Chapter 10: It begins! The Magician Games!

A Chinese restaurant…

That’s what this mysterious person had told Abisai to meet at. They were supposed to meet at this Chinese restaurant called; ‘Nian Qin Cai Fan’. As Abisai recalled, it was located at a mountainside, and the views were so breath-taking at dawn.

But Abisai does not have time for that. He has to be there by at least three o clock. He took his magic staff, in case he encountered some people who were told to hunt him down, and wore a black cape to cover up his face. After settling everything, he whooshed off.

Abisai was used to travel at the speed of the wind, as he used it to escape the scenes after he committed murders. He had already mastered this ability for about twenty years. Sometimes, he might stop by to read signs to the restaurant, and Abisai will vanish as soon as he verified his location, and who knows what the nearby people would see, maybe a guy who glitched in a split second?

After a few minutes of speed travelling, Abisai was at the restaurant’s ‘WELCOME!’ mat.

It was designed like a Chinese building, with yellow blazing roof tiles, the door looked like at was hundreds of years old, and Abisai can see the red lights glowing inside the building. It looked like a good tourist attraction, but Abisai was no tourist, he was public enemy number one.

“Ah you’re here Abisai-San!” Oh great, Abisai thought. He turned to the sound of the voice, he saw a man, in a black kimono, with huge red flowers on it, and by the look on the smile on his face, everyone will understand one thing, they must avoid this dude. But even though Abisai doesn’t like this guy, he was still his ally.

He sighed, “Oh Akumu, looks like the person had invited you too.” Akumu giggled, and smiled. “Well, you will definitely need backup when the people after you are here.” Abisai took a deep breath, and facepalmed himself. “I told you, even though if they’re a member of the Twelve Protectors, I can still take them on. And, what will happen if they prefer to fight in broad daylight?” Akumu giggled again. “My oh my Abisai-San! You really know me that much, do you?” “You’re a vampire, you’ll burn to particles if you reveal your true form right now.” The vampire nodded, and patted Abisai’s shoulders as he spoke, “That’s the right answer! You do know facts about vampires!” Abisai stood there silently, and started to speak again. “He must be waiting, let’s meet him.”

Once they opened the front door, the scent of mouth-watering delicacies filled the entire room, and perhaps, the entire building. A woman, who is definitely a waitress, ran up to the seemingly innocent duo, and spoke. “Huan Ying! Huan Ying!” Abisai doesn’t understand what she just said, he had never learned Chinese before, but he can tell that the waitress was welcoming them.

“You Zi Wei?” The waitress asked in Chinese again. Abisai does not have a clue about what she was saying, but Akumu cleared his throat. “Liang Wei.” He replied in perfect Chinese. Well, guess the vampire can be a good translator to some other foreign languages. “Hao de.” The waitress said, “Wait!” Abisai stopped her, the waitress turned back, and spoke. “What is it?”  Oh, now we know that the people here to speak English.

“We are invited by someone.” He took out a piece of paper, the same paper that the person had gave him a few days ago. “Our seating is at: Table 33.” “Alright, follow me.” The waitress had brought them upstairs, and to a table with curtains closing it. “Zai Zer Li.” The waitress said, “Xie Le.” Akumu said and bowed. And the man was there when they entered.

He was feasting on a dish of meat, which was possibly pork, a hood was covering his head, and Abisai can barely see his face. “Ah,” A voice in the hood spoke. “Both of you had received the location.” Abisai and Akumu sat down at the opposite table. “I had already ordered your meals.” The man spoke. “And I sincerely apologise if they are not your type.” “It’s alright.” Abisai replied. The man continued to pull out pieces of meat from the pork and threw it into the hood, which was an odd way of eating.

“So, about this deal.” The man said. “Yes. The deal.” Abisai replied. “We would want you to steal something for us.” “Steal?” “It’s being heavily guarded by one of the Twelve Protectors.” Akumu answered. “How heavily guarded?” “We’re not sure about how powerful the defences are. But the lady needs someone who is swift enough to avoid the traps in there. We think that you’re the right… species for this.”

The man laughed, an uneasy and childish laugh. “Oh me?” Two pale, small hands popped out from the hood, and then, a head, with a sharp pointy noise and ears, and eyes like the ones on frogs. “A goblin? For this job?” “Are you able to do it? How much do you want? The lady can give you-” “No! I don’t want money! I want to know, how fun is it?”  For fun? This goblin steals for his own thrill? Akumu smiled, “Oh it will be fun! Just think about it, the excitement of dodging tranquilising darts, the intense moments of walking on the right tiles, the fun of doing parkour over slumps!” The goblin shrieked in joy, he opened his palm, and a fireball just flew out and down the stairs. Then, there were people screaming.

That can’t be good.

Abisai and Akumu rushed down the stairs, but they made sure that they’re not in view. And their eyes widened upon what had just happened. They saw a man, who is being set on fire. The people around rushed to help him, they grabbed water buckets, and splashed it on the man, the fire was been put out, but the man, he was left with nothing but ashes… “What are you doing?!” Abisai hissed at the goblin. “You’re making a scene!” “Oh no,” The goblin replied, “I often do this when I’m excited.” The creature snapped his fingers, and they heard more wailing. More people had been set on fire.

As the goblin snapped his fingers, more customers, cooks, waiters and waitresses had been set ablaze by the fireballs. And in a few moments, the restaurant was filled with nothing but human ashes. “It’s a deal!” The goblin said. “What is this precious thing that I must take?” Abisai turned to the goblin, “You are an interesting being.” He said, “It’s settled then, the lady would want you to steal, The Orb of Wishes.” The goblin cheered like a monkey. “Alright! The Dark Witch will be impressed by my skills when I come back with ‘The Orb of Wishes’!” The goblin snapped his fingers, and he himself is on fire, and as the fire vanished, the goblin had disappeared. “So much for an Asian cuisine.” Akumu sighed, “I bet even the chefs were burned alive too.”

. . . . . .

At first, Claude doesn’t believe me when I told him that I gained trust from Chris the Indian Quarterback, but he was speechless when he saw the dragon with his own eyes.

“How? How did you find him? Indian Quarterbacks are very shy creatures!” Claude was fascinated with the dragon. “Well, there was something impaling through its thigh, and I helped him!” I replied. Claude just stood there, staring at Chris eye to eye. He was silent for about a few minutes, and I don’t know what he was going to say, maybe he was going to yell at me for risking my life? Or he might congratulate me…

“I see,” My older brother turned to me, and nodded. “That is a very noble thing you just did. You named him, what is it again? Chris?” “Yup.” I replied. The dragon tilted his head curiously at us, Claude stepped closer to Chris, and gently pated his snout. “Alright, Chris can stay.” Claude said, “Hey! He’s not my pet or something!” “P-pet?” Chris asked, “Er- It’s like an animal, that you,” I pointed at Chris, “keep as… company.” “Company?” The dragon asked again.

Oh boy, it looks like I will need to teach Chris some vocabulary lessons… And I would need lots of books for that…

But Claude also made a rule, that Chris can’t help me with my training. But I think I can manage things without a dragon. Plus, I had already had experience with these trainings. On the other hand, Claude had decided that I do more practices in battle than running around in the forest and concentrating and ignoring anything in my surroundings, even though they might be do harm.

I had only learned three positions for now, and they weren’t so good, my best one is probably the first position. I still have to do those snowball fights with Claude, and things barely changed these years, I did manage to dodge some hits, but some snowballs will still splat me in the face. And it still hurts from the blows due to the coldness of the snowballs.

But I did get a little hang of it, Claude mentioned that we must concentrate, like fully concentrate to create a snowball big enough to overpower the opponent’s one. I took that advice, but my brother fires snowballs way better than me.

I did hang out with Chris every afternoon, I will often teach him about how to speak with more vocabulary, since Chris only knows a few words, like ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘maybe’, ‘what’ and stuff like that. “I taught him some simple words, starting with ‘Good morning’, which I explained to him that this term means a good word to start his day, which I don’t know about that.

The dragon, in return, did make me understand a few things, as the saying goes; ‘Actions speak louder than words’, Chris ‘proved’ to me that there’s a strategy to evade Claude’s snowballs… This is a perfect move.

We met at the temple, we bowed, at moved to our places. “Ready?” Claude asked, “I have a plan, you will be surprised dude.” I replied. We raised our staffs, and we began to fire.

Well, we, I meant Claude only.

I kept evading them, but Claude just kept firing, I did manage to dodge them, but barely. This plan is going well for now, I’ll have to wait… And then, Claude stopped. Did it work? Is he worn out? Or… He knew what I’m planning on… This is my chance! It’s my turn to fire.

Claude is amazing at fleeing from the snowballs, once I fired, he will be at the other side of my direction. He’s really fast, but here’s my plan. I’ll stop, waving my staff around, trying to confuse him, which I think he will barely fall for it…

I want to deceive him, but I think he knows that. Whatever, I have to try. I fired, from the opposite directions, Claude turned to that direction, and then… I launched at him, I caught him off guard, but he managed to evade. But I did something, the snowball had knocked his staff off, it hit the ground, and spun, making clanging sounds, and then it came to a halt.

Does that count as a win? I wondered. Claude stared at his staff, and turned to me. He clapped, “I’m using my weakest strength, and you, technically, beaten me, in four years!” He pated my head, I always liked it when he does that.

We headed back to our castle, that will be it for my training today. “So, Chris showed you how?” Claude asked, I nodded as an answer. “Yeah, they are really intelligent creatures.” We made it back, we settled everything down first, we took a bath (not in the same shower chamber, I promise), and sat for dinner.

“That was really something you did back there.” Claude said, I slurped up my bowl of mushroom stew, and replied. “So… Do I get a gift?” My brother smiled, “You really showed me your potential back there. So, yeah, you’ll get a gift.” I cheered, “What is it?” Claude took a bite from his vegetarian pasta, and spoke, and those words, made me want to stab myself as if this was just a dream. “You, Edward, will be participating, in The Magician Games.”