Prologue

My first day at a new school. They had said that it wouldn't be like any school I had been to before, so I didn't know what to expect. There wasn't an open house or a meet the teachers or anything like that. My name's Lycanus Wolfbane, and I'm seventeen years old. I stood outside of the old castle that was my new school and home. There were forty of us in total, and they had us all lined up from oldest to youngest, with me in the very back.

They said we were to choose one weapon off of a table when we walked into the main courtyard just inside the main gate, and outside the actual castle, going one at a time, so I got to go last. Some people chose swords, some guns, others got strange weapons I had never seen before. When it was my turn, there was only one weapon left. I stared at it. It was a mask. It was a human warrior's face with tribal tattoos and platinum blonde hair and hollow white eyes without pupils. So guess what? I 'chose' the mask.

We all took our seats with our respective weapons as six men walked onto the stage. The first was about average height, with very pale skin and serpentine teal eyes and platinum blonde hair going down his back to his waist. At his hip was a nodachi three meters long. He wore leather pants, thick boots and gloves, and a leather trench coat. And it was all black. He had no shirt, but instead had straps crossing his chest to keep his coat half-way closed.

Behind him was what appeared to be a boy my age. He was much shorter than the first, with spiky blonde hair that stuck out in all directions and vivid blue eyes. Like the man before him, all of his clothes were black and leather except for his shirt, which, like his jacket, was missing its right sleeve. There was a strange wolf pendant on his left shoulder that matched his necklace. But the thing that grabbed my attention most was the massive fullblade on his back. The sword was six feet long and one foot wide. It seemed to be made of six different blades and it caused me to wonder how he was even able to hold it.

Next came a man that towered over the others. He stood at what looked like seven feet even and carried a multitude of guns. Covered from head to toe in sage green armor, he looked like some kind of tank. I couldn't see through his orange visor, but it felt as though he was looking right at me.

Man number four was taller than the first, but shorter than the third. He had flaming red hair and beard, and skin the same color as the third man's armor. He had full plate armor on that was the same color as obsidian, with intricate gold designs. He truly was built like a tank, being larger than even the guy in green armor. At his hip was a white longsword with an elaborate hilt, and it seemed to have an unearthly glow.

The fifth man couldn't have been much older than twenty, and wore a faded green shirt and a matching pointy hat that drooped down behind him. He had brown leather gauntlets, belt and boots, and white cloth pants. There was a chain shirt beneath his green one, and he wore a wrist guard on his left hand. He had dark blonde hair and bright blue eyes that had the glint of some wild beast behind them. On his back were a longsword and a shield.

The last man stood just as tall as the third, but was wearing clothing that made him look like a samurai from Japan's Edo Era. He had midnight black hair that was formed into long spikes; each one having a small bell on the end. He had an eye-patch over his right eye, and a dark jagged scar going down the left side of his face and crossing over his good eye. He also had a nodachi at his hip, but it was nowhere near the length of the first guys. The blade was about six feet long and blunted and jagged from years of constant fighting. He seemed to eye us briefly with disinterest with his good eye and muttered something under his breath.

The first man stepped forward and addressed us. "Welcome one and all," he said with a warm smile. "You have all been chosen because you had certain traits or abilities that we deemed worthy of this schools attention. Will those of you without a gun please stand up." We did as instructed not understanding where he was going with this. "Equip your weapons." Equip my weapon? But it was a mask! How do you equip a mask? Everybody else seemed to be having an easier time of it than I was and they all strapped on harnesses and sheathes and finished in quick order.

"Put your damn mask on." I looked up and saw that the final man was staring at me with his good eye. It felt like some god was trying to squash me under their thumb.

I flipped the mask over. It had no eyeholes, and there were no strings to tie or a band to hold it in place. "Here goes nothing." I took a deep breath and put the mask to my face and my whole body was wracked with pain. It was as if my insides were turning inside out and the mask burned like it was eating away at my face. I felt a sudden shove as I let out a tortured scream and lightning struck me from the sky and the pain subsided. I opened my eyes and took in my surroundings. I was still in the courtyard, and I was now several feet away from everybody. The first man was walking away.

'Was it him? Did he shove me?' I looked around, noticing that everything was now much shorter, and my classmates now regarded me with a mixture of fear and awe. I looked at myself. I was huge! I was nine feet tall and wearing some weird cuirass and pauldrons. I had a white shirt beneath the cuirass, and I had a white hat like the one the fifth guy was wearing. I was wearing some weird black bodysuit beneath my armor and I had thick brown gauntlets and boots. As I looked around, I noticed mine wasn't the only transformation, but it was by far the flashiest. As I looked back on stage, I could see the final man staring at me with a grin from ear to ear, his eye practically dripping with bloodlust.

"Now that that is over," continued the first man, "welcome to the school. Believe it or not, each of you could have gotten nothing else but the weapon you chose. I am your lead instructor, Sephiroth." He began walking down the row of instructors. "With me are Cloud Strife, Master Chief SPARTAN John-117, Ganondorf Dragmire, Link, and Captain Zaraki Kenpachi. Your schooling will continue until you have mastered your gifts, all the while continuing on with your normal studies. We have all standard and advanced classes that a normal high school would, and replaced all electives with classes that will benefit your abilities. If you will follow us, we will show you to your dorm rooms."

There was no orderly line this time, just a big crowd of kids following a bunch of guys that were introducing us to stuff we had never seen before. I finally got to my room, along with the oldest and second oldest of our group, and the girl in the middle of the age group. The oldest one had gotten a gun that attached to her right arm, and sprouted a whole suit of dark orange armor. The second oldest had snagged himself what had looked like a simple vial that had a note telling him to drink it. He did, and he didn't feel any different yet. The other girl had gotten a similar vial, and her skin seemed to be turning a grayish-green.

We went to our respective sides of our rooms, and found that they had indeed been preparing for us specifically. My things were sized to my new body. My roommate, whose name turned out to be Lucian, had more normal-sized things, but they were still larger than normal. The older girl, who was named Samus, had more of a hi-tech stasis bed like something out of a sci-fi flick, with everything to match. The other girl, Sarah, had some weird alien pod to sleep in, and the rest of her things were likewise made of some weird, organic alien matter.

After exploring our sides of the rooms, we returned to the main living quarters of our dorm, once again, discovering a chair for each of us and introduced ourselves. And that's were I am now. "My name is Lycanus Wolfbane." I heard a faint voice in the back of my head, similar to my own, but still slightly different. 'And I am the Fierce Deity,' it added.