Chapter 2

     Megan, Sarah and I stopped at our lockers, making sure to grab everything we needed, before heading to homeroom.  As we did, we ran into Cara hugging Mike good-bye.  I had to use almost all of my will power to keep my face its calm, usual self.  Mike disappeared into the room and Cara sauntered down the hallway, sneering confidently at us.  I bit down hard on my tongue and Sarah and Megan veered me quickly into Room 305.

 

     I took my seat as my teacher, Mr. Blowfish, took attendance.  Once he finished, we were free to wander about the homeroom.  That was why he was my favorite, he was calm, laid-back, but was strict when he needed to.  He was my homeroom teacher, as well as my History teacher.  Megan sat on a desk in front of me, and Sarah, behind.  I was sitting nonchalantly on top of a desk, right leg up and the other dangling.  My right arm rested on my knee and we engaged in random conversations and I saw Mike leave his friends and begin to walk towards me.  I quickly shooed away Megan and Sarah and disputed on whether or not to change my sitting position. 

 

     In the end, I stayed with my original position and Mike smiled as he sat down in front of me.

     "Hey," I said.

     "Hey, look, about this morning with Cara-"

     "So, you and Cara, huh?  Well, that was, uh, quite a shock.  You two are cute together,"

     He looked at me surprised. "Really?  You think so?"

     "Yeah!  Totally!"

 

     His brown face appeared to be disappointed for some reason, but I didn't question it.  He quickly changed the topic that took the rest of homeroom.

 

     First period was Gym, otherwise known as Phys. Ed.  Next to History, it was my favorite class.  The main reason?  Dodgeball.  Our coach, dressed in a white attire, equally divided our class into two teams.  Lucky for me, Cara was on the other team.  Cara had been my biggest rival ever since the fifth grade when she mocked me for not having a dad.  It made me so mad, that I actually punched her.  

    

     Surprisingly, it knocked her out instantly, but kids around went to tell a teacher.  There was punishment, but I wasn't the one who took it.  Mark was.  He explained the situation then added that he was the one who hit her.  The teacher bought it and Mark simply missed recess.  I interrogated him later that day, asking why he did it.  It was then I realized he lost his mom in a fire when he was a little kid, and that it wasn't right to pick on someone because of it.  Every since then, Mark and I have been best friends. 

 

     The coach blew her whistle and the game began.  Students ran from the opposite side of the gym towards the middle in order to gain a ball while others backed off.  Sarah and Megan both handed my a rubber ball, then leapt back to evade balls thrown at them.  Not ten minutes into the game and half of the kids on my team got out.  It was me, Mike, a few other athletic boys and girls who suck at throwing.  The athletic boys got out, as did the girls, so it left Mike and I, dodging and jumping like crazy.  A ball skimmed Mike's foot and the coach called him out.

 

     Two people took this chance and launched their attack and something strange happened.  My body felt... different.  It felt like I was a totally different person.  I analyzed where the rubber balls would hit.  My chest and my feet.  My body moved on its own.  I ran forward then dropped to the floor quickly as I slid.  The first ball sailed over my head and I threw the balls I held in the air for a moment.  With my free hands, I pushed off the ground and ascended into the air.  Spinning swiftly, I managed to catch both the balls and throw them before landing perfectly on my feet with my back to the other team.

 

     Two blunt objects smacking against bodies, followed by groans, told me I had gotten them out.  I turned around and stared appalled.  One boy held his stomach, grunting, while the other was on the floor, his hands at his crotch.  I got a little humor out of that, but my new reflexes kicked in and I felt a tingling feeling.  On my right, Cara had just thrown a ball at me.  I caught it with one hand, spun around and threw it at someone on the other team.  Four outs in less than a minute.  A new record, I suppose, but that wasn't really the point.  The point was, my body was changing.  And I'm not talking the whole puberty thing.  I mean, really changing.  A sudden pain in my neck snapped me back to reality, causing me to cringe.  Someone hit me in the knee and I was glad that I was out.  I checked in with my coach then went to the nurse.

 

     "Well, that is a strange bruise, but the painkillers should kick in soon.  You can come down later if it still bothers you," Ms. Clark told me, looking at my neck one more time.

 

     I thanked her and headed to my next class, Biology.  According to Sarah, we were mixing chemicals today and Miss. Ashe had already picked our partners.  She said we would be mixing potassium permanganate and water.  Both the substances were in small bottles and labeled.  I was excited that I was paired up with Mike, but Miss. Ashe wasn't exactly my favorite teacher.  She told us to begin the experiment and we did so.

 

     I poured the substances into the beaker while Mike wrote down what would happen.  I examined the purple color it made, momentarily fascinated by it, but an abrupt pain in my neck caused me to cringe and move away.  The painkillers weren't working and when I asked to go to the nurse, Miss. Ashe snapped at me and told me to leave her alone and sit down.  The bruise throbbed painfully and I gasped softly and bit on my lip.

 

     "Please...it's an emergency!" I whispered.

     "No, you have work to do!" she growled and her gray eyes went back to her magazine.  I glanced at the title.  How to Keep Things Hot In the Bedroom.  I nearly gagged at that, but another voice made my blood boil.

 

     "She's probably using that as an excuse to go do some crack," Cara whispered oh-so loudly.

 

     Although that was completely irrelevant to the topic, it still got me pissed.  The three circles began throbbing, beating like a heart, sending painful vibrations throughout my body.  Breathing heavily, I turned around slowly, leering at my brown haired rival.  Suddenly, I had a terrible urge to attack her, hurt her, watch her whimper in pain.  She slammed against the wall, my hand clenched tightly around her small throat, blocking off her oxygen.  Slowly, I began to squeeze, and it felt like something was spreading on my body.  Sure enough, the mark had turned its firey color and was now moving rapidly across my body.  At the same time, my body was being filled with power.

 

     Students around us tried to intervene, but they were quickly disposed of as I subconsciously raised my free hand.  They students were sent flying back, as if some invisible enegry mass hit them.  The other students and Miss Ashe went to get help, not that it would do any good.  I turned my attention back to Cara, whose face was pale white, eyes bulging as she struggled uselessly to get a breath.  Before I could fully kill her, a sharp pain struck my neck.  My eyes rolled back into my head and I released Cara.  I expected to hit the floor hard like she had, but instead someone caught me.  A flash of light was imminent but by then I was already unconscious.

 

 

 

 

     "Is she alright?" a voice pondered.

     "Yes, her mark was activated, but it doesn't look like it was able to settle on her body. It's a good thing we came when we did," A second voice mused. 

The two men continued their conversation until they were interrupted by a door opening abruptly as well as footsteps. 

     "Dialla!" my older brother cried. "Is she alright?"

     "Yes, we had to knock her out before she could kill that girl then we wiped there memories of the incident.  Now they just think that there was some lunatic with a gun in the school.  They also have no memory of her at all," the mature man said.

     "I see," Tyler mused.

 

     I did my best to open my eyes as surreptiously as possible but they were all watching me so it didn't do any good.  I began to sit up and Tyler eased me along gently.  I looked around and noticed we were in the basement of my house.

 

     "How are you feeling, kiddo?" he asked.

     The mark pulsed and I winced. "Everywhere hurts.  What happened?  And what's with the stupid mark?"

     "Allow me to explain," the older man said, stepping in so he was next to Tyler; his subordinate stood slightly behind him.  Once my eyes adjusted, I examined them closely.

 

     The taller of all of us was dressed in a white business-like suit and slick black tresses fell in front of his ice-colored eyes.  The rest of his raven hair was tied in a pony tail.  He looked like he was in his mid-forties.  I nearly shuddered at his gaze, but managed to remain calm and shifted my auburn eyes to his partner.  He was much taller than I was with light brown hair and emerald eyes.  I guessed he was in his earlier-twenties.

 

     His hair was spiky and messy, but his eyes held mine in a penetrating gaze.  He was dressed in a black sleeveless shirt that showed off his muscular body.  He wore matching black pants, fingerless gloves and I noticed a tattoo on his left arm.  It was green fire that stretch from his elbow and up along his forearm before stopping at his shoulder.  To put it simply, he was kind of hot.

 

     "My name is Gilbert Childman and I am the headmaster of the Tower of Swords, an institute for sorcerors and sorceressess," the man explained, breaking my gaze from his partner, "Like myself, your brother, and Dimitri, here" He gestured with his head to his partner. "You are a sorceress."

 

    I blinked several times, letting this sudden information sink in, then gazed at my brother, who nodded in agreement.  Suddenly a burst of laughter filled the empty room.  Three sets of eyes stared at me, each with a different emotion.  Confusion, agitation and nonchalance.  The confusion belonged to my brother, agitation was the man, Dimitri, and the headmaster of the school was calm and collected.

 

     "Why are you laughing?" Dimitri questioned angrily.

     I immediately stopped laughing and stared at them. "Oh, you were serious?"

     His eyes were cold. "Of course we were serious!  Do you really think we would joke about something like that?"

     "Calm down, Dimitri.  It's only natural she would react that way," Gilbert soothed him, then looked at me. "You don't believe in magic do you?"

     I snorted. "Please.  What are you going do?  Pull a rabbit out of a hat?  Card tricks?  Those are cheap tricks and are fake.  There's no such thing as magic!"

 

     Tyler and Dimitri stared at Gilbert, whose eyes were closed as he considered this.  The awkward silence was driving me insane so I stood up.

 

     "Take a little walk," Gilbert said, shocking me. "Clear your head."

I eyed him warily, but didn't hesitate to leave my basement.

 

 

 

     It had rained the day before so the red, orange and yellow leaves stuck to my shoes as I walked through a woods a few minutes away from my house.  I stumbled several times over wet leaves and twigs, since I couldn't see a thing in the darkness in front of me.  I had but the moonlight to guide me, and even that didn't do much. A bitter wind blew more leaves off trees, which scattered all around me and I shivered.  I pulled my hooded sweatshirt closer to me and put the hood over my head and continued walking, trying to figure this out.

 

     I don't know how long I was walking for, but a strange howl stopped me in my tracks.  I turned slowly and there was a large spider.  I'm scared of spiders, even little harmless ones, so seeing a huge spider getting ready to attack me almost caused me to faint.

 

     What's worse is this wasn't even a normal spider.  It was half-mechanical and had cannons on its two front legs.  It had a strange symbol on top of its head along with six beady red eyes.  It was similar to the boy symbol but had two extra circles in the middle.  It didn't have a mouth, but it could still howl, which was extremely eerie and sent chills down my spine.  I struggled to move, but my limbs were frozen.  I couldn't move.  Not like those girls in the movies who are too stupid to move. I knew I had to move, but it was like some force was holding me still. 

 

     The arachnid aimed both of its cannons at me, as if one of them wouldn't take me out, and it began to charge.  As it did, I noticed a blue aura swirling around its cannons.  I closed me eyes tightly, waiting for it to be over.  I heard the reverberations of the shot being fired and I felt pain, but not nearly as much as I assumed I would've taken.  Plus, I felt the pain in my right shoulder and it was an extremely large amount of pain, but not enough to make me scream or cry.  Just enough to make me yepl and moan. I opened my eyes and an armed figure stood before me.  It wasn't until his spoke and his husky voice reached my ears that I recognized him.

 

     "Get out of here!  Now!" Dimitri ordered, the glint of a sword reflecting off moonlight.

 

     I was too appalled to stand up, but I did crawl away as best as I could.  I was a considerable distance away and watched Dimitri fight the monster.  The monster fired again and a red beam flew at my saviour.  He rolled forward and thrust his sword up, piercing the belly of the best and protruded at its head, directly in the middle of the symbol of its head. 

 

     The creature roared in agony and then exploded.  I screamed in surprise and shielded myself as bits of metal scattered everywhere.  When the pieces ceased falling, I managed to get myself up by using my good arm to push against a tree.  Dimitri sheathed his sword and quickly rushed to me to help me.

 

     "Are you hurt at all?" he asked.

     It took me a few minutes to answer him. "Uh, not really.  I think my right shoulder is dislocated or something," I tried to raise it and the pain increased and I winced and bit my tongue. "Ow!  Okay, that hurts!"

 

     He cursed in a different language, Italian, I think, muttered something softly and there was a flash of light and a large cloth appeared.  He took his sword and sliced it a few times.  In a matter of minutes he made a sling and slipped it over my head.  Without any warning, he placed my arm and the sling and I yelped and groaned in pain.

 

     "Deal with it," he snapped. "You should be lucky your still alive!  What the hell were you thinking?!  Going off by yourself!"

     "Well how was I supposed to know that a giant spider would come out of nowhere and attack me?" I yelled, "What was that thing anyway?"

     "A Trantula.  It's like a normal spider but it only has four legs, two of those legs are cannons.  And it's half-mechanical."

     "Yeah, thanks for the update, Sherlock.  Why was it after me?"

 

     A normal person would probably be pissed of at my sardonic attitude, but Dimitri's lips twitched for a moment, like he wanted to smile.

 

     "Tarantula go after sorcerers or sorceressess that can't control their power or if they are ordered to."

     "Ordered to?"

     "Yes.  If a sorcerer is strong enough, he can manipulate it to do his bidding." He paused. "Why?"

     "Before you showed up, I couldn't move.  It was like some force was holding me there.  It....It's hard to explain."

 

     Dimitri actually looked slightly concerned, but it was only for a moment.  He checked for other injuries, and other than a few scrapes, I was fine.

     "Anyway, we better head back.  Tyler is probably worried about you," he said apathetically.

 

     I frowned at his tone but didn't question it.  I pushed off the tree, staggering a little bit.  I followed him and I didn't realize how much he towered over me.  I assumed he was at least six-six, which meant he had a foot over me.  His eyes flickered to me and I looked away, embarrassed that he had caught me staring. 

 

     "Thank you," I said at last.

 

     If he responded, it was too low for me to hear.  We arrived back at my house and Dimitri explained the situation to Tyler and Gilbert while I searched for painkillers.  While I scanned the small bathroom, I found a sticky note on the mirror.  Written in elegant handwriting was a note:

 

     Out of painkillers

 

     I scowled, but recognized the handwriting and gasped. "Mom!"

I slid out of the bathroom and nearly fell but managed to stay on my feet.  Dimitri and Gilbert stared at me while Tyler rushed to me.

     "What's wrong?" he asked.

     "Where's Mom?  I totally forgot about her!  Is she....you know, like us?"

     "Oh, that's all," he sighed in relief. "Yeah, she's a sorceress.  A powerful one, I might add.  In fact, she's a teacher at the Tower of Swords.  So you'll get to see her around a lot."

     "Speaking of the Tower, you need to get there by tomorrow if you want to get to your classes on time.  You three will stay tonight.  I have some business to take care of and shall see you tomorrow." Gilbert ordered, turning swiftly to leave. "Oh, and before I forget," He faced me partially. "Welcome to the Tower of Swords."

 

     And with that he disappeared in a flash of light.