Chapter 8-

Traveling Riverside Blues… 101

Charlotte awoke in the Hospital Wing of the academy. Her left arm was sprained and bound up nicely, and her head was really hurting. She sat up, vaguely confused, stood, and walked around a bit, trying to find someone who wasn't unconscious or otherwise injured by their own stupidity. Eventually, she found Selima, who was tending to a student with a broken arm.

"Ow! Ow! That hurts, dammit!" It was a girl Charlotte vaguely recognized from around the halls.

"Of course it hurts, you broke it in three places!" Selima snapped in reply. "Mini-Lavi were never gentle! And they like to play hockey with the students."

Charlotte blinked. 'With the students' obviously must mean 'using the poor buggers as the puck' in the language of the staff.

"Oh, and Miss Albshire, you can leave now," Selima said over her shoulder. "You've just got a sprained wrist, it'll heal up fine." Charlotte almost ran from the room, somehow very glad to be away from the nurse. Selima had a very strange, uncomfortable stare.

Charlotte shuffled down the hallway while reading her schedule. She had 'Traveling Riverside Blues 101', whatever that was, in Auditorium 2.

On the way, she shoved through a stampede, dodged two minor explosions, and plugged her ears so as not to hear a plot about breaking into the Staff Section. Without any other incidents, she arrived relatively unharmed at the second Auditorium. Inside, many of the students were awaiting their professor, while gossiping among themselves about gods knew what.

The Auditorium itself was like anyone might expect- painted a drab gray with gray-blue tile, rows of tables in yet another shade of gray with those hard plastic seats. The room was perhaps forty by forty feet, sloping downwards in terraces to an open space at the base, occupied by a desk and a chalkboard. The whole thing was lit by an unidentifiable source, and just trying to identify it was headache-inducing.

Charlotte slid into a seat next to a green haired girl who looked slightly harassed. She opened her mouth to introduce herself, but was cut off by the sudden bang of the double doors as they slammed open.

Up the aisle between the rows of students strode Miss Cerberus. She held a pointer that looked more like a birch switch than a handy instrument to help teach with. When she reached the front of the room, she turned sharply on her heel to face the students.

"Welcome to Traveling Riverside Blues 101," she began. "This course will attempt to teach you people about the geography, flora, and fauna of Guardia throughout the time periods. You will not get off easy in any way. Trust me, I make sure of it."

There was a collective groan from the students.

"And now, we shall begin with," she continued, "the first chapter."

She snapped her fingers, and the undefined light dimmed, leaving the room in gray shadow that was somehow more colorful than the usual shades of gray. With another snap of her fingers, a projection screen unrolled and a projector switched on. Up on the screen was a large map of Guardia in 1000 A.D.

"Now, we'll start in the era the game begins in, and then continue chronologically throughout all the ages," Cerberus said. "There will also be discussions on local flora and fauna in various areas, including some of the more common monsters that appear in the game." The projector zoomed in on Guardia Forest.

"And we'll begin 1000 A.D. in Guardia Forest, the first monster-infested area…"

Cerberus droned on about various monsters, ranging from the Avian Chaos to the Hetake. Projection slides came up on each monster, showing pictures and detailed diagrams.

By that time, most of the students were in a projection-induced haze, half-asleep but still vaguely upright. Eventually, after listening to the buzz of Miss Cerberus's lesson, one poor student fell completely asleep. Her head thudded to the desk, snapping the other students into consciousness and causing Cerberus to stop in her lesson. Thirty frightened lungs took in thirty sharp breaths. Sixty frightened eyes watched the Assistant Head Mistress stride over to the sleeping girl and stood over her like a vulture.

The girl was asleep with her head facedown on the table and her arms stretched out in front of her, hands palm down. She was still completely oblivious to any imminent danger, unfortunately for her. With one swift movement, the pointer went from Miss Cerberus's side to a sharp smack across her knuckles and back again. The student, Compass, yelped in pain and began to curl up into a kind of fetal position in her chair, whimpering. She poked her head up to see who dared strike her, and looked straight at Miss Cerberus and her evil glare. Compass yelped again.

"If there will be no more interruptions, I will continue with the lesson," Miss Cerberus said rather coldly. She strode back up to the front, and continued. Within three minutes the class was back in its doze.

"And we shall end there today," said Cerberus, loudly enough to wake up her half-asleep class. "I should hope you were taking notes. There will be a test tomorrow. Dismissed."

Charlotte blinked, and looked around. The other students were in various states of stunned bewilderment. She turned to the girl next to her, who was muttering something like 'Stupid, stupid, stupid…' repeatedly to herself.

"She said test, didn't she," Charlotte said to her.

"She did."

"We're dead, aren't we."

"Most likely," the girl replied.

"I'm Charlotte," she said, somewhat numbly. "You?"

"Asamoya," the girl said. "Nice to meet you. Sort of."

"We need pie," Charlotte said. "I think I heard that Twist found a way into the kitchens."

"They'll give us pie?"

"Give isn't quite the word for it," she replied, "but it's close enough."

The pair stood up, and headed for the doors with the rest of the crowd. After a bit of pushing and shoving, they managed to get through with only minor bruising.

"Where do we find this Twist guy?" Asamoya asked, rubbing her shoulder where a mini-Lavi poked her on its way by.

"Hospital wing. He's a big Lucca-luster."

"So he's psychotic, too," she said, nodding. "Great."

They headed off towards the Hospital wing, ready to waste their break on the quest for pie.

[A/n- I have returned. Hello again, my readers. It's been far too long since I updated, mostly from a lack of plot ideas, partly from being just plain lazy. I'll try to update more frequently in the future. Read and review, please! Feed your starving author.]