“What did you just do?”

Ace ducked their head as Liadain’s face paled, trying to hold their own smirk back. Ever since their father had started manipulating the world of Draenymis, granting himself power over the entire city, Manchester was grey and dull. Nobody laughed anymore, there was nothing to laugh at.

Nobody could imagine anymore. Nobody except the vilimora, all those Ace’s age and older with the power to walk in both worlds. Liadain, Aislinn, Rae, Isolde, Lucas, Oliver and all the rest. Those few teenagers Liadain and Aislinn got to before Benjamin Echols began his attack, Zero and the others Ace couldn’t name right now…

“It’s called smiling, Miss Haskins, you should try it sometime.”

Miss Haskins stood up, eyes blazing with a fury never seen in her eyes. “Out. Go and stand outside, Liadain.”

“Certainly.”

Ace tried their hardest not to react as their friend stormed out of the classroom, scared to incur the teacher’s wrath. Their father was hardly even able to feign tolerance of his eldest child anymore, the horrible b*stard that he was, but if Ace made even the slightest step out of line then they would be killed.

They knew it.

Their job — their job alongside Liadain and Aislinn and Ice and Zero, the members of the main five fighters of this new war — was to save Draenymis’ Manchester so that people like Ace and Aislinn and anyone else who didn’t fit their father’s normal could be safe.

Restoring happiness and colour to the city was just a benefit of the task.