“You are not the one I asked for,” the man said in his chilling voice, pausing for a moment to fix his dark, frightening stare on Caleb. “And you ask for the Master of the Bridge. You cannot be allowed to live.”
“I’d rather you not kill me,” Caleb said, keeping his voice raised, hoping it would carry to someone else — if there even was someone else — nearby. “I’m just here for training under Mister Midnight. We don’t need to fight.”
“It’s too late for that, boy,” the man said, charging forward.
Whirling to his right, Caleb sent forth a dozen Mobility discs to form an improvised staircase, racing up them, dismissing the ones behind him as soon as he was done with them.
His attempt to gain height was futile. The pale man in black leapt up to the height of Caleb’s highest disc, landing on it lightly and thrusting his cane at Caleb’s chest.
Caleb took the quickest way out of danger — falling. He stepped off the edge of the disc he was on and let gravity pull him away from his attacker, calling forth chains to encircle the man. The man batted the chains away with vicious speed, and then jumped down, following Caleb in his fall.
“Mister Midnight?” Caleb called out, desperately hoping the mysterious Time Mage would show himself and back him up. As he did, a Mobility disc flashed into being, functioning as a springboard to launch Caleb up out of his fall and to the side, once again evading the man in black’s attack.
“It is futile, boy,” the man said, racing along the dark surface of Midnight Bridge, tracking Caleb’s trajectory. “You will be dead before anyone comes to your aid.”
“Are you sure we can’t talk this out?” Caleb asked, bouncing himself one way, then another, staying airborne and watching his attacker below, trying to find an opening. “I don’t want to fight.”
“Because you know you can’t win,” the man retorted, jumping dozens of feet off the ground straight into Caleb’s path.
Don’t use Time Magic! Caleb screamed at himself, creating a swirling mass of chains, as many as he could, to try and overwhelm the man in black while he used a Mobility disc to bounce him away, landing on another and descending a shining staircase to the ground.
“I don’t even know anything,” Caleb said, watching in awe as his opponent deftly parried and dodged two dozen chains from all different directions, coming out of the attack unscathed and landing on the ground. “I’m no threat to you.”
“Don’t you understand?” the man asked, smiling cruelly. “You’re already dead.”
Well… crap.
Caleb jumped, creating a complex arrangement of Mobility discs in a huge, scattered sphere around him, alighting on one and then leaping around, always keeping a disc between him and his opponent. Some of the discs were springboards, while others were static platforms, and Caleb continued to rearrange them as he moved, again and again blocking the man in black’s approach by a hair’s breadth.
Caleb was at more of a disadvantage than just not having access to his Time Magic. That was bad enough, but he was also completely out of his depth when fighting this man. Caleb was a Hunter — his training was against Hollows. None of his training ever involved fighting another mage. While the man in black hadn’t displayed anything beyond Enhancement Magic to jump around and move with astonishing speed, it was still terrifying how close he continually came to Caleb.
Caleb’s final disadvantage was the most obvious one: this man wanted to kill him.
Every time Caleb saw the man’s dark eyes, he knew he was fighting against a man with murderous intent. His heart pounded in his chest, sweat trickled down his back.
Because while this man would clearly kill Caleb without a second thought, Caleb knew he couldn’t kill in kind.
Sure, it would be justified. In theory, Caleb had always been ready to kill someone in self-defense if the need arose.
But faced with the reality, he immediately knew he couldn’t do it.
And that in itself terrified Caleb. He felt like he’d already lost the fight, despite continuing to maneuver and keep the man in black at bay.
His primary instinct, beyond evasion and buying time for someone to help him — a possibility that seemed that seemed more distant every second — was to trap the man somehow. Chains were good for that, but he couldn’t fight through his opponent’s overwhelming strength. For the man to bat aside Caleb’s chains with a one-handed swing like that, he had the strength of twenty men at least. Even if Caleb could get his chains wrapped around the man in black, it was unlikely they’d hold him for long.
So what do I do?
All the frantic leaping and soaring through air, often horizontally or even upside down, was also not a great fit for Caleb at the moment. In the long term, it was a good thing he was wearing glasses.
But for a fight? Glasses were turning into a severe handicap.
Time and again Caleb frantically pushed his glasses back on, sometimes holding them in place for a second or two while he made a particularly forceful leap. He frequently lost sight of his assailant, commanding his discs to move into defensive shields in his blind spots when he couldn’t see the man in black.
Caleb had so many things he wanted to ask. Who are you? What do you want? Can’t we just talk this out? Make me swear some kind of blood promise or sign a contract or something?
Do you really need to murder me?
But of course it would be futile. And that scared Caleb the most. Monsters had borne down on him countless times, but…
They were wild beasts.
This was a human. He looked older than Caleb, but younger than Caleb’s dad — somewhere in his mid-thirties.
Why was he so intent on killing Caleb? Caleb wasn’t the one he was waiting for — but Caleb didn’t know anything. Was it so dangerous to keep him alive?
What could be so important that knowing even just a hint of it when you weren’t supposed to meant you needed to be killed?
Why couldn’t they just talk?
It wasn’t as if Caleb had never gotten into physical conflict with people before — he’d faced down bullies in middle school and high school, even gotten into a few fist fights — but someone who wanted to kill him, and was perfectly capable of doing so, was completely new.
And completely terrifying.
The man in black came into Caleb’s vision again, diving down at him from a great height. Bouncing off of a disc springboard, Caleb sent chains surging at his assailant, only to watch them barely slow him down as he batted them away in an instant.
And then Caleb messed up. He’d made plenty of small mistakes that worked out all right due to dumb luck and the frantic nature of using so many discs and chains, but not this time. Where he thought he had a mobility disc waiting for him was only empty air. Dropping to the stone of the bridge, Caleb had no time to stop himself, using Enhancement Magic to break his fall as he tumbled into a roll.
Get up, get up, get up!
Caleb scrambled to his feet, only to see a black cane sweeping through the dim gloom towards him. He leapt away, and the man in black surged forward, attacking relentlessly. With no time to bring forth chains or discs, Caleb gambled with Enhancement Magic, coursing it through his body to make his skin, muscles, and bones tougher, raising his hardened arms to block.
The black cane came on undeterred, whipping across Caleb’s arms with a slap like a thunderclap. Pain surged through Caleb’s limbs as he went flying, tumbling up the bridge’s far slope. He got to his feet, but his arms were badly bruised, and his left arm was likely fractured somewhere, judging from the shooting pain lancing through it.
And still the man in black came on. Still he wore that mirthless smile, contrasting with his dark, murderous glare. Caleb conjured a springboard, launching himself high into the air. Even if it was only his arms, his pain was pounding away at his concentration. He brought forth as many discs as he could — both as shields and to cast shining light into the darkness. Alighting on the highest disc, he dropped to a knee, casting abo
ut frantically for the man in black.
If I can’t see him, then he must be…
Caleb leapt forward on pure instinct, twisting in the air to see the man in black come crashing down onto the disc Caleb had just been kneeling on. As the man dove towards Caleb from that disc, Caleb brought all of his other discs to bear as a makeshift shield, stacking them on each other to strengthen them, with the one closest to the man serving as a springboard. His assailant slammed into that springboard and was sent flying in the opposite direction. Caleb, satisfied he had a minor pause in his deadly struggle, quickly formed a staircase of discs to run back to solid ground.
As soon as his feet touched the stone of Midnight Bridge, he felt a force tugging at him, pulling him backwards. Struggling against it, Caleb turned to look, and saw the man in black standing far away, holding his cane overhead. Above the cane was a strange portal, pitch black and writhing with rhythmic intensity. From it surged tendrils of inky blackness, wrapping around Caleb’s waist, his arms, his legs, pulling him towards the portal.
“And so it ends,” the man in black said, his icy voice carving a frigid line along Caleb’s nerves. “The chase was amusing for a time, but I’ve run out of patience. Now perish in the void.”
The tendrils wrapped tighter, cutting into Caleb’s flesh, and he cried out in pain. He created a Mobility disc as a wall to stop him, but a separate tendril lashed at it, shattering the shining construct into shards that dissolved in the darkness.
Caleb sent chains to attack his captor, only to watch in vain as they were batted aside with contemptuous ease.
Am I… out of options?
He called on Enhancement Magic, dulling the pain in his arms, digging in his heels, pulling as hard as he could, but still he skidded forward, closer and closer to the portal.
And then, a voice rang out in the darkness.
“Void!” a man shouted, his voice strong and clear. “You dare set foot in my domain again?”
“Blast,” the man in black said, glaring over his shoulder. “Mind your own business, Midnight!”
“You killing people on my bridge is my business,” the unknown man said. There was a dark blur of motion, and then the tendrils tugging at Caleb were suddenly severed, freeing him to fall flat on his butt. Between him and the man in black was the newcomer, a tall man dressed in a black duster coat that hung all the way down to his heels, his long black hair tied back in a ponytail. He cast a glance at Caleb. He had a strong, blocky jaw, and his eyes were the inverse of Madame Chronos’ — where hers were dark pits with shining points of light in the center, this man had almost completely white eyes, save for a small black point in the center, that seemed deep and endless, threatening to suck Caleb in if he stared for too long.
“You all right there, kid?” the newcomer asked.
Caleb wasn’t really “all right,” but he was at least no longer teetering on death’s door, so he nodded.
“Good.” The man turned to face Caleb’s attacker, who had dismissed the frightening portal, and the two shared a long, silent stare.
“I’m not here for you, Midnight,” Caleb’s attacker finally said.
“You would have been once you finished off the kid,” the newcomer — apparently Mister Midnight — said. “Get out of here.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll make sure you never walk again, Void.”
Caleb’s attacker — apparently named “Void” — let out a sigh. “You just don’t know when to quit, do you?” he asked.
“You’re trespassing on my grounds,” Midnight said. “Again. I’d say you’re the one who doesn’t know when to quit. So?” He spread his hands. Each of his index fingers bore a single ring inset with a black stone. “Want to settle this once and for all? Or do you want to live to fight another day?”
Void scoffed, but turned away. “You don’t know what you’re messing with, Midnight,” he said.
“I know enough,” Midnight replied. Void’s body suddenly warped, twisted, and shrank in on itself until he vanished.
“What…” Caleb started, rising to his feet. “I, um… thank you. For saving me.”
“Don’t mention it,” Midnight said. He was still standing with his back to Caleb, watching the spot where Void had disappeared, as if expecting him to come back. “You were the one calling my name, right? I hope you have a good reason.”
Caleb nodded. “I was,” he said, clenching and unclenching his fists and wincing at the pain in his arms. “And I do. I’m here because I need someone to teach me to use Time Magic properly.”
Midnight turned around, glowering at Caleb. “Madame Chronos sent you?” he asked. Caleb nodded, and Midnight scoffed, looking away. “That old bat again? She never knows what’s good for her. She didn’t think to send you to Professor Hawthorn?”
“She gave me the option,” Caleb said.
Midnight blinked twice, eyes widening slightly. “You chose to come to me?” he asked. “Really? The old bat didn’t set you straight?”
“She said it would be more dangerous,” Caleb said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the crumpled reference letter, holding it out. “But she didn’t say it was impossible.”
“You’re crazy, kid,” Midnight said with a smirk. He plucked the letter from Caleb’s hand and tossed it over the bridge’s edge. Caleb watched in shock as it drifted out of sight. “I don’t care about letters. You told me all I need to know. I can put you on a train to Hawthorn if you like. But if you really want me to teach you, I won’t refuse.” He sighed. “I watched your fight. You didn’t use any Time Magic.”
“Madame Chronos told me not to,” Caleb said. “Until I learn to better use it. She said if I used it again without training, I’d end up a permanent resident of Chronoshin.”
“You’ve got it that bad, at your age?” Midnight’s eyes flashed with surprise, but only for a brief moment. “You live life on the edge. I’m willing to teach you, but…” He looked back towards where Void had vanished. “Void was waiting for someone — a Human, like you.”
“And?” Caleb asked.
“And that means a lot of things,” Midnight said. “None of them good. Come with me. We can talk inside. If Void’s able to contact Humans now, then you and everyone you care about is in a lot of danger.”
“What do you —” Caleb started.
“I said we’d talk inside, didn’t I?” Midnight asked, his voice sharp. “Grab your things and follow me. Gotta get you cleaned up, too. I doubt those wounds tickle.”
So Caleb grabbed his suitcase, carrying it with quite a bit of difficulty, and followed after Mister Midnight. The man walked fast across the bridge, with long strides. Caleb, injured as he was, had a rough time keeping up. And he had a million questions.
But he hadn’t died. He’d met his new teacher. And he was smiling.
He was one step closer to reuniting with the others.
Chapter 24: Birth of a Summon
— G —
Chelsea wasn’t nearly as enamored with the Will Wisps as the others.
As she watched Lorelei laugh with glee at the touch of another Wisp, she pursed her lips in frustration. “Doesn’t it hurt at all?”
“What are you talking about?” Lorelei asked. “It feels amazing!”
Well, I’ll just leave that alone, then.
For her, touching the Will Wisps was… strange. She could understand what the others were getting, and she herself did feel some of that joy. But… it hurt.
Sometimes quite a lot.
Her first contact with a Will Wisp had flooded her with complicated emotions, dredging up some of her own frustrating feelings in response to Caleb leaving. She knew he’d be back, but… she had so much to tell him. She’d been ready to talk to him about everything, but now…
Every moment Caleb was away from her, she felt less sure of being so open with him.
Doubt and confusion plagued her. The brief gasps of joy emanating from the different Wisps quickly gave way to painful
shocks, like electricity zapping her fingertips. Was it the Wisps, or was it her? Or was it some combination of them both?
I know you guys are trying to talk to us. So what are you trying to tell me?
“You okay?” Lorelei asked. Chelsea looked up and realized that the group had been leaving, heading in the direction Gwen indicated.
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