Jace left the library feeling even wearier than when he came in. The conversation dominated most of his mind. A barrage of questions circled around, ready to be fired yet Jace wasn't ready for that just yet.
A yawn escaped his lips as he stumbled into the auditorium. He glanced across the seated crowd, looking for the familiar back. He caught it, sliding down the stairs and slipping into the seat beside Silas's.
"Hey," Silas smiled, eyebags visible. Half a dozen papers lay sprawled out on the table in front of him. Jace picked one, noting the words, 'Sentient', and 'Eccentric'. Jace lifted his gaze from the papers as Silas answered his frown. "The War of Liberation…Essay papers. We need to do them."
The thought came to him just as the doors swung open, momentarily silencing the countless murmurs. In strode the history teacher, or as he liked to call himself, The historian. He held a tiny grey flask with his left hand, his right clutching a brown folder. He walked with hurried steps, his dark red robes sweeping the ground.
He walked up to the stage, turning to face the crowd as he let the folder down on a nearby table. He patted the microphone's side, clearing his throat as he spoke into the device. "Checking. Checking. Hello…Can you hear me?"
Jace winced at the sharp sound that accompanied the first word but nodded at the others. The historian spoke again, his voice uncharacteristically somber. "Today, we mourn the death of a student."
The previous murmurs quieted, more out of shock than anything. While news of the death had reached far and wide, no Instructor had outright confirmed it.
"To cheer you up, I decided to tell a fairly light-hearted, slightly controversial, very grim, and a bit humorous story. Or you can call it a piece of history. Or a fable. Or whatever you like to call it."
He sighed loudly, flipping open his folder and glancing at the papers in them. He declared, his head bowed. "Bastion."
He raised his head back up, a lazy smile on his lips. He flipped the folder shut, then strode across the stage. "You see, Bastion was a big and shiny place. It was one of the first planets conquered by humans and is now one of the Capitals of Humanity."
A hand raised, a student questioning, "Do you mean Bastion? Like Bastion bastion?"
The historian grinned, "Yes. That Bastion. You see the planet was big and shiny and that made the Rache pissed."
The Historian paused. Jace typed on his cyberlink and Silas scribbled notes on a few scraps of paper. Around him, others did similar, some checking for the story or history being referred to.
Jace leaned forward, eager to hear a story relating to Bastion, but more than that, relating to the Earthen Federation. Most of the 5 star Faction's history was shrouded in secrecy, a lingering effect of the Dark Age. The rest consisted of myths spun into propagandic truths.
"You see, this was early in the war. How early still remains a mystery but this happened somewhere sometime around the formation of the faction."
His previous grin grew dark, his smile lessening. "The Rache attacked. They stormed into the capital, leaving bodies in their wake."
A girl interrupted, sweeping her twin braids over her shoulder. "We already know this and if we don't, we should be able to check it. Why are you telling us all this?"
"The story isn't for you," The Historian clarified. "It's for our readers. And…you don't know the whole truth. The complete one."
The historian cleared his throat, placing the grey flask onto the table. "Anyways, the Rache attached. Chaos spread. Factions were still a new invention. An attack of that magnitude was impossible for the faction to withstand. Impossible for them to withstand alone."
The instructor took a swig, "So the military had to be called. A big fight broke out, other big fights broke out. And humans won. Bastion was taken back and everything settled."
A loud bang echoed out as the female student from earlier stood. "That's wrong. The Earthen Federation stood and fought proudly. They chased the Rache away without any involvement by the Military. Of course, not before another greedy faction took one of Bastion's closer planets."
The historian shrugged, "Maybe, maybe not."
The girl groaned at the response, continuing on, "You lied. They stole the planets from the Earthen Federation and the Military supported them. They were all thieves."
"Whatever you say, sweetheart."
The girl groaned once more as Jace relaxed onto his chair. He thought about the war, the Rache, the Earthen Federation, the vague allusions in half a dozen history books to The Great Factional War and the lack of meaningful information on it.
In the end, Jace cut off his train of thoughts. The bell rang seconds later as students filed out of the auditorium. Jace followed the leaving crowd, glancing back to catch The Historian offering a wink to the aggressive female student.
Jace frowned yet continued on outside, walking side by side with Silas whose head was stuck in his papers. "Hey,"
Silas grunted, "You already said hey,"
"I'm leaving."
Silas reacted, lifting his head up to meet Jace's hazel eyes. "The body?"
Jace shook his head, slightly stunned by Silas's unnervingly calm tone. "A class…a new one. Was given today."
"Today?" Silas questioned, stuffing his head back into the papers, scrutinizing each typed line.
"Yes. Today." Jace considered telling that the Military knew about Bill's murder but turned the thought away. Drax had shown no signs of pointing there and Jace wasn't going to.
"Later," Jace ended, Silas nodding in response.
Jace watched Silas leave even as his friend's gaze never left the papers. Why? Why did everything seem so simple, so normal?
A beep from Jace's cyberlink broke that normalcy, and Jace found himself grateful for that. It was a message from Drax. 'Walk past the weapons class but not to the Elemental class. Wait there for a few minutes, a door will open up for you'.
Restraining the urge to sigh, Jace began his journey under the sweltering heat.
Lamenting at the unusual heat, Jace found a throng of people gathered around the spot Drax had described. The sound of chatter filled the space, chuckles accompanying it.
It seemed almost bizarre–That people could laugh in that Academy. The faces of 'Glasses' and the few others in Skye's class flashed in his head as he wondered how the two groups could exist in the same place.
Jace's eyes shifted across the group, pausing at the three people at the forefront of the group. One possessed pale skin and brown hair that looked almost dark. He stood at the center of the three, by his left a young woman with a dark tan and red, almost pink, hair. Jace remembered her as the one who had stood against the 'Champion of the Second-Years'. And on the other side stood a familiar figure–Hazel. Her skin shone with an almost golden brown, her silvery hair glowing in the light. Legacies. All three of them.
Together, they seemed almost noble. Divine, even. Jace pondered how to feel about that as he slipped into the crowd. His mind raced with half a dozen theories on why he was there yet all halted when he came face to face with rainbow hair and spiky boots.
"Uh…oh, hey," The student spoke, her bright eyes scanning Jace's features. "I remember you. You're Bubblegum."
Jace winced at his nickname, his eyes narrowing as a thin, pale young student burst out the crowd, his hand holding his glasses that looked sure to fall.
He spoke amidst heavy pants, "The door's opening."
As he spoke, a black door manifested in front of the crowd. There were no flashing lights or loud sounds. It simply appeared.
The crowd began filing through the door, the legacies walking through first. Taya–the rainbow girl–nodded to Jace, "You're here right?"
Jace nodded hesitantly. "Then come in." Taya walked forward, grabbing hold of the panting student and dragging him with her. "This is Thomas. Thomas say hi,"
The panting student shot Jace a nod, pulling off Taya's hand and adjusting his clothes. The rainbow girl clicked her tongue, continuing on past the door.
"Hey," Thomas greeted, inching closer to Jace. The two walked through the door and into color. Yellow lights flashed about, followed up with green and dyed in blazing red.
"...are you?"
"What?" Jace asked, only picking up the last words.
Thomas clarified, "What color are you?"
"Uhm?" Jace questioned, gazing at the walls. Inscribed on the stormy gray concrete were chess, Go, Checkers and Shogi patterns.
"Colors?" Thomas gave Jace a double take. "Do you not have a color? That doesn't make sense."
Shrugging, Jace replied. "Just came today. Still don't know what class this is."
Thomas grinned, "Oh, this isn't just as a class. It's the Colors class. It–"
"He means Commander's Class," Taya cut in. "All the people in this class are those with the potential or resources to lead a group, and this class is here for that."
"So they teach you how to lead?"
Taya exploded into laughter. "Hell no. This class is a Socialization class. It's simply for you to meet someone and form a connection so down the line you can call upon them."
Jace frowned. If Taya was correct, then what was Drax's, no. what was the military's purpose in pushing Jace there. It looked almost like they were offering him the path to freedom, even handing him the key to free his shackles.
He shook the thoughts away, assuring himself that he would think about it later on. He turned to Taya, "So you just stay here and…talk?"
Taya shot Jace a cheeky grin. "Of course not. We also play Battlegrounds."
As Taya spoke, she retrieved from the folds of her clothes a crystal reminiscent of the Devourer's prison.
She tossed it over to Jace as she explained. "The game is fairly simple. Each side has a king and can make a team of five people. You pick the exact people you want to pick in the game. Also you try to kill the king or kill every member of the opposition.
Jace frowned as Taya sighed, motioning to Thomas. The young student stepped up as he clarified, "They're different classes. Each class has its positives and negatives, like how Fortress masters lose to Heavy hitters and they lose to Assault teams."
Thomas took a second to breath, launching into even more rules. "Heavy hitters and assault teams look the exact same. So are Assassins and Scouts. The location set can buff certain classes while debuffing others and certain classes can attack the King from far away. There's even a–"
"Okay, okay!" Taya interrupted. She dragged Jace away from Thomas and towards the crystal resting on a nearby table. Then shrugging to Jace, she said "Do it."
Jace took a confused gaze at Taya and then at the crystal. Recognition dawned on him as he walked to the transparent structure. His hand unconsciously quivered as he recalled the last time he had laid his hand on a similar crystal.
He shook his head. That was then. Nothing would happen to him now. Jace's palm rested on the smooth surface, the cold glass freezing his sweaty palms.
Then, nothing.
Jace gazed at the crystal in confusion as Taya made an exaggerated motion of smacking her forehead into the palm of her hand. "Your cyberlink. It's your cyberlink, doofus."
Gazing down at the dark metal cuff, a blinking pop-up covered the screen, the words 'Accept', and 'Deny', dyed in green and red.
He sighed, clicking accept as he felt his body lurch neither forward nor backward. One second he was in the colorful room, tables strewn around him. The next he was floating among the cloud, grey screens in front of him.
His system. The thought vanished as Jace read through the glowing screens.Each depicted a different class: Assault teams, Trap masters, Forest Builders, Medics and more.
Reading through the options, Jace tapped onto the medic option as the giant screen floated by Jace's side. Above the screen, a small bar appeared, '1 of five chosen'
Jace picked an assault team and a scout–The first chosen for simple reasons, the second more so for the giant trees obscuring vision.
He settled on a medic next, a man in the picture dressed in a light green tunic, reminiscent of the bronze-skinned nurse from earlier. As Jace picked that, he settled into thought.
There were dozens of classes to choose from yet Jace only held two spots. Jace scrolled through options, searching as his face almost twisted into a scowl. Each class had a perfect counter as Thomas had pointed out, but it was more than that. There were also part counters–Classes that could counter another class but would take lots of damage.
Jace struggled to think as his mind wandered to Taya. He idly wondered what she would pick. He groaned, settling on another assault squad. Taya would pick a heavy hitter…probably.
He stretched his hand to pick the Assassin as his final class until his gaze settled on a TrapMaster. Jace paused, contemplating the options in his presence. Assassins were the best of the attacking lot but were countered by quite a few classes–Scouts, Trap Masters, Assault teams, Heavy hitters etc.
Trap Masters, meanwhile, were defensive and could fully counter Assassins–A skill Jace was sure he would need. The answer was simple. Jace picked the card as he felt wind brush against his ears. Than a sonorous voice rose as Jace felt himself move through the air.
"Let the game begin,"