DONOVAN HORSKA

Damn.

For a second there Donovan actually hoped that the plan would work. An all-out attack from all angles, it should have been awesome. Plus it wasn’t every day that he got to throw someone. He was hoping that the special occasion would reap its profits. Ah well, he was only slightly bummed. They should’ve known better than to pick a fight with an experienced magi. If it was one thing Donovan Horska knew how to do, it was how to choose his battles. To get swept up with the excitement of teaming up with other magic users, it was fucking reckless. He was better than that, so much better.

Corrections and revisions ran through his mind as he sailed through the air.

Ah, Varus’ explosion based power. They really shouldn’t have underestimated its range and power. Of course a half-assed sneak attack wouldn’t trump an ability with this area of effect.

Nico’s limp noodle of a body slammed into him.

Right, they shouldn’t have assumed that their amateurish magic would have even made a dent on the guy. Fucking Nico. Couldn’t even get his one little trick right. But he couldn’t take all the blame. Donovan guessed that the more you trained, the more resistance you gained to the magic of others. His and Nico’s attempts to quell him barely even made him break a sweat.

Both Donovan and Nico hit the ground with a dull thud. The impact forcibly beat the breath out his chest; something that wasn’t helped by the fucking idiot that landed on top of him then proceeded to get knocked out. God, it was just a big ironic part switch of the morning’s event. Donovan viciously swiped the guy’s body off of him, having him flop unceremoniously onto the ground next to him. Fuck, everything was sore. He was tired. He was hurting. And he fucking lost. Donovan grit his teeth in frustration. He wasn’t strong. His magic, everything he staked his pride on, had been blown away by a guy who just demolished the match and left because he was feeling peckish. Donovan could make all the excuses in the world but there was only one person to blame for his inability.

Slowly, and painfully, he picked himself up and dusted himself off. Some others were already making casual conversation. He took a few breaths, then summoned his trademark cocky smirk to regain his swagger and join the others. He needed to move on. He needed to get stronger. And as much as he would’ve liked to sulk about it some more, he wasn’t going to get anything from it. It wasn’t the logical thing to do.

“About bloody time,” he quipped, though an observant person might have noticed how half-hearted the snarkiness was now, “I’m fucking starving. What kinda food do you think they’ll have at magic school, eh?”

He glanced at the wreckage strewn around their battlefield. There were still a few people dazed and on the ground. Some, like Nico and Mikhail it seemed, were even out cold.

“Sooo, do we just leave these slackers on the ground?” he inquired, gesturing at Nico’s unconscious form, “cos honestly, I’m cool with that. You’re not gonna find me carrying any of these losers.”

@RoflsMazoy @Mercurial @GreenGoat

"Jeez, I sorta hope so." Gale said distractedly, staring up at the crowd of owls. "Feels like I've been lost for days up here."

In fact, he was kind of in a dire situation. He'd run out of food and washing his clothes in rivers would only do so much for the smell. Gale unconsciously checked his scent when he remembered that he was in the company of girls. Fortunately, he'd washed himself recently so all he smelled was dirt. It could've been better but it could've certainly been worse. Not by much, mind you. His hair was longer than he'd like (still rather short), his nails were too long and his clothes were worn and weary-looking. At least his teeth were alright though.
It's been so long... Let's hope my social skills haven't gone rusty.

What the hell am I thinking? I don't have social skills.

Gale was dragged out of his musings as a caterpillar dropped onto his shoulder. It twitched in midair before it landed on his shoulder, shuddering like it was in a bug zapper, seemingly paralysed.
"Oops." Gale said, shrugging the bug off as best he could.
I really need to learn how to turn that off.
He'd thought it was pretty awesome when he'd figured it out but his electric aura thing was actually pretty detrimental for his life. Electronics went crazy if he touched it. Getting through airport security had been a nightmare, and worst of all, he was avoided by dogs and cats. That was one of the reasons that he was keen on going to Four Winds, the other being a secret (:P). The letter had said that he had a special power, and while that was true, it wasn't really helping him that much just yet.

Gale wondered if the caterpillar appreciated his intervention, but he doubted it. It looked about as disgruntled as a caterpillar could be. It fell to the stone path ungracefully but recovered and powered on, towards the girl he ran into (@Baklava, for clarification). Gale was suddenly made aware of the multitude of bugs swarming around the girl's feet.
"Oh Jeez." He said, squatting down to study the swarm. "The bugs sure love you."

The girl did not seem pleased with their presence and he was wondering what was causing them to be attracted to her. She didn't smell particularly strange so it wasn't because they wanted food. He got up and looked at the other 2 people that were at the scene. The guy was in a tree for some reason and the other girl's hand was beginning to glow. Gale had initially assumed that the motley crew were just hikers or something, a group of friends climbing Mt Fuji. But now that he looked, they were all roughly the same age as him, though they were older. And they were being real weird. And one of them mentioned a school. So maybe...
"Are you guys also going to 4 winds?" Gale concluded. "Thank god, I was worried I was way too late. Though considering I started heading over here last year, I guess I am."

Gale got up and glanced over to the other girl he didn't bump into, who sported, oddly enough, an entire head of pink hair.
"Hey, uh, pink hair lady?" Gale said, calling out to the girl (@lydyn). "Your hand is glowing. Is it supposed to do that?"

---

And also @Zero Hex I guess cause you're here

Valechka had a potato held in her hand, ready to throw it. Though the others seemed to plan their actions, attempting to use team work to try to take their instructor down, Valechka instead decided to bide her time until it was time to strike. In spite of the fog and the darkness, Valechka was more than capable of hearing- and smelling in some cases- both the other students and the instructor as they went about. She could not discern exactly what was going on, how many bodies there were, or what had happened, but it looked as though the instructor was very much capable of taking care of each and every one of them.

Then out of the blue, a familiar voice. It was the boy who wanted to fight her earlier! She didn't quite understand him, though his ramblings certainly did not improve her opinion. Still, she questioned if the babble had something to do with his superpower, which was a thing that apparently everybody else had. Valechka felt herself at a slight disadvantage then. The clenched the potato in hand, claws peeling into the potato skin.

When she felt it was finally time to strike, Valechka leaped back onto her feet. "A NUU-" she shouted. The potato was held up in the air behind her head as if she were about to lob it. In front of her was the teacher. She could hear the man speak, though in her distressed state, which she had been in since the entire smoke incident, she wasn't entirely sure what he was on about. For a second, Valechka looked at Varus like a deer caught in headlights.

Then, Valechka threw the potato at the instructor.

Unlike all the others, who were seemingly in awe of and found deeper hidden meanings in a flock of owls of unusual colors, Rey was just annoyed. These were nowhere near as interesting as a giant bug, yet entirely as noisy. How the hell was he going to enjoy his time in the forest with a bunch of hootin and hollerin going on over his head? Someone should've warned people about screeching birds and giant insects before they headed into the mountain, this was just plain awful for a tourist. "Aw hell no, vayanse a cagar a otro lado!" Rey screamed at the birds, waving his hands around as though trying to scare flies away.

He wished he was still back home, where this would be solved by asking his da or Loco Mike for the shotgun. Few better ways of being rid of pests than a bit of buckshot after all. But he was in the ass end of the world up some mountain so he didn't have that luxury. Maybe throwing rocks would work? He turned to look at the newcomer, raising an eyebrow when he mentioned he'd taken a whole year to get to the school and now having completely forgotten about climbing and birds, if only for the moment. "Shit man, I've skipped out plenty and I'm in no hurry to get to Four Whatever, but a year? Don't you think that's a bit much?".

@Lord of Evil@Baklava@lydyn

"Don't even get me started." Gale sighed.
Try as he might, he couldn't prevent an extremely sour expression from emerging as he remembered his days working for money for a plane ticket to Japan, as well as supplies and spending money. That'd taken most of his time, but as it turned out, his flight was taking them very far away from where he wanted to be. Though his expression softened a bit when he remembered the journey to Mt Fuji since he'd met some pretty nice people on the way.
"Well, I got a letter near the start of last year but I only started going to japan halfway through the year." Gale said. "And then a bunch of stuff happened."

Running out of food, running out of cash, having to walk for days. It was pretty grueling but he'd learned a lot from it.
"Well, it was kinda fun in the end." He finally said. "But anyway, does anyone have some food? I'm kinda hungry."

@Zero Hex@Baklava@lydyn pls give a hungry man some food

The girl's fist was raised up into the air. Her expression was that of pride, as if she was victorious or something. She was also knocked out cold for a while already. Perhaps she was really having fun in her respite with whatever was going on inside of her mind. However, her brief respite ended with a rough awakening as two bodies decided to fall on top of her. She opened her eyes in shock, and while her vision was blurry, she could see the two boys that were on top of her.

In her blurry mind, she felt excited by what could happen next in such an awkward situation.

However, much to her chagrin one of them just stood up, and dismissed the other body while having a cocky smile on his face. He looked familiar. Alice tried to clear her eyes to see the person more clearly, but she ended up noticing the person that was still on top of him. It was an unconscious Nico, with his glasses lost somewhere. Aww, he's so cute when knocked out!

Alice was feeling content with her situation now. The thought of dealing with Varus had left her mind, perhaps as she felt that she already made a victorious move against him, and now she decided to pretend that she was unconscious so that when Nico woke up, she could do the usual routine when a boy fell on top of a girl. That kind of awkward situation build up intimacy, right?

@January

Mikhail Suburov-Tachibana

Mikhail woke up in a bad mood, and by bad, he meant - did we all just lose? He should have known Varus' explosion magic would have been a match against their numbers; in fact, he suspected it. Now only a few were standing, including Valcheka the Racist, who was apparently trying to provoke a fight with Varus. He should interfere, but right now, there was another priority. And said priority was Nico being on top of Alice in what would be an inappropriate and intimate way that Mikhail himself envied.

Well, best to do something about that. Getting up and enduring the sense of tiredness, Mikhail pulled Nico away from Alice, but not to himself; rather, he would pull Nico to an empty spot on the floor, and then sit on the floor in-between that spot and Alice.

((Edits reverted, but with reference to Mikhail's injuries))

He would then notice the unconscious body of Alexander Kaplan, then, using his own knee as a fulcrum and his arms as levers, heft said unconscious body over Alice's. Yes, said unconscious body may or may not be made out of steel; no serious harm would happen anyway.

Once he was done, Mikhail would slump down, the last of his strength fading away. But his mood was one of satisfaction; now Alice would wake up under someone not Nico...

@January@KOgaming@BassDropp@Nanashi Ninanai@Scio@banjoanjo@RoflsMazoy

With no response to her question, Rhian was left to assume that none of the freaks there were responsible for the obnoxious bird show. If these birds were supposed to lead them to the school, they were doing a pretty shoddy job of it so far. Whatever they were up to, it was downright eerie.

Distracted by what was happening above, Rhian almost missed what was happening below as some kid crouched down to observe her feet-- greatly intruding upon her personal bubble. She didn't catch what the kid said down there, but her face turned a light shade of red as she prepared to give him a bug-coated kick to the face. She wasn't wearing a skirt, but shorts were a close second. The last thing she needed was some guy she barely knew getting a whiff of her pomegranate body lotion. Lucky for him, he got up and started talking to Rose.

Creeps from above and creeps from below, welcome to Four Winds Academy.

It was then she also noticed the ominous glowing energy ball in Rose's hand. She shuffled back a step, making a mental note to NOT find out what that felt like if it hit you. Anyway, did that kid just say he'd been trying to make it to the school for a year? Did he really want to go here that badly? Harvard or no, Rhian would have accepted her fate as a 45 year old burger flipper after a week at most. She suspected most of these magic-outcasts wanted a place for their weirdness to fit in.

It was then that she realized most of them had probably had their powers for years. That was probably why none of them seemed all that perturbed by the feathery swarm overhead. No wonder they were all so socially starved, she mused, glancing between Tarzan and Mr. Bubble-Intruder, who was asking everyone for food. How could he eat at a time like this? She wrinkled her nose and ignored the question, turning her eyes back to the owls.

Alex Kaplan

---

---

For one beautiful moment, Alex was soaring through the air to glory. He had the droop on his opponent, and a well placed fist of steel would be more than enough to secure his spot at Four Winds. Right before the moment of truth all chances of success were literally ripped away from him as a huge explosion erupted on the field. As the smoke dissipated it was clear that Varus was far stronger than any of them had imagined.

Flying head-over-ass never leaves you with a nice feeling afterwards. Alex slammed into Akasha and Nihiri. He noted that he in fact could not move a muscle, and had somehow pinned both of them under him. The panther-girl let out a roar and then the whole world went black as he sank into unconsciousness.

---

Waking back up was slow for Alex. He noticed things in sequences. First, was that he was in fact, still on top of a body. Second, was that the body was most definitely female. And lastly, he noticed that he was about one or two head-shakes away from motor boating said female. Kaplan picked up his head from the poor girl's chest and gave her a sheepish look.

"Not gonna lie, usually I wait until a few dates into a relationship to get where we are right now."

Hopefully the joke lightened the mood instead of making him look like a prick. Either way he untangled himself from Alice as quickly as he could and dusted himself off. Alex offered Alice a hand, wait- Alice's? How had he ended up on top of her? He could have sworn he had fallen on top of panther-girl and demon-arm-guy, right? "Wait uh... What happened?"

Wow for someone as smart as you, you can sound like a royal retard sometimes.

He thought to himself, mentally facepalming.

"Well, I don't doubt we could do something," Clive said, "But we are respectively, 5 foot 6 in a raincoat, staggering out of a blast zone, and some guy who was on fire until a minute ago. If we're going to try to help, we won't be doing much."

He was exaggerating of course. Junko was probably a little bit taller, and while Enver couldn't exactly control his fire, he could at least control whether he was on fire or not. As for Donovan, he would recover soon enough probably but he'd already expressed that he was unwilling to pitch in if they tried to do something.

"They're going to get up on their own eventually," Clive said. "If you're worried about the glasses guy we can just go save him some breakfast."

---

@GreenGoat@Mercurial@banjoanjo

W-what's happening?

Still closing her eyes and doing her best unconscious impression, Alice felt the body on top of her moved. Did Nico wake up already? If so, why didn't she hear him say anything? Nico wouldn't be like that, that's what Alice was sure about. He definitely would seem to be the type that would react in surprise when he realized he's being unconscious on top of a girl's body. However, her thought was then distracted by how the weight of a body hit her with a thud. That was painful, but Alice's mind went instead to the fact that the head now was buried on her barely there chest.

She tried her best to not pout or yell in annoyance.

Whatever was happening, something felt off. Alice, stuck in the uncomfortable and awkward position, now had to decide whether she should go break her pretense and yell at Nico to get off her chest, or whether she should keep it until she's sure Nico's awake for the sake of her scenario. If she's yelling to an unconscious body, she'd lose valuable relationship points that she could've gotten here, but the body's current position really made her feel uncomfortable, not to mention she couldn't just get away herself from being pinned to the ground.

Craaap, what should I do now...?

Of course, there's the third way of just enjoying this. Being the embrace of a pretty guy was something she's looking forward to anyway, and the situation here wasn't even non-consensual since she's kinda the one setting it up-

Oh, is he waking up?

"Not gonna lie, usually I wait until a few dates into a relationship to get where we are right now."

Wait, wait wait a sec! That's not Nico! Uh...wait, how the hell?

"Wait uh... What happened?"

"T-that's what I'm supposed to ask you, you pervert!"

Alice's face reddened. She would've slapped him like the usual thing people do if her arms didn't feel like noodles now. But her mind was somewhere else right now.

Wait, how did he...how did Nico turn to Alex? Did I somehow mistook him for Nico? I mean both are hot but uh...this is awkward..

Despite of everything though, it was nice to feel his body's warmth in that close position. Without her cardigan or jacket, it was actually pretty cold up here, but it helped her to feel Alex's warmth better. Of course, she had to play hard to get now, and still with a reddened face, got up to both of her feet. Well, perhaps even if she didn't get Nico, Alex's route looked to be promising too. In a way, she looked forward for a time she got stuck into that kind of situation again. Perhaps next time she had to engineer it herself...?

"I-I'll go look for my stuffs...D-don't you dare have any dirty thought about what just happened!"

@BassDropp

---

Alice's legs felt wobbly. With the amount of physical activity she had subjected her body with today, it really felt like she really need to start actually doing exercises now. That could happen later though. For now, she's focusing herself on gathering her stuffs. Her luggage was left quite a way back, and it was the first thing she grabbed. Then, she focused on getting the stuffs on her smaller bag that had spilled on the chaos. Her notebook was fine aside from the torn pages, her pen was still functional. However, a look at her smartphone made her bubble in rage.

What the hell? She expected that the worst case was for there to be no service here about something about the area was actually actively preventing it from being usable. In annoyance, she pocketed the now-useless device, and went to grab her now dirtied cardigan and jacket. They're too dirty for her to comfortably wear now, so she just slung them on her shoulders. That could've just potentially be it, but on her way, she noticed something interesting. She noticed a pair of glasses along the way, and realized that they belong to Nico. The frame was mostly okay, but the lenses were cracked in a few places. That made her realize to check her bag for her own glasses, and after the short relief on finding that out, she carefully picked the glasses and put it on her bag.

That could prove to be useful.

Right now, the thought of the trial didn't even appear on her mind. For her, she believed that she had passed it with flying colors and her assault on Varus (that mostly happened on her mind while she was knocked unconscious by accident) had ended up impressing him. Nevermind the sight of Varus still being okay and not mourning the lost of his potential descendants. Probably she deliberately pushed that sight out of her mind to keep her "victory" untarnished.

Junko Adevelt

She extinguished the last of the fire, as the Fireboy there finally simmered down.

"Well hello there. Didn't realise I had my own personal fire extinguisher."

Junko had a ton of things she wanted to say right now, one that stood out in particular was how much of a blithering idiot he was for panicking. Not that she will ever voice it out, especially now that she was wearing the gas mask. It didn't hamper her speech much, but the voice box intended to prevent muffled speech also gave her voice a strange distorted sound. It was something she thought made her voice sounds stupid, so she rarely ever spoke with the gas mask on unless she was speaking to family.

A hand wave gesture near the vicinity of her mouth was all the response she gave, loosely meaning 'don't mind it'. That was, if the boy manage to understand what she was trying to convey.

"So, uh, are we all expelled?"

"I doubt he'd expel us, he's in a pretty good mood." The boy who had insulted her earlier piped in, before patting her on the head. "Let's go grab breakfast."

It made her hackles rise just with that. What happened? Did he get a concussion? Why was he acting so nice all of a sudden? She didn't get much time to think before another person started speaking.

“About bloody time,” Another one of the boys who was in that concerted action to smack Varus in the face butted in. “I’m fucking starving. What kinda food do you think they’ll have at magic school, eh?”

"Well, I don't doubt we could do something," Clive replied, "But we are respectively, 5 foot 6 in a raincoat, staggering out of a blast zone, and some guy who was on fire until a minute ago. If we're going to try to help, we won't be doing much."

She wasn't that familiar with imperial measurements, so she did not have a comeback to that. What was 160cm in imperial anyways? But more importantly, why were these people acting all nice all of a sudden and trying to drag her to breakfast? Not that she would mind, she was getting a bit peckish, but it was hard to eat when simply taking off the mask would instantly drown everyone around her in fog.

Junko took a deep breath, aware it sounded exaggerated through the mask.

First thing first, she wanted, needed, some breakfast, and if she filled the entire cafeteria with fog, then so be it. She could bring a lunch box the next day, and eat somewhere else.

Coughing once to catch the attention of the others there, she gave a gesture with her head, signalling that if they weren't moving to breakfast soon, she'd go alone. That was, if they managed to read beyond the gesture's obvious meaning of 'go'.

DONOVAN HORSKA

"They're going to get up on their own eventually," Clive said. "If you're worried about the glasses guy we can just go save him some breakfast."

…the fuck, mate? Where on Earth did he get the idea that Donovan was worried about Nico? His head was reeling from the mere idea. Since that encounter outside the school gates, Donovan had felt nothing but loathing (unadulterated loathing) for the loser. Just because they spent a few minutes navigating the fog together didn’t mean that they were suddenly blood brothers. If anything, it was pity that Donovan felt towards Nico, not worry. Dude was like a kicked puppy. “Worry” implied personal investment in this guy’s problems. And that was something that Donovan absolutely did not have, even if he felt the need to state the obvious for Nico’s sake. It didn’t mean a goddamn thing.

“Worried?” he huffed, feeling slightly more pissed off now, “C’mon dude, what are you taking me for? Nico can get his own damn breakfast.”

The amount of effort he put into his “I don’t give a crap” tone probably only made it seem like he actually did care at least a little bit. He scowled yet another time that morning and continued walking, making sure not to throw another glance back at the unconscious lot. The girl with the gasmask coughed then made a gesture that vaguely meant, “go”.

“See? She gets it.”

@RoflsMazoy @GreenGoat @Mercurial

For some reason, Enver and the gas mask gal attracted a few others. Some guy saw fit to chime in and answer his question. While it made a certain degree of sense, Enver wasn't so sure he believed this guy operated on logic. Maybe it would be because he was in a good mood that he would expel everyone? He had just sent them all on their asses with an energy attack. Maybe he was a big sadist? Enver still didn't have any answers. Everyone else seemed perfectly calm about, so he just decided to go with the flow. The guy then suggested they get something to eat. Enver was up for that, but before he could say so, they attracted another person to their little party. It was the dude that was messing around with that guy with the glasses earlier on. Between what he already knew about the guy, and the way he was talking about the people left unconscious, he had a feeling this guy wasn't a pleasant fellow.

While he didn't have the same level of contempt for the unconscious people that this other guy did, Enver still felt apathetic towards the idea of helping them all up. That was a job for the school staff, assuming they gave a shit. The douche and the gas girl seemed to want to get going, and Enver wanted to eat now too.

"Yeah, let's go." He said, starting to follow the others. "So, how about some introductions? I'm Enver." Maybe he would finally get some names to put to these faces.

@GreenGoat @banjoanjo @RoflsMazoy

Looking around at the mess the instructor made, Akasha realized that while they did come deafeated at the trials, the others seemed to have already put the test in the past and it was time to get a move on. While the idea of having been defeated didn’t really suit her, she agreed that it was now in the past and they had to move forward and get stronger for the next time it would happen. Plus, even the instructor complimented the lot he just pulverized, something that she felt had meaning considering just how dispassionate the man seemed to be.

The others slowly recovering, some mentioned something like going to grab breakfast. Now that she was thinking about it, the young amazon was getting hungry as well. The off-road trek she took in order to reach here had been long and kept her on edge, but with the battle just now, she started to feel starved. The animal inside her craved for juicy meat. Perhaps there were plenty of game in the neighbouring forests? If so, perhaps breakfasts here included such food, she hoped. She wasn’t much of a vegetarian, although she did enjoy vegetables and fruits from time to time.

Settled with having a meal right now, Akasha happily stepped towards the school, but she stopped as he gaze could not let go of the few other students who were either lying unconscious on the ground or were seemingly too weakened to walk on their own. The others seemed uninterested in helping those people, either be it because of their own weaknesses, pride, apathy or simply sheer hate.

“So even in civilization, it’s the law of the jungle, huh?” Akasha muttered. She knew all too well of that feeling. The strongest strive while the weakest are left behind and eventually get eaten.

It was a way of life she had learned ever since being of young age. Being one of the weakest amazons, she knew what it was like to be left behind and barely being able to survive another day in the wilderness. And yet here she was, among humanity’s gifted and strongest. If there was something she had learned from her childhood, it’s to not become arrogant because of the power you had. One should not only strive for their own survival, but also the others.

With such in mind, Akasha made her way towards an unconscious Nico and a weakened Mikhail. The two seemed like close friends, but from the way it was now, it didn’t seemed like they could help each other now. Crouching just beside the guy she knew as “Glasses”, the shape-shifting amazon took the guy in both arms and lifted him with surprising ease. By the gods, just how much was he weighing? It felt like she was lifting two full potato bags on her shoulder, something she was used to carry back in her village. Truly, this guy needed to eat more healthily and gain some more weight.

Swinging unconscious Glasses over her shoulder, one could clearly see the developed muscles bulging out from the amazon’s arms, suggesting how much physical training she must have had despite how gentle her current appearance showed. Then, the wilderness girl turned to his friend and extended her arm for him to grab and help getting up.

“We all go eat together, right?” Akasha said with a cheerful smile, barely looking bothered by the weight she was carrying over her shoulder.

@Letter Bee @January

Mikhail Suburov-Tachibana

Mikhail's last physical exertion had sapped him of strength, leaving him unable to face Akasha once she came towards Nico, meaning that all he was able to do was implore:

"No, don't take him..." before the girl then extended her hand to him, smiling. Mikhail took Akasha's arm and got up, saying in turn:

"All right, we can do that." So she was a friend, good. Then, his face soured, his mood swinging, but not because of the Amazon.

"Donovan. He and his friends just abandoned us like that." A deep, toxic feeling of anger overtook the boy; he didn't know why - after all, Donovan was a jerk, right? This was to be expected, right? But the others...he had not expected them to abandon him and Nico. Damnit all! First Alice - okay, Alice didnt actually do anything wrong at all except lying to get Nico's attention - then Valcheka the Racist, and of course, Donovan and his cronies.

"Life is unfair, isn't it? So why aren't we making it more fair?" the questions escaped Mikhail's mouth like acid. "At the end of the day, this school is just like any other, a hotbed of bullies and racists and just plain jerks. I'm tired of playing their game, I'm tired of letting people hurt and use and abuse the people I like. People...people are just shit!" Mikhail was shaking now, knowing that he was vulnerable and hating it.

"I'm leaving and I'm taking Nico - the guy slumped across your shoulders - with me; we'll find another teacher, perhaps even a personal mentor, anything but this," he found himself saying, disbelieving in his own words...

@January@Scio@Riffus Maximus

"Your hand is glowing. Is it supposed to do that?" That's when she glanced over to the newcomer again and then over to Rhian, who had shuffled back a little. 'Ugh.. even with it being small.. it's already so noticeable. If only they knew how bad it got.' Her eyes went back up to the owl who seemed fairly harmless at the moment before clenching her hand and diffusing the ball of energy.

With a gentle sigh, she decided it might be best to avoid talking about her magic just yet. She quietly wondered what the instructors themselves might think - would they keep her away from the others then? ".. sorry, I didn't bring any food.. I really didn't bring anything. I just... kind of wanted to start over. I mean... eh.." She paused deciding not to put her foot in her mouth. "Anyways, I don't think the school is far, but this swarm of.. pink.. owls..." Again, her focus was on the horde of flying pink objects in the sky. It didn't seem the others were quite as concerned about it as they were each other. While she wanted to make friends and get to know the others, she couldn't help but wonder why they had appeared. If it was a trail of some sort, already, she wanted to be ready for it. Of course, the tree-stalker guy was jumping up and down trying to wave them off like they were bugs. He seemed quite strange.

"Aw man." Gale said as the glowing energy girl announced her lack of food. "I haven't had anything more wholesome than a snickers bar since last night..."
Truth be told, while Gale was hungry, what he'd really wanted to do was make some small talk while he analysed the group. While he looked unconcerned about the owls (he partially was, still), he was trying to figure out who of the group was creating the owls, if one of the group was the one doing it, and for what reason. So far, the only thing he'd managed to figure out was that it probably wasn't one of them.

Bug girl was ruled out because of the bugs. The bugs were only swarming her and ignored the others, for no discernible reason. This was in line with what Gale knew about the spooky power situation, in that she didn't seem to have much control over her bug-attracting ability, kind of like Gale's situation with his lightning thing. Although clearly there were exceptions to that rule with Pink hair's glowing energy stuff, since it seemed she produced it willingly and apparently controlled it well enough.

Pink hair was in fact the most likely candidate for making the pink owls, for obvious reasons. But despite not knowing much about special abilities, he was pretty sure glowing energy didn't link up to owls. So that left the guy in the tree, and Gale got the impression that he was doing the same thing Gale was doing. He was either acting casual or actually casual, but with tree guy's behaviour, he definitely wasn't controlling the owls.

Gale looked at the owls again. They weren't doing anything at all, just watching. He figured that the GM they would be doing something by now if they wanted to do something. Gale concluded that the owls were probably a surveillance system or something, to alert the school if there were random students getting lost on Mt Fuji because hot damn was the mountain big. And if that was so, that meant that they should probably get going up the mountain, or something.
"Welp, nevermind." Gale said dismissively. "I'm sure they have breakfast up in the academy, so why don't we get going?"

@lydyn@Baklava@Zero Hex

NICO LEHMANN

His body was weird. Or, rather, his body was in a weird position. The first thought that came to Nico's mind was that he had somehow died and this was the afterlife, where bodies flopped around in weird positions and grating noises shattered against his eardrums.

He groaned, as much to express his pain as to check whether he could still make noise. His entire body felt like someone had run a steamroller over it, but had somehow failed to flatten him completely. Breathing hurt a little. When he tried opening his eyes, Nico had the pleasure of finding out that light could hurt and he quickly squeezed his eyes shut again, waiting for his body to sort itself out after being hit by a--

then he remembered.

An explosion. The trial.

The sudden panic made him cry out in pain as his aching muscles tried to kick back into overdrive even when they were in no condition to do so. But at least it somewhat woke him up further.

He tried opening his eyes again and was relieved to see colors and not just spots of light all over his vision.

But everything was blurry, like the colors were trying to bleed into each other with the lack of fine lines to hold them in place. Glasses. He didn't have his glasses.

A slight movement finally keyed him in to the fact that someone was carrying him and that his weird position was the result of being slung over someone's shoulder. Nico groaned again, trying to ask what was going on, but the finer aspects of civilized humanity were the slowest in returning, so he settled for some caveman noises instead, hoping the person carrying him would notice.

@Riffus Maximus

Akasha’s cheerful smile turned into a more serious face as she listened to Nico’s friend, whose name was still unknown to her. However, she did take note of Glasses’ name, being Nico, who was still unconscious onto her shoulder. There was anger in his voice. No, something more than that. It wasn’t hate either, it was stronger. Pure hatred, that’s what it was. The young amazon did not know this guy’s past for him to hold such emotions inside of him, but it was strong. Or was it related to his power? Or were people from the city naturally this way?

As Mikhail finished speaking, Akasha let out a sigh, thinking about what he had just say. Indeed, this guy was talking way too much at once. She could barely register what he said between his mood shifts, turning from grateful, to angry, to desperate. Just how much did Nico meant to him? She couldn’t understand Mikhail’s feelings for the unconscious guy. She never knew love, she couldn’t feel what it was to have a sibling, and the only family she ever had was her aunt. Whatever feeling it was, it transcended Akasha’s imagination.

“Life IS unfair. Some are born weaker than others, and the strongest get everything…” The dark-skinned girl replied, speaking like someone who knew exactly what she was saying.

“That’s why you have to train. To get strong. One day, you’ll be strong enough to be the one at the top, or at the very least get respect from others.” She added to her statement.

“You know why the lion never attacks the elephant? Because while he may be king, he does not possess the power of the elephant. The lion fears to be trampled to his death, and so resign from preying on a much larger foe.” She said on a final note to her story.

Akasha sighed again, feeling a bit down speaking like that. She never was one to speak of philosophy, but being raised by the village’s shaman, whose wisdom was unmatched in the tribe, some of her teaching stuck into the teenager.

“It’s your choice though. Fight, or run away. As much as one must not give up so early, one must also recognize his weaknesses and retreat. It’s a shame to have come so far yet to only leave at the first sign of opposition, wouldn’t you agree?” The wild shapeshifer mused.

Suddenly, Akasha felt movement on her shoulder. She smiled back, knowing Nico was recovering from whatever it was that made him unconscious. Slowly, she shifted her balance to one side while keeping her two hands on the frail young man. She dismounted him from her shoulder and put him back on his feet. Akasha could feel he was still wobbly on his feet, and so she took one of Glasses’ arm and passed it over the back of her neck, keeping Nico up on his feet and providing support.

“Anyway, I’m hungry, and I’m getting a headache just speaking like Auntie. Let’s go eat. If you want to leave, better get some rest and food for the journey.” The amazoness said, starting to walk towards the school building.

On the way, she would ask Nico if he was alright and how he was feeling.

@January @Letter Bee