A Whole new world

The first two years of Mallory's life flew by, mostly due to sleeping through most of it. When Mallory could walk, he began to explore, quickly finding that his teeny tiny body could not see much due to his size and lack of muscle. Mallory learned the language of the world fairly quickly and found that his new name was Malus. Not a bad name; it was even pretty close to his old one, He accepted it as his own wholeheartedly. Malus also found out that his primary caretaker was just a maid and that his mother was a woman he had only seen a few times, who had only come into his room to admire his adorable baby features. Escaping the wooden crib he inhabited was very easy to Malus as soon as his muscles were developed enough to do so. After escaping, Malus would explore the house as much as he could before the maid would find and re-contain him. Malus found that the world he inhabited now was very different from the Earth he knew and loved. This world had four moons, two visible at any given moment. Luckily there was only one sun, so the heat was not much different. Malus also found that there were many races to this new world, much akin to a fantasy setting of his old world. His maid was a pointy-eared elf who had features that were soft and slim, reminding Malus of a series he enjoyed from his previous about a one ring. Malus discovered that his parents were very wealthy war veterans, his father a world famous Swordsman and his mother a Summoner, which brought Malus to the realization that magic existed in this world, this exciting him as it would any person.

Malus decided to learn as much as he could when he had the chance. The presence of Malus' father was strictly absent from the household. He would find his mother looking out the window from time to time as though she was waiting for someone but whenever approached on the subject by Malus, she would avoid the subject by any means, even asking if he was lonely and summoning a demon-like creature called an Ifrit to play with him. The Ifrit in question was a very young Ifrit whose parents had been contracted to Malus' mother. His name was Zal'tai cal something or another, Malus couldn't figure out how to pronounce anything of his middle or last name past cal, So Malus just called him Zal. Zal was older than by about 60 years, but because of how his race matures he was roughly the same age accordingly. He was Malus' only source of information about the world, as asking his mother complex questions would raise suspicions, but Zal just assumed Malus was a daft human, allowing him to ask as many questions as he wanted. Over the next three years Malus learned much about the world. He learned that the Kingdom of the Abyss was going to war with the Kingdom of Hell and they were using The material plane as they call it as a battleground, and that his father had been called to war on the side of Hell as a personal favor from the king of Hell and that his mother was called to war on the side of the Abyss on the grounds of a contract she had made. However, she was excused because of her pregnancy. Malus assumed the reason his mother looked out the window so often was hoping that his father would come walking down the path that led from the road to their home. Malus felt sorry for his mother but was unsure how to comfort her as the family of his previous life left him in an orphanage when he was too young to remember them. Over the years Malus grew fond of Zal, becoming his only and best friend as well as his brother. Zal taught Malus an incantation to summon him, however Malus discovered he was terrible at magic and it took him many tries before he could summon Zal, whom ridiculed Malus for his repetitive failures.

Malus spent his spare time training his body by climbing trees and avoiding the staff or Zal, and training his magic using telekinesis that Zal had taught him after he failed to learn "the most basic Sh*t," according to Zal. however progress with magic was extremely slow and he could only barely lift 5 lbs with much effort. Zal had originally tried to teach Malus to teleport short distances, but Malus couldn't manage to move himself a few inches much to his frustration. He could however teleport other objects much to Zal's surprise, but even that proved difficult. While practicing with Zal in the front garden Malus spotted a squirrel and attempted to teleport it atop Zal's head. Malus focused on the squirrel and recited the incantation mentally. The squirrel vanished and reappeared above Zal's head. However, Malus quickly realized that the squirrel had been turned inside out and all of its bodily fluids were running down Zal's shoulders. Zal jumped in surprise and flung the mutilated corpse into the forest and whipped around to face Malus.

"What in the nine hells was that?!" Zal screeched as he attempted to wipe the viscera off himself.

"It was a squirrel. I tried to teleport in on your head to scare you." Malus stared in awe at Zal'tai pondering what he had done wrong. What happened? I did everything as I was supposed to, why did the spell do that?

Zal'tai finished wiping himself off and stared at Malus. "Yeah, well, you scared me, and maybe scarred me. You shouldn't try and teleport anything else, or who knows what will happen."

After that incident Zal taught Malus telekinesis and Malus never tried to teleport anything else since.

Early the next year, the war ended, causing Malus' mother, whose name was May, a great deal of relief and stress because his father had not yet returned.