Haochen’s letter arrives one afternoon, asking for Luca and Nicholas. Luca frets about it for a few hours, going back and forth about whether to bring Nicholas with him or to even go at all.
Haochen seems to have attempted to make amends and he wouldn’t have bothered if he wasn’t committed, so that’s a good sign.
Luca wants to be upset with Wei about the fight but…Wei has done far worse for far less than Nicholas had been mocking him with. Even Stavros is more vicious to people who just bump into him in the halls. Luca forgets that Wei doesn’t know Nicholas -that he doesn’t know Luca- and that Wei will react like Nicholas is a genuine threat and not just a bored, slightly misbehaved boy.
Not that Luca is biased or anything.
Nicholas doesn’t see any problem with going because he's already completely forgotten the fight, so Luca is left to decide, feeling like he’s holding his dad’s life in his hands and it’s a panic-inducing thought. Luca thinks Wei should be in control of himself now if it truly was disorientation from being formed and that Haochen needs Nicholas so the high mage won’t let things devolve so far – but Luca has been wrong before.
Luca makes a choice, and hates himself a little because it’s not based on Nicholas’ safety. Luca makes the choice to go because he needs to know what Haochen and Wei are doing now that Wei is formed.
However, Luca is still not letting down his guard. He steps slightly in front of Nicholas first as soon as the teleportation circle drops them off, prepared to be the distraction so Nicholas can run if things go south.
“Weiwei,” Nicholas chirps out the nickname.
"Nicholas," Wei greets, icy. He’s standing by the doorway, arms crossed and leaning against the wooden frame, decked out in fancy outer robes of soft charcoal and sharp garnet embroidery. His eyes slide across to Luca. “If you’re wondering, yes, we’re aware you’re from the future.”
Luca sighs. “That was fast.”
Wei raises an eyebrow. “I absorb your magic and you think I don’t immediately do every test possible on it? I’m also well aware that you have my magic too – not just Haochen’s but my piece.”
“Did you get it out?" Luca asks, hand coming up to his stomach because he knows he technically didn’t eat Wei’s soul but he still assumes it stayed in his stomach.
"You grew around it, I couldn't get everything," Wei says simply, unconcerned because he has the important part.
"So what do I have left?" Luca asks.
"What I couldn’t get out," Wei sneers.
Luca purses his lips. "So where do we stand?"
Wei shrugs carelessly. “I don’t mean to completely shatter your sense of self-worth or anything but you’re really not a threat and honestly, both Haochen and I have better things to be doing. Keep your head down like you have been, there won’t be a problem.”
Wei straightens up from the doorway. “Come, we’ll be writing letters to each other as evidence of our friendly correspondence over the years.” He turns on a heel and leads the way through the manor.
Luca grimaces because if they’re setting up ‘years’ then Nicholas may no longer have a reason to deny being an ally of Haochen since the kidnapping will be explained away by the false letters. “You exist then? You got an identity?”
“Still Wei Zhang,” the other boy mutters, acidic.
All four children of the previous Crane Sect leader -born to three different wives- were all named Wei Zhang. The same character spelling, the same meaning, just replacements of each other.
Haochen chose his own name when he ascended to sect leader himself, as is usually done. This was two hours after he had killed his own father.
In those brief two hours between, he spent the time discussing with his siblings and the previous sect leader's wives exactly how they would die if they were stupid enough to defy him.
“What a dickhead,” Nicholas whispers. “Haochen really calmed down with age, didn’t he?”
“I heard that,” Wei snaps.
Nicholas skips off with exaggerated cheer. “Coming, Xiao Wei, my dearest friend!”
“Whatever Chinese you’re saying to him, please stop, you’re giving me anxiety,” Luca mutters as he follows.
----------------------------------------
Nicholas is sitting cross-legged on the thick rug across the short coffee table from Luca, with Wei to the side and Haochen sitting on an armchair behind Nicholas and reading a book.
The three teenagers are scribbling out fake letters but they’ve kind of lost the plot on this pen pal thing and are now currently outlining a shared plan to sell the citadel’s feast leftovers to nostalgia-driven alumni who are only just sending their children to the island as well and thus also have empty nest syndrome, so they’ll be more vulnerable.
It’s only been a hypothetical week since their plan started and Wei already wants to drive up the cost of their dishes because they’ve cornered a niche market and have the monopoly so who’s going to stop them.
Luca is slowly trying to talk Wei down because they hypothetically don’t need that much money even with the unethical shares in several mage companies they’re going halfsies in buying-
(Unethical only according to first world standards, Luca, Wei writes, completely serious.)
-and wow, you’re really cunning rather shrewd entrepreneurial but maybe focus on your hypothetical home tutors because you’re pretending to be Haochen’s son so surely you’ll have time to fuck enough people over later in life that you don’t need to get a head start now.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Nicholas takes a whole other turn and cites the manpower for the leftover food collection, stasis charms and coaxing carrier pigeons is hypothetically detracting from Nicholas’ messing around extracurriculars so perhaps they should instead focus on high-tier and more expensive products by volunteering to clean up the potions lab so Mrs Saad can run off and leave them to bottle the demonstration cauldron before selling the professional potions.
Haochen, reading these letters because they’ll be used as evidence later, needs to step in and reiterate to the boys that they should write innocent childhood things such as – and then he gestures vaguely because fuck if Haochen has ever understood how children work even when he was one himself.
“-turns out it’s considered Dark magic,” Nicholas is saying because he’s now trying to describe an innocent childhood experience that they can use in the letters and has instead gotten side-tracked by another Chaotic Day In The Life Of Nicholas and Friends story.
“Making bubbles is Dark?” Luca asks in confusion. “How?”
“It’s bullshit, right!” Nicholas cries. “Because it was based on a wind spell from NatCom which I didn’t know because I learned it from watching. I didn’t even feel the strain because I’ve got too much…a-anyway, that’s not important. So it’s Dark because the spell is NatCom and I’m InCore but it’s bubbles so it’s all fucking ridiculous anyway. But someone -a RitCast because of course- goes and tattles to his mum who then rants to some random Secretary of State about it.”
Haochen looks up from his book, sitting on an armchair behind Nicholas and smirks. “Oh, I did hear about this one.”
Nicholas gestures behind him. “There you go – true story! So the Secretary -thinking he’s got to stamp out a young ‘Dark mage’ before I grow up and terrorise the population- arrives at dinner time in the dining hall with eight magpol!”
Nicholas throws his pen down. “They come up to me, tell me my crime like I should be ashamed and demand I come with them – I’m thirteen and I’m bloody incredulous, I’m like; what part of making bubbles to annoy year sevens is Dark magic?” Nicholas scoffs. “You know what I did?”
“Talked it out calmly?” Luca sighs because Nicholas’ stories always get worse.
“I tell the Secretary to suck my dick, then climb up on the table and announce that if I’m going to jail, I’m going to damn well deserve it,” Nicholas snaps. “I cast the bubbles again and I’m like; look, Dark magic, arrest me bitch.”
Wei puts an elbow on the table and his head in a hand.
“Everyone is shouting,” Nicholas continues. “The other students are clearing the way, Selwood is trying to push through the crowd and a magpol tries to grab me so Stavros -I love that boy- kicks her off, climbs up on the table next to me and goes; you want to see Dark magic? I’ll show you Dark magic!”
Nicholas puts a hand over his mouth, eyes wide. “He slits his wrist and starts a blood ritual to summon a Lambros House deity.”
“What?!” Luca and Wei shout at the same time.
“He can’t,” Haochen retorts, just as invested in this story now that interesting magic has come into play. “That would take months of preparation and far more than blood.”
Nicholas twists to see Haochen. “Yeah, he was bluffing! But the thing is, Aeneas -Ross’ little cousin- was having a fucking heart attack watching all this and so he crawled under the table and was frantically going through weather spells – and he’s a year seven, right, which makes it all the more impressive when he summons a storm to psych out the magpol.”
Nicholas pulls his legs out from under the table and rocks up onto his knees, turning sideways so he can see all three of them. “So Stavros is doing a blood ritual and a storm starts gathering above and everyone can see it through the windows and it’s just chaos – people are screaming, they’re freaking out thinking the island is about to be wiped off the map.”
“What was Selwood doing?” Wei demands.
“She's still stuck in the crowd, I’ll get to that in a second,” Nicholas laughs with a wave. “Okay so, a magpol tries to stun Stavros and I’m thinking; I will die for this boy right now. I’m losing my shit in rage, I’m ready to start a revolution, I kid you not, what’s going through my head is; when I take over the Confederacy, I’ll make Stavros a king. So I start duelling the magpol that tried to attack Stavros.”
Nicholas wheezes. “Me, a year-nine, deadass throwing plates and food at the magpol. I am losing so badly but Ayad Family Magic protects me until magical age of majority so I’m still winning! Spells are bouncing off me, I lose my wand to a disarming charm so I just start casting without a focus with my Family Magic. More magpol join in.”
Luca laughs but he’s hysterical with horror and Wei is just staring incredulously. Haochen tilts his head back against the backrest of the chair and looks up at the ceiling like that is going to help anything at this point.
Nicholas is gesturing wildly. “I’m like duelling three at once, Adam trips another, Rafael is choking out a bitch, Stavros is still pretending to chant even though he clearly doesn’t remember the words and the other students are getting hit by deflected spells because it’s dinner time and everyone is in the dining hall with the Secretary blocking the only way out.”
“Selwood comes like fucking Merlin himself!” Nicholas slams a hand down on the table, jolting the stationary. “I am suffocating! Magic just stops working, she’s using her own magic to suppress everyone and-“ Nicholas cackles “-and let me remind you, they still think Stavros is summoning a pagan god. And then Selwood stops it.”
“Nicholas!” Luca begs like he can hold back the year-nine Nicholas. “Just stop, no.”
“The Secretary is shitting himself!” Nicholas crows. “He just bloody runs – and then the magpol make a break for it. I’m laughing like I’m insane, I think I’m a fucking high mage at this point, and try to chase them, but then Rafael drags me back and -oh gods- the crowd just parts around me in utter fear and I’m like; this is it, can’t back out now, I’m just going to have to take over the floating island.”
A chuckle is startled out of Haochen.
Nicholas sits back on his heels, panting slightly as he comes down from the high. “Our parents are called in after, me and Ross’. And I have never seen Kreios laugh before, but he was so proud of Stavros and Aeneas. My mum, on the other hand, looked like she wanted to kill me because we’re a month into year nine year and I almost started a coup.”
Nicholas falls off his knees to the side and slings an arm over Haochen’s thigh to rest on him, letting out a heavy sigh. “So, yeah, that’s how I got the last Secretary kicked out of office for attacking children with excessive force.”
“What the fuck,” Wei deadpans. “How – how is that fair, you got no punishment for that-“
“They threw the first spell,” Nicholas says dismissively. “There was a whole court thing about it being self-defence, I’m innocent. But even with that, the school had the audacity to give me detention for two months!”
“Which is nothing!” Wei scoffs. “I spent my whole school life playing human and you fought the Secretary. I was tiptoeing around trying to gather power and you could have beheaded someone right in class and they still would have found some reason to praise you for it.”
Luca turns on Wei, outraged. “You killed people before you even graduated!”
“I only got one, and that was an accident!” Wei snaps. “And at least I knew it was illegal – Nicholas just laughs it off! Imagine casing Dark magic -no matter how stupid the spell- and still thinking you have the moral high ground!”
"One is already too many!" Luca cries. "And you damn well killed more when you got older than this form, you pat-patricide...er."
"That is not a word," Haochen corrects because he's an absolute nerd of a high mage. "It is the act of 'committing patricide'.”
"Let's not forget when you murdered your teacher!" Wei yells.
"That was because of you and you fucking know it!" Luca screams back.
Nicholas looks between Wei and Luca. "Wait, like actually killing people?"