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“I am NOT eating that,” Sighed Alastair, staring at the blue thing sitting in his plate. To be fair, he had always loved pizza, but...he poked this one with his fork - blue, slimy, gooey lichen pudding stuck to it like some sort of luminescent glue. Why is it glowing？
“Master Rufus said it’s traditional. It’s like, a reward for the medal we got or something,” said Sarah, nudging him from across the table. She took a tentative nibble, beamed, and started digging in, “It’s not that bad, kind of like blueberry and Pepsi. ” Blueberry Pepsi pizza doesn’t sound much better than blue lichen pizza to Alastair, but he decided not to argue. Sarah was an absolute risk taker, whether it is jumping onto the back of an air elemental (which she just did on their last mission) or gobbling down weird weird food (which she was doing).
The blue-purple stone, for ultimate bravery**, shone on their wrists. The high pitch screech of the elementals still seemed to echo in Alastair’s ears, bring him back to the abandoned manor they had just left days ago.
“Give me a boost, Dee!” Lifted by Declan’s wind, Sarah had conjured a lasso made of earth, swung it around the air elemental’s neck, and flung herself onto its back. Earth wants to bind. “No more flying for you, darling, ” She laughed in the howling wind, holding tight as the giant wyvern thrashed and screamed, nearly jamming its head into the ceiling. Gradually, it started to descend. Alastair raised his hands, lifting the metal braziers lining the halls and shaping them into sharp blades midair, preparing to strike.
The chaos elemental had appeared out of nowhere, right next to Alastair. Cold, oily darkness snaked around his throat.
“Alastair! ” Constantine’s voice was urgent as he turned, hands out stretched. Too far away to reach them but - that same darkness shot out from his finger tips, towards the animal specimens decorating the grand hall. They sprang to life and pounced on the elemental, while newly freed Alastair, fast as an asp, drove the brazier-turned-blades into what should be its heart.
In short, They made it. Air elemental “Venya” and chaos elemental “Tartarus” were now being held in the cells underneath magisterium. The twins had debated for three days on what to name them.
He would really rather fight those elementals again than eat blue lichen pizza though.
Blue, sticky fingers attacked from behind him, aiming right for his brand new white shirt - the one he had only bought for the ceremony, “Come on, you’ll survive it! Anyway we’ll find a way to revive you if you don’t...probably.”
“Shut up, Con, ” Alastair was already batting away the hand before he noticed the absence of a black bead on the wristband...Uh oh. He turned around to find an astonished Jericho frowning at him, hands still hovering in the air. Behind him, the real Constantine gave them a lazy grin, “Oh we will, I promise.”
“The Parent Trap**?” Asked Declan, smirking, apparently not yet ready to let Alastair get away with his mistake.
“Just since when am I their parent??”
****
“I swear it tastes better than it looks,” Said Tamara for the hundredth time. The young mage who just graduated top of their grade and with awards for special achievements gestured her fork at Call in a rather unladylike manner, “You’re impossible!”
“I don’t have anything against how it looks,” He argued back, glaring at the piece of pizza in front of him. It looks somewhat like shining sapphire, “Luminescent blue is top fashion. I just worry it might poison us.”
Tamara rolled her eyes, “Do you really think poisoning every award-winning group is a good idea?” “You know what, I wouldn’t put it pass the assembly to do just that...ouch! I was joking!”
This place smelled like blueberry and cheese. Not bad, really. Alex - Aaron - surveyed the new stone on his wrist. Opal, representing self-discovery and unrelenting war against the dark side of humanity. Call shared a similar one on his wristband. “For taking pure darkness, and making it into something that is in every way bright, hopeful, and iridescent” were Master Rufus’s exact words. Call had muttered that the whole thing sounded rather weird and mushy, but Tamara had slapped his wrist in a not unkind way.
“You deserved it, you know. Both of you. ” She had faced them with surprising seriousness, lights dancing in her dark eyes, “It is a merit - to be able to live with darkness and still reach for the light.”
“We had help, we all did,” Friends who always looked out for each other. What else was there to say?
Back to the present though. Aaron looked up to find Call gawking at Tamara, his nose now a brilliant luminescent blue. Now that he looked around the table, Tamara’s braids were already the color of sapphire, while Jasper and Gwenda both had pudding smirched over their foreheads. He choked out laugh at the sight of a tiny ball of lichen pudding floating in the air between them, then willed a gust of wind to send it towards Jasper, landing in his newly combed hair.
Before they could react however, he turned to Call, “Tamara’s right though, you really should try it. It’s not every day you get awards like this. A once-in-a-lifetime chance.”
“You mean once in three lifetimes?” Asked Jasper innocently, looking pretty hilarious with blue hair.
Aaron was about to retort, but the laughter around seemed to drown out all of that. The war has ended. All was well. Well then...what had passed was history, no point denying it. So he just winked at Call, “Actually, I meant once in a dozen lifetimes.”
Call sighed in mock exasperation, raised a piece of pizza to his nose and sniffed it, before shoving it into his mouth. He grimaced, then as the taste sank in, turned to Aaron and grinned - like the carefree teenager that was all they ever really wanted to be. Come to think of it, it’s not too late for that.
It’s never too late for that.