The baby was born, the white-haired boy saw the entire event take place in front of him in all of its terrible detail. He did not want to be here; he didn’t want to have seen what he had just seen but his friends had forced him. No one could know of the baby, so they were without a doctor.

The birth had taken place in Scrimp’s dilapidated bedroom. The place was a rotten heap about to collapse but Scrimp was the only friend they trusted enough and also lived somewhere where the events taking place would never get out. The only support that the girl had through the process was the white-haired boy’s magic. The white-haired boy had trained more for combat than for healing, but he could at least strengthen her, clear her mind, and suppress the pain.

The three people in the room were all frozen for a second as they stared at the sudden fourth member. Scrimp was waiting outside the room with his ear pressed against the door in a desperate attempt to make out what was happening. No one dared move as their minds struggled to process all that had and would need to happen: then it cried.

The white-haired boy spoke out in a panic. “What do I do!?”

The other boy in the room, a taller and broader boy who was sat next to the girl squeezing her hand quickly replied. “Cut it!”

The girl quickly interrupted in the same confused shouting as the rest of the group. “No clean it first!”

The white-haired boy turned to look at the bloody baby in front of him. He had been avoiding making direct eye contact, but it really did instill a horrendous discomfort within him. Although through his mind doubts and hesitations were swimming abound, his training allowed him to react immediately. The white-haired boy used his telekinetic prowess to magically rip all foreign substances off the baby leaving it impeccably clean.

The girl shouted out to the white-haired boy. “Not that clean!”

“You said to clean it.”

“It needs to be a little dirty to build immunity.”

The broader boy turned to the girl with a worried puzzlement blanketing his face. “Does it?”

The white-haired boy also turned to the girl waiting for an answer.

“… I, I think?”

Everyone then turned to face the white-haired boy who then looked down to the pristine baby. The white-haired boy felt like there had never been any living organism as perfectly clean as this baby currently was in all of history. He looked back up to his two friends and spoke. “It will be fine.”

“IT WON’T BE FINE!” The girl screeched back out to him so loudly that the white-haired boy thought he could hear her voice tearing.

The white-haired boy turned back to the baby. He knew he was not supposed to do what he was about to, but those morals were set in place as protection against those less skilled than him and these were extenuating circumstances. The white-haired boy coalesced the essence within the baby carving an arcane rune directly on to the baby’s heart. This process was infinitely more difficult than anything else he had done today. Right now, he had to exert every ounce of focus and strength he could possibly muster as he carved intricate and detailed patterns straight on to the flesh of a weak and vulnerable being. By the time he was finished he was drenched in sweat, less from the physical exertion and more from the unbearable stress.

“There, he will never be sick again.”

“He!?” His two friends questioned back at him with surprise and jubilation.

The girl then frantically started gesturing to the white-haired boy as she spoke. “Quick, quick, let me see him.”

The white-haired boy awkwardly picked up the baby and was about to bring it towards the two, but he was quickly interrupted. “Cut it first!”

“IT!?” The white-haired boy looked to the naked baby with great concern and pity.

“THE CORD!”

The white-haired boy was no doctor, he had never seen a birth before let alone a baby. How was he supposed to cut the cord? Where was he supposed to cut the cord? Guided by much more uncertainty than confidence he grabbed the cord firmly with one hand. The fabric of reality itself started to wobble and twist around his hand and then the umbilical cord fell out of existence. There was a thin strip along the line of where the cord used to be where it seemed space itself sank out of existence. After a brief pause, space began to pull back out of the strip and regenerated to normal.

“That is not a cut!”

“I didn’t know where to cut!”

“So, you obliterated me!? Do you know what that feels like? That was partly inside of me!”

The broader boy then interrupted the bickering friends. “Does it matter? It’s gone now. Just bring the baby over to us.”

The broader boy seemed anxious to see the small child. The second the white-haired boy was close enough the two stripped the baby away from him and coddled around it. As soon as the baby was taken into the arms of its parents it stopped crying.

The white-haired boy had honestly started to zone out the tears. Now that he was made aware of what quiet was supposed to sound like he immediately relaxed. He looked over to his two friends arguing over what to name the thing within their arms.

The white-haired boy watched the ephemeral serenity of the family, he couldn’t help but worry. He couldn’t help but have his mind flooded with the trials and tribulations that the future had stored for them and by extension him. The white-haired boy already had enough problems to deal with; he wanted to do everything he could to protect his friends’ happiness, but he wasn’t sure if he could juggle another complication.

“I hope you don’t regret this.” They didn’t even respond to him. The boy had honestly doubted whether they even heard him. Either way his role here was done and he had to quickly return or else the whole point of this event being unknown would be wasted.

The white-haired boy turned to leave when his friends called out to him. “Thank you Wish.”

“No problem.” Wish’s words did not match his expression nor tone, he didn’t mind helping out his friends through thick and thin, but he saw things there, the dungeon of Ingress didn’t even hold a candle to that horror show. And they were his friends! That just made the whole event that much more disturbing. Wish left the room and was immediately met with Scrimp trying to peer over him to catch a glimpse of the room behind. “You should probably give them some time to themselves”

Scrimp was clearly disappointed, he had been waiting for so long constantly hearing cries, shouts, and other less identifiable vocal panics from across the door without being able to see anything. Wish; however, was ready to go home.

“... Also don’t let them leave this place until I get back. I have some news for them.”

“What news?” Scrimp tried to sneak out a little information before his friend left. Wish wasn’t so forthcoming and spoke dismissively while grabbing his sword and equipment.

“I got to go Scrimp, I need my schedule to be unaffected or else this will have all been for naught.” Wish opened the door and began making his way out.

Scrimp quickly jogged over to his friend. “Well if I can’t go in and say hi to the baby then I’ll walk home with you and we can talk.”

Wish looked down to his shorter friend with a suspicious stare. “Alright but we’ll have to separate when we leave the district.”

"Yeah, yeah, can’t get spotted with some dirty slum rat.”

Wish let out a sympathetic sigh. “You know I don’t-“

“I know, I know, it’s not your fault.”

The two friends left the decrepit building and walked down the poor streets of a terribly neglected part of the town. The surrounding populace was thin and weak, dusty children fought for rotten scraps while adults hovered in the shadows waiting for victims to come close enough. Neither of the two friends payed much heed to any of these familiar sights. Scrimp was experienced enough to know how to traverse these areas with as much of a reduced chance of stumbling into muggers as was possible.

Scrimp was the first to break the silence. “So, when you first arrived at my place, I noticed that there was some blood on your sheathe.”

Wish hurriedly scanned his sword sheathe for any remaining grime, Scrimp spoke while placing a calming hand over to stop Wish’s fumbling search. “I cleaned the sheathe, while you were doing your… thing with the others so you don’t need to worry about it anymore. But does that blood have to do with that news that you mentioned?”

“I had a little run in with some assassins on my way over.”

“Again, I know you don’t want to but shouldn’t you tell your dad about them now, the numbers are getting crazy.”

Wish dismissively shook his head. “No, this time they weren’t for me.”

“What? Then who were they for?”

“The baby.”

Scrimp’s eyes bulged and he nearly tripped over his own feet while he took in the shocking revelation. “How did they find out? Do they know where I live? Should we have just left them alone back there? What if there’s another group?”

“Calm down Scrimp, I didn’t want to say anything because you all had enough on your minds, but this isn’t anything new. This was actually the third group just this month.”

“How long have they known!? And who even are they?”

“That why I didn’t want to tell you guys, I wanted to find out who and how.”

"And?”

“Well there is good news and bad news. I can go into more detail when were in a less public place but you should be safe for a few more weeks. I got the culprit tied up at the moment, but they’ll be pretty tough to deal with.”

“Tied up!?”

“Not literally. Don’t worry about it.”

“I just found out that people have been trying to murder my friends for months! And those friends are in hiding in my house!”

“I’ll make sure that everything works out, I always do. Just so long as they don’t leave your house until I get back. I can’t be seen with you from here on out so how about you head back and lock them down, I’ll see you later tonight.”

Scrimp required a little more calming but eventually he was convinced to return back. Wish wasted no time in quickly making his way back to the magnificent mansion in the center of town. The quality of life between Wish’s and Scrimp’s living conditions were astronomical. Scrimp’s house, if it could even be called that, could fit hundreds perhaps even thousands of times over within Wish’s estate.

Wish entered the main entrance of the mansion and was greeted with a massive room, two spiraling staircases diverged off to either side of him. In between the two staircases a gorgeous grandfather clock displayed the time: the time! Wish desperately rushed around the mansion running from his room to his bath nearly abandoning the servants struggling to keep up with him. He hurriedly tried to change into his nobles’ attire as he tried to make it to supper on time. In his hurry he nearly forgot his hat.

Wish arrived at the massive dining hall with even a little time to spare. A massive dining table stretched on an exceedingly long distance. The table could easily sit a hundred or so people. The colossal size of the room further emphasized the quiet isolation as it took Wish nearly a minute to walk the whole length of the table to reach the only other two people in the room. Throughout his whole walk he could hear the heavy echo of the dramatic conversation between his parents.

His father was sat at the edge of the table. He looked incredibly young for his age. Unless people knew of his father’s predicament then everyone would simply guess that the two were brothers since he only looked a few years older. His mother did look her age but as she was born of royal blood, she obviously still retained an unparalleled beauty, or so people wouldn’t stop telling her.

Before he had even fully approached them his mother without even sharing a glance spoke to him. “Your hair is showing.”

Wish filled with sudden distress hurriedly stuffed his hair into his hat so not a strand could be seen. “I humbly apologize mother.” Wish responded slightly failing to keep the calm elegance he was trained to perfect.

Wish made his way over to the chair across from his mother and patiently waited. His father spoke. “You may sit Wish. And Iatric I am not joking, I will kill that white witch and end her curse.”

His mother Iatric kept a completely monotone expression on her face. “Sometimes I wonder if your mind had also stopped maturing Doyen. You can’t kill all of your problems away.”

A clear anger filled Doyen’s face. “Don’t treat me like I’m the villain here, I didn’t want this to happen either. Sorry if you’re disappointed that I didn’t die back then!”

That last sentence managed to puncture through Iatric’s stoic coldness. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“I know you too well to be tricked by your noble insincerity.”

Iatric scoffed at Doyen’s pathetic response but quickly regained her emotionless composure. “How long do you plan to hold on to your inferiority complex? You are a noble too now. Or is Duke not enough since you won’t be satisfied unless you’re the best at everything. Would you like to kill my father and become king would that satisfy you? At least the fight for the throne could entertain your bloodlust a little longer.”

Wish was counting the jewels on the chandelier again while trying to separate his mind as far away from this room as possible. As his eyes drifted downwards, he caught a glimpse of one of the servants standing in the shadow of the entranceway with food in hand. It seemed that he was feeling hesitant of entering the room with its current atmosphere. Bringing the food would be the perfect distraction to stop their argument why was he leaving Wish to suffer through this alone. Although in fairness when the two’s arguments got significantly heated enough, they would begin to emit an essential pressure that could even stop the servants from entering the room at all.

Doyen smashed the table with a thunderous fist. “It is not my fault our child is a monster!”

Wish was unwillingly snapped back into the conversation. He occasionally had reasons to thank his mother, his ability to hide all emotion was one of those. Thanks to that Wish did not even flinch at his father’s biting words.

His mother quickly snapped back. “Yes, it is!”

Why did they have to eat supper together? Doyen ignored Iatric and turned to face Wish, without even acknowledging what was said he spoke to him. “How has your training been going recently?”

“Magic and swordsmanship have been going quite smoothly with the help of the tutors but integrating the two on my own is continuing to prove difficult.”

Since the conversation had shifted the servant found it as a good opportunity to deliver the meal. As he started walking in the rest of the servants followed suit and meals were provided to the family. The noble rituals and suffocating etiquette seemed to blur by.

The rest of their supper was uneventful, Doyen and Iatric would occasionally exchange political discourse and stratagem as if they were cold business partners who had never met before. Wish had finished his meal and was finally given permission to leave the table.

When Wish stood up to leave Doyen spoke out to him. “I have faith that you will find a way to integrate the two styles. I believe in you.”

“I will do my best father.”

Wish left the dining hall and made his way to his room. On his way he stopped at a massive oil painting many times the size of himself. A massive mural depicting the battle of New Heirisson and at the center depicted in irritating grandiosity was his father Doyen the Hero of New Heirisson Conquest. He was tempted to rip the mural, but he was interrupted by the ring of two bells. One of the bells echoed from down the hall coming from the dining hall he just left, the other came from right in front of him.

In front of Wish there was what seemed to be a small pink rhombus that grew out of thin air, or it was a rhombus, but its body would reject any stable state. It would shift and transform, shrink and grow, continuously morphing into other shapes. The pink shape finally locked into a form resembling that of a featureless human with only one limb. The arm was outstretched towards Wish holding a glowing parchment: It read.

You have been invited to The Tournament You are The Chosen