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Slayers GD: Generation of the Dragon ©

Book 1: The Assassin Strikes

A fan fiction by Behemel

"Aw crud," I said, "Not another D!"

I hated astral classes. Don't get me wrong. I loved magic, but every time I tried to use a spell like Shadow Snap I'd screw up. The test we were taking was for the study of using magic upon the astral plane. My worst subject. The written part I did well, but when I performed it, I guess I didn't use enough energy or focus. The spell was to nail a knife into a shadow and immobilize a person. Instead, the knife appeared on my own shadow. The entire class laughed at me!

I should have thrown a fireball at them.

"Why! Why me!"

"Didn't you practice?" Master Zolis asked. I had stayed after class to discuss my grades with him. Even though I wanted to be a full-fledged sorcerer, magic school can be a drag at times. "Practice makes perfect, you know."

"Yeah, yeah," I groaned, slumping forward a bit. "But I got most of the questions right on the written test. How could I still get a D just because I failed in performance?"

The old priest scratched his chin for a moment. "To know something is important, but testing your knowledge in real-life situations is important as well."

I grumbled again, holding the knife I conjured from my failed spell. I was more skilled in shamanic magic and black magic. I had put a lot of effort in my studies; however Shadow Snap was not an easy feat for me.

"You shouldn't really worry. It was just one test," my teacher reassured.

"Okay. If you'll excuse me sir," I said and quickly left the room.

I suppose I should mention where my school was. The sorcerer's academy that I'm attending is located near the heart of Saillune, practically next door to the royal palace grounds. What made this town a great place for the academy was for two reasons. One, the city's layout itself was the shape of a giant hexagram, which represented the balance of power and increased White magic spells. Also, the royal council greatly supports the school, making it a great place for young sorcerers to learn sorcery.

I strolled down the hall for my next class. Alchemy, another brain strainer because of all the mathematics involved. Just to be clear, it wasn't as if I was dumb or anything. But sometimes my studies can have bad... side effects. In my first year, I studied like mad. I found every spell I could get my hands on. And then at the end of my first year, I kind of did something I sort of regret. I cast a teeny, tiny, itty-bitty Dragon Slave spell on the school gymnasium. In my defense, gym class was more of a hindrance. They should have thanked me for blowing it up, not scold me just because it wasn't my favorite class.

From time to time as I practiced my spells, I had accidentally caused some property damage. Not as big, but still. What's the point of learning magic if you can't test your skills?

Come on here. Throw me a freakin' bone!

As I approached Alchemy class, I heard someone call my name.

"Oh Zane! Zaaaannee!"

I wished someone had reduced me to a pile of ash just to avoid who it was. The overly cheerful voice caused me to stop in my tracks as I turned around. To my horror, it was Cassandra. She held her books in her arms as she ran up to me with her smug little smile. I bet she loved to torture me this way.

Cassandra was one of the high ranked students in my class. She was skilled in the white magic and was an expert in Alchemy class. I remembered having to gravel at her feet to help me with demonic synthesis. Okay, gravel is pushing it a bit. But it was not fun having her poke fun at my poor points.

"Hi Cassandra," I replied slowly.

She had long blond hair and wore a snug white priestess robe that hung off her. She smiled at me with another one of her playful looks. "Another failed spell again? Tee hee!"

"Oh, sure. What a way to kick me while I'm down!" I grumbled as she walked aside me. "Do you like seeing me mess up?"

"Of course not," she chirped, making me roll my eyes. She then spotted the knife I still held in my hands. "Strange though. A Shadow Snap knife usually disappears after an hour or so. Its weird how yours doesn't." She almost sounded intrigued.

Truth was, I never really thought of that. It just always happened. I was slightly intrigued myself now to listen to her.

"I bet their trophies of your failed spells. You probably have a lot of them," She chirped again in her cheery voice.

OUCH! Now that hurt! I couldn't believe I actually thought that girl would give me a compliment so easily. I bet she loved seeing me steam.

"Are you trying to get me mad?" I asked in a raised voice.

She appeared shocked and shook her head. "Oh no. I don't mean to infuriate you," she said.

Okay. So she's not mean. Just annoying!

No sooner had we entered the Alchemy lab, we got to our seats, Cassandra sitting next to me. As soon as all the other students got to their seats, our teacher Master Krots entered. To our surprise when we first met, he was a beast-man, a brown werewolf. He looked kind of funny all dressed in his red robe with glasses on his mussel.

"Okay class. Today we are going to finish our work on containment artifacts. For you non-listeners, they are objects that hold one spell that can be released upon contact." The werewolf then took out a small red stone from behind his desk and placed it down. "Now everyone get out their stones and cast your spells on it. Nothing large, I'll remind you."

Funny though that professor Krots's eyes came to me as I listened. In case I failed to mention, I had a bad track record for small spells. As his gaze went away, I took out our stone. It was a brilliant blue flat gem that Cassandra and I had made together. Inside was a hexagram, the focus where the spell was to be sent.

"Okay," Cassandra said as she reviewed her notes of what we did to make the thing. She then looked at the hexagram, checking to make sure our work was correct. "I think we're finished all the touches of our work. Of course, this is my best class and reason I got the high honor roll!"

If you get high honor roll for being a know-it-all smarty-pants, then you blew them all away.

"Now all we need is the spell," Cassandra said simply.

And then boys and girls, I jumped into action. "I'll do it," I answered immediately.

She didn't listen. She just ignored me on purpose. She placed a finger on her chin and looked at the ceiling as if in deep thought. I caught the look of dread on her face. "Hm, what spell should I put on it?"

Okay, now I was pissed.

"Come on, let me!" I said.

"Healing... no. Probably lighting..."

"HEY!" I practically shouted, grabbing her attention. "I said I could do the spell!"

A sweat drop dripped from her face as she gave a nervous chuckle. "Are you sure? I can do it myself."

"Let me repeat: I'll. Do. It," I spelled out for her.

Giving a shrug, she pushed the stone before me. As if to silently give her opinion, she pushed her chair a small distance away from me as soon as she gave me the stone. She was making me feel as if I was some sort of monster or something.

With a small sour look at her, I placed my hands onto the stone and chanted my spell. My hands glowed with a reddish light as I focused my spell into the sealed crystal. Cassandra listened as I chanted, recognizing the spell right off the bat.

"Um Zane," she asked to be sure she heard right, "What was that spell?"

Not looking at her, I removed my hands as the red light disappeared into the stone. "Nothing big. Just a fireball."

"A FIREBALL!?"

I immediately looked to her and held my finger to my mouth, telling her to hush up. "Say it a little louder, why don't ya. I don't think Master Krots heard you," I hissed.

"Actually, I did."

My gaze narrowed and a nervous sensation shot up my spine. I turned to who said that. To my left, standing right next to our table shadowed the beastly werewolf, Mater Krots. He had his arms folded across his chest and looked down at me, his gaze peering through the corner of his glasses. "A fireball, Zane?" he asked in a calm, yet crossed tone.

A footnote: Never, ever give a werewolf with a grade book a reason to get angry with you.

I gave a nervous chuckle at my teacher, seeing the unyielding, wolf-like nature in his eye. "Is that all you cast?" he asked clearly.

I nodded vigorously. "Yes sir, I swear," I said simply.

His gaze remained at me for a moment. Then with a huff, he stepped away back to check on the other students' work. I turned to Cassandra. She too looked uneasy. I couldn't tell weather it was because of our werewolf teacher or me.

"Are you sure you don't want me to do the test run on it?" she asked me wearily.

That answered my question.

"I can do it," I said grumpily.

Before long, everyone was at the back of the lab. Master Krots had put up a barrier near the back of the room so any misfires or destructive spells would be contained. All of us now waited for the first instructions.

"Now class," Master Krots said strictly, "You are to place your containment stones into the field and unleash the spells you've placed in them." He waved for one of the students into the field and he stepped in. The kid put the stone onto the ground and quickly stepped out of the glow of the barrier.

"Unlock!" he spoke. With a glow, a ball of bright light flashed into existence from the charm.

"Excellent," Krots complimented as the student retrieved his expelled charm. "Next."

My classmates had cast pretty simple spells. Nothing creative though. Most of the charms held spells like healing and lighting, and the small fireball or two. Then, it was my turn. Cautiously, I stepped into the field and dropped the stone onto the floor. As I turned back, I saw that Cassandra had back away to the rear of the group. That girl had an unconscious way of ticking me off. As I stepped out of the field, everyone as well took a step away except for the barrier.

What am I, a calamity upon humanity!?

"Go on Zane," Krots said simply, the only one who hadn't backed away. "Unleash the spell." At least Master Krots wasn't afraid.

Acting carefully, I held my hands in the direction of the field and focused on the charm. "Unlock!" The gem let out a red glow and quickly let lose a small amount of flame. Or at least that's what should have happened.

Upon activation, the red glow grew bigger and bigger in size, quickly filling up the space within the enclosed field. Truth was I hadn't anticipated the fireball spell to be that powerful. It shouldn't have been. A loud hum echoed through the room, causing everyone to take a step back including me. Flickers of flame could be seen as the light filled up the space of the field and then it happened.

KA-BOOM!!!

Smoke swept through the room, casting everyone into a coughing fit. I remained very, very still as if mortified by what I'd done. The smoke soon cleared and to my horror. In the back of the room, a large hole had appeared through the wall, smoldering smoke from it. The warding field on the ground had been reduced to smudges on the floor. And the worse case of all, stood next to me.

I was thankful that the warding spell somehow diverted most of the damage to the wall, because standing before me was my teacher. Specks of black soot were dotted upon his fur and smoke trailed off his robe. His red robe had several burns along it, making his overall appearance a complete mess. His teeth showed as he looked at me with crossed eyes. A growl softly escaped his lips. I swear I saw him shaking in pent up anger.

This is not good,

_ _ Voicing his growl, he angrily pointed to the door. It wasn't a hard guess. I knew exactly where he was sending me. And another mark on my track record.

The elegant room glistened with the sunlight coming through the stain glass windows. The delicate decoration of the chamber seemed almost holy. I stood in the center before a wooden desk. Sitting behind it was an old lady in a white and gold priestess robe with her staff near her side. She appeared harmless at the time.

"NOT ANOTHER ONE!" she shouted at me with a booming voice.

Okay, almost harmless...

_ _ Her voice caused me to cringe at her tone. She wrote down something on a form, her movements of the pen furious. "We had hoped that this time of devastation would be kept to a minimum, Zane. And every time, EVERY TIME you have always exceeded our expectations!"

I gave a nervous chuckle, hoping to put my cunning to work and turn my trouble around. "Well," I said with a smile, "I'm happy to except your praise, ma'am--."

The base of her pen suddenly snapped as she was writing from gripping too hard. She banged the table as she quickly stood up. "I'M NOT PRAISING YOU!" she scolded.

That plan backfired. Where does the old lady get all this energy? Geez...

I decided then to keep my mouth shut for a moment as she steamed. Slowly she sat herself back down at her desk and placed her broken pen to the side. "As headmistress of the sorcery academy, you know I cannot let such actions go unpunished," she breathed calmly.

"But headmistress," I spoke out to prove my innocence. Okay, innocence probably was the wrong image to go with. "It was an accident. All I cast was a fireball and it just violently blew up. I didn't mean to blow a hole in the wall."

"THAT'S WHAT FIREBALLS DO!" she shouted again.

I lowered my head to yield to her criticism. I couldn't understand it. The barrier in Professor Krots's class was designed to keep spells contained inside. Even though it wasn't build to uphold super destructive spells, a fireball could only do so much damage. Then again, I the strength of a fireball spell differ from the person using it. Even so, mine shouldn't have the power to break a warding barrier and cause enough damage to blow up the Alchemy lab.

I'm starting to think I'm a jinks here...

Taking off her glasses for a moment and rubbing the clean, the headmistress, Ms. Magdalene looked at me with her blue eyes and sighed. "Zane," she said calmly, "I'm assigning you to help Master Krots clean up the Alchemy lab, starting this afternoon. On top of that, you are to report to him for detention for the remainder of the week. Do you understand?"

"Yes ma'am."

I turned around and headed for the door. Just as I was about to turn the doorknob, I stopped hesitantly. I turned back to Ms. Magdalene, who now looked back to the papers on her desk.

"Headmistress," I asked hesitantly. She drew her gaze towards me. My gaze slightly trembled before her. "I just wanted to let you know, that the spell I cast was indeed a common fireball. Let alone it was within a warding field. I'm not lying to you." I caught a glimmer of, what surprised me concern and sincerity in her eyes. "Good day."

I easily left the room and closed the door behind me. As I walked to face the music with Master Krots, I couldn't help but think that there was something wrong with me. Why did my magic always go array in power and strength. When I blew up the gymnasium, I had gotten wind of a couple of people that talked about me. That at my age of twelve, I was able to pull off the strongest spell a human being could wield. It had taken grown men years to learn it. I couldn't explain it.

Don't get a swelled head there, Zane.

Then, as I moved out of the grand hall into the normal school building, I ran into that overly cheerful, scorch from the bowls of hell itself, Cassandra again. "Bet she gave you something baaaad!" she teased.

Never fireball a girl! Never fireball a girl!

Too bummed and too tired to respond, I simply walked past her. I'd given up trying to outwit her for one day. She abruptly followed me as I made my way to the Alchemy lab.

"Let me guess," she quipped, "She made you go and rebuild the lab, didn't she?"

Again, I kept quiet.

She tried to look me in the eye as I kept my gaze to the floor.

"Would you like me to help you?" she asked simply. Her words grabbed me by surprise and I stopped.

Cassandra? OFFERING her help?! I'm dreaming! The bane of my sanity is actually helping me here!

_ _ Still with the gloomy look on my face, to not give off my surprise, I turned around towards her. "What's the catch?" I asked, checking to make sure of her sincerity.

"No catch at all. I just want to know if you want any help," she replied.

I was caught off guard. After a moment to think it over, I released a small sigh of relief. "Thank you," I said hesitantly, "That's very nice of you."

Cassandra gave a small smile. "Of course, I'm nice," she said cheerfully, "Do I look like the sinister type?"

I had to admit, she'd put a smile on my face. It was what I needed after all. Walking along side her, we headed back to Master Krots class. She was actually kind of nice. I might have been wrong about her after all.

"So, how bad did she say you screwed up their budget? I'd hate for her to cancel any clubs to repay the damages."

I fell over.

I WAS RIGHT! AAUUGH!

_ _

The sunlight of the late afternoon shined through the windows and the gaping hole in the wall as Master Krots and I tried to clean up the place. I had shooed away Cassandra after she insulted me again. I swear the girl was hardheaded. Master Krots did the small work like sweeping and cleaning the soot off his desk and left me the grunt work. I was pushing rubble aside and moving the desks and chairs to the side of the room. After a while he did help me with the heavy lifting. It was actually good at time to have a teacher who wasn't human.

After the two of us hauled a box of heavy equipment to the side of the room, my werewolf teacher gave a sigh and wiped some sweat from his furry brow. "Whew, this is surely a workout for an afternoon, wouldn't you say?" Krots asked me. I just gave a grumbled hum in response.

I had to admit, I admired Master Krots as a teacher. He was always the kind of guy you could share a good laugh with. Besides, I always try to keep on my teachers' good sides. Don't give me that look. So one or two explosions in their class, I'm a nice guy. Really!

Just at that moment, returning to pay my dept to the destruction I caused kind of made me gloomy again. As I went to lift another box over to his desk, he gave me an almost sympathetic look.

"Zane," Master Krots said, "Come on, cheer up a little. You're acting as if it's the end of the world."

"I'm just tired of getting into trouble because my spells are so strong," I wallowed as I heaved up a box from the ground. In my stubborn state, I didn't know it was so heavy and at the time I didn't seem to care. "It was an accident, Master Krots! I'm sorry!"

At that time, Master Krots ran up to me with his impressive speed and grabbed the box from my hands. He took it himself and granted me relief of the heavy load. "I know it was Zane," he said kindly, an almost soothing tone of voice. "But none the less, you are responsible for your actions. You know that right?"

I rolled my eyes. Of course I knew! I always took responsibility for what misdeeds I did. I never tried to wheedle out of a detention or anything. "I do. I just want to be a great sorcerer. What's the point of learning these great spells if I never get a chance to use them?" I asked.

"From what I know of offensive spells, like the ones you like to show off," Master Krots said as he easily placed the heavy box onto his desk. "Is that you know them in hopes that you never have to use them. To defend yourself."

I cocked a look at him, his back facing me. "Defend myself from what?" I asked.

He didn't answer right away. In fact, he stood there for a second frozen as if he'd stepped on a poisonous scorpion. He then turned around to me, giving me a carefree look. "Oh, you know... just bad people... out there," he said cautiously, ending with a nervous chuckle.

Not very convincing, teach.

_ _ I cast a suspicious glance at him; not knowing what he insinuated with that little comment. Before I could push the envelope any further on the subject, Master Krots headed for the door. "Excuse me," he said calmly, "I must use the rest room for a moment." Acting quickly, he stepped out of the room and went down the hall.

As I heard his footsteps fade away, I stuck my head out of the lab. With a look up and down the hall, the coast was now clear, allowing me to do my magic. Stepping out into the hall, I turned back to the doorway and the view of the ruined room inside.

Cupping my hand as if to hold a ball I chanted a small spell under my breath. As I gave a small exhale of focus, a small ball of white light appeared in my hand. It was a little white magic trick I used when I was asked to clean my dorm room. One of my original spells. With a small toss, the ball of white light fluttered into the room as if it was a fairy's soul.

As it reached inside, it released a strong flash and covered the room in its glow. The light faded away, and I let out a smile of victory. The spell had worked better than I'd hoped. The room was completely spotless. The tables and desks were all back in their original places. The shelves were in place and not a single scorch mark was left on the walls or floor. What really surprised me was that the hole in the wall was completely gone. It was as if nothing had happened in there. I felt a little nervous. Obviously, Master Krots would know well that I had used magic to clean the room.

"Zane," I heard his voice.

And the garbage has hit the fan.

_ _ Walking towards me was indeed Krots, back from his bathroom break. "What are you doing out here?" he asked as he approached the room. I was about to convince him to come back later but he simply walked around me and looked inside.

A gasp of surprise came from him as he observed the clean room. He almost looked frightened as he saw it. Slowly he turned to me. Not with a look of scorn, but amazement. "Did you do this?" he asked me like a whisper. I nodded slowly.

After a spooky moment of silence, Master Krots cleared his throat with a small cough. "Well then, ahem, I believe then we are done with the clean up here," he said, reverting to his kind expression. "Why don't you go up for dinner now? You've worked hard enough."

I had to admit, I was a little hesitant to the way he was acting. It was almost suspicious. "Okay," I said simply and walked towards the cafeteria, "Goodnight sir." Heading for the cafeteria, I couldn't help but think that Master Krots was hiding something from me. As soon as I was about to become paranoid about it all, the sound of my growling stomach saved me from the headache. I quickly rushed for the dinner hall.

After dinner, I went strait up to my room in the priest's dorm. Stashing a bag of cookies I salvaged from the desert table away, I immediately headed for my desk. Under the framework was a thin drawer. I had magically locked the draw. It was common among sorcerers to keep their spells and discoveries secret. My journal held everything I learned and came up with to aid my magic studies. Many go about hoping to steal one another's work. Garbage like that always got me steamed.

Disenchanting the lock, I opened the draw to reveal a light-tanned journal with a gold engraving on it, supposedly Ceiphied the dragon god. Hastily, I grabbed the book and flopped onto my bed. I opened the book to the last of my entries.

I had a dream, a dream that drove me to learn as much about magic as I could and beyond. I had read of great sorcerers, like Rei Magnus and Lina Inverse. The powers they invoked and accomplished left their marks on history for all time. My dream was to one day surpass them all. To be the greatest sorcerer of all time.

I wrote into my book like a poet in possession of a hundred muses. Casting a lighting spell up towards the ceiling, a sphere of light lit my room. Time passed unnoticed to me. The late afternoon quickly turned to night as I continued to write and draw diagrams for my spells.

Taking a moment to look back at one of my favorite notes, I found a part with the incantations and description of one of the most powerful spells in shamanistic magic. It was Rei Magnus's spell called the Blast Bomb. Only three sorcerers in history have ever cast this spell. Rei Magnus, who invented the spell, a mysterious priest, which had hardly any information about him, not even a name, and Lina Inverse. She had existed two hundred years ago, but her adventures are told far and wide as a legend.

Anyway, the Blast Bomb was a spell I practiced when I ever got the chance to test it (Particularly away from public property). I never got so much of a flicker of light from my attempts. I just knew if I could find a way to cast that spell, I could at least come close to my idols in magic. It was probably strong enough to damage a dragon with a direct hit.

Okay, now that's my imagination running away from me. Hey! Get back here!

According to my research, it required a large amount of magic capacity in order for spells like that to work. That always brought me down. I'd practice spell casting exercised in order to slowly develop a stronger magic capacity, but it hadn't gotten very far yet. Nonetheless, the Blast Bomb was my most favorite spell.

Before I knew it, lost in my creative frenzy, I began to feel tired and my eyes felt heavy with exhaustion. It had been a trying day. With my book still clutched in my hands, I curled up to my pillow and rested my head for a moment. The magic light I had cast finally faded out and left the room dark. The only light came from the window as the clouds passed over the full moon.

Too comfy on my bed, I closed my book and held it close as I felt myself drift off. As I was only seconds from passing out, I imagined myself in the midst of a magnificent battle. Looking as dramatic as a superhero, I pictured what I imagined Blast Bomb would look like. There I would be, standing high on a cliff with a band of bandits below me. With the release of my words, I imagined several spheres of light would crash towards the ground on which the thieves stood. Upon impact, the spheres released a devastating blast.

KA-BOOOOOM!!!

"I didn't do it!" I shouted as I shot up from my bed.

Sorry, reflex.

The sound of an actual explosion completely woke me, and probably everyone else who was smart enough to react to a giant eruption like that. I could hear the sounds of shouts from the rooms next to me as I looked around in a panic. At first, I thought that I might have actually blown up something as I dreamt the Blast Bomb spell but the glow outside my window told me otherwise.

I quickly pulled myself out of my bed and rushed to the window. At the front gate of the courtyard, the entrance was engulfed with smoke and flame. I was surprised to say the least. It was actually the first time I actually witnessed some act of terrorism. But why would anyone attack a school of all things, even in the sorcery capital.

At that moment, the headmistress's voice came out of nowhere with an announcement. "Attention all students, everyone is to stay within their dormitories until further notice! Please remain calm and stay within your rooms! Teachers will come to check on you momentary!"

Remaining as calm as I could with such a disaster playing outside, I kept looking at the gateway covered in flames. Just then a thought came to me. Why would someone try to attack an entranceway of all places? Any idiot would think to go after bigger game if they wanted to. They would try to blow up the temple or maybe one of the dorms and cause a mass number of deaths in the process. So why did, whoever did it, blow up the place of the least importance. I came up with only one conclusion.

A distraction!

Leaning closer to the window, I saw several shapes running from and to the place of the ruined gate. Just then, I sensed a slight presence close by. It was faint and I almost missed it, but just the feel of it sent a chill down my spine. Still looking out of the window, the presence continued to creep closer. I might have imagined it, but the sensation that crept up on me spelled a sinister nature. Unable to ignore the approaching presence, I quickly stepped back from the window.

It was a good thing I actually paid attention to sensing presences in gym class, because at that moment it saved my life. No sooner had I back away from the window, a silver streak of light flashed and shattered the window to pieces. I gave a silent shout as the glass hit the ground and saw who stood before me.

There, a black figure stepped onto the windowsill. He stood there, hidden within the shade of the black clouds behind him. The figure was completely clothed in black, except for his eyes. His eyes glowed with a stern yet feral gleam, as he looked right at me. In his hand was an assassin's dagger.

I stood there with gritted teeth and a frightened stare as I was face to face with; whom I assumed exploded the gate.

"Zane Cosmon," he said in a deep, almost calm tone of voice. His eyes narrowed at me. "I've come for you."

I'm screwed! Officially screwed!

Chapter 2: Practice makes Perfect

You know how you wake up from a nightmare? You panic, relieved to know it wasn't real and then go back to sleep? Yeah, none of that happened here.

Wide-awake, I stood in silent horror as a black-shrouded freak stood before me. The assassin eyed me with steely eyes. Why in the nine hells my body refused to move while my brain told me to run was beyond me. He took a step closer.

"Do not try to resist," he spoke in his cool-as-ice tone, "and be honored to be at the mercy of my claws."

Claws?

Looking closer at the assassin, I noticed his stature looked most peculiar. Then I noticed that the shape of his face seemed pointy. But what really tipped me off was what I saw next. Sticking from behind his mask were two ears near the top of his head and behind him, I caught a glimpse of a bushy tail.

My breathing hitched. He was a beast man, a ninja werewolf.

"I know who you are..." I said in barely a whisper.

He heard me without fail. "You do?" he asked as his eyes narrowed at me. His voice gave a small hint of intrigue.

"You're..." A small silence hung between us, as if my words would spur his attack. And then, I said it.

"...The Big Bad Wolf!" I proclaimed aloud and pointed at him.

The werewolf assassin almost fell over, taken aback by my words. As he regained his stance, he glared back at me. "No," he rasped, perhaps to hold back a growl. "My name is Alpha."

"Sorry," I corrected jokingly, "Alpha the Big Bad Wolf."

This time he did fall over.

The guy seriously lacks a sense of humor.

_ _ The werewolf ninja quickly got back to his feet. The guy looked as if steam would come out of his ears. "No!" he growled angrily, "It's Alpha! Just Alpha!"

"Okay, Just Alpha," I kidded again. I couldn't help it. I loved the idea to see the bad guys steam. I'm the laugh-in-the-face-of-evil kind of guy. "Tell me, were you the one who blew up the main gate?"

Alpha nodded his masked mussel. "It removed the hassle with dealing with the royal guards to get here," he said in his calm tone again. "Now, are you going to come quietly or..."

Like hell I will!

Before he'd finished talking, I jumped for the door. I sprinted and reached the doorknob, but as soon as I turned it, something shot across my right flank. Now, lodged in between the door and the wall was a throwing dart, nailing the door shut. I pulled at the door but it would not open. After three or four frantic tugs, I slowly turned around. There stood Alpha where he was before. In one paw he held two more darts and he waved a finger at me with the other, acting as if he caught a little kid with his hand in a cookie jar.

Okay, time for plan B.

_ _ I quickly began chanting a spell under my breath. In a dramatic motion, I crossed my arms across my chest and then threw forth my hands as I felt power come to me. A ball of fiery light appeared between my palms. "Fireball!" I shouted.

I threw the ball towards the masked werewolf. My aim was right on target. Then, like a rotten slot machine when you think you're about to score the jackpot, he lunged out of the way with impressive speed. The fireball simply continued forward and shot out the broken window.

Alpha, just like any werewolf had surprising inhuman speed. As soon as he dodged the fireball, he jumped off a wall and made a sprint towards me. With the relatively narrow room, I didn't have many ways to maneuver. Then, with a bright idea, I chanted another spell.

And yes, I indeed meant bright!

_ _ "Lighting!"

With a shout, I shoved my hand towards Alpha as he shot towards me. A quick, blinding flash of light erupted from my hand. A small note here, the lighting spell can become brighter in exchange for a shorter duration of time. In this case, I used the lighting spell for only one second, producing one hell of a flash. It's a good thing to use to cripple an opponent's sight. As I expected, I heard the werewolf ninja's shout of surprise as the light flashed.

When I opened my eyes, I found the werewolf had leapt back with a hand clamped over his peepers. I knew that it wouldn't last long. No matter what light does to an opponent, a flash is a flash. Nothing more. It only bought a little time.

And a little time was all I got. No sooner had he taken that jump back, he removed his paw from his eyes and ran at me again, this time with his sword in hand. I lunged towards the broken window, but as soon as I tried he darted across the room right in front of me. I gave a small gasp. His eyes were still shut, barely open at all. Was he following me by sound, or smell? Whatever physical abilities this guy had, they were really hard-core.

Now standing before me, I chanted another spell. He now stood in the perfect place for me to trap him. With my hands out, I shouted my spell. "Chaos String!" Threads of light appeared around the room. Throwing my hands towards Alpha, the strings quickly flew through the air. Like lightning, the thin strings of light wrapped their way around Alpha's body, arms, and legs. The ends of the strings quickly strapped to the floor like bolted chains as I finished throwing my arms about to direct the spell's movements. Within seconds, he'd been completely tangled in a bind of lighted thread.

"Ha!" I couldn't help but laugh, as he stood wrapped in my spell. "Got you!"

As I gave a small confident smile, Alpha finally opened his eyes. He still had his steely gaze placed on me and my smile faded. "You must be joking," he said calmly. The guy was really starting to creep me out, to say the least. Then in the blink of an eye, three quick, silver flashes cut through the dark room. As they ended, Alpha stood with his arm free of the Chaos String's hold with his dagger in hand. A few seconds later, the strings of light that had once bound him suddenly shattered into shards of light and faded away.

I felt like hitting myself. I'd had forgot one key detail about Chaos String. It was a weak, crappy spell. It could be easily broken.

"Is that it?" he said in a dark growl and held his assassin's dagger at me. "Surely you can do better than that."

Sure... If I wanted to blow the hell of us to kingdom come!

I could have done some heavy-duty spells on my attacker. The problem was that they were too dangerous to use in an enclosed space like my room. Plus, the other students in the dorms could get hurt in the crossfire. I was running out of options fast.

Just then came a rather hard knock at my door. "Zane? Zane!? Are you in there?!" Master Zolis called out from behind the door.

I glanced at the door, about to yell for his help. Before I could shout for him, Alpha made another sprint for me. I looked at the running werewolf ninja with horror as I held out my hands to stop him. I felt energy run through my body as I prepared a spell to divert him. "Flare Bit!"

Several balls of light appeared around me, and then shot out at Alpha's path. The balls erupted in a blast and hit Alpha hard. Score! With a cloud of smoke, the assassin werewolf was thrown to the back of the room and towards the broken window. He appeared stunned, but quickly got to his feet.

At that moment after my spell had made a rather loud boom, the door behind me came down as Master Zolis broke it down. He stopped a short distance as he caught sight of Alpha before him and me. "Who are you? Halt!"

Just then, Alpha glanced at Master Zolis, and then back to me, as if in conflict of what to do. Then he gave me a look, as if silently saying 'another time.'

"Dark Mist," Alpha spoke. And then, there was darkness.

I couldn't see a thing. So not only was he a kick-butt ninja, but he could use magic too?! That just sucked! As I walked about to find a way out of the inky fog, it lifted as quickly as it came. I jerked around to find that Master Zolis and I were still in one piece within my trashed room. As the two of us looked around, Alpha was nowhere to be seen. He had escaped under the cover of the Dark Mist spell.

Quickly rushing over to me, Master Zolis grasped my shoulders with concern. "Zane, are you okay? What happened?" he asked with an extremely stressed tone.

"I'm fine," I said a little shaken up. What do you expect I'd feel after getting a house call at night from a psycho assassin?

At that moment, Master Krots and the headmistress came running through my ruined doorway. Ms. Magdalene looked around the room with utter shock. "What happened here?" she gasped as she observed the smash window and blast marks on the floor. Soon enough, her gaze came to me. A mix of confusion, worry and slight aggravation was on her face.

"Zane, did you do this?" Master Krots asked in slight shock.

Thanks for the third-degree, teach!

_ _ "No! It wasn't me!" I proclaimed in almost a shout.

Master Zolis came from behind me and approached the headmistress and Master Krots. "Headmistress, an intruder broke into his room," Zolis explained calmly. The gazes of all three teachers came to me again. Whatever was happening, I didn't like where it was going one bit.

The hour was now past midnight as I now sat back in the headmistress's office. The night revealed the true beauty of the stain glass windows as I sat there. Around me were several of the teachers, including Master Krots and Master Zolis. The headmistress sat behind her desk with her staff close at hand.

"Master Zolis said an intruder had broken into your room," Ms. Magdalene asked with a slightly concerned look. "Is this true?"

I nodded meekly. "Yes, ma'am," I held my breath as I looked around me at the teachers. I couldn't quite put my finger down on it, but this must have been one serious matter, especially if they had dragged me all the way here. "The guy said he came for me."

Silence filled the room. The teachers exchanged glances at me then to themselves. The headmistress looked the most worried. "Are you sure?" she asked in tone of voice that made me uneasy. She was never this concerned for my well being before. "Can you tell us what he looked like?"

I lifted my head up a bit to look at her and the other teachers. "I can do more than that. The guy gave me a name. He was some sort of werewolf assassin. His name was Alpha," I said calmly.

Small gasps filled the room. I glanced over to Master Krots, who looked at me with a troubled look. The headmistress's eyes were wide at the sound of the name. "Did you say Alpha?" Master Krots asked.

"Yeah..." the whole situation must have been worse than what I thought if the teachers were all in a fuss already. "Do you guys know him or something? You all seem a little shaken up by the name alone," I asked.

Just then, the headmistress jumped at my question with an almost reflexive answer. "Oh, don't worry. It doesn't concern you," she said in a bit of an anxious tone.

I couldn't hold back my aggravation any longer. "WHAT?! A ninja bursts into my room to do me in and you tell me it doesn't concern me?! I'm twelve, not stupid!" I shouted angrily.

The look on the headmistress's face slowly dropped into a calm, yet remorseful look. With a sigh, she closed her eyes.

"Tell him," Master Krots added in. The headmistress looked at him with tired eyes, seeing the seriousness of the werewolf teacher. "The kid has a right to know who attacked him." The looks between the teachers almost gave away another vibe that they were hiding something. I was starting to get anxious.

"Okay," Ms. Magdalene spoke as calmly as possible. "There are very few who had not heard of the assassin Alpha outside these walls." The looks of both the teachers and the headmistress looked troubled. "He is a famous assassin, known for killing over a thousand people in the past six years. His most accomplished feat was slaying the king of Gardin. Every single guard included in that castle was murdered in a single night."

My heart stopped for a second. A famous assassin? I didn't know what was worse. Having a ninja try to get me, or an expert ninja trying to get me. Shaking the thoughts of him slaughtering me out of my mind, I leaned forward in my chair towards the surrounding teachers. "What is he doing here anyway?" I asked.

Another pause of silence filled the room. Master Krots turned his gaze away from me to the window. The headmistress closed her eyes again. All of the teachers had glanced away from me. Upset, I stood up from my chair.

"I'm sorry Zane," Ms. Magdalene said, "I'm not sure."

"What do you mean you don't know?" I asked aloud. At that moment, Master Krots looked back to me with a concerned look.

"Zane, calm down," the werewolf teacher said as I took a step towards the headmistress's desk. "We'll find out what going on here, I assure you."

I wasn't convinced. I reached to her desk and placed my hands on it before the headmistress. Yes boys and girls, I could be aggressive if I wanted to. I wasn't the kind of guy who liked being out of the loop. "What aren't you telling me? Why would someone break into a magic school of all places, even if it were in Saillune? I know you have an idea what that jerk is after!" I shouted.

"That is confidential information, Zane," She spoke as she opened here eyes. She gave me a slightly crossed gaze.

I felt like my blood would burst if I didn't get some sort of answer from her. "I can't believe this!" I scolded, sparking looks of surprise from the teachers around me. "Be that way! If you won't tell me what the hell he wants, then I'll just confront him and ask him myself!"

"YOU WILL DO NO SUCH THING!" she boomed at me loudly. Surprised, I backed away from her. I swear I could feel the ground tremble with her voice. "I will not have one of my students purposely looking for a cold-blooded killer!"

Master Krots then broke in, clearing his throat to do so. "Actually, werewolves are warm blooded," he informed. Ms. Magdalene adverted her crossed gaze at my Alchemy teacher, who quickly looked away from her with a nervous chuckle.

At that moment, the door opened as one of the royal guards entered the room. "Ms. Magdalene, we had searched the grounds. No sign of the intruder," he said in a loud tone.

Adverting from me, the headmistress looked to the guard. "And the walls?" she asked.

"I regret to inform you that we saw no one leave the grounds. Ms. Magdalene, it is very possible that the intruder might still be on the campus," the guard said.

Now standing up from her chair, the headmistress faced the guard with the most serious of expressions. "I want guards posted at all times and continue to search the area. I want that intruder found and captured!"

"Yes madam!" With that, the guard quickly left the room and closed the door.

As I looked back to the headmistress, she looked at me with the same serious glare. "Zane, I forbid you to do anything rash to endanger yourself. What would have happened if Master Zolis had not made it there in time?" I tried to contradict her, but she was in so much of a fuss that she wouldn't let me speak a syllable. "You are not to go looking for him! Do I make myself CLEAR?"

Reluctantly backing off from the desk, I cast a crossed look at the floor. I held my fists tight to hold back my anger. "Crystal," I grumbled back at her.

With that, she backed away from me and gave me a calm look. "Now go outside and wait as I speak to the teachers. Someone will escort you to a spare room for you to sleep in until your room is restored," she said.

"Yes, ma'am," I said and slowly walked to the door. As soon as I left, I closed the door behind me and rested my back against it. Further down at both ends of the hall stood two guards. Security probably was boosted tremendously after word of the attack that had happened here. I sighed with grief as I waited, daydreaming aimlessly with no goal in mind. This was going to be a bad week.

After what felt like half-hour of a meeting, Master Krots led me to one of the royal chambers that the main building held for royal guests. I was surprised at first. I wasn't stupid at their true reason to put me there. It wasn't that they were treating me to a fancy night's stay at one of the finest rooms of the academy. They put me there because it was one of the safest places around. The whole situation became more and more curious as things progressed.

The next morning as soon as I woke up, I headed to my room, fetched my journal and school supplies and headed for breakfast at the cafeteria. The entire lunchroom was filled with the chatter of the news that happened last night. Most of their rumors ended with imaginative conclusions, like someone tried to attack the royal palace next door and made a mistake, or that someone summoned a Brass Demon by some sort of wacky experiment late last night. All the hype was enough to make me roll my eyes.

The halls were not as loud as they usually were. Instead of the loud discussions students had between classes, their voices dimmed a bit as some of the royal guards patrolled the halls. Even the teachers were on guard, looking cautious as they walked the halls. If what the guards said was true and that Alpha was still on the grounds, he wouldn't be sneaking about in broad daylight. I was slightly at ease unlike the other people.

In Astral studies and Shamanism class, the teachers wouldn't let students go out into the halls even for the bathroom. The entire situation seemed very severe if the teachers were keeping their eyes on the students at all times. In between classes when I walked the halls, sometimes a teacher would make an excuse to accompany me to my next class.

I had just reached my White Magic class and entered when I was confronted by a familiar cheery voice.

"Zane!" Cassandra called out as she entered the class. I turned around. Actually surprisingly enough, her cheery tone held a touch of concern in her voice. I wondered how long that would last. "Zane, how are you?"

"Fine," I said simply, "Why wouldn't I be?" Okay, that was a stupid thing to say. Still, there was no sense in drawing attention that an assassin had attacked me. That would throw the entire school into chaos.

"I've been rather freaked out since what happened last night," Cassandra said as she approached her seat in front of me. "I always known there were bad people out here, but I always thought of this school as some sort of sanctuary."

I nodded simple as I sat myself down at my desk. She had a very good point. Because we were in such an isolated environment, we actually were able to learn in safety and explore magic without any danger. It least until now.

"So," Cassandra asked, "Got any idea what happened last night?"

I froze as I struggled what to tell her. I couldn't say 'Oh, nothing much. Just a masked werewolf attacked me in the middle of the night and is hiding somewhere on the grounds. No need to worry'.

"Not a clue," I lied simply, keeping a strait face.

She turned to me. To my surprise, she looked rather distressed. "Zane," she said with a soft tone. "I'm really worried. I got this bad feeling."

Now she had my attention. To elaborate, priests had a special ability to sense certain things. I had yet to discover that talent within me, but I learned that many could feel when malicious events were about to come.

"It's like something haunting has taken grip around the school," Cassandra spoke in a shallow tone. "I've been shivering every time I felt it. It scares me."

"When did you start having this feeling?" I asked her.

"About late last afternoon," she said softly, now only within my ears reach. "At first I thought it was just my imagination, but after the explosion I think otherwise."

I leaned closer to her. "Did anyone else say they sensed anything malevolent around?"

"No. And well... there's something else too..."

At that moment, our teacher came inside, Priestess Lauria. "Okay class, to your seats."

The class lasted for an hour. As we focused on the use of a resurrection spell, the strongest healing spell in White Magic, I couldn't help but lose focus once and awhile. As helpful as White magic was, it wouldn't really save me if Alpha attacked me again. As soon as the class ended, I grabbed my books and headed for the door... that is until, Cassandra stopped me again.

"Zane wait," she shouted and I pulled myself to the side of the doorway in the hall. As she turned to me, she gave me the same uneasy look.

"Hey," I asked, "what was it you were trying to tell me?"

She hesitated a bit. Keeping her voice down, she took a step closer and spoke softly. "Well, as those feelings got stronger, I sensed something else too," she said. I focused on her with wide eyes. "You see, it felt like it's after something...or someone."

"Who do you think it is?" I asked

"That's just it Zane," Cassandra answered, "This evil, seems drawn... around you."

I gasped. Okay, I knew I was already in the middle of something, but I didn't expect that Cassandra would catch on. She was a great priestess, but even she couldn't predict something that grand, could she?

"I just want to ask you one thing, Zane," Cassandra asked hesitantly.

I hitched my breath. Was she on to me? "What is it?" I asked.

She was quite, and then...

"When you die, can I have your stuff?" She asked in her cheery voice.

"I'M NOT DEAD YET, YA PILL!" I shouted. Hey, you too would get mad if people waited for you to kick the bucket. Still seeing a trace of her perky smirk, I marched away from her. As everyone was bent on lunch, I had other plans.

My luck was impeccable. With everyone at lunch, the schools training building was not in use. The training room was the size of a large gymnasium. During the day, students were allowed to practice their attack spells inside the building. Inside was a special magic field that contained spells inside the building. It was like Master Krots warding field back in Alchemy class, but on a much larger scale. I spent most of my free time in here to practice my spells, mostly when I wanted to attempt Blast Bomb. In case I failed to mention: that spell never worked.

As I entered the practice building, the inside instantly lit up. Indeed, it looked like a gymnasium. On the sides of the room were bleachers for people as the large flat floor was spread out. On the floor was a magic circle with several ruins inscribed, entwined around a hexagram. The warding field was so strong it was almost like slipping into a warped space.

I stepped into the center of the large room with my journal in hand. Opening my book, I looked at the spells I copied from my schoolbooks and started practicing. My time in the training room had its smooth points and its bumpy ones. I was able to pull off some black magic spells pretty easy. Even my original spells worked rather well.

Then I moved on to try and cast my most desired spell. The Blast Bomb.

Reviewing the chant in my mind, I prepared to cast the spell. Crossing my arms in my spell-casting pose, I chanted the spell clearly and aloud. With my aim clear, I shouted my spell. "Blast Bomb!"

Nothing happened.

_ At first you don't succeed, cast and cast again._

I repeated the spell again and again, constantly trying to muster anything from my efforts. If anything, I thought it would at least raise my magical capacity. After exercising that one spell for the twelfth time, I let out an aggravated growl.

Okay, now with feeling.

Once again I held up my hands and spoke the chant with a raised tone of voice. As I did, I thought of Alpha. That masked, fur-fledged, ninja psycho's face hung in my mind as I attempted to boost my magic. I dwelled on those thoughts that ticked me off. Cassandra's teasing, when I accidentally blew things up almost unintentionally , people calling me SHORT! Then, what might have been my imagination, I saw small glows of light around me.

Keeping my concentration, I spoke the end of the spell and threw my magic forth.

"Blast Bomb!" I cried and threw my hands forth.

At my words and to my surprise, three balls of light appeared before me. A smile quickly spread across my face. But soon my joy got deflated like an overblown balloon. In less than a second that the small balls of light had appeared, they abruptly flickered out.

I stood silently for a moment. Normally I would have been sad and disappointed, but instead I felt a sense of achievement. Before now, I had gotten squat from that spell. The fact that I had even got a spark from it was good news to me. It meant that I was getting better to fully cast that spell.

Oh, yeah! I'm good!

After taking in my latest success, I took a deep breath, brushed off my blue cloak and made my way across the darkened room. Wait a minute, dark? I stopped in my tracks as I noticed something terrible wrong. When I entered the room, it was lighted. Absorbed in attempting Blast Bomb, I must have not noticed the change in my surroundings.

A low hum filled the air, sparking my sense of danger. Then from the dark around me, I caught the glint of several yellow eyes.

"Lighting!" I quickly threw my hand towards the ceiling and a sphere of bright light burst into existence. With my bright sphere of light high overhead, I saw who, or to be technical, WHAT was around me. Now surrounding me stood several transparent black creatures with yellow eyes. They looked like humanoids whose limbs were twisted about to make them resemble spiders. I had seen them before. In combat training, upper classmen were allowed to simulate actual spell-combat against magically conjured monsters. I was not allowed to participate yet, but I always watched as others fought them. They were artificially created Mazoku.

I quickly turned to the far left wall, where the control panel for creating the Mazoku was. Someone had turned it on. The strength, numbers, and skill of the Mazoku was determined by the training level on the gauge, differing from one being the lowest and fifty being the highest. And what luck, the bastard had set it to FIFTY, expert level.

Oh crap!

No sooner had I breathed the shadow men scampered towards me. Spurred by their frightening advance, I ducked and lunged under them. There was a rough count of twelve of them, all spread about the room. Getting to my feet, I started to chant a spell. No sooner had I started, the monsters close to me opened their once unseen mouths. With inhuman bellows, they spewed out an array of fiery Flare Arrows. I quickly leapt away as the arrows came exploding behind me. I kept chanting, luckily uninterrupted from the sudden assault.

"Digger Volt!" I cried, and a blast of lightning came shooting out of my outstretched hand.

Digger Volt was a spell that created a lethal lightning blast upon opponents. Normally such dangerous spells are against school rules to use on the grounds, but I felt this time could be an exception. Hey! I was being attacked by deadly inhuman monster drowns here, so sue me!

Just then, as I had let my spell fly, the bolts of lightning just passed through the animated Mazoku and struck the far wall instead. My jaw fell open at the result of my spell's effect.

A small note, considering I forgotten myself, Mazoku are demonic creatures from the astral plain. Because of that, they have no physical form. The only thing that could hurt a Mazoku was spells that can target things on an astral level.

Thinking of a way out of my predicament, I quickly began running. Dodging both claws and Flare Arrows, my mind raced for a spell that could damage these alchemically created rejects. As I said at the very beginning, astral spells were my worst subject.

Then I realized something. While my performance of certain spells was not great, I recalled what Master Zolis taught us a few days before. He said that certain Black magic spells had the capability to damage low-level Mazoku. Even though the Mazoku around me were acting on an expert level of assaulting me, they were still low-level conjures from the astral plain.

If I wanted to get out of this, I had to be swift. Even through it wasn't a lot, I did know a spell or two that targeted spirits. Still running, I clasped my hands together and chanted a spell. The shadowy, spider-men came running--er crawling after me. Then with a twist back towards them, I stopped with my clasped hands aglow in a bright red light.

That's right, folks! Zane Cosmon's back on the offence!

"Elmekia Lance!" I shouted and threw my hands out, releasing a bright spear of light. Elmekia Lance is a spell that targeted spirits or an opponent's mind. Since Mazoku are spiritual creatures, it can indeed do damage to them.

My spear of fiery light struck right on its mark. The spell skewered a shadow monster right in the chest and continued forward, striking two more. No sooner had those three vanished, many of the fake Mazoku blasted another volley of Flare Arrows.

In an act of desperation, I dived under the arching Flare Arrows and ran in the direction of the shadows that spewed them. Before you think I was crazy to charge at them, I had a plan. Preoccupied throwing up their fiery arrows, I prepared to cast a spell at them in their stationary state.

"Blast Ash!" I threw a hand out and let it fly. A pulse of black energy shot forward and spread out before them. In a flash, the monsters were vaporized into dust. Blast Ash was a spell that incinerates anything with a spirit in the blast range. Since the monsters' bodies were spiritual manifestations, they were easily affected.

Now only five Mazoku remained. No sooner had the targets I just vanquished disappeared, I ran towards the center of the room. In the blink of an eye, a Flare Arrow came down and struck in front of my path. I quickly turned to double-back but another array of Flare Arrows struck and exploded around me. As soon as the flames and smoke cleared, I found myself surrounded by the remaining shadow spider-men.

Seeing their non-emotional faces, I quickly canted my next spell. With any luck, this would end the fight right there and then. Chanting my words, a ball of blue light appeared between my hands and grew in size.

The ring of monsters charged at me as soon as they saw my spell took form. I didn't have much time. I focused as hard as I could, compressing the spell into a denser form. Only a second away, I aimed my hands towards the ground. "Bram Blazer!" With those words, the ball of blue light became a beam and shot at the floor.

With a bright flash, an aura of blue light erupted around me, followed by a shockwave of light. With their final low cries, the shadowy Mazoku faded away under my light.

To elaborate, Bram Blazer was capable of both physical and astral damage. Instead of focusing on a frontal attack, I directed the spell's shockwave around me. Aimed at the floor, it amp up the shockwave's strength just enough to destroy the remaining monsters around me. Like shadows before a bright light, the Mazoku threat disappeared.

As soon as the blue light disappeared, I quickly sprinted towards the Mazoku spawning machine before it could produce any more monsters. Running right into the wall it was attached to, I punched the off switch and the low hum of the machine dissipated. With the machine off, I finally took the moment for a well-deserved sigh of relief.

Pants flowed from my mouth like water as a finally calmed down. Knelt with my hands on my knees, I took a moment to pull myself together and think of what happened. Someone had snuck in here when I was practicing, turned on the machine and had me fight for my life against artificial Mazoku. For whatever reason, it was anything but a practical joke. Just then, a faint gleam caught my eye. I looked up at the machine and gave a small gasp. Lodged into the large on switch of the simulation gauge was a small silver blade. One of Alpha's throwing darts.

With a crossed grumble, I gripped the dart and without ceremony yanked it from the machine. "Alpha," I grumbled," That guy is starting to tick me off!"

Quickly turning around, I began to scan the dimmed room for him. He might have been hiding somewhere, hoping to catch me when I was exhausted. My nerves were on end, feeling ready to snap.

"Zane."

"AAAHHH!" I screamed out loud and spun around to see who said my name.

There, standing just through the lighted doorway was Master Krots. My werewolf teacher took a step further into the room. "What are you doing in here?" he asked.

Slightly on edge by everything that had just happened, I felt rather hesitant to respond. "Um... Just practicing," I replied sheepishly.

With narrowed eyes, Master Krots examined the room, seeing all the scorch and blast marks from what had happened. Then he glanced at me next to the training machine. "Zane, were you using the training simulator?" he said in a knowing growl. Still hesitant, I stumbled what to say. He gave me a slight scowl. I swear he could get a career at interrogation the way he looks at you. "You know younger classmen are not allowed to use the machine, especially without a teacher supervising. Even though they're artificial monsters, they're dangerous."

Gee? Really?

"Uh, what are you doing here though?" I finally asked, rather curious he'd showed up here myself.

Walking across the large room, he approached me. "I was monitoring the lunchroom and failed to see you there, so I went looking for you," Master Krots said, a faint smile on his mussel.

"Oh, uh... sorry about that."

With that, he reached his paw and placed in on my shoulder. "Come on," Master Krots said as he tugged at me to come with him. "You shouldn't really miss lunch, you know?"

I was thankful he didn't notice the throwing dart in my hand as we walked across the room. It might have made him ask questions.

Just then, a frightful thought occurred in my head. Master Krots was probably just outside to hear the racket I made against the monsters, yet why didn't he just show up after I had finished. I got a sickening feeling in my stomach as I thought about it more. In my state of shock, Master Krots was not surprised for some reason. And then there was the throwing dagger. He might not have noticed... or he just might have didn't care because he knew it was his.

Oh my god!

No sooner had I thought of that, I immediately looked away from his face, thinking if he saw my reaction he would know what I thought. Could it be? My favorite teacher could have been Alpha? I tried my best to remain calm as we walked side by side. It was possible. Alpha and Master Krots were both werewolves. Master Krots was just present after Alpha's Mazoku attack just now. Even more curious, if Master Krots had been just out looking for me, wouldn't he had told the other teachers that I'd gone missing, especially with an assassin sneaking around the school.

Realizing the possibility, Master Krots's paw on my shoulder started to feel most uncomfortable. "Something wrong?" Master Krots asked, looking at me with a calm, friendly look. He must have sensed my tension or something.

"Oh, no-nothing," I said as we headed towards the lunchroom.

I couldn't be sure. There was a chance that Master Krots wasn't Alpha. I may be imaginative, but I wasn't about to accuse a teacher that he was a mass murderer. If I wanted to find any proof that he was indeed Alpha, there was only one way to be sure.

Evening was minutes away as the glow of the orange sunset gleamed through the windows of the hall. The day had gone easy enough. As soon as I finished my detention with Master Krots, I had gone up to the dinner hall. Let me tell you, when you have detention with someone you suspect is a possible serial killer, it's easy to be nervous around him. Anyway, after dinner and dessert when the students headed towards their dorms, I slinked away from them to head towards the school office.

There is a twenty-minute time frame between dinner's end and everyone reporting to the dorms. Which meant that I didn't have much time to look for what I wanted to find? The halls were empty as the sunlight lighted up the halls. Running with my blue cloak wrapped around me, I probably looked rather suspicious myself. Well, to catch a sneak, you got to be a sneak. I was able to slip by two guards who were patrolling the hallway easy enough and reached the stairs.

As I got to the foot of the stairs, I found the school office room. It was empty. Most staff and teachers were at the dorms and staff areas when the day was good and through. That made my job easier. Sneaking to the office, I slipped passed the doors. This room was where they held all the student records, where they came from, their family background, grades, the works. I had to admit I was tempted to sneak a peak at my grades, but I had bigger fish to fry.

Silently, I approached a door labeled "School Archives". Score! No surprise when I tried to open the door it was locked, but it was just your basic mechanical lock. That I can handle easy enough. Casting an unlock spell upon the door, I heard the sound of a click and the door opened ajar.

Am I good or what?

Opening the door as quietly as I could, I sneaked inside and closed the door behind me. The room was rather dark. Whispering a lighting spell under my breath, a tiny sphere of light appeared in the air. Inside were several metal filing cabinets and a wooden desk on the side of the cramped wall. I scanned the cabinets until I found a bin labeled "Teachers and Staff."

Opening the cabinet, I immediately looked for the letter K. "Let's see," I began leisurely, "Karus, Kimar, Kimari, Korius... Krots! Here it is." With excited hands, I yanked the folder from the draw and jumped towards the table. My lighting spell floated above my head with its gentle light as I opened the folder upon the table.

According to what Ms. Magdalene said, Alpha had been knocking off people for the past six years. If I wanted to make any ground of my thesis, I had to see how long Master Krots had taught at the school. Inside were a series of papers. The first page was Master Krots's primary information with a picture of him in the page corner. I scanned through the pages, looking furiously for the information I sought.

Then I found it. On the third page of the document, I found the registration date. I held my breath. According to the paper, Master Krots had been accepted at the sorcery school about two and a half years ago. Wanting to find more, I scanned through the document some more. The next thing I found was a series of legal absences posted on his record. Now I began to worry. According to this, he had been leaving the school grounds upon weekends and certain school days on important business. He had been absent from His total absences for this year alone were twelve.

Important business, my butt!

My heart began to race a little. The more and more I thought it all over, the more I was beginning to think that my own teacher was actually Alpha. A masked killer under the cover of a teacher for a well renowned sorcery school; it made perfect sense.

I gulped as I looked at the picture of Master Krots with his wolfish grin. My hands gave a small tremble as I closed the folder. "No way," I said in a nervous tone, "I just can't believe it."

"And what might that be?" a low voice answered me.

Oh, god no!

All my muscles jolted in place at the sound of the familiar voice. My arms felt immobile as I had a good idea who was there. With a faint whimper of reluctance, I slowly turned to look behind me.

There, atop of a pile of metal file cabinets knelt Alpha. The masked, black clothed werewolf looked down at me coolly, sending a chill down my spine. The way he observed me from up there made him look like a raven watching a freshly killed meal. His steely eyes glinted with the glow of my lighting spell, making him all the more frightening.

"Uh-oh," was all I could squeak as I saw him above me.

"And just what are you doing here, I wonder," Alpha spoke calmly, as if he'd catch me even if he took his time.

I had to think fast but my body was two seconds behind me. "Um--well, he-he, I was just here t-to sort of--" Hoping to throw him off in the middle of my sentence, I leapt from the desk to get to the door.

Apparently, Alpha had a reason to be so calm. With movement which appeared like a blur to me, Alpha had leapt from his perch on the cabinets and landed right in front of me. I began casting a short spell. Nothing fancy, but I just couldn't afford fancy! "Air Valm!" As I ran before Alpha, a barrier of wind suddenly came to life and threw Alpha next to the door with a loud thud.

Guessing that wouldn't faze him for long, I ran for the door and opened it. Almost accidentally while opening the door, I slammed it upon Alpha just as he was about to get up. Come on? Wouldn't you do that too to a guy who was trying to attack you?

No sooner had I touched the doorknob I began to enchant it with my words. Now out the doorway, I witnessed as Alpha leaped off the floor and attempted to grab me before I closed the door. With my chant still present, I slammed the door hard, eclipsing the view of Alpha. "Lock!" I cast the last word for the spell as I slammed the door. No sooner had I did, I felt the door bang as Alpha collided with the hard wooden door.

Ouch! I bet that hurt!

My spell had taken hold. I had cast a locking spell on the door, sealing it with a magical force. Stepping away, I heard several bangs upon the door. I guessed it was Alpha trying to open the door and come after me. I couldn't help but smile at his struggle.

"You little brat!" he growled aloud, "Open this door!"

"What're you gonna do? Huff and puff and blow the door down," I teased gleefully.

A few seconds later I'd wished I'd didn't say that.

"Bomb Di Wind," he growled.

A loud hum came from behind the door and caused me to jump back. No sooner had I did, the door came flying off its hinges with a violent gust of wind. That spell must have been close range because as soon as it flew off, the door shattered into a bunch of broken boards and splinters. I shielded my face from the flying debris for a moment. No sooner had I took my arm away, I was suddenly staring into Alpha's angry eyes.

Taken off guard, he grabbed my neck hard. I cringed as I was held there. He lifted me an inch from the floor, only to weaken my resistance. "I grow aggravated of you, pup," he growled in his low voice. I felt short of breath as he choked me. I'd probably only be a matter of seconds before I passed out.

With every once of strength I could muster, I slowly reached for the arm he used to choke me. He probably thought it as a feeble attempted to ease his grip on my windpipe. To some extent that was true. With my dieing strength, I gripped his wrist and took action.

"M-Mono... Volt," I uttered with the last of my breath.

At that moment to my rescue, my spell sparked to life. And boy did it spark! Electricity surged through my palm and surged up Alpha's arm to him. Alpha yelled in a painful cry as small jolts of lightning traveled up and down his body, delivering painful electric shocks. After a second or two, Alpha released his grip on my neck and dropped me to my feet, allowing me a much-needed gasp of air.

I let go of Alpha's wrist, ceasing the electric current on Alpha's body. With it, Alpha fell to his knees on the floor. With staggering feet, I quickly reached the office door. Getting out of the office, I immediately took the door leading outside into the courtyard. "Guards! GUARDS!" I shouted as hard as I could.

Apparently I was still lightheaded from having the oxygen cut off from my brain, because before I knew it I saw several of the royal guards running towards me. They must have already heard the large boom in the office when Alpha blew down the door.

"What happened?" a guard asked me. "Are you alright?"

I gave a thin gasp. "The... he's... the office..." I said through ragged breaths. No sooner had I mentioned 'office', the soldiers came running towards it. Slowly but directly, I followed them back to the office.

Falling a bit behind of the guards, I walked into the now messy office room. The guards were gathered around the remains of the smashed doorframe. To my horror, I looked around the room to find no trace of Alpha anywhere.

You've got to be JOKING!

I hit the guy with a Mono Volt, a paralyzing electric spell and the guy just got up and walked away without a trace. Why can't bad guys just stay down? After looking over the room and archives room, one of the guards came up to me. He knelt down with his spear still in hand and looked me in the eye. "Can you tell me what happened here?" he asked.

Again I felt in the position to lie again. I seemed to have been doing that a lot today. If I told them I was investigating who was the assassin, the same assassin I thought was a teacher in my school, I would have some heavy duty explaining to do to the headmistress. If you ask me, her wrath is worst than Alpha's.

"Well," I began meekly, coughing a bit with a rough voice. "I was heading for my classroom because I forgot one of my books. When I was heading back to the dorms, that guy attacked me." I added a few sniffles into my voice, making my bluff more convincing.

"Did you see his face?" the guard asked.

I simply shook my head. "He wore a mask," I answered.

At that moment, Master Zolis and Master Krots entered the wrecked office. "What happened here?" Krots asked, slightly surprised.

Oh sure, act like you don't know.

"Zane," Master Zolis asked, "Did you blow up something again?"

I wanted to yell at him 'NO', but all I could muster was a low grumble.

"It was the intruder, sirs," the guard defended for me. "This student was just here to pick up something from a classroom and got caught by him." Master Zolis and Master Krots looked at me with concerned glances.

I nodded at them. With the pain in my throat, I gently rubbed the sore spot. Just then, the teachers looked rather worried as they saw me reach my throat.

"Zane, are you okay?" Master Krots asked. "What happened to your throat?"

I panic a second, slightly frightened to what he'd do. "Uh, nothing really. I'm fine."

"Zane, let me see your throat," the werewolf teacher demanded. With swift speed, he took a hold of my arm, lifted my hand away from my throat, and raised my chin up with his other paw. Exposing the red welt where the werewolf assassin had choked me, Krots looked at it as well as Master Zolis.

"Did Alpha do this to you?" Master Zolis asked. Painfully swallowing back my panic, I nodded. "We should take him to the infirmary."

"Don't worry about it. I said I was fine," I assured them.

Master Krots seemed to not take no for an answer. "No Zane. You should have this looked at," Master Krots said with a growl. "Master Zolis, I'll take him to the infirmary. Why don't you stay here and see what you can find."

Glancing over to Master Zolis, I gave small, almost unnoticeable shakes of my head. The last person I wanted to be alone with was the guy I thought to be an assassin.

No, no, no, no, no, no...

"Okay, I'll clean things up here," Zolis replied.

NO!

I gulped again, painfully thanks to the pain in my neck. "Come on, Zane," Krots said. Still gripping my arm, he pulled me with him as he headed for the door.

As we entered the hallway, we walked silently towards the infirmary on the other side of the building. I kept a nervous eye on him, wondering if he'd kill me right when we were about half way there. I tried to pull my arm away, but he wouldn't have it. On our way there, I couldn't help but picture an image of us entering the infirmary with no one there, he getting a medical scalpel from a draw and slicing my throat open. Again, I gave a painful gulp.

After a few minutes, we had walked through the halls and made our way to the outside of the infirmary door. He hadn't tried to kill me. That was a relief. Then, as I was about to walk towards the door, his grip stopped me from proceeding. I cast a nervous glance at him. He gave an unyielding look at me, making me want to back away.

"Zane," he asked slowly, "You didn't leave anything in a classroom, did you?"

The guy was on to me. Trying my best, I gave him the best ignorant look I could. "What do you mean?" I asked.

"Don't give me that!" he growled, causing me to jump in his grasp. Gently, he let go of my arm and took a grip of my shoulders. He then slowly pushed my back to the wall, forcing me to look into his wolfish eyes as he knelt to my height. "You were there looking for Alpha, weren't you?"

Busted! I gritted my teeth as he looked at me, his gaze practically piercing like daggers. Was he going to kill me now? I could hear the headlines now. Zane Cosmon. Potentially promised sorcerer killed by werewolf teacher. I'm not dying that way people!

Nervously, I faced his gaze with my own. Not getting a response from me, the werewolf teacher gave my shoulders a shook. "You know well not to go off on your own with that killer running around! Do you want to die?" I still remained silent. His unyielding stare was frightening, but I did my best to be calm.

"I'd better not catch you trying to find him again, Zane," Krots said in a growl, "Messing around with someone like Alpha insures grave consequences."

Did he say grave?

Trying my best to give a brave face, I looked right into Krots dagger-sharp eyes.

"Who knows what he's after," he said.

"Why don't you tell me, Master Krots?" I rebelled.

His eyes suddenly soften a little at my words. "What?"

"Why would Alpha want to attack me?" I asked him rhetorically, "I got nothing of value. I'm just a sorcerer trying to do well in his classes. You wouldn't know of any reason why a killer assassin would come after me, would you?"

Okay, maybe I made that a little too obvious.

Taking my words in, the werewolf teacher removed his paws from my shoulders, finally giving me some personal space. "Zane, what are you implying here?" Krots asked as he stood at his full height.

"Nothing," I said simply, my suspicious look still glued to him. "I'm just asking you, do you know of any reason why that rotten psychopath assassin would come after me?" I purposely chose those subtle words for a reaction from him.

Master Krots gritted his teeth and stifled a tiny growl. He took his time to answer that question. "No. Nothing," he said softly.

With that, I gave a small shrug of my shoulders and a carefree look, the best I could give before his presence. "Okay then," I said with a huff. With that, I walked away from Master Krots to the door of the infirmary. "I think I can go in on my own, thank you sir."

He gave me a slightly questionable look, and then slowly nodded. "Okay. I'll wait out here to take you to your room."

"Nope," I interjected, this time clearly stating my discomfort around him. "That won't be necessary. Goodnight."

With that, I hastily entered the infirmary ward and closed the door behind me. That settled it. Master Krots had to be Alpha. This was the second time he'd showed up after Alpha attacked. He was always just a small distance away from the action. On top of that, he had appeared during my search through his records. He probably got threatened that I was closing in on him and decided to get me then. Everything was pointing to him, plus how he'd talked to me earlier. Only guys with personalities of killers would be so aggressive.

Until I could find real proof, I had to be on my toes. Whatever reason Alpha was after me, I was going to give that fleabag assassin a run for his money.

Chapter 3: Suspicion 101

That night had been rather uneventful after my little run in with Alpha, or whom I thought rather, Master Krots. My throat was actually in worse shape than I thought. I was lucky that I was able to speak. After drinking down a tonic that tasted like puree spinach and an hour's rest in the infirmary, I was allowed to head back to the dorms. Like he said and against my insistence, Master Krots awaited me outside to escort me to the dorms. He didn't try any funny stuff either. Still, I felt the need to keep on guard around him.

They had fixed my room, now as good as new. Resting in my bed I quickly dosed off. No other events happened that night. I suppose after the ruckus Alpha caused that afternoon, he'd probably didn't want to rush knocking me off so soon. Despite how nimble he was I must have given him a hell of a shock when I retaliated against him. Anyone would feel a little worn out after taking a Mono Volt to heart.

Morning came soon enough. Guards had now been stationed patrolling the dorm halls at night, probably under the headmistress's orders to keep an eye on me. I wanted to tell her what I thought of Master Krots, but the most she would do was tell me that I was overreacting.

How can one overreact when someone tries to crush your windpipe, for crying out loud?!

Anyway, for the rest of the day I studied my butt off. In class I absorbed as much of the new spells as I could. When the teacher was simply talking, I would jump from my class notes to the textbook for spells that I'd thought would help me. If I wanted to fight on even ground with Alpha, I was going to need to get a hell of a lot stronger and able to use my heavy-duty spells freely. I even broke out the notes I made for my original spells. When we met, I was going to sock him with my bag of tricks. The day seemed to blur by, as time grew shorter and shorter. After mulling about all of today's class notes and about three textbooks, afternoon came.

Finished with my last class, Black Magic arts, I decided to do my last bit of research in the library before dinnertime. Walking down the hall, I reviewed over what I knew so far of my dilemma.

So far I had five of the six W's: w ho, w hat, w here, w hen, and ho w. Who: Alpha; with the very promising possibility that his true identity was Master Krots. What: He wanted to kill me. Duh! Where and when: All this trouble started three days ago at the school. And the how: Another Duh! Something to do with crushing my windpipe was a distinct possibility!

That only left one, but a very important W. Why? Why would anyone wanted to come after me. Alpha must have bigger fish to fry than go after a youthful teen sorcerer. As talented as I was, I wasn't the kind of guy to make enemies. Perhaps next time we'd cross swords--er, claws to spells, I could ask him myself.

"Zane, Zaaaannnneee!"

Oh gods, I don't have the energy for this now...

I hesitantly turned around. It was Cassandra all right. Didn't she have anything better to do than pick fun at me? I didn't have the time now to deal with her. With her usual cheery tone, she came running up to me priestess robes and all. "Where you going?" Cassandra asked, a glint of suspicion in her voice.

"To the library," I answered with a grumble. I quickly made a retreat down the hall with her still behind me.

"But Zane," she called back at me, "Don't you have detention with Master Krots today?" Her reminder caused me to freeze in my tracks.

_Detention, right! _

I slapped my palm against my forehead and pulled it over my eyes. She was right. I still had detention with Master Krots. I might as well been brought before my teacher on a silver platter. I turned my head to Cassandra with a dour look. "Thanks..." I grumbled.

What happened then actually surprised me. Instead of giving me her simple cheery response and smile that made me want to slap it off her face, she gave me a sincerely concerned look. "Is something wrong?" she asked right off the bat.

Truth be told, I wanted to tell her. Hell, I wanted to tell anyone about what was happening. I guess all this anxiety began to take its toll on my nerves. But I couldn't tell her of all people. Even if she did believe me, what I'd told her would only put her in danger. If I told her that Master Krots was a famous assassin and I was right, he would kill her too to keep her quiet. Even though I disliked the girl, I didn't want to throw her into harm's way like that.

I can be a nice guy too, you know.

Hesitant, I looked to her fully with a serious look. "Cassandra," I started off, "Remember when you told me that you felt a malevolent around the school, and how it surrounded me?" She nodded slowly. "Well, you were... sort of right."

I think I surprised her myself because she gave a silent gasp at the news. I was lucky that the hall was mostly empty so no one overheard. "I can't tell you everything, but someone has been trying to kill me. He's already tried three times to kill me and even worse, I think he's someone who's been in our school the whole time," I told her clearly.

Her look of concern deepened, as she took as step forward. She gripped her books tightly like a classic, shy schoolgirl. "Who? I can help you," she said.

"No!" I jumped immediately. I cast my gaze to the tiled floor. "If I did tell you, he'd come after you too. The less you know the better."

A rather deep silence hung between us as she took in what I said. "Never mind," I said sadly, "I shouldn't have told you anything. Just forget it, okay?" With that, I turned around to leave.

"No," Cassandra pleaded in a strong tone. I still kept my back to her. "Let me help you. If something malicious is going on here, I want to do whatever I can to stop them." It was a side to her I never heard before.

"I got to go," I said solemnly, ignoring her brave words "I got detention to go to." With that I walked away, leaving Cassandra behind me. I had to admit, I was rather thankful that she actually expressed genuine concern for me. I'd had to remind myself to thank her if I made it out of this mess alive.

Gripping my books tight to keep my nerves in check, I walked towards the Alchemy Lab. I was going to detention, managed by a teacher who moonlighted as a famous ninja bent on skinning my hide. The entire scenario screamed suicide.

The late sunset gleamed into the room from the back windows. There I sat, quietly in my seat with my books on my desk. Sitting far ahead of me at his elegant desk was Master Krots, or quite possibly Alpha, whichever you prefer. He sat there with his small glasses perched upon his nose. He probably did so to make his appearance more innocent. Well, he wasn't fooling me.

The silence was so thick in that room you could probably cut it with a knife. We were the only two in that room. I kept my eyes on him, keeping him in constant sight in case he would to try something. Another daydream that haunted me was of one of those crueler detentions when they'd send the student to a torture chamber, all done my Master Krots's hands-- er paws.

No, they really don't do that here. J

He'd occasionally look from his papers and gave me a quick glance, keeping an eye on me. I continued to keep my guard up around him. It was impossible to relax around him as a constant chill grazed my body.

Ten minutes had past when he'd put his papers down and looked to me. He gave his gentle smile. That smile showed no more kindness for me. It was an act, nothing more. If he turned that smile in anyway icy, I was getting the hell out of there. My furious look tightened at him as he looked towards me.

"So," he asked leisurely, "How was your day?"

"Peachy," I replied grumpily.

He blinked at me, slightly surprised by my reaction. "Are you mad at me or something, Zane?" Krots asked.

Gee, how'd ya guess?

"You know," I replied, casting a crossed look at him. "How'd you feel if you were pushed against a wall and threatened?"

Krots then closed his eyes and shook his head rather remorsefully. "I wasn't threatening you, Zane. I was only firm with you because I just didn't wanted to see you get hurt," Master Krots answered.

My look upon him sharpened, now with a touch of suspicion. "Why are you so concerned about me?" I asked.

I got him to blink his eyes open towards me. "What do you mean?" he counter-asked in a lighthearted tone. "You're my student. I take your well being to heart just like all my other pupils."

Not buying it, pal!

I began to tap my finger against the book I had on my desk. All this info stalling was pulling at my cool like an over tightened guitar string. "Really?" I played along.

"Of course. What other reason would I have for your safety?"

"You tell me?" I said rather distrusting.

My tone might have been a little too insinuating because at that moment, Master Krots's gaze at me became a bit stern. He looked at me with questionable suspicion. A silence hung between us for a long time. That was when I knew something rather disturbing. There was no one else around. The halls were completely quiet and empty.

At that moment, Master Krots stood up from his seat and took a step around his desk. "Zane," he said with a soft growl, "what are you trying to tell me?" His wolfish eyes gleamed with the orange sunlight, casting a suspicious stare at me.

That veil of silence quickly turned into suspicion. The sudden change in the atmosphere sent another shiver down my spine. "I just wanted to know," I found my tone of voice wavering under Master Krots stern gaze. "Why you're so interested in me?"

Stepping next to his desk, he leaned against it and crossed his arms against his chest. "Because, you're a good student who tries very hard to succeed," the werewolf answered. "I notice how hard you try to master your spells. Especially how much you attempted to pull off Blast Bomb."

Just then the guitar string in my mind snapped at what he said. I immediately shot my eyes at him in full attention. "How did you know I was trying Blast Bomb?" I asked hastily.

His eyes met mine, seeing the fright I clearly had at his words. A painful silence hung before us. How did he know I was practicing Blast Bomb... unless he was there to see me practice!

Pushing my chair back from my desk, I stood up smoothly but swiftly. "Um, Mister Krots, I-I really got to leave now," I said rather aloud and grabbed my books.

He got off his desk and stood up strait as he watched me gather my stuff. "Zane, you still have thirty minutes of detention," he said with a firm tone of voice. "You'll have to wait."

"I'll make up my transgressions later," I answered hastily as I headed for the door. However, Master Krots wouldn't hear of it.

"ZANE," he growled, his tone of voice becoming frightful. "You are not leaving this classroom!"

Needless to say, as I kelp heading for the door, Master Krots came after me. Before I reached the door, the werewolf teacher had stepped into my path. He peered over his glasses at me, giving me a stare that denied any insubordination. "Get back in your seat, Zane!" he growled.

"I'm sorry," I said with a raised voice of my own, "I have to go!" With that, I attempted a break for the door.

What he did next gave me a jolt of fright. He quickly jumped before me again and grabbed me by my arm. I dropped my books as he grabbed me. It appeared that he was being gentle with his grip, but for how long was probably not going to last. I pulled and struggled, making my resistance against Master Krots all the more troublesome.

"Let go!" I shouted at him. He just gripped my arm as I tried to use my other to push him away.

"Zane, calm down! Listen to me!"

I was done being nice. I placed my arms against him and pushed. "I said LET GO!" I shouted as I threw my arms upward, throwing his grip upward.

Just then when his arm went up, I noticed the red sleeve of his robe slip down a bit to reveal his arm. My eyes widened with fright at what I saw. There, on his arm was a rather noticeable scorch mark. It dawned on me. It was the same place I had electrocuted Alpha with my Mono Volt spell when he was choking me. I had no doubt now. Alpha and Master Krots were one and the same!

Krots looked at me a moment with a concerned look, seeing the fear in my eyes. "Zane, what's wrong?" he asked. Still upholding his act, he reached out for me again.

Before he could even touch me, I had sprinted with all my might out the door. No sooner had I ran into the deserted hallway had I heard his call after me, followed by the sound of his pursuit. I had only run three feet from the doorway before I felt his paw clasp upon my shoulder, stopping me.

"Wait a second--!" he shouted at me.

Interrupting him, I twisted around and shook off his grip on me. Taking a step back, I quickly brought my hands together and a spark of energy came to life between them. "Stay back!" I yelled, rather panicked at his attempted to grab me. I had enough proof to be scared right then.

Seeing my magic in hand, he took a step back with his arms up a bit. "Zane! What's come over you?" Krots asked with a shout.

I kept my stance firm and my magic ready; my eyes were fixed on his movements. "Keep away from me!" I shouted, prepared to cast my spell. "You can't fool me anymore!"

Krots looked surprised, possibly for me figuring it all out. "What are you talking about?" he asked with a bit of a growl.

"Don't play dumb with me!" I spat venomously, "I know who you are!"

His eyes were wide at my words. Lowering his arms down, his tone of voice suddenly eased up a bit. "Zane," he said in almost a soothing tome. He took a step forward and attempted to reach for my shoulder. "Just calm down and--"

"Diem Wing!"

At his advance, I cast my spell. A strong gust of wind erupted between us and right into Krots. With a shout, the werewolf teacher was thrown backwards and sent flying across the floor. He landed on his butt a good few meters away from me and slid to a stop. Surprised by my attack, he gave me a surprised look with his wolfish face.

As soon as he hit the ground, I took off running down the hall away from him. "Zane, wait! Come back!" Krots shouted after me, but I just kept running. I wouldn't be doing what he said anytime soon. I was positive Master Krots was Alpha. I couldn't believe I ever thought he could be such a nice teacher, let alone one I would call my favorite teacher.

I had only one option in mind. To face Alpha one on one, man to man... er, wolf. To hell with being safe. How the hell was I suppose to be safe if my own teacher was the one trying to kill me? I made up my mind. I was going to confront that bastard tonight. If I was going to become wolf meat, I was going to give him the mother load of indigestion.

The crisp night air was chilling as I waited to escape from my dorm room. I had been preparing myself for my encounter with Alpha no sooner had I entered my room. I quickly dressed myself with my dark blue sweatpants, my light blue shirt with a blue flame on it and my favorite blue cloak. Finally I put on my favorite enchanted, moon talisman, used to increase spell power. If I was going down, I was going down looking good.

I waited until the late night. All the while I studied my spells one last time. I reviewed every one, including Blast Bomb but I doubted I could rely on that one. I waited and waited, until it was ten at night. It was time for me to take action.

Waiting until I heard the footsteps of the guards outside pass my room, I got out of my bed and went towards the newly repaired window. I got discouraged for a moment. Someone had put a protection spell around the window, probably ordered by the headmistress. Not only did it keep the window locked and unbreakable, but it wouldn't allow me to open it as well. I wondered if she had planned on that.

Anyway, it was an easy enough problem to fix. Taking my time, I ran my fingers about the window's frame, my magic at my fingertips. After working my fingers around the hinges of the window, I felt a sudden breeze of air as the spell around my window was released. I smiled coyly at my ingenious craftsmanship.

Opening the window, I crawled onto its ledge. It was a four-story drop to the ground, but again, not a problem. Casting a levitation spell, I slowly dropped from my windowsill and slowly floated towards the ground in a heavenly descent. In about twenty seconds, my feet softly touched the ground. It defiantly beat tying bed sheets together to scale out of my room anytime.

"Hey, you there," someone called from behind me.

I slapped my forehead again. I had forgotten about the guards posted outside the dorms. Slowly turning around, I found two armed guards looking at me. They appeared to be friendly in nature, but nothing looks friendly when they hold sharp spears in their hands.

"What are you doing out here?" one of them asked, realizing I was a student and lowered his spear a bit.

"It's dangerous, and students are not allowed to go out of their dorms past curfew. I'm sure you know that," the other said.

I did know, but I just didn't care at that time. Save neck first, worry about rules later. Giving them a smile fitting for my age, I gave a nervous chuckle. "I'm sorry, sir," I said with a hand behind my head, "Your absolutely right. I don't want to get in trouble and I really should be... Sleeping."

Just as I had said 'sleeping', the guards suddenly collapsed with a sigh onto the ground. It worked. I had cast a sleeping spell on them, a trick until now that I had a chance to perform. With the two guards now sleeping lumps on the ground, I quietly walked around them and made my way towards the school grounds.

With my blue outfit I felt practically invisible against the night sky and the dark around me. I kept a steady pace. If I knew Alpha as I did up till now, he'd probably already knew I was out in the open and hiding somewhere among the buildings around me. Cutting my way across the deserted courtyard, I headed towards the one place where I could do battle to my full extent. The training building.

My trip there was quick and easy. To my luck, no guards were anywhere in sight and hadn't spot me as I ran there. Weather it was from the cold brisk air of the night or just me at the thought of Alpha, my body was shaking as I approached the door. With trembling hands, I quickly opened the door and stepped into the dark room.

The large room again was very quiet. Now at night, the room seemed shrouded with shadow. It was easy enough to see through, but creepy nonetheless. Taking a deep breath to calm my nerves, I walked into the very center of the room. If me standing in the center of the magic emblem on the floor like a giant bulls-eye wasn't enough to attract Alpha's attention, then nothing would.

I stood there for what felt like an hour, taking deep breaths to keep my cool. Eventually I was able to remain calm. No matter if I'd stayed in my room and played it safe, he'd still come after me. This way, I was going on the offensive with him. I kept my senses open, focusing on the silence of the room around me. Then, as faint and chilling as the first time I felt it, I sensed a presence from somewhere in the room.

"So, Alpha," I quipped calmly, my gaze still on one point of the room. "How long have you been watching?" I then turned around.

From the framework of the ceiling, the werewolf in black dropped from the shadows above. He landed silently on the ground as if he was a phantom. "Long enough to tell that you knew I'd come. You got a lot of guts for a kid your age," Alpha said rather leisurely with his low tone.

A compliment from a killer? Huh, go figure.

I gave a sly smile at him, reciprocating the incentive. "How's the arm?" I quipped, remembering the scorch mark on Master Krots.

He gave me a low growl in my direction under his masked mussel. The thought caused him to give the arm a gentle rub. "Not too bad," he said, "That little electric shock of yours really stung you know."

"I do."

His steely eyes narrowed at me as he stood at the edge of the room. "So, why did you come out here?" he asked, "Have you come to give yourself up?"

I gave him a challenged look. "No," I said clearly, "I came to fight you."

"Really?" he asked. I think I caught a small chuckle in his tone, causing me to give him a crossed glance. "Is that why you came all the way out here in the middle of the night?"

The way he felt he could be so relaxed, that my defeat was so inevitable had really peaked my ire. "I came here because of this place in particular. You were the one who deployed those Mazoku on me, weren't you?" I asked rhetorically.

"I was."

I gave him a confident smile. "Then you should already know that this room was built to contain magic energy. When we fought last, I was holding back because I knew I couldn't fight freely on open school grounds," I explained calmly. I watched him as his narrowed steely eyes rested upon me. "In here, I can fight you at my full strength, and not worry about blowing the place up."

I thought I saw a slight smile under his mask as he looked at me. "Very well. This place will do just fine," he said, a bit of a quip to in his tone. Man, there were a lot of quipping tonight. "There's an advantage for me too. In here..." he paused and took a small step forward. "No one can hear you scream." As he took another step, he reached behind him for his blade.

"Wait a sec," I said just before he reached his sword. "Before we start, can I ask you a question please?" I didn't know what stopped him first; that I caught him before he began to attack, or the fact that I used the word 'please'. Either way, he looked at me with a questionable look and withdrew his paw away from the sword. "Why exactly are you after me? What did I do to you?" I asked.

Alpha just stood there in silence, taking his time ponder the question I had asked. After him glancing at his claws for a second, he looked back to me. He gave a small huff under his mask. "Hm, I don't see why not," he said simply as his eyes laid rest to me. "Maybe if I tell you, that will make your surrender that much easier."

I couldn't help but cock an eyebrow at what he said. "What do you mean?" I asked hesitantly.

Relaxing again, Alpha slipped into his leisurely tone of voice. "To let you know, I am work for hire. I do no less than what my employer asks of me."

A killer, teacher, and a businessman. Will the surprises never cease?

I was growing more interested in what he had to say. I had been busting my brain trying to figure out the why of all this for the past three days. "I was instructed to infiltrate the school and find you. This, however, has been a most unique job I've been asked to do."

"Why? Never killed a little kid before?" I butted in rather venomously.

To my surprise, he gave another huff at my rudeness. "Not at all," he said, "To my surprise, my employers asked me to bring you back... ALIVE."

"Alive?"

"Yes," he replied, his tone now growing into a growl. "Truth was if I were just asked to kill you and be done with it, I could have done so in a heartbeat. But you..." I sensed his growl with a bit of anger in it. "You sure made this task all the more troublesome."

Oh, boy...

"I admit I had underestimated you as a mere boy. But this ends tonight. You're coming with me, weather you want to or not," he said coldly. His steely eyes twinkled with his killer instinct trying to come out.

Regaining my confidence, I gave him an intrigued smile. "So," I asked, "Who is this employer of yours and why do they want me so bad?"

His eyes narrowed at me through the slits in his mask. "That I won't say," he stated simply.

It was clear he wasn't going to spill any more info about why he was after me. He was just the messenger, which meant that I had more things to worry about. Just great.

"Now," he said with his narrowed gaze locked on me. "This is your last chance. Make this easy for the both of us and come quietly."

I gripped my fists, holding my courage strong in myself. "Alpha, I'm not going with you!" I said clearly, "You might have to hold yourself back against me, but that doesn't mean I won't! I'm not going anywhere!"

Alpha remained still. That leisurely attitude of his slowly melted away as he eyed me. "So be it," he growled and held the grip of his sword.

The two of us stood there silently. Neither of us moved, him awaiting my first attack and me awaiting his. He kept his paw on his dagger, prepared to draw it on an impulse's notice. A minute must have past and neither one of us moved. Waiting for the other one was growing pretty old, pretty fast. Like a gunshot to start the battle, I crossed my arms across my chest and made my move.

"Get ready to fry, wolf boy!" I shouted and prepared my spell. With my words and extending my hands out, a ball of yellow light appeared between my palms. A Fireball maybe? Nope... something even better.

"Thunderball!" With energy flickering around my hands, I shot the ball of yellow light forth. It rocketed right through the air with amazing speed right at Alpha. The werewolf only was able to give a 'wha--!' as he barely dodged the high-speed ball of light. As it struck the wall, the ball of light exploded in an amazing blaze of lightning and electrical energy. With the explosion, a large dust cloud swept over Alpha as I watched with a proud smile.

"That," I said proudly to Alpha, somewhere hidden in the smoke, "was my original spell! Mixing the basics of a Fireball and a Mono Volt spell!" I wasn't stupid. That spell was indeed powerful, but I was well aware that wasn't enough to stop Alpha. Then as the smoke cleared, I saw him.

My spirit dropped a tad. Not only did he dodge the ball head on, but also he was without a scratch. His eyes sliced through the smoke as he looked at me. It was if my attack was more troublesome than painful. "Now your mine!" he growled and sprinted from the smoke towards me.

I prepared my next spell. To pull it off, I had to juggle my energies at just the right time if I wanted to throw him off. I had to focus on him, making sure my spell met its mark. With Alpha sprinting strait towards me, I took aim. He held his knife in his paw, ready to attack. Then, closing in fast, I released my spell.

"Hello there, handsome,"

At that moment, I could have sworn I saw Alpha's eyes bulge out of his mask and sockets. He came to such a stop I'd though he'd fall over. Standing a couple of feet before him was a beautiful young, half-naked women with long blond hair and the face of a beauty queen. I heard a gasp from my attacker as he gawked at the beauty, torn from how she got there and shocked from how she looked.

The women then bended over with a hand on her knees and held a finger to her lips. "Why wolfy," she said in a sexy tone, "Don't you want to play with me instead?" With that, she blew Alpha a kiss.

The guy completely froze in his tracks. I had bet under that mask, he went slack-jawed at the sight of her. "W-W-W-What the--"

"FIREBALL!"

I cast my next spell. Before Alpha knew it, a ball of fiery light passed through the beautiful maiden like she was a ghost and shot right at him. Direct hit! Yeah! The ball of light caught Alpha right in the gut and propelled him backwards with it. In, what I bet was a painful crash, he slammed into the wall and the Fireball exploded. The fiery explosion lit up the room, spreading fire into the air around the wall. I couldn't see how Alpha could survive that!

"Ha-Ha!" I laughed out loud. I pointed to the sight of the explosion as the flames died into smoke. "Gotcha, with my Fireball-Fake out!" I had cast an illusion spell on Alpha as he came after me. Focusing as hard as I could, I was able to juggle upholding my illusion while I chanted up the Fireball. I had used that technique one, all it got me though was a very displeased teacher and a week of detention.

The smoke hovered in the air for a few second, and then slowly receded. My glee turned sour as I looked through the smoke to find who stood behind it. There, with no more than a few singes on his already black outfit stood Alpha. He slowly stepped out of the smoke, his creepy eyes locked on me again. I couldn't believe it! The guy took a Fireball right in the chest and he wasn't cremated! There should have been nothing but bones from a blast like that, but there he was.

"My, aren't we inventive?" he asked leisurely, brushing a paw against his arm to remove some suit. "Is there anything else you want to show me?"

Now he's mocking me?! That's it! The only guy who gets to poke fun at the bad guys is me, pal!

Not giving me the time to answer, he charged again. Then, before he had made it across the floor to me, he disappeared in a blur of speed and vanished. It was my turn to be flabbergasted as he pulled a Houdini on me. I glanced about, keeping my eyes and ears open to find where he'd go. Then I sensed his presence again, right to my left. In an act of pure instinct, I leapt away from where I saw. As I did, three throwing darts struck the ground where I once was.

From a foot in the air, Alpha had reappeared in another blur. He lunged at me, his blade poised towards my neck.

Hey! What are you doing! You want me alive, remember?

With that steely knife coming at me, it gave me an idea. "Mono Volt!" I cried and held my hand out. Lightning quickly shot forth and struck Alpha's blade. I had figured I'd use the sword as a lightning rod for an effective attack. But before the electric shock could even reach Alpha, he flung the sword away and towards the wall, taking the electric attack with it. It struck the wall and the electricity around it discharged harmlessly.

I gulped, I hadn't expected that. Alpha landed on his haunches and faced me with his claws now extended. "Did you honestly believe that I would fall for the same trick TWICE?" he growled with an arrogant tone, sounding as if he was the most powerful foe in the world. Well, his tone left his mark at least as I took a step back.

Those spells I created had powerful results and all they did was slow him down. I'd bet a Dragon Slave would defiantly be enough to barbeque his tail, but I didn't know if the warding field I was in would contain the blast. Not to mention if I did, it would probably take me along with it.

Even without his sharp dagger, Alpha was still a force to contend with. Now standing a few feet ahead of me, he watched me closely like a cat anticipating a mouse's movements. With his speed, he would grab me as soon as I made a run for it. "Tired yet?" he quipped dully.

"You wish! Flare Bit!" I shouted.

Small balls of light appeared around me. Throwing my hand down, they collided with the ground between Alpha and me. Their combined force exploded on the ground and released a dense smokescreen around us. I doubt that Alpha would be fooled, but I wasn't about to nick-pick about diversions. Taking advantage of it, I ran to my right. I escaped the smog and sprinted far from the area to gain some distance.

Somehow, I figured Alpha wouldn't allow it as he let out a growl in my direction.

"Freeze Arrow," he growled.

From out of the array of smoke, three arrows of blue light shot out towards me as I ran. Two of the arrows shot over my head while the other struck the ground. At first what I thought was poor aim I attempted to run, until I felt something snag my feet, followed by a cold chill up my ankles.

Frozen in place, I looked down. My feet had been frozen to the floor. Ice had formed around my feet, sealing them to the ground with a thick coat of frost. I tried to yank my feet free, but it was as if my soles had been sauntered down. As I looked up towards the billowing smoke, I saw the silhouette of Alpha appear.

He stepped out of the smoke towards me and approached in his leisurely pace. On the approach, he held a fist before him. "Let's see how you like taking a Mono Volt," he said in a shallow growl. Then, opening his fist, a ball of flickering electricity appeared in his paw.

Alpha took his sweet time walking up to me as I frantically tugged against the ice around my feet. If he struck me with it, it was over. He might have been able to withstand a direct hit from a paralyzing lightning spell, but I sure as hell wasn't that resilient. The flickering ball of light lighted up his steely eyes as he approached me.

Then, finally calming down to stop my frantic pulling at my feet, I came up with an idea. I chanted up another spell under my breath as he approached. Now only a few feet from me, the ball of electricity in Alpha's paw flickered madly in anticipation to discharge. "Flare Bit!" I cast again. Another bunch of balls of light appeared before me and I threw my hand down... except, my target wasn't Alpha. I aimed right below me.

I felt the ground boom as I threw my hand towards my feet. The balls of light exploded with a heated charge of air and created another smokescreen upon impact. Instantly, I suddenly felt my feet were no longer frozen to the ground. I had aimed Flare Bit on the ice around my feet, freeing me just in time. Guessing where Alpha was within that second in the smoke, I sprinted towards his left. I didn't know if it was survival instinct or my going crazy to just survive that night. With a loud shout I threw a high kick right for where Alpha's head should've been.

My foot was suddenly caught by something, not really making a strong impact. As the smoke blew away, I found Alpha before me with a paw clamped around my ankle. The way he looked at me showed a small hint of boredom at my attempt. "I'll say again, you've got guts..." Then, with a murmur that escaped my hearing, a blast of wind suddenly struck me.

I was thrown far, out of the array of smoke and sent spiraling across the floor. After sliding halfway across the room, I knelt up as quickly as possible. When I looked up, I saw the blown away smoke give way to Alpha as he stepped forward into view. With a scowl on my face, I got up to my feet to fight again.

"I can't believe I ever liked you!" I growled at Alpha, "I should've known that a teacher like you was too good to be true."

Stopping as he came out of the smoke, he looked at me simply. "And why would you say that?" he asked, rather curious.

"Drop the act, pal!" I shouted and pointed right at the werewolf assassin. "I know you're Master Krots!" My anger escalated as I thought of the whole idea of it.

"Really?" he asked, his eyes narrowing at me with intrigue. "And what makes you think I'm this... Krots?"

"The most upstanding evidence," I said as I looked towards the arm I had zapped last afternoon. "The scorch on your arm, you had the same mark when I had zapped you earlier." I caught a slight snicker from Alpha as he heard what I said. He may have pissed me off before, but his snickering was just making my blood boil.

"Go ahead, deny it all you want!" I shouted aloud. Regaining my strength, I crossed my arms in my spell-casting pose. I kept an angry scowl on Alpha, showing that I was ready to fight with everything I got. "It doesn't matter! I'll expose you once I take you down!"

With that, he took another step towards me, prepared to fight again. "My, what spirit you have," he said leisurely, and then glared at me with his silvery eyes. "Enjoy it while it lasts, because once this is over... I'll be sure to crush it!" With that, he made a deadly sprint for me. My eyes flared with attention as Alpha entered his sprint.

"Grey Bomb!" I cried and threw out my arms wide. The ground trembled as my spell took hold. The ground beneath Alpha suddenly erupted with a mighty blast, sending a cloud of debris high into the air.

I instantly took a few jumps back as the explosion of earth ended, preparing for when Alpha reemerged from the smoke. Right on cue, Alpha jumped out of the smoke and high into the air, poised for an aerial charge at me from above. With him in the air, I doubted that he would be able to dodge my next spell so easily. Holding my hands out with my fingers in a crossed pattern, I chanted the spell.

"Scatter Brid!" From the space before me, waves of small energy balls rained a hailstorm towards the werewolf assassin.

The annoying waves swept around Alpha, not only hitting him with several electrical shocks, but also doing well to blind him in the blizzard of sparks. After a few seconds of annoying pelts of the energy swarm, Alpha leapt from the air and to the far side of the room. To my luck, he'd altered his express route at me, which gave me time to cast one of my major spells.

I closed my eyes as I began to feel magic flow through me. Wind began to swirl around me, waving my blue cloak in its breeze as my words churned it with magic. Opening my eyes slightly, I saw Alpha now out of the storm of energy balls. Alpha charged at me once again. I kept chanting.

Wind which blows across eternity,

gather in my hands and become my strength!

The wind around me picked up more, flapping my cloak upward as felt wind build in between my palms. The spell I had planned would unleash a powerful blast of wind in the form of an arrow. With contact, the spell would shred the target to pieces.

My words must have caught Alpha's attention because as I finished my chant, he came to a sudden stop. Can you say sitting duck ! It was my time to show him why I was so confident.

"Bram Gush!" I cried and shoved my hands forth. A gust of wind violently shook from my hand as my arrow shot forth. Like a hawk diving towards its meal, the arrow cleaved its way through the air and hummed with its destructive cyclone within. Alpha stood right there in its path, the arrow a second from impact.

Suddenly with a blur of speed, Alpha vanished right before my eyes. "What!?" was all I could say as my arrow missed its mark and continued on. Speeding onward, it struck the back wall of the training gym and exploded. With its blast of razor-sharp wind, the spell ripped a rather large piece of the wall with it.

I found myself silent and mortified as my spell ended with a large crater nailed into the wall. Seconds after the arrow struck, Alpha reappeared with another blur and landed right where he was seconds before. Unsurprised by the falling debris behind him, he locked his steely eyes towards me.

"Enough warm-up," he growled with almost an intimidating growl. "Go ahead. Give me your best shot."

THAT was my best shot...

I felt like falling to my knees, but I willed myself to keep standing. I was out of ideas. That was the best spell I knew and he deflected it. I wouldn't have time to chant it up again without have him all over me mid-way in my chanting. He had walked away from most of my spells without serious damage.

"Its time we end this game," Alpha said and raised a paw out towards me. A faint glow showed over it as he began to cast a spell. "Dark Mist."

Not again, I thought. Like a fast moving fog, darkness filled my vision and surroundings with the black mist. I couldn't see a thing, not even my nose in front of my face. It wasn't hard to tell that Alpha was planning to cripple my sight so I was an easy target. If Alpha was like any ninja, he could find me in this unnatural fog without even trying.

I looked around, trying to sense Alpha but found nothing. "Lighting!" I cried and made a ball of light appear in my hand. But to my shock, the lighting spell too was absorbed into the fog, only showing a blur of its glow. I waved the light around me with its blurry glow, but it did nothing. I was just spinning my wheels to find Alpha in his dark spell, but as he already knew, it was futile.

"What's wrong?" I heard Alpha's voice from somewhere around me, "afraid of the dark, pup?" It was as if his voice was coming from everywhere, making it impossible for me to tell where he was. I was trapped and I had no way to escape the Dark Mist spell... or Alpha hidden within it.

"Sleep tight, kid," Alpha growled.

"Flow Break!"

Like a flare from the brightest heavens, a light suddenly broke the shroud of Dark Mist before me. With its brilliant light, it shoved the darkness back and before long swept it away. I found myself back in the surroundings of the training area. My mind raced for what had happened. I hadn't cast that spell.

As the light faded away, I found Alpha where he was before. He stood a far distance from me with his arm over his eyes. Removing his arm, he glanced around to find his Dark Mist spell gone.

"What," he snarled angrily, "What was that?"

"Surprise!" a voice cried from high above.

Both of us surprised, Alpha and I looked towards the row of bleachers that stretched towards the ceiling. Hidden in the shadows at the very top, stood the figure of a person.

"Prepare to face defeat villain!" the jubilant voice shouted.

My eyes went wide as I looked closely through the shadows at the person hidden in them. As I saw the person's silhouette, I felt the sudden urge to roll my eyes in grief.

Oh no, it's her!

Chapter 4: Bang from beyond! Blast Bomb!

"Lighting!" our mystery savior shouted and launched a bright ball of light into the air above her. The light shined right on her like someone on a stage. There, standing dramatically upon the top bleacher stood Cassandra with her hands on her hips as she stared down at us. She wore a white fighter garb with a flowing white cape off her shoulders. Her flowing blond hair hung off her shoulders as she stood high and mighty like some sort of superhero.

The whole sight wanted me to bury my head into the tiled floor.

"CASSANDRA!?" I cried aloud, more in dread than in relief. "W-What are you doing here?"

With another act of drama, she brushed a lock of hair over he shoulder and looked down at me. "You think I'd let you have all the fun here?" she quipped as her gaze came to Alpha. He, on the other hand was anything but intimidated by her strong dramatic entrance.

"Who's this girl?" Alpha asked rather dourly.

Then, she held a finger out in Alpha's direction with a heroic pose as if she was about to rain hellfire upon him. Instead she was going to do something worse. A speech. "Hear me, evil-doer! Your evil shall never prevail! For as long as such deeds exist in this world, there shall be good to stop it! I am Cassandra, THE HERO OF JUSTICE!"

Cassandra took a step back and then leaped off the bleacher into the air. With an impressive acrobatic somersault, she flew through the air as Alpha and I watched. She defiantly got the acrobatics down... except she underestimated her landing. Landing onto one of the lower bleachers, her foot slipped and entered a most embarrassing fall. She suddenly tumbled down the remaining bleachers like a heap of old laundry. Tumbling down, she fell face down to the floor with a rather loud and painful SPLAT!

I winced at the sight as she hit. A part of me felt sorry for her at that moment. No more than a second after she hit the ground, Cassandra pushed her self up and stood up as if that rather embarrassing fall never happened. Both Alpha and I stared at her with dull looks, seeing her proud and cheery look despite falling like a ton of bricks.

"I see my grace and appeal have left you speechless villain," Cassandra said bravely and pointed to Alpha once again. "Now, prepare to taste my Justice!"

I think I was better off with just Alpha...

"Stay out of this girly," Alpha snarled, "This got nothing to do with you."

At that moment, Cassandra did what I hated most. She let out a painfully shrill laugh, announcing her overconfidence and vast self-superiority. That laugh would probably make grown men cry. "Ha!" she announced aloud, far more than she had to. "You attack my classmate and say it has nothing to do with me? For such action I shall not forgive!"

Just when I thought Cassandra the student was a handful, Cassandra the superhero was anything but subtle. I rolled my eyes as Alpha kept his eyes on her. I'd guess he was surprise to find someone else here after I had snuck in all alone. I wondered how long she was hiding in the shadows.

The look in Alpha's eye was clear that he was annoyed of Cassandra's over jubilant nature as I was. "You don't want to fight with me, little girl," Alpha growled, "Go home and play superhero on your own time."

"You won't intimidate me," Cassandra boomed, "No matter how strong you are, you will never scuff out my flame of just--"

"FIREBALL!" Taking advantage of Alpha distracted by Cassandra's motivational speech, I threw a fireball from right next to Alpha and shot it directly into his chest. The sphere of fiery light threw him clear across the long room and crashed into the wall. The Fireball took effect and erupted right where he was. If my last attempt to hit him with a Fireball proved anything, he wouldn't be down for long. It just bought me some time.

With an impressive leap, Cassandra landed right at my side with a rather upset look on her face. "What was that for? I was in the middle of saying something important!" she shouted at me.

Gee, sorry Cassandra. I was only trying to... SAVE MY HIDE HERE!

"What are you doing here?" I shouted, particularly mad that she got involved after I told her not too.

Again, she gave me that overly confident laugh. "Please Zane," she bellowed and held a hand close to her mouth, "You don't really expect a weakling like you to single handedly take down such a foe. Though, it's no surprise that I had to come and save you."

She called this saving me? I like to see her take on Alpha and see how she fairs against him!

"This isn't a game here!" I shouted at her, now being serious, "Run and get out of here while you still can!"

"Oh no, you don't," a grim growl came from the other side of the room.

We both turned to it to find that Alpha had once again emerged relatively unharmed by my spell. Cassandra's eyes went wide. Even she knew as I did what a direct hit from a Fireball would do and yet here stood a guy who wasn't a burnt corpse.

"I had warned her to leave before," Alpha said as he fully emerged from the smoke. "But now that she's here, I fear her fate will be far worse than yours."

With Alpha now ready to fight again, the both of us got ready. With a look of determination in her eye, she began to cast a spell. Alpha made a deadly sprint for us, this time aimed particularly at Cassandra. I stayed by her side, preparing a spell of my own, but she was already ahead of me. Alpha had closed the gap and prepared to strike with his claws.

"Defense!" Cassandra shouted.

Then without ceremony and to my surprise, Alpha suddenly slammed into the air right before us with a painful crash. My eyes went wide to find nothing was there, as if the werewolf ninja was playing mime or something. No sooner had he rammed into... whatever it was, Alpha pushed himself off and jumped away from it.

It dawned on me as I saw it. Cassandra had used the White magic spell, Defense, which created a transparent solid field of energy around us. The barrier was in the form of a large, crystalline shape. It supposedly was the strongest defense spell known.

After Alpha had made a long leap across the floor, Cassandra let go of the shield around us. "Go ahead, attack us with sword and sorcery alike!" she laughed triumphantly, "You'll never break my spirit, nor my shields!"

"DON'T ENCOURAGE HIM!" I scolded at her.

With that, I let the spell I was holding fly. "Flare Arrow!" I launched a volley of arrows right at Alpha's direction. With blurs of speed, he dodged the arrows, leaving them behind his tail with fiery explosions.

I hated to admit, if we were going to do something that time was now. Now with Cassandra here, we stood a glimmer of a chance against him. "Cassandra," I quickly got her attention, "If we want to get out of this, were going to have to work together, okay?"

Her face brightened up at the suggestion. "Absolutely!" she shouted, "Prepare villain to fall at the power of our unity!"

I slapped my forehead with my palm.

"Okay," I began quickly, "this is what we need to do."

About as I explained mid-way through my plan, Alpha had finished dodging the array of arrows I sent his way. Catching his sight on us, he sprinted our way with his steely eyes glimmering with bloodlust.

"Now! Go!" I shouted, and the two of us separated into sprints of our own. As I ran to the right, Cassandra ran to the left as the both of us attempted to surround Alpha ourselves. Alpha came to a stop. Now with us separated, he was unsure who to go after. While he tried to decide, we took action.

"Aqua Create!" Cassandra cried, and held her hands out towards the ground. As if she was a living water fountain, water came pouring out from the space between her hands and cascaded across the floor. While she did this, I prepared a spell of my own.

With Alpha now curious to what we were doing, he felt the water quickly reach his pawed feet. The water rose madly, reaching up to our ankles and stretched throughout the room. It was a simple plan. Cassandra would handle setting the stage, and I'd follow through with the fireworks.

It's Showtime!

"Dolph Zork!" I shouted and let my magic work. From the water below me, I conjured a sharp blade of water and threw my arm out, launching the blade at Alpha. Cassandra already jumped out of the way, but Alpha's stood right in the blade's path.

Seeing the blade coming, Alpha ducked on both his hands and feet, looking now like an actual wolf. The blade flew over his back and shot towards the wall, casting a breeze against Alpha as he dodged it.

Not getting our hopes up on that one spell, Cassandra and I quickly sprinted in separate directions across the floor. Seeing us separate, Alpha made up his mind and went after me. With no less than a second, he cut off my path and I stopped before him. He then lunged for me, but my accomplice already had me covered. "Elmekia Lance!" Cassandra shouted.

A ray of fiery red light shot across my flank and shot right at Alpha. Knowing the spell was coming; he immediately sprinted for his left and missed the spell. With his superior speed, he sprinted through the air and landed on the other side of the room. At that time, Cassandra rushed towards my side and took her guard.

"Okay, villain," Cassandra shouted, "I don't care who you think you are, but you're no match for our COMBINED POWER!"

She's getting WAY too wrapped up in this,

"Cassandra!" I had to burst her bubble and tell her who Alpha was. "That guy is Master Krots!"

Just then, I saw her jubilant exposure drop a notch. "WHAT!!!" she cried, apparently as let down as I was when I figured it out.

All Alpha did in response was narrow his gaze at us. "You fools!" Alpha growled in our direction. "I have but one true name, one true identity. Whatever aliases I take mean nothing to me, and should mean nothing to you." The way he talked only did to ratify he was purely hard-core.

However, Cassandra didn't seem to listen to him. Taking a step forward, she cast a gaze of watery eyes in a pleading state. "No! Master Krots please, it's not too late!" she cried remorsefully towards Alpha. I ended up rolling my eyes and slapping my forehead again. Why she would try to change the morality of a deranged serial killer was an utter waist of time. "Repent for your sins and you'll be saved! Cast your killer nature aside and give peace a chance!"

Alpha's narrowed gaze looked at Cassandra as if she was a puppy dog that was gnawing on his slipper. He held back the urge to snarl as he tried to stomach the holy dribble my friend was force-feeding him. "Enough of this," he grumbled and then proceeded in another attack towards us.

Taken aback by Alpha's violent reaction to her pep talk, Cassandra backed up again towards me. Rather alarmed, she prepared another spell. "Defense!" she shouted again and that veil of impenetrable, see-through energy appeared around us.

"Not this time," Alpha growled as he charged for us. "Dill Brand!"

Suddenly the earth below Cassandra and I began to shake and swell. We both looked down with shocked glances before we got hit. The ground suddenly erupted with a large blast, sending us flying upward. No sooner had the explosion gone off, the barrier Cassandra created shattered into shards of light. With the blast, the two of us were sent flying. I fell to the ground hard and found myself spiraling across the floor. I stopped only to feel the wind knocked out of me.

I should have seen that one coming. Cassandra's barrier spell stopped at ground level, making us vulnerable to underground attacks. Finally getting my strength back, I knelt up as quickly as possible. The large smoke that had spread out from the blast area clouded everywhere around me.

"Cassandra?" I cried out, hoping to find if she was unharmed. "Cassandra!"

"I'm... I'm okay..." I heard her answer from somewhere through the smoke. I was about to follow her voice to find her. Just then, I felt someone grip my shoulder and held me down on my knees.

I gave a loud gulp as I felt the furry hand upon me. Turning my head ever so slowly, I looked up to who it was. Surely enough it was Alpha, standing just next to me with his paw on my shoulder. Through his mask, his steely eyes gave me an unyielding, crossed look. "This has gone on long enough," he growled in a shallow tone. All I could do was give a nervous chuckle as he held me there.

"Dimilar Wind!" I heard Cassandra shout. With that spell, a ball of wind shot right over my head, cleaving the smoke around us as if it was nothing. To my luck, the swirling ball of wind knocked right into Alpha and threw him several feet away from me. With that ball of wind, the smoke in the room was swept away.

Surprised myself, I turned towards the source of the spell. Knelt down with her hand held out was Cassandra, who had cast her spell while hidden in the smoke. As we got to our feet, she ran towards me. "Saved your butt!" she quipped playfully.

Urgh! Even in the heat of battle she finds time to torment me,

At that point, the water that had once flooded the floor had receded and dried away. With the smoke gone, the both of us found Alpha had been thrown only a few yards away. Slightly stunned by the wind attack, it gave me an idea of how to stop him. It would require me to use a spell I kind of stunk at, but I was willing to risk it.

"Cassandra, we need light!" I hinted towards her. To my luck she nodded, catching my drift.

"Lighting!" With her words, a bright ball of light appeared in her hand and like a baseball, she threw it at Alpha.

Snapped back into attention, Alpha saw the brilliant bright ball coming towards him. With no more than a shift of his head, the ball shot over his shoulder harmlessly. Just as it shot behind Alpha, the ball erupted with a brilliant glow of light and illuminated the surrounding area.

"Keep it up!" I shouted to her as I concentrated on my next spell. Like I asked, Cassandra launched more Lighting spells in several areas around us. Alpha dodged the lights as those came his way, thinking them as attacks. After four more light spells, the entire room was as bright as day.

Alpha gave us a bored look. "What are you doing--?"

"Shadow Snap!" I cried. At that moment, a dagger appeared between my fingers as my spell took shape. With a flick of my wrist, I launched it towards the ground and...

Bull's-eye! Yes!

The dagger struck its target. Just then, I saw Alpha attempted to come at me... but he didn't. His eyes went wide as he looked at the ground before him. There, looking at the shade of his own shadow he saw the dagger I had thrown into it. Shadow Snap targeted a person through the astral plain. By pinning Alpha's shadow, he couldn't move.

But I wasn't done yet. I immediately ran towards Alpha's right. There, stretched out far across the floor was yet another, thinner shadow of Alpha. "Shadow Snap!" I shouted again and shot another dagger into the shadow.

"Damn!" Alpha spat as he felt another part of his body jolt with the feeling of immobility.

Following my example, Cassandra went after another shadow as well. I felt great joy as I finally got Shadow Snap to work. As Cassandra nailed another shadow herself, I cast my last Shadow Snap into a fourth shadow on the ground. My look of joy was the same as Cassandra's as we saw Alpha before us.

In a perfect pattern, four clear shadows were cast upon the ground in the four directions. With each one pinned by a dagger, Alpha couldn't escape. From what I learned about Shadow Snap in astral studies, one shadow originally halted a person from moving. But by pinning four shadows, it was possible to completely immobilize a target to every limb and part of his body. From what happened then, I was right. There stood Alpha as still as a statue. Cassandra and I had completely immobilized Alpha to every limb and part of his body. The only thing that was left was his head, which he used to look at the shadows of him pinned to the floor.

With Alpha trapped, Cassandra sprinted opposite of him with me on the other side. "Let him have it!" she shouted strongly. With her words, a fiery ball of light appeared in her hands. I too began to cast a spell myself, and a ball of yellow light came into existence.

"Fireball!"

"Thunderball!"

At the same time we released our spells, hers of fire and mine of lightning. With large flashes, the two spells took form as large spheres of fire and electricity and rocketed towards their target dead ahead. With nowhere to go, Alpha remained frozen as the Fireball and Thunderball came at him from both sides. Moving his head as best he could, his eyes were wide with shock as he glanced at the Thunderball from my direction before the spells struck.

KA-BOOOM!!!!!

The two spells struck at once, hitting their mark with a wicked explosion. Fire and lightning shot around where the spells clashed, releasing the mother-load of flashes that I bet had surpassed the boundaries of the building we were in. I looked in wonder as the lightshow slowly faded away and looked at the billowing smoke cloud. As the explosion ended, the lighting spells we'd used to create Alpha's shadows disappeared. Quickly retreating from where she was, Cassandra ran around the boundaries of the explosion site and came to me. Her look shared my expression as well.

After a small moment of silence, Cassandra, now cheerful as ever gave a humongous smile of accomplishment. "We... DID IT!" she cried, causing me to jump back at her enthusiastic remark. "Justice: One. Evil: ZERO!"

I cracked a tiny smile and gave a sigh or relief. That's the extent of my joy at the moment. Cassandra, however, needed to know the meaning of subtle. She kept on cheering like we had just saved the world, followed by a parade in her honor.

"Yeah!" she sang jubilantly, "We did it, we did it!"

Just then, as if I had fallen into the worst nightmare of my life, we heard the sound of a faint growl from within the smoke. Caught in mid-cheering, Cassandra's tone slowly sank to a disappointing low as we looked into the smoke. There within the shroud of smoke appeared the silhouette of our foe. He then stepped out into the open air. I looked at him with disbelief, dread and horror as I found Alpha still alive... again!

"Oh boy, did we do it..." I groaned in response to Cassandra.

The good news was that we did actually hit him with a rather good blast. Clear scorches were on his clothes, and he slightly held his arm as if to rub a sore muscle. The bad... let me rephrase, very, very bad news was that the look in his eyes was now plain frightening. He looked at us with a gaze of rage and anger that made it clear that he was really pissed off.

"You little brat!" he growled, his tone now showing the cold, beastly side of the werewolf assassin. "I was told to bring you alive... but I don't think they'll mind if you're missing a limb or two."

I felt myself shake, and I was pretty sure Cassandra was trembling a bit as well. Alpha took slow steps towards us, in return the two of us stepped back. I wanted to cast a spell, but it was clear if he could walk away after all we did to him that night, was there any spell we knew that could stop him? As he stalked towards us, he lowered his injured arm, gave it a small shake to rid the pain and reached into his pocket. He pulled out one of his throwing darts. It gave a gleam, equal to the cold malice in Alpha's eyes.

With the sharp knife utensil now drawn, Alpha made a deadly sprint towards us. Cassandra prepared to cast a spell, but was caught mid sentence as Alpha disappeared into another blur again. He reappeared another place on the other side of the room, only to vanish elsewhere as he approached. Alpha was trying to divert our attention, making us lose our guard. With his final jump, Alpha reappeared before us and made a strait beeline right for me.

"Van Rail!"

Cassandra and I were surprised as we heard someone shout out that spell from somewhere in the room. A thick vein of frost suddenly streaked across the floor in front of us. Seeing the frozen streak in his path, Alpha quickly came to a stop and took a small jump back. From the side of the room, several other veins of frost spread out around the room like snakes across the floor. As some of the frost attempted to come after him, Alpha quickly made several jumps away, steering clear of the growing ice veins. Before long, the ice veins stopped growing, forming intricate patterns around Cassandra and me as if to protect us.

"Uh, what was that?" I asked rather dumbly as Cassandra and I looked around.

"Rebellious as ever I see, Zane," a voice spoke, and we turned to look.

From the far side of the room, a lone figure stood in the shadows near the wall. Ice had covered the wall where he stood which had sprouted into the growing veins of frost that had slithered across the floor. With a hand upon the ice wall, he lowered it with a small stream of cold steam trailing off his fingers. After I looked closely into the shadows where the figure stood, I released a rather large gasp.

_ What the--!?_

"Master Krots!" Cassandra cried. Stepping out of the shadows was, to my grand surprise, Master Krots. The brown werewolf teacher walked onto the floor, carefully stepping over the veins of frost he conjured onto the ground. His red robe hung elegantly off his body as he approached us. The only thing different about him was that he ridded himself of his glasses, giving way to his famous unyielding eyes.

"Master Krots!" Cassandra cried happily as he approached and stepped into the circle he created around us. "I knew you weren't evil!"

Okay, now I felt stupid. I thought Alpha and Master Krots was the same guy. And thinking that he was I had sent Master Krots flying down the hallway. Oh boy... was I in for an earful at the end of this mess.

"Are you two alright?" was the first thing he asked. We both nodded at him. "Zane," he then came to me with a sly look, "Didn't I say I'd better not catch you if you were looking for Alpha again?"

At that moment, being captured by Alpha was sounding mighty tempting.

No sooner had our happy reunion with our teacher started; a rather annoyed growl came from across the room. "You again!" Alpha snarled. Master Krots and the rest of us looked to find Alpha was on the far side of the room. He stood clear from the veins of ice as if they were deadly. I couldn't figure why. "Why do you always interfere?"

Then it dawned on me. Alpha was there in the training room yesterday. The only reason he probably didn't attack me when I was good and exhausted was because Master Krots came and found me before Alpha could make his move. I had to remind myself to give Master Krots an apple when this was all good and through.

Hearing the werewolf assassin, Master Krots grew a rather angry stare at him. He bared his teeth and gave a rather frightful snarl in Alpha's direction. "YOU!" Master Krots growled furiously, his claws now extended from his paws. "How dare you attack my students!"

I had never seen the beastly nature of Master Krots before. It was unlike anything I've ever seen before. The very look on our teacher's furry face made Cassandra and me back up a bit. With a rather ferocious growl, Master Krots took of with amazing speed. Jumping over the veins of ice around the floor, he made his way right for Alpha. Still holding the dagger he'd drew, Alpha took off himself and jumped away from Master Krots.

Alpha must have been pretty freaked if he was going on the defensive. And for an Alchemy teacher, Master Krots had really good moves. Sprinting across rivers of ice, Alpha kept his eyes on Master Krots as he attempted to strike him down with his claws. In an attempt to strike back, Alpha launched his throwing dagger right at Master Krots. With speed almost as equal with Alpha's, Master Krots dodged it and the dart went towards the ground.

As Cassandra and I watched, we noticed as the throwing dart struck one of the veins of frost. To our surprise, upon contact the dart was completely covered in a thick sheet of ice, poised up from the ground as if frozen instantly. Master Krots's spell arsenal was amazing. If his spells were anything like this one, then I was glad he wasn't Alpha.

From the looks of things, Master Krots had Alpha on the ropes. With so many parts of the floor lined with instant freezing trip-wires, the werewolf assassin's movements were quite limited. Alpha was casting several attack spells at Master Krots, only to have our fast teacher leap away and dart towards Alpha again.

Then, in a rather shocking turn of the tide, Alpha made a Houdini again and disappeared in another blur of speed. Master Krots stopped where he was, perplexed to see Alpha disappear right before his eyes. Then, as we watched from the safety of the ice ring, Cassandra and I saw as Alpha reappeared behind our teacher, poised for a sneak attack!

"Master Krots, look--!" Cassandra's warning barely got out before Alpha landed a rather painful looking kick right at Master Krots upper back. With strength that was hard to believe the assassin had, his kick sent our teacher hurtling through the air and into the far wall. With a growl of pain, Master Krots went crashing into a wall. Hitting the floor, he immediately got to his feet, but just as he did, Alpha was already on him.

Snarls flew as the two werewolves brawled on the floor, locked paw and paw as the one tried to overpower the other. The scene looked as if they were real wolves in mortal combat. Locked in their wrestling, Alpha had pinned Master Krots on his back, still pushing against his attacker. Inch by Inch, the werewolf assassin slowly tried to push Master Krots towards the ice vein, growing dangerously close to him.

Watching from the center of the room, Cassandra and I saw the sudden danger our teacher was in. "Master Krots will be a wolf-sickle if he touches that!" Cassandra cried as she saw Alpha push him closer towards the vein of ice on the floor.

I had to do something. Luckily, Master Krots's rescue gave me time to recover some of my energy. I then looked down to the circle of ever-freezing frost close to our feet. Looking at it, I gave a smile as an idea came to my head. Bringing my hands together, I pointed my palms down towards the ice vein at my feet and power filled my hands.

"Dam Brass!" The air around my hands gave a faint hum as a bolt of light appeared. With my cry, the bolt of light shot right at the vein of ice. The spell I used had another name. A.K.A: Vibration Blast.

The bolt of light struck. Like a highly struck tuning fork, the high-pitched ring echoed into the ice vein and with a jolt from the ground, the ice vein shattered to bits. Just as I had hoped, with that well placed spell I had created a chain reaction that began to shatter the other veins connect to the one I had shot. With the ice weaved like a spider's web, all the deadly frost veins began to shatter like rows of dominos.

Alpha was too busy trying to budge the resilient Master Krots to an icy doom that the ninja bastard didn't see it coming. Just as he was about to shove Master Krots's head upon the deadly ice vein, it shattered and disappeared into shards of frost. Alpha's eyes went wide as he saw the vein of ice disappear.

Taking advantage of the surprise, Master Krots brought his feet against Alpha's chest and heaved. He sent Alpha flying backwards and far, allowing him a chance to get back to his feet. "Thanks," he called in our direction, and then brought his gaze on Alpha again.

Alpha gave a growl of annoyance, and I couldn't blame him. This fight had lasted probably after midnight. You'd be cranky if you were in a fierce battle in the middle of the night. Now angry, the werewolf assassin attempted another charge at our teacher. However, he didn't count on Cassandra's interference.

"Scatter-Brid!"

Like the spell I had used earlier, Alpha was struck by a storm of small energy balls. While Cassandra's spell took action, we both ran towards Master Krots. When we got to him, he looked at us with a fierce look. "What are you still doing here? Get out now!"

"No way," I shouted back at him, "Alpha came here for me! I'm not just going to run away!"

"That's right," Cassandra shouted as jubilant as ever. "And I too, shall not hide before the face of evil!"

"That wasn't a request!" Master Krots growled, clearly stating an order as our teacher.

Just then, a shrill buzzing noise interrupted our talk before Master Krots could scold us anymore. "GET DOWN!" he shouted, grabbed us by our backs and shoved us to the floor face-first. A rather violent wind grazed our backs as whatever came at us flew by. Then with a violent blast, it struck the wall and exploded, sending pieces of the wall flying threw the air. I had realized that the spell that was thrown at us was a spell called Dark Claw, a rather nasty bugger in the tear-your-foe-to-shreds column.

Looking up, I found that Alpha had emerged from the gale of energy balls and had launched the spell at us. His eyes now glared at all three of us with their icy glimmer. Then, finally sensing his rage for the first time that night, I picked up a now burning anger within him.

"Burst Flare!" Alpha growled. With his words a bright ball of light appeared before us.

Alarmed by its presence, Master Krots quickly got up and stood before us as if to protect us. Speaking as quickly as he could, he had shouted out a defensive spell I failed to hear. By the sound of it, it was probably Defense. My eyes went wide as I saw the orb of light before us release a rather strong flash, followed by an explosion of flames.

Alpha must have done some serious amplifying or something on that spell because as soon as it erupted, it practically shook the defense spell around us. A second after that, the shield shattered and the shockwave from the fiery explosion stuck us. We released a loud shout as we were sent flying backwards.

Smoke clouded everything as we fell to the ground, tumbled on our backs and stomachs as we tried to recover from that rather painful blast. I heard the groans of Master Krots and Cassandra beside me as I slowly regained my bearings. Not giving us the time to recover fully, Alpha stepped into the lifting array of smoke and before me.

It was clear now. He no longer cared about what became of my friend or my teacher. If I didn't do something, he'd kill them right then and there. I couldn't let that happen. I wouldn't let that happened.

"Die," he uttered as he charged forth, making a deadly sprint towards Cassandra.

My mind snapped with anger and my blood became a broil in less than a second. "NO!" I yelled aloud. "LEAVE MY FRIENDS ALONE!!!" My cry had probably had been louder than any explosion that had went off all day.

I quickly got in front of Alpha's path right as he made a charge for her. I kept my ground. I had lost all sense of logic as I strived to protect her with everything I had left. Just then, right as Alpha was about to collide with me, he was suddenly shoved back. Still mad as hell, I looked with surprise as I saw this. Master Krots was still on the ground just regaining his senses and Cassandra was still behind me. The only other person who could had repelled Alpha like that was...

Me?

Suddenly from below my feet, a brilliant gold light suddenly shined into existence. It stretched out to me as I felt power like that of a spell. It was then I had realized that Alpha was thrown back by the power of my aura alone. When a spell is being cast, a power aura is created. Most wouldn't do a thing, but this had somehow thrown off a charging werewolf.

Regardless of all this news, I was still pissed at Alpha. My anger escalated beyond anything I had ever experienced before. I wanted to end this, to get rid of Alpha right here and now. As I wished this, only one spell came to mind. The Blast Bomb.

Everything else had done squat, but Blast Bomb was still the highest risk I ever took. The most I ever got out of it was a simple spark. Still, even if my spell didn't work, it was better off than just being a human shield for my friends. With my anger driving me, I was prepared to blast his butt to hell. I promised I'd fight him with everything I got, and he was going to get it!

The golden aura, whatever it was, stretched up around my body, illuminating my surroundings and wrapping me in its golden glow. I felt as if my soul was burning with power from deep within. Whatever it was, it was making me feel all-powerful. I began to chant my spell.

Regaining his senses after being thrown a distance back, Alpha looked towards me, drawn by the golden light. For some reason he appeared shocked. I heard the sounds of Master Krots and Cassandra beside me but while lost in the overflowing energy, I didn't acknowledge them.

I was seeing red... actually it was gold. Whatever! I was blinded with anger as I looked towards Alpha. The words of my spell began to flow like water. For a moment, I felt as if the words were coming out by themselves. The golden aura surged around me as I felt my words brought more power forth. I caught a look of shock in Alpha's eyes as the golden aura glowed brighter.

I heard new energy hum around me. Too forgone with anger and power, I finished my chant.

Please let it work! Come out right this time!

_ _ I shouted at the top of my lungs. "BLAST BOMB!!!"

Throwing my arms out, the air around me whooshed and whined. Dozens of balls of solid light appeared around me, flickering with power and a brilliant fiery glow. I caught the look of horror on Alpha's face as the orbs formed. With an angry war cry, I threw my arms in a downward swoop forward at my target.

The orbs of light then tore through the air; spiraling outward in the direction I had thrown them. I only saw the silhouette of Alpha's fleeing form as the orbs shot forward all about the room and struck.

_ KA-BOOOOOOOOM!!! _

The explosion was so loud I thought my ears had been blown off. The massive roar led to a violent shockwave and a blast of overheated air. The light from the explosion blinded my senses as I felt my anger vent away with the launching of the spell. As the loud boom and light overloaded my senses, I began to feel weak. The last thing I saw was the blinding fiery light of my spell as I passed out.

"Zane... Zane...?"

A faint, gentle voice called out to me. I couldn't move my body, more exhausted than I ever thought I could be. My eyelids felt heavy as I tried to see. Slowly willing my eyes open, I looked. When I opened my eyes I saw a very bright light far above me. Hanging in the way of the brilliant white glow was the gentle silhouette of Cassandra. Her hair seemed to flow in the light as she hung over me.

"Zane... can you hear me?" she said in an almost heavenly voice. She drew her head lower to me, growing closer. As she came closer, I thought I saw her lips open just a tad.

If I could move, I would surely react. But I couldn't, so I didn't. Still not fully together, my mind raced with questions. What happened? Did I die? Why is Cassandra here? Is she trying to... gulp, KISS ME?!

What is this? I can't tell if I'm in heaven or hell here!

Drawing closer to me with that heavenly look on her face, she still called my name. "Zane..." Unconsciously, I tilted my head a bit to receive the kiss. She drew closer with closed eyes. The heavenly light gleamed in her hair as she came. She drew closer; her lips drew near, then...

SLAP!

My senses took a jumpstart as I felt a strong blow to my cheek and threw my head to the side. My eyes shot opened, rather alarmed as Cassandra gave me a painful slap across the face. "Ouch!" I shouted alarmed, "What the heck?"

"Serves you right, Zane Cosmon!" Cassandra's voice boomed. Still on my back, I turned my head up to find Cassandra over me. She gave me a crossed look with her arms across her chest.

Finally finding the strength in me again, I slowly sat myself up. "What the hell happened?" I asked, rubbing both my head and my cheek from Cassandra's painful wakeup call.

"What do think!? You almost blew us up, you idiot!" she shouted, the last thing I needed as I tried to remember what happened.

After blinking a moment, I looked around me. I was still in the training area. Kent beside me as well was Master Krots. Glancing around a bit, I noticed that several guards were posted about the tattered room. My mind was a bit bleary as I tried to remember what had happened.

That light I saw when I came to was that of a healing spell. Cassandra must have healed me. What a way to sully your work by slapping someone right after you heal them.

"You okay?" Master Krots asked as he placed a paw on my shoulder.

My only answer was a small grown as I rubbed my head. "What happened...to Alpha...?" I asked while a bit disoriented.

"Gone," Master Krots said simply.

"Gone as in dead..." I asked hesitantly, "Or gone as in..."

Master Krots just smiled at me and tried to lower me back to the ground. "Ran away, but relax. I saw him flee and run out of the school grounds. I seriously doubt he'd be back anytime soon."

I gave a sigh of relief. Sure he got away, but I felt safe for the first time in days. Lying back on my back, I brought my hand up to my eyes and rubbed them. "What happened?" I asked with a groan.

"You don't remember?" Master Krots asked curiously, as I slowly tried to piece together the scattered jigsaw puzzle of my mind.

"I remember us fighting Alpha..." I began, announcing the memory as it popped back into my head. "I ran into Alpha's path as he attacked Cassandra... there was this strange light, then..." the last part was on the edge of my mind. "...then..."

"Then sent us ducking for our lives after blowing the hell out of the place with that spell!" Cassandra shouted, scolding me as I recovered.

Just as Cassandra finished her shouting, my mind snapped in attention, remembering what had happened next. "That spell?" I repeated in an awed tone. Finding my strength again, I sat back up and looked at her. "What do you mean, that spell?"

She gave me a narrowed glance as if I was playing dumb with her. She seemed really angry. "The spell you used to send that assassin running for the hills! And the one you almost killed us with!"

"What was it? What was it called!?" I pleaded to her, grasping the helm of her shirt in a desperate action.

She backed up a bit in surprise. "How should I know?!" Cassandra said in a frazzled tone, "I think you call it Blast Bomb, or something!"

With wide eyes of disbelief, I quickly let go of Cassandra's shirt. My mind went blank for a moment as I took those two words in. It worked? Turning around as quickly as I could, I looked at the room behind me. I gave a slight gasp.

The room looked like it had been hit by a thousand natural disasters at once. The walls were scorched and parts were blown off it. Water damage had collected around the floor and the hexagram symbol on the floor had been completely demolished by the series of craters, scorches and frost marks on the floors.

The cleaning crew was going to have a fit tomorrow.

Then my attention came to what I was looking for. And truth be told, you'd have to have been freakin' blind to miss it.

In the floor, to be more exact what was left of it, enormous craters had been pummeled into the ground. Each one was several yards wide and was probably six feet deep. Small streams of steam lifted from its bottom as the walls of the craters gave off a reddish glow. My mouth went open in awe as I took it in.

"I...did it..."

Blast Bomb worked! A large smile grew on my face.

"IT WORKED! I CAST BLAST BOMB! YEEEAAHHH!" I cried out jubilantly. I spun around with renewed energy as I saw that the legendary spell I worked so hard to accomplish actually worked. After growing faintly dizzy after spinning around a bit, I ran back over to Master Krots and Cassandra. They looked rather perplexed at my grand excitement.

"Did you guys see?!" I cried out with glee, "I did it! I cast the legendary Blast Bomb! I'm the forth person in history to ever cast that spell! I did it!"

"Oh, boy did you do it," Cassandra said bleakly.

My balloon of celebration burst as she said those words. They sounded almost out of grief. "What?" I asked simply. With a sigh of her own, she raised a finger and pointed up. Innocently, I looked up.

My jaw went open and I felt the blood leave my face.

The ceiling of the room was completely blown off. Ragged pieces of stone were all that was left connected to the walls. The now roofless building gave way to the night air as the stars' light came in. The Blast Bomb I cast was so strong it literally blew the roof of the place! I felt like screaming... so I did.

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

What the hell happened?! The Blast Bomb was so strong it broke the warding field around us and fired right through the roof. Was Blast Bomb even stronger than Dragon Slave? But the more pressing matter at the moment was... how the hell was I suppose to explain this to the headmistress this time!

"Uh-oh," Cassandra sang in her teasing tone of voice, "You're in trouble."

I was starting to panic. All Master Krots did was scratch the back of his head with his claws. He observed the room and then looked to me as I came running up to him and Cassandra. Again, did I mention I was in a panic?

"B-but it was an accident! Plus it was self defense, right?" I pleaded, looking to Cassandra, Master Krots and back again. "The headmistress can't be mad at me over this, right? RIGHT?!"

Then, sprouting her annoying smile, Cassandra sprung her overly cheerful response. "Not a chance."

I'M DEAD!!!!!!

_ _ Dreadfully, I slumped to my knees. "Not again..." I groaned, voicing my thoughts aloud. Hopefully, I brought my head up to look at Master Krots. "So, what now...?" I asked him.

"We'll speak of this in the morning," he said calmly, only to add to my gloom. With that, he reached for my hand and I took it. He lifted me back to my feet. "I'm sure the headmistress would want to know what happened."

"Master Krots, no!" I practically begged him. "Don't tell her I blew up the building! She'll never let me live it down! Please?"

He cast me a stern look. "Zane, I can't do that," he said with a growl. "She's going to find out sooner or later." Master Krots then gave one last look to what was left of the training room, surveying the now roofless room. "And trust me, she's not going to overlook this."

"WHY IS THIS ALWAYS HAPPENING TO ME!!!"

"WHAT?!" Master Krots shouted with amusement. He then actually began laughing as Cassandra and I stood there before him. "You thought I was Alpha?" His laugh was almost unbearable for me. I made a mistake, but it could happen to anyone, right?

Don't answer that!

It was now nine in the morning and the first things asked of us when Cassandra and I stepped out of our rooms was to head strait to Ms. Magdalene's office. I should have been okay after dealing with a psycho ninja, but the thought of the headmistress smacking me with her mallet of punishment made me feel nervous. And now there we stood, with Ms, Magdalene at her desk while Master Krots stood before us as well. As I felt nervous however, Cassandra remained as cool as a cucumber with that overly cheerful smile on her face. Cassandra, Master Krots and I explained what had happened last night. Just between us, I left out a few bits of information for later. If the teachers wanted to keep secrets, then I'll keep my own.

And now we go back to when I mentioned I thought Alpha was Master Krots. Apparently, Master Krots found the thought humorous. "What in heaven's name would make you think that?" he bellowed.

"A lot of reasons," I began in a rather defensive tone, "Both of you were werewolves, Ms. Magdalene said he's been killing for over six years and according to your records, you've only been here for two and a half."

Master Krots leered at me with his knowing glance. "And how did you know that?"

I began to sweat a bit. I hadn't told him or the headmistress that I snuck into the office for his records. I was enough trouble already. "Well," I slowly started, "I just... you know, looked around."

"In the school archives perhaps?" Master Krots asked knowingly.

Ouch! He got me there. I sank my head down a little in shame. I then decided to try another question. "Well, you always seemed to show up right after Alpha attacked me! And how the hell did you know I was practicing Blast Bomb anyway?"

Master Krots then began to pace before us as he explained. "Remember when we first met in class at the beginning of the year. I asked you all what were your goals. And you said..." He went on until I answered for him.

"I... wanted... to master..." I said slowly, feeling rather stupid. "Blast... Bomb." Master Krots nodded knowingly. I was actually starting to feel like he was playing with me before he ate me for breakfast, considering if he actually ate people. I doubted that. I shook off my guilt and went strait to my most confident evidence.

"Yeah, well what about that burnt on your arm?" I proclaimed and pointed at Master Krots's arm, covered under the large sleeves of his red robe. "I had zapped Alpha with a Mono Volt on that exact spot and you had one as well! How do you explain that, Mr. Smart Guy!"

Rather calmly and before Ms. Magdalene, Master Krots reached up to his arm and pulled up his sleeve. He exposed the darkened singe mark against his brown fur and showed it to me. "Zane," he said rather crossly, his tone coming down a notch, "You were there when I got this."

I blinked, looking at him rather curiously. "I was?"

With a step forward, he stood over me with his towering posture. He showed the scorch mark clear before my face. "You remember, don't you," Master Krots said with a growl. "The day you blew up the alchemy lab."

My mind jolted as I recalled that dreadful day. The entire scene replayed in my head as I remembered how Master Krots had looked right after my Fireball went off. He had burns along his robes and soot and smoke along his fur. It was beginning to make sense. Master Krots had gotten that mark when my fireball spell broke out and accidentally wrecked the lab.

As I came out of the clouds of my mind, I found myself looking right into Master Krots unyielding eyes. I felt a wave of grief wash over me as I lowered my head away from his stare.

"I'm really, really, really , reallyreallyreally sorry," I groaned meekly, bowing my head in Master Krots direction.

Now standing back up fully, Master Krots began to pace again with his calm look on his face. "Well," he began with a sly tone, "So far you've wrongly accused your teacher as a killer, broken into the school archives, directly disobeyed me, attacking me, snuck out after curfew... Shall I go on?"

My head sunk down lower. "I'd wish you'd wouldn't..." I said meekly. I was so embarrassed I just felt like dying.

"Zane," Ms. Magdalene said rather direly. "I'm very displeased with you."

I suddenly sprung right up strait and faced her. This was going to hurt. She was about to yell at me about blowing the building up. "Ms. Magdalene please," I think I pleaded rather pathetically, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to--"

"I specifically told you not to go after Alpha," she said looking at me with clear eyes.

Huh?! That threw me there. I'd a thought she'd scream a fit after I had blew the roof off the training building. I was speechless for a moment before she started up again.

"Do you realize you could have been killed? Not only did you specifically disobeyed me, but you voluntarily went out looking for the one who tried to hurt you!" She said rather loudly. I had to admit, her words felt like daggers at me.

"But," I couldn't help but ask, "What about the building?"

"Zane!" Ms. Magdalene shouted clearly, "I don't care about that now! A building can be replaced! You can't!" I felt really low then. I didn't know that the headmistress cared that much. She probably wasn't such a witch as I thought her to be. "Why would you go confronting him?"

I cast my gaze a little lower to the floor again. "When I talked to you guys at first, I felt as if you weren't telling me everything about why Alpha was after me. You really got me angry. Also the fact that I thought Master Krots was Alpha made it all the more suspicious. I knew Alpha would just come after me eventually, so I decided confront him." I remained solemn, speaking truthful of what I felt. "I'm sorry."

The room fell rather silent. Then, Cassandra spoke up. "Well," she said in her confident tone of voice, "I think my work here is done." She placed a hand on her hip, looked at Ms. Magdalene and then to me. "I'm proud that I, Cassandra could provide you headmistress with my help and happy to know I brought Zane here to face the justice of his transgressions." She gave me a rather playful pat on the head. I gritted my teeth, suppressing a growl of annoyance from my throat.

Cassandra you arrogant... AUGH!

_ _ Cassandra then turned around and headed for the door. "Well, I shall be off."

"Not so fast, Cassandra," Master Krots said smoothly.

At that moment, Cassandra froze in her tracks. Hesitantly she turned her head to glace at Master Krots. An anxious look was now on her once overly confident mug.

"If I recall," Master Krots said as he approached Cassandra, "You too had left your room after curfew." Cassandra then turned back around, looking directly to Master Krots as he stood before her. "Also, you too disobeyed when I told you two to leave when Alpha attacked, but you didn't. Am I right, Miss Cassandra?"

She then became defensive, as Master Krots looked her in the eye. A sweat drop dripped from her forehead as she stood before our teacher. "B-but... It's my priestly duty to seek out the evils that lay afoot among us. Justice dictated me to come to Zane's rescue. I can't be blamed for that." She said in a bit of a plea. "I'm innocent here, right? Right?"

Then, with his sly look, Master Krots bent down and peered at Cassandra with his unyielding glare. "Not a chance ," Master Krots said, quoting Cassandra from last night. I saw as Cassandra's jaw dropped for a moment, followed by a heavy sigh of disappointment.

I cracked a smile. Oh, the look on her face was just priceless.

Master Krots stood right back up. "You both confronted Alpha, so the both of you can wallow in the same boat," he said as he took a glance at Ms. Magdalene, who nodded to him with silent conformation. "But I'm feeling rather lenient today, so I'll assign you to... one day of lawn cutting for the entire courtyard."

"WHAT!" Cassandra pouted, "N-No Master Krots! This is cruel and unusual punishment! I must be free to fight the never ending fight for justice!"

"Don't worry Cassandra," I said rather wily, "I hear crabgrass is full of evil. You'll have a ball weed-whacking your justice around." I sensed her give me a scowl behind my back.

"I wouldn't crack jokes yet, Zane," Master Krots said with his sly tone, "Because you're joining her."

The look of glee left my face as I spun around. "Say, WHAT!?" I cried at him.

He still had that look on his face. "I said I was being lenient today," Master Krots said as he pulled out a pair of small desk scissors from his robe pocket. "Would you rather cut the lawn with these alone?"

The skimpy pair of metal scissors gleamed a second as I firmly kept my mouth shut. "Ahem," I started politely, "I'll accept your earlier punishment without question."

"Smart kid," Krots said simply as he put the scissors away. "Now Cassandra, go outside and wait for us. There is something we need to talk to Zane about." With a glum look on her face, Cassandra hauled herself slowly to the door and left the room. Now only Master Krots, Ms. Magdaline, and myself were left.

"Zane," Ms. Magdaline said calmly, "you were right to think that we were hiding something from you."

I was surprised. I glanced at her, then to Master Krots who nodded himself. "What is it then?" I asked the headmistress.

She cast her eyes down a little at my question. "Zane, I'm sorry but we can't tell you."

"Then I have no reason to talk to you anymore!" I said rather angrily and attempted to leave the room.

Before I could get a few steps away from the desk, Master Krots stopped me with a paw on my shoulder. "Zane, wait a minute!" he said with concern, "What she means is that we can't tell you because it's for your own protection."

I turned to him for a moment. "What do you mean?" I asked, turning back to Ms. Magdalene.

She gave a sigh. "I'll put it to you this way," the headmistress said reluctantly, "You have... an amazing talent. You are the most promising student we have seen in a very long time."

"And why would Alpha want to attack a talented student?" I asked knowingly.

"Zane," Master Krots said, "We can't tell you that."

I gave a grunt of aggravation. What about me was so secret that they couldn't tell me? Seeing my aggravation, the headmistress leaned towards me on her desk.

"Though I will tell you this Zane," she said, "I see great promise in you as a sorcerer and a priest. If what Master Krots said was true, you had cast Blast Bomb."

My look lightened up a bit. I had expected her to yell at me for the building damage but she didn't do so once. I saw a look of pride on Ms. Magdalene's face as well as Master Krots.

"You're truly blessed with great magical capacity if you were able to cast Blast Bomb all on your own," Ms. Magdalene complimented proudly, "I'm truly impressed."

I cracked a smile on my face. It was actually nice that she would give me a compliment. Then, Master Krots came up to me and kindly placed a paw on my shoulder. "Zane, you really deserve it after all your hard work," he said with a friendly growl, "I'm proud to call you my student."

I couldn't help but beam with happiness. "You mean that," I said happily, "Really?"

They both nodded and smiled at me with proud looks.

"And you'll let me off the hook?" I tried to spring on them.

Apparently that didn't work. Narrowing his eyes at me, my werewolf teacher came up to me and gave a pat on the shoulder. "Nice try."

Oh well, can't blame a kid for trying.

"What you mean you didn't tell them everything?!" Cassandra shouted at me with a scold.

There we were in the beautiful sunshine. The birds were chirping. The wind was blowing. The smoke from the ruined training building was billowing. It was a great day... except we were out in the large courtyard. As everyone else was doing their business, Cassandra and I were casting wind-cutting spells to trim the grass and weeds. Gees, you'd think you could get a day off after fighting off a serious killer.

Turning towards her, I gave her a stern look. "They won't tell me everything, so will I," I replied simply.

Since Ms. Magdalene didn't want to tell me why Alpha was after me, I decided to keep out the small detail of my talk with the werewolf bastard. The fact that he was work for hire only meant that this was just the beginning.

"But what didn't you tell them?" Cassandra pried, launching another wind spell at the grass and slicing a patch of it even.

"Like I'm gonna tell you of all people." I turned my back to her and prepared another spell to cut the lawn.

She gave me a 'humph' and cleared her throat. "Well, if you don't tell me, I'll go tell Master Krots that you're holding out on him and the headmistress."

Launching the spell at the grass, I froze. Damn her, why did she always do that? With a sigh I turned around to her. She may have been a pain in the butt, but she still was someone I could trust among other people I knew. Besides, she wasn't holding any secrets from me.

"Alpha is work for hire," I said simply, catching a look of interest in her eyes. "That means that someone else sent him after me." She turned around and looked at me fully, taking a break from her grass cutting as I did at the moment. "Before we fought, I took the opportunity to ask him why he was after me. He said that he had orders to come after me. He wouldn't tell me who, but he did give me a very important clue."

"What's that?" Cassandra asked softly, taking my words seriously.

"He said his employers," I said clearly, pointing out the word exactly for Cassandra. "Which means that whoever is after me is a part of a group, like some kind of organization. At least, that's what I'm thinking."

Cassandra took a moment to ponder this.

"There's still more," I told her, grasping her attention. "What surprised me the most was when I talked to Alpha, he said his orders were to take me alive."

"Alive?" Cassandra repeated with surprise. "Why would a lethal killer want to kidnap you?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "Your guess is as good as mine."

The two of us remained silent for a bit as Cassandra began pondering again. Looking up to the clouds in thought, Cassandra sighed. "I've got nothing," she said at last.

"Well," I told her, "Whatever they want me for, I got a feeling the teachers already know about it. Since they won't tell me, there is only one other way to find out."

"And that would be...?" Cassandra asked curiously.

With her words, I chanted another spell to cut the grass, adding a bit of anger to the spells power. "To beat whoever's after me and make them spill the beans!" I shouted. With my shout, I launched my spell and sliced the grass a good few yards away.

After venting my anger through that spell, Cassandra looked at me with concern. "If Alpha was just their lackey, as you say," Cassandra said as she put the pieces together, "Then whoever's pulling the strings must be madly powerful."

"Don't get me started on that one," I sighed. We were silent once again. Cassandra was taking her time taking all this news in as our garbs flapped gently in the wind. The gentle breeze lifted the bits of cut grass into the air, and blew them away.

Then, ending the peaceful silence, Cassandra cleared her throat. "They are really going to come after you, aren't they?" she asked rhetorically. Despite it, I nodded in return. "I see," she added understandingly.

Suddenly, she erupted with a rather loud battle cry. I jumped away as she raised her arms towards the sky and shouted. "Alright, it's settled!" She boomed in a proud cry. "Then I'll fight them with you!"

I backed away again, surprised by both her words and her shouting. "Say what?"

Before I knew it, she practically jumped right in front of me. She stuck her face right at me with her eyes gleaming. "You heard me!" she said proudly, "I'll help you fight these creeps and find why they're after you!"

I instantly repelled the thought. I couldn't stand her when she was around me in the halls. Now she wanted to join in my fight. They wanted me alive, but they probably wouldn't give a damn about her life. "No, seriously! That's not necessary!" I said quickly.

"Don't be silly," She boomed right in my face. In another jump, she leaped away from me. She then pointed out towards the sky before her and stood in her dramatic hero pose. "When those who fall into darkness against their will, they shall always seek the light! And I Cassandra, the Hero of Justice, vow to stand beside such souls until the evils who seek them are VANQUISHED!"

I hung my head low with a groan. "Oh, god," I mumbled in dismay. Her zest was just plain painful.

"Yes!" She shouted again, "When we're finished, they'll beg before the awesome might of Cassandra, the Hero of Justice and my new, diminutive junior sidekick!"

"Excuse me," I growled at her, finally getting her attention. "Who's a diminutive sidekick?" I looked up at her with a crossed look.

To my further dismay, she once again gave me that shrill, overconfident laugh. "O-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho! Don't be foolish Zane!" she said loudly, "Any hero needs a loyal underling to cover her back! You should be honored to bask in my shadow as we trek the trail to victory!"

Like hell I'll be your underling you bimbo!

Finally, she calmed down and reduced her voice to a regular low. About time too, any further shouting and she might as well announce our plans to the whole student body. "Okay, listen," I explained to her as if she hadn't invited herself already. It probably wouldn't help, but still. "If you're going to tag along, for which by the way I TOTALLY DISSAGREE WITH, you can't tell Master Krots, the teachers or any of the other students. Got it? It's our little secret."

With her cheery, little smile, she nodded at me with her approval. "Okay. I won't tell a soul."

"Good," To that end, I turned back to my work at cutting the large lawn.

"So then Zane," Cassandra asked. I sensed her peeving nature creeping up on me. "I just got one question."

I braced myself and spoke through gritted teeth. "Yes?"

"When can you start being my sidekick?"

Braced or not, my temper couldn't take it. "I'M NOT GONNA BE YOUR SIDE KICK!!!"

Once I had finished telling off Cassandra about her hopes of me being her sidekick... _Bleh..._we continued with our punishment. With the sun overhead and the sky clear, I was at peace for the time being. I flashed a smile at the sky as I thought of the challenges to come. Whatever would come, Zane Cosmon would be ready for them. One thing was for sure; this year was going to be pretty exciting.