A symphony of mellow clacks came from around the corner, it wasn't just someone, it was a large group of someones. The two jumped away from the wall, going with the natural adolescent reaction by instinctively fixing their clothes and hair to erase any evidence of their troublesome behaviour.

          An entourage of casually dressed teenagers came around the corner in a disorganised group, two students in black uniforms streaked with silver manned the front, and another two held up the rear. The two in the front were clearly visible with their distance. One was an tall and nimble caramel skinned girl, with her thick black hair tied back in a braid, and the other was a prestigious, pasty looking boy, dwarfed by his partners towering figure.

          "What are you two doing wandering the halls alone? You get lost?" the girl called, marching the group of students towards them.

          Vera put on a mask of innocence and smiled politely, curling a small strand of hair along her finger. "Yeah, we were looking for the bathroom and got a little lost."

          The group was now upon them, with dozens of eyes weighing down on the two misplaced students. The prestigious boy didn't looked convinced. "Both of you?"

          The tall girl broke in before her partner could get an answer. "Maybe we can help you find your groups. I'm Misha and this is Astor."

          "Astor Baldwin," the boy corrected. "What colour are your cards?"

          They both showed the guides their silver cards.

          "Ah, you're in luck, this is the silver group." Misha smiled. "You two can join in the group wherever, we're showing you guys around so you won't get as lost."

           Káel and Vera obediently joined the outer layer of the horde, ignoring the fact they were being stared at by multiple sets of eyes. Maybe it was due to the straying cobwebs stuck to their feet, or their rosy cheeks and slouchy postures that gave away their previous fit of running. Nonetheless, as the group marched on, the two could hear the oblivious stage whispering from multiple parties within the mass, and most of it had to do with them.

          Vera wasn't talking anymore. She silently walked near the back of the group, acting like the people around her didn't exist. She didn't even fancy interacting with Káel, who remained hushed as well due to his only acquaintance's lack of conversation.

          A small girl was behind them, talking to one of the guides. Although Káel couldn't see her, her mellow and shy whispers were surprisingly loud. "I -I wonder why th-th-they didn't use the lobby bathroom, it's p-pretty big." A male voice grunted in response to her question. "And they l-look like they ran halfway around the s-school." There was another grunt. "Do you r-really think they went looking for a bathroom?"

          "Why don't you ask them and not me?" the guide finally responded. "And do you have to hover around me? Why don't you go find some friends?"

          "They're all t-tall, and scary."

          Káel tried to peek over his shoulder at the two, but immediately met eyes with a short wavy haired girl. She was quick to pointlessly apologize for catching his attention, and cowered away behind the guide she was talking to. They both looked similar, wavy black hair and hazel eyes, only the guide had a slightly darker olive tone to his skin; siblings.

           The guide pushed his sister out from behind him, and acknowledged Káel's attention to their conversation. He started to question her as to why she apologized to people like it was a greeting, but only received even more apologies. Finally, he shoved her up to Káel and ordered her to make some friends, which she shyly refused.

          "Don't worry, first years don't bite, except under dire circumstances, and if they do I'm authorized to immobilize them," her brother teased.

          Vera was showing some interest towards the short girl trudging beside them. She was barred from returning to her brother's presence, and hung her head in shame as she reluctantly hovered behind Káel. "He's right, we don't outwardly bite people," she joked, trying to comfort the girl as her cheeks burned red with embarrassment. "I'm Vera."

          The girl remained silent.

          "I'm Káel, and I promise not to bite you."

          The girl looked back at her brother pleadingly, and he sighed. "She's Talli, scared of too many things to count and strangers are one of em." The guide shooed Talli back to Káel's side. "And I'm Phaeron, her brother."

          Vera tried to have a conversation with Talli, and was assisted by Phaeron who would sometimes order Talli to speak, or answer in her place. They were talking about their home lands, Phaeron and Talli were from some place called Za'xar. From their description, it was a scorching hot desert with a couple booming oasis cities, crawling with Sand Drakes and Spinesnaps. Whatever those were.

          Although she didn't appear to take pride in talking about her homeland, Vera gave a couple pieces of description. She was from the Latos region, a place filled with rolling green hills and a paranoid kingdom with more soldiers than normal citizens. She was sent to traditional schools like Cobalt along with her sister, after her father thought some lousy assassin tried to kill her, but didn't go into detail on the story.

          "Wh-what about you?" Talli asked, looking at Káel.

          Káel chuckled. "I'm from Canada."

          Talli and Phaeron paused with confusion and exchanged questioning glances. "I've never heard of Canada. What's it like?" Phaeron questioned.

           "Well, where I'm from it's pretty flat and boring, with frigid winters that can bury whole houses in snow." Talli and Phaeron cringed at the mention of snow. "And there's lot of bunnies, and seagulls, and trucks." Káel continued, stopping when the siblings faces turned to horror.

          "Y-you have Sea Ghouls and Truks!?" Talli squeaked, holding her hands to her mouth. "Why on Lumi do your p-people still live there!?"

          "Didn't think they liked snow." Phaeron muttered, his brow scrunched in disbelief.

          Káel was speechless, the most trouble he'd ever gotten from a seagull, was when it stole his ice cream bar and went flying around the town dropping chocolate blobs on everyone.

          Vera tugged on Káel's sleeve as the group stopped. "We're getting close to that hallway."

          He pulled his attention to their surroundings. She was right, the creepy hall was around the corner. "Maybe if we go that way we can ask about it." Káel replied, receiving a nod.

          Kael paid attention to what the guides up front were talking about, they had stopped short of the corner, talking about the science wing to point out the specific rooms and their subjects. When Astor finished his lengthy explanation, the group continued around the corner.

          They both waited like hawks to see the dark hall, nearly leaning around the corner as the group rounded it.

          But it wasn't there.

          In its place sat a solid wall of interlocked bricks that blended in with the rest of the area, as if it never existed in the first place.

          "It's gone." Vera whispered, looking at Káel's equally shocked face.

           Talli turned her attention to Vera's odd comment. "Wh-what's gone?"

          "There was a staircase there." Káel whispered, pointing at the solid wall.

          Talli looked at the wall with confusion and then whispered something to her brother. He glanced at the wall in ponderment and shook his head. "There's never been a path there, only level below here is the dungeons, and that's got one entrance. Are you sure this is the right area? I mean you did get lost looking for a bathroom." Phaeron said with a teasing hint to his voice, but Káel and Vera shared the same thought, 

          It was right there.

          The group continued to thoroughly explore the academy, and Káel was wondering how the students got around without using a map. His assumptions on its size were correct, it was massive and full of stairs, large rooms, and long halls, all the while spreading its blue and grey theme throughout the school.

          There was one area the guides talked about, but didn't explore much. A large room at the back of the school with five separately coloured and themed doors, yellow, red, silver, green, and purple respectively. On each door was a unique beast, embellished with blues, blacks and whites, to create a beautiful emblemed appeal.

          The yellow door had what Káel assumed to be a winged wolf-like creature, with slim pointed ears, and prominent canines. The red door had a Phoenix on it, judging by the red flaming feathers covering the bird's body, and the same silver dragon on his pin sat prestigiously on the silver door. The second to last door had a scaled stag, like the one that had snuck up on him in the forest, posing on an emerald green door.

          Finally, upon the purple door sat a unicorn, causing Káel to chuckle a little at the appearance of such an innocent and pure creature, after being lead by four powerful and vicious beasts. It sat in a dainty pose, with its horn raised high, and its silky hair combed smoothly across its neck.

          Misha walked up to the silver door and lightly tapped it. "These are the home quarters, you can only enter the door matching the colour of your cards... Of course if you steal a different coloured card you can enter a different quarter, but if you're caught then good luck, cause you're gonna need it when you explain yourself to the Breakers."

           Káel turned to Phaeron and Talli. "What are Breakers?'

          "Peacekeepers and rule fanatics, some of em are teachers, but most of them are students with sufficient combat training. It's best not to get on their bad side," he said, motioning to Vera. "She should know, her sis is one of em, one of their higher ups."

          Káel grinned at her. "So that explains it."

           "Excuse me?" she growled, concealing her murderous irritation with a forced smile.

          He put his hands up with a cringe. "Nothing."

           After demonstrating how to open the door, Astor announced it was time to get to the main chamber for the First Year's assembly. With that the guides rushed them through the building, and dragged them up a dreadfully long and wide, curving set of stairs, that had two castle sized siege doors swung wide open at the top of them.

          Before reaching the top, another mass of students with guides in purple striped uniforms came up the other side of the stairs. One of the leading guides caught Phaeron's attention by making a playfully funny face at him, and Phaeron responded by sticking his tongue out.

          The second guide manning the front stood tall, with his chin raised unnecessarily high and his black hair combed back to the sides of his head. Upon noticing his partners misbehaviour he smacked him upside the head, and gave Phaeron a disgusted glare.

          The second guide in the back that had distracted herself with talking to a group of girls pulled Phaeron's attention away from the purple guides. "You know better than to aggravate Horus."

          "Yeah, but how else am I supposed to entertain myself?" Phaeron retorted.

          The students marched through the large arching tunnel of a doorway, past the metal-plated wooden doors that were more suited for a medieval castle expecting a siege. Beyond the doors sat a circular room that had the structure and size of a small arena, only this room put to shame any pictures of arenas Káel had seen. The roof was a crystalline dome that had the shape of a flowery snowflake in its rigid structure. Layered seats ran across three fourths of the of the room's circumference, with carpeted staircases dividing them into five sections, and the door dividing the middle section into two.

          The floor was paved with opaque crystals, laid out in a geometric pattern running from the center of the room, where a decorative pedestal sat. Behind each section of stairs, one of the five crests was carved into the wall, embellished with sparkling gems and polished metal.

          On the other side of the wall was a painted mural. It was cluttered on either end with armoured soldiers and beasts, fighting alongside and against one another with colourful streaks and crude weapons. Nearing the center of the mural the violence lessened, until the soldiers didn't have armour or weapons, and stood around a group of people. A dozen or so of them, and they were done with finer details, holding hands peacefully. The painting in itself was rather confusing but it was beautifully done, making for a curious piece that drew Káel's attention for a while.

          Astor and Misha directed the group to the middle section, and gave them the single mission of sitting wherever they pleased, so long as they remained in the silver section. Talli and Vera ran up the steps to the last row of seats, and plunked down in its center, starting a conversation Káel was out of earshot to hear.

          He waved goodbye to Phaeron, who graciously thanked him for assisting him in the plot to get his sister out of his hair, and joined the seat beside Talli. All the sections had students scattered within them, except the purple group, which had just finished getting their students to sit orderly in the front rows.

          There was a line of fancy padded chairs beneath the war mural, all of them filled with uniformed adults, most likely teachers. Káel noticed the pessimistic teacher he'd met with Vera near the middle of the row, he had his nose in the same leather bound book and was ignoring his fellow seat mates, along with the masses of noisy students that had invaded the room.

          A middle aged woman stood up from the center of the chairs, and walked to the pedestal. She had her wavy blonde hair swung over her shoulders, and a pair of glasses perched on her head. By the time she reached the pedestal the room had gone silent.

          "Good evening. On behalf of Cobalt and all of its residents, I welcome you!" she started in a booming voice that flew to every corner of the room. "As some of you may know, I am Samanthra, the head administrator of this academy," she motioned to the adults seated around her. "And these are our teachers and some of our elites. Now I'm not gonna bore you with a bunch of introductions, you'll get to know them as you work with them, but I am required to go over some rules and expectations."

          She pulled a rolled up piece of parchment out of the folds of her emerald robe, and dropped her glasses down to sit on her nose. She flattened out the paper and cleared her throat.

          "First of all, I hope everyone received their envelopes. If not, you can visit the council room anytime after the assembly. In the envelope is a form you have ten days to sign, otherwise we'll be unable to officially accept you as a student of Cobalt, and you will be kicked out."

          She looked at her audience over the rim of her glasses with raised eyebrows.

          "As you can see, the whole student body of Cobalt has been separated into 5 sectors, it has nothing to do with your skill level or status, to be quite honest with you it's completely random, so we can have a bit of diversity in every sector. These five sectors will hold competitions against one another and other academies, but I will have you know sectors other than your own are not your enemies. We, as this school, are all one family, and in order to keep the peace we must respect this fact. But entering the home quarters of another sector is prohibited, unless given permission and escorted by a figure of authority."

          "As first years, you will have a schedule that gives you the opportunity to try all our basic courses, and during class time you are expected to be on time, and are required to wear your uniforms, except when your combat gear is required. The curfew is 22:00 to 6:00, and sorry boys, but the men's and women's quarters are not to be intermingled... Ever."

          "Also, you are only permitted to enter the areas your cards can unlock. Areas like the teachers quarters, stables, armoury, and dungeons are blocked off, mostly for your own personal safety. Last but certainly not least, physical, verbal, and lumience based attacks between students or teachers are only allowed in the combat classes when specified to do so, any purposeful harm exchanged outside of combat class will result in severe punishments or expulsion."

          "There are more class and sector specific rules, but I'll leave those up to your teachers and sector leaders to explain. In the meantime, classes start tomorrow and you should find your room number engraved on the top right corner of your identification crystals. You're all dismissed, and I hope you enjoy your time at Cobalt!"

          Samanthra rolled up the parchment and walked back to her seat, followed by a courteous round of applause.

          Káel glanced at Vera with confusion as everyone started to get up. "That's it?" 

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Next update:

4/16/2018