"Greetings, everyone!" Layton only raised his voice slightly, yet everyone immediately fell silent, as if a monarch had entered the room.
"Thank you all for your continued dedication to our cause, which has now influenced two young students to awaken and join us!" It seemed rousing. Too rousing to not be suspicious, Clive thought. He couldn't help but be worried about what he and Dan had actually signed up for. Dan could only think about one thing: what was the second professors name again? S..S...Stickyfloor? Sick-no-more? Stare-at-door? He couldn't remember, so he decided to just stick with Professor S, as Professor S turned to them and said,
"Why don't you two young fellows introduce yourselves, and take a seat?" The latter of the two seemed more ideal for both, however in order to accomplish that, they needed to complete the former task. Dan cleared his throat and went first.
"Hi, so..my name is Dan. Daniel Hadford, if you want to address me formally." He turned to his partner, as Clive felt all eyes engrave little holes all over his body.
"Clive...C-Clive Létissier." He managed to awkwardly croak out. He could hear people muttering and murmuring expectantly, and wondered why they reacted that way to him and not with Dan. Had he done something? Did he not come off quite as confidently as Dan? He was fine in front of small groups of people, but addressing gargantuan classes of university students was something he had yet to grasp.
"A warm welcome to you both." Layton said warmly, smiling calmly at them both.
Sycamore hissed politely and kindly enough "You can sit down now." They then chose to sit next to the girl with the yellow cardi (or rather, the one that fell over). On the desk in front of her, was a lemon yellow ring binder with the name 'Marina Navarro' inked neatly in the top right corner of it. There was another name written underneath it, but this one was rubbed out, and Clive could only make out the first few letters on it. E...tav. Was all that could be salvaged of it. Strange, he thought, but he was drawn away from the binder by a sudden remark he heard someone say.
"Down with the NUKE! Free our Folley!" Folly? That means...crazy. Were the people here insane? 'Our Folley'-maybe that's referring to that voice you always hear inside your head that comes into play when standing on a cliff, telling you to jump off like demon perched on your shoulder, whispering into your ear, Clive thought. The words 'L'appel du vide', French for 'the call of the void', came to mind.
"A very good note to start on, thank you." Professor Layton started, being careful to keep the heckler anonymous, as he was not one to name and shame. He continued,
"It is coming up on the tenth anniversary of the Red night, when our force lost hundreds of our members nationwide, 10 of such victims were from this district."
The Red night? Was that what they had labelled this massacre? And why was this happening the same time as Clive's parents had supposedly died? Maybe.. they were linked. Both Clive and Dan were intrigued by this new information, and sat forward rapturously.
"These ten shall not remain nameless,"the aforementioned professor stated, walking towards the blackboard at the front of the class. He began to write out several names on the board.
Jaqueline Hyde
Dan snorted, seeing that this Jackie's parents saw the opportunity and took it.
Delwyn Ap Aneurin
Clive wasn't even going to try to pronounce that name, partially as he doesn't know how, but mainly out of respect for the victim.
Lewis King
Dan could've sworn he'd seen that name before, but he wasn't sure where.
David King
That must've been his brother, Dan thought, as he could not come up with any other solution except the two being strangers with the same surname, and even that was unlikely.
Eleri Hanna
She was Clive's neighbour at the time, and several years older than him. Her parents were never about, so she was constantly home alone. An image of her appeared in Clive's mind, one of her in her bedroom, sticking up a poster of a woman with bright red hair and pale skin standing confidently, with a name underneath. But whatever the name on the poster was, he had forgotten.
Eleanor Darlington-Powell
Neither two knew who this was, however the girl next to them, who they assumed to be Marina, twitched. A movement the two picked up on, but did not dwell on.
Marcel Williams
Now it was the Professor's turn to hesitate, adjusting his in-no-need-of-adjusting hat, as he wrote out the next name.
Claire Folley
Something clicked in Clive's mind. When the meeting first started, someone had mentioned a 'Folley', however he had mistaken it for being a hidden message, not an actual person. And the poster Eleri had: could she have been the person on it? Why did the Professor hesitate before writing her name? But these questions quickly disappeared from Clive's mind as he saw two more names written on the board, ones he never expected to see.
Marianne Létissier
Arthur Létissier
Both professors looked up at Clive, as did the future-doppelgänger boy and the shy young girl, both the latter twos' beady young eyes staring him down. Even Dan had taken to turning and looking at him expectantly, yet with a slightly warmer feel in his eyes. The room fell silent.
No, Clive thought, they can't be my...No, no, this is all a dream, and I'm going to wake up in my bed any second, I can feel it. In fact, just to prove it, I'll pinch myself! And pinch himself he did.
Ouch.
A sudden anger sparked inside of him, which only grew as the Professor continued speaking.
"Inspiring individuals snuffed out by the government that was meant to vouch for them. And these are only a handful from our area. As mentioned before, hundreds of lives were lost that night, all in the name of 'peace'. The same 'peace' that involves harming innocent civilians who had done nothing to deserve whatever punishment they were in for, that advocates for bombing other civilians abroad, and that traps the entirety of Britain under their thumbs."
Suddenly, the other professor, (dubbed Professor S by Dan), scuttled over to Layton and whispered something in his ear.
"It appears we've almost run out of time, I'm afraid. Sincerest apologies, but thank you to everyone for attending, don't forget about September 14th, and I hope you attend tomorrow as well. Thank you all." Immediate chatter filled the room. Dan turned to Clive, as if to say something, but was cut short by another voice.
"So, following in your parents' footsteps, eh?" The yellow-cardigan girl next to them said.
"How did you know they were my parents?" Clive inquired.
"I put two and two together, mate. In case you didn't know, not many people around here are called 'Létissier'. It's quite unusual, like mine: Marina Navarro." Her introduction seemed rehearsed, or so they both thought.
"O...K.. Then, Marina." Clive said slowly. Dan, being his usual diplomatic-as-a-tank self, asked Marina,
"What's with the rubbed-out part on your folder?" Making the girl look at him amicably, but with an almost undetectable note of surprise. She opened her mouth to say something, possibly an explanation as to why, however just as she did-
The bell rang.