Morgan looked at the small group of students gathered in front of the old schoolhouse. "Alright! Looks like Group A is back together again!" She then glanced towards to the only person present to not have been part of said group. "Oh, and Elliot's here too, I guess," she added flatly.

Elliot, ever the amicable soul, laughed it off. "I guess I'll be in your guys' care!"

"Come on, you two." Alisa gave a lighthearted sigh. "If anything, Laura and I should be the ones saying that."

"Indeed." Laura nodded her head. "When it comes to exploring the old schoolhouse, the four of you are evidently our seniors."

"Well, the truth is, we've only been in here once last month," Rean said. "A lot could have changed since then, so really, we're basically all on the same standing here."

"Yeah, I've heard the stories about this place." Alisa crossed her arms. "But quite honestly, I'm having a tough time believing them. A building that changes its layout all on its own seems...well, kind of impossible!"

"I imagine the only way to truly believe it would be to see it with your own eyes." Gaius pointed to the entrance of the old schoolhouse. "As soon as we step through those doors, you'll be left with no option but to accept that this place is not as it seems."

Rean nodded. "Yeah, I think you're in for quite a surprise." He held up the key to the schoolhouse. "Well? Are we all ready to go?"

All the students gathered collectively nodded their heads. With that, Rean led the group to the entrance of the schoolhouse and unlocked the doors. They all cautiously went inside.

The good news was that the first floor of the old schoolhouse where Class VII had first gathered for their orienteering exercise remained relatively unchanged since the previous month. There were a few storage crates pushed to the side that hadn't been there previously, but aside from that the general layout of the room was the same. This came as no surprise to the four students who investigated the schoolhouse last time; they knew that any further surprises would lay further inside, behind the second set of doors that led further into the schoolhouse. The group approached the door and, with a collective breath, went inside the staircase room.

...Only to find that there was no longer a staircase at all.

Elliot vocalized the group's collective surprise. "Wh-What's going on?!"

The room was now a singular floor with no obvious way of reaching the lower floors. In the place of the stone staircase was now an elaborate stone structure with an octagonal platform surrounded by low guard rails and pillars. On the side of the platform furthest from the students, there was pedestal with a stone slab attached to it.

"This really is completely different from the last time we were here…" Alisa's mouth was agape. "What's that pedestal-like structure over there?"

"I-I...I mean, we…" Rean seemed to have trouble speaking out of shock. "We don't know either. That wasn't there last month. None of this was!"

Morgan thought back to an earlier conversation she had with Fie. Her words had seemed so mysterious and vague back then, but now…

"Can you sense it?"

Morgan tilted her head in confusion. "Sense what?"

Fie's eyes drifted towards the old schoolhouse. "This building," she said cryptically. "It's changed again. A lot."

'A lot is an understatement,' Morgan thought. Making a mental note to ask Fie about whatever else she knew about the old schoolhouse later, she followed the rest of the investigation group to investigate the stone structure in the middle of the room.

"It's definitely a device of some sort…" Alisa was scanning her eyes over the stone pedestal. "If I were to guess, I'd say it's something similar to an elevator you'd find in a mine shaft. That's what it looks like, anyway."

"An elevator, huh?" Rean mulled over Alisa's hypothesis. "I wonder if that means we can use this to go deeper underground…"

"Probably." Morgan looked to Alisa. "Alisa, think you can make sense of this?"

"It's worth a shot. Let's see…" The blonde spread her hands onto the pedestal. At once, the structure lit up and the slab lit up to reveal a diagram with a set of seven hexagons positioned vertically. The symbols "0", "I", and "II" then appeared in the first three hexagons at the top. As Alisa moved her hands around the glowing pedestal, a light began to hover over the symbols on the panel. "From the looks of things, we're on the floor marked '0', so we can use this to descend up to two floors. There appear to be other floors beyond that, but access to anything lower is locked out."

"So the area we explored last month would be the first floor, I presume?" Gaius asked. "I didn't realize the ruins ran farther than that."

"I'm not even sure if we're even in the same place anymore…" Morgan shook her head in disbelief.

"I know what you mean." Elliot shared the sentiment. "My head is starting to hurt…"

"If the rest of the floors are locked, that seems to suggest someone is trying to stop us - or anyone - from getting to them," Rean theorized. "But who would do that? And why?"

"I have no idea," Alisa readily admitted. "But the proof is right here. All of the other floors are off limits." To demonstrate this, she moved her hand downwards on the pedestal. The light hovering over the symbols corresponded with her hand motions, but stopped at the "II" hexagon. "There's no model number or date anywhere, either, so this elevator was probably built at the same time as the building itself, back in the Middle Ages."

The investigation team let that piece of information sink in for a moment.

"You're surprisingly well informed on technology, Alisa," Laura commented. "It's not often that girls develop such an interest in machinery."

The girl in question took her hands from the pedestal and turned to Laura, flustered. "I-I don't know that much!" she tried to defend herself. "It's all just low-level stuff. Plenty of other people could tell you the same thing, I'm sure!" She then looked to Rean. "So, what are we going to do? Do you want to try using the elevator to go down to the second floor?"

"Yeah, I think we should," he replied. "Though we have no idea what we're going to find down there, so we're going to need to be very careful."

With a nod, Alisa turned to the control panel. Once again, she moved her hand to position the light to hover above the symbol marked "II". After fumbling around the pedestal some more, the light flashed. Immediately, the platform the students were standing on began to rumble and descend to the bottom floors.

The second floor of the old schoolhouse, as expected, had a completely different layout from the first floor. The students immediately took note of a large stone wall that prevented them from moving onwards, so they wandered around to explore every other nook and cranny of the floor. Of course, a new floor also meant that there were new monsters to take down. Fortunately, having a party of six presented plenty of opportunities to experiment with a variety of team compositions. Taking their instructor's advice from their classes into consideration, the students made it a goal to form a new pair each time they entered into battle so they could all feel accustomed to each other's fighting styles and switching pairs on the fly. In time, they even came up with special names for certain team compositions that proved more effective than others.

Eventually, the investigation team found a switch that, when pulled, lowered the stone wall into a small set of stairs, revealing a path forward. The students continued into the depths of the floor and found themselves in a safe room with an inactive orb-shaped device and a conveniently placed orbment charging station.

"Hey, we're in another one of these rooms!" Morgan recognized. "Which means that beyond that door…" She pointed to a large set of doors on the north end of the room past a small set of stairs.

"Yeah, there's probably a strong monster waiting for us on the other side." Rean turned to address the other students. "Let's take a short break here. We'll go inside once we're ready."

As each of the students placed their ARCUS units into the charging station, they began to engage in some small talk about what they did for their second free day so far. Laura was given the task to help a fledgling swimmer named Monica achieve her goal of swimming 50 arge*. The swordswoman had never coached anyone before, much less in something that wasn't swordplay, so she hoped that this experience would be enlightening to her. Alisa had joined the Lacrosse Club and spent most of the day doing drills and playing a few practice matches. The other members of the club were mostly amicable, though there was one person, a girl from Class I named Ferris, who treated Alisa antagonistically for reasons she couldn't understand at the moment. Gaius and Elliot spent their mornings improving on their crafts in their respective clubs, the former with his art and the latter with his music. Rean, unsurprisingly, had the most varied set of activities for his free day. In addition to exploring the old schoolhouse, he filled in as a substitute tutor for a local family and delivered textbooks to all of the teachers. Once he returned to the bookstore from his delivery run, he bumped into Emma, who had been searching for some tutoring material of her own so she could help Fie with her classwork, and so he assisted her in finding a book.

At last, the orbment charging station gave a ringing sound, signaling that their ARCUS units were fully replenished. The students retrieved their devices and double-checked to make sure their equipment was in order before making their way to the large set of doors at the end of the room. The doors automatically opened for them once they drew near and led to a larger room that was nearly identical to the one at the end of the first floor. Once all the students were in the room, the doors closed behind them and a familiar vortex of light crackled into existence.

"Here we go again." Rean drew his sword. "Get ready, everyone!"

The other students readied their weapons. As the light dissipated, a large stone statue came into existence. It was an oddly-designed sculpture, with the body resembling a man's head and torso and a thorn-like protrusion stuck at the top. Two door-like structures adorned with brightly-colored jewels were attached to the statue's back like wings, and in the center of the statue's forehead was a green jewel. It was inactive at first, but then the green jewel started to glow, followed by the statue emitting a whirring sound as it lifted itself from the ground.

"I-It can fly?!" Elliot exclaimed.

The statue seemed to look in the direction of Elliot's voice. Moments later, a ghastly glow started to accumulate around the green jewel.

Morgan felt that imminent danger was approaching. "Spread out!" At the sound of her voice, the students hurriedly dispersed to the stone pillars in the room. A beam of light shot from the statue at the spot where the students stood.

"And it can shoot lasers," Alisa cursed under her breath. "Great. What are we going to do now?"

Currently, the students were huddled into two groups of three behind the stone pillars, with Rean, Morgan, and Alisa on the left side and Gaius, Laura, and Elliot on the right. The whirring sound from the statue was getting closer by the second.

"We have the advantage when it comes to numbers," Morgan spoke in a hushed voice. "So long as we all don't stay in one place, we should be able to avoid its attacks. Let's try surrounding it."

"Sounds like the best option," Rean quietly agreed. "What formation should we use?"

Morgan brought up the first name that came to mind. "Balanced teams, Triangle formation."

Rean nodded and relayed the information to the other classmates. "Everyone! We're going to surround it! Split into your Balanced teams and get into Triangle formation!"

With a collective yell of approval, the students dispersed from their hiding locations and started linking with each other. "Balanced" referred to each linked pair consisting of one melee weapon user as a first line of offense and one arts user to support them from afar, thus creating a "balanced" team that could alternate attacks seamlessly. In this situation, Rean linked with Morgan, Laura with Elliot, and Gaius with Alisa. "Triangle" referred to the three pairs surrounding a single enemy at three points like a triangle.

Alisa opened by firing an arrow at the creature's head, followed by Gaius spinning his spear and launching a wind projectile at its body. Both projectiles didn't faze the monster in the slightest, but it did succeed in drawing its attention, as it attempted to fire a laser where the pair stood. Both students fell behind separate pillars to avoid the attack.

The other two pairs of students, meanwhile, were able to come into close proximity of the stone creature without it noticing, surrounding it on both sides. Rean made the first move; dashing in quickly, he unsheathed his tachi and slashed at the monster. The metal of his blade clanged against the stone body of the creature, but unsurprisingly his thin sword could barely make a scratch. On the other side, Laura moved in and swung her sword horizontally. The strength of her attack was able to leave a bigger cut on the monster's stone body, but it only seemed to annoy it. The monster spun around violently, forcing both of the sword wielders to retreat.

'We're not getting anywhere with physical attacks at this rate,' Morgan observed. 'In that case, let's try magic!'

Gripping her ARCUS, she started to cast an art. "Let's try this!" Holding out her orbment, a Fire Bolt spell was released from her position and hit the statue at the torso. Unfortunately, there was no way to tell if it did any damage, as the statue simply turned around to face her and Rean. It heaved its great door-like wings backwards and then forwards, causing a gust of wind to blow in their direction. Rean was able to quickly plant his sword into the ground and withstand the winds. Morgan, meanwhile, wasn't so lucky; she could only hold her weapon in front of her for defense before the gust sent her reeling against a wall.

"Morgan!" Rean rushed over to help her back up.

The statue began to float after him, but its movements were stopped when a flaming arrow flew from across the room and struck the thorn-like protrusion on its head.

"Hey! Keep your eyes over here!" Alisa called out to the statue as she nocked another arrow.

While the enemy was distracted by the blonde archer, Morgan was back on her feet. She cast a healing art on herself to be on the safe side.

"Our attacks aren't doing anything," Rean observed. "If only there was some way we could get it to stop flying…"

Suddenly, the statue started to lean back in the air with its eyes beginning to glow. It then let out a ear-piercing cry, causing all of the students to buckle down and cover their ears. Elliot, who had been preparing an art, released his spell maturely so he could cover his ears. The unfinished Aqua Bleed flew upwards in an arc and then found its way back down to the statue, splashing against the green jewel in its forehead. This caused it stop screeching and falter a bit.

Morgan, who kept an eye open while covering both her ears, immediately took note of this. "That's our winning ticket."

"Huh?" Rean uncovered his ears. "What did you say?"

Morgan pointed to the jewel in the statue's forehead. "The jewel in the middle. When Elliot's art hit it, it stopped screaming. Maybe if we can hit it with a stronger attack…"

Rean realized what she was getting at and nodded. "It's worth a shot. We'll just need to find an opening and attack the weak spot."

Morgan felt the gears turning in her head. "I think I've got an idea. You can use offensive orbal arts, right?"

"One." Rean nodded. "Are you suggesting a coordinated attack?"

"Coordinated magic attack," she specified, "but same idea. Start a few seconds after me, then aim for the weak spot."

She activated her ARCUS and starting tapping her foot in a rhythm. As soon as her foot reached the seventh count, she gave the order to fire prematurely. "Heads up!" She lobbed a ball of fire in an arc, which hit the statue's thorn-like protrusion with a miniature explosion. Alerted, the floating statue started to turn in the pair's direction, but Morgan was already in motion. Behind her, Rean finished casting his art and unleashed a Fire Bolt spell that sailed over her head and hit the statue's jewel, causing it to falter in its flight.

"Not done yet!" Bringing her axe behind her, she leapt up into the air while performing a rising two-handed swing. "Dolphin Slash!" The blade of her axe struck against the green jewel, causing a small crack to form.

After witnessing the successful attack on the enemy, the other student pairs understood what they needed to do and immediately began preparing their own attacks. Elliot launched a completed Aqua Bleed art, which was promptly followed up by Laura leaping high into the air and performing a downwards swing. Gaius and Alisa unleashed their respective wind and fire projectiles in rapid succession. Rean and Morgan continued their coordinated assault, exchanging orbal arts and weapon strikes. The statue withstood one combination attack after another until a well-placed strike from Rean caused the jewel to shatter completely. With its power source removed, the statue fell to the ground with the rest of its jewels powering down.

Morgan wiped the sweat off her brow. "Whew! That wasn't so bad-"

Before she could finish her sentence, two more purple lights started flickering in the center of the room, signifying the appearance of two more enemies.

"Seriously?!" Alisa groaned. "We're still not done?"

The lights disappeared to reveal two more statues just like the one the students just defeated. One by one, they began to lift off the ground and whirred to life.

Elliot glanced at Morgan. "You just had to say something, didn't you?"

She snorted sarcastically in response. "Ha ha, very funny."

By some miracle, the students managed to take down both of the newly-spawned statues. The knowledge of which places to aim for made it easier for the students to conserve their attacks, but the fact that there were two enemies meant that they were forced to move around constantly and use the pillars in the room as cover from the statues' attacks. In the end, attrition proved to be a greater enemy than the enemies themselves, with the team spending a good long while after the battle trying to catch their breath. Fortunately, the inactive orb-shaped device in the adjacent break room was on and working, which saved the group the trouble of having to navigate through the labyrinth again by teleporting them straight to the floor entrance. One elevator ride up later, the tired students shuffled out of the schoolhouse and made their way to the principal's office, where they gave a detailed oral report on the various happenings in the old schoolhouse.

With their work finished for the day, the students were free to break off independently. Gaius and Elliot headed off in the direction of Trista to grab a bite to eat at Kirsche's. Rean stayed behind to talk some more with the principal about the origins of the old schoolhouse. Alisa, Laura, Morgan, meanwhile, decided to head to the gymnasium together for a quick shower.

"Haaah…" Alisa sighed from her shower stall. "I didn't realize I needed this so badly until right now."

"I know that feeling." Morgan exhaled as she felt the streams of hot water rain down on her head. "There's nothing like a hot shower after a long day at work."

"A feeling I too must concur with," Laura agreed from the adjacent stall. "The greater the toil, the greater the satisfaction in overcoming it. Naturally, our recent excursion is no exception."

"Still…" Alisa's voice trailed off. "Rean sure wasn't kidding when he said the old schoolhouse was stranger than it appeared."

"It's almost like that building was designed to make weird things happen," Morgan added. "And believe me, I've seen a lot of weird things."

"Morgan, you entered the old schoolhouse last month, correct?" Laura questioned her. "How did that excursion fare?"

"Well, aside from the fact that the elevator was still a staircase? Actually pretty similar to today's." She recalled the events of last month's investigation. "We explored the floor a bit, fought some monsters along the way, found a rest stop, fought a tougher monster at the end, and then made our way back with the warping device."

"THAT definitely threw me for a loop," Alisa said. "I can understand the logic behind automatic doors and elevators, but a device that transports you from one location to another? That's almost like magic."

"I suppose one could argue that one person's technology is another's magic," Laura pointed out, "but I tend to agree that such a feat is beyond the capabilities of today's technology."

"The principal mentioned that the schoolhouse has been around since the time of Emperor Dreichels," Alisa recalled. "Just what sorts of things did they have back then?"

"Makes you wonder how much we grew as humans and how far we regressed, doesn't it?" Morgan wondered aloud. "At any rate, it looks like the enemies get stronger the further down you go, so we'll need to keep our guards up. Other than that, I think we've got a good idea of what to expect for the lower floors."

"Right. Now the question is how do we get to them…" Alisa followed up.

The three girls hummed in thought for a few seconds.

"Well, I think I'm going to head out now." Morgan turned off the shower, grabbed her towel from its position on the shower door, and started ruffling her hair dry. She then opened the shower door while drying the rest of her body and began putting on her uniform. As Morgan was putting on her dress shirt, she heard one of the shower doors behind her open, which was then followed by a small "Huh?" She turned mid-dress to see Alisa looking at her oddly.

"What's up?" she asked the blonde.

"I thought I saw something above your…" Her face started developing a slight blush. "Well, on your lower back."

Morgan mouthed a small "Oh" and pointed to the small of her back, which was now covered by her dress shirt. "I have a hereditary brand there, if that's what your thinking about," she clarified.

"A hereditary...brand?" Alisa repeated.

"In other words, it's basically a birthmark."

"Oh, that makes sense." She nodded her head in understanding. "Pretty weird spot for a birthmark, though."

"Hey, it's not like I have any say in where it shows up," Morgan replied, "much less decide if one even shows up in the first place."

The blonde laughed. "That's true."

"Father, can I get a tattoo?"

Her father abruptly looked up with an alarmed look on his face, nearly dropping the manuscript he had been reading. "Wh-What did you just say?"

"A tattoo!" Morgan smiled innocently. "Where can I get one?"

"Um…" Her father cleared his throat. "M-May I ask what brought this up?"

"Owain just got the Mark of Naga tattooed on his arm, just like Uncle Chrom! He said that that means he's a Chosen One!" She struck a pose. "I want to be a Chosen One too!"

"Oh, you were talking about that." The older male breathed a sigh of relief. "Good. For a moment, I thought you wanted to join a band of outlaws."

"Huh?" The girl tilted her head in confusion. "Why would I do that?"

"Never mind that," her father replied. "Unfortunately, I can't get you a tattoo of the Mark of Naga."

"Aw, why not?" she pouted.

"Because…" Her father put down his manuscript. "It is considered a felony to wear the Brand of the Exalt anywhere on your skin unless you're part of the royal family."

"But I'm part royal too!" she countered. "Mother is-"

"She's also of royal blood, make no mistake about that," he affirmed, "but it isn't something as simple as painting something on your skin."

"I don't quite understand."

Her father gave himself a facepalm. "And suddenly, I regret not explaining this before." He looked to his daughter. "Have you noticed how Chrom's Brand never seems to fade away even after a very long time?"

The small girl thought to herself for a moment. "Now that I think about it, it doesn't! Does that mean he has a good makeup artist?"

Her father shook his head. "No, that's not the point. The reason why it's like that is because Chrom's Brand isn't a tattoo at all. The same also applies to Owain."

"It's not?" she gasped. "Then what is it?"

"It's exactly what it is," he answered vaguely. "The Brand of the Exalt. Only those with exalted blood are able to have one. No amount of water or magic can wash it away once you have it; that's why it serves as definitive proof that someone is part of the royal family. Think of it like a hereditary birthmark."

"But Owain didn't have his when he was born," she pointed out. "That means he must have gotten it from someplace."

"Honestly? I don't know the full details," her father admitted. "All I know is that it just happens. The Brand usually shows up at birth, but not always. Sometimes it shows up later in life, while in some rare occasions it may not even appear at all. There's no determining where it shows up either. To put it bluntly, it's very random and you can't get it through physical means."

"But if you're related to the royal family, there's always a chance you can get one."

Her father nodded. "Yep. That's the basic idea."

"So, when do you think I'll get one?"

"Who knows? Maybe you'll get one, maybe you won't."

"That not very reassuring…"

"Sorry, but like I said, it's random."

"Does Mother have a Brand?"

"Oh, she has one."

"Really?! Where?"

"Do you really need to ask? You see it every day."

"Then how come I don't remember seeing it?"

"To be fair, she's REALLY good at covering it up. You need a good eye to be able to see it."

"Father?"

"What is it?"

"Where did you get YOUR mark?"

Her father brought his right hand into the light. Branded on the back of his hand was a different symbol, this one consisting of six eyes curving inwards connected by two intertwining lines.

"I'm...not sure," he solemnly replied. "I've had it for as long as I can remember. I guess you can call it my birthmark."

"Does that mean you're a Chosen One too?"

The older male laughed, but his tone suggested it wasn't out of humor. "I guess you can say I am. Although, I was chosen for a different reason…"

"What reason?" the girl asked.

He looked to the right and left to make sure they were alone and motioned for her to come closer. He whispered in her ear: "The end of the world."

Author's note: At long last, this free day is over! Apologies if this felt like it dragged on longer than it should have, but at least things are finally moving along as they should be. Sadly, I didn't manage to get this out in time for Morgan's birthday on 5/5, but a few days late is better than never, right?
One detail I'd like to point out is one of Morgan's techniques used in the fight, which some may realize uses the same name and motion as Marth and Lucina's up special move in the Smash series. To put it out there for clarification's sake: it's not a skill. It's just a fancy name for a combat technique and has no special properties attached to it. Still makes for a humorous reference, though.

* "Arge" is the units of measurement used in the game. 1 arge roughly equates to 1 meter in the real world, so 50 arge equates to 50 meters, which is the length for a full lap in a standard pool. Just in case you were wondering what it meant.