Jay rose as Onyx knocked on the door. “You’ve got to train harder, get stronger than anyone else, if you’re going to war. You’d better be at the top of all your classes, or I’m not taking you anywhere.”
The four of them dutifully nodded at the empty threat, dispersing. Jay left for his next class.
“Blood, Flesh, and Bone, eh?,” Emerald asked. “Rare affinities to have. And apparently, you developed them while being… experimented on.”
She stood at the front of the class, her eyes a piercing green. Emerald wore a verdant dress, shimmering as she moved. Many of the boys’ eyes intently focused on her, oblivious to the rest of the world.
There were two others sitting in his class. Emerald paced at the front of the class. “I digress. So, Jay, your classes-you’ll have a different affinity scheduled for each day. When you learn the principles of one school, you can apply them to all your other affinities. You will learn about your affinities in class and apply the different schools to your affinities.”
Emerald started once more, at the front of the room. “Blood, Bone, and Flesh. Technically three, but they work as one. There has been no documentation of anyone existing with any one of those. They always end up with all three.” She started pacing around, bringing up one of her arms. “One who wields these is never without a weapon.” Her flesh split, revealing a sharpened bone sword.
One student turned green and blurted out a string of words. “That looks like it really hurts!”
Emerald nodded. “The cost is pain.” Her hand returned to normal. The flesh zipped back up and secreted the bone inside the arm. “However, a skilled Blood, Bone, and Flesh wielder can also heal themselves. For a cost of pain.”
The green student mumbled something and ran out of the room. Emerald simply gazed after her for a moment before continuing. “These are very dangerous. Not like Fire, for example. Fire will kill someone by burning them to death. Blood will suck them dry. Bone will break their limbs. Flesh will carve them apart. And if you’re not careful, you’ll do it to yourself.”
Emerald pointed down at the class. “Volunteer.”
Jay stood when it seemed no one else would, walking down the aisle to Emerald’s waiting eyes. When he arrived, she tapped his arm with a finger. “Do you feel anything?”
Jay felt a slight presence trying to break into his body, but it made no headway and dropped off. Looking out at the class, he noted many of the boys’ jealous stares. He turned to Emerald, meeting her piercing eyes. “I felt a slight push, but it didn’t get very far.”
Emerald nodded, stepping to the side and unzipping her arm once more to reveal the bone sword. She moved it to Jay’s arm and paused. “Are you okay with this?”
Jay nodded. He felt a slight prick and blood started dripping out of a tiny cut. The bone sword left a… pathway in, which the presence quickly used to enter his body and start controlling him. Grabbing his own affinities, he closed the cut, but no noticeable difference happened. Emerald raised her hand, both lazily and delicately, and his arm copied her exactly. The presence seized control of his face, and his expression changed. It changed with a slight burst of pain, and suddenly he noted many of the boys’ gazes turning to him.
Inside him, Amon finally noted the unfamiliar presence and what was going on. She grabbed it, looking at it curiously for a few seconds before breaking it. Instantly, Jay felt another sharp pain in his face. Emerald was watching him quizzically. “I could have sworn… Oh, you’re the kid Onyx likes. Alright then.”
She turned back to the class. “So, you see, if I cut him with bone enhanced by my affinity, a path opens into his body that I can exploit to control it. You saw me change his face to my face, and I can do much more as well. Class it out for now. Goodbye.”
Amon, what were you doing during the rest of the class? That was a demonstration! You didn’t need to break it.
I didn’t know.
Why?
I was napping.
Wait, you were napping?
It’s a perfectly fine pastime to have!
Shaking his head, Jay exited the room.
Jay walked through the wooden doors of the library, saying hi to Ms. Leil before entering the massive shelves filled with books. Jay just glanced around while ambering down the rows, not looking for any specific books. Eventually one caught his eye. ‘The History of the Metallic Council’.
There was one problem. A small one.
The book was ten shelves up and magic wasn’t allowed in the library.
So Jay started the laborious job of climbing the bookshelves(which the librarians probably would have hated just as much, if not more, than magic) to get the book. It continued to evade him, however, as he kept falling down every few shelves.
Then he stacked books instead.
Grabbing books off the shelves, he formed an odd-looking but stable set of stairs. Taking a quick breath, he put his right foot on the first step. It stood. Then he lifted his other foot. The book under his right foot immediately slid away, as if it knew what he was trying to do. Cursing the book, Jay put the books back on the shelves-probably in the wrong order. Then he went to ask Ms. Leil.
She reluctantly put down her book, listened to his question, and nodded, following his directions to the specified book. Then she reached out her hand and the tome easily floated down to it. “Now,” she said. “This doesn’t mean that you can use magic. Only the head librarians can. And do you see any other head librarians around here?,” She pointedly looked around. “So many kids think they can do magic when I get books for them and end up burning down entire shelves.”
Jay nodded. “I’m not about to pull out any fire here, Ms. Leil.”
She gave him a suspicious look. “See that you don’t.”
By now, it was time to throw fire around under Ruby’s discretion once again, and he quickly checked the book out, nearly running out of the room.
Ruby was waiting for them, silently smouldering at the front of the class. Jay saw smoke curling out of his ears as he stared down a hapless student. The student held a simple water bottle, cowering before Ruby’s anger. “Why did you bring water into my class?”
The student shivered for a moment. “Sir, I just wanted a bottle of water to drink!”
Ruby pointed at the door. His eyes seemed to sear through the water bottle, which Jay swore was boiling. “Leave. It. Outside.”
The student almost ran out the door before dropping his water bottle with a harsh ‘clang’ and running back inside, stumbling to his desk.
Ruby started speaking before he’d even sat down. “You are all going to make different types of fire today. Reach for the flame inside you.”
Jay grabbed the flame in his chest. He tried to alter it, and it slowly gave way, revealing three different aspects he couldn’t recognize.
“There are three things you should be able to change. Now, most of you probably don’t know what any of these are! One of them is what the fire releases when it burns fuel. The next is what it can burn. The third is where it can burn. You’ll figure out which is which, eventually.”
Ruby pulled out a pocketwatch, clicking on the top. “You have until the end of class to make a new type of fire.”
A frostflame appeared in front of Jay, as did an acid-green one that released acid when it burned, and only burned air. The next one that appeared was water-based, only burning in water, designed to burn kelp. Jay did not know where the last idea came from. He just knew that he’d created an ecosystemic disaster.
Acid dripped onto his desk, but Ruby didn’t glare at him. Instead, he nodded. “It looks like one person prepared for this class and created types of fire to use.”
Ruby turned away from him to berate another student, but Jay kept going. Sweat beaded as he conjured more flames, every single one different. His water-burning flame eventually disappeared, as he moved away the beaker he’d had it in. In the end, he had five different types of fire, in a pentagon. Normal, Frostfire, Acidflame, Shadowflame, and Aquaburn. They all floated in front of him, trying to escape his control, but he held onto them.
Then, he slowly rotated them, then faster and faster, until he had a blazing wheel of colour in front of his face. He kept at it until his chest hurt, the flame within almost gone.
Then he let it die out, the fire fading out of existence, leaving a bright afterimage in his eyes. Ruby was watching, and Jay expected a lecture, but Ruby defied his expectations. “It’s good to remind people that there’s more to magic than killing people,” Ruby said, before going back to watching the rest of the class, who were mostly staring at him, not expecting a heartfelt comment. “What are you doing? Staring at him? What work will that get done? Make your fire!”
The rest of the class got back to work as Jay sat back, feeling the flame in his chest slowly get hotter, closer to its full potential..
The class ended not too long after, and Jay left, quickly arriving at Psionics and sitting next to Crystal. “Today we’ll be doing contests. You can do anything you want to protect your mind. You’re up against someone else, and whoever’s mind I get into first loses!,” Iolite declared. “Pair one! Jay and Crystal!”
Jay nearly groaned as Crystal’s eyes locked onto him. She was by far the more experienced Psionicist, as it was her specialty. He set up his mental walls, and nary a moment later Iolite called, “Begin!”
He felt her presence crash into the mental barriers he had up, ineffective for the moment. However, it was rapidly gaining strength, quickly getting through the first wall, then the second in nearly half the time, the third almost instantly, and the fourth didn’t even slow her down. Then it touched the inside of his mind, and he had lost. Iolite nodded to Crystal. “You win.”
“Is there a prize?”
Iolite shook her head. “No. Go sit down.”
Pouting, Crystal went to her seat, Jay sitting next to her. The rest of the class paired up, though there were no other interesting battles.The class ended as soon as the last pairing had fought, and they were free to continue on with their day.
After class, Jay left for his room, where the rest of the group was waiting as soon as he opened the door. “How did you get in?,” he asked. “And is my room just the meeting spot for the rest of the year?”
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“By teleporting, and yes,” Drake answered, sitting down in the living room.
Crystal pulled out the board game, and they played, not paying much attention to it. “I heard you’re in a new class now, Drake?,” she said, not taking her eyes off her piece.
Drake shrugged. “Onyx put me in Void, which was pretty boring, to say the least. Apparently I have an affinity for it.”
Crystal scowled. “I have to do Earth, Wind, and Water, so I learn to control them through Thought.”
“I just have to do the Lore of the Depths class, taught by Ms. Leil. She’s pretty nice, so I like it. I get to learn about the creatures that live down there, so I can summon them, eventually.”
Jay shuddered. The havoc she would cause if she could summon a sea dragon…
They sat there, playing the board game and talking until late at night, when they went to sleep.
- One month later
Onyx hadn’t met with him yet. He’d disappeared off the face of the Earth, and had taken Jay’s lessons of the School of Change with him.
Jay had learned to see the spirits that swirled around him at all times, talking to them using Voice.
He’d learned to control the world through his Will, enforcing his Thoughts on existence.
The world bent to his Aura, fueled by Dominion.
He could Sing, and the world would willingly do what he asked of them through his Note. However, Crystal had pointed out, multiple times, that his singing voice was terrible. Only his ‘magic mental singing’ was passable.
His Fire classes, always taught by Ruby, were going well. Today, there had been some kind of tournament. As he stepped into the room, he was off to the side, alone. The rest of the room was divided into groups and set against each other. Notably, Jay saw he was alone against three people. Ruby pointed at him and the three people, directing them to the front of the class. “One against three. Fight. Use any type of fire, but only fire. Go.”
Instantly, a wave of fire and frostfire came for him. They clashed, one designed to burn heat, and the other designed to release it. The Frostfire consumed the normal fire, dropping to the ground as the two wielders started shouting at each other. Fire filled with lightning shot at him, but Jay easily sidestepped it, shooting back a normal fireball. It was blocked by a massive wave of fire that wasted far more energy than he had used. Shrugging, he threw another.
This one wasn’t so easily blocked, for it was changed to burn fire, and convert all the energy it received into heat. It would burn through any attempts his opponents made to survive.
And sure enough, it did. One of his opponents put up a wall of fire, but his flames burned through and continued on to burn on the student’s nape. Ruby grabbed the fire off the student, as he did to the flames that landed on the other two. Jay sat down, the rest of the class progressing uneventfully until he was released to Psionics.
Today was a normal class concerning tangential defences, or mental defences that would send your opponent’s mind off on a tangent, unable to attack you while they were distracted. Jay developed a simple one, making an image of a rock with a series of symbols on it, seemingly decipherable by a cipher on the same rock. However, it wasn’t truly a language, nor did it act like one, and the cipher would not help with making heads or tails of the script.
Iolite looked at it for a moment. “Good.”
Then she continued checking on the rest of the class, most of them not getting a ‘good’ out of her mouth.
Much more of the class of Blood, Bone, and Flesh was gone by now, Emerald’s gory classes driving them off. Today, she had a flesh golem set up at the front of class, a familiar prop she’d used before. “Today, your task is to take control of the golem.”
Each student went up and tried once, some gaining control, while others didn’t quite make it. Jay was one of the last, and he examined it before diving into its flesh with his magic.
There was a sort of… central core within its body that he latched onto, and suddenly he could control the golem, making it walk around and wave to the class. Emerald nodded, satisfied, and he let go of it, returning to his seat and sitting down.
That night, they played another board game. “Will we ever have another time to just sit and play board games like this again after the war starts?”
Catherine paused. She didn’t answer, though Crystal did. “Probably not. Which is why we need to make the most of this right now.”
Jay nodded. “Well then, let’s.”
None of them noted the presence staring at them from outside the window until it was too late. Roots erupted through their room with pointed, deadly ends that tried to stab straight through their hearts. Amon instantly generated superheated tendrils, shooting through the window and attempting to catch their would-be assassin. The roots curled around and into the floor, ripping the entire room out of the tower and into the night.
They were all knocked around, slamming into the walls before escaping the room. Drake teleported and Crystal burned a hole out for the rest of them. A woman was waiting outside, no mask on her face, with a crown of thorns on her head. She wore a flower-patterned dress as she watched them land on the ground. Their room landed with a ‘thump’ far behind them, a mutilated piece of the dorms.
A giant tree appeared behind the crowned woman, bloody leaves dripping onto the ground. Broken branches pointed at the sky as if they held a grudge against it. “Behold the Phantom Tree. Your last vision of nature.”
The very grass under their feet erupted, trying to stab them through, when the Phantom Tree advanced.
Its roots tore out of the ground and it started moving with a vengeance, branches and leaves scything down with intent to kill. Quicksilver manifested next to him, forming into a vaguely humanoid shape. Silver clothes formed over it, a steel dress that ended at its ankles.
The figure’s hair lengthened to a womanly span. Finally, facial features scratched themselves over the blank metal of the figure’s face, and left Amon standing in her metallic glory next to him, staring down the tree.
You good to go?
Sure.
Then they broke apart, circling the tree. Drake was looking for an opportunity to strike, Crystal was charging up another massive fireball like the one they’d used against Onyx, and Catherine was smashing the tree with her hammer repeatedly. Amon and Jay flashed between the branches of the tree, cutting through every branch they reached, but the tree simply grew tougher, stronger, faster with every single moment. Its branches started regenerating, while the assassin stood behind it, protected at all times by the tree. If they went for her, the tree would find itself gifted with a plethora of opportunities to strike.
As they passed by each other, Jay caught Amon’s arm for a moment, long enough to superheat her, causing her to glow an angry red. Suddenly, a tree branch he couldn’t avoid came for him, and Jay forced his heel bone to lengthen out of his heel, catching on a branch behind him and sending him flying above the one in front of him.
On his next pass with Amon, he superheated her again, grabbing an equally hot sword she tossed him. As the branches thinned, he caught her silver eye and, together, they stabbed their swords into the tree, repeatedly, never in the same place. It bled sap and weakened until it finally released an inhuman shriek. Fire caught on the tree and burned. It refused to go out until the entire tree was gone.
The assassin behind it stared at the tree, then ignored it, raising a hand. “Alright then, time to try.”
Drake’s daggers cut into the assassin, leaving a sickly green behind as he disappeared. The crowned woman laughed, the wounds regenerating without a trace. Crystal’s fireball came immediately afterwards, but crashed into a massive wooden shield, revealing the assassin, unharmed, behind it. A hysterical laugh sounded as wooden armor formed on her, bark still on it, as if she was turning into a tree. The wood continued to collect and formed a club and shield, which she twirled with ease while advancing on Jay and Amon.
Then Crystal launched her fireball. It broke straight through the shield the assassin was holding. The armor stood no chance, instantly shattering as fire shot in all directions in a concussive blast. It laid Jay and Amon out on the floor. Drake, just far enough to be unaffected, jumped in, his daggers suddenly sheathed in the woman’s shoulders. She gasped, her lungs struggling to collect air as the darkness Drake had jammed into her devoured it from inside her body.
Catherine charged in with a whoop, her hammer coming down in a crescent with the full power of her muscles behind it. A sea serpent flew in and feasted on the assassin’s abdomen after she blasted her armor away. Still the assassin stood.
Jay and Amon, recognizing this as their opening, scythed in from two sides. Jay was on the right, with Amon on his left. When they got close enough, they crossed, forming an X where they met, directly on the assassin. Twin sword wounds cut straight through her skull, which broke off the rest of her body. It landed on the ground in four pieces. Jay sighed, stepping away from the body. They could finally go to sleep now.
Then a shout from Catherine had him turn around with a superheated blade and jam it into the assassin, who was directly behind him with a new head. The wooden club swooped in an overhand smash to cave in his head. It landed, a glancing blow because of Jay’s own strike hitting first and pushing her away.
It launched Jay through the air, desperately healing his head wound with Blood, Bone, and Flesh. He resculpted his skull with Bone, recirculated his blood with Blood, and fixed his brain with Flesh. He did it as fast as possible. Thought made the affinities act exactly as he told them to, expressing his will upon himself. Then Jay got up, ready to fight again. The assassin stood not far away, laughing maniacally with a sword lodged in her chest. Is that what I look like when I get stabbed?
Until you pull the sword out, yeah.
Fire condensed in Jay’s right hand, a sickly yellow flame formed directly from more Will, and he tossed it at the man.
It burned, thriving on the wood, as the woman screamed. The wood fell off in blackened chunks revealing her ravaged body, burning just as wood would. He’d modified his fire to ignore the water that was an intrinsic part of wood and flesh and burn it anyway.
They watched her go down again in flames, and get up, her eyes blazing with anger. The fire was completely gone, as were any signs of damage. “Fine then. Flower Field of the Solstice.”
A massive maw chomped on Jay’s leg. He looked down, seeing flower that had grown below him. Teeth were dragging on his leg, blood flowing into the flower. He desperately created more to prevent it from sucking him dry. Jay tugged, but the teeth were hooked inwards.
“Screw this.”
Fire blossomed from him, the flowers burning in his Aura of flame. Yet they persevered. He concentrated, and the world turned white as the temperature skyrocketed. The fire burned him as well, but Jay constantly healed himself. He made the flames even hotter around his foot, burning through the plant until he could lever his foot out. His friends recognized when he was going off the rails and managed to avoid the fire, though Catherine simply ignored it, laughing her own mad laugh as water warded off the flames. Amon stepped through them, ignoring the heat, and joined him and Catherine in the flames. “Let’s do this.”
Drake’s darkness, for a single moment, hid Jay, Amon, and Catherine’s presence, enough time for them to get right up to the surprised assassin, who was currently on fire, though she was ignoring it. Crystal’s Psionics joined their push, linking the team together and disorienting the assassin. Jay visibly saw shards of purple flying from her, and he dodged them, letting them hit their intended target, the assassin.
As Drake’s darkness lifted, Jay sped up, him and Amon taking point. Amon turned red as Jay infused her with Blood, a bone sword extending itself out of his right arm. He caught a revolver in his left, firing thrice into the assassin before he arrived, swinging his sword. The assassin, to her credit, instantly noticed the threat of the new weapon and what it implied, bending in half to dodge the swing. Amon instantly capitalized, a tendril of bloody silver reaching for her.
The woman gymnastically flipped over the tendril, wood erupting in all directions as she formed a giant cocoon to push them away. Jay let it push him, flying backwards a slight amount as Catherine jumped high in the air, yelling a war cry.
Water gathered behind her, much of it collecting onto the back of her hammer, forming a glimmering trail.
The rest, a far larger amount, condensed into a massive leviathan, which roared as its watery mouth opened, a ball of deep blue water appearing within, becoming smaller with each passing second. Catherine’s hammer crashed down, the power of the sea hitting it and forming massive cracks in the cocoon. She pushed, but it didn’t break, the cocoon holding fast.
Jay rushed in, trusting her, as did Amon. Just before they reached the cocoon, they merged into one, Jay’s bone sword in his own right side, and Amon’s left side holding a sword of bloody vengeance.
Crystal’s lightning bolt descended, smashing the cocoon once more and widening the cracks. Drake launched a bolt of darkness onto the cocoon, which flowed over the entire cocoon and weakened it.
Jay’s flames condensed back into him, the flowers thoroughly dead now, as the leviathan shot the ball of water it held.
For a second, everything went quiet, the ball of water hitting the back of Catherine’s hammer. Nothing happened, her hammer staying still on the cocoon.
Then a giant GONG sounded, the shell fracturing and breaking apart into wooden shards. Catherine lifted her hammer, swinging it again, her water backing it. The assassin just barely blocked it before Jay and Amon sped in, flowing on a slipstream of quicksilver and slicing Jay’s bone sword and Amon’s bloody sword cutting small wounds into their opponent.
Jay instantly grabbed hold of his opponent’s body with as much Will as he could muster, detonating his bones and blood. He watched the assassin explode into a bloody mess, no part of his body left untouched. Crystal’s lightning bolts descended several times for good measure, and in the end, there was nothing left except for a black pit.
They had won.