Wynd Academy

Sebastien woke up, he was in his new dorm room in Abysial Academy, his room was almost pitch black, save for a small amount of light coming from a nearly spent candle flame. He looked at his Crystech Arm. He wondered to himself, how did he end up here, he thought to himself, his life had been pretty boring up until he and his class were flown off toward Terrana. They were all long gone now, his friends, forever lost to that blinding sea of light.

Sebastien sat up, he put his forehead into his hands, he thought back to when he witnessed Lumina in the ruins of the city. "What is her goal" he wondered. Andre hadn’t enlightened him any in their long journey. Sebastien stood up, put on a shirt and trousers, and headed out of his room, the school was already busy with activity. He looked at the balcony across from him, a tall black haired lady was staring right at him, he was taken aback, she was wearing a slim fitting red dress and red gloves, Sebastien averted his eyes as he scanned the balconies below.

He noticed the woman approaching him, he looked in her direction “Sebastien, correct?” she asked.

“Uh... yeah?” Sebastien hesitantly replied.

“I am Ember, your new tutor in the dark arts” Ember said with a slight smile “Andre told me you were in the final year at Wynd... I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Sebastien asked, confused.

“You will need to relearn everything they taught you, the other 12 Academies, they teach you how to use light infused Crystalliam, but dark infused Crystalliam is... slightly different” Ember explained “Andre will have told you, all the other 12 elements are all infused with light aether, darkness isn’t. To use dark infused Crystalliam is... quite a struggle, but once you learn how, you will find out why we struggle so hard to learn it... it’s quite powerful.”

Andre leant against the balcony, and looked down before looking back at Ember.

“Powerful enough to take down Lumina?” He asked.

“Hmm, Lumina is an exceedingly powerful being, I can’t make that promise” Ember reluctantly admitted “However, you will be immune to her many weapons, a shield of darkness against a spear of light” Ember looked down towards the dark abyss below “That is what we must be, protectors clad in pure pitch.”

“That is good enough for me” Sebastien nodded “Let’s begin” he nodded, Ember smiled slightly and headed across the balcony to a classroom.

Roisin fell into a puddle of mud, a scratch across her cheek, Rory stood over her, sword at the ready, rain poured down from above.

“Too bad, Rosie” He chuckled, in that second, Roisin kicked him between the legs, jumped up and punched his face then hand, Rory let go of the sword, which Roisin proceeded to grab before spinning backwards and pointed the sword right at Rory’s heart, Rory grinned.

“I win... also it’s Roisin” She said as she threw the sword into the puddle of mud, she walked back toward her class.

“I went easy on you, and you still ended up getting hit, don’t think you’d be able to take me down in a true combat situation, Rosie” Rory said, with an annoyed look across his face, he crouched down to pick up the sword. “Right, who is next?” He said as a smile crept back onto his face.

Victoria stepped forward, she smirked “This should be easy” She laughed as she drew her rapier.

“Oh, using real weapons? Got ourselves a thrill seeker here!” Rory laughed, hard. He pulled out the sword that had belonged to the former Crown Prince; ‘Cruelty’.

Roisin, Ashe and Dex all looked on horrified, “Victoria... what are you doing?” Ashe gasped.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got this” Victoria winked at Ashe, who blushed slightly. Roisin was watching intently, sure that Victoria was about to go toe to toe with the man who killed her cousin.

“Three...”

“Two”

“One” Rory counted down, as soon as he uttered ‘one’, he lunged forward at Victoria, who met ‘Cruelty’ with her own sword, Cruelty bent slightly as Rory applied pressure against the sword. Victoria put her hand against the upper side of the rapier’s blade, her hand began bleeding slightly. She looked into her brother’s eyes and winked, she let go of the sword and dodged to the side in a split second. Rory went flying face-first into the mud, Victoria put her rapier up against the back of Rory’s neck and laughed.

“Too bad” She chuckled, Rory rolled over with a genuine look of anger on his face, this had not been part of the plan. He jumped up and punched Victoria square in the jaw, she fell straight to the floor. Within seconds, Roisin had grabbed her dagger and placed it right into Rory’s chest, Rory looked down, and shrugged, her punched Roisin in the chest, right where the scorpion had hit her all those months ago, Roisin went flying a few yards, landing and rolling across the ground.

Rory roared, and pulled out the sword that had once belonged to the former Crown Prince, Rory raised the sword, ready to kill Roisin, he swung it down, closing his eyes... he then heard the clank of his sword hitting another. He opened his eyes to see Victoria stood in front of him, blocking his swing, with a pure steel Celestial Blade.

“Get out of my way, Ariel!” Rory shouted his eyes having turned deep red from the pure rage.

“Get away from her!” Victoria shouted, matching Rory’s brute strength, using all her strength must have drained from her other magicks as her glamour began to dissipate. Her hair turned darker, until it was raven black, like Rory’s, her skin turned lighter, and she grew taller, her true looks revealed, Dex gasped as he realized who she was, followed by several others in the class doing the same.

“It can’t be... Ariel Ferras?” Dex uttered.

“Who?” Ashe asked, looking completely lost.

“Ariel Ferras... also known as the Imperial Princess...” Dex replied, half lost in all the memories of Victoria he had, had it been Ariel all along? He kept asking himself.

Rory relented, and stared at the class, his sword in hand, panting from the adrenaline coursing through him.

"Mother will have your head for this!" Rory yelled at Ariel.

"Don't you get it, Rory? I don't care about mother, I don't care about the Empire... and I don't care about you" Ariel smirked.

"Since when?" Rory demanded.

"Since... forever" Ariel said, she still had her sword in her hand, in the event Rory would snap back into his pure rage "but until I met Ashe, I never actually considered doing anything about it" Ariel said, briefly glancing over at Ashe "Now I have someone I actually do care about, and I'm not going to stand by and play along any more."

Dex looked toward the school and noticed a larger crowd had formed, and Wynd was approaching.

"I'm standing with Ishtall, and I'm standing with Wynd... I'm standing with Ashe" Aerial proclaimed. Rory growled, he swung his sword toward Ariel, only to be blown to the ground by an intense gust of wind. Wynd approached and pointed a lance made from the element of wind at Rory.

"Leave my school, and my city, our collaboration is over" Wynd commanded.

"Fine, but I'm taking the Earth crystal back with me too" Rory snarled.

"Oh, I think not, Rory" Wynd smirked "It is already on its way to Terrana as we speak."

Rory relented again, he pointed the sword at Ashe, then Wynd, then Ariel... and finally at Roisin, "You're all dead... this I swear" Rory smirked, but his moment was ruined as a knife flew toward him and pierced his right eye, he yelled in pain and turned to see who had thrown it, Dex stared him directly in his left eye.

"It was me" Dex grinned "You come for Roisin, you come for me."

"Fine" He growled "I will kill her first, and slowly... painfully, so that you can observe, then I will kill you" Rory yelled, he tu staggered off toward the airpad.

"We gotta warn Crystech" Wynd said panicked.