HELLO?” FORT SHOUTED AS THE rain intensified. No one answered, so in spite of his shock, he moved to find cover from the storm.
Only the odd thing was, he wasn’t getting wet. Instead, the water droplets were falling right through him, as if he were a ghost, or had cast Ethereal Spirit.
But how was that possible? A Time student shouldn’t have been able to use Healing magic, let alone destroy a school. Or was this the future that Simon had mentioned? Had Ellora sent him here to see … this?
But he wasn’t really here, not fully, not if the rain was passing through him. Was this how the Time-magic users saw the future, like ghosts, unable to touch or change anything?
“Ellora!” he shouted into the empty air, his voice not echoing at all. “Take me back! I’ve seen whatever it is you wanted me to see!”
But again, there was no reply, and Fort began to panic. What if she left him here, stuck in the future? And what kind of horrible future was this? What could have happened to utterly destroy the Oppenheimer School? It’d been hidden to the point that even the students attending the school hadn’t known where it was, so how could it have been found to destroy it in the first place?
And how far ahead in time was he? For all Fort knew, this could be happening a few minutes in the future, while he, his father, and all his friends were still there. In fact, what if the Time students were in on it, and the school was getting attacked while he was stuck in the future? He needed to get back already!
But how? He couldn’t use Time magic himself, or really, many other spells. All he had currently were the Teleport spell, Heal Minor Wounds, and one instance of Restore Dimensional Portal, none of which were much use as a ghost in the future.
Not sure what else to try, Fort cast a teleportation circle, but nothing happened. Maybe one had opened wherever/whenever his body was, back in the Deployment Room in the present, but it sure wasn’t working here in the future. So what did—
The Deployment Room disappeared around him, replaced by a sandy-white beach, stretching off in both directions farther than Fort could see. The ocean he found himself facing was calm, if strangely low, based on how wet the sand was where he was standing. He glanced behind him, to see how far back the damp sand extended, and gasped.
Thousands of uniformed soldiers stood in formation just a few dozen yards away. Each one was wearing some sort of mask, like the kind you’d wear to scuba dive, connected to two tanks on their backs, but other than that, they seemed to have no weapons or other items of any kind.
Instead, their arms hung at their sides as they stared out toward the ocean.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t—I don’t—” Fort stammered, having no idea what to say, but none of the soldiers seemed to even notice him. As his shock wore off, he remembered that he wasn’t substantial here in the future, so they most likely couldn’t see or hear him. Still, it felt odd to be standing in front of them, so he quickly moved off the beach, passing through the two nearest squads of soldiers until he reached the back of the company.
Now safely behind them, Fort turned back to the ocean, wondering what they were waiting for. Part of him didn’t want to know, as it definitely wasn’t going to be anything good. But Ellora had sent him here for a reason, and she might not bring him back until he’d seen whatever it was he was supposed to.
As he watched, the ocean pulled back even farther, stranding several fish and even a few jellyfish on the sand as it did. A loud roaring noise erupted from out on the water, and the sky began to darken, like a bad storm was coming.
The wind picked up out of nowhere, strong enough to make many of the soldiers almost lose their footing, bracing themselves against the force of it. Fort could only see its effects and hear its whistling as it passed, not feel it, and for that, he was actually grateful.
One of the soldiers shouted out in a language Fort didn’t recognize, and he realized for the first time he might not be in the U.S. It’d been hard to tell what nationality the soldiers were, given that they all wore masks.
Out on the ocean, the darkness drew closer, and the soldier shouted again. This time, the others all raised their arms, and their hands began to glow bright blue in the oncoming storm. Fort’s eyes widened as he realized what he was seeing: thousands of magic users, all with Healing magic.
But where had they come from? When had they learned magic? How had they gotten the book of Healing magic from the TDA? Was this China, and Colonel Charles had changed his mind? And since none of the soldiers looked like they were children, how many years in the future was this?
But then the roar from the ocean turned Fort’s attention back to the growing darkness, and he realized with horror that it wasn’t a storm coming toward them. The darkness wasn’t from clouds or night falling.
It was water.
Extending as far as Fort could see in every direction, a wave was crashing toward them, hundreds of feet high, maybe more. And in the middle of the wave, maybe every ten or twenty feet, was a pair of glowing red lights.
No, not lights. Hands, glowing with Destruction magic.
The wave was an attack.
Even as Fort stared in shock and disbelief, the soldiers in front of him began casting their spells, sending Healing magic rocketing into the wave. Each spell that hit one of the Destruction-magic users paralyzed that person, knocking them backward out of the wave with the force of the hit. The water where they’d been began to collapse out of the tsunami, but the other Destruction users spread their magic out, solidifying the wave.
How could this even be real, no matter how far in the future Fort was? It all just seemed so unreal, both because he couldn’t feel anything around him, and from how much had to have changed between the present and whenever he was now. All of these adult magic users, fighting a war of some kind? It was too much to wrap his head around!
The one soldier on the beach shouted again, and this time, hundreds of soldiers stepped forward, their bodies glowing blue. Wings sprouted from each one, and they took to the air, soaring up into the fading sunlight. Then, when they were just above the highest point of the wave, they dove straight at it, aiming for the Destruction-magic users.
Some managed to hit their enemy, but others were hit by walls of water or lightning bolts sent from the Destruction casters, dropping the Healers into the ocean below, where they were swept straight into the massive wave.
This attack created more instability in the tsunami with each Destruction user it took out, but even this wasn’t enough to stop it. The soldiers near Fort began to get nervous, muttering to each other in their own language.
The one soldier shouted again, and everyone else went quiet. Soldiers in the front began to remove their masks and step forward onto the beach, even as the wave grew dangerously close. The soldiers behind them all turned their magic on the ones who’d stepped forward, their blue Healing light almost too bright to look at.
And then, out of the light, the soldiers at the front began to grow.
Fort involuntarily took a step back in amazement, even as the soldiers cried out in pain as their bodies doubled in size, then doubled again, growing larger and larger. From the sound of their cries, the agony was incredible, and several soldiers near Fort had to look away even as they kept their magic flowing into the others.
And then, just a moment later, the light disappeared, and Fort rubbed his eyes, trying to see what had happened.
Giants now strode the beach, each one easily as tall as a skyscraper. And there were hundreds of them, each one lining up to face the oncoming wave, spreading their arms and readying themselves to deflect as much as they could.
The enormous soldiers shouted as one, the force of their cry sending their regular-sized comrades to their knees from the intensity of it, but again, Fort didn’t feel a thing, at least not physically. Mentally, he still couldn’t believe any of this was really happening.
And then the giants surged forward, crashing into the surf, and threw their bodies into the oncoming tsunami.
Red Destructive spells flew out at the giants, burning them or sending electricity zapping through their bodies, but the spells were too small to do much. The giants hit the wave, and—
And Fort was back in the Deployment Room, Ellora giving him a horribly sad look.
“I’m so, so sorry we had to show you that,” she whispered.