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Chapter Three

  As I walked into my room, I noticed an envelope on my bed. It read “Lance, Class schedules"

  I sat down and started to open it. Bakar walked through the door. “Wow dude! You’re a shadowmage?” he cried, amazed.

  “Yes, I am. Why didn’t you tell me quite how rare they were?”  I grumbled, but it was hard to stay mad at the little guy.

  “Well I didn’t think it would be that important…” he muttered, slightly put out.

  I finished opening my class schedule. I looked at it. 1 per. Elements 2 per.  Magic history 3 per. offence training 4 per. Summoning 5 per. Familiars 6 per. Dark magic and elemental magic 7 per. Monster info 8 per. Battle strategy tactics.

  Eight classes? And all in one day? That was pushing it. School went from 6 am to 4 pm. I sighed. It was going to be a long week. I plopped down on my bed, rolled over, and went to sleep without a single word.

  I woke up in the morning to the sweet loving sound of an alarm clock cussing for all it was worth at me and Bakar laughing his head off. “I set your alarm clock to cuss at you until you tell it to shut up” he managed to get out, and then fell over laughing.

           "Oh shut up, you piece of trash" I grumbled, and threw my pillow at Bakar.

  "I'll have to ask him how to undo that later" I thought to myself, and went to class.

  I was slightly late for class, because I didn't know my way around yet. I went in, and the teacher had already started taking roll. She looked up. "You must me Mr. Lance" she said.

  "Have a seat" she waved to a chair near the front of the room she didn't look happy.

  I sat down in my seat. “Lance! You must be on time on all of my classes! I will send you back to where you came from if you are late to my class again!" She snapped at me.

  “Now as I was saying before Mr. Lance here came in, my name is Mrs. Ark.”

  I sighed. This was going to be a long day.

   She then proceeded to tell the class about how to be safe while using elements. After what seemed like ages, she stopped talking. “Now then class, I will teach you the most basic spell, the fireball. First, what you must do is reach into your soul, and feel the energy there. When you feel the energy, I want you to reach out with your mind, and envision grabbing a small, now I mean really small. No more than the size of a pea. Now, when you grab the energy, envision it swirling around in your outstretched hand, grating against itself so fast, it turns into a fireball.” She finished.

  I held out my hand. Closing my eyes, I reached out with my mind. I didn’t see any energy, or anything of the sort. Mrs. Ark walked up to me.

  “Well lance...How is it going?” She asked.

  “I can’t seem to find any energy in here” I said.

  “You aren't looking hard enough.” She said simply, and walked off. I looked around the class. Quite a few kids already had a fireball, including Bakar. I frowned. “I have to do this!” I screamed at myself. I combed my mind, looking for anything that seemed like energy. Suddenly, everything just...Fuzzed out. I’m not sure how to explain it. All I can say is first, my eyes are closed, and then, they were open, and I’m standing in a large, dark library. I looked around. “Where the heck am I?” I wondered.

  I headed off in a random direction. As I walked, a huge picture of chocolate cake flew at me.  Behind the cake, was my mom, wishing me happy birthday. Next, came the picture of my junior high bully, who I had stood up for, to show off to the girl I like. Suddenly, I understood. Somehow, I had gotten into my own head.

  Now all I have to do is find where my magic is hidden. I strolled through my mind, looking closely at everything I walked past. I walked for a while, looking for something out of place.  As I walked, I noticed a shimmering in front of me. “That’s it!” I thought.

   I reached my hand out, and grabbed a small portion of the shimmering Gel. The second my hand touched it, everything swam. When I could see again, I saw I was kneeling at the foot of a river, but the river seemed to be made out of shiny black gel. I grabbed a little, and stepped out of my mind.

  I opened my eyes, to be back in the classroom. Though I couldn’t see the gel, I could feel it. I imagined it swirling around in a ball. Immediately, an orange glow emitted from my hand, and a fireball appeared in it. Mrs. Ark smiled. “Very Good Lance.” She said.

  She looked at the clock. “Oh my, it looks like class is almost over. You may dispel your fireballs, and head to your next class."

  As I walked through the halls to my room for my first break of the day, I thought about how far behind everybody I was. As I walked, I wasn’t watching where I was going and accidently bumped into a large boy. He looked down at me. “Watch where you’re going, clumsy” He said, in a deep voice.

  I muttered an apology and tried to go around him. “Not so fast” He said, with an evil grin on his face.

  “I think he needs a lesson. Right boys?” his gang of thugs agreed.

  I looked around. I hadn’t even noticed them before. “Darn it, why does this always happen to me?”  I tried fighting them, but they were third years, and knew more spells. I managed to zap one of them with my rhyme-lightning, but they paralyzed me. “Why you little @$^%” let go of me!” I roared.

  “I don’t think so. Right boys?”

  “That’s right Brent!” one of them cried.

  The world turned red. I launched a massive fireball at one, who didn’t have time to put up his shield, and he barely dodged it. Brent looked at me.

  “You’ll pay for that, punk”

  I did. I went back to my room, sporting a black eye and bruises all over my body. On the way back, I reunited with Bakar. He looked worried. “I heard you had a fight with Brent” He said

  “Yea, I did. Not much of a fight though, he clobbered me.” I said, and waved at my eye.

  Bakar looked at me and waved his hands over my head. He muttered some gibberish and suddenly the pain from the bruises left. "Whoa! That was effective! Did you get rid of the bruises?" I asked, awed.

  “No, I only blocked the pain, like a painkiller. The bruises are still there." He said, sadly.

  "I'm not strong enough to do any more."

  We have the next class together though!” he skipped off as I wondered how he could be so happy all the time.

  When I got back to my room, there was a note posted on the door. Report to the headmaster’s office immediately-Lance

  I groaned. "What now?" I thought to myself.

  I went off to find the headmasters office. When I found it, I went in, and entered into a small room with a table. At the table, there was a lady, probably a secretary. The lady at the table looked at me. “Do you have an appointment with Headmaster Wyat?” She asked.

  “Yep. I got summoned by him. There was a note on my door” I said, slightly annoyed.

  “Oh, you must be Lance then. Come with me” she waved her hand, and a wall slip open.

  I raised my eyebrows, but nothing was surprising anymore. She turned around and pointed a stick at another wall. It slipped open to reveal a staircase. She looked at me, and gestured to the staircase. I sighed, and walked in.

  After emerging from the staircase, I came into a room with a middle aged man watching me. “Well let’s see them then.” He said, simply

  “See what?” I asked.

  “The black stars of course.” He said, with a small smile.

  I practically jumped, but I composed myself. “How do you know about that?

  “Harvester works for me” he said, his grin fading.

  "What happened to you?” He asked.

  I looked at myself, and saw all the bruises. I reddened. “Brent and his gang beat me up” I said, hesitantly

  He looked surprised. “That bad? They usually only leave one bruise.”

  I frowned. “You know they are trouble makers, yet you let them stay around? How come?” I asked, still frowning.

  “Well Lance, I can’t quite get rid of them because they are from influential famili
es, and if they were removed, their families would destroy my school” He said, in a disapproving tone.

  “But, why did they beat you up so badly?” He asked, curiosity breaking through his calm demeanor.

  “Well, I did make them pretty mad, and I nearly fried one of them” I said, with a slight smile on my face. He chuckled. “Well you better get that healed soon.” He said, with worry in his voice.

  “Right. I’ll go get it healed now.” I said, and turned to leave.

  “Wait a minute Lance. I was thinking you should take special classes with my only other shadowmage, Cane.” He said.

  “Whoa, I thought I was the first shadowmage in decades?” I said, frowning.

  “Well, you are. Cane is over a few decades old.” he said, with a slight smile.

  “I’ll call him now.” He said, and pulled a small rope near his desk.

      About five minutes later, the door slammed open and a short man waddled in. His body looked like a four year olds, just covered with muscles. His face was pretty much the same. I couldn’t help it, and started laughing. A second later I was pinned to the wall by two monsters. “Lesson one. You shall not judge others by their appearance.”

  “I am Cane” the little man said

  “Do you intend to have private tuition under me? “He asked quietly

  “Yes” I replied

  “You will do as I say, when I say. You fail, you die. You will report to my office at 5 and leave at 7. Do not be late.” Then Cane turned on his heel and walked out.

  “Perfect! Now head back to your room Lance, I’ll speak with you later.” The headmaster said, sounding pleased with himself.