"It's a good thing I can camouflage my clothes as well as my body, otherwise it would be awkward if I had to get undressed to kill people," Kio quietly says as he darts out of the way of students that are walking by. Although Kio hasn't fully mastered his camouflage, he is good enough at it for the others students to be unable to see him. Looking ahead, Kio sees Louis heading down the stairs and stopping in the spot that Kio had seen earlier.
'Isn't this a little suspicious?' Kio thinks as he stops on the stairs and watches Louis look around, before pressing a tile on the wall. As the tile is pressed in the wall begins to creak before sliding away, and opening up a small doorway that Louis quickly darts into. 'A secret door? I wonder what could be hidden behind that, but I don't know if I should risk finding out' Kio thinks, feeling slightly wary of the area behind the doorway being a trap.
Glancing around, Kio notices that there are no students around the hallway and the doorway is starting to close. Gritting his teeth, Kio runs forward and slides between the closing walls and barely making it through. As the wall fully shuts behind him, Kio studies the room he has entered. It's a large room with red velvet for the carpet and walls. Around the room were several sets of stairs that led up to different parts of the room, but Kio couldn't see what were on those floors. The room also has a burning firplace, with a rams head mounted above it, and several couches and chairs around the room. However, Kio didn't see anyone sitting on them, or even standing around the room. Other than Kio, the room was completely empty.
'Where is Louis, I swear I saw him enter this room,' Kio thinks as he begins walking around the room and peering behind the couches, think that Louis might be hiding. Finding nothing, Kio sighs and deactivates his camouflage.
"Ah, so it was you who was following me," A voice says from the chair that is seated facing the fireplace. Startled Kio turns to the chair, only to find it empty. "Haha, I'm not in the chair, I'm somewhere else," The voice says again, but still from the direction of the chair. Frowning, Kio extends the spikes hidden in his palms and walks over to the chair.
"Louis, is that you?" Kio asks as he points the spike towards the chair while looking around the room in case Louis is actually hidden somewhere else.
"Of course it is me. I'm the one you were following, aren't I?" Louis asks as Kio nods his head, still confused on where Louis could be hiding. "If you want to find me, walk into the fire,"
"Into the fire?" Kio asks as he turns his head and looks at the fireplace. The fireplace is large enough that Kio could easily walk through it, but there was a solid wall on the other side, and if he did venture into the fireplace he would be burned by the fire.
"You don't believe me? Maybe this will make you understand," Louis says as a hand forms from the fire and waves toward Kio. Quickly thinking, Kio leaps toward the fireplaces and tries to grab onto the hand to pull the person out. "Oh, that works too," Louis said as Kio grabs onto his hand, but before he can pull him out multiple more hands form in the fire and grab onto Kio, pulling him farther into the flames.
"Damn bastard, you can't kill me like that," Kio shouts, trying to break free from the hands, but without any luck. As he is pulled farther into the flames, Kio tightly closes his eyes and waits for the burning sensation to come.
"What are you doing?" Louis asks as Kio feels himself fall onto the ground, without any burning sensation on his body.
"Huh, what's going on?" Kio asks as he opens his eyes and looks around a room that is identical to the one on the other side, only this time there are eleven people standing around him. Most of the people are looking at him funnily, while a few others are staring at the spikes protruding from his hands and whispering to each other.
"You are being summoned, that's what's going on," Louis says as he helps Kio stand up. "This is a room of people who are just like you,". Looking around, Kio is surprised to see that none of the students standing in front of him have red flags above their heads. Usually in a crowd this size, there would be at least one of them.
"What do you mean, just like me?" Kio asks as he brushes off some of the soot from the fireplace.
"I mean that none of us are truly human, we were all created by the gods to correct humanity's sins," Louis says as he points at the others in the room. "Of course, each of our missions is different, and we may not always get along with one another, but for the most part, we help each other out. I noticed that you were odd when I pushed you earlier, and you didn't budge an inch. Then when you followed me here, and you showed us that you have more than one power, it confirmed it as humans can only have one power," Louis explains as the group dissipates around the room and begin doing their own things.
"Wait, so everyone in this room was given a mission from the gods, and came to know each other? But how is that possible?" Kio asks as Louis leads him over to a couch and sits down.
"I'm assuming this means that your god or goddess didn't tell you much before sending you here. So I'll explain as much as we know to you, and you can decide if you want to be a part of this group or not, okay?" Louis asks as Kio nods his head, and sits down on the couch next to Louis. "Great, then I'll start from the beginning, which is also the reason behind this academy. Around a thousand years ago a god decided to sow chaos in this world and gave humans powers. The humans went wild at first, at their incredible increase in strength, but this created problems all over the world, which in turn began to affect the other gods. Upset, the other gods began to choose champions and send them into the world to fix the problem of humans, but it proved to be difficult. Each god and goddess had incredible restrictions put on them and their creations, as they were only to affect things they were directly related to. An example would be myself, or more importantly my grandfather, who was the champion of the god of the future. The god pulled out the soul of the future and gave it form, as well as the power to predict the future. Sending the champion into the world, my grandfather's mission was to find the humans that would bring suffering to the world in the future and get rid of them. Over time my grandfather grew old and fell in love, and decided to pass on his mission to my father who passed it onto me," Louis says before calling someone over to bring him some water.
"I see, so that means that each of the people in this room is either the champion chosen by a god, or their direct descendants carrying on their ancestor's mission. Right?" Kio asks as he is handed a bottle of water.
"That's right, and one of those champions decided to build this academy to make it easier for us to carry out our mission. Of course, we have to do this in secret, as many humans already know that we exist. They named us the Alconsins, and send out forces to take care of us where ever we appear. Many of the humans believe we are either from outer space that takes human form to infiltrate, or an enemy nation's secret force sent over to bring disasters. If only they knew that the reason we exist is because of them in the first place," Louis says as he turns around and grabs a book off the table next to him. "This is a book of our members, their powers, and their missions while they are here at the academy. If you want to join us fill your details out in this book and give it back to me later. I have to get back now, but your welcome to stay here," Louis says as he stands up and heads over to the fireplace. "By the way, act like you don't know me back in class, I have a reputation for being very stuck up," Louis says before stepping back through the flames.
Opening the book, Kio starts to read through it and figure out what the others around him are there for. Surprisingly, most of the members don't have very offensive powers, but they are still useful in different situations. Flipping the page, Kio is startled to see that Toby is also a member of the secret group.
"What is his mission?" Kio wonders aloud as he reads through the paperwork. It seems that Toby was actually created by the god of surveillance, and his mission is to make sure that the other champions chosen are keeping themselves hidden. "That makes sense, and with his ability to create clones of himself, Toby can watch multiple places at once," Kio says as he closes the book and stands up.
"Um, excuse me, but can I talk to you for a second?" a quiet voice asks from behind Kio. Turning around, Kio sees a girl that has light green hair made from leaves, and a red flower in her hair. She is wearing a flowery dress and looks shyly up at Kio.
"Sure, what can I help you with?" Kio asks as he wonders why girls keep showing up behind him, don't they know how to approach a man head-on?
"My name is Marie, and I was hoping you could help me with one of my missions. My ability has to do with plants, but at the moment I can only make flowers grow, and help trees produce fruit faster. In the future, I'll be able to do much more, but there is something I need done right now. I was hoping that with your two abilities, you could help me out?" Marie asks as she looks embarrassedly away from Kio.
"Well, I guess that depends on what you need done. So what is it?" Kio asks as he opens the book and flips to the page on Marie. It told him that she was created from the pain of a goddess that watched as her precious plants were continuously destroyed by greedy humans. Getting fed up with it, the goddess created Marie's mother to take care of humans that had no respect for plants.
"I need a person killed, but I've never killed a person before, and I don't really have the means to. The person is actually a teacher, and he has used his power of metal manipulation to raze destruction on countless trees. The reason he did it was so that other people could build a pipeline through the area, that carries oil across the nation. Do you think you could help me?" Marie asks as Kio looks at her blankly.
'A teacher... Probably has more control over his power than most students, so it might be a difficult task for me to accomplish at the moment. However, getting rid of a teacher would be much more difficult for her, as she doesn't have any offensive powers to use,' Kio thinks about it for a little bit before Marie begins talking again.
"You don't have to help me, I know you must be busy with your own mission," Marie says as a tear forms in her eye and she turns to walk away.
"Wait, I'll do it," Kio says as he grabs Marie's shoulder and turns her aournd. "But I'll need your help,"