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The small town was peaceful and quiet, bathed in the gentle light of a lazy afternoon. The soft, dreamlike atmosphere made one want to sit on a porch and do nothing at all.
But tranquility is easily shattered, like a glass vase. On this day, the one doing the shattering was a small, enraged wizard named Ian.
It all started, as many things do, with a monumental miscalculation. Specifically, it was Pandero's mistaken strike that caught Morgan completely off guard. Because Morgan had a spectacular temper, a small, innocent wizard caught the brunt of her misplaced fury.
The resulting chaos arrived like a shockwave. Chickens squawked and scattered into the air. Startled by the sudden shift from serenity to commotion, dogs yelped and bounded across lawns.
Ian, the eye of the storm, barreled down the street, his voice raw with disbelief and rage.
"Hiding? You think you can hide from me now?"
He stomped through every street and alley, his gaze manic as he searched for the king who had ruined his day so carelessly. Pandero had to be here. He had to be. The bastard was just too good at vanishing when trouble came calling.
Ian stopped, his chest heaving, and a slow, terrible smile stretched across his face.
No matter. If the culprit wouldn't come out, then he'd just remove the obstruction.
"All rise to the heavens!"
It was a levitation charm, of course, but Ian hadn't used the traditional "Wingardium Leviosa" in years. He said whatever ridiculous, dramatic words pleased him, and the results spoke for themselves. This wasn't a levitation charm; it was a supercharged, city-lifting demolition job.
His wand flared with a blinding, painful gold light. Then, every structure in the small town, the cozy bakery, the smoke-stained blacksmith's forge, the houses, and even the public toilets, shuddered.
With a grinding shriek, the buildings ripped free from their foundations, tearing wood and stone from the earth. They rose an astonishing thirty feet, floating like an immense collection of forgotten toy blocks lifted by an invisible child.
Flower pots tipped off swaying balconies and exploded midair into showers of earthen shards. Wisps of shimmering, magical light seeped through cracks in the walls and roof tiles, glistening in the evening sun. To an outsider, they might have been mistaken for the legendary Castle in the Sky.
But, in truth, it was merely an angry little wizard clearing his workspace to find the rat that had caused the chaos.
Once the obstacles were gone, the rat was exposed quite spectacularly.
He had been hiding inside the granary. When the granary itself "ascended," Pandero, his golden hair matted with straw, was suddenly a very conspicuous figure standing on a now-bare patch of ground.
Facing the furious, charging wizard, Pandero didn't hesitate. He chose flight. Instantly.
"It's all a misunderstanding! Truly! Ask Ariana if you don't believe me!" He shouted over his shoulder, clasping his hands over his head as he ran. He looked nothing like a dignified king and everything like a man about to get pulverized.
"Don't you dare run, you bastard!" Ian roared, his voice thick with the promise of pain.
Suddenly, with a theatrical flourish, he drew a massive, spiked mace. Its barbed tips gleamed with a cold, hungry light, whispering of the punishment soon to come. Ian dragged the enormous weapon along the cobbled street, the metal scraping and shooting sparks into the cooling evening air.
"Ah----?" Pandero risked a terrified glance backward.
His soul nearly flew out of his body.
"It's true! Ariana, hurry! Come vouch for me! It's all a misunderstanding! In our Patronus forms, everything looks black and white. I couldn't tell who was who!"
"I really couldn't tell anything! I have total face blindness!"
Pandero ducked backward, narrowly avoiding the mace's wicked swing. The barbed metal blade hissed past the tip of his nose; the breeze from its passage was cool against the sudden stream of sweat on his forehead.
Seizing the brief reprieve, Pandero dropped and rolled, then rolled again, a series of frantic tumbles that looked more like flailing than evasion. He was trying to put distance between himself and his attacker, perhaps believing that his continuous rolling granted him invincibility frames like a video game hero.
Even though he had a powerful weapon at his waist, Pandero made no move to draw it. Perhaps the ancient King of Britain knew deep down that he was spectacularly and fundamentally in the wrong this time.
"Can't tell, my arse!" Ian's voice cracked with fury.
He didn't bother to close the distance. Instead, he simply hurled the massive, spiked mace like a javelin. It smacked squarely into the center of Pandero's backside.
The king let out a blood-curdling, cartoonish shriek and shot forward dozens of meters as if a pair of rockets had fired from his feet.
"Can't tell people apart in Patronus form, huh? Everything looks black and white, huh?" Ian screamed, his voice thick with injustice. "Then why didn't you chop me instead, you idiot?!"
With a sharp flick of his wrist, the mace, an alchemical artifact he'd forged himself, inspired by Thor's axe in the Marvel movies, whipped free from Pandero's rear and whistled back into Ian's waiting hand. Useful. Very useful.
Pandero, now riddled with dozens of tiny, agonizing puncture marks, gasped sharply in pain. If he had a soul, it would have been spraying like a broken showerhead.
He continued his frantic escape, moving with desperate, jerky agility and leaping several meters at a time. He began bounding up the strange floating rocks and tree trunks suspended in the sky, trying to reach the levitating town itself and lose Ian in the magical clutter.
But Ian wasn't finished. His anger burned hot and pure. He shot upward from the ground like a golden blur, determined not to give Pandero a moment's reprieve. Twin spiked maces materialized in his hands.
Pandero ran. Ian chased him.
The once-great King Arthur now found himself completely grounded, no wings, no dignity, and nowhere left to run.
"King Arthur, huh? You're the great King Arthur, huh?!" Ian shouted, gaining on him. His voice echoed with a potent mix of rage and long-brewing frustration.
After all, Ian had been kept in the dark about Pandero's true identity for years. Old grudges and fresh, hot rage boiled together in his chest. Right or wrong didn't matter now, he just needed to vent, to purge the fire in his heart.
His twin maces sliced through the air with violent whooshes, the sound alone was terrifying enough to chill the soul. The fact that they might come crashing down on the fleeing king was the most terrifying thing of all, even though they hadn't yet.
Pandero was living proof of that.
"They're having such a good time, aren't they?"
Beneath the swirling chaos of the airborne pursuit, Ariana stood calmly apart from it all. Dressed in a simple white dress, she watched the king and the wizard with an expression of mild, detached amusement, letting the chaotic spectacle play out above her head.
Originally, Ariana had planned to clean up the mess left by Ian's ill-fated flood spell, but she decided against it. However, since every structural element in the town was now thirty feet in the air, her efforts would have been useless.
So, she simply looked up at the two figures chasing each other and offered a soft, amused smile.
She didn't feel a flicker of real alarm about their frantic antics. In fact, Pandero's desperate flight was rather comical. After all, as a soul, he couldn't be seriously injured by Ian's mace.
Of course, pain was still pain.
However, now that Ariana knew Pandero's colossal mistake had led to Morgan's attack and pulled Ian into an undeserved mess, she couldn't help but feel the "lesson" was well-deserved.
"This will be a precious memory," Ariana murmured with a small sigh.
Then, with sudden inspiration, she reached into the pocket of her simple white dress and pulled out the magical camera Ian had given her.
With a crisp click, she captured the exact moment Pandero's head was struck squarely by one of Ian's maces. The floating clock tower framed the background perfectly, giving the entire composition an unexpectedly artistic flourish, the kind of dramatic, chaotic art Ian himself would adore.
Pandero, on the other hand, would probably grind his teeth in outrage.
At that thought, Ariana covered her mouth and giggled softly. Standing serene amidst the chaos, she radiated quiet peace and contentment. Her tranquil figure contrasted sharply with the wild, shouting brawl above, as if they existed on different layers of the same painting.
Yet, from a distance, the entire scene appeared perfectly harmonious.
Captured
High above, among the suspended ruins of the town, Pandero realized his fundamental error.
The Levitation Charm had been Ian's doing, meaning Ian was the master of the very space they occupied.
(To Be Continued…)