Walking through the Caelum Terra was one of the most surreal experiences in Marvin’s life. A large diverse cast of people and werebeasts roamed the streets, and even the buildings themselves seemed to get older in design and age the further they went in the city. From houses and shops you could find in the modern world, to medieval and Greco-Roman looking ones.

The wonder of the sights was only matched by the awkwardness dominating the four teenagers. Revealing the information he held was not a wise move, but it just slipped out in the moment. Still, this was salvageable. They could still rescue Ava and overcome Amdis. He could fix this. He would fix this.

A few minutes later they reached another river within the city.

“This is our way out. CB and I will go first. You two wait a few seconds before entering. If there’s trouble on the other side we fight together.” said Adam. Without leaving time for any objections he jumped in the water alongside CB, leaving him and Marly alone.

“I once told you that I have your back.”

“What? What does this have to do with anything?” asked a surprised Marly.

“I meant it. I’ll tell you the truth, and we’ll save Ava.” replied Marvin. For now this was the best he could do. He just hoped this reassurance was enough.

“I’m still a little mad at you. But, and I know it may sound silly, I still trust you.” With that she jumped into the river.

Figuring there wasn’t much left for him to do other than follow suit, he throws himself in the clear water. Suddenly he feels himself being pushed down the unseen depths, the pressure on his body increasing like when he was getting here, only this time he had the added burden of being underwater. Once again he was forced to close his eyes. Almost immediately he felt relief overtake him, before he fell on the floor. A floor that felt completely solid, so it wasn’t the Caelum Terra.

Opening his eyes he realised he was in a dark room, the floor of which had an encircled square with the elemental alchemical symbols each facing a different direction. The heptagram in the middle made it obvious to him that magic was involved here, but he doesn’t have time to dwell on it now.

Heading for the door, he realised he was in a narrow alleyway similar to the one they came in where Marly, Adam and CB-in their human forms-were waiting for him.

“Are we-”

“Yeah, we’re in-wherever this is. Now take us to your uncle’s place.” demanded CB.

“What CB means to say is that we are all grateful for your help. He’s just anxious for everything to be clarified.” added Adam, motioning for Marvin to lead them out of the alleyway.

Taking the lead, Marvin led everyone out at the heart of his hometown: Atlanta, Georgia. In all of its hot, humid, big-city glory. Granted it was April morning so it wasn’t that bad, but Marvin himself would rather not stay there for longer than necessary. Leading the group through the roads, Marvin found himself impressed, and kind of scared, that the Association managed to land them so close to his aunt and uncle’s house. To his old house that they took over when his parents passed.

But he didn’t have time to get upset over that right now. Not much at least.

After about half an hour filled with these thoughts and very little small talk, they moved from the busier parts of the city to the house filled suburban area where they eventually reached their destination. Marvin’s old house. A house that, on the outside at least, looked similar to the other hundreds of houses next to it. The aforementioned dark haired teenager prepared himself to knock on the house’s front door, when it opened up on its own.

“Hello?” The door opened revealing a young brunette woman that couldn’t have been more than a few years older than the group.

“Um-hi.” lamely responded Marvin. Normally he would use his ‘I am a person that can talk to other people easily’ voice here in order to appear more confident, but he didn’t exactly have the energy for that now. “I am Marvin. Old resident of the home, and nephew of the current residents? These are my friends, Adam, Marly and CB. I’ll be honest, I was expecting my aunt to anwer.”

“Oh yeah!” The girl’s eyes lit up in recognition. “I’m Maria. Mrs. Claudia said you were going to pop by. She had an emergency at work, so she called me to take Annie to school. I'm her babysitter. I’d just forgotten my notebook here.” she explained, showing a notebook in her hands as proof.

After exchanging goodbyes, more awkward than Marvin would admit, Maria left the house while the quartet entered it. The inside was mostly how Marvin remembered it. He had not actually been inside since he lived here, always staying in hotels when he and his grandmother visited. The less contact he has with these people the better. If not for Annie, or this mission, he wouldn’t be anywhere near this place. Mostly because of the memories, and the fact that it should have been his place. The only thing left from his parents.

Still the open styled living room slash kitchen was there, with a mix of old and new furniture with the door to the backyard and stairway to the second floor next to each other in the back wall. The only major difference was a new bookshelf next to the TV where before there was...something, he didn’t remember every single detail, with books that most likely were never opened and family pictures Marvin didn’t send a second glance towards.

“I think it’s time for the aforementioned explanation,” said Adam. With a sigh Marvin supposed there was no other option. Sitting while motioning for the others to do the same, the dark haired boy found himself surprisingly anxious at this prospect.

“I-the day before we learned about the mission, I had a lesson with Kara. She has an office, lab. I'm not sure what exactly it is, but it’s under the school. After we finished, I left the school like normal. Waiting for me outside was-was a vampire.

“He said his name was Amdis, that he was the ‘villain in this story’ or something like that. He knew things. Things he shouldn’t. About the Association, my sorcery lessons, where and when they happened. He knew-he knew personal things. He knew about the mission before we even did, and he said that he had Ava. That if I kept this to myself you’d get to see her again.”

“And you just believed him?” asked CB.

“What?”

“You just took the words of a vampire at face value? I’ve never met any, but they are known to be conniving creatures. Liars and manipulators. And you just believed him. He probably does have Ava, I’m not denying that, but that gives him reason to lie. He wanted to scare you, throw you off. And you fell for it. We could have been more prepared. But now, you’ve cost us our advantage, set us back! I knew you being a part of this mission was a mistake.” ranted CB, really tearing into Marvin for the first time since they met. And based on the tone of his voice, this WAS something he wanted to do for a while.

“CB, that's enough!” snapped Adam. “Thanks to Marvin we have the first halfway decent leads on Ava. We are so close to-”

“I’m sick of your crap. You think you’re so much better than everyone. Snarking about the people at school, me, Marly. Try getting off your high horse. That way you’ll probably realise that Ava’s kidnapping was our fault. No matter how old we were, how tense the situation was. And it’s up to us to fix it.” At this point the screaming guys had gotten extremely close to each other, both looking ready to shift into their stronger forms and tear into each other.

Marvin was about to intervene when he saw Marly herself get up. Just a few days ago things were relatively simple. He was content in spite of the chaos and danger he knew was lurking beneath the surface. Now he was trying to figure out the best way to make this soon to be three way standoff from resulting in the destruction of his childhood home.

“Enough.” muttered Marly, although she was not heard or ignored by the other two. “Stop, you idiots!” she shouted, this time managing to grab their attention. “Can’t you just try to get along for two minutes? Three years, three years I’ve been trying to get us here!” she continued, tears beginning to form in her eyes.

“I finally have the chance to see my big sister again. Talk to her, hear her voice. Bring her back. Either work with us or get out. I’m done trying tο get you to work together.” She sounded defeated. In the nearly three months Marvin had known her, Marly Mallory had never sounded like this.

Not that she didn’t have a point. This was the first chance she had to retrieve her sister. Her sister whom she was quite close with if all this was to be put in context. And this whole situation was doing anything but helping with that. He just never saw her breaking like that.

Before anyone could speak, she ran off to the second floor of the house. In any other situation Marvin would be a little critical about her running off in what was for all intents and purposes a stranger’s home, this was not a normal situation.

“I think it best if I leave.” said Adam, after a few moments of silence.

“No! No. We can work this out.” pleaded Marvin. This wasn’t going to fall apart. Not now. Not because of him. Not when he nearly had all he wanted. It might have been selfish of him, but he thought that, as time passed, they would accept him someday. And damn him for wanting that. To be enough.

“I’m going to head out too. We can’t fix this. Not today.” responded CB, strangely somber after everything he said.

“As much as I hate to admit it, CB is right.” added Adam, looking somewhat apprehensive. “We’re not in a place where we can just talk it out right now. Maybe after we have Ava rescued, when things are hopefully better, we can give it another shot. Plus I think you’re the only one Marly isn’t capable of murdering right now.”

“We’ll return though. You have ways to contact us, and vice versa. I meant it when I said it’s our duty to save Ava.” said CB. “I meant everything I said before. Still, even I have to admit you have mettle. Rescuing Ava is not a lost cause. We can agree on that.”

Marvin felt himself deflate a bit. Adam was right. Hell, CB was right. He couldn’t control these people, they had to fix things on their own terms. And he truly thought they could, in spite of everything he had witnessed. Nodding at the other two guys as they wandered off, he couldn’t help but feel a little lost.

Eventually deciding to go on the second floor to check on Marly, he went up the staircase. It’s wall was decorated with a few photos of his uncle and aunt with Annie when she was younger. A lifetime ago the family pictures featured him and his parents. Chuckling to himself he realised the irony of not entering this place for years because he felt too emotional, and having this be the first experience in it.

Reaching the second floor, it was immediately obvious which room Marly was in. Out of the four doors in the small hall it was the only one to be slightly open. It was also once his room.

“Hello?” he asked wearily as he opened the door, not allowing himself to hesitate. Going in his eyes widened to the point where he thought they would pop out of their sockets. The room was in the same condition he left it in. Just like all of the bedrooms it wasn’t that big, containing only his bed and desk on one side, with the wardrobe and a shelf on the other. The few medals he had from archery competitions were still on the shelves, mostly bronze and silver ones, with a golden standing out among them.

He found himself surprisingly happy with that.

Marly was sitting on his bed, holding a guitar-oh god his old guitar, he had buried those memories as far as he could-looking at it before turning to him with a soft smile.

“I feel lighter now, if that’s possible.” she said in a hard to read tone of voice, although her eyes were still red and puffy from crying.

“They are both still in this. It looks like you salvaged the team.” tried to reassure Marvin, even though this wasn’t exactly his forte.

“I don’t really know what I’m doing if that wasn’t obvious. Ava was older, the heart of her group of friends I think. Although I didn’t see them too many times. I just-I thought I could do it too.” she explained, some annoyance sipping into her voice as she gripped the guitar tighter.

“So this was your room?” she asked in what was clearly an attempt to change the topic.

“A long time ago. Before I moved in with my grandma, which led me to y’all and back here.” he explained, causing Marly to laugh. “What?”

“You-you said ‘y’all’” she responded, over pronouncing the word to make her point. “I didn’t know you had an accent.”

“Y-Yeah!” he replied sheepishly. He could see she was looking at him with something resembling a cross between empathy and sorrow. “Give it a few days and we’ll be back on track.”

“You sound awfully optimistic.” retorted Marly.

“After a certain point you have to think things will get better or you’ll crumble under the world.”

“Thank you.”

“For what?” asked Marvin genuinely curious

“For having my back.” replied Marly, smirking as she used the same words he had earlier.

They were set back, but they would recover. Looking at Marly he could see the determination behind her dual coloured eyes. Sitting on the bed to her he wasn’t sure what he should say, but as she smiled softly at him, he realised maybe no words were needed after all.

Everything was going to be fine. They'd make sure of it.