New characters this chapter:

Wing Sarten

Joe Stampist

Chapter 5:

Psynergy, Schedules, and Random Plotholes

Tammi's awakening on her second day at OFUW was not pleasant.

There were no alarm clocks allowed on OFUW campus, as that sort of technology didn't exist in medieval times, so instead, Miss Jen had Master Hama use a special Psynergy that sent a buzz over the entire campus at sunrise. The assistant headmistress had informed them of it at dinner last night, warning them that it may be a little loud.

By "a little loud," Miss Jen meant an ear-piercing, gut-wrenching screech that most likely could have woken the dead. Tammi and Susie had awoken at the exact same moment, glared at each other, and spent about five minutes arguing over whose alarm clock it was before they woke up enough to realize that it was what Miss Jen had warned them about. Susie grabbed a bathrobe and flung it over her shoulders, muttering about a shower. Tammi took a few more minutes to get her things together, and as a result had to wait in line to bathe.

When she finally finished, she ran down to the cafeteria to find most of the breakfast food gone. She managed to snag some of what remained: a few muffins and a piece of dry toast. Stuffing the muffins, which were blueberry and tasted somewhat odd, into her mouth, she searched for a seat and finally spotted one at the back of the cafeteria. Making her way over, she mumbled something through a mouthful of muffin.

The two boys on either side of the chair looked up at her, one raising his eyebrows while the other seemed to be suppressing laughter.

"What was that?" the one on the right asked. He was the one who was staring at her rather skeptically.

She swallowed. "Can I sit down here?"

"Pfff, like I care," he said, turning away and shrugging. "Sit, go ahead. Anything to keep me from talking to him." He shot a glare at the other boy.

"Aw, come on, Wing, have some fun, why don't you?"

"That's Wing Sarten to you, and I'm too busy trying to figure out how to get a new roommate to have any fun."

The other boy, who had maroon hair and gold eyes, busied himself with buttering his toast. "Look, just because you don't like the name Piers—"

The first boy, Wing Sarten, cringed. "It's Picard."

"—and you don't like the ending to TLA doesn't mean we can't get along. I mean, we both hate Kraden, after all," the maroon-haired boy finished. He turned to Tammi and held out one hand. "I'm Joe Stampist, by the way."

"Tammi Holmes, and it's nice to meet you." Tammi shook the offered hand and cautiously sat down. "So, you're Wing Sarten, right?" she asked the first boy, who had spiky brown hair and blue eyes.

He rolled his eyes. "And I suppose you figured that out all on your own, did you?"

"Wing, come on, be nice." Joe glared at his roommate.

Wing Sarten rolled his eyes. "Why? I'm in a university with a bunch of morons, rooming with a guy who likes the ending to TLA and the name Piers," he shuddered at the mention of the name, "and that noise that woke us up today certainly didn't put me in the best of spirits. And quit calling me Wing."

"What would you prefer I called you? Sarten?"

"I'd prefer you call me 'sir,' but that's up to you," Wing Sarten said. It was Joe's turn to roll his eyes. Wing—Tammi didn't dare call him that aloud, but it was so much easier to think of him as Wing—leaned back in his chair and grinned at his own wit.

"So, uh, Wing—I mean, Wing Sarten—" Tammi started.

"Oh no, it's fine for you to call me Wing. It's just my stupid roommate who can't call me that."

Joe snarled and muttered a word under his breath before taking a bite of his toast.

"All right then, Wing, what are you in here for?"

"Not a clue, honestly," Wing said, leaning back. "I know for a fact that my fanfiction is better than a lot of the crap that gets published nowadays. Like that one Alex-loving Mary Sue . . . I can't remember the name of the fic right now, but it was awful."

Tammi cringed inwardly, but forced a grin. "Heh, well . . ."

"How about you?"

"Um . . . for writing an Alex-loving Mary Sue."

Wing stared at her for a minute, then shook his head and laughed. "And here I was thinking how much you looked like a Sue. Even I'm regretting how I listed my hair." He touched one of the spikes of his hair. "See, it's hard as rock. It never comes out of the spikes anymore. Makes sleeping a pain, I can tell you."

Tammi didn't even try to imagine the shape Wing's poor pillow must be in. "Well gee, that stinks," she managed to say, returning her attention to her muffins. "So, either of you have any idea what we're supposed to do today?"

Joe swallowed. "I think we get our class schedules and books today," he said. "You'll never believe this, but it's rumored that one of the classes is starting on Thursday!"

"I wonder how that little scrap of information got out," a deep voice above the three said. Tammi cringed at the sound of the voice; she knew it too well from her previous encounter with its owner.

Joe looked up, and his eyes widened. "Saturos? But aren't you dead?"

"In the canon plotline, yes. In this university, however, I am a significant character in the game. Therefore, I am also a teacher." He smirked. "And let me assure you, my class will not be fun for you wretches."

Wing rolled his eyes yet again. "Oh, please. Give me a break. Like I'm really going to be afraid of you."

Saturos narrowed his eyes. "I hope you're not a Stu writer."

"Gary Stus? Me? Don't insult me." Wing took a bite of a donut.

Saturos snorted and turned around, his cape flying out in the air behind him as he walked away.

"Do you think every breakfast will be like this?" Joe asked. "With characters showing up to intimidate us?"

"I just hope it's never Isaac," Tammi said. "You saw what happened at the opening assembly."

"It could have been worse," Wing said. "It might have been Jenna. She's very popular with us men, you know."

Tammi looked at him.

He shook his head. "Are you kidding? Me, a Jenna luster? Not a chance. You insult me."

"A lot of things tend to insult Wing," Joe whispered to Tammi. She nodded, inspected her toast, and decided it wasn't half as appealing now as it had been before. She left it sitting on the table and stood up.

"Well, it was very nice to meet both of you," she said. "Maybe we'll have some classes together."

"Most likely," Wing said.

"We'll see you again, then." Joe waved at her as she walked into the hallway.

"G'morning, Tammi."

Tammi jumped a bit at the greeting and turned to see Karrie rubbing her eye and yawning. She looked like she hadn't gotten any sleep at all.

"What's wrong?"

"Well, my roommate and I . . ."

"Don't tell me. You were up all night arguing, weren't you?"

"Well, about whether or not Felix is cute. She likes him a lot. I don't get it."

"I see. So everyone got horrible roommates, then?"

"Not quite," Karrie said. "We did do a lot of talking about how cute Picard is . . ."

Tammi groaned. "Wait a minute, so you actually get along with your roommate?"

Karrie winced. "Kind of. She calls Picard by his horrible English name, and she . . . she can't stand Isaac! How dumb is that?"

Tammi grinned at the knowledge that she wasn't the only one suffering, but sighed anyway. "It's not fair. How come I get roomed with someone who absolutely hates Alex, but loves Saturos and—ugh!—Felix, but you get to room with a fellow Picard-luster?"

Karrie shrugged. "She prefers Felix, but yeah. That's life."

"You're only saying that because you got the good end of the deal!" Tammi shrieked.

"Oh, quit screaming. We get our class schedules today; didn't you hear?"

"Well, some guys I met at breakfast were saying that, but why is that so important?"

"Quit being such a downer, Tammi. Didn't you hear what Miss Jen said in the opening assembly? The classes are being taught by the characters! I'm going to get to listen to Isaac! And be graded on it!" Karrie got the same look Tabby had when thinking of Picard, a look known among the staff as the "fangirl-eye."

Tammi thought about this for a moment, then salivated happily at the thought of taking classes from Alex and Picard. Her fantasies of Alex declaring love to her, however, were interrupted when she realized that if she was taking classes from Alex and Picard, then Saturos had been serious when he mentioned his class earlier. And she'd be taking classes from that icky Felix as well. Ewwwwww.

She managed to suppress the thought and instead turned to talk to Karrie again. "So where do we pick them up? And when?"

"I don't have the slightest idea," Karrie said. "I'm also kind of wondering something. Tammi, what kind of Adept did you write yourself down as?"

"Jupiter, why?"

"Have you tried using any psynergy?"

"No, why? Have you?"

"Well, I'm Mercury, so it'd be different for me, but I can't seem to get it to work."

"That's because you haven't trained it," a voice behind them said. They turned to see a short blonde boy, his arms crossed as he leaned against the wall. A staff rested beside him.

"Ivan?" Karrie said.

"Yes, that's my name. Don't wear it out." Ivan was looking at them, and Tammi found it hard to believe that the "midget," as she had called him on occasion, could look so murderous.

"As I was saying," Ivan continued, "you can't possibly use psynergy because you haven't trained an ounce in your entire life. Even I had to train my abilities before I could use them. I wasn't born knowing how to use psynergy."

"But—but—what about people like Feizhi?" Tammi asked, stumbling on the pronunciation.

"Feizhi is a special case. All she can do is predict the future, and that's not necessarily something you can command even as a master Adept. I have yet to experience a vision, and Sheba doesn't get them often. As for others, like Eoleo and Uzume, the types of psynergy they knew were the bare minimum. Things like Catch and Move aren't hard to master."

"Well, well, what about Miss Jen and the others?"

"You think they just started training? They've been here for months, training so that they would be able to handle you. Apparently Miss Jen struck a deal with the Wise One to grant the staff and students psynergy during the year. But even though Miss Jen and her friends are Adepts, and even though they've been training for months, they only know some of the more basic psynergies. They couldn't cast Spark Plasma or Pyroclasm on you, though I imagine they'd like to very much."

Ivan pushed off of the wall and picked up his staff. "Anyway, your schedules will be handed out at lunch in the cafeteria. Take care that you don't miss any of your first days—some of us tend to get very nasty if you do." He smirked, then turned and walked away. "I'll see you in class," he called.

Tammi shrugged and looked over at Karrie, who also shrugged. They walked outside and spent the time between breakfast and lunch exploring the OFUW buildings. When the lunch bell rang, they headed back to the cafeteria to pick up their schedules. Luckily, there wasn't much of a line yet, as most of the students had decided to eat first and get their schedules later.

So, Karrie and Tammi soon stood in the lunch line, looking over their schedules.

"What do you have?" Karrie asked.

"Here, swap me schedules and we'll compare."

They swapped schedules and quickly looked over each other's courses.

"Friday is 'character intensive day.' I wonder what that could mean," Tammi said.

"Well, don't you remember what you have written on your form?"

"Yeah, kind of. Why?"

"Well, according to this, your character-intensive classes on Fridays are 'The Nature of Goodness' and 'Being a Jupiter Adept.' You filled out the form as a good-aligned Jupiter Adept, right?

"Oh, I see. I guess that makes sense." Tammi continued looking over Karrie's schedule. "Hey, wait a minute!"

"What?"

"It says that Villainy 101 starts on Thursday, like the boys this morning were saying! Not only that, but it starts at five o' clock AM!"

"Well, I think that's downright villainous." It became painfully obvious that Karrie was very good at stating the painfully obvious.

"But today's Tuesday, and I haven't even gotten any of my books yet!"

"I don't think you'll need to get your books," Karrie said. She leaned back, holding Tammi's schedule out. Tammi took it and handed Karrie her own. "You see," Karrie continued, "I was talking to some people who have heard of the original OFU."

"What?"

"OFUM. The Official Fanfiction University of Middle-Earth. The mother of all other fanfiction universities." Karrie folded her schedule up and shoved it in a pocket of her jeans—luckily for the students, they had been allowed to keep their clothes, even if they were noncanonical. "What all of them have told me is that you don't find the books—the books find you."

"That's like a really lame ghost story, Karrie."

"Well, I never said you'd believe it. But apparently, that's how things go in all the universities," Karrie said. She looked up. "Well, actually I'm not very hungry. I'm going to skip lunch today. I'll see you later." She turned and walked off.

Tammi thought for a minute, decided she wasn't really hungry either, and turned to sprint after Karrie. "Karrie, wait up!" she yelled. Karrie started to turn around. Tammi smiled, and then had the very odd sensation of the floor underneath her giving way.

She fell into the hole with a rather loud scream, and Karrie ran over to try to help her out. But as suddenly as it had appeared, the hole Tammi had vanished into closed.

"Stupid plotholes," Karrie muttered.