Guardians' Tales
Chapter V: First Day
Era: Tranquil-Mystic Calendar
Cycle: June 24, 2548
Time: 15:36 Galactic Standard Time, 06:53 Resident Time
Star Cluster: HUB
Planet: Resident
Location: SOLDIER Institute, Flying Wolf Dorm
Sora's POV
Monday morning. I hate Monday mornings. They are either the first day of school, blitz ball, or just generally throwing my day out of whack right from the get go. I dragged myself out of bed, our rooms were magically transmuted to resemble our rooms back home so we don't have to worry about adjusting to school life, the rooms even came with TVs and Computers. Quite convenient considering the circumstances.
I went to the left side of the walkway, past Tifa's room where the men's shower was. After bathing myself I threw on my uniform and went down stairs to the kitchen where I was met by the smell of pancakes and eggs. "Morning sleepy head." I heard Xion greet me, she was helping Aqua with the cooking. Xion didn't have her cloak on so you could see the hour glass emblem on her back that would normally be hidden by the tattered desert cloak she would wear, and had frost on each of the bases.
"Morning, Xi. What's for breakfast?" I asked taking a seat.
"Pancakes, eggs, and bacon, Sora." Aqua replied. "Hope you guys are hungry."
I noticed that Naminé, Kairi, and Roxas were already here eating and one seat had not been prepared.
"Where is everybody else?" I asked taking a large bite of bacon.
"Tifa is in the training dojo past the sliding doors with Riku and Isaac. I think Shin is still sleeping and I want to say Terra is taking a shower."
"I'm here!" Terra called taking a seat next to me and started eating.
"Then we know where the others are." Aqua said.
"May I have a second serving, please?" We looked to Terra to see that her plate had been completely cleared. Where did she put all of that? Kairi and Naminé were particularly shocked at the speed.
"Sure thing, Terra." Aqua replied not really phased by the request and handed Terra another plate with more food than the first serving.
"Thank you very much, Aqua." Terra replied and started eating again.
"I hope you saved some for us." Tifa replied dragging Shin by the ear with Riku and Isaac following suit.
"We saved plenty." Xion replied taking a seat after setting the remaining spots, though one spot was left unset, oddly enough that's where Isaac sat and all he had was a pear in his hands.
"Good, I dragged this one out of bed when I realized he still wasn't awake, and classes start in an hour."
"Isaac?" Naminé began.
"That's my name." Isaac replied simply, taking a bite out of the fruit in his hands.
"Are you sure that is going to be enough to get you through the day?"
"Gotten me through every day of my life so far." He replied taking another bite.
"That can't be part of a balanced meal." Aqua commented with a concerned look on her face.
"You'd think that."
"Arf!" Asili replied jumping into his lap. Isaac handed the cub a green apple and she started munching on it. Terra was still trying to pet the cub, but to no avail as the cub gave her a suspicious glare that caused her to pull her hand back.
"So what's on the agenda for the day?" Isaac asked.
"You guys will have your first day of classes today. I'll give you guys your schedules after you get done eating." Aqua replied.
"And in some cases, a shower." Tifa added looking at Shin, Isaac, and Riku.
"Sounds simple enough." Roxas added.
"Now finish eating and get ready to go." Tifa added enthusiastically hitting Riku on the back, nearly making him choke on his food.
"How are our newbies doing?" The eccentric voice of The Doctor called from the door way as he peered around the corner with a wide goofy smile that almost put mine to shame, almost.
"They are getting their morning nourishment right now, Doctor." Tifa replied ignoring the annoyed look she was getting from Riku.
"Oh, that's good. I have some news for…" The Doctor paused suddenly. "What is that?" He pointed to Isaac.
"What's what?" Isaac asked with a mouthful of fruit.
"Is that a pear?" The Doctor asked with an almost hidden disgust. Almost hidden.
"Yes." Isaac replied as he swallowed his food.
"Blech!" The Doctor replied. "I hate pears. How can you even stomach those things?"
"Simple." Isaac took another bite of the pear. "Like this." He replied with his mouth full.
"Bleeh?!" The Doctor recoiled and grimaced in a comical fashion. "I thought I was weird." You are Doctor, you most certainly are. "Anyway, apparently a new student transferred in late. They put her in a ten man team and now we have a team of eleven and a team of nine."
"But I thought that there could only be a team of ten." Riku replied. "And if there is a new student, then why didn't she get put on our team instead of a team that has ten?"
"Yeah, we could certainly use the help." Shin added, taking a bite of his eggs. "Let me relax a bit."
"Well apparently, the team that got the extra teammate barely managed to pass the easier of the ten exams. Apparently they have some standing with the Headmasters and specifically requested they be put on this particular team." The Doctor replied taking a seat and rotating it around so he could rest his chin on the back rest.
"Must be royalty or something if they could make a specific request like that." Tifa shot back taking a sip of her orange juice.
"Whoever it was, they are certainly persuasive. Well enough of that. Stuff your gob and get a move on!" The Doctor smacked the table and rose from his seat, moving towards the main entrance.
We finished our breakfast and received our schedules for the day. It was a pretty light schedule with only six basic classes on Monday, Wednesdays, and Friday. We headed for the main court yard. All the students were meandering through the large open plaza to the various buildings for their classes.
"Looks like I'm on the third floor of the Science building for a Physics class with a Mister Vance and a Mister Freeman." Isaac commented, he was wearing his sunglasses to block out the sun.
"Same here." Terra added.
"So am I." Shin added.
"Looks like we are going to be lab partners." Terra replied.
"I'm on the first floor of the History building for Freshman Galactic History with Roxas and Naminé." Xion added.
"Looks like we're on the second floor with math." Riku commented dragging a less than enthusiastic Kairi with him. I don't blame her since math is the least exciting subject to ever exist. I don't think people who major in the subject even like math.
"I wonder why they have us split into groups of three like this. Wouldn't it make more since to have us all in the same classes?" I asked.
"Probably to keep things orderly for the teams." Roxas added.
"I'm sure one of the teachers will tell us." Naminé added.
"And what's this SMITE that we're all in?" Roxas asked, we looked at our schedules and saw that SMITE was our second to last class of the day.
"Ye got me." Riku replied. "Maybe a team building class for first years."
"HEY, YOU NINE!" We heard someone call from behind us.
We turned around to see a guy in a white trench coat with a red cross on the sleeves and a blue shirt that had a white cross on it. Black pants and shoes and slicked back blonde hair.
He had two people behind him, a guy who had a slightly darker skin tone than Isaac and wore a blue vest with torn sleeves and a single shoulder armor on his right shoulder, a large beaded necklace, and jet black pants with a red rope around his waist with a bronze bow staff with a red cloth grip.
A woman with silver hair that covered one eye and dressed in a more formal blue school uniform that resembled military attire, with a single shoulder armor on her left shoulder. On her hip was a blue and white spiked chakram.
"Who are you?" Kairi asked. You could hear the annoyance in her voice. So much so that the silver haired woman shot Kairi a death glare. Kairi, of course, ignored it.
"Yo! This is Seifer, ya know." The dark skinned guy replied.
"Easy there, Raijin." The blonde replied, who I believe to be Seifer since it did not sound like a girl's name. Speaking of which, I feel like I've heard that name before, but…where? "Can't blame the newbies for not knowing of the discipline committee."
"IGNORANT!" The silver haired girl shouted in reply.
"That can't be helped, Fujin." He replied to the girl with a cocky smile. "As their superiors, we might as well enlighten them so they know better."
"Oh joy…" I heard Riku breath out sarcastically.
"QUIET!" The girl replied again. Can she only reply in one word answers?
"The name is Seifer Almasy. I run the discipline committee for this Institute."
"I've never heard of this." Naminé replied.
"That's because we started it this year, yo!" Raijin replied.
"So what does that have to do with us?" Roxas asked.
"Simple Blondie…" That's rich coming from him. If his hair was any blonder, then he would blind the sun… If the sun had eyes. "We ensure that order is kept on school grounds and we guarantee that students are well behaved and-" ZZZzzz~. Seifer was cut off by the sound of…Isaac snoring? Yeah, Isaac was snoring while he leaned against a nearby tree.
"Yo! Not cool man!" Raijin yelled.
"RUDE!" Fujin pointed. Seriously, if she only replies in one word answers, then she is going to get real annoying, real fast.
"Huh?" Isaac replied with a choked snore. "Oh sorry, I'm still getting use to the time difference. I'm use to a twenty-eight hour clock instead of a twenty-three hour clock." Twenty-eight hours, huh? I guess five hours is a pretty big difference for him.
Seifer walked up to Isaac and grabbed him by his black shirt, pulling him away from the tree. "Are you making fun of me punk?"
Isaac cocked his head to the side for a minute and looked like he was in playful thought. "Nah! Just trying to get under your skin." Isaac grabbed Seifer by his wrist and tossed him over his shoulder. Seifer struck the ground hard, releasing a painful grunt. "Now let me give you a word of advice. Next time you make a discipline committee, don't have an incompetent egotist as a leader." Talk about a low blow.
"Why you little speck!" Seifer drew a black blade that widened near the base and an extremely curved handle, almost like a…Gunblade?!
"Whoa Nelly! Watch where you're pointing that thing." Isaac replied sarcastically. He back flipped on his hands and avoided a swipe at his head, landing close to the large fountain.
"I'll point it through your skull!" Seifer howled, earning the attention of many of the students heading to class.
I felt my left sleeve being tugged and looked to see Xion leaning close to me and rising on her toes to reach my ear. "Isn't that the same Seifer that bullied Squall back at Balamb?" Xion asked me in a low whisper.
"Unless there is someone else named Seifer running around with a gunblade, then yes. I think he is." I replied hoping that he doesn't notice us.
"So you're the Hikaris that loser Squall is related to." Seifer called over his shoulder to our dismay. "I'll deal with you after I mop the floor with this dread head punk." He swung diagonally at Isaac, who jumped up and landed on Seifer's shoulders.
"You'll have to move fast if you plan to do that." Isaac taunted with a smug, toothy smile.
Bang, bang, bang.
The sound of a machine gun rang through the courtyard as someone fired shots at the two. Isaac dodged the bullets by jumping off of Seifer's shoulders and Seifer just looked around to see where the bullets had come from.
What we saw was a very pissed off looking Serah, from Sazh's bar, wearing a more militarized version of her casual clothes, a silver rifle with scarlet detailing in her right hand. Her white jacket was now closed in the front and the top and bottom was opened around two white belts that were sewn into the jacket bellow another brown belt to show off what appeared to be a brown turtle neck that doubled as a mini-skirt with blue stitching with two crisscrossing yellow threads. The pink plaid pattern had disappeared and was replaced with various brown straps that ran up the front of her jacket, over her um…personalities, yeah we'll go with that, with brown pockets at the bottom. A red scarf dangled off her right shoulder and a lime green light shoulder armor with two lemon yellow lights on the bend of her shoulder. She had a pair of blue fingerless gloves with yellow plated knuckles and a single dull silver band around the wrists. A large metal ring on her right hand and a single blue sleeve that stopped just before her single shoulder armor. She had a single large red bag on her left leg with multiple straps around the leg and diagonally on her right hip. Finally Serah's ivory converses were now black shin-high combat boots with brown shin guards and three silver bands around the upper shin, mid shin, and around her foot.
"What is going on here?" Serah asked with a very cold, no nonsense tone. She eyed Seifer and Isaac and her gaze narrowed in annoyance. "Seifer." She breathed in an unimpressed and annoyed tone. "Why am I not surprised to find you causing problems?"
"What's it to ya? What the Disciplinary Committee does is none of your concern." Seifer replied harshly. "Why don't you and that pathetic piece of metal you call a rifle buzz off."
Isaac stood with a lean as he watched Seifer point his Gunblade at him, and yes, Seifer was holding his Gunblade cocked to the side. "You really should learn how to talk to women." He eyed Serah with an amused look. "Especially ones that can handle a gun."
"Leave. Now. Before I show you the meaning of discipline, you SeeD reject." Burn. I don't know what happened to Serah, but I'm glad she's a good actor. Maybe she can tutor Xion.
Seifer whipped around and flicked his Gunblade to the side in frustration, I could hear his hands tightening on the grip. "I don't want to hear that from you, poser!"
"Whatever, at least I'm not going around attacking freshman." Serah shot back.
"RAGE!" Fujin replied.
"Lay off, yo!" Raijin shouted. Serah raised her rifle with one hand and fired at Raijin's feet without making eye contact. For someone as big as Raijin, muscle wise, he is a pretty good tap/river dancer.
"Look here, Seifer. If you don't want to lay off, then that's perfectly fine. Just save it for the interclass gym events." Do we mix classes during those events or something?
Seifer eyed Isaac again who was just chewing on a pear. That guy really likes his fruit. He eyed Serah again and made a simple: "Tch, have it your way, Lightning." Lightning? I thought it was Serah. He looked back to Isaac. "I'll deal with you soon enough."
"Looking forward to it." Isaac replied with a cocky grin and a mouth full of fruit. Seifer hmph again and eyed me and Xion before walking away. That guy is going to be trouble for us.
Serah, err, Lightning walked up to us, wearing that same scowl she wore when she interrupted us. The crowd dispersed and went to the school buildings. I felt myself shrink under her gaze. "Uh, thanks for the hand…" I squeaked.
"You should hurry and get to class." She told us simply. She looked to Roxas and he took an apprehensive step backwards at her stare.
"Uh…" He absentmindedly breathed out.
"Have you seen my cousin around?" Lightning asked.
"Huh?" Roxas asked.
"Cloud." Lightning clarified.
"Uh, no. I haven't seen Cloud for a few days." Roxas replied.
She tilted her head to side and glared at the ground for some reason. "Probably on a mission." She whispered to herself.
"Um, Serah…?" Terra asked the woman cautiously.
She snapped her head up at the comment. "How do you know my little sister?" She asked sternly. So Serah has an older sister named Lightning and a cousin named Cloud? What next, a Mother named Storm?
"We met her at Sazh's bar over the weekend." Terra replied taking a tentative step back.
Lightning looked at all of us with a neutral stare. She then smirked in amusement. "So you're Sazh's dorm? Just like Serah described. I'm Lightning, Serah's older sister and a freshman in college." That smirk quickly faded to that cold scowl again. "Get your act together. No one's gonna bail you out the next time you get into trouble." Well that was uncalled for.
"You should tell that to Mister Ego over there." Isaac replied. "We were just trying to get to class."
"Be that as it may, you can't let others drag you into fights. You're high school freshman. You need to learn to look out for yourselves or you're gonna get hurt." At that Lightning walked away, headed for the literature building on the far end of the island.
"What's her problem?" Kairi commented.
"Beats me." Riku replied. "Maybe she was born that way. Anyway, we need to get to class before we're tardy."
"Agreed." Shin said.
Math class. Oh joy. I never did like math or science, too many numbers and unnecessary symbols. Luckily I was seated with Riku and Kairi. At least one of them should be able to help me make heads or tails of this.
Five minutes later our teacher walked in, a woman of Asian descent with buns in her hair and long braided brunette strands. She wore a blue business suit and…spiked bracelets?
"Hello, class. My name is Chun Li. I'll be your math teacher for the year." The woman told us as she wrote her name on the board, which was a flat green board that projected holographic images on its surface. When she looked at us, I could see the red mascara on the corners of her eyes. "Now to start off, how about you tell me your names? That way, I can hit you in the head if you think about acting up." She added with an innocent smile that made about everyone in the class shiver.
Shin's POV
We were sitting in Physics class, waiting for our teachers. We were seated at the back-left of the class, closest to the window, with me seated in between Isaac and Terra with Isaac seated at the window.
"I don't suppose you're any good at physics?" I heard Terra ask me.
"I'm more into Biology, myself. Other sciences aren't really my forte." I replied and she just giggled nervously.
"What about you, Isaac?" She asked our dorm mate only to find that he had fallen asleep…again.
"And he's asleep again." I said placing my head in my hand.
"Twenty-eight hours makes quite the difference, huh Shin?"
"Losing five hours of sleep will wreak havoc with your rem cycle."
"And I thought Daylight savings time was bad."
The door suddenly opened and two men, one of African descent and another of European, walked in wearing white lab coats with black khakis, blue dress shirts and a black tie. "Good morning class." The black man said, his voice vaguely like Morgan Freeman. He had short greying hair and beard. "I am Dr. Eli Vance." Wasn't he a member of the Black Mesa team that caused a Resonance Cascade a few decades back? "And this is my associate, Gordon Freeman." The other man with a well-kept goatee and short brown hair simply nodded. "The one thing you should know about Gordon is that he does not like to talk much. Some may say that he is mute. Do not let that fool you into thinking that you can simply pull the wool over his eyes. He is one of the brightest minds in his field."
"I'm not sure I like the idea of a mute teaching us physics." I whispered to myself.
"And since there is two of us…" Dr. Vance slowly made his way up the slightly inclined steps to reach our table and stood behind Isaac. "That will make it twice as hard for you to fall asleep in our class." The class eyed Isaac who was still leaning against the window. Dr. Vance simply shook him awake.
"Huh?" He said as he opened his eyes.
"Welcome back to the land of the living, Isaac." Dr. Vance stated sarcastically, earning some laughs from the class.
"Hehe, sorry about that Dr. Vance."
"Don't let it happen again, Isaac. Now on with class…"
"Nice first impression, Isaac." I chided.
"There's always a chance to make it up later." Talk about being optimistic.
Naminé's POV
We sat in Galactic History, waiting for our teacher to come in. Roxas was sitting ridged with his back straight. Xion was balancing a pencil on her finger, occasionally flicking it in the air before catching it on her index finger again and repeating the process.
"W-who do you think our teacher will be?" Roxas asked me.
"Didn't you read the schedule?" I asked him and he just seemed to go blank. "I guess not." I couldn't help but giggle at him. He's just so adorable when he's flustered.
"I guess it slipped my mind."
"Doctor Smith is our teacher." Xion added, flicking her pencil again.
"He's our history teacher?" Roxas' surprised face is just hilarious, the way his blue eyes widened and his jaw hung open in shock, reminds me of a comic book character.
"He's the history teacher and the physics teacher, as well as a substitute literature teacher."
"How do you know all of this, Xion?" I asked the raven haired girl.
"He told me while we were at Seventh Heaven. He also told me that all the teachers at the school can double as PE teachers."
"Why would all of the teachers be PE teachers at the same time?"
"He said that it was to give us a more diverse regiment. This is a military school after all."
"So we're going to be worked like soldiers." Roxas dejectedly replied.
"I think it'll be fun!" Xion replied with an enthusiastic slap on Roxas' back. "No need to focus on the downsides."
"Easy for you to say."
The door suddenly burst open and out popped our teacher, Doctor Smith. He wasn't wearing his trench coat, but he did have a pair of black framed reading glasses. I didn't think that he had bad vision.
"Morning class. I'm your History teacher for the day. The name is Doctor John Smith. Most people call me the Doctor, so feel free to call me that." He was awfully chipper for it being eight in the morning on a Monday. "Today we are going to start off with the bare basics of galactic civilization and then move into the formation of the various cultures scattered about the cosmos."
"Oh joy…" I heard Xion groan.
"But before that, I'm sure you are probably wondering why your dorms have been separated individually for classes. The reason being is that, you are freshman in high school and with a hundred students, instead of having your whole dorm in one place every morning, we figured we would split you up to keep the day moving and allow you to figure out what you're fellow teammates are good at."
"I already know what Sora's bad at." I heard Xion comment. I'm sure she knows what her older brother is good and bad at. I know Kairi has a tough time with cooking and chemistry.
"So, without further ado, let's get this class period started!" The Doctor clapped his hands together and tapped on the green board behind, causing a hologram of Disney Castle to form.
"We'll start with a refresher on how Mickey became king."
Sora's POV
Man, the first day of school was painfully uneventful, like every school ever. I'll spare you the school drama, seeing as it was just introductions and basic refreshers, and instead I'll just tell you that our teachers are very… interesting, to say the least. We had a grand total of four general education classes. Each teacher being more and more eccentric. Aside from having the Doctor be our history teacher and having the Physicists from Black Mesa be our physics teachers, we had a woman by the name of Quistis Trepe be our literature teacher. And let me tell you, she was crazy. She held a whip in her hand, and would constantly flick it when she saw people falling asleep in class. We eventually met back in the plaza at around two o'clock so we could go out for lunch.
"How was class?" Naminé asked us.
"Boring~." I groaned out. "Miss Li kept whacking me in the back of the head."
"That's because you couldn't find the slope of a triangle." Riku nonchalantly chastised me.
"I wasn't expecting slopes on the first day of class, Riku."
"Not to mention you suck at math to begin with." Thanks for throwing me under the bus Xion.
"At least I'm not bad at English." I shot back. "How can you be an actor if you can't even read through Romeo and Juliet?"
"Because it's a boring story and I don't like the characters. Not to mention the teacher is always boring. I swear they were just a bunch of robots."
"I hope you didn't fall asleep during Miss Trepe's class." I heard Terra comment.
"Luckily, no. She is way too liberal with that whip."
"Tell me about it." Isaac groaned. He was sitting on the fountain with his sunglasses on his shirt. "That crazy woman kept hitting upside the head with that thing."
"That's because you kept falling asleep." Shin replied.
"So did you, Shin." Terra added. "Between the two of you, she must've hit you guys about twenty times."
"I can't help it if the class is boring. I just wanted to get it over with."
"Yeah, but she hit me the most." Isaac rubbed the back of his head with an annoyed look on his face. "I picked the wrong time to transfer in. That crazy whip happy woman did not help matters. Now I just want to grab a bite to eat and something to drink."
"Well, we have some time until our last two classes, so how about we go grab something to eat at Sazh's?" Roxas suggested.
"Sounds like a plan." Isaac replied, rising up from the fountain and putting on his sunglasses. Naminé's pouch started to ring and she retrieved a white cell phone.
"It's from Tifa. She and Sis want to talk to us about how our day went." She told us.
"Tell them that we're heading for the Seventh Heaven for lunch." Kairi replied.
"Let's get going!" Xion beamed and dragged me by my arm.
We made it to the mainland where we saw a lot more people meandering around, humans, Bangaa, Guado, Ronso, Viera, you name it. We entered the restaurant to find Tifa and Aqua at the left side of the bar. Tifa waved us over and we took our seats with them. The restaurant was packed and there were a number of employees working around the clock.
"So how did your first day of classes go?" Aqua asked us.
"It was alright." Riku replied. "Picked a fight with an upperclassmen this morning."
"And got hit upside the head by a woman with a whip." Shin added
"And kept falling asleep until I hit history class. The Doctor is one funny guy." Isaac finished.
"Lightning told us about that." Tifa added. "Apparently Isaac managed to get under Seifer's skin."
"Like a maggot eating a corpse." Isaac replied, earning a lot of strange stares. "What?"
"Mental image aside…" Aqua replied. "It sounds like things went okay."
"Yeah, but why do teachers get to carry weapons around campus?" Riku asked.
"Every teacher is a certified soldier. They are all qualified to use just about any weapon that exists."
"Even hitting students upside the head with whips?" Isaac asked.
"Sounds like you had Quistis as your teacher." Aqua asked with an amused smirk.
"Oh yeah."
"She isn't so bad. Just takes her job a little too far."
"Ya think?"
"Anyway~." Tifa cut in. "Are you ready for the fun part of your classes?"
"Unless it's recess, I doubt that it will be fun." I jokingly replied.
"Close, Sora. But it's actually SMITE and PE." Tifa corrected.
"I noticed that on the schedule earlier." Roxas added. "What is SMITE?"
"Student Magic Introductory Training and Enhancement."
Did I hear that right? We're going to learn magic on the first day of school?
"We're going to learn Magic on the first day?" Xion excitedly echoed my thoughts.
"That's right, Xion." Tifa replied. "You'll be having your first Magic exam with Merlin Magus."
"You mean THE Merlin?" Terra exclaimed. "He's our teacher?"
"You got it. You probably won't learn much today."
"Considering I can't use magic." Isaac added.
"But you should get to learn at least one spell after he evaluates your Magical aptitude."
"So I can be a wizard?" I asked.
"You're a wizard, Sora." Xion mocked.
"Oh ha, ha, she who will not be named." Everyone seemed to laugh at that.
"It should give you a leg up for the PE session. You'll have one of Sergeant Johnson's sessions so I hope you're ready for that."
"Does that mean that we'll have to deal with behemoths again?"
"Probably not." Aqua replied. "The Sergeant is not known for repeating himself often."
"Oh good." I said with a relieved sigh, as did everyone else.
That was when Tifa decided to bust our bubbles. "It will probably be much worse."
"Oh joy." Shin replied sarcastically.
"Here's your meal." A waitress came by with our plates.
"Better get to eating before Merlin's class. And make sure you get your things for the PE session."
We ate our food and made our way back to the Institute. When we got there, we made our way to the far side of the island where a stone castle was located, it looked to be medieval in origin and had a few stone Gargoyles sitting atop one tower near the front of the castle.
"I'll meet you guys in a second. I need to get my things for PE." Isaac told us.
"Same here." Shin added
"Ditto." Xion added as well. "We'll meet you guys back here before class begins."
"Don't take too long." Kairi impatiently told them.
"Just chillax, Red." Isaac nonchalantly shot back and dodged a punch from Kairi. "We'll be back before you know it."
They left for the dorms to get their weapons for PE. Why we can't just carry them around like the upperclassmen is beyond me.
"We might as well find the classroom while we're here." Riku suggested.
"At least one of us should wait here so we can tell the others when they get back." Roxas suggested.
"I'll stay." Naminé volunteered. "Kairi has my number and she's faster so it shouldn't be too hard for her to find the class."
"Fine by me." Riku replied.
"I'll stay here." Roxas suddenly said. "Just in case that Seifer guy shows up again."
"I'll stay too." Riku replied. "No offense, but you two don't look like you can handle Seifer and his posse by yourselves."
"How noble of you." Roxas half-sarcastically commented.
That just leaves me. As much as I would like to avoid traveling with no fun Kairi, I'd rather not deal with a gunblade right now. I get enough of that from Squall and Xion. "I'll go with Kairi." That got me some strange stares, especially a glare from the red-head.
"I'd rather not have you slowing me down." Ouch, Kairi.
"And I'd rather not deal with a guy that has it out for me." I replied, trying not to look like she was getting to me. Which in actuality, she was.
"He has a point." Riku replied.
"I doubt Seifer will bug us if Sora is nowhere to be seem." Roxas added.
"Fine." Kairi reluctantly replied and turned to enter the castle.
"I think she hates me." I jokingly said.
"Don't take it personally, Sora." Naminé told me as she stepped next to me. "Kairi is just single minded in this vendetta with the Celestials." You're telling me. "She prefers to not rely on others because of it."
"So she does have something against me." I replied again and ruffled my spikey hair. "Aw well. Can't be worse than having a psycho with a gunblade out to get me." Why does the alternative always suck?
Anyway, I followed Kairi into the castle, we turned through hallway after hallway looking for Merlin's classroom. She hasn't spared me a single glance since we entered. What is with her anyways? She seemed okay enough when we first met in the exam. She was a little on the condescending side, yeah, but she seemed like she was starting to lighten up. That is, until Isaac and the Doctor brought up the Celestials. Isaac seemed to really rile her up. The Doctor just let it go as a minor detail, like he knew that the issue would resolve itself. Either way, she's been cold towards us ever since.
"He went too far." I guess Shin was right.
"Say, Kairi…"
"What?" She practically spat at me.
"Whoa! I'm just trying to talk to you."
"Well don't. I'm not in the mood for small talk."
Talk about being an ice queen. She's cute and all, but she has the personality of a renegade cactuar wrapped in barbed wire. "What is with you?" I said in what I thought was a whisper.
She whirled around to face me, her ruby lochs twirling like a veil to face me with fiery sapphire eyes. "None of your damn business, that's what!"
"Calm down, Kairi." I took a step back, hoping that she wasn't going to hit me.
"Calm down? Calm down?!" This is looking really bad. "How can I calm down when I have a Celestial sympathizer on my team? Or teammates who just got in because they were lucky?" I think that last one was aimed at me, Xion, and Roxas.
"And why would that be a problem? Sure I wasn't the most effective during the test, but at least I tried. And why would Isaac standing up for Celestials be such a bad thing?"
"All that tells me is that you two are going to hold me back." She shot back angrily. "I don't need dead weight on my team if I'm going to find my proof."
"Have you ever consider that you could be wrong?" I asked her, trying to defuse the situation.
"My parents are dead, Sora. No one seems to know why the attacks happened to this day." She seemed to calm down somewhat, but she was still visibly upset. "I want to know why." She turned around with her back to me. "For that reason, I have considered every possible answer and the Celestials are the only conclusion that make sense."
"Just because it makes sense, doesn't mean that it's right." I replied with a tired sigh. At this point, it would take Cosmos herself to do anything about this girl's obsession.
"We'll see about that, Sora." We walked a little further in silence until we came to a pair of large wooden doors.
"This must be it." I said. I moved forward and knocked on the large doors, the sound reverberating through the stone corridors. We got no response.
"Maybe we should just open it." Kairi impatiently replied. She must still be in a bad mood from our conversation. She slowly pushed the door open, they were pretty heavy so I gave her a hand, only to see a horde of books flinging about the large audience chamber of a room. It was colorful to say the least. Stain glass windows were spaced evenly throughout the left side of the room, an emerald green carpet covered the floor of the forty meter wide room. Bookshelves were stood against the blank right wall, some slots empty as most of the books were now soaring through the room, and there were a number of cushions in the center of the room.
"Oh my." The aged old man in sky blue full body robe and pointy hat, the point slightly bent, said. He turned to look at us with startled eyes. "You must be team ARK." So we're named after the dorms in which we live? At least it is something remotely cool. "I will be with you two in a moment. I, uh, I just need to get my lesson plan sorted properly. Now let's see here. Where did I put that blasted book?"
"Well this is going to be interesting…" I said with a somewhat confused and amazed look.
"I'm guessing that you're Merlin Magus, right?" Kairi asked the man.
"That I am, my dear." The mage replied. I should probably mention that our teacher looked like he was in his late fifties, early sixties, and had an ENORMOUS white beard. I'm not kidding, his beard draped all the way to the floor, and considering that he looked to be just under six feet, yeah it was pretty long, if somewhat thin. He also had a white scruffy mustache to go along with the beard and semi-circle reading glasses.
"Just making sure. I need to call my sister and let her know to bring our dorm mates here."
"Very well. Just don't let me catch you using your phones during class or I'll turn it into a pen and paper." That would suck.
Kairi pulled out her ruby red touch screen phone and began tapping on the screen. I decided to venture into the maelstrom of books. I examined the wide room and noticed the stain glass mirrors depicting a number of famous fairy tale legends. Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Snow White, you know the routine. I noticed that one stain glass window, the one above the thresh hold in the center of the left wall, appeared to lead to a balcony that overlooked the ocean that surrounded the island.
"Watch out!" I heard Merlin shout. I whirled around to see a blue book come flying at and smack me dead in my face.
I pried the book from my face and rubbed the horizontal red mark that was no doubt plastered across my mug. "OW!"
I looked at the book and saw that it read Magic 101: Introduction to Magic. "Sorry about that, lad." The wizard said as he approached me.
"It's not a big deal, Mr. Magus." I replied handing him the book.
"That is good to hear. And please, call me Merlin." Merlin looked down at the book and his eyes lit up with joy. "My lesson plan!" He exclaimed opening the book and stopping the swirling maelstrom of books, replacing them neatly back into the empty slots on the shelves. "Thank you, lad. I was worried that the lesson would have to be canceled if I couldn't find it."
"Then we're lucky that Sora used his head to find it." I heard Riku condescend from the main entrance. I looked to see that Shin, Xion, and Isaac had acquired their armament, Isaac back in his long cloak.
"Ah, it appears that all nine squad members are here. Then we can begin the lesson." Merlin nestled the book under his arm and retracted his thin wooden wand from his exposed sleeve and zapped a podium that had fell on its side and made it float towards the center of the chamber. "Would you be so kind as to take a seat in front of the podium?"
We approached the multicolored cushions and sat down in various postures. I'll name them later, but suffice it to say, I sat cross legged, with my hands behind me on the floor, on the red cushion to the left of Kairi, who was also sitting on a red cushion with her legs on either side of her in a relaxed fashion, like she was going to sit on her legs but decided against it at the last second.
Merlin turned the podium so it faced slightly towards us and placed the blue book on the wooden stand. Opening it and flipping through a few pages. "Okay class, welcome to SMITE. Today I will evaluate your aptitude and judge how to properly steer your magic education towards a balanced nature to allow you to cast a wide range of spells, even if you are not good at casting certain elemental spells."
"How are you going to determine our specific elements?" Shin asked. He was sitting on a gray cushion with his legs crossed and his arms resting in his lap.
"Simple, Shinryu." Merlin Flicked his wand and several lights shot out, striking all of us in the chest, engulfing our bodies in a dim light. "By imbuing you with a small portion of my magic, I can unlock your magical potential and allow it to flow freely like a faucet. Now, I will bring out the two elements that are strongest within each of you."
I felt a pulling feeling in my body, as if something was trying desperately to rip its way out of me. Soon afterwards, two orbs were pulled from my body, both glowing brightly. I saw that one was empty, holding only what seemed to be wind. The other was a bright glowing light that made me feel…secure. Like it was going to envelope me and wash away my troubles. I looked around to see that, for the majority, everyone had at least two orbs floating out in front of them. The only exceptions were Terra, who had a multitude of orbs floating and orbiting around her, Xion who had three, and Isaac who seemed to be lacking a coherent sphere as his elements had engulfed his body.
"Hmmm, I see." Merlin said as he examined each and every one of us. "Well, let's look at everyone's dominant skill. I advise that everyone pay attention. As long as you are squad mates attending the same school, you will need to work together while on missions and during your exams." Merlin moved over to Naminé, who was sitting on the far left end of our semi-circle. She sat with both her legs to one side, like a lady of the lake, resting on her snow white cushion. Out in front of her were two orbs, one was filled with multiple pages that were floating around a single vintage book. The other was shrouded in mist. "It appears, Naminé, that you can manipulate memories as your dominant magical trait and the mist as your secondary."
"What does that mean, Merlin?" She asked skeptically.
"It means that you must be very careful when using your powers." He warned sternly, to which Naminé flinched slightly. "With this particular combination of magic, you are an illusionist by nature, but your memory magic can be a double edged sword. If you use it too much, you could inadvertently lose your memories in the process."
"Oh…" Naminé lowered her head. I think she was scared at the prospect of her powers costing her most precious memories in order to use.
"But fear not. I will teach you how to avoid that risk, but you must still be careful regardless."
"I will, Merlin." You could still hear the shakiness in her tone.
Merlin moved on to the next person, Roxas. He was sitting on a red cushion with one leg crossed under the other and had one arm on his propped leg with his free hand holding him up on the side. In front of him was a sphere filled with fire and the other, filled with wind, like mine.
"Oh, ho! Now this is interesting. A paradox caster." Merlin said as he examined the orbs.
"What's a paradox caster?" I heard Roxas ask. "Is it bad?" He added. Probably nervous after hearing Naminé's dominant element.
"Oh no, Roxas. It just means that you will have a harder time mastering your elements." Merlin looked to address all of us. "As you all know, most people are right handed. Whichever hand is your dominant will show your particular lean towards a certain element. But certain elements do not mix together. For example, water and fire do not play particularly well with each other, so it is next to impossible for a water caster to master the element of fire. In Roxas' case, he has fire as his dominant element and wind as his secondary. Wind can either hinder or enhance fire spells, but learning how is extremely difficult and often results in neither element being mastered. This is called a paradox caster." He returned his attention to Roxas. "With the proper training, you can be quite a destructive force." Merlin moved on to Xion who was sitting directly to my left. In front of her was a blue spiraling tunnel on the right, a black and purple swirling Vortex in the middle, and an orb covered in frost with water in the center on the left. Merlin paid particular attention to the swirling spheres. "Hmmm, very interesting."
"What is it, Merlin?" Xion asked.
"Well, Xion. It appears that you are a particularly interesting caster. Are you by chance ambidextrous?" Xion simply nodded. "You are a Tri-caster. One of ice and water since ice is just an extension of water, one of Gravity, and the other…I've only seen it on one other planet. Gallifrey. The home world of the Time Lords."
"What exactly is that supposed to mean? My sister's a Time Lord?" I sarcastically added.
"No, far from it. Xion is a Time Wizard by nature. This swirling force is the Time Vortex. It is where all of time flows, converges, and expands. Many wizards have wondered for eons what this force was and ambidextrous individuals tend to have three basic elements instead of two. At any rate. It appears that out of nine, three of you are going to prove to be difficult students to train. Now let's see here." Merlin examined my orbs. "Oh my…" Merlin said and quickly glanced around the room and rested his eyes on Kairi's who had a light for her orb like me and one that was filled with water. "I never thought I would see the day. Let alone be a teacher of two such students."
"What is it, Merlin?" Kairi asked.
"Why, my dear, you and Sora are light bearers." Merlin replied simply.
"What's a light bearer?" I had to ask since he was being very cryptic.
"A light bearer, is a very rare breed of caster. Back before the Time, Celestial, and Fallout wars, they were everywhere and everything. One day, they mysteriously vanished without a trace and no one knows for certain what happened. Just that they are all but unheard of in this day and age. It also means that I can only teach you in supplemental lessons." Merlin flicked his wand and a feather pen on a far off desk began writing on a piece of paper. "I'm going to have to recommend you for Eraqus' tutelage. He is the most proficient in this field of study. In the meantime, I'll be teaching you the basics of what I know in regards to how to use it as simple spells. Eraqus will teach you everything else. Even then, I fear that you may need the aid of one far wiser than either of us. Especially Riku." Everyone looked to Riku, who was sitting similarly to Roxas, except with one leg outstretched and resting on a yellow cushion, to see that one of his orbs was full of fire while the other was pitch black with various shades of red swirling throughout.
"Do I even want to know?" Riku sarcastically asked.
"You, my boy, are the antithesis of a light bearer. A Dark Seeker. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is the most dangerous element out there. Couple that with fire and it is near possible that you will become well… Let's not dwell on that. Just remember this Riku, an old Celestial saying." Kairi rolled her eyes at the mention. "Abilities are not inherently good or evil. It's how you use them. That was a saying of the Vanguard. More specifically the Guardian. I personally know little about them, other than what was in those ancient books, but it is relevant in regards to you Riku."
"Thanks, Merlin. I'll keep that in mind when studying." Riku said, though a little shaken. Staring into that orb, I felt like it was going to swallow me whole. Riku, I can't imagine what was going through his head. He looked like he was going to have a mental break down at any moment.
"Now, onto Terra." We looked at Terra, who seemed to have every colored orb you can imagine floating around her, except for the Time Vortex, Light Bearer, and Dark Seeker orbs. She was sitting like Naminé, except she had her hands in her lap. "Well, well. It appears that you are proficient in most of the elemental magic. And from the looks of things, you have some amount of experience in using them. If that entrance exam is any indication."
"Thank you, Merlin." Terra replied and looked down like she wanted to ask something, but couldn't find the words.
"Is there something wrong, Terra?" Merlin asked. "You look like you want to ask me a question."
"Well… I wanted to know if, in case there are…aspects of my magic that I can't control, would there be a way to remove that part of my magic?" Why would she ask something like that? I've heard of wanting to learn more magic, but to have it removed willingly? Something must be up and Merlin knew it as well.
"I suppose there is a way, but it would be better to learn to coexist with that aspect of your magic. It could mean the difference between using your magic and possibly losing your life."
"Oh…" Terra dejectedly replied. She must have been really hoping for an answer.
"Don't let that discourage you, my dear. As Merlin Magus, I will do everything that I can to help you learn to control your magical abilities!" Quite the boastful old man, isn't he. "Now, onto to the next student. Merlin moved to Shin and eyed his orbs. One held flashing bolts of Gold Lightning, the other, a fountain of shimmering silver water, more tamed than Kairi's wild ocean of an orb. "Hmmm, a Storm Chaser." Merlin stated. "A moderately rare and difficult basic combination, but it shouldn't prove to be too difficult to teach. It's just the control that could be difficult to master."
"Oh joy…" Shin sarcastically replied.
"Though it does seem that you can use other spells, with the help of that blade of yours." The mage pointed at the blade placed in front of Shin. "But I aim to make you all as diverse as Terra, not as powerful mind you. That relies on how hard you train, but you can trust that by the time the second week comes to a close, you will be able to use all the basic spells." We looked at Terra to see the floating orbs and honestly, I'm not sure I can handle using all the elements. "Now, onto the next portion of the class." Merlin walked toward the desk that had been used to write the letter for me and Kairi's special training when a thought struck me and apparently Shin, too, as he spoke before me.
"What about Isaac?" We all looked to see that Isaac was still sitting on his blue cushion, his sitting posture like that of Roxas'. His elements were displayed for us to see, though without any sphere as they merely encompassed his body.
"Isaac is a spiritual being. His powers cannot mingle with magic safely at the moment. Though I do wonder if he is a Dark Seeker like Riku. What with that black mist that is pouring from his eyes and mouth. Usually Dark Seekers have their darkness out in front of them, to show that they are not connected with their element in the case no sphere can be seen. But given that Isaac is a spiritual being and his powers come from his very soul, that hypothesis is highly unlikely." We looked to Isaac, the mist wafting and floating menacingly before fading away like the smoke trails of burning incense.
"So that means that I will be sitting in on a lecture that can do me next to nothing in terms of usefulness." Isaac stated dryly as the aura of his powers faded, along with our orbs.
"Not necessarily, Isaac." Merlin came back with a box and placed it on the floor in front of us. "Magic can still be used by spiritual beings, at the expense of their own life. Since you are a lightning elemental, I can still teach you a thing or two. You can also help with lessons regarding the subject for your peers. I saw that little display during the exam. You have quite the talent for manipulating electrical energies." Merlin leaned down and opened the box, revealing a large number of different colored spheres. "I'm sure you know what these are."
"Materia." Riku stated. I've only seen them in Blitz Ball tournaments to help players train to breathe under water.
"Quite right. These are to be given to you to help with your studies for your first year." Merlin levitated two green orbs to each of us. "These are elemental Materia. This Materia can be used to enhance weapons and Armor to boost certain aspects of magical use. I will teach you how to junction those to your equipment to allow you to defend against elements that will harm you as a result of your natural affinities and enhance your natural abilities as a mage. The only one who will not receive Materia right off the bat, is Isaac."
"Saw that coming." Isaac replied nonchalantly.
"It is only temporary, Isaac. I just need to help you attune to magic so you won't be afflicted with certain deceases. Especially Geostigma. Now, on with the lesson. Naminé, would you be so kind as to stand in the center of the room?" She complied and stood before us. "Now, Naminé, I want you to demonstrate your memory magic." Merlin flicked his wand and a copy of himself appeared out of a large puff of smoke and stood to the left of her, our right, so we could see him on full display. "This dummy contains one of my memories, without being attached to my mind."
"Hello class, I am Merlin Magus." The copy replied.
"I want you to change his memories."
"How should I do that?" Naminé asked, looking back to the real wizard.
"Through touch." Merlin stated. "Since you are just a novice at this point, you will need to learn how to manage your power through touch before anything else."
"Okay…" Naminé took a step forward and reached out her hand.
Naminé's POV
The copy reached out its hand and reintroduced itself. "Hello, Naminé. I am Merlin Magus, your teacher for the year." I stared at the copy, it was uncanny how much it looked and sounded like Merlin.
I'm not really sure how to rewrite his memories, I'm not even sure that I can do it safely without losing my own memories in the process. I looked to Kairi and she just nodded for me to go ahead. Roxas even gave me an encouraging smile. I smiled back at him and returned my gaze to the copy and took his hand. I closed my eyes and felt a part of my brain chill, like it was being filled with cold water and I saw memories that weren't my own. A small, blonde boy in a red coat and yellow scarf standing out in a snow covered courtyard. He was standing atop a rock in a fenced off area. He looked like he was pulling something out of the rock, but the object was nonexistent.
"Tell me, Naminé. What do you see?" I heard Merlin ask.
"I see…a boy." I answered. "He is trying to pull something out of a rock, but the object is missing. Did you forget something?"
"Don't worry, that is not my memory failing me. At least I hope it isn't. I want you to put something in that rock. A sword preferably."
I focused on the rock and pictured a sword in it. The dull steel blade and the golden hilt and guard for the boy to grasp. He took the hilt in his hand and pulled the blade out of the rock. Then the image faded to black and I opened my eyes to see that the copy Merlin had disappeared and I felt my eyes were a little misty.
"It looks like you completed the exercise." Merlin said. "That was to show you how simple it is to interfere with the minds of others, while showing the difficulty in actually placing different memories in their minds. Take note that your eyes will change color when using your primary element. In your case misty blue."
"I think I understand. I just imagined what I want to be in the memory and remove or replace it."
"Exactly, but tell me this. Do you remember what the sword you placed in the stone looked like?" The old mage asked me.
"Yes, it was…it was…" I don't remember. "I can't remember."
"But you just placed it in Merlin's mind?" I heard Roxas comment.
"That is because, at Naminé's level of skill, any item she places in the mind of others is permanently removed from her mind. Never to be retrieved again, unless she were to delve into the mind of her target once more." Merlin walked towards me and placed a hand on my head. "I believe this is the blade you put in my doppelgänger's mind."
Before I knew it, the blade was in my mind. The simple steel blade and golden hilt and guard. "That's it!" I replied. "That's the blade."
"I'm glad you made it simple. This further reinforces the danger of using memory magic without proper practice." That is a terrifying thought. A simple, generic blade that I had seen in any common book was removed from my mind. "Now, two last things. I want you to create a low fog from your mist abilities. This one is less tricky than what you just went throw. All I want you to do is picture a fog around you and calm yourself."
I did as I was told and I felt light, like a feather. I opened my eyes to see a mist at my feet and covering most of the room.
"Very good, Naminé. Very good indeed! Last thing. I want you to do, is combine your two abilities."
"How am I supposed to do that?" Wouldn't using my memory magic delete my memories?
"If you are concerned with losing your memories, let me assure you that is not a possibility. The mist is an extension of yourself. Whatever memory your pour into it will be placed back in your mind." That's a relief. I didn't want to lose a memory just practicing my mist power. "Now I want you to imagine something. Anything at all and have it form in the mist."
"Okay, um…" I closed my eyes, feeling them mist up again, and imagined a pod of glass with a white flower base and it formed in the mist before me. The pod was as tall as me and could fit an entire person in it.
"Very good! I see that you have quite the imagination there, Naminé. This is how you will make illusion magic. It should prove very useful should you find yourself in a tough spot and need to run. Eventually, you will be able to use your mist to make a connection to those whose memories you want to edit or search for your own benefit. Now please have a seat and let Roxas take a stab at his practice."
Roxas' POV
I stepped up to the podium where Naminé had stood, her mist power dispersing and clearing the floor. "Now Roxas, this is what I want you to do." Merlin lifted a target up and placed it on the far end of the room behind us. "I want you to use your wind magic to lift the target and then use your fire magic to blast a hole in it."
"Okay…" I nervously replied. I had a hard time learning magic from Aerith when she tried to teach me. Even with the use of Materia.
"Now relax, my boy." Merlin boasted cheerfully. "Just pick an intense emotion and use it to feel the fire of your heart and calming wind of your mind. When you do, chant Aero and Fire when you have the target in the air."
"Okay…" I looked at the target, a simple red disk about a meter wide. I tried to feel the calm wind in my mind. I felt the wind begin to hit me and my clothes begin to jostle. I opened my eyes and put my hand out in front of me. "Aero!" I chanted and a gust of wind shot towards the target and levitated it in the air. The target spun around as the wind swirled around the target and made it sway as I tried to control the wind that held the target aloft.
"Good, yes very good, Roxas. Now cast fire while you keep the target in the air."
I looked at the target and tried to pick an emotion. A strong emotion. My mind flashed back to that day, with those three people. I felt hate towards them. Rage boiled within me and I felt my body burn and my heart and eyes blaze. "Fire!" I shouted and a small fiery ball shot from my hand and flew towards the target, leaving embers in its wake as it struck the target, obliterating the top half of the red disk instantly. "What?" The disk hit the floor and I saw that I had let up on my aero spell.
"Hmmm. Not bad, but you let your wind magic falter. The calm in your mind was overpowered by the intense emotion you used to produce that flame."
I looked at Merlin and felt a little depressed at the analysis. "Sorry…"
"It's quite alright. That is why you are a Paradox Caster. Not necessarily because your elements are at odds with each other, but because the emotions used to cast them are so extraordinarily different. But don't fret, with the proper exercise and mental conditioning, you can cast both spells seamlessly."
"Thanks, Merlin." I felt a little better hearing that. I guess that's why Aerith couldn't teach me anything. I was too emotional at the time.
"Now, Xion. Step forward. This is going to be tricky."
Xion's POV
Roxas returned to his seat and I stepped up the plate for my turn at the magic thing.
"Okay, Xion. Here is what I would like you to do." Merlin took out a ball and made it bounce. "Since I cannot teach you how to control the fabric of time itself, I will teach you how speed up and slow down individual items for now." He looked back to the ball. "Now I want you to picture the ball moving faster. Pick an emotion that best corresponds to speed to increase the pace of the ball's bounce."
"I got ya!" I beamed and stared at the ball. I felt a passion in my body, like the wind was carrying me. I remembered running through the forest back home and how fun it was, I felt like lightning. My small legs carrying my energetic body. When I looked back at the ball, I felt like it was moving in slow motion, but at the same time, it seemed so far away to me.
"I can see that your eyes are filled with the Time Vortex." I heard Merlin comment. "The Time Vortex also has space wrapped in it, so your gravity magic is also in effect. The ball is indeed moving faster, much faster, but you cannot see it clearly as you are not attuned to the Time Vortex yet. Give it time and you will be able to distinguish the difference between your speed and the speed of everything around you." I don't really get it, but I guess I will eventually. "Now I want you to slow the ball down. Just focus on something slow or boring.
I drifted to the time after I was running. I was laying in my bed and felt the sweet embrace of sleep overtake me. I opened my eyes and the ball was not moving at all. "Uh, Merlin?" I asked.
"The ball is moving slower, Xion." I heard his voice, if somewhat warped, speak to me. "You can stop now." I did, and the ball was moving at a normal speed and slowly stopped bouncing. I felt my body grow heavier and I struggled to stand straight.
"What you are feeling now is the weight of your gravity magic hit you. The Time Vortex and gravity go hand-in-hand and is triggered by the chant, Gravity." I saw slight movement out of the corner of my eyes. A pump and a flat balloon were placed in front of me. "Now I want you to use your gravity magic on the air pump to compress and blow air into the balloon. You only have to do it once, but try your best."
I focused on the pump. I tried to picture an emotion that made me feel heavy, but I couldn't. I felt too tired and weak to try it and just fell to my knees.
"Xion!" I heard Sora exclaim. Before I knew it, he and Merlin were next to me. "Are you okay?" He asked me in his worrywart tone. Sora may act all tough and goofy, but he is a massively overprotective brother.
"She should be fine. Just a little exhausted from using her time magic." Merlin assured my worrying brother. "Xion. Do you think you can try and continue the exercise? I just need you to do three more things and then you can rest."
"Of course not!" Sora answered for me. "She can barely stand, let alone do-"
"I'm fine, Sora." I cut my brother off.
"Xion…" Sora tried to protest.
I looked to our teacher. "I just have to make it through three more exercises, right?"
"Yes. If you think you can handle it."
I looked back the pump. I finally found the emotion I needed. The day I found out Mom had died. The crushing sadness. The claustrophobic loneliness. All of that held enough gravity to make me feel like I was at the bottom of the ocean. I raised my hand. A black, purple, and blue colored void forming around it and the Time Vortex in my eyes. "Gravira!" A large black orb formed above the pump and descended slowly, colliding with the pump and pushing it down, inflating the balloon. I dropped my hand in exhaustion and the orb dispersed.
"Very good, Xion!" I heard Merlin shout. "I was not expecting you to use an intermediate skill on the first go. But you should take it easy on the casting. Your elements are not the easiest things to control. I'll teach you the last two when you recover. For now, get some rest. Sora, your turn"
Sora's POV
After I helped Xion to her seat and earned an interested look from the others, I went to stand next to Merlin and wait for my instruction.
"For this Lesson, I plan to have you do the same thing as Roxas with a few alterations. Firstly, lift the lantern on the far end of the room."
I looked at the ancient antique, I held out my hand and calmed myself enough to chant, not easy considering that I'm a hyperactive goof ball. "Aero!" The gust of wind picking up the lamp, making it rocket into the air and spin out of control.
"Concentrate, Sora. You need to focus on maintaining control." I heard Merlin in my ear.
"Easier said…" I tried to focus on concentrating the gust of wind, but the gales just flung the lantern at me. "Whoa!" I ducked behind my hands only to hear Merlin shout.
"Aeroga!" The Lantern stopped just before my face and Merlin placed it on the ground in front of me. "Your concentration needs some work." I just rubbed the back of my head and put on my goofy grin. "We can work on that later, I suppose. For now, try to light the lantern."
"And how am I going to do that without using fire?" I asked.
"Just will it." How specific. "Light and Dark magic rely entirely on will. If you will it, then it will happen."
I focused my attention on the dark lantern. "Here goes nothing." I closed my eyes and focused on seeing a light. I saw a light and I felt a warmth envelope me. I saw the light in my head and focused on putting it in the lantern. I suddenly felt my body burn and I opened my eyes to see that the lantern was flashing brightly and my eyes felt like they were on fire and…it scared me. I took a step back and fell to the ground as the light dispersed.
Merlin stood with a quizzical look in his eye. "You definitely have a large amount of power." Merlin walked over to the lantern and put his hand on it, only to quickly remove it again and then grab it by the handle. "But your control could use a lot of work. That's okay though. I've never had a student perfectly control their magic on their first try." He helped me up from my sitting position. "Go take a seat for now, while I finish with your dorm mates."
Kairi's POV
It was my turn next. I wonder what Merlin will have me do.
"Okay Kairi… I want you to fill this tub." He summoned a bath tub before me and I raised a brow at him.
"Really?" I had to ask.
"Really. Your element is water, so I want to see you produce it." He replied with a smile.
I just shrugged and said. "Whatever…" I raised my hands and pictured a flowing stream in my mind. I opened my eyes and I felt them burn, but ignored it and continued the spell. "Water!" A ball of water formed in front of me, growing and growing until it fell into the tub, filling it…a fourth of the way…
"I'm not too surprised." I heard Merlin comment next to me. "You used an aero spell during the exam. Not part of your natural elements. I can tell that you have practiced it, but now it has hindered your water spells." He flicked his wrist and made the tub disappear, water included. "I'll just have to teach how to use water until you can use them without difficulty." Great. The one time my diligence bites me in the butt. "Next is the lantern test. Just like with Sora. I want you to light the lantern."
"This should go a little better than the water test." I replied and closed my eyes. Feeling my eyes light up. If I had to guess, my eyes were a bright blue, like Sora's when he used his magic. I tried to picture a light in my mind, but I kept finding a dim flicker that barely matched what was in my orb earlier. I opened my eyes to see a dim light in the lantern. "What?" I couldn't help but breathe aloud.
"Hmmm…" I heard Merlin mumble to himself. "Kairi, do you have some deep seated hate in your heart?" He asked. I looked at him with a confused look. "Light magic only shows as dim when there is a shackle around the heart of the caster. Something that holds them back and binds them."
"I…I…" I stuttered out. I already told my dorm mates, even if it was unintentional. My family knows as well, but for some reason, I didn't want to tell Merlin and I don't know why.
"You don't have to tell me if you do not want to. Just bear in mind that you need to resolve this issue soon, whatever it may be. Until then, we'll focus on your water magic. Now take a seat and allow Riku to take his turn.
I returned to my seat. I sat down and felt so dejected. For the first time ever, I am actually questioning myself. I read that magic is a reflection of, not only your experience, but your health. Could this vendetta I have be affecting me this badly? I just don't know anymore…
Riku's POV
Looks like I'm up. Fire and darkness. Well you already know the routine, Merlin placed a target before me and I hit it dead center with a fire ball, blasting it to dust. So far, only Naminé, Xion, and me have actually used our powers successfully, to varying degrees of success. I was most afraid of the darkness that Merlin showed. 'Abilities are not inherently good or evil. It's how you use them.' I hope that Vanguard proverb has some validity. After all, Orphanim was a Vanguard and he almost destroyed all of us.
"Now, Riku..." Merlin began cautiously. "I am not going to lie to you. I have even less experience with Dark Seekers than I do with Light Bearers. But I will try my best."
"Okay…" I replied simply. I honestly had no idea what to say. Staring into that orb. I felt like I was going to be swallowed whole and not just in the literal sense. It felt like the orb was trying to rip my soul right from my body.
"All I want you to do is manifest that power. And use it to empower you fire spell." Merlin placed another target in front of me. "The trick to darkness, is that it feeds on the desire for power. I will warn you now. Do not depend on the darkness until you can find a way to handle it. No wizard that has relied completely on darkness has ever retained his sentience afterwards, and became a monster." You are seriously not helping Merlin. "I plan to request an upperclassman's help in training you. I refuse to have you go through that. And I absolutely refuse to seal away your powers. It never works." The look in the old man's eyes told me that he was serious. I honestly didn't think this old man was that determined to help, but I welcomed it. It is a nice contrast to my brother. "Now, summon a flame in your hand."
I looked at my palm and flicked my wrist, summoning the flame. Apparently after casting the flame spell once, you don't have to use the chant for a good while afterwards. It's more of a trigger word to remind your body what it is you want to do. "Now what?" I asked Merlin, trying my best not to sound scared.
"Next, I want you to envision something that makes you angry. I don't mean upset. I mean angry. It drives you insane and makes you want to hurt everyone around you, regardless of guilt or innocence."
"That's a little extreme, don't you think?"
"This is the passion that powers a natural flame spell. You are trying to enhance it, so you need a more desperate passion to fuel the flame." He explained, maintaining his stern gaze.
"Alright…I hope this works." I closed my eyes and envisioned something, the only thing that makes me angry more than anything in the world. The man in the red trench coat, his black clothes and long red sword. I opened my eyes and felt my emotions flare. "GENESIS!"
Shin's POV
This is not looking good. Riku's body flared with black, blue, and white colored flames. The flame in his hand growing to wild proportions.
"Riku!" Merlin shouted at the silver haired pretty boy. "Calm down. Don't let the darkness control you!"
"Shut it, old man! I will do as I damn well please!" He boomed at Melin and raised his hand, the flame raging ever larger.
"Riku, STOP!" I shouted, but it was no use. I went to grab my Solais when something happened that none of us expected.
"BE STILL!" A twin toned voice boomed next to me. We all looked to our right, most of us ready to pounce Riku, who had taken a fearful step backwards. The sight before him, hell, before all of us was intimidating. We looked to see Isaac, he had removed his sunglasses, the corners of his mouth and eyes fuming with pitch black smoke as he rose from his cushion, the sclera of his eyes turned black and added a menacing accent to his platinum pupils. "Put. The fireball. Down." I don't know what is up with Isaac, but the presence of this new aura left everyone paralyzed. For a moment, I wasn't aiming to stop Riku, I felt like my life, my very existence was at risk. I could still faintly hear Isaac's voice under the darker and more sagely tone that dominated his current appearance.
"Who are you to stop me?" Riku growled at Isaac.
"Me?" Isaac almost jokingly replied, as if he was amazed that Riku would ask. "No one really. Just a simple old man with simple desires." Isaac nonchalantly replied before shooting forward at impossible speeds and placed his hands on Riku's head and chest. "Now be still. You still need time, before you can tap into this power."
Riku's dark aura dissipated and Isaac's smoke left his eyes and mouth. Isaac went to sit down next to me. "That was too close." I heard him breathe out.
"Wha? What happened?" Riku asked, stumbling back slightly.
"It looks like you are not ready to handle the darkness yet, Riku." Merlin told him. "I am so sorry. If you don't want to learn how to use the power, I won't force you."
"Y-yeah. I think I'll take a seat now." Riku replied.
"By all means."
Terra's POV
What was that? Riku lost control. Then Isaac exuded this menacing presence. I don't even know if that was the same Isaac.
"Okay, Terra." Merlin started, he looked like he had recovered from the recent events. "I have seen that you already know many high level spells, so I will make this quick. I noticed that, of the elements in your orbs, you are most attuned to fire. I want you to show me your strongest fire spell."
"That's all?" I asked.
"That is all. I get the feeling I may need your help in teaching the class. At the same time, you will gain experience with magic through teaching others."
"Okay, Merlin." I raised my hands at the target and readied my spell. "Firaga!" I shouted and a large ball of flame shot out from my hand. I restrained myself a bit so I didn't scorch the entire chamber, the flame was still twice my size regardless. I discharged the ball of flame and obliterated the target, leaving a smoldering pile of ash behind.
"Great, Cosmos!" Merlin shouted as he held his hat in surprise and leaned closer to examine the smoldering remains on the far end of the room. "Fire is definitely your element, Terra. Despite your name."
"Thanks. I get that a lot."
"Well there is nothing much that I can teach you today, so how about Shin?"
Shin's POV
I got up from my seat, after trying to coax some kind of an explanation out of Isaac, who just dodged the question and leaned back on his hands.
I stood before Merlin and waited for my instruction. "Shinryu, you are a Storm Chaser. Therefore, you will have a much different instruction. First, I want you to fill this tub with water." He pull out the tub and I just looked at the thing.
"Alright." I replied simply. I pictured a flowing stream in my mind and chanted. "Water!" The water poured forth from my hand and stopped. Yep, it stopped. Not even one tenth of the tub was filled.
"Looks like you have some difficulty with magic as well." Merlin informed me of what I already figured. "Tell me, have you ever tried to cast a spell that wasn't aimed to enhance that blade of yours?"
"Once."
"How did it go?"
"Bad. And that's all I'm going to say about it." I quickly stopped him from prying. Before you ask, no I am not going to monologue about it.
Shin, don't break the fourth wall, I'm running out of spackle.
Yeah, yeah, anyway. Merlin just dropped the subject and moved on.
"Okay. How about we try a thunder spell." He pointed to a lightning rod. "Aim right there and discharge a bolt of lightning."
"Okay." I made no attempt to hide my boredom. I just want to get this over with so I can get some sleep. "I raised my hand and readied to discharge a bolt at the copper rod. I felt electricity surge through my body and the silver bolts flashing across my arm. "Thunder!" I chanted and a tiny flicker of a spark flashed out of my palm. At least it wasn't a fire spell. That would not have ended well.
"Yep. You are definitely going to need some tutelage. But time is running short and I need to get to the Materia junctions before your PE class. So go ahead and take your seat while I deal with the most challenging of your dorm."
Isaac's POV
Looks like I'm up. This ought to be fun. Between having the old man intervene and possibly having my body be wracked with unbearable pain, I think I have enough to deal with as is.
"Since I have no idea what that episode you displayed earlier was, and you seem to have a handle on it, I'm going to have you use lightning without the use of your spirit energy."
"This will not end well."
'Must you be so pessimistic?'
'Can it, old man.'
"Now, I want you to try to summon electricity using only the energy around you. Try to feel the life of the world around you without having it mix with your own energy."
'Sounds like your other training.'
'Seriously, shut up.'
'Okay, my lips are sealed…if I had any!'
I closed my eyes and recalled my training from back home. I sensed the world around me. The energy is somewhat different, but I can still feel it. I decided to turn off my sight and return to my natural blindness in order to avoid having my eyes explode should this go wrong. I felt the electricity flow and I raised my hand. "Okay, here goes." I said nervously. "Thunder-AGH!" I fell to the ground the moment the searing pain hit me. My migraines flaring and my body seizing as the electricity flowed uncontrollably through my body. I felt my insides burn and my eyes sear, my head throbbed and my bones ached.
"Aeroga!" I heard Merlin shout next to me and then I was engulfed in a gust of wind that swirled counter to the flow of the electrical current coursing through my body, dispersing the electricity slowly and safely. "Are you okay, Isaac?" Merlin asked me. I struggled to rise from the floor, my sight slowly reactivating.
"Never been shocked by lightning before." I replied, visibly exhausted.
"It is as I thought. You are not going to be able to use magic for some time, I'm afraid."
"That's alright. I never really needed it."
"But you should still try and understand how to do so. It may save your life one day."
"I'll do my best, but no promises." I returned to my seat. My sight hazy and near sighted.
"Well, on to the Materia lesson. This should prove to be a little safer."
Sora's POV
The rest of the lesson was just us learning how to junction spells to our equipment. Because Xion had two gunblades, she had to receive three elemental materia. To give a basic run down we each currently have materia linked to our armor, with the exception of Kairi, Riku, Roxas, and I who didn't have any weapons at the moment.
Xion had a gravity and ice materia in her gunblades to give them an elemental boost in attack, and a fire materia in the cloak of her wardrobe to give an extra resistance to her natural elemental weakness. Terra elected to put both her elemental materia in her attire to boost her lightning resistance and enhance her spells. I have one to boost my resistance to gravity, take that Xion, with a wind elemental for later when we apparently get weapons for those of us who didn't bring a weapon to use for school. Riku has a resistance to water on his wardrobe with a spare fire materia left over and Kairi had a resistance to lightning, so she and Isaac are definitely going to have some interesting sparring sessions, and a water materia for later. Shin did the same as Terra and put his materia into his wardrobe, boosting his resistance to ice and wind, cause apparent wind disperses lightning from what Isaac told us, especially after having his whole body act as a giant conductor. Roxas has resistance to water and a spare fire materia for later. Naminé received one for wind resistance and a water materia for later. Isaac got a hands on lesson in learning how to cast lightning without using his spiritual power as a medium. The results were mixed, ranging from having a massive head ache to small sparks arcing from his palm, but he was improving for a guy who, by nature, cannot use magic safely.
"That was irritating." Isaac replied still rubbing his head. "Now my migraines are acting up."
"You did a good job though." Terra complimented.
"Thanks…" Isaac strained a reply as he grimaced from the pain the migraines must be having on him.
"Are you going to be okay for the PE exam?" Shin asked him.
"I'll be fine, I've had worse days."
"So what do you think the exam is going to be about?" Xion asked with her hands behind her head.
"If Sergeant Johnson is in charge, we're probably going to have to do something in regards to that Hell Jumper nick name." Shin replied. "I would rather not have to deal with that, to be honest."
"What's the matter? Scared?" Riku replied trying to tease the guy.
"No, I'd rather not do anything physical today." Shin replied. "I just want to go back to the dorm and take a nap."
"And I thought you were lazy, Sora." Xion replied next to me.
"Give me a break, Xion."
We continued to move to the other end of the island where the main gym was located. When we entered we were met with the entire freshman class. All remaining ninety-one students were gathered here. We looked up into the seats to see that the upperclassmen were seated and watching us.
"Sora, look!" Xion tugged on my sleeve. I looked to see that she was pointing at the stands where we saw Squall sitting with his dorm, minus one. From the looks of things he was sitting with three other guys. One was a spikey blonde in all black, one EXTREMELY spikey raven haired guy that was wearing a black SOLDIER uniform, One that had short brown hair that parted in the front and wore all brown. The others were girls, obviously. One had long Raven black hair with a sky blue dress, another that had the same raven hair, but it was a little bit wild and she wore a dark blue tribal dress. One had brunette hair and wore all pink, and the other two were Aqua and Tifa.
Squall seemed to eye us and gave a simple two finger wave, subtle so no one noticed, but enough so we knew that he saw us. We waved back and the spiky raven haired guy sitting between him and the blonde pointed to us and looked like he was blasting into Squall's ear. I'm wondering how Squall could put up with him if he is that in your face.
"SORA!" I turned to see Tidus coming up to us with his group.
Tidus himself was in a yellow jacket with a black overalls that zipped up the center with a pair of pants that couldn't decide if they wanted to be a pair of shorts or a pair of jeans and decided to do both with the right pant leg being longer, the bottoms of the sleeves being slightly tattered. He wore a pair of gloves, one glove being a plain blitz ball glove with a chain around his wrist. The other glove was more of an armored gauntlet that covered his forearms with a piece that covered his elbow. The gauntlet was black with various gold trimming and a small red triangle tribal pattern with some decorative red beads around his wrist. A single black shoulder guard with red straps around his bicep. Around his neck was his family's weird jagged triangle seal that was attached to a silver chain and it was also on the elongated pant leg that stitched in red with gold trimming.
One guy had silver-blue hair with full blue armor with spikes on his shoulders with a matching headband and a red and white neck scarf with a black and red under shirt. A simple sword on his hip.
Another guy, who was the tallest of the guys with a slim muscular build, with wild-cut brunette hair with short blue gauntlets, with golden metal clamps, that wrapped around his middle finger with gems wrapped around his wrist and a light blue sleeveless shirt with a blue and gold wrap around his waist that was held up by a gold and white belt with a red gem in the center with four strands of blue and gold gems dangling from the bottom of the belt. His legs had gray and white vertical striped pants with tan bandage wraps around his shins and high colored blue and golden boots. His head had a thin beaded tiara and matching earrings and a golden shoulder armor with a blue gem in the center and gems dangling from the bottom. The gold shoulder armor wrapped across the top of his shoulders and held up a short light blue cape. On his hip was a ruby red sword with golden lining along the center of the blade and on the guard with a green gem on the center of the guard and a red tuft of fur on the bottom of the pummel. On the aforementioned belt was sheath for a small dagger that was resting freely on his side.
Next to him was a blonde with his hair tied in a short ponytail and teal eyes and was by far the shortest of the guys at five feet, who was dressed in Victorian style clothing with a sleeveless white shirt under a teal vest with brown leather accents on the opening where the sleeves would be and across his back. On the front of the vest was a white lace jabot with a gold necklace to hold it up, under a popped white collar. I noticed some teal bead earrings under his blonde hair. He had on grey gauntlets with steel plating on the back of the hand and seemed to extend up into the large teal cuffs around his wrists. He wore matching teal jeans with cargo pockets on the side near his knee. Multiple belts wrapped around his waist with a brown leather scabbard, a single chain attached to the side, on his left hip with the hilts of two short swords, wrapped in teal cloth for a grip and a single chain link embedded in the bottom of the hilt with a leather lanyard bound with a yellow, blue, and white beads attached to the end, sticking out of the scabbards. The blades' gold guards glinting in the gym lights. His feet bore white boots that clung tightly to his feet and shins.
The last guy was around Tidus' height at just under six feet and had a deep tan with blonde hair that had changed to a grayish white in places due to an intense sun climate. He only wore a grey metal vest and nothing underneath with a gunmetal necklace with two teal gems on either side of the pentagonal shaped accessory. He wore matching steel gauntlets with teal gems on the back embedded just above the joints where the wrists bend. He had a red sash around his waist with a yellow line pattern that I could barely make out with a matching grey steel and teal gems to hold it in place. Finally was a pair of black pants with teal stitching on the side with gray trim and tucked into steel boots that extended up to his knees. Like most of our group, he was unarmed.
"I can't believe you passed that exam with just nine people." Tidus stated, wrapping an arm around my neck.
"Neither can I." I replied.
"Hi, Tidus." Xion said to the guy. "I'm sorry I couldn't say much to you during the entrance exam."
"Don't sweat it, Xi." Tidus replied. "I know how much you can't stand thunder. Which reminds me." He looked at Isaac who was…nodding off again, though Tidus couldn't tell due to the fact that Isaac was wearing his sunglasses. "Your teammate is completely ridiculous." He walked up to Isaac, who had his sword under his chin to lean on. "I've never seen someone use a thunder spell the way he does."
"He can't use spells." Shin corrected. "He uses spirit energy."
"So he is like my sword then?" The brunette with the blood red blade asked.
"Sorry guys, I forgot to introduce you. This is Bartz Klauser." He pointed to the brunette with the red sword. "This is Ceodore Harvey." He pointed to the guy in blue armor. "Zidane Tribal." He pointed to the blonde in Victorian clothing who was now sitting on a…blonde tail?! I didn't even notice that before. "And Vaan." He pointed to the tanned blonde. "We don't know his last name."
"I didn't want to give it." He replied casually with his hands clasped behind his head.
"Or it's probably too goofy to mention." Zidane chastised with a cheeky smile on his face as he jumped off his tail and landed on one hand.
"Anyway." Tidus cut in. "You are no longer the only special group in the freshman class." Tidus made a goofy grin and gestured with him thumb towards his group.
"So you're the team that barely passed one of the easier exams." Riku cut in, robbing Tidus of any of his bragging rights.
"Hey!" Bartz exclaimed. "Killing a flan is not easy." What?
"Yeah! Especially if the thing eats you and then a Firemane shows up out of nowhere." Zidane added.
"So you got the extra man to make you an eleven man group." Shin added again. "I don't know what I should feel worse about. Being on a handicapped group that has a lot of expectations to live up to. Or an eleven man group that is looked down upon."
"Ouch!" Vaan replied. "I thought Penelo was harsh."
"No, I think she still has him beat." Zidane replied.
"At least she isn't Paine." Bartz added, to which they all shivered at the name.
"I don't know how Yuna and Rikku put with her." Tidus added.
"It must be a girl thing." Bartz added. "Apart from Yuna and Rikku, Garnet and Ursula are the only two somewhat normal girls in the group. And Ursula can punch a dent into Adamantite!" Sounds like we have another Kairi on our hands, except less standoffish.
"Anyway, I just wanted to congratulate you on passing the exam and good luck in this one." Tidus finished and fist bumped me.
"Same to you, man." I replied and watched them walk back towards what I assumed to be the rest of their group.
The room was suddenly filled with static and we all turned to see the Sergeant standing atop the viewing box. "Alright you greenhorns. Today's your lucky day." He said in that somewhat sarcastic tone he took when he was about to deliver some news to us that would end in terror for all those on the receiving end. "Today, you will receive the privilege of learning why the ODSTs are called Hell Jumpers."