Chapter 1: Chapter 1

The sun was shining about half as bright as my interview shoes. 

I strolled down the street, past a bakery smelling of warm bread, feeling on top of the world.

A few days prior, with the undramatic act of writing a letter—though it certainly felt dramatic—I quit the retail job I had worked for over five years. 

It was one of those sink-or-swim moments. 

The thing about working a job like that is I was always too tired to look for something better. There was always an excuse like ‘I'll do it tomorrow,’ or ‘let me just wait for my day off.’

Of course, I spent days off doing anything but that.

But quitting? Boom. Suddenly, not only did I have no choice, but I also found it almost easy to update my resume, which used to be full of noobish stuff like 'hard worker, always on time, very good at all of the popular working software, including spreadsheets!'

I wasn't good at spreadsheets, but I told myself I could just look it up.

The funny thing was, working retail, I didn't even have an opportunity to use that stuff. Why would I have? Five-years-ago me didn't know that, though. He just saw on the internet that it was good to put in your resume.

Now? I had real evidence of my skills. After all, I had worked my way up to management. 

A lot of those skills were transferable, and it turns out that when you yourself interview people, you see what companies are actually looking for—passion for the job at hand, the ability to research into the role and BS your way through the interview. It didn't even matter what their experience was half the time. I just needed to like the person and know that I'd enjoy working with them.

I thought it might’ve been safe to assume that kind of thing wouldn't track to an office job, but apparently not.

So there I was, wearing my suit on the way to my second interview—I had already aced the first.

I felt on top of the world.

But damn, was it a small world.

 

***

 

I entered the office and smiled at a friendly secretary who gave me a flirtatious smile. I wasn’t sure if it was genuine or part of her job. 

I waited patiently, and then the boss called me in for the interview. 

We shook hands, and he seemed like a friendly guy; he wasn't drenched in sweat and stress like everyone I used to work with. The dude actually seemed chill, like he enjoyed his job. 

It was a pleasant conversation, where I told him everything he wanted to hear. I even took a bit of charge in the conversation, telling him what my expectations for the job were. I wasn't too arrogant; I just wanted him to know the kind of environment I was looking for—relaxed yet challenging. 

I wouldn't have said such a thing if he hadn't given me the signals. It was a calculated risk, and luckily, his smile grew wider when I said it, and I could tell I was just the sort of guy he was looking for.

When he shook my hand, he told me he’d be in touch, and I exited the room. I yanked my shirt free from my neck. 

It was strangling me. 

My shirt was too tight. I opened a couple of buttons at the collar and my wrists. The building had been cool, so why was I sweating so much? It wasn't exactly hot outside, and I had been fine on the walk.

Pulling my blazer off, I put it under my arm and walked home.

What was going on with me? Hadn't all the chips fallen into place? 

Was it my subconscious telling me it wasn’t right?

I had enough saved, and I could look for a few more jobs. I knew how to make myself appealing to the interview process.

I just hadn't found what I was looking for yet. 

I just needed—

A dude pushed past me, yelling, "Get out of the way!" 

I blinked and looked up.

Two guys were squaring off in a fistfight. They were dressed weirdly, like victorian, but quirkier. Steampunk without the steam. 

It gave a silly impression. Like they were trying hard to be badass. 

Though there was something odd about the fight too. Their fingers were stretching like one would the muscles of an arm.

What were they going to use their fingers for? 

I knew. 

Deep down, I knew, even though I had tried to deny its very existence since The Rejection. 

The guy on the right wore a bowler hat and possessed a mighty mustache. A single spark grew in the middle of his hand, twisting and morphing into a ball of red flame. 

Red, really red, not orange like a flame should be.

"This time, I have dramatically trained my order," the one on the left said, "far beyond even your chaos," 

He had a slicked-back ponytail. Combined with his V of a hairline, it made him look like a retired Vegeta. That was not the right hairstyle for that hairline, no way. 

Normally, I wasn’t the sort of guy to judge other people based on their appearance. 

It was more what they represented. 

The Rejection™.

No wonder I had spent so much effort trying to be good at job interviews. I had been denied the one thing I had ever truly wanted in my life.

BS, I told myself. You didn't really want it. Now go home and get the job you deserve. 

"I think you’ll find my advantage will win out," the mustached one said. "No matter how powerful you get."

The ball of flame grew, the flames licking around its center of gravity. 

Soon, it engulfed his fingers, and he held it in both hands, ready to launch.

And I thought the Vegeta one should've been doing a Kamehameha—or was that Goku’s move? Whatever.

The street was empty, except for the two of them and me. In the distance, a few pamphlets flew in the wind like dust balls in a western movie. 

And through the shop window, I could now see a few brave souls watching, face right up against the glass.

Mustache man threw the flame, and the light overwhelmed my eyes to blind me. 

Just before I lost my vision, a bright blue sword emerged from nowhere in the hand of the ponytailed man.

How is that going to...

But it was not the sword that blocked the blast. A shield appeared of a similar design, bright blue and glowing. 

It was...it was incredible. I hadn't even gotten my phone out to record it, and I hadn't wanted to. This memory was for me and me alone. I could just tell my buddies about it later.

The flame ball grew smaller and disintegrated inside the shield, where the shield seemed to grow red hot with its absorption of it.

"Is that it? Pathetic." The pony-tailed man gave a small smile. 

The bowler hat guy gasped, taking a step back. His hand–-the one that did the flame—was shaking, trembling, fingers like shivering spider legs. 

But the shieldman's foot stepped back, and the arm holding the shield shook as the red inside the blue grew bigger, like a gunshot stain, spreading out red.

And the bowler hat man laughed, then did a fake, mocking gasp. "Did you really think that was it? Hahaha!"

I rolled my eyes. I wished they wouldn't act like theatrical larpers. They were able to throw flames and generate weapons. They didn't have to be so lame about it.

I guessed it came with the territory, like how rock stars need to wear sunglasses and drink whiskey, or rappers need to wear gold chains.

Mages needed to be cringy as hell.

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Still, I would've been happy to be a bit cringy if it meant I could do that.

"Are you insane?" a woman said. "This is dangerous."

She stood before me, and I blinked at her purple hair and lips combo. Though the expression on her face brought me back to reality.

"C'mon, sir, move along," she said.

I noticed her hat next, like a classic British policeman. Her tight blue skirt and white blouse combo, with a short fluffy tie, told me she was an official something or other, though none of the police I knew dressed like that. 

None of our police dress like that, I thought. She's obviously one of theirs.

As she led me away, I kept pausing to look back at the fight.

"I knew you were no match for my power!" the mustache man announced. "Behold! The flame within!"

Moments later, several more police-like figures appeared from thin air, brandishing glowing net-like apparitions from their hands. 

The nets engulfed both men, and the flame inside his shield, which was beginning to spittle and engulfed the shield, went out as did the shield with it.

The two men lay on the ground in their nets, grunting and complaining. 

 "You know you’re not allowed to do magic in front of the Unchosen," one of the policemen said, kicking the ponytail guy hard. "It's too much for them."

"They will cower before my—"

Another sharp kick to the ribs. The guy let out a rasping cry. 

I was sure it had cracked.

While the policewoman tried unavailingly to pull me away, I pulled back to watch. 

"You'll be cowering in Maskal Jail. You know full well what the penalty is." The policeman spat on the ground, then whipped up a tornado around the two before it shot them up to the sky, to the sound of their screams.

I thought that what I had just witnessed had been far more traumatizing to us Unchosen than the silly fight they had got in.

Though it could’ve gone worse. 

"Will you move!" the woman demanded. 

I turned back—catching a glimpse of how tight her blue skirt was against thick gym-gone hips—and obliged. 

After all, the fight was over.

"Stand still, please," she said, and put me ahead of her, then she placed her fingers on my forehead.

Was she trying to remove my memory?

"No, wait!" I yelled and moved back, but the sparks hit my forehead while she attempted the magical lobotomy. 

I stepped back, blinked, and knew I had to think fast. I had gotten away from it, but she might not know... 

Who knows what her power tells her?

"Hello?" I said, blinking at the beautiful woman.

She twisted her purple lips in a cute expression, squinting at me as if judging herself whether the spell had taken.

I cocked my head at the woman, thinking that acting confused would be too obvious. If I acted like I was trying to flirt with her, she might want to get rid of me.

"Hey," I said. "That uniform looks great on you." 

She rolled her eyes and walked away, and I finally released my breath. 

As soon as she was out of sight, I fell back against the wall. The blazer on my arm fell to the ground. 

That was crazy, I thought, absolutely insane. She had just tried to…

I didn't even know they could do that.

Faith. Chaos. Order. They were the three sects of magic. I had studied it when I was thirteen, on the days leading up to my Academy interview. 

That's when I realized she was obviously a chaos mage. Lightning had come out of her fingers just like the flame had from the other guy. 

As a kid, I wanted to be a mage of The order. Being able to conjure swords, and shields, make your skin like armor, that sort of thing. It sounded cool as hell. 

And though I grew out of using the word—because I actually liked getting laid—I had thought chaos mages were pussies, casting elemental magic from afar. 

Magi of the order seemed way more badass.

Then I grew up and learned that the people you thought were badass were actually huge dorks—wearing all that pseudo-Victorian clothes and quipping at each other between attacks like movie characters.  

Yeah, Pete, I told myself. It has nothing to do with the jealousy that you couldn't be one of them.

If I were a mage, I would just spam attacks like button mashing before they could react. It was stupid to do otherwise.

After all, that’s what fighters have always done to win battles. Why make a big show and dance about it? Boom, flame to the face.

Picking up my blazer, I caught sight of a pamphlet on the floor, half in a puddle my blazer had narrowly avoided. 

It was one of the ones that had blown over during the fight.

Across the top were the words, 

 

Misty’s Magical Menagerie!

 

Then below: 

 

Games, jokes, and oddities! 

Unchosen welcome!

 

At the bottom right corner, it said inside a big red star: 

 

We also sell regular video games and accept trade-ins for cash or part exchange.

 

I laughed. What sort of idiot would open a magic shop in this part of town? The same type of person to try and sell physical disc games in this day and age.

Unchosen—as they called us—really didn't like mages, probably for similar reasons as me. 

In the twenty years since magic had become public knowledge, the world seemed to spin upside down and right itself again. 

At first, everyone freaked the hell out; we thought we could all be mages. When we discovered that no, just because they exist doesn't mean you could suddenly become one, the world became a little too normal again. Everyone seemed to be in denial about it, just pretending it didn’t exist, even reacting to anger at the mention of it, wanting people to keep it hush.

I suspected there was some spell placed on us all to make us less aggressive toward our magical counterparts. No wonder we never banded together and rose against them ten thousand to one, or whatever the ratio was.  

So, opening up a magic shop in this very normal town was like trying to sell steak at a PETA convention.

Well, I loved a good steak.

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