Chosen One, 114

Unfortunately, Chosen Ones Rarely Get to Decide When it’s Time for a New Power

Ao3 Link

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Landon Archerloft was a noble boy who was a little younger than Isaac, and he was friendly and he knew how to use his dick on a boy, which may or may not have been because of his twin brother Bradley, whom he’d been swordfighting with when Isaac had come into the privy fifteen minutes ago.

Bradley was currently beside them fucking Nicholas’s ass while Landon fucked Isaac, so even though Isaac could have had both twins inside him, he was glad he hadn’t come to the privy alone. There was still plenty of time before the royal wedding started and there was no reason for anyone to have a boner during it when none of them would be allowed to get up and do anything about it.

Isaac had barely fucked anyone today, so it was hardly a surprise when he came a little early. Well, it wasn’t a surprise to him, anyway. Landon made a bit of a surprised sound and started fucking Isaac a little harder. Beside them, Bradley picked up speed inside Nicholas to match him. It was cute that they were so synchronized.

They held hands as they started to cum, which was also cute. The twins came a good amount and then pulled out, Bradley noticing that Nicholas hadn’t shot and reaching around. He came after one stroke.

The twins pulled out and Isaac kissed Nicholas’s cheek as they cleaned each other up. “That was fun,” he said.

“Yeah,” Nicholas agreed, though he’d protested several times before they’d started that there wasn’t time. “It was.”

“I wish we could switch,” said Landon, looking at Nicholas’s ass for a second.

“But we really do have to get back,” said Bradley.

“Or Mom will kill us.”

“And then disinherit our corpses.”

“Again.”

“And also blame us for ruining the wedding.”

They sighed at the same time. They were really fucking cute.

Isaac smiled at them. “Okay, well, don’t let us keep you. If you’re in the capital for a while after the wedding, feel free to come get a tour of the academy, okay?”

They grinned identical grins. “Deal,” said Landon. The two of them fixed their identical but inverted yellow and black clothes and left the privy, holding hands.

“We should introduce them to Aaron and Andy,” Nicholas muttered.

“Yeah,” agreed Isaac. “And not just because they’re twins.”

“No, because I think it would do them some good to meet twins who like messing around together.”

Isaac giggled and kissed Nicholas again. “They’re not the only ones finishing each other’s thoughts today.”

“Yeah, yeah. Come on, let’s go back.”

“Sure. Just let me pee first.”

“What, seriously?” Nicholas asked.

“Some of us came to the privy to use the privy, Nicholas,” Isaac teased. “Go on, I’ll be there in a minute.”

Nicholas nodded, patted Isaac’s ass, and headed out. They had plenty of time before the wedding was supposed to start, so Isaac went pee and wasn’t in a hurry about it. Just as he was doing up his pants, he was joined again in the privy, by another younger boy who didn’t do more than look at him. He was cute, dark hair, big green eyes, wearing dark blue that looked black. “Hi,” said Isaac, because it was rude to admire how cute someone was but then not say hi. He also looked a little upset to Isaac.

“Uh, hi,” said the guy, starting to pee.

Isaac went over to the basin to wash his hands. “Are you looking forward to the wedding?”

“Sure, I guess.”

He didn’t sound very enthused. He wasn’t wearing a crest or a sigil or anything, so he wasn’t a noble, but probably his parents were just rich enough to have been invited. “I bet it’ll be nice. And there’s a big party after in the castle. Are you coming?”

The boy sighed resignedly. “I think so, yeah.”

“Maybe we can hang out if we get bored. I’m Isaac.”

The boy finished peeing, carefully did up his clothes. “Daniel,” he muttered, coming over to wash his hands. He smiled at Isaac. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“You too. Want to walk back together?”

There was a shadow on Daniel’s face for just a second. “Sure.”

Something was definitely bothering him. “You seem a bit upset.”

“I…” Daniel scowled, looked away. “I’m fine. Just ran into a friend I wasn’t expecting to see here. So who dragged you here? You seem more like a real person than a noble.”

“Just because they throw worse parties doesn’t make them not people. But you’re right, I’m a student at the mages’ academy,” said Isaac, tapping the sigil on his shirt. The academy had declared all his clothing not formal enough and had made him some new ones. Black, white and grey, of course. Isaac had added a red belt just for a little colour. The archmage had disapproved, but Yancy had said it was okay. “Some of my teachers had extra passes or something.”

He didn’t like lying, especially to a stranger, but he didn’t need to brag about being a prophetic figure to every random cute boy in the wedding. It wasn’t Isaac’s special day.

“So you’re a mage?” Daniel asked, wiping his hands on his pants.

Isaac nodded, and they went for the exit. “Yeah. A student mage.” To show off just a little, he used Dark to open the door.

It made Daniel smile, which was what Isaac had hoped for. They went into the hallway. “That must be super cool.”

“Yeah,” Isaac admitted. Something felt off. “It is.”

There was a vibration in the air, a deep thrum. Nothing happened externally. The Web didn’t move or react, but when Isaac felt it, it felt…tense. Like it was braced against something.

“You okay?” Daniel asked.

“Yeah. Just a weird…”

“Oh, it’s Isaac.”

That was Leo, and Isaac looked up. Another knight was with him, smaller and more frantic looking. “Perfect,” said the smaller knight. Isaac had met him at the orgy. His name was Twig. “Hi, we kind of need help? There’s a thing.”

“Okay,” said Isaac. Shit, of course there would be a thing at the royal wedding. Why couldn’t rich people just have one party without there being things? “What’s the thing?”

“Right, so…I don’t know if anyone told you, but there’s a portal to hell under the city?” Leo asked. “And someone’s trying to, uh, we think open it? Someone named Ariel told us we should come find you. Or like, an army.”

Shit. Isaac had not known that, and he was not an expert in wedding planning, but maybe not having the fucking wedding on top of a portal to hell would have been a good idea. “Okay, where’s Ariel?”

“Down the hall, around the corner, there’s a closet. Uh, a guy is passed out in front of it, but he’s alive, don’t worry. There’s a tunnel and it leads to a cave and…”

“Got it,” Isaac said. Looked like he was going to miss the wedding. He turned to Daniel. “I’m sorry. I promise everything’s going to be okay. Just go back to the wedding and I’ll…”

“I’m coming with you,” said Daniel, and his expression had gone ice-sharp. “If something serious is happening there’s no time to spend arguing. Let’s go.”

And he went off in the direction Twig had given them. Isaac looked at Leo, who shook his head. The three of them went to go after him. “Shouldn’t you guys get someone?”

“I mean, nobody else we get is going to be as, you know, useful in a magic fight as you, probably,” Leo said. “Ariel said the world’s probably not ending. Who’s Ariel, by the way?”

“She works at the academy,” Isaac said. And if she needed help, Isaac was…worried.

There was indeed a guy passed out outside the closet door, but he was breathing and his brain felt normal. Just asleep.

As Isaac started to go into the small room, Twig looked up. “Oh, hey, Greg.” And indeed, there was Prince Greg, coming over with a knife. “What you got there? Contraband?”

“Sort of.” Gavin’s son had a quiet voice and nervous eyes. “What’s going on?”

“Situation with the portal,” Twig explained. “We’ve got it under control, you just go have fun.”

“If you’re sure…should I at least tell Owen?”

“That, uh, might not hurt.”

“Okay.” Greg moved closer to Daniel, and handed him the knife.

“Guess they know each other?” Isaac asked Leo. They were talking quietly.

“Guess so,” Leo said, shrugging.

Their conversation only lasted a second and then Greg left, and Daniel looked really uncomfortable, so Isaac touched his hand. “You okay?”

“Fine,” Daniel muttered, putting the knife into his shirt. “Let’s go.”

Isaac nodded and went inside. “Down here,” said Twig, crawling onto the bottom of a bookshelf with no back. He crawled right in, because there was a hole.

Isaac followed him, making a little ball of light, and Leo and Daniel followed him. As they crawled into the tunnel, Isaac used Dark to find Yancy, spelled out a message on his arm. If he was going to have to do chosen one shit, it seemed only fair to let Yancy know he might miss the wedding. Leo and Daniel were talking behind him, but Isaac focused on the spell while he crawled, because he knew Yancy would need a detailed message.

The tunnel came out in a huge cavern that was glowing an ominous red. Isaac may still only be a student, but when things were glowing ominous colours, he knew to associate that with bad magic happening, because good magic glowed in non-ominous colours. Peter said that was a logical fallacy, but Isaac didn’t know what a fallacy was if it wasn’t something that could go inside him, and he thought the room was glowing ominously.

Ariel was standing in the middle of it, hair floating a little. “Hey, Isaac. Do me a solid and stand just there?”

“Sure,” said Isaac, going over to stand between two glowing sigils. He didn’t know very much about sigils, but these ones felt like sorcery without looking like them. “What’s going on?”

“Some chucklefuck is trying to destroy the city,” Ariel said. “Fucking again.”

“Wait, how often does this happen?” Twig asked.

Isaac sighed, glancing at the others. Hopefully it wasn’t Sam. “Don’t worry, we’ve got this.”

“You’ve…got this?” Daniel asked, crossing his arms.

“Yeah, promise.” He turned back to Ariel. “What do you need me to do?”

“Get real good at sorcery real fast,” Ariel said. “I’ve been slowing the spell down but I can’t reverse it; every time my power touches it, it reacts badly.”

“Right,” said Isaac, because there were people here. He understood what she meant. “Okay, cool.” He could see the boundaries of the spell, the Forces glowing in opposition to each other. He crouched down and put his hand over one of the threads of power. “I could just…wait, taking this apart isn’t going to help.” Isaac could feel a leak of power from the middle of the spell circle, but it wasn’t being caused by the spell circle. It was being contained by it. If he dismantled the circle, the portal would snap open.

“No, we’re going to need to repurpose it to close the portal rather than controlling it. Start with that strand there.”

Isaac nodded, wincing as it bit him. He was pretty sure this one was Order. “What opened the portal if it wasn’t this circle?”

“Another spell that already collapsed after it did its thing. Remember ley lines?”

Oh, Isaac had a bad fucking feeling about this. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. So did someone else.”

“Hey, what the hell?” That was Twig, and he was drawing his sword. What he’d heard or seen Isaac didn’t know, but he did hear someone crashing.

“Boys, if you could handle that while we do the magic business,” Ariel said. “That would be great.”

“Come on, Twig. You stay here.”

“I’m fine,” said Daniel, and that was all Isaac heard as the thrum of the spell got louder, like a drumbeat.

It was a drumbeat, he thought, a song in the spell. He looked up at Ariel. “Who made this?”

“Don’t know. I need you to tug that strand there and connect it with the one over on your left.” Ariel’s expression was sharper than usual. He wondered how long she’d been down here.

Isaac nodded and started to do that, wishing the Forces weren’t burning his hands. “I’m asking because this spell uses the Forces but I think a witch wrote it.” James’s magic was always like music too.

“I think…fuck!” There was a rushing of everything and the cavern filled with screams. Something like a worm flew out from the ground and it started towards Isaac, whose hands were full with the Forces. It paused, turned to face Ariel. Then it paused again and fled to the tunnel Isaac had come in through.

“I’ll get him,” Twig said, rushing after it. “It’s okay, I know what I’m doing!” And he disappeared.

“He doesn’t know what he’s doing,” Isaac decided.

“It’s fine. It goes up to the church, there are enough people up there powerful enough to stop it.”

“That was a higher demon, though, right?” Isaac asked.

“Yeah, but just a minion. Trust me, we don’t want the guy he’s heralding to come through this fucker.” Ariel’s human disguise was slipping now.

Right. Isaac nodded, took a breath. “What next?”

“Next I need you to circumvent the main junction of the spell with a rial knot. It’s kind of like a circumflex duomatrix.”

“Great,” said Isaac, who’d seen a picture of those once, he thought…no, he had. In a textbook, sure. But the other day he’d been flipping through Giles’s book and he’d seen a spell that sounded like it used what Ariel was describing. He started working, hands moving fast. He should really get better at doing magic without his hands.

“Jesus Christ, you’re good at that,” Ariel said, watching Isaac.

Isaac nodded. “I had a good teacher. What’s a Jesus Christ?” It helped to talk while he was working.

“A dead god who humans used to like. They nailed him to a big cross.”

“So they didn’t like him that much.”

“Long story,” Ariel said. “Okay, this is the hard part.”

Right, because the rest had been easy. Beside him, Daniel landed with a thud. But he got up, a short sword in one hand and a knife—not the one Greg had given him—in the other. He hurried back over to whatever he and Leo were fighting, and he didn’t seem too worried. What an interesting kid. “What do I do?” In the middle of the circle a portal was opening, a red swirl that was pulling everything towards it…pulling everything towards the thing on the other side of it, Isaac thought. He could feel it there, pressing, pulling.

“Feel underneath the spell. It’s being fed by a ley line.”

“And how do I…”

“Just feel it. I promise that’ll make sense. It’s brighter than usual thanks to all this.”

“Brighter, got it,” Isaac said, feeling around the Forces, wishing they’d stop hurting him. No wonder Sam was so angry all the time if his magic was like this.

Ariel was right, though. Underneath the circle, underneath the clawing, pulling power, there was something bigger, brighter. It was so obvious Isaac felt like he couldn’t have been missing it all this time.

At this point in his magical career Isaac felt like he should know better than to just touch a source of immense magical power without asking how it worked. But he decided that this was an emergency and he was being supervised by an angel, so he just reached down and connected himself to the ley line.

Power.

Isaac spread out through the cavern, through the city, through everything, his power thrumming through the nexus, a long line running from mountain to shore. The bonds of new power clinging to him were nothing, threads. He broke them.

“Wait, Isaac, go slower.”

That breaking caused the rift to open wider, a wound in his body. He frowned, feeling it, something trying to claw its way through him. That was…

Unacceptable.

The power of the clawing thing was foreign, cancerous, and couldn’t be permitted to spread. So Isaac cut it out, excising the clawing thing from his body and casting it back whence it had come.

“Okay, perfect. Now I need you to let go of the ley line, Isaac.”

His power clean again, Isaac felt more corruption, the taint of that thing touching another. The one who’d brought it here, perhaps. Isaac reached out, touched the one wrapped in the taint, meaning to excise, destroy…

“Isaac!”

Another foreign power. Less cancerous to be sure, but touching him, pulling at him. Attempting to separate him. Isaac batted it aside, met considerable resistance. He breathed himself in more heavily, prepared to strike harder, to remove it for good this time, and…

“That’s enough, lad. Ariel means you no harm.”

Ariel was on the ground in front of him, glowing. That wasn’t a foreign power, it was Ariel he’d been about to attack. The power of the ley line was flowing through him. He was so powerful.

Isaac pulled back from the ley line so hard he stepped back, bumped into someone. “I’m…” His knees gave out, and he fell to the ground. He was starving.

“There you are,” said a voice. It was…

“Yancy?”

“That’s right. I’m sorry it took me such a great time to arrive. It was somewhat challenging to find you and teleportation is not so easy as it sounds.” Yancy smiled at him.

“You…teleported down here?” Isaac could see the spell he’d used in the Pillars. He’d never been able to see that before, but it was there like an afterimage behind Yancy.

“I received your message.”

“You…” Isaac shut his eyes. “I didn’t mean to make you leave the wedding. I just wanted you to know where I was going.”

“I would never leave a student in danger, no matter the vent,” Yancy explained.

Isaac smiled. Yancy was wearing the fussiest, fanciest robes anyone had ever seen, with purple and gold trim and tree patterns just visible in the silk. He’d been so excited about the wedding. Apparently he always went to Giles’s descendants’ weddings. “I’m sorry for making you miss it.”

“Nonsense, it hasn’t even begun yet. Now, we shall discuss all the details of what happened here later, but you, Ariel, have some explaining to do.” Yancy helped Isaac stand, watching Ariel.

Ariel nodded. “Yeah. Someone opened this portal to hell…”

“Not with regards to that.” Yancy’s voice and expression could only be described as stern. “Angel or no, I cannot countenance you encouraging a student to use such dangerous magic.”

“Wait, you knew Ariel was an angel?” Isaac didn’t know why he was surprised. Part of him wasn’t even sure Giles had told Yancy. Yancy just knew stuff.

Ariel blinked. “I’m sorry. It was an emergency.”

“No doubt, but all emergencies have more than one solution. After the wedding you and I shall speak about this at length, young lady.”

“Okay.” Ariel smiled. “I suppose I deserve that. Thank you for your help, Yancy.”

“Of course. You need only ask.” There was still reproach in Yancy’s voice. Isaac had never heard anyone reproach like Yancy did. It was very effective.

Isaac swayed a little as he went over to Leo and Daniel, who were standing over a tall, blocky, unconscious woman. “You guys okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Leo. He grinned. “You were really cool just then.”

“Uh…” Isaac felt weirdly embarrassed at that. “Thanks. Give me like two weeks and maybe I can tell you what I did.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t kill her,” Daniel said, looking down at the woman. There were a couple of other people scattered around too, including two really big reddish guys who weren’t human. “Seems like it was her who set all this up.”

“Yeah?” Isaac asked, crouching beside the woman. She was breathing, but she had a lot of injuries, including a stab wound in her chest, fuck. Isaac touched her with healing magic, even though he wasn’t great at it. The ley line buzzed underneath him and all her injuries healed right away. “Well, hopefully she’ll tell us why when she wakes up.”

“I bet she will,” Daniel muttered. “She seemed to like talking.”

Isaac hated that type of villain. “Okay. You should head back up to the wedding.”

“All of us should,” Yancy declared, sweeping over. “There is time yet for it to begin, and the city guard has been dispatched to bring these fiends to justice already.”

“Huh?” Daniel asked.

Isaac just patted his back, because he knew that ‘huh.’ “If you’re sure it’s safe.”

“Ariel has assured me she has the situation in hand from this point. We are all expected at the wedding,” Yancy told them, pointedly. “Come, I know this has been eventful for you all, but I must ask your patience for a few more hours.”

“Sure,” said Isaac. Yancy seemed pretty tired, so Isaac touched the Pillars, made them look like how the afterimage of Yancy’s spell had looked. And all four of them appeared in a hallway in the church. “Oh.”

“Ah, a marvellous teleportation spell,” Yancy said, looking around. Daniel and Leo looked disoriented. “I daresay your experience with the font has given you some new power. I want you to know that I’m very proud of you, but I would suggest…”

“That I don’t use it until I understand it,” Isaac agreed. “Got it. Promise.”

Yancy smiled. “Come. Young knight, I expect you have superiors to report to, is that correct?”

Leo started almost to attention. “Uh, yeah. Thanks for all the…everything. I’ll see you later, Isaac.”

“Thanks, Leo.” Isaac touched his hand before he went off, and then sighed. “Can’t the royal family ever have a party that doesn’t get interrupted by someone trying to kill everyone?”

“Alas, it is the curse of their status,” Yancy lamented.

“God, we haven’t even gotten to the party yet,” Daniel muttered, rubbing his head. He set his sword against a wall and started to tuck the knife into his shirt, before a look from Yancy had him putting it against the wall too. Yancy gestured and both weapons vanished.

“Not to worry, lad. This is to be a joyous affair,” Yancy promised. “Come.”

He strode ahead, and Isaac followed him with a sigh. “Told you I had it under control,” he told Daniel.

Daniel snorted. “Yeah. You did. Hey, can I come see the academy sometime before I leave the capital?”

“Sure. I’ll sneak you in and give you a tour. It’s not very interesting. We only save the world sometimes…”

Yancy was right, the wedding was a joyous affair. And by the end of it, Isaac almost couldn’t feel the ley line underneath him anymore.

—

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