Chapter 95: Chapter 95 - Xyrus Attack I: The start of my problems
[3rd Person POV]
Inside the disciplinary committee hall, after a tense but hilarious discussion, everyone decided to go out so they could enjoy the day. Theodore and Kai were one of the few who preferred to stay in the main committee room, in case any students wanted to contact them.
Luz, Claire and Kathyln went together as they always do, with the two hugging each of his arms, while he had a neutral expression, with his hair slightly burnt in the back and with several ice crystals, all due to the anger of the girls there. They looked like they wanted to walk a little and talk, since they had not had some quiet time together. Luz even wanted to ask Lilia to go with them, but he knew that she must be busy at the moment, so he would see her later.
Doradrae was with Feyrith, both walking towards an area further away from the outer gardens of Xyrus Academy, with the pretext that they would train a little in a quieter place and that probably wouldn't have students. Since Dora's beheading, Feyrith has shown himself to be more careful with her, perhaps because of the trauma of seeing her die in front of his eyes, or because there is something else, a sense of fulfilling the role of being a disciplinary officer. He stayed with her as much time as possible, but did anyone know about these motivations? Maybe, but he never directly expressed it to others.
Arthur and Tessia decided to go to their training room, they weren't going to train, just have a simple moment among themselves, after all, their training room was big and served as a beautiful internal garden with a fountain in the center. Alea was following them, still doing her job, even though Luz has expressed that she is no longer affected by the Lances' artifact, she still did that out of pure respect and duty to protect those two, who would in the future be the Kingdom of Elenoir's future leaders. Sylv, as always, was also present with the two of them, at the moment, sleeping and being carried by Arthur, who held her softly like an adorable white plush.
Elijah and Emily, after that awkward situation at breakfast, decided to head straight to the room Gideon had given them to create some artifacts. The four-eyes' plan was to fix the 3D tracking device, which was currently in the final stage of the prototype model. The green haired girl seemed happy that he had something to occupy him besides his work as a disciplinary officer, after all she knew he had been through some pretty serious problems recently.
Lastly, Curtis Glayder, he was walking with his trusty bond, Grawder, towards the upperclass students' female dormitory. With the simple aim of going to visit his girlfriend, who, despite being discharged from the hospital area, still seemed unable to take some practical classes, he was worried and wanted to be close to her. Luckily, it was easy to focus on that thought, as several of the girls in the dormitory area let him pass, out of respect and knowing the role both inside and outside the academy that the prince of Sapin had.
"Alexyo?" Said the prince calling her, knocking on the door a few times, until it opened.
Being dressed in a simple academy uniform, the tomboyish double-spy alacryan looked intently at the prince. She was still a little tired from the undercover work she'd done with Luz and Kai, so she just gave a yawn and seemed to ask him to come in.
Inside the room, Letty was trying to sleep completely carefree on the bed next to the open window, while Alexyo just sat on her bed. Curtis approached her and lightly caressed the girl's face, still seeing a remnant of the conflict she had inside the underwater dungeon. He watched her well, giving her a soft smile and kissing her on the cheek.
"So… As for what occurred to you…" Curtis tried to speak, but was cut off by her.
"I asked the Professors, even though my notebook was destroyed, they still gave me a high grade, as Professor Luz knew I was doing my job." She said with a slight smile on her face, which soon turned into an optimistic smile with bared teeth. "Anyway, you're free to stay with me, aren't you?"
"Well, I've been given a rest period for now… Would you like to do something?"
"Hmm… We could stay right here… I was doing some things at dawn… so getting out of bed is still not an alternative…" Alexyo said, giving another yawn.
"Oh… Okay, I can stay here with you if you want, and I can even bring you breakfast." Alexyo agreed with the prince. "And you, would you like it too?" He asked the girl lying on the other bed, who just raised her hand, as if she accepted the idea.
"Okay, I'll go there then and be right back… in the meantime, keep him company."
Curtis was referring to Grawder, who was finally entering that room. Alexyo for some reason seemed to love Curtis' bond, because when she saw him there, she hugged his head, rubbing her face in the lion's big mane. In response to that, the prince of Sapin chuckled, and walked towards the cafeteria.
After a few minutes something unexpected happened, an alarm sound, and it wasn't the girls' watch. This made Alexyo's eyes wide as she looked at the desk between her and Letty's beds. Inside that drawer was the alacryan raid party communicator, and it was from this artifact that the noise was coming from.
"Ah… what a stupid noise…" Letty said this, still very sleepy and without having so many real thoughts, while Alexyo was in complete shock, but upon picking up the object, the earth mage started to share the same panicked expression. "I-It's them!"
"T-the communicator is glowing green… it's a holographic call…" Alexyo said looking at the main problem, the world lion that was there. "I-I'm going to take him outside for a walk… I'll be there so if Curtis shows up quicker than expected, he doesn't interfere with the transmission."
"O-Okay…" Letty just replied, as she saw her friend leave the room with that mana beast, who surprisingly obeyed her with some ease, maybe because Curtis trusted her a lot.
The world lion was rubbing up against Alexyo as she walked out of the girls' dormitory building and was now outside. On the other hand, Letty was still panicking inside that room, due to the communicator being activated, but at least she managed to calm down a few seconds before answering the call.
"What would it be now…" Alexyo sighed, seeing Grawder sitting on the lawn and boc. She stroked his mane more, but stopped when she saw two professors approaching.
"Alexyo, dear… how are you?" Said the male one, looking slightly annoyed by the lion's presence.
"I'm fine… but why are you here?" She asked, her curiosity strong, as the two of them were also part of the alacryan spy group.
"There have been…changes of plans…and we will need you. However, can you tell me why this World Lion is here? As far as I know, only Prince Curtis has such a beast mana…" Said the other teacher, smoothing her long hair.
Alexyo was silent for a few seconds, until she started to explain herself. "It's here because the prince stopped by some time ago, he said he'd be back, and he left his mana beast just because I like cats. But what changes of plans are you talking about?"
The two professors looked at each other, a smile breaking out on their faces. "It's going to be today, and we'll need everyone in his group… Try to hold his attention long enough for us to capture him…"
"Since it seems his mana beast is obedient to you, try to make it sleep and then lock it up so it doesn't disturb us, got it?" Whispered the other professor.
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[Kai Crestless POV]
I was sitting in the main chair of the committee's entrance room, one of my metal darts in hand, controlling it in mid-air slowly, just making it float and go from one side of the room to the other. Theodore was also nearby, more specifically, in the area inside the committee. From what I saw before sitting at the table, he decided to do some simple exercises with the use of gravity spells, taking advantage of the fact that there were only the two of us at the time.
"Really… there's something nice and peaceful about being 'alone' here…" I ended up whispering to myself, watching the door in front of me, but just as I closed my eyes to rest just a little longer, my communicator seemed to be vibrating.
No, it wasn't the DC communicator...
He was the communicator for the alacryan forces...
I immediately looked around to see if Theodore had entered the reception area, but nothing, there was no one else in the front but me. So I just got up and went inside, past Theodore and into my room. I could see him lying on the floor, doing some push-ups, with a clear increase in gravity around him.
"Eh? What happened, Kai?" he asked as he saw me walking back to our common area, not stopping his exercise.
"Nothing much, I just forgot something in my room and I'll see about it..." I answered him and entered my room, activating a rune artifact that I kept hidden near the door, preventing anyone from hearing what I was doing in there. With everything ready, I answered my former group's communicator.
"Master Draneeve, to what do I owe the honor of your presence?" I spoke, with the hologram in front of me.
He was there, wearing his trademark mask, a simple white one with two black small dots for eyes and a broken smile around the mouth area. His attire was much tidier than any other time I'd seen him before, it was a big open red leather coat, with a red and white shirt underneath. It reminded me faintly of the uniforms that some famous ascenders wear when invited to important parties at the last minute.
"Young Crestless, I came here to give you some excellent news…" He spoke elegantly, moving his hands gently in the air, as if he really needed them to speak. "We will advance our grand plan."
My eyes widened, I was in real shock with that information, but I continued to act as per the orders of my future High Sovereign. "Oh! This is really magnificent, I can't stand these dicathians all over the place, their savagery sometimes just disgusts me… But, tell me, when exactly will we put things into practice, after all, I am one of the members of our group who puts themself in the most danger, as I am infiltrated in the main group of operations of Xyrus Academy."
"Today…" His words showed absurd satisfaction, while I just took a few steps back, showing clear surprise, but he continued. "I'm sorry to speak to you at such short notice, Young Crestless, several of the noble-human dicathians in our group, are full of fury and desire to end the race of elves and dwarves that 'invaded' their impeccable city… And you yourself know, that the more blinded by rage a puppet is, the better for us…"
My face seemed to be frozen by the shocking response, will all the plans that my future High Sovereign organized go down the drain due to spoiled nobles out for blood?
"I understand your sentiment, Young Crestless, but don't worry, as you well remember, your job is done, unless you want to do a little thing for me…" His voice sounded commanding than usual.
"Yes, Master Draveene, what would that favor be?"
He was silent, staring at me for a bit, until he finally started to speak. "Actually it's more than one thing… First, it seems that the nobles on our side want to see the death of the disciplinary committee and student council members with their own eyes, you know… due to the fact that they are disturbing 'human supremacy' quite a bit for them. So I want you, if you can, to find some way to immobilize them without killing, if you don't find an opportunity to do so, just hit them and run away, but without deaths, for now."
"The second thing, we received orders from Alacrya 5 days ago, I didn't tell you before due to the degree of trust they put in me for this. If we find anyone with a low degree of decay mana art among the Xyrus Academy students who are not in our plans, we will have to kidnap them immediately, we don't care if the person is too strong or too weak. There is a need to kill only if the person cannot be contained in any way."
"Eh? But we've been here for a while, we don't know of anyone like that." I replied, still trying to keep my real feelings hidden.
"I didn't understand either, but that's what I was told…"
"Hang on. The attack would be a full year away, won't our leaders be irritated that we've gone this far?" I finally thought of an excuse to be late.
"I can totally understand what you're saying, really, it would be a huge problem if they thought we were acting like this for our own benefit by breaking the schedule. But I already sent a message to Alacrya, Scythe Dragoth responded almost immediately, saying that he was allowing us, and if our leaders were angered by the schedule change, he would be taking responsibility."
A little sweat trickled down my head, that was bad, really bad… I just nodded, accepting Draveene's words. "Okay, I understand, I will do what I can, but as promised before, I don't really need to be present at the moment of showing the terror, do I?"
"Well… you will, as a great way to show these dicathians desperation, I want you to be with the other members of your little group when we start killing them, you will rise triumphantly, showing that all this time, they have been in our hands and didn't even notice…" I swallowed hard at that, but just nodded, accepting his words. "Good… I've already asked some of our people to activate the cage-shield artifact. See you in the afternoon~"
"Glory to Alacrya!" I said, with my hand on my left.
"Glory to Vritra!" He replied, in a booming voice.
And so the communication ended...
I just stood there, staring at nothing in the room, then looked at the special communicator we made for our resistance group, immediately dialing it.
"Luz, we have problems." I spoke informally, just not knowing if he was with the girls or not.
"What kind of problems?" He answered, but I could hear the voices of the other two in the background, he really wasn't alone.
"The attack, I got information that they are possibly planning a full-scale attack today." In response to my words, I just heard an extremely heavy sigh from him.
"I see… have you warned anyone else yet?…"
"You are the first person I am saying this to."
"Fine… Listen carefully, if Theodore is still nearby, notify him immediately of the need, go to Tessia's training room with him and the rest of the student council, there is an extremely safe area where we can all meet and organize… me and the girls will go after Feyrith, Elijah and Curt-." His voice was interrupted by a loud noise.
"We have to- -ves, now! Girls, go fu- -orce!" His voice started to be cut off due to the possible distance between him and the communicator at the moment, until at the end, I heard a loud rage scream from someone who seemed to be Kathyln, and the artifact turned off.
I just took a deep breath, going to my closet, I grabbed some daggers and razors, putting everything inside my dimensional ring. However, before opening the door and starting the plan, a thought came to me…
What would happen if they saw me assisting the DC when the plan was already starting? Would they believe I'm hiding 'my' nature even with the main event happening? No, there's a lot of chance they'll realize I'm a double agent...
That made me have another idea, opening the false bottom that was in my closet, I ended up getting my equipment. It was a set of clothes, consisting of thin long-sleeved shirts filled with protection runes, a hooded jacket that was dark green on the outside and velvet red on the inside, black gloves and jeans, a brown belt with holders for daggers and wands, thick-soled black boots, and finally a mask.
Each one of the rebellion group, created by our future high sovereign, had them own mask, so that we could identify ourselves without using words or gestures. Mine was simple and white, separated into 3 parts by thick upside-down metallic epsilon.
Due to the need to be quick with my actions, I just put on the jacket, gloves and mask, filling my dimensional ring even more with the other items, and thus leaving my room. My change of clothes seemed very sudden, because Theodore ended up falling on his face, when he was distracted by seeing me.
"Theo, Luz informed me that an attack by the supremacist lunatics is going to happen! We need to call the student council people and head to Art's practice room now!"
"W-Wait a minute, what?!?" He exclaimed, getting up. "Okay! If you're talking like that, it must be really urgent, but why those clothes?"
"I'll explain later, for now we all have to get together in a safe place to find out what to do, apparently they haven't started the attack for real yet, but they will at any moment." I dodged that question and saw him getting up quickly to put on his gauntlets and battle boots.
We ran as fast as we could downstairs to warn the other group. Theo was already opening the door at once, scaring one of the student council members who was at the reception, Lilia Helstea.
"Eh!? Guys, did… something happen?" She was talking to Theo, but soon noticed my presence, maybe the fact that she didn't recognize me made her very confused.
But there was something that bothered me there, next to her there was a professor, possibly talking to her about something… And I recognized that teacher right away…
"According to information we have found, we all need to meet immediately in a safe place, the supremacist psychopaths are planning an attack for today." Theo answered her.
"E-eh!? M-my god, this is so sudden…"
"Maybe your information is wrong, boys… Who would be the person who said that…?" The professor was looking at Theodore, both hands behind his back. "In fact, we were having a very fruitful conversation here, so I feel like this is a huge inconvenience."
"Professor Rantiel, I'm serious, I need to take her and get the others with us, so if that's oka-'' Soon, what I expected happened.
Quickly he seemed to pull out a wand and shoot a Fireball at Theodore. I could see that during the trajectory of the attack, he was pulling Lilia around the waist and seemed to want to keep his wand pointed at her head. The spellrune he had was one involved with increased perception speed, but luckily that was only for the mind, not the body, so, because I was already prepared, I threw one of the daggers in his direction, and with my metal manipulation spellrune, I was able to accelerate the launched object, hitting deeply in the middle of the professor's forehead.
"Graviole!"
Theodore used his spell in the last tick of time, managing to make the fireball head towards the ground before it hit him. The floor seemed to almost become charcoal instantly.
Lilia was screaming loudly, Theodore was panting from the surprise attack, but I just went towards the traitorous Rantiel. Kneeling down and touching his neck with the back of my fingers, I could see there was no pulse, he was dead.
"Lily! What was that?!" Someone yelled from the next room, and when the door opened, I could see the other student council members. "It's one of the supremacists!!" One of them screamed and it made Curtis seem to jump straight to conclusions, trying to lunge at me and lash out with a punch.
Luckily, Theodore was there, and even though he didn't have a speed spellrune, he managed to hold Clive's hand. "Calm down! We just killed one of the crazy supremacists!"
They were silent for a few seconds with the sudden answer, but they only seemed to understand when I put the corpse on its stomach and tore the clothes with my dagger, thus showing the runes on its back. I could see everyone's eyes go into shock, but luckily my partner managed to wake them up again, without me needing to reveal myself.
"They look like they're starting a terrorist attack, high chance one hiding among them has come just to hold you in here." They seemed to agree, and soon everyone grabbed their equipment and we left the building. Our goal for now was just to get to the neighboring building, where the training rooms were.
"D-don't seem so chaotic, if it weren't for that teacher I'd say we're paranoid." Said one of the council members observing the outside landscape, I think his name is Fable.
"But it will happen, we have people who managed to get into their group to let us know these things, but we've only been informed about the attack now."
"Wait what? Only now?" Lilia said, walking next to me, while Theodore and Clive kept farther behind us to protect our rear.
"Yes… apparently this attack was going to happen in a few years, but they decided to do it now out of impatience and because of their failed attack on Trinity Hall." I answered her, stopping a little to look around due to a bad feeling and entering the building.
Inside it still looked untouched, luckily I knew none of the personnel in that area were part of the alacryan group. The secretary there seemed to be slightly startled, possibly from my clothing and currently concealed identity. And this was seen even by the student council members, with another member of theirs Jarrod, questioning me.
"Wait a minute… you seem to know a lot about the situation, but who are you?" I just turned to him and showed him my dagger, aka my disciplinary committee badge, that didn't quite answer the question but at least let him know I was in the same group as Theo.
"We need to get into Arthur Leywin and Tessia Eralith's special room… We have matters to discuss with them." Theodore was talking to the receptionist. "It is related to the committee and the council."
"I'm sorry, but you can't enter even under these conditions…" She answered him.
"Then ask them directly to see if we can come in." When Theodore said this, she took out a parchment, possibly connected to the training room and hopefully permission for that.
We were waiting a bit, for obvious reasons, we all had our wands and equipment in hand, but we didn't talk to some of the employees there, not wanting to worry them. When there was a green light to enter, we walked down that long corridor, knowing that their room was the lowest of all.
After a few steps, I could already see the training room door, but still the feeling of something bad was covering my being, and that became correct when I heard a sudden scream next to my ear.
"AAAAAAA-" Just as it appeared, the sound was gone, but it wasn't just the sound, the light seemed to be gone as well…
Everything went black, pure darkness... And a kind of cold enveloped my body...
No sound reached my ears...
Not even the sound and rhythm of my own heart…
I no longer felt the air in my lungs…
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone