The ride back to the FOB was quiet. The only noise, the dull hum of the LUT’s engines as we sped over the barren landscape of the Nevada badlands. I looked out the screen to my left. My head resting on the display. I magnified the screen, zooming in on the bleak and barren desert below. Red and green lizards ran across the ground. Darting from shadow to shadow. While others basked on warm rocks. It wasn’t until I took a closer look that I noticed some of the creatures standing upright. Short yes but undeniably standing up straight. “Kobolds,” I said, the question obvious in my tone. “Yeah,” Alex responded. Her gaze, distant. It didn’t look like she was going to continue so I decided to prod her a little bit; anything to alleviate the stifling silence. It was only her and I in the craft. Not even a pilot as the vehicle was automated. Though there was a place for a pilot to sit if a mortal operator was required. The rest of Alpha Team had taken the ground vehicles, and the long way, back to the FOB. “Kobolds usually mean a wyrm, Alex. What’s one doing this close to LA? Or just California in general?” Alex turned her head to me placing it in one of her hands and sighing. “It’s not that close Kyro. Back in the day, we would have said that it was a state away.” I roll my eyes. “First It’s not a state away it’s the next state over. Second, what’s a wyrm doing so close to a population center? Is it a real dragon or is it a wyvern?” Alex takes the hand that her head was resting on and uses it to brush back a strand of hair that had fallen in front of her face. She tucks it behind her ear and leans back against the plush red chair. Placing one hand on each armrest. “Insurance. It’s insurance Kyro.” My eyes widen and I lean forward. With the way that Alex sighed, my incredulity must have been plain on my face. “What could you possibly need a wyrm for Alex!” The comment comes out as both a whisper and a yell. Alex leans forward and looks me in the eye. “Listen, there are things that even I’m just learning about. I would explain but honestly, I’m still wrapping my head around what I was told. I think… I think I should let your mother explain everything.” I reel back slightly. “Moms here?” “Of course she is Ky. Your dad just died and she’s got - she’s got people to answer to. And now so do you.” My mouth falls open and I shake my head slightly. “Ha,” I scoff. “Are you kidding me? Dad's dead and it’s still about the company. Everything about the company.” I shake my head again. “Alex,” My voice cracks. “Why, WHY are we doing this right now!? I knew we were flying over the FOB and I didn’t say anything because I thought you were taking me home but now it looks like you’re taking me to the home office.” I emphasize the word home in 'home office'. “I get that I basically lived there as a kid but I don’t want to go back. Not right now and not ever Alex! Either let me out at the FOB, bring me to see my mom at HOME, or take me to my apartment. Either way, I’m not going to headquarters. My father just died and I’m not going to take another moment, another half second on the company he spent his life neglecting me fo-” The slap comes before I can finish the last word. “Don’t you ever, EVER! Speak about your father that way!” I hold my face with my left hand, my eyes stinging as I glare at Alex. She continues heedless of my fury. “Everything your father did he did for you. He may not have been the best man and I know he wasn’t.” A pause. “The most, involved parent ever. But he did love you Kyro.” Alex inhales wiping her hand down her face. She looks exhausted like a woman who’s been dealing with the weight of the world. “Listen,” she continues. “I’m not going to say anything else Ky, you need to talk to your mother and she’ll explain everything. Now please no more questions.” Alex leans back twirling her hand in the air. A shimmer bubble comes up around her and I know she’s done with the conversation. “Did you really have to cast silence? I swear you’re worse than me sometimes.” Alex doesn’t react. Her eyes are closed and her head is leaned back against the headrest of the seat. The rest of the ride passes in silence. I get a few texts from my teammates but I just skim them. The messages pop up in the top right-hand corner of my vision.

  Amanda: “Are you okay?”

  Jackson: “Hey bro you good?”

  Enrique: “Payment’s being delayed. We’re negotiating an increase due to the previously undisclosed amount of goblins and the incorrect age and footage for the ogre.”

  Kimiko: “is good?. u. good yes.?”

  Welp Jax and Amanda were worried which I appreciated. Enrique was his usual straight-to-the-point self but he’d probably check on me once he saw me in person. Kimiko was drunk as usual and Tom was probably still out cold. Hopefully, he’d be alright but I’ve seen him go through worse. I went back to staring out the window wondering what my mother would say when she finally saw me again. It had been years since we last saw each other in person. We had stayed in touch through social media and texting, even a regular monthly phone call, but seeing her. Well, it’s been a while. I rested my head against the screen again, this time turning it off so only the bare metal of the interior was visible. I closed my eyes attempting to fall asleep but my mind was restless. Father. Dead. I didn’t really know how to feel about this. It’s not like he was the best person ever but he wasn’t the worst either. He was present in my life and I never wanted for anything. Hell, I was the heir to a multi-billion dollar fortune. If I wanted to I could have been a spoiled bachelor. I could’ve wasted my days away drinking and doing drugs but something about that didn’t appeal to me. Especially if I had to rely on my father's money to do so. He hadn’t been hard on me or abusive he was simply distant. My father rarely talked to me and when he did it was just to check on my grades or to tell me to show up at some dinner with his business partners. And now he was dead. A man I barely knew had passed on and I didn’t know how to feel. Was I sad? Did I even care? I know I should because he was my father but I knew nothing about him. I raised my head and tapped it back against the wall of the craft. “Ugh,” I groaned. My mind filled with thoughts of death and a man I never knew.

  When the craft finally landed I was jarred awake by Alex kicking my shin. “Wake up! You’re drooling on my plane.” I sat up fast. My arms flailing and my legs wheeling. “ugh ugh yup yup I’m up! I’m up!” Alex scoffs and shakes her head. “Still the same kid I took care of for all those years.” I wipe the side of my mouth giving her a smirk of my own. “Yeah well, you’d think I’d get used to you kicking me awake by now.” “Hey!” Alex says. “I never kicked you when you were a kid. I kicked your bed, important difference.” I roll my eyes standing up. “Alright let's go see Mom.” “Well, kid she’s already here.” The door opens the panels withdrawing to the right and left as the stairs extend. For a moment I’m blinded by the bright sunlight after so long asleep in the dark interior of the craft and then I see her. My mom.

  A dark-skinned woman stands on the landing pad. Her braided hair whips in the wind. Medium-sized, she’s by no means thin and by no means fat. She stands with her hands clasped in front of her a sad smile on her face. “Hello Ky,” she mutters to me. “Hey Mom,” a bittersweet smile on my face. I take a step down the stairs and then another and another until I rush forward to wrap her in an embrace. “I’m so sorry,” I say petting the back of my head. Her hand is gripping the back of my neck tightly as she begins to sob into my shoulder. “Oh Ky,” she wails into my shoulder. “Oh, my sweet sweet boy it’s been too long.” “I know, I know I’m so sorry Mom. I should’ve been here at least… at least for this.” Suddenly she stops crying and pulls back to look at me. She cups the sides of my face with her hands. Her hands are wrinkle-free, her face soft and smooth. She looks thirty as opposed to the fifty-five she really is. Apparently, her magic awakened when she had me and I’ve never seen her age a day since then. “Your father LOVED you. You hear me Kyro. He LOVED you.” She emphasizes the word each time, the pressure on my face increasing each time she says loved. “I know he wasn’t the best at saying it but he was proud of you!”

  Her tears are flowing freely, something I’d never seen before. But everyone has their limits, and this woman who never once cried during my childhood is weeping in front of me. “There are things you don’t know, things that I’ll have to explain, and things that will be hard to hear but you’ve got to listen to me and you’ve got to believe me!” Her grip is tight now so tight that I have to pull her hands. “Yes, yes ma, I’m listening.” “No!” She replies frantically, “Not now not here. There’s a place downstairs somewhere we won’t be overheard. We need to hurry though we’ve got a guest coming.” “A guest?” “Yes let’s go. Alex, is our detail ready?” Alex had stepped up behind when Mom and I were talking. I jump slightly when she starts talking causing my mom to give me the side eye and purse her lips. “Yes, Miriam I’ve filtered out all of the agents we can trust as discretely as possible. Everyone that’s sticking with you has been through the ritual circle and they came back as clean for demonic interference. Everyone else was scanned from a distance, and despite the lower accuracy rate everyone who will be close by besides your personal detail had an eighty percent clean rating or above. I was blinking stupidly as I listened to them talk. “Uh-wha. Demons!” I shouted. “What are you talking about!” “Boy lower your damn voice!” My mom whisper yelled back at me as she grabbed my neck and forced my face close to her own. “You’re not going to understand everything but you’re going to need to listen to me okay? You said you would Ky. Do you trust me.” “Y-yes ma I’m listenin’.” I was a seasoned adventurer and monster hunter. I had killed goblins, feral orcs, ogres, naga, giant bats and kraken, and god knows what else, but somehow my mom could still bring me to heel. “And when did she get so strong?” I thought to myself. My mother had never laid a hand on me when I was younger but I knew she was magically gifted I had always just assumed she was a mage like my father. “Ma, are you a fighter?” She smirks. “Your momma’s tougher than she looks, but we can chit-chat later. Alex, where’s the team?” “On the way up Miriam.” Just then the door opened and thirty armed men and women stepped out of the door. Most carried guns but a select few carried swords, daggers, quarterstaffs, and staves. I blinked. Again. Stupidly. I could feel my mom pushing on my back to move me forward but I took a moment to close my eyes and exhale. I reached my power outward to the men and women holding medieval weaponry. I could see in my mind's eye that the group had formed a circle with a gap in the middle for Mom, Alex, and I to walk into. While my spacial powers couldn’t see auras like Kimiko’s life sense ability I could still attempt a probe to gauge how strong their will was. On top of that, the amount of energy I needed to teleport a person was directly proportional to the amount of mana they had and willpower they were using if they were resisting or inversely proportional if they were helping me teleport them, though I had never figured out how to use a willing persons power like that yet. I let my senses envelop the group and then I prodded them as one.

  I promptly opened my eyes and vomited on the floor. I swayed my vision swimming. My mom grabbed me to steady me, locking my arm like a vice. Alex grabbed the other arm supporting me. “It’d - it’d take twenty of me to teleport the ten of them.” I saw Alex nod out of my now-clearing peripheral vision. “These are thirty of our most loyal and skilled security personnel, taken from across our in-house security and monster-hunting subsidiaries. Those ten that you prodded at are some of the strongest and oldest adventurers on this side of the supercontinent.” “Pangea,” the large man with the shield, plate armor, and giant cylindrical mace said. “We had a term for it before you were born ma’am. Back in the pre-magic days, we would have called the Super Continent, Pangea.” He was black and bald like me but looked about five to ten years older. Though with magic slowing the aging process for everyone it was hard to tell. A phrase my mom used to say popped into my head “black don’t crack.” I never really understood what she meant, it was just a thing her mom, said and she had gotten it from her mom and so on. Apparently, it meant that black people aged better, but I never really understood how darker skin was supposed to help with that especially since everyone's been aging slower for the past two-hundred-fifty years. What I could tell is that this man was old. To lecture Alex on pre-magic verbiage he had to be well-studied or old as hell. He was at least 6’5 to my 5’10, a towering slab of muscle dedicated to protecting me. Amongst the other nine, I saw a variety of hues and races. A tall elf was clad in loose-flowing garments and she held a quarterstaff with a piece of metal in the middle, presumably for disconnecting and reconnecting the two halves. I saw at least two orcs. Slight of frame for their race but still stouter than the humans surrounding them. One male and one female. The female held only a shield while the other held two axes. “A fighting pair.” I had seen fighting pairs in the Amazon regrowth zone, men and women were bound by the orcish version of marriage and dedicated to protecting each other with their lives, but I had no idea that civilized orcs followed the custom too. I saw a human with a hood and belts upon belts of daggers and bottles of liquid. He was white, short, about five foot four inches with a thin mustache. He nodded when he saw me looking and I returned the nod. The other five were facing away so I couldn’t tell what race they were. Though I did see at least two staves, a greatsword, a crossbow, and a rapier and buckler combo. My mom started to push me forward again and this time I continued. The person with the crossbow turned around and threw what looked like a wafer at me. “Eat it, it’s magically reinforced.” I looked at Alex who wavered her hand back and forth in the air. “Maybe half.” I scoffed and popped the whole thing in my mouth. The second it hit my tongue I knew I had made a mistake. It was strong! I grit my teeth as blue-white smoke starts to billow out from my mouth. The grin started but I held it down trying not to embarrass myself. I cleared my throat, “Yeah Alex you may have had a point there. I’m like overflowing with mana right now.” “One day you’ll learn to listen to me Ky. And maybe after that, you’ll start training your mana pathways.” I give a shrug. I get plenty of pathway work when I’m on the job Alex. She just shakes her head and continues walking.

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  From then on we continued in silence. Two groups of five men and women filed into the hallway first. They could have stood five across but instead, they stood with three in front and two behind filling in the gaps on the right and left while still allowing for mobility and preventing any crossfire. The next five did the same followed by a similar formation from the top-tier adventurers. Strangely the two spell casters, both women took the front, standing on either side of the big blond man with the greatsword. They must have been battlemages if they were being put in the front over the bigger physical fighters. Or maybe they were adept in shielding magic. Either way, I couldn’t tell until I saw them in action and something told me that I really didn’t want to see them in action. If these powerhouses had to get to work I was probably going to be close to death. The man with the buckler and rapier took the back right of the front formation and the man with the crossbow took the back left of the front formation. The man with the rapier looked back at me. He had a tanned face with a thin but not patchy beard and though I couldn’t put my finger on it I suspected he was from New Rome or the Vatican. He gave me a smile and said something that made my stomach drop, “You’re going to be alright.” It must have shown on my face because he gave a sheepish and turned around. Behind me was the fighting pair standing on either side of the paladin-looking black guy, followed by the mousey-looking assassin type on the back right and quarterstaff elf on the left. They were then covered by ten more of the men and women with guns. I was panicking now I didn’t really know why. I take deep breaths as we continue down the hallway.

  As I started to calm myself the lights flickered slightly and Alex cocked her head to the side as though she was listening to something. “Getting a report from downstairs. The portal’s been turned on. Guest arrival in ten minutes.” The group starts to move faster. The gun-toting section of the entourage parts, allowing the mage women, the greatsword, the Roman, and the crossbow man to enter followed by me, my mother, and Alex. who strangely stepped in front of me. Before the elevator closes the black guy with the shield says “Meet you down there.” The doors close and we rocket downward. The elevator falls so fast that it makes my stomach drop. I watch the numbers tick downward ninety-nine, ninety-five, eighty-two, seventy. Every time I blink we seem to have dropped another five floors. All of a sudden the elevator stops but I can barely feel the deceleration. I exhale a breath I didn’t even know that I was holding and quickly inhale again as the elevator rockets to the right. I give a “hurk” as we barrel on. The elevator stops on twenty / R5, twentieth floor, room five. “W-when did you guys add that,” I say breathlessly. “Well son, you’ve been gone for a few years.” My Mom says sardonically. Putting thoroughly unneeded emphasis on the word ‘few’. “So we were bound to make changes, especially in preparation for today, though it came sooner than we imagined.” The doors opened, both the front and rear doors of the elevator. The front doors led into a plain white room while the rear doors led to a series of steps. “Secret stairs?” I thought to myself. I followed my mom and Alex through the front doors. Our security detail following close behind us. Out of my periphery, I spotted Mr. Shield-and-Mace coming up the stairs followed by the war pair, quarterstaff, and mousey as they took defensive positions in front of the elevator doors. Shield-and-Mace hit a button and the doors closed. “I really should learn their names once I get a moment.” These people were putting their lives on the line for us and it wasn’t right not to know their names. Actually, I didn’t even know why their lives or my life was in danger at all! When the doors to the white room closed I started to say “Ma-” but she holds up a finger gesturing me to silence. Alex waves her hands over the wall to my right and a glowing rune springs up. This is followed by one on the floor, the opposite wall, the ceiling, one on the wall behind Alex and my mom, and one behind me and the guards on the door to the elevator. I raise an eyebrow and gesture to my mouth. My mom holds up her hand. “Listen this will go faster if you just let me talk.” I shrug and gesture for her to continue.

  “Twenty-five years ago your father made a deal.” She clears her throat. Clearly, something about this was hard for her. “I was giving birth. Your father and I had decided that a home birth would be the best option considering some abnormalities that we saw during your early scans.” “Abnormalities?” I ask simply. “Kyro you and your father are, were unique. Teleportation is a very rare ability and as you know it’s difficult to pull off even if you’re born with it. You and your father were born with the ability to move from one place to another instantaneously. That’s amazing as is, given that it takes mages years to learn how to even move themselves a short distance without passing out. Your father, well he could move people across the America with little difficulty. That kind of thing takes teams of technomancers and spacial mages working in concert for years to build. Your father could just do that. You could too if you gave a damn about your training.” I start to protest but my mother just gives me a stare that I’ve long since learned to heed. “You wasting your potential aside,” I grimace at the jab and look away. “We were approached by a demon. Several times actually.” My head whips back as she says this and my eyes widen. She carries on her eyes staring past me her mind obviously focused on the past. “Eight minutes.” Alex cuts in. My mom's eyes refocus and she speeds up her story. “The demon, whose name I never did learn, offered us riches, longevity, power, knowledge, whatever we could in exchange for you.” A barb about Dad not taking the deal rises in my throat but I swallow it, visibly. Wherever this story is going I refused to be loud and wrong about my mom’s freshly dead husband. “We of course refused, but the demon kept trying. Eventually offers turned into threats. We decided to give birth at home so we could be somewhere safe. Your father with what little money we had hired ward specialists and bought talismans, placing them all around the house. Well, they didn’t work and the demon got in anyway. Apparently, it had tried to sway other, what he called conduits unsuccessfully, and was ready to kill us and move on to the next family. However, your father as savvy as ever offered the creature a deal. What if with all the riches and power they had offered they instead invested in him. He offered to dedicate the money to researching teleportation magitech.” “Six minutes Miriam.” “I’m almost done, Alex.” Mom turns back to look at me. “The demon was intrigued but not swayed. He-it, whatever the monster was started to choke me in front of your father and the wetnurse. He did it without even touching me.” Mom rubs her hand across her throat and continues. “Your father put his head on the floor and begged. He swore that everything he built would belong to the demon. Granting them a foothold in this realm. See they can’t come over without using an immense amount of power to crossover. Bringing even one higher demon overtakes the sacrifice of multiple summoners. What your father was proposing would be a hole in reality allowing them to step in from their reality to Earth. Whatever brought magic over hundreds of millions of years ago and again two-hundred-fifty years ago blocked them from entering but this most recent wave-” “Four minutes.” Alex interrupts. “Damn,” Mom curses. “You don’t have time for a history lesson. Suffice it to say all the creatures from the other side of the universe, the elves dwarves, orcs etcetera. Weakened the barrier, the resyncing of our world with their world, the pouring of magic into this side of the universe weakened the barrier between realms. The demons want a way through now that it was possible and teleporters have only started emerging in the last few decades. Magic feeds from the consciousness of the sentient races and has gotten stronger as the population of both worlds boomed and is dense enough to allow instantaneous transportation. Your father offered them a permanent portal and an entity with servants on Earth to do their bidding. Strix Transportation is that entity, its employees the servants. “Two minutes Miriam let’s go.” “You need to stop it Kyro. The portal works but it isn’t finished it’s not strong enough to support the larger demons or to transport enough of them to take LA. You need to gather the final artifacts required to make it work and then purify them. The backlash should cause the portal to destabilize and it may even reinforce the barrier between our realm and theirs. But-” Mom hesitates. “It’ll weaken the barrier to other realms other entities will be able to get through. But from my understanding, they’re for the most part less malicious and would break through anyway.” “What the hell are you talking about! What other entities Mom demons aren’t enough?!” I’m pacing back and forth now as Alex starts walking forward. “The wards aren’t going to last much longer, the portals opening now it’ll step through any moment.” “Right Alex, okay Kyro listen the rest of the notes are in your father's office if we don’t get to talk again go there.” I blink and shake my head. “Why wouldn’t we get to talk again! Mom what other entities.” She turns to me and grabs me by the front of my shirt. She shakes me and I look down at her. “The gods are not your problem do you hear me? The demons are! We made them this portal this whole company and now you’re going to fix this.” I stare into her eyes seeing a worrying finality there. “Why won’t I be able to talk to you again?” “Lets go Ky,” she says putting her hand on my back. The doors to the elevator open and we pass through to the other side where the stairs are. I hear a WOOSH and turn around to see the room crumble. The walls on either side of the gap move together as though they were alive and healing. “Months of work gone in eight minutes.” I hear Alex mutter behind me. “Shhhpt.” My mom makes the noise while making a zipping motion over her mouth and Alex turns bright red. “You know better.” My mom whispers. We jog down the stairs, ten suited men and women carrying guns in the front and ten in the back. In the five middle elite warriors in front of my mom, Alex, and I, and another five behind us. Eventually, we make it down the twenty-five flights of stairs to subbasement five. Alex looks at me with what could nearly be called disgust as she catches me trying to conceal my breathlessness. “Are you actually a monster hunter? Are you serious Kyro? Don’t you know how to use internal reinforcement?” I just shake my head sweat beading down onto the floor as I pant. “N-no.” “You’re an internal magic user reinforcing your bones and muscles, hell entire bodily systems should come easy for you. Not to mention you shouldn’t even be using internal magic for your teleportation you should be-” “Shhh.” My mom hisses at us he’s emerging. The twenty gun-toting men and women had already gone into the room ahead of us along with the two stave wielders, the war pair, the crossbow, and the rapier. Left was the greatsword, the mace, the quarterstaff, and the daggers. “We’re seriously about to die and I don’t know these people's names.” I walk through the door and my breath catches, before me is a large white room with rows and rows of computer consoles with people working at them. In the middle of the room is a large glass screen with a single door in the middle of it. “What’re we holding back with glass of all things.” My mom's back stiffens we she hears me ask the question but she doesn’t turn back to me as we continue walking down the stairs. “It’s diamond.” I once again blink as though I don’t have a clue in the world. And truthfully it’s starting to look like I don’t. I don’t say another word as we walk down the stairs to the office floor. The remaining five elites lead us down to the door. As we pass workers get up and leave, bodyguards take their place. Taking cover behind the long rows of seemingly stainless steel desks. The door at the center of the diamond wall is opened by a bodyguard on the other side. Our group walks through and we stand behind the front row of elites. On each side, we’re flanked by five bodyguards, ten total on this side of the diamond wall. another four elites stand behind us. Twenty guards total on this side another ten on the other side. The portal which has been churning and crackling the entire time finally stabilizes. And a cloven foot hits the landing for the stairs with a THUMP! The other foot lands. THUMP! The creature emerges from the portal. Curled horns and feet lead the rest of it. It walks down the stairs its entire body rippling with muscle even below the suit. It stops in front of the elites and inhales. "Mmm," it says as though tasting the air. "I can smell a broken deal," it says grinning toothily and staring directly at my mother.