Drauko, Hannah, Onei, and Tabitha watched as a jet shifted and transformed in midair, turning into an enormous robot with wings and jet-boots, then proceeded to meet Dou as he crashed toward it with a fist, the collision booming across the open sky and creating a wind that swept the girls’ hair back into fluttering messes, though Tabitha’s curly hair was pulled back. She promptly shifted her glasses with her hand, squinting as she did as if they were irritating her.

“A transformer!?” they vaguely heard Dou yell over the wind.

“Why do you humans keep calling me that?!” It responded before kneeing him, sending the confused druid flying upward.

He continued speaking without pause as he slowed to a stop. “No matter. You won’t threaten these civilians any longer. Stand down...r-robot? or face the Archdruid Van Arc’s wrath.”

“Nah, I think I’m good, bud.” It raised a fist, and from its wrist, missiles shot toward Dou, spreading out in tactical arcs.

“Fine,” he said more quietly before he rammed himself into the robot, outspeeding the missiles, then put his hands to its chest, built of round metal plates, each twice his size, then blasted wind point-blank into it, sending the robot crashing to the ground. More invisible forces of wind then sliced into the missiles, which had begun to swerve toward him, causing them to explode before they even got close. “Is that all?”

“H-hardly,” it said, slowly standing. “I’m not going down that easily.”

Suddenly, something slammed into Dou, sending him crashing into a building.

He stood from it, rolling his eyes, only to see another mech, flying on turbines. This time it was much more rudimentary and clearly manned by a gruff man with an eyepatch, staring at Dou from behind its glass.

“You seem pretty strong, buddy,” he said, his voice amplifying over a speaker, “But...” He waited for the transformer to fly back up to his side, then crossed his arms alongside it. “You don’t think you can take two of us on at once, do you?”

Dou smiled behind his top hat, which had fallen just so to cover his face after he’d fallen. Then, he stood and slid it back on, the smile turning into a confident smirk. “No, that’s quite unfair,” he said as he stood from the ruins of a skyscraper’s seventh floor. “Perhaps you should consider calling in reinforcements.”

“Pfft,” the robot chuckled as if it had a throat to make the noise with. “this guy thinks he’s tough stuff, O’rhyan. How about we teach him a lesson?”

“Sounds good to me...umm...Android guy.”

“You forgot my name already?!”

“Sorry, flawed intelligence and all.”

“It’s alright, we all have our bad days. I’m Mega, by the way.”

“Like...Mega...tron?!”

“Why does everyone say that!? What’s a Megatron?! Explain it to me, human.”

“He’s a big baddie in an old show-”

“Er-hem.” While they spoke, Dou had walked further into the building and raised up his hand. “I quite am tough stuff. Consider this a friendly warning...Err, this building has been ‘evacuated’, right?”

“Huh?” ‘O’rhyan’ shrugged, looking down at the enormous skyscraper, which had somehow not been scratched despite the ruined state of the city. “I think so. We aren’t permitted to battle in unevacuated areas, and this-”

“Good.”

Suddenly, something shot from Dou’s outstretched hand, followed by the sound of dozens of floors of concrete shattering upward.

Then, the building erupted into wind.

Dou stepped forward with a serious frown as the entire building above him suddenly exploded on all levels, then was blown into a hellish twister strong enough to make the enormous chunks of concrete blow about like confetti.

“This is what you face when you stand before the Archdruid of Changeton!” he yelled through the howling wind as he swept his hand down, the tornado and debris following it, then he braced his knees and swung his arm toward the two combatants.

As the largest standing building in Changeton was turned into a maelstrom of debris and swung across the skyline like a whip, Onei’s expression only turned more and more confused. “Man, I guess everyone is gonna know about magic after this. Weird it took so long, though.”

Hannah chuckled, sending Drauko a knowing glance. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you.”

“What’s that mean? Just look at the city!” She motioned toward the quickly-approaching highway they were quickly descending onto. “And I can literally see, like, a dozen people with their phones out recording this!”

“You’d think that’d mean something, wouldn’t you...” she muttered again.

The blonde shrugged. “Ehh, whatever..”

“Anyway, we need to find Luuko’s school bus in this traffic,” Drade said, motioning toward the thousands of cars before them.

Tabitha, who had crossed her legs and begun examining her hand with boredom, said, “You’re searching for one bus in this? T-that’s an...interesting choice...”

“Well,” Drade began with a shrug, “We need to try. That’s the whole point of what we’re doing here.”

She looked up at him with an expression between disgust and confusion, which didn’t seem to quite fit her. “It would take days to find the right one, you realize that, right?”

He shrugged. Around then, they touched down on the concrete beside a bus.

Oh, Drade! Didn’t we want to call your Dad? Since Therin is his subordinate or something, maybe he’ll send help.

Yeah, we can do that.

As Drauko pulled out their phone, Onei asked, “What number is the bus, anyway?”

“1823,” Luuko said while Drade got busy searching for his Father’s number, which he rarely called.

“Huh. So it’d have a one, eight, two, and three plastered on its side in black numbers?:

“Yeah?”

“So, the one we landed next to?”

Drauko looked up, only to see a bus with 1823 stuck in traffic beside them. “Huh. That’s convinent,” she said with a chuckle.

“What...” Tabitha muttered to herself as though their luck was an insult to the natural order.

“C-cool. Umm...” Hannah interrupted Drade as he set his phone back into his pocket. “I’m sure I’ll only slow you down at this point, Drade. Sorry, but do you mind if I leave you all? I’m really not cut out for this.”

Though, that incompetency wasn’t for a lack of trying. She had tried to keep up with her son as...umm...random things happened around him, hoping to protect him, but she had learned after not too long that whatever force put him in these situations also kept her away. That was fine by Drade, however, who grew nervous when his mother was in danger.

“Yeah, you can go, Mom.”

“Thanks.” She began walking away, waving back at Drade. “Stay safe, Drade!” she yelled both sardonically and affectionately.

“You, too,” he replied with a chuckle before turning to the bus door.

So you’re probably in there. I don’t know what will happen once we meet your body, but we should be ready for anything, Drade thought.

Y-yeah.

You don’t seem very happy about this, he noted. He could tell less because of her tone and more because of the hesitation he felt in their limbs.

It’s nothing.

Okay. Just one tap, and it’s over.

Yeah...

They walked up and knocked. The plastic-like doors opened as a confuddled, blinking bus driver looked down at them, having seen them fly in. “C-can I help you?”

“Is Luuko here? I’m her friend.”

“Umm...I don’t know. I-is ‘Luuko’ on here?” he yelled down the aisle.

Before he even finished, Luuko stood from the seat behind the driver and took her place at the top of the stairs, an almost condescending expression on her face. The way she held herself was strangely similar to the real Luuko, yet completely different.

“Who are you?” she asked, her long, straight, and thoroughly brushed hair draping down as she placed her hands on her hips, emanating confidence.

“Who are you...” Luuko hesitated, a sort of awe taking hold of her as she saw herself appearing confident and powerful. “...y-you faker?”

The ‘real’ Luuko blinked boredly. “I’m sorry, what did you just call me? And why?”

“You hear-” Luuko’s voice cracked. “...heard me. What did you do with my body?”

Drade metaphorically leaned back and let Luuko do as she wished, even as he questioned why she didn’t just reach out and tap her double.

“Your body? I don’t even know who you are. Also, please stop being ridiculous. Nothing as fantastical as stealing bodies is possible.”

...

The entirety of the bus, Drauko, Tabitha, and Onei turned their heads to the destruction rampant in the city, then back to the ‘real’ Luuko.

Drauko’s eyes wavered as though they’d grown tired. “You...do see that too, right?”

She glanced at the city. “It’s just a tornado,” she said self-assuredly.

“Aaand the giant humanoid creature made of water?”

“A megatsunami.”

“Are you blind? I’d understand if you were blind.”

“You should know since this is your, ‘body’,” ‘Luuko’ responded with air quotes and a mocking imitation of Drauko’s voice.

Drauko’s eye twitched. “I thought you looked pretty and cool for half a second, but you’re just a blind asshole! Or, no, you just can’t see because your head is too far up your ass!”

“Tsk.” ‘Luuko’ crossed her arms dismissively. “Is that all?”

After a pause, Drauko suddenly lurched forward and reached out their hand.

They came within an inch of her.

Drade, the quickest of the two people within his body, struggled to remember how to control himself in time as he, then a quarter second afterward, Luuko, saw something familiar fall from ‘Luuko’s sleeve.

Before they knew it, their hand had been pinned to the leathery material of the barrier to their left, a fold-out, metal pocket knife impaled through their palm.

Luuko fell backward onto the street and screamed, shuffling backward as tears of pain overcame Drauko’s eyes, and she glanced between the cold, hateful eyes of her double and the blood rushing from the hole carved into her palm.

Onei froze, blinking with confusion at how quickly the situation had escalated.

“Close the door. Don’t let him in,” ‘Luuko’ said as she sheathed the blade and walked uncaringly to the seat.

“Y-yes, mam!” the bus driver said with panic.

“L-Luuko? Drade?!” Onei yelled as she kneeled beside them, her ears ringing from Luuko’s screams. “Are you okay?!”

Luuko didn’t respond for a few seconds, then, suddenly, she closed her eyes and fell limp, sobbing. A moment later, they casually stood up.

“Let’s go,” Drade briefly glanced back, checking if his mother had seen or heard them. When he confirmed that she was out of view, he began walking back toward the city.

Onei walked behind him, disbelief on her face. “W-what just happened? A-and again, are you okay?!”

“I’ll walk it off.”

“That’s a lie, and you know it.”

Drade glanced back. “Okay?”

“W-well, besides that, is Luuko fine?!”

“I don’t know. Maybe she’s just afraid of the pain...” he said uncertainly.

“A-are you not?”

“No, I definitely don’t like pain. I just don’t care.”

“Eldritch biology, I guess?” she said jokingly, despite forcing the words out.

“Not exactly. It’s just easy to bear when I remember that pain and happiness are meaningless things ultimately of no consequence.”

“That sounds very self-destructive...”

“Better than pain, I guess.” He paused. “You would probably understand what I’m saying, yourself.”

Onei scratched her head. “Y-yeah. Definitely. But, uhh...why are we walking...toward the city?”

“Because I have to save it, obviously.”

She gritted her teeth as she glanced at his wound. “W-we should bandage that, at least, Drade.”

He stopped and looked at her with an uncaring frown. “No.”

Onei stopped with him, but when he continued to saunter through the rows of cars, she remained still and began to cry.

I was really young when I first learned I could control people’s sleeping bodies.

I thought it was normal for years, just a thing people could do, but I eventually told my parents about it. At first, they thought I was lying and tried to tell me that I was making things up in my head.

I wasn’t, though, and it wasn’t long before I possessed one of them, and they realized the truth.

My childhood wasn’t unenjoyable. My parents were kind, and I didn’t cause any trouble with my power; not that I can remember, at least.

But...I didn’t tell anyone else about what I could do. I never could because it was ‘weird’, and nobody wanted to believe me anyway.

Going into middle school, I had begun to realize that my power was considered a bit more than...‘weird’. It was creepy. Possession? Only ghosts did that, or bad guys in books.

By then, I had grown to enjoy exploring people’s houses in their bodies and experiencing their life through the way they changed over time. It sounds weird, but it didn’t...doesn’t feel that way to me.

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

However...I began to withdraw further into my sleeping world by then. It was so much easier to experience life firsthand than to ask people ‘questions’ and ‘talk about myself’ in turn, and I was afraid that if anyone learned about what I could do...that they wouldn’t like me. Maybe I was right.

For a brief period of time, my parents had scheduled me to meet with someone during school. They asked me questions about myself and my feelings, and eventually, they pushed me further and further into a corner as the days went by. They urged me to tell them what I was holding back.

I eventually told them. They thought I was delusional, too, but I still tried to change their mind. They let me fall asleep to prove what I’d said, and so I did. I possessed a sleeping student and moved them into the room.

There was some panic after I did, and it was so chaotic that I couldn’t understand what was happening around me. I didn’t cry, though. I completely dissociated from myself and just stared blankly and did as I was told until my parents picked me up.

I didn’t go to that school again, and a few weeks later, my family moved to Changeton for some reason. It was my fault we had to move, leaving behind a good neighborhood and a nice house for a shoddy apartment in a city.

I then enrolled in a middle school and continued where I had left off like nothing had happened. I remained quiet, avoided speaking, raising my hand, or going above anyone’s expectations...and I began sleeping in class, trying to ease my anxiety by listening in on multiple classrooms at once.

It stayed that way for two or three years.

Then, one day, he knocked on my apartment door.

Drade, with his impassive expression, didn’t judge me at all as he carefully looked me down, his gaze holding on to my pajamas. As I stepped back nervously, some part of his expression terrifying me, he looked back at my face.

“Do you have magic?” I remember him asking.

I had seen Drade in passing, but I had never noticed him even give me a second glance. That he had learned I had some type of magic and went to my house to ask about it left me unable to speak, my heart pounding with anxiety.

He stared at me blankly for two minutes straight, his expression unchanging. I only had the gall to speak to him once his black hair reminded me of something. The one string I couldn’t move through, the unknowable, powerful force that could repel me in my dream world as though I were a gnat...

I realized it was him. I don’t even know how.

I opened my mouth, my tongue raising to the top of my mouth as I prepared to say, ‘no’

Then, I paused as I saw him hold out a pen and paper. “Do you need help speaking?” he asked.

“No,” I said to his previous question.

He blinked. “Okay.” He then folded the paper and buried it under his coat, where I could see...a handgun!? It was just...there, stowed in a pocket. “Do you need me to restate my question?” he asked.

“N-no...” I squeaked out. Just who was he? Was he someone sent from the government to take out people like me? Was he going to take me away if I said yes? No...he’d been there ever since I’d moved, doing strange things at school. Heck, I could’ve sworn he was that boy I’d seen helping a girl climb into the roof of the school from the girl’s bathroom. He was one of those ‘weird’ kids, right? Like me.

I didn’t know what to say, and the moment continued to stretch on and on as he eventually pulled out his phone and began texting.

“Umm...what do you mean by...‘magic’?” I asked.

He locked eyes with me again, making me freeze. “Strange powers, events, stuff like that. Anything supernatural, I guess.”

I paused again for a minute, then raised my head, forcing words from my throat. “W-what about possessing people?”

“That would count. Can you do that?”

I nodded.

“Okay,” was all he had to say about it. He then handed me a card. “If you want to make use of what you have, you can call my magical talent agency. I’ll show you around.”

Then, he just walked away.

As cold wind blew through the open door, I stared at the card.

It had been years since I had lived my own life or since I had thought once about who I was. I was a spectator, someone with no purpose other than to watch others fulfill their own. I watched movies, read books...but I never played games, never made friends, never took a risk to help someone.

That...was me, right? It was always so much easier to just watch others live their lives than live my own.

It was really obvious to me what I wanted for myself after I cried in my bed for hours afterward. I wanted to be someone worth watching, like everyone else. I wanted to be cool, liked, confident, useful, pretty...at least something more than what I was.

And that was the day before I found myself involuntarily saving a colony of earth people from an underground eruption caused by an evil fire elemental.

It was also the day before I became friends with Drade.

Luuko? Luuko, is something wrong?

I heard him call out to me, but I didn’t want to respond. I didn’t want to be in control or to think. His body continued stepping forward. His body trembled with fear, his heart pounded of self-hatred. His eyes grew heavy with sadness and tiredness. The chilly wind of the far away lake nipped at his skin, pushing him back. It should have been so easy for him to fall asleep and give up, even as pain surged through his body.

I don’t understand. What is wrong, Luuko?

What didn’t he understand? Why did he think something was wrong with me?

I don’t understand...Why aren’t you speaking?

I...I was fine. I just wanted to be left alone.

I don’t...get it. What is this feeling?

This was fine. I didn’t need to change. I didn’t need to leave. This was what I had always wanted, right? Just...peace, living rent-free as a spectator, without any worries of my own, without any meaning, without...

Without...

Me.

Kai’Vra watched as her two ‘companions’ walked away, both seeming shaken. How cute.

The bus finally began to move along with the traffic, so before it could get away, she stepped forward and kicked the doors in while the two weren’t paying attention. She stepped in, ignoring the terrified driver, and stopped in front of a confidently smiling ‘Luuko’. She looked quite proud of herself. How cute.

Her expression shifted as Kai’Vra took one more step forward. “What-”

In an instant, Kai’Vra caught her arm, causing the girl to yell in fright and punch her in the face, only to injure her own fist. Kai’Vra ripped the blade out from her restrained arm’s sleeve, then forcefully kicked the girl into the plastic window, shattering it over her head.

As the bus erupted even further into confusion, she leaped off the stairs and back onto the concrete. She pocketed the weapon as she unhesitatingly walked back toward Onei, who was still immobilized in distress.

She stepped past the miserable creature and quickly approached the seemingly unfaltering Drade, a hand by her pocket. He was clearly distracted. Even as sharp as he was, she knew that he would simply die if she stuck the pocket knife in his neck.

She began to think as she walked behind him, figuring there wasn’t any reason to rush.

She had observed him closely ever since they had first met and had learned much about the bounds of his ability. He had manasense far stronger than hers, which could easily allow him to sidestep any attack she sent his way.

Not just that, but while it was true that he used his sight to read her strikes, she knew from experience and through her observations of him that it would even work if his back turned. Were she to strike from his blind spot, he would easily read it and sidestep without a glance.

Not just that, but no matter how fast the attack was, he would always be able to evade, or at least try to. Magic had a slight buffer of time before it affected the world around it. This meant that he would always have time to see an attack coming, evade it, and have time to spare.

She reached into her pocket and fingered the knife.

Even with his power, his physical abilities were limited. Were he backed into a corner, he would die. But designing a trap that was uniquely inescapable was...unreliable. She’d already tried it when they had first met a few days back, and while she certainly wasn’t going all-out at the time, it nonetheless resulted in Dou Van Arc interrupting her and saving his life, something that also happened later to Kaleb.

She rubbed her chin.

So since magic didn’t work, she had wondered how she could make certain he died. Then, it hit her as he had been suddenly impaled by the blade now in her pocket.

Even someone as weak as a young girl could overpower him, at least if his guard were down. One stab, without using any magic to enhance her power, and he was finished. Dead meat.

She smirked, her canines squeaking against each other.

She had realized one other thing about him, as well. His soul was incredibly powerful. She didn’t know just how powerful, but certainly enough to be worth many human souls if she ate him. There was also a second soul in there, as a side.

She lowered her arms as she thought.

Wait. Why haven’t I just killed him yet? She gritted her teeth and readied to unsheathe her blade to take him out with one quick swipe.

It was around then, however, that they had exited the bulk of the traffic. Just before she could move her hand, a van suddenly ran toward them at full speed and drifted to their side.

She lowered her hand and clicked her tongue, angry she was too late to strike while the iron was hot. That was...fine, though. Who knew what sort of magic users could be in that van or any of the others? There were better times to do it, surely.

Drade didn’t understand.

He could feel Luuko’s emotions affecting his body, but she wouldn’t speak to him. He didn’t know what was wrong or why she had suddenly withdrawn, leaving him alone with his uncontrollably shuddering body.

He had tried to call out to her, but it was clear that she wanted nothing to do with him.

She must just be afraid of the pain...he tried to convince himself.

Without any way to say otherwise, he continued walking toward the city. In the distance, he could see people leaping across buildings, approaching him quickly. If nothing stood in their way, he would be captured. He didn’t mind at this rate and hoped that they would perhaps do something to heal the pain so he...

He blinked. Why did he feel like this suddenly? He had just been trying to null out the pain, but as his friend’s emotions began to affect his body more and more, he had stopped and instead worried for her.

Friend? Was Luuko his friend? He hadn’t thought about it, really. What a ‘friend’ really was was unclear to him. He knew a lot of people, and he’d known quite a few people in the past who he would unhesitatingly have called a friend. They had all parted ways with him before, and a few...had become mistakes he’d never forget.

When they died, it was his fault. His life was one eventful beyond compare, though, and although he had grown fearful because of what had happened...he had to overcome that fear in time...

No...He was still afraid for the people in his life. That was why he kept fighting for them. He didn’t want to see anyone disappointed, he wanted to see them happy.

He suddenly remembered why he’d never called someone a friend in years, a reason he had forgotten.

He’d decided it was meaningless.

A word couldn’t ever be enough to describe an entire swathe of people he knew and cared for. To him, it would be meaningless if he chose just one word to fulfil that role.

Many of the people in the ‘Friends’ were people he had fought and bled with. Luuko was someone he cared for, too.

He looked down. It didn’t matter what words he used, he did care. Whether she was a ‘friend’ or not, he was afraid for her.

So no matter how hard he tried not to care, he couldn’t.

Nothing had changed. This was the way he had been for a long time. He had never been able to give in entirely to that ‘nihilism’ at the core of his existence. That was why he still cared.

He didn’t need to do it. He didn’t need to reach out to Luuko. Her life wasn’t in danger, and she wasn’t impairing him in any way, and his code certainly didn’t ask him to do it, but he still wanted to because he knew she was sad.

So he stopped paying attention to the world around him, calling out to the other soul beside him even as the ground shook beneath his feet.

I don’t understand! What is wrong...?

Suddenly, a van drifted past him. Drade hardly flinched as it slid to a stop, and the window opened.

“Drade!” Datai yelled from the driver’s seat, interrupting his thoughts. “Get in!”

He stumbled backward and threw open the door, slouching as though he were possessed, then stepped to the backmost seat behind two other people in the middle, Sara and Felix.

“Whazzup, shadow leader?” Sara asked.

He ignored her and looked back. Onei wasn’t beside him.

He looked out the window and saw that she hadn’t been following him like he had thought. The footsteps he’d heard were that of Tabitha’s.

“Grab Onei. She’s further down the road,” he said to Datai as Tabitha stepped in beside him.

“I can’t exactly do that, Drade,” Datai said. “Way too much traffic up there.” Which was only mostly true, as the traffic began a little further up.

“Fine, I’ll do it myself,” he said before squeezing past Tabitha and stepping out.

Datai poked his head out the window. “Woah, Drade, you see those superpowered people, right? They’ll be here any moment. Do you need to grab this ‘Onei’ person?”

He silently ran forward.

“It’s just easy to bear when I remember that pain and happiness are meaningless things of no consequence.”

Those words stuck with Onei. She wanted to escape that feeling of powerlessness...the powerlessness over her own fate. The years she’d spent in a never-ending hell where her actions meant nothing...she’d only been able to bear through them all with that thought. If she just stopped thinking, stopped trying to find happiness in her inevitable purgatory, it all became so much easier.

That day...she didn’t care at all. She stopped caring, stopped being the person who tried to keep her sanity, who tried to make people happy for the little time they could know her...

Then, she met Drade. She thought it would have been nice if he’d just killed her right then and let her skip to the next day of her painfully slow life. Instead...he’d defied all of her expectations. He understood her condition without a second thought and told her what was what.

She looked down as Drade walked away, then cried.

And then yesterday...she had learned who he was. Drade could remember her...he was living, undeniable proof that she still existed and her actions still had meaning.

But she remembered just now that they didn’t. Her actions would never mean anything, and no matter how hard she had tried to change that, it never worked. It never would. She could try and try and try to feel happiness, but one day she would wake up and remember how pointless it all was all over again.

“What are you doing?”

She blinked as Drade suddenly stood before her, grasping her hand in his. “Y-you can go without me,” she said. “I don’t matter anyway.”

Suddenly, her arm was tugged as Drade walked back, her hand practically being crushed under his. Despite how uncomfortable and painful it was...it felt so, so reassuring. “Stop being stupid. You matter just as much to me as anyone else,” he responded, facing away as he pulled her into a jog, then into a run. “It would be really easy for me to pretend you aren’t hurt, but it doesn’t matter who you are, it matters if you’re sad.”

“You shouldn’t bother with me...you barely even know me!”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion on the matter. This is what I chose to do with my life. If you want to mope on your own, I won’t stop you.” He let go of his hand.

Suddenly, someone landed in front of them. Then another, and another, falling from the sky as they leaped from a building not far away.

Onei looked around, seeing how hopeless the situation seemed, and stepped back with disbelief. “See? I’m just going to slow you down!”

“You know that’s not true,” Drade responded, glaring at the steadily increasing number of enemies, who approached them, hands outstretched and ready to grapple him. “Even if you mean nothing, it takes nothing for me to pull you up with me. Even if it takes more effort, I have to do everything I can for everyone I can. It’s called being a utilitarian.”

“It’s so impersonal?” she asked with sudden confusion.

He held out a hand. “Yeah. So do you want to slow me down, or not?”

Onei, tears falling from her face, looked from the blur of traffic behind her to the doomed false nihilist before her, who she felt would have risked his life just to bring a chance of happiness to anyone else’s.

She couldn’t even hesitate to grab his hand if she wanted to, so as she did, she tightened her grip just like he had his.

Drade flashed her a smile, then in the most stereotypically maniacal way, laughed as he dramatically pointed to the sky, causing the approaching attackers to pause in indecision. He smirked as he lowered his head, then dragged Onei with him, rushing forward with what she could only describe as happiness.

The soldier in front of him rushed forward, only for a ring to suddenly fly from behind them and expand into a portal that blocked their way. They briefly fell into it as they rushed forward, then popped out with reversed momentum. They were then crashed into by a drifting van, sending them tumbling violently forward, flying past Drade and Onei.

Meanwhile, he easily sidestepped a lightning-fast strike from one of the soldiers to his right, then ducked and braced himself as another one rushed forward and tried to grab him, causing them to uncertainly trip on him and tumble backward. Drade could tell that the soldiers weren’t used to their power from how they moved, both unable to control either their speed or strength. The magic that enhanced their bodies was easy to read, leading their movements to be easily predictable.

He and Onei ran further as the same ring moved to reverse the momentum of one more soldier. Felix shoved the backmost door open, so Drade leaped into the van and helped her climb in as the van’s wheels began to urgently scrape against the pavement. She shut it closed just before a punch swung toward her and dented in the metal door.

Then, the van thrust forward as fast as it could, and despite a few more dents being carved into the trunk, Datai managed to bring the car to sixty miles an hour, narrowly outspeeding the soldiers behind them. A few more periodically leaped from atop buildings, rushing toward them, but Datai sent his ring out at them, causing them to suddenly fall back onto the building from whence they’d leaped.

“Strange. If those people had any combat experience, we would have been caught out for sure,” he commented.

“Probably,” Drade said before looping a pale arm around Onei’s shoulder and dragging her inward and onto his lap. “I need to think, though. Just help me stall for time.”

“Uhh...sure.”

“D-Drade...w-why did you just...”

“I dunno,” he said, closing his eyes and then deeply breathing in. “Give me a few minutes. I need to sleep.”

“O-okay.”

Therin's notes on the Eldritch:

{Once, I thought it impossible that the world might have meaning. It may be difficult for a human to understand, but as a being of law, I have to think about what the meaning of life is each day. I've heard many thoughts about what it is, but slowly I've learned about a consensus that many of the greatest human thinkers have come across. All things only have as much meaning as we give them. It's such a simple yet mind-bending concept for me and all lawful beings to understand. I don't want to sound trite, saccharine, or ignorant to anyone who questions my assertion on the meaning of life, so I will explain this line of reasoning as well as I can.

Meaning is an idea. Ideas are things made by living beings. Therefore, meaning must have been made by a living being.

That's at least how I best understand this concept. I do like proofs, though if any of my readers happen to be a poor human child learning them in math class, I'm sure you don't. So to put it more like a 'human being' would put it, meaning is an idea, and because humans are exceptionally good at creating new ideas, they could well have been the first race to create meaning.

I know you were probably expecting a longer diatribe into the meaning of all things, but once I began to understand it, I found it too difficult to look back and understand my thought process before I did.

In fact, today, I love proofs with a passion because of the proof above. I find that proof to forever be the most beautiful thing in the world.

This all prefaces my personal favorite Eldritch topic, one which I have hardly been able to research due to how rare it is in Eldritch beings: the Three Stages of Eldritch Development.

To begin, a chaotic or lawful entity begins their life with only a rudimentary understanding of meaning, if any. Most Lawful beings are born without an understanding of ideas and thus meaning, and most Chaotic beings are born with nothing but their idea(or sense) of self(or individuality).

Before their second stage of development, when they have begun to understand more complex ideas, they will begin to question the meaning of their life, usually due to how integral it is to an Eldritch being's self-image.

Most lawful beings see themselves as a tool and never change their self-image beyond that because of the difficulty in doing so, but others grow more and more interested in the topic. If they continue to try to gain a sense of self, they will eventually realize that they have control over who they are. This slowly creates an effect within their bodies and minds that causes them to grow more Chaotic in nature. By the time a lawful being has reached their second stage of development, they will have created a sense of self-worth and meaning but will not know what they are.

Chaotic beings reflect this. They see themselves as independent of all things in the world, unlike lawful beings, who usually see themselves as a detached object without needs or wants, and so they will take actions to validate their sense of individuality. At some point, however, Chaotic beings can gain 'friends'(or the like) and begin to learn that their individuality has no need for validation. Chaotic beings are born feeling as though they cannot be, as humans call it, 'vulnerable'. They believe that if their sense of self is not validated by others then they have no meaning, but they soon learn that they feel like their life gains more meaning through others. As a chaotic being grows more vulnerable, their mind and body grow strong in contrast, and they soon begin to lose their egocentric tendencies. It is the pinnacle of saccharinity, but through being with others, they will gain the feeling of wholeness that lawful beings are born with. As a chaotic being's first stage ends, they learn that their individuality is not the only meaning that can be derived from their life, and they begin to question how they might give others the means to create meaning in their own lives.

While a lawful being grows from deep contemplation in their first stage of development, a chaotic being grows through kinship.