Zeph Malston: The Aether Mage

Zeph's patrol duties continued and he found a batch of left over creatures every day. After every battle, Bianca would review his performance. Live combat was refining his skills, and he was happy with the improvement. He preferred to fight from range and started to increase the variety of spells in his arsenal. Bianca constantly nagged him about his constant reliance on lightning and telekinesis. In fact, she was making him limit himself to certain elements each day. One day he could use fire, and the next would be a water day and so on and so forth. She was surprised to see that Zeph had an affinity with every type of magic she made him try this week and asked him why he never tried to expand his repertoire before. His reply made her smack him upside the head.

"I don't know and a shrug is not an answer," she said after giving him a gentle love tap.

Zeph rubbed the back of his head. "Ow, why you gotta be so violent," he said dramatically.

Bianca laughed. "Yeah, like that hurt. Don't be such a baby."

"Seriously though, I just never thought about it. Lightning and TK work fine, and I didn't really think about enemy weaknesses to type until I started fighting this week."

"Fine," she frowned, "I guess it's my fault for not making sure you knew that stuff. Seeing as I'm your master and all. It's just easy to forget that your common sense sucks."

"Yeah, but I've got a good excuse. At least I'm not like Lili."

"That's not really a good comparison. She's got common sense. She just doesn't care enough to use it. Plus, she's more of a book smart kind of girl."

"Yeah, I still don't get how that works. How can she be so smart and so dumb at the same time?"

Bianca stopped walking and stared at Zeph.

"What?" he looked back at her.

She started laughing again. "Nothing, I think I figured out why you two get along though."

"Why is that?"

"Cuz you're both so much alike."

The two continued walking down the street passing people as they continued patrolling. Things were calming down and people were starting to go about daily life again. It was late evening and it was almost time to head home. Bianca and Zeph were chatting when they saw a crowd on the street corner. Apparently, a fight was going on between two shifters.

Two wolf-kin men were brawling on the street. Apparently one sniffed at the other's girlfriend and he took offense to that. When Zeph heard the reason, he looked at his teacher wondering what the heck they meant by a sniff.

Bianca sighed. "When the full moon comes around, our baser instincts get all riled up. It can also cause mood swings. Semara and I usually go out and relieve stress by sparring or racing. That guy apparently let his instinct get the better of him."

"Racing? Really?" Zeph was a little surprised.

Bianca nodded her head.

"Hmm didn't expect that. Still, what's up with the whole sniff thing?"

"We have a heightened sense of smell, so we're able to… appreciate scents more than humans do. That guy, apparently, liked the scent of the other guy's girlfriend too much and decided to get close and take a big ol' whiff. He might as well grab her c.h.e.s.t. Guys usually have better control of themselves than that, but that idiot decided to get drunk on the night of a full moon."

"How do you know he's drunk?"

"I can smell the booze from here."

"Oh." Zeph rubbed his chin. "Speaking of smells, what about me?"

"What do you mean?" Semara tilted her head.

"Well, you know with my…background. Do I smell human or do I smell unnatural? Is it something I have to worry about?"

"Oh, that. Nah, you're fine. Otherwise, Semara would have brought it up. She's much more s.e.n.s.i.t.i.v.e about scent than I am. According to her, you smell like a forest after it rains."

"That's weird."

"Yeah, I know. You smell more like a garden after it rains to me."

"Wait, what?"

"Well she thinks you smell more like trees and wild plants, and I think you smell like a garden full of flowers. Both are subdued by the smell of fresh rain. It's a little odd, but nothing too weird." Bianca pointed at someone in the crowd. "That lady smells like fresh cut grass mixed with freshly turned earth." She pointed at another person. "That guy smells like aged wood with a light hint of smoke. Everyone has a unique smell under everything else. Most are hard to explain to non-shifters, so I came up with my best comparison. I thought you would have figured this out when you did your little shapeshift trick."

"Nope, the enhanced senses are pretty jarring so I kinda ignore them. Especially the sense of smell, there's just so much going on there. It's like looking at a mixed bag of glitter and trying to pick out the right color."

Bianca tapped her chin and started walking down the street, ignoring the cheering crowd as the two wolf-kin continued beating on each other. "Hmm, we should probably train that. I know that the enhanced senses help me out when I'm on a hunt. You should take advantage of it. Yeah, how about we start some shifter training this weekend?"

"Wait, what?"

"Yeah, remember how you said you were working on an a.d.u.l.t form. How about making it a shifter? I could help you learn to act like one of us and you can enjoy the benefits of being super awesome." Bianca gave him a smile that reminded Zeph of a used car salesman.

"Super awesome you say?"

"I can't help it if shifters were designed to be superior to baseline humans. I'm not saying being a shifter is better than being a human, but I am saying that having superior senses along with a cute set of ears and a fluffy tail are pretty great."

Zeph smirked. "So now you're trying to sell me on the cute factor huh?

"Pshh, please. You're already sold on the cute factor. Your secret love for all things cute and fluffy is as much of a secret as Alex's. Besides, you're like the brother I never had. If you made your older form foxy, we could go out and do cool brother-sister stuff like hunt, see movies, mess with a certain wolf girl. Ooh! Semmy and I can take you to a club and we'll have someone to discourage the drunken idiots that try to hit on us all the time. Dancing would be so much more fun if we didn't have to deal with that."

Zeph gave her a wry smile. "I see now. You and Semmy want to go out partying, but babysitting the young lord keeps you two homebound all the time. If I was to go out with you, you two could have fun and do your jobs." He pretended to be hurt. "You're just using me."

Bianca's face blanked and she blinked a couple of times before her brain restarted. "I didn't even really think about it that much, but you're right. We could totally blow off work and just hang out." She gave Zeph a big hug. "C'mon it'll so much fun."

"Sure why not. I haven't really tried to do the' grow up' trick since I got my upgrade anyway. What'll we tell Semara?"

Bianca let him go and her ears flattened a little. "Uhm… do you think it would be okay to tell her the truth? I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to, but I don't like lying to her and… err."

Zeph interrupted her. "It's fine. I trust Semmy." He smiled when he saw the look of joy on the fox girl's face. "It's going to be pretty weird being a part-time fox-boy. Too bad my identity is already established as a kid. If this works, I could have just stayed being an a.d.u.l.t again."

Bianca smirked. "Eh, you need to go to school anyway. Like I said, your common sense sucks. We can play off any weird behavior you have in a grown-up form by saying you're a foreigner, but it would be better if you understood the world better. Besides, being the young Lord of Asperitus is better than being some random shifter dude."

"You're right about that, and Bernard and I didn't really plan on my ability to shape-shift when we set up my identity. Neither of us expected it to be so versatile."

"Well, at least you can do that super hero thing you told us about. You needed two Identities for it anyway." Bianca chuckled.

"You're right. I totally could do that."

"On the subject of your weird abilities." Bianca started to speak.

"Weird?" Zeph interrupted.

"Yes weird. I think we should try more stuff to figure out what other things you can do."

"Like what?"

"Well, since Bernard's been busy, I could help you run some experiments. For example, we know you can sleep, but do you need to sleep. Could you just do that weird blue smoke thing and come back fresh as a daisy, like you do after training?"

"Not sure. I know it helps with physical fatigue. I still get mentally tired you know."

"Yeah, but you could meditate for that. Sleep is a biological requirement. If you could rest your mind with meditation, does your body need sleep? I know mages that are able to stave off sleep for days by using meditation. You might be able to do away with it altogether."

"Good point." Zeph started to think about what he'd do if he didn't need to sleep.

The two talked until their patrol ended. Other than a small batch of gremlin-like creatures and a couple of skeletons, Zeph didn't have to fight today. It meant that things were getting better as the sightings of stray creatures were going down. When they finally got home, Zeph entered the living room and found Semara, Lili, and Ivy on the couch. The girls were in the middle of racing each other in a video game.

Zeph sat down on a recliner. "Why is it that I always come home to find you two hanging out in my house?"

"Cuz your house is more fun," Lili replied instantly.

"And Ethris wanted to play with Rin." Ivy followed up.

"And since Eli's been working with his girlfriend and your grandpa, I'm on guard duty for these two. So we've become good friends." Semara smiled at the girls and they smiled back at her.

"Yup so good that she doesn't mind me doing… THIS!" Lili yelled out as the car on her screen hit Semara's with a pit maneuver.

"You little turd!" Semara shouted as her vehicle spun out and went off the road, her first place quickly turning into last.

Bianca and the others laughed at their antics. "I'm going to the kitchen to start on dinner. You guys have fun." The fox-kin left the room.

"So, how's the monster hunting going. Living the dream?" Ivy asked.

"Not bad, took care of a couple of skeletons and some weird pointy eared gremlin looking things. How's school?" Zeph reclined back and popped the foot rest, "Aaah, that's the stuff."

"It's going okay. Everyone misses you. Jim is said he's pissed that you get to go out hunting monsters while we're stuck in class. He seems angrier than usual. Drew said it was because Jasper was bugging him about something." Ivy answered. Their relationship had gotten more relaxed when she finally stopped trying to push the girlfriend agenda.

"Huh, that's weird. Ashley and Jasper have kept a pretty low profile since that first day of class where I stuck to the ceiling. I guess the mice will play when the cat's away." Zeph rubbed his chin. "I wonder what Jim's relationship is with those two. He's always glaring at them."

"Drew said it was something of a family affair, so we didn't pry," Lili answered this time.

Suddenly a black and white blur flew into the room chasing a ball of yellow light. Rin and Ethris made a couple of l.a.p.s around the room and then sped out heading somewhere else.

"Hmm, guess they're having fun." Zeph shrugged.

____________________

"For the last damn time, leave me alone I'm not joining your stupid little club!" James carver slammed his phone down and hung up on his horrible excuse for a cousin.

"What is going one? Why are you yelling?" A red-haired woman walked into the living room after she heard her son from her bedroom.

"It's nothing mom, just them trying to get me to come over again," James said dismissively.

"Why don't you just go once, honey? They-," she was interrupted.

"No mom. They don't treat you and dad like that and then try to be all comfy cozy when they notice I have potential. They're not family and they never have been."

"I'm just worried about you. I know how hard you work to keep your scholarship up, but I don't want you to miss out on life. All you do is go to school and study. Do you even have friends?"

"Yes, I have friends, mom and I'm sure. They don't want to help pay for my education because they care. If they did, then where was that money when dad was in the hospital? I'm only a tool to them. Something they can buy."

Sheryl saw the tears that threatened to leak from her son's eyes, and he walked up to embrace him in a hug and combed her hand through his unkempt red hair. "Alright honey, we'll be okay. How about inviting your friends over sometime? I'd like to meet them." She placed a kiss on top of his head and changed the subject.

"I… I'm not too sure about that. I mean they're really busy and they may not have them," his muffled voice came from her arm as he was held in a firm squeeze.

"Nope," she released the hug. "None of that, I want to meet your friends. So, invite them for dinner next weekend."

James sighed. "Fine mom."