Luck walked into the classroom causing the attention of everyone to shift towards him. Some looked skeptical while some looked impressed.
Ella, the main cause of the attention he was receiving remained indifferent, barely sparing him a glance when he entered the room. He sighed and he walked over to his seat beside the window taking a deep breath of fresh air before settling down.
Ayra stepped into the room a few minutes later, her eyes scanning the classroom until it landed on him. "Luck and Ella," she called.
'Are we in trouble for something?'
He wondered, waiting for her revelation. "You both have an on field training mission with Arlder. He is waiting for you at the end of the island."
"Why do only they have to go?"
"He's just been in school for 2 days!"
"Is he some kind of prodigy?"
The students whispered among themselves.
Luck got out of his seat, slightly annoyed but on the outside he remained indifferent as he walked outside the class alongside Ella.
If he was going through so much stress just two days after joining the academy how hard did full time venators have to work?
"As for the rest of you, I'll be taking over your classes today."
The sounds of complaint that came after showed that this was not the first time Ayra was tutoring them in place of Arlder, and that the students preferred the later.
'Could she be that bad?' Luck wondered as he left the class.
•••
"Why are you following me?" Ella asked, they were both walking down the street.
"Umm we are going in the same direction."
"There are many routes to the edge of the island, stop following me, it's weird."
"Well, I don't know the way," he argued.
She crossed her arms across her chest and continued walking.
When they eventually got to the shore to their surprise Arlder was already there staring straight into the sky while they approached.
"Good morning Sensei," Ella greeted, bowing a little to greet him.
"I told you I don't like work Arlder, this is beginning to look like work." Luck said resting his back on the small beaten up shack that was on the beach.
Arlder turned to both of them but it was as though his eyes looked right through them his expression cold and distant.
Moments later a bright smile spread across his face, he finally noticed their presence.
"You guys are here rather early, you must really be very enthusiastic about your first mission."
"Let's be on our way then." He finished
Ella could not hold back her excitement, smiling just as Arlder confirmed what Ayra had originally told them.
Initially she had been skeptical about the whole thing simply because it took far longer before they were normally meant to start going on field.
She would have gone searching for phantoms to practice herself but regulations banned students from actively engaging phantoms. This would be her chance to finally see how well she had grown.
Arlder opened the door to the shack and instead of a regular beat up interior there was a dark swirling matter that had a twinkle of light within it.
"Not this again." Luck said about to step back before he was shoved into the portal by Arlder, he could hear Arlder's laugh, his voice fading moments after he entered the portal.
The portal led to the top of a two story abandoned apartment complex, the strange thing was that not only the apartment seemed to be abandoned, in fact it looked as though it was the whole neighborhood.
Beside him Arlder and Ella walked through the portal and onto the scene.
Arlder sat coasted legged on the roof of the building, "The type of phantoms we are dealing with do not come out this early."
"What time will they be out?" Luck asked, staring down to look at the empty streets.
"They'll be out in the evening." Arlder layed down.
"We are 3 hours early!" Luck yelled but there was no response from Arlder.
'Is he asleep?!'
Ella just shrugged and went to sit at the edge of the building, her feet hanging down over the edge.
Arlder didn't move an inch during those 3 hours no matter how much Luck shoved him or pinched his skin, when he finally 'woke up' it was well above 3 hours but it was as if he was never even asleep.
'He faked the whole thing!.'
Alrder walked over the edge of the building and peered down. "As you both know, our job as venators is to protect the regular citizens and even other venators sometimes from phantoms."
"This is an example of what happens when venators fail to do their job properly."
"The whole neighborhood has been evacuated." Ella added.
"Can you both feel that smoky sensation in the air?" They both nodded in response.
"The phantoms have settled long enough and are now forming a musk, this can either repel other phantoms or attract them depending on the wishes of the principal phantom. Ella what else did I teach you guys in class?"
"The stronger the phantom plus the longer they stay in the area, the stronger the musk will be. Once defeated the musk will immediately clear up." She said as though she had auditioned for this very question.
A loud screech echoed from the bottom of the building and they all looked down to see three feline looking creatures with twisted heads and no eyes roaming around the street.
"Those are not the prettiest cats I've seen." Luck joked.
"Phantoms." Ella said her voice low
"Your job today is to act in the full capacity of a venator and exterminate any and all phantoms in the area." Arlder announced.
Just as he was finishing Ella hopped down the building with nothing but her bare fists as she landed right in front of the three of them.
"No matter what you do, make sure she doesn't die. Not that I expect her to," Arlda said to Luck.
"I told you I'm not interested in doing any sort of work, I never signed up to be a venator."
"Trust me when I say you can't really return to your old life, if you do there would be people waiting for you there. I'm very pretty sure you do not want to return to your older life. This is your only way forward."
Luck had never told Arlder details about anything but at this point he was no longer surprised, Arlder had his way of digging up secrets.
"Why should I trust you?"
"You've been trusting me for a long time now, why stop now?"
Luck watched as Ella tore through two of the nearby phantoms, her punch sending one flying a few feet away while her kick drove the other one into the pavement.
"If I ever go too far."
"Yeah yeah, I know what to do. Take this along with you." Arlder said, handing him a metallic staff.
The staff had a smooth design with curled patterns that ran from the bottom of the staff to the tip, the two ends had a slightly greater diameter than the other parts, which made it easier to swing around.
"Where did you even get this?" Luck was sure that Arlder was holding nothing when they arrived but he just shrugged off his question.
Luck took the staff and slung it across his back with the help of the holster that came along with it.
He sighed and he leaped from the top of the building, landing on the back of the third phantom and sitting on it as if it were a horse.
"You really shouldn't run ahead of your teammate," Luck said.
"Well you shouldn't be slow when dealing with a phantom outbreak," Ella retorted. The phantom growled in confusion just moments before Ella pounded its head into the ground.
Ella tried to use the clean part of her arm to wipe the blood off her clothes. "The musk is still here."
"That means there are more phant–."
BOOOOOOOOM!!
The building next to them shattered sending glass and other projectiles in all directions, Luck and Ella smoothly maneuvered around the projectiles that were sent their way.
The phantom was like an upgraded version of the little phantoms Ella had killed but way larger, more muscular and hairier.
Unlike the smaller phantoms it had darker fur and red eyes that searched the environment trying to find what had killed its kin.
When its eyes landed on them it opened its mouth and steam emerged from its jaws just before a loud roar tore through, the roar was so loud that they both had to place their hands over their ears to reduce the sound.
"Woah, that is a really big one." Luck said, unslinging the metallic staff from his back. The weight felt comfortable in his hand.
'Yes, this should work.' He thought, twirling the staff around.
"A very big one indeed." Ella stepped forward jamming her fists together, a translucent golden amour matching her golden eyes covered her chest and hands.
Arlder's smile broadened as he watched them from the building.
'This should be interesting.'
•
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[A/N]
Thanks for reading!
Sorry if there are any errors I had to quickly edit it because I spend a lot of time writing ahead today.
What do you guys think about the story so far?