"Is this the one Crawler and the other higher-ups warned us about?"
"Sure is." Okay, I think I'm starting to piece together some things that Scarlet's been trying to hide from me. Her and this owl kid met with some superiors at the school and had a meeting about me at some point. What were they saying about me, though? Why do they care so much about me being here?
"Good job catching her, Damon. As always, your senses are sharper than the rest of ours."
"You need to stop saying things like that Luis. I'm a student, just like the rest of you. There's really nothing special about- Gah!" I'm done with this crap. They're just having a casual conversation in front of me like I'm not even here. I bite down on the hand over my mouth as hard as I can, piercing the flesh on his palm with my teeth, forcing him to draw away. Unfortunately, his other hand stayed in place despite the shock, making it so I can't get out of his grip completely. "What the hell is wrong with you?!"
"Oh, she really is feisty isn't she?! The superiors weren't exaggerating, were they Scarlet?"
"Let go of me you dunce."
"Nova, again? Can't you chill for two seconds?"
"Maybe I could chill out if people stopped pulling crazy crap like this! That's the second time today I've been pulled through some kind of alternate dimension with a hand over my mouth!"
"Sorry about that." He lets go of me, and I walk forward, so we're now in a circle with me standing across from the guy that was holding me, with Scarlet to the right and the guy named Luis to the left. At this point, everyone's heard the clamor and is looking at our little group.
"Anyways, hi. You must be Nova. I'm Luis, I'm a fourth-year and class representative for the boys' side of the elites. This emo looking kid is Damon, he's a third-year." Now that I can see him, this Damon kid does look pretty gloomy. His black hair is covering one of his eyes, and he's got the palest skin that I've ever seen. The one eye that I can see is pitch black, it's like I'm staring into a void that could swallow me up and take me to a place where I'd never be seen again.
"Hey! You guys!" Scarlet's calling to the other kids in the room over Luis' shoulder. "Get over here!"
"Sure thing Scarlet, we're coming!" Of course Kyla's the one that responded, she's such a crackhead.
"You too, first-years!"
"Oh shut up Tyler! I'll do whatever I want!"
"You wanna say that to my face Axel you punk?!"
"Yeah sure, let's go!" Axel storms up to the red-eyed sibling, the boy in return rolling up his sleeve. The brown-eyed one appears between them, coming out of seemingly nowhere, standing imposingly like an immovable mountain. He's got a slightly larger build than the rest of them, and is taller. He grunts, and both Axel and the red-eyed kid back off, still glaring daggers at each other.
"Nice job Trent! You're the only one those hotheads listen to! Now let's go!" Kyla skips between the group, headed towards us with everyone else following behind.
"Hey Nova are you feeling better?" Someone' right behind me, and I didn't notice!
"Oh geez!" I jump, turning to see who said it. "Oh, it's just you. Yeah, I'm fine. Are you okay?"
"Yeah, thanks to you. I'm sorry I didn't notice sooner, I might've been able to help you more."
"Nah, it's cool. You already know me, but I'm Nova. Nice to officially meet you."
"Oh yeah, I guess I never told you my name. I'm David, nice to meet you too! Sorry about picking you up before, I guess I just-"
"Hey cutie, you must be the one who stopped the attack earlier, huh?" The sibling with the white eye pushes David out of the way, putting his arm around me. "You seem to have quite the character, don't you? We should get to know each other better, just the two of us."
"Travis, get off of her. She looks like she's about to punch you." A hand grabs onto the collar of his shirt, pulling him away from me. Looks like it's the blue eyed kid. "Sorry about him, he's pretty rowdy. I'm Trey, and this is my little brother Travis. The angry one over there is Tyler, and the tall one is Trent."
"We're the Fisher brothers! Well, nobody calls us that, but it's our last name and I think it sounds cool!"
"Travis I thought I told you to be quiet!" Travis folds his arms, blowing a raspberry at Trey. They're… eccentric.
"Well, looks like we're all here. Welcome to Stonewall Dormitory." Sounds like Scarlet's talking to all of the first-years. "This building is where we elites of the school sleep and train. We also take most of our classes here, separate from the other students. For the most part we don't have much contact with the rest of the students, but we are technically allowed to eat lunch with them and there are exhibits and demonstrations that we attend with them as well."
"The general rule is that you are not allowed to leave this grove in the forest unless you have permission from Scarlet or me, but there are a few exceptions. You all probably know most of us, but I'm going to give you the rundown of all of our names for a quick introduction." Looks like Scarlet and Luis have a bunch of power in the buildings here. "Scarlet and I are the representatives for Stonewall, and we serve as part of the authority around here. These five are our second-years, Kyla, Travis, Trey, Trent, and Tyler." He pointed to their group, which were all standing together.
"Apart from us," Scarlet took the reins again. "Ebony and Ava are our only fourth-years. And lastly, Damon is our only third year."
"Um, Scarlet? I'm just a little confused, they said during our initiation that they usually took five people per year to be the elites, so why do we only have one third-year?" It's the braid girl, she sounds like she has a kind of southern-accent. Guess I didn't notice that before.
"Oh, well…" Scarlet sounds nervous, and she's looking at Luis questioningly, as if she's asking him what she should do. Was there something wrong with that question? All of the upperclassmen got really quiet and the light atmosphere in the room is all but gone.
"The rest of us died." Damon speaks up in the lack of the others talking. He sounds impartial to it all. "There was an incident a few years ago, when we were just first-years. The others hadn't been taking our training seriously enough, and we got ambushed by villains in the forest. I escaped through the shadows, but the others weren't that lucky. After I had ran back and gotten help, we went to investigate where the villains had last been seen, but all we found was a pile of corpses. Three of them were killed, and the fourth was missing. She was the weakest of us all, I can only assume she's dead too. Any more questions?" Everyone went completely silent, too stunned to say anything. The girl who asked the question just looked at her feet and shook her head to say no.
Clearing his throat, Luis began talking again, trying to fix the atmosphere in the room. "Well, now that you know about all of our names, how about you tell us yours?" They probably already know all of our names, but they want us to feel like we got to introduce ourselves.
"My name is Aubree Leonhart. It's a pleasure to be here." She bows slightly, quite properly.
"Man Aubree, you take everything too seriously. That's why you don't make any friends." The green haired girl chides rudely. She seems nice at first glance, but there's just something about her… "My name's Tiffany. I went to the same school as Aubree."
"Um, Tiffany, you should apologize to Aubree. That was really mean…"
"Oh shut up broccoli head, it was a joke!"
"Okay… well, I'm Tara." She talks in a timid voice, pretty quiet. That's probably why I didn't realize her accent sooner.
"You extras are so boring. I'm Axel, remember that name! I'm gonna graduate and become the top hero in the country, you all are just stepping stones in my path!" Of course he wants to be here, he's just the type to want to be the most important, flashy person possible."
"I'm just David." Woah! He's standing right next to me again and I didn't even notice him! The group all turns to me expectantly, the only first-year that hasn't said my name yet.
"My name's not important. Apparently you all already know it, anyways, so it's not like it matters."
Sighing, Scarlet fills in for me. "This is Nova Kahin, she got the best results on the test this year." I don't see why that's important, but it doesn't matter. I see Travis excitedly whisper something to Trent in a hushed voice, to which he only receives a nod in return. Trey nudges him violently in his side, and gives him a look that seems to say 'don't talk about that right now'. I wonder what that was about…
"Anyways, now that introductions are out of the way, we'll be giving you a quick tour of the building. Right now we are on the first floor, and there are four other floors above us. The second floor contains all the dorms, but a lot of it is just empty space for future expansion. On the third floor you'll find most of our classrooms, and the fourth and fifth floors are both expansive training areas. There's also a basement area to train for more, how do I say it, destructive powers." He looks pointedly at Axel and Tyler.
After the explanation, we went upstairs to the other floors to get a feel for the building. It was all pretty boring, so I didn't pay that much attention to it. The only detail worth noting is that we had a cool area on the roof where we were allowed to go in our free time, for whatever reason. It might be fun to look at the sky up there later… wait, what am I thinking? I sound like I'm planning to stay here! Whatever. Basically, we've got our building surrounded by the forest, with a pretty big front yard and no backyard to be seen, and a massive lake at our expense. Classes are on the third floor, and training is held in various different locations.
"Okay, that's it for the tour. The rest of the afternoon is free for you first-years to settle in and get used to the building and the people here. At eight o' clock, there's a meeting with the entire school, and we are required to be there on stage. This meeting will give students the rundown of the curriculum, as well as explaining our situation to them." I don't know why the people running the school feel like they need to inform the entire student body about the elites or whatever the heck they're trying to call us, but it doesn't really matter anyways. Regardless, it's not like I can change anything anymore.