Chapter 7
(Lorelei's PoV)
They all just stared at us in shock, completely frozen in place. I tried to contain myself, but I failed.
"Haahahahaha! You guys look so hilarious! You should see your faces!" I squealed, clutching my stomach in laughter. The guild members started to unfreeze, relaxing their posture, turning away from the battle that was about to happen.
"Hey Lorelei, may I say you look absolutely perfect today!" Sebastian flirted shamelessly in his smooth voice. I dead panned at him and cocked an eyebrow.
"You need to work on your pick up lines. You're getting rusty." My eyes flew to the hooded man in the center of the room. My eyes widened very slightly as I realised who it was. This man was undisputedly the most powerful mage in Avalanche. He could take on the twins, and probably even beat Reina. I had never fought him. I told myself it was because I never got around to it. But the longer I knew him, there more I began to see that I was just scared.
I was scared to fight Curios, the most powerful mage of Avalanche.
Under the shadow of his hood, I saw his lips curl into a smile. I had never fully seen Curios without his hood. To me it was a part of him. Like a limb.
"Hello Lorelei. Oh my, it's been too long. When last we met, you were the size of Hashi." He gestured towards the ash haired girl, who turned red at the attention from the mysterious mage. I jerked my head up and down, hoping it would pass for a nod. Then I turned to Sting and Rogue.
"Everybody, these are two mages from the Sabertooth guild who wanted to meet you all. This is Rogue Cheney and Sting Eucliffe." As I waved in the direction of the two dragon slayers, Hashi let out an earsplitting Squeal of excitement.
"Oh my god! The Sting and Rogue of Sabertooth? The Twin Dragon Slayers?" Hashi beamed. Suddenly, she appeared right in front of them to begin forcefully shaking their hands in greeting. Sting and Rogue looked stunned at the energy of the fifteen year old this late at night. They could do nothing but nod and smile exhaustedly as she dutifully fangirled to them at the speed of light. Shiro appeared next to her and began to try and gently tug her away from the two boys. He could not get her away from them until Shiro began to forcefully tear her away from them until she was a far enough distance away, now tearfully clawing at the air in the direction of her idols. I frowned.
"Hashi, Alastair and I are dragon slayers. Why don't you greet us like that?" She didn't reply to my question. Just pouted and turned around to face Shiro. Minnie strode towards the pair. When she was in front of them, she gave a deep bow.
"My apologies for the scare yesterday. I had no idea you two were friends of Lorelei's." They smiled nervously and sweat dropped at her courteous behavior.
"It's okay. We weren't." Sting whispered nervously. What was up with them? -And how on earth could little Minnie Herbert give Sting and Rogue a 'scare'? It didn't matter. First I had to properly introduce everybody.
Quickly, I squeezed myself in between the two Sabertooth mages and linked my arms in theirs. I bounded towards the center of the room and sat down, one boy on each side of me. Without missing a beat, the rest of Avalanche followed my lead until we all formed a circle, Reina and Curios trailing. They probably hadn't done this too many times either. When we were all seated, I cleared my throat.
"Hey guys-again- ok, I think we need to properly introduce ourselves to my good friends Sting and Rogue here. So, we'll start with Minnie!" She stood up and bowed again before speaking. Sting and Rogue looked puzzled, but they said nothing.
"Hello. My name is Minnie Herbert. I'm twenty one years old. I use a little bit of copy-magic and I also possess the ability of Clairvoyance. That is all." And with that, she sat quickly back down, looking expectantly at Sebastian besides her. When he caught her eye his throat made a surprised choking sound and he abruptly stood.
"Sorry, hehe. The name's Sebastian Richards. You should remember it 'cause soon, everyone'll know it. Especially the ladies." He wiggled his eyebrows as he said this but Sting and Rogue were not amused. They both had tick marks on their foreheads and their eyes narrowed annoyedly. I coughed at Sebastian.
"Uh, hey there tiger. You gonna finish your intro?" I could tell by his expression that he had forgotten.
"Oh yeah! Anything for you m'lady. So yeah, I'm nineteen and I use sound magic. I'm nearly unparalleled in combative skills so you might wanna stay on my good side. -Bleagh!" Suddenly the air was knocked out of him with with a cloth-wrapped fist, sending him falling to land on his butt with a dull thud. He gave a sheepish laugh and tried to stand, but Reina pushed him back down, this time taking the spotlight.
"I've heard of the two of you before. You are the two third generation dragon slayers that took the world by storm a couple of years ago. It's a pleasure to finally meet you. My name is Reina Escott, and I use dragon-soul takeover magic." I saw Rogue and Sting's eyes dart unsurely towards Minnie, and back at the dragoness. She had held the same robotic expression and stern voice throughout her entire speech, giving her a terrifying aura. She sat down and waited for the twins to stand up. Shiro and Hashi stood up together but Al, with an increasingly large tick mark on his forehead, told them quickly that only one of them may stand at a time. Reluctantly, Hashi sat down to wait for Shiro to get his turn over with. The boy stood, hands shoved into his pockets with an uncaring expression.
"Hey, I'm Shiro Horigome. I use -" He cut off, softly mumbling something we could not understand. Hashi smiled devilishly and smacked her twin in the back.
"Come on now Shiro! They're not gonna think you're uncool just 'cause of the magic you use." She smiled confidently but he just scoffed.
"That's easy for you to say. Yours is way cooler!"
"Is not!"
"Is too!"
"Is not!
"THIS IS RIDICULOUS WHY AM I EVEN HAVING THIS CONVERSATION ARGH!?" Shiro stopped to catch his breath. This seemed to calm him down a bit. Regaining his composure, he boredly turned to look at Sting and Rogue, who both looked more than a little confused. "Sorry, I use Angel's Hunter magic… And I'm fifteen years old.." He turned away to sit next to his sister before another word was spoken. She however, shot up out of her seat the minute Shiro finished his brief speech. Her face was flushed with excitement as she gushed at the twin dragon slayers.
"I'm Hashi Horigome! It's so very nice to meet you both! I've been your biggest fan since you joined Sabertooth six years ago! I was nine… I'm fifteen years old now! Please like me..." She moaned the last sentence so that not even the two Sabertooth mages could hear. The rest of Avalanche was watching with a mixture of interest, and astonishment. Hashi never threw herself beneath others. And she certainly was never this polite to them. Shiro didn't seem too surprised but I figured it was because he already knew about her infatuation with Sting and Rogue. He was dead panning at the hearts in her eyes and he nudged her in the side of the leg.
"Ok, yeah they get it Hashi. So tell them about your magic now." She looked down at her brother, realizing that she forgot an important part of her introduction. Her eyes widened.
"Oh! Yeah, sorry! Ok, so I use Devil's Hunter magic!" She smiled happily at the curious interest in the twin dragon's eyes as they carefully took in the hunter twins. She looked to see who was next in line to give their introduction and visibly paled, trying to keep her smile looking natural. She sat down quickly as a cloaked figure stood instead. With this action, the room fell absolutely silent. I saw him smirking beneath his cloak at our anticipating silence. Then he spoke.
"I am called Curios. I use a magic that I, myself created. I like to call it Total Nerve Control." Shiro and Hashi shuddered as if trying to forget something that happened in the past. He moved to sit down but Sting put up a hand.
"Wait! What is Total Nerve Control? What does that mean?" I was startled that he would ask anything else of the stony wizard. For everybody else, it seemed we were content with the twenty words he spoke. That was bizarrely more than usual. But to our relief, Curios did not seem mad at the intrusion. He simply cocked an eyebrow beneath his hood as a smirk slid onto his lips.
"You want a demonstration?" Sting set his jaw and nodded. I suddenly realised that my mouth was open, and swiftly closed it. Curios rolled his shoulders and cracked his knuckles, each one giving off a loud individual pop. Then he relaxed his figure and stared at Sting squarely in the face. We all sat there, anticipating what might happen. Sting reached up to his hair, and scratched behind his right ear. Hashi tensed as she watched. She and Shiro had fought Curios once but that was two years ago. They had never told anyone of what happened. We knew he beat them but we had no clues as to how he did it. Sting reached down to his left foot and started roughly itching the pads beneath his toes. He reached his other hand to his back, where he tried and scratch at something that he could not reach. His eyes darted up to Curios, suspicious and confused.
"Is this you?" Curios gave no sign of comprehension. Sting abruptly stopped itching himself but instead started to sweat, his face turning red. "I feel so hot all the sudden!" Curios simply looked on at his prey with an almost uninterested expression.
"I have one final trick for my demonstration tonight." His face and stance never changed as Sting began to scream, quickly turning pale. I could see the pain in his eyes. I'll admit, I was a little scared. But my friend was getting hurt right in front of me! I stood up and faced Curios.
"Stop!" I tried to use the most commanding voice I could muster while facing the most powerful mage in Avalanche. A man who could probably leave me in a smoking pile of Lorelei if he so cared to. He seemed surprised at my sudden outburst but not in a negative way. In fact, he seemed to realize that what he was doing was getting a little out of hand. Sting relaxed, sighing. He was not screaming anymore. Curios took an almost startled step back and eyed Sting.
"I'm sorry." He muttered, sitting down and pulling his hood to further cover his face. Rogue was clutching onto Frosche in alarm. Alastair had been staring, wide-eyed, unable to do something about this breach of peace. The rest of the guild looked both shocked, and uncertain, as if they were expecting the Twin Dragons to go into full battle mode or something. Finally, the stillness of the room was broken when Alastair stood up.
"I'm Alastair Eaves. I'm nineteen and I use water dragon slaying magic." He sat back down and nodded for me to continue. Still in shock at what took place less than a minute ago, I shakily stood up. I didn't have time to think of a joke, so I just smiled sheepishly at Sting and Rogue.
"Hi, my name is Lorelei Rosenberg. I am seventeen years old, and I am the Ice Dragon Slayer!" I giggled and sat back down again, waiting for Alastair to give the guildmaster's speech. He cleared his throat and stood up once more, ready to give Sting and Rogue a welcome.
"Good evening everybody. Today we gather together in celebration of our new friends, Sting Eucliffe and Rogue Cheney of Sabertooth. We will treat all members of Sabertooth with the respect we show to our true friends, for today Sabertooth is our friend. Now onto something very important that I have not yet informed you of. Today, Avalanche became an official legal guild.-" He paused as cheering broke out among the other guild members, and waited for them to quiet down enough for him to continue. When they were through, he cleared his throat once more and continued his speech. "And it has been made official that we are competing in the grand magic games!" More cheering burst out but Al held out a hand for silence and the room complied. "The grand magic games are in ten weeks, so I want you all to begin your training regimes in the morning. This should prepare you all for the Grand Magic Games. I will be stopping by to check on all of you every once in awhile to see how your training is coming, so that when it's time for the grand magic games, I will have picked out a proper team to compete with. Now, you all should have a tough ten weeks ahead of you. You should all get some rest. It's already late enough as it is. Meet me back at the guildhall a week before the grand magic games. And farewell to our guests." He waved to the dragon slayers and their exceeds and then swept out of the room without another word. Slowly, members of the guildhall filed out until it was just the Sabertooths and I. We stood, staring awkwardly at each other.
"Thanks for coming over. I know it must be weird having to hang around a guild as awesome as ours." I grinned. Rogue just rolled his eyes but his smile gave away the fact that he wasn't annoyed with me. Sting laughed.
"If you think this is awesome, wait until you meet Sabertooth."
"Sorry tiger, you're just gonna have to be patient until the games. I gotta train. Speaking of, I'm beat. I'm going to bed. See you guys later!" And with that, I too left the guild hall.
A/N:
Omygoshomygoshomygoshomygoshomygoshomygosh YOU GUYS! YOU REVIEWED! I'M SO HAPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
I can't believe it. You guys are such wonderful people! So now I want to take a moment to shout out t those beautiful beautiful people who commented on my story. Soooooooo thank you to:
QuestionablyCapableGhoul
xXDemonsForestXx
and MageOfSabertooth
Thank you to you guys so much for the wonderful things and to all of my other readers who I love too. This means so much to me.
So, what do you guys think? Did you like this chapter? Was it less than what you were expecting? I definitely feel like I have a lot to work on.
Anyway, lease let me know. Keep reading. More updates are on the way.
Yours truly,
Roonil
