Four Points

Daniel stopped when he heard the loud "BOOM" accompanied by an electrical crackle. He sighed, regretfully placed his half-eaten sandwich back in its bag and dashed off to get to work. He got out of the stout cement-grey building in moments, then proceeded to wait for the rest of his squad under the cheerfully bright blue sky. Twenty seconds later, he started tapping his foot on the pavement impatiently. He couldn't think of any excuse for the delay. Everyone had their body armor on already from the training exercises that morning, and the rest of their equipment hung in easy-to-snatch backpacks on hooks by the front door. A few seconds later, as Daniel stopped tapping, uncrossed his arms, and prepared to go in after them, they charged out the door in rapid succession.

"And the next thing we have to work on," Daniel said sharply, "is response time."

"Sorry sir," one medium-sized by well-armored man replied meekly. "I would have been out faster if Eric hadn't slowed me down."

"All due respect sir," a slightly shorter man responded similarly. "Steve knocked my plate over and tripped on me when I tried to clean up."

"Would you two stop trying to prove your superiority?" growled a tall woman with dustings of grey in her brown hair. "As far as I'm concerned, you're both newbie morons."

"Thank you, Jane," Daniel cut off the next exchange of insults. "We have work to do, if you didn't notice."

"That explosion sounded like it was pretty close," the final man standing around Daniel said.

"I don't think so," Daniel replied. "If it was close, we would have heard the energy buildup. That was at least a half-mile off." Everyone stared at him. "Which means it was also very, very big, and it could have been in the park."

After a second, Jane quietly said, "I like Alex's theory better."

"Yeah, me too. We have no idea what we're dealing with. I've received no information from anyone, so I'm assuming we're going to be the first on the scene. We'll play it by ear."

The squad nodded. Daniel took a coin-sized metal disc out of his pocket and tossed it on the ground, where it expanded until all five of them could stand on it comfortably. Eric and Steve stepped on quickly, while the other three walked on at a less anxious speed. Daniel reached into a side pocket of his backpack and brought out a long, glowing blue stone. He placed it in front of him on the disc. He moved his hand back as it flared and spun to point in the direction of the explosion. The disc moved straight up and rotated until the five people on it were facing the same way as the stone.

"If you two feel sick, just kneel! Serves you macho numbskulls right if you fall off." Jane barked. Daniel permitted himself an invisible smile without turning to see Steve and Eric turn red. One day, he knew, they would stop being so competitive, but he fully intended to enjoy it while it lasted.

Daniel listened carefully for any sirens, but heard none. In fact, he realized, he couldn't hear any noise at all. No screams, no shouts, not even the dull roar of conversation that normally surrounds a disaster. Daniel had never encountered this before, and hoped it was just a casualty of distance.

The silence spread over the disc. As the disc slowed over the last line of trees, even the wind seemed quieter. The metallic plate landed on the grass as horror settled onto the faces of the squad.

Daniel swallowed. "Alex, take Eric and start going counterclockwise," he commanded evenly. "Jane, you and Steve go clockwise. Take readings and see if anyone's here. I'll go through the middle and meet up on the far side."

Nothing happened for a second. Daniel shook himself, visible even through his armor, and picked up the stone before stepping off the disc. He started rummaging through his pack, then noticed the lack of movement behind him. "Stop gaping and MOVE!" he shouted. It echoed unnervingly against the edges of the massive, shallow crater that took up most of the open field. Daniel shuddered and hoped that the rest of the squad didn't notice.

He heard four people step of the disc and nodded approvingly. He grabbed a PDA with a red knob on top of it. He pointed the knob at the crater as he pulled a small phone from its holster on his waist. While the green-black screen of the PDA blinked "scanning..." at him, he dialed a number on the phone.

"Magical Containment Department, main office." A bored secretary greeted him.

"Hey Carol, Dan here. Forward me to the big man, fast. Something major's happened."

"Hi Dan. He's in his office, just hold a sec," Carol responded.

"Dan!" a deep voice came on quickly. "What's up?"

"We have a big problem here, sir," Daniel realized he had snapped to attention unconsciously. He tried to relax. "I'm in West Park right now, and I'm looking at a huge, huge crater. I mean like," he made a quick internal calculation, "maybe 100 yards across."

"Oh shit," came the muttered reply. "How many injured?"

"That's the other thing, sir. As far as I can tell, there's no one here except my squad. It's entirely quiet, there's just a gigantic, shallow crater here."

Daniel waited a moment for the reply. "Get what you can. I'm calling in the big guns on this one. How'd you find it?"

"Heard an explosion back at our office, sir. I'm surprised emergency services haven't responded yet."

"They're about to. I'll keep you informed."

Daniel put back the phone just as his PDA beeped. A list of figures appeared on the screen. Daniel looked at the first one and his eyebrows went up. He gathered from the quiet curses around the crater that the other members of his squad had received the same data. He scanned the rest of the numbers. It looked safe to step in. Daniel started walking across the crater as he scrolled through the information.

By the time he met up with the other four on the far end of the crater, the first police car arrived. Immediately behind it was a small truck with the seal of Daniel's organization on it. The officers and Daniel's commander walked up together. Daniel and his squad saluted.

"What do we know, lieutenant?" the commander asked with a snappy return salute.

"Sir, my squad went around the edges and I went through the middle. No visible casualties. The residual energy is amazing, though. The last time I saw anything close was after Chaos and Moran had that duel in the stadium."

The commander let one eyebrow rise. He waved forward the group of heavily armored men that had quietly assembled behind him. They instantly spread out and started putting large, complicated devices around the crater. One of the officers cleared her throat. "So what are we dealing with?"

Daniel got an approving nod from his commander. "No idea. I've never seen anything like this."

"We'll try to figure it out," his commander chimed in. "Could you establish a police line around it? The less contamination we get, the more we can learn." The officer nodded after suppressing a scowl. "You five," he turned to Daniel's squad again, "stick around. We could use the extra manpower." He ignored Jane's slight cough. "I'll call in."

Daniel turned to his squad. "Find some way to be helpful," he told them. "Jane, could you retrieve the disc? We're going to be here for a while." They nodded and scattered.

For the next couple hours, Daniel wandered around, doing oddjobs where needed but not really feeling useful. Finally, his commander waved him over. "Daniel, I don't think your squad can do much more good right now," he said calmly. "This is serious, though. We haven't gotten a single helpful reading yet. The big man's going to contact Chaos, and he's going to help you."

"'You find it, you fix it' still applies, sir?"

"Absolutely. I don't want to mess with this. Send your squad home to get some rest, report back here when you're called. Dismissed."

Daniel saluted and gathered his squad from the area around the crater. "We've been dismissed for today, but this will be our case. Chaos is coming to help us tomorrow."

Eric's eyes bulged, Steve's jaw dropped, Alex blinked, and Jane let out a sharp hiss. "Yeah, I know, but if anyone's gonna know what this is..." Daniel said. The squad settled. "Anyway, let's get back to the office and head home. Get rested, and be ready to go anytime tomorrow. We might not have a whole lot of warning."

The squad nodded and Jane tossed the temporarily coin-sized disc on the ground. Back at the office, they dropped off their packs and armor in silence, leaving for their respective homes with scarcely a parting grunt. Daniel climbed into a small, beat-up red sedan parked across the street from the office and drove away. Several blocks later he pulled up to a two-story duplex and made his way inside.

He kicked off his shoes and dropped his jacket as he came through the door, then kicked the door shut as he walked toward the kitchen. A rather tall red-haired man in a t-shirt and slacks looked up from a freshly-poured cup of coffee as he walked in. "You're home early," he said.

"Seen the news, Michael?" Daniel said.

"No..."

"Good, don't. Something crazy happened, and no matter what those PR maniacs say, we have no idea what."

"Oh," Michael said as he sat at the small table. Daniel collapsed into the chair across from him. "How crazy?" Michael asked as he moved the coffee toward his lips.

"Well, Chaos is coming tomorrow to help us figure it out."

Michael slammed the mug on the table and then yelped as the steaming liquid splashed onto his arm. Daniel raised an eyebrow as Michael sucked on his hand for a second, then looked up. "Chaos is coming HERE?"

"Just to this city," Daniel said calmly. "It's not like he's going to bunk here or anything. He can teleport back to that floating castle of his."

Michael paled. "You know, I thought it was about time for me to have a vacation," he muttered as he stood to get a paper towel.

Daniel frowned. "What are you so afraid of? He's not a psychotic murderer or anything."

"No, he's just psychotic!" Michael shouted. "He could blow this entire state into shreds!" He took a deep breath. "He's just dangerous. I don't like him."

"Why? He can blow up the state, but he won't. He doesn't kill, remember?" Daniel replied firmly.

"No, he just tortures his enemies until their minds shatter." Michael snapped. "Besides, he gave us one of the deadliest weapons in the history of mankind, for no other purpose than his own amusement!"

"He gave magic back to humanity. Yes, it can be destructive, but look at the benefits. It's brought medical care to a whole new level, given us unlimited clean energy, and tons of devices that make our lives better in every way!"

"Then why does your job exist?" Michael pointed out.

"I never said it was harmless." Daniel sighed. "Look, magic-users are just born, and there's no control over who gets it. Some folks are nice, some aren't. My job is just to try to deal with the ones who aren't."

"But he still did this just for his own amusement! That is not the action of a benign person."

"He says he did it for his own amusement," Daniel said thoughtfully, "but I'm not sure anymore. Besides, he helps us when we need it, so he's kind of responsible about it. Anyway, he's going to be here, like it or not. Feel free to run away if you like. More coffee for me."

Michael scowled. He and Daniel glared at each other for a minute until Michael sighed. "Well," he said, "someone needs to make sure you don't crack."

Daniel smirked and went to shower. Shortly thereafter, he received a reminder that he had gotten up early, run intense training drills for three hours, and then had to deal with the biggest crisis of his career. He was asleep within a second of lying down on his bed.

His dreams, which he remembered in the morning, were more troubling in some ways than in others. They had started simply, bizarre logical disconnects rampaging through his workplace, and the recurring presence of the large crater. Then, suddenly, the mental image became sharper and Daniel became more aware. Normally, this preceded his waking up, but he did not. He found himself standing in the middle of the crater, but there was nothing beyond it.

"This is going to be interesting," an inexplicably familiar voice said. Daniel remembered that he had heard it on TV, but what show?

"News mostly, except for that one talk show. I am never doing that again." The voice said. It was pretty deep and resonated slightly. He finally placed it and turned around.

"Chaos?"

"Yeppers." Chaos said. He hovered a few feet in front of Daniel, clothed in his signature red-and-gold cloak. "Hope you don't mind. I just wanted to check in with you before I meet you in person tomorrow."

It took a second for Daniel to figure that out. "You've entered my dreams?"

"Don't worry," Chaos said with a dismissive wave, "I only do this when I need to talk to someone and they happen to be asleep. You're going to be working with me, so you should probably get used to me now." Daniel shivered at the weirdness of the whole situation. "All right, maybe 'get used to' isn't the right phrase. Anyway, you don't have any idea what this is?"

"None." Daniel replied as calmly as he could. "The only clues are that there was absolutely no one there and the residual energy was really, really high."

"Hmm." Chaos looked around the crater. "I haven't seen the real thing yet, but this seems kind of shallow for an explosion."

"It really is that shallow. Two feet, max." Daniel said.

Chaos raised an eyebrow. "Oh well. I'll be meeting you in a little while. See you then." He snapped his fingers and the dreamscape dissolved, just as his phone starting blaring at him.

He picked it up. "Ye-"

"Chaos, crater, eleven thirty." Daniel's clock said 10:00 in digital red diamonds. "You're squad's been contacted, and instructed to meet at your office at eleven."

"Yes sir!" Daniel said into the click of a phone getting hung up. His commander had not sounded happy. Daniel avoided thinking about why.

In a half-hour Daniel was out the door with two cups of coffee gradually making their way into his brain. He finally realized that Michael had been in the process of barricading his room as Daniel ran past. He shook his head and drove away.

Daniel pulled up in front of the blocky face of his office at 10:55, but his squad's cars were already there. Stepping into the locker room, he found his squad sitting in a rough square, looking up at him.

"You're all here early," he said. They didn't reply. Daniel put on his armor in the vacant silence. When he looked back, the squad was still looking at him. "Look," he said, "all of us have had special training about dealing with Chaos."

"'Avoid speaking until he talks to you,'" Steve intoned.

"'Always tell him the truth,'" Eric continued.

"'Remember that he can always see what you are doing, even when he's not looking at you,'" Steve returned.

"'Never kill anything, even a bug, in his presence,'" Eric countered.

"Stop! We get that you know the manual," Daniel said. "Remember the last rule, though. 'Don't act afraid, it will only annoy him.'" Jane grimaced. "Come on, I don't know what you four are worried about. I'm the one who'll have to do most of the talking." That got them to relax a little.

Daniel's commander walked in. "At ease," he replied to their salutes. "Just wanted to make sure you were all ready. I've worked with Chaos before, and really, he's not usually that bad. Um, on a completely unrelated note, you will all receive the highest level of hazard pay for the duration of this assignment." Eric and Steve looked ready to faint. Even Alex paled slightly. "Right, enough of that," he clapped his hands. "Move out. The big man will be at the crater with Chaos."

"Commander Svenson?" Steve squeaked.

"Don't worry, he'll leave as fast as he can," Daniel's commander said cheerfully. Eric swallowed. "Now GO!"

The squad charged out the front with their packs, Daniel leading the way. He tossed the disc on the ground and they were on it in seconds. He put the blue stone on the disc and pointed it toward the crater. The ride shared a lot with the first time they had gone to the crater. It was far, far too quiet. When car honked in the distance Jane nearly fell off from shock. Daniel, much to his own surprise, felt calm. They came over the trees and found the area around the crater almost empty. All the equipment from yesterday had disappeared, and only the yellow caution tape remained. By Daniel's estimate, they arrived ten minutes early, but Commander Svenson stood in front of the crater already, tense and sweating, and next to him...

Daniel recalled that many people had described meeting Chaos as "an experience." He also found that this wasn't quite right. Meeting Chaos was more like several experiences. Daniel's eyes immediately locked onto the cloak. No one had ever seen Chaos without it, and Daniel had seen it plenty of times on TV plus, most recently, in his dreams. Those images didn't even approach the real thing. Most of it was a shade of red that changed from shockingly bright to depressingly dark as it waved in the breeze. Gold accounted for everything that wasn't red, especially in the middle, where a stunningly ornate brooch held it all together just below his neck. The gold shined, treading the borders between metal, thread, and liquid.

The next experience came when Daniel inevitably looked up to Chaos's face, but found his gaze drawn to the hair. Somehow, though the color couldn't possibly exist in nature, it matched the gold in the cloak. The fact that it often seemed to move of its own accord was just a side note. Finally, Daniel looked Chaos in the eyes. They were green, and Daniel had known they were green, but he hadn't known about the sheer intensity of the gaze. Chaos didn't look at you, he looked into you. Calling it "piercing" would be like calling Excalibur a butter-knife. Daniel jarred back to awareness and stepped off the disc. He saluted sharply.

"At ease," Svenson said. "You'll be working with Chaos now. Goodbye." He walked away just a little too quickly. A slight upturn appeared at the corners of Chaos' mouth.

Daniel dropped the salute, turned to Chaos, and opened his mouth. He stopped, remembering what Steve had recited at him. "Say it." Chaos said.

"Was that a dream or did I actually..."

Chaos chuckled. For some reason, the sound echoed a bit more than it should have. "It was a dream, but it was real. Yes, I entered your dream."

A stifled squeak reminded Daniel that he hadn't told his squad about that. By sheer force of will, he returned to his calm state. His eye caught on the crater, and he suddenly remembered why Chaos was standing in front of him. "Right. As you can see, the crater is really that shallow."

"And the only odd reading was unusually high residual energy." Chaos stated. "Interesting. I want any all insights any of you have."

There was momentary silence. "Well," Daniel said, "I'm starting to wonder if it was actually an explosion."

"It sounded like one," Alex pointed out.

"But the crater wasn't smoking, it's far too shallow, and there's no debris." Daniel said.

"Good point," Chaos said, making Eric and Steve try to hide a slight shiver. "Anything else?"

"Well, I was thinking about what it could be, and, um," he stopped until Chaos looked at him and closed the option of staying silent. "Well, I actually thought about something you do sometimes. You know, that trick where you make a pillar of energy shoot out of the ground? Those craters are pretty shallow."

Chaos nodded. "True, but you said the crater wasn't smoking. The heat generated by one of those is phenomenal." No one said anything for a while. "Oh well. The first step is to figure out what this was. Look around, and meet me in the middle in about ten minutes." He casually rose into the air and started floating toward the center of the crater.

Daniel shook his head, or perhaps shivered. "Spread out and look at everything. The tiniest detail could be important. Make sure you don't pay too much attention to the stuff left by our investigation yesterday." He moved off.

Daniel walked to a point on the edge of the crater. First, he kneeled at the edge of the crater and looked closely at it. The dirt was almost entirely smooth, and what wasn't smooth was just from footprints or tripod marks. His eye caught on a tiny lighter patch in the ground. He felt it, realized it was a pebble, and dug it out. He held it and rotated it with his thumb and forefinger. Oddly, everything but one side of it looked and felt pretty rough. The one flat side, Daniel realized, was the one that had faced into the crater. Daniel thought about that as he pocketed the rock.

He stood, looked around, and decided to see if anything in the trees around the crater could enlighten him. Standing between the two closest trees, he carefully cast his eye over the ground, the trees, the mildly glowing white pouch hanging from a low branch -

That caught his attention. He grabbed his PDA and directed it at the pouch. A set of numbers appeared on the screen in a few seconds. Daniel concluded that it wasn't dangerous, or at least touching it wouldn't do him harm. He exchanged the PDA for a device composed of a string connecting a small penny with a hole poked in it and a thin, orange metal rod. He brought the end of the rod with the string on it close to the pouch. The penny started waving back and forth slowly, which confirmed that he could take the pouch without getting hurt.

Daniel couldn't reach the pouch from the ground, so he put the rod away and took out a small ball of green clay. "Ladder," he commanded, and tossed it on the ground. Instantly, it grew into a large green ladder that fell to lean against the tree. Daniel climbed up the hard rungs and tried to untie the string holding the pouch to the branch. It wouldn't move. After trying for a few seconds, he broke the end of the branch and simply slid it off. The tree shook slightly. "Sorry," Daniel muttered. He made a mental note to do something nice for trees at some point.

He climbed down, tapped the ladder and in a moment replaced the ball of clay in his pack. His watch told him that almost ten minutes had passed, so, carefully but firmly holding the string of the pouch in front of him, he walked toward the center of the crater. The rest of his squad started moving toward the center at about the same time. In a minute, they met up around the stationary, standing figure of Chaos. As soon as all of them were there, he opened his eyes. "Well?" he said.

Daniel nodded to Steve, who cleared his throat. "Eric and I didn't find anything, but we noticed that the blades of grass right on the edge of the crater looked cut." Eric nodded confirmation. Chaos turned to Alex.

"I found a glowing blue sack on a branch over there," Alex pointed, "but I got some odd readings so I left it there."

"Really? I found a red one there," Jane pointed the opposite direction as Alex.

"I found this one back there," Daniel held up the pouch. He realized that where he pointed perpendicular to where Jane and Alex had pointed. A nasty hunch shivered up his spine. "Did anyone go over there?" he pointed the opposite direction from where he had found the pouch.

"I did," Eric said quietly. "I, uh, didn't head into the trees, though. There might be one. You want me to go, uh..."

"Don't bother," Chaos said, looking that way. "Yep," he said in a second, "glowing black pouch." He looked at Daniel. "I don't know how, but you know what that means. Tell them."

His squad looked at him expectantly as he grimaced. "It's a 'four points' support structure," he said. "Very few non-magicians know about it. I only know about it because I saw my brother use it once."

"What does it do?" Jane asked.

"Well, you know how most of our cases come from magicians who couldn't stay in control of all the energy they put into a spell? According to my brother, a 'four points' provides a kind of scaffolding for the energy, and makes it easier to structure. He said that it's only used for exceptionally complicated high-energy spells, though, because the materials require a good amount of power to make." The squad blinked. "That's about as clear as I can make it," Daniel finished apologetically.

Chaos smiled. "Good explanation," he complimented Daniel, "but you left out some details. The other reason you don't see it very often is it requires the ability to call on contradicting forces." He indicated where Alex and Jane had pointed with a subtle inclination of his head. "Fire and water, healing and suffering," indicating the invisible line Daniel stood on. "Not many magicians are able to do that. Sometimes, when a 'four points' is needed, you actually get separate magicians doing each pouch."

"So," a highly confused Eric said after a moment, "no offense meant, but can I get a summary?"

"This spell was either the work of a group of magicians, which would be bad, or one really, really powerful magician, which would be worse." Daniel said. Silence followed. "Oh!" he said, "I almost forgot. I found this in the crater." He held up the pebble in his free hand.

Chaos reached out and took it. Daniel had never wondered what was under the cloak, because he had never seen even a glimpse of what was there. Ornate black armor coated the hand and arm that took the stone, and Daniel thought he saw something glimmer from Chaos' elbow. Chaos moved the stone in front of his face and brought his hand back in the cloak. The pebble continued to float in midair.

"Interesting," he said. "It looks like something removed just the top, while not even touching the rest." A dull gold glow briefly surrounded the rock. "didn't even put any stress on it. It's like the top just ceased to exist." The rock floated into his cloak.

"Well, a spell that could simply cause things to stop existing would certainly explain why no one was here," Alex said.

"Can't happen," Daniel said. "If matter isn't converted to energy in an explosion, it can't be destroyed."

"Could it... no, never mind." Jane stopped. Chaos' glare suddenly inspired her to speak. "If it wasn't destroyed, could it have been moved?"

"No one ever made a successful mass teleportation spell," Alex said. "The most extra substance ever teleported was a couple feet of chain connecting a magician to a wall."

"True," Chaos said, "but it would be a logical explanation. If a mass teleportation spell did exist, it would be so complicated that it would certainly require a 'four points' to work properly."

"Best theory we have, I guess," Daniel said. "But where did it all go then? And why?"

"I might be able to help with those two," Chaos said, "but not here. There's too much energy, and the leftovers of a 'four points' cause tons of interference with other spells. By the way, give me the white pouch." Daniel did and Chaos threw it up in the air. His hair spiked upward for a second and the pouch vanished in a burst of whiteness. "How about your office?"

Daniel nodded. As his squad walked back to the disc, Chaos gave him a significant look, which Daniel somehow understood as a request to wait behind a second. Once the squad moved a short distance away, Chaos nodded and waved Daniel to walk next to him. "Your brother is a powerful magician, then." He said. Daniel nodded. "Hmm. I might want to meet him. Where is he?"

"I don't know," Daniel said. "He doesn't tell anyone how to contact him, and stops in every once in a while, but I have no idea where he is or what he's up to."

"Pity," Chaos said. Daniel walked and Chaos floated up out of the crater to stand next to the disc. Daniel got on and turned to Chaos. "I'll fly on my own, thank you," he said smiling.

Cruising through the air a minute later, Jane kept opening her mouth, but refrained from breaking the silence. Chaos didn't seem to notice in the least. Daniel, after watching Jane for a minute, finally said, "Just say it. You're starting to get on my nerves."

Jane came as close as she ever did to blushing. Chaos rotated as he flew to look at her. "Well," she said to Chaos, "I was just wondering, why do you hate death so much?"

Chaos blinked. "That may be the most daring question anyone has asked me in several years." The five people on the disc turned pale. Chaos smiled. "It's a nice change," he said as the squad let out a breath. "If you want to know, it comes from when I was just human. Several beloved members of my family died, and a few friends. Each time, there was no murder, no mistake, nothing to blame but death itself. I have never accepted defeat. I was losing, and in the process losing people more precious to me than myself. I wanted revenge for everyone who ever died. That hatred eventually became the key to my power."

He fell silent and turned to look straight ahead. The squad was silent. "Thank you, sir," Jane said respectfully. "I'm honored that you were willing to tell me that." Chaos just nodded.

No one said anything for the rest of the trip. They coasted to the ground in front of the office. "Good," Chaos said, and floated inside. When the rest of the squad caught up to him, he stood in their break room, clearing the round table in the middle by levitating the junk on it to the sides of the room. "I'll work in here," he said. "Stay out until I call you, regardless of what else you hear." The door slammed shut in front of the squad. They looked at each other, then at Daniel.

"Um," he said, "lunch break, I guess. We'll eat in the briefing room." They scattered for the time it took them to dig up their lunch. Daniel realized he had forgotten to bring anything from home, so he took advantage of the set of vending machines lined up against the wall of the hallway outside the break room. He heard a couple of odd noises bounce out of the break room, but knew better than to try to look. He hurried off to the briefing room.

Everyone munched quietly for a few minutes. The events of the morning needed a little time to process, which they finally had. By some silent signal, everyone seemed to sense that they had all come to terms with all of it. "Well," Alex said, "for all that we've been told, he's not so scary."

"He doesn't get offended as easily as I thought," Eric said.

"The rules are supposed to err on the side of caution," Steve said. "If he does get offended, we're screwed."

"Yeah, but we seem to be doing fine," Jane said. "As long as we keep going like this, I don't think we have too much to worry about."

"What about the mission?" Daniel asked, "if you haven't forgotten."

"Oh, well, we seem to be making progress," Jane replied. "we just have to wait for what Chaos finds out."

Conversation steered away from those topics for the rest of the meal. With nothing better to do, when they finished eating they stayed in the briefing room and talked about unimportant things. Suddenly, Chaos' voice inexplicably came out of the alarm speaker in the ceiling.

"This is going to take quite a while. I suggest you all go home and rest, and come back at around eight tomorrow," he instructed. Daniel met the eyes of his squad, and shrugged.

"Well, sounds good to me. See you all tomorrow."

Daniel removed his armor, contacted his commander to let him know about the change in schedule, and left. When he opened the door of his home, he found that the barricade Michael had been erecting at the door of his room had disappeared. Michael himself sat silently in the living room. "Why'd you remove the barricade?" Daniel asked.

"I figured that it wouldn't do me any good anyway, and the bathroom was on the other side." He replied sullenly. Daniel grinned. "I see you survived, anyway. How's it going?"

Daniel's smile melted. "Well," he said, "we've gotten a little more information, but so far nothing really useful. Our only clue is that whoever did this is either powerful or not working alone. Chaos told us to get some rest while he works with something we found."

"Where is he?" Michael asked.

"Oh, at my office, working in the break room," Daniel replied offhandedly. Michael looked worried but sighed resignedly.

"So, what's he actually like, then?" Michael failed to hide the note of eager curiosity in his voice.

"Well..." Daniel took a moment to figure out how to verbalize it. "Very complicated. I'm not sure if it's ESP or what, but he always seems to know exactly what's happening around him. I'm actually kind of surprised that he doesn't have a better idea of what happened."

"What about talking to him? Aren't there all kinds of special rules about that?"

"Yeah, but in practice it's a little different. He's not like super-formal or anything. He's pretty blunt, actually. Tells you what he wants to and expects you to just take it. It's funny, it kind of amuses him when people are uncomfortable around him, but he doesn't try to make them uncomfortable. He's not as sadistic as you think."

"Well, you haven't seen him angry yet. I know because you're in one piece, unhurt, and don't seem traumatized," he answered Daniel's asking look.

"Yeah, you're right," Daniel said. "He's not as short-tempered as his reputation suggests. Jane asked him about why he hated death, which you would think would make him angry, but he was fine with it." He looked at the clock, which shined "3:00" at him. "I think I'll just watch some TV for a while. Oh, by the way, can you think of a good way to make up to an oak tree?"

Michael blinked. "Um, planting one of its acorns someplace nice?" Daniel nodded and sat in front of the TV.

He watched for a while, laughing cynically at the news report about the crater. Apparently, the Magical Containment Department's illustrious P.R. machine had decided to calm the public by saying that whoever had perpetrated the mess had destroyed themselves in the process, though Daniel knew that couldn't be true. He had once asked about why the department essentially lied to the public, but the answer he got had disturbed him so much he just accepted it now. After a while, hunger got the best of him and he ate as much of a microwave dinner as he could without tasting it. Suddenly feeling very tired, he went off to sleep, while Michael sat reading nervously in the living room.

He didn't know why the day had exhausted him so much, but he slept soundly until his alarm went off at six. He moved out promptly, leaving before Michael even woke up. He arrived at eight on the nose, and again found his squad waiting for him. Everyone seemed much more upbeat than they had yesterday. They sat in the locker room and talked for a few minutes. Chaos' voice came out of the speaker again, telling them he had finished.

Chaos sat calmly on a simple chair in the break room as they arrived. In the middle of the table, the pebble Daniel had picked up lay sideways, apparently unchanged by whatever Chaos had done. "Come in and sit," Chaos said. "This might take a while to explain." They did. "Okay," he continued, "here's what happened. I cast a spell on the pebble to locate where the part that disappeared was. Theoretically, if it was teleported, it would be with everything else we're trying to find. However, somehow, the spell had it at the park. That rules out teleportation." Jane grimaced. "Then I tried to figure out why anyone did this. Don't ask how," he held up a hand to Eric's momentarily open mouth. "Anyway, that was another dead end. It was apparently done to prove that it could be done, whatever really happened. No help at all." He sighed. "Back where we started."

The room fell silent. For a long time, everyone sat in their chairs, thinking. Daniel went over everything in his mind, hoping he might find some minute detail he overlooked, but nothing occurred to him. Eventually, Eric got up and started pacing. He stopped by the table and picked up the pebble. As he paced, he tossed the pebble in the air, caught it, tossed it, caught it, more for having something to fiddle with than for any useful purpose. With no brilliant flashes of insight appearing in his mind, Daniel's attention fell on the stone. He watched it as it flew, and in boredom began to think about its movement. He saw how it moved some amount in one direction, some amount in another, but no matter what path it took, it returned to Eric's hand. He tracked all three dimensions of its movement. Teleport spells were kind of like that, he reflected. They took matter and moved it in various directions. Every teleport needed a component in every dimension to work, to define its destination. But according to Chaos, it hadn't moved that way. It hadn't moved in three dimensions.

A sudden suspicion sprouted in Daniel's mind. He looked at Chaos, who sat with his eyes closed, so still Daniel wondered if he was breathing. "Chaos?" Daniel said. Chaos opened his eyes and looked up. "How exactly does that spell you used on the stone work, if you don't mind me asking."

"Not at all," Chaos replied as he redirected his green stare to the table. "In the case of part of an object being removed like that, certain molecular bonds are sliced in half. The spell tracks the other half of the broken bonds, and finds its position anywhere on earth. If I needed to, I could extend it to the solar system, but it says its in the same place it started from, no matter what."

"But the spell finds its position, right?" Daniel asked. The rest of the squad looked at him oddly.

"Yes..."

"What if it didn't change position, but moved in some other way?"

Chaos blinked. "Well, if it moved in time, the spell would have just failed, but that didn't happen."

Daniel sighed, but something else registered in his mind. "What about if it moved dimensions? I've heard that summoning spells call things from other dimensions, so could something be sent back?"

Chaos grinned widely. "Absolutely. It would even register as having the same position in our three dimensions if it was in the same relative place. Alright, get your stuff, we're going." The squad jolted into action. Everyone but Daniel and Chaos charged out of the room. Chaos held out a hand and the air tore to reveal what looked like an opening in the world.

"You knew, didn't you," Daniel said.

"Yep." Chaos said with a smirk. "I knew the moment it happened. Ask your questions later, we have work to do."

Daniel hesitated, but decided that reversing the damage took priority. He grabbed his pack and met up with the others back in the room. Chaos stood in front of the opening in midair. "Through here," he said, and floated through. The squad looked at Daniel, who took a moment to gather himself and charged through the tear, the other four following behind.

After a moment of existential uncertainty, Daniel found himself standing on a large circle of grass, exactly the same size as the crater. Beyond its borders, all Daniel could see was a dark fog. In the center of the disc, eight people sat in a barely visible dome, looking unhappy, and in front of them stood a man in a flannel shirt and slacks, looking perfectly normal save for the fact that where his eyes should have been, there was only whiteness. It didn't seem to stop him from seeing, however, as he turned to Chaos and the five armored people.

"Oh," the man said. "You're not thinking of ending my experiment, I hope."

"Enough, Nathan." Chaos said firmly. "You didn't have to do it in a public place, even if you made sure it was almost empty. You know they can't survive long out of their own dimension. Why didn't you just do it in your lab?"

"And have it go unnoticed by the masses?" the white-eyed oddity replied. He sighed at Chaos' scowl. "I guess you do want to end my experiment after all." He held up a hand and Daniel's world turned bright. When he could see again, he found himself in a shell of thrashing energy, which originated from Chaos' extended hand. The shell dropped, a bolt of red light dashed against the white ball now surrounding Nathan, and Chaos turned to Daniel.

"Stay out of the way. You'll be needed later." He commanded.

Chaos and Nathan glared at each other as they moved slowly around the circle until Daniel stood looking at both of them from the side. Nathan held out his arms, smiled slightly and started emitting a bright glow. Chaos scowled. A strong gust of wind blew out from his body. As his cloak flared straight up and stayed there, Daniel got a good look at Chaos for the first, and he kind of hoped the last, time. His entire body was covered in the ornate black armor Daniel had seen on his hand. Chaos' arms were brought up, fists clenched. At each elbow and each knee, different color gems started to glow, and then to shine. On his right elbow, a red gem burned. On the left, a black light even darker than the armor shadowed everything around it. On his right knee a white gem radiated light like a star, and on his left a blue gem sent watery light washing over his leg. As Chaos released a massive beam of golden energy to meet a dark rainbow wave from Nathan, Daniel realized what he had seen. Chaos was so powerful, he didn't make a 'four points' for a big spell, he just carried them with him all the time.

For a time that felt much longer than it could possibly have been, the two flows of energy clashed halfway between the magicians, throwing off bolts of every color that scorched the grass. Daniel looked at the duelists. Nathan still smiled in an unnervingly small way, but he had started to sweat. Chaos, meanwhile, looked furious, but didn't seem to be tiring at all. Then, as Daniel looked at Chaos, a ring of the same golden energy appeared around his arms and grew until it fit around the beam. The four gems on his armor became even fiercer as the ring launched down the wide line connecting him to his adversary. The moment before it reached Nathan, Daniel saw the whiteness of his eyes fade, and his smile vanished. The ring hit him and knocked him back as his beam collapsed. Chaos' golden beam looked like it would consume Nathan, but it dissipated and only knocked him back a short ways.

Chaos roared and a wave of the purest darkness Daniel had ever seen screamed out of Chaos' left hand and enveloped Nathan. Daniel covered his ears against an inhuman cry that embodied mind-shattering pain. The darkness evaporated, leaving only Nathan, lying on the ground with his eyes, now normal, open a little wider than they should have been able to go. Daniel saw him breathing subtly, but otherwise he didn't move at all. The wind died, and Chaos' cloak surrounded him again, hiding the gems from view.

"Collapse that shield," he pointed to the dome around the now terrified eight people. His voice sounded oddly satisfied, and Daniel didn't dare to look at his face.

Daniel nodded, turned to his slack-jawed squad, and clapped his hands. "You heard him, MOVE!" he shouted, a pitch higher than he would have liked. They sprung toward the dome with the speed only mortal terror imparts. Daniel watched them take tools out of their packs and start the process of removing the enchantment with an efficiency Daniel was both proud of and had never seen before. He wondered if he could inflict that kind of terror on them, but quickly abandoned the thought with a disturbed shiver.

"Everyone sit. This is going to be unpleasant," Chaos said. The dome had collapsed under the work of the magical devices used by Daniel's squad, and the people inside, who had started to get up, quickly sat down again.

The next thing Daniel remembered, he was lying where the crater had been, but no longer was. He sat up and looked around. Chaos stood over him, smiling. "Yes, I did know all along," Chaos said, "but I needed to see if my experiment had succeeded."

"Your..." Daniel started, but quickly stopped. Chaos waited patiently as connections were made in Daniel's mind. "You wanted to see if we could figure it out on our own," he finally said.

Chaos nodded. "The reason I gave magic to humanity wasn't just my own entertainment. I wanted to see if humanity could expand their understanding. You were able to think beyond the confines of your own dimensions, which is the first step I was looking for."

"First step for what?" Daniel asked.

"When you figure that out," Chaos said softly as he floated toward Nathan's immobile form, "you will already be there."

The End