Before reading, there are some disclosures to make about the confusions of the story. There will be many perplexities in the first part of the story, as previously mentioned in Chapter One—readers can refer back to the chapter again if needed to. The story is a hard piece to write and the plot has already established, so in order to find out about what happens in the story, read the rest of the story to understand the details since they will be answered. If there are still confusions, it will mainly be summarized at the end of the story.
In addition, this is a story, not an expository text; therefore, the answers will be revealed through dialogues or information given from the plot or event of the story itself. Readers cannot expect to have the answer written down directly in text. A story should function like a story, so it will still have a story that might still be off topic.
Chapter Five
A nice morning with a bright blue sky has surfaced Enstor District. Birds were chirping their own little song that no other human could understand.
In an office for upperclassmen, one student, wearing a flannel, wearing messy brown hair, and wearing freckles all over his face, was sitting right beside his desk. Currently, he must seemed to be surfing the Internet.
"What are you looking at?" a girl in curly and wavy hair questioned as she turned her head around. She could see he was always on the computer, which often annoys her just by seeing that.
The only thing that was making noises was the clicking of the mouse. And when there was just one noise, it means he was pretty busy. "Archealer just sent me 500 dollars to my bank account."
She rolled her eyes as she walked over to his side. Then, she bent down herself to the level of Mitch. Staring at the screen for a few seconds, she sighed and said, "I don't understand why you guys like to use this forum."
"Of course you wouldn't," Mitch responded quickly. He knew Princess was never into these things and even if he told her what it was, she would still think it was not good or worth mentioning. That was why Mitch can be so easy to respond to her question since he would not have to waste his spits for something unnecessary.
Even though he knows she likes him, he prefers if she just stop being too close to him. It was not like he hated her or anything, he just did not really like being attached to someone he did not start out liking at first. It was, Princess, who was to be his partner for his entire eight semesters, and he did not think it was a big deal until... until Princess started to act like he was hers.
Princess's behavior may be annoying in terms of relationship issues, but other than that, Princess was really good and likes to be independent. Everyone at the college knows she hates talking about her father, and told people that she was unrelated to him. Mitch still has not figured out why she was like that, but he did not care too much about it. All he knew was that Mister Morbucks was rich and strict, and loves his daughter that he knows nothing about improving his family relationship with Princess.
As for claiming to be her boyfriend, Princess hated the fact that she had to introduce Mitch to her father. It would be far off better if she could just decide for herself without having to hear consent from her father.
Overall, Princess was a good partner and if Mitch had to change partners, he was not ready. He had been with Princess for seven semesters now and there was no other person that could be as fit as Princess for a partner.
Princess sighed and walked back to her desk. She began to look at the papers from their mission.
"As soon as you are done with that," Princess said, "Hand me your review of the mission so I can submit it in."
"Don't worry about it," he said as he closed the forum site. "It's not due until next week."
Princess eyed on Mitch seriously while folding her arms. From there, Mitch could see Princess was like the boss, considering she was sitting on the wheeling chair, acting like a manager of some sort.
"Mitch," she said and shook her head. "You are always slacking off."
"Well, I'm not when it's my job," Mitch answered as he rolled his eyes.
"Yeah then why can't you be more productive for this rather than your job? The forum is your job? The faking information is all you got? That's it?"
Here goes again. Mitch hated Princess's rants. They were always lessons, and she tries to teach them this way. He has heard too much, and what he hated the most was how she start rambling on his facial appearances later.
"See?" Princess resumed, "For someone like you slacking off really does suit you. Leaving your hair long and down and messy, and the more you don't be productive in these situations, you don't worry and a lot of freckles start increasing. You haven't even grown taller after the second semester of college. Why can't you be more serious about this? It's our last semester!"
Right, Mitch does not want this kind of girlfriend, bossing him around and stuff. She might say these are for the good and that she was only trying to remind him to be serious, Princess sure does not know how to think about others. If she says this to other people, Mitch would laugh his head off and volunteer to become their dog forever... but it was not going to happen. Princess only does that to him, Mitch, only. That was what he HATED the most about it.
Three years ago
Mitch finished his food at the lunch table and waited for his stomach to digest before leaving. He looked around to see so many people eating and talking, but when he looked at the person sitting next to him, she was eating with the highest of the highest mannerism.
To think that she was his partner for eight semesters, he studied her. This girl, is she rich? Because, she eats like a royal person.
When Mitch was finished with digestion, he stood up and tried to leave the cafeteria. It was a bad idea to sit with his new partner because in the end, they did not even speak to each other while eating.
But, Princess raised her eyebrows up and stood up immediately after Mitch turned his head around to the exit. "What are you doing?" Princess asked as she held onto his arm. She looked down at the plate Mitch had left and looked back up. Seriously, Princess thought. "You're done eating?"
"Yeah, I'm heading back."
"But you didn't throw away your lunch!" she exclaimed.
Mitch looked at his plate and stared at it for five seconds. "Uh... and?"
The first impression of Mitch dropped from 100 to 90 for Princess. This was her partner? No, she was going to correct him to be a better human being. Not a better gentleman, but a better partner! "So you want those workers to clean them up for you?"
"Why are you so serious about this? It's just food. They will clean it up later."
90 dropped to 85. "If you don't clean it yourself, people won't sit here. It's not supposed to be the worker's responsibility to do that. They have other things to do beside looking over for a particular table for trash to throw away."
Mitch rolled his eyes. He looked around the cafeteria and sighed. "Fine." He took the plate to throw away in the trash can. "There."
Princess nodded, and 85 went to 88.
A week later
Princess held her dish to sit at a table by the windows. She began to look at her papers on her first mission. When she saw a familiar figure sitting with a group of boys, she looked up. Princess saw Mitch and his group of friends talking about their first mission. She was not into their business until ten minutes later, something caught her eyes.
Mitch and his friends left the table, and there were three plates left uncleaned. She remembered he was with four people, so only two people threw away the trash.
Princess stopped writing and left her papers at the table as she approached the table where Mitch sat at. She began to grab onto the plates and threw the trash away for them.
When she returned to her table, she was not in the mood to write anymore. Her impression of Mitch had dropped from 88 to 80.
Three days later
The freckled boy and a few others were laughing at things they talk about with boys. When they were done talking, Mitch and the others went to grab some desserts before heading out of the cafeteria.
When Mitch returned to the table, he saw that the table was clean. Funny, he remembered that it was so messy that he did not even want to clean it. Did the workers clean them? Or did some person do it because they needed a seat?
It did not matter to him though. His group of friends came back too and did not even notice the change since they started to talk again.
Then, a girl in brown hair came over while folding her arms.
Mitch caught her attention and greeted her, "Hi."
"Yeah," Princess was not in the mood to even be nice to him to say hello back. "So you leaving yet?"
"Uh... yes?" Mitch questioned his own answer.
"Cool," Princess said in a sarcastic way. "So, every time you stop eating, I will throw away the lunch for you."
Mitch scratched his head. "Okay...?"
Princess rolled her eyes and pointed at him. "I can't believe you are my partner. He can't even throw his own lunch away."
"What?" Mitch was surprised.
Princess turned her body around and began walking to the exit. "Later."
At that point, Mitch was hit by so many arrows like he was being defeated by something he could not comprehend. He did not get Princess at all.
After their first mission
Before the mission, her impression of Mitch was 50. By the time the mission was finished, it was 70. It was getting better but she doubt it was going to be back at 100.
Though, both of them performed so well on their first mission, therefore, he was not a bad partner.
Princess walked in to their office to see Mitch staring at the computer. She forcefully put down a box of 5x5 onto the table loudly.
Mitch turned his head to see Princess holding onto the handle of the box. "Something happened?"
"It's lunchtime now, Mitch. From now on, here's your lunch."
The boy immediately got up and walked over to Princess. "What? My friends invited me—"
"Sorry, you can't," Princess ordered. "From now on, you will be eating at the office. If anything, you can eat there at dinner or when I'm not here."
"You can't do this to me."
Princess could see Mitch was standing so close to her right now and he was being very solemn. He was taller than her by so much that she had to look up at him. When she saw his eyes, she was confounded. He wanted to sit with his friends so bad?
Princess tried to say something but could not think if anything. When she looked at his face, she could see his freckles. She thought the freckles looked really nice. Even though they were all over his face, it was pretty?
"Um..." Princess stepped back and tried to avoid looking at him. "Well, you don't throw your trash away. So I am giving you lunch because then, I can throw both and my trash away."
"What the heck?" Mitch still did not get it.
"OMG, just eat it!" Princess said and ran out of the office.
A month later
Today, Princess was sick. She could not attend class today and work at the office. The next mission was not happening until five days later, so she called sick.
While she was trying to get better in health, Mitch walked in to the office to see Princess not in there. He was always late and she was always early. She would criticize him for being too late, but today, oddly enough, there was no voice of Princess.
He tried to search for her in the office but to no avail. She was not in there. He was happy he did not have to get lectured by her. When he looked at the clock, it read 12 p.m. Mitch remembered he was supposed to have lunch at this time, but forgot why he even walked to the office. Oh... he was waiting for his lunch sitting at the table. He completely forgot that he got used to it now, and that he does not go to the cafeteria anymore. All because of her.
Today she was not here, why did she not text him? He was angry and speechless. But what if she was late today? He decided to wait for her.
An hour has past and she did not show up. Mitch rolled his eyes and walked out of the office to the cafeteria. It had been so long since he has ate lunch at the cafeteria, aside from dinner.
Then it was three days later.
Mitch walked into the office after he ate lunch at the cafeteria. He saw Princess working on the papers for their next mission.
"You are back," he said and sat down to his desk. He was still angry or maybe he was just getting used to going to the cafeteria again.
"Did you just get back from the cafeteria?" Princess asked.
"Yeah," he quickly responded as he opened the computer.
"Um... I brought you lunch today..." she said as she stacked all of the papers together in a pile.
Mitch turned his head around and said, "Well, I'm sorry I already ate so..."
"I was sick," Princess stated, "And I'm sorry."
"How do you know if you are sorry?" Mitch said, frustrated.
The girl with brown hair looked at Mitch's expression. She could see he was annoyed and maybe angry. Princess knew that she could have just texted him she was sick when she had the time, but she did not.
She looked at his face for a little over a minute, and when it got too long, she averted her eyes to her desk. "Um... if you get hungry later, you can eat this..."
"Sure whatever."
Present time
Mitch cannot believe how this all started. Right now, Princess has been even more bossy than used to. Originally, before she claimed to be his girlfriend, she never raised her voice over him.
"Fine, yell however you want, I can stop going to the missions with you if you think I'm not being productive." He turned his back around and went back to his computer.
Princess wants him to be productive? Mitch smirked, You want productive? I will show you productive.
Instead, Mitch began to play an online game on the computer. He was no way going to admit defeat to her, and who was to say he had to always listen to her in order to show he was hardworking?
Princess was defeated by his actions. She could not believe he just went back to the computer to play games, ignoring what she just said! But now that she thought about it, she was being a little too harsh on him.
"Mitch," she spoke, "Can you stop that? Look, I'm sorry."
Mitch started to purposely put on his earphones, which made Princess even more shocked. She shook her head as the palm of her right hand touched her forehead.
After the two freshmen's first mission has completed, they were sent back to the Enigia College. They will not be having another mission in two weeks, unless other parts of the United States began to show chaos.
Both of them were sitting by the windows of the cafeteria enjoying their lunch meal. It felt like weeks of not being able to eat the food at the college. Compared to the meal at the headquarters, the headquarters' food were more delicious. The dinner at the college would be considered luxurious for the S student, but other than that, all other classifications had no "really" perfect food.
While the girl in blue hair was eating, she began to look at her phone. The phone was given to her from the college, and she was still not very accustomed to using it. She had never been able to buy one for herself, not even a smartphone. She was poor, because, well, she had no family.
Sometimes Bling wondered if she came from an orphanage. He asked her once, and she never replied. The reason being, Believe felt it was her personal issue. And if she told a blockhead, she guessed he might have not understood anyway.
Assumptions were always the go-to for Believe and assumptions was the safest route other than asking some stupid questions to just get the answer, right?
"Wow," Believe said after she looked at the news from the college right out of her phone.
Bling looked up but still reading the newspaper that was about his mission. "What?" he asked not facing towards her but facing directly on the newspaper's heading: Two new freshman, one S student and one A student, successfully cooperated on their first mission. He wanted to laugh at the heading, clearly both of them did not really work together to finish this mission. Apparently the heading was the only thing he kept repeating to himself.
"The principal is going to be back!" Believe exclaimed enough to let Bling hear her.
Bling still did not leave his eyes on the heading. "Yeah, so?"
"You just don't get it, do you?" Believe asked, staring at Bling. She could see the irises of Bling never even move a millimeter. "Are you even reading?"
"Yeah I am," Bling said but still kept staring at the heading. He wondered why the heading was so outstanding than the rest of the information. Maybe he could read something simple for once, and not having to read the whole summary of it. Usually, the heading is what summarizes the whole thing anyway, too.
"No you are not!" Believe said and snatched the newspaper away from him. She put it to the side and began to say, "As I was saying, the principal is coming back. I have never seen the principal before, but he is everyone's favorite person in the college. The students I have talked to have said that the principal is so nice and knowledgeable."
Bling nodded as he drank a sip of tea.
"What is that expression you are holding?" she asked while folding her arms.
"I don't see what is good about this principal?" Bling wondered.
"OMG!" the blue hair girl shot up. "You can't say that to him! He was the one who decided you should come to the college. And you should respect him!"
Bling rolled his eyes and scratched his head. "Well, he's not here, so."
The next moment, Bling saw the dish in front of him, gone. Believe had just stood up and left without even saying anything. He guessed she was mad after all.
The 40-year-old man called the two students to come to his office to get their results. The results were of the mission they performed. Every single student has a result and a score on how they performed on their first mission. After the first mission, it is usually a report written by the students themselves and is only graded based on the reports.
He carefully handed over the results of their performance to them and both of them started to analyze the summary.
When Believe looked at hers, it was a score of 88. She wondered why she performed so bad. She looked at the comments made by Professor Utonium and noticed they were about her behavior. She rolled her eyes, is that really a way to grade? But she remembered that the next mission, it is only graded based on their report, so she was a little not worried.
Though, Bling received his score and did not even feel anything for it. One reason was because he has never felt anything towards his grade. If he got an A, it was an A; and if he got an F, it was an F, nothing else. So when he received the score of 95, he did not even bother reading to know. Sometimes he thinks a 95 was worse than receiving 200 points. It was obvious he does not know how it was graded on, was it on a 100 point scale or 200 point scale?
Both of them walked out of the office, Believe still reading on the comments, and Bling just walking.
As she finished reading, she took a quick glance at Bling's score. The 95 shock her the most. The difference between 95 and an 88 was super high. First, 88 was in the 80s range, so it was a lower level than 90. Even though it was 7 points away, it was still a lot to her. Second, because it was 7 points away, it was greater than 5 points, so apparently she did worse than him for not being able to be close to him for top 5. Lastly, Bling was a blockhead, how in the world?
Then it shook her. She started to eye at Bling and surveyed him. Was it because he was an S student? Believe thought.
But performance should not be graded just on the classification, so it must not be classification! She was so mad right now.
"What?" Bling asked.
"How did you get 95?" Believe questioned without blinking.
Bling shrugged. "I don't know."
"You didn't even read the comments?" Believe pointed at the paper as she shouted.
Bling looked at the paper but did not read the comments, still. He sighed and still shrugged. "Who cares?"
Believe shook her head, and again, she walked away without telling him. She left Bling wondering about all the possibilities of her walking away from him so quickly. He guessed again, maybe she has doubled the hatred for him.
Believe walked away from the office hallway, and walked past the building, and then walked towards some building she did not bother looking. Before walking to the stairs, she kept yelling inside her head.
Why does he always get the good grade? Why is he better than me?
She cannot stop thinking about this and whenever she has these questions, she never ask the question out loud to him because he would never know the answer. She also cannot even bring herself to ask these questions because it was always thought later in her head after she left. She was also unable to find the answers herself.
I hate you, Bling. You have a family, you are an S student, you are easygoing… I hate you so much that you brought me to hate myself even more. To think that I was going to be able to do better at the college and running away from my old life, you came to the picture to ruin it for me.
She had to blame Bling for her own issues because that is what is part of the human heart. Many people blame others for causing them to become like this, but in reality, it is usually the self that hurts the self.
I hate myself. I wish I was never existing.
She kept thinking and yelling in her mind until something shook her entire thought.
"Want to trade?"
Huh?
Believe looked around to see nobody paying attention to her. She finally was able to see where she was at, and right now the hallway was quite empty. Just a few good four to five people were at the hallway.
"What? Who said that?" Believe asked in response, believing she was hallucinating. There was no way she could fall for someone's trap.
"Me, but you can't see me."
The voice was dark and masculine, but Believe could not figure out if it was really a boy or a girl. Sometimes girls have really dark voices. Believe was getting nervous and sweat dropped. Was this real? She, now talking to someone who just started communicating with her in the head? Funny.
"Then how are you able to talk to me? And how am I able to talk to you?"
There was a long silence, but then the voice reappeared again.
"You called."
The blue hair girl got even more nervous. She never even called this person. "What… what do—do you mean by I called... and trade?" She was seriously going to talk to an imaginary person.
"Trade with me. You want to become powerful?"
At this point, Believe was getting scared. Can someone even help her become powerful? And why was this person telling her this? She never even asked to become powerful? Did this person know about her and saw through her? But then again… becoming powerful should be by one's experience, not by someone's efforts. This was getting creepy.
"Who are you?" Believe asked instead of responding to his question. When she asked, she felt embarrassed that she continued talking to someone who must have been an imagination.
The person or figure, which Believe and nobody else could see, swiftly floated around her and started to smirk. Then he said, "Hmm… call me Butch."
Believe still did not know if she was just hearing her imagination. This could not be happening. Even the person can make up his own name… She wished she could run out of this improper conversation.
"Don't worry, when you are talking to me, the real time has stopped."
After he said that, she just noticed everyone in the background had stopped moving. This got her even more creepy because why was it only happening to her? Must this be a dream?
"Who are you? Why are you talking to me? Am I dreaming or what?"
Asking these questions meant trying to escape from the situation.
But, he did not directly respond to her questions, but did so in an indirect speech. He repeated again, "Want to trade with me?"
The blue hair girl shook her head and wanted to run away from here. And as far as possible. So she did, she started running, but noticed what he really meant by real time has stopped. She could see the stairs in front of her and the students walking on it had stopped. And herself, she was plainly running in the dimension of this little area. It may seem like she has ran so much, but in reality, she has never moved an inch! She felt she was now in another world, which made her afraid of what she was seeing now. What if she cannot return to the real world? Was this Butch going to let her?
"Let me out of here!" she began to scream.
But Butch did not. He continued to say, "Want to trade? You were calling for me."
She stopped dead in the track. "What? I didn't!"
He smirked and Believe was able to hear it this time. He had to now explain the reason she called for him, which triggered him to be annoyed. "You have hatred to yourself. You compare yourself with others. You don't like yourself and wished you were better. Isn't this your reason?"
He was quite livid because he did not expect himself to be the one explaining. Believe was the one who had these thoughts in the mind; therefore, she should have known. It was her thoughts that caused her to call for him, and it was her job to figure that herself. However, he did know she was scared to even think about that, because who would not?
Believe began to look around to find him but to no avail. "How did you know that?!"
"Your opinions traveled with signals. I listened to it, and you prompted me to ask you to trade with me."
Believe, this time, answered honestly, "What am I supposed to trade you with? Can you not trade with me?" All she wanted to was get out of here.
"You called to me, that means I will keep appearing in your mind until you really give up on yourself. You have already established a contract with me."
"What?"
"You still don't understand? We are both in a contract once you called for me. Until you give up, it means you are willing to bind with the trade."
Believe still did not understand. "What am I trading you with?"
That was the most important question. What is being traded?
"You want to become powerful and be better than those who you compare. I will make that happen. You will give me your soul in return. That's the trade." Butch still left out some reasons because this was a first time for Believe, so he should not be exposing too much information and details to her.
Believe stepped back and could not believe in what she heard. How could one trade with another for that? Was this even possible?
Butch floated around her again to examine her. He smirked to himself and began to say, "I will give you plenty of time to think about it. Whenever you are ready, I will constantly be appearing in occasions. But in the meantime, you will encounter something difficult in the coming week. You will seek help, and I can help you with that. Do you want to know about it ahead of time?"
The girl did not move nor did her mouth move. Who was she to believe? Whatever this Butch person said must have been fake, but he sounded so true. "What… what's going to happen?" she finally asked.
"You can ask me for help and I will help you by giving you a pass—"
Before he continued, he saw a familiar figure walking down the stairs. Huh, someone was moving when time has stopped. There was no way anyone could be moving while time has stopped. He only stopped time for just the both of them when a soul was in contract with his world, but a third person has stepped onto it. When he saw him, Butch said, "Oh, he's here. I guess you won't need my help for today. I will come back another time."
When Butch said he's here, she wondered who it was. Looking at the stationary time, she saw someone moving down the stairs. The person who was in front of her seemed familiar to her. She could only remember his face but did not recognize him in real person before. Then, she figured. "Brick?" She was not so sure if that was even his name.
The next moment everything was back to normal. Believe saw herself in the world where movement was in the presence. There were noises like usual in the background. She felt good. Then, when she looked at Brick, the young man who had red hair and red bloodthirsty eyes, she noticed something.
Brick was the only one who could still be walking when time has stopped. Brick must not have known there was a stop in time, but that was still impossible because he could have heard their conversation. Or was it because Brick was in a different dimension of time where he set it to that he was able to walk even in the bits of a nanosecond?
Believe thought, This guy knows Brick… was he scared of Brick?
Meanwhile at the office of two seniors. After they had a heated argument, the girl in redhead decided to stop caring. The freckled boy noticed and felt a little off.
He did not know the feeling, but he knew Princess would never leave the conversation for so long. Princess had been ignoring him after he won the argument. She continued to work on the report and was also writing for Mitch's part. She always had to write his when he was being too lazy. He states he will do it, but she never gives him the chance to prove himself to do so because she would write his before he even gets to write his.
Mitch felt if Princess does not talk in intervals of five, it was going to be awkward. Princess has a habit of talking again in five minutes, just like the time when he was at the expressway. She only does that to him, not to her professors, not to mention her instructor, and definitely not her father.
It has been thirty minutes and she missed six of the five-intervals. Finally, he stood up and walked over to Princess to see her writing. He tried to say something, but Princess moved to the other side of the desk.
This was getting weird. What was going on with her? Mitch panicked for the first time.
"Princess…" he said, "Are you still mad at me?"
She shook her head. Ugh, I just answered him.
"Then why are you not talking to me?" he asked. It was not like he wanted her to talk to him, it just did not feel right if she was not talking. It was super rare to see her voiceless in front of him.
Sometimes.
Then, Mitch looked at the table and saw the lunchbox she had prepared him. Of course, she put every little effort in making the lunch inside for him. She spent hours to do that so that he gets fed well. She wakes up very early in the morning to do that because she liked him. Even if she had expressed her feelings in so many ways, he would always find her annoying. What he liked her the most about was that she did not even mind and kept trying. He only liked her for the behavior, not because he had an interest in her.
They both get to see each other everyday, except when break arrives. Most of the time, he would be next to her eating during lunch and dinner, almost to the point that he stopped eating with his friends. It was mostly because the schedule does not fit and that he simply had no time since he had missions to do.
He sighed and begin to grab a rolling chair that was next to him. He took it and sat on it. He started to grab the lunchbox and took the sandwich out. Her food was always delicious and everyday they were different. Sometimes, he wished she would just stop being so nice to him for these things. He wished he was nice to him about the report and not nice to him about food and other things.
"It's delicious," Mitch said while looking at Princess. He was trying to see if she got a reaction, but she did not. He began to eat another handful and said, "You are the best at cooking. I will never waste any of them."
Princess knew he was just playing with her. He say these all the time when he can. Today, he was simply trying to cheer her up or maybe clear things up. Princess was not in the mood today.
"Princess," he said after receiving no response. "You see, I'm sorry."
Princess moved back to her original spot and continued to write. She did not do this because of him, it was because it was hard to write on the other side.
"Princess," he said again, "I am very sorry. From now on, I will be as productive. I will hang out with you all week if you need me to. And… I will make sure you don't work too hard for everything. I am an man now, so I should have responsibility for the report and the food and uh… your feel—"
Princess stopped writing as she threw her gel pen down. She began to state as she folded her arms, "Can you just eat? I don't like it when you eat while you talk."
Right, she has a habit of having everything perfect. Not to the most perfect at the very least, since sometimes she was not a perfectionist. The one who should be considered perfectionist was Blossom, the one with rare eye color aside from Brick.
"Okay, okay…" Mitch said, "I will eat, I will eat…"
"Hmph."
For the first time, Mitch chuckled. He got to see Princess angry and still trying to be angry. He thought it was rare for her to not express her real nature. She was not angry anymore but still acted she was angry.
"Smile more, Princess," he says.
Princess gave him a serious glare. There was no way she would be having fun. There was no way she was going to give in. There was no way she was going to stop being angry. There was no way to change her mood.
"Just eat," she said, annoyed.
"Yes," he answered and continued to eat, "I will eat the rest of the lunch you prepared me."
It was already a week and this was the day nobody had expected to be of importance. All the instructors were informed about what was to come. A few instructors were notified to tell their students what to do and this was something big.
Professor Utonium was one of the instructors to be notified by the sudden message. He told his two students to come to the conference room to discuss the details about what was to come.
When Believe and Bling walked in to the conference room in different timings, Professor Utonium had them sat down.
"Good morning, Bling and Believe," the professor announced and began to open up the projector. There, the projector had a PowerPoint slide showing up. "I have an important announcement to make. This is serious."
Professor Utonium pressed on the space bar of the computer and the next slide showed up. "Our principal has informed five professors to assist with Team AND and Team LIE."
Team LIE and Team AND? Aren't they… Bling began to think.
Professor Utonium pressed on the space bar again, this time the slide popped up a video clip on screen. The instructor clicked on the video clip and the video started to play.
The screen now appears an old man that was about 80-years-old. This man had white hair but shaved to show some baldness. His body was not shown on screen, but anyone could tell he was a short, little man.
"Good morning, students," the main spoke in his old-man's tone. He was sitting straight and his manners were also very polite. "Team AND and Team LIE is in charge of a mission that is in between their bases. Team AND's base is located in the Middle East while Team LIE's is located in Southeast Asia. Before I briefly talk about the mission, I want you all students to know that this destruction had vibrated across the earth. The Mephitic Circle has declared to the world that this was their doing. They announced the destruction to be the first phase of blight, a scourge they claimed will be happening. Students, Team LIE and Team AND will need your assistance."
Before the principal continue to speak in the video clip, Believe shouted, "Wait, what does this mean?"
"It means the mission from both teams are encountering is in big trouble. They are requesting for help. They will complete the mission, but they will need your decisions and assistance on screen."
Bling rolled his eyes. "This is cool…" He did not get to say the rest when he noticed a pair of eyes staring right at him. "Maybe," he finished.
"This is not cool," Believe said as she shook her head. "When he means first phase, it means something bad is happening."
Professor Utonium nodded and resumed the video clip, "Believe is right, let's hear the rest of the announcement."
The principal continued onto his next explanation, "The Mephitic Circle is supposed to be located in the Northeast, but they have fooled us by starting its chaos in another place we did not expect. They are being very precise about how chaos will ruin the landmass located there, so that soon humans will not exist in that particular area. After they are done with that first location, they will be moving onto the next."
"No way…" Believe and Bling said in unison. The both looked at each other in surprise.
"Students, in order to assist with the two teams, tomorrow you will be meeting in the lecture room on time. This must be done in a timely fashion and we hope both teams will come home safe."
"So you both know what to expect for tomorrow?" Professor Utonium asked.
"Uh… we still don't know what's going on, but of course we will help, that's what we were supposed to do the moment we entered Enigia College," Believe responded.
Bling just gulped and shrugged. That is, if he can wake up from his sleep tomorrow!
"One more thing, our principal said to us that if we finished playing the video, we need to contact him immediately," Professor Utonium stated and initiated his watch. He called the principal and he picked up. The blue screen of the principal showed up in the air and this was the first time both students got to see him for real.
"Good morning, students," the principal greeted to them politely.
Both freshmen greeted back.
The principal nodded and states, "Tomorrow morning will be a big day for both of you, are you ready?"
The two of them were not sure how to answer that. They were also afraid of answering to a stranger and had no idea if they say something wrong, he would be mean to them.
"I ask once, Believe and Bling, are you both ready?"
"I'm on call, principal…" Believe stopped to finally realize she never knew the principal's name! She felt awkward.
"Call me Mayor," he filled in Believe's answer as he smiled.
Mayor? the girl wondered. What kind of name was that?
The principal by the name of Mayor continued to ask the other boy who has not responded yet. "Are you ready yet, Bling?"
Bling flinched. Why was the principal directing at him all of a sudden? "Uh… yes…"
"Okay, after you both said yes, it has been recorded into the system. If you are not here tomorrow, that's going to affect you harshly. Once you are in the system, you have the responsibility to assist and aid. If not, there will be punishment for not abiding to the rules set forth."
He could see they gradually got scared. He chuckled and made sure that does not happen if they follow the rules. In the end, it was an ample mission for them to help out the other teams. They were being helped out before by Boomer and Bubbles, so they should help others in return.
It was probably a good thing that Believe started to have confidence in this upcoming task so that the professor will recognize her performance. However, it was not based on performance anymore, it was based on the report. She kind of felt devastated by it.
For Bling, he was planning to wing it. He still has to go to his club he formed, so he did not care much about what was going to happen tomorrow. Though, he did feel a little excited because he wanted to see how others operate their missions on the screen.
They still had not realized how bad this was becoming. It was called the first phase of blight, from what the Mephitic Circle had named. What was going to be chaotic? They hoped the two teams will not be affected by it as much.
The unknown is, they do not know how large the first phase was. Both teams will not be able to complete their mission like they think they would. It was not easy, and two teams cannot take down a large population of Mephitic Circle minions.