It took them less than fifteen minutes to get a cab. Melmarc waited consciously aware of his tattered state and slightly embarrassed by it. Ark's state of clothing was far worse than his, bad enough that his boxers were showing, yet he stood in the alley, resting against the wall as if it didn't matter. He might as well have been dressed in a three-piece suit and still not cared any different.

The area looked as equally occupied as it was abandoned. The buildings looked like a mix of residential buildings and small businesses. Maybe a florist shop here, a tailor's shop there, a barbing salon peeking out from one corner. Yet, there were no real signs of life.

Two kids had just fallen from the sky and hit the ground with the loudest thud two falling bodies could possibly make and nobody seemed to pay the slightest attention.

Then again, maybe two bodies falling from an impossible height on a concrete floor did not make as much sound as it felt like it should.

Melmarc looked at the concrete floor with zero blood stains and swallowed. Ark could've been nothing but a red stain on the ground if he had been too slow.

If he hadn't timed [Knowledge is Power] right, they could both have been nothing but a larger blood stain on the floor.

They could've died. It was a heavy thought. Some people would like to believe that there was something glorious in dying for a greater good, but Melmarc was beginning to have doubts. What exactly constituted 'greater good'?

Was it the number of innocents or was it the value of the people to you? Was the concept subjective? He understood, from a logical standpoint, the need to save a hundred people at the cost of three people, that was the greater good. But what if those three people were his family? Did the greater good become subjective? If he saved his family at the cost of a hundred people, it could be argued that it was a greater good… right?

After all, he had a duty to protect his family over random strangers. He had a duty to…

A frown touched his lips as a sleek blue car pulled up in front of the alley. Written boldly on its side was the word 'Quickest.' The Tatelat transport service was famous.

Careful, he told himself.

He'd watched enough movies and read enough novels and seen enough contents that girls swooned over to know that his line of thinking was how villains were born. Men watching worlds burn because it was the only way to keep their loved ones safe.

Ark looked up at the car, then down at the screen of his phone.

"Our ride's here?" he confirmed, waving for Melmarc to follow him.

The side of the car was visible to them, giving them a clear view of the driver. He was a middle-aged man with balding hair. He wore an ascot cap that covered most of the bald spot on top, but he was balding enough for it to still show.

He had a sagging face that didn't look sad with lips that even from a side angle looked as if they had grown far too accustomed to smiling.

As Melmarc and Ark approached the car, the man turned his head to look at them. He squinted slightly, obviously taken aback by the state of their clothes. Melmarc watched the man's eyes move over to Ark's burn marks before watching the man make up his mind with a shrug.

Ark moved to the back, stepping ahead of Melmarc. He opened the passenger door absentmindedly before stepping aside to take a peek at the license plate of the car.

Melmarc slipped into the car seamlessly and Ark entered after him.

"Right plates?" he asked his brother.

Ark nodded. "Right plates."

There was a glass screen between them and the driver's side of the vehicle, it was designed for privacy, blocking out sound, so that the driver didn't hear the conversation you were having, at least not clearly, unless they were doing their best to eavesdrop. It was also designed for security, so that you couldn't reach for the driver and they couldn't reach for you. The old man didn't turn back, neither did he push the car into drive. Instead, he looked at them through the rearview mirror.

"Tough day?" he asked, grey eyes waiting for an answer.

"Not as bad as you would think," Ark said with a touch of humor. "Definitely not the best day. But I think we've had better."

He gave a comfortable grin, like a boy who'd simply been up to his daily dose of shenanigans and had come out with a few scrapes and bruises.

The man chuckled. "Oh, to be young and reckless. Just try not to get yourselves killed. Not that you guys ever do."

Returning his eyes to the road in front of him, the man started the car. He pushed it into drive and the car rolled into motion.

Ark gave Melmarc a confused look when he was sure that the man wasn't looking.

You guys? He mouthed.

Melmarc had an idea of what was going on. They were young boys around the age required to be Gifted in the Gifted capital city, with torn clothes and a few scars. Perhaps it was a thing to find such levels of chaos in the Gifted city among their denizens.

Was it really considered to be normal? As long as there were no fatal injuries or dead bodies was this normal?

If it was, that was going to be something of a cultural shock for Melmarc. After all, there was the big question of why it was normal.

Yes, there are a lot of Gifted and it's a city designed specifically for the lives of the Gifted, but did that make it alright?

"I get it now," Ark said suddenly voice low.

Melmarc looked at him. "Get what?"

"The 'you guys,'" he answered as they drove by a barber's shop and the driver took a right turn. "Back home if you were walking on the road and saw two kids talking and walking down as if nothing was wrong but they were spotting a few bruises, you'd think maybe they got into some disagreement at some point in the day but it was nothing too deep."

"We're not spotting a few bruises, though," Melmarc pointed out, even though he understood where Ark was heading with this.

"Yes," Ark agreed. "But we are in a city of Gifted. You'd expect two normal boys to have a few bruises, but when people with classes and skills fight, you've got to amp up the possible effects." He tugged on a piece of his ruined shirt. "Burnt clothes and things like that."

Melmarc took Ark in once more. "You've got burn marks."

The marks looked to be days old already. They were practically all over his body but they looked more like things that had already gone through all the phases of healing and were in the scarring phase.

It worried Melmarc a little, but not too much.

"I've got fire resistance, Mel," Ark told him. "They'll clear up in a few days. That's one of the perks. Fire to certain degrees is literally not allowed to leave scars on me. They happen then they heal."

Melmarc cocked an unamused brow at him.

"Besides," Ark added, turning his attention to his side of the window, "The moment Spitfire sees me, he'll kind of lose his shit and fix it. He's not really a fan of scars." He poked himself in the side. "This one still pisses him off. He hates that I won't let him do anything about it."

Melmarc looked down at the massive scar on Ark's side where he'd been run through. It was the one he had gotten from his time in his mentorship program.

Scars were not a thing of worry. They had never been. Any competent hospital had at least one Gifted with the [Healer] class who could take care of any scar. As a child, Melmarc's scar had been a special case, stomping almost all the doctors that had looked at it.

There were often times when people ended up with scars that couldn't be healed but those always ended up being Delvers who had gone into a portal and returned with an injury that could not be healed beyond the scarring point. It was always injuries from portals.

Ark's scarring would be fine. What bothered Melmarc was something else.

How much pain was he in?

Burn marks that much would not come without pain.

"You're still trying to milk it for everything you can, huh?" he asked, not touching the subject of the pain.

Ark grinned. "I am."

"Why, though?" Melmarc pressed, leaning his head back against the chair. Happily, there was enough leg space for him to be comfortable. "You're already in. You got the admission letter and everything."

"True." Ark was still looking out his window. "But there's still the aptitude test portion of the whole thing. Then there's the interview portion. Then there's the physicals. We're a shoe in now, yes. But we still have to decide our standing."

Melmarc remembered that. Joining combat classes and standing the chance of being on the school team in the different areas of expertise began from these tests. Over your years in the school, you could always do well enough to be considered, but if you wanted a chance from day one, it mattered there.

Most of the famous Delvers out of Gifted schools had been active parts of their school combat teams. Ark also definitely wanted to be a part of Fallen High's combat team.

"One look at this bad boy," Ark continued, "and they'll know that I can pull my own weight."

"Unless they ask you how long you've had it, find out, then ask why you haven't had a [Healer] look at it," Melmarc said nonchalantly.

Ark gave him a knowing grin.

Melmarc turned his head to look at his brother and almost laughed. "Let me guess, you've got a plan for that."

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"Yes," Ark answered, nodding like a man proud of himself. "And that's where you also come in."

Melmarc returned his attention to the ceiling of the car. "I'm not a fan of lying, Ark."

"No lies, required from you. Just nods and things like that. Since I was scouted, basically got in on a scholarship, I'll just tell them that our parents couldn't afford it."

Melmarc's jaw dropped. "That's bullshit."

Healing scars wasn't the cheapest medical procedure, but it still wasn't expensive. Any body with basic health insurance could get a scar handled. Granted, one of Ark's size would cost a little more since healing scars wasn't something that was handled as simply as waving a hand over the scar.

"They won't believe you," Melmarc said. "I'm your brother and I'm not on a scholarship."

"Then we can say that I'm the neglected brother and our parents couldn't be bothered to get it looked at."

"No." Melmarc shook his head. "You won't make monsters of our parents."

"How about the hospital that treated the initial injury didn't have a [Healer] that could handle scars and I just couldn't be bothered to get it looked at after I was discharged?"

Melmarc thought about it. That could work.

"It would make you look like someone who got the job done and didn't dwell on the superficial things," he mused.

Dissonant.

Melmarc ignored the thought. It wasn't as if he was lying to anybody. He was just tossing ideas around.

Wait, he frowned.

Why was it ringing dissonant for him but not Ark? Ark was basically doing the same thing that he was.

"Ark?"

"Talk to me."

"Lie about something."

Ark gave him a curious look but complied. "The sky is a beautiful pink this nice night."

Dissonant.

Clearly. The sky wasn't pink and it was afternoon.

"Alright," Melmarc said slowly. "Now tell me what you think will work best with the scar when they ask you about it?"

"Something wrong with your lie detector?"

The driver's ears perked up at the phrase. His eyes moved quickly to the rearview mirror.

Please no, Melmarc prayed. He was in no mood to deal with another person with some horrible secret that he was not supposed to know. If the man was secretly planning to bomb some innocent convenience store after dropping them off, he didn't want to know.

Actually, he hoped the man wasn't planning something like that.

"Mel," Ark said, drawing his attention.

Melmarc blinked. "Oh, no, nothing's wrong with it. Just trying to figure something out."

Ark told him exactly what they had decided. How he still had the scar because he just hadn't been bothered to get it checked out.

Melmarc waited patiently for the dissonance that never came. Why was it different when Ark did it?

Is it because I understand myself better than Ark?

"Are you that okay with lying?" he asked.

Ark gave him a puzzled look, as if Melmarc had just called him a horrible person.

"Oh don't look at me like that," Melmarc scoffed. "You know I don't mean it like that."

There was a pause before he cracked into a smile. "It used to be more fun when you genuinely thought you'd hurt my feelings. But no, it's not really a lie if you think about it. It's more along the lines of a selective truth. I could've gotten rid of it but I didn't."

"What about the other ideas?" Melmarc hadn't felt any dissonance from him on those ones.

Ark shrugged. "They're just ideas, Mel. Ideas aren't lies. A lie requires intent."

Melmarc knew that. It was why it was confusing him. The idea he was talking about didn't even have anything to do with him actually lying. Was it that he was just more in tune with himself? Did his sense of dissonance hold him to a higher standard than others?

Uncle Dorthna had said that dissonance wasn't about lying. It was about dissonance. Which meant that a person could lie comfortably if they weren't dissonant about it. Uncle Dorthna had also said that his sense of dissonance was in its beginning stages. It was a paltry thing compared to his father's which could detect dissonance even in a fly.

So, a chronic liar who was really, really good at it could probably lie past him.

There was also the intent. It was why jokes people made didn't register as dissonant. It was good to have a firmer bearing on the way it worked.

Now, if I can just get the other ones to stop trying to make me kill people, he thought with a dour mood.

"Anyway," Ark continued. "If you're done looking into it—you are done looking into it, right?"

Melmarc nodded. "Yeah, it's fine."

"Good. As I was saying, I'm trying to get into the combat team and win a championship or two this year. It will make me a shoe in for my other plans."

Melmarc raised a brow at that. "Other plans?"

"Nothing you need to worry about," Ark said dismissively. "Oh, just in case you thought I was doing it alone, I'm not. I might be in the special program but you're still joining me on my trips and everything."

Melmarc groaned. It was going to be good for him. To socialize and network was something he needed to learn how to do. It would be good for him in the long run, especially when he became a Delver.

If the world doesn't end by that time, he thought, remembering what his very presence meant for the world.

"Deal?" Ark asked.

Melmarc hesitated before nodding. "Deal. But no loud parties. No, no parties at all."

"Those are where the most socializing happens, Mel."

"No parties," Melmarc insisted. The last thing he needed was to accidentally get drunk and get into a fight with someone else, see them as an actual threat, and blow their brains out with a blast from [Rings of Saturn].

"What of non-alcoholic parties?" Ark asked.

Melmarc snorted. "Nice try, but I know that there's no such thing with you."

"Suit yourself," Ark shrugged. "I won't take you out to parties."

There was something in the way he said it that had Melmarc's brows drawing together in suspicion. He knew when Ark was up to something. Ark wasn't lying, but he was up to something. A loophole to be established.

Ark gave him a fun, innocent smile.

Melmarc sensed no dissonance. Still, his common sense smelled mischief in the air. It took him a moment to realize what it was.

"No throwing parties in the house," he said, pointing a finger at him.

Ark scoffed. "Like you can stop me."

"I'll tell mom."

"Ha!" Ark barked an amused laugh. "And what do you think she'll say? 'Ark shut down that party this instant' or 'Live a little, Mel'?"

Their mother did want him to live a little. Melmarc frowned as he found himself leaning in the direction of the latter. His mother would most likely want him to live a little. She would only oppose Ark if the party thing became a constant.

Ark reached across and patted him on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Mel. This is going to be fun."

The rest of the car ride was done in relative silence. Ark and Melmarc took in the sights they could as they passed buildings and streets. Tatelat was much different, structurally speaking, from most cities. You could see it in their infrastructure. Skyscrapers stood a little too tall, building designs were a little too outlandish, bending or curving in ways that were not supposed to be feasible.

Anyone with half a brain could tell that Gifted with powerful [Crafter] classes were active parts of the city's infrastructure. Even the roads seemed… different. Melmarc could not really put a finger on it.

At least the traffic lights were something he could pick out. They were nothing but single orbs floating in the air, nothing else. They changed colors to dictate each traffic light, but they were just floating orbs.

Then there were the mana particles. Far more than he'd seen outside the city. And they were all vibrant, all colorful. If he focused on them, they could become a very active distraction.

During the ride, Melmarc had learnt from a sticker just below the glass screen that the driver was a man named Jesuit, a D-rank [Pathfinder]. They were famous for their scouting skills. But they were not a class you wanted to take into a portal with you, because while they could help you find items and destinations, there was no guarantee of them doing it safely. They could just as easily walk you into a nest of monsters.

In the real world, they worked well as couriers and drivers and sometimes private detectives.

After more than thirty minutes of driving, Ark finally spoke again.

"Five minutes away," he said.

Melmarc nodded, staring out the window. He caught sight of a plane on the rise as it flew into the sky. He'd thought there would be more panic at the airport at this time.

"Do you think they landed okay?" he asked quietly. He hoped the plane hadn't ended in a horrible crash.

"They are fine."

Ark's tone was so certain that Melmarc was forced to look at him. "You sound so…"

"Sure?" Ark shrugged, looking down at his phone. "It's because I am."

"How are you?"

"Because Spitfire is fine and unbothered. Right now, I can feel a sense of impatient waiting from him. They've probably unloaded the luggage and he's just sitting there in his cage waiting for us."

Melmarc had almost forgotten that Spitfire and Ark shared a bond that deep. Even halfway across the world, they could know each other's state.

"Uhm… excuse me," the driver, Jesuit, said nervously. "I couldn't help but overhear some of the things you were talking about early on. Truly sorry about that, I swear I didn't mean to. It just kind of happened."

"Your privacy screen is acting up?" Ark asked as if it was not a problem.

Melmarc didn't think it was a problem either. There was some ethical unacceptability to it, but not a problem.

The man nodded, having the decency to look ashamed on the rearview mirror.

"No sweat off our brows," Ark said, smiling. "How can we assist?"

"I have a daughter in school. Fallen High, actually. She's been there a year now," he said.

"Congratulations," Ark said easily. "I hope she's doing alright?"

He could be polite and gentlemanly whenever he wanted to be.

"She's fine, thank you." Jesuit gave him an appreciative look through the rearview mirror as he turned at a junction. "This year the things she's been calling for have been getting more expensive with every phone call and it's beginning to weigh down on me, if you catch my drift. She's always been a good girl, mind you, it's just that… well…" he scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

"Bad influences exist in school," Ark said as if it was not a problem.

Jesuit nodded. "I heard you say your brother there is good at telling when people are lying. So, I was wondering if I could call her and ask her about the recent thing and… I know it makes me sound like a horrible parent, but I just wanted to know…"

"If he can see if she's been lying to you or if being a student is becoming more expensive than it used to be?"

Jesuit nodded, a touch of shame on his face.

Ark looked at Melmarc inquiringly.

Melmarc shrugged. He didn't mind giving it a try. He knew that he could sense dissonance across phone calls, too. Also, while it would've seemed out of the way to be asking someone to do such a thing simply because they were good at telling lies, in the capital city of the Gifted where anyone could easily be a Gifted, Jesuit must've interpreted his ability to be something of a skill.

And if he was going out of his way to ask, then the financial burden the increase in prices must've been putting on him had to be bad.

"Sure," Ark said, addressing the driver. "Go for it."

Jesuit took out his phone and, in a matter of seconds, it was ringing. His daughter picked on the sixth ring.

"Good afternoon, dad," she greeted with a cheerful voice.

"Afternoon, pumpkin," Jesuit answered. "How are you?"

"Fine. Just got back from a math test," she complained.

Dissonant.

Melmarc winced slightly. He didn't know what to think if she was lying about something that basic the moment the call started.

He said nothing.

"How was it?" Jesuit asked.

"Annoying, but okay."

Dissonant.

"How are you?" the girl asked.

"Just fine, just fine." Jesuit was all smiles. "I'm just calling to ask about the training suit you told me about yesterday. How much did you say it was?"

"Six-fifty, dad."

Dissonant.

The man looked at Ark through the mirror. Ark looked at Melmarc.

She's lying, Melmarc mouthed, a little sad that the man had to find out his daughter was lying to him.

Ark shook his head solemnly and Melmarc watched the man's expression drop a little.

"Pumpkin," he said after a while, his voice hesitant.

"Yes, dad?"

"Are you still seeing that boy I told you not to see anymore?"

"Dad." The girl was suddenly angry. "I was not happy when you told me to stop seeing him, but I stopped because I love you more than anything in the world. But if you keep asking me, I'm going to feel like you don't trust me. I broke up with Tyrese long ago and I've not seen him since."

Melmarc winced at the amounts of dissonance in the entire statement. He was shaking his head even before Ark looked at him.

Ark gave the man an apologetic look.

The man's eyes grew rheumy. "So you're not with him right now."

"No."

Dissonant.

Melmarc wasn't sure he wanted to continue. No, he was sure. He didn't want to continue.

Ark read his expression and shook his head at the old man. Melmarc watched a tear roll down the man's cheeks.

"Okay, pumpkin," he said quietly. "Love you."

"Love you, too, dad."

The line went dead. It was a very brief, very short moment, but it hit the entire car like a wrecking ball. The man's eyes widened at the realization of what had just happened.

His daughter had lied to him throughout the phone call, then she had ended the call by telling him that she loved him in front of a person that could tell if she was lying.

Melmarc watched the driver struggle not to look at the rearview mirror as he drove into the airport. Ark was suddenly not just solemn but very uncomfortable.

The question hung in the air, and no one asked it. Jesuit fought against looking at the mirror. It was an unspoken communication now. If he looked at it, then it would mean that he wanted to know if it was true or not.

Melmarc felt the man's pain like a physical weight. He felt as if he had been lied to by someone he would die for, lied to so casually. But the pain was overshadowed by the overwhelming weight of fear, fear so strong it wrapped itself around the heart like a vine of thorns.

Melmarc found it difficult to stop himself from hating the girl.

The drive to the airport parking lot was long, and Melmarc kept the answer to the question unasked beating in his chest. He couldn't throw it away even if he wanted to. At least, the man had not asked it.

The man pulled into the parking lot and stopped right in the middle of it. He did not park the car. He just stopped right there.

Then he looked up. Into the mirror.

Red, teary eyes didn't look at Ark.

They looked at Melmarc.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.