"Magnius? …Magnius!"

He snapped back awake. Kratos was in front of him, waving his hand in front of his face.

"The meeting is over." He stated, folding his arms across his chest. Sure enough, the other Cardinals and Seraphim had already left. Magnius gathered his things and left out of the meeting room and walked down the hall. 'Nothing important happens in meetings anyway. At least not these ones.' He thought as he headed to the warp room. It was the easiest way back to his ranch. He paused when Pronyma came up to him, but kept going after that second.

"Wait, Magnius." She called and hurried over to him. Magnius looked back to acknowledge her there, but at the same time look like he was in a slight hurry.

"Inspection tomorrow." It was all she said before stopping and it was all she needed to say. Magnius nodded at that, and continued to his ranch.

'Great' At least he was warned for once, though. Magnius never did that great with
inspections and he always got and earful from Yggdrasill the next day. This time he would make sure he was prepared and everything.

The rest of the day Magnius spend making sure things were fine for inspection. Getting people to do jobs correctly, making sure most everyone knew about the inspection and knew not to act stupid the next day, things like that. Finally when he thought things seemed to be right, he went back to the main control room and sat down to relax.

"I have a propositions, Magnius."
Magnius jumped, spinning around in his chair. There, leaning on the wall, was Lord Rodyle, reading one of Magnius' books he had out. Magnius frowned and relaxed again.

"What do you want then?"
Rodyle folded the book up and put it under his arm.

"I need Gald, workers, things of that such. The Ma-… there is something I'm working on. You, on the other hand, need a little more power. Someone to back you up during meetings." The purple haired man said as he approached Magnius. He sat down in a chair across from him.

Rodyle was a small man, not too built or anything. He was quite short and rather thin, but wore a cloak like thing to make himself seem larger. He watched Magnius through small, rose colored glasses. Rodyle looked amused at what Magnius said next.

"…Well, what you're working on. Yggdrasill Okayed it, right?"

"Of course, of course. I would not work against our leader, do not think things such as that, Magnius. You may even ask Kvar. He would not lie."
Magnius stared at the man for a while, thinking.

"How…How much would you need?"

"Just what you can spare, Magnius. This will no doubt take a few years, at least."
Magnius paused, still watching Rodyle. He couldn't be sure yet. Rodyle never was the most trust worthy person; to him or to Cruxis. What he was asking though, seemed reasonable. The problem was that it was Rodyle asking.

" I'll get back to you on that. I'm busy with other things right now, Rodyle." Magnius said after a minute. He turned around in his chair and pulled some things up on the screen – some files and monitors, things like that. Rodyle stood there for a second.

"Fine. Maybe you can decide later in the week, then?" Rodyle said, disappointed. Magnius nodded and waved his hand to dismiss him.

"Sure, sure."
He didn't turn away from the screen, trying to look as busy as he could at the moment. Rodyle frowned and left for the warp, leaving back to his ranch. Magnius stopped and sighed, looking back towards where Rodyle had left.

'What's he trying to pull?' he thought, turning back to the screen. Maybe he should ask Kvar? Rodyle could have been dependent on hope that he wouldn't contact Kvar about this, considering their dislike for one another. Magnius watched the monitor for a minute before shutting it off. Yes, he was going to go to Kvar. Something felt wrong about it all.

"Kiso!" Magnius called as he went down the hall. The human commander poked his head out of a room he was in, his pen in his mouth.

"Hn?" He removed the pen. " What is it, Lord Magnius?"

"There's something I need to take care of. You're in charge while I'm gone, got it? Don't blow anything up." Magnius said, sounding more serious that it was meant to be. Kiso nodded before going back into the room to finish whatever he was working on.

Magnius entered Kvar's ranch. He could hear some snide remarks as he entered. They must have gotten their dislike of him from Kvar. Magnius was rarely there, so they couldn't have had that much of an opinion of him exactly. Magnius paused, and turned towards the officers huddled in a group talking. He watched them sharply and they were quiet when he did.

"You know, I thought Kvar's men would know when to be quiet…either that of be smart. One of the two." Magnius remarked, smiling and turning away. He went inside the actual ranch now. It was great having power. They can't do anything but complain about how they dislike him at this point.

Soon, he got to the main control room. It was rather plain and bare, obviously Kvar's decorating sense. He walked around the room for a moment as he waited for Kvar. He must have been out doing something. Of course he was when Magnus showed up to actually ask him something important. With a sigh of boredom, Magnius sat down beside one of the many computers in the room. He turned toward it, then shuddering at what was on it. The words 'Angelus Project' typed across the top of the page. Kvar still blamed Magnius for some mishaps with the Angelus Project.

--------

The young Magnius watched Kvar. The cardinal was pacing back and forth before he turned him back to Magnius.

"Your life is on the line." The blond haired man said coldly. He didn't turn to look at Magnius before he walked out. Magnius leaned against the wall. What happened? He was only asleep for a little while. What was it he could have prevented, that was so important? He relaxed himself against the wall with a heavy sigh. Pausing for a moment, he walked towards the door. It had been locked when Kvar left. Obviously, he wasn't supposed to leave. He pushed his hair away from his face and backed away from the doorway. This was indeed bad. He couldn't do anything but wait for Kvar to come back and hope that he had better news. Magnius did just that, too. He waited, waited for a few good hours.

Finally, a desian came in holding a young woman by the wrists. She struggled to get away as she was practically dragged back to her cell. She was thrown in and she skidded against the cold stone floor. The woman coughed for a moment before getting up and rushing over to the door of the cell, which had been locked. The desian then turned to Magnius.

"You're so in for it now, Mag. Kvar wants to see you. Now."
Magnius nodded and didn't say a word. There was no use in arguing with the desian there at least. He followed him to where Kvar was waiting. Kvar was sitting at a table, Watching Lay Pronyma leave. As she passed Magnius, she paused to just shake her head then continued on.

Kvar sighed as he looked up at Magnius. His look of irritation soon turned back to the cold anger it was before. The cardinal stood and grasped his staff as he walked towards Magnius and the officer that lead him there. After dismissing the officer, he turned to Magnius."You're lucky. If we had not found my Angelus project, you would indeed be dead right now."

"Well, then maybe you should have more people guarding your precious project."

"Maybe you should not have fallen asleep!" Kvar yelled, gripping his staff tighter. Magnius turned away stubbornly and started to walk away. That there struck Kvar's last nerve. He grabbed Magnius and shoved him into the wall before pressing the sharpened edge of his staff against Magnius' neck. He froze, watching Kvar for a moment. The moment passed, and he let out a staggered breath that he had not realized he had been holding. Magnius stayed pressed against the wall and tried his best to not appear frightened. That irked Kvar more and after a second the cardinal lifted his staff from his officer's neck and used that same edged tip to slash the young Magnius in the face. The attack left a gash across the bridge of his nose.

"Take that as a warning, officer." Kvar hissed as he turned to leave. Magnius had his hands clasped over the gash in attempts to stop the bleeding and his head was forced to the side from the blow. It took a moment for him to collect himself again, but he did. Turning to Kvar's turned back he felt the strong urge for revenge, and everyone knows payback is always worse than what was first dealt.

"Eruption!" Magnius yelled. The mana had already been gathered and a rather large summon circle formed around Kvar. It was easy to see Kvar's hesitance when he saw the fire burst out from the floor around him. The area around Kvar was crisp; the metal covered floor was melted together into coal black ash. Magnius saw the cardinal drop to the floor and almost double over. He smiled to himself, though his victory was short lived. Slowly, Kvar brought himself to his feet and placed his hand against the wall for support. There were deep burns over him. In fact, Kvar was surprised at Magnius' skill of magic at his age. He hadn't been expecting anything powerful from Magnius, especially how he represented himself. You wouldn't be able to tell that he had mastered a few high magic attacks under the brute strength that he had shown.

Pronyma, who was still there when this had happened, placed her hand on Kvar's shoulder to stop him from attacking Magnius. Wincing, Kvar left his legs give in from the burns up his legs. The worst burns were on his legs and only got worse the farther down the leg you went. Kvar fell back to his knees and glared up at Magnius.

"So, the great Kvar has fallen to one of his officers?" She said quietly to Kvar.

" I did not think that someone of his intelligence could concentrate enough to master any high leveled magic.

"That's what you get for showing your back to anyone, Kvar."

"That's Lord Kvar to you."

"Magnius?"

…

" Damn it, Magnius. What do you want? …And get away from my computer."

Magnius felt someone shove him and he stumbled out of the computer chair.

"What? Oh, Kvar. I need to ask you something about Rodyle, actually." Magnius said. He still seemed rather out of it, but he regained himself soon. Kvar just watched Magnius, carefully, but not saying anything to left Magnius continue.

"He said he had a … project; something that needed money and officer. Rodyle came to me asking for it and he said that Lord Yggdrasill approved this project. He also said that you would be in on this." He said hesitantly as he turned to face Kvar completely.

Both of them must have remembered what had happened before. Pronyma had promoted Magnius to a higher ranked officer after that. He worked under her and was promoted to second in command in no time. When she became the leader of the Five Grand Cardinals, she worked more at Cruxis than in her ranch. Magnius took over her ranch while she was working and soon had just become a cardinal himself. Kvar hated Pronyma for being the leader, and was very open about it. He felt more that he should have rightfully been leader. Though, what he hated more was how she had made Magnius a cardinal just to smite him.

Kvar walked over to the computer when he noticed what files were on it. Still keeping an eye on Magnius, he shut down the programs.

"Do you not trust Lord Rodyle, then?" He asked as he sat down in a chair.

"It's not like he hasn't lied to us before, Kvar. I'm just checking what he said of you being in on this before coming to a decision is all." Magnius said as he turned away from Kvar. If Kvar was going to sit, he might as well sit too.

"That seems oddly intelligent for you, Magnius."
Magnius frowned and turned his head to Kvar.

"Just tell me, will you? I have better things to do rather than listen to your horrible insults."