Young Writers Society

The soldiers who had originally led them into the place suddenly departed, leaving just the small, terrified soldier. Hero would have been cowering at the sight of Magic, God, and Lucifer's appearances, but it was a glance in his direction that sent the man into a trembling mess once they left the office.

"I'll show you to the dormitories," the soldier said, voice unnaturally deep and more than a little muffled by the helmet he was wearing. Hero glanced over at his friend. Lorcan still looked more than a little panicked, but quickly adopted a neutral look as they passed a group of chatting scientists.

"Good," God said.

The soldier held his head up high and led them through a seemingly endless group of hallways. He eventually came to a stop in front of a door that opened up into a room filled with empty, unused bunk beds. The soldier gestured for them to enter, and they all did as requested.

He briefly wondered if this was where he was going to stay, but was quickly distracted by movement out of the corner of his eye.

The soldier was trying to sneak out.

Before Hero could even come up with an explanation, Lorcan shot a hand out and pulled the soldier back into the room. The soldier gave a startled cry as Magic softly shut the door behind him, but no sound would be leaving the room now.

"Second?" Lorcan quietly asked.

Hero's eyes widened.

The soldier didn't say anything. He just stood there and stares with wide eyes of his own, only showing a panicked reaction when Lorcan removed his helmet. Messy, green hair stuck out in multiple directions, and his eyes were hidden by some of the longer strands, but it had to be him.

"Fancy place," Aegeas said, staring at the gray walls and metal bedframes. He still flopped onto one of the bunk beds, sinking into the mattress. Firm, but more comfortable than a lot of other beds he'd slept in. And it gave him a vantage point to watch everyone else. Taber in particular.

The wolf pulled the scarf away from his mouth after the remaining soldier took off his helmet. "Second?" he said, beaming. He walked over, very unsubtly pushing Second and Lorcan towards each other before turning and giving Second a hug. "It's you! How are you doing? Why are you here? What have you guys been up to after the masquerade?"

Second yelped in surprise when Taber suddenly embraced him, eyes still wide as he frantically glanced at the other occupants in the room. Both God and Magic had already managed to sprawl across two of the bottom bunks in the short time they had been there. Aegeas wasn't lounging like them, but he was also sitting in one of them. Lucifer clung behind Taber, tail nervously swishing from side to side as he stared at Second with red eyes.

And then his gaze landed on Hero and Lorcan.

Hero was torn between holding his gaze or looking away; he didn't like the look Second was giving him. He looked afraid. Second wasn't supposed to be afraid of him. The only times he ever had been had been when they first met and when he had used his darkness to make armor. He hadn't known him the first time, and the first time he had been convinced he was some sort of monster.

"Second, what's wrong?" Lorcan asked. Hero took a step back, quickly looking away from his friend's stare.

Second glanced at everyone in the room again. He seemed to be thinking, but Hero couldn't begin to guess what he was thinking of. He wiggled out of Taber's grip, then pressed his back up against the closed door. "You're not...you're not evil?" he hesitantly asked.

Lorcan stared. "Why would we be evil?"

"Your clothing is weird," Second pointed out, "and you're with them."

He pointed at the three on the beds, and then at Lucifer. Lucifer straightened immediately after attention had been brought to him, a look akin to a deer in headlights on his face.

"We thought you were from an alternate reality," he added. His shoulders relaxed, and a smile began to split across his face. "But it really is you!"

"What makes me evil?" Aegeas said, pulling himself up. He pointed to his face. "Is it because I look like this? Is it because I scowl all the time? Is it-"

Taber took off his scarf and dropped it over Aegeas's head. While the otter shouted and tried to yank the scarf off, Taber turned back to Second. He tried not to feel a little hurt at Second getting out of the hug, but just chalked it up to Second behind scared and shy. "It is us! You remember me, right? From the masquerade?"

"I remember you," Second confirmed, his smile growing a little bit more. He looked a little startled when he realized that Taber was actually a wolf underneath that mask he had worn at the masquerade, but he did seem to be happy to see him.

He glanced at Aegeas.

"He didn't think you were evil," Second said. Was he talking about the scientist? "He said that despite you 'trying to make me die again', you were a good person and looked basically the same as last time." He did air quotation marks as he spoke. "But he was arguing that Lorcan, Hero and Taber had to be evil, so I argued that you would have to be evil, too."

Oh.

Hero knew exactly who he was talking about.

Despite their many arguments, he couldn't help but straighten ever so slightly when understanding dawned on him. "Kartiel was the scientist you were with."

Second nodded. "He was the one who thought you were from alternate realities," he confirmed. "We were trying to figure out a way to get back home..."

"But you ran into us and got roped into showing us around," Magic said from their bed. Second hesitated, then nodded. Though Magic looked like they had little plans on moving, they still sat up and looked Second in the eye with a big grin on their face. "Personification of Magic, at your service! The guy on the other bunk is God, and the one with the tail and horns is Lucifer."

"Magic's magic got stolen," Lorcan explained, walking over to his boyfriend and slipping his hand into his. "Once they get it back, they're going to return us to our realities."

"Which Kartiel is this?" Aegeas said, glowering. "The evil god, or the okay one?"

"I mean, they're both pretty nice," Taber mumbled. He didn't want to say as much to Aegeas - he couldn't get the otter to change his mind on something that made him angry.

Second stared at Aegeas for a moment, confusion flickering across his face as the question registered. Then understanding seemed to dawn on him, and he opened his mouth to speak-

There was a loud knock on the door.

The teenagers present collectively froze, and God and Magic scrambled to their feet. Second suddenly grabbed his helmet from Lorcan's hands, hurriedly slamming it back onto his head as the knocking persisted. Hero and Lorcan tried to look as impassive as Magic, God and Lucifer all looked.

"Jerry, are you in there?" a deep voice said from the other side of the door. Hero froze when he heard the name uttered; how did-

"I am," Second replied, hand already going for the doorknob. It was hard to tell with the glass in front of his face, but Hero could just barely make out a blush. "I was just showing the warriors around, Levi."

He turned the knob.

The door opened to reveal the scientist with the thick glasses and messy black hair. Hero felt stupid for not recognizing him sooner. He looked at the group collected with calculating eyes, but he knew Kartiel - he was definitely panicking right now. It didn’t help that his eyes were flickering from green to purple to green again behind his glasses.

Second grabbed Kartiel by the wrist and pulled him into the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

Aegeas hopped off the bed, pulling out a scimitar.

Oh dear. Taber knew Aegeas had seen both Kartiels before, and could tell them apart, but one of them was extremely good at changing his appearance. So Taber also moved towards Kartiel, making sure to stand between him and Aegeas. "Hi!" the wolf said, waving. "You wouldn't happen to be Kartiel, would you? Do you remember the town with all the dead people?"

The wild strands of darkness that had sprung up at Kartiel's feet began to calm ever so slightly. He glanced at the people present in the room with a scrutinous gaze, it remaining on Aegeas for the longest period of time.

"Kartiel," Second said, "it's okay. They're the people we know."

The darkness lowered a bit. "I don't know them-" he said, eyes turning violet and narrowing behind his glasses as he looked over in the direction of the trio of powerful beings.

God pushed past Lucifer and Magic and came to a stop in front of Kartiel, easily towering over him. The darkness grew in height as he stared up at God's face, but the wildness wasn't there anymore. "You haven't aged a day since I saw you in that town," God said. Kartiel stared at him, but then understanding dawned on his face when he flipped up the eye patch.

"You're Dean," he said. The darkness fell to the ground and disappeared in an instant.

God smiled. "God works fine right now."

"God, then." He peered around him. "So who are those two, then?"

"That's the Personification of Magic, and that's my brother Lucifer," God said. "We're trying to get Magic's magic back - the American government stole it and used it to bring you here."

"Not going to lie. That's not what I was expecting as an explanation," Kartiel admitted. He took a couple steps back and looked Lorcan and Hero over. Then he absentmindedly reached into his pocket and pulled something out from its depths as he answers Taber's two questions. "You've probably already figured it out, but I am Kartiel, and I do remember the ghost town."

He held up his phone.

Hero narrowed his eyes.

"What are you doing?" he slowly asked.

"Taking a picture," Kartiel cheerfully replied. "Charlotte would get a kick out of your little warrior outfit."

Hero frowned. "You're not-"

The flash went off. "I think I am," Kartiel replied, sticking his tongue out. Lorcan went to walk over to where Second was, but Kartiel held up a hand to prevent him from doing so. One more flash and a flustered Lorcan later, Kartiel's phone was returned to his pocket.

"What about Second?" Hero asked. "Why doesn't he have to get one taken?"

Kartiel grinned. "What do you think I did when he put that soldier outfit on?"

Ah, that's what dead people were - ghosts.

Well, the answer seemed to satisfy Aegeas. He walked back to the bed, set the sword down on it, picked up the scarf from where he'd thrown it to the floor, and tossed it at Taber. The wolf immediately caught it, wrapping it around his neck.

Unfortunately for Taber, he took a beam of light to the face when he turned back around. He blinked, rubbing his eyes as Kartiel set off a second flash and talked about 'pictures' (familiar, but he was pretty sure that what he was thinking of wasn't right).

"That's an odd way to get a picture," Taber said after he could see (sort of) clearly. "How come you didn't use, like, paints and a board?"

A confused look momentarily flickered across Kartiel's face at the comment, but he quickly understood what Taber was asking. It made sense, he supposed - Aegeas had struck him as the type who came from a world more like Minecraftia than Earth, and Taber was from the same place as him. "That takes a very long time," he said, "and it isn't always the most accurate."

An idea suddenly came over him, and he teleported next to Taber in a flurry of purple particles. Holding up his phone, he flipped around the camera so both Taber and Kartiel could be made out in the image. "See? There's a thing called a camera in here. I'm using the camera that's looking this way, but it can also look outwards, like I was using when I was taking a picture of Hero and Lorcan. All we have to do is hit a button, and I get a picture that's identical to what you're seeing right now."

"Wow!" Taber said, staring at the screen. He paused. "Are you sure that's identical? I didn't know I looked so big. Or kinda scary."

Kartiel nodded. "It's almost entirely identical, though I have heard that phones aren't as accurate as mirrors. But they do tend to be pretty close, so you're getting a look at yourself right now." He glanced over at Taber. "You're definitely on the big side, but I won't go as far as saying that you look scary. I think that's just the outfit talking."

"Aww," Taber said, batting the end of his scarf around. "I don't want to look scary, but I really like these clothes." He pouted for a couple seconds, and then his old smile returned. "Can we get a picture of ourselves? Please?"

"How long is that going to take?" Aegeas said. "Because I don't think we have the time. If anyone else gets into this room, this whole mission will have been for nothing. We need to act fast."

"It does go with what you were aiming for," Kartiel pointed. "Since you were trying to pretend to be warriors, and everyone else looks scary."

He glanced back at Aegeas. "And don't worry, Aegeas - we'll be back at our sneaking around in no time. It only take a second or two for a picture to be taken."

He turned back to the camera. "Just say cheese, Taber, and I'll take the picture."