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***
Witches aren’t given names upon their birth.
When they are born, they are nothing. Unless they belong to one of the higher families, in which case they have designations.
But, for most of them, a name is a luxury they will never know; they will be killed long before even the graduation assessment at 16, which only a handful will pass. Those who survive will be allowed to take on a name and be referred to as such.
But names have power. What good would a name be, if it could be so attached to your identity that it had the potential to serve your life up on a golden platter, ripe for consumption? Witches don’t choose names so much as titles—combinations of verbs, nouns, and adjectives from a pre-designed list—that decide their forthcoming place in society.
On the day he graduates, his other classmates receive the naming parchment, which they then mark their allegiance to in blood. He stands alone, the only one unmarred by burns, bruises, and blood, and knows his time is limited.
That is the day he makes his escape, having found a portable dimensional door to the human realm after years of searching.
Swirls of green, and the world he has left behind is cut off and cast away. He instead uses the door to enlarge a point in space—an ever-moving residence that can now be accessed through his door wherever he sets it.
As the sun sets in the human realm that day, he feels the golden light of a human dusk for the first time. He sees its reflection in the clear waters of the nearby lake, clean and unfrequented. Covered in hues of orange and pink, he wades his feet slowly into the cool water. Feels the prick of small creatures upon the calluses.
Fish.
He remembers the way the woman had talked about them when she sometimes spoke of the life she had been ripped away from.
So he makes the choice, that day. Amazed by their quick movements. The vibrancy of their colors. On a whim brought on by a world he has barely any knowledge of, he decides to make his own choice.
He is the strongest witch alive. That is a fact of life.
It is also going to be the fact of his death.
But, until then, he is Superfish.
***
Obscaria had taught him the need for power. He spends the next year searching this world for everything that could prove useful to him—ancient artifacts, incantation books, enchanted objects—all of the various sources of magic that have leaked into this one.
He will constantly be on the run, with multiple tricks up his sleeve. He will slither his way into safety each time.
He will live.
***
If there is something the human world teaches him, it’s beauty.
And he cultivates it painstakingly. With each cookbook. With each painting. With each ornate piece of furniture. This is a world ripe for the taking. At his mercy.
And he takes both the tangible and the intangible. He learns the meaning of indulgence. He carves out a single earring from molten witch glass—his one connection to a world he will never fully escape. There are warm showers, swathed in gentle steam and jasmine. Slices of juicy meat that melt softly in his mouth in an explosion of flavors and sensations.
And then, a human barges into this sanctuary of a life he has created for himself. Flashes of red lightning. A blackened hand.
Everything changes.
Again.
***
Toppleprey finding him is nothing new.
A human getting caught in the crossfire is.
He grew up hearing stories of the weaknesses of this world, of the people that were stolen from it in the name of blood magic and rituals. Humans are weak. Fragile. They frequently break in ways that cannot be reversed, only to die within a short span, having barely existed at all.
This human is no different, he thinks, as he lifts the unconscious boy off of the floor. His hand burns harshly in the night air, a reminder that the gravity of what he has just done will have to be addressed eventually.
He steps absently on a piece of polymer. Lifts it up with magic.
Dhananjay Arora. Omedo High School. At the bottom left, there’s an address.
Well. That makes things easier for him.
***
The human’s house is spacious but plain.
There is a cat that spots him—dotted with orange and browns. She purrs softly as he rubs her a little, the sound reverberating through his hand. Enjoying his attention, she paws at his trousers happily, and he grins.
The human tries, once again in vain, to take a random household object and wield it as a weapon. This time, it’s an umbrella. His ineptitude is made all the more hilarious by his ignorance—he has no idea who Superfish is.
With the umbrella caught cleanly in his left hand, he stares the human down.
This human is funny, he thinks. He hasn’t been around them much, despite having taken residence in their world, but he has observed them enough to have some idea. And this one is a mess of contradictions. He is skittish, quick to react, and always on the defensive. He is also always willing to push. To assert his presence. To take up space.
What starts as a simple core-retrieval job easily spirals out of hand because, of course, this human cannot withstand a simple removal spell given his delicate constitution. He collapses again, no longer breathing, leaving Superfish to quickly revive him using magic.
It’s funny how quickly his life devolves from there. He has spent the last three years largely alone, moving from place to place. He has done everything she used to talk about and has tried to find the meaning in it that she did.
He had never even considered experiencing a human school or spending so much time around humans. As far as he had been concerned, the human realm’s gift was its decadent environment.
This human changes that.
It happens fast. He enrolls at the human’s school, mostly to get a rise out of him and to get the job done. The sooner he has the core and uses it to heal himself, the faster he can put this—and hopefully Toppleprey, for good this time—behind him.
Life starts getting away from him, in a way it never has before. He has never been this unconscious. For every moment of torture he had endured, he had been perfectly awake. He had felt every burn, every gash, and every hot blister that had spawned. But, surrounded by these strange humans, he feels a little hazy for the first time.
***
Dhananjay.
That’s the human’s name. It never flows quite right off of Superfish’s tongue, and his core’s ability to translate languages doesn’t apply to proper names. He doesn’t know why he spends so much time trying anyway, wrapping his tongue around its shape in all the possible configurations he can think of.
It would be easier probably, if he just asked him outright.
Then again, none of this matters. This boy, Dhananjay. He is nothing but a short detour—a sudden diversion in an already offbeat path.
Still, there’s something incredible about antagonizing him—DJ, as his friends seem to refer to him. His hands are always everywhere, pushing him against a wall, shoving him away, pulling him by his collar with the promise of a threat, caging him against the floor… He is just so easy to rile up.
Yeah, he thinks. This is going to be entertaining.
***
They get punished for instigating a fight, then assigned to clean a classroom together. Superfish has to admit that doing it without magic does hold a certain charm. The rhythmic motions of the broom. The sounds of twilight singing behind them, clear in the emptiness of the school. The sun lighting them up in a soft glow.
He finds himself surprisingly engaged in their idle talk, which morphs into excitement as DJ’s offhand comment provides them with another solution.
DJ thanks him for dropping him off at his house. And for helping out with the people who were antagonizing him and his friends. The sincerity in his eyes takes him aback. He feels the image linger in his mind, and it makes him feel a little strange in a way he can’t identify. Like a glass window being pelted by rain.
He doesn’t think it’s sickness because he has a perfect immune system. There’s a tightness in his chest, though, and it feels like his heart is experiencing arrhythmia. He uses some healing spells to check if his witch’s core might have been damaged; the amount of energy he had summoned to remove Toppleprey’s core had been astounding.
His results all show he is in perfect health aside from his magical burns.
If it isn’t dangerous, he thinks, his curiosity winning out in the end.
Maybe he can just let it be.
***
Time flows around him and through him—he lets himself be washed away. DJ can read Obscarian languages, but he tells himself that means nothing. What he had done had been unorthodox and has, of course, had unforeseen consequences.
He spends time with this idiosyncratic Occult Club, even helps out on the occasion. Finds himself marveling at how easy and guileless their lives are—their biggest concerns being matters such as the club’s possible closure and a leadership change. Something compels him to provide his counsel, and it isn’t mere amusement. He shrugs it off.
They start locating the ingredients for the strength potion, starting with the thera-beetle. DJ claims he isn’t capable of catching one without his magic, and he feels himself bristling in anticipation. Thrills at the competitive spark that is struck alight in him.
“I’m stronger than you even without magic,” he asserts playfully, caught off-guard when DJ just smirks and pulls him along. There’s that strange tightness again, and he feels this moment become imprinted in his mind. He hasn’t performed any spells for photographic memory recently.
“Then you have nothing to worry about, Witch Boy,” DJ teases back. His wrist burns where DJ is holding it, and he can feel the shape of his fingers keenly, even through his bandages.
He stumbles, both verbally and physically, and DJ just laughs. He doesn’t get much time to think about what this means as they are quickly stormed by thera-beetles. The competition is reignited, and they make a mad dash at the singular thera-beetle still around. His blood sings.
He feels alive.
Neither of us won, he thinks, when their hands close in on the beetle at the same time.
“I think we both did,” DJ states, and there is that thrum again. He can’t stop staring.
***
DJ is attacked by a werewolf, and he curses his carelessness. He should have known better.
He chases the mystery werewolf throughout the house, blood alight with anger. Green glows gloriously around them as he thrashes the man around. Rejoices in hunting him down.
But then, a sharp cry.
“S-Superfish?!”
The choice comes easier than it should have.
The werewolf makes his escape. Superfish tosses away everything in his path, and there’s DJ lying pitifully, his right ankle blue, bloody, and infected. The poison is spreading too fast, and his healing magic is doing nothing. He lifts DJ up; water should help concentrate the spell.
And it does—DJ’s leg is saved just in time. But the urgency lingers.
Why had he reacted that way?
He tells DJ he has everything under control, trying to will himself into believing it. The house is fixed with a snap, and he uses the werewolf’s blood to put a protection spell on it.
Despite himself, he is impressed. Humans are weak. But what this human had done… it was impressive.
He had survived.
The human pushes again. His barrage of statements comes crashing to a halt as he sinks to the floor. Slides down the door. Clearly, the ordeal has taken much out of him.
And yet, the first thing he does is attempt to console his cat.
“You’re not hurt anywhere, are you? Let me check you.”
The cat meows gently, then rubs her head against DJ’s thigh. The sight makes him stiffen.
He needs to leave, he realizes. This isn’t the place for him.
A casual wave of his hand behind his back. He is more than ready to indulge in a steamy shower and wash away this night.
And then, another hand. Clutching his arm tightly.
DJ asks him to stay.
He does.
***
DJ’s clothes are loose and comfortable, and it somehow stills whatever had been building up inside of him previously. He feels relaxed, and it’s easy to settle back into teasing DJ, watching the open indignation on his face.
The human really makes it so easy.
The nightmares come, as they often do. She’s there, watching him suffer. Crying for him, when no one else will.
And then, she isn’t.
He blinks his eyes open blearily; Aloo the cat is resting atop him, and his hand reaches out to pet her. Before long, he’s asleep again.
***
DJ is relentless, and he is surprised by how intimidating the boy can be when he means business. He plops down onto the stool he is directed toward, knowing that a human poses no danger to him yet wanting to appease him all the same.
DJ introduces him to something called a burger, which, not being mentioned in his cookbooks, had escaped his notice. He hadn’t attempted to visit an establishment to purchase a meal previously, having figured that they would all be subpar.
He has to admit, contrary to his assumption, that good food seems to be the one thing humans have perfected in this world. The burger brings tears of joy to his eyes. It’s a brilliant amalgamation of textures and flavors; he almost forgets what the bitter rations in Obscaria had been like each time he eats something delicious here.
DJ asks, and he answers without giving too much away, not keen on involving the human in the destiny that has been following him since his birth. The pebbles lining the lakeside glimmer in the soft morning sun, and he is reminded of what he had seen the human doing the other day. When he tries, the pebbles sink right to the lakebed.
How annoying.
But then, DJ is holding out his hand, those brown eyes of his once again swathed in a sincerity he doesn’t know how to react to. Each time, it feels like it’s the first.
“Give it to me. I can show you how to do it.”
Brushing DJ off comes naturally. The pebble throwing doesn’t. He knows he is sulking childishly, but DJ’s asking again, even closer. His chest feels weirdly tight again… as it seems to be prone to doing these days.
“Come on, don’t be silly.” DJ smiles. His face looks open and honest, and it renders him a little speechless. “Let me help you. I won’t make fun of you.”
He hands a pebble over, thankful when the moment dissipates and is replaced by their regular banter. DJ bounces the pebble off the surface of the lake three times effortlessly, and he is mesmerized.
Ready to give it his all, he raises his arm, then stiffens when he feels a hand adjust his own. DJ’s telling him his positioning is wrong, adjusting his stance with a firm grip on Superfish’s waist.
He feels his face heat up, and there’s the arrhythmia in his chest again. But it’s all gone too soon, and he’s left holding his hand, wrist angled downward. Staring at the place where some warmth seems to still linger.
This time, when he tries, the pebble thrashes right off the surface, then goes dashing through the air toward an unsuspecting passer-by. DJ turns him around immediately, saying something about avoiding eye contact. His palm seems to burn through Superfish’s back.
He takes DJ flying on his Vespa, and feels that same urgency again when DJ faints after falling off of it. Even the use of his name comes instinctively. He knows that he can’t see this boy as just another human anymore. They go searching for nocturnal mushrooms, and he has to rush to yank DJ back by his collar.
DJ calls him out on it. Dismisses his insistence that everything he is doing is only for the core. The ensuing fight with the nocturnal mushrooms takes away all possibility of pretense.
DJ manages to draw the prime mushroom’s attention away long enough for Superfish to slice it precisely such that it cannot regrow. In the process, he is attacked by another tentacle and falls unconscious, and Superfish finds himself sprinting to his side, face drawn up in worry.
It’s not until days later, when DJ pushes him into a wall, gets all up in his space, and makes his breath hitch in a way he hasn’t ever experienced before, that he admits to himself that his priorities are no longer what they were previously.
Maybe they haven’t been for a good while.
The core takes to DJ in a way that shouldn’t have been possible. It’s altering his insides while trying desperately to seek another source—Superfish. And hence, they are drawn to each other constantly.
The core’s a good incentive to do what he wants to do. To feel the warmth he feels every time he remembers DJ holding his wrists—DJ has done it in every way. Playful, with glinting eyes. Gently, with a smile that made him stop in his tracks. Rough, holding him down, up, and every which way at some point.
“I’m not sticking around just for the core,” he admits finally, the next morning, in response to DJ’s own honesty. And there’s that smile that he never knows what to do with. A warm brown hand reaching out, holding up a fist.
He looks on in confusion, and DJ has to teach him the concept of a fistbump. Humans are so juvenile, he reiterates with no real heat.
***
The evening before the night they plan to finish making the strength potion, DJ takes them to a lake first.
It’s small, nestled between so much dense foliage, and the waters run a clear blue-green. He is reminded of his first day in this world, when he had waded into a lake that had been nothing like this one and chosen a path forward on his own for the first time in his life.
DJ leads them to a small wooden craft that appears to be buoyant, then holds his hand out as he guides Superfish onto it. With wooden pole-like structures, he directs them to the center of the lake. Superfish’s attention is first drawn to the teeming life around them. Creatures of unimaginable scope swimming, flying, and floating—all a part of whatever complex ecosystem this water formed.
But his center of gravity quickly adjusts itself. Not long after, he instead looks at DJ. Listens to him talk. About his family. About this lake. About what it means to him. Superfish never wants him to stop.
But, the evening comes to an end. He knows he is the one deciding their timeline, but he feels out of time all the same. He uses magic to get off the craft, not waiting for DJ to help him out. Watches DJ walk just a short ways away, his attention drawn away by something, and has to clench his fists to resist the urge to hold his hand out childishly, as if trying to will the inevitable separation away.
He walks toward DJ quietly, and they stroll their way to his house in silence. He thinks that’s the end of it, but DJ holds out his hand again, and they are stepping onto the roof tiles beside his window.
They finish making the potion that night, and DJ gulps it down in one swallow, then falls as seizures take him over. Superfish is forced to confront, for the first time in his life, that he now has something to lose. Desperate and reckless, he pours all his magic into stabilizing him, blackens both his hands, and only rests when he sees DJ’s breathing slow down into a gentle and even motion.
The words had never left him and maybe won’t for a long time, if ever. But they had been screamed within the walls of his mind all the same.
He sits blankly next to DJ’s bed, where DJ himself lies unaware and unconscious.
“Please. Don’t go,” he thinks softly, closing his own eyes to wait for dawn.
***
There’s nothing witches despise more than the nullification of their powers. He has been forced to contend with this fact all his life—no matter how much they tried to burn out his magic, it always surpassed their own. It was a futile battle.
When Toppleprey finds them again, this time with a hired vampire by his side, he knows that there’s no escaping this for him. He knocks DJ unconscious using his magic. Tries to send him back.
In a sudden twist of irony, he fails.
Because, just as he has always been capable of nullifying every other witch’s magic, there is now someone who can nullify his.
Despite himself, he lets out a giddy laugh. DJ’s eyes shoot open, this time red with fire. He is more red lightning than person. It bursts out of his eyes. His fingertips. It’s everywhere. And it’s all being poured into Superfish, who can feel his burns heal. His body crackles with the surplus until DJ finally faints, his frail human body already having done as much as it could have.
But it’s more than enough to throw Toppleprey off for some time at least. The vampire next to him looks hesitant, and he takes her by the jaw and throws her onto the ground. Twists his boots near her neck.
And then Toppleprey’s gone. The dust settles over the clearing and the natural quiet of the woods falls over it again. He lifts DJ up into his arms gently, bursting with an unbearable happiness, and he dares to think, that maybe.
Maybe, they’ll make it out of this mess just fine.
***
DJ wakes up before him this time, and he’s ready with a beautiful tray of breakfast foods. Superfish devours them hungrily, hums out his contentment, and lets himself float around the room, happy to look around in a way he never has bothered with before.
DJ lets him be, focused on cleaning out his room. Superfish watches him study for an upcoming mathematics practical, gives out a few pointers, and waits greedily for when DJ’s patience finally wears out.
He doesn’t have to wait long.
DJ closes his notebook shut abruptly, then turns to grab Superfish and pull him right onto his lap.
“So…” he starts, resolute with determination. “Are we finally together in this now?” Superfish opens his mouth, but DJ presses his right palm over it, the left resting on the small of his back.
“Just say yes,” he breathes out, sounding more than just a little winded.
He buries his face into DJ’s neck, wrapping his arms around him in return.
He says yes.
***