Author Note:

First off, thank you to everyone who reviewed, favorite and alerted my story That made me really happy! I also meant to mention last time that this story is a bit inspired by Starran's A Miscellaneous Tale of Night and Day. You should read it if you haven't yet.

Oh and for the purposes of this story, White is the one who was friends with Cheren and Bianca, not Black, this will be important later in the story.

Disclaimer: I didn't put this in last chapter, but no, I don't own any of the characters…except Bertrand the bus driver...


Chapter 2: Teachers are Terrifying

Yellow's POV

I was nervous, I mean I'm nervous a lot of the time, but I was even more nervous than usual. It was our first day of magic classes today. The change was just so sudden. One day I was a normal, if extremely shy, girl going to an ordinary school and then four days later I was going to a new school to learn how to control my magic powers. I looked at myself in the mirror on my wall. The uniform fit me perfectly and I briefly wondered how they knew my size, but at a school for mages, there isn't much point in wondering about things like that. The uniform was actually quite comfortable and it was more fashionable than anything I had ever worn before, definitely a step up from my last school's uniform (which resembled a trash bag more than actual clothes). I checked my watch and saw that it was time to go to class, so I headed down the stairs to meet Blue. "Good morning Blue," I said.

"Good morning Yellow! Ready for class?" she sounded very chipper and I got the feeling that she was a morning person.

"As ready as I'll ever be."

"That's good enough, come on!" We had decided t leave early in case we couldn't find the right room, so we were the first ones to leave the dorm that morning. The others didn't seem to be as worried as Blue and I, because I hadn't seen or even heard anything from the others' rooms. Blue and I walked along the path from our dorm through the field to the courtyard we had walked through the day before. "Okay, our class is in the Sun building, which one is that Yellow?" asked Blue.

I looked at the map I was holding. "Um, according to the map, the building on the left is the Moon building and the one on the right is the Sun building." It ended up that it was obvious which building was which once we saw them though. The Sun building was golden in color and had a large ornate sun mural covering the courtyard side of the building while the Moon building was colored silver and had a mural of the night sky covering the courtyard side of the building.

"Well, I guess the map was kind of unnecessary," said Blue.

"Yeah…It's a bit obvious which is which now."

"We still have to find the room though, Room 202." We went inside the building and felt a rush of cool air hit us from the inside. The halls were so white they were practically shining. The blinding white was only interrupted by black doors that lined the hall. Each door had a number written on it in delicate looking silver letters, the first of which was 101. We found our room without any problems and went inside. The room was painted white just like the hallway, but the wooden desks and the large windows made it less blinding then it was in the hallway. I was slightly disappointed that it was just a normal classroom; I had come to expect extraordinary things at this school. The only odd thing about the room was the large wooden bowls that were situated on top of each desk. I had read in the handbook last night that these bowls were there to contain our magic. They had barriers on them so that if a student's magic went out of control, it wouldn't be able to get out of the bowl. Blue and I were the first ones in the room, so we had our pick of the seats. Well, really Blue got to choose and I followed her. Blue chose a seat near the center of the room and I sat down next to her. Soon the other students, which included Red and Green, started filing in. Red looked just like he had when he had come onto the bus yesterday and Green entered looking extremely bored.

"Ohoho! Green is here," Blue said, her voice filled with evil glee. If I were Green, I would be terrified, Blue really seemed to have it out for him. Red noticed us and grinned.

Red and Green (though he was being dragged) walked over to us. "Hey guys!" said Red as he took the seat to the left of me (Blue was sitting on my right).

"Heeeey Green," said Blue. Green's eyes widened and he turned to walk away from us, but before he could get away, Blue grabbed his arm and forced him into the seat next to her.

"Ehehe, poor Green," I said watching as Blue looked at him like he was a piece of meat/object to be tortured while he tried desperately to ignore her.

"Yeah, I wonder why she has it out for Green," Red said.

Before I could respond (not that I had an answer for him anyway) the teacher came into the classroom. "Quiet down everyone!" he yelled. I was instantly terrified of him. He had yellow hair sticking up in random angles and was wearing an army uniform. "I'm Lt. Surge and I will not tolerate any messing around in my class. You will do whatever I tell you whenever I tell you. You will not speak unless spoken too. Now let's begin your first manipulation class. Manipulation is all about offensive ability. You can use your element to attack people before they attack you. Remember speed is everything. If you're too slow than the enemy will destroy you before you can attack them." By this point his words had all turned into a loud wordless blur and I was trying not to faint from fear. I know that he said a lot more, but I don't remember anything else he said until a plant was dropped unceremoniously into my wooden bowl. I looked up and saw that Lt. Surge was putting a sample of everyone's elements into their bowls (excluding the psychic, force, illusion, and knowledge mages). Red had a battery in his bowl, Blue had half a cup of water in her bowl and Green had a lighter in his. "What are you waiting for, start!"

Uh-oh, I don't know what we're supposed to be doing! I looked at Red to see what he was doing. He was holding his right hand above his bowl and seemed to be concentrating very hard on something. I looked to my left and saw Blue and Green doing the same thing, so I tried to copy them. I held my hand above the sapling in my bowl and concentrated. The problem was I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be concentrating on. "Drain the power," Red whispered beside me.

I mouthed 'Thank you' at him, feeling a bit embarrassed. I held my hand above the plant and tried to feel energy coming from the plant into me. Nothing happened for a while, but eventually I began to feel energy flowing from the plant into my hand. My hand started to get a tingling sensation and my hand started to glow slightly green. I saw that other people were having the same results as me, except that their hands were glowing the colors of their respective elements. There were a few people that hadn't managed to drain the power from their sample, but I saw that Red, Green, and Blue had all succeeded.


Beginning of Class, Take 2:

Blue's POV

Soldier man gave a rather intimidating introduction, and I saw Yellow freeze up from the corner of my eye. I tried to nudge her discretely, but every time I moved even a little Lt. Surge would glare at me, so I stopped trying and listened. "There are a few different types of Manipulation," he was saying. "The first one we are going to learn is how to draw energy from your respective elemental sources. Once you have drained the power from your element, you are then able to use that energy in a number of different ways, but we are going to start with just drawing out power. I don't want you to get in over your heads and blow things up. Now wait there while I put an elemental source in front of each of you, oh and Force, illusion, psychic, and knowledge mages, just sit there and take notes or something." He walked around and dumped things into each person's bowl. He poured water in mine and then he dropped a plant in Yellow's bowl. I saw her jerk backwards a bit and hoped that she had come out of her shocked state. "What are you waiting for, start!" Lt. Surge yelled suddenly. I put Yellow out of my mind and quickly thrust my hand over the bowl and tried to draw power from the water. I finished second, Green beat me. I was going to defeat him eventually; there was no doubt in my mind about that.

"Good job to those who succeeded those of you who didn't, TRY HARDER!" Lt. Surge yelled. Everyone started a bit at his sudden increase in volume (except for Green. He was completely unflappable, so naturally, I was going to have to bust through his indifferent exterior. Poor Green, he really has no idea what I have planned for him – insert evil laugh–). "That's enough for your first Manipulation class, later," Surge said, and then walked out without so much as a backward glance.

"Uh, what?" I asked no one in particular.

"Class is over now," said someone at the front. "It's time for the Specialized class."

"It's time for Specialized class already? But class just started!" I yelled back.

"All the classes here are short. The teachers just teach as long as they want to, which usually isn't very long."

"Then what's the point of going to class?"

"Sometimes they tell us something important. And he would probably kill us if we weren't here."

"I didn't even hear anything he said," Yellow mumbled.

"When did you stop listening?" I asked.

"After he said 'I'm Lt. Surge!'" she said, trying to mimic his voice, but she failed…epically. Her voice was much too innocent-sounding to pass for a grizzled army lieutenant.

"How could you not hear anything he said? I couldn't block it out and I was trying to." This extremely long sentence was brought to you courtesy of Green. I didn't know he was capable of saying so many words at one time. I hadn't heard him say anything other than, "keep it down" the whole time we'd been here (which was admittedly, less than a day).

"Wow," I said with exaggerated awe. "You said so many words in one sentence!"

Green looked irritated but he didn't say anything. I still put that reaction in my favor. I was starting to get to him. I started laughing manically to myself and the others looked at me nervously.


First Class: Take 3:

Crystal's POV

Great. I'm in the same section as the guy who calls me 'super serious gal.' He's sitting next to me right now, staring at me. I want him to stop, but if I yell at him I would have to acknowledge him. I can't decide what's worse, letting him stare at me or admitting that he's bothering me. As I pondered this the teacher came in, which made Gold shift his gaze to the front of the room. Finally. "Good morning!" said our teacher. She had bright blue hair that was in a ridiculously high pony-tail and was wearing some sort of costume. I don't know what it was that she was trying to dress up as, but no way that was what she wore normally…right?

"I'm Clair, and I am the BEST teacher in this school, no matter what anyone says okay!" I nodded nervously. What's wrong with her?

I heard a voice from beside me (the side that Gold wasn't on) say, "Stupid costume woman."

"What was that?" Clair roared. I was impressed, we were pretty far back, how did she hear that? "Silver you are the bane of my existence; I will prove that I am better than you this year."

I looked beside me at the person I assumed was Silver. He had bright red hair and a cynical smirk on his face. "I can take you any day Professor Clair," he said, making the last part sound like an insult.

Clair lunged at him but a girl with a huge white hat stood in front of Silver. "Don't fight with him professor," she pleaded. "If you ignore him then that means you win!"

Clair's attention was caught at the word 'win' and she looked at the girl. "Lyra are you saying that if I don't fight him, then I win?"

"Of course! Not giving into the juvenile urge to fight makes you a better person."

Clair seemed to ponder this for a while, then said, "Hmph, fine I'll let him be this time then."

"Coward," said Silver.

I saw Clair snap at this comment. "I can't ignore that, bring it punk!" she screamed as she leaped at Silver. I quickly got up and moved, which, unfortunately, put me closer to Gold.

"Oh professor," moaned Lyra, her head in her hands.

"Does this happen often?" I asked incredulously.

Lyra sighed. "All the time. Clair has been our teacher for the last three years, but she's never actually gotten around to teaching us anything. She's always too busy fighting with Silver." I looked up at this last comment and saw Clair who was trying to punch Silver.

"That sounds great!" said Gold. "A class where I don't have to do anything," he continued, his voice taking on a quality of wonder.

"Yeah, that part sounds okay, but then during tests we never know how to do anything. I mean they can't make us repeat a year or anything, since the levels are age based, but we always get the lowest ranks, it's kind of embarrassing."

"I don't want to be at the bottom, argh stupid kid, why does he keep picking fights with the professor anyway?" I complained.

"It's not really Silver's fault," explained Lyra. "On the first day of class in Level 1, Clair wanted to earn our respect, so she picked a random student to have a duel with. She picked Silver, and well…he won. Clair challenged him every day after that and she never won. When we got to Level 2 she stopped attacking him, but they would still argue everyday and eventually Silver began to start fights with her. Still, Clair shouldn't give in so easily…" Silver and Clair were still fighting and had knocked over several of the desks. It was lucky that most of the students had already left, or someone would have been injured by now. I sighed, sat down in one of the newly vacated seats, pulled out a book and tried to learn whatever it was we were supposed to be learning.

Gold leaned back in his seat and grinned, "I already love this class," he said.

"Shut up Gold."


First Class Take 4:

Ruby POV

We had been sitting in the classroom for a while and the teacher still hadn't shown up. I was trying to design clothes to pass the time, but the barbarian girl kept interrupting me, "what are ya doin' sissy boy?" she asked.

Ugh, so unfeminine. "I'm designing clothes," I replied.

"Why? We have to wear a uniform."

"Not on weekends."

Sapphire leaned over in her chair to look at my drawing, "It looks like a dress. You don't wear dresses do you?"

"Of course not, it's not for me."

"Then who is it for?"

"You."

"What? Why?"

"I'm making it so that you can stop wearing the barbaric clothes you normally wear."

"Well, I don't like you're hat! Take it off."

"No! I'm not taking my hat off."

"Why-"

"Would you two stop flirting!"

Sapphire and I both turned to the voice and yelled, "We were not flirting!" The offending party had ridiculously tall blonde hair, but he himself was really short. Are we seriously the same age?

"Whatever, you're annoying me," he said.

Sapphire stood up and started readying her fists. "You have a problem with me kid?" she growled at him. At this point the teacher finally arrived.

"New girl, please don't kill Emerald," he said. "If you do I'll have to fill out a lot of paperwork." Something is off about this teacher. He had spiky blonde hair and looked excruciatingly bored. After Sapphire sat back down he said, "I'm Volkner." And that was all he said for about five minutes. Everyone stared at him expectantly, but he just stared mutely back at us. Finally he said, "Well, I showed up, that's good enough." Then he walked back out the door.

"Wh-what?" I spluttered. We all sat here waiting for almost half an hour, and when he finally gets here, he just leaves?

"I heard about him from students who had him last year. Apparently he does this a lot," said Emerald. "He's extremely unmotivated."

"This place sucks!" yelled Sapphire shaking her fists angrily.

"You're such a barbarian," I said.

She glared at me, "Well you're a sissy."

"You're too manly."

"You're pathetic."

"You'r-"

"Stop flirting."

"WE'RE NOT FLIRITNG!"


First Class Take 5:

Black's POV

Last night I read most of the books the school had given us in preparation for classes, so I knew a lot about magic already. I read about the mechanics of Manipulation (the class I was sitting in right now) and I had learned the basics of the other disciplines as well. Of course I couldn't actually put any of this into practice since I was a knowledge mage. I had always known more than anyone else in my year, but It wasn't until I began to understand things better than my teachers did that I realized I was a knowledge mage. I stopped that train of thought and looked at White instead.

White was sitting next to me with one of the information books. "What are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm looking to see if I can start a talent agency," she said while studying the book carefully.

I remembered reading something about that. "You can start any kind of business as long as you don't have to go outside of the school," I told her.

"Really? My dream will still come true then," she said, her eyes becoming glittery and her expression full of hope. "The BW Agency will still be formed!"

"You two are new right?" said a person sitting in front of us and next to a blue-haired girl. He had blond hair and was wearing a green scarf.

"You're scarf really clashes with the uniform," White said in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Don't insult the way I dress!" he yelled.

"Calm down Pearl," said a black-haired boy sitting on the other side of the blue-haired girl. "They're new, don't attack them."

Pearl didn't seem appeased but he introduced himself, "I'm Pearl."

"I'm Diamond, but call me Dia," said the black-haired boy, who was eating a sandwich. "And this is Missy," he continued pointing at the girl sitting between him and Pearl.

She turned to us, "It is very nice to meet you," she said politely. Her name is…Missy?

"It's nice to meet all of you, I'm White, and this is Black. But, I thought all the new students were on the bus yesterday, but I thought everyone in Level 1 was new too."

"No, we've been here for half a year already. The most common age for a mage's power to unlock is when they're fourteen, so they send a bus especially for fourteen-year-olds half way through the year. This is the only section of level one classes though," Pearl replied.

"But we're in Section B."

"Yes, but that's the only section for Level 1 classes."

"That makes no sense," said White angrily.

White and Pearl's argument was stopped by the sound of our teacher opening the door. She had dark blue hair and was holding a stack of books about archeology, which she put on the desk in front of her. "Welcome class, I'm Professor Lenora. Today I will tell you about the basics of manipulation." I pulled out a notebook and a pen so that I could write notes. Not that I needed them, I would always remember everything I had ever heard, saw or experienced, but I had written so many notes in school outside MAGE to try to pretend to be normal that now it felt weird not to take notes.

"There are four different ways of manipulating an element: Draining, Transforming, Bending, and Empower. Draining is where you draw power from your element. You can then release this energy in a number of ways, the most common of which is direct release. That is where you release the surge of energy all at once in a particular direction. Transformation is where you change the state or structure of the element sample you start with. An example of this is if a water mage were to freeze a sample of liquid water, it would be a Transformation. Bending is where you alter the shape of the element. Transformation and Bending are often used in tandem. The last method of Manipulation is Empower. This is where you donate some of your energy to a being or object of your elemental type. Well, that's enough for today. Bye!" Lenora suddenly grabbed her books and left.

"…That was weird…Right?" asked White.

"Actually, most of the classes end up like that, especially Level one classes," corrected Missy. "Since a student can enter the school at Level one, two, three or four, they have to re-teach everything each year, so they don't bother teaching much at the lower levels."

"Yeah, the only reason Lenora even bothers is because she likes teaching," added Pearl.

"Most the other classes are just people yelling at each other," commented Dia.

"Then why do people go?" I wondered aloud.

"If you don't go to class they don't let you use any of the other MAGE facilities," Dia answered.

"What other facilities?" asked White.

"I read about those in the Handbook," I said. "We're in the Academic section of MAGE; there is also a social section. It's all run by mages that graduated from here. They have cafés, restaurants, stores, and there are businesses as well – that's where you'd be able to set up your talent agency."

"Talent agency?" asked Missy.

"Yes, my dream is to create a first rate talent agency," White replied.

"Oh! We have to get to specialized classes now. Winona will get really mad if I'm late!" exclaimed Pearl as he ran out the door. Missy and Dia followed after saying goodbye to us.

"Well I guess we should get going too," I said to White. She nodded and we both went to our respective classes.


Start of Second Class

Sapphire POV

I hate him. I really, seriously hate that guy. He was designing clothes during class, what kind of guy designs clothes? And he sews too. I bet Yellow, Blue, White and Crystal don't sew. "Hey Yellow, do you sew?" I asked Yellow, who was sitting next to me.

"Huh? Uh no, no I don't," she responded. Ha! See, Yellow doesn't sew.

"What about Blue, does she sew?"

"Uh, I don't know. If you need someone to sew something for you I think Ruby sews," she offered.

"I KNOW!" Yellow shrunk back into her seat a little. "I'm trying to find out if the girliest person in our dorm is Ruby. All he does is design clothes and talk about how unfeminine I am all day. Just thinking about him makes me so angry!" I yelled jumping up in anger.

Of course this was the point where the teacher walked in. "Please assume your seat," she said. She was wearing a kimono and had short black hair. "I'm Professor Erika and I'm the Nature magic specialist at MAGE. Yellow, Sapphire, since you two are new you will be going outside to find your familiars. Once you have found them you are done for the day, no need to come back here."

"Familiars?" Yellow asked

"Yes, your familiar is the main way that you will cast magic. Your familiar will be either a plant or an animal. Once your familiar has bonded with you, you will use most normal magic, such as manipulation magic, on or through your familiar. Now go outside and search for your familiar."

"Come on blondie!" I said as I grabbed Yellow's arm and left the room. Yellow's so tiny, I still can't believe she's older than me. We left the building and walked out into the center of the courtyard. "Where to now Yellow?" I asked her.

"Ah, I feel like I should go left," said Yellow pointing down a pathway that led to a small wooded area.

As I stood there I felt something pulling at my mind. The sensation was coming from the right. "I think I'm going right," I told Yellow.

"See you back at the dorm," said Yellow as she turned and walked down the left path.

I felt myself being pulled towards one of the exotic gardens on campus. Once I arrived at the garden, one particular plant drew my attention. It appeared to be a Venus Fly Trap, but its roots weren't in the ground, instead they were above the ground grouped into two leg-like formations. It leaned towards me when I approached. "Your, my familiar?" I asked it confused.

"That's me!" it said in a whispery low voice. I looked at it shocked.

"You can talk."

"Of course I can! All plants can talk, it's just a matter of whether your dull human ears can hear us or not. And yes, I'm your familiar. Please call me Toro." The mouth part of Toro seemed to be her head and it moved when she talked. Toro used two extra long leaves as arms and was making exaggerated gestures at she talked.

"Toro."

"Yes," she said. Then she walked over to me and used her leaves and roots to climb up until she got to my waist. Once there she wrapped her roots around me and her head looked up at me (I'm not sure how she could see though, she didn't have any eyes). "So where do we live?"

"Uh, over there," I said gesturing in the direction of the dorm.

"Well what are you waiting for? Let's go!" the pla- I mean Toro said excitedly.

"Alright, let's go." First I'm swept off to a mage school and now I'm taking orders from plants, what next?


Yellow POV

I felt a warm feeling in my soul pulling urging me to go to the left, so that's where I went. The feeling was leading me towards a small wooded area. I walked until I heard a high, squeaky voice say "Hey Yellow! I'm your familiar!" I looked down at the owner of the voice. It was a squirrel. Her big bushy tail twitched erratically and she looked at me with large round eyes. "I'm ChuChu," she said.

"Nice to meet you, but uh, how did you know my name?" I asked confused.

"We've met before; I used to live in Viridian Forest." The name of the forest I used to live by – the one they chopped down – was called Viridian Forest.

"Really?" I asked excitedly. "Are all the other animals from there around here too?"

"I don't think so. We all got split up, I saw you getting on the bus, so I jumped on top to stay with you." ChuChu climbed up my leg and took up a position on my shoulder.

"That's too bad, I would have liked to see them again," I said wistfully. "It's great that you're here though!" I felt an instant camaraderie with ChuChu. I don't know if it's because she's my familiar or if it's because she's from Viridian Forest, but I knew that we were going to be best friends. "Come on ChuChu, let's go home."


Back at the Dorm

Crystal POV

The teacher for my Specilization Class didn't even show up. He left a note that said

'Sorry kids, the waves are rockin' today at Dewford City, so I just had to surf. I'll see you guys tomorrow!'

-Prof Brawly

Both of my teachers are completely unreliable. "Hey Crystal!" yelled Sapphire. "You're back already? I thought I finished early."

"My teacher didn't show up," I said. Then I looked at her. "What's that clinging to you?"

Sapphire had started telling me about her familiar as Yellow came in. There was a squirrel clinging to her shoulder and Blue came in shortly after.

"Welcome back you two, how were your classes?" I asked.

"My teacher kept talking about the beauty of water," said Blue.

"Our main teacher yelled at us a lot," said Yellow.

"Well, apparently my main teacher gets into fights with a kid named Silver every day," I responded.

"Wait, did you say Silver?" asked Blue. "Is he a bit taller than me with bright red hair?"

"Yeah, do you know him?"

Blue laughed half-heartedly, "Yeah, you could say that. He's my brother."


End Author Note:

No, Silver isn't Blue's biological brother, but right now that's what everyone else thinks. Sorry there were a lot of classes in this one…there won't be as much in the next one. And for those of you who watch Avatar: The Last Airbender, yes, I took the bending part of manipulation from them.