The three of us ran through the gateway, and it opened up into a massive grassy field with countless shrubs and foliage surrounding it. The tether that had connected the three of us earlier dissipated as we crossed the threshold, and I couldn't help but gasp as I saw what Tesseract had done with the field.

In the moments she'd obscured our vision, a full-fledged forest had sprung up, with towering trees and a canopy that blocked out the sun's warmth. I blinked, surprised at the sudden shift as Aurora staggered, putting a hand to her head.

"What a strange... teleportation... effect."

Teleportation?! She teleported us?

My eyes swept over the field again, and I quickly realized that we were now facing the other way. The city's skyline was off in the distance, and there was a large purple beacon miles away toward the academy.

"Looks like she dropped us somewhere else on the isthmus," Elysia muttered, her eyes narrowing as she looked up at the treetops. "I'm not sure where we are now, but it's obviously still in her obstacle course."

She spun, gesturing to the towering tree trunks and the vines that curled around the edges of the clearing.

"We need to keep an eye out for other teams, as well as the traps and stuff Tesseract's no doubt set up. Let's stay close, okay?"

"Alright," I smiled, nodding. "You should take the front, though. Aurora, I don't suppose you have any sensory abilities? I have the ability to see peoples' auras and... well, good intuition to go with it."

She hesitated before responding. "I do have one, but it's useless for a situation like this. I can sense relational pathways. It's a very weak form of postcognition and precognition to gain insights and perceive emotions like directed enmity, but it doesn't do anything to detect creatures or objects."

I frowned. "Relational pathways? What do you mean by that?"

She shrugged, "I don't have full control of it yet, but my Talent allows me to see or feel connections between people or things in a way that others can't. Usually through a quick abstract impression. But like I said — it's abstract and I don't know exactly what it means. When someone has intent to harm another specific person or bears a grudge, it manifests as a spiderweb between the people in my view. When I focus on one person, I can get a single brief flash of their lives that shaped who they are. For example, when I look at Raging Sparrow, I saw impressions of a child waking up every day to an alarm clock to go down into her father's home gym to work out, only to be met by taunting and belittling from her family. With Sunlit Majesty, it's flashes of a superiority complex from parents who've pushed her to excel to an unhealthy degree. And with Ace, it's a sense of intense, almost desperate desire for authenticity and truth. She yearns for someone to see and know her for who she truly is. She was once an open book, but has lost all confidence and motivation to connect with others. She distracts herself with banalities and superficial humor to cover up her insecurities."

My eyes widened, and I couldn't help but peer at her with my mouth wide open.

She seemed to sense my unease, and her cheeks turned bright red as she looked away.

Elysia was staring at her in shock, her mouth agape. "Um... and how much can you... did you glean from the two of us, Aurora? That's a pretty intense skill."

No, Elysia wasn't staring at her in shock.

She looked like she was trying to hold a poker face, but her aura blazed with... mortification? There was something about Aurora that was unsettling her, and her aura was projecting a slight hint of a fight or flight response.

Aurora closed her eyes, shaking her head. "That is not my place to say. Out of respect for each of you, I will not share what I've sensed from your lives. However, I will share that I have seen qualities in each of you that are admirable and unique. I am honored to be partnered with the two of you, and I hope that we can work well together."

I cleared my throat, glancing at Elysia. "Um, right. Thank you for letting us know about your skill. It sounds incredibly useful. Scarily so. To the point you should probably keep that to yourself for now."

Aurora smiled serenely, nodding gently. "Let's say that was a leap of faith on my part. Trust works both ways, and it wouldn't hurt to get to know each other better in this way, right?"

I nodded, a bit of relief flowing through me. But...

I looked over at Elysia, who looked like she was about to hyperventilate.

Then, she breathed a visible sigh of relief, before nodding and smiling. She blushed, the color returning to her cheeks as she clapped her hands.

"Right! Now, let's get on ahead, shall we? We need to find a way out of this forest."

I nodded in affirmation, turning to Elysia. "Take the lead, Elysia. Your aura sensing should be able to find people far before my sight can. My gut tells me there's something wrong here."

She flashed me a wink, grinning. "Gotcha! I have a pretty decent range on it, so we'll be careful."

We began to walk into the forest, but Aurora suddenly placed a hand on Elysia's elbow, causing her to pause.

"Elysia.... like I said, it's probably not my place to say this, but... I do feel it would be best if you not take too long to overanalyze. Be mindful of your feelings."

There was a warning in her tone, and I shivered as Elysia's aura suddenly flared silver tinged with gold and pink, blinding me for a brief second.

"I'll be fine."

She was stiff and and didn't even bother to turn around. Instead, she strode forward breaking off into a brisk but manageable jogging pace. Well, a jogging pace for a transformed magical girl at least.

I stared at her flowing platinum blonde hair, wondering what that was all about.

There was definitely something I didn't know about here. But was it my place? It didn't have anything to do with me.

It didn't seem like I could do much to intervene, and it would be better if I just minded my own business.

I sighed as Aurora smiled in understanding, shrugging as we followed Elysia into the forest in a light jog.

"Hey, um. Sorry about that," she whispered, twiddling her thumbs. "I might have overstepped both of your boundaries a bit there."

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I frowned. "So you must have seen something pretty important, huh?"

She shook her head. "It's not for me to share."

I frowned, shrugging. "Well, you gave us a critical summary of three members of our class within seconds of meeting us, so I don't know. You might want to reconsider where you draw the line."

Her brow twitched as her voice came out high-pitched and nervous. "Ugh... I guess I really shouldn't have said anything. Truth be told, those three got on my nerves for the way they went out of their way to single out emergency contract holders like you. I don't have full control of it yet. I shouldn't have..."

I smiled reassuringly, patting her back. "Hey. We're only human, and won't always have the best judgment, even as magical knights. I know you might have seen some stuff about my past... family, even. I just ask that you keep it to yourself for now, okay?"

She nodded, blushing. "I know. It's just... scary, you know? To have such powers and not know exactly what I'm supposed to do with them. It does feel like a bit of a burden."

I nodded, letting out a sigh of relief. "I don't know, Aurora. To be honest, I feel the same myself. This whole magical knight thing isn't a walk in the park."

She shook her head. "All we can do is... believe I guess. Have faith. Do what we think is right, and own the results and consequences.."

Faith, huh?

If anything, she had a pretty interesting perspective on things. And she did have a gift, that was for sure.

Though she didn't say it, I could almost feel the weight of using her skill on her conscience.

She took a leap of faith to trust us, and I would do my best to reciprocate.

We continued to walk in silence for a few minutes, taking in the stillness of the forest. But there was an underlying sensation of tension in the air, like we were being watched.

And then, Elysia began to slow to a stop in the middle of a clearing. She sighed, shaking her head as she turned to me, her eyes narrowed with irritation.

"Aurora? Sorry for reacting like that. I tend to get carried away with my emotions sometimes, and you hit a nerve back there."

Aurora blushed, shaking her head. "I overstepped, and should have stayed quiet. My apologies."

I raised an eyebrow, tilting my head at Elysia.

There was something odd about the way she reacted to Aurora's power. Her aura was strangely subdued, with the pink and gold now threaded with gray and black.

She smiled back, before responding to Aurora. "Well, it doesn't matter, anyway. Let's just focus on getting out of this forest."

Elysia frowned, sighing in exasperation. Then, she put her hands on her hips, staring up at the trees. "And I'm talking to the four of you as well."

She shot a pointed look upwards, and I couldn't help but suppress a giggle as I saw three transformed magical girls and a boy perched in the trees, glaring down at us. They were mismatched — clearly thrown together and scrambled from multiple separate teams.

"I had a feeling." I chuckled, shaking my head. "So, what did we do this time?"

I hadn't met any of these students yet, but I did see them in the field gawking while Raging Sparrow's team confronted me earlier.

Suddenly, Tesseract's voice resounded around the forest, "Ah! Looks like we have some competition between three of the teams in the south-east quadrant. As I mentioned before, though — just make it across the training course. That is the only requirement, and failure to do so will be assessed appropriately."

She giggled, but the sound was eerie and foreboding. "Well, try to have fun out there, you crazy kids. There's more to this than meets the eye!"

One of the girls jumped down, her glowing rainbow-colored ankle-length ponytail flowing behind her as her eyes swept across the three of us. She was wearing a futuristic raver outfit, with all kinds of flashy neon accessories and sunglasses. "Well. Just wondering how convenient it was that three emergency contract holders were placed on one team."

I shrugged, holding my arms out placatingly. "Alright, then. Hey, we don't want any problems. How about we group together and figure out a way to work with what we have?"

Rainbow hair snorted, rolling her eyes as her voice dripped with sarcasm. "Really? Like we'd team up with the likes of you. I was thinking it over for the last couple off days, and Sunlit Majesty had a point about you lot just backdooring into this school."

I let out a breath, and Aurora slowly reached out to grip my arm, a concerned look in her eyes.

The girl sneered, her eyes narrowing. "Don't know why we had to be paired with two rejects back there. Might as well just try to make it on our own without them."

Did they ditch two of their teammates for being emergency contract holders?

She turned, gesturing to her three teammates up in the trees. "You guys ready?"

One of the magical girls, dressed in a green and white exotic ensemble, flipped down, running her fingers through her matching hair in frustration. "Are we really going to waste time on this, Neo Dymium?"

She shrugged, shaking her head. "I just figured we'd start a little healthy competition with the little emergency contract holders and get a bit of entertainment value out of it. All that matters is that we make it across the field, right? We don't need their help."

I had a really, really bad feeling about this.

My gut twisted, and I couldn't help but roll my eyes, shaking my head. "Really? Guess we're going our own way then."

Please just go away....

Aurora's hand moved to cover her mouth, and I felt her breath catch in her throat.

Don't tell me they're —

"Lux, look out!"

She suddenly pushed me forward in a desperate tackle, and all I could do was look up as a massive blast of sparkling purple energy exploded yards away from my face.

I flinched out of reflex as we hit the ground, only to look up in shock to see a blue, layered hexagonal barrier had appeared around the two of us.

I felt a gentle tug as Elysia stepped beside me, helping Aurora and me to our feet. I looked up to thank her, but I froze as I took in the look on her face.

Her expression was neutral, but it radiated a deep and almost tranquil hostility. Her brown eyes had turned into an icy lunar silver, which I couldn't help but stare into. Then, I blinked as her aura erupted from her in a shimmering blaze of silver, gold, and a faint simmering red.

What was going on with her emotions?!

Elysia smiled, helping Aurora to her feet as well. Then, she turned and stretched her arms with a yawn as she looked up in the trees. "Hey, guys. Seriously? I was already in a pretty bad mood, and really didn't want to do this dance right now. But if you want to be difficult..."

A male knight dropped down - a dark-skinned boy with a medium-length preppy haircut dressed in a sharp, formal business suit. He folded his arms, raising an eyebrow. "My apologies. I do not wish to antagonize you. After all, we are partners in this exercise, are we not? I believe working together is in everyone's best interest."

His words were polite and reasonable, but I could see the glint of an agenda in his eyes.

"However, I cannot help but be curious about your name and power. Elysia, is it? My name is Telegraph. I can already sense that there are some sensitivities and egos here, so I shall try to make the best of it. I wish you no ill will."

Elysia put on an uncharacteristic sneer, rolling her eyes as she let out a guffaw.

"Telegraph, more like. You're all flash and no substance. You must not be familiar with the way I work, so let me introduce myself. I'm the — er, Elysia Veritas and I won't tolerate fools or blockheads on an especially shit day. You are all out of your league. That's not just words; it's a fact."

She gestured to the remaining girl in the trees, a slight smirk on her lips. "And you, up there, just made the biggest mistake of your life. I don't take kindly to anyone bullying my teammates."

The other magical girl dropped down, a resigned look on her face. She was wearing a black skater skirt and laced up bodice, with short purple hair that framed her face and had a pair of teddy bear ears on top. She didn't have any fancy accessories like most magical girls did, but she had a tattoo of a bear on her wrist.

"Valkyrie Ursa. Neo here did pick a terrible time and place, but I am curious as well. Miss Tesseract gave us express permission to engage or work with other teams at our discretion as we departed from our teleportation gates, and I'm interested to see how she plays this out."

She bowed politely, before lifting her head with a devilish grin. "I suppose it would be a good bonding exercise to test our abilities and show off our fighting spirit."

Elysia snickered, her aura still radiating a bit of menace as she glanced over at Aurora and me.

"Alright, you four. We don't have time for this, so I'm going to make this quick. You want us to be your entertainment? Try to keep up."

I furrowed my brows, blinking. What was going on with Elysia right now?

She seemed to be in a different mindset than usual. It was like the flash of a confident but dorky battle junkie I'd seen when we sparred was out in force, and she was practically radiating hostility right now.

Aurora cleared her throat, gathering her wits as she spoke up. "Aren't we a bit outnumbered here, Elysia? There's four of them, and..."

Before Aurora could finish her sentence, Elysia blurred across the clearing in a streak of blue.

...

And in just a heartbeat, it was over.