Chapter 10—Intruders

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"Okay, okay. I'm getting up," I told him, sitting up and reaching for my blaster.

I had barely enough time to grab it and load Speedy when Yang growled from the door that someone was picking the lock and was almost in.

"Get over here," I told Yang. I loaded him instead of Speedy, since a Speedstinger would be worse than a Negashade in an enclosed space.

"Luke!" I hissed at Luke's prone form. He didn't wake, but I managed to wake Dune, who was able to wake up Luke.

"What's going on?" he grumbled sleepily.

"Somebody's trying to break in," I told him, silently climbing out of my bed. I tossed him his blaster and he deftly caught it, waking up instantly and loading Dune.

We stood side-by-side, blasters ready to go, while we waited for the door to open, which it did eventually. When it did a Phosphoro was fired into the room, but I countered with Yang and his Shadowblak attack, which got rid of the bright burst of light in time for us to see a few kids walk in, blasters loaded as well. None of them were even remotely familiar.

"What do you want?" I demanded.

"Whoa, there," one of them, a girl that I recognized as the one who tried to get me to ditch my friends, said. "We don't want to hurt anybody."

"Then why are you pointing blasters at us?" Luke asked, still a bit tired.

"Good point," she said with a sneer before the three of them each fired a Rammstone at us.

I loaded Speedy and in less than a second figured out the needed angled so that, when I launched him, he hit the lead Rammstone, bounced off it and knocked out the other two.

"How did you know that would work?" Luke asked me.

"I wasn't sure it would work, but I guessed the angle I would need and fired," I replied, loading Yang when he returned to me.

"What do you want?" Luke repeated.

"To give Shane a message," the girl sneered, nodding in my direction. She then spoke to me directly. "If you want better firepower, be at the back entrance to Enigmo Hall twenty-four hours from now."

"What do you mean by 'better firepower'?" I asked her.

"You'll figure it out if you show up," she replied.

Before I could say anything else one of them fired a Phosphoro again. The bright light almost blinded us, and when we recovered they were gone.

"What are you going to do?" Luke asked me as he returned his blaster to his dresser and climbed back into bed.

"No idea. I'll figure it out in the morning," I replied. I put my blaster and closed the door, fixing the lock as well.

At breakfast that morning I explained what happened to the others while we ate.

"You should talk to a teacher and see if they know what they were talking about," Mark advised me. "What's your first class today?"

I checked my Holo-Glasses. Slugslinging 101 is only one day a week, so they fit in other classes I for that time slot. "I have AP Slinging today," I replied. "What do you guys have?"

Mark and Luke had advanced slinging classes that period as well, but not as advanced as AP Slinging for some reason that I couldn't think of.

"I wonder what that's about," I thought out loud.

"I have AP Slinging, too," Emma told me once she found her schedule for that day on her Data Pad. "Hey, check it out. Your aunt's teaching that course."

"What?" I checked my schedule. Sure enough, it shows that Aunt Karina teaches that class.

"You were probably chosen for that class because of your scores on the Slinging section of the test," Luke replied.

We just shrugged and took care of our trays before heading out to our Mechas.

"See you guys later!" we told Mark and Luke when we left. Emma and I raced each other to the building and I beat her by a couple seconds, so I was in a pretty good mood as we walked into the classroom. Of the students there, Emma and I were the only ones of our age in there. Everyone else was older than us, but all were new.

A few minutes after we were seated Aunt Karina walked in, and the entire room fell silent. It was so quiet you could hear a slug blink, and believe me, that's quiet.

"Hello. I will be your teacher for this class. You may call me Professor Shane or Ms. Shane. If you refer to me by anything else, I will not answer," she told the class. She stopped behind a pedestal with a bunch of papers scattered on it. "You have been selected to be in this class because you are the only ones to get a score of 100 on the Slugslinging portion of you tests two days ago," she explained. "On that note, congratulations on doing so well on the test. Like your schedules said, the only things you require for this class are your blasters, your slugs, and your minds. At the end of this school year, I am going to hold a competition. Every student in all of my classes will compete against each other, and the people who win in each class will face each other. The winner of the entire competition will win a rare slug. I have yet to determine what the prize for this year will be yet, but it will be worth it."

After that she discussed the most common tactics used by Slugslingers to give us a base of knowledge before playing a video that displays them all. She pointed out how they were used in the battle before moving on to the next one. Right before the end of class she ended the movie and asked if we had any questions.

"I will see you all again two days from now, on Thursday," she told us right as the bell rang.

"Aunt…I mean, Ms. Shane," I said, approaching her once everyone else had left.

"You can call me 'Aunt Karina' outside class, Jake," she told me with a smile. "What is it?"

"Is it okay if I talk to you during lunch about something?" I asked her. "I don't want to talk about it here."

"Sure," she replied. "Just come by the Arena during your lunch period. I always practice there during lunch."

"'Kay. Thanks," I told her. "See ya later!" I added as I ran out to make it to my next class.

When lunch came by I grabbed a quick lunch for on-the-go eating and rode Stryder to the Arena with my friends, since they insisted on coming with me.

"Why do you think she practices during lunch?" Mike asked us as we walked through the doors to the Arena.

"It's the only time it's this empty," Emma explained. "Almost everyone is at the cafeteria, so the Arena's practically empty."

Right as she finished talking we walked into the Arena and narrowly missed being hit by Saphira, who flew by.

"Hey there!" Aunt Karina yelled, approaching us and catching a protoform-Saphira. "You guys okay?" she asked us, looking for injuries.

"No, we're fine," Luke replied.

"What is it you needed to talk to me about?" Aunt Karina asked me, holstering her blaster as she spoke.

I explained what happened to Luke and I that morning.

"I think I know what the student was talking about," she said after a minute of thinking. "You can't repeat any of this to anybody, you understand?" she asked all of us.

We nodded and she continued. "Over the past few years the teachers have heard of a sort of…black market growing on campus."

"What kind of black market?" I asked her.

"Slugs," she replied. "Mainly some of the more rare ones, but just about any powerful slug will do. We haven't been able to find any more information than that, though. I've tried to spy on the market transactions, but they always change the location and use special technology that camouflages their appearances and voices, so we can't pin it down on anybody, either."

"What should I do, then?" I asked her.

"Do you want to know what I think you should do or what your father thinks you should do?" she replied.

"I came to you for advice," I reminded her.

"Good point," she said. "This may be our only chance of putting an end to this so-called 'black market'. I think you should go, but with me nearby in case anything happens," she advised me. "You could get hurt, though," she warned me. "This could be very dangerous for you."

"Oh, I'll be fine," I told her, dismissing her fears. "It'll be at the back entrance to Enigmo Hall."

Her eyes narrowed. "Are you sure they said 'Enigmo Hall'?" she demanded.

"Yeah, I'm sure," I replied. "Why?"

"That's where all of the University's slugs are held," she told me. "I'll call them to make sure that they increase their security. You guys should get going to your next class before you're late."

"You know, this is a bad idea," Mark told me as we emerged from the Arena.

"Oh, it'll be fine," I assured him, waving aside his worries. "Besides, I'll have Aunt Karina to back me up."

That night I set my alarm to about thirty minutes before midnight so that I would have enough time to get ready for the meet.

"Good luck," Luke mumbled, barely awake as I walked out of the room fifteen minutes before the meeting.