Passage 6 of a Prologue in 6 Parts

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Institutes and Irises
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Searching the lot, it wasn't hard finding straps to tie up the three creeps with. And with the huge bonfire I had made out of the garage, the fire department would most likely be showing up any minute. They'd probably take one look at the contents of the garage (burned or not) and be able to piece together what these thugs had been up to. Still, not one to leave things to chance, I made a sign using a loose piece of cardboard I'd found and propped it on top of Ed's unconscious body. Written on it in soot was the message, "I steal cars and Cheetos." I borrowed Ed's phone to snap a photo of him and his sign, then texted it to the police before dropping the phone on the ground next to him.

Ah, criminal shaming. Good stuff.

As we were about to split, I took one last look at the small office. Something was missing. Next to the roasting garage, it looked so dark, so quiet, so neglected, so… not on fire. With a smirk and a snap of the fingers, the small structure burst into flames as well.

"Really?" I heard Snow deadpan beside me. I looked down at her and just shrugged.

Let's be real here. Whatever divine being up in the high cosmos decided it was a good idea to grant fire powers to a little miscreant like myself must have been on crack or something.

We got in Snow's car and made our getaway just as the faint sounds of sirens could be heard off in the distance. Having had enough hijinks and shenanigans for one night, we drove back to the institute. It was just shy of three o'clock in the morning by the time we were pulling in. I gathered my things from the backseat before climbing out and tossing the keys to Snow.

The gates were obviously still locked, so I released a slow breath before launching myself up the wall, my fingers barely catching the ledge. With a grunt, I hoisted my body up on top of it then kneeled and turned, ready to help Snow up. Instead I was greeted by the sight of her staring down at me with a quirked eyebrow. She was on a ledge of her own next to the wall - or rather, more like a pillar, one made entirely of ice.

I blinked up at her before straightening up to my full height. "Huh. So that's how you got over the wall in the first place. I'd been wondering."

She simply nodded as she joined me on my ledge. As soon as she stepped off it, the frozen column that had been supporting her shrank back down and disappeared into the snow-covered ground. With another subtle twitch of her hand, snowflakes began to twirl and dance on the other side of the wall. They compressed into each other and solidified, forming a staircase made of solid ice leading down onto the campus grounds. Snow delicately made her way down the steps. When she reached the bottom, she looked back at me and waited.

I shook my head. "Think I'll pass. I'd probably slip and crack open my skull or something." Those stairs were made of ice after all. I hopped down off the wall, landing in a crouch. She shrugged and the staircase crumpled in on itself before shattering back into ice flakes that scattered on the wind.

"So I guess this is where we part ways," she said, folding her arms across her chest.

I quirked an eyebrow at her. "And let a lady walk herself home at this time of night? No way." What'd I tell you? Gallant. As. Fuck. I swept one hand out wide. "Lead the way."

She rolled her eyes, but I didn't miss the slight upturn to one corner of her mouth as she turned and began to walk away. I smirked as I followed.

We moved past the institute's Main Building, which rivaled the dorms for largest structure on the campus. Its bricks were a golden brown and it looked like a miniature castle, complete with turrets and topped off with turquoise cone-shaped roofs. I could feel the structure glaring at me as we walked by. I wasn't talking metaphorically either. The thing was actually glaring at me.

My hand to god, this entire institute is a living, breathing entity with a mind of its own. Guess that happens to a place when its owner is Yen Sid. It's constantly rearranging itself, moving a corridor here, shifting a room there, expanding this closet today, zapping that subbasement out of existence tomorrow… the place can be a total nightmare to navigate, especially if it doesn't like you. And me and it weren't exactly on speaking terms. It had made me tardy for my classes on more than one occasion.

Not sure why it was giving me the stink eye at this particular moment though. Maybe it was because I had broken curfew. Maybe it was because it saw me with Snow and thought I was corrupting a wayward lamb with my evil ways. Regardless, I responded in a way that any mature, logical, sane person would respond.

I stuck my tongue out at the building and flipped it off.

Not half a second later, something caught my foot and I crash landed hard into the snow-covered pavement. When I checked to see what I had tripped over, it was a golden brown brick that had come loose and fallen out of the corner of the Main Building.

"Been walking long?" Snow asked casually as she crouched down beside me. I narrowed my eyes at her. She snorted, "Are you okay?"

I didn't answer her question, instead electing to scowl at the building. It started emanating a low, high pitched noise. "...you hear that?"

She listened for a minute. "It's creaking. So? Old buildings creak."

Yeah right. That was a snicker if I ever heard one. The damn, moldy pile of bricks was being smug. I shook my head as I stood back up and brushed off my pants.

Snow cocked her head to one side. "What'd you trip over anyway?"

I looked again and the loose brick that had been there a second ago was now gone. The corner of the structure was intact once more. The building "creaked" again.

Fucking thing had it out for me.

"Nothing," I grumbled as I started walking again. She wasn't going to believe me anyway. No one else did. The school only ever pulled this crap on me. "Let's go."

I heard the snow crunching beneath her boots as she jogged to catch up and fall in step beside me. "You still owe me an explanation, by the way."

I gave her a sidelong glance. "For?"

We turned a corner. "For your h-" her words were cut off with a gasp and every muscle in my body tensed.

We had stumbled upon some guy hunched over on the ground, clasping his head and groaning. And in case you're wondering, no, that's not something you'd normally expect to see in the middle of the night on the grounds of Yen Sid's Institute for the Gifted. He seemed to be in pain. He was facing away from us, but I was pretty sure I recognized that mop of brown hair. Motioning to Snow to stay back, I took a cautious step forward. Reaching my hand towards him, I asked, "Professor… Terra?"

At the brush of my fingers against his shoulder, he violently whipped his head around. His eyes were wild and angry, but that's not what caused me to stagger backwards, nor every hair on the back of my neck to stand at attention. What did that was the fact that those eyes were flashing - no, glowing a molten yellow.

A split second later, his eyes squeezed shut. The savage, predatorial energy that had seemingly been etched into his every muscle a moment before drained out of him and his whole body sagged as his hand went to his forehead. "...T-Terra?" he repeated, so weakly that I almost didn't hear it.

I exchanged a glance with Snow before looking back at him. "Um, yeah. You know, as in like… your name?"

"My…? That's… no, my name's not Terra. It's..." he shook his head. "...it's Terra…"

O...kay?

I blinked. "Ah… my mistake?"

His hand fell to his side and he slowly opened his blue eyes once again. Blue. Not yellow. Huh. Some strange trick of the light, maybe? The moon reflecting off his irises? His gaze narrowed as it tiredly shifted between Snow and I. "What are you students doing out after curfew?"

Crap.

"Uh… don't blame me. This troublemaker here made me do it," I jerked my thumb over my shoulder towards Snow. She punched me in the arm and I grunted.

He gave us a scowl that was halfhearted at best, then just shooed us away with a flick of his hand. "Just... return to your dorms at once. Don't let me catch you out here at this time of night again." And with that, he turned, stumbled but caught himself, and walked off.

"Okay," I breathed, stretching out the last syllable as we watched him leave. "That was weird."

"Is he always like that?" she asked, her eyes fixed on his back right up until he disappeared around a corner.

I shook my head. "Nah. That's Terra, he's a member of the faculty here. He's good people. He's usually pretty laid back as far as teachers go, but that was… I don't know what that was."

Her head tipped to one side. "He seemed confused. Maybe he was sleepwalking?"

"Maybe… or maybe he was just wasted." Or maybe he had been replaced with a pod person. Never rule out pod people. Never. I shrugged. "Whatever. Let's get a move on."

We made the rest of our trek back to her dorm building in silence. I was too wigged out by whatever it was that had just happened to say much of anything, I'm guessing she was on the same page. Her room was on the first floor and it wasn't hard to guess which one it was, given that it was the only one where the window wasn't shut tight to keep out the snow and chill.

"You were saying something before," I finally said as we came to a stop just beneath her windowsill. She blinked up at me and I scratched a spot behind my ear. "You know, about me owing you an explanation?"

"Ah. Right. I meant for your hair and tattoos. Since now you know why I wear these," she raised her gloved hands, wriggling her fingers a bit. "That was the deal, remember?"

"Oh. Well, for starters, these aren't tattoos." I rubbed my thumb over the mark on my left cheek, wiping it away. "See? Makeup."

A crease formed between her eyebrows. "Okay… then what's the deal with the makeup?"

"Social experiment. Wanted to see how the teachers would react. A lot also thought these were freshly inked tattoos just cuz I'm a," here I used air quotes, "upstart hooligan youth that's acting out for attention."

She hid a smile behind her hand.

"Most realized it was just makeup. Though I did manage to convince one that I was planning to run away and join the circus to follow my lifelong dream of becoming a clown."

She snorted at that and shook her head as she turned to face her window. It was pretty high up. I was tall enough that I'd be able to pull myself up and in, but a shortie like her? Not happening. I saw her reaching for her gloves and suspected she was going to perform the same trick she had used to get herself over the outer wall. I had a better idea. Without warning, I placed my hands on her hips and boosted her up to the window ledge. She yelped and clambered into her room before spinning around to glare down at me.

"But really," I went on, grinning up at her as if nothing had happened, "my favorite was the professor who thought I had started a cult and that I was using these markings to signify myself as the leader or high priest or whatever."

She quirked an eyebrow. "You're joking."

"Nope."

"I don't believe you."

I fished a crumpled up piece of paper out of my pocket and held it out to her. "See for yourself."

"A detention slip?" she asked as she took it from me.

"I'm planning on getting it framed."

She read over it and bit back a smirk. "You prayed to the Dark One in the middle of class?"

I shrugged. "Cthulhu fhtagn."

"Alright," she shook her head as she passed the paper back to me through the window. "What about the hair?"

I pocketed it once more. "Egg whites and flax seed."

"Excuse me?"

"The secret behind my glamourous pincushion look."

"Glamourous?" she repeated dryly.

"Yup. I should be on the cover of Vogue."

She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the windowsill. "Or a Martha Stewart catalog. Sounds like you're making an omelette."

"What can I say? It's better for the environment than hairsprays." At her arched eyebrow, I asked, "What?"

"It's nothing. I just didn't realize you were the type of guy to… I don't know, go green."

"Psh, I'm all about saving the environment."

She snorted, "You mean when you're not setting it on fire."

I clasped my hands behind my head and beamed. "Hey, I figure it all balances out somehow in the grand scheme of things."

Snow shook her head. "Alright, well, that answers how you do your hair like that, but not why."

"Haven't you been listening? I'm an upstart hooligan youth that's acting out for attention, remember?"

"That's just what you want people to think."

I cocked my head. "And what do you think?"

"That you're not really the mysterious bad boy you pretend to be. That you're actually a total dweeb." Ouch. Harsh. The corner of her eyes crinkled. "And that if you're not careful, I'll figure out all your secrets soon."

One side of my mouth curved up. "Oh, I think you'll find that I'm still full of surprises."

She grinned as she settled an elbow on the window ledge and propped her chin in her palm. "Yeah? Like what?"

I'm not sure exactly what possessed me do it. Maybe it was the challenge dancing in her eyes and voice. Maybe it was the total 'But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?' vibe I was getting. Maybe it was just because she's hella cute. Like, hella. All I know is, one minute I'm on the ground looking up at her, the next I've used the windowsill to hoist myself up and balance on my hands as I pressed my lips to hers.

She stiffened, her breath hitched, but she didn't pull back. It wasn't really so much a deep kiss, but it wasn't just a quick and innocent peck either. Come on, I ain't the quick and innocent type, you know? I broke away after several seconds, flashing her a shit-eating grin. "Like that."

She stood stock still like a statue, her wide, unblinking eyes seeming to stare right through me. She didn't say anything.

Grinning wider, I relaxed my elbows and plopped my feet back down on the ground. "And what do ya know?" I chirped. "Your touch didn't freeze me into solid ice. Maybe you're not as dangerous as you think."

Still she remained motionless. Not so much as a twitch of the eyelash nor a peep out of her. Nothing.

Damn, I'm good.

"Well, this was fun. We should do it again sometime."

Silence.

Chuckling, I turned with a wave and began to walk away. "Laters, Snow."

There might have been a bit of a skip to my step as I headed back to my room. I didn't get more than ten feet however before I heard her call out, "Axel, wait!"

Smirking, I spun on my heel. "Hey, you got my name right this-"

Thwack!

That, my friends, was the sound of a hard, ice cold snowball hitting me square in the face.

Yup. I probably deserved that.

How I wish I could go back to that night.

That one pure, innocent, sweet and simple little night.

The night before everything started going to shit.

Author's Note: Annnnnnnd with that, our intrepid duo's lil late night adventure comes to a close, along with this lil prologue to a much bigger story that I have planned! Dropped a couple hints as to what's to come, hope it got ya'll hooked! Unfortunately, the next update won't be for a while as it is not quite ready yet - more info on that in my profile. I'll be sure to post updates to my profile as I progress, so keep an eye on it! And be sure to fave and follow this story so when I do next update, you won't miss it!

Special thanks to Amarxlen, SoraKairiRikuNamine, and Arisa Kiryuu for being so generous as to take some time to leave their reviews! Thank you so so sooooo much for reading, I super duper appreciate it! If you have any comments or friendly feedback, please make my day and leave a review! Catch you at the next update, lovelies! Much love, peace out, word to your mothers, and other such phrases that shouldn't be coming out of the likes of lil ol' me!