Chapter 54: I Don’t Wanna Be An Angel
Engel, Rammstein
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Where in the fuck all did he put it… ah, there it was. Ezio reached over onto his side table, picking up the pen he was looking for and tossing it into his messenger bag. He was almost late for class, but not quite. Fortunately, his professors all liked him, so if he was late to class here and there, most of the time, they didn’t really mind it too much. It didn’t mean he should make a habit of pushing his luck, but it did mean when he was honestly late, it wasn’t that big of a deal.
Ezio shuffled around, getting the rest of what he needed for class gathered together. He could make it just in time. All things considered, he could probably get away with skipping entirely, it wasn’t like Ezio didn’t know the material. Come to think of it, he could probably get away with skipping the rest of classes for the term and only going back for his exams. Was he going to?
No.
Amid looking for something, he popped open his side table drawer, and then paused for a moment, gaze on the ring boxes. He hadn’t given them to either Cassandra or Drake, hadn’t even hinted that he had them, of course. He had to wait for the right time. You didn’t just randomly pop the question, it had to be perfect. The mood, the atmosphere, the conversation, down to the last detail. Or maybe Ezio just worried too much about things that didn’t make any difference to anyone that wasn’t him. On the other hand, Cassandra and Drake seemed to appreciate that he cared, at least?
He released a sigh, sitting down on the bed and taking one of the boxes out of his drawer. Was it stupid to want to marry them both? He didn’t know how this was supposed to go, but he did know that he was happiest when he had them both. It wasn’t like one or the other wasn’t enough by themselves, it was just that they shouldn’t have to be? Was that even right? Ugh, now his thoughts weren’t making any sense.
Ezio knew he wanted them both. And he knew he’d like to spend the rest of his life with Drake. Shit, he already kind of had, at least spent several lifetimes worth with him, and Ezio didn’t regret a single second of it. Sometimes he thought Drake should, but clearly he felt the same way, given he had yet to go.
And Cassandra? Psh, he had no idea why he’d gotten so attached to her. One of them made him feel safe, the other made him feel alive, and they both made him feel loved. Maybe it was selfish to want both of those things. And maybe he should just stop thinking about it and listen to his heart for once. Ezio had spent his whole life not chasing the things he wanted for fear that he wouldn’t get anything he wanted anyway. If this was to be his last run, the last thing he ever did, maybe before he went out, he should get a little selfish and decide he wanted something just because he fucking wanted it. Because above everything else, Cassandra and Drake made him unbelievably happy, happier than he’d ever thought he’d be, so much so it felt like he didn’t deserve it.
To be fair about it, he’d been seeing Cassandra off and on since the eighties, randomly here and there. Sometimes someone he knew turned into her, but more often, he saw her for just a split second on the subway, watching him from half a car away. And then suddenly the apparitions had stopped, right around 2000. When she would’ve been born, no doubt. Like he’d been seeing a ghost and then that ghost wasn’t a spirit anymore.
Sometimes, he thought, she’d chosen him, long before she was even born.
It was a stupid thing to think, wasn’t it? Ezio smiled to himself, putting the ring box back with the other one and sliding the drawer closed. Then, he stood up and shuffled over to the closet (he had a closet now), pulling clothes out of it. Half of the closet was Morgyn’s, the other half was his. Okay, it was more like, two thirds of the closet was Morgyn’s, and if Ezio was lucky he had a little extra room for a few sweaters or something. He wasn’t sure what to wear today, but plaid was always a good choice. He pulled one of his plaid shirts out and a black turtleneck, and backed up. Looking at it, the closet was partially red and partially black. Huh.
No one had ever said the Embers weren’t somewhat predictable.
He pulled his pyjama shirt off, quickly replacing it with the turtleneck and then the plaid, fixed his makeup, and slid his glasses on. Time for another lovely day of learning he supposed. Mayor Whiskers meowed and jumped onto the bed. Ezio smiled, reached down, and petted him. He didn’t wear his hat anymore because he kept losing it in the apartment in Culpepper. How he’d managed not to lose it on the street, that one Ezio didn’t know.
“Watch the house okay?” Ezio said quietly.
Mayor gave him a look that almost looked like a ‘duh.’
Ezio laughed quietly, slipping his messenger bag over his shoulder. Something felt wrong, now, and Ezio thought Miss Hell was in San Myshuno now. Caleb hadn’t been home in so long it almost didn’t matter, but Ezio was starting to wonder if he’d also gotten caught up with her. It wasn’t like he knew where she was. He could only hope that, wherever Caleb was, he was making better decisions, and eventually came to his senses on his own. It was funny, because Ezio could’ve fallen in love with him, he thought. Morgyn had just done it first, and Ezio wouldn’t do that to the blond.
Ezio gave Mayor a scritch under the chin, and then scurried off for the elevator.
* * *
“Soooo,” Morgyn said, flopping over on the back of the couch and reaching over to bump a fist lightly against Ezio’s forehead.
Ezio looked up at Morgyn, and huffed slightly. “So what?” he asked.
“I heard something, you know, I wasn’t trying to it just sort of happened, about a date this weekend?” Morgyn answered.
Of course the blond had heard about that. Why wouldn’t the blond have heard about that? Of all the things. Well, Ezio supposed that was really just kind of a given. These sorts of things, they didn’t stay quiet for very long. Who knew, maybe Cassandra told her mom over the phone or something. She and Bella did talk a good deal. Probably, Cassandra kind of missed her. She could go see her whenever, but she never seemed to want to.
“What about it?” Ezio asked.
“What not about it?” Morgyn answered, moving around the couch to sit down next to him. “I mean come on, we haven’t spoken in like a week or something, give me details here. They get along? They’re not upset about this arrangement? No one’s got hurt feelings? Are you going out with Drake later to make up for this time?”
Ezio snorted, reaching over and taking Morgyn’s hand. “Calm down,” he said. “Somehow, things are going okay. I keep expecting it to change, one or the other of them to decide they’re not happy anymore, but it hasn’t happened.”
“You’re okay with it too then?” Morgyn asked, shifting around to face him.
“Yeah,” Ezio answered, smiling just slightly. “I think this is the happiest I’ve ever been.”
Morgyn smiled. “I’m glad,” the blond said. “You deserve a little happiness.”
“Drake’s coming on this date, too,” Ezio said. “And I got them both rings.”
“Wait, like, rings rings?” Morgyn asked, eyebrows raising.
Ezio nodded. “Exactly like that,” he said.
“What?!” Morgyn shrieked.
“Wow, remember that thing about calm down?” Ezio asked, laughing slightly.
“Oh my god!” Morgyn said.
Ezio laughed some more.
“Ahhh oh my god! Oh my god. Ohmigosh what the fuck am I going to wear?” Morgyn asked, going a little wide-eyed.
“Something red,” Ezio answered flatly, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, yes,” Morgyn said. “But I own a lot of clothes and ninety-nine percent of my closet is red.”
Ezio smiled and shook his head. “It’s not that special,” he said.
“Are you kidding?” Morgyn asked. “This is so special, Ezio, I didn’t think I’d ever see you get married. What name are you guys taking? How does that work? Can you actually marry them both?”
Truth be told, Ezio hadn’t thought about it too much. He supposed that registering his marriage to Drake wouldn’t be necessarily important. All things considered, they’d been practically married for over a century, the piece of paper and official record didn’t mean anything.
Well, he didn’t think so. Maybe Drake would think otherwise, it was something to discuss when they got there. They had a lot of things to discuss when they got there. He wanted to say they’d be taking Cassandra’s name; hers was more important than Ezio’s, at least, and Ezio wasn’t interested in being stuck with Jean’s last name, even if it was also Drake’s. Then again, it’d never really been Drake’s, either.
Of course, Drake had never really had a last name that was his. Maybe he would want their marriage registered, even if only to say, he belonged for once. He was wanted, for once.
“I don’t know,” Ezio said. “I figured we’d work it out when we get there. There are a lot of things for us to talk about when we do.”
Morgyn smiled, and then sighed dreamily and rested against Ezio’s knee. “You’re awfully lucky,” the blond said. “I want what you have, someday.”
Ezio looked a little upset. Morgyn could have what Ezio had, if Caleb ever got off synthetics. Ezio hadn’t told anyone what had happened that day. He didn’t intend to. That was Caleb’s story to tell, not his. Instead, Ezio reached over and took Morgyn’s other hand. “He’ll come back,” he said. “I believe that.”
“I don’t know that I do,” Morgyn said. “He’s been gone for so long half the time I wonder if he’s even still alive.”
Ezio let one of Morgyn’s hands go, reaching up and patting the blond’s cheek. “He can’t die, silly,” Ezio said. “Someone has to be around to love you.”
Morgyn gave him a strange look. “You do, right?” the blond asked.
“You know what I mean,” he said. “In that way that I can’t.” Well, what he actually meant was, when Ezio wasn’t there to do it anymore, but he thought saying that right now maybe wasn’t a very good idea. Morgyn wasn’t terribly depressed, just very close, and Ezio didn’t want to make it any worse. “In the meantime, cheer up a little mm? Don’t want to be a total wreck when he comes back.”
“I feel like I should be allowed to be a total wreck when he comes back,” Morgyn said, arms crossing, pouting just a slight bit. “He’s sure shoved me through the emotional wringer.”
Well if it was any consolation, apparently, Caleb was also going through the emotional wringer, which begged the question of why he was still doing this. That was for someone that wasn’t Ezio to know, he supposed. Not that Caleb seemed to have the faintest fucking idea what he wanted or why he was doing anything he was doing, either. Probably because, synthetics.
“I know he is,” Ezio said. “Don’t hurt him too much when he comes back, okay?”
“I make no promises,” Morgyn answered, eyes narrowing somewhat.
Ezio smiled. “That’s better,” he said. “I don’t like it when you get mopey, I never know what to do with you.”
“Insert ice cream,” Morgyn said.
“Any particular flavour?” Ezio asked, looking amused.
“Vanilla’s just fine,” Morgyn answered. “Though I do really like chocolate chip, and cookie dough. Bonus points if it’s chocolate chip cookie dough.”
Ezio smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind, then.” And the next time Morgyn got mopey, the blond may just have ice cream suddenly, instead.
* * *
By some strange miracle, Cassandra was on one side of the couch, and Drake was on the other. She seemed to be reading something, and Drake was scribbling furiously in one of his notebooks. Ezio paused in the entryway, watching them and trying to decide if he wanted to interrupt or not. On the other hand, Ezio really wanted to talk to them, or at least exist around them both, he could worry about the talking to them part later if they didn’t want to talk. Before he could think about it too much more and end up feeling like he was intruding on their peace and quiet, Ezio shuffled over there to them and squeezed himself in between them.
“Hi,” Cassandra said, almost immediately leaning over onto his shoulder.
Drake smiled. “What’s up?” he asked.
“Oh, you know,” Ezio said. “Just kind of felt like hanging around my two favourite people. … two of my favourite people, Morgyn’s also technically a favourite person.” Technically, yes. Though sometimes, he was sure plenty of people wondered, and truth be told, there were times when Ezio himself kind of wondered about it too. But the Embers loved each other very deeply, and also apparently hated each other very deeply, it was a very confusing mess. It wasn’t like Ezio didn’t know that hate and love were more closely related than anyone would like to believe, so the inability to tell whether they hated or loved each other really shouldn’t come as a surprise, he supposed.
“Well,” Cassandra said, “we don’t mind having you around at least.”
“We don’t,” Drake added. “Are you doing okay? How did the visit with Dr. Williams go?”
Oh yes, he supposed he hadn’t said anything about it. “Pretty well,” he said. “Troi lowered one of my medication dosages, actually.” It would seem he didn’t need that one as much as he used to. Which he thought was a good sign, but he supposed they’d see how things went.
His medication was always up and down and all over the place, because they always had a hard time figuring out where he needed to be, and his condition kind of varied wildly too. Well, at least he didn’t have to figure it out on his own, nor remember which dose he was on, either.
He also had healed from his scuffle with Sarnai decently well before going to see Troi. She didn’t do much besides shake her head at his new scar collection. He was always getting new ones, it seemed like. Maybe he just scarred easily. Considering how many he had, at least a third of his skin was scar tissue, probably. Mostly he tried not to think about it.
“Does your medication change like that a lot?” Cassandra asked.
“Not usually,” Drake answered. “He’s been on the same dosages and the same medications pretty consistently, but once in a while Troi decides to change one and see if he can handle the new dose. She doesn’t seem to like keeping him on higher doses when a lower one will suffice.”
“Oooh,” Cassandra said. “That makes sense, yeah.”
“Hey out of curiosity,” Ezio started, “do we have any idea where we’re going this weekend?” They’d at least gotten far enough to establish the three of them were going out on a date, somewhere, but they’d never talked about the where now that Ezio was thinking about it. And he supposed it didn’t terribly matter that they had no idea where they were going, but he thought that maybe knowing where that was in advanced would help him figure out what to wear.
Unlike Morgyn, he didn’t own a thousand things that shimmered and shined and flattered all of his curves. As it happened, almost all of what he owned was chosen specifically not to flatter his curves because he hated his curves and his scars and his muscles, and really, everything about his body, he hated it.
Turned out, his body hated him, too, so it was just as well.
“I hadn’t really thought about it,” Drake said.
“Yeah, me either,” Cassandra said.
Ezio smirked, glancing between them both. “So we have no idea,” he said.
“I presume you two would prefer to go to a restaurant,” Drake said.
“Well, maybe,” Ezio said, “but going to a restaurant would be a problem because you wouldn’t be able to really eat anything.”
“Ah, unless we went to Leones et Lupi,” Drake said.
“What’s that?” Cassandra asked.
“It’s a bar cafe restaurant fusion thing,” Ezio said. “It’s owned by the Essairs, out in the Windenburg countryside. They happen to serve a lot of plasma fruit-based dishes.” Go figure. When your owner was the first vampire ever, you served a lot of, ahem, experimental dishes.
“Ooh,” Cassandra said. “That sounds like a good idea then.”
“Aw man,” Ezio said. “If we go there I’m going to have to find something really nice to wear.”
“Ooo, I get to see you dress up for once?” Cassandra asked, smiling.
“He looks really good dressed up,” Drake said.
“Hey now,” Ezio said, “I feel like something or a few somethings about this are not fair.”
Drake smiled.
Cassandra laughed slightly. “How is it not fair?” she asked.
“You’re not allowed to swap stories like this,” Ezio said.
“Okay,” Drake said, “just for that, now I’m going to do it on purpose.”
“Wait, hey-” Ezio protested, but it fell on deaf ears.
“The last time he dressed up was that date we had on the balcony, when we first moved here,” Drake said. “Wore this gorgeous grey mermaid dress, it was absolutely made to flatter a woman’s figure but he pulled it off like a boss of some kind.”
“Ahhh, now I’m jealous!” Cassandra said. “You’ve gotta wear that to something someday.”
“I’ll probably wear it to Morgyn’s wedding if the idiot and the dingbat ever get married,” Ezio said.
“Psh, presuming the dingbat ever comes home,” Cassandra said.
Yes. That was very true, and Ezio had no argument. But right now, after Morgyn had spent so long upset over Caleb, Ezio wasn’t feeling too generous towards him anyway. So it was really just as well that he had no arguments to defend him with. (Ezio still hadn’t told anyone where he was or what he was doing. It felt like the wrong thing to do, but he also thought that telling everyone his business would ruin any trust in him Caleb ever had a glimmer of a hope of having in him.)
Ezio grumbled, fell over onto Drake, and then shifted around so that he was lying partially on Cassandra, too. They both looked surprised, but didn’t seem to mind it either.
“I’m going to take a nap,” he said. “Life is getting tiring.”
“That is fair,” Cassandra said. “Have a nice nap.”
And maybe when he’d woken up, everything would suck a little less.
* * *
“Do you have any idea what this is?” Morgyn asked. The two were sitting on the floor in the living room, going through old photo albums that Morgyn had dug up out of the closet. It was nice to see these old memories again, Ezio had to admit, moments in time that he’d almost forgotten entirely.
L was such a pudgy adorable thing back in the seventies and eighties. They’d even found a couple of the Vatores. Morgyn had looked a little saddened at finding pictures of Caleb, but hadn’t gotten too depressed about it. Maybe Morgyn was starting to move on from it. Just as well. There was no sense in staying so upset about it either.
The blond handed Ezio a particular picture, printed on Kodak paper. Ezio took it, looking at it. Aine by a cauldron, casting magic at it. At least, at first glance she seemed to be. Ezio squinted at it slightly, catching sight of the striped arm to one side.
He stayed quiet for a moment. “It was taken by a ghost,” Ezio said, handing it back.
“Wait, really?” Morgyn asked, looking at it. “How can you tell?”
“It was a very powerful ghost, too,” Ezio said. “The residue is still left behind on it, but I think it also kind of imprinted some of its signature on it.”
“It’s not a new one?” Morgyn asked. “There are a lot of ghosts in this apartment anymore.”
“I’m sure it’s not a new one,” Ezio said. “The signature’s too old.”
Morgyn settled back down on the floor, looking at the picture again. “It feels important.”
Ezio glanced at the blond, and patted Morgyn’s shoulder. It probably was important, but Ezio wouldn’t be telling Morgyn that. Even if they were trying to be more honest with each other, Ezio still believed there were things that Morgyn didn’t need to know. That was one of them. He knew a little more about that photo than Morgyn did. It was best not to even go there, especially since he knew more than Morgyn did, but not everything.
“You’ll remember when the time is right,” Ezio said.
“I don’t know if this is something I’m going to remember,” Morgyn said. “I’m not sure I was even there for this one.”
No. Morgyn was too busy getting butt-whooped by one of Aine’s other students. Ezio vaguely remembered that day. “Well, maybe it’ll just be a fun mystery for the rest of your life, I don’t know,” he said. “Or maybe someday you’ll be able to ask Aine.”
Morgyn snorted, tossing the photo back into the journal the blond was keeping it in now. “I don’t know if I want to ever talk to Aine again,” Morgyn said.
“I don’t know,” Ezio said, “maybe telling her where to shove it would make you feel a little better about everything. Asking her why she treated you the way she did?”
Morgyn sighed. “I don’t even know if I want to know the answers to that.”
“That’s pretty valid too,” Ezio said. “Well, whatever you decide on, I’ll stand behind you, you know that.”
The blond smiled, turning around and taking Ezio’s hand. “Thank you,” Morgyn said. “You know, it’s nice that we’re being more honest with each other. I hope we can stay that way, too.”
Ezio glanced down at the floor.
“… what?” Morgyn asked.
Well, no time like the present. “Just, promise me you won’t flip out,” Ezio said. “There’s something else I haven’t been totally honest with you about.”
“Okay,” Morgyn said. “I’ll try not to flip out.”
Ezio tilted his head. That was probably the best he was going to get. “Some few weeks ago, I’ve lost track how many by now, a lot has been happening, I went to magic realm to see if L and Simeon had any idea what was going on with you,” he said. “I couldn’t find L, but Simeon was acting a little weird, saying things and then forgetting what he’d just said, and Morgen had no idea who I was.”
Morgyn’s eyebrows furrowed. “Morgen should always know who you are,” the blond said.
“I know,” Ezio said. “And then Emilia came up and asked if I’d used the portal from Glimmerbrook. Because it was down. I don’t know what did it, but something shut the portals down, and Glimmerstones don’t work anymore. Morgen said it best. Nothing goes in, nothing goes out.”
Morgyn frowned. “Wait, you’re saying-“
“I haven’t been able to get back into magic realm since then,” Ezio said. “Emilia said the Charms don’t even notice the portal doesn’t work, they go through it, come back out, think they’ve gone to magic realm and come back. Simeon’s cell phone isn’t accepting texts or calls anymore either.”
Morgyn went quiet, thinking for a moment, and then the blond’s jaw set, Morgyn stood up, and started casting homewardial.
“Wait no!” Ezio squealed, scrambling to his feet, taking Morgyn’s hands in his, pulling both behind Morgyn, and wrapping his arms around the blond.
“Ezio let go!” Morgyn protested.
“I will not!” Ezio said. “You’re not going! That spell may not even work but you’re not finding out!”
“Ezio, I am a sage,” Morgyn answered, almost icily. “And you cannot stop me from being a sage.”
“I don’t want to stop you from being anything,” Ezio answered, “I’m just trying to keep you alive! I have very little idea of what even happened back there, I have no idea what you’d be teleporting into, and I can’t lose you!”
Morgyn released a sigh. Ezio dropped his head onto the blond’s shoulder.
“It could be just fine,” Morgyn said. “It’s not like I can’t take care of myself.”
“Do you remember what I said?” Ezio asked. “About how you’re not really careful? I know you. I’d do the same fucking thing, too. I think we should deal with this one a bit more rationally than we’re known for. This is bigger than me, Morgyn, it’s bigger than you, too.”
“What do we know, then?” Morgyn asked.
Ezio let Morgyn go, backing away. Morgyn rubbed around the blond’s wrists.
“You have a hell of a grip,” Morgyn said.
Yeah, Ezio bet he did. “That cold you got a bit back,” Ezio said, “was not a cold. Keisha says that the sages are tied to the All.”
“Yes,” Morgyn said. “I remember saying that too.”
“I figured out that something launched an attack on the barrier around magic realm,” Ezio said. “I think it was that purple-eyed vampire. When she did that, the All reacted, put all of magic realm on lockdown, and started affecting you as a, maybe some sort of distress signal.”
“So theoretically, I can still get into it?” Morgyn asked.
Ezio frowned. “Theoretically,” he answered. “The All would probably want you in magic realm with L and Simeon right now. But I also don’t think magic realm’s a good place to be. At least out here, you have a higher chance of being able to figure out what’s going on and fix it.”
Morgyn released a sigh. “Why did the cold stop?” the blond asked. “Did Sarnai?”
Ezio kind of fidgeted a little. “No,” he said. “I kind of interfered with something I didn’t realise I shouldn’t have, and now I’m bonded to the All, through you.”
Morgyn stared at him. Ezio would’ve stared at himself, too, in this situation. Then, Morgyn loosed a ‘pfft’ noise. “You’re such a disaster,” the blond said.
“Takes a disaster to know a disaster,” Ezio shot back.
* * *
It was still dark out. Ezio had bolted upright over there across the room, but Morgyn was already awake when he did. Something felt very wrong, though, even focusing on it, Morgyn couldn’t say for sure what it was. Ezio was sensing around. Morgyn sat up in bed, sensing around, too.
“You sense that?” Ezio asked.
“Yeah,” Morgyn answered.
“It feels like an angry spirit,” Ezio answered, his eyes narrowing.
“I was thinking an angry vampire,” Morgyn replied.
Ezio glanced over at Morgyn. Morgyn glanced over at Ezio. They both stood up at the same time, and then took each other’s hands. Morgyn pooled the magic together, and transportalated them outside. Ezio’s heart didn’t like using that spell, so Morgyn would do it instead. If they were right and this was their vampire friend, then Ezio was going to need all of the strength he could muster.
The two of them wandered around Uptown a little, sensing around for whatever was there. And then Morgyn turned around and almost ran smack into her, her violet eyes glowing just slightly, very close to the blond. Morgyn squeaked, jerking backwards away from her. Sarnai smirked, and fired a psychic bolt. Morgyn blasted fire at the ground, and shot around the side of her.
It didn’t take long before ice started to mingle with the fire. Neither one let up too much, having learnt from the last few times they’d faced off with her to go at her so hard she didn’t have any notable ability to get her footing and attack back. Morgyn kept up the firepower, and Ezio hung back somewhat, acting as support and shielding Morgyn from the few instances she managed to return fire. On occasion, Sarnai managed to throw one into the other, or toss one across Uptown, so it wasn’t to say they were doing fantastically, but notably better than they had been before.
Morgyn took the front this time mostly because Ezio was still recovering somewhat from his fights with her before. Never mind that Ezio’s heart was a little delicate at the moment. It’d been skipping beats off and on here and there, and Morgyn didn’t want to lose him to this mess any more than Ezio wanted to lose Morgyn to it. Here and there, Morgyn managed to catch something on fire, and Sarnai would screech, and vanish in a series of bursts of black mist, until the flame went out. Morgyn was also moving faster than the blond had been before; aiming streams of fire in certain directions managed to help boost Morgyn’s velocity, and it was working very well for evasive maneouvres. Morgyn should’ve thought of it before.
A long, sweeping arc of ice spread across one side of Uptown, chasing Sarnai the whole way. As it burst into spikes suddenly, Sarnai jumped up along the spikes and then flipped back off of them. Morgyn shot a stream of flame at her, another, another, but she kept flipping out of the way. She had a lot of stamina, Morgyn had to give her that. It was as frustrating as it was kind of fun. They hadn’t had a challenge like this one in a long time.
Morgyn went to fire another streak of flame, but she flipped upward and threw a shadow tendril at Ezio. It hit him and threw him into one of the stone columns. Shit, then she threw one at Morgyn, and Morgyn also hit a stone column. That was going to hurt in the morning. The blond went to scrambling up off the asphalt, but something snaked around one ankle, pulled Morgyn up and then threw the sage towards a glass window.
“Block it!” Ezio squealed.
At the last second, Morgyn shifted around midair and cast a barrier against the glass. Morgyn hit the barrier, instead, much less damaging than crashing through the glass would’ve been. Morgyn barely landed on the asphalt before a shadow tendril slammed into the barrier, shattering it, and then grabbed Morgyn by the neck and threw the blond into the glass anyway. Shards of broken glass rained down onto the asphalt of Uptown.
“Damn you,” Ezio snarled, and then he hissed and unleashed an almost relentless barrage of icicles at her.
Morgyn winced in pain, rolling over on the shards of glass, and stood up. Then, the blond disappeared in a burst of gold light and reappeared behind Sarnai.
She was expecting it, reaching behind her and throwing a shadow tendril at the blond again. Morgyn threw a burst of fire at it, trying to destroy it before it reached the blond, but the flames passed right through it. The tendril snagged Morgyn’s neck again and threw the blond at Ezio.
Both of them unleashed a loud shriek, as Morgyn crashed into Ezio and they both went skittering across Uptown.
“Shit, are you okay?” Morgyn asked, rolling off of Ezio.
Ezio smiled slightly. “I’m fine,” he said.
Something that burned snaked around Morgyn’s ankle, and suddenly Morgyn was flying backwards. Ezio reached out, trying to catch the blond, but their fingers just missed each other, and Morgyn crashed into another of the stone columns. Morgyn winced and hissed in pain; it felt like blood started to ooze down the blond’s arm, from something, but Morgyn didn’t have time to look at it.
Ezio threw ice at her, and the sky went dark. Morgyn sucked a breath in, looking up. Everything was black, and Morgyn had no idea what that meant. Morgyn stood up, walking in the direction that Ezio had just been in, only to crash into something. It was like a barrier, except, not really. It felt a little different somehow.
“WAIT NO, DON’T!” Ezio’s voice screamed on the other side.
Something made a strange noise, and Morgyn looked up, finding beams of darkness up there. They almost looked… like swords. What the hell was this?
“Don’t,” Ezio said, quieter. Morgyn had to try harder to hear it.
“Give us what we want,” Sarnai’s voice said, “and we won’t.”
“What is it you want?” Ezio asked.
“We need someone to get through the barrier around magic realm,” Sarnai answered.
No, Ezio don’t, Morgyn thought. “Ezio don’t!” Morgyn squealed.
“Shut up, Morgyn,” Ezio said. “Fine. I can get you through it. Just let Morgyn go.”
“Deal,” Sarnai said. “Your life for blondie’s then.”
“That is not a fair trade!” Morgyn screeched.
“Shut UP Morgyn!” Ezio answered.
“We’re supposed to be in this together, you idiot!” Morgyn said.
“I never once said that!” Ezio said. “I said I was in this to keep you alive!”
Morgyn didn’t answer with words, just a frustrated shriek, before the blackness went away, and the blond was skittering across Uptown again. Morgyn managed to regain balance and stop the motion, but the moment Morgyn sat up to try and fire at Sarnai and interrupt their little trade, Sarnai grabbed Ezio’s wrist and they both burst into black mist.
“Ezio! NO!“
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