It started with a fireball, which told Vex two things: one, that this was almost certainly a noble house attacking them, and two, that they didn't care about casualties. The fireball was packed with enough mana to level several blocks of houses, and was cast despite the fact that they were surrounded by civilians.

Misa blocked it, of course.

She snapped in front of the fireball with a strange object balanced on her shoulder, a sort of cylinder decorated not with runes but with glyphs; Vex noticed this a split second before the presumably-weapon flared to life and just... sucked in the fireball, along with every drop of mana packed into it.

"Run!" she shouted, startling the few people that had stayed to stare into running. It was almost remarkable how quickly the surrounding blocks cleared, in fact, and it made a distant part of Vex wonder if they'd had to do this before.

Part of Vex was also afraid that a member of his own House was here. That fireball had been an expensive one, and it would take someone from Ashion to cast it without making themselves useless for the rest of the fight. He was pretty sure no one from Ashion was here, though; none of his siblings were the types to participate in battle without flashy House colors, and his father wouldn't have allowed any of his siblings to join Julia and partake in their so-called loyalty program.

More likely, this was a cooperatively-cast fireball, which meant that the majority of enforcers they were fighting were mages.

"Derivan!" Sev called. "Anything?"

"It is strange," Derivan answered. "I can see where the system places status effects now, I think. There is one in particular that is digging into all of them."

"You think that's the emotional suppression?" Misa asked, and that was all the time Vex had to pay attention to the conversation. Their four opponents were casting again, this time within his sight; he saw runes forming in the air as their spell flickered into being, too rapidly for him to modify, as he had done with Tibeus. It was still slow enough for him to read, though.

They'd accounted for what Misa could do, and were in the process of casting [Rapid Firebolt]. Fun.

For the first time in a while, Vex reached for the [Chromaturgist] skills he'd been given — the discovery of glyphs had distracted him, and led him down a new path, but he wasn't ready for Wisfield or Ashion to know what he had to work with.

A [Rapid Firebolt] spell was very similar to a [Fireball], with some minor differences. Vex had studied it before, because it was one of the standard arsenal of spells used by Elyran enforcement. He was almost glad he'd been made to study it.

One, the spell was a chain-cast; interrupting it was pointless, unless you killed every single one of your opponents before the spell finished casting. The first rune triggered the second one, and then the third, and so on, without any input from the caster. It was a fairly clever mechanism he'd built into a number of multi-rune spells, though he rarely had the cause or the mana to waste on them.

Two, the first few runes in the spell created a single normal [Fireball], albeit heavily overcharged; runes that were later in the cast acted to split that single fireball into several smaller ones, using a lesser-known artifact of magic — every piece of a completed spell was in itself the whole of the spell. It was a clever sort of way to circumvent spells that took time to cast. [Rapid Firebolt] created only one [Fireball], rather than several dozen, and skimmed pieces off that first fireball in order to create all the others.

It saved a few seconds, and seconds mattered.

Three, the fireballs that were created afterwards needed time to be charged with mana — and that was where Vex had the time to interfere. Their downfall here was trying to create something powerful enough to take them all out at once. He needed one effect to break this spell.

[Manaburn].

But there was something odd about the mana that was going into this spell — Fire-aspect mana was in there, so why were the flames flickering blue?

...Vex made sure his counterspell missed one of the fireballs. Purple flickered into the threads of his own magic, darting out like snakes; each one struck unerringly into a still-forming fireball and burned the mana out of it, making it dissipate like smoke. He let one fireball remain, draining just enough power out of it that it wouldn't explode all over multiple blocks of the district.

"Dodge!" he called as the spell completed, and to their credit, none of his friends questioned it; they got out of the way of that remaining fireball instead, letting the flames splash ghost-blue on the ground.

For a moment, the two groups stood at an impasse. Their assailants stared them down — Vex was tense, waiting for a followup, but none came. The only thing that filled the air was the crackling of that flame, burning away at nothing on the ground, fueled by raw mana.

"Who are you, and why are you attacking us?" Sev asked, his voice calm. Derivan spoke behind him, his voice filtered by the relay charm, directed towards Vex.

"I do not think that the status effect on them has anything to do with emotional suppression at all," he said. "Nor are their emotions suppressed. I believe these are not Julia enforcers."

"We are from House Julia," one of the mages called back, contradicting Derivan directly, not that he would know. "You will surrender. Or not. It's up to you, really."

"Doesn't exactly seem like you're winning," Sev said. "Why exactly are we being... what is this? Arrested?"

"You're undermining the Houses," he said. Vex narrowed his eyes slightly; the voice was... familiar. Different from what he remembered, but only slightly. Maybe his initial assumption had been wrong. If House Ashion was involved...

But Derivan had said that these enforcers weren't emotion-suppressed, as far as he could tell. They wore the colors of Julia, but they didn't speak like their enforcers usually did.

So this was a different group, pretending to be House Julia.

"We're giving out food," Vex said. "I don't see why the nobility should give a damn what we do."

The main speaker on the other side paused, as though surprised, and that was when Vex knew it was who he thought it was. Helix stared at him through the hood he wore, his eyes hidden in the shadows generated by his cloak.

Literally generated, by the enchantments woven into the fabric. He probably should have noticed that before; that sort of thing was an Ashion staple.

"You're making us look bad," Helix said, his voice light and casual. "We can't have that. And you're an unauthorized distributor of food. These supplies haven't been checked through any official channels. We're going to have to confiscate it."

Vex stared, then sighed. "Why are you really here, Helix?"

Helix had the gall to pout at him. It was more audible through his voice than anything, since the shadows were still shrouding his face, but he could tell when his older brother was pouting. "I just wanted to see how my little brother was doing."

"Throwing a fireball is not an appropriate way of doing that," Vex said, deadpan. Misa was staring between the two of them in shock, and Sev had one eyebrow slightly raised; Derivan, as he usually did, didn't react much at all.

He did step up beside Vex, taking hold of one hand and squeezing it protectively.

Vex didn't protest. He squeezed Derivan's hand back, almost defiantly, and stared straight ahead as if daring his brother to say anything about it. To his credit, Helix only stared for a second before grinning.

"Damn," he said, his words a half-whistle. "Lotta time for things to change in a year, huh?"

"Helix," Vex said, sighing.

"Okay, okay," Helix said; he glanced around quickly to make sure that no one was watching them — and no one was watching them; the whole place had been cleared out by that initial fireball, blocked or not, and Vex wondered if that wasn't pretty much the point — then he pressed a hand against the ground, and a pulse of mana rang out from him.

A large, dense cloud of mana. Helix had been the one in their family that was able to endure the mana enhancement treatments the most, and mostly hadn't come out worse off for it; golden child of the family he was not, though, given that he generally didn't care for magical study as much as Vex had. Karix had always treated him a little bit like a disappointment, and some of that bitterness hung around him like a dark cloud...

...not now, though. Vex didn't see that around him now. Whatever he'd done in the year and a half Vex had been away, he'd apparently managed to find some kind of purpose in it.

The mana was tuned to illusion. Vex didn't react to it, letting it pass over him harmlessly; he saw Misa gearing up to block it, but when nothing happened, she seemed to relax a bit. Around them, the fire seemed to glow a little bit brighter — and then in the edges of his mana sense Vex saw an illusion playing, one in which their fight continued.

"Ghostfire," Vex said, mouthing the word. "Illusion-enhancing ghostfire."

"Quite right," Helix said; he bounced on his feet, pulling the hood off his head and revealing a handsome older lizardkin, somewhere in his late twenties. "Can you believe I managed to figure out ghostfire?"

"Not too long ago you could only do big fireballs," Vex said, chuckling lightly. "But why are you here? Why all this deception?"

"We need to put on some kind of show," Helix said, turning serious. "Julia did actually send enforcers after you; they just didn't know you were there, because the Houses don't like talking to one another. Otherwise they probably wouldn't have allowed me to volunteer."

"Are you actually...?" Vex peered closely at his brother.

"Yes and no," Helix said, shrugging his shoulders. "We figured out a way to block their emotion suppression thing, if that's what you're worried about, but it kind of does the opposite — enhances emotional reaction."

"Ah, that's why you're more in tune with yourself," Vex said, only half-joking.

"It really is." Helix was silent for a moment. "And if we had more time... there's a lot I'd want to talk to you about. But we don't. This illusion isn't going to last forever. Is Riss...?"

"Riss is doing good." Vex smiled a small smile, glad that his brother had changed at least a little; whatever he was doing here said a lot. "You're with the—"

"Shh." Helix put a finger to his lips. "I don't trust my magic that much. Look, we're going to take over the food distribution, okay?"

"Why?"

"The nobles don't want to look bad." Helix shrugged. "And this makes them look bad, random adventurers going around and giving away food, when it's supposed to be their job."

"And you're going to help them look... good?" Vex raised an eyebrow.

"No." Helix laughed at the idea. "When I say we, I don't mean the nobles. You know exactly what I mean. We're still gonna make them look bad. But we're going to do it intentionally."

"Aren't you one of the nobles, boss?" one of Helix's men asked him, tentatively.

"What? No! Of course not," Helix said, pressing a hand to his chest in mock-offense. "I'm very far from noble. You should know that."

"Wh— no I wouldn't," he hissed.

"Relax, we're under illusion," Helix said, waving a hand, and ignoring the fact that he'd only just said he didn't particularly trust his own illusions.

That was enough to tell Vex how much his brother had changed, really. When he'd left, Helix had still been questioning his place in the family; the sheer amount of mana he had wasn't exactly enough to elevate him to any special status when his own spells didn't match up to the mana he had. He had the same basic spell list as a lot of the family did, but the spells were simply less effective in his hands unless he charged them with more mana; it was an artifact of runic casting. Understanding still mattered.

Like with glyphs, actually. There was a thought there that Vex needed to dig into a bit more, when he had the time.

The Helix now seemed more sure of his place in the world, and spoke with a confidence that was real — not the fake, conjured arrogance he pretended at only a year or so ago.

A year was a lot of time, it seemed.

Helix turned his attention to Vex. "We just need to put on a show. We need you guys to lose this fight — or at least to look like you lost this fight — so that the nobles don't keep looking for you once you enter the dungeon. Dad wants you back in the family, and we're doing our best to stall him—"

"He hasn't really changed, huh?" Vex said, and Helios sighed.

"Most of us have," Helix said tentatively. "You leaving... put a lot of things in perspective for us. But mom and dad stuck to their guns more than ever. I think they think that if you're right, then they're going to have to own up to what they did to us. And everything dad's parents did to them. Mom's mostly trying to stay out of it, but it's not great."

"I wish you'd said something," Vex said quietly. "I just thought you all agreed with Dad."

"We were going to?" Helix hesitated. "But we were worried it'd just look like a ploy, or something. And, uh, I'd love to have more of this conversation now, but that illusion isn't going to last forever, so let's do it after we get you into the dungeon?"

"You're ready?" Misa asked. "This is it?"

"Yeah," Helix said. "We would've given you more warning, but uh, we wanted a realistic reaction before we got the illusions going. Sorry. We wouldn't have hurt you, probably."

Misa glowered at the 'probably', and Helix let out an awkward laugh. "We trusted in your capabilities?"

Sev grimaced a little bit. "Not really a good approach, but points for drama," he said.

"My brother would've spotted a fireball like that coming a mile away," Helix said, just a touch defensively. "...But maybe that wasn't the best plan."

"I'm more ashamed I didn't realize it was you," Vex said.

"Anyway." Helix paused. "This is the part where I ask all of you to climb into a cart, so we can get you into the dungeon."

Sev blinked. "Uh."

"Look I didn't realize how this would come off until I had to say it," Helix said. "It'll be fine! Trust me!"

"We tried to tell him it was a bad idea," the same man spoke up from behind Helix, who threw up his hands.

"Everyone's a critic," he complained. "Just get in the cart! The cart's fine! It's totally safe and not a trap!"

"Not helping my confidence here," Sev said.

"Honestly, I'm starting to get worried, and I'm in on the plan," one of his men said.

"You should probably get in the cart before Helix makes it worse," another one added.

"I'm not making it worse!"

Sev sighed. "Okay, we're going to need like, five contigency plans for this," he said. "Give us three minutes."