16 Chapter Sixteen

"Oh yeah. And what brings you here?" I said cockily making the guy chuckle darkly. 'Where is this confidence coming from?' I thought, 'This guy is freaking me out. Calm down. They never attack artras on earth..... Do they?' I thought as my confidence started wavering.

"I have always admired the confidence and greatly detested the arrogance of the Sieges that have come to pass. They never understand that a title is just that. A mere title. In the end, they all fall. Just like your predecessors, you too will fall," his voice boomed across the halls.

"What's your name anyway?" I spoke calmly trying to use the last wavering confidence I had left.

"How rude of me? I am Texan of the Seven Dark mages. And it is I who controls the Great White Wolf, but you can call it Black now," he spoke.

"Without your dragon, you the six of you don't even stand a chance against us," Texan bellowed.

"So what? You came to fight a one-eyed man," I shouted at him.

"We shall meet again soon Siege. And when we do, you shall then know the true extent of my power," he said before vanishing in a swirl of grey smoke.

Time resumed and motion returned to normal. My head was buzzing with so many questions that I left my feet in auto-pilot and went into a daze. What was with his time magic? Was it so thick that nothing could move? It was only now that I noticed something different in his spell from mine. Regardless of the sinister bone-chilling feeling that his magic came with, his time spell was so well refined and powerful. It made mine look like child's play. I had a feeling if I had tried freezing time it would have no effect on him. And why could I move? Had he intended that I be the only one who could move? At that moment, it felt like I was at his mercy. Like he could will me to freeze just like anything else he had under his spell. I was so stuck in thought I hadn't noticed myself placing my head into my locker to block out the noises. And as a result of this, I also didn't notice my friends waiting for me. How long had it been? Lunch had only just begun.

"Someone ran out on us. Rather in a hurry if you ask me," I faintly heard Ciara's frustrated voice from outside the cool environment of the locker I had buried my head into. Feeling a hand grab my shirt from the back, I was pulled out of the locker faster than I could react and was slammed into the locker beside mine. "What have I told you about using your time powers," Ciara growled in my ears. Stars started to form in my eyes as the air was knocked straight out of my lungs and a sharp pain rushed up to my spine. 'Damn,' I thought closing my eyes and feeling the sudden chill that came from Ciara's stare. This really confirmed that she did it on purpose.

I finally caught my breath and let my eyes slowly open to see my four friends standing around me. They all looked quite pissed with my disappearing act. With all that had happened, it hadn't even crossed my mind that the small trivial matter of me vanishing in the middle of the cafeteria was much of a problem considering one of the Seven Dark mages had just shown up in our school hallway. We were in that position with Ciara having me pinned against a locker for what seemed like forever when she spoke up again.

"Why are you sweating?" she asked causing me to start looking myself up. I hadn't even noticed that I had been sweating. Come to think of it, I was shivering a bit. "What happened?" she asked when she finally realised that it was not a mere disappearing act that I had just pulled in the cafeteria.

"He called himself," I paused before finishing, "Texan."

"No," was all Ciara could say before her face took on a different expression. Fear, "Impossible," she continued. She was losing it. She let go of me and leaned against a locker with a look of despair on her face.

"Ummm, Ciara. Who is Texan?" Isaac asked her (quite nervous himself) considering none of us had ever seen her like this before.

"One of the Seven Dark mages," she said still in her trance.

I didn't really get it. Why was Ciara so frightened by this. I agree it was dreadful news, but couldn't people from Armensia come to our world just like we could go to theirs. Come to think of it, it had never occurred to me. Bergstrom had tried explaining in one of our lunch lessons, but give me a break, even Bergstrom became boring when went all history teacher on me. 'Great, I had to go and lose my focus in a class that actually affected my life right now.

'Kevin stop time,' I had Ciara's voice in my head as she showed us through the halls and into an empty classroom. I did as she had asked and even proceeded to release all my friends from their frozen states. We waited three minutes(or no time at all) for Ciara to compose herself before she began her explanation. "We all know that the power of the artras is passed on from generation to generation and almost stays within three families mainly those of the original Siege, Alpha and Homage. One might wonder why the Seven Dark wizards sit around waiting for the next generation to get strong enough."

"Oh yeah. It would have been easier for them to dispose of us before we grew powerful," Isaac interrupted thoughtfully.

"Well, the answer is simple. When a generation of artras comes to the final decision that they cannot finish this war with the dark mages, they perform a ritual. Their final spell thickens the boundary between Armensia and Armenville. It is the one that protects us from the Dark mages as we grow up. This barrier lasts a long time and is the reason the people of Armenville have survived this long without even knowing that magic is real," Ciara explained everything about the barrier although the whole time I felt distracted. Something was bothering me.

It was not long ago that I found out my mind is not always straightforward. Sometimes I would figure something out unconsciously and the problem would have to be accessing it. But one thing was for sure. What was bothering me was bad news. As if today was not bad news enough. "Then how did…" I started.

"I don't know how to. It's supposed to be impossible. Maybe there was a breach. Or the mages actually got strong enough," she rambled on frustrated.

"Huh. You sure you saw him, Kevin?" Jacob asked. I didn't even try to hide my anger from the obvious implications of his accusation. Turning slowly so that I was looking him straight in the eye.

"Come again," I said in a low and threatening voice. I wasn't one to start fights, but this wasn't a situation I could take lightly. Jacob hadn't been with me when I faced the mage. He didn't even have an idea how it felt to stare death straight in the eye and come out unscathed only because you were either lucky or you weren't the target.

"I'm just saying. It's not like it would be the first time," he said and at this point, I was stalking him while he stepped back.

"Do you even know how dire the situation was, you idiot?" I yelled and was about to lunge at him when Kendall tackled me to the ground and restrained me in one of his annoyingly effective holds.

"Let me go, Kendall," I yelled fuming.

"No, Kevin. We cannot afford to fight among ourselves in a time," he replied calmly.

"Then tell that to the bastard who thinks this is all some sick joke," I yelled back just before getting out of his grip and heading straight for Jacob who had given us a space of around seven metres.

This time Kendall caught up to me when I was only a metre from Jacob. Delivering a spear to my side that sent the two of us rolling the floor wrestling for an upper hand in this fight. Unfortunately, Kendall was able to restrain me again and this time he managed to hold me till I was done seething. " You okay?" He asked calmly. I nodded my head and he released me from his hold. Getting up and stretching out my sore muscles from struggling under Kendall's hold. I walked past Jacob only to whisper, "Keep this up and Kendall might not be there the next time."

After that little entertainment, I walked out of the classroom releasing my hold on time as I reached the threshold and blocking out any of the calls my friends were giving me. I needed to walk this off. Unfortunately for me, I had classes to go through first.

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