Alternate | Ssundee Crew AU

21. Conversations

Nico POV

Nico walked up to Ian's and Madeline's house, knocking on the door. Madeline opened the door.

"Nico! I assume you're here to see Ian?" she said, smiling.
"Yep. Is he feeling up to it?"
"He says he is. I will warn you though, he looks a little... rough. It wasn't his best day," she said, somewhat apologetically.
The magic teacher chuckled mirthlessly. "Any day it happens won't be his best day."
"True but-"
"What are you guys talking about?" a voice said from behind them.

Nico turned around and sucked in a breath. Ian looked really, really bad. He had dark circles under his eyes, which were made even more evident by how pale his skin looked. His hair was untidy, and his clothes looked like they had been slept in the rain with.

"You look, uh, rough Ian. No offence," he added nervously.
"None taken,"
"If you want, I can come another day, you probably need sleep or something," the taller man said, wincing at how nervous he sounded.
"Nah it's okay. Besides, that way you wouldn't have come here for nothing," Ian said tiredly. Nico raised his eyebrow.
"You sure? You look like you need another day of sleep. At least," Nico said, somewhat nervously.
"Been there, done that, doesn't help," the leader said. Nico stared at him for a moment before shaking it off. It wasn't up to him to tell him what to do.

"Anyways, I came here to tell you about Sapphire," he said, remembering what he was here for.
"Hmm what about her? She's already defected, if that's what you're worried about. Did I not tell you? Oh sorry, I must ha-"
"Oh no you did tell me," Nico said, a little overwhelmed. He was a little surprised the man had energy to say all that, to be honest.
"Hm? What is it then?" Ian said, curious.

"Oh, well you know how she has magic,"
"Yesss?" he said, a little confused.
"Well, she has five types," Nico said. Ian gave a sharp inhale.
"Five? Not five different coloured lights? Five completely separate magic types?" he asked.
"Well, first of all, the fact that you think I would count five different coloured Light magics separate types is insulting. Secondly, yes, five completely separate types,"

"What is she, an avatar or something?" Ian half-joked.
"Well..."
"Don't say it," Ian said.
"She has all four elements so technically-"
"Are. You. Freaking. Kidding me," the blue eyed man said.

"What's her other power then?"
"Light," Nico said quietly.
"Sorry?"
"Light," he said louder. There was a moment of silence.
"One of the rarest powers you can get,"
"Yes,"
"And she has five types of magic when usually you have to be lucky to get three,"
"Mhm,"

"What's her main power?" Ian asked. Nico was quiet for a moment. "What's her main power Nico?"
"She defaults to light but all five of her powers are equally strong, so like-" he was cut off by another loud inhale from Ian.
"So to recap, she has five types of magic, of which it's lucky to get five; she has Light, one of the rarest types of magics; she defaults to Light, see previous point; and her powers are all equally strong. Do I have everything?"
"Everything about her specifically, but then there was the incident in the last battle-"

"What incident in the last battle?"
"Oh, did the others not tell you? I wasn't sure if it was my place to tell you, or if they were going to tell you, or ifitwasevensomethingto-" he cut himself off. It's not like Ian was his boss at FwF. He fought back a shiver.

He was thrown against the wall.

"I'll ask you one more time, and you better not have the wrong answer. Have you made any progress on him?"

"I told you, it's hard when I don't have Dark magic my-"
"Wrong. Answer." his boss said, slashing down and opening a cut down his side. He hissed in pain.

"I don't care if you don't have stupid Dark magic. Just get him to co-operate better." he said, turning away and leaving Nico on the filthy floor. "You have one more week. If there isn't the progress that we need, we'll shut this stupid magic division down." Nico's breath hitched. That could not happen. He needed the magic division.

"All of you are freaks anyways," he heard his boss mutter, before closing the door, leaving him in complete darkness.

"Nico, you okay bud?" Nico heard Ian say.
"Yeah, just fine," he said, slightly high-pitchedly. Ian looked at him for a second before continuing.
"Anyways, you were saying something about an incident?" he continued.

"Yeah. So basically, during the – knocking out? recruitment? – of one specific person, he turned violent. We attempted to calm him down, but he lunged at Henwy, causing Sigils to go after him. Henwy then pulled Sigils back, and while they were distracted, the person threw a pen in the air, which was actually a grenade. Both Sapphire and I recognised this, and gave out the proper warning. Several magic students created a forcefield around the grenade, however Sapphire, likely worrying about creating more shrapnel, made a cone shield to protect everyone,"

Ian was quiet for a second. "Could you describe him to me?". Nico paused.
"He's slightly taller than me, wild eyes, brown hair and beard. He kind of reminds of someone,"
"In what way?
"I don't know. Maybe someone from... back... before?"
"Mkay,"

"Is that all?"
"Well, you know how Larissa agreed to a practice duel with Sapphire?" the brown eyed man said.
"Oh no. What happened?"
"It turns out that Larissa was corrupted with Dark magic – don't worry I uncorrupted her – and when Sapphire picked up the sword set aside for her it burned her hand. The strange thing is that Dark magic doesn't generally burn people,"
"Strange. Do you have any idea why it happened?"
"Nope,"
"Keep me updated on that,"
"Okay,"

Nico stood up. "I'll be seeing you around then,"
"Of course,"
"See you later,"
"Bye!"

a/n Ughh I don't like the ending but I ran out of motivation