MODERN MAGICS. Tianyu (Tony) Zhu

and his Roamers have spent their last few lunch periods.

      They entered the room and dispersed into little groups. They were casually talking amongst themselves and were about to set down their lunch trays before they heard a loud sound.

      “Hey!” A mysterious voice yelled, startling and quieting at them.

      A few, unfamiliar, older teeangers emerged from the door across the hallway and started striding towards them, their intent clear in their aggressive stance.

      “Nice place ya’ got here.” One of the more intimidating guys, probably their leader, said as he leaned on the door. “Don’t mind if we take it, do you?”

      Silently, Damian cursed. It was one of those groups of Lesser students - ones whom Bierner favored. The phrase “similar attracts” was evident here: Bierner was known to cast favor upon the violent and rowdy Outsiders, which grew their arrogance even more. It had reached a point where other Lessers scrambled aside to avoid angering these unchecked bullies, which normally resulted in a harsh punishment from Bierner.

      Relenting, Damian held up his hands. He had to choose between fighting or returning to that loud and dirty mess hall, so he chose the latter. Damian knew that if he messed with them, he would give more cause for Bierner to monitor him even closer. Right now, Damian did not want to risk raising any suspicion about their secret escape plan, which would jeopardize their freedom.

      And so, Damian calmly replied, “It’s fine, you guys can have it-”

      “No! I want to stay here!” Damian’s head whirled back, it was the kid from earlier.

      “Oh?” The leader raised an eyebrow as Damian quickly put a finger over the child’s lips to quiet him.

      Damian let out a forced smile. “Don’t mind that, he’s just-”

      “Ha! A little kid actually just said that to me! Can you believe it!” He said with a strange eagerness as he turned to his friends behind him, who all were chuckling, knowing what was about to happen. From their hips and backs they pulled out an assortment of weapons, mostly long sticks pulled out of nearby trees and sizable rocks they gathered from the ground.

      “H-hey,” Damian said nervously as the Roamers started to back into the corner, understanding their volatile nature and what they were about to do. “We don’t need to do this-”

      “As if!” The leader said as he raised his weapon. “Get’em!” With those words, they charged at the Roamers.

      Fighting erupted. The Roamers were not outnumbered, but outmatched. One by one, the Roamers fell to the ground until we were reduced to a huddling group trapped inside a circle of bullies.

      “Hey!” Damian said as he was shoved into a corner, “Leave them out of this!” Some still were standing behind Damian, but most of the younger ones were cowering on the ground, nearly in tears. “You can have what you want!”

      With a smirk, the bullies ignored Damian and edged closer to the fearful Roamers. The leader was about to snap his fingers at his group of followers, as if they were a pack of obedient, wild dogs waiting to finish the Roamers off, but he took another glance at them and fell suddenly silent. His eyes were filled with shock.

      To Damian’s surprise, he started backing off, and the rest of his members followed suit shortly. They all seemed to be suddenly afraid of something.

      Damian wondered what he was looking at when something jumped over the Roamers. It was one of the older kids, fourteen year-old Ceila. Something was off with her. Damian didn’t realise what was happening until he noticed the small details: how her body pitched forward every so often, as if she was struggling to stand, how she seemed emotionless, and how her face seemed limp without motion. Her glazed eyes stared into nothingness as a trickle of blood ran down her nose. It was then Damian realised.

      “Awakening!” he shouted, “Everyone get away!” Then everyone started running away from her as they too started realising what had just happened.

      An Awakening was when a Lesser first unlocked his or her own powers. Although the vessels in a Lesser’s body were dormant up until the moment of their first Awakening, they still passively store magic. When a Lesser first Awakens, the magic that they had been storing up all their lives would burst, leaving their minds completely overloaded and disoriented to the point where they would operate on basic instincts and relentlessly attack anything in sight. Only after this first explosion of magic would they return back to their normal selves. This rare phenomenon was one of the main reasons that the world saw the Lessers as threatening abominations, removing them from society.

      The leader started shrinking back, wanting to stand his ground. But before anyone could even react, Celia powerfully charged at him, picked him up, and slammed him onto the ground. He landed with a loud crack on his stomach and a few broken ribs, rendering him completely unconscious. She kicked him aside and eyed at the largest group of people, charging towards them next.

      With that display of strength, it was obvious what type of mage Ceila had become: a Tapper.

      This type of magic tapped directly into Ceila’s magic vessels and transformed it into raw energy. While they lacked the grandeur and complexity of most other mages, they made up for it with brute force and untouchable speed. Even though Ceila had a tiny body and a slender frame, during her Awakening, she became unprecedentedly dangerous and lethal.

      A sudden crash of metals and a rush of near silent footsteps brought Damian out of his thoughts.

      Though he didn’t know what that noise was, Damian had to focus on the situation at hand. He scanned around and searched for anything he could disable Celia with. Damian’s eyes fell on a piece of metal irrigation pipe jutting out from the wall. He quickly grabbed it and quietly snuck up behind her, raising the pipe above her head. But, something paralyzed his arm from swinging it down.

      Damian was one of Ceila’s first friends when she made it into the shelter. Would it be right to attack her? This behavior wasn’t her choice after all, was it?

      She started choking one of their fellow Roamers. Quickly making the decision, Damian slammed the metal pipe onto her head, and she swiftly collapsed.

      The uneven pants of breaths echoed through the building as he cautiously approached her. She was oozing blood from her head, her hair stained with a thick, red stream. As Damian was about to turn her body over, chaos erupted again.

      Suddenly, men in dark blue uniforms burst into the room from the entrance. The Roamers panicked and yelled, thinking that they were here to punish them. But the Roamers soon quieted as the staff walked past them and towards the unconscious students, examined their wounds, picked them up, and walked out of the room. The last few finally picked up Ceila. Without another word, they assessed the wound on her head that Damian had caused and they hauled her up.

      “Wait!” Damian said as he came out of his daze and shock. “Where are you taking her?”

      When they kept on moving, as if they didn’t hear him, Damian put a hand on a guard who was still behind him, “I asked where are you taking her-” The guard looked back and violently shoved Damian’s hand off his shoulder.

      “To an inner city in Akarthia, you don’t need to worry.” He said, and he started walking. Before he left, he spoke again, “And if you dare put another hand on me, I’ll snap your fingers.”

      He walked past Damian, but before he left, Damian heard him utter out two distinct words, “Lesser trash.”

      Damian’s hand jerked for a second. He tried to calm himself down, not wanting to cause any trouble stemmed from impulsive anger. Damian felt that he should be used to these insults already, having faced them nearly every day from the day he arrived here since the age of nine.

      So Damian endured once again, clutching his fists and clenching his teeth with his head held low as the guards brushed past him and strode towards the exit.

      Damian knew that even if the Outsiders were to gain their powers, they would still not be free of this treatment.