Part II

When he opened his eyes, sunlight was already streaming through the blinds of the living room. He yawned and got up before he went to the bathroom and changed into some clean clothes. He then went to the kitchen and grabbed some breakfast.

After eating, he got his backpack. He then walked out the door and locked the house up since Sanguine had already left for work.

Ethan felt pretty happy today, mainly because he didn’t have to go to school or face the other students who would bully him.

As he walked down the street, he watched the world going on around him. It was a bright and sunny day which was uncommon for fall and ethan was enjoying the cold bite of the air as he walked.

His mood though drastically dropped when he turned the corner and saw a group of kids around his age hanging out there. They all wore the school uniform for Moonbeam Magic School, which was the school Ethan had been kicked out of the other day. Ethan was worried since the group of kids in front of him had been known to bully and steal from commoners.

“Hey look. Isn’t that the commoner the principal beat up?” the tallest one asked the other two that stood with him.

“Yeah it is. What's he doing here?” asked a short stubby kid that stood to the right of the tall one.

“I don’t know but he made a mistake in entering our territory.” the one with glasses said as they all started to move closer.

“Get him!” Glasses shouted as the other two charged forwards.

Ethan didn’t even have time to react as the tall one and Fatty grabbed onto his arms. They held him in place so that he couldn’t run as Glasses started to talk to him.

“Alright, now you're going to give us any money you have on you and not tell anyone about this or else we’re going to have a problem. You got that?” Glasses asked Ethan as he sneered in his face.

“What is this? These noble born bastards, who have all the money they need, still have to steal from those who can barely pay to stay alive” Ethan thought before his anger began to rise.

He was about to spit in Glasses’ face but something stopped him from doing it. All of the burning rage he felt towards the nobles had consolidated and at that point became something else. No longer did his rage burn like an inferno. Instead, it had become cold and hard turning into hate. He loathed the nobles and everything they stood for.

“I have no money on me.” Ethan stated in a low voice that was just above a whisper.

“What was that, can’t you talk or are you to scared of me.” Glasses asked in an arrogant way as he laughed with his friends at Ethan’s predicament.

“I said that I have no money.” Ethan once more replied in a calm tone while tilting his head up so that he could look Glasses in the eyes.

Glasses almost jumped back when he saw Ethan’s eyes. He had expected to see him with eyes full of fear or with eyes full of rage, but what he saw sent shivers down his spine. Ethan’s eyes looked like they promised death.

Glasses knowing that his two goons had seen him jump back in fear immediately struck out at Ethan. The force of the punch and the way it landed caused the skin on Ethan’s cheek to break and it started to bleed, but Ethan didn’t make a sound he just turned his head and looked Glasses in the eyes again.

Glasses panicked and started to hit Ethan over and over again. He was trying to get those eyes that seemed to stare hungrily at his soul to close. Those eyes that filled him with dread. Why won’t they close? he thought as he continued to pound Ethan until Fatty grabbed his arm.

“Hey man. Look, he’s almost dead. Let's get out of here.” Fatty said a little bit shaken at Glasses’s reaction.

“What...Yeah, let's go.” Fatty had snapped Glasses back to reality which also showed Glasses what he had done.

Lying before him was the broken body of Ethan. He had bruises already forming all over his body and blood was pouring out of multiple cuts, but the worst part for Glasses was that Ethan’s eyes were still staring into his soul.

The trio of nobles fled from the scene of the crime as fast as their feet could take them. Leaving Ethan there to bleed out on the side of the road.

Once they disappeared from sight, Ethan slowly started to crawl towards the alchemy shop. He could only use one arm. His other one seemed to be broken or had a fracture because every time he tried using it, he felt excruciating pain.

So, he dragged himself across the sidewalk with only one arm trying to reach the alchemy shop. Many people passed him but none stopped to offer him assistance. They all walked by him or over him trying to ignore his existence the best they could. Finally, he reached the alchemy shop but he didn’t have the strength to even lift himself up to knock on the door.

He just laid there hoping that Alexander would open the door and see him. He waited for what seemed like a long time as darkness began to fill the edges of his vision. Ethan tried to move once more, desperate to do something before he lost consciousness but it was in vain as his eyelids slowly shut.

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He was once more surrounded by the swirling colors of Black, Green, Purple, and Red. But now there was a new color mixed in. This one was a dark midnight blue. He just floated there and watched the colors swirl around each other when he heard the voice again.

“Yes, come join us young one, become one with the Legion!” They shouted over and over again

“What do you mean by join you? What are you?” Ethan yelled out trying to figure out what was going on.

“We are you and you are us. We are the Legion!” They shouted back in response

“If you can not tell me what you are, then you can at least show yourselves.” Ethan demanded.

For a few seconds the voices died down and Ethan thought it was over but just as he was praising god for delivering him from this madness, the swirling colors disappeared and what stood before him absolutely terrified him.

An army of shadowy figures numbering in the thousands stood before him. He couldn’t make out the figures of any of them other than the fact that they all had a human silhouette. What really terrified him was the creature standing in front of all of the shadows. It must have been at least eight feet tall and it appeared to be just a black skeleton wearing black steel armor. The Most disturbing thing about it was the fact that instead of eyes or empty sockets it had balls made up of green fire. Then, it did something that Ethan did not expect.

It started to walk towards him and began saying

“We are the Legion and we have waited for your arrival.”

It slowly got closer and closer to Ethan until its skeletal hands wrapped around Ethan’s throat.

“Now, you will join us!” It shouted as it tightened its hold on Ethan’s neck.

Ethan did the one thing he could do and started to scream at the top of his lungs.

“aaaaahhhh ahahahahah ahahahahah”

Ethan shot up into a sitting position and looked around the room he was in. Relief flooded through him as he saw that he was once again in the back room of the alchemy shop resting on the wooden table.

“Quit your shouting lad, you're scaring away customers!” Alexander said gruffly as he entered the room.

“What happened?” Ethan asked still confused by what had occurred when he was unconscious.

“You tell me lad. I came back from gathering some rare herbs and I found you battered and bloodied lying in front of my door.”

“Sorry, when I was coming here I got into a little bit of a fight.” Ethan didn’t say anything more than that, not wanting to drag Alexander into what had happened.

“Hmm...well if that really is it, I guess that means we can get on with today's lessons.” Alexander said as helped Ethan to stand up.

“Really, what am I learning today”? Ethan asked hoping for it to be something interesting.

Alexander smiled a little at Ethan’s eagerness as he lead him towards the roof of the alchemy shop. Once they got to the roof Ethan saw a small herb garden growing in front of them.

“Today you will be learning how to care for herbs.” Alexander said as he tried to hold back his laugh at seeing Ethan’s face dim a little bit.

“Is this all I’m learning today?” Ethan asked a bit disappointed.

“I told you for the first four months, you will learn alchemy and to do that you need to know how to care for these plants. Ok?” Alexander said as if it were all a joke, but Ethan could hear the seriousness laced into his voice.

Ethan knew what meant so he obediently followed Alexander around the garden watching what he did. Alexander showed him how to trim the plants so that they would be healthy. He also showed him how much water each plant needed and which ones needed to be picked periodically or else they would become poisonous.

At the end of the day when Ethan was about to leave, Alexander told him,

“From now on when you come here in the morning, your job will be to tend to the herb garden, and to add some incentive, I will no longer tend to the garden. This means that if you fail in your duties, you will hurt the livelihood of this shop.”

“Why would you give me such an important task on the first day?” Ethan asked astonished at what he was supposed to do.

“Because I trust you and I see great things in your future.” was all Alexander said before ushering Ethan out of the store.

Ethan walked away from the storing feeling tired but at the same time happy. He was happy because he was learning something that he could actually use in the future. He was also happy because even though he wasn’t going to school, he could still help Sanguine with the house because he earned some pocket change. He was also happy because his new master,\Alexander, wasn’t like the teachers in school who would mindlessly scold him. Instead, Alexander encouraged mistakes so that he could learn from them.

Ethan got home. As he walked up to the door, he saw that the lights were on meaning that Sanguine was home early. Sure enough, when he tried to open the door it was unlocked. He entered the house and smelled the chili that was being reheated.

“Mom I’m home!” Ethan shouted from the living room as he shrugged off his backpack

“Welcome back. How was school?” Sanguine asked in her usual cheery voice.

“It was okay I guess.” Ethan replied he hated lying to her but it was important to keep the fact that he got expelled a secret or else he would go through her full wrath.

“That’s good why don’t you eat dinner, I’m going to bed since today was such a hectic day for me.” She said as she walked out of the kitchen and headed straight to her room.

Ethan could see right away from the tired but wound up look in her eyes that something was stressing her out. He immediately wanted to know what it was since his mother almost never seemed upset about anything.

“What's wrong mom?” Ethan asked sounding worried

“Its...its..it's nothing dear just go eat your dinner.” His mother stuttered as if she were surprised to hear his voice, but she immediately left for her room without giving him a reply.

Ethan waited for a bit before shrugging his shoulders.

“If she doesn’t want to talk about it then she doesn't have to.” He thought as he went and ate dinner before turning in for the night.

Sanguine's POV:

She sat in the dark on her bed with her arms wrapped around her legs rocking back and forth crying.

“Why, why did it have to be this way.” She thought as she kept crying.

She remembered the moment as if it had just happened. She had been cleaning the Ignitus’ living room like normal when the mistress and the master had called her to the office.

When she got there she found the master sitting at his desk with the mistress standing behind him. The master looked up ate her with an angry look on his face.

“Do you mind telling me why I keep hearing about that useless brat?” The master asked clearly holding back a lot of his rage.

“Wh..what do you mean master?” Sanguine asked nervously because the master was known for his extreme temper.

“What I mean is that brat has been causing some much troubled for the last two days that more and more nobles are looking into him, first he gets kicked out of one of the most prestigious schools in the Kingdom of Man then he gets into a fight with the Principal. If that wasn’t bad enough he got into a fight with three noble boys just the other day!” The master shouted making Sanguine flinch in surprise.

Her mind was racing “What does it mean that Ethan got kicked out of school, where did he go this morning?”

“Since you can’t seem to handle him then you’ll have to get rid of him. You have 6 month to do it if you are unable to I will have someone deal with both of you. Do you understand?” Mr. Ignatius asked.

“Yes sir.” Sanguine said as she left the room.

Now she was stuck in her room crying. She had raised Ethan for all of these years treating him as if he were her own son and now she was told to kill. How would she be able to do this.

That night she cried until she slipped into sleep. While Ethan slept blissfully unaware of his death sentence.