Taller than anything downtown, save perhaps the work in progress mall, the buildings in the manufacturing district were in alternating blocks that took turns containing factories, apartment buildings or warehouses as needed. Outside one of the windows of one of the apartments in one of the apartment buildings, a fairy that glowed a pale indigo silently pulled himself into existence. He hovered over to the window and peered inside to confirm that he had the right location. He saw nothing to suggest that he didn't, so he disappeared from outside the window and reappeared inside the apartment.

Once the fairy made his way to the foot of Ved's bed, now began the task of waking them up and delivering the message. The fairy couldn't bring anything with him when he teleported, hence why he was just an unclothed dragonfly shaped into the figure of a human. That only left an old-fashioned method to getting Ved's attention. "HEY DEMON! WAAAAAKE UUUUUUP!" He screamed with every decibel his tiny body could muster. It seemed like a reasonable fear that the demon would attack the fairy right after such a rude awakening, so he tried to blurt out his message as quickly as possible before then. "The Demon Lord is alive, attend the high school as James Stubbe and await further instruction! The Demon Lord is back to life!"



Standing at two stories tall, Amber Valley High School was a large brick schoolhouse that had been there since the town was founded, though it had undergone plenty of renovations and expansions to get as large as it was now. There was a small plaza around the stairs leading to the front door, connecting it to the parking lot the juniors, seniors and faculty used. All of the rooms in the school were in the interior, with the exception of the football field in the back. Now that the school was opening back up for classes, the steps of the schoolhouse were once again crowded with students buying time until the bell, and the roof was crowded with crows waiting for the return of the inevitable littering and discarded food that came when students ate lunch outside.

For most of the students, the only silver lining to the beginning of another year at Amber Valley High School was an end to the self-imposed isolation forced by saving their summer homework to the last minute. Many of the students now walking up to the steps of their school building hadn't seen each other in the last week, which was time enough for a few surprising changes to occur.

Anyone who hung out with him over the summer would know, but Don Ward had shot up in height since finals last year. Betsy Hunter, the aspiring head cheerleader, had instead somehow dropped two inches and 8 pounds, though it was hard to notice unless you were up close. The Summers twins, who always maintained the same hair length, had both cut their hair to just above shoulder length, truncating Jenny's ponytail as well. And there was at least one new student, other than the freshmen.

Ashley West, daughter of the family building the new mall making waves in town, stepped out in front of the school, dropped off by her uncle in a nice lexus. Like the furious winds of change in human form Ashley caught the attention of every student she passed by, wearing a purple dress of folds and waves of fabric most would never think of bothering with on the first day of school, much less in that kind of town. She had the face of someone with a job to do, but in truth it was the face of someone with nothing but a job to do. Everyone else was loitering outside the school, talking with their friends, but the only thing on Ashley's agenda was to find where her first class was.

"Nice dress, new girl! But it'd look better as a carpet!" Yelled Kyle Carter from off to the side of the stairs, sitting atop his car with the other football players and a few of the cheerleaders hanging around before school. Ashley West kept walking, ignoring him. She walked past Fernando Castro-Vargas, Robert Hunter, and Don Ward, who were talking with each other on the stairs by the school's entrance, and past Jenny Summers, who was trying to recruit for a new hiking club. Ashley ignored her as well.

"You mean a rug. Carpet covers your entire floor, you wouldn't really throw it down like a dress," advised another member of the football team, Hideaki Mori. Kyle had to take a few moments to process this, he began staring off in another direction to contemplate it. One of the cheerleaders, Betsy Ross, was hanging onto Hideaki arm, but was turned away and talking to Jamie Morrison, the school treasurer. Their conversation caught Hideaki's attention when Betsy mentioned something that sounded pretty dangerous. "What did you just say?" Hideaki said, turning his head suddenly enough that it nearly startled his girlfriend.

"Oh, uh, I saw a suspicious man with a dog just outside the school," Betsy said, who lived close enough to the school that she walked, usually with the school president Ian Smith since they lived close to each other. "I chased him off, but I'm still worried that some creepo is stalking the students."

"You shouldn't confront someone like that, it's dangerous. At least let me take care of it next time," Hideaki said, a little bit critical. Betsy just turned her head and scoffed quietly, brushing off his advice.

Though he had walked to the school with Betsy, Ian Smith had now distanced himself from the football team's crowd to survey the students crowding around the school entrance, and was one of the many who stared from the sidelines as the daughter of the Wests made her entrance. Alexandra Summers, the formally dressed twin sister to the hiker by the entrance, joined the school president to ask a casual question, "Do you think there's going to be any more sudden transfer students?"

"Well, the new mall is almost built, so there might be new families moving to Amber Valley for their business," Ian Smith answered, though with a less than serious tone of voice that showed he was just guessing. "I think it's definitely going to make this an interesting year."

He had been sleeping rather peacefully, a deep heavy sleep that brought about a sense of happiness when awoken. Until, of course, on the one night he managed to get some sleep, he was rudely awoken by a rather boisterous fairy. Shooting up like a rocket, he had a look that could only be described as ready to fuck shit up, before it faded into a mix of exhaustion and annoyance. Listening to the fairy speak rabidly, he smiled darkly to himself, he had a feeling his Lord was on the move, but had no Idea that it would happen so soon. After the fairy finished speaking, his hand moved out at the speed of a bullet, backhanding the fairy into the wall.
"I appreciate the message, but if I'm woken again I will shoot the messenger."
He growled darkly, making a play on a rather outdated phrase. No one had guns anymore unless they were rednecks, military, or police, as a general rule. Although, he was no exception, it was likely that he was armed at all times in one form or another. As it so happened, he had a pair of finger-less SAP gloves, gloves with wrist and hand supports, as well as several ounces of steel shot in the knuckles, that he refused to take off, even in bed. Sitting, then standing up from his bed, he stretched his half naked body, before turning off his alarm and moving to his kitchen, preparing his coffee.

He had a long day ahead of him.



The hard part, surprisingly, wasn't actually getting enrolled in the school at 3:30 A.M, the hard part, was fucking getting from the industrial district to here. None of the cab drivers knew where it was, and he couldn't find an address to save his life, so they resorted to going to the cab company and asking around, only one person had any idea where it was, and after thirty minutes of confusion, they managed to get to the school. The driver, who may or may not have been under a certain emotional influence, was so happy they actually found the place, he didn't charge Ved a penny for the ridiculously high fare that had accumulated. Later that day, he would personally go out and purchase a nice black dirtbike for travelling around, as the school campus didn't allow motorcycles, but said nothing about dirtbikes.

Sipping on a black cup of coffee, he stepped out of his cab and grabbed his luggage from the trunk, preparing internally for his first day at a new school, then walked forward, entering the campus.

"The Demon Lord is rising, the signs are obvious. He's not ready."

"That's because you keep getting in the way. He needs to be stronger."

"Actually, he needs to learn more. He doesn't know anything!"

"Oh, yeah, because he'll be able to fend off the minions with a book!"

"Don't talk about me as if I'm not right here!"

It didn't help. The two spirit-ancestors, each a legend, were always bumping heads like this. Ever since his psychiatrist weaned him off the medication, he heard their simmering dispute in his head on a daily basis. It was sucking the joy out of life; his roleplaying group, for example, kicked him out because he was getting too twitchy. For whatever reason, during a tabletop session, Agmundr and Wystan managed to actually possess him. And then, they proceeded to bellow at the other players and give them expert instruction on how to actually fight the minions of evil.

"Dude, never come back," pronounced Herman, the DM, as he gleefully killed Frank's character off in order to restore order to the game.

So he took the bag of Doritos and the case of Mountain Dew he'd bought for the group and skittered away, hating his heritage and particularly his illustrious ancestors.

So Frank (he hated "Fraaaaaaaancis!") found himself outcasted even from his fellow nerds, and tolerated in band. He was gaining a reputation for being twitchy. Teachers tut-tutted and went on about 'awkward, awkward adolescence' but this wasn't a case of pimples and a perpetual hardon, it was two voices in his head constantly sniping at each other when they weren't cutting his self esteem to ribbons.

So he walked along miserably to school, because the bus sucked, while his two ancestors, as usual, ignored him and carried on a riotous debate that he could, unfortunately, hear, as he trudged toward another shitty year at Amber Valley High. He was still in the marching band, at least until his two ancestors decided to pull some stunt and deprive him of that too. If the Demon Lord offered a way to silence these two assholes clamoring in his skull, he probably would have taken it, bloodline of heroes or not.

Ezra Scultone:

"Hey, mom. Today's the first day of senior year. Yeah, I know..
Time flies, huh? It's been five years now. I miss you..
I miss you so much. Dad misses you as well. He's doing a lot better though. We both are.
I'm involved with ORDER... Heh. You never mentioned you had powers. Maybe you didn't. I can see dead people. I think. I haven't been able to talk to them, so I can't ask. Well, it's enough to get me inducted in ORDER. I'm not really treated like a member though. They don't know what to make of me. Heh.
Anyways... I have to go now. I'll keep looking for you. I hope you're looking for me."

A heavy pause. The only sound the singing of morning birds outside and Ezra's labored breathing. In his hands is a photo taken of Rachel a week before the crash, smiling up at the camera as she looked up from a pile of papers waiting to be graded. It is creased and worn down from being held constantly.

Nodding his head, the photograph goes back to it's small shrine on top of his wardrobe. Pictures of his mother and a few small trinkets he kept of hers arranged in a half circle. It is the only perfectly spotless thing in the otherwise unkempt room.

The next few minutes are spent in a frenzy of collecting scattered items needed for the first day of school that are spread around the room, tossing all of it into the backpack without much consideration. Ezra's mind is taken off of his mother with thoughts of school rushing through his head.

Finally, after considerably more time had been taken in grooming himself, Ezra had his teeth gleaming, hair perfect, and clothing immaculate. His father had already left for the shop today, and he had left a note on the small kitchen table wishing him luck with the first day of school.

Pausing only to collect his helmet and jacket, Ezra stepped out to the garage, taking a second to admire his baby. He'd spent most of the summer working on her, and he was proud of how she had turned out. Now it was time to give her a test run.

Zooming along the road to the school, Ezra caught a brilliant flash of color in the corner of his eye as he sped past, a brilliant blue and red that caught his attention even through his tinted visor. Fearing that it was the cops, Ezra slowed down and pulled over to the side of the road, looking behind him nervously. He had been just ten miles above the speed limit, but you never know with cops on what they'd react to.

To his surprise, all he saw was a depressed looking dude with an awkward haircut walking dejectedly. Shaking his head, Ezra turned to leave, when the same flash of blue and red caught his eye. Whirling around, Ezra saw two ghosts flashing and clearly arguing above the guy's head. The colorful bursts of energy they were releasing seemed to keep striking down on the man, which may have explained why he was so hunched over. Noticing the backpack on the guy's shoulders, Ezra realized that it was probably a classmate.

And while it wouldn't be the sexiest thing showing up with this guy hanging onto his back, he could hear his mother's voice reminding him to always be generous to the unfortunate. And this guy looked pretty damn unfortunate.

Revving his engine, Ezra wheeled the bike around and roared up to the nervous looking boy, pulling up to his side.

Lifting up his helmet visor, Ezra spoke, "Hey, need a lift?"