Prophecy Approved Companion

"Well," the captain said, a little lost for words at the bluntness of the Chosen One’s boundaries. She was showing classic signs of First Exposure to Chosen One. Namely, an inability to know how to deal with his conversational skills.

“If you try to stop us then we can just secretly … storm the castle without you finding out?” The Thieves Guild leader seemed equally uncertain on how to deal with the Hero.

“Except I ain't gonna tell you when I'm gonna do it. Might be today. Might be tomorrow. Who can say?” The Chosen One was almost unbearably smug about the whole thing. “But I’ll have ways of knowing if you try to join us, and the instant you do, Operation: Walkabouts starts.”

Sencha Bard was looking at the posturing Hero with open admiration, a look he rarely directed at any male and almost never at the Chosen One.

“I have misjudged you,” he said, sweeping a bow at him. “That would never have occurred to me. I’ve never heard of a neater solution.”

"You don't always gotta try and control other people's brains or whatever, Sing-Song," the Chosen One said, dropping his smug attitude and adopting a hint of gentleness. "Sometimes all you can do is control yourself, do your own thing, and let everyone else sort themselves out."

"I must confess, my attempts to ‘do my own thing,’ as you would say, haven't been met with the greatest of success," the Bard said wryly. He shot a meaningful look at the Thieves Guild. It appeared he still held a grudge against them for imprisoning him in a cage, all that time ago. “I seem destined to play second fiddle,” he added, almost to himself. “And yet, is that so bad a role to play? Or does it depend on who your conductor is? I wonder…”

"Sencha Bard," Qube said, quietly enough that the two groups couldn't hear her. "If you wish to file a report against the Thieves Guild for kidnapping you, then I'm sure both the Chosen One and I will be willing to stand witness. But perhaps we should wait until after we overthrow the Evil Emperor? Just to avoid getting embroiled in … whatever happens during an arrest."

She wasn’t sure what making a report would entail (she’d have to ask the Chosen One, he’d mentioned doing reports before), but some part of her felt certain it would involve filling out paperwork. And, while she was naturally confident in her ability to pen even a full page of report by herself, it would still take an extraordinary amount of time that they could ill-afford.

“Really, the arrogance of this guy to think he can take on the Evil Emperor on his own,” the second-in-command of the Thieves Guild (whose life Qube had saved, not that long ago!) was loudly complaining to a battle-scarred rat. In fact, possibly the same rat Qube had rescued him from. The rodent was nodding along.

“I know!” Eddie the city guard (who had just pledged to follow the Hero’s commands!) agreed indignantly, unexpectedly joining in. “We've been guarding this city for years and he thinks he can just come in and change our ruler without any local help?”

Qube began to swell in outrage. How could they be so ungrateful to the Chosen One? Sure, he might be rude, and strange, and technically from another plane of existence, but he was going to save their entire kingdoms! He was even trying to keep these two complainers alive!

“Honestly what can you expect from some small town kid raised to think he's the most important person in the kingdom just cuz of a piece of paper?” The thief gave Eddie a surprisingly friendly look, considering they had been moments away from fighting before.

“You know he’s never said hi back to me?” Eddie asked bitterly. “Every time he came to Cobbletown I'd give him a proper greeting and he'd just walk past me like I wasn't even there.”

That was just how the Chosen One was! It wasn’t his fault that he’d never bothered to learn basic social skills! These two weren’t any better, complaining while standing directly in front of the man they were discussing.

A man who was looking both amused, and slightly confused, by the bonding between the thief and the guard.

“Hah! All adventurers are like that. Why, he came in and agreed to do a quest for us and never handed it in,” the second replied.

“No follow through, these outsiders,” Eddie agreed with a world-weary sigh. “What was the quest?”

“Oh we had to steal the sword of the city guard captain,” the thief said to the guard without a hint of awkwardness.

“See, that would have been real easy! She leaves it on her desk for 12 hours a day, that ain't even a hard quest,” Eddie said. “At that point it’s just typical adventurer laziness.”

“It’s disrespectful, that’s what gets me,” a third thief joined in.

“They’re all like that,” Rhaul added, also joining. “Never stop to think about us little folk.”

While the captain and leader loudly worked out a plan on how to secretly storm the castle against the wishes of the person they were trying to help, their underlings were quickly bonding over their dislike of anyone higher-up than themselves.

The highest up of whom, the Chosen One, had leant against the side of the gate, and was watching the whole drama unfold with sheer delight.

“On second thought, we can make a report now,” Qube said in the same undertone to the Bard. “Justice is important, after all. Maybe there’s someone above the captain we can mention it to, just to make sure it goes to someone who will actually do their job.”

“No,” Sencha Bard said with a sigh. “I hold no ill will towards them.”

This was clearly a lie but Qube didn't press the issue.

“I was in the wrong to steal within their territory, and I fear the city guards would scarcely look kindly upon their reason for imprisoning me,” Sencha Bard said. “Still, I thank you for your consideration.” After a moment he added: “that, and I fear the captain is the highest official we can be sure isn’t working for the Evil Emperor. And, given the display before us, I hold little faith in their ability to act in an appropriate manner.”

“Yes, don't allow such small-minded fools drag you down into their mess,” Sexy Screamy Spider Briar said, glaring at the thieves and guards. She seemed to be taking their grumbling very personally. “They’re focus is far too narrow to understand the scope of our work. And just watch: Sycophants like them will eat their words once we're exalted by the King and Queen. It's always the way with peons.”

“If you understand me, hold up a single paw,” Definitely Bad Guy, divorced from such mundane things as workplace drama, instructed the giant mutant rat wearing a crossbow that was standing before him. The rat hissed at him and bit at the air.

“Either it fails to understand me, or the subject is being non-compliant,” the Mage muttered. He looked at Squiggles, who’d been edging her way deeper into Cobbletown. “Would you be willing to communicate with it and ask it to cooperate? I would prefer to have living answers before moving on to studying the organic components.”

Squiggles opened her mouth in joy at the idea, and moved to hug one of the rats.

“Sparky,” the Chosen One said warningly, reaching out and grabbing Squiggles by a stray flag, stopping her mid-lunge.

“Ah, that is only if they are killed in the coming conflict, naturally,” the Mage added hurriedly. “Only then would I study their interiors. I only wish to be thorough in my… experiments.”

“Speaking of creepy things! We should check on how Tweedledum and Tweedledee are doing,” the Chosen One said, despite the fact that no one had mentioned the word creepy.

“Who are they?” Qube asked. She immediately started scouring her memory for the names, but came up blank.

“Reddi and Bluey or whatever we ended up calling them,” the Chosen One said. “The twins.” His voice trailed off for a second, like he’d suddenly run out of the energy to speak but, by the time Qube looked at him, he was pushing himself off the gate he was leaning against. Only the dark smudges under his eyes betrayed any hint of exhaustion.

“It'll be cool to see whether or not they've managed to murder each other,” he said cheerfully, as if he wasn't discussing the demise of Definitely Bad Guy's twins. “I’m betting the fire one wins.”

This time Qube didn't even bother to correct his social gaffe. She knew that Definitely Bad Guy would just agree with the Hero that seeing which version of himself survived was “cool” and she didn't know if she could witness her friend’s tacit interest in his own murder. By himself. Kinda.

“By all means,” Definitely Bad Guy said, immediately confirming her assessment of his opinion on the matter of self-murder. “There are several things I have contemplated doing if I were ever in the position to experiment on myself, and it would be most enlightening to see if they have attempted any of them.”

Yep. This was the joy of travelling with a formerly-Evil teammate.

—

The Wizard's Tower was the same as it had always been. Tall, dark and twisted, Qube couldn't believe that she'd never even suspected that Definitely Bad Guy might not be Good. She'd been deceived by the fact that the exiled Royals had vouched for him, and her belief that he'd need to keep up the appearance of Evil so that the Evil Emperor wouldn't suspect his secret Goodness.

Although, the role of Mage Advisor (and presumably the Wizard’s Tower that went along with it) had existed since before the coup. So even when the Good King and Queen were in charge it still would have looked mildly Evil. It just went to show that she shouldn't judge a Wizard by his Tower.

Any further ponderings on the nature of Tower-based judging was cut short by the door greeting them.

“Welcome home, master,” it said to Definitely Bad Guy.

The Chosen One kicked the door open.

“Not today, stairs,” he said to the spiralling staircase before them as he pulled out the amulet the Mage had given him on the first visit, teleporting the entire group to the Mage’s bedroom/study.

Qube wasn't sure what she'd been expecting to find at the top of the tower. She'd certainly hoped that both versions of the Mage would be there, maybe having come to some kind of understanding and peace with their existence as Temple-born by-products. She’d feared that neither of them would be there or, worse, only one would be. There was also the possibility that they had moved on to the Wizards’ Academy.

No part of her had even conceived that the two Mages might not be alone.

It had taken the two Mages only a few days to accomplish what had taken Definitely Bad Guy months: They’d made some friends.

The Beast Keeper from the Royal Bestiary was examining a bone, and knowledgeably conversing with the red-coloured Mage about the feeding habits of griffins. To the side, two people Qube had never met before nodded along, carefully listening.

A worker from the Royal Observatory and what looked like the blacksmith's apprentice were watching the blue-coloured Mage grinding something on a rune-covered table while lecturing them on the importance of resource purity.

Both Mages looked surprisingly happy about this invasion into their space.

It made sense. Definitely Bad Guy was never happier than when he was lecturing someone (usually Qube) about magic, and these two had somehow managed to accumulate an entire classroom's worth of students eager to listen to what they had to say. It seemed that whether he embraced his darker or lighter side, that core love of sharing knowledge remained.

"They can be sustained long past the point of death with judicial use of healing potions," Reddi said to his students.

Even when the nature of said knowledge was really, really concerning.

"They haven't disappeared," Sencha Bard said disapprovingly. He looked at Definitely Bad Guy. "How long should the spell sustaining them last?"

"That depends entirely on the nature of the spell," Definitely Bad Guy replied. He was watching the joy on his two selves’ faces, while his own expression remained inscrutable. "They appear content for now, so I would advise continued observation."

"Content? Honey, that's the look of love," Sexy Screamy Spider Briar said to the Mage. He pivoted abruptly and looked at the Hunter, who lifted a claw. "Don't worry, my hot-headed Mage. I won't even tease you about it. I think it's sweet your children have found their passion."

She gave him a meaningful look.

"And that they have the courage to grasp it, rather than hang back in fear," she added in a murmur. As the Mage spluttered, she gave a throaty laugh. "Oh dear! After I'd just promised you I wouldn't tease you, too!"

“I also observe that they have failed to experiment with each other,” Definitely Bad Guy said firmly, ignoring how both the Hunter and the Bard started violently coughing. “This indicates a lack of drive in them. That, or they have allowed themselves to become distracted by teaching such willing students.”

There was a wistfulness in his voice at that last part that tugged at Qube’s heart strings. As she watched him watching his selves, she vowed that, no matter what happened when they ascended into the Dev’s realm, she would strain every nerve to make sure that the Mage would get to fulfil his dream.

One day, Definitely Bad Guy would get the chance to become a teacher. An entire class taught by such a learned Mage! A new generation, raised under his tutelage.

Who wouldn’t be thrilled by that?