The sunrise slowly pierces the Spanish countryside sky over Fort Rey.

It's a new day, the first of a journey our heroes will never forget, but their future selves may wish they had.

Alexander is the first to wake up. For him everything was packed the night before, having forced himself to fall asleep even though deep inside he was equally nervous and excited for the journey.

Cassandra was next, not usually an early morning person, much like her teammate who she had grown up alongside with for several years.

Speaking of James he was still sound asleep, being the one that went last to bed this shouldn't come as a surprise.

Nero goes outside to check the weather and sees no sign of his students. Unsurprised he goes back in to ponder if he should wake them up. On his way to their rooms he meets Alexander in the hallway standing against the wall with two suitcases ready.

- Let me guess Lex, too warm outside already? - Nero asks almost finding it funny

- Naturally... - Alexander responds annoyed that he had been reminded of that

- Now I see you waiting here, but if I go check on Cass and James will they be awake? - Nero asks Alexander

- I doubt that it would be so, master. - Alexander responds

Nero stops in his tracks as he was passing by him, then he says:

- Oh, I got an idea. - Nero turns his head around to Alexander and continues:

How about you go ahead and wake them up, hmm? Make sure they're outside in ten minutes.

Alexander would sooner think that master Nero was joking, but then again Alexander wasn't the type to laugh in general, so he just stood there for a second and stared at Nero with a blank face, hoping that it was an attempt at a joke.

After which Nero follows up:

- No, I'm serious, please do this, I'm going to go have a smoke outside while you're at it, thanks! - Nero says as he just goes back

Alexander was in a slight disbelief, but he accepted his fate with a sigh.

Walking down the corridor he approaches Cassandras room first. He knocks and waits, but there is no response.

- Cassandra, wake up, please. Master Nero has requested that we shall be outside by this hour. - he says by her door

Waiting by the door for a minute without receiving an answer he decides to open the door slightly and call her name. With no answer yet again, he decides to investigate with the thought that maybe she was someplace else.

And so he steps inside just to make sure that she wasn't in her room. He looks at the bed that's made, the luggage that's almost finished being packed and wonders "Where could she be?"

With that thought and at that moment, from behind him he hears a weird sound, as if something was emerging from water. Without turning around he realized what had happened.

Cassandra had a childhood hobby of diving in the Mediterranean Sea for shells, but without much free time since she joined the order, she liked to replicate the feeling by submerging herself in water when she was taking baths, seeing if she could hold her breath as much as she could when she was younger. Except now that she was older and trained in many more ways, she could hold her breath even longer.

It was this detail that allowed for this accident to happen, as she was too focused on counting and meditating underwater to hear Alexander call for her.

Now, with only her head visible above the water and a slight few meters deeper into the room than Alexander, she turns her head, not expecting someone to be there.

She gets ready to instinctively react and scream, but at that moment when Alexander was standing robotically still, he lifts up his finger and says:

- I shall make my exit. Apologies for this intrusion.

Thanks to his pale complexion his blush of awkwardness was almost visible to Cassandra from the back of his head, but that was not necessary since she could definitely hear it in his voice.

After several minutes she gets out into the corridor, being ready for the journey ahead. Except for the fact that Alexander still had trouble waking James up. When she arrives by James's room she realizes Alexander is still suffering the effects of the awkwardness as he was trying to dodge eye contact with her.

Nevertheless they had a mission, and for that mission to be seen through, James had to be awake first.

- Did you try slapping him? - Cassandra asks Alexander

- No... - Alexander responds, almost ready to say something else

- Good, he wouldn't feel it anyway. - Cassandra replies with haste and continuing

Did you try screaming?

- No...

- Good, that doesn't work either.

As she says that Cassandra takes her hand and puts it over James's nose and mouth. Alexander is in disbelief and almost tries to stop her, then he remembers who she's attempting to suffocate and lets her have at it.

- Don't worry, we've done this before. - Cassandra tells Alexander, referencing her and Nero's past trouble with James's sleeping

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But this time, it does not seem to work, James seems to be able to do fine with the air that manages to pass through Cassandras fingers.

- I know! Zap him! - she says to Alexander with excitement

- "Zap" him? - Alexander looks back at her, confused

- Yes, electrocute him, slightly.

"She's serious..." Alexander thinks to himself.

Alexander puts two fingers on James's ribs and shocks him. The issue at the moment was that Cassandra was still attempting to stop James's breath, and so the shock passed through him and reached her body. Cassandra almost dropped to the floor from the shock, but Alexander grabbed her by her arm before she would've hurt herself.

- My apologies Cassandra, are you alright? - Alexander asks her, worried

- It's fine, I'm fine. I must've forgot that you can just do that without a spell or anything, silly me.

While the two were talking James sits up and opens his eyes:

'Damn, why's my side itching?' he thinks as he scratches himself. Then he looks to his side and sees his two teammates:

- Get a room. This one's taken. - James says as he seems ready to lay back down and fall asleep again

Cassandra and Alexander look at each other confused "There's no way that he forgot that today's the day, right?" they think almost the same thing.

- James, Nero sent Alexander to wake us up, we have to go! - Cassandra tells him in a hurried tone

James opens his eyes fully:

- Oh, shit! Today's the day! - he wakes up full of excitement

After a few minutes the three of them are in front of Fort Rey, the sun has already fully risen, but it is early in the day and so master Nero's as unbothered as ever. He walks down towards them from the hill that he was waiting on.

- Oi, you all ready for the adventure of your life? - Nero tries to hype them up

- Yes! - Cassandra and James shout back

- Are you ready to become masters? - Nero asks them further maintaining the energy

- Yes! - this time and Alexander joined in

- Well get ready, because this never goes as expected!

- Can you tell us what we're actually doing now? - James asks

- Of course, but we'll talk on the way there. - Nero responds

- On the way where? And won't you be warm with that coat? - James asks

- Neat thing you might've forgot James, but thanks to my abilities I'm always at the preferred temperature, so I can be dapper as all hell if I like. - that comment by Nero sounded weird to the three considering he clearly doesn't look like he cares about his apparel

- OK! Let's ask the ones with memories since someone forgot to ask me about some fairly important stuff last night. - says Nero and then he continues:

Obviously we're going to Costa Estrella to take the train north, now Lex please don't get too hyped, I know you packed your fancy Du Blanc coat, but we ain't sure where we're stopping yet.

So, why's that?

Alexander looks in Cassandra's direction hoping that she would answer and that he wouldn't have to put even more effort in the heat, but to his disappointment she was fairly distracted by a butterfly passing over them. Looking past her at James who was looking like he was attempting to read Nero's mind to answer the question reminds him of the fact that he's all alone in this academic activity.

And so Alexander sighs and answers:

- To get to the Grand Citadel where the Archons have their quarters we are required to reach the Aetheria Elysium-

At this point Nero was nodding excessively trying to get Alexander to keep going with the whole details, and so Alexander continues

- ... which is an extra-dimensional plane of existence held together entirely by arcane.

At that moment James does a quick double take looking at Alexander not having believed his ears at first.

- Wait, I didn't remember THAT! - James exclaims with a surprised look on his face

'Is that true? If that's true doesn't that mean that magi are essentially almost higher dimensional beings? But how did they come to this conclusion I wonder...'

- Sounds extremely scientific for a mystical society, doesn't it? - Nero says and he continues:

This is fairly fresh news though, we didn't always think of the Elysium this way. Oppenheim Industries were the ones who collaborated with the Order to do research. Although it is all theoretical, since no human could actually interact with the Aetheria Elysium in any way.

'Oppenheim Industries... I remember, I think. They became a revolutionary global powerhouse of technology thanks to their current CEO Lucius Von Oppenheim.'

James tries to remember the scattered information, but can't quite remember many details, what he did remember is the fact that Oppenheim Industries was the sole provider of anti-mage technology, some of which was now mandatory for many years in different states internationally.

'Surveillance systems, special ops equipment, and possibly even more toys of which existence wasn't shared with the Order... So Lucius took interest in how magi work at their core, and it seems he has recently found the answer.'

- But then how do we get there? To this 'dimension'? - James asks burdened by curiosity

- Since we are sensitive to arcane, we can interact with, and feel from away, small rifts in time and space. - Alexander responds and continues: If we can interact with these rifts with enough precision, we should be able to open a doorway towards the Elysium. If we do not succeed on the first we find, we shall be forced to look for others, which may take vast amounts of time.

James is satisfied with the explanation, and looks down in thought to mentally prepare himself for the journey.

At this point the four of them had already started walking. After a short twenty minute walk they reach Costa Estrella's station and are waiting for the train.

- Wait, master Nero, you didn't bring your suitcase! - James observers

Nero looks back at the boy and with a quick diabolical smile says:

- Watch this! - he says as he puts his hands together and closes his eyes and then he chants:

'Nommus!'

When James looks at Nero's feet, his suitcase appeared. This time though, it was closed, and James could see big esoteric markings on it, almost like a ritual.

'Wow! I could not see those last night, his suitcase was opened as he was packing it.'

- Can't believe you're still making us carry our stuff when you can do that. - Cassandra says annoyed

- Could I possibly pay you to finally let us use the technique? - Alexander asks, clearly bothered by the effort he had to go through in the warm weather

- Yeah, that's cool as hell! Nero, can we? - asks James

Nero looks down for a second, then smiles again and says:

- I totally stole this from Marva so you never do this in front of her, alright? She doesn't know, and I'd rather not create an awkward moment now, but what the hell, you're going to be needing this form now on. I will do the same markings, your stuff will be safe in my room. When you don't need it, just snap both thumbs of your hands, and it will go away.

The three of them are very happy with Nero's decision, even if they were slightly pissed that he still made them carry their bags for twenty minutes.

By the time Nero's done the train arrives. The three of them embark on this journey and they all look back at Costa Estrella, and at Fort Rey in the distance.

The day goes by and they don't feel a thing, at this point the sun is setting and naturally some of their excitement numbed down. James looks at Cassandra who had fallen asleep on the chair in front of him and at Alexander who was also seemingly falling asleep next to her on her right.

'I'm getting sleepy... but I'm also burdened by thoughts. I remember things about them now though, I am reclaiming my memories and the relationships I had with those close to me. Alexander, the boy with immense pressure on his shoulder, he wants to make his parents proud whatever the cost. It's possible that the Du Blancs are the only ones of the magi royal families that still have members alive and acknowledged, thanks to the decrease in fertility this is simply not possible anymore... I don't envy him, possibly the last of a dynasty, his parents are going to see through him the finale of a lineage, and it needs to be a successful finale.

Cassandra? She was almost like a sister to me for so long. But I remember Nero taking her in, that's when we started to actually train. Nero's job as a master was never to be a mentor before, but we fell upon his hands. From what I remember... we are basically what family we have got anymore. I remember somethings specific about her though... she wants closure.

I wonder where Nero is... probably smoking, damn my eyes are closing off-'

With that thought James drifts away to sleep.

At the back of the train, Nero stepped outside on the small platform, leaning on the railing and taking out a cigarette.

He puts it in his mouth and lifts his finger up towards it, lighting the cigarette with a flame emerging from the tip of it.

After a sigh full of thought and a couple of smokes inhaled, he grabs a beat up silver locket pendant from under his shirt, in it there was a room for two pictures. On the left, an old picture of a woman in her twenties with ginger hair, on the right nothing, emptiness.

He looks at it with an old, lingering sadness in his eyes and mutters to himself as if speaking with the picture "They're ready to become masters, my love, I know they are. I doubted myself every single day of my life when I took each of them in, but I never doubted them."

He looks at the moon and says "It's beautiful tonight, I wish you could see it." and he closes the pendant.