“It’s OK,” said Ben. “I’ve been hit by bigger attack hammers than that.”
“Oh really?” said Bruger. “Well just in case, would you mind using Sam’s physical shield?”
Sam handed his battered metal shield to Ben, but it was so heavy that Ben had to drop it to the ground.
“Thanks, but I don’t need it,” Ben said.
“He has no strength enhancement at all along with his shielding?” asked Bruger, clearly more concerned than ever.
“None,” said Ben. “I’ve never needed any.”
“Let’s get started then,” said Sharp. “We still have at least two more rounds of applicants to evaluate after this one.”
The others stood away from Ben and Bruger. “OK, then the big man said, let’s start without the hammer.” He stepped towards Ben and gently swung a huge armor-gloved fist at his shoulder.
He expected to soundly knock Ben off his feet. He was astonished when his fist bounced off the boy harmlessly.
“Be careful you don’t hurt yourself, Sir,” implored Ben.
He swung harder next time, and was nearly knocked down by the recoil, without a reaction from Ben. “I’ll be!” he exclaimed. “He’s strongly shielded, all right! Give me the hammer, Sam.”
As Bruger retrieved the huge hammer from Sam, teens in the audience began to chant “Hammer! Hammer! Hammer!” It was the first time that Ben had taken a good look at the weapon. It appeared to be a single piece of solid steel, both handle and head. The head alone must have weighed at least fifty pounds. Sam must have been using powerful magic strength augmentation to carry it at all. Bruger carried it as if it was weightless!
With the hammer Bruger was again cautious, attempting first a gentle tap against Ben’s shoulder. It bounced off, along with two additional successively stronger blows. Each blow now came with a bright flash of lightning that shook the entire Courtyard.
Each time Ben was completely unaffected, while Bruger and his hammer were violently repelled. The crowd cheered.
“Is the kid doing all of it?” Bruger asked Sam.
“Totally,” said Sam. “It’s strong shielding all right!”
“Don’t worry;” Red Eric added. “Sam and I will protect him if needed. Swing away!”
Bruger shrugged, and then wound up to deliver a truly massive blow. Tension peaked. The crowd hushed. But then he lowered the hammer, shaking his head. “I can’t try to clobber a skinny kid with my hammer!” he complained. A few kids in the crowd booed, but Vice Principle Sharp smiled and nodded in understanding.
Ben noticed Red Eric waving at him with his little finger. “Don’t worry,” Ben said, as he held out his left arm, and extended his left little finger. “Take a swing at only my finger. But be careful nobody gets hurt.”
Bruger again lifted the immense hammer. No longer worried about seriously hurting Ben, he swung with all his might at the boy’s finger.
The thunderous explosion that followed totally engulfed both Ben and Bruger. Sam and Eric, who had been focused on protecting Ben if they had to, barely switched tactics in time to help Kroner catch bits of hammer that shot out in all directions, threatening themselves and other onlookers, as well as Bruger.
As the smoke cleared the crowd was astonished to see Ben still standing as he had before the blow, with little finger undamaged. Poor Bruger lay on the ground, holding a few inches of shattered hammer handle in his hand. Ben was relieved when with effort, the big man sat up, then arose shakily to his feet, assisted by Sam.
The Wolf was laughing so loud that Ben could hear him over the sound of the cheering crowd.
“I’ll be damned!” said Bruger.
“Have we all seen enough?” asked Red Eric of his fellow judges, when the excitement had died down. “That's level four-plus shielding! I vote for his admittance.”
“The boy has impossible power!” said Grim, shaking his head. “I don’t see how we can allow him to live in Hope at all, much less attend school. He must be Demon possessed, or something equally dangerous.”
"You're the one that has declared that Demons don't exist," said Red Eric. "Ben's ability is totally defensive. You can't deport someone for defending themselves!" He turned to Vice Principle Sharp. "Well, Martha? Yours is the deciding vote.”
Sharp shook her head. “I don’t know. I must confess that I share some of the same concerns as Horace.”
“Would you have me return the boy to the Unaligned then, Vice Principle?” said a deep voice that Ben knew very well. Moco strode to stand next to Ben and rest a big hairy hand on each of his shoulders. "We could pack up and be gone from Hope by tomorrow morning. Personally that would suit me just fine."
“This is Wizard business, werewolf, not yours,” said Grim, caustically. “Why did you bring the boy back, anyway?”
“This is my business, and that makes it his, as he is my legal guardian,” said Ben. “I have powers and therefore have every right to be here. We came here because I wanted to come here. My foster father Moco brought me, even though he wasn’t sure it was a good idea. You see, he doesn’t trust most Wizards, any more than he trusts anyone else. That’s what keeps a wolf alive among the Unaligned and the Norms. But I came here to learn how to regain control of my talents as an Apprentice Wizard of Hope. Give me a chance to be one; that’s all that I ask.”
Sharp nodded in agreement. “You and the Wolf have made some excellent points, young Ben. You can’t be allowed to become an Unaligned Wizard and possibly turn Rogue. You’ll be placed in the Apprentice Wizard classes with your friends, but we’ll make up a special course of study for you, and you’ll be my special personal project. Welcome to Hope High, Ben King! Report tomorrow.” With that she marched off towards the Entry Table, anxious to get Evaluations back on schedule.
“Good to see you again, Wolf,” Sam told Moco, as he and Ben turned towards the stands, followed by Ann, Mark and Elizabeth. “Come back to the Courtyard sometime; I miss our workouts.”
“Maybe, Sam,” said the Wolf. He smiled, exposing sharp canines, though it was his most human look. “I could use a little workout myself. Maybe I could have a session with your young protégé.” He nodded towards Bruger, who was by now high in the stands, grinning and signing autographs as the Evaluations continued.
Sam shrugged. “Maybe. Bruger moved to Hope from Europe four years ago. Can you imagine growing up without even knowing anyone else with powers? He became my apprentice. The kid’s OK, he just gets a little full of himself sometimes. And he's damn near as good at attack as me! See you around, Wolf.”
"You're in, Ben!" said Mark, as he suddenly grabbed one of Ben's hands to pull him towards the stands where people were still clapping and cheering.
“That was totally awesome, Cub,” a grinning Ann told Ben, as she took his other hand.
“Everyone was watching!” added Mark. “You’re famous! A legend!”
“But I didn’t get to watch you guys!” said Ben. “What happened?”
“I blew through everything, of course,” Ann replied, beaming, “but Mark was really the big hit!”
“Only because I did a couple of things you taught me,” he told his sister.
“What things?” Ben asked.
“Things that I fear might come in handy in your futures, Cubs,” said Moco, mysteriously, from behind them. “Mark put out a big fire, and he healed a kid with a badly busted up hand. Level 3-plus healing.”
“Not John Dwight!” Ben exclaimed.
“Yep, John Dwight,” Mark admitted, as they all broke into laughter. As they sat in the stands the crowd remained focused on Ben, pointing and whispering.
The crowd gradually refocused on Vice Principle Sharp, who after dealing with the final applicants stepped in front of the stands and waved her arms to get everyone's attention. "Congratulations, new Apprentice Wizards of Hope!" her magically enhanced voice thundered! The happy crowd cheered and cheered, then noisily dispersed. Evaluations were over! School would start tomorrow!
; ****
The next few days after Evaluations were busy ones for the teen trio, especially for Ben. The subject matter of his classes presented no difficulty. His mostly home-schooled academic background matched up well with that of his new peers, so that he felt he would be able to meet the challenges posed by his ‘normal’ academic classes.
The social aspects of school were more challenging. Most classes contained about half ‘normal' Norm kids and about half Apprentice Wizards like himself and the Tuttles. For the most part Ben couldn’t even tell which kids had powers and which didn’t. This suited him, as besides being home-schooled he was also used to going to schools with almost all Norms.
In part due to the popularity of Ann and Mark, but mostly because of his own notoriety and openly friendly attitude, Ben soon made many friends among both Apprentice Wizards and everyone else including Norms.
There were a few Apprentice Wizards that blatantly flaunted their status. They looked down their noses at many of the other kids, particularly the Norms, which seriously annoyed Ben. In time, when they became upper classmen, these irritating kids would likely fill the anti-social niche that Troy and his gang now currently filled. However he suspected that the loss of Troy and his crew could only be an improvement! Unfortunately after Troy graduated from High School he would probably still be around in some capacity, but at least he would no longer haunt the High School.
There were a few obvious werewolf and vampire kids, and that helped Ben feel more at home since he had been a close friend to many weres and vamps among the Unaligned, though here they were looked down on by many of the more talented Apprentice Wizards. The only good thing about all the racial tensions was that skin color and ethnic differences were mostly ignored because they were trivial by comparison. The powers that people had or didn't have were regarded as far more important than skin color or differences in ethnic background.
Life at Hope High School was much different than living among the Unaligned, and there were Hope cultural Norms that Ben was largely ignorant of. Without Ann and Mark, cultural adjustments would have been much more of a problem for Ben. Because they all attended the same classes, the twins helped Ben with several situations, acting as an interface between Ben and others, and explaining to Ben what was expected of him.
To Mark’s relief, Troy and his buddies ignored the teen trio. Ben hardly even saw any of them, leading Ann to suggest that they feared Ben, but Mark knew them better than that. “They’ll come up with some sort of nasty scheme, I guarantee it,” he predicted.
Each day two hours of magic training was given to the Apprentice Wizards in the Courtyard. For all practical purposes Ben had no magic powers that he could control, such that nothing was expected of him. Sessions were taught by a rotating set of teachers. None of them seemed to know what to do with Ben. As a result his daily sessions at the Courtyard weren’t difficult for him, but that was the problem. He was getting nowhere.
The other Apprentice Wizards were initially a bit stand-offish with Ben on the Courtyard, particularly the ones that had witnessed his awesome Evaluation performance. They quickly realized however, that the only powers he had were defensive ones, and not under his control. They also appreciated the fact that Ben opposed Troy and his bully friends. Ben could only watch with envy the Wizardly magic efforts of his classmates while they for the most part ignored him. As a child he could do most of the things they did, and he greatly missed being able to do them now. He missed flying, cloaking, teleporting, and other abilities.
Fortunately, Ann and Mark were immensely popular, and much of that soon extended to Ben. Soon many students clustered around Ben whenever they could, asking him again and again about sprites, elves and the Unaligned. Ben was particularly happy to meet several Apprentice Wizard students representing each grade level who were part of a student alliance that protected both Apprentice Wizards and Norms from bullies such as Troy and his buddies.
"It's good that you protect against bullies," Ben told them, "but Demons and Evil are real and someday soon you may have to face up to them. It might take all available Wizards including Apprentices to protect Hope." They all liked Ben and his stories, but didn't know what to make of his insistence on the reality of Demons and Evil. Most had been told many times that Demons and Evil didn't exist.
Under the circumstances, Ben felt that he was adapting fairly well to living in Hope. Besides, his own adjustment experiences made him particularly adept at helping young Rick Hortega adjust to the first grade class that met next door to Hope High in the elementary school. Elementary school kids were also intrigued by Ben's past experiences, and followed him around also asking a hundred questions.
Rick Hortega astonished his older friends by immediately making an impact at the Elementary School level. A natural leader and unusually strong in Wizard powers for so young a child, he immediately sought the stronger-powered students, bonded with them, and formed an after-school club that promised to be on guard against evil including Evil. "We call ourselves Junior Apprentices," Rick told his older friends. "If you official Apprentices ever need us, call for us and we will add our powers to yours. I have found that I can add the powers of my friends to my own."
"Adding powers together sounds like cloistering," said Ann. "That's a fifth level ability and strictly forbidden."
"But I can do it!" said Rick, shrugging his small shoulders, "and I mean no harm by it. There is no logic to banning it!"
"Wow! You remind me of Ben when he was your age," said Ann. "Glad you're on our side!"
"Maybe I saved Troy from you instead of the other way around," said Mark.
"Not even close," said Rick.
"What you can do sounds super useful to me," said Ben, "even if it's forbidden. It's a prized ability among the Unaligned and elves. Keep it to yourself for now though, and we'll carefully feel out Eric and Sharp on the subject. But if we have to face Demons I think you should just stay out of the way. There must be other things you can do to help us. Think about it. You're smart; I'm sure you'll come up with something useful besides going head-to-head with Demons."
Rick took Ben to meet with his young Junior Apprentice Wizard group, where he was hailed as a hero and assailed with questions. These kids had no problem believing in Demons and Evil; perhaps because they hadn't yet been strongly indoctrinated to the contrary. Ben promised to call on them if they were needed, though he couldn't imagine circumstances under which he would do so.
The adult Hortegas, to the surprise of some, quickly became close friends of the Wolf and his vampire wife. Jose was a plumber and Guinevere was a hair dresser, and both were soon in great demand. The Wolf resumed doing landscaping and odd jobs around Hope, and collaborated with Jose on projects. Amanda as it turned out was also a hairdresser, and collaborated with Guinevere. There was a blue-collar attitude that they all shared that helped bring them together. Plus none of them were Wizards and all felt a little out of place in Hope.
****
After two weeks of school, Ben was becoming impatient. He was adapting well socially and academically, but he had still gotten no serious help with his problem. He had not necessarily expected such efforts to be successful, but he had expected attempts to at least occur. He was beginning to fear that Vice Principle Sharp had forgotten her pledge to give him special attention, when she finally appeared at a Courtyard session and pulled him aside to a quiet, unused grassy area.
“You’ve had sufficient time now to adjust to your surroundings Mr. King, I should think,” she stated.
“Yes ma’am.”
“Sit,” she said, and the two of them sat down in grass that was too healthy not to have been helped along by spells. “We might as well start with a review of what hasn’t worked. I understand that Rogue Wizards have already tried to solve your control problem.”
“Yes.”
“What did they do?”
Ben shrugged. “They tried different things. They bounced dozens of spells off of me, and in the end gave up a
nd said it would be up to me to fix myself. They put me in different sorts of situations and tried to get me to shut off my shields or do other magic. They had me relax sometimes, and then other times they put me under stress. They talked to me in my sleep, and they yelled at me when I was awake. They put me in hot and cold rooms. They put me in water and snow. Nothing really bothered me much because of my shielding.”
“Did they have you stand on your head?” the Vice principle asked.
“Yes.”
“I was kidding.”
“I wasn't. The werewolf and vampire communities had a go at me too.”
“Vampires sometimes have strong empathic and hypnotic powers, and werewolves shape shift to forms with increased strength, but what would they know of Wizard magic?” Sharp asked.
“Oh, they have a much wider assortment of skills than that, especially the vampires.”
“Really!”
“But they couldn’t help either.”
“Not surprising.”
“There was one vampire psychologist that worked hard on my problem for three years. He was convinced that the Demon attack caused traumatic shock, and that if I could remember more about the attack experience I might be OK.”
“But you can’t remember much about the incident?”
“Bits and pieces only. If Sky hadn’t happened along and seen some of it I would know and remember far less.”
“Sky? Is that the name of the sprite that you say saved you?”
“It’s the name of the sprite that DID save me.”
“And the elf’s name is Soone? That name appears in our legends of elves going back three centuries. An elf named Soone helped found the Wizard town of Hope, it is said.”
“Yes. That's how he learned English. He tried to help me with my magic also, of course, but got no further than the others.”
Apprentice Wizards of Hope Page 11
