A/N: Hmm, this posted wonky. Take two. My first try at a Sorcerer's App fic. Dave's life is slowly crashing down around him, and an unknown power inside of him is making itself known.

Disc: I don't own. Obviously. I just get ideas and like to write them out.

Chapter One

"Magi's, or sorcerer's, are rare creatures. Even those with the potential for magic cannot always use it," said a wizened old man to his three pupils. The round stone room was lit with clean mid-morning light from high windows, showing the dust motes swirling in miniature universes. Bookshelves and diagrams lined the walls, and a particularly large one dominated the largest stretch of wall behind the old man. Seated behind three oak desks sat two boys and a girl, all in their twenties. The eldest, a boy with a fine growth of dark black stubble and unruly black hair was leaning back, spinning a blue ring in his hands, staring at the sky lights, while the other two were focused on their teacher. "The soul is the source of a magician's power. Sometimes, the soul can be taken from a Magi in the aid of a spell. A source is drained off all magic, and the shell is left behind while the taker performs a spell, usually to raise another soul from the dead."

The girl in the central desk raised her hand. "Merlin, is that not The Rising?"

Merlin shook his head. "No, my dear Veronica. The Rising can only be performed by a magician who has taken powers from beyond the veil between life, powers that no sorcerer should ever be allowed to wield. They are dangerous, and you give your heart purely to evil to be able to touch them."

The last pupil, this one the youngest with long messy hair and a faint stubble about his chin, lifted his hand slightly. "Sir?"

"Yes, Balthazar?"

"Can two Magi work together, so they won't kill anyone? Or what about recently deceased people, would it really need that much magic? A whole soul, I mean. Are there limitations, or..."

Merlin turned to look at him. Something in his eyes seemed to stare at him through the tunnels of time, far far away where Balthazar didn't think he'd ever go. Merlin seemed to age in that moment, withering before him. "That is a largely unstudied part of magic, and very dangerous. Reaching between the veil of life and death is not for humans, even Magi. People who do so go mad, or die. But yes, you can use only a piece of a soul to raise someone from death."

Balthazar tilted his head. "I suppose there aren't very many Morganian's out there who wouldn't just kill you outright."

Merlin shook his head. "I am talking of an act of love, now." Balthazar looked up, straightening in his desk. He was fooling himself if he didn't think his eyes flickered to Veronica. "I have heard of cases where a sorcerer was able to bequeath a small amount of their soul into another to pull them from the brink of death. But it is rare. Very rare. An act that one should not do foolishly, but, of course, to provide someone with a piece of yourself is an act of love so strong and self-sacrificing that it would forge between the two Magi a bond beyond anything thought possible."

"So it can only be done between two people that love each other?" asked Veronica. "Or would it be one-sided?"

Merlin smiled at her though his snowy beard. "For it to be possible the two souls in question would have to be more deeply linked than mother and child. A soul, insofar as we know, is aware enough to desire contact with another, and would only part with its vessel under dire circumstances, or to move on to the next." Merlin paused, his eyes turned from Veronica to Balthazar for a moment, and Balthazar had the feeling of years between them once more, before he looked back to his female apprentice. "Through love to save a soul from death one can give their own. Through evil to raise a soul from death they can steal another. Love is the strongest power in the world, Veronica, stronger than fire and sword, stronger than the anger of all the beings in the world."

The dark apprentice snorted, his black eyes glittering in the flickering candlelight. Veronica was beaming. Balthazar was watching her, his eyes on her heavy dark hair.

"You are dismissed for today, my apprentices," said Merlin, waving a hand at the pictures before them. "Horvath, I'd have you pay attention in our next class." The scrolls snapped up, string tied them, and they stowed themselves on the heavy oak shelves which lined the room.

Veronica stood and slung a leather bag over her shoulder. She bowed to Merlin and left the room, her long velvet dress swirling. Horvath stood quickly and followed her, calling her name as he left the room.

Balthazar got up slowly, still lost in thought.

"Something troubling you, Balthazar?" asked Merlin, fastening his leather bag.

Balthazar turned back to his master. "No. Not really. Maxim doesn't seem to believe in the power of love. Is it really that strong?"

Merlin nodded. "It is."

"Will I feel it one day?" Without Maxim, his rival and best friend, in the room he felt secure enough to ask. His mind was outside of the class, with Veronica.

Merlin chuckled and pat his apprentice on the shoulder.

"What?" asked Balthazar. "You are the greatest Seer in the known world. Have you seen anything like that for me?"

"I have Seen many things. I also know that things can change. But for you... for you there is a love in store that will make the sun seem dim."

Balthazar blinked, color rising in his cheeks. "Oh?"

"Yes. Though I expect there will be some hardships involved before you get to that point," he replied. "And things may not turn out how you expect." Merlin picked up his Encantus and set it on a shelf. "You will be a magnificent sorcerer, Balthazar. Each of you are great in their own way - Horvath is powerful and adaptive (or perhaps cunning), Veronica is kind and wise beyond her years, but you... you have something they don't. You have courage, a purity I have never seen before in another soul. The only wizard I can see to be greater than you is one who will be your apprentice. And they... well." He smiled.

Balthazar ran his hand along his chin, scratching his stubble. He wasn't yet marked with the scars of too many hard years of living. He hadn't yet felt the pain of the burden of the grimhold, the agony of bearing the one he loved and one he hated within the same vessel. He was still pure, his eyes wide and not yet knowing the evils of the world.

Merlin ruffled his hair.

"Go on now. It smells as though our housekeeper is making something mouth watering for dinner. I'm famished myself."

Balthazar bowed slightly and walked out the door, leaving his smiling mentor behind.

Where had that come from?

Balthazar blinked, his eyes trying to focus on what was above him. And around him. Namely the fifty or so snarling, angry hatchlings. His head was throbbing and he couldn't remember why. He felt his head and his hand came back bloody. He'd landed on a rock. Right. Angry mom.

"Balthazar!" his apprentice screamed. He was running along the mouldering ledge of the abandoned subway station, dodging bits of egg and nest, trampled and cluttered along the walkway. Dave paused to launch a bolt of plasma at a hatchling which got too close and slipped in the muck.

Balthazar jumped to his feet, focusing his shield. Mom was clinging to the roof above, her sharp black talons dug into the ceiling raining bits of old tile and mortar down on them. Her lips pulled back over yellowed fangs. He had no idea how a black dragon of her size managed to hole up down here, but she'd had a brood of about seventy, and was collecting the homeless to feed them.

"I'm okay!" he yelled back. "What should we do?"

"How should I know?"

Several hatchlings leapt for him, snarling, saliva dripping from their fangs. They bounced off of his shield, but he was knocked back into the wall. Clearing his mind he felt the current at his fingertips. He forced his palms together and concentrated. The air compressed and grew hot with plasma. He threw the ball at the nearest dragon hatchling. It yelped loud and high with its dying breath, its weak scales sizzling as it collapsed.

The mother shrieked, opening her mouth and sucking in a deep breath.

Balthazar turned and leapt at the ledge. His fingers caught onto the crumbling tile and he scrambled at the rough stone. Dave fell to his knees next to him, clasping onto his arm. He pulled him up just as the gout of flame from the dragon flashed over where Balthazar had just been, cooking and blistering some of its own children.

He'd received a tip off from a Beast Trader about the dragon. Someone must have made a mistake and accidentally let her loose from a breeding zone, and somehow she'd found her way down below New York. Barely out of adolescence she was thirty feet from snout to tail tip. Dave had nearly wet himself when he'd seen her, inky black scales and poisonous eyes roiling in the darkness.

"Jesus!" said Dave, his body shaking.

"Easy," said Balthazar. "We need something to stab it with - find something you can transform into a spear or a sword. The mother won't die from a plasma bolt - her scales are much harder than her young."

"And what will you do?"

"Distract the horde."

He leapt up, plasma crackling at his fingers. He slew another of the hatchlings, drawing the mother's attention. As he ran most of the hatchling's followed, snarling and spitting sparks as they tried to be the first for another fresh meal.

Dave was running along the ledge looking for a pipe. Balthazar knew he'd been practicing his transformation spells. He should be able to pull off something recognizable by now.

He sent a wave of fire, striking four of the creatures, turning them into twisting charcoal statues. He looked again. Dave had found a long piece of rebar. His indigo fire balled at his fists, twisting up the rebar. It got larger, sharpened. There was a burst of energy and he was holding a glittering, detailed sword.

"Good one!" Balthazar yelled over his shoulder.

A hatchling lunged for his foot. He shouted, twisted, and fell down onto the sharp debris.

Oh no.

He turned in time to send another bolt into the face of a hatchling ready to bite his face. He repowered his shield and winced as hatchlings scratched and scrabbled on the invisible wall of air between them. Poisonous saliva dribbled down the shield, fangs and claws bit and clawed as sparks bounced off from their tiny, underpowered hiccoughs.

They squealed and snarled as he reinforced his shield with electricity. He started to worm back among the debris and egg shells. His shield was weakening. He glanced up and through the writhing, scaly bodies he could see the mother snarling, peeling her lips back for another blast of fire. His shield wouldn't withstand that, too.

Dave looked away from his sword to see the surge of hatchlings crawling over Balthazar. He felt a scream ripping from his throat as an impossible, flaring heat consumed him, coming from inside him as he leapt towards the horde. Red flame circled up his sword. He sliced through the hatchlings, hewing and hacking until he came upon his master.

There was a spark, and the massive gout of flame from the mother's jowls spewed forward. Dave turned and raised the sword, fortifying his own shield. Flame met air, consuming it, making it seem like a burning dome. Dave screamed, crouched over Balthazar, the sword and his own red fire making an impenetrable wall.

He swung the sword, slicing through the fire. The mother shrieked at him and dropped to the ground. The resultant crash knocked him down to his knees. The remaining hatchlings - very few now, curled around her legs yelping and spitting sparks.

He stood, swaying. "You're gonna have to get through me!"

The red fire stung, it was too strong, consuming him. But the pain felt good. He'd felt the pain before. It was a rush he couldn't get over.

The mother charged, snarling and screeching. Dave answered the challenge with a cry and charged towards her. He dodged its sharp swipe and rolled underneath its belly, hacking at any hatchling to come near. The dragon curled, trying to bite him as Dave thrust the sword into its soft underbelly through the ribcage at its heart.

The dragon shrieked and thrashed, tossing Dave like a ragdoll. The remaining hatchlings were crushed by their mother's death throes. Dave toppled under a blow and hit the ground hard. His rebar sword clattered away, returning to the thing it used to be. He winced as he watched the mother totter, knowing he'd be crushed when she fell.

"DAVE!"

The mother crashed down onto him, rolling over a suddenly conjured shield. Dave gasped, hidden within a mass of her inky scales and dark blood. He pointed his ring at her carcass and twisted, forcing the body over the ledge and onto the broken eggshells of her young.

He shook in the dust as Balthazar ran up behind him.

"Are you OK?"

Dave shook his head. He was covered with blood and still high off of the red fire. His whole body was twitching with the force of the adrenaline.

"That was amazing. I've never heard of someone your age killing a matured black dragon," said Balthazar, helping him up. "Do you have any magic left?"

Dave nodded. He stood, wavered, and fell into Balthazar. His teacher held him up.

"Just burn the brood and the dragon to ashes, Dave. I'll worry about getting us home."

Dave nodded again. He felt his will go through the ring, imagined the molecules vibrating hotter and hotter, until with a burst all of the dragons and the eggshells and their former meals went up in flames, smoking and twisting and charring.

There was a burst, like a fresh splash of cool water on a warm day, and Dave passed out from exertion in his lab as the last cracklings of Balthazar's teleportation spell slipped away.

~+o+~

"I have to try." He dreamed of those words every time he slept. He dreamed of the sudden flaring of heat from his chest down to his hands, burning down into tendrils of fire. The red fire. That addictive, powerful fire.

"Please don't die," he said. The circle crackled around them as he focused his energy, forcing sparks of life into Balthazar. He felt his face twisting as he fell to his knees next to his master, his hands on his chest, curling over his lifeless body.

The night was so cold. His face screwed up as he tried to keep from crying, yelling and shouting at him to wake up, to come back, come back ohgodcomeback!

He was aware he was dreaming when the burn radiated out from his chest to his arms and flared at his hands, consuming him. Hadn't remembered screaming, but this time he did. It wasn't the outpouring of his affection and annoyances as it had been before, but something primal. Something from inside. His hand's slammed over and over into Balthazar's chest. His body had been inanimate, dead...

... and the sound of a heartbeat broke through the haze of anguish.

There was a flare of intense heat and pain, ripping from his chest and through his hands. That pain, every night. That sweet, sweet pain.

If you liked it, please review. If you have an issue with non-cannon, or slash pairings, please don't bother flaming me. It won't stop me, and I won't respond to them.