1:00 PM September 13th 2026

Street that the New York Preparatory Academy is on.

Jones was catching his breath after he and Kyle had cut a swath through a literal horde of monsters. Big monsters, too. Made from fucking vehicles. Like cars and SUV’s and shit.

And it had been easy. Really easy. Way too easy.

Why had that been so easy?

Sure, it was class one and class two monsters, but that didn’t explain how easily they’d massacred monsters made of actual living metal. But behind them, all the manifestations were dead. Their carcasses already losing its false matter to arcane sublimation as it evaporated away. They stank, the organic components rotting faster with the high ambient magic of the area.

He’d never seen someone wielding magic like the apprentice warlock of the archivist just had. Not even the kid’s famous mother could bend magic to her very will like that. Was it even legal for a non-enlisted mage to wield magic like that?

Nausea roiled in Jones’ guts as he realized that he may now have a new phobia of the stereotypical academic librarian looking kind of guys. The reason behind that being the fact that Kyle was the least impressive looking person one might ever meet. He was just average in every aspect of his looks. From his height to his hair, to his personality, to his general attractiveness, even his intellect and normal magical ability was exceedingly average. How had this unstoppable mad man switched places with the affable, cautious, young nerd who worked in a museum?

Taking a quick sip of water from a canteen, Jones wondered, yet again, if the new rumors were true about Kyle. Because as he surreptitiously watched his charge from the corner of his eyes, Kyle looked like maybe…just maybe…he knew what he was doing. Cold flinty hardness had overtaken his gaze, replacing the spark of friendly humor. It drew attention to the keen intellect that must have always been hiding there.

Scanning the street for more immediate threats, Kyle stood guard as Jones rested. Finally ready to proceed again, Jones replaced the cap on his canteen and stored it on the bottom of the bandolier it had come on. An odd place for a canteen, but it was museum issue gear. Only once Jones had taken over watching for threats did Kyle take the time to relax and have a drink himself. It was fast. Efficient.

Kyle wasn’t wasting time.

With a silent nod to each other, the pair left the shade and shelter of the building they’d stopped in. Returning to the center of the street, the pair began walking at a quick pace toward the school. Most of the remaining monsters were there and they were not happy. Luckily, those monsters had yet to notice Kyle the two men coming up the street behind them.

At first, Jones had been puzzled by the lack of response from the larger horde as he and Kyle were cutting, eviscerating, and alchemy shotgun shelling their way loudly, very loudly, through the monsters gathered near the blockade. But as the pair of men drew closer to their goal, the specialist realized that the monsters were fixated on the school and a wall of ice that they were frantically trying to dig their way through.

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To the tasty morsels of people within the ice encased building.

Because it was ice encased. What seemed like a vertical wall of ice, was met at the roofline by a flattish dome that encompassed the entire building. Monsters of various sizes – most in the sedan to sport utility vehicle range – surrounded the abstract bubble of ice.

“I see Anna’s been holding the line.” It was the first thing Kyle had said, growled really, since they’d started fighting. Monster fluids had stuck his pants to his legs up to the knee and he kept trying to shake the clinging fabric away from his skin. Guts and shattered windshield bits splattered his chest up the side of his neck where a blood vessel throbbed angrily. This was the first time that Kyle had a bit of a facial tick when he clenched his teeth that way. “Those fucking bastards couldn’t even evacuate all the kids.”

“She did that on her own?” Jones was… yeah… that was impressive. A kid doing that kind of magic? That was pretty damned good.

“Yeah.” Kyle wiped his sweaty face on his shoulder then spat as he got monster muck smeared across his lips. “Bah.’

“The entire building?” It was not long after midday and the sun was angling down between he taller buildings around them so Jones was shading his eyes with one hand to see better.

“Probably.” The apprentice warlock sucked his teeth a bit before spitting again as he continued forward determinedly. His head swiveled from side to side looking for threats from the damaged lower floors of the buildings. Within the buildings, the higher floors were quiet.

“How do you know it’s all her?” Yes. He knew he should have kept his mouth shut. But the question had popped out unbidden. Also, if they drew a monster out of a building, it was one less monster the survivors hiding inside wouldn’t have to deal with.

There were survivors. There had to be. Evidence of magical battles and residents or employees fleeing were everywhere. Bridges of vines from someone who worked plant magic were retracting slowly from a third story window. A flare of light went off two blocks ahead of them where the next concentration of monsters started.

“I recognize my sister’s magic. There’s – ” Here Kyle paused as if he wasn’t sure how to describe what he meant so the warlock’s next works surprised Jones immensely, “…I’m not sure if I should tell you if you don’t already know. But magic, has a… flavor. Which most people know. But there’s a nuance to different sources. Not just fire or ice, but if you’re familiar with a person’s magic, you can tell when a spell or magic comes from them. That’s Anna’s ice. I can taste it in the air.”

“Oh.” When he put it that way, it made sense to Jones. “Like the way the weather changes before snow? Or old people with old injuries who can feel the rain coming?”

“Something like that.” A rueful smile played at Kyle’s lips as he chuckled darkly. But the focus of his gaze never left the dome of ice they were approaching, nor the mass of monsters spread across the no longer pristine green lawn of the school. Their lunging, lumping gaits had torn chunks out of the turf and huge gashes of bare soil marred the landscape. He slowed as they neared the next corner, holding up a hand to indicate he wanted to stop.

Jones heard it too. More clumping and lumping of partially transformed monster manifestations hunting awkwardly on their rubber paws. A small herd that seemed to have made it through whatever barricade that should have been here as they sounded too far away to just be harassing the local swat. The were returning though. The crunching of pavement and the squealing of metal on metal as their organic monster parts integrated with their non-organic immovable parts.

In front and among there were dozens and dozens of smaller, extremely vicious little monsters. They were boxy, kind of like whatever they had been manifested out of had been rectangular blocks with pointed tops. Leaking a white fluid from their whitish bodies as they went, these smaller monsters were agile, leaping from the ground to ride other monsters, or darting into buildings with their nimble little legs gnashing wide mouths that almost split them vertically.

“What in the hell are those? Is that milk? Are those milk cartons? And milk jugs?” Following the little swarm, Jones realized that the building they had been going into and coming out from was a grocery store. “Milk jug monsters. Well, I never.”

Kyle’s shoulders slumped like a kid who’d just been told he had to do his homework before he could go out and play.

“Ugh! We don’t have time for this. Jones. Can you buy me ten seconds. I need to do something stupid.”