Teenage Sorcerers: Prophecy Foretold

Chapter 18: Kind Stranger

The rest of that night came and went, Kennethn, Andre, and Bryan moving into Sabbi and Chaz's room to talk about the fight. When it was the next morning, the teens ended up sleeping in due to the incident. Rana made sure to make them a nice breakfast to get their minds off of yesterday, preparing the large table that once had 11 chairs now only having 6. Rana put the remaining chairs to the side of the living area, stacking them up and putting a cover over them all before serving all the food he finished preparing. It wasn't until around 11 am when the teens woke up and left their room. "Good morning, guys! I made breakfast!" Rana smiled as he ushered the teens to the table. In front of them were plates of toast with avocado spread across them, a small pile of sunny side eggs, some extra pieces of toast and avocado slices, a tin pot of coffee with a small pitcher of milk, and a jar of sugar. "There's sausages for you guys in the fireplace, just a few more minutes until they're ready. Sausages cooked on firewood are much better than on the stove!" Rana smiled as he went to the fireplace and checked on the food. The teens sat down and began to eat happily, Rana soon taking out the iron skillet he was using off the fireplace and served the sausages onto everyone's plates. "Before I forget, Chaz and Bryan, we can go to the blacksmith after breakfast." Rana smiled as he took his seat and set the skillet of leftover sausages on the table. "Great! I'm sick of seeing my scythe like this!" Chaz held up her scythe before leaning it against the table. "Yeah, and I can't exactly fight as well with only one functioning gauntlet." Bryan looked over at his crushed gauntlet, which he left by the front door. As everyone continued to eat, Sabbi couldn't stop thinking about yesterday, wondering how things could've been better if Lulu and his group had just stayed and listened. She wished they would've believed her and the others, but there's nothing they could do about it now, the group had already run away to someplace that nobody knew where. While being stuck in her thoughts, Andre gently tapped her shoulder to get her attention. "Sabbi, you good?" Andre looked down at her, Sabbi quickly nodding her head yes before continuing to eat her food. Once all the food was eaten, Rana took the small satchel of the teens money and some of his own money, already knowing that the weapon repairs would most likely cost whatever money is left in the satchel and plus some. "You two ready to go?" Rana went over to Chaz and Bryan as they were putting on their shoes after changing into their new outfits to blend in with the crowd. "Yup, we're ready!" Chaz smiled as she grabbed her scythe and Bryan's gauntlet. "Here Bryan!" she tossed the crushed gauntlet to Bryan, who caught it and grumbled in annoyance. "Don't throw my gauntlet around like that!" Bryan exclaimed as he held the gauntlet close to his chest. "Or what? It'll get more damaged than it already is?" Chaz chuckled as she walked past him and through the doorway with Rana. "Hey, wait for me!" Bryan called out, rushing after the two and closing the door behind him. Sabbi, Andre, and Kennethn stared at the door for a couple of seconds before looking at each other. "So...what do we do now?" Kennethn asked, which caused an almost instant idea from Sabbi. "Let's go outside and train! After all, I need to get used to my new ability!" "Yeah, lets go!" Andre jumped onto the idea and ran outside with Sabbi, who was dragging Kennethn behind her. As the three ran off to a nearby open field to not disturb anyone with their training, Rana had just brought Chaz and Bryan over to the town square. They made their way through the small crowd of people walking around and stopped in front of a decently large building with a pretty long line in front of it. "The blacksmith seems to be backed up today..." Rana looked around as he brought Chaz and Bryan to the end of the line. "This is so boring, I'm going to the nearby stores, can you hold my scythe for me?" Chaz handed Bryan her scythe without waiting for his response and rushed to a store that was next door to the blacksmith. "How the hell can she be bored already? We just got here..." Bryan sighed as he held up the weapons. What felt like hours had passed when it was nearly time for Rana and Bryan to enter the shop. They were the third spot in line when they both heard Chaz squealing as she ran out of the shop she left to go see. A burly woman stepped out of the shop and was scolding Chaz, making Rana and Bryan rush over to see what was going on. "Don't ever come back here again, you're banned from my shop!" the woman roared at the top of her lungs, making Chaz rush over to Rana and Bryan, who met her halfway. "What happened in there?" Bryan asked her as Chaz reached over to them. "I was messing around with some of the stuff in that trinket shop and that lady scared me from behind and made me break a stand full of glass cups! Now she banned me from her stupid shop, but I don't care! It's not my fault the cups broke, she shouldn't have scared me!" Chaz exclaimed in an attempt to defend herself, only receiving a sigh from Bryan. As Chaz, Bryan, and Rana made their way back to the line, they noticed that their spot in line was now filled. "Look what you did, Chaz! You made us lose our place in line, now we gotta go all the way to the back again!" Bryan grumbled, causing Chaz to become defensive. "Hey, that's not my fault, you guys chose to come after me! I never made you guys do anything!" Chaz vocalized with clear annoyance in her tone. As Rana tried to calm the two down, someone in line began to speak to them. "Excuse me, you three can cut ahead of me if you'd like." a girl with a gentle voice spoke up, causing the three to look over at her. She had beige hair that was put into a ponytail and a long pink dress. "Oh no, it's alright, we can go to the back-" Rana started talking before getting interrupted by Chaz, who rushed to the spot in front of the girl. "Thanks! There's no way I'm waiting in that long line all over again!" Chaz smiled and looked up at the girl. "You didn't even wait in line the first time..." Bryan grumbled as he squeezed into their new spot in line. His comment caused the girl who offered them the new spot in line to giggle a bit. "So what are your names?" the girl asked to start a conversation. "I'm Bryan, this is Rana and that's Chaz." Bryan introduced the three of them, getting a nod from the girl in response. "I'm Anastasia, it's nice to meet you three!" Anastasia spoke as she held out her hand for Bryan to shake. A bit taken aback by the girl's formality, Bryan hesitated for a couple of seconds before shaking her hand. "Nice to meet you too." Bryan gave her a small smile before looking ahead of the line to see how close they were to the blacksmith now. They were now sixth in line, but at least it was better than waiting in the back. During the time it took for the three to have their turn come up to get their weapons repaired, they took the time to get to know a bit more about Anastasia, mainly Bryan though. The first thing Bryan asked about her was the hat she was wearing, which he just took notice of. She had on a pink witch hat with white stars splattered all over it. "Nice hat, where'd you get it?" Bryan asked while pointing out her hat. "Thank you, I actually made it with my dad a few years ago." Anastasia smiled as she took off her hat and gave Bryan a closer look at it. Bryan admired the hat, smiling softly before putting it back on Anastasia's head. "I can tell you worked really hard on it." Bryan felt his smile grow wider before noticing Anastasia's attention was drawn to his gauntlets. "Those are cool, but where did you get them? Usually people have swords or daggers if they have weapons, I haven't seen gauntlets around here in a long time." "They were gifted to me by a relative." Bryan lied as he pointed down to the tied up bag Anastasia was carrying. "What about you? What are you bringing in?" "Oh, these are daggers from the mayor's protective court! I wanted to do them a favor and get their daggers mended a bit for them!" Anastasia smiled as she carefully opened the bag and showed Bryan the several daggers that were inside. "Nice, do you help them out a lo-" "HURRY UP, BRYAN!" Chaz yelled out to him, causing Bryan to turn to her and see her and Rana were now at the front of the line, about to enter the shop. "How did we get to the front so fast..?" Bryan thought out loud as Anastasia and him moved up in line. "I guess I'll see you around sometime?" Anastasia smiled, getting a nod in response from Bryan before he entered the shop with Rana and Chaz. The blacksmith told the three that they had to leave their weapons with him overnight due to how much work it would take to repair the scythe and gauntlets. As they dropped off their weapons and made their way out of the shop, Bryan made sure to say goodbye to Anastasia and thanked her again for letting him and the others cut in front of her. She smiled and nodded as she watched Bryan rush back to Rana and Chaz, who were already walking back to the house without him. "I have to go back out to my cafe once we get back to the house, please make sure to tell the others that I'll be gone for a while longer." Rana explained to Chaz and Bryan once they made it back to the house. "Don't worry, we'll tell th-" Bryan started before a sudden erupting sound came from a nearby distance. All three of them rushed over into the forest and towards the sound to see what it was.