by Trevor Darby
“I’m sure Raven told you we had a fight with the Sorcerer of Sumeria. To beat him, I used my powers to shrink him down, and then I made a stone prison for him. If I'm honest, I don't have any idea how I pulled it off. I think it was a one-time thing because I was so scared and Rav-,” I caught myself before saying what had really motivated me, “the world was counting on me. Lately, I've been practicing my teleportation, and I've been getting better at it. I've teleported Raven around without being near her a few times."
“Interesting,” he said intently, rubbing his chin. “How do you feel after teleporting people from a range?”
“What do you mean? Pretty normal. Teleporting doesn’t take a lot of energy anymore. It’s a lot harder if I have to go across Realms.”
He erupted into a laughing fit that lasted almost half a minute. "You're right that teleporting within one Realm is easier than going from one Realm to the other. But, it's still considered a high-level technique that even Raven hasn't managed to master yet. Teleporting someone from a distance, on the other hand, should take a dozen times as much magic than doing it if you're touching them, depending on how far away they are. The fact that you didn't even notice the difference speaks to how big your magical reserves are."
“Didn’t you teleport us here without contact?” I asked, “and that was cross-realm, too.”
"I wasn't very far away from you. With that said, you have a long way to go before you should be using me as a benchmark. I must admit that you have much more potential, but I'm still far, far more capable and experienced," he said, smiling. There was no cockiness in his attitude or voice. He'd spoken as calmly as if he'd been talking about the weather.
Raven’s lips curved into a thin smile, “You’ll get used to him.”
Slowly but surely, things were getting a little less tense with her, and I couldn’t wait to finally get the confrontation over with. I just wanted her to stop being so distant. I wanted it to be like it was before, when we could laugh and have fun together. I had to hope that it was even possible, given what she’d found out about her father.
“Enough chatter, kiddos. It’s time to dig in,” Tiberius said, cutting off my stream of thoughts as he reached into the sleeve of his robe and pulled out a small glass marble. He raised one brow and cocked his head. Then, he dropped it on the ground. It shattered, causing a blinding flash of light. I gasped, rubbing frantically at my eyes as I tried to find Raven. I couldn't see, but I could hear, and the sound of chains jangling and a gate opening sent a strange chill of dread through me.
“Chase, focus! Now!” Raven shouted.
I blinked and squinted, my vision clearing just in time to see the dirt ground under my feet, the circular stone structure surrounding us, the crowd chanting and screaming, and the lion running straight towards me, jaws snapping.
The Coliseum.
Crazy Tiberius had somehow transported Raven and me back in time to ancient Rome, where gladiators fought for the right to live.
And now, apparently, it was our turn.
Chapter 8
I threw a blast of energy at the lion, stumbling backward and trying to buy myself a little time as Raven charged toward it. It wasn't slowed by my attack and shifted its focus to Raven, running at her with teeth bared. Seeing it from the side, I realized how enormous it was. I'd seen lions in the zoo before, and this thing put them all to shame.
Just as Raven formed a magical sword in her hand, a second huge lion charged her from behind. “Watch out!” I shouted as it closed in.
“Keep the second one away!” she called back, charging the one in front of her without bothering to turn around.
I concentrated briefly, appearing in between the second lion and Raven. I'd just have to trust her to take that one and handle this one myself. I tried a massive magical blast, but it dissipated on contact with them like they had with Klugg the Troll. I shook my head in despair. They were magically resistant. As if lions that big weren’t enough of a challenge already.
If blasting them away wouldn't work, I'd have to think of some kind of plan, but the massive carnivore bearing down on me made it kind of hard to think at all.
I put my hand out, trusting that my plan would work. I teleported the lion to the edge of the Coliseum just before it got to me. The lion looked around for a moment, confused, before running at me again. If it could resist my magical blasts, my best tool for fighting it was my teleportation. But what could I do with it that would actually stop a lion?
I spared a glance at Raven's fight, and my spirits sank to see her bleeding and being pushed back. I had to figure out something fast so I could be around to help her in the worst case where she wasn’t able to handle her fight. I turned back to face my lion, cringing as I saw that it’d nearly closed the entire gap between us.
I shot a blast at the ground in front of it, spraying dirt into the air and causing a pained roar from the big cat as it stopped to paw at its eyes. I backed away and used the opening to consider what I could use that had won me previous battles. The fight with Uwyn came to mind immediately.
Could I find a way to imprison it like I had back then?
As the lion regained its composure and continued its charge, the answer finally came to me. I put my hand to the side, ignoring the lion just a few yards away, and used my powers to shift the earth to my will. I felt a rumble beneath me as the dry dirt pulled up from the ground and shaped itself like clay into a cage-like shape. The smell of rotting lion-breath met my nose when I turned back to face the giant beast. The problem was, it was already leaping to knock me to the ground. Just as its massive paws struck my shoulders, the giant lion disappeared, and I knew I had done it. I spared a quick glance to see the imprisoned lion before turning to help Raven defeat her enemy.
Or I would’ve helped her if she hadn’t already defeated hers alone. She was sitting on the body of the giant beast, tapping her foot on the ground as I gaped. “Were you really just going to let me fight it alone?” I asked, angry, “it nearly killed me.”
Raven rolled her eyes as the Coliseum disappeared, and the valley came back into view. "Did you really think that was all real? They were just illusions."
“Illusions?” I asked, still breathless as I flicked a glance between Raven and Tiberius, who had just come back into view. “I felt its paws on my shoulders! That definitely wasn’t an illusion.”
“To put it into words a geek can understand, think of it like a virtual reality game,” Raven said, smiling. “With sensors and such.”
I flushed red. “When were you planning on telling me?”
“It was better this way,” Tiberius said, “I needed to get a baseline of how you’d react in a combat situation.”
“How’d we do?” I said, my embarrassment fading somewhat. At least we’d won. Surely that counted for something.
“Eh,” he said with a shrug, “not bad. Good idea by Chace to imprison it but it was a bad decision to fight them one on one. Two humans with reason and the ability to plan can coordinate better than two beasts. There was no reason to give away that advantage.”
“I just wanted to see if I could take one on by now,” Raven complained.
“A poor choice is a poor choice. If you practice wrong here, you'll get punished for it in the real world. Besides that, why didn't Chace call you out on it?"
“I-,” I started.
Tiberius put a hand up, cutting me off, "it's nothing to worry about. We're just getting started here, in three months I'll have you beating hordes of those things. Take a quick break for now, though." He reached into the sleeve of his robe and pulled out a gallon-sized jug of water that was definitely too large for him to have been carrying around, hidden in his robe.
Raven took the water from his outstretched hand without question, taking a few big gulps of it. She’d clearly seen this type of thing from him in the past. “Drink up,” she said, handing it to me.
“So, what was your plan against the Dragon?" Tiberius asked.
“I took the front while Chace supported me from a bit further back. We also had Chace’s friend Taz shooting arrows from behind and Twee Twyla shielding us with a healing Fae girl ready if someone got hurt.”
"Ooh, you got old Twee to help you?" he said, grinning, "never thought I'd see the day. So what happened? How were you trying to bring the beast down?”
"We got destroyed. We'd wanted to weaken the Dragon a bit then teleport him back to the Magical Realm, but everything we had was ineffective. In the end, I tried just teleporting him, but it seemed impossible," I said.
Tiberius broke into a fit of giggles. “You tried teleporting a Dragon to the Magical Realm when it didn’t want to go? That’s not going to work. Even if you’d had a team of all of the strongest magic users in the world, I doubt they'd be able to pull that off."
“So, what can we do?" I asked, annoyed, "its fire ate up my strongest magical blast like it was nothing."
"You'll just have to beat it straight up," he said, smiling. "First off, you should think of Dragons as the ultimate example of raw magical power with minimal control, so you don't have to be worried about complex spells or anything. It should also be easy to trick it if you and Raven get stronger and coordinate properly during the fight."
I nodded, even though it seemed totally ridiculous. We'd just have to trust in Tiberius for now.
"To best equip you two for your life together as Hunter and Protector, I'm going to be taking your training in two different directions. Raven, I'm going to have you work on magic related to fighting in close quarters," Tiberius said. Then he turned to me, "and I'll have you focus on long-ranged magic. Unfortunately, this means you won't be seeing each other for at least a few weeks.”
“I thought you said we had to coordinate better together?” I asked after sitting, stunned at the abruptness of it all, for a moment.
"You do, but first, it's important to work on your individual strengths, and I've found that a solitary training environment is best for that. When the two of you are up to my standards, we'll come back here and train further. If you have anything to say to each other, get it out of the way now." He looked intently back and forth between the two of us.
I met Raven’s eyes and, after holding eye contact for a long moment, opened my mouth to speak.
“Later,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “Let’s focus on this for now.”
I forced myself to nod in agreement before staring down at the ground. It felt like there was a massive weight on my chest that wouldn’t go away until we got our long-awaited discussion out of the way. Would we even be spending a lifetime together as Protector and Hunter like Tiberius had said? It seemed like more of a partnership of necessity than anything else lately.
“Let’s get going, then,” Tiberius said, putting a hand on each of our shoulders.
"Good luck," I said, looking up to meet Raven's gaze once again. She gave me a small smile and a nod as we faded into different areas of the Magical Realm. We weren't going to see each other again for what I knew would feel like an eternity.
And I’d thought massive lions were scary?
I’d never been so terrified in all my life.
Chapter 9
I looked around frantically as my eyes adjusted to the dim light given off by what seemed to be a tiny campfire a dozen feet behind me. Tiberius had plopped me right into the middle of a clearing in a forest of trees that completely blocked out the sun. I shivered, partly due to the temperature and partly due to the vibes I was getting from the creepy forest.
I spun around as a sharp crack sounded from behind me. A ghostly and ethereal Tiberius popped into existence right in front of the campfire. “This is where you’ll be training,” he said in a hoarse whisper.
“Are you feeling okay?” I asked.
"I'm fine," he said softly, smiling. "I'm sure I look a little off, but it's normal. I had to split myself into two pieces so I could train you and Raven at once."
I looked at him, stunned. “Holy crap. Is that, like, something I could learn to do?”
“Maybe in another hundred years or so,” he said, chuckling softly.
“This is great. Don't get me wrong, but...we couldn't have trained somewhere a little brighter?" I asked, looking around at the wicked-looking trees around us. The lack of closure between Raven and I was unfortunate enough. But now I'd have to spend days in an almost pitch-black forest with only a single person. One who I still wasn't entirely convinced was completely sane—to keep me company.
“I’ve found this to be an effective location to train, no unnecessary distractions,” he said. “Now first things first, we need to talk about your energy blasts. The reason you weren’t able to pierce the magic resistance of those lions even though your blasts were powerful was that they’re too spread out. If you were able to focus that same energy into a smaller size, you'd have no problem piercing them. I'm only at half strength because I split myself, but here's a little demonstration of what I mean.”
He put his hand out to the side and sent an incredibly bright ball of magic the size of a pea toward one of the nearby trees. It disintegrated so quickly it almost seemed like it had been deleted from existence.
I gaped at it, then at him, and nodded as I rolled up my sleeves.
“Okay. Show me.”
I stumbled, dropping to my knees as a final wispy ball of energy shot from my hand. “I can’t do any more,” I managed to say. My body felt like I’d just been through a heavy cycle in a washing machine.
"Good," he said clapping. "Now come over to me, I have something that should perk you up."
I rolled my eyes at his stationary form, but he ignored me, not bothering to bring it to me or help me up. After a few seconds, I put my hands on the ground and pushed myself to my feet. I trudged over to him, putting my hands out. "Food?" I asked, hopefully. He hadn't let me drink or eat anything since we'd arrived, which must've been at least three or four hours ago.
“Close,” he said, handing me a vial that couldn’t have been more than an inch tall full of dark brown liquid. “Drink up.”
I didn't have the energy to protest, and a little liquid was better than nothing, so I pulled off the cork and downed it, cringing at the disgustingly powerful licorice flavor. “Eck. What was that?” I asked, knowing the answer to my question before he had time to respond. My energy had been completely restored, and my hunger and thirst were reduced to the point of being bearable.
"It's called a field potion, and you'd better make them count because they're incredibly costly. Though it's not safe to take more than two a day, it functions as a replacement for food and water and restores your magical energy to full. A human could sustain themselves for more than a week with just these," he said, grinning as he added, "which is exactly what you're about to do."
“These disgusting potions are all I get?” I said, annoyed. “What’s the point of all this? I’m already training my butt off, no need to torture me at the same time.”
“Like I said before, it’s all to motivate you to get out of here as fast as possible and remove any possible distractions. If I'm honest, usually those potions are delicious. I had them flavored with licorice to make it even harder on you," Tiberius said. Seeming proud of himself, he continued, "And the week thing was just an estimate, I won't let you leave until you're able to pass my test."
“What’s the test?” I spat. How could a laid back guy that seemed so nice be such a brutal teacher?
"I'll show you once you get strong enough to attempt it. Now get back to your training. Once you get your energy blasts all down to the size of a baseball, we can move on to improving your control of the environment around you." He reached into his robe and grabbed a small granola bar. "Get to it," he said, waving me off as he took his first bite.
I opened my mouth to argue but thought better of it. I'd just have to push through this if I wanted to get back to Raven. I turned angrily. I put my right hand out towards the tree I'd been practicing on, which had only rece
ntly begun to show signs of damage to its magic resistant trunk. I shot a blast of energy the size of a basketball. My mood improved some as it struck the tree with a crash, creating a small dent in the trunk.
“A bit less pitiful than before,” Tiberius said in his ghostly voice, clapping.
I knew I still had a long way to go, but did he really have to be so hard on me? I rolled my eyes, putting my hand back up to have another go. My next blast had a similar amount of power but was twice as large, so it poofed into nothing on contact.
"You're going to have to do better than that, Chace. Even with two field potions, you can only fire so many blasts in a day. You need to make every shot count. Focus more before just firing away willy nilly,” he said in between bites of his granola bar.
Our training continued this way, with me doing my best and him criticizing me from his seat by the fire, for what felt like an eternity. I burned through all of my reserves from the first potion, and most of the reserves I'd gotten from the second potion I'd taken a short while ago.
“That should be enough for today,” he said, cutting me off as I was about to fire another spell. “You should get some rest, you'll need as much strength as possible for tomorrow morning. See you then." He waved, and his ghostly form faded away in a way that made me wonder if I'd been hallucinating it the whole time.
I walked over and plopped myself down next to Tiberius' campfire, which was the only source of heat or light in the area. I tried in vain to ignore thoughts of Raven and the conversation that had yet again been put off. The soft warmth of the fire was suddenly replaced by a cold chill throughout my body, and I opened my eyes to see that it'd gone out.