Roar of Dragons

[Xander – 12 years]

"Xander?" Mr. Caldwell startles me from behind.

"I didn't do it!"

He's dressed in more casual clothes again rather than his suit. It seems that he mostly puts on the suit when he goes out and wears more casual clothes in the house. I can't figure out if he wants me to wear the suit he bought me when I leave or not and I'm too scared to ask.

"Do… what?" Mr. Caldwell asks.

"Um… I don't remember?"

But if he's approaching me this late then I must have done something wrong, right? Since he brought me here last week, he's mostly left me alone after seven-thirty in the evening apart from telling me 'goodnight' when it was time for me to go to bed. It's now seven forty-five so it's not the time I normally go to bed. Unless Mr. Caldwell wants me to go to bed early for some reason? I must have done something wrong again.

"It's Tuesday," he says. "You normally go to the bowling alley Tuesday nights, right?"

"They usually let me at the home if I'm allowed to and the weather is good. Some exceptions."

Even breaking my arm a few months ago didn't stop me, though bowling was really awkward. The doctor said it was a simple break and should be healed within six to eight weeks but they weren't able to remove the last cast until ten weeks because my body is awful and took forever to heal.

"What time do you normally go?" Mr. Caldwell asks.

"Um… I normally arrive around nine and rent a lane for an hour, then leave around ten to return to the home," I answer. "But I kept messing up because I'm an accidental bad boy so I can't go today."

"Accidental bad-Xander, did I say you aren't allowed to go?"

"No."

"You're not in trouble," he tells me. "If you want to go, you can. Didn't it take awhile for you to walk there from the boys' home?"

"Yeah."

"How late did you get back?"

"Depended on the traffic, but Ms. Johnson let me stay out until eleven for when I went bowling as an exception."

"Alright," Mr. Caldwell says. "If you want to go, you can. Just remember to ask me beforehand. If you ever aren't allowed to go and I haven't told you yet, I'll let you know then, okay? You're allowed tonight."

"Thank you, sir."

"Do you want me to drive you or Quinn?" Mr. Caldwell asks. "If I drive you, are you okay with me watching you play, maybe even join in for a game or two?"

He just wants to show me how much better than I am he is at bowling and rejecting this will probably get my bowling privileges taken away. I don't want that. I like going to the bowling alley once a week.

"You can drive me and come in."

That's probably not a good wording since it implies I have control over his actions, but I can't think of another way to say it that doesn't result in me lying by saying I'm okay with it. I'm not okay with it and I don't want to get beaten for lying.

"Alright," Mr. Caldwell says. "If you're okay with going now, go ahead and get your shoes on."

I nod, then locate my shoes and put them on before meeting up with Mr. Caldwell, who's put on his shoes but not changed out of casual clothes and into a suit. Mr. Caldwell drives me to the bowling alley, though I have to tell him which one it is since there are four in the area and he didn't know which one I liked going to. He actually asked me if it was Salamander Stream Bowling Alley but I hate that location. That's the one closest to the boys' home which is probably the reason he thought that's the one I went to.

Their staff members are mean.

We arrive at the bowling alley a little after eight and Lena is behind the desk when we approach.

"Hello, Xander," she greets me. "You're here early tonight. Is this your dad?"

"No."

"It says ten dollars per person per game," Mr. Caldwell says. "Xander, you said you rent a lane for an hour?"

"We do per-hour rentals as well," Lena tells him. "Twenty dollars per person playing in that lane. It should be up there," Lena looks up at the board. "Huh. Someone erased it. That's what happens when you use chalk," she looks at Mr. Caldwell. "Xander does normally rent one for an hour, though. Shoe rental is three dollars, and we do need to keep your own shoes back here as a form of insurance."

"Xander," Mr. Caldwell looks at me. "Didn't you say you only spent ten dollars? And then another ten on food?"

I didn't lie!

"He has a membership," Lena tells Mr. Caldwell. "Lane rentals cost half for him and shoe rental is free. That costs three-fifty a year and is a saving as long as you come here at least twenty-six times, or once every two weeks."

"You have a membership?" Mr. Caldwell asks me.

"Santa gifted it to me even though I'm on the naughty list."

I didn't mean to say that out loud, but Mr. Caldwell doesn't laugh like other people usually do if I say that. He'll probably tell me when we return to his house that Santa isn't real even though I know Santa is. We argue about whether or not I'm on the naughty list every Christmas.

"Alright," Mr. Caldwell says. "Xander, do you want to play for just one hour like normal or two hours to finish around the normal time?"

Two whole hours? That's more than I can usually afford, but I think I remember Mr. Caldwell telling me that it won't come out of my allowance, that he'll pay for my Tuesday bowling. Thirty dollars total, so this will leave ten dollars for me if I say two hours. I would like to bowl for longer but I'm not sure if Mr. Caldwell is actually wanting to or if he's testing me. This is a hard decision!

"Can I bowl for two hours, please?"

"Sure," Mr. Caldwell answers, then looks at Lena. "Two hours for two playing, and we'll both need shoe rentals."

"Bowling shoes are sized a little differently," Lena tells him. "What's your normal size? And that'll be forty dollars."

Mr. Caldwell tells her his shoe size while he pays, then she fetches the shoes for him and for me, and we hand her our shoes. I pull on my rented shoes and tie them, then Mr. Caldwell does that as well.

"So we just go over to the lane?" Mr Caldwell asks.

"C-can we go to the concessions first, p-please?" I ask.

"Sure," he says. "Where's that at?"

"Over here."

I walk over to the concessions area and get in line behind the customer who's currently ordering. She takes a little while but I think she's ordering for a group. Once she's done, I step up to the counter.

"Hey, little man!" Chris greets me. "You came early today!"

"Yeah," I answer. "May I please have the cheeseburger combo with no mustard on it? And can I please have lemonade for the drink?"

"Sure can," he says. "Will that be all?"

"Yes, please."

"Guess that big binge last week was because of our special, huh?" He grins. "Had a lot of people ordering more."

"I only have a budget of ten dollars."

"If you want more, you can," Mr. Caldwell says.

"B-b-but you told me only thirty dollars for bowling nights," I say. "And we rented the lane for two hours s-s-so that leaves ten. D-d-d-did I do the math wrong?"

"I said thirty because you said you normally spend twenty," Mr. Caldwell tells me. "And that was if you came here alone, not with me. Don't worry about the price. If you want to order more, go ahead. Order as much as you think you can eat."

He's probably going to be mad at me if I follow the order to order as much as I think I can eat. I don't want to do it but I have to or I'll get in trouble for breaking the rules and I don't want to get into trouble and get sent back to the home. I've never gotten to sleep in such a comfortable bed before. Or eat food as delicious as what Ms. Katie makes. I want to stay there as long as possible before Mr. Caldwell sends me back.

But this is a problem because either I follow his directions and he gets mad at me for ordering too much food or I don't order as much as I think I can eat and he gets mad at me for not following directions. Why does everything have to be so hard?

"Xander?" Mr. Caldwell asks. "You need a minute to decide?"

"Um… can I please get a pretzel with cheese combo," I tell Chris. "Two of them, please. And a second burger combo. Also, can I please have the nachos and cheese combo? And, um… two sides of onion rings and a side of mozzarella sticks. Also, can I get an ice cream sundae with strawberry topping but not chocolate topping, with banana bits and chopped nuts? And a lemonade for all of the drinks. Please and thank you."

Chris just kind of stares at me for a moment, then he looks at Mr. Caldwell. I look down at my feet. This was probably bad and Mr. Caldwell is probably going to call me a liar for wanting so much food. He'll probably accuse me of trying to waste food and his money.

"I would like the nachos and cheese combo," Mr. Caldwell tells Chris. "Unsweetened iced tea for a drink, a ten-piece order of the honey-barbecue wings, an order of onion rings, and the normal sundae for dessert."

"Sure can," Chris tells him. "It might take a few minutes to get all the food prepared, do you want us to bring it out as it finishes?"

"Yes," Mr. Caldwell answers. "And can we get the desserts a little bit later, or is that not something you guys can do here."

"We do it all the time," Chris answers.

Chris rings up the order, then Mr. Caldwell pays and we head to Lane 20, which we were assigned to tonight. I like Lane 20 because that means there's only one lane beside me so fewer people are likely to come this way. Unless the place is really busy, Lane 19 is almost always empty when I'm here, too.

"Don't worry if you don't manage to eat all of the food," Mr. Caldwell tells me once we've picked out our bowling balls. "I'll see if we can get what's left boxed up so we can take it home with us. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Now… I've never been bowling before," Mr. Caldwell tells me. "Can you explain how this works?"

He knows I can tell when people are lying, but I guess he felt it safe since I wasn't looking in his eyes. This is definitely a test to see how honest I am. I wouldn't try lying to him in the first place so it's not necessary, so I'm glad this is a test I can pass. Hopefully.

"Um… you put your name or nickname into this," I show him the computer assigned to our lane. "And it goes up onto the big TV right there," I point at the scoreboard TV set up over the spot where the carpeted area meets the bowling area. "And there are ten rounds per game, but the last round wants you to bowl three times. It only ever wants me to bowl once per round for the other rounds, but other people usually bowl twice per round. I'm not sure why. You take turns bowling, with it going in order that the names were put. At least, that's what I've observed so I think that's how it works. I've never bowled with someone else before so I'm not entirely sure. I think you're supposed to get a score close to two-fifty 'cause that's what some other boys who bowl here on Tuesdays get really happy if they reach."

"What do you normally get?"

"Three hundred."

"I see," he says. "And is there a special way you're supposed to bowl?"

"Yeah," I grab the bowling ball I picked out. "You hold the ball like this, and stand like this, and then you move like this. You swing-" I put the ball back down. "You swing like this as you do it and let go of the ball. Oh. You hold it by curling your fingers in the holes and let go by uncurling. At least, that's how I do it. I'm not sure if that's how you're supposed to do it. Also, if you cross that line at the start of the lane there, it lets out a really loud noise and scares me and cancels your points for that round."

I make sure I don't cross the line anymore. I did that a few times when I first started here but quickly learned I wasn't supposed to. The staff came over and told me I wasn't allowed to cross that line after the third time I did it. I just wished they wouldn't have the noise so loud, it really hurt my ears and scared me.

"Okay," Mr. Caldwell says. "Do you want to go first or want to flip a coin so we can see who goes first?"

There's no option for letting him go first so I choose to flip a coin. Mr. Caldwell tells me to call it so I pick heads and it ends up being heads, so I put in XANDER for my username and then he puts in Trey.

Some of the food we ordered shows up while we're playing the first game, and since I have time to eat while waiting for Mr. Caldwell to finish his round, I'm able to eat more as well. Because there are two of us and because Mr. Caldwell bowls twice every time, the game takes a long time compared to my usual games, which last around twenty minutes depending on how much I eat between rounds.

The black-haired boy and his friends show up at roughly eight-thirty and are assigned to Lane 18. They're usually assigned there which I like because even if they're sometimes rowdy, at least I know they aren't going to bother me like other groups do. They also don't get drunk, probably because they're too young to order alcohol without parental approval and supervision.

"You really did score a three hundred," Mr. Caldwell says once our first game ends. "I only managed ninety-seven, but it's my first time. Do you mind holding off on the second game for a few minutes? The tea's gotten to me so I need to use the restroom."

They have unlimited refills on drinks and Mr. Caldwell has already had his refilled once. I've gone through a full cup of lemonade but I don't have to pee yet.

"Okay," I say.

Mr. Caldwell leaves to go to the bathroom and I sit down so that I can eat some more while he's gone. After about a minute, a man approaches me. I think I've seen him before. He looks familiar, but I'm fairly certain I don't know him.

"Xander?" The man asks.

Stranger danger!

"Do you see that group of boys there?" He indicates the group on Lane 18, who are all standing on the other side of the closer table for their lane and watching us. Their hair looks glittery for some reason. "My name is Paul Thompson, and the boy with brown hair and blue eyes, the second one from the left, is my son, Connor. The one with black hair and blue eyes on the left is S.G., the one on the right is Isaac, and the boy with brown hair and eyes between Isaac and Connor is Sam. They're all thirteen, so probably a few years older than you."

Stranger danger! This is scary! Especially since he thinks I'm ten because I'm so short! I need to scream so someone can see that someone's trying to creep on me but I can't get my mouth to open. My body won't move! Somebody help me!

"They've told us dads about you a few times," he says. "And tonight, they mentioned that you had an unfamiliar man with you and you seemed especially anxious about something, including that you were trying to keep some distance between yourself and the man. Since you've never come here with someone else before, they were concerned that he's a creeper who won't leave you alone and forced you into letting him play with you. If that's the case, you can tell me and I can call the police for you, get them to remove him. I can call your parents, too. Sam's and Isaac's dads will make sure he stays away from you until the police get here if he's not friendly."

He's… concerned about me? Now that he's explained a bit I've found myself able to move again. The other boys were concerned about me and told their dads. That has me really confused. Why would someone be concerned about me? Especially strangers?

"Do you want me to do that?" Mr. Thompson asks.

"H-he's my foster dad," I tell him.

"Not all foster parents are nice," Mr. Thompson tells me. "Has he hurt you?"

"N-not yet."

"Not yet?"

"But it's only a matter of time before I behave really badly and he does."

"How long have you lived with him?" Mr. Thompson asks.

"Since Friday," I answer. "Ms. Johnson said he's nice but I'm a bad boy and bad boys get beaten for messing up."

Mr. Thompson thinks for a few moments.

"So you're just scared you're going to get beaten?" Mr. Thompson asks. "Has he done anything to make you think that he would?"

"No," I answer. "But it's only a matter of time because I mess up too much."

"Okay," Mr. Thompson says. "Can I ask who Ms. Johnson is?"

"One of the staff at the boys' home."

"Is that were you lived before you moved in with him?"

"Yes."

Why is he asking me so many questions? Why does he care? I want to stop answering his questions but I get the feeling he won't stop until I answer everything and that scares me.

"Did she ever beat you?"

"No."

"Even when you messed up?"

"But it was only a matter of time."

"How long did you live there?"

"Just-over three years," I answer. "I got moved there on May 19th of 2020."

"May of… you lived there for three years and never got a beating?" Mr. Thompson asks and I nod. "Even when you misbehaved?"

"Yeah."

"Beating a child for misbehaving is not normal," Mr. Thompson tells me. "In fact, it's illegal. It wasn't 'only a matter of time', Xander. You never got beaten there because that's not how they punished you."

It's illegal to beat a child? I don't believe him. He's a stranger. There's a good chance he's a creep. Should I try to call the police? I'm not that good at subtlety though and he'd probably see me making the call.

"I can see I'm making you uncomfortable," you got that right. "So before I go, I want to double-check: he's your current guardian and he's not hurting you or doing anything inappropriate to you?"

"Yes."

"Alright," Mr. Thompson says. "And the reason you seem anxious is because you're not that familiar with him right now and are just afraid of getting hurt?"

"Yes."

"But he hasn't actually done or said anything to make you think he might hurt you."

"Um… yes."

"Do you mind if I ask how your arm broke?"

I mind very much but I'm really, really scared right now.

"My roommate at the home tried teaching me how to ride a skateboard," I answer. "One of the wheels popped off and I fell and landed funny. The doctor said it was a clean break and should heal within about six to eight weeks but it took almost ten. Bowling was really awkward."

Nick was really sorry about the accident. I've never heard him apologize that much before but it wasn't his fault. It was mine. I shouldn't have tried to ride a skateboard and that was my punishment for trying to have fun.

"Alright," Mr. Thompson says. "Do you mind if I tell the boys that he's your new foster dad? They're very concerned about you."

"Okay."

"One last question, then I'm gone," Mr. Thompson says. "Do you mind telling me the name of the boys' home?"

Why does he want to know that? Is he going to tell them that I've been a really bad boy. I'm trying not to be!

"F-Fourth Wing B-Boys' Home."

"Fourth Wing?" He asks. "Wait. Is the Ms. Johnson you mentioned Tiffany Johnson?"

That's two more questions, but he wasn't lying to me. How does he know Ms. Johnson, though? I'm definitely getting into trouble and I don't know why! Why am I so bad?

"Y-yeah."

"Alright," Mr. Thompson says. "Enjoy the rest of your night, Xander."

"Bye."

Mr. Thompson walks over to the other boys and says something to them, then they start bowling as he walks further past. When he reaches Lane 12, I see that there are two men there who are talking with Mr. Caldwell and it seems kind of like they're blocking his path. Only after Mr. Thompson talks to them do they seem to relax a little, though it's still a few more minutes before Mr. Caldwell comes back over to me.

"Are you okay?" Mr. Caldwell asks.

"I'm not sure."

"I didn't notice that you were uncomfortable," Mr. Caldwell tells me as I stare at my food. "I apologize for that. If you want, I can leave and wait in the car until you're finished so you can be more relaxed."

But that would probably upset him and I don't want to upset him. I know Mr. Thompson said that beating a kid isn't normal but I don't know Mr. Thompson.

"Do you want to bowl first for the next game?" I ask. "The computer lets us change the order."

I noticed that after our first game ended.

"Why don't you keep bowling first?" Mr. Caldwell asks. "Can you look me in the eyes?" I comply with his order. "I asked them about the scoring while we were talking and found out that a three hundred is a perfect score. Xander, you bowl with a master-level amount of skill."

That is… the truth. I'm not a bad bowler? That's hard to believe because I'm bad at nearly everything and I'm not athletic at all. How could I be a master-level bowler? This is confusing and I decide that it's better to just get back to bowling instead of hurting my brain over it.

By the time we finish bowling, I've eaten all of the food that I ordered and even accidentally ate some of Mr. Caldwell's onion rings. All he did was chuckle once he let me know they were his but I was still worried about getting into trouble. This means that there was nothing left for us to take home and it sounded like he wanted to take some home based on what he said when we first got to the lane.

"Were you still hungry after dinner?" Mr. Caldwell asks as we go to the car, several papers containing the scores from each game we played in my hands. I didn't know they offered to print up the scores from each game here. "You really did eat quite a lot."

"Sorry."

"There's nothing to apologize for," Mr. Caldwell tells me. "But it does seem like you didn't eat enough at dinner. Were you still hungry after?"

"Y-yes, sir."

"You're allowed to ask for seconds," he tells me. "If you're ever still hungry after you eat, we can get you more. There's no reason for you to go hungry while you live with me, though you did seem to eat quite a lot here."

"Sorry."

"I wasn't scolding you," he says. "It was an observation. You packed away more food over the last two hours than even a full-grown man should be able to. That's impressive, though it does suggest you have some sort of innate magic running."

"Innate magic?"

"Yes," Mr. Caldwell gestures for me to get into the SUV, then continues speaking once we're in and buckled. "I'm not a mage, myself, but I know that mages tend to burn food a little bit faster if they've been using magic. From my understanding of it, their digestive systems are magically-different from a normal person's as well, enabling them to process food into energy much faster. You probably have some sort of strong innate magic – something other than your lie-detection ability – running at all times to cause your higher intake ability."

"Is that bad?"

"No, Xander, it's not bad," he says. "It just means you need more food. If you want, I can hire someone to help you learn what it is and maybe even train it. Or if you don't want to, then we won't."

If I have a powerful innate magic already then training it would just make me stand out more. I don't dye my hair for no reason.

"I-I don't think I want that."

"Alright," Mr. Caldwell says. "Then just remember that if you're ever still hungry after you eat, you can ask for seconds. Okay?"

"Yes, sir."

[Sig – 13 years] → Starts during Xander's PoV

"I'm still looking for an answer about the hair spray," Mr. Thompson says as the seven of us make our way to the front door of the bowling alley.

"Yes," Mr. Michaels says. "Where did you boys get that from?"

"What hair spray?" Isaac asks, and it's taking all of our effort to keep straight faces.

Connor, Sam, Isaac, and I used silver glitter hairspray earlier while the dads weren't looking. We were swimming at Sam's house and decided to do it after showering to wash off the pool chemicals. As a result, our hair is very sparkly at the moment and none of the dads were aware we'd done that until we were getting ready to leave for here.

"Our hair has always been like this," I say. "We were blessed by the gods of the unicorns to have special hair for all time. Didn't you notice it when we were born?"

"I wasn't there for your birth," Mr. Michaels gives me a light slap to the back of the head. "You boys aren't going to tell us, are you?"

"Nope!" The four of us answer in unison.

We bought the spray a few months ago but forgot about it until Sam was getting the hair dryer after his shower and saw it in the drawer. The dads should have been suspicious when we ran back out to the yard.

Giving up on questioning us, the dads join us in entering the bowling alley. We pay for our lanes then for our food before heading to Lane 18. I once asked Lena why she always put us on Lane 18 instead of any other lane and she said because it's quiet enough that she can and having a group on Lane 18 gives them reason not to put someone on Lane 19 while Xander's here unless they're really busy. Even she had noticed that Xander is skittish around other… who the heck is that?

There's a man with Xander, dressed in shorts and a t-shirt in addition to his bowling shoes, and Xander doesn't look at all comfortable. The four of us notice that really fast, especially since we start watching them while swapping our shoes, putting out our bowling balls, and setting up our first game. Xander does his best to avoid getting too close to the man and jumping a little with an extremely terrified expression if the man moving close to him.

"What do you think is going on?" I whisper to Connor. "Think he's some perv who's forcing himself onto Xander?"

"Probably," Connor says.

"Xander probably came here when he noticed the guy following hoping he'd go away since it's got other people here," Sam says. "It would explain why he's here before us instead of at nine, too."

Because Xander was probably just out for a walk or something, noticed himself being tailed, and then decided to go to a place he knows is safe immediately rather than waiting.

"Think the man threatened him to let him join?" Isaac asks.

"I'm gonna go tell my dad," Connor says. "Xander looks really scared."

"He does," I nod. "I'll keep an eye on them."

Connor hurries off to the dads and returns after about a minute.

"Dad said they'll wait to see if Xander or the man separate for a minute," Connor says. "If they do, then they'll see what's going on. If not, then they'll stop them once they go to leave. Also to text them if we see anything really creepy, like the man touching Xander."

Connor's dad is a doctor specializing in adolescents and in this country, that means he's a mandated reporter. The dads are probably going to be watching the situation as well and they probably want to try and get Xander alone so they can ask him about the man without the man being with Xander at the time. That could probably cause a problem.

We only manage to play one frame before I notice something changing. Their game has finished and the man with Xander says something to him, then leaves. As soon as the man has passed by our lane, Xander immediately looks relieved. He even pulls himself up into one of the chairs (why are they so tall?) and starts devouring food.

"Connor, text your dad," I say. "The man's walked off."

Connor looks over, then pulls out his phone and shoots off a text. We look down to where the dads are – Lane 12, the one they're usually put on – and watch to see what they do. The man walks past them, probably heading toward the concessions stand, then Connor's dad makes his way down here.

"They're going to stop him on his way back through," Mr. Thompson tells us. "Let me talk to Xander for a minute."

We nod and watch as Mr. Thompson goes over to talk with Xander. Mr. Thompson points us out to Xander, probably letting him know that we were concerned, then they talk for a few minutes. Xander looks scared again, but he lets out a breath of relief and returns to eating once Mr. Thompson starts walking back over to us.

"Xander said he's a foster kid," Mr. Thompson tells us. "The man he's with is his new foster dad. It seems he's just skittish with new people. Also, I asked about the broken arm and he said it happened skateboarding, that one of the wheels popped off and he fell and landed on his arm."

"Ouch," I wince.

"Yeah," Mr. Thompson says.

"You don't think that's the truth, though?" Connor asks.

"No," Mr. Thompson frowns a little. "Something he said bothered me but it's not something I should discuss with you."

That means there's cause for concern and he's going to try to investigate with what information he managed to get out of Xander.

"And not from his new foster dad," Mr. Thompson adds. "It does seem that Xander's just skittish with a new guardian. You boys get back to bowling."

Mr. Thompson heads back to the other dads and we return to our game. It looks like Mr. Richardson and Mr. Michaels stopped the foster dad on his way back over and are talking with him. Mr. Thompson joins them and talks with him for a few minutes, then the foster dad comes over and rejoins Xander.

Even though Connor's dad said it's okay, I can't help but keep looking over to see if Xander's doing okay. He definitely seems to be doing his best to avoid the man. I can't help but be suspicious with that happening. When they stop playing at about ten, Xander quickly gathers up all of his trash and compacts it as much as possible, then puts it in the trash can.

That boy can eat. I'm a mage and I don't think I could put away that much food. That must be why he's so skinny – he's burning through everything he eats rather fast. Now I want to know what kind of magic he has.

"Hey, guys!" I say once Xander's gone. "I think Xander's a mage! Did you see how much food he eats?"

"Yeah," Connor says. "I didn't even know it was possible to eat that much! And he's super skinny!"

"He's probably converting it to energy almost immediately," I say. "I bet he's a teleporter."

"Aren't all teleporters, like, scatter-brained?" Sam asks. "He's probably an earth mage."

"Not all teleporters," I say. "Just most. My teacher said it's because they tend to be hyper due to needing to eat a lot of calories to fuel their magic and make up for the mana they expend and then just getting filled up with lots of energy."

Well, that's not exactly how she explained it. Everyone produces mana over time, usually slowly. Just like with other aspects of our health, various things can influence our rate of production. How healthy we are, how well-rested we are, how much we've been eating, and so on. Any excess energy our body has, it takes and uses to speed up our mana generation as long as we aren't already full of mana.

We're not converting food into mana, though. Rather, our body's magics converts any extra food we eat beyond what we need to be filled into energy, which allows it to produce mana at a faster rate. It's also not 'speeding up' our generation of mana but simply giving our body the energy needed in order to operate at a rate closer to its best.

That does require us to have some mana in the first place, though, since converting food into energy is a magical process already.

For casters of extremely advanced magics like dimensional ones, they burn through their mana so fast that they need to let their body recover it as fast as possible. As a result, they tend to eat a lot of food, which results in more being converted to energy than is needed to let their mana recovery rate operate at full. This results in them having too much normal energy and becoming super hyper until they finish burning through that extra energy to fuel their mana regeneration.

"Maybe," Isaac says. "But remember? Xander usually only eats one combo when he's here, not the mass amount of food he had last week or this week. Why'd you go to teleporter? Why not something like lightning mage?"

"Because it'd be awesome!" I exclaim. "Wait! A teleporting lightning mage! That'd be even more awesome! Especially if he combined the two together and would make his body all sparky while he teleports! I heard there's a rich boy our age who's a really skilled lightning mage!"

They call him a prodigy in magic. He's one of the reasons why I wanted to learn magic even though I don't come from a magical bloodline. When I found out that a boy our age took an elemental's attack without suffering any harm, I immediately fell in love with the idea of being able to use lightning magic. That takes far too much mana for my current reserves so I need to build them up. I also need to build up skill with using magic.

"Do you think the rumor about him actually killing an elemental is true?" Sam asks before grabbing his ball so he can take his turn.

"Does it matter?" I ask. "What matters is that lightning magic is awesome and I can't wait until I can cast it. When I do, I'll finally be able to punch the sky!"

"Dork," Connor giggles.

"Maybe," I grin at him. "But I'm still the least-weird one of us. Now move over, I'm stealing your nachos."