For the second time that month Issac found himself staring at the weirdly decorated door of Office 15. The engravings of trees seemed to be swaying from invisible wind, and the scenery looked almost peaceful under a red light. It was almost as if the sun was setting bathing the forest in the last light of sunset.

But the red light wasn’t the peaceful rays of the setting sun. No, it was the red of an enraging fire. A fire that consumed everything and left only its ashes behind. Behind Issac flames engulfed the entire warehouse, climbing the walls and clinging to the metal frame of the building turning a once prominent building into a tinderbox lighting up the night sky atop the mountain.

Everywhere you looked red and golden flames filled your vision. Smoke hung in the air choking out the oxygen, its black haze clinging to him as he stood staring at the door in front of him.

Not even the bodies on the floor were spared from the fire. Members of the Angels lay all around him dead. Killed by the fire or a bullet he didn’t know and he didn’t care, not anymore. Either way, their bodies burned just the same. Their blood pooled on the ground spreading the fire like gasoline.

He could smell their baking bodies even up here on the top floor. The smell was terrible, like a burning heap of garbage.

But to Issac, none of this mattered to him, not the flames, the smoke, or the smell. All he could think of was how the door in front of him was glowing with a brilliant light.

Magic really is the most wonderful thing in the world. Almost like a bucket of paint given so we may paint a mosaic across this drab and dull world.

Magic is the one thing that connects everything in creation together. There is nothing in this world that doesn't have magic in it, around it, or is made of it. Every breath taken or food eaten carries the smallest spark of magic, a spark that can grow into an inferno.

Magic connects the physical with the spiritual, the dreams to reality. A collision of two completely separate things and with it a miracle was formed. Life would have no meaning, no spark without the miracle that is magic

The only problem with magic is being able to control it. Without a proper sense of focus or a strong will, Issac could have very well lost his mind when he first reached out to the magic around him. Like the winds of a tornado, it grabbed him and dragged him further and further into the storm of magic.

It was the single most terrifying thing that had ever happened to him, he was lucky that he had not fully thrust his mind into the storm of magic allowing him to “ride the wind” back into his body. If he wasn't able to do that he would have never made it back into his body.

But he will never forget what the storm of magic had felt like. It was as if his mind was being eroded by the winds, lighting fried his nerves, and his entire being was being torn apart and absorbed into the storm.

It was the greatest thing that he had ever felt, the feeling that his mind was being slowly broken into pieces, and yet the way that he was able to ride the storm back into his body was glorious.

An experience like that would have many people never touching magic again, others would be more careful and few would seek to control the storm around them. But to Issac, the feeling of pulling his mind back from the brink of consumption was the greatest drug in the world. He couldn’t help himself, he would always go back, just for a taste.

When he was younger Issac could spend days just bathing in the feeling of the magic around him. The way it electrified his skin, the way it breathed its energy through him, was just so intoxicating. Unfortunately, he learned that his will just wasn't strong enough to control the magic around him. Whenever he tried his mind would just be pulled right back in.

So instead he turned to the magic inside of himself, the energy that had been bathed in his consciousness every day since he was born. This magic, he could control, could be gathered and spread throughout his body, making him stronger, faster, and altogether better. By combining his magic into objects he was able to create the tools that he would always carry with him.

The one that he loved the most would undoubtedly be his satchel. By stitching a simple image of an anchor around the rim of the bag Issac was able to suspend a pocket of space that he had ripped from the bag. Then delicately he expanded that pocket to allow far more space to fit inside the satchel, using the satchel's own body as a barrier to keep the space contained.

This led to having a bag of at most 12 cubic feet to having something that was at least ten times that. The only downside was that his runes had to be redone every few months as the space would then deteriorate his runes, breaking them and collapsing the space within.

He had to learn to do this the hard way when his first satchel imploded on itself destroying all of his belongings and everything in a 2-meter radius. Luckily he didn't have it on him at the time, but he did lose a safe house in the process.

He then moved on to creating what would become his armor from that success.

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His regular clothes would have to be something that would blend into the night. A simple black long-sleeve with black pants, both being loose so that they wouldn't cause any discomfort, would be the start. Then using a thin silver wire he created pathways for his magic to travel throughout the fabric increasing the durability and at the same time accidentally creating a weird temperature control depending on how he fed his magic through the wire.

Since he never planned to keep wearing the same clothes over and over again his clothes were purposely made simple so that they could be easily replaced. Of course, this also had the effect of causing their durability to be somewhat low. To compensate for that he would need to have something that he could wear at all times, something that would last longer than his other clothes

To create the best possible armor he would need to find materials that could resonate with his very soul.

To Issac magic was something that not only touched the physical plane but also the mental, so the more emotional and attached he was the stronger the connection his magic had with the object.

Using bull leather from Texas Issac created a simple poncho with a hood sewn into it for further cover. The poncho had a flat square finish that reached down past his knees and then tanned black to match his clothes. With a cotton thread, he created a complex pattern of overlapping squares covering the entire poncho, both the outside as well as the inside, then again coloring the outside black.

A poncho was the historical clothing worn by the ancestral Mexicans as protective clothing against the weather and the elements. This connecting him to his heritage would provide the shape and the direction of his armor. The bull, a well-known symbol around the world for protection, patience, and strength would act as the main body of the poncho.

The squares sewn would provide the poncho with stability, keeping all the ideas connected with the magic and hopefully making the magic long-lasting. Finally, the cotton grown around the fields of Texas would give the hope of wealth and well-being.

Throughout the entire process, Issac was constantly feeding a steady stream of magic into the material, from the tanning of the raw dead hide to the sewing of the white cotton, he never once stopped bathing it in with his energy.

The poncho that he got when he was finished was stronger than he ever thought possible. The hide acted like a steel plate, able to stop blows and protect him from bullets. Thanks to the symbolic nature of the poncho it also protected all types of weather or temperate, once to test it he threw the poncho right into the furnace and found that after a few hours, it still hadn't caught on fire much less singed.

Unfortunately, the weapons that he wanted weren’t something that he could create. In Issac's mind, a weapon was something that you carried with you from the first moment that you got it to your death. So making a weapon only to later make something better to replace it just didn't seem right.

So he only carried around weapons that could easily be replaced, two knives strapped to his thighs, four collapsible staffs that were attached to his belt, and a modified sniper rifle that carried the strongest silencer that he could find. And a pair of short staffs that he could use for rune carving.

With his study of magic came the creation of his personal spells.

Name was a rather simple spell that was based on his love for games. Through this spell, Issac made it so that by connecting his line of sight with someone he could ‘look’ into who they are and see their Name, or at least the name that they connect to the most. And as long as they attributed it to their name he could also get glimpses of who they were and their actions.

Unfortunately, he couldn't find a way to extend it further or do the spell without the first line of sight. But hopefully, in the future, he could make this spell his specialty.

His last spell was the one that he used the most, able to be used on multiple people in multiple ways. Mind on the other hand was more complex. It was a spell that could influence or at times control someone's mind. By creating a bridge between the minds Issac would then use his will to input a command in the brain of his victim.

The true beauty of this spell is that it acts almost like a virus, with an input command of building more bridges with other minds Issac forces what little magic his victims have to continue the spell able to create a sort of connecting network. Allowing him to influence multiple people at the same time instead of trying to connect to hundreds of people at the same time.

Usually, he just used this spell to slip by people unnoticed, forcing them to miss him as he walked by, but if he truly forced he could command thousands.

Magic really was the most wonderful thing, and he was truly thankful to have found it. And yet despite his love for magic he still found himself stuck standing in front of Office 15, reminiscing about all the fun that he had over the years discovering his magic.

He was stuck because he was scared, scared that he would be disappointed again. He thought that after so long he had finally found someone like him, someone who could see the wonders that he could, someone who could share in his joy and excitement.

It didn't matter if they were enemies, as long as they stayed with him he could continue finding new and more wondrous things about magic. Their fights would go on for days, their stories would be told all over the world.

After every fight, they would go back and study and find new ways to get stronger and make better and more powerful spells, and every time each spell got stronger and stronger.

And then they died.

They died in the most pathetic, disappointing way. The very first magical person that he ever met, and they died before he could have his fun.

Now he stands before someone new, the same as the one before, and he wonders ‘Will this be the same’? At the end of it all will he stand alone with nothing but his disappointment? Will his disappointment then turn to hatred, hatred for his magic, the one thing that brought him the most joy?

If no one else could stand with him, what was the point of it all? If this guy only brought him more disappointment, then he doesn't know what he will do.

He opened the door.