by Peri Akman
“It’s just… we can’t really do much, can we?” He frowned, idly scratching his frizzed-out hair. Was it too late to go back? Would they have to explain the barbed wire to the guards? Was that the issue?
“Quinn, when are you going to learn to stop worrying and just go with it?” Kole snapped. “Actually scratch that, worry all the time. Just go with it as you worry.”
Quinn opened his mouth to retort, but Travitz shushed him, and pointed ahead. Sure enough, past a few trees, was a creature lazing about. He blinked as he tried to focus on it as it flickered in the sun. If he hadn’t been looking directly at it, he would have assumed it was just a trick of the light.
“Six,” Kole muttered.
Travitz winced.
Quinn looked down at his hand and concentrated. A sword began to form, sparks of metal spanning a vertical line to take shape.
“No monsters though. Good or bad on that, take your pick,” Kole reported.
“You haven’t seen a Shorne monster yet, have you?” Travitz muttered.
“I have. A single one of them could piledrive the rest of the demons into dust. Which means all we’d have to worry about is sheer dumb muscle, nothing else,” Kole countered, annoyed at Travitz questioning her authority on such matters.
Quinn’s sword seemed to be okay. It was heavier than he anticipated, however, and with a sinking feeling in his gut, Quinn realized he had drastically underestimated how much a sword weighed at this length. Its handle was also abominably long, complete with a crossguard the size of Quinn’s handspan, and had to have weighed three times more than the actual blade. He had never actually handled a sword before, and it was now he realized he had no idea if this was even accurate or not. He knew what a bat felt like, he knew what paper felt like, but not a sword.
Emblazoned at the center of the crossguard, much like the shield, was an H, in the exact same style.
Apparently, somewhere on this planet, there was a poor guy named Harold or Henry who was annoyed at constantly losing his weapons.
If it even came from this planet. Maybe he imagined them all up? That would be weird.
Kole took one look at the sword and generated one of her own before handing it off to Travitz.
Travitz gripped the sword, cursed suddenly, and dropped it, the sword shattering into a million pieces.
“That has to be the worst-weighted weapon I’ve ever handled!” Travitz hissed.
Quinn cast his eyes downwards. So he really did have no idea what a sword was supposed to feel like, assuming Kole had summoned the same sword. It certainly looked similar enough. He quietly banished his sword and re-summoned it a few times until it felt right. Which really just meant it didn’t hurt as much to hold.
“You’ve handled weapons before?” Kole asked, as if surprised by such a reveal.
“My own master taught me basic sword fighting, yes. What’s shocking about that?” Travitz snapped.
The sunbathing demon reared its head up, having heard the noise. It gave a weird clicking noise. The women flinched, and Quinn was inclined to follow suit.
“I can hear Sennta inside,” Kole muttered. “I didn’t notice before but he made a noise—he’s alive but not breathing right.”
Travitz nodded, and without even waiting, she broke out into a run. She dashed straight past the demon, and disappeared into the cave.
“Quinn, look out!” Kole yelled.
Out of his peripherals, Quinn could see two demonic-looking beings surrounding him. He felt a flash of fear and the sword disintegrated while still in his hands.
Of course.
Because he was an utter failure at everything.
“Stop not believing in your own weapons!” Kole roared, as she took her walking stick to one of the demons nearing Quinn.
Quinn frowned angrily. “It’s hard, okay!”
A demon began to run towards Quinn. He gave a yelp and ran in the other direction, after practically mentally screaming at his feet to move.
The demon was not as fast as Quinn, and Quinn felt a breath of relief take him when he realized he would be good for a few minutes as—
And just like that a wave of exhaustion hit him.
Quinn gave a gasp as he skidded to a halt. Sure, he had run up those stairs, but there was more than enough time in between to rela—
The magic. The magic had exhausted him, and like an idiot he had been randomly summoning things this entire time!
Stupid, stupid, STUPID!
The demon colored itself and shimmered, before taking shape. It grinned through a poorly constructed mask that looked vaguely like Quinn.
It was trying to turn into him.
Gonna eat you then be you, it slurred, much in the way the Sennta demon had.
Kole was right. They had been feeding.
Which meant they’d be slower, mentally and physically,, but also apparently able to flat out tear him apart limb from limb.
Wonderful.
Quinn summoned a sword, not even bothering to look at it as he desperately swung, but it cracked and shattered as it made contact with the bad Quinn knockoff, just as the bat had with the previous demon.
It slowly but surely waddled towards Quinn.
In the distance he heard thwacking and cursing, no doubt Kole fighting multiple demons at once.
And he couldn’t even take down one.
He didn’t want to fight. That’s what he said every time. But he didn’t object. The second he had heard Sennta was in danger, he had followed. He hadn’t even questioned it. He hadn’t even been worried, more distracted by his powers than his fate.
Because Kole was supposed to save everyone, with Travitz helping.
He couldn’t even conceptualize something going wrong, not really, anyway. It was like failure was just some distant myth, that only existed for other warlocks.
Not once had he even bothered questioning that, and since he hadn’t bothered, Kole hadn’t bothered either.
Gods, he was such a fragile little idiot!
The demon’s hand shot out and grabbed Quinn by the collar. Quinn practically lurched forward.
The demon smiled, its own skin spreading out unnaturally long. Its mouth opened really wide, giving Quinn a view of the trees behind the thin black sheen.
Oh gods, it was going to eat him. It was going to eat him and bite his head off and it was going to be terrible.
He squeezed his eyes shut. His body refused to move, once again.
It was like he was a frozen piece of—
A noise that sounded like teeth hitting metal rang out, and Quinn opened his eyes.
He was encased in a metal box. There was a large hole in it, where the demon had been gripping his cloak.
The metal box started to disappear around him, and the demon was on the ground, rolling in pain, mouth bleeding.
It had bitten into metal.
A light went off in his head.
He didn’t need to fight. He just needed to make sure he couldn’t get hurt.
Quinn dashed over the demon, grabbed it, and pictured something, hoping to the gods it would work.
Sure enough another metal box appeared, leaving two holes where Quinn’s hands were. Quinn immediately withdrew his hands.
“This box is real. This box is real. Thisboxisrealthisboxisrealthisboxisreal,” Quinn said as he started to back away.
Quinn heard a clanging noise and a huge dent shot out of the box. But it did not break. It did not disintegrate. The box was real.
The box was real and it was going to hold ALL of his problems… and put them away.
Another clang, another dent.
“YOU ARE REAL DO NOT DISAPPEAR ON ME YOU ARE REAL YOU ARE VERY REAL!” Quinn screamed.
Another clang, another dent, this one leaving a rather well-sized hole at the end.
A bigger box! Yes! Quinn took a few steps closer, picturing a larger box to encase the smaller one.
Quinn gave a sigh of relief. “You are also real. Box,” he muttered.
The larger box began to distort immediately. Quinn grimaced. From the sounds of it, summoning the second box had just completely removed the first box.
He really sucked at this. It wasn’t fair, Kole had summoned two items at once, how come he couldn’t?
Because he was an apprentice. An apprentice whose solution to things was to put them in boxes.
The second box was faring no better, with the demon seeming to pick up that hitting the same spot was better than hitting different spots.
Sure enough, the demon burst out of the dented box, bleeding and battered. It didn’t really look like Quinn any more either, more like a poorly remembered version of him.
Had he… hurt the demon? Maybe by forcing it to expend itself? That made sense.
The newly angered demon went to attack, and Quinn summoned up his shield with the H on it. Sure enough, the box instantly disintegrated.
The demon bounced off of Quinn’s shield. There was no dent, hardly a scratch. Quinn briefly flashed a smile. He might be able to win!
The demon crashed into Quinn again, but this time Quinn brought up the shield. Unfortunately Quinn wasn’t the only one who learned. The demon powered through, instead of trying to strike, and Quinn crumpled, falling to the ground and landing flat on his rear.
“OW!” Quinn yelped, and the demon chittered in happiness.
The demon grinned, and as Quinn tried to stand up, it merely pushed Quinn back down again. Quinn fell, groaning in pain.
The demon gripped Quinn’s neck. Its fingers slowly began to tighten.
He needed something. Something he could summon that could just… kill it.
He couldn’t use a sword, he didn’t have the strength to actually do any damage to this creature.
Why couldn’t weapons be easier to use?
Like some sort of… retractable weapon.
A retractable automatic weapon.
Quinn shut his eyes, and hoped desperately for something in his brain to summon what he needed.
A spring appeared in his hand.
Oh come on!
His mind racing quickly, he tried to think of something else—anything else. What if instead it just fell on the demon? Just a giant metal box fell on it and killed it?
He reached out, pictured the biggest box he could a few feet above the demon, and prayed.
A small lump about the size of his fist dropped gently on the demon’s head.
However, it did give him a saving grace—the demon let go, and looked around in confusion at who was throwing rocks at it.
Quinn gasped for air and clawed himself away from the demon. The demon picked up the metal lump and examined it, giving a surprised yelp when it disappeared.
The demon turned to attack Quinn, grabbing his leg. It was impeded by yet another box appearing.
YOU ARE THE WORST! the demon screeched. THE LITERAL WORST!
“Quinn!” A voice called out to him.
Quinn turned around to see Kole rushing over to him.
“Quinn, are you okay?” She seemed torn up, a bit less coherent, a bit more exhausted.
Quinn silently pointed to the box. A dent appeared in it soon after.
Kole nodded. She reached for Quinn. “I’ll protect you. Thank gods you’re okay.”
“QUINN!” Another voice screeched in the distance.
Easily fifty feet away was another Kole.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Close Kole said, “but trust me, that one is the demon. I kicked its rear and now it’s trying one last gambit.”
Quinn’s eyes fluttered. “You don’t have a staff. You just ran over here,” he muttered.
Kole’s eyes widened. “Oh for the love of—”
A surge of confidence overcame Quinn, and he jolted up, blood rushing down in a frantic attempt to tell him to stop standing up. The box disappeared, and instead the H sword appeared in his hand.
Quinn didn’t even think before slamming it into Kole. This time it didn’t break or shatter, or even bend. It stuck into her with a sickening noise.
At first, Quinn widened his eyes in horror. Crap. What if he had just stabbed the wrong Kole? He might have just murdered his master! He was a terrible apprentice! The absolute worst!
And then Kole made a strange hissing noise that was very much demonic.
Quinn’s face lit up in relief, until he was promptly tackled to the ground again by the now-freed other demon.
For the next few seconds, pain washed over Quinn as the demon tore into him, and the Demon-Kole, bleeding and dying, kicked him sharply in the head. He couldn’t even tell if he was screaming or his jaw was just locked in horror.
And then it was gone. Real Kole stood over him, bleeding as well, heaving, clutching her walking stick in one hand, and the shield in the other.
“If this keeps up, we’ll need to come up with a safety question, or a password,” Kole observed.
She kneeled down and began healing his wounds.
“Where’s Sennta?” Quinn asked hazily.
“Travitz was carrying him; last I heard their footsteps, they had made it past the barbed wire and into the city. I give her a minute before the adrenaline wears off.” Kole spoke casually, but with a haggard edge in her voice. She was tired, worn out.
“Couldn’t you just have… healed him?” Quinn asked as his senses returned, and he sat up.
“Why would you—oh no you’re misinterpreting. Demons usually don’t feed on blood to get the magic out. That’s just what I do to mess them up. Usually they just feed on your essence. Which doesn’t sound like it’d hurt, but…” Kole trailed off.
Quinn blinked and frowned. “You’re making less sense than normal.” He stood up and immediately sat back down.
His world spun.
“Oh honey.” Kole cackled. “How much did you cast?”
“I dunno, enough to not die, thank you very much,” Quinn muttered.
“You did an excellent job at that,” Kole observed, seeming genuinely pleased. “You just tapped into your natural energy to cast. Which is fine, we all do it, it just means you did the equivalent of running a marathon.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that before!” Quinn snapped.
“Because you didn’t ask, I forgot, and people too often use it as a form of fear mongering. Every five years or so there’s a case of some warlock overtaxing themself and dying of exhaustion—and look! see! That face you just made! Now every time you get a little bit tired from casting magic you’re gonna be convinced a heart attack is next!” Kole waved her walking stick around.
“You mean I could have died from just casting too much!?” Quinn’s mouth hung open.
“You can also die from drinking too much water, you gonna be horrified by that next?” Kole muttered.
Quinn did not answer, still staring at Kole in shock.
Kole groaned at the silence, practically flailing with annoyance.
“Can’t you just skip ahead to wanting to practice boneheadedly already?” Kole whined, almost pleading.
Quinn tried to stand up again, but his body refused to comply. The slowly melting demons sunk into the ground around him.
“Could you at least help me up?” Quinn snapped.
Kole gave her hand, but as it turned out, she wasn’t exactly particularly strong either, especially since half of her weight was devoted to supporting her own leg. Quinn was hoisted up, and suddenly became aware of the fact that he weighed more than Kole. Like a lot more.
Kole’s knee gave, and the next moment they were both on the ground, Quinn practically suffocating Kole.
“Ow,” Kole said tonelessly.
“You are really bony,” Quinn muttered, as he rolled over back onto the much nicer ground. “I think I just got stabbed by your ribs.”
“That’s actually completely possible,” Kole heaved. “Ow, my legs. Why did I think that would be a good idea.”
“So… am I fat… or are you just weak?” Quinn asked.
“Both an
d neither,” Kole replied, without elaborating. “I don’t suppose you’re up for summoning up like… a self-propelled wagon or something?”
Quinn screwed his face in concentration, before shaking his head. “No. I think I need to like… know what things go into it, and actually believe I can do it.”
“What, you don’t believe you can make a self-propelled wagon?” Kole asked.
“I don’t even know how I’d start that!” Quinn nearly spat.
Kole chuckled. “In a bit I’ll try to heal your muscles, see if that will help. Worst comes to worst, Travitz will probably come back after making sure Sennta’s okay. On the bright side, I can’t hear anyone near us, so we can catch our breaths, get our second winds.”
Quinn groaned. “He’s okay, right? He’s not dying?”
“I don’t think so. Travitz didn’t seem too inclined to get me to heal him or anything, so he’s probably fine. Got drained for a day, more hungry than anything. Probably.” Kole shrugged from the ground.
Quinn coughed. “That’s good then. Honest question though—did I help? At all? Other than being your power monkey?”
“You’re not my power monkey. I don’t even know what that means,” Kole said suddenly, propping herself up in confusion.
“I mean… isn’t that why you brought me? So you could use my powers?” Quinn asked sheepishly.
“Not in the slightest. I didn’t bring you. You came along.” Kole replied.
“Yeah well… that’s not really fair is it? I’m fifteen. I don’t know what’s going on. A friend of mine could have been dead or—” Quinn began, but Kole cut him off.
“Sorry. I misspoke. What I meant is that you came along so—ah crud let me rephrase. At no point did you ever hesitate. You saw the kid’s eyes to be different and bolted down the stairs. You had to fight, so you did. Quinn, you clearly don’t know what you’re doing, but every time you’ve tried to step up to the occasion. You didn’t know how to heal, but you were willing to learn. You had no idea what was going on with me, but you’ve taken everything in stride. You’re more adaptable than you think,” Kole elaborated.
Quinn frowned. “I… don’t understand.”
“You came here, you rose to the occasion. You had to be better, so you were,” Kole said simply.
“I nearly died,” Quinn mumbled. “What if your stupid hands-on method had failed? You know, you’re not as smart as you think you are.”
