Fate/Academy: Episode 7

*It is a few days after their first training session against the corrupted spirit. They are in history class with a teacher named Mrs. Muluroma. Scene 1.*

"Okay class, today we are going to begin our first lecture discussion. I hope everyone was able to get the required supplies for their classes in a timely manner. I think that it is important in understanding history as a subject for us to view events chronologically. So that we have a good starting foundation as we progress. Many historians believe that the start of what we know as our society began in the events immediately following the cursing. Now I am not personally known for teaching glorified bedtime stories but it holds truth in its essence. The basics of the events are pretty cut and dry. You have heard these before growing up in your respective faction's schools. Some unknown event caused the whole population of the world to fall to corruption and society as we would have been familiar to it had been wiped out in its entirety. If artifacts found pre cursing era can indicate anything it is that they lived their lives just as normally as we do and never saw an event like that coming. Then after what seemed to be most of the planets population getting wiped out and the rest were infected, but were saved by the miraculous seven mages who had seemed to have been saved from the corruption, repelled the corruption, or were immune from ever getting corrupted in the first place among other ideas depending on which factions ideology you follow. Everything after that is of course fragmented nonsense created by the factions directly or indirectly, but among that nonsense we do know that the mages created the seven major factions by dividing the survivors into groups sorted by what abilities they had and as we stand here today we know that the seven major factions are based on what we have discovered to be called magic affinities. With that said the seven major affinities are… yes Micheal?"

"Light, Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Nature, and Darkness."

"Good and as we all know in today's time the faction names for the families of those affinities are… Miraldes?"

"In the same order as he just said. The Holy Council, Burning Ember, Glacial Coast, Grand E.A.S.T. South, Grand E.A.S.T. North, Floral Valley, and Undercity. With some question about Enreagent."

"Yes, I myself often question the whole Enreagent faction dispute. While they are considered as a distinct type of magic and users who master it can become very powerful, most of the other factions fail to recognize them as such because they see enhancement as nothing more than a weak baseline magic. It would almost be better to call them a sub faction but they have large numbers of users and they don't fall under any one faction more than the others so they are somewhere in between. This doesn't really put them in a physical location compared to the others but as we know they had been granted land under the Burning Ember in which they set up the Enreagent schools. So while not directly under them as a sub faction and while also not an eighth faction due to historical consequence, I think that it would be safe to say that in return for giving them some place of existence, Enreagent would most likely come to the aid of their host territory without question. Now if you would please excuse that very valid tangent. Continuing with the story. While we do not know the specifics of what happened due to seven different retellings of the events. And our questionable eighth not really caring to dispute against any of the other factions due to a lack of evidence and interest because it bears little direct effect on their existence. The Holy Council's retelling is based on evidence, probably closest to what may have actually happened. They believe that the seven mages were chosen and had their minds mentally resurrected by a divine force and they were able to in turn return everyone's mind from the corrupt darkness that had overtaken them. The only downfall to this story is that it would have required the mages to be recovered from the effects of the corruption at what is considered an almost irrecoverable stage and would have required them to travel at speeds that exceed limit of modern magecraft in order save the few who may have been just below the point of saving. Which is not technically impossible because we do not know the full extent of ancient magecraft. However the Grand E.A.S.T. faction may have more insight in their retelling. They believe almost exactly the same as the Holy Council, except they believe that the seven founding mages were not living human mages but instead what their early text refers to as a heroic spirit, an uncorrupt spirit whose capabilities far exceed that of a normal human. If that was the case, then this theory may have been what actually happened. The rest of the factions do not follow theories as closely as these. The rest tend to have crazy notions that the population reformed from their respective individual elements that were left on Earth, well except for Undercity. They think that those who were not killed by the cursing may have just built up a natural immunity from overexposure and the seven mages were the most immune and woke up first and took the initiative to resurrect the rest of the population. Which causes further concerns later on for the other factions. That theory would have to imply that it was pure chance that among all of the known affinities of magic that the current seven in power only got to be there because of a fluke chance that those seven would wake up. It causes fear and instability in the system of power that runs today. This conflict of ideals has served as the baseline for many later recorded conflict which we will arrive at later in the course. But most people no longer care about the story of the founding seven mages because they think that it no longer effects their lives like it effected all of those people in the past. However those simple minded people would be unaware to the fact that the actions of those seven whoever they may have been, are still influencing the decisions of today. Their action to fight heroically against the corrupted creatures to save our world is the reason that we formed all of the magic training academies, including this one. To serve as a reminder of why we train and prepare our magic to once again stand fast against the corrupted evil in case it no longer decides to remain dormant. Now continuing on from that…" She is right about most of what she has said so far.

History is important and we have to learn from it so as not to repeat it. However something about what she said is bugging me. The Undercity argument is not exactly as clear cut as she presented it to the class and has a lot more intricacies than that. While the theory that a natural immunity was built up, there is no reason to say that their immunities could not have been initiated or accelerated by some divine source. Also the affinities of the seven mages were most likely not random. It is well known that the strongest seven elements that exist in nature are the ones of the seven mages were chosen. If anything, they could say that the seven specific mages chosen to be resurrected were random based off of our current limited knowledge of events. On the other hand this is a first year history class in high school, so I can't blame her too harshly.

*Athenox is at lunch. He has found out that the organizations typically sit together so he is sitting at a table with most of his freshman teammates. Closest in proximity are of course Devin, Miraldes, Alex, and Adam. Luke, Jane, Sarah, Mary, Micheal, and Macy are within still within conversation distance. Scene 2.*

"If that is the quality of lectures we have to put up with for the rest of the year, then I do not know how I am going to be able to handle it." Sarah says.

"I don't think it was that bad. She did cleverly present and explain a lot of theories about the founding of the territories." Jane says.

"Sorry Jane, but I kind of have to agree with Sarah on this one. She is a little bit of a conspiracy theorist if you ask me. She has the general idea about them but not the specifics like the detailed reasoning of why the Holy Council faction thinks that the events after the cursing happened like they did." Luke says.

Wow.

That was a shocker.

I was not expecting him to feel that way about it. It is almost how I feel about the Undercity faction theories.

"With that said though, it is still a better argument than the pure speculation that seven random mages got up on their own and were suddenly immune to the effects of the corruption."

And just like that he ruined it. Anything nice I could have said is gone just like a fleeting memory.

"Since when did you become a certified expert historian, Luke?"

"Since I was a privileged member of a faction with more accurate ideals." Luke responds.

"You want to go there?"

We both stand up from the table and draw our weapons on each other.

"Good thing you used you cloaking enchant. I wouldn't want to have to see that hideous blade."

"Both of you need to calm down. This is a cafeteria, not an arena. You should avoid escalating to a fight so quickly since it could get out of hand and I do not want to have to invest in more extensive laundering than I already have to from class." Devin says.

"You know Devin makes a great point. Don't you agree Mary?" Miraldes says.

"I agree that drawing your blade here would cause an unnecessary amount of destruction and explosions. Besides, I would not want to have to mess up my hair today." She says as she looks up from her plate. Mary replies.

Within a few seconds before we can decide to stand down, the two girls kick us in the ankles so hard that we are immediately returned to our seats.

"Seriously why do you two have to be such hotheads towards each other? You two have fought before and the result was clear. Athenox won. Now leave it alone." Jane says.

"Actually it is not that simple."

"Yeah, due to the events of both parties. Specifically Athenox being a loser and losing his powers within a few days after the fight. We have both agreed to the fact that the fight was a fluke and when he recovers his skills back to what they were, then I will be happy to crush him. I would do it now but I do not take pride in defeating amateurs who cannot control their powers. " Luke explains.

"He is mostly right, even though he is the loser who forgets that he ran out of mana and I had to go easy on him. Which is his part of the fluke in question. And to further clarify, I am not as much of an amateur as you would like to make me out to be. I didn't forget how to cast spells, and I just have to recondition those spells to work with a new mana type."

"This is passive aggressive nonsense and it is getting really old. If we have to go through this process of you guys trying to pick a fight with each other every day, then I think you should just get it over with an become friends, or at least teammates who can acknowledge each other's presence with respect." Macy quietly interjects.

"Macy is right. There has got to be some way for you two idiots to get along." Sarah says as she tries to think up a solution.

"Hey if combat will be the thing that solves it. Isn't there a Saber Mage competition coming up?" Devin asks.

"Yes. It is called Blademaster. It is a basic one versus one competition designed to test sword technique over magecraft and as a result, they do not allow the use of advanced magic. As a part of the arena team for the upcoming Grail War competition next semester, I am required to compete in it." Luke explains.

"Well what if Athenox competes in it also? Then you would be able to fight each other and decide who is better." Miraldes states.

"It is doubtful that the randomization system used to set up the matches would be likely to pair us up right off the bat and the idea of either of us making it to the finals is laughable considering that there are some top tier upperclassmen competing but the limit on allowed magecraft may help Athenox since he is not able to use any in the first place."

"Likewise, Luke may be saved considering he wouldn't have enough mana to operate that magecraft in the first place." Without hesitation Luke and I are kicked once again.

"You know if you start doing real physical damage, then they may not be able to compete in the competition in the first place and we will have to deal with this for the rest of the school year, at least." Devin says.

"Meh, they are fine." Sarah builds up holy magic in her hand and snaps her fingers as the nearly broken sensation in my ankle is gone.

"My real question is if Athenox will have time to compete. Since he is on the resource gathering and construction team I could imagine that he would be quite busy if he were to try to do both." Alex says.

"The matches do not conflict with team practice because the tournament takes place on a Saturday night in a few weeks." Luke states.

"Well then Luke it is official. Whoever makes it the furthest in the Blademaster tournament is better than the other, and if by some miracle we both make it to finals then the last match will be the determining factor. Deal?"

"Deal." Luke and I shake hands.

"Athenox, I would check with Mrs. to see if we have any overnight gathering trips then. Connor told me that as we get closer, we usually get a few of them and eventually the whole team has to be excused from class to pull all-nighters." Adam says.

Yeah but from what I know about Mrs. I think she has already accounted for this. She always has a knack for being at least one step ahead.

"As long as our all-nighters do not involve crazy Assassin spirits turning us to stone and draining us of magical energy, then I am fine." Devin says.

"You know Eric said that the spirit only got the upper hand because of its bizarre ability and the fact that it had caught us in a trap and other than that it looked to be a fairly weak spirit in terms of physical capability. So I would probably expect more of those."

"Speaking of that, Athenox what did you have to talk to Connor and Eric about?"

"It was about the items that the spirit dropped. While the essence was useless because it was before the start of the competition season, I figured I could at least see what was up with the visor and the dagger." I pull the daggers and visor out of my backpack.

"Wow I never saw them before but the visor is really colorful. I bet black and pink would look great on you." Devin says sarcastically.

"I haven't done anything to them yet. It is not my fault the spirit was a girl."

"Wait, did you just say that you could tell what the spirit looked like?" Jane asks curiously.

"It was through a complicated process. When the spirit took off the visor, its eyes started glowing yellow and emitting a massive amount of magic. I traced out the properties of it and matched it with my blades. As a result, I prevented everyone else from turning into stone but I became encased in it and a reality marble opened around me." I continue to explain the events to them.

"So the visor itself is made out of the same materials as the reality marbles at the school and you used it? That means that you can use a reality marble which is very high level magecraft. I am almost disappointed that the Blademaster tournament doesn't allow high level magecraft because I would have loved to see that." Jane's eyes seem to brighten and sparkle out of interest and I think she is starting to drool out of the corner of her mouth.

"Hey, earth to sister!" Sarah waves her hand in front of her sister's face.

"Get a hold of yourself. Reality marbles are not viable magecraft and even enhancement has more use than that. Considering everything inside of a reality marble is just a fake illusion generated out of mana." Luke says trying to downplay my achievement.

"Do you have any ideas on how the visor works?"

"I think she was using to conceal whatever optical magic that caused us to almost turn to stone."

"Why, couldn't she have just ended the spell herself?"

"I am not quite sure. Certainly the effect was wasting an excess of mana so it would have probably drained her eventually but if she knew that then you are right why did she need this visor?"

"Wait, don't you use something like optic magic when you scan and copy people's weapons and magic?"

"I suppose that is a correct way of looking at it."

"Can you turn it off?"

"No. I can always just kind of feel it. Well see it is the more accurate term. I can envision the structure of a weapon or spell once my mana can come into contact with it. It is almost as if the mana outlines the magic structure. From there I can replicate it."

"Doesn't that usually cause you to pass out afterwards?"

"I do not know why but typically that is the case. And if it isn't blacking out then it is some form of paralysis."

"So what if that visor could help you cancel your magic so you didn't pass out? I think that would help you in the back to back match style that a tournament would use."

"Hmm. I will look into that but what about the daggers? I myself do not use blades that short but the chains on the weapons maybe useful."

"Um, Athenox?" Macy speaks nervously from her seat.

"What is it, Macy?"

"You could use the armory forges downstairs. I hear their equipment is pretty good. I have yet to try them out but Clara and Corey tell me good things. I even asked if they could show me a few extra pointers on repairing and modifying my phantasm weapon after school today. So I do not think that they mind it too much if you came along since you are trying to figure out things yourself. I could even show you what I know to see if that would help."

"You know that sounds like a great idea, Macy. We could all go and see more of what Athenox's weird abilities can do." Jane says as her eyes once again lose focus of reality and drool proceeds out of her mouth. She is smacked on the back of the head by Sarah.

"Oh Jane, you seem to have forgotten that Aubrey wants us to start preparing for the Caster mage competition, Castmaster, that is going to be happening in four months. She is very prudent and demanding. She does not want us to be wasting our time by gawking at another mage's talent when we have our own magecraft to attend to. To quote her own words, "If you start slacking off now, then I will make you come in over winter break for mana drill training Besides who wants to watch him sit around all day and blow himself up trying to break a few blades." Sarah says.

She is very full of herself and I do not find it to be funny at all.

"Anyway Macy, it does sound like fun and I myself happen to be quite knowledgeable at forging. I think between the three of us we may be able to work something out." Devin proclaims.

"Really Devin, since when? In the brief period I have known you, I have never once seen you do anything that suggests you know how to properly maintain your weapons in an effective manner." Miraldes says.

"Yeah you seem to try to break your blades every time you fight something. It is almost like your trying to destroy your weapons and not your target." Alex says.

"I think that these swords just can't match my physical strength." Devin says as he flexes his arms in poor attempt to show off.

"As incorrect and off topic as that is Devin, I would be glad to accept your offer. I would like to learn more about these items and see if they can be useful in some way."

"So, who is ready for our next class? You all know what Mr. Lanslac is teaching us in survival training today?" Micheal asks.

"Yeah. He said it was going to be a…" Sarah says.

"You don't have to say it because we all already know." Luke interrupts her.

"What is the matter, Luke? You were already starting to throw a fit about it when he announced it in class yesterday. Now you don't even want us to say the word."

"I think Luke just has a problem with…" Devin says.

"No I do not and like I said before there really is no need to say the word because we still already know what it is." Luke interrupts again.

"That seems like an ineffective tactic to not try and think of the word in which you are trying to not think about, because in making sure no one else says it, you then have to pay attention and look for it in other people's sentences. Plus it is a little rude since you have already tried to interrupt me three times since I have started talking just because you were afraid that I was going to say the word…"

*Abrupt scene change to Mr. Lanslac's survival class. Our group and a few others are there. Scene 3.*

"Cooking challenge! As I said yesterday, the goal of this lesson is to give you more methods of surviving and what is more important to surviving than being able to use materials that you find around you in the wilderness of the corrupted lands in order to feed yourself. As you all know, being well fed is one of the major ways to replenish mana because you are absorbing the energy of the material that you are eating." Mr. says to the class.

"Why do we have to cook? I fail to see how it will apply to me in the future. I am a fighter, and I should be working on my combat skills. Besides if I need to eat in the future then I can either go to a restaurant or have my future wife cook something for me."

I thought I had heard every possible ignorant statement out of Luke's mouth, until now. This topped all of them. So he is one of those guys? I guess I will have to save himself from his own disrespect and if knocking it into him will not work, then I will have to take the more subtle approach of forcing respect into him through mental manipulation.

"Hold on, Luke. What was that?"

I stand up and walk to Luke's seat and kneel next to him.

"What do you mean? You going to pick a fight about this?"

He summons his blade in the middle of classroom.

"No, no, not at all. I mean that is a little low, even for you. You want to be a strong independent fighter, am I right?"

"Yes I suppose." Luke responds.

"And you want to work hard to prove yourself so that hypothetical wife of yours could stay at home out of harm's way right?"

"Definitely." Luke responds again.

"Then how are you going to be an independent fighter keeping your wife out of harm's way if you have to bring her into combat to cook for you. It seems a little silly doesn't it?"

"You are right. It is. Fine, then I will accept this lesson as an honor." I walk back to my seat.

"Worry not, Mr. Matou because there is more to this challenge than just cooking. If there was not then this may as well be a middle school class for girls. Let me explain the rules further because there is a very specific reason that we are having class at a different time than normal. If you look around, then it appears that there are no ingredients in this room. So in order to get those ingredients, you then must hunt them down yourself." Mr. explains.

"Where? In the school?" Micheal asks.

"No, we will not be having you run through the entire school grounds on a scavenger hunt. Not yet anyway…" Mr. continues.

"Well then where do we need to go?" Luke asks. Mr. as he looks down at his watch and utters some incoherent phrases that sound like they are of an indiscernible ancient language. A portal opens up in the front of his classroom.

"I will divide you all into groups of five. Then you will each decide to send in two group members. While inside you must hunt and gather what ingredients you are going to be using. Once you return you will have 45 minutes to prepare and cook a dish. After that, I will evaluate and judge each dish. All of you will get completion points for the activity but the best dish will get bonus points as extra credit. Now then, to start assigning groups."

He continues to list off our groups and to no surprise I am grouped with Devin, Miraldes, Adam, and Alex. In fact, our three Team groups have been formed, in addition to the other three groups of freshman.

"So who are our two fastest and mobile fighters?" Devin asks.

"Well you are a rider, so can't you use your bull to carry more?" Adam asks Devin.

"And Miraldes is a very fast Assassin, so she would be an obvious choice." Alex says.

"Wait. If we want to get that bonus, then shouldn't we go for getting higher quality items from inside? It is technically a reality marble and therefore everything inside will be made up of mana and no offense, but Athenox is probably the best out of all of us in detecting magic items." Miraldes argues.

"I suppose that makes sense but as we all recall. Athenox lacks anything that resembles movement speed. He can only operate within a certain combat radius." Alex iterates as I feel the pain of his words impale me like a knife in the back.

"I would appreciate it if we could stop acting like I can't run at all. And besides, if Devin is in there then he should be able to carry me on the bull in between targets. We also do not know what is on the other side of that portal, so it is a possibility that we are going into an unknown area with unknown obstacles and items on the other side. My void abilities and magic detection should be able to adapt and crack through most of what could be on the other side."

"Okay then, let's do it." We unanimously decide to send in me and Devin to gather ingredients.

"Miraldes, can you start thinking up what we could make with a different combination of ingredients? I would pick something that could work well with a wide range of ingredients."

"Sure thing."

All of the students who are going in are lined up in front of the portal. It seems as if Luke and Jane are going in from group one. As well as Sarah and Micheal from group two. It doesn't make sense. They are both sending in a Caster and a Saber. A Caster mage will tend to have a lot of problems in terms of mobility and will typically have to burn a lot of mana when they try to keep up. They have to be betting on a smaller area of operation with a limited number of enemies or creatures to gather from. Is there something they know that I do not?

"Alright students. You should do your best to avoid dawdling. Speed and reaction time are critical to this challenge. You will have 10 minutes while inside to find your ingredients and head to the exit point. So if you run into other groups, please note that it is not advantageous for either of you to waste time engaging each other in combat. My counter begins in 3...2...1...go!"

We rush inside the portal. When we cross through, we are amazed to find that it is a dark moonlit forest. Devin and I do not spend much time as we hop on his bull and we rush forward through the forest.

"So Athenox, what do we need to look for?" Devin asks me as the new reality of our situation sets in.

"Oh no. That's why they chose to send in Casters."

"What are you talking about?"

"Earlier I had noticed the other group's choices for who to send in through the portal to get ingredients. Given how little time we had to discuss what we were going to make beforehand or what ingredients we were going to be able to get, it would have been wise to send in the person who would be overseeing the group based off having the most cooking knowledge. I can only assume that is why they would risk sending in Casters into a vast area of operation with little preparation. Since Casters, and more specifically Jane and Sarah, as they have had schooling through the Holy Council on how to follow and manage recipes."

"So what you are telling me is that since we assumed what was better towards fighting things and getting better ingredients that we as a result, totally neglected what was going to get us ingredients that could even make a dish in the first place?"

"Yes but we do still have a few advantages over the others. Our melee based offensive capabilities will allow us to quickly dispatch creatures, your riding skill will allow us to move faster and reach a farther range, and that range will allow us to benefit from detection."

"How so?"

"Well because I immediately detected an uneven distribution of magic energy in the forest. It is distributed in a manner that increases the further out from the center point that we entered in. So stronger things with higher quality essences should be."

"You could tell that just from being in here for less than a minute? You haven't even contacted anything with your mana yet."

"I know. I could just kind of tell by looking at the forest. It is like I observed the spirits giving off mana at different amounts and rates. I could only notice the pattern by gauging it relatively to different levels of power that I have encountered before."

"You are the one with the irregular ability to detect things with an unnatural mana type flowing through your body, so I will take your word for it. So when we get to these higher quality creatures, what is our plan?"

"Since we do not know specifically what we are going to have to get, then we will just have to get as much as we can. I could generalize what we need but I am mainly just going to go for whatever I notice to have the highest or densest magical presence. Here! We are closing in on one of the largest power readings in this area."

"Do you want me to stop?"

"No, I want you to speed up so I will have an increased attacking force."

"Increase attacking force? What do you mean…?"

I takeoff from the side of the bull and empower my sword as I approach a large pack of spirit beasts and crash into them with the full force of my weapon. A dark flash sweeps across the forest.

*Devin and Athenox are riding back on the bull and are headed towards the central portal they entered from. Athenox is hanging on the side of the bull and packed spirit food items are tied to the back of the bull. Scene 4.*

"I can't believe how much we got. I seriously doubt that we will have to use all of this."

"True, but it is better than not having enough or not having the right thing. We have to make the best of the fact that we did not strategize well enough."

"Did you hear that?" A high pitched shout is coming from the distance.

"Yeah someone is probably in trouble."

"If I had to guess, then they probably pulled too many creatures at once. Or worse. Let's go."

Devin turns the bull off course in the direction of the shout. When we arrive, we Luke and Jane being encircled by a group of lions. Jane is passed out on the ground and Luke is frozen in place holding a large one in the center back with his shield.

"Luke, look out." He looks and jumps back as we ram the bull straight into the lion. We circle around and I hop off of the bull.

"Luke what happened?"

"We were just trying to take down the big one for our last ingredient and go, but the lion knocked me around quite a bit. Jane fell out from mana drain trying to heal me. I tried to grab her and run but we got surrounded. I have been trying to fight them off for a few minutes but they keep coming. I think it is because the big lion keeps calling them." His voice. There is so much panic in it. Almost like he sounds afraid, but why? He should have had enough power to take down that Lion easily. The weapons are shaking in his hands. What has him like this? Nothing in this area of the forest should be a big enough threat that it would physically scare someone.

"Well then we will have to dispatch of this Lion to get out of here. Devin, can you load Jane up on the side and run to the exit? We will be behind in a few minutes. Luke you think we can distract this mob long enough for Devin to ride ahead?"

"Of course we can!" Luke exclaims loudly as the panic that was in his voice seems to go away.

Devin clears a path through the lions as we face the big lion. It seems to ignore the bull as it runs away, almost as if it is more focused on us or is simply allowing the bull to escape.

"Luke, are you ready?"

"Yes I am…" His voice trails off as he starts to quiver in panic again.

I thought he was okay. The Luke that I know would have been full of snarky elitist comebacks and would have started swinging already. So why not now? The personality shift is so off putting that I almost do not notice that three lions are charging at me. I swing at them and their spiritual bodies hit the floor, and spirit essence splashes everywhere. The sight seems to cause Luke's eyes to widen. So that is what it is. I didn't recognized it before but it should have been very obvious since I have seen this level of fear before in new recruits to the Undercity army. He doesn't want to kill things. Anything, person or spirit beast. The thought frightens him. He was okay in combat at the school because he knew no one was going to be fatally injured, and at most would have just been knocked unconscious. Here however, we are killing the spirit creatures. Even though they are made of mana the thought of killing them has probably been something that he has been dreading since Mr. announced the assignment yesterday, maybe even longer in some form. That is why he has been freaking out about it, and covering it up with a throw away complaint about what his societal role should be. I guess it will be another thing that I will help him on, and I will start by taking down this creature. I start fiercely striking at Luke's shield. The action seems to snap him out of his panic for a few moments.

"What are you doing? We are supposed to be taking down the lion, and not me. Now is not the time for this loser. I told you that we would fight later." He shouts as he is getting angrier.

"And we will, but right now I am getting us out of here."

As the structure of the shield becomes clear, from being coated in my mana. I am nearly dropped by the dazzling brightness of summoning it. It is almost like looking directly into the core of the sun. The lions seem to also be disoriented by the sight of the shield as it forms on my arm, especially the large one in the center. It took a lot of mana to summon and I doubt that I will be able to empower it much, but it should help me keep all of the lions off of Luke so I can attack them. I start to clear through them. Slamming them into groups with the shield and slashing them down with the sword. I am making headway when I turn and see a few of them start to focus on Luke. I take my blade and clang it against the bright mirrored surface of the shield causing a bright spark and a wave of sound reflects outward. This causes their attention to be turned to me as start to cleave through the groups of lions surrounding the large lion. I am unlikely to have enough mana to draw the battle out any further. The shield in my hand is nearly battered and beaten beyond the point of stability and any attempt to keep using may cause it to explode and shatter into my hand. I start to empower the shield as I throw it into the cluster of lions. The shield explodes and sends shrapnel around, causing the lions to dissipate into spirit essence. The big lion remains in the center. Its eyes look shocked as I charge at it and attempt a strike with Caliburn. The creature evades and rapidly strikes back before I can manage to move. My only option is to brace the strike with Caliburn. It catches and I manage to hold it back for a few seconds before it slams me down. It looks at me and approaches before readies its paw for a final swipe at me. I slide underneath the lion before I get hit by it, and I unleash a flurry of swings at its underside along the way which causes it to explode in a flash of light. I get up and catch my breath.

"Luke, come on. Let's go."

"What was that?"

"Necessary, now like I said before, we have to go. Mr. had said that we only had 15 minutes to get what we needed and go. We only have 4 minutes left. We have to run if we want to make it on time, because of how far out we are." We cross through the portal and make it back to the classroom.

"Are you guys okay?" Devin asks as class mates start to gather around us to make sure that we are okay.

"It clearly wasn't anything that they couldn't handle. Now please go back to your workstations and begin cooking. You only have 45 minutes." Mr. says loudly to the class. I return to my group to find that they seem to have gotten out all of the ingredients to start preparing them.

"Okay Miraldes, do we have everything that we need?"

"Actually we have much more than we need but it seems as if you did that on purpose to account for not having the recipe with you when you were in the portal. Still what you got was pretty on the mark, almost matching the fundamental parts of a few different dishes."

"So now we need to start dividing the tasks up so that we can…" Before my sentence is finished, Miraldes interrupts.

"Oh Athenox it is no problem. You already did more than your part. You look like you are pretty exhausted from saving Luke and Jane. Not to mention the fact that Adam, Alex, Devin, and I can handle this just fine."

"Shifting Perception: Vertigo!" Adam shouts out as a spell is cast on me.

My body gives out as Devin kicks a chair under me and I crash land into it. Metal cuffs are chained around my wrists.

*End of Episode 7.*