Small Author's Note: This chapter makes a brief allusion to Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. What you need to know is that the male lead has an "A"-shaped scar on his chest to mark something he has done.

On with the show.

New Characters this Chapter:

DarkHunter65

Chapter 7:

Canon is Not a Weapon of War

Before Tammi realized it, the weekend had come and gone. She had spent all her free time working Saturos's horrid assignment; how in the world was she supposed to write about Alex being a villain? He couldn't be a villain! Tammi knew better.

She could picture it now—him in awe at the sight of her, sinking to one knee and asking her to stay in Weyard forever, right beside him.

When she had mentioned that to Susie, the Proxan author had just raised an eyebrow and asked if he had done that in the Sanctum when she was Revived. Tammi admitted that he hadn't quite fallen flat at the sight of her, but she assured herself it was just because he was shy.

That had to be the only reason he hadn't . . . right?

"Hurry up and get out of the door!" Susie called from right over Tammi's shoulder. "Some of us have classes to get to, you know!"

That snapped Tammi out of her reverie. Not that it had been much of a reverie to begin with—more like torture as she pondered what awful classes she'd be put through today. Susie standing right behind her wasn't helping much, so she moved, pulling on her jacket as she walked down the hall of her dorm floor. She climbed down the stairs, Susie behind her, and managed to grab a bagel on her way to class.

She dug her schedule out of her pocket. "Let's see here, Canon and You is first on my schedule today. I wonder who's teaching."

"Hey, Tammi." She and Karrie had a lot of classes together, so they had decided to walk together to them.

"Hey, Karrie, you ready for class?"

"You bet I am," she said. "I heard that Isaac is teaching Canon and You! Finally, I get to listen to my Isaac-kins for a grade!"

"What if that's not true, though?" Tammi asked.

"Oh, I know it is!" Karrie let out a heaving sigh and drifted off into daydream. Tammi had to poke her pretty hard to snap her out of it.

They sat down beside each other in a large classroom, holding about 100 students at a time. Tammi knew this class had to be taught at various times—there were too many students at OFUW for it to make any sense otherwise.

Tammi looked around and spotted Susie across the room with a couple other Proxan girls. Shane was sitting in the back of the room, glancing around anxiously—most likely to keep an eye out for Minis, Tammi decided. She wasn't exactly fond of the little beasts, either. Not after what had happened in the plot hole.

The door swung open, and Isaac stepped inside.

A stampede ensued. Luckily for Isaac, about half the stampeding students were taken out by the two Minis alongside him. Unfortunately for Isaac, the other half survived, and many were soon wrapped around him, squealing.

Tammi had been holding Karrie down. "Trust me, you don't want to go up there," Tammi hissed. "I've been Downed by a Mini before, and it hurts more than you can imagine."

Karrie struggled. "Anything is all right if I can touch Isaac!"

"You won't be saying that when you wake up sore in the Sanctum," Tammi said. "Believe me, I still feel sore after my run-in with them yesterday."

Karrie stopped squirming for a minute, thought about what Tammi had said, and then started struggling even more. "Let me get to Isaac!"

"SIT! NOW!"

Isaac's harsh yell scared the fangirls that had been clinging to him back to their seats, wide-eyed at the idea of their dear Isaac being—dare they say it? Dare they even think it?—a meanie.

He loosened the yellow scarf around his neck, suddenly much calmer than he had been a moment ago. "All right. There will be no more attempted stampedes in my class, are we clear? Some teachers are far less tolerant of it than I am, so it's best that you start controlling your urges now."

Karrie sank into her chair, defeated.

"Anyway," Isaac continued. "I'm Isaac, as you probably already know, and you're currently in Canon and You, the Monday: 10 AM section. The point of this class is to teach you all about the canon of Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age. Can anyone in this room define canon for me?"

A girl in the back raised a hand.

"Yes, you," Isaac said, pointing.

"Isn't a canon a weapon of war?" She asked.

Isaac stared at her for a minute, then turned around and walked back to the podium, running one hand through his hair.

"Gods, this will be harder than I thought," he cursed. He turned back around. "I'm afraid that's not quite it."

"Are you sure?" the girl continued. "Because I can remember reading about how canons were used in various wars."

"That's cannons. Double N." Isaac turned to the blackboard behind him, picking up a piece of chalk and writing canon in large block letters. ""Don't even bother asking if Weyard has it's own language. While at the university you'll be learning in English," he said. "All right, so can anyone tell me what canon—C-A-N-O-N—means?"

There was silence until Wing Sarten, who was sitting in the back, spoke up. "It's the stuff that makes up the original plotline."

Isaac nodded. "Exactly. Canon can also mean, according to the English dictionary, standard, norm, or law. Canon is basically the plotline—the norm—of Golden Sun as you saw it in the games. Now, today's lesson is on the beginning of the games. As in about the first hour of Golden Sun: Book One, as we call it on occasion."

Tammi groaned. "Not the hour-long cutscene!"

Isaac glared at her. "Yes, the hour-long cutscene, if that's what you want to call it. If you have so little patience for a 'video game,' as you call it, then I imagine you must have a very hard time in your real world. Now quit whining and listen up. The boulder scene is one of the most important things that happens in the original Golden Sun. Can you people name some key points of the boulder scene?" He turned to the chalkboard again.

A chorus of voices came from various points in the room, a few rising above the rest.

"Meeting Garet."

"Meeting Jenna."

"Felix gets washed away."

"So do his parents and Isaac's father."

"You see Saturos and Menardi for the first time."

Isaac scribbled what they had said onto the board. "Good. You've missed some elements, but there's one rather large one you've missed that I'm looking for. Can anyone tell me what it is?" He turned to face them, running his hand through his hair again.

There was a period of silence before a girl's voice in the back said something so quietly that almost no one heard it.

"What was that?" Isaac said, looking around for the speaker. "Can you say that again?"

"Meeting Isaac, the main character," the girl repeated, louder this time. "Starting to see Weyard through Isaac's eyes."

Isaac nodded. "Exactly what I was looking for!" He turned to the rest of the class. "Now, I don't mean to sound like I'm bragging, but I am the main character of the original game, so meeting and essentially becoming me should be a pretty important moment, don't you think?" He smiled and continued his lecture.

An hour later, Tammi was gathering her things to go to her next class. The class period had passed very quickly; Isaac was a more interesting lecturer then she would have thought him to be.

"Now, let's go over this. What happened in the canon of the boulder incident, from start to finish? I want an outline of the major canonical events. Skip the details, like "Dora gives Isaac his tunic" or "boulders block the quickest way to the plaza." The assignment is due on Wednesday," Isaac finished just as the bell rang. He wiped some sweat from his forehead as the students poured out of the room.

A few fangirls gave him some glances as they left, but Isaic and Issic the Mini-Dullahans were so close to him that most of them decided glomping wouldn't be worth the pain they'd experience.

The fangirls who did attempt to glomp were promptly Downed, vanishing on the spot. Tammi wondered how many students Mia had in the Sanctum now.

Tammi walked down the hall, scanning her schedule. Karrie was right beside her, frowning at her own.

"The Science of Alchemy," Tammi muttered. "Room 142 . . ." She kept walking, scanning the signs hung over each classroom. Karrie said goodbye at room 131, walking into a classroom filled with maps. After a bit more walking, Tammi finally found room 142 and entered.

She nearly fainted when she saw who the teacher was.

"Hurry up, hurry up, sit down," Kraden said. "We don't have all day, and I have very little patience for you lot right now."

Kraden Tammi hated him almost as much as she hated Felix and Saturos. He talked way too much and was just plain annoying. She sat down in the very back of the class, pulled out her notebook, and started drawing a picture of Alex.

Might as well make some use of this period, she thought.

A sword speared the paper, and Tammi looked up to see a Mini-Dullahan standing on her desk.

She sat back very quickly, her eyes wide. The Mini lifted the paper up with one hand, looked at it for a minute, and then sliced it into a million pieces with its sword.

"My drawing!My fanart" Tammi cried. The Mini jumped off of her desk and marched back up to Kraden, who patted it on the shoulder.

"Good boy, Krayden." He then turned to the class, pushing his glasses up his nose. "You will listen very closely, and you will take notes. If you fail this class, I will personally have every Mini in the school come and Down you as many times as they can, because I am that sick of Alchemy being misrepresented."

He slammed a thick book onto the table before him. "Alchemy," he said. "It is based on an ancient science of your world, which sought to create the Alchemist's Stone. You may also have heard of the stone referred to as the Sorcerer's Stone, the Philosopher's Stone, or, as it was called in Golden Sun, the Stone of Sages. The stone could give people eternal life and turn any base metal into gold." He looked around. "Why aren't you writing this down?"

There was a frantic scribbling of pencils and rustling of paper.

"I'm not repeating that," Kraden said. "Next, repeat after me. Fire, air, earth, water."

The students, most of which had learned the value of repeating things from Saturos's class, repeated it.

"Fire. Air. Earth. Water. These are the four elements of Alchemy, as represented in Golden Sun by Mars, Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury respectively. There are no more elements. No 'darkness,' no 'ice,' no 'light' and no 'poison.' Earth, water, fire, and air. Venus, Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter. That is all there is."

"What about Sol and Luna?" A boy at the back of the class asked. Tammi recognized him from Villainy 101—his name was DarkHunter65. He had black hair that seemed to be constantly smoldering (he must have written it down as "charred," Tammi thought), and he fancied himself as being evil. Tammi also knew that he disliked Kraden with a passion—that was most likely the reason he was starting an argument with the old scholar.

Kraden narrowed his eyes behind his spectacles. "There is no factor for either Sol or Luna in Alchemy, boy. They are just the ruling bodies, the Sun and the Moon. In Alchemy, there is Earth, water, air, and fire, and that is all. Am I not making myself clear?"

"Well, Venus, Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter are only four of the planets in the solar system," DarkHunter continued. "What about Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto? What about Sol and Luna?"

"I suppose you want there to be a Gaia Adept as well?" Kraden said. He was obviously getting agitated with DarkHunter. "Let me repeat myself in case you didn't hear me the first few times. The only elements in Alchemy are fire, air, earth, and water. Do you understand me yet?"

"Those aren't the only elements in the world, though," DarkHunter countered.

"Name something that's not," Kraden said, slamming his hands down on the desk.

"Ice."

"Ice is made of water, which is under Mercury," Kraden replied.

DarkHunter frowned. "Wood."

"All plant life, including wood, comes from the earth, which is under Venus."

"Light and Darkness."

"Those aren't elements any more than air is solid," Kraden said. "They're just there."

"All right, smart guy, why no other planets then?"

"I would appreciate it if you showed a bit more respect to your elders, boy," Kraden said. "As for the other planets, think of it along more mythological lines. Jupiter, Venus, Mars, and Mercury are some of the better-known . . . what was it? Roman? Anyway, they're some of the better-known Roman deities in your world. Does that mean that every Roman god has to be present? Surely not! There are far too many.

"Besides, if there were other elements, there'd have to be other Elemental Stars. There are not; they would have been in Sol Sanctum if they even existed. There would also be more lighthouses, meaning that these other lighthouses would also need to be lit in order to bring about the rise of the Golden Sun. Could the Golden Sun have risen if there were beacons yet to be lit? Of course not. And yet, it did, meaning there could be no more beacons."

DarkHunter folded his arms and leaned back.

"Let me guess, you wrote yourself down as a Luna Adept, didn't you?" Kraden said. "Or a Saturn, or Pluto maybe? Those three seem to be the most popular."

DarkHunter scowled.

Kraden—gentle, eccentric old Kraden—smirked. "Take your shirt off."

There was a lot of noise in the room, and Tammi winced. What was the point of getting DarkHunter to strip? Sure, Tammi didn't like Kraden much, but she had never thought that he would be so . . . so . . . twisted!

"Oh, be quiet, the lot of you," Kraden said. "I want to see if Miss Jen's precautions for such a thing worked. If you honestly think I was going to do . . . something unmentionable to the boy, you need to pick your minds up out of the gutter."

"Fine," Dark muttered. "I'll do it." He pulled his shirt off over his head.

On his chest, like some warped kind of scarlet letter, was "Luna," written in all capitals. The letters were made from scars carved into DarkHunter's skin.

"That," Kraden said, "is what happens when you claim a Psynergy that doesn't exist. You become a non-Adept, since that Psynergy doesn't exist in the Golden Sun world, and you are thereafter marked to teach you not to do such a thing again. I imagine it would be in a different place for females; Miss Jen told me theirs would be across their back."

Tammi let out a breath, glad she hadn't put Saturn or Neptune as her Psynergy on her application. Then again, she hadn't considered it a possibility, since there was no "Other" space on the form. DarkHunter must have written it in.

She saw a girl on the other side of the class smiling a little too broadly, the corners of her smile twitching as she fought to sustain them, and hoped for the sake of sanity that she wasn't asked to reveal her mark as well.

Kraden folded his arms. "Put your shirt back on. We still have a lot of things to cover."

An hour later, after writing down various Alchemy theories and reasons for the four elements being what they were, Tammi stumbled out of the room bearing an assignment to analyze each Adept in the main party and how their Psynergy might tie in to both mythology and nature.

This year, Tammi decided, was not going to be fun at all.