UMUS!” COLONEL CHARLES SHOUTED as Fort felt his blood go cold in horror. “Move to contain, now ! And get that portal closed!”
The TDA soldiers immediately leaped to intercept the shadows, even as Fort quickly closed the portal, his hands starting to shake. The first squad moved to surround the intruders, who seemed to fade in and out of view, almost as if they were turning invisible. But as the soldiers encircled them, the shadows disappeared completely, reappearing in a flash just outside the squad, one on either side.
What were these things, and how were they moving so quickly? They couldn’t be Old Ones … could they?
“Got one!” shouted a soldier in the next squad over as he aimed his Lightning rod, but the nearest black shadow flashed next to him, knocking the rod off course just as he fired. Lightning exploded into the first squad, arcing between the soldiers and knocking most of them to the floor, unconscious.
“Hold your fire until you have a confirmed target!” Colonel Charles shouted, but the shadows disappeared again, and the room went silent as the soldiers all looked for them frantically, their Lightning rods held at the ready.
A moment passed, then another, and no one made a sound. Fort’s throat constricted so much he almost choked when he swallowed, he was so terrified of making even the slightest noise.
“There!” someone shouted, and they all turned to see a flash of black across the wall. A lightning bolt struck right behind it, a moment too late.
“Over here!” shouted another soldier from the opposite side of the room, and Fort whirled around just in time to see the shadow disappear, another lightning bolt hitting where it’d been.
Could these things even be human, disappearing and reappearing that fast? It was almost like they were teleporting, or moving too quickly to see… .
And then it hit him. The intruders were moving too fast to see: They had sped up their own personal time.
This was Time magic. Only it was nothing like the spells Cyrus had used.
And that meant it had to be the Carmarthen Academy students. They’d seen through Colonel Charles’s plan, just as they’d promised, and now they were here to punish them all.
Now completely panicking, Fort turned to the colonel. “It’s the Time—” he started to shout, but Colonel Charles shoved him back toward the wall, guards moving in front of him protectively.
“Stay down and don’t draw attention to yourself !” the colonel hissed at Fort as one of the shadows appeared again, this time in the middle of a squad. The soldiers all moved to aim but stopped as the colonel shouted, “Do not fire! Contain it instead: Use your bodies to keep it trapped!”
That might work, actually! Fort peered between the arms of his guards to find the soldiers moving to obey the colonel as the surrounded shadow flashed in and out of existence, each time a slightly different shape, like it was moving in place. The squad closed in to form a fairly solid wall, their shoulders all pushed against each other, their Lightning rods all aimed straight at the shadow.
And then an eerie black light appeared around each soldier, and they immediately began to wink out one by one, disappearing into thin air.
A collective gasp of shock went up around the room, the loudest coming from Fort, and everything erupted into chaos.
All the soldiers began to shout at once as the shadows appeared all around the room now, baiting the soldiers into firing at each other. Lightning bolts filled the air, creating an almost electric field within the room as more and more TDA soldiers were hit, falling to the floor unconscious.
Even the ones who were careful not to aim at the other soldiers had their shots knocked off course by the shadows, creating more panic. A bolt sizzled past Fort’s shoulder, and he dove to the floor, now as scared of the soldiers as he was of the Carmarthen students.
“Weapons down!” Agent Cole shouted, then glared at Colonel Charles. “Have you trained these soldiers at all? This is insanity!”
“We will take control of this situation!” Colonel Charles shouted, grabbing a Lightning rod from next to an unconscious soldier and striding out into the melee. “Form up on me, soldiers! We will take these UMUs down! Let’s—”
And then he broke off as one of the shadows appeared right in front of him.
Fort’s eyes widened in shock, but it was too late to do anything. “No!” Colonel Charles shouted, leaping backward and raising his Lightning rod to fire as black light washed over him. As the magic hit him, he immediately froze in place, his mouth hanging open, his Lightning rod just beginning to unleash a bolt of electricity.
But as the shadow cast its spell on the colonel, Fort finally got his first good look at the intruder. Whatever it was, it looked about his height and was wearing all black, just like the kids in the video.
Fort had been right about the attackers and how they’d seen Colonel Charles’s plan ahead of time. But he’d been very, very wrong about being able to face them with just Jia and Rachel.
Whatever these Time spells were, they were far more powerful than anything he and his friends had.
He pushed to his feet, ready to try to teleport one of the Time students away, but something struck him from behind, knocking him back to the floor. For a moment, he was sure one of the Time kids had attacked him, and he tried desperately to fend them off before realizing it was Agent Cole, just as he was about to punch her in the face.
“Stay down!” she shouted as a succession of lightning bolts passed through where he’d been standing. She looked up and readied her own Lightning rod, looking furious. “I should have brought my own team in. Charles’s soldiers weren’t ready for this!”
She released Fort and stood up, moving into the squads, yelling at them to lower their weapons. But even as the soldiers obeyed, the shadows grabbed multiple Lightning rods, moving too quickly to catch, and set them off one by one, taking down more of the TDA agents. Another squad disappeared entirely, while a second one slowed to a halt, not freezing like Colonel Charles had, but moving almost imperceptibly slowly.
At this rate, it wouldn’t be long before the Time students had taken down the entire TDA. And all so they could take him, Rachel, and Jia for who knew what reason.
“Lock the doors!” Agent Cole shouted as soldiers continued to drop. “We have to contain them within this room. We can’t let them out into the rest of the school!”
Two soldiers began to close the doors leading back into the school but disappeared before they could.
“Fitzgerald!” Agent Cole shouted at Fort. “Open a portal to the barracks, and get more—”
A shadow flashed past her before she could finish, and when it was gone, Agent Cole had disappeared as well.
Fort looked around in horror, seeing only a dozen soldiers left now, spread throughout the room. Agent Cole was right; they needed backup if they were going to keep the Time students trapped in the Deployment Room.
But not soldiers. They’d be useless. No, he needed his friends, and all the other students he could find. Sebastian, the Chads, Rachel’s Destruction friends, everyone.
As more soldiers ran to block the exit doors, Fort aimed for a spot just in front of them, hoping to protect them by opening a teleportation circle between them and the Carmarthen students.
But as he started the spell, something shadowy flashed before his eyes, and suddenly everything changed in the Deployment Room. Where there had been less than a dozen soldiers left on their feet, now there were none. All of the unconscious soldiers and those frozen like Colonel Charles had disappeared as well.
In fact, the room was entirely empty but for Fort and two black shadows who now stood in front of him.
As he watched in desperate horror, the shadows formed into two children, their hands glowing with black light. Hoods covered their faces, but beneath their open hoodies, Fort could see school uniforms and ties.
These were the children from the video, the Time school students.
And they’d come for him.
First one, then the other removed their hoods, revealing a pale-skinned boy and a girl of Indian descent, both with bright silver hair, exactly like Cyrus’s.
“That was unnecessary,” said the boy, wiping some dust off his sleeve. “Adults never listen, do they? They’re the worst.”
The girl stepped closer with a smile and reached a hand out to Fort, who stared at it in terror. “Hello, Forsythe,” she said. “Nice to finally meet you. We’re going to need you to come with us.”