You Got Another Thing Coming - Part 1

Jeez, finally graduation. The last few weeks were so weird because everyone at school remembered that they were hitting on me after the potion effects wore off. Everyone was super awkward, and some kids even professed their love to me, even if the effects wore off. Man, I wish Total Recall was real so I could implant fake memories for them.

I’m kinda worried about Gretchel though. Arg told me that she has a huge mana bank, but she’s hiding it on purpose, or something like that. It’s all confusing to me still. Anyways, I’m just pissed because she hit on me, and she made some kids do her bidding for her. That’s so not cool.

Anyways, graduation looked exactly like my old world’s high school graduation. The top of the class, Lara, had to stand on a stage and talk about a bunch of bullcrap, and everyone clapped. A bunch of the professors stood next to each other with graduation gowns too, and they shook hands with everyone that was called in to get their paper. The one thing that was different was that the diploma paper gave you a new spell art that helps with learning new spells. Why couldn’t they just give that to us in the first place?

By the time my name was called, the entire school cheered my name. I was brought back to the final concert of the Ozzy tour, where the crowd was filled to the brim with all of our original fans and Los Angeles local cats. When we finished our show, they chanted my name. My bandmates were chill about it, and they took to the microphones and cheered my name too. I had tears in my eyes, both at the concert, and at my new graduation. I couldn’t believe that people cared about me that much.

I stepped onto the stage, and of course, my lute was with me. I shook each professor’s hand, and the last one to shake my hand was Professor Schmutzal. As she grasped my hand, she smiled brightly at me. I couldn’t resist, and I hugged her. She reminded me of my kindergarten teacher. She was strict, but she was chill, and believed in my dream to become a rockstar. Professor Schmutzal was no different. She probably felt weird hugging me after that love potion shenanigan..

During the hug, a huge explosion blew up pretty close to the school. The crowd turned their heads, and the castle tower of the King’s Hall fell. The school was only like a few blocks from the hall, so it was loud, and we felt the rumble from the ground. It was like that earthquake by San Francisco in ‘89, which was so gnarly.

“Students and parents, please help us erect a barrier!” Principal Barren yelled to the crowd. Ha, erect.

I played Another Brick in the Wall by Pink Floyd with my V-lute, and a huge barrier shot up around the entire stadium area before anyone could do anything. The crowd looked at me, super shocked. I kinda just shrugged my shoulders. They cheered for me, and they added more barriers under that one. I was being too much of a rock star today.

My group of pals and my parents rushed to me. I was confused, so I asked my dad about what happened.

“Gal, I think I might know what is happening. I know that after the Huskites were defeated, Haronda increased taxes on the higher districts to rebuild the outer districts, while citizens in the outer districts were forced to rebuild without the money going to them at all. It’s the first time the poor and the rich banded together to threaten a rebellion against the throne.”

“Wait, so the royalty of Haronda is stealing money from the rich? Right under their noses?” Lara asked, looking very agitated.

“How can a rich nobility steal more money from their people?! That’s ridiculous!” Elki was also pissed.

“Pathetic. They treat us Half-Elves like trash, but they are less than putrid pond scum.” Artium added his opinion in a cool voice.

“Guys, what’re we gonna do?” I interrupted, pretty stressed out.

“We stay alive, and we make sure everyone at the school stays alive as well.” Professor Schmutzal appeared out of nowhere. I also heard a bunch of stomping towards us.

“Young Deity and his fellows, how can I help?” Andrus attended the graduation too! Wow!

“I suggest we make sure that the school buildings are intact. I remember reading somewhere that the rebels also hate this school since it’s funded by the guild.” Scott said with a nerdy voice.

“Gal, I’ll take your father and Scott to scout the perimeter of the school. We’re the fastest in this group. Take this stone too. You will be able to hear me with this stone.” My mom grabbed my dad’s arm and Scott’s arm and basically disappeared. This stone is like a walkie-talkie, Arg told me in my mind.

“Okay, cool. Lara, Elki, and Artium, let’s go and check on the rest of the students and people here. Prof, can you take Andrus when you go in the halls? He can help repair stuff pretty fast if you see any broken things.” I was feeling like a bandleader again. My band relied on my chill head to lead the performances, and the roadies and techs worked closely with me to design the stage every night. This was the feeling I loved. Working together with people I trusted made me happy. Well this time, instead of a gig, it was a terrorist attack.

We all splitted up as I asked. My group checked up on the other students and parents. Since it was like the San Fran earthquake from my world, parts of the stadium were broken and toppled over. Some people were injured, but no one died yet. I had Lara and Elki heal people, while me and Artium kept other towers and things from toppling with ice magic. I froze some structural stuff with Trapped Under Ice by Metallica, while Artium said some magic words and rebuilt broken stuff with ice.

While we were taking care of business here, I heard a bunch of explosions, clanging of swords, and yelling from down the street. It sounded like war to me. I hoped they didn’t come through, man.

Well, they did. The rebels pushed the kingdom soldiers back, and they retreated through the stadium. Thankfully, the barriers that we “erected” were magical, so they repelled the rebels while the other dudes could come in easily. Damn, the soldiers looked like they fought in ‘Nam. Their plate armor looked like they were clawed open, and some dudes had to carry their limbs with them. I think Lara could fix them though. Before she does anything though, I tried to see if I could do healing magic.

I played Doctor Doctor by UFO, and this green lightning bolt came out of my lute and shot through a bunch of the kingdom soldiers. That dude with his arm cutoff suddenly had his arm reattach before our eyes. A few guys who were bleeding on the grass stopped bleeding, and they stood up like nothing happened. Lara looked at me, totally blown away. But I started feeling sick. Like really sick. It felt like that one time I downed an entire Jack Daniels after a show because Lemmy dared me to, and I spent the next few days hurling my guts out.

Yeah, I guess that song was way too powerful for me, and I knocked out pretty hard. Arg was there while I was knocked out though.

“Ricky, I think you might have hit a physical limit there. It seems that the songs you play that specifically correspond to what you want to summon cost not just a lot of mana, but a lot of physical strength. During your training with Valien and Yoki, your mana bank increased by 3 times, and you could finally bench press a few plates. This was the first time you casted an S+ spell.”

S+? What the hell?

“Yes, ‘what the hell’ indeed! I trained for 40 years to cast my S+ spell, and I could only use it ONCE. After I used it, my mana bank shrank to maybe a B rank at best. That’s why I retired from adventuring. But you, my dear talented boy, you casted an S+ spell without shrinking your mana bank. In fact, it’s now overflowing with magic. Perhaps when Gally summoned you to this world, the magic from your old form is spilling over into Gally’s body, creating an almost infinite cache of mana.”

That makes no sense whatsoever. My world didn’t have magic.

“Actually, on the contrary, what you consider art, we consider magic. The high amount of art in your world has transferred to this world as pure mana. Let’s just say that you were a magical talent to begin with, Ricky.”

That’s amazing. I never thought of myself as a special person. I just wanted to rock.

“Yes, and your deep desire to rock and your hard work with guitar has brought you here. Your soul was S+ to begin with. Gally’s body simply could not hold the amount of magic you are able to use today. When you wake up, take care of Gally’s body. Don’t overuse your attack spells, and try to use more support magic. It’ll ease the effects on Gally’s body. Party on, Ricky!”

Did he literally quote Wayne’s World? Excellent. Anyways, there’s so much I need to learn before I randomly use songs to cast magic. I need to train the way I need to. My parents did so much for me already, and I’ll use that platform to jump higher than Diamond Dave.

I woke up. Lara, Elki, Atrium and some soldiers were standing around me. I sprung up super fast, and I hit my head on Lara’s staff, and I went cold again.

I woke up, again. This time, Elki was scolding Lara, and Artium laid an ice brick over my head. The soldiers were gone, and it looked like the students and the parents evacuated the stadium.

“Gal, by Galaka, I was so worried about you!” Elki grabbed me and buried her face into my chest, crying. Lara looked at me with puppy dog eyes. She crouched and hugged me too.

“I’m so sorry, Gal. I was trying to heal you, and I didn’t know what was happening to you. I was so scared.” She started crying too. Atrium smirked.

“I have a feeling that Uncle lectured you on something. What you did there was more than incredible. It was heroic.”

My mom, dad, and Scott came back.

“What happened to my son?! Who hurt him?!” My dad looked around, and Lara looked away.

“Yo, pops! I’m chill. I used a super heavy spell that I never used before, and it knocked me out cold, that’s all.”

“I saw those injured soldiers come here. Are they alright?” My mom was looking around for those soldiers.

My party looked at each other. “Yeah, they’re good.” I didn’t want to tell her that I reattached some guy’s arm like a Terminator.

“Good. The rebels fell back, but we can’t leave this school yet. They might attack again, just to destroy the school, and we can’t let that happen. There are still students here that couldn’t evacuate in time.” Oh boy. Something deep inside told me to stay and defend the school.

We got another thing coming.