August 25, 2065

MDC, Soneria

Two weeks. Two weeks of the same tedious routine: Wake up, combat training, actual school, twelve metric tons of homework, sleep. I climb out of bed, and do my daily routine, getting to the classroom almost half an hour early. I take a seat when I notice an unfamiliar face. Off to the side stood a person in a jet black cloak and an impractical-looking purple scythe. I approach him, carefully.

“Uh, hello. Who are you?” I ask, carefully. He removes the hood on his cloak, revealing a pale face, and short blonde hair.

“I’m a transfer student.” He says, giving me a peculiar look.

“Oh. Well, I’m Patrick, Patrick Faalzar, nice to meet you.” I say, extending my hand. He shakes it.

“Faalzar, huh. Well I’d normally give you my name, but my circumstances are rather complicated. I’m going to wait until class, if that’s alright.” He replies, sounding a bit nervous.

“Well, that’s fine, I guess. You wanna take a seat?”

“I’m alright, thanks.” I pull out a calculus textbook and study to pass the time. After what seemed like a while, I notice Isendal walking into the room, yawning and looking somewhat disheveled. I wave to her. “Spend too much time studying last night?”

“I wish. Ritual magic is so damn time consuming derewrwer

“You have something special for today?” I ask, interested.

“Well, I wanted to-” She stops, noticing the transfer student in the back. “What are you doing here?” She said, her entire persona changing. The transfer student looks at her.

“Isendal. I would say that I’m surprised to see you here but I kinda expected you’d also be placed into my class. After all it would only make sense for the two prodigies of Umbra to be in the A class.” He said, sounding incredibly full of himself. As Isendal was about to respond, Alexia, Miri, and Edward walk in, laughing about something. The room ends up being completely silent as the rest of the class files in, with Zigrus following. Zigrus has a look on his face that is somewhere between pissed off and terrified.

“Well class, We have a transfer student today. I think I’ll let him introduce himself and explain his circumstances.” He says, giving off the most conflicted body language I have ever seen in my life. The transfer student walks in front of the class. I look over at Isendal who, much like Zigrus, has a very conflicted look on her face.

“Hello everybody. My name’s Daelth” A beat passes as everybody is taken back. “Yes, Daelth as in the commander of the Void forces from the Void war of 2034.”

“Do you want to explain the rest, Daelth?” Zigrus said, the irritation in his voice showing as clear as day.

“Oh, that would help, wouldn’t it? I, along with my adopted sister Isendal, are what have been called the ‘Voidborn’. We are the children of extremely powerful Void Affinity users, and due to how Void affinity affects the body, we are basically reincarnations of past Void Affinity users.”

“Everybody, please try and treat Daelth here kindly. Moving on, we have a pretty good practice match for today. Isendal and Patrick, please stand up.” We both stand up. “Since I’d rather not have to explain any fatalities, or collateral damage for that matter, we are going to have this match outside. I hear the B and C classes are coming to watch as well. You two head out and prepare, we’ll be out in a bit.” I start for the door, and Isendal follows me. I walk down the narrow hallways that lead to the hastily-assembled outdoor training arena, thrown up roughly a week ago when we found that basically every sparring match involving Alexia, Edward, Miri, or Isendal led to the matches being stopped halfway due to the building nearly being leveled. I walked into the prep area and took a seat. Isendal sat next to me.

“You ready for this? I’m not going to hold back.” Isendal says, checking her various implements and other magic-related stuff.

“I’m ready. Hopefully, I’ll be able to push this thing for once.” I say, tapping the PARAGON system.

“Well, that’s encouraging. Just make sure you go into this seriously. Otherwise, you might die.” Isendal says, walking outside. I check my blade, the crimson blade seems to be extremely durable, as in two weeks of near daily use, I haven’t needed to sharpen or repair it once. I walk outside and see bleachers lined up across the massive courtyard, filled to the brim with students wearing the colors of their respective classes: Blue for B class, and Green for C class. I walked over to my side of the field and looked out. The field was roughly the length of a football field, with massive transparent barriers erected around the sides, protecting the spectators. Amidst the sea of green and blue, I pinpointed a bleacher that stood out, which was currently being filled with people from my class, where we usually ended up wearing our armor over our uniforms. As the arena filled with people, I looked at Isendal, who was facing me on the other side of the field. I heard the announcer rattle off a bunch of useless crap for what felt like forever. I prepare myself, placing my hand on the grip of my sword. The announcer gives the ready signal, I dash towards Isendal, crossing the field at an alarming speed. I draw my blade and slash at her in one smooth motion. She dodges backwards, “conveniently” getting nicked on the wrist. She drips blood on her lance and etches a sigil in the air, the blood staying in the air while following the movements of her lance. She holds out her hand, running affinity through the sigil, causing it to detonate outwards in a brilliant flash. I extend my blade and run affinity through it, focusing at the tip. The blast hit my blade, and it split at the tip, splitting and passing me on either side. I concentrate, summoning my armor. I press the first switch on my wrist and feel the weight on my back spread out, a sign that the verniers on the back of my armor have opened. I focus some of my power on my back, very lightly pulling imaginary muscles connected to the verniers. They light up in a brilliant glow, and I lift off of the ground, hovering in the air. I raise my blade, and pull on the verniers as hard as I possibly can, flying backwards from Isendal. She gives me a strange look. She pulls something out of her back pocket, throwing what looks to be a deck of index cards into the air. I charge at her, my blade still raised. She extends an arm, releasing what seems to be an incredible amount of Affinity.

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“Fire.” She says. As she finishes the command, the cards all stop in midair, and all simultaneously unleash a barrage of purple bolts at me. I dodge the hailstorm of void bullets, responding by hurling a massive concussive blast at Isendal. I see that the second switch on my armor is blinking. I press it and immediately feel a massive amount of energy building in my left arm. I look at it and it is glowing an even-more-blinding-than-usual yellow. I fire a blast, and a massive sigil appears before the blast, amplifying it by at least a thousand times over. The blast impacts with the ground, exploding strongly enough to topple the barriers, kicking dirt into the air. I get a terrible feeling in my stomach and descend to the ground. As the cloud of dust clears, I see a massive crater, with a purple shell in the center. The shell disintegrates, revealing Isendal to be unharmed. She gives me a peculiar look.

“Wow. That could have killed me, you know?” She yells, clearly buying time.

“Well, I didn’t think that it would be quite that powerful either.” I reply, looking for what she’s buying time for.

“Well, I guess that means I can turn up the heat a bit.” She says, throwing her lance into the ground. She flips the covers off of the card cases on her arms, creating a massive array of well over a thousand cards behind her. She takes a blood red vial off of her belt and crushes it in her hand, etching a sigil in the air. She turns completely purple, throwing her hands into the air. “Hit him” she says, giving a command. The cards line up into a massive stack, and take aim at me. I saw a massive glow begin to envelop the cards as they incrementally burn up. I estimate I have roughly three seconds to do something.

Attack Isendal? I think, trying to find a way out of the situation.

No, she’d expect that. Can I block it with my sword? I look at my blade, and I doubt that It can cut the blast. Two seconds

I need to find something.

Something. I wrack my brain for answers. One second

Something. I see the blast fire. I raise my blade, and my other hand, unleashing a torrent of Affinity in desperation. The blast collides with me and everything turns to white.

The smoke clears, and I am somehow still standing, the area behind me completely desolate. In my hands, I have my usual blade in my right hand, and an ethereal copy in my left, somehow deflecting the blast, and keeping me alive. The blade dissipates, and I fall to the ground, exhausted. The last thing I see before I pass out is Isendal, also unconscious, on the ground.

I come to in my dorm room. I bolt upright, ascertaining my surroundings, and am greeted with a shriek. I look off the side of my bed, and see Alexia on the floor, looking as if she fell off my bed.

“You jackass.” She says, looking rather happy. “You alright? We were worried when you fainted after the match and didn’t wake up right away.” I get a bad feeling.

“How long was I out?”

“About a day. We were all really worried.”

“Did i miss anything?” Alexia’s face immediately turns sour.

“Yeah, there was a murder on campus. Even worse, the culprit was likely a student.”