Vahlen laughs while being in the center of the group hug, but everyone starts noticing each other shivering.

“Maybe we should head back, it’s fuckin’ cold out here.” Darrien says, the group nodding their head in agreement.

Leaving the slightly gruesome scene of a bunch of young boys beaten up and bruised in a back alleyway, Aaron leads the way back to The Squad’s home.

Their base of operations is not far away, and the group of boys find their way to an actual decent looking house. The house is made of well packed mud and clay, a staple in the slums, with a typical sheet metal roof. The weirdest thing is the house looks extremely new and well kept, not a place that seems like a bunch of young boys would be living at.

Making their way inside, Vahlen is not surprised about how the interior of the house looks.

Clothes strewn everywhere, sleep sacks placed in random locations, with only a small amount of furniture within the one story, seemingly one room home. There was only a table, some chairs, and a somewhat functional kitchen.

A boy slightly bigger than Devan sat at the only table in the house, fiddling with some mysterious device. The boy didn’t even register that the others were home and kept focusing on the small device.

As the boys get undressed and put on dry clothes, Aaron shows Vahlen around the house. The house in fact has 2 rooms, the main room that the group came into and a decent bathroom.

“Ken’s water magic helps us stay hygienic, with the holes we dug to the local river, he can simply draw water through them, which gives us running water. Don’t tell anyone though.” Aaron makes sure to emphasize not to tell anyone.

Vahlen can understand why as he has never been in a place where they had easy access to water beyond just taking a bucket and making a trip to the nearest river source.

After visiting the only other room in the building, Aaron takes Vahlen over to the boy who is still invested in the device at the table.

“This is Tanner. He specializes in a type of creation magic from the Earth element.”

After hearing himself being introduced to someone new, Tanner finally looks up from his device and nods at Vahlen.

“Name’s Vahlen, nice to meet you.”

“Cool.”

This is all Tanner says before going back to studying the device.

All of the other boys have changed their clothes and now only Aaron and Vahlen stand there soaked completely to the core.

“Looking as you don’t have a backpack on you, you probably don’t have any extra clothes?”

Vahlen shakes his head and Aaron heads over to a corner of the spacious room, grabbing an extra set of clothes.

“Here are an extra pair of mine, we are about the same size so they should fit.”

Aaron throws the extra pair over to Vahlen who quickly changes into them. The boys then just talk for a couple of hours, describing their contributions to the group fight and who they should fight next.

Vahlen doesn’t chime in much as he is somewhat socially awkward and just met this large group of boys today. The other boys don’t seem to mind at least.

Vahlen is able to at least gain a slight insight to everyone’s powers. Aaron has lightning magic. Darrien has the ability to manipulate strings of different kinds. Ken has water magic that is more potent than most. Cam has the ability to tame monsters and use them for any purpose. Alex’s sword is apparently related to his innate magic ability. The weirdest of all is Devan who claims to have ‘Food magic’.

“You mean you can just summon food? That’s it?” Vahlen asks with a sceptical tone. Devan’s eyebrows furrow at this slight challenge from Vahlen.

“What do you mean that’s it? Food magic is awesome as shit!” Devan yells as he stands up, postering in front of Vahlen.

‘Shit isn’t very awesome.’ Vahlen thinks but decides to keep to himself.

“In fact, it is the biggest reason why we can live like this! Everyone here lives off of my food.”

Everyone else nods their head in agreement, yet Vahlen has never heard of anything like food magic and still doesn’t believe it exists.

“Show me.” Vahlen says with a challenging tone. Devan smirks at this and extends his hand. A bright light forms on his palm, and soon a large plate with an even bigger turkey leg appears on the plate.

Vahlen’s eyes are as round as saucers and the smell of freshly cooked turkey makes his stomach rumble in hunger loudly. The smirk on Devan’s face grows wider as he has caught Vahlen within his trap.

“Want some?”

Vahlen nods his head at high speeds, showing his enthusiasm for the turkey leg. Devan sets the plate on Vahlen’s lap and Vahlen can feel the warmth coming through the plate like the turkey leg just came off of the spit.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Vahlen doesn’t hesitate even when he notices Aaron put out his hand like he was going to say something. Taking a large bite, a myriad of flavors explodes in Vahlen’s mouth, making the young boy smile with glee.

This glee doesn’t last long as his stomach starts rumbling again, but for a different reason.

Vahlen’s face turns into one of horror and he throws the turkey to the ground. The food plus the plate turn into motes of light and disappear as Vahlen runs straight to the bathroom.

Once Vahlen reaches the bathroom, screams of laughter from the rest of The Squad drown out the screams of pain from the diarrhea wrath that Vahlen incurred from Devan.

The others are laughing so hard that barely any of them can breathe and all of them are wheezing.

Vahlen continues to be in pain as the toilet turns into a warzone for the next 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes are over and seemingly nothing else remains with Vahlen’s body, the pain and urge to defecate subside as if never there.

Vahlen lets out a sigh of reprieve and wipes the sweat from his head. He is unable to know how the toilet works, as he is used to a hole with a place to sit above it.

As he leaves the bathroom after recollecting himself, Vahlen sees Ken standing next to the door, and with the wave of his hand the sound of rushing water emanates from the toilet.

Vahlen nods to Ken as thanks and catches a feast being served at the table.

A wide range of meat is placed on the table, accompanied with large servings of mashed potatoes and bread. No vegetables can be found, but that should be expected.

Devan smiles at Vahlen and points to one of the empty seats.

“Why don’t you sit down and enjoy a nice meal?” Devan says with sneer.

Vahlen’s face turns pale when he realizes that this was all made with Devan’s magic, but is somewhat relieved to see the other boys eating the food. This should mean it isn’t poisoned, at least that’s what Vahlen thought to comfort himself.

Vahlen manages to steel his nerves and sits down at the table, gulping in fear as he looks down at the delectable food.

Aaron then places a hand on Vahlen’s shoulder while laughing, signalling Vahlen that it is okay to eat.

Vahlen hesitates but trusts Aaron to at least not continuously bully him. He takes a big bite, and his mouth once again explodes with a myriad of flavours, however this time he doesn’t feel the urge to have explosive diarrhea, which puts a smile on Vahlen’s face.

“See, cooler than you thought huh?” Devan says with a smile full of victory. Vahlen concedes and agrees that this is a very convenient power.

As dinner continues late into the night, it isn’t long before some of the boys start falling asleep, and soon Aaron and Vahlen are the only ones awake.

“I really appreciate what you did for me.” Aaron says with a serious tone. Vahlen laughs and shakes his head side to side.

“If you’re referring to saving you, you did the same for me so we are even.”

Aaron chuckles at this remark and looks Vahlen into the eyes.

“You know, I don’t know anything about you, would you mind telling me your story?”

Vahlen thinks for a second and realizes that it would be fairly unreasonable for him to not tell anything about himself and expect the continued hospitality of The Squad. He takes a deep breath and goes on an exposition about his life.

“I have never met my parents, and I do not know anything about my dad. All I have left of my mother is this magical book she gave me.” Vahlen says as he picks up and shows Aaron the book that he used to knock Mikey out.

“This book is essentially my mother’s diary, however I cannot read all of it.”

“Why not?” Aaron asks with pure curiosity at the magical book.

“Well, I do not know. The later pages do not want to budge, and seem to unlock randomly.”

Vahlen gives a demonstration as he opens the book to where he last left off and tries to turn a page. Even though he tries many tactics, Vahlen is unable to turn the page and even Aaron gives it a try. No luck on that end either though.

“The book tells me random events throughout my mother’s life, and tells it from her perspective.”

“I wonder why the rest is locked?” Aaron asks out loud.

“I do not know, but I intend to find out.” Vahlen says with strength and conviction behind his voice. This surprises Aaron as Vahlen seems like a timid boy for the most part and this is the first time he is showing some real backbone.

“How did you survive on your own though?”

“Oh, I didn’t. My mother apparently gave me to a friend of hers who became my guardian. However this friend never really wanted me and beyond giving me a place to sleep and some food to eat, he never talked to me. I got to learn how to read and write from a travelling old man who stopped by our house one day luckily.”

“You seem to have had it rough, like us.” Aaron says as he stares off into nowhere, seemingly reminiscing about the past.

“Us?” Vahlen asks, wondering who Aaron is referring too. He assumes some members in The Squad but Vahlen is curious as to who.

“All of us. We are all boys who are lucky to have survived the harshness of the slums, but luckily we found each other. If you want to know more, you’ll have to ask them because I have no right telling someone else’s stories.”

Vahlen takes a long and deep look at Aaron.

“You’re way more mature than your average 12 year old you know that?”

Aaron bursts out laughing, but apparently all of The Squad are light sleepers and no one wakes up from the outburst.

“Truly, we all are. That’s what the slums will do you to ya’. But we like to have fun for the most part, before we are forced to take life seriously.”

Vahlen nods his head in agreement to that statement as he is the same way, shrinking away from the thought of having responsibilities like adults do.

“Well, this was a nice talk but I’m fuckin’ tired. We got plenty to do tomorrow so get a good night's rest.” Aaron says as he pats Vahlen’s shoulder and heads towards the last sleep sack left.

“What do you mean plenty to do?”

A dangerous smile spreads across Aaron’s face.

“We got to protect our territory, and we also got to train to get stronger. Can’t solve the mysteries of your book if we stay a bunch of weaklings right?”

Vahlen nods at this but is surprised at how serious Aaron is. Vahlen never considered training anything and spent most of his time at the local library reading books, and helping clean the library so he could read any book he wanted.

‘I guess there is a first for everything.’ Vahlen thinks to himself as he finds a nice empty spot on the floor and lays his head on his book, using it as a pillow. A motherly warmth radiates from the book and quickly puts Vahlen to sleep like he was sleeping on his own mother’s lap.

‘I will find you mother, I promise.’ Vahlen thinks to himself as he drifts off into the realm of dreams.