Lixarts Academy: First Year

The events that occurred at Enchantopia had shaken Lixarts and the other magic academies to their cores. No more information has come to light about the people who disrupted the events. Nobody’s seen or heard anything about the organization known as ‘The Shadows’ nor Dugal and the man with the faceless mask. As much as we tried to forget about it, it really spotlighted how inadequate we were in the face of overwhelming power. So we trained. Or at least I did. Ever since my body recovered, I’ve been training as long as my body would let me. We also held a memorial for the 3 students who also unfortunately lost their lives at Enchantopia. I didn’t know them at all so I didn’t say any words for the departed as I sat there quietly. This isn’t something we should be doing in the first year of highschool.

I promise you, Dugal. I will kill you. Even if it's the last thing I do.

I felt a tap on my shoulder. Aura was staring right at me.

“Can I help you?” I asked her.

“Nah, you just zoned out so I was making sure you were all good,” she replied.

“Shhh,” a woman in front of us turned around and put her finger over her lips.

Aura flipped her off.

She put her hand over her chest and gasped before turning back around.

I couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Well there’s something,” Aura wore a small smile across her face.

“We shouldn’t have to be here. If I was strong enough, this wouldn’t have happened. Edward wouldn’t have died. Those two wouldn’t have died. I can’t do this anymore. When faced with overwhelming power, I was powerless. I froze up and almost got Mr. Newsmith killed,” I laid my face in my hands.

“While you were passed out,” Aura cleared her throat, “Aaron actually came into the infirmary where you were while you were unconscious. He said that he couldn’t have done it without you,” she let out a heavy breath before continuing, “a woman with teleportation magic showed up and teleported them away. I guarantee you Aaron would’ve destroyed them if it wasn’t for her,” Aura stuffed her hands in her pockets.

I shuffled the tie around as it was squeezing my neck. We were all required to wear all black. Aura wore a black dress that her mom made for her, she had a black hoodie with a Rose emblem on the corner near her shoulder.

“Hey, Aura, I have a question.” I turned to her.

“As long as it’s not stupid,” she answered.

“Why do you have so many clothes with that rose on it?” I pointed to the rose.

“That’s stupid. Rose, Rose?” She pointed to the rose on her hoodie and then to Rose, who was sitting away with her parents.

“Did she help you make that?”

“No, she made these herself. I taught her how to make clothes so every now and then she’ll make a piece at my parent’s shop. She has her own little watermark kind of thing, which is the rose you see on the corner. It’s literally like the only design she can make,” she started circling the rose, “but it’s beautiful to me.”

“Maybe this wasn’t the best time to talk about that,” I replied, nervously chuckling.

“Maybe but I think death is beautiful in its own way. It brings out all of these emotions, all of these ways to cope with it but most importantly… even people who hated that person will come together to pay their respects. They get to leave this world behind and all of the bad with it, they get to start over. Or at least, that’s what I believe,” she sighed.

“I’m not too sure what I believe about death. Maybe we get reincarnated, maybe we go to heaven or hell, maybe it’s an empty void but all I do know is that Edward and those other students were scared in their final moments. They didn’t want to die and I will get revenge on Dugal for this.”

Rose walked in front of us. She motioned for us to scoot over. Aura and I looked at one another before scooting over for Rose to plop down in between us.

“Hey, I see you’re wearing the ‘Rose’ special!” Rose smiled and poked the rose.

“Yeah, I actually wore the sweater the other day. You remember that, Dom?” Aura looked at me with her usual emotionless expression.

“Mhm, yeah…” I was distracted by the coffins being carried in.

The ceremony went on for a few hours without a hitch.

The service was beautiful and everyone had nice things to say about the dearly departed students.

Everyone meddled around and talked with others before leaving. The principal was shaking hands and talking to the parents of the students. I stuffed my hands in my pocket and walked outside for some fresh air.

“I wonder why it wasn’t me,” I said out loud to myself.

“That’s not a good way to look at it,” A woman’s voice came out of the building and next to me.

“And you are?” I cocked my head to the side, skeptical.

“I’m sure you’ll see soon enough,” she took a sip of her drink before disappearing into the alleyway across the street.

Shaken by that weird encounter, I walked back into the building. I searched the building for Aura or Rose. I spotted Rose talking to a boy in the corner, she wore a giant smile across her face and she laughed as they continued talking. I felt butterflies in my stomach as I took my eyes off of them and scanned for Aura.

“AURA! WHERE ARE YOU?!” I screamed. Everybody was staring at me as I passed them by in the lobby.

A hand grabbed my jacket and pulled me into a janitorial closet.

“MMPH!” I struggled against the unknown hand. I grabbed the small hand and twisted the arm of the stranger behind their back.

“LET ME GO!” Aura flipped the lightswitch with her open hand.

“Sorry, you scared me,” I replied, sheepishly, “what’d you want?”

“What do I want? You were looking for me.”

“Oh, right, so there was this girl in a sleek black dress with a giant black hat and a fur scarf who approached me outside and I asked who she was,” I looked at Aura to make sure she was following along, “and guess what she said?”

"What'd she say?"

"You'll find out soon enough."

“Well, I wanna know now. What’d she say?”

“No, she said “You’ll find out soon enough”.”

We both laughed before she talked again.

“That’s totally not weird," she proclaimed.

“That’s exactly why I needed to talk to you or Rose about it. HOWEVER,” I raised my voice for a moment, “she’s talking with a boy over there,” I grabbed Aura and guided her to where Rose was. I pointed to the corner where she was sitting there with a drink in hand laughing with the boy.

“OH!” She exclaimed and then started giggling.

“Ew, stop, don’t giggle. It’s like the ONE thing you shouldn’t be doing,” I had a look of exaggerated disgust on my face.

“Oh, shut up. You’re jealous, aren’t you though?” She replied.

“No, I just forgot she was popular with the guys.”

“Well, come on, we gotta say goodbye to our parents. The funeral’s about to end.”

I walked side by side with Aura, walking down the hallway and into the lobby once more. My parents were waiting for me as Aura waved me goodbye and walked to her parents.

“I’m so sorry you had to go through something like this, sweetie,” my mom hugged me in a warm embrace.

“We heard about everything you did, son. You were brave and we’re so proud of you but next time, don’t put yourself in harm’s way. I know that this dorm thing was supposed to protect you but STUDENTS JUST DIED!” Dad started hollering.

“No, it was at the event. The security at the school is no joke,” I reassured them. They must’ve been worried sick about me.

“Well, we have to get back and so do you. We’ll see you in a little bit, Dom,” Mom planted a kiss on my forehead as she and Dad retreated back home.

The rest of the day passed by. The air was heavy with sorrow and despair as the weight of losing those students settled in. That could’ve been anyone and that worried everyone.

The vibrant blue quickly changed into a serene twilight. We arrived at the school where we all went straight to our dorms and succumbed to fatigue.

Classes were canceled for the week after we got back so there wasn’t much to do except wander around the campus or stay in your room.

Since students were directly injured, we could not leave the premises so that wasn’t in the cards for us.

I stayed in my dorm as much as possible after I spent a majority of the week training, perfecting my camouflage technique or at least attempting to.

I wanted to evolve my abilities even more but this was the limit I had reached for now. I was able to shatter the previous barrier that allowed me to obtain the ‘Camouflage’ technique by fighting an opponent that was leaps and bounds stronger than me.

Maybe I have to do that again but unfortunately, I don’t feel like dying right now.

A week had passed by and classes were finally back in session. There was also something else approaching us rapidly.

“PROM! PROM! MAKE SURE YOU BUY YOUR TICKETS TO PROM BEFORE THE END OF NEXT FRIDAY!” The student council committee was out in the hallway, promoting the shit out of the prom. I heard they went all out this year for the prom. I'm talking about live bands, a DJ, games, the whole nine yards. I don’t have a date though and I’m not really sure who I wanna go with in the first place. Everything in me was leaning towards Aura or Rose but something else was also tugging at the back of my mind and I completely forgot what it was.

I made my way down the hallway, avoiding the couples and students slowly slugging down the hallway.

“MR. WILLOWSKY! HOW ARE YOU?! I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU IN WEEKS!” I yelled, running up to his desk.

“It’s been about 10 days. The best 10 days of my life but I’m glad you’re okay. Please take your seat,” he answered.

I sat down at the desk next to Aura’s desk, my assigned seat. She looked up and lifted her head up in the ‘sup’ motion before lying her head back down against the cold wood of the surface of the desk.

“STUDENTS, STUDENTS, I HAVE NEWS!” Mr. Willowsky yelled over the banter of the other students’ to get their attention. Aura lifted her head up as he continued on.

“It is with great pleasure that I welcome Sanai and Kasen, transfer students from Uscia and your new classmates!” He motioned for the two to come in.

The girl was the one from the funeral, the one in the black dress and fur scarf.

The boy was slightly taller than me with a pale complexion, his hair was a middle part with strands hanging on each side, he wore glasses with gold frames, and he walked in like he owned the place.

The girl looked at me and winked before turning back to Mr. Willowsky.

“You may sit over there next to Dominick,” he pointed to the empty seats next to me.

The beautiful female student sat down next to me as the boy sat to her left. The floral aroma that wafted from her intoxicated my nose as I could barely focus on the lecture.

Aura stared at her throughout the entire class with a suspicious appraisal.

Why, you ask? I don’t know.

The bell rang, dismissing the class. All of us got our bags and walked out into the hallway. Sanai ran up to me before I had a chance to escape.

“Hey, remember me, Dominick?” She put her hands behind her back and leaned down. She tilted her head up towards me.

“From the funeral, right?” I asked.

“Yep, I understand why you said what you said now. I heard your story about how you fought your heart out with Aaron Newsmith and still couldn’t do much,” she whispered into my ear,

“How you let those poor students die.”

I backed away, guilt settling in.

“Dom, you good? Do I need to kick her ass?” Aura and Rose walked up from behind me to stand beside me on both sides.

“No, we were just talking,” she smiled a pure, sweet, innocent smile.

She blew me a kiss before walking off.

Rose’s jaw was on the floor as she looked back and forth frantically between the two of us.

“Seriously?” She said, mouth still agape, “she's way out of your league,” she added insult to injury.

“No, we were just discussing the political and economical state of Daclon,” I replied.

Rose and Aura teased me all day, asking about the details about who asked who and how did we meet and have we known each other before and all of that even though I have specifically stated to them that we are NOT dating and I did not know who Sanai was until today.

“So then, why were you talking to her at the funeral?” Rose asked, coldly.

I turned to face Rose.

“How’d you know about that?” I asked.

“I saw you two, it was brief but I knew it was her,” she said, with her head to the ground.

“I didn’t know who she was. I was outside getting fresh air and she heard me and talked to me for about a minute then went on her way.”

Rose simply nodded her head and walked next to Aura the whole way back to their dorm. I waved them off, only receiving one back from Aura. Rose didn’t talk to me at all since that whole conversation. Did I do something to offend her?

I don’t get women.