Harker, year 1, April, Cedric

The floor shook.

“Continue with the exercises,” Cedric said, walking between the groups of three as they worked on what would be their year-end test in magical craft, making a containment spell.

With an application of his will, and a hand gesture for flourish, he made the scaffolding of the magic encasing Harker visible to him, and him alone. It wouldn’t do to distract his students.

An overview showed nothing out of the ordinary. He moved the representation, looking for the disruption that had to be there. Whatever had caused the shaking to be felt this deep should have registered. That he wasn’t seeing anything was a worry on its own.

His phone buzzed.

“C’est Cedric,” he answered, motioning to a student to return to his practice.

“The school’s under attack,” the dean said, in a calm tone that impressed him if she was right. She’d always impressed him with how level-headed she was, along with how important the students’ welfare was to her. But few people who weren’t battle-hardened could say that and keep the panic from their voice. “I can’t reach the rest of the faculty.”

He glanced at the scaffolding, looking for the intrusion point. “Are you certain?”

“I can see someone tearing at the landscape from my window,” she replied, still surprisingly calm.

“I will see to it,” he replied, then terminated the call. “Artikak.”

The crystalline form unfolded itself from the corner. “Yes, Demoniste?”

“Time for you to earn your keep. Take over the class and assist any student who requires it.”

“Yes, Demoniste.”

Bryce fell into step on his way to the classroom’s door. Outside, Cedric called a personal number.

“I’m already on it,” Tracy replied, sounding like he was running.

“My wards are not showing signs of intrusion, which means magic is involved. Can you point me in the right direction?”

He stepped outside the building and heard fighting.

“If I say….” Tracy sounded like he searched for what to say. “That Ra’s opening his eyes. Does that mean anything to—” the call ended with a shriek.

“Ra, means Egypt, egyptian magic?” he pondered. It wasn’t really a thing. But people had a habit of getting hung up on details like that, and it tainted their magic. But that would echo across his ward, so not that.

“God of the sun,” he mused. “Opening his eyes. Could be the morning.” It was the afternoon. “East.” Focusing on that side of his ward gave him nothing new, but it was a place to start. Tracy was never wrong, but he was also never clear.

He wished he had more time to study the situation, but it needed to be stopped before students were hurt.

“Bryce,” he told the Samoan man at his side, “transporte moi a l’est, s’il vous plait.” His ward to prevent teleportation in, out, and through the school grounds stopped his spell as well.

His friend and bodyguard grabbed him and was already growing, his blood-red suit stretching as his body did, as he put him on his back. “Tiens toi.”

The now more samian looking man jumped, and Cedric observed the campus from his new vantage point. Valiant’s security robots were holding back what seemed to be low level powered thugs, while students ran for cover.

A young man interposed himself between a small group of students while a fire-blaster half-haphazardly blasted away from them at nothing. They were out of sight before he could puzzle out what had been happening.

Bryce landed in the middle of thugs, sending them flying before he leaped again. Cedric saw one of the student punch a thug and the woman landed meters away. Then they, too, were out of sight.

“Quelque chose,” Bryce yelled over the wind.

The tear in his ward was visible, as was the woman standing before it.

Cedric sighed. He should have guessed she’d be involved.

Bryce’s landing sent dirt at her, which didn’t reach. She turned, looking unconcerned as Cedric dropped from Bryce’s back.

“Well, well, well,” she said, smirking. “If it isn’t the dwarf and his pet monkey.”

“Really Malice. That’s what you go with for insults? It’s as if I’d settle for calling you une putain.”

“You know I hate when you speak French.”

He grinned. “I do.” A quick scrying confirmed they were alone. “Bryce, please go assist with protecting the student.”

“Are you sure you want to be alone with this bitch?” His friend smirked at Malice’s glare. She had wanted to be insulted in English.

“S’il vous plais,” Cedric replied. “C’est pas la premiere fois que je dois dealer avec elle. Cinque minute, max.”

“She’s a sneaky bitch, Cedric.” This time, his grin was filled with pride.

“And I’m de Demoniste. Today is not the day she gets the better of me.”

“You call if you need help.”

“J’te promets.”

Bryce leaped away.

“Alone at last,” Malice said, like it was his father who had left, and she had intimate intentions toward him.

“Let’s not do this, Malice.”

She smiled.

He sighed. “You have done what you were paid for. You let them in. Leave now, and I’ll consider if I need to chase you after this situation is resolved.”

“Paid? You think I had to be paid to help take down this brainwashing thing of yours?”

“There is no brainwashing taking place here, Malice. We are teaching them to—”

“Anything the government has a hand in is corrupt!” she yelled.

“I do not disagree, but the government does now have—”

She snorted. “Don’t waste your time with lies, little man. I’ve read the transcripts.”

He’d let Valiant deal with how the government had let those be accessed. “If they left you thinking we allowed them to direct how we would educate the next generation of heroes, you did not read well. This is your last chance, Malice. Leave now, or face the consequences of your actions.”

“You don’t scare me, little man.”

“Very well.” He closed his wards. Seeing the tear had made it easy for him to see her workings, and they were impressive. But he wasn’t the most powerful of this plane’s sorcerers simply because he said so. Her workings shattered under his will.

She didn’t turn her back to him to see what had happened, but her surprise was loud on her face.

He tapped his cane on the ground, and when he let it go it remained standing as he rolled up his sleeves. “Did you really think your magic is stronger than mine, Malice?”

“You’re nothing, little man.”

“You need to work on your repertoire. I would offer that you study at our library, but I expect our collections are well above your comprehension levels.”

“You son of a bitch.” With a series of gestures, there were now twelve of her.

He had his cane in hand, spinning it while crafting the shield around it. Each of the arcane blast that impacted it was real, which, in theory, made this one of her more effective workings.

But Cedric knew this opponent through many attempts on her part to prove she was stronger. While they each looked real, summoning was not Malice’s magical area of expertise. Or even of interest. The mind was where she excelled, which made her excellent at illusions, as well as manipulation. She’d shown a gift for shield crafting and had had to learn offensive magics simply because she’d dedicated herself to ‘freeing’ people from the government’s control.

Which meant this was Cedric’s response.

The crafting activated, and the wave that burst from him passed through the illusions. Only Malice gasps in pain, holding her head, to the far left of where she’d been.

“Still overconfident in your mental shielding, I see.” Cedric crafted small blasts, and even in her distracted state, she deflected them.

He recognized her working, and instead of trying to shield himself from it, he opened a gate through which a confused creature fell. It snarled, looking around, then saw him and bared its teeth. Only for the working to hit it. It screamed in pain, clutching its head as its mind unraveled.

“Still sacrificing others,” she panted.

“Je suis le Demoniste, Malice. If the name makes you think of someone nice, I worry about how you were raised. And throwing something that exists to create suffering in the path of actual suffering does not give me pause. You shouldn’t have used something so powerful so early. Now, you have nothing left to—”

The blast caught him in the side and sent him down. He hurried to his feet, a shield before him, while he retook his cane. He stared at the crystalline creature pointing at him, magical energy still crackling over the hand.

“Artikak? What are you doing?”

“What my summoner instructed, Demoniste.” The magic flowed from within the creature, to the hand, and the angles arranged it into a blast, that shattered his shield, sending him down again. His green vest smoked, having taken the blast.

“C’est impossible.” Cedric returned to his feet. “I scried you thoroughly when we found you.” He jumped out of the way of the next blast, cursing all the practicing he had done with the creature, teaching it how to protect the students. He had taught it how he defended himself in the process.

Or rather, his preferred methods.

“I did not know I had been summoned until my instructions came.”

The next blast deflected off the altered shield, and two gates opened on each side of the creature. Beings of blood and hate jumped on it from them, and Cedric’s shield blocked Malice’s blast.

“J’te pas oublier.” A gate behind her and a being of fur grabbed, only for its arms to go through the illusion. “Calis de tabarnac. I hate when you do that.” At least she couldn’t do anything until she made herself visible.

He focused on the creature, preparing a crafting to assist the outer dimensional beings, only for it to rip the last one apart.

“I am sorry for being so careless with your summons, Demoniste, but my instructions don’t allow for anything to get in the way of me killing you.”

He changed crafting and the energy he sent was enough to shatter buildings. He’d deal with the repairs to what was behind when—

The energy struck the creature and…diffracted within it.

It looked at the colors moving within in surprise, while Cedric did so, stunned.

“I apologize,” it said. “I did not know this was something I could do until now. I believe it is one of the reasons my summoner chose me.”

“Who summoned you?” Cedric demanded, putting crafting within the words.

As someone who summoned creatures from other dimensions and enforced his will on them, Commanding was among his stronger magics. He didn’t use it against people, because it was the kind of magic that didn’t leave minds of this plane intact.

Unlike what the media liked to say about him, Cedric did like the people on this plane of reality.

“I do not know,” it said, surprised.

“I did,” Malice said, appearing behind and to its left.

“Vas te faire emerder, Malice. You don’t do summons.” But for the creature to not know something that was embedded in itself by the magic used in the summons meant whoever had done it was on par with him. He only knew of three who rivaled his summonings, and unless things had changed, the agreement of noninvolvement would apply here.

Cedric squared his shoulder. The scales of this fight had changed. He had to—

“Attack!” Malice yelled, sending sloppy workings at him. He stepped aside and around those he couldn’t block, the toe of his shoe leaving a line in the dirt. While she couldn’t order the creature, its instructions to kill him aligned, so he needed to avoid them too.

“Don’t let him finished—”

The line connected to where it had started and the design in the ground flashed green. The next blast harmlessly diffused against the wall surrounding him, making it shimmer green.

“You have encased yourself,” the creature said, puzzled, while Cedric crafted. “That is an interesting strategy.”

He couldn’t count on what he’d learned about it during their practice. There was no telling what had been unlocked when its summoner had instructed it. So, Cedric went for something that would kill anything he knew of.

“It’s one way!” Malice yelled as he unleashed the crafting at the crystalline creature.

The arcane webbing wrapped around it, energy fighting against matter as it pulled in on itself, tightening. The creature compacted under the force, but Cedric didn’t take that as a victory. It could will itself into a dodecahedron, much smaller than its whole volume said should be possible.

Not every extra-dimensional creature was forced to obey the laws of physic of the plane they found themselves on.

But it meant that, for the time being, he only had one adversary to contend with.

“Now, Malice. You are welcome to attempt your usual move when you find yourself about to be defeated. Try to run. Bryce isn’t the only one who—”

Energy struck his shield, and Malice smirked.

“So full of yourself, little man,” she said, and he looked over his shoulder at the far too young man, focusing intently on the magic he was projecting. At least it wasn’t one of his students. Cedric didn’t know what he’d do if he’d missed one of them being intent on his death.

“Do you really think some wildling you mesmerized into serving you will be enough to keep me from making you pay for your part in this?” He had planned on teaching her a lesson, and letting her go. Professional courtesy, he’d call it, if one of the others questioned his actions. But she was annoying him now.

“I didn’t mesmerize them, Cedric. I’m not the only one who recognizes the evil perpetrated on us by those claiming to be there for our protection.”

“Please, spare me your speech.”

“How can you serve them, Cedric?” she asked earnestly. “When throughout history, their kind have hunted us, burned us, drowned us.”

“I do not serve anyone, Malice. And I do not hold people accountable for actions of others. Those in power here have done horrible things, but they are not the ones who hunted practitioners of the past.”

“No, just those of us in the present. They want to brand us and send us to be cremated!”

“And you want to steal everyone’s will, Malice. I don’t see how you are different, and unlike them, you I have the power to stop.”

She smirked. “Do you, now? How about me and my friends put that to the test?”

More blasts joined in, and Cedric looked around, shaking his head at all this waste. So many young men and women he could have helped. But now, by taking part in this, the best those who survived could hope for was to have their magic ripped out of them.

He couldn’t allow someone willing to do this, the power to attempt it again.

And this time, it meant Malice too.

“Tu vas trop loin avec ca,” he said, crafting. “I can’t let you ever do this again.”

“Like you can stop us,” she said victorious, adding her workings to the attacks against his shield.

Twelve of them against it, against him.

They didn’t stand a chance.

With a screech, a crafting shattered, and the crystalline creature unfolded itself, so much magical energy within it that it glowed. “I am sorry, Demoniste,” it said. “But now, you die.”

With a curse, Cedric changed his crafting.

Thirteen.

Thirteen changed everything.

He couldn’t afford to take chances anymore. He focused on strengthening his shielding while mentally calling—

The spear of mental pain had him screaming, and down on a knee.

Malice laughed. “Did you think I’d let you call your pet monkey, little man? No, not this time. This time, you reveal yourself for the weakling you are. I am the strongest sorcerer, and after this, the world will have no choice but to acknowledge it.”

Cedric would laugh at the boast if pain wasn’t all he was at the moment. Even if she were to defeat him. There were plenty stronger than her out there.

He ignored the cracks in his shielding in favor for finding a small piece without pain inside him. A place he could think and craft. When he found it, he worked quickly, crafting a spell he often used when going up against groups which used telepath to coordinate their actions.

A spell that cut off minds from others.

And he slammed it on himself.

Not falling over from the lack of pain was hard. Not letting himself fall into unconscious from the relief he felt, harder. But he couldn’t allow it. He couldn’t give her the satisfaction.

When he locked eyes on her, she stepped back, and he smiled. He grabbed his cane and pushed to his feet. His shielding was seconds from shattering under the cursed thirteen, but he could do a lot in a few seconds.

So long as he could disrupt thirteen.

He sent the crafting at one of the wildlings. Something strong enough to end whatever it touched. They had sealed their fates when they sided with her, and Cedric was no longer in a mood to give second chances.

Other wildlings reacted to his attack, and because of thirteen, protections that shouldn’t have been enough to stop someone spitting merged together, pulled from the magic connecting the thirteen magic wielders working against him, and stopped the blast.

Cursed luck.

He crafted another attack, but the first success emboldened the wildlings, and they acted to protect his target with intent instead of desperation, and that made the protection stronger.

Cursed luck she’d managed to pull thirteen at her side. She didn’t, couldn’t, know its power. Not with how hard people like him went to make sure thirteen never showed up in places where it could give inspirations. Going as far back as removing Abraham from the cadre around the Christian Messiah, reducing his disciples to twelve. Let people think twelve was a number of power.

He couldn’t focus on offense without sacrificing his defense. And he needed to survive until Bryce arrived. He would have started moving the instant their mental bond went silent, but Cedric couldn’t know how long it would take.

His wall shattered under thirteen, and he crafted shields as quickly as he could, having to let some of the energy through, and letting his clothing absorb that until their protection was overloaded.

He was on one knee when the ground shook, and the assault stopped. In the peace of Bryce’s roar, Cedric realized something his anger had masked.

“Tue pas les enfants,” he whispered, not having the energy left for English and knowing Bryce would still hear him.

“T’es pas serieux,” Bryce replied, offended. “T’as access a une bombe nucleaire, pis to veux la tirer comme une petanque?”

“S’il vous plais, Bryce. Fais c’que tu veux avec les deux autre, mes pas les enfants. On peus les aidez.”

With a snark, his protector faced Malice and the crystalline creature, his body growing, ripping the rags that were all that was left of his clothing.

Malice was always wrong about Bryce, Cedric thought. The Christians were wrong as well. His protector didn’t look like a demon, despite the red skin and fur. He certainly didn’t resemble a monkey. He had more of gorillas in how he looked.

“Alright, you little wildlings,” Bryce growled. “He spared your lives, but he said nothing about how much I could hurt you. So you better run, because once I’m done eating those two, I am going to hunt you, and I promise you that I will not get bored of hurting you anytime soon for your part in this.”

“I am sorry, Bryce,” the creature said, “but I cannot let you stop me from following my instructions. I will have to kill you as well.”

Bryce snorted. “I guess you just volunteered for the first serving.”

Cedric wished he could have watched Bryce render it into dust, but exhaustion pulled him into unconsciousness.