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Sunset
by visodyssey
Prologue
I hope you all enjoy it. Please R&R, and if you have any of the old chapters that were up here before... email them to me! I've only got a backup of about half of the fic's original content myself, so if someone has those missing bits... drop me a line!
This was originally Chapter 1, but having re-read it I think it is better suited to being a prologue, so I've re-titled it as such.
The door slightly ajar, he entered his living room to find his partner, Aaron, on the sofa, elbows on his knees as he leaned forward, his eyes directed at the television screen in front of him. His rage didn't take long to proliferate into a state great enough for action, and he pulled a long, thin wooden stick from his sleeve, charging at him and yelling furiously. "Propúl!"
A brown sphere of energy formed from the end of his wand and blasted forward at him, knocking him clean from his prior position and slamming him hard into the sofa. Before he had the smallest chance to recover, he had closed the remaining gap between them and was screaming furiously at him. "What the hell did you think you were doing?"
Choking and spluttering from the remnant smoke of the spell, Aaron found his feet and stood up. He tried to draw his own wand, only to find Nick's pressed into his throat. "Don't even try it. Don't disgrace yourself even more." His glare was the frontal response to primal instincts and his breathing rapid. "Why? What have I done to you to deserve this?"
"It... it wasn't your fault," Aaron began to mutter as Nick pulled back the blunt instrument, its tip illuminated purple from his anger. "It was me that couldn't stand to live with you any more." He grimaced; this was coming out wrongly. "Wait... hear me out."
As he stepped back a pace, he thought briefly about giving a response, but found himself pulling a blue glass rod from his sleeve and, before Nick could react, he had yelled, "Délumina!" The lights from the chandelier lighting their apartment dissolved away, leaving the room blackened save for the glow of Nick's wand.
Momentary disorientation set in before he heard his next casting, and a jet of golden flames gushed forward from the transparent rod, reaching out for Nick, touching him, grasping him...
Embracing him...
Three months previously...
Nick had found himself completely taken by the unexpected offer from Aaron. He had come several days previously for his training at the regional education facility. Aaron was a few years older than him, and had been going through this training again simply for requirement's sake.
The training required the students to prove that their abilities were fully controlled and developed, and that they were now ready to become teachers at the various schools of magic in the region. Aaron was one of the most able, and had served at different schools for several years, but each year, per regulation, had to undertake the same examination to prove to each new school that he was ready. It was more than a little superfluous but Aaron enjoyed what he termed the 'workout' that it provided.
A series of tests, examinations and practical demonstrations, as well as duels had been therefore set for students to undertake. It was during this last that Aaron had first encountered Nick. He had randomly drawn the twenty-one year old as his opponent, although who he duelled against had little bearing on his attitude. His blue-tinted glass rod, used as the focusing element for his abilities, was the only thing he required as a constant.
Nick, completely new to the arena, stepped into the blue circle of the challenger, whilst Aaron stood in the opposite red one, a colour that particularly suited him. The wind of the outdoor stadium ruffled the long brown locks that graced Aaron's head, and breezed over Nick's cheeks, keeping him wide awake and alert.
Moving the wand to follow an imaginary circle, he called, "Irá!" The rod fired a tiny blue pulse into the air, which quickly disappeared akin to a firework. Nick followed it with his eyes, then looked back to Aaron, who stood exactly where he been before.
The teacher, standing a few metres away from the entire event, smiled slightly and made a note onto a tablet computer he held in his arms. Even for magicians, humans had come up with some useful inventions.
Feeling decidedly uncomfortable, Nick pulled his wand out and pointed it at Aaron. Still, he didn't move, so he fired off a spell quickly. "Encapsulate!"
Waves of what appeared similar to blue ribbons attempted to envelope the guy, only to find that they passed directly through his body. The helpless Nick watched in despair as they tried again, only colliding with each other and beginning to tangle before dissolving away, devoid of power.
While he had been watching the spell fire and fail, an azure circle had been forming around the arena, and as it grew in strength it faded in from translucency, and started to shine, the emergent light lining its upper surface.
"Propúl!" The soft, almost feminine voice of Aaron met Nick from behind and a brown beam shone from the crystalline amplifier, knocking him ten feet into the air and across the arena whilst Aaron landed in his circle.
"Nyara reducto!" He followed up his previous spell quickly, not having anticipated its power, and reduced the speed of Nick's fall. The blue energy field circling the ring dissolved away, and as the younger wizard hit the ground, Aaron walked across the arena and offered him his hand.
"What the hell was that?" he asked, accepting his hand as the judge announced that Round One went to Aaron, accompanied by applause by some of the spectating students.
"You don't really expect me to tell you all of my secrets, do you?" Aaron intoned his voice a little and winked at Nick. As he reached a standing position, he whispered the answer to him. "Irá. What you could see was a decoy of me. The real me was zipping around the arena, faster than you could see. The blue ring was the trail my rod left. As soon as I had balance, I was able to attack you."
"Unfair," Nick commented, placing a hand on his left thigh, which had been first to hit the ground and subsequently was throbbing madly.
"All's fair in love and war," he had replied, waving the rod in front of him and flashing a smile at him that caught him off guard enough to cause him to lose the next two rounds.
As he dusted him off from the third hard slam into the concrete stage, he tossed a line out to him that he hadn't expected.
"Lunch?"