Otherside Ch. 02

"A telethist, huh?" a girl standing next to Ollys asked. "Isn't that like portals or something?"

Ollys shook his head, leaning back on his forearms. "Not really, more like channeling the flow of magic and matter. Includes some planar shifts though, almost portals." The stiff green grass of the field prick his arms, though he ignored it.

Ollys looked at the others in the group of 6 students huddled together. Four girls, including Opal, and another guy. The girl who was introducing herself and asking questions was Kyra. A little too friendly, Ollys thought to himself.

"I'm an arsokist," Opal said when the high-energy girl asked. "Change in energy manipulation. Fires and the like."

The boy, who had been sidling up to Opal, grinned. "Dang girl, so you play with fire?"

Opal gave him a wide but sarcastic smile, tilting her head for effect. "Burned many heads to a crisp, my friend."

The boy didn't take the hint nor get the innuendo and just laughed, grazing her arm awkwardly. Opal looked irritated, brushing her hair behind her ear.

"So, the activity," another girl said - a more serious and straightforward girl, whose name Ollys forgot, with a more slight frame and chocolate hair. "Should probably do that."

Kyra laughed. "I guess we should, shouldn't we?" Ollys could see Opal inwardly groan, and he grinned at her. She just traced her index finger over her throat.

"Enter into your trance," Madam Liall had said. "And try to touch the minds of each other. Get a feel for your group mates, and what their minds are like."

Not waiting for anyone else to bother, Ollys decided to enter his trance. He kneeled down, interlocking his fingers, and closed his eyes. Ignoring the many sounds around him, he fell into the near-habitual state of the trance he had learned many years ago. He had done this exercise - both the trance and the transient communicating - many times, so it was rather easy.

As he entered his trance, he began to loose touch with his sense - the yells of the fields became distant, the prickly grass a long gone memory. Instead, he focused on the magic flowing around him. The magic coursing through the grass, his nervous system, and his heart, where much magical energy was pooled.

He reached outwards further, prodding those around him. He could vaguely feel each of the presences of the 5 other students around him, though only a couple seemed to be present in the astral realm like he was. He couldn't tell who was who - spatial distance was irrelevant in magic systems - so he prodded one present mind.

As he nudged the presence with his own, the presence softly bumped back after a moment, a signal of admission. Surely not Opal or Kira, he thought. Far too timid.

He pressed his consciousness against the others presence again, beginning to explore their astra, looking at the way they interacted with magic - noting that they were doing the same to him. He ignored the invasive feeling and instead focused on them.

They seemed to be a hydrophist, dealing with water manipulation. Their pathways were well routed, suggesting a lot of experience in magic. Their presence prodding at his mind was gentle but forward, yet still a bit insecure. He wondered if it was that serious brunette girl.

He interacted with a few others as they entered their trances, including Opal with her bold yet preoccupied presence, and Kyra with her overwhelmingly friendly one. A few minutes later, he decided to return from his trance, once again regaining feel of his body. Including a bit of a hardness, to which he rolled his eyes internally. Trances had that effect, sadly.

"So, what are you guys studying?" Kyra asked, as if the brief silence was too much for her. "At the academy here?"

Nobody answered for a moment, so Opal piped up, "battle magiks, I think!"

The cringy boy - Elit? - laughed. "Dang, same! Twinsies." Ollys nearly died internally.

Kyra smiled broadly. "Dang, thats crazy! Couldn't do anything like that. Going into clerical magiks, myself." She swept her hair over her shoulder, glancing at Ollys as she did.

That her trying to flirt? If it was a sign, Ollys ignored it - he was terrible at reading social cues - instead responding himself. "Studying arcane masseuship."

The fourth girl - a tall black-haired girl - whistled. "Isn't that like giving massages to people all the time?"

"More or less," Ollys replied, grinning. "With some complicated magic theory involved."

"And plenty of naked girls," Opal added, grinningly wickedly.

Ollys rolled his eyes, trying not to blush as he chuckled. Elit was laughing hard on his back, while Kyra had the opposite reaction, blushing and looking away awkwardly. Way to make things comfy, Opal, Ollys thought to himself, though he didn't mind at all.

His thoughts were interrupted as he felt a soft rumbling in the ground. The others in the group also perked up, looking around. Earthquake? Earthquakes were hardly uncommon, but this felt more quick.

The next moment, Ollys found himself falling through the air high over the fields. Not registering what happened, he blinked and looked around, noticing the world spinning around him. What the hell?? Confusion and fear coursed through him. He was flying through the air, and his ears were ringing painfully.

He saw the ground approaching from beneath him, and a combination of instinct and adrenaline kicked in. He entered a brief trance, becoming hyper aware of the magic around him. He tapped into the magic coursing through his bloodstream, and spread it through his body, warping his body's perception of the world as he plummeted. He felt the kinetic forces he was under pulling him down at dizzying rates toward the ground, so he changed them, slinging himself to the side instead.

And with that, he felt himself falling sideways instead. He cracked against the cold grassy dirt, releasing his command. He rolled to a stop, grunting as his bones gashed against the ground. He moaned and shifted onto his side, his mind incredibly dizzy and lightheaded from the quick spin. The adrenaline pumping through his veins cleared it quickly, and he managed to look around at the chaos around him.

Where he had been moments before, there was an enormous crater, nearly half the size of the field. Turf and dirt had been ripped up and tossed across the stadium, leaving only craggy rock and scorched earth in its wake. Sharp screams pierced his ears, presumably coming from the dozens of students running in the distance, sprinting from the crater. Many left for the exit doors, though nearly everyone simply sought to distance themselves from the last sight. Those who didn't lay unmoving on the ground.

Storming from out of the pit in the ground were dozens of soldiers of sorts, equipped with swords, crossbows and a few arcane channeling tools - most held wands or rods, though Ollys saw a couple with orbs floating before them, usually reserved for high level magiks. Fighting back were a meager few from the academy, including Miss Liall and a few other of the academy's magicians, all wearing the cloak of the school. A few students joined in too, either from the class or leaping from a platform above, though they were brutally disposed of.

As the situation sunk in, horror and anticipation rose from Ollys's throat. "What the hell???" He yelled.

"Ollys!" A voice croaked from somewhere nearby. He whipped his head toward the sound, pulling on his Telethic gloves habitually.

It was Opal. She was battered, some of her clothes scorched and torn, and lay a few yards from him, but she was alive. Ollys exhaled in relief. "Opal," he greeted, relieved to see a friendly face. "What the hell is going on?!" He shouted, though he could barely hear his own voice from the ringing in his ears.

Opal got on her feet and ran towards him, kneeling down. "Ollys! You ok??"

Ollys nodded, pushing himself into a sitting position. "I guess. What the hell kind of drill is this?"

"Pit if I know," she said, though her face was pale and her voice cracked, as Ollys imagined his own did.

He looked around the field again, slowly taking in the magnitude of what had just occurred. Debris was cast everywhere, with huge rocks and turfed dirt sprayed across the stadium. Dozens of bodies lay strewn across the field, some slowly sitting up, some unmoving. Ollys choked as he saw a pair of legs sticking out from underneath a boulder, bent at irregular angles. He forced himself to look back to the pit in the center.

"Who are they??" He asked hoarsely, though the question was rhetorical. How would Opal know?

Opal didn't respond, just looking with wide eyes as the terror set into her too. "I think we need to get out of here..." she said weakly.

"Yeah," Ollys agreed, managing to get his mind focused enough to rise into a crouched position. "Yeah we do."

Opal followed Ollys as he made his way across the stadium towards the door, passing rubble, unconscious students and disturbing gore Ollys forced himself to not look at. He focused just on the door, planted into the close wall, just a few dozen feet ahead. Somehow he kept himself moving, though the more he did, the more reality pulled him from his trance.

The doors burst open, slamming against the concrete walls, as a dozen more faculty from the academy burst in, pushing past Ollys and Opal. Ollys sighed in relief and nearly booked it for the door, but someone grabbed his arm.

Ollys felt his heart jump out of his throat, but it was just faculty - a cook from the looks. The man looked sternly at Ollys. "What happened here??" the man shouted.

He blinked before clearing his throat. "Attack," he said through his coarse voice. "An explosion, tossed me..." He didn't know what else to say.

The man nodded. "Ok. Don't leave, we will have this under control." The man jogged forward to join his companions, pulling out abroad knife from his belt that still appeared to have chunks of a sort of meat still stuck to it.

Ollys didn't have the thought to ignore the man's command. He slumped down against a pillar, and Opal did the same next to him, her breaths coming in irregular spurts. The two sat in silence as they watched the chaos beside them unfold.

In the enormous crater in the ground, nearly a hundred of the invaders charged, wearing cloaks of dark red and silver, waving around various weaponry at the defenders. The faculty of the school, though much smaller in number, were far more skilled than most of the marroon folk, who were being hewn down one by one. Fire and brimstone, cracks of lightning, and arcs of harsh purple light flashed across the battlefield, taking down mages on both sides. It was a slaughterhouse, as invaders slew faculty - though not students it seemed - and faculty wiped out the attackers.

As Ollys looked down on the chaos, mind still fuzzy, his sight settled on one individual in the field near the massacre. A boy with dusty blonde hair and a tall, lanky form sat twisted uncomfortably against a shattered pillar just a dozen feet from a group of invading spellcasters. Liric, he recognized through the haze in his head. The attackers slowly approached, shooting off into the distance with bolts of bright green lightning.

Ollys panicked, all the pent up energy rushing into his brain. Liric was right behind them. Surely they would kill him??

Ollys looked at Opal. "I gotta get Liric," he managed to get out.

"... what?" She looked at him with confusion and heightened panic

"My friend," he muttered, looking across the room. Liric wasn't moving. Ollys instinctively reached into a trance. He became hyper aware of everything around him, even the air particles, like everything was made of glowing matter he could touch with his mind, though his sluggish kind didn't notice much. He focused on the area near Liric, watching the puffs of space drift lazily around, as if unaware of the chaos going on around them.

He Touched one of the puffs with his spirit, feeling it tense up. He suddenly yanked it towards him. The violent shift caused the cloud to scream and rip, creating a jagged plane of swirling black mist, almost like a patch of skin had been torn off the surface of the universe.

Ollys Touched another puff, repeating the process to create matching, if dissimilar, patches in space. Nobody else would see but his own mind. Until he Patched them, of course.

Which he did. Ollys mentally connected the two, tying their edges together like sewing a child's pillow with a few flicks of his gloved wrists. The violent screaming of the universe called to a whimper as the two tears were Patched.

He closed his spirit eye and blinked, looking forward. Just in front of him, where nothing had been previously, was a crooked tear in the air before him. Inside the rip was a different scene - the blonde lanky boy, lay strewn awkwardly across a rock.

Ollys's breath quickened, some of the pent up fear and adrenaline kicking in. He pushed through the tear, finding himself next to Liric. Ignoring the sense of dysphoria as he stumbled forward, he knelt next to Liric.

Liric was breathing, it seemed, though Ollys didn't know how badly he was hurt. He tapped Liric's temple. The boy shifted and groaned before laying still again.

"Is he okay?" A weak voice asked from behind. Ollys jumped, nearly falling into Liric, but exhaled as he realized it was Opal.

"Dammit. Why did you follow??" Ollys asked, wiping his forehead. Pit. Forgot how exhausting Rifting was.

Opal cringed. "I dunno, I didn't want to stay there."

Ollys clicked his tongue, though inside he was grateful she had followed.

They sat in silence for a few moments next to Liric, looking at the taller boy. Ollys looked at his old friend with an odd combination of worry and distractedness. After probably a minute of sitting and doing nothing, his vertigo and shock began to pass, and the reality of the situation began to settle in to his mind.

He unsuccessfully tried to shove down his panic as he looked to the side towards the pit. Absolute chaos and unbridled bloodshed soaked the broken flooring. Dozens fell by the second, on both the invading and defending forces. The maroon cloaked attackers, seemingly pouring from two holes in the ground, were very well organized and had far more members, but the faculty of the school simply overpowered their barrages, with enormous blasts of various magiks. Corpses littered the ground, marred by blood, burn or an abundance of other deaths, including one person who seemed to have been turned into a crystal.

His breathing quickened and his eyes widened, so he stumbled back from the edge behind the rock Liric lay on, nearly vomiting from the massacre. He looked at Opal, who looked similarly sick, though she was checking on Liric to distract herself.

"I think he's fine," she said loudly over the violence just meters away. "Some broken bones maybe."

A drop of relief touched Ollys as he looked at his friend. The blonde was looking worse for wear - his shirt missing a huge tear where he had probably landed on the rock, ripping the thin uniform, though his skin wasn't torn up too bad, just had a mild abrasion - the worst to look out for was probably infection. His arms and legs seemed in proper form, though Ollys didn't dare touch the boy.

Just as he began to feel a little calmer, a blaring trump echoed through the stadium, and the sounds of men and women yelling filled the hall. This time, Ollys noticed as he peered over the edge of the crater, it didn't seem to be further attacking. The redcloaks were retreating into the caves, carrying wounded and casting a few poorly aimed spells behind their backs. The spellcasters in academy cloaks yelled victoriously as they continued to hammer the invaders into the ground. Ollys sighed in relief, flopping down to the ground. We made it.

Opal kneeled down next to him, shock and weariness on her face, but she grinned at him. "I dunno what the hell just happened, but we're alive."

Ollys grinned back and nodded. The cheers of students were dull whines in his ears compared to the madness that occurred just moments ago.

Until there was another scream. Ollys blanched as he whipped his head towards the source. Had the redcloaked attackers returned?

But the sight he saw filled him with horror. One of the faculty members had begun attacking one of the students, blasting a boy with sharp purple lightning. "What the-"

Another scream caused him to whip his head around again, where another professor used a sword to decapitate a student, her ginger head falling lifelessly to the ground. More screams and chaos erupted as violence swept across the field, students being cut down without warning by the academy faculty in the field.

"What the hell?!" Opal was even paler than before. "What's going on?!"

One cloaked individual walked towards the three of them, a woman with long white - or blonde, Ollys couldn't tell - hair, a whip in her hands that crackled electricity. Fear once again coursed through Ollys' brain, freezing him in place. Had the Academy turned on them? Were they suspect of causing the invasion??

As the woman stalked closer, he noticed something off. Her cloak matched that of the other professors, save it be a large bloodstain on the hip, but beneath it she wore a dark grey tunic, made of leather and canvas. Not the white and gold under tunic of the faculty. Realization settled into Ollys. This hadn't just been a random attack. The invaders had hidden themselves among the faculty beforehand.

Ollys tried to stumble to his feet to run, but he tripped over a pillar chunk, falling to the ground. "Ollys!" Opal yelled as he fell, her voice half worried, half manic.

Am I dying already?? Ollys thought as the lady approached. The blonde woman pulled her arm back before striking her whip forward, which snaked around Ollys. The whip lengthened as it lashed, seemingly controlled by an outside force, and it wrapped around Ollys, Opal and Liric. The pain that volted through his chest was incredible. Soon he couldn't feel the ground beneath him, or anything at all besides the lightning streaking through his body. So this is death, he managed to think as pain wracked his brain worse than a million bad migraines.

And yet, his mind hung on to consciousness as the charge continued to pulse through his body, charring his skin. He managed to squint through his cramped eyelids, and saw that he was flying through the air. He was hanging over the crater, and he thought he saw Liric out of the corner of his eye.

Suddenly, he plunged towards the ground. He screamed as he plummeted. Every second he felt closer to death. Every moment was one more second of pain, but one of his last seconds of life.

Until it stopped. Ollys grunted as he hit the ground, a dull pain shooting up his arm. He blinked his eyes wide open, surprised as the lightning was suddenly gone.

There wasn't much to see. Darkness surrounded Ollys as he looked around except for a dull glow of a white light in the distance. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he realized that light was the outside. Rocks rested beneath his body, and surrounding him were the rough walls of a cave, it seemed.

"What the f-" a voice next to him said.

Ollys whipped around, noticing for the first time Liric sitting next to him against the rock. He nearly yelled in relief, but another voice cut them both off. "Shut it."

Ollys paled and looked towards the origin of the voice. He could barely make out the white, gold and red of academy robes and curls of blonde hair that reached just past the figure's neck. The voice continued in a whisper. "Say anything and they will find us."

Ollys shut his jaw. No use arguing with a woman that had just attacked them... or were they kidnapped??

He didn't dare ask. But Opals voice came from next to him, voicing his thoughts. "We being kidnapped??" She whispered fiercely, though her voice wavered.