ms Understanding works at the local tavern, I think,” he said before taking a drag on his cigarette.

“Sunset! Tell them what happened!” the man Asta recognized as Fanzell cried out.

Sunset sighed and rubbed her head. “Like I was saying, this guy walked up to us without any clothes on-”

Four of the other Black Bulls cut her off, their mana flaring. “That’s enough for me,” they all said at once.

Asta looked around, wondering what was going on. “Hey guys, what’s up?” he asked before turning his attention to the naked redhead. “What’s Zell doing here?”

Yami snorted. “Harassing young women while naked,” he said before frowning at the man. “You got a lot of nerve, buddy.”

“I’m telling you, I was robbed!” Zell countered. “They took everything, even my clothes!”

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “And by robbed, do you mean you were fishing while naked and someone took all of your stuff you left at the bank, despite something like this happening to you once already?”

After bowing his head, the man raised his hands in an apologetic way. “It’s the best way to fish. Clothes slow you down too much while in the water.”

“Why not just use your magic to knock fish onto the shore?” Asta asked. It was what Yuno did when they were heading to the capital from Hage. The method proved to be quite effective, too.

Fanzell snorted. “That’s dirty fishing. There’s no challenge in it,” he said before looking over to Noelle. “Now, miss. I know this might sound a bit odd, but...can I see something of yours?”

A frown quickly formed on the girl’s face as she held up her wand, water beginning to gather around it. “Suck brine and die,” she told him evenly.

“No wait, please! Your wand, I just need to get a good look at it!” he said before she could fire.

Although Asta wasn’t sure how, the water dispersed a few moments later without getting anything wet. “My wand? What about it?” Noelle asked as she lowered what had effectively become her weapon instead of a simple training tool.

Fanzell let out a sigh of relief. “I think I might know its maker,” he told her. “A woman by the name of Domina Code.”

“Um…” Noelle looked down at the wand. “I think that was her last name, but I’m not sure about the first one,” she said before turning her attention back onto the wind mage. “Why’re you looking for her?”

As a smile began to break out onto Fanzell’s face, Sunset looked up at the ceiling and tapped her chin. “Wait...isn’t that your wife, or something?”

Fanzell nodded his head enthusiastically. “Yes! We were separated awhile back, but haven’t been able to find each other since,” he told her before looking back to Noelle. “Please, tell me where you found it. I have to find her!”

As Noelle blinked at the attention, Asta remembered something else about the whole thing. “Hang on a second, didn’t she die?” he asked. “I thought that Mariella said she died.”

“Well...not really,” Fanzell told them before he reached back for something that wasn’t there. “Right...got robbed.” After letting out a sigh, the man looked back to Asta. “Do you remember that wand Mariella delivered to me? It had a message in it from Domina in it. She used an illusion to fake her death so she could...lose some of the bandits that were chasing her. That’s what Mariella gave me. She had to know that there was a message in it and got it to me.”

Asta was going to tell Fanzell that was great news...until something occurred to him. “Mariella, the same girl I introduced myself to at your place?” he asked evenly as he recalled the girl’s face clearly.

Blinking at the boy’s change in tone, Fanzell nodded. “That’s right. That’s her. She gave me the rod to show me Domina was okay.”

Asta’s gut twisted in anger. “Right before she gave her boss a recording of me telling her where my home village was,” he told the man with very little emotion. “And a few days later, her boss’s boss showed up to murder me and every single member of my family.”

“Oh, I get it,” Sunset said before crossing her arms. “Since they lost the woman, they gave you something they might have thought was a clue to her location so that you would keep searching for her. Hell, they’re probably still on your damn tail...if there wasn’t some kind of tracking spell on the wand.”

Luck suddenly sat up and snapped his fingers. “That’s what I’m feeling!” As everyone in the room turned to look at him, the boy with the blonde hair giggled. “There’s some guys with some pretty wimpy mana running around at the edge of my detection range. I didn’t even think much of it until you said that.”

After taking another drag on his cigarette, Yami frowned. “How many is some?”

“Eh, maybe four or five,” he said with a shrug. “They’re at the limit of my senses, so some keep fading in and out.”

Yami looked back at the redhead. “What the hell did you do to get so many guys after you and your girl?”

The question made Fanzell give a nervous grin. “I said the Diamond Kingdom sucks, then got away from them when they tried to shut me up,” he told the man. “You know how it is there. If people like that don’t stop everyone from escaping, then it just creates more hope for the ones that are left to do something about the people in power. And if I had to bet, one of those guys is a spatial magic user, meaning that he can call for backup at a whim.”

“Okay you guys listen up,” Yami suddenly called out. “This is how we’re gonna do things. Since I don’t think they’re stupid enough to actually attack our home base, we’re going to be taking the fight to them. But first…”

Using a trick another assassin had shown her, Mariella looked through a circle created by her finger with one eye, eliminating distractions and clearing her sight up as she spied on the manor below. The place was an absolute hovel of a building, but...by all reports about the particular area of the Clover Kingdom that they were in, it had to be the base for the Black Bulls.

“I think we may have a problem,” she said to the man standing on the branch of the tree beside her. “From all reports I’ve read, that’s a command center for a squad of the Magic Knights. The Black Bulls.”

Galleo, the head of the Diamond Kingdom’s assassination corps snorted. “You mean, the weakest of the Magic Knights? They aren’t even supposed to have twenty members in total. We have more than twice their number just waiting in reserve. I could call them in and crush the lot of them.”

While she had no desire for the scarred man to continue breathing, charging in blindly was a death sentence for the lot of them. “I remind you, sir. A squad captain of the Magic Knights is easily the equal to one of our own Shining Generals. Even if we were to attack with all of our forces, he alone could probably wipe us out.”

“Feh,” the older man replied. “All of you dying would be worth it if we accomplish the mission. Prepare for a multi-directional assault. We’ll come at them from all sides and-” the man stopped talking when the front door to the building opened up and Fanzell walked out in his normal green jacket and pants. “Or, perhaps we should just shadow Fanzell some more to wait for a more advantageous moment to capture him.”

Mariella frowned as her former teacher waved goodbye to someone inside the house before rising up into the air on his wind magic and begin flying away. Something strange was going on, but she wasn’t quite sure what.

After his clothes had been stolen by some bandits, the man had run into a pair of magic knights that knocked him out before one of them used transformation magic to turn into some kind of freaky unicorn. Then, they carried him to their base, where they gave him some fresh clothes and let him go not fifteen minutes later?

The Black Bulls burned down towns, they didn’t just let someone who was an important member of a rival country walk away.

But… Mariella watched her former master fly off into the sky, unable to place the cause of her unease.

Galleo grit his teeth. “Our new patron isn’t as forgiving as Ragus was, girl. If we don’t bring Fanzell into him alive soon, he may decide we aren’t worth keeping around.”

The mention of Galleo’s new mysterious overseer made Mariella tense. She knew nothing about the man, but seeing her superior’s reaction to him as well as the fact he had been in the field far more than usual had the young woman worried. This wasn’t some older mage that had made a bunch of backroom deals to get to a comfortable position. Whomever was calling the shots these days wanted results.

There was also something else that worried her. The results their new boss wanted were very different from the results their old one demanded. The search for Domina had been called off entirely and Fanzell was now to be brought in alive only.

“We’ll wait for Fanzell to get away from this place, then rush him with all the men we have,” Galleo told her as the redhead flew overhead before he pulled out a magical communication device. “This is A-One, reporting in. I have located the target and am preparing to intercept.”

“What is his location?” the monotone voice of the communicator chimed in.

Galleo gulped. “We’ve found him in the woods, close to a magic knight outpost. Once he’s far enough away that our mana won’t be detected, we’ll begin the retrieval operation.”

There was a long pause of several seconds on the other end of the line before the voice returned. “Negative. These are your new orders,” the voice said before telling them what to do.

Galleo gulped. “Understood,” he replied before cutting the transmission.

Less than a second later, the two diamond mages went after the man with the three members of their support team following close behind. As they moved through the woods at top speed, the bad feeling in the back of her mind continued to eat at Mariella. Something was definitely wrong, but she still couldn’t figure out what it was.

With her teacher in the air, it was easy for them to keep sight of him while maintaining a safe distance from his mana detection range as he moved. Then, he suddenly stopped and descended.

The group moved quickly to catch up with him and found that Fanzell had landed in a small clearing in the middle of the woods, maybe three hundred paces across before he sat down on the grass. “This is what Finral thinks is a good spot for a date?” he mumbled. “There’s nothing here but trees!”

Galleo led the men into the clearing. “Which is good for us, since we won’t be attracting any attention from outsiders,” he said as Mariella came up behind him. “Now, our master would like to have a word with you, Kruger.”

A red spatial portal opened up several feet off the ground and a good distance to Galleo’s left.

It was then, staring at the man in the green coat that she noticed what had been wrong with Fanzell this whole time. “Your clothes,” she said while pointing to the man. “They’re the same as the ones you lost!”

“Hey it’s you,” Fanzell said before he raised his hand into the air and let loose a burst of fire magic that exploded like a firework once it was well above the treeline. “Good, I was hoping I would run into you again. That means everyone who needs to be here is attending the party.”

The impossibility of what she just saw had Mariella standing mute. That wasn’t a magic item he just used, it was genuine flame magic! How in the world had Fanzell used flame magic?

Before she could state the obvious, someone dropped out of Galleo’s portal. Although she had never actually seen the man before, Mariella knew who she was looking at on sight. The spiky white hair and diamonds in his head were a dead giveaway.

Mars, the newest member of the Eight Shining Generals, stepped forward. “Hello, Teacher. It’s been a long time,” he said in his overly calm voice. “I have some questions I’ve been wanting to ask you.”

“Oh, it’s...you,” Fanzell replied as a look of surprise crossed his face. Next to him, a spatial portal opened up, showing a dark interspace before a pair of men walked out. One was that incredibly short boy Mariella had seen running around outside of Hage. The other was far more terrifying, what with him being a match for the picture of Yami Sukehiro Mariella had seen, the captain of the Black Bulls. “Yeah well, you’re going to be a bit disappointed, I’m afraid.”

Fanzell disappeared in a puff of smoke, to be replaced by the redhead Mariella had seen outside that little cabin in the woods over six months ago.

Despite the fact that he was supposed to be an emotionless killing machine, Mars actually looked stunned at the development. “What is this?” he demanded as he turned to frown at Galleo.

Yami took one last drag on his cigarette before dropping the smoke stick to step on it. He drew the odd sword that rested on his hip, with the single-sided curved blade and long handle. “I believe the phrase is, it’s a trap!” he said before looking at the redhead. “Cut off their escape route, kid.”

The girl, who Mariella remembered was called Sunset, raised her hand before a giant shimmering dome appeared all around the open area, sealing them in. A second later, the portals that had been created began to crackle and flicker.

“Hey, I thought you said this spell of yours stopped spatial magic,” Yami said.

Sunset frowned back at him. “No, I said it stops teleportation from going through it. I don’t know what the crap it’s doing to those things.”

There was a cry of fear from one of the diamond mages standing behind her. “Screw this, I’m not fighting a captain!” he yelled before running to the portal behind Mars and jumping in it with a boost given to him by enhancement magic. The second he hit the flicking portal, there was a very brief scream before the lower half of his body fell back down to earth...detached from the top.

“Yeah...probably shouldn’t touch those things now,” Yami said.

After giving his own portal a wide berth, the boy with the headband pointed at Mars. “Hey! YOU’RE THAT GUY FROM THE DUNGEON!”

Mars didn’t even acknowledge the boy before he looked over to the redhead. “I thought I recognized you,” he said. “Tell me, how is it that you are able to use multiple forms of magic?”

“Yeah, I didn’t hear a please coming out of you just now, so…” she balled her fists and flames surrounded them a second later as she raised them in a crude fighting stance. “Not gonna say.”

After the standoff continued for a few more seconds, Mars looked over to Yami. “Why are you protecting Fanzell Kruger?”

Yami blinked before resting the back of his blade against his shoulder. “Wait...that guy was Fanzell Kurger? Are you kidding me?” he asked before looking over at the other two Black Bulls. “You two seriously just let Fanzell Kruger waltz into our base and hitch a ride to the capital?”

“Uh...yeah,” Sunset told him.

“What’s wrong with that?” Asta asked.

The expression on Yami’s face twisted into a strained grimace. “Okay...I’m out,” he said before putting his sword away to pull out another cigarette before walking away from the two teens.

“SAY WHAT?” Asta demanded as the man turned his back to walk away from them all.

“Hey, I agreed to this little setup because you guys were needing some closure,” he said before lighting his cigarette. “But after letting someone with that much intelligence slip through our fingers. I think you kids can clean up your own mess. I mean, you’re only up against a spatial magic mage that can’t use spatial magic, his remaining three goons, and some guy you already beat before. This’ll be a good measure to see how you’ve grown.”

Sunset looked back to glare at the older man. “From last week?” she demanded. “I’m pretty sure it’s somewhere in the area of zero inches.”

After snorting at her, Yami got to a tree in the distance to lay down against. “Then you just need to surpass your limits.”

“THAT DOESN’T EVEN MAKE SENSE!” Sunset shouted at him before looking back to Asta as he took out his grimoire to draw a short black sword. “Cut the portal. I don’t want to go stumbling into that thing.”

Asta did as he was told, slicing through the spatial magic and completely removing it from the world with his weapon. “So uh...which ones do you want?”

Once her gaze had moved across all of the group, Sunset sighed as she settled on Mars. “Guess I’ll go with the big fish. You okay taking the rest of the small fry?”

“Fine by me,” Asta told her before slowly moving forward. “They’re the ones I would have picked, anyway.”

As Sunset pointed to an area off to the side, Mars took a moment to nod before walking away from the other members of his group. As he did, Galleo leaned in to the woman. “What do you know about that boy? He disabled that portal, but I can’t sense any magic coming from him. Some kind of assassination magic that hides his presence?”

“I’m not sure. During our last encounter, he reflected all the attacks sent against him, but the sword he’s using now is different,” Mariella told him.

Galleo snorted. “Whatever. We’ll capture him and use him as a hostage so that that girl will drop her spatial magic...wait, if the portals I make can do that...then…” He threw out his hand and...nothing happened.

“IDIOT!” the redhead yelled from across the way. “I may not have counted on portals that were already open. But there’s no way you can make another portal to the outside while you’re inside this field!”

After the young mage’s admission, Galleo smiled. “Well in that case…” he threw out his hands, opening up dozens of portals all around him, which had their end points situated inside the dome that had been created around them. They surrounded the Asta boy. “Fire into the portals! Hit him from all sides!”

Hearing the man’s orders, Mariella and the two mages that were still alive sent a mix of ice, fire and rock shards through different gateways before they sprang out from all around Asta. A second later, the boy had his larger sword out and crouched behind it to take cover from two of the projectiles before cutting the third with his second sword.

“Hey shorty, is the only thing you’re gonna do is block?” Yami asked.

Asta looked back at the man. “HEY! IF YOU WANT TO SAY SOMETHING, COME OVER HERE AND DO IT!”

After taking a drag on his cigarette, Yami put both of his hands behind his back. “Nah, I’m good. By the way, left, right, back.”

The strange words made Asta blink before the three attacks the diamond mages sent at him, a shard of ice, fireball, and a rock came at him from behind, his left and his right, forcing him to dodge out of the way.

“Right, right, forward,” Yami told him.

As Asta moved out of the way again, he turned and looked at the man. “HOW THE HELL ARE YOU DOING THAT?”

Yami let out a laugh. “I’ll give you the explanation...for five-hundred yul.”

“YOU’RE CHARGING ME FOR AN EXPLANATION?” Asta demanded.

Mariella focused her magic and got ready to launch another volley.

“Ice chick is fixing to throw something at you through the portal to your left,” Yami called out.

The warning made Mariella freeze for a second before deciding on a different target.

“Now it’ll come out the portal behind you,” Yami warned him.

Without even looking, she got ready to throw it in a new- “Now she’s going to toss it through the one slightly above her right, which is going to come out right above you,” Yami said when Mariella didn’t even move.

The woman blanched.

“Nevermind,” Yami told him. “Now she’s gonna stand there for a second, in awe of how awesome I am.”

Mariella turned-“Now she’s gonna get all pissy and yell at me.”

“YOU SHUT UP!” the woman yelled at the lazy captain. What the hell is this? Can he read my mind, somehow? she thought with a frown.

Asta looked back at the captain. “Okay, fine! You got a deal. Five-hundred yul!” the boy agreed.

Slowly, the man stood up and began to walk towards the boy. “So listen up,” Yami told him. “There’s this thing in my country we call ki. It’s like the living energy that surrounds a person’s body. It’s not mana, that’s a totally different thing. This is something you can detect if you push all five of your senses towards a single task. If you can read someone’s ki, you can predict their movements. But mages that have spent all their time learning how to detect mana and only mana screw it up. Considering your little problem, it should be something you can still do.”

“When we get out of here, let’s go see the world, okay?”

Mars reached up and rubbed the side of his head. Ever since his battle in the dungeon a few days ago, he had been getting...flashes of his childhood. If what he experienced before getting his grimoire could be called that.

“Is our training getting to you?”

Born with a high level of mana and magical potential, he and several other children, mostly the illegitimate children of nobles, had been taken from their homes to be raised in a military installation that had been built for the purpose of creating a new type of mage. Since the age of ten, everything Mars had done was to prepare for the day when he would go to the outside world as one of the Diamond Kingdom’s new generation of soldiers.

“When things get tough, just close your eyes and think about the people you love.”

At age fifteen, he and every other child had been taken to a tower to receive their grimoires, then sent back to the military base for another year of training.

“This is the only way...now die.”

At the age of sixteen, he killed his best friend in a final exam that left her body on the floor.

And after that...things became blurry. He was operated on, had magical items implanted in his body. His grimoire had been remade, using the book that the girl he had grown up with as its other half.

The girl he had killed.

Those same memories played over and over again in his mind. Both when he was awake, and when he got what little sleep he could. He couldn’t stop them from coming.

He didn’t want to stop them.

Didn’t deserve to stop them.

The ache in his head began to subside and Mars looked across the field, to where the girl was staring at him. The hair was different, as were her eyes and face. Body...everything. She didn’t look anything like the girl that he had killed in the slightest.

Yet…

The blow from the black sword shattered his defenses, forcing Mars to crash into the far wall without anything to soften the blow. Breath left his lungs as he plummeted down into the water, only to be replaced by the liquid that quickly surrounded him.

Darkness came, and then...light…

A girl was looking down at him.

For a moment, he saw a face of short pink hair and sky blue eyes.

Mars grunted as he shook off the memory. “Just tell me where Fanzell is, that’s all I want.”

The girl, Sunset, he thought she was called, made a fist surrounded by fire magic. “What do you want with that pervert?”

Fire. That makes...what? Three types of magic she can use? What type of magic does the barrier we’re in fall under? Mars didn’t understand the reason for the insult, but that didn’t matter in the big picture. “I just need to ask him some questions,” he told her. “And while we’re on the subjects of questions. I’ll ask you again, how is it that you have so many different affinities?”

“When things get tough, just close your eyes and think about the people you love.”

Mars reached up and massaged his head again. This was not the time to be thinking about such things as dead little girls that he had killed in cold blood.

“Is our training getting to you?”

“Hey now, you didn’t say please,” Sunset taunted him.

Despite the childishness of such behavior, Mars found himself taking in a breath. “Please, tell me how it is that you can wield three different types of magic,” he said before his eyes moved to the grimoire at the girl’s side.

Sunset blinked and stood up for a moment, giving the man a surprised look. “Huh...I didn’t actually think you’d ask,” she told him before standing there, motionless for several seconds.

“So, you won’t tell me, then?” Mars asked, perturbed over such a waste of time.

Taking a moment to think it over, Sunset shrugged. “Guess it can’t hurt,” she said before looking back at the man with the white hair. “You see...I’m really a test subject from the Diamond Kingdom’s mage labs. Mind if I ask you something now?”

The obvious falsehood had Mars frowning at the girl. “You’re lying. There’s no way that you could have been in the program.”

Sunset blinked. “Really? What makes you say that?” she asked.

“For starters, you’re far too young,” Mars told her.

Instead of admitting to her deceit, Sunset snorted and waved it off. “Yeah, that. I’m actually the first attempt at making a mage like you. Multiple elements, and a spatial mage’s ability to use magic without having to read a grimoire. As a side effect of all those experiments done on me, my body stopped aging. I’m really a twenty-year old woman, trapped in the body of a perky fifteen-year old girl,” she said before sighing and raising her shoulders in a shrug. “This whole permanent puberty thing really sucks.”

Mars found himself actually considering the girl’s claim for an instant before throwing it away. “You’re lying.”

“Really?” Sunset replied before snorting. “What makes you say that this time?”

The question had Mars’s anger rising. “If you were part of the program, then why are you here? You should be serving the Diamond Kingdom.”

“We’re here so we can protect this country that we love.”

Sunset snorted. “From what I understand, the guys who put those things in your head and chest took you from your family, practically raised you in a cage, forced you to kill everyone you grew up with, all while they murder anyone who speaks up against them, but I’m the one who doesn’t make sense,” she said. “Buddy, you need to get your priorities straight.”

The mention of being forced to kill everyone caused another sharp headache to hit Mars’s mind.

“This is the only way...now die.”

Mars bit the inside of his lip, the pain helping to draw him back to the moment he was living in rather than the past. Once his mind was focused again, he called his grimoire and pointed towards the girl. “Indeed,” he told her. “I’ll bring your corpse back to Diamond, so it can be properly dissected and studied.”

“See...stuff like that really makes we worry about being honest with people,” Sunset replied before Mars sent a barrage of crystal shards at her.

Asta cleared his mind, doing his best to focus his five senses on the task assigned to them. He concentrated on his surroundings. There was a disturbance beside him and two of the attacks came from the left, letting him use his larger sword as cover while he slashed through the rock that flew in from the right. “I did it-” he managed to say before a boot struck him in the back of the head to knock him forward a few feet before he hit the ground.

“That’s not using your ki,” Yami told him while Asta was on the ground. By the time he picked himself up, the man had taken another drag on his cigarette and held it in his hand. “You were just using your ears. You’re supposed to use your whole body.”

The ‘encouragement’ had Asta gritting his teeth before he jumped onto his feet. “HEY, GIVE ME A BREAK. I JUST LEARNED ABOUT THIS A FEW SECONDS AGO!”

Yami snorted. “Where I come from boy, we’ve got a saying. A man never goes back on his word,” he said. “You’re supposed to become the Wizard King one day, right? Well if you can’t even do this as you are now, then you might as well just go back home.”

“Him? The Wizard King? Don’t make me laugh!” the guy who looked to be in charge of everyone shouted.

Hearing the old taunts that had surrounded him for his entire life, Asta picked himself back up and took in a deep breath. Focus and concentrate, the boy told himself. Notice everything with everything that you have.

He focused on the three mages behind the boss. That guy wasn’t important since he couldn’t run away. The other three mages, they were the ones he needed to deal with. To help him focus on everything else around him, Asta took in another deep breath to hold it as he closed his eyes.

There was a slight change in the air and a very slight whistling sound that he could just barely detect, coming from behind him. “There!” Asta shouted as he turned around, using his larger sword to knock the rock with the flat of his blade. The magical attack was sent back through the hole it came out of and Asta didn’t even need to look to see that the guy who sent it had been struck in the mouth to the point that all of his teeth had been knocked out, with the stone still sticking out of his mouth.

While the other two lackeys stood motionless at the result of Asta’s counter, the boy raised his sword in victory. “I DID IT!” he shouted before turning around to grin at the large man that had moved back a ways. “Captain Yami did you see me?”

The expression on Yami’s face was like he was looking at a leaper. “You actually managed to pull it off. Man, you must be some kind of freak.”

WHAT KIND OF COMPLIMENT ON MY SUCCESS IS THAT? Asta demanded mentally before he noticed a change in the air. Spinning to his right, he knocked the fireball attack through a different portal, causing it to strike the other robed mage in the back of the head.

“AHHH! MY HAIR, MY BEAUTIFUL HAIR!” the man screamed before Mariella encased his head in ice. The man dropped to the floor and started beating on the block of frozen water, his strikes getting weaker and weaker until he stopped moving completely.

Asta’s mouth dropped as he watched the woman casually murder one of her teammates. “HEY! WHAT THE HELL, LADY?” he demanded before pointing his smaller sword at the woman. “He was your comrade!”

The expression on Mariella’s face became twisted with disgust. “Don’t talk about things you don’t understand, boy.”

“I UNDERSTAND YOU SHOULDN’T KILL PEOPLE YOUR SUPPOSED TO BE FIGHTING ALONGSIDE!” Asta yelled back at her. Then, he noticed a change in her body, a tensing of muscles that told him she was getting ready to attack. The ice projectile she sent through a portal was easily shattered by his smaller sword.

Mariella took a step back, “Galleo, sir. It appears that we need to make a contingency-”

“Wait, you’re actually the head of the Diamond Kingdom’s assassination division?” Yami suddenly asked as he pointed to the spatial mage.

The man that was obviously in charge gave a look to the barrier surrounding the clearing before looking back at Yami. “That’s right, what of-” was all he could say before Yami casually tossed a rock through one of his portals with a flick of his wrist that impacted the man on the side of the head.

Galleo went down a second later, and all of his portals quickly closed. “I may have missed out on Kruger. But turning you into headquarters should net me a few stars. Hurry up with the last of the lackeys, kid. I feel a dump coming on and it’s never a good idea to fight when you could shit your pants.”

“Hey!” Mariella shouted at the man before an ice sword formed in her right hand. “Don’t call me a lackey!”

After taking another dragon his cigarette, Yami gave her an even look. “So, would you prefer? Minion, goon, mindless follower, what? You can’t just tell me something like that without providing some kind of alternative. Or maybe you’re just that guy’s little bitch.”

After creating a series of ice shards without the use of her grimoire, she sent the weak magic at Captain Yami, who didn’t even bother reacting to it. Asta jumped in front of him and sliced the things apart with a single strike before running at the girl with both of his swords ready for combat. “Doing what you do, that sounds like a lackey to me!” he yelled at her before swinging the larger of his swords at the girl.

Mariella jumped out of range. “You shut up! You don’t know what happened to me!” she yelled. “If I didn’t help these people do their dirty work, then they would have killed me!”

For a fraction of a second, Asta actually felt some sympathy for the woman. But then, he remembered just how that Diamond Kingdom guy had found out that he was from Hage and all the people who had died because of it. “And how many people did you kill for them so you could keep on living?” he demanded before pulling his larger sword back as he went in with the smaller one.

As the girl continued to retreat to the edge of Sunset’s barrier, Asta hurled his big sword at her. “Zell told us how you people operate!” he shouted while running towards Mariella when she tried to deflect the anti-magic sword with the one made out of ice that she had created. Although the force of the attack knocked Asta’s blade away, the anti-magic also shattered her own weapon. “You kill families! Mothers, fathers and children!”

Asta came in with his sword as Mariella held up a hand to fire off another blast of frozen mana since she didn’t have enough time to recite a full spell. He cut through the misshapen daggers with his sword, then decked her in the side of the jaw with his free hand. “JUST HOW MANY CORPSES ARE YOU STANDING ON TO KEEP YOUR OWN HEAD ABOVE WATER?”

There was the sound of bone breaking, and Asta scowled down at the girl as she hit the grass hard. Even if she had been conscious to answer the question, it was doubtful that she would have been able to with the broken jaw. “That’s the problem with people like you,” Asta said as he panted for breath while Mariella lay unconscious at his feet.

With the fight over, Asta looked up to find his bigger sword so he could retrieve it. When he found the thing, the sight made him wince. It was sticking out of Sunset’s barrier. He saw the entire dome flicker for a few seconds before it was completely nullified by the anti-magic.

Sunset leaped aside to avoid the crystal barrage before focusing her personal mana to infuse her body and create a solid layer of defense. As she was moving, the diamond mage turned several pages on his grimoire to create a giant floating sword made of crystal that she had seen him using previously. “So, do I get to ask you questions now, or is this just a one way street kind of thing?”

Instead of replying with words, Mars brought the giant sword down towards the redhead. Despite the weapon being a good forty feet long and as wide as a room, it moved as if it only weighed a couple pounds, forcing Sunset to pivot and backstep to avoid being crushed by the giant blade that was much too large to cut anything less than ten feet across. Then, she clenched her fist and channeled her mana into it. “Fire Magic: Calidus Brachium!”

Although simple on the conceptual level, Sunset could appreciate the usefulness of the spell she had stolen from Mereoleona and the speed at which it could be deployed because of its simplicity. Rather than a basic enhancement of physical ability that any mage could do with their mana, the ‘Flaming Arm’ added a jolt of kinetic force to a concentrated burst of flame on top of the aforementioned increase of physical ability and focused it all onto a single point.

So, when Sunset actually struck her target, the hit was more like a bomb that only went off in one direction, without any rebounding of kinetic force back on the caster.

The attack shattered the sword at the point of impact, breaking it into two very large pieces of crystal, along with dozens of other little pieces that went flying into the air. For a second, at least. Then, they simply hung there for a second before expanding and flying back at the not-unicorn.

He can still control the pieces? Sunset thought to herself in surprise, freezing for a moment to do so.

A mistake she ended up paying for when several shards headed towards her much too quickly to do anything about other than raise her left arm in front of her face to protect her eyes. Several small crystal shards impact her arm, sinking in a few inches, her mana skin stopping them from completely blowing through the limb.

Sunset cried out as pain exploded in her arm. It refused to listen to any mental commands to keep standing up and fell limply to her side. The rest of her body had taken a few minor scratches, but her left arm was the only thing that had taken more than a few glancing blows.

Still, she stumbled and bit her lip to help her concentrate on something else as her mana skin worked to numb the pain to the point it was bearable. Holy crap! That...that’s what REAL PAIN feels like? Sunset asked herself. While she had suffered a stubbed toe and other damage to her human body before, nothing had even come close to what had just happened. And Asta makes getting smacked around all the time look easy.

“Surrender and accept being bound by my magic,” Mars told her evenly. “Judging by where my crystals punctured your arm, blood loss will render you unconscious in moments.”

After taking a deep breath through her nose, and doing her best to ignore the darkness closing in around her from all sides, Sunset focused her mana on a spell that she really wished she had done some real practice on, rather than just a quick bit of study. “Flame Healing Magic: Phoenix Robe.”

The second Sunset activated her magic, fire enveloped her body and the lingering pain from the wound that had just been inflicted quickly disappeared, and she felt the crystals being forced out of her body as her bone. Both muscles and flesh quickly regenerated to their previous state. A few seconds later, her arm responded to commands for it to move as she took a second to flex both it and her fingers to check for any nerve damage.

“What?” Mars breathed in shock. “That’s Fana’s spell. WHY DO YOU HAVE FANA’S SPELL?”

After shouting his demand, the man let out a gasp and reached up to hold his head for a moment. Seeing the opening, Sunset leapt forward, closing the distance between them in an instant before bringing her fist in contact with the man’s chest. The controlled explosion of the fire spell that was still covering her fist sent the man flying through the air and into a tree hard enough to break the trunk.

With her opponent down, Sunset took a breath and-“Flame Healing Magic: Phoenix Robe.”-groaned as she watched a flaming aura that stretched out at a point beyond his shoulder like a wing surrounding Mars. A moment later, the burns on his chest completely disappeared and he was back in fighting condition.

“Something tells me, this is going to get real redundant, real fast,” she said as the man called his grimoire back up in front of him.

Just to test things, Sunset punched forward in the air and sent a blast of fire with a great deal of kinetic force into it. The attack struck Mars and made him have to plant his feet to keep standing, but the actual damage that made it through was gone a few seconds later. Then, he created half a dozen smaller crystal swords that a normal person could have used as a dagger before sending them spinning at Sunset. Making sure to protect her vitals, the teenager shattered two of the swords that would have hit something important while the others just left light cuts on her arms and legs that were gone moments later.

“So this spell not only heals, it increases the caster’s resistance to fire-based attacks,” Sunset mumbled before she felt the spell around them begin to collapse. As the dome that was supposed to lock everyone into the combat area began to fall apart, Sunset decided to switch tactics. “Come and get me loser!”

And with that, Sunset turned to run away.

With mana skin increasing her durability and physical attributes, she skipped more than ran into the woods a few seconds before Mars created a crystal platform to stand on that also acted as a medium to fly with. What few attacks the man sent after her from bursts of raw mana turned into crystal were caught by the trunks of trees Sunset darted through, although the smoldering footprints she left on the ground thanks to the phoenix robe spell meant that losing her pursuer wasn’t an option.

As she ran, Sunset mentally went through her list of options on how to deal with the man chasing her.

Despite the circumstances, she didn’t want to lead Mars back to Yami, where he would most likely be killed by the captain. The idea of anyone dying still left a bad feeling in her stomach.

“TELL ME HOW YOU KNOW FANA’S HEALING MAGIC!” the man above her demanded before launching a series of crystal shards at Sunset.

The attack was easily avoided. “Who in the hell is Fana?” Sunset yelled back after ducking behind a tree that was skewered soon after she spoke.

Mars let out another cry of rage before sending a wave of crystal along the ground, which Sunset quickly turned and hit with her fist to destroy before it could catch up to her. “She’s the owner of that spell you stole!” he shouted.

I got that spell from your book idi-wait, Sunset suddenly realized as the connection formed in her mind. “You mean, she’s the one who owns the other half of your grimoire?” she said as they cleared the woods.

“TELL ME!” he demanded before his spell book flew up in front of him again and his mana flared. “Crystal Creation Magic: Laevateinn!”

As Mars recreated another one of his enormous swords, Sunset began to form a plan. Guessing that he wouldn’t attack her with lethal force if he wanted a trade, Sunset cut the power to her recovery magic and held up her hands. “Okay, how about we make a trade?” she asked. “I’ll answer your question after you answer mine.”

Mars stopped in mid-swing, considering the deal for a moment before his giant sword vanished. “Very well. What is it you want to know?” he replied before descending to ground level and getting off his crystal platform. However, his fiery healing spell with its protection properties remained in use.

Not that it would help him much.

“Why are you guys still after Fanzell Kruger?” Sunset asked. “I thought the thing he was involved in was finished without him. You can’t honestly tell me that you’re trying to get rid of him just because he got away.” The amount of resources dedicated to finding a man who just wanted to crawl into a hole and hide somewhere didn’t make sense. If he was a revolutionary, Sunset might have seen some logic in the Diamond Kingdom’s actions. But as things were, she couldn’t reason why they would keep chasing a man that wasn’t really a concern.

And then there was the fact that they hadn’t tried to just jump Sunset the moment she led them away from the base with sheer numbers like Fanzell said they would have. Instead, they called in a single mage. And he wanted to ask questions. She had thought that was just a euphemism for ‘beat the answers out of you’, but now…

Mars frowned. “This operation is under my personal direction. Master Fanzell was the man they wanted to complete my mental conditioning. Because he wasn’t around, my training was incomplete. I want him to return to the Diamond Kingdom and perfect my programming. In return, I am willing to offer him a full pardon.”

“Wait,” Sunset said, not believing what she was hearing. “You want him to come back and brainwash you? Why in the hell would you want something like that?”

After letting out a groan, Mars reached up and touched his head again. “Because I can’t stop thinking about-no! I answered your question. Now you answer mine!” he yelled. “How do you have a spell from Fana’s grimoire?”

Sunset sighed before throwing out both of her palms until they were just shy of the flames surrounding the diamond mage. “Yeah...I lied about that,” she said before releasing her mana, using a spell that Noelle had spent the better part of the week showing her. “Water Creation Magic: Sea Dragon’s Cradle!”

As surprise showed on Mar’s face while he was surrounded by a water barrier, Sunset stuck her hands into the swirling sphere. “Crystal Creation Magic-”

“None of that now,” Sunset told him before she released all the mana she dared as water, quickly filling the swirling prison and removing the man of his oxygen supply. Unable to breathe meant that the man was unable to cast, and with the pressure of the water crushing down on him, Mars let out a gasp, the oxygen in his lungs flowing out of him as he lost consciousness.

The room was dark and cold, the walls just basic stone and several feet thick. Mars, along with over thirty other candidates stood, looking up at the projection several feet above them as they all clutched their grimoires.

“This will be the final test to see who is worthy of leaving this place as a mage of the Diamond Kingdom,” the man all the children were looking up at announced through the magical window that projected his image into the room. “You will fight to the death. Any who refuse will be killed.”

There were several gasps throughout the room and Mars looked back to the girl standing a bit behind him, to his left. She had short pink hair, but the front of it came down so much that it nearly covered her blue eyes. Despite the fact that Mars had more mana and could channel more magical power into his spells, Fana was the reason that he had managed to make it this far in the training without breaking down like so many others.

She helped keep him together when he wanted to do nothing more than break out and get away from this awful place. She told him they were born to protect their country and that when they got out, they would go and see the world together.

But...if they were supposed to kill each other and only one of them would be let out…

Mars didn’t have time to finish his thought, as a boy to his right charged at him, his hand glowing with magic. So, Mars raised his hand and released a surge of mana. The crystal that erupted from the ground impaled the child with a hole so big, his body fell in two a second later.

And like that, the massive free for all had begun.

Mars...wasn’t much aware of what happened next. Ten years of being drilled to use magic had his mind nearly blank out as he cut down one opponent after another. All around him, he was aware that other children were doing the same, but they were unimportant until he felt them turn their mana towards him.

Then, they died.

In only a few minutes, almost all of the other children were dead.

The room stank with the smell of blood and other things that were released from the human body upon death. Despite the fact that there was no sunlight, the room seemed hot to him.

Mars panted as he finished off the last boy who had come near him, ignoring the child’s begging that he not be killed as he turned to run away before Mars stabbed him in the back with a crystal spear.

Then, he felt another source of mana die off, and there was only two of them left in the room.

He turned to see who his last opponent was...and froze.

Fana dropped the boy whose face she had just finished burning off. There was blood on her clothes, but she didn’t seem to be damaged in any way as she walked towards him. “Mars...I’m sorry,” she told him before the flames on her hand reignited. “This is the only way...now die!”

She charged at him, throwing a bolt of fire as she did and Mars flinched when it scorched the side of his cheek, forcing him to cover himself with his hands as he threw up a burst of mana to defend himself to avoid another, more powerful attack.

Blood hit his cheek as the sound of a sick splashing filled his ears.

He looked back. Fana stood there, a jagged wall of crystal running through a good portion of her body. The second he realized what had happened, Mars removed the mound of crystal that Fana was hanging from and her body dropped to the ground for him to run over to. “Fana! Fana no! I’m sorry I-”

Despite the damage to her body, she reached up with a flaming hand to touch the side of his face. The burning sensation went away and it didn’t hurt to move his mouth as she finished with her healing spell. “Now go and see the world.”

“FANA!”

As always, Mars jerked awake, sitting up as he called out to his friend.

Confusion followed as he found himself sitting in the middle of a field. He tried to move his hands, but found a pair of iron manacles had bound both his wrists and feet. For some reason, his lungs also hurt. “What?” he choked out. “What happened?”

“You drowned,” a familiar and infuriating voice said from behind him, making Mars look back. The redhead girl was there, holding his grimoire in a spherical magical barrier of some kind as she stood up behind him. He reached out for it with his magic and got...nothing. “Yeah, I’m not letting something like that happen again.”

Mars let out a sigh as the memories from a few minutes ago came back to him. He had drowned...again.

And the redhead had saved him...again.

“Fana, that isn’t the first time you’ve said that name,” Sunset said. “Who is she?”

Not seeing the point in resisting, Mars let out a sigh. “She was my best friend, when we were children,” he told her. “We went through the program together until I...killed her. During our battle in the dungeon, I started to think about her again. That’s the reason I’m looking for Fanzell. I want him to condition my mind so that I don’t have to remember her anymore.” Not that it mattered. Now that he was captured by the Clover Kingdom, he would be killed, his body dissected to learn its secrets.

Sunset blinked. “And this Fana, she was the person who originally possessed the other half of your grimoire?”

“That’s right,” Mars told her. “After I killed her, they took her grimoire and combined it with mine.”

After a few seconds silence, Sunset pressed her lips together in thought. “Wow...you’re a complete and total idiot!” she said before kicking Mars in the back of his head, sending him rolling back onto the ground.

Laying on his chest, the man pushed himself up onto his hands and knees but was unable to rise further thanks to his shackles. “What?” he demanded.

Sunset sighed, then looked at him with a scowl. “Okay so...skipping over the obvious thing for a second, you actually feel bad about something, but instead of coming to terms with it, you want someone to scramble your brain to the point where you don’t feel anything about hurting that Fana girl of yours?” she asked. “Yeah, that’s called being cowardly and stupid. If you did a bad thing, then own up to it. And if you want to make it up to her somehow, do something that girl would have wanted you to do instead of what the guys who set things up for her to get killed tell you to do.”

The casual command had Mars growing at the girl. “What would you know about Fana?” His service to the Diamond Kingdom was how he was honoring her memory.

“Well for starters, I know she’s not dead,” Sunset pointed out. “At least...she didn’t die when you think you killed her.”

“What?” Mars replied in a disbelieving tone “Now I know you don’t know what you’re talking about-”

“What happens to a grimoire after its owner dies?” Sunset suddenly asked, cutting Mars off. Then, before he could answer, she kept talking. “It breaks apart because it’s linked to the life of its user. From what I understand, hers stuck around more than long enough for them to tear it apart and glue it on to yours somehow. Ergo, Fana didn’t die...or you didn’t kill her, at least.”

Mars stared up at the girl, unsure of how to respond to what she had just said. He wanted to deny it, tell Sunset she was wrong. Because...that was the world he had come to accept. Fana had died because he had killed her.

The fact haunted his dreams. Made it hard for him to sleep. Consumed his every waking moment.

If it wasn’t true then…

Well...what did it matter at this point?

He was a prisoner of the Clover Kingdom. Even if Fana hadn’t been killed by him, or even better, was alive, he would never see her again. As that crushing reality set in, there was a loud popping sound, and his restraints disappeared. “What?” he asked before standing up. “What’re you doing?”

Sunset let out a low moan. “Yeah...see...there are these weird set of rules I have to follow while I’m here, and I’m not sure...but I think getting a high-ranking official from another country killed would violate them,” she told the young man. “Which...I’m guessing you are since you’re bossing around a guy who is supposed to be the head assassin of a whole kingdom. Or was it just the kings I’m not allowed to kill? Ah well, either way, I don’t want any more deaths on my conscience. At least not when they’re just a brainless loser who can’t even think for themselves. I have trouble enough sleeping at night already.”

The situation taking him completely by surprise, Mars continued to stare at the girl. “What?”

“So...you go find your friend or...whatever. Long as you leave the country and don’t come back,” Sunset told him. After hearing about what happened to the guy, she seriously doubted that he would be doing much good for the enemy country. “As for me...I think I’m going to go throw up and read a scroll of five-hundred year old lawyer-speak that I’ve been putting off getting all the way through.”

Still not sure what was going on, Mars could only stand there as the redhead disappeared in a flash of light. A second after he was gone, the spell binding Mars’s grimoire became undone and he called it back to his hands.

For several minutes, he simply looked down at the book in his hands. The snow white cover of his grimoire, with pieces of an orange red color that had belonged to Fana. Could she really be alive?

Noelle did her best not to grimace as she watched Sunset bend over to empty her stomach into a bucket that was usually reserved for Vanessa’s mornings while the Black Bulls sat around the common room. In the center of the room, the three prisoners that had been brought back with them were bound with both magic and physical restraints while Finral talked on the communication magic item about arranging a pickup for the prisoners. As a security policy, captured spatial mages were never transported by portal.

“So, you led the enemy commander away from the battle and then teleported back here, huh?” she asked after hearing Sunset’s dubious story.

The redhead finished gagging then turned back and gave the Silva a pair of big, innocent eyes as she clasped her hands together. “Oh yes! He was just so strong! I got so scared and just had to run away.”

Before she could even say a word, Noelle felt her hair friz up as Luck jumped next to her. “Then we should go find him!” the boy said while lightning crackled around his hands.

Vanessa let out a little laugh. “I think that you should keep an eye on the prisoners just in case they try to get away again.”

“We weren’t trying to get away!” Mariella shouted in a panic, her hair still standing on end as lightning burns covered a good deal of her body. “That psycho untied us and beat us up!”

Galleo just wined and slumped over a little.

From his place at the bar, Magna snorted. “Sounds like an attempted escape to me. Using your feminine wiles magic to hypnotize poor Luck.”

Asta put his foot on the back of the woman to force her into a bow. “You’re lucky we stopped him before he did anything else. After all the pain the two of you have caused, you deserve a lot worse.”

After letting out a frustrated cry, Mariella looked back at the boy with a frown. “I’m telling you, they forced me into working for them!”

“It must be so easy for you,” Noelle told the disgusting woman as she crossed her arms. “Only caring about yourself. As long as it benefits you, then you can justify anything. You could have had some decency and refused, ran away, or a number of other things. Instead, you decided to kill people to prolong your own life. Even the man who saved it at one time.”

The mention of Fanzell made Asta look over to the girl with the silver hair. “Hey, that reminds me. Did you and Finral find Domina?”

Noelle froze for a moment before a smile crept up on her face. “Um...yes,” she said nervously, remembering their loving reunion.

-1 Hour Ago-

After Finral’s portal dropped them on the edge of the castle town, Noelle led the party of three back to the black market that Vanessa had shown her the location of. Thankfully, Domina hadn’t moved on yet, and they found her stall easily enough, with all its assorted trinkets.

The look on Fanzell’s face slowly changed from cautious hope to absolute joy as he spotted the woman and ran towards her. “Domina, it’s you! It’s really you!” he cried out right as he reached the woman with the chestnut hair done up in a long ponytail.

“Fanzell?” she replied, with a disbelieving look.

“Oh! I’ve missed you so much! When you weren’t at the meeting place, I got so worried,” he told her.

The woman’s eye twitched. “WHAT THE HELL TOOK YOU SO LONG TO FIND ME!” she shouted before hitting the man in the jaw. Then, as Fanzell fell down onto the ground, Domina jumped over the little table holding all of their things to begin kicking him. “I’ve been here for months! MONTHS! Do you know what I had to do to earn yul? I had to sell illegal magic items! YOU TURNED ME INTO A CRIMINAL!”

-Present Time-

“It was very...emotional,” Noelle told him.

Although, they two of them did leave the capital together, so...she guessed it turned out okay.

“Hello, dispatch, this is Finral with the Back Bulls, we caught three indavuals performing reconnaissance around our headquarters. They’re from the Diamond Kingdom and were claiming that they were after some guy in red hair, but a through search of the area found no evidence of a fourth person,” the spatial magic user said. “One of them uses spatial magic, so we need a guarded transport.”

Once the message was completed, Sunset turned to Yami. “Uh, won’t they figure out that there was more going on when these people are questioned?” she asked. “I’m pretty sure I remember the Wizard King saying his assistant has some kind of mind reading magic.”

Yami looked down at the girl. “You mean about that guy you fought? Eh, probably. But he got away, and I didn’t know about Zell until after he was gone, so it’s no skin off my back. Or yours...maybe. Besides, Marx spends all his time trying to make sure Julius is doing his job, so by the time he gets around to interrogating these two, it’s all going to be old news.”

“What’s going to happen to them?” Asta asked.

After taking a drag on his cigarette, Yami looked up at the ceiling for a moment. “Well, Julius is a big softie, so…” he muttered before looking down at the kid. “We’ll probably stick them in a hole somewhere for a few years, until they’re so out of their minds from boredom that they’ll be willing to do community service until they die just for something to keep them from going nuts.”

Asta stood there for a few minutes, obviously thinking about the matter. “That’s uh...that’s good,” he said before looking around. “I uh...I think I’m gonna go for a swim.”

Getting a good look at his face, Noelle could see that something was bothering the boy. With Sunset still looking rather woozy, Noelle sucked it up and followed him. “Think I’ll join you,” she said before following the shorter magic knight out of the room and towards the back exit of the hideout.

When they got outside, Asta walked up to the edge of their new pool that Sunset had added a cleared circle of stone to walk around and simply stood there looking down at the water. “Uh...I forgot my swimsuit.”

“Let’s be honest, Asta...you didn’t come here for a swim,” Noelle told him frankly as she slipped off her boots before tossing them to the side to sit down and put her feet in the water. The last thing she wanted the idiot doing was commenting on how they smelled or something.

Asta sat down too, taking his shoes off before following suit. “Yeah,” he told her.

Starting to become annoyed at his lack of talking after she had the heart to come out here on her own and announce her intentions to everyone, Noelle looked over to Asta. The depressed look on his face killed her enthusiasm. “So...um...what’s on your mind?”

“Do you know who those guys were?” Asta asked in a hollow voice.

“Basically,” Noelle told him carefully. “I mean, you told Yami they were two of the people responsible for your adoptive family dying, right?”

He sighed and hung his head. “Yeah. The girl Mariella, she pointed them at my hometown, and Zell said that Galleo was the guy in charge of the whole operation. I didn’t even know he was involved until after I saw his red portals. But because of them...everyone I knew and cared about before I became a magic knight is dead, except for Yuno...and Sunset.”

Noelle nodded. “So…” she studied the boy for a moment. “You’re...confused as to why you’re not happy something bad happened to them, or are you mad they’re not going to be punished even more?”

“I don’t feel anything,” Asta told her quietly as he pulled his feet out of the water and pulled his knees up on himself to put his arms on as he rested his forehead on them. “When the guy who killed Sister Lilly...my…” he let out a very long sigh. “My mom, I watched him die and I felt glad that he was dead, that he got what he deserved. And when that woman talks about how she had to do things to help these guys, I get so angry at her, but now that it’s over...I’m just...it’s like there’s this hole inside of me that used to be filled because this one guy died. But then, I find out about how those other two were involved and it’s like the thing was opened up again. And when we catch them it’s...still there. And I don’t know why.”

Unsure of what to do, Noelle sat there next to the boy as he just looked down at the stone beneath them. “I don’t...know what to do,” Asta said after a moment. “Do I want them to die? Will that let me...stop thinking about it again? But then, if that’s how I am, I’m not any better than that Mariella girl, am I?”

Wanting Asta to shut up, Noelle reached out and grabbed the idiot before pulling him close. His face pressed in against her breasts, but she didn’t care. “You’re a hundred times better than that woman, you idiot!” she told the moron she said after wrapping her arms around his head and resting her own cheek against it. “I get it. You’re really hurting, even now. And idiots do really stupid things to the people who hurt them, but that doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It just means you're hurting right now. And the fact that you didn’t kill them when I’m pretty sure Yami would have let you do it back before you brought them in means you’re a good person! So...just shut up and mourn your family now that you’ve got a bit more closure to the whole thing! Because I’m not letting you go until you do. And if you don’t, I’m going to drown you for putting your face in my breasts!”

“B-But you’re the one who put it here!” Asta’s muffled voice cried out from Noelle’s chest.

Cadance made her way through the system of tunnels, still impressed about the fact that something like this even existed so close to Canterlot without anypony knowing about it. From the looks of things, they were part of a large mine that ran throughout the mountain that Canterlot was attached to. Although the old entrances had long been sealed off, Sunset’s instructions had her enter the place from over a mile away from the Canterhorn, where an old drainage tunnel had been used to let water and other waste remained open and forgotten.

Had Sunset found out about the tunnels and hidden in them all this time, or were they a recent discovery that she was just using them to meet with Cadance? The pink princess didn’t know the answer, but she added it to the very long list of questions her big sister was going to answer once they found each other.

A green light up ahead, just around the next turn caught the Princess’s attention, and she galloped towards it. “Sunset?” Cadance called out. “Are you there?”

“Did you come alone?” a voice asked.

Cadance almost recognized it. It had been years since she had last heard the amber unicorn speak, so she supposed that her memory might have faded in that time. So, she put the oddity out of her mind. “Yes,” the pink princess promised her. “I left through my window so that the guards Celestia has watching my house didn’t see.”

A few seconds later, Sunset stepped out from the corner, the green light of her horn illuminating the darkness, and a saddlebag covering her cutie mark.

Was her magic always that color? Cadance asked herself. For some reason, the princess remembered it being a light blue.

But, such things were quickly forgotten. Sunset looked just like Cadance remembered. Albeit a little smaller, but then...that was what happened when one pony was a unicorn and the other was an alicorn that outgrew the normal height of their race without any help from cosmetic potions some ponies used to make themselves look more like Celestia.

Cadance galloped towards the shorter mare. “Oh Sunset, it is you!” she said before rearing up to wrap her forelegs around the unicorn and hug her as tightly as she could. “I thought...I never dreamed...I…” Unable to form a complete thought, Cadance just hugged her big sister as tightly as she could.

“Oh my! You really do love me, don’t you?” Sunset asked in the voice that still sounded slightly off.

The admission got a small giggle from Cadance before she felt her legs tremble. Vision blurred and the feeling of lightheadedness quickly followed as the world started to spin. “W-What? Of course I love you, silly,” she said before taking a step back and blinked at what she was seeing.

A pink mass of mana was flowing off Cadance’s body and into Sunset’s mouth as the unicorn’s horn lit up even brighter. “Sunset?” Cadance asked as it became harder to think. “What’s...going...on?”

Her legs gave out, and Cadance looked up to the unicorn as something became far too clear to her. “You...you’re not...Sunset,” she struggled to say.

The feeling of being drained ended, and the fake unicorn took a step back. “No,” she said. “But if I had known you have this much love for Celestia’s little trained killer, I would have taken her form much sooner.”

Cadance tried to for herself back up onto her hooves, but her muscles gave out and she hit the ground after only a few seconds. “Taken...her form?” she asked in confusion while looking up at the not-Sunset.

The unicorn in front of her was consumed in a swath of green fire to be replaced by something that just looked plain wrong. It had four legs, like a pony, but there were holes in them and a complete lack of hair aside from its sickly green mane and tail. The creature’s horn was jagged and twisted, while the wings it possessed looked more like they belonged on an insect than a pony, and were attached to a green carapace on the monster’s back.

“What...are you?” Cadance asked with some difficulty.

After giving her a considering look, the creature rolled its eyes. “You know, I really do wonder how you creatures can run your country when half of you know nothing about its history,” the monster replied with a voice that sounded even less natural than before as it lifted one of its evil hooves to place it on her chest. “I am Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings.”

Cadance struggled to breathe in some air as she looked up at the monster. “The...what?”

“...you haven’t heard of us, seriously?” she asked before blinking. “I mean, I can forgive you for not recognizing me on sight, I suppose. But, you’ve never heard of Equestria’s greatest enemy? The hidden threat that is constantly on the verge of draining every last ounce of love from Equestria and destroying you all? Aren’t you supposed to be one of the ponies in charge of this stupid country?”

The question made Cadance groan. “Have you met Celestia? Nopony else is allowed to make a single decision with her around. Even after she came back, Luna is still treated little better than an ignorant savage that doesn’t have a bit of real authority.”

Chrysalis tapped her chin with a hoof. “True, she is a rather obsessive micro-manager.”

“Now,” Cadance said as she finally made it back onto her hooves with a great deal of effort. Her legs were shaking, but she managed to stand up. “Tell me where Sunset is, or you’ll regret it!”

Despite the threat, Chrysalis looked more confused than anything else. “Huh? Didn’t you hear? She fled Canterlot through a magical mirror that is supposed to lead to another world,” she told the Princess. “If not for that, I would have replaced her a long time ago and stabbed Celestia in the back once she let me get close. But, she never really loved her trained killer so...it wasn’t really an option.”

Cadance fought to keep on her hooves at the news. “Celestia may have a hard time expressing her emotions, but I know she feels for that pony.”

“Not according to her last entry,” Chrysalis said before the green glow of her horn opened her saddlebags and levitated a book out of them.

The sight of the cover made Cadance nearly collapse again. “That...that’s Celestia’s journal! It’s been missing for years,” she said before needing to fight for breath as something became clear. Celestia was quite vehement in the claim that the book was lost, but... “You...you stole it!”

“Well duh,” Chrysalis said before opening the book to a place that was somewhere three-quarters of the way through the book before clearing her throat. “Ahem! Dear Princess Celestia, bla bla bla...ah, here is it! I met some creatures that treated me like actual family. Which, I now see you aren’t and never were. I guess that was my bad, the stupid delusions of a filly who never got to know what a family was before I met you. So, I guess I can let you off the hook for never really loving me too.” Then the bug-horse shut the book and turned it so that Celestia’s cutie mark was showing. “So, like I said, waste of time to impersonate Sunset, because Celestia didn’t love her.”

Cadance stood mute for several seconds.

After Sunset had disappeared, Cadance had gotten the big pony to let her see the book once she had left her third and final message to the mare. Although it was quite rude, Cadance had spent a good deal of time reading the previous passages, hoping they would make her a little closer to her big sister. While she hadn’t memorized everything Sunset had written, the pink princess was very certain that passage was nowhere in the journal.

So, the changeling was either lying, or…

“Let me see that book,” Cadance demanded.

Chrysalis floated the journal over to her. “You mean...this book?”

“Yes!” the pink princess said through gritted teeth.

“...no,” Chrysalis replied before the book suddenly burst into green colored flames.

Cadance screamed and leapt at her to try and grab the thing, but her legs were far too weak and even with a flap from her wings, she was far too slow to do anything before Chrysalis hit her with a magic blast in the chest that forced the breath from her lungs. The air knocked out of her, she couldn’t do anything as Chrysalis dragged the mare with her green magic deeper into the mine to throw her down another shaft.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go enslave your husband, soak up all the love the party goers send your way at the ceremony, then conquer Canterlot,” she told the mare that couldn’t even move. “I’d finish you off, but...seeing as how having that much love being drained will keep your magic from working for a few days, starvation will do that for me.”

As Chrysalis left the tunnel that Cadance had been thrown down, she turned around a second later and blasted the entrance, collapsing it and leaving the pink princess trapped.

“This day is going to be perfect,” the voice of the bug-queen echoed through the rock from all around as Cadance tried to light up her horn, only for it to fizzle out, leaving her trapped in darkness.

Page 14: Banquet

Noelle finished putting on her clothes for the day and stepped out into the hallway, blinking when her mana sense found Sunset still in her room. Because of her newfound interest in astronomy, Sunset usually got up in the predawn hours to take a look through her telescope from her room, which had somehow gotten a rather large balcony of its own a few days ago for no explanation. Which meant she almost always beat Noelle out the door and down to the hall for breakfast.

“Sunny?” Noelle called out. “Is everything okay in there?”

Inviting herself in, Noelle opened the door and looked around cautiously, only to find her worries were rather unfounded when she saw Sunset sitting at her desk, looking at an odd stone with a rune in the center that she held in between a thumb and finger. “What’s that?”

Sunset let out a startled yelp as her whole body jerked, the item in her hand being tossed into the air before she quickly snatched it. “Oh! Noelle, I um…” she looked at the gem in her hand, then back to the girl with silver hair before letting out a long sigh that made the tension just slip out of her. After that, she went back to looking at the gem as she turned her chair to face the royal. “I’m just examining this thing. It’s a...magic item of some type, or maybe some kind of power source for one. I’ve been meaning to take a look at it for awhile but...”

When Sunset didn’t answer, looking around the room instead, Noelle crossed her arms. “But what?”

“Well...helping you was just more important to me, that’s all,” Sunset said with a shrug. “Then I put it out of my mind for a few days.”

The admission made Noelle blush. It was odd to have people that cared about her again. Grandmother had, but she hadn’t lived long past Noelle’s ninth birthday. After that...there hadn’t really been anyone. When it came to her siblings, they ranged from cruel to indifferent about her plight.

“So...what’s it do?”

Sunset looked back up to the young woman and raised an eyebrow. “No idea. That’s why I’m examining it,” she said before the gem began floating in her magical power. “And now, since I don’t have to worry about you guys finding out my magic is different, I can do a full diagnostic spell to see…”

The glow around the stone intensified. Noelle caught sight of a multicolored light inside the gem, followed by an odd illumination at the very center of the gem that looked black in color, somehow, surrounded by a red tinge. The two lights collided and…

Noelle stumbled backwards and closed her eyes as a loud pop echoed in her ears. When she looked back, Sunset was laying on the floor, her chair having been knocked onto its back with her in it. The girl’s usually gorgeous red hair completely sticking straight out and around her head in all directions. “SUNNY!”

Sunset groaned. She rolled onto her side and felt around before finding the magical gem and standing up while holding it in her hand. “Ugh! Okay, that wasn’t pleasant,” she groaned before looking down at the gem.

“What happened? What did you do?” Noelle demanded before looking down at what was obviously a faulty magical item. Had she picked it up from that stupid black market? Noelle had told Vanessa those magic items were dangerous without the proper safety inspections done to make sure they didn’t blow up in someone’s face!

After stumbling around a little bit and getting her footing, Sunset put the gem down and rubbed her head. “A complete...no, you really wouldn’t get that explanation,” the alien told her before floating her chair back up and sitting down. “It was...basically, the magic inside of me and the magic inside of the stone really don’t like each other.”

Noelle gave her a quick inspection and had the redhead count how many fingers she was holding up. “Are you feeling okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine...long as you don’t tell Secre,” Sunset added as an afterthought. “Oh, and can you make some water so I can maybe get by hair combed down?”

Giving the gem Sunset had set on her desk a cautious look, Noelle led the girl back out onto her balcony to begin generating the liquid between her hands. “Just uh...don’t mess with that thing anymore, okay?”

Like had become her new normal come breakfast, Sunset found herself surrounded by meat. Charmy didn’t seem to understand the concept that the first meal of the day needed to be a light one as not to bog someone down. So, she served up everything from cow to pig, with a bit of vegetables on the side, as well as a bit of fruit.

However, the thing that surprised Sunset was what one of the cotton sheep golems put in front of her. “What do you think?” the impossibly short human asked as her magical automaton gave Sunset a bowl of grains with milk and several berries on top, stuck in the whipped cream. “I really should go to town and pick up some better quality oats, but all the extras are where the flavor is going to come from.”

Sunset poked at the blueberries that had probably been grown in the wild. “Uh...well, I’m not really a cook, and my taste buds are completely different now, but...maybe something with bits of apple?”

“Good idea!” Charmy agreed before reaching into a pocket inside the apron she had on and pulling out a little notepad. “I didn’t know how much you still enjoyed equine things so...yeah. Maybe some brown sugar for a bit of extra flavor. Not as much cream next time.”

The lengths Charmy was going to make her feel more comfortable made Sunset blush. While she had been used to better for a long time, after living at the orphanage for so long, she learned to make do with so much less. “This is fine, Charmy.”

“NO!” the impossibly short mage declared as she leaped up on the table. “A person’s meal must fit them perfectly, and after all the meat you’ve had to endure despite being a horse-”

“Pony,” Sunset corrected her.

“Pony,” Charmy went on. “I will cook a meal to make all of my previous transgressions void!”

With the little mage making such a declaration, Sunset held up her hands to try and stop the girl from going on. “Come on, that’s not...I like meat just fine now. See?” she asked while taking a bit of the bacon that was up for grabs. “And we always ate eggs.”

Before Sunset could think of something else to try and calm Charmy down, Gauche came up behind her. “Hey, unicorn. I need more stories about that place you come from,” he told her before holding up the little picture of his sister. “My little goddess demands to know everything there is to know about all you ponies.”

“I already told you like, twenty stories about Equestria,” Sunset said to the guy who liked his sister way too much in her option.

After looking at the picture of his little sister for a moment and getting a nosebleed for some reason Sunset still didn’t understand despite running a medical diagnostic spell over him when it happened earlier, the man turned his attention back to her. “That’s only twenty, I’m going to need four-hundred and eighty more.”

Sunset’s eye twitched. “I don’t have four-hundred stories!”

A second later, Gauche was shoved to the side by Vanessa, who sat down next to Sunset. “Lay off my little sister,” she said before reaching over with a bare arm and hugging the smaller human to her nearly nude body to kiss Sunset on the head. “Everything okay this morning, Kitten? I heard something odd coming from your room after I woke up.”

“Everything’s fine,” Sunset assured her while Vanessa loaded the plate in front of her that sat next to a full bottle of wine.

When the close contact ended, Sunset felt an odd loss. Although she would rather die before admitting it out loud, the former pony liked it when Vanessa held her close. Despite the infantile nature of the thought, sometimes she just wanted the older human to hold her and never let go.

Asta walked into the room with Secre on his head, his body showing obvious signs of perspiration from whatever he had been doing outside. “Hey guys, what’s to eat today?” he asked in anticipation, making Charmy act like a showroom floor girl as she presented various plates with ham, chicken, burgers, some kind of pasta covered in cheese, and a dozen other side dishes.

Then there was a loud crash as Yami kicked one of the side doors apart before walking into the room. The attention getting action made Charmy look up and wave. “Hey Captain Yami!”

“Alright, gimme some food, and then it’s back to...oh wait, almost forgot,” he said before sitting down at the head of the table. “I got a letter last night from HQ. After that little ruckus the other day, they want a full report about what happened in the dungeon and any information we can give them about the attack on the hideout. So, everyone involved that doesn’t have work today will go and talk the the guys in charge in person.”

Luck jumped up excitedly. “Headquarters?” he asked while lighting crackled around his hands. “Oh boy! That’s in the noble realm! I bet there will be tons of people for me to pick fights with.”

“Which is why you and Magna have a mission to go on,” Yami told him. “There’s supposed to be a group of bandits hiding out near the border with Heart. Go find them and bring them in alive.”

Instead of becoming depressed at the news, Luck seemed to get even more excited. “A combat mission? Alright!” he said before leaping over the table in a flash. “Come on Magna, let’s hurry up and get ready!”

The enthusiasm seemed to put Magna on edge. “Are you sure your brain is working right?”

“You’re wanting us all to go to the noble section of the capital?” Asta asked in excitement. “THIS WILL BE SO COOL!”

As her baby brother geeked out over what was probably nothing, Sunset leaned back a little while she mentally constructed their party for the journey. “So, then it’s going to be me, Noelle, Asta and…”

Charmy raised her hand. “I can accompany them, Captain!” she offered. “I bet the noble realm has all kinds of yummy food to-”

“No,” Yami told her before she could finish, making Charmy stutter while he kept talking. “All you’ll do is try and eat everything in sight, you little glutton. Causing a famine is the kind of heat I don’t need.”

“WHAT?” Charmy cried. Literally cried before she jumped off the table and began to run out of the room, turning the corner until she was out of sight. “You’re so mean, Captain Yami!”

Secre cleared her throat. “If you need someone to chaperone and guide these idiots, I’ve been there plenty of-”

“HOLY CRAP! IT’S A TALKING BIRD!” Yami exclaimed, making the cigarette he was smoking fall onto the floor as he jumped to his feet.

The entire room went silent for a moment before Secre actually ruffled her feathers. “How do you not know about me? I’ve been talking to everyone for over a week!”

Yami snorted. “Feh, you expect me to notice every little detail that goes on in this place? I just saw someone installed a pool two days ago.”

The feathers on Secre’s body ruffled for a second, again. “YES! That’s the whole point of you being a squad captain!”

“Well Captain, I can’t go,” Gauche told him. “I’ll be busy writing my daily letter to Marie.”

With the more normal...or relatively normal statement, Yami focused and looked back at the man with only one eye showing on his face. “Wasn’t going to tell you to go anyway.”

Before the conversation could continue, Sunset held up a hand. “Hold on a second,” she said. “If they want everyone involved in both incidents, wouldn’t that mean they want to talk to you too, Captain?”

Yami froze in the middle of taking another cigarette out of the pack he carried around everywhere. “Ah damnit,” he mumbled. “I was hoping to get some extra sleep in, not go to the snootiest place in the kingdom.” After giving the redhead a glare, the man let out a groan. “Well, I suppose things could be worse.”

A hard glace got the people in their fancy clothes to get the hell out of her way as Mereoleona walked up the inclining streets of the Clover capital’s noble realm. As usual when Mereoleona came home, she was in a bad mood. She absolutely detested the nobles and made sure they knew it at a glance while her specific shade of red hair made sure they knew who she was at a look as well.

Despite being the most powerful magic users in the kingdom, most of the figurative bastards, although there were some actual ones thrown in as well, sat on their fat asses instead of doing something really useful; like actually developing their magical potential. Sure, they oversaw the commerce and that kind of crap, but anyone could sign papers and draw up plans for a new business. It was such a disgusting waste!

But, getting pissed at lazy people wasn’t why she had come back to the Clover Kingdom’s central city. With today being one of the few days a year when individual stars were tallied and promotions handed out based on the performance of each knight, Mereoleona had come to check on how those three cubs she met on her way to Hage were doing.

She walked into the stone courtyard of the tiny keep that was the base for the Crimson Lions and frowned at the lack of men or women anywhere in sight. While promotion day was usually a period of rest for the squad, there should have been a few knights around as a kind of ceremonial guard. Nobody was suicidal enough to actually attack the capital, much less a fortified position that held an entire squad of magic knights, but there was the principal of the thing. She had thought Fuegoleon got all that pompous ass kind of stuff.

“Looks like little brother’s getting lazy. I’m going to have to whip him back into shape,” Mereoleona told herself before she matched up to the large double doors of the miniature castle and promptly kicked them open. “HEY! SOMEBODY GET MY LOUSY BROTHER...down...here?”

The entrance hall to the base was completely empty. On top of which, the candelabras weren’t lit, and… Are those SPIDERWEBS? Mereleona asked herself as she examined one of the standing candle holders that was next to the door. A quick inspection of the rest of the room confirmed that not only was the room and its adjoining ones empty, they had been for several days.

What the hell is going on? Mereleona asked herself before she focused on her mana sense to better examine the area and blinked when she did detect a small cluster of people up in the barracks.

Needing answers, the woman rushed upstairs and down the hall to one of the few private rooms provided to the Crimson Lions and knocked the door open to walk inside. There, she saw her baby brother holding up a red cape and without a shirt on as he was talking to a pair of Lions that she didn’t recognize.

“Hey, do you guys think I should go with this for the promotion ceremony or-” Leopold said before he saw his big sister and froze after turning to face her fully. “Oh crap! S-Sis! What’re you doing here?”

“AHHH! It’s the demon!” a man with short hair and a good build screamed.

A spatial portal quickly opened up. “Quick sir!” the second man shouted. “Back to the encampment!”

As the two mages fled through the portal in front of her baby brother, Mereoleona reached out to grab Leo’s long braid before he could escape and drag him away from the portal. It sealed itself a second later, leaving the two of them alone in the dusty room. “Leo,” Mereleona said before she took in a deep breath and pulled the kid closer to make sure that he could hear her. “WHERE THE HELL IS EVERYONE?”

Leopold cringed at the simple question and gave a nervous laugh. “Um, well...uh, you see, Sis…” the boy gulped and looked at the window, then at the hand that was still holding onto his braid before turning his attention back to his patient and understanding sister, who really should have beat the crap out of him for taking so long to answer a simple question. “Brother decided to create a forward operating base for the Crimson Lions to work out of for awhile, so he moved all of us to the northernmost point of the Common Realm to better respond to missions while leaving the southern half of the kingdom for the Silver Eagles to take care of.”

The explanation made Mereoleona blink in surprise. “That...that’s brilliant!” she said before slapping her baby brother on the back as everything fell into place. A base outside of the capital, which would have been more like a camp than an actual building, exposed to the elements, living in concert with the land. Now it made sense why Fuegoleon hadn’t wanted her finding out about it. If I had known I could have just moved the base out of the capital, I would have signed off on being captain of the damn squad! “Glad to see Little Brother’s finally picked up a brain!”

“R-Right,” Leo said as he got off of the ground while Mereoleona laughed in joy at the squad being taken in the right direction. “Well uh, I’ve been working so much, me and those guys who...ran off, got enough stars that the Wizard King is giving us a promotion. So uh, we had to come back to the old barracks to pick up some clean clothes and-”

Mereoleona gave her baby brother a congratulatory slap across the back. “That’s great!” she told him before remembering the real reason why she had come back to the capital. “So, how are those three cubs I sent you working out? I know Asta’s probably got some issues, but that Yuno boy looked very promising and Sunset’s got some crazy skills, am I right?”

For some reason, the expression on Leo’s face became one of absolute terror. “Right...those three...uh…” he said before grabbing onto his clothes and running for the window. “I’d really like to tell you, but I’m gonna be late for the ceremony!”

“Huh?” Mereoleona asked as the boy put his bundled clothes up in front of him before smashing through the window and falling down the courtyard below, then running as fast as he could when he landed, crimson mana surrounding his legs. “...did I miss something?”

The stupid way they had built the path up to the palace where the Wizard King lived hadn’t changed a damn bit from the last time that Yami had been forced to come up to the palace without a broom. Stupid royals making everyone walk up their damn hill of a road to get to their overblown houses, he thought before looking over at the people traveling with him.

Of course, after they had finished giving their report to Headquarters, Yami couldn’t just go back home to drop off breakfast and head to bed. Julius had left him a message to come to the Wizard King’s palace with all his minions in tow. Which quickly became its own little pain in the ass.

Asta was looking at everything with a twinkle in his eye, like some kid who had too much sugar one day and couldn’t stop moving for five seconds. Noelle didn’t seem too impressed, which was expected since she had lived in same neighborhood until recently. As for their resident alien, she was...about even with Noelle. Something would catch her attention from time to time, but nothing really held it for more than a few seconds.

In contrast, Yami had to drag Asta away from a house or expensive shop about every other block. He was actually so busy making sure the brat didn’t get too distracted by anything shiny that he missed seeing the three people in front of him until they were just a few feet away. Even Asta noticed them before he did.

“Hey, it’s Sir Four Eyes and Yuno,” the boy called out as he ignored the most important member of the trio, what with her having the biggest boobs and all, before running up to them. “What’re you guys doing here?”

Four Eyes pressed up on his glasses. “Hello, Asta. You’re looking well,” he said before looking up to Yami and giving a bow of the head. Which was pretty considerate, what with how big a stick most nobles had up their asses. “Captain Yami, Sir. Noelle, and...ah, how are you finding your visit to the Noble Realm in the daylight, Ms Shimmer?”

The question got an uneasy shrug from the redhead. “Eh, reminds me a bit too much of home.”

“Oh my,” Big Boobs said in an apologetic tone. “I’m sorry. You must miss it terribly.”

Sunset got a little less dower. “Not really. I ran away, remember?” she told the girl before getting a bit awkward. “But uh...thanks for worrying about me, Mimosa.”

“Yuno,” Asta greeted the other kid.

“Asta,” Yuno, who Yami couldn’t really think to give a proper name to, replied. “What’re you doing here?”

The runt stood up a little taller, which didn’t do all that much since Yuno was not only taller, but standing further along the road to the castle than he was. “The Wizard King sent word for us to attend some ceremony.”

With the word ceremony ringing in his ears, Yami took a drag on a cigarette. “Is that thing today?” he asked before looking back to the knights that had come with him. Crap, was there something about a promotion for one of them in the letter Julius sent?

He tried to think back to when he was reading it the other night before going to bed. Yami remembered going to the can, reading through the thing and...running out of toilet paper. Hmmm, maybe I should have read the whole thing before putting it to better use, the man told himself.

Although, if someone was to blame for this whole mess, it was obviously Finral. As the spatial magic mage of the Black Bulls, it was his job to make sure everything was properly stocked. So...he’d have to punish the little twerp properly when they got back to the hideout.

Four Eyes just stared at him for a moment. “You’re not here for the promotion ceremony?”

Yami let out a loud yawn, and blinked when an odd ki suddenly appeared before some kind of little...thing popped its head out from the hood of Yuno’s robe and yawned. “What the hell is that? You into playing with dolls, pretty boy?”

After stretching, the creature seemed to register the words and frowned. “WHO YOU CALLING A DOLL?” the flying doll yelled before she flew up to Yami’s face. Then, before Yami could just blow some smoke in the little thing’s face to put her in her place, the little thing zipped over to the redhead. “Sunset! Tell Yuno to stop ignoring me!”

“...huh?” the redhead asked before she looked over to the taller teenager. “What’s she talking about, Yuno?”

Yuno blinked at the question. “No idea.”

The little pixie flew up and stood on the boy’s shoulder before pulling on his ear. “Don’t you pretend that you don’t know what’s going on!” she said before looking over to Sunset. “He won’t talk to me at all!”

“You know, you should probably treat her a little better, Yuno,” Sunset told him. “We’d probably all be dead without her, you know.”

“HA!” the little thing shouted in victory. “See? Listen to your big sister, Yuno!”

Then Sunset blinked and looked over to the fairy. “Although, if that’s how you are in private Sylph...maybe...tone it down?”

Sylph froze and let go of the boy’s ear. “But...okay,” she said before sitting down on Yuno’s shoulder in a pout. “Spoil all my fun.”

So that’s the legendary Wind Spirit, huh? Yami asked himself. Kind of terrifying that she’s just a snotty little brat.

With that little pain in the ass out of the way, Yami continued walking. “Alright you three, come on and let’s get this over with,” he said before moving on, with the members of the Golden Dawn going in the same direction shortly thereafter.

Although, when they got to the front gate, there was a surprise waiting on the newbies. Even Four eyes looked a bit shocked to see the Wizard King just standing there. Almost immediately, all of the kids and the guy with the stick up his butt got down on one knee. Yami just raised his hand. “Julius...yo,” he said.

“What are you…” Four Eyes said before he noticed Sunset had also declined to take a knee. “Ah, Madam Shimmer. Perhaps you are not aware, but it is the custom of our people to bend down like this in the presence of royalty and important officials.”

The redhead straightened out her little green dress/tunic thing and held out a hand that a scroll just popped into, like a reverse teleport spell. “Uh, yeah...about that,” she said before unrolling the Scroll of 101 Rules.

Sylph floated up into the air. “Article five, subsection C clearly states that outsides are not required to uphold the social norms of the country they settle in. That includes bowing, or the adding of any titles to the humans in question,” she explained. “Although...she could, if she wanted to.”

“In other words,” Noelle deadpanned, “you’re just being rude.”

Letting out a mock gasp, Sunset took a step back. “Oh! You’re so right, Your Highness,” she said before getting on her knees and lowering her head to the ground. “Please forgive me, Princess Noelle!”

“DON’T BOW TO ME!” the little royal shouted at Sunset after jumping to her feet. With her face a bright red, Noelle started to shuffle around in her sandals. “Seriously...stop it.”

Sunset looked up at her. “Why? Aren’t you royalty?” she asked before situating herself comfortably on her knees. “In all seriousness, you’re about the only royal I’ve ever met that I actually...might consider doing this for.” Then the girl looked over at Big Boobs. “Well, you and Mimosa...maybe.”

The color of Noelle’s face turned pure crimson. “You can’t be serious!” the little Silva said. “I...I’m like, thirtieth in line for the throne! And that’s even if House Kira gets completely wiped out and Vermillion doesn’t want to take over.”

“So…” Sunset looked over to Big Boobs. “Does that mean you...outrank Noelle, Mimosa?”

Big Boobs held up her hands. “Oh no!” she assured the girl. “I’m from an offshoot of the Vermillion and Silva families. Since it’s not the main branch, I’m not quite sure where we fall in the line of succession, but it’s far behind Noelle.”

Sunset picked herself up and dusted her knees off. “Eh, from what I’ve seen, you’d both be good princesses.”

While Noelle somehow managed to get even more red and looked down at her hands while tapping her fingers together, Big Boobs blinked in confusion. “Don’t you mean queens?”

“Oh, right! Queens...yeah,” Sunset said. “Sorry, in my home country, ranks only went up to Princess when it came to titles. I asked about it once and after talking to a bunch of people, I think it has to do with some kind of image marketing thing. Because you know, queens are mean while princesses sound more...approachable?”

Julius let out a little laugh. “Heh, yes. I can see how that would be a plus. Lord knows I could do with a little less bowing and scraping,” he said. “Now, as to the matter I called you all here for. We’re having a ceremony, and I thought it would be advantageous to let our first outsider in decades to see it firsthand.”

After getting to his feet, Asta jumped in front of the group. “Mr Wizard King, sir?” he asked. “Can I ask you a question real quick?”

“Oh-kay,” the man replied slowly, clearly a little put off by the boy’s sudden appearance. Probably because his magic senses never even saw Asta coming.

“What does it take to become the Wizard King?” he asked, talking so fast that he just about stumbled over his own words.

As Julius laughed at the question just a little bit, Four Eyes took a step towards Asta. “Impudent!” he shouted before taking a breath and calming down. “Listen, Asta. The Wizard King must be of noble heart and have the implicit trust of all the people in-”

“No Klaus,” the Wizard King spoke, cutting the man off, his voice sounding much more regal than it usually did. Unless he was giving a public speech or other such dumb thing. “A noble heart will get you nothing on its own, and the trust of the people must be earned. To become the Wizard King, one must get results. By showing the kingdom what you can do through your deeds is the only way to stand at the top.”

Yuno let out a little grunt. “Well...that’s a bit heartening, I suppose.”

“Now, shall we all-hm?” Julius said before looking past the two parties and down the road. “That’s odd, I thought Fuegoleon sent a letter telling me that he wouldn’t be in attendance today.”

Yami blinked and looked back at the redhead walking up the path towards the castle. He had the same uniform and hair as Mr Manly Voice, but… Oh no, Yami told himself as he recognized the fiery ki of the monster approaching them at a brisk walk. “Julius quick! Sound the alarm! THERE’S A WILD ANIMAL ON THE LOOSE!” the Black Bulls’ Captain shouted in a real panic.

Mereoleona stomped her way up to the front of the castle and blinked. “W-What the?”

Asta raised a hand and waved at the monster. “Hey Ms Mereoleona!” he said happily before running over to the woman and showing off his shoulder-covering. “Check it out, we made it onto a pair of magic knight squads.”

“W-WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN A BLACK BULL’S ROBE?” she yelled at the twerp before looking at the other redhead. “You too? I can maybe forgive the bean sprout sister-lover over there for picking the Dawn since they got more stars last year, but HOW IN THE HELL ARE YOU TWO MEMBERS OF THE BLACK BULLS?”

Yuno flinched and half-stepped behind Klaus while the fairy gave him an even look.

As he did, Sunset gave the meaner redhead a nervous grin. “Oh...right, about that. You see...we were a little late in getting to the castle town where the exam was held and so we put off delivering the letter until after the tests were over. Which...by then, we were already Magic Knights, so...”

“That…” Mereoleona paused as she looked down at her hands and flexed her fingers as if she was practicing to strangle someone. “That cowardly little bastard! No wonder he ran away! When I get my hands on Leo-”

Julius stepped forward. “Oh, you want to see your youngest brother?” he asked with a disarming smile. “Well you’re in luck, he’s actually the highest earner in today’s ceremony. We’re having a party afterwards, you can speak to him then if you’d like.”

Sunset looked back and forth as she walked down a red carpet with the rest of the combined group, the Wizard King leading them from a respectable distance away. Although the hallway they were in would have been moderately spacious if it was just them, the fact that they were being flanked on both sides by a line of mages that extended the entire corridor made things a bit tight.

“Who are these guys?” she mumbled as she looked at the men in their dark blue robes with yellow lining and raised hoods over their heads. “I thought Diamond were the ones with all the faceless minions.”

Yami snorted. “You don’t think the Magic Knights are the only defense of an entire kingdom, do you?” he asked. “These are just basic soldiers, guys who failed the exam or never had the balls to take it in the first place. They catch purse snatchers and all the other riffraff there just aren’t enough knights to bother with.”

“So...they’re more of a civic guard than actual military,” Sunset clarified.

The Wizard King opened the door and Sunset blinked as she found a good gathering of mages already in the room. She recognized two of them as captains, as well as their two assistants from the exam. There was also the redhead kid that had been with Fuegoleon, although that captain wasn’t to be found amongst the gathering of knights. Three men were wearing uniforms like Klaus, marking them as Golden Dawn, while there was also a third Silver Eagle among the group. They were all standing in two rows, flaking the entrance, while that Marx guy was standing much further back in the room.

As for the room itself, it was covered in dull red carpet and well lit thanks to a good deal of windows at the back. There was also a raised area with a table covered in a white tablecloth and a brighter red covering in the center, while a display showing off the female saint of the church in various statues of gold and silver were set up.

As Yami took them over to the back corner, moving the Dawn group and his own knights out of the doorway, Sunset heard a terrified scream coming from the redheaded that was getting promoted as Mereoleona walked into the room. “S-Sis, what’re you doing here?”

“What do you think I’m doing here, you idiot?” she demanded. “I’M GOING TO POUND THE CRAP OUT OF YOU AND MY STUPID YOUNGER BROTHER FOR NOT GETTING HIS HANDS ON THESE THREE FOR THE CRIMSON LIONS!”

Leopold, quickly ducked behind the tall man Sunset remembered was Noelle’s oldest brother. “Nozel, if you save me, you can hold it over Fuegoleon for the rest of his life!”

After looking back at the boy for a moment, Nozel stepped aside. “Tempting. But...I don’t want to die.”

Leo let out a scream when his protection walked away. “Come on Sis, let me make this up to you!”

Mereoleona growled before she marched over to grab her younger brother and drag him along. “You want to make this right?” she asked as she walked over to Sunset and held Leo up in front of her. “This is my slightly less useless brother. He’s stupid and cowardly, but he’ll make a good husband. Marry him.”

Silence filled the room for several seconds before most of the occupants, Sunset included, mouthed their confusion as one. “What?”

“Uh...Sis...isn’t this like...your daughter?” Leo asked as the woman held him up by the scruff of his neck.

The woman from the Silver Eagles next to Nozel let out a groan. “See, this is why rumors about royal incest keep cropping up!”

Mereoleona gave her baby brother an unamused frown. “What the hell are you idiots talking about?”

“Oh yeah!” Yami said with a laugh. “You don’t know...hehehe...okay so, you’re gonna love this! Just sit right back and I’ll tell you a tale, The Legend of Babygoleon!”

-The Legend of Babygoleon-

Once upon a time, there was this wild animal of a woman, Sisgoleon. She was a real monster in every way, but she really looked up to this one woman who had a lot of kids. So, Sisgoleon decided to have a kid of her own and she went to the local tavern to find a man.

Sisgoleon knocked down the door and went inside the tavern before going, “If anyone is tough enough, I’ll let them make a baby with me!”

But, Sisgoleon was too strong for everyone in the tavern. So she went to the next watering hole, and the next, until she had checked out every single drinking establishment in the capital, knocking out all the guys and a few of the girls. But, she just couldn’t find a man to make a baby with, so she went, “FUCK IT! I’ll just do it all by myself!”

Then, seven months later, when Sisgoleon was in a heavy mana zone of Flower Fruit Mountain, she started to feel a kick inside of her. So, she decided to discipline the child. “STUPID BRAT! HOW DARE YOU KICK YOUR MOTHER!” Sisgoleon yelled before she punched herself in the stomach so hard she knocked Babygoleon right out of her. Then, Sisgoleon looked up at the sun and went, “huh, Sunset is as good a name as any, I guess.”

But Babygoleon got right back up and pointed at her mother, going, “Hey you bitch, I still got two months of free rent in there!”

“You shut your mouth you ungrateful brat!” Sisgoleon yelled back at Babygoleon. “I’ll teach you not to talk to your mother like that!”

So, Sisgoleon and Babygoleon fought for three days and nights. But in the end, Sisgoleon came out on top. As she stood over the defeated Babygoleon she pointed down at the child and went, “You’re such an embarrassment, I can’t even be seen in public with you! Stay out here until you get stronger!”

So, Sisgoleon left Babygoleon on Flower Fruit Mountain, where she beat up all the lions, tigers, and bears until they made her the queen a month later. Then, she went around the world, beating the crap out of everything she could find until she met up with some other kids that gave her the idea of becoming a magic knight. So, the three of them headed off to the Magic Knight Exam, where Babygoleon was forced onto a cool and tough squad boss because everyone else was afraid of her.

The End.

-Present Day-

Silence filled the room as the captain of the Black Bulls finished his tale. Mereoleona simply stood there, actually dropping Leo as she just became more dumbfounded by the second.

“Yami,” the female squad captain that was attending the ceremony, Charlotte Roselei said. “Please, for the love of God, don’t tell me you actually believe that. I am seriously begging you to tell me that you don’t actually believe that!”

Nozel snorted. “Stupid foreigner. It’s obvious that Mereoleona found a commoner somewhere and conceived a child with him,” he said. “Then, she went to the Flower Fruit Mountain mana zone to have the child early, fought with her, and left the baby there to be raised in the wild by animals.” Standing next to the man, both of his siblings nodded in agreement.

After several more seconds of silence, Sunset leaned over to her best friend. “Noelle, no offense...but I think your brother is crazy.”

“You have to admit, it sounds a lot more plausible than your actual origin story,” Noelle told her.

Finally, Mereoleona snapped out of her daze. “THIS ISN’T MY KID YOU MORONS!” she yelled at the assembled knights, getting confused looks from everyone present. Even Charlotte took the news with a bit of shock on her face. “How in the fucking world can ANY OF YOU POSSIBLY THINK THAT I AM RELATED TO HER? We don’t look alike, we don’t sound alike, t-that isn’t even the Vermillion shade of red on her head! I met her, okay, we did meet on a mountain, but the rest of that load of crap is a pile of horseshit!”

A few people over from Sunset, Mimosa took one of her locks in her hand to look at for a moment, then sighed.

Nozel blinked, but the rest of his face remained frozen. “Then, how can you explain the fact that her magic contains several spells that have the distinct flare of House Vermillion?”

“The hell are you talking about? She’s a water magic user!” Mereoleona yelled at the man with the silver braid hanging down his forehead.

Feeling that she had been caught, Sunset gave a nervous giggle. “Um...actually, that’s not...entirely accurate,” she told the other redheaded female in the room. “You see, uh…” As all the attention in the room turned to her, Sunset began to feel more uncomfortable.

“Ah, allow me to explain,” the Wizard King spoke up. “Lady Sunset here is an outsider, recognized by my office and parliament as a guest of the Clover Kingdom. Her magic is adaptable, enabling her to wield several elements and more exotic forms of magic. I’ve invited her here today, along with her friends, to see some of the best and brightest of our kingdom in the hopes that it will encourage her to continue supporting our land.”

A second later, Noelle’s biggest brother looked over to Sunset with a look that seemed a bit too interested to her. “What realm are you from?” he asked evenly, getting surprised looks from all three of his siblings at the question.

Sunset blinked. “Uh...it’s not one of the big ones. I’m from a land called Equestria. It’s...well…” Not knowing how much the man knew, she didn’t know where to start with her explanation.

Sylph sighed and floated up into the air to fly in front of her. “It’s not a core realm. More of a mix between the Celestial and Spirit Realms. With a tiny bit of Mortal thrown in.”

If anything, Nozel’s interest only seemed to grow at hearing the first word. “Are you saying that she’s part angel?” he asked. Which in turn got the attention of everyone else in the room.

“Well, what you guys call angels,” the Wind Spirit said before looking back at Sunset for a few seconds. “It’s say...something around forty to fifty percent celestial.”

Sunset crossed her arms. “It’s rude to talk about someone when they’re in the room, you know.”

After Nozel turned his attention to Sunset, he gave her a bow of his head. “My apologies,” he told her, getting a surprised look from all of his siblings before he took a step back to resume his previous place.

“Okay,” Sunset asked before leaning over to Noelle. “What was all that about?”

Noelle blinked. “I have no idea. Big Brother Nozel isn’t really a church guy.”

The tall amazon standing next to the Blue Rose captain leaned towards her boss. “Kind of makes me wish we had snatched her up, huh Char?”

“...call me Captain, Sol.”

Julius clapped his hands together. “Now that we’ve got that settled,” he said loudly. “I must order you to keep this all quiet until Lady Sunset turns twenty, as her life may be put in danger before she is ready to defended herself from all of the extra attention news of her presence will undoubtedly cause. Now, we are here today to recognize and promote several exemplary knights, who have served this kingdom through acts of bravery that surpass all expectations.”

Then, he looked over to Sunset. “For your sake, I think I’ll give a brief explanation. As in any organization, there are many ranks of magic knight from me, all the way down to Junior Magic Knight, Fifth Class. What everyone starts off as. There are five classes in total, and five sub-ranks for each class. As a person accumulates stars, they rise up in the ranking system, all the way to Wizard King.”

With the explanation done, the ceremony quickly got underway, with each knight stepping up until they were all standing right in front of the raised area, while the captains with knights attending the ceremony hung back and the guests stayed to the back wall.

It was a lot more...subdued than Sunset had come to expect from formal ceremonies. Back in Equestria, Princess Celestia made big deals out of anything she could, filling the throne room to bursting with ponies that watched while she handed out medals from anything to finding a lost filly that had gone missing for one reason or another, to simply saving a cat from a tree. Hundreds of ponies would cheer and she would bask in the adulation of her subjects after the ceremony, most of the time more than the medal bearers themselves.

First up came Sol Marron, the extremely tall woman with dark skin and clothing that could have given Vanessa a run for her money in the skin department. She had earned six stars since the last ceremony and was promoted to Intermediate Magic Knight, Third Class.

Then there was Noelle’s lesser older brother, Solid Silva. He had rather narrow eyes and an odd hairstyle that created several pointy ends out of his silver hair. He had earned a total of seven stars, which was enough to push him up to Intermediate Magic Knight, Third Class as well.

After him was Noelle’s older sister Nebra, who looked a few years older than the brother who had just been up. She had earned seven stars and the title of Senior Magic Knight, Fifth Class.

Then came Hammond Cassius, a plump member of the Golden Dawn with his hair done up in little knots all around his head. A glass magic user, according to the Wizard King. Like the woman before him, he earned seven stars and was promoted to second class intermediate.

A stone faced man with blonde hair that ran down the back of his cape in a tight braid named Shiren Tium got eight stars and was bumped up to first class intermediate. While the last member of the Golden Dawn gathered at the ceremony, a man by the name of Alecdora Sandler, who had black hair that was done up in a mess of spikes pointing away from his head earned eleven stars and got to the position of Senior Magic Knight, First Class.

“And last, but certainly not least,” the Wizard King said before he looked over to the redheaded boy. “We have Leopold Vermillion of the Crimson Lions, who after earning thirteen stars, will be promoted to Intermediate Magic Knight, First Class.” After handing the boy a medal of some kind, Julius added some advice, like he had done with all the others with varying degrees of success. “Your flame magic is powerful, but...you might want to tone it down from time to time. Incidentally, I thought there were going to be two more of your compatriots here. Did something happen?”

Leo took the award. “They fled in terror of my sister, Sir.”

The Wizard King nodded. “Ah,” he said before smiling. “Well now, I don’t know whether to chastise them for running away, or congratulate those boys on withdrawing when faced with a superior foe. We loose so many young knights who think they can take on more than their ability allows simply because they gained the robe. Still, your brother’s recent efforts look to be outpacing the Golden Dawn in stars, so I can’t be too angry with him for missing this meeting.” He looked past Leo and to the others. “You need to tell William to keep on his toes if he wants to take first place again this year.”

With the ceremony apparently finished, Julius lowered his voice. “Now, I know we already had a bit of an introduction already. So, aside from the first outsider that has graced the Clover Kingdom with her presence in some time, I’ve invited a few special guests. We’ve prepared a banquet for all of you. Please, let us away to the ballroom, where everything has been set up.”

Right as he started to move, Marx let out a surprised gasp and his hands were covered in magic before he cupped one to his ear and another to his head. “Are you certain?” he asked before looking to the Wizard King. “Your pardon sir, but…” He ran up to the taller man to whisper something into his ear.

“...oh dear,” Julius mumbled before turning to the others. “Please excuse me. I’m afraid that something has come up and I must see to it myself.”

The atmosphere inside the royal banquet hall was so thick that Noelle thought she could have cut it with a knife. Although a buffet table had been set up and several round smaller ones dotted the room with its stone floor, someone had forgotten to include any chairs.

Which meant everyone was standing.

And staring.

Staring at her table, with Asta, Sunset, Yami and Noelle herself.

She just thanked God that Mereoleona had been the first to walk up to them and demand an explanation of Sunset’s abilities and why everyone thought they were related because of her magic. An explanation that was winding down, as Sunset altered the display of mana in her hand from fire, to water, then earth, and finally wind, before going back to fire.

“-the basic four are the easiest,” she said before the mana in her hand turned into a ball of light mana. “Although, something like this is one of the first things we learn how to do with our magic.”

Mereoleona looked taken aback for a moment; and she wasn’t the only one. Everyone in the room became more interested in the girl’s magical display after that. “Are you telling me that you come from an entire species of light mages?”

After ending the display, Sunset took in a deep breath and sighed. “No...and...yes,” she told them as her mouth pressed her lips together while she obviously tried to think of an actual explanation. “I don’t use magic in the same way you people do. I create approximations of the spells I pick up from your grimoires. It’s easier with the four basic elements because I already have a starting point to work with, same with light magic. Say something more exotic, like...ugh...it’s hard to really think of something for you guys to wrap your heads around properly.”

“What about stone?” Shiren Tium asked in his monotone voice.

Sunset mulled it over for a moment, then shook her head. “No, that’s just a form of earth magic. I mean something that can’t be expressed by the four elements.”

“Like time?” Mereoleona suddenly spoke up.

After another second of thought, Sunset became a little hesitant. “That’s a good example, only...I’ve already studied temporal magic back in Equestria so...I have a bit of a start point there too.”

“What about curses?”

Everyone in the room turned to look at Nozel as he gave Sunset an even look. Just having his eyes on a person so close to her made Noelle shiver a little bit.

Sunset snapped her fingers. “Yeah! That’s a good one,” she told him. “That kind of magic is so rare where I come from, most people think they’re just superstition. I’ve read up on them, of course. You know, malignant enchantments that work against the natural order of the world to cause some kind of harm that can’t be cured by healing magic or normal medicines. But, that’s like just reading about an animal as opposed to actually seeing one in the flesh. Not that I’d actually want to curse anyone. I don’t even know if I could. The idea of that kind of magic goes against everything my magic is about.”

“Interesting,” Nozel replied as he rubbed his chin.

From his place beside his sister, Leo looked back at the buffet table. “So uh...are we not going to eat or...what?”

Mereoleona groaned before grabbing her younger brother by the hair. “Idiot! Do you have any idea what that girl really means for the kingdom?” she demanded as she dragged the boy away towards the table.

Feeling a little curious, and somewhat hungry, Noelle headed after them. She wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but if Mereoleona wanted to keep talking…

“Uh...not really,” Leo told his sister as they got some plates from the table.

Mereoleona grabbed her little brother with one hand by the front of his clothes and pulled him close. “Ugh! Did Fuegoleon teach you nothing? Why do you think it is that Clover has so many strange types of magic compared to Diamond or Heart? Hell, those water pansies are still stuck using the four basic elements while we have things like chain magic and a little boy who can make pictures come to life!” she told him through gritted teeth. “It’s because we breed with outsiders. We bend over backwards to make them feel welcome and in return, they sire offspring with bits of their magical lineage. The last outsider we had in this country was something called a Time Lord about two-hundred years ago, and his descendant is now the Wizard King!”

After thinking things over a bit Leopold blanched. “Wait...were you actually serious about that whole marriage thing?”

“If she had just been some commoner, I would have dragged the two of you to the altar and tied you both to the bed because of her mana skills, but now?” Mereoleona went on. “That girl can use every element under the sun and has mana skills that will equal my own within the year, at most. And lucky you Leo, you’re just a year older than her. So, you are going to do everything you can to get her to like you and more, understand?”

Noelle cleared her throat. “Uh, Mereoleona,” she spoke up, getting the attention of the redheads. “That’s um...Sunset’s my best friend...and um…”

The reveal that Noelle was listening to their conversation didn’t have the reaction she was expecting it to. The larger woman smiled with those odd teeth of hers that looked like one of them was more of a fang than something that belonged in a human’s mouth.

Which had Noelle actually wondering if Mereoleona really wasn’t completely human either.

“Great!” the woman told her happily before patting Noelle on the shoulder. “Then you can help introduce Leopold and-hm? What’re you-”

Whatever Mereoleona was going to say got cut off by the sound of flesh striking flesh, followed by metal hitting the floor along with a splash. When Noelle turned around, she blinked at the sight that greeted her.

Solid was laying on the ground, clutching a reddened cheek while a silver goblet and spilled water lay next to him. Above him stood Nozel glaring down at the younger Silva male. “B-Brother!” the Solid exclaimed. “What was that for?”

“Did you honestly think I didn’t see what you were trying to do with that water?” Nozel asked him evenly. “Behave yourself, or do you truly know nothing of manners?”

The question had Solid stammering. “M-Manners?” he asked from his place on the floor. “She was the one listening in on her betters! That worthless piece of-urk!”

Noelle’s mouth dropped as she watched Nozel strike Solid in the gut with his foot, stopping him from talking. Did I...miss something? the royal asked herself as she felt like the world had just fallen out from underneath her and she had landed in some alternate universe. Although Nozel never took part in Solid or her sister’s bullying, he never did anything to stop it, either.

“Huh...did you actually grow up while I was gone?” Mereoleona asked.

The question got a frown from Nozel. “Do not concern yourself with affairs of my family.”

Mereoleona snorted and leaned in close. “You can feed that kind of shit to my idiot brother, but I’ll shove it right back up your ass if you try and give it to me,” she said before leaning in close to the other man. “I know what goes on inside your home, Nozel. And don’t think for one fraction of a second I’m happy about it.”

After a second, Solid picked himself up from the floor. “The Crimson Lion runaway is lecturing us?” he asked before his face became vicious. “That little monster murdered our mother!”

And there it was, out in the open. Solid hadn’t said it very loud, but…

Noelle looked over at the table Sunny was sitting at and thanked God when she saw Captain Charlotte was standing at the table rather awkwardly for some reason as she spoke with the redhead, commanding her full attention. “I don’t actually have to carry any seeds for my magic to work, but it does help to channel it through a medium like this hilt,” she explained while tapping her sword.

“A baby doesn’t kill anyone, you idiot,” Mereoleona told him simply. For some reason, Nozel became extremely tense as her words came out. “Your mother knew she was going to die and chose to give birth rather than let her child be killed just to add a few years onto her own life. And the way you treat this girl that your mother died to give that life is as good as spitting on her memory!”

Noelle had to fight to keep herself upright. What? she asked herself as she grabbed the table behind her.

It was a simple thing. Just a sentence. But…

All her life, Noelle had blamed herself for her mother’s death. Everyone did. So, with everyone yelling at her all the time that she did something, it had to be true. And yet…

Although she had never heard the details, it made sense that Mother knew that her birth would have complications. They weren’t commoners from the Forsaken Realm. They were royalty, given the finest care in the kingdom! Even if they would have had to cut Mother open to remove the baby, a mage skilled in healing would have been able to patch her right back up.

Nothing had really changed.

But…

“I...I didn’t kill her?” Noelle asked with what little breath she could muster while the world around her started to blur.

Solid snorted. “Of course you did, you little-”

“Solid,” Nozel spoke up in a cold voice that was just as hard. “Get your food and go back to our table. You will stand there for the rest of the banquet and shut, your, mouth. Or I will break it, is that understood?”

The younger brother quickly leaped to obey, gathering up food as fast as he could before hurrying back to his table to stand next to his very confused sister.

Noelle could barely form words. “T-Th-ank you...big-”

“Go and clean up your face,” Nozel told her evenly.

Despite the abruptness of the command, Noelle moved to obey, stumbling a little as she did. The sheer impossibility of what was happening made her wonder if this was all some grand illusion.

“Leo, help her get to the bathroom,” Mereoleona ordered her little brother.

As the lion cub held Noelle’s hand and gave her some support to get out of the banquet hall, Mereolona rounded on Nozel with a whispered snarl while forcing him down along the table with all the food. At the last moment, she got a plate and handed it to him. “Hurry and get your damn food. Nobody else can come until the royals have been to the table.”

The command rankled the eldest Silva, but he did as told and began to put some of the assembled meats and cheeses on his plate. As he did, Mereoleona studied him for a few seconds to get a read on the man. Something was definitely going on underneath the man’s usually stoic exterior. “Okay, so what’s going on? The way I hear it, you never had a problem with your other two siblings beating your baby sister before now.”

Nozel’s hands shook for a fraction of a second. “They never beat her. I made sure that they understood such things were forbidden.”

“Yeah right,” Mereoleona grumbled before turning her head to look at the younger Silva boy out of the corner of her eye. “After some of the things I heard about your brother, I’m surprised Noelle isn’t carrying his rape child.”

A disgruntled sound came from Nozel. and Mereoleona looked back to see the man’s arms were shaking ever so slightly. It must have been killing him that he couldn’t just shut her up with a fist to the face like his little brother. But they both knew very well who would lose such a confrontation. “You do not know of what you speak.”

Mereoleona snorted. “Yeah right. You decided to be the big man of the house after your mother died, but you never did the fucking job and put those idiots in their place like you should have.”

“Considering that they have a good reason to hate Noelle-”

“I’ve had words with Dorothy,” Mereoleona told him before he could finish the lie.

Nozel stopped as they came to the end of the table. “...I see,” he said before looking down at his plate.

When the man didn’t volunteer any information, Mereoleona frowned at him. “So, are you going to tell me what’s really going on, or do I have to beat it out of you?”

After a few seconds, Nozel picked up his plate and walked over to a corner on the side of the room, away from all the tables. Mereoleona followed at his heels until he turned around to look at her once they had increased their distance from the others. “Since the day Mother died, I have been reaching outsiders of the lower realm. The information is scarce, but all the relevant sources I found on the subject say that normal magic is ineffective in ending their lives. Only magic that comes from an outsider bloodline, like what the Novachrono family possesses, could hope to wound another outsider. But now, a pure blooded outsider from near the opposite end of the spectrum has come to Clover and attached herself to Noelle,” he told her frankly.

After that, it didn’t take much for Mereoleona to connect the dots and see what was going on. “Well...best wait for that fruit to ripen before you try to use it,” she told the man. “And from what I gathered of the redhead, once she gets attached to people, she stays that way. So you’d better start kissing your baby sister’s ass if you want to stay on her good side.”

“Okay, now can we eat?” Asta asked as he watched the last of the royals finally leave the buffet table. He thought they were going to pitch tents and camp out there, they had been standing around it so long.

Yami groaned and reached up for a cigarette that wasn’t there. “Stupid no smoking zones. Little smoke never hurt anybody,” he grumbled. “All that coughing is probably good for your lungs, keeps them strong.”

After looking around the room for a minute, Sunset sighed. “Where’d Noelle go?”

“Bathroom, probably,” Yami told her as he got to his feet. “All that walking and talking is really good for digestion.”

Sunset frowned. “She’s not you,” the girl said before standing up. “I’m going to go check on her.”

After his big sister left, Asta made his way over to the buffet before loading his plate up with as much as it could hold, then moving back to the table Yami had led them all to. He took a bite of the roasted beef and...shivered. There must have been something about the meat, because while Charmy was good, maybe even as good as Sister Lilly had been, all the stuff she made was with things that had been in storage for a few days now. Even the little mage said that having stuff down there too long took something out of the flavor.

But, after taking a few more bites, Asta noticed a change in the atmosphere of the room. Not the actual atmosphere, the metaphysical one. Or was it metaphorical? Well, lots of people’s attitudes seemed to shift.

Noelle’s family had on some unhappy looks, with the younger two giving everyone else the stink eye while the oldest was keeping his on them. The Golden Dawn guy who asked Sunset a question looked to be imitating a statue, and the fat one...he was looking pretty normal as he ate his food.

That Blue Rose captain was looking at Yami, but her face was all red and her lips were a bit wavy. Asta wondered if she had eaten a bad egg or something. The other Blue Rose girl was just happily munching away at all the finger food she picked up, probably watching her weight or something. Girls always seemed to be doing that.

Yuno and his group were being...well, Yuno and his group. So, they weren’t much of a concern.

Not that Asta cared much about anyone else in the room either. If the Wizard King thought they were cool, then that was fine with him. So, he just went about eating his lunch with gusto and… Asta blinked when he looked back down at his plate to find some of the food missing. Huh, guess I got a bit distracted at everyone glaring at everyone else, he thought before finishing things off and going back for seconds.

“Filthy, gluttonous commoner,” the guy who got second in the star count, Alecdora Sandler, mumbled as Asta walked by.

The comment made Asta slow down in confusion. Usually, people mocked him for being magicless. But this time...oh, I get it. They probably don’t know about me, he told himself before going on. And I guess even jerks can do their job right.

“What a positively atrocious eater!” the fat guy added. Although, he still sounded pretty cheery.

Which...Asta had to agree with, not that he cared. Noelle and guys like her took their time with food to ‘savor’ it and stuff, but Asta didn’t much care for holding things in his mouth for several seconds to suck all the flavor out. It hit his tongue and it was gone.

“It’s a lot like having a rat in the-ow!” Noelle’s little big brother jumped back on one foot several times as he held the other in his hands.

“You should be more careful where you put your feet when wearing sandals,” Noelle’s bigger big brother told him evenly.

Asta took a moment to look at the weird scene that was Noelle’s family, then got some more food. Guess Noelle really takes after her biggest brother, Asta thought to himself. Since they were at a party and all and Noelle wasn’t around to introduce them, Asta took it upon himself to walk up to them. “Hey there! My name’s Asta, and I’ve gone on a few missions with your baby sister.”

“Begone filth,” the younger guy said.

“Do not dirty me with your presence,” Noelle’s older sister added.

Then the oldest of the three glared at the boy. “Commoner’s should show royalty proper deference, boy. Get out of my sight.”

Asta blinked. “Wow,” he said with a smile that broke out a second later. “Noelle must really respect you guys, because that’s how she acted when we first met too.”

There was a slight change in the oldest brother’s expression as the younger one called up his grimoire. “Perhaps I should teach you a lesson on how to behave in the presence of royalty.”

Taking the hint, Asta gave a little laugh as he backed off. “Oh yeah, you guys are definitely related to Noelle.”

“Do not say the name of that tr-” the female Silva paused for a moment before glancing over to her older brother. “Noelle’s name in my presence, commoner. The sound of your voice sickens me.”

Asta just kept walking away while that Sandler guy glared at him before looking over to the table pull of silver-haired people. “Is this how House Silva keeps the commoners in their place, now?” he asked. “No wonder you sent your baby sister to roll in the mud with them. You were testing the temperature of the filth to see if it was comfortable to do the same.”

Nozel turned his attention to the other noble. “I would suggest shutting your mouth before something tears out your tongue, Sandler. There are some internal injuries that can’t be healed,” he warned the man evenly.

The other man grimaced, but looked away and over to Asta. “Filthy commoner trash. Why the Wizard King invited Black Bull scum like you to the ceremony is a mystery.”

“Don’t you guys have commoners in your squad too?” Asta pointed out.

From across the room, Yuno gave him an even glare. “What’re you dragging me into this for?”

Alecdora glared at the shorter knight. “Feh, he may be Golden Dawn, but he’s still a sub-par magic knight that nobody expects anything of. Just like you.”

Back in familiar territory, Asta found himself going down an old verbal road as he smirked at the guy who had a stick shoved so far up his ass it put a hole in his brain. “Well then I guess-”

“Now hold on a minute!” Klaus said before Asta could really get started, taking the wind out of the boy’s sails and causing him to look back at the other man. “In the mission that I served alongside him, Asta performed quite admirably as a magic knight.”

The comment got a snort from Alecdora. “I don’t want to hear anything from you, Klaus. I’ve heard the rumors about you actually exercising before dawn. You’re the embarrassment of the nobility, just like your squad is the disgrace of the Golden Dawn! Even the royal on your team was next to useless on your last big mission. You shame House Vermillion with your ineptitude.”

Mimosa let out a pitiful squeak and took a half-step behind Klaus.

Having taken a table by herself, Mereoleona gave a growl. “Huh, so this is what happens when someone who has their tongue up another guy’s ass all day long steps away from it. Go back to licking your master’s butthole, dog. Because your mouth is full of shit, and it seems to be leaking” she cut in before looking over to her niece. “And you! STAND UP FOR YOURSELF, BRAT! YOU’RE NOT A BABY ANYMORE!”

“Y-Yes Ma’am!” Mimosa replied as she hid even further behind Klaus.

Asta looked around in confusion after getting back to his table. “You know...this is a really lousy party.”

Sunset placed her hand on Noelle’s forehead. She didn’t feel hot, but Equestrian medical diagnostic spells weren’t really meant to work on humans when it came to diseases that she had never encountered before. Which also made her worry about getting sick with some kind of ape flu to which she had no natural immunities, but if it hadn’t happened in the hovel that was Hage, then it probably wouldn’t happen where the people had running water.

“I’m telling you, I’m fine,” Noelle replied as Sunset blocked her up against the washbasin that looked a lot more like the kind of bathroom fixtures she was used to in Equestria than the ones in Hage had been. “I just got a bit dizzy is all.”

Human toilets were still weird, though.

After considering Noelle’s flushed cheeks, the dizzy spell, and her miffed attitude, the not-unicorn came to the obvious conclusion. “So, you’re having your monthly bleed, then?” she asked before reaching down to lift up the pink skirt of Noelle’s out and check for any red spots on her underwear.

“S-SUNSET!” the girl shrieked before pushing her away and reaching down to pull on her dress a little bit. “I swear! How in the hell did you ever pass for human?”

The scandalized look on Noelle’s face made Sunset roll her eyes. “The real question is, how did your species ever survive?” she asked right back. “But if you’re having girl problems, I can show you some ways to masturbate that really helps. Even give you a hand if you want.”

Noelle’s face became even more red. “You did not just say that!”

“What?” Sunset asked as she rolled her eyes at Noelle’s expression. “You know, where I come from, mares help each other out with their monthly problems all the time. I just never had a friend to...ask before.”

After taking several deep breaths, Noelle managed to turn back to a normal color of human skin. “Okay, so...that’s not how we do things here,” Noelle told her before standing up straight. “And hey, you know what? I’m feeling perfectly fine now. Yep! Let’s get back to the banquet.”

Although Sunset knew that Noelle was lying through her teeth, there was something that she wanted to find out, and the answer was just standing around in the banquet hall. “Okay,” she agreed before washing her hands and following the girl towards the bathroom door. “By the way, why aren’t there any chairs out there?”

“Oh yeah, I was thinking about that too,” Noelle replied. “The last royal banquet, the guy who planned it had all the tables set up with different food on them and no chairs, so we had to go around filling our plates and eating at different tables. It made us be a lot more sociable. Maybe the Wizard King was going for something like that, but somebody messed up on the details and just did a normal buffet while somebody else did a social thing.”

The two young women stepped outside and blinked when Leopold suddenly stood to attention. “Oh! Hey...uh...it’s you again...eh-he…” he managed in a rather lame fashion.

“It’s...Leo, right?” Sunset asked, trying to remember how some of the humans had referred to him earlier.

Leopold nodded. “That’s right, uh...look, so…”

Before the awkward boy with the tooth in his mouth that looked like a wild animal’s fang could finish, Sunset looked over to Noelle. “So, help me out here, Noelle...is he cool, or a jerk?”

“Huh?” the girl with the silver hair replied.

Sunset sighed before rubbing her head. “Look, back where I come from, most of the nobility are just lazy, greedy assholes that are riding the on the success of their ancestors and the only royal I knew is a stupid, stuck up, hypocritical, fat, piece of...ahem!” she cleared her throat. “Look, point is, I’m a little biased. Not that it isn’t deserved, especially after Klaus proved to be...well, Klaus. But...he was also you know...Klaus. So...is he cool?”

For some reason, Leo became extremely nervous, as shown by his face while Noelle looked him over, thinking about her answer. “Eh, Leo’s okay, I guess. I spent most of my time with Mimosa.”

“OKAY? Leopold shouted, more mortified than angry before he pointed a thumb at his chest. “I earned the most stars this quarter out of all the Mystic Knights!”

Sunset felt the need to point out a little fact. “Isn’t that because you and your brother ran away from your big sister, using work as an excuse?”

The boy’s heroic pose shattered, along with his self image. As he sat there, crumbling, Sunset took Noelle’s hand and hurried past him. “Come on now, I want to find something out before the party’s over,” she said as they made their way to the dining hall.

“Find what out?” Noelle asked before Sunset opened the door to the banquet hall and moved through all the tables.

Halfway there, Noelle made a sound like a bug flew into her throat before Sunset had to drag more than lead her across the room with the table full of magic knights that had those squad robes that looked like big feathers. “Hey! So, you’re the rest of Noelle’s family, right?” she asked before Noelle let out a tiny squeak and jumped behind her for some reason, grabbing into Sunset’s shoulders to use her like a shield.

Sunset wrote the odd action off as her usual embarrassment and held out a hand. “”I’m Sunset Shimmer. I knew that she had siblings, but she’s just so damn private that she never talks about any of you.”

The eldest Silva, the one with the silly braid that hung down his face, stepped forward and took the woman’s hand to bend down a bit and kiss it. “There is a reason for that. Although, if Noelle wished to keep it private, then I shall honor her wishes.”

“...huh?” Noelle sounded from behind the redhead as the tension just went slack to the point that it felt more like she was holding onto Sunset’s shoulders because of a need to remain upright.

Although she knew she was missing something, Sunset just let it go in favor of getting to the important stuff. “So, tell me. You guys are all obviously Silver Eagles, but Noelle was put into the Black Bulls, why is that?”

Noelle’s fingers dug into Sunset’s shoulders, and she felt the girl tremble as the two other younger Silvas stepped to the side as one, almost to flank Noelle’s defenses. For her part, Sunset just looked back as the girl practically cowered behind her and blinked. What in the world was up with her?

“You mean, you didn’t notice?” Nebra asked with a smile that would have looked more at place on a predator.

“Come now, dear sister, Noelle might have gone on that dungeon mission, but that doesn’t mean she actually did anything,” Solid told the other silver-haired woman before he looked over to Sunset. “You see, our dear sister is quite useless as a mage. It’s rather shameful, to be honest. A royal who can’t even control her magic.”

When the two royals finished speaking, Noelle actually loosened her grip just a bit and blinked in confusion. “...that’s it?” she asked in a tiny voice before looking at her older brother, who was giving her an intense glare.

Sunset reached up to rub the back of her neck thanks to all the pressure Noelle had put on her muscles in that area. She wanted to reach over and smack the two of them, but they were Noelle’s family and...they had a good point.

So, not wanting to get in her best friend’s bad side, Sunset forced herself to stay positive. “Yeah, we’re working on that and making some progress. But that doesn’t really explain why she’s in the Bulls and not your squad.”

Both of the middle Silva children made disgusted faces before glancing at the eldest, who stepped forward and shot them both little glares. “The Silver Eagles is one of the most prestigious squads in all of the Magic Knights. We take on the most dangerous missions and fight at the front line of every battle. If Noelle were to have joined us in such endeavors, she would have died. I put her in the Black Bulls, a squad of layabouts and misfits so that she would not be put in any real dangerous situations beyond simple animal control and the odd pathetic group of bandits.”

“...say what?” Noelle mumbled, completely dumbfounded.

Then, Nozel looked up past Sunset to raise his voice. “An arrangement that I have come to find that your commanding officer did not bother to honor.”

“Hm?” Yami asked as he looked over to the royal that was staring daggers at him to give a lazy death glare in response. “You say something, braid brain? I don’t remember agreeing to making your baby sister into a fixture in my hideout. She’s there, so she’s going to be pulling her own weight.”

The comment had Nozel glaring at Yami and walking towards the man. “Your disrespectful tone displeases me, foreigner. Perhaps I should beat some manners into you,” he said before drawing the mana in around him to the point that the pressure of it started shaking the room.

Yami turned his whole body towards the other captain to create just as big a disruption in the atmosphere as he took a few steps towards the silver-haired man. “You wanna pick a fight with me, pretty boy??” he asked before the silvery mana of Nozel and the dark purple Yami was emitting collided to begin pushing at each other, much to the detriment of the room’s cracking windows.

Back at the more quiet side of the room, the amazon with the dark skin looked back to her captain. “Uh...shouldn’t you try and stop them, Char?”

The third captain in the room gave the brewing fight an uneasy look. “Ugh, why did it have to be Yami, of all people?” she moaned before turning her attention to the woman standing next to her. “And call me Captain!”

“Whatever you say, Char!”

Sunset groaned at the display of the two men, pressing their proverbial dicks up against each other as they engaged in their male dominance ritual. As impressive as Yami was, it seemed that Nozel stood a bit higher than him in the display of power. Although, just because he could put on a better show didn’t mean that the substance of his grimoire was necessarily better.

The whole thing reminded Sunset of what she had learned of magic insofar when it came to the Clover Kingdom’s general view of it.

For starters, there was mana, the fuel for spells. Everyone in the world was born with a set amount that was determined at birth. Although she had heard stories about ways people had tried to artificially increase their mana reserves and other tales involving children who had been crippled to the point of barely being able to produce mana at all, a person’s mana was more or less determined by their parentage.

Then there was a person’s magical power. If a person’s mana was their endurance, magical power was their mystical strength. That attribute could and did increase over time, as a mage’s body developed and they worked with magic. But it also usually walked hand in hand with their mana supply, as the more a person used their magic, the more their mystical muscles increased. If someone didn’t have much mana, they couldn’t build up their magical power as much as other mages. There were other factors, like how emotion and determination that could cause spikes in a person’s maximum level of power, but they weren’t something that could be counted on to happen very much in a person’s lifetime.

The third determining factor in what made a mage strong or not was their grimoire. In most respects, the higher level of mana a person had, the bigger book they got. The bigger book they had, the more spells they might know. However, the biggest determining factor for a mage’s grimoire seemed to be the state of mind of the mage herself. If she didn’t believe in herself or didn’t want to develop her magic for some reason, then it didn’t matter how many times she went through the motions of blowing craters in the ground with water blasts. The spells simply wouldn’t come.

Magic Knight Captains had all three requirements in abundance.

But, despite the impressive display going on before her, Sunset was more put off by the important things. “I didn’t get to finish my conversation,” she grumbled before leaning over to her friend. “Noelle, go tell your brother to get his butt back here.”

When there wasn’t any response from the girl in white and pink, Sunset turned her head and blinked. “Uh...Noelle?”

The youngest Silva was standing behind her and off to the side a little, but her eyes said that her mind was even further away. “...everything I knew about the world before today was wrong,” she mumbled.

“What the hell is going on with you?” Sunset mumbled before snapping her fingers in front of the girl’s face, drawing her back to reality.

But, before Noelle could do anything, something else happened to keep Sunset from getting her answers. The double door leading to the hallway that gave access to the castle banged open and one of Clover’s faceless mages ran in, wearing his blue robe. “Emergency! There’s an emergency”

“SHUT IT!” Yami told the man before smacking him with a fist when he got too close to the arguing captains.

Nozel sneered at the man with the dark hair. “Did you not hear what he was yelling, ignorant savage?”

“Like I care about what some lackey is going on about,” Yami told him before the building began shaking once again. However, it was short lived and only made the big man confused. “Huh, that wasn’t one of us.”

The sound of an explosion shook the windows, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. When Sunset made her way up to one, she blinked at the sight of a large fire burning in the middle of a crowded residential area. “Huh, looks like the city...or, Townsville...whatever it’s called, is under attack.”

Page 15: Riot

The wedding reception was in full swing as Cadance rested her hooves and her husband shared a dance with his little sister, since she had managed to chase off every stallion that looked ready to jump on the well-connected mare with her style of dance. Still recovering from her ordeal, Cadance didn’t think she would be doing much other than sitting during the wedding that had been rushed into correction to avoid making all the ponies that had come to Canterlot for the event go home to simply come back at a later date. She could understand Celestia not wanting to inconvenience them, but barely being able to manage two dances thanks to nearly three days of starvation and thirst wasn’t how Cadance imagined her wedding party going when she was a filly.

Cadance blinked as she saw the mare coming over to her table. Speak of the centaur and it shall appear, the pink princess recited. “Auntie, how good to see you,” she said with a big smile when the horse sat down next to her.

“Yes,” Celestia replied before looking around at all the guests. “It would seem that Pinkie did a wonderful job with your wedding plans, wouldn’t you agree?”

After stopping her left eye from twitching, Cadance showed her teeth. Is she seriously bringing something like that up? “Yes,” she replied, reluctantly agreeing with the statement. The pink pony did a good job, but that wasn’t the point of contention Cadance had with Celestia’s decision. “Pity I wasn’t given enough time to recover to actually enjoy it. But, who cares about the bride’s feelings when it comes to her wedding, am I right?”

Celestia took a piece of fruit from a tray one of the servers had with them and popped it into her mouth. There was a very small flash of her horn, so tiny that Cadance almost missed it, but a quick check of the surrounding air showed that they were behind a privacy spell. Their conversation would be muted, and anypony looking at them wouldn’t see anything but two princesses having a friendly chat. “By the way, the guard finished its count of ponies that turned up missing after Shining Armor banished the changelings from the city,” the mare went on. “Three of the five guards that traveled with you were changelings. I’m not sure if they were put in with the last rotation, or if they simply took the identities of whatever ponies were sent in to replace the old guards and had different changelings return to Canterlot in their place. But it looks like that was both the intelligence leak and how Chrysalis was able to build her profile of you.”

“One that fooled even you, right?” Cadance replied evenly. Not that Celestia really knew enough about her to tell the difference between Cadance and a cardboard cutout.

The sharp comment actually made Celestia flinch. “No. The reason I couldn’t tell the difference is because I’ve held you at forearms length since…” she trailed off and sighed before hanging her head. “I passed you off to another for magical training.”

Celestia actually admitting a fault made Cadance blink. For a second, she actually thought the big pony might have been replaced by a changeling, but that was just recent experiences poisoning her thinking. Still, a single sentence wasn’t going to undo years of resentment, or erase the reasons for it. “Well, maybe if I had actually known about shape-shifting monsters, then I would have had security precautions taken to deal with them. Code words, passphrases, some kind of secret hoofshake...”

“You don’t want to know what kind of path that leads ponies down, Cadance,” Celestia told her as she picked herself back up and sucked in a deep breath through her nose. “The paranoia it creates has nearly destroyed Equestria several times in the past. Ponies accuse their neighbors for the smallest things and a black spot on the horizon becomes reason for mass panic. I do not look forward to the next few years that all the phantom sightings and hysteria this one incident will cause.”

“That doesn’t mean you should leave ponies in ignorance!” Cadance told her with a frown. “I had some time to read while Pinkie was fixing the party, so I took a look in the restricted section of the library.” She knew about the towns that had disappeared overnight because changelings had snuck in and slowly stolen away the populace until they could carry off everypony still living there.

Celestia frowned at her. “Those books are for-”

“Princess eyes only?” Cadance finished with a glare of her own. “Did you miss the crown on my head, or was it the horn?” She tilted her head to the side. “You really hate the fact that there’s somepony else like you in Equestria now, don’t you?”

The look on Celestia’s face became even more hostile. “Watch your words, Cadance.”

After a second, the smaller princess got what Celestia was alluding to and rolled her eyes. “I’m not talking about Luna. She’s a thousand years out of date and will be needing years more time getting used to things before she could hope to make a proper decision as a ruler. But me? I spent the most formative years of my life in Canterlot, spent the last nine traveling around the world, but you don’t even think I should be able to plan my own bucking wedding!”

“The wedding I had made is perfectly fine!” Celestia countered. “You said so yourself.”

“THAT’S NOT THE POINT!” Cadance yelled back at Celestia while spreading her wings. “You see, this is why nopony can stand you! All you care about is the end, the destination. It doesn’t matter how many ponies you throw away on the journey, how many you step on, as long as you find that one that can save your sister from your screw up. It doesn’t matter that the pony you got to do the job is a neurotic mess afterwards-”

Celestia snorted and rolled her eyes. “Twilight was like that when she came to me.”

“She was six!” Cadance snapped back at her before taking a deep breath and pushing her anger away. “Okay, her parents and their stupid competition with that crown she and Shiny obsessed over set the groundwork, I’ll give you that. But you could have corrected it! She spent more time at your school than she did at home, she moved into the dorms at the age of seven for crying out loud!”

This time, it was Celestia needing to take a breath. “Twilight was my student, Cadance.”

“And here we are again,” the pink princess said with venom in her voice as they trotted on very familiar ground.

Celestia frowned down at her. “Yes, and am in no mood to listen to tantrums after everything that has happened!” she shot back. “You talk about the path to get here, but when it comes down to it, results are the only things that matter! If I had obsessed over that fool errand to track down a dead pony that turned against my teachings rather than spend my time on Twilight, then Nightmare Moon would have never been removed from my sister and Discord would have destroyed Equestria with his insanity. Destiny needed Sunset gone so that Twilight could rise. Because Sunset was corrupt, manipulative and vain to the point of outright evil! She refused to listen to me! The Ruler of Equestria! And if she hadn’t run away, then all of Equestria would now be in darkness! She was a failure that Destiny wanted gone, and it is time for you to accept that!”

With Celestia listing her recent successes, Cadance sucked in a breath. While she had long given up on making Celestia admit that she had made a mistake and sticking to that admission, it was a long way from swallowing the load of horseapples she told herself these days to rationalize her failures as something positive. While Cadance believed in Destiny as much as the next pony with a mark on her flank, that didn’t make everypony a mindless doll, or their failures just part of a greater success story.

“I think I need some air,” Cadance told her before trotting outside of the privacy bubble before looking back to see a false image of Celestia giving her a bright smile, rather than the disapproving frown she had been wearing at the time of Cadance’s departure.

When she had gotten away from the other mare, Cadance headed straight for the dark blue pony standing at the bar, chugging down cider from one of the pitchers that was supposed to be used to fill the champagne flutes. All of the high society mares and stallions that had come over to schmooze with Luna looked upon the display wore nervous expressions than anything else while the blue pony smashed her glass against the ground.

“ANOTHER!”

Her ears ringing from the order, Cadance approached Celestia’s little sister, “Luna, I’m so glad you could make it,” she said before clearing away some of the glass so she could sit down next to her fellow princess. “After that happened with the changelings, there was some concern over what might have happened to you.”

Luna held up a hoof and waved it in front of her own face. “Strange. Two of these pitchers, and yet, I still feel nothing,” she mumbled before looking over to Cadance. “Yes, a pity that I ward my rooms with protections to keep light and sound from awakening me. Perhaps I should lead a war band to the badlands and hunt down Chrysalis while she is weakened to truly give her what for!”

As Cadance tried to think how best to approach the subject of Chrysalis with such a lead in, Luna moved closer. “Do ponies still say that? What for?” she asked. “Sister insists that We-or I should have full use of the modern vernacular before making my return to center stage as to help ponies not worry so much in my presence. Till then, I am to perform my nightly duties only.”

“I think they may still have that phrase in Trottingham, but Equestria at large doesn’t use it,” she told the mare.

“Nuts,” Luna grumbled before looking at the latest pitcher that was put in front of her at the bar before the pony tending it took off as fast as he could. “I tell you, young Cadance, things were different in my day. Ponies had spines and a dialect did not matter to anypony, save the kind that could simply not be understood.” She tinked the large glass with her hoof. “The drinks were stronger as well.”

Since the conversation was drifting away from what she really wanted to talk about, Cadance took it by the reins. “By the way, about Chrysalis...did you know her?”

The question got a long snort from Luna. “Of course, the vile temptress. We, that is, my sister and I, not the royal We, did battle her and her brood several times before Nightmare came to offer her own temptations,” she said before sighing. “Many did fall to her machinations before her plots were uncovered and the creature removed from pony society.”

“So...why didn’t you two ever...well, pardon my bluntness, but why wasn’t she dealt with in a more permanent manner?” Cadance finally asked. “While you were still here, I mean.”

Luna turned her full attention to the mare, leaving her drink on the counter. “Tis a worthy question, but one you will have to ask Celestia when it comes to being past the first hundred years of our rule...if what we had could even be called such a thing,” the dark princess muttered.

“And the first hundred years?” Cadance asked, her patience growing thin. Luna liked to talk, and if given an inch, she would take a mile.

After taking her cider and gulping down a good deal of it, Luna set the pitcher down and sighed. “Well, only the last twenty were we actual rulers. Before then, my sister and I were more akin to popinjays that Starswirl had the other tribal leaders stick crowns on to prance about. We showed up, looked pretty, and did an impressive magic trick every dawn, followed by another at dusk,” she explained before snorting. “After the Crystal Empire debacle, I’m surprised we were allowed to keep our crowns. But then, we were the eldest ponies by that point so...mayhap our positions had become too entrenched in the minds of the plebeians.”

Cadance cleared her throat. “But...Chrysalis…”

“Right,” Luna said with a nod before thinking about it for a moment, then shrugging. “I know not why we never hunted down the vile queen. While I suppose that after Nightmare came and I was imprisoned, Celestia had not the military strength. The ponies of today seem much too weak to topple a changeling citadel as we did back in the day with soaring wing and stomping hoof. As for before I left...I know not. With our apparent agelessness, we thought that we would have all the time in the world to deal with such things. Foalish us.”

The explanation left Cadance feeling...disappointed. A little petty thought had hoped to uncover some dark secret of Celestia’s like she was purposely allowing Chrysalis to run rampant so that ponies would have something to be afraid of, thus justifying her presence. She didn’t like thinking such things, but that didn’t make the thoughts go away.

Still, there were other questions to be asked. “When I was down in the catacombs, Chrysalis told me something, or...read it to me,” Cadance began. “And I don’t know if she was telling the truth, or just lying.” It had certainly sounded like she was reading something out of a book, rather than talking naturally.

“And you are trying to discern whether what she said was truth, or lie, correct? What does Sister think of this?” Luna asked.

Cadance frowned. “There’s no need to ask somepony a question when you already know the answer she will give.” Celestia would reiterate that Sunset was dead because of her own mistakes and the advent of Destiny, though no fault of the white alicorn. Since Twilight had brought Luna back, the nag had become insufferable with the way she spoke of such things.

After a few seconds of tapping her hoof on the counter, Luna spoke. “Was what she said disturbing to you?”

“No!” Cadance told her before reviewing the memory in her mind. But, when she thought of Sunset, trapped on another world, her gut did feel uneasy. “And...yes,” she admitted before letting out a sigh. “It’s complicated. But the thing is, I don’t think she meant to tell me what she told me...if you get my meaning.”

Luna gave her a thoughtful frown. “Might I know the details of this information?”

Not seeing the harm, Cadance nodded. “She told me that a mare I love very much is alive when most thought her dead. Not outright, but...she gloated and accidentally revealed it while trying to taunt me.”

“And what will you do with this information? Go to her?” Luna asked before turning her attention to the white unicorn with the blue mane that was still on the dance floor after the song stopped playing.

The question made Cadance shake her head. “No.” Sunset was out of reach. As much as she wanted to bring her big sister home, Cadance knew that was impossible. “But…” She couldn’t think of what to say.

And that was the problem.

Sunset was alive, or had been at some point in the past.

What did that mean for Cadance?

With the journal destroyed, Cadance couldn’t get a powerful unicorn to open the mirror for her. Cadance was stuck in her inaction.

But...

“I can’t just do nothing...can I?” she asked miserably.

Luna sighed and looked back across the party to where Celestia was, for some reason before turning her head to Cadance again. “My dear, sometimes doing nothing is the hardest choice to make.”

Rades sat on a log next to one of his meat puppets and licked his lips at the thought of what was about to go down. Once those stupid losers in the Magic Knights got done patting themselves on the back, he would show them all how pathetic they were! Then, as they begged him for mercy, he’d slit their throats one by one and turn them all into material for his craft!

“Look at them up there,” he grumbled as his puppet stood next to him, moaning despite not needing to actually breath. That nutcase Sally said it was because of some leftover piece of what his puppet had been before Rades turned it into something useful, but what did that stupid salamander girl know about his magic?

“Sitting in their palaces and mansions, thinking they’re so great,” he went on while the puppet of dead meat listened intently to his every word. “I have more magic power than any noble, more power than the royals! But do they give me my due? NO!”

The meat puppet groaned some more, making Rades glare at it before realizing what he was trying to say. “Exactly. You know the score!” the mage went on before standing up. “But today, I’ll show them, I’LL SHOW THEM ALL!”

A spatial portal opened right above the ground in front of him and a mage rose out of it. Rather than the robes of any of the four countries, the man’s garments were white, with a large amount of black going down the center to help the three golden eyes that ran down the man’s chest stand out even more. “Are you done ranting to your zombie?”

“THIS ISN’T A ZOMBIE!” Rades yelled at the spatial mage in defense of the walking corpse.

Zombies ate brains! His meat puppets didn’t eat brains. They didn’t eat anything! They just did as he commanded and would be what brought the Clover Kingdom to its knees!

“Everything is ready,” the hooded spatial mage told him. “After the ceremony is completed, we’ll begin the attack. Just remember what our true objective is and the backup plan, should you be captured.”

Rades let out a snort. “You won’t even be needing the plan! I’ll get the stone and destroy the capital all by myself!” he declared before looking back up at the mountain of a city that was just begging to be knocked down. “Just you wait, Magic Knights! After what you did to me, I’LL KILL YOU ALL!”

It looked almost as if every street that could be seen from the windows was covered in flames, with dozens of smaller fires usually surrounding a much larger one. However, details beyond that were hard to make out from as high as they all were without some kind of scrying magic.

With the fires burning down below them, Nozel turned away from the window and swept his gaze over the knights assembled in the room with him. Only two of them were in his squad, but with everything going on, they would have to do with what they had. Still, considering the sheer size of the attack, they needed backup to at least form a defensive wall around the more important areas.

After reaching into a satchel next to his grimoire, Nozel pulled out one of the three magical items he always had on him: a communication device that was connected to the larger magical network. It wouldn’t display a magical hologram like the larger boxes, but it fit just fine in the palm of his hand and had been made to look much like a pocket watch. After pressing the activation switch, he brought the device up to his mouth. “This is Captain Nozel of the Silver Eagles. The Noble Realm is currently under assault by an unknown army, numbering several thousand strong. All members of the squad currently on standby are to head to the capital as fast as possible to assist in its defense.”

His orders given, Nozel switched the device to receiver mode and waited to hear confirmation.

And waited.

And waited some more.

“Hey, you sure you’re using that thing right?” the stupid foreigner asked before pulling out his own communication device. It was a lesser model that looked like a tiny golden rod with several gems on it. After activating it, he raised the thing to his mouth. “Hey Finral, you there?”

When nothing happened, Yami cursed at the thing before shaking it several times and trying again. “Stupid piece of junk! How come you always run out of batteries when I need to make an important call?”

A quick check proved Captain Charlotte’s magical item for getting in touch with her headquarters was equally useless. “I think we can rule out random equipment failure at a bad time,” she said before looking around the room. “Does anyone here have any other means of contacting their squad?”

When the rest of the magic knights shook their heads, Sunset snapped her fingers. “What about Marx? Didn’t he use some kind of communication magic?”

Nozel turned his attention to the outsider. “Yes, but it taps into the communication network as well. If our items are being blocked, his magic will be experiencing the same problem,” he explained before looking around. “Considering that the promotion ceremony is happening today...how many knights do each of you have in the capital?”

“You’re looking at them,” Yami replied simply.

For her part, Charlotte groaned and got a distasteful look on her face. “We were all going to a spa after the promotion to celebrate. Everyone in my squad is miles away from here.”

“The Crimson Lions are all on deployment as well,” Leopold said.

“And Vangeance didn’t even bother showing up for the ceremony,” Nozel grumbled as he scowled at the Golden Dawn. There was no use dwelling on such things now, though. “Very well, as the captain of the most decorated company that is present, I am taking over the operation to defend the capital!”

Yami frowned. “Hey, who put you in charge, bird boy?”

Not wanting to waste time arguing with the lowest among the captains, Nozel glared at the man. “The fact that I acted first did,” he told the man before looking around the room. “Mimosa, you have scrying magic, correct? Can you give us a proper picture of the city to better plan our defense?”

The girl behind Klaus pulled out her book hesitantly. “I’m sorry sir, but I don’t think that my magic can cover a region as large as the Noble Realm.”

“Mine can,” the Golden Dawn member Shiren Tium said before he called up his grimoire with his checkered cover. “Stone Creation Magic: Stone Model of the World.” An instant later, a model of the entire upper class city, complete with the castle at the center of its rear formed in the center of the room, pushing the tables out of the way as it did.

The level of detail made it an almost perfect replica, if not for the lack of color. Sounds were also generated by the model, replicating the voices of the people that were in his detection rage along with little bits of magic that obviously showed their location based on their mana.

“Cool,” the outsider said before she examined the spell. “What’s the lag time? Do you use some sort of mana detection to reproduce the sounds, or are they-wait, not the time...sorry.”

As the girl stepped away, Nozel rubbed his chin as sixteen little fires suddenly sprang up in the model, clustered in five different groups. The three closest to the castle were obviously the ones they had seen from the window and the smallest of the five. “Did the attack start all at once in five different locations, or spread across the city?” he mumbled to himself.

“WHAT’S EVERYONE WAITING FOR?” that Black Bull boy Yami had brought with him shouted. “People are getting killed, we need to get moving right now!” Then, the idiot actually turned to run towards the door, only to be snatched up by some kind of blue magic that surrounded his body.

Sunset, whose hands were glowing the same color as the magic, let out a groan. “Asta, sometimes you can save time by waiting and finding out all there is to know,” she told him.

“Indeed!” Klaus added as he pushed his glasses up on his face. “A magic knight must use his brain before he even opens his grimoire. You can’t even detect magic Asta, how will you find your targets?”

Instead of seeing reason, the boy just kicked around in the air. “I’ll just go where it’s the loudest!”

Mereoleona groaned. “Half the city is on fire, brat! Just because people are screaming doesn’t mean the people causing the destruction are still there.”

Before the situation could devolve further, Nozel turned his attention back to the map. “Yami, you, the outsider and the boy will head to the fires closest to the castle. Since your magic type doesn’t allow flight even with a mana zone, it’s the most effective place for the three of you to go,” he said, immediately moving on to the next group. “The Silver Eagles will head to the central district. Blue Rose will deal with the easternmost location. The Golden Dawn will take the northwest. Mereoleona and her brother will take the western trouble zone.”

Despite having just given out orders, Noelle actually took a step towards him. “Uh...big brother…”

“You seem to have forgotten about one of my squad, birdbrain,” Yami told him.

The insult racked Nozel, but he didn’t let it show. “No, I have not. Noelle will remain here.”

As Sunset raised an eyebrow, Noelle gave him a hurt expression, as if he had betrayed her for some reason. “What? What for? I can-”

Before she could cut at him any more with her eyes, Nozel tossed the girl his communicator, then pulled out the spare he always kept with him to show it to her. “Because, multiple points of attack are a basic tactic when you want to draw out large numbers of defenders,” he explained. “While the castle always has a small contingent of magic knights to stand guard, the position is little more than ceremonial. A place to stick layabouts and fools that don’t mesh well with others. Since we are dealing with an enemy that can pull off an attack like this, it’s reasonable to assume that they have someone at the helm capable of dealing with them. If the castle’s defenses are breached, call me for help. The network may be down, but as long as we’re within ten miles of each other, these will still be able to send and receive transmissions.”

Noelle blinked, then clasped the communicator as if it was the most precious thing in the world to her. “Right! You can count on me!” she said with determination in her eyes.

The job was pure busy work, of course. But he couldn’t tell Noelle the real reason that he wanted her out of the way of danger.

“Once you finish with your area, link up with the closest group and continue to battle the invaders,” Nozel finished as his sister summoned up a watery eagle to transport his group on while most of the other mages summoned their own magical transportation, with the exception of Yami’s group, before heading out as fast as magically possible.

“A baby doesn’t kill anyone, you idiot!” Mereoleona had shouted.

“I put her in the Black Bulls...so that she would not be put in any real dangerous situations,” Nozell explained to Sunset.

The conversations repeated in her mind as Noelle stood in the dining hall, alone and looking at the communicator in her hand. For the first time in her life, her brother was trusting her with something and she wouldn’t let him down.

“Nom nom nom nom.”

Noelle blinked at the strange noise coming from beneath the table.

Had whatever planned for the attack also done something to the room the knights had all just been in?

“Nom nom nom nom.”

Was it the sound of some kind of trap spell, building up mana?

“Nom nom nom nom.”

A spatial magic spell of some kind? But, the Noble Realm had defenses that kept people from just dropping in! There was a spatial magic barrier that was constantly maintained by a special corps of mages underneath Clover Castle.

“Nom nom nom nom.”

Noelle looked at her communicator. Should I call brother?

“Nom nom nom nom.”

She looked back at the table. Should I run?

Turning around to look at the doors, the Silva girl realized something. It didn’t start hearing this whatever it is until after everyone left. Why would a trap begin to detonate after everyone left?

“Nom nom nom nom.”

After taking out her wand, Noelle pointed the weapon that actually decreased the damage she did with her magic at the table. “Okay! Whoever’s there, come on out!” she shouted.

“Nom nom-wha?” something underneath the table said before it crawled out.

Charmy, her face covered in crumbs from the cake she had in her hand, poked half of her body out from under the table cloth and looked around. “Oh, hey Noelle! Isn’t this food just the best?”

Fighting off her confusion of the girl’s sudden appearance, Noelle put her want away as well as the communicator her brother had given her. “C-Charmy? WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING HERE?” she demanded before pointing at the tiny mage. “And for that matter, how?”

After rubbing her nose with a smirk, Charmy pulled out her grimoire. “Cotton Magic: Cotton Binding Ball,” the little girl cast before a cloud of cotton came up from behind her and enveloped her body, then actually compacted in size until it was smaller than Noelle’s palm before it floated over to land on her hand and turn around to show Charmy’s face. “See, I compacted myself, then just hid in one of the robe-”

Noelle let out a scream at the extremely weird display and tossed the little mage out of her hand. While she was still in the air, the spell released and Charmy landed on her feet. Only, she looked...wrong.

Wrong for Charmy at any rate, who usually stood less than three feet tall with an enlarged head and eyes that looked almost closed. Noelle had even wondered if the girl had even been able to see when they first met.

The girl in front of her stood four and a half feet tall, with big green eyes and completely normal proportions. She was even wearing Charmy’s clothes, only...they actually fit her at this new size, including the Black Bulls robe.

“C-Charmy?” Noelle asked in worry.

The girl looked over to her and blinked. “What?”

Noelle pointed an accusatory finger at the girl. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, WHAT? YOU’RE A FOOT AND A HALF TALLER THAN YOU WERE A MINUTE AGO!” she yelled at what her eyes said was a total stranger.

After giving her a confused look, Charmy examined herself. “Well, yeah. I had to release my spell, including the compression part,” she told Noelle after looking back at her to wave away her concerns. “Don’t worry, I’ll change back to normal in a second. Once I get my magic going again.”

“Charmy...if you don’t have any magic being used on you right now, this is your normal,” Noelle pointed out as she slumped a bit.

The facts didn’t seem to stop the girl. “But if I don’t compact myself, there’s no way that I’ll be able to eat all this delicious food!” she exclaimed before pointing to the table full of delectable delights.

Noelle’s eye twitched. “Hey, wait a second! There’s a battle going on right now. You need to get out there and go fight!”

“Well...since you can’t fight on an empty stomach…” Charmy began before she started moving towards the buffet.

With her teammate being so...her, Noelle sighed and rubbed her head. At times like this, it was no wonder that everyone thought the Black Bulls were a terrible squad. Noelle had an actual job to do, but Charmy…

Noelle looked at the girl and groaned. It was weird to see her looking so normal. And the fact that she had ridden along in Noelle’s robe...wait a second, she thought to herself as she looked at the short girl that was licking her lips while examining the buffet. “Hey Charmy...how long were you in my robe?”

“I jumped out when you left the table,” she said before gasping at the deserts. “Oh my gosh! They’ve got fudge brownies!”

For some reason, she found herself actually a little disappointed that Charmy hadn’t been there when she had been alone in the bathroom. Before she had pulled herself together just in time for Sunny to barge in on her. “...oh,” she mumbled.

Charmy’s ear twitched. She spun around a second later and frowned at Noelle. “I don’t like the sound of that oh,” she said before walking up on Noelle and standing on her toes to look the royal in the eye. “What’s wrong?”

With the person she had considered little more than the clownish cook of the Black Bulls getting serious on her, Noelle took a step back. “It’s...nothing,” she told the girl. “Just something I’m working through at the moment.”

Charmy continued to frown at her before she dropped back onto her heels and sighed. “Hey, just because I like comfort food doesn’t mean I think it’s the be all, end all of everything you know,” she told Noelle before crossing her arms and staring at Noelle. “If you’ve got something on your mind, spit it out. I’m your senior after all, you can lean on me too if you want.”

“Come on, you’re barely a year older than me,” Noelle replied.

The expression on Charmy’s face became an even stare. “I’m nineteen.”

Noelle’s mouth dropped. SERIOUSLY? she thought to herself in shock as she looked at the girl who Noelle only thought was older than her due to the woman being at the hideout when she arrived. “But...but you...you...small...with the shortness.”

“Uh yeah. I told you, I use my magic to compact myself,” she said before crossing her arms and tapping a finger on her elbow. “Well, if you want a full explanation, I compact the food I eat more than myself, my body just gets a little of the magic. That’s how I can eat so much and still keep my girlish figure!”

As Charmy struck a pose in front of her to show off her slim body, Noelle found it hard to concentrate on anything but the insanity of what was going on. “I am just so confused right now,” she said before sitting on the floor to lean up against one of the table’s legs.

“How? I just explained why my height changed-”

“NOT ABOUT THAT!” she yelled at the woman. “I...my brother, he…”

Noelle took a deep breath to gather her thoughts. She never thought it would be Charmy of all people that she would be talking about this to, but the explosions outside the window reminded her about what else was going on in the world. People to talk to were in short supply at the moment. “I killed my mother.”

“SAY WHAT?” Charmy replied as she had an emotional reaction of her own at Noelle’s confessed sin.

The look of utter shock her teammate was giving her made Noelle pull her legs up to her chest and wrap her arms around them. “In childbirth. Mother died when I was born. Maybe that’s why I can’t control my magic too,” she moaned. “And...all my life, my brothers and sister have been quick to remind me of that little fact, that Momma died because of me.”

For a moment, she thought about going into details about all those reminders, but thought better of it. The actions of her younger siblings weren’t what confused her. “But today, Mereoleona. The uh, really loud woman with the orange-red hair, she said something that turned the who thing on its head. That I wasn’t responsible and Mother decided to have me, knowing that she was going to die. Then...Nozel...my big brother, he said that he put me on the Black Bulls because he didn’t want me to get hurt.”

“Oh-kay,” Charmy drawled out before motioning for her to continue.

Noelle blinked when Charmy didn’t give her anything. “Uh...that’s it. I’m done.”

The short mage stood there for a minute, then gave a start before snapping her fingers and turning to skip over to the desert tray. Once there, she loaded a plate up on brownies before coming back to the confused girl, much shorter than she had been when she left. “Eat,” the ‘normal’ sized Charmy told Noelle as she offered her the brown square.

“This is your solution?” she asked in disbelief. After putting all her hopes in Charmy, all she got was the usual from the little glutton.

Not taking no for an answer, Charmy shoved the food into Noelle’s mouth, despite the royal’s protest. Once she was unable to talk back, the little chef began speaking. “What you’re going through, it’s like when you hear something tastes really, really bad for so long, but when you try it with a special sauce, it’s really super yummy,” she told the girl. “And your brain doesn’t want to believe it, but your body is saying it’s good. So, it’s like they’re arguing, and you just need to sit back and let the argument finish.”

Finishing her food, Noelle blinked. “I think I’ll ask Vanessa for some advice when we get home.”

As the three Black Bulls made their way through the castle towards a side entrance that Yami knew Julius liked to sneak out of from time to time, the girl with a brain and mouth too big for her head half of the time decided to start talking. “Does this not make sense to anyone else other than me?” Sunset asked while she chased after the man who was taking a cigarette out of his pocket. “Aren’t the nobles supposed to be the kingdom’s most powerful magic users? Why in the hell is somebody picking a fight with Clover’s most powerful group of mages?”

Yami snorted. “You know Finral’s a noble, right?” he asked without looking back while searching for his lighter as they ran along. “Just because somebody’s from a powerful family doesn’t mean their magic is suitable for combat. People have to want to develop attack spells to get them. Most of the people living in the noble realm, the ones that don’t join the Magic Knights, they just have spells to help them make money and jack off.”

Once the three Black Bulls got out of the castle, Yami looked around in disbelief at the level of destruction he could see going on in the streets below the dropoff that separated the royals from the nobles. It was chaos everywhere, not just in some little isolated zones where things were burning. People were running from a mob that just shuffled along, breaking things and knocking down everything in their way from carts to statues as they slowly caught up to the Clover citizens when there was some kind of bottleneck that all the nobles thought they should be allowed to go through first. Then, there were the idiots moving whole wagons of possessions through the street while trying to get away from the fires.

Yami looked over at the resident magical prodigy. “Hey, can you whip up a rainstorm or something to take care of all the flames?” It wouldn’t matter if they stopped the attack if the city burned down on top of everyone.

And since it didn’t look like any of the nobles were bothering to put out the fires while saving their own sorry asses, the Magic Knights would have to clean up that mess too.

“Uh…” Sunset looked around and crossed her arms, like she usually did when she was thinking. “Maybe? There were plenty of farmers in Hage that could create minor, localized rainfalls to water their crops. But for something as big as this place, I’d need a natural source of water.”

Yami nodded. “There’s an underground lake fed by two rivers beneath the mountain,” he told her. “We’ll take care of the problem areas Birdbrain pointed us towards, then head for the nearest river so you can work your mojo.”

That’s one problem down, but still… Yami looked back to the mass of enemy troops. They were too far away to make out much detail, but the fact there were so many of them was extremely disturbing. After seeing Stone Boy’s little diorama, he had thought a few powerful mages had just shown up to cause trouble, blowing up a few buildings before moving on to cause chaos elsewhere.

But, what Yami was seeing was an army. That meant spatial magic, which should have been impossible. While people could come and go from the castle town at the base of the mountain as they pleased, everything above the first level had a barrier of protection that stopped spatial magic from coming into the capital in much the same way Sunset’s little jamming spell had kept that Diamond mage from running away last week.

There were ways around it, of course. But if the guys below had used a spatial mage to get into the capital, that meant that they had developed a way to circumvent the defenses on their own. Which would have to be countered by making a change in the barrier. The other possibility was that one of the mage’s responsible for maintaining the barrier had gone rogue, which was much more disturbing since it didn’t matter what changes they made if one of the guys responsible for maintaining the barrier just gave an enemy the new settings to bypass it all over again.

“CAPTAIN YAMI, WHAT’RE WE DOING JUST STANDING AROUND HERE FOR?” the annoying twerp with a mouth twice as big as his body shouted.

Not liking the way his ears were feeling thanks to Asta, Yami glared down at the pipsqueak. “I was just looking for a nice spot to land,” he said after lighting his cigarette and emptying his hands so he could grab the boy under his arm.

Then, he snatched up the magic nerd under his other arm. “Uh, what’re you doing?” she asked while her legs kicked in the air.

“Jumping!” Yami told them before doing just that.

With mana increasing the power of his legs, Yami leaped into the air as the two people he was carrying screamed in terror while they sort of flew across the sky. Then, gravity began to have its way with the three of them, and Yami descended right in the middle of one of the enemy mobs, landing on one of the guys to soften the impact.

There was a loud crunch of bone under his boots and the kids made stupid little noises to tell him that their stomachs probably hadn’t taken things well. But he had gotten them where they needed to go and promptly dropped the two of them onto the ground before blinking at the group of people in front of him. “Holy crap! You guys are ugly!”

Which they were, with really blotchy skin and glazed over eyes that were more white than anything else. Pieces of their skin were falling off with rot and not a single one of them seemed to have a full set of teeth. Some barely had what would have been considered clothes, more like dirty rags that just managed to cover up their dicks. Most of the girls weren’t so lucky, but it wasn’t like anyone was going to be grabbing the saggy things they had.

With the two brats still recovering, it looked like Yami would have to do everything himself. So he grabbed his sword and got ready to draw it while bringing up his grimoire to cast a spell. “Dark Magic: Dark Cloak,” he recited before drawing his blade just as his magic coiled around it to enhance the expensive weapon’s power. “Dark Cloaked Lightless Slash!”

A wave of dark magic shot out from Yami’s blade as he stuck out while drawing the sword in an imitation of a fighting style his homeland used. An imitation, because he was never actually taught the sword when he was a kid, what with him just being a simple fisherman’s son that got lost at sea instead of a member of the warrior caste. Still, it was an effective technique. The magic dark magic shot out of his blade, taking its shape as the magic sailed forward, slicing through many of the dirty mob that tried to grab onto him.

With his single attack mowing down about twenty guys to give them some breathing room, Yami looked back to the babies that were still clutching their stomachs as they laid on the ground. “Hey, you two getting up any time this week?” he asked before taking a long drag on his cigarette.

“Shut up you idiot!” Sunset yelled before she slowly got to her feet to glare at the bigger man. “I’m pretty sure your little stunt dislocated my spleen or something!”

“Yeah ye-oh crap!” he cursed when one of the little bastards that had been cut in half managed to crawl up to him and bit his boot. Rotten teeth broke before his footwear did and Yami kicked at the damn thing. “Get off me you damn bastard!”

Hiding his surprise at being surprised in the first place, Yami looked back to the mob. I don’t sense ki coming from any of them. What is this crap? he wondered before cutting another two down, then slicing off their arms when they didn’t stop coming after him before also removing their heads when even that didn’t make them lay down and die.

Asta groaned as he finally got to his feet with the help of his big sword that he was using as a crutch. Two of the undying things came at him and he smashed them both with a single swing that didn’t do much of anything aside from knock them down. “GAAAAH! Zombies!”

“Zom-what?” Yami asked before getting ready to slice up the two Asta had knocked down, only...both of them had stopped moving. And started to stink like rotting corpses were supposed to do.

Sunset cringed at the sight of the bodies while before dry heaving from the smell. “You mean, there’s actually magic here that can make something like those things?” she asked after recovering. Although, the sight of the dead still looked to be disturbing the hell out of her.

After taking another drag on his cigarette to blow out his nose, Yami looked back to the kids. “Anyone mind telling me what’s going on?” he asked before cutting another one of the creatures off at the legs, then removing its arms with a second swipe before the third took its head.

“ZOMBIES!” Asta shouted in a panic. “IT’S JUST LIKE FATHER ORSI SAID! THE DEAD HAVE RISEN AND HAVE COME BACK TO-OW!”

Sunset removed her hand from the boy’s skull to turn and look at the slowly approaching horde of walking corpses. Her face went all green and she shivered. “It may be different in Clover, but where I come from, I read a book describing a type of magic that enslaves a person’s soul and binds it to their dead body. There’s a dozen different ways to do it, but it all revolves around bringing the dead back to a semi-lifelike state and controlling them like puppets that have a very limited form of intelligence for carrying out basic commands.”

The disturbing news made Yami give the creepy redhead a frown while she held her stomach and shivered from the sight of walking dead people. “This was the kind of crap you learned in your magical rainbow land?” he asked before snorting. “And you call us savage barbarians.”

Sunset’s face turned red and her cheeks puffed out a little. “Oh, for the love of-JUST BECAUSE I SKIMMED THROUGH A BOOK DOESN’T MEAN I LEARNED ANY OF THE SPELLS OR EVEN WANTED TO USE THEM!” Sunset shouted at the man in such a rage that Yami was taken aback by her anger. “God! You’re just like everyone else! You go, ‘Eeek, you looked at something scary, that must mean that you’re evil!” she said in an overly girly voice. “Because you’re just soooo great, and everyone else is secretly a monster just waiting to turn on you!”

Before the girl could keep going, Yami reached out and dropped a hand on the top of her head before clamping down on it. “Okay, simmer down there, little pony-girl,” he ordered. “Now, any idea on how to stop these things? Because if we have to slash everything into little pieces, it’s going to take too long to deal with the threat, and we’ve still got to get these fires out.”

Sunset looked over to a new street, where another herd of the things was moving along. The anger on her face was quickly replaced by revulsion that she reluctantly gulped down. “Get me one that’s mostly intact. Then...I can examine it,” she told him reluctantly.

“I’M ON IT!” Asta yelled before he took off at his normal inhuman speed to smack one of the zombies with his sword, then take out a few others that had noticed his presence.

After watching the display, Yami sighed when he caught sight of Sunset’s eye twitching. “Let me guess, you need a live zombie to examine?” he asked evenly.

“Yeah,” she replied before they headed after Asta.

With the mob still having plenty of walking corpses to deal with, Yami let Asta do his thing before he came up on a trio of the dead. It didn’t take long to hack two of them apart after cloaking his blade in dark mana, then he called up his grimoire to cast an actual spell. “Dark Magic: Dark Binding.”

Black tendrils of black energy shot out from his grimoire to wrap around the dead thing and lift it off the ground. The corpse struggled, but with all the magical power inside of it only able to make it move with little more than the average strength of a normal human that wasn’t using enhancement magic, the zombie had little chance of escaping.

Sunset took a step back at the display with a disturbed expression on her face. “You use dark magic?”

The question made Yami raise an eyebrow. “You’re just now noticing that?” he asked before taking a drag on his cigarette and blowing it out his nose to help with the corpse smell. Whatever was keeping the bodies fresh wore off when their limbs hit the floor. “What’s the big deal, anyway?”

“DARK MAGIC IS EVIL!” Sunset yelled at him.

Yami snorted. “Now who’s making stupid judgement calls based on an open book I got in front of me that I haven’t really read much of?” he asked. “Magic isn’t good or evil, idiot. It’s just magic. The person using it is the one who decides what to do with it.”

After standing frozen for several seconds, Sunset blinked. “But, but that’s dark magic!” she exclaimed, as if that explained anything.

“The opposite of light magic,” Yami said, coming at the conversation from a different angle instead of just saying the same thing over and over again. “Which you use. So, you some kinda saint just because you use flashy magic?”

Sunset pressed her lips together in a tight line. “Gimme that book!” she yelled before snatching Yami’s grimoire out of the air and turning to the first page that had his most basic spell on it.

“Hey!” Yami yelled at her while the girl skimmed over the open pages. When he approached her, a shield of force popped up between them, testing Yami’s patience. “Give me back my grimoire you little magic hog!”

Ignoring him for a moment, Sunset skimmed over the spell, her expression becoming more and more disbelieving as she did. “This...this...there’s nothing evil about this! I spent months getting lectured and having to recite the fact that dark magic is bad a hundred times as it gets drilled into me and….agh!” she exclaimed before frowning and taking a closer look at the second page. “Hmmm, that wavelength looks kind of familiar. Almost like what I picked up from that rock.”

His patience wearing thin, Yami concentrated some magic to enhance his strength, then pounded his fist against the girl’s magical dome. “Open up, right now!” he yelled as cracks appeared in the shield. Which was a pretty lousy defense if he could stress it with nothing but enhancement magic.

Sunset looked up and frowned. “Interesting,” she mumbled. “There is a definite antithetical reaction to harmonic magic...but no backlash.” Then, before Yami could break the damn thing standing in his way, Sunset dropped her little magic bubble and turned around to toss his grimoire over her shoulder to take a look at the dead body hanging in Yami’s binding spell as her ki screamed that she wanted to do anything else. “Okay so...l-let’s see what we-” she paused to gulp. “What we got here.”

Despite wanting to smack the brat, Yami had better things to do. So, while the nerd girl was doing her nerdy things, he moved to back the boy up and cut down a few more of the corpses with his sword, simply wrapping it in dark mana instead of using a full spell. By the time they were done with the latest bunch of corpses, he saw Sunset looking back at them with a little frown. “What is it now?”

“It’s um...well, they’re not zombies as I know them,” she replied before looking back at the moaning dead guy with a grimace. “There’s definite potential for binding a soul, but from the looks of things, this magic is more of an animation spell using dead bodies than any actual zombie creation magic. Maybe the corpse has been dead for too long and the caster needed fresh...bodies, ugh!”

Yami groaned at her. “So you’re saying, what? This has all been a big waste of time?”

Giving the dead guy another disgusted look, Sunset took a moment before shaking her head. “No...I think...after seeing how Mimosa and that stone guy do their detection magic, I can rig up a spell that lets us locate magic like what’s animating this dead...thing,” she said before shivering. “Oh, this is so gross!”

“So, you can locate all the zombies for us?” Asta asked as he walked up behind Yami with his sword on his shoulder.

Yami snorted. He could detect the nearest group of walking corpses just fine with his mana sense. Seeing that Sunset was just wasting his time, he moved to grab her, only to stop when she projected a magical image of a spherical blue grid, displaying several points of light. With the image matching up with what his mana sense was telling him, Yami started walking again, until he noticed a light in the far left corner of Sunset’s crappy featureless map that was a hell of a lot bigger than the others.

If her map was showing him corpses moving around through the power of someone else’s magic…

“Hey...is that supposed to be the guy making all of these things?”

After taking a closer look at the image, Sunset looked back at him. “Probably.”

“Change of plans, then,” he said before striking out with his sword to slash the zombie that was in his Dark Binding into two equal halves.

Dressed in ratty clothes and wearing makeup to appear more like a dead person, Valtos hid among the corpses as he watched his comrade revel in the glory of the destruction he was causing. What little glory there was to see through all the flames and smoke, that is. The disheveled man with the long purple hair laughed as he watched the city burn from the army of animated corpses Valtos had gathered for him under orders of their master, ranting about the Magic Knights between laughs as the flames reflected off of the silver eye symbol Rades used to cover his real left eye, on top of the bandages.

Taking his eyes off the other man for a moment, Valtos reached into his robes to grab a bit of ointment and reapplied it underneath his nose. Without it, the pile of corpses that Rades was stocking up to create more wraiths with would have overwhelmed his sense of smell.

While he knew the man Rades was integral to the master’s plans, he didn’t see why the man got his way like this. Having the whole organization throwing away its resources in a blatant attack on the Clover Kingdom that would strip them of their last shreds of anonymity was a foolish decision, even if it would snag them one of the magic stones in the end. They had gotten as far as they were through secrecy. Coming out into the light before they were ready could destroy everything they had worked for so far.

A high-pitched scream made Valtos look up to see that Rades had cornered a little girl in an expensive yellow dress, her curly hair done up in buns on the side of her head. The stupid little brat had probably taken a wrong turn while trying to run away from the monsters and ended up running into the biggest one of all.

Rades looked down at the girl with a frown. “Tell me girl, do you like it here, in the Clover Kingdom?”

The little noble trembled as she found herself up against the wall before falling on her little butt. “Y-Yes. I love it here. S-So please, mister, don’t hurt me!” she begged.

“WELL I HATE THE CLOVER KINGDOM!” Rades screamed at the little brat. “Privileged little pieces of shit like you, looking down on your betters like me! So I’m going to kill you! I’M GOING TO KILL EVERY LAST FUCKING ONE OF YOU!”

“W-What? Why? I didn’t do anything to you!” the little girl cried as tears streamed down her face.

Rades let out a scream before he reached down and picked her up by the neck. “I DON’T CARE!” he yelled as his fingers tightened around the child’s throat while he continued to talk. “EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU DESERVES TO DIE! DIE, DIE! DIE DIEEEEEEEEEEE!”

Then, there was a loud popping sound, and the girl just disappeared in a flash of light.

“W-What the?” Rades mumbled as he looked at his empty hands before a pair of mana sources made their presence known and Valtos had to turn around to get a look at them.

The redheaded girl in the green blouse and tight pants combo underneath her black robe, Valtos didn’t know, but Yami Sukehiro was easily recognizable by the Black Bulls robe that barely covered just one of his shoulders and facial features that weren’t found anywhere on the continent. However, the little girl in the redheads arms that had nearly had her neck snapped by Rades a moment ago said the girl was a spatial magic user.

Then, just to mock his theory, the redhead cradled the crying young girl that looked like she had trouble breathing in her arms. “Shhh, it’s going to be okay now, sweetie,” she said before holding up her hand to the child’s throat. “Flame Recovery Magic: Phoenix Robe.”

After a few seconds, the redness around the girl’s neck completely disappeared and she opened her mouth as if to talk, only for her body to shudder before something that might once have been stew came out of her mouth to cover the redhead’s squad insignia.

The redhead let out an angry groan, but stayed silent as she switched her girl over to lean against her clean shoulder. “Sorry,” the girl apologized.

“Takes a real big man to beat up a little girl,” Yami said before tossing his cigarette to the side.

Rades blinked. “A couple of Black Bulls, really?” he asked. “Here I was, hoping for something really interesting to show up since I’m so close to the palace. Don’t you got a Silver Eagle or two you can go fetch or something? I was hoping to get rid of someone a little worthwhile during my big debut.”

As the standoff occurred, Valtos found himself focusing on the redhead. She hadn’t even bothered pulling out her grimoire before casting that spell of hers.

“You know what?” Yami asked as he took his curved sword in both of his hands. “Screw the plan, let’s just kill him now.”

The redhead sighed and pressed the girl’s face down onto her clean shoulder. “Don’t look sweetie.”

Yami’s grimoire raised up to float beside him, out of the way for combat. “Dark Magic: Dark Cloak,” the big man grunted before raising his sword for a strike.

“I don’t think so!” Rades shouted right back before he activated his magic. While not a spatial magic user, Rades could summon his undead minions to him as long as they were in some kind of storage space that his magic let him call on. As such, a dark portal opened up in front of him and a specialized corpse floated out of the hole to take its place in front of the mage. “I choose you! Carl, My number one!”

The zombie that appeared was very different from the ones Rades had roaming around the city. Created with the help of their organization’s magic item expert from a magic knight they had killed and turned into a wraith right at the moment of death, the creature retained its ability to produce mana and limited spellcasting ability. Because of its special status, Rades had dressed the abomination up in clerical robes and wrapped every piece of his skin that would have been on display with bandages.

“The hell?” the redhead mumbled before frowning. “Hey Captain, that this is a lot different than the other ones roaming around.”

Yami snorted. “Like I couldn’t tell that from what it was wearing. Now, DARK SLASH!”

Although the captain cut downward with his sword, a crescent blade of dark energy flew out in front of him, towards Rades.

However, it wasn’t very fast, and gave the wraith mage plenty of time to respond. “Quickly Carl, use your defensive screen!” Rades ordered before his magical zombie raised a barrier that blocked the captain’s attack.

“More like, that zombie still has its soul attached and can wield magic,” the redhead deadpanned.

Predictably, Rades took offense at his creation being called what it was and stomped his foot. “HEY! This is a FLESH GOLEM! Get the name right you stupid bitch!” he yelled at the redhead.

The redhead frowned at the man. “While you might be able to say that about all the other crap you’ve animated, that thing still has its soul, which is enslaved to you, unless I miss my guess,” she said. “So...zombie with magic. Although, can it only use the one spell, or-”

Whatever she was going to say got cut off when Rades had Carl launch one of its magically created blades towards her head. Yami quickly moved in to block the attack. “Little less talk, more walk,” Yami ordered. “Get that kid out of here before she does more than pee her pants.”

The girl in the redhead’s arms let out an embarrassed squeak and reached back around to try and vainly herself while the woman holding her sighed. “I was trying to let her have a bit of dignity.”

“WELL TOO BAD!” Rades shouted. “BECAUSE NONE OF YOU ARE GOING ANYWHERE! Now, come out Alfred, David, Jimmy! Let’s hurry up and kill these sorry bastards, then we can find someone worth our time!” A second later, four more special ghouls rose out of dark portals created by Rades’s magic, outside of his first zombie’s shield.

The second of the corpses, named Alfred, was floating in the air and without any legs as they had been cut off above the knees. A black straight jacket restrained its arms, while bandages of the same color covered his face, aside from a patch of hair that poked out of the back, giving him the appearance of a balding mummy.

David was a fat zombie, dressed in an orange and dark blue patchwork of baggy clothes that formed not only his chest and leg coverings, but a hood that completely covered his face, save for the three eye broaches of their organization where his eyes and mouth should be.

As for Jimmy, it was a tall zombie that was covered head to toe in bandages, with belts wrapped around his overly long arms as it slouched down to where it’s knuckles were touching the ground, like some kind of evil giant monkey mummy. Just like David, he sported a golden eye as well, in the center of his head.

“Now Alfred, fry that little girl with your shocking thunderbolts!” the undead commander yelled as he pointed towards the girl in the redhead’s arms.

The floating zombie in the straight jacket lit up with an aura of lighting before sending it towards the redhead, who raised her open palm as a dome appeared around her and the Black Bulls captain to take the hit.

“What the-HEY! YOU CAN’T DO THAT!” Rades shouted at the girl from behind his shield. “YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE A FIRE MAGE! WHAT GIVES?”

After a second, the redhead looked up at the building above Rades, then down at the mage himself before smirking. “Don’t you know? It’s magic,” she said before someone let out a loud yell from above.

“AAAAAAHHHHHH!” A boy in gray hair and wearing a Black Bulls robe on top of a blue jacket and matching pants shouted before he jumped off the roof with a giant black sword pointing down. The weapon tore through the shield that Rades’s ghoul had erected like it wasn’t even there before the corpse itself became struck by the blade, making it drop like a log.

A second later, the field around the two Black Bulls disappeared, but three more sprung up around the three zombies Rades had, stopping their attacks as Yami rushed through all of them a second later at breakneck speed before Rades could react properly. The captain struck the necromancer with the wrong end of his sword in the back of the neck.

The man didn’t die, but he did drop onto the ground, unconscious. Not long after, all of his zombies joined him.

“Oh, and in case you didn’t know,” the redhead said as she strolled up to him with the girl still in her arms. “Since it’s magic, I don’t have to explain shit.”

Yami looked at the newcomer with a frown. “What the hell took you so long, Shorty?”

The boy called Shorty glared up at Yami. “You said to sneak up behind him and attack while you guys had him distracted,” he replied before gesturing to the wall Rades had been up against with his sword. “But there is no behind him! I had to climb a building to get the drop on him!”

“Quit making excuses,” Yami told him as he took out a cigarette and turned his attention to Rades. “Now, what shall we do with you, zombie lord?”

Getting nervous from his hiding place, Valtos was going to have to try making a move before the three knights either killed the man or took him into custody. Both of which were not an option for the master’s plans. However, right as he was about to act, the small magical device in his ear activated. “I’ve located the target. He’s with another Crimson Lion at the third bait point.”

Despite Valtos being perfectly hidden, the Black Bull captain actually turned to face in his direction with a frown on his face just as the spatial magic user opened his grimoire to use a more powerful spell than he normally employed. “Spatial Magic: Blackout.”

All around the city, he could feel the spatial magic spells that had been previously set up being activated, just like the one beneath him. A dark portal large enough to cover the entire city block spread out to cover the ground beneath them and-“Asta quick! Hit the trap with your sword before it activates!” the redhead yelled as the darkness covered the ground beneath her.

“ON IT!” A second later, the boy with the large black weapon that had cut through Rades’s barrier stabbed the portal that was still forming with his weapon, completely stuttering the magic before it had a chance to consume the three of them.

What in the world? Valtos wondered while Yami frowned right at him.

“Thought I felt some ki over there,” the man said before casting a spell. “Dark Magic: Black Cloak. And now, Lightless Slash!”

With the delay between the man covering his sword in dark magic and actually being able to attack, Valtos opened a spatial portal underneath himself to avoid the blow and relocate to a nearby rooftop. Once he was out from underneath the corpses, the man looked down at the three with a frown.

“How is one of the zombies still awake?” the redhead asked while she continued to hold the child in her arms.

Yami let out a puff of smoke. “Because, that guy’s not dead. He just looks real ugly.”

Valtos’s eye twitched. His face was covered in makeup! “You’re one to talk,” the fake corpse replied before turning his gaze to the boy in the blue jacket and focusing on his sword. “A weapon that can cancel out spells. We were briefed on the anti-magic boy, but didn’t expect to see you here today.”

“Well, sucks to be you, then!” Asta shouted at the man.

With things quickly turning sour, Valtos opened a portal a few feet in front of the anti-magic boy. “No matter, once my reinforcements come in through that portal, you will all be-” Before he could finish, Asta charged the portal that led to the middle of nowhere and sliced at it.

Which meant he was too far away to stop the portal under Rades from forming before it swallowed the unconscious necromancer.

“Suckers,” Valtos told them before creating another portal underneath himself.

“HEY!” Yami yelled before looking back at the redhead while Valtos made his escape. “Quick! Do your anti-portal thingy!”

The redhead flinched. “Uh...that kills people who try to go through those things,” she replied. “Why do you think I didn’t use it when we were about to be sucked in?”

“DAMNIT!” Yami cursed before he leaped up to the top of the building.

But by the time he got there, Valtos had already begun to close the portal that led to the space between locations behind him.

“Gaaa, this is so boring!”

Yuno did his best to ignore Sylph’s complaints as he blew away another group of dead things with his Towering Tornado spell. Because the creatures didn’t stop from any amount of pain and only a few broken bones were nothing but a mild inconvenience, he had to toss them into the nearby walls hard enough to turn the creatures to paste. Although, a few of them ended up going through said walls when it put too much power into the spell. So it was a delicate balance.

Flying out of reach of the zombies, something that really unnerved him after all of Father’s stories about how the world was supposed to end, Yuno didn’t have to worry about counterattacks from the creatures that couldn’t get off the ground. “What happened to you being more helpful?”

The wind goddess turned to look at Yuno with a half-lidded expression. “I said I’d tone down my throbbing urges to declare my love for you, that’s nowhere near the same thing,” she told him before looking out at the devastation. “I’m just disappointed your world’s zombie apocalypse is so lame! They don’t even carry a plague or anything! There’s no way this is going to end the human race!”

Yuno groaned before clearing another street of walking corpses with a single spell. “Well, I’m sorry that the death and destruction currently surrounding us isn’t more enjoyable for you.”

“...okay,” Sylph replied with a little flinch. “I guess that is pretty insensitive of me. But you got to admit, this is a pretty lousy way for someone to attack the Clover Kingdom. If it wasn’t for half the people in the area being complete pansies, they’d have figured out these things go down with enough damage. Two or three nobles hitting them with bursts of raw mana would tear the things apart.”

With things taken care of in his immediate area, Yuno flew up into the air and looked around for more trouble spots. Only, the scene that greeted him was much calmer than expected. Most of the fires in his area had been put out. With the large number of Golden Dawn troops to deal with the undead hordes, the mages that were assigned to basic defense of the city were able to focus on putting out fires and help clear away the rubble. On top of which, the mages from the surrounding areas were showing up to reinforce the rest of the knights.

While the sudden advent of the attack had caused a good deal of damage, now that the shock had faded, things looked to be quickly turning in Clover’s favor. It took a few minutes of looking around to even find a group of zombies that were still left for Yuno to take down.

Then, before he could even move in and destroy them, they all suddenly dropped in the middle of the street.”What the?” he mumbled.

“Hm?” Sylph hummed before frowning at the sight. “Huh...looks like the animation spell causing them to get up and walk around ran out of juice, or the person controlling them just got clipped. Either way, I think the battle just ended.”

Yuno looked over to the fairy. “There was someone controlling them?” he asked with a frown. “Don’t you think you could have told me this sooner?” With his mana sense being as developed as it was, it wouldn’t have been hard to find the person in charge of the horde and taken him out.

Once again, the fairy winced. “Yeah...you got a point there…” Sylph sighed and hung her head. “Sorry, it’s just...I don’t usually do that sort of thing when I partner up with a human, okay?”

“You mean, be helpful?” Yuno deadpanned.

Sylph groaned and rolled her eyes. “Ugh, no! I mean, volunteer information. The contract between us states that I provide you with power, and you make things fun for me. Information is given out sparingly so I don’t shatter your tiny little mind. I came here to have fun, and explaining things to guys like you isn’t fun, okay?”

The comment about the size of his brain got a groan from Yuno. “You’re one to talk about being tiny.”

“You do remember me talking to your little brother about this body you’re seeing being a doll that I’m controlling from my home dimension, right?” she asked before floating over to land on the boy’s shoulder. “If I was my actual size and looked like this, your whole kingdom wouldn’t be big enough to contain my footprint.” She sighed and kicked her legs in the air. “You can be a little put off by me now, if you want.”

Despite a good part of his mind saying that what he was about to do was a stupid idea, Yuno reached over and tapped the fairy upside her head. “And you need to stop underestimating humans,” he told her before looking around for something to do. Now that the threat had been taken care of, they had to start cleaning up.

Something he didn’t think many of the Golden Dawn would bother with.

But, before Yuno could start his descent, there was a surge of magical power that brought Sylph to attention. “Yuno, get as many people off the ground as you can, NOW!”

With the warning the fairy gave him, Yuno started flying down a second before the ground suddenly turned into a black distortion that had the look of spatial magic. No time to make any rational decisions on what to do, Yuno grabbed onto the only person in the area that meant anything to him and dug his fingers in for a firm grip before looking over to Klaus and called up his grimoire to cast a spell while the spatial magic crept up on the man. “Wind Magic: Towering Tornado!”

As his senior squad member let out a scream from being ripped away from the translocation spell, the rest of the Golden Dawn members attempted to escape from the magic on their own, with varying degrees of failure that only prolonged the time it took for them to sink into the black magic.

“HEY! GET DOWN HERE AND SAVE ME YOU WORTHLESS PEASANT!” Sandlar screamed as the sand golem that looked like a giant suit of armor sunk into the ground.

Yuno groaned before pulling Mimosa closer to him. “Sorry but, I can only carry one person at a time,” he half-lied. While carrying around another person with his magic was possible without casting a spell, that spot was reserved for Klaus.

“I’LL KILL YOU! YOU FUCKING PIECE OF-” the man shouted before he was consumed by the spatial magic pit.

With the annoying man gone, Yuno looked back to the girl in his arms. For some reason, Mimosa’s face was bright red. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

Mimosa’s cheeks reddened even further as the blackness beneath them began to recede. “Um...Y-Yuno...y-you’re hand...it’s...um…”

Sylph floated down to frown at him. “How long are you going to sink your fingers into her butt, ladies man?”

The comment made Yuno look down to where he had grabbed the girl. It was a bit off from the small of her back, and much softer. “Oh!” he exclaimed before quickly pulling out his grimoire again to cast a spell. “Wind Creation Magic: Heavenly Wind Arc.” As the trio of tornadoes formed around him to create something that could be stood on despite being air, Mimosa dropped her feet onto the magic before Yuno moved it to catch Klaus.

After picking himself up from the arc’s floor, the man looked around. “Are we the only ones that made it?”

“At least in this area,” Yuno told him before looking around. “I thought spatial magic wasn’t possible inside the Noble Realm.”

Klaus groaned and pushed his glasses up on his face. “Well, our opponents have found a way around that limitation,” he said before looking around, stopping and peering off to the left. “Hmm, it would seem that we weren’t the only knights to avoid the attack.”

As everyone in the group turned to look at what he found Sylph let out a groan. “That’s not a magic knight,” she said, getting everyone’s attention. When all of the human’s looked at her, the fairy frowned right back. “Hey, I made this body to catch all the action. Meaning that my eyes are better than a hawk’s.”

Mereoleona finished off the last of the zombies in the final group that was in her section of the city, blowing it apart with a single flaming punch before looking back to her stupid baby brother. “So, you just stood there like an idiot in front of the girl?” she asked in a rage, carrying on the conversation they had begun after learning the attack on Clover was little more than a bunch of disposable bodies that the civic guard should have been able to deal with on their own.

“W-Well,” Leopold stuttered. “We didn’t really have anything to talk about.”

“MORON!” Mereoleona shouted. “Noelle was obviously confused about something. If her best friend was standing right next to her, you’re supposed to show concern. WHY THE HELL DO YOU THINK I TOLD YOU TO ESCORT HER TO THE BATHROOM?”

Leopold gulped. “Uh...to be nice?” he asked before the idiocy of his own statement came through. “Wait, you’re never nice.”

The insult had Mereoleona in the boy’s face before he could blink. “I’M THE KINDEST THING ON TWO LEGS IN THE CLOVER KINGDOM!” she yelled at him. “Just look how I’m not beating you half to death for screwing up our family’s chances of producing an outsider offspring! SEE HOW CONSIDERATE I’M BEING?”

“Um...Sis, don’t you think that...you know...the guy that she gets together with should be someone that actually likes her?” Leo asked nervously. “I don’t even know the girl!”

Despite the genuine argument that her baby brother had, Mereoleona smacked him upside the head. “Idiot! People like us don’t have the luxury of liking who we make babies with!” she shouted at him. “Do you honestly think Mother and Father started out liking each other? If you don’t work fast, that Yuno boy is going to swoop in and grab her up before you even take her on a date!”

Leopold blinked. “Wait...aren’t they brother and sister? I’m pretty sure Sunset said something about her and him being-”

“They’re just from the same orphanage, and just talking about that girl when she’s not around gets that boy’s dick up!” Mereoleona told him. “So get your ass in gear before the two of them figure out there’s no blood relation and-” A sudden drop in the levels of mana around her made Mereoleona cut herself off.

While there were still plenty of people all around the city, the mana she had been feeling coming from the trouble spots where the flower girl and eagle brat had gone to suddenly dropped off the map. Yami was still there, and fairy boy was up in the air with two others, along with someone else floating above her own position that had been around since before the start of the fight that Mereoleona had written off as a noble on her broom too frightened to come down. But everyone else had just up and disappeared.

“The fuck just happened?” she wondered aloud.

The sudden appearance of another source of mana behind her and several feet up made Mereoleona spin around. The guy who had just portaled in, despite her being smack dab in the middle of the Noble Realm, was a freaky looking beanpole of a man with shady eyes and a pair of lines drawn on his face from his brows to his cheeks that had several little dots on them.

“Ah, the famed Fuegol-wait...you’re not the captain of the Crimson Lions,” he grumbled.

Mereoleona frowned. “Oh, you did not just mistake me for a man!”

Completely ignoring her, the spatial mage looked up into the sky as a woman in a black dress and witch’s hat descended on her broom from where Mereoleona had detected her when this whole mess started. “What is going on here, Catherine? You said that Fuegoleon was at this location!”

“I thought she was!” the witch replied. “Long orange hair and a red cape. She fits the description perfectly. The intel said that he would be here for the promotion ceremony-”

Leopold stepped forward. “Um...actually,” he spoke up, making the woman pause. “Brother is busy working, so he didn’t come to the ceremony.”

The spatial mage blinked and gave the boy a look of absolute disbelief. “Are you telling me this entire attack that we spent months setting up has all been for NOTHING?” he yelled.

Mereoleona crouched down and prepared to jump. “Oh, I don’t know. You’re about to get some shattered kneecaps out of it,” she yelled before launching herself at the mage.

Unfortunately, using the kind of magic that didn’t need to be recited before being cast meant he was able to open up a large spatial magic portal in front of himself before Mereoleona could close the distance. Not wanting to be dropped in a volcano or something, she called up her grimoire and punched forward while making a slight alteration to the spell. “Fire Magic: Calidus Brachidium!”

The resulting explosion killed her momentum and knocked the woman back as she focused her magic to create a mana zone and repositioned enough mana beneath her to keep in the air despite there being nothing beneath her feet.

“Tch! We need to pull back,” the spatial mage said before a pair of portals opened up beneath him and beside the witch.

“You think I’m just going to let you get away?” Mereoleona yelled as she called up her grimoire again.

However, it was already too late. By the time she had finished casting and repositioned the attack to stop them from escaping, both of her opponents had already slipped through their portals. A second after they disappeared, Yuno arrived on the scene with Mimosa and that Golden Dawn guy she had hid behind during the banquet.

“Ms Mereoleona, are you alright?” Yuno called out from atop his wind transport before it descended to eye level with her.

The woman glared back at him, making Mimosa give out a startled cry before she ducked behind the boy again. “DO I LOOK OKAY?” she demanded before scanning the horizon of the city.

Most of the fires had been put out and casualties looked to have been at a minimum. There were probably more injuries caused by people running away in a panic than anything else. Had this whole thing really been a farce to lure her little brother into...what? Some kind of lame trap?

None of the idiots she had seen would have been able to take him.

Although, the two captains just up and disappearing on her made Mereoleona frown. Then she turned her attention back to Yuno. “What happened to the rest of the Golden Dawn that you were with?” she asked as another oddity stood out in her mind.

And where the hell is Julius?

The place that had been chosen as the standby position and fallback point for their attack on the Clover Kingdom was a fortified manor house made more for military action than comfort. With it, the noble family of the region watched over their people and made sure that nothing could hurt them. At least, that was what George’s parents had told him when he was little, before he met the master and learned just how evil people were.

After murdering his parents in their sleep, George had put it to a much better use: the command center for the first real strike against the Clover Kingdom. Unfortunately, while Rades had caused a good amount of property damage, the real objective of the operation had turned out to be missing from the capital.

Still, the fact that some of the people had died in the attack meant that the mission was a success to George. The people of Clover deserved to suffer, they were born to suffer for their sins. And he would be the swift wind of vengeance that brought justice to the world!

The thought had him reach up and touch the scar on the left side of his face. The gift from God he had received as a child that had let him see how evil the world truly was. All the years of mockery, all the girls laughing at him… WELL WHO’S LAUGHING NOW? George thought with glee as he pictured the Noble Realm on fire.

“You lost all your special zombies?” the girl in a white robe, with her messy short hair and glasses asked as they followed Rades back into the base with one of the assault party missing. Valtos had separated from the group after dropping them all off to go and fetch the master from the place that had been prepared for him to face the Crimson Lion Captain.

Rades glared at Sally with his one good eye. “I didn’t lose them! That girl cheated! She used more than one type of magic! If someone had told me they had a copy mage ahead of time, I would have been more than ready for her!”

Nodding in agreement at the assessment of the Clover Kingdom’s so-called champions, George joined in the conversation. “Yes, they’re all dirty cheaters that need to be killed in the most painful way possible,” he agreed. “But, you told them who we were, right?”

That was the real objective of the attack, as far as George was concerned. The attack on the capital was the first day that the Clover Kingdom would learn to fear the name of the Eye of the Midnight Sun!

“Uh...what?” Rades asked the former noble, since George had cast away his title and the privilege it entailed.

George frowned at the man. “Our name. You told them that we were called the Eye of the Midnight Sun, right?” he asked. “That was supposed to be the climax of the plan. After the master killed Fuegoleon, we would let them know who to fear! Our name was to strike terror into the hearts of every man, woman and child in the kingdom!”

Rades frowned back at him as the seven of them, most still in their robes, walked into the shade of the organization’s manor before the descended into the bottom floor, that was more of an entryway and choke point with two lines of pillars to provide some semblance of cover. It made no sense to Gerorge, but his parents had been the ones to have it built.

“What was that name again?” a cheery voice called out from the darkness of the long chamber.

George looked forward. “The Eye of the Midnight-SHIT!” he cried out as the speaker stepped into view.

Although George had only seen him in pictures, the image of the Wizard King was hard to mistake, with his tall statue, blonde hair and blue star mark on his forehead, not to mention the bright red robe he wore. “Huh, that doesn’t sound very terrifying,” Julius Novachrono commented before his mana flared. “Guess all the good ones were taken. Now, let me just-”

Taking command of the situation, George brought up his grimoire. “KILL HIM NOW!” he shouted right before the man disappeared from view.

He was behind them less than a second later, his hands holding a pair of blue orbs that were obviously a spell of some kind. Then, they disappeared in a blur of motion and two of the robed men that had been standing beside George disappeared with a loud pop before a squelching impact on opposite walls led him to seeing a pair of giant red splotches of blood with bits of bone sticking out of the stone.

Seeing two men killed so easily in front of him made George take a step back. “T-They...you killed them!” he shrieked in horror.

“Don’t you know the first rule of warfare?” Julius asked before his eyes became much more cold. “Don’t take someone’s life unless you’re ready to die as well.”

One of the other mages in their group brought up his grimoire and created roots that he sent towards the Wizard King. All they had to do was touch the man and all his magic would be sucked away.

They never even reached him before the tree withered and died as the Wizard King just casually stood there doing nothing!

“Now, I’ll make you all a deal,” he said, the happy facade returning. “The first one of you that drops to his knees and begs for his life, offering up all the information you have on your little group of terrorists, that one gets to live. Not that we can’t just rip the information from your minds, but my assistant Marx does have a full schedule these days.”

Before anyone could do anything, George called up his grimoire. “Wind Creation Magic: Tornado Needles!” he cast to send a dozen little tornadoes towards the blonde man. A second later, everyone that was still alive joined in the assault throwing everything they had at the man in a barrage of attacks that filled the room with a mass of power.

“Looks like it’s executions all around then!”

Behind us, AGAIN? George mentally screamed as he turned just in time to see the man ready his spell.

“Mana Zone Time Binding Magic: Chrono Stasis Grigora,” the Wizard King cast without a grimoire in sight. There was a flash of light, and before he even knew what was going on, George found himself floating inside a blue energy bubble with arcane runes spinning around it.

No! George thought as he found himself unable to move. Nothing was holding him, his body just wouldn’t respond to any mental commands. No, he can’t do this! THIS ISN’T FAIR!

Their revolution was just starting! He was going to kill them, all the people who needed to die, all the people who had ignored and refused to recognize his brilliance! THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE START OF HIS NEW LIFE!

“Well...that was rather...disappointing,” the Wizard King said with a sigh. “Well, my magic will hold you like that for some time. You won’t die of starvation in the coming days, although...I have seen plenty of people go insane from being stuck in a single position for a few weeks. Don’t worry though, after Marx picks through your brains, depending on how well you resist, you’ll be little more than vegetables.”

NO, THIS ISN’T FAIR! George mentally screamed. They were the heroes! They couldn’t all end up like this! THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO END THE LIVES OF EVERYONE IN THE CLOVER KINGDOM!

“Now, back to what I was doing before you all so rudely interrupted me,” he said before moving deeper into the chamber, the stasis orbs following him as he went until the Wizard King came upon a large stone slab at the back of the room with ten magical circles arranged in a pattern that had three on both sides, three in the middle, and one at the bottom, with the middle one at the top standing higher than the others. Lines connected any two circles that were close enough. In all but four of the magic circles, there was a slot that held a magic stone. “Do any of you know what this tablet is? What does it do? And the writing, what does it mean? I’ve never seen script like this.”

Then the man blinked. “Oh...wait, I guess Marx will just have to rip those answers from your minds as well back at the capital. Now, let’s get-hm?” he stopped, talked to frown and looked behind him as a bright light filled the chamber.

Although the light made it too bright to see, George knew what was going on.

It was the master! He had come to save them, like some kind of benevolent god!

Unable to close his eyes, George felt them begin to burn from the light, but he didn’t care! The master would save him. THE MASTER WAS ALL!

And then...the light was gone...along with the tablet.

Sally, Rades, Catherine, they had all been spirited away by the master.

But Gerorge still floated in the temporal cocoon, behind the Wizard King, unable to do anything aside from think. No, no! What did I do wrong? Come back, please! MASTER! SAVE ME! he screamed as the Wizard King turned to frown at him.

“Well, at least I’ve still got you to ask my questions to,” Julius said before a magical transmission spell broke into the room to display the face of a man with blue hair. “Ah, Marx! Got the communication grid up and running again, I see.”

The man in the display looked around. “Sir, where are you?”

“I was going after the lead you said the intelligence division sniffed out,” the Wizard King replied. “Unfortunately, while I was able to locate the staging area for their attack, it was only after all the culprits had left. So I stayed here to try and apprehend them when they returned. It...didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped. How are things at the capital?”

“We’re still counting the number of people missing and totaling the damages. Reports are coming in that after a spatial mage managed to remove the knights from their locations to a field three-hundred miles away, they pulled back their forces. From what I can gather, the target of their attack was Fuegoleon. Although, we still can’t ascertain why they would go to such lengths to target a single captain, they pulled out when they discovered he wasn’t in the city.”

Julius rubbed his chin. “I see,” he said before looking back to where the stone tablet had been for a moment. “Tell our foremost magical research expert that I need to talk to her immediately, and have some paper for me to write on. I need to jot as much of this down while it’s still fresh in my mind.”

Once again, Sunset found herself standing in the office of the Wizard King. However, unlike last time, she wasn’t nearly as nervous, and he didn’t look anything like the cheery man who had grilled her about everything magical until she could barely stand. This time, he had a deadly serious look on his face as she took the paper Marx offered her while the rest of the captains present for the invasion were also off to the side to be briefed on what the Wizard King had found inside the hideout.

All she really wanted to do was go home, wash off the soot clinging to her face, throw her clothes in the dirty laundry pile, and get some sleep after a nice bath. Instead, they had her looking at the recollection of something Julius had found.

Sunset frowned at the diagram in front of her. The man was no Poncasso, but any child with a few pencils could jot down a good representation of one of the most fundamental arrays in magic. “It’s the Tree of Life,” she said before looking back at the man sitting at his desk.

“So you do know of it,” Julius said while the other three mages in the room became more interested. “What is it supposed to do?”

The question had Sunset reaching up to rub the top of her head to help with the headache she knew was coming. Explaining magic to humans was like getting a wild animal to wait tables. It could be done, in Equestria at least, but it took forever to have them grasp the most basic concepts. “That’s like me asking what your grimoires do, and expecting to tell me they let you use the same type of magic,” Sunset replied before looking back to the diagram. “It all depends on what’s written down along the connections. Arrays made using the Tree of Life model usually pertain to healing, but that could also be twisted to cause uncontrolled growths in the body, creating a cancerous effect.”

Julius sighed and sat back in his chair. “Unfortunately, the arcane script they used wasn’t one I’m familiar with. All I could tell was that it wasn’t language of the grimoires,” he told her before focusing on Sunset again. “What about the stones in the holes?”

Although she did her best to hide her uncomfortable expression, Sunset knew the bad feelings in the pit of her stomach were showing on her face. “That...I can’t really help you with. If they’re magic items specific to this world…”

Ten holes...with some possessing magical gems inside of them. It couldn’t have been a coincidence.

“Your expertise wouldn’t pertain to them. Yes...I was hopeful, but…” The man let out another sigh. “Well, we do have one of their number, we’ll see what we can pry from his mind. Thank you for your assistance in this time of crisis.”

Sunset felt the proverbial knife twist in her gut. She did know something about the stone, but telling the man would be a betrayal of another friend. “Um...there might be...something I can offer,” she said before pausing when everyone looked back at her. “If these things are part of an array like this, and you haven’t ever heard of the Tree of Life, then...I doubt those magic stones are an ordinary power source for any old magic item. They’re probably old, maybe even the product of foreign magic. So, there might be some information on them in your archives or...something. Sorry, I know it’s a long shot, but...it’s all I got.”

Liar, Sunset told herself as she clenched her fist.

But, what she knew about the magic stones...Secre had told her to keep it secret. Maybe, if the bird gave her permission...

After second the Wizard King nodded. “Yes, I suppose it’s worth a look. Ten magical gems that are part of a set, perhaps of otherworldly origins. There wouldn’t be many things like that in the history of the kingdom,” he said before looking over to the three mages that were standing off to the side.

While Charlotte stood a bit more at attention, and Nozel hadn’t changed his posture since the start of the meeting, Yami leaned up against the wall and reached for a cigarette that wasn’t there before frowning at his hand to put it back down. As Sunset moved back to let them take the center of the floor, the Wizard King turned his attention to another paper on his desk. “We’re going to have to make a show of solidarity in the next few days to calm the populace. I’ll give a speech, the rest of you stand behind me, that sort of thing,” he told them before focusing on the man in the middle. “Nozel, I want you to pull the Silver Eagles back to the capital for the next month or so, Have them patrol the streets, let the citizens see your robes so they can feel a bit safer. The higher the rank of the squad we use, the better. I’ll have the Golden Dawn step up the border patrols with Diamond so they don’t see this as a moment of weakness.”

“What of Fuegoleon? Will you be recalling the Crimson Lions to the capital as well?” he asked evenly.

The question got a little groan from Charlotte. “Is this really the time to be concerned that your rival is going to outdo you?”

Julius crossed his arms and sighed. “Considering that this was all centered on an attempt to take his life, or perhaps take him captive, I’m tempted to just leave him out of the city. Leo and Mereoleona have already returned to the encampment that the Lions have set up to warn the man, but if this Eye of the Midnight Sun was willing to throw so many resources into an attack centered on him...Fuegoleon has been very active in the northern regions of the kingdom lately, it’s possible that he might have stumbled onto something vital to their plans and they decided to try and put a stop to it. If that’s the case, it would probably be best to have the Crimson Lions step up their operations in the north and review several of their older missions.

“There have been over a dozen minor incidents involving insurrectionists cropping over the year. At first, I had thought they were just halfheartedly related, things who all decided to wear the same set of colors as they try to tear the Clover Kingdom down because of one reason or another. But now, I have the sneaking suspicion that they were part of a larger movement, pawns with a backer that was slowly built his power base, weeding out the chaff until he had the fanatics he needed to indiscriminately burn down anything he wanted,” the Wizard King went on. “If that’s the case, then this attack on the capital was their declaration of war and sign that whatever they’re up to, the plan they’ve concocted is reaching its end stages. But I will not allow them to have their way. They have shown themselves too early. We will find them and we will crush them.”

Happy to be home...Noelle blinked at the thought as she walked into the Black Bull’s HQ to find Vanessa passed out drunk on the couch, Gauche carving a little doll that looked like that picture of his kid sister, Gray smoking in the corner, Gordon peeking around a corner at her, and… The royal blinked as she looked around the room, but didn’t even find the evidence of burn marks. Guess Magna and Luck are still off on their mission.

It was inconceivable. The whole building was a filthy mess of shoddy construction done by shady magic that nobody had an explanation for. Her room was too small, her bath too pedestrian, and the surrounding area much too wild for a girl that had grown up in the capital. But...despite the dusty, dingy and all around dank atmosphere, Noelle was more happy to be with the Black Bulls than she ever had been at her real one.

Although…

“I put her in the Black Bulls, a squad of layabouts and misfits so that she would not be put in any real dangerous situations.”

Had Nozel known what would come of being put in the Black Bulls instead of the Silver Eagles? Even if they had kept her at the squad headquarters, doing paperwork or other such menial tasks, Nebra and Solid would have made her life there hell.

But...he had never done anything for her before!

Noelle reached up to rub her arms and stop the shiver that was threatening to overtake her body while the rest of the people that had come home with her went their separate ways. Charmy to cook her dinner, despite it being past eight at night, Yami to go to the bathroom, Asta to start his nightly workout routine, and Sunset…

The redhead poked the unconscious woman a few times before sighing and lifting Vanessa up in her magic, then putting her in a piggyback carry in what was almost a nightly ritual between the two. “I swear, sometimes, I wonder which one of us is the older one,” she grumbled without any fire in her words.

Putting the contradiction that had consumed her life on the back burner for the moment, Noelle moved after Sunset. “Hey, um...you want some help?” she asked. Not that Noelle enjoyed taking care of Vanessa when she got drunk, but...Sunset would probably need to take a bath after everything that happened.

That had become their thing, bathing together.

“Sure,” the redhead replied before Noelle grabbed a pair of empty bottles and followed them up the stairs.

After they had gotten the woman into her room, the two girls took off her clothes and slipped her into bed on the edge so that when they inevitably woke up in the middle of the night to throw up, it wouldn’t get anywhere but the bucket they had put there for her. Then, Sunset used a bit of her magic to secure the woman to keep her from rolling around in her sleep and bent down to kiss her on the side of the head.

Once she was taken care of, they finally headed to the bath and stripped down to wash off all of the soot and grime that clung to Sunny before finally getting in for a good soak. After sinking down into the water and taking a few minutes to just let the heat do it’s work, Noelle looked over to Sunset. “So...rough day?”

“You have no idea,” she groaned before leaning over to rest her head on the royal’s shoulder. “I just got used to seeing cooked meat, and now there’s walking human corpses? That’s just freaky. It took everything I had not to just teleport away...which...I guess your capital’s means of blocking spatial magic doesn’t stop. Really should have made sure of that before I rescued that little noble kid.”

Noelle smirked and reached around the other girl to hug her. “I’m just glad you’re all safe...I...should have gone with you guys,” she admitted in a soft voice.

Sunset tensed in her grip. Noelle knew what she was about to say, that Nozel was right to leave her behind because she was so useless in such a situation, but it was nice that Sunset didn’t just tell her outright. “Well, he wasn’t wrong to leave someone to watch the castle. Do you still have that communicator?”

“Yeah,” Noelle said with a little smirk before she pulled the redhead in closer to her. “Think I should call some of the Silver Eagles as a prank?”

The joke question got a smile from Sunset. “No. But hold onto the thing, who knows when you’ll need to call someone,” she said before going quiet for several seconds. “Hey Noelle, everything okay with you? Did you have another dizzy spell like at lunch.”

Noelle blinked. “I’m...just...processing something. It’ll be fine.”

Silence returned to the bath for several seconds before Sunset decided on another topic. “So...your family...they seem...dickish.”

A snort of a laugh came from Noelle at the descriptor. “Sunny, you have no idea.”

Page 16: Nairn

The tunnel was dark, and reeked of poor maintenance, among other things that were best not thought about. Water flowed down the middle of the man made underground passage. It was green, and thick sludge, full of...something neither of the girls really wanted to think about as they made their way down the stone path, towards the intersection where the last sighting of the monster they were hunting had occurred.

“This is so not fair!” Noelle complained as she held her nose and hid behind the other female member of her three-man team while Asta brought up the rear, despite his lack of long-range combat ability. “Aren’t the Silver Eagles supposed to be handling security for the capital right now? Why the hell can’t they send Solid and Nebra down here to get God knows what on their shoes?”

Sunset led the way, her current mana configuration set to light magic to provide both a quick offensive option and lighting. Thankfully, the humans in the Clover Kingdom knew enough about science to forbid the use of fire magic or lightning magic in the tunnels underneath their own cities. Unfortunately, that meant only people who had the right kind of magic were allowed to take jobs in such places, or in the case of the girls, forced to.

“So uh...could you run this whole monster thing by me again?” Sunset asked as she extended the light her hands were projecting forward. “How does a monster just appear in the most heavily guarded place on the planet?”

Asta let out a groan when Noelle hoped to keep her mouth closed. “So, when there’s a lot of mana released in an area, it tends to have weird effects on the stuff around it. Mostly, it’s just animals, but every now and then, you get stuff like that mutant plant we fought in the dungeon. Sometimes, even stuff like lava can come to life,” he explained. “But it’s more...uh…”

Sunset looked back at him. “A creature of pure instinct that has no real biological drives, so it has no idea what to do and just roams around, sometimes attacking people?”

Noelle looked back at the boy with a frown. “Wait, how does someone like you know something like that?”

“Hey, Hage is right next to an entire territory of high level mana zones,” Asta said before becoming hesitant. “I...was kind of hoping that something would wander into the village one day so I could fight it and show everyone how awesome I was.”

Resisting the urge to smack her baby brother upside his head, Sunset took the information and processed it. “So, this monster we’re hunting, it’s like...a piece of the sewers brought to life?”

Noelle moaned at the s-word. “It better be,” she grumbled before looking around before glancing down at her boots, probably glad that Vanessa had talked the girl into buying back when they went shopping to fill out Sunset’s wardrobe.

“Well, I doubt it could be water,” Sunset mused. From the sound of things, the material had to be in one place for a good amount of time for it to suck up enough mana to become sentient and mobile. “I suppose...something from the metal grate, or maybe the pipes. What else could possibly-”

A loud moan of a million voices cut Sunset off as they came to another interaction and looked down a dark pit that was a dumping site for several runoff pipes. Then, a pair of glowing yellow eyes lit up the darkness, and a muddy, smelly...thing reached up with a filthy, green hand big enough to hold a person like a doll that grasped onto the edge of the falloff before it pulled itself up.

Well inside the orb of illumination coming from Sunset’s hand, the not-unicorn had an epiphany on just what this monster was that the Black Bulls had been called into deal with when the Silver Eagles were supposed to be patrolling the capital in force. “Oh...it’s a...sewage elemental.”

“WAAAAAAAAHHH! I’LL NEVER BE CLEAN AGAIN!”

Sunset moaned as she listened to Noelle cry about her lot in life as she leaned on the edge of the squad bath while Vanessa worked on scrubbing the poor girl’s back of some imagined toxin. Despite being cleaned off before they left the capital via spatial magic, Noelle had burst into the bathing area with Sunset in tow to bring them both into the hot water.

It had been weeks since the attack on the capital, and things had settled into what had almost become a new normal for her. Barring a mission, Sunset would wake up and either look out at the oddity that was the human universe before adjusting her calculations on the movements of the planets if need be, or poke the magical stone they had found in that nothing village a few more times with less intrusive scans. Then came breakfast, followed by a few hours of Noelle’s mana practice, which was becoming even more hit or miss for some reason Sunset couldn’t figure out. And while Noelle did her thing, Sunset tried her hand at building up her body’s natural endurance and resistance. All of which ended with two or three of the squad’s girls sharing a soak in the bath; with the occasional addition of Charmy.

As for the world at large, repairs had just about been completed to the capital to the point that it was hard to tell if there had ever been any damage at all. Like he had told the knight captains, the Wizard King made a speech about how they would stand together against the threat of The Eye of the Midnight Sun. From the information she gleaned from Yami, Sunset knew that the captive the Wizard King had collected wasn’t giving any information thanks to some kind of protection spell on his mind. What was even more disconcerting was that a few members belonging to a group of mages that maintained some kind of magic barrier over the city had disappeared, but nobody knew if they had been killed or turned traitor.

“So, what’re you two doing for our day off tomorrow?” she asked after looking back to see that Vanessa was done clearing Noelle for the moment.

“The two of us will be going to Nairn,” an odd voice replied.

Sunset looked to her left and let out a little shriek before rolling over until she was sitting on her butt and looking at the speaker when she noticed a bird paddling along in the water. “S-Secre! What’re you doing here?”

The bird gave Sunset a half-lidded look. “Getting cleaned up, of course,” Secre replied before swimming over to the side and flapping her wings several times, despite the moisture in the air making them damp a second later. After looking up at the edge of the bath, she turned to Sunset. “Little help?”

“Uh...sure,” Sunset replied before cupping her hands underneath the water and gently lifting the bird out of the bath and onto the side. Once she was standing on the edge of the bath, Sunset resumed her old position, stretching out her back muscles. “What’re you wanting to go to Nairn for?”

Secre tweeted, which Sunset had long since learned was more like a snort for her. “I lived in that little village long before you showed up, you know. If you and the brats are going to check on Orsi, I might as well tag along.”

Oh yeah, Secre probably watched that old man grow up, just like Asta and Yuno, Sunset realized. The bird spent so much time at the hideout lately, watching over that damned stone, Sunset had nearly forgotten that she had ever done anything else.

“Well, looks like it will just be me and Noelle going to the Blackbrier's reopening then,” Vanessa said before she pulled the girl with the skin that had just been scrubbed raw into a hug.

Noelle looked back at Vanessa. “Blackbrier’s...aren’t they those nobles who were implicated in that thieves guild scandal two years ago? Why would I-wait,” she said before frowning. “They own a big wine business in the capital.”

Not affected by the royal’s frown in the least, Vanessa’s smile turned into a grin. “That’s right! It was burned down during the attack on the capital...despite not being anywhere near the troubled areas,” she muttered in a suspicious tone before cheering up again. “But now, it’s back open and they’ll be having a sale to commemorate it!”

“Okay, one,” Noelle replied as she held up a finger. “The wine I drink has a ten year minimum age limit.” Then she broke out of Vanessa’s embrace to turn around and frown at her. “And two, you want to get drunk.”

“Hey!” Vanessa whined. “I only get drunk when the two of you aren’t around. So if you go with me, then I won’t get plastered.”

Noelle gave the woman a hesitant groan before looking over to Sunset for some reason, then back to Vanessa. “Well...it sounds tempting, but I already promised Sunset I’d go with her to meet Father Orisai.”

“Orsi,” Sunset corrected with a little frown.

Despite the obvious lie, Vanessa apparently accepted it with a sigh. “Guess I’ll be drinking alone then,” she said before a devious smile appeared on her face. “So, meeting Asta’s family. That’s a pretty big step in your relationship, don’t you think?”

Noelle stood up and stiffened. “Eh?”

After flapping her wings until they were more dry, Secre looked up at the naked girl. “I could tell you some embarrassing things to ask the old man about if you want to get a rise out of Asta.”

“Y-You too?” the noble asked as she spun to look at the bird.

Quickly losing track of the conversation, Sunset looked back and forth between the two women. “What’s going on?”

Noelle actually managed to look more embarrassed as she sunk back into the water until it was just above her nose. She might have said something, but all that came up were bubbles.

So, Secre answered the question. “She’s had a thing for Asta since you and him saved her from that water mana explosion the day after joining the Black Bulls.”

As Sunset processed the information, Noelle jumped back to her feet and brought her arms up to press against her breasts, with her hands right under her chin. “H-How in the hell could I like that muscular idiot?” she demanded in a panic. “He’s short, and loud, a-and...and, he’s just weird!”

“You seriously never noticed how she acts around him?” Vanessa asked Sunset while Noelle continued to stammer.

Sunset blinked at the question before thinking back to as many interactions between the two that she could remember. Unless they were on a mission, Noelle did seem to put her between them as much as possible, which...meant absolutely nothing to her. “Uh...I’m a pony, remember?” she asked the three other females in her vicinity. “I don’t do your strange mating habits.”

“M-M-MATING?” Noelle shrieked before spinning around to glare as Sunset as she bent over. “That’s like, thirty-thousand miles from where I am right now!”

After giving Noelle a look and moving to the left a bit so the girl’s butt wasn’t right in her face, Vanessa turned her attention to Sunset. “Huh, you know, I keep forgetting you’re not really human,” she said before leaning back against the wall. “So, how do you guys...do relationships?”

The question made Sunset blink. She was the last former pony that anyone should have been asking about the Equestrian dating scene. Aside from the occasional observation of the royal guard during that one week a month every mare had to suffer through, she hadn’t been interested in anypony. But, it wasn’t like she was completely ignorant on the subject either. Plenty of ponies had tried to get her attention when she was Celestia’s student. “Well, it depends on if it’s the mare chasing the stallion, or the stallion trying to attract the attention of the mare,” she began. “Now, it’s different for every tribe, but unicorns...we’re pretty upfront about things. If a mare sees an unclaimed stallion that she likes, she’ll probably approach him with some question about his cutie mark, they talk a bit, see if his dick drops, and go from there.”

There was no sound in the bath, save for the running water as the two women and bird stared Sunset with disbelief all over their faces.

“Uh...we walk around naked back home, remember?” she asked them.

Despite the late hour, Mimosa made her way down the empty halls of the Golden Dawn’s headquarters. With most of the experienced members off patrolling the border with Diamond, the castle that managed to look more like an expensive manor, rather than some fortification, was eerily quiet come nighttime. So, she didn’t think much about the fact that the only thing she had on was a nightgown as she made her way back from the kitchens, having gotten a snack to take her mind off…

Yuno’s hand gripped her tightly as he rose up into the air right before the trap beneath her could spring. She clung onto him for safety, unsure if she was strong enough to hold onto the man by herself.

...other things.

Mimosa felt her cheeks redden at the memory, but it wasn’t the only one. Since the senior members of the Golden Dawn were off securing the border, the newer knights that were still considered too green for frontline combat, despite the recent promotion she and all the knights that had managed to avoid being cast out of the capital received. So, because of that, Klaus had been taking them on mission after mission, several of which had her being in very close proximity with the broody young man. Like when he had to catch her after Mimosa fell off her broom, or she had to heal some of the more grievous wounds Yuno received on a particularly dangerous mission.

The young woman gulped at the memory of seeing him with his shirt off.

Then, an odd sight drew Mimosa out of her memories, and she blinked as Sylph floated across the hallway in front of her. “Huh?” she asked, drawing the fairy’s attention. “What’re you doing here?”

“Oh, hey Mimosa,” the elemental being replied before looking around. “I’m just exploring. Last time I was here, the Golden Dawn didn’t exist, and Yuno doesn’t take me anywhere he doesn’t need to go, so I thought I should look around the place while he’s unconscious.”

Mimosa blinked as several of her preconceptions about the strange creature were shattered so casually. “Huh. I didn’t think you could be too far away from Yuno,” she said. “Isn’t he your...mana source, or...something?”

For an instant, Sylph got a perturbed look on her face, then sighed before she floated over to land on Mimosa’s shoulder. “Well, I got myself into this so...I can go a certain distance from him. Which is wide enough to cover the base. But beyond that, this doll will start to break up,” she said before looking over to the girl and state of dress. “What’re you doing up so late?”

The question, or rather, the answer to the question had Mimosa lock up before she felt herself become red in the face again. “I, um...I was just…” She looked down at herself and gave a pitiful moan. Nothing actually showed through her green nightgown, but just the thought of someone finding out what had woken her up in the middle of the night made her go stiff as stone.

Frowning when she didn’t get an answer, Sylph sniffed the air, then flew down below Mimosa’s midsection. “Oh! You were masturbating,” she said before flying back up to the human’s embarrassed face.

“I-that...I woke up before the dream could finish!” she told the fairy while doing her best not to think of the subject of her dream. It had been just like their last mission, only Klaus hadn’t been there and neither of them had any clothes on. “C-Come on, you know what it’s like!”

Sylph gave her a blank stare as her long hair flowed in the wind. “Not really,” she said before lifting her dress.

Despite the fact that she raised her hands to try and block the sight, Mimosa got a peek underneath the fairy’s skirt and blinked. “Wait...you don’t have anything down...there,” she mumbled as Sylph dropped her dress back down.

“I told you before, this is a doll,” Sylph told her before floating back to land on the woman’s shoulder. “I’ve never dove into a human female, so I don’t know how to configure the nerves properly.”

Not sure what to say to that, Mimosa kept her silence for a few seconds. “...oh,” she replied before looking back down the hall to where her room was located. “So...um...I should probably be getting back to sleep. It’s our day off tomorrow, but after the capitol got attacked, I’ve been thinking about taking a more offensive stance in my training. Klaus promised to work something out with me.”

Sylph didn’t move from Mimosa’s shoulder as she started to head towards the dorms. The fairy just leaned back and kicked her feet as she looked up at the ceiling for most of the journey. When they finally got to the door, it finally spoke again. “I don’t think your parents would be happy about you wanting to sleep with Yuno.”

“W-What?” Mimosa stuttered before she looked over to the little creature as Sylph jumped up into the air and remained at eye level.

“Your parents,” she repeated before sighing and crossing her arms. “I’ve been observing humanity for thousands of years, Mimosa. I know when a girl has the hots for one of my boys. Usually, I’d throw a fit and maybe pull a few pranks on you over the course of a few months, but that damn unicorn got me talking to you little creatures and...I like you too much to get you all screamy. So, I’m just going to be straight with you here. Your parents are royalty, you’re expected to marry nobility, if you try anything with Yuno, they’ll throw a fit at the least.”

Mimosa blushed with embarrassment. She had thought her emotions had been hidden well enough. “I know,” she said while looking at the ground. “I’m clumsy and nervous, not stupid.” Even though magic was supposed to be everything in Clover, a commoner would always be a commoner, no matter what their accomplishments were.

She sighed and opened the door to her room before walking inside.

“Wait!” Sylph exclaimed before flying in after her. “That’s it? What happened to that stuff like, true love conquers all, or something like that?”

Mimosa looked up at the fairy before she sat down on her bed. “Wait...I’m confused. Aren’t you here to tell me not to get near Yuno? I thought you and him were supposed to be married.”

After rolling her eyes, Sylph let out a sigh. “You little things never listen to me for more than ten seconds,” she grumbled. “Yes! I claimed Yuno and said I’d have him all to myself for five years before letting him have a chance to choose his mate. So until then, he’s mine. But...if I want to...partner him up with someone before then, even if he doesn’t want to...that’s well within the contract too. Like I said, I’ve...grown used to you and Spectacles being around, so...it would make it more convenient for you to stick around after Yuno is allowed to marry.”

“Then what was with that whole parents comment?” Mimosa asked as Sylph’s explanation only made her more confused.

Sylph flew back up into the girl’s face. “Look! I’m seriously considering letting you get together with my Yuno, that that’s the first question you ask?” she demanded.

“Just what kind of freaky magic does this guy have?”

Gauche ignored the comment before finishing off the last of the bandits with a blast of magical energy to the chest. Although he usually left most of the men he tangled with on the ground and dead, because of all that crap in the capital, the Magic Knights were bringing in as many people as they could alive to help hunt down any leads on those Midnight Sun jerks. From what he understood, they tended to pick up losers as members, and bandits that sucked at their jobs so bad that a single magic knight could wipe out their entire encampment fit the bill.

Although, it would be easier to transport the survivors back to the capital if a few of them were dead. At the very least, it would make it so that the guys who were left thought twice about running away.

Gauche looked down at the guy who had talked and stepped on his face after dragging the last of the men over to the growing pile of people too injured to move. “Do you want to die?” he asked.

“N-No!” the man stuttered in haste before Gauche started making one last check of everything he could see.

The bandit camp wasn’t complex or anything, just a bunch of sleeping mats and other things needed to live in the wilderness that were easy enough to move around. As for the location, the hideout was just hidden in an old castle that had more than half fallen apart, with everything placed on the first floor, with the remains of the second floor serving as a roof. They didn’t even have four walls.

If he had to guess, they were probably a bunch of savages from the wild magic region that served as a border between Spade and pretty much every other kingdom in the land. Because of all the wild magic zones and handful of autonomous territories like the Witch’s Forest, nobody bothered to claim the area as theirs, so idiots liked to think they could head up north to live as free men who didn’t have to bend a knee to anybody.

That is, until they found out that living up there was too hard and started trying to raid other kingdoms. Because the Forsaken Realm that bordered the territory they all came from didn’t get much attention from the rest of the squads, bandits usually had the run of the place long enough to set up shop and dig in. Which made locating them that much easier as opposed to a purely nomadic gang.

Since there wasn’t anybody else around, Gauche reached into the satchel he had with him and pulled out the communication box. It was one of the larger models since the Bulls didn’t have the funding to get anything else made, with the exception of Captain Yami’s communication item. He held it in both hands after activating it and had to wait several seconds too many before getting an answer.

The dome on top of the brass box opened up and projected an image of the Black Bulls’s spatial mage. “Finral, I finished the job. They were hiding out at an old fort in the eastern end of the valley. Have headquarters send a wagon for the prisoners.”

Finral’s image let out a yawn. “Do you have any idea what time it is?” he grumbled.

After taking a look up at the stars in the sky, Gauche turned his good eye back down to the womanizer. “Nighttime, obviously.”

“IT’S MIDNIGHT, YOU IDIOT!”

Gauche gasped at the news. Midnight?

Had it really taken him that long to track down the bandits?

Despite Gauche’s protests, Captain Yami had made him take the assignment that took half a week to complete. It had almost caused the mage to miss the most important day in the history of the human race!

“Understood,” Gauche replied before closing the communicator and looking back at the group of robbers. “In honor of this special day, I’m letting you all off the hook.”

“...huh?” the few men that were still conscious asked before one of them managed to use some real words. “Um...special day?”

By the time the man had asked his question, Gauche had taken out his most precious possession. It was a tiny locket with the most important picture in the world resting within it. “That’s right. Today is a special day,” he said before opening the locket. “The day that an angel was born!”

He didn’t have time to wait for someone to come and pick up the prisoners, he needed to rest up, then head out to buy his little sister presents for her birthday.

Although he hated to take a day off from training, especially when it was a day off from his other Black Bull duties besides feeding Yami’s pets, Asta doubted that Sunset would fly him to Nairn if he was covered in sweat. So, he was actually on time for breakfast. Then, when that was all over, he headed out with Sunset to the back entrance of the hideout where all the brooms were kept.

However, the sight of Noelle standing there with a broom both confused and worried him. Despite the fact that he didn’t actually have magic, Asta knew that Noelle on a broom was a bad idea. Brooms were all about controlling your magical power, and Noelle’s had been a bit wonkier than usual as of late.

“Hey Noelle, you going somewhere too?” he asked.

The second he asked the question, Nolle’s face became bright red and she looked down at the ground. “I, uh...thought that...I’d go with you,” she said as her sandals kicked at the ground. Then, she cleared her throat and looked back up at him with a frown. “You got a problem with that?”

Receiving a glare of death from the girl, Asta took a step back while looking at her in disbelief. What did I do? he asked himself in worry before looking over to Sunset for support.

His big sister was dressed in her boots, tight pants and light green blouse outfit, complete with the coat that went over it today, underneath her black robe. Although, there was something missing that made him blink. “Uh, Sunset, you forgot your grimoire….again,” Asta pointed out.

“Yeah,” the girl replied nervously before looking to the back of her body where it usually hung. “I’m thinking, maybe I should just take it back to the tower. I only really grabbed the thing because I was trying to make myself look human. Now that it’s pretty much a non-issue...I just don’t like having to lug a stupid book around with me everywhere.”

Before anything more could be said, Secre landed on Asta’s head. “Well, you should still go get it. A woman your age would look odd without one,” she told the inhuman, getting a little grumble from Sunset before the redhead stormed off with the bird following her to make sure she came back with her book.

With nobody else to talk to, Asta looked back to Noelle. “So, how come you want to come to Nairn?”

Noelle opened her mouth to talk, then froze before her eyes slowly looked around the open area they were standing in. “W-We’re alone,” she mumbled before gripping the broom even tighter.

“Uh...yeah,” Asta said, growing even more confused as Noelle gulped and became red in the face.

Since Noelle was getting all weird again, and it would still be a little while before Sunset got back, Asta found himself in need of something to do. Since he couldn’t really work out, that left… “Oh! Have you seen what my new sword can do?” he asked before calling up his grimoire and opening it up to pull the lighter weapon out.

The royal girl sighed and slumped a bit. “I was there when you got it, remember?”

“Yeah, but that was before Secre told me it’s secret,” he told her before pointing the tip of the blade at the girl. “Send some of your mana into it, it’s cool!”

Nervously, Noelle held out a hand and a blue glow transferred from it to the blade, where there was a small indention. After a few seconds, the rusty black sword glowed a light blue, and the mana could be seen, pooled along the middle of the blade. “Okay, so what does that do?”

To show her, Asta turned around and slashed at the air. As he did, a crescent blade of blue mana few out of his sword to cut down a branch.

“Huh...so you can do a long range attack if someone loans you some mana?” Noelle asked.

Asta put his sword away and turned back to the girl. “Yeah,” he said happily after securing his grimoire.

Noelle stopped talking and got an uncomfortable look on her face. “Hey Asta...do you...know why you don’t have any mana?” she asked as she reached up to rub her arm.

The question made Asta tense. It wasn’t that he hadn’t been expecting the question from someone on the squad. The answers he came up with weren’t very encouraging. “Not really,” he said before sighing as some of the theories as to why that was came to mind. “There’s been a lot of ideas over the past few months, though. First, everyone I knew just thought I just didn’t have much magic without a grimoire, but when I didn’t get one after everyone else did eight months ago...well, I got to thinking a lot about it.”

“But you never actually got examined by a doctor...although, I suppose Sunset would be a better choice to look into it, considering her mystical knowledge,” Noelle said before tapping her chin in thought. “Or maybe that little thing that Yuno has tagging along with him. Sylph probably knows more about magic than even she does.”

Asta raised an eyebrow. “So, you don’t want to hear why I don’t have any mana, now?”

After getting her attention again, Noelle put on that hoity look of hers as she crossed her arms. “I want to know the real reason you don’t have mana. Not whatever stupid idea you’ve come up with,” she told the boy before obviously realizing something. “Wait, if we’re all going to Nairn and going to be meeting Yuno there, then that spirit will be there too. I’ll just ask her!”

Before he could tell her that his ideas were perfectly fine reasons why someone wouldn’t have any mana, Sunset came walking back out with her belt on and grimoire secured behind her butt. “Okay you two, ready to go?”

Noelle looked down at her broom as Sunset took it and got the thing to fly. “Uh, Sunset? I just realized. Can we all even fit on a broom this size?” she asked cautiously before looking at the long stick.

“Don’t worry, I was talking to Charmy last night and told her what we were up to, so she let me borrow the solution,” the girl said before her hand began to glow with a dull golden light. “Now, don’t either of you move. I’ve practiced on food, but that wasn’t a mobile target.”

Both of the unrelated Black Bulls blinked in confusion before a bright light made Asta look away from Sunset’s hands. The next thing he knew he was in an odd forest, standing in front of two towers that were painted hot pink. “What the heck just-”

“HMMM, LOOKS LIKE I MANAGED TO KEEP ANY DEFORMITIES FROM OCCURRING.”

The booming voice made Asta cover his ears before looking up. The sight of Sunset’s face filling the sky made him let out a scream.

“W-WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO US?” Noelle screamed, making Asta notice her for the first time since they had been shrunk.

Sunset got on her knees and reached down with one hand to gently scoop them both up before Asta noticed her magic doing something else before she spoke again in a voice that didn’t threaten to make his head explode. “It’s Charmy’s cotton compression binding spell, just without the cotton,” she told them while Noelle clinged to Sunset’s middle finger. “I’d say you’ve got about an hour before the spell wears off. Unless you use your mana to break the binding early. Now...where to put you?”

The woman looked around for a bit before looking down at herself, putting Noelle in an even worse mood. “I swear, if you stuff us in your bra, I’m going to break this stupid spell and land on you the second we take off.”

“I suppose I’ll stand on the broom,” Secre offered. “They can ride in your hood.”

Sunset didn’t even bother looking at the little people before moving to put them behind her head. “Good idea.”

However, Noelle didn’t seem to like the idea all that much, as she looked over to Asta before her face got red again. “N-No, wait! Not a good idea! That jacket has pockets! You can put us in separate aaaahhhh!”

The tumble that followed as Sunset dropped Noelle and Asta into her hood and let them slide down left the two teenagers tangled up together in a mass of limbs as Sunset’s thick hair came back to block out most of the sunlight. The only good side of the whole thing was that he had managed to land on something soft.

“Asta,” Noelle growled. “Get your face out of my chest.”

Or not, he realized before doing his best to untangle himself. “S-Sorry,” the boy apologized before he finally got off of the girl and onto his back. Although, the way the hood was made tended to make the two of them slide back together.

Then, the world lurched, and Asta guessed that they were up in the air as Noelle let out a cry and rolled over on top of him, making the young man tense up. “Uh...a-are you going to...d-do something about this?”

Noelle let out a groan, before she just sighed and laid her body down on top of his. “If I broke the spell, you’d probably end up somewhere even more embarrassing...or fall to your death because neither of us could catch you in time,” she replied before rolling off of Asta again. But, because of how Sunset’s hood was, they were still right next to each other. “Just...don’t think this means I like you or anything...stupid!”

“Oh-kay,” Asta slowly replied.

Several seconds passed without any talking, making Asta realize just how close he was to the young woman, even though they weren’t on top of each other. Then, Noelle started to shiver a little and Asta realized that the robe of Sunset’s hood was made more to keep out the rain than the wind. It didn’t help that her clothes weren’t made for flying at high altitudes.

“Hey Noelle, do you...want my jacket?” he asked after a few seconds.

Noelle moaned before she rolled over on top of the warm body that was Asta and wrapped her arms around him before resting her head on his muscular chest. “This is just because your stupid sister didn’t put us somewhere warmer, got it?”

“Uh, N-Noelle?” Asta stuttered.

Noelle groaned again and brought her legs up to wrap them around his. “D-Don’t...just...tell me about this guy we’re going to see!” the girl told the boy.

Although she knew being in the Common Realm would have made the village of Nairn was much larger than Hage pretty much by default, Sunset wasn’t ready for just how massive the place was, or how developed. Easily ten times the size of Hage, Nairn was a fully developed settlement, complete with paved streets throughout the town and buildings that topped two floors. At the center of the town was a large city square, with a decorative fountain in the center of that. Although, this being a Clover Kingdom settlement that had some prosperous people in it meant that the church was the largest building in the area by a wide margin. There were also enough people in town to support a thriving economy, as was evidenced by the several shops that dotted the area.

Still, it was a long cry from the capital mountain, with the town being close to the northernmost point in the Common Realm. Most of the places Sunset saw looked very generalized in what they sold and family owned. As for the inns, the rooms they had for rent didn’t look like they had a capacity for more than five people each.

If I had to guess, this is probably a mining town, Sunset told herself as she looked off to the mountains that were within easy walking distance and a complete lack of large farms around the collection of buildings for nearly a mile. Despite it being the tail end of Summer, the nearby range was tall enough to have snow on its peeks and plenty of easy paths up to the top.

After making a quick circuit of the town on her broom and failing to see Yuno, or even detect a source of mana anywhere near his power level, Sunset set herself down and hopped off her broom while Secre flew over to the nearby fountain to perch on the edge. “Okay you two, we’re here-” was all Sunset managed to say before she felt a powerful force hit her from behind and press down on her face when they hit the ground.

Judging by the softness and pink coloring that filled her eyes… “Noelle? Please get your butt off of my face,” the redhead asked as the pavement stopped her jaw from opening properly.

Noelle slowly picked herself up and Sunset got an eyeful of her sandals on top of the incoming lecture. “Well...you should have just let me ride on the broom instead of stuffing me in your-wait, where’s Asta?” she asked.

As Sunset rolled over to pick herself up, Noelle went rigid and a disturbed look crossed her face as the girl’s top started to shift around. A shaky hand carefully reached forward and made its way down into the pink top that Noelle usually had completely covered up by her white clothes and knight robe. Not a few seconds later, she pulled Asta out of her clothes and glared at him while her fingers wrapped around his body. “Now you die.”

“C-Come on, you’re the one that broke the spell early!”

“THAT DOESN’T MEAN YOU GET TO CRAWL INTO MY BRA!” she yelled at him after bringing the boy up to her face.

Sunset cautiously reached up and touched Noelle’s wrist. “Hey, careful. I don’t know if he has a normal person’s durability or something more sized for something that small,” she told the other girl.

With Asta’s wellbeing actually at stake, Noelle became tense again and the girl’s grip loosened to the point that Asta had to grab on before he fell through. “So...how much time is left on the spell,” she asked before looking back to the boy with a little frown. “With as small as you are, maybe the rest of your time can be spent cleaning my toenails.”

The question got Sunset to thinking. “Um...I’m not really sure,” she said while trying to think about how much time had passed since she left the Black Bulls HQ. But, there was always the possibility that her calculations could have been a bit off when trying to determine how much mana would be required to hold the spell. “Eh, I’ll just have to undo it a bit early.”

After taking a step back, Sunset held out her hand while Noelle went to holding Asta by the back of his jacket with her finger and thumb. Only, once she had called up the mana needed to undo the binding, Sunset realized something. “Wait, I never actually asked Charmy how to undo the magic.”

“SAY WHAT?”

Noelle winced before bringing the boy back up to her eyes. “Uh...that doesn’t mean he’s stuck like this, does it?”

“OH COME ON! WHAT HAPPENED TO THERE BEING A TIME LIMIT?”

The squeaky voice of her little brother made Sunset need to cover her mouth to keep from giggling. Despite the situation, which she was pretty sure would end once the mana for the spell ran out, she couldn’t help but be a little mischievous. “Well, I don’t see what the big deal is, I mean, you were always shorter than everyone else, right? It’s not like much has changed.”

“Undo the...wait.”

As Asta called up the little grimoire he had with him to draw out his sword, Noelle frowned over at the redhead. “That’s not funny Sunset!” she yelled. “Now, hurry up and break the spell before-” Asta smacked himself with his own sword.

Not a moment later Noelle was laying with her back on the ground while Asta sat on top of her, right between her chest and face. “Hey, touching my sword also undoes magic that’s been cast on-”

“GET YOUR CROTCH OUT OF MY FACE!” Noelle yelled before a large explosion of water knocked Asta into the nearby fountain while his sword clanged to the ground.

For some reason Yuno couldn’t ascertain, Sylph spent most of the trip to Nairn in a bad mood. Normally, he would have just ignored the pixie, but this time her bad mood just didn’t make sense. After hearing Mimosa wasn’t coming with them and spending the day with Klaus was when she went passive aggressive.

So, in the interest of not having an angry wind goddess literally blow someone away whenever she decided to snap, Yuno looked over to Sylph. “Something wrong?”

“Wrong? Nothing’s wrong!” she said. “All I did was graciously allow Mimosa to tag along on our date, and she refused!”

Yuno let out a little groan as the cape of his custom-made imitation Golden Dawn uniform flapped around in the wind behind him. “I’m just going to check on Father Orsi,” he corrected her. How Sylph decided to turn that into a date, Yuno didn’t want to know.

“Exactly!” she exclaimed.

Still not following the spirit’s logic, Yuno decided to drop the conversation when they reached the outer edge of what he could only call a city. Nairn wasn’t anywhere near the size of the capital, but Hage could have fit inside the buildings that made it ten times over.

Although they didn’t have any plans on where to meet, finding Sunset was easy enough thanks to his mana sense. So Yuno descended and landed on the ground to see the redhead using water magic to pull a good amount of moisture out of Asta’s clothes while the Silva Black Bull girl he had met previously was standing off to the side with her arms crossed.

With Sunset busy messing with their little brother, Yuno walked up to the girl. “What’re you doing here?”

“See! Asta brought his girlfriend to meet your dad!” Sylph exclaimed as she pointed at Noelle.

The labeling of the royal made Noelle start sputtering. “W-W-W-WHAT?” she yelled before getting into the fairy’s face, her voice drastically low. “Asta’s not my boyfriend! I...we just...that...how in the hell could I love a short, stupid, loudmouth like him?”

Despite not wanting to get involved, Yuno found himself opening his mouth in defense of his brother. “I wouldn’t call Asta stupid, he just doesn’t have a filter.”

Noelle pressed her lips together and groaned as she crossed her arms. “Okay, I’ll give you a point there.”

“So, what are you doing here?” Yuno asked after the girl’s anger decreased a bit.

The question made Noelle’s cheeks become flushed. “I...um…emotional support?” she asked with nervous grin before blinking, which was soon followed by a widening grin. “Yep, I need to support Sunny. Because there’s something she’s been needing to tell you for awhile now, and uh...friends back their girls up when they need to do stuff like that?”

Not following the young woman at all, Yuno looked back up to the other members of his family when they finally walked up to him.

“Hey Yuno,” Asta greeted with a raised hand.

“Yuno!” Sunset greeted him much more enthusiastically before taking a step towards the boy like she was going to hug him, only to grab the young man’s cape and begin examining his uniform. “Hmm, not bad. Looks a little hot for Summer, and kind of stuff. Can you breathe okay with the collar like that?”

Yuno reached up to stop her from fussing with his clothes. “They’re fine,” he assured her. Then, before Sunset could start getting insistent about poking and prodding him to no end, Yuno turned towards the church.

Secre flew over and landed on Asta’s head. “So, you finally got the uniform too, huh?” she asked out of nowhere.

The fact that the bird was talking in a public place made Yuno blink. Sylph, on the other hand, had a more...understandable reaction. “Holy crap! It’s a human that’s been transformed into a bird and marked with Weg!”

“Oh right, we haven’t actually...crap,” the bird cursed as the Wind Spirt continued to point at her.

Noelle looked over to the anti-bird. “Wait a minute, YOU’RE A PERSON?” the royal screamed. “I-I thought you were just a cute little bird that Sunset gave the ability to talk!”

Before anyone else could say anything, Sylph flew up to Secre and went in a circle, examining the fowl. “Huh...how can you talk, though?” she mumbled. “You shouldn’t be able to-” She glanced over to Sunset, then back to Secre. “Hmmm, did you eat anything infused with her magic?”

“You mean, like fruit from a tree she grew? A few times, yes,” Secre confessed.

Sylph nodded. “That must have caused it...unless there’s been an interdimensional disturbance lately that I’m not aware of. Either way, exposure to extradimensional energies probably caused the curse to loosen up a bit. Although, considering your intelligence, it might be a mutation caused by the harmonic nature of Sunset’s magic. Oh, if it’s the second one, I wonder what would happen if you were exposed to other extradimensional energies.”

“Wait...I’m confused, I thought you could always talk!” Asta said. “Didn’t you say something about not wanting the Wizard King to know you could-OW!”

After pecking him in the head once, Secre settled back down and groaned. “No, I said that I didn’t want him to know I could talk, not when I regained the ability too,” she told them. “Besides, idiot, I can still write.”

Sunset snorted. “That’s debatable.”

“My point is,” Secre went on. “If I had wanted to get a message to someone, it would have been easy. Now come on, we need to find Father Orsi.”

Seeing the bird had a point, most of the group began to move.

With the exception of Noelle, who was still standing in the street, stunned. “Wait! That’s not-I mean, how? It...you’re a person?” she asked the little bird on Asta’s head.

“And what’s Weg?” Sunset mumbled.

Finding the older priest that had been in charge of the church back in Hage didn’t take long. Because the church was so large, there was a good deal of people working as members of the staff that did everything from cleaning the pews, to helping take care of the sick and injured that came to them for healing. The town had its own nunnery, although where the church stopped and the women’s only club started, Sunset wasn’t too clear on. The only thing she did manage to learn for certain from the old nun with the scar across her left eye named Theresa was that it was the nuns who managed most of the children.

“It’s a little hectic, since we’re celebrating a child’s birthday today, you understand,” she told the group before they walked into a small room with a carpet big enough to cover everything and a fireplace that was empty.

Sitting next to the window, surrounded by several children that couldn’t have been over ten on all sides there wasn’t a wall, the aging priest that had run the orphanage Sunset had stayed at over two years after arriving in Clover sat on a stool, reading a book to the kids. “And so, this evil tribe of monsters that wanted to take all the magic in the world for themselves summoned up a demon to do their bidding,” he read in a hushed voice, putting a good amount of tension in the atmosphere as he did. “But, the demon was too strong for the monster to control, and they were consumed by the very creature they had hoped to use to steal all the magic. But then, the demon turned his attention to the lands of the newly founded Clover Kingdom. He blocked the light out from the sun, and moved to destroy all of our grandparents, when a hero appeared. This man managed to protect all the people before destroying the demon. And because of that, he became known as the First Wizard King.”

As Asta’s eyes shined from hearing the tail, Sunset saw that Secre looked about ready to throw up, while Sunset herself just wondered how the story could have changed so much from the one that Secre said actually happened. Yuno seemed pretty indifferent about the whole thing, while Sylph rolled her eyes.

Come to think of it, I wonder how much Sylph knows about that event, Sunset thought to herself.

As the children finished cheering for the Wizard King’s victory, Father Orsi looked up and blinked. “Oh my,” he said as he noticed the three teenagers standing at the entrance to the room.

Yuno cleared his throat. “Sorry for taking so long to get here, Father. There was a mixup with the mail at the Golden Dawn’s headquarters.”

“And the Black Bulls don’t really do regular mail,” Sunset told him, remembering what happened to the mail bag when Luck poked it with a stick.

As the man stood up and let out a gasp, the old Theresa looked down at the boys and girls. “Alright children, Father Orsi has had some old friends show up. Now, we’ve almost got lunch ready for you all, so how about everyone come with me and give them some privacy.”

“YUNO!” the older man cried as he almost ran over the children in his rush to lunge at the boy with outstretched arms, which Yuno promptly dodged to let the man run into the wall behind him. Something that didn’t seem to affect him much, as Orsi turned right around and gave a tug on Yuno’s robe. “Look at you, a magic knight! And a member of the Golden Dawn, no less.”

A second later, Asta was proudly standing behind the old man, who saw him after he moved into place. “And check me out, old man. Notice anything different?”

Orsi took one look at Asta, then moved his attention over to Sunset for a moment, then back to Asta. “Honestly Asta, you shouldn’t be imitating a magic knight. Now, give Sunset back her spare robe. Still, it is good to see you again. I’ve asked around and we might be able to find a position for you here.”

“THIS IS MY ROBE!” Asta yelled at the man. “AND WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED TO ALL THAT FAITH IN ME YOU HAD WHEN WE LEFT HAGE?”

Feeling a tug on her dress, Sunset looked down to find one of the older girls trying to get her attention. For some reason, the child in the purple dress, with the short blonde hair and purple eyes tickled something at the edge of her memory, but Sunset didn’t understand why. Still, she smiled down at the girl until crouching to get on level with her. “Yes, sweetie? Do you need help with something?”

The girl gasped happily. “You are the unicorn girl my brother showed me!”

Sunset blinked in confusion at the bizarre statement that just came out of nowhere. “Say what?”

“Oh crap, it’s the criminal!”

“Somebody get the Magic Knights!”

“But...he is a magic knight!”

Gauche ignored the comments coming from the people all around him as he headed towards his destination. What did those idiots know about anything?

Despite his current circumstances, Gauche Adali had once been a noble. Which, he still was, he supposed. He didn’t really know if his title had been stripped from him or not. But since his little sister Marie was more noble than any other noble in the realm, it must have meant that his title was still there.

Unfortunately, just because he had a title to his name didn’t mean he had money. When he had been a child, and Marie even younger and possibly cuter than what she was today, his parents had been ambushed by bandits and died in an accident that followed. The convoluted story was so full of holes that Gauche had seen it for the lie that it was even before he had his grimoire. What stunk even more was how his parents had left everything to another noble who specialized in legal work.

So, kicked out of his house and forced to survive on his own, with his baby sister to take care of, Gauche turned to stealing food and beating up other people for money. Despite the fact that he was poor, he was still a noble, which meant his magical power was rather high. Eventually though, while Gauche was beating the money out of the son of the local lord, mages in the magic defense corps arrived to arrest him.

Gauche went to prison and Marie went to live in an orphanage in Nairn.

Then, after he had broken out of prison in an attempt to reunite with Marie and go on the run together, he had the misfortune of running into the newly minted Captain of the Black Bulls squad. Yami had completely overwhelmed him, but after hearing a bit of what was going on in the man’s life, he offered Gauche a position in the Black Bulls with a stipulated pardon.

“Mr Gauche, sir!” a man to his left called out, breaking Gauche from his reminiscing to make him look, the Black Bull turned his head to his left and winked a few times before groaning at his own stupidity. He had almost missed the Nairn toy store!

“Right this way, sir!” said the owner of the little shop that was packed between two much larger buildings and nearly ninety-percent windows as he invited the man inside. “We have several items fit for only the cutest of little girls, all ready for your perusal.”

Gauche hurried towards the shop. “Show me immediately,” he told the man in the green apron with the dark hair and stubble as he walked inside the store.

The interior of the store didn’t seem like they had put much money into building it. In fact, the back wall looked like it was just the wall of the alley, and the shop had been put up as a rush job that only had a single shelf of toys in the center of the store, with two more built into the sides. Still, it had toys for little girls, so Gauche decided to take a look.

“Check out all of these cute and fluffy stuffed animals!” the storekeep said as he threw his arms wide in the direction of the shelf on the left. “Any one of them would be perfect for a little girl. They all just love stuffed animals.”

While what the man said might have been true, as of late, Marie had become very specific in her desires for what she wanted. So, Gauche leaned in to take a look at the fake creatures to see if he could find something to suit her tastes. “Hmmm,” he said while inspecting the merchandise.

Now that he had a close look at the things, they seemed...rather poorly made. The eyes on the large duck, giraffe, and something that might have been a hamster wearing glasses while crying looked awfully derpy. Most of the other animals had either beady little black eyes, or poorly made faces. However, the most egregious offense of all was that there was only a giraffe, hamnster, bunny, penguin, cat, duck, some kind of marshmallow thing, and a few others that defied description.

Gauche could already see what would happen if he brought such things to Marie…

Tears filled the little angel’s eyes as she sifted through the pile and came up with nothing before turning back to her big brother. “This isn’t what I asked for big brother,” she said before starting to cry.

The mental scene made Gache round on the shopkeep in a fury. “What kind of crap are you trying to sell me here?” he demanded. “NONE OF THIS IS WORTHY OF MARIE’S ATTENTION!”

After jumping away in fear, the man backtracked to a large table near the back of the store that had a gigantic playhouse sitting on it. “W-Well, how about this, then? I’m sure that your little sister will play with this for hours, imaging herself living in such an opulent mansion. With her big brother, of course,” he added with a smile.

Gauche gasped at the image it formed in his mind…

Marie smiled as she waved at her big brother, standing on a field of flowers with the yellow doll-house in the background, the size of a normal one. However, her smile soon faded as she looked around, then turned back to her big brother. “But...where are the unicorns supposed to sleep, big brother?” she asked before turning around to look at the house. “And doesn’t this remind you of where we used to live when we were allowed to be together? Just looking at it makes me sad.”

“UNACCEPTABLE!” Gauche shouted before a mirror appeared in front of him that he focused his magic into. A second later, a beam of purple light shot out of the mirror, destroying the offensive thing.

Then, after turning towards the cowering sales associate, Gauche stomped over to the man, a frown darkening his features. “Last chance. Show me something my Marie will adore, or I burn you shop down for violation of Code Six-Sixty-Six. Wasting the time of a magic knight.”

Gulping heavily, the man quickly got up to show Gauche a costume on a display mannequin. It was a little pink dress with wings on the back and a halo accessory. The sight of it made him gasp at the idea of his baby sister actually looking like an angel.

However…

Marie looked back at the fake wings sitting behind her, then over to her big brother. “How am I supposed to ride a unicorn if these things keep catching the wind?” she asked before gasping in horror. “Do you know how many little girls die from falling off horses, big brother? You don’t want me to die, do you?”

The horrible thought made Gauche take a step back. He frowned at the offensive thing, all of the offensive things all over the store. “This place is an affront to everything Marie is! A trap just waiting for her to enter and be consumed by,” he said before gathering his magic power. “AND IT MUST BE DESTROYED!”

The sales clerk screamed in terror before Gauche began unleashing his wrath of the little shop of horrors until all of the offending material was reduced to ash. Then, making his way out of the collapsing ruins, he turned towards the largest building in Nairn and approached the church with nothing but money in his satchel.

It was all Sunset’s fault, of course.

After Marie had seen the horse-girl through the magic mirror Gauche had given her so she could talk to her big brother, she had insisted on seeing the creature and asking it questions. Ever since then, Marie had been obsessed with unicorns.

That, Gauche could understand. Even forgive. Marie was a little girl, and little girls lived for cute and cuddly things. Which was what Sunset was, as long as she wasn’t talking.

However, on the one day that he needed that damn horse to stick around long enough for Gauche to drag her to his little sister’s birthday party...she had up and left for parts unknown with Asta and that royal brat.

And now, he could practically hear Marie going…

“Hahaha, weeee! Go faster Sunset, faster!” she cried out in joy between the clip clops of hooves coming from down the alley next to the church.

Gauche blinked as he looked around the corner in time to see a four-foot creature that remotely resembled an equine with a horn on its head skid to a stop a few in front of him. “Okay, Marie I think that’s-oh, Gauche, glad to see you finally showed up,” the little talking horse-creature said in a voice that was much too sweet in comparison to her usual one before looking back at the girl. “See Marie? Now, don’t you have something to tell your big brother?”

Hesitantly, the girl got down off the unicorn before running over to Gauche to give him a hug. “Thank you for getting Sunse to come to my birthday big brother! This was the bestest birthday present ever!” she said happily. “I love you big brother!”

Sunset gave a little giggle before smiling in a way that looked in no way cheerful or kind. “Yes,” she said through her teeth before her smile turned to something more cheerful. “Now, I bet the two of you want to spend some time together before the day ends, so I’ll just check in with the church, okay?”

Unfortunately, Gauche found himself unable to contain his happiness and a second after Sunset turned to leave, he felt the pressure erupt from his bloody nose. The loss of blood flow to his brain caused him to fall backwards and quickly lose consciousness.

“AH DANG IT!”

Watching the scene in front of him with disbelief from the stone back porch the church’s rear entrance had, Yuno didn’t bother to hide his emotions as the little amber unicorn ran around with the laughing girl riding on her back, using a saddle Sunset had just made out of thin air. “So...that’s what Sunset...really looks like?” he asked.

“Crazy, right?” Asta replied as the girls went out of view. “When we found out she wasn’t human, I always imagined Sunset as this giant, fire breathing dragon. Not...little Miss cute horse.”

Noelle rolled her eyes as she stood off to the side. “My mermaid idea was much better,” she grumbled.

Well...this doesn’t bode well for my dreams about her, Yuno told himself. He could already see himself having nightmares about waking up next to a woman with the head of a horse.

Not that Sunset had the head of a horse. It looked rather...adorable, but not something that he would want to…

“Hello, baby brother,” the tiny equine asked in a seductive voice as she approached him with a pair of bedroom eyes on her face. Then, she turned around and raised her tail to reveal-Yuno cleared his throat, ending the unwanted fantasy before it got too...weird.

“So uh...does she go around like this all the time, or…” Yuno left the rest of his question unasked.

Asta laughed. “Nah. But, you know Sunset and kids,” the other boy told him.

The comment made Yuno chuckle a little. Despite her bad attitude, Sunset adored small children and always had a hard time saying no to Hollo and Aruru. Even Rebecca had become the other redhead’s permanent sleeping partner back when they had all been alive.

Thinking of the dead members of his family made Yuno look back to the old woman they had met on arriving in the church as she approached them through the rear exit of the church and into its back yard. “By the way, Father Orsi had another child with him when he came here, didn’t he? How is Nash?”

“Yes...that one,” the old woman said before sighing. “I’m afraid that there hasn’t been any improvement since he came here two months ago. I saw children like him during the war, grown men even, sometimes. They see or do horrors that they can’t deal with to the point that their minds just stop working correctly. Sometimes they recover, and sometimes...they don’t.”

Yuno didn’t like the long pause, but didn’t have a chance to ask her about it before Sunset came trotting back into view, carrying an unconscious magic knight in her mana and the girl with blonde hair on her back.

“Sister Theresa, big brother did it again!” Marie called out from the pony’s back.

The old woman let out a long sigh. “I know that you all have to get back to work in the morning. But please, indulge an old woman and have dinner with me in private. Stay the night, even. I know a shortcut to get the four of you back to your headquarters in the morning without any trouble.”

Although it was probably rude to ask, Yuno looked back to Sylph as she ‘slept’ in the hood of his robe to avoid the children trying to play with her like she was some kind of doll before turning his attention back to the nun. “What for?”

“Lilly wrote to me about the three of you,” she said as Sunset passed her, making the unicorn look up to the older woman before setting Gauche down so that someone else could come and get him as well as lead Marie away.

Then the old woman let out a little laugh. “Well, told me about two of you. I’m afraid that I didn’t get the chance to speak with her about the girl who could use multiple types of magic, face to face,” she went on as Sunset resumed her human form. “But, it would be a blessing to know the three children that she raised.”

After that, none of them could tell the woman no.

Despite the late hour, Nozel flew into the entrance of the camp that Fuegoleon had moved most of his knights to to operate better in the northern regions of the kingdom and let the mercury construct beneath him dissolve before putting his grimoire back into it’s pack. Although, calling it a camp was a bit of a misnomer, as the field base was actually set up inside of a cave, deep within one of the tallest mountains Clover had.

With brooms and spatial magic to move them around, the accessibility of the location didn’t matter much to magic knights.

Tents were still set up to help keep the men warm at night, although most of the cooking was done with fire magic and whatever else they could use to keep the cave from filing with smoke. The spatial jamming spell in the center of camp got a frown from Nozel, what with it being the reason he had to fly all the way out to the middle of nowhere by himself instead of just jumping through a portal.

After letting the sentries get a good look at him, Nozel moved to the back of the cave, where the biggest tent was waiting for him, the Vermillion crest emblazoned above the entrance. He nodded to the extra guards standing watch before going inside to see Fuegoleon sitting at a desk, looking through a stack of papers with a disgruntled expression on his face.

The interior of the tent might as well have been the office of a well-to-do manor house, for all the luxury it had. A dark red carpet covered the ground, while velted seats sat in front of a fire that burned from nothing but the Crimson Captain’s mana as it floated in the air. Even the cot in the corner of the tent looked a few steps above what people were to expect when on campaign.

“I see they finally put you where you belong,” Nozel said as he moved to take a seat in front of the fire, secretly thankful for the warmth it provided his feet. Sandals were not a good thing to wear in the cold.

Fuegoleon looked up from the old reports and snorted. “Says the delivery boy,” he said before looking up at Nozel. “We expected you hours ago. What happened?”

The question made Nozel sigh. “With the Silver Eagles having to take care of mundane security, it’s had a detrimental effect that has begun to show in some squad members...acting out,” he said before looking around the room. “Not that it looks like I should have been in such a hurry to get here. Do you have the latest batch of reports for the Wizard King?”

“Considering I’m supposed to look through months of old reports to find an incident that might have been tied to a terrorist group we didn’t even know existed a few weeks ago?” he asked before pausing. “No.”

Nozel frowned. “You expect me to stay overnight in one of your tents, then?” he asked. The insult to his sensibilities made the man want to shred Fuegoleon’s tent and throw the lion out into the cold.

The question got a snort from the other man. “There’s a town not far from here. You could always buy a room at the inn, if that suits your fancy,” Fuegoleon said before yawning. After he closed his mouth, the redhead got to his feet. “This warm air is making me a bit sleepy. I need to breathe something fresh.”

Despite not being offered to accompany him, Nozel rose up out of the chair and followed the redhead to the cave’s exit. The cold air assaulted his body, but Nozel managed to ward if off with a good deal of mana control. Still, it annoyed him to no end. “Sending a captain to collect reports. The Wizard King is being far too cautious.”

“Spatial magic can be intercepted as well as any courier,” Fuegoleon replied. “And with the leak still unplugged, we must be more cautious than ever. This isn’t like a war with an enemy we can see.”

Nozel frowned. “You’re not speaking to your little brother,” he said before looking around. “Who I notice is absent from your camp, along with your sister. Did she not find the atmosphere to her liking?”

“Mereoleona said she had some thing to teach Leo before dragging him off somewhere,” Fuegoleon replied before turning his head to the east. “By the way, if you really do mean to rent a room at an inn. You had best hurry, it looks like a storm is moving in.”

After following the man’s eyes, Nozel spotted a town in the distance, just on the edge of his vision. “A bit early in the year for rain.”

Fuegoleon gave a tiny shrug. “The mountains in this region play tricks with the weather.”

“Just hurry up and collect your reports,” Nozel told him before heading back inside. If he was lucky, he would be back home in time to get a little sleep before dawn.

Secre groaned as she cursed her luck, her body aching from where it had been sleeping for...possibly a few hours. While the boy’s hadn’t been much interested in doing more than saying hello to Orsi, she had wanted to check and see if he was getting along alright. Which meant following him from a distance as best she could. And since a bird going into areas with low ceilings, like living quarters, was just begging to be hit by a broom, she had to settle for checking on the old man through his window.

Which was how she got locked outside the church and separated from her group.

Not that she hadn’t spent hundreds of nights out sleeping under the stars. She was a bird, after all.

But, it seemed her body had gotten used to sleeping in the little beds that Yuno and Sunset had made for her at their respective headquarters, because her joints were aching. Not only that, the air felt oddly cold the point where she thought it could start snowing.

Then, when Secre saw the first bit of snow fall from the sky, she knew something was very wrong. It was the end of Summer. Even if snow was common in a region so close to the mountains, it didn’t do more that fall maybe once a year in the middle of Winter!

Within seconds, the ground was absolutely covered by the snow and when a flake touched her, she felt a fleeting sensation, as if something was trying to pull her along somewhere. There was magic in the snow, a compulsion spell. Weak, so weak it couldn’t even affect her. So then what would be the point of-Secre’s thoughts were cut off when she heard a door open in the town below and looked to see a small child walk out into the streets.

Another door creaked open shortly thereafter, and another boy of perhaps ten came walking out of the small building. Followed by another, and another. Then, the doors to the church opened, and over a dozen of the orphans walked out into the streets to begin heading North, joining a train of children that was coming out from everywhere in the town.

Okay...this is bad, she told herself before looking around.

Finding the spell’s caster wasn’t hard. He was standing on a broom, hovering over the center of town with an open grimoire. He was a boy, under the age of twenty and very scrawny, dressed in a skintight white suit. For a moment, Secre thought to fly up and go after his feet, or maybe an eye. If she hit him fast and hard enough, he might have been knocked from his broom and…

Or, the mage powerful enough to affect a while town with his spell might kill me with ease, the bird told herself before looking back to the open door of the church and took off towards it. However, when she got inside the large cathedral, then there came the problem of actually finding the people that actually knew she could talk, not to mention figuring out how to open their doors.

I should really start asking Sunset if she could turn me back into a human sometime soon, Secre told herself as she began to look around the oversized church.

Page 17: Kidnappers

Gauche slowly opened his eye before looking at the ceiling above him in confusion. The lack of a picture with his little sister in a gymnast uniform made him feel discombobulated for a moment. Then, he noticed that the ceiling above him wasn’t as close as what he was used to and the bed he was in wasn’t surrounded by little figurines of his sister, nor did he have the pillow with the life-sized picture of Marie on it that he usually slept with actually in his bed.

All of these things led him to one conclusion: Gauche wasn’t in his normal bed.

What was I doing-wait! he thought as he realized something and sat straight up. It had been Marie’s birthday and he had…

He had…

He had lost too much blood thinking about her to remember what he had been doing prior to passing out.

Thinking back to what he could remember, Gauche could see himself going into the local toy store and then…

Then…

He must have gotten Marie something so amazing that her love for him had become so overwhelming after Gauche gave it to her, that it had completely knocked him unconscious!

While Gauche was happy that his little sister had been so affectionate, the fact that he had missed out on what was supposed to be a full day of them spending some private time together was soul-crushing.

Looking around to see where he was, Gauche winked when he noticed that he seemed to be in the room that the nuns usually brought people to wait for healing when that old crone Theresa was off doing something else. All in all, the room wasn’t much. Just four walls with a curtain blocking the entrance instead of an actual door, with four beds shoved into the four corners and enough room between them for a single person to bring in supplies for treating wounds.

Which meant...he was still in the church! If Gauche was quiet, he could take Marie out for a late-night date with her dashing big brother.

He could see it now…

“Oh big brother, the moon is so lovely tonight,” the young girl said as they stood out under the stars.

“Not as lovely as you, my angel,” Gauche replied as he picked the girl up to hold her in his arms.

And then…

“DAMMIT! WHY ARE YOU THE ONLY ONE THAT’S AWAKE?”

Gauche winked as his dream date shattered, only to be replaced by an angry bird that was glaring at him. “Ugh, it’s you. Go away, Marie didn’t like that pet bird I got her a few years ago, and your voice doesn’t sound half as good as anything it sang for her,” he said before swatting at the thing.

“The only thing your sister is going to be needing before long is a little casket. Because the mage who abducted her and every other child in this town led them towards the mountains without any protective gear,” Secre informed him evenly.

Despite the bird’s mouthy beak, Gauche kept himself from blowing her away when his mind seized on the important things she said. “MARIE’S BEEN KIDNAPPED?” he yelled at the feathered rodent. “WHY DIDN’T YOU DO ANYTHING TO STOP IT?”

Secre gave him an even look. “I came and got you after learning the direction the kids are going, didn’t I?” she asked. “Or would you rather have had me get myself killed and not be able to point out which direction she was taken? That way, you could have wasted precious time running around like a chicken with his head cut off, looking for her!”

As much as he hated to admit it, the bird had a point. Although, since he had been about to spirit Marie away for a special midnight date, Gauche would have noticed her missing and...he still wouldn’t have been able to get a general direction of where she went. “Okay then let’s-wait, what the hell are you doing here, anyway?” Gauche demanded. The only people that damn bird hung out with was...

The pounding in her ears drew Sunset out of her slumber, but the sudden influx of cold air that registered in her conscious mind made her groan before she reached out and pulled the other warm body that was sharing the mattress with her close. Then, she did her best to cover everything with the thin blanket Sister Theresa had given her and Noelle. Unnatural cold was countered by the warm body of her best friend, and Sunset reached over to wrap her arms around the girl with the silver hair as Noelle gave a moan in response.

The pounding continued, and even Noelle voiced her verbal disagreement before snuggling deeper into Sunset’s embrace. The contours of their body practically became one, with the redhead surrounding the royal as they snuggled together in an effort to keep away the cold.

The pounding became a crash, and Sunset opened one of her eyes to see Gauche standing outside a broken door that was the exit of the tiny bedroom the nuns had loaned them for the night. “DAMMIT! I SAID WAKE UP, YOU IDIOTS!”

As Noelle raised her head before letting out a scream and grabbing the blanket to cover her naked breasts, Sunset simply stood up and glared at the bloody-nosed sister lover while she stood in nothing but her panties. “What do you wa-gaaah! WHY IS IT SO COLD IN HERE?” she demanded before covering herself as much as she could with her arms and dancing on her feet to keep them from touching the freezing stone for too long.

“QUIT LOOKING AT US YOU WEIRDO!” Noelle shouted before she sent a blast of water at the man, who ducked out of the doorway to avoid it.

From his place in the hallway, Gauche let out a snort. “As if I’d care about the fat butts and saggy breasts the two of you are sporting!” he said, increasing Noelle’s anger to the point she looked ready to blow a hole in the wall as to knock Gauche on his rear.

Which she would have done promptly, had Secre not flown into the room and hovered right in front of her. “The two of you need to hurry and get dressed, then meet us at the entrance to the church. We’ll go wake the boys.”

After fighting off the confusion of seeing Secre just appear, Noelle looked back at the broken door before rushing over to stick her head out of it. “MY BREASTS AREN’T SAGGY!”

Neige stood on his broom as his magic guided the children beneath him through his snow. They were all good little boys and girls, walking in a single file line up the mountain towards his new home. “How exciting,” he said with a cheerful smile. “I just love making new friends!”

Soon, he would take them all back home, and once Baro got done with them, they would be all his to play with. For as long as they lasted, at any rate. His friends never seemed to stick around very long once the job was completed.

But it was okay, he could always get more. That was what his magic was for.

Yuno did his best not to look like he was barely able to stand upright as he made his way out of the church where the rest of the knights he had seen in the village were waiting. He had never really been a morning person, even with Klaus getting it into his head that they needed to get up early to train their bodies much in the same way Asta did.

Not that he minded running a few laps without mana enhancing his limbs to keep in shape, but some of the ideas that man had when it came to training were a little out there. Yuno could only guess what he had Mimosa doing for their special training day…

“Yes! Keep it up Mimosa! You have to have a strong mind on top of a strong body!” the leader of their team said as he stood away from the river that was being fed by a waterfall.

At the foot of the waterfall, Mimosa sat with her legs crossed and hands clasped together, the water hitting her head as it soaked her clothes to the point where the white robe she had on might as well have not existed.

After a second, an amber unicorn with a blazing sun on her butt walked up to the river and looked at Yuno, despite him not even being there. “Awwwww! Come on baby brother,” Sunset spoke before giving him a pair of bedroom eyes. “Don’t you want to have naughy fantasies about your big, sexy sister instead?”

His out of control imagination made Yuno flinch. He reached up and rubbed his nose. I really need to get back to bed, the young man told himself before looking around the snow covered town. Thanks to the sudden drop in the temperature, there were plenty of people awake that had probably just had a few summer sheets on their beds. All of whom were outside calling for their children, probably after going to check on them in the middle of the freezing night.

“MARCO? LUCCA?” A redheaded woman with freckles called out frantically.

“Alan! Where are you?” another woman yelled on top of dozens of other parents.

Yuno blinked when a woman who looked on the verge of becoming hysterical ran up to him. “You! You’re a magic knight, right?” What’s going on, where are our children?”

Put off by the stranger’s look of panic, Yuno took a step back as several of the other townspeople began to turn and look at him in particular. Why is everyone looking like they’re wanting to ask me? he wondered before looking down at his clothes, then over to everyone else’s. Right, Golden Dawn get a whole uniform...Black Bulls...well...they’re the last place squad.

“What in the world is going on out here?” Theresa asked as she stepped out of the church in her black and white robe to look around. “All this screaming, can’t an old woman get some sleep?”

The Black Bull named Gauche rounded on the woman and glared at her. “YOU!” he yelled before rugging up the stairs and grabbing into her by the scruff of her neck. “Hey hag! I thought you were supposed to keep Marie safe in this stupid town!”

While Sunset looked up from the snowflake in her hand that she was examining and Noelle stood there with her arms crossed and chattering teeth, Asta moved towards the stairs. “HEY! WHAT’RE YOU DOING?” he shouted before stumbling a little on the packed snow that covered the steps.

“So quick to resort to violence,” the old woman replied to Gauche’s comment. “You really are nothing but a hopeless brute. Well, go ahead and hit me if you want. But it isn’t going to help Marie any.”

Gauche made his hand into a fist. “Yeah, but it will make me feel better!”

Looks like the Golden Dawn isn’t the only squad with members who don’t care much about anyone else besides themselves, Yuno said before pulling out his grimoire. Sylph was still asleep, or disconnected, as she liked to call it. But his magic was more than enough to deal with one irate knight.

Before Yuno could start to cast, Gauche disappeared in a flash of light, then fell down onto the ground from perhaps ten feet up not a second later. “Cut that out, we don’t have time for you to throw a temper tantrum,” Sunset said to him as she continued to study the snowflake in her hand.

“Why you-urk!” Gauche replied before he slipped in the snow while trying to get up as the side effects of Sunset’s spatial magic overtook him.

Sunset snorted. “Now behave, or the next fall will be from a hundred feet up,” she told him evenly before looking back to the others. “From the looks of things, this snow carries a spell that puts anyone with a certain amount of mental development in a daze.”

Right after she finished speaking, Sylph poked her head out of Yuno’s hood, where he had stored her unconscious body. “Hmm? What’s happening? Are those little kids gone?” she asked while looking around.

“You could say that,” Yuno told her before filling her in on what he had learned in the past few minutes.

Having long since regained his footing, Asta looked around. “Okay, so...does anyone have a plan for locating the missing children?”

Gauche groaned and sat up. “That stupid bird told me the direction they were all sent off, but-wait,” he said as he slowly got to his feet. “Marie has a magic mirror I created for her and told her to always keep with her. If she still has it, then I can find her with that once I get a little closer. The magic in the snow may keep me from making a stable connection to it, but I can at least get a general sense of her location and hone in on that.”

“Okay then, let’s get going!” Noelle told them as she rubbed her arms furiously.

Yuno raised his grimoire, but before he could cast, the old nun came out with a trio of brooms in her hands to toss one to Gauche, then looked around at the others. “Hmm, we seem to be a bit short.”

“I can take care of it,” Yuno told her as he drew in his mana. “Wind Creation Magic: Heavenly Wind Ark!” A few seconds later, the wind swirling around him pushed Yuno up as it solidified, and he was standing on top of a trio of tornadoes that made a stable platform for him to fly through the air on.

Theresa frowned when everyone but Gauche got on the transport. “Now hold on a minute. Someone needs to stay here and get in contact with the Magic Knights. Even if we defeat the kidnappers, we’ll need an investigative team to go over their hideout at the very least,” she said.

“Great idea!” Sunset said as she pulled Noelle onto Yuno’s traveling spell and began generating a field of heat that quickly stopped the Silva from shivering. “I nominate you. Get on, Asta.”

The older woman frowned. “Well, those children are my responsibility...but, I suppose if it’s me, then I could go and see if-”

Gauche didn’t let her finish before he tossed her an oversized communicator from his satchel. “Good. Now, if that spell of yours can’t keep up with me, I’m leaving you behind,” he said before racing off into the night.

“HA!” Sylph shouted after the man on the broom. “You’ll be lucky if my Yuno doesn’t leave you in the dust!”

Well, maybe it is a good thing she runs her mouth sometimes, Yuno thought to himself as he saw Secre land on his little brother’s head out of the corner of his eye. Then, after shivering a little, she flew over to Yuno to take cover from the cold inside his thicker hood as he mentally commanded his arc to rise into the air and follow the older knight. “So, anyone have any ideas about what we’re going to be up against?”

The taller magic expert of their group made a noise that told everyone she was thinking as she brought Asta in close to her fiery aura. “Well, this weather looks like it is more natural than conjured, especially considering how the snow stuck around after our kidnapper left. If I had to guess, he guided a storm down from the mountains and used it as a medium to transfer the control spell to the children.”

Yuno gave Sunset a groan. “That doesn’t really tell us anything.”

“WHO CARES HOW STRONG HE IS?” Asta yelled. “I’LL STILL KICK HIS BUTT!”

“Oh Wow! I can’t believe how many new friends I’ve made. Now, let’s all play nice, okay?”

The strange voice brought Marie out of the dream she had been having, which made her blink in confusion and almost fall over backwards when she realized that she wasn’t in her normal bed at the church.

In fact, she wasn’t at the church at all.

Where am I? What’s going on? Marie asked herself as she looked around in worry.

She was in a dark place, surrounded by a bunch of other children. Some were from the church where she lived, but a lot others were from all around town. She recognized Rebecca’s younger brother Marco, and there was another one of his siblings not too far away. But, there was something off about everyone. They were all sitting on their legs, with their heads downcast and blank looks in their eyes. Why does everyone look so strange?

The only other point of light in the cave was on a table full of strange-looking bottles with big bottoms and long necks. It sat next to an odd machine that looked like a chair set up against a giant water tank with a copper base at its back.

“You all look so sweet. You’ll be good little children, now.”

The words drew Marie’s attention to a tall, scrawny young man standing at the center of the group, dressed all in white and wearing a blue scarf that helped his very long gray hair stand out against the color of his clothes. Did he make us all like this with a spell? Then why am I-oh right, Marie remembered as she looked down at herself.

She didn’t really understand it, but when Big Brother’s mirror wasn’t in use, it hugged itself to her body and became like it wasn’t really there. In-tan-gentle...or, something like that. But, he had said that it would help protect her if she ever got in trouble.

“Just think of it as your big brother when I’m not there,” a mental image of Big Brother said from its place in her mind as blood ran down his nose.

Oh, that’s why I’m awake, Marie realized as the tall young man in the white closed in on where she was sitting.

He took one look at her and frowned. “Oh dear, my spell’s worn off on you,” he said as his grimoire glowed in front of him with a pale white light. The man leaned down to loom over the children in front of him. “If I can’t use my magic on you, we can’t be friends. You want to be my friend, right?”

Marie didn’t even need to look at the crowd of hypnotized children to think it over. They were sitting in a cave and most of her body was numb from the cold. The only thing she wanted was to get out of the creepy place she was in and back home to her bed. “No way! I don’t want to be friends with you,” she told the stranger. “You’re a creepy weirdo!

The stranger flinched as if struck before he stormed over to her. “Shut your mouth you little brat!” he yelled before kicking her in the mouth hard enough to knock her back onto the ground. “NO FRIEND OF MINE WOULD EVER SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT!”

Pain erupted in Marie’s mouth as her tongue tasted something like copper even before she hit the ground. It hurt. It hurt so bad! She curled up on herself and held the hurting cheek as tears rolled down her cheek.

“I’LL TEACH YOU NOT TO BE MY FRIEND!” the young man with the high-pitched voice shouted at her.

Marie whined in both pain and fear as the stranger started coming closer to her, only to be stopped by another man who came out of the darkness of the cave to grab him by the hair and lift the first stranger off the ground until the younger man’s feet were barely touching it with the tips of his toes. “Hey Neige, what did I tell you about damaging the merchandise?”

The other man was much more fat and older than the first, wearing a dark black coat and a white scarf. His big puffy lips were surrounded by some poorly cut whiskers while long black hair touched his shoulders. Although, the oddest thing about him were his glasses. One of the lenses looked normal, but the one on the left was red, and had some extra decoration on the frame. “DO I GOTTA DO ALL YOUR THINKING FOR YA?”

“N-No! Please, Baro!” Neige cried. “I’m sorry!”

Baro looked over to Marie with a frown before he reached up and touched the fancier side of his glasses. “Hmm, let’s see here,” he mumbled before the red lens lit up with magical power, showing itself to be a magic item of some sort. “Oh wow! We hit the jackpot with this one. She’s gotta have a mana level of over a hundred!”

After throwing his head back to laugh for a few seconds, Baro looked over to the shorter kidnapper. “Neige, hurry up and hook some of these runts up to the machine so we can make sure it’s running good. I don’t want to lose a single drop of this girl’s magic power when we suck it out of her.”

The realization about what was going on made Marie even more afraid as the man looked around the room. “Let’s see...any more like her and-what the?” Baro grumbled before frowning at one of the children in the crowd. Then, he walked through them, knocking children to the side as he went until coming upon Marco, the small redhead boy a few years younger than Marie that she played with sometimes. “This little brat barely has any mana at all! He’s not even worth draining! I told you to bring the good ones, what is this, huh?”

Neige flinched. “I’m sorry, Baro.”

“Worthless little piece of crap!” the big man yelled as he grabbed Marco by the scruff of his neck and carried him over to a nearby wall, where there was a hole too dark for Marie to see into. Then, the big man threw the little boy into the hole, and Marie could hear his dazed body tuble along for a few seconds before the sound became too distant. “Now, let’s get to work extracting some magic.”

Because they were having to let Gauche hone in on a specific signal, the four knights had to fly through the snow at a much slower pace than what was possible as not to overshoot and spend all their time flying in circles as they headed over the increasingly hilly terrain with its dozens of dips and rises, all covered in a layer of snow that looked to be natural. Judging by the lack of vegetation or trees, at any rate.

With Asta having a jacket on and Yuno’s uniform obviously being made with cold weather in mind, Sunset spent the flight generating heat to keep Noelle and herself warm as she thought about their current situation. Try as she might though, there just wasn’t any reason as to why someone would abduct an entire town of children that she could think of. “So uh...anyone have any idea as to why someone would snatch a bunch of kids like this?”

And she knew a single person was behind it, based on the spell.

“You’d be horrified at what some humans do to the young of their species,” Sylph told her in a glum tone. “There’s not many of them overall, but it only takes one monster in a crowd of one-hundred to cause a tragedy.”

Asta looked up from the ground he was watching. “Um, has anybody thought about how we’re going to get all these kids back to their homes?” he asked. “I’m pretty sure Yuno’s wind thingy can’t carry that many. Sunset, can you do like…”

A bit of annoyance made its way into Sunset’s mind, causing her to groan. “No, I haven’t quite figured out spatial magic, yet.” It was a long distance from simple elemental manipulation.

And even if they managed to get a spatial mage from headquarters, there was the question of whether he could handle the load of people. Spatial magic wasn’t teleportation. The mages who used that kind of magic tunneled through a kind of sub-dimension that they themselves created, like a wormhole. Meaning that they had to keep everything together long enough to go from one point to the next, which meant the longer the distance, the more energy it took to create and maintain the tunnel.

“We’ll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it,” Noelle told him.

“The signal just got a lot stronger,” Gauche called out before stopping and looking around. “Wherever Marie is, the amount of snow between her and here is considerably less than it was a second ago.”

Yuno looked around and frowned at something off to their left. “Down there, it looks like a system of caves and...is that a child?”

Turning her head to see what they had found, Sunset frowned at the image in front of her. The mountain began a sharp incline a few feet away from where there were a dozen smaller holes, with a single large opening around it. If she had to guess, a man made system of tunnels existed inside the mountain for mining purposes. Which meant they would be climbing up through them, or flying via magic.

“Whatever, I don’t care about anyone except Marie!” Gauche told them before speeding off towards the largest opening on his own.

“HEY YOU IDIOT! WE WON’T BE ABLE TO FOLLOW YOU IF YOU GET TOO FAR AWAY!” Noelle shouted at the fleeing man.

Sunset grit her teeth and looked at her companions. They couldn’t just lose Gauche, but leaving a little kid to die in the snow, if he wasn’t gone already, didn’t sit well with her either. Since they would be getting out of the cold and any children inside the cave would need someone to defend them, Sunset stepped to the edge of the wind ark. “Make sure you don’t lose that idiot. I’ll see if the kid is okay, then catch up to you as fast as I can.”

Noelle looked over to the redhead, then to Asta. “Take him with you,” she said before pushing him on Sunset.

“What?” Asta asked as he looked back at the girl. “WHY?”

“BECAUSE I SAID TO!” Noelle shouted before pushing Asta off the edge of the ark, making Sunset reach down with her magic to catch him, then jump off while magically slowing down her own fall.

Although she didn’t know what had crawled up Noelle’s butt, Sunset didn’t have time to argue. Plus, Asta might actually come in handy for some reason she didn’t see at the moment, but Noelle did.

Yuno sped off after Gauche and was gone before the two of them hit the snow. While Asta grumbled about being pushed around, Sunset made for the child that was face down in the snow to roll him over for a quick inspection. The boy with red hair looked to be about seven or eight years old and had a dazed look in his eyes. There were shallow cuts and bruises all over his body, but he was breathing...if slowly.

Sunset’s mind worked hard to try and remember what Sister Lilly had taught her to check and see if a human child was hurt to the point of needing to see her, but the not-unicorn knew right off that the little boy’s body was far too cold. She picked him up and put the child on her lap after finding a place to sit, then made to check his feet. The things humans stood on were far too fragile, and Sunset wouldn’t have been surprised to find that he was suffering from frostbite after having walked through the snow, barefoot.

“Uh...can I do anything?” Asta asked.

Looking up from rubbing the little boy’s feet to check if there was any blackness or warmth, Sunset blinked when she saw Asta’s jacket. It was very thin, but it was better than nothing. “Give me your coat, we’re going to have to do something to keep him warm.”

Asta blinked. “Can’t you just use your fire magic?”

“Yes,” Sunset told him before she adjusted her magic in preparation to cast a fire-based healing spell. “But I can’t stay here while Yuno and the others are moving deeper into the mine to keep him warm. Fire Recovery Magic: Phoenix Robe.”

As the flames surrounded the boy, healing his wounds and bringing some color back to his cheeks that had gone almost blue from the cold, Asta spoke up again. “Well, yeah. It’s better than leaving him out here in the freezing cold.”

“You do know I intend to be flying through that cave, right?” Sunset deadpanned. “Like in the dungeon, that one time? I can’t carry you and a kid that’s so out of it, he doesn’t even know where he is.”

Asta continued to stare at Sunset with a confused expression. “Sure you can.”

“And where am I supposed to put him? In my pocket?” Sunset demanded.

After thinking about it for a second, Asta looked back to the little knapsack he used to store the herbs he said had recovery properties and the occasional snack hanging on his belt, next to his grimoire. “Well, this would probably be safer for him. Less chance to fall out. Hey! We could probably take all the kids back to town like you did with me and Noelle!”

Sunset blinked. “Oh...right...that’s...actually not a bad idea,” she said, slightly dazed that Asta had managed to out-think her.

Noelle could just barely make out Gauche on the edge of her vision, but it looked like Asta’s brother didn’t have any trouble keeping up with him. Then again, with that little fairy telling him to fly a bit lower in the cave, she was probably the one who could see the best out of the three of them. Yuno was probably just following the other man’s mana.

Even though it wasn’t the proper time for such things, Noelle had to take the chance she created for herself when she got Asta to stay with Sunset. However, if she made the fairy angry...she knew it would probably just clam up. “Hey Sylph...can I ask you a question?”

“Hm?” the fairy replied before she looked back at Noelle. “Wow, someone’s actually showing some manners. No wonder Sunset and you are friends!”

Noelle gave the creature a nervous laugh and took her response as a yes. But, just to be sure, she kept going. “Listen, I know you don’t like spilling secrets, but...we, as in me, Sunset, Asta, and probably Yuno are all wondering something. And...I was thinking you could answer it for me.”

After blinking a few times, Sylph let out a tiny sigh. “Well...since you’re being so polite about it. Sure, ask away.”

“Do you know why Asta can’t use magic?”

The sprite’s body went absolutely rigid at the question, and she grabbed onto Yuno’s robe even harder than she had been before. “That’s um…” she said uneasily. “You really don’t want me to answer that.”

Secre’s head popped out of the hood of Yuno’s robe. “You mean you actually know?”

“Sylph, what’s going on?” Yuno asked as he turned his eyes over to her.

Curling up on herself even more, Sylph let out a tiny whine. “Look, I like you guys. A lot more than the past few partners I’ve had. Don’t make me ruin what little happiness you have left.”

With the Wind Spirit being so despondent, Noelle felt a shiver run down her back. “What do you mean, left?”

“Is Asta dying?” Yuno said, his voice troubled since the first time Noelle had met him.

Sylph flinched. “It’s...complicated,” she said after a few seconds, refusing to meet Yuno’s eyes. “He’s….infected with something. Something very bad. It’s benign for the moment, I don’t think it canspread through his body in its current condition. But if things change...it will move to consume him completely. And if it does, then there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

The taller magic knight on the ark grit his teeth. “You can’t just tell me something like that and expect me not to do anything about it!”

For her part, Noelle could only stand there, speechless after hearing the news. Asta was dying?

The fairy sounded like he had some kind of disease!

Is that why he doesn’t have any mana? Noelle asked herself. Was it just a symptom of something much worse? Was it contagious? Did she already have it, somehow?

Wait, the Silva told herself. If it was some kind of anti-magic plague, then there would have been a lot more people around Asta without magic. She had lived with him for two months and Yuno had been with the boy since day one. If anyone would have caught something from Asta by now, it would have been him.

“What if we separated him from his grimoire?” Secre suddenly asked. “Would that stop the d-infection?”

Sylph looked over at the bird for a moment and Noelle could swear the little girl was staring as Secre’s horns. “Why would his grimoire-oh! You think...you’re putting the cart before the horse, birdy,” she said in a cryptic tone. “It’s not the grimoire that’s causing the infection. It’s the infection that’s letting him use the grimoire. And the cause of his inability to use magic.”

Noelle blinked as Secre’s eyes became very worried. “But...that’s…he’s never been able to use magic,” she said. “Are you telling me that he’s been...infected since he was a baby?”

“It’s the first time I’ve heard of it,” Sylph replied dejectedly. “And I mean, ever. Across all the worlds that exist. Everything I know says it shouldn’t have even been possible for someone that young to become a carrier. Although, maybe that’s why it can’t spread through his body.”

Yuno cut into the conversation. “So, is Asta in danger, or not?”

After letting out a sigh, Sylph looked back to her partner. “At the moment? No,” she told him.

“If that changes, you can tell us then,” he said before looking forward and increasing the speed of the ark until they were right behind Gauche. “I can feel a good number of mana sources up ahead.”

Noelle did her best to clear her mind and prep herself for battle. Since they were dealing with hostages, the best thing she could do is gather them up and raise a defensive shield while letting Yuno and Gauche take out the kidnapper without having to worry about hurting bystanders.

Not that Gauche seemed all that worried about hurting innocent bystanders.

The sound of a child screaming reached her ears, and Noelle narrowed her eyes as they came into a large cavern that was big enough to hold something as large as the church in Nairn. A large machine at the back with a tank of glowing liquid was giving off enough light for her to see the entire cave as the stolen children were sitting in front of it in two large groups right next to each other, as if it was a Sunday service. There was also a third pile of unconscious kids, who were laying off to the side of the strange device.

The girl Noelle knew to be Gauche’s little sister was being dragged by a young man dressed in white down the space between the two groups, pleading with him. “No! Stop it! Please don’t take my magic!” she begged as he pulled her along by the arm.

What? Noelle thought to herself as she looked to the machine in the back of the room. She had heard horror stories about such things, but as most of them had come from Solid about how he could put her magic to good use, Noelle had thought them as just that: stories.

But the magic coming from the container filled with glowing water and the kids laying on the ground with next to no mana whatsoever said differently.

“MARIE!” Gauche shouted before his grimoire flew up next to him and a mirror appeared in front of him.

The little girl let out a gasp. “Big Brother! I knew you would come!” she shouted before turning towards Gauche and trying to get away from her captor, who reached forward to slap her upside the head and yank her arm so hard, Noelle was surprised it was still in its socket.

“YOU’RE GOING TO DIE FOR THAT!” Gauche yelled at the man before the mirror began glowing. “Mirror Magic: Reflect Ray!” As he finished casting, a beam of bright purple light shot out of his mirror to strike the man in white’s shoulder, causing him to release the girl as he was knocked to the ground.

Another man, larger than the first and dressed mostly in dark colors let out a cry. “What the hell are the magic knights doing in a place like this?” he yelled before looking at his partner. “Neige, hurry up and take care of them already!”

Yuno looked back at Noelle. “You’re a defensive mage, right?”

“I know the drill. But can you get them all together so I can take care of everyone with a single spell?” Noelle asked before she jumped off the ark and landed behind the children, pulling out her wand as she did so. There was a large gust of wind, and several of the children to her left were moved closer to the group on her right before the same thing happened to the ones laying on the ground. A few of the kids suffered some minor bruising, but it was nothing compared to what they would have gotten from a stray magical blast. Once they were grouped up, Noelle raised her grimoire to cast a spell around them while leaving herself on the edge of it. “Water Creation Magic: Sea Dragon’s Cradle.”

In the moment that she jumped down and got her spell ready, the smaller kidnapper managed to get up and call up his grimoire again as he threw hand hands out towards the people in question. “Snow Magic: Snow Cry!” the mage yelled before a large amount of white filled the room and rushed in the direction of the two knights in the air.

Yuno didn’t even bother dodging the attack. “Wind Magic: Towering Tornado!” he quickly cast before a pillar of wind formed in front of him to block the attack head on, sucking in the snow that tried to get around it and scattering it out the top of his funnel. After the snow had been thrown from his wind, it disappeared before it could even touch the ground.

“Just die already!” Gauche shouted before his mirror let out another purple beam, taking the young man square in the chest and knocking him prone and leaving a large burn on his chest.

The man on the ground moaned. “H-He sucked up my magic. This isn’t fair Baro,” the kidnapper whined, sounding more like a child than anything else. “How can anyone’s magic overpower mine like that?”

Baro, who Noelle guessed was the man with the oddly colored glasses, reached up and pressed the side of his eyewear before his expression became one of terror. “T-That’s not possible!”

“What, what is it, Baro?” the smaller criminal asked. “What does the scouting lens say about his magical power?”

“It-it…” he stuttered before taking a step back. “IT’S OVER NINE THOUSAND!”

“WHAT?” the smaller man replied. “Nine thousand? There no way-”

“SHUT UP ALREADY!” Gauche yelled before blasting the smaller man a third time while he was still prone before the magic knight dropped off of his broom while moving quickly towards his little sister. “Come here Marie, your big brother has come to rescue you!”

With the man in white silenced completely, the girl ran towards her older brother as blood erupted from his nose. Yuno dispelled his ark while using nothing but wind to remain floating in the air. Once Marie was out of harm’s way, he pointed a hand towards the larger kidnapper. “Sylph, help me aim, I don’t want to hit anything important. Wind Magic: Swift White Bow,” he cast before a white bow made from solid wind formed in front of him, with six arrows that had heads more akin to drills made of tornadoes than arrowheads. “Surrender, or I start blowing off pieces of your body.”

Before the man could respond, there was a loud explosion from the side of the cave, drawing Noelle’s attention. When the smoke cleared, she could see Sunset standing there with Asta handing off her back while the girl’s eyes glowed white and her hair waved around while sparkling, despite there being a complete lack of wind inside the cave. “Alright punks, now you’re going to-oh,” the woman that looked a lot more like her angelic origins said she should spoke before she let Asta drop from her back and looked around. “You guys have taken care of them already.”

With everyone looking at Sunset’s entrance, Baro let out a scream and ran back towards the table sitting next to the machine that had been created to extract magic. “Oh man, I didn’t sign up for this!”

“I CALL DIBS!” Asta shouted as he charged forward, summoning his grimoire to pull out his larger sword a few steps away from the other man to swing it with the help of his momentum and hit Baro right in the side of the body with his blade. The man went from grabbing something on the table to flying through the air, until he crashed into the side of the cave with a loud bang.

He didn’t get up from the ground.

Theresa found the opening in the mountain where some of the magic knights that had come into town for supplies said it would be. The fact that they had talked so openly about what was obviously supposed to be a secret base was disgraceful to the old nun. If she has still been in the magic knights, the whole lot of them would have been taken to task!

Right as she flew up to the entrance to the cave on her broom, a pair of men in red robes that were more like cloaks and blue tunics rushed out. “Halt, who goes there? Declare yourself!” the Crimson Lion on the right of the entrance demanded.

Well, at least they’re not leaving anything unguarded, she thought with a frown. “My name is Theresa Rapual. I have business with your captain. Take me to him at once!”

“You’re giving me orders, old woman?” the magic knight questioned.

Theresa glared at the young knight. “Yes! And if you don’t take me to him, I’ll have orders for him too. After which, he’ll be ordering you to clean the camp’s latrines for the next week!” she yelled. “Now stand aside and let me in, or have the Crimson Lions become so timid, they cower in a cave from the appearance of a single old woman?”

After a few moments, the knight let out a growl. “Hold while we call for a messenger and see if Captain Fuegoleon will take you.”

Once she gave her name again, Theresa subjected herself to a magical scan from an item one of the guards had on him to prove she wasn’t under some kind of disguise magic. Then, a much younger knight finally came out of the cave and waved her in. “This way, Sister.”

Theresa looked around the dark cave as she made her way through the hidden encampment, her old bones glad to be out of the cold. Curiously, it looked to her as if some of the men were being roused from their beds just on her presence, but none of them did anything. Had the Magic Knights truly become so timid in recent years that one old woman was cause for concern?

The command tent for the Crimson Lions when they were on campaign looked as it ever did. Although they had probably replaced the one she had seen during the war several decades ago, they were all the same. The Vermillion family was nothing, if not traditional. She went inside and was surprised to find another captain sitting in one of the chairs.

“Hn. So your old babysitter really does come and check to see if you still need her services,” Nozel Silva commented as he sat close to the floating fire in the center of the room.

Theresa was quick to recover. “You hold your tongue, Nozel. I warmed your bottom plenty of times when your mother brought you over to the Vermillion estate,” she told the royal with a snort as the grown man let out a groan, but let the embarrassing comment pass. It was an unwritten rule among the higher ups that anyone who had played nanny to you as a younger child was immune to the deference demanded by status.

The comment got an agitated growl from the head of House Silva before he rose to his feet. “Well, seeing that Fuegoleon won’t be getting any more work done tonight, I’ll be taking my leave with what I can get,” he said before moving to take a large stack of documents into a satchel and after working them in, headed for the exit.

“What’s he doing here?” Theresa asked.

Fuegoleon took the seat opposite of the one Nozel had just vacated. “I’m afraid that I can’t discuss matters of kingdom security,” the man told her before offering her the seat Nozel had just vacated. “Now, what can I do for you, Sister Theresa? It must be something important to bring you out here at this time of night.”

“Less than an hour ago, several children were abducted from the village I was in,” she told him. “A group of magic knights that were in town have gone after them, but most of them are so green that I wouldn’t trust them to hunt down wild animals without proper supervision. And the only one of their number with any real experience is a Black Bull that does nothing but cause trouble.”

“You know, something tells me that bringing all of us along for something like this was pretty overkill,” Sylph muttered from her place on Yuno’s shoulder as he kept his eyes on the two prisoners they had managed to grab. Sunset had put their grimoires behind a force field, but it wasn’t the first time that someone had gotten up after Yuno had thought they were beaten.

Yuno resisted offering to leave Sylph behind next time as he looked out over the cavern, illuminated by the light of the creepy machine. Just looking at the thing sent a chill down his spine. Father Orsi said that men out there tried to kidnap little kids and steal their magic, but he had never taken the man seriously.

Although, now that some new evidence had come to light, it looked like he owed the old man an apology.

“Cotton Creation Magic: Cotton Ball Binding.”

He looked over to the redhead as she finished reducing the last of the healthier children in size before wrapping him in a cotton ball for transport while the conscious little girl looked on. “Are they going to be okay?” Marie asked in worry.

Sunset gave her a little smile before getting down on her knees to pat the girl on the head. “Don’t worry, Marie. The spell will keep them nice and warm until we’re ready to take everyone home,” she said with a reassuring smile.

“Don’t you try and use any of that crap on Marie, I’ll be taking her back myself,” Gauche told the woman in a threatening manner as Sunset handed the last child to Noelle for safekeeping. They had determined that a single person in the group shouldn’t carry too many of them, and they all had small packs for hauling around essentials.

The redhead looked over to the man with only a single visible eye. “You probably shouldn’t talk that way around your little sister. She’ll pick up your bad habits.”

Gauche got even more aggravated. “Who asked you?”

Before a fight could form, Yuno turned his attention over to the children that had been thrown to the side. “What about them?” he asked. While the rest of the kids had been a little bruised, all of the kids next to the machine looked worn and sick.

The question got Sunset up and moving before she leaned down to run a glowing hand over a young girl with a blank look on her face. “There’s something wrong. These kids have next to no mana at all.”

“It’s worse than that,” Sylph spoke up, getting Yuno’s attention while she looked over to the machine. “This thing looks a bit different than the last model I saw, but if it really does forcibly extract mana...then I doubt these children are going to survive more than a few days.”

Sunset looked over to the fairy as Sylph came to hover next to her. “Wait a minute. Mana exhaustion can wear you out, but I’ve never heard of it killing anyone!”

The fairy sighed and hung her head. “That’s because you’re exhausting your mana in natural ways. Even natural mana drains aren’t as cold and brutal as ones done by machines. But this… Creatures that have magic running through them need it to survive, and the body makes sure that there’s always enough left to keep going. Your mouth can go dry, but there’s still plenty of water in your body. However, these idiots might as well have sucked all the water out of the children’s bodies and are leaving them to die of dehydration.”

“And you wanted to do that to Marie?” Gauche asked as he turned his attention to the prisoners before a mirror flew over to hover in front of them. “For that, you can both die.”

Yuno put a hand on the older man’s shoulder to stop him. “That can wait until after we’ve had them undo what’s happened to the kids.”

The action made the man spin around and try to backhand Yuno, who leaned back to get out of the way. “Shut your mouth! If you get in the way of me punishing those two, I’ll put you down too.”

“Perhaps you should say that when you don’t have a child in your arms to hide behind,” Yuno told the unstable man.

“Stop it Big Brother!” Marie scolded the man before kicking him in the side with her little feet. It looked like the fact that she was siding against him more than anything else distressed the man enough to drop her, letting the girl run over to Sunset and look up at her with big, sparkling eyes. “But, you can fix it, right Sunset?”

Sunset sucked in a deep breath. “Um...maybe,” she said before looking over to the machine. “Messing with foreign magic is hard enough, adding technology I’ve never seen the level of in Clover…” She turned her attention to the prisoners to loom over them. “Okay losers, you either tell me how to reverse the flow of mana in that machine of yours, or we hook you up to it and see how much magic I can squeeze out of the two of you before you die.”

The threat made the little kidnapper scream and cower, while Baro sputtered. “W-What? No! You can’t do that to us! You’re the Magic Knights. You’re supposed to take us in or something!”

“Why?” Yuno asked them evenly. “So you can waste everyone’s time on a trial? Or are you secretly working for someone in the nobility with connections? Better to just get rid of you now, if that’s the case.”

Noelle, who had been off on the side of the cave opposite of the hole Sunset had busted in on, came forward to cross her arms and gesture to the pins on her white dress. “In case you’re blind, this is the crest of House Silva. That makes me a royal, with the authority to hand out judgments on the spot for things I deem criminal.”

Behind her, Asta gave the woman a cautious look. “Seriously?”

“Look!” Baro said loud enough to get everyone’s attention. “I’d like to help you. Seriously, I would. But we don’t know enough about that thing to throw it in reverse. The chick who hired us had the thing portled in and just told us how to turn it on.”

Gauche forced his way through the growing crowd and kicked the man in the gut. “Quit lying to try and save your fat ass!” he yelled before kicking the big man again. As he did, Baro doubled over and dropped a small, cylindrical object with a blinking red light at the top.

“What’s this?” Sunset asked as the magic item floated up to her hand.

The question made Baro grit his teeth. “Oh, that? That’s just-”

There was a surge in magical energy from behind them and Yuno turned around to frown as a spatial portal opened up in one of the tunnels leading to the chamber they were in that didn’t make it to the ground. Although he didn’t know if the designs of spatial portals were specific to the creators, the one that opened looked just like the one he had seen swallow the members of the Golden Dawn back in the capital.

“Well it’s about time you showed up!” the bigger criminal shouted. “For someone with access to spatial magic, you sure are slow!”

“Oh wow! What’s going on down here?” a girl in a white robe asked as she rose out of the portal to adjust her glasses and look around. “Hey, you don’t have the delivery ready! And what are all these people doing down there?”

Next to her, another woman rose out of the portal. The newcomer, Yuno recognized as the witch they had spotted and tried to intercept back over the capital nearly a month ago. “They’re members of the Midnight Sun,” he told them.

The woman with the glasses looked over to Yuno. “Um, that’s Eye of the-” POP!

The strange woman blinked out of reality for a second, then reappeared in front of Sunset as the redhead finished turning towards her before she made a fist and reached out to grab the stumbling woman’s hair with a free hand. “Fire Magic: Calidus Brachium!” she cast before ramming her fist into the other woman’s chest before the four-eyed girl was caught up in the fiery explosion.

“SALLY!” the witch shouted before the smoke cleared to reveal the woman’s burnt and blackened chest and empty look in her eyes.

The remains of Sally’s clothes dropped to the ground, followed by the woman herself before Sunset turned her attention on the witch and frowned. “She’s channeling mana. One of you guys take out the portal before she gets away.”

The witch let out a scream as Yuno flew up towards her while Asta ran after him. “Hey! I’m the one with the swords that stop that stuff!”

However, Yuno was a room away from the woman, while the spatial portal was still right beneath her. She dove her broom back into it while shouting. “Master! We need hel-” was all she got out before disappearing through the portal.

Not quite sure what might happen if he flew in after her, Yuno stopped on the edge of the portal before it closed in front of him.

“So you do have some information that might be worth your life,” Noelle said as she stood over their two male prisoners they had collected. “Start talking about your employers, and I might just let you live through the night.”

The bluff, if it was a bluff, worked. Baro took one look at the unconscious woman as Sunset collected her grimoire in a bubble and tried to push himself into the wall. “T-That woman is the one who hired us and brought me the machine. If anyone knows how to put the magic those kids had back where it belongs, it’s her!”

Sunset reached down and grabbed the unconscious woman by the hair before dragging her over towards the machine along the floor. “This will just take a second,” she said as she came to the machine and pulled out the device that had fallen out of Baro’s pocket. “And make sure nobody looks at what I’m doing.”

“I really don’t like the sound of that,” Asta said hesitantly.

Never in her life had Sunset known the kind of anger she was experiencing as she picked up the nearly naked woman and dragged her over towards the wall. It wasn’t like when she had been angry at Asta and Yuno for doing stupid things that made her smile whenever she looked back on them, that had just been childish annoyance. The memories of Celestia she still carried made her upset more than anything else. What she had inside her now was something cold and black, something that Sunset had managed to push to the back of her mind since...her family was killed.

Children from a church. Children that had nothing to do with anything. Children who were just...the similarities were just too many for her to count. Her mind tried to process what the woman in front of her had done, but the more she thought about it, the more numb Sunset felt.

The two men, she could understand. Even in Equestria, there had been those willing to step on others to get what they wanted. Sunset understood that thinking, it was weak and without much merit. After all, losers didn’t get very high on the ladder to success, so stepping on them wouldn’t make you rise very far either. Best to go it alone on your own merits, then nobody could hold you back. It also meant people seeking revenge were much fewer in number.

Sunset pressed Sally up against the stone and used earth magic to ‘grow’ the rock around her arms and legs until she was trapped. By the time she was done, Sally’s fingers were barely showing from where her arms and legs were being held. For a moment, she thought about healing the woman’s burns, but tossed that idea away. As long as she could talk, it was fine. Then, just to be sure the woman had a clear picture of what was going on, Sunset put her glasses back on and sent a small pulse of magic into her mind to wake her up.

“Huh? What’s going-”

“Eyes front, or I break your legs,” Sunset told her.

The woman blinked and looked down at her legs, then back up to Sunset. “Hey there, were you the one who used that freaky spell? I’ve never seen spatial magic like-” Sunset hit her in the gut with an enhanced punch. The woman’s head lurched forward and she threw up on herself. “Wha-what was that for?” she whined.

“Talking about something I didn’t want to talk about,” she said before pulling out the device that had fallen off of Baro before working a quick spell from Equestria on it. “Now, do you see this?” Sunset waved the magical item in front of the girl with red eyes and glasses.

The pupils of Sally’s eyes widened as she focused on the object in question. “Yes, I-I...I want it, I...I need it! GIMMIE GIMMIE GIMMIE!” she shouted as she struggled against her bonds.

Sunset put the thing in the space between her breasts before looking back up to the woman as she struggled with her bonds. “Now now, if you try to break free, I’ll smash your thingy,” Sunset lied. The destruction of the item would break the spell, so she had every intention of keeping it around for as long as possible.

The threat had the desired effect, and Sally went as stiff as stone. Once the girl had responded to the threat, Sunset looked back to the chair. “Now, tell me how to reverse the magic drain on those children. If you don’t you’ll never see your little device again.”

“B-But I can’t!” Sally exclaimed. “There isn’t any way to reverse the magic drain!”

“WHAT?” Asta yelled before Sunset found him standing next to her, nearly shoving the redhead out of the way to get in the face of Female Four Eyes. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE ISN’T ANY WAY TO FIX THOSE KIDS?”

Sally snorted and rolled her eyes. “Well, I wouldn’t have built a magic draining machine if I wanted to give people their magic back. It takes it out and stores it so I can use it as material for my experiments,” she said before giggling. “Honestly, a machine being able to do the exact opposite task of what it was built to perform? You people are so stupid.”

“YOU BITCH!” Asta screamed before he rammed his face into her jaw. There was a loud crack as the woman’s head whipped back and hit the rock behind her, then her whole body went limp. “DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU’VE DONE TO THOSE CHILDREN? I’LL BREAK EVERY BONE IN YOUR DAMN BODY AND MAKE YOU BUILD A NEW MACHINE TO FIX THEM!”

Sunset sighed before she reached down between her breasts and took out the item in question to burn it, breaking the Want it Need it spell before she could reach over and smack her baby brother upside his head. “She’s going to need her brain intact to do that, genius,” Sunset told him before she grabbed his ear and began to pull Asta back towards the rest of the group. “Now, you say over here and guard the prisoners. I’ll handle the interrogation. We need to hurry before their backup arrives.”

Not that she was all that worried about whatever goons those sun guys sent at them next. So far, nothing they had looked all that special.

As soon as Sunset got done dragging Asta back over to the main group that was still watching over the hired goons and started back to the crazy lady, Yuno felt another surge of mana on the far side of the room, followed by a much larger source coming through the portal it made a second later. “YUNO! DEFENSE, NOW!”

Even before Sylph had called out to him, the young man raised his grimoire and had begun casting. “Wind Magic: Towering Tornado!” Not even a second after his spell took shape, there was a mass of flashes that lit up the cavern as a dozen shards of light with four lines each running through them collided with his spell and were thrown to the sides rather than sucked up.

It was the first time he had ever seen an attack be able to resist the power of his tornado even slightly. A quick glance out of the corner of his eye told him that Sunset had raised one of her shields, but the three blades that had flown at her actually made it halfway through before being stopped at the crosspoint where the larger spear of light was met by the first of the four other blades.

The entire cavern became illuminated by a light that was almost blinding before another spatial portal opened up above the man that was floating above the one that had obviously brought him into the cavern. The woman Sally fell forward into a portal that opened beneath her, the rock that had been holding her up destroyed by more attacks from the same barrage that had been fired previously.

As soon as the man caught her, he let the girl drop into the dark portal beneath him.

Then, there was a disturbance in the mana near Yuno and he saw Sunset’s hair start to glow again. “Are you a light mage?” she asked with a slightly giddy smile as her eyes glowed. “Oh, I’ve been wanting to run into one of you for awhile now. I didn’t know the Midnight Sun had goons like you in its roster.”

“Actually,” the man spoke as the light around him faded enough for Yuno to make out his features. He was a tall, slender man with white hair and golden eyes that were framed by a pair of crescent marks on the side of his face that matched the two dots around the center of his brow. His long white hair was done up in a series of braids that were held back by a brimless golden head covering that ended with a cross that reached down between the two dots and went with the large earrings that held red gems of some kind hanging from his ears. Unlike the other Sun terrorists Yuno had seen, he was wearing an open white robe with three golden eyes at the center beneath his neck, with a black background to the expensive decoration on top of a dark purple robe that was closed.

But, the thing that really drew Yuno’s attention was the golden glowing book in the man’s hand, and the four leaf clover on its cover.

“I am the leader of the Eye of the Midnight Sun. My name is Licht.”

There was a flutter of feathers and Yuno found Secre standing on his shoulder, opposite of Sylph. The bird threw out a wing, as if pointing to the floating mage to object to his statement. “BULLSHIT!”

Page 19: Licht

Secre Swallowtail hadn’t known many people during her life as a human. Although she had been a noble, her magic hadn’t been thought a good thing to pass on to the next generation. So her number of suitors was rather low. It didn’t help that her short stature and lack of a figure made most people mistake her for a twelve-year-old girl, either.

So, the few people she did know relatively well, she remembered with absolute clarity.

Licht hadn’t been Secre’s friend. He had been the friend of her prince, a man that Lumiere had gotten to know after an incident involving his sister and some wild mana that Licht had helped save her from. The fact that they both had four leaf clovers on their grimoires made them become curious with each other. Although, the way Secre understood it, it was her prince’s sister Tetia getting knocked up by the elven leader that forged a lasting connection between them upon which their shared ideals were exchanged over time.

And then, it all came to an end when the magical device she and her prince had created went missing. Only to be found later, at the sight of the elven massacre, where Licht’s people had been wiped out.

The man standing above her looked like Licht...mostly. He didn’t have the ears. But that wasn’t the only anomaly in the fraud’s appearance. While Licht had possessed a four leaf clover, his magical attributes had revolved around swords, not light. To top it all off, while the mana the light mage possessed was certainly impressive, the leader of the elf tribe had much more at his disposal before his death.

After the attack, the group of knights stood almost shoulder to shoulder, with Sunset being the odd woman out of the left. Gauche let Marie hide behind him while Yuno focused on the man, as did Asta and Noelle. As for their prisoners, they both sat up against the wall, behind the teenagers.

For his part, ‘Licht’ blinked as Secre spoke and accused him of lying while another mage came out of the spatial portal and stood behind him as it closed. “Um...did that bird just-” was as far as he got before Sunset dropped her satchel full of children before moving at light speed to reappear in front of him and slammed her fist into his jaw.

Secre blinked at the redhead’s stupid move. That idiot!

The man calling himself Licht didn’t even seem to be phased by the blow. “Oh my, you must be new to your grimoire,” he said before a sword made of light appeared in his hand that he used to jam into Sunset’s gut until it went out the other end of her body. “Otherwise, you would have known that enhancement magic doesn’t offer us light mages very much in the way of physical offense.”

The redhead coughed out a splatter of blood that ended up on the fake Licht’s robe before the sword disappeared. Without the blade holding her up, Sunset fell from where she had been a moment ago to crash on the ground below. As she did, the bubbles of force encasing the three grimoires she sealed with her magic popped and dropped to the ground.

“Well, time to die,” Licht said before his grimoire lit up again. “Light Magic: Light Swords of Conviction!” The spell spawned half a dozen weapons that looked like the same five-bladed lances from before and sent them at the girl a moment later.

Secre could feel Yuno tense as he looked down at his grimoire for an instant. It was a move several young mages did when they knew they didn’t have a spell capable of stopping what they were seeing, but looked anyway out of desperation.

“Water Creation Magic: Sea Dragon’s Cradle!”

Noelle’s spell sprung to life around Sunset an instant before it was too late, knocking the barrage aside as the girl winced from the effort of blocking the attack. “I’ll take care of defense. You guys handle the rest!”

“NOW’S OUR CHANCE NEIGE!” the larger kidnapper shouted as Secre heard him move. She had enough time to turn her head towards the man and see him grab Marie with one arm before lifting her up to wrap his fat fingers around the little girl’s neck.

Gauche turned around and tensed before a square shaped mirror appeared next to him, different from the round ones he usually created. “MARIE!”

As the rest of the knights froze, Secre turned and looked back at the fake Licht. If he attacked now...she blinked. Even the human claiming to be an elf had a tense look on his face as he watched the larger man laugh while he and the smaller kidnapper inched closer to their books.

“Now now, one little word from any of you, and I pop off this little one’s head,” the man threatened when Asta looked as if he was going to try moving. “Just because I don’t have my grimoire doesn’t mean I can’t enhance myself enough to kill her.”

“I want to get out of here, Baro,” the younger man whined as they reached the table that their grimoires sat on.

The man snorted. “Are you kidding me? Now that the tables have turned, we can suck all the magic out of these kids and a bunch of magic knights!” he said with a laugh before looking up at the non-elf. “Hey you! I expect to be paid extra for all this dangerous work!”

As Licht continued to look down at the man with a hard expression, Gauche leaned in close to Yuno. “Hey wind boy, can you do something to that guy with a raw burst of mana? If you can break his hold on her, I can get Marie away from those guys.”

“Are you saying that little girl you’re holding was one of the people you were going to drain of their magic?” Licht asked evenly.

Baro let out a laugh. “That’s right! She’s just oozing with magic, too!” he told the man floating above him enthusiastically before looking back at the knights. “And they’ve got a ton more kids as well. That redhead used some kind of compression magic so that they could carry them in those bags on their sides. But we’ve got about seventy kids, all ready to have their magic sucked up for ya! Starting with this little gem!”

After a few seconds of silence, Licht frowned. “I see. It would appear that my plans were a bit too reckless in their haste. I will have to be more mindful of my actions in the future,” he said before disappearing in a flash of light. When he reappeared, he was behind Barro and created a sword in his hand to swipe it across the back of the man’s neck.

“Wha-?” Baro managed to say before a line of red formed at his neck and he started to collapse.

As he did, Gauche’s mirror rose up. “Mirror Magic: Mirror Shift.” Marie disappeared from the arms of the falling corpse, only to reappear next to her brother before the body hit the ground, and its severed head rolled a few feet before coming to a stop.

The surprise action stunned even Secre, leaving her immobile while the kidnapper in white let out a scream. “BARO! You...I’LL MAKE YOU PAY FOR THAT!” he yelled frantically while calling up his grimoire.

“Doubtful,” the light mage replied before throwing out his hand. A light sword shot forward and struck the young man with the gray hair in his forehead, dropping him dead a second later. “Disgusting creatures, willing to sell off the future of children for money.”

Snapping out of his daze, Asta took a step forward. “SAYS THE GUY WHO WAS BANKING THEM!” he shouted. “You’re paying guys to steal magic from children, and now you’re feeling bad about it? WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR DEAL?”

The man calling himself Licht looked over to Asta with a frown. “I don’t want to hear such words from trash like you,” he told the boy evenly. “Save for a very few, every man, woman, and child in the Clover Kingdom will die for their sins. I will make you all suffer and scream as you die in agony. Every last one of you will pay for what you did!”

As the man ranted, Asta leapt at him, his grimoire following behind him in easy reach. More than halfway there, he reached in and started to pull out the larger of his swords before landing and completing the movement to take a swing at Licht, who flew black in a blur of motion just in time. “You kill your own men to save a kid, then you go on and on about how you’re going to kill everyone?” Asta yelled as he pointed his sword up at the man. “Buddy, YOU’RE NUTS!”

Licht’s eyes widened when Asta pointed his sword at him. “Where did you get that weapon? And that grimoire?” he demanded as his face became a frown. “They don’t belong to you, boy! Give them back!”

What? Secre asked as a shiver passed down her spine.

Asta pulled out his shorter weapon and ducked behind his blade before Licht raised his grimoire. “Light Magic: Light Swords of Conviction!” the mage cried out as he launched a dozen of the magical weapons towards Asta, who actually managed to keep most of his body from being struck by using his larger sword as cover while his smaller one kept his exposed areas from being hit.

“Sylph, curve the shots.” Yuno said as he raised his hand. “Wind Magic: Swift White Bow.” As the large longbow made of wind took shape to create half a dozen arrows with drilling tornadoes, the little pixie flew in front of him.

“FIRE IN THE HOLE!” Sylph shouted before taking a deep breath and blowing on each of the wind projectiles, sending them towards Licht. The man flew up into the air to avoid them. Which turned out to be a wrong move, as the attack turned slightly to head towards the other Midnight Sun member who had been keeping back.

Licht turned and noticed what was going on too late for him to move and intercept the attacks. “VALTOS!” he screamed before the barrage impacted the tunnel where the man was standing.

Although Secre couldn’t be certain of the man’s defeat, her mana sense did detect a huge drop in magical power coming from his location, but not a complete dissipation of his mana. If he was still there, he was either unconscious, or too injured to do anything.

The wind around Secre swirled, and she had to jump back and off of the boy’s shoulder as he flew up into the air. “Keep attacking and keep him off balance!” Yuno shouted as he looked over to Gauche. “Don’t give him time to cast!”

“Don’t tell me what to do, golden boy!” Gauche yelled back at the man before bringing up his grimoire. “Mirror Magic: Reflect Refrain.” After he was done casting, a dozen different mirrors appeared around Licht. Although it looked like only one of them fired a magical blast, the mirrors were positioned so that each one could catch the beam and send it to the next, making slight alterations as they did to change the course of the attack.

Noelle looked over to the girl standing behind Gauche. “Marie, maybe you should come over here with me?” she offered the girl.

With his mirrors going off on their own, Gauche faced Noelle with a frown. “Marie stays with me!”

Apparently still casting his strangely shaped swords spell, Licht sent out a pair of blades to intercept the beam between two of the mirrors and flew out of the collection of mirrors before raising his hand. “Light Creation Magic: Light Whip of Judgement!” he cast before a long strand of light shot out from his hand that he grabbed onto before pulling back with his arm and flailing it around as the light continued to expand in length. A second later, the whip widely lashed about, destroying all of Gauche's mirrors as well as a good deal of the ground beneath the fake Licht that knocked up a good bit of dust.

“Oh dear,” he said before canceling the spell and turning back a page in his grimoire. “That was a lot bigger than I had expected. Having the three of you here really does make this difficult.”

Yuno flew up above the mage and positioned himself on the opposite side of the cave from the rest of the group. “Good to know we’re not making this easy for you! Wind Creation Magic: Wind Blade Shower!” he cast at close range. A flurry of white blades that looked somewhat akin to feathers shot at the light mage, who might as well have teleported out of the way he moved so fast to avoid them. “ASTA!”

Down on the ground, the boy with no magic let out a surprised yelp as Yuno’s attack headed straight for him. Instead of using his sword for cover, Asta took it in both hands and swatted most of the barrage away in a different direction a split second before Licht appeared in front of them to take several blades to his chest and abdomen. Which also struck with enough force to knock the man claiming to be Licht back into the wall and keep him there in the grooves of the stone.

He sat up there for a moment, his face full of shock. “Y-You actually managed to...h-hit me,” he said before coughing up blood while his body trembled. “H-How?”

“Our big sister liked to play around a lot with light magic back in our home village,” Yuno said. “She also liked to show off her intelligence and brag about how it worked. Like how the human brain isn’t fast enough to comprehend moving at that speed very well. You can move fast, but it’s only in one direction, only for an instant, and only to a destination you would have had to select ahead of time. So all I had to do was throw a wide enough barrage to make you dodge, with a few of my knives in Asta’s direction.”

Taking his name as a cue, Asta raised his big sword to point it at Licht. “THEN I JUST READ YOUR KI TO FIGURE OUT WHERE YOU WERE GOING!”

Licht chuckled lightly and looked back to the tall boy. “Who are you, anyway? I can feel your mana, but you don’t look familiar to me at all,” he said.

Yuno raised an eyebrow. “What the hell are you talking about?” he asked before frowning. “Now surrender, you’ll bleed out if you continue fighting.”

“Right,” Licht said with a sigh. “I suppose you wouldn’t know. Well then. Light Recovery Magic: Healing Light Particles.”

“OH COME ON!” Asta shouted as a sphere of sparkling light surrounded the man and lessened his wounds as the wind knives were pushed out of his body. “He can heal himself too?”

Floating next to Yuno, Sylph let out an aggravated cry. “Next time, let me blast him when he’s down!”

Yuno brought up his grimoire. “Wind Creation Magic: Swift White Hawk!” he cast before sending a bird the size of his chest at the light mage before Licht disappeared in a flash of light. The hawk turned and circled around as Licht brought up his grimoire to cast another sword spell and send it towards the molded mass of wind mana to destroy it before moving away from his previous position in the blink of an eye when Gauche fired a series of blasts at him.

After he had gotten out of the crossfire of Yuno and Gauche’s spells, Licht recast his healing magic and kept his distance. “I do apologize, but it looks like I will have to cause a few of you some injury,” he said as he finished healing and brought up his grimoire again. “Light Magic: Light Swords of Conviction!”

Seeing where this was going, Secre took cover behind a stalagmite before looking over to Noelle as the fake Licht was still prepping his attack. “Get behind cover!”

While Yuno was able to call up a wind that altered the course of some of the blades enough for Asta to knock the remainers that were still close enough to hit them away, Licht’s attacks that flew past them took Gauche in the shoulders and one of his legs, while Noelle moved just enough to avoid the sword going for her head, but she still took blades in one of her legs and her stomach.

“Big Brother!” Marie exclaimed as she moved to check on Gauche while Secre flew over to take a look at Noelle.

“Can you move?” she asked before glancing over to Gauche and frowning. The number blades sent towards him was nowhere near what Noelle received. Did Licht think her higher level of mana made her more of a threat for some reason? It didn’t make much sense, as all Noelle had done is send out a single defensive spell.

The girl let out a tiny cry. “T-This really hurts!” she replied through gritted teeth as the light weapons dissipated to reveal burn marks. It looked like the royal’s obscene amount of mana had kept her from taking severe damage. But she wouldn’t be walking any time soon.

“NOELLE!” Asta shouted before he turned around and ran towards her.

Yuno’s eyes went wide before he flew up into the air for more mobility and brought up his grimoire. However, he wasn’t fast enough to stop two of the light blades from striking the back of Asta’s legs, bringing him down to the ground right as he pulled off his spell. “Wind Magic: Towering Tornado!” he cast, focing the light mage to retreat as Yuno increased the size of his spell to create a veritable wall between Licht and the others that took up half the cavern.

“I don’t suppose anyone has a magical item that can disable a mage’s ability to cast in their pockets?” Secre asked the assembled humans.

After letting out a snort, Noelle looked over at the bird with a frown. “Lady, all I have on me is a bunch of kids everyone saddled me with because I’m the defensive mage, and a communicator...my...brother forgot to take back,” she said with wide eyes before she grabbed her wand. “Yuno! Thow Asta over here!”

The boy with the black hair threw out a hand and a moment later, Asta was flying through the air with his grimoire behind him, despite the fact that both of his swords were still on the ground before the tornado dissipated and Yuno moved out of his previous position.

“Yuno, follow me lead!” Sylph called out before she actually led the boy through the air rather than passively observing like usual as they dodged several of Licht’s swords.

Once the boy with the gray hair was close enough, Noelle raised her wand. “Water Creation Magic: Sea Dragon’s Cradle!” she cast before wrapping herself and everyone around her in another dome of water. Then, she reached into her satchel to pull out the silver communicator and turned it on before bringing it up to her mouth. “Hello? Big Brother? Are you there? Stupid thing, connect me to Nozel Silva!”

Despite the heaviness of his robe and everything else he was wearing, Nozel still felt the cold as his silver eagle soared through the night sky. An annoying beeping drew the man’s attention to his pack, and he reached down into it to pull out the communicator, wondering who would be calling him this late at night.

As far as everyone knew, he was supposed to be asleep.

“This is Captain Nozel,” he answered.

“Big Brother!” the voice of his youngest sister replied, making the man frown.

“Noelle, how did you get a-” he stopped remembering the spare communicator she had been given a month ago, but was unable to recall taking it back. “Never mind. Get off this frequency and-”

“Someone’s trying to kill us!” she quickly said before Nozel could finish, making his blood run cold. “He says he’s the leader of the men who attacked the capital and right now, I believe him. Three of us are already injured and Yuno isn’t doing much better. We need help!”

Nozel quickly brought his eagle to a stop. “Where are you?” he asked before trying to remember which spatial magic mage was on call at this hour.

“We’re in a mine a little north of Nairn. I don’t know where exactly, but the entrance was on the ground, but was followed by a steep incline,” she said.

Before the girl was finished talking, Nozel had already turned around.

It was the old dream, come again.

The same dream she had been having every night since she died.

Or...having every night a week after she died?

It was...hard to think of the time before she had been pulled out of the garbage heap, so close to death.

Again.

Everything was muted and a little blurry, like she was looking through a fog. The corners of her vision faded to black.

She did her best to remember the details, but...it was so hard.

Even her name couldn’t be recalled.

It was the day of the wedding. Everyone was happy and wearing their best robe. The bride had asked if any of them wanted a dress, but all the ladies in the village had refused passionately. Dresses were just so...confining. And the corsets that came with them were absolute hell.

Although...they certainly looked pretty. Maybe, after everyone was family, she could ask Tetia if she knew a way to wear them while still being able to breathe.

Licht was surrounded by well-wishers, while the little boy that followed him everywhere stood not too far off, a scowl covered the child’s face. She never understood why the child was so attached to their leader, and jealousy so at that.

“Ah, Fana, good to see you,” Licht said when she got closer to him. “I was worried you might not come.”

She blinked.

Fana? Had that been her name?

It was so hard to think, sometimes.

She remembered being called Fana by someone.

But that was in her old life, before she became...Fana...again?

Confused thoughts were swept aside as the dream continued to play out. “Where else would I be?” she asked.

The conversation ended. There should have been more, but everything rushed through in the blink of an eye, and the next thing Fana knew, she was standing with the others as they looked up at the gazebo where Licht was and…

For a brief moment, Fana frowned at the image her mind presented her with. This isn’t right…

But then, the scene changed again. A red tint colored the world and a magic circle appeared above the clearing where they had gathered for the wedding. Magical shards of light fell from the circle, striking everyone they could as the barrage increased the number of attacks on the outer edge as some of the people tried to run.

One of the partygoers raised his hand to try and form a shield. But...nothing happened. “My magic! WHAT HAPPENED TO MY MAGIC?” he shouted before a blade of light struck him down.

All around, Fana saw her friends being killed by the ambush.

“HE DID THIS!” another one of her tribe shouted. “IT WAS ALL A TRICK!”

“DAMN HUMANS!”

Fana felt herself get stabbed and fell down, like she always did. She fell down onto the ground, her life’s blood flowing out of her as the darkness closed in.

Still, there was something...something she needed to see.

With her vision fading, Fana looked up to the sky, past the magic circle that was sending out waves of attacks that were killing everyone. Above it was a sphere, some kind of magical item that was absorbing everyone’s mana and sending it to...to…

Fana fought to stay conscious, stay in the dream as she followed the mana. Up on a cliff overlooking the village, a group of humans stood, laughing at them as they died. They wore crowns and fancy clothes and… There was...something...else.

The human on the left. He...had something...in his arms…

But as much as she tried to focus on it, the dream wouldn’t let her.

And then...the dream ended as something whispered into her ear.

“HAtE tHeM. DEsPisE THEm. KiLl tHEm aLL.”

-.......-

“Hey, Fana, wake up!”

The calling of her name roused Fana from her sleep. She opened her eyes and picked herself up to look over at the door to the room she used to sleep in. The man with the black hair with white splotches and red mark beneath his left eye was barely familiar to her for an instant, then she remembered. His hair was wrong, and the marking shouldn’t have been there. The robes he was wearing were wrong too, both in color and type.

The markings. They were important. Fana knew that much.

But...why?

“Hello Raia,” she replied in an even tone before bending her head to the side until it touched her shoulder. Everyone said that it was hard for them to know what she was feeling, because her voice was always the same. She didn’t understand, everyone’s voices were always the same. But if she moved differently when she spoke, that seemed to help cover for the inability for other people to understand her tone. “What do you want?”

The taller man pressed his lips together. “Did you sleep in your clothes again?” he said before reaching up to run his hand through his hair. “I swear, if I have to become your nanny, it’s going to be such a pain.”

“You want me to take off my clothes?” she asked before reaching up to start undoing her top.

Raia held up his hands. “No!” he said before coming closer and giving her a considering frown. “I swear, I think that gem in your head is affecting your brain. Maybe we should just pluck it out-”

A flash of panic shot through Fana’s mind. “NO!” she shouted as she reached up to grab the man’s wrist before she could touch the pink crystal that had been implanted in her skull.

On the nightstand next to her bed, a new light began to glow, followed by a growl. It made Raia give a nervous smile as he pulled back and held up his hands. “Okay, no need to sick your little lizard on me,” he said before his expression became more serious. “There was some problem with the last mana delivery and Licht went to go see what was up. But we haven’t heard back from him yet, and Sally was pretty beaten up when she came back through Valtos’s portal. If he doesn’t come back soon, we’ll have to go check on him.”

Four minutes.

Sunset learned that was how much time it took to repair a kidney that had been cut in half with her phoenix magic. Holes in her body were easy. Bisected organs, not so much. It was only through rote memorization brought about by constant practice that Sunset had been able to cast the spell at all, her first real taste of pain telling Sunset she needed a better means of fighting through it than just bearing with it.

Dimly, she was aware of the other mana sources in the cavern while performing her healing spell. Everyone was alive, with the possible exception of Asta. Him not having magic was really annoying.

Still, the healing had given her body the rest it needed from her last intake of mana, and Sunset focused her defenses before drawing the surrounding mana in around herself and altering it for her personal use. Just because it wasn’t how humans normally did a mana zone didn’t mean it was any worse.

But, just because she was in fighting shape again didn’t mean she was going to be stupid about it. With her mana still configured for fire, Sunset recloaked herself in a phoenix robe and blinked when she saw the effect her mana zone had on it. Instead of just a single wing, a pair of them sprouted from the fiery aura, forming something much more akin to actual wings than the strand of fire that had been there before.

Sunset approached the water barrier that was still surrounding her and frowned. “Right. Water magic,” she told herself before making a fist and surrounding it with her usual offensive fire spell before punching forward and moving out into the cavern before taking to the air and getting a sense of what was going on.

Another one of Noelle’s defensive spells was swirling around close to a wall, where Sunset could feel everyone’s mana inside the watery cocoon. Except for Yuno’s, he was flying around the cave on the back of a hawk big enough to double as a boat and exchanging flying blade spells with Licht. Asta’s swords just laying on the ground were a concern, but there was nothing Sunset could do about them. She knew what happened when someone other than Asta touched those things.

The dead bodies of the kidnappers were also pretty creepy, but Sunset found that she wasn’t as affected by them as much as her memory said she should have been. Unfortunately, she didn’t have time to be disturbed by that fact or think about it as she took note of where all the unconscious children that had been drained were before flying up to hover alongside Yuno.

“You’re still...where did you copy that spell from, girl?” Licht demanded with a frown.

Sunset snorted. “Tch. Why is it everybody’s always asking me that stupid question?” she replied before looking over to Yuno. “How are you holding up?”

After sucking in a deep breath, Yuno let it out and kept his eye straight ahead. “I’ll manage,” he replied before frowning a little. “You?”

It took a moment for Sunset to take stock of herself. Like someone who had gotten their second wind after a few minutes rest, she was finding her body didn’t like being put through its paces with having to channel a great deal of mana so soon. “I’ll manage,” she told him. “So, since you’re the long range guy. I’ll get in close and try to create an opening or pin him down. You hang back, catch your breath. Hit him when I trip him up.”

“Sounds good,” Yuno said.

Which made Sunset rather worried. Yuno didn’t like taking the back seat. He must have been a lot more tired than she originally thought.

Sunset went through the motion of crouching in the air before her flaming wings spread out above her in preparation to flap despite there not being a conscious decision to move them. A combined motion from her legs and wings sent the girl flying forward towards the man with the five too many braids. “Fire Magic: Caldarius Brachium!”

“You must be joking,” Licht said before he popped out of Sunset’s line of sight, to fly upwards according to her mana sense, before a barrage of oddly-shaped light daggers fell towards her.

Which Sunset responded to by launching herself at them with one of her hands extended. The power of her offensive spell knocked away the light swords that would have hit her dead on, and the ones that managed to nick her caused wounds that were quickly repaired by the defensive healing spell Sunset had wrapped herself in. She closed in on the light mage, but met only rock when he flashed away again.

The same second he landed, Sunset turned and punched towards the man, sending a concentrated stream of fire at him that hit the location he was standing at far too late before Licht reappeared and fired off another barrage of light swords that were easily dealt with as she swatted the closer ones away before moving after Licht again.

As the dance continued, Sunset was starting to realize a major problem. While the light mage couldn’t do any real damage to her, she was always one step behind. With the time limit of her mana zone, her body would most likely give out before his magic did. Which meant she couldn’t keep dancing around until Licht made a mistake.

Unfortunately, there was no pattern to his movements, so trying to back him into a corner and open up with a wide attack wasn’t an option. On top of which, for whatever reason, he didn’t fly in close or open up with a larger spell when she did have to stop and change her trajectory.

There was also something else that bothered her, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Something about the man was...off, somehow. Like he had a strange odor that Sunset didn’t like, but couldn’t quite place.

Yuno stayed out of the fight, watching everything from a place in front of the drained children. It cut off a part of the cave from being used as a point for Licht’s flashy escapes, but didn’t cause too much of a problem for the light mage’s dodges. The fact that Yuno wasn’t throwing mana around was worrisome, though. He must have burned through a lot of it and was holding back for something he knew would hit.

I need to think of something, Sunset told herself before throwing a concentrated beam of fire at the man, who simply strafed to the side in order to avoid it. A large area attack would be too obvious and open her up before she even finished launching it, which would probably get her killed. If he even bothered to take advantage of the opening, that is.

Trying to bring down the ceiling on top of him was...a bad idea. Even if Sunset hadn’t calculated the size of the mountain to figure out that they were only a few feet from what had to be open air above, which giving him access to would end her chances of cornering him, the dust knocked up by such a move would choke the kids that were laying on the ground to death.

Teleportation...was a stupid idea. The mana field surrounding Licht would have forced her to appear fifteen feet away, and so dazed that she wouldn’t be able to aim. Even if she got in close and used a wide area attack to the point she didn’t need to aim, he was fast enough to dodge it unless she could pin him down.

“You know, I think I just realized something,” he said as he floated in the air across from her. “No grimoire, multiple magical attributes, mana-infused body...you may have taken human form, but you’re an outsider, aren’t you?”

Sunset frowned. Talking was a waste of time, but...burning through mana would only limit the amount of time she could run around fast enough. “That’s right,” she replied before reaching out to grab a hold of the nearby stalactite. If she hung onto it, flying wasn’t necessary.

Licht let out a small laugh. “Well then, we have no reason to fight. I don’t know what lies these people have told you, but-”

Sunset didn’t let him finish. “You’re an elf that was brought back from the dead through the use of forbidden magic involving a set of magic stones after all of your buddies got killed during a wedding between you and the local princess of the Clover Kingdom,” she said before blinking. Wait a minute...the Tree of Life, and a man who should be dead right in front of me…

Except...what Secre had said...Sunset had the feeling she was missing a key ingredient to what was going on. If they had already been reincarnated, then why bother with a ritual involving the Tree of Life?

“...oh, you...know about that,” Licht replied in surprise before blinking a few times. “That’s...convenient.” After regaining his composure, the man smiled. “Then you have seen the evils of this kingdom, their hypocrisy. Some live on the verge of starving to death, while others discard food they cannot finish. Citizens ranks are supposedly determined by magic power. Yet some are met with discrimination despite the strength of their magic, because of their low birth. Others are persecuted for the simple crime of being born in a different land. Join with me, and we will build a new kingdom, a shining city on the mountain from which a new utopia will be made!”

Sunset sneered at the man. “You want to talk about how evil people are when I’m in the sight of a pile of magically crippled children?” she asked. Keep him talking, she told herself. The oddity of his little origin story didn’t matter for the moment. The more he talked, the more time Sunset had to think.

Since the man could dodge everything Sunset could throw, she needed to figure out a way to pin him down. But the magical aura he had surrounded himself with made using telekinesis on him impossible.

The verbal jab got a rise out of Licht. “If you know who I am, then you know that everything they have is built on a legacy of taint that must be washed clean!” he yelled back at her. “Everything they have is dirty. And every lost one of them must pay for their sins!”

With his previous moral argument giving way to this new one, Sunset found herself being drawn into the argument for a moment. “So now, even the people who are starving and get turned down for all the good jobs are evil too, huh?” Sunset went on with half-lidded eyes. “The crap you’re mad about happened over a hundred years ago. If you have a problem with the way things went back then, go dig up the corpses of all the dead people and bring it up with them. Because from where I’m standing, the only people who are evil here are the ones going on about past crimes that happened a lifetime ago as they going around committing murder and trying to burn cities to the ground!”

Idiot you weren’t supposed to argue with him, Sunset told herself. The whole point of taking a moment to rest was to get the guy monologuing and then come up with a plan for her to take him out!

She could try switching back to light magic…

But that hadn’t worked out for her the first time around at all.

Licht sighed. “Well then, if you aren’t on the side of justice, then you are also an evil that needs to die in the fires of retribution,” he said. “Pitty, that even one such as you would side with the humans instead of us.”

Yuno snorted as he cut into the conversation. “The fact that you thought anyone would help you after what we’ve seen here is laughable.”

The sudden addition of Yuno to the conversation made Sunset blink. With everything that had been going on, she had forgotten that he was there. The reminder of which gave Sunset the perfect idea for dealing with the light mage. “Yuno, close your book and cut your mana,” Sunset ordered.

While the confused look on Yuno’s face said that he didn’t understand what was going on, he did as asked and began to drop from the sky.

Licht blinked at the action “Hm? Decided to surrender, then? All things considered, I’m willing to let you leave with your friends. To be honest, this little side project has caused me some embarrassment and I need to restructure it a bit,” he said before looking over to Noelle’s water shield. “Consider it an apology.”

There was a loud pop as Yuno blinked out of sight.

“Why would I bother doing that?” Sunset asked as Yuno reappeared fifteen feet in the air away from Licht. The unexpected move made the man look down for a fraction of a second, letting Sunset cast another spell. “WHEN I JUST CAUGHT YOU?”

Licht flashed out of his previous location and ran into the fully transparent shield bubble that Sunset had surrounded a good quarter of the cavern with. A second later, his mana surged and dozens of the odd light weapons he tended to conjure appeared around him to begin pounding cracks in Sunset’s reverse defensive spell. But it was already too late. He looked back to Yuno and his partner as she popped out of his hood and froze after raising his hand instead of launching an attack. “Oh dear.”

Sylph, a creature with a body that had been crafted by another magical being to be much more durable than a fragile human one. She didn’t have any problems flying in front of the boy and looking right at the cornered mage. “Dodge this,” she said before taking in a deep breath as Yuno’s mana flared.

“Wind Spirit Magic: Sylph’s Breath!”

Thanks to a lack of air travel abilities and the need of someone to track the mana sources of the other knights Theresa said had gone to the mountain, Fuegoleon needed to rouse Randall from his slumber before heading out of the base. And with the spatial mages he had all needing to sleep through the night in order to recover their strength thanks to all the work they did moving the Crimson Lions during the day after leaving the jamming field and retrieving them, they had to take his second-in-command’s sky barge. Which...looked more like a flying rowboat than an actual ship.

The full moon made it easy to see the land stretched out in front of him, which was a blessing. Too dark a night would have limited their speed and made any search for the mines Theresa spoke of a nightmarish task.

He looked over to the man with the goatee and scar covering the upper right half of his forehead as his messy hair whipped around in the wind and his square jaw opened to let out a yawn. “Are you sure you’re awake enough for this?” Fuegoleon asked. “We have brooms.”

“I doubt the Sister can fly even half as fast as my ship. You said you needed an investigator, and I have conducted several such operations,” Randall replied as he rubbed his eyes. “Besides, those mines are a maze. You’d never find them without someone to-hm?”

Sitting at the back of the boat, Theresa held her arms close and frowned at the man. “I’d like to see how well you hold up to freezing winds at my age.”

The man looked back and slowed the pace of his skiff with a frown. “Who in the world is that?”

Fuegoleon looked to their right, and blinked at what he saw before his mana senses picked up the approach. A large eagle made of liquid metal flew through the air at a breakneck speed towards the town of Nairn. “What’s Nozel doing here again?”

From her place sitting on the little boat behind him, Theresa snorted. “Heh. He probably forgot something. That silly little boy would leave his head behind if it wasn’t attached to his neck.”

While he would have just let the old woman’s jab go in one ear and out the other, an oddity tugged at his mind. Nozel hadn’t gone to the village. He stayed in camp while waiting for Fuegoleon to finish going through the latest batch of reports.

“Link up with him,” Fuegoleon commanded as he got a better footing in the boat to brace himself for the increase in speed. Not that the man could catch Nozel, but when the Silver Eagles captain saw Fuegoleon approaching, he would stop to talk.

Which made the fact that Nozel looked in their direction for a moment before pushing forward a little disconcerting.

Theresa let out a disquiet groan as she looked out towards Nozel. “Oh dear. I think something might have gone terribly wrong during the rescue mission.”

“What do you mean?” Fuegoleon asked, the slight Silva had given him forgotten for the moment.

After taking a breath, the woman turned her attention back to Fuegoleon. “One of the magic knights involved with the rescue was the spitting image of Acier Silva. If it wasn’t for the Black Bulls robe she was wearing, I would have thought she was the woman’s daughter instead of a bastard child from the Silva line,” the nun told him before snorting. “Looks like little Nozel isn’t as proper as he pretends to be.”

Fuegoleon frowned at the accusation. “Nozel’s baby sister had a falling out with the family and joined the Black Bulls instead of the Eagles because of it,” he said.

There was a good deal more to it than that, but basic manners stopped Fuegoleon from looking into it more. It wasn’t just that the girl’s magic was a disastrous wreck waiting to happen, Nozel would have just confined her to their estates were that the case. Knowing Nozel as he did, the girl had probably insisted on joining a magic knight squad, and he had caved to her demands.

“Increase your speed and head to Nairn, we’ll link up with Nozel and move out from there,” he ordered.

Randall obeyed, but the pace they set still lagged behind the Silver Eagle’s captain. By the time they arrived in the village, Nozel had already landed in the square and was looking down at a pair of knights dressed in robes like his own.

Like Theresa had warned Fuegoleon, it looked as if every parent in the village had come out into the snowy streets, which had turned into a slushy mess. Whatever magic had conjured the snow was gone, and only the fact that it was still night time allowed what was left to keep from becoming water completely.

“Is that another captain?” one of the villagers asked, making the crowd that Nozel’s underlings had been dealing with even more talkative as they tried in vain to get the Silva’s attention. “What in the world is going on?”

Nozel ignored them all as he looked down to his men. The first of which Fuegoleon recognized as Rob Vitesse. He was a tall, thin man with gray hair and a scar running down his left cheek that ranked rather highly in the Magic Knights. The other man, a short, almost comically fat mage with thick glasses and dirty blonde hair, Fuegoleon didn’t know. “Report!”

Both of the men took a moment to salute, which only seemed to agitate Nozel. The sight of his rival openly showing stress disturbed Fuegoleon even more than he had been when Nozel blew him off. The man was as close to panic as Fuegoleon had ever seen him.

Rob floated up into the air on a small tornado and handed Nozel a document of some kind as his captain tossed him the satchel full of the reports Fuegoleon had prepared. “Sir. There’s a medical team waiting on standby, and I performed a quick reconnaissance of the area after arriving via Franklin’s spatial magic. From what I can tell, the knights you sent us to find-”

Before the man could finish, there was a loud rumbling from the mountain a short distance away from the town that drew everyone’s attention. A giant mass of wind magic that looked big enough to swallow a building tore through the rock and caused an avalanche as it rose up into the sky.

“-are right over there,” Rob finished, despite Nozel having turned his attention away from the man.

After seeing Licht take the hit from Yuno’s attack, Noelle dropped her protection spell and ran over to where Sunset was slowly floating herself and Yuno down to the ground as the other man landed with a hard thud that likely broke a couple of bones. Asta had mostly recovered from being shot in the legs, although he still had the burn marks from where the magic had struck him and stumbled a little bit every few steps.

Still, it was better than the guy in white who had a hole in his head, or the other kidnapper that was missing his.

The moonlight streaming in from outside made it easy to see everything, which didn’t give Noelle a reason to brighten up. Yuno was still walking, but the way his eyes looked told Noelle that he might as well have been dead on his feet, while Sunset landed before her whole body spasmed and she fell to the ground.

“My everything hurts,” the redhead complained.

Gauche got up with little trouble and told Marie to stay put while he set the satchel he was carrying that was still full of the children Sunset had passed off to him down to begin walking over towards Licht. Judging by the sounds that were coming from the inside of the ones everyone had left in her care, the spell that held all the kids in a trance had worn off.

Once he collected his swords, Asta hurried to catch up with Noelle as she stood over the light mage and kicked his grimoire away from him before pointing her wand at the man. As close as she was, even her attacks wouldn’t miss. “It’s over for you,” she told him simply while Gauche and Yuno came up behind her.

Licht completely ignored her as his eyes moved to look at Yuno for a moment before focusing on his grimoire. “Wind magic, and a four leaf clover,” he breathed. “So that’s who you are. To think that you are here as well...tainted child, I should have killed you instead of staying my hand.”

“SHUT YOUR TRAP, YOU WEIRDO!” Asta shouted.

The loud boy made everyone around him wince before Licht glared at him. “And you,” he forced out through gritted teeth. “I’m going to kill you too, you stinking thief.”

“NOBODY’S KILLING ANYBODY!” Noelle shouted before looking to Gauche. “Now, hurry up and use your binding magic to hold him down before-”

A shadow falling across the room made Noelle tense up before she looked above. Something big was coming down through the hole in the cavern’s roof. It looked like a giant bird, but light reflected off of the edges and made her have to shield her eyes from the glare before a trio of men dropped from the sky, with two of them falling much sooner than the third.

As the creature disappeared, Noelle blinked in surprise when she saw her elder brother and Fuegoleon landing in the cavern, followed shortly by a large man in a Silver Eagle’s robe that fell onto his face more than landed on his feet. As glad as she was to see Nozel, the man’s timing made her eye twitch. “YOU SHOW UP NOW?” the younger royal yelled.

Nozel looked over at her with a frown. “After the urgency of your message, I expected to find you dead,” he said before looking back at Licht. “This is the man you claim to be the leader of the Eye of the Midnight Sun?”

“What?” Fuegoleon exclaimed before looking at the downed mage as Nozel’s magic covered the man in a liquid, silvery metal that bound his entire body beneath it before shaping itself into a cocoon. “What’s going on Nozel?”

The other royal let out a loud sigh while another ball of liquid mercury came into being to surround the light mage’s book and form into a bird cage. “I received a call of distress from Noelle on a communicator that she stole.”

Noelle’s mouth dropped before she frowned. “I didn’t steal it! YOU LEFT IT WITH ME!” she yelled at him while pointing a finger at the man. Then, she realized what she was doing and tensed when Nozel actually looked over at her.

I...I can’t believe I just did that, Noelle thought to herself.

Nozel turned back to Fuegoleon. “She claimed to be under attack from the Eye of the Midnight Sun, by its leader, no less. So, I turned around and headed towards the location she told me before calling back to headquarters for assistance,” he said. “Obviously, she had overestimated her opponent and panicked.”

“Hey,” Sunset called out from where she was laying on the floor while waving an arm in the air. “Can someone give me a hand here? My body is ridiculously sore at the moment, and I still need to examine that machine. Also, they’ve got a spatial magic mage buried behind those rocks over there. Someone should probably get him before he dies or...escapes.”

The only light in the chamber aside from Fana’s magic was coming from the large tube in front of her and the glowing green light it gave off. Inside was what Sally called a biomass, whatever that was. It looked like a giant lump of flesh with some silver hair instead of what she claimed it would eventually become.

As for the creator of the object, she was laying on the operating table, having been brought into her room by two of the underlings crawling about Gravito Stone. Burning them all to death would have been preferable to Fana, but Licht said that they were needed for something important.

So, she had to endure them, and heal them when they came back broken like Sally had.

The detestable creature on the table let out a low moan, getting the attention of the other two people in the room. One of them was Raia, who didn’t do much other than yawn as he continued to sit in the corner. The other person was a large beast of a man, with a towering stature and muscles to match. Like Raia and Fana, he also sported a crimson mark on his face, a line going across the bridge of his nose to the ends of both eyes. “We’ll make them pay for doing this to Sally,” the giant said, showing his sharp teeth as he spoke.

Fana blinked, not understanding the reason for Vetto’s anger. Sally wasn’t one of them, not really. The world would be better off with her dead. In fact, Fana didn’t understand why she wasn’t just killing the woman herself, right now.

She reached out towards the woman’s neck. Strangulation, that was a good death. Full of fear and panic. That was how Sally should die.

“BWA!” Sally yelled as she suddenly sat up with a loud scream, making Fana lower her head in disappointment. “Wha-What happened? Where am I?” she felt around frantically. “Where’s my glasses?”

Raia got up and walked over to her. “Easy there, girl. You need to tell us what happened. Catherine said something about you all being attacked?”

After squinting at the three of them with her horrid eyes, the woman let out a groan. “Well, this awful girl cast a weird spatial magic spell, and then everything got all wobbly, then everything went boom and...uh...it gets a little blurry after that.”

Ten minutes into her looking at the magic draining machine that had left the children it was used on comatose, and Sunset knew that she had no idea what she was doing. While she could learn magical spells from Clover and had decoded an ancient trap spell in the dungeon, this new type of mana machine was just too forgien to her. The technology added an X-factor she couldn’t compensate for.

“Perhaps we should bring in some mages who specialize in magic items from the capital,” Fuegoleon said as he stood over her. “It will be dawn in a few hours. They can take it from there.”

Sunset sucked in a breath and looked back at the cavern. That fat spatial mage had left with Gauche a few minutes ago, carrying the kids back to town along with his sister. Asta was sitting on the ground in front of the magic-drained children not too far off from where Yuno was doing the same as he leaned up against the wall while Sylph fussed over him. Sometime after the fight, Secre had gone back to sitting on Asta’s head, but she was giving that Licht guy a death glare, like she was trying to will him out of existence.

There was something Secre really didn’t like about the guy. But with the two captains around, Sunset couldn’t ask her what was going through her tiny little mind.

The sound of a spatial tunnel opening made Sunset look back to see that the fat guy was back from his delivery. “All the children have been returned to their parents,” the man said before his gate closed. Then, he looked over to the ones the knights had leaned up against the wall. “Well, except for them.”

From his place in the middle of the cavern, with his magic holding both Licht and the other mage they had captured, Nozel crossed his arms. “In that case, we should send the others to headquarters and see to all of your wounds,” he said before looking over to Noelle as she sat on the table, kicking her legs in the air.

“You just want us to abandon these kids?” Noelle asked before giving a start at her own words.

Nozel frowned at her. “I want you to get your wounds treated. Fuegoleon will insure that nothing happens to the stored mana.”

For the fraction of a second, Fuegoleon gave a tiny frown at Nozel, but turned his attention to Noelle. “There is no need to try and prove something by remaining here, girl. Do not worry, I will ensure that this villainous deed can be undone,” he promised before looking over to the man in Nozel’s magic. “Stealing the magic of children. Have none of you any shame?”

“You have no idea how stupid that sounds, coming from a royal,” Licht replied evenly before he blinked and smiled. “And I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere with you trash.”

There was a sudden surge of magical power in the center of the room before a black spatial portal opened up halfway to the ceiling. The appearance of the portal and feel of the magic was so similar to Valtos’s magic that Sunset had to double check that he was still bound in Nozel’s liquid mercury.

As Nozel took his prisoners and leaped back, and before anyone could make their way out of the opening, Sunset looked over to the boy with the Black Bulls headband. “Asta, cut the gate!” she shouted.

Although Sunset wasn’t sure what effect that would have on the people traveling the spatial tunnel between both ends, anything was better than more guys showing up. The captains could probably turn them into paste, but Sunset didn’t feel very good about the chances of those in her group. Yuno could barely move, and she wasn’t much better off.

Despite the injury to his legs, Asta rushed forward and drew out his smaller sword to throw it at the floating spatial portal. Only, a few seconds before it could nullify the spell, three people dropped down and landed in the center of the room. Then, the anti-magic sword struck the swirling mass of black to pop it like a balloon before landing on the other side of the chamber.

One of the men that appeared looked up at the destroyed spell in surprise before yawning and turning his attention back to the group of people in front of them while Fuegoleon and Nozel repositioned themselves in front of the machinery where the younger knights were gathered. “Oh man. Sally didn’t say anything about this,” he said while looking around. “They get the jump on you too, Licht?”

All three of them were wearing a slightly more stylized version of the three eye symbol Licht had on his robe, but none of them followed the same dress code. The largest of the three didn’t even have a shirt to hide his ridiculously hairy chest. While the other guy in the group looked like he tried to wear a white robe, then got bored with the idea and really half-assed it. The third member of the trio was a girl with pink hair that fell down to her shoulders in waves and sea-green eyes that had an almost vacant expression, dressed in a white robe the same size as Sunset’s over a red fuzzy coat and very short shorts while toeless, knee-length boots covered her feet. But what really got Sunset’s attention about the girl was the purple gem sticking out of her skull that was surrounded by crimson markings.

All three of them had impressive amounts of mana. Equal to either of the captains standing in front of her. And with everyone else in her group next to useless… This is bad, she thought.

Sunset focused her magic and frowned as all three of them flared their mana before bringing up their grimoires. Meaning that she couldn’t just move two of them ten miles away or disarm them before the battle could even start. So much for getting the jump on them, she told herself.

“Franklin, open a portal to squad headquarters,” Nozel commanded before both of his prisoners were tossed towards the large mage.

As a spatial portal appeared in front of the fat man, the guy who yawned earlier raised his hand. “Can’t let you do that,” the he man said before Sunset felt a surge of spatial magic right on top of the open portal.

During the passing of the previous month, Sunset had made a study of Finral’s grimoire with the promise of going out on a date, come the next time they got a day off. While the magic still eluded her, mostly because it was just so different than teleportation, she had learned a few things about it. Like how opening a spatial disturbance inside another spatial disturbance was a very bad idea.

The first spatial portal wavered before exploding right next to the large man, who went down screaming for several seconds. Then, the feel of his mana dissipated and Sunset knew he was dead.

In the ensuing confusion of the explosion, the yawner flashed forward in a blur of motion that was the trademark of light mages to grab onto the two masses of mercury before jumping back with both of them in tow at a much slower speed.

“I think not,” Nozel told him before reaching out with an open and and closing it into a fist.

Both Licht and Valtos let out screams and Sunset could see the metal begin to compact, threatening to crush them both.

“Crap,” Yawner grumbled before his grimoire rose up and Sunset felt a change in his mana. “Copy Magic: Invisible Traveling Companion.”

Licht vanished from view before the liquid mercury coffin compacted in on itself to the point where it became a floating sphere of metal that Nozel pulled back towards him right as Licht reappeared on the ground as Yawner repeated the process with Valtos.

“Was that...Captain Poizot’s spell?” Fuegoleon asked in disbelief.

“Girl, is he like you?” Nozel asked without taking his eyes off of the three newcomers.

Sunset worked herself back on her feet. Her muscles still hurt, but a ten minute breather combined with a little healing magic that was fed by her personal mana instead of the ambient kind had done wonders for her body. Not enough to dodge, but she at least stand and look cool. “Don’t insult me,” she replied before looking over to her little brother. “Break’s over Yuno.”

The older of her brothers snorted as he stood up on shaky legs. “Slave driver.”

“Thank you for coming,” Licht told them as he lay on the ground. “I’m sorry I’ve been such a bother.”

“Are you hurt?” the girl with the blank stare asked.

Licht moved a bit, but winced and collapsed when he tried to stand. “I’m better now that you’re here.”

The girl held out a hand as a book that looked like it had been stitched together from a red cover and a white one floated up in front of her. “Fire Recovery Magic: Phoenix Robe.”

As Licht was covered in very familiar healing flames that lifted him into the sky, Sunset’s eye twitched. Seriously? she asked herself before focusing on the girl who cast the spell and her frankenpony grimoire withe the diamond symbol on it.

“Offense or defense?” Fuegoleon asked.

Nozel snorted. “Are you forgetting who you’re talking to? I can handle both.” Behind him, a mass of liquid mercury came into being. It flowed around everyone standing near Nozel to form an incomplete orb before tendrils grew out of the edges to form the points of blades and a trio of kite shields without a single word from the captain.

“Insects!” the big man across from them shouted. “I’ll tear you limb from limb for what you did to Licht!”

“Considering what he did to those kids behind us, he deserves far worse,” Yuno said.

“I detest anybody who hurts Licht. You will all die,” the girl with the pink hair said in a monotone voice.

“WHO THE HELL ARE THESE WEIRDOS?” Asta yelled.

Licht gave a little laugh. “I’ll introduce you,” he said. “These three are the strongest members of the Eye of the Midnight Sun, the Third Eye. And each one of them is stronger than a magic knight captain.”

“I’ve heard such boasts from a number of poor fools I put in their graves,” Nozel replied evenly as his liquid mercury spread out behind and around him.

The comment only made Licht laugh a little. “Well, as I said, introductions. Your kingdom takes the clover as its symbol, with each leaf representing an ideal, none of which your kingdom truly embraces. So, to counter faith, hope and love, I have Raia the Disloyal, Vetto the Despair, and-”

Sunset sighed. “Fana, the Hateful, right?” With how her life was going, it seemed only natural that was who she had run into. Never being wrong really sucked, sometimes.

The two male mages blinked as one while Fana just stared ahead, and Licht let out a groan. “You really need to stop doing that. It’s annoying,” he told Sunset.

“Well, if you don’t like me stealing your lines, then this is really going to piss you off,” Sunset said as she used her magic to snatch Lichts grimoire from where it rested on the table. Most of the spells wouldn’t make sense to her without some study, but she had seen one of them enough times to get the gist of it that a quick glance at his grimoire quickly padded out her understanding of the spell. “Light Magic: Light Swords of Conviction!”

Raia raised a hand. “Hey, you’re stealing my act! Copy Magic: Light Swords of Conviction,” he cast before a barrage of light blades filled the air in opposition to the ones Sunset sent.

Nozel glanced over to Sunset. “You can still fight?”

“My mana reserves aren’t the problem. Just don’t expect me to jump around,” she told him as her arm started to hurt from holding it up to direct the spell.

“OKAY THEN, LET’S GET THEM!” Asta shouted before he was smacked in the back of the head by a tendril of liquid metal.

Nozel looked over to him for an instant. “Shut up and sit down inside my field of mercury. Someone like you will only be in the way,” he told Asta before moving his attention back to Sunset. “Continue to attack their leader. That will keep one of them on the defensive if just to keep him from being killed.”

“We’ll use this opportunity to make up for what happened in the capital,” Licht said. “Vetto retrieve the stone. Fana, kill them all and retrieve the grimoires that remain from the ashes.”

Veto leaped into the air. “WE’LL BE TAKING THAT GRIMOIRE BACK NOW! BEAST MAGIC: BEAR CLAW!” he shouted as he flew towards Fuegoleon with inhuman speed. As his spell manifested, the man’s arms became surrounded by an orange energy that looked somewhat like a bear’s appendage.

Crap, they are after the rocks, Sunset thought to herself while Fuegoleon readied his own spell.

“Fire Creation Magic: Leo Rugiens,” Fuegoleon cast before fire swirled around him to form into a lion’s head that let out a roar before a beam of concentrated flames struck Vetto’s hands.

The beast man held the attack for a moment, before rolling backwards to land on his feet. As Fuegoleon readjusted his aim, Vetto crossed his arms and took a defensive stance. “Beast Magic: Rhinoceros Armor,” he cast, throwing up a shield of orange energy before the next attack completely engulfed him and didn’t let up.

“Don’t you know that just taking an attack from a fire magic user is the fastest way to lose a fight?” Fuegoleon called out.

On the other side of the battlefield, a strange and oversized lizard crawled up over Fana’s shoulder, which made Sylph let out an angry cry from where she sat on Yuno’s shoulder. “HEY! Salamander, you jerk! What are you doing with someone in my territory?” she demanded.

Say what? Sunset thought to herself as she focused on the little thing before Fana began to cast.

“Fire Spirit Magic: Salamander’s Breath,” the girl said in a monotone voice before the lizard exhaled a gout of flame right as Nozel brought up his mercury in front of everyone to block it.

As the metal began to turn red with heat and she saw the man grit his teeth, Sunset got a bad feeling about what was going on. “Your magic is weak against fire spells, isn’t it?”

Nozel grunted. “Be quiet!”

“Water Creation Magic,” Noelle called out from behind him. “Sea Dragon’s Cradle!”

As the sphere of water rose up to block the flame attack, Sunset looked back to where she could see the magic-damaged kids through a screen of water. “Okay, yeah...new plan,” she said before looking over to Yuno. “Can you pull off another one of those spirit spells again?”

Yuno tensed. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Yuno’s way too tired for something like that!” Sylph told her.

Sunset groaned and reached over to grab Asta. “Okay, new new plan then,” she said before pulling him back out of the watery bubble that nearly scalded her skin from how hot it was as she passed through it. Once they were out, she clamped her hand over Asta’s mouth. “No screaming!”

The world disappeared in a blue flash as she teleported to the other side of the cavern with her baby brother, where Asta’s sword had fallen. After he picked it up, Sunset sent her magic into the sword’s mana well. It was only when she reappeared that Sunset noticed Licht’s grimoire wasn’t with her anymore. The thing must have still had some mana running through it, which meant he would have it back in his hands momentarily.

The vertigo hit her and she stumbled backwards into the wall as the world spun, making everything looked like it came in pairs of three. “Now blast him, moron!” Sunset said through gritted teeth as she looked at their leader and noticed something was off, aside from the fact there were now six people in white robes standing in front of her, all flying around in a circle and somewhat transparent. Where the hell did the other guy go?

Asta closed his eyes and leapt forward before he took a swing with his sword, sending out a blade of sparkling rainbow colors...at the wrong target.

“Dammit! You were supposed to blast the guy in the fire, not the girl throwing it!” Sunset yelled as the attack struck the girl from behind. But with all her defenses up, Sunset doubted something of that level would do much more than stagger Fana.

Which meant that it came as a big surprise when she stumbled forward after being impacted and cut the magic flowing to her spirit a second before the fires around Licht went out. Then, the young woman reached up and clutched her head.

After groaning from being dropped, Licht looked over to the girl. “F-Fana?”

Fana let out a scream and dropped to her knees before her mana flared all around her and Sunset picked up the same odd sensation that something was wrong she had gotten from Licht for a moment before Fana fell back onto the ground and began to roll back and forth. “IT BURNS!” she screamed frantically as she thrashed around. “STOP IT! GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT OF MEEEEEE!”

Fuegoleon poured more mana into his spell to keep burning away at his opponent. Even if the man’s defenses could hold out, the flames would consume the air around him and eventually, he would fall. He didn’t let the screams coming from across the cavern distract him. There was no need to. As when it was cast around him, Leo Rugiens created a layer of defense that would allow him to react to any attack sent his way.

Which was why Fuegoleon was caught off guard by the man Raia, when he suddenly appeared inside the creation magic of the captain’s spell. “What?” Fuegoleon said as he took a step back at the man who had gotten inside of his magical barrier.

“Hey there chief,” Raia told him as he reached forward with a hand wrapped in enhancement magic to grab the pendant hanging from Fuegoleon’s neck and pulled hard enough to break the cord. “Copy Magic: Invisible Scout.”

Blast it, I’m a fool, Fuegoleon told himself before he cut the power to his spell and leaped back before Raia could attack him from behind. If it was going to be two on one, he needed to keep moving and make precise strikes.

As the fires around Vetto faded, he dropped his protection magic and fell to his knees while panting heavily. “Dammit! What the hell did those humans do to Fana?” he yelled.

“We’re pulling back!” Licht called out. “Raia, get us out of here, NOW!”

As Vetto leaped across the room to grab the thrashing girl before striking her in the back of the neck to knock her unconscious. Then, he threw Fana up over his shoulder and moved to grab Licht as well, while Valtos’s unconscious body rose up on its own before Raia appeared underneath him to rapidly move close to the others.

Nozel brought up his grimoire. “As if any of you are going to be leaving now that your fire mage is down. Mercury Creation Magic: Silver Star of Execution,” he cast, sending out a web of liquid mercury throughout half of the cave that closed in around the two healthy mages and three injured ones to form a giant cage.

“Like that’s going to stop me,” Raia said as a spatial magic portal began to open up beneath them before it began to sputter and crackled before fading away. “Say what?”

Further down the cavern, Sunset held out a glowing hand, Fuegoleon could feel her mana flooding the area, interfering with the spatial magic as a translucent dome appeared around the cavern. “Whatever you’re doing, do it fast!”

As dozens of deadly spears formed from the mercury to fly at the collection of criminals, Raia pressed his hands against the stone beneath him. “Copy Magic: Bottomless Pit!” he cast before the ground fell out from underneath them before the fifty-plus sharp objects attempted to stab the Midnight Sun members based on their previous location.

“Crap! My ward stops at ground level!” Sunset cursed.

Nozel rushed over to the edge of the hole, casting as he went. “Mercury Magic: Rain of Silver!” the royal shouted before all of the liquid metal that had surrounded the men a moment ago broke apart to fly down the newly created shaft at a deadly velocity.

However, Fuegoleon’s mana sense told him that the lot of them had already escaped using spatial magic.

After Nozel’s attack had finished, the Crimson Lion captain made his way over to his rival, then saw the other redhead in the cavern stumble before falling down and thought it better to go and help her. As he made his way over, Fuegoleon saw Noelle running over to her older sibling while the Golden Dawn boy sat down where he was and the Wind Spirit flew around to check him over.

“Big Brother, are you okay?” Noelle called out before she even reached Nozel.

The other man turned and regarded her uneasily...for him, at least. Most other people probably just saw the man become stone faced. “I am unharmed,” he said before coughing into his fist. “I was unaware you had developed a spell in your grimoire.”

Noelle’s cheeks heated. “Um, well...it’s just the one...so far,” she said more like a normal person when they were uneasy.

“Then, you have a handle on your magic, now?” Nozel asked before turning to look down the hole the villains had escaped from. Fuegoleon could tell that he was just hiding his face from the girl and disguising it as a poor investigation attempt.

The question got a flinch from Noelle. “Um...I’m...getting there?”

Nozel was silent for several more seconds, probably mulling over what to say. “That’s...good,” he finished. “You should continue to improve, then.”

Turning away from the disgraceful example of kinsmanship, Fuegoleon moved to address the redhead and the short boy with the gray hair as he dry heaved on the ground and she held up a hand while orbs of water encased her ears. “Still don’t feel any less dizzy,” she grumbled as she sat on the ground.

The fact that she was using multiple elements didn’t matter to him all that much after having just witnessed another mage do the exact same thing. One of the captains could also perform such feats with slightly different methods.

“Are you alright?” Fuegoleon asked as the girl closed her eyes and rubbed her head before laying down on her side.

Sunset moaned. “Yeah, just...give me a second,” she told him.

A little unease entered Fuegoleon’s mind as he tried to bring up the right thing to say to her. Such things needed to be handled properly, especially after what happened during their last meeting. But, with Sunset in no mood to hear his praise at the moment, he looked down at the boy.

Asta...his weapon was certainly impressive. A single blow had gone right through the fire mage’s mana and cut her down. Fuegoleon had to wonder how it worked. A mental attack of some kind? It seemed a little odd, as his grimoire produced swords, but the unexpected was always a good weapon to have in battle. “You performed quite admirably,” he told the boy.

Certainly, better than Fuegoleon did, having lost the pendent that his family had passed down since there was a Clover Kingdom without doing more than making his opponent sweat. Nozel hadn’t fared much better, either.

“Heh,” the guy responded as he rolled onto his back and panted. “What can you expect, from a guy who’s going to be the Wizard King?”

Fuegoleon raised an eyebrow. Lofty goals were all well and good, but that seemed to be a bit much. “Yes well…” unable to ignore it any longer, he looked back and forth between the two people who were unable to stand. “What is wrong with the two of you, any?”

Sunset was the one who gave the explanation. “My teleportation spell puts a lot of stress on the body in all the wrong places. Because of that, there is a complete loss of equilibrium. The vertigo it causes can last a few minutes unless the body is kept still and allowed to adjust. Right now, I can’t even see straight.”

“And you did something like that in the middle of a battle?” Fuegoleon replied, his words becoming heated. “Foolish girl! Taking risks like that is the height of idiocy! What if your friend had missed? While there are always dangers involved in combat, you have to think things through and plan ahead while keeping a calm head! I have half a mind to drag you back to your mother so she can teach your proper battle strategy!”

For some reason, Sunset gave Fuegoleon a disbelieving look, which he soon found everyone in the cavern copying, including Nozel...if in a more served form. All of a sudden, the captain of the Crimson Lions felt as if he was missing something. “What?”

Nozel cleared his throat. “So...Mereoleona never got around to telling you she never had a child while she was at your camp, then?”

Raia tried not to yawn as he watched the mad scientist of their little terrorist group poke and prod Fana’s unconscious body, her hands hovering over the magic item implanted in her head for a bit too long before she moved back down the nearly-naked girl’s form. Although, the sleepy man didn’t think they should put too much faith in Sally’s abilities after she bent down to lick Fana’s belly button.

“So, my diagnosis is…” she announced as she stood up straight and pointed a finger into the air before spinning around. “That I have no idea what’s wrong with her.”

From his place behind Raia, Vetto let out an angry growl. “WHAT?” he yelled while trying to move past Raia with little luck. “You useless nutjob! What do we keep you around for, if not to take care of things like this?”

Sally looked back at the big man with an even expression and slumped posture, showing her own irksome disappointment. “Well, maybe if you had bothered to get my grimoire, I could use some of my magic to examine her in a more complete way, but without that…” she spun around and poked the pink haired girl again, rousing Salamander and making it hiss at her. “All I can say is that there’s nothing physically wrong with her. So, about the only thing I can think to do is throw her in the healing tank and see if it fixes something I missed.”

As Vetto began to growl again, Raia noticed someone approaching them from behind and looked back to see Rades giving them a frown with his one visible eye. “Hey, don’t get mad at someone else because you all got beat up. I thought you were supposed to be our best fighters,” he told them.

Before Vetto could do more than turn around and glare at the man, Raia held up his hand. “Well, nothing to do about it now,” he said. “It’s really too bothersome to get all worked up about stuff we can’t fix. Now, we need to get to work on getting Sally her grimoire back, just in case Fana doesn’t wake up.”

“That little bastard! I’ll make him suffer for this!” Vetto promised. “Him, and everyone he knows! All of them! They’ll beg for death before I’m through!”

Ignoring the larger man while Sassy got the healing chamber ready, Raia frowned as he thought back to the fight. The weapon that kid was using... At first, he had thought it was just a coincidence that it looked like Licht’s demon-dweller sword, but he had used it to hold the magic of another mage.

Still, Raia couldn’t remember Licht ever canceling out another spell with his weapons. The fact that the sword existed at all should have been impossible. Just what the hell happened after we all died?

With all the fighting done, the cleaners came in quickly, with an investigation team and a pair of medical mage teams that treated everyone who was injured using some kind of compound magical field rather than a single mage doing everything like Mimosa. But then, Secre didn’t think any of the mages working on the wounded would have been able to join the Magic Knights based on mana capacity alone, either.

Because of injuries that amounted to having overtaxed her body, Sunset was confined to bed for a day of rest back at the church’s healing room alongside Yuno, despite the only thing he was suffering from was extreme mana exhaustion. Which left Asta to write the official report about what had happened in Nairn. Something Secre had a feeling everyone forced to read it would regret, as Asta mentioned everything he could since the day began until he started actually writing the report.

Noelle’s distress call to her brother had apparently made the rounds, because Klaus and Mimosa arrived half an hour after dawn at the battle site before they were directed over to the church. Once there, they visited Yuno in the treatment room and spent some time talking with him about what happened.

“We’ll relay your verbal report to the captain as soon as we return to base,” Klaus said as he reached up to adjust his glasses. “However, you’ll still need to file an official one. As they say, paperwork is the most unrelenting enemy of the Magic Knights.”

There was a shuffling of sheets as Yuno started to rise up. “I can head back with you,” he said before Sylph flew right into his face.

“HEY! You were told twenty-four hours mister, and not a moment less,” she said before turning to look at Mimosa with a considering frown. “In fact, you should probably be looked over again, now that a real healing mage is here.” She spun around to look at Yuno again. “Take off your clothes and let her check you out.”

The normally stoic teenager flinched as Mimosa turned red. “WHAT?” she shouted before beginning to stutter. “I can’t-that’s not...I...I don’t know enough about the human body to diagnose a person without my magic!”

Sylph didn’t look very deterred by the girl’s bashfulness. “Well, now’s a good time to learn. I’ve seen enough human bodies to have a good idea of how it all works. I’ll guide you through it.”

“I think we should let a professional handle it instead,” Mimosa said as she backtracked towards the door. “Let me go see if any of the nuns has experience with mundane healing.”

As Mimosa ran out of the room, Yuno gave Sylph a quizzical frown.

But, whatever he was going to say didn’t come, as Sunset let out a moan before opening her eyes and slowly sitting up. The blanket fell from her body to reveal a white bra, and Klaus flinched before turning around. “Ah, Lady Sunset. It is ah, good to see that you are well.”

Sunset looked around, then glanced down at herself before sighing and pulling up her sheets. “How long was I out?”

“Maybe eight hours,” Yuno told her as she looked around. “The captains left and took their men with them. Klaus and Mimosa showed up while you were sleeping. Asta’s been writing a report and that other guy went back to your squad’s base to inform your captain about everything that happened. And Noelle’s-”

“Oh for crying out loud Mimosa, you’re ten times bigger than her! Just...swat the little thing, or something,” the silver-haired royal said as she walked back into the room with a frown on her face, dragging the Vermillion girl with her by the hand. She blinked in surprise at seeing Sunset. “Well, glad to see you’re finally awake. Lazy, making me and Asta clean up everything.”

Sunset stared at her for several seconds before looking around the room until she saw Secre sitting on the window sill. Then, she fell back down on her pillow. “Sorry about that,” she mumbled.

The response wasn’t what Noelle had expected, because the girl immediately became concerned. “Uh, isn’t this where you snark back at me?”

“I’m...still a little tired,” Sunset replied softly. “Can I get some more rest?”

Noelle blushed. “Oh! Right, we...woke you up, didn’t we? Sorry about that,” she apologized before grabbing Klaus by the ear while still holding on to Mimosa’s hand. “Clear out everybody, recovering knights in need of rest! You too, tiny.”

Sylph gave Sunset a considering look before crossing her arms and landing on Yuno’s short bedpost. “Try it, and every wind you ever experience for the rest of your life will be blowing your skirt up for everyone to see your underwear.”

“She’s fine where she is,” Sunset said before waving Noelle off.

After giving Sylph a considering look, and being met by the fairy’s tiny tongue sticking out in the air, Noelle gave a high-class sniff before walking out the door.

As soon as the group of knights were gone, Sunset raised a hand and the air shimmered for a moment. “Okay, that should take care of anyone who might overhear us,” the girl said before she slowly sat back up and propped herself up with her elbows to look over to the bird. “Now, what’s going on? I thought you said Licht got turned into some kind of giant monster and was killed by the First Wizard King.”

Sylph blinked. “Oh, so that’s what happened back then? Well, that explains a lot,” she commented.

“Wait, the man you said was turned into a demon,” Yuno spoke up. “It was the same man we saw in the cave?”

Yuno’s question was met with an angry tweet from Secre. “That wasn’t Licht! It wasn’t even close,” the bird told them. “Licht’s magic and attitude are completely different than what you saw back in the cave!” And if it had been the elf, we’d all be dead, she told herself. Not that Secre would tell the adopted siblings that, they’d never stop arguing with her about it.

“I think I’m missing some of the backstory here,” Yuno said evenly.

After a few seconds of thinking things over, Secre let out a long sigh and gave him an even look. “I’m sure you’ve heard the legend about an evil group of monsters that wanted to steal all the magic from the world, since it goes hand and hand with the legend of the Wizard King. But what you need to understand is, that story is a lie. It has been twisted by years of word of mouth that was started by people who wrote history to fit their narrative,” she said before taking a deep breath for what Sunset knew was going to be a very long story.

“Five hundred years ago, in what is called the Forsaken Realm today, a nomadic tribe of demi-humans lived on the edge of human civilization. On average, their mana was much greater than the normal persons and they had longer lifespans, but because of a very low breeding rate, their numbers were vastly inferior to humanity. They were called elves,” she began. “During a tense moment between our two races was when Prince Lumiere met and befriended the leader of the elf tribe, a man named Licht. And...because it turned out that elven females only become fertile once every seven years, while males are virile year-round...Lumiere’s sister and Licht conceived a child together.”

Yuno raised an eyebrow. “That seems illogical.”

There was a long pause before Secre let out a tweet. “”Look, elves were much more...natural than humans. Some stories I heard about them said they didn’t even wear clothes before meeting our species. Even afterwards, all they’d put on is some loose fitting robes and togas,” she said with some discomfort. "Point is, Princess Tetia got knocked up and was going to marry Licht.”

“So...a man who had a child with a human is ranting about how he wants to destroy humanity?” Yuno asked.

Secre rolled her eyes. “And you see why I’m saying this man can’t be Licht. But, there’s more to it than that,” she said before continuing with her story. “Although it eventually became obvious that Tetia was pregnant, nobody was told who sired the child...although, looking back...the lack of any real investigation should have been a big clue that the king and Lumiere’s brother already knew what was going on.

“Since my Prince wasn’t next in line for the throne and rather socially awkward, he spent most of his time working on his magic item research with me. We wanted to create a world where everyone could use magic equally, and so our primary goal was focused on-”

A sudden change of expression on Sunset’s face made Secre wince as she saw the girl had figured out something she had only alluded to previously. “You created magic draining technology!” she accused the bird.

Secre hung her head. “Yes...as I said before...we were stupid, back then. We made things without thinking what they could be used for,” she replied.

“Not even thinking-what the hell did you think was going to happen in your perfect scenario then?” Sunset demanded. “That you would just walk up to someone who had more mana and suck it away until they were at the same level of a commoner? Do you have any idea how rare magically talented people are? Were you just going to go around, taking what other people were born with and giving it to others so that everyone could live a pathetic life of MEDIOCRITY?”

The livid girl got a frown. “Who are you to judge the Prin-”

“I’M ME!” Sunset roared back at her. “So, what would have happened if your precious prince had come across someone with too much magical power? Hell, he was a light mage, he probably had too much! Was he going to give up his power to justify stealing the magic of others?”

Secre flew up into the girl’s face. “Stop putting words in my mouth!” the bird yelled at her. “Nothing like that ever happened!”

“But, did he want it to?” Yuno asked, cutting into the conversation with a curious voice.

“No!” Secre said before she flew back around to land on the ledge. “We built the technology for the purpose of trying to transfer a renewable source of magical power to magic items. With those, the lives of commoners could have been made easier. That was all we wanted. We never imagined it could be used in the way it was. We never even considered what would happen if someone forcibly removed the magic. We were stupid and nieive.”

As the bird hung her head, Sylph snorted. “In my experience, stupidity is much more destructive than the most intelligent evil genius could ever hope to be.”

“Do you know enough about magical technology to undo what happened to those kids?” Sunset asked evenly.

Secre went silent for several seconds. “...I don’t know. You have to understand, we never actually gave the designs to anyone, but enough was written down about them that other people were able to build their own siphoning machines just based on some of the conceptual theories that the Prince left. It’s been five-hundred years since then, but I could tell the technology as a whole hasn’t advanced much. Probably because they lacked certain resources the Prince possessed.”

After glaring at her for a few more seconds, Sunset let out a sigh before sitting back down on her bed. “Well, looks like I know what I’ll be doing the next couple of days.”

“Yes, what I helped create ended up inspiring what has become a plague on humanity,” the bird went on. “But the first time it was used was during Licht's wedding. The ruling class of humanity sealed away the magic of the elves and drained their mana, transferring it into themselves before killing the elves.”

Yuno cocked his head to the side. “That doesn’t explain how Licht, or...this man you claim isn’t Licht came back from the dead,” he said.

After taking in another deep breath, Secre nodded. “Well, saying that all the elves died in the attack is a mistake. Licht survived, and managed to hold onto his magic. In fact, I think he was purposely spared. Licht held a four leaf, same as you. But the extra power they have comes with a danger.”

“You’re talking about devil possession, right?” Sylph asked evenly.

The question had Yuno look over to his spirit partner. “What?”

Sylph looked back at the boy. “The four leaf, and other books like it from the other lands, comes with a danger,” she told him. “Should the holder of a four leaf ever succumb to despair and cast aside hope, their magic will be swallowed by darkness to be used by the netherworld for its purposes. To symbolize this change, a fifth leaf appears on the clover, and the magic within it becomes twisted.”

“Then...are you telling me that Asta…” Yuno looked at the fairy in horror as she floated down to land on his bed.

“I told you that you didn’t want to know,” Sylph said as she looked down at the sheets of Yuno’s bed. “But yes, Asta’s anti-magic, it’s the power of the devil that dwells within him. Which is also why he can’t use magic at all. The power of the devil within him nullifies mana. The whole point of him being sent to your hometown as a baby was probably to try and find the grimoire buried there.”

Yuno frowned. “Can something be done to remove it?” he asked Sylph, then looked up to Sunset and Secre.

As Secre avoided the boy’s eyes, Sunset gave an uncomfortable shrug, and Sylph sighed. “Even if I knew a way, it would be futile. You don’t understand,” she said before looking up at the boy. “The devil itself is the source of the anti-magic. Even if there was a spell to remove the creature, it’s like you’re asking me to pick up a burning coal with tongs made of ice.”

“Okay then...what about…” Yuno frowned before looking back to Sylph. “You said that the infection, the devil. It’s benign. That it can’t affect Asta. What could change that?”

Sylph shrugged. “No idea,” she said. “In the past instances of possession, humans had to work at strengthening the flow of the mana in their bodies so that the devil wouldn’t kill them just from manifesting.”

Nodding to herself, Sunset finished the explanation. “Asta doesn’t have any mana. In fact, his body has adapted to live without it in a world where everyone else does.”

“If the devil were to try manifesting in Asta’s body, it would very quickly kill its host,” Sylph assured Yuno. “Barring something that actually strengthens the ability to allow mana to course through his body, which is impossible since the devil nullifies all the mana he generates, Asta can’t be taken over by the devil inside of him.”

If not for the fact that Asta was left without magic thanks to his situation, Sunset would have laughed.

Yuno leaned back against the back of the wall the head of his bed bumped up against. “So...he’s not in any real danger,” the young man mumbled before he sighed. “There’s that, at least. Then, what happened when someone with mana is claimed by a devil?”

Taking that as a cue, Secre returned to her story. “Well, that’s not what I was talking about. We were speaking of grimoires,” she said. “It’s said that the happier a man is, the greater the depression when all of it is taken away. Seeing all of his friends and family slaughtered on the eve of what was to be the happiest day of his life...it was enough for Licht to become depressed enough so that his four leaf clover grew a fifth. But...things didn’t end for him there.

“The royal family had been taking advice from a soul that entered our world from The Netherrealm,” Secre went on. “It had whispered in their ear through a royal advisor, warning them that the elves were planning to take over the kingdom by using the child of Licht and Tetia to stake a claim on the throne. Because of their longer lifespans, they could afford to wait until he was old enough to take over while having the crown prince’s family removed slowly, over the years.”

Yuno frowned. “How did it get here?” he asked.

To which Secre shrugged, while Sylph sighed and shook her head. “Humans have been making deals with devils for years, sweetie. You can see the results of such bargains even today. Curse magic that’s passed down through a family line, for example,” she told him sadly. “It’s not like me and you. Our agreement is a simple exchange, power for the experience of living in this world. But devils...what they give marks their victims for generations.”

“By the time we arrived at the site of the wedding, all of the elves were dead, save one. Licht was holding Tetia’s body in his arms as the devil floated over him, taunting him about everything that happened. However, even thought Licht learned that everything had been through the manipulations of another, the devil still had a claim on his body,” Secre told them. “So Licht used the magic stones, a set of elven treasures that channeled the power of The Netherworld and made his body unfit for infernal habitation. It removed his sapient mind and turned him into something akin to an elemental of negative mana. Since devils can only possess thinking individuals, it made him immune to possession.”

Yuno nodded. “And that was the demon that the Wizard King killed,” he concluded before frowning. “But...what happened to the devil?”

The question got another sigh from Secre. “It was after the-wait...that’s what he is,” Secre whispered.

“Hm?” Sunset replied before becoming interested in the story. “What’re you going on about now?”

Secre frowned. “It was shortly after the battle between Lumiere and the monster that had been Licht concluded…”

-500 years ago-

“Prince Lumiere did it! He killed the monster!”

Secre did her best to ignore the cheers of the crowd that had gathered after the towering monstrosity Licht had become fell. As much as she hated to think about it, even if they had really known exactly what her prince had just done, they would have been cheering anyway.

The destruction to what Lumiere and Licht had planned to be a permanent settlement for the elves left the place a ruin and all the lands around it destroyed. The place was so tainted, it would take years before anything grew around the giant skull again, if at all.

The glint of something sparkling in the blue sky caught Secre’s eye, and she held out her hand to reach towards the falling gems with her magic when she realized what they were. There’s no end to the amount of trouble these things will be if they fall into the wrong hands, Secre told herself as she pulled the elven gems of the underworld to her as well as the pieces of jewelry that they were contained in before putting them in the book holster next to her grimoire.

A second later, Sere saw a mass of black and blue mana with what looked like a pair of sick eyes and twisted mouth float through the air towards her. The devil had no physical form, but she had seen how it could still imprison someone as powerful as Lumiere with it’s unnatural magic. “Ohohohohohoho! Well, so much for that little plan. Still, you all did give me something enjoyable to watch,” he said as if he was talking about the weather before looking around. “And I got a grimoire out of it! Now, where is that little book?”

Secre stared at the...she didn’t even know what to call it. Creature’s had bodies. The thing in front of her was just a mass of evil. “MONSTER!” she shouted at the devil.

It turned and looked at her, or...the things that comprised its face moved around to look at her. Just looking at it made her eyes hurt. The thing’s unnatural existence made her head hurt as Secre forced herself to concentrate on it.

“Hmm?” it asked in a bored tone. “And, who are you? Go away little girl. Your magic can’t harm me. Nothing from this world can.”

Secre blinked before reaching back into her grimoire’s case and pulled out the elven stones. “Well then, it’s a good thing that I’m accessorizing now.”

The devil seemed to shake with laughter. “Ohohohohohohoho! The magic stones? You must be joking,” it said before the thing’s twisted mouth widened into a grin. “Didn’t you see what happened to your pointy-eared friend? We’re standing on his skull, if you’ve forgotten. And you’re a mere human! If you use those things, the punishment will be quite severe. Give up and go home, girl.”

“Never!” Secre shouted before she took the gems up in her magic before calling up her grimoire. “Sealing Magic: Eternal Prison!”

A cube of containment formed around the devil’s spirit and for the first time since she had seen the awful thing, it’s mouth stopped smiling. “Hey, I know what you’re doing,” the monster said as Secre felt something poke its way out of two points on the side of her head. Still, she ignored the pain and continued on. “You little bitch. You think I’m going to just let this happen? The world obeys my commands, girl! Now, Come Here.”

Secre felt the stones rip away from her grasp as the cube holding the demon compacted until all that could be seen within it was the monster’s darkness. Which...should have been impossible. Even now, the demon was sealed away. “What’s going on? You shouldn’t be able to use magic at all!”

“Forbidden Magic: NoItAnrAcnieR!”

Secre forced the cube to compact again as she saw six layers of magic circles appear in the sky above her while down below, the elven souls were ripped from their bodies and brought into it, disappearing as they flew through the circle in the center of the matrix. However, she didn’t see a soul rise from the remains of the demon. Whatever had changed him had moved Licht beyond the devil’s reach.

“I’ll be sure to work more slowly in the background next time,” the devil told her as the cube he was contained in continued to grow smaller. “Not that anyone will even know of me. You’ll be long dead, and nobody will know to even try to stop me!”

Screaming in both anger at the creature and frustration at what was happening before her despite her attempts to stop it, Secre watched the devil’s dark spirit get pulled towards the giant set of magic circles before vanishing completely.

Panting from the effort of using such magic, Secre collapsed onto the ground. No...this isn’t fair. How can it all just end like this?

“Secre!”

The voice of Prince Lumiere made the girl suck in a breath before she picked herself up. The Prince would know what to do! He...he stumbled towards her, blood covering a good part of his clothing. “Oh no.”

-Present Day-

“And, you know the rest,” Secre told them with a solemn look. “I used the magic of the stones to turn Prince Lumiere to stone so that he could avoid dying, then was cursed to live as an anti-bird for my use of forbidden magic. Eventually, the Clover Kingdom’s forces did search the area, but only found a statue of the prince and the magic stones, which the crown eventually divided up amongst the nobles for one reason or another.”

Sunset frowned. “So, what you’re saying is…”

Taking a second to get another breath, the bird nodded. “Yes, that thing that’s walking around with Licht’s face. It’s the devil I failed to seal away, five-hundred years ago.”

Page 20: Elsewhere

Celestia sat in her throne room, ruling over her kingdom and making the decision that would guide all her little ponies towards the correct decisions in their lives under her benevolent and wise rule. While everything wasn’t completely perfect yet, she would be making it that way in short order with the creation of a new agency for making sure the news in the papers throughout the land was royally acceptable.

After reading Twilight’s reports about how three fillies had caused such disorder and hurt feelings in the citizens of Ponyville, Celestia had thought long and hard to make sure something didn’t happen to the Canterlot Times and other news outlets. After a task force of ponies thoroughly investigated the matter for months, the only two options she saw for nipping an adult Gabby Gums coming to Manehattan or Fillydelphia. Either every single reporter would have to be placed under a geas that made it impossible for them to lie, or an official of the crown would have to approve every story that was printed to ensure that it would help enhance the Harmony of Equestria, rather than detect from it.

With wizards capable of maintaining such a magic over a long time in short supply, Celestia went with the second option.

Celestia finished signing the last document and gave the stack of papers to her secretary for them to be copied and given out to the proper ponies just as the door to her throne room was knocked open and a guard in golden armor came galloping in.

“Princess Celestia! News from Northern Equestria!” he shouted, getting the big mare’s attention.

“Yes?” she replied before prompting him to go on with her hooves as well.

The guard took off his helmet, revealing a perfectly combed mane of regulation blue hair. “I am simply to tell you, it has returned.”

Celestia gasped and...blinked several seconds later when she realized she had no idea what the stallion was talking about. “Wait...what part of Northern Equestria are you from?”

“...Highness?” he asked.

Not appreciating the question, Celestia sighed. “Well, there are dozens of things that could mean! Is it the Yaks? Have the Yaks finally decided to accept my offer of a summit so that they can learn to adopt a better lifestyle, modeled after ponies?”

The guard gulped. “A-All I was told to tell you was that it has returned.”

“Is it the wendigos?” Celestia asked.

Raven cleared her throat. “I think that kind of warning would have been a they have returned, Your Majesty.”

After thinking about it for a moment, Celestia looked back to the secretary. “Grogar, then?”

“That would be more of a he,” Raven replied.

Celestia looked back at the guard with bored annoyance. “This isn’t another Starswirl sighting, is it?” she asked. “After the Magic Convention last year, I had to ban wearing hats with bells in Canterlot because there were so many false reports.”

The guard became nervous and looked around, as if searching for an escape. “I-I don’t know! I just came from the Northern Wastes and was told to deliver the message, it has returned!”

“Oh!” Celestia said as the exact location, rather than some vague location of Northern Equestria, made her remember what the warning meant. In all fairness, she hadn’t expected so many problems to crop up in the proceeding years, forcing Celestia to name the warnings about banished foes after the heroes that had defeated them.

The it the guard was referring to was...a setback that could be corrected. Hopefully.

The Crystal Empire, a city state of its own before Equestria was truly unified in Harmony under her rule, still governed by a council of leaders and a unicorn that called herself a princess rather than a single unifying alicorn. If it had returned...there could be some real problems.

“What do the scouts have to report?” Celestia asked.

The guard blinked. “Um...it has returned, Your Highness,” he said to her. “That is the report.”

With centuries of practice behind her, Celestia kept her face calm. The guards in the North were only supposed to report back that the Empire had reappeared? Somepony had obviously given them bad orders. But, considering how long ago it was...Luna had probably been vague in her commands thanks to her inexperience in ruling a realm.

Which created quite the large problem. Celestia had no idea about the state of the Empire. For all she knew, Sombra had turned all of the ponies within it into horrid abominations during their time being banished from the world, and was now ready to destroy Equestria. If she went to examine the place herself, the dark stallion could very well entrap her and carry out his dark revenge and sick fantasies on her.

Both Celestia and Luna could go, but if Sombra was ready for them this time, he would have two alicorns at his mercy.

Twilight and her friends...were too inexperienced. Both Discord and Nightmare Moon had been overconfident in their power. Sombra was different. He was egotistical, to be certain. But he was a pony that had made deals with darker creatures for power, not some immortal being who looked down on normal ponies as if they were mud to be stepped on.

The normal guard ponies...wouldn’t last long at all.

That left...oh, Celestia suddenly realized. I know who I can send. She turned to the guard sitting next to her. “Send for Princess Cadance and Shining Armor at once!”

The two of them could check on the situation. If things were safe enough, perhaps she could even turn this unexpected event into something to benefit her plans for Equestria. In fact, she knew she could. With that in mind, Celestia took a quill and nearby pen. “My dearest Twilight, you must come to Canterlot at once,” she spoke while writing the letter she would wait a few days to send.

It was the same dream again.

The dream she had every night since she had nearly died for the second time.

It was a clear and crisp day. Not too hot, not too cold, the perfect time for everyone’s friends and family to gather in celebration of their friend’s love.

Tetia looked lovely in her dress, which actually made Fana a little jealous. She would have loved to see herself in one of the things, if they just weren’t so confining.

“Ah, Fana, good to see you,” Licht said when she got closer to him. “I was worried you might not come.”

Fana giggled. “Who do you think I am, Raia?” she replied. “We’re lucky he didn’t sleep till the baby was born.”

Off to the side, the laziest elf got a sour look on his face. “Hey…” he whined before pausing to yawn, making everyone else give a cheerful laugh.

Fana looked down at Tetia’s belly with envy. In only nine months, a human could take an empty womb and produce a baby, maybe as many as one a year. Elven women were lucky to produce three children during their entire lifetime. Even two was becoming rare.

“Say Tetia I-” Fana blinked as she looked up to the woman’s face, only to see a skeleton staring back at her.

The bones collapsed and people started dying all around her as their magic was drained away, slain by spears of light sent from the sky that quickly turned red as a spherical machine hovered above. Everyone, except for Licht and Fana. But, it wasn’t the same Licht that had stood there before. He looked different. He had on a large robe with multiple layers and three golden eyes on his chest.

“Come along Fana, there’s something I want to show you,” he said as he offered a hand. The image in front of her flickered, showing the outline of someone else inside of it, someone shorter.

Fana took a step back from the thing in front of her. “Wait...you...you’re not…”

The image of Licht reached out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her along as he went, walking over the corpses of their friends and family. “Come along now, you’ll just love it!”

Dread filled Fana’s mind as she tried to fight against what was happening. Whatever he wanted to show her, Fana didn’t want to see it! “No, stop it!” she shouted at him before they came to the edge of a cliff.

Down below, human children mulled about in a daze. There had to be hundreds of them. “What is this?” she mumbled.

“This?” Licht asked as the machine she had seen so many times in previous dreams floated over the children to begin draining them of their magic. She watched them collapse to the ground, their tiny voices screaming as they began to wither away, turning into shriveled corpses before the process finished. “This is what you helped me do.”

Fana tried to scream, but found herself unable to hear anything as she struggled against bindings that weren’t there. The entirety of her skin felt wet and it took a moment for her to realize that she was floating in a tank of liquid, not laying on a bed and covered in her own sweat.

The feeling was a familiar one.

“Has the girl really come back to life? Is this because of her phoenix magic? I see, then we will implant a magic item in Fana as well.”

Fana blinked as she failed to recall the speaker’s face. She remembered that he had been an important man in...Diamond. He had been in the Diamond Kingdom. And...so had she?

But...she could remember growing up in Clover as well. If vaguely. The royals she met, Fana knew they were from Clover.

Then...why do I remember…

“How disappointing. Her magical power should be heightened, but it’s practically depleted,” her foggy memory recalled someone saying as Fana remembered floating in another take of magically enhanced liquid. “Throw her away.”

And then, the monster came for her. Put something inside of her.

She could remember...a third eye?

And after that…

Bits and pieces of broken memories ran through her mind, made of emotions more than anything else.

Salamander, the Spirit of Fire, she could remember being asleep one day as it came to her only a few months ago…

“So, it’s happening again, is it?” the burning voice in her head asked as Fana saw the dragon sit on the gazebo in her dream, surrounded by the flames which consumed her kin back in Clover. “With the other piece that’s in motion, I think you will serve my purposes well.”

Fana blinked. That dream had been different as well. But, like all dreams, it had soon faded into the back of her mind, forgotten. Licht...no, the man calling himself Licht, he had thought Salamander had just come to her because she was an elf with elemental magic. But, there was more to it than that.

She just...couldn’t remember what.

There was a knock on the tank, drawing Fana out of herself to see an odd, somewhat blurry woman standing on the other side. She said...something. Fana couldn’t tell because the liquid she was surrounded with made it impossible to understand. A second later, the stuff she was floating in began to drain from the holes that opened up in the bottom of her container and Fana slowly floated to the ground before the camber was opened. As her skin met fresh air, Fana collapsed, coughing up the mystic water that had filled her lungs.

“Hey, you’re not a vegetable anymore!” the strange woman with red eyes and glasses said in an annoyingly high-pitched voice. “Huh, like the boobs. Makes me wonder why you wrapped them up so much.”

Fana blinked as she stood up to look at her breasts, then let out a scream when she realized she was naked. “H-Hey! Turn around you weirdo!” she demanded before summoning a ball of fire to threaten the crazy lady with.

After giving her a surprised look, all the mad scientist did was blink. “Wow! That actually sounded like a normal person talking just now,” she said before adjusting her glasses. “I wonder, did your magic item have something wrong with it? And it looks like you’re going to need some new makeup.”

“I SAID STOP LOOKING AT ME!” Fana yelled before grasping the flaming mana in her hand to enhance her strength, then striking the girl in the jaw.

Once the madwoman had hit the ground, she moved to pick up her clothes. She blinked at the bindings that she had wrapped around her breasts to help flatten them. They were...practice for a wedding dress?

Fana reached up and rubbed her head. Why was it so hard to remember things that should have been easy. If the clothes in front of her were in fact, hers, then shouldn’t she have had them on before going into the rejuvenation tank?

After taking a moment to get dressed, Fana looked back to the four-eyed woman as she picked herself off the ground with a loud groan. “Hey,” the scientist complained. “Is that any way to treat the person who fixed you?”

“Fixed...me?” Fana repeated.

The woman blinked, then slumped a little. “Oh...guess that was all just a fluke,” she said in a disappointed tone before gesturing to something hovering over the vat of liquid Fana had just been floating in. “Well, hurry up and take your lizard. Stupid thing’s been like that since you went in the healing chamber.”

Fana blinked and looked up at where the madwoman was gesturing. Floating above the magical device that had held her was an orange flaming egg. “Salamander?” she asked the mass of mana.

The flames dispersed, but the Salamander that came out of the egg wasn’t the one she could remember, although barely. The creature floating in front of her hand a golden-orange tint, while the spirit she saw in her memories was a reddish-pink. It had also more than doubled in size, putting it at over foot-and-a-half long. Much larger wings spread out before it glided down to land on Fana’s shoulder, making her stumble from the weight before Salamander moved around to take up a position behind her and put one claw on each shoulder while its long tail wrapped around her waist as much as it could.

“Leave this place.”

The thought that wasn’t her own confused Fana for a moment before she realized what it was. She turned to look at the lizard composed of fire mana hanging on her back. “Did you just-”

“Leave This Place.”

Fana blinked. Although her memory was foggy, to say the least, she was pretty sure she would have remembered Salamander speaking to her in the waking world.

“Did I what?” the crazy-sounding woman as she looked at Fana with a confused expression.

With the confusion of awakening dying down, even though other starling things were coming to light, Fana found herself noticing several oddities. Like the woman in front of her, Fana had no idea who she was. But the scientist obviously knew Fana. The young woman with the pink hair concentrated, trying to think of how she could know the stranger in front of her.

She blinked…

The child, no more than ten, finished screaming as his mana was drained away by the machine he was hooked into while the woman stood there, giggling giddily. When it was over, the boy slumped down, his eyes glazed over as Licht, Raia, Vetto, and Fana watched with varying degrees of interest. “You see, Master Licht? With my magic items, I can take people’s mana and store it for use in this machine, then we can transfer it to that one over there and store it in you,” she explained while pointing to another contraption that looked a good deal like the first.

“Why children? They’re so weak,” Vetto spat as he looked at the urchin that sat in the machine.

The woman looked back at him as if his question was so stupid she didn’t know what to make of it. “Because they’re not attached to their mana, duh,” she replied. “The older a person is, the harder it is to affect their magic, and the more the mana is attached to that body, making it harder to use. But kids? It’s easy peasy lemon squeezy! And my little juice machine will squeeze them all dry.”

Licht nodded. “Yes, this will do nicely,” he said before patting the woman on the head. “Good work, Sally. Now, we will need a way to contain the mana within me properly.”

...and felt her legs nearly give out from under her.

Sally cocked her head to the side. “Hey, you okay?” she asked before scratching her head. “Maybe you should get something to eat. The tank should have provided all the nutrients your body needed, but sometimes it’s best to have a little extra inside of you, ya know.”

Fana’s hand twitched. Children...taken from their parents and used as materials for an experiment.

She had helped that woman steal children!

She had been one of those children!

No, Fana told herself as she worked through her memories. That had been...different.

But…

Fana looked over to the monster in front of her before calling up her grimoire. It took everything she had to keep her voice even. “How many?”

“Hmm?” Sally asked. “How many what?”

“What happens to them?” Fana remembered Sally saying as she repeated the question Raia asked her before tapping her chin. “Well, it’s hard to say for sure. Ninety-percent will probably die in a few days without medical treatment. But even if they get some...maybe...a year? Yeah, even if they got a medical mage treating them almost daily, I don’t think they’d last longer than a year. Although, a very small few might have enough mana to survive longer than that.”

The teeth in Fana’s mouth felt like they were going to crack as she grit them. “How many children have you killed by stealing their mana?”

Sally blinked and looked up at the ceiling while tapping her chin. “Well, technically, you were the one that incinerated the survivors,” she pointed out before going back to thinking. “But...I don’t know. Maybe...seven hundred? It’s pointless to keep track, really. All that matters is getting Master Licht the mana he needs, and we’re so close too! We just need one or two more loads of kids. Although...we’ll have to find some new guys to find them for us since those last two went and lost their heads.”

As Sally turned away to look down at the puddle left by Fana drip drying on the floor, the girl with the pink hair nearly let her grimoire drop in shock. I...what?

“LEAVE THIS PLACE!”

With Salamader’s voice nearly crushing her mind with its volume, Fana grasped her head before she put her book away. “I...I should go,” Fana told the insane woman before turning to hurry out the door.

The interior of the building she was in was made of a thick, dark stone that had been built in uneven ways. After seeing the look of the halls and odd way things were put together, with squares of rock jutting out everywhere, it didn’t take Fana long to realize she was in a dungeon.

However, rather than be foreboding, the place had a familiar feel to it. Like an old house she had remembered growing up in as a child and returning to as an adult...after it had undergone massive renovations. She didn’t know where anything was, but walking around in it didn’t make her nervous. Which in itself was rather disturbing.

Not paying much attention to where she went, the woman wandered around until Salamander reached forward to mess with her hair, pulling the bangs down until they nearly completely covered her forehead. A second later, she nearly ran into a mountain of a person.

Fana blinked and took a step back before looking up at Vetto. But...he looked wrong. The Vetto she knew was tall and fit, but not to the point of being an overly muscular hulk of a man with so much chest hair it might as well have been a coat of fur. The thing in front of her looked like a twisted version of her old friend.

“Ah, Fana! You’re awake,” the twisted Vetto said with a mouth full of sharp teeth. After looking at her surprised face for a moment, he frowned. “Something wrong?”

With unease and shock filling her mind, Fana latched onto the first thing she could to try and get away when her body reminded her of a critical function. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

Vetto blinked. “Oh...uh...okay,” he replied before stepping aside. “You were in that tank for a few days.”

“Thank you,” Fana quickly said before running past him as fast as possible to turn a corner and get away.

Only, once she was alone...Fana looked around in confusion. “Great,” she mumbled. She had no idea where anything was. “Who ever heard of a dungeon with a bathroom?”

In answer to her question, Salamander tapped Fana on the shoulder and pointed to a place to turn on the right. After a few more instructions, Fana came to a smaller room that had a curtain set up in front of the entrance and small alcoves all around it, complete with doors of wood that had been brought in and set up to act as privacy screens.

She quickly ran into one and sat down, doing her best not to think about if she was supposed to take care of the camber pot, or if it was someone else. “Ugh, what happened to me?” the girl whined.

“The Equestrian tore down the wall between the two souls that have been housed in your body and burned away the infernal essence. The end result has caused a harmonic mingling.”

Fana blinked. “Uh...I have no idea what you just said.”

Somehow, Salamander actually managed to look annoyed. “The you that was and the you that is have become in sync.”

“Still not getting it,” Fana replied before she looked to the little dragon. “And why are you so talkative now?”

The little dragon rolled his eyes. “Just clean yourself off and get going.”

Bossy lizard, Fana thought to herself before doing just that, impressed a little by how the disposal system worked, as well as the magic item that created the water needed to wash her hands. But, once she was finished, the girl looked back to her rider. “What’s going on?” Fana asked at a whisper as she tried to remember why she was here. “Where am I? How did I get here?”

Trying to remember only made things more confusing. As to why she was there, how she had arrived, or why she was wearing a red coat underneath a robe that barely covered her shoulders, Fana didn’t know. But, she did remember other things.

She remembered playing in the woods alongside all of her friends as a child.

She remembered being taken from her family and raised to be a killer.

Both had happened up until the age of fifteen, when she went with her parents to get a grimoire from a Clover tower. Only, she could also remember being escorted to a tower in Diamond by military personnel, and receiving one there too.

She reached down and picked up her grimoire. It didn’t look like either memories said it should. There was a diamond on the front, and the familiar orange-red color, but...there was also a second cover sewn into the one she remembered. It looked alot like the grimoire belonging to…

“Fana! FANA, I’M SORRY!” a boy white spiky white hair shouted as the last memory of him played out in her mind.

Her fingers ran along the blue cover. “Mars,” Fana mumbled before looking over to the dragon on her back. If she couldn’t tell herself what was going on, then he was her only option. “What is this place? What am I doing here? I…”

She remembered Lict standing over her. “My how pitiful you look. I suppose this world never changes. Well, if humans are so determined to harm each other, then we’ll just help them along.” And then, something had appeared...on her forehead.

Fana reached up and rubbed her head, her fingers brushing against the implant that predated meeting Licht. She remembered meeting Licht, and then...nothing.

“Was I possessed?” she asked herself.

“In many ways, you still are.”

Fana looked back to her passenger and frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Salamander turned its head over to her. “Out of all those who have become tainted and come again, you were the closest to what she once was.”

The vagueness of the lizard made Fana frown at the thing and press her lips together tightly as she grumbled. “Why don’t you give me an answer that makes sense?”

“Why don’t you gain enough intelligence to understand my answers?”

Fana left the bathroom and frowned. Jackass, she thought before busying her mind as she slowly walked around the maze that was the building, passing people as she went. Most wore a full robe of white with the same eye decor that her clothes had in one way or another. The vast majority of them also gave her measuring looks, making Fana retreat into her thoughts to try and make sense of the situation. Okay so, after Morris threw me away… Fana blinked. Morris, that had been the mage in charge of the program for enhanced mage knights.

With a little bit of information pulled from her mind, she continued onward in her recollections. After Morris threw me away, Licht found me and… Fana frowned. She didn’t know how, but she knew the man who found her wasn’t Licht. Not just the name, but the identity. His real name was…

Was…

...why can’t I remember? Fana asked herself.

She knew that the Licht she remembered finding her in the pile of trash outside of the research facility wasn’t the same man from her memories. But, she didn’t know why she knew that.

Like the fact that Fana knew she enjoyed eating grapes, despite never having eaten them before. The Diamond trainees weren’t given fresh food in the base. But the elves found plenty as they migrated back and forth across the Clover Kingdom.

Fana groaned and leaned up against the nearby wall. Why had everything become so very confusing?

Okay so, Licht pulled me out of the refuse, healed me, and then… He cast another spell on her. Something...strange. Not light magic, it was…

No matter how hard she tried, Fana couldn’t bring up her memory of what happened next. She tried to remember something, anything that happened before she woke up in her chamber and…

“No, please don’t kill me!” the child begged her as Sally finished harvesting the last drop of magic and threw the nearly dead girl into the pile with all the others. One boy, buried under the rest was still moving though, trapped under the living corpses.

Fana...raised her grimoire. “Fire Spirit Magic: Salamander’s Breath.”

...doubled over as she remembered the heat from the spirit’s breath, the smell of cooking meat, the way she had felt...joy after seeing the child die.

Fana’s empty stomach heaved, and she reached up to hold her mouth. When nothing came up, the trembling girl fell onto her butt. “No...no that’s not...I...I would never do something like that,” she whispered to herself.

Only...she had. She could remember clearly, both after meeting Licht, and before.

She had killed plenty of children.

“But...that was different, wasn’t it?” the woman asked herself. She had been told to kill or die and...end the end, Fana had chosen death. The second time around, there had been no hesitation. “Why didn’t I say no that time too?”

Salamander remained silent.

Her stomach replied instead, giving out a longing groan. “Hungry,” she whispered to herself. “I’m...hungry.”

Fana picked herself up and headed to the cafeteria. She didn’t know how she knew the location of the collective dining room, but after moving up the stairs and making a few turns, she came upon a large, open area with a handful of people eating out of bowels, sitting on trays.

Maybe her memory was getting better.

Considering what she had remembered already, the idea wasn’t a welcome one.

“Lady Fana! You grace us with your presence,” the man in the white robe serving the food said when she walked up to him.

Fana stared at the man, blankly. She didn’t recognize him. Had he killed people too?

She realized that there was an orderly setup and slowly walked back to grab a tray from a nearby table, then returned to the man that was standing in front of the strew. It looked like it was filled with vegetables.

A moment later, the food was placed in a bowl and Fana moved to a nearby fountain that was a crude collection of metal. A magic item of some sort, it transformed ambient mana into water with a little help of the user. She used it to fill a clay cup before moving to one of the wooden benches and taking a seat.

Fana sat there for several seconds, unsure of what to do. If she ate the food, something inside of her said it would be coming back up rather quickly.

“Hey there! Good to see your back to your old gloomy self,” an overly friendly voice said, cutting through the silence of the dinning hall as another woman in a dark outfit and a witch’s hat made her way into the dining hall. “Sally said I would find you here.”

Like with Sally, Fana didn’t recognize the woman with the long, sandy blonde curls underneath a black witch's hat that came to sit across from her. “Soooooo...your lizard is looking bigger,” she said.

Salamander let out a low growl.

“Ehe…” The woman gave a nervous grin as she continued to sit there.

Not knowing what to say, Fana looked down at her food. The soup looked old and unsatisfying. But, she was hungry. After a few moments, she took her spoon and tasted it. “This is really bad.”

“Huh...well,” the witch said before standing back up. “Good to see you’re still...you. Although, I’m glad you left those bandages you always wrapped around yourself in the lab. Beautiful women like us shouldn’t restrain our looks.”

The woman’s odd statement made Fana frown. “But...I’m not,” she mumbled before looking back up at the older lady. “What is that supposed to mean?”

The claws Salamander had resting on her shoulders began to dig into them. “Quiet! Eat and leave.”

“Well…” the woman paused uncertainty and looked around with a nervous expression on her face.

“I’m not...me,” Fana said before she looked back down at her bowl. “And her, she used to laugh and wear flowers in her hair. I wanted...to get married. And...I was...practicing, to wear a corset?”

Fana reached up and clutched her head with one hand. Was that really why she had done something so painful? “I...I need to get out of here,” Fana mumbled before looking down at her bowl of stew. It looked awful and didn’t taste much better, but she needed food, so the girl quickly grabbed the bowl with both of her hands and took it up to gulp everything in it down.

Her insides were so empty, it felt as if everything she swallowed went straight down into her gut and landed with a hard thud. Fana clutched her stomach from the pain it caused and nearly fell over.

“Yes...let’s get you some fresh air,” the black witch agreed before moving around to help Fana up.

As she did, Fana looked over to her. “Who are you, again?” she asked before Salamander sunk its claws into her.

The witch gave a nervous laugh. “Oh dear, you remember your best friend! It’s me, Catherine.”

“HA!” one of the men eating at another table laughed. “Best suck-up you mean. Lady Fana is only interested in powerful mages, like me! All your brown nosing will only make your wrinkles come back faster.”

Catherine glared at the man. “SHUT IT SHIDAN!” she yelled at him before taking Fana by the arm. “Let’s get you some air, dear.

Fana let herself be led away by the other woman, her mind starting to work through the shock of remembering her past actions. These people...I don’t understand...what are we all doing here? she asked herself.

They weren’t like her and Vetto. Most of them didn’t even have powerful magic. There were a few with passable levels. But other than that, most of the people she walked past were hopeless losers.

“Ugh, stupid Shidan and all those other idiots,” Catherine mumbled. “I know that they’re supposed to be chosen, like the rest of us, but I fail to see how trash like him returning to his true form will make the world a better place for the rest of us. Master Licht should just let me drain them of their youth.”

Fana blinked. “Drain them?” she repeated before thinking up a better question. “And, we’re friends?”

The question had Cathrine looking back at her cautiously for a moment before she brightened up. “Why, yes! Best friends, in fact. Everyone here calls you Lady Fana, but not me, because we’re so close and have worked together so often,” she said happily before clasping her hands together. “Why, we always engage in cleanup operations after a harvest. Makes the bodies harder to identify, and helps me keep my skin nice and smooth.”

“Cleanup?” Fana blinked…

The woman called Cathrine sat on her broom, floating over the crowd of children that had just been drained of their mana. “Well, I won’t get anything but the dregs, but it’s better than nothing, I suppose,” the woman said before raising her grimoire. “Ash Curse Magic: Ash Absorbing Formation!”

Fana stood silent as she watched the children in front of her begin to wither, their skin becoming wrinkled and hair going gray as the woman’s aura reached out with dark purple tendrils to begin absorbing what was left of their mana. When it was finished, the group of younglings that didn’t have a single person in the double digits looked like a collection of impossibly short old people. Not that she cared as she raised her book. It felt good to make them suffer. “Fire Spirit Magic: Salamander’s Breath.”

...and made her way past the woman, through the door that had light shining through it so bright that she couldn’t tell what was beyond. She needed something else to focus on. If she let her mind linger on the memory that just ran through it, Fana knew her soup would be coming back up.

When Fana’s eyes adjusted, she looked around. The place they were standing on was surrounded by a series of floating boulders. In fact, it was a floating bolder, much larger than the ones around it and hollowed out to the point an entire base of people were living inside it. A cool mist dampened her skin and made Fana shiver just a bit as she examined her surroundings. “This is...the outside world.”

Feeling the air on her skin, the wind in her hair, the bright light and heat of the sun above. It was everything she had ever dreamed of experiencing after being taken down into the Diamond Kingdom training facility for the last time, before she had died.

Although Fana didn’t quite know what was going on, she knew who she was. And that was enough for the immediate future.

“Well, yes dear, it-”

The reminder of the woman’s presence shattered the wonder of the moment with the reminder of a question that needed answered. “How many people?” Fana suddenly asked the witch as she turned around to stare at her.

Catherine blinked and took a step back. “I’m...sorry?”

“No you’re not,” Fana told her as the girl’s anger began to rise. “Or else you would have stopped. You would have stopped me. Now, how many children did you watch me kill? Help me kill? HOW MANY?”

With the woman becoming more nervous from the questions, Fana had a feeling she needed to end this quickly as Cathrine held up her hands. “What does something like that matter?” she asked nervously. “What are you getting so angry about? Y-You were there too!”

Fana gathered her mana. “Yes...I was, but I didn’t have a choice. I don’t know why, but...I couldn’t stop myself from doing what I did. Now I do have a choice, to use my magic the way it is supposed to be used. To protect people like those children and all the others from people like you,” she said before casting her spell. “Fire Spirit Magic: Salamander’s Breath.”

The flames shot from over her shoulder, burning the woman to ash before she could scream. For a moment, Fana thought about going back into the floating fortress and dealing with the rest of them, but...she was still tired and hungry. She might be able to get the jump on Licht, or Vetto but if Raia found her, he would see right through any deception.

She needed to get away. Recover her strength. Think and settle her thoughts.

At least she had gotten rid of one of them.

Fana reached up and grabbed onto Salamander’s wrists before she turned around to run forward and leaped off the cliff. The little dragon’s wings spread wide and carried her into the air, away from the floating dungeon. “Okay, I’m out. What am I supposed to do now?” she asked.

Cadance trotted through the Canterlot palace, annoyed at the sudden summons that had brought her out of the forelegs of her husband and back to the place where everything just screamed Celestia.

In the weeks since the wedding, Cadance had decided to stop letting the older alicorn constantly send her on errands to other countries and territories of Equestria. Celestia had fumed about it, but with Luna back, she knew that ordering another Princess to do her bidding would bite her in the back when Candance brought it up in conversation with her sister, along with questions about why Luna wasn’t making any laws, public appearances, holding court, or doing anything else Celestia did.

“Why, it’s almost as if you don’t consider your sister an equal at all,” Cadance remembered herself saying. “I mean, you let her what? Prance around in the dreams of other ponies? The job that Equestria did just fine without for a thousand years? Don’t you think she should be doing some real Princess work, like I did? I know, let’s ask her!”

It was a dirty, ugly, and obviously heinous threat of manipulation on her part, but Celestia had reluctantly agreed that as a newlywed, Cadance should be spending more time on developing a real family. Since that was what the pink princess had wanted for the moment, she had been living in truce with Celestia.

Not that she hadn’t been busy. While talking about her wedding with all the magazines in Equestria had quickly grown stale since Celestia had planned the whole thing, going deep into detail about her victory over Chrysalis and triumphing when Celestia had failed was a favorite topic of hers. She was even talking to several playwrights about the issue and it was the most anticipated play of the season.

Being called back to the palace, with her husband during his family leave no less, was threatening to break that truce.

Inside the throne room, Celestia sat on the single throne from which she ruled Equestria, with Luna at the bottom of the dias. Cadance made a note to call attention to that little fact when things turned ugly and gave the big nag a modest nod. “Auntie,” she said after noticing the two guards and the latest of Celestia’s aides. She had to be cordial, or they would probably think the world was on the verge of ending. “Is there something you needed to talk to me about?”

“Princess Cadance,” Celestia said in her louder and more regal tone. “One thousand years ago, a great tragedy befell a part of Equestria. Deep in the frozen north, there once lay a place untouched by cold, full of ponies that had changed over several generations of being exposed to a magical artifact. The Crystal Empire!”

The theatrics got a confused blink from Cadance. “Oh-kay,” she mumbled. “What does that have to do with me?”

Celestia frowned a little. “A thousand years ago, the Crystal Empire was banished to shadow by the power of a dark unicorn pony known as Sombra,” she told the other alicorn. “However, all spells must eventually end, and it has become known to me recently that the Crystal Empire has returned from the realm of shadow. To ensure the safety of the ponies that have been returned to us, we must move quickly and reclaim the territory for Equestria. As such, you and your husband will go to the Crystal Empire and secure it for us.”

The sheer impossibility of what she had just heard made Cadance wonder if she was dreaming. She turned her head and gave Celestia a cautious look out of the corner of her eye. “Wait...are you actually telling me to go do something...important?”

“As things stand, you are the only pony I trust to send,” Celestia told her. “Once you have inspected the area, we can send in the ponies necessary to do what needs to be done. But first, you must go to the Empire and secure it for Equestria.”

Before Cadance could get too excited over finally being given a task worthy of an alicorn, Shining Armor stepped forward. “Okay, Princess Celestia. How many troops will we have at our disposal?” he asked. “Wizards and a few experts on ancient history would be useful as well. I’ve never heard of the Crystal Empire and-”

Celestia held up a hoof, cutting Shining Armor off. “You will not require anypony else, Captain. I have determined that you and Cadance should be sufficient for the task.”

For some reason, Luna gave a start and looked over to Celestia in disbelief. Maybe the little sister thought she would be better for this particular job, but Celestia had chosen Cadance. Although, there was a tiny ember or irksomeness at it being Celestia that told her to go do something rather than it coming from a report that Cadance decided to act on under her own volition, it was crushed by the fact that she was FINALLY going to prove to everypony that she wasn’t just some do-nothing alicorn that spent all her time going to fancy parties.

“Okay, we’ll need clothes and food,” Cadance said as she began to pace around. What else did ponies take with them on an adventure? Oh, why didn’t I play more O&O when Shiny asked me to?

Celestia cleared her throat. “Everything has been prepared for you and loaded onto the train,” she told the smaller princess. “It will just be the engine I had some wizards enchant so that it could run on its own and five cars. Traveling so light, you should reach your destination in no time. I wish you a swift journey.”

As young Cadance galloped away at an impressive pace that her husband failed to keep up with despite his years of guard training, Luna’s questioning look to her elder sister became an outright frown. “Tell me, Sister. Have you gone mad after the last time we parted ways?”

Celestia blinked as her guards gasped in horror at Luna’s words that questioned Celestia. “What are you talking about, Luna?”

“As I recall, you constantly label Cadance as a magical dunce and immature foal who does not know her proper place in Equestria, despite all of your attempts to show her where she belongs,” Luna reminded the mare. “Yet, you believe she is the proper pony to send to a land one-thousand years gone instead of me? I simply wish to know if you have completely lost your mind, is all.”

After taking a moment, Celestia let out a sigh. “Do not worry, Luna. Everything is going according to my plans.”

Luna raised an eyebrow. “Which are what? Exactly?”

“To let Destiny play out as it should,” Celestia explained...without really explaining anything.

It took a few moments for Luna to keep herself from sighing. “Then pray tell, Sister, what sort of play is Destiny writing? How does sending young Cadance and her stallion into what could be a fatal situation for them both the fate that is written upon their flanks?”

Celestia giggled. “Worry not, little sister. I know what I am doing,” she assured the blue mare before descending the throne. “I ruled Equestria for a thousand years of prosperity, trained the mare that freed you from the Nightmare, and was the reason Twilight Sparkle overcame Discord when she fell prey to her own despair, after all. Trust your big sister, I know the best course of action to take.”

The continued lack of an explanation made Luna frown as her sister retreated from the conversation and the room in short order. “I see,” she said with a frown.

While most stallions would be glad to see their wives happy, Shining Armor could only feel a growing dread in the pit of his stomach as he watched Cadance prance around in a circle before going into the train car waiting for them at Canterlot Station. Despite several oddities that entered his mind about the situation at hand, Cadance hadn’t perceived any of them and was galloping ahead towards what might be a cliff.

The reason Shining Armor thought this was because he knew the deepest, darkest secret of Equestria that not even the closest of the royal advisors knew.

Celestia and Cadance absolutely hated each other.

Although he had never really learned why, it was clear to him that the level of animosity felt by both mares towards the other was legendary in its proportions. Cadance resented everything Celestia ever told her to do while carrying out her orders in the most obnoxious fashion, and Celestia made sure to assert her authority to inconvenience Cadance whenever she could. While they were all smiles in public, once the crowds were gone, both mares would quickly become petty and vindictive in their actions. Trading comments in their conversations that cut to the bone.

Shining Armor had even fallen prey to their feud. Nopony in the history of Equestria had been promoted as fast as him. Being posted to a princesses detail only a month out of training was one thing when you used to date her. But going from that to captain of her guard, then Captain of the Royal Guard when he was just twenty-four years old had many of the literal old guard just waiting for a slip up. If not for the blind loyalty Celestia instilled in everypony around her, Shining Armor knew that her entire military staff would have been calling for his horn after he failed to identify Chrysalis at a simple glance after she trotted right up to him.

Even if he and Cadance had sent her packing a few days later.

Which had put Cadance on every magazine cover and newspaper in Equestria for weeks afterwards as everypony wanted to hear about the wedding, the evil plot, all the juicy details involving changelings, and how the Princess of Love had saved Equestria from their plans to steal everypony’s love. Not to mention Celestia. Every interview Cadance did reminded them about how Celestia had lost to the changeling queen, only for Cadance to save her moments later.

“Uh, Cadance...I think we should talk about this,” he said while looking at her cautiously.

The nervousness in her husband’s voice made Cadance freeze. “Wait,” she said before looking back to Shining Armor. “Don’t tell me, you don’t think I’m up for something like this.”

Shining Armor took a step back. “What? I never said that. I just think we should take a moment and maybe pick up some extra ponies on the way up North to-”

“NO!” Cadance said so loudly it made the windows on the train car shake. Then, she gave Shining Armor a nervous smile as an apology before her expression became desperate “If we do that, it will just show everypony that I don’t think I can do my job. Don’t you see, this is my big chance!”

After bending his ears back to the upright position, Shining Armor fought the hesitant look off his face. “Chance for what?”

If anything, Cadance became even more unnerved. “To show everypony I am really a princess!” she exclaimed. “All my alicorn life, I’ve been sent on stupid little diplomatic missions that never even mattered. And now, finally, Celestia has to send me to deal with what could be the biggest threat Equestria has ever faced!”

“What threat?” Shining Armor asked. Celestia hadn’t mentioned a threat. Just some ancient land that had suddenly reappeared.

Cadance rolled her eyes. “The Crystal Empire!” she exclaimed while throwing her wings wide. “You heard the old nag. It’s ruled by an evil unicorn warlord! We’ll show up, pound his plot and liberate the country from his despotic rule!”

After recalling what he remembered from Celestia’s annoyingly vague description of the Empire, Shining Armor felt he had to point something out as the train got underway. “Um, Celestia said that the Empire was banished by Sombra, not that he ruled over it. In fact, it sounds more like...oh no,” he mumbled as something became abundantly clear to him.

“What?” Cadance asked after steadying herself from the sudden motion of the mobile room they were in.

Shining Armor took a deep breath, then guided his new wife over to one of the couches in the train car to lay down with the insistence that it would be easier going down the tracks to hide the real reason that he didn’t want her stomping around the train car in a rage. “Sweetie, it sounded to me like the Crystal Empire was just someplace that this Sombra pony banished, not ruled over,” the unicorn explained to the confused alicorn. “A place that is...out of step with normal Equestria, and um…” He gulped. “Needs somepony important looking to act as a...g-goodwill ambassador to get a read on the place?”

The clickity clack of the rails beneath them was the only noise to be heard as the train continued towards its goal for several seconds. However, Cadance’s mane suddenly lost its perfect appearance as little hairs popped out of place a moment before they went into a tunnel that cut the lights off before coming out at the foot of the mountain. By then, Cadance’s whole body was shaking as her mouth curled into a snarl. “She...SHE TRICKED ME!”

I wouldn’t say it like that, Shining Armor thought to himself before making his way over to the other couch in what was obviously the train’s ‘living room’ car. He had been on enough fancy transports to know they were more or less mobile homes for important ponies to identify how they were all set up. “You just um, got excited and galloped ahead instead of asking questions.”

Cadance moaned and rested her head on the end of her couch. “I know, I’m an idiot.”

“Well, no point in complaining about it now,” Shining Armor said before thinking what would be their next best step. “So...do you have any idea where would be the best place to find some information on the Crystal Empire?” They could still make a few stops on the way and get what was needed.

The need to consider the question had Cadance rolling around to lay on her back and look up at the ceiling. “If it’s from before Luna was banished, then there won’t be any records of it anywhere,” Cadance told him. “Not even the restricted section of the Royal Library. Celestia had any record from those times destroyed. The only thing we have from that time is oral histories like the Hearths Warming story, and even that has been massively changed over the years.”

Shining Armor let out a little groan. While he didn’t share Cadance’s opinion of Celestia to such a degree that the pink pony did, there were some things the older alicorn did that made him wonder about her. “Never did understand why she thought that was necessary.”

“Shiny, I spend my whole life in the remote corners of Equestria to the point the average pony doesn’t even know I exist, and you wonder why Celestia doesn’t want anypony to know there was another alicorn around? That she didn’t magically create Equestria all by herself?” Cadance asked him with an even expression. “She’s a control freak, honey. She demands absolute obedience from everypony around her and will never let anypony stand as an equal because she believes that everything she does is right and nopony else can even hope to make a decision as good as her.”

After letting out a sigh, Shining Armor looked out the window to try and think of something to change the topic. “So, um…” The sight of Ponyville caught his eye. “Did you enjoy seeing Twily again?”

The look on Cadance’s face became tight. “Well...sort of,” she said, as if having to admit something she rather wouldn’t.

Picking up on the distress, Shining Armor cocked his head to the side. “What’s wrong?”

“I should have stayed in Canterlot,” the princess mumbled.

“I thought we said there’s nothing to do about it-”

“Not today,” Cadance told him. “Ten years ago! I should have told Celestia to go buck herself when she told me to go talk to the King of Maretonia. Or, I should have done it after I found out the visit was a complete farce of pomp and circumstance instead of a real negotiation! But Celestia got me out of Canterlot, and she sank her teeth into Twilight so much that poor little filly doesn’t even think for herself when Celestia is around!”

Shining Armor let out a hesitant groan. “Come on, Cadance. My sister is smart, she-”

Cadance didn’t let him finish. “She thought she got the wrong type of candy, Shiny!” the Princess exclaimed. “When she walked up to Celestia at her wedding reception, and it was her wedding reception, not the one I would have had made. Anyway, Celestia told Twilight she didn’t like the type of snacks Twilight had brought to the table and the little mare told her ‘Oh! I got the wrong plate, let me go find mine’! And then she galloped away like Celestia was going to have her executed for brining peppermint to the table she was sitting at!”

“Well, Celestia probably just didn’t want her to see the two of you fighting,” he said, trying to calm her down. And he knew they would have been fighting. Cadance had raged for days after the wedding about how Celestia had ruined everything by putting the whole thing together without Cadance’s input.

It didn’t work.

“That’s not the point, Shiny!” Cadance exclaimed. “Celestia has Twilight, and she wanted to show me that she has her. And mark my words, one day, maybe tomorrow, maybe a few years from now, Celestia is going to tell Twilight to do something. Something awful. Something that goes against everything she’s supposed to be, and Twilight is going to do it, despite every one of her instincts screaming at her not to.”

Seeing where this conversation was going, Shining Armor sighed as the tracks turned north. They needed a break from all of this, but he knew that trying to pull Cadance out of her anger was a waste of time that would just end up making them both feel bad later. So, he got up and thought of a good excuse to be somewhere else so Cadance could fume, burn herself out, then spend some more quality time with her new husband when she was done. “I think I should check our supplies before we pass out of pony civilization. The last thing we need is to be trapped in the Frozen Waste without the proper survival gear.”

Cadance snorted. “It would be just like Celestia to pull something like that,” she said before smiling at the stallion and rolling over onto her stomach so she could extend her neck for a quick nuzzle. “Good thinking, Shiny.”

The trip to the northernmost reaches of Equestria took four days.

Although Cadance calmed down after the first day and didn’t manage to reach peak levels of anger like when she had found out that Celestia tricked her, the little reminders that Celestia had sent along ensured that the pink princess didn’t have a lasting good mood during her trip north. Like the fact half the food rations were something she was allergic to, while the other half were of a kind Cadance absolutely detested. If not for Shiny taking stock of everything on the first day, they wouldn’t have been able to stop and change out their food supplies to something she enjoyed on the second.

The memory of which made her snuggle closer to the stallion on the mattress they had to buy after learning Celestia only gave them a pair of sleeping bags meant for one pony. While she supposed they would be useful when the world became an eternal winter wonderland, Cadance didn’t think having to spend a single second in a bed that was separate from her husband very funny at all.

As her husband began to stir from his sleep, Cadance got a naughty idea. “Hey Shiny,” she moaned. “I’m a little empty. How about a fillup?” The question was quickly followed by a long lick to her husband’s big, white, hard horn that sat atop his head.

“Muh? Cadance” he asked before rolling over and looking at her. “What time is it?”

Cadance grinned. “Time to mount your mare and give her a nice, creamy filling.”

Fighting off her attempt to celebrate their marriage for the fifteenth time since their journey began, Shining Armor held her at foreleg’s length and looked around. “Have we stopped?”

The question confused Cadance for a moment before she noticed that the constant clacking of the tracks that she had learned to put out of her mind had vanished. The train was enchanted to take them to their destination. It wouldn’t have stopped without her ripping it off of the tracks and holding it aloft like when she sent Shiny for supplies, unless… “Are we here?”

She got off the mattress and looked out the window to see...nothing.

An endless expanse of white that reflected the light in a way that was almost blinding to Cadance’s eyes greeted her. “But, there’s nothing here,” she mumbled before moving away from the window and looking to her husband as he cocooned himself in the blankets they had bought from a pony in a small town north of Ponyville. “Did Celestia actually send us out into the middle of nowhere?” She had pulled worse pranks on Cadance over the years, none of which were funny.

Shining Armor groaned and poked his head out of the blankets. “Do you honestly think that she would do something like that?”

Instead of telling him a most definite yes, Cadance took a moment to think things over. While she wouldn’t have put it past Celestia to send her out in the middle of nowhere on a false report, actually falling for misinformation would make the old nag look bad as well. She did her best to look infallible, after all, so as much as she hated to think it, this all wasn’t some cruel joke Celestia was pulling on them.

“No,” Cadance finally admitted. Celestia would make the trip as uncomfortable as possible, but anything that could blow back on her was out of the question.

“I’ll go take a look at the map,” Shining Armor told Cadance before getting up to carry the blankets with him as he left the sleeping car towards the one that held all of their supplies.

Half an hour later, Cadance was trudging forward through the snow with a frown on her face. The vest she had on might have kept a normal pony warm, but it was most definitely not meant for pegasi, and an alicorn’s wings just made the thing feel even more cramped. All of her instincts told the mare to rip the thing off and jump into the sky. Which was, thankfully, very clear and blue. Even though that meant she had to wear stupid-looking glasses to block out how the sun reflected off the ice and snow to keep from going blind.

With a decade of travel under her hooves, Cadance could say that the North was her most hated part of Equestria. It was too cold, too bright, too hilly, and all around annoying. Even the sand of Saddle Arabia wasn’t as bad as the north.

“Cadance, come quick, I think I found it,” Shining Armor called out from atop the hill he was standing on.

Glad to finally get to the last leg of their task, Cadance galloped up the hill and gave a start at what she saw. “That’s...not possible,” she mumbled at the sight that greeted her.

Perhaps half a mile away stood a city that looked to have been constructed, perhaps even grown, from nothing but crystal. A tall tower reached up into the sky, nearly blending in with the background and making itself next to impossible to see if a pony didn’t know what they were looking for. But, the thing that made Cadance comment on the impossibility of what she saw was the green. Despite its location, the Crystal Empire was surrounded by a field of lush green grass, and her eyes could make out trees and other plant life inside the boundaries of the ancient city-state.

“Maybe the North wasn’t always a frozen wasteland?” Shining Armor asked. “Seeing this almost makes me think wendigos exist.”

Cadance blinked. She had kept her mouth shut for years, but after the changelings… “Oh, wendigos are real,” the Princess informed her husband. “It’s why Celestia gives party ponies a government stipend to have small celebrations in as many locations that can be had during the holidays, birthdays, and for whatever reason she can find. We just have to keep them small, because it's the togetherness created by ponies that actually keeps them at bay. It’s why she doesn’t have a grand Hearth’s Warming party at the palace every year and just puts on a play.”

The new information made Shining Armor give a start. “Wait, are you saying that the majority of Equestria has to stay happy and united, or we’ll all die from the cold and starvation?”

“Why did you think I never told Celestia she could shove her goodwill ambassador position up her plot or just do a really bad job my first couple of years?” Cadance replied with a roll of her eyes. “She frightened me into keeping the position.”

The city was quiet.

Too quiet.

Shining Armor’s hooves made a loud ‘chink’ sound rather than the usual hard clop as they walked down the street. To say it made him feel on edge was an understatement. It was also odd to see the grass hadn’t died, despite being exposed to the freezing cold for at least the better part of the week. But the crops Cadance had inspected on the way in hardly looked normal. So it wasn’t a large leap in logic to figure out that the other foliage would be odd as well.

There was also the much creepier issue. “Where is everypony?” Shining Armor asked as he looked around the empty streets.

“Well, maybe the Empire came back, but the populace...didn’t,” Cadance replied as her eyes swept over the houses that were a mix of more traditional squares next to buildings that had just been grown wild, with sides jutting out everywhere. The steps were all made of traditional stone, though. And the doors had been carved from wood. It didn’t look like crystal made good material for either of those.

Shining Armor looked back at the mare. “So, what are your orders, Your Highness?”

After blinking at the question, Cadance let out a little laugh. “Shiny, you don’t have to call me that. I really wouldn’t call this being out in public.”

“Cadance, this place makes me edgy. When I get edgy, I fall back on my training,” Shining Armor told her. “You’re the Princess. You’re the one used to dealing with the weirdos outside of Equestria. You’re the one who’s had whole conversations with Luna. You’re the one who should be making the calls here. So, what are your orders, Highness?”

The pink mare might have blushed, but it was always so had to tell with her coat. “Oh, well...in that case…” Cadance took a moment to think, prancing around in a circle as she peered further down the streets that they could see from the ground. “We should see if we can find anypony by checking the homes. After that, we’ll head to the palace to see if there’s any information about what might have happened to everypony. Important ponies like to keep lots of literature about themselves around. I just hope it isn’t all written in Old Ponish.”

After taking a look around, Shining Armor led them down a road that eventually came to a residential area before finding a moderately-sized house and knocking on the front of the door. Then, after giving it a few more taps, he sighed. “If there’s anypony inside, I’m giving you fair warning that we are coming in. Please stand away from the door,” the unicorn announced before his horn lit up and the piece of wood blocking their way was ripped off of its hinges. “Hello?”

Shining Armor slowly entered the house that didn’t look as dark as it should have been before noticing that light was actually able to come through the walls, solving that little mystery. The living room was clean, without any dust on it to indicate a thousand years of nothing happening.

Although, the real surprising thing about what he found inside was the pony who was currently sitting on the floor in the kitchen. She was a blue earth pony, but looked different than any other pony that Shining Armor had ever seen. Her coat was smooth, almost impossibly so, and there was a dull sheen that covered her entire body. If not for the fact she was eating a yellow gem that looked like corn, Shining Armor would have thought she was some kind of statue.

“Cadance, I think I found something,” Shining Armor called out before turning back to the...crystal pony? Looks like whatever affected the crops and grass might have done something to the ponies as well.

The pony continued to eat, oblivious to his presence.

When Cadance came in, she looked past the stallion and smiled. “Oh, hello. Sorry about the door. We were...we came from Equestria,” she said. “Um...can you hear me?”

The pony looked up from her food and turned to stare at Cadance for several seconds. “What...door?” she asked in a slow and lifeless tone.

“The one at the front of your house,” Cadance told her as she put on a nervous smile. “Don’t worry, we can fix it if you want.”

After several seconds, the pony blinked. “Oh...okay,” she said before going back to eating.

Cadance gave Shining Armor a nervous look that he quickly shared with her before she turned her head back to the mare. “Um...do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“...okay,” the pony replied after taking another bite of her food.

Cadance took a deep breath, then held it for a few seconds before exhaling it slowly and putting on a smile. “Well, I suppose we should start with the introductions. I’m Princess Mi Amore Ca-”

Before Cadance could even finish, the pony that looked more like she was sleep walking than actually being away suddenly went rigid before her eyes widened. “Amore! Princess Amore?” she asked in a loud voice that sounded horrified.

The question got a nervous laugh out of Cadance. “Well, I don’t usually go by that name, but-”

“FORBIDDEN!” the crystal pony suddenly shouted before she put her hooves to her head. “FORBIDDEN!” She shouted again before slamming her head onto the table so hard it cracked beneath her. “FORBIDDEN!”

As Cadance backed away, horrified at the sight of the pony breaking her muzzle while screaming over and over before the strange mare fell to the ground and began slamming it against that over and over, Shining Armor came forward to wrap the pony in his magic to lift her into the air. “C-Calm down! What are you talking about?”

“FORBIDDEN!” the pony cried as she struggled in the air before letting out a loud screech that didn’t sound like anything an equine should ever make.

Unsure of what to do, Shining Armor could only step in front of Cadance as cracks started to appear all over the screaming pony before it began to vibrate, and actually shatter while still held in the stallion’s magic.

Shivering in the blanket Shiny had found for her while sitting on a patch of grass, Cadance felt like she wanted to throw up again. It had been nearly an hour since she had seen the mare try to kill herself before succumbing to...whatever it was that had taken her life, and she still felt ill just thinking about it.

All those old classes in anatomy did nothing to prepare her for what the inside of a pony actually looked like.

When Shining Armor came back out of the house, Cadance looked up at him in desperation. “Did you find anything?”

The stallion shook his head. “No journals or books in the house, and I’m pretty sure this place predates newspapers,” he said before sitting down next to her. “I still don’t understand what that was. Making like that...”

“It was a curse,” Cadance told him before taking a deep breath to try and steady herself.

Shining Armor looked back over to her. “Cadance, curses aren’t real.”

The near pre-programmed response got a sigh from Cadance as she released her breath. “Just like changelings and wendigoes, right?” she asked before shaking her head. “It was a curse, Shiny. My...magic tutor told me about them, once. And I looked up some more information after Chrysalis. Curses are unnatural magic. They do things that shouldn’t happen to the surrounding world, like...getting rid of an empire for a thousand years, or making a pony crack apart instead of...dying naturally.”

Another shiver ran through Cadance’s body. Just talking about it made her remember that poor mare’s face. She got the feeling that Luna would be coming to see her for some time to come, if the mare could fit it into her schedule. How a single pony was supposed to act as warden for all the dreams of Equestria on top of guarding the night was a mystery to her.

“So...what now?” Shining Armor asked.

Cadance considered her options. She couldn’t ask another one of the crystal ponies what was going on. It could very well end just as badly. So, she focused on the second stage of her plan. “We’ll head to the palace and-” Cadance cut herself off as the sun suddenly went down leaving her and Shining Armor in darkness. “Huh, must have lost track of the time.” She wished Celestia would give some kind of warning before she set the sun. Would it have killed her to move it until it was nearly gone from the horizon for an hour before completely getting rid of the thing?

A cold wind blew through the air as Cadance stood up on all four hooves to light her horn, which Shiny followed suit not long after. “Okay, we’ll head to the palace and get some sleep. Then pick things up in the morning,” he told her.

If they were lucky, there would be something to help explain what was going on at the palace.

“Crystals.”

As Luna’s moon came into the sky, Cadance started to feel on edge with how the extra illumination helped create more shadows all around her and Shining Armor rather than just one big, black amorphous blob that she couldn’t see anything beyond what her horn lit up. It was odd how the more a pony could see at night, the more their imagination could turn against them. Trees became monsters, houses became giants, and really creepy looking masses of black smoke...were...really creepy looking masses of black smoke that flowed over things like a black tide of evil.

“Shiny...what is that?” Cadance asked as she watched what looked like a mass of darkness fall over a house she could see in the moonlight and just consume it in a sheet of black.

“Crystals.”

Shining Armor frowned. “I’m gonna guess...it’s something we should be running from,” he said as the darkness extended their way.

Not wasting the time to voice her agreement, Cadance turned and galloped away from the dark mass along with her husband, keeping pace with the stallion even though her pegasus speed and earth pony stamina allowed her to outdo the unicorn despite the great deal of physical training he went through.

“Crystals!”

Behind them, the darkness turned, and Cadance could swear she saw a pair of eyes glare at her before the living shadow stretched forward in their direction, no longer bothering to extend in one slow mass, but actually stretching itself down the road after the two ponies in an obvious attempt to catch them.

As she continued to run from the darkness, Cadance...felt the excitement of the life and death chase fill her with a mix of joyful emotions. “Can you believe it, Shiny? Something’s actually trying to kill us!” she said with glee.

“Are you kidding me?” he shouted back at her. “How is this a good thing?”

Cadance gave a laugh. “Because, this isn’t just a stupid diplomatic mission anymore!” she said happily before they made it to the edge of the palace’s grounds, where Cadance spun around and threw off her warm jacket so she could spread her wings. “Now that we’ve calmed down a bit, let’s show this monster who’s boss!”

Thankfully, Shining Armor turned around with Cadance to tap the edge of his horn to hers, letting Cadance feel his love, and slight annoyance, for her before she channeled the emotions and unleashed them in a shield spell that swept over the city and didn’t even slow down when it hit the darkness to knock it away.

Once her spell had washed over the city, leaving it much warmer than it had been a minute ago thanks to the odd reaction some of the crystal structures had with her love magic, Cadance took up to the sky for her obligatory victory speech. “HA! Take that you-” she managed to get out before noticing the dark energies massing at the edge of the green grass that marked the outer boundaries of the small empire. “Oh, you’re still here.”

The darkness charged at her again, and Cadance lit up her horn before sending out another pulse of love magic that lit up the night and pushed the darkness away.

Only to have it mass again and move towards her once her spell had faded.

“Oh, come on!” Cadance yelled before another pulse of love magic knocked it out of the city.

After which it massed and charged again, only for her to beat it back.

However, unlike the last few times, Cadance concentrated and surrounded the city, as well as the countryside, with a magical barrier linked to her horn before she landed back on the ground to frown in the general direction that the darkness had come from. “Hey, you like that? Do ya? Let’s see you get back in now. Come on, let’s see it. Let’s see you get back in,” Cadance taunted. “Well you can’t, can you? HA!”

Once she was done telling the darkness off, Cadance noticed Shining Armor standing next to her. “Yes, Shiny?”

“So...what now?” he asked before looking up at her horn. “You can’t hold a shield spell this big indefinitely.”

Cadance snorted at his worries. “Oh, come on, Shiny. All I have to do is wait till morning. That thing came out at night, so it probably hates the sunlight. Since, you know, it’s obviously made of darkness,” she said before coming to a slight problem with her plan. “I’ll just have to stay up...all night.”

After letting out a sigh, Shining Armor looked to his backpack. “I’ll get the coffee and…” He frowned at the crystal tree in their field of vision. “And go tear someone’s door off its hinges so that we have something to burn.”

In the hours that followed, Cadance learned that fighting evil wasn’t as exciting as Shiny’s comics made it out to be. After he fell asleep, she was left to hold the spell in place with nothing to do but walk around the newly discovered crystal palace. Since casting required too much concentration for her to read anything, Cadance found herself in an ever increasing funk that was just so boring.

Minute after minute, hour after hour. All she had to do was hold up a stupid shield spell to keep out the darkness that didn’t even seem that tough. As soon as morning came, she was going to drop her spell, get some sleep in one of the bedrooms she found, then wake up and go to the edge of the empire so she could take the fight to that thing. After Shiny took a few seconds to teach her how to fight, that is.

Attack spells couldn’t be that hard to learn.

Then, when it was finally time for dawn to break, going by what her pocket watch said since all she could see was the blue of her shield, Cadance finished off her eighth cup of extra caffeinated coffee before going to get Shining Armor. Who she found curled up in his sleeping bag, set in front of the throne room. It was sweet for him to tell her that if she wasn’t going to sleep, he wouldn’t be using the luxury of a bed, but Cadance was going to force him into one come tonight.

“Okay Shiny, time to wake up,” she told him with a yawn before poking the pony hard enough to get a response.

Shining Armor groaned a lot, but slowly got to his hooves and looked around with half-lidded eyes. “C-Cadance? I had this weird dream that-oh, wait...we’re really here. Buck,” he grumbled.

After rolling her eyes, she handed her stallion a cup of coffee and led him over to the throne room’s eastern exit before heading up the stairs to what had been somepony’s bedroom. Not the ruler of the Empire, that room had been all tacky spikes and empty braziers. “Okay Shiny, I’m gonna crash here for the day, you take a look around while I’m out. See if there’s anything to find about that thing out there. Then, when I’m up, we can work on finding a more permanent solution to the problem,” she told him before cutting the spell and flopping down in the bed that had been calling out to Cadance for a good portion of the night.

“Uh...Cadance?” the bed, who sounded a lot like Shining Armor, said.

Cadance let out a grumpy moan. “Quiet, I’m already sleeping on you. Stupid bed.”

“Cadance...it’s still night out.”

Hearing her husband’s nonsensical words and knowing them to be his, because beds never said such things in trepidation, Cadance raised her head before moving back onto the cold, hard, and loud floor to look out the window with a frown. Outside, the darkness of the sky made it so it was hard for even her eyes to make out anything, despite pegasi being the tribe with the best vision.

Still, she just let out a sigh before shaking her head. “Oh Shiny, that’s not the night sky. It’s just a really thick layer of cloud cover that’s blocking all the sunlight from reaching the land below.” Cadance would forgive his ignorance. It was normal for unicorns to know nothing about the weather.

“But...doesn’t that mean the shadow monster can still get in?” he asked. “In fact, he probably spent all night gathering the clouds himself for when the sun came up.”

Cadance rolled her eyes and began to head back to the bed that was missing her so much. There wasn’t any way that something like that could-

“Crystals.”

The pink pony princess frowned before running back to the window, the need for sleep forgotten for the moment as she saw a now-familiar darkness begin to creep across the land...again. “Oh, for the love of-seriously?” she demanded.

Luna walked into the dining hall as Celestia sat down to breakfast, a large stack of pancakes sitting where her dinner should be. She kept her eye from twitching, because the last time Luna had shown real displeasure at anything he sister did, a mental health specialist had shown up at her door for a month and talked to her with hoof puppets to help insure that Luna wasn’t going to go on a psychotic killing spree and need to be sealed up again.

Pretending that she didn’t even see the food Celestia had prepared for her baby sister, since the decoration certainly looked like they were made for a foal of ten, Luna frowned when she noticed the larger alicorn reading from a book that didn’t have a title with a bit of glee in her eyes. “Is there something amusing within the pages, Sister?”

“It’s a message from Cadance!” she said happily. “Apparently, Sombra has also returned along with the Crystal Empire. Oh, this is perfect!”

The sleep in Luna’s body was beaten back at the news of such an old foe returning from the great beyond. “I shall rally the troops and prepare for a siege. This time, we will have the villain's head!”

Celestia held up a hoof. “Wait, Luna. I’ve already taken steps to remedy the problem.”

“Good. We shall done our armor and-”

“Twilight and her friends are coming here so I can send them to the North,” Celestia told her before she could finish.

Luna’s mouth dropped at her sister’s words. “Twilight and her friends?” she repeated. “Sister, why them?” The logical ponies to send would have been Celestia and Luna, themselves.

“Because, I think it is time for me to take Twilight to the next phase of her training,” she told the mare. “Now that Cadance has failed in the task I assigned-”

“A task you wanted her to fail,” Luna told the other mare. She was no fool. It was obvious that Celestia had been rubbed the wrong way by the fact Cadance and her stallion had been the one to defeat Chrysalis. A thousand years may have gone by, but politics was the same game as it always was. “You told her nothing of Sombra, nothing of the dangers she would face the Empire. You just let her gallop off towards a cliff!”

Celestia sighed and shook her head. “Cadance did that on her own. Besides, it would not matter what knowledge she would have had, Luna. If it had been Cadance’s Destiny to liberate the Empire from Sombra, then she would have done it instead of calling for help,” the mare said before looking back to the book and frowning as she mumbled. “Now, maybe she’ll learn her place in Equestria.”

The explanation made Luna understand that she wouldn’t be getting a straight answer out of her sister any time soon. Which made it a waste of time to stick around. So, she grabbed some fruit from the bowl in the middle of the table with her magic and headed towards her own chambers.

Although she knew time could change a pony, Luna could barely believe that her sister had become so ridiculously arrogant in the past thousand years. While Luna had known several fanatics in her long lifetime that clung to Destiny as their explanation for everything that ever happened, she had never dreamed that her sister would be so consumed by it.

Then again, the old figures of the Destiny zealots didn’t quite fit her sister. It was almost as if Celestia saw herself as the ultimate arbiter of Destiny, deciding where it should go rather than having a singular vision about how it led her towards a goal that mattered more than anything else.

Luna had to wonder what was going to happen when Celestia met the same fate as every other pony who thought they had learned the secrets to Destiny, much less been the one to control it. I suppose I will have to be the one to pick up the pieces, she told herself before opening the door to her apartments and headed towards the bedroom.

Page 21: Date

The crowds cheered, the coats shined, the air made Cadance’s horn hum in resonance with the Crystal Heart as it filled the air with its mana, the ponies all pranced and sang as Twilight’s friends went on about her passing some kind of test. While the first two did lift her spirits and the third made her confused and slightly worried, Cadance couldn’t do anything to keep the crushing feeling of failure at bay. Even being rejuvenated by the Crystal Heart hadn’t helped her rise up from the mire of thoughts that were threatening to pull her down.

Her first real test as an alicorn, and she had failed it. Failed completely.

Part of her wanted to blame Celestia. A very large part that she agreed with, because the mare had said nothing about the Crystal Heart or anything else that would have been helpful. She had sent the two of them in completely blind to the dangers.

Not that Cadance had stayed long enough and demanded to know, either. She had gotten caught up in the moment, the thought of what it would be like to finally prove herself...to herself.

“So, I’ve been talking to some of the other ponies and-Cadance?”

The alicorn turned her head to look at her husband, glistening with a shiny new coat that was almost transparent. “Please tell me this isn’t going to last.”

Shining Armor shook his head. “No, they said that whenever ponies came to the Fair from out of town, their coats would go back to normal in an hour or so. Unborn foals that are exposed to the Heart’s magic is what makes the change stick. But stuff like making the Crystal Heart flood the Empire with its energies only happen once a year. So...maybe a sign or something at the train station?”

“Okay,” Cadance replied with a sigh. That was one worry done with, at least. “Now, what were you saying?”

After a few seconds of giving her a measured look, Shining Armor went back to his previous topic. Not that it wasn’t obvious to Cadance he knew something was bothering her, but her husband also knew enough to prioritize. “So, I was talking with some of the ponies that were in charge of the Empire before Sombra took over. The ones that are still alive, anyway,” he added uneasily. “They’re willing to meet with you to discuss what has happened in the past thousand years and the best way to move forward.”

Despite the good news, Cadance hung her head. “So, I’m going to be meeting with a bunch of foreign leaders...again,” she said before a stab of self loathing entered her mind. She knew the job was important, but it just wasn’t her.

It was politics, and Cadance hated politics. It was all lies and exaggerations.

“Well, not like there is anything left to be done here,” she said before turning back towards the spire of a palace that stood at the center of the Crystal Empire and headed towards it. She may not have been the Empire’s ruler, it’s savior, or even a member of the castle cleaning staff, but she was going to be using one of the beds inside, anyway.

Shining Armor was quick to catch her. “Okay, what’s got you all flustered?” he asked. “I know you’re tired, but I would think after not dying to Sombra, you’d be in a better mood.”

Despite not wanting to talk about it, Cadance knew that the best thing to do was get everything out in the open. Letting things fester only made them worse. “I failed, Shiny. I wanted to save everypony and...I failed.”

“It’s really bothering you that much, huh?” Shining Armor asked before raising an eyebrow.

Cadance nodded.

Shining Armor stopped when they got into the entryway of the palace. “How come?”

“Well…” Cadance sighed and sat down on the floor to look at it. The thing was polished enough to look back at her. “It’s...I never told you about how it was for me when I first became an alicorn, did I?”

After looking up for a moment in an obvious ‘thinking stance’ Shining Armor turned his attention back to Cadance. “Well, I remember you saying it was hard. But...no, you never said anything more than that.”

Cadance sighed, again. “The week after I...was discovered and moved to Canterlot, I was introduced to my magic tutor. She was another student of Celestia’s, before Twilight came along. She was brilliant, harsh, demanding, and a dozen other things,” Cadance told him before a melancholy smile crossed her face. “I might of been the alicorn, but she was the one with all the magical power.”

“No offense Cadance, but I get the feeling from you that she was a bit of a jerk,” Shiny told her.

A giggle escaped Cadance’s lips. “Oh, she definitely was, and a lot more than a bit,” she said with a smile. “But, my third week of being in Canterlot, I was starting to really doubt myself. I didn’t think I deserved to be an alicorn. That there had been some kind of mistake. It showed in my magic lesson, and I just fell down after being unable to do a basic transmutation. Then I asked her ‘why are you here? Teaching me is just a waste of time’.”

“Then Sunset, that was her name, by the way. Sunset Shimmer, she said, ‘if you were a waste of time, I wouldn’t be here. Now get up and try again’,” Cadance went on in her best imitation of Sunset’s voice before she let out a little laugh through her nose. “And it hit me that, even though she was horrible at showing it, Sunset actually believed in me.”

Shining Armor raised an eyebrow. “Uh, Cadance. You know that Princess Celestia had probably just ordered her to teach you, right?”

The suggestion got a laugh from Cadance. “Sweetie, you don’t know my big sister. Nopony could tell her what to do, not even Celestia.”

“B-Big sister?” Shining Armor repeated.

Cadance rolled her eyes. “Well, not my actual sister. But, that was the way I thought of her,” she said. “She was cool, determined to the point of being hard-headed, and was one of those ponies...you know the type, the ones that pretend not to have emotions in order to try and look tough? That was her to a fault! And I wanted to be just like her.”

After obviously thinking things through again, Shining Armor frowned. “Hold on, if she was Princess Celestia’s student, then how come I’ve never heard of her?”

The question brought up things Cadance tried not to show. But she was just too tired to care at the moment. “Because Celestia had everything to do with Sunset banned from the castle and ordered her name never to be spoken in Celestia’s presence again,” Cadance told him sadly. “I’m not sure on the details, what with all the conflicting reports I’ve heard, not to mention the other little thing I learned recently, but...they had a fight. A big fight. By all credible accounts, Sunset ending up running through a magical portal that hasn’t functioned properly since she used it.”

A sudden realization appeared on Shining Armor’s face. “And that’s why you hate her.”

With Shining Armor using the H-word, Cadance felt as if she had been stabbed. She didn’t like to admit it to herself, but...she did hate Celestia. She had hated her since the day Sunset disappeared. Hatred that had only grown since Twilight came into Celestia’s tutelage and the old nag had found a way to avoid feeling anything about how she had failed her sister, her default-daughter, Cadance, and everypony that had ever gotten close to her. “It’s what started it,” the pink alicorn told her. “But...Shiny, before your sister came along, Celestia was a different pony. She was harsh, but...she listened to other points of view. She doubted herself, she didn’t talk about Destiny every other sentence, she was...normal.” Or as normal as a pony as old as Celestia could be.

“What does Twilight have to do with it?” he asked.

Cadance sighed at the question. It was one that had plagued her mind for some time, but it was only after meeting Luna and having some time to really think about things after the wedding that she had managed to put it all together. “I’ve seen Twilight’s tiara. It’s the same as her cutie mark. I think Celestia recognized it, and she’s been using it as an excuse to avoid taking responsibility for things. For anything bad that ever happened in her lifetime. Luna had to get banished because of Destiny. Sunset had to disappear because of Destiny. I had to spend most of my life going to meetings where I had to lie and give other ponies nothing but false smiles because of Destiny. Oh and, it wasn’t my Destiny to save the Crystal Empire, it was Twilight’s!” Despite how ill prepared she had been.

Even though part of that lack of preparation was her fault.

Holding up a hoof to stop her from ranting, Shining Armor pointed something out. “Technically, it was Spike that brought you the Crystal Heart,” he said. “And I heard about what happened under the palace. Without him, Twilight would have never bypassed Sombra’s trap. He’s as responsible for saving everypony as she is.”

The years of politics had Cadance’s mind latch onto that little tidbit. “Really?” she asked before a plot formed in her mind to make Spike the hero of the story, not Twilight. Although, after it was finished, she frowned down at herself. Was she really thinking about taking the glory from her little sister?

“Yeah, Twilight’s really worried about what Celestia will think since it was Spike that passed her test, instead of Twily,” Shining Armor told her.

Cadance blinked. “Oh, right...that,” she grumbled as she was reminded of what nearly killed them all. It was disturbing how Twilight and her friends had tied their hooves in their efforts of saving the Crystal Empire because Celestia had decreed it as some kind of test. If things hadn’t gone the way they did, which cut it all very close, everyone could have been enslaved by Sombra. “You know what? Fine, as far as I’m concerned, Spike was who saved the Empire. Not me, not Twilight, nopony.”

Somehow, that made her feel a bit better.

“So...mind if I tell you something you’re probably not going to want to hear?” Shining Armor asked.

Cadance looked back at him and sighed. “That I’m an idiot that nearly got us both killed?”

After giving a shake of his head, Shining Armor took in a deep breath. “Celestia’s right about you.”

It took everything Cadance had not to smack her husband right then and there. “There better be more to it than that, or you’ll be sleeping on your own, in a doghouse, for the rest of time,” she said. “And I’ll make sure it’s a doghouse on the other side of the temperature controlled barrier.”

“Cadance, I’ve watched you for a few years now, and I can tell that you’re good at bringing other ponies together,” Shining Armor told her. “You know what’s in their hearts, and that’s even more important than what’s in their heads. I get that when you were a filly, you saw this cool mare and wanted to be just like her, but you’re you, not her. So, go be you. There’s a whole bunch of ponies out there needing to know what this new Equestria is like and...I think that you’re the only pony who can really get to the heart of what they want to know and show them what they need to see.”

Cadance frowned at her stallion for several seconds before she let out a long sigh and dropped her head. “Stupid, sexy, sensible husband,” she grumbled with a little pout. “Fine. I’ll go for a meet and greet to set up a real meeting. Because something tells me when this crystal pony thing wears off, I’m going to need a bed to crash into.”

Life settled back into what had become a new normal for Sunset over the past two months. She woke up, looked into whatever interested her for that particular morning, ate breakfast, went to magic practice with Noelle and watched her while working out, dealt with everyday insanity as she did the laundry, ate lunch, dealt with more insanity, did whatever that needed to be taken care of that afternoon, carried Vanessa back up to her bed, used a spell to have Vanessa throw up her liquor before she went to bed, put Vanessa to bed, and then finally go to sleep on her own.

Two days after returning from Nairn, Sunset was relieved to hear that the kids that had been drained of their magic were properly treated for their problem and had their magic restored. Even though it meant the two days of magical technology lessons she got from Secre ended up being a total waste.

It was on the third day that she opened her big mouth and messed everything up…

Sunset was taking a rest on the grass as she watched Noelle point her wand at the nearby tree with a frown. It would have been nice to say that the girl’s talents had grown since then, but...a loud splash in the bushes to the right of the tree said otherwise.

“Okay, time to take a break,” Vanessa announced as the expression on Noelle’s face became more agitated. “There’s something we need to talk about.”

Noelle let out a groan before turning away from her target. “Like what? How am I flooding the forest?”

The woman shook her head as she sat on the red and white blanket in her underwear. “No. It’s three days until the squad’s founding day, which Yami uses as an excuse to get us all out of work,” she told them. “Which means it’s another day off. And this time, I’m definitely getting you girls to-”

Before she could announce her plans and possibly make Sunset feel even worse about what she needed to say, the redhead raised a hand. “Um...I already have plans, actually.”

“How do you already have plans?” Vanessa asked before she crossed her arms under her breasts. “You’re newbies, and I know nobody’s told you about squad specific holidays.”

An uncomfortable blush overcame Sunset. She had been with the girls long enough to know where this was going to go, and that was to a very embarrassing place, full of all kinds of questions. “I...have a date,” she admitted after taking a moment to steel herself.

“WHAT?” Noelle yelled before she went down to pin Sunset to the ground by the shoulders and straddled her body as she got in the not-unicorn’s face. “How do you have a date? Wait, never mind. That’s not important. Who do you have a date with?”

Vanessa sat up a little straighter. “Yeah, I’m curious about that one as well,” she said. “Have you been stepping out on us, kitten?”

The nickname that didn’t suit her at all made Sunset groan before she fought Noelle off and got to her feet. “I wanted to research spatial magic, so I offered to let Finral take me out on a date if he let me read his grimoire,” Sunset explained reluctantly.

“You…” Vanessa managed to say as she got a disturbed look on her face. “You whored yourself out over a book?”

Sunset glared back at her. “Oh come on, it’s just a date!”

“It’s Finral,” Noelle added. “I’ve only known him for a few months, but I can already tell he goes through more women than Yami does toilet paper!”

The odd analogy had Sunset frowning. “Come on, he can’t be that bad.”

“He’s probably got more bastards than any other noble in the kingdom!” Noelle went on.

Vanessa blinked before becoming thoughtful as she tapped her chin. “Actually, come to think of it. I don’t think he’s sired any children,” she said, making both of the girls look at her in disbelief.

“You’re kidding,” Noelle said in disbelief before she raised an eyebrow. “What? Is he one of those secret gays?”

The odd descriptor made Sunset blink. “Secret whatnow?”

Noelle turned her attention to Sunset and just looked at her for a moment before she sighed. “Oh right, outsider commoner,” she said before crossing her arms. “It’s a joke in the Noble Realm. You know how every noble in the realm is supposed to have kids to increase Clover’s military power, right? Well, once in a blue moon, you get a man or woman who’s interested in same sex relationships. But, they’re still expected to breed. So, a guy who likes guys finds a girl who likes girls, they get married, sleep with whomever they want, and everybody just talks about how they expect a child any day now.”

“But...if everyone knows, then why do they call it a secret?” Sunset asked.

After taking a moment to rub her head, Noelle looked back at the redhead. “Because that’s the joke,” she went on. “It’s just a show for the commoners to read about in the papers.”

Sunset digested the information with a frown. “...you guys are weird.”

“Says the girl that prefers to be naked!” Noelle shot back.

Before the back and forth to devolve further, Vanessa stood up and put on a pair of light shoes she used for walking around outside in her underwear. “Well, you girls have fun. I’m going to head back inside for a drink.”

Noelle looked up at the sky for a moment before turning her attention back to the older woman. “It’s not even noon!”

Not ten minutes after Vanessa had left, Noelle went back to practicing, but her heart really wasn’t in it. Weeks of training had allowed her to hit something nearly twenty feet away if she kept her focus, but after hearing the bomb that the redhead had just dropped, keeping her focus was…

“Hey Noelle, what do you say to going out on a date with me?” an imaginary Asta asked before the royal launched a concentrated blast of water while mentally replying to him. Like I’d ever do something like that!

Said blast shot forward, curved upward, and then looped around to come at Noelle from on high. The resulting impact left her soaked, but otherwise unharmed. Stupid Asta, she thought.

Several feet away, Sunset picked herself up off the ground from where she was doing pushups like Asta tended to, if at a much slower pace, and frowned at her. “Okay, backfiring magic means that it’s time to call it quits for the day,” she said before her stomach growled a little. “Besides, I’m getting hungry.”

Noelle groaned and reached up to cover herself before Sunset began to draw the liquid away from her with such fine control that it made Noelle want to scream. But only sometimes. She had grown up in a house with someone who had the best mana control in the kingdom after all. So being lackluster while standing next to a genius wasn’t anything new to her.

“So...do you...like Finral, or something?” she asked after being made dry.

An eyebrow on Sunset’s face went up. “Is that what was distracting you?” she asked.

The question got a blush from Noelle as she thought of the real reason she asked the question. “Not really. But, you can’t just tell me something like that and not expect a followup!”

Sunset shrugged nonchalantly. “Eh. I can’t really say I like or dislike him,” she said before tapping a finger on her chin. “Although, he’s a lot better than some of the nobles I’ve met over here. But still, isn’t spending time with someone on a date how you figure those things out?”

“Well...there’s...other ways,” Noelle argued more because she didn’t want Sunset to have the last word than anything else as they began to walk back to the odd mansion the Black Bulls lived in. Thinking about those was putting a blush on her cheeks. “Like, working alongside someone.”

After giving Noelle a confused look, Sunset’s eyes widened a bit, and she stuck an open hand with a fist. “Oh, I get what’s got you so flustered. You’re thinking about going on a date with Asta.”

Noelle’s face turned red. “N-N-No I’m not!” she insisted, trying not to think about just what they could do together. It wouldn’t be a boring dinner date. They would need something with a bit of action.

“Honestly, I would have thought the two of you would have done something the day I was laying on my backside,” Sunset said as she went ahead, linking her hands behind her head while looking up.

When Noelle flinched and froze halfway into a step, Sunset turned towards her with wide eyes. “Oh my gosh! You did do something,” she said before spinning around and getting into the other girl’s face. “Spill!”

After Noelle’s face twitched for a bit, she let out a sigh and sagged her shoulders. “We went to eat at this restaurant that was run by some redhead named Rebecca. Two of the kids we saved were hers and she offered to treat us to a meal, and Asta needed to take a break from writing his report that nobody’s going to want to read because it’s so damn long,” she grumbled.

“So, how did it go?” Sunset asked after backing off.

Noelle groaned and rolled her eyes as she remembered just how badly everything went. “He ate like a pig, and I stammered a lot like an idiot,” she said. “So basically, our usual noontime meal.”

The explanation made Sunset look like she wanted to laugh, but a small realization held her back. She crossed her arms and looked down at the ground to frown for a second before speaking. “Well, maybe that’s for the best.”

“Come again?” Noelle asked, having gotten completely lost over the sudden change in her best friend.

Sunset took in a deep breath and let it out after thinking for several seconds. “Hey Noelle, has Asta ever told you about the nun that took care of us back at the church?”

“You mean Sister Lilly?” she asked, already answering Sunset’s question before taking a moment to think. Aside from that she was a nun that helped run the church where Asta had grown up, Noelle didn’t really know anything about her. “Well, I know her name, but not much else. Why?”

“Well, Asta had a huge crush on her since before I ever met him, saying he was going to marry her someday,” she explained before holding a hand up to stop Noelle from pointing out the obvious flaw in that plan. “I know, it was impossible, and just one of those things every kid probably says to an older woman that’s pretty, but you know how stubborn Asta can be. He held onto that idea until the day she died, right in front of him.”

The gloomy feelings Sunset was emitting quickly spread to Noelle, and she let her shoulders bend forward a little. “Oh...that’s right. Your adoptive family was killed by a mage from Diamond.”

“I didn’t see it myself, but Asta was standing right next to her. She pushed him out of the way,” Sunset said before she reached over to grab Noelle’s hand. “I don’t know how much he’s holding onto that, but it’s only been a few months since she died. So...don’t try and force anything, okay?”

Noelle didn’t say anything, but she squeezed the girl’s hand.

Finral sat atop the Black Bull’s hideout, deep in thought. The perplexing problem that perturbed him so was a tough one. While he had been out with many women, struck out with many women, and gone down on many women, none of them had access to him the way another member of the squad did.

If he screwed up going out with Sunset, Final had a sneaking suspicion that it would haunt him for the rest of what could possibly be a very short life. After all, the girl was ridiculously powerful for a newbie. And as she got older, that power would only increase. On top of which, certain members of his squad, one of which had family connections that trumped his own on top of a great deal of magical power and another that had been around since the beginning of the Black Bulls wouldn’t be very happy with him for the foreseeable future.

Maybe this was a mistake, the spatial mage told himself as he laid onto his back and put his hands behind his head.

What was he supposed to do with Sunset, anyway? Most girls were impressed enough with his spatial magic and ability to take them basically anywhere for a date with next to zero travel time. The redhead had already been to a lot of places in the kingdom, came from an even more exotic location, and had tastes that Finral hadn’t even begun to discover. About the only thing he knew of which was that she didn’t like to eat mutton or beef.

“So...maybe something culturally unique to humans, but somewhat related to horses?” he mumbled before trying to think of something. Like...horse races? Finral wondered as he tried to imagine what such a thing would be like…

“Eeek!” Sunset cried as she watched the equines gallop past the finish line with their rides on top of them before turning to her date. “Finral, they’re beating those poor little horses!”

Finral frowned. Wait, it would probably be something more like this, he thought before correcting his vision of things to come…

There was a loud explosion that blew up the horse track as Sunset launched fireball after fireball at the arena to horse sports before turning on the crowd. “YOU MONSTERS! I’ll burn you all to ash for this display of cruelty! WHO CAME UP WITH SOMETHING THIS BARBARIC?”

Everyone in the crowd pointed to the man sitting at a special box placed above the stands that the nobles were sitting in. There, King Clover let out a scream before Sunset launched herself at him. “SPORT OF KINGS THIS, YOU BASTARD!”

Finral blinked as the vision ended with Sunset committing regicide. “Yeah...not a good idea to show her something like that,” he mumbled.

So, he needed to come up with something else. As Finral’s thoughts went from idea to idea that was thrown away for one reason or another, a shadow fell across his vision, and he looked ‘up’ from where he was laying to spot a killer pair of legs attached to a pair of velvet panties. “Oh, hey Vanessa,” Finral mumbled before sitting up and turning around.

The fact that the resident near-nudist was actually wearing her clothes made Finral a little worried. Vanessa only put her clothes on at home when she was getting serious about something. “Hey Finral, I heard you’re taking my baby sister out on a date,” she asked before crossing her arms.

Finral sat up and turned around to look at the hottest thing in the hideout before gulping. Despite being clothed, Vanessa looked hotter than ever. And the way she had her arms crossed pushed her breasts up just enough to make them look even bigger than they already were. “So, uh…” Finral fought to move his eyes off the woman’s ripe melons and up to her face as he got to his feet. “Y-Yeah. Me and Sunset are, g-going out.”

The frown on the woman’s face made the spatial mage that much more nervous about his situation. Why was it that he felt like he just stole a cub from a mother bear’s den?

“Look, Finral,” Vanessa began before she pointed a finger right at his nose. “I know you do things a certain way when you’re with girls. Sunset acts real tough, but the truth is, she’s still pretty naive and innocent. If you take advantage of that, I’m going to be very, very angry. Got it?”

Finral slumped and sighed. “Yeah, I thought you’d say something like that,” he said before raising his hands up in a surrendering shrug. “But the thing is, I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with her. Where are you supposed to take an interdimensional horse?”

The expression on Vanessa’s face didn’t budge as she withdrew her hand. “A playhouse. Take her to one that’s got a musical showing. Trust me, she’ll like that. But, no opras. Then go somewhere outside to eat. Actually, get the food to go, and use your spatial magic to take her somewhere scenic might be a better idea. That way, she doesn’t have to sit in a restaurant while everyone else orders food that makes her uncomfortable to be around.”

With Vanessa giving him the unexpected advice, Finral could only stare at her in surprise for several seconds before finally finding his voice. “Oh-kay,” he said before thinking things over. “I do have some fancy clothes from a few years ago, but does Sunset-”

“I’ll whip something up for her that will work,” Vanessa told him before she got closer to the man with a frown on her face. “This is her first real date. Make sure it’s classy, but not too stuffy. So comb your hair...which reminds me, I need to do Sunset’s...what do you think about her wearing her hair up?”

Finral blinked. “Uh, Vanessa? I think you’re putting way too much thought into this.”

Which, as it turned out, was the worst possible thing that Finral could say. Vanessa turned back to him with a glare that might have killed several other men right on the spot. “A girl can never put too much thought into her first date!” she exclaimed before blinking and frowning and again. “Which reminds me. No alcohol. I drank too much when I went out with my first guy, and it kills me that I still can’t remember what happened that night.”

Dawn came, and Sunset found herself in Vanessa’s bedroom after both she and Noelle broke into the redhead’s quarters to drag her there. Hours later, having eaten a quick breakfast that Charmy brought up as part of what Sunset thought was some all female Black Bulls conspiracy plan, she looked at herself in the full body mirror the older woman kept on the inside of her closet door as Vanessa finished making the alterations to her green top. Which ended up turning it into a completely different set of clothes than what she had been wearing before. Instead of a blouse with a wide bottom that was more of a dress, Sunset found herself standing in a full-on gown.

The dress still left her shoulders completely bare, relying on what Sunset could only guess was magic to keep it up. Magic, or her breasts, which looked a little bigger after Vanessa reworked her bra a bit to give them a better direction. Further down the fancy dress, sequins that had been removed from another piece of clothing sparkled a slightly darker green against the lighter color, while three layers of fabric composed what covered everything below her waist, including her feet.

Sunset looked down at the sparkling gown that barely stopped a centimetre above the ground. “Are you sure this is going to be okay? I feel like I’m going to step on something.”

“You’ll be fine,” Vanessa assured the redhead as she examined one of her own gloves, then cracked it like a whip as her thread magic went to work. A second later, the thinner, shorter glove that had all five fingers was colored white. She handed it to Sunset. “Now, try this on.”

After doing like she was told, Sunset examined the long hand covering that almost went up to her elbow. “Uh, I think this is a bit long.”

From her place in the corner, Noelle let out a discerning hum. “Actually, I’d say it’s too short,” she said before coming up to help Sunset out of it and handing it back to Vanessa. “Gloves like these have been out of style for months. Long ones that go up to the shoulder are back in.”

Vanessa looked over to the shorter girl. “But, it’s still Summer.”

“Since when has practicality mattered in the world of fashion?” Noelle countered before handing the clothing over to the witch and doing a once over of Sunset’s body. “Now, let’s see...what color lipstick do you have?”

Feeling a little like a doll, Sunset frowned at the two of them. “Hey, shouldn’t I be the one deciding what I wear?”

Both of the girls shared an even look before turning their attention back to Sunset and speaking in tandem. “No.”

As Sunset gave them looks of disbelief, Noelle turned her attention back to Vanessa. “So, what about her hair?” the girl asked. “That is way too plain a style to be seen in a theater.”

“I was thinking something like this,” she said before grabbing a book on a nearby dresser to show it to Noelle.

The royal nodded. “Yeah. That’s in style too.”

Vanessa nodded before she brought over the stool that had been resting under her dresser with its own little beautification station and mirror that magnified everything it reflected. The woman’s magic touched Sunset’s clothes, and she saw them unravel a second later to reassemble on top of Vanessa’s bed in pristine condition. “Okay, now sit down.”

Fearing what might come next, Sunset did as she was told and planted her butt on the stool. That fear grew when Noelle grabbed her foot and gave it a careful study. “I think my sandals will fit you, and...hmmm, Vanessa? Do you have any red nail polish? Something just a tiny bit darker than Sunset’s hair. It will look good on her toes and fingers.”

“Nobody is even going to see my toes and fingers!” Sunset exclaimed.

Vanessa took a small bottle of polish out of her dresser and snorted. “That’s not the point.”

A second later, Noelle touched the sole of Sunset’s foot with her fingers. “Now, behave, or I’ll tickle you.”

The fear Sunset had been experiencing a moment ago returned a hundredfold and she quickly slouched in on herself. “I’ll be good.”

Okay, let’s see, Finral thought as he looked himself over in the mirror and adjusted his dark green coat with gold stylings on the cuffs. Snazzy overcoat...check. Quality cologne… check. Clean teeth...check. Contraceptive...better leave that here...Vanessa might kill me.

The last thing he got was a pair of tickets to the play, The Last Unicorn. It was supposed to be somewhat popular. Not enough to be sold out the night of the show, but not so much that Finral had his pick of seats, either.

With everything looking good, Finral headed out of his room and started down the stairs before running into Magna, who was coming up them. The man with the dark glasses blinked. “What the? What’re you up to, looking all fancy like that?”

Finral rolled his eyes. “I’m going on a date, obviously.”

“Pfft. Dude, you do that all the time without getting all fancy. What’s the deal with all...that?” Magna asked as he took a moment to gesture at Finral’s clothes. “You never put effort into going out on a date before.”

The insult to all of his previous efforts made Finral’s eye twitch. “I’ve put plenty of effort into going on dates!” he exclaimed.

Magna raised an eyebrow. “Then, how come you’re always striking out?”

“That’s…” Finral frowned at the man, not wanting to explain to him the complex intricacies of going out with female companions. It wasn’t as if he was looking for a wife or anything. “...you know what? I don’t need the stairs.”

The spatial mage opened up a portal, although Sunset said what he made was more like a tunnel, and jumped through it. With his end destination being the common room of the Black Bulls HQ, the travel time through the magical dimension he moved through was practically nothing, and Finral popped back up not a second later to see Vanessa standing behind...someone it took Finral a moment to recognize.

Sunset looked...good. Not the smoking hot to mildly cute type Finral went for, and definitely not her usual mix of tomboy with too curvy a figure. She had a classical beauty about her that reminded him of high-born ladies. Except for one minor thing…

“I swear, if you laugh, I’ll burn you half to death,” the girl in the bright green gown with her hair done up in a very classy bun threatened while she wore a scowl on her face.

With all the mana flared up behind her, Finral had to gulp down his nervousness before he could speak. HOW CAN SOMEONE THAT CUTE BE THAT THREATENING? Finral asked himself. “N-Nice dress.”

Thankfully, he didn’t have to deal with the irate outsider, as Vanessa reached over and pinched the girl on the shoulder, cutting off the aura of flaming doom before Sunset winced and gave Vanessa a look with her lips pressed together. “What?” she asked. “You said not to let me be pushed around.”

“You can do that without looking like you want to kill him,” Vanessa scolded her before giving Finral a look he had seen many times before. “And you can behave for a single night.”

Finral rolled his eyes at the way the witch was acting. “Yes mom, I’ll be sure to return your little girl, virtue intact.”

As Sunset gave the older woman a pensive look, Vanessa rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’m being the responsible one now. That should tell you something about this whole situation.”

“Well, better get going,” he said before offering his arm for Sunset to take.

…

…

…

“Um...is your shoulder okay?” she asked in confusion.

Finral had to fight to keep his smile steady. “Yes.”

“...then, why are you sticking your elbow out like that?” Sunset asked while pointing to the arm he was holding out for her to take.

Because of the more secure spatial magic blocker around the Noble Realm, Sunset and Finral had to use what looked to be a booming business thanks to the added security measures that prevented any spatial magic from being used. With the need to quickly move around the capital and spatial magic being slowed down around the mountain, a new kind of service industry had arisen to get things from point A to point B: magic carpets. The magic carpet that they took a seat on operated on the same principles as brooms, but were much more roomy, which meant that they had plenty of space for new passengers and cargo.

While the mages that piloted the things weren’t even at Magna’s level when it came to available mana, they could fly wealthy-looking people around the city after they had been dropped off at the edge of the commoner town that surrounded it. Once they were in the air and moving, everything became a bit too quiet for much too long.

“So...do you have plays...where you come from?” Finral asked.

The asinine question made Sunset give him a half-lidded look. “Yes. If anything, we have more things than you people do,” she said before taking in a deep breath before letting it out. “Okay...sorry, trying to be pleasant. You let me look at your grimoire after all, and…” Sunset tried to think of a way to phrase what she was thinking of correctly. “Even though I have absolutely no interest in making babies with you, that doesn’t mean that there is zero chance I’ll meet someone who somehow manages attract my attention. So, I need to know what I’m doing when it comes time for that kind of social interaction.”

Judging by the cringe stance that Finral had adopted, Sunset realized she probably could have phrased what she said a bit better. However, the explanation she gave the clothed ape wasn’t exactly true. Ever since she had come to Clover, Sunset had developed zero interest in the opposite sex, with just as little made in the way of girls.

“Sorry,” she apologized. “I’m still working on the nice, personal interaction thing. At least when it comes to stuff I don’t normally do. Like this whole dating thing.” For some reason, Sunset felt a bit nervous after she finished talking. Which was an odd feeling, but one that she understood. With Finral being the expert, she was not only putting her education in his hands tonight, but putting him in the position to judge her behavior.

The carpet landed near a large theater that looked about the size of the colosseum that Sunset took her Magic Knight Exam at, although the sight of it made her a little homesick. Somehow, it looked just like the Globe Trotter Theater back in Canterlot.

Then again, there seems to be a lot of similarities between our worlds, Sunset thought to herself as she thought up just half a dozen parallels that didn’t make sense. Even if Starswirl had seen the human world, there was no way a single pony could have had such an influence on either society that they mirrored each other to the point that humans and ponies did.

Finral gave Sunset the same confusing elbow gesture from before, and she looped her arm though it before moving forward with the older man and into the herd of humans that were heading inside the large building. The interior was just as opulent inside as the outside promised, with bright red rugs leading up the stairs in the middle to the second floor of seats and a dozen different kinds of fancy decorations scattered throughout the overgrown room

Once they had gotten through the large doorway, movement became much easier as the crowd broke apart to do everything from search for the bathroom, to get in line for food.

“So, you want some popcorn? It’s a tradition snack when-”

Sunset decided to stop the man before he could finish. “No thanks.”

Although Sunset hadn’t been to a play in the human world, she had eaten popcorn. The oddity of human teeth just weren’t made for the food. Stupid kernals got stuck in the most annoying places, and a human tongue just didn’t have the dexterity to remove them properly.

When Finral winced, Sunset frowned at herself. Had that been too...her? She had said thanks.

“Oh, Finral! I thought that was you!”

The female voice made Sunset look behind her to see who had spoken. It was an older woman, older than even what Sunset’s real age was supposed to be. Although she was beyond the average height for a woman, the way she stood a little sunken made her look a great deal shorter. Flowing black hair fell past her shoulders down to touch the beginnings of her breasts that managed to show themselves in the low neckline of her fancy pink dress, and a pair of dark brown eyes managed to look both kind and tired at the same time as she looked at Finral.

However, there was an oddity about her. While the woman had a good deal of mana, her body looked slightly pale and sickly. Sunset doubted she could express much of that magical energy as actual magic power to fuel her spells without her body giving out from the strain. Which contradicted almost everything Sunset knew about human magic. Humans with powerful magic were supposed to have equally powerful bodies.

“F-Finnes?” he stuttered

Sunset looked back and forth between the two. “You know each other?”

Finral cleared his throat. “Oh, um. Here, let me make the introductions,” he said before gesturing towards the tall woman with an open hand. “Sunset, this is Finnes Calmreich...my brother’s fiancee. Finnes, this is Sunset, she’s a squadmate of mine and-”

The woman’s face brightened a little. “Oh, the...ahem, person from out of town?” she asked.

Catching what the woman really meant, Sunset blinked. “You know about that?”

“Oh yes, I tend to hear a good deal of things in my house,” she said with a pleasant smile before making a light bow of her head. Then, she took Sunset’s hands in her own to hold them gently. “It’s such a joy to know that you have decided to settle in Clover. I um…” She spared a moment to glance at Sunset’s date. “And don’t pay attention to the rumors about Finral, I know that he’ll make a good husband.”

For his part, Finral looked like Finnes had just stabbed him through the heart. “S-Seriously?” he complained.

Sunset didn’t appreciate the comment and gave the woman a little glare. “This is just a date.”

“That’s how it always starts,” Finnes said in a gentle, but teasing manner before she let out a short series of coughs that shook her whole body.

A second later, Finral was moving to support the woman to the point that he was almost holding her up. “Whoa, are you okay?” he asked before putting on a small frown. “Wait a second. What are you even doing here? Shouldn’t you be resting in bed?”

The woman stopped coughing to give the man a little smile. “Probably. But, I fell asleep during the premiere showing, and just had to see the ending of this play. It was so booked up, this was the earliest date we could get seats for.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow before she looked over to Finral. “If this play has been sold out that long, then how did you get any tickets?”

“Well, we’re probably in cheaper seats,” Finral replied nervously before he turned his attention back to Finnes. “Now, what are you doing here alone? Sorry if this sounds bad, but you really should have someone around to watch after you if-”

“Oh, you’re here,” a new voice cut into the conversation, making Finral stand up straight.

Sunset turned to look at the speaker and blinked. He looked younger than Finral, but not by much, and there was a slight resemblance between the two that marked them as distant family. Standing a few inches shorter than Finral, the man had thick, wavy hair and a slight build that was wrapped in an air of superiority. “And you are?” she asked.

The man gave Sunset a frown. “Aren’t you supposed to give your own name before demanding introductions?”

“This is Sunset,” Finnes said as she stepped into the conversation to take the man’s arm. “A friend of the crown. Sunset, this is my fiancee, Langris Vaude.”

Not one to let a friendly attempt to smooth over relations cool her temper after such a challenging first impression, Sunset crossed her arms. “Shouldn’t you have been helping your betrothed not collapse in the middle of a theater’s entryway?”

Langris gave the redhead a frown, then looked over to Finral. “So, why are you here?”

The question got another wince from Finral as Sunset’s eye twitched from being blown off. “Oh, just thought we’d take in a show.”

“Say Langress,” Finnes spoke up, getting everyone to turn their heads towards her. “The other two seats in the booth don’t have anyone in them tonight, right? We should have your brother and his date join us.”

As Finral became even more put off, Sunset blinked in surprise. Before looking back and forth between the two. “Different fathers?”

“Mothers, actually,” Langris told her.

But...they have different family names, Sunset thought to herself.

Stupid humans and their complicated naming systems. Just when she thought she had it figured out, they go and throw her a curve.

In what was quickly shaping up to be the worst date of his life, Finral found himself sitting on the far right of a group of four seats, next to Sunset as she sat between him and Finnes, with Langris on the far left. The seats were in a raised part of the theater, far above the normal seating most people were stuck in and even the second level of more affluent supporters of the arts. A private box for the most elite of the Clover Kingdom.

“So,” Sunset spoke up as she looked back and forth between the two brothers. “The two of you are brothers. That would mean, you’re a spatial mage as well, Langris?”

The question got a little snort from the younger Vaude. “Don’t compare what I do to anything my older brother is capable of,” he replied in a haunty voice. “My spatial magic is used for combat. His can only shuttle people from one point to another.”

Sunset gave him an even look. “So, does that mean you can’t do what every other spatial mage on the planet can?”

“If I wanted to, sure,” he replied with a shrug. “That’s what makes me so much better than my older brother. And why I’ve been given the responsibility of handling House Vaude.”

A disapproving sound came from Finnes before she looked back to Sunset. “Not that Finral isn’t a fine magic knight.”

Don’t drag me into this, Finral screamed as he found himself pulled into the simmering argument. “Well...that’s...debatable,” he said to try and appease his brother, who was clenching his jaw so hard that Finral was surprised that his teeth hadn’t broken under the pressure.

However, after hearing Langris’s last comment, Sunset’s expression became more interested than angry. “Really? The younger brother is taking control of the family?” she asked as a tiny smile appeared on her face. “I thought it was first come, first serve when titles were involved among the nobility. You must be really talented for your family to go against tradition.”

“Don’t just write it off with a word like talent,” Langris told her. “I had to work hard to get where I am today.” Then, he looked at Finral with a frown. “My brother being such a slacking failure that only cared about hanging out with girls and making friends with losers just meant that I had the opportunity to do so.”

Sunset leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms before looking back ahead, taking a moment to turn her eyes over to Finral, then moved them over to Langris before sparing a look at Finral again. After that, she just looked down at the floor. “It’s like looking into a pair of enchanted mirrors that went in opposite directions,” she mumbled.

The odd comment killed the tension that Finral felt building in the air. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“Hm?” Sunset replied as she looked over to the older man before leaning her head back against her seat. “It’s just...looking at the two of you, I think I can actually see the different paths my life could have gone down, if I had never come to Clover. Of course, I spent my whole life studying magic and working my butt off while a dozen other people followed behind me, just waiting for a misstep so they could try and take my place. Then, right as I’m about to move on to the next level, the idiot I was supposed to look up to the most tells me to go make some friends instead of studying, secure in her position of power.”

Once her story was finished, Langris let out a laugh. “Ha! I think I might have misjudged you.”

Before the conversation could continue, the curtain behind the private seats was pulled back, and Finral saw the theater staff wheel in a cart loaded with the orders that had been placed earlier. Being in a box seat meant that they were afforded a few special privileges not allotted to people that were packed together in the seats below. Like complete meals served to them throughout the show and a refilling of drinks.

Which had Sunset drinking after a little bit of social pressure from seeing everyone else ordering a little, although not to the point of Vanessa’s binges.

The play was...okay. Although, Finral wasn’t much of an arts connoisseur. It was based off of an idea that had made the rounds in society a year previous, about a post magic world where everyone had to make do without grimoires, society had more or less devolved into tiny despot kingdoms and widespread banditry, and the only trace of magic left in the world were a few magical creatures that were hidden away for one reason or another.

Not that unicorns actually existed...before Sunset came around, at least.

About the only thing Finral enjoyed about the whole play was Sunset’s reaction to it.

“Just a bit of hair on the end of her tail?” Sunset grumbled with a snort before she took a hold of the wine she hadn’t even touched throughout dinner while the illusion of the unicorn pranced across the stage. “That’s stupid.”

Of which…

“A traveling circus of fake magical animals, where she has to have magic cast on her so everyone can see a fake horn? How convoluted can you get?” the redhead mumbled after taking a sip of the red liquid in her goblet.

...she had plenty…

“Oh yeah, turn her into a human. So original,” Sunset commented before she downed her entire glass of wine.

...until the end…

“So, an immortal white horse used a poor prince that did everything to try and win her love before she got him killed at the end. Only to bring him back to life now that he has nothing before saying how she loved him while the guy is standing next to the ruins of his castle...and then she runs off while everyone goes on about how she’s the one who is suffering the most,” Sunset summarized with a little flush to her cheeks as she crossed her arms and tapped a finger against one of her elbows. “...yeah, seems legit.”

With Sunset in a sour mood that the alcohol only made worse, Finral gave Finnes an apologetic look. “I think we should be moving on. Thanks for the invitation to your private seating.”

Finnes gave the man a little smile. “Oh, it’s alright,” she replied before glancing over to Sunset. “Looking at it the way your friend does, I have to admit. It seems a rather odd way to end a play.”

Before Sunset could interject in the conversation, Finral opened a spatial portal to their next destination and led her through after a few quick goodbyes. A few seconds later, they stepped out onto a hill that had a good view of both the capital and the night sky. It was a good hour earlier than Finral had expected to come, but with Sunset getting surly, he was thinking it was probably a good idea to call things off a bit early.

“Hmm,” Sunset went before Finral could suggest heading back to the hideout before she stumbled forward and looked around. “Open sky, good view of the city, nobody around...oh! This is where you want us to get naked!”

“SAY WHAT?” Finral screamed. WE’RE ONLY ON THE FIRST DATE!

Sunset actually giggled before stumbling forward a few steps before frowning. She looked down at her feet and there was a light pop before she got just a tiny bit shorter. A second later, she was holding Noelle’s sandals. “That’s better. No idea how Noelle walks around in these things.”

As the girl threw away her footwear, Finral held up his hands. “Hold on Sunset, I don’t think you should-”

“Stop with just the footwear? Good idea!” she said before Finral could finish.

There was a loud pop, and after his eyes adjusted from the bright light, Finral let out startled cry at what he saw. Sunset wasn’t naked, but she was just about the closest thing to it! Even her bra had been removed, and she gently massaged her bare breasts while looking down at herself. Everything but her black panties had completely vanished. “Sooooo much better. Push-up bras suck,” she grumbled before looking to Finral. “Okay so...this is the part where you try and put the moves on me, right?”

The odd question got Finral’s attention away from Sunset as she played with her nipples, but he didn’t recover very much of his wits. “Come again?”

“Vanessa said you were going to try and kiss me and junk,” she replied before taking in a deep breath. “Which is actually what I want, so...get to it already. I need the practice!”

Finral took a step back, which only made Sunset’s frown return before she pounced towards the nervous man. Their bodies collided, and Finral found himself pinned to the ground by his shoulders as Sunset straddled his body with her lips pushed together. “S-Sunset, now what a second!”

Not even doing that, Sunset lowered herself down until their noses were touching and...frowned. “How do you get these things out of the way?”

“...huh?” Finral replied, what with him having no clue what she was going on about.

Sunset picked herself back up as she gave an aggravated whine. “The noses! See, this is why ponies nuzzle! It’s way easier. Stupid humans and your lip obessions!” she grumbled.

The absurdity of the moment hit Finral hard. “That can’t seriously be the only problem you see with the two of us being out here like this!” Finral exclaimed as the nearly naked girl squirmed on top of him.

“Hm?” Sunset replied before she looked around. “Yeah, suppose you got a point,” she replied before she sat up straight and removed the pressure from Finral’s shoulders as her hands began to glow. A second later, a thick blanket appeared underneath the two of them, which was followed by a pair of pillows, and then another bedsheet that came into existence over them before gently floating down to cover Sunset’s shoulders.

Not that it stopped Finral from seeing the supple breasts that gravity was pulling down as Sunset sat on top of him. They had definitely gotten bigger since the last time Finral had laid eyes on them.

“And now, your stuff,” Sunset said before a loud pop took away everything but Finral’s underwear. Then, she was back on top of him, her almost naked body pressing down on his as she leaned in close enough for Finral to feel her breath on his face. She licked her lips, making Finral gulp as she asked. “Okay...now what?”

Finral blinked and the tension he felt just flowed out of him to be replaced by confusion. “Huh?”

A groan came from Sunset before she straightened her back as she sat up. “Your mouth, stupid!” she exclaimed. “How am I supposed to kiss someone without their mouth getting in the way? I mean, their muzzle. Nose! It’s a nose, right

“See? This is the whole point of us going out here, right? We get naked, press our lips together, suck on the others mouth and swap spit in some kind of premature mating ritual!”

“When you say it like that, it just sounds weird,” Finral told her.

Sunset gave another groan before she rolled off of Finral, taking the sheet with her to leave them both exposed to the open air as she fell onto her back next to him. “Well of course it’s weird. This whole stupid thing is weird. All humans are weird!” she exclaimed before licking up a foot to hold it there, wiggling her toes as she did. “Just look at this. You’re supposed to walk on these things, but half the places you step are too hot, to hard, too sharp, or have stupid little prickly things that go right through your skin like it’s not even there! What kind of species can’t even get around on its own two feet?”

Despite the outpouring of thoughts from the redhead, Sunset’s garbled rant told Finral that she wasn’t so out of it to be unreachable. More philosophical level drunk than anything else. “Well…” Finral stopped when he noticed Sunset was still playing with her feet. “Everything okay?”

Blushing, Sunset put her leg down. “I like having toes,” she mumbled before going silent for several seconds. “So...we’re not making out?”

After taking a moment to think about it, and processing the weird feeling of turning a girl down, Finral gave Sunset her answer. “No,” he said. The words left a bad taste in his mouth.

“...did I do something wrong?” she asked as she looked up at the sky.

Finral blinked, thinking back on the date. While he had been on worse, he had to admit that it hadn’t been all that great. “Well, you talked a bit too much during the play. What was up with that, anyway?”

“The story didn’t make any sense,” Sunset replied before frowning. “And the main character got really stupid. I mean, she’s supposed to be this big immortal white horse, but she’s acting all innocent and junk. Nobody that old is that stupid. Plus, her tail was stupid. Unicorns have hair all over their tails.”

A large puff of smoke accompanied Sunset’s statement, and the next thing Finral knew, he was laying next to a completely naked four foot unicorn that had the same color pattern in her hair as Sunset. The mare rolled over onto its belly to stand up and swish her tail around. “See? Plenty of hair,” she said before falling back onto her side.

Finral gave the pony an even look. “I think you’re missing the point of plays in general. You’re not supposed to get tied up in the facts. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.”

“So I should just shut up and nod my head, no matter how stupid everything I’m seeing is?” Sunset asked in anger before giving off a snort that no human could hope to duplicate after she rolled around until her back was to Finral. “That’s dumb.”

Not wanting to get into an argument over something so meaningless, Finral went back to looking up at the stars. The longer he looked at them, the more he got the feeling that this was about more than just a play. While Sunset had plenty of emotional moments, she didn’t keep them going for very long.

Her current one had started just about the moment she saw the illusion of the talking white horse galloping around on the stage.

So, Finral decided to wade into danger. “Hey Sunset, is everything okay with you?” he asked.

After taking a very deep breath, Sunset let out a long sigh. “Hey Finral, are you happy with where you are today?” she asked.

Not following the pony at all, Finral could only blink. “Huh?”

“It’s just…” Sunset took in a breath. “Remember what I said before the play started? All my life, I worked my butt off, like your brother. I had to, or I would have been deemed useless and thrown out on my ass. I took joy in my accomplishments, but all of that praise only came from a single person. But…” She sighed and figited around a little. “For almost two and a half years now, I’ve spent time with others and formed bonds that I never would have before. I’m wondering if things would have been better if I had just been like you and slacked off.”

Finral looked back up at the sky and frowned as he took a moment to really think about what the unicorn had said. “You’re being too extreme,” he said. “I slacked off because my father didn’t like the way I used spatial magic. My family warps space and uses it as a weapon to create an attack that can’t be blocked, no matter how powerful the defense. But I hate fighting. It’s not just getting hurt either, although I’m a pretty big coward, the idea of hurting anyone twists my stomach. So, I ended up being a failure in my father’s eyes. That’s why I always asked my brother to come and slack off with me from time to time. He thought that because I had taken the position away from me, Dad would take it away from him if he slacked off. The truth of it was that Father never wanted me to run the family because of how I used magic, so I never bothered to learn how.”

“But, are you happy, with things the way they are?” Sunset asked.

The question made Finral think about his life. After getting his grimoire, Finral had found his life lacking something. He still lived at his family estate and was given all the luxuries of a noble life, which meant plenty of wine and lots of women. But none of that had really mattered to him. Something had been missing from his life.

And then, he met Finnes. Her beauty had only been part of the reason why Finral had been so speechless when he first met her. Although, a fifteen-year-old being told they were going to be able to get it on with a twenty-year-old woman with a full-developed figure certainly helped. The reason she still made him think about her to this day was...

“You’re a very kind and considerate person. So, if you ask me, you’re a better mage than your brother will ever be,” the memory of Finnes said as they had sat in the family estate’s garden.

Because of that, Finral had decided to try joining the Magic Knights, if just to see if he could do it, to see if someone else thought he was worth something. Yami had taken him in when the other captains had decided not to bother since they already had spatial mages in their ranks. Then, after Langris was named the official head of House Vaude, Finral left the family permanently, changing his name to Roulacase, which was his mother’s maiden name.

But even now, that something was still missing from his life.

“No, I’m not happy with my life,” he finally told her with a sigh. “I’ve got good friends in the Black Bulls, but I spent my whole life slacking off and being an underachiever. Having friends helps not pay attention to my own feelings, but the truth of things is, I hate myself. Especially when I look at you, Noelle and Asta.”

Sunset rolled onto her belly and gave the man a hurt look. The fact that she was currently too adorable than a puppy made Finral feel like kicking himself in the balls. “What did I do?” she asked.

After pulling out the nonexistent daggers that had flown into his heart, Finral sighed. “Asta doesn’t have a bit of magic, but he trains every day without stopping. Noelle has a ton of magic, but she still works every day on control. And you? You’ve got more magic than anybody on the squad, short of Yami. If anyone should be laying around on their butt with all the excuses to slack off, it’s you. But every day, you’re up earlier than any of us, studying, training, and helping out with the chores. It’s enough to make me realize just how pathetic I really am.”

“Then change who you are,” Sunset told him.

Finral snorted. “You make it sound so simple.”

The comment made Sunset frown at him. “Just because I can say it in a single sentence doesn’t make it sound simple. I grew up with everything given to me because of my talent. Then, I had nothing. Do you have any idea what that’s like? Not a Black Bulls pay once a month kind of nothing, an actual danger of starvation during Winter kind of nothing. And I had to take care of kids half the time. For the first time in my life, I was the adult in the room,” she went on. “So, I changed. It was slow, it was hard, it was absolutely maddening at times, but I did it. And if you want to change too, I can help you along.”

“You know...you don’t sound as drunk as you did a second ago,” Finral pointed out as the pony got to her feet, or...hooves.

Sunset snorted in that odd horse way again. “Please, you humans have such weak stomachs. This level of fruit juice is nothing to a pony,” she said before the items the little horse had created popped out of existence, making Finral get to his feet while still in his underwear. “Now, hurry up and make with the gateway home.”

With the little horse turning into a bossy nag, Finral did as instructed before she could gore him with that horn of hers that happened to be very crotch level. A portal opened up to the space between space and they traveled through it. Only after he was about to drift through the other end did Finral remember that he was nearly naked.

When they came back to the headquarters, Finral froze when he saw Vanessa sitting on the couch, completely sober. She took one look at him and Finral was doing his best to quickly come up with something, anything to explain his lack of clothes. Then, after Sunset landed next to him with a little clip clop, Vanessa just stared.

She slowly turned her eyes to Sunset, then to Finral, and back to Sunset.

“Yeah...I’m not drunk enough to have this kind of conversation,” she said before walking over to the bar and snagging half of the liquor with her magical thread to take it upstairs with her.

Wait...does she think...with the PONY? Finral asked himself.

Sunset blinked. “What’s she so put off for? All we did was roll around in the grass for a bit. And then you gave me a ride.”

Page 22: Meetings

Cadance reluctantly made her way down the hall and towards the conference room where she was due to meet the Crystal Council for the day. In all honesty, she didn’t want to do it. She hated meeting with the three pony representatives from the Crystal Empire, but it was something she had to do every day since Sombra had been defeated. But, while it was more important than the usual round of diplomacy Cadance had been involved in, the downside made the mare feel as if she were simply bashing her head into a rock wall.

Trotting into the meeting room, Cadance found that the three of them had already sat down on the cushions across from where hers was located, on the opposite end of the wide table from them. Each one was supposed to represent their particular tribe in the Crystal Empire, an archaic practice that had long since been abandoned by Equestria at large. Tribes no longer divided ponies as they had done even in the beginning days of Equestria, they were all ponies, after all.

But then, the Crystal Empire wasn’t Equestria. As the three ponies would remind Cadance with a great deal of gusto at least once a day. Not a single one of them had any love for the world’s oldest country, and an outright mistrust of Celestia. Luna was best not mentioned in their presence at all after they had been provided with the abridged version of the history they had missed out on.

Still, they had agreed to meet with Cadance, and that gave her something to work with.

“Crystal Melody,” Cadance greeted the earth pony representative, a yellow mare with a light blue mane. Like all crystal ponies, her coat was much brighter than the average pony, to the point it almost glowed in the dark. From what the pink princess understood, Melody was an accomplished musician. Although, why she was the leader of the Crystal Council still made no sense to Cadance. Nothing about the pony’s past said she should have been the one in charge.

A second later, Cadance greeted Sky Blue, a pegasus with a coat like his namesake and a mane the color of clouds was one of the few remaining guards left in the Empire. After Sombra had enslaved everypony, he had fitted most of the army with mind control helmets and sent them to wreak havoc across Equestria, leaving only a token guard for his palace. Sky had been one of those ponies lucky enough to be on the other end of the palace when Celestia and Luna had done battle with Sombra.

Prestidigitation, whom most other ponies simply called Presto, was the unicorn representative. He was a dark gray stallion with a silver mane that was getting on in years, and from Cadance had heard, a rival to Starswirl the Bearded. Although, the one time Cadance had asked about the more famous unicorn, Presto had condemned the stallion as a cheating fraud that used magic to steal the hard work of others and claim it as his own. He was a gruff old magic user that was always the most belligerent of the trio.

“Princess Cadance,” the mare replied in a cool tone. Not hostile, but far from respectful. “I trust you slept well.”

Rather than give false niceties, which she knew the ponies of the Empire considered an insulting lie, Cadance let out a tiny groan. “Not really. No offense, but beds have come a long way since they made the ones in the palace,” she told the mare. “I’m still waking up sore.”

Sky reared up and slammed his hooves down on the table. “Well if it’s so hard on you to live here, then get out already! We don’t need your kind, mucking up our Empire!”

“We’ve been over this, General Blue,” Presto interjected. “Princess Cadance is merely here as a liaison to Celestia. We still need information on the modern world and she has agreed to help us catch up to speed, so that we may begin trade negotiations with Equestria.”

Cadance felt the need to interject a correction. “Well, trade deals is where we can start, but my end goal is reunification with the rest of Equestria.”

The other stallion snorted as he glared at Presto. “You’re just wanting to get your horn on some of those new magical items they’ve come up with since the lost time!” the pegasus accused. “Selling out your fellow Imperials for magical gain, you and Sombra were cut from the same stone!”

Frowning at the males, Crystal Melody stomped her hoof twice. “That is quite enough of that,” she said, bringing an end to the bickering before turning to Cadance. “Princess Cadance, I know we’ve been over this before. But when we went to bed a week ago, the Crystal Empire was a sovereign state that was part of a coalition of kingdoms that made up Equestria. Now, by your own admission, the kingdoms have given up their autonomy, Celestia is the sole ruler of everything and doesn’t allow a single word of debate. You have been speaking of ‘reunification’ when what your offering to us is nothing less than absolute domination by a power more foreign to us than the yaks.”

Before Cadance could give her rebuttal, Presto spoke up again, adding to Flower’s argument. “On top of which, they have already proven to be failures,” the unicorn told her. “The Empire fell to Sombra the first time even with their intervention, while from what I understand, the minion they sent the second time proved to be equally ineffective at doing her job. She had to rely on a dragon to deliver the Crystal Heart to you. The entire point of the positions given to them by the council was to help settle disputes between the provinces and defend Equestria as a whole. Which, according to the documentation you yourself provided, they have proven to be inept at, time and time again in the past several months.”

“So why should we bow to ponies who give us nothing in return?” Sky Blue demanded.

Cadance sighed as the three of them brought up the same arguments that they had been going over since day two. “I understand that. But you have to understand that Equestria must stand united. If we don’t, ponies will suffer-”

The look Presto gave Cadance made her pause and focus on him. “I lived through the great freeze, filly. And while the rest of ponydom was freezing to death, the Crystal Heart kept us warm and safe.”

Crystal Flower cleared her throat. “It isn’t that we don’t care about your concerns, Princess Cadance. But we will not become enslaved to another despot for the sake of ponies that have already given up their freedom.”

Even with Cadance quickly losing control of the conversation as it veered towards areas better left alone, the mare couldn’t stop herself from repeating one of the words Flower had given her. “Despot?” she asked. “I’m nowhere near a fan of Celestia, but I wouldn’t call her that. She just wants what’s best for everypony.”

“Those are always the worst kind of despots, Princess,” Crystal Flower replied evenly.

Mimosa did her best to keep her eyes on the land beneath her while Klaus’s flying chariot took them over a collection of empty fields and houses. Because if she took her eyes off of the land below, she would have to look at Yuno, or worse, Sylph.

So far, Mimosa’s attempts to gain Yuno’s attention were less than successful. She had made him lunch plenty of times, or had the cooks make him a lunch for her due to very limited cooking skills that stopped at adding bread to meat. But, aside from the soft offer of thanks, it hadn’t really gone anywhere. And every time Mimosa tried to talk to him about anything that wasn’t a part of their missions, she would freeze up and have to change the subject before her nervousness turned her into a babbling idiot.

As for Sylph, the Wind Spirit was growing even more impatient to the point that Mimosa expected her to do something so drastic soon that the royal girl would die from embarrassment. That worry only grew when she felt the creature land on her shoulder and a tiny swirl of wind surrounded her to hide their conversation from the boys.

“Okay, listen up,” Sylph said as she leaned into Mimosa’s ear. “Since this is just a stupid reconnaissance mission, we’ll have to try and create our own little event to push you and my Yuno together. What do you think about being blasted out of the carriage by a wind that shreds your clothes?”

Mimosa went rigid at the suggestion. “W-What? How is something like that even supposed to happen?” she asked as she turned her whole body towards Sylph.

Sylph rolled her eyes as she flew out in front of Mimosa to hover in front of the girl while crossing her arms. “Because then Yuno will jump down after you to catch you, right as the rest of your clothes fall off. There’s no way he’ll be able to resist those giant breasts of yours when you’re clinging to him for dear life!”

The pressure in her cheeks built as Mimosa could feel herself blush. “T-There’s no way I could do something like that!”

“Sylph, are you picking on Mimosa?” Yuno asked, making both the girls look over to the young man.

The question had the pixie up in the air and giving Yuno a hurt look. “How could you think such awful things about your wife?”

“Because you glare at any woman who looks at me for more than two seconds like you want to kill them,” Yuno pointed out with an even expression. “While you at least tolerate Mimosa, I still catch you frowning at her from time to time.”

“That’s just because they look at you like a piece of meat!” Sylph exclaimed as she waved her arms around in anger. “Mimosa...is...uh…” Catching herself, the fairy simply stopped talking and floated away from him.

After a few seconds Yuno smacked his fist into an open palm. “And Mimosa is just a partner in my squad,” he said before becoming thoughtful. “I was wondering why you never bothered her like you do the other girls. I guess it’s a good thing that we’re just friends.”

Feeling as if Yuno had just shot her through the heart with two giant arrows that had the words ‘just’ and ‘friends’ written on them in large letters, Mimosa turned around and looked back to the ground with a depressed expression. “I’ll be leaving now,” she said, much too low for anyone besides Sylph to hear before moving closer towards the edge of the transportation spell. They weren’t that high up, so the fall wasn’t going to take forever.

“Don’t do it Mimosa!” Sylph said before pulling on the girl’s hair to keep her from jumping. “I know he’s a clueless idiot sometimes, but just look at that cute face!”

Up at the front of the transport, Klaus looked back at the two girls while he adjusted his glasses. “That’s enough you two. We’re coming up on the town of Bree. It’s probably just a broken relay, but we haven’t heard anything from the knights that were supposed to have been stationed here.”

“I thought the Golden Dawn was moving off of border patrol,” Yuno commented.

“The ones that were on guard duty were relieved, but since we were never stationed in a town, we aren’t given downtime to recover from the stress of holding the line,” Klaus explained before turning his head back towards their destination.

As Mimosa sat back down on the flying carriage, Sylph stopped pulling her hair and looked back to the man with the glasses. “What stress?” she demanded. “Nothing happened the whole time that they were stationed there. We’re the ones that did all the work while the rest of the squad just sat on their big fat butts all day!”

Klaus snorted. “Obviously, you don’t know the stress of standing guard at the border to our most dangerous foe’s front door.”

Sylph flew up to give the man a glare. “You do remember who you’re talking to, right? I’ve been in more battles and wars than you can count!”

The conversation was soon put to an end when they came in sight of Bree.

Built close to the border with Diamond, but not in a very choice location for invasions thanks to the ocean to the south providing a much easier route over the sea and the middle of the border actually bulging out of Diamond thanks to their latest big push, the village of Bree was more akin to a hastily constructed fort built out of necessity than a full military installation meant to hold back enemy attack. A large wooden wall surrounded the town, but it had no other defenses aside from the handful of magic knights that were garrisoned there more for a show of force than anything else.

At best, the fortification held back the occasional stray animal. Any of the Magic Knights could blow through the thing with little trouble.

The truth of the matter was that Bree was just a fishing village that had sprung up during a particularly good year in the endless struggles with Diamond, but turned out to be a bad investment when the enemy kingdom came roaring back and reclaimed a great deal of land. But by then, the commoners who lived there were already tied to the land and fishing industry. So they didn’t have the resources to move without bankrupting themselves. Because of that, they sat tucked away, hoping that Diamond didn’t make a hard push through the sea and find themselves at the mercy of the evil kingdom when the border got redrawn.

Klaus pressed his glasses up on his nose. “Odd, we should have seen something of the local militia standing outside the gate. Even in the Forsaken Realm, they have people to keep law in order.”

“No,” Yuno said as he frowned. A second later, Sylph’s expression matched his. “What’s odd is that I’m not detecting a single bit of mana coming from that town.”

Although she already knew what Yuno was getting at, Mimosa let out a gasp before moving to the obvious question. “You mean, everyone in the village was taken?” she asked in worry. She had read Yuno’s rather abrupt report on what had happened when he fought with the Midnight Sun, she knew they wanted to steal mana for some unknown reason. It was foolish to think that one operation was their only attempt to do so.

“The Eye of the Midnight Sun again?” Klaus asked.

Yuno sighed in frustration. “If it was them, they’re long gone, now.”

After fighting through her worry about what might be happening to the poor villagers that were taken, Mimosa looked back and forth between the two men. “We should take a look around before reporting in.” If they were lucky, there might be a clue as to where the abductees had been relocated to. Asta and the others had said that the cave they went to was in walking distance, after all.

“Agreed,” Klaus said before picking up the pace of his flying contraction spell and sailing over the town to get a look behind the walls.

The sight below made Mimosa want to throw up.

Throughout the streets, dead bodies were strewn about everywhere. Some people were cut in half, while others had been knocked through walls. Burns, slashes, bruises, just about every way to die possible was given an example below. Some people were even bloated from drowning in the middle of the street. The damage to the actual town was rather slight, with the exception of the occasional building that had fallen in on itself in what had obviously been a horrific battle. The closer they got to town square, the more tightly packed the carnage became.

“This is wrong,” Sylph mumbled.

Mimosa looked at the fairy with a frown. “Wrong? It’s more than wrong!” she told the creature. “This is awful!”

After a second, Sylph looked back towards the royal. “No what I mean is…” she paused and turned to Klaus. “Hey four-eyes, do a circuit of the whole village. I need to see something.”

Grumbling at behind ordered by someone who could fit on his palm, Klaus did as instructed. As they began their flyover, Mimosa found her seat and looked down at the floor. The evidence of what had happened below made it impossible to look at for her. She didn’t look up until Yuno said something.

“Oh, I see it now...that is odd,” he commented.

Mimosa looked back up to him. “What is it?” she asked.

“The outer area of the town is completely untouched by anything. Even the buildings that fell down don’t look like they were inhabited at the time,” Yuno explained, making Mimosa peek over the side to see he was right. The outer edge of town was completely untouched. If she had been standing on the streets down there, she wouldn’t have known anything was wrong. “It’s like everyone was brought into the center of town, and were then slaughtered.”

After flying around to get a better view of the carnage that was behind Mimosa, Sylph let out a noise of disagreement. “No. The way these people died, it looks like they killed each other,” she said before pointing at the ground. “Look at how all the bodies fell down, they’re all over the place. If a group of enemy mages did this, it would have been a lot more orderly. And look at the damage to the bodies. I know we’re still high up for you guys to tell, but it looks like only a few of them were taken out by someone as powerful as a magic knight. The others were killed off by low-tier magic.”

Yuno looked back around, making Mimosa focus on him rather than what he was looking at as Klaus brought their flight to a stop in midair. “What are you talking about?”

“Look around,” Sylph told Yuno. “Everyone’s dead, but this town is barely touched. Whatever killed these people, it wasn’t done with high level magic. There are some buildings that were knocked down, yes. But I bet that's where the magic knights stationed here were at when they went down. And look at where all the bodies are. It’s like something drew them to the center of town, then had everyone start killing each other.”

The theory was quickly shot down by Klaus. “You might be able to put someone in a daze to lead them around. But magic that can make a whole town break out into a riot?” he said. “Taking over the minds of sleeping children is one thing, but the adults as well? Such a spell does not exist!”

Mimosa gulped down some of the stuff in her throat that was threatening to rise up on her. “We...we should report this to headquarters,” she said before looking back down at the floor of their transport.

“Agreed,” Klaus said. “However, I think it would be prudent to take a closer look, first. There might be a few survivors.”

The idea of going down and sifting through the carnage made Mimosa’s stomach turn, but the shame that followed quickly overrode it. Someone could still be alive down there, and she was the only hope they had of surviving.

Asta’s day began like every other day before it. After getting up a few minutes before dawn, he did some basic warmups before heading out for his basic morning workout that involved sprinting around the forest that surrounded the hideout a hundred times, which was followed up by a hundred squats, pushups, crunches, and then a cool down exercise before heading back into the hideout. Then came breakfast, with Charmy having made her usual all meat everywhere except for in front of Sunset. And, like usual Noelle got angry when he sat down next to her.

“WASH YOURSELF OFF BEFORE YOU COME IN HERE!” the girl shouted before a blast of water knocked Asta on his butt and left him sitting on the floor in a puddle while the girl stood above him with her arms crossed. “Seriously, you reek of BO! Would it kill you to take a few laps around the pool?”

After standing up from the mild water blast, Asta gave Noelle a nervous laugh. “Well...yeah. I don’t know how to swim good yet,” he reminded her.

Noelle started getting all weird again at the reminder. “Oh...uh...right,” she said before her face turned red. “Um, well...I-I could show you how. That is...if you want me to.”

After thinking about it for a moment while the girl looked down at the floor, Asta admitted that it made sense. “Yeah, swimming is supposed to train your whole body at once and be low impact, so I can work out even longer!”

Across the table from him, Finral gave Asta an even look. “A hot girl tells you she wants to take off her clothes and get wet with you and that’s how you respond?” he asked before a torrent of water blasted the spatial mage out of the room.

“DRY UP AND DIE!” Noelle roared.

Sunset looked up from her meal. “You know, that is probably the last one-liner someone with your type of magic should use,” she told Noelle.

Before another little argument could break out, there was a large crash as Yami came into the dinning room his usual way, which involved kicking the door so hard it turned to splinters before he went through the open doorway. “Morning,” the captain greeted everyone before pausing on his way to the table to stare at Asta for several seconds with a blank look. But, before the magicless knight could ask if anything was wrong, Yami took a hand out of his pocket to snap his fingers. “Oh, right. Hey kid, the Wizard King sent me a letter last night that he wants me to bring you along when I go to the capital later today for the captain’s meeting.”

“The what now?” Sunset asked.

Yami gave the redhead a flat look. “What part of captain’s meeting don’t you understand? It’s in the name. A bunch of captains from the Magic Knights meet up and talk about stuff,” he told her before reaching for a cigarette that wasn’t there, then letting out a groan of a breath. “With all the crap the Midnight Sun has been doing lately, the Wizard King has decided to bring us all together and get everyone up to speed.”

Sunset crossed her arms and put on one of her thinking faces, the kind she used when she was making a decision about two different choices that were really pressing up against each other inside of her head. “I should probably go along too, then.”

“Why the hell would I allow something like that?” Yami said as his face started to take on a more scary vibe.

Sunset didn’t seem to notice. “Because, after that whole cave incident, I think I understand what the Eye of the Midnight Sun is up to.”

The statement hung in the air for several seconds as nobody said a word. Then, Yami finally broke the silence. “And you’re just telling us this now?” he demanded.

“I said I think I know what they are up to,” Sunset told him as a bit of trepidation crossed her face. “I’m not going to go running off anytime I just have a theory about something. But if he’s making the time to see Asta of all people, then I think he can spare a whole two minutes for me to say a couple of sentences.”

Asta blinked as he just realized something important. “Wait, just why does the Wizard King want to see me?” he asked. It was cool that he did, but now that he actually thought about it for a moment, Asta couldn’t think of a reason as to why the Wizard King would have wanted to see him now, as opposed to yesterday or the week before.

The question looked like it only made Yami’s bad mood even worse. “What the hell am I? Some kind of mind reader?” he demanded. “When the Wizard King tells you to do something, you do it!”

The capital was much as Sunset had remembered it from a few nights ago, only with its day backdrop instead of the nighttime one. Since Yami didn’t feel like dishing out the money for a carpet ride, they were forced to climb the mountain. It might have had some roads, but that meant little to Sunset. It was still a mountain.

When they actually reached the top over an hour later, Sunset frowned when she saw that man whose head always made her think of mushrooms for some reason. “Hey Marx, what does your boss want with Asta?”

“The Wizard King read Asta’s report about the kidnapped children the day before and this. He thinks Asta’s anti-magic ability will help us in solving a problem we’ve been having with the prisoner that was captured,” Marx told Sunset sternly.

The tiny hint of information had Sunset’s mind working overtime to try and figure out what was going on. After the Wizard King had taken that guy George prisoner during the Midnight Sun’s attack on the capital, Sunset had been one of the mages to look him over in an attempt to remove the protection magic placed around his mind. Unfortunately, without a look at the grimoire that contained the spell used on him, Sunset didn’t think that messing with it was such a good idea.

Not that she hadn’t tried other things, like a spell that made the person under its influence say the first thing that popped into their heads. She also tried the Want it Need it spell. Both proved ineffective. Whatever spell that was in place protecting the man’s mind made it impossible to retrieve the information by any magical means that forced him to reveal it.

Remembering that, and the one thing that Asta could do that even Sunset was unable to, along with what Noelle had said about Asta writing the report that most people probably would have put aside in favor of Yuno’s precise version she knew he had to have made once getting back to the Golden Dawn HQ made it rather obvious about what was going on. “Oh, you want to use Asta’s anti-magic to dispel the protection magic that has been placed on the prisoner’s mind.”

“Do you think that will work?” Marx asked.

Sunset crossed her arms and thought about it for a moment. “It’s possible,” she admitted hesitantly as all the things that could go horribly wrong ran through her head. “Asta’s anti-magic isn’t just some dispelling force that breaks apart spells. The more I think about it, the more I believe it’s a kind of counter-force to magic that nullifies and repels mana. So the question becomes, how close does he have to get to the seal to undo it, and just where the physical location of the magic protecting that guy’s mind is. It’s not going to do any good if Asta has to put his sword into that guy’s brain.”

“Fair point,” Marx agreed with a nod before cocking his head to the side just a bit. “By the way, Lady Sunset. What are you doing here? The Wizard King only called for Asta.”

A nervous tingle made its way down Sunset’s back. While she had no problem lying to just about anyone, the guy she was talking with was very good at sniffing them out. “Oh! Well, not that it matters if your plan works, but I think I’ve figured out what the Midnight Sun is up to.”

Marx crossed his arms and let out a thoughtful hmm. “In that case, you should probably speak to Julius as well. Just because we’ll be able to question someone doesn’t mean that they will know anything useful.”

The group split in two, with Yami going his own way towards the meeting while Sunset and Asta followed Marx. After going into the heart of the Wizard King’s palace, they began heading down a long winding staircase that wasn’t really hidden, but had certainly been placed in an out of the way area.

“What is this place?” Asta asked.

Marx took a moment to look back at him. “This is a special dungeon we have for important prisoners that the Wizard King might need to speak with at a moment’s notice.”

Since she had seen it all before several weeks ago, Sunset wasn’t taken aback by the size of the reinforced basement as they got to the large metal door at the bottom of the stairs that led to the room where the wind mage had been secured to a pillar. Even with everything that he had been a part of, Sunset couldn’t help but feel a little bad for the guy. In Equestria, ponies that had to be held for one reason or another at least got a little room to lay down in, the man in front of them hadn’t been able to move from the spot he was bound to for weeks. And his only visitors had been the Wizard King with a very select number of staff and the occasional cleaning crew.

“Ah, Asta, good to see you,” Julius said as they entered the dark room that only had a bit of illumination coming from the corners. “And Sunset, always a pleasure. Although...I do wonder why you’re here.”

Marx cleared his throat. “She says that she has an idea as to what the terrorist group is up to, Sir. I thought it prudent to bring her along. What we learn from this man might only be a piece of a much larger puzzle.”

After a few seconds, the Wizard King nodded. “Indeed. George here doesn’t seem like the type to know everything his boss is planning. Finatical zealots rarely know everything that’s going on in their organization, even when it’s shown to them,” he said before getting a tiny sparkle in his eyes. “I read the reports about the two of you fighting some of the Midnight Sun’s strongest mages. Tell me about their magic! How cool was it?”

While Marx let out a groan and Sunset found herself feeling a bit uncomfortable at seeing the leader of the country she was living in geeking out about something now of all times, Asta just stuttered a little bit while he talked. “Um, well...yeah, I guess it was cool.”

“Tell me about Copy Magic! How does something like that work? And Beast Magic. I’ve never even heard of that kind!” the Wizard King went on excitedly, despite the location and situation they were in. “What about Flame Spirit Magic? Oh, I wish I could have been there!”

Sunset cleared her throat. “Um, Wizard King? Don’t you think there’s more important questions to be asked?”

The man blinked and took a step back. “Yes,” Julius agreed before he jumped over to Sunset. “You’re much more qualified to answer those kinds of questions! And, Asta mentioned something about his sword using your magic to take out one of the Third Eye. What was that about? What did it do to her?”

Should have seen this one coming, the not-unicorn told herself.

Fana slowly opened her eyes, despite the protests of her body telling her that she hadn’t had enough sleep. Which was really more of a gripe about where she had been sleeping. The bit of wood she placed beneath her had helped keep her body heat from seeping out into the stones of the cave that was serving as her current shelter thanks mostly to the fluffy coat she had on, but it still meant sleeping on a large piece of wood.

Not that she wanted to go back to sleep either. Ever since Fana had fled from the Eye of the Midnight Sun’s base, nightmares had come for her the second she closed her eyes. Some of them were memories of her multiple deaths, while others were twisted versions of memories that weren’t really hers, but were at the same time.

She looked over to the serpentine dragon curled up not too far away. “I see you’re still here,” she mumbled.

Salamander raised his head, but said nothing.

“So, any more advice for me?” she asked.

Salamander continued to say nothing.

Fana frowned. “I left because of you, you know,” she told the creature.

To which Salamander replied with no response of any kind.

The silent treatment made Fana groan before she laid back down on her bit of wood. “Okay, maybe it wasn’t just you,” she said before sighing and reaching up to rub her head. Headaches were a problem for her now, coming on just a few seconds after waking. But, that could have been from hunger. She wasn’t eating very much at all as of late.

Fana’s elven memories had told her plenty of things about surviving in the wild as part of a nomadic community, but going it alone was a lot harder than she had thought it would be. Then, the girl let out a little groan and reached up to rub her head.

Those memories...I just thought of them as mine again, she told herself with a sigh. I’m me, not...her, right?

Salamander was silent on the issue, even through their telepathic link.

With no help from her traveling companion, Fana rolled onto her side and curled up into a ball. Everything was just confusing to her now. The old Fana had been a good deal older than the current Fana when she died. By the weight of numbers and amount of memories in her head, the old Fana had more claim to the body she was in than the current one. But that wasn’t her, that was the thing that had been possessing her.

That Fana had wanted to get married.

This Fana wanted...a full stomach, and maybe a good bed to sleep in. And…

“When we get out of here, let’s go see the world.”

Fana curled up on herself a little more. How many years had passed since that memory she clung to had been reality? Yet, here she was, clinging to it for reasons she just couldn’t understand. Holding onto the image of a boy that no longer existed. If Mars was even still alive, there was no way that he could be anything like the boy from her memories was.

She wanted to go home.

But her memories told Fana that she had two homes.

A rumbling of her stomach brought Fana out of her thoughts. She could debate things with herself more, later. Right now, she needed to find some food.

Yami sat down at the long table that had a full set of captains on each side. Although he looked nonchalant about the whole thing, it was pretty impressive that Julius had managed to wrangle them all into the same room. Getting everyone together just a few times a year for the Magic Knight exam, the Star Festival, and the odd show of unity to the kingdom was hard enough.

Vangeance and Nozel had probably been pretty easy, what with the Golden Dawn being rotated off the Diamond front after weeks of garding it for some basic patrols while the rest of the squad was put on standby and the Silver Eagles being based out of the Capital was one thing, but Fuegoleon hadn’t been seen in over a month, and the rest of them…

Well, I guess Rill doesn’t leave his base that much, he told himself while studying the youngest captain before turning his attention to Charlotte for a moment. But when her face started to turn red, probably from anger at a man staring at her, he quickly looked over to Dorothy, who was snoring so hard she had a little bubble of snot coming out of her nose. And she’s probably in her bedroom most of the time.

Jack would have been easy enough to find once they picked up his trail of bodies...or just called the central communications hub. The Praying Mantises were manning it for this month. Which left Captain Fatso the Hammy, aka Gueldre Poizot. Julius must have just snagged him before his men moved out to relive the Golden Dawn of their guard duties.

But, with all of the captains in one room at the same time, as always, things got a little heated.

“So, I heard that you and Nozel couldn’t bring back the head of the Midnight Sun’s leader, even after a bunch of Junior Magic Knights beat him half to death and left his bloody body laying on the floor for you to pick up,” Gueldre said to the two royal captains sitting across from him.

While Nozel let out a sound that was more of a growl than anything else, Fuegoleon cleared his throat. “Yes. There were a great deal of complications during that encounter that allowed him to slip through our fingers.”

Gueldre leaned back in his char and smirked beneath that purple mask that didn’t cover nearly as much of his face as it should have. “Yes, I believe the report said ‘these three really strong guys just showed up, but I blasted one using Sunset’s magic and she got all screamy’. Meaning that the two of you were held off by a pair of mages that a pair of junior knights could one-shot using a simple combo-spell,” he went on with an air of superiority before becoming thoughtful. “Although, can a magicless commoner using the magic of another even be considered a combo spell? That makes it even more pathetic-sounding.”

“I’m more interested to know how one of their mages was using magic from your grimoire,” Fuegoleon said, making the purple knight give a start.

“Pardon?” Gueldre asked before looking back and forth between the two knights and frowning. “What are you talking about?”

Nozel quickly moved to take control of the conversation. “After speaking with our Kingdom’s copy mage about the way her magic works, I understand that it takes a great deal of study in replicating another mage’s spells. During the battle, one of their members not only used your means of escaping a battle, but also cloaked their leader in that same kind of protection magic in order to escape my mercury magic a second before I could kill him,” he said. “So, how does an enemy mage know enough about your magic to replicate it?”

The question got a rise out of the large man that could have been mistaken for a ham, making him stand up. “Just what are you implying, Silva?”

“Is that your best defense? Playing for time by making me spell something out for you?” the silver royal asked.

As the tension in the room began to mount, Rill suddenly jumped up on the table, a small paintbrush balanced on the end of his nose. “Hey everybody, don’t fight! Look at me!” he said as he stumbled around, trying to keep the thing balanced.

Yami groaned. He understood trying to defuse a situation with a distraction, but watching the little kid dance around before he made a misstep and fell off of the table completely was just painful to watch.

“Seriously, why is this guy a captain?” Jack the Ripper asked everyone as he looked around, using that freakishly long neck of his to look just about everyone in the face.

But since Jack was going to take it hard on the kid, Yami decided to stand up to him as a force of habit. “Hey, lay off green bean. He’s just trying to make us forget our troubles,” the man said as he waved away Jack’s concerns.

It didn’t work very well, as Jack scowled at Yami. “I don’t need to be instructed by the captain of a squad with no stars!”

“Feh, we got stars. About five black ones,” Yami replied. Which was impressive, considering where they had been just a few weeks ago. Julius had handed out ten stars for rescuing those kids. It was fame they had to share with the Golden Dawn thanks to that Yuno kid sticking his nose into everything, but ten stars were ten stars.

Jack wasn’t impressed. “Negative stars don’t count!”

William Vangeance cleared his throat. “So, before we start trying to kill each other, does anyone know the reason that the Wizard King has called us all here today?”

“I think it’s rather obvious,” Charlotte spoke up. “It’s the same reason we’ve been called together so often since the attack on the Capital. There’s been a change in the situation regarding the Eye of the Midnight Sun.”

Something that had been stewing in the back of Yami’s mind since that day came to the forefront. “Say Golden Boy, where were you during that whole mess, anyway?” he asked. “Usually, a squad captain has to be present when one of their men is getting promoted.”

William gave a little shrug. “I’m afraid there was a rather embarrassing emergency at my squad’s headquarters that required my personal attention.”

It didn’t take Yami long to translate what that meant from the way the Clover Kingdom’s people usually said things. “Ah, so you had a case of the runs and were stuck on the toilet all day,” he said with a nod. “Yeah, I’ve been there.”

“Why do you have to be so vulgar?” Charlotte demanded with a red face.

Before Yami could tell her it was because he was a real man, there was a surge of mana, and Marx’s face appeared at the head of the table in the form of a magical communication. “Thank you for waiting patiently, everyone. However, the Wizard King will be meeting you in another room.”

“Then why did you tell us all to come here, first?” all of the conscious captains asked in one voice.

Sunset watched as Marx finished casting his spell, creating a dome of magic over the captured mage’s head before a white beam rose out of the top, to branch off into dozens of other beams that displayed pictures of the man’s memories after extending a foot. “The spell is complete, Sir. Shall I signal the captains before we begin?”

“There are some things I want you to ask before we do that,” Julius replied before pulling out a sheet of paper and handing it to Marx.

Once he got the written instructions, Marx looked back at the captive, George. “What was the purpose for the attack on the Capital?”

George responded in a full, monotone voice. “We were going to lure Captain Fuegoleon into a battle with our leader to cut him down and take the magic stone he always wore around his neck.”

“How many mages are there in your organization?”

After a moment’s pause, George answered the question. “Fifty two.”

“What is the end goal of your organization?”

Just like with the last two questions, George took a moment before responding. “We will take revenge on the Clover Kingdom and build our new nation from its ashes.”

“Why do you want the magic stones?”

“We will use them to restore our true forms and increase our magical powers to be greater than any magic knight.”

Sunset blinked as her mind latched onto the last one. “What does he mean, true forms?” she asked.

The question got a frown from Marx. “Lady Sunset, I know that you are an outsider, but I ask that you allow me to finish this round of questions before we ask new ones.”

Julius held up a hand. “Actually, I’m curious about that as well.”

“What is your true form?” Marx asked as he turned back to the prisoner.

The pause between question and answer was much longer this time around. “... I don’t know.”

With the spell failing to achieve what it was supposed to do, Asta gave a confused noise. “Uh, is he supposed to say that?”

“Only if he doesn’t know the answer to the question,” Marx replied before looking back to George. “Where is the main base for the Eye of the Midnight Sun located?”

“... I don’t know.”

Asta pointed his giant sword that had dispelled the memory protection spells at the man. “HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW SOMETHING LIKE THAT?”

The outburst got a tiny glare from Marx. “I’ll ask the questions here,” he told the boy before looking back at George with a frown. “How do you not know something like that?”

George blinked a few times before answering. “In order to assure absolute secrecy, Valtos handles all transportation to and from the main base. Even if you look out the entrance, all that can be seen is a thick cloud of perpetual mist.”

After letting out a sigh, Julius talked more to himself than anyone else in the room. “I suppose that learning everything we wanted to know at once was a bit hopeful. Continue, Marx.”

“What is the Eye of the Midnight Sun planning to do next?” Marx asked.

George took several seconds to respond. “We are preparing to go to the location of the latest magic stone. It’s hidden in the strong magic region of the underwater temple.”

Julius rubbed his chin. “Interesting. Now, Marx, would you please get started on the other line of questioning after calling for the captains?”

“Of course, Sir,” the man replied before informing the change in location of the meeting and turning back to the prisoner. “During the attack on the capital, was the Eye of the Midnight Sun given aide by a guardian mage?”

The question made Sunset blink. While Yami had discussed the possibility, that was just a single option in a rather long list. After seeing what the leadership of the Midnight Sun was getting into, what with trying to kill people en mass to get to a single man and magically crippling children in a way that would have killed them, Sunset couldn’t think of a single reason why anyone would willingly side with them. Especially after she heard about how they wanted to replace the kingdom with their own and how their leader planned on committing genocide.

Wait...how is something like that supposed to work? Sunset asked herself. The Eye of the Midnight Sun only had fifty mages. There was no way that they could hope to-Oh, Licht is lying to them, she realized.

“No.”

Right as the answer was given, Sunset heard the door to the outside open, and the nine mages that were supposed to be just below the Wizard King in power and ability came walking in. They looked much the same as she had seen them during the Magic Knight exam, although a good deal more serious.

With two exceptions. The first being Captain Dorothy, who was somehow standing up while sleeping in her pink outfit. The second was her own captain, as he took a drag on his cigarette.

“So, this is where Mushroom Head ran off with the two of you,” Yami said. “Everything go okay?”

Asta stood up a little straighter. “Yes Sir, Yami Sir!”

The response from her little brother made Sunset sigh. Asta was going to die from high blood pressure before he was thirty if he kept things like that up.

“Wizard King, Sir. Why have you called us down here?” Fuegoleon asked.

Standing beside the man in red, Charlotte frowned. “That’s the man you brought back from the Midnight Sun’s base. Did you learn something from him?”

Julius took a moment to clear his throat. “Oh yes. Thanks to Asta’s anti-magic, we were able to remove the protections around this man’s memories. I thought it prudent to have you all down here for the most important question we’re about to pry from him,” the man explained before a crafty smile crossed his face. “Because, he’s about to tell us which one of you was collaborating with the Midnight Sun in the attack on the Capital.”

“SAY WHAT?” Asta yelled.

Once the echo had stopped and Sunset had enough quiet to think, her mind raced to try and figure out just what kind of logic that the Wizard King had used to reach such a conclusion. However, aside from the question that was asked just before the captains arrived, Sunset couldn’t recall anything that would have pointed to one of the men or women standing in front of her as a traitor. But then, I don’t have access to a tenth of the information that Julius does, she told herself to try and sooth her wounded pride for not being able to solve a puzzle.

Still, it was a puzzle, a challenge, and Sunset had always prided herself in being able to work out such things in her head, no matter how complex. The only thing she could figure out was that Julius had narrowed the means behind the attack on the capital to two different options, and crossed one of them out before the other mages had arrived.

Most of the captains kept their cool, although the guy with the stringy limbs in the green cloak got a little excited, while the purple captain frowned and looked around suspiciously as he took a step back. The captain of Yuno’s squad frowned through his mask as the captains with royal blood stepped to the side to flank everyone else, and the youngest captain looked on in disbelief while Dorothy continued to sleep.

“Marx, if you would?” Julius asked.

“Which of the people in this room assisted the Eye of the Midnight Sun in the attack on the Capital by giving them a way to circumvent the barrier?”

George answered without a second thought. “The traitor is the Purple Orca’s captain, Gueldre Poizot.”

After giving a sudden start, the fat man in the purple robe took a step back. “That’s ridiculous!” he said. “You can’t honestly take anything this man says as fact! He’s a terrorist that attacked our kingdom! When have I ever given anyone cause to doubt my loyalty?”

Jack the Ripper let out an odd laugh. “Kekeke. Shall I go down the list?” he asked.

“I’ve also heard some rather disturbing rumors about your actions,” Charlotte spoke up as she turned to frown at the man while calling up her grimoire.

Third in line, Nozel frowned at the woman. “Only rumors? I’ve had some of my men do a little digging the last couple of weeks and come up with more than that.”

The youngest of the captains, Rill, looked over to the others. “Are you guys serious?” he asked in surprise.

“Yeah, I’ve heard some pretty nasty things about him as well,” Yami added.

“I always knew you were up to something sneaky, but even I didn’t think you could stoop this low,” Jack grumbled.

Faced with angry mages on all sides, Gueldre looked around at all of them. “THIS ISN’T FUNNY! How can you possibly believe the words of a terrorist?”

“Because,” Marx suddenly spoke up. “He’s under the influence of my magic, and will answer everything I ask him truthfully. However, if you really are innocent, then by all means, subject yourself to the same spell, and prove it to us.”

After taking another step back, Gueldre looked around wildly. “I won’t stand here and be trapped by this farce! I’m going to get out of here and clear my name!” he said as his book rose up in front of him. “Transparency Magic: Invisible Scout!”

Sunset tensed as she saw the man slowly vanish from the ground up, her memory recalling the set of spells that one of the Three Eye had used previously.

“Uh...isn’t that the same spell that one guy used in the cave a few weeks ago?” Asta asked.

As Yami drew his sword and all of the other captains jumped away from where Poizot had been a moment ago, Sunset held out her hand and drew on her natural magic without messing with the mana. After her encounter with the mage who could simply slip through any attack that had been created from mana, she had spent a little time in coming up with a proper defense against such a move. It hadn’t taken her long. Although, its usefulness against a captain was questionable.

A basic transmutation lashed out at the ground beneath where the invisible man had been standing a moment ago as well as all of the unoccupied area between there and the door. Solid rock turned to wet mud that was a good foot deep, creating an obvious impression of where the fat man was as he sank down to where his knees were.

“H-Hey, what is this?” a disembodied voice demanded. “Magic isn’t supposed to work on me when I’m invisible!”

William Vangeance took a moment to look at Sunset. “But it does work on the surrounding environment.”

Charlotte grit her teeth before glancing over to the captain in the tank top. “Quickly Yami, you’re the only one of us with a means of non-magical attack.”

Before the fat man could work his way out of the mud, Asta surged forward with his large sword still in his hands. “I’VE GOT HIM!”

“Idiot,” Jack the Ripper told him. “A magic sword isn’t going to-” The man stopped talking when Asta’s sword connected with a loud ‘klang’. “Oh...nevermind.”

As the magic hiding the purple mage from view was dispelled, all of the other captains moved in on him a moment later, with Fuegoleon taking a moment to dry out the mud with his magic before they all pounced on the man that was only about waist high to the rest of them while Asta held his sword out, touching the mage and keeping him from raising a mana skin defense.

Asta spent nearly half an hour not wanting to believe his ears as a Magic Knight Captain went about confessing to a list of crimes over a mile long. With Marx’s magic on him, Gueldre had confessed to outright killing some of his squad members, stealing magical items for his own personal use, stealing other magical items to sell to nobles, drug smuggling, extortion, and having some of his men assault Clover merchants. Then, there were his real big crimes, like how he had abducted a guardian mage that managed the city’s defenses and gave the guy over to that creepy girl in glasses Sunset had knocked out in exchange for some magical items.

After the whole thing was over, the Wizard King turned around to face everyone in the room. “This is the first time something like this has happened in the history of the Clover Kingdom,” he said. “He was a magic knight, whose duty it was to protect our people, but he sold them out instead. Because of what the Magic Knights represent, we can’t allow this to become public knowledge.”

“SAY WHAT?” Sunset yelled, making everyone in the room look over to her as she fumed under the order. “You can’t be serious! You just found out that this guy’s dirty, and you want to cover it up? What? Can the kingdom not handle hearing that one of their stupid knights isn’t one-hundred percent perfect?”

Jack the Ripper turned to the redhead. “Use your brain, girl,” he told her.

Julius continued right over the man. “A good deal of the kingdom’s strength comes from it’s belief in the Magic Knights as incorruptible. The last thing we need is that faith being shaken,” he explained before looking back to the others. “That said, I have no intentions of just ignoring this either. Since the Purple Orcas were being sent out to the border, the possibility of them causing trouble back at home is low. Which buys us some time for what is likely the most corrupt squad. I want the rest of you to examine your squads and see if you can find anyone with questionable loyalties among your men. If a captain can be enticed by these criminals, anyone can.”

As that order was digested by the captains, the Wizard King turned to the redhead in the room. “Oh, Sunset. With this news, I almost forgot. Did your theory coincide with what we learned today?”

The frown on Sunset’s face went away for a second at the question, after which she crossed her arms and looked down at the ground. “Well...that’s just it…” she replied hesitantly as her eyes darted around a little, showing Asta she was quickly going over information as if she was reading through a book at lightning speed. “I think their leader, Licht, is lying to them.”

Everyone in the room focused their attention on the girl. Shortly after they did, Captain Vangeance stepped forward. “What makes you say that?”

Sunset became hesitant for a moment, then let out a sigh. “When I met him inside that cave, after he abducted all those kids, Licht said some things that don’t really match up with what his lackey told us,” she said. “He talked like he wanted to kill everyone in the Clover Kingdom, not rule over another one. And then there’s the Tree of Life array…”

“Hey,” Jack the Ripper suddenly spoke up as he pointed to Sunset. “Why exactly are we listening to this pipsqueak?”

“Yeah that’s right! We’re supposed to be the magical experts here!” Rill said as he took a space alongside Jack, who blinked and gave the boy a cautious look.

Julius cleared his throat. “Ah yes, about that,” he said before going into an explanation about Sunset’s origins.

Once he was done, Jack slumped a bit. “Knew I would end up in the wrong the moment the kid took the same stance as me,” he grumbled.

With that out of the way, Sunset suddenly became hesitant. “As for the array, if it’s really using those stones, then I would need to study one to see what effects it would have on a spell like that,” she said. “They could either enhance the magic, or invert it, turning what could be considered a healing spell into one that would actually cause flesh to decay.”

Julius nodded. “I see. In that case, recovering Fuegoleon’s stone, or finding another should be our top priority. They can’t be allowed to assemble them all and finish their plan.”

A second later, something occurred to Asta. Wait a second...don’t we already have a magic stone? he asked himself, remembering the rock they had got during his very first mission that Secre had guarded religiously after retrieving it. Why would Sunset need a magic stone if she already had one in her room?

“Well then, you all have your orders. Before we can make any new moves against the Midnight Sun, we must first secure our squads. Go back and perform a thorough review of your troops. We can not afford to have any intelligence leaks, or worse,” the Wizard King announced before turning to the Black Bull’s captain. “Yami, there is another matter I must speak with, in my office. If you would come with me, please? And bring your men.”

Yami let his displeasure show as he walked into his office with his minions on his heels. All of the other captains had been given leave to head back to their respective bases, but Julius had him stick around for some reason.

What that reason was, didn’t know, but he bet that it would have something to do with the report Julius was reading with a frown on his face. After a few minutes of keeping him in the dark, the Wizard King finally looked back up to Yami. “Sorry for keeping the three of you here so long, but I have a special assignment for the Black Bulls,” he said before looking back to the letter with a frown for a moment, then up at Yami again. “It’s a terrible feeling, to be betrayed by someone you once fought alongside.” He sighed and looked out the window behind his desk. “I sprinted at full speed to get where I am, but I may have made mistakes because of my haste.”

Ignoring the starry-eyed look in his shortest minion’s face, Yami gave a groan. “Did you hold us up to tell us something like that?”

“No, I have an assignment for the Black Bulls,” he said before looking back down at the piece of paper. “Or two.”

“WHATEVER YOU NEED, WIZARD KING, SIR!” Asta yelled.

Sunset crossed her arms. “Shouldn’t you be asking one of the more established squads?”

Julius sighed and hung his head a little. “Unfortunately, I don’t know if the Midnight Sun has infiltrated any of the other squads, and taking the time to question every single member of the Magic Knights will kill the edge we just gained. Not to mention, undermine the trust we have in one another,” he explained before sighing. “The Black Bulls are the smallest squad and have no real connections to anyone outside your organization. So, your group is the only one I can trust with this mission because of the manpower that will be required. Which means nearly every one of your members will need to be going on this mission.”

“Which is what, exactly?” Sunset asked.

The question hung in the air for several seconds as Julius took another look at the paper he was still holding before turning his attention back to the redhead. “Well, you were there for the interrogation, so you already know that the Midnight Sun has located a magic stone in the vicinity of the Underwater Temple.”

“OH YEAH!” Asta exclaimed before blinking and becoming a little confused as he calmed down and his brain caught up with his mouth. “Uh, what’s the Underwater Temple?”

Annoyed at the fact his minion had nearly busted his eardrums over something he didn’t even know about, Yami reached over to grab the boy by the head and lift him into the air. “If you’re going to keep doing things like that, I might as well just squeeze hard enough to make your brain come out your nose since you’re not using it,” he said before dropping him back onto the floor.

After considering the question for a moment, Julius snapped his fingers. “It’s a special region of the Clover Kingdom that has an excess of mana. If you want to compare it to something you have a little experience with, think of it as an open-air dungeon, only much more dangerous.”

“So, you want us to get there before the Eye of the Midnight Sun does and make off with this magic stone thing,” Yami surmised. “And you’re right about connections, I don’t really have anything tying me down like all the other captains.”

Unlike the majority of the leaders among the Magic Knights, Yami had no land or title, he wasn’t even from the Clover Kingdom. He had washed up on the shore in sight of the mountain that was the capital of the country. And that had caused him no end of problems when he was younger…

“Look at that freak, he’s not even from this continent you know. He washed up from some island somewhere to the south east and lives alone on the coast,” Yami could remember someone saying to someone else several years ago when he had been looking out at the sea and feeling homesick.

He wasn’t some human-looking horse-thing that didn’t bring good luck, with fancy magic that didn’t need a grimoire. So, there wasn’t any reason to be friendly with him. But even after receiving a grimoire from a tower in Clover, nobody had accepted him, and the affinity that his grimoire had wasn’t something that many people in the entire history of the kingdom could claim. Even when I got a grimoire, nothing really changed. I thought I would have been alone all my life, until…

Yami remembered a tall and pretty off-putting blonde weirdo running up to him one day when he was playing with his new grimoire and giving him an excited, goofy smile. “Oh WOW! Is that dark magic? Oh, that’s super rare. Please, you got to give me a closer look!”

Julius had offered to buy him a meal in exchange for hearing a pitch about joining the Magic Knights, and eventually managed to talk him into joining the Aqua Deer. And he had been stuck with the man ever since.

So, if Julius needed him for something, Yami supposed that he needed to take it seriously. Especially since Julius was feeling the sting of betrayal so hard that he was actually going to Yami’s squad for help.

Seeing that he needed to make a show of support, the foreign man raised his arm to put three fingers up to his chest. “Okay then. I’ll use all the power I’ve got to prove that you’re not wrong about this, and show you that you haven’t made any mistakes,” Yami told the man.

“Heh, I think that this is the first time that you’ve ever saluted anyone,” the Wizard King replied with a little smile. “Oh, and Asta. I’m starting to think that it might have been fate that brought you to the Black Bulls. You see, To help ward off intruders, the Underwater Temple is protected by a magical barrier that keeps everyone out. Although there are rumors of ways into the area, I can provide verification for none of them. So, your anti-magic will be needed to enter the area. I’ll be counting on you.”

Asta slapped his hand up to his chest in a salute like Yami’s. “YES SIR!” he replied loudly before his determined face fell and the boy fell to the ground to roll around in pain. “OW! OW THAT HURT!”

On the other side of Yami, Sunset let out a groan. “Of for the love of-STAND STILL MORON!” she yelled before Asta was picked up by a blue glow before he floated over to the girl and was covered in fire magic.

“Never seen someone injure themselves giving a salute,” Yami commented as Julius chuckled over the matter.

Then, the blonde’s face turned serious again. “Now, onto the next matter. Sunset, I have another assignment for you,” he said before holding up the letter he had been mulling over. “A few days ago, a scouting team from the Golden Dawn came across a city that had been affected by an unknown type of magic while on a basic reconnaissance mission. No magic item was found and we were hoping it was an isolated incident, but I just received word that another small village further inland has suffered a similar fate. From what can be determined, the magic involved caused most of the townspeople to gather in the center of the village before they became extremely violent.”

Sunset frowned. “So, it’s like what that snow mage was doing to those kids?”

“No,” Julius replied. “While magic to control people en mass does exist, it is very limited in what it can do. You can either have quality, or quantity, but not both. The ability to force multiple people into violent conflict where their lives might be in danger is far outside the realm of possibility for any mass mind control magic. I want you to join our kingdom’s other magical expert in seeing what could be done to find out the reason why such horrific attacks are happening.”

After looking over to the shortest person in the room for a moment with a frown, Sunset sighed. “Well, I guess nothing too bad can happen to Asta if every other single member of the squad will be around to watch his back and keep him from doing anything too stupid.”

“Hey!” Asta complained.

Yami reached up for a cigarette that wasn’t there and groaned. He hated being in places that wanted to keep the air smelling like roses. “You just beat yourself up while saluting. If you ask me, she’s right to be worried.”

“Very well then, I’ll send out the orders and begin the operations in two days time. That will give you time to make the preparations you need,” Julius told them before dismissing the three people in front of him.

Prologue: The Argument that Started it All

Sunset Shimmer, the most brilliant and powerful unicorn of her time and the personal student of Princess Celestia couldn’t believe what she was reading. When she had seen her reflection as an alicorn in the crystal mirror that the Princess had shown her nearly a month ago, she had thought it might have been some kind of metaphor. After all, the wings and horn it showed had been made of light, not flesh, feathers and bone. It spoke to the old wish of a foolish little filly who had managed to gain entrance to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns on merit alone, rather than family connections.

But the book in front of her detailed the process by which Celestia could actually create other alicorns. It was a complicated piece of spellcraft that took an outside mana source that was perfectly attuned to a pony’s mystic field to create an overload in her mana pathways that could result in death of the mare in question unless the magical energies were very carefully monitored and guided to reform her body by another pony familiar with the inner workings of an alicorn.

Which was where the second spell listed in the book came in. It was some kind of locating magic combined with a teleportation spell to send ponies who met certain criteria to an astral realm. There, Celestia could meet them and take them through the process.

It made Sunset finally realize where Mi Amore Cadenza came from. Princess Celestia hadn’t just found an alicorn somewhere in the world. She had made her. Probably after Cadenza had stupidly stumbled on some magical artifact that she was compatible with. It was a one-in-a-billion fluke that ended with her becoming Princess Celestia’s new favorite pony and Sunset reduced to being her magic tutor.

Just the thought of their time together made Sunset shudder in revulsion. Despite being an alicorn, Cadenza had absolutely no talent in magic. The stupid filly could barely move things around with her horn, much less do anything worthwhile. It galled Sunset that she was always so cheery, greeting the amber unicorn with a bright smile every time they met for lessons, no matter how many times she failed to do anything right.

Although, the reason for Cadenza’s continued happiness no matter how many times she screwed up basic spellcraft in front of the far superior pony was now apparent. All this time, she had been mocking Sunset. It didn’t matter how much better the unicorn was at magic than Cadenza, only one of them was an alicorn.

The sound of big, heavy hooves coming into the room and walking across the stone made Sunset’s ears twitch. A lot could be said about ponies, but being stealthy wasn’t one of them. So, it wasn’t much of a surprise when Sunset looked up from the book to see Princess Celestia had come into the restricted room of the library with a pair of guards in tow. “Sunset Shimmer, what do you think you are doing here?”

“What am I doing here?” she repeated before throwing the book she had been reading right at Celestia. “It’s called learning the truth! How dare you keep this kind of magic from me! This book says you can make me an alicorn princess!”

Celestia’s frown slid from disapproving to angry. “That is not something that you are allowed to know,” she told the unicorn before looking to all the other books Sunset had perused before learning of the white pony’s darkest secret. “Nor is anything else in this section of the library. You’re being shortsighted and selfish.”

Anger like she had never known swelled in Sunset’s mind while her heart felt like it was jabbed with a spike. “I’M SELFISH?” she demanded. “You’re the one keeping ponies like me under your hoof with lies! I’ve done everything you’ve ever asked, learned every spell, memorized every lesson, even the stupid friendship ones that didn’t make sense! I deserve to stand beside you as an equal, but you just give it to Cadenza! But I’m better than she could ever be, better than you even! So make me a princess!”

“No,” Celestia told her evenly. “Being a princess must be earned. I have tried to teach you everything you need to know, but you have turned from it. Every time you tell me you deserve to get something without the effort just proves to me that you are not ready.”

Sunset stood frozen for a moment, unable to come to terms with what Celestia was saying. “Earned?” she repeated in a shriek, her voice growing more emotional with every word. “I’VE EARNED IT A HUNDRED TIMES OVER! I’ve passed every test, overcome every obstacle to remain your pupil when everypony else at that school tries to pull me down because I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth! I put up with Cadenza, even though she has no talent for magic. But because I’m not some mindless peon that doesn’t do everything you tell me to at the drop of a hat, you say I can’t be a princess? THAT’S HORSEAPPLES AND YOU KNOW IT!”

Standing up a little straighter, Celestia flared out her wings and looked down on the smaller pony. “Sunset Shimmer, I am removing you from the position of my pupil. If we cannot get past this, your studies end here. You are welcome to stay in Canterlot, but you will no longer be welcome at the castle,” she said before the pegasus guards that had accompanied the Princess into the library began advancing on her.

Once again, the insanity of the situation left Sunset stunned. Princess Celestia was...kicking her out? Banishing her from the castle? How was that stupid idea of hers supposed to even work without her starving to death?

Sunset had nothing to her name aside from a few dresses the Princess had provided for her when she showed an interest in attending events like the Gala. She had no bits, no means to provide for herself. She would be begging on the street! And how were they supposed to get past something like this? “You mean lay down and be a good little dog for you?” she yelled at her former teacher. “It’s always about you, isn’t it you old nag? Everypony just has to love you and do everything you say like it’s their born duty, and if they don’t say otherwise, you get rid of them! Well not me! I’m not going to beg for something that should already be mine! I hate you! I WILL ALWAYS HATE YOU! BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT YOU DESERVE!”

For a brief moment, Celestia’s expression faltered and Sunset figured that the moisture she had seen beginning to form around the alicorn’s eyes was just her imagination, caused by some of those stupid memories that were trying to creep up in her mind. Like the time Princess Celestia had their pictures made at the Foal and Filly Fair. “Guards, escort her outside the gates,” she said without looking back.

“This is the biggest mistake you’ll ever make in your entire life!” Sunset promised her as she headed for the library’s exit.

Celestia said something, but Sunset wasn’t in the mood to hear it.

As the guards led her into the hallway, Sunset turned towards her room, but the guards tried to stop here. “The exit is this way.”

“So I’m supposed to what? Leave everything I own here in the castle when I can never come back?” she demanded of the idiots. “Hey yeah! Let’s just throw me out on the street and keep everything I own! I’m sure Celestia will want to read in the papers tomorrow morning how she stole not only my destiny, but everything I own! And when the reporters ask her what’s going on, she can point to you two plotholes and I’m sure everypony will want to know why you threw a young mare out on the street without any bits to get a room at a stable in the middle of the night!”

The two guards gave each other a nervous look before sharing a nod. “Alright, come on,” they finally said before taking Sunset to her room.

Once they were there, Sunset took a quick look around for anything and everything she could take with her in her saddlebags. The three dresses she owned managed to fit after some cramming got them in there, even if the one bag bulged a bit at the seams. Next was a book on the compatibility of unicorn to pegasus magic in regards to weather that she hadn’t finished and then came...her communication journal.

Sunset stared at the book for several seconds. Within it was ten years of messages between her and Princess Celestia. Ten years of lies. She didn’t really want to take it. But at the same time, leaving it in the castle was like throwing away ten years of her life. Finally, she shoved it in her saddlebag. I can probably get a lot of bits for it, Sunset told herself. Some big noble wanting to kiss the princess’s plot would pay a lot of money for a direct line to her royal liar.

Once she had gathered everything, Sunset found herself walking towards the exit.

And right past the mirror.

As she looked to the magical transport, something occurred to her.

She knew the truth.

She knew that Cadenza’s existence was a lie.

That anypony could be an alicorn if they found the right magical object.

She knew that Celestia really wasn’t the benevolent ruler that everypony had thought she was. She was a fake and a liar that only ruled Equestria because everyone believed the horseapples that she fed them. If they even knew half of what Sunset did…

A worry crept into Sunset mind.

What if Celestia hadn’t just forgotten to give Sunset some bits to survive on her own because she never had to deal with money herself?

What if she was simply planning to...get rid of her former student?

She had been to Celestia’s garden, she knew the story of everypony frozen there. Or at least, she knew what Celestia had told her. What if the twenty odd ponies and one mismash creature weren’t actually horrible criminals that were responsible for the deaths of hundreds, but just ponies she didn’t like?

If that was the case...Sunset had a sinking feeling there would be a lot more ponies waiting for her at the gates than just two pegasi. Two pegasi, she could deal with. Two dozen with another twenty unicorn guards to back them up...was a definite...maybe.

So, with the only possible place she could escape to just a few steps away, Sunset quickly raised her horn and sent out a blast of force in all directions around her, knocking the two guards into the nearby wall before she bolted towards the only place that would be safe for her from Celestia’s need to keep the unicorn silent and went through the mirror.

It was only when Sunset was halfway through that she suddenly realized how amazingly fortuitous it was that the mirror was actually open tonight of all nights.

Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Big ponies don’t cry and you’re the biggest pony there is, Celestia told herself as she focused on the task of picking up the books that Sunset had left behind with a sense of unease caused by the some the subjects she saw. One of them looked to be a tresease on Necromancy for pony’s sake!

Celestia couldn’t help but wonder how things had come to this. Sunset had been a sweet little filly back when she had begun her training, and living at the castle rather than the dorm rooms in the school had certainly been a benefit. They had breakfast together every day and even though Celestia was briefed on all of her grades, since Celestia certainly didn’t have time to teach her everything, it brought a smile to her face to see how Sunset would come running with her report card or the A she got on the latest test.

But, something had obviously gone wrong between then and now. Somehow, Sunset had become prideful, arrogant, selfish and shortsighted. She refused to listen and actually shouted back at the bigger alicorn despite Celestia being the Princess, and Sunset being just another student.

Who Celestia needed to remove from the castle.

It was for her own good.

If she had learned such dark magic as summoning the dead, command over the elements to hurt another pony, the secret histories of Canterlot that held the information about the Elements of Harmony, the-wait, Celestia thought to herself as she stopped from going through the long list of tomes that had been open on the floor. There is no way that Sunset could have read through all of these in the few hours since we last saw each other at dinner, she thought to herself as rational thought began to work its way through the intense panic and pain her heart was going through.

Skimmed through them perhaps, but not actually learn more than the basic descriptions of dark magic. Or magical items, Celestia told herself as she found the book on the secret history of the castle opened to an illustration of the crystal mirror. Maybe I should have just been honest and told her I have no idea how it works.

But teachers weren’t supposed to do that! Teachers were these all-knowing ponies that had every answer a student could possibly need and more. Which counted double when the teacher was an ageless alicorn who had been around since the beginning of Equestria. Everypony counted on her to give them all of the answers. Without that assurance, all of Equestria would fall apart. The words ‘I don’t know’ weren’t allowed to pass her lips, ever.

And she still had so much to teach Sunset before their time was up!

Unless an unbelievably talented unicorn came along in the next week or so, Sunset would be her last student before Nightmare Moon appeared. Celestia had already begin preparing the filly for her sister’s eventual return. She might have gone a tad overboard on the more practical application of magic, but Celestia had been increasing the pace of her lessons, fitting in discussions of ethics and friendship during their normal tea times, when Sunset usually just wanted to talk about herself and what she had done that morning or spend time on something foolish, like local gossip.

Because if Sunset would have to be the pony...that...helped Celestia kill her sister, she would need to be molded into a pony that didn’t waste time with such foolish things.

There was nopony else with the right amount of power and training. Cadance had been a pegasus, and from Celestia’s own evaluation of her cutie mark as well as her training in magic that had nothing to do with an Empire over one-thousand years gone. They didn’t have the time to drill the magical skills she would need to be of use in a battle.

Sunset was the only choice. Celestia had to push her, had to make her better, ready to...do what Celestia knew she would hesitate to carry out when the time came to deal the killing blow. And any hesitation, any doubt in Sunset’s mind would bring about failure in the battle with Nightmare Moon.

But now…

“Everypony has to love you and do everything you say!” Sunset’s voice echoed in her mind.

“Did you honestly expect me to stand idle while they all basked in your precious light?” Luna demanded from a memory that was nearly one-thousand years old.

Celestia felt herself shiver at the odd similarities between Sunset and Luna. Both had been withdrawn from other ponies, taking their self-worth from their talents rather than any relationships. But while Luna had slipped into absolute despair over the fact that nopony appreciated the effort she put into raising the moon and keeping ponies safe at night, Sunset at least had… Me, Celestia told herself, remembering the little filly that had brought her all of the As on her exams.

At least she did, until Celestia tried to correct Sunset’s excessive study of magic.

Which was why I tried to correct it by having her teach Cadance, so they could become friends, Celestia thought as a very bad feeling started to well up inside her gut.

Even though, teacher’s weren’t supposed to be friends with their students, as Celestia had to tell herself time and time again when Sunset was a filly. A rule she had broken herself many times, unfortunately.

So that’s why I told her to go make friends, the alicorn told the feeling that was quickly turning rotten in her stomach authoritative lectures and passive-aggressive comments about what Sunset should be doing. But...Sunset had been the student, and Celestia her ruler. She should have obey her Princess!

“Luna, you must lower the moon, it is your duty!” Celestia remembered an arrogant, blind fool demanding a pony who needed more of a hug than a bossy older sister who always thought she was right.

“Because I’m not some mindless peon that doesn’t do everything you tell me to at the drop of a hat, you say I can’t be a princess?” the Sunset in Celestia’s memory yelled at her with nothing but anguish on her face.

After putting the last book away, Celestia noticed that the hoof she had used to put it there was shaking. Using her magic had become problematic with all of the thoughts running through her mind making it impossible to focus. Tears began to form again and she stomped her hoof on the ground to try and force her mind back onto its proper task.

But it just wouldn’t work.

“I did it again, didn’t I?” Celestia asked herself.

She took in a deep breath and tried to clear her mind. There were just too many emotions running through her head for her to think clearly.

...just like Sunset probably had too many things going through her head when Celestia found her.

They both needed to calm down and take a moment to work through the emotions running wild. Then, Celestia could go to Sunset and have a real discussion about things and their future together.

The thought of not having to be apart from her...student lessened the sinking feeling in Celestia’s gut to manageable levels as she started to plan out how to fix these things. Perhaps having Sunset tutor Cadance was no longer the best idea anymore. It would cause some major issues now that she knew the truth. Although, now that Cadance could finally tell Sunset the truth about her origins, it would at least stop the pink alicorn from badgering Celestia about lying to her tutor.

So, they could both get a night of sleep, then Celestia could go and meet Sunset at…

Celestia stopped in her tracks as her plan for reconciliation with her student came to a screeching halt when she realized that she had no idea where Sunset was supposed to go after getting kicked out of the castle. The unicorn had no living family that either of them knew of and at her age, she was much too old to return to the orphanage where Celestia had found her. The idea of just having the guard check at all the nearby stables quickly entered her mind, but the image of Sunset going to an inn to sleep for the night and think about her actions was put to a halt with Celestia came to another realization.

Sunset had no money. Celestia had provided everything for her since she was a filly in the way of things that the little unicorn had asked for. She never got an allowance. That was something parents provided. Which...Sunset didn’t have.

The bad feeling in Celestia’s gut suddenly became ten times worse as she hurried to the library door.

She could stop Sunset from leaving and maybe just send her to her room like...a...foal being told by her… No, Celestia thought to herself as she slowed down and began to concoct an even better plan that wouldn’t involve the alicorn damaging her credibility in the eyes of her student.

And Sunset was her student, still.

The guards could escort Sunset out, and then the little unicorn could just happen across a pair of ponies assaulting a wealthy mare. Then the mare could reward her with some bits, and Sunset could get a room at an inn, and Celestia could...not have to...admit she made a mistake?

Not have to apologize for getting caught up in the moment?

Be able to deny the fact that Sunset had hurt her, and in that moment of pain, lashed out at the filly in retaliation for being hurt?

The urgency of the moment forgotten, Celestia looked down at herself. Is this what I have become? A mare that can’t admit she made a mistake?

It was no wonder that Sunset had become like she did. Celestia had been modeling such behavior nearly every day of the little pony’s life.

She needed to go and have a real talk with Sunset, explain to her why she couldn’t become an alicorn...at least, not yet. Yes, Celestia told herself. If she has a real goal to work towards instead of just some nebulous reward, it will help her keep focus. She could also start sending Sunset on some trips outside of Canterlot. Have her try her hoof at solving some real problems and meeting genuine ponies instead of the kind that usually lived in Canterlot and hung around ponies in high positions of power.

Which was probably why Sunset didn’t make any real friends. Most of the ponies she had met had made a living off of being fake.

The feeling in Celestia’s gut started to abade as she continued to make plans for Sunset’s course correction. Perhaps, this little incident was something they both needed to shake themselves out of the rut they were digging. It would be a little tense between them, but the pain would subside over time and they would be all the closer for it.

Images of the two of them going back to the way things were when Sunset was a filly were interrupted by the sound of galloping hooves and Celestia looked to see one of the guards that had been escorting Sunset running down the hallway. Had she been so wrapped up in her own needs again that she simply ignored everything else that was going on around her?

“Princess Celestia there’s been a problem!” the guard said before he bowed down at her hooves.

The bad feeling in Celestia’s stomach finished eating away and she felt a pit open up inside of her, letting out a storm of dread. “What happened?”

Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, or Cadance to her friends and anypony who didn’t want to use those fancy names like the majority of the ponies in her home village, was very chipper as she opened her eyes and rolled out of bed to leave the sheets where they were. Even after a year of living in a palace, it was still weird that she didn’t have to clean up after herself.

However, that wasn’t important. Today was the day she would make a new friend!

Officially, anyway. As far as Cadance was concerned, Sunset was already her friend. But the unicorn had yet to agree to any such title.

But, family was always stubborn when it came to relationships. She had learned that from Celestia and her not-on-paper-but-true-in-every-other-way daughter. Why Sunset hadn’t been already adopted by her de facto mom was still a mystery to Cadance, but maybe Celestia was just waiting until Sunset got around to getting her own pair of wings.

At least then, Cadance could stop lying to her about things like where alicorns came from. That was really going to cause some tension between them when Sunset learned the truth. The pink princess still didn’t know if she should take the blame for going along with the lie or point her hoof at Celestia to try and avoid responsibility. While it had been the bigger pony’s order, Cadance was a princess too. She had just as much authority as Celestia, even though their ages were centuries apart.

Using the levitation magic her not-big-sister-but-close-as-she-was-ever-going-to-get Sunset had taught her after several grueling days of practice, Cadance opened her door and managed to not rip it off the hinges before trotting out into the hallway.

“-that the sun was a whole hour late today,” one of the maids whispered to another pony in palace livery.

Cadance raised an eyebrow at the odd comment, but continued trotting down the hallway and into the dining room. One look at the pony on the other end of the table from her threatened to shatter the pink princess’s mood. Celestia looked...tired. Dark circles hung under her eyes and the wavy mane that was the envy of everypony actually sat limp as she stared at a plate with a large sliver of cake surrounded by melted ice cream.

It was worse than the last Summer Sun Celebration. Not only did it look like Princess Celestia hadn’t slept a wink the night before, but what was obviously some comfort food had sat untouched in front of her for some time.

After a second of thought, Cadance greeted the bigger pony with a smile. Sometimes, all you needed to cheer somepony up was an infectious good mood. “Good morning Princess Celestia!” Cadance said as she sat down and looked around before noticing that somepony was missing from the table. “Where’s Sunset?”

A second later, Cadance realized this had been the wrong question to ask.

Page 7: Introductions

“So, was it your mother, or your father that made you a bastard?”

Yuno flinched at the question and looked over to the man standing next to him as they waited for the young spatial mage to finish talking with his mother across the street in the Clover Kingdom’s capital. Night had long since fallen, but Langris hadn’t even seen to notice, so they were stuck there until the second-in-command was ready to leave.

“Excuse me?” Yuno asked.

The man in the mask didn’t even bother looking in Yuno’s direction. “Did you not understand the question, bastard? I’ll simplify it to account for your poor commoner education, then. Was the man who fathered you a rich royal that just took a woman that wasn’t his wife to bed one night, or are you the bastard offspring of a high woman that thought her blonde husband’s penis was too small and forgot to drink one of those concoctions that’s supposed to stop people like you from popping out?”

A growl escaped from Yuno’s throat as he reached up to wrap his fingers around the blue jewel on the end of his necklace, his only connection to the people who had brought him into the world. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

Captain William looked over to his new recruit. “Come now, bastard. You can do better than that. I know you thought you were special in that little shit hole of a village you came from. But here, you’re nothing important at all. Just a piece of shit that came out the wrong hole,” he said before giving the boy a crooked smile. “Come now, are you just going to stare at me, bastard? Do you not like me calling you bastard, Bastard? Why don’t you hit me? Take out that special little book of yours and blow me away. You want to, don’t you?”

The temptation was palpable as Yuno glared at the man. “Because you’re just baiting me,” he said with a frown.

“Yes I am,” he said with a nod and much lighter tone before nodding towards his lieutenant across the street, making Yuno look in that direction. “And he will too, as will everyone else in the Golden Dawn, every noble you work for, every royal you meet. They will look down at you like you’re trash. Some won’t even try to bait you into a fight, they’ll just lie and say you did something wrong, despite the fact that any inquiry with magic will find them to be false. I’m sure that your direct superiors will even assign you tasks that will be a complete waste of your skills, like cleaning toilets for the first week or so. It’s what they do to people like us.”

Yuno’s head spun back towards the other man so fast he was afraid he might have injured something. “What? What do you mean, people like us?”

After a few seconds, William looked up at the night sky. “My mother was just some peasant from the Common Realm. I’m not positive, but I believe the man who sired me pulled her into his bed one night against her will for some fun and she ran from the house in both disgrace and fear. Noble women don’t like it when their husbands are tricked into bed by the maids. Because of that, she had to flee to the Forsaken Realm for fear of her life, where we barely survived on one meal a day and had to deal with all the problems that come with poverty. Of course, the humor of it all was that the man who sired me knew where I was, despite my mother’s attempts to hide the proof of his escapades. He had me brought to him after his legitimate heir died. I think the child fell from his horse and broke his neck. His wife was unable to produce a replacement. Even after I was brought into his household, my stepmother abused me routinely until I turned fifteen and joined the Magic Knights,” he said before looking back over to Yuno. “And now, I am the captain of the Golden Dawn, the most enviable magic knight in the kingdom and rumored to be next in line to become Wizard King.

“So listen to me carefully, boy,” William told him. “Everyone you meet will hate you. They will look down on you. They will spit on you and might even try to sabotage your efforts if you start to shine too bright. But you will push forward and persevere. Because one day, they will look on you with envy and get on their knees to beg you for help. So, don’t fall for the traps, don’t take the bait, smile and bow when you have to. Because one day, you will stand above them all. Is that understood?”

Sunset was wise enough to know that she had made some mistakes in her life. Not demanding a living stipend from Celestia was the biggest one. Then, she would have had some bits on hoof to run away with out the back door of the palace instead of having to flee through an interdimensional mirror that transformed her into a young girl going through puberty again.

But not delivering a letter that would have gotten her into a more respectable outfit than the one she was currently attached to was a close second.

Less than a minute ago, Sunset’s de facto baby brother had tried to walk into the base of the Clover Kingdom military group known as the Black Bulls, and got knocked a good ten feet away from the door when it exploded on him. After making sure the boy wasn’t dead, as the commanding officer just laughed at the whole thing, Sunset used her mana to envelop herself in a protective field before running through the flames.

The Magic Knight Entrance Exam had been running all day, which meant that the commanding officer and most powerful member of the group had been absent. Which would have been the perfect time to launch some kind of attack on the squad’s home base.

Sunset ran into the fire, expecting some kind of grisly scene inside.

Instead she found…

“OKAY, NOW I’M REALLY MAD!” a young man in a Black Bulls robe wearing dark glasses, with hair that alternated between black and gray in a way that made him look a bit like a skunk shouted as he looked up at a boy with blonde hair, who was also in a Bulls robe, that was moving in the air more from inertia than mana. “You ready to take me on?”

“Nope! Not really!” the blonde boy shouted back in a voice that made him sound rather young. Which matched his immature looks. Even though logic said he had to be older than Sunset was, physically. Then let let out a cheerful laugh before lightning started to crackle around him. “But let’s go!”

Skunk screamed in anger before pulling a flaming bat out of his grimoire and creating a burning matrix in front of him that looked more like it was supposed to create other fireballs than be used as a weapon itself. A theory that proved correct when he it it with the bat, launching a series of fireballs with the kinetic force generated by the strike.

All of which failed to hit the child, who danced around on the room’s second-floor banister that was being destroyed more and more by the second.

What...the...hell? Sunset asked herself as the two people who were both in the Black Bulls attempted to kill each other.

With the sense of danger fading, Sunset’s tunnel vision switched off and she looked around at her surroundings. The room she had walked into looked like some kind of cheap bar, or ‘classical’ inn common rooms in Canterlot that hadn’t had their looks upgraded since Celestia had her braces removed. There was an actual bar in the far left corner that extended halfway down the room and a fireplace to the right. A few small tables dotted the floor, complete with padded chairs, as well as a couch in the far right corner, with another one just off to the right of where Sunset was. The decor was definitely ye old castle, complete with a few suits of armor, shields on the walls, some ratty tapestries in need of repair that hung from the second floor’s banisters, and light that was provided by candles without any means of magically increasing the illumination they gave off.

In short, the place was a dump.

The only thing more disturbing than the decor was the group of people that had probably been responsible for putting it up. Two of whom were destroying the building that looked ready to collapse at the drop of a hat already.

The third person she noticed was a giant of a man that had to be eight feet tall sitting down. He had barely any hair and beady eyes, with a body looked like he had trouble getting through doors both in the vertical and horizontal way, sitting next to a door on the far end of the room and breathing out enough smoke to double as a chimney, despite not having a single cigarette in his mouth or hands.

A fourth man was sitting to Sunset’s far left, in front of a floating mirror that radiated magic. Half his face was covered by light purple-ish hair as he spoke to...himself? “My precious little Marie. My sister, my love!” he said before turning back to the pair that was fighting. “HEY! Would you idiots shut the hell up? I’M TRYING TO WATCH MY LITTLE SISTER SLEEP!”

The rather...creepy declaration made Sunset take a step to the side just to get away from him, causing her to bump into Asta. Which made her flinch away from him in surprise. Ever since developing a decent mana sense, she had usually known when another human was getting close to her personal space. But Asta could still sneak up on her with relative ease.

A moan coming from what Sunset had thought was the unoccupied couch close to the door made Sunset look over to her right in time see a wine bottle drop to the ground and roll around a moment before a well-developed woman with long pink hair and maroon underwear, the only thing she had on, sit up and rub her head. “Uuuugh. Please, just make it stop,” she groaned. “My head is killing me.”

With the only normal-looking person in the room asking for help, Sunset took a step forward and found that she missed someone. Sitting in the chair to her left and previously unable to be seen because of her height, sat a ridiculously short girl with an almost comically oversized head that had her black hair done up in a bun.

But, the little girl could have looked like an interdimensional horror that drove ponies and humans both insane with a glance for all Sunset cared. Because the girl had food on the table in front of her. A pile of it. Real, actual, pony consumable food.

Since the day Sunset had come to the Clover Kingdom, her stomach had been empty of anything she could truly say tasted good. The occasional apple or orange grown via magic maybe once a month was more akin to a cruel joke than any kind of salvation from day after day of eating the same, dry, tasteless, thing grown in Hage village.

She didn’t even think humans could make something as complicated as frosting, what with their low level of technological development and backwards kind of thinking.

But in front of the little human creature was a sizable mountain of pies, cakes of every kind, tarts, treats and all kinds of eats.

It was like water, to a mare dying of thirst.

Sight for the blind man.

Sunset dropped to her knees, everything else forgotten for the moment as she made her way to this impossible oasis and put her hands up on the side of the table with a look of longing that would have put a puppy to shame before looking at the little angel that held salvation itself in her chubby little fingers. “Can I have some?”

The girl paused after eating a cupcake whole with a single ‘nom’ and looked down to Sunset.

Time seemed to stop as the little angel of baked goods sat in silent judgement over the equine-turned-human. Then, she reached into her pile of confections and handed the girl a glorious creation of flour, milk, frosting and sprinkles that had been baked in an oven to produce something Sunset hadn’t even seen in two years: a slice of chocolate cake.

“Here you go!” the angel of baked delights said in a cute little voice as she delivered to Sunset, her salvation.

Sunset didn’t even bother with the fork as she snatched the cake up from the back, getting frosting all over her hand as she brought the cake to her mouth and took a bite.

It...tasted different than she remem-SHUT UP BRAIN! I’M EATING, Sunset mentally screamed at her taste centers.

It tasted good. Great, even. For a species whose diet consisted of anywhere from forty to seventy-percent baked treats, ponies were the ultimate judges of what was good when it came to confections. With Sunset having experienced the best such chefs, what with Celestia and her cake addiction, she good honestly say that the food touching her tongue was more than passable.

Tears threatened to fall from Sunset’s eyes as she experienced a mental orgasm of delight that took her to a higher plane of- “I’M ASTA FROM HAGE, I’M A BLACK BULL NOW TOO AND SOMEDAY, I’M GOING TO BE THE WIZARD KING!”

With her moment of true happiness ruined, Sunset turned to the boy as the skunk guy continued to try and kill the kid that was now surrounded by lightning magic as the other Black Bulls just completely ignored the short newcomer.

“Shut up you guys, you’re going to wake my sister!” one-eye yelled.

Underwear Drunk looked over to the one-eyed pedo and shouted to him. “Get over it you creepy sister-lover!” she yelled before rubbing her head. “Ugh, I blacked out during that drinking contest. How did I end up back here?”

Then, Sunset blinked when a walking, bipedal sheep in a chef’s hat walked past her to place a whole new mountain of pastries on the table for the munchkin to begin chowing down on despite the fact that she had just eaten more than her own weight in desert.

The racket continued unabated as the woman in her unmentionables groaned. “I SAID SHUT UP YOU IDIOTS! I HAVE A HEADACHE!”

“That’s your own fault you drunk!” Skunk replied, taking a moment to stop his destruction of the building to yell at the woman.

“What did you say?” the woman asked as she began to get an attitude. “You virgin street punk?”

Skunk took offense and stopped his attack to get in the woman’s face. “Who are you calling a street punk, you damn wino?”

Then, the one-eyed pervert with the mirror entered the fray. “I SAID SHUT UP! If any of you keep me from the image of Marie any longer, I’ll destroy you!” he threatened.

There was a flare of magical power and Sunset looked back to see Yami had wrapped himself in a mana skin, boosting his physical abilities to their limit. “Okay that’s it!” he yelled before swinging back his arm and stuttering the wall behind him, creating a big enough hole to drive a pair of carts through. “QUIT BREAKING THE PLACE AND SETTLE DOWN!”

Sunset felt the need to point out the hypocrisy of it all, literally. With her finger. “You just made the biggest mess out of anyone here,” she said evenly as she stood up. How is this place even still here?

Judging by what had happened in the past five minutes, the entire building should have collapsed days ago.

When the smoke finally cleared, the fighting stopped and everyone, for some odd reason that defied all logic, seemed actually happy to see the unkept man. With most of them running up to the large slob to try and talk to him at the same time.

“How was the exam sir? Got in newbies you need to me to put in their place?” Skunk asked right before the rest of what was said became an incoherent mess of a word salad that had been tossed around too much by everyone present.

Yami laughed for a moment. “It’s good to be missed,” he said before his face turned serious. “Now shut up and listen! We got a new guy here I’d like to introduce.” After reaching over to grab Asta, Yami picked him up and held him in the air. “This shrimp is our new guy member, and that one over there is our other new girl.”

Sunset blinked. Other new girl? she thought to herself while raising her hand and waving when everyone looked over to her.

“Hey shrimp, introduce yourself,” Yami ordered.

After hearing the command, Asta stood up straight. “I’M ASTA, FROM HAGE VILLAGE. IT’S REALLY NICE TO MEET EVERYONE.”

Skunk snickered. “You’re from Hage, that’s out in the middle of nowhere.”

“Damn kid, you’re as loud as you are short,” Yami commented without any humor before nodding to the female newcomer. “Now you.”

“I’m Sunset,” she told them simply.

Yami took a drag on his cigarette. “Finral, introductions.”

The guy in the green shirt cleared his throat. “Sure thing sir.”

First up was the guy whose skin was far too pale, wearing too much dark eyeliner and black lipstick. At least, Sunset hoped that what was wrong with his face was just a lack of sun and too much makeup. “You’ve met Gordon Agrippa. Not always the easiest guy to talk to, but he’s good people.”

“Nice to meet you.”

Sunset blinked. The guys mouth had moved, but she hadn’t really heard anything come out.

Then came the mostly naked, hung over woman with lavender eyes and pink hair. “Vanessa Enoteca. She tends to get into fights when she’s drunk, which is...most of the time she’s awake. But she’s good people.”

Vanessa cocked an eyebrow. “When have I ever started a-urp!” she managed before her cheeks puffed up and she doubled over to throw up so many alcoholic drinks it almost looked like a rainbow was coming out of her mouth.

After the woman came the short blonde kid with the blue eyes and lightning magic. “Luck Voltia. He’s a battle freak who’s addicted to fighting. But he’s good people.”

“Hey, you wanna go a few rounds?” Luck asked as he suddenly jumped in front of Asta and started punching the air in front of him. “Come on! It’ll be fun.”

Protective instincts developed after two years of watching everyone around a boy without magic try to pull him down because he had more ambition than all of them put together made Sunset frown. It wasn’t the same thing, but… “Sure,” she said to the boy evenly. “I’ll be happy to break your legs!”

Luck turned around and gave the redhead a considering look. “Hmmm, no thanks. Mama doesn’t like it when I fight girls.”

...Mama? Sunset thought in confusion.

Without any introduction, the one-eyed pervert raised his mirror to reveal a little girl with blonde hair sleeping in a bed. “This is my sister Marie, the most angelic creature on the planet!”

“That’s Gouche Adlai,” Finral told them. “He...loves his sister a tad too much. But he’s good people.”

The little mini-person had gone back to eating a cupcake of some kind as Finral went on. “She’s Charmy Pappitson. Her stomach is a bottomless pit from which there is no escape, but she’s good people.”

Charmy said something that might have been a greeting, based on her raised hand that was waving, but the words were covered by the food in her hand and mouth.

Next in line was the giant in the back of the room. “That’s Gray. He never really talks and I have no idea where that smoke is coming from, but he’s good people,” Final told the newcomers.

Then came the guy with the black and gray hairstyle. Although, after getting a better look at it, Sunset didn’t think the word skunk was an apt descriptor for the man, as the black part in the center actually stood up a bit and had gray underneath it. There was also an odd scar on the right side of his face, above his eye that made it look as if someone had operated on him. “That’s Magna Swing, he’s a street punk. But he’s good people.”

While Magna just growled at Asta, making Sunset that someone might have actually tried experimental brain surgery on him by the look of his scar, Final pointed a thumb at himself. “And I am Finral Roulacase,” he said before making his way over to Sunset with a smile on his face. “Some people call me the most interesting man in the world, but all can agree that I’m the best date you’ll ever have. So how about you and I spend tomorrow evening together so I can prove it?”

Sunset crossed her arms. “I’m fifteen you weirdo,” she told the boy, actually glad for her reduced age for once. Why she had lost time when being transformed into a human, she didn’t really know, but it kept the male members of the species away.

“Which is the perfect age to find your soul mate,” Finral told her.

Logically, Sunset knew that human norms were different than what she experienced as a pony. Whether by design or lack of any basic medical care aside from magic, their lifespans were shorter. Perhaps that was why she ended up in the body of a fourteen-year-old girl after going through the mirror, rather than a pony on the edge of adulthood. Because for humans, fifteen was an adult, able to make their own stupid choices.

So, with the fact that Sunset’s age wasn’t a roadblock to getting close to her. She decided to go with the intimidation method of scaring away the unwanted sutor. With her mana still attuned to fire, Sunset flared it around her and frowned at the boy as the candles in the room fed off the excess fire mana to add to the illumination they provided. “Go away now,” Sunset told the guy as the furniture around her started to smoke.

Finral backed away faster than what should have been humanly possible as the rest of the group gave Sunset a nervous look. “And this is our captain, Yami Sukahiro.”

“...you forgot to say, he’s good people,” Asta pointed out.

The self-proclaimed ladies man gave Asta a nervous glance. “No I didn’t.”

Yami cleared his throat. “There are other members, of course. But the rest are out on missions, or up in his bed,” he told Asta before looking over to the hung-over woman. “Hey Vanessa, you’re a girl, right? Come here for a second.”

“Look...if that little hothead blows her top or gets too upset, we all die,” Yami’s voice echoed in Vanessa’s pounding mind as she led the redhead and Charmy through the black bulls hideout, towards the woman’s only section. The only place in the crazy mansion that didn’t change too much, although it was still a pain to find the girls bathroom in a new location every morning. “So, go do some girly stuff to welcome our ticking time bomb while we give this pipsqueak here his initiation. Oh, and get some of the spare robes out while you’re at it.”

“So, counting me and Asta, with this mystery newbie and that other guy Yami mentioned, there’s only twelve members on the entire squad?” Sunset asked. “I know that the exam only picked a little over twenty out of over five-hundred, but isn’t that a little low?”

Vanessa looked back at the little girl with the impressive mana and wondered why Yami was deciding to be cautious with her. Sure, she was impressive, but it would still be a few years before her body grew up enough to fully express all that mana as magical power that could be put into actual spells. “We’re the Black Bulls honey, nobody wants to join us,” the witch explained. In fact, the majority of their members didn’t even come from the exam floor, but people Yami had picked up over the years by just wandering around.

Proving herself to be an inquisitive little thing, Sunset continued asking questions. “Yeah, but why? Sure the two guys are kind of...explosive, and the one with the mirror is...creepy, but you two seem nice.”

“Aww thanks!” Charmy replied before she reached back to grab a pastry from the tray one of her sheep cooks was carrying behind her. “Have one!”

By the time Vanessa turned around, Sunset had picked up the much shorter girl and was hugging her tightly. “I love you,” she whispered.

Blinking at the display, Vanessa waited until the new girl was done being overly affectionate and just stood there with her hands on her hips. “Lady, I’m hung over and threw up within your first five minutes of seeing me. And I can’t even be in the same room as Charmy without feeling like I’m gaining weight just from looking at all the food she eats. You’ve got some weird definitions of-why are you staring at my breasts so hard?”

“Is that bra comfortable?” Sunset asked as she got within inches of Vanessa’s chest and looked at the undergarment with a scrutinizing eye, going all around the other woman to check out the straps. “It actually looks like it provides support instead of just squeezing your teats against your ribs. That’s all we could get back in the village I was at for two years.”

The question threw Vanessa off, and a close examination of the girl’s clothes told her Sunset wasn’t wearing anything beneath the threadbare green dress she had on. “Remind me to take you shopping for clothes after we get paid. Yami usually gives us the day off, so I can take you and the other newbie to get some better clothes. Ones that actually fit.”

Sunset actually moaned a little. “Good. Duplication through magic could only make so many alterations and those have already been stretched to their limits.”

“Oh, you knew a thread mage?” Vanessa asked, her curiosity peaking as they continued their walk towards the balcony on the girls’ side of the dormitory floor. It occurred to her that the new girl hadn’t actually given her hometown, but the clothes suggested that she was either from the common or forsaken realms. And going by her mana, the child of a royal that had decided to go slumming without sticking around to clean up his mess.

The reason for her question was quite simple, Vanessa used thread magic. Although, the name was more conceptual than literal. Doing things with clothes was within her power, but it was just a mana manipulation technique, any actual spell. Her mother, God damn her black soul, had said that Vanessa’s magic could be the most powerful in existence. But after a few years of that woman’s horrid attempts to ‘encourage’ that magic to develop, Vanessa had been given a chance at freedom and ran away as fast as she could.

Any attempts to look back were quickly brought to a halt with the help of some hard liquor.

“It was just some basic replication of a blueprint using raw materials,” Sunset told her. “Not real sewing or making of anything new.”

They made it to the balcony and found the other girl that was also fifteen and given a grimoire. Unlike the redhead, Vanessa knew exactly who the girl with the silver hair done up in pigtails was. Why Noelle Silva had been placed in the Black Bulls when her eldest brother ran the Silver Eagles was a mystery. But Vanessa didn’t like it when people asked about her past, so she would show others the same courtesy.

“Hey it’s you!” Sunset exclaimed as the redhead pointed to the girl with silver hair. “Noel, right?”

Standing so she leaned just a little over the balcony to watch what was going on down below, Noelle flinched, like a child that had been caught doing something that she shouldn’t have been. Then she stood up, sucked in a breath and turned around to give the three people standing in front of her the same kinds of looks Vanessa had seen nobles give commoners when she was on guard duty. “Just hearing you say my name makes me feel like you’re butchering it,” she said before focusing on Vanessa. “and-where are your clothes?”

Having been asked this question several times before, Vanessa wasn’t surprised in the least and gave the same answer she always did. “In my closet. I don’t really see the need to wear clothes in what is basically my house.”

THANK YOU!” Sunset exclaimed before throwing her arms out wide at the confused witch. “Somebody finally gets it!”

With the odd statement completely throwing off what Vanessa had been sure was a ticking time bomb, leaving Noelle just staring blankly and Charmy eating another bit of sugary food, Sunset walked out to the balcony to see what had attracted Noelle’s attention. What’s going on down there, anyway?”

“Oh, it’s just something they do with newbies...the guys anyway,” Vanessa said.

“Okay newbie, now give me five thousand push-ups!” Magna yelled as she looked over the edge for herself.

Down below, the boy Asta jumped up from a stomach crunching position and laid down flat on his chest. “Yes sir!” he shouted before beginning to move his body up and down with his arms at a ridiculous pace that no human could hope to keep for long.

“So...it’s a dick measuring contest,” Sunset surmised.

The other new girl let out an embarrassed scream before her face turned red and she looked over to the Sunset. “W-What the hell makes you describe it like that?” Noelle shrieked.

Sunset thought about it for a second before answering. “Because that’s what it basically is,” she pointed out. “Guys do it in different ways, but after living with a couple of boys for two years, I can call them with just a glance.”

“Very impressive!” Charmy complemented.

Choking on her indignation, Noelle actually took a moment to respond. “You don’t have to call them that!” she said before glaring at Sunset and sizing her up. “Ugh, but I can tell at a glance that you don’t have an ounce of good manners, walking around in that ratty dress without properly covering yourself up.”

“It’s called being poor, you...” Sunset replied, pausing before she completed what had most likely been an insult. However, the show of tact was not to last “But, I guess royalty that was just born into wealth and comfort wouldn’t know anything about how someone with nothing has to struggle just to get by in this world.”

Noelle scowled at the other young woman. “You think I had it easy?”

To which Sunset replied. “No, I know you had it easy.”

Her temper rising up along with her mana, Noelle stepped up in Sunset’s face, only to have Vanessa pull the redhead back before looking to the other girl. With one most likely being a bastard child of a royal and the other being a legitimate one that was raised in house, it was pretty obvious what was going to happen if they two of them were left alone to go at it.

Damnit Yami, how could you make me the responsible one? Vanessa mentally demanded as she put on a smile. “Okay girls, settle down. No matter where you came from, we’re all on the same team now,” the older witch told the two girls. “So how about…”

Vanessa quickly ran through her options on how to diffuse the situation.

Tell them to calm down and shake hands?

...too immature, she thought.

Booze?

...too close to restocking day, she told herself after thinking about how much liquor they had on the premises.

Give them an obvious distraction to their building anger?

...that might work, she theorized.

“...I show you the girls to the bath? It’s been a hard day and I’m sure you could both use a good long soak,” she suggested helpfully.

Sunset almost collapsed into the taller woman. “You have no idea.”

The other girl wasn’t as willing to call it quits. “Of course we do, I can smell you from here,” she commented with a disgusted frown.

After a second of eye-twitching, Sunset mumbled something barely loud enough for Vanessa to hear. “That’s five.”

Noelle Silva, of the prestigious Silva family, spared no effort to hide her disdain at the terrible bathing arrangements that were provided to her by the Black Bulls as she sank into the water across from that ragged urchin with the red and gold-ish hair.

Although the promise of a bath had made her stop from putting the low-level commoner in her place, Noelle was finding herself solely disappointed by what the Black Bulls’s base considered a bath. Instead of a marble floor with works of art that were also made of marble pouring water into the communal bath, it was a pathetic construction of the simplest stone and just had a garish gargoyle head on the wall from which water fell into the bathing pit.

What made it even worse was the company…

“So, I just need to massage these things at the end of the day and they’ll get bigger. And the bigger they get, the less sensitive they’ll be?” Sunset asked as she rubbed her breasts while sitting on the other side of the bath area next to the woman Noelle had learned was named Vanessa.

For her part, Vanessa just reclined more into the water, which only did more to highlight her physical maturity as she leaned her head back and stuck her chest out. “That’s what all the beauticians say. Although, it only works if you’ve got a bit of growing left to do. Which...you might,” she admitted before looking over to the girl. “By the way, I never did find out where you were from.”

That...thing called Charmy, who was in a little bathing suit and actually swimming in the bath like it was a pool stopped going back and forth across Noelle’s vision to turn and look at the other girl as she pulled in on herself a bit.

“Well, I was...left in an orphanage when I was a baby, so I don’t know exactly where I’m from,” Sunset told them as if pulling it out of the back of her throat with how hesitant she was to talk about it. “But, I spent the last two years in Hage Village with Y-well, guess the only one of them you know is Asta.”

Vanessa giggled and clapped her hands together. “And you both got on the same squad? Oh, that’s adorable!” she said.

Sunset rolled her eyes. “Yeah well, if I don’t look after that idiot, nobody else is going to,” she told them before looking over to Noelle. “Which also makes me wonder, why are you here, Noelle? I thought your brother was the head of the Silver Eagles. Shouldn’t you be with them?”

The mention of her brother sent a shiver down Noelle’s spine. “Well maybe I didn’t want to join my brother’s team! Did you ever think of that?” she demanded while standing up in the bath to glare down at the stupid, nosy, little poor girl who had no idea how good she had it!

There was a moment of silence as Sunset took a deep breath and exhaled out her mouth. “Okay, so...what? You got him to make that Yami guy take you like they all did with me?”

Noelle continued to frown at the girl sitting down in the bath. “I didn’t make him do anything! Big brother made me…” she trailed off, realizing what she had almost said to the girl that seemed determined to get under her skin.

Vanessa’s look became a mix of confusion and curious as she looked back and forth between the two girls. “Say what?” she asked before focusing on the redhead. “Uh, honey. Nobody makes Yami do anything.”

“Not even work. It’s why we’re last in the rankings!” Charmy added as she raised her fist triumphantly.

After giving the short creature a disbelieving look, Sunset leaned back and sigh. “Well, nobody else wanted me either. So, I guess I can’t be too sad that the story of my life hasn’t changed since the day I got dropped off at the orphanage.”

“Then you’re in good company honey,” Vanessa told the younger girl before she pulled Sunset in for a little hug with one arm around the shoulder. “We’re nothing but misfits, losers, layabouts, and the unwanted.”

Noelle’s eye twitched at the redhead gaining everyone’s sympathy. “I’m going to bed,” she suddenly announced before turning to get out of the bath.

The sound of an explosion made Noelle freeze and look towards the direction it came from. Was there an actual problem, or were those idiots blowing things up on their own again?

“Hold on a second,” Vanessa told her. “We still need to get the robes from storage since it sounds like the boys should be done with their little initiation ritual. And since you still need yours, you can go to bed after you get it.”

Seeing the logic in the woman’s argument, especially since she would have to put up with who knew what come tomorrow if getting it got delayed, Noelle nodded in agreement before getting a towel to dry herself off. As she did, the royal caught the urchin staring at her. “What?”

Sunset didn’t stop before getting some clean clothes that might have looked passable at one point in her life before they were used far too many times and put them on. Once she had covered herself up a little better, although Noelle could tell she still wasn’t wearing proper undergarments, Sunset looked back at the girl and answered her. “I was just trying to figure out why you’re not on your brother’s team is all.”

An uneasy feeling formed in Noelle’s gut at the idea of this girl figuring out why a legitimate child of a royal family was in the worst squad the Magic Knights had to offer. “Well stop it!” she demanded. “I didn’t ask you about your past!”

“Hmmm, okay...that’s fair,” she admitted before continuing on. “But I’m pretty sure I’ve already figured something about it out.”

“Then forget it!” Noelle ordered.

Once they all had clothes on again...mostly, the woman in her underwear led them through the base. However, it soon became apart to someone of Noelle’s intelligence and fine education that they were lost. How a woman who had been a member of the squad and lived in the hideout for years could get lost, she had no idea, but that was what they obviously were.

All of a sudden, Vanessa stopped at a door that looked just like all the others in the building. “Ah, there we are!” she said before opening the doorway into the room and holding up her hand.

Jealousy exploded in Noelle’s heart as the woman simply held up her hand and a trio of magical threads sprang from it to go into what she knew from personal experience at her family estate was probably a giant dust bin. The mana control it took to both craft and move something that fine was well beyond anything Noelle could ever hope to achieve. Just the sight of it worsened her already bad mood.

When the stripped down woman retrieved the outerwear and sent one to her on a thread, Noelle snatched the thing out of the air and broke the magic holding it. With that done, she gave a huff and walked away as any royal should do when dealing with commoners.

“Um, thanks...no offense...but I think I’ll wait till its been through the wash at least once,” the redhead told her.

After turning the corner and getting out of their sights, she looked down at the robe with the dark yellow and gold insignia of a bull’s skull with a star in the middle of its head. It was a real magic knight’s robe. And it was hers!

But, not from any showing of effort on her part.

That fact quickly killed the tiny bit of enthusiasm that Noelle had managed to cultivate from her achievement.

I think that girl got kicked out of her family, Sunset reasoned as she went over the information in her mind again.

She was certainly a big enough brat to have warranted it.

But...the thought also brought on a good deal of pity for the kid.

Which Sunset had managed to counter with the possibility that she might have been wrong.

She had seen Noelle talking to her big brother during the exam, and he had told her she didn’t need to take part in it before pulling her out. So, they were obviously still on speaking terms. Maybe it was like Mereoleona had theorized with Celestia’s actions, the family forcing her into the worst group to prove that she needed them and Noelle would go crawling back to them once she had enough of the crappy living conditions.

Well, cast off or not, I told myself I’d give her more chances and she gets three more before I deck her one, Sunset thought to herself. If the two boys were anything to go by, then nobody cared if someone in the Black Bulls got a little physical.

Vanessa let them back into the hideout’s common room, then suddenly stopped. “Wait, that Asta guy...he’s like a little brother to you or something, right?” she asked, a little nervous for some reason.

“Uh, yeah. Why?” Sunset asked before noticing something very wrong with the room that served as the entrance to the hideout.

It had four walls and a door.

While that was normal of most rooms, Sunset had seen the door get burned down and most of the wall had been destroyed as well. “How is that stuff back? Didn’t everyone put an expanding hole in the thing?”

“Hm? Oh! Yes, the wall! That’s a good thing to talk about, let’s talk about that!” Vanessa said happily. “There’s some kind of enchantment on the house that automatically makes repairs a minute or two after we stop breaking things. The trade off is that this place tends to...reorganize itself from time to time. Fair warning, if you have to go tot he bathroom, don’t try and hold it. They’re in a different location every day.”

“But the kitchen, library, bathing rooms, pantry and basement are always in the same place,” Charmy added. “And the tool shed for the garden too. But that’s not really part of the hideout, so I guess it doesn’t count.”

For once, Sunset was at a loss when it came to understanding the magic of the Clover Kingdom. She knew that there were several disciplines of magic that were rooted more in mental concepts rather than physical reality, but a house that just did what it wanted to the space inside seemed to jump back and forth between the two.

Then again, maybe she was overthinking things. Vanessa had just said the house moved and rebuilt itself, not that it used anything like spatial compression or point of reference gravity manipulation. But, if Sunset walked into a room to have it pointed out to her that she was on the ceiling before falling to the floor, then her and the house would have words.

“Thanks for the warning,” Sunset told her before heading out the door.

The sight that greeted her was...rather mundane.

One of the couches from inside the bar had been brought out and most of the people from inside were using it as a seat, with the exception of the giant, Gray. He was just sitting next to it and blowing smoke out his mouth.

Sunset through there was some kind of bonfire providing light, but it was just the nearby woods that were on fire. Not that it seemed like anybody cared. In fact the only two people who weren’t down on their butts were Asta, and that Magna guy from earlier, patting the shorter guy on the back so hard that it might have bruised anyone else. “I thought you were just going to block my magic, but you threw it back at me? You know, I think I’m going to like having you around, little Rasta!”

“Um...it’s...Asta,” he said between strikes to his back.

Hearing what she did, Sunset groaned and rubbed her head. Obviously, Asta had attempted to show off and had the fire magic user throw a spell at him, then knocked it back over the guy’s head and into the woods. If Magna wasn’t already giving Asta a congratulatory pummeling, Sunset might have felt the need to step in and punish her little brother for starting a forest fire!

Since Vanessa had gotten squeamish back at the building’s exit, probably since she didn’t want to go outside barefoot after just taking a bath, Sunset looked down to her other escort. “Hey, shouldn’t we be doing something about those flames?”

Charmy just waved it off. “Nah. Magna and Luck blow stuff up outside all the time, so we don’t have a lot of underbrush to easily spread the more natural fire. It’ll burn itself out by morning without more mana to keep the spell-based flames going.”

“Hey, sorry about calling you a magic-poor hick earlier and giving you such a hard time about coming from Hage,” Magna told the boy after he finished slapping him around. “I’m from Rayaka Village, myself.”

Asta looked over to the other boy. “Wow, Rayaka is way out there.”

To which Magna snorted. “Says the boy from Hage.”

The argument made Sunset have to think back to the map of the kingdom she had seen hanging on the wall of Father Orisi’s office. After she had learned to read, Sunset had spent enough time looking at the thing for her near-perfect memory, at least when it came to studying things, could recall it in full detail. While Rayaka was far enough away from the capital to be in the northern section of the Forsaken Realm, Hage was a good deal further.

“Oh and...it’s not that I’m low on magic, I actually don’t have any at all,” Asta admitted in a voice Sunset could barely hear.

As Magna went on about that little admission, actually turning it into a reason to complement Asta, the most of the other Black Bulls rushed in to also talk to and complement the boy on his showing off and bragging about the thing most people ridiculed him for. By then, Vanessa came walking out with Asta’s robe, which was a bit less dusty than the one she gave Sunset, but still smelled like it had been in storage for a few years.

“Here you go, kid,” she said before tossing him the robe with one of her threads attached so it floated down to him more than fell.

Asta reached out to grab the robe, and for a moment, Sunset thought he might actually start crying over getting his hands on the thing. It was something she could understand, but still...hadn’t he just pulled a big stunt to try an impress everyone? Sunset was pretty sure breaking down in tears would ruin it.

“And...maybe a little something extra,” Vanessa added. A wave of her hand turned Asta’s headband around so the mark he usually had on his forehead was on the back before a mass of threads wove themselves into the bare spot above his face to add another Black Bull’s insignia.

Once the commotion over Asta was over, everyone turned around and he looked over to Sunset. “Hey, why aren’t you wearing yours?”

Even though it might have offended Asta a little, Sunset held up the robe for him to see all of the dust clinging to it. “I prefer clean clothes,” she told him. “And you need to put that thing through the wash before you put it on again.”

“Okay mom!” he told her.

Which made Sunset groan and roll her eyes.

Although, seeing the entire group outside and being cordial...it made her wonder how Yuno was doing in his new squad.

I think I might have made a mistake in coming here, Yuno thought as he felt the weight in the hood of his Golden Dawn robe while he stood in front of the man Captain William had introduced as his direct superior and magic teacher before leaving the two of them standing in the shaded area that surrounded a water garden in the center of the Golden Dawn’s palace courtyard. How a man skilled in an earth-based magic was supposed to teach a wind user, Yuno didn’t know. But he already didn’t like the guy.

Klaus Lunettes was actually a bit taller than Yuno, which was an oddity for the boy, with hair that was more gray than silver and a defined nose above a chin that was a bit wider than some. He wore a pair of heavily spectacles that looked like they could take some punishment, which Yuno supposed made sense after considering the man’s occupation.

But, the man had the same contemptible gaze in his eyes that he had seen in the noble’s during the exam, as well as in the eyes of everyone he saw looking at him while he passed them in the hallway. Once the captain had gone inside, he began speaking. “As the captain said, I am Klaus Lunettes. And you, a commoner from the middle of nowhere, probably the a mistake made by a nobleman after a night of drinking and whores. What was the captain thinking, giving you permission to join the squad?” he snorted. “Don’t think you’re special just because all of the captains raised their hand for you.”

Yuno kept his mouth shut as the man in front of him reached up to adjust his glasses and turn around. “Now come along, commoner,” the noble spat. “I’ll show you to your room. Meals will be provided in the mess. I know people like you a attracted to anything shiny, but you will be thoroughly punished for stealing the silverware.”

“Understood,” Yuno replied evenly as Klaus kept talking.

“Books from the library are-never mind, considering your origins, I doubt you can read with any ability that would make it enjoyable,” he said as they turned into a stairwell. “We have maids to clean our rooms, but any fraternizing with them is extremely frowned upon and may lead to expulsion from the order. Captain Vangance takes a dim view of bastard makers, so keep that in mind. Your room will also have a private bath, which I suggest taking advantage of as soon as possible. Laundry is collected on Thursdays and returned on Saturdays. You should have your uniforms within the week of your fitting, which will either occur tomorrow or the day after. Our capitan runs an efficient ship.”

When they finally got to the room that Yuno was to be staying in, it was far beyond anything he had been expecting. There was an actual bed instead of just a mat on the ground, along with a desk for writing and an empty bookshelf, with a long table taking up a good half of the wall it was pushed up against. The candelabra above provided more than enough light and made the polished wood of both the furniture and walls shine like gold. A red rug covered nearly all of the floor, which was also wood.

“It’s better than you deserve,” Klaus told him after leading the boy in and letting have a brief look around. “Now, your training will begin tomorrow. You will be waiting for me at down in the courtyard, where I will instruct you on the proper use of your grimoire after breakfast. Do you understand me, boy?”

Close to reaching his limit, Yuno frowned. “My name is Yuno. Not boy, Klaus.”

The man snorted. “Legitimate children get names. Bastards like you are called whatever people like me feel you should be called. And watch your tone, boy, or I will have you written up for disrespecting a superior officer. Too many of those, and it won’t matter how many leafs are on your grimoire. The correct way to address me, is sir. Understood?”

Yuno held in a growl. “Yes. Sir.”

“That’s better,” Klaus replied evenly before he turned to leave. “Don’t be late tomorrow. That would make you guilty of insubordination.”

The door slammed shut and Yuno found himself focusing on the furniture that surrounded him. Just a single piece of it was probably worth more yul than all of Hage could scrape together in a year. “I really don’t like that guy.”

There was a tug on the hood of his robe and a fluttering of wings filled Yuno’s ears for a moment as Secre took herself out of her hiding spot to perch herself on his desk. “You’re the one that chose to come here,” she reminded him. “And it’s a better place than where the other two ended up.”

Yuno took off the robe to toss it onto the desk, then began to work on the rest of his clothes. Standing outside all day in the sun while wearing long sleeves had done its work on his body and he needed to remove the sweat. Even the trick Zell had shown him using wind magic to create a light breeze in the air around him hadn’t helped deal with the summer heat that well. “I lived in a village where we slept on the floor and got two meals a day. Anything at all is a step up from that.”

“I was referring to the opportunities you would have to make connections,” Secre told him. “Remember, your primary goal is to free the first Wizard King. Everything else is secondary.”

The reminder did little to help Yuno focus on something else besides the people in his squad. “Right, we need to save the kingdom from collapsing,” he said before opening the door to his bathroom. Like everything else, the place seemed overly gaudy. An ivory tub actually stood above the floor on four gold-tinted legs shaped like flowers matched the sink with its golden knobs for the water.

“You don’t sound too enthusiastic about that anymore,” Secre commented.

Yuno turned on the water and watched it run into the large basin, blinking when he noticed steam rising up from the liquid. While wondering how such a thing was accomplished, he looked back to the bird. “I lost most of the people I cared about last month. After that, it’s a little hard to care about the rest of society,” he told the bird. “Especially when the people at the top just spent half an hour spitting in my face.”

“That doesn’t mean other people aren’t suffering just as bad as you were, you know,” Secre reminded him.

After getting into the water, Yuno sunk down until his chin got just a little wet. “Maybe. But it doesn’t mean that I care about them any more than they did me, either.”

The thunder outside sounded with such force that it made the windows shake and the lightning that followed lit up the sky so bright that Noelle didn’t even need the candle she was holding to see where she was going. Not that the candles on the walls didn’t help, but they usually burnt out before the night was done, and the staff got lazy with their chores after midnight.

At eight years old, Noelle was a smart girl. But no matter how good she did with her tutors, nobody cared. Excellence was to be expected.

She was royalty, after all.

Since Big Brother Nozel would be too busy to bother with her, Noelle went to the large door with a blue cloud decorating it. Hearing the thunder again, Noelle squeaked in fear at the sound and knocked on her big sister’s door. She couldn’t actually be sleeping through the storm, could she?

After what seemed like forever, the door opened and Nebra looked around, then noticed the light of Noelle’s candle before looking down at her with a sneer. “Oh, what do you want, murderer?”

Noelle flinched at the accusatory name before looking up at her big sister. “Nebra, I can’t sleep. The storm is scaring me. Can I please sleep with you tonight?”

As soon as the question was asked, Noelle knew that she had made a mistake. Just like the rest of her family, Noelle’s big sister hated her.

The nineteen year old girl that was Nebra Silva opened her door all the way to stand in her nightgown as she glared down at her baby sister. “You called me out here for that, you little monster?” she demanded before her hand lashed out to strike Noelle across the face.

There was the loud ring of palm hitting flesh before Noelle fell to the ground, tears blooming in her eyes despite the fact that whenever she began to cry, her siblings would threaten her with something even worse than what made her tear up in the first place. “B-Big Sister?”

The candle Noelle was holding fell to the floor, but the flame was quickly snuffed out by a burst of water from Nebra before it could do more than cause a little flame on the rug. “And now look what you did!” she spat. “Ruining our family’s property. I should tan your hide!”

Then, the door across the hall opened up, and Noelle’s older brother Solid poked his head out. Much younger than her older sister, Solid was still a few years away from getting his grimoire. But he was still much bigger and stronger than Noelle was. “What’s going on out here?”

“This little serpent was trying to crawl her way into my bed!” Nebra said as she pointed a finger with a sharpened nail at Noelle. “I simply taught her not to bother her betters.”

Solid let out a groan as the lighting flashed outside again, followed almost immediately by the thunder. He walked out into the hallway and looked Noelle over in the dim light provided by the candles on the wall before looking back up to his sister. “You know the rules, Nebra,” the boy said. “Nothing that leaves a mark. It doesn’t look good on the family to see a royal who looks more like she came from the street than our house.”

“Feh, as if I care about such things,” Nebra replied with disinterest.

Solid grinned back up at her. “Oh, but it’s really such a fun game to play. Like this,” he said before looking down at Noelle and giving her a sweet smile. “Do you want me to show you how not to be scared of the rain?”

Noelle was still worried, the stinging on her cheeks reminding her what her older siblings liked to do as reminders of the bad thing that Noelle had done. But she nodded. He had mentioned a game though. Were they going to play a game?

“Okay then,” Solid told her before he reached out and grabbed a handful of her hair with his hand to pull on it so hard she had to follow the down the hallway.

“Owwww! Solid, you’re hurting me!” Noelle cried out as he dragged her along.

The boy laughed. “Funny, I don’t see any damage, so you must be lying,” he said before reaching a door that led to one of the balconies. There was a clicking sound as Solid unlocked the door that was mostly glass, made with magic to be just as stong as stone. “Here brat, let me show you that there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

The door opened to the a rush of air of the winter night as rain that was cold enough to sting beat its way into the hallway from the door. Then, Solid tugged on Noelle’s hair and practically through her out onto the balcony with enough force that Noelle fell to the ground on the stone and slid several inches before stopping in front of the railing.

Even though the balcony was partly covered by a roof, that did little to stop the howling winter wind from cutting into Noelle in her thin nightgown, sending bits of moisture into her that might as well have been solid for how badly they stung her on impact. Even thought Colver was a southern country, the elevation of where the Silva estate more than negated that fact as Noelle was left out in the cold rain while her siblings looked on from behind the glass door.

Noelle got up and ran to the door, only to find that the handle wouldn’t turn. Freezing cold, she looked up at her two older siblings as they grinned down at her from behind the glass, Solid actually laughing while the little girl was left shivering from the cold rain that assaulted her, despite the roof.

“Let me back in! Please, let me back in!” Noelle begged her siblings as lighting lit up the night sky again before the loud crash of thunder actually made her teeth hurt. “I’m sorry! Let me back in, PLEASE!”

And her older siblings just watched.

The lighting struck closer. The thunder roared even louder.

“I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY I KILLED MOMMY! PLEASE, LET ME IN!”

And her older siblings just just watched, and smiled.

Noelle opened her eyes from a rather restless sleep as she sat up in a bed that was far too small for royalty, but would suffice for now. The nightmares had come again, as they always did. Memories that were always on her mind blurred with the worst that her imagination could come up with.

Not that part of her didn’t agree with her siblings. Noelle had killed their mother in childbirth. Even though they had made her suffer for as far back as she could remember, the girl couldn’t deny that Mother was dead because of her.

Getting out of bed was a chore, like always. The energy to do what was needed was barely even there. She moved over to the edge and stood up, her body telling her to just give up and fall back into the sheets.

But, that would mean giving up.

Noelle couldn’t give up.

She was royalty, after all.

So, the royal looked around her new room in the nightmare of a mansion that her brother had sent her to rot away in. Less than half the size it should have been, Noelle’s bed was in the back corner, while her writing desk sat up against the far wall, only seven paces away, her useless grimoire sitting on it. Lacking a real closet, she had been provided with an armoire to hold her dresses, most of which were the same thing that had been copied several times; a joke from her older siblings that tended to make everything else she wore disappear.

So, Noelle dressed herself in the sister of the outfit she had on the day before at the exam.

Just thinking of the exam made her freeze. Because of her problems with magic, Nozel had refused her entry to the Silver Eagles, so Noelle had tried to prove herself to both him and the other captains by entering the exam. Only to become paralyzed with fear right after it started.

It was only after seeing that one boy completely fail at even getting off the ground with his broom did she find the courage to try. Even if she ended up looking foolish like he did...well, she wouldn’t have been alone in her disgrace.

For a brief instant, Noelle found herself wondering whatever happened to that boy.

Then, she went back to preparing for the day by strapping on her belt with its book covering before moving over to the desk where her grimoire was waiting before opening it up to check the interior and see if anything had changed during the night. When Noelle had gotten the thing six months ago, she had known everything was going to change for her. She would learn her first spell, master her magic and go on to become a proud member of the Silva family that her siblings would come to respect.

Instead, the grimoire refused to offer up a single spell to her, and her magic was still...problematic.

Now, she was a member of the Black Bulls, because her eldest brother had stuck her in the squad.

How, she had no idea. Everything she knew about Nozel said he hated Yami Sukihiro.

Which...made sense, considering the fact that Noelle would be nothing but a burden to the mages around her if they ever found out about her problems.

It seemed that her elder brother had finally found a use for his despised little sister.

She took the Black Bulls robe from where she had hung and blasted it with water the day before off of the little coat rack in front of the window and examined it before putting the thing on. Magic knight robes were made to be sturdy, so it looked in good condition despite the torrent it had been exposed to.

Taking a deep breath to help her push everything down into her gut, Noelle opened the door to her room and headed out to take a look around. It was the first day, so she doubted anything would be going on.

Of course, the moment she stepped out the door, things went wrong.

The redhead from the night before stepped out of the opposite end of the hallway at the exact same time. Like Noelle, she was wearing her Black Bulls uniform piece, but had on a shirt beneath it along with the same pants she wore the day before, and boots that might have been passable a few years ago, but were worn from overuse.

The two of them stared at each other for a few seconds before Sunset eyed Noel up and down and opened her dumb commoner mouth. “Do you have, like...multiple versions of the same outfit?”

“I don’t see how that is any business of yours, peasant!” Noelle snapped.

Sunset blinked and rubbed her chin for a second with a thumb and finger. “Okay, you have a point there. I won’t count that one against you. So...three more,” she said as she held up three fingers and wiggled them a little.

The stupid explanation that had no information whatsoever just made Noelle even angrier. “Three more what?” she demanded.

“Three more times to act like a brat to me,” Sunset explained. “Look, I get that coming to a new place with low quality facilities is an adjustment. But I learned awhile ago that just because your life is bad doesn’t give you the right to make someone else feel worse. So you get three more instances of being a little brat to me.” She made a fist covered in flame. “And then I lay you on your back.”

Noelle took a step back at the threat and felt a lump form in her throat. Next to the captain, the girl in front of her was the most powerful person in the squad that Noelle knew of at the moment. With the fact that she had gotten into the Black Bulls on merit instead of her name at the forefront of Noelle’s mind, the girl knew that she was more than capable of carrying out her threat.

However, there were other things available to Noelle other than magic power to protect her. “How dare you! I am a member of the royal house Silva! If you lay one hand on me-”

“They’ll give me a medal,” Sunset finished for Noelle before she could, making the silver-haired girl freeze. “If your family cared about you at all, you wouldn’t be here, now would you?”

Noelle flinched at the summation of the truth. “You don’t anything about me,” she told the other girl.

After staring at her for a moment, Sunset took a step back and sighed as she leaned against her door. “I know it hurts, and I know you’re in pain. To be tossed aside by the people who were supposed to love you without any conditions attached. I know what that’s like and more,” she said before looking back to Noelle. “I’m a lowly little street urchin whose mom just left on the steps of an orphanage, after all.”

Tired of the conversation, Noelle looked back and forth, down both directions of the hallway. “Where’s a servant? I need to order breakfast.”

“Oh wow, you...no, not going to do that,” Sunset told herself after taking a deep breath. “New day, better mood. Not covered in sweat. Come on, Noelle, I’ll take you to the mess hall and see what there is to eat.”

Without much else to do, Noelle reluctantly followed her guide down the hallway. Unfortunately, before the could get to the dining area, the mad cackling of hyenas assaulted Noelle’s ears, putting her in a bad mood. A second later, the source of the offending noise appeared. It was the pair of idiots from the night before, the one who could throw fireballs and that little shrimp with the black sword.

Noelle blinked upon seeing the second one. She hadn’t be able to tell last night thanks to the poor lighting, but it seemed like the poor boy who couldn’t even get his broom to work had actually gotten into a squad.

“Oh morning Asta, and uh...skunk-head,” Sunset said after a moment.

“What the-my name is Magna! You know that it is. You were there last night when Finral introduced you and the kid to the squad!” the older boy shouted.

Despite her attempts to remain collected, Noelle let out a giggle. The boy’s hair really did look somewhat like a skunk’s.

“HEY! Are you laughing at me, rookie?” Magna demanded.

After realizing that she was the one being addressed, Noelle got herself under control and put on her practiced airs. “I can laugh at whatever I want, commoner. In case you haven’t heard, I’m a member of the Silva family.”

Then, the oddest thing happened. The short boy with the gray hair just came right up to her and practically put a hand in her face. “Hey there Ms Silva! I’m Asta from Hage Village. Great to know me and my sister aren’t the only newcomers.”

Noelle almost slapped the hand away, but caught on to something the boy said at the end. “Your...sister?” she asked before looking over to the threatening redhead.

“I spent about a year and a half with Asta before I got my grimoire outside Hage Village because of a...magical item mishap,” Sunset told her. “We’re not related by blood, but the orphanage there was so small, everyone considered everyone else family.”

“Listen girl, I don’t care if you are royalty. I’m you superior and-”

“YOU’RE ROYALTY?” Asta shouted over Magna before he actually got on the ground and began bowing over, and over again. “My apologies your Highness! Someone like me should never have been so familiar to someone like you!”

Sunset groaned. “Asta get up, you can make an ass of yourself on your own time all you want, but not when you’re embarrassing me.”

The display didn’t just embarrass the redhead. Noelle took a step back from the unexpected treatment. Not even the maids at the Silva estate treated her like that, or any member of her family. Maybe back in her grandfather’s time, but people just didn’t do that anymore.

“Yeah well don’t expect any ass kissing from me!” Magna told her. “I’m your superior and as far as I’m concerned, you’re just a charity case that Yami took pity on. You’re no better than anybody else here, worse even!”

“You’re even worse than a commoner!” Noelle’s memory of her elder sister laughed in her mind as the girl stood there, soaking wet from the woman’s magic.

It took everything she had to keep a straight face as Noelle felt her anger boil up inside of her. Even if she was the lowest of her family, she was still royalty! In need of an outlet for her anger, Noelle focused her mana in front of her as she held out a hand. Water formed from her power, enough to completely encompass a grown man. “I’m a lot better than you are commoner. Now, here’s a little lesson to correct your mistake,” she said before releasing her magic.

“Stupid brat! You’re more worthless than a peasant!” Noelle remembered Solid yelling at her on multiple occasions.

The magic flew from her hand straight towards Magna, then curved at the last second to strike the boy standing next to him and knock Asta into the wall.

“HEY!” a angry voice from beside Noelle reverberated in her eardrums. “What the hell was that, you royal pain?”

A shiver ran down Noelle’s spine, and she looked out of the corner of her eye at Sunset as the redhead’s body became surrounded by mana that was on the eve of bursting into flame. Uh oh, she thought. Still, she kept her features under control. “What happened to, three more chances, hmmm?”

“Disrespecting Skunk-head was one,” Sunset told her.

Magna looked over to the girl. “Stop calling me that!”

“Attacking my little brother was two, which pissed me off, THAT’S THREE!” Sunset roared.

Noelle gulped and took a step back. Although her family had been absolutely horrible to her over the years, the one thing they had never done is outright beat her. There had been a slap here and there, along with a good deal of hair pulling, cold water, and other things, but never an outright beating!

Then, it hit her. The way out of this stupid mess.

She wasn’t going to stick around if being in the Black Bulls was even worse than staying at home.

“You know what?” Noelle said as she reached out to undo the clasp on her robe to take it off and toss it away. “The hell with this. I’m done here.” Not even bothering to look at the reactions of the others, Noelle turned and headed for the nearest exit.

“I worked my ass off to get one of these robes, and she just throws it away like it’s nothing,” the shrimp said as Noelle stormed off.

I think I made a mistake, Sunset told herself as the girl opened a door to the outside and slammed it closed behind her.

When she had first met Noelle, Sunset had seen herself in the girl...as much as she hated to admit it. But, the more time she spent with the girl, the more she thought that she had missed something. A big something, considering how everything had just went.

And why in the hell did she attack Asta, anyway? He was kissing her ass like a commoner was supposed to.

“So...we’re going after her...right?” Asta asked.

Magna snorted. “Are you crazy, I’m going to get some food. Charmy stops cooking and eats everything if you’re not there by the end of the breakfast bell,” he told them before turning to walk away. “You guys can go crazy bitch hunting all you want, but count me out.”

Putting the delinquent virgin out of her mind, Sunset looked over to Asta. “Why should we?”

“Well, me and Yuno went after you plenty of times when you threw a fit and stormed off.”

The completely fictitious account of her life at the orphanage made Sunset cross her arms. “No you didn’t.”

“Yes we did. There was that time during the first week, where you threw a fit after eating pot potatoes for seven days straight,” he said as he counted it off on a finger.

Sunset crossed her arms and snorted. “I was just looking for something else to eat in the woods!” It wasn’t her fault she didn’t know what foods would kill her and what wouldn’t.

“Then there was when you got into a fight with Father Orisi and tried to leave the church,” Asta went on.

“That was just a preemptive exile! I thought he was going to kick me out, so I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction and left!” Sunset explained.

Asta brought up a third finger. “Then there was that time you ran out of the bathroom naked and scared half the town, going on about how you were going to die.”

“I WAS HAVING MY FIRST PERIOD!” Sunset shouted at him. “Have you eve had a period? No! Or else you would understand that yes, it feels like you’re dying!”

Apparently hearing too much information, Asta blanched and held up his hands. “Look, my point is, when the stupid powerful, crazy magic user runs off into the woods, you chase after her to see if she’s okay, let her cry a bit, and then bring her home,” he told her. “Now come on, I need you to find her for me.”

Groaning over the fact that her baby brother had a point, Sunset stepped over Noelle’s stupid shoulder-length robe and followed him out the door. Why are these things so short, anyway? Sunset wondered as she picked at hers. The Diamond Kingdom had full-length robes. They might have been evil, but at least they knew what to wear.

It only took them a little over twenty minutes to find the Noelle girl. Sunset would have been faster, but she took the time to dry Asta off before they began looking.

Noelle hadn’t run off to get lost in the woods in some stupid attempt to find her way back to the capital. She hadn’t gone more than a mile from the hideout, in fact. She was in a loosely wooded area, glaring at a tree that had some whitewash painted on it that was surrounded by miniature craters in the dirt and a few other trees that had their bark stripped off. Sweat dripped from her face as she held her hands up in front of her to conjure a ball of water big enough for a human to float in before she launched it at the tree.

Said ball of water flew straight, then curved at the last second to shoot off to the side and soak the nearby bushes with enough force from the impact to strip them bare.

Then, she fired another, and another, and another after that, one after the other. They weren’t really spells, more concentrated bursts of her water magic given physical shape. Each and every one of them turned, bobbed and weaved to avoid the target on the tree and land somewhere else.

After seeing the display, Sunset put it all together and slapped a fist into an open palm. “Oh! I get it now, you have absolutely no control over your magical power!” she said, happy that little mystery had been solved.

Noelle let out a shriek and spun around. “W-What’re you two doing here?”

“Sup,” Asta announced as he raised a hand.

Feeling like she had caught Noelle doing something embarrassing, which Sunset supposed she did, Sunset rubbed the back of her head. “We um...came to...uh...Noelle?” Sunset asked when the girl stood there, frozen and shaking before she could even say anything.

“N-No!” the girl yelled before she held out both of her hands, crackling with mana as it changed into water right in front of her. Twice as large as her previous attacks and much more unstable “JUST GET AWAY FROM ME!”

Only, the expulsion of mana didn’t fire. It drew back on the girl and encompassed her completely. What was worse was that since the matrix of the proto-spell she had made was still attached to the source of the mana that formed it, it continued to increase in size until it was twice as big as her and still growing as it rose up into the air.

“Oh...crap,” Sunset mumbled as the Noelle floated up into the air, the power of her magic continuing to create a massive amount of water around her, which quickly swelled to enough to fill a good-sized swimming pool or small lake. “This is bad.”

“SUNSET!” Asta yelled. “DO SOMETHING!”

Like what, moron? Sunset thought back at him. The...whatever it was Noelle had made was an unstable mass of water magic that was feeding on the mana of its creator, and even managing to suck in some of the surrounding mana attuned to water from the surrounding environment. Even if she tried to suppress it with her own limited knowledge of water magic, that might end up just feeding the damn thing.

Fire was out. By the time the mana had been taken care of, the girl would have been boiled alive.

Wind was equally useless. Even if the matrix didn’t feed on a close element, the amount of force needed to blow it away wouldn’t be healthy for the girl trapped inside of it.

“Can’t you just...pop her out or something?” Asta asked in a tone that sounded he was demanding an answer.

Sunset sighed. “Not when she’s in the middle of that!” the girl explained as she threw her hands up at the mass of water that had become big enough to fill a good-sized lake in the time they had been talking. “I need a way to deconstruct her...oh, right.” She looked down at the boy’s grimoire that held a sword capable of completely shredding any magical matrix it so much as touched.

“Asta, take out your grimoire and hold it close,” Sunset ordered. “When you pop back in, activate it, take out the sword and...well, just dropping it in the water should do the trick.”

Asta blinked. “Say what?” the boy asked as he took out his book, but didn’t open it.

Instead of explaining the plan again and giving the water mass time to grow another ten-percent, possibly crushing Noelle with how much water pressure it must have had, Sunset simply snapped her fingers and made her baby brother disappear.

A second later, he reappeared a high diver's board length away from the mass of mana, as close as Sunset could get him with her magic. There was a lot of screaming, which was understandable since he was falling through the sky with a very bad dizzy spell hitting his brain because human bodies just weren’t made for unicorn teleportation.

Then he hit the water.

The bubble burst, telling Sunset that Asta had managed to draw his sword...so, he wasn’t going to drown in a mass of magical water that Sunset realized just then would probably have killed him in short order if he had failed to take that black sword of his out.

Then, Sunset realized another error in her plan as the giant mass of water no longer had anything to really hold it up. Damnit, this is my last clean set of clothes, she told herself before rain drops the size of tennis balls came pouring down.

A very small shield spell kept the water out of her face so she could look around. Any bigger than Sunset risked turning it into something akin to a window in a rain storm that was so blurry nothing beyond ten feet could be seen. Asta was easy enough to find thanks to his screams being so loud, but it took a bit longer for Sunset to locate Noelle, who was doing her best to curl up into a little ball.

She reached out with her natural magic and kept from adapting it to any element as Sunset snagged both of the kids in a light blue glow to slow their descent while also making sure Asta’s sword didn’t fall on her. The boy, she set down on the ground while Noelle fell right into Sunset’s arms. Who promptly collapsed onto the muddy ground because human bodies were just so damn weak when they didn’t have mana pumping through them.

The frightened girl that was shivering in Sunset’s lap opened her eyes. “Huh? What...what happened?”

Sunset took a moment to think of something to say. “Well, Asta busted up your spell and as for me...don’t you remember I said I’d catch you if you fell?” Sunset asked the girl in the clothes that were so wet they might as well have been transparent.

Noelle just stared at her with wide eyes.

However, the moment was not to last. In the two minutes or so that the giant death ball of water had existed, it had managed to draw the attention of every single person at the Black Bulls hideout, all of whom came running into the clearing where Noelle had fallen.

“What the hell is going on out here?” Yami demanded while the rest of his men and the two women that served under him looked around at Noelle’s handywork.

For her part, the girl curled in on herself and began trembling. “Here it comes,” she whispered as she tensed, like she was getting ready to be attacked or something.

“AW MAN! THAT WAS AWESOME!” Asta yelled as he jumped to his feet. Then nearly fell over again. Stumbling around, he just barely made it over to the pair of girls before bracing himself on his knees. “YOU’VE GOT SOME REAL CRAZY MAGIC POWER NOELLE! I wish I could do something that cool.”

Noelle opened her eyes and looked up at Asta with a blank stare, as if her mind couldn’t process what it had just heard. “...huh?” she said as a blush started to appear on her cheeks. “...A-Asta.”

With everything that had happened, the last thing that didn’t make sense about Noelle clicked into place and Sunset found herself remembering another hopeless little royal she had met so many years ago. “Hello, my name is Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, but my friends call me Cadance!”

Seeing the girl wasn’t going to do anything, Sunset ran some mana through her body to give her some extra strength and durability before she moved around a bit to put Noelle’s arm over her shoulder an helped her on her feet. “Well, I think you could use a bit of training first. But after you learn to get it under control in a few weeks, you’ll be fine.”

“Wait, that’s why you got all freaked out when you blasted Asta instead of me and stormed off?” Magna asked as if he couldn’t believe the explanation that was now so obvious. “Geeze, why didn’t you just say you were a magical failure? We’re a whole squad of losers, dummy. No wonder you were sent here. You’ll fit right in.”

The familiar sight of Vanessa’s magic carrying Noelle’s Black Bulls robe brought it right up to the two girls, letting Sunset put it on her. “You’ll probably be wanting this back, seeing as how you need a little extra to cover up with at the moment.”

“Hey, you are okay, right?” Finral asked.

Noelle blushed at the attention and nodded.

“With your great power, I’m sure we’ll be great friend-”

“I’m sure Marie would love for you to make a floating swimming pool for her to play in,” Goash added right on top of the pale creepy guy.

“Do you need something to eat?” Charmy asked before offering her some kind of delicious-smelling fried meat that was almost paper thin.

Yami took his cigarette out of his mouth and blew out some smoke. “Okay you idiots, back inside. I’m gonna need something to eat, then I’m going back to bed.”

As everyone began to leave, Noelle lowered her head and whispered just loud enough to be heard. “I’m...sorry for being so much trouble.”

“It’s fine, not like I didn’t help you along in all the wrong ways,” Sunset told her as Noelle regained her footing and pulled away. “You know...I think we got off on the wrong foot, so…” She held out her hand. “Hey, I lived with this noble woman until about two years ago when she kicked me out and I ended up in Hage Village. I’m a bit of a hothead, but I’m pretty good with magic and could help you out if you’d like me to. My name’s Sunset Shimmer, but my friends call me Sunny.”

Noelle stood there, staring at Sunset for several seconds before she give a smile and reached out to grab the girl’s hand. “Yes! I...I’d like that a lot. Sunny” she said after a short pause.

“Wait...you don’t have any friends, Sunny.”

Sunset blinked and looked over to her little brother, who Sunset had completely forgotten about, as Noelle snickered.

“Can it shorty.”

For some reason, that made Noelle laugh even more.

Page 8: First Mission

Yuno had to fight to keep his eyes open as he sat in the garden that was the courtyard of the Golden Dawn’s castle before the sun even came up. Even back at the orphanage, he never got up this early outside of Winter. What made it even worse was that his bed had been hard to sleep in. It had been too soft. Whoever heard of a bed that was too soft?

Klaus had told Yuno to meet him in the courtyard, but as the sun peeked its way over the battlements, marking the time as an hour past dawn, his teacher had yet to show.

Secre had flown off after the two of them woke up, telling Yuno she’d head out to check on Asta for a day or two before coming back.

“Oh, hello there! Are you supposed to meet with Klaus for training as well?”

The unfamiliar and feminie voice from behind him made Yuno adjust himself as he looked back to see a girl approaching him from behind. Like Yuno, she had on a Golden dawn robe, but was dressed in something other than the official uniform underneath. However, unlike him, her clothes were a poofy top that covered her arms and short pants that didn’t go down very far at all.

Which did nothing to hide her amazing figure. Despite being fifteen, the girl was developed as Sister Lilly had been, with her puffy short pants only making it seem like her hips were even bigger than they probably were, judging by how the boots that came up to her thighs looked. Despite the time of year, she had another cloak on beneath her Golden Dawn robe, which actually had a bit of magic in it. As for the girl herself, she had green eyes and long, flowing blonde-golden hair that fell down to the center of her back in waves, with some of it ending up in front and managing to reach her breasts.

Yuno frowned a little. “I was told to come here before dawn and wait for Klaus to arrive.”

The girl blinked, surprise evident on her face. “Really? I just saw Klaus leaving the cafeteria on his way here and rushed to get ahead of him,” she said. “Are you sure you heard him give the correct time?”

“Yes,” Yuno replied as his eye twitched. The man had ordered him into missing breakfast.

Then the girl got a thoughtful look as she tapped her chin. “That’s odd,” she said before smiling. “Well, maybe he just forgot. I know that I’m completely useless in the morning until I’ve gotten some good food in me.”

The odd thing was, the girl actually meant what she was saying. Growing up an orphan, Yuno had learned quickly to spot people who were trying to trick him after Asta had nearly been beaten to death when they were children. And the girl was being one-hundred-percent honest.

“Oh! I’m being rude,” she said before going into a curtsy, despite her clothes not being made for it. “Hello sir. My name is Mimosa Vermillion. Might I ask who I have the pleasure of addressing?”

Yuno blinked. She’s serious, he told himself through the shock of someone in the Golden Dawn actually showing him courtesy, and a great deal of it at that. Unsure of how exactly to respond, Yuno got up and made an awkward bow that was probably nowhere near deep enough. “Oh, my name is Yuno. I’m from Hage Village,” he replied before standing back up and blinking. “Wait...Vermillion? But your hair’s not…”

The question got a giggle from Mimosa before she waved it off. “I know, I take after my father, while Leo and Fugoleon look more like their mother, who married my father’s brother. They’re my cousins,” she explained before something obviously occurred to her and she let out a little gasp. “Oh! You’re the boy with the four leaf, aren’t you? The...ba-uh…”

“Bastard?” Yuno supplied for her evenly.

Mimosa blushed and bowed her head. “Sorry,” she said before picking her head back up. “It’s just when everyone around you is saying a word, no matter how awful, it tends to sneak its way into your mouth. I know that’s no excuse, but sometimes I accidentally let my mouth get away from me.”

The apology had Yuno standing there, stunned. “That’s um…” he had no idea how to respond to the girl. She was unlike any noble he had even seen since joining the Golden Dawn, much less met. “It’s fine. It’s not like I can deny it.”

“No it’s not!” Mimosa told him with a stern look that she just couldn’t seem to make passable. “People shouldn’t talk to you like that, ever! At least, I won’t. We’re both magic knights, and no matter where we came from, we stand as equals now. So, we should show each other the proper respect and do our best together, okay?”

All of a sudden, Yuno hoped that Klaus was another hour late to his first day on the job as instructor.

Because of some evil curse, the second day at Black Bulls HQ was a completely normal, non-explosive day without any distractions or catastrophes. Sunset wasn’t forced to track through the mud, deal with wild animals, or a pair of boys that were constantly trying to one up each other or anything else. There was work to do. But it was grunt work that only involved repetitive motions and little thought.

Which let her mind easily wander.

Sunset’s only salvation was that she managed to drag Noelle with her since Asta was assigned his own list of chores.

Unfortunately, the royal pain was a bit reluctant to do her duties…

“Why in the hell should have to help you wash everyone’s clothes?” the girl demanded.

Sunset didn’t favor her with an answer right away, deciding to look over the three piles of clothes that stood half as tall as a person. In truth, things would have probably gone a lot faster if Noelle wasn’t around to see Sunset work magic on the various items and remove the stains with more than one element. However, getting done too quickly in a building of people who actually knew something about magic might raise questions she didn’t want asked. “Because the sooner I get done, the sooner we can get to work on taking care of your magic problem,” Sunset half-lied. There were some other reasons, but they were private.

However, the completely logical reasoning didn’t seem to penetrate Noelle’s head. “You’re kidding, right? I’m royalty. We don’t do laundry, Sunny.”

“So you...what? Sat on your tiny butt your whole life and did nothing?” Sunset asked.

Noelle crossed her arms. “I had my studies to keep me busy.”

There was a pause in the conversation as Sunset thought about going for a low blow, but decided against asking her how much of that time was wasted studying magic. “Well, can you at least make some water to fill these wash basins?” Sunset asked as she pointed at the empty oversized buckets in front of her.

“Uh...you know what happens when I use my magic, remember?” Noelle asked.

Sunset sighed. That was one of the bigger problems she knew would stand in her way of trying to smooth Noelle’s magic over. Magic was the power of a person’s belief, their faith in themselves. If they thought they were going to screw up every time, then they would screw up every time. “I’m not asking for a huge blast or anything like that. Just make some water and drop it in the tubs. Please?”

Very hesitantly, Noelle held out her hand and a ball of water appeared in front of it before she just let go. There was a big splash as most of the water landed where it was supposed to, but a good deal overflowed and Sunset found herself sitting in a puddle.

“See? I told you, I-”

“That was really good, Noelle,” Sunset told her before the girl could finish.

The royal blinked at the complement as stopped in her tracks. “Huh?” she asked before looking back at her mistake. “But...I made too much and now you’re all wet.”

Suppressing her annoyance about her legs getting soaked, Sunset just shrugged. “It’s not like I’m not going to get wet doing this, you know,” she told the royal that looked terrified what she was saying was all some kind of trick and Sunset was going to turn on her any instant. “Can you fill the spare one up too? Try using less than half as much mana this time and let’s see if it works any better.”

After realizing Sunset wasn’t going to bite her head off, Noelle nodded and moved to the other wash basin to hold her hands over it. However, it looked like she severely overcompensated this time around and only got it a quarter full. As the girl blushed in embarrassment, Sunset found herself coming up with some more words of encouragement. “Hey, good idea. Just drop the water in at minimal power until it’s full. That way, we can avoid making more of a puddle.”

Of course, it was obvious to Sunset that Noelle hadn’t meant to do anything of the kind, but the girl needed the compliments. As things were, no amount of practice would let her use her magic correctly because a lifetime of failure had made her expect to mess things up. And if she knew her magic was going to blow up in her face, then it always would.

A few minor victories under her belt, some kind of proof that she wasn’t a waste of space. Noelle needed those things if she was ever going to overcome her problem.

“Okay...um...now what?” Noelle asked.

After putting some of the clothes into the metal tub, Sunset put her hands on the side to heat the water until it was boiling, then pushed the thing aside to let the clothes soak before she looked over to the royal. “Can you hand me the soap and the washboard?”

Noelle nodded, then grabbed the items so Sunset could get to work on the actual work involved with her chore.

Five minutes into the whole thing, Noelle spoke up again. “Um...is there anything else I can do to help?” she asked tentatively.

“I thought all of this stuff was beneath you royals,” Sunset replied.

Noelle blushed a little. “Yeah, well...just tell me what you need me to do already!” she ordered. “You’re moving much too slow. And if you have to do this before we get to my magic training, then we need to get done as soon as possible.”

“HOW IS THIS ANY DIFFERENT THAT WHAT WE DID BACK AT THE CHURCH?”

Noelle looked up from inspecting her hands to make sure cleaning everyone’s clothes hadn’t given her some kind of rash and across the table in the mess hall where the shrimp was sitting. Since Sunny was his big sister, she supposed that it was okay for the peasant to sit so close, but if he kept that yelling up, they were going to have problems. “Tone it down.”

The rest of the group, which only took up about half a table in their four long tabled dining hall, were slowly making their way through an obscene amount of meat and minor collection of other food groups. Sunny must have shared her opinion of the overabundance of animal products, because while she had no problem taking some chicken and fish, she stayed away from everything else. “Well, the Black Bulls don’t have a support staff and Charmy’s sheep golems are restrained by the ‘cook’ title. So they can’t really do much else other than prepare food and clean the kitchen,” Sunset told him before looking over to some of the meat that had been cut to make breakfast, but never cooked until lunch. “What’s this?”

Charmy looked over to her. “Bacon.”

Sunset grabbed a piece and tentatively took a bite. Then another, then finished off the remaining half. “And it’s made from?”

“Pigs and boars,” Charmy told her.

After a few seconds, Sunset grabbed the rest of the bacon. “Pigs and boars are evil anyway,” she said before looking back to Asta. “And this is way different than the church. For one, we actually have real beds, three meals a day, soap to use on our clothes. Do I really need to go down a whole list of things?”

“Okay, but what does a magic knight squad even do?” Asta demanded.

While Sunny was probably too dumbfounded by the idiocy of the question to give her baby brother an answer, Magna didn’t seem too bothered to let it stop him. “You joined the Magic Knights without even knowing what we do?” he said before standing up to slap his hands down on the table and lean over it to glare at Asta from beside Sunset. “We protect the country you idiot! It’s the manliest job in the world! Why did you even join up if you didn’t know something as basic as that?”

Vanessa stopped gulping down her wine, despite it still being lunchtime, and looked over to the boy as she sat next to Noelle. “The fact we get paid despite no actual work, free room and board, free food, the fact I can walk around my place of business in my underwear.”

“A full pardon,” Gauche added.

Finral was quick to add, “got to move out of my parent’s house.”

“Food!” Charmy declared.

“So I could beat people up and get away with it,” Luck told him happily.

Gordon added...something, judging by how his lips moved.

“I’M ASKING RASTA!” Magna yelled at the others.

“...actually, it’s, Asta,” the boy with the headband corrected him.

A moment later, a scream cut across the room, drawing everyone’s attention to the shortest team member as she sat in front of her five empty plates. “W-What happened? My food, it’s all GONE!”

Sunset moaned and rubbed her head. “That’s because you just ate it,” she said before her voice dropped to barely audible levels. “Despite the fact that all of that meat had to weigh five times as much as you do.”

“You think that’s weird,” Vanessa said as she leaned over Noelle to whisper to the redhead. “Wait until you notice that she never goes to the bathroom.”

“COTTON CREATION MAGIC! SHEEP COOKS!” Charmy yelled before three balls of flush floated up into the air and took the shape of three bidpal sheep with chef hats on. Within less than ten minutes, they set another lavish feast down in front of the comically short girl that she quickly began tearing into.

“...there’s no way that meat should be done all the way,” Noelle pointed out despite the fact that it was.

At that point, the giant of the group stood up and walked over to where Asta was sitting and pulled out a large blue book before there was a giant puff of smoke. When it cleared, the boy was standing beside himself...literally.

As in, there were two of them.

“We do a lot of things, depending on the-”

“Oh my gosh, you guys have magic like that, here?” Sunset suddenly asked, stopping the double from talking as she jumped over the table and grabbing other-Asta by the shoulders while she examined him. “How does it work? Is it just a shell for your body that you reduce in size, or is there an actual rearrangement of things on a molecular level?”

What do moles have to do with transformation magic? Noelle wondered.

Getting a little nervous, Gray took a step back from Sunset. “Uh, well...I...um…”

Finral raised an eyebrow. “What’s she getting all excited about? It’s just transformation magic. You can do something like that with the right kind of magic item.”

“Is it only skin deep, or do your organs also change? What about clothes? Do you actually create them or-oh, transform into me real quick,” Sunset told the boy.

Gray gulped and took his book out again. “Oh-okay,” he replied before there was another burst of smoke and a second Sunset was standing in front of the first.

At which point, Sunset reached up and grabbed the other girls boobs to squeeze them. “Hmm, feels the same,” she said while Gray let out a girlish scream.

“W-What’re you doing?” she demanded in embarrassment as she looked away from the original Sunset and blushed as bright as her hair.

Vanessa took another swig of wine. “Hey, does that count as sexual assault? I mean, it is Sunset’s body she’s handling.”

“Checking for a bra, and your breasts feel the same as mine, so...maybe the spell fills in the blanks? What about-” she mumbled before moving her hands down and beginning to slip off the other Sunset’s pants.

At which point the other Sunset screamed and jumped away, while Sunset Prime was still holding onto her and the pair fell forward, with the primary redhead falling into the fakes breasts while Gray had her rear exposed to the rest of the team. While most of it was still covered by the once piece of underwear Sunset did have on, Noelle noticed something very off.

“What the-she doesn’t have your butt tattoos,” Noelle pointed out.

Vaness blinked and put down her drink. “Hey, you’re right.”

As the pair became the center of attention for everyone in the room, with Charmy stopping her intake of food to look at what was going on, Sunset stood back up and blinked. “Huh...well that’s…” she said while rubbing her chin in thought. “Guess that makes sense.”

“Huh? What makes sense, what’s everybody talking about?” Gray asked as she looked around in confusion.

Asta looked over to not-Sunset and put on an uncomfortable face. “Sunset’s got these weird marks on her ass that look like a freaky sun,” he explained right before the real Sunset pulled her pants down a little to provide a visual aid. “I DIDN’T SAY SHOW THEM!”

For her part, Noelle blanched at Sunset’s actions. How can she just...just SHOW HERSELF OFF LIKE THAT? the royal demanded in a mix of anger and a little jealousy. She didn’t look the least bit concerned about who was in the room!

“Feh, my body, my rules,” Sunset replied.

“AND MY EYES!” Asta retorted.

A second later, Gray was up next to the girl, studying the tattoo. “B-But my spell should have copied everything! Even the parts I couldn’t see!”

Finally getting a little embarrassed from all the attention, the commoner pulled her pants back up and blushed. “Uh...well...you see...that’s…”

Before an explanation could be forced out of the redhead, one of the doors leading out of the mess was kicked down and Yami walked into the room to take a look around before settling on the redheads and their light state of undress. “Hey, twins going at it, your floor shows are getting better Gray.”

“T-That’s not what this is at all!” Gray yelled back in an embarrassed diatribe before turning back into his giant form and quickly heading for the door.

Yami took a drag on his cigarette and let it out. “Whatever,” he said before looking over to the male delinquent with two tones to his hair. “Hey Magna, we’re heading out.”

A moment later, Magna turned from the show Sunset was putting on and stood up. “Yes, Yami sir!”

“What’s going on?” Asta asked as he looked around in confusion.

Magna cleared his hands off and readjusted his glasses. “There’s a mission.”

Excitement exploding from every part of his body, Asta jumped up and pumped his arm up. “A MISSION? COOL! JUST GIVE ME A SECOND AND I’LL BE READY!”

The older boy got a stern look on his face. “No, this one is too rough for rookies,” he said before adjusting his glasses. “Me and Yami will be taking care of it ourselves.”

With Magna actually acting serious for the first time since she had ever seen him, Noelle couldn’t help but wonder what was going on. Whatever it was, it must have been big to involve the head of the squad.

Sunset sighed and looked over to Noelle. “Well, ready for that magic practice now?”

“I think I’ll join you girls,” the mostly-naked half-drunk woman with the dull pink hair said before she stood up from the table. “I’m really good at controlling my magic, so I can give you some pointers.”

“So um...how is this supposed to help her get her magic working?” Vanessa asked as she watched Noelle bend forward to the point where she was touching her toes, barely able to keep her balance.

Sunset didn’t answer as she continued to limber up. A few questions asked to Asta about his workout routine during the last leg of their journey to the capitol had been surprisingly informative. With the first bit of information being how people who just started exercising needed to stretch their muscles out a little in preparation so they didn’t hurt themselves from the strenuous activity.

As she sat down to spread her legs and touch her toes, Sunset finally answered the woman. “Noelle’s magic doesn’t just surge out of control, she also has a problem aiming basic expulsions of her mana,” she said. “I know it’s probably because she thinks she’s going to fail before she even starts, but I was thinking about giving her something to pin the blame on and come up with a fake fix for it that might help her stop thinking she’s going to fail all the time automatically.”

“Or, we could try getting her a real magical item to help regulate how much power she puts into things,” Vanessa said before she looked the redhead up and down for a moment. “By the way, where’s your grimoire?”

Sunset looked over to the other woman. “I left it back in my room, wearing something like that would only get in my way right now,” she explained before moving onto the more important topic. “They have things like that?”

After staring at Sunset for a second, the woman sighed. “Right. I forgot that you got the same education as Asta.”

“Wait, didn’t you tell me yesterday that you were a part of the lady’s household or something?” Noelle asked. “And can I get up now?”

The comment actually made Vanessa put down her bottle, making Sunset start to feel a little nervous at the extra scrutiny. Crap, I did say that, didn’t I? she reminded herself. Stupid Noelle and her problems making Sunset be a little more honest with her. “Well, it’s...complicated,” she said before focusing strictly on Noelle. “And if it’s been a minute, stand up and walk around that tree one time.”

While Noelle was doing as told and grumbling about how it made no sense, Vanessa looked back to Sunset with a frown. “So, you going to tell us about this little...discrepancy or…”

Sunset reached back and rubbed her neck. “Okay so...the thing is...I only really spent two years with Asta and Yuno,” she told them. “Before that, I was in a different orphanage, where I got taken in by the local Lady because of my high magic potential. She taught me some things before I kind of found out this big secret of hers and might have run away after she expelled me from her house for fear of my own life,” she half-lied.

After taking a drink of her wine, Vanessa nodded. “Makes sense.”

“HOW DOES THAT MAKE SENSE?” Noelle yelled at the two of them after she finished her circuit and walked over to stand above them.

Sunset looked up at the girl. “Do you feel dizzy or anything?”

The question made Noelle blink before she moved around a little bit more. “Not really, should I?”

“Well, considering the problem with your magic has been around since birth, there was the possibility that it was a physical problem, like your balance was off and it’s been affecting your magic,” Sunset told her. “But if you can bend over for a minute and walk around just fine, then it isn’t something like that.”

The explanation satisfying her, Noelle nodded before frowning back down at Sunset. “Now answer my question! You ran away from a noble that adopted you to live in the Forsaken Realm? Why in the hell would you do something like that?”

“I never said she adopted me,” Sunset grumbled before she pulled her legs back up, the stretching put on hold for a moment as she grit her teeth. “She never cared for me. She just wanted to use me, turn me into her little attack dog and nothing else. That was made abundantly clear.” Even though Celestia might have done some good stuff for her too, it was a fact that the big pony had wanted to spend her whole life as some kind of slave to the crown rather than the pony wearing it.

Only good-natured idiots who never questioned Celestia got turned into princesses.

“Yeah, but-”

Vanessa cleared her throat, cutting Noelle off. “Okay, so...who’s ready for some magic practice?” she asked while looking around at the two. “I know I am! Noelle, how about you show us what you can do and we’ll see what we’re working with. Just…” A rather thick magical threat appeared and wrapped itself around Noelle’s leg. “There we go! Now, just in case anything happens like yesterday, the two of us can pull you out.”

Just mentioning the possibility of a repeat of the previous disaster had Noelle closing in on herself, telling Sunset this was all a waste of time. “Okay. I’ll try my best.”

Before anything could start to happen, there was a familiar fluttering of wings and Sunset looked up to see that the Secre had managed to find her. The bird landed on a low branch, and stared at Sunset.

Unfortunately, this did not go unnoticed by Noelle. She rushed right over to the thing and gushed over it. “Oh my gosh! That little bird is so adorable!” she exclaimed. “Just look at those evil eyes, and are those horns coming out the top of it’s head? And two tails? Where did a cute little anti-bird like this come from?”

“...that isn’t the usual terminology people use to elaborate with after saying adorable,” Vanessa pointed out.

Sunset groaned. “That’s uh...my pet,” she lied. “I should probably get her something to eat. Let me just head back to the hideout real quick and see if there’s anything left she can have. Vanessa, can you give Noelle those tips while I go do this?”

The older woman nodded. “Sure. Oh, and you might want to tell Charmy not to eat the bird. Wild animals that wander too close to her tend to end up getting roasted,” she warned.

Secre tensed as her head turned to look at the mostly-naked woman. “Eh?”

With the comment going unnoticed, Sunset grabbed the fowl and made for the hideout at a quick pace. Once she was out of sight and her mana sense told the girl that nobody was close enough to hear, Sunset looked down at the bird. “So, how are things going with Yuno?”

Asta groaned as he found himself once again marching through the underground passage beneath the base, doing one of his most dreaded duties as a member of The Black Bulls: feeding Yami’s pets.

Since coming to the mishmash of a house, he had cleaned, dusted, and taken in clothes for the guys that Sunset had put up to dry, but the task he was on now was by far the worst. Which was why when Noelle told him that handling everyone’s clothes after getting back from exercising was the worst job ever, Asta had decided to prove the rich kid just how wrong she was.

Unfortunately, calling the job he was about to do dangerous had also made Sunset tag along, with Secre riding in the back of her hood.

Which was how Asta found himself leading through the underground passageway beneath the hideout that led to the cage for the animals. “There’s three of them. I can’t really see inside the cage very well, but one of them looks like a wolf, another is this hairy...ape thing, and the third is...uh, well...I don’t think I’ve really seen number three in good enough lighting,” Asta said as he carried the buckets of raw meat that Charmy had left for him.

“So, feeding a cute little monkey, a dog, and something too frightened to even show its face is worse than handling Vanessa’s bras and underwear,” Noelle deadpanned. “Do you know where those parts of her clothes have been?”

Asta looked back to the rich girl with a raised eyebrow. “Um, yeah. I see them every time I pass her in the hideout.”

As Noelle got an odd look on her face from Asta’s lack of blushing over a woman that let him see everything, she apparently couldn’t stop herself from asking a followup question. “There’s no way you could get used to that in just two days.”

“Well, I’ve kind of had to since Sunset made me take baths with her every day for about a month,” Asta told her.

Noelle jumped back. “SAY WHAT?” she shouted before looking back and forth between the two. “Oh yeah, you said you were sib-wait, the two of you have only known each other since you were thirteen! Why would he be bathing with you?”

In response, Sunset shrugged. “We had to walk from the northernmost point in the country. You think there was a lot of privacy in the wilderness?” she said before looking to Asta. “Now, could we please get this horrible petting zoo you think it’s so awful to work at?”

Annoyed that the girls were trying to get onto him for the conversation they started, Asta turned back around, but stopped when he heard something coming down the hallway. It was much too small to be an escaped beast, which he knew could break out rather easily since they had already torn through the iron cage holding them in to get at the food once before. But, he still stood ready for anything.

Except for a pair of men in nothing but a pair of Black Bulls robes walking into the part of the tunnel he could see thanks to the torches on the wall. Yami didn’t even have a cigarette in his mouth and Magna was missing his glasses. Before Asta could even comment on it, Noel let out a scream and jumped behind Sunset to try and hide while the redhead just stood there, completely unaffected by the nudity.

“What the hell happened to you two?” she asked evenly.

Yami moved to take a cigarette that wasn’t even there before he stopped halfway and frowned. “I think the more important question is, how come it’s dinner time and my babies haven’t been fed yet?”

From her place behind Sunset, Noelle peeked her head out, her eyes still closed. “No, the important question is, WHY ARE THE TWO OF YOU NAKED?” she shrieked.

Sunset’s eye twitched as she stood behind one of the tables in the common room of the hideout. In front of her, a freshly dressed Yami and Magna were sitting on the long couch at the back of the room. After hearing their explanation as to why they had tried to sneak into the building with nothing on, she had to resist the urge to throw something at the two of them or use more Equestrian-friendly magic turn them into something with more intelligence.

Like goldfish.

“So, the two of you lost everything in a poker game including the clothes on your back, and now we have to go kill poor animals around a crappy little village in the middle of nowhere?” she demanded.

“Well, yeah,” Magna replied. “You don’t expect Yami to clean up his own messes, do you?”

The rebuttal was so stupid, Sunset couldn’t bring herself to speak for several seconds thanks to being paralyzed from the idiocy of it all.

Apparently taking that as her conceding defeat, Magna stood up. “So, go get your gear and meet me out back. We usually do teams of three, but since Asta has no magic and Noelle can’t control hers, I’ll need an extra person to fly one of them there. And hurry up, if we move fast enough, we can be back before nightfall,” he told her as he headed for an exit before Sunset could give a proper rebuttal.

“Well, I don’t care if it’s stupid!” Asta declared. “I’M FINALLY GOING ON A MISSION! YEEEEAH!”

“Why is he sending me?” Noelle asked. “I can’t control my magic. At best I’ll be a burden, and at worse, an even bigger problem than some stupid boar.”

I have to fly...on a broom? she asked herself hesitantly.

With that in mind, she slowly made her way to the stairs and up several flights until they were in her room. As soon as she shut the door, the bird hiding in the back of her robe’s hood fluttered out and landed on her bed. “Hmm, this place is a bit better than I was expecting. At least twice as big as Asta’s room,” Secre told her.

Sunset ignored the miracle of a talking bird to change the clothes covering her top half to her light green dress before she walked over to her writing desk, where two books were waiting for her. The first was the empty grimoire that technically didn’t even have an owner, and the second was something far more troubling: the journal that linked her to Equestria. Every time she saw the damn thing, a voice inside Sunset told her to burn it. Celestia was part of her old life, she didn’t need the nag anymore.

Unfortunately, there was also another voice that said Celestia deserved an answer to the question the wrote two years ago. Sunset owed her that much at least, didn’t she?

But...what would happen if she wrote back?

Did Sunset even want her to write back?

It would probably be a lot of lectures and demands for her to come home at once, despite the fact that Sunset didn’t think that was even possible.

Not that Celestia ever cared about little things like that. “Make friends Sunset. Kiss my plot Sunset. Train the pony I REALLY care about Sunset, then get lost when you find out that all I ever saw you as was a disposable minion,” the Celestia in her mind said. “What was that? You think I’m sad about you dying? I’m a thousand years old, you idiot! Ponies die around me all the time! Why in the hell do you think something as mundane as that makes you special?”

“Sunset, are you listening to me?”

A voice so close to her ears made Sunset let out a tiny scream and turn around to see Secre flapping her wings to float right in Sunset’s face. When she recovered, Sunset glared at the bird. “Don’t do that! Couldn’t you see that I was having a moment?” the girl demanded.

Not seeming to even care, Secre began speaking again. “Listen, the place where you’re going, Saussy Village, it’s one of the hiding places for a magic stone,” Secre told her. “We can collect it while you’re there.”

Sunset frowned at the information. “I thought you said that those stones were given out to noble houses and junk five-hundred years ago.”

“And others were hidden, or I retrieved them after the noble house fell in the past five hundred years and moved them somewhere safe,” Secre explained. “It wasn’t as if I could find new protectors at the time. So I hid one in the roof of a church in a middle of nowhere town. Now get your book and let’s get going.”

Groaning at being ordered around, Sunset reached behind her without even bothering to look and grabbed the tome that radiated magic before shoving it in the book case that she had moved on her belt so it hung behind her butt rather than on the side. It took a bit more effort than last time, but she got it in and headed downstairs as fast as she could.

Once she got out back, Sunset found herself frowning at the monstrosity of a broom that Magna was standing next to. The thing was at least twice as long as a regular broom and ten times as thick, big enough to have an actual saddle on the back of it. While there were bristles coming out the back, technically making it a broom, the rest of it was a collection of giant rib bones forming the bottom half with a large piece of curved painted wood placed over what Sunset guessed had been the animal’s backbone to provide a seat, as a giant bull’s skull wearing glasses with hand grips on the horns stuck out in front as some sort of steering apparatus. Then, to top it all off, a little flagpole was sticking out the back, holding a flag with the Black Bull’s emblem on it.

“So, what do you all think of my Crazy Cyclone?” Magna declared proudly before pointing to the traditional broom Noelle was holding. “It’s way better than some run of the mill broom like that!”

Noelle growled as she gripped the broom in her hands even tighter.

“SO COOL!” Asta told him as Sunset could practically see stars sparkling in his eyes.

Sunset had a different opinion. “If you want to fly around on the mutilated corpse of a dead animal,” she said before opening her hand so Noelle could give her the broom. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Just...don’t crash,” she asked the other girl softly before handing Sunset the flying instrument.

Stopping herself from gulping, Sunset let her mana flow through the object, then stepped over it to get on. Please let this be a short flight, she begged as Magna lifted himself up into the sky.

A second later, Sunset noticed Noelle hadn’t moved from her spot. The girl was giving her a cautious look as she fixed her eyes on how Sunset was sitting. “Isn’t that uncomfortable?”

“Well, not to start things off, but...give it fifteen minutes and yeah,” Sunset admitted. “These things really work their way into your pussy.”

Noelle’s face reddened as her mouth dropped. “Y-You don’t have to put it like that!” she exclaimed.

After rolling her eyes, Sunset looked back to Noelle. “Not like there’s anyone else here but us.”

“And you should show more tact in front of royalty!” Noelle went on before she walked up to the broom. “The proper way for a lady to sit on one of these is like this.”

Sunset blinked as Noelle turned around to put her butt up against the stick before sitting down, using her arms to steady herself as her legs hung off one end and the back end of her body, the other. “Can’t believe I’m actually having to put some of those old froofy classes that taught me how to act like a proper lady to work. Now, there’s a bit of a trick to it so you don’t go falling off the broom and getting us both killed. You need to let most of your rear hang off behind you and sit right where your legs and your butt meet. Little more, maybe.”

Half an hour later, Sunset was glad for the coaching from Noelle. While the new position made her legs a little sore, it was ten times better than what she knew her crotch would have felt like after a half-an-hour ride on a broom. However, when they came in sight of what had to be the village, Magna pulled back on his monstrosity of a broom until he wasn’t moving at all, making Sunset fly past him until she adjusted her speed to near zero and let him catch up to her. “What is it?” she asked before looking down at the village.

What little she could see of it, at any rate. Saussy Village itself was built on a small mesa that stood just a little taller than the trees surrounding it. The only access to the vertically enhanced village was a pair of inclined bridges that started a good distance away from the small town to keep their incline at a minimum before joining into one right before hitting the landmass. The place had a defensive wall around it, but other than the opening on the western side, Sunset couldn’t see anything thanks to a dense fog that filled the space inside the protective barrier to make a dome.

An actual dome that looked in no way natural.

“They got some pretty weird weather around here, huh?” Asta commented.

Sunset had to fight to keep on the broom after hearing her brother’s question. “Okay, I’m going to take a guess and say that isn’t normal?” she asked the delinquent while keeping an eye on the town.

Magna frowned. “No, it’s not,” he said with a worried tone. “And there isn’t anyone in town close to powerful enough to make magic like that.”

From her space on the back of her broom, Noelle shifted around. “Is the village under attack?”

“That doesn’t make any sense!” Magna told them. “Saussy is a poor village. Clover needed it for an operating base during some big war about fifty years ago with a tribe of savages from the special magic region and they left those defenses in place. Even if it was easy pickings, which it isn’t, it’s not worth the trouble of raiding.”

Her curiosity peaked, Sunset looked back over to Magna. “Why isn’t it easy? Last I checked, the Forsaken Realm doesn’t have much in the way of people to defend it.”

Magna snorted. “The village chief is a failed magic knight candidate that specializes in metal magic that he shapes into weapons and sends flying through the air,” he said. “Back when I first got my grimoire, I got a big head and rode around the Forsaken Realm, thinking I could take over a village or two. I thought I’d make Saussy Village my base of operations since it already had a wall protecting it and that stone bridge to act as a choke point. But old man Seihi whipped my butt good...literally.”

“You don’t have to sound happy about that, you know,” Sunset pointed out.

It seemed that the story wasn’t finished, and Magna went on. “I came back again and again, hoping to beat him. But I ended up being sent packing every time. Of course by then, I had given up on my plans for world domination and was just trying to beat the old man,” he said. “However, after a few months had passed, old Seihi told me to grow up and do something with my life before pointing me to the capital and telling me to go join the Magic Knights.”

With the story over, Sunset focused her senses on the fog and did her best to examine it. “It’s not just a concentration of water mana. Looks like there’s some kind of misdirection enchantment thrown in. If we go flying into that stuff, we’ll probably crash into a building before we even notice it,” she said before finding something noticeably different than anywhere else in the village. “There’s also a large concentration of mana in the center of the village and from the lack of any differing magical signatures anywhere else, I’d say it’s probably the townspeople.”

“No lookouts?” Magna asked.

Sunset shook her head. “And from the look of things, that spell will confuse the directional senses of anyone inside it, except maybe the caster. There may be something to alter sounds as well, so calling for someone you just lost sight of would also be useless, but I’d have to get closer to be sure.”

After thinking about things for a moment, Magna looked back at his passenger. “Hey Asta, can your sword cut through fog?”

“Oh come on Magna, swords can’t cut through fog,” Asta told him with a forced smile. “Everyone knows that.”

Noelle groaned and rubbed her head. “You can if it’s magic, moron! At the very least, it will dispel the confusion enchantment.”

“We’ll land at the edge and deal with the fog, then head into the center of town to see what’s going on,” Magna told them.

While she thought it was a better idea to hold one of their people in reserve, maybe even Magna himself, Sunset decided to keep her mouth shut. They didn’t really have time to argue if people were in trouble.

Noelle kept to the back so nobody would see her rub the bottom of her butt after the two brooms were brought in for a landing. Having never ridden on a broom except for the one time where she crashed and almost got herself killed, the youngest Silva hadn’t built up a tolerance to getting a rod shoved up under her ass for nearly half an hour straight.

“Okay, grimoires out,” Magna ordered. “Asta, you’re in front, I’ll back you up. Sunset, you can cover our backs and Noelle...uh…”

“Useless,” her elder sister’s voice echoed in the royal’s mind.

Noelle reached up to rub her arm as she looked at the fog, the type of magic Nebra used. “Just try not to get in the way, right?”

“Help us by keeping an eye out,” Sunset said helpfully as she undid the safety strap on her book’s covering. “And try to look intimidating. Nobody aside from us actually knows about your magic, so you could always try bluffing our way through this.”

The very possibility that she might help her friends made Noelle smile a little. But, it was a short lived expression when she noticed there was something very wrong with the book that Sunset was pulling out of her pack. Like the fact that it was a book instead of a grimoire. “Uh...Sunny, what’s that?” she asked while pointing at the book that had the same mark on the cover that Sunset had on her butt.

Sunset blinked at the question before bringing her book around and blinking. “Oh...okay, um...crap. I grabbed the wrong book.”

“You didn’t bring your grimoire?” Asta asked in surprised confusion.

“How in the hell can you forget your grimoire?” Magna demanded as quietly as he could. “That’s like-I didn’t even think that level of stupid was possible! Congrats Rasta, you are no longer the dumb one in your family.”

Sunset’s eye twitched as she looked down at the book, then slid it back down into the container that was meant for a grimoire. “Oh, shut up and get going. It’ll be fine.”

“Considering the fact that you just went from our heaviest hitter to slightly above Noelle in terms of usefulness?” Magna questioned before shaking his head. “No, I don’t think it’s going to be fine, not by a long shot!”

The jab at Noelle made the girl wince. “You’re even more worthless than a commoner without a grimoire,” the phantom voice of her eldest brother said.

Sunset frowned back at Magna. “I can still manipulate mana and enhance myself. That’ll have to do,” she said before crossing her arms. “Now get moving, or do you want the girl without the grimoire to lead us into the big scary bit of fog?”

After hearing the taunt, Magna snarled and turned around to tell Asta to get moving as Noelle moved in close to Sunset. “Um, just asking, but...how did you manage to mix that thing up with your grimoire? And what is it, anyway?” Weren’t skilled mages supposed to be able to sense the location of their grimoires?

“My old journal from when I...lived somewhere else. They’re the same size, weight, and both give off a magical aura,” Sunset told her. “I...might have been in a hurry and a little distracted when I was getting changed for the mission and grabbed this book by mistake.”

Noelle looked back down at the book pack hanging over Sunset’s butt for a few seconds as Asta came to the edge of the fog. This is bad, she told herself. Based on the time she had tried to help Noelle with her magic just earlier today after getting some food for her bird, Sunny knew magic like the back of her hand. The girl’s grimoire was probably filled with spells despite her age, at least ten of them. But without it she was…

...still just as confident as she looked a minute ago when she still had her grimoire.

She even reached back to take Noelle’s hand and give it a little reassuring squeeze, forcing the other girl to smile. I wish I could be more like that, the royal told herself. Her confident mask was built off of looking down on other people, focusing on the fact that she was just born better than them. But it was just that, a mask. And one that knocked other people down.

When the reality of it was…

“You’re worthless.”

“A shame to our family.”

“Absolute disgrace.”

Noelle hung her head low as she took out her useless grimoire to open it and let it float in front of her, wrapped in a blue glow. A blank page was all that greeted her.

Up ahead, Asta walked into the fog and swung his sword twice. The magic in the air began to quickly dispel, taking the mist with it a few seconds later when it didn’t have any magic to keep it in effect. Foot by foot, he cut his way into the village, hacking at the fog that couldn’t do anything to stop him. As he did, Magna guided him through the village, telling the group to head to the right or left after Asta knocked away enough of the mist that a building or public barn for storing goods could be seen.

As they moved closer, Noelle got a sense of what Sunset had said earlier about there being a powerful magical presence in the town. There were four of them in all, with one far stronger than the others. Nowhere near someone like Yami, but easily comparable to some of the people she had seen at the exam before Nozel came to take her away.

After making one last swing of his sword, Asta banished the mist in front of them to reveal a large area that had to be the village common area, right in the center of town where the church stood not too far off. Over fifty people, the entire population of the village from the look of things, stood kneeling on the ground, some of them praying with tears in their eyes as others hugged children who couldn’t have been more than nine years old. There was barely any commotion as the magic knight team made their entrance.

The inborn magic sense that told Noelle to look up showed her why. A mass of floating icicles, each one the size of a lance or bigger, hung over the crowd, slightly shaking as they were positioned to skewer each and every person below them.

Noelle’s eyes widened when she realized what was going on. “Oh my God. Those aren’t hostages, this is an execution.”

Right as she spoke, a voice cut through the air, seemingly uncaring. “Kill them.”

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” Sunset said before she raised a hand at the mass of ice. A very impressive burst of raw fire magic shot out of her hand and covered the visible sky for several seconds, turning the ice that was hanging there into nothing but water that fell harmlessly on the crowd, doing about as much damage as cold water could hope to.

The bust of flame also disrupted a bit of the mist, clearing out a little more of the area and revealing four mages standing in front of the door to a large church that stood at the center of town, while the one that had to be the leader sat on the bottom of the steps. Three of them were in blue robes with their hoods up, which rendered them faceless. But the one in charge had his head exposed and wore clothes that looked slightly different than the rest.

The man who just ordered fifty innocent people to die was a slender man with slanted eyes and a large chin. There was a large scar at the top-left of his head that was the start of a small gash which led to the bottom right of his face. Honestly, seeing him just sitting there and looking at a pocket watch, he didn’t fit the image Noelle had in her head of a mass murdering psychopath that could so casually call for the death of children and their families.

While the rest of the group focused on the enemy mages, Magna ran over to one of the children at the center of the mass of people. He was a blonde child of maybe twelve in a ratty vest. “Nick. What’s going on? Where’s the old man?” he demanded.

Nick looked up at the delinquent with tears in his eyes. “Magna! They...they killed grandpa!”

Noticing something behind the child, Noelle spotted the corpse of an old man with a small gray mustache and hair of matching color laying there. A large splotch of blood coloring the shirt underneath his vest and an even bigger pool of blood underneath him. If she had to guess, he had been stabbed in the back.

“No,” Magna said before he got down to sake the stiff corpse. “No, you...you can’t be dead old man!”

“He was just trying to protect us!” one of the villagers cried out.

“T-They’re here, just like you said, Grandpa. The Magic Knights came to save us,” Nick told his dead grandfather between the sobs.

Asta looked over to the four mages and glared. “You just went and killed this man?” he demanded. “WHY?”

Sunny just stared at the corpse with wide eyes, the sight of it seemingly transfixing her as the people leaned in around it as if to give thanks to the man for trying to help.

Across the way, the man responsible looked up from his pocket watch and let out a distasteful snort. “You’ve thrown off my schedule,” he told them before looking back up. “I’m going to have to allocate time so that you’ll have to suffer for it. Ten seconds from now, everyone here will die.”

The man raised his book and the pages turned on their own before he began whispering the incantation too low for anyone to hear the title of the spell. A large ice projectile, the size of a small room, formed with a point at the end that would burst through a person’s whole body went flying at the villagers a moment later.

“I got it!” Asta declared before he ran forward and leapt into the air, cutting the thing in half despite his sword being much too small to fit through even a quarter of the ice. As soon as his sword touched it, all movement stopped and the two pieces fell to the side to dissipate before they even hit the ground. When Asta did, he glared at the mage. “You’re not doing anything to these people!”

Next to Noelle, Sunset’s eye twitched. “Next time, keep charging ahead and take out the leader when they’re just standing there like idiots,” she grumbled much too low for Asta to hear before she looked up at the little place of worship. “Do they have to be standing right in front of the one place I can’t burn down?”

“You guys aren’t Diamond Kingdom, and you’re too well dressed for a bunch of savages from The Zone,” Magna muttered before pointing a finger at the lot of them. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I hadn’t heard any of the Magic Knights were going to be in the area,” the middle goon mumbled.

“Maybe they’re here unofficially,” the one on the left surmised.

“And how did they manage to get through the mist barrier and into the village?” the guy on the right asked.

Sunset frowned at the three. “Did two of those idiots just confess to having knowledge of our troop placement?” she whispered to Noelle.

Despite the tense situation, Noelle nodded. She had picked up on that too. But, it wasn’t as if magic knights were all that quiet about their movements.

The leader of the group let out a sigh. “The Black Bulls, the most inept and hated of all the magic knight squads,” he said. “Dealing with riff raff like you shouldn’t take too long. But I’ll make you pay for wasting the five minutes it will take to deal with you. Then, we can find what we came for.”

Sunset frowned and her cute little pet bird made its way out from the girl’s hood to stand on her shoulder. “What did he just say?” she mumbled. “That’s a coincidence, right? This is all one really stupid mix of bad timing.”

“YOU’RE NOT KILLING ANYONE!” Asta yelled as he charged forward now that they were all on guard again.

The mage on the right raised his hand. “Mist Magic: Illusionary Mist,” he said before Asta was swallowed by a fog. “Be lost forever, fool.”

“YOU’RE THIRTY FEET AWAY, MORONS!” Asta yelled before the mist around him disappeared and he took a step to steady himself from having to swing his giant sword at a run. Despite being just a few steps away from the boss mage, he stopped and raised his sword. “NOW, TELL ME WHY YOU’RE TRYING TO KILL THESE PEOPLE!”

The mage in charge sighed and took a look at his nails. “If you absolutely must know, I’m just trying to rid the world of useless trash that serves no purpose.”

Sunset frowned. “But that wasn’t what he said, oh wait, Asta asked the wrong question,” she mumbled before stepping forward. “That’s it? That’s why you’re here? You just want to kill people you’ve never even met before today?”

“No,” the mage replied. “I’m here to retrieve a particularly important magical item. The death of these villagers is just a service I’m providing for the world. Certainly, as a magic knight, you must agree that people with such low magic power are nothing but a waste of your time?”

The question made Sunset’s eyes widen and she took a step back, as if struck by some invisible force. As she just stood there with her mouth agape, Noelle took a step closer to her. “Uh...Sunny?”

“SHOWS WHAT YOU KNOW!” Asta yelled. “I may be a magic knight, but I don’t have a drop of magic power in me. And my sister, she may be the most powerful mage I know, but she has never looked down on me, or anyone else because of our lack of magical ability! I’d call you a monster, but the last one I met didn’t try to justify his actions! SO YOU’RE NOTHING BUT A PATHETIC LOSER WHO CAN’T EVEN DO THAT RIGHT!”

The head mage of the group sighed before he raised his hand. “So you complain about my reasoning after asking to hear it? Children today have no consistency,” he said before whispering something before a dozen little piercing icicles appeared in front of his raised palm.

Asta took a defensive stance. “YOU THINK THAT’S GOING TO GET BY ME?”

One of the mages in the back raised his hand as well and cast out another layer of fog that swirled around the people and out of Asta’s striking range. The sound of ice crystalizing could be heard all around and Noelle looked up to see dozens of ice shards manifesting above them from all the angles.

Which seemed to snap Sunset out of her daze. “Omnidirectional attack from multiple points? We’re not in a mana zone so how-” she grit her teeth before the fire mana flared around her. “Crap! That idiot is using the mist to channel his attack and launch it from all around us!”

“Ice and Mist Compound Spell: Endless Ice Cage!”

“Oh balls! I was hoping Shorty would keep them talking longer to let my mana build back up some more!” Magna said before he raised his grimoire. “Red, how many sides can you cover?”

Sunset spread her legs out to brace herself. “All of them except the one behind me. But this is a creation spell. I can blunt the attacks and make them non-lethal, but they’ll still be big enough to cause real damage. Take out the guy on the top right! He’s the one throwing the mist!”

“Got it! Flame Magic: Scatter Shot!” Magna cried out before throwing out a hand as if pitching a ball that suddenly split into dozens of attacks.

The ice shards flew from all around before Sunset threw out her arms and a curving wall of flames encompassed everything but the side facing the four enemy mages. The hail of ice made it through the defense, but there was a water trail behind each one and instead of jagged daggers, the shards had taken on an appearance more akin to a bad hailstorm. People cried out as they were struck, but as the adults covered the children and the back of their heads while cowering on the ground, it didn’t look like anyone was actually killed.

Meanwhile, Asta deflected the spread of ice missiles headed towards him with the side of his sword, actually sending them back at the caster an instant before Magna’s attack followed suit. The first attack simply dissolved in the air when the mage cast his spell before the seconds was deflected by a bunch of ice forming to block his attack and causing it to go off prematurely.

The villagers screamed as the assault continued, and Noelle looked around at the scene before hearing something from behind her. “Damnit, I could block all of this with a simple shield spell. It would be easy! Then I’d get the breather I need to focus.”

She turned to look at Sunset as she held up the wall of fire and blinked at what she saw. The wide eyes and trembling hands Noelle has seen in the mirror too many times to count. Despite the stalemate, Sunset actually looked afraid for some reason.

Noelle took a step back and looked back at the man Asta and Magna were fighting against, with Asta creating a shield with his sword and Magna trying to get a fireball through their defenses. She thought about blasting him, but...if it turned and hit one of them, especially Asta, their defense would crumble.

“Tell you what?” the boss called out as the battle continued, him seemingly uncaring about the two magic knights attacking him. “I’ve got a schedule to keep, and waiting until the lot of you run out of mana will take too long. So I’ll make you a deal. Leave now, and I’ll let you all live.”

While Asta and Magna shouted their defiance and Sunset just kept her cool, Noelle...found herself considering the offer. What’s wrong with me? she asked herself. Even though I have more magic power than anyone here. Even though I actually brought my grimoire I can’t...I’m not...I...I need to get out of here! I’m royalty, I CAN'T DIE IN SOME BACKWATER VILLAGE!

Noelle heard a child cry out behind her, and she looked to see what had to be the girls’s mother slump over, struck in the head by an ice block as big as her fist. “Mommy! Mommy wake up!” the little girl cried as she shook her unconscious mother.

Then, the child turned towards Noelle and ran up to her. “Ms Magic Knight, help!” she said before grabbing Noelle’s dress and trying to pull her along towards the injured woman. “Please, help us!”

With the child who couldn’t have been more than ten grabbing her dress as she clutched a doll in her arm, Noelle found herself unable to move. This little girl is looking me in the eye and begging for help, Noelle told herself. I...I...I’m royalty. I...I’m supposed to protect these people. That was the whole reason royals had such impressive amounts of mana. Not just to rule over the people, but give them shelter when they needed it as well.

Looking down at the child, Noelle steadied her frayed nerves. She didn’t know what she could do, but...I CAN’T JUST RUN AWAY!

Noelle felt a surge of mana within her before she turned to look at her grimoire a second before it lit up like nothing she had ever seen. However, despite the bright light, she could see words being inscribed on it in the arcane language that magic was written in. Despite it making no sense, she had a strange...understanding what it was trying to say. Is this a spell? My spell? Ohmygish, I GOT A SPELL!

Even though she couldn’t read the text beyond the title of it all, Noelle knew that what she had on the page was defensive magic. She quickly put it to use after crouching down to brace herself for whatever might come. “Water Creation Magic: Sea Dragon’s Cradle!”

Less than a foot inside Sunny’s fire wall, the water Noelle brought into existence swirled around the villagers, Asta, Magna, and Sunny to create a defensive barrier, like some kind of whirling sphere of water that churned at an extreme speed. The ice attacks struck it before being either broken apart or swept away.

Sunset turned around to look at the Silva in surprise. “Did you just pull a spell out of your butt in the middle of combat?” she asked in surprise.

“Do you have to put it like that?” Noelle demanded. How in the hell could she have ended up with such a vulgar friend?

“Yes, yes I do. It makes me feel better about how you people can just make leaps ahead with your magic like this,” Sunny deadpanned before smiling. “So, I take it you don’t feel so useless anymore.”

Noelle snorted and turned away from the redhead. “I’m not useless, I’m royalty!”

“Okay Princess, since you’re actually doing something to earn that title, looks like I’m going to have to show you up a bit to stroke my own ego,” Sunset said before she crouched down a little bit. The mana around her condensed to form a tight layer of power that looked almost paper thin. “Asta, I’ll take the boss, you come in after and break through their defenses so Magna can take down the flunkies in one shot.”

Magna looked back at the redhead. “Hey! I’m your superior officer, here, I give the-” was as far as he got before the ground beneath Sunset seemed to explode. The girl rocketed past him, a blazing trail of mana flowing out behind her until it hit the wall of water.

Outside the cradle, Sunset’s trajectory took her right above the ice mage, whose eyes widened. “How can you move that fast with your grimoire still in its case?”

“I ate a lot of vegetables while growing up,” Sunset replied before she threw a punch that seemed to explode on impact, knocking the mage into the stairs below and breaking them as it burned his robe off to darken the skin beneath. Right as she made contact, Asta charged out of the defensive field with Magna not far behind.

“Master Grice!” the three stooges cried out.

However, things didn’t quite go as planned. When Magna fired off his attack to strike the three goons standing up on the stairs, they were so stunned that they didn’t even put up a defense with the multiple fireballs struck them square in the chest to become some kind of binding magic that wrapped itself around their arms and held them down.

And just like that, it was over.

“YOU COULD HAVE TAKEN HIM OUT JUST LIKE THAT THIS WHOLE DAMN TIME?”

Sunset winced at Magna’s question as she sat on the ruined steps of the big church with the blue roof and looked past him and towards the villagers. None of them were dead, thank God, but several were nursing horrible-looking bruises. “Not while I was keeping those flames up,” she half-lied as the woman who had been knocked out, whose little girl ran to Noelle for help, picked herself up and rubbed her head. “And if I dropped them...people would have died. And using a long range attack spell with raw mana would have made any hit it caused run wild after it connected. Anything big enough to make it through their defenses would have burned down the church they were standing behind. I needed a second to concentrate my mana.”

“I could have intercepted...well,” he sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “Guess I shouldn’t have underestimated you so, this one’s on me.”

Sunset pulled her legs up onto herself as one of the elderly villagers stumbled while complaining about his back, where an ice ball had struck him. It only added to the mountain of guilt that was weighing on her back. “No...I could have stopped it if I had just…” The not-unicorn stopped herself from talking and sighed. A simple shield spell, that’s it. I could have thrown up one of those with enough mana to hold for a few seconds and got my mana skin working just fine.

But she didn’t because...she wanted to hide...and that meant people got hurt.

Because she was too selfish not to stop it.

“Well, I better make sure their boss is all cozy, the knights back at the capital will have a few questions for this guy. But I want to have a word with him first,” Magna told her before walking off.

Right after he left, Sunset felt an extra weight in the back of her cloak. “I got the stone, it was right where I left it,” Secre told her. “We need to find out if this Grice character knew anything about it. And if he did, how he knew it was here.”

Sunset didn’t move.

With the only person around who knew anything about her true origins nearby, Sunset couldn’t stop herself from talking about what was on her mind. “Hey Secre...do you think I’m selfish?” she asked softly.

“...uh oh,” the bird mumbled.

Sunset picked her head up and frowned, despite the fact the bird had no way to see what she was doing, hiding in her cloak like she was. “What do you mean, uh oh?” the not-unicorn asked.

“I’ve seen hundreds of conversations like this over the course of my life,” Secre said. “And it never ends well for anyone involved. If I say you’re selfish, you’ll argue and try to prove you aren’t, but if I say you are, you’ll start to think of all the times you did something for yourself instead of giving your food away to feed the hungry orphans sitting across the table to prove that you were selfish. Nothing I say will help you decide either way so...I’m just gonna say...you’re fifteen, and leave it at that.”

The bird’s little speech didn’t help her any. Because… “Actually, I’m more like twenty. When I went through the mirror and came here, my body regressed in age until I was on the eve of what this species considered adulthood. But I’m still just as old in my head as I always was.”

“And once reaching some magical age, would you just have everything figured out, and all the secrets of the universe solved?” Secre asked.

Sunset sunk in on herself a little more. “Well...no,” she said. “But that’s what Celestia...when she kicked me out, she said it was because I was selfish. And after today...I think I agree with her. I could have stopped all of this from happening. And it would have been easy. But...because I didn’t have that grimoire that I didn’t even need, I let people get hurt. All so I could hide that I’m different.”

“And what do you think would have happened if you had shown everyone your magic is different than the baseline for the rest of the world?” Secre demanded harshly. “Do you think people would have just ignored it? No! Noelle would have gone to her brother, or even the Clover Kingdom’s Parliament. You would have been locked up and dissected, your magic examined in every possible way. That can’t be allowed to happen! You have a purpose you must fulfill!”

The bird made Sunset grit her teeth. “Even if people have to die because of it?”

“One village in the middle of nowhere cannot compare with a whole kingdom,” Secre said. “It’s a sad fact of life, but it’s true. Without its proper leader, Clover will collapse in just a few short years. You’re worried about fifty people? Try five hundred, because that’s how many will die from riots and bandits every night if this nation crumbles.”

Tired of talking to the bird, Sunset stood up and reached behind her to grab the gem in the back of her hood and pull it out. It was a small thing, barely bigger than one of her fingers and red in color, with an arcane marking in the center. A gem of that size would have been laughed at back in Equestria, and the cut would have had it thrown out.

Where they really here for this...piece of garbage? Sunset asked herself ass he examined it.

She could sense something from within the gem.

Something dark and menacing.

Just what the hell is this thing? she asked herself. It felt nothing like the magic she had felt since coming to the Clover Kingdom. And just about as opposite of Equestrian magic as it could be. Just touching it made Sunset start to feel sick.

So, she quickly put it away.

After pocketing the thing, Sunset walked over to where Magna was kicking the leader of the little gang awake as he lay up against the wall of a barn while Noelle and Asta watched. With his robe burned off, the man sat with his black, skin-tight undershirt that even covered his neck laid bare. “Hey there bastard. My boss is going to want to have a few words with you after we haul your sorry butt to the capital. Then, you’re going to spend the rest of your life making up for what you and your little goon squad did here today,” he told Grice while the man sat wrapped in flames. “But before that, the Magic Knights are going to pull every bit of information from your brains. We’ll find out why you were here, who you’re working for, everything!”

“I think not,” Grice said. “The end times are upon us.” Right as the mage finished speaking his little phrase, a glow began to emit from his chest despite his magic being restrained and Magna holding onto his grimoire. “Ice burial.”

Sunset felt a buildup of magic power and could almost see something inside the man’s chest that shouldn’t belong begin to glow. “What the hell?”

“He’s got a magic item inside of him?” Magna questioned.

There was a powerful surge of mana before the leader and his three men were consumed by four separate ice crystals that enveloped them and quickly shattered, along with the bodies inside. A second later, the grimoires the four men had held also broke apart and turned to nothing.

How is something like that even possible? Sunset thought as she focused on the logical problem in front of her. It helped her ignore the four deaths she had just witnessed. Everything she knew about biology said that putting a forgien object inside of a living body caused some serious problems. If humans were anything like ponies, the guy shouldn’t have even been able to walk because of the immune response!

“What was that guy thinking?” Asta demanded through gritted teeth. “Life isn’t something you just throw away!”

Sunset took a deep breath to help keep it together. “Well...now we know he had a boss, and one with some serious resources.”

After walking up to the redhead, Noelle looked over to her. “What makes you say that?” she asked.

“These guys were surprised to see magic knights here, which means they thought they knew where we all were, or even where we’d be. On top of which, putting something inside a human body and leaving it there? I don’t know any magic that can do that. Accomplishing it through normal means would have needed extremely advanced surgical skills, and that’s not even going into how much pain it might have caused. All of which takes a lot of resources,” Sunset surmised. “These weren’t just some random killers on a murder spree.”

Magna rubbed his chin. “Well, Saussy Village is pretty defensible, but there’s not much else that’s worth anything here. They could have been after the village itself,” he told them. “Ah well, we can report this and let the higher ups figure out what to do about it. Right now, I have to go bury the closest thing I ever had to a real father. And, I’ll need to come back tomorrow to handle the boars. No need for you guys to trouble yourselves.”

It was eight o’clock by the time Sunset flew Noelle back to the Black Bulls HQ. The four of them gave their report to Yami as he lounged on a cushioned chair in the entry room. While the man listened, he smoked on one of those awful cigarette things that were rumored to cause magical impotency. Still, each one of them were allowed to give their take on the situation, with Noelle figuring out something on her own with all of the other facts Magna and Sunny had pointed out.

“He might have been a noble, or at least connected to one in some way,” she told the large foreigner. “That pocket watch he had didn’t look cheap either. I never owned one myself, but I saw one that my uncle had when he was showing it off. Because they’re so complicated to make, you have to go to specific people to get repairs. So, there should be a maker's mark on it somewhere to identify the craftsman behind it and that guy had a pretty identifiable scar, so the man behind the watch should recognize his description. That might lead us to an acquaintance or two.”

Yami took a drag on his cigarette and looked over to the two Black Bulls who were writing everything down. Finral had his head on top of the notepad, but Vanessa gave them all a sympathetic look.

“Anything else?” the captain asked.

Sunset rubbed her left arm. “Look, I know we don’t have any proof, but it’s pretty obvious that those guys were there for something specific,” she said hesitantly. “The more I go over it in my head, the only reason I can think of is that they would have killed themselves if they were just part of a larger group that couldn’t risk getting caught.”

“And that’s about it, Yami, sir,” Magna told him.

“So, a group of mages on par with a team of magic knights busted up the town for some reason we don’t quite know and killed old Seihi, huh?” he asked. Then, Yami threw his head back and laughed as Finral and Vanessa made their exit through one of the spatial mage’s portals.

What is he so happy about, somebody died! Noelle thought.

Asta cringed at the sight. “Sir...no disrespect, but is this really the time to be laughing?”

The question made Yami stop and look over to the boy. “Seems an especially good time, if you ask me.”

“HOW CAN YOU SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT?” Sunset yelled at him.

Yami looked back at the girl and took a drag on his cigarette. “Okay girl, I’ll spell it out for you,” he said after breathing out the smoke. “Four powerful mages attacked a town and all they were able to do was kill one old man that bought everyone the time for you lot to show up and stop anyone from getting more than a nasty bruise when they were going to kill everyone there. Old man Seihi’s probably laughing in his grave at the lot of them right now. So you can either join him in celebrating no one else getting hurt, or obsess over the one guy who died before you could get there and stop it.”

“Yami’s right!” Magna agreed. “Seihi wouldn’t want us to be sad! He was a man of laughter! SO LET’S LAUGH FOR THE OLD GUY! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Yeah, that’s pretty forced, Noelle told herself.

However, a minute later, the other three were forced to join in and it sounded like the worst acting troupe in the world.

When it was finally over and Yami told them they had done a good job, Magna raised his hand in the traditional salute of the Magic Knights, which of course, the commoners from the middle of nowhere took notice of. “Hey what’s that?” Asta asked while Sunset just inspected the signal with curiosity.

“Wait,” Noelle said as something occurred to her. “Asta, I can get. But weren’t you supposed to have been educated by a noble?”

Sunset looked back at her evenly. “You mean the person who wanted complete control of my life and never even taught me even the bare bones of history or social norms?”

“I’m surprised she taught you to wear clothes,” Yami mumbled.

Magna groaned. “How do the two of you not know something this basic?”

“I just got done explaining it to Noelle, weren’t you listening?” Sunset demanded.

Still holding his hand up, Magna moved it out without changing the hand sign. “The Magic Knight’s salue is three fingers held over the heart, each representing a leaf of the clover. You do it to show respect to your superiors and fellow officers.”

A spatial portal opened back up, with Finral and Vanessa coming back into the common area. “We dropped off the report. They’ll be sending an investigation team over to the village within the hour.”

“Okay, so...next order of business. Tomorrow’s payday,” Yami told them. “But, I don’t want to get up early with that being our day off and all. So, I’ll hand out the cash now. And you only get paid once a month, so don’t blow it all in one place, got it?”

It was close to the middle of the night as Sunset made her way into the woods surrounding the Bull’s hideout. After some looking, she managed to locate the area with all the craters created by Noelle’s target practice and sat up against the tree her friend had never been able to hit. Then, she looked down at the open journal in one of her hands as the flame she created hovered above it, allowing Sunset to read the last three things Princess Celestia had written.

With half of her day filled with chores that let her mind wander, and seeing another person die in front of her, Sunset’s thoughts came back to something she was finding it harder and harder to ignore. What made things worse was that tomorrow, there would be nothing to occupy her mind. Vanessa had promised to take her into one of the towns surrounding the castle and help Sunset pick out a new outfit. Trying on clothes was not distracting at all.

Which meant she didn’t want the thing in the back of her mind that had been eating at Sunset since Lilly died to be given her full attention.

So, she looked back down at the journal and sighed.

Sunset hated Celestia. The nag was a manipulative control freak that lied about everything under the sun just to make everyone love her because that was the way Equestria worked. After living for two years in a world where people had to depend on themselves, she could see the difference between that and a country where ponies brought problems like ‘who should eat a pie that’s made from ingredients produced by two different farms’ and other nonsense Sunset had heard in the Day Court.

There were certainly real problems that she had seen during the times Celestia had allowed Sunset to sit and listen, but so many ponies that were supposed to be adults came to the old nag, expecting her to practically change their diapers. They were little more than babies, crying for mommy’s attention.

But...Sunset knew that she owed Celestia...something.

It may have been years, but the old nag had been around for centuries. So unless she just decided to get rid of all the evidence that a pony could do without her just fine and threw away everything related to Sunset, the not-unicorn was willing to bet that her old journal might be around somewhere, collecting dust.

So, Sunset reached into her pack and took out an old quill and some ink that had been in her desk. Then, she began to pen a response. Dear Princess Celestia, Sunset began. I’m not dead.

She stopped and moved the quill over to keep the ink from dripping onto the paper. “Might as well make it good,” the girl mumbled before starting a new line.

I met some creatures that treated me like actual family. Which, I now see you aren’t and never were. I guess that was my bad, the stupid delusions of a filly who never got to know what a family was before I met you. So, I guess I can let you off the hook for never really loving me too.

Sunset stopped again. That wasn’t where she had been planning to go with the letter when she began. Ripping Celestia a new one would have felt better, but...Sunset supposed she needed to just get that out there.

But that doesn’t mean I forgive you for everything, or anything else beyond not getting rid of my own misconceptions, really. You lied to me, told me that you would help me fulfill my special destiny, then just treated me like a tool that you could throw away when it didn’t do things the way you said. After coming here and seeing how this place works without someone like you around, there is no doubt in my mind I could have been a better princess than you ever were after a bit of seasoning, she wrote.

It felt satisfying, but at the same time...hollow.

What the hell did it matter that she finally told Celestia off?

Sighing, Sunset read over the message again, there was something missing, but...she couldn’t think of anything else she wanted to say to the nag.

So, Sunset signed her name.

Which was when she remembered what was missing from the letter and added more ink to the quill. P.S. Tell Cadance I’m sorry I wasn’t a better teacher. Looking back, I think we would have been good friends.

Then, reading over the letter again, Sunset found she had one last thing to say. P.P.S. That’s called an apology, by the way. Maybe you should learn how to do it, so the next pony you turn into your tool doesn’t decide to replace you one day like I should have done.

After standing up and letting the ink dry while she walked a few steps, Sunset closed the book and stood up as it sent the message. There was a light sound that came from the journal, telling her that the letter had been received by its counterpart in another realm.

So, with nothing left to do, Sunset removed the protections from the book before she dropped the journal into the hole and set it on fire.

Page 11: Treasure

Using magic he had learned since becoming a magic knight, Yuno held himself and his three comrades aloft in a trio of connected tornadoes that was a bit more maneuverable than Klaus’s flying carriage, which could mean the difference between life and death in a place filled with traps. As per the guidance of Mimosa, they made a turn and ended up in a hallway over a large underground river that made Yuno look down.

All that water made him a little nervous. Being a poor kid in a landlocked village, he and Asta had never really learned to swim, despite the nearby streams and lake outside of the cabin the diamond mage had hidden in for a month.

Still, the hallway was wide enough to fit several buildings in and had a ceiling so high that he couldn’t see the top, despite the magical lighting that made it so that none of them needed torches. So there was plenty of room to maneuver. The walls though, aside from the occasional stone square, were nothing but waterfalls that flowed down slower than they should have.

“So...your sister seems nice!” Mimosa finally said after nearly five minutes of silence.

Klaus pushed his glasses up onto his face. “I thought you said you were an orphan.”

Despite how much he hated to remind himself of the truth of things, Yuno took in a breath before speaking. “She’s not technically my sister,” he told Klaus while still looking ahead. “We met when she came to Hage at the age of fourteen and was taken into the orphanage. So, we think of each other as family.”

Which didn’t actually stop his body from betraying him, of course.

Even though he was glad he met Sunset, there were times when he wished she had never appeared. Most of them were when she clinged onto the boy or just went completely naked in front of him.

Rebecca had been too young for his teenage interest to be peaked over and Sister Lilly, despite her obvious attractiveness, had been his mom. Sunset was not only neither, she was quite possibly the most beautiful woman that Yuno had ever seen. A life of comfort meant that her skin lacked a single blemish or callas, and a good diet gave her a perfect figure that plenty of exercise via chores kept in good shape. It didn’t help that she was nice most of the time, kind, helpful and extremely intelligent. Plus, the fact that she could strip naked without batting an eye and tended to prefer having her body pressed up against his since they left Hage made an already hard battle outright impossible.

But...SHE WAS HIS SISTER!

Yuno wasn’t supposed to feel that way about his sister!

“Feh,” Klaus replied. “Thoughts are nothing but empty air. The truth is the two of you have no relation at all.”

As Yuno’s eyes twitched, Mimosa let out a laugh Yuno had come to learn was her very nice way of covering up an uncomfortable groan. “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Mimosa told him. “Noelle and I may just be cousins, but I think of her as my sister. She was always so nice to me when we were little and stayed over at our estate a lot. We even slept in the same bed most of the time. She liked it so much, her brother and sister had to drag her away kicking and screaming sometimes.”

Another sigh came from Klaus. “You shouldn’t do such a thing, it only helps spread those horrid rumors about the nobles and royals.”

“What rumors?” Yuno asked as he looked back at Mimosa.

The girl’s face turned red and she looked down. “Um...well...when it comes to marriage in the higher classes, it’s expected that the woman be pure and untouched,” she said. “But...women have...needs and so...a lot of people think that the nobility...practices with each other. For marriage.”

Yuno nearly lost his grip on his spell. “You mean you and that other girl-”

“It was just a few kisses!” Mimosa insisted very strongly. “We were thirteen and curious, so we shared a few kisses. On the lips, the ones on our faces and only two of them had tongue, and that was it!”

While Klaus’s mouth dropped and he stammered, Yuno pointed something out to Mimosa. “I think that’s called practicing.”

Mimosa’s face turned red before taking on a bit more angry tint. “Okay, let’s talk about you and me. Your sister talked about you and me, so we’re going to talk about you and me!” she suddenly said. “You want to make babies with me Yuno? Because my mother and father want me to make babies one day in the next five years, and your sister seems to approve of us. So, what to make a baby, or three?”

Fighting to keep his composure as he did his best not to picture a nude Mimosa with her giant breasts and wide hips, Yuno quickly turned back to face the direction they were going. “I would rather we keep our relationship as comrades and friends intact, seeing as how we’re coworkers,” he told her. “Besides...I’m trying to become the Wizard King.”

“First I’ve heard of that,” she deadpanned.

Klaus cleared his throat. “A commoner, the Wizard King? Preposterous,” he said.

Then, as the silence returned, Klaus leaned over to Mimosa. “So uh...there’s also some rumors about the middle two Silva siblings,” he mumbled to her. “Have you...heard anything about them? Seeing as how you’re so close to their younger sister.”

“Oh yeah, those two silver-hairs are absolutely gaming the throne,” she replied.

Not having any clue what the conversation was about now, Yuno let them talk as he guided his spell to the end of the corridor, where a large double door that was taller than most buildings was waiting for them. Just half of it was as wide as the church had been.

Mimosa let out a gasp. “Oh my.”

“Pfft, some dungeon that was,” Klaus said as Yuno set them down and canceled out his spell while the man with the silver-gray hair looked around. “Well, I don’t see the Black Bulls around. I guess they really were all flash and no substance.”

Annoyance leaked into Yuno’s features. “If Sunset and Asta wanted to beat us here, they would have.”

Mimosa tapped her chin. “She did seem rather fast,” the girl mumbled to herself.

Of course, they didn’t know the half of it. Yuno almost expected the girl to suddenly appear in front of them in a big flash of light just to declare victory, as if what they had been doing was some kind of race.

“So, how do we get in?” Yuno asked.

Mimosa walked up to the door. “Well, it looks like some kind of locking spell. The whole door is made of magic. We might need to decode a phrase written on it, or solve some kind of puzzle.”

The explanation made Yuno blink. Monsters that appeared out of nowhere, traps that didn’t seem to have a creator, and now, a door to a vault that would open if some kind of puzzle was solved. Whoever created these dungeon places must have been some kind of weirdo.

Right as Yuno got ready to sit down and let the people who had read a lot more books than him get to work, there was an odd sensation from the tunnel behind him, followed by movement from inside Yuno’s hood as Secre poked her head out. “Get down!”

Yuno’s mana sense flared and he detected another source of power that just seemed to appear much too close behind him before a strange sound he hadn’t heard before reached his ears. While Yuno dodged to the side, Mimosa just blinked and looked over at him in confusion.

“Who said-” was as far as she got before a mass of crystals grew along the ground in less than a second to slam into her, shredding the red cloak that hung beneath her Golden Dawn robe. Mimosa hit the floor a moment later, her magical protective cape in taters, and her blood staining both the ground and dripping off of some of the sharp crystals that had just about skewered her.

“MIMOSA!” Klaus yelled before rushing over to the girl and examining her.

Yuno turned and readied his grimoire while spacing himself out from the other two knights. Now that the attacker’s mana had been unleashed, he could sense it easily. Had the man been hiding it somehow up until now?

With his steps becoming audible, Yuno frowned as the man came into view. Although the man in white didn’t wear any diamonds on his clothes, the gems on his body were clue enough to his origins as he walked down a path created by crystals that were shaped from mana beneath him.

“Declare yourself villain!” Klaus demanded of the stranger as he took out his steel magic grimoire.

The stranger didn’t stop walking towards them as he raised a hand. “My name is Mars,” he told them before another wave of crystal was sent their way.

Since his defensive magic was next to nil, Yuno had the winds take him up into the air in order to dodge and hopefully not have to worry about another such attack while Klaus’s grimoire turned through several pages before he began casting. “Steel Creation Magic: Full Metal Fortress!” the man shouted before a wall of metal erupted into existence in front of him and Mimosa, stopping the growing avalanche.

In the ensuing seconds, Mimosa got her grimoire working and raised it to her face. “Plant Recovery Magic: Dream Healing Flower Cradle.” A second later, vines spun into existence around the girl, encapsulating her in a sphere that quickly filled with flower petals to the point only her head was visible.

“Tch! I thought you said you could sense mana, Yuno,” Klaus demanded as he pushed his glasses up onto his face.

Mimosa let out a groan. “He did warn us sir, I was just too slow to dodge.”

Completely ignoring the damsel that came to his rescue, Klaus frowned without taking his eyes off of the enemy. “Just focus on your recovery. I’ll deal with this ruffian,” Klaus told her. “Yuno, you must try breaking into the treasure vault! There will probably be a great deal of gold, but the main treasure will probably be on a pedestal. Grab it and go.”

Another wave of rock came at them and Yuno countered with a quick blast of mana focused wind in the shape of a crescent moon. This may be a problem, he told himself as he glared at the mage who had yet to use a single spell from his grimoire. His mana hadn’t decreased either, which was extremely odd.

Then, there were the orders he was just given. Klaus, he didn’t have much of a problem leaving behind. The man had been a jerk to him since day one and went out of his way to make Yuno’s life harder than any other member of the Golden Dawn. But Mimosa…

“I like Mimosa,” Sunset had said.

Which...only mildly influenced his opinion of the girl. Since coming to the Golden Dawn, she had shown him nothing but kindness and understanding. She was a bit dim, but that only seemed to add to her charm, along with her incredible honesty.

Only, a tiny part of his mind thought that there was a chance that Klaus didn’t quite know what he was asking for. The man was rather stupid. “You’re no match for this guy,” Yuno told him. Then, before the noble’s pride could bite back, he drove the point he was making home. “You’ll die if you fight him.”

Klaus pushed his glasses up. “That, I am well aware of,” he said evenly. “But you hold a four leaf clover, and Mimosa is a royal. My life doesn’t matter much when stacked up against such things. I’ll give her time to heal enough to be moved. Get the treasure, then come back to fly her out of here.”

...Damnit, Yuno told himself with a frown.

“Hey Yuno, I was thinking, we don’t have any family, right? But we do have a lot of great friends, so I think we should take them and the ones we meet later, and make them our family.”

A minute ago, he could have left Klaus to die.

The man was an ass of a human being that looked down his nose at everything. But, in his last real act of a person, he did something that made Yuno admire him just enough so that the thought of him dying, like his family from the church, became unacceptable.

Yuno cut the magic from the wind under him and landed on the ground. For what he was about to do, he needed to focus all of his magical power.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING YOU BRAT? I GAVE YOU AN ORDER!” the man yelled.

Yuno called up his grimoire. “Be quiet, I need to concentrate,” he told Klaus before focusing everything he had. “Wind Creation Magic: Swift White Hawk.” Then, as the air was still forming around him to create the likeness of the animal, he immediately had his grimoire turn to the next page. “And, Wind Blade Shower.”

The two spells being cast at once strained his mana making his legs shake a little as Yuno completed the dual casting. A Hawk larger than he was finished taking shape behind him while a torrent of blades appeared in front of him. The barrage knives would make dodging in such a tight space impossible and pierce through any defense, allowing the main attack to hit his opponent full force, even if he tried to block.

Klaus actually sputtered at the pinnacle of Yuno’s abilities. “H-How can a commoner from nowhere manage two spells at once?” he demanded.

“Goodbye, diamond mage,” Yuno said before he raised his hand and let loose his attack, the hawk flying past him a mere seconds after the dozens of knives went cutting through the sky. “It will be the three of us, the Golden Dawn, who through into the treasure room, together!”

The effort left him panting and barely able to stand, but the combination of magic was absolutely unstoppable.

There was a surge of mana from the other man before his grimoire flew up in front of him. It was an ugly-looking thing, with two colors that was bound together by stitches and a diamond on the front. “Crystal Creation Magic: Laevateinn,” the other mage cast before he held out a hand.

Right before the wind blades could strike him, a giant sword big enough to cut down a house sprang into being in front of him. It tilted slightly and blocked the knives at an angle before Mars threw out his hand right and it swung half a second before the hawk came in, slicking off its head and causing the wind magic to rip itself apart right as he cast another spell that covered most his his body in a skin-tight crystal armor that protected most of his vital points, save the head.

Across the massive hallway, the diamond mage continued to stare at him with eyes that seemed cold and dead as he moved his arm, the giant sword responding to the physical command and turning as it rose up with far too much speed for a weapon that would have looked at home in the hands of a fifty-foot giant. “Now die.”

Sunset groaned as she slowly got back on her feet. Her legs were really aching from the excess flow of mana that her body had been channeling and screamed in protest. “What the hell do you mean, other guy?” she demanded of the cheery blonde standing in front of her.

After a moment of looking up in thought, or maybe using his mana sense, Luck responded. “There’s another guy out there, way stronger than the one we just fought. He’s...let’s see...about two thousand feet...that way.”

“THEN LET’S GO GET HIM!” Asta yelled.

Sunset blinked and followed the direction Luck was pointing, then ran the image of the map that she remembered through her memory. Based on the scale of the thing and the room they were in, that would have put him somewhere close to the center of the dungeon.

Isn’t that supposed to be the treasure room? Sunset asked herself before looking back at Luck. “Can you sense another team of mages? Besides the ones we just fought, I mean.”

“Oh yeah!” Luck said. “They’re really close to the other guy. Wait, now I think they’re fighting.” As everyone gathered around him, Luck nodded. “Yep, definitely fighting, I think one of them just died.”

The stomach dropped out from Sunset. “What?”

Asta was more optimistic. “Yuno killed the guy that attacked his team? That’s a little harsh.”

“Oh no,” Luck said as he raised a finger. “The fight’s going on. The person who’s mana just went down was on the team that got attacked.”

All three of the other Black Bulls stood silent for a moment, then Noelle ran up to grab the lightning boy. “What is Mimosa? Please tell me it wasn’t Mimosa!” she yelled at him desperately.

Luck didn’t seem to notice the shaking as Noelle practically threw him back and forth. “Who’s Mimosa?” he asked before blinking. “Oh wait, I was wrong. Number three’s alive, but the signal is really weak. He’s probably hurt.”

“Sunset!” Noelle yelled at her. “Get your...thing working again and get us to the center of this stupid maze! We need to help them.”

After taking a second to do the math, Sunset looked down at the ground. “It’ll take me forty seconds to get there, I could do it, but…” Her body would be too ravaged by the mana zone to move around much after that.

Asta cringed a little. “But what?”

There was also a faster way to get there, and if the mage Yuno was up against was anything like the other one. Then all they would have to do is bluff their way past him.

Well, I guess I couldn’t keep this hidden forever, Sunset told herself before she gathered her mana. “Shut your grimoires everyone, but hold onto them and get ready to open them the second we arrive,” she ordered. “Don’t attack though. All we need to do is look menacing to win.”

“If that guy hurt Mimosa, I’m breaking his legs,” Noelle told her before moving in close and wrapping her arms around Sunset.

Then, another thought entered the redhead’s mind. She needed to warn the first timers. “Oh, and don’t throw up on me. These are new boots.”

A second later, the world disappeared in a flash of light.

As his life was soon coming to an end, Klaus had to wonder how things had gone so wrong.

The Golden Dawn wasn’t like the other magic knight squads. Unlike the Crimson Lions or the Silver Eagles, who were full of nobles and royals, the members of the Dawn put some effort into what they did, rather than sit around and get by on their natural talent alone. The captain was an inspirational figure that had led them to the top of the rankings in such a short time since they had been founded and because of that, they went on more missions than anyone else, thus increasing the pace at which their people developed.

When the call came out for an experienced knight to mentor any newcomers that might join the Dawn, Klaus had eagerly done his duty and volunteered. To prepare, he read up on the squad’s basic tactics and prepared a harsh training schedule to get the nobles Captain Vangence would choose to join their squad up to speed. There were no layabouts in the Dawn, after all.

Calling who he was saddled with a disappointment was like saying Summer was hot.

Everything about Yuno infuriated Klaus. The boy wasn’t a noble, royal, and even calling him a commoner was a complement. Yuno hailed from the Forsaken Realm, where only the worst of the Clover Kingdom’s people lived. On top of which, he was a bastard, a living stain on the sanctity of the nobility that had been brought into being by what Klaus could only assume was commoner trickery or dark magic. He knew what kind of things that were sold in the Forest of Witches, after all.

What made things even worse was that he had someone been mistakenly endowed by a four leaf grimoire. By some stumble from God, the boy received a book even Captain Vangence was unable to obtain. Because of that, he was lucky. Meaning that success came to him without any effort at all!

The boy was obstinate, rude, foolish, disobedient and all kinds of other things. He disobeyed orders, called the tactics Klaus taught him a foolish waste of time, said that the training schedule the noble had crafted didn’t do enough to push his abilities, and worst of all, treated those who stood above him as equals.

To try and save the squad from such a creature, Klaus had tried to make him quit the first day. But such efforts had been brought to a halt by Mimosa, who probably thought of him as a mangy stray to take in. That girl was much too sweet and generous for her own good. But, such was to be expected of royalty, those who stood above the nobility were expected to have the purest souls.

While the boy had talent that Klaus couldn’t deny, talent which far surpassed his own, it was the one redeeming quality in a mass of horrid filth that would have otherwise made Yuno a complete disgrace as a magic knight.

But, it was with great reluctance that Klaus had admitted that talent would better serve Clover in the future than his own and threw himself upon a proverbial sword in a heroic act of bravery to keep the overgrown child alive. Only to have him disobey orders again and show off a level skill Klaus didn’t know he had up until that point.

It was a shame the whole thing turned out to be a waste of time, and their lives.

What a pathetic thing I have become, in the end, he told himself. The ally I was supposed to support and guide to greatness has already fallen and a commoner is protecting me.

Then, as the man called Mars raised his hand, the giant sword spell responding to the command to strike Yuno down, there was a bright flash of light between the two of them that actually blinded Klaus for an instant.

When he was able to look again, four new magic knights stood in the room and…

“DID YOU SERIOUSLY HAVE TO USE THAT SPELL?” Asta yelled before falling back onto his rear.

Noelle, the only half-decent mage among them, doubled over on her knees and promptly threw up.

Some blonde boy laughed like a madman as he stumbled around for several seconds in a circle. “HAHAHAHAHA! That was fun!” he said before casting a spell that surrounded his arms and legs in lightning and getting on all fours. “Wish the world would stop spinning though.”

“Shut it Asta!” Sunset yelled back at him as she tumbled forward, her knees hitting the ground while her arms failed to catch and she ended up showing everyone behind her what she was wearing beneath her skirt as he rear stuck into the air. “Ugh...just let me...catch my equilibrium.”

...left Klaus with a feeling that they were even more doomed than before.

Yuno slumped a little bit. “Thanks for giving me even more people to worry about guys. Really, I mean it,” he deadpanned.

“Ugh...what was that?” Noelle asked as she looked up to Sunset and took note of their surroundings. “That was spatial magic. Did you just use spatial magic?” Then, she turned her head to see the girl wrapped in the large flower basket. “Oh God, Mimosa!” Then, the girl took a single step and fell to the ground.

Mimosa blinked from inside her flower cradle. “Uh...are you okay, No-oh no! Everyone look out!”

Klaus looked up through eyes that were still seeing a few stars to catch the sight of Mars. The man had recovered from his blindness faster and was moving his sword in tandem with his sword again.

“WHAT THE HELL?” Asta yelled as his grimoire flew over to him, allowing the boy to draw out that ridiculously oversized sword before he stood up and...stumbled back, forcing him to use the sword as a cane. “Okay, yeah...might have a problem here.”

A crescent shaped blast of wind flew from Yuno before striking the diamond mage an instant later. All to no effect. The man’s armor would stop any non-creation level attack from getting through with little difficulty.

The laughing blond boy leapt into action a second later before speeding past his target, missing him by over two feet. “Hahahaha! This is going to make fighting interesting,” he said before latching onto some of the crystal bridge a moment later to...wobble a bit.

With enemies on two sides, Mars hesitated for a moment before bringing up his grimoire. “Crystal Creation Magic: Crystal Clone Swarm.” Moments later, a mass of crystals grown at the man’s feet spawned two dozen different copies of the diamond mage, composed entirely of the mineral he controlled with his magic.

And just like that, our advantages of numbers and multiple points of attack have disappeared, Klaus told himself while trying to think of a way out of this. The diamond mage cutting down the Black Bulls would give Mimosa time to recover and Yuno a bit of a breather. If they were any sort of servants of the Clover Kingdom, they would throw themselves in front of the sword to keep Noelle alive, then maybe Klaus could get her and escape with the rest of the Dawn after claiming the treasure.

“Noelle, shields up!” Sunset yelled as she rolled over onto her side right as the army of crystal duplicates began to advance.

“...huh?” the royal asked, as she sat back up.

Sunset groaned. “CAST YOUR GOD DAMN PROTECTION SPELL!” she yelled before looking back past the mage. “Luck, get your ass in here!”

The furious yell of the redhead made the royal flinch. “Oh! Right!” she said before calling up her grimoire.

“But-”

“DO IT NOW, DAMNIT!” Sunset said before he could finish.

Luck, who with a great deal of trepidation, Klaus remembered from the selection exam several years ago as the candidate that nearly beat his opponent to death, leaped over and around the two clones approaching him, narrowly avoiding the sword despite his obvious movement advantage.

The second he was past them, Noelle raised a wand to point it at the sky. “Water Creation Magic: Sea Dragon’s Cradle!” A dome of water surrounded the lot of them, its currents swirling around them at an incredible speed, originating from a whirlpool on top. When one of the clones touched the edge to try and force its way through, the two magics collided and it was swept away to be thrown back out and shattered.

“How long is this spell going to last?” Yuno asked her.

Noelle looked around as two more clones attacked and were swept away. “Um...maybe thirty seconds.”

Then, the giant sword came down on top of the dome, making Noelle flinch.

“...or less,” she corrected.

Sunset groaned. “I’m going to need at least two minutes,” she said as she lay down onto her side.

Seeing that this group needed a leader, Klaus stepped forward, his age and experience making him the only logical candidate. “Alright then, we should attack him in waves with a delaying strategy until we can get the treasure chamber open and retrieve the most valuable artifacts. Then, the survivors can cut through the clones and escape. If we’re lucky, this man will be buried when the dungeon collapses on top of him.” Dungeons like this one always fell apart after the treasure was taken.

“Did you seriously just tell us to go die while you run away and get rich?” Sunset asked in disbelief.

Something clipped Klaus in the back of his legs, and he found the world spinning as the ground came out from underneath him before that brat Asta’s voice reached his ears. “YOU SHUT UP AND SIT DOWN!” the boy yelled before he once again stumbled from the odd malady that was affecting the Black Bulls. “THE REAL HEROES ARE TALKING!”

Up above them, the sword stuck again.

“Maybe ten seconds!” Noelle told them with a grunt.

Yuno stepped forward. “If Asta can still hold onto his sword and stand up for two seconds, he and I can deal with the sword spell.”

Simply accepting the statement as fact, the redhead nodded at him. “I’ll deal with most of the mob, then. Just because I can’t aim straight isn’t going to matter if I don’t need to.” Sunset told them before looking over to the other three magic knights. “Glasses, you grab Luck and Noelle, then bring them close to Mimosa so they’re out of the way and she can put up a smaller shield spell to protect her.”

“Hey, I still want to fight too!” Luck said.

Sunset looked over to him. “I know you’ve got long range attack spells from all that crap you pull with Magna. You and Four Eyes are going to protect Noelle to keep her secondary shield spell from being too damaged,” she told the boy very quickly. “Attack any of the clones that don’t get caught in my spell’s area of effect.”

“Noelle,” she said. “Once Mimosa has recovered, have her see if she can do anything about your dizziness. It probably has something to do with damage to the tympanic membrane.”

Noelle blinked. “The what?”

Both Asta and Yuno sighed. “The ear,” they said at the exact same time.

The defensive spell collapsed, and everyone broke into action. As much as Klaus hated to admit it, the commoner had come up with a good plan, using everyone’s abilities to their fullest with the exception of his own...which she didn’t know about. He decided to give her a bit of leeway there.

“LET’S GO YUNO!” Asta shouted before he raised his sword, then let out a cry of surprise when a tornado formed underneath him and enveloped the boy from the waist up, sending him into the air at a spin that twisted his body around so fast it made it seem as if the giant sword he was wielding was actually one big ring of metal. “THIS ISN’T WHAT I HAD IN MIND!”

Yuno grunted. “Just keep your arms out and hold on,” he told Asta before the boy’s black sword connected with the giant one...and somehow cut it in two.

The sight made Klaus freeze. “H-How is that even possible? That boy has so little magic power, I can’t even sense it from here!”

“Get back, Klaus, sir!” Yuno shouted before a large gust of wind picked him up along with the girl and boy next to him to send them flying over towards Mimosa.

As the three of them were knocked back, Sunset raised her hands. “Just because I can’t see straight right now doesn’t mean I can’t just hit all of you at once!” she yelled before a large burst of flame that was so impossibly powerful to be a simple expulsion of mana shot out from around her, turning blue as it consumed the numerous number of clones that had halfway surrounded their staging area in a single strike.

Had she opened a portal to a volcano, or something?

Klaus knew from encounters with the luientiet that spatial magic could be used for offense as well as defense to devastating capacity, but his methods were far different.

Noelle groaned before raising her wand up again to create another water barrier around the three debilitated fighters. Its smaller size meant that she didn’t have to spread her mana out as much, probably making it a bit more resilient. Once the protection spell was up, she addressed the senior magic knight. “Actually, Asta doesn’t have any magic power at all, and not even a drop of mana to fuel it,” she told him before looking back at the battle.

From the looks of things going on between Yuno, the Black Bull boy and the diamond mage, Mars had used the moment Yuno had been distracted to create a flying platform of crystal to increase his mobility and avoid that devastating black sword.

Klaus grit his teeth. “No mana at all? That’s not even possible!” he exclaimed. The words may have come from a royal, but they were so insane that he couldn’t believe them.

“But because of that, Asta can wield anti-magic, a power that lets him nullify any spell that touches his sword,” Luck went on as he sat up and looked over to Mimosa. “Hey uh...can you fix my ears? Sunset says there’s something wrong with them.”

The royal blinked, then nodded as she reached outside her healing basket with one hand, forcing the commoner to crawl over to her and receive her gift of healing. “Huh...there is a little damage. Let me see if I can do anything about it with my natural ability.”

Out on the battlefield, Yuno sent a blast of wind towards Mars. The attack didn’t hurt him, but it did slow the young man down enough for the tornado-diven commoner to come up from behind him and hit the man with that devastating weapon.

The armor protecting Mars shattered before he was sent into the wall hard enough for the impact to cause the stone to fall from the force of the impact. Both it and he fell into the river that ran beneath the platform the rest of them were standing on, in front of the door.

As the boy was brought back down to stand next to the other commoner for half a second before the Black Bull began to stumble around like crazy, Klaus snorted. “So, he’s just another lucky nobody that got handed a power too good for someone such as him.” Just like the lad Klaus had been saddled with.

“Don’t you dare say that!” Noelle yelled at him, turning Klaus’s attention back to the royal.

Behind him, he could hear a short conversation between the boys, one of whom fell to the ground with an audible thud.

“YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO SPIN ME AROUND JUST BECAUSE I SAVED YOUR SORRY BUTT!”

Yuno snorted. “Considering that you wouldn’t have lasted ten seconds in the state you’re in, it’s more like I saved you.”

“Asta has worked harder than anyone I’ve ever known to get where he is today,” Noelle told him.

“Jeeze! YOU MADE ME THROW UP ON MY SHIRT!”

Yuno groaned. “That’s your fault for not laying on your stomach.”

“THIS IS A NEW SHIRT!”

“...really? Because those clothes look like the same thing you’ve always worn,” Yuno told him. “Just take it off if it’s so bad.”

Klaus groaned and turned to tell them to shut up since the real important people were talking. But when he did, the sight that greeted his eyes made him stop when the Black Bull tossed aside his top clothes. The boy Asta, his body was covered in a layer of impossibly defined muscles. Not even magic knights who engaged in close combat were so physically fit. The amount of work that it would have taken to develop his body to that point must have been mind boggling. Hours upon hours of exhausting exercise, day after all.

Mimosa looked over to the other royal as she finished treating Luck’s other ear. “Are you saying that boy has worked harder than you?” she asked, making Noelle look back at her in surprise, which got a blush from Mimosa. “Oh um...sorry. I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but I know that you used to practice with your magic nearly every day until you were covered in sweat to try and get a handle on it. Effort, real effort, is looked down on by nobles and royals, but the truth is...I really look up to you because of all your hard work, Noelle. You’ve always been so strong. I knew if our situations were reversed, I would have just given up.”

After a second, Noelle crawled closer to her for healing as Luck stood up on shaky legs. “Hey, this is way better! Still a bit off,” he said after a little wobble. “But better.”

Once Noelle got to her for healing, she looked down at the girl. “What brought that on?”

Mimosa blushed as she moved her hands over to both of Noelle’s ears. “Hey, I just about died a few minutes ago. Let a girl praise her hero a little bit, okay?”

“Hey!” Sunset yelled. “You morons hit that guy pretty hard, one of us should probably check to see if he’s drowning or something.”

Luck jumped to his feet. “I’ll go see if he wants to fight some more!”

This is insane, Klaus told himself. The four commoners are moving about, defeating the enemy and doing everything while the royals and the noble simply hide in a corner like frightened children! Everything Klaus knew to be true said that it should be the other way around!

“I found him!” Luck cried out happily as he emerged from the water, pulling the unconscious mage behind him. He dragged the man over to Sunset, and then let him drop before leaning over the diamond mage. “Uh...I don’t think he’s breathing.”

Sunset flinched. “Oh crap!” she said before her hands began to glow. The mana she emitted changed ever so slightly, and a few seconds later, the girl moved her hands over Mars’s chest. “Okay so...broken arm, lungs in the human body are here, muscles that push them here, so...maybe this?” She pressed down on his chest and Mars coughed up some water.

A second later, he began breathing deeply and looked to the redhead, still in a daze. “F-Fana?”

“Hey Luck, shock him.”

“Okay!” The cheerful berserker said before lightning shot out of his hands and made Mars spasm for a bit until he fell back into unconsciousness. “Uh...should I do it again?”

With the fight over, Klaus let out a sigh of relief. Then, the reality set in on him. During the battle, despite being fit and able for all of it, he had barely done a single thing. Meanwhile, a group of commoners displayed a good deal of ingenuity and tactical acumen worthy of...the Golden Dawn. Utterly shameful, he told himself.

A second later, Noelle stood back up, followed by Mimosa. She ran over to Asta and Yuno to perform healing on the shorter boy, then the redhead. Once they were all up and moving, Luck fished the diamond mage’s book out of the river and Sunset took custody of it after Klaus sealed Mars in a metal coffin that would hold him until they got back to the capital.

With all of the problems dealt with aside from the commoner’s clothes, Klaus turned to the assembled knights and pressed his glasses up onto his face before looking up at the group, blinking when Yuno’s pet flew out of his hood to land on the short boy’s head without any protest from Asta. “Are you sure that binding spell is going to be enough?”

“Are you questioning my magical ability?” he demanded.

Sunset looked up from the grimoire she had been leafing through. “Considering what we just saw during combat? I think it’s a valid concern,” she said before looking back down at the grimoire to frown, completely ignoring Klaus as she mumbled to herself. “Huh, so it’s not just the cover that’s different, spells for the fire affinity have been mixed in too. But, do new spells continue to appear, or is he stuck with just three? And how does he use them?”

Before Klaus could demand to know what she was mumbling about, Asta held up some plant that he had fished out of the knapsack he was wearing. “Okay, chill. Have something to eat.”

The offer made Klaus take a step back. “I refuse to eat unprepared greens like some kind of farm animal!”

Ever the peacemaker, Mimosa stepped between the two. “Okay now, after everything that’s happened, I think we should try to get along.”

“Are you sure you’re okay to be moving up and around already?” Noelle asked the other royal.

Mimosa turned to her and smiled. “It’s okay. Because you protected me, I had plenty of time to recover. I’m still a bit sore, but it’ll pass.”

The complement made Noelle blush, and Klaus found himself wondering if kissing had been all they did together as children. “I-I didn’t do anything special!” she said before turning her head away. “I just couldn’t leave a dimwit like you to fend for herself. And Asta, find some clothes to put on!”

“Why’re you embarrassed? I’m the one that’s half naked,” he told her.

Which only served to deepen Noelle’s blush. “N-NAKED?” she yelled as she began to turn all the way around.

Sunset looked up from the book. “Yeah, you’re doing your own laundry this time.”

“HEY! YUNO’S THE ONE THAT MADE ME PUKE!”

“...they make you do your own laundry?” he asked with half-lidded eyes.

Putting all this foolishness to an end, Klaus cleared his throat. “Well, as I was certain we would. We arrived here first, this victory belongs to the Golden Dawn.”

Everyone in the Black Bulls stared at him blankly. “...wait, WE WERE RACING?” he demanded in surprise.

Noelle snorted before she tossed her hair. “Oh please, I think it’s obvious we could have arrived much sooner...if...wait,” she said before looking over to their rather poor spatial magic mage with a building look of confusion.

The scrutiny had Sunset looking away and whistling innocently.

Before he could lose control of the situation again, Klaus spoke. “Nevertheless, I am willing to acknowledge your aid and allow you to accompany us into the treasure hall,” he said before walking forward and examining the door. “Now, we just need to get inside.”

Which would probably take hours, if not days, if they couldn’t break through the door like Klaus had told Yuno to do earlier. Which...was probably impossible. Such magics were made to prevent entry by any means other than the allowed method.

They might even need to send for reinforcements skilled in such things, like a mage scholar. These treasure chambers we sealed with the most ingenious locking systems that even the greatest scholars had a hard time figuring out their way through. Perhaps, they would need to send for the Wizard King himself!

“Oh!” Sunset said before she practically skipped over to the thing and past the frowning Noelle. “I can do that! That’s easy, and completely explainable!”

“Your other girl saw her blow something up, didn’t she?” Yuno asked evenly.

“Yep,” Asta replied.

Yuno snorted. “That’s why I kept my team in the dark when I ran into you guys.”

Sunset touched the door and sent a burst of mana through it, causing some sort of image to appear before her. “The mana that makes up the barrier has a certain renaissance frequency that, after hearing for a few minutes, I noticed an obvious flaw. After that, it was easy to deconstruct the spell,” she said before stepping back. “Still, the array around the door...that’s new. I haven’t actually seen magic like that in Clover. It looks like a whole new layer of instructions for the basic spell matrix. Although, the second spell looks a bit confusing. It’s just a repeating pattern of mana that steadily grows shorter after each cycle, with no way to deactivate it. Weird.”

“...did anybody understand any of that?” Mimosa asked.

Yuno sighed and hung his head. “Only a bit.”

The door shook, and then Klaus had to fight to keep his jaw from dropping as it slid open before them. Such things were supposed to be the most challenging conundrums of their time. Sunset couldn’t just...solve it as if it were a child’s puzzle box!

Completely ignorant of what they had just witnessed, the peasant Asta and Mimosa continued on into the treasure room, with Sunset on their heels along with Luck, while Yuno stood outside for a moment with the royal who had at least the knowledge to give the redhead a scrutinizing glare.

“How…” Unable to stop himself, Klaus looked over to the commoner next to him. “Not that I am one to question the captain, but how exactly did someone like her not make it into the Golden Dawn, and end up with the Black Bulls?”

Yuno blinked and looked over to the other man. “From what I remember, the other captains made Captain Yami take her, rather than offering her a spot on another squad. With Captain Vangence saying it wouldn’t be fair for him to have the both of us.”

The answer made Klaus nod. “Yes, the captain is famous for his sense of fair play,” he said before walking into the room to observe absolute bedlam.

The treasure room was an impressive sight. He doubted any noble or royal in the kingdom had a vault with half as much gold, and nowhere near as many gems. The several piles that were larger than wagons also had dozens upon dozens of artifacts sticking out of them, some with magical auras, others holding immense value.

Unfortunately, the children that had come in ahead of him didn’t seem to appreciate any of it.

“OWOWOWOW! Okay! Fine, I’ll follow you!” Asta yelled before he disappeared off into a corner, chasing after Yuno’s bird after she pecked him in the head.

Mimosa had a sparkling cloth wrapped around her body, obviously imaging the thing as a replacement to her destroyed Cloak of Protection. “I think this may give double the defensive power of my last one!”

The crazy boy Luck was...digging through things with a look of disappointment. “Awww, come on! Shouldn’t be me some kind of final monster that’s the boss of all the others, just hiding under the treasure or something?”

Yuno promptly wandered off.

Meanwhile, Noelle had backed Sunset into a corner and was glaring at her for some reason as the redhead looked around nervously. “Spatial magic? What do you mean, spatial magic?” she asked nervously before looking around and grabbing a pair of golden bracers from the nearby pile of loot. “Look at all this cool stuff! Wouldn’t you rather try on some neat accessories?”

“You’re going to need those bracers to help defend you very soon if you don’t answer me,” Noelle growled to a very nervous Sunset as the redhead slipped the items in question on.

Klaus growled and pushed his glasses back up on his face. “ENOUGH!” he shouted. “Cease your fiddling! There could be priceless magical artifacts in here!”

The sound of magic and a brought light out of the corner of his eye made Klaus spin around to see Yuno holding open an ancient scroll of some sort that was glowing in tandem with his grimoire. When it stopped, Yuno looked over to him with an even expression. “In my defense, I was already picking it up when you started talking.”

“I’m gonna go over there now!” Sunset told Noelle before she rushed past the other girl and examined what Yuno had found. Then, she looked up to the taller boy. “Hey Yuno...check your book.”

To see just how much damage the commoner had caused Klaus stormed over to where the boy was standing in front of a small table. Right as he did, there was another surge of magical energies behind him, and he looked to see that Asta had retrieved something else from a golden receptacle on the wall.

“What’s a Demon-Dweller Sword?” the ignorant commoner was asking...his bird?

Klaus’s eye twitched as he looked at the boy holding a weapon that was distinctively different than the one he had used against Mars, mere moments ago. The sword was much smaller, and had some kind of indentation running along the inside of the blade.

Sunset looked over to the boy. “Wait, is that another anti-magic weapon? What the hell is something like that even doing here?”

The question that proved Sunset wasn’t as smart as she originally thought had Klaus smirking. “Heh, he obviously just learned a new sword spell is all.”

To which Sunset looked at the taller man with a glare before replying. “Uh, no, moron. The way Asta is, he can’t learn new spells,” she told him before looking back to the weapon Asta was taking test swings with while she muttered to herself. “Is that a mana well in the center? Wait, that still doesn’t answer the question of why a sword was here, or even how! Did the fifth leaf change the basic nature of the magic so the items can exist without a source of mana to hold them here?”

“Do not insult me, commoner!” Klaus told the redhead.

Then she looked over to Klaus. “Hold this,” she said before tossing the grimoire she had in her hand towards the steel magic mage, only to have it stop in midair and become surrounded by a field of mana before it flew out the door at an impossible speed.

Luck gave a jerk from atop the pile of gold he was standing on before turning with a smile on his face. “Hey, there back!” he cried out gleefully before his grimoire rose up in front of him to let him cast a pair of spells.

Smoke barreled into the room a moment later, with a mage that Klaus recognized from the field of battle. Lotus of the Abyss was a Diamond Kingdom mage who was known for his underhanded traps and tactics. His magic worked to quickly cover the floor in black mist as three other mages came up behind him.

“SERIOUSLY?” Asta yelled at the man before pointing his new sword in the mage’s direction. “YOU RAN LIKE A FREAKING PANSY IN THE LAST FIGHT. WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU’LL DO ANY BETTER THIS TIME?”

Lotus smirked at them. “Because this time little boy, it’s not four on one, and you’re standing in my mana zone,” he said before rising into the air.

A second later, the man called Mars walked in through the door, his grimoire floating in front of him. “Fire Healing Magic: Phoenix Robe,” he cast before his body was engulfed in flames. Within seconds, the purple bruises and bulging area of his arm began to recover to the point where they were barely noticeable.

Klaus stood stunned. What he had just witnessed was utterly impossible! While there were many magical attributes in the world, each person could only possess one. Even if someone had something like mud, a mix of earth and water, it didn’t mean they could do anything but create mud-based spells!

Even if by some statistical improbability, this Mars character knew healing magic the man in front of him had just cast a fire spell when his previous attacks had all been based on crystal!

“HA!” Sunset ran over to the silver royal as she pointed to the group of mages excitedly. “See Noelle, he can use two types of mag-oh crap, they’re trying to hide their attacks with the smoke,” she said before raising her hand in a defensive gesture.

A second later, a wall of crystal erupted from the ground and struck an invisible wall as Sunset seemingly buckled under the weight of something. “Did you seriously block multiple attacks from this guy?” she asked the shocked Silva standing next to her.

“H-HOW ARE YOU EVEN DOING THAT?” the royal demanded as her shock started to wear off.

Luck laughed and leaped into the air, firing off multiple blasts of energy as he closed in on Lotus, who quickly dropped close to the ground before Asta came rushing past them all to slice through the wall of crystal that was blocking their view.

When he did, a barrage of spells from the other three mages that were in robes pushed him back before Mars cast another spell. “Crystal Creation Magic: Titan’s Heavy Armor.” A mass of crystals sprang up around him, forming into a giant, somewhat misshapen suit of armor at least ten feet tall and nearly as wide as the door they had just walked through.

As Luck closed in on him, the man created another giant crystal sword, albeit much smaller than the other one, and had his giant armor take a swipe at him, forcing the boy back while Luck fired a few shots to no effect on his way to the main group.

“Any ideas?” Yuno asked calmly.

Sunset snorted. “Well crap, if these guys are going to be cheating, I don’t see why I shouldn’t,” she said as a mana skin of white light surrounded her body.

The magic book in front of “Smoke Creation Magic: Prison of the Fallen-”

Sunset’s grimoire didn’t even move as she raised a hand at him before a sword of pure light went flying to strike the man in the stomach before he could finish his casting. “Oh right! Uh...sword creation magic...whatever.”

Her too? But...HOW? Klaus thought in disbelief. The young man, Mars...Klaus could understand him having some freakish powers. It was obvious those horrible experiments he heard of in the Diamond Kingdom had born some rather sinister fruit. But, Sunset’s book was from Clover, and she hadn’t even bothered with taking out her grimoire.

“Since when do you not need incantations?” Yuno asked.

Lotus dropped like a rock from the blow and his smoke was cleared from the floor not long after.

“It’s not as effective, but it’s much quicker on the draw. Now if you’ll excuse me, Sword Creation Magic: Divine Emperor’s Holy Sword!” Then Sunset sent a trio of flying blades in impossibly rapid succession at the piloted golem, only to watch them hit the crystal armor and be absorbed before the light was emitted harmlessly in a rainbow of colors. The resulting events had everyone in the room frozen for a minute.

Sunset’s eye twitched. “...ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?” she shouted in anger. “How in the hell does opaque crystal break down light like a freaking prism?”

Beside the redhead, Noelle looked just about as irate. “Oh yeah, THAT’S WHAT’S WEIRD ABOUT THIS WHOLE THING!”

Mars and the other diamond mages recovered from their confusion and launched another attack with a multitude of small blades, which Asta jumped up and cut down. “CAN WE TALK ABOUT THIS LATER?” he yelled before Yuno sent a blast of wind to knock two of the mages that had come in with Mars up against the wall when they tried to flank the magic knights.

Lotus groaned as he slowly rose to his feet. “Ugh, you little...wait a second, a brat with a black sword, a light mage, and a wind user...with a four leaf clover,” he said as he made his grimoire rise up in front of him, “You know, there’s a report about three kids matching your description going around. They say the three of you killed a Shining General in some nothing little village a couple of months back.”

Say what? Klaus thought to himself.

“If you mean the man who murdered our family,” Yuno said before his grimoire rose up to meet him as he gathered his mana for a powerful attack. “Then he got what he deserved. Now, let’s see what this new spell of mine can do. Wind Spirit Magic: Sylph’s Breath.”

There was an intense surge of mana, with the very air pouring power into Yuno’s grimoire, despite the claim that Lotus had created a mana zone in the room around them and Yuno’s inability to use such a technique. His grimoire glowed with a bright light as it reacted to the influx of mana until it was more like a mass of green energy shaped like a book than a book in and of itself.

Then, something rose up out of it. It was...a person. A small person, standing only about six inches, wearing a small, green dress and sporting a set of translucent wings that made the light going through them seem to burst into a multitude of colors. She seemed to float there for a moment before letting out a loud yawn, then stretched herself out like someone awakening from a long nap. Klaus could even hear little pops, as if her body had been at rest for far too long.

The creature finished stretching herself before looking around at the surprised group of people, then turning her attention to herself. “Oh wow! It’s been a long time since I was able to fully manifest on the first cast,” she said in a tiny voice before turning to Yuno with a smile Klaus would almost call sensual. “Mmmm, powerful, talented, and cute. I think you and I are going to get along great.”

Sunset groaned. “Okay. See, this is why I call bullshit on grimoires,” she said while throwing out a hand towards the sprite. “All that mana, and all you got was a wannabe breezie.”

“WHAT DID YOU CALL-” the little thing shouted as it turned towards Sunset and froze before frowning in thought. She made a slight gesture with her wrist and a large gust of wind blew Sunset’s skirt up to the point her underwear was showing. While several people in the group protested the move, the creature seemed transfixed on the tattoo Sunset sported that was half covered by her underwear. “Holy crap, you’re an Equestrian.”

For some reason, being outed as a person who rode horses made Sunset flinch more than her underwear being shown off to everyone. Not that Klaus understood why. As a noble, he rode horses all the time. It was one of the true pleasures of life was putting a mare through her paces until she was covered in a nice, glistening sheen.

“Um,” Mimosa spoke up nervously. “So, are we going to do anything about-why aren’t they moving?” She pointed towards the diamond mages. “In fact, why isn’t anything moving?”

Klaus turned his attention to the enemy mages and found himself completely perplexed. Mimosa was correct, it looked like that aside from the area around their group, everything had been frozen in time at the moment Yuno cast his spell. Even the lighting looked wrong.

The pixie blinked and looked over to Mimosa. “Ugh, obviously, opening a portal to my realm long enough for me to create a body in this one required me to make a temporal pocket where time passes the same way it does where I’m from,” she replied, as if the answer was obvious. “You humans don’t just think slow, your temporal speed is the worst.”

“So...are you actually going to do something or…” Sunset let the question unanswered.

Instead of snapping at her like she did with Mimosa, the fairy gave a start. “Oh! Right, sorry, got distracted by all the unexpected stuff!” she said before turning towards the enemy mages as time began to start again.

“Oh God, is that one of the Four Great Spirits?” one of the diamond mages shouted in terror.

“RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!” one of the others yelled.

The pixie took in a deep breath. Klaus would have laughed at the comical nature of the thing, the only problem was that she didn’t give him a chance to. When the little thing exhaled her breath, it turned into a tornado that was turned on its side, with a piercing spiral cone at the end that drilled through anything in its path. Even the crystal mage’s giant defensive armor shattered from its touch, whereas before his magic had held up to two of Yuno’s combined attacks.

All of the mages were thrown out of the room and into the water below the entrance platform.

The magic power that little thing had must have been immense.

Wait, they called it...the Wind Spirit, Klaus remembered before old lessons on magic ran through his head.

In the world, there were four great elemental powers that were said to be summoned from another realm once per generation. While they were not affiliated with any one country, the four beings usually kept their manifestations to a particular geographical location, with Heart being the home of the Water Spirit, Diamond the domain of the Fire Spirit, Spade holding onto the Earth Spirit, and Clover being the country where the Wind Spirit manifested the most. However, much of anything else known about them was a mystery, as they rarely spoke of what had to be a near infinite well of knowledge.

Yuno frowned at her a little. “Are they dead?”

“Nah, I just knocked them around a bit. They’ll come to their senses and swim to the surface in a second. Which is good, because we’ve got about half a minute before this place starts going under,” the pixie explained.

After snapping her fingers, Sunset got a slightly excited look. “That’s what that other spell is! It’s a…” she paused as her face became worried. “It’s a timer for this place’s self-destruct system.”

“WHAT?” Asta yelled before looking to Sunset. “Can’t you...undo it, or something? Like with the door?”

Sunset raised her hands. “Not in the time we’ve got left.”

Klaus pushed his glasses back up on his face and took charge of the situation. “Well, things could certainly be better, but we do have someone with spatial magic, so I would suggest we beat a hasty escape.”

“Yeah,” Noelle said as she crossed her arms and frowned at Sunset. “Spatial magic.”

Yuno closed his grimoire with an oddly sick look on his face. “I think I’d rather stay here and be crushed.”

Some unknown force grabbed the lot of the group and pulled them in tight. “If anyone throws up on me, I still have time to send you back down here.”

“OH CRAP, I LEFT MY CLOTHES OUT THERE!”

And then, the world disappeared in a flash of light.

Sunset felt miserable, and only about half of it was because half of her innards had tried to crawl their way out of her throat along with her breakfast that was laying in a puddle, just a few feet away. Noelle was glaring at her, and told Mimosa not to heal her just yet, but by the grace of God, there was someone else taking up all the attention of everyone around.

The place she had teleported them to was on the edge of the forest that surrounded the dungeon, so she had something sturdy to lean up against as her butt rested on the soft grass.

“I’m Sylph, the Wind Spirit,” the pixie told them proudly before doing a little pirouette in the air. “And you are?”

Yuno looked a little uncomfortable at the little thing that looked to be giving him bedroom eyes. “Yuno.”

“Oh, Yuno, that’s a wonderful name,” she said before flying up in his face. “Usually, I’ve to go wait for whoever finds my spell to grow a bit before they can even see me and even more than that before other people can too, but you’ve got some real good mana detection and control. I just know we’re going to be a great team!”

Asta let out a snicker.

“Hey!” Sylph spat. “What’s so funny, shorty?”

After recovering from his short lived laughter, Asta looked up at the spirit with a frown. “Who are you calling short, tiny?”

Sylph groaned and rolled her eyes. “Oh yeah, real original,” she said before indicating herself with a hand. “I’ll have you know, this body is just a puppet in which I manifest a splintered essence of my consciousness through a human medium. Do you honestly think that the elemental force of wind looks anything like something your tiny brain can even comprehend?”

Her curiosity peaked, Sunset looked past the frowning girl that was glaring at her and making Sunset feel more and more like her life was over. She needed something else to think about. “So, why are you here, then?”

Sylph brightened at the question and flew over to Sunset with a smile to land on one of her knees. “Because humans are fun, of course!” she said happily. “Why’d you come to this realm if not to play with them too?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Noelle said, making Sunset tense. “What to mean, realm? She-she’s like you?”

The little elemental goddess looked back at Noelle, then to Sunset, and after studying the not-unicorn’s frozen expression of abject horror for a second, winced. “Oh...you um...you never told them you’re not human, did you?”

“SAY WHAT?” Asta yelled. “I THOUGHT YOU WERE JUST FROM A FAR OFF COUNTRY OR SOMETHING!”

“...makes sense,” Yuno said after a moment.

Sunset’s eye twitched as she looked at the little thing she could strange with one finger. “Well, I don’t have to now.”

After looking back down at the ground, Sunset felt the world fall out from under her as annoyance faded to was replaced by a dread that had been lurking at the back of her mind for over the past two years. Her secret was out, not all of it, but more than enough of it to take away everything she had built since coming to the Clover Kingdom.

They would lock her up, dissect her, force her to do...stuff.

She wasn’t sure what kind of stuff, but it would be bad.

“What’re you getting so bent out of shape for?” Sylph asked in a slightly annoyed tone.

Sunset looked back up at the spirit to glare. “Are you kidding me?” she demanded as the world spun, making her take a moment to steady herself despite the fact that she was already sitting down. “Humans can’t even get along with themselves! And you want to add a complete stranger to the mix?”

Taking offense at the statement, Noelle crossed her arms and frowned down at her. “And just what are you implying?” she asked with an annoyed look. “I just wanted to know how you could use all those kinds of different magic, which um...I take is because you’re a...w-what did you call it?”

“Technically, Sunset only uses one type of magic, but because it’s Harmonic-based instead of-you know what? I’m gonna keep my mouth shut about anything else involving her,” the pixie said. “You want to know, you ask the...you ask her.”

Sunset began to feel even more uncomfortable, with a pressure building her head. This was going to end so badly. “Gee, thanks for creating a mess and abandoning me.”

The comment made Sylph visibly flinch, and Sunset saw her expression become one of instant regret that lasted for several seconds before she finally let out a long sigh. “Okay fine,” she grumbled. “You got a point there. I really hate having to get all serious, but...hey you!”

Klaus, who had been standing off to the side and observing the whole thing while thinking who knew what to himself flinched. Then, after readjusting his glasses, he looked down at the little creature as it flew up into the air to meet him eye to eye. “Excuse me?”

“You’re the senior magic knight here, so as the Wind Spirit, I’m invoking the Accords of Spirits and Man,” she told him. “Which means you’re going to take me, my partner, and that little girl over there straight to the highest authority in your kingdom. You know, the Magic Emper-oh wait, you guys call him the Wizard King these days.” After shaking off the side comment, Sylph clapped her hands. “Now, let’s get going, chop-chop.”

After a few seconds of quiet, Noelle sputtered. “Hey, wait a second! You can’t just leave me behind when it comes to something like this. I’m royalty!”

Noelle sat in the back of some sort of magical contraption that Klaus had created that looked something akin to a chariot with a luxurious back seat that he stood at the head of since all the room was being taken up by Asta, Noelle, and Sunset. Luck was flying under his own power, while Mimosa and Yuno were making do with brooms they had brought along, despite the fact that one of their mages had a group transit spell.

Since her origins had been revealed, the redhead had been looking rather dejected. Which she should be, Noelle told herself as sympathy and worry about what was going on in her best friend’s mind cropped up. Needing to stamp it out, the royal focused on her anger. She could have told me the truth about herself at least!

She looked over to Sunset, intent on asking a question. However, Asta beat Noelle to it.

“So, are you really like a big scary lizard that’s over a thousand feet tall, with wings and three heads that shoot lightning?” he asked excitedly.

Sunset looked up from the floor of the carriage with a dumbfounded expression as she looked at the idiot sitting next to her. “Huh?”

A second later, Luck had landed on the back of the carriage. “No way, she’s probably a giant monster that’s this giant mass of tentacles, with a big mouth at the center that can devour a whole country!” he said. “That’d be really cool to fight!”

Her confusion building, Sunset’s head fell to the side a little bit. “W-What’re you guys doing?”

“We’re trying to guess what you really look like. Which, I’m going to take as a no to my idea,” Asta said before crossing his arms and sitting back in his seat with a frown. “Now I have to wait until everyone else gets a turn until I can guess again.”

Yuno flew over next to her. “Considering everything we know, I’m going to say you're some sort of mass of magical energy given consciousness,” he said before looking over to Sylph. “Since she isn’t giving me any help.”

The little creature began to look more uncomfortable “Oh come on! I said I wasn’t going to talk about it anymore!”

For some reason, Sunset seemed to get even more nervous from all the questions. “Um...why?”

“Eh, just passing time,” Luck told her.

Yuno rubbed his chin. “Well, there are a lot of questions this brings up,” he said before looking at Sunset. “Is what you told us about where you came from even remotely true!”

The question made Sunset wince as if struck. “E-Everything I told you was true, I just...left off the part about my species and my homeland’s actual location.”

“So, the place you come from does have a similar hierarchy to ours,” Noelle reasoned before she thought back to what happened in the dungeon. “And that mark, the Wind Spirit took one look at you, or your magic, and then lifted your skirt for confirmation.”

“OH YEAH!” Asta yelled, which got him a glare from everyone sitting and floating around him. “That mark Gray couldn’t duplicate. That’s going to be important, right? I thought it was just some kind of magic ink, but now…”

Sunset groaned. “It’s uh...well...it’s kind of like…” The usually brash girl blushed and pulled in on herself. “It’s kind of...complicated.”

Sylph flew into the center of the conversation circle a second later. “It’s basically their version of a grimoire.”

All of the real humans present blinked and Noelle found her mouth trying to twitch upward. “Wait…” She held back a snicker. “You carry your magic around...on your ass?” the royal finished before covering her mouth. Luckily nothing substantial came out.

“Hey!” Sunset practically whined.

Yuno let out a tiny snort. “And you always griped about me pulling spells out of my rear. Hypocrite.”

“THAT IS A TOTALLY DIFFERENT THING!” Sunset yelled at him.

The sight of the redhead getting back to her normal self brought a wave of relief to Noelle. Then, Sunset looked over at her, and Noelle remembered that she was still supposed to be mad. So, the girl crossed her arms and looked away when Sunset met her eyes.

When she could practically feel Sunset flinch, Noelle rolled her eyes and cleared her throat. Since it looked like Sunny would need a little prodding... “Apologize.”

“...huh?” the redhead asked.

“I said apologize!” Noelle told her before looking back to see Sunset had become withdrawn again. She had wanted the girl to feel a little bad, but not something like what she was going through.“You lied to me, you lied to all of us. So...apologize.”

Sunset blinked. “But, you all would have thought I was crazy or something if I had told you anything even remotely like we aren’t the same species.”

Then, Asta just had to butt in. “Oh come on, Noelle, it’s not that big a deal-”

“THAT’S NOT THE POINT!” Noelle yelled as she jumped up to glare at both of them before sitting back down to stare at her knees. Maybe Sunset had a point. “It’s...I just...need to hear it.”

After looking at her for a few seconds, Sunset took in a breath. “I-I’m sorry. For not...t-telling you.”

“Good.” With that out of the way, Noelle looked back at the girl. When the stupid guessing game started, it had run through the back of her mind, with Noelle subconsciously playing back every moment they had been together, compiling the important facts about the girl before coming to the perfect conclusion to Sunset’s real species. “And...are you a mermaid?”

Asta looked over to Noelle. “Where did that come from?”

The boy questioning the obvious made Noelle snort. “Oh please,” she said before counting off all the points that proved what Sunset’s true species was. “The only meats she eats are fish and boar, and I can tell she’s only been eating boar for a short time. She doesn’t like bras because gravity works differently underwater, and the curtain doesn’t match the drapes. So, that would mean she would have had a golden mermaid’s tail. And we know she had some kind of society. Ergo, Sunset is really a mermaid from a dimension that’s filled with water.”

“Except that her main magic of choice is fire,” Yuno pointed out.

Noelle snorted and rolled her eyes at the four leaf commoner. “Well, yeah. She’s never seen fire before. It’s new and cool. I’ll bet she’s got a ton more water magic to use.”

When I have a sun for a cutie mark? Sunset mentally asked.

For some reason, the boys from Hage shared an uneasy look before looking back to the royal. It was the boy on the broom who presented the rebuttal. “You do know that Sunset can’t swim, right?”

The large that had just been poked in her theory made Noelle stammer. “W-Well that’s just because she doesn’t have her golden fish tail and needs to breathe!”

“I’m not a-wait,” Sunset said, her anger giving way to confusion as she looked around at the assembled people, her eye twitching. “Don’t any of you even care that I’m not really human?”

The collective of humans looked at her before trading looks between each other for a few seconds, then turned back to her as one to say, “not really.”

As Sunset sat dumbfounded at the answer, Mimosa floated down to her. “Should we?” she asked before tapping a finger to her chin in thought. “And I’m going to guess...you’re really a treant.”

“So, under article seven, subsection five of the Accord, I’m acting as witness to this creature,” Sylph said as she floated in the air above the Wizard King’s desk while the man in question looked at her with tired, yet somehow excited eyes. “She is a true Outsider and not a danger to the people of this realm. As such, I am demanding that she be given sanctuary and allowed to live her life freely, however she sees fit.”

Sunset fidgeted in her seat as the sounds of a summer night continued outside the windows of the Wizard King’s office.

Despite the odd revelation that had happened on the way to the capital, with her friends not even seeming to care that she wasn’t actually a person, the relief Sunset had felt upon learning that wasn’t even something they had considered an issue had drained away to be replaced by a building dread in the back of her mind. Somehow, the Wizard King had already been awake when they arrived in the palace and wearing his robes of office, despite it being nearly the middle of the night. The man with the blue hair that Sunset had seen the first time she met the king, Marx had been there as well, although they needed to retrieve a set of ancient scrolls that he now had unrolled and was reading through. So, it wasn’t as if the tall blonde man was omniscient or something of the like.

Maybe he had just been up late, working. Someone like him probably had tons of paperwork.

Her friends, and Klaus, stood off to the side, with Luck looking bored as he rocked back on his feet, while Asta was obviously straining to hold something in. Yuno looked about equally as unsettled, but Sunset doubted anyone else noticed.

The man named Marx looked up from the paper. “It’s...all right here, Sir,” he said before holding up the papers that had been reportedly written by the Third Wizard King. Which, according to Sylph, was just an update of an earlier agreement that predated the Clover Kingdom itself. “But, there are some stipulations, it seems. We’re allowed to ask what she’s doing here and demand a human witness vouch for her character.”

“I’LL DO THAT!” Asta yelled as he raised a hand. “Uh...W-Wizard King, sir. Your Highness...Majesty...guy.”

The Wizard King gave a good natured laugh before signaling the boy to lower his hand. “We’ll get to that in due time,” he said before looking down at the girl. “Now, Sunset...Shimmer, was it? Odd name, that. Would you mind telling me your story?”

Sunset shifted in her seat, then looked back at the assembled group of people before turning her head to face Julius again. “D-Do I have to?” she asked.

“The rules clearly stipulate-”

The Wizard King spoke, cutting the other man off. “No, you don’t. The rules clearly state that we can ask, but nothing about you answering. So if you don’t want to answer, we can move on to the next part,” he told her before taking in a deep breath and glancing over to the other people. “But something tells me, you want to get it off your chest.”

After several seconds, Sunset took in a deep breath. “To know what I’m doing here, I guess you need to know about everything that happened to me there,” she began.

“The realm I’m from is a lot like this world. A lot like this country, in fact. We use much of the same social structures, currency-based trading, and a million other things that if I were to list, we’d be here all night. I’m saying this because aside from a few basic technological differences, our worlds are nearly the same. Although, we are united under a single ruler instead of split up into different factions.

“And like the people of Clover, we gain a mystical power upon a certain coming of age. It signifies who we are and what we’re supposed to do, guide us to who we’re supposed to be. I got mine when I was six.

“I never actually knew where I really come from, I was left on the steps of an orphanage when I was just a newborn, according to the records I was allowed to see. Princess Celestia, the ruler of the country I lived in, took notice of me during an entrance test at her magic school when I was six. I hatched a phoenix egg, which takes a good deal of magical power and a certain flare. While she technically ran the school for gifted magical studies, she didn’t teach there but for one hour a week, and they were usually classes for...children. I was her only real full-time student that lived in her palace, and those studies were mostly a list of assignments to read through I would receive through a magical book that would become a copy of its twin after a message was written down in it. We spent time together, of course, but never more than thirty minutes here and there. Maybe an hour a day, tops.”

The Wizard King nodded. “So, she raised you, then.”

The question made Sunset pause. A mere month ago, she might have agreed with the assessment, albeit reluctantly. But now...her outlook on things had changed. “No,” Sunset said before sucking in a breath. Thinking about it...didn’t hurt as much as she thought it should have. “Celestia was my teacher, nothing more. She might have fancied herself as something more, but...the things she did were like someone going through the motions of what were supposed to be done rather than what should. And that was her entire approach to everything she did. And in her mind, everyone was supposed to obey and never question Celestia.

“Then, I got older and started to question why I should obey her and...I never got a real answer, only that I should,” Sunset said. It wasn’t just the mirror, it had been everything that Celestia told her to do without saying why, without telling her the reasoning behind anything, and her lectures on the importance of friendship boiled down to ‘it’s important because I say it is’ that might have done the job with five and eight-year old fillies, but not mares on the edge of adulthood. “So I went looking for answers myself and what I found was…”

The Wizard King raised an eyebrow at the girl. “Yes?”

Sunset stopped and sighed, realizing something that should have been said earlier. “Before I go on, there’s something I should say. Celestia extends her lifespan using an outside source of mana. Our differing anatomies allow creatures like her to stay young forever if they can maintain their grip on that source of power and she has been around for over one-thousand years.”

“One thousand, one hundred and twenty-two,” the fairy suddenly said. “By my last count before I came here. Although, with the differentiation of the alternating timeflows between realms and how wonky her’s is because it’s an offshoot, rather than rooted to the main body of the tree, that could be a different number by the end of next week.”

As everyone in the room stared at Sylph in confusion, Sunset turned to the little sprite. “Wait, is that the Ygrassil Theory of Multiversal Cohesion? Because that sounds a lot like the Ygrassil Theory,” she said before realizing something else. “And how do you know Celestia’s age?”

As the Wizard King’s eyes lit up upon hearing the start of such a discussion, Sylph seemed to get a little hot under the collar and practically bit her tongue after realizing what she just said. “H-Hey! Quite trying to make me look like a nerd! And I only know that brat’s age because I needed to check on the binding before I came here for a few decades!”

Yuno blinked, then looked at the pixie. “You’re calling someone over one-thousand a brat? Just how old are you?”

Not even a second later, Sylph was in Yuno’s face and holding up a finger. “Okay look. There are three things you’re not allowed to do in this relationship. Ask me about my age, talk about how tiny my boobs are, or date unapproved girls. I get that you humans have needs and babies are cute. So in five years or so, I’ll let you get married. But until then, you’re mine.”

Asta laughed as he pointed at the distressed Golden Dawn member with the black hair. “HAHAHA! It sounds like you’ve already got a wife, lady killer!”

“What?” Yuno asked as a little distress started to show on his face.

Sylph rolled her eyes. “Pff, calling the bond me and my darling Yuno share makes some simple breeding agreement pale in comparison.”

Yuno became even more distressed, actually looking like a normal person’s level of anxious. “...w-what?”

“Oh!” Julias said as he smashed a fist into an open palm, as if finally figuring out some ancient puzzle. “That’s why the people who have wielded wind spirit magic have always been attractive young men.”

After giving Yuno’s new wife a cautious look, Sunset turned back to the Wizard King. “So uh...anyway…” she began again, giving one last glance at the Wind Spirit as she landed on Yuno’s shoulder while he continued to stand as stiff as stone. “I’m not saying I was perfect back home either, I was arrogant and a bit of a brat. My ego gave me an inflated opinion of where my life should have been going and I went looking into a library of forbidden knowledge while seeking answers to questions Celestia said I wasn’t ready to hear. But then, I learned something about Celestia, about the entire nation that cast things in a new light. When she found out, she banished me from her sight, but...I realized that was just a ploy to buy herself a little time in order to deal with me properly. Anyone else knowing what I found out would have completely undermined everything her authority is built on. So, knowing that she was going to get rid of me, I escaped through a mirror that another powerful mage had created before Celestia was even around.” If not, Sunset was more sure than ever that her statue would have been decorating the garden beneath Celestia’s window.

“What was the secret?” Julius asked as he rubbed his chin.

Sunset licked her lips, unsure if the humans would understand it. “My people believe more than anything in a thing called destiny. We believe that everyone is put on this earth for a purpose. We believe that everyone has a gift, and in that gift, lies their destiny. It was believed that Celestia was granted power to rule over everyone forever, because it was her destiny, she was just born to do it,” Sunset said before thinking of another little alicorn who hadn’t been born to do anything. She just got lucky. “And that is the lie. She wasn’t born into anything. She used a magic item to transform herself into something she was never supposed to be, and if the population of my country knew the truth, her entire powerbase would crumble overnight. So, rather than be silenced, I ran away. And now I’m here.”

“Ah yes, the divine right to rule,” Marx practically spat. “We have that here, too.”

After taking a deep breath, Sunset licked her lips. “I’m not here to do anything, and in all honesty, after everything that’s happened to me, destiny is looking less like a sure thing and more like some cosmic joke,” she said just as her brain conjured up the impossibility of Asta finding another anti-magic sword in an underground death trip.

Sunset promptly told her brain to shut up. “I just want to live the best life I can with my friends, and my-well, my real family, here in the Clover Kingdom.”

After several seconds of silence, the Wizard King nodded. “I see,” he said before looking over to the assembled people. “Klaus, what do you think of this girl?”

“WHAT?” Asta yelled. “YOU’RE ASKING HIM?”

Yuno stepped forward. “With all due respect, Wizard King, sir. We’ve known Sunset the longest, if anyone could tell you about her character, it’s us.”

Julius nodded. “Yes, and I’m sure the two of you will give me a very biased opinion of your adopted sister,” he said before looking back to the only magic knight in the room that probably wanted her to fail. “Now, what do you think of her?”

All the hope that Sunset believed that she had built up over the course of the meeting plummeted through the floor, crashing down the bottom of the mountain as her odds of remaining in Clover fell into the toilet.

The arrogant prick stepped forward as he pushed up his glasses with a smug smile. “I believe…”

So, what happens to me now? she asked herself. Since there were rules to these things, Sunset doubted that she would be strung up, but...if Four Eyes was to be her character witness, this whole thing was over before it had even begun.

“...that she is an exemplary magic knight,” he continued, making the entire room fall silent. “Her level of power and control is quite amazing, as is her means of adapting spells to serve her particular type of magic. However, I am also impressed with her ability to lead others in a combat situation, and show mercy to the enemy.”

...huh? Sunset managed to think as the man continued.

“In fact, all of those youths from Hage were extraordinary in the mission today,” he went on before bowing his head. “While I was next to useless, they fought an enemy that could have pressed Captain Vangence himself, very hard. But, I foolishly thought less of them because of where they had come from and the title of commoner placed over their head. They still need some refinement, and could use a bit more tact in their interactions, but I know that not only Sunset, but all three of them will be among the best of us in the years to come.”

After raising his head, he looked back to the three as best he could. “I am ashamed of my actions, and apologize profusely.”

Julius clapped his hands and laughed. “Haha, excellent!” he said before looking over to his assistant. “Marx, have a copy of the Accords in relation to a new outsider settling in Clover drawn up so that Sunset understands how the law works in her case. Also, I’ll want you to keep your status as an outsider under wraps for a few years if you don’t mind, at least until your power finishes maturing. Diamond or Spade might try to snatch you up, should they learn of your existence before you’ve come into your own. Although, I suppose Yami will have to be informed, as well as Damnatio.”

Both Mimosa and Noelle flinched at the name, but while the flower girl stayed silent, Noelle raised a cautious hand. “Are you sure that informing the head of the Magic Parliament is a...um, sane thing to do?”

“It’s required,” Julius told them simply before giving the group a little smile and waving away their worries. “I wouldn’t be too concerned. As long as Sunset abides by the Accords, the punishment for doing anything against her that violates the agreements set down would spell the doom of every man, woman and child in Clover within a matter of hours.”

The atmosphere turned extremely tense at the revelation, and Sunset gulped before finding her voice. “What the hell?”

Sylph crossed her arms and snorted. “I told you I didn’t want to get all serious.”

“AHEM!” the Wizard King cleared his throat, getting everyone’s attention again. “No need to worry, there have been other travelers passing through this world throughout its history, and the human race is still here. I’m sure things will work out.

“Now...there is one other important matter that must be discussed,” he said in a very serious tone before he practically leapt over his desk and picked Sunset up by her shoulders. The man’s eyes seemed to sparkle as he looked at her with gleeful joy. “Tell me about your magic! An entirely new system of magic! I can’t even begin to describe how excited I am by the idea. And you can copy spells? How does that work? Can you show me? Show me! Showmeshowmeshowmeshowmeshowmeshowmeshowmeshowmeeeeeeeeeee!”

As Sunset found herself assaulted by the man’s interest, Marx let out an embarrassed groan. “Well, I guess I should be impressed he held out this long.”

After finding her footing, Sunset managed to begin her explanation. “Well, uh...it’s not that I copy magic, it’s that I use my own magic to make an approximation of the spell using my system of magic instead of yours. Like writing something down I read from a grimoire in another language.” Of course, it wasn’t that simple, but it was the best way she could think to describe things.

“You can read grimoires?” the Wizard King asked, even more interested before an odd grimoire without a cover that looked like a giant rolodex suddenly appeared behind him and stopped before Sunset found her vision nothing but the page with the arcane formula written on it. “Quick, what does this say?”

The group of magic knights didn’t leave the man’s office until well past dawn.