The mages stepped into the portal with Doevm trailing behind them. In a flash, they were gone. He was gone, and Frey plummeted back down, cracking the platform with a gigantic thud, his pride and confidence cracking like the platform. 'All my strength, all my training, and I can tell that, even if I were to fight, I couldn't have done a thing to those mages. Doevm can get out. He always has a plan. I just need to follow his last order, to get stronger and wait.'

General Alexander let go of Elero and Thomas and put a hand on his shoulder. "You knew about Doevm, didn't you, that he had magic?"

Frey whipped around and brushed the hand away: "What of it? Does it matter to you, oh great General who couldn't stop his own disciple from being taken?" He pulled the paper from Doevm's spatial ring, the one signifying Alexander accepting Doevm as his disciple. Frey couldn't even look the general in the face without wanting to direct at him, all his seething hatred, self-blame, and…weariness and doubt.

Alexander shook his head: "That decision is not up to me."

Frey cursed, his eyes going watery. "Doevm just wanted to fight. That's all. We've worked so, so…" His voice wavered. "So hard. We've fought in the year-long war. We lost comrades…close friends. We've nearly died dozens of times over from all sorts of creatures whether it be Lava Boars, a Manticore, Ghouls, or mutant creatures."

Frey took a breath, growing a bit light-headed: "I could go on and on about what we've done. All of that effort was made irrelevant because Doevm had magic, just one more thing this country could use him for. We have served the Acrin kingdom. He didn't deserve to get this close to the Knights' Academy only to be chained up and kidnapped like a criminal."

"Frey…" Alexander said, and for a moment, a familiar fatigue gleamed in the general's pitch-black eyes, which stared into a far-off place full of regrets and suffering. The strands of silver within Alexander's short beard seem to reflect the pale moonlight.

"I, all the Generals understand what it means to serve, and the price paid for doing so. I know what it feels like to have a friend die in your arms, their last shaking breaths ingrained in your mind for all of eternity. Still I serve because I am a soldier, and I have nothing and no one left to go back to."

Frey took a deep breath and bowed. "I apologize General Alexander. I lost myself."

"It's alright," Alexander leaned around Frey. "But you should check on your companions. I may have gone a little overboard in blocking them."

Frey felt his stomach drop at the state of Elero's braces, the neat, orderly gears and needles now twisted, and twisting along with it, the flesh into unseemly directions.

Thomas extended a hand to her: "Can you stand?"

"First of all," Elero said in between deep, labored breaths. "Ow. Second of all." She pointed to the mangled mess. "What the hell does it look like?" She mimicked his voice but made it deeper and slower: "Can you stand?" She huffed. "Of course not. Look at this! I don't know how I'm conscious right now although I feel pretty woozy just looking at this." She took out a water sac. Between gulps, a little bit spilled and trickled down her chin. Whatever that green, viscous fluid was, it wasn't water.

To Thomas's and Frey's horror, Elero attempted to move. Her deformed braces groaned and squeaked as her mangled legs shook, a defenseless animal jammed in a rusty bear trap, one that cursed a lot. She could only bend (what Frey assumed was) her knee a few degrees before she had to stop. "General Alexander."

She wheezed, glaring at him. Spittle uncontrollably flew out with each trembling word. At this point, Frey and Thomas looked at each other, wondering what the hell to do without Doevm. She pulled out one of the bent needles out of her leg, bits of flesh clinging to it. "You're paying the cost of new ones, right?" As it turned out, their concern was not needed, because they had forgotten that pain was nothing next to this monster. "Send payment to Kilot."

"I understand." Alexander sighed. The crowd made way for him as he headed back to the platform with the other generals.

"General Alexander," Marble said as Alexander sat down between him and General Von Trike.

Alexander rubbed his tired eyes: "What do you want?"

General Marble pulled Alexander's arms down and looked him in the eyes: "You acted too rashly with the girl and injured a student. Learn some-"

"Restraint?" Alexander cut him off. "If I hadn't acted as fast as I did, the mage would have noticed her powers. Either that, or she would have sprinted past the mage and attacked Jackal Von Trike. You must have felt that, her intense bloodlust. That type of battle-lust is not something that can be stopped with words. Then there's also the Virility kid, who would have attacked the mage."

"It's true," General Von Trike added in. "Those mages think they're invincible. They think because they were trained to be the kingdom's ultimate weapons that no one can touch them. But I still think you went a little overboard with crushing the girl's braces. You need to make that up to her somehow."

"I said I'd pay for new ones and apologized," Alexander shrugged. "What else am I supposed to do?"

"Well," General Von Trike smirked. "There's an open spot if you know what I mean. And if not her, may I suggest Frey."

"Frey?" Alexander glanced at the giant. "Why? Do you see some quality in him besides his strength?"

Brandon nodded. "It's rare to find companions that won't hesitate to back you up, even against a mage. What's even rarer than that is to find one that will hold back because they trust in their companions' abilities."

Alexander narrowed his eyes: "You talk as if Doevm has the capability of escaping the Magic Academy. Do you know something I don't?" Brandon shrugged. Alexander kept alternating his glances between Elero, Frey, and Thomas. "It might be a bit difficult to choose."

"Those mages are getting more arrogant by the year." Marble muttered as he brought out a paper and quill. "Teleporting onto academy grounds, lifting my student into the air, and even disrupting a ceremony. They can't expect to-"

"No one will read that." Brandon reached for the letter but Marble held it out of his reach.

"It's procedure. We follow it."

Brandon unenthusiastically held his hands up. "Procedure. Justified. Rules. What can they do except put your heart at ease? We all know that your letter will only serve as someone's firewood. The only way to do anything to those mages, given our positions of course, is to bend the rules to our benefit…" He adjusted his monocle to get a better look at both his sons standing at the back end of the platform. "For now at least."

The crowd's increasing noise, now that the shock of the mages' sudden appearance was over, made Marble look up from his letter: "General Von Trike. It's your turn."

"I know," Von Trike said as he descended to the forefront of the stage. He took a deep breath and bellowed: "Dear students! Please listen to what I have to say as I would rather not resort to Alexander's methods and deafen you!" The crowd quieted, although not completely. Doevm's group was now the target of over the shoulder glances and whispers.

"After that unfortunate…Interruption I remind you that, while it is important to look after your comrades, your actions now represent the Knights' Academy. You are part of a greater whole, a class that must act as one, not as divided groups that struggle against the popular vote. Now, if you would all welcome your new teachers to the stage: Mr. Quinn, Miss Vessa, and Mr. Bruke." The clapping that followed slowly died down as the students recognized the shopkeepers who they had treated so poorly. All but three were listening.

"What the hell?" Thomas said. "Those mages jut took Doevm and the Generals are acting as if it is just some normal everyday thing!"

"I know," Frey said. "But right now," he took a long pause, suppressing a bit of flaming white aura from surfacing. "We need to…I don't know. Doevm said to get stronger but is that all we should be doing?" He turned, feeling a metal piece tap his arm.

"Can you bend this so it curves at an angle?" Elero asked, holding out a twisted screw. "It's the last piece that needs fixing." She had laid schematics on the ground and put all the pieces of her braces on top. Most of the broken, twisted pieces had been forced back into shape, all of them except the screw, which Frey fixed with a simple bend.

"Thanks," Elero said as she reassembled her braces. Her legs still shook and the braces still screeched, but that was enough for her to stand up. She shambled after the crowd, which had followed the instructors past the stage. "I'll fix this crap the best I can later. For now, all that matters is that we get up and keep moving. Come on."

Before Thomas could move to follow her, a slight pain entered his head, which quickly grew in intensity, forcing him down to his knees. His world went cold and dark. His heart sped up as a figure appeared in the black, two blue flames illuminating a skull. It reached a skeletal hand down to him, and for some strange reason, this one thought crossed his mind: 'Doevm?' Then, the flames dimmed and the skull faded into a mist.

Thomas blinked and he was back in reality, hands shaking him awake. He shook his head, which only amplified the new headache. General Von Trike hurried over and helped him to his feet. "Are you ok? Do you need a healer? You were just screaming."

"I-I'm fine." Thomas said. "I just got tired all of a sudden."