“Be a voice
Not an echo”.

“Boys, I have a task for you”.

No, they definitely didn't expect to hear that.  P'Off approached them as they ate breakfast.  Fourth sat at one table with Pahn, Poon, Mark, and Phuwin.   Phu moved away from their table for a moment before P'Off approached them.  Gem still hasn't shown up yet.

«He's probably still in the bathroom getting dressed up.  I don't know what for and why, as if the fate of the whole world depended on his perfectly styled hair, but let him have it », Fourth thought, resigned and still a bit sleepy.  He certainly didn't sleep well that night and all he wanted was to go back to his room and sleep away those few hours while he tossed senselessly in his bed, thinking about Gem's mysterious doppelgänger.

“Task?  For us?  But we don't have any runes assigned yet.  Are we allowed to...?”  Mark expressed doubt.  Pahn and Poon continued to eat in silence, only glancing occasionally at the head of the Institute, who was resting his arms on his sides.  He was wearing his typical expensive suit, this time in emerald, which, combined with his large, almost square glasses with also emerald frames, a signet ring on his finger and a white, perfectly ironed shirt, looked quite funny.  Fourth thought he would like to put a pink bow-shaped clip in Off's hair.  He almost smiled as he imagined it.

“If I'm the one giving you this task, you can take care of it, because no matter how you look at it, I'm still the head of this Institute, unless there's something I don't know about?  Other than that, it's nothing very complicated so far.  It's just stealing a Formula 1 car. I heard that you, Fourth, are an F1 fan?”

«Wait, since when is stealing an F1 car 'nothing complicated'?» Fourth wondered, wrinkling his nose and eyebrows playfully.  Pahn looked at him and almost choked on her bite of breakfast.  Mark patted her on the back as she began to cough.  Poon just smiled indulgently.  Phuwin, who had gone to get a drink, sat down with them and looked around, wondering what had just happened.  Fourth shrugged and spread his hands as if to say, «Well, bro, I don't know what's going on either, but I'm eager to see what comes of it.»

P'Off had to repeat what he had already said, especially for Phuwin.

A typical morning at the Institute.

Around them, other candidates for the Knights of Light and the Knights themselves were absorbed in their own affairs.  It was bustling, loud and cheerful.  The atmosphere was light.  Some of the Knights had just returned from night patrols and after breakfast were able to retire to their quarters for a well-deserved rest.  Others had just woken up and welcomed the new day with a cup of coffee, tea, cocoa or another drink.  No one paid attention to the appearance of the head of the Institute.  And P'Off, as always well-informed, knew exactly who to delegate this task to.

“Yes, yes, I love Formula 1!” Fourth nodded passionately, his eyes lighting up with excitement.  Despite his overwhelming joy and pride (after all, they had just been given their first official task!), Fourth still couldn't muster a sincere smile.  The grimace that appeared on his face was more ghastly than cheerful, but fortunately no one but his boss was looking at him.  Pahn didn't want to risk choking on her food again, Poon was staring at the breakfast disappearing too quickly in front of her, and Mark preferred to watch Pahn.  Only Phuwin looked at Fourth and laughed quietly and briefly, covering his mouth with his hand.

“Great, then come to my office right after breakfast and I will explain everything to you.  Oh, and Fourth, go get that insufferable friend of yours quickly, maybe he'll learn something along the way, although I have some doubts about that.”

“For my insufferable friend?  Who does the boss have in mind, boss?”

“Gemini, who else?  He was the one I meant.  He's an urchin, but maybe he can still be straightened out”.

Fourth didn't like the text about 'straightening out' Gem, whatever that meant, but he obediently quickly finished his breakfast, visited Gem in their apartment and dragged him out of the room by the hand.  At the last moment, he noticed that Gemini, under the influence of his touch, froze in place, motionless.

“Sorry... I forgot,” Fourth mumbled awkwardly and let go of Gem's hand.  Phuwin's words about what Gemini had been the victim of were echoed in his memory again.  Fourth felt ashamed of his own courage and the ease with which he had found himself taking the hand of his greatest enemy.

But were they still enemies?

Or was their hostility just fiction?  An incomprehensible and unnecessary mask whose presence Nattawat did not understand at all.

“We're not friends, Nattawat, don't forget that,” Gemini was back to being the same mean, arrogant asshole as before.  And Fourth was already hoping something would change.  Nothing of that.  Gemini seemed to be determined to hate him and to show him coldness and contempt whenever they met.  But Fourth didn't have time to think about it.

“Gemini, what happened to you?  You've been nicer...”

“I'm fine. It's you who is a weirdo. I just remembered that I don't like you”.

“Oh, that explains a lot,” Fourth muttered sarcastically under his breath, rolling his eyes.

“Where are you taking me anyway?  I'm not going anywhere, I warn you, I haven't had breakfast yet,” Norawit recalled defiantly.  Fourth closed his eyes and counted down from ten so as not to get nervous.  When he opened his eyes again, Norawit was standing across from him, staring at him expectantly.

“Too bad, you'll be hungry today.  You'll survive, you won't die of hunger.  It took longer to dress up.  Come on, P'Off told me to bring you, we have a job to do.”

"Task?  We have some task?  Excellent.  It's high time, I've been wanting to take part in some bigger action for a long time”.

“Don't get happy so quickly.  P'Off said it was easy”.

“If it's so easy, why hasn't someone else done it?”

“Probably because P'Off wants to give us a chance to practice.  I bet we won't be alone, that someone will supervise us.  Okay, no time for empty talk.  Are you coming with me, or should I tell P'Off that you are refusing to take part because your pride as a man has been hurt?”

“Ouch!  What has gotten into you today, Nattawat?  You don't usually act like this!  You're usually a nice, quiet, calm guy.  What happened to you today?”

“I don't know, I guess I'm just mature enough to be king,” Fourth shrugged and left the room first.  Gemini followed him with the expression of a child, offended by the world, whose favorite toy had been taken away.  He didn't like Fourth's new behavior, it seemed too brave for him.  Fourth, whom he remembered, would never have dared to answer him like that, he would have rather let Gem say whatever Gemini wanted and at most he turned around and pressed the wireless headphones into his ears.  This Fourth was different, brave, loud, so unlike himself that it sent shivers down Norawit's body.
They quickly reached the boss's office, and when they entered, Poon was gone, Pahn was standing at the desk looking through the documents P'Off had given her, Mark and Aou were sitting on the couch talking to each other quietly, but any  the conversations quieted down as the boys crossed the threshold..

“Boss, I need to file a complaint against one of the boss's subordinates.  This Nattawat here wouldn't even let me eat breakfast or drink coffee, and yet, boss, you know how important caffeine is in the life of a person, even a very magical person like me.  And Fourth Nattawat deprived me of the pleasure of drinking this invigorating drink,” Gemini complained, pointing a finger at Fourth.

«Is he completely crazy?  Or maybe someone put something in his dinner last night?  Or... Or maybe it's that evil Gemini?  This demon or whatever it is?», Fourth thought with horror, but then he came to his senses.  Something told him that this was the real Gemini, although he couldn't figure out the reason for his behavior.

“Get used to it.  This is the life of the Knights of Light.  Well, unless you don't want to be a Knight of Light anymore?” P'Off looked at him inquisitively over his notes, which were spread out on the desk he was sitting at.

“Of course I want to be a Knight of Light!  Why does everyone doubt it?”

“Think about it, maybe you yourself gave us a reason for this?”

“Eeeee... Me?!  Like when?!  After all, I WANT to be a Knight of Light!  This is my dream!  I can protect our magical world!”

“Wonderfully.  Then we can move on to the topic that interests us more.  Yesterday in the evening we received a message from our spy in the non-magical world that a Formula 1 car had been stolen”.

“A real F1 car?!” Fourth was clearly excited.  It's not every day you hear such news.

“Yes, the real racing car of the Alpine team.  The Bangkok GP will be held for the first time in a week, so some teams have already arrived to assemble in the paddock at the track located on the outskirts of our city.  Unfortunately, it turned out that the car was lost while setting up the equipment.  Your task is to find this car”.

“And that's what you want!  Someone stole an F1 car!”  Fourth laughed happily.  “Thank you boss for thinking about us, I'll be happy to take care of it.”

“Great, so Aou and Gemini will be helping you.”

“What?  Why them?  Can't Pahn and Mark help me?”

“I'd rather it be Gemini.  Don't think I don't know what's going on between you two.  If you want to fight for the crown of our magical kingdom, you must learn to work together despite all your differences.  This will be excellent practice.  Don't look like you're being told to eat mud, Gemini.  It's necessary.  You can always back out.  A true king is not only concerned with what is pleasant, he has much more responsibility.”

These words irritated Gemini even more, and he began to feel hungry.  He hadn't eaten much the night before because he was too preoccupied with the case of someone impersonating him and causing chaos at the Institute.  At that moment it even occurred to him that maybe P'Off was treating him so unkindly because he had already met this fake Gemini, but Gem couldn't warn him.  He wanted to solve this mystery himself.

“Ugh, okay, tell me what we know.  You have to start somewhere.”

“All we know is that this bolide was seen at night near our Institute, so I suspect it may have been the work of someone from us.  We don't know much else”.

“It's very little.”

“But we have photos.  This is what the car you'll be looking for looks like,” P'Off took the briefcase from Pahn, opened it and took out a photo of a blue and pink Formula 1 car. Everyone walked closer to take a better look at the photos.  Fourth carelessly and forgetfully rested his chin on Gem's shoulder, who quickly pushed him away.  Fourth frowned, but the mystery of the missing Formula 1 car was much more important and interesting to him.

*  *  *

Two hours later, it turned out that they didn't have to look for the F1 car at all, because the car found them on its own.  When they went outside the Institute building, they saw a very unexpected sight: a partially destroyed wreck of a bolide was standing in front of the entrance gate to the Institute, which to Non-Magicians looked like an old school, abandoned for many years and neglected, or a hospital building, depending on what the person hated more.  .  The institute was surrounded by a huge wall of bricks and stones, some of which was built several hundred years ago.  This sight was so unexpected that it amused both Gem and Fourth, who only smiled at the corners of his mouth.

“Stealing a Formula 1 car is a crime, but smashing it against the walls of our Institute is a crime!  There should be a death penalty for this!”

“Aren't you accidentally too strict?”

“No, on the contrary, I think I'm too gentle.  I could understand stealing for collection purposes, but this?  Someone really lacked imagination.”

“Or he used AI to plan his theft.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot that this shit that murders the beauty of living human artistic talent was created.  So what, we have to arrest the AI?”

“How do you want to do it?  It's not a human, not an animal, not a magical being, not even an object”.

“Well, there's got to be a way, right?  Where there is a will, there is a way.”

Gemini shook his head, half amused, half embarrassed.  Arrest the AI.  How?!  Unless they asked Phuwin for help, he was the best programmer and IT guy in their group, and the two skills didn't often go together.

“I wasn't talking about arresting artificial intelligence, I was talking about the man who used it.  And you could also use that thing under your hair from time to time, unless you've already forgotten how to use your brain?”
Gemini couldn't forgive Fourth for this insult.  He flicked his fingers on his forehead and replied with a fierce face.

  “The one who certainly knows what intelligence is and how intelligence differs from wisdom spoke”..

“Guys, once you stop flirting with each other, maybe you will remember that you are not alone here and that we have a job to do?”   Aou Thanaboom unexpectedly interrupted their banter and pointed to the wrecked wreck of Alpine's racing car standing next to the wall of the Institute.  Gem had to honestly admit that he had forgotten about his older friend's presence.

“Don't you think it would be a good idea to sort this out?”

“Oh, that's right, Boss Aou, let's get to work now!”  Fourth saluted proudly like a true soldier (which he kind of was).

😅🤭🥵❤️🇵🇱☀️👀💖😂