Chapter 14 - Alex's charm still works.
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This is killing Justin, not knowing what Fiendl did to the people in WizTech. On their way to the Ballroom, he and Alex move fast but with caution, their wands always ready, just in case Fiendl have set any traps to keep them away.
They finally arrive, the big doors standing tall in front of them, hopefully hiding everybody on the other side. Justin takes a moment staring at them, contemplating the implications of what they might find. "I hope they are in there!" Justin sighs. "And that they are okay!"
"Yeaup!… …Let's get in, then"
"No! Wait!" Justin quickly grabs her arm to stop Alex from touching the door. "Let's test it first."
"Ugh! Whatever!" Alex answers.
Justin steps closer, wand up toward the door, and swiftly pokes it to test for any spells. And it sure produces a wave of magical energy that spreads from the tip of his wand outwards. He steps back quickly to where Alex waits.
"I guess you got the place right." Justin says.
"Now how do we get in?" Alex asks.
Justin looks back at her with a smug smile. He waves his wand and the spell securing the door explodes, leaving it unprotected. Another wave of his and the doors move to fully opened. "Let's go." He urges.
They step inside the room and the lights turn on, revealing a crowd of students, teachers and staff members, all of them absolutely motionless, in a frozen state. Justin and Alex walk around, completely stupefied by the scene of all the people standing in the most various positions, not one of them seeming to be aware of what would happen the moment they were frozen still.
"What did Fiendl do to them?" Alex asks Justin.
"He used a Suspension Spell. It seems like everybody in the school was frozen in the same moment." Justin explains.
"Can you undo it?" She suggests.
"I don't think so! This seems to be the same spell that cops use on evil wizards. If Fiendl used the spell lock then it can only be undone with his wand." Justin waves his own toward the closest teacher he can find. The spell hits the target, but a protective barrier shines, canceling Justin's spell. "Yeah! Not gonna work."
"Well, looks like they are fine for now. We should focus on finding out Fiendl's plan." Alex affirms.
"Seriously, Alex?!" Justin tells her with some annoyance. "Doesn't this bother you at all?"
"What bothers me is looking over there and seeing that Stein was in the bathroom when everybody was frozen. And when the spell gets broken, I don't wanna be here to find out if that is his normal face or his toilet face." She is immediately scolded by Justin's disapproval face.
They take a moment of silence, thinking what will be their next step.
"Justin…" Alex calls him with a doubtful tone. "If Fiendl froze everybody, why didn't he freeze us too?"
"He couldn't!" Justin affirms. "D'you know how my wand gives me an alarm when the school is under threat?" She replies with a quick nod. "If he attempted anything against me the same app would send out an alarm to the authorities. This place would be filled with cops before he could try anything else."
"Clever!" Alex congratulates.
"EXACTLY!" Fiendl's voice surprises them, coming from the door. "Not that it would be a problem." He tells them staying outside, in the hallway. "You cannot stop me. After today my name will be in history."
"You mean 'Pervercival Fiendl'?" Alex asks with a mocking smile.
"Yes!" Fiendl bitingly confirms.
"You know, I don't get it! Why didn't you change it to something like Percy… Friendly?" This kind of thing will always puzzle Justin.
"It would be a too friendly name. It kind of creeps me out." Fiendl explains, taking a moment of silence with a disgusted face. "You two are never going to interfere with my plan." He professes without stammering or showing any surprise or despondency.
"Pfff! Of course we will!" Alex retorts on the spot.
"Yes! We surely will!" Justin hesitantly agrees.
"Actually, we already have." Alex says with a quick glimpse at Justin. "AND… we took care of it!" She tells with a calm voice, casually keeping her hand on her waist. And Justin quickly understands her game.
Fiendl takes a quick look around the ballroom. A special glance at a particularly big pile of dust next to the door, but which also spreads everywhere. "Hahahahaha! You are lying! I can see the dust on the floor and around the corners." He brags.
Again the siblings slyly look at each other, thinking about what Alex just took away of the evil wizard.
"Really?" She continues. "What makes you think this is the only way to stop you? We left the dust just so you wouldn't suspect anything."
"I think not!" Fiendl shouts. "I don't think you managed to enter my office. The spell I cast on the door is very strong."
"We are the Russos." Alex shoots back. "We're better than that."
"Yeah!" Justin says. "We will stop you and deliver you to the authorities."
"Well. Let's find out who wins, then." And one more time, Fiendl flashes himself away, disappearing to give motion to his plan.
"It always amazes me how this keeps working." Justin says, staring away toward where Fiendl was a moment ago. Alex has the same amused stare, nodding to agree.
Then she turns to Justin and pushes him away. "Let's go. Quick. To his office."
Justin immediately starts running away for the door, then out of the ballroom and through the hallways of the castle.
Justin runs. He enters the long hallway, going as fast as he can. He doesn't look back at Alex, he just wants to get there as soon as possible. He has to make it to the other end of the hallway, then turn right to another lengthy hallway. Then he finally gets to the door to Fiendl's classroom.
Justin bends down, hands on his knees, hyperventilating. He looks around and Alex is nowhere. She is not coming after him. Maybe he just outran her. He has been training, you know. Nothing to do with Alex's high heeled boots.
PUFF! Alex flashes herself in front of him.
"Where… …were you?" He asks while gulping for air.
"What!? Did you think I was gonna run all the way here? Why didn't YOU flash yourself?" She says seriously, but… you know… always kind of mocking.
"I'll remember… …next time." Another big inhale.
"Okay! Let's go!" She says, shooing Justin. "You go in first."
"What? … Why me?" He replies, still a little winded.
"I don't wanna run into any traps!"
"And I can?" He lets out with some annoyance.
"Would you just go!?" Alex tells him already pushing him to the door.
Justin pushes her away and steps closer to it.
The door is open and Justin walks closer, but he can't tell if it is safe to come in. He pulls out his wand and pokes through the door. Nothing. So he comes in carefully, Alex following suit with her wand aiming ahead, partially hiding behind Justin.
Instead of walking to the center, Justin stays close to the wall, by the side of the classroom. He slowly moves to the other end, toward the professor's desk, behind which stays the door to the all-in-one office and dormitory.
They get past the desk without incidents.
"Huh! That was easy!" Justin says with a smile. Alex shrugs back. Even she was expecting something more.
They both stare at the closed door, not sure what to expect. Then Justin steps closer, takes the doorknob and pushes it a few times, trying to open it.
"Yeah, nice try, genius." Alex mocks, with her hands on her hips and a mad stare. "Didn't you hear Fiendl say that he put a spell on the door? Did you think you could just pull it open?"
"There wasn't any spells coming in. I thought it was worth the try!" He defends himself.
"What if the spell was supposed to do something when you tried to open the door." She supposes. Shouldn't be Justin the one with good sense.
"Yeah! Right!" He stares at her dumbly. Then he gives a few steps away and raises his wand.
Justin waves it, casting a spell to try and open the door, but it bounces back almost hitting him and Alex as it flies away; it was just by a hair. Fiendl was right. The spell protecting the door is strong.
"Yeah, that didn't work." Alex points out.
"That was the strongest spell I know. If that didn't work…"
They look at each other for a moment. Justin is out of ideas.
Then it occurs to Alex. "Hey, remember what Fiendl said? Something about family, that if we joined our powers in one person, that would be the most powerful wizard? … …Or something?"
"Yeah! So?"
"Let's try it together. I mean, maybe that's why Professor Crumbs wanted us together. Maybe he thought we could be stronger than Fiendl." Alex suggests.
Justin considers it for a second, "Okay!" then he points his wand to the door again and waits for Alex.
She is ready. They look at each other for a second then move together, almost mirroring each other, shooting the spell. When it hits the door, it shatters the protection spell to a rain of sparkles, pushing the door open with such strength that it slams the other way.
One more time they look at each other, big smiles on. "It worked!" Alex herself is surprised.
She comes in the office and, before anything, notices the pile of rocks on the desk in a corner, then another one on top of a cabinet. Dust looks like an even bigger problem in here. Justin firstly looks around, for Fiendl or anything giving any hint about his plans, you know other than the dust.
"Wow, these are a lot of rocks." Alex goes for the obvious as she gazes at the big pile on the desk. "And they all look like the same."
"Hah! No!" Justin says as he smiles, smugly. "It takes someone like me, with some knowledge about geology to notice that…" Justin takes the first real, attentive look at the rocks. "…they DO all look like the same!" He agrees, with some surprise.
Alex turns to Justin with a suspicious stare "Why would he need a pile of rocks like these? What would he do with it?" Alex asks.
"Well… There are some uses for it. Most commonly he could turn it into…" He stops and his eyes shot at Alex as if finally something comes to him. "…POWDER!" He shouts. "That's what the dust is."
Both of them look around the room, the dust taking up every corner now making a lot of sense. And whatever the plan is, the entire school is the target.
"Urrgh!… Now all of his night strolls make sense. He was dumping the dust." Alex angrily utters.
"And that's why he wasn't solving the problem with the cleaning crew. So it would stay around." Justin completes.
"Exactly." Alex says. "Justin, can you tell what kind of stone this is? What would he use it for?"
"Uhm!…" He grabs a stone and takes a closer look. "This is a volcanic stone!" Justin looks at Alex and she stares at him, a scrunched up, doubtful face showing that she is completely clueless. "Like lava from a volcano… This is how it gets when it cools down and hardens." He breaks it down for her.
"Ohhh!" Now he's spoken her language.
'…Lava from a volcano!' That clicks something in Alex's mind. WizTech and volcanoes. She still remembers it, right away making the connection to Volcano Land, and her trip to the underwater volcanic park. That was how Justin almost had his powers stolen the first time they attended this school. Alex looks back at Justin, stunned and scared for that possibility, and he has the same countenance, as the same idea hits him.
"He's trying to steal our powers!" Justin and Alex shout at the same time, in unison.