Of Ancient Kings

Chapter 6

As Robin left the dining hall, about halfway through lunch, he dumped his empty bentō boxes into the rubbish bin outside of the hall and was greeted by a jolly Caleb who sauntered towards him.

"How are you?" Caleb asked Robin.

"I'm good, just had some lovely chicken karaage and white rice," Robin answered, patting his stomach.

"Sounds nice. Anyway, want to hang out at the courts with the guys?" Caleb asked.

"Sure!" Robin answered enthusiastically. He had not been able to sit still in English and had barely got any of the work done. All he could think about was how awesome his powers were. He had even messed with the teacher by cooling down her tea and eventually freezing it. A metahuman boy closer to her desk got the blame as he had done it before. They walked out of the foyer and down a small hill to get to a group of tennis courts. As they exited the building, Robin could see the scorch marks he had burnt into the ground and the obvious burns and spots of melting on the fence. He smiled a little.

The courts were quite full of metahumans, regular people weren't allowed on the courts for their own safety after a girl got third-degree burns from a stray arc of fire that another girl had carelessly thrown whilst showing off to her friends. A security guard stood at the only entrance to the fenced off courts and Caleb flashed his ID at the guard and let him in.

"ID, please." The guard asked Robin. He pulled out his card and the security guard took it from him.

"So you only metarised today?" He asked, looking quite astonished.

"Yeah, I was the boy who caused that." Robin gestured towards the scorch marks, slightly visible, further up the hill that the school sat on, with a pleased look on his face.

"Ok." The guard said, not appearing to care much beyond his job. He opened the gate and let Robin through.

Robin followed Caleb towards a group of boys and girls. Robin could see that this group was mainly composed of members of his metahuman studies class along with a few younger boys.

"Hey, Alice," Caleb said to the shorter girl.

"Caleb, what took you so long?" Alice said mockingly.

"Had a detention. I didn't get my homework done." Caleb said shrugging.

"So Robin," Alice turned to him, "Show us something flashy."

"Ok," Robin said. As his brain started formulating an idea a voice echoed through his mind.

"Show these parasites some fire.... How about a Phoenix?" A deep gravelly voice bellowed in his head. Robin put his hands to his ears at the volume but nothing helped.

"Are you ok?" Caleb asked as the air around Robin started to heat up. His hands shot from his ears above his head and a roaring blaze blasted into the sky. It took the form of a colossal bird with flowing tail feathers. Robin's eyes glowed as he manipulated the firebird and made it swoop around him.

Thoughts rushed through his head about the voice and he started to feel something coursing through him.

"I'll talk to you later." The voice came again. It quietened down with a very deep chuckle and the feeling stopped. He brought the bird down and let it fizzle out. Slowly the world around him darkened and then tilted as he blacked out.

"Oh, so you're already asleep. I was thinking you were gonna take longer. Ah.... You can't hear me because you fainted. Well, you should probably WAKE UP!"

Robin jolted awake. Something echoing in his mind he couldn't pinpoint what it was. He surveyed his surroundings and found he was lying in a bed in the infirmary.