Nothing Ever Goes Right

Magic energy (or, if you’re being proper, Aethik energy) is present in everything that exists. From birds to rocks, trace amounts of magic energy can be found in one way or another. So why aren’t there birds chirping fireballs and burning down forests?

Aethik cores, that’s why! While everything in the world has magical energy, only select creatures with Aethik cores can use abilities labeled as “magic”. These cores are the source of a caster’s power and by manipulating the Aethik energy the cores exude internally, a person can create phenomena that bend the rules of reality.

But why are some people born with Aethik cores and others are not? There have been centuries of research on this, but no clear answer has been found. What has been discovered, however, is that no two cores are the same. Some are larger with higher Aethik capacities while others are minuscule but release more refined Aethik that allows the user to cast for hours or even days. And of course some take the form of an agitated black slime ready to drain the closest source of magic it can find.

“I knew this would happen!” Remmi yelled, ducking under black slime careening at her head. “If you were going to release an Aethik slime, you should have thrown it at the dragon!”

“That would have been the dumbest thing I could do! It would only multiply the dragon’s Aethik capacity.”

“Bringing. It. Here. Was.” Remmi’s sentence was chopped with each shining black spine the gradually growing slime thrust at her. “Already. Dumb.”

“It would have been fine if you hadn’t argued! All you had to do was drink it from the vial and it would have bonded to you.”

“I am not swallowing a parasite, no matter how much Aethik it gives me!” Remmi said, throwing an exasperated punch at the slime that sent it flying before it landed with a gut-churning wet plop a few feet away from me.

“Well thanks to your selfishness, now we have to fight this AND the dragon. Are you proud of yourself?”

“I refuse to take responsibility for your recklessness, Alva.” Remmi’s cheeks were flushed and I was glad I wasn’t close enough that she could slap me.

“That wouldn’t be an issue if you had eaten it yourself,” I retorted, waving my wand and sending a small sparrow made of lightning at the slime to stun it. “All you had to do was trust me.”

The Aethik slime shivered at the shock of my spell, but otherwise the attack had been lackluster. My attacks always were. Unlike Remmi and Yssa, there was nothing special about my core. It wasn’t a torrential waterfall like Remmi’s or an elegant fountain like Yssa’s. Instead all I got was the equivalent of holding water in my hands. It's why I couldn’t summon portals large enough to walk through, why I couldn’t use either of the experiments I’d picked for Yssa and Remmi. They were special and I wasn’t.

“Drop!”

Without a second thought I splayed myself to the ground, just in time to dodge the dragon flying through the air. The ground shook as it landed in a heap on the ground, and for a moment my heart hoped that Yssa had beaten it on her own.

“Why are you two still here?!”

Yssa’s voice was strained and hoarse, like she’d been screaming for a week straight. She was a mess; her left sleeve was gone, replaced by blackened burnt skin that looked brittle to the touch and hung limply at her side. The wound on her right shoulder had opened more but had thankfully stopped bleeding as much. Or maybe that was only because she didn’t have any blood left in her.

“Because Alva refused.” Remmi said through gritted teeth, sprinting at the Aethik slime in front of me.

“Dragon.” The word caught in my throat and I dove head-first at the black goo monster, trying to catch it as it launched itself at the injured red monster. At best, the dragon would be too weak to resist the slime and its core would be devoured. At worst, they would form a symbiotic relationship and we all died. Not that it seemed like we were going to live anyways.

My arms wrapped around the air and my head bounced off the ground on my landing. Remmi gave pursuit, but even the fastest sprinter wasn’t fast enough without magic.

“Yssa!” Remmi yelled. “Burn it before it gets to the dragon!”

Nodding, Yssa drew back her wand and whipped it forward, sending a stream of flames at the slime that rolled over it like a warm summer breeze.

“It’s because she’s exhausted. Her form was sloppy and it looks like she’s holding her wand together with her hand.”

“No!”

Remmi and the slime reached the dragon in tandem and she swiped wide at it. The grab missed by a mile and she scrambled up the dragon’s scales after it, only realizing her mistake after she felt moist hot dragon breath blow up her robe. One cue, the slime reversed its course, hurling itself into the dragon’s maw.

“Get back here!” Remmi kicked off the dragon’s side and dove after the slime, her lips pulled back in a contorted grimace of fear and determination. ‘I can do this’ she probably thought. ‘I have to do this.’

Maybe if I had thought it all through, it wouldn’t have happened. I can still remember the feral scream I let out. Helpless to do anything but watch as the dragon’s sword-toothed mouth closed around her. Helpless to do anything but watch my best friend get eaten alive.