James was sitting at one of the outside tables with Evelyn, having agreed to tutor her in various aspects of magic on her first day. He spoke with the confident and easy air of someone who knew exactly what they were talking about, which, to his credit, James did. "You see, Runic Magic isn't actually too different from boring, non-magical mathematics," he began, waving his hands around expressively as he spoke, "Now, the most important part of any rune is balance, this is why a circular runes are so common, like one of these," he continued, drawing a few basic symbols inside circles, "See, the circle allows for even distribution of energy across the entire symbol, assuming that it's connected to the rest," he said as he touched each rune with the tip of his index finger, filling them with a bit of mystical energy, which caused them to glow with a soft light. Each was a different color, with the rightmost one being yellow, the middle one being blue, and the left one being red. "Now, obviously these are pretty basic runes, but these allow me to segway into something a little bit cooler, that aught to get the blondie's attention too, since this theory didn't exist in his day," he said, beginning to draw something more complex in the table, "So, each of those runes has a pretty different symbol right? Which, as we know, should mean they should produce very different effects. But, in the early 1800s, we discovered a technique to-"
James was cut off midway through his teachings, which was a shame, because he was about to do something really cool for his example. This however, was more important, as something smashed through the barrier screeching like some sort of hawk. The earth prince bolted to his feet, one leg up on the table as the intruder reached with shadowy hands of a magic James didn't recognize, grabbing for two students. James pumped his legs, leaping into the air as he drew his blade, intending to intercept by cutting off the shadowy hands, but he was batted out of the air by a third hand that sprouted out of one of the others.
He smashed into the ground, hard. Harder than anything had ever hit him before. The ground around him was visibly cracked, and he'd been pushed a couple of inches into it for certain.
His world spun for a brief moment, and things were blurry. He couldn't think straight...
What's going on...? He thought.
"Surrender yourselves and your death will be painless" Something screeched with a voice like a hawk's cry, jerking him back to the moment and refreshing his addled mind.
"Oh, that's right," he said, slowly pushing himself to his feet, "I'm going to-" whatever badass one-liner James was about to say was cut off as the invader visibly ripped the mystical energy right out of the two students that he had grabbed, "No!" James cried, hand outstretched as if he could still save them.
Pure adrenaline pumped through James' veins, causing his blood to run hot. Liquid rock dripped from one of his hands, and the stone around him began to rise in temperature in response to his anger.
But, when a resounding voice, heavy with mysticism cut through the air, which was thick with the terror of the students, James' wrath was cooled.
Not through his own intentions however. Merlin was one of, if not the the most potent spellcaster in history, and purposefully incorporated and undercurrent of magic to calm the prince of elemental earth, stopping him from doing anything that could pose enormous hazard to his own health.