A Rocky Start”All students, please proceed to the main hall with your luggage. You will be organized by year, and will wait for the headmaster to give his opening speech. Any students caught lingering around will be escorted personally.” A woman’s monotonous voice continued announcing. If it wasn’t for the differentiation in the pauses between her words in each repeat, Varren would have gladly accepted a recording as a plausible answer. Keeping to the sidelines as the snowball fight waged on, the woman began another reciting of the phrase.
”All students, please proc- headmaster, what are you doing?!” The woman sounded surprised and completely awestruck, though her startled demeanor was drowned out by a deep clearing of a throat. The sound echoed throughout the whole entire campus, the consistency of the announcement increased in volume, to a nearly ear-shattering level. The voice exhaled deeply, then began in a raspy tone.
”All students who are currently standing around like a bunch of uninformed buffoons, please proceed into the main hall. As for those who are currently engaging in snowy warfare, I advise you follow the same suit, before I shove my lower-right crystalline edge up your rea-” The voice was suddenly torn away from whatever was relaying the message, swiftly becoming fainter as it ventured into the distance. The woman from before hastily took back the microphone, continuing with her announcement from earlier. Varren chuckled at the sudden change from her boring tone from earlier.
”Oh, sorry, I forgot to ask, but what’s your name?” The boy asked, glancing back at the girl following him. She had already returned to her plain expression, her polite smile was a thing of the past. At least, it wouldn’t surface unless the situation called for it, which was what Varren deduced.
"My name is Lilith Ephyrene." The girl's head lowered, covering her expression with the rim of her hat. Varren nodded, mentally sounding out the vowels of her name,
"Ok. Cool name~ A sudden ball of snow caught him off guard, nearly planting itself right in his face, only missing his nose by a few centimeters. He traced the arc of the projectile and set his eyes upon a plethora of students, waging a snowy war in the open field. The two sped up their pace and fell into the columns of students
INSIDE THE MAIN HALL:The students were organized by year, making a semicircle in front of the centered stage. Behind the stage were a few more sets of seats, which fastened the faculty body. Before the speech was addressed, a paid orchestra put on a grand opening symphony. Varren took his seat by the time the
number began, thankful that there was enough legroom for his bags and his own limbs. After the procession came to an end, and the teachers finally took their seats, a
woman dressed in a similar version of the school’s uniform. Though it followed the same color scheme, there were multiple pendants and buttons sewn onto the top portion. The blonde stood with a straightened back on the stage, staring without a single break in eye contact. Her right hand was wrapped firmly around a grey cane, covered in decorative embroideries. At the bottom of the tool’s curve was a lone cyanic gem, dark and unphased by the immense amount of light gleaming in the room. With the look of determination in her green piercing eyes, and a straight face, she inhaled deeply and parted her lips.
”Good morning students, I am your vice headmistress. I will be assisting the headmaster throughout this year, and I shall also operate as the dean of the fifth years. The faculty thank you for making the journey to our wonderful school, and we hope that you tune yourselves to be fine, capable gatekeepers. Now, without further adieu, the headmaster’s speech.” The woman finished her little prelude, closing her mouth and giving a humble bow to the students. However, instead of stepping down from the ascended position to give leeway for the headmaster, she remained on the stage, as if her feet were glued to the floor. A few moments of silence settled upon the students, confused expressions began to form within the midst of the first years. They began to glance around, looking for their grand headmaster’s arrival. Did such a prestigious school include a grand entrance, perhaps with a massive explosion, replaced with his manifestation? Or maybe he’ll fly on a hoverbike, blaring all kinds of musical genres at once.
”...What a bunch of plebeian newspawns. I swear, I’m already missing last year’s graduating class. Such a kind and lively lot.” The heads of the first years darted in multiple directions, trying to pinpoint the source of the voice.
”Look at these kids. Watch this. Ooooo, I’m your inner conscious, and I command you to say your measurements alo-” The woman clicked her tongue and slammed the cane heavily on the platform, eyeing the decoration crafted into its body. The single gemstone glowed a brighter shade of blue, dimming in between words.
”The hell was that for? I was interested. I don’t even want to recall what happened last year with the second years.” As if the cane governed the woman’s hand, it was turned towards the second years and blankly faced them.
”Anyways, as my dear assistant has already said; Good greetings to you! I thank you for choosing the path of a gatekeeper. Welcome to this… diversified academy. It is in my best interest that you all receive the best education at your disposal, and that you live on to protecting both Earth and Lucis against the labyrinths of mindless beasts, which want to feast on your innards!” Sounding way too cheerful, the gem lit up an extremely bright blue, before returning to its usual shade.
”But, in all honesty, not all make it into such a career. I hate to say it, but there are those here today, who will no longer be among us by the end of this year.” He exhaled as the cane was slowly turned, individually giving each year some time to meet eye-to-gem.
”But, this is indeed the job you have taken upon yourselves. You will be put through rigorous training, examinations and mission are entailed within your criteria. But along with these combat-oriented teachings, you still have to take the essentials. Yeah, don’t think you have left calculus’ embrace just yet, dear first years. Continuing on; throughout this year, you will- no, you must find a partner. Somebody who’s got your back, even when it’s against the wall, or next to a pack of bloodthirsty monsters. A person who knows you well enough, that they can harness that horrible excuse of a personality of your’s, and cover for your faults.” The elderly voice let out a hacking cough, nearly forcing the cane out of the VHM's grip.
[b][u]”Oh, that was close. I nearly coughed up my breakfast.” As he suddenly paused, using such a verbal device to emphasize his prior speech, a first year student took the chance to raise his hand.
"Erm, hun, can you turn me to the first years? I have to appear that I'm actually giving eye contact to them." The woman reluctantly twisted the support tool towards the first year, perfectly aligning it with the student.
”Are you really our headmaster? I was expecting something more… well…”The headmaster let out a deep sigh,
"Ub ba ba, stop right there. Why is there always that one kid... YES! I am indeed your headmaste- I swear, literally, every year I have watched over this academy, there's always one person who asks that." The calm and soothing voice of an old man was quickly replaced with anger and fury.
“What, do you want? Blinking yellow signs pointing towards my cane, blaring ’HEADMASTER HERE!’? Do you want me to paint you a canvas of myself resting in my chair, with me nonexistent hands? Do I need to wear one of those generic pointed hats upon my cane’s embroideries? For the love of all that is actually relatively intelligent in this world! People can accept griffons, snake-people, fish-things, hell, even walking air-breathing octopai aren't given the second thought. But when kids find out that their headmaster is a gemstone, which is inadvertently smarter than all of them combined, something just doesn't click." Varren leaned forward in his chair, he recognized the tone of speech. It was exactly like a practice of his mother’s, a warmup run just before she broke into a rant. The boy braced himself for what was about to befall upon the students.
“I swear, not even the dinosaurs were this idiotic when I slammed into Earth a few years ago, back when I opened up the Black Gale’s daddy. Ah, it was just like yesterday. Such an eventful day. A very productive one, at that. As for the orcs and other students who were fueling a snowball fight, full of dragons and some other crazy mumbo jumbo magic stuff… Don’t do it again. Like I’ve said, I wiped out a whole entire planet of huge lizards before; ridding the ground of a hundred orcs and other troublemakers who entice my students would not prove much of a problem.” Without even having to utter a request, the vice headmistress spun the cane towards, the crowd of orcs, “Yeah, damn straight I’m talking to you lot. You’re lucky all of you are attendees of this academy, otherwise I’d beat you all over the head with myself. Don’t ask how, I’m a headmaster. I take logic and feed it to my children. FOR A SNACK. Kids, I swear, I will shard on you.” The headmaster sighed, breathing heavily as his session came to an end.
”Well, anyways. Yet again, thank you for attending this academy. Your classes begin tomorrow, and for the time being, you will be assigned your own individual rooms. Alas, once you’ve selected a partner, you will both be thrown into a somewhat larger accommodation. For the rest of today, you can linger around, to whatever your hearts’ content. Hell, you can even continue that snowball fight. Just don’t break any glass, or you’ll be scrubbing the bathrooms for a millenium.” The gem laughed cheerily, glowing exuberantly,
”No, I’m serious. Do that and I’ll literally make you work for an eternity. No joke. Well, you’re dismissed.”Varren stretched out, somewhat surprised by how emotional the headmaster was,
”Let’s go, before the swarm of students begins…”
