Magic High: Utility Belt

Chapter Five: Some Competition

When I woke up the next morning, I wasn’t feeling exactly like my best. Either it was guilt, or the stuff I drank last night, or some unknown illness.

   I thought to myself: Whatever this is, it should leave me quickly. That was when my memories began to come back. Firstly, I thought of Fred. I looked up, he wasn’t there. I quickly ran to the bathroom and showered, then got dressed. I checked my phone for some messages and I got a message from Rose saying:

     “I know everything you were up to last night”

My heart started racing. But I decided to send this text back to her.

   “I’m coming up to your room; hang in there for I really want to discuss that”
   That was when some trainer dressed in white garments rushed up to me and said:
    “You’ve been assigned to Division 12. It’s a room, straight from here, seventh corridor, and turns left, up the stairs, right, and 20 meters down to the Gallery. It’s on the right. Don’t ask questions, now goodbye.” He said and zoomed off on his hoverboard.
When I got to Rose’s room, the door was opened for me by her.
  “Come in, I want to tell you something”
I complied. “If this is about saving you from the terror of last night, no need to thank me. It was nothing.

   “I wasn’t really drunk last night. I was just pretending…” she said, to my surprise
  “Wait… like, what’ the hell are you saying?” I asked, feeling unbalanced.

   Rose then showed me another bottle. One I hadn’t noticed before. Well maybe I had… no, there really were two drinks on that table last night and this one had a different label.

                          Cherry Extract: Non Alcoholic drink.

That was when I understood.

  “I gave you the one with alcohol, but then I took this alcohol free one, and pretended to be drowsy to see how you’d react.”

    That was not cool.

“So you decided to harm me, just to test me. Not cool Rose, what you did last night was pretty scary; I could have died out of fear.” I said, trying to look strict.

  “You seemed to have recovered enough for the big training today anyway. That’s all that matters, so let’s go. Are you in Division 8?” she asked

   “Sadly, no. I’m in 12” I informed her
“Alright then, see you at 2. Oh and please help me check on Fred, he’s been gone since last night.”

She said and started off in the Gallery direction.
    

   I stayed put; instead I walked into the room straight ahead of me, into Division 12.

     Our Division trainer was a lady who went by the name Mrs. Anders P. She was tall, slim, and fair and had a lovely set of chestnut brown eyes to which she fixed a steady and intimidating gaze upon each of us.

   “Good day to each of you, I’m Mrs. Anderson and I am your instructor. Before we begin umm… is there any of you who goes by the name Damian Wayze, please step forward.” She demanded.

   All eyes were pointed at me.
When I encountered Steven Birch at the hall, I knew there was a chance, however slim, that I would be reported to the authorities. Now I was to face up to what I did yesterday.

     “My assistant Steven says that you used the facilities in the event hall for target practice, but upon inspection, we found out that the place looked like someone hadn’t entered in a long while. Can you please tell us how you did this.” she requested.

  I was about to give some lame excuse when this guy named Michael Garfield answered.

   “Mrs. Anders, if you’ll excuse me, permit me to say that there are some people we have at Magic High who have the power of Particle Motion, they can rearrange individual atoms to whatever form they want. Maybe that’s how he erased his footprints and scattered all the evidence.” He concluded

    “Michael dear, please keep quiet, I was addressing Damian, he knows why that happened. After all, if he shape-shifted the particles in the event hall, he wouldn’t know how to arrange the particles in the same exact way it was 30 years ago.”

   Well, that was rude, I thought.

“The reason the hall looks untouched was because I… reversed the relative time of the hall to… yeah about 30 years back. I didn’t mean to reverse time that far but, anyone with my time skills could have made that mistake.” I narrated

    “Wait a minute… did he just say time reversal?” one guy asked
  “That’s not possible”
“Time travel does not even exist” another spoke
Soon, there was a babble of voices talking all at once. I felt like the odd one out because it dawned on me that everyone in this Division thought time travel was impossible.
    I even think that probably everyone in Magic High thought that time travel was impossible.
    Our division instructor knew better, or so I thought, because she simply called everyone to order, and we got down to the business of the day.

     “Today, I would like to do a review of what we covered last time. Now I know that while each of you all know what your individual skills are, you might also wonder, can two or more people possess the same kind of ability as you? Well, the answer is yes. But there are varying degrees of this. For example, the probability that you will discover another person with the same kind of… let me say… telepathic ability as you is about 1/500. That’s a bit common, and it simply means that for every 1000 people, there will be at least two or more people who have the ability to communicate using telepathic waves.” She lectured.

   “If the world population were about 10 billion people, at least we can expect 2 million telepathic beings living in our present world.

   Everyone seemed to be jotting down something, when all of a sudden, Michael dropped another bombshell.
   “Excuse me ma’am, but I have a question. What is the probability of finding a time traveller, if they do really exist?”

   Mrs. Anderson kept mute. Somehow I think that this guy Michael might have really intelligent answers to… just about anything. He seemed like the really smart guy in our Division, you know, the know-it all, the extra mile guy, the constant researcher. Surely there were people like Garfield in every organization, and that was really who I needed to talk to after the lessons were over.

    I don’t think our instructor cared very much about the question, because she pretended not to hear it. Clearly something was going on.

    50 minutes passed, and the bell rang for our next session. All the trainees were spending all that time sharing the findings of their research into their abilities… and stuff. I was about to leave when the instructor called me back.

    “Yes Mrs. A” I answered her
“Master Damian, may I just say, this has indeed caused a big stir in the activities of the administration.”

   I only wish I knew what I did wrong.
“This vanishing act of yours prompted the authorities to do a thorough background check on you and upon investigation; we found out that whoever entered that hall must have possessed Level 5 skills, a brilliant mindset to have exited the hall without even the security cameras recording.”

  “Steven told me you were down there this morning and wanted to sanction you for trespassing. But you erased his memory and brainwashed him with your powers. Plus, you disabled the cams and altered the recording to make it look like you were at the assembly the whole time. Then you made the hall look like no one had entered in years. This looks entirely suspicious and criminal-like behavior.” She concluded her speech.

   I didn’t know what to say. I just shrugged and told her: “If you suspect my actions, fine, but a clear conscience fears no accusation. I am a time traveller after all. It’s very easy for me to go back in time and this conversation wouldn’t even exist so…” I trailed off

   She gave me a long and hard stare. She seemed to be saying in her mind: “Go ahead, but I’ll be watching you”.

    Around twelve, when I walked into the recreation room, some voice whispered to me in my brain. It felt like an itch, which was when a space in my mind cleared then the message became clear: WATCH OUT!

    I felt dizzy and my nervous system became impaired, cognitive engine had shut down. I lost my balance then held on to a chair for support. If this was an unknown kind of syndrome that time skilled guys faced, it was not funny at all. I needed treatment.

        It was in the middle of this post nervous breakdown that I heard someone say from behind the room:
   “Hey you, would you hurry up and quit all that drama show you’re putting on. It’s blocking the view.”

   Maybe someone saw me staggering and decided to razz me about it. I was going to teach that unlucky soul a lesson.

   “Ice blast: Level 2, Spear” I then raised my hands and my fury seemed to concentrate in the blue mist forming round my wrists which dealt a really devastating blow to the final concluding resulting blast.

   I saw 10 foot long spears, growing from the ground in a quick uprising movement. An energy ball I targeted at the forming spears quickly shot through the air like a missile.

    The person who insulted me recoiled in horror, but he narrowly missed.
   “So… you think you’re a daring, skilled nerdish, two timed, son of a loser ehh…” he snapped.
    The voice seemed to say to me: DON’T FIGHT BACK.
     That guy on the other hand had telekinetic powers, and he summoned swirling desks that hit me from all directions.
     Everyone gasped, and all attention was focused on us.
    I ignored the voice.
      “Fire element: Terra Touchdown, Level 5”
A huge outburst of flames charged towards him. He dodged it by using the chairs as a shield. One thing about using Level 5 was that it drained a person’s strength quickly enough. But as tired as I was, I had one more trick up my sleeve.

    “Time Control: Freeze frame” I said, and time paused. I simply walked up to his face since everyone in the room was frozen into position, then I gave him a million hits, bashes and slaps and an air strike to his groin. Then I walked back and snapped my fingers and my time frame resumed, then he started running towards me again. But the effect of the beating struck him immediately and he fell groaning on the floor.

   Everyone was overcome with awe, how did I manage to attack him without even touching him? They all asked. I actually made contact by hitting him, but time was frozen so how would they know.
    I was now some sort of demigod, or a skilled wizard at having taken down a Level 8 fighter, with only one day of training. I was actually a Level 5 pro, but then again, how would they know.
     Well, it was about time I started getting some admirers.
   Fred rushed to me. “Bro, are you okay. What was that about?”
    I had a question for him too: “Dude where have you been since last night?”
   “Forget about me, we’ve got to go, now before the armed guards show up.”
    That was how we left the scene. As for that guy… well, who cares anyway?