I breathed deeply, feeling my adrenaline slowly fading as I picked myself up and coughed, grunting in pain.

I glanced around, spotting the red magical girl with the cat ears and tail who'd been tossed aside by Eris lying in a heap. I quickly jogged over, gently picking her up and propping her back against a statue, making sure not to aggravate anything.

She groaned in pain as I gingerly brushed her hair back, checking for any obvious signs of injury.

My aura sight picked up an invisible red, crackling energy that surrounded her body - and I narrowed my eyes. I didn't have anything like that on me, but it didn't look good. I focused my Luminary Conversion on it, slowly purifying it and pulling it into me.

"Hnn...?" the girl grunted as red motes of light sparked around her body, and she slowly came to.

"Easy now," I murmured softly. "Are you okay?"

She rubbed her forehead, wincing as she nodded slowly. "Hn... I'll be alright miss..."

"Call me Lux. You're one of the cadets here, right?"

She blinked, nodding slowly as she pushed herself to her feet. "I'm erm, Claw Strawberry. Freshly out of cadet status. Freshman here."

She shook her head, and I smiled as she steadied herself.

"Claw Strawberry? That's a cute name."

She grinned, blushing as she rubbed the back of her head. "T-thanks. Erm, and you are?"

"Harmonia Lux. You can call me Lux for short."

Claw Strawberry gestured over at the fallen boy with the tiger mask and purple fur coat. "And that's my older brother. Claw Currant. He's also a first year"

I made my way over and knelt next to him. A closer examination revealed his breathing to be labored and uneven, and to no surprise, he also had a red energy wrapped around his chest like a strait jacket.

Without hesitation, I began pulling it away and purifying it, absorbing the molten heat into my own reserves.

"And, uhm..." she pointed at the boy in the hi-tech suit. "His name's Gear. He's a friend we made during orientation and he's technically a Pioneer, but he's here with a team from Goldenrock City so he's been hanging out with us."

"I see," I murmured, yanking the energy out of him as well.

I smiled, standing back up as the last of it entered my body. The wave of warmth from having my mana replenished by the magic energy I'd taken made me feel refreshed and invigorated. Using Shadow Dance alone drained me of over ten percent of my reserves per second from my experimentation - so I was probably still under half my maximum strength.

But it was a hell of a lot better than how I felt before.

"Um, are you an upperclassman?" Strawberry asked me curiously. "Your... well, that performance was pretty outstanding. I didn't see you at orientation so..."

I rolled my eyes, unable to stop myself from blushing.

"No. I'm in your year, but I took an emergency contract during the Cataclysm. We had a separate induction day, though, so I suppose you haven't seen me."

Her eyes widened in surprise, and she stepped back. "You took a... an emergency contract? From the Guardians?"

I sighed. "Yeah, my best friend got bitten by a zombie and the move I just used to dispel whatever Eris did to you and your brother saved his life. It was either I take it right there or watch him turn. So yeah, I did."

Her cat ears drooped, and she hugged her waist. "Wow. I, I'm sorry that happened."

I grinned, stretching my arms out as I drew a circle with my right hand. "It's all in the past. I'm here, I'm alive. So's he, and so are you, yeah?"

Her expression became curious, and she grinned back at me. "Hey, that means we might have classes together? I know the freshmen ECs are going to be joining us for an exercise later this week. Maybe we can team up?"

"Ha! Maybe. We'll see what happens. Right now, though, we should check up on the others."

She looked back at her brother and then at me, unsure of what to say. The two of us walked up to the large boy in the purple fur coat, and I studied him for a moment. He groaned, holding his head as he tried to sit up, and I knelt down, steadying him.

"Be careful. Don't move too fast."

He blinked, glancing up at me with his purple eyes shining beneath the mask as he hunched over, groaning in pain. A tiger's tail twitched behind him, and I blinked in surprise as I got a closer look at his aura's size and density.

"Wow, you're uh, you must be pretty strong."

"Currant. Claw Currant. First Year but a bit of a veteran as a solo Knight. Proud to serve and stuff."

Huh, the kid has a bit of military energy to him.

I smiled softly and steadied him. "Take it slow, Currant. That was a nasty energy attack she hit you with. Name's Lux, by the way."

His eyes twinkled with a hint of gratitude, and he steadied himself against the wall. "Thanks, Lux. Appreciate it. Ugh. Kinda stings that she took me and Gear out with one hit like that."

The boy in the blue suit was sitting on the ground next to me, groaning and rubbing the back of his head as I moved to check on him.

"I'm fine," Gear muttered. "Ego's just a bit bruised. Would be nice if I could actually handle someone in a one-on-one match for once though."

Currant snorted. "Wanted a crack at Eris yourself, huh Gear?"

Gear shook his head. "Nah, not really. She was just kinda more than I expected. I mean, the forums always mentioned her as a kind of D-list joke villain, y'know?"

Strawberry chuckled. "Honestly, same. Who would have thought that the Dark Princess of Chaos could leave seven of us laid out like this in just a couple of minutes?"

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Oh.

Right.

I crinkled my nose, rushing over at the four cadets who hadn't regained consciousness, and got to work again. One was a magical girl with long blue hair, wearing a flowing blue middle-eastern style dress, another a roguish, dark-skinned and athletic spearman in a light cotton tunic with a scar on his cheek, a girl with scarlet curly hair and freckles who wore a musketeer's coat, and a fourth — a girl with messy braided blonde hair, a pair of sabers, wearing a French-style cavalier's outfit.

I purified their auras, wincing as I struggled to absorb the massive amount of energy that I was being force fed. But with the boost from drawing energy out of the other two, it was much easier.

When I was done, I watched as they groaned, slowly opening their eyes.

My body was humming with a dull ache now, and I knew I was reaching my limit.

Thank god Albert wasn't around. His teasing would be endless.

"Is everyone okay?" I asked in concern.

All four of them were covered in the thick, viscous substance that smelled like barbecue sauce, and Strawberry's clothes were ripped and torn from her earlier stunt. Currant and Gear had gotten off easy, having been taken out in one hit, but the rest of them were drenched in the sticky, savory substance, and I made a face as the smell reached my nose.

"Just sticky and gross," the blue-haired girl muttered, wiping her hands off on her dress.

The spearman groaned, slicking back his silver mohawk. "Ugh, it's everywhere. Does she seriously attack with barbecue sauce of all things?"

I looked around, taking in the commons as I stared in disbelief. The landscape was marred with scorch marks and impacts, and dozens of trees had been toppled over.

Eris was definitely not the pushover that supervillain watch communities made her out to be. She had a cunning intellect, incredible speed, agility, and was absolutely brutal with her attacks.

Just who was she, really?

The red-haired musketeer nodded towards me. "Thank you for healing us. I'm Scarlet Verne - the Muse of Twilight. We're the Knights of Summer Melody. Freshman year. Sorry you had to come in and bail us out. "

"Don't worry about it. I'm a freshman like the rest of you. She gave us all a run for our money."

"A freshman? I didn't see you at orientation," Verne blinked.

"Oh, uh."

I'd just had this conversation with Claw Strawberry, and it made me uncomfortable bringing it up again. "I was an emergency contract."

Verne paused, staring at me for a long moment. "Oh. Really? That's, uh... wow."

"Yep," I shrugged. "Took it in the heat of the moment to save my best friend. Still kinda getting used to everything, honestly."

She smiled. "Yeah, I guess that's true. Do you have a class plan yet?"

I cocked an eyebrow. "Class plan?"

She leaned back on her hands, sprawled out on the grass as she scrunched her nose. "Yeah, those of us with a team normally try to coordinate our combat or magic engineering courses to boost our team synergy. You, er, I guess you came in alone, right?"

"Well, yeah," I laughed nervously. "Not sure how well that'll work out."

She shrugged. "Hey, just something to think about for the coming week. Glad to see you weren't hurt too bad in that fight. We'd spent a year helping a senior knight team in our city round up supervillains and we were still barely able to land a few hits on that crazy psycho."

Gear, Claw Strawberry, and Claw Currant approached, nodding. "She got Claw Currant I both in one hit," Gear admitted. "Guy's gotta respect that."

"I was the same way," the spearman added, eyeing me. "We should've known we were walking into a trap and feint she laid for us. What ended up happening?"

"Lux here managed to drive her off!" Strawberry explained, wiggling her ears happily - causing the four of them to stare at me in surprise. "The two of them were actually pretty back and forth, honestly."

"You took Eris on alone, without a team?" The spearman grinned. "Respect."

"I mean, I kinda got the drop on her and didn't let her monologue. Just rode the momentum I guess." I sighed, grinning. "Then again, she still managed to give me one hell of a beating."

It was pretty obvious in hindsight that she'd been holding back on me in a major way. If she'd just rushed me the way she did towards the end, I wouldn't have been able to keep up with her skills in close range.

If she hadn't been such a showboat, I wouldn't have been able to pull the rug out from under her like that.

Although, in the end, she'd been the one to get away while leaving us a colossal mess to clean up. And there was the likely possibility that... Dark Princess Eris likely wasn't her true identity either. There was something she was hiding.

I wasn't sure why, but there was a feeling that tugged at my mind.

Something to do with that aura fluctuation and the reaction she had when I used Hopeful Heart Alchemy.

She'd recognized the ability I borrowed from Nightingale Eclipse. I was certain of it.

And she'd dropped the Eris persona and became serious when I briefly disrupted whatever illusion she was using. A disruption that lasted just enough to show me raspberry pink hair before she refocused it.

...Before she summoned a wand eerily similar to Arcadia Vox's iconic wand. And used it to attack me with an attack that wasn't exactly her Heartfelt Bloom, but damned close.

Something was definitely going on here.

I would have to investigate this further.

"Looks like the crisis is over. Might want to hose that shit off," I sighed, gesturing at the thick, spicy, delicious-smelling substance that dripped off of them. "I'm Harmonia Lux, by the way."

The blonde girl with the sabers approached me. "I'm Melania Auclair - Chevalier de Plein Vent."

She looked at her sticky hands awkwardly, declining to offer me a handshake, and I laughed nervously.

The spearman walked up behind her, the butt of his spear against the ground. "Yuzuki, Samurai of the Seven Moons."

They stared at each other for a moment, and the two of them high-fived as if they'd done it a dozen times, before cringing as their hands stuck comically glued together.

Their names were so... flowery. Colorful.

Finally, the girl with the long blue hair and flowing blue dress shook her head, sitting down on a park bench. "Azraq. Prima Ballerina of the Blue Danube."

"I love your names. They're so... fairytale-like," I said in amusement.

Gear chuckled. "Puh-lease. You ever meet a samurai named Samurai of the Seven Moons?"

I bit back a grin as Gear and Yuzuki glared at each other.

It was almost like I'd stumbled onto a community of sorts here. I was... genuinely afraid I wouldn't make any friends here other than Al, but seeing everyone interacting and joking around was comforting.

Well, now I just had to get to my dorm and clean up.

Just when I thought I had enough oddities and adventures for one day, I sensed a large energy signature suddenly rushing towards the campus with incredible speed.

Uh oh.

"Lux? What's up?" Strawberry asked me with a worried look.

"Pretty sure that's some of the upperclassmen coming back from the incident downtown. They probably heard there was a commotion up here."

She looked around in confusion. "O-kay... But why are you so worried?"

"Because..." I laughed sheepishly. "These guys can be a little... much."

Currant perked up, glancing at me. "Wait, what?"

"Luminary Barrier."

I deadpanned my skill, creating an artificial landing zone in the middle of the now virtually-empty Commons.

"Brace yourselves," I deadpanned again.

There was a sudden rush of air, and four radiant streaks of light raced over the campus. A raucous chorus of laughter echoed through the air as they circled around us, virtually creating a tornado of sound and light.

Then, all four of them simultaneously slammed into the ground in an explosion of dust and debris that filled the ring I created with my Luminary Barrier. Through the cloud of dust, I could make out four distinct shapes, and I felt a grin tug at my lips.

The students around me looked at each other in confusion, and I laughed, rubbing the back of my neck.

Eris had been a thorn in my side since the moment she showed up. She'd ruined a perfectly good pair of shoes, and I still hadn't forgiven her for that. Even more than that, she had put me through a brawl that had left me drained and exhausted.

But if anything could cheer a girl up...

I groaned, shaking my head as the suspense built up. As expected, four shadowy silhouettes slowly came into focus, already positioned in a dramatic group pose.

"When the cries of fair maidens ring out, we shall rise to the call..."

I giggled, recognizing the frantic, almost Shakespearean cadence of a boy who had... probably spent way too much time going to renaissance fairs.

"Hey Strawberry?" I grinned.

"Y-yeah? What's up, Lux?"

"How do you feel about... himbos?"

Her ears drooped as her red eyes lit up in curiosity. "Wh-what?"

"When the dark clouds gather on the horizon, we shall shine with the light of righteousness..." a deep baritone voice followed the first.

The silhouettes in front of us began to come into focus, and I couldn't help but smile.

"Correction, Strawberry..."

"And if the moon and stars are obscured by shadow, we shall light a path for those who cannot see!" a perky, boyish voice continued.

"What the hell..." she muttered. "They're..."

I smirked. "Yep."

...

"Magical Himbos."