Date: July 27th, year 1286 (two days after Nyx's arrest) Location: Infirmary of the Fourth Branch's headquarters
Julian pushes open the door to the headquarters' infirmary, and nods to the doctor before walking over to a specific bed. In it, a familiar black-haired woman was loudly snoring, without a care in the world. He sighs.
- "Ahem." He clears his throat. She stops snoring, but doesn't move a muscle. "Angelica, I know you're awake. Your goddamn security detail has been at our front door for a full day now, and they don't believe us when we tell them that you're fine."
- "...Mhm." Angelica opens one eye to look at him. "Do I really have to?"
- "Yes."
Angelica sighs, and sluggishly rolls out of her bed. She then follows Julian outside, at an unusually slow pace. The latter notices this after a few seconds, and turns to glance at her.
- "You look like you're fighting gravity just to walk right now. You good?"
- "I am perfectly fine." Angelica replies, in a much quieter voice than he was used to.
- "Woah, you definitely aren't." He slows down and wraps her arm around his shoulders to let her lean on him. "What's going on?"
- "I-"
- "Lady Ironside!" A female voice calls as the entrance of the tower comes into view.
It was one of Angelica's armored soldiers, jogging towards them and followed by about ten others.
- "We heard that you battled some kind of Greater spirit!" She continues, audibly excited. "How did it go?"
- "What do you think?" Angelica loudly laughs. Julian silently gasps as he feels her hand clenching on his shoulder, as if she was in intense pain. "I sent her running with her tail between her legs!"
- "That's our Lady Ironside!" Another male soldier laughs along. "Should we head back to the residence?"
- "I will remain here! These Spectans might need my help again, after all."
- "Good thinking!" The female soldier exclaims. "In that case, we will stay with you too!"
- "...What?"
- "Did I say something weird?..."
- "No, I just-" Angelica suddenly starts violently coughing and almost falls over, only managing to stay standing thanks to Julian's help.
- "Lady Ironside?!" The soldier runs towards her, and so do the others.
- "..." Angelica raises her head to look at them, and flashes a bright, confident smile. "I am just moved by your determination! Who knew you would be ready to follow me into battle against a spirit powerful enough to terrorize this entire city!"
- "...Of course! Where you go, we march with you!" The soldier enthusiastically replies, and the others give similar answers.
- "Very well then! I assign you to keep this building safe. I have an errand I must attend to. Also, not a word of this to Uncle Theo. I want to tell him about my victory myself!"
- "As you command!"
The soldiers quickly disperse and begin patrolling around the tower, under the questioning looks of the guards.
- "...What was that about?" Julian whispers.
- "I would hate for them to worry too much and contact Uncle Theo, or my parents. They would attempt to raze this city to the ground if it meant finding Lady Night a day earlier."
- "That… doesn't really sound like Theo."
- "That is because you have never seen him wage war!" Angelica coughs again as soon as she raises her voice.
- "Okay, at least tell me what's up."
- "...Let us discuss this outside."
They walk out of the tower, and Angelica eventually lets go of Julian to walk on her own when she notices her soldiers were staring at them.
- "What would you say if I told you I was in a bit of a pickle?" Angelica tells Julian as they step into the devastated streets of Crystal Rose.
- "I'd say that's pretty obvious."
- "Right. I may have pushed myself too far this time."
- "How? You looked fine when you were fighting Lady Night."
- "Do you remember when she struck me with her shadowy fists until Vortex snapped? Each of these punches carried the weight of an earth dragon, if not more."
- "I don't really know how much earth dragons weigh…"
- "Hmmm…" Angelica looks around, and spots a large, seven-story tall administrative building. She points her finger at it. "About this much."
- "That much?! How are you even alive?!"
- "I am still a dragon slayer! And not any one of them at that, I am me. However… using Spiritual Arts to reinforce my bones and prevent my body from collapsing for so long took a toll on me. At the moment, I could barely even lift you if I attempted to."
- "Damn that's… well I wanna say that's great news but it really isn't in hindsight. Are you ever going to get better?"
- "Oh yes, give me a few months and I will be back in prime condition!"
- "Sounds about right…"
- "On another note, where are we going?"
- "We? Who's we? Go back to the infirmary."
- "I cannot! My guards will inevitably begin suspecting me if I enter the infirmary and never leave. Thus, I must act as normal."
- "Suit yourself, I guess… As long as it doesn't make your condition worse." He turns to stare at a point far in the distance, north from them. "I've got a lot of things to sort out, like Nyx's whole mess and that brat I captured during the attack."
- "Oh yes, I remember. What became of him?"
- "I dropped him off at the Second Branch, he's locked up for the foreseeable future. I'll… try to negotiate a deal for him when the whole Lady Night affair is exposed, and people know he was just a kid that was forced to commit all those atrocities. Like me."
- "Oh, is the Touch of Death getting sentimental? How endearing!"
- "I told you not to call me that."
- "Ha!" She laughs, and Julian hits her right leg with his elbow. Angelica's expression immediately distorts into a painful grimace. "Ow ow ow!"
- "Just a reminder that now's a bad time to antagonize me." Julian grins. "But before I take care of all that stuff I wanted to pay a visit to my brother."
They tread through the streets of the capital together, witnessing all the destruction that had occurred. About midway to their destination, they pass by the headquarters of the Second Branch. Or rather, what was left of them. The imposing, six-tower castle now only counted four. The fifth one seemingly had been severed by some large scale slashing spell, seeing as it was lying on the ground next to the castle, cleanly split from the base. The sixth one was overgrown by vines that kept regenerating and eating away at the brick, despite the best efforts of the guards and the seasoned mages they brought with them. However the strangest thing occurring in the general area of the castle was an inexplicable distortion in space, resembling a fractal of floating mirrors spread across the entire neighborhood. Many curious onlookers were gathered around the site, staring at their reflections in these distortions.
- "I thought we told them to evacuate…" Julian complains. "We really need to be firmer with the civilians, this could be dangerous for all we know."
- "What is this?" Angelica asks, approaching one of the floating distortions.
- "The result of a controlled meltdown of multiple Dimensional magic reactors."
- "...And in simple terms?"
- "Let's see…" He brings his hand to his chin. "Magic reactor make energy for portals to other realms. If destroyed, go boom boom. Boom boom bad. To prevent boom boom, use energy to create more portals instead, until no more energy."
- "That might be a little too simplistic!"
- "You're the one who asked me!"
- "And where do these portals lead to?" She asks, looking at Julian's reflection in the distortion she had approached.
It was slightly different, and in it Julian was floating above the ground using proper Wind magic, and curiously looking back at her. He was wearing an extravagant white suit, and his white hair was about shoulder length. He was also significantly smaller, looking like he was about ten years old.
- "The most popular theory is that these portals managed to breach into parallel universes, due to how much magical energy was used in their creation." Julian says as he walks up to her, and his reflection in the mirror proudly points at him.
Behind him, a slightly taller version of Regulus walks up to look into the distortion, and he gives an approving smile to the original Julian after pointing at the Arcane Guard symbol on his cape. In response, Julian just slightly frowns and steps out of view, causing the reflections to disappear.
- "Magic truly is a thing of wonder." Angelica comments after joining him, and they resume their walk.
- "Only half of the time." Julian grumbles, before looking around at the other distortions. "Good thing nothing can actually cross these, you'd need a lot more magical energy to really open any of them."
- "A pity, if you ask me! This other Julian looked much more lively and handsome."
- "Gee, thanks." Julian stops to look at a different nearby distortion. Then another, and another. "Hey Angelica?"
- "What is it?"
- "Look at the portals."
She follows his gaze, and notices that while she could see a multitude of different Julians staring back through the distortions, among other variations of the surrounding onlookers, she appeared nowhere.
- "How odd." She simply comments.
- "Do you just not exist anywhere else?..."
- "Who knows! I have always been told I was very unique."
- "I'm not sure that's what's going on here…"
- "Does it matter? I am here, and that is all there is to discuss! Now, onwards!"
She confidently walks away, and Julian shakes his head in disbelief.
- "You know what, if she's not gonna think about it I won't bother either…"
About an hour later, they arrive in front of Julian's family manor. The once pristine marble and oak building now featured a giant, fifteen meter long stake of light driven diagonally into its side like a beam frozen in time. Every single tree had been uprooted from the garden, and was either on the roof of the mansion or landed somewhere in its neighborhood. The large marble fountain originally at its center was now partially embedded into the front door, hanging right above the entrance. Lightning burns were visible everywhere on the structure, and some charred silhouettes on the ground vaguely resembled humans. It was as if a sentient hurricane had swept through the premises.
- "Well that's not good." Julian nervously comments, staring at the stake of light.
- "How peculiar!" Angelica observes. "Your family is mightier than I imagined."
- "I don't know if that's the word for it…"
A powerful hiss interrupts their conversation as a large winged creature descends from the sky, and lands between them and the manor. It was a roughly ten meter tall white dragon, with powerful winds swirling around it. Its slit eyes were sky blue, just like the inner side of its wings, and were staring at them with a mix of defiance and utter terror.
- "Oh?" Angelica tilts her head to the side with a wide grin. Her sparkling silver aura slowly begins flowing from her body, bursting as she takes a step forward. "I probably have enough fight left in me to slay a small dragon or two! Come at me!"
The dragon bellows, but rapidly takes a step back.
- "Woah, I've never seen Favonius back off from a fight before." Julian observes. "Even Regulus didn't scare him that much, and he's the one who tamed him."
- "Well, being a dragonslayer is more than just a title. It can sense the blood of its kin on me." Angelica takes another step towards Favonius. "So? I will let you make the first move!"
In response, Favonius turns to glance at the entrance, and quickly retreats as an elf comes out of the manor.
- "Favonius?... What's the matter?" The elf asks in a familiar voice.
- "Ah!" Julian exclaims, relieved. "Nico…las…"
He fails to finish his sentence, noticing the state his brother was in. The left half of his face looked like it had been gravely burned, and his blackened skin was mostly covered by a large bandage. Said bandage also went over his left eye, and judging by the way it sunk into his orbit Julian could tell that if he removed the cover, there would be no eye to be found there. The tips of his fingers were purple, one of the telltale signs of magic-induced necrosis. He was holding his broken glasses in his hand, and when he noticed them he brought them to his face, looking at them through the right lens, the only one still intact.
- "Julian!" Nicolas exclaims, quickly stumbling past Favonius to greet him. He also notices Angelica next to him. "And t-that's… uh…"
- "Angelica Ironside." Angelica answers.
- "I- Ironside?! Right, you're the-"
- "Nicolas what happened to you?!" Julian shouts.
- "Eek!" Nicolas jumps back, startled. "Why are you screaming?!"
- "You're a goddamn mess is why!! Who the hell was strong enough to put you in that sorry state?!"
- "Aha…" He nervously laughs, glancing back at the stake of light. "Some of these robed fellows are p-pretty skilled. But I managed to h-hold out until the end!"
- "That's… great, but we need to get you to a healer. At this point, I don't think anything other than healing magic can fix you up…"
- "Don't worry, I'll be f-fine." Nicolas musters a smile. "I'm h-happy you came to check on me at least."
- "Yeah…"
A few seconds of awkward silence follow this exchange, and Angelica rolls her eyes.
- "Well, I'll get going then…" Julian finally says.
- "Alright…" Nicolas quietly answers.
- "Say, Nicolas was it?" Angelica chimes in.
- "Y-yes?"
- "I happen to be a very important official, you know? Not to mention the fact I assisted in saving your city from disaster. Common courtesy would dictate that your family at least invite me for tea, or organize a banquet in my honor."
- "Right… uh… The cooks are gone though…"
- "Then make something yourself! Now if you'll excuse me, I am hereby inviting myself in."
She walks into the house by herself, and Favonius steps aside to make way for her.
- "What the hell is she doing?..." Julian grumbles.
- "Y-you have some… interesting friends." Nicolas comments.
- "...Yeah, yeah I do."
Half an hour later, they find themselves in the manor's most opulent dining room. Or at least, that is what it used to be. All of the decorative gold ornaments Julian remembered were gone, along with the expensive paintings Regulus used to keep there. All that was left was the old furniture, dating from before Regulus became the head of the family, along with a portrait of Julian's grandfather, an elf sharing an uncanny resemblance with Nicolas but with emerald green eyes instead of gray. They were sitting around the elaborate, gold-trimmed dinner table, each faced with a plate containing sunny-side up eggs. Angelica was next to Julian, and Nicolas was sitting across from them. The latter's face was red, the coloration spreading up to the tip of his ears.
- "This is the b-best I can do…" He quietly says.
- "Well let us try it!" Angelica cuts one of the eggs with her fork then takes a bite, and her smile freezes. "..."
- "W-what?..."
- "I shall not comment!"
- "Shut up, Angelica." Julian sighs, before also tasting the food. "They're fine. She's just being dramatic."
- "Haha…" Nicolas politely laughs.
- "So, where is the rest of your family?" Angelica points her fork at Nicolas.
- "They… didn't really want to come."
- "Is that so? Shall I go fetch them then?"
- "N-no! That's probably a bad idea…"
- "Hmmmm…"
- "Well, look who has returned from the dead." A female voice says from the doorframe of the dining room.
They turn, and are met with a tall elf with long white hair tied in waterfall braids, dark gray eyes, and ears longer than Julian's but a bit shorter than Nicolas'. She was wearing an elegant black dress, with white frills around her sleeves.
- "Sylvia." Julian leans further back in his chair, frowning. "I'm so happy to see you too, sis."
- "Oh please, do not remind me that we are affiliated." Sylvia dismissively gestures her hand at him.
- "I mean hey, at least we aren't complete siblings! How's your mom? Still treating you like an investment?"
- "..." Sylvia blankly smiles at him. "At the very least I am not a half-elf nobody desired, born from an experiment. I return the question, how is your mother? Still ashamed that she failed to meet our father's expectations?"
- "Who knows! You look healthy though, almost like you hid behind Nicolas and let him do all the heavy lifting, because you were so outmatched. But you're siblings, surely the gap in power can't be that big, right?" He throws his legs over the table. "Or can it?"
- "...Oh I can confirm it can be." She blows some air in his direction, and a small wind current blows his hair back. She then nonchalantly leans on the doorframe.
They both fall silent after that, glaring at each other like beasts about to jump at each other's throat.
- "U-ummm..." Nicolas clears his throat. "Sylvia, it's nice that you came to say hello… Are the others coming too?"
- "You think they would want to see HIM?" Sylvia shrugs. "If anything, they would probably make an attempt on his life for imprisoning our dear father." She glances at Julian. "Consider yourself lucky that I would not betray my own blood, unlike a certain half-human."
- "Ha! Nice joke." Julian smirks. "You'd kill me in a heartbeat if you could get away with it."
- "Is talking back the only thing you learned how to do? How unfortunate."
- "At least I'm not the exact same person I was decades ago. Both in personality and skill in magic, mind you!" He gasps, covering his mouth with his hand. "Oh I'm sorry, was that insensitive?"
Sylvia deeply frowns, and storms out of the dining room. Julian corrects his posture, sitting normally again before continuing on with his sunny-side up eggs.
- "I see you were not exaggerating about your family!" Angelica laughs, letting out a small cough right after.
- "Yup." Julian grumbles. "Bunch of assholes. Mostly."
- "That makes me wonder, why does Nicolas care for you?"
- "Hell if I know. We didn't even talk much back then. He'd just… awkwardly sit next to me at the dinner table…" He points his fork at the two seats Angelica and himself were occupying. "...and try to do conversation about stuff sometimes. But he'd almost always talk about Wind magic stuff, that I couldn't ever wrap my head around."
- "That's…!" Nicolas exclaims. "I didn't mean to, it's just… kind of the only thing I really knew well at the time. D-dad would always have me study Wind, Storm and Atmospheric magic all day, s-saying I was gifted."
- "Yeah, that made you real awkward at a lot of things. You can visit him at the jail if you feel like it, give him a piece of your mind."
- "I… don't t-think I'll do that." He has a nervous smile, and starts fiddling with his broken glasses. "It's just… I felt like I understood you. Dad would always give you special treatment like me, t-thinking you had a lot of potential…"
- "...Until he found out my magic wasn't getting any stronger. Yup."
- "T-that's right. But also, you… you were the only one who didn't hate me for b-being good at what I loved. I think Wind magic and all the ones that come from it like my s-specialty, Atmospheric magic, are a-awesome. So I practice with them a lot. But our siblings…"
- "They despised you because you were better than them, which made Regulus basically give up on them. And you guys' mother keeps trying to push them upwards, so that they regain Regulus' favor." He sighs. "She's not even trying to be evil, she genuinely wants them to be on better terms with him. But god is she awful at handling people. That's unfortunately elves for you. One of the only things humans have on us is how much better they tend to be at handling all the social stuff, like raising kids."
- "..." Nicolas quietly nods.
- "Then you like me because I was treating you normally? You really need some friends dude. I didn't even register that when we were kids, I thought you were just bullying me with your academic knowledge on Wind magic."
- "T-that's not true!..."
- "I know, I know." Julian sighs, finishing his eggs. "Listen, I'm sorry for snapping at the Emerald Lotus. I didn't know about… you know. You trying to shed some light on my disappearance. I appreciate that at least one person in this damn family was standing up for me."
- "Oh, it's n-no big deal. It's the least I could d-do." He looks down. "It was the right thing to do. Even if d-dad hated me for it."
- "Right, I heard the family lost a lot of its prestige because of all the ruckus you started. You probably shouldn't feel bad about it, I think that's deserved. If the Leventis need to be like this to stay on top, then maybe they don't deserve to be there to begin with."
- "Ha…" Nicolas chuckles. "You might be right…"
- "Anywho, I really need to get going now, I've got a big investigation scheduled in a few days and I gotta do some prep. Angelica?"
- "...What is it?" Angelica rapidly blinks. She was so engrossed in their conversation that she forgot she was even there.
- "Your food. It's either you eat it now and we leave, or you stay there and get to walk home alone. Choice's yours." He heads towards the door.
- "Is this not a bit sudden?!" Angelica calls, snatching all the eggs and devouring them in one stroke of her fork before getting up from her chair to follow him.
- "Who cares." Julian replies, before glancing back at Nicolas. "I'll be back anyways."
- "Wait, you… you will?" Nicolas looks up at him, his eyes lighting up.
- "Obviously. You're my brother, I gotta show some care and visit from time to time. And I can't imagine what it's like to always be in contact with people who wish you were dead." Julian looks up at the ceiling. "Hey you know what? Surprisingly I can imagine!"
- "..." Nicolas wordlessly gets up, stumbles towards Julian and hugs him. A tear streams down from his healthy eye. "You know, you can a-always come back to live with us… your room is s-still here…"
- "Alright don't get carried away." Julian smiles, patting Nicolas' back.
- "That's… fair…"
- "I might think about it after a few years, with a bit of luck a bear will come out of the woodworks and maul Sylvia. But right now, I have a few friends who need Julian Leventis to step up, so I can't."
- "...Alright!" Nicolas wipes his tears and vigorously nods at him. "Good luck, brother! I'll be waiting!"
- "You do that." Julian concludes before leaving with Angelica.
When they step back into the streets, Angelica stares at Julian, widely grinning.
- "What." He glances at her.
- "That smile… It is such an amazing look on your face!"
- "Am I?..." He touches his lips, realizing he was indeed smiling. "Welp, I'm sure I'm not gonna look amazing for long. Let's go back, you need to rest and I have work to do."
- "Are we still going out drinking on Saturday though?"
- "...Sure, as long as you don't think you'll keel over and die after one swig of Trevor's stronger drinks."