Enchanted Casters

Chapter 6

Over the course of the next three weeks, the club continued to meet and learn new spells. They started off only doing one per meeting before changing it to two. Kyle was still nervous during these meetings, but managed to pull through by bringing back up the confidence he used before. He soon began to notice that his spells were more powerful than the others, indicating his magical abilities were working at full power.

In addition to learning new spells, Kyle also trained using the spells he already knew. Given that battling other students was prohibited on the property, even in battle magic class, he decided to ask the wolfbles to be his sparring partners. They understood the reason for the training and supported his endeavor. They had magic of their own to block the attacks and send them back, and Kyle always made sure to monitor their health and wellbeing.

One day, while taking the brothers back to the Oasis after their training session, they ran into Meredith.

"Hello, Kyle," she said. "Where were you with Falcon and Thoren?"

"Uh...." Kyle pondered.

He didn't want Meredith to know he'd been training with them, not wanting to get in trouble with her again.

"Kyle wanted us to stretch our legs more," Thoren lied.

"How thoughtful of him," Meredith replied, giving Kyle a bit of a look.

She walked away without saying another word.

The week of the Magistrate Festival was soon upon them. Since Ashiryn was competing in the Spell Spelling Bee, and Marion was competing in the Ring-A-Round, Kyle decided not to schedule any meetings that week. Instead, that Thursday, he and Sly spent the day helping Marion with her Ring-A-Round practice along with Falcon and Thoren.

Kyle had set up a target with his magic while the wolfbles each held two practice rings in their mouths. Marion stood in the field ready and waiting for the rings to be thrown at her. The target she was shooting at was a rectangle signpost that had a fifty-point rectangle in the middle and rectangles with descending values from forty to ten both on the top and bottom of the fifty.

"You ready, Marion?" Kyle asked.

"I'm ready!" she replied excitedly.

"Throw 'em, guys," he signaled to the brothers.

Falcon and Thoren threw the rings towards Marion as she used Ringalala to bring them to her. She succeeded in bringing three of the rings to her while the fourth one dropped to the ground. Using the ones she had, she rapidly said the spell three times in order to throw them. Two rings ended up overshooting the target while the other was on course to hit the fifty, but flew down to hit the twenty.

"So close!" Falcon cringed.

"That's alright!" Marion consoled. "I'll do it next time."

"Marion-" Kyle began before she interrupted him.

"Let's go!" she hollered.

The wolfbles fetched the rings and prepared to throw them. Marion signaled to Kyle she was ready and he reluctantly told the brothers to toss them. This time, she managed to get all four rings, but missed on all her throws. Trying again, she only grabbed half of the rings and hit the ten both times. On her final attempt, she collected three rings that all overshot the target. It was after this attempt that she had an epiphany.

"Wait, was I, by chance, getting too excited over this?" she asked.

Everyone nodded their heads in agreement. Marion fell to her knees.

"This just isn't going to work, is it?" she sighed.

"All you need to do is calm down," Thoren commented.