~~~(Lusvar)~~~

"A bringer?" The Primality laughs at my claim as the Domain Deities stare at me in horror, having realized that I'm at my current peak. "You really expect me to believe that you are on the level of those monsters?"

Bringers are the most powerful harbingers of change. My brother Iinav, the Bringer of Faith and Hope, has already brought faith and hope to many. My brother Nikvar, the Bringer of Magic, has already brought new magic and returned the knowledge of lost magics.

And I will bring light and darkness.

"On their level?" I step forward, leaving the staff floating where it was after pushing some magic into it. "No, not at all."

With a snap my fingers, the guard who entered the chamber with me dissolves into nothing.

"You should consider them to be beneath me," I take another step forward. "Far, far beneath me."

The Primality laughs as if I'm just playing and throws a hand forward. A spear formed of darkness soars at me, dissolving into nothing against my wards.

A Darkness Primality, huh? Well, let me bring some darkness to you. The eternal kind.

"This Calamity will go no further than today," I tell him as he launches a series of spells at me, all of which fade against my wards. "Once I have disposed of you, I will free the Domain Deities, destroy the Calamity Crystal, and get on with my life."

The Primality laughs, increasing the power behind his attacks. I let him. My reserves of mana are vast, very likely even more vast than his. That, combined with the raw strength of my magic, means even a small amount of mana can create extraordinarily potent wards.

The Primality flings a destructive curse at me, designed specifically for wards that dissolve spells. I flick my wrist, sending it back at him, and he roars in rage, blocking the curse to the best of his ability.

Because I altered it with my own power, he was unable to cancel the spell, and it still blew up on him, throwing him across the giant magic circle. He needs to protect the Domain Deities if he wants this to succeed. Were that not an issue, he could have just dodged it and let the spell slam into the Earth.

I flick my wrist, throwing a spear of light and shadows mixed together at the Primality, and he deflects it, allowing it to slam into the magic circle we're standing on. He deflects the next several as well.

I've always wanted to kill a Primality, but with my power restrained by the Primal Seals, it won't be an easy kill.

"Why are you trying to cause a second Great Calamity?" I ask the Primality when a violet flame dissipates against my wards. "It will have massive repercussions for this entire realm, just like the first one."

"That's not the business of a child," he snarls. "Now die!"

"Seriously," I hold up a hand, freezing the spears of black flames in their tracks. "'Now die'? Seriously? What are you, some cliché? That's not what you say to someone when you're trying to kill them."

"Then what do you say?" He asks.

"You either try to get information out of them," I flick my wrist, his spears reversing and flying towards him. "Or you attack."

It looks like I need to stop containing my power within me. We've only exchanged a few attacks, but I can tell we're at a stalemate. Let my power bleed into my aura, let it shroud me and alter things.

Reality begins to bend around me. It is not someone else's to command, it is simply mine. It reshapes itself to my will and desire, creating what is no doubt a disturbing aura around my body. A Reality Marble isn't possible here, but the sheer force of my power, unrestrained save for those Primal Seals, is enough to warp the true reality.

"What are you?" The Primality takes a step back, shock on his face.

"I am," I say, my voice taking on a deep and light tone simultaneously as my aura settles down, shimmering a swirling of blue, purple, green, and orange. Raw magic. "Lusvar Nomari, the Bringer of Light and Darkness. I am an Enchanter and a demigod, a dragon and a mortal. Magic is my heritage while reality is my inheritance."

I form tendrils of raw magic around me, the purple, blue, green, and orange limbs spreading around, launching at the Primality, who does his best to dodge. Where one touches, magics fade, ripped apart. The circle beneath us begins to fade, its light no longer as bright.

The Primality flies up into the air, only to be struck at by my tendrils there. He roars in pain and agony as one of them grazes his arm. I barely touched him, yet the effect was tremendous.

Raw magic, or aether, eats away at nigh everything it comes into contact with. This is part of why I fragmented my mind as a kid. At my full power, even my aura became infused with it, and that was dangerous.

So I split my mind into seven fragments and became Caleb Rivers. It was the only way the younger me could think of to stop that from happening. My mind split into seven, my powers with it. The dividing of my magic wasn't even, however, and that was the goal.

The sum of my seven fragments is nowhere near my full. No, my full power is the total product of all seven fragments – the multiplication of them.

I begin to float up into the air. If I let my aura, now unrestrained, touch the magic circle for too long, and it will come undone far too fast. That would be cataclysmic in and of itself, ignoring the fact that it may trigger the Calamity as well.

The Primality draws upon his Primal State, turning into a mixture of fire and darkness with a few touches of water. I can see where my tendril touched him, one of his flames is dimmer than the rest, not as bright nor as dark, the water there moving a little slower.

Lashing out again, I continue to strike at him, the Primality using his Primal State to stop my attacks. They're less effective against him like this, but in the end, a Primality can't touch raw magic. True raw magic.

Aether.

And so I continue to wear away at the Primality, his attacks disappearing against the aether shrouding me. Our battle begins to damage the chamber around us, which begins to shake. My power is holding it together, however.

Through the sheer force of will alone – literally.

It only takes me a few minutes, now that I've released my power from my body, to kill the Primality, a tendril tipped with a spear piercing straight through the sole remaining portion of him still with any power in it.

The Primality's light fades away, his flames completely gone, his water dissipating as his darkness vanishes.

The chamber shakes again, and I float down, resting a few feet above the center of the chamber. Closing my eyes, I work my power and will into the chains binding the Domain Deities. Simultaneously, I shatter the chains.

Any other way, and the Calamity would have begun in full force.

Looking up at the crystal, its glow has begun to fade, the Domain Deities' power no longer flow into it. I wrap several of my aetherial tendrils around the crystal, destroying every last piece of its existence. From the aether it was born, by the aether it was destroyed, and to nothing it has become.

Landing just-above the rapidly-fading circle on the cavern floor, I watch as the magic quickly fades, my contact with it finally overloading its ability to restore itself.

"Thanks!" The Moon flings himself at me, only to have the Sun grab him by the hair. "Hey!"

"We aren't immune to aether," the Sun snorts. "You know that, Moon. You nearly wounded yourself."

"Well, I've missed being able to talk with Lusvar!"

"I've missed your voice," I say as I pull my power back into me. It's not easy, and next time, I might not be able to. Once my power is restrained by me once more, I land on the floor, now that I won't just keep sinking down with my aura dissolving it to nothing. "I take it you'll be silent for awhile as you recover?"

"Yeah!" He exclaims as I reform my uniform around me. It was dissolved by the aether of my aura. "Let go of me, Sun!"

The Sun releases the Moon, who then charges me and wraps his arms around me in a hug.

"I've missed you so much, Lusvar!" He rubs his head against my chest. "You've gotten so big and tough! And you remerged yourself! Thanks for rescuing us!"

"You're welcome," I say, then look at the staff. "You guys might want to return to your… wherever it is you normally are. Your powers are weakened immensely by this, and will take some time to recover. As soon as I release the spell I put into the staff, the cavern's going to collapse, and you won't be able to warp your way out."

"Thanks, Lusvar!" The Earth gives in and hugs me, while the Sun just snorts.

"Alright, boys," the Sun says. "Let's go. Thanks, Lusvar. Hopefully this time, we can fully recover before some moron decides they want to do this again. And maybe that will never happen."

"Maybe Lord Luck will bless you," I smile at them, and he places a hand on the other two, the three of them disappearing. "I suppose I should track down my team before releasing the spell."

I snap, and the staff follows me out of the chamber and through the tunnels. With time frozen outside of the chamber, entering them is weird, but I manage alright in my new state. Even do so without disturbing the spell.

The Ruins aren't active, either, though they'll collapse once time unfreezes. The Calamity Crystal was causing it, in addition to the presences of the three Domain Deities. This allows me to spread out my Passive Territory, reaching out dozens of miles, even passing through the barrier created by my father and the Scribe.

With time frozen, there aren't any minds to sense. The Domain Deities were likely frozen the moment they left as well, though they'll be fine.

My Passive Territory isn't just minds, though. It allows me to sense everything within it, so not being able to sense minds isn't a hindrance.

Owen, Jared, and Brooks, I reach first. They aren't that far from the entrance to the tunnels. I wave my hand, warping them back into town. Owen looked weak, and that's a rather nasty curse he got hit with. I should probably heal it, but there are other, more important things to do first. Like taking care of my team, not someone who's along just because he's friends with Jared.

With them warped out, I make my way to…

Well, he's back to being Flame, it looks like. And back to being a living fireball that was soaring down a tunnel, burning through guards. I turn him back to his actual form. Before reweaving his clothes on him, I grip the staff and channel my power through it.

Maybe as Lusvar, I possess the power to do what my brother could not. Several minutes of white and gold glows later, and I determine that healing him will probably never happen, especially since this staff is not continuing to exist once I finish here.

It's far too powerful to allow exist. I don't trust it anyone's hands but my own, and I'm not babysitting it at all times, especially since I am fragmenting my mind back into its seven pieces after this.

Keeping my power from flowing out grows harder and harder with every passing moment. With these Primal Seals binding my power, it's impossible to fully control it and contain it.

Since Flame's unable to be healed, I weave his uniform back around him, then warp him to the others. With my team safe, I return to the Chamber of Calamity, which is illuminated by nothing, my draconic eyes allowing me to see with perfect clarity despite that.

I place the staff in the center of the chamber, then undo my spell. Immediately, the mountain itself trembles. Exerting my power on the mountain, I hold it together long enough for me to create a single tendril of aether, wrapping the staff in it and destroying it and the powers bound into it.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

As soon as I do that, a rush of magic flows out, promptly destroyed by the aether.

The mountain trembles again, and I warp out to a spot a small distance from my team. There are monsters all over town, nigh everyone converted by the pulses from the Calamity's beginning. It'll likely have already affected areas outside of here, too, but the changes won't be as drastic.

Outside of the mountains, I close my eyes and begin refragmenting my mind, reducing my power down to that tiny fraction of itself. Caleb Rivers will have been forever changed by this experience, though we had already changed a fair bit before the merging.

No longer will he be scared and timid of things, and he will be confident and sure of himself without needing to act. Hesitation won't be something he will familiarize himself with much anymore, if ever.

----------------------------------------

~~~(Caleb)~~~

A piercing headache splits through my skull, and I stumble a few steps before managing to tolerate it. When I was younger, they couldn't figure out the source of it. I had barely recovered from the fragmentation when the Massacre began.

Had I not split myself, had I not divided my power up, I would have been able to stop the Massacre. I would have been able to save everyone.

But there's no use complaining about it. I can't change the past – only the Scribe can, and she can only do so willingly and under certain conditions.

Taking a deep breathing, I raise a hand, sending out several bolts of magic, killing the monsters around me before warping to my team, who are looking around in confusion.

"Who turned me back and made these clothes?" Flame sniffs his jacket. "Oh, smells like Caleb."

"I'm right here," I say, and he jumps, turning to face me.

"Why is everything shaking?" He asks as the ground lurches violently.

"Probably because the mountain is collapsing."

"YOU ACTUALLY DID DESTROY THE MOUNTAIN?" All four of them ask in unison.

"I didn't collapse it," I tell them. "Stopping the Calamity destabilized it. It was already being held together by the power of the upcoming Calamity. The chambers and tunnels beneath it were vast. The mountain's simply going to collapse down and fill those gaps."

The world shakes as the mountain collapses, becoming a thousand feet shorter as a wave of dust explodes out of it. The debris from the collapse slams into a barrier Teacher and the Scribe generated from where they're hovering.

"Now that that's sorted," I place a hand on Owen, mending his body from the injuries he sustained in the tunnels and removing the curse. "Let's deal with the monsters here in town. They're easy enough everyone should be able to handle them on their own, so let's split up. It shouldn't take us more than five or ten minutes if we move fast."

The others nod, then take off, and I turn and begin walking, slaying monsters as they come near, up until Teacher warps himself to me.

"Where's the staff?"

"Which staff?"

"The one you came into town with," he answers. "The one sealed in some Ruins under the Enchanted Forest."

"I destroyed it," I answer, and his eyes widen in shock. "It was much too powerful to allow to exist, Teacher. While having my mind whole, I was powerful enough to destroy it."

"Your mind whole?" He asks. "What does that mean?"

"I live in a constant state," I explain. "Where my mind is split into seven fragments, thus dividing my powers. Technically, there are seven Caleb Rivers living at a time. We're each slightly different from each other, so you'd probably never notice the difference. The Scribe probably did when she changed the past, though. Only one of the Caleb Rivers knows the 'new' history, the rest of us remember the actual past perfectly clear."

"That explains that mystery," he mutters.

"What mystery?"

"One of many," he answers. "There is a disturbingly high number of them surrounding you."

"Have you tried turning them off and back on?"

Teacher stares at me blankly, then lets out a sigh of exasperation.

"Another mystery," he tells me. "Is someone with what appears to be the Primal Seal of Light, even though you have it. He looks like Kieran, only with-"

"Blond hair and gold eyes?" I ask.

"You know him?"

"That's Akira," I nod. "Where is he? I need to see him."

Teacher leads me a few streets over, to where Akira is fighting against some monsters.

"Thanks, Teacher," I walk towards Akira.

That's not a Primal Seal within him, but a powerful imitation of one. They were the true goal of the orphanage that Kieran and I came from. The Rivers Orphanage in Alkran city.

To artificially generate Primal Seals to enhance the powers of those who had them. They discovered with me that I already had genuine ones within me, binding my powers, and tried to use that to work on others.

Unfortunately, it resulted in them binding power instead, and they didn't have the ability to remove them, so they just left the unfortunate youth with them and their powers bound by them.

I guess dying made Akira's manifest. I'd known it was present for awhile, but wasn't able to remove it because it hadn't actually manifested. But now that it's here, I can remove it. It's easy to enter his mind, and his dragon recognizes me. Even if Akira's forgotten himself as Kieran due to the death, the dragon remembers.

Akira stops fighting monsters and turns to look at me, frowning. I reach him.

"Hello, Akira," I say.

"Something inside me recognizes you," he says, giving me a curious look as I kill the remaining monsters around us with spears of ice.

"That's because we're brothers," I say. "Don't worry, though, you'll remember soon enough. Remove your shirt."

"Why?" He gives me a suspicious look.

"So that I can break the seal on you and restore your memories," I answer.

He hesitates, looks around, then turns his gaze back to me and removes his shirt. I place a hand on his sternum and inhale as much as I can, then slowly exhale, pushing power into him as I do. My magic flows through him, and I sense his unease, but also how comfortable his dragon is. The dragon assures him that it's alright, that this is okay.

It takes me several minutes to weave my magic into the Primal Seal within him, then dissolve it.

He lets out a massive gasp, clutching his chest as he stumbles back. His memories are rushing back. Will he go by Akira again? Or return to being Kieran?

As he recovers, I kill the few monsters that show up on the street, then his gaze meets mine, his hair turning black as his eyes turn blue. Guess he's Kieran, since he's using his power over light to change his appearance to Kieran's.

"Dammit, Caleb," he says. "You couldn't have warned me it was going to hurt?"

"I didn't know it would," I tell him as he pulls his shirt on. "The gang's here, by the way. And Owen."

"I spent three months cleaning," he grumbles.

"I take it you're going by Kieran again?" I ask.

"Yeah," he grunts. "Thanks for finding me, Caleb."

"Coincidence," I shrug. "I'm confused as to how you ended up here, though."

"I don't know, either," he shrugs. "It may remain a mystery. The last thing I remember was being shot by some Perception stronger than me, then I woke up here without my memories. Nothing between."

"Just a mystery," I shrug as a surge of metal magic fills the air. "Jared's enraged by something. And… grieving? Grieving!"

"Shit," Kieran says.

I grab him and warp to Jared, who has ripped every piece of metal from the surroundings and is destroying every monster in sight, hundreds of thousands of blades ripping through the block. It's probably a good thing Flame and Brooks are on the other side of town right now. His blades are bouncing off the shield I erected around Kieran and me, but they're shredding everything else.

Everything around him and Owen, who's on his last legs of life. I undid the curse before leaving them, though? Even healed him? He's a powerful Gifted, he shouldn't have lost that easily, so something strong must have attacked, especially with how badly his body's been mangled.

I can't heal that, not as Caleb Rivers, and becoming Lusvar again right now is not a good idea. I'd do more harm than good. Closing my eyes, I do the thing that's become so familiar to me, and merge his aura and magic into Jared as his life leaves him.

Jared's metal stops flying around as he stiffens, his crying halted.

"He's gone," I tell Jared once my teammate looks at me. "But you have his legacy, now. Wield it well, Jared. And kill monsters, not trees and houses."

Jared nods, taking several deep breaths. They became close friends over the last year or so, Jared's first real friend. I'm not surprised he's affected so badly, and can empathize with him.

The metal stops spinning around and drops, several pieces of it flying back to Jared and reshaping to its normal state, returning to where he normally wears them.

"Is that… Kieran?" He realizes my companion's presence and identity. "But you're dead!"

"It's a lot harder to kill a Rivers than someone else," I tell Jared. "I found him killing monsters. Also, you might want to move closer to me."

"Why?" He narrows his gaze at me.

"Let's move closer to him," I tell Kieran, who joins me by Jared and Owen's corpse.

"Why?" Jared asks. "What are you going to do?"

"You can't feel that surge of magic?" I ask.

"There's so much magic here, it's hard to read it," he tells me.

"Oh," I say as Brooks runs towards us. "Hey, Brooks. I'll shield us."

"What's going on?" Jared asks.

"Flame's turned into… well, fire."

"What else is new?" Jared asks. "That news is three days old."

"Erm-" Brooks cuts off as a pillar of fire forms on the other side of town, quickly expanding in size. My shield protects us from its effects as it washes over. "He decided that since we were the only people around and everything else was a monster, it was best to just burn it all."

"It works," Flame's voice echoes out of the fire. "See! No more monsters!"

"No more anything!" Brooks yells, and Flame giggles.

We're surrounded by charred land and ash, Flame's fire burning everything in an instant. A few seconds later, his flames reduce down and swirl beside us for a few moments before taking on his form, his uniform reforming around him as he grins at us.

"Hey, Kieran!" He gives Kieran two thumbs-up as I release my barrier.

"Flame," Kieran acknowledges him.

"Glad to see you're alive!"

"Glad to be alive," Kieran states, then looks around. "What's the GDDF?"

Flame explains that as we walk out of town and to our ship, the barrier created by Teacher and the Scribe gone.

On the ship, we each go to a separate room to give a briefing on the events that occurred here. After I finish, General Reynolds, Grant, informs me that there are no new missions for us at the moment and that we're given a one-month vacation before they'll alert us, unless there's an emergency.

After that, we talk for a bit, then I join the others in the dining room, where they're chatting, and relay the message.

"Cool," Flame says. "Got any plans for it?"

"Jared?" I look at him.

He brought Owen's body with him, and it's currently in storage here on the ship.

"I'm taking Owen for a burial," he informs us. "Then heading out to look for my brother, wherever he might be. Do you know if he's safe?"

"The golem's still around," I answer. "So probably. They're currently in Vultar."

"Alright," he says. "Then I'll go there after making sure Owen's buried, and see if I can find him."

"I'm going to stick with Caleb," Kieran answers when Flame gives him a questioning look. "I'd rather not be separated from my brother again."

"What about you two?" Jared asks Flame and Brooks.

"Going to wander around a bit," Flame answers. "I want to get strong enough to be able to battle Mukura head-on! So I'm going to go challenge a few Ruins."

"I'm going where Flame goes," Brooks tells us. "Someone has to keep an eye on him. What are you doing, Caleb?"

Locating my most dangerous student and putting an end to him before Teacher finds out that he exists. Unlike Mukura and Flame, gifting him with the additional power was a mistake. I'll have to see what my brothers have found so far regarding his whereabouts while also looking for him, myself.

He was my mistake, though, so it's my job to take care of him. To preventing him from becoming the evil that he could be. As the Bringer of Light and Darkness, I will always walk that line and risk tilting things too far. And one day, I will tilt the balance far into one side.

Better it be the light and not the darkness. Even if overwhelming light is just as difficult to recover from as overwhelming darkness, it would still be a better chaos to live through.

"Locating someone I used to know," I answer. "Probably seek out any other brothers from the orphanage and see how they're doing. We're essentially the last resort, so it's unlikely we'll be summoned as a team often. I'd guess that we have probably two or three months, minimum, before we meet up. So I'm going to use that time to locate any surviving brothers, so that Kieran and I can see how they're doing."

"Cool," Flame grins. "Good luck with that, Caleb!"

"Thanks," I smile. "I'll need it."

Especially if they keep dying after we meet. But not even the fates know what the future holds for us, so all we can do is hope and see.

And live for another day.

"Let's take off," I say. "They want us back at our current headquarters for an in-person debriefing, then we're good for our break."

----------------------------------------

~~~(Teacher)~~~

"So," I say as the Scribe and I watch my son and his team fly away. "That's the end of the Second Great Calamity. The world's been reshaped, the only barely. The staff was destroyed, Caleb revealed a terrifying power, and the mysterious boy turned out to be Akira, but also Kieran."

"At least things ended well," she says. "Only the town and those responsible suffered casualties, and the Domain Deities have returned to their homes to recharge."

"This time," I look at the mountain. "I inspected what happened and who was behind it, Scribe."

"And?" She asked.

"It was a Primality," I tell her, then give her his real name, something that only exists in the Primal Tongue and is impossible to translate into any mortal language.

"That's a particularly greedy one," she says. "And a powerful one. Where is he now?"

"Gone," I answer. "Caleb used raw aether to wipe him out. The area the fight happened in was filled with the residue of their fight. They fought using magic at first, then Caleb began using aether somehow and the Primality went into his Primal State."

How did Caleb wield aether, though? Not even I can do that – as far as I know, only the Dragons of Creation possess that power.

My son is terrifying, but at least he walks the line instead of straying too far. The entire universe is better off for it.

"Let's go," I tell the Scribe. "It's no use worrying over things, and the mortals will be able to handle the changes that occurred as a result of the start of a Second Great Calamity."

The Scribe nods and vanishes, and I return to my island, only to find my father in human form, tanning on a beach towel, a turtle resting on his chest. The animal looks at me for a moment before hopping off of my father and walking towards the ocean. I watch as it does, then look at my father, who looks like he's napping. I can tell he's not, though.

"You're wondering how Lusvar could wield aether, aren't you?" He asks.

"You knew?" I ask.

"Of course," he sits up and looks at me. "Lusvar is more powerful than you. He's inherited the power of inheritance and can draw on all the of the powers of his mortal past lineage. On your side, that's you and your mother's line, though he can't tap into my powers. On his mother's side, he has a long line of Enchanters and Enchantresses.

"His blood is extremely potent," Father stands and stretches, the turtle flying towards him and landing on his head, letting out what I can only assume is a sigh. "Due to both of those aspects. Then factor in his full power, and things grow even greater. When imbuing his blood with his raw magic and aura, it turns into aether.

"When he releases the full amount of power he can wield right now," Father continues. "It turns into true raw magic, or aether, especially when it merges into his aura. Caleb is able to convince reality to bend to his will as well, which is part of why that happens."

Caleb's Enchanter side is that powerful? That's frightening.

I am glad he walks the line, then.

"So what are you going to do?" Father asks.

"Me?" I answer. "I am going to take a good, long break from mortal things, check back in eventually to see how things are doing, unless I start sensing something big."

"Alright," he grins at me. "Goodbye, then. Maybe I'll see you again in the next few years."