Hello everybody!
Here I am, finally with an update to 'Powers Within'. I know it's taken ages, but I'm really stuck down with school work and I've got final exams this year which, I hate to say it, are far more important then updateing this story. I don't know when I'll be able to update again, but it's going to at least be the summer.
Thank you to everyone who wrote, asking where the hell I was! I know that I didn't write back to everyone, and I'm sorry, but again - I've got too much work to do. I'll try to do better this time, so if you e-mail me I'll probably get back to you. But please do e-mail me because I love getting mail! power@utvinternet.ie
This is not a true story. I don't know any of the people on whom I based my characters, therefore I don't know what their true sexualities are, sorry! If you're too young then shoo!
I was amazed that I didn't feel more nervous about what we were about to do, this was going to be the biggest battle that I'd been in yet, and probably the biggest one that any of the other guys had been in either, but instead of a feeling of nervousness, or anxiousness, there was anger in the air, tension as well, but anger and a burning hate of the people who dared to try and attack us, in our home.
It was just lucky that we'd managed to bring so many people into the mountain in time, because if we'd had only the normal numbers here then I don't think that we would have stood much of a chance of surviving, let alone winning.
I opened my mind to the land around me, the amount of power flowing into it was amazing, it was like a tidal wave of raw energy, surging into each mage, power crackling from their fingertips and earthing into the ground. I looked around in awe and a new feeling of confidence swept over me, we couldn't lose, I told myself, not with all the energy that we were about to expend.
I speed up into the air with such enthusiasm that Baram almost laughed, but my enthusiasm almost completely died with what I could see from my new vantage point. Black power was creeping and slithering over the landscape, with the Black mages soaking it into them, working it into themselves, manipulating it into silent screaming shapes, as they prepared to cast spells.
"What will happen if we can't defeat them?" I asked Baram, as I floated over to her.
"Then we will die in the attempt, because any white mage would sooner die then give up one of their own, as would you." Explained Baram softly. "But you shouldn't be thinking such thoughts! We are on our own land, this is our place, and we are more numerous then they. We will win this day and give the Black Mages a warning that they will not forget easily, that they will pay a heavy price to interfere with us and our kind!" She spoke with such passion that I realised that I wasn't the only one listening, that in fact she was speaking to the entire army. My spirit soared and as it did so did the members of the Backstreet Boys and NSync, as those who could fly joined us high above the battlefield and those who couldn't stood below. I reached down with my magic and pulled them up to us.
"Are we ready?" Asked Justin, whose eyes glowed white with power.
"I believe we are. Now, this is what we're going to do - only a small group of mages will actually know the reason that the whole army is here, and they'll be using their power to control the rest of their army and to force them to do what they want them to, if we can manage to kill them then the rest of the army will be in disarray, and it will an awful lot quicker and easier to kill them. So what we're going to do is try to kill them. They'll be well protected, and they'll be some of the most powerful mages that you'll ever have come across, with the exception of Drayn." Her eyes flashed quickly to the ring that I was wearing. "But you are some of the most capable mages that I have ever had the privilege of knowing and that is a fact."
She turned to the other black robed mage who was beside us. "Coranus, I want you to organise the rest of the mages, I'm going to be too busy to look after them all." Coranus simply nodded and drifted back down, without saying a word.
We flew up higher and higher, through the dome of the protective shields which had been organised, far below I could make out the mages who were pouring their power into it, strengthening it far beyond anything I'd ever seen before, while other mages worked on spells to dampen the black magic.
JC was the one who first saw it - a small knot of black mages within a double protective shield. There was also a ring of lesser mages surrounding them, to fight off any interested parties.
Josh morphed his eyes so that he could see like a hawk. "I think that's them all right, there's a group of three, and then they've got lesser mages acting like runners, sending messages to others. That barrier that they've got up must prevent telepathy or something like that.
"You're right." Said JC. "I can't feel anything at all. And I presume that the barrier only let's Black Mages through."
"Is it going to take raw power? Or is there any specific that we can do?" Asked AJ.
"There's got to be a better way then that." Said Brian.
"I think that I might have one." I said. "Follow me down, if this works I should be able to get though the barrier and kill the guys behind it, if not then you've got to through everything you've got at it, because I'll be in trouble." I gave Baram a questioning look, presuming that she already knew what I was going to do.
Baram nodded at me. "Good luck, we'll be down to help you in a second."
"Be careful!" Called Justin.
I flashed him a grin. "Of course, that's why I'm in this job!" I hurtled downwards, noting the exchanges of spells, which was taking place both on the ground below me and in the air around me.
The ring on my finger started throbbing as we got closer to the black mages and I could see that it was absorbing some of the power from the spells being cast around us. Any second now they were going to notice me, I told myself, and I increased my speed so that I was almost beside the outer protective barrier that had been raised around the leaders of the black army.
Someone shouted and threw a powerful fireball at me. I easily deflected it and kept on moving forwards. I landed on the ground, only a couple of steps away from the barrier. At this stage Drayn's ring was pulsing frantically and I had to deflect another couple of fireballs and dodge a bolt of lightening which was hurled at me.
Glancing down at the ring on my finger I gave in to the overwhelming desire in the back of my mind to let Drayn take over, just for minute, just to give him a little bit of freedom, it was reasonable enough and it wasn't fair to keep him locked up like that - he wasn't such a bad guy after all, these were the thoughts pounding around my head as I jumped through the barrier, and then I quickly took control of my mind again, the red hot anger of Drayn's rage at being used the way I used him could have been felt from miles away, and I channelled his anger into streams of molten lave which poured out from my hands, hitting two of the seven mages controlling the energy barriers. Because of the shock of the attack they died instantly, leading to a momentary drop in the shields, which JC and Baram managed to take advantage of to get though them, the others hadn't been quick enough.
Within ten seconds we'd managed to kill the rest of the mages feeding the barriers with energy and without them there the shields collapsed, exposing the three powerful mages and the twelve lesser mages to attack.
But they'd seen what we had done and were ready for us. I threw the staff of Onanis up into the air and pure white light exploded from it, momentarily blinding everyone there, including me. But since I'd been expecting it I used the time to cast lightening spells at everyone of the lesser black mages, killing two of them and further stunning five. Raw energy burst from Baram's staff, directly striking one of the powerful mages in the chest, he flew back a couple of feet and recovered, blasting a stream of acid back at Baram, who managed to dodge most it, however, Joey was right behind her and got hit it, but his shield manages to absorb the acid without him being hurt.
Justin transformed into a dome of fire, surrounding two of the lesser mages and engulfing them in flame. One managed to burst out he side, only to be hit by a telepathic wave from Kevin that transformed his brain into mush. The other wasn't so lucky and burnt to death.
My staff flew back into my hand and I used it to shield the group from rocks that suddenly thundered down from the sky at us. Chris used the opportunity to cast a complex nature spell, green energy crackled and splintered along his fingers and drifted down into the ground. A couple of second's later huge brambles and other thorned plants erupted from under the black mages.
The three more powerful ones jumped up into the air immediately, as did five of the other mages, but three of them clearly didn't have and flying ability and the brambles quickly looped around their legs and body's, tightening around them like snakes, and then pulled them under the soil. As the spell ended Chris wobbled a bit and I put my hand on his arm to support him.
I looked around and saw a huge group of black mages converging on us from every direction, but none were flying, which was handy, I thought. An idea struck and I called Brian over from where he was busy attempting to teleport part of one of the mages bodies. Failing that he shot lightening at the mage instead, while trying to dodge hailstones the size of footballs. Shouting a spell, I threw a sheet of fire over his head and all the hailstones melted and evaporated before they could hit him. The black mage collapsed to the ground and Brian ran over to me.
"What?" He asked, there was no time for niceties.
I sent a telepathic image of what I wanted to do and he grabbed one of my hands, while I held the staff of Onanis in the other. We started to slow time down around the area where we were all fighting, the mages running up to help against us saw this and started to move more quickly, but it was too late, we'd slowed down time enough that to move from inside to outside or vice versa would mean instant death.
The staff of Onanis shook itself from my hand. "I'll protect the two of you, you can keep this spell up by yourselves." He said. Because of the area over which we were trying to control time was so large we couldn't do any other spells at the same time. A moment later, one of the powerful mages, seeing what we were doing charged over and started bombarding the staff's shields with various spells.
The concentration of power was incredible surrounding the staff, and I was amazed by how well it was holding up, its shields hadn't come close to failing yet. And suddenly, while I was watching it, the view twisted, and I could see a beautiful, green landscape, identical to the one that I'd seen when we'd been fighting in the Nevada desert, I wasn't sure what it meant, I'd forgotten to look it up or ask someone about it because of what had happened to Justin a couple of minutes later and because of what had been going on since then.
Finally the staff managed to kill the mage that he was fighting with and looking around I could see that there was only one mage left, and naturally he was one of the powerful ones. Watching him closely, his eyes glowed and he punched through the time change and out into normal time. Brian gave a cry of pain and I grimaced at the disruption to the spell. Brian collapsed to the ground and as he did it took all my power to bring time up to normal without anyone else being hurt.
I grabbed Brian and flew quickly up into the air, looking down I grabbed the group members who couldn't fly telekinetically and pulled them up with me, while telepathically telling the others to get the hell out of there.
Black mages flew quickly up to meet us in the air but they didn't actually try to attack us.
"What's wrong with them?" I asked Baram as she flew beside me.
"It's what I hoped would happen, without people telling them what to do they don't know themselves. Black mages only ever act if they can see something in it for themselves, they don't want to risk their necks now because there's nothing in it for them, and they don't have the mages who were in charge forcing them to do it." Said Baram. "It will be much easier to defeat them now."
Looking down I could see that she was right. The mages who were attacking the mountain weren't attacking with all that much force anymore, some were already starting to run and fly away, and others were being defeated far more easily then normal. We were going to win!
We all flew back through the defence shields and landed beside the main doors. I felt more tired then I had in ages and I could see from the faces of the others that they felt the same. Even Baram, for a second, looked tired and old, before she realised that I was looking. Then she smiled and her whole face was transformed instantly.
"You'd better bring Brian down to the healers. They'll have taken over the Elder Hall at this stage." She said to me. I nodded to her in silence and brought Brian down the hallway to the Elder Hall, where the healers had taken over a corner of it, a relatively small area of the total hall.
One of the healers rushed up to me. "We'll take him from here. You look like you could do with a good nights sleep yourself. Go to bed, others can mop up the rest of the army.
Again I didn't say anything and just nodded and fell asleep on the spot.
When I woke up I was still in the elder hall on one of the beds that had been set up for injured people, there were pink coloured blobs standing over me. When everything swam into focus I could see that the blobs were people, my mother, my sister, a healer and Tim Fowler - my 'student'.
"Good, you're awake." Said the Healer. "Just because you're a black robed mage doesn't mean that you can ignore your body. You over extended yourself, and you paid for it. Just be glad that you didn't collapse in the fight!" She concluded, and the bustled of to deal with someone else.
"Thank God you're alright!" Said my mother. "We were worried sick when we were told what you were getting up to out there!"
"I had to do it." I croaked, my throat was incredibly dry.
"I know that, it doesn't mean that I don't worry though!" She replied.
"I'm glad that you're ok too." Said my sister casually, but I could see that she was very white and I knew that she had been a lot more worried then she was letting on.
My mother glanced at Tim and then said. "Anyway, I've got to talk to Baram about something, I'll be back to see you later." She grabbed my sister by the collar of her top when she was about to say that she wanted to stay, and left.
"Listen, Tom." Started Tim, hesitantly. "When I heard that you were all going out there to fight, I realised that that was where I wanted to be, and I felt so bad that I couldn't use the power that I have to help to protect everyone here." He paused again, taking a breath. "I've got to learn how to use this power I've got and I want you to teach me." He paused again. "And I'm really sorry for the way I acted about you and Justin, I'd no right to say the things that I did and I'm sorry. But that's the way that I feel, and I know that it's wrong and I'll try to change, but I don't think it's going to be easy."
"As long as you know that it's wrong, and you're trying to change, it's ok. And I'll try to teach you. But let me get some sleep?" I asked.
"Sure!" He said, a big grin spreading over his face. "Talk to you later."
As soon as he left I closed my eyes and fell asleep again.
I know that it's not that long - for the months that you were waiting for it, but that's all that I've got time for right now. I don't know how long it's going to be until I can update again, but I've got spring break so I thought I'd write a chapter now.
Make sure and let me know what you think of this chapter! power@utvinternet.ie
Tim.