Cypher’s Dream World - Sen

I began floating through Aereth. Well, what I thought to be Aereth at least.

The kingdom was in shambles, fire erupting left and right. Many had fallen, yet it was still unknown to me why.

“Why does Aereth look like this?” I whispered to myself.

I went through many towns trying to find survivors, and although I did, it appeared as though they were gravely injured or had gone through some sort of trauma preventing them from letting me search their minds for my answer. I followed Master and Lady Cypher to the great field north of the capital. It had a gigantic creator in the center.

“Sen-”

I heard my voice being called, so I turned around thinking it was Master. Instead, a hooded man much bigger than me grabbed me by the neck as thoughts of fear flooded through me: I can’t breathe! Master, where are you? Help me! The hooded man with his other hand reached for my anklet and crushed it causing electrical shocks to run through me and temporarily paralyzing me.

“Hah, so you are the successor for that stupid mage of sensory manipulation?” The man scoffed, “pathetic.”

“My master will come and destroy you,” I heard myself say. I couldn’t understand what was going on, but this seemed so real.

“Perish little one,” the hooded figure said as he tightened his grip around my neck. I heard a small crack then darkness came over me. Before I lost consciousness, however, I heard the hooded man say one last thing “Your ‘Master’ is dead.”

I immediately forced my eyes open and saw an elf face down in the dirt, a pool of blood beneath him practically dyeing his short white hair with the single braided stand red. He was quite a ways away from me so it was hard to tell, especially considering how disfigured he looked, clothes tattered left and right and wounds fully exposed and untreated.

“Master!” I screamed one last time with all my might before finally giving in to the subconsciousness.

- -

“Sen, wake up!” Master shouted as he shook me from my bed.

“Wha-” I looked around seeing I was still in the alternate dimension safe and sound with Master and Lady Cypher. “It was just a dream…”

“You ok? You started screaming in your sleep. Did you see another vision?” Master said as he knelt down next to me.

“Yeah… I dreamt about what Lady Cypher had told us about Aereth. It being in ruins… then some guy in a hood killed us,” I stuttered out nervously as I recalled the dream.

“I see.”

“I’m scared Master, my visions are never wrong. What if I really do die and you can’t get to me in time?” I said, looking down.

“Remember the pact we made? I am obligated to make sure you’re ‘A’ ok because if you die then so do I, and that would be such a terrible fate for the both of us,” Master said with a lighthearted laugh, hiding his emotion. “We can’t worry too much about it now. It was probably just a dream and nothing more, so let's get a move on.”

“A move on? To where?”

“Why, the training grounds of course! We gotta make sure the greatest killing machine in existence is in good practice!”

“Killing machine?”

“Fine, the greatest murdering fairy thing!”

“How is that any better Master?”

“Oh no! We’re going to be late,” Master said sarcastically as he ignored my question and skipped away.

The story Cypher had told us about the earthquake happened two weeks ago, and ever since then I had been having dreams every night about Aereth, all of them being nightmarish. In the meantime, Lady Cypher and Master Dokyeom had been training me and Ohies for the worst case scenario, though Master claims it's because he just wants me to be the strongest Ancient Mage in the new generation.

In reality, it is because the ancients are in pieces and we have to be stronger. They need successors to hand their power to, which is where Ohies and I come in when the time comes. Ohies, his full name being Ohies Lamo (but Master calls him ‘Lame oh’), will become the new Ancient Mage of Reality and I will become the new Ancient Mage of Sensory Manipulation. Ohies has been spending less time around us, as he’s been cooped up studying in the lab that Lady Cypher has created for him.

My master, on the other hand, did not give me a special lab. Instead, whenever I go anywhere he immediately calls me on our communication crystals going Where are yooooou? I missssssss yooooooou! Cooooooome baaaack! I’ll make you fooooood! Please come back! Sometimes I wonder what it feels like to be Ohies and not have a clingy master.

“Sen! Sen! Sen!” Master shouted at me excitedly as he raised his hands towards me “Look Sen!”

“Yes-” I was cut off by the complete shock that Master was creating a fire whip and using it as a skipping rope of some kind. “Whoa! Isn’t that super dangerous?”

“Nah, this is perfectly 100 percent safe,” he said as his left hand was licked by the red hot flames.

“Master, you’re burning yourself.”

“Shh, don’t sweat the small stuff,” he said while snapping his fingers to get rid of the whip.

Despite me and Ohies training for about the same amount of time, he is still significantly stronger than me and that can’t exactly be helped because he is learning how to control reality while I am just controlling the sensors on a body. Though because Master is the weakest out of all the Ancient Mages he is actually pretty good at performing other types of elemental magic, he is teaching me this so that if the time comes I can defend myself somewhat.

“Ah Lame oh nice of you to join us, I present you Sen, the cutest little fairy in all of existence! If you didn’t know already, as you should know the qualities of this incredible creature, she is super strong,” Master said as he clapped his hands than knelt down quickly, presenting me with his hands in my direction.

“Master please…” I mumbled silently to myself

“Yes, I am aware of Sen’s ‘incredible’ strength,” Ohies groaned. “Master Cypher said she could not join us today, so if Sir Dokyeom you would be willing to monitor the duel with an unbiased attempt when announcing the winners of the duel to Master Cypher?”

“Nope,” Master said crossing his arms.

“Pardon?” The uptight Ohies said in surprise, clearly not hearing the answer he was expecting.

“I said ‘Nope’ but if that is too difficult for the amazingly intelligent Lame oh than how about ‘No’, ‘No can do’, ‘I would rather not’, ‘Ask Cyph-Cyph again’? I don’t wanna be her personal message man,” he pouted, “plus I would likely alter the fight so Sen could win even though I know she will with or without my help.”

“N-no? But you must! Master Cypher is busy trying to figure stuff out in my lab!”

“I honestly have no idea what you were expecting Ohies, it’s Master Dokyeom we are talking about. Of course he can’t monitor us unbiased,” I said with a laugh so hard my stomach hurt.

“Well it was by my train of thought that he could possibly act like a responsible, normal adult that can just let us get this over with,” Ohies said with disgust while looking at Master.

“Young sir I will not stand for this sass, I am going to tell Cyph-Cyph,” Dokyeom said with his hands on his waist.

“Sir Dokyeom please just cooperate, for once!” Ohies shouted.

“I would rather not, but fine. I’m still telling Cyph-Cyph,” Master was clearly irritated. He clapped his hands and drew a cube in the air. Once he threw his hands up, neon blue walls immediately surrounded me and Ohies. “Don’t die.”

“Your unbelievable sir,” Ohies said.

“I think you were trying to say ‘Thank you all mighty and majestic Ancient Mage Dokyeom’, right?” Dokyeom shouted at Ohies. “I know it's hard being nice Ohies but you need to work on that! I don’t know how Cyph-Cyph puts up with you and your uptightness!”

We both got into our battle stances, preparing to activate our gems. Our Masters gave us matching jewelry to them, Ohies is his circlet that sits on top of his long purple hair, Mine is an anklet on my left foot. The use of the jewelry is to help us amplify our magical capabilities so that we have even a remote chance of being able to use their magic. Plus it is a sign that we made a pact with our master. We can not take off our jewelry without experiencing extreme pain, and believe me both of us tried because the jewelry was extremely uncomfortable to wear in the beginning.

“I shall go first,” Ohies stated as he made direct eye contact with me.

“What happened to ‘ladies first’, Ohies?!” Master whined.

“Master Dokyeom, please refrain from talking for the rest of the duel.”

“I am just going to go first…” I said quietly while the two bickered. I began taking a couple steps back giving him the space we both needed. Whenever we use our masters' powers we have to perform a sort of ceremonial dance, which makes our gems glow then we can use it. Me going first I did a backflip landing with one hand. A circle appeared in front of me and I kicked my left leg with the anklet towards the circle creating a prominent line through the circle. The gem glowed as the magic began its activation. Ohies sighed and went second, creating a tree as his mark that he needs to do for activating his magic.

“Yes, let’s go Sen! I believe in you!” Master shouted from the sidelines.

“Master,” I said while hiding my face in my hands.

“Let's just get this over with,” Ohies was clearly fed up. He circled his arm in the air and gradually a sword began to appear.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to present you Lame Oh and darling Sen’s duel! First off, they already activated their magic,” Master said into a crystal he pulled out to record our duel for Lady Cypher while providing commentary. “Right now, as you can see ladies and gents, Lame Oh is pulling out a weapon. Will Lame Oh be the first to attack?”

Ohies went and lunged towards me, causing me to stumble backward.

“And Ohies went to attack first! Come on Sen what are you doing?”

He raised his sword against me and almost struck me. I flew upwards and began to shoot fireballs at him. We both began flying around, throwing magic at each other until I was finally able to grab his arm. My sensory manipulation doesn’t work unless I touch the thing I need to manipulate, though master can do it just by looking at the person.

“Ohhhh, she finally touched him!” Master cheered.

A keypad appeared in front of me after making contact, I quickly pushed the greatest number it could do. 99 billion. I can’t be wasting so much time with how strong he is…

“Is Sen gonna attack?!?” Master said once more into the crystal. I hit the confirmation screen and immediately shot a fireball at Ohies.

“-And she went for it!” Master yelled.

“Augh!” he screamed and fell towards the ground. I made it so that all the sensors on his body would act as though a limb was getting torn off just from a simple rock hitting him, so something actually powerful it would hurt him beyond imaginable.

“Oh my! Look at Lame oh in all that pain!”

“Please make it stop!” Ohies pleaded. “Please… I wasn’t expecting you to put the sensors this high!”

“Does Ohies surrender?” Master asked dramatically.

“...Yes,” He said lying on the ground unable to move from all the pain.

“Ok,” Master said waving one of his hands to get rid of the walls around us.

“And there you have it Cypher: their duel!”