"Are you ready?" I stood at the edge of the lake, hands on my hips and raring to go.

Aether was still stripping down to his swimwear. "Hang on! Hang on! I still have to put my notebook away."

"Come on, Aether." I rolled my eyes. "Why would you take that with you here?"

He neatly tucked his items next to a boulder. "I like to take notes and keep myself informed on new things I see. There's tons of stuff to learn in a forest, y'know."

"Yeah, yeah." I waved a hand. "Get over here so I can win already!"

"In your dreams." He marched over to me, and we both eyed the far edge of the lake. "Ready?"

"I was born ready."

"Ready to lose?"

I laughed. "Oh, you're on. Go!"

At my signal, we both launched ourselves into the lake. The chilly water was welcome when partnered with the summer heat. The orphanage didn't give us as many lessons at this time of the year, so we had much more free time to test who was the better twin. Obviously, it was me, but I didn't mind proving myself. It was fun.

The goal was simple: swim to the other edge of the lake first. I was naturally a good swimmer, and I flutter-kicked with a passion. I couldn't see anything beyond the sparkling water nor hear anything besides my gasping breaths and splashing. Though I couldn't see where Aether was, there was no way he would be able to get ahead of me. Not by a long shot.

By this point, I had to have gotten at least halfway across. Ignoring all stamina-saving measures, I decided to go all out. Or at least, I tried to. Something wrapped around my ankle and yanked me backward. Surprised, I flailed my arms, fighting to keep my head above water. I caught the sound of maniacal laughter as the hold on my leg released, and I gasped at the sight of Aether's golden head of hair going right past me. Two can cheat at this game.

Quickly, I sprung back into action and swam so hard, I felt a burn in my arms. Aether's feet were kicking waves of water into my face, but I managed to snatch his leg once I got close enough. Using all of my might, I tightened my grip and pulled him downwards. I heard him yelp in surprise and choke on some water.

"Ha!" I managed to shout at him before focusing on getting ahead again.

There was no way I could let him win. My pride depended on it. No other thought came to my mind as I swam the last of the way. The water began to get murkier, meaning that land was close. At last, my feet skimmed the mud resting at the bottom of the lake, and I stumbled onto solid ground with a whoop.

I breathed heavily. "Lumine does it again!"

"Not so fast." Aether flopped out of the water onto his back. "We made it at the same time."

"We did not!"

"Did too," he snickered. "You may have walked on land, but I still got to touching it. I just had to swim a little deeper."

"I didn't see that."

"That's not my problem."

"You!" I splashed water at him. "You tried to drown me!"

He laughed. "Stop being dramatic. We both know you wouldn't have drowned by a little tug. Besides, you did the same to me!"

"Cheater."

"Takes one to know one."

Blub blub.

A gurgling sound interrupted the next complaint I was about to throw at him. It was coming from the water. Aether and I both looked at each other with wide eyes before walking close to the lake's edge.

Blub blub blub.

The water began to bubble up, ripples disrupting the surface.

"What is that?" I peered down into the water but couldn't spot anything.

Aether sighed. "I wish I had my notebook with me."

The ripples grew larger and larger until the very center of the bubbling water rose up and above the surface. A watery blob floated in the lake.

My jaw dropped. "Is…is that a…"

The blob slowly turned around, revealing two simple eyes that blinked at us.

"Slime!" Aether gasped aloud.

I screamed and ran away from the monster. Except, my foot slipped in the mud and I fell on my back. The slime jumped in surprise at the commotion, and to my horror, it began to inch out of the water. Frantically patting the ground around me, I located a solid rock and threw it at the slime. The rock sailed through the air and bounced harmlessly off the slime. It showed no reaction at first, but then I could have sworn its eyes tilted in a frown.

"Get away from there!" Aether scrambled toward the trees. "To the forest!"

The slime momentarily inflated before popping out a bubble from its round body. I shrieked and ran away, only to find that the bubble was following me.

"Aether, It's chasing me!"

Panic gripped me as I tried to run in a zig-zag pattern. No such luck—the bubble persisted. Off to the side, I was appalled to hear the lighthearted sound of Aether's laughter. He was actually laughing while I was being attacked by this monster. The nerve!

He slapped his knee. "It's moving so slow. You look ridiculous, Lumine!"

"Stop laughing and help me get rid of this thing!"

Aether grabbed a fallen stick and chased after the bubble that was chasing me. With just one poke, the bubble popped and water rained onto the ground. At last, I could stop my sprinting and catch my breath.

He handed me another stick. "Here, let's teach this slime a lesson."

I accepted the stick with a grin. Now that we had the upper hand, this slime would be nothing. We advanced on the tiny monster that simply hopped a short distance into the air before lightly plopping back onto the ground. Once we reached it, we raised our sticks.

"Ready?" I giggled.

"Go!"

Aether and I beat the slime with our sticks. The dry wood slapped against its watery body, and the slime shrunk down to a smaller size. Eventually, we smacked it so much that it fell apart into tiny globs of itself. The globs didn't move at all.

"We won!" I shouted with glee and tossed my stick to the side.

Aether bent down to scoop up the remaining slime bits. They looked gooey in his hands, and I reached out to touch them. The texture was super goopy and stuck to my fingers a little.

"Gimmie half." I reached out my hand. "I wanna play with it."

He split up the slime goop, and I pulled and stretched at it as we walked around the lake to our starting point. My stomach growled, and I couldn't wait to eat dinner soon. Suddenly, an idea popped into my head, and I clenched the slime in my fist.

"Wanna race back to dinner?"

Aether's eyes sparkled. "Wanna see who can eat the fastest?"

"Let's go!"

We quickly got dressed back into our normal clothes and took off into the forest. There wasn't much space between the group of trees and the orphanage building, and I made sure to take all the shortcuts I could find. Aether was panting and laughing behind me, too close behind me. I pumped my legs as hard as I could, spotting the outline of the building through the trees.

Once into the clearing, I pumped my fist into the air. "I made it out first!"

Aether wasn't here yet. That was weird. Normally, he'd be right at my heel making up some excuse as to why I wasn't actually the winner. I stood there, waiting for him.

"Aether? Stop being such a slowpoke!"

No Aether. My hands began to sweat, and I dropped the slime.

"Aether!" My voice had gotten lower, more mature. "Aether, where did you go?"

I scanned the area around me, thinking that maybe he was trying to give me a jumpscare. To my surprise, the orphanage was no longer the orphanage. It was a collection of regal buildings with smashed walls and broken windows. I wasn't a kid anymore. I was at the scene of the monster attack on Celestia Academy.

This specific location…oh no. My stomach dropped as I recognized it to be where the lawachurl attacked. There was no lawachurl here, though. My shoulders slumped in relief upon realizing it was just me standing in the grass.

A bellowing roar.

There it was.

I braced myself for the rocky impact, but the stonehide lawachurl was quite far. It still noticed me, glowing eyes locked onto mine. Another roar. I ran away from it, defenseless. To my dismay, another lawachurl smashed into the ground, and I stopped in my tracks. There was one on each side now, slowly marching toward me. Closing in on me. They thumped their stony hands on their chests before advancing in a full sprint.

My limbs locked up, and I couldn't breathe. Fear permeated my body as their massive forms slammed just a hair's breadth away from me. They didn't attack, and I allowed myself to blink.

"Come with us," one of the lawachurls hissed in an eerily familiar voice.

The other lawachurl reached out its hand. "Join us."

This was too unreal. Lawachurls couldn't speak. At that thought, their rocky faces cracked and shifted, shadows seeping out from them and rearranging features to resemble that of the Abyss Herald and Abyss Lector. As humorous as it was to see a lawachurl with a head of armor that didn't match, I wished to be anywhere else.

"We can make you stronger." Lawalector cocked its head. "You can make us stronger."

Lawaherald reached out to me. "Together."

"No!" I spat out, shaking my head. "I would never join the Abyss Order."

Both monster conglomerations froze and began to shake. Sinister laughter echoed and rumbled deep within my bones, but the laughter soon morphed into sharp barks of rage. The Abyssal lawachurls were no more. Instead, they were simple, deadly stonehide lawachurls once again. The monsters raised their mighty fists into the air, preparing to embed me into the earth.

I couldn't survive, but this was just like the last time. How did I survive the last time? Oh, right. I had people come and save me. Professor Morax had shielded me. He kept me safe. Shield…shield…I needed a shield. Who else was there? Instructor Xiao. He had knocked out the stonehide lawachurl like it was nothing. Xiao was strong enough. He could take them on.

I needed some way to protect myself.

Their fists came crashing down. I flung up my arms.

"Xiao!"

A loud boom sounded.

My body spasmed, and my arms shot out as I snapped awake. Another nightmare. Still, I felt the phantom pains of the lawachurls breaking every bone in my body. My pajamas clung to my skin, and I wiped off a bead of sweat from my forehead. Slowly, my heart rate calmed down, and my head cleared enough to notice two major changes in my room. The first being that it was entirely dark, meaning that I had somehow slept the entire day away. The second, more concerning, difference was that one of my dorm room walls had caved in.

It was crumbled into a pile of stone and dust, resulting in a massive hole that allowed me to see into the room adjacent to mine. Through the dust, I spotted a sleepy Timaeus slowly wobbling out of bed to investigate. Before my shocked brain fully grasped the situation, I found the culprit—it was fused into the floor of my room where the wall once was.

It was a large rock. No, it was more of an extravagant boulder. A glowing meteorite. Swiftly, I leaped out of bed to approach the structure. There were golden shards of ore jutting out from the bottom and something peeked out from inside, rotating and glowing a soft amber. Before I could get a chance to investigate further, a heavy knock banged on my door.

I jumped in surprise, and the mysterious structure burst into a thousand pieces of golden light that fell to the ground, fading away until nothing was left but regular bits of wall.

The door banged again, and there was a shout. "Lumine! Open the door."

Xiao?