Thanks! How did you know?

Check your texting history, about three days ago.

Starting to get a bit suspicious, he does so.

Apparently someone used his phone to text Sadde about Theo's birthday, when the former remembered Theo had mentioned his birthday would be in two weeks.

Oh, had they. Luckily, Theo's not particularly annoyed about it. It was for a good reason, of course.

Right. :P

Doing anything special today?

Getting cake and having a takeaway.

I don't have work today...

Sadde, would you like to come over and have cake later today?

Why, yes, so nice of you to invite me! When should I show up?

A few hours, maybe? We haven't got it yet.

The cake? We could go pick it up.

Oh, that's actually a really good idea! Meet at mine and go from there?

Okay! Be there in a bit.

So Theo goes downstairs and plays on his phone, waiting for Sadde to arrive.

Ding dong.

The door is opened.

"Hey!"

"Hiya! Let's go cakeward?" Whisper: "Is Kero coming?"

"Sure!" he says, and then quieter: "I haven't told him yet, why?"

"What do you think he'll think of getting cake?"

"I expect it'll be something along the lines of 'ooh, I have such a sweet tooth, get me a whole extra cake!'"

"I'm sure he won't actually phrase it like that."

"I guess we can let him know that we're getting some, then? Maybe we'll have to get extra."

"Probably a good idea! Is your dad home?"

"Yeah – he's in the kitchen at the minute. He knows we're getting cake at some point, though."

"I should go say hi to him while you tell Kero."

"Sure."

Theo goes upstairs and says, "Hey, Kero, Sadde and I are going shopping for cake."

"Caaaaake!" he says, and he's in Theo's bag before Theo can blink.

Well, that was pretty quick.

He walks downstairs and into the kitchen. "Ready to go?"

"Yeah! Let's go."

"Bye, Dad," says Theo, and off they go.

Bakery!

Bakery! They get in line for cake.

"Which one looks good? Personally... I'd choose any of the ones with chocolate."

"It is your birthday." She leaves the line to examine some of the cakes on display—

when one of them practically jumps towards her. She narrowly escapes being completely caked.

Theo, chivalrous as ever, jumps back to ensure he's not caught.

"Whaaaaat the hell was that," he says to Kero, looking around at the other people in the store.

"You'll have to pay for that," someone tells Sadde sternly.

But it wasn't her...!

Except there's no way anyone would believe that, so she nods mutely.

Kero:

is a stuffed bear.

Theo keeps looking around nervously. Whatever it was, he didn't see anything obvious.

Can he meditate while standing up, without his staff out, by closing his eyes and trying to focus? Is that a thing he can do in the middle of a bakery with lots of people around? He can feign tiredness so people don't look at him too weirdly...

Apparently he cannot.

Sadde gingerly gets out of the way of the cleaning person, only to have another cake fling itself at her.

"You! Out! Your friend will pay for those cakes, I don't want you to ruin any more!"

"What? No way, it's not my fault! It's not hers, either!"

"Sure, the cakes just happened to throw themselves at her," they say sarcastically. "She can pay you back later, now she goes!"

"She didn't exactly throw them at herself, did she? She didn't even touch them!"

"Theo, I appreciate it, but you don't need to excuse my clumsiness," she says, giving him a meaningful look. "I'll wait outside."

To outwards appearances, Theo appears to calm a little, but he's actually far from calm. He can't take it out on the shopkeeper, though; they don't know anything about magic.

He pays the shopkeeper for the damage, then goes over to meet Sadde, keeping a look out for any more flying cakes.

Kero stops pretending and says, "That was a—"

"Clow Card, yes. Any idea which one?"

"No, it could be any of a number of them."

"Can't you... glow... and work out what it was?"

"Not while in this form, my sensing powers aren't good enough."

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"We... get Windy out and hope she can do something? I'm guessing that's not what you were thinking."

"No! I'm thinking we come back in the middle of the night like vigilantes!"

"... Of course! That'd be perfect for us, since we're so totally vigilantes!" he says a bit sarcastically. "No, but seriously, eugh. I know we kinda have to, but still. Eugh."

She giggles. "It could be much worse!"

"Please, don't say that. Because it seriously could."

... "Now, what are we doing about our very obvious lack of cake?"

"Get one elsewhere. Surely not all bakeries around are haunted by Clow Cards. No offence, Change."

"Well yeah, but that was a hint for us to go there. And get cake," he says, starting to walk in a random direction and looking for another bakery.

"Have I mentioned you have a very cute face? Because you have a very cute face."

"... Thanks? I think you might have?"

She laughs.

Bakery!

Theo gets in line. Hopefully no Clow Cards will appear here.

They thankfully do not.

Yay! Cake.

Caaaake!

"You don't seem too enthusiastic...?" Theo sorta asks Sadde.

"I don't have a super sweet tooth, I can wait to be enthusiastic when we get to your place."

"Oh, okay."

And eventually they get back to Theo's house. It's not that far a walk, really.

"Daaaad! We have cake!"

He goes into the kitchen and places the cake on the table, opening the packaging. It's chocolate cake with chocolate icing and some white chocolate shavings on the top. Theo seems to really like chocolate... in small quantities... on his birthday...

Theo starts cutting pieces for everybody. His dad comes in to say "Happy Birthday" (again) and to take some cake, then disappears.

"Gee, I wonder where you got your verbosity from."

Guess what Kero is doing?

"I know, weird, isn't it? I'm so chatty, and he's just not!"

Is Cerberus eating cake? Theo bets he's eating cake.

Theo is correct!

Sadde eats a little bit of cake.

Theo has a pretty big piece, because it's his birthday and he needs to fulfil his need to eat cake. Cake is a good way to celebrate.

Someone will have to stop Kero before he eats too much cake.

Here, it won't do to make Theo's dad suspicious.

"Speaking of which, you haven't told your dad, have you?"

"Haven't told him what? … Oh, about the cards? Nope."

"Why not?"

"I'm just not sure how he'd take it, really?"

"...really?"

"I mean, I've never tried telling him a few other things, either, but I doubt 'Oh, by the way Dad, I found some magic and now have to go on a few somewhat perilous missions to try to save the world' would go over the best."

"I had a hard time convincing Mum not to come with me to fight the invisible magical threats."

"Awwh!"

"Though I'm sure the minute we face anything more dangerous than a jumping bunny or naughty cake she'll change her mind and come with no matter what I say. Not that I'm likely to say anything, either, having a smart adult on hand is a pretty good idea no matter what YA fantasy novels might tell you. I mostly don't want to bother her until we get to that point."

"Yeah, so far it's just been worrying, not ridiculously dangerous."

"Well, there was that fight against the giant bird. And also the time when you do ill-advisedly tried to grab the magical jumping bunny with your hands and could have fallen to your untimely death. It could be worse, and probably will be, but I think we probably need to plan these things better."

"There... there were, yep. Those are some good points. Do we have a plan for our... vigilantism?"

"I don't. Lacking a list of possibilities isn't much help. I think it's time we actually get Kero to list all cards in alphabetic order. Probably in your room. With pen and paper."

"Yeah, and a quick description of each next to it."

They go upstairs to his room (with some cake!) and he grabs out a pen and notebook.

"Want to start listing the cards then, Kero?"

"Arrow, Big, Bubbles, Change, Cloud, Create, Dark, Dash, Dream, Earthy, Erase, Fight, Firey, Float, Flower, Fly, Freeze, Glow, Illusion, Jump, Libra, Light, Little, Lock, Loop, Maze, Mirror, Mist, Move, Nothing, Power, Rain, Return, Sand, Shadow, Shield, Shot, Silent, Sleep, Snow, Song, Storm, Sweet, Sword, Through, Thunder, Time, Twin, Voice, Watery, Wave, Windy, and Wood."

Sadde whistles. "Did you get all that?"

"Yep!" Theo says brightly.

"We'll look at general usefulness later. Which of these seems likely to have thrown a cake at me?" She looks at the list. "Float, Move, maybe Arrow, Shot, um?"

"Arrow and Shot can't do that, but Cloud, Mist, Storm, and Shadow can. Float and Move wouldn't do that..."

"Are they able to do it remotely, or can they be invisible? I'm pretty sure I didn't see anything actually throwing the cake..."

"Mist and Shadow could be invisible, and so could Move and Float, but Move teleports, and Float is usually very docile."

"So, tentatively Shadow, with Mist as a second possibility and Float as a third."

"That sounds about right. What's Shadow like?"

"It's troublesome. It steals other people's and things' shadows to grow in power and it can become very powerful. If it's just activated, then it will probably cause a lot of trouble tonight, when the bakery's closed."

"Oh, okay, so it's probably a good thing that we planned to go back tonight," Theo says. He also quickly checks his and Sadde's shadows to check they're still there.

They're still there. "And how do we catch it? It's shadow, how physical can it even be?"

"You can't touch it, but it can touch you. You'll need to use Windy to entrap it."

"Well... that shouldn't be too bad, right? Just... a ridiculous amount of property damage..."

"Not to mention potential cameras being quite able to tell just who caused said property damage."

"... Mask up? And I'm not sure if people could really blame the wind on us, even if we were caught there, unless we were holding some sort of leaf-blower. I mean, they could try, like the shopkeeper did today, but it might be harder if they re-play the video and watch us not doing it?"

"Yes, and do you think we'll be very unsuspiciously around, looking very quiet and innocent, while massive amounts of property damage happen?"

"And Shadow isn't one of the invisible cards."

"... Didn't you just say that Mist and Shadow can be invisible?"

"More or less. Shadow using its powers can be hard to see, because it's just a shadow, so if it pushes a cake then no one notices. But its actual manifestation is visible."

"Okay, well, that still leaves us with the problem of how to go about this. If it's Shadow, what weaknesses does it have? Just turn a light on and it acts like a witch with water, or...?"

"Lights can make the shadows it's collected disappear, and only its true form will be left."

"Which we will then need to cause massive amounts of property damage to capture."

"Okay, so light is a good start then? Then we use Windy to try to trap it, and then that's done? That sounds a bit too simple, even if we do take into account 'plus lots of property damage'."

"Well, the other two weren't exactly complex, and if we'd had time to plan them they'd probably have gone over pretty smoothly as well." Pause. "Well, Jump, anyway, I wasn't there for Fly, maybe you neglected to mention something that would make it really awfully impossible."

"Nope, not awfully impossible, just difficult since it was so sudden and I only had Windy. What about if the card at the bakery is Mist? What are its weaknesses?"

"It's probably not Mist, it would make the cake slippery and push it, not throw it like that. And it also sometimes corrodes things it touches."

"Why'd you mention it then."

Shrug. "It could be Mist."

Sigh. "And how about... Float? Even if it is usually docile, what are its weaknesses? Needles?"

"...needles?"

"If it's Float, asking it nicely should be enough to capture it."

"Float? You know, it might be a balloon, so try popping it with a needle? Or it could be a cloud..."

"It's a balloon, actually, but it's a magical balloon, you won't be able to pop it. It would also be mean to try."

"Well yeah, I'd obviously rather ask it nicely than attack it and try popping it, but... it was a joke."

Sadde giggles.

Theo smiles a bit at that.

"So we're basically decided? It's Shadow, and we're shining light on it then getting Windy to hold it still? Who's bringing the torch and what time are we doing it, then?"

"You."

"A torch might not be enough depending on how many shadows it's collected."

"... If we can find a light-switch in the shop, would that be enough? I mean, surely it'd still eat away at the shadows, even if it doesn't get rid of them all perfectly?"

"Maybe."

"You're so helpful."

"Okay, well, I think that's still our goal. Maybe you could use Change on the torch and make it brighter, too, if it's available."

"That's actually a pretty good idea!"

"Thanks!" he says, trying reaaaallly hard not to be sarcastic. It shouldn't be this hard!

She can tell! "You're cute when you're trying not to be sarcastic."

"Thanks!" he says, still reaaaally trying not to be sarcastic. Is it noticeable? Is he grinning adorably? Yes, yes he is.

"I stand by my assessment."

"So. Are we gonna do any other important things before the mysterious vigilantism, or just while half the day away?"

"Question Kero about the other cards, of course. I'm particularly curious about Time."

"Actually, yeah, me too, and what about..." – he looks at his list again – "Illusion, Mirror and Twin?"

"The Time can speed time up, slow it down, stop it, or turn it back. It's one of the most powerful cards, and you need a lot of magic to even use it."

"...can you use it to change time?"

"Yes, but unless the person who uses it is very powerful, sorcerers retain their memories."

"Whoa, wait, what! That's ridiculously powerful. And how does that even work, anyway? If someone used to it go back in time, would we just be younger versions of ourselves with the same memories, or would we have to wait until they made a change and have some sort of weird déjà vu of stuff that did-but-didn't happen, or what?"

"Young versions with memories."

"Okaaaay. Sadde, did you live somewhere obscure when you were younger? Will I never be able to find you if something like this happens? If you happen to wake up like 10 years in the past, could you please come to my house – I've lived here most of my life – and then can we try to stop whoever's messing with time?"

"Yes. I've lived in London most of my life, but I was born in Knutsford and spent a few years there before Mum left the jerk."

"Oh, okay. Well, hopefully we won't be that young. Actually, how does that interact, Kero? Do we still get our memories, no matter what age we are? Do we also get the memories we had at that age? Aaaand – this is a horrible idea – what if time is wound back to before we were born? Or don't you have any... data on that?" he says, looking a bit queasy.

"It's never been used like that, and Clow himself said he couldn't turn back more than a month, but that might have been modesty."

"It's reassuring anyway."

"Yeah, that's definitely good. It's way better than it could be," he shudders. "So, other cards. I asked about Mirror, Twin and Illusion?"

"Mirror can look and act like anyone, and reflect attacks. The Twin can duplicate objects and people. The Illusion can look like anything, including different things for different people, if they are thinking of those things."

"Those all sound really useful!" he says longingly. "Oh well. Windy and Change are pretty versatile too."

"Yes they are!"

"What about the others? Is there like... a quick version of what they do, how they group together, and things like that?"

Again, Theo has his pen at the ready.

"Firey, Earth, and Light are under the power of the Sun, and me. Watery, Windy, and Dark are under the power of the Moon, and Yue. The Arrow shoots a series of magical arrows; it's under Firey. The Big can make anything bigger; it's under Light. The Bubbles creates bubbles and washes things—"

"Hold on, what?"

"...Clow made that card to wash me."

Theo laughs at that.

"What do you mean, 'under the power of' the Sun and the Moon? You didn't mention them as cards, so they're not like how Fly is under Windy, are they? And who's Yue?"

"The Clow Cards were created by uniting Western Magic, under the Sun, and Eastern Magic, under the Moon. Each card is powered by one of those, and I am the Guardian Beast of the Sun. Sun cards draw power from me, and I draw power from them, and I will have access to my true form once you have captured Earthy and Firey."

"...and Yue?"

"...Yue is the Moon Guardian of the cards. He is dormant."

"Is all magic one kind or the other? What's my kind?"

"Not all, but most. Your magic is Sun. Theo is Moon."

"Does that... mean anything? Am I weaker because Yue's dormant, am I weaker against some cards, and Sadde against others, or what?"

"You will have an easier time using Moon cards, and they will like you more from the start, normally. Yue's power isn't connected to yours."

"... What's Change affiliated with?"

"The Dark."

Theo looks at Sadde.

"Hey Theo? With love: shut up." She does a little heart shape with her hands.

"Are you trying to get me all flustered? Do I need to start fanning myself?" he asks sweetly.

"That would not be an altogether undesirable outcome."

Theo raises his eyebrows and looks at her, then turns back to Cerberus. "What about the other cards?"

"The Cloud creates and moves clouds and is under Watery. The Create can create anything—"

"It can not."

"Anything you write in it, for as long as it's open and filled with ideas."

"It's a book, then? And that is one seriously overpowered magic. I kinda want you to tell me it takes a ridiculous magical strength, so we know that no-one else will do it, but I kinda don't, so that when we get it, we're the overpowered ones."

"It doesn't take too much magic but if you spend too long without writing the things it's created disappear."

"Oh. Can you just keep writing and the stuff stays, or do you actually have to re-describe stuff you've already mentioned to make sure it stays?"

"Keep writing."

"Oh, okay, so it's not too bad. And if something does disappear, you can always go back and write it out again, yeah? What about the other cards?"

"The Dark consumes all light. The Dash runs really fast, faster than any other cards. It's under Windy. The Dream can create dreams, even prophecies when you have magic, and it's under the Dark."

"How... does the Dark consume light...? Does it literally just absorb anything that touches it, or does it... somehow... make light turn towards it instead of going where it was before, so it's a sort of area of darkness?"

"Both."

"I'm really happy that I never wanted to go into Physics. The Dash sounds like I'd probably get along with it quite well. And it's a moon card."

"I wanted to go into physics but magic is cooler!"

"It definitely is. When people find out about it, it's gonna be such a huge shock."

"We should probably first make sure there isn't like a shadowy conspiracy or clans of sorcerers that might take offence to us revealing it to the world."

"Clans of sorcerers exist."

"Well yeah, I don't want them to attempt to erase us from existence."

"If Clow was as powerful as all that, we should be able to eventually resist being erased with the cards."

"The Shield would probably protect you from anything."

"I'm pretty sure I want that card."

"What counts as anything?"

"Anything."

"And what about the other cards?"

"Earthy has earth powers. Erase can make things disappear—"

"We'll never be able to work if every other card makes me go 'what.'"

"It erases things temporarily, including people and memories, and they're erased forever if they stay gone for too long."

"How about we just get them all written down, then you can come point at ones that make you want clarification, I'll mark them, and we can get clarification at the end? But seriously, what even is that card."

"Fine, I guess."

"Fight is under Firey, and teaches its user martial arts. Firey controls fire. Float makes things float, under Windy. Flower is under Earthy and makes flowers. Freeze can lower temperatures and generate ice. Glow creates glowing floating balls of light. Libra can detect lies and is under Earthy. Light controls light. Little makes things smaller, and can reduce magical power as well, and is under Light. Lock is under Earthy and can lock a place and seal it off. Loop warps space to create a continuous repeating loop and is under Earthy. Maze creates a pocket labyrinth dimension and is also under Earthy. Nothing can unmake anything, and isn't under any other cards or powers. Power gives strength and is just Firey. Rain creates rain and is under Watery. Return can send you to observe the past. Sand can create and manipulate sand and is under Earthy. Shot is under Firey and attacks someone until they are destroyed if you ask it to. Silent is under the Dark and makes things quiet. Sleep makes people sleep. Snow is under Watery and can create snow and snowstorms. Song can copy any song. Storm is under Windy and can create storms and tornadoes. Sweet is under Light and can turn things into sweets. Sword is under Firey and is a powerful magical sword. Through is under Firey and can make you go through things. Thunder makes thunder and is under Firey too. The Voice can mimic or steal voices. The Watery controls water, the Wave controls waves of water, and the Wood creates plants and is under Earthy. "

"That... is a lot. Okay."

He writes a lot of notes on what to ask for each card, then goes through them, a few at a time:

"What sort of martial arts with Fight? Any? And with Libra, what actually counts as a lie? If you leave something out, does that count? What about body language, like if you shake your head when the true answer is 'yes'?"

"Any martial art, and Libra reacts differently to different types of untruth."

"I honestly don't even know where to start," Sadde confesses, looking at Theo's notes. "I'll think of something and ask I guess."

"So Libra does respond to lies through head-shakes, then?" he tries to clarify, and then continues with the long list: "How does Light control light? Can it act like Darkness, by just stopping light in an area? Little doesn't... like... obey the laws of physics and biology, does it? It won't kill people if you shrink them?"

"Right. Light isn't as good as Dark doing that, and no you can't kill anyone with Little unless you step on them."

And yet more questions: "With Maze, does the pocket dimension change each time, or can you store things there and modify it? When you say Nothing 'unmakes' things, how does it unmake them? Explosively? What does it unmake them into?"

"It's a different dimension every time. Nothing is like Erase but instead of making specific things disappear it just makes areas of things completely cease to be. It counteracts all the other fifty-two cards and is as strong as all of them together, and can make even magical things disappear."

"Okay, wow, that sounds horrible to fight," he says. On with the questions. "What kinds of strength can Power give? Just physical strength, or also like mental fortitude? How do you observe the past with Return? Can you specify exactly where, or is it random and confusing? And shot just sounds horrible."

Sadde is kinda reeling from Nothing's description.

"Power only gives physical strength, and Return sends you back to a point in time you choose. You need a lot of magic to use it."

"Surely it's not that bad? Kero basically said it's just Erase with a bit of extra juice and the ability to affect magical items, that's it." – Oh wait. What the hell, Theo? – "Nevermind, that's terrifying!"

"It's terrifying," she agrees.

Shrug.

Well, on with the questions, he supposes. He can freak out over some of the cards later on. Oh wait, no he can't, he's going to fight Shadow. He can freak out tomorrow, when it's not his birthday.

"How precisely can Silent make things quiet? Is there anything special about the properties of the sweets that Sweet makes, or are they just regular sweets?" he asks, and then actually thinks of another question. "... Why is Through under Firey?"

"Silent never told me what she could do. Sweets are just sweets. And probably because fire is intangible?" Another shrug.

"Oh, okay. I didn't realise you spoke with the cards to gather this information," he says, a little confused. He continues, "How... does Voice steal voices? What kind of plants can Wood make? Magical moving ones? Toxic ones? Ones that are really useful for making magical items when they've been cut down, maybe?"

"It just does? Wood focuses on trees, magical moving ones, but they disappear once you seal it away again. You can't turn them into anything."

"Like... why and when does Voice steal voices? Does it just find people and go 'oh, that's a nice voice' and they are somehow now unable to speak and it can use their voice? Does it have to hear them and then it literally yanks some weird ball of light out of your throat? Does it make you unable to even comprehend the idea of you speaking? There are so many ways it could 'steal your voice', and so many reasons it might do it."

"It just does. There's no ball of light, the voice's just gone and Voice has it."

"These cards go from 'harmless and cute' through 'useless' and 'freaky' to 'outright terrifying.' What's a card like that even for."

"I guess if we had to fight other magic people who were using cards, we could try it to stop them from directing their cards verbally?"

"Silent can do that."

"I don't suppose it would let us control their cards instead of them? I don't know. It's a weird card. Seriously, was Clow evil or just... confused and evil?"

"Clow wasn't evil! The cards just do what they do."

"And he couldn't direct them to do something nicer? I feel like we need to know more about how he created them. And 'he was the greatest magician of all time!' isn't an explanation of how."

Shrug.

Theo just looks frustrated at the unhelpful response.

"Maybe he couldn't? If magic is kinda sentient like that maybe transforming it into the cards wasn't exactly a very directed process."

"Yeah, that's possible, but it's still annoying."

"Careful, you'll end up offending more cards."

"Is there any magic we should be able to do without the cards? Other than my weird speed thing, whatever that is."

"Probably, but I don't know it. I'm an incarnation of the magic used to create the cards."

The rest of the day proceeds without anything really important occurring. Theo wants to see if he and Sadde can target different things with Change at once, but unfortunately it seems like the 'only one thing at a time' thing applies to the card, not to them, so when Sadde tries to change something after Theo still has something targeted, Theo's one reverts. They have more cake. Kero has to be stopped from eating all the cake. Theo's dad continues to stay quiet, watching TV, and remains ignorant of the magic that's going on in the house.

Eventually Sadde leaves, and they arrange to meet at the bakery late at night.

Here Theo is, at the bakery, late at night. He asks Kero to try telling him when Sadde gets here, in case they don't spot each other immediately.

"Pss!" The voice comes from a bush across the street. "I'm here!"

Hm. Theo wonders who that could possibly be.

He goes over to the bush, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, and says, "Hi."

"Hi!" she says, and she's wearing...

a black ski mask.

Of course.

Of course.

Mind you, Theo's not much better. He's dressed in really dark clothing, including a hoodie that can hide his face.

"So. How are we getting in?"

"Not the faintest clue! Maybe I could change the lock into something else?"

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea! I've got the torch," he says, holding up the torch, "– and also the cards. We find it, we turn on the lights, and then we trap it with Windy, yeah?"

"Plus copious amounts of property damage! Let's go!"

She glows—

—and scoots over to the door.

Kero follows!

So does Theo.

"Change!" he whispers, twisting the lock so it's... unlocked. He opens the door.

Theo stays quiet, but holds the torch at the ready, looks around warily, and tries to focus on his magic. It's a long shot, but can he maybe detect magic around him without fully dropping into meditation?

Nah.

"So 'm I gonna change this torch into something more powerful?"

Oh well, it was worth a try.

"Yeah, go ahead," he says quietly, holding out the torch.

So he grabs the torch—

—and a huge mass of shadow and darkness punches the three of them away from the bakery, throwing them back a couple of metres and sending the torch flying.

Theo lands, trying to soften the landing, grunting in pain, but is quickly back on his feet, blurring a little. He looks around for the torch, but it's so dark all around, he can't find it. Fuck. The plan. Turn on a light. Not happening; they're outside. Get Windy to capture it; infeasible, shadows all around, try it anyway. Shine a torch on Shadow. Not happening, the torch is gone. Fuck.

He grabs the Windy out of his bag, activates the staff, then summons Windy, tries to see where Shadow is, but oh for god's sake whose idea was it to fight the bloody Shadow in the dark.

Sadde isn't as quick as Theo, but he glares at the oppressive darkness inside the bakery. "Come on! That's cheating!" He looks around for sources of light... well, there are the streetlights! He looks at them speculatively.

Theo can just about make out where Sadde's looking in the dark, sees the streetlights, and quickly suggests, "Can you change their direction? Intensity? Make them hand-held? Something?"

More things that they can use. They could try to make some ground glow, or they could try running at it and— nope. They could... use Jump? Not helpful. Fly? Not helpful. He runs over to Sadde and hands it over – he's not gonna use it – and ugh, another card would be useful right about now. No, he doesn't mean that; if the universe is listening to him and conspiring against him, please don't send another card to attack them.

"Windy, try to keep track of Shadow. Warn me if it gets too close!" There, now he hopefully has some early warning system, and if Windy can't do it, no loss anyway.

He has his staff at the ready.

Windy stands/hovers in front of the door.

The bakery is still eerily quiet and dark.

Sadde manifests Fly and then uses Change on one of the streetlights, causing it to emit much more light than it should, effectively turning it into a spotlight. Then he changes it again, twisting it so it's pointing into the bakery. "Can't do both," he says.

And the shadows produced by the streetlight are much darker and denser than they ought to be, that's for sure.

When the streetlight shines brighter, Theo quickly searches for the torch again, but fails to locate it. Those shadows are worrying, but he already knew it was in the bakery, so it doesn't provide much meaningful data. Windy helps to confirm that at least Shadow (probably) hasn't moved, but there's still the problem that it's wild. Seriously, way to jinx a plan. 'What could go wrong,' they said. 'The other times just went badly because you didn't have a plan,' they agreed. That is not happening again.

Time for a daring move?

... Of course it is. Theo has a quick look around for a weapon. Wait, not a good idea, it can just be used as ammunition. Wait, yes, a good idea, Shadow already has plenty of ammunition inside the bakery. Do they have knives? Who's he kidding, of course they do. This just gets better and better. He picks up a small branch nearby, holding it and his staff at the ready. Disposable weapon that he doesn't care about, plus a potentially stronger magical weapon.

"Windy, can you shield me, somehow? Kero, any ideas?" he asks, trying to brace himself mentally for the inevitable battle to come. It's reckless, but maybe charging into the bakery with a weapon and Windy at the ready will let him drive it out of the building.

"No? What are you going to do?"

Windy leaves her post and envelops Theo, forming a whirlwind around him.

"Good luck! Try to get the torch back!"

"I'm charging into the building," Theo says with a grim smile.

Taking a deep breath, he looks at the door, then decides to just get it over with.

He rushes at the door, moving far quicker than normal past the threshold, and then scans the room for the torch, a light switch... or a shadow to throw himself at.

As soon as he's in, tendrils of darkness lash out, sneaking into Windy's whirlwind and being cut off. Some tendrils manage to hit Theo before Windy can do it, though, feeling like punches and shoves.

And with the light shining through the window and the thinning of the shadows due to the attack, both the torch and the light switch become visible, the former close to the door and the latter behind the counter.

He looks overhead, making sure the lights aren't obviously damaged, then runs for the light switch, charging past the tentacles, aiming to turn it on. The torch would be nice, but it's better light up the whole bakery instead.

Tendrils of shadow slip through Windy and wrap themselves around Theo's right foot, tripping him before Windy cuts them off and they dissipate. The darkness around the switch gets denser, it becomes harder to make out, as if there was something blocking out what little light the twisted streetlamp managed to shine through.

He falls over – there's nothing he can grab in time to steady him – but gets up immediately afterwards, then continues towards where the light switch is. He can still remember where the it was, even if he can't properly see it. He manages to get within reach of it, and moves to turn it on, dodging away from another of Shadow's tendrils.

The moment he does it, a huge mass of darkness crashes through the window—

—and Sadde changes the streetlamp into a spotlight as soon as it does.

It doesn't hiss, but it looks like if it could it would. The mass of shadow dissipates, leaving a hooded figure behind, writhing underneath the light.

"Windy, trap it!" he shouts.

He runs to the door of the bakery, grabbing the torch, and then goes outside to near the Shadow, holding both the torch and his staff at the ready.

She stops protecting him, flying towards the cloaked figure and entrapping it.

Theo slowly approaches, then swings his staff at the Shadow. "I command you to return to your power confined!"

The figure starts glowing and returning to its card form where Theo's staff hit the air. And after it does it floats—

—to Sadde, who takes it from the air.

"Um what."

"Um," agrees Theo, very eloquently.

Kero floats over to Sadde. "The card goes to whoever reveals its true form. He did it with the light."

"Oh," he says, looking at it, then at Theo. "Trade for Fly?"

Theo looks down at Fly, then agrees, "Yeah. I think they fit better the other way 'round." He hands Fly over to Sadde.

"Awesome!" he—

"Change!"

-she says as she gives him it.

"We should probably get out of here," he says, looking at the damage to the store. He jogs over to the store, turns off the light, pushes the door back into position. "There, now it looks less like a huge fight went on here."

You know, except for the smashed window. And scattered debris.

Speaking of debris:

"All that caaaaake!"

She giggles and agrees, "Yes, we should probably go!"

"Yeah, it's pretty sad," he says, sounding solemn, then starting to giggle.

So off they go.

And Sadde says 'bye and goes home.

When Theo gets home, he turns his laptop on and checks his e-mail. He finds that Sadde's bought him some music.

Ooh, thanks! he texts Sadde. I'm just downloading the songs to my phone now. :P

You're welcome! Happy birthday!

Goodnight!

It's Monday afternoon when Sadde messages Theo with an I'm bored, entertain me.

Wanna come over?

Nah, I always do, let's go do something else.

How about the mall?

Sounds good! Which?

He gives directions to a nearby group of shops, then adds, If that's okay?

Yup! Meet you there.

Ok!

Theo arrives at the mall and looks around for Sadde.

He's already arrived!

"Hi."

"Hey. Anything in particular you wanna shop around for or are we just looking generally?"

"Generally! Is Kero with you?"

"I... don't think so?" he says, somewhat uncertainly, looking around.

His tiny head pops out of Theo's bag. "Hi!"

Sadde giggles. "Hi!"

"Oh, cool, so now I don't even notice when the magic stuffed toy jumps in my bag." he says, grinning a little.

"You only notice when I want you to."

Theo laughs a bit at that, then starts walking around, looking for something interesting to buy; he trusts Sadde will tell him if they see something they like.

"Oooh!" he says. Something has apparently caught their eye!

Theo looks over in that direction, a little warily.

There is a costume store! Over there. It has pink things and frilly dress and one absolutely stunning pink frilly dress with wings.

Um.

... Yay?

"Come on let's go inside!"

What's this? Is this dread Theo feels?

Of course not; it's just a little costume store. Theo's much too secure to be worried about that.

He follows Sadde in.

"We're gonna be mahou shoujo," he giggles, looking through the dresses. He stands behind one of the mannequins and asks, "What do you think?"

"I think... I'm really not sure about that idea."

"Why not? I look dashing."

"In a dress? As a magical girl? I mean, sure, if you say so..."

"I bet you'd look great in one of these! There should be a clothing card."

"It'd be nice to get magical tailor-made clothes whenever, in whatever style I want, yeah. But if it's a card... wouldn't it disappear if I'm not careful?"

"Change doesn't, when I'm using it. If I ever learn how to make cards I'm making a clothing one and I'm gonna make you mahou shoujo outfits!" Pause. "And maybe I'd make it so they could disappear at an inconvenient time," he says, smirking at him.

"Well, that'd make the card interesting, that's for sure," he says, laughing.

"Mmhmm, it definitely would. Now come, you should try one of these out, you can't be a proper magical girl without a magical girl outfit."

"Hah, no. I'm not a dresses kind of guy."

"Come ooon, you'd look hot in a pink frilly dress with wings!"

"I really don't think I would."

"Well I would."

"I'm not stopping you from wearing a dress."

He giggles and walks around the mannequin. "I know. And I reiterate that you look really cute when you feel your masculinity's threatened," he says, and starts walking out of the shop.

Theo just ignores that. He follows Sadde out of the shop.

Sadde looks over his shoulder and waits for Theo to catch up, then starts leading them to another shop (apparently) as he says, "You know, I think I know what I want as my prize."

"Your prize?"

"For successfully nettling you!"

Is he walking a bit closer to Theo than before? ...nah, must be just an impression.

"... Um, okay?"

Theo doesn't notice anything amiss.

They're walking fairly close to a wall, aren't they. Yes, they are. So it's not that hard for Sadde to suddenly push Theo against it and say, "You," leaning close to him, his face only centimetres away...

Theo drops his bag when he's shoved into the wall.

Okay. Wait, what? Sadde... wants him as the prize? When did that happen? Have there been any signs? Of course there haven't. Or maybe there have. Theo wouldn't notice them! He had no idea!

He looks at Sadde's face, then into his eyes, then to his lips, and has a little freak out. He feels like everything's moving a million miles a minute, but also like everything's moving in slow-mo. Sadde? Really? Does he pull away? Does he try to slip out of the way? Does he turn his head? Does he headbutt Sadde or maybe shout in surprise? Just... what the hell?

He thinks about it. Kissing Sadde. He's... not actually as scared of the idea as he thought? Okay, sure, it's Sadde, but... it's Sadde. He notices something. His expression softens a little.

... How hasn't he noticed before that it's Sadde?

He starts to lean in.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Sadde breathes, keeping just out of Theo's reach. "I forgot how much your image matters to you. I'd hate to ruin it." And he pulls away, laughing.

Oh.

Giggle. "Come on, there's more shopping to not be done." And he resumes walking.

Is Theo a little broken over here? It seems like he might be.

It takes a couple of seconds, but he seems to eventually start back up. He blinks a couple of times, not crying, dammit, no matter what anyone says, and then walks away, in the opposite direction.

Sadde looks over his shoulder and—

"Hey, wait, where are you going," he calls, going after him and grabbing the bag he's forgotten on the floor for him.

Why did it have to be teenagers. Clow has a twisted sense of humour.

He keeps going. It doesn't look like he even heard Sadde.

The weird jerky movements from after he found out about his speed have returned, but they're not as obvious as they were before.

Still not crying, for god's sake! Stupid eyes.

Sadde eventually reaches him, though, since he's actually sprinting. "Hey. You okay? Sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass you so much."

Theo still isn't responding. It seems like his face is permanently frozen in an expression of shock, with the only change when he blinks.

Still not crying. It was obviously a joke. What the hell else would it have been?

"Hey, Theo? I'm really sorry," he repeats, putting a hand on his shoulder.

When Theo finally notices how close Sadde is, he reacts. He spins around ridiculously quickly, knocks Sadde's hand away, and then growls out, "Get. Away."

He continues moving away from Sadde, this time much quicker than before. He looks like he's walking with purpose, but not in the direction of anything important.

Sadde falls on his haunches, and stares at Theo's retreating form. He scrambles to his feet and runs after Theo again.

Theo looks back, notices Sadde's still following, and speeds up. Apparently he can control his superspeed in some scenarios.