Chapter 55: Black Smoke
The pixies were the first to arrive. Even though Villin tried to dodge them, they were fast and agile soon managing to bite into his wand-arm.
The bites weren't deep at all and could only be seen as a minor wound but it was the weight that was the problem.
They both bit into his upper arm, a bit above his wand-glove. And even though Villin had increased strength, this made the dodging that he now had to do a lot harder.
There were three spells heading for him he couldn't dodge from. The first had a similar effect of the previous spell that had been cast at him. A large part of the spell's power was absorbed by Sheldium but Villin still got knocked back a meter causing his back to be right against one of the golems.
The second spell that reached him actually wasn't an offensive one, it hit his chest and let out a magical shockwave, disrupting Sheldium, causing the spell to lose effect. The final spell that reached him was the real deal. All he could do to try and save himself was to cover his weak stomach with his left arm, hoping he would be okay.
The spell was indeed heading for the stomach, and his Villin right on the arm. He felt a searing pain on his entire body when the purple spell hit him, he could feel electricity moving through his veins. While he was convulsing the golem behind him picked him up and threw him against the wall hard.
Villin could only barely retain his consciousness as he watched the enemies come closer. Amelia had also been thrown to the ground and he could see her foaming from the mouth. But well, it didn't matter much, Villin wasn't capable of casting a spell right now and neither was Amelia.
One of the green-robed students had walked up to him and was looking at him in disdain, then he looked behind him before looking at Pierson.
"Pierson, was it? Since I heard you have managed to study the dark arts it is about time for you to get your first couple of additional webs, go ahead and finish them off."
Despite his age which was only a couple of years older than Villin and his classmates, this green-robed student seemed extremely vicious as he made way for Pierson to walk up.
Pierson looked scared and nervous but still pointed his wand toward Villin's neck. All Villin could do was look Pierson in the eyes with a look of disdain, no hatred, simply disdain.
Villin saw the boy's lip quiver, he looked away but kept pointing his wand "Kra-"
Midway through his cast, one of his classmates next to him pointed his wand toward Pierson before shooting off a spell. Pierson felt shocked as he got thrown to the floor, but his shock soon made place for fear as he saw what he was landing on.
Face first, Pierson landed on a bed of spikes, one of his eyes directly got punctured as his terrible scream echoed through the hallway.
Villin saw the eyes of the boy who had attacked Pierson were pink but the other traitors around them didn't pay attention to that. After about half a second of shock, half a dozen spells hit the boy who had only just regained his consciousness. He got shot toward the wall with cuts all over his body, one of the spells had directly punctured his heart.
It was now that one of the enemies finally noticed their actual opponents. Two people were standing just outside of the magic array classroom. Rein and Kayley both stood there their wands aimed toward their enemies.
Seeing a strand of hope, Villin managed to reach his money pouch, he used his unstable magical energy to take out a pill and put it in his mouth. Everyone was now preoccupied with the newly appeared opponents so nobody had noticed Villin had taken a low-grade healing pill that they had made in class.
Both sides shot off some spells but it was clear that Rein and Kayley were at a pretty big disadvantage. It was then that Rein shot off his saved spell. The area around Villin and the group intending to kill him was suddenly covered in a pitch-black smoke.
A few of the people within it tried casting spells to do with wind to try and drive away the 'smoke' but none were successful. A moment later, Villin felt someone pulling him away by the leg. Villin already felt slightly better and since he guessed whoever was pulling was his ally, he took his wand into his left hand and pointed at one of the metal pixies on his right biceps. After shooting three icy pikes at the little creature its head crumbled and it fell off.
Now, Villin was dragged a lot faster and when he finally got out of the smoke he noticed they were actually in the magic array classroom, the smoke had filled the entire hallway, an extremely impressive feat. He saw Rein had been dragging him but he was panting heavily, dragging around a person with a metal pixie on their arm wasn't an easy feat.
Villin tried to get up but immediately faltered, the low-grade healing pill could only do so much. Even though it managed to get him well enough to cast spells again, he shouldn't expect his strength to come back just like that.
A few seconds later Kayley came through the doorway dragging the badly hurt Amelia with her. The pixies that were around her legs were gone, probably destroyed by Kayley, but the girl was still frothing from the mouth.
When they saw her condition Kayley and Rein immediately turned to the final person in the room, the zombie-like Richard.
Even though a lot of this man's face was gone Villin could still tell he was worried about the current situation, but when he diagnosed Amelia, Villin felt slightly better.
"She'll be okay, there shouldn't actually be any internal damage, most healing spells will be able to alleviate her current condition."
Kayley and Rein then went ahead and began casting their newly learned healing spell on her. And as professor Richard had said, the frothing stopped and Amelia began regaining her consciousness.
Even though Kayley and Rein didn't know Amelia they were still happy to see she looked a lot better already. Then they turned to Villin and both cast a healing spell on him after taking care of the remaining Pixie.
Villin still felt like absolute shit but he managed to get up. Amelia was the same, after all both of them had been wounded heavily in the arm, not the legs. Villin had lost control earlier because of the electricity spell, and as for Amelia, it was the frothing spell that did it.
They both looked at their arms and noticed they couldn't really move the ones that were hurt. For Villin this had minimal implications but Amelia would have to temporarily change her wand-arm.
Villin looked at the door worriedly but soon Rein alleviated his worries "The smoke will be staying for a full hour, it also covers quite a large area as I injected nearly all of my magical power into it."
It was finally time to figure out why the hell Crumb wanted them to be in this classroom when the attack happened.