Today was an exciting day, and for reasons unrelated to the three blades. Today would be the first day we get to actually test our magic against demihumans! Sure, they were just going to be lizardmen, and sure, it would be supervised by our professor(all professors are either retired soldiers or soldiers that sustained career ending injuries on the job) so we’ll be in no real danger, but still, I get to fight something with magic! I just needed to make a couple of stops along the way, first up, Will’s dorm room.

When I arrive, I knock on the door and receive no answer. Knocked again, nothing. He said he’d return the blue/red blade before class, he didn’t leave without me, did he? I decide to turn the doorknob, and to my surprise, the door opens up. I immediately see Will asleep in his bed with his covers up to his neck. How the hell could he be asleep on a day like today? He was just as excited as I was!

“Come on, asshole, time for class!” I slapped him lightly across the face, no response, “Dude, you okay?” I slapped a little harder. Nothing.

At this point I was legitimately worried, so I pull the covers away, only to discover his shorts pulled all the way down and nothing between his legs. I stared at his crotch for far longer than a straight man should have before I finally put two and two together. Will’s consciousness was not here, it was in Little Willy, and he was probably having the time of his life with Greta. I couldn’t help but laugh and wonder if Jason thought his invention would be used for something so perverted, though I did have to hand it to Greta for her creative use of the blade. Made me worry a whole lot more about that ‘getting even’ business, though.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”

I jumped at the sound of the voice and turned around to find a grinning Greta.

“I, er, um.... I mean...” I stutter, “You got the blade... and... Will?”

Greta nearly fell over laughing at me, but composed herself and replied, “Yes, Will is in my purse, would you like to see him?”

“You know, I’ll just wait outside while you, uh, put him back.” I said and exited the room. I closed the door and leaned against the wall to the side.

“OOOOOOHHHHHhhh!” I hear Will roar a few seconds later, sounding like he had just woken up from a long hibernation, “Babe, that was amazing! Best I’ve ever had!” I can hear the unmistakable sound of the two making out.

“Yes, I promote you to Will the Magnificent after last night!” more make-out noises.

Meanwhile, I can’t help but think about what it would be like if Emily had taken my package like that, and that it was unhealthy to keep thinking about her like that. Get over it, Ted!

"I'm so glad I let you talk me into that!"

"See, you should never doubt me."

“Okay, I gotta get to class now” Will said. Finally. “It’s lizardman-stompin’ day!”

“Ah, yes, I have that class later in the week, I very much look forward to it,” she said, “Later on, I’ll take my turn as promised.”

“Can’t wait!”

The couple emerged from the room with Greta holding the blanket-covered blade. Will asked, “So, class time?”

“Just gotta stop at Em’s dorm first real quick, she wants to watch.” I reply.

“But I thought freshmen weren’t allowed to audit junior classes, especially when they set the lizardmen loose.” Greta said while handing over the blade.

“That’s why I needed this back.”


Ten minutes later, we’re sitting in the bleachers of the gymnasium while the professor gives some last minute safety tips and jots some notes down on a whiteboard he wheeled in. Most of the eyes in the class were glued to the cage full of lizardmen, one for every two students. We’d be pairing up for this exercise, and naturally, Will was my partner. In the middle of the lecture, a feminine yawn emanated from my backpack.

“Am I boring someone out there?” The annoyed professor, a middle aged, balding man paused his lecture and turned around to ask.

Yeah, that’s right. Emily made me sneak her head into class. She decided she wanted to try the blue/red blade this time because she thought her body would get restless if she could still control it. I kicked my backpack just hard enough to rattle her and get her to not make any more noises. The last thing me or my brother needs is for a professor to find another student’s living disembodied head where it doesn’t belong.

“Sorry! Sorry!” I heard her say quietly. I nudged her again for making noise.

After a few more minutes of lecture, the professor calls the first team down to the gymnasium floor and holds his hand up to the stands, creating a thin, translucent yellow barrier to keep the rest of us safe while we watched. I’d never seen such an advanced technique used before, I was quite impressed.

“Now, before we begin, I’m assuming we’ve all already learned what the lizardman’s elemental weakness is, right?” the professor asked the class.

“Electricity...” The class responded in one unified, monotone voice. Including Emily. I kicked the bag a little harder.

“That’s right.” he said before turning to the caged lizardmen. He began to concentrate on one in particular, and it began to levitate, which made me feel real bad about only being able to levitate a paperback book at best. The cage had no roof, so the demihuman was lifted up and over and placed on the hardwood floor. The two students each grabbed an evoker, swords as it turns out, and began to channel their power, lightning began to course through their blades. I’d seen seniors use evokers before, they had learned how to shoot lightning bolts and fireballs out of them, that was something else I looked forward to being able to do.

I lifted up my backpack and unzipped it slightly, whispering to Emily, “Can you see all right through that hole?”

“Yep.”

“Okay, good.” I said, adding before I put her down, “Now no more noises out of you, people are starting to stare!”

The fights went off without a hitch for the most part, the professor had to step in once or twice, which meant point deductions for the respective students’ grade, but no one was hurt. Finally, it was time for Will and I to take the stage. We stood up and nodded, letting each other know that ‘yeah, we got this, bro’.

The professor lifted the previous team’s defeated lizardman into the cage and opened a hole in the barrier for us to enter and the other team to exit, they handed us the evokers as they passed. The barrier was closed up, and a fresh lizardman was plucked from the cage and placed in front of us. We both focused our power, concentrating on the blades until visible electricity pulsed up and down, making loud, static like sounds.

The two of us approached the lizardman, even though they were among the weakest of the demihumans, this was still our first fight, so we were cautious. I had never been so close to a demihuman before, and it was the first time I’ve ever been able to study their features up close. He had green, scaly skin, yellow slitted eyes, sharp looking claws and teeth, and a long tail, stood about five and a half feet tall, but it appeared to be in a crouching stance so it was hard to tell. It hissed at us and leaped forward at Will, who deftly stepped back to dodge the attack.

I took advantage of the opening and slashed at the lizardman’s gut, but out of the corner of its eye, it saw my attack coming and swatted at my sword with his tail and knocked it out of my hand. If I were better at levitating, I would simply bring the evoker right back to my hand like Luke Skywalker did with his lightsaber in Empire Strikes Back, but alas, a sword was above my current weight limit. Instead I had to run back and pick it up by manually.

The lizardman saw me (quite stupidly) turn my back to it so I could pick up my evoker, and it jumped at me, hissing in my face as soon as I turned around. Thankfully Will had kept up with the beast and swung his blade across its back, cutting it and sending a jolt of electricity through its body. The shock brought him to his knees, and I come to my senses. Grabbing the hilt of my evoker in both hands, I aim the tip of my sword at the lizardman, who looks up at me with the saddest goddamn eyes I’ve ever seen.

I had never looked into the eyes of a lizardman, or any demihuman for that matter, but I could tell that this one was nothing more than a broken shell. I got a good look at his scaly skin and noticed it was covered with scars, and it struck me that this poor guy had been trapped here for god knows how long, getting beaten senseless by college juniors, and should he dare overpower the students, the exponentially more powerful professor would put an end to it. Life was a lose-lose situation for him, and my heart told me not to add to it, so I lowered my evoker.

“Sssssstupid humansssss!” it hissed and slashed at me with his sharp claws, tearing through my left forearm. The pain forced me to drop the blade, and blood gushed from the wound. Will drove his blade through the lizardman’s back, and this time the electric jolt kept it down. The damage was still done, though, and I grabbed my bleeding forearm with my right hand.

“William, you get an A,” the professor said while he casually deposited the lizardman back into the cage, “Theodore...” he shook his head in disappointment, “You can never, never, NEVER pity your enemy. The lizardmen may not be bright, but they have coping mechanisms like any other organism, and they have learned to play towards our sense of pity. You fell for it hook, line and sinker.”

“Now, William, will you please escort your partner to the medical wing so he can be patched up.” The professor said after producing a small barrier around my forearm to stop blood from spraying everywhere. We got our things and left. I heard the professor mutter, “There’s one every year.” as we passed him.



“Haha, Ted got his butt beat by a lizardman!” I heard Emily’s voice say from behind my back as we walked to the doctor’s office.

“What did you say, Em? Cuz it sure sounded like ‘I don’t want my body back’.” That shut her up.

So after some painful stitches, some stinging ointments, bandaging, and a lecture about how to clean and dress my wound so it doesn’t scar, I was sent on my way. We then went straight to Emily’s dorm room, which is where both her body and the red/blue blade was. I took her key out of my pocket and unlocked her door, as soon as I stepped in, I was instantly reminded how tiny and cramped freshman dorms were. It made my junior dorm feel like a luxury suite in comparison. I unzipped my backpack and lifted Emily’s head out of it, placing her next to her laptop on top of her desk. Her body was currently lying on her bed under the covers.

“Finally,” she took a deep breath, “It was getting hot in there! Now put me back on my body, please.”

“One second, there’s something I want to do first.” I say, picking up the red/blue blade. I pulled the wooden chair out and sat down, resting my injured arm on the desk next to Emily’s head, and sliced through it just above the elbow with the blue side facing me, removing all feeling from my arm. Instantly, the searing pain from the wound was replaced by numbness, which was a welcome change, “Ah, much better.”

“Huh, now that’s using the old noggin’,” Will said, “Never woulda thought to cut off a sore body part like that.”

“Yeah, too bad I’ll still have to put it back on while out and about, but at least I can leave it detached in my dorm.” I respond, “Especially when I want to sleep. It would be hard to sleep through that pain, plus I could roll over on it in the middle of the night!”

“Guys?” the bodiless Emily impatiently piped up. Yeah, we were stalling, but she looked really cute as just a head and I was hoping to keep her like that a while longer.

“Oh, all right!” Will said, mocking anger, and he turned around and pulled the covers to reveal Emily’s headless body... minus a couple of notable features, “Uh oh...”

“What do you mean, uh oh?” Emily asked nervously, not quite able to see her body out of the corner of her eye.

“Yeah, that’s not good.” I confirm her fears.

“What’s going on? Did something happen to my body?”

“Greta happened to it.” I say, scooping up Emily with my one arm and bringing her to her body, where she gasped in horror when she saw what had happened.

“She stole my boobs!” she said in disbelief, staring at her completely flat chest that had a note attached to it(reading “This is for the purple blade incident! -Greta”), “Will, call her and make her give them back!”

Will pulled out his cell phone, only to find a text message he was sent earlier but missed because we were busy with the lizardman. It was from Greta, “Turns out she’s swimming at the rec center.”

“WHAT!?” Emily cried, “So not only did she steal my boobs, she’s showing them off? Damn it, put me on my body so I can get them back!”

“Here, can you take this noisy thing, please?” I handed Emily off to Will so I could reattach my arm. The pain came right back as soon as the magic cut sealed. Meanwhile, Will restored Emily(sans breasts).

Emily sat up and felt her flat chest, “Ooooh, I’m gonna get her good for this!”

“On the bright side, I hear that soap opera, The Young and the Breastless is looking for new actresses.” I honestly don’t know why I said that, maybe I was trying to lighten the mood, but all I got in return was a slap across my left forearm from Emily, causing me to scream in pain.

“Let’s just take the blade and go to the rec center!” the urgency in Emily’s tone was apparent.

If there's one thing I learned today, it's to be very afraid of pulling covers off of people that Greta has been around. I couldn't help but feel there was another lesson I was supposed to learn today, but it's been pushed out of my mind at this point.