I Am Totally a Real-Life Wizard (Not Clickbait, I Swear!)

Dawn glowed a pleasant shade of yellow. "I accept. You can stop, Dawn."

"That song was over anyway."

Vendetta was still giggling, pressing a hand to their mouth. "You're-" They wheezed. "-you're too much, Dawn."

"Why thank you." Dusk and Dawn bobbed bows in midair, glowing their respective colors.

Suddenly, Cody popped his head through the doorway, hands over his ears. "We're pretty much all packed now!"

Dusk glowed. "Hey, what's with the covering your ears?"

Cody lowered his hands. "Oh. Was that you singing, Dusk?"

Dawn laughed. "You're going international, Dusk! Soon you'll be infamous."

Dusk gasped. "You're all so rude!"

Cody frowned. "I'm sorry, Dusk. I didn't mean to offend."

"Hmph! No one appreciates my talent. Oh, except Vendetta. Yeah, Vendetta's fine." Dusk floated over to them and hummed.

Cody glanced at the bow apologetically again, then turned to the siblings. "Well, as I was saying, magic does speed things up quite a bit. So Khalil and I are ready."

Khalil's voice floated in from down the hallway. "One sec! I just need to find a way to cram all these--"

"You don't need all those Hawaiian print shirts!" Cody called back.

Khalil gasped in offence. "You don't know that! What if it rains and the first seven get soaked through?"

Cody rolled his eyes, but an affectionate smile lit up his face. "Khalil! Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds?"

Khalil mumbled in frustration.

"Don't worry, I'll buy you any more Hawaiian shirts you need!"

Khalil entered the room, still grumbling. "Finee." But xe brightened up when xe saw the siblings and the weapons. "You all ready for a road trip?"

"Sure," Valeri said, holding onto her purse.

"YES!" cheered Dawn.

Khalil grinned. "Amazing! Let's head out, then."

Cody nodded. "Let's see if you can find yourselves out on the open road."

Cody opened the door to the garage and walked to the car. "Alright, hop in."

Valeri scooted into the backseat with their purse, and Dawn awkwardly positioned itself horizontally above her lap. "Hey, any chance you can turn into something smaller? Like, um, a pen or a necklace?"

Dusk snorted. "What is this, a Rick Riordan novel?"

Vendetta blinked. "You can read?"

Dusk scoffed. "Did you just ask a thousand-year-old magical weapon if it can read?"

"Ooh, I loved those novels!" chimed in Dawn. "And of course we can read." The sword giggled. "Anyways, I think the best I can do is this." It shrunk into a dagger-sized weapon and floated into the cupholder.

"...That works. Thanks." Valeri sincerely hoped they wouldn't have any car accidents; tumbling around a small space with two sharp weapons was definitely not a good idea.

The car hummed to life and Cody adjusted the rearview mirror. “Okay, where's our first stop?"

Khalil hummed. “Let’s head to California and see if anything’s interesting in between.”

Vendetta waved their hand. “Wait. Where are we? We’ve never actually gone to your house except through a portal or Cody’s car.”

Cody smiled. “Well, welcome to New Yew City, then.”

Valeri’s eyes widened. “I’ve always wanted to go to New York City! Can we drive around for a bit?”

Cody backed out of the garage. “Well, we’ve got to drive through most of the city to head West. So take a look out the window!”

For the next thirty minutes or so of the drive, Valeri eagerly gazed out the window and craned her neck up to look at the buildings and skyscrapers. Soon enough, though, they grumbled, “Can’t you guys magically deal with all the traffic or something?”

Cody smiled. “No, unfortunately. Besides, it’s best to keep a low profile. No big showy form of magic.”

Khalil squeezed Cody’s knee. “This may be a fun trip, but we also have to be careful.”

"Right." Valeri sat back and huffed a little in disappointment. Hopefully the rest of the road trip would be more interesting... even fighting celery monsters would be better than sitting in traffic for hours. They glanced around for something else to do. "Hey Vendetta, wanna play I Spy?"

Vendetta laughed. “Sure!”

Dawn whined. “Don’t forget us!”

Dusk vibrated indignantly. “We spy too.”