Nero's eyes browsed the stands and shelves as he and his mom walked through the streets. The book fair was in town, and mom wanted to find some new reading material to add to her collections, something that he didn't really see the appeal to. None of the poems or wordy crap that she liked to read struck a cord with him. Nero always gravitated towards things like graphic novels and things like that.
"Nero, come look at this," Lilith said. Nero headed over to her, briefly passing by a mirror that he looked into for a second. At eight-years-old, he had gotten taller than he used to be by a few inches. His right arm still looked the same, though it tended to glow brighter than it did before. Since today was a casual weekend day, he decided on a short sleeved navy blue hoodie with dark green long pants and white sneakers.
"What did you find?" Nero asked as he approached his mother, who was currently reading a book whose title said Prose and Poems.
"Oh, just bunch of old poems. But some of them I used to read when I was around your age," she explained while smiling brightly, "Here's one of my favorites."
She then cleared her throat and began reciting:
"Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?"
Nero listened as she continued with the entire thing, even though the poem itself didn't interest him. Still, he was glad that reading it made his mom happy.
Lilith sighed and happily said, "William Blake, I have no idea who you are, but your work simply speaks to me. What do you think, Nero?"
"It's...fine." he replied.
Lilith's smile dropped a bit. She could tell he didn't really enjoy it.
"Nero, I take it you're not having fun here?" Lilith asked as she knelt down.
Nero shook his head and said, "No, it's not that. I just haven't found anything that I like is all."
He saw his mother look around with a hand under her chin before she turned back to him.
"Well, I think it would be a good idea for you to look around to see if you can find anything you'd like. I'll wait right here for you."
Nero nodded and he started walking around, trying to find anything that could satisfy his interests. As he looked, he found a few self-insert stories that used magic mirrors on the front cover to project the reader into the book, but most of them were these corny romantic drama books that he tossed aside after reading the title or flipping to the back to read the summary. He found a few comics that piqued his interest, but most of them were things he'd already read before, so he just put them back.
He kept looking around until he stopped and saw one book sitting upon an empty shelf. Nero couldn't explain why he was so drawn to it. Maybe there was some unforeseen factor about the book that was pulling him to it?
Or more likely that it was a dusty old book sitting along on a shelf and looked really awkward like that.
Nero picked it up and saw that it was coated entirely in dust and cobwebs, making it impossible to make out the title. Taking a deep breath, he blew on the covers of the old book to get as much of the dust off as he could. Some of it ended up getting into his nose and mouth, making him cough into his elbows for a bit. As soon as he finished, he saw that the book cover was pitch black and it had an odd-looking red pentagram.
Nero skimmed through the pages of the book and found himself enthralled by its contents. The book contained a list and images of the many different species of monsters that inhabited the Boiling Isles as well as showed places where they have either been found or are most likely to be in.
He thought back to that day on his first day at Hexside. He remembered what it was like to fight and throw that monster around; how fun it was to do so, and how cathartic it was. He had yet to tell his mother of that moment, but he also didn't really want her to find out. She tended to worry a lot about him, and he was sure that knowing that he fought a monster, even if he won, would make her have a panic attack.
Still, the monsters he got to punch around where few and far between. During his days at Hexside, he would find opportunities to sneak out without anyone noticing. Usually, he'd say he had to go to the bathroom, sneak out the window, then run to the woods hoping for a monster to pop out so he could give it a beat down. But it was actually rather rare that a monster would come out and fight him, and it was usually easy to deal with. This left Nero feeling unfulfilled due to the lack of a challenge from fighting one weak monster at a time, and so rarely at that.
That was especially disappointing considering that those woods were closest to school. While none of Nero's days at Hexside were as bad or as boring as his first, they didn't exactly get any better. Even when he actually started learning a few new things, they just as quickly started to become boring again after a few classes since he picked up on the subjects too fast.
Outside of that, he still couldn't make any friends with anyone. It wasn't like he was disliked at Hexside, more so the opposite. In each class, everyone always considered him "the cool kid" either thanks to him being smarter than most of them, who his mom was thanks to her being the leader of the strongest Coven on the isles, or because of his right arm and how everyone liked to fawn over it like it was one of those new toys that the rich kids always showed off.
It was all just so very annoying. Nero didn't like how everyone kept looking at him like he was some kind of idol. He just wanted to be a normal kid. But that was something that wasn't gonna happen.
He took up fighting against those monsters in the woods not only because it was all fun for him, but because it also relieved some of the stress from his school life and having to put up with all the annoyances.
With the book in his hands, he might be able to find bigger, stronger monsters to fight against. Maybe more of what he occasionally fought against in the woods in larger numbers. He just had to make sure his mom didn't find out.
Nero looked for a table near the shelf and saw none. He looked around near the shelf, wondering where he was supposed to go to pay for the book, but still saw no one, just other customers and sellers at other shelves either discussing prices, novels, or getting eaten by one of those books that were also alive.
He shrugged, figuring that he could just take this book without payment, and walked back to where he knew his mother was. As soon as he saw her, still reading through those poems that she liked so much, he ran up to tell her about what he found.
"Hey mom! Look what I-"
"Hi there!"
"WAAAH!"
That was the plan up until a head of green hair and a pair of amber eyes got in his way and made him fall over, kicking up dirt in the process. He shook his head and heard a giggling that made him look up.
In front of him were two kids, both who looked to be the same age as each other and maybe a little younger than he was as far as he could tell. To the left was a boy with short hair and wearing a purple shirt with green pants and dark sneakers with white socks. To the right was a girl with green hair that was tied into twin tails and wearing a green shirt with purple shorts and identical footwear to the boy. Both of them were giving him the same mischievous smiles.
It bothered him.
"Nero! Are you alright?" his mom asked as she walked up and held out her hand to help him up, with the two kids moving out of her way as she did so.
"Yeah, I'm okay. Just got surprised," Nero said as he looked back at the green-haired kids.
The girl just giggled and said, "Sorry about that, we just wanted to say hi."
"Well, so long as it was an accident," Lilith said as she turned to Nero, "Nero, why don't you say hello?"
"Hi," Nero said reluctantly. Something about these two just bothered him, and he couldn't explain why.
"Hey, you're that Nero kid from school, right?" the boy asked, though it sure didn't sound like a question to him, "I'm Edric, and this is my sister Emira."
The girl waved at him upon introduction.
"Hey, do you wanna play with us?" Emira asked, "We know some fun games we can play together."
Nero was about to shake his head and say no, given that these two rubbed him the wrong way, but his mom interrupted.
"I think that's a splendid idea!" she said as she clasped her hands together.
"But mom, I-" Nero tried to say, but mom held her hand up and looked at Edric and Emira.
"Would you two give us a minute, please?"
The twins nodded and walked away before stopping at a nearby corner. Nero looked into his mother's eyes as she knelt down to around his level.
"Mom," Nero complained, "I don't want to play with them. They just...rub me the wrong way."
However, he wasn't exactly sure why they did, so he didn't really know how to explain it to his mother.
"Nero," she said, "You've been struggling a lot to make friends in school. Think of this as a chance to make some friends your age."
He just looked away, finding the floor more engaging than the current conversation. His mom gently turned his head back to face her as she placed her hands at his sides.
"I'm not saying that you absolutely should befriend them," she explained, "I'm saying that you should at least give them a chance. Get to know them a little bit before you decide."
Nero still wasn't fully convinced as he looked into his mother's eyes. She gave a more pleading look.
"Just give it a try, for me."
Seeing that face on his mother made him consider as he looked down for a moment. While he wasn't fully onboard with it, he didn't want to make his mom sad.
He looked back to his mother and nodded, "Okay, I'll give it a shot."
Her face beamed as she hugged him for moment, "Perfect," she said, "We'll meet in about an hour. I'll wait for you at the fair grounds entrance, alright?"
Nero nodded before he looked back at the twins, who seemed bored while waiting for him. Deciding that it wouldn't hurt to try, he walked up to them to start hanging out. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, right?
It had only been the first thirty minutes of hanging out with Edric and Emira and Nero was already regretting it.
So far, their idea of "fun" consisted of pelting random people with balloons filled with a rash inducing substance and laughing at their reactions.
Nero found it all so very, very annoying. The people they were messing with weren't bothering anyone, so why did they feel the need to screw around with their personal lives?
Nero tried to tune out their laughing as they magically tied the shoelaces of another random bystander and made him trip into a puddle of the same liquid that filled the balloons. He instead tried looking around and saw that he was still holding the book he had found earlier. Deciding that their ideas of "fun" weren't for him, he flipped to a random page so he could get started on learning what monsters dwelled in the regions that he and his mother lived around.
"Whatcha readin'," he paused as he heard Edric's all too cheery tone loom over his shoulder.
"None of your business, Edric," Nero said, trying to keep his tone as even as possible.
"Come on, let me see!" he whined, before he tried to reach for it.
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"Pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase?"
"For the last time, NO!" Nero yelled, seeming to scare Edric.
Seeing this, he calmed down and took a deep breath.
"I said no, and I mean it. Don't ask again."
Edric nodded rapidly as Nero walked past him, still reading his new book.
"Jeez, you don't have to be such a buzzkill," he heard Emira say, "Why don't you relax and have some fun like we are?"
"You have a very shitty idea of what 'fun' is," Nero said, not bothering to turn back to face them nor caring about what he just said. Sure, his mom warned him not to use any bad words, but considering who he was being forced to spend time with for the next half hour, he felt it warranted at least some cursing.
"Come on," Emira pleaded as she ran in front of him, holding one of their balloons, "The least you could do is try one."
Nero, without even hesitating, took the balloon from her hand and summoned an ethereal claw to throw it with all his strength. The balloon flew far over the horizon and could no longer be seen.
"There. I threw it. Moving on," Nero walked past Emira and went back to his book.
"You...you're just..." Emira stammered in frustration, "You're just no fun!"
"Well then leave!" Nero turned and yelled back at her, "Not like I wanted to hang out with you in the first place!"
"Well fine! Maybe we will!" Emira stomped off, "Come on Edric!"
"Uh, sorry about my sister," Edric nervously said, "A-anyway, it was nice meeting you, bye!"
He then ran off and followed after Emira. After they were out of sight, Nero felt a swell of guilt in his chest. Sure, they were hurting people for no reason, but maybe he shouldn't have yelled at them like that.
Nero tried his best to ignore that guilt. No matter what, they still hurt random people and treated it like it was just a game to them. He didn't want to be friends with anyone like that.
Either way, what's done is done, and he had enough of the book fair for one day. He walked back to the entrance where his mother was waiting for him, not wanting to spend another minute here.
"Well, I think that went well."
"Shut up Edric." Emira responded to her brother in frustration.
Emira saw her brother look down, but she wasn't in the mood to care at the moment.
The two of them sat in the backseat of their family's luxury carriage as Emira just leaned back and crossed her arms.
The whole thing was just so frustrating. Nero clearly didn't know how to have fun. All he did was complain about their games or just stick his nose in that stupid book of his. If Emira wanted to, she'd just play with Edric and not bother with the boring load that they had to bring along. Not like she had much of a choice, and now she and her brother had to tell their parents about how they couldn't befriend him.
She felt the carriage come to a stop and looked outside, seeing that they had arrived at their home; the Blight manor.
The abomination carriage driver groaned as they walked out of the carriage. As Emira stood at the front door, she let out a loud sigh, with her brother doing the same in equal measure as she knocked on the front door. It was time to face the music.
After a couple seconds, one of their family's servant abominations answered the door and let them in. The two walked into the halls, with Emira nervously leading the way as she and her brother walked to their house's main living room. As they entered, they saw their mother sitting in her usual seat drinking tea, her bright green hair perfectly done in a low bun, as usual, with her pink, oval gem shimmering as she looked to both of them with piercing blue eyes.
"Tell me, Edric, Emira," she began, "How did your day go?"
Deciding to speak for both of them, Emira cleared her throat and said, "It went fine mother, we attended and spent our day at the book fair as instructed." She then looked around for a bit before asking, "Where's dad?"
"Oh, he's downstairs working on his abomination experiments. You know how your father is with his work," Their mother said in a sort of 'pish posh' tone before she gave an expecting smile and asked, "So, were you successful in befriending the Clawthorne child?"
Emira tried her best not to sigh or grunt, but was able to do so mentally. Instead, she just responded as evenly as she could, "We tried, but we were unsuccessful."
"Well, it's really no matter at the moment, I suppose," Mom replied as she added something to her tea, Emira couldn't remember what it was called, and took a drink of it before she continued, "You will have plenty of attempts to acquaint yourself with him, but don't dilly dally on it. Remember, as the son of the head of the Emperor's Coven, he represents a powerful future ally and point of contact for the both of you. Such a colleague is a boon for any Blight."
Aaaand here we go, Emira thought to herself as her mother started the whole talk about how they only associated with 'the strongest and highest pedigree of witches'. Mother and father had given this speech to them a lot since they turned five, and Emira was getting pretty good at pretending to listen to it all and tune the boring drivel out. To her side, she saw Edric looked like he was about to fall asleep, so she gave him a light elbow and kept him awake.
As mother finished the old family spiel, she concluded with, "So put a greater effort into making him your friend. He is the most powerful witchling in your age group, and the strongest are those that we must surround ourselves with."
"If that's true, then why do you let Mittens hang out with that Willow girl?" Emira found herself scoffing as she crossed her arms.
A wave of fear hit Emira as she covered her mouth, realizing that probably shouldn't have said that as her mother placed her tea down and got up, towering over both of them, a flash of anger in her eyes for a second before it became neutral. Beside her, Edric looked equally fearful.
"That girl," she began, sounding as if she was trying to calm herself down, "Is nothing more than a phase. Rest assured, Amity will come to realize how that girl holds her back eventually and how she has no need for such hinderances to her future."
Mother then knelt down and held both of them by Edric's left shoulder and her right shoulder respectively, "Children, you must realize that whom we choose to acquaint ourselves with will determine both our future and standing among the nobles of the isles. Associating with such riff raff could damage all of your chances of becoming ascending the covens' ranks when you all come of age. As such, this is simply for the better interests of both yourselves and our family. Do you understand?"
"Yes mother," Emira and Edric both nodded.
"Good," she then released her hands from their shoulders and returned to her seat, "Now, I believe you both have your studies to continue." she said as she took another drink from her tea, "You are dismissed."
The two of them nodded and began walking the halls to get to their rooms. Emira didn't have any intention of studying, and she was sure that Edric was in the same boat as her. As she entered their room, she undid her ponytails, letting her hair fall down, plopped onto her bed and faced the ceiling. She saw Edric pull out a sketch book and began to doodle something that she couldn't see from her angle.
Blights can only have super strong, super important friends, Emira bitterly thought to herself, Wish we could have real friends and not a bunch of stuck up, no fun fakes.
She hated how their parents always tried to set them up with the kids of one of their friends. She and her brother wanted to make their own friends; people who were fun to hang out with, share a good joke with, play pranks with, and just have fun. But nope, mom and dad wanted their friends to be boring stuck up snobs who always told them what to do and decided what they would play.
"You okay Emira?" she heard Edric ask, "You have that face again."
"I'm fine Edric, just...tired."
They just sat their quietly for a bit before Edric spoke up again and broke the silence, "So, Nero was...okay, right?"
"More like a total killjoy," Emira grumbled as she turned to face her brother while resting on her side, "He just kept telling us to stop having any fun and stuck his nose in that stupid book."
"Yeah, he wouldn't even let me look at it," Edric muttered, "And it looked like it had some really cool pictures to."
"So mom wants us to be friends with that guy? No way, I'd rather fight that Grom monster that I heard the older kids at school talk about."
Emira rolled over and buried her head in her pillow.
"Y'know," Emira heard Edric muse as she turned her head to face him again, "Mom never said that we have to make the next attempt to become his friends the right one. She just said 'don't dilly dally' on it."
Emira sat up as she started getting where Edric was coming from.
"So, we just have to keep trying..." Edric continued.
"But we don't have to actually succeed," Emira finished, "Edric, that's the first smart thing I've heard you say!"
"Aw, thanks," Edric smiled before it quickly morphed into a frown, "Hey!"
"What?" Emira shrugged before getting under her blanket and plopping her head down on the pillow.
All they had to do was just keep failing at making friends with the guy. Shouldn't be too hard for them to pull off. After all, he was a complete buzzkill who'd rather read than have fun or whatever other boring stuff he did in his free time.
It was late at night as Nero wandered a forest close to his home. Before he left, he made sure that his mom was fast asleep, being grateful that she was a very heavy sleeper.
He'd read from his new book about the different kind of monsters that lurked in certain parts of the forests. One of which that caught his eye was a type of monster called the Comessationibus Lacerta, or 'Rioting Lizard' according to the book's nifty translation. But that was too much of a mouthful for Nero, so he decided that he'd call them 'Riots'. They were usually found in the area of the forest he was heading towards and liked to attack any random wanderers that peacefully passed by, and they usually attacked in large groups with savage brutality, sorta like...well, a riot.
They certainly looked stronger than the puppet/doll monsters he fought near school, and the prospect of getting to fight them actually got Nero excited. He couldn't stop smiling as he ran to where the book said they were usually found.
When he was sure that he reached the area, he looked around and stuffed the book into his jacket, seeing nothing but trees, bushes, and rocks all over the place. It looked like they weren't going to come out unless they knew he was here.
"Hey you ugly mugs! Your mom says you smell like barf!" Nero yelled out.
That should get their attention.
Sure enough, the bushes and trees rustled, and a group of five large navy skinned lizards with sharp claws and split open jaws leapt forward and surrounded him from all sides. Most people would probably cower right now.
Instead, a smirk made its way onto Nero's face as he summoned his ethereal claw and threw it forward to grab the lizard right in front of him. He threw it around, slamming it onto the ground multiple times before letting go and tossing it into the nearest tree, splitting the trunk in half.
The remaining four lizards all looked around, both at him and at each other before returning their attention to him and hissing angrily. Clearly they weren't expecting him to fight back.
Two of them tried to charge right at him from both his left and right, claws primed to cut him up. Nero simply jumped as they neared, making them crash into each other as he landed on one of their heads before jumping forward and rolling into a crouching position facing them.
"Hah, eat that lizard breath!" Nero taunted as he pointed at them with his left hand, forming a spell circle and launching a ball of fire at the two downed Riots. They screeched in pain as they both burned up and fell down dead.
Seeing this, Nero looked at his left hand and got an idea as he looked back to face the two remaining Riots, who looked a lot more cautious now.
He formed another spell circle and instead of having it make a fire ball, he steadied his left hand with his right and pointed his left finger at the center of the spell circle, aiming right at one of the Riots.
He remembered something he saw in one of his cartoons, and now he wanted to put it to use.
"Pew!"
And with that utterance, a small fireball shot out at one of the Riots, who was quick enough to dodge it by blitzing to the side. Since the spell circle was still up, Nero did what he did last time.
"Pew! Pew!"
Two more fireballs were blasted. The same Riot managed to dodge the first one, but the second one hit it square on the face, making a small explosion of heat when it impacted. The Riot plopped down dead with a charred neck where its head used to be.
Nero pulled his hand back and held his left finger (which was giving off smoke) to his face and blew on it, emulating something he saw on the Crystal Ball network. He then faced the last Riot, who was looking around terrified and unsure what to do. Nero decided to let the monster off easy.
"Tell you what lizard breath, I'm feeling generous tonight, so I'll let you off easy," Nero said in a smug voice, "So get running and don't bother anyone else again unless you want to take a ride on my fist!"
The Riot ran away in a panic, but rather than take satisfaction in that, Nero grimaced as he realized how lame his last one liner sounded.
"Ugh, Titan dammit! I messed up my cool one liner!" he then slapped himself on the face and muttered, "Note to self, come up with better one liners for the future."
Looking around, he saw that he was all alone; nothing in sight that was odd except for a broken tree, some monster corpses, and some slightly charred patched of dirt and grass. Seeing that there was nothing else to do, Nero shrugged and placed his hands behind his head, content with walking home as he smiled from all the fun he had just now.