Team Flex SMASHES and gets smashed​

Classes were over and the time had finally come. Zane was ready to prove his abilities on the field, but before he could do that, he needed to get to the meeting spot for the team. He made his way to the portal stone, only to realize he was the first to arrive. A few moments passed, but nobody showed up. His attention shifted to the music playing in his ears, noticing that the album playing was Fashionably Late. Zane laughed a bit under his breath at the coincidence, then continued waiting. One song passed, then two, then three, and before he knew it, Zane had been waiting for around fifteen minutes.

Nasrin hurried over to the meeting point. Navigating the school without her sensory magic still proved to be inconvenient for the girl; it took Nasrin a few times to imprint directions to memory. Normally, she would leave early to compensate for the expected tardiness, but she was wrapped up in a conversation with her teacher (again) and had nearly forgotten the mission. Finally, Nasrin made it outside to the portal stone, but upon seeing the individual already there, her reaction was rather flat. Although Zane probably left the strongest impression out of the group, it was far from a fond one. A part of her, strongly encouraged by her mother's constant lectures, wanted to let prior conflicts remain in the past. She made a face, recollecting herself, and then approached her teammate. "Hi," she waved with a smile.

"Oh, hey guys!" Another voice called out before Zane could answer. Jack was approaching the pair, backpack on and smile in-place. "Glad I'm not the first one here this time, I'd be worried if I was more punctual than everyone else." He took a few more steps towards them and dropped his backpack on the floor, which made a very audible thud and scattered some dust, but he continued without acknowledging it. "I can't wait to get started, I bet this is gonna be fantastic."

Zane, somewhat deafened by the music in his ears, merely waved to his teammates in acknowledgement of their arrival. He couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but he still noticed Jack's glee... and his backpack. "Don't know if you'll be needing all that where we're going," he said, pointing at the bag, unaware of his slightly loud tone.

Jack raised an eyebrow at Zane's volume, thinking maybe he should turn his music down, but ultimately shrugged and let it go. "This is just some stuff I prefer to have with me, since not everything I like can be stored as ether. Plus, I need the workout when I'm going from class to class or doing other stuff besides training or fighting. I'm used to hauling around heavy equipment all the time back home, and I don't want to get out of shape while I'm somewhere that I'll need my strength even more, like Vale."

Catching the general idea of what Jack said through his booming music, Zane finally slid his headphones back down to his neck. "I guess, but hopefully it's nothing too valuable. Never know what can happen in the heat of the moment." Instead of continuing the subject, Zane just kinda glanced around, searching for any sight of their missing teammate. "I'm guessing nobody knows where Domingo is, right?"

"I haven't seen him anywhere yet," Jack explained, beginning to scan for Domingo himself with no luck.

Far in the distance, the final member of the team could be seen as he sprinted toward them, something that looked a little silly with his power gloves on. He was covered in dirt and he had some new tears on his already damaged clothes, making it look like he'd just come from a battle or something of the sort. His overall look contrasted with the huge smile on his face. "Hey! Sorry if I'm late!" he called while he closed the distance between them.

After taking a second to catch his breath, he looked over each of his teammates before excitedly asking, "So what happens now?"

With a cocky grin and a gleam of excitement in his eye, Zane eagerly said, "Now we go to the Isles." Walking over to the portal stone, he placed his hand on the object, and in the blink of an eye, he was gone.

"Time to start the fun!" Jack exclaimed as he joined Zane in poofing away.

Domingo admired the stone for a bit before deciding to follow suit, and not wanting to be left behind Nasrin went right after.

The group was promptly met with something that Zane would argue was worse than a monster. Domingo and Nasrin arrived just in time to see their self-sure teammate toppled onto his back, making muffled screams in shock. "You made it! You were taking longer than expected, so I was worried you might've gotten lost, but I'm happy I didn't have to go looking for you."

A light tan, long blonde hair and a colorful ensemble of an outfit that stood to contrast the gloomy burnt ruin of the Scorched Earth system's countryside, Zane found himself beneath the body of their supervisor, Sophia, and the one who was controlling the group's destination. Straddling his waist and arms clinging to his neck, she had his face buried in her respectable cleavage from the moment he arrived.

"I missed you so much," she cried with relief. She remarked how hard it was for her to stay away from Zane until today, but apparently ignored that he couldn't talk back.

With enough struggling, though, Zane grabbed hold of Sophia's shoulders. Once he did he immediately shoved her back into a sitting position, gasping and shouting, "Get off me!"

When Nasrin and Domingo appeared on the island of their destination they were greeted not only with the sight of Zane under attack, but Jack stock-still and trembling slightly as he watched. "What an... interesting turn of events..."

Nasrin was amazed. Not only by her surroundings on the Isles, but by the peculiar sight in front of her eyes. She pulled back slightly, clutching her staff close to her body, and whispered to her unoccupied teammates, "Should we be concerned?"

At Nasrin's question Jack couldn't stay quiet anymore, and burst out laughing with all the mirth of his parents together at a party after too much champagne. "Oh, every god, harvest patron and guardian spirit, that is precious!" After a few seconds he forced himself to take a breath, and wiped at his eyes slightly as he took a few steps closer to Zane, leaning in to get a look at his attacker's face, but making sure not to get too close and invade either of their spaces. "Well, hello there, you're our advisor, aren't you?"

"That's right!" she answered, smiling with one hand gesturing in a salute.

Great. Just great. I was hoping I'd get four years away from home. I thought at least this one was away at college. Wonderful.

"Zane, aren't you gonna introduce me?"

After collecting himself from this unwanted surprise, he decided it would be best to at least maintain the normal pleasantries and niceties of introductions. "So, uh, yeah, this is Sophia."

She moved backward to his legs so Zane could sit up, hugging him again before continuing to his teammates. "It's nice to meet all of you. I'm Zane's fiancée."

Domingo looked at Zane, eyes wide. "This is your girl?" he asked, gesturing to Sophia. "Nice, man!" He even gave him a thumbs-up.

Citing Zane's earlier reactions, Nasrin had to disagree with Domingo. "Maybe his handler, instead?"

Beginning to snicker again, Jack forced himself to stay calm and replied. "I must say it's nice to see someone so friendly and pleasant in Zane's life. But really, who are you?"

"Nn..." Sophia pouted. Then she sighed, "Guess I can't fool everyone."

More than a little relieved that Jack didn't trust her, he informed his team, "Yeah, she's my sister; not my fiancée. Now, can you get off of me?"

Domingo's reaction took a 180. He even looked a little disgusted. "Okay, now it's f*****g weird."

Unable to wipe off the smirk now plastered on her face, Nasrin jokingly replied, "Let's not judge family matters."

Jack was practically cooing. "It's so sweet that your sister wanted to give you a big hug as soon as she saw you. I've always wished I wasn't an only child."

"I've got two," Zane replied. "Want the other one?"

"No, thanks," Jack assured him. "I ended up getting part of the sibling experience I wanted; I'm happy with one. And she's almost as friendly as our advisor seems to be." At that he gave Sophia his most winning smile, emboldened by the similarities he'd noticed. " In fact, I think you two would get along swimmingly." He said to her happily But thankfully not quite so grabby. "Actually, she told me she was going off to 'some fancy school for gifted mages', and if anyone's Vale material, it's her. I wonder."

Sophia climbed off of Zane, helping him to his feet, and addressed her team of freshmen. "Don't worry; I won't be getting in your way today. I'm just here to make sure there aren't any unintended interruptions, so I'll re-brief you, and let you get on your way.

"This island is classed as a Scorched Earth system, and you can probably see why." She directed the group to officially view the burned fields that made up the landscape. Charred weapons and armor were embedded in the ground, and embers floated in the air, like it was the fresh ruin of a fierce battle with no winner. "Here, you'll find a few monsters made of black medieval armor. We call them Knights of Ash. Their swords aren't too sharp, but they can break your arm in one swing if you're not careful. Another thing is that they release clouds of ash on contact, so I've been told to instruct you on how to break down ether material in advance."

Sophia went on to demonstrate, plucking a broken sword from the ground near the stone. She clarified that they were to channel their magic into the object directly. The sword started falling apart into particles from her hand outward, creating a translucent blue stream that was absorbed into her body. She gathered four more pieces of weapons and armor, so Sophia was confident that the gang was able to pull it off for themselves. Jack was, of course, the first to pick up on the process, so he decided to help the others work it out. Domingo learned as quickly as the other two, but seemed to still take the longest to absorb it.

"Keep in mind that you can't do this from a distance, and you'll want to try to break down the clouds as soon as possible. If you give them too long, the knights regenerate whatever's left."

She only gave them enough time for a few basic questions, then disappeared to the sidelines as she sent them out on their first mission.

After the group properly departed to search for some medieval knights, Jack ended up taking the front. It only made sense that a bruiser took the front lines, after all. "Scorched Earth, huh? Reminds me of stories about countrysides ravaged by dragons." It was too bad they didn't have any to fight, but at least knights made of living ash sounded pretty exciting. "Feels like I just had a cup of coffee, too."

Domingo piped up, agreeing that he felt inexplicably invigorated himself as he played with a chunk of shield he found lying around. "I just thought we needed it so we could deal with those sh**** ash clouds."

"My dad told me ether could do some pretty weird things. I think we might really be able to get stronger if we absorb more."

Zane wasn't particularly surprised by the boost in energy, saying, "Yeah, I've heard similar things from my sisters, but maybe we should focus on the mission."

He looked around for a few moments, scanning their surroundings. "Look over there," he said, pointing at the smoldering remains of a house off in the distance. "I thought I saw some movement, so we should probably go check it out."

At the mention, Nasrin shifted her attention from her sight. She concentrated her senses in the general area of where Zane had pointed out. Aside from the movements of what appeared to be small animals, that there were plenty, a high collection of insects seemed to be fluttering around a rather well-sized object. Its apparent stationary nature left it blurry in her vision, but she confirmed there was something in there.

"Hold on," Domingo said, stepping in front of the others. "Lemme take a look first." He knelt down and hit the ground underneath him with an open palm, turning the ground around him into sand. "I can go underground to get closer and check it out safely. I did this s**t all the time before coming here, so I'm pretty confident it works." It looked like he was about to do something but he stopped, instead looking back at his team as if asking for permission.

"Good idea," Nasrin said, leaving her sonar running in the background. "I checked with my ability just now and could only sense some movements, like what Zane saw. There is also something big there, maybe a rock?" She added inconsequentially.

Domingo frowned but didn't think much of it before a hole opened beneath his feet, dragging him underground then promptly closing. He slowly dug his way to the source of the movements, something that he found much easier to do than usual with his gloves. Keeping several meters underground for safety, he kept tabs on his surroundings with his Seismic Sense until he found himself beneath his target.

The house didn't seem to have much left in or of it, with the only thing of interest being what was probably the "rock" Nasrin had noticed. But judging by the fact that it eluded his Seismic Sense, it was very clearly not a rock of any kind. Whatever it was, though, it was big. It also didn't seem to be moving. Not wanting to return empty handed, Domingo decided to take a closer look, popping out of the ground near the object.

Here he could see that it was actually humanoid, and even while sitting down it was as tall as he was. It looked like some kind of statue. He took a moment to wonder why someone would put a statue here, then quickly began to regret it as the statue's eye holes suddenly gleamed with a red-orange light. Domingo lifted his fists defensively just as the statue sprung to life, its fist rocketing straight toward him with a force that sent the large boy bursting through the wall behind him and flying even farther. A cloud of soot and embers followed along, then retreated to the source before Domingo even hit the ground.

Meanwhile, as Domingo was sent flying, his teammates were shocked by the whole affair. Well, Jack and Nasrin were. Zane was playing a phone game to pass the time, just barely looking up in time to see Domingo's flight. "Oh, hey, looks like he found it," he said nonchalantly. "I'm guessing we should probably go help him, right?"

As it happened, Jack had already dashed off towards Domingo, leaping a short distance into the air and landing on a miniature plateau of rock that moved itself rapidly through the earth to carry him to his teammate. Jack's reaction wasn't quite fast enough to construct something to cushion Domingo, but he did make it to his side just after his assailant smashed an even-bigger hole than the one Domingo had made, and began to lumber towards the pair menacingly. Seeing a good opportunity to test how the 'Ash Knights' might fight without any further risk to them, the shorter of the two mages rolled what looked like a plain rock at the knight like a bowling ball. The rock showed its true colors in short order as particles began to gravitate to it rapidly the entire time it rolled. Jack chuckled to himself and nudged Domingo next to him. "I call that one the 'snowball' maneuver." By the time the rock was two thirds of the way to the Ash Knight it was already a boulder nearly matching the etherspawn in size.

The knight braced itself either for defense, or a counter, but was forced to shift it's stance when a slab of stone popped straight out of the ground and propelled the boulder into the air, where it unfolded as if it were made of multiple moving parts and took on the shape of Billy, the simpler and more crude of Jack's golems. Billy arced a short distance through the air then fell straight towards the knight, fist raised and ready to slam into it. But the Ash Knight was ready, swinging its massive greatsword at Billy, catching him across his chest. The sword's impact sent Billy crashing into the dirt, ash spewing from the blade, slowly dissipating to reveal a large crack on Billy's chest. Billy wasn't completely ineffective, however, as he managed to clip the Ash Knight with one of his rocky hands while the sword struck him. The punch managed to send the knight staggering backwards, but it recovered soon enough and readied to continue attacking the prone golem, lifting its blade through a dense shroud of ash.

Right before the knight could bring down its weapon, a massive fist bigger than the titan's own smashed into its face courtesy of Domingo, who had launched himself back into the fray. When the attack connected, Domingo's gauntlet suddenly shot forward in a second powerful thrust without any windup. AGH GROSS PLTHEH SOOT IN MY MOUTH EW Just as Sophia explained, a massive black mess spurt out of its body, this time briefly obscuring itself, Billy and Domingo entirely before starting to regenerate the damage.

Looking towards Nasrin, Zane was grinning with excitement. "At the rate that thing's going, it looks like we're gonna need some extra firepower." Without giving her a chance to reply, he started to summon a prism of hardlight, sending it off onto the battlefield once completed, only to repeat the process over and over again. "It's gonna take some time to actually craft and position these things in such a large area, so give them some cover fire while I'm working on this. Once I'm done, I'll take it down in the blink of an eye."

"Already on it," Nasrin answered, her staff already propped onto her shoulder. She used her sensory abilities to get a bead on her otherwise hidden foe, then followed up by compressing the air around it to keep it still for her shots. However, at the distance she was, her binding was easily broken by the etherspawn. She frowned, then began bombarding the knight with blasts from her weapon anyway.

The knight was only given time to regenerate a small chunk of its armor before it was slammed into by another massive stone fist, this one much more refined and detailed than Dom's. Before the knight could counterattack, it was hit with another punch, and a kick. None of the attacks did much more than dent it's armor as far as damage, but each one staggered it, and forced it back, keeping it off balance. Jack, meanwhile, was already charging at what was left of the creature's broken-off armor plate. Billy had taken advantage of his demise becoming much less imminent to right himself and run right back into the fray. Just as Billy arrived to keep the knight distracted, the more human golem - who could now clearly be seen to resemble a large man carved very precisely in stone wearing a Greek toga and sporting a healthy beard - casually kicked the armor plate behind him through the air. Jack smiled and jumped into the air just high enough to catch the plate with a happy noise, shouted "Thanks Bojangles!" And quickly absorbed half of it, before tossing the other half to Domingo.

Jack's sword and shield materialized into existence in his hand and on his arm in a mesmerizing azure light, and he smiled at the larger boy, tapping the flat of his blade against his own shield as he spoke. "That should keep you fresh. Come on, let's go show that thing why we got picked for one of the most elite schools in the world!" Without waiting for an answer, the excitable young mage rapidly approached the brawl to rejoin his golems. Domingo absorbed the ether, and quickly followed suit.

With several hardlight hedrons now littering the field, Zane was almost done with his spell, but as he was finishing the last one, he noticed that there was a large shadow being cast out in front of him. Turning around to see what it was, he saw another Ash Knight preparing to hit him with an overhead slash. Barely having enough time to react, he jumped to the side as the knight's sword slammed into the ground he was once standing on. The impact of the sword sent ash flying, almost obscuring the knight from view.

After catching himself, Zane threw out the last construct, finishing his Luminous Domain, and in the same instance he gave the etherspawn in front of him a triumphant look, launching a barrage of hardlight bullets from the prisms, all aimed at the Ash Knight in front of him. Dozens of shots landed on the tanky knight, and soot was completely surrounding Zane by the time the assault ended.

Assuming the knight had been vanquished, Zane started collecting the ash cloud's ether. He yelled out to his teammates who were busy with the other knight, "You guys seem to be having a bit of trouble with these pushovers." He turned to face Nasrin, saying a bit softer, "Too easy."

A rustling of stone behind him intended to prove otherwise, and Zane barely had the time to look back into the slowly shrinking ash cloud. A blackened fist flew from the darkness, catching Zane in the jaw and shoulder with a solid thunk. The impact launched him clean over Nasrin's head, skidding across the dirty, burnt ground a while longer until his back collided with the wall of another ruined home.

"Very easy," Nasrin groaned sarcastically, catching Zane's backside as he flew overhead. The knight was respawning, broken armor pieces sticking themselves back together. Gaps remained from the ether Zane absorbed, but it was still a clear threat. The embers in its empty eyes started to burn bright, clearly targeting the girl, so she fired a charged shot into its chest to force it back. Looking over at Zane, she suddenly realized the gravity of the situation and ran to his side, littering the air between them and the Knight with invisible mines.

How am I alive? It was the only question on Zane's mind, struggling to move. He was amazed that not only was he conscious, but in less than a minute he was able to stand back up, even if his range of motion was limited. Was pure adrenaline keeping him intact? The ether he took in? Well, it definitely wasn't for a dulled sense of pain, that's for sure. After he popped his jaw back into place, he couldn't help but clutch his upper arm. At least it wasn't his shooting arm, but he'd have to get it checked out when all was said and done.

"You are more sturdy than you look," Nasrin said in surprise, seeing her teammate already up, although holding his arm in pain. "Do you also have a plan to deal with this one? I put some obstacles in its way, so we have some time."

It was pretty clear to Zane that one of them would need to fight the knight head on, and he wasn't about to let anybody else take this one down. He needed the satisfaction of cutting it down with his own magic. Almost on instinct, he summoned his Blade Storm, the four swords of hardlight all poised to attack. As Zane thought up a plan, the Ash Knight trudged through Nasrin's minefield, being knocked back and having chips of armor chip off only to be regenerated. Zane gave Nasrin a confident and reassuring look, saying, "Yeah, I got a plan."

Not far from the two, Domingo landed with a resounding thud, having been thrown again after a failed attempt to block a swing of the knight's massive blade. He got back up quickly enough, growling in frustration, and gave his teammates only a glance before digging underground again. Feeling his foe's footsteps through the ground, he got close and turned the ground underneath it into sand that promptly opened up into a massive pit under its feet.

The team's other bruiser took advantage of Domingo's displacement of the enemy to set up another attack. Billy absorbed extra earth to add to his massive bulk and hoisted Bojangles—whose well-sculpted hand was holding Jack safely—onto his shoulders, and tossed him a short distance up, cracking the ground beneath his feet. At the crest of his ascent, Bojangles threw Jack as high as he could above the sandpit the Ash Knight was sinking into. At the height of his own arc, Jack raised his sword above his head in both hands and added all the ether he'd absorbed from the plates they'd broken off of the knight's armor so far to it, leaving him with a greatsword that looked like it belonged on some psychotic demon hunter. With his creation complete, Jack swung straight downward, both the massive weight of the blade and his own magic accelerating his drop towards their enemy. He intended to execute the over-sized knight with an equally over-sized guillotine.

At the bottom of his brutal arc, Jack and Domingo recovered, and stood before a hollow suit of armor cleft in twain from the shoulder. It was no longer struggling, a massive cloud of soot dispersed from the equally massive split Jack inflicted. The only thing they could even see was the ember glow in its helmet. It wasn't moving, but it was only a matter of time before it started regenerating, so the duo got to work.

The blond earth mage dashed rapidly from etherspawn chunk to etherspawn chunk, absorbing them as quickly as he could and trying to keep as much soot as possible out of his eyes, nose, and mouth. The occasional coughing could be heard through the gloom, but there were just as many muffled laughs and cheers. The golems did their best to help; Billy sadly couldn't do much other than flail his arms through the ash in the air, but Bojangles more skilled hands shaped into crude fans and blew away as much of the obscuring soot as possible to keep the students' paces quick.

Nasrin launched another blast at the lumbering knight, a blast much smaller than her usual ammunition. It smacked the knight right on the forehead, dispersing into the air with an uncharacteristic lack of a power. But while the impact was unsubstantial, the monster's attention was now solely on the air mage. With a reluctant sigh, Nasrin took off, leading the knight further into her field of mines.

Off to the side, Zane was prepping himself to attack. His Blade Storm was primed, all four blades ready to find purchase in the knight. He carefully blinked behind the knight, launching a quick barrage of slashes at its sword arm, trying to break some of the etherspawn's offense. Ash spewed from the wound, but Zane was quick to absorb the ether this time around to avoid losing too much vision, blinking away before the Ash Knight could react.

Incisions dotted the knight's shoulder. Zane was a little disappointed that one round wasn't enough to lop off the arm, but he was certain that a well -placed shot from either him or Nasrin would sever it from the etherspawn. He figured he'd leave that job to her, instead getting ready for another assault, only this time with the intention to kill the creature.

The knight swung at its assailant with its free arm, only to swipe at air, a row of condensed pockets of air to be specific. The detonation sent ash spewing into the air and the etherspawn staggered back from the impact. Nasrin took the opportunity to close distance towards the knight, firing another shot, dispersing the ash and sending the knight's nearly severed arm and sword crashing into the ground.

Nasrin used her exertion again, and in such close proximity to the etherspawn, found no issue bringing it to a complete stop, momentarily frozen where it stood.

Using the opening his teammate created, Zane blinked in once more, driving all four swords into the base of its neck, one after the other, over and over. After several strikes, the blades ate away at the knight's core until it was split diagonally, the section of body with its head and free arm finally crashing down to the earth.

Zane gave Nasrin a look of acknowledgment, turning his attention back to the cleft torso of the Ash Knight, breaking down and absorbing its remains. He figured he'd leave the lower body and severed arm to Nasrin.

Grinning, Nasrin threw her teammate a thumbs up before breaking down her portion of the knight. Once she got to the arm, Nasrin was reminded of Zane's injury. "How is your arm?" she asked.

He hadn't even thought about it until now, and on cue, his arm throbbed in pain. The adrenaline must have worn off, and he was all of a sudden feeling drained. "Yeah, I'm not sure how bad it is. I think I'm gonna head over there and rest for a bit; check my arm out and see how bad it is, you know?"

While Jack absorbed the last of his kill's ether, Domingo rejoined the other members of his group. Certain lustrous portions of his skin began to fade as it returned from its metallic state. "Hey, you guys alright?" he asked, Domingo himself still looking energetic. "We got ours no problem!"

"We are okay," Nasrin replied, eyeing her dimming teammate with curiosity. "Zane is in time out though. He hurt his arm."

Jack approached the rest of the team with a victorious smile on his face. "Glad to see everyone's doing alright! This is pretty fun, and it feels good to soak up all that ether. It's like I'm brimming with energy!"

Domingo opened his mouth to say something only to stop abruptly. There was a sound, distant and repetitive. He put his fists up defensively in case the other knight had decided to show itself, but looking around he couldn't find anything. Yet, the sound grew closer. He began restoring his metallic skin, but before it could spread much at all, the sky was pierced by a thundering roar and a brief wave of heat collided with his body. It finally occurred to him to look up, where he saw a colossal dragon flying several hundred of feet in the air.

"Sh*t, run!" Domingo shouted at his teammates, shoving aside any who were close enough with his giant gloves. In the next instant, a scorched black meteorite plummeted from the sky, crashing down directly on Domingo and kicking up a cloud of ash and dust. Before long, the cloud faded to reveal the group's final target, kneeling on the ground with Domingo pressed into a crater under the tip of its blade. It slowly and menacingly stood to its full height, taller than its fellows, and lifted its weapon into a combat stance.

Down on the ground at its feet, Domingo gasped for air, struggling to recover from the impact. His mind raced to process all the information from his body, but it all said the same thing. He was in danger. At first he likened the mission to something fantastical out of a cartoon, but now all he could think of was the pain he felt. It was a pain he was familiar with, and that brought with it certain memories. He was afraid. His mind shifted to a singular thought: Am I dying? I don't want to die.

Despite the brutality of the attack he'd just taken, Domingo sprung from the ground with a scream. This was not a war cry, full of pride or rage. It was a shrill sound born from fear, sounding almost animalistic. He gripped the knight's head in his huge hand, and through his magic shot forward with his gloves, slamming the knight's head into the ground. A screen of ash spilled forth from the impact, blinding all who were near, but Domingo didn't let up.

While nothing could be seen from behind the dark wall, the uproar from within made it clear what was happening. A barrage of attacks, each hit sounding like an explosion, punctuated the continuous roaring at a rate that seemed unreal, with the sound of something breaking underneath with each smash. More and more soot flew out with every hit, and soon chunks of dirt and rock also began flying in every direction.

The onslaught was unrelenting, even as the dust and dirt began to disperse and the ash began to fade away, funneling into Domingo's body to further fuel his assault. It was only once everything was clear, revealing that Domingo's foe had long since faded away into ether, that the attacks stopped. Domingo froze and found himself staring into the great crater he had created, his breathing heavy and ragged, and his eyes wide and red. His body was caked in grime, but his tears had drawn clean lines down his face.

Slowly, he regained his bearings. His first thought was to look up, but the dragon was nowhere to be found. He then remembered his teammates. He whipped his head around in a panic, hoping beyond hope that they somehow hadn't seen what had happened. Everything about his body language said that even though the danger was gone, he was still very much on edge. He desperately wanted to say something, but couldn't find the words.

Having been tossed aside unexpectedly with strength she hadn't experienced before, Nasrin lost sense of what was happening around her. When she looked up, a faint mix of ash and dust crowded where she and her teammates had momentarily been standing. Once the particles had dispersed, the ash suddenly so, her eyes were wide with shock.

Nasrin and Jack hurried over to the crater's edge, each step revealing more of its depth. It wasn't long before Nasrin spotted Domingo standing in its center, covered in dirt, fidgeting in place. She was about to call out to him, but then noticed his distressed look and wet face. Nasrin felt uncomfortable just looking at him. Unaware of the events leading up to Domingo's current state, Nasrin bit her lip and shouted out to her teammate anyways, hoping she wasn't volunteering to listen to someone's personal problems. "Hey! Are you okay? What happened?" Jack chose to let her do the talking, stepping back and scanning the sky for the ash dragon once he knew Domingo wasn't in immediate danger, in case it came back.

Domingo frantically reached up to wipe the tears off his face only to forget the size of his gloves and smack himself in the face. He definitely wasn't in the mood for that, so in his frustration he pulled the offending glove off his hand, threw it on the ground, and kicked it a few times, cursing with each kick. After a few deep breaths, he finally turned to Nasrin. The tantrum seemed to have helped him calm down a little, though he still looked like a complete mess.

"Yeah, sure, I'm f*cking great." he answered, his tone a mixture of bitterness, desperation, and exhaustion. He was silent for a few seconds before adding, "...That was it, right? Let's get out of this f*cking place."​

Experiments Within Experiments Within Plans
Featuring Jack Marrick and Domingo Hernández

It only took a cursory inspection of the cafeteria for Jack to spot the gargantuan student sitting at one of the many tables by himself. He couldn't tell whether Domingo was by himself by choice, lack of options, or coincidence on account of there being many more seats than students. Either way, to him it was an opportunity. The young ethersmith hustled over to Domingo's table fast enough to make the mashed potatoes, turkey sandwich, and steamed broccoli to bounce on the tray. "Domingo!" He called a bit louder than necessary as he sat down opposite of his fellow earth mage. "Hey, how are you?"

Domingo almost jumped out of his seat at Jack's sudden appearance, looking rather skittish for someone of his stature, and demeanor, and everything else, really. Jack's friendliness was also surprising, but it helped Domingo settle down enough to respond properly. "Oh, uh, yeah man, I'm doin' alright I guess." He fiddled with his food a bit, looking down at it with a disheartened expression. This didn't last long, as he suddenly lit up, turning to Jack with wide eyes. "Oh yeah, Jack! You can teach me, right? The golem thing?"

For what must have been the first time since he arrived at Vale, Jack was rendered genuinely speechless, if only for a good seven seconds. He just sat there, blinking, completely thrown off guard by someone asking him to teach them something. "I think so...I've never really taught anyone anything before...except for my cousin, but we already shared a lot back then. I could definitely try!" After that Jack finally wiped the surprise off of his face and grew more confident. "But what I'm here about right now is something that already plays into strengths each of us already possess. First thing's first, I'd like to thank you, Domingo. That beatdown you gave that Ash Knight really inspired me to work on my skills at fighting with my hands, which pushed me to start learning from someone, and she said yes! Before I get too off track I'll just spit it out. I wanted to ask you if I could work on your gauntlets, touch'em up to hit harder and protect your hands better? I was also wondering if you'd be willing to help me out with some experiments later, that could make us both waaayyy stronger if they succeed."

The slightly larger boy averted his gaze at the mention of his "beatdown", but the the later parts pulled his attention right back. "Oh yeah, you make weapons and shit, right?" He thought back to the cowboy teacher who gave everyone their weapons on the first day. He pulled his gauntlets from the strap on his waist and put them down on the table, their weight making his plate and the sandwich on top of it jump. "They protect my hands just fine, but hitting harder sounds pretty fuckin' sweet. But more importantly, what's this experiment shit you're tellin' me?"

"Well..." Jack muttered, leaning across the table so it was less likely that anyone else might hear him. "You know how things made with ether can hold magical energy, since they essentially are magical energy in a solid state? Well I've been trying to think of a way to...how should I say this...crystallize ether? Refine it? Think of a diamond as opposed to a rock. I want to make ether more and more dense until I can have a metric ton of ether in a small orb, like a crystal ball fortune tellers use, I'm thinking of calling them 'Ether Cores'. And then I want those cores to be the fuel and catalyst for donning etherforged armor! If we can make weapons out of ether, why not armor, right? And if the orb that contains it is made with a bunch of energy and raw ether from the person who's going to use it, then maybe they could sync with it? Either way, it wouldn't be as tiring thanks to the core to maintain the armor, but it would still be the user's magic it was connected to, so besides protecting you it could also make you stronger, or faster! You'd just have to train yourself to unconsciously use bits of your magic power to move the armor the same way your body is moving, and it's impossible to predict just how much stronger it could make you!" By the end Jack realized he was standing up, and had raised his voice a bit, turning him beet red and causing his butt to slam back down in his chair before he hid his face against the table. "Anywaysthat'smyideaandIwashopingyou'dhelpmemakeoneofthosecorethingsforyou..."

It took Domingo a bit to process everything Jack had just told him, but once it did his expression made it clear that he liked what he heard. "I don't really get Ether, but the rest of it sounds fuckin' awesome! So it's like a full suit, like some medieval knight shit? 'cause I could totally go for something badass like that! Though… How exactly am I supposed to help you with that? I mean shit, man, I can barely even make a shitty little rock flower."

Jack nodded enthusiastically to Domingo's approval. "That's right, like a knight in plate! As for what I need from you, it's energy." The experimental young mage raised his right index finger and swirled it around matching thought with motion as dust gathered together to form a small sedimentary stone on their table. "To go back to my earlier comparison: think about a diamond as opposed to a rock. This plan of mine to make ether cores would contain so much ether in such confined space, the progress would be similar to a piece of coal becoming a diamond, it will take massive amounts of energy being compacted with a lot of effort and strength." His hand slapped the dust sphere, scattering it all to orbit around both Domingo and Jack momentarily before completely dissipating from view. "It could take a long time for me to gather together enough ether to do all that myself, even regularly going on missions. So I propose that both of us save up as much of our own spare energy and as much raw ether from missions as possible over the next two or so weeks, then meet up and combine what we've gathered for the first attempt at making an Ether Core. If we succeed, as thanks for helping me, the first one will be yours, and we'll work on the armor from there, since it will be easier for me to do it myself the next time. And since much of the ether that made the core will have been from you, it should be that much easier for you to control!"

Domingo looked down pensively at Jack's explanation. "Those girls taught me how to use my ether to make stuff yesterday, but how do I just give you ether? Do I just give you stuff made out of it? As for ether from missions, if it's like the armor pieces from the last one then sure, I'll give you whatever I find. I'm a little bummed it's gonna take so long, but if that's what it takes then I guess I've just gotta deal with it. Where did you even learn how to do all this shit with ether?"

"Ether basically becomes raw energy once we absorb it as far as I can tell. If that's right...then I think that giving someone ether would just be like how we absorbed it from the etherspawn...but in reverse, if that makes any sense?" Jack attempted to explain, despite not being one-hundred percent sure himself. "As for learning about ether, that's an easy one! I learned from my dad!" He proclaimed, puffing out his chest proudly. "My dad's one of the best Ethersmiths in the world, especially when you consider he's a regular blacksmith too. In fact, I can point out at least two students here at Vale who's weapons were made by my dad - with a little help from me. I've basically been working my butt off at learning all this stuff since I was five!"

There was a wistful look in Domingo's eyes he was unable to hide when Jack mentioned his father. "You two sound pretty close... But shit, man, five!? That's nuts. I didn't learn shit when I was a kid." After remembering his sandwich existed, he took a huge bite of it, still chewing when he added, "So I'm gonna help you with the core things, but when can you help me make golems?"

Jack nodded happily. "Yeah, we are. It was easy to start learning because it was all exciting to me as a kid, so it wasn't that different from playing games. They were just games that taught me a lot. As for the golems, we can start with that whenever you want! Why don't we set up a regular schedule for meeting up and practicing? Maybe after classes each day?"

"Sounds good!" Domingo nodded, his smile managing to return. He opened his mouth to say more when he noticed other students getting up and putting their trays away. "Oh shit!" He panicked, shoving the rest of his sandwich in his mouth before standing himself. "I forgot I was supposed to leave early to see the teacher! I'm headin' out. See ya, man!" Without waiting for a response, Domingo gathered his things and hurried off.

"Oh, alright... See you later!" Jack found himself waving pointlessly at Domingo's back as he left, then leaned back in his chair and whistled lightly to himself. Consistent plans for before class and now after class too? So much for worrying about boredom.
​

"We're pressed for time, so I'm gonna get right down to it." An hour before lunch, Iris' team was called into action by their supervisor and resident Surfer Dude, Allan. "Believe it or not, unlike everyone else, you're not gonna be required to kill anything if you don't want to. You'll probably have to, but you won't necessarily need to. Instead, you're going after an item, like a fetch quest. I'm not allowed to tell you what it is, but I'm told it's very important to me, so you'll probably know what it is when you see it. I mean, it's not my board or my hair gel, but my girlfriend won't stop giggling. I'm kinda worried."

For about five minutes, Allan tried to explain what they were up against while giving them a quick lay of the land. Or... hotel, as it were. A tall, dilapidated building built with a vaguely-curved wall. Floors were collapsed and making paths into each other, walls were falling apart, and housekeeping was nowhere to be seen. Low groans, however, were heard inside. The zombies of hotel reception. Or just zombies. Probably just zombies.

"Yeah, you're going through zombies to get whatever she hid here. They won't turn ya into one, but they'll still try to eat ya. I'll be keeping watch to make sure nobody gets eaten. Sound good? Good. Good luck, girls."

"And he's gone." Lauren couldn't help but note Allan's hasty disappearance in his attempts to urge them to move as quickly.

Iris chimed in with a plan, hoping to get things over with herself, as well. "If we're after an item, it'll be easier to search if we split u—"

"Haven't you ever seen a zombie movie?!" Lily interrupted, exaggeratedly clutching Iris' shoulders like she'd just said something heinous. "Whoever gets separated always dies first. Can you imagine if everyone's alone?"

"She's right, Iris," Violett replied, drawing her blade from its sheath and slowly drawing herself up into a stance before relaxing it. "It'll be best if we stay together. We wouldn't want anything happening to that pretty face of yours, would we?"

She smiled, and brought a hand up with an upturned palm, letting the air just above it crackled and burn, before forming a tiny flame that illuminated the outer walls of the hotel far more fiercely than the tiny flame should have. She took a few tentative steps forward, leading the group onwards, her blade raised and beginning to glow a soft orange colour as she walked. "Well?" Violett said, turning her head over her shoulder towards the rest of her companions. "Shall we go? No use in dallying, is there?"

Sighing, Iris mumbled, "Indeed." The blonde mage readied her own weapon, briefly thinking how bizarre it was to face actual zombies before keeping a slight but noticeable distance away from the rest of the team. She was careful to not remain too far away from the team, but she seemed to be more tacked on add-in rather than a proper teammate. Not that her teammates were willing to give her the chance to feel that way. Lily shot Lauren a glance up front, and the latter was quick to slow his steps long enough to match Iris. Neither were dissatisfied with the arrangement. Lauren was quieter than the others; she didn't have to worry about getting caught up in a conversation with Lily or an argument with Violett. Lauren was able to keep a better watch on things, and keep Iris from getting herself eaten.

Continuing on, at least staying away from Violett, Iris continued her pace, looking at the scenery around her. In her mind, she was formulating all sorts of ways she could be using her Earth magic. Unfortunately, Iris begrudgingly admitted that she had been perhaps more fixated on the technicals, the theories behind what she could do rather than practice. Violett had helped a bit, pushing her to practice with them, but she was still stuck on some of her old habits of being a shut in and subsequently working as such.

The group arrived at the central door to the hotel, a flimsy thing that was practically hanging off of its hinges, left slightly ajar and, on closer inspection, was decorated with the faintiest smear of blood in the shape of a hand print near the door handle. Violett pursed her lips, pressing her ear up to the door so that she might hear what was inside. Shuffled footsteps, as if something were limping, and then an echo of telltale moans that they had heard when they had first arived. She heard... four? Maybe five individuals, as they shambled about what Violett saw through the tiny crack in the partially opened door to be a lobby. She couldn't see them, but she knew how to draw them out.

Violett silently turned to her companions and brought a finger up to her lips, silently telling them to keep their voices low, as she brought her hand to her lips and blew a playful kiss into the air. The tiny spark of flame that she held danced in the faint current of her breath, gliding through the tiny gap in the door and lazily floating through the hallways, spilling light into the darkened corridors before it came to a stop in the very corner of the lobby, and hovered there glowing brightly. She waited, her breath held, until a deep, gravelly groan echoed from the hallways. She saw a silhouette next, as a lumbering figure came to inspect the light, bringing up a hand slowly to inspect it. There was another shuffle and a moan, softer this time, but nothing came to inspect the light. Violett frowned.

"So, they are perhaps not as dimwitted as I first thought," Violett murmured, just loud enough for her companions to hear.

Lauren mentioned a new plan. "It might be better to use brute force and clear them out."

"My specialty." Lily happily tapped the pommel of her dual swords together to prove her point. Droplets of water were already settling onto the blades.

"If necessary, I can provide cover if their numbers are overwhelming."

Drumming her fingers on the shaft of her spear, Iris noted the twins' weapons and powers as she had observed through the training sessions, formulating a response to the twins, "I can make sure that they don't get too close, I guess." Soon enough, the entire group agreed to follow through with Lauren's idea. As long as they kept their wits about them, nothing would go wrong.

Unfortunately, Lily was not known for wit. She crossed her blades, stepping into the hallway. One of the zombies noticed her presence, opening its mouth as if to speak, but its throat was filled with a flooding jet of water. The entire hall was cleaned out in one direction as the living dead piled up at the end, the other side leading upstairs via a fallen second floor. When she finished her work, Lily laughed under her breath. "Violett and I can start checking rooms," she told them, immediately getting to work in rooms that were all surprisingly untouched by the water. She moved a lot faster than her brother, after all, and he had the better escape plan.

The raven haired girl nodded in response, and followed more patiently after the smaller girl. She too inspected the rooms with Lily, albeit more slowly and cautiously, bringing her ear up to the door as she had done before to inspect the rooms for signs of life where Lily joyfully barged in swords blazing. Those that were silent Violett entered more confidently, but those where she heard noise she entered with her blade drawn. She aimed for their throats first when they came into her reach, bringing her sword upwards to pierce straight through the rotting flesh, and then pulled sharply to the side to tear their throats clean out. She had heard them groan, and while she could comment very little on their intelligence and willingness to work together, that meant they had the capacity to shout, which might have turned them into a beacon for the other shambling corpses to focus in on. Those that Violett attacked now spluttered and coughed, unable to speak or breathe if they even needed to, before a flurry of blows tore apart their limbs and seared through their bones, and they collapsed upon the floor in a heap. She was surprised by how resilient they were, and even now she was forced to pin a detached arm beneath her boot as it squirmed and writhed, still mobile despite the fact its body was pinned to the wall on the other side of the room, Violett's sword thrust between its ribs and into the wall behind it. It grasped her ankle and she crushed it beneath her boot with a sickening crack, and after a moment of squirming it slowly fell still.

"Disgusting," Violett remarked to herself as she paced slowly towards the corpse upon the wall. It seemed to be one of the hotel staff, or what remained of them; it hardly looked human anymore, the skin missing from most of its face and, thanks to Violett's efforts, its limbs tossed in opposite corners of the room. She drew her sword and brought it upwards, cleaving straight through it, and it too fell still. For now, at least. She was sure she had seen a few of them start to move even after such an unrelenting assault on their form. "Lily, darling, there's nothing here eith—"

A figure lunged at her, emerging from the bedroom's adjoining bathroom, small but quick as a second shambling corpse reached out to grab her, arms outstretched. Violett stumbled, forced to fall to one knee before bringing the sword upwards in a fierce strike, her sword erupting into flames as she did so. The monster grabbed her shoulder and pulled at it sharply, the thrust of her blade going wide and slicing across the side of its neck, not straight through the centre. She used the momentum to rise though, and tore herself from the zombie's grasp by throwing herself forwards, and kicking back into the creature's leg as she passed it.

Her worries were realised as it did not lunge at her again, but instead its face twisted and contorted as its rotting mouth opened wide, letting out perhaps the most nightmarish scream Violett had ever heard. It was overwhelmingly loud, her ears ringing even after the deathly scream ceased, and she was forced to drop her blade to cover her ears before she was deafened completely. She was far from defenseless without her sword though, as she fought through the pain and brought her foot up in a high kick, forcing the heel of her boot into the corpse's neck, hitting with enough force to drop it. Violett brought all her weight forward, the thin, sharp point of her heel piercing through not just the zombie's neck but also its spine, silencing it permanently.

The damage was done though, as its hallowed scream was mimicked by another zombie, and then another, and then another, a choir of haunting voices that was followed by the heavy beating of what must have been over a hundred footsteps. Violett's eyes widened as she retrieved Flüsterte Asche from the ground and stepped out of the room, driving her fist forward to crash into another zombie that had come to inspect her, erupting it with a tiny but intense burst of flame. "Lily, where are you? We need to get back to the others. Now."

"Iris, let's grab them and get moving. We probably can't stay in one spot much longer." The other duo had just finished boarding up external entry points like windows, and Iris blocked off the main entryway with a large stone wall when the piercing screams started to subside. It was hard for them to believe their ears weren't bleeding, but they got through it, and started to move toward the end of the hall where the recon team was located.

A guttural growl accompanied raucous cracking of wood and stone. It was close, but the ceiling didn't fall toward Lauren and Iris. On Violett and Lily's end, it was brought down like an attic stairway, collapsed underfoot and fist by an eight-foot hulk of an undead. Iris tried to break it down with her magic, but the wood she couldn't control kept it intact.

"Dammit."

"We'll have to find another way to get to them," Lauren told her, gesturing back toward the other broken ceiling. Three, four smaller zombies were already heading their way. "We need to move before we're overrun."

Spying the swarm, Iris thought of an alternative suggestion. Concerned about the swarm of zombies coming their way, the blonde suggested, "Wouldn't it be best to pin these guys instead? Do something to stop their progress?"

"I'd rather keep that as a backup plan." Lauren threw his glaive straight through the squad of walking corpses, and wrapped his arm around Iris' waist without hesitation. Before she could protest, though, she was overcome with a minor case of serious brain damage disorientation. Lauren released her, and they watched the zombies continue shambling until they hit the collapsed ceiling that blocked their way to their teammates. "It doesn't look like their tracking is any good. The screams might be positional; we can check the rooms without much trouble if that's the case."

"What about the others?"

"They're good fighters. They can handle themselves. We just need to meet up with them as soon as we can."​

Julie bit her lip and clutched her bag even closer to her chest. Her knuckles were almost white from where she was gripping it as though her life were on the line. She was seated in the dorm common rooms, trying not to imagine how she must look to all the jovial passersby. Many of them were heading out, either to the pool party that had been announced earlier that day, or just in general to spend their free time doing something either fun or productive.

And here she was, all alone and hunched over her bag, hilariously hyperaware of the otherwise innocuous swimsuit that she'd packed inside. She knew that she should just make up her mind; go to the pool and potentially make some new friends, or return to the relative safety of her room and work on not failing out of the school. The more she thought about going to the pool, however, the more her muscles seemed to lock into place. If anyone cared to look closely, they'd probably see the dazed panic splashed across her features as she tried to will herself to do anything at all.

"A bit nervous, huh?"

Julie looked up to see the origin of the words, seeing the blonde guy standing in front of her.

"So, I'm guessing you're planning on going to the pool party, right? At least, I'm guessing that's what the bag's for."

Julie could feel the blood rush to her face as she stammered, "I-I was... I was just... resting..." She trailed off lamely, unable to summon the ability to even finish the sentence. For a moment she simply stared at the other student. If a person could get a blue screen of death, that's what had just happened to Julie.

The boy just smiled back, or maybe it was a smirk. She was too preoccupied to really notice. In one quick motion, he slid into the chair across from her, finding a comfortable position before responding to her addled state.

"I know I'm beautiful, but you'll make me self-conscious if you keep staring at me so intensely."

Her eyes widened as she regained cognitive function, and she quickly looked down at her hands. "S-sorry. I just... wasn't expecting anyone to talk to me," she said, incredibly flustered. The blood rushing in her ears was almost deafening at this point, though a part of her was certain that she was being made fun of somehow. After a second, she peeked up at him through her bangs.

He laughed at her response, but the intonation seemed off. Was it mocking or was it more amused? It was hard to tell, but the boy definitely seemed entertained by Julie's nerves.
"How could I ignore someone who looked so lonely and in distress? Especially on a day where we're supposed to be having fun, meeting new people, and hopefully getting some magic practice."

Julie wasn't entirely sure how to react. It was somewhat disheartening to hear it confirmed how pathetic she looked, but he seemed quite nice, even if there was always that edge to his actions. Hesitantly, she smiled at him. It was partly an ingrained polite response, but partly because she really was grateful for some company after what felt like days of isolation.

"I-I suppose I might be a little nervous," she replied with some chagrin.

"And there's nothing wrong with that," he replied, still offering his amalgamation of a smile. He leaned towards Julie, closing the distance between them as much as he could while still appearing composed. "This is a new, unsettling experience for many. Most kids our age haven't ever been this far away from home, so everything feels magnified when our anxieties pop up. What matters is how we all decide to deal with them. What good is there in allowing our chances to fall to the wayside, all because we got scared? But feeling nervous is to be expected."

The smile froze a little bit on Julie's face and she had to consciously stop herself from physically leaning away a little bit at both the somewhat unexpected encroachment on her personal space and the very unexpected spiel of words that were sprung her way. Her eyes darted around surreptitiously to see if anyone was paying them any attention as her mom's voice echoed in her head with words of warning about boys.

But she didn't think he was trying to be threatening or anything. Really, he'd been nothing short of considerate. And she really, really didn't want to do anything to hurt or offend him.

Slowly, because she'd gotten the feeling that his speech hadn't been entirely directed at her, she asked him, "...Are you nervous?"

The look of his countenance changed, the playfulness shifting ever so slightly to something more serious.

"Right this second? No. But I have plenty to be worried about. The girl I was supposed to meet stood me up, and a little birdy told me something that might explain why she did. One of my sisters would have me dead if it meant she could take over the family business. And there's also all these expectations people place on me because I'm one of those lucky few who can use light magic, and yet I can't even beat this one girl. Still, I don't let my nerves stop me, I use them to sharpen myself."

Julie was almost speechless. Everything he'd said sounded like something out of a novel and made her own anxieties pale in comparison. "That's... I'm sorry," she said sympathetically. She couldn't help fidgeting a little as she struggled to find the right words. With no idea what would be appropriate in this situation and the mounting fear that silence was the worst possible decision, she blurted, "I can't even answer a question in class without feeling like I'm going to pass out."

Her whole being visibly cringed, a look of regret passing over her visage. Perhaps silence would have been better.

He laughed again, only this time there was no confusion to its nature. No, this laugh was clearly one born of mirth and amusement. The sound of it made Julie relax, if only ever so infinitesimally.

"With teachers like Mr. Fields being the norm around here, I can't blame you. And, just so you know, there's nothing to be sorry about. I wouldn't have mentioned my issues if I wasn't okay with talking about them."

"N-no, of course not," murmured Julie. "You're... really cool and I--I don't even know your name!" She gasped out the last part, flustered once more. "I'm so sorry, I should have asked earlier, can you tell me what...?"

"Zane," the boy replied with a grin. "Zane Emerson, to be a bit more precise. And you?"

"Julie Nguyen," she said with a strange earnestness. "I... did I just call you cool?"

It was Julie's only wish that the earth would swallow her up before she made even more of a fool of herself, but unfortunately for her, she only had an affinity for controlling air. In lieu of that, she had to cover her face with her hands, even as she knew that doing so was probably only serving to dig her hole even deeper.

"Yeah, but it's not like that's anything to be embarrassed about. Like, for example, what if I were to say 'I find how you get so flustered incredibly cute?' I'd just hope the other person appreciated the compliment."

It almost felt to Julie like her heart stopped for just a second. Her mind tried to frantically process that in such an obviously panicked way that small gremlins may as well have been waving big 'DOES NOT COMPUTE' signs above her head. There was a long pause where Julie simply sat frozen with her face in her hands. When she eventually raised her head, her face was beet red, but she looked determined.

"I'm sorry. You're right," she said, "I need to get a grip on myself."

Of course, being called something like 'incredibly cute' by a cool guy with apparently special light magic--which she still needed to ask more about--was so far out of the realms of possibility that she could only interpret it as him having gone back to making fun of her.

"Hmm, your determined face looks pretty good, too. And it's definitely a step in the right direction as far as attitude is concerned. But do me a favor and hold some of the apologies next time. You haven't done anything to me to warrant one, you know? But if you really think you need to make it up to me, then how about going to the pool party? Something tells me that it'll be fun. We could even go together, but only if you wanted to, of course."

Julie couldn't look more surprised if Zane had asked her if she could perform a religious ritual using goat innards. Her expression quickly returned to its usual worried frown. "Oh, because of..." She wasn't exactly sure how to say 'the girl who stood you up' in any delicate manner, so instead let her words drift off into nothingness.

With a glance to the bag that she was still clutching to her like some kind of shield against the world, and another one at Zane's expectant expression, she inclined her head just slightly. "I'd... like that. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go because I wouldn't really know anyone and, well, I'm not the most fun person ever." She grimaced a bit. "Probably why I hadn't really made any friends."

She looked back up at him, a shy but sincere grin curling her mouth. "So thanks for talking to me just now, and for inviting me."

Zane reciprocated her smile, taking note of her language. "The pleasure is all mine, really. This whole conversation has been a pleasant surprise from what was shaping up to be a massive disappointment of a day."

The pleasure that she felt from his approval shone through her in a way that must have been blindingly obvious to the other boy, though Julie herself thought she hid it quite well. Hefting her bag a little higher to draw attention to it, she said with a slight blush, "I guess I should probably go change, then."

"Probably wouldn't be a bad idea, unless you wanted to get your clothes wet. I'll wait here until you're ready."

Julie responded with a nod before scampering away, her step feeling somehow lighter than usual.

*

"My parents bought it for me a few years ago," Julie blurted almost as soon as she was within earshot of Zane again. She was tugging at her new outfit, her normal clothes now stowed away safely in her backpack. The one exception was her jacket, which she'd thrown over herself. The brightly colored swimming shorts and shirt that she was wearing only served to make her look younger and even somewhat boyish. "I brought it just in case, but I didn't think I'd actually end up wearing it."

He gave her a quick look over, making sure not to be impolite in his inspection of Julie's attire. "The look suits you, honestly. So, should we go? Oh, wait, almost forgot, I should probably change, too."

Instead of running off, like she expected him to do, his clothes just kinda changed in their appearance. His jeans melted away into purple trunks, with a large vertical white stripe down the left leg and his button-up morphed into a matching swim shirt.

"Fun thing about light magic, I can make my clothes look like just about anything as long as I focus a little."

Julie's startled look melted into one of awe. "I-I thought light magic would have just been, I don't know, illusions maybe. How do you make fabric out of it?"

He laughed. "No, you're right, it's an illusion. I just mess around with how the light around me is percieved so it looks like I'm wearing different clothes. It doesn't prevent me from feeling cold or anything, but it's a nice party trick. I bet I could even make the sky change colors if I wanted to."

"Oh, so you're not actually wearing swimming trunks, then?" she asked, curious, her own clothes now forgotten after being shown this new marvel. "So you're still wearing what you were before. Or was that an illusion too? You could be wearing anything, or I guess you could even be n--" Julie suddenly blushed a deep pumice and clamped her mouth shut so hard that he could probably hear her teeth clack.

"As funny as I think telling you 'I'm actually not wearing anything' would be, you can relax. The jeans and button-up were the illusion, but these are my actual clothes I was planning on wearing. I may come up with some crazy things, but I'm not that crazy."

"Of course not, I didn't mean--" Julie protested miserably, kicking herself for even accidentally implying that Zane might be some kind of awful person who walked around naked. "...I'm sorry."

An ever so slight hint of frustration creaped its way onto Zane's face, but it disappeared into his composed and entertained look. "No worries," he joked. "It's an understandable misconception, a rather funny one at that. Besides, it's not like you've really been around light magic before, right?"

Julie felt almost like she'd failed a test somehow, and she remembered Zane's request that she stop apologising. She silently berated herself for her misstep. "No, I haven't actually been around magic much at all until the beginning of this weak." She looked up at him. "Have you?"

"Actually, I have, but not so much in the combative sense. My family actually runs a magic-based hydroeletrical company, so we do a lot of business in the magic world. My dad also has his hands in a lot of politics, so I grew up around magic."

Julie's eyes lit up. "So you've been able to perform light magic since you were young? Did you have teachers and such to help?"

"Nope. Light magic is actually fairly new for me. I grew up with water magic, like the rest of my family. On top of that, I was pretty good with ice magic. But a little while back I lost all of my magic and then I noticed I had developed light magic somehow. As for your second question, I guess the answer is 'sorta.' My parents and sisters are all proficient mages, so they helped out with magic, and most of my schooling was done privately through tutors."

"You can randomly lose your magic and develop other magic?" Julie looked shocked, and even a little disturbed, at the thought of someday waking up without being able to cause gusts of wind at will. She might not have been very good at it, but it had been part of her for so long that she couldn't imagine herself without it.

"Yeah, but it's really rare, from what I was told. And the only kinds of magic that I've heard of that have been known to cause those changes are light and dark magic. It's nice having something unique, but as much fun as it is to turn into light to blink away from someone, I do miss some of my old magic."

"Does anyone know why some people gain access to light or dark magic, then?" asked Julie, so enthralled that she barely registered the path that they were taking which lead to the portal. The wealth of new information that she was getting a glimpse into was exciting. As much time as she'd spent hiding in the library, much of her study was focused on the theory that she was required to know in order to pass her classes and some looks into the fundamentals of actually using magic. She hadn't had the time nor energy to look into anything about the actual world of magic that secretly weaved its way through the mundane society in which she was raised.

"Not that I know of. I've heard rumors of those elements having odd properties to them, allowing them to pick the mage as if those two elements were sentient, but that seems a bit crazy to me, even for magic."

"People are chosen by the magic," Julie breathed, the notion seeming quite romantic to her while providing her something like a sense of security since she didn't think she would ever get anything special like that. "Do you think your experience in magic before helped you at all when you had to learn light magic?"

"It's funny that you mention it, but one of my biggest boons in light magic has been my experience with ice magic. Thanks to it I was able to quickly figure out I could craft things out of hardlight. Oh, I guess you might not've heard of hardlight before, but it's basically freezing light to the point it becomes a solid. It's a weird concept, I know, but it's something I would've never thought up without ice magic."

"Freezing light..." Julie looked perplexed to the point of almost being perturbed. "So you can touch 'hardlight'? Does hardlight itself give off light? Does it... give off heat?" A part of her didn't think that she should be trying to apply so much logic to magic since it was, well magic, but a bigger part of her wanted to solve the new puzzle with which it was being presented.

"Here, I think it might be better to show you," he said, his words trailing off as he started to conjure up a small octahedron of blue transluscent light. It gave off no heat, but it was firm to the touch. Weightless, yet it didn't float away. It's mere existence defied the laws of physics, but physics weren't exactly equipped to deal with static photons. "Make a bit more sense now? I make all sorts of things out of this stuff, and hardlight isn't even the craziest thing I can do with light magic."

The perfect captive audience, she asked, "What's the craziest thing you can do with light magic?"

"Believe it or not, but I can actually turn into light for a brief moment to move forward."

"Oh my god," said Julie. "Does that... hurt?" She wasn't quite sure how to describe the disbelief she felt about whether it was even possible for matter to transform into energy and then back again. If she wasn't so busy overthinking all of her actions, she probably would have responded with something silly like 'That's impossible' when they were literally in a magic school heading to a magic portal.

"It feels weird, but it doesn't hurt. I guess you could say it's like taking an ethereal state, but only for a fraction of a moment. Though, I can hurt myself if I overuse the spell, but I practice quite a bit to prevent that from happening. It even seems like I'm starting to actually perceive things around me when I'm moving at light speed, but only barely."

"What happens if you accidentally try to go through a solid object?" frowned Julie.

"I'm just turning into light and flash towards a direction, really. I can't exactly go through walls or anything. Though, maybe if there was a thin crack, I might be able to squeeze through."

"So I guess you couldn't be physically stopped, then," Julie said wonderingly. Then she bit her lip. "I hope I'm not bothering you with all my questions, I just... want to know more. I feel like I have so much that I need to catch up on compared to a lot of the other students here."

"Not at all. Questions are the easiest way to gain new information from more experienced individuals. And asking them proves that you want to improve, which is something everyone should strive for."

Julie's hand tightened on the strap of her backpack. "I don't feel like I have been improving. I keep trying and trying, but I can't seem to do anything more with my magic than I have been." She looked down at her feet, her pace unconsciously slowing. "I don't really know why they accepted me here."

"Don't worry too much about it. Knowledge is useful to better your magic, but ultimately, practice and pushing your physical limits tends to be the key in accelerating one's magical ability. It also helps to absorb ether on missions, based on what my sister told me. Still, as frustrating as it may seem, there is no quick way to improve, only quicker ways."

A shiver worked its way down Julie's spine. "I haven't been assigned on a mission yet. Have you?" She looked back up at him, features tense.

He gave her a look of surprise, most likely wondering why she had been held back from a mission during the week. "Yeah, we were sent out on a Search and Destroy mission. I'd say it was fairly routine, but I think I broke my arm during the fight with one of the Knights of Ash. You wouldn't be able to tell, though, since healing magic works some miracles in repairing people."

The blood rushed from her face so fast that it probably set some kind of new record. With a gulp, she whispered, "You broke your arm?" Her breaths were coming faster now.

"I think I broke it. One of the knights caught my arm with an attack after I thought I killed it. I didn't let it get a second hit in."

"Are the knights the... the monsters? The ones the headmaster talked about?"

"A species of them. Hulking knights made entirely of ash. They're slow, but they hit hard and take just as much as they give."

Her eyes went blank and she stopped walking. Her stomach roiled. "I don't think I can do this."

He turned around to look at her, letting out a light chuckle all the while. "You'd be surprised what you can do when you have a team to help you out. Or when your back is against the wall. If you're scared, just keep practicing and be ready when they call on your name."

For a split second, she wanted to scream at him. To tell him how she wasn't like everyone else here, that she couldn't do anything; how she would probably screw up and get herself killed. Or worse, get someone else killed, and it would be entirely her fault. Instead, she swallowed and gave him a half-hearted smile. "No, you're right," she said, sounding as though she were trying to convince herself. She forced her feet to move forward again, though her breathing was still a little bit funny. "I shouldn't be complaining. Everyone else is going through the exact same thing that I am."

"Exactly! Almost everyone here is facing their fears and risking their lives, but it's not like you hear about people dying left and right. Only time that happens, it seems, is when people get careless. And something tells me that you wouldn't have an issue with carelessness."

Julie nodded and understood one thing: Zane obviously could never understand. He was confident and talented, and she was... Julie. But she did appreciate how much he was putting up with simply by talking to her, and she really just wanted to soak it up as much as she could while it lasted. "I'll do my best," she said, and pretended that she couldn't hear the sound of a coffin lid closing overhead.

"Good. As long as you do that, you'll be fine..." Before he could continue, they arrived at the portal stone. A few other students were there, too, none of which he recognized. "Looks like we're here. You ready to go through?"

"As ready as I am for anything." Which meant not at all. She tugged self-consciously at her clothes again and hoped she wouldn't break out into rashes. A vain hope, probably. She cautiously looked back at the portal. "How... how does this work? Do we just go through?"

He extended his hand to her before explaining, "Just grab on, I'll touch the stone, then 'poof' we're there."

She stared at his hand with trepidation and also a slight blush. Before that day, s he'd barely even spoken to a boy before, let alone held one's hand (at least, after grade school), even for practical purposes. It was almost as if she could feel the disapproving gaze of her parents even here in Wyoming. Quickly, and hopefully sneakily enough, she wiped her hand against her shorts in an attempt to wipe off any excess sweat, before placing her hand in Zane's. His grip was warm and dry.

It felt really... nice.

And before she could react to him touching the stone, they were gone. And then they were on the beach.​