Paris felt like he was floating. Floating somewhere between the worlds of dreams and reality. His vision was black, and the sounds around him were incoherent. He pulled away from a pressure on his forehead. Then a sharp pain in his ear brought him back to reality.
When he pulled away, he realized that a girl with messy hair had been pinching him.
"Bout time you woke up." She pinched his other ear, as if to make sure he was really awake.
Who was this girl? Paris scuttled away from her until his back hit a wall. She wasn't particularly pretty; in fact, she looked like she was in desperate need of a shower.
"He's up," she called to someone behind her as Paris desperately tried to figure out where he'd seen her. She did look familiar, at the very least.
When the girl looked back at him with those dead eyes of hers, he remembered. The military had broken down his door. Rudely tried to arrest him. He'd let the poison fly, and nearly collapsed from the exhaustion. Then this brat had shown up, declaring she didn't exist.
"Who are you?" he asked slowly. The girl shrugged.
"June." Behind her, a large man came in through the door. He was shirtless, and covered in tattoos. The girl glanced back at him.
"So this is Paris, is it?" the man asked, sitting down next to her.
"Yup. Military called him Charles or something." June turned to Paris. "Big guy's Jase. Don't mess with Jase."
"Charles, huh?" Jase said.
"Paris."
"Real name Charles?"
"Dustin actually. Charles is my last name."
"Oops," June muttered. "The one guy called you Charles. How am I supposed to tell?"
"No worries, Juney," Jase said, ruffling her hair. "Anyway, Paris, or Dustin, or Charles, whichever you prefer - "
"Paris."
" - we've seen what you're doing and we like it. Stick it to the military, take that pompous Achilles down a notch. So when one of my guys caught word the military was going for you, I sent Juney to get you out."
"She has a Miracle, doesn't she?"
"Yup. Juney can basically turn herself into air. Nothing affects her while she's like that."
"So like becoming ethereal," Paris muttered. Jase shrugged.
"Something like that. Whatevs. She's gotten good at sneaking into places. Just quits existing and walks through the door - literally." Jase laughed at his own pun.
"Then I unlock the door, take the stuff out and lock it up before walking through the door again."
"She's gotten some pretty nice things that way." Jase showed off a dark gemstone earring. Paris noticed that it was only one of several marching up his right ear.
"So you're thieves?"
"Basically," June replied. "But we also do loans, security and cleaning." Jase laughed.
"We lend out money, then rake it in with interest. I also send some of my folks out to take care of protection of various persons or things related to our friends. And the cleaning...well, sometimes one just needs someone to be 'cleaned up', am I right?"
Paris laughed along with him, realizing that he'd landed right in a criminal master's den. Supposedly this Jase was the boss. And June was one of his underlings.
"Oi, Randy! Ryder! Aubrey!" Jace called. Moments later, three more people entered, two men and a woman.
"Paris up?" one of the men asked. Paris nodded, and the man stuck out a hand. "Ryder. Nice to meet you. Call me Manifest."
"He can make any one object," Jase added.
"One object at a time, but I can manifest anything." Manifest grinned and stepped back. "Randy over here can transport stuff and Aubrey can do some time reversal."
"Nothing too big," Aubrey quickly protested. "I can only affect one object at a time, and it's kind of exhausting."
"But it's good for cleaning up scrapes," Manifest said.
"He wants to call me Redo, but I hate that name," Aubrey muttered.
"Then how about...Reverse?" Paris asked.
Aubrey shook her head.
"Undo?"
Her glare was enough of an answer.
"What about Rewind?"
Apparently not.
"Then...what if we called you Itera?" He'd been looking up a couple things on his phone as the conversation went by, and found iterare as a word from a dead language that sounded cool.
"Fine." Aubrey - Itera - rolled her eyes. "Now what're you gonna call Randy and June?"
Paris paused to think. First he'd deal with June. He noticed Jase watching them with an amused smile on his face. He'd ignore that for now.
Ethereality... Would June like something based on that? Or...
"How about Mist for June?"
"Sounds good to me," Jase said.
"Mist." June stared at him blankly and shrugged. That seemed to be approved at least.
"And Randy, you transport stuff?" The guy shrugged.
"I have this thing, see?" He pulled out a small gemstone. "I can change what it looks like, and anything around it I can call to me." He tossed it to Paris.
"So you attract things to you? Then how about Magnetic?"
"Whatever," Magnetic replied.
Excitement welled up in Paris. He had four new allies, all with cool powers and names!
Jace cleared his throat, bringing everyone back to reality.
"So looks like Paris'll make a good leader for our crew. You four will change to working under him. We're also trying to find and recruit Phantasma, but the woman's slipperier than a baby fish. For now, we'll start with you five. Up to you, Paris, what we do first. All I ask is you bring in money and help me out now and then. And of course, take down Achilles and his wannabe Legion."
Paris nodded eagerly. "Then Paris' Phalanx is officially formed!"
"Is that what you're calling us?" Itera asked, rolling her eyes.
"Of course! It's the perfect name. I've been trying to form a group like this for a month at least."
"And you only managed it when Jase helped you..." Paris ignored Itera's annoyed remarks and kept going.
"Comrades! Today is a new dawn for us. We shall regroup and strike Achilles and his Legion once again in three weeks' time. Until then, we will practice with our Miracles, experimenting until I'm confident in our chances of success. I'll learn everyone's limits and command us to a glorious victory over Achilles! Then, Arx will be ours to do with as we see fit. The powerful shall bend to us, and our freedoms shall be unquestioned.
"And we will gather others. For every ally who sides with Achilles, we shall have an even stronger one. Mist, who can undo her physical manifestation into nothing but an illusion. Magnetic, who can summon anything he pleases. Manifest, who can create anything he imagines. Itera, who can reverse an object's very time. And Paris, who is the great commander bearing Achilles' weakness!"
"Shut it," Randy spat. "I'm going back to bed." Itera followed after him, dampening Paris' enthusiasm.
"It's okay, boss," Mist said. "They'll be there when you need them. But nobody here's much for grand speeches except you and Ryder."
"Manifest," the man in question said coldly.
"I'm sleepy. Can I go take a nap Jase?"
"Sure thing, Juney." Jase shot a wink at Paris. "Don't worry about their enthusiasm. I believe in you. You and Manifest can work together today, and tomorrow I'll send Randy or Aubrey your way. Juney needs a couple days to rest, but she'll be up and about soon."
"Thank you, Sir Jase." Paris was surprised when the boss started laughing hysterically.
"Just Jase is fine. None of us are much into those fancy titles and speech and stuff."
"You play TTRPGs?" Manifest asked. Paris started, then nodded slowly.
"A bit when I was in college."
"Great! I've been looking for someone to play with for forever. After we're done Miracle experimenting, wanna take down the Dragon Lord's Castle with me?"
"Sounds like a plan."
Paris sort of felt like a dark secret had been revealed, but nobody was making fun of him for it. And Manifest seemed excited.
Excitement welled up in him again as his new beginning truly began.
