I am!

I am not my heritage! The only biological heir of the Bramwell-Gates Arts Institute.

I am not who they want me to be!  Respectable socialite pushing my family’s legacy like my adopted cousin, Becca.

I am not who they say I am. Geek, nerd, loser, spoiled brat.

I am Billy Bramwell-Gates, a superior arch mage wizard! Magic rages inside me but in this world, the magic is somewhat blocked. In this world, I could only express my true self in the Lords of Omni’s role-playing game or as a street magician, who was roaming the campus with his two best friends, Myles and Gene.“Dingus, snap out of it before you trip over your own feet.”

“Billy’s comedy gold when he gets lost in his mind, Gene.”

The trappings of my thoughts are a place I often got comfortably lost. If I were more of a loner, I probably would have happily resigned myself there, but I was lucky to have an awesome circle of friends. So, I guess I needed to snap out of it and join them.

“Did either of you zero in on any candidates for the magic tricks? Let’s drop the tricks today and do real mag…”

Before I finished my sentence, Myles ever being an impulsive spirit grabbed the first set of people walking in our general direction.

A normie male/female couple, absolutely no potential superfans in either of them.  Regardless of my nodding disapproval, Myles ran his hype train introducing me as the street magician extraordinaire that I am, and immediately after Gene had gotten the couple to sign waivers and agreements, he started recording video on his phone for our inter-web channel, “It’s magic! I ain’t gotta explain sh#t.”

Cloaked in my hoodie and face mask, I imagined that I appeared super mysterious and ultra-cool to the couple. I couldn’t help myself from fixating on the dim lights in the female’s eyes as they started to flicker with curiosity, but as typical as it had always been, the male brimmed with doubt and postured, eager to heckle my skills.

Sidebar, I love the female spirit. It has always been drawn to magic and mystery. I am certain it was the dull, aggressive, disbelieving male spirit that drained the magic from my world. If the world was ruled by the female spirit, true magic would still exist. But enough with distraction!

“Showtime!” Gene cued. I stilled my mind and prepared myself to be the vessel of what I do best.

But first card tricks. Normies need the cards. All good magicians know build-up is everything.

As impeccably called by me, the male spewed adjectives that detracted from my performance.

“Doo dee, weak, pathetic, lazy.” All flew out of this guy’s mouth in some variation.  I must admit the sleight of hand garbage, not my forte cause it’s not magic. It’s trickery.  After my fourth trick, the glow in the female’s eyes started to diminish. I fully knew today’s escape was all about street fails. Turns out fails get more views than actual real feats of the imagination.

Fuck fails! Now, it was time for the real thing. Really time. Magic time.

Movement. Thought. Manifestation. All followed by an exquisite form of hand ballet to bring forth real magic.

The couple slightly stepped back unsure of what they were witnessing. A puny chuckle dropped from the male’s mouth. Gene and Myles tensed up. They knew what I had planned.

“Hey, Billy.  I think we got the footage that we needed.” Although Myles couldn’t see my expression.  His rapport with me made him completely aware that I wasn’t backing down.

Myles unzipped his backpack and readied a bottle of water. In an instance, I picked up what he was foreshadowing. No! It was not a confidence killer.  Safety first.

“Yeah, Billy. We have enough for today’s shoot.”

“Keep it rolling, Gene. File this one under kickass!”

My hands’ fluidity was unmatched.  In one swift movement, a blue flame ignited across my fingertips and curiosity returned to the female along with a heightened sense of wonder. But it wasn’t only her, I had all of their attention. Then it happened!

Little did I know at the time, it was the bumbling event that placed me on destiny’s road.

Something squishy almost marshmallow-like bumped me from behind and edged me forward.  The fire that I had under control danced off my hand, onto my shirt, then onto the female’s designer purse.

“No! No! No! No!” were the only words I could muster up during the entire shitshow.

In the next few moments, my mind only processed a few images and sounds. A female scream. A burning purse that hit the ground and Myles dousing more water on the purse than on me. I was still batting at the fire as he poured the last drop of liquid on her purse. The male pushed the female behind him. If you asked me, I say it was the first time he had the opportunity to be her knight in shining armor.

In the confusion, just outside of my eyesight, I caught a glimpse of the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She repeatedly spoke the words, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Then she faded out of sight.

“Fucktard. Are you trying to burn us to death? I ought to knock you on your ass!”

I didn’t even have to see who had spoken those words.  It was quite obvious! Despite the level of danger the male’s words exuded, putting out the final flame that ate at my shirt had my full attention.

“Dude! I think you should walk that back! You know who he is, right! Bramwell-Gates Arts Institute! Billy is his first name, Bramwell-Gates is his last.”

Dammit!! I hated when Myles used my position to spook the students, but it was effective against the bullies.  Most effective.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” I exclaimed as the couple walked away.

“Gene, let me see the video.”  For some reason, Gene was hesitant to turn over the phone. I immediately knew why when I pressed play.  Barely.

I mean barely was any of my glorious manifestation recorded. Somehow Gene managed to capture almost every inch of the girl’s scantily clad body, who I now understood ass bumped me out of my magic.

“Gene, we can’t even use this for our fail compilation.”

“What!! That was Jana freaking thicc Jana, assy Jana, dude.”

“Jana. I think I may have a class with her.”

“I think you should FULLY know if you have a class with this.” Myles grabbed the phone and pushed a zoomed-in cleavage shot in my face. Right at that moment, it hit me.  “Class! I’m late.”

The cross-campus hustle to class sucked.  Settling into the back row of Mr. Marvin’s Morals Sensitivity class, I’m pretty sure I looked like shit and smelled like sweat and a burnt offering. The tall, pencil-thin, professor dressed to the nines spotted me.  His eagle-like glare turned into a wispy smile as he continued with his lesson.

“Zoophilia is derogatorily known as bestiality sometimes goes under the code name wagging the dog.

Most focus groups have shown that men favor the wooly affection of sheep and women crave the tender touch of a canine.”

“Preferably with a jar of peanut butter.” Why did it have to be the girl sitting directly next to me with that little tidbit of info?

“Good job, Nancy.

Someone’s been studying. I think you earned a few marbles towards pizza day.”

Mr. Marvin coolly reached into his blazer pocket and pulled out a handful of marbles and inserted them in the nearly full glass jar. All I could think was yuck. I never understood why most of everything Mr. Marvin had done appeared sexual.  Suddenly, as if he had been struck with inspiration.

“I was saving this for later, but…”

Mr. Marvin pulled a large suede bag from out of the podium.

“I’ll fill the jar if anyone can guess which animal has genitalia that looks and feels like a human woman.”

The chuckles and whispers were almost instant.

As much as I had wanted to avoid it, my attention was pulled toward the row in the middle of the classroom.

The region where my natural-born enemy and his underlings were seated.  RJ, JR, and “he whose name is not spoken” were having more fun with the question than it seriously deserved.

RJ and JR both dressed eerily similar in school-branded clothing shot off guesses one after another.

“Monkey.”

“Dolphin.”

“Excellent guesses,” pronounced Mr. Marvin over the room full of laughter.

“I may regret this but go ahead, Dane.” “He whose name is not spoken” lowered his hand, stood up, and put on his designer sunglasses. Everything with this guy had to be flashy.

“Easy one, Mr. Marvin. You know I’m no genius…just the lead quarterback of our scholastic all-star championship squad. Go Game Rods! Booyah!”

“Like I was saying…I’m no genius.”

With the smallest huff under my breath, I slipped out. “You got that right.”

Like a panther sizing down its prey, “he whose name is not spoken” glared at me with a fiery intensity. I barely heard my words. How could he have heard them?

“That waff belongs to a sea cow or Billy’s girlfriend if he had a girlfriend.”

The class was launched into hysterics. I sunk almost under the table as my thoughts tried to recite an invisibility spell.

“Mr. Shaw, take a seat. Billy, sit up! You are disrupting the class.”

Me! Me! I’m the one disrupting class was the sentence I wanted to shout across the room. But I sat up and stayed quiet.

“Good job, Dane! You won the class a pizza day!”  Mr. Marvin reached into his bag and pulled out a plush sea cow.

“This is a Dugong. The siren of the seas. During the heavy days of Greek sea travel, it was acceptable to make love to these wondrous creatures. The songs and beauty of the mermaids are believed to have originated from the pleasure men found in the sea cow.”

“Please take out enough for the row and pass the bag back.”

I watched as the bag lazily climbed up the rows of the lecture hall. The bag’s movement was so much better to focus on than the monologue spoken by Mr. Marvin which was broaching on X-rated. I wanted no part in handing out the “mermaids” but as the first person in the row, it was my job. My gut instincts were on fire.  I knew something embarrassing was on the horizon, but I powered forward.

The plushies were soft and velvety to the touch. Despite my over-worrying, I passed out the anatomically correct doll without a hitch.  That was until I reached in for the girl’s next to me plushy and found that my finger had gotten lodged in it. The more I wiggled inside the bag the more the suction tightened.

“Ok, Gates. Give me my cute plushy sea cow.” My eyes grew large. My nerves locked. I could not take my hand out of the bag and that is when she done it for me. As she tugged the bag and revealed my shame, she let out a yelp and the next thing I heard was…

“Look everyone, Billy’s all up in the sea cow’s junk.” The laughter was even more merciless than it was before.

“What are you doing to my poor sweet plushy?”

I flailed my hand, tried to sit on it, put it behind my back, but the damn girl was relentless she wanted that sea cow and she basically molested me until she got it.

Sweet mercy. The bell rung.

The students quickly gathered their items and jetted for the exit. Being one of the final students to exit, I was graced to hear Mr. Marvin’s final words of the day.

“Be sure to study chapter 8 on the increasing use of insects during sexual activity and its moral implications.”

As soon as I crossed the exit, I hit the brick wall known as “he whose name is not spoken aka the nameless one.” I’m six foot but I had to look up into eyes towering over me.

“I heard your mumbles in class, dork.  You brought that little episode on yourself.” Of course, he is flanked by his underlings. The tallest one of the bunch, JR, grabbed my backpack and rifled through it.

“So, did you steal more than one sea cow to take home and feel up?” As the lackey continued to invade the privacy of my backpack, his face appeared to go pale and emotionless.

It was such a stark change that I wondered to myself what soul-sucking and emotional blackmailing item had I left in there or did I even have something on that level and in a blink my thoughts envisioned a hard yes.

“Give me that!” The nameless one snatched my bag like it was his own and pulled out something curious, something I had never seen in my life.

“Rules of the black arts for advanced users.”

My first thought sped to Gene then to Myles which one stowed this obscenely old-fashioned book into my backpack. Was it some kind of subset rule guide for the Lords of Omni?

“Oh no.  Maybe we should back off before he casts a curse on us or rips out our souls.”

I was too lost in my thinking to pinpoint which goon blurted out those words, but I saw RJ speaking the follow-up scoff.

“Is that right, Gates? Are you going to hex us, stick pins in a doll, and cause us pain?” Pins! Pins! I could not stop my internal diatribe from bubbling out!

“Pins! No!  That typically would be a voodoo user.  I am a 100-level druid archmage necromancer. We cast fireballs, unleash, and command the armies of the undead.  And yes, like one of you idiots, aptly called out, soul reaping! But failed to include the 100+ spells at our disposal for kicking bad guys asses.”

Looking back on that moment, I don’t know if the trio was slightly terrified by my commanding words or in shock that I even spoke them.

“Are you threatening us, loser?” The nameless one grabbed my hoodie and pushed me to the wall. The flunkies circled me on either side to mask their anointed leader’s actions. The nameless one then pushed his snarling face toward mine, but I wasn’t backing down. Was I?  The following words squeaked out of my mouth.

“No! I am a white mage. I don’t threaten. I only eradicate evil. Are you evil?”

“I am not evil, dipshit but I am about to unleash a wicked ass-kicking.” The nameless one balled his mighty hand and I prepared myself for the wickedness his fist affirmed to unleash!