13: SQUABBLE
//
8:37 A.M. // 10 - 18 - 2023 // Arc - G-Wing, Unawakened Homeroom 2
Starring Zendolyn Ato
Featuring Gwen Olynn and Avil Daniase
//
“Students, open your books to page 12 in the Hypothetical Demon book, the intro section.” Professor Justin stood in front of the class with a vaguely bored expression. Behind him, in bold marker was the daily agenda, the Intro to Demons lecture. “It’ll be page 17 for those using the online format, around halfway down. Someone read me the first line and the paragraph after that.”
He peered up from his notes, and his eyes traveled straight towards me to my exasperation. I turned my head slightly, and wasn’t surprised to see Gwen’s hand in the air behind me.
Gwen and Avil were great people. Probably the only ones in the freshman year who didn’t go out of their way to comment on my exam, which had gotten a lot of reception over the past two days. Definitely wasn’t a fan of this unwanted attention. And for starters, why was I even a hot topic to begin with, and for so long? I subconsciously massaged my shoulder, still sore from all of the people ‘passing by’ and ‘not watching their steps’.
Whatever. My scatterbrain couldn’t give half of the damn that most people would.
“Avil, wake up. The Professor’s staring at you,” I whispered loudly. Avil’s head was still drooped on the table. He breathed steadily, ear-length hair draped over his face, and he faced to the side not even bothering to pretend he was awake. “Hey. Hey. Wake up.”
“Gwen, you may start from the words, ‘A byproduct of Awakening,’” Professor Justin readily ignored my failing attempts at waking Avil, as did Gwen, who nodded her head diligently.
“Yes, sir. ‘A byproduct of Awakening was the rise of supernatural forces, including creatures, structures, and environments which defy the principles of nature, yet also abide perfectly to the Earth’s now uncertain laws…’”
She droned on, but Avil’s head didn’t budge at all. His breathing stayed the same, as did the state of his eyes.
Completely shut.
I sighed, and glanced back down to my laptop. Pressing the Enter key, I started another line of notes.
“‘In today’s modern society, the phenomenon of Awakening created two entirely new sets of lifeforms: ‘monsters’ and ‘demons’. Monsters are creatures of Earthly value birthed from mana, which exist in the liminal subspace of both the mana and physical worlds. Demons, however, exist only in the world of mana and interact with the physical world through means of using a vessel with mana.”
Gwen paused for a breath. This was already getting boring. I turned back around, and this time poked my finger into the base of his head at the swirl in his hair. What the heck did he do to have such silky hair?
“Bro. I know you’re tired, but Avil. Gwen is getting to the good part right now. Wake up.” I pushed my finger harder, but he didn’t wake up. Well, now I knew that not causing a scene wasn’t an option anymore.
Gwen continued, “‘The subspace which contains monsters, the combination of the physical and mana world, is also occupied by all living creatures on Earth, and therefore meaning possible vessels for demons. However, humans are the primary vessel for demons due to the notion that they are the most intelligent and most capable Earthly species, popularly theorized by Cyril Wright, a renowned scientist most known for pioneering the field of mana…’”
“Hey. Avil. Gwen is leaning down right now. It looks like she’s going to kiss you—” I smirked as Avil threw his hands over his head like he was in an earthquake drill with an audible gasp.
Gwen also stopped, and hiccuped, looking at me in flustered horror, a blush crawling up on her face.
Noticing her pause was a bit too long, I began feeling the eyes of several people on me.
“Gwen? Go on,” Professor Justin said dully.
“O-oh! Yes, sorry,” she glared at me, still a bit flushed.
“Is there a problem? Ah, Avil. You’re finally awake,” the Professor nonchalantly nodded his head. “Was the sleeping beauty the problem, Gwen?”
She immediately shook her head, unable to hide the pink on her face. “No, I’m doing good right now,” she made an attempt at the teacher’s nonchalance, probably because of the class’s attention towards her. It was a weak attempt.
What kind of professor was this? No punishment?
Eh.
No punishment!
Avil swatted my hand away, and getting a closer view on his face I saw he was also in the same field as Gwen. Plum pink.
“You have a good nap, Mister Sleeping Beauty?” I cackled.
“Shut up, you d*******,” he warily said, his arms still over his head.
“Heh. Yesterday, during your exam, didn’t you—”
“Shut the **** up.” Avil clearly threatened to rage.
I smiled, but didn’t press him any further, though I half expected him to shoot back. Too many people weren’t minding their own business. To be fair, I had just interrupted the lesson.
//
9:40 A.M. // 10 - 17 - 2023 // Arc - Practical Testing Block, Site B
Starring Avil Daniase
//
I knelt down in sprinter’s fashion, my shield strapped to my back. This was go time. The screen still hadn’t gone away ever since that scary day just a painful week ago.
========================
‘Avil Daniase’ has been presented with a task:
[Prove yourself]
========================
Caged. A bloody fight to the death.
Difficulty, medium.
All the chances in the world to prove myself.
The door swung open and I immediately rushed forward to my target, stanced heavily on the other side of the arena, a cage as in the name, a long and scary spear in its hands.
Outside the cage we were being watched by a bunch of other bots. Quite literally we were the entertainment. A few had their hands around the cage bars above us, the platform lowered into the ground for all of them to watch.
—B-BUMP, the door closed.
I lowered myself, still running forward, shield at the ready as the target prepared to stab.
Left!
—CLANG
I pushed the shield to my left, pushed back as the spear glanced off the side.
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Get in closer. You’ve practiced this.
Keeping me at a distance, a clash of steel on steel again as I leaned against the force of the stab to counterbalance against the sweeping feint from the bot.
It took a few steps to its right, swiftly in pursuit we engaged again, this time it learned a bit.
Two steps closer, my heart pounded harder, my breath not able to catch up.
Two more steps closer, the bot to my absolute surprise pushed itself up with the spear straight into the ground, vaulting onto me. Responsively I lifted my heavy shield over my head, bracing for the impact, which merely pushed slightly as the spear followed its owner who bounced gracefully off my shield and behind me.
I was completely open. With no time to adjust my shield, it stabbed straight at my back, and as fast as I could I jumped to the right.
Too slow.
The spear grazed my side, the area below my right pit and I screamed. It was agony.
That was at least 5 points gone.
It oddly didn’t hurt at all.
The spear then swung to the side with the momentum, sending me stumbling to the left.
Breathing harshly now, I lifted my shield again. This time I learned as well.
I didn’t have to be so aggressive, did I? And this is supposed to be human-like, right?
I smirked. “Hey, *****! Come try that **** again. You were so weak, my grandma’s wooden spoon could hurt more!”
The bot was still.
“Ugly-***, your mom is a *****! How can you be so ******* ugly?! She beds so many people, at least one of them was the ugliest **** in the world for you to come out like that. So many, in fact, that I had a taste last night, *****! To be honest—”
The bot dove in for the kill in a violent spur of anger. I surprised myself. That actually worked! Spear on shield, with a huge clang we collided. This time, I pushed the shield with all my strength, and it slid up the bot’s hand and into its face.
It was stunned. Now’s my chance.
I dropped my shield to move faster, and wrenched the spear from its grasp. My heart was beating, and beating, and beating, a drum and a rhythm set to victory. As it stumbled to take back the weapon, I kicked it in the abdomen, recoiling slightly from the jarring metal. Flipping the spear around as the bot fell to the ground, I quickly walked up closer and took the opportunity to stab down.
I missed the heart. Instead, it went into the shoulder, impaling it into the floor. It was stuck, now, struggling definitely but a lot more sluggish. It tried to pull the spear out with its other arm, the speared one completely limp, but I smashed my foot again into its stomach.
And again.
Good thing the bots didn’t make any noises.
I advanced to the head, and with one last kick the throat was smashed.
The bot went completely still.
[Your exam is complete and is being evaluated. Please stand by.]
And then the tiredness caught me.
//
1:25 P.M. // 10 - 17 - 2023 // Arc
Starring Kali Lapuz
Featuring Regan Yglesias
//
Thank goodness there wasn’t going to be a single class this week. The exams pushed them all aside, from morning to night. Both Regan and I had gotten lucky enough to do it quite early, so our entire week was free.
A warm gust of wind blew through my hair, pulled back into a bun, clipped up so it wouldn’t fall over my forehead. Under the cool shade, Regan hummed a little tune to my left, another song from this artist she had recently become obsessed with.
“How’s the reception for your exam?” I asked her, absorbed in my own reading session.
“Not as much as you,” she waved her hand easily, “but yeah, 24 comments.”
I scrolled down slowly on my page. There was a lot, a total of 109 comments on my exam. Most were quite short, though, just fulfilling the rubric of three sentences minimum, identifying something good, something bad, and some advice. And most of them were saying the same thing.
Comments were private only to the sender and the recipient, so I doubted that people were getting together to write the same exact thing, except in essence, they were identical.
‘Kali Lapuz walked through walls and somehow avoided the traps on the house. But, she took her time killing the bots, and doing it faster could have gotten her more points. My advice is that she should be more efficient with her time.’
I shook my head as I skimmed through another comment saying almost the exact same thing.
“They’re basically meaningless, or vague at most.” I sighed, listening to the tune Regan was still humming. It was pretty.
She stopped for a moment, “We just sat down, girl. You’ll find something good in there. I mean, you did do some really cool stuff, I’ll give you that. Like seriously, walking through walls by expelling all of your mana? Genius! See?”
I smiled slightly, tilting my head towards her. “Yours was awesome, though. I think you pulled the record for the fastest to beat Forest, right? Running through all of them like a piece of cake.”
“Nah, but that’s all I did, I didn’t choose a ‘smart’ map like you.”
“And I didn’t do something as cool as you.”
“You walked through walls, Kali!” Regan flicked my temple, slightly frustrated by my unwillingness to take the compliment.
“Girl, you set a record!” I responded with equal aggression, though not angry at all.
“There! We both did something cool. Now, shaddup!” She pulled back and began scrolling again. “Ah. That’s right. I’m done already.”
I snickered. “And what did you think of them?” Then I raised my eyebrow, looking at the screen.
Wait, wait, wait.
This one comment was particularly long. Like, really, really long. How many paragraphs… this was a whole essay! Six paragraphs of… legit stuff?!
She tried optimism. “Mmmmm…! They were mostly compliments towards me, the advice was to be a bit quieter, I guess?”
“And?” I kept my tone neutral, still slightly shocked at what I was reading.
“Well, there was more, like…” She paused, clearly wracking through her brain.
“Hah. I win, right?” She would freak out if she saw this. I was totally wrong.
“No! Wait, I mean—there’s….” Regan stuttered.
“In. Your. Face!” I gloated, and punched her in the shoulder with my free left hand to her annoyance.
She harrumphed, “Then since I don’t have anything to do now, let’s read your comments together.
“Wait, huh?”
She scooted towards me and wrapped her arm around my shoulder, pressing closely into me and making herself comfortable. In my panic to close the screen and hide the comment, she yanked my watch hand up and expanded the screen.
“Uh—!”
“Look at this, Kali! What does this look like?” Before I could respond, she pressed her lips to my ear, and whispered. “It looks like I just won!”
Taking much amusement in my freak-out, she pinched my right cheek, and pulled my baby fat, and then let go as I swatted her hand away.
“Regan!”
“Coming into the exam, Kali gave herself a huge disadvantage with her weapon of choice. Katanas are relatively long in nature, and bringing one indoors while knowing full well the size of the house on Villa would clash with the size of the katana immediately set her apart as either an ignorant fool or someone with a master plan.’” I blushed as Regan read the beginning paragraph. “Wow, Kali, good for you!”
“I think you proved your point,” I grumbled.
“Heh.”
//
8:47 P.M. // 10 - 19 - 2023 // Arc - Greenhouse
Starring Dean Harvest
Featuring Parker and ???
//
“You know you’re not supposed to be here!” I whispered harshly at the figure behind the row of budding pepper flowers. The hose slacked as my arms fell to my side. The industrial lights above washed over everything like a fake sun my rimmed hat covered me mostly from, the air was warm and mildly humid, and sweat dripped down my neck.
At least the uniform was kind of nice.
“So, what is this white flower plant here? Some sort of medicinal thing?” Parker leaned forward, his grey hoodie down around his neck as he uninterestedly sniffed the plant.
“I-I’m serious! You’re going to get caught by the people coming around!”
He didn’t respond, and only glanced up at me.
“It’s a Thai chili plant. Bird’s eye chilis.”
“Have you thought about my offer?” He asked quietly.
“No,” I said firmly. “Anyways, someone is coming—Parker?” He disappeared again, like that last time. He was one to give me plenty of room and yet still pressure me endlessly.
“Hey, Dean!” A girl poked her head into my row, her blond hair under her hat curled into her face, and she blew at it slightly. The beige-brown uniform on her had a few frills around the wrists and legs, she looked quite pretty in the denim overalls. “Were you talking with someone just now?”
“O-oh, Leslie!” I smiled at her and shook my head. “No, no I wasn’t.”
Leslie naively nodded. “Okay! I’m gonna go work on those pea plants over there by the section near the door. See you in a bit!”
She left, and I sighed shortly. Then I returned back to watering the plants.