SYSTEMS

"So you are telling me you met and conversed with a giant spider?" Sid said skeptically.

"Spiderqueen," I corrected.

"Interesting... I never knew that cobwebs could actually cause hallucinations,"

She winced as I kicked her from under the table then grinned. "You must agree though, you spin a wild tale,"

"Fuck you," I glared.

"Well I believe you," Sky cut in. I looked at her in surprise and she shrugged. "But I am just a brainless bimbo so I don't count for much,"

What did I expect? I scoffed and started digging into my food. Noodles with lots of greens. Besides when we got a feast for the first seven days, today we had to buy, and noodles was one of the cheapest at a point a plate. But you wouldn't know it as it tasted good. Still, life is very expensive in camp.

Today we'd have our first classes. Only Dragon and Chloe had any experience of that among the Freshmen. I wondered how it'll go as I eat. Eating like this before classes reminds me of highschool, and consequently Sarah, my best friend. I wonder what my parents told her about my disappearance; she's one of the few people that'll definitely care what happened to me all. That thought soured my mood that Sky and Sid had been trying to elevate.

After eating we proceeded to class. Our first class is Systems- the only class we had together. Navigating the busy hallways of Metro we arrived at a section marked Academics above the door.

It was like walking into highschool with busy hallways and classes lined besides. The only thing absent were lockers. The fact we had to wear freshmen white was irritating too. In comparison Rankers has it better; besides not required to wear uniform, they took classes in high tech lecture halls.

Willow and Owen were the only ones present when we arrived in class. That wasn't that surprising considering only eight of us will be taking this class at this point. Sky and Sid stopped to talk to them but I found a front seat at the other side of the room, ignoring them.

Dragon arrived next. He glanced at me quietly then went to sit at the back. Omar and Chloe arrived soon after him. Their behavior was completely different that I didn't even know why they got along. Omar went to sit next to Dragon while the British royal waved at me then started a conversation with Sid and the others.

I found their gathering irritating. In truth I was angry at Willow and Owen for keeping a certain distance with me since arriving in Camp. I'll not claim to have been the best of friend but I never done anything deserving their snub.

At last the professor arrived after thirty minutes of waiting. He was a tall dark haired man wearing brown robes. He held a load of books that he placed on the desk then grinned at us. "Hello freshmen," he said. "How's it going so far in the magic school?"

"Hardly anything really magical here," I said. "More like science school,"

"And enter the troublemaker," he pointed at me still grinning. "Yesterday I was priviledged to have met the academy enthusiast and the bad kid, we are filling up very well. This is gonna be an interesting class."

"If you say so teach," I shrugged.

"Oh I say so," he scoffed. "Okay, I am Aldus Price, professor of systems. And I am gonna teach you all about this new super abilities you have,"

"You are gonna teach us how to use skills?" Owen sounded excited.

"And we have the class fool," Professor Aldus said. "And to answer the fool's question, no, nothing that 'exciting',"

We laughed. And Owen pouted.

Professor Aldus went on. "What I teach is the why's and the how's of your abilities. I teach the understanding of the All Power, its rules and how to break them. It might not feel exciting at first, especially on the first semester, and many students will no doubt be dropping this subject on the next choices. But if you stay with me on this and really listen and learn. You'll not only gain mastery of your skills but you could influence the very law of the world.

"You can stop a monster from spawning, you can stop it from decomposing to light after death, you can summon monsters, walk through walls in dungeons, lock your opponents skills, etcetera, etcetera,"

"Is that really possible?" Owen asked skeptically. "Doing all that because of some theories?"

"Of course fool, but it's extremely difficult,"

"Can you do those things sir?" Sid asked.

"Some," he shrugged. "I could stop a spawning, a decomposition... Ha, a summon is a little harder but I could manage, I think. Anyway there's one thing that is relatively easier. Skill lock, let's try it. What's your name?"

"Sidney Ravens,"

"Ravens huh?" He chuckled. "Anyway, try using your skill Sidney Ravens,"

Sid nodded and stood up. She paused for a few seconds, furrowed her brows then her eyes widened. "I can't," she said in disbelief.

"How does it feel?"

"Like I am trying to grab something very slippery,"

The application of such ability was suddenly turning in everyone's mind. The sheer advantage it could give us. "Can you really teach us that?" Dragon asked.

Professor Aldus nodded. "It will depend entirely on your ability and will to learn though. You can take a horse to the river but you can't actually force it to drink,"

He picked a chalk and scribble on the board. Systems. "Let's begin with the subject. What is a system? A system, in the context we are to discuss, is a set of rules and laws that make certain realities and forces possible to exit and affect the greater universe. Why do I say this? A system is the rule and law behind any reality or power.

"Why do things fall down instead of up? That's system. Those systems, you have already learned in highschool, here we will discuss a more stranger system. A more foreign one. The All Power,"

By the time classes finished I found my head hurting. I only had three subjects today so even though classes officially ended at 1 AM I found myself free at 11. From our schedules I know Sid and Sky wouldn't be free for another hour or so, so I headed to the cafeteria to buy food. I bought a bugger costing 1 and half points then went off eating it.

My head might still hurt from the complicated theories I had to ponder at, all day, but I needed to get back into studying with the little time I have to myself cause soon I'd be training with the Creeds, then go to my chores which was at 4;30.

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The simple fact is, I needed answers. And I don't know anyone that'll will offer me that, so I have to research it myself to start understanding what the fuck is going on here. The problem is, I know next to nothing about everything.

Diggers, Surgeons, Paul, Groove, the dungeon, and why they are all related. Why Paul had to die, why he gave me Groove and what I should expect. If it was really worth keeping the creature? I needed to know.

Arriving at the library, I went straight to the Shelves where I started book hunting. First, anything about strange creatures and monsters, something that'll tell me what Groove is. By the time Sky and Sid came to get me I'd learned a lot about many kind of monsters but nothing relatively resembling Groove.

The three of us arrived at the training room Jake told us about at 1:32PM. After thanking the Automaton that led us here I used the card to open the door. Inside was what looked like a basketball court with glassy floor and bleachers at the sides. At each end of the court was a waist high pedestal with a narrow hole in the center.

The goals.

Jake, Zara, Kirk, and a long haired blond guy were warming up in the court. "You are early," Jake said.

"We wanted to make a good impression," I smirked. "What's with the funny walk?"

"We are stretching. This is Franklin. Franklin this is Sam, Sid and Sky," Jake pointed to us in that order.

"Fun fact, their names all begins with the same letter,"

"We get that a lot," I shrugged.

"So basically your parents ran out of names," Franklin said with a baffled expression.

"And your dad was a clumsy bastard who broke a condom,"

"What?"

"She's saying you look like a mistake," Sid deadpanned.

"Yeah thank you," Franklin said. "I would have had no idea if you hadn't told me,"

"Well, you are welcome,"

"It's good we are getting along," Zara said. "You should change to game gears and start warming up," she pointed at a door at the end of the room. "The gears are on the bench beside door, make it fast,"

"Aye," Sky saluted and started towards there.

The gear was the same kind of race leather suit the Phoenix Might provided us on our first day here. We proceeded into the room which turned out to be a bathroom. We changed quickly before returning to the court.

The four were practicing throwing and catching the flag, the main focus of the Camp games. It was a small flag players pass around with the intention to outsmart or out power their opponents and insert it into the slot on the opponent's pedestal. That's all the Camp Game is about. There are rules however that makes it interesting.

First; you can only attack a person holding the flag, the flag bearer can however attack everyone.

A player cannot strike the flag with their powers or defend themselves with it.

Failing to abide by the rules is a foul, where the opposite players are giving the chance to play set pieces.

That's all.

Apart from that you could do basically anything to win. No matter how dirty or vile. They said the Camp game is intense and dangerous and they mean it.

Jake had us stand at the sides and watch him and Franklin take on Zara and Kirk. He said he divided the so each team has a person with defense and attack jobs to balance things. The two sides faced each other. A moment later I blinked in surprise as Zara's hair turned purple and purple butterfly like wings appeared on her back. Flapping her wings she rose to the air. Flight! What a skill.

Well, I wouldn't be surprised by anything here anymore, I groaned.

The 'exhibition' match started with Jake passing the flag to Franklin. By passing, I mean throwing. Franklin caught the flag, immediately shooting a fireball at Zara as he grasped his fingers around the object. Zara swerved away. She is a knight so the only aim of the fireball was to prevent her from attacking, plus there's more chance to take her out since she has low defense. Also Kirk is a Tank, even if he could attack it wouldn't be that powerful as it wasn't his forte so they was no threat from there.

At least that's how I understood it.

Taking advantage, Franklin raced forward breaking into Zara and Kirk's half. He headed straight to the pedestal, but Kirk stepped in his way.

A giant ball of water manifesting around the Tank that succeeded in stopping Franklin's advance. With that small delay, Zara had steadied herself. She buzzed in the air and threw purple balls of light- the size of a soccer balls- at Franklin. He drew back desperately then threw the flag to Jake at the other side of the court.

Now they couldn't attack him and he couldn't attack them.

Jake plucked the flag off the air and gilded forward. Zara fired purple balls at him but a revolving green disk of light appeared beneath him. Anything that comes into this disks one meter range just vanished. Zara fired harder but Jake continued on.

It was evident Kirk was going to step on his way too. But...

Suddenly Franklin moved over, taking the flag from Jake before ducking behind his Tanker. Together they pushed forward. Zara and Kirk appeared flustered. Attacking Jake would mean a foul. In that brief moment of indecision Jake collided with Kirk that stepped out to stop him, sending the later flying despite the water shield around him.

Collision between Tankers doesn't register as an attack. Because it is defense vs defense. Except of course if one or two of the Tankers use offensive skills. I did my homework.

Jake made a beeline for the pedestal. Zara maneuvered in the air appearing from the side. Because of the shield around Jake Franklin, the one still holding the flag, couldn't stick too close. She got him with the balls of light sending him flying out of the court to collide with the walls of the bleachers. His suit glowed green then red. He's knocked out of the game.

Franklin quickly took off his helmet panting for breath. He looked into the court with a grin.

Somehow he'd passed the flag to Jake in the last minute. Jake crossed the remaining space to his goal and slammed the flag into the pedestal. He won.

Jake walked over and helped Kirk off the ground, then took off his helmet. "You should have made that move 10 seconds earlier babe," he told Zara.

"I suspected this would happen," she shrugged alighting on the ground. "I thought Kirk would slow you down first. If I did it before that Franklin wouldn't be too busy trying not to run into your shield, as you stopped for that brief second, that means he'd be free to fire at me,"

"What do you think?" Jake asked me.

"Cool!" Sky shrieked. "I have never seen anything like this! The speed, the powers! Can I do it too!?"

Zara grinned. "You have seen nothing yet, wait till the tournament begins,"

"With the crowd, the commentary, the arena and the fires," Kirk said. "You might hate Camp but you can't hate the games,"

"Except the Phoenix Might," Franklin scoffed. "They hate everything anyway. Things are hard without moaning about every detail,"

"Except Sofia," Jake said. "I don't know what she's doing with those losers."

Zara slapped him on the arm and glared. An awkward silence fell.

"So you don't hate Camp?" I asked carefully.

"Hate?" Jake scoffed. "Yeah a lot of things piss me off about this place, like how there wouldn't let us so much as socialize with the natives that much,"

"They stop that?"

"Well, not directly," he shrugged. At the side Zara started talking to Sid enlighten her on something after Sid asked.

"What can you tell me about Diggers?" I asked.

"Terrorists, that's all." Jake shrugged again.

"But why does no one talk about them?"

"Because many are too scared to call even their names. But there are nothing special; once in a while Rankers take missions to clear them out. I'd been fighting them for the five years I am here,"

I frowned. "That's all?" Somehow it was kind of underwhelming considering all the hype.

"Well, many make a big deal of them because they have insiders in Camp, lot of fans too. They preach to liberate the indigenous people from the control of the professors and surgeons, take Camp as their own. Some Rankers also support them cause that'll mean they get to go home if Camp falls. Now imagine if you say something about them, you could get your throat slit by your best friend?"

"They made people that scared? What is Camp doing about it?"

"The professors and surgeons don't care FYI- for you information. I even suspect there see it as good for training. That's enough of that, we can chat another time. Now I want to see what you can do." He clapped. "You three get in the center of the court,"

After we did he walked over to us holding two flags. "Spread out a little," Zara commanded beside him.

"Now you are gonna learn throwing and catching the flag," Jake held the flag up with the bottom pointed at us and threw it like a javelin. Sidney caught it with a frown. "That's the basic throw or javelin throw. We have up to a dozen throws in Camp games, you get it? Try it Sidney, throw it to Sam,"

Sid fell in a stance, heaved and hurled it at me. "Don't underestimate the weight, grab it with both hands," Zara advised.

I nodded using both hands to grab it but it almost injured me, pulling me a little from its weight. How could this thing be this heavy? I had thought the flag was plastic or something, but this thing is a solid chunk of metal. "Now pass it to Sky Anderson,"

I nodded then hurled it at her.

A few minutes after we started the training it was evident that this was hard work. The Camp games is very physically demanding, and here special powers shine. As we grinded on with gritted teeth I wondered why Jake had chosen us. Unlike he, Franklin, Zara and Kirk, our abilities could be said to be lacking. Franklin could shoot fire, Zara could fly and shot balls of light, Kirk could manipulate and make water, and finally Jake has a powerful shield making him a strong tanker.

I haven't met the rest of the team- Zara said they couldn't make it they usually train at night anyway- but I suspect there are just as impressive.

Meanwhile, besides Shadowalking I couldn't find anything me and Sid could do. And Sky? Worse of.

We are gonna disappoint our new friends aren't we?

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