Luminous' sword inched towards Vainglorious neck. Vainglorious ran outside the funhouse. Right in time for the Dawn of Fates vermillion blade to hit the side of the funhouse mirrors cracking it to pieces.

Sweat beading from the top of Vainglorious' short wavy white hair. He ducked behind a wooden smoothie booth. Once he caught his breath he stopped immediately, mesmerized by the tall glass buildings that seemed to reach the sky.

"Vainglorious!" Luminous shouted.

Vainglorious whipped his head around. Luminous swung the Dawn of Fate. Vainglorious dodged just in time, the vermillion blade swished by his navy blue trench coat barely nicking it. As it crashed down hard on the wood. Kicking up loose debris from the boardwalk.

Vainglorious ran into the streets of the abandoned city down a nearby alleyway. Sly tugged on Luminous' strings that were forcibly tied around her. Making her chase after him, her sword at the ready.

DING-DING!

The big clock rang on the clock tower. Vainglorious who was running away, now froze mid-run. Just like those people Luminous saw on the news report.

"Bingo~" Sly sang.

Controlling Luminous from his throne in the funhouse.

Luminous felt her arms tighten on her sword raising him high above her head.

"No! Stop!" Luminous screamed at her own arms. "Make it stop!" She cried.

The Dawn of Fate was inches away from Vainglorious' face when it stopped. Luminous' short arms shook. Her fair face became beet red, with tears streaming down her cheeks as she worked against the invisible force controlling her.

"That's Impossible!" Sly shouted, working his invisible stings against Luminous.

"That's incredible! How are you doing that?" Asked the Dawn of Fate.

But Luminous could do nothing but blink her blue eyes. Not able to answer for fear of breaking this newfound concentration.

"Way to go Shortstuff! Fight it!"

Luminous could barely move her arm an inch away from Vainglorious' face. But when she did, well if a sword could smile, the Dawn of Fate would be grinning like the Cheshire cat.

"Suck my blade, you halfling cad!"

But out of the corner of her eye, Luminous saw something dark and slimy. The metal rail it slithered over melted under its heat. Panic reset in Luminous as the dark slime dropped from the metal railing towards Vainglorious' head.

Luminous tried to shout out to him, but her jaw felt set. Like she would have to pull it off to open her mouth. But it only got worse, Luminous felt herself continue to swing the Dawn of Fate at Vainglorious' head.

Vainglorious unfroze. Only to see both Luminous' blade and the slime going for his head.

"Too much heartbreak so you put up a wall, not even summer will make the ice thaw!"

Vainglorious' ice shield appeared right above his head as soon as the slime and the sword clashed with it. The slime began melting the shield, burning a hole in it. He continued running under his shield, the sword gliding above it. The shield spell broke just as he got out of reach of the Dawn of Fate. The slime landed on his white glove burning it away, he flicked the slime off throwing it against the red brick alley wall.

Vainglorious ran down the alleyway until he got into the back door of a pizza place. His dirty boots leave tracks on the orange and yellow checkered floor. The plastic orange and yellow chairs and tables were all thrown askew, and just like everything else was left abandoned.

"Why hello Vassy boy."

Vainglorious jolted at the sound of Sly's voice. He turned towards it to find a mirror hanging up by the glass front door.

"Yes, you. Running like a weak cornered animal. Now that doesn't suit you at all now does it Vassy?"

Sly's smirk could be seen clearly inside of the mirror by the glass door.

"You!" Growled Vainglorious. "If you think for a minute...."

"Let's strike a deal and cease this little. How do you put it? Cat and mouse chase. Watching you like this Vassy almost makes Slyly wily feel sowy rawry for you."

Sly's white fox ears twitch, as he licked the fangs of his toothy grin. Vainglorious glared at the fox man, with his fist balled up.

"What kind of idiot do you take me for! Like I would ever take up a deal with you! Go suck on a blade!" Vainglorious yelled at the mirror.

Sly's smirk didn't move from his face. Instead, he narrowed his glowing pink eyes at the young wizard boy.

"Say...are you in the pizzeria down the street? Aren't you?"

Vainglorious didn't know what a pizzeria was. But he felt that somehow Sly got all the information he needed to send Luminous after him.

"Oh, the look on your face right now." Sly giggled. "If only I had a camera on me."

Vainglorious pale face burned bright red. He felt like steam could burst out of his ears. So he screamed out.

"Bittersweet is the feeling of an Icicle spear, When you get a feeling of death but without any fear!"

He threw his ice spear right into the mirror shattering it into pieces. Like he should have done in the first place when the mirror started talking to him.

Vainglorious slumped down to the floor behind the counter. He looked to the hand that the slime burnt the glove off of. He had nearly forgotten about the wooden ring Luminous had found and given him in the forest before they had even met Sly.

That day, Luminous had found it while finding his lost shoes for him...she was always doing kind yet pointless things like that while smiling stupidly. Vainglorious felt his heart clench up while thinking about Luminous. He clenched his white button-up shirt, as tears spilled out of his gray eyes.

"Why is this so frustrating! Rrrahh!"

Vainglorious screamed throwing the wooden ring against the brick pizza oven. The wooden ring broke in half. One of the halves rolled back to him stoping at his black ankle boot. He saw something inscribed inside of the ring. Picking it up he read.

"A young wizard fell in love with a storyteller from kingdom red. He would read her stories every night before bed. When it came time to marry she was the only person he would wed."

Vainglorious wiped his gray eyes with his coat sleeves. He did recognize this story. He recognized this spell! He searched frantically for the other ring, his eyes spotted it under the pizza stove. He crawled towards it reaching under the stove. When he had it in his hands he read the other half of the spell.

"But at last the books the only record of her, he had already read. For his bride was already long dead. So he made up a spell in a ring giving half his life to the storyteller from red, for she is the corpse bride he has chosen to wed."

Vainglorious smiled remembering what Dawn of Fate jokingly said to Luminous about getting out of Sly's spell.

"Hope Sly gets bored and releases you. Or you can hope that either him or snobs here kill you first."

He knew he was going to have to kill Luminous.