Well, here it is! The first chapter of the new 'Powers That Be' series -- 'Powers Within'. I know I didn't keep you waiting too long for it so I don't want to hear any complaints about it that! I don't mind hearing complaints about anything else, even though I do prefer hearing nice things. If you have anything that you want to say to me e-mail me -- shiningstar@oceanfree.net. Or you can leave a note on the guestbook at my site -- http://stories.i8.com. I know that I haven't updated the site in a while, but there are still one or two interesting features.
Thanks to everyone who e-mailed me at the end of 'Powers That Be'. The sheer number of them overwhelmed me, and I hope that I've managed to write back to everyone at this stage. What I want to know though is why you weren't e- mailing during the series! Thanks to Tim, who one of the new characters in this series is based on. Just in case you think that the Tim in the story is meant to be me -- it's not. Umm, for all those who e-mailed me about the women watching them teleport -- that was a link into this series, and even though you won't find mention of her in this chapter she'll be along soon enough.
I've started a new story! It's called 'TimeWeave' and the first chapter is on the archives for general consumption right now! Make sure and e-mail me about it if you read it.
This story is complete fiction! I know, you never would have guessed by yourselves but I have to tell you so there you go. I don't know Nsync, nor do I know of anyone who wields the sort of power that is an integral part of this story. Please don't try this at home.
If you're too young for what's legal then I don't think that you should be reading this. But I personally don't think that it's going to scar you for life.
In the months that had passed since Drayn's death a lot and very little had happened, it depends on your perspective. I'd made a fortune on the stock market thanks to a couple of hints from Baram, and had moved out of home and in with Justin in a house near Nick in Florida. With Kevin and JC's help I constructed an intricate spell which made people not notice the fact that we were living together and they paid very little attention to it. But at the same time most of the Black Mages were staying quiet since Drayn's downfall, which made Lance apprehensive, he was comparing it to the calm before a storm. There was nothing for me to do but follow Justin around on tour while still pretending to be a 'Personal Assistant' and brush up on my spells, which was what I was doing when Justin came into the room.
"Baram's here Tom. She wants to talk to you." Said Justin, stepping aside to reveal Baram Nihorsa standing behind him, a faint smile on her face.
"Baram." I said, getting up from my seat. "Please come in."
"Thank you Tom." She said, sitting down in the armchair opposite me. Justin quickly followed her in and was about to sit down when she spoke again. " Justin, if you don't mind, I'd like to speak to Tom alone."
Justin stood back up and blushed. "Sorry." He said, leaving the room.
I waited until Justin had closed the door behind him. "What's so important that we can't talk about it with Justin here?" I asked.
"It's not really that important, but I wanted to talk to you alone so that you'd think about it without anyone influencing you." She replied.
"Think about what?"
"We'd -- the council, that is, would like you to do a favour for us." She saw that I was about to speak so she raised her hand to silence me and then continued. "I told you that I wanted to you to think about it first, because it's a huge commitment that we're asking you to make. There is a boy, well, a man really, who has been training as a mage for the past six years, since he was twelve. He has huge potential, to be as powerful as anyone in *Nsync or one of our other groups, but he can't seem to tap into that potential. He's only capable of casting a handful of spells, despite his intensive training." Baram paused to gather her thoughts. "We'd like you to take him a student, try to teach him magic, he looks up to you, if anyone can teach him magic then you can, he'll work for you. What do you think?" She leaned forward conspiratorially. "We need this Tom, the council has the same views as Lance, this is only the calm before the storm, and when the storm hits we're going to need all the help that we can get."
"I'm flattered, but I'm not a teacher." I said.
"Neither were *NSync, but you turned out ok." She pointed out.
"True." I said. "If you're sure... then fine, I'll do it. What's his name?"
"Tim Fowler. Have you got space for him to stay here?" She asked, already knowing the answer.
"Yes. He'll be fine. Where's he from, by the way?"
"England, somewhere in London. I'll drop by with him later, I would stay, but there is so much to do... I'll see you tomorrow." With that, she stood up and teleported away.
I left the library to find Justin and tell him the news. He took it better then I thought he would. "Well, we're just going to have to put him in a bedroom far away from ours, aren't we," He said, nuzzling my neck. Realising something, he pulled away to look at me. "What are you going to do about the tour?"
I laughed. "Come on Justin, you're not thinking properly, we're both mages, I'm sure that you'll be able to teleport home at night if you really want to."
He laughed too. "Oh yeah, god, you'd swear that I wasn't born into a family of mages, wouldn't you? By the way, Lance want's us over at his place for dinner. No option in the matter, he's got something that he wants to say to us." Because of the success of the spell that JC, Kevin and I had created, Lance and Joey had decided that it was safe to move in together and had done so a couple of weeks ago.
"Fine." I sighed. "I was planning a romantic last night together, but far be for me to control my own life."
"Don't worry, we'll have plenty of time to do whatever it is that you have in mind later on." Said Justin.
"What time does he want us over there for?" I asked.
"He said sometime between six and a minute past six." Laughed Justin. "But I think that he was joking."
We ate through the meal that Lance had prepared (i.e. -- ordered.) for the six of us while making small talk about various things, including Tim being my student and Baram's ominous warning of things to come while waiting for Lance to tell us the reason why we were all here.
"Well, now that you've all finished your dinner, there's something that Joey and I want to tell you." Lance paused for dramatic effect and then continued. "We're engaged."
There was a clamour of noise as soon as Lance made his announcement. I waited until everyone had calmed down and then asked. "Who proposed?"
Lance and Joey looked at each other and then Joey answered me. "We were having dinner together last night at a restaurant and we both proposed to each other at the same time."
"A case of great minds thinking alike." Added Lance.
"Huh." Snorted Chris, but he didn't manage to keep a straight face and broke out into a grin. "Who am I kidding? Congratulations!"
"So, have you decided when the big day's going to be?" Asked JC.
"Nope, we're going to wait for a while, but other then that, I don't have a clue." Said Lance, looking at Joey lovingly.
We spent the next couple of hours just sitting around talking about stuff, nothing serious. We agreed to meet at Justin's and my house tomorrow to get some practise in. But I thought that everyone was just curious to see what Tim was like.
"See?" Said Justin, panting. "I told you that there'd be plenty of time."
"Shh, I'm trying to get asleep. Big day tomorrow." I said.
"Wake up Justin. Baram's here with Tim." I said. He mumbled incoherently and turned away from me. In response I pushed him out of bed into a pool of water that had just mysteriously formed.
He propelled himself out of it rapidly and was standing there, dripping wet. "What was so important that you had to wake me up?"
"Baram's here with Tim. I thought that you might want to be awake for it."
He pulled on some clothes quickly and we went downstairs to the sitting room where Baram and Tim were. I took my first good look at Tim. He was short, about five foot nine, with raven black hair and startlingly green eyes. Overall he was average looking, not noticeable in anyway. I reminded myself that he was a shapeshifter, or at least, he had the potential to be one, extremely neutral looks were a common trait of shapeshifters.
Justin shook hands with Tim. "Hi Tim."
"Hi." He said.
"I'll show you to your room so that you can put some of that stuff away." Offered Justin.
As soon as they left I spoke to Baram. "He's very quiet, isn't he?"
"He's just shy. Wait until he gets to know you a little better, plus -- you're like a hero to him. You defeated Drayn, remember?" She said.
I glanced down at the plain golden band that encircled one of my fingers. "I remember. Sometimes, when I'm tired, I can hear him whispering to me, an echo at the back of my mind."
"He'll never be able to control you, if that's what you're worried about. You said the spell, you bound him to the ring."
"I know all that." I said. "But it doesn't stop me from worrying."
Justin came back in with Tim. They were chatting quietly, but as soon as Tim saw me he became quiet again.
Baram got up from her seat. "Well, I'd better be going. As usual, there is no end of work to be done." She teleported away and then it was just Justin, Tim and I.
"So, Tim. We might as well get a start on your training. What do you know already?"
He looked up at me and spoke so quietly that I had to strain to hear him. "Basic shapeshifting, cubes, spheres, that sort of thing. And some fighting spells, fireballs and shielding."
I looked at him. Six years and this was all that he knew? No wonder he felt intimidated by me. I'd learnt to control a vast amount of power within the first couple of months of knowing about it. For the first time since Baram had asked me to 'take him under my wing' I was having doubts as to weather or not it was a good idea. He must be feeling tremendous pressure, sitting opposite to me. What sort of a message did he think that Baram was giving him? If he can do it why can't you? Maybe. "Listen, Tim." I said. "I don't know what you think is going to happen here, or what you think I'm going to expect from you but I want you to relax! Our home is your home. I'm not going to be pushing you for anything that you're not ready for, when you're ready to start lessons then we'll start, not before then. Ok?"
He risked a smile. "Sure. Thanks. I hope you don't mind but... can I ring home? I promised to do so once I got here."
"Go ahead." I said. "There's one in the room through those doors there." I pointed to the kitchen doors and watched him leave.
"What do you think?" I asked Justin.
"I don't have a clue what to think."
"Neither do I." I said. "I mean, I can see the power, but he can't use it..." I changed the subject. "The guys are coming over soon. Where do you want to go to practise?"
"Nevada Desert's always good."
"Nah, we wouldn't be able to move for all the UFOs and government experiments." I joked. "But I guess we could risk it."
"Do we bring Tim?" Asked Justin. "I don't what he'll do if he comes, and I don't know what he'll do if he stays here."
"Of course!" I said. "But what he does there is up to him."
The air in a corner of the room shimmered, indicting someone teleporting in. There was an out rush of air and Nick was standing there grinning.
"Nick!" I exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"
"Nice to see you to." He retorted. "I had some free time and I heard that you were running battle drills... it sounded like fun so I decided to come over."
Just then Tim came out of the kitchen and was about to say something when he saw Nick and went a deep shade of red.
Nick strode across the room, grabbed Tim's hand and pumped it. "Hi!" He said. "I'm Nick, and you are?"
Tim finally told Nick his name, stammering through the entire sentence. And just when I thought that he was calming down too...
"Nick, the rest of NSync should be here soon, then we'll head over to Nevada for some practise." I said, wanting to give Tim some warning so he could prepare himself without embarrassing him further. When they turned up in a couple of minutes Tim was surprisingly calm, shaking each of their hands in turn.
When everyone had gotten something to eat we formed a circle. Tim hung back at first, not sure if he was invited to join us. But Nick pulled him forward and JC said the spell that would take us out to Nevada, where the council had a practise zone. No one could see anything that took place there.
"Tim, are you joining in?" Asked Nick, who was taking a lot of interest in Tim's wellbeing.
"He's on our team!" Shouted the other shapeshifter, Joey.
"No fair!" Said Justin. "You've already got Tom! We need him on our team." Justin's point was taken well by Chris, which left it as Joey, Nick and I against Justin, Chris, JC, Lance and Tim. I thought that it was heavily mismatched, but I told myself that I'd go easy on them anyway. We squared up, facing each other and moved slowly apart. No one trusted anyone else not to do something sneaky.
When we were about one hundred feet apart JC send streams of colour into the air, signalling the start of the fight. Justin almost immediately opened a huge chasm below our feet, but since I knew that this was one of his favourite tricks I managed to telekinetically hold the three of us in place. We drifted behind the rift in the ground, I figured that it would give us an extra defensive advantage. But as soon as Justin saw that we'd escaped it he closed it again. I looked over at Tim and saw that he was still just standing there, not sure what to do. My magical senses began screaming at me. They were co-ordinating attacks on me. I wrapped time around me and witnessed something incredible. The sand melted below my feet and started bubbling, aided by lightening lashing from Justin's fingertips at where I'd just been standing. JC started telekinetically ripping apart every molecule in the air. Cacti seeds began sprouting rapidly and grew at incredible rate, lashing their thorns at where it still looked like I was standing, only to be torn apart by JC. Lance's eyes glowed and energy beams vaporised anything that had managed to survive. Even Tim threw a couple of very impressive fireballs. And then it happened. In the furious tornado of magic and spells that was the place where I'd been standing something seemed to twist, and for an instant it seemed like I was looking into another world, a lush green vista where the desert should have been. Then reality snapped back and I realised that the shock had made me release time from my control. Everyone was staring at me and I realised that I didn't even have normal shielding. I jumped quickly up into the air as fast as I could manage it and saw the ground dropping below me. I knew that Justin was almost definitely following me up. He considered the air to be his domain, since he could control so many of its elements, wind, water, weather. A howling magical wind started up and I knew that I was right. I pulled the clouds down to me quickly and got lost in them, saturating them with enough power to dampen any hope that Justin had of finding me by looking for my magic.
I was just starting to feel like I could drift along all day when I remembered that the others were fighting with very bad odds below. I hurtled down as fast as I could, while pulling power into me, getting a new offensive method that I'd been working on ready to go. I speeded up my own personal time and reached the ground in what would have only been a heartbeat for someone down below. I came back into normal time and built up power into a shell around myself. The shell exploded outwards, picking up everyone that I wanted it to and knocking them far out.
A very battered looking Nick hobbled up to me in the respite that I'd given him looking for me to work some healing magic. I took him by the shoulders and my power flowed into him, smoothing out the cracks and undoing the damage that had been done to him. I couldn't replenish his magic, only Justin seemed to be able to do that, but I could stop the aches and pains that would prevent him from using his magic.
"Thanks." He said.
"Sorry I wasn't here earlier, but Justin had fooled me into staying out of the way." I apologised.
"Where's Joey?" I asked, looking around and not seeing him, but seeing the opposition gathering themselves together. JC was probably trying to figure out how to counter what I'd just done to them and Lance was probably trying to find Joey as well.
"Last time I saw him he was changing into a blade of grass or something like that. What do you want to do?" Asked Nick. "That last thing you did was pretty neat."
"Thanks, but I don't think that I'll be able to do it again too soon. I don't want JC figuring out how to get around it." I said
There was a sudden noise and Joey emerged from his hiding place. "Are we ready to go again?"
Fight scene will conclude in the next chapter. Let me know what you think of this first chapter of 'Powers Within'. shiningstar@oceanfree.net.
Tim.
BTW -- in case you were wondering, the name of this series, 'Powers Within' is a reference to the Tim character who can't use his powers properly.
Make sure to check out my new story - 'TimeWeave' and let me know what you think of it.