July 10th, year 024 Angels Descent

The class had set off the day after they had met with Gunter’s parents to head to the start point of the race, which was to the south of the Octogram. During their journey, Alex had taken the chance to speak with his parents about how his school life was going. Since then, both parents had been doting on the young titan.

“To think our son caught the eye of the Yuu Ironforge,” Mel bragged for the umpteenth time as they were guided to their berth so they could set their ship up.

“What’s with all the cloth barriers?” Tasha asked, gesturing to some of the other berths that were occupied by their rivals.

“That little lady is because they are cowards!” Senior declared, clenching his fists. “They hide away their ships because they know they have weaknesses!!”

“And we aren’t going to hide our ship. The Trouser Surprise will be on display for all to see,” Mel added. Hearing the name the two oddball parents had given the ship, the class couldn’t help but groan. Only Alex and Bea found the name amusing.

“Should we polish the Trouser Surprise so it becomes shiny?” Bea asked, giggling.

“Great idea, Bea. Then it might start flashing people,” Alex added as the pair broke down in a fit of laughter. The class decided to ignore the crass pair and wait for them to calm down. After a few minutes of further childish dick jokes, the class watched Alex take a shrunken version of the ship out of his pocket, pocket-dimension and put it in the berth. A few seconds passed before it immediately popped out to its full size.

The sudden appearance of a metallic ship caught the attention of a number of the surrounding teams as they began to give very appraising looks at the Trouser Surprise.

“Hey, Dork!!!” A familiar voice called out, waving as she approached the group. “I got your message,” Yuu said as she approached the group.

Gunter’s parents seeing the dwarf girl, began to get flustered as their eyes gleamed. They were meeting what the class had come to know was their idol. Gunter was incredibly embarrassed by the shrine to her they had in their workshop’s corner.

“So this is the ship?” Yuu asked, gesturing to the ship. “Looks interesting… let's take a look, shall we?” Yuu asked to which Alex and Senior nodded, showing her the ship up close.

“Those three will be at it for a while,” Mel said with a grin looking at them already starting to argue over tools to add some last-minute modifications.

“Why is the Big Chief here?” Gunter asked.

“Oh, sir sent her a message, and she insisted on coming here,” Daisy replied.

“But she was still back at the Academy, wasn’t she?”

“Apparently, she kept the key to use the ‘you-know-whats’ so she could get here quicker than we could,” Daisy explained as the class looked over to the trio of artificing experts who were now tussling over the same tool.

“So, will this one sink before it gets across the start line again?” a smarmy voice asked as its owner approached the class.

“I should think not; we have a top-notch crew and highly skilled artificers this year.”

“Ah, buying your way to victory this time?” the smarmy man asked as he arched a single brow in amusement. Looking at him, he looked like a cartoonish villain stereotype. He had everything from the monocle to a top hat with a curly moustache to bring the whole look together.

“I should warn your ‘top-notch crew’ that these idiots have never even gotten past the serpent's head isle. I shudder to think you children losing your lives in this,” he said with a sinister smile that oozed violence.

“I would be heartbroken to learn you all drowned or were consumed by the many speed fish in the river. I would highly recommend you drop out while you still have your lives,” he added with a sinister cackle as he walked away.

“Who in the hell was that?” Tasha growled as she cracked her knuckles.

“Dorian Macleod, He has won this race multiple times,” Mel explained.

“Well, now I didn think you lotta trouble makers woulda been ‘ere,” another familiar voice said as he approached. Exhaling a sigh, the class turned to see the cheeky grin of Spoony.

“Hello, Spoony,” Maxwell said with an exhausted sigh. The last thing they wanted to deal with was this gang leader.

“What are you doing here?” Kline asked pointedly.

“It is kinda outta my territory, ain’t it? Well, a lotta betting means lotta money. I run the betting stations ‘ere,” Spoony explained as he gestured to a wooden structure where many people were queuing up at.

“I usually meet with dah teams to set odds. But with you lot ‘ere, it may be interesting this year.”

“You know this man?” Mel asked.

“Where are my manners? Dis one is Spoony Two’Ats gentleman extraordinaire,” he said, taking her hand in his and kissing it, causing Mel to blush.

“I met these troublemakers when they picked a fight in Port Staine. I kept ‘em safe, so it was no trouble.”

“You kept my baby boy safe?!!! THANK YOU!!!” Mel beamed as her arms split into eight limbs, and she swept up Spoony in a hug. “Built like adamantine, aren’t you? You want to work for us?”

“No, thank you, ma’am. I got people back home,” Spoony politely refused.

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“With you lot here, though, this will be interesting. Guess I gotta alter the odds for the big names, den.”

“Who are the big names?” Maxwell asked, hoping to get intelligence on their opponents.

“Sure, guess I’ll tell yah. You see that crew over der?” Spoony gestured to a berth that had an incredibly tall canvas covering what was docked there.

“That is the berth of High Admiral Sir Bearington the Third—Ee’s from a distinguished naval family. Dey ‘av kept dere’ noble title for a long time,” Spoony explained as a giant hairy man walked out from behind the canvas shield.

“He is a bear of a man. Following family tradition, he don’t speak the common tongue. But they do have a Bak Stah’Ber to serve as translator.” This alone told the class they were incredibly influential and wealthy to be able to afford a Bak Stah’Ber was hard enough for normal nobility.

“RAGHHHHHH!!” Sir Bearington roared at his crew.

“M’lord decrees the crew needs to be ready to deploy at any moment,” The Bak Stah’Ber translated as the hairy man crossed his paw-... arms correctly in a very human way.

“Anyone else we should keep an eye on?” Daisy asked only for Spoony to point to the sky above.

Looking up, they could see the shadowy outline of a massive dragon. The Dragon swooped around and came in for a landing in a nearby open field. Its scales were a shining deep blue, while its eyes were a brilliant yellow.

“That is a Millenium Dragon?!!!” Maxwell shouted in shock.

Dragons were typically divided by their ages. But this was actually wrong, as dragons developed by the scale of their mana cores. Unlike all other mortal races, dragon mana cores can grow throughout their lives. Typically a dragon would hatch as nothing more than an animal and take a century to gather enough power to gain sapience.

The thing was, these cores grew at a steady rate, so their age became the defining feature measured by other races. This is what made Insithrilax himself a genuinely unique specimen; not only did he hatch with sapience, but he could consume other dragons to absorb their cores. That is why by the age of a mortal teenager, he was already classed as an ancient dragon.

“His name is Angrathond, the great destroyer, shaker of the earth and devourer of mountains. Rumours say ‘ee is on the verge of becoming an ancient dragon.”

“And he is entering the race?” Kline asked a look of terror on his face.

“Well, he is more doing it to learn tah swim,” Spoony replied, gesturing to the dragon where the class could now see several servants dismounting him and putting on duck-shaped floaties to his humongous arms.

“Next one you’ll want to keep an eye on is Dorian Macleod,” Spoony said, gesturing to one of the few berths not covered up. “Dat man is slippery, and dat is coming from me.”

Looking at the ship, the class could see it was a relatively normal-looking sloop-style ship. The crew all looked like salty sailors to a man, minus the one top-hatted exception.

“Right, sinister bastard. But if rumours are to be believed, he is justa nice bloke.”

“You sure he kind of gave a veiled threat feel about him?” Daisy asked to which Spoony nodded.

“Not the first one to get dat feel. He supposedly grew up around villains and just learnt to speak like dey do. In reality, he runs charities and every race he wins; he donates the winnings to orphanages.”

“I kind of want him to win hearing that,” Bea observed.

“Many do. Mayhaps dat is his trick. Anyways, the last group you need to look out for are the Nouveau Artistes,” Spoony said, gesturing to the one group that had a tarp with a design on it.

Milling around the tarp were a number of men in striped tops with berets tilted at an angle. Each and every one of them was smoking from a cigarette holder and were looking done with the world.

“Dey are the best artists in the world. Rumours say if they paint a hole on your hull, the ship will be so convinced it'll sink even if there isn’t one.”

“That… but that’s stupid?” Maxwell observed.

“Indeed, but dey are the sort dat can do it. Freaky kinda reality warping magic.”

“Anyone else to worry about?” Kline asked to which Spoony shook his head.

“No dey are the big threats. Anyone else would be so below you that you wouldn’t even notice ‘em.”

“Well, thanks, Spoony,” Maxwell said, shaking the man's hand. Spoony gave a wave goodbye as he returned to the betting building.

“Hey, Bea honey, can I have a word in private with you?” Mel asked.

Bea immediately nodded, feeling her stomach begin to knot up. She had spent the journey as a starting point trying to get on Gunter’s parents’ good side. Heading away from the berth, Mel sat down on a bench and patted the open spot to indicate for Bea to sit next to her.

“Honey, you are in love with my son, aren’t you?” Bea jolted at this observation from Mel.

“I-I-I-I I’m not!!!” even Bea wasn’t convinced, let alone Mel

.

“Please, honey, you are as transparent as a window that has been smashed open,” Bea lowered her head in shame at being so obvious to Mel.

“By why won’t he notice?”

“Honey, you really don’t know why?” Mel shook her head in disbelief.

“Because all men are dense. You can’t be subtle with them; when you want something, you need to be as subtle as a punch to the face. That’s just how men work,” Bea raised her eyebrows in a mix of surprise and confusion at Mel's statement.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, take my hubby or your teacher. They are both very clever men, are they not?”

“Well, all men have a filter through which words spoken to them go through. This filter splits it into ‘They mean what they just said exactly as they said it’ and ‘Other’. The first option is by far the biggest funnel of words,” Bea nodded along, unsure of how where this conversation was going.

“When their brains, dense as they are, notice there is another meaning, they will whirl into high gear to work out what is meant. They will more than often come to the correct conclusion, but the problem is there is another filter.”

“Another filter?” Bea echoed, to which Mel nodded.

“Yes, another filter which has been the bane of womankind since the dawn of creation, you see honey, it divides the conclusion in two. The first is ‘assessment complete proceed with the assessed meaning’.”

“And the other?”

“The other is, ‘Will this look creepy if I proceed?’. If the answer is yes, then they will scrap the conclusion and dump the words into the ‘take-it at face-value box from earlier.”

“So this happens with all guys?” Mel nodded.

“Yes, the large majority of men do have the capability to read subtle notes, but there is a filter that blocks them from acting. So honey, just tell him in no uncertain terms you like him. Men are clever as they can be but are still as blunt as a hammer!” Mel gestured to where Alex and Senior were play-fighting over who got to use a tool first.

“It’s why guys can be friends after mere moments. Simply because they have no need for anything but direct words. Digging deeper is often taboo in male culture. Look at my hubby and your teacher; they became fast friends simply because they communicate the way guys do in a direct way. So go just hit my son in the face with a confession. No wordplay, just right in his face, and he should respond.”

“What if he rejects me?” Bea asked, rubbing her hands together nervously.

“Then I’ll give him an octuple thumping,” Mel replied, miming hitting Gunter with all eight of her arms.

“Fine… I’ll confess when we reach the finish line,” Bea declared as she hopped off the bench and headed back to the class. Looking back only once to see Mel give a thumbs-up with all eight of her hands.