Dania couldn't look at us. I didn't know what was wrong with her. Out of respect for her anger, Stacey and Logan didn't speak either.

Okay but what is her problem? Sabine thought at me.

"Dania, what's wrong?" I asked her directly. We were in a park square in the market now. Students walked calmly in and out of it.

"This is all getting out of hand," she murmured.

"What? Why?" I asked.

"This magic isn't special. I thought everyone would treat it like it mean the world to them—but this? This isn't special," She waved her arms at everything around us, "Nobody has any restraint. It's supposed to be used for good."

I put the bracelet on my wrist and it disappeared. I looked her in the eyes.

"Magic is what you want it to be," I challenged her, "If you want it to be special go ahead and only use it for what you think is important. You can't make all 160 billion people in the Empire follow your rules. Even more, you can't make me follow your rules."

"So you don't agree with me?" She asked.

I never got to respond.

A giant beam of white energy pounded down a few feet beside is us from above.

Immediately a whole magic storm ensued. I read that the people of Origin were very pacific and hated war, but that spoke nothing of any of the other nations in the Empire. Nearly everyone in the vicinity began flinging battle spells at the figure above.

After a few moments I realized the person aiming at us was Ipsiota.

She was oddly calm. Nothing was hurting her.

My head was spinning. I was on the ground now, somehow. I couldn't see if any of my friends were around me.

I did feel Ipsiota swoop down and grab me. I couldn't move, though. We were in the open water high above the market and I couldn't get myself together.

I saw bubble vehicles, police probably, coming after us. Then, very suddenly, we were out of the water.

Not that we surfaced. No. I didn't understand what had happened until she turned a little.

A portal. She shut it behind us and made sure it stayed shut.

I looked at our surroundings. We were in a ravine of sorts. The sky was black, moonless, and starless. Oddly enough, I could see perfectly even without the lights.

The rock around us was yellow-gray and very porous.

When we came in through the portal she had flipped me onto her back like I was a sack of flour.

"I paralyzed you, don't be afraid," She said, "Well, okay, be afraid, but don't fight it. If you fight it it'll last longer."

"Here's my exposition," She said unironically, "You killed my father. Don't deny it. I got a vision sent from you, specifically. You made my other dad disappear. Now I'm gonna make Earth blow to fucking pieces and I'm gonna make you watch."

She paused.

"Okay, you don't get to watch but I'm sending you to see the aftermath without a space suit on or anything. I'll just push you through a portal into space and floop, no more Carlos."

Then she started speaking in another language. I think she had already been speaking in that language but the charm Logan put on me wore off. I didn't get to hear the rest of the rant.

She opened a hole in the side of the ravine and pushed me into the unlit hollow.

I sat there and I was terrified when I felt something touch me.

Someone.

"Carlos?"

Grady.

The paralysis slowly went away.

"Oh, my literal fuck," Was the first thing I said when I could speak.

"I am going to sue her ass to hell."

"What's she gonna do? Why are we here? She ranted for a while but I didn't understand her," She blurted.

"She says she's gonna blow up Earth. Can she do that? How long have you been here? Since the party? A whole day?"

"I mean I'm not hungry or anything. I'm fine. I can kinda see now, visually, but not aurically."

"In the dark?"

"Well when I wasn't in a hell pit, I mean. Is Noah looking for me?"

"We haven't seen him."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Hm."

"Disappointing, but don't assume anything. Maybe something happened to him, I don't know."

She exhaled heavily.

"How are we getting out?" I asked.

"I don't know. I can't use any of my powers,"

I felt something strange.

"Oh shit," I let myself onto the floor from my seated position.

"What?"

"I just—"

The wall to the ravine opened suddenly.

"Did you do that?" She asked.

"No," I still can't do anything.

"Then..."

"I don't know, don't question it."

We left through the tiny gap and found ourselves stuck in the ravine.

"I can't do everything for you, sorry!" a familiar voice called out.

"Hey, that sounded like y—"

"Don't say it," I interrupted her, "Even if it is what you think it is, don't say it.

"You're sure?" She questioned.

"You know I'm not gonna mess with that shit."

"Time t—"

"Stop!" I yelled, "Let's just find a way to get out of here."

The ravine was steep but it wasn't too deep. I propped Grady up on my shoulders and she put her foot on a ledge. Then she pulled me up, pushed herself over the edge and then I followed in her steps.

I stood up and took in the view once I was on flat ground.

It was a flat land with only the unsightly yellow rock. As far as I could see there was no viable solution in any direction.

That was until a hovercraft passed above us. It made a u-turn and landed a hundred yards away.

We ran to it and we were welcomed by a group of people in lab coats on the boarding platform.

"What are you children doing out here?" one woman said with concern, "How did you even—"

"We were abducted and fit into a tiny prison," Grady explained.

"We're students at the University of Montressor," I added.

"Come on board, we'll take you to the base,"

I took a step forward but Grady grabbed my arm firmly.

"We don't seem to have another choice," I told her, "Go with the mystery scientists or stay behind in hell."

"Oh, this isn't Hell," one younger scientist said, "This is the End. The Netherworld is a lot worse."

"Okay, fine," Grady sighed with exasperation, "We'll go."

We walked up the platform and into the ship.

"Who are you guys?" I asked once we were moving again.

"We're Dynacorp researchers in the End branch. We had to kinda take a field day. You're lucky we were out when we were," one lab coat said. There were maybe twenty of them.

"If by field day you mean evacuate the research base because someone left the gamma ray generator on overnight, then yes a field day," The woman who had greeted us glared at one of the women on the team.

"Hey, I was excited over the success we had. Plus the whole thing is contained, so it's fine,"

"Overworld has probably sent an extraction team already," the woman was clearly the leader, "When we get there," she projected, "record any final data as quickly as possible."

We all stood in the cockpit. The autopilot drove us into a cave in the ground.

The lights intensified and we arrived at the landing pad.

"Imna!" The leader scientist yelled, "Go and pull the emergency sterilizer cord! Rgle, get the kids into the archival room while we deal with Overworld. They can't know that the secrecy of our compound has been compromised."

So Rgle took us to the archival room through halls and halls and halls. This place was enormous.

"So how do we understand you?" I asked as we power walked.

"Statusin," the short man panted, "But Statusin one-point-oh. The glass kind."

"Glass Statusin?" Grady asked.

"Yep," he stopped at a door marked in Magai letters, "Hologram Statusin doesn't work around these parts."

He opened the door with a pass card and let us in, "Don't come out until you hear us on the intercom."

We went in and he shut the door.

"Okay," I said.

It was a small room with one desk and a Glass Statusin and a glass keyboard.

The lighting was just dim enough for the screen to glow a little.

"Okay, well, let's be nosy," Grady pointed at the computer.

We sat down in the rolling same chair. I tapped the keyboard and the screen woke up all the way.

All that was there was a search bar.

"Look me up," Grady said.

I typed in we name.

One public access file with her approved citizenship application and picture appeared.

"I'm not famous," she frowned, "yet."

She typed in my name.

Files upon files were retrieved. Lab reports, graphs, and folders all came up.

"Holy shit," I scrolled through several pages worth of files.

I went back and opened the first one.

Universal Modulator Trials

Experiment 3A

Subject: Carlos Galván

There were a lot more details about me. I skipped over them.

Abstract: The final experiment has ended with results that surpassed the expectations of the hypothesis. The subject was implanted with the Universal Modulator and has successfully harnessed energy far beyond the typical range of typical biological ability.

"Can this actually be you, though?" Grady asked, "Have you been here?"

"No," I murmured, "Who did this? Is this a joke?"

Epsilon Anteibos, Bréiv Anteibos, Seth Lotr were the creators of the files.

"That first one sounds familiar..." I trailed off.

"That's Ipsiota's last name," Grady remarked.

"So what, if it's me, it's not like I'm showing 'energy far beyond—"

"Except you are," Grady didn't let me finish, "You're the one who started all of this. You gave us powers."

"We need all of this information," I concluded.

"How do we copy it?" she asked, "It's not like we have a USB or anything."

"Can we take the whole computer with us?"

"They would see us,"

The computer spoke, "Here's a copy of all unencrypted and unlocked documents." A small glass circle the size of a coin was ejected from the side of the screen.

I grabbed it and put it in my pocket, "How much of this is not accessible to us?"

The computer opened another window and displayed just one file.

"Open it,"

"Verify your identity," it commanded sternly. Grady watched the door nervously, "Scanning aura now."

I waited patiently.

"Verified, copying to the data disk."

We read through the encrypted files.

There was video of a younger me. He was in a training room violently taking down every hologram target in sight. He used a combination of metalbending, pyrokinesis, lightingbending, and telekinesis. At one point I saw him use battle magic to take down a whole wave of targets. Sigils floated in the air around him as he did.

"I don't remember any of this," I muttered.

"That was eight grade," Grady commented, "You still had that bad haircut with the short bangs."

I was so distracted by this that I didn't have anything salty to say to her.

"I'm guessing they induced some sort of memory loss. It's not like they would have wanted me to keep these powers. They probably used me and dumped me back on Earth."

The intercom made us both jump in the seat, "Children—em, uh."

"You didn't get their names!" Someone said in the background.

"You know who, we don't have any other kids in here," the lead scientist waved the other person off, "You can come out now Overworld cancelled extraction."

I slipped the data disk into my pocket and we closed out all the windows. We left the small room and Grady led the way to the main office. She had been paying attention, apparently.

"Well, I mean I don't zone out like you, Carlos," she criticized.

"Well, also, I..."

"You don't have a comeback," she said through narrowed eyes, "Give up."

The main office had windows to the hallway. Through them I could see the scientists on several computers at their desks. I opened the door and we went in.

"Hey, we're prepping the End portal for you right now," the youngest researcher barely looked up from his computer, "The UM should be fine, right?"

"Yes," Grady answered.

"You're not gonna question us about how we got here in the first place?" I asked.

"Well, we're not police," the head researcher said as she walked into the office from another section, "and I understand you two are UM students. You mess with things that maybe you shouldn't be messing with. Whatever demon you guys summoned is gone now. Obviously we took you by surprise so you weren't looking for us. It's fine. I mean as long as you keep the secret."

"You won't really have an option," Rgle frowned, "We're gonna have to erase the last day in your mind. Rela, we can't just let them walk."

The leader waved him off, "It's not like it's that much of a secret. Overworld just likes to pretend it is. I don't know why I bothered to have you hide them in the first place."

"The portal is ready!" the younger one exclaimed from his computer.

"Come with me, kids. Hanson, make sure we don't have any accidents. I want a clean landing."

Hanson did a two-finger salute and went back to his calculations.

Rela led us into the room that she came from when we walked in. In it was the End portal. It had an obsidian glass rectangular frame that emitted ghostly particles. The portal itself was black but lit up by twinkling stars.

"Just walk through," she motioned us to go ahead, "You'll be fine."

Grady and I held hands. We stepped towards the portal and I reached out. That alone was enough for it to absorb Grady and I.

It took us away.