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“This isn't going to work,” Michael sighed, pushing Tommy’s hand away from him.
“Yes it is,” Tommy insisted. “Just grab my hand and focus on not feeling anything.”
Michael frowned at him and grabbed his hand trying to focus on what Tommy had told him to, but he could still feel Tommy's pride and happiness coming to him in waves. He immediately pulled his hand back.
“I’m never going to get this,” the seven year old whined.
“Not with that attitude,” Tommy scoffed, holding his hand out once more. “If you could do it with the help of my magic, you can do it without.”
Michael looked and saw Tommy was determined, much more determined than he was. “I don’t know…” he said hesitantly.
Tommy dropped down to Michael's height level and grabbed his shoulders to make him focus on him. “You know Michael, you said the same thing to me about learning to walk into rooms without feeling everyone's emotions put on you at once. And here you are doing just that, without the interference of my magic.”
Michael realized he was right. “But this is-”
“So much harder?” Tommy finished for him. Michael frowned and nodded. Tommy sighed and let his hands fall to his lap. “Did I ever tell you the story of one of the times I was trying to learn to control my chi magic?” He wondered.
Michael frowned, not exactly seeing where this was going, but shook his head anyway.
Tommy smiled softly at the memory. “Well, I was a little bit older than you are right now and my brothers wanted to train me to enchant my oldest brother's weapons properly…”
“C’mon Tommy, you got this,” Wilbur encouraged.
Tommy frowned and shook his head. “No I don’t,” He insisted.
Techno sighed and created a sword from seemingly nowhere and sat it in front of Tommy who looked amazed as if he hadn’t seen it a million times. In a world where everyone had some type of magic, most people were desensitized to seeing people's magic, especially since most people had basic or boring magic.
Tommy, though, was always amazed by his brothers using their magic. Especially once he found out that they all had rare and powerful types of magic.
Techno had Armament magic, Wilbur was insanely talented at Sorcery, and Tommy himself had chi magic.
They’d decided to try and train him with his magic when he accidentally caused it to rain in the house for 2 days when he waved his hand around a little too excitedly. Currently, they were trying to get him to make Technos sword just a little faster but he didn’t think he could.
“C’mon Tommy. Just use the symbol you drew out earlier and put it on technos sword,” Wilbur said.
“I can’t do it,” Tommy whined.
Technos face hardened and he knelt down to Tommy’s eye level. “The next time you say you can’t do anything, you’re going to run 5 laps around the outside of the house,” he threatened. Tommy looked taken back and Techno continued.
“There is absolutely nothing you can’t do if you put your mind to it. Sure it sounds cheesy but it's true. You always put your best foot forward. If you quit because you can’t get it, how can you be sure that your next try wouldn’t have been the one?” he elaborated.
“I guess you’d never know,” Tommy muttered.
“Exactly,” Techno smiled. “So try again and again and again and eventually, you’ll get it.”
Tommy smiled and walked over to the sword while Techno walked back over to Wilbur. “Techno, the inspirational quotebook,” Wilbur teased.
Techno scoffed and rolled his eyes at him. “I’m just telling him what you used to tell me when I was training and you were only old enough to be my tiny cheerleader,” he teased.
Wilburs face grew red with embarrassment and he shoved the older away from him. “Fuck off,” he spat.
Techno shrugged and walked back over to Tommy leaving Wilbur just glaring. Techno knelt down to see Tommy staring intently at the sword, which looked worse than it did a minute ago when techno made it, before looking up at him with a smile.
“I think I got it! Can you…make another sword?” he asked sheepishly.
Techno formed a new sword and got rid of the old one, setting it down in front of Tommy and stepping back a little bit in case he made something dangerous by accident.
Tommy looked intently at the screen, focusing fully on the sword in front of him. He took his index finger and carefully drew a symbol on the sword. Once he was done, he lifted his finger and took a step back. Everyone in the room braced for something to happen but the sword only took on a faint glow.
Techno put on the magic proof gloves that Phil has in the training room and carefully picked up the sword. When he saw that it wasn’t smoking or damaginging the glove in any way, he carefully put it in his other hand and took off the glove.
“Did I do it?” Tommy asked hopefully.
Techno glanced up from the enchanted weapon and saw both of his brothers looking on both hopeful and amazed. Without another word, Techno threw his sword at the target and watched it zoom across the room and hit it dead in the center.
“I think you did,” he smiled.
Tommy cheered and Wilbur hoisted him up onto his shoulders. “You did it sunshine! You really did it!” He smiled.
Tommy giggled as Wilbur tossed him around and Techno followed along with a proud smile.
“You can enchant weapons?” Michaels asked, letting the wonder fill his eyes.
“Yes, but that was not the point of the story,” Tommy chuckled, Michael giggled along with him.
“I know, I know,” Michael smiled. “I wanna try again,” he declared with a new found determination.
“Awesome! Hold my hand and try not to feel my emotions, okay? Just focus on you,” Tommy instructed.
Michael nodded and grabbed Tommy's outstretched hand. For a second he could feel the sadness and regret Tommy was feeling for some reason and then nothing.
“I did it,” he whispered, his smile slowly growing on his face. “Mimi I did it!” He cheered, letting go and bouncing around.
“You did!” Tommy smiled, picking him up and throwing Michael on his shoulder like Wilbur did with him so many years ago.
“Let's go show Boo and Bee and Shroud!” he gasped, climbing down and running off before Tommy could fully process his sentence.
Tommy chuckled and followed him outside where they found Ranboo sitting on the ground with Shroud sitting across from him and Tubbo shifted into a cat and sitting on a tree. He got another flashback of a scene similar to this. One he long buried in his memory.
“We know where Tubbo is,” Phil started for the hundredth time, his voice being as patient as it was when they first started. “I want you to make WIlbur forget and then we can play hide and seek and watch Wilbur try and find Tubbo.”
Ranboo frowned. He didn’t like using his memory magic to take away people's memories but Phil insisted that he would have to take some in order to learn to fully control his magic.
“Why do I have to be the test subject again?” Wilbur piped up from where he was sitting in front of Ranboo.
“Tubbo is hiding, Ranboo is doing the magic, Tommy can’t sit still, Techno is watching Tommy, and I’m watching you two to make sure you don’t get hurt,” Phil briefly explained.
Wilburs frown deepened but he stopped complaining. Phil sent Ranboo and encouraging smile and a thumbs up telling him he could start.
He took a deep breath and let a purple hue form in his hands. He put his hands beside Wilbur's head and Wilbur tried to relax and clear his mind to make it easier for him.
Ranboo looked through Wilbur's memories until he found the one that contained where Tubbo was hidden and that he was a cat. He carefully withdrew that information from the memories, making it so they are still there but Wilbur will never be able to access them and took his hands away.
He opened his eyes and Wilbur looked dazed for a second before snapping himself out of it. Everyone held their breaths as Phil started the routine they had after every time Ranboo messed with someone's memories.
“What’s your name?” Phil asked.
“Wilbur,” He answered.
“Full government name please.”
“Wilbur Joy Soot,” he recalled.
“What’s today's date?”
“June 2nd.”
“What’s your family member's name? Full government.”
“Phillip Watson Soot, Techno Blade Soot, and Thomas Innit Soot.”
“What’s your type of magic?”
“Sorcery.”
“Where is Tubbo?”
“He’s…he’s…I…don’t know,” Wilbur scrunched up his face trying to think where Tubbo was hidden. “I know I knew it…I just don’t remember.”
Phil gave Ranboo a high-five. “Let’s play some hide and seek!” He exclaimed.
Ranboo and Tommy cheered and Techno smiled a bit at their antics.
Wilbur remained confused the whole celebration.
“Just bring Tubbo down with some vines, or make him a way down with plants,” Ranboo said.
“But how,” Shroud huffed. Tommy smiled slightly at the younger's frustration. Shroud loved to have everything laid out for him step by step. Training him was their way of getting him used to his magic while simultaneously breaking him out of that habit.
“None of us have your type of magic Shroud. You have to figure it out for yourself,” Ranboo said for the thousandth time.
“I can’t,” he whined.
Ranboo sighed, not getting frustrated but stumped. He didn’t know how to communicate to Shroud how he could use his magic. He thought for a moment and tried to remember how he used his own magic.
“Okay shroud just close your eyes for a second and breathe and block out everything else around you except for my voice,” Ranboo instructed, grabbing the boy's hands and watching him to make sure he kept his eyes close.
“Now,” he continued once the boy was completely relaxed, “focus on the familiar tingle that's always there with your magic. I can’t tell you how to access it entirely but that tingle, that's what you’ll have to learn to control. You’ll feel it spread across your body like a warmth and once it reaches your hands and the tips of your fingers, you think about what you want to do then focus on that tingle and you can do it,” he shared.
Shroud nodded slightly and ranboo slowly let go of his hand. They sat there for a few minutes with nothing happening. Tubbo started to come down and say they’ll try again another day when he noticed a few sunflowers starting to grow beneath him in a staircase type of way.
He meowed excitedly and hopped down, bounding over to Shroud and jumping on his head.
Shroud opened his eyes and looked around wondering why there was a weight on his head and got excited when he noticed the sunflowers leading to a branch. “I did it boo!” He cheered.
“You did,” Tommy smiled, announcing his presence.
Shroud turned and ran to Tommy so fast, they would have mistaken him for having some type of speed magic if they did already know he could control plants.
“Mimi!” he bubbled, crashing into Tommys legs and letting himself be picked up. He wrapped his arms around the 17 year old tightly. It was no secret to any of them that Shroud loved Tommy the most out of the three of them and they thought it was cute.
“Hello my little blossom,” Tommy greeted picking a bluebell out of his hair. Shroud smiled and grabbed the flower from Tommy before tucking it in his golden hair.
Tommy couldn’t help but smile at the boy. He did this every time. He would accidentally grow flowers in his hair, Tommy would carefully pick it out, and Shroud would tuck it behind Tommys ear and Tommy would end up putting them in their garden.
He turned around to put Shroud down by Michael only to notice that Michael was dragging Tubbo and Ranboo over.
“Mimi! Mimi! Bee and Boo said they’re proud of me!” Michael exclaimed, bounding back over.
“We all are mr. Vibes,” Tommy smiled.
Michael smiled proudly and Tommy put down Shroud so that the two could go play. He was glad that his family taught him everything he knows so that he could pass it on to them. Even if he didn’t talk to them anymore, they gave him lessons that would last him a lifetime and he could never be more thankful.