I don't own anything but original characters and my original plot

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Chapter 2 - Magic

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"MAGIC IS NEITHER GOOD OR EVIL, IT IS A TOOL, LIKE A KNIFE. IS A KNIFE EVIL? ONLY IF THE WIELDER IS"

Naively, I had hoped to wake up that morning and expected to be able to train in my own capacity. Listen to music, go through a few different forms of dance, and move on to intense combat training against sims and punching bags that had certainly suffered enough of my wrath already.

As soon as I stepped into the kitchen, however, I was greeted by my father. Jumping in shock, I tilted my head in confusion. There were two rooms I had seen him in during my five years living at the facility. The conditioning room, and his 'throne room'. Seeing him so uncomfortably seated on one barstool was comical.

"Is there something I can help you with, Father?" I questioned, standing to attention after recovering from my shock. SHowing the smallest sign of weakness was a chance for him to attack.

"(Y/n), instead of your normal training, we'll be practising with chaos magic today," Father informed me, quickly standing and leading me away from the kitchen. I held back a sigh. I just wanted some food before I began my normal training. I prayed to whatever higher power that existed that his idea of 'training' wasn't some random conditioning because a lack of action bored him.

Passing by the rest of the training hallway, the dorm hallway, and the recreational hallway, we arrived at the hallway reserved for Father himself. I had never been down that hall before; I faced dire consequences if I attempted to enter it.

Three doors into the hall he opened one up. The room was dark. A large pentagram was chalked onto the floor, boxes of candles were stacked on top of each other, and two bookshelves were in the corner. One held books with red and black covers. The other held white and gold- the brightest thing in that room.

"Today we will start with something simple. Feeling and concentrating the chaos," Father led me to the center of the pentagram, "Now, I want you to close your eyes, and reach out. Reach out to the chaos of the world, of the seven deadly sins. Feel the war, death, greed, pride, all of it. It's all around us, shining over the good in many ways."

I closed my eyes, picturing the Earth. Something dark was drawing me closer and closer to it. Images flashed through my mind and I choked out a gasp. Death, war, towns destroyed, betrayal, people crying, mourning.

"That's it. Focus on their pain, the suffering they feel. Amazing, isn't it?"

I zoomed into the picture further. I could feel everyone's pain in my mind. Everyone's. It was too much. They were suffering. I wanted to help them.

"Concentrate on everything you feel. Feel the rush in your veins, let it give you strength. True power."

A spark of pain shot up my hands. Gasping, I struggled to remain focused. Even though the surge of sudden energy was painful, it felt... good. I was gaining power from other people's pain.

"Perfect. Open your eyes, don't lose the image in your mind, however."

I opened my eyes, looking to my hands. A red ball of light was glowing in between them. It was flickering, unstable, but it was still there. Proof of my steps towards learning chaos magic.

"Now, this will drain you at first, but right now, I just need you to practice," Father walked over to the dark bookshelf, picking out a specific book and doing the same with the light one, "This is a book on dark magic, and this is a book on light. You're to study both from front to back."

"Why both if we only use dark magic?" I wondered, losing the light for good.

"We need to understand what we could be facing. What spells they could use, what supplies they'd need for rituals that could take us out of the running. Only when you understand more than what you use, can you truly adapt."

Taking the books, I ran a hand over the covers, "Understood, Father."

Father snapped his fingers and two chairs popped up across from each other, "We never seem to talk like a true father and daughter should. Let's change that. Catch up."

Throwing a skeptical look his way, I hesitantly sat down in one of the chairs. I was waiting for a surprise attack or something to come out and scare me, but there was nothing. Father sat down in the chair across from me, crossing his legs.

"Can you tell me about Mom?"

Father bristled. For a moment I was scared I crossed a line, but his disgruntled state turned into distance as his eyes looked over my shoulder and into the past.

"Your mother was... a spitfire, like you were before I put you in your place. She was unique, ahead of her time, and that's what drew me to her. She was confident with herself but understood other people. She made me feel like there were other things besides chaos and darkness. But that hope died with your mother-" Klarion shook his head, shaking himself out of his haze in the process, "Good talk. Luther was right, it builds trust. Anyway, you're dismissed. Go study."

I bowed and turned to leave. When I reached the end of the pentagram, I stumbled back. It was as if something was preventing me from leaving. Trying again, I was able to pass through whatever attempted to stop me with much struggle It was like trudging through syrup.

"You're part demon," Father smirked, easily passing through the pentagram, "Protective pentagrams can slow you down. We'll go over how to break them next time."

Nodding and bowing again, I rushed to my room. Stepping inside the only safe place I had, I jumped onto my bed and opened the white book. No desire was held to read the black one, it gave off a bad vibe. Using chaos to create more chaos; it was a strange cycle I highly disliked.

Learn to like it, I told myself, eyeing the leather-bound book, I am not going back to conditioning over something that makes me uncomfortable

"Something to study, Miss?" SASS questioned, having been transferred from my previous home.

"Father wants me to study the book," I browsed the pages. Some were rituals for good luck, others were spells, others were cancellations for dark spells.

"Perhaps you should stay on a page longer than thirty seconds, Miss," SASS suggested sarcastically.

Pausing on the page I was on, I took SASS's advice and actually read through it in its entirety. It was a counterspell to some dark magic spell. Something related to raising the dead and making them rapid, malicious.

"I can find most of the stuff here in the kitchen," I tilted my head, reading the ingredients, "Weird."

There was another spell I came across a few pages later. Meant to clear your mind and show you the right path. It said nothing about the good path. But the right path for your soul. A gray area. Reading over the instruction, I hummed. I needed something like that, a way to clear myself of my doubts about both sides.

"I need a candle, a mirror, and a crown. Where am I going to find a crown?"

"Harley gave you a crown for your birthday two years ago, didn't she?"

Nodding in remembrance, I jumped up and rushed around to grab what I needed. I had a candle in my room already. Scented, but it worked all the same. I had my bathroom mirror and found the birthday crown on a shelf in my closet. It was a mock princess crown. Harley gave it to me since I was her "Darlin' Little Princess".

I set the book on my bathroom counter against the wall on the side of the mirror, lighting the candle just after. Placing the crown on my head, I took a few moments to just observe myself. My eyes were dull, dark circles prominent beneath them. I didn't sleep often. My music box helped, but it was enough anymore. Not when my entire life had shifted into a nightmare.

Shaking myself out of my thoughts I shifted my attention to the page in front of me. The incantation was in the center, followed by a deeper look into the spell. Short, sweet, and in Latin- the unofficial language of magic.

"De ligno vitae et ego creo manifestum est animo. Patet cogitationes, per ostensionem fingere, patet corde, patet actiones. Rogo, ut sit"

In my reflection, a bright aura like light surrounded my body, but when I looked at my hands, I didn't see anything. My mind was shifting, memories and thoughts I had long forgotten resurfaced, merging with memories I could never forget.

Good and evil weren't two different entities like I always thought they were like I was told they were. No villain was pure evil, and no hero was pure good. They had pushed me to choose, but I didn't have to. Conditioning from Father, being stolen from Lex Corp by the heroes, they fell into the same category of forcing someone in the middle to one side. But the middle-

I gasped as the light brightened, blinding. Along with the clarification came ideas. Plans that would allow me to act on and accomplish my doubts. The doubts that had been floating around in my mind since I had killed-

The first four years of being a villain came with ease. Conditioning removed any doubts, any thoughts of reverting to my old friends, from my mind. But then a switch flipped during a mission, almost as if something had turned my humanity back on.

Hero or villain, I didn't know what I was meant to be. Until the spell, I didn't think I had a choice anymore. I burnt my bridges. But I was just given the tools to rebuild.