Chapter 5 Melodia

School had been an absolute disaster. Instead of being the day I finally patched things up with Anna, today was the day she chose to make me her mortal enemy. My plan to bond over Pickati's safety had failed, and had left me with nothing.

It started the second I walked into class. Instead of ignoring me like she had usually done these past few days, she came at me with everything she had. From the first second, I was hit by the most intense glare she could muster. And no matter what I did or how much time passed, it never ended. She didn't even try to talk to me or anything, just silent seething anger.

Leaving class didn't help either. Every time I walked through the crowded hallways, I could feel her eyes on me. But every time I turned around to look for her, she was gone. No matter where I went, it was like she was right behind me. I never knew I could miss feeling alone in a crowd like this.

By the time I managed to crawl my way out of school, I felt like my soul was dead. Forget talking to Anna about Pickati, I hadn't been able to speak to anyone about anything all day. I hadn't even been able to talk when the teacher called on me, and I was normally able to do that with no issue.

My day only started looking up when I made it back home and noticed the empty driveway. Mom must not have made it home from work yet. It wasn't something which happened a lot, but it did happen a little more often once we started getting into spring. Either way, I had the house to myself for a little while, so no awkward questions about why I was coming home looking dead on my feet.

I didn't even bother starting my homework like I always did. Instead, I made a beeline for my room and launched myself onto my bed. I groaned into my pillow as I felt the weight of the day's events. I could rest here for a little while until I was ready to do anything else.

"Rough day?" I let out a yelp and jumped off my bed. My eyes darted across the room until they fell on Pickati who was floating above my desk. I hadn't even noticed him when I had walked into the room.

"I guess," I half admitted before walking over to my desk and sitting down. He spread his wings down and landed on the desk too. I guess those wings of his weren't just for show.

"Do you want to wait a little while before I tell you what you need to know?" he offered as I thought it over. The honest answer was yes, but somehow I had the feeling putting off this conversation any longer was a bad idea. Might as well get it over with. Plus maybe it would even help distract me from the rest of my day.

"No, start now," I told him as I made myself comfortable in my chair.

"Okay, I suppose I should start with the basics to make sure we cover all our bases. As you could probably tell, that which most would call magic is real," I had figured as much, but more details were always helpful. "Long ago, when magic was much more common than it was now, there was a powerful, yet nameless spirit of destruction. Imagine a living storm of mayhem the size of a hurricane."

I blinked and took a second to imagine something that size and fought back the shiver going down my spine. "Eventually, the spirit became too dangerous and four powerful ancient magi joined forces to stop it. But they were unable to destroy this spirit, so they were forced to merely seal it away. With the spirit only sealed, the magi grew worried. With enough time, people would forget the spirit, and it would have an easier time escaping."

"That is where I come in," Pickati gestured towards himself, "the four magi took all of their magical knowledge and a good chunk of their power and shaped them into four holders of magic who would sleep until the day the seal began to weaken. Our duty would be to search out four warriors and give them the magic needed to keep the spirit of destruction sealed away."

He looked up at me and gave a slight frown.

"By giving you this power, I have marked you as one of the four warriors. I should have told you all of this before you accepted, but… well you remember what kind of state I was in."

I mean, it made sense. He had been hurt pretty badly, and if it had been worse and he died before he could give someone the powers, they would be down one warrior for their fight. And if this spirit of destruction was as dangerous as it sounded, then that might have been a chance they couldn't have afforded to take. Now for my next question.

"And the monster?"

"That part's a bit more complicated. I'll tell you what I know, but keep in mind I'm working off incomplete information myself," I frowned, I guess Pickati wouldn't have all the answers after all. "In order to free itself, the spirit needs to make itself stronger. The best way to do that would be to cause chaos and destruction on the other side of the seal to feed on. From what we can tell, it's planning on doing this by creating monsters called dolls."

I guess that explained the monster I fought. I was about to ask my last question when a nervous expression came over his face.

"Well, it's not creating them directly. From what we can tell, the spirit created a few intelligent dolls to create the other ones and lead them in battle. We've only met one so far, a brute named Break. Everything we know about the dolls, we know because of his boasting, including their name."

I nodded as the mental image of a pyramid formed in my head. A big boss at the top, then some general's right below him, and then a whole bunch of soldiers right below them. It made sense to me, so now I really only had one last question left.

"Why me?" I pointed to myself. Of all the people in the world to give this power to, why pick me? I was just some twelve year old kid who had trouble talking to people. Why not give it to a cop or a soldier or anyone else who already knew how to fight?

"Do you mean why you a child, or why you in particular?" Well I suppose I wanted to know both.

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"Yes," I said plainly while nodding.

"I'll start with the first question. And in order to answer it, I'll have to explain a little of how magic works," a small ball of light came out of him and started floating up into the air in front of me. After a little while, it shaped itself into the outline of a person. After another second, a second one appeared next to it.

"Magic is often something people are born with. Roughly half of the people in the world are born with the potential to use magic," another orb of light appeared inside one of the outlines. But if half of the world was born without magic, why was it so rare?

"However there is a catch," I blinked as Pickati started to answer my new question without me needing to even ask it. "Potential means nothing if it is never used," the ball of light inside the little outline started to shrink, "as a person gets older, their magic starts to fade. Unless another magic user helps them awaken their magic, it shrivels up and dies by the time they're an adult."

"No adults," I muttered as he nodded and his face soured.

"That's right. The magic usually starts fading around the age of twelve and it's mostly gone by the age of fourteen. As distasteful as I find it, children your age are as old as we can go before the magic starts to fade," his sour expression softened a little before looking up at me. "As for why you specifically. I had several candidates lined up before everything happened. You were the oldest, seemed to be the most responsible, and the closest."

I let myself focus on the second part of what he said and smiled. Oh wait, the first part meant if I wasn't around, someone even younger would have been picked.

"Originally, I wanted to tell you all of this before offering you these powers. Give you time to think it over and make your choice. But… well you remember what happened," he grimaced and physically braced himself for something. "And now comes the big question. With everything you know and the fight you had yesterday, will you keep fighting and help keep the spirit of destruction sealed away?"

I looked at Pickati and really thought about what he was asking me. I would have to fight more monsters like the one from yesterday. Did I really want that, fighting over and over again, and all for the sake of…?

Wait there was one more question I needed to ask. A single factor which could make or break it for me.

"What if it's free?" I did not like the look on his face when I said that.

"Do you have a map? One of the North American continent would be preferred," I nodded before taking out one of my school books. I opened it to the maps in the back as Pickati created a small dot over Southern Florida, roughly where we were. As soon as it settled, it expanded into a ring eventually covering the whole metro area. "This part would be instantly destroyed," the ring expanded until it was covering all of Florida, parts of Georgia and Alabama, and a good chunk of Cuba, "and this area would become unfit for human survival for centuries. From there the only question is what direction the spirit moves in."

As soon as he said that, lines came out of the circle. It took me a moment to recognize them as paths the circle could move. Either north through the east coast or west through the gulf coast. Either one would be pretty bad, and I was pretty sure we had family in both directions.

It had taken so much for us to move out from our old home and come here to South Palm city. This was our home now, and I was pretty sure there was no way we could leave to go somewhere else. I really only had two options. I could either give up these powers and live in fear that whoever got them would mess up, or I could do it myself. Fight on my own terms and protect my own family.

There was no contest.

"Where do we start?" I gave him a determined look as my fist clenched up.

"Well," he smirked as he took off and started floating around me in a circle, "you already managed to transform on your own, so lesson one's out of the way. Am I also correct to assume you managed to use Gravity Crush during your fight with the doll?" I simply nodded.

"In that case the two most vital and important lessons are done which means we're up to step three," he gave me a knowing smile. "The next step is to wake your magic."

wake… was I about to learn magic! Take all of my hesitation and 'oh I'll only do it to protect my family' stuff and throw it out the window! If I could cast magic then that was all the push I needed to take the deal. I'd be able to make myself stronger, or fly or create little black holes…

Wait a second.

"I thought I already…" I looked at Pickati who gave a small nod.

"Well yes and no," he created another little outline of a person. "Think of magic like this. There's a tank or storage where you keep your magic. When you need it, you pour it into a container like a cup, and casting a spell is using what's inside the cup. The power I gave you is like plugging you into another, much larger tank. It can allow you to do some impressive magic, but it's not your own supply. That's what we're going to be trying to awaken."

So I would be able to use my own magic without transforming? Sounded pretty good to me. I shuffled around in my chair for a second before spotting a certain complication. Sitting on my bed was my book bag with my unfinished homework inside. If I didn't deal with that first, I would have more problems to deal with.

"Homework first," I groaned as I got to my feet and grabbed my bag.

"Right, homework," Pickati mumbled as I started taking my books out of the bag. "I guess that one's on me for picking 'responsible' as one of main characteristics for my candidate," he landed on my bed and curled himself up, "try to get it done quickly, we only have a few days until the next predicted doll attack. I'll be working on my lesson plan in the meantime."

I nodded to him before getting to work.