This was another contest I entered before I took a break fort the holidays. As usual it wasn’t as well received as I thought it might be.

The theme was, in the face of adversity.

I let out a sigh what in the hell was I going to do? It was going on four weeks now with nothing new happening. If something didn’t happen soon I was a dead duck for sure.

Hello, I am Ty Donald, I am what you might consider a mage, though many would probably call me a wizard. What’s the difference? Hell, I hadn’t really paid that much attention to that part of my schooling. It was after all, over four hundred years ago.

All I knew was that, I ... what’s wrong? Oh, I am a high power administer, quite a few enemies. The simple fact that I was still alive, was a testament to the amount of fear that I instilled.

Then again, I wasn’t sure just how much longer that would hold true. I thought back trying to see when it had started, nodding, I could see it was about the time Stella left me. Another deep sigh, yes that was when it all started.

A day later the home I had lived in over a hundred years crumbled to dust. Then a week later, the Council suddenly decided to limit almost all the magick that I could do.

I shook my head; I was almost a normal human now. How in the hell, was I expected to survive with almost no power?

Then the real kick in the balls happened, every close friend or otherwise, left me high and dry. Shaking my head, I was very close to leaving the magick realm for good.

With all that happened, there was almost nothing to hold me here, almost. I then thought of my mother alone with no one to help her. No, I couldn’t do that, I would take everything they threw at me for her.

In the beginning, when no one else believed in me she did. Besides her and Stella, there had never been another that ever came close. For her, I would take all the degradation, pain and torment they had.

As I sat outside of the very building I used to work at, oh yeah, I had been suspended also. That meant I had practically nothing to eat nor much to get food either.

I waved my hand to make a small bit to eat, shocked when absolutely nothing happened. So the limits they had imposed, were now in full effect.

I had been trying all my powers the whole day, though now that the limits were in, that knowledge was useless. I ran through the list of what I had been able to do.

A short list to be sure, though I was amazed when I snapped my fingers appearing outside my mother’s door. Huh, go figure though this wasn’t that much of a surprise, almost as if they were expecting me to hi-tail it out of here.

I shook my head, that wasn’t about to happen, not as long as I had a reason to stay let them do their worst.

I was reaching for the door when it was suddenly thrust open. “It’s about time you got here. Been sitting all alone by myself no one to talk to. What kind of son would let his poor mother sit here and worry? Not a damn word from you all week!”

The step back I took, had me cringing as did her angry words. “I’m sorry mother, I’ve been trying to contact you all week. The da ... the council put a limit on all my powers. Apparently, all I have left is the ability to travel, nothing much else.”

I thought that Mother was going to explode with another tirade to me, so her next words shocked me. “My poor baby, what have they done to you? What have you done so terrible for them to treat you like this? Perhaps, I should contact a few of them, remind them just how important our family is.”

“No mother,” I replied. “If this is some type of coup, perhaps we should leave the magick realm. I was all set to though I could never abandon you, you’re all I have left after father’s death. Though for you, if you wish to remain, I will take anything they throw at me.”

I saw mother sigh at the mention of my father. I knew that it still brought up painful memories. Memories that I really didn’t want to dredge up making her far sadder than she already was.

“I’m sorry mother I forgot; I don’t want you to be so sad again,” I told her with concern in my voice.

“No, it is fine Ty, I have to come to terms with his death sooner than later.” She replied. “I just have a few twinges of the pain to deal with.”

“I hate that there’s really nothing I can do to help, mother. I feel so bad, had I been home that day I am sure that...” I started to say, when my mother’s head snapped, up the look of fury on her face a bit disconcerting.

“I am sure that, I would have to be dealing with the death of both of you not just him!” Her voice started rising in pitch. “Don’t ever think that you could have done anything differently, back then, you weren’t rated as high as your father. No, I like to think that your father saved both our lives that day.”

I could only stare at my mother a moment. She had never revealed this information to me. Then again as I thought about it, no one had really said a thing about his death, even the council had been mum about the investigation.

“Is there anything I can do Mother? I, don’t want to be a burden while I am here with you.” I told Mother honestly.

She seemed to be deep in thought a moment then nodded. “I need you to run an errand for me. Might take your mind off things. Remember just try to keep a low profile.”

“Well, that’s all and good though, my face is very recognizable. Keeping a low profile might be difficult at the moment. Remember I can’t really disguise myself.” I replied.

Mother smiled then handed me a hat, scarf and a pair of dark glasses. “There, I think that these might help to hide you better. Besides, with most of your power shut off, not many can feel that, it is you.”

I took the items as I thought about it, she was, of course, correct as she had been a great number of times. After she gave me what she had, I set out for the place she had indicated. Little did I know that this is where things truly got bad.

I was on the way back not really noticing much, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. I hadn’t noticed more than a few council members moving past me down the street. Though, as I drew near to my mother’s home, I couldn’t really do much else. Where her home had been, was now an empty lot complete with fully grown trees.

I also noticed what appeared to be more than a few severely strong magick users. I’m glad I had stopped long before I got there, or I would have been toast.

As tears started to stream down my face, I fought to keep the anger down. It appeared that someone was trying to systematically, erase everything I knew and loved from existence. I stepped back around the corner of the building next to me.

I shook my head as I thought about everything, besides all the things that I loved, were they out to erase me? I heard a commotion around the corner, though decided I needed to go into hiding better to figure this out.

I bowed my head saying a silent prayer for my mother, that, they didn’t hurt her. Waving my hand I appeared on the other side of the city.

Faced with all that was going on, I have to go to a more arcane, you might say an evil form of magick. Though I hated to resort to this, I felt that I had no choice.

I stepped next to a building I hadn’t visited in more than a few hundred years. Pressing a complicated pattern on six of the bricks in front of me, I sighed in relief when the wall slid aside. Stepping in, I quickly closed the wall effectively sealing me in, and other magick users out.

The coughing fit started almost immediately as I moved through the room. As I guessed I was the last to visit here. On the walls, were a multitude of arcane magick dampening symbols. Many knew of this place though very few would venture near it. Even fewer actually knew how to enter.

Walking up to the black, double bound, closed large tome, my hands shook. As I unwrapped the book, this was dangerous at the least. At the worst, it was life threatening, not just to the user but to anyone within a few miles of the user.

As I thumbed through the ancient pages, I felt the almost irresistible urge to use the most violent spells. I had to shake my head several times to clear the many voices I heard urging me to kill.

Damn it! The urges and voices were far stronger than I remembered them. Still, I held them off keeping focused on the one task I had in mind. Finally, I found the spell I wanted, slowly reading the instructions to activate it.

With a slowly growing smile, I felt then saw that the spell was indeed reaching out. I was stunned a few moments later when I saw the vision of the leader of the council ordering everything. I cursed when I saw the rest of the council agree without even an afterthought.

I almost punched the wall stopping an inch from it. Damn it, I still had quite a few human tendencies. I wasn’t what you would say was a pure born magick user. My mother was, my father wasn’t. So though I had a hell of a lot of power, I was still looked down on by a great many.

I smirked; I had made a great number of friends. At the moment though, I was uncertain as to the fact that, were they scared out of their wits or not.

Rapidly flipping through the book, I smiled almost evilly when I found, just the spell I needed. Reciting every word slowly, I felt the more arcane magick start to fill me. Within no time at all, I felt more than twice as powerful as I had been.

Another almost evil smile, lit up my face as I reached out for the council leader, then pulled. Almost immediately, the older magick user appeared before me with a shocked and panicked look on his face.

He looked even more panicked when he couldn’t move a muscle, then he saw the arcane magick tome. His shock was rapidly replaced by a look of absolute terror. The thing was he was also unable to speak.

“Hello ass, I wonder how you like being completely defenseless? What you are feeling, is what I have for the last few weeks. Not too damn pleasant is it? I thought that with as many enemies as I have, you wouldn’t have put my life in danger.” Here I shrugged my shoulders. “I guess I was wrong. Seeing as there are only three or four that know how to break these spells, I hope you enjoy.”

I started to wave my hand to send him back when he barely shook his head no. I could see he was trying desperately to speak, though, I knew he had nothing to say that I really wanted to hear.

“You really should have checked me out further than you did. I am far stronger than you and the council obviously believed. Know this, I have done nothing to deserve the hell that all of you have been putting me through. Though,” here I stared intensely at him. “I damn sure will finish it, along with as many of you assholes as I can.”

I started to laugh at him, then stopped myself short, my god I had almost sounded maniacal. I had to get a better handle on this or I was going to kill a great many. Then again, I felt my mind slip a moment, there were a great many that deserved it.

With a sneer, I waved my hand watching with satisfaction, as the leader of the council vanished.

Even as the leader reappeared I snatched the next highest counselor to me. Like the leader, he also had a look of astonishment on his face. Though, he was far more afraid than the leader had been, when he saw me with the book.

With the same treatment, I sent his terrified ass back moments later. When I reached for the third, I was shocked to find that I couldn’t lock onto him. I pulled the council chambers up, seeing that they had all combined their power to block me.

Well, shit, I at least got the two most powerful, it would be quite a while before they could locate another practitioner of the arcane, let alone as powerful as I was.

I felt I was safe for a while, at least I hoped I was. I next concentrated on finding my mother, only to be frustrated when an hour later, I still had no idea where she was. I had even looked over the human realm to no avail.

What in the hell was going on? Like I thought before, it appeared as if the one person I loved the most had been erased from existence.

Was it possible that another arcane user had been employed by them? Shit! If that was the case then I might be in a world of shit. Reaching out throughout the many realms, I let out the breath I had been holding when I felt all five of them. Thank the power! They were still where they had ended up all those years ago, I had warned them.

I had been working all these years to try and bring them back. Thankfully, I had managed to place them in stasis before the portals closed. Though with them in different realms, it had taken all I had, nearly killing me.

Then came the trial that I had been put through. Never mind that I was so close to death that anyone could see it. Though at the moment even with all the power I had at my fingertips I was still in a lot of trouble. Though I had increased my control to unparalleled levels, I still felt I was still too weak to retrieve them.

A sly smile crossed my lips, weak yes though nothing compared to back then. I heard a new whispering, the pages of the tome flipping rapidly to a certain page. My eyes grew wide when I saw the retrieval spell. I was about to start it when I saw the price shit! Damn, but it took a great amount of life force.

I reached in deep as I felt all my power arcane, regular magick and my life force. Nodding, I could see that I could get two probably three of them before I was too weak to continue. Who in the hell would I go after? They were all my friends, the only friends I had ever had especially after they vanished.

I took a deep breath, then slowly and carefully started to fuse all three of the power sources in my body. As my power rose, I felt the tome start to pull, whispering more and more urgently in my mind. Shaking my head, I pushed them out far easier than I thought I should have been able to.

Finally, almost an hour later, I felt I was ready as I opened three portals in front of me. Thankfully, where my friends were, the portals weren’t that far from them.

The first two were actually easy to get, I brought them through taking the stasis off them. Feeling that my power wasn’t that strained, I closed the first two, opening another. My first two friends were shaking their heads as they stared at me, I was a lot older than they remembered me.

I found the fourth pulling him even as the third was closing in on the portal.

“Damn it, Ty, what in the hell happened to you?” One of the first two stated as they watched the third close in on the portal. I had barely gotten the third through slamming the portal closed when I felt something start to pull on my fourth friend.

I silently cursed, I was afraid that something like this would happen. The last two were the strongest after all. With a fine sheen of sweat starting to appear on my face, I tried to keep quiet, ultimately failing as I let out a grunt.

“Damn it, Ty! You should have help with this.” The first two stated, even as the third was starting to come to after the stasis field faded.

He looked around seeing the other two, then could only stare at me. “Ok Ty, just how long were we in there?” The third asked a little pissed.