"Wait up, they invited you?" Beln asked Koro as they sat in class that morning.
"Not the other way around?" Koro nodded his head up and down towards his friend, a smug look on his face.
"Yeah, I was minding my own business and the captain approached me. Was all like "I've never seen energy, like yours. Join the team" and I said yes obviously. I mean there isn't a better way for me to get noticed by the Endo." He mimicked Barrett's voice as he explained what happened.
"That's incredible man. When do you start?"
"Barrett told me I'll still have to sign up for tryouts tomorrow during club day, but that it's more of a formality. Even if they just put me on the training team for now." Gesturing his hands in excitement.
"And get this he said if I get dueling basics down he wants to start me on The tier 2 team just totally skipping the tier 3 beginner squad. I'm way too excited, it's making me jittery haha." Pent up excitement coming to the forefront.
"I bet. I'll make sure to be at every duel I can." His small friend exclaimed.
"Oh Beln you don't need to worry about that I'm just glad someone else is excited with me" a somber tone coming through his voice.
"What do you mean? It's not out of some obligation man. You're my friend and I want to support how awesome you are.” Smiling brightly back at Koro.
“I…don't know what to say”
“Just say thank you and move on. I got you buddy.”
“Well…thank you. I appreciate it. I wish I had someone like you back in Prelims. Woulda made everything a hell of a lot easier.” he noticed a little bit of tremble in his voice as he looked down at his hands. Choking it back he looked up and smiled.
“Of course man and the same goes for you too but we're here now so…friends?” he held out a fist.
“Yeah friends” Koro returning the gesture as they bumped their knuckles together.
Wednesday dragged on a bit as they went over general academics lessons. Mr.Kennings said that if he was gonna teach math and science it was gonna be as practically applicable as possible. So naturally solving for angles and velocity was ever present, as he threatened the class with it being drilled into their heads. He also said they would have big discussions on each general Enki form, so this week was Earth Enki. Essentially anything that fell under that category and the principle behind their functionality. It was more varied than Koro thought with most physical material abilities falling under it. Some of it he had heard in passing from Beln over the last week but it was nice to have an academic discussion about it.
That evening he found himself in the shop in his backyard working on tuning a machine with his older brother.
“Hey Zeke..” speaking softly despite the sound of machines running, echoing in the shop.
“Huh, yeah buddy what's up” his brother barely catching the sound of his voice.
“I wanted to ask your opinion on something?”
“Sure, one sec” as the plasma torch he was holding suddenly cut off the flame, seeming to just flutter out of existence.
“Ok shoot” as the noise quieted to a low hum.
“So I got an offer for a club today but I didn't want to talk about it around mom.”
“Oh haha, it's about the Dueling Club invite isn't it” confusion hitting Koro’s face.
“How…” looking incredulous now.
“Barrett pinged me yesterday. Said he met a kid saying he was my bro.”
“I didn't just blurt it out, he asked me because of our family name” panic rolled over him.
“Haha Koro it's ok, I figured and I wasn't mad about it either way.”
“Oh good ok. Yeah he approached me while I was at the training hall during my free period. I was gonna apply tomorrow during club day but I wanted to talk with you about it.”
“I think that's a great idea. I'm not sure if i told you but i joined Dueling Club in my second semester during my first year. A friend of mine's brother was on the tier 3 team and he introduced me to the club. Gavin became my mentor for the next two years until I took vice captain status during my third year for tier 3. That's when I took on Barrett who was a bench seat on tier 1 at the time. He was talented but his style was ill suited for his ability so I taught him how to use it for long range kiting. Now he's the tier 3 Captain and rank 5 in the national academy standings.” Pride flowed out as he regaled his brother with a story about his school life.
“You never really talked about any of this when you were in school. It's hard to believe that you did all that without any of us knowing.” a surprised somber look on his face.
“Well I didn't really want mom to know about it. Especially after she flipped out about my first duel when I came home with a bruised cheek.”
“Oh yeah, I remember that. She tried to stop you from going to school for a week.” Chuckling to himself.
“Yeah, not a fun time haha. Anyways…” Zeke trying to continue his thought process from where he left off.
“He wants to take you under his wing and he wanted to ask me for advice and permission. The decision is ultimately yours but if you want to do this I'll help you as much as I can too.” Zeke’s excitement started to tamper down. “I wanted to tell you as well that… work is picking up and we have some big projects on the schedule. I might not be home a whole lot for the next couple of months.”
Koro tried to put on a smile for his brother. “That's ok Zeke, I know this stuff is important and I know how much they need your power big bro.”
“Look, let's not worry about that at the moment, ok. I'm here right now so let's focus on that.” He grabbed his younger brother's head and rubbed his hair.
“Ow haha…ok you got it” Koro tried to duck out as he smiled at his older sibling. “Ok so show me that control skill. We still have to get all these fused before we can start building the control panel.” Zeke nodded and both of them laughed as they got back to work.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Arriving at school, Koro could easily see that club day was a much bigger deal than he had originally thought. Overnight huge banners had been hung on the front of the Main Building and stands for an absurd amount of clubs had appeared on the walk. He could see a few people were still setting up but a few looked like they had been there for at least an hour. People were chatting at a lot of them and a few even had lines.
The busy ones seemed to be primarily for academy branches of the various guilds throughout Unatees. A lot of people were looking at the engineering group sponsored by CraftWorks. There were several agricultural clubs which didn't really surprise him considering several of the districts here were dedicated to farming, each one having its own identity. A surprising amount of special interest clubs, he had no idea so many people loved playing holo-games that much as he watched a group clicking away at the air obviously interacting with their individual holos. They’re probably screen sharing, he thought.
He walked past it all and through one of the several sliding doors at the front of the building. Naturally it was even busier inside. More booths had been erected in between the opening for the halls. It also became quickly apparent these were the premier clubs. Beautiful banners for the various sports clubs were spread throughout which he had seen them putting up the day before. As he scanned the room his eyes finally stopped on one in particular.
DUELING CLUB
Come join us. Tryouts today at 1PM and 3PM
Spots available on all teams
After spotting the sign he noticed a strange movement below it. A hand waving…at him actually.
Barrett was talking to another recruit signing the tryout sheet, when he spotted the white haired boy in the crowd. Stopping mid sentence and ignoring the other student, he yelled and started waving his arms around. “KORO!! HEY OVER HERE, KORO!!”
Koro put a hand up to his face as the Captain of the Dueling Team started yelling his name across the hall. Embarrassing him further as people looked around for who he was yelling at. “Why are so many people loud extroverts here” pondering his situation up to this point.
Koro walked up past the huge line of people absolutely terrified as most seemed to be second years and older. Some of them making comments as he sheepishly approached the table where Barrett anxiously waited for him.
Finally making it up to the booth, Barrett jumped out of his seat and grabbed his hand.
“I'm so glad you finally made it in. So did your brother ask you?” a crazy look on his face.
“Oh yeah Zeke said something about mentorship.”
The line might as well have lit on fire as chatter exploded from the crowd.
“That's bullshit is the captain taking some rando first year as his apprentice, we didn't even have tryouts yet.”
“He doesn't look like anything special.”
“Did he say mentorship?”
“I've been in this club, 3 years standing. Where's my mentorship?”
“Just ignore them, you have a real talent Koro not to mention there's a legacy to uphold here.” Barrett walked the boy over to behind the booth where the other club leaders were trying to take care of the raucous line and the grumbling students who were signing the sign-up sheets. “So?”
“Oh um yeah i honestly don't think i could turn this down even if i wanted to” laughing to himself.
“So you're in?”
“Yeah I'm in, Barrett.”
“Awesome, I promise you're not gonna regret it. Ok so I've already got you on the signup sheet. You just need to show up for tryouts. I've got you in for the 1 o'clock group. I'll see you out there.” he spoke in a hurry then rushed off to get back to the booth which seemed to be more packed now for some reason.
They were only in class for a short time as Mr.Kenning went over how Club Day worked. It was about what he had expected, they were going to be given the whole day to explore booths. Their teacher also explained that club activities would be during their open periods as well as outside of school hours. There wasn't an actual limit to how many clubs you could join but he warned about not overextending yourself. All in all it took about an hour and then they were set loose
He had a few hours before tryouts so he roamed with Beln. They thought Jorum was gonna roll out with them as well but after the initial lecture from Kenning, he booked it out of there. Q’yara followed along for a little bit but they ran into her older sister who was running a booth for a fire club. It seemed like she was pretty busy talking with her sister and the other club members so the boys headed off on their own to explore.
“Ooooh, there..finally. The shaper club lets go check it out. I bet you'd learn a lot there.” Beln shouted as he spotted the banner he had been scanning for.
“I guess so, but I don't know if I'll join man.”
“What just because you have Dueling. Mr.K said we could join multiple clubs.”
“I know, I know. I just don't want to spread myself too thin is all.”
“Well just come take a look at least. You don't have to join but I know I’m going to, so at least hear what it's about.”
The station had a few people talking to the people running it but there was still plenty of space for the two of them to go up to the desk directly. A third year with long curly brown hair and light brown skin, perked up as they got close.
“Hey boys” her cheery voice rang out.
“You boys interested in learning about being better shapers.”
“You got it, ms.” Beln quickly jumping in to shake the hand she outstretched. Koro stood there awkwardly with his hands crossed in front of him.
“Well my name is Amelia. This is my third year with the shaper club and oh my goodness, it's been awesome. We hold regular events and we’ve got Mr. Omana backing us and he is just like the best. He teaches regular lessons with our group. We also work closely with a number of other clubs and participate in the various festivals.” She blathered on as she reached under the table to grab two pamphlets that she handed to each of them.
“We run workshops on Tuesday and Thursday and the shaper shop is open everyday after school for two hours. Everyone is welcome to join whenever throughout the year.”
“See you can always just come observe and see what they do in the workshops. No membership required.” As he nudged Koro in the side with an elbow.
“We actually get a lot of people who think shaper training isn't what they need because of their abilities or skill set but you'd be surprised how many of them walk away with new useful skills. Even combat types end up gaining invaluable skills that they apply in various sports. Don't underestimate the usefulness here.”
“I appreciate the info ,I'll keep it in mind.” Koro turned to walk off, giving a short wave with the pamphlet.
“Bye, I hope to see you soon.” she yelled after them.
“Will do bye Amelia.” Beln waved incessantly as they walked off.
“Who’s Mr.Omana by the way,” he asked inquisitively.
“Oh, the shaper professor. He’s actually world renowned and helped with a number of the expansion projects to the east. He was also an engineer for CraftWorks for a lot of years and they sent him all over the place for work.”
“Oh wow, sometimes I forget that a lot of the academy Professors are pros.” he scratched his head embarrassed slightly.
They wandered for a while before the lunch bell rang at noon. Armed with too many pamphlets, flyers, and more. There were also the number of times they had been stopped by people from their districts who recognized them, which Koro felt was a bit unfortunate but that's how it goes sometimes.
The boys ran into Jorum on their way to the lunch room and they spent the next little while regaling each other about how the day had been going.
Finally the time had come as 12:45 rolled around, Koro wishing his friends luck with the remainder of their day. They tried to tell him that he would do amazing and he did his best to just take the words of encouragement.
He made his way to the Dueling Hall which was actually farther out than all the other buildings he’d been to so far. Located closer to the south end of the campus. He hurried into the locker room to change and made his way out to the central space in the building.
Reminding himself of the confidence his friends gave him, he stepped through the double doors and into the large room where the tryouts were being held.