Highfield Academy - Revenge of The Crows

Lucido was pleased his plan had worked, but was angry at the shade, a kind of Fay ghost, as he looked at the shade standing before him.

“Tell me again why you chose this student and not the one I asked you to capture.”

The shade stuttered with its words.

“Master I did exactly as you requested this is the student who was sleeping in bed seven second row, girls’ dormitory third-year students.

Lucido released the spell, which was preventing the child from screaming, while two guards and one of the fallen stood by her side.

“Why were you in Jisalder bed and who are you?” he enquired. It was then the student laughed and the avatar which the shade had captured vanished and King Thalaba and Queen Shellback along with Royal magicians appeared in the room.

“We can answer that,” exclaimed king Thalaba, but Lucido instantly vanished leaving the two guards and one stunned fallen Seraph to defend themselves. Within seconds the fight was over, and a further single fallen Seraph had been captured and two Demoni guards lay dead.

As the fallen one was secured away in his new home and imprisoned for an eternity the shade appeared before Merlin.

“So, Walter you took it on yourself to abduct one of my students, did you?” Walter quivered in fear, “I… I had no choice Sir, Lucido forced me to comply.”

“Oh, he forced you did he, and just how did Lucido do this without entering the grounds of the school?”

Walter could not turn whiter from fear, yet he shook like a wobbly jelly at the confrontation. “It was not in the school grounds Sir.” Commented Walter. “And may I ask how you knew this was going to happen?”

Merlin’s eyes widened in anger,

“First, we expected such an attack, and as strange as it will seem to you, some of the school’s fellow ghosts remain loyal and reported to us your actions. You not only endangered the school and its students; you betrayed your kind and it is they who shall deal with you.”

Those words brought utter fear to the shade, as there was only one such punishment for such a crime. As he stood before Merlin thousands of fellow shades emerged from the walls and entered Walter and each carried away a segment of Walters existence, fragmenting him one part at a time.

His screams were heard throughout the entire school until eventually there was not a single part of him left, Merlin knew now that Walter was no more and that he could never again endanger the students.

The next morning as the students awoke Kildmar was sleeping in Jisalder bed and Dora gently awoke the child and helped her get ready for the coming day. There were hundreds of questions, bur Kildmar could not answer a single question as she genuinely had no idea as to what had happened.

In her mind, she had gone to bed and fallen asleep only to awake in another’s bed and have no memory of what had transpired. She had not even heard the terrifying screams coming from Walter and which awoke the entire school. It had been a strange night and Dora, Mr Claws and the other teachers had to calm the terrified students assuring them all was well.

That morning during breakfast Mr Claws rose from his seat and addressed the students in the breakfast hall.

“Attention, attention please be quiet and listen. Last night the school suffered a further attack, only this time it involved one of the resident shades, who attempted to endanger the life of one of our students. Fortunately, we were aware of said intentions and thwarted this action, and needless to say that particular shade is no more.”

He paused as the students gasp in surprise, “However, young miss Kildmar has no knowledge of this, so do not, I repeat, DO NOT keep asking her questions that she cannot answer. That said, it is each of your responsibility to protect yourself and not depend on another, do I make myself clear regarding this?”

There was chattering forcing Mr Claws to raise his voice and road like an angry tiger.

“I ask you a question, do you understand?”

As the students quietened Mr Claws then continued. “You can assist fellow students only when you can be certain you have the ability of protecting yourselves, so as from today lessons are extended from third-year to fifth-year students to cover the Dark Arts, and you will have an hour of your free time taken away to cover this period of training.”

There were moans and then screams as Miss Pigtailly working in conjunction with Miss Mac Death suddenly launched several simultaneous attacks on all third-year to fifth-year students. Their food turned into withering poisonous snakes, crabs and all kinds of hideous creatures which launched themselves at the students.

Some students suddenly spat out mouthful of crawling maggots while others had crabs hanging from their tongues to snakes crawling over their bodies. And then students started passing out as venom flowed into their bodies and the infirmary was placed on immediate alert. As each student awoke the next day covered in various bites, bruises and puncture marks their bodies screamed from the pain which still inflicted them.

A face of Mr Claws appeared in every room and in every student’s mind,

“Only three students avoided the infirmary due to their quick thinking,” said Mr Claws. “the rest of you failed miserably to defend yourselves. Possibly now you will understand and not quibble over important extra lessons.”

As his words sank in, only for a moment each student suddenly saw such creatures once more attacking them from within their minds, only it was so real, many of the students screamed and passed out from shock and fear.

Four days later lessons resumed as the students had recovered from periods of vomiting and utter pain, and as they started their classes each had a wand near to hand just encase it was to be needed.

Amazingly not one student was overheard to grumble when it came to give up some of their free time for extra lessons in defence against the dark arts. But when Miss Mac Death suddenly appeared in the class room in her true form there was an audible scream and gasps of surprise from many of the students.

They stared in utter disbelief as Miss Mac Death was death, well of a sort, as on her desk were various photos of her family and suddenly the same time, she appeared so did a huge full life size photo framed and attached itself to a class room wall.

What surprised the students was it showed the typical rendering of a lithograph engraving found throughout history of the Spirit of Death. A black cloaked figure caring a long sickle and with dead bodies around him.

Underneath in big bold letters it said Love Dad and had two blood stained (XX) kisses. Only that was not all that concerned the students, as Miss Mac Death looked as if she was dead herself and all around her body crawled disgusting insects, maggots, and large black and blue fly buzzing around her.

“Good morning students, now you have seen me in my full glory shall we let the lessons begin?”

No one dared to answer, until a snake darted from Mac Deaths hair and snatched itself onto a student, he screamed from freight.

“I ask a question and expect answers,” said Mac Death, and then she pointed to Pacillar Daniels, “You child help that student to the infirmary, and do not waste time, as the bite from that snake will kill him within another ten minutes, so be quick,” she shouted.

But already Miss Tianna had arrived as the teachers knew of her reputation and had been on standby,

“It is alright Pacillar I will attend to this”, she said and at that Miss Tianna and the child vanished from sight.

By the next day word had spread across the school of what had happened and of how a student had been attacked by a poisonous snake.

“I do not care who she is,” said Tim, “I have had enough of this type of treatment and I intend to retaliate, it is wrong, and it is endangering lives, no teacher should have that right.”

He was angry, upset and determined to do something to bring this treatment to an end. He requested to speak with Merlin and found his efforts were thwarted, however, Miss Catherine, and Mr Claws listened to his complaint and promised to talk with Merlin when he returned.

“In the meantime, I can only suggest you fight back, that is of course if you are attacked first,” said Mr Claws and Miss Catherine agreed.

Tim returned to the dormitory common room and held a meeting with his friends.

“I have spoken to Mr Claws and Miss Catherine and obtained permission to attack Miss Mac Death if she attacks us, and that also means by definitions that we can defend our friends until such a time they learn to protect themselves.

It was Jisalder who raised a question,

“I am not meaning to sound stupid, but just how do you kill or harm death, I have done some research from the library and she is the genuine article and is older than the mountains and feared by many from around the world.”

The students thought over this conundrum and thought, and again thought some more, it was Joshua who smiled and eventually answered,

“We fight her with life, some time back Merlin passed onto me a segment of his new want The Life Giver, I was confused as to why it was named this, but now I suspect I understand, as there might be times when he needs to overcome death.”

The students looked stunned and were trying to take in all that Joshua just said.

“No one can reverse death,” said Paula, “It is said the Messiah overcame death in the Bible” exclaimed Stephen. “Also, history tells us Osiris overcame death,” replied Jisalder. “So, there must be an element of truth, have you tested the wand?” enquired Tim.

Joshua laughed, “Are you volunteering to let me kill you and then see if I can resurrect you,” he replied, and there was a general light laugh from the fellow students.

“You could simply ask your Dryads they are here to help us learn as well as protect us,” exclaimed Rose Felton.

The group kind of had overlooked such an obvious avenue of research and all but Rose felt stupidly embarrassed for the oversight. Joshua’s eyes widened as one of his Dryads quietly informed of the knowledge which he required.

“We need to go to the dissection room,” exclaimed Joshua, and quickly the students vanished from sight and reappeared in the dissection storage locker, which was a room approximately twenty by twenty feet in size and was the storage room for various creatures like frogs, mice and other rodents.

Joshua extended a wand and killed a frog, then following the instructions passed onto him by one of his Dryads he reversed the spell. Amazingly the frog came back to life and the students blinked in amazed surprise. Only they heard footsteps and realised a teacher was approaching, as the door was unlocked and opened, but not a student remained, as all had quickly returned to their common room and together, they made plans.