The beast’s mouth began smoking, even with the earth wrapped around it. A thick steam lifted from Ashfur, priming the beast for a quite unusual attack. A beam of pure white rocketed from its mouth, absolutely vaporising the stone protection around it and beelining towards us. Within a blink, a silhouetted figure appeared in front of us, darkened from the bright magic attack Ashfur employed. A dome barrier surrounded us and the beam bounced off of it, ricocheting to the Rim and carving a sizable hole through the surrounding mountains. Suddenly, we were teleported upwards to another part on the Rim, at the side of Ashfur.

“M-master!” Kira exclaimed, quite surprised to see the witch. Emily took Keagan’s arm from her and healed him in a mere second, a full recovery, as though he was never even touched, then turned her focus to me like the feat she just accomplished was as simple as breathing.

“I gave you power not even my disciples have,” she said, a weird serpent-like look to her eyes, “to do something I harshly oppose,” an irate voice was swarming through her, “and you found it wise to put yourself in danger?! What’s more, you underestimate an opponent you’ve never faced. I need not remind you what happens to her if you die, you fool!” She looked up at the rest of my team. “You even have the gall to endanger innocent lives for your own personal gain,” a portal opened up near me. “Kill the beast yourself,” she said, summoning the darker of her dragons and teleporting away.

I wasn’t sure how to react to her sudden appearance, nor her reaction to the situation. Looking through the portal, I could see the beast growing irritated at its shackles and releasing a flurry of spells, slightly altering the landscape. I stood up and dusted my pants off from my less than stellar landing, and made for Ashfur. Suddenly, I was stopped. A soft hand grabbed my forearm, and tracing its owner, my eyes fell on a horrified Dawn, utterly failing to mutter a single word, and instead making do with her head’s dismissive shake. Before I could say a thing, Kira gently touched Dawn’s forearm, “Let him go,” she urged softly, until the grip around my arm loosened. Her quivering lips were like daggers to the heart, but I stayed adamant and continued through, appearing before the giant beast.

“Kor’zha, Phoenix, full forms,” I said, gliding a comfortable distance away and casting Purist again, once I was satisfied. “Hydra, full form too. Take care of me, okay?” I winked at her, then focused all my power into building Incinerate again. The spirit lords’ true forms removed the limiter on their bipedal humanoid bodies. Kor’zha’s two-tailed scorpion form was much larger than usual, just one pincer was about the length of an average man. Phoenix’s original size gave me the feeling there was a second sun, but he was no bigger than a normal house. Hydra was the only spirit lord with an obnoxious size filling up most of the Dark Basin, her five heads all had a different and interesting perspective on the fight.

The earth magic ensnaring Ashfur stood almost unscathed from his random attacks. Phoenix’s and my Incinerate matured in just half a minute, going at full strength. I kept channelling it, burning the creature alive, and bathing him in the light Hand of God exuded, inputting monstrous amounts of mana the more I casted it. At around my tenth Hand of God, the spell began changing into something I didn’t know was possible, taking on a somewhat double-helix shape. There was a sudden jump in the mana required to cast the spell. Did I just learn a spell by pure chance? It sure felt like it.

Before long, the beast could no longer withstand the huge fiery vortex. His movements were shot by the constant pounding from Hand of God, or whatever it was I casted. Kor’zha’s earthen prison sank into the ground, revealing a totally charred corpse with random static electricity still flickering about it. Ashfur was down.

The dragon’s wings beat the wind loudly, soaring towards us. He landed next to Ashfur and simply breathed on the corpse. A faint and dark violet mist swirled out of his nostrils, encasing the magical beast and quite literally decomposing the body. Only the bones remained. The winged serpent then looked at me, “Tread carefully, boy,” he advised.

“Is that a threat, dragon?” I asked, a little annoyed. Its elongated neck snaked towards me.

“Let not arrogance blind you, seedling. It was merely a warning,” it bellowed, that deep rumbling voice heightening my understanding of how insignificant of a mage I must’ve been to him. The witch’s scaled friend zoomed off, gracing the skies with his magnificence.

I glided back to the team, by the time I’d gotten there my mana was already fully restored despite the shambles it was in a few minutes ago. If that fight lasted a minute longer, I’d have generated a series of poofs.

“Man,” Pyro folded his arms and looked towards the sky, “I don’t even know anymore. The witch is real. Teach is strong enough to kill Ashfur by himself. The witch actually exists, and she has a dragon to boot. On top of that,” he looked right at me, “the ‘queen’ came back to life.” He walked a bit towards me and threw an arm around my neck, “You’re still just a kid, but you need to realise adults have the need to rationalise everything. No, we don’t believe she’s the real queen and think she’s lying to our faces. But that doesn’t mean you gotta get mad about it you know? We’re also in the wrong for not giving her a chance and avoiding the subject too,” he admitted flaws in both our thinking, which I couldn’t argue against, “so tell you what,” he moved away and spread his arms apart, “prove to us you’re the queen!” he said, looking right at me, but addressing Donna who was inside of me. I felt her shift in my mind, like she wanted to answer but didn’t have the courage to.

This is your chance, you know?

“Ugh,” her stomach kind of turned and she eventually came out, appearing next to me. “You know what? I’m only queen in title, so it doesn’t matter if you don’t believe me. As long as this numbskull believes me,” she hit me on the noggin, “I’m fine.”

“Saying that now makes you less believable,” Pyro pointed out, sighed and shrugged.

Donna giggled, “Well, you might change your mind at the knighting ceremony. And you,” she looked at Dawn and encroached, “you have even more of a distrust for me because you’re worried I’ll take Eric away, aren’t you?” she said, not at all having any qualms with bringing up a touchy subject. “Well” she grinned, “you better be, because I’m gonna ride him lik­–ah!” she screamed out when I casted a weakened version of Divergence on her. Before she could lose her footing, she casted Levitate to regain balance, “Hey! I was just playing!”

“So was I,” I replied snappily. She paused, put her hands to her mouth and muffled her laugh, “so, you admit you want to play with me. Such a naughty boy.”

I sighed, “Well, if you can talk that level of shit, you must be feeling better.”

We began our journey back, covering as much ground as possible before night fell. Our two carriages were untouched where we left them, thankfully. Even after Donna and I kind of came to with the whole fake alias situation, it was deathly quiet for our ride back to the nearest town. The only change was that Dawn now sat by my side, probably because she fell into Donna’s trap and got riled up.

“So, am I the only one with a bunch of questions to ask?” Kira initiated. She was the type of woman that didn’t quite meld with social norms, almost to the point where she couldn’t read certain atmospheres.

“Nope, you’re not,” Pyro answered and Volt readily agreed.

“We’ve got some questions ourselves,” Meagan spoke for herself and her brother.

I shrugged, “Well, Kira, since you started it…” I invited them to ask whatever they wanted and Kira immediately hopped on Donna, not in a literal sense of course.

“By now, we’re not judging you for telling or not telling us who you really are, but I am curious, are you really the Apostle that searched for immortality?”

“Yup,” Donna answered snappily, “though only my family knew I was an Apostle. I didn’t get through with immortality though, well, clearly. I got a question though. Was Violet okay with, you know, you, Volt, and this quest?”

“Wha-uh, yeah,” Kira replied, a bit flustered, “you know about that?” she inquired with squinting eyes.

Donna nodded, “Yeah? As much as Eric does, I guess.”

“So, you’re really telling the truth about being trapped in Eric?”

“Well, ‘trapped’ is a strong word. It was more like I needed someone to survive in until I could get resurrected, but after we became close, it was hard to ask him to do it. I didn’t have to though, thankfully, it was something he wanted to do all on his own,” she elbowed me a couple times, “isn’t that right?”

“Wrong,” I folded my arms, “I just wanted the most annoying person out of my head, but that still didn’t work.”

They all glared me up and down intensely, “So you can actually bring people back to life?” Keagan asked.

“Yeah, but I already made my mind up not to do it again. That’s not something I feel comfortable with. Donna was just a special case.”

“And how did you not collapse casting all those spells? Many rank four mages attempted to kill Ashfur and failed horribly, even when the beast was weaker. How are you so strong?”

Quite the burning question, even Donna herself, who knew the answer probably better than I did, tuned in for my reply on the heavy subject. But, was I willing to answer? If word gets out that I actually achieved Division, would I be hunted down or something?

“By whom? You’re a spirit lord-level mage, and I’ll know if you’re being attacked even if I’m not physically with you. Plus, you got three other spirit lords and a goddamn Apostle who’s just a summon away. Who’s gonna attack you?”

When you put it like that… “Well, I have Division, so I didn’t co–”

“Division?” Meagan cut across me, “You mean Division, Division? Or some other thing?”

“Division, Division. I don’t need physical stamina.”

“What?! Okay, wait, hold up! I thought that wasn’t possible? The whole world thinks it’s impossible!”

“Eh, when you hang around Apostles enough…”

Donna shrugged when they looked at her, a fickle smile on her face, “I might’ve, taught him some things,” she paused and looked away, “a lot of things. But, to be fair, most of the stuff he knows he learned himself.”

“Okay,” Meagan planted her feet down, “we didn’t want to come across as councilmen talking to lower ranks, but we can’t just ignore this. You’re going to have to do an aptitude test. Now that we know Division is real, true Division, we must measure its capabilities!”

My stomach kind of turned inside. I grew tired of the Order, or rather, bored. The library they so cherished was slowly reaching a point of repetition and my knowledge of it was coming saturated by the day. “Yeah, sure. Any other questions?” I asked, my body slowly submitting to sleep’s allure.

“Yeah,” Dawn sat up from her slouched position and looked past me, at Donna, “what are you to Eric?” she asked, as straightforward a question as there could be. Donna smiled and pinched her cheeks with a stupidly cheeky smirk, “Best friend, big sister, second mother,” she paused and put her hands to her mouth, “lover.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “everything except the last one,” and pushed her back by the face. “Gonna nap real quick,” I semi-yawned, and curled up in a corner.

My face was buried in a soft, warm feeling. It was strangely familiar, yet so unusual. Well, it turns out my face was buried in Donna’s chest, and clutching me from behind was Dawn. Perhaps the strangest thing about this whole setting, was that I was home, in my bed. So many questions ransacked my mind I could hardly finish one before I asked myself another. We took nearly two months on the journey to the Dark Basin, yet I wound up in Aquan in, a mere day. It was a day, right?

“You’re up already?” Donna asked, not giving the slightest clue that she was awake.

Yeah, so is my buddy.

“Oh, he was awake a long time ago, I could feel him after all.”

Only then I realised her hand was resting right atop my member, which only made the situation worse. Okay, okay, Dawn is behind me. Do you want me to die? Is that what you want? How did we end up here anyway? Where is everyone else?

“What’s with all the questions? You should worry about what Dawn would say.”

If I can slip out of this before she wak–

“Hey, Dawn, Eric has someone he wants you to meet,” Donna said, very calmly. It was clear now that they were both awake before I awoke.

The sun peeped through the windows’ mesh and touched my wiggling toes. I bit the bullet, turned around and pecked the prim and proper mage on her lips, “Morning,” I greeted, clearing some hair from her face and placing it behind her ear.

“Morning Eric, and Eric junior,” she chuckled and got up. Donna and I followed soon after.

I wiped the dirt from my eyes and stretched my arms out. “So, who changed me?” I asked, coming to realise I was only in loose underpants.

They gave each other a quick glance, Dawn sighing afterward, “The witch did, with some magic of course. She also made a portal for us to each of our homes.”

“Was she pissed?”

“Eh, it was hard to tell, she’s a strange person.”

Ugh, whatever. No one could tell what she was thinking, less so for what she wanted or what her goals were.

Suddenly, my door opened and mom nonchalantly entered, I guess assuming I wasn’t home. I had an obnoxiously large mirror stuck to my wall so she’d barge in to use it sometimes. She froze when she saw me, her legs a little wobbly. It was almost like she couldn’t tell whether to look me in the eye or not. “M-my queen!” she exclaimed and immediately kneeled. Donna was right behind me.

I was shocked to say the least, but also pretty disturbed by the current sight, “Yeah, mom, don’t,” I said, pulling her back up to her feet by her hand, but instead she tried to pull me down so I’d kneel also.

“It’s alright, miss,” Donna eased, “he is right, you may stand.”

Mary’s face was laden in questions, her eyes saturated with how’s and when’s.

Sometime later, we sat around the living room, sipping tea. “What?! Ashfur?!” Flynn almost spat his tea out, then bumped fists with me for the umpteenth time. “Okay, okay, this is a whole lot of information to digest, my mind and heart can’t keep up. Though,” he turned to me and drilled his fist into my head, “why didn’t you say the queen was in your mind?!”

“Ouch, wait, you jackass!” I pushed him off me, “There was absolutely zero chance you’d believe me anyway! Only person who knew was August.”

There was a period of silence. My parents needed a couple minutes to absorb this crazy story. “So, I guess you two are pretty close?”

“Yeah,” Donna agreed snappily, “we know each other inside-out. Really, the only thing we haven’t done together is have s–”

I zapped her with Arc Lightning before she could finish detonating that atomic bomb. “Steak,” she continued after my little warning.

“Steak?” Flynn asked in a soft voice, probably meant to be a thought.

“Yeah,” Donna chuckled nervously. It was like an interview, with my parents facing us. “So, you’re, okay with this, Dawn?”

“I wasn’t at first, but I am now.”

“You are?” I turned and asked in surprise. What did Donna say to her?