After a rather delicious breakfast, Kyle headed out for an absolutely average day at work. Before leaving he gave his sister a very stern warning to stay inside once again. Which she agreed to with suspicious ease.

“This is weird.” He muttered giving her the side-eye as he donned his warlock’s robe.

“What’s weird? I run away to your place on the weekend all the time.” She responded, petting her new favorite prism in the palm of one hand as it buzzed with electricity and gave off little streams of cold vapor that pooled around its feet.

“Not that. That’s fine.” Kyle corrected, blowing it off as nothing. “I mean you being all compliant.”

“Hey,” Anna paused in petting her prism in outrage to mock punch Kyle gently on the arm. “I’m a good girl.” Her high-pitched defense was both amusing and didn’t do much to settle Kyle’s own nerves. “Who do you think I am, Sam?” A lightbulb went off with Kyle’s mind with the force of an atomic bomb and his mouth dropped open.

“You did.” Anna shrieked and this time her punch was actually a little forceful.

“Oww.” Kyle reached up and rubbed his bicep where she’d landed a solid but not damaging hit.

“You were anticipating Sam and Gleipnir behavior instead of treating me like me, a person who has never actively – ” Here she paused and corrected herself, “d – erm, that is, until recently, and only that one time because I was being bullied, broken any rules. Ever.” She finished her tirade and crossed her arms in a classic Anna glower while she waited for his response. A pained expression passed over Kyle’s face and rubbed that spot from the bridge of his nose to just between the eyebrows where he and their mom both got migraines.

“You’re right.” He sighed, feeling like absolute garbage for doing that to Anna. He’d hated it when his parents treated him like he was one of their older siblings they were either always expecting great things from him or expecting so much trouble. “You are a great kid. You always behave, you are more patient and amenable than anyone should ever have to be. And I shouldn’t have let my negative experiences with The Prodigy of Pain influence what I think about you. Will you forgive me, Snow Cone?” He gave her a hopeful smile and held out a hand for a shake.

“Hmmm.” Anna’s brown eyes narrowed at her brother with suspicion. “Maybe. Pinky swear that you won’t treat me with distrust because Sam and Gleipnir were hellions.” Kyle agreed and closed the fingers of the hand he’d been holding out to immediately have just the pinky extended. They shook. He hugged his sister. Then he said proper goodbyes and left, whistling his way through the park to the museum.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

It was a good day. And the nice weather was holding despite him bringing down the Wrath of Zeus days before. Though it was weird to see the park so deserted. With the ambient magic levels still abnormally high, the golems were still active. No more monsters were visible, so he supposed the doughnut bike was in squishy pieces somewhere.

But there were no people about and Kyle wondered where they all were. Had a force come to evacuate those who had taken refuge in the museum? It had to have been yesterday while he was working because any point before that might have been too dangerous with monster manifestations happening all over.

“On the other hand,” the warlock muttered darkly to himself, “that officer in command was such a moronic idiot he might have actively been trying to evacuate people prior to getting the monsters and AMD under control. Fucking idiot.”

A corona of magic burst into a rainbow of activated energy around him at his frustration. Much like what had happened the last time the golems stopped him, only far, far more powerful.

“Oh, shit.” He cried out with horror. “No, no, no, no, no. Not right now.” Frantically, Kyle tried to put out the magic he’d unintentionally channeled with his emotions. There was no way that the security golems were not going to notice this. Sure enough, in the distance came the characteristic whumff of a largescale fireball spell igniting.

He turned toward the sound, scanning the green landscape and between the trees so he’d know which direction he needed to shield. Then he heard another whumff. Then another. And three more in close succession. All from different directions.

“Oh. Shit.” He spun slowly spotting some of the car sized flaming orbs before they were thrown and some as they were already in transit through the air. Towards him. Without thought of the consequences, Kyle drew power through himself from the ambient magic and cast the strongest protective spell he could think of at the moment. “Shield of Aeneas – no fuck! That only works on forged items.”

It was too late. He’d cast the spell and couldn’t stop it. The agonizing and wonderful rush of so many arcanes raced into him and out into the spell. This time, it was without the buffering assistance of his codex which was uncharacteristically inert while its warlock was in danger.

Kyle doubled over, falling to his knees. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Even without his codex he should have been able to channel this much magic on his own as a wizard. What had he done wrong? Over his head the fantastical images of the history of Rome’s founding danced in choreographed light. They weren’t protecting the suffering warlock from the defensive assault he was under, and the fireballs passed right through.

He couldn’t appreciate it. Kyle could barely see it. He could also barely see Jones running toward him across the lawn pointing frantically with his wand. Kyle could see Jones’ mouth moving, but he couldn’t hear Jones’ shouts over the explosions impacting the shield Jones had erected over Kyle’s head in the moments before it failed.