Cai Finley Aies Hall May 1st, 20XX

Finley forcefully pulled me to the forefront of his consciousness and left me to deal with the situation, having maxed out his ability to deal with foreign situations for the day.

Askeli screamed out his lungs beside me as we catapulted through the sky and I tried my best to ignore it and not knock him unconscious.

The two foreign magic signals faded behind us quickly as we flew through the skies but I didn't dare let us rest and kept us afloat. I scanned a few more times around us before finally loosening one of the defensive layers I had put on top of the bubble.

“ If you keep screaming I'm going to kick you out of this ball and let you fend for yourself.”

I breathed out, finally able to relax enough to shut him up. I still had to continuously recycle magic to keep the bubble afloat it couldn't be helped as my retention just wasn't good enough to rely on myself to do so.

He shut up mid-scream and began to choke on the unreleased sounds, filling the silence with violent coughs instead.

Once again I made a conscious effort to ignore him and began to scan around us for any familiar figures or faces.

“ If you need something to do that's not trying to deafen me- why don't you help me look for someone that can help us.”

In a less aggravating tone than previous but still pretty annoying, Askeli finally quit the coughing and asked me what he probably thought was a reasonable question.

“ Why don't you just use magic for that? It would be much more efficient.”

I couldn't even cast an illusion spell or camouflage since they most likely had a way of tracking my magic. If I tried to send out my magic and find familiar signatures it would only result in a repeat of last time and I didn't have the time nor materials to build another slingshot.

“Not an option. If they pick up on my scanning and chase after us do you have the confidence to be able to outfly them? Cause I don't.”

He frowned at my less than patient and understanding response but still sat up and began to look down at the grounds through the bubble.

I lowered the density of the bubble by one more layer so we could see better and no longer than five minutes after he suddenly yelled.

“ There she is! Me- General Ruan!”

I crawled to his side of the bubble and shoved him to the other side to keep the precarious balance we had achieved and saw the Gen- Mei, engaged in a deep battle with someone that looked more like a beast than a fairy. Executing one sloppy move after the other.

As we neared her I wondered why she chose to fight in such a physical style Rather than using her magic when it suddenly occurred to me and I began to turn around, purposefully disrupting the motion of the bubble and pulling us to a full stop.

Askeli who had spotted Mei first suddenly found us moving in the other direction and began to question my actions.

“ You incompetent half breed Bas**rd! why are we moving away from the general? even if you dislike me it’s not the time for that! we need to get closer so she can defend us, at least until we can get to more forces”

As he brought the conversation back to our obvious romantic interests conflicting I couldn't help but get even more annoyed. And.. what did he just call me?

“ ‘You’? 'Bas**rd'? Have you ever. even once. considered thinking before you spoke, Linus? you dare Speak in such a way to me within royal grounds?!”

I divided the bubble in half with an invisible wall, and began to withdraw all the magic from within it, not even leaving a single speck of recycled or even unrecycled magic within.

I couldn't kill him, nor did I particularly want to but unlike Finley, I, Cai, was entirely based upon the identity of the prince of the queendom. If I let him disrespect me like that it wasn't as simple as a lack of respectful address. it was disrespecting my entire existence.

His eyes began to roll upwards and his skin began to pallor which signaled to me that he had learned his lesson. As I broke down the wall and began to flood magic towards him I focused on purifying it even more finely than before in the hopes that it would fix his wings as well as restore him to health.

As soon as he registered that he was no longer in direct danger he looked at me with terrified eyes, like those of a rabbit trapped in a bear trap and suddenly withdrew a thin knife with an incredibly embossed hilt and stabbed into the other side of the bubble.

With vigor I hadn't expected from his frail body he grabbed both sides of the incision he had rather illogically made and struggled to push himself out and away from me.

I couldn't stop him from escaping, not without risk to myself, so instead, I flooded the purified magic towards him even more intensely, managing to fix his wings into a somewhat passable state and started to descend the bubble a bit more to at least shorten the fall.

I may be a slightly psychotic alternate personality, but I wasn't a murderer.

He finally slipped out of the bubble about 15 stories above the air, more than enough to kill him if he hit the ground and began to frantically flap his wings.

“tch”

I all but spat out a cuss as I dissolved the bubble into a small platform below myself and divided after him.

He was unconscious by the time I caught him, having fainted from the shock of nearly suffocating to death and then nearly smashing onto the ground. I was descending too quickly to bother trying to go back upwards so I reinforced the bottom of the makeshift board and we skidded down the sloped surface of the ground.

Closer and closer to where Mei was.

The magic in the air that she pulled towards herself grew weaker and weaker the closer I got to her, but there was no way to stop the motion of two bodies rolling down a hill.

At least, not without creating a barrier to crash into. If I had been by myself I probably would have taken that option but with Askeli entangled with myself, it would only be me shouldering the weight of two adult-sized figures.

As I wondered the best way to get out of this situation the magic in the air suddenly grew still, showing that she was done gathering magic, and in the next moment. A sea of bright bronze magic erupted from the site, not even 40 feet away from us.

There was first silence as the bright magic begun to fade but it was soon intterupted by a deafening scream that echoed around the compound and sent chills down my spine.