Chapter 1: Cramming Session

One night, Briar and the girls are sleeping in their bedrooms. Like the last few times, Briar begins to dream as the mirror ripples as the vision appears.

Briar opens her eyes and feels a cold air around her. There are dark clouds, lightning and thunder appear, and pouring rain, along with waves rocking back and forth. She also notices a boat in the distance. However, she is too focused on the storm.

"What an intense storm… What's happening?" Briar says to herself.

Then she hears a voice, "Hurricane a comin'! Stand fast! Secure the riggin'!"

"A hurricane!" Briar says, worried and doesn't understand what's happening.

Briar has no clue what's going on, but she suspects the sailors on that ship have been caught in the storm.

At the corner of her eye, she notices a young unconscious man with black hair wearing a white shirt is being rescued by a beautiful young woman with long red hair, and blue eyes. She wonders who the girl is, and how she's able to swim in the storm in the middle of the sea.

Suddenly, the scene begins to change and the voice of a young woman appears, "Look! He's breathing!"

The scene changes and Briar sees the boy who's been unconscious has regained consciousness as an old man rushes to him in relief.

The man named Grimsby calls out, "Eric!"

The boy Eric is able to stand up and says, "A girl… rescued me. She had the most… beautiful voice…"

"Girl, does he mean the girl from before," Briar asks herself.

She then turns her head, out at sea and to her shock, she sees the young girl from before, the one with the red hair. But to Briar's shock, the girl is actually a mermaid with a green colored mermaid tail. The mermaid's name is Ariel.

Ariel looks at the shore and says, "My heart… Oh, how it pounds! Yes. I know it. The day will come… part of your world!"

And the waves splashes and head towards the shore. Briar continues to watch the beautiful mermaid as she watches Eric and Grimsby leave the shore. However, something catches her eyes, she notices two eels secretly spying on the mermaids.

The two eels cuckles, "Heh he heh…"

Soon enough, the vision disappears once more and Briar continues to sleep in her bed.

However, something else begins to appear from her mind. Another dream, or something even further.

Then a familiar voice of a child asks, "Why isn't big sister and big brother back?"

On the couch is little Briar again as a small child. There are two silhouettes of adults, one is a woman and the other a man.

"Sweetie, you really love your older sister, and you also like him don't you?" A woman's voice says.

"Yeah. Even though he isn't my big brother, I love to think of him as is," The little girl happily says.

Just the doors open to reveal the two silhouettes. They both seem younger, but one also seems to be a young man and another is a young woman.

"Big brother and big sister came back," Little Briar happily says.

She hugs the young woman, "Welcome home…"

Then hugs the young man, "Welcome home…" But the voice cuts out the voice.

The young man gently pets Briar on her head, giving her a smile.

In her bed, Briar continues to sleep peacefully.

The next day, Briar soon wakes up from her sleep.

She lets out a yawn as she says to herself, "And now I was dreaming about the storm, or dreaming of the sea…? And what was that other dream I had…?"

She rubs her eyes and says, "Might as well get ready for school."

Briar shakes Sereia, "Sereia, it's time to wake up."

"Okay," Sereia says, and wakes up from her sleep.

Trinket begins to wake up too.

Briar then leaves the room and walks over to the other room to wake up the voice.

Suddenly, she hears Grim's voice on the other side, "Mrrrghrow... The trick to tests...is if there's two choices...it's a trick question... *Snore*" and on the verge of sleeping.

Briar then enters the room and says "Rise and shine, Grim."

Grim yelps in surprise, "MYAH!"

That wakes up Tanzanite and Jasper.

"What happened?" Jasper asks.

"What was that noise," Tanzanite asks, and yawns.

"Morning guys," Briar says.

Tanzanite puts on his glasses and says, ""Morning Briar."

"Morning," Jasper says.

Grim turns to Briar and angrily says, "Don't surprise me like that. You'll make me forget everything I memorized! Today's the last day of final exams, y'know. You, Sereia, and I are still technically one student put together, so you better not thank my grades, Briar."

"This, from the last-minute crammer…" Jasper mutters.

"Now now," Tanzanite replies.

"Alright guys, it's time to get dressed, have some breakfast, and head to class for the exams," Briar says.

The boys nod their heads in reply.

Time has passed, and everyone is in the classroom taking their final exams. worked on their exams and finally finished with their exams.

Crewel announces, "The test is over, whelps. Put your pens away and hand over your answer sheets like good little dogs. And with that, I do believe exams have come to a close."

Everyone cheers, "YEAAAH!" as they get up from their seats.

But Crewel sternly says to them, "Down! SIT! Don't start celebrating yet. Any bad boys who fare poorly in their exams… will be given mandatory remedial lessons over the winter holidays. Consider yourself warned. Class dismissed."

All the students hand in their final exams and leave the classroom, and are very excited. Then Crewel leaves the classroom.

'Whew, FINALLY. It's over!" Ace says.

"I gave it my absolute best. All that's left now is to wait for our scores to come back," Deuce says.

Grim smirks and chuckles, "Myah hah hah! No lousy test is a match for my brilliant mind."

"Really? You guys usually look like your lives just flashed before your eyes after written exams. Now you're changing your tune?" Ace questions.

"Heh heh. You bet your bottom thaumark I am. Today marks the dawn of a new and improved me!" Grim says, with confidence, "You better be ready, 'cause soon you'll all be callin' me "Galaxy Brain Grim" and beggin' for scraps of my knowledge."

"That's a bold claim, but I'm pretty confident in my performance this time myself. No offense, but I'm definitely gonna outscore you," Deuce says

Then Ace says, "Says the guy who's perpetually biting his lip and barely staying above a failing grade. Of course, this test was a piece of cake for me, so I'm pretty sure I'm gonna come out on top.

"You all must have studied really hard," Sereia says.

"Pretty much, yup! That's baby-tier stuff," Ace says.

Then Jasper says to Grim, "And Grim, you did ONE last-minute cram session."

Grim shrugs his shoulders, "What can I say? Geniuses like me can breeze through class without havin' to slave away at their desk like you do."

"Anyway, exams are done and dusted. I'm gonna hit up the Track Club," Deuce says.

Then Ace says, "Y'know, I could stand to get in some exercise at the Basketball Club myself. Let's break this huddle for today, guys."

Then Grim says, "Let's head back to the dorm, guys," And grows tired, "I'm dead on my feet after that all-nighter."

"That's what happens when you do all-nighters," Briar says. "But yeah, let's head back to the dorm."

And with that, the group begins to head back to their dorms. Soon, walking down to main street are Briar and the others who have been staying at the dorm.

"So what do you wanna do when we get back to the dorm?" Sereia asks.

"I'm looking forward for a nap," Grim says, and lets out a yawn.

"You always want to take naps," Jasper points out.

"Well, I like to continue reading some of the books I got from the library," Tanzanite says.

"What about you, Briar?" Grim asks.

"Hmm, I'm not sure. I like to learn a bit more about my medallion, and learn more about this world, among other stuff I can do," Briar says, looking at her medallion.

"Can we make some cookies too?" Sereia asks.

"Sure. I think we have enough for some chocolate chip cookies," Briar says.

Sereia and Grim cheer, "Yay!"

Then Grim asks, "So Briar, have you ever seen that guy again?"

"Guy?" Briar asks.

"The guy with the horn. The one you called Tsunotaro," Grim says.

"Right," Briar replies, "Actually no, I haven't seen him at the dorm. Come to think of it, I haven't been able to find him at all. I was hoping we could have a chance to talk."

"How could a guy with horns be hard to miss? I mean, you said he's wearing the uniform as us, so he should be easy to spot," Jasper asks.

"I'm not sure," Briar says, shrugging her shoulders.

"I'm sure you'll find him eventually, or he'll come back to the dorm and visit," Tanzanite says.

"Maybe," Briar replies.

Meanwhile, in the Octavinelle Dorm, in a place called the Monstro Lounge, Azul is with Jade and Floyd as they are interrogating another student.

Azul questions the student, "Why did you ignore my summons yesterday? You clearly don't understand the position you're in."

"L-look, I was just dealing with some, uh, stomach problems…" The Octavinelle Student nervously answers.

"Is that true?" Azul asks, and calmly says with a stern expression, "Because lying would not do you any favors, I assure you.

Yes, it's true! I was sick to my stomach," The Octavinelle Student answers.

Azul has his eyes turned to Jade, "Jade, why don't you help motivate our friend here to speak a bit more honestly?"

"As you wish," Jade says.

He walks towards the student and says, "Now, now, there's no need to flinch. This won't hurt one bit. If you could look my way? Yes, just like that, thank you. Shock the Heart."

And with that, Jade cast his signature spell on the student.

This startles the student, Hrk! Wh-what was that?!

Jade ignores him and simply says, "Now, let's try this again. Why didn't you respond to Azul's summons yesterday?"

Soon the student reluctantly confesses, "Because I was sick…" And soon becomes more open, ...sick of running myself ragged doing the dirty work of a low-down, black-hearted cheater like Azul, that is! Of course I wasn't actually sick to my stomach. That's just an excuse!"

The student becomes shocked to notice something up with his mouth, "Grk! What in the world?! My mouth started moving faster than my brain, and…" And soon realizes he confesses, "Oh crud!"

"There we have it—your true feelings on the matter," Jade says.

Then Azul says, "Oh, dear... Goodness gracious me. Why, I'm positively wounded. Here I granted you a wish out of benevolence rivaling that of our venerable Sea Witch herself… and you would turn around and call me—what was that again? 'A low-down, black-hearted cheater'?"

The student begins to panic, "I-I'm sorry! This is all a misunderstanding, I swear!"

But Azul scoffs it off, "Hmph. Spare me your sniveling. Floyd, you're up."

"You finally done? Can I squeeze him now?" Floyd asks with a grin on his face.

"Be my guest. Wring him out with all your heart," Azul says.

"Can do," Floyd happily says.

Floyd then approaches the student.

The student becomes scared and panics, "W-wait! Give me just one more chance! I promise I'll—" And let out a scream, "GYAAAGH!"

And Floyd gives him a hard squeeze as he wraps his arms around him.

Azul huffs in frustration, "Hmph. These deadbeats just love skimping on their payments, don't they? When you buy something, you pay for it. When you incur a debt, you pay it back. That's just common sense."

"I couldn't agree more, sir," Jade replies.

"I can only hope this year provides me with better clients than the last…" Azul replies.

Jade snickers, "Heh heh. I look forward to seeing those final exam scores come in."