"First things first." Professor Singbell said, she held out her wand and a small red bubble appeared at its tip. "This is how you will be tested. You are going to hold out your wand in front of you just like I am, then, when this is spell comes at you, how your wand reacts will reveal your class. This spell, the Revelis Bubble Charm has been specially designed for this purpose and had been 100% accurate." The bubble floated away and floated back to the tip of the Professor wand.
"For the Asur, the wand will react by increasing the size of the Revelis Bubble Charm. The Lotus wand will react by creating copies of the Revelis Bubble Charm. The Elden Crest will respond by reflecting the spell back at me. Shall we begin? When I call your name, please step onto the platform, submit your wand for inspection, and then we will perform the test." David suddenly hated having a last name starting with 'C'. "Abbott, Alex?" A brown haired girl stepped onto the platform and handed the Professor her wand. She flicked it, sending out red sparks before returning it to its owner.
"Ready?" Professor Singbell asked. The bubble floated toward Alex Abbott slower than David would have thought. Nervous, Alex Abbott poked the bubble, which instantly split into three multicolored bubbles.
"Lotus!" Professor Singbell yelled. Applause filled the circle, but not from the students awaiting to be tested, but from the entire school, which had gathered, unnoticed, to watch.
"You may join your fellow Lotus now." Professor Singbell told Alex Abbott. "Your class mentor will explain everything once the sorting is over. Alex Abbott left the stage and ascended the stairs to an accepting crowd. Professor Singbell looked at her clipboard and called out another name, "Patty Anderson!", who became another Lotus. Then Robert Brown (Asur), Marcus Bruce (Lotus), Alisha Cash became the first Elden Crest, followed by Nicole Cooper, who joined Lotus to the great joy of Alex Abbott. Finally, Professor Singbell looked up and called, "Crowley, David." David's legs were jelly and his heart refused to calm down. Evangeline gave his hand a soft squeeze as he stood up. He tried to give her a confident smile, but he was sure it came out as a nervous twitch.
"Go David GO!" Vlad yelled, from his seat.
"Yeah!" Snow agreed, followed by a "Do it, Crowley!" from Yuri. David stretched to crack his back and descended the few levels until he could hop up onto the stage. Why did he have to have stage fright, David wondered with a sigh. He drew his wand and handed it to Professor Singbell. Her eyes widened as soon as she saw the wand. As far as he had seen, David's wand was the only one with any non-wood color, let alone etchings.
"Very interesting wand, Mr. Crowley." Professor Singbell remarked. She flicked it, and instead of sparks, a large purple fireball shot out and set fire to Professor Clemens robes, who stood at the top of the hill. He exclaimed and cursed loudly as he stamped it out. "Very interesting indeed." she said again. As soon as the Professor returned his wand, he felt a feeling of elation flow into his hand from the wand. A small blue arch of static electricity temporarily connected his hand and the wand.
"Ready, Mr. Crowley?" Professor Singbell asked. Professor Clemens had come down from the hill and now was standing ringside to observe. The bubble floated from her wand just as it had the few times before. David stood with his wand out in front of him and noticed something odd when the bubble seemed to get sucked onto the tip of his wand as if by a powerful magnet. Professor Singbell let out a tiny noise of amazement. Nothing happened. David felt the bottom of his stomach fall out and stood there, staring at the bubble, willing for something to happen.
"What is it doing?" Professor Clemens asked.
"I think...that it is having trouble deciding." she replied. David felt something inside of him, a feeling that was trying to help him decide on which class he like, but David did not really care, which made the spell try even harder. As it probed his feelings, it touched something and it was consumed like paper in a fire. The feeling of intense pressure returned, greater than it ever had before. It surged through every vein, searching frantically for a way to escape. It was like a monster had been released inside him, and was threatening to tear him apart in order to escape. David willed it into the wand, which took considerably more effort than normal, and released it into the bubble.
David realized his mistake an instant later, when the bubble burst into green flames. Green flames that had David's flesh cry out in agony from the heat covered the entire bubble, which then slowly began to swell.
"Well, Mr. Crowley, it looks like you will be an amazingly powerful Asur-" Professor Singbell's words were cut off when the bubble multiplied, not once or twice, but continuously. It seemed like there was a new bubble every few seconds, each growing and wreathed in green flames. The sensation inside David continued to grow and flow out into the wand, and he was having an incredibly hard time holding it back. Instinctively, David redirected his wand up into the sky and willed with all his might that the spell release. A loud explosion went off feet from David's wand and hundreds of green pillars of fire tore through the sky. The shockwave was powerful enough to drive everyone standing backwards and crack the stone beneath David's feet. People were screaming in terror and getting to their feet.
"Calm down! Calm Down!" Professor Singbell cried. "Nothing to be scared of!" She turned her attention back to David, laying flat on his back.
"Are you okay, Mr. Crowley?" She asked, leaning over him.
"Yes ma'am. I apologize." David replied.
"Based on your answer, Crowley, I know exactly which class to put you in." Professor Clemens replied. Professor Singbell nodded and then exclaimed, "Elden Crest!" Professor Clemens helped David to his feet and patted him on the shoulder.
"It is one of the rules." Professor Clemens explained to him.
"Anyone who shows characteristics of all three classes they are to be placed in Elden Crest for training, and be allowed to read any learning material of other classes." Professor Singbell confirmed. "Last time this happened was 20 years ago with Assistant Headmaster Merlin, when he was placed. We're expecting great things from you, Mr. Crowley." David could not help but think that he had heard those words before. He looked at his wand, and felt that their expectations of him were based off of the unusual powers of his wand. David was unaware of the cheering as he ascended the steps to join his fellow Elden Crest. He did notice, however, that each wore green cloths somewhere. One wore the cloth as a bandana, another had it tied around his right bicep. They each wore it somewhere as to identify themselves among the other students. It was not long, however, before he was pulled back into the tides of his thoughts and forgot about them completely. He watched absently as Vlad was placed in the Lotus and disappeared into a sea of blue flags. David searched for him before Evangeline caught his attention with a happy wave as she was placed in the Asur class, with Yuri a few moments later.
"Alright students. Your mentors will meet with you and explain things to you before dinner. I look forward to a good year." Professor Singbell called out when the sorting had finished.
"Glad that is over." Snow sighed, catching David's attention with a pat on the shoulder.
"Snow? You're a Elden Crest too?" David asked, happy to know someone in his class.
"Yeah, weren't you watching?" Snow asked, but sighed when he saw the sheepish smile on David's face and said something in Japanese. "Ah man, you are unbelievable." Alisha Cash and a few other Elden Crest first years were standing nearby and looking at two people who approached them.
"First Rule: Do not call yourselves Elden Crest. We are Knights, and don't you forget it. Only the Professor's call us by that nonsense." The speaker was a girl with bright green eyes and flaming red hair, which matched her splash of freckles. Her smile showed perfectly white and straight teeth, which made her all black outfit stand out in contrast, which looked to be all band memorabilia. Just behind her was a man who shared the same features in man form, and his outfit looked like he just walked out from a fashion magazine. On his head he wore a straight black fedora that covered his head, his long red hair pulled back into a loose ponytail.
"Me name's Geof." The boy introduced himself shaking David's hand. "Me git sister name's Shyla. We're t' be your mentors today." Shyla threw him a foul look before shaking their hands as well.
"Geoffrey here is my twin brother. You'll have to excuse his lack of manners as he is a stupid git." She continued, throwing him a sneer and getting a few nervous first years to laugh in the process.
"Piss off." Geof remarked.
"You are Knights now. Welcome to the Brotherhood, as we call it. See that tower up there?" David shielded his eyes against the sun to look up at the highest tower in the entire castle, to which Shyla was pointing. "That is your dormitory and after dinner we will escort you there, and anywhere you need for the next few days. Any questions so far? Good. Follow me." When she turned, David could not help up notice a silver scabbard at her side, holding a sword that was an exact copy of the one Professor Singbell had used before, except that it was about a foot longer. Shyla walked ahead of them and Geof, who David liked a bit more, began talking to them as a group.
"As a Knight, there are certain rules that yer required to memorize an' uphold. First, piss off me sister." Geof smiled, ducking a glare she threw as they moved through the wild. "The Second Rule is that ya never reveal your lessons to anyone outside our lil' circle o' love. There are three times as many those Lotus fucks and twice as many o' them Asur bastards as us Knights, and the three are constantly playing King o' the Hill for dominance. Third Rule is 'bout responsibility. They're your actions, so don't fuck'em up, right? Fourth Rule isn't fightin' with members o' the other Houses. If ya do, ya risk the entire House coming down on your ass, and we be the ones to bail your scrawny hide outta trouble, hear?"
"You make it sound like a battle." Snow replied.
"Yea. That's exactly what it is. Once a year, we hold a little tourney down in the dungeons, a little one-on-one sparring if you will, to represent our "pride." Meself, I do it for the lassies, going on me third year now. Its a rush. Nothing like it."
"Do people..die?" a raven haired girl asked.
"Nah. But more than a few have tried to, but the others students, we watch out for one another. Just because of a rivalry doesn't mean we go'n off our classmates, you know what I mean? The other rules are just common sense things. Like no stealin', or picking on others, and all that shit. We all be the same and equal. Stuff like that. Twelve in all, only the first one needs any real explanation."
"Does anyone have any prior training of any kind?" Shyla asked from the head of the back. David murmured a feeble no, like the rest of his House, but Snow replied differently.
"Yes." he said. Shyla stopped and looked at them, before focusing more on Snow.
"What kind?" Snow went kind of pink and scratched his head awkwardly.
"My father is kind of like a Nazi sometimes. He forced me to train in martial arts since I was a little kid." he answered.
"What kind?" she repeated patiently.
"Dunno really. I would get a new instructor every year, and every year it was something different. I think one year I learned Muay Thai, then Jujitsu and Karate. One year I learned American Boxing, followed shortly after by Taekwondo. Been like that for nearly 14 years." Shyla walked forward and gentled pressed on Snow's left shoulder, then chest. Snow was about to ask what she was doing when she squatted down and felt his legs. When she stood, she only said one word. "Shirt."
Snow was confused as he pulled his shirt over his head to reveal the most lean and fit body David had every laid eyes on. Several girls in class turned very pink. Every inch of his chest and arms was covered in lean muscle. There were no scars or bumps or anything but pale marble-like skin, rippling muscle, and sinew.
"Looks like your father pounded basic training into you your whole life." She replied, handing him back his shirt before turning to lead the pack again. "Your father changed your instructors before your muscles became too accustomed to that martial art, forcing it to adapt and accelerating your growth. I can see why you became a Knight."
"Enjoy it while you can, boy-o." Geof whispered when she had pulled ahead of them. "She's such a rotten old hag most o' time I'd forgot'n the bitch could still give a compliment. Won't last long though. Don't think she could be pleasant for more than ten seconds now can-nae? OI!" Geof had failed to realize that Shyla had stopped to listen and had walked straight into an open palm, which caught him in the face. He had long enough to utter an extremely foul curse word before Shyla had drawn her wand and uttered, " Petrificus Totalus." Geof's arms and legs snapped together and he went completely rigid, unable to break his fall as he landed flat on his chest against the hillside. Shyla rolled him over and patted his face in mock comfort. David could see that only Geof's eyes could move, and the look he was giving Shyla said far more than his words. She huffed and pointed her wand at his face. "Ocular Bumblus." Geof's eyes instantly went pink and watered as they swelled up so tight he could not see, as if his eyes had been stung by several bees. She then turned and proceeded to walk down the path, leaving her brother alone in his torment. David silently followed, resigning himself to enjoy the countryside. The island was very beautiful. The path descended the side of the mountain, turning into a long flight of steps that were made of stones, which looked to be a natural rock formation, but the perfection of it was impossible by natural standards.
It all brought David a sense of calm as he looked ahead along the path as it entered a wooded area of lush trees that followed the bankside of a clear blue river, which snaked around the hillside before curving towards the distant town. What amazed David the most was the bridge that path used to cross the river. It was made of wood, but not carved or built, but it looks at if the growth had been manipulated into an extremely intricate bridge, with handrails and a full roof that had an extremely elegant look. More amazing still was the fact that the bridge still had many leafy branches growing from it, making it blend in perfectly with its surrounding enviornment.
"So pretty! I bet Elves made that!" another girl, Alisha Cash, said to them all.
"Elves? They exist?" David asked Snow, his mind bringing up images of all the fantasy movies and novels he had seen.
"Well, not anymore. They're supposedly extinct." Shyla replied. "They fled the Old World many centuries ago as mans population grew and their forests dwindled. They fled here, to the New World, but centuries later, humans spread here too." David and Snow shared a look that told them that they were both thinking of the same thing. That bronze plate down in the ruins far below them.
"There hasn't been a reported sighting of an Elf for over one hundred years. The last one to be seen was on this island, right?" Snow wondered.
"That's correct. Good job, Hiruma." she said simply. David felt hollow suddenly, as he looked upon the bridge that was so perfectly in sync with nature. The plate suddenly made more sense to him. The elves fled to their Oasis, and still the humans came. He felt resentment towards his own kind and their stupid actions that sometimes did more harm than good.
"David, may I ask you a question?" Shyla's voice said, even though she did not turn away from the path.
"I guess so." he replied, feeling slightly vulnerable.
"How did you do that at the test?" she wondered.
"Yeah, I was wondering that myself." Snow agreed. David sighed, then began trying to find the words to describe it.
"I didn't." he shrugged. Without saying anything, they continued walking as they awaited him to continued explaining. David had hoped that simple statement would have been enough to bring them away from the subject, but continued a few moments later.
"I no longer believe that the few spells I perform are entirely me." David stated. "The beginning starts with me, its my magic and I am deciding the spell. But once that happens, something takes over. I don't know what words I can use to describe the feeling other than that it feels like I am a cup, and the hot liquid being poured inside me is about to flow over my edges and spill. Its frightening, but at the same time, a sort of...bliss accompanies the power. I have to force it into the wand with my mind. When it reaches my wand, it grows far beyond my reaches. Explodes and multiplies upon itself, again and again and again. And I always have to force it to release, and every time the power of the spell has been...too much."
"I'm not sure I understand." Shyla admitted. David ran his fingers through his hair in aggrivation. He was hoping that words would be enough. He stepped off the steps into the meadow nearby and turned to face Shyla, who had stopped for him.
"Perform a spell. Any spell you want." David urged her. She frowned slightly, before turning slightly away from him, pointed at the sky and yelled, "Ignis Rae!" As before, a line of heat and light split the sky in two, burning its image into his eyes and making him turn away to protect himself.
"That is not fair." Snow cried out. "We don't even know the basics of magic yet, and you go and use an advanced spell like that?"
"He said: Any spell you want." Shyla replied, matter-of-factly. David did not have a problem however. Having seen the spell performed, he had a gut feeling that he knew how it worked, but could not discount the tingling sensation of the wand in his hand. Silently, David turned the same direction Shyla had and pointed his want out. There was not wand movements for this spell. It was all knowledge and application. He briefly heard the words, "Ignis Rae!", escape his lips. As he spoke the words, he imagined the sunlight of the entire line before his wand focusing into a single point of space.
As always, a hot feeling exploded through his core and flooded his entire body with raw power. Somehow, on instinct, David realized that the point that he was focusing on was too close, but did not move to correct it. David briefly noted that events were suddenly out of his control, but something in his mind crushed the thought with a flood of confidence that did not go unnoticed by the logical part of David's mind. The magic was reversed and David began to absorb the power of the spell without even knowing what he was doing. Everything around him seemed to be split into two realms. He was still standing there in the few seconds after he had cast the spell, but everything from then was also going in slow motion in his mind, and his surroundings were hightened. He notcied that everything had a nearly invisible outline of light that sharpened his vision. His skin twinkled like stars for just an instant before his entire body glowed white, both events had not lasted more than an instant before the light looked like white flames.
The magic in his body was somehow, against his knowledge, absorbing the light around him and magnifying it. Everything around him grew darker as the light his body was expelling grew. David knew he was no longer in control of his actions, and began pushing everything out of his body and into the wand. Something inside him was pushing back, wanting to continue increasing the spell, but David mentally shoved it away and released the spell.
A white circle appeared around the tip of his wand, turning clockwise. Then runes appeared around it, runes David had never seen in his life, and they began rotating counter clockwise. Another ring, turning clockwise as well, surrounded the entire spell. Seven large white circles surrounded the spell, but remained stationairy as lines and glyphs, similar to the spell surroundin his wand, filled in the inside of the circle. Five glyphs that David recognized as the magical representation of the five elements appeared along the outside line of the core spell, but moved counter clock-wise at an extremely rapid pace as strange, foreign, and highly ordinate writing, the same writing that was on the bronze plate, encompassed the entire spellwork before turning extremely fast in a clockwise motion. Tiny runes and glyphs filled in all the blank spots, then the entire spell circle turned a deep red. David was vaguely awared that the entire spell was drawn so fast it should have not been visible to the naked eye before the spell activated.
The meadow burst into flame. Trees a few yards away instantly withered from the heat. A concussive blast flew in all directions, throwing Snow and Shyla off their feet completely. The rest of the class was far back enough to escape most of the force and simply fell backwards. A deafening roar like that of a monster filled David's ears before he went deaf and heard nothing but his rapid breathing. David's entire arm shuttered from the force of the spell and from his position, it looked like David had created a giant sun, at least ten times larger than it appeared in the sky. He hated it. He hated his power, and his lack of control and understanding of it. He became aware that he was yelling in rage as the spell tore through the sky, igniting the clouds, making them either burst into flames or be pushed away by the force of the spell across the horizon. Tears of hatred streamed from the outer corners of his eyes as he knew that he would not be able to close off this spell until its power was used up. The grass crumbled to ash, the trees caught on fire, the soil around his feet kicked up and blew as if from a powerful wind. David's hearing returned and the spell shrunk and disappeared, leaving only a big black hole in the sky through which David could see billions of stars. The rip in the sky quickly shrunk and disappeared, leaving only the normal blue sky, and David standing alone in a patch of scorched earth, surrounded by burning trees.
People were running up the path, all teachers and students in their final year. Many of them ran to nearby trees and began putting out the flames with spouts of water from their wands, a few went to check on Snow and Shyla, who were laying on their backs at the edge of the clearing, several yards from the stone path. Only two ran to David, and elderly woman with long white hair as pure as fresh snow and eyes as blue as the sky that David tore. She wore elegant silk robes of emerald and fusha purple, and carried herself with a grace that David thought to be inhuman. Beside her was a man in his early thirties, his blonde hair as long as his height, pulled into a tight braid, which was thrown over both shoulders, like a golden necklace. His eyes were the same bright blue as his companion, but his all black robes looked more suited to activities like marital arts and had sleeves that covered his hands by more than a foot.
"Mr. Crowley, I assume. You had best come with me." The woman said, her voice sounded at least thirty years younger than she appeared. An unusual smell came from her that David could not discribe. David, still stunned from the spell, did not move at first, but a the young man's hand was on his shoulder and in his ear the man said, " I think you should do what Lady Elemanty asks you, Mr. Crowley." David felt his heart fall to his shoes as he followed the Headmaster, Lady Elemanty, towards the castle.