Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 18:38:28 -0000 From: Tim Subject: Powers Within 5 (Revised) Hello! I know it's taken me a long time. But I said that it was going to because of the phenomenal amount of work that I've got to do this year. Don't blame me! I thought that I'd keep the notes short so that you can get to the story quicker. Anyway, let me know what you think yadayada. power@utvinternet.ie. This story is not real. The characters are not real. This author does not know the actual sexualities of the named (and shamed) celebrities. If you're too young then you're too young. ------------------------- / Come to the council chambers *immediately*. / Blasted Baram's mind voice loudly, indicating a sense of urgency that I'd never heard from her before. From the echoes I knew that she was speaking to at least one other person, and if I'd time, I could have figured out who it was. "I've got to go Mum." I said, already heading towards the door of her new apartment in the mountain. "What? Why?" Protested my mother. "I don't know. But it's urgent." I replied, already out the door and about to close it behind me. I closed the door, looked around and saw that, even though the crowds were dispersing, it was still going to be a job getting to main hallway. I changed into my black robes and instinctively the crowd changed, many more heads turned my way, it wasn't often that you saw a black-robed mage after all, but they also, almost unconsciously got out of my way. I made my way to the main hallway, where I thought that I'd be able to fly, but I saw that the mages had succeeded in creating the second floor and I was cut off from going upwards. In a second Justin joined me, standing by my side. "She called you to?" He asked. "Yes." I said, nothing more needed to be said. "Get out of the way!" Bellowed Justin, a spell making his voice powerful and imposing. Many people looked over, clearly about to give Justin a piece of their minds, but seeing a red-robed mage, almost glowing with power, deterred them from that. They pulled apart, leaving enough space for the two of us to stride down. The sense of urgency grew and we started going more quickly, until we were both running, getting faster and faster until we reached the imposing doors of the Elder Hall. I wrenched them open with a look and, ignoring the doorkeeper, we stopped in front of the dais where all but one of the members of the council were sitting. Lamurk was the missing one; he was the main authority on the lore of the white mages, and an invaluable help. "There's no time for formalities." Said Baram crisply. "As you can see Lamurk isn't here. He went to get his family, and while at home they were attacked by daemons. He managed to get out a partial message, nothing more." Baram telepathically sent me information about where he lived. "Everyone else is busy with various things, including the rest of the NSync group, you're the two most powerful mages that we have available right now. See what you can do." Finished Baram. Both Justin and I nodded curtly and left the elder hall as quickly as possible. I was wondering what the others were up to, while Justin cleared the way for us as quickly as he had a couple of minutes ago. We managed to get out to the mountainside, and then Justin said the teleportation spell. "Why are we here?" I asked. We were back at our house. "Because, we need to get our Battle Robes." Explained Justin. "Right." I said, rushing for the stairs. Unlike ordinary clothes, the Battle Robes couldn't be magicked onto you because of the spells and runes that were impregnated into the fabric. We grabbed them from the wardrobes and slipped them on, the runes on mine shining brightly and then returning to normal, however the ones on Justin's robe extinguished themselves. "Tom! There's something wrong with my robe!" He exclaimed. I realised quickly what the problem was. "That's not what's wrong! It's your power, you've got to get a new robe for the black-levelled power that you've got!" "Damn! What am I going to do now?!" Said Justin. "Here." I said, taking mine back off. "Take this." I handed him my robe. It wouldn't work quite as well for him as it would for me, but it was better then nothing. "What are you going to do?" Said Justin, pushing the robe back towards me. "My magic is more powerful then yours, and I'm used to it too. I'll be safer without one then you'll be." Justin acceded to my arguments and donned the robe. As soon as he had I grabbed his arm and teleported the two of us to where Baram had shown me. Lamurk wasn't in anyway a fighting mage, in fact by most standards he wouldn't even be considered a very powerful mage, but from what I saw he was doing very well. A thirty-foot tall creature stood over the house, battering on the shields that were obviously weakening. The creature appeared to be made of black slime that was continuously dripping off him. Whenever these drops touched something living they seemed to drain the life from it. At the moment the creature was in roughly human form, but that looked as if it could change quickly into something else. I looked over at Justin and guessed that the horrified look on his face was a mirror of mine. "What do you say we draw some attention this way?" I asked. "What do you suggest?" He responded. "A good old fireball." I said, extending my hand, but it wasn't any normal fireball that I made. Normally, when you were fighting you didn't have time to do what I was doing right now, but I made an exception. The fireball started off as the size of a football, then increased to the size of a beach ball. After that I had to raise it over my head so that it wouldn't burn me, using both hands to prop it up. When it was as big as I could make it without dropping it I hurled it at the creature which was still ignoring us. The fireball impacted against its torso and it roared in pain, turning towards us. "I think we got its' attention." I said, floating gently up from the ground, still not sure what to do next. "I think you're right." Shouted Justin over the gale force winds that he was mustering around himself. The creature took an unsteady step towards us, then another, speeding up as it strode shakily towards us. / It doesn't seem to be very steady on its' feet. / I said to Justin mind to mind - the wind to strong to shout over without a spell. / I'll see if I can use that to our advantage. / Said Justin back. He raised an arm, pointing towards the beast's right leg and the wind hurtled towards it. After a second of pushing the leg split apart and reformed around the cone of wind that Justin was pushing towards it. Justin and I exchanged glances. I rose higher in the air and hurled lightening down upon the tar-like creature below. All that happened was that a couple more dropped of the life-sapping fluid dripped of the thing, killing whatever it touched on the ground. Justin narrowed his eyes and shot beams of energy at it, to no effect. As far as I could tell the creature couldn't use any magic of its' own, but I got the impression that to be touched by it would mean death. I put my hands together, as if holding a sword hilt and gradually, particles of magic condensed out of the air and formed the shaped of a sword, eight-foot long and wielded by me. I darted in at the creature and started slashing at him, always moving out of range again before he could hit me. Quickly glancing back I saw Justin take up the idea and form his own blade, copying my actions of darting in and out to slash at it. It screamed and roared, but didn't seem to be dying. I looked over at Justin and shouted his name, at the same instant telepathically communicating what I wanted to do. He nodded in agreement and both our blades dissolved into nothingness. We both stretched out a hand to one another and a line of magic formed between our hands, with the same cutting power that our swords had had. We rushed towards the thing, slicing of its' head. When I looked back towards it I saw that the head had managed to reattach itself to the body. "No no no!" Shouted Lamurk, who'd just run out of his house. "You've got it all wrong! It feeds on power. You're just making it stronger by attacking it with magic!" "What will we do then?" I shouted back, frustrated by our lack of progress. "You're going to have to use your telekinetic abilities to hurl stones, rocks, and anything else that you can at the creature, beat it down that way. And use *nothing* magical, or alive!" "Great." I mumbled. "A magical creature that can't be destroyed by magic." I gently landed about forty feet from it and gripped my mind around as many loose rocks and stones as I could. Enhancing my voice with magic I shouted to get its' attention. But without us using magic to annoy it, the creature simply transferred its' attention back to the house. "Screw it." I muttered, and the hail of stones rose off the ground all around me. Focusing my attention on the creature, I flung them as hard as I could towards it. When they impacted they made a sound like stones hitting into mud, and when it roared in pain this time it was like nothing I'd ever heard before. I shielded myself against the sound quickly enough and saw Justin doing the same, but Lamurk wasn't able to and he feel to his knees covering his ears with his hands. I looked back at the beast, most of the wounds had sealed over, but some of the larger ones were still open. I groped around with my mind, trying to find any other rocks that I could throw at it. Finally I resorted to wrenching them out of the ground and hurtling them towards it. During this, Justin was helpless because he didn't have any telekinetic abilities. So he went over to Lamurk and shielded him against the noise the thing was making. Eventually it dissolved into a puddle of black liquid on the ground, made uneven only by the rocks that were strewn about. I gently pulled the rocks out and put them back where they belonged. Justin pulled the ground apart and the puddle fell deep inside the earth, then Justin sealed it back up again. Lamurk got up off the ground. "Thank you." He said, stiffly. I had to remind myself that he was a council member, and was probably ashamed of the fact that he had to be helped like that. "You're welcome. Are you ready to go yet, because Justin and I should wait here until you are." I said. "That would be helpful, I believe that the family is packed, but I'm sure that there'll be any number of last minutes details." He said, grinning ruefully. I laughed. "I'm sure there will be." I slipped my hand into Justin's. "I think that we'll just walk around here until you're ready, if that's ok." I said. "Sure, that'll be fine. I'll let you know when we're going." He said, turning and heading back into the house. "That was interesting." I said, once we were alone. "You could say that." Said Justin. "But sort of creature isn't affected by magic? That's just dangerous. I mean, what would we have done if you weren't able to do telekinesis?" "We would have thrown the rocks at it until it died, and you know that." I replied. "Yeah, but that would have been so much work..." We reached the top of a small hillock and were able to see the full glory of the view around the house. I whistled in appreciation. "It's beautiful." Mountains surrounded a small sunken, hanging valley, and then, under it was a waterfall, with a river flowing through a valley below, overflowing with trees and various other types of flora and fauna. "I want to live somewhere like this." Sighed Justin, putting his head on my shoulder. I laughed softly. "We just bought a house, and you want to move?" "I was just saying that I'd like to live somewhere like this." Said Justin. "I didn't say that I wanted to move." "Hmmm." I said. We sat there for a couple of minutes, just enjoying the view, until I heard Lamurk walking up behind us. "We're ready to go, if you are." He said. "Certainly." I said, jumping to my feet. "You've really got a beautiful view here." "Yes... unfortunately over the years we've perhaps become too used to it, and we don't appreciate it the way we used to, but it still is beautiful." He commented. We got to the house, were his wife, whom I recognised and two children who I'd never seen before, surrounded by bags. Lamurk put his hand on the door and incited a couple of protection spells, and then he said the teleportation spell and opened a window in the air, which we all walked through. ------------------------- "I wonder where the others are." Said Justin, after looking around for JC and the rest without success. "Don't worry about it." I replied. "You know as well as I do that they can take care of themselves." "Yeah, but there's that new thing hanging around..." I laughed. "Justin, you are the only person I know who could describe an ancient evil as 'hanging around'." "That's why you love me." He said, casually shrugging his shoulders. I pulled him towards me and kissed him. "It's not the only reason." I said. ------------------------- "What happened to you?!" I exclaimed. Baram had summoned us to the Council Chamber, where we'd found the rest of *NSync standing in a bedraggled state. "They were fighting a daemon similar to the one that you were up against Tom, only theirs had already ingested a huge amount of power." "What! I've never heard of these things before a suddenly there are two of them at the same time? What are the chances of that happening?" I asked. "Not very high." We'd like you to go out and see if you can find anymore of these things. We're not asking you to fight them, unless you've got to, just see if there are any others around the place." "By myself?" I asked. "Yes, unless you're got a problem with that." "No problem, I was just clarifying." I said. "Alright." I took that as my dismissal and left, heading straight out to the main exit and hurtling into the air, I began spiralling outwards from the mountain, making sure to cover all the area around it, using my magical sense both to guide me and to find out if there was anything odd going on below me, normally there was nothing much evil going on in Ireland. Especially now with the huge number of mages present. There was nothing in the UK either, aside from a small vampire nest in Manchester. By the time I'd gotten to France I was getting bored with it, but determined to go on when I felt something below me. The closest way of describing it would be a small candle flame blowing in the wind, almost being put out, but not quite. The only difference was that this wasn't fire, it was a white mages power, and it meant that they were in serious trouble! I swooped down to the ground, trying to find the person who was clearly in so much trouble. Finally I found them in a scorched hollow in the ground. They looked up at me and I found myself looking into the tear stained eyes of a woman. I gently dropped down beside her and surrounded us with a shield to protect her from the wind and rain. "Can you hear me?" I asked. She feebly nodded her head. I scanned her quickly and repaired some of the damage done, including burning off the infections that were attacking her. "Can you speak now?" "Yes." She whispered. "I'll bring you back to the Mountain, don't worry. Who are you?" "I'm Angela." She coughed. "Angela Basset." The name didn't ring a bell, and through her weakness she must have realised it because she laughed dryly. "Don't recognise the name eh? Not surprising. How about this name - JC Chasez. He's my boyfriend." ------------------------- There you go! I know it took ages to get out, but now you've got it and that's that. Write to me, because if you don't then shots will be fired, possibly in your direction! power@utvinternet.ie Tim.