บท 312: The Second Rise

If you want to read ahead, you can check out my Patreón @

[ https://www.patreón.com/fictiononlyreader ]

The link is also in the synopsis.

-*-*-*-*-*-

"I am really going to enjoy this. . . ." ~ Bully Maguire.

-*-*-*-*-*-

His bare feet touched the cold marbled floor as he pushed himself off the bed to stand straight up. A blissful groan escaped him as he stretched his body like a lithe cat. He looked around the darkroom and walked to a single ray of light running into the room through a crack in the curtains; walking to the covered window, he grabbed the two drawn curtains and threw them to the side, making the hoops they were hanging from rattle as the sun's glorious rays flooded the room, painting it in its golden light, but not before illuminating the broad, free smile on Quinn's face as he greeted the morning of a new day.

Quinn turned back into his room, treating the birds' chirps as the melodious melody of nature, serenading him as he started his day. He grabbed the bottom hem of his night-shirt and removed it over his head before chucking it behind him over his shoulder in a no-look throw to the clothes bin for the elves to clean, pants and the underwear beneath soon followed. Quinn, buck naked as on the day he was born, walked through the room towards the bathroom as curtains along the suite rattled open and MLEs lit up to match the room to what he was feeling inside— bright!

Inside the bathroom, he snapped his finger, and the showerhead spouted hot water over him as he stood under it with his palms on the wall and his head bowed down.

He cracked a grinned.

It was time to start a new day.

After the shower, Quinn dressed up in his morning workout clothes and walked to the door, his eyes glancing briefly towards his bedroom, where he could see his bed calling for him; alas, while as tempestuous was the allure of a 'second-sleep,' it would have to wait until the night time.

He reached the suite entrance and arched his brow when he saw runes painted on the door and spilling out onto the walls around it. He took a step forward, and the black runes flared up into angry orangish-red with sparks bursting out. Quinn looked down and saw that he had stepped on a rune, eliciting a chuckle from him as he stepped back.

"What should I do. . . ?" After contemplating a couple of seconds, Quinn shrugged, and his eyes turned purple. "Let's knock 'em down."

He raised his foot and stomped on the same rune he stepped on. The runes flared up again, and as they did, Quinn pumped in a torrent of magic into the runes. The light from the runes glowed brighter, a purple light coursing through every individual rune. They trembled but calmed down the next instant, making Quinn's eyes narrow— the runes were sturdier than he thought— 'well that's to be expected, they're my work. . . '

The air between Quinn and the door began to fizzle like the air above the blazing flame. The magic in the runes started to tremble, magic overloading them as Quinn pushed more magic into them.

Fwoosh! Quinn grinned when one of the runes burst into flames. His overloading approach was working, and so he decided to push forward by flooding more of his magic into his runes.

Fwoosh! Fwoosh! Fwoosh! One by one, the runes burst into flames, and before long, chains of runes started to burst-snap together until all runes were fizzled into non-being.

"Alright, that's done," Quinn said, looking at the wall with black char marks on the door and walls. ". . . That'd take some repair work. . . well, not my problem; the house-elves will take care of it."

He walked to the door without any runes opposing him.

Quinn opened the door to the day that was waiting for him.

- (Scene Break)-

Eddie jumped down from the grand staircase's stairs, skipping the last few steps to land on the floor, and broke into a sprint on the ground floor of the Hogwarts castle. He made his way through the hallways before skidding with squeaks rubbing from his shoes into the empty entrance hall, glancing at the still closed great hall as he ran past it, towards the castle entrance. He vaulted from the top of the entrance to skip the short steps. With his feet on flat ground, Eddie once again broke into a run with his destination set at his daily green fields.

"Sorry, sorry," he huffed out as he came to a stop with hands gripping at his sides, "I thought I saw a knick on my broom that I hadn't seen before, and that turned into a full broom inspection."

Eddie looked at Quinn, who had his back to him and was doing pull-ups on a pull-up bar-stand conjured in the middle of a grass field.

"No worries, it is good that you're here," said Quinn. He released his grip on the bar and landed on his feet heavily before turning to Eddie with a smile. "Good morning; it's quite a pleasant day today."

Eddie stared at Quinn for a moment. "You seem chirpy today; something happened?"

"You can say that, my friend. When I woke up today, I felt like a weight had been lifted off me."

"That's nice, I guess," Eddie shrugged and started his workout while Quinn got back to what he was doing.

For Eddie, he started his day with a run around a track that ran that laid around a wide part of the Hogwarts ground and was mindlessly running, his body doing everything on its own as he stared ahead, half in thought. But when he was on the last leg on his run, a sound reached his ear, and he looked back to widen his eyes.

Quinn was running towards him. But that wasn't the reason for his surprise.

"What are you doing?" he asked, looking at Quinn, who had his upper body void of clothing— in the years he had been working out with Quinn, not once had his friend ever removed his shirt like this— if his clothes got sweaty, he would snap his fingers and the sweat would vanish. "What's with the no shirt; don't feel like wearing clothes today?"

"It was feeling restrictive today, so I decided to try how it feels like."

"And?"

"It feels great! I might just do this every day from now on."

"Seriously? Well, whatever," Eddie shrugged, still running. "So why are you here? You prefer to run at the end."

"I thought I would try something different today," Quinn looked at Eddie and pumped his brows with a grin. "Now that we're here, what you say, should we do a race? The one who loses will have to buy something from Hogsmeade. I want to eat the meat pies from Three Broomsticks. How about it?"

"Is that even a question? Yeah, let's do it," said Eddie with a wild grin of his own— he wasn't one to say no to a challenge.

"Alright!" said Quinn. "We start from here and finish at our regular spot."

Eddie nodded and looked ahead, ready to sprint at a moment's notice.

"Here we go. . . three. . . two. . . one. . . . Go!"

Eddie leaned forward and pushed the ground as hard as possible, bursting forward. He knew his route better than anyone else; the remaining distance was enough that he could speed all the way.

As he was running, he could still see Quinn's swinging arms and legs on the edge of his vision. But as they ran, more and more of Quinn started to enter his vision.

"Come on, Eddie boy, are you even trying?"

"Haha, of course, I'm running just enough that you won't be left in the dust."

"Dust, eh, let's see about that," said Quinn.

They reached the final corner, after which there was only a straight path to the finishing point. Eddie decided to make an all-out sprint before the corner to get a headstart, but just as he was about to put the metal to the pedal, Quinn pushed to just beside him.

"Taste dust," said Quinn.

Before Eddie could reply, Quinn pushed ahead as if he had been jogging and was finally raising his speed to sprint. But then Eddie's eyes almost popped out, and his jaw slackened when Quinn started to pull away more and more distance.

"H-How. . . ."

Quinn, however, was already past earshot, zooming to the finishing point, body magic pumping through his muscles. He felt his body turn into one perfect machine as magic worked under his will, moving as he commanded it.

It felt good.

. . . .

Eddie panted on the ground, staring at the blue sky above him, with the annoying sun on edge, rising up as the hours moved to noon. Suddenly, Quinn appeared in his vision, looking down at him with a goofy grin.

"That meat pies' mine now," said Quinn, "hohoho."

"You fucking cheated!" Eddie spat.

"Nuh-uh," Quinn wiggled his finger, "we never said that magic wasn't allowed."

"Ooh, fuck off," Eddie raised his tired hand to swat Quinn's face but couldn't reach.

"Hey, it is your fault that you didn't think who you're facing," Quinn crossed his arms and said sagely. "Always study your opponent."

"Yeah, no, how about you fuck off!"

- (Scene Break) -

What once had been pristine, untouched, had now turned into a tar-like, place full of darkness. The golden soul that sat in the middle shimmering softly was now a mass of muddled black, giving out an ominous magenta-purple hue.

In that space, Quinn opened his eyes. He didn't know why he was here— maybe it was because this time his soul was stronger than before that he was able to be present with all of his reasoning.

However, what was the use? Such thoughts swirled in his mind. He had been here ever since the curse took over his soul, and for hours he had tried to do so find any clue that would allow him to regain control; unfortunately, there was not a single thing he could do.

He didn't have his magic here. . . . and without magic, Quinn West was useless. Without magic, he was incomplete.

"Tch, tch, tch," a voice echoed in Quinn's ears, "so this was what holding us back. . . ."

Quinn turned his head and saw that in the dark space where he could barely see the infected soul stood a person illuminated in violet light, looking down at with a sneer on his face and harsh, piercing eyes. The figure was another Quinn.

". . . but I can't say that I expected anything more. We have so much potential, more than anyone who ever existed, infinite, capable of transcending what's possible— it is good that you were dethroned from control. At least now we'll rise to what we are truly capable of."

Quinn looked at Violet-Quinn wordlessly.

"What, no words?"

Quinn kept staring at Violet-Quinn not a single moment from him, but inside, the cogs of his thoughts that had come to a halt had started to turn. Before, he hadn't had a single clue how to escape his current situation, but now the situation had changed, the entity in front of him was clearly a result of the Sin curse, and there was a chance that he could use him to get out of his situation— especially when he heard the words that had been said.

'—dethroned from control.'

If he had been 'dethroned,' which meant he could regain the throne.

"Why are you staring at me like that?" Violet-Quinn scoffed. "Amazed by my glorious presence?"

Quinn finally opened his mouth, "You're pathetic."

-*-*-*-*-*-

Quinn West - MC - A violet ray of hope.

Eddie Carmichael - Sore loser - Now, that was just complete bullshit.

FictionOnlyReader - Author - Hmm. . . if I'm going to do this properly, it would be at least this week. Edit: Lol, that changed quite quickly.

-*-*-*-*-*-

[

A/ N:

[1]

I have a question for those who don't like the Sin Arcs.

If you guys were to do a personality change storyline or a plot where MC's personality was being manipulated, how would you do it? I'm not asking this for any form of retaliation or not willing to accept that someone didn't like my writing— I know that I can't please everyone, everyone has their likes/dislikes, and that my readers not enjoying what I write is also my fault.

Here, I truly want to know that if it was to be done, what'd be the best/preferred way. Thank you.

[2]

Second point, about AMJ ending soon. It won't be ending in March because now I have realized that with the current point in the story and what I want to write, I would most probably write into April. Now, the reason why I'm ending it at canon is that I don't know what to write after this— if I had a storyline that interested me, I would have definitely continued AMJ, but because I lack the idea and outlooks, I can't write.

And I have also found that very soon, I'd be getting 'bored' of writing AMJ. There will be a point where I won't be creatively attracted to or invested in AMJ, and I want to end before that point arrives. I don't want to get to the point where I'm bored of the story; yet, I am still writing it because it's doing well and there's demand. That would plummet my performance, and I would start my walk towards burnout. I have experienced burnout(for different reasons) and have no plans for experiencing it ever again.

If there are more questions, please ask, and I shall answer them to the best of my ability.

[3]

We hit 1 Million words a couple days back! So. . . . YEAH~!!!

-*-*-*-*-*-

If you have any ideas regarding the magic you want to see in this fiction or want to offer some ideas regarding the progression. Move onto the DISCORD Server and blast those ideas.

The link is in the synopsis!