by Bob Dattolo
He didn’t respond before the door opened and a veritable army of adults walked in. I’m thinking it’s pretty much time for us to load up.
A man I’ve seen a few times before takes center stage and looks over us. “Good morning, everyone.”
Someone near him taps his arm, “Everyone’s present.”
“Good! Okay, second-year students? I’m sure some of you know who I am while others don’t. I’m Assistant Headmaster Garcia. Headmaster Anderson is with the first-year students, so I get to accompany you to your trial today.” No responses from anyone, although he didn’t seem to expect it. Much. “It seems everyone is here already, which is good. I don’t have any speeches for you. Nothing like that. You’ve been through this before. You know what to expect. Just go in and do the best you can. If I can offer one piece of advice? Watch everyone and everything. That’s all I can say.” He looked around again, pausing on the two researchers against the wall behind him, then moved on, “We’ll begin loading up in 10 minutes, so hit the bathroom if you want. Change your clothes. Remember, no weapons or charms. Otherwise? Good luck. The buses are out front and waiting, so feel free to load up early if you want.”
He shut up at that point and joined some of the adults back towards the doors. They’re not really watching us much, all the while watching us pretty intently.
I was the first person to stand in our group, “On that note? I’m leaving my clothes in my room since it’s my last set. Maybe I’ll have something to wear after this is over.”
Levi laughed, while others started making snide comments about me not needing clothes after this at all. I ignored them; I think that’s pretty big of me.
He stood as well, “Good idea. We have 10 minutes, might as well brush my teeth too.”
By the time we were halfway across the caf, a ton of dragons were up and heading towards the doors with us. Wait, there are some mages in the group, but I think they’re mainly heading out with their dragon allies or roommates. Or both, in some cases.
Not a ton of talking across the lawn towards the dorms, that’s for sure. Levi left me once we got inside, and I was joined by Samantha, Tiffany, and Eva on the way towards our rooms. “You leaving your clothes here?” Samantha bumped my arm.
“Yeah, no sense messing them up for no reason. Parece gave me clothes to wear afterwards last year, so…might as well keep a trend alive. Besides, who hasn’t seen most of us dragons naked? We don’t care, so it’s not like it’s gonna matter.”
“True. Sounds like a plan.” She carved off for her room, Tiffany falling in with her. Eva followed me into our room, where she watched me strip and then joined me in the bathroom to brush her teeth.
She was watching me pretty closely as I finished, then blinked slowly as I mounted the toilet without closing the door. “It’s so weird.” Her quiet voice sliced through the silence in the bathroom. I can hear Stacey and Cleo next door, but they’re not saying anything.
“What’s weird?”
She gestured around the room with her toothbrush, “This whole thing. We’ve waited our entire lives to get here, and some of us won’t be alive to walk away from it. You. Me. Anyone. Everyone. It’s just messed up that we’re forced to do this.”
I didn’t respond at first as I wiped and flushed, “It is. It really is. The fact that they push us into this situation is beyond me. We make our kids fight and drain power and die to limit the number of powerful people out there? That’s what I keep hearing as one of the primary drivers, but what it really does is create…a caste, basically. You have people at 25 percent, people at 50 percent, then everyone else that graduated and absorbed power. They’re way the fuck above those at 50 percent. It keeps the strong in power without many people that can mess with them and creates this worker level of mage and dragon at the lower levels. It’s messed up that people don’t see it and try to fight back against it.”
“What can we do, though?”
I shrugged as I washed my hands, “No clue. Push back when we’re out of here? That’s about the only thing I can think of. We’re stuck here now, so we have to survive. We have to play the game. Only when we’re out and heading towards being in charge of the game do we have a shot in hell of doing anything about it.”
“I doubt that’ll ever happen.” She put her toothbrush back in the holder.
“More the pity. It should. I don’t get how or why parents just…let it happen. How do you pop a kid out and raise them and then…” I touched my scars, “how do you pound fucking mortmagi into their skulls because they didn’t come up as a mage? How do you force them here? How do you tell them that unless they make it the full three years and then place well that you’ll kill them? As a society, we’re morally bankrupt. We think nothing of killing each other, and that carries through to the very people that we should be risking our lives to save. To protect.”
She didn’t respond as I crossed back into the room and looked around. “I’m pretty much down to my change of clothes, my school paperwork in the closet, my notebooks and pens and crap in my desk, and the essential oils. If I don’t make it out, feel free to take the oils or anything else.”
She nodded as she looked around, “Thanks. I don’t know what to say if I don’t make it. As strong as I am, a group of kids could kill me pretty easily. A shifted dragon. I guess…if I don’t make it and you do? The numbers for my family are in the top drawer of the desk. Can you give them a call and let them know that I didn’t make it? Maybe fill them in if you see it? Feel free to go through anything else. I’m not sure they’ll want any of it since I failed,” she shrugged, looking at her wrecked laptop on the floor, “and it’s fucked up, but they might.”
Fuck. “I can do that.”
Instead of talking more, we stared around, almost numb, and then walked out. It was a semi-random parade of naked dragons and the few clothed mages that came back for whatever reason, then it grew as the guys mixed in.
The buses had some people on them already when we arrived. All mages, at least as far as I can tell so far. Wait, there are more dragons coming up now that didn’t bother stripping. Levi and I headed for the first bus in line, with some of the others following. The rest headed for whatever bus seemed to work best for them.
The others in the seats were nearly silent as we got on and sat in the first available spot. He sat next to me, as I sort of expected. Not that I would have expected it any other time this year or last, but there you go.
None of the allies that I see boarding and taking seats farther back made any signals to me. Just as I didn’t to them. We’re sort of in our own little worlds. When death is coming for some of us, maybe us, that tends to push people into a bit of introspection in times like this. Or so I’ve seen.
Thoughts about our lives until now. Things we did. Always wanted to do but never did. Things we came close to doing but chickened out.
People we wanted to talk to more. Less. Spend time with. Movies to watch. Songs to listen to. Books to read. Maybe even write.
Spells we wanted to learn. Or to master. Or to build.
Did we spend enough time concentrating in school? Are we strong enough to make it through this? Motivated enough? Do we have what it takes to make it through the killing field ahead of us?
That’s what this is. We’re expected to walk in there and make it through, all the while people around us are falling.
Dreams dying.
Family members dying.
Things left undone, unsaid.
Books with bookmarks in the middle. Video game save files, never to be accessed again. Cars never to be started by their owners. Clothes never worn. Cherished possessions left to people that don’t know the story behind them. Don’t know the personal value we assigned to them. Maybe to be thrown out without a care.
My melancholy fled as my rage built. Next to me, Levi shifted in his seat at the change in my scent. I didn’t bother trying to hide it. I’m pissed and it’s getting worse. We’re being thrown to the wolves, yet it�
��s even worse that we’re expected to be our own wolves.
I can almost guarantee that I’m going to have to kill someone during this. Too many want to target me. Yes, I have allies…or so I believe, but that still means they come. People will be wearing my blood today.
I just need to be in the mindset that they’re either corpses or my allies next to me as we reach the finish line.
Dragon eyes focused on me as we arrived at our destination. They can smell what’s coming from me, and I know it has to be freaking them out.
If I had to put a name to the scent, only one word comes to mind. A single word.
And I never knew armageddon had a smell.
Chapter 43
The bus vomited us out at the huge building that still reminds me of an arena. It’s like a hundred feet tall and extends out in both directions hundreds and hundreds of feet. I know it’s crazy long, too. It has to be, since the trial lasts six hours, with a ton of that being the time it takes to run the distances involved.
The doors to the place are open, with a mass of adults there waiting for us. The other buses come to a stop and our classmates join us. Only a few are heading for the doors just yet. The rest seem to be waiting for the others…
Something on the roof catches my attention. It’s fucking far off from here, but it’s glinting…my shield and a wall go up, and I swear I just made it before something hit it like a freight train. A massive boom filled the air as my classmates freaked and scattered.
Someone just shot at me?!?
I can’t see around my wall, so my magic adjusts so that I can get a peephole. Another round hits, making me question if this thing is strong enough to stop those freaking things from killing me.
Then my face is rammed into the barrier as someone hits me from behind, sending burning lines of agony through me.
My shift comes without me thinking about it, and I find a pissed guy holding a bloody knife in his hands. Magic rushes through me, healing my organs and then my scales. The guy’s a mage, but he doesn’t feel powerful. Then he’s down as I rake my claws across his face and absorb his powers. He’ll never get up again, not with his ribs wrenched open.
No one behind me towards the buses. No other shooters that I can find.
Just the one.
Another round hits my barriers as I shift back and then run to the side. The students continued running, leaving me as one of the only people out here. Wonderful. Another round whizzes past me at the same time three spells miss by the barest margins. I picked up one as a paralysis spell, meant to hold me in place. Probably for the shooter to fuck up my world.
My magic is pumping hard as I think through options. Another four bullets miss as I try to get closer to the shooter, with ten other spells that I picked up on missing. Mostly. I was tripped once, which almost got me shot, and a joint locking spell hit that very nearly meant I was dead before I managed to crush it. That bullet came way too close.
My magic finally triggered, and I reached out and wrapped the fuckhead and wrenched him from the roof. Everything with him got carried with him as he spun in crazy directions as I pulled him to me. Shame on me for letting him hit the ground a few times, but it was worth it.
Some of the students and adults crept out when they realized I stopped running and wasn’t being killed. They were just in time to see the guy come to a stop. A huge ammo box got dropped along with a rifle that has to be at least five feet long.
The guy’s bloody and has vomit covering him, but he looks satisfied to see me up close. “You killed my son!”
Rage filled me, “Look, earth dragon loser, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”
“Emerson! You killed Emerson!”
I couldn’t help laughing in his face, “Emerson? Seriously? You came all this way because your son died in a challenge where he was attempting to get someone to rape me? Seriously?”
He spit on me, “Fuck you, you whore, it’s all you’re good for!” He looked past me, and I knew he could see the body behind me, “Two hundred grand for that asshole, and he couldn’t get the job done. I guess it’s up to me.”
My magic tightened its hold on him, “You ain’t doing shit, dead man. You shot at me. You had me stabbed. Your son was a loser and died after I warned him again and again to step the fuck back.”
He smiled, letting blood dribble from his mouth, “And yet you’re still gonna die. White haired freak. Shoulda put out, at least you’d be alive now.” A low-level spell triggered that I barely followed. It felt like a spell to nudge something. Not even hit, just nudge. I didn’t think to stop it.
But I should have.
It triggered, and I had a tiny moment to wonder why it was aimed at his chest. His suspiciously thick chest.
Then my world seemed to explode.
Chapter 44
My face hurt as I realized I wasn’t dead. I feel like I should be.
I feel horrific. Like so, so freaking bad.
That fuckhead…he blew me up. He came with a sniper rifle, a backup guy with a knife, and then wrapped himself with freaking explosives in case I got to him?
You know what? I have to salute his willingness to commit to something. He wanted me dead even if it meant he died too.
I’m glad at least part of that came true.
Except I feel like a hundred pounds of ground beef.
Dammit, can I heal this?
My magic grew. I tried to hide that I was doing a spell, I just can’t be sure that it’s happening. I’m pretty sure my eyes are intact, although everything else? My hearing seems to be gone, so that’s either a sign of brain damage, overload from the explosion, or maybe my face and head are in even worse shape than I think?
Fuck.
The magic built and built as I focused on healing, then I triggered it, continuing to push power. At first, nothing happened. So I pushed more.
And then more.
And then more.
My magic felt like it was burning by the time I felt something deep inside shift.
Oh, is that why I can’t feel anything below my stomach? It seems my spine is fucked. He was in front of me, which means the explosion kinda wrecked me. Let’s hope and pray I’m not missing any parts.
The healing was slow, but I’m hoping that’s because it’s working on fixing bones that feel like confetti. I thought things would get easier once that was done, but I was wrong.
I had to increase the outlay of power four times to keep things going, leaving me weeping on the inside at pushing this hard. I’m pushing harder than with the mortmagi by at least double, and the pace of healing…
I’m regrowing things.
I can feel it now. Whatever that was that just came back in my stomach? Maybe even my stomach? It was pretty much gone. I regrew it from scratch. That’s…that’s supposed to be impossible.
And…fuck.
As I try to feel myself and figure out what’s damaged, I realize that even more of me is torn to shreds than I thought. I can feel my right leg regrowing starting at the knee. My left foot. My right arm…I’m pretty sure it’s missing from the shoulder down. Maybe I turned? Maybe that’s why that side of my body got the worst of it. Either way, though, I’m pushing enough power to destroy a good size town and doing impossible magic so that I don’t die.
My jaw feels like its missing. I can’t move or feel my cheek muscles, so that makes me wonder if they’re missing. I swear I might actually be a skull face with eyes…that I can’t move?
You have to be kidding me. Am I missing my eyes but still doing magic?
Don’t think about it, Anwyn. Don’t think about it. Just do it. Just keep pushing magic. We have a trial…that I’d think is still ahead of me. I doubt they’ll let me skip it. So I have to heal and go. Even if walking in there kills me. I won’t walk away with 25 percent, even though that’s way more than I had to start. I just won’t do it. It’s the principle of the thing, it really is.
Plus, I want my revenge.
On whoever is spreading the rumors.
On everyone that touched me at Reggie’s.
On my parents. No one throws me away. I may be Maddie Stricken, but I was someone. Someone with a name. A life. A family. They took that and threw that away.
Rage blossomed inside of me and I think I growled as my magic went into overdrive.
My eyes were definitely gone and I register the moment they’re intact again, because my magic outlay goes into hyperdrive, sending lightning pain through my body as bones and muscle continue to grow at a much faster pace.
And I get to open my eyes.
Three researchers are above me, all with cameras out filming. No students above me that I can see. I get about ten seconds before a shift hits me, helping to heal some of the colossal damage. Then I shift back and forth again and again, ending in my dragon form. I’m still not fully healed when I ram my wings back against the ground and push myself up. My legs are mostly intact, yet still healing some of the muscle damage. My stomach is sealed. My boobs are still coming back. My jaw is mostly intact again. My right arm is still growing the hand.
Ira, the researcher, lifts his camera, “Maddie? How did you…you should be dead.”
My first response is the continued growl that I really am making. That ends as I try to cut down on the flow of magic and concentrate on the specific areas that are still damaged. That helps the burning, yet I know I’m in rough shape. “I have a trial to go to. They won’t let me skip it.”
He laughed, “You can skip it if you’re dead!”
“Maybe I can, but that seems like the easy way out. The way that won’t let me get my revenge.” Something on the ground catches my eyes, so I pick it up with my intact left hand. I think it’s…yeah, it’s part of one of fuckhead’s thighs. Like six or seven pounds of meat.