When Ambrosia with Milo in tow entered the main hall of her guild, she saw that Cyan must´ve been kidding them. Because when he said that there is a new member to join Moondrop, he surely could not have meant the crying child right in the middle of the guild hall.
The demoness' gaze brushed over the child´s skinny figure, the long, black hair tied into twin pigtails with red bands and lotus flower decorations, the rosy cheeks, currently stained with tears, and the wide and innocent light pink eyes that were puffy from all the crying. Ambrosia ran her gaze over the child´s clothes – the semi sparkly shirt with sleeves to the elbows, bright red pants with bells sewn on the hems and a red sash tied around her waist. The child wore no shoes – whether they were lost or if the child wore no shoes in the first place, Ambrosia did not know – and finally, bracelets and anklets decorated the child´s arms and feet.
A young woman of twenty was comforting the crying child. "Come on, little girl, it´ll be fine," she smiled as she patted the kid on the head. "What´s your name?"
The child looked at her through tears and sniffed. "I´m a boy."
A boy?, Ambrosia thought. No way. She inspected his face once more – she needed to remind herself that it was indeed his – and shook her head. She could find no clues that would point to that fact. A quick look to her side let her know that Milo was as caught off guard as she was.
"Oh," the woman in front of them tried to quickly hide her embarrassment from making such an awkward mistake. "I´m sorry," she smiled. "So how can I call you?"
"I´m Jia Yi," the boy seemed to remember his manners and hurriedly gave a deep bow.
"And I´m Aspen. Aspen Vale," her almond-shaped, dark violet eyes looked at Jia Yi kindly. Aspen extended her hand. "Nice to meet you."
"Your name is nice. Just like you," the boy blurted out, his wide, innocent pink eyes staring at Aspen with all seriousness of the world.
A cute blush appeared on Aspen´s pale cheeks and she absentmindedly tugged one of her long, bright blonde bangs with violet tips behind her ear.
She was saved from the boy´s intense gaze when Ambrosia finally made herself known by floating forward. Jia Yi turned his head and his eyes immediately lit up and he dashed to hug the demoness. "Decima! How did you get here? Those bandits kept chasing after me, there was this one huge guy that managed to hit me with that magic-gun thingy and then I had no idea where you went and I was scared and I somehow ended up in this city, and I thought I would never see you again but you found me!"
Ambrosia was taken aback as the small boy continued to babble while hugging her legs. Then his mind appeared to realize other circumstances and he stepped away from her.
"Wait, why are you floating? And where is Ix´uj?" He started to frantically look around. "I don´t see him here. And who is this man?" He asked, looking at Milo.
Ambrosia´s heart clenched. It was at times like these when she hated her heritage. She descended to the ground and crouched so that she was on the same level as Jia Yi, mere four feet. She took his hands into his. "I´m sorry, I´m not the one you know as Decima. I just take on the appearance of whomever your heart most desires. I´m sorry," she said sadly, averting her eyes. She didn´t want to see the disappointment appearing in the face of the young boy. It was always hard to disillusion those who unsuspectingly saw their deepest desires when they first saw her.
"Okay," proclaimed the boy after a short pause. Then he beamed, all signs of confusion vanishing. "So you´re not Decima. I thought it would be weird if I we were reunited this suddenly. This is so cool! Ne, how does it work?"
Ambrosia was prepared for tears, for denial and disappointment, but she was completely taken aback when no such reaction came. Instead, the boy was circling around her with eyes open in wonder. "Wow, it looks so real!"
Ambrosia could feel some of the boy´s enthusiasm and pure childish awe pouring into her. But there were still more urgent matters at hand. "Where are your parents?"
"At home, probably."
"And where you that be?" Ambrosia asked.
"A long way from here," Jia Yi gestured generally to the west. Ambrosia mentally noted that the boy could determine directions accurately. "I was traveling with Decima and Ix´uj, but we were attacked by bandits and separated. An old lady down in the town pointed here when I asked where I can find some mages. But she also spat on the ground and mumbled something about the Devil."
So a mage then. Finally, they were getting some concrete information from the boy.
"Aspen?" Ambrosia called out to the still-waiting woman.
"Yes, Master?"
"Get together a search party. There are two missing people, so if you assign two people to each of them, that will be a four-man team."
Aspen stopped to consider her options, finger laid across her lips. "Cass, Red and Jack haven´t returned from their mission yet, neither did Kip and Percival. I´m pretty sure Anne is around. It would be easy to find missing people with her magic, but she would probably turn down the offer. Hmm, I can get Mako and May," she paused, trying to think of more names.
"Forgot about me?" Milo feigned a grumble.
"Oh, right, of course," Aspen flashed him a smile. "That makes four of us then. And Ruby of course. We´ll set out as soon as possible." With that, she left to find the rest of their team.
"Hey, Mr. Blue Shirt," Milo felt a small hand tugging at his pants. He looked down to see Jia Yi looking at him with an expression as serious as a child could muster.
"It would be better if you stayed here," Milo smiled at him apologetically. "Don´t worry, we´ll find Decima and Ix´uj soon enough. And you can call me Milo."
"Alright! Thank you, Mister Milo!"
Milo´s protests that just Milo is fine went unnoticed with the arrival of a new person.
The newcomer was a small girl in black and pink goth dress. Her dark brown hair was adorned by a single streak of magenta. She waived with the little covered basket she held in her hands. "I brought Big Brother lunch."
"Hello Aina," Ambrosia greeted her. "Your brother is in his room."
"As always," she sneered. "Geez, what would would he become if he didn´t have me to take care of him." Then her magenta eyes landed on the boy.
"Were you crying?" she asked as she noticed the tear marks around his eyes. "How lame. Boys aren´t supposed to cry."
"How did you know he was a boy?" Milo hissed into her ear.
"Tch. Isn´t it obvious?" She scoffed.
"Actually, while you´re here," Ambrosia smiled at her, "why don´t you show Jia Yi around?"
"Ah well, whatever. Follow me." Aina gestured towards the boy and turned to leave, her basket swinging merrily in her hand.
Jia Yi quickly bowed to both Ambrosia and Milo and ran after the girl.
As the last jingles from the Jia Yi´s bells died away, Milo turned to Ambrosia. "Bright yellow. With clouds of gentle pink. It´s been long since I´ve seen such vibrant colors."
Ambrosia nodded. Even if her insight into people wasn´t visual like Milo´s Aura Sight was, she intuitively reached the same conclusions. Young Yan Jia Yi obviously harbored a lot of potential. Like an uncut diamond.
Jia Yi had to hurry to keep up with Aina´s brisk pace.
"You must be similar age as me," Jia Yi tried to start a conversation. "You must be really powerful if you´re a member of the guild!" He smiled at her sweetly. Surely polite behavior and nice words would make the girl view him as an equal.
However, Aina didn´t even look at him as she walked. "I´m not a part of the guild. What are you, an idiot?"
Jia Yi pouted at the rejection. He decided to pass the insult. It sure wouldn´t appear good if he tried to bicker with her. "Why not?" he asked instead.
"Because I´m 10, you dunce," she said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "This is a world of grownups. But when I grow up, I´m definitely going to join and help Big Brother!" she proclaimed with sparks in her eyes.
"That´s not true. I´ve been traveling with mages since I was 7!" Jia Yi felt hurt. He felt tears building up again in his eyes, but reminded himself of Aina´s remark from before and quickly blinked them away. Boys aren´t supposed to cry.
Aina rolled her eyes. "Yeah, sure. And it gave you enough experience to take on actual mission. I can totally see you showing up on a client´s doorstep, looking all serious and everything, being all like hello mister, I came to save your village from the swamp monster! The man will call for his wife and the two of them will coo at you for a couple of minutes, you´ll get a lollipop or a bonbon and then doors into your face. And that´s if you´re lucky."
Jia Yi wanted to say something in defense. Aina made some valid points. She is clever on top of being cute. He was saved by their arrival to their destination.
"We´re here," Aina cast a cursory glance at at Jia Yi and then turned to hide the naughty smirk that suddenly appeared on her face. She gestured to the door. "After you."
"Okay," Jia Yi reached for the doorknob. It was unlocked. He grabbed it and opened the door, walking inside. He was only able to see a glimpse of the screen-covered wall before a red boxing glove that sprung from the ceiling punched him away into the corridor.
Intruder alert, intruder alert, announced the door in a mechanical voice.
Aina watched Jia Yi fly passed her and then gleefully skipped into the room. No booby traps were triggered. "Hello Big Brother!" she greeted with an innocent smile, "I brought you lunch." The girl lifted her basket into the air and then set it next to her brother.
"Mmm, thanks," his bright azure eyes never left the screens as his hand dug into the basket. "What do we have today? Sandwiches?"
"Yeah, I was helping Kleine in the shop today so I didn´t have time to prepare a warm meal."
"You could´ve just bought me cup ramen."
"That wouldn´t do," Aina started lecturing him, "you should eat more healthily, just look at yourself," she pointed at his ghostly pale skin and clothes that sagged around his skinny frame.
"Whatever. I´m doing fine." Aina was used to her brother´s mannerisms so she just let it pass. She looked around the room. The floor was covered by random parts in various stages of completion. She sighed. Really, it didn´t look at all like she cleaned the room just two days ago. With half-hearted grumbling, she set out to put the room back into its pristine state.
"Wait, don´t touch that." Aina looked at her brother questioningly and set back down the small, unfinished device. "That´s Kip´s. She left it here before she left on her mission. She´d kill me if something happened to it. Also, it can explode," he added.
"Eh?! You keep potential explosives scattered on the ground among piles of junk?"
"It´s not junk," the teen mumbled under his breath. "And I´m perfectly capable of telling it apart."
Jia Yi finally scrambled himself from the floor and was shuffling his feet behind the open door.
"Come in, I deactivated the traps," the boy who must´ve been Aina´s brother called out to him. They had very similar features, except the boy´s chocolate brown hair was way shorter, and he had an azure streak in them to match his eyes.
Jia Yi carefully tiptoed around the red boxing glove. When it didn´t move, he stepped into the room.
"That was mean," he whined, nursing his hurt cheek.
"I apologize sincerely," the boy said with a grin, "the system is set to attack anyone unfamiliar."
"You big liar. You totally saw us coming on the security cameras." Aina mumbled so that only her brother would hear her. Then she turned to Jia Yi and spoke with an audible voice. "Anyway, this is Cyan, my brother. You could say he´s the guild´s operator. Brother, this is Jia Yi, a random kid who got lost."
"Hi," Cyan waved at him. His other hand reached behind him where he pressed a key on one of the numerous keyboards. The security camera record from the area in the corridor vanished from the screen.
"Cyan? That´s strange. Your eye color is closer to azure," Jia Yi observed.
"My mom named me that. It´s not like I could choose."
Obviously, Jia Yi berated himself. He wasn´t exactly making a good impression.
"Cyan?" A familiar voice rang out from speakers hidden somewhere in the walls.
"Oh, hey Aspen," Cyan greeted. "What is it?"
"We´re setting out to find two people related to the kid that came to the guild about half an hour ago."
"Oh yeah, he´s here. Need help?" Cyan asked, fingers already flying across his keyboards.
"Yeah. We don´t have any info on where those two are supposed to be, and the area around Eraklyon is pretty big, so any help finding them would be greatly appreciated."
"Those two are mages, right?"
"Yes," Jia Yi joined in.
"Awesome, that makes the search much faster. I just borrow this satelite..." Cyan´s was furiously typing something with his eyes fixed on the screen, "...then I set it to search for magic signatures in radius of 10 miles..."
"Come, let´s go," Aina tugged on Jia Yi´s sleeve. "We shouldn´t disturb him when he means business. I´ll show you the rest of the guild."
Jia Yi was fascinated by the nimble movement of Cyan´s fingers that almost looked blurred to the naked eye. He only reluctantly agreed to leave.
"See you, brother! I´ll be back tomorrow. And don´t forget to eat your lunch again," Aina called from the door. Cyan gave them no acknowledgment, already absorbed in his work. Aina just shook her head and closed the door.
"Seriously, your lunches aren´t granted," she mumbled to the closed door, "you should appreciate my work a bit more."
"YOU HAD ONE JOB, PERCIVAL! ONE JOB! AND YOU ASSHAT HAVE TO GO AND FUCK IT UP!" a short girl of sixteen was yelling at the dark-skinned mage seated behind her.
"Hey, it´s not my fault," her partner, only a year older than herself, tried to defend himself. His short black hair was whipping around his face. "He refused to stop when I tried to make him pull over. No need to get so worked up, Kip."
"NO NEED TO GET WORKED UP, HUH? YOU HAD LEGAL MEANS TO STOP THEM, AND YET YOU JUST HAD TO START BLASTING MAGIC AT THEM! AND MISS!"
"How was I supposed to know they belonged to a magic-hating gang?" Percival asked. His vibrant gold eyes had a hurt expression in them.
Kip´s pale, seafoam green eyes darted towards the multiple motorbikes chasing them. A lot of them were plastered with stickers saying death to all magic-borns. She resisted the urge to bang her head onto the windshield.
Their mission was simple. Recently, multiple instances of speeding happened on this highway from Eraklyon. Their job was to detain the speeding vehicles and impose a ticket on them. It was going fine for the past few days, with most drivers acknowledging their driving offenses with nothing more than mumbled curses.
Kip was stationed on the road with the speed measuring device. If she detected that a vehicle was exceeding the speed limit, she called Percival, who was stationed further down the road. His job was to stop the vehicle and issue a speeding ticket.
Simple enough. But nooo, Percival had to go and try to blast down a motorbike that wasn´t intent on stopping. And now a good-sized patch of the road was turned into pure gold. She wouldn´t be surprised if cars were stopping with excited drivers using whatever means to salvage at least a few nuggets of the rare metal.
But that was the least of her troubles as they were now being chased on a highway by a motorbike gang. The one that avoided Percival´s attack must have called his buddies for a witch hunt, judging by the mocking calls and loud horn blasting from the several motorbikes that were now on their tail.
"Watch out!" Percival´s warning cry was the only thing that alerted Kip to the incoming attack. She quickly swerved their motorbike to the side. Percival gave out a surprised yelp and had to hold on Kip´s waist in an attempt not to fall off the vehicle. Her short tangled white hair that were set free when her dark orange hoodie was blown off tickled him on the face. A glowing silver ball flew passed them, untangling into a net in the air. It lost it´s kinetic energy and harmlessly fell on the road.
"They brought mana cancellers!" Percival called out to Kip.
"Can´t you do anything about it?" she shouted back.
Percival extended his hand and aimed carefully. A bolt of magic shot from his arm and turned the motorbike of the most daring rider, who was within an arm´s reach, into gold. The tires couldn´t endure the sudden increase in weight and exploded, leaving the rider to crash into the guardrail. Another bolt of magic hit the windshield, robbing the rider of visibility.
"There´s too many of them! And I can´t aim properly unless they get close!"
Kip swore under her breath. She spotted another mana canceller charging in the wing mirror just milliseconds before another net narrowly missed them. She noted from the brief glance into the mirrors that not all motorbikes had mana cancellers. She reached a decision in no time.
"Hold on tight!"
"Wha-" that was the only warning that Percival got before Kip suddenly yanked the motorbike to the side, tipping it until it almost reached the ground. In the short moment before the centripetal force returned the motorbike to standing position, Kip reached the ground. A burst of light spread from her gauntled-clad hand into the asphalt, turning turning a portion of the highway into sticky, black tar.
The motorbikes chasing behind them all got stuck in the goo, the riders swearing colorfully as they unsuccessfully tried to escape the trap.
"That was dangerous," Percival remarked, "you could´ve thrown both of us off." Then he gestured to the liquid road. "I could´ve done that too."
"Yes, but we don´t want any more inflation, now do we," Kip rolled her eyes at him. Then she sighed. "It will be hard to explain this to the employer." She dusted off her skinny black jeans.
Out of the corner of her eyes, she noticed one of the gangsters detaching the mana canceler from his bike and aiming it their way. She nimbly jumped on his motorcycle and kicked the device out of the man´s arms, right into Percival´s waiting hands. Then she kicked the man who almost attacked them in the jaw for good measure, before jumping back to stand next to Percival.
The mage was inspecting the strange hand canon. "Do you think it does something to non-mages as well?" he asked.
"Well, there´s only one way to find out. Not on me you idiot!" Kip promptly pushed the barrel out of her way when Percival aimed it at her. "Give it to me."
She snatched the device out of Percival´s arms and aimed it at the original owner. One press of the trigger later and the man gave out a pained shout as the glowing net entangled him. He fell to the ground, unconscious.
"Conclusion: don´t let that stuff hit you, mage or not," Kip concluded. She would bring this weapon back to the guild for inspection. She could hear Percival saying something into his phone.
"Uh-huh, yeah, hold on a sec," Percival put his phone away from his ear and turned to Kip. "I called the police forces to come pick them up. They should be here in about ten minutes."
Kip nodded. "Good, that gives me enough time to go and fix the road you turned into gold. I´ll borrow the bike. You keep an eye on them."
"Sure. Sorry about that," Percival smiled and gingerly rubbed his head.
"Whatever." With that, Kip drove off.
Really, they got into quite a mess this time. Even if they did manage to stop an anti-magic biker gang, the damage was considerable. At least nobody got hurt.
Percival concentrated and sent a wave of magic through the ground. All the rider´s massive shoes turned into gold, effectively pinning them in place. They would have to be carefully cut to free them, but that wasn´t his concern anymore.
"Fuck ya´," one of the riders, a massive man with a filthy beard, spat to the side. "Filthy mage scum."
"Ah well," Percival replied with a grin. "It was you guys who didn´t respect the rules of the road in the first place."
The man ignored him and continued in his monologue. "It´s ´cause of your kind that my beloved daughter won´t ever walk again. Fuckin´ sons of bitches." He spat again.
Percival didn´t have an answer for this. It was not his fault of course, but it didn´t look like he could bring this man out of his delusions. He sighed, sat on the ground and watched over the captured biker gang until the howling of police sirens could be heard in the distance.
Character credits:
Yan Jia Yi – Deadly Animals Are Cute
Aspen Vale – WhitewolfLune
Cyan and Aina Misitcka – PrincessFairytail5
Mavis Kipley – Canima
Percival Kay - Omnitrain
AN: So that´s that. Thank you everyone so much for your kind words and your advice in the last chapter.
Because no anime fanfiction would be complete without a trap. Now I just need an edgy emo and a homosexual pedophile weirdo for the triad to be complete.
Here´s a message from Panda to readers of Seven Lions:
Chapter four has 10K words in and will publish another 15K words or more to make up for the long pause. Accepting only one female character as it is the last spot for Seven Lions. Details on the spot will be given through PM. The notice will be removed once the next chapter is complete and ready for publish. Those who are following The One Game: Rebirth next chapter will be out as soon as I'm able. Don't expect action though as I need to set and give the setting it is in.