As we're ushered into what is a glorified waiting room, I'm not entirely sure what to expect. With the writing portion behind us, all that's left is the practical examination. But what does that mean? The AA exam is carefully proctored to keep the whole thing a secret.

I mean, I think I did well enough on the written section. How hard could it possibly—

"Dia!" I'm ripped from my thoughts by a familiar cheery voice. I blink and look up, right in time to see someone waving erratically at me from one of the giant room's many, many tables. "Hey, Dia!"

I stifle a laugh and wave back, happy to see a familiar face. Or rather, familiar hair. I may not be able to see his face from this far away, but the dark brown afro is unmistakable. I make my way over to his table, returning that goofy grin on his bespectacled face.

"Hey Ben," I say, dropping into the chair next to him. "Man am I glad to see you."

"Right back at'cha," he says, sighing as he rubs his temples. "The programming portion made me want to die. But, you know. All in all, it wasn't that bad."

"Not for you it wasn't," I correct. "Especially since there was that whole section on ancient history."

I know the second his brown eyes sparkle that I've made a grave mistake.

"Holy shit, I'm so excited," he says, practically bouncing in his seat. "I still can't believe they have an entire track dedicated to magic research! Finally, there's going to be people who actually want to listen to the complexities of magic origin—"

"Ben please, my head already hurts," I groan, fighting to hide my smile.

"Shut up, this is interesting," he says, waving me off. "You remember that one question about evolution? It got me thinking. Nobody knows exactly where our dynami comes from, right? Is it part of us? Do we get it from the world around us? We know that it gradually returns after it's used, but how does it actually generate?"

"As you've mentioned a thousand times," I say, rolling my eyes. "Hence the reason you're aiming for the research track."

"But we do know that in ancient times, there were people called magicians that could use magic without the aid of crystals," he continues, completely disregarding me. "But they also died really young because of it. Life expectancy has basically tripled since we started channeling magic through automatons, and over the years, we completely lost the ability to use magic by ourselves."

"Uh-huh."

"I would say that was caused by evolution, wouldn't you? The evidence is there, especially since there are people like you out there," he says, wiggling his eyebrows at me.

"People like me, huh?" I echo, playing dumb. "You don't say."

"You know, the whole you-have-so-much-magic-in-you-you'll-literally-burn-up-if-you-don't-get-rid-of-it thing."

"If you call me a missing link one more time, Ben the Butt, I will smack you," I tell him, raising a hand playfully.

"That's Ben the Brain to you, missing link," he says, eyes bright. He has this huge shit eating grin on his face, and it only gets bigger when I smack his shoulder.

"That's enough of that, Butt," I say, suppressing a laugh. I glance around the room, noticing for the first time that it's slowly emptying. Students are being taken from it and led into a few different rooms, one at a time. I direct his attention to it. "What do you think that's about?"

"I don't know for sure, but I've heard they're testing magical capacity."

"They're what?" I ask. The tips of my fingers suddenly go cold, and I find myself rolling those precious drain crystals between my fingers. "Does it affect our test scores? That seems a little..."

"Unethical?" Ben finishes for me. He adjusts his glasses, an uncomfortable look on his face. "Yeah, I know. I've heard people say that it's just for record purposes, but I personally doubt it."

"They can't deny entry based on power, can they?"

"I mean, seeing how esteemed they are, I doubt anyone would bother to stop them," he points out. "But I don't think they would go that far. It's probably for scouting purposes."

"Scouting," I echo. I watch as a student is taken from a table near us, escorted into the nearest door by a rather intimidating automaton. Its all-steel frame has the acronym H.A.T. carved into its shoulder. "We choose our tracks once we get in, right? From what I heard, there's a whole week of placement tests."

"That's what I've heard, yeah," he confirms. "There's even that whole battle royal thing to weed out the crop of military track students."

We both watch as the student disappears through the door, the automaton picking another student at random to bring in next.

"So then why is the Human Automaton Taskforce testing us for magical capacity so early?" I muse.

"Well whatever it's for, I doubt you'll have a problem," he says, gently nudging my arm with his elbow.

"Not with the actual result, no," I sigh. I twist the gently glowing beads on my bracelet out of habit. "But with the execution? Definitely. There's no telling what'll happen when I take these off."

"I'm sure you'll be fine," Ben assures me. The smile on his face dies after a few moments, and he sinks onto the table. "If it really is used for admission though, I can consider myself done for."

"Oh, come on, Ben. You don't know that for sure."

"You remember that one time I tried to power your dad's prototype when I was seven? That was a total disaster," he points out.

"Ben, that was when you were seven. There's a reason we aren't allowed to own automatons until we're eighteen, you know," I remind him. "I'm sure you'll do fine—"

"Dia Krystallo." I look up to see the all-metal automaton towering over me, its emotionless red eyes staring burning their way into my forehead. "Come with me."

I stare at it for a moment, a slight tremble entering my hands. Then Ben bumps his knee against mine, bringing me back to myself. Not having much choice, I get up to follow the behemoth into the unknown. A glance over my shoulder lands me an encouraging thumbs up from Ben. The last thing as I disappear through the door is him mouthing 'you've got this.'

***

I suddenly understand why the ceilings in the testing facility have been so high. Inside the room is the largest crystal I've ever seen. The room itself is small—about the size of your average classroom—but the crystal takes up one entire wall and rises up a complete two stories, the curling spindles at its top nearly brushing the ceiling. Its transparent body sparkles and gleams under the can lights in the ceiling, giving it the appearance of a large deposit of ice.

Its bottom is hooked up to an intricate array of metal piping, which in turn spans the length of the room and hooks into various machinery. I have no clue what most of it does, but there's a very obvious monitor jutting out from one of the walls. Right now, its display reads "0 mgs." Many of the other wires and pipes lead off into a control panel on the opposite wall, where a human lab tech is pressing all kinds of buttons.

Once I have been deposited in the room, the automaton turns and leaves, the door swinging shut behind me.

"Alright, let's get this show on the road, shall we?" the woman asks, absentmindedly fixing her bun. "This is the last portion of your exam today, miss...?"

"Krystallo," I murmur, still entranced by the crystal.

"Krystallo?" the woman echoes, finally looking up from her computer. "As in the Krystallo?"

"Well, I'm not the big man himself, but yeah. I'm a Krystallo," I mutter, twisting my bracelet. "Um... what exactly are we doing here?"

"Ah, right. Well Ms. Krystallo, you have nothing to worry about," she says, noting my fidgeting. "This is only a magical capacity test. It's not used towards your results in any way—it's meant for record purposes."

She walks over to the crystal, lightly pressing a hand against it. The whole thing begins to glow a light yellow, the monitor on the wall displaying a set of increasing numbers. 5 mgs, 10 mgs, 15 mgs. She takes her hand off once it levels out at 210 mgs, giving me a reassuring smile.

"All I need you to do is put your hands on this crystal here and transfer as much energy to it as you can."

I back up a pace, anxiously twisting my right bracelet.

"I'm sorry ma'am, but I think this is a bad idea," I tell her. "I have Kindette Syndrome."

She looks surprised, but is quick to wave off my concerns.

"It should be fine. The crystal will conduct your magic, so it shouldn't cause you any health problems," she tells me, returning behind her panel. "In fact, it should have the same effect as a drain crystal."

I'm not entirely sure I believe that, but I feel as though I'm being pushed into a corner. This is my dream school. Even though she said it wouldn't affect admittance, I have a feeling refusing to take the examination wouldn't look good in the eyes of the registrars.

It'll be fine. I'm sure I'll be fine.

I unfasten my gloves and shove them in my pockets, taking one last look at my bracelets. Then I take a deep breath, and let them slip off my wrists. The spike in my body temperature is immediately obvious, and I can already hear the rushing in my ears.

"That's it. It'll only take a moment."

I take a few unsteady steps towards the crystal, the room beginning to swirl around me. My skin is burning. It's suddenly hard to breathe.

I can do this.

I grit my teeth and close the last few steps between me and the crystal, my eyesight starting to turn spotty at the edges. The crystal feels like ice against my palms, and as it slowly begins to glow with my sea green magic, the ice travels up my arms and swirls around in my head and chest. The sensation cools me down, but it isn't enough. The ground is still swaying beneath my feet, sweat gathering at the edges of my hairline. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see numbers rapidly flying up on the monitor. 80 mgs, 110 mgs, 130 mgs, 150...

Driven by the instinct to get rid of the heat inside me, I push harder. The glow of the crystal gets steadily brighter, the numbers continuing to climb. 200, 220, 240, 260.

"Woah, wait a second!" the lab tech exclaims, voice frantic. "Slow down a bit! The system isn't designed to function with this much energy—"

As though in response to her words, the crystal begins to ring, its glow bathing the room in sea green light. Not even the ringing can drown out the rushing in my head. 320, 340, 360. The monitor sparks.

But it isn't enough. My breath comes in bursts as my lungs begin to sting, my heart pounding a frantically uneven rhythm. For whatever reason, a memory comes to mind. It's a female voice. One I haven't heard in a long, long time.

"You have to be careful with your bracelets, my little Diamond. Until you're old enough to have automatons of your own, you have to keep them on. Your daddy made them special for you—so you won't be sick anymore."

I can't remember her face, but I do remember a leaf green glow. There was an automaton at her shoulder, and a single crystal bracelet on her own wrist. I remember thinking that it matched her eyes. The buzzing of an intercom interrupts the hazy image.

"I need backup in here!" the tech calls. "Someone get a medic—"

380, 390, 400, 400, 400. The monitor explodes off the wall in a shower of sparks and wires.

Right as I feel the world around me returning to its normal state of stability, the crystal cracks beneath my fingertips. A huge fissure stretches across the front of it, tiny lines darting away from it with the complexity of a spider web. Its glow immediately dies, the surging heat inside my veins quickly melting the ice that it had injected into my veins. The room begins to spin uncontrollably, the blackness at the edges of my vision creeping inwards. I reach for my pockets, but I can't seem to find them. My trembling hands keep finding empty air.

My skin burns.

My insides burn.

I am on fire.

The spinning of the world finally catches me off balance, and I don't know I'm on the ground until my head hits the tile.

Black.