Chapter Six
We both took off sprinting through the corridor. As we ran madly, I noticed that the steps were more even than they should be.
“Hey bakar, that sounds like one person with lots of legs, not a bunch of kids…”
“It’s Kennedy!” We hissed at the same time.
We skidded to a stop just as Kennedy came out from behind the turn. “And what are you two doing?” He said, and looked around.
I jumped. “Well,…umm… sorry mister Kennedy, it was a mistake.” He looked at me. “Well, mistake or not, you leveled up your staff. By pouring energy into your weapon, you make it stronger.”
Bakar, who was listening, chuckled to himself. Then there was a bright flash.
I opened my eyes and saw Bakar’s staff changed to a silver color. And its Spiky ball was no longer made of stone, but a shiny black metal. Kennedy laughed. “It appears you two are ahead of the class. I suppose that is extra credit. Now hurry along to your next class."
We were in such a rush to get to Battle Tactics that we couldn’t even talk about what just happened. We got there right on time. We sat down right as the teacher was giving his speech. “I am Sir Douglas. I will be your Battle Tactics teacher. In this class, I will teach you how to fight in teams. Now get with your room mates.” He said in a deep tone.
Bakar and I went to a corner of the room and waited. Sir Douglas walked around looking at all the groups. When he came to us, he looked at us critically.
“Bakar and Lance right? The one missing a roomie? Don’t answer that, it was rhetorical. He looked at Bakar’s weapon. A level 3 huh? Not bad. He looked at mine. A level two? You’re holding Bakar back. Get that leveled up.”
I looked down sheepishly. He continued on checking the other groups. When he finished checking the other groups, he went to the front. “This class is not actually taught by me.” He said.
“It is taught by you. I pair you up to fight as teams, and you train. Don’t be the weak link in your team.” He continued talking, but I was concentrating on my Ruby staff. I poured all the energy I could into it. After a few minutes, it flashed.
I looked at it. The ruby had a star engraved on the front, and the staff appeared to be made from gold. I jumped up. “Yes!” I yelled.
Sir Douglas looked at me, and frowned. “Lance, I see you have leveled up your weapon. To level…four. That is interesting. You skipped an entire level. Well, since you seem so eager to test it out, you can. Lance and Bakar, come up here. Brent, Gayle, and Drake you too.
I sputtered. “Wait, that’s unfair. We only have two people.”
Sir Douglas looked at me. “You don’t get your next roomie for a while, so that sucks for you. And also, you are the only ones with leveled weapons for now. Along with that, life isn't fair. Now get up here. I will put defensive shields around all of you.”
“You can fight until I say stop. This will teach you to learn to fight as a team. Now Begin!” He said, and backed off the platform.
We circled each other warily. “Bakar” I said quietly.
“Use your Healers staff and take out drake. I’ll fight Gayle. Be careful of Brent, I don't know what spells or skills they have."
“All right” he muttered. As one we charged. I summoned my fire snake. And whipped it at Gayle. He dodged and threw a net at me. I rolled, but it followed me. I snapped my snake, but I was too slow. Suddenly, a second snake came from the fire stream and bit the net. It melted. Gayle snarled. He waved his hand, and a small demon appeared. "He must have prepared it beforehand." I thought to myself.
I thought back to when Shadow cast the spell that froze the monsters. I shrugged. "Why not?" I said to myself.
"Why not wha-" Gayle started, but I waved my hand, envisioning him stopping in time.
The effect wasn't quite what I wanted. He didn't stop in time, he simply got frozen by ice. I snapped my fire whip. Two more heads grew. “Level four, four heads.” I thought.
“That’s about right.” I flicked it at him.
Since he couldn't move, the snakes hit him in the neck and destroyed his shield. He was out for the count.
I looked over to bakar, panting. He was fighting Drake as well as he could, but Drake was a second year, and easily beat Bakar before I could help him. I growled. “Shadow!” in a flash, Shadow was next to me. “Get him, if you please” I said, in a low voice.
Shadow blew a blast of molten lava, and it surrounded Drake. There was a poof, and a slimy blob flew from the fire. A mimic, Shadow hissed.
I looked around for drake. He was behind Brent. He charged me. I had a brilliant idea. As he threw his magic throwing knifes at me, I sucked all of my snakes heads into one. Then I flicked my one head at drake.
He jumped it, and I had each of the remaining snakes come from the first one’s body. They got him in his head and shoulders and destroyed his shield. One left. Before I could do anything, he shot my staff from my hand with some sort of gun. I groaned inside. "Of course he gets the stupid beam gun. I get my shiny staff, and he gets a bloody gun!"
“Heh. That was easy. Say goodbye, Lance” I backed up, panicking. Then I had one last ditch idea.
I grabbed my laptop from my Energy lake and dropped it. Brent laughed. “You can’t even hold onto an Energybook.” He said, haughtily.
He shot his gun at me. At the same moment, my robot erupted from the ground. “Sequence one, terminate attacker!” I yelled.
The robot opened its massive mouth, and swallowed the beam. Then it shot out the red bolt that Mr. Leonardo had shot at it. The Bolt fired out and destroyed Brent’s shield. But he was still awake. He roared. He cast a spell and a black hand flew at me and destroyed my shield. The world swum in front of my eyes. I managed “Stop” and then fainted.
I woke up a few minutes later. Brent’s team had won, but we had done very well. Bakar looked at me. “Dude! That was Awesome!”
"I saw the whole thing! Yourobotissoocool!" He said, speaking extremely fast.
"Whoa there, slow down!" I yelled, over his voice.
He reddened. “Oh yes, your robot won’t leave. It wants you.” I groaned and stood up. I walked over to it. “New updates available, and programmer sequence open, upgraded hard drive, now level 3, new abilities, tap to learn.” It said, in a metallic voice.
I tapped update, and the robots silver body changed to a darker blue color. “Armor increased, Reflect damage, increased, mobility increased.” I raised my eyebrows.
I tapped the programmer page. It showed a new command. I said it out loud. “Sequence three, Mobility form.” The robot changed grew two metallic wings, and its mouth got smaller. If possible, my eyebrows got even higher. I looked at the final page, new abilities, and tapped it. "Usable items: increased: hand, Sword Shield, buy from swordmage a.s.a.p."
I glanced at Sir Douglas. He chuckled and gave me a map with a red X on the dot marked Sword Mage dorms. “Class dismissed,” he said. “See you tomorrow.”
I put my robot back to storage, and put it away. Then Bakar and I walked towards the swordmage dorms. As we walked through the halls, people got quiet as we passed. almost like we were something to be feared. When we finally got there, we went to the first instructor we found. “You guys new swordmages?” he asked in a gruff tone.
“No” I replied.
“Get out of here then.” He said, and began a teleport spell.
“Wait!” I said. “My Energybook said I could get a sword and shield here for it.”
He looked at me. “So you’re the kid with the robot book? All righty then, I’ll do it if I can have a look at him."
I pulled the laptop from the lake and dropped it. The robot took form and the instructor looked over it, and whistled. “That is one big robot. I’ll start working on it as soon as I can.”
He looked at my robot. After a while, he looked back at us. "I'll make you a sword and shield for it, but it will take a while. In a month, come back, and say Max sent you." He said, a
nd waved us to the door.
I put the robot back, and we headed to our dorm.
We headed back to our dorm. “Today was Awesome!” we yelled at exactly the same time.
We laughed, and I checked the time. “I have fifteen minutes before my private lessons. Bakar looked sad. “Darn. I was hoping we could talk a little. What time do you get back?”
“At 7” I replied, also slightly put out.
“All right then.” He said.
I lay down on my bed, and set my alarm for 10 minutes. Then, I drew into a fitful sleep.
My eyes opened. I tried to sit up, but found I couldn't move my body. "What in the world...? Hey, Bakar! You here?" I asked.
But no sound came from my mouth. I felt myself being lifted. As I rose, I realized that I was looking down at my body! Again, I tried moving, but could not. I sighed. "Why is it always me?" And allowed myself, (not that I had a choice) to be floated out of the window.
I flew by at blinding speeds. When I finally stopped, I was standing upright, in a small, darkly lit cave.
I tried moving again, and found that I could. I turned my head to look around. The place had a small pool, and a mirror, along with a few doors. Suddenly, h heard footsteps, and jumped behind a crook in the wall, and squatted down, to hide.
A small hooded man shuffled in through the door and walked to the mirror. He said a few words, and the mirror flashed, and a voice floated through the mirror. "Have you captured the school yet?" The voice asked, menacingly.
"No master, our spy is proving...difficult. She will not listen to us, and constantly rebels. She thinks That she can withstand us." The hooded man said.
He went to continue, but the voice cut him off. "Not another word! We are being watched." It said.
I felt a deep presence fall on me. The hooded man turned to me. "It appears a student has been listening to our conversation via dream spell. But, have no worry, I can bind his words." The man waved his hand, and I felt an intense desire to not talk about what I had just heard.
Suddenly, I heard a ringing. It slowly got louder. Suddenly, my world swam, and I awoke in my bedroom. I jumped up to tell Bakar what had happened, but found my mouth seal shut the second I thought of it.
Frustrated, I tried again, with the same results. I sighed, thought for a moment. I grabbed a pencil, and tried to write it down, but still, I could not. With a grumble, I headed to Cane's office, with thoughts whirling around in my head.
When I got there, Cane was already waiting for me. “About time you got here.” He said.
“We will start with Bloodbolt, the weakest shadowspell. Now, first, imagine your lake. Now instead of reaching up to it, have it form in your hands. As it forms, imagine it hitting somebody and draining them of blood, making them a dry husk." He said.
I was disgusted, but did as Cane said. It took me ½ hour but I finally got it. “Good” He said.
“Now hit that flower.” I looked at the flower.
With a thought of misgiving, I tossed the bolt. It shot forward and hit the flower directly. It shriveled up. Suddenly, a blue bolt shot back at me and hit me in the chest. Instantly, I felt like all my energy was back, like I had been sleeping for days. I grinned. Cane looked at me. “The Bloodbolt steals the Energy from your opponent. You must learn to block it with your mind. To do so, you must imagine the lake leaking out on to you, and forming a sphere around you. Then imagine a Bloodbolt hitting it, and disappearing into it."
I did as he said, but I thought “Why have it go into it? Why not have it bounce back?” so I modified my spell.
I made the shimmering black, but see trough, shield around me. Suddenly, he tossed a bolt at me. I yelped, but held the shield. It slammed into the shield. “Good.” Cane started to say, but was cut off when the bolt bounced back at him.