I'm back! And a few new things are … gonna have to read to find out! Anyways its finally the weekend and new chapter finally posted!

Enjoy!

Chapter 12: Back and Forth

There was a giant gust of wind that blew past them, nearly knocking them all down. It blew some coiled up rope into Destiny but she simply ignored it and put the rope into her pouch for later purposes.

"The wind of war? No it's too powerful to be that!" Jack shouted at the giant mander.

"I have stricken fear into you little brats haven't I?! You should be scared! This is my ULTAMA CARD!" they looked at each other confused and shrugged.

"The hells an ultama card?" Destiny asked curiously and everyone looked at Gabriel waiting for an answer.

"Beats me, why are you asking me?"

"Well you are the smartest one here after all." Jack countered and everyone seemed to forget about the battle, lost in their conversation..

"My opponenets don't even know what an ultama card is … how sad and pathetic." The king said rudely interrupting the groups conversation. He then realized something about it. If they don't know what it is, they must not have one of their own! A toothy grin appeared on his face at the thought of this and devious plans started to form in his head.

"Well if we knew what it is we wouldn't be having this conversation now would we!" Seth yelled back at the soul keeper. He just simply ignored and tried to kill them with the giant mander. He controlled the giant with what looked like both his mind and his staff. The mander stomped around, shot out smaller manders from out its palm, and even tried to grab and eat our heroes many times. It seemed unstoppable as everyone tried their hardest as to so much as scratch it.

"How are we supposed to fight something like this? We haven't even scratched it yet!" Sabrina yelled, and she was right. It didn't look like it had any weaknesses at all and everyone had been giving it their all just to try and damage it. Seth started to observe the mander from a few different angles at how the beast attacked, moved around, and what position was best to attack the soul keeper from. Eventually he came up with a solution that just might work and as soon as he thought his plan through he gathered everyone in and told them what they could do to stop the giant menace.

"Everyone! I have an idea on how to bring him down!" They all ran to Seth and huddled around him. As they had finally finished explaining the plan one of them took out the rope they had found earlier. Still coiled up in her hand Destiny and a few of the others started running to the manders feet, avoiding every obstacle that was in their way. This had caught the Soul Keepers attention as he tried to smash them with the giant's large fists. Meanwhile Seth and the others were going directly for the croc himself in an attempt to steal his staff, rendering him and his power useless. Knowing this was a double attack from experience he quickly turned his attention to Seth's group and made the giant mander swipe at them, launching them into the wall.

"Really? Did you really think I would fall for the oldest trick in the book? How dumb do you think I am?"

"Dumb enough to fall for this." Destiny shouted back. The Soul Keeper looked down only to see that the manders feet were already tied up and the group was waiting for Seth's word.

"Why you little fu-!" he was cut off by Seth who gave the order to push.

"Push now!" Everyone started pushing as hard as they could and slowly but effectively the giant started to fall backwards. As the colossal mander hit the ground it turned back into smaller manders and they all fled the scene, knowing nothing but their freedom. Everyone walked up to the Soul Keeper and Destiny grabbed him by the shirt, picking him up.

"Fine fine the manders are free to go! Just leave my eternal resting place be!" the croc pleaded.

"We will but we want some information first. What is Malistare planning to do? And what does it have to do with us?"

"You may have defeated me but I cannot say a word about Lord Malistare's plans! If I do they could be ruined!"

"That's the point you idiot! As citizens of Wizard City we need to know what he's up to and we need to know now!"

"I can't! If anyone of his minions hear me talk about it then they will kill me! I may be a ghost but I can still die!"

"Tell us! We need to know! What if your world was in danger and you could lose everything! All because you couldn't get one guy to talk huh?! We need to know! Thousands maybe millions of people's lives are in danger!" The room was silent for a few moments after that. The croc had thought about this and finally decided to talk again.

"Malistare is after an ancient artifact with mystic powers here."

"Do you know what it is? What can it do?"

"He is after the kroko-" he was cut off mid sentence by a throwing knife to the head! Everyone raised their weapons and was on guard. There was a few moments of silence before anything happened. The group created a circular formation back to back as they kept watch for the sneaky killer. A shadow ran by but no one could see it. Everyone was on edge. The fire that lit the room was starting to die out but footsteps were heard from the shadows. It was a boy with dirty blonde hair, black and white robes, and what seemed to be grey eyes. His hands in his pockets and grey eyes staring directly at the group, he started to smile. He chuckled a little and said a few words before vanishing into thin air.

"Relax. I am not here to kill you … yet. I am only here to warn you to stop interfering with Malistare's plans. If you do not stop, you will die by my hands." The boy's voice gave off a small echo as he left and the fire seemed to only have about a minute left before going out. As they all left the chamber they went back to Danforth and turned the quest in. Another telegram had reached the group with a surprise inside. Ambrose had sent another telegram and it read 'I need you and your team to return to Wizard City at once! The first day of your training/schooling begins tomorrow!' This gave the group the strangest faces when they read this because after all Ambrose did want them to defeat Malistare as quickly as possible.

"Well I was going back to the city anyways. I need some sleep! I'm exhausted!" Gabriel said as he yawned.

"Actually I could go for some shut eye myself. Let's go guys, we have school tomorrow. They left Krokotopia and once they came back to Wizard City it was already evening time. They headed to their dorms and once they had reached them, they were all knocked out.

*The next morning*

The next morning Seth, Jack and Gabriel all got up and started getting ready for the day. Since the 3 of them shared one dorm they each took their turns making breakfast, getting ready, and even going to the bathroom. They all left for their schools as soon as they were finished getting ready for the day. They separated as they went into their own schools, ready for school.

"To you life may just seem to be healing. But it's much more than that. Life is how you breathe, how you act, how you feel, and what your characteristics are like. It is an art that is difficult to perfect, but once you do it can be a beautiful killer or a harmonic saint. It is a beauty of nature and is indeed an intense power that you all posses. This is only the beginning and it becomes ever greater." Moolinda lectured to the class. This had Seth already interested and eager to learn even more.

"Myth is a force to be reckoned with. Without myth our world possibly wouldn't exist. Ravenwood basically is a myth and will only exist in myth to humans. Earth is not in the spiral, it is in a similar place called the universe but without Earth our magic could be useless. They have given us myths such as Medusa, Zeus, and even a highly unlikely but possible 14.5 earthquake. It's the most powerful earthquake known to man. It can tear through continents with ease, and the earth itself could collapse."

"Death, the price that comes with life, it is the very opposite of life and once you buy life, you pay for it later in death. It is impossible to avoid in any situation. Ghosts are dead, zombies are undead, and everything eventually dies out. It may seem gloomy at first but when you know you have the power of death, its going to bring a smile to your face. Although you cannot kill enemies immediately you can poison them with something called 'deadly touch'. It allows you to poison anything you want and you will have total control over it. It will not affect other deaths but it is a very useful technique."

"Storm is a powerful destructive force. The strongest of all schools in fact. Where do we get our strength you may ask? Have you ever looked at the sky? What's in the sky most of the time? That's right clouds. Now how much sky does the Earth have? That's right, every single part of the world has sky and as long as we have sky we will continue to have our incredible power. We do however have a weak spot. How often does lightning hit someone? You guessed it, it's a rare sight to see. This will apply to us as well and so far is our only weakness."

"Ice is a defensive magic. It's strength comes from its defense and those who master it are greatly difficult to defeat. The reason why ice is so strong in defense? Have you ever tried to break an ice cube with your bare hands? Now imagine trying to break an ice berg in one hit. Others such as the legendary Jack Frost have perfected the defensive technique and have gone down in history as one of the greatest ice wizards."

"Fire is a crimson beauty of chaos. It is warmth and it is life but as the old saying goes, play with fire and you're going to get burned. It is a dangerous element and you can be easily harmed by it. However there are many benefits to this such as the flare body, a technique that sets any part of the body on fire but only harms the opponents. There are many techniques to the use of fire but the best known attacks are those from an ultama attack." This reminded Jack that he still didn't know what that was, he raised his hand and asked what he needed to know.

"What's an ultama card?"

"An ultama card is a custom card that you, the students, create. It is supposed to be your trump card, your last chance, your final attempt. It's basically meant to be your most powerful attack, even more powerful than your schools final card, such as efreet." Jack nodded at the response and continued listening to the lesson.

"Balance. The power of yin and yang eternally fighting in a never ending battle. Balance is peace and war, both sides of a coin, or even light and darkness. If the balance was ever broken this could possibly destroy balance itself in a forever broken state. Students such as Ra was able to find these studies and another student proved this theory to be true. Yang Yin, one of THE most powerful balance generals in Wizard History, he studied what Ra had found and tried proving to the world that if light over powered the dark it could set off a chain reaction leading to darkness eventually coming back and over powering the light. No one believed him so he decided to prove this himself. He started an all out war with his own army of darkness and chaos to prove not to mess with the balance of light and dark, but what he didn't realize is his heart broke out of balance as well and it turned dark. He was sealed away after his defeat, forever resting in his tomb under Wizard City." This was the final class of the day and everyone went back to their dorms, falling asleep as soon as they hit the bed.

As they woke up the next day a telegram was slipped under their doors that Ambrose needed them again. The boys dressed quickly and talked as they walked to the headmasters tower.

"I'm sorry to go back and forth with orders but I need you to go back to Krokotopia, you will continue your lessons once you help out Krokotopia. I wish you the best." They questioned why Ambrose did this but soon realized, stopping a evil master mind is more important than school and even one day of training will help them. They returned to Krokotopia all geared up and ready to fight.

Short chapter this time around. Again. Well you guys have been real patient and I've kinda been doing like a bunch of school work and so I'm gonna hopefully try and get a chapter posted on the upcoming holiday! Oh and one more thing. I need a few more guy characters actually cause the only guy characters I've received are Nigel and Chris. Even 3 more would just be enough. Thanks for reading!

Cya guys next time!

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