Being a sorcerer wasn’t easy.

To be good at it you needed to be in good physical condition to properly use it, but you also had to be strong mentally or else you’ll be ‘overwhelmed by the darkness in you’ as some ancient sorcerer whose name he couldn’t remember had put it. The worst feelings one can imagine brought to the surface. Feelings Marvin didn’t even know he had but he knew were his own. And after his training session last week these feelings only got more intense.

Still he needed to not only be good, he needed to excel. Between Kara’s words and the vampire known as Amdis, something was on the horizon. And he needed to be ready for it. He needed to become worthy to stand in this world. He couldn’t fail.

Which is why the summoning of weapons was so important. A relatively simple spell type. to accomplish and they didn’t drain the user too much. But the user also needed to know how to use said weapons.

And that was the reason he was currently laying on the floor of his grandmother’s backyard after getting his butt kicked for approximately the gazillionth time in the past two months.

“You’re not half bad, you know. Maybe if I held back a bit you’d have a shot.” taunted Marly, as she rested her wooden sword over her shoulder and looked at his sword in her left hand, having taken it during their fight. Maybe training with a half-vampire that had better reflexes in her sleep than he at his best wasn’t the best idea, but she really was the only person skilled with sword fighting he knew that could teach him.

He stood up. “Again. And don’t hold back.” he said, preparing himself for the battle.

He still hadn’t asked her about Ava yet, but based on what he saw in his memory, and the snippets of conversation between the adults he had heard, and conversation with Amdis, he needed to wait for the right moment. The vampire made it clear he had more than his share of ways of obtaining information. He already knew more about Marvin than any other singular person. He hated keeping this secret but he knew he had to wait for the right moment to tell the truth to the others.

“You don’t need to go this far you idiot.” smirked Marly. “But if you insist, how about we up the ante?” She dropped the practice swords and drew her own silver sword that she’d brought along every single time she came over. For protection she said, but now he could see the true reason.

His backyard was completely secluded, as it faced the walls of the houses next to and behind his grandmother’s house. Which means they weren’t visible, and if they didn't shout or blow up something, they would also be inaudible beyond these walls. In other words, a pretty good place to spar.

“And how would we do that?” he asked kind of scared, knowing where she was going with this. She changed her stance in response to his question, a small change, one that if they hadn’t been training together the past two months he might not have realised. “Aspis tou Aiax.” he muttered, a golden glow engulfing his leg, a heptagram appearing on his hand, just as Marly lunged at him. The large shield formed in front of him, and it momentarily stopped Marly.

“Toxon tou Apollona.” he whispered, the heptagrams this time gave way to a pitch black bow with white string, on one hand, and an arrow in the other.

The shield disappeared and the heterochromatic girl once again decided to strike at the dark haired boy once more. Her speed is great but Marvin dives out of the way on her left side to avoid the sword on her right, while simultaneously drawing his bow.

Deciding to take the shot Marvin hastily aimed at her shoulder, but from the moment he did he realized it was a mistake. It was one of the poorer shots he’d ever taken, and she managed to dodge it. Almost instantly Marly’s superior agility allowed her to turn to him once more, preparing to strike him. If only he could gain some distance he’d have the advantage. But before he could worry about that he needed to actually gain said distance. Easier said than done, especially in a place like this.

There isn’t anything he can do as Marly brings her sword down stopping just before she can hit him. “You know this was genuinely easy. You shouldn't have gone for a bow in such close quarters. You can’t honestly tell me that’s all you’ve got.” she drew back her sword. Her expression was one of disgust, offense, as if that very notion was completely foolish. As if training with him was a waste of time. His own eyes widened at this.

“I-” suddenly her look changes into one of confusion and worry. It was the damned magic again, praying on his insecurities. Taking a deep breath, he steadied himself, and called off the bow. “I have-have been training to use the shield and bow, and I’m not bad at it. With your help I hope I’ll also be able to learn sword fighting to be useful in situations like this as well.” explains Marvin, which only appears to confuse the blonde more.

“Can’t you use magic for that? Unless you actually can’t? I don’t know much about it to be fair. Usually sorcerers only reveal these things to their apprentices and close loved ones. I, well, I am not either of those.” explains Marly.

Once again he wanted to ask about Ava, as she seemed to be a sorceress, but he held himself back. This wasn’t the right time to ask about that sort of thing.

“Well, I’d say the basic concept is easy enough to understand. Magic needs to be channeled through special items. My prosthetic leg is like that. But other than special items like the bow and shield, more is needed to use the magic. For people who aren’t experienced at least. Like me. I need to draw circles with symbols in them. Not really useful for combat.” explained Marvin, who actually found himself both excited to learn about the history and uses of magic, as well as sharing them with the people around him. But he still felt self-conscious about mentioning prosthesis.

Said leg was actually not really hurting him as much as it used to, the phantom pains and general awkwardness he’d often have with it reduced, but it was still a sore spot for him to talk about.

“So, how about you show me what you can do before we continue?”

Before Marvin could respond they were interrupted by the doorbell ringing. Which was especially odd considering his grandmother was at the hospital for examinations, and all of her friends-meaning the other old ladies in the small area-knew because she was complaining about it for weeks.

That meant that whoever was there came for Marvin. And the odds for that being good were quite low-especially considering the last random person Marvin met turned out to be a vampire werewolf hybrid that tried to kill him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Marly hold her sword in a high guard position.

Marvin took a deep breath and tried to access his magic once more. He got a rush of power before his scars and leg hurt, and he felt the mocking eyes and laughter from the past, before it all goes away and a heptagram appears on his left hand.

Opening the door he saw something he never expected he’d see in his life. Adam and CB had come to his house together, although both looked like they hated being next to each other so much they’d rather jump into a volcano.

“Oh, it’s you guys. Together?” called out Marly behind him, in both relief and confusion.

Marvin let them in, and he and Adam exchanged pleasantries while CB merely stood back, an unreadable expression on his face. Marly stood between him and the other two occupants of the room, an apprehensive look on her face.

“We were contacted by Chiron.” began the large teen, looking directly at Marly “He said there’s a mission coming up ahead, and that we are needed for it. We were told to meet here, because, apparently, he-” at this he pointed to Marvin“-somehow has the necessary information for it.” The disbelief in CB's voice when he says that Marvin has valuable information is kind of insulting, but he’d rather not bring it up.

He could almost feel Amdis arrogantly looking down on all of them.

It looked like Marvin could kiss his idea of waiting for the right moment to ask about Ava goodbye. His relationship with these people was still new, and as the backlash for his magic wouldn’t let him forget, it's very rocky. Still, he had no choice but to ask if they were to have a chance of rescuing her.

“Can you tell me about Ava Mallory?” he stated in the most sympathetic voice he can muster, whilst also trying to keep the sheer curiosity from it. The reactions of the other three were not what he expected. CB looked like there was a lump in his throat, Adam appeared frozen in place and Marly just looked down, apparently finding a sudden interest in her shoes.

Not that he blamed her. Or any of them for that matter. He didn’t know what happened, but he could empathise with the fact that it was a painful memory.

“How do you know about her? Why do you know about her? What-” attempted to ask a dumbfounded Adam.

“I think you understand we need you to say a bit more than that.” interrupted Marly, locking her mismatched eyes with Marvin’s dark ones. One light blue and one crimson red. The eyes that were a result of her being a hybrid of human and vampire. Her eyes that most of the time had a lot of things hidden, a ton of questions. Eyes that welcomed him even if she tried to hide it at time. And yet now held a look of anger directed at him.

“When I awakened my abilities, there were-there were visions. Visions of various moments of my life. In one of them, there was this old classmate of mine, we got into a bit of a hustle, but that’s not important. What’s important is the fact that Ava was there. She tried to impersonate Marly for some reason, but I kind of figured her out.

“She told me that we need to save her and stop her captors. That my memory would lead us to them. She wanted us-she wanted you all to rescue her. Trusted that you’d be able to.” In actuality he found it ironic that someone like him would talk about trust while hiding the fact that he knew the person behind all this. He truly believed if he were to tell them about Amdis now, he’d surely find out. No. He’d tell them about him at a later date, when he feels it’s safe. For now he needed to know what happened to Ava. “Trust me when I say I know it’s not easy for you to tell what happened, but I’m afraid it’s necessary.”

“It happened two years ago.” began CB in an uncharacteristically soft way, and he was oddly enough the only one to respond. “Ava was-she was 19 at the time. We were in a forest in Australia, celebrating. Her first full year as a sorceress. A pack of feral werewolves, my own-my own kind, were there. I don’t know how or why, but there were four of them, all with pure white fur. We ran, while Ava fought. She told us to call for backup, but we-we didn’t. Too damn scared. I remember it like yesterday, we just hid like cowards, and-and did nothing while she…”

“We were thirteen years old CB. We couldn’t have-”

“You know full well that’s nothing but an excuse Adam!”

“We-we froze.” continued Marly, “We were hidden, and she gave us her phone-you see there is a specific code that you type in your phone if you work for the Association. You call for backup with it. It works no matter where you are. We could-” he can hear her choking back a sob “-we could have used it. Or-or tried something… anything…” further explained Marly, the glare that she previously held now replaced with a softer look. Anger was still there alongside a sea of other emotions but it didn’t seem to be directed at him.

“There was one more thing she told me: it’s not your fault.” stated Marvin, in the most matter-of-fact way he could. It was obvious that these words had a lot of impact on the trio before him, but they still had a lot of work to do. “If we do follow my memory, it leads to Georgia. The state, not the country, but it’s still a lot of travelling. Especially now that we’re in the last quarter of the school year.”

“The principal will be able to help us. A school trip is happening next week, maybe we can go then. If we are to rescue my sister then we need to move quickly.” said Marly, resolution in her voice. She’s more serious now than Marvin has ever heard in the two months he’s known her. All three of them seemed to be laser focused, the previous discussion all but forgotten. It seemed that now that they had a way to save Ava Mallory, they would take it.

“The caelum terra is faster than flying. We’ll go through it then? If we’re able to?” asked Adam. What a caelum terra even was, Marvin didn’t know, but he wasn't going to interrupt them now. He also wanted Ava Mallory rescued, for both her and his friends’ sake. But also because rescuing her could also be the key to stopping a catastrophic event based on what Ava herself said.

“Chiron and Kon will take care of that. Where we’re going to stay is something we’ll need their help with also.” responded CB for the first time being actually cooperative with everyone else.

“If I can convince my grandmother to go, we can stay at my uncle’s house there. He and my aunt trust me well enough. They’re travelling most of the time, and will actually enjoy not having to pay for the babysitter if they can help it.” cut in Marvin with the intent to help, but CB’s glare made him rethink this decision.

“This is our business shortie. Just give us the details of the vision, or whatever it is you had, and we’ll deal with it.” said CB.

“We can’t do this without Marvin big guy. It’s literally his memories.” responded Adam, a small smirk in his face as he cast a sideways glance at said ‘big guy’.

“It’s true. We can’t do this alone, so you better convince your grandmother to let you come along. You must help us save Ava! Please!” Marly’s tone and expression were almost identical to Ava’s in his dream that he couldn’t help but chuckle a little.

In the back of his head however, there was a lot of worry. Ava Mallory was captured by monsters more powerful than them. If Amdis was any indication they were at a tremendous disadvantage. Sure, he had a couple of months of training, but as his sparring matches with Marly consistently showed him, he wasn't strong enough for a fight. And, unless Amdis was all talk, neither were the others.

But even more, as awful as it made him feel, he was worried about what would happen after they rescued Ava. It was selfish of him, and logically he knew it was highly unlikely, but there was this constant worry in his mind that he’d get left behind.

“Don’t worry, I have your back.” he smiled at her.