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It was only the third day back and already Sargent Kerry Lewis was exhausted. Over the summer it seemed all of the students had decided to throw all of their knowledge of control out of the window. In fact, the only student who had even come close to being able to properly control himself without her help had been a first year! Safe to say she was not impressed.
The bell rang out across the school, signalling the end to the disaster they called the 4th year class. Poor Liam Russel was still trying to untie the knots he had somehow tied in his tail which Noah Rees was now helping with and Harry Duckett was having a very awkward conversation with Lucas Scott who he had almost strangled by accident with his tentacle arms and who didn’t seem to be taking the apology well.
“I know this was the first lesson back,” she said to the class, all of them falling silent at once “But I did expect better of you. All of you,” she said, looking around the dishevelled boys, “Now, off to dinner and I hope you’ll do better tomorrow,”
There was a small chorus of “yes Sarge,” and a few hesitant salutes, none of which were even close to being correct. The group trudged back to the school, the best of them looking annoyed and the worst loudly complaining about the class.
Not even five minutes later she heard a crash from inside the school and some students shouting. Not the kind of shouts that came from a fight or something normal, no, these shouts were that of panic coming from deep within. It took no time at all for her to grab her crossbow and a quiver of crossbow bolts (just in case) and start running towards the noise.
Once inside she was forced to duck almost immediately as a dark mass of black bounded over her, creating deep slashes in the walls, inky black smoke rising from the marks. Getting back to her feet she could finally see the monster, perched on top of a writhing student, blood pouring out from him. The smoke pouring off of it was wrapping around the boy and binding him. There were also several what looked to be birds flapping around and attacking the students, all of which seemed to be made of the same smoky substance as the wolf. The corridor was too crowded for her to shoot without endangering the children further.
“Move!” she shouted over the commotion and gestured out to the control tower, “Everyone back to your dorms! NOW!”
Unfortunately seeing as everyone else was also shouting and panicking nobody listened to her but they did seem to have the sense to get out of the way of the thing which had now moved on from the third year on the floor to bound into the assembly hall. The third year in question was lying in a pool of his own blood but didn’t appear to have any scratches on him and was looking stunned rather than hurt. She locked eyes with him as she passed and he smiled weakly which she took to mean “I’m fine just shocked”.
It was then that Matthew and Ranjit finally decided they were going to show up, the two of them rushing down the corridor together. Thankfully most of the kids had cleared by now and they could focus on the monster currently cornering what looked like two first years.
The hall itself was dark but the glowing eyes of the creature could be seen plain as day. Ranjit took a shot at it with some kind of spell but it simply deflected off, the same thing happening when Matthew tried. These two attacks caused it to turn around and face the three of them instead. Kerry took that moment to fire a shot from her crossbow but that too shattered on impact with the wolf, if it could even be called that. Even as she looked at it it was growing in size along with large cracks of what appeared to be sulphur making their way across its body and congregating around its left paw to create huge sulphurous claws.
Its eyes flicked between the three of them as it snarled, saliva dripping from its vertical mouth. Ranjit attacked it a second time, this one providing as much damage as the last and the creature let out a bellowing roar which sounded akin to a music shop being thrown down the stairs. Immediately fear began to spread throughout her, the kind of fear she hadn’t felt in years. The other two didn’t seem affected at all however and after a steadying breath she pushed it down but not fast enough apparently. The creature came rushing for them, the other two teachers managing to leap out of the way just in time but Kerry was struck with the full force of the blow and sent flying backwards.
She landed on her back, her body armour taking most of the blast and stood up carefully, ears ringing out in protest and chest straining in agony. The creature was now trained on her, walking towards her menacingly. Behind it she could just see Matthew helping the first years to get out while Ranjit was being swarmed by the shadow birds, the more he picked off the more seemed to appear.
The wolf opened its mouth, presumably to screech again but before it could Kerry leaped for her crossbow which lay abandoned on the floor and shot for it. The bolt flew through the air and this time struck the thing in the mouth where it howled in pain. At almost the exact same time Ranjit sent a shadowy mass flying towards one of the birds which unfortunately missed and went flying straight into the ceiling, causing it to buckle and dust to come streaming down but it didn’t collapse. What the blast did do was draw the wolves attention back to him and, unfortunately, the children currently escaping down the corridor.
Although she couldn’t see its face she could tell the creature had locked onto them, the snarling growing louder until it finally bounded after them. Ranjit tried to stand in the way but was knocked down easily and Hinks was too busy trying to help some of the other first years to help them, his eyes scanning around the room for any more children who may be hiding.
Kerry started to run after the creature only to be divebombed by what appeared to be a child. It was only once she looked up from where she had rolled out the way she saw it was Morty being carried kicking and screaming by one of the birds. To be fair to him it seemed like he had been able to claw a chunk out of the thing judging by the oily substance leaking out from its belly that she suspected was blood.
Finally, Ranjit let out a blast of shadow which turned all the birds around him into pale wisps of smoke and only just managed to duck out the way of Morty’s violently swinging legs as they came from him. The bird with Morty didn’t even spare a glance towards Matthew and the first years, instead heading straight for the large window at the back of the hall and using Morty to smash through it, flying off to the plagueround. Matthew had already tried to chase after him, stopping at the window and concentrating as one of his eyes went zooming off after them. Singh and Kerry rushed towards the window in vain, Morty was long gone already.
“Right,” Ranjit said, turning to the other two, “Matthew, do you know where he is?”
Matthew only nodded in reply, still trying hard to concentrate as his eye got further and further away.
“Alright, you and I will go into the plagueround after him, Kerry, you keep track of the wolf and make sure it doesn’t harm any more students,”
She nodded despite the fact she had no curse and no magic on her side but she had survived so far hadn’t she? How hard could keeping this beast busy really be?
The other two disappeared in a flash of darkness leaving Kerry on her own. “Stay there,” she instructed the first years cowering behind some rubbles as she ran out of the hall in search of the monster. Scorched pawprints marked their way to the kitchens, leading past both Moley and Frank on their way (one of which she felt worse for than the other). It didn’t take long to find where the creature had gone, sneaking up with her crossbow drawn as she carefully and quietly crept towards the kitchens. At least there it only had one exit, and that was directly through her.
Further away at the edge of the Plagueround Matthew and Ranjit appeared, Matthew’s eyes all appearing out of their own little shadowy voids.
“At least you remembered the eyes this time,” he muttered, standing up and straightening himself out.
The two of them headed off into the plagueround together, Matthew keeping an almost 360 view of their surroundings and providing the direction of his other eye. Ranjit already had green flames in his hand, both to give them a safe guiding light and to attack anything that came too close. Thankfully, the two could hurry through the plagueround without too much trouble although Matthews' eye up ahead did get swiped at a few times which was more than slightly terrifying.
They only got stopped once when they were fairly deep into the forest. The two were hurrying through together when Matthew saw something move in the darkness between the trees.
“Something is moving to our left and something’s telling me it’s looking right at us,” He said, not slowing down. In theory, the green flames that Ranjit had should protect them. They carried on going for a little bit without any signs of it before-
“It is following us. Right this time,”
“Don’t worry about it,” Ranjit replied, blasting away a tree log in front of him, “As long as I’m here they wouldn’t dare-”
Rather ironically, his sentence was cut off by the beast leaping out from the shadows and pinning him down. It had huge bug-like eyes along with large pincers on the front of its face. The rest of its body was covered in grotesque protrusions that didn’t look like they belonged on any creature, including on the giant claws adorning its front paws, one of which was dangerously close to Ranjit’s throat. Matthew fired off a few fireballs which hit its side and left dark red burns. It turned to him screeching and prepared to attack but before it could, the green flames from Ranjit engulfed it and it was gone.
Matthew helped him up and they didn’t even speak before they were off again. They had a light and powerful magic on their side, Morty had none of that. Only three minutes later both of them heard the faint sound of the school bell ringing out. They both turned to each other instantly.
“Morty first. We didn’t come all this way to abandon him now,” Ranjit said and Matthew nodded.
With both of them almost sprinting there they managed to find him relatively quickly, the glint of Matthew’s eye standing out in the fog of the plagueround. It was dancing around the bird, avoiding being damaged while firing a few of its own lasers back at it, all of which missed but kept it on its toes.
Morty was propped against a tree, a deep gash adorning his side along with chunks of his rocky skin seemingly having been broken off. His eyes were closed and he was limp but still breathing but only just. He was shivering despite being unconscious.
All it took was a quick burst of flames from Ranjit for the bird to disappear into smoke, something it seemed to do quite willingly, and they could get to Morty quite easily. Without hesitation he picked him up and summoned the shadows around them to teleport them back to the school, handed Morty off to the nearest teacher so they could deal with it and teleported again, this time to the top of the belltower where the wolf presumably was now.
He had barely finished appearing before he spoke, “We came as soon as we could, where is it?”