Earl was sitting there inside the room in between two girls and two boys, the boy who had spoken when he entered the room was Henry, while the girl he had argued with was Ruby, they well still currently arguing, or at least the boy was still talking why Ruby didn't say much, just an insult here and there, the other two people were also quiet, so Earl decided to speak to them instead, he turned over to the girl beside him and put out his hand, "Hi, I'm Earl, what's your name?", the girl seeing this put out her hand and Shaked his, she had red hair that's was wavy and long, she wore a black top, and a black cargo pants, she also had a necklace on, and wore the traditional Japanese sandals, "Hi I'm Annie, nice to meet you", Earl then proceeded to shake her hand, but then one thought came to his mind as he did, ' Soft ' , her hand was soft, he was afraid that if he shook any harder her hand would get squished, now that he gave it some thought, the girl he had just met was beautiful, she had beautiful glowing skin, and nice plush lips, she also had a small button nose, and bright blue eyes, he was so busy admiring her beauty that he had lost himself in thought, "Um..., this is a really long handshake" Annie said, immediately Earl had realised himself and quickly took his hand back, "I'm sorry, I just thought you were really pretty", as he said that the whole room went quiet, ' Crap, I said that out loud didn't I?', everyone in the room was surprised at what he was saying to someone he just met, it was a bold move, and an unexpected one too, no-one knew what to say, including Annie, "Th-Thank you", Annie said feeling shy and embarrassed, still even after talking, the atmosphere was still silent, at least until Henry spoke up, "Wow bro, that was really brave", he just made Annie more embarrassed than she already was, and Earl's ears began shining a bright red too, he hung his head down as he didn't know what to say, and Henry had made things a lot worse, now Earl didn't know if to apologize or not, so he just decided to ignore the whole thing and introduce himself to the other boy, "Hi I'm Earl, Nice to meet you", the boy then turned around and had a depressing look on his face, his eyes had bags under them, his brown hair looked unkept, and he overall just looked depressing, he wore a white shirt, with a striped blue and black vest on top, he also wore some brown pants, and black Japanese sandals, "I'm Sidney, Sidney Guy, nice to meet you I guess", he then looked at Earl's stretched out hand and looked back at Earl, "You wanna shake me?, aren't you scared" Sidney asked, though Earl real answer was that he actually did, but he couldn't let his thought slip out once more, "Of course not Sidney, let's be friends", Sidney's baggy eyes went slightly more open, and a weird creepy smile appeared on his face, as he took Earl's hand and shakes it, after that, Ruby stood up to address everyone in the room, "Ok, now with introductions out of the way, we can now discuss this whole team situation, I was the first one called to this room, and from what I was told, we would be taking on this exam in a 5v5 match, I still don't know the rules and policies, but I know that we will be fighting all at once, so it's important we all know what type of Alchemy we use, I'll go first, I'm an earth alchemist", Henry then volunteered himself up, "alright then, in that case I'm an ice Alchemist, what about you pretty lady?" he said pointing at Annie, " who me?,..... I'm....I'm a strong Alchemist", everyone in the room was shocked as she said what she did, a strong Alchemist was someone who enhanced both the physical strength, but also speed agility and other areas of physical expertise, it was hard to believe that she was a strong Alchemist as they were very rare, also she looked like a pretty girl who would have something normal like wind, but her small stature was just a look, the room was still in silence when Sidney spoke up, "Well I'm a soul puppet alchemist", "A what?", everyone asked in unison, "A soul puppet alchemist, I use the souls of the things I've killed to battle, but they do so in the body of dolls, and if the doll dies, so does the soul, not to mention I can pour my mana into the dolls, and have them perform special abilities", as he finished speaking, he could see the horrified looks on all their faces, they were all shocked in place by what he had just said, for someone as depressing as him to have such a depressing alchemy, it made sense why he got the alchemy he did, it was now Earl's turn as everyone looked towards him, Earl gulped as he gave his answer "I don't have an affinity".
"What?, you don't have an affinity for anything?, then how'd you end up here?", Henry asked, it was a good question, as making it to this point required you to pass the final exam, which meant that one would have to trans mutate lead to gold, which required not only mana, but an affinity, "It's more like, I don't know how to use it yet" said Earl, trying to make his situation seem more believable, it was true that some people had no affinity for other forms of alchemy because they would later go on to discover a new form of Alchemy, and would take a much longer time to learn how to use their Alchemy, much less mastering it, but however this was extremely rare and only had a 1 in a 1000000000th chance, but it seemed like they had met one and would have to deal with it, "Whatever it doesn't matter", Ruby said, "What we should concentrate on now is making a game plan, we know that it's an all out 5v5 battle royale, but I don't know how they're scored or what these random numbers they gave us were, but we need a formation, one that guarantees the highest possibility for victory", she paused as she began thinking of a formation for the team "Why don't we all just rush out on our own?", said Henry, his way if thinking was just plain and simple, not to mention arrogant, and the majority of his team had already seen this, Earl included, "No, that won't work, we still don't know how we're being scored, it might be based on your alchemy, or your worth in cash, or even just some random factor, this exam has happened once before, about 67 years ago, and the scores were determined by the number of letters in their names, if something similar happened, and we split up, the person with the most points might get knocked out, and we might end up losing at the beginning" said Earl, Everyone was surprised to see how much information he knew on what happened in the past, it was like he was some kind of alchemy geek, and he was, but however this made the group realise that it was a harder job to make a plan and formation, than what they originally thought, due to fact that they didn't know how they would be scored, numbers were given to students not by they're order of entry, but it was just a random number, if she wanted to make an effective formation, simply going back to back wouldn't cut it, and isolating the weakest link in the middle wouldn't work either, as they still didn't know how things would be scored, not to mention how to utilise Earl, who seemed to have an unreliable Alchemy.
After thinking for a while, she had a formation in mind, "Okay guys, I've got a plan, it involves two people being back to in the middle, while the three remaining people create a triangle shape around them, now the plan is for the two people on the inside to be long range fighters, meaning people with a long ranged ability that would easily be able to either stop it incapacitate them, they would also inform the remaining outer three of any incoming attacks, as they would provide a 360 degrees vision for the rest of the team, while the three in front will have to be short ranged battle type, they will deal with any attack that are coming head on, they should also create some kind of defence for the two in the middle, with this, I think we should have a good chance, everyone understand?", it was pretty clear to the rest of the team, it wasn't hard to understand, and was pretty good plan, but there was still one problem, "So who takes what post?", Sidney asked, they all still didn't know what Earl's Alchemy was, and the rest all had flexible Alchemy, they would need to think of it carefully to fully utilise each person, "Well for one Annie has to be part of the outer three" said Ruby, the whole group nodded in agreement, her alchemy was made for short ranged combat, using her somewhere else would just be dumb, "And Henry will be part of the outer three", said Earl, this was also another wise choice, as he had an affinity for ice, and not only could he freeze people in place, but he could send people flying with it, but now they had to decide what positions the other three would take.
Everyone paused for a second as they were currently trying to decide what position the remaining three people would take up, first there was Ruby, she had earth alchemy which would could be used for both positions, as she could both do short and long ranged attacks, next there was Sidney, who used some weird soul puppet alchemy, and based on his description of it could also be used for both, but would be more suited for long range, then there was Earl who had no experience using his alchemy, and that meant he could only be used in the inner two positions, because putting him in the outer three would throw off the teams balance, plus he could always still keep a lookout, because Ruby's alchemy was good in either positions, the best position for both Earl and Sidney would be part of the inner two, but they would have to choose which was more suited to be in the inner two position.
After a bit of thinking, Ruby made a decision, "I think Sidney should be out front, and so should I, while Earl takes the centre with Henry", what she said was true, the fact that Earl was in the centre meant one less ranged attacks, and more pressure would be on the outer three, but it was better to have a strong exterior and weak interior, than have a weak exterior, but strong interior, at least with this formation, they'd end up loosing less people, "I agree" Earl said, he understood her reasoning, and knew she made the right choice, "Okay then, it's settled, me and Earl over here are gonna man the middle, while the rest of you take care of the rest, team Alpha on three....", said Henry as he put out his hand, everyone looked at him like some weirdo who just made a team name on the spot, and spoke so freely with them, but they all put their hands together with his, "All right, let's go" Henry said.
The team were now on an open platform, with hundreds of other students, who each had different Alchemy, and different plans and formations, but of all the faces Earl saw, there's One he recognised immediately, "Jake?".
Author's note: Sorry for the slow uploads, school stuff, but now you can be rest assured of steady uploads
Leaving a comment really helps a lot, so try and do so.