Chapter II: Flea Finds Her Purpose

Flea's life was a boring life: wake up, eat, physical training, magical training, more physical training, sleep, and repeat. This regiment was starting to make life bleak. Her harbored anger against the humans grew with each passing day; she just wished that this war would start already so she could pay them back a hundred times over! After three years of this, Flea was eight, a more competent mage, and a powerful urge to start the blasted war for Ozzie. She knew that she shouldn't though, because if she did, she would just doom her new people. Even though Ozzie didn't look it, he wasn't stupid, maybe a little dumb, but still was still great at strategizing.

It was a tough decision to make; to leave the running of this war to Ozzie, but one she felt was best for the Mystics. At least she though. Slash did not seem to mind this boring regiment, but it was probably because it was all he did his entire life. Eat, sleep, and train. Because of it he was an accomplished swordsman, and still way out of Flea's league. Even with all her magic, which vastly outclassed Slash's by the way, she was still no match for his speed and skill in battle. This was why Slash still flat out refused to spar with her; though he did promise her he would let her try it when she became ten years old. Two years; too long to her tastes, but there wasn't anything else to be doing.

It was fun learning enchantments from Ozzie, although he really couldn't use them, he could at least help her understand the principals behind them. It was the same thing as manipulating the physical world, just using energy to influence the chemicals in the brain. It was all advanced neurology, something of which the humans were still fifteen hundred years from! As fun as it was to make an Imp run right into a tree for no apparent reason, she still had to take the information with a grim outlook. She was going to be using this in battle, and even though it didn't seem fair, it wasn't like the humans were going to fight fair either.

Yet life went on, as monotonous as it had always been, until one day when the most influential person in Flea's life arrived. However, at the time, he didn't seem like much. Ozzie had brought him back after a trek to spy on the human's progress. He found him in mountain; he had just appeared through some portal. He had set three Imps upon the boy, and as they leapt to attack him, they instantly vaporized. Ozzie saw this as another opportunity to make a possible threat into an ally, and worked his magic on the boy. He had given Flea the same treatment, asking him what his problem was, and making it seem like Ozzie was the solution. Of course the frightened boy had accepted. When Flea saw him, she didn't believe the words that came out of Ozzie's green mouth.

" This boy is the strongest magic user I have ever seen!"

Of course Flea was upset, after all, hadn't he said the same about her? She didn't sense a very powerful magic aura around him; he even seemed weaker than Slash! How could he possibly be any stronger than she was? Yet Ozzie proceeded to place the boy through the same training the Flea was undertaking. They were like in a class together. Even Slash reflected on how odd it felt to be a teacher to a class. Of course the boy was unable to take on the same physical training that Flea had been doing for quite some time, but the boy never let up. It was like he was driven by something, something even more powerful than what was driving Flea. Since Flea was already a competent magic user, she was told to teach him how to use his "dormant" powers. He still didn't convince Flea that he was powerful in any right. She still did her best, because when she did something, she never settled for anything but her best.

" Alright, so I'm going to teach you how to use magic now. Which element do you want to start with?" Flea started by focusing on a single element, it was how she started.

" All of them." The boy arrogantly shot back.

This did not please Flea, even she could only use fire well, and here was this brat saying that he was going to use them all like it was some kind of plaything, " I don't think that you're going to be able to learn them all at once boy. So maybe you should start off with just one."

" No, I want them all. I'm not going to be weakened by a lack of resources. If you aren't good enough to teach me them all, then I'm going to learn them myself!" The boy continued.

" Not good enough!" Flea exclaimed, " I'm better than you, and I bet you couldn't learn this stuff alone!" She challenged. If she made him realize that he was helpless, then she would be able to get him to listen and not be such a brat.

" Very well then. By tomorrow I'll show you!" He replied, and took up the spell book and stormed out to read in the room Ozzie gave him.

Ozzie had seen the boy storm out, and went to talk to Flea, " What are you doing Flea? Don't you realize the boy needs someone to at least teach him the basics?"

" Don't worry Ozzie. This time tomorrow he'll give up and let me teach him." Flea replied calmly.

" If this doesn't work, I'll have to punish you Flea."

" I'll bet on it."

With that Ozzie left to continue gathering troops. With the boy at his strongest, Ozzie would be able to destroy Guardia a lot sooner! But if he couldn't get Flea to work with him, it will have been for naught, and he'd have to choose which one to get rid of.

Flea figured that the boy wouldn't be able to get anywhere on his own, and that she would have him completely under her thumb. It was going to great to have someone to bully while doing all this monotonous training.

Quickly night came, and the only one person was not asleep. The boy was determined to learn all of the elements before the next day to put down that ignorant girl. So far he had learned exactly how energy works in the world, and has managed to learn three of the four elements, only one eluded him and he was determined to learn it. It was like he was drawn to it, like a moth to a flame. The strongest elemental magic of them all: shadow.

Flea was preparing to deal with the boy now, since he wouldn't be able to learn on his own, she knew that he was going to have to ask her to let him learn from her, and she was going to make him ask nicely! Maybe that would end his arrogance. She wasn't prepared for what really happened. When they all met outside for Slash's physical training, Flea noticed that the boy was tired. Feeling a smile on her lips, she asked him the obvious question.

" Didn't get much sleep last night?" The boy said nothing, " I bet you stayed up all night reading that thing, and couldn't get past the first page." Still nothing, " Well, I won't hold it against you, just ask me nicely to teach you and I will." Still nothing. If this boy were a poker player, he'd win every time.

Flea didn't have time to be upset, because Slash had just arrived, and was starting the physical training. They had to each move around fifty sand bags that they had filled the previous day two hundred feet up a hill. Even though Flea had more training, and more sleep, than the boy, they both did it at an even pace. It was a contest of will, to see which one would collapse first, and neither was willing to lose.

At the end, Flea had decided to use a small gust of wind to fling one of the boy's bags down the hill to punish him for not talking today. When they were both at their piles, Flea pointed at the boy's pile, winked at him, and let loose the wind. The boy watched as his sand bag started rolling down the hill, but he didn't seem shocked or disheartened at all. As a matter of fact, he pointed back at Flea's pile, and smiled evilly at her, and shot a fireball at her pile. The fire went quick to work to destroying her pile. However, unlike the boy Flea could not hold in her surprise and shouted.

" Hey! How did you learn to do that?"

" By reading the book, idiot." The boy retorted.

The boy had done the impossible, he had taught himself how to use magic, and in one day! It took Flea a month with Ozzie's tutoring to even start to understand what he had come to in one night.

" Who are you?" She asked in awe.

" Magus." He replied.

" Well it seems that I underestimated you Magus. Let's learn to use magic together."

" Very well."

Since that incident, Flea and Magus worked diligently on their studies. Eventually Magus' talent took over, and made him even more skilled than Flea. Where Flea could only use fire well, and only could touch on the other elements, Magus was able to make each of the elements work to his will. Flea concentrated mostly on enchantments while Magus focused on rituals. When Flea got curious as to why, he never talked about it.

By the age of fifteen Magus was already more skilled with magic than Flea herself, and was just as strong as Slash. Flea was thirteen, two years younger than the boy who at first seemed weak. She dropped her jealousy, and replaced it with admiration. She admired his motions when he was using his Dark Bomb to defeat Slash; she admired how he moved when he used his awkward weapon. Even though a scythe wasn't the most graceful weapon, in Magus' hands it was like poetry in motion. Even at the young age of fifteen, Magus had the grimness of a warlord and the confidence of a ruler.

Because of his power, confidence, and natural leadership qualities, Ozzie relinquished command of the Mystic army to Magus, and he assumed kingship of the race. His charisma among the Mystics made him a beloved ruler of the wretched beings. However, no one loved their lord quite like Flea did. She didn't exactly understand her feelings, but she knew they were there, and she felt that she would follow Magus wherever he went.

Even though Ozzie gave up command of the army, his plan was still in motion. Magus had allowed Ozzie to be his right-hand general, and advisor. Ozzie advised Magus to go on with the war on the humans, and he agreed. Now Flea would be following him along the path that she had been taking for several years now: war on the evil humans. However Flea's reason changed: she wasn't following him into this war to get revenge; she was following him because she believed in him, because she was loyal to him, because she loved him.

Author's Note: Now the story starts to get underway. I'm so happy to have MS Word, now I can correct all the stupid mistakes I made in my previous chapters, and prevent any more from popping up! I'll be going to college tomorrow, so I don't know how much time I'll have to work on the story, but you can rest assured that I will finish this! See you next chapter!