One, standing a bit toward the back, looks around curiously, wondering whether a student or a teacher will speak up first.

The first to speak up is the shortest boy there, a cute ginger in a variation on the red uniform with detached sleeves.

"Our guidebooks? I don't remember seeing anything like that?"

"I just assumed they'd tell us where to go after the ceremony," replies the black-haired bishonen next to him.

Cute boys being confused. There are certainly worse ways to wait for answers. Anybody else going to say anything?

"Alri~ight! Students in red uniforms! If I can have your attention please!"

Someone is! An adult, even.

"By now, you're probably all confused." She puts on a show of mock worry, "Oh no, where's my class assignment?!"

She suddenly switches to a kind, solemn expression. "That's perfectly understandable. Your situation is a little more complicated than the other students. But before I explain, I'd like all of you to join me for a special orienteering exercise."

This tall, bespectacled green-haired boy blurts out a high-strung, "What?!"

And this pretty blonde girl wants to clarify, "Did you mean an orientation exercise?"

"Don't worry! Everything will be made clear soon enough. Now, right this way, if you would."

With a serene smile, she pivots on her heel and starts walking towards the exit.

A very well-endowed girl with long lavender hair in a braid and thin round glasses takes one step to follow the woman, before hesitating with an, "Umm...?"

Hm. Greenie's kinda tense. Keep an eye on that. The girls are cute though. Right, the teacher's saying things, useless gay brain. Well, not saying much, really, just sorta hinting. Not that she needs to say much—focus.

They're just all going to follow off somewhere underspecified? Okay, that's fine, wonder what's next.

Hailey is actually toward the head of the pack, many of the other students hesitating longer than she did.

The only two who follow the woman ahead of Hailey are this ruggedly handsome, tall young man with shaggy brown hair...

...and the tallest of the girls, an imposing beauty with long blue hair and a regal grace evident in her every stride.

The woman leads them out of the auditorium, hangs a left, and follows the path around the back of the main building, passing a secluded courtyard and the gymnasium, a large garden, and finally taking another left into a secluded wooded area, where a weathered old mansion-looking building stands among the trees.

"What... is this place?" the cute ginger asks from the back of the pack.

"It looks like it should've been torn down ages ago," the black-haired bishonen comments.

The woman hums impishly as she unlocks the building's heavy front doors and strolls inside.

Spooky building. Huh. Gonna filter back toward the end of the line a bit, get more of a handle on what's going on, watch all the unreasonably pretty people go watch what happens next.

The rest of the class seems to be having similar misgivings, actually.

"What does she even want us to do here?" the blonde girl wonders.

"Gah! Is she ever going to tell us what's going on?!"

"I suppose we'll just have to go inside and see for ourselves what awaits us," the tall blue-haired beauty says stoically.

Blondie and Greenie could stand to learn a thing or two from Blue. It's not like answers were going to just fall from the sky while they stood here. Bracers Onward?

With a nod of agreement toward Blue and a shrug toward Greenie and Blondie, she steels herself and steps purposefully inside.

At the back of the pack, the cute ginger says something about the place looking haunted.

Once everyone proceeds inside, the woman strolls up onto the stage at one end of the entrance hall.

"The name," she says, "is Sara Valestein. I'm the instructor in charge of Class Seven, which means you get the pleasure of seeing me all year. Glad to finally meet you!"

"W-Wait. Class... Seven?!"

"I'm not sure I understand. I wasn't told anything about this at enrollment."

"Excuse me, Instructor Sara? I was under the impression that there were only five classes at this academy, and that students were split among them based on their social class and home region."

"Right you are, Miss Top Scorer on the Thors entrance exam! Students in each year are divided into five classes: two for the nobility, and three for commoners. And it's been that way for ages, right up through last year. But this year, we've decided to shake things up a little."

Ooh, Lavender's a smart one. That's good to know. And a new class with new rules? Hm. That could be great, or a lot of trouble. Probably both.

"We now have a sixth class. Fittingly titled... Class Seven. And in Class Seven, we recognize no distinction between nobles and commoners."

"...wait, you just jumped straight from five to seven?"

"Y-You're really putting nobles and commoners in the same class?" the blonde girl asks, sounding surprised but intrigued.

Prettyboy asking the important question here. Unlike Blondie, who is apparently shocked enough to ask for confirmation on something already stated, though at least she doesn't sound put off by the idea.

"What he said."

"This must be some kind of joke!"

The tall green-haired boy sounds mad, interrupting before anyone can speculate on the missing 6.

"And why is this the first I've heard of it?!"

"Well, uh... err... who were you again?"

"Machias Regnitz! And with all due respect, Instructor, it is ludicrous to intermix nobles and commoners like this! Must I be forced to spend my next two years shoulder to shoulder with those arrogant, stuck-up hedonists?!"

"Uh, you do know I'm not the one who made the decision, right? Besides, what's the big deal, anyway? You're all kids. Can't you all just... get along or something?"

"Just get along?! And how would you propose we do that?!"

He suddenly turns to glare at the handsome blonde boy beside him, who made noise of contempt. "And what's your problem?"

"Oh, nothing much. I just find the irony of your behavior rather humorous."

"Is that so. It seems the scion of some noble house has left the comfort of his mansion to grace the unwashed masses with his wisdom," Machias says scornfully. "Please, milord, do share your esteemed name with us so I can give you all the respect you deserve."

"Jusis Albarea. Not that I'd expect the name of an 'arrogant, stuck-up hedonist' to lodge itself in that hard head of yours."

Everyone recognizes the name, and is surprised.

"H-He's from one of the four great houses," the cute ginger blurts, saying what they're all thinking.

"The son of Duke Albarea, lord of the Kreuzen province in the southeast."

"Well," the blonde girl says flippantly, trying to lighten the mood. "You don't get much more 'noble' than that."

She looks around for someone, anyone, who looks willing to wade into this. Maybe lavender-hair? Maybe the teacher? Maybe nobody? Tch.

"I mean, could be even more, Blondie. Could be Imperial Family. But really, Greenie? Sure, there are some terrible nobles. Some terrible commoners too. There's a lot of terrible to go around."

This petite silver-haired girl is the only one who doesn't look impressed (or confused, in the tall rugged boy's case) by Jusis' family name, or, mildly scandalized by Hailey's blunt assessment. She yawns pointedly.

Machias rounds on the girl who spoke up, wrong-footed. "W-Well what do you know? You expect me to bend my knee to this, this--"

Instructor Sara claps her hands loudly.

"Okay, okay, that's enough. I'm sure a couple of you have a few grievances, but now's not the time. I'll hear your complaints later. Right now, you've got your orienteering exercise, and far be it from me to keep you from our fun little icebreaker."

(Machias grunts sourly but shuts up.)

"You mentioned this 'orienteering' exercise earlier? What exactly does that involve?"

"It's a form of outdoor competition, isn't it? Something like a cross between a map-reading exercise and a scavenger hunt?"

The bishonen boy makes a sound of realization.

"Is that why they asked us to hand over our weapons at the gate?"

Instructor Sara grins. "Nothing gets by you, does it."

She mouths "assumptions" at Greenie with an arched eyebrow, before turning back to the improbable hottie teacher to listen for more details. What isn't she saying? And if they're going orienteering — a normally outdoor exercise — why are they in this house?

The instructor appears to be sneakily backing up towards a button on the back wall.

"Bu~ut, I don't want to spoil the fun, so let's get started, shall we?"

She hits the button. There is a deep, ominous clunk sound. And a second later, a massive slab of floor under all of their feet suddenly swings downward, dropping them onto a steep, polished stone ramp.

Ooh! This is more her speed. She forms a small cushion of swirling air under each palm as she drops to the ramp, leaning back against her outstretched arms in a controlled slide, feet first.

The rest of the class is caught off-guard and slips down in an undignified tumble, with the exception of the silver-haired girl, who pulls out a smuggled-in grappling hook and fires it at the ceiling. The rest leave her behind as she dangles, Instructor Sara's exasperated scolding lost as the rest of them fall out of hearing range.

The black-haired bishonen is the least caught-off-guard after the petite silver-haired girl. He controls his fall, then spots the blonde girl in an uncontrolled tumble and leaps to catch her.

He reaches her, but their momentum carries them into Hailey, which knocks her off-course.

The cute ginger is frantically trying to slow himself down, and is completely unprepared when Hailey collides with him.

At the bottom, they're all left breathless for a long moment. Slowly, each of the members of Class Seven start to pick themselves up.

"Ugh... what just happened?"

"The floor... gave out from under us..."

"I can't believe I fell for such an obvious trap."

"Catacombs?"

"What does that woman think she's playing at..."

Four members of the class come to much the same realization at the same moment.

The blonde girl, it seems, has landed boobs-first right on the black-haired bishonen's face, and the boy freezes as he realizes his position. Likewise, Hailey has landed right on the cute ginger, such that his head is just about up her skirt, and he makes a squeaky "eep" sound as he realizes he's nose-to-panties.

Blwuh? Nope, not thinking about enjoying this, get up. "Mmmright." Don't blush don't blush totally blushing.

Hailey pushes herself upward and off of cute-and-orange, dusts herself off, and extends a hand down to him. "Up you get."

Meanwhile, a muffled, "Well... this is awkward?"

(The blonde girl stands up quickly but calmly. Too calmly. Her red face is a locked rictus of calm.)

He gets up as well, projecting solemnness. "Yeah, I'm really sorry about that. Still I'm just glad you're okay. That's what's really important here, ri-"

The blonde girl slaps the bishonen boy hard enough to make his eyes swirly.

The ginger startles at the sound of the slap, and looks back and forth between that scene and Hailey's outstretched hand a few times, before taking said hand tentatively.

Hailey plants her feet and hauls, pulling Ginger to his feet, then shoots Blondie a look. "Mm, yes, slap the boy for having the nerve to break your fall. S'not like you landed on him or anything, right?"

Turning back to her own victim landing pad crashed classmate, blush still not quite faded from her cheeks, she says, "You all right, Ginger?"

He laughs nervously, wincing at the blonde girl's sudden mortified glare. "I-I'm not hurt at all."

The blonde girl looks... like she's struggling to keep up a front of anger, and turns away from both the black-haired boy and the ginger and Hailey, folding her arms and shrinking into herself.

"That's good at least."

She turns back to the blonde girl and what? Guess that girl doesn't know what to do if her arrogant attitude isn't backed up. Did she expect Hailey to agree with slapping the hapless prettyboy?

Hailey arches an eyebrow and takes a look around to see what else is going on.

Recovering from the slap, he doesn't know what to do. The short brunette has a point, a point she herself proved she believed in, but... he shoots the blonde girl a mournful look, even though she's now ignoring him. He still feels like he should apologize more.

The ginger gives Hailey a tentative smile before edging over to give him a few sympathetic words.

Hailey steps back and watches the proceedings carefully, looking around the area where they've landed.

The black-haired bishonen and the cute ginger have a brief, whispered conversation.

They're in a large, octagonal chamber, ringed by pedestals. On each sits a familiar piece of luggage: each of their weapon cases, including Hailey's. In front of each case is a small jewelry box.

And then, there is a chiming ring sound.

"It's... coming from the devices we received at admissions..."

She pulls hers out: a flat metallic slate about the size of her hand, slanted at the corners. The outer face is red, with the school's logo on it. After a moment of fiddling, it flips open, hinged at one end, to reveal the familiar clockwork Arts mechanism as well as several widgets of unknown purpose.

Everyone else follows suit.

"Seems they're some kind of... advanced personal orbment."

Instructor Sara's voice suddenly sounds out from everyone's lids: "Right you are. These handy little devices are a special kind of battle orbment."

"An orbment with built in communications functionality, then?" He sounds impressed.

The blonde girl seems disturbed for some reason, though.

"W-Wait, don't tell me these are the new..."

"...brand new, bespoke, fifth-generation ARCUS units," Instructor Sara's voice confirms, "made through a partnership between the Epstein Foundation and the Reinford Company. For those of you who've never used a battle orbment before, this means that all you have to do is set a quartz into one of its slots and you'll be able to use Arts. Which is why I've prepared a unique quartz for each and every one of you."

The lighting sconces on the walls suddenly brighten, shining down on the pedestals.

"Your weapons are all here too, each packaged neatly alongside a little box containing your special quartz. So find yours and try setting the quartz into your ARCUS."

Hmm. Fancy new orbments, custom quartz, mixed-class group... This is going to be an interesting year.

Hailey steps over to the row of cases, quickly locating her own, and immediately pulls out her orbal batons. She checks them over carefully before slipping them into loops she'd added to the back of her jacket, relaxing fractionally as she does so. She's only had them a few weeks, but the cool metal of the rods already feels more comfortable than her old wooden sticks. Traveling up here with them stowed in the case felt naked. Still can't believe they gave her custom orbal weapons of her own. Not a chance she deserves it, ungrateful brat that she is.

She shakes her head to clear it, pausing to feel the reassuring presence of the batons at her back. Thus centered, she takes a look at her custom quartz, examining it carefully before slotting it into her ARCUS, then examines the features and controls.

The weird-looking, overly large quartz in Hailey's box is the black of the Time element. When she slots it, the clockwork sepith circuits leading out from the center slot to the smaller standard slots light up. A gauge at the bottom of the device also lights up, its needle swinging over to the right. Another sort of concentric wheel-thing at the top lights up as well, with two purple-black lights in the inner ring.

"Those are called 'Master Quartz'," Instructor Sara's voice explains through everyone's ARCUS. "Once you've set yours in the center slot of your ARCUS, take a look at the gauge underneath. That's your Orbal Energy Charge Product, or 'E. P.' for short; it's what powers your Arts. Now look at the rotary dial up top: that's your Art selector. All of the Master Quartz I commissioned for you should provide you with at least one Art already, but Master Quartz are special, and can supply multiple Arts. The outer ring physically turns the casting mechanism between your standard quartz slots as you would expect from a conventional orbment, but the inner ring lets you chose an Art from your Master Quartz without having to fiddle with any moving parts. I'm sure you can imagine the advantages."

Both the EP gauge and the dual selector dial are visible through cutouts in the lid of the ARCUS, accessible even while the lid is closed.

Hailey carefully pushes a tiny, exploratory pulse of energy into her ARCUS, feeling it out on its various settings.

The ARCUS completes the synchronization automatically, providing Hailey with a warm feeling in her chest... a warm feeling that contains information, like the EP gauge's state, and the targeting feedback on her selected Art, without her having to look at the physical displays.

There's something else, too, in the warm feeling, something subtle, and right now it doesn't seem to be doing anything or providing any additional information. But it's there.

"Alright! Since you've got your ARCUS all set up and ready to go, here's what I want you to do."

The stone door at the back of the room grinds and slides open.

"When you step through that door, you'll be in an underground testing area. It's pretty large, and full of twists and turns. I'd almost guarantee you'll get lost at least once. But when you find the exit, you'll be able to return to the first floor of this old schoolhouse! There are monsters wandering around, though, so don't let your guard down even for a moment."

There's a short pause to let that sink in.

"With all that said, let's commence our special orienteering exercise! Your objective is to make your way through this area and back to the surface. Make it back in one piece, and I'll be happy to field any complaints you might have."

Her voice turns teasing.

"If you make it back safely, I might even give you a kiss, free of charge~"

There is another short pause.

"On the cheek, of course."

The class's ARCUS units go silent with a click as she hangs up.

Monsters? Ugh, that figures.

Wait, Miss Valestein might what—

No, don't blush, don't get worked up about the hot teacher offering a kiss on the cheek. It's obviously a joke, and on top of that it's obviously directed at the boys rather than her, just a way to tease them into having motivation since they were making trouble anyway.

She schools her expression and turns to face the rest of the class, clipping the ARCUS at her hip and stowing her batons on her jacket. She gives the group a questioning eyebrow.

The petite silver-haired girl briefly catches Hailey's eye, giving her a very flat, deadpan expression as though to communicate, 'yup, this is your authority figure now'.

The class gathers in a loose circle by the doorway.

    "U-Umm..." The cute ginger attempts words.

"...I don't think she's joking," the blonde girl says nervously.

The Albarea scion scoffs to himself, then turns to head into the testing area alone.

     "And just where do you think you're going?!" that Machias guy immediately starts an argument. "Were you planning to wander off on your own without saying anything?"

"I have no interest in becoming friends with... anyone here. And I'm surprised that you, of all people, give a damn what I do. Unless you've suddenly decided you do want to keep company with one of those 'stuck-up hedonists' after all."

    Machias just growls.

"Still, if you're afraid of the monsters, I suppose I could accompany you," Jusis adds mockingly. "After all, what kind of Erebonian noble would I be if I didn't have at least some degree of prowess with a sword? And noblesse oblige dictates that it's my sacred duty to protect powerless commoners such as yourself."

    "Wh-What the hell?! Nobody's asking your high excellency to deign to help us!" Machias stalks through the doorway. "But if that's how you're going to be, I'll just... find my way out of here before you! I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself without some relic of an outdated class system dragging me down."

Machias just scoffs again, then heads through the doorway himself.

The class watches them go.

A few of them sigh, and the cute ginger says, "U-Umm..." again.

"What should we do?" the curvy girl in the glasses wonders.

"The only thing we can do," the tall, regal girl, who is now carrying a fuck-off-huge sword, replies. "We should begin exploring these ruins ourselves. I believe it would be prudent to remain in small groups, however."

She looks over at the blonde, the girl in glasses, and the diminutive Hailey. "Would the three of you have any objections to accompanying me?"

    "No! That's fine," the blonde girl replies, slightly startled.

    "It would be a huge help, actually," the curvy girl in glasses agrees, relieved.

The regal swordswoman turns toward the petite silver-haired girl. "And you're welcome to join us as..."

    Yeah, the petite silver-haired girl? There's no trace of her. She vanished when no one was looking.

The regal swordswoman frowns.

Hailey huffs and rolls her eyes at the boys storming off, and Silver's sudden absence.

"No objections here, except to some people who apparently think going off on their own is a smart plan."

"Perhaps we'll run into her along the way, and she can join us then," the tall blue-haired girl offers optimistically, though not all that optimistically, since she doesn't even bother to include Jusis and Machias in that hopeful statement.

She addresses her newly-formed adventuring party. "So. Shall we be off?"

And she addresses her remaining male classmates, with slight concern. "I'm certain you gentlemen will be fine, but do take care."

    This gets a simple nod and, "Okay," from the black-haired bishonen.

She turns away and leads her party through the doorway.

    The curvy girl in glasses bows politely to the boys. "If you'll excuse us, please."

    The blonde girl just shoots the bishonen a glare before following after the other girls with a huff.

Hailey follows the girls out, shaking her head a bit at the glaring blonde. What's with that? She watches the group thoughtfully, not aiming to be the first person to try to start a conversation.

Orbal lanterns held in place by slowly-rotating gears line the walls.

The walls themselves are brick and carved stone, eerily regular and completely unweathered by time. Every brick, every greeble, looks brand new, though the architectural style is like nothing in the modern world.

"Before we go any further, it would be prudent to introduce ourselves and explain a bit about our combat ability."

She stops and turns around to face the other girls.

"My name is Laura Arseid. My weapon is an 'all-hander broadsword' and my style is that passed down to me by my father, who enjoys some renown as the 'Radiant Blademaster'."

Some renown is an understatement. Laura's father is the best swordsman in the country and a national military asset, in addition to being the head of a middling noble house. But Laura doesn't mention that, because she doesn't want to sound like she's bragging.

Okay, Blue is apparently a swordswoman, not just hot.

"Hailey Topferin. My batons are orbal tools, optimized to help me channel wind. I dash fast and strike hard."

Exceptionally thorough students of Bracer history might recognize the name "Topferin" as belonging to a Bracer couple who died tragically while trying to protect the citizens from the "landslide" in Hamel.

"Oh! I've heard about those. They're a variation on the orbal staff, based on the maneuvering ailerons of an airship, right? I knew the miniaturization efforts were progressing but I hadn't realized anyone was already selling a handheld version."

She pulls out her own weapon, an intricate bow with an orbal core shielding the handle.

"My own weapon is a custom job. A one-of-a-kind orbal bow that channels my battle aura into semi-solid projectiles. I'm pretty good with it, if I do say so myself."

A pause.

"Oh, and my name is Alisa Re-  Um... Alisa Arr. Just Alisa Arr." She adds a perfunctory, "It's nice to meet you."

Hailey quirks an eyebrow at Alissa's sloppy backpedal. Alissa "Arr", huh? Sure. She'll go with that.

"I'm not sure anyone is, actually. These were a gift."

"That's the case for me as well," the curvy girl in glasses speaks up.

She indicates the large metal staff she's carrying. It is polished and silvery, with a purplish and vaguely crescent-shaped mechanical head.

"I was noted for having natural talent with orbal weapons and issued this experimental orbal staff. It has a Mirage-sepith core that allows me to channel my natural energies into attacks and shields."

She sets the butt of the staff on the ground, and resists going into much greater detail about her capabilities, reminding herself that she shouldn't get too close to the secrets she needs to keep.

"As for my name, it's Emma Millstein. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"I see. I'll confess to having had some curiosity about your high-tech weapons. It seems I'm the only one among us who practices a more traditional Craft."

She holds her massive 'all-hander' out in front of her at a leverage-defying angle that ought to be completely impossible no matter how strong she is. She's always been able to do that, but it's markedly easier now than it was an hour ago. The passive enhancement of the master quartz in her new ARCUS is rather marvelous.

(There is a joke her dad tells about the sword once being called a 'three-hander' for its sheer size but their family had to change the name because the name confused people and started several awkward rumors about the Arseid family.)

"Still, I have a few tricks up my own sleeve."

Even through the thick red jacket, the flex of her arm muscles is faintly visible. Even more apparent are the hard lines of flexed muscle on the expanse of bare thigh between the bottom of her skirt and the top of her knee-high combat boots.

Damn, how strong is this girl? Hailey swallows hard and then grins at the group, trying to distract her gay brain from the sword-wielding amazon.

"Good to meet all of you. Although, I gotta ask, Alisa, what do you have against the black-haired prettyboy?"

Alisa is pretty impressed with Laura's strength too, though in a less gay way. She tries to figure out how Laura is doing that, though. Maybe the blade is laced with Earth sepith?

Alisa freezes as Hailey's words register.

Then she blushes hard and goes from zero to defensive in under a second.

"W-What do you mean? He had his face in my chest! The perv!"

The look Hailey gives Alisa is particularly unimpressed. "Yeah, and the skinny ginger had his up my skirt — 'cause we landed on them. Do you suspect him of somehow maneuvering mid-air to not just break your fall, but ensure you landed tit-first on his face? That'd be a pretty impressive trick considering I didn't feel any wind energy off him on the way down'."

"That's different! You! He! Augh!"

Alisa makes a loud, distressed, heavily embarrassed noise. She folds in on herself in a way that comes off more pitiful than defensive.

"Fine! I know, okay! I know! I didn't mean to slap him! I... I got flustered and reacted and then it was too late to take it back!"

She grimaces briefly at a memory, gives the blonde a bittersweet smile, and nods. "I've overreacted too, before. I had a real bad streak of overreactions to touch at one point, but I had to learn to squash that down. I got no slack about hitting someone, no matter how I felt about being touched."

"It's not like I go around hitting people! This has never happened before!"

Alisa whines. "I don't know what to do. I know I can't keep blaming this on him being a perv forever, but..."

She tilts her head thoughtfully. "Honestly, if you told him what you told me, he'd probably be thrilled just to know you don't hate him. Gives me a real vibe of too forgiving for his own good."

Alisa's usual filter is already pretty eroded, so she blurts out her response without thinking.

"Forgiving? I can't apologize! He'll think I'm a slut!"

It occurs to her, briefly, to wonder if that actually makes sense, but she doesn't pursue the question in the moment.

This earns Alisa a flat look and a raised eyebrow. "I'm fairly sure — despite how nice your tits are and how pretty the prettyboy is — that there was no intent involved on either side. Setting aside problems with the word, at least some intent is required to meet the definition of 'slut'."

Hailey may have strong feelings about that word.

Alisa huffs, blushing.

"You know that's not what I meant. If I tell him that, he'll think I'm changing my mind about not wanting him to touch me. I don't want him thinking that I might want him to touch me! Especially if it's true."

Oh really. Hailey smirks.

"There's a middle route that will leave your precious denial intact. Here, I'll show you."

She turns a bit to face Imaginary Prettyboy, crosses her arms and gives a mix of a pout and a scowl, and in a passable impression of Alisa says, "Hey, look. I realized that landing was probably an accident, and you probably didn't mean to violate my boundaries like that, so my slapping you was probably an overreaction. Sorry about that."

She turns back to the blonde girl, smirking again, hand on her hip. "Well?"

"It does seem uncharitable to assume our classmate is the kind of boy who'd lose respect for you if you were any less than maximally hostile toward the idea of physical intimacy with him," Emma agrees with helpful innocence.

At Emma's agreement with Hailey, Alisa looks somewhat hopefully at Laura, but the regal swordswoman offers no aid either.

Alisa lets out a defeated whimper. "Fiiiiiine. I guess you're right. I need to... to apologize to him. I'm, I'm not going to do it today, though! I'll just, I'll find the right time."

A slightly less unimpressed look, this time. "Show of hands, girls. Who thinks Alisa will manage to overcome her social anxiety and propriety enough to remember to apologize anytime soon if she procrastinates?"

Hailey pointedly does not raise her hand.

"W-Well," Emma hedges. "I think it was, um, admirable of Alisa to admit fault. There's no need to push her further right now, Hailey..."

Hailey gives an exaggerated huff and rolls her eyes, but smiles a little. "Yeah, it was pretty good that you've come this far. Fine, fine. You can take your time. Just don't let it slip altogether."

Alisa huffs.

"And don't you go getting a big head."

Alisa takes a deep breath to calm herself, and looks around.

"So... which way do you think we should go?"

"This place quite resembles a maze, does it not?"

Laura turns leftward.

"It is said that to navigate a maze, place your off-hand on the wall, and follow that wall wherever it leads. Unless a superior strategy presents itself, perhaps we should obey that bit of wisdom."

She chuckles ruefully at Alisa. "Oh, I've got lots of practice getting my ego deflated, even arguably beyond healthy levels, trust me."

To Laura, she just nods and grins. "It's a classic for a reason, right?"

Emma clasps her hands around her staff as she glances at Hailey in concern, but for now she keeps her peace.

She nods and follows Laura down the left passageway.

The corridors are peaceful and quiet...

...until quite suddenly they're not. A trio of uncanny feline heads peak around a corner and hiss loudly at the quartet of girls.

Three cat-like creatures with bat wings swoop into the air and rush at the party, claws out.

Laura's massive sword swings nimbly into place, and monstrous cat-bat claws spang off the steel in a shower of sparks.

Laura jumps back, taking up a guard position in front of the other three girls as the cat-bats circle around.

Cat-bats? Cutely horrible monster. Whipping her batons into her hands, Hailey air-boosts herself into a dash and then tips back into a crouching slide, right leg out, left bent, left baton helping her glide with a cushion of air — wow that's smoother than doing 'em by hand — and slashes at the underbelly of one creature as she zips underneath it with a wind-blade formed around her right baton.

She bounces up to her feet on the other side, batons out and ready, flanking the winged felines.

The cat-bat never even sees her coming. Her slashing Craft cuts right through it, cleaving it cleanly into two pieces.

The two pieces of cat-bat crumble into sepith beads and clatter to the floor.

It's buddies take offense at this and hiss-shriek as they both dive-bomb Hailey, raking claws at her face and at her leg from either side.

Shit! Shit shit shit, that worked a little too well! Now they're mad! They almost feel a little slower than she expects 'em to be, though. She whips her batons into place to block them — one high cross to protect her face and a low vertical to guard her leg — and tries to flare a little extra gust out to deflect, or maybe knock them aside.

She really should've dodged. She is faster than them. By a considerable margin. But she's not strong enough to stop their dive-bomb cold. She manages to deflect the one going for her leg, but the one going for her face slams her own baton into her nose hard enough to break-

Good news, her new master quartz grants enough passive toughness that her nose isn't broken. Bad news, she's not any heavier than she usually is and the force of the impact knocks her on her ass.

"Haa!"

A bolt of silvery-white light streaks across the chamber and skewers the cat-bat off Hailey's face before it can maul her.

And then Laura descends like a meteor, sword cleaving down through the deflected cat-bat, shattering it against the floor in a spray of sepith beads.

Unfortunately, the last cat-bat is still alive, though with a ragged hole in it, and Laura's not close enough to hit it.

Hailey bounds back up onto her feet and continues the motion with an air-boost to lunge into the last monster, slapping it out of the air to crash against the wall with a gust wrapped around her baton.

The monster hits the wall and is stunned by the impact, unable to dodge or defend itself as a phantom arrow tinged with Fire mana takes its head off.

It bursts into sepith beads, and the fight is over.

Alisa peers at Hailey's face and grimaces. She flicks her ARCUS into her hand, thumbs the dial with a practiced motion, then thumbs the activation ring. A soft whirring sound comes from the ARCUS as the clockwork within spins up and empowers the Tear quartz she apparently has slotted.

"Here," she offers, targeting the Art on Hailey. It's rather obvious which of the four life-forces she can feel under her thumb is her target. Her own celestial essence of Space filled with Fire is of course obvious. The hardness of Earth worn smooth by Water is obviously Laura. And between the blazing fractal crystal of almost pure Mirage, and the slippery Time-tainted Air, it's even more obvious which is which.

With a musical snap, the clockwork stops whirring and Hailey is surrounded briefly by the soothing blue glow of Water mana. In a moment, her nose no longer hurts and the newly forming bruise is gone like it was never there.

She pokes her noes experimentally, then smiles gratefully at Alisa. "Thank you. That block was sloppy," she finishes, shaking her head at her mistake.

She glances at the piles of sepith, then around the room at the girls. "Pile it up then an even split, y'figure? Anyone's ARCUS need a particular element for an early connection?"

Emma takes charge of portioning out the sepith.

She gathers it up into a four-by-seven grid of equal piles, then has them all compare slots. Hailey ends up with a double share of Time for herself.

After that, there are more of the same eerie corridors and chambers, until they come to one where their path is blocked by some kind of giant gold-plated beetle.

It rustles and buzzes aggressively if they approach, but it's less aggressive than the cat-bats and waits for them to come to it.

She glances over at Laura. "Flank an' kettle it for the others, y'think?"

"Yes, I believe that w- " Laura pauses and gives Hailey a peculiar look. "What exactly would it entail to 'kettle' the monster?"

    "Oh, um, that usually means to close in around someone, block them in so they're trapped and at your mercy?" Emma offers, slightly uncertain.

"Ah. Yes, I see."

Laura peers into the chamber.

"We may be able to make our way around it if we hug the walls to either side, but there isn't sufficient clearance to get behind it. Hailey, I think it best you remain on point and attempt to evert our formation while Alisa and Emma attack at range from the flanks. The only way to get behind it appears to be going over it, and you are best suited to that role."

Hailey nods and grins. "I like it. Yeah, a good dash an' jab could tease it out a bit, an' whether it budges or not I can hammer it with an alley-oop as I vault over it to take either the back wall or a corner. Then you hit it from this side while it's still pissed at me, an' the ranged duo uses the distraction to spread out and lay into it."

Emma and Alisa share a nod and start creeping along the walls.

While Alisa takes the left, Emma goes right and sidles toward the monster with her back pressed to the smooth stone brick.

The two of them reach the rear corners of the chamber, on either side of the giant beetle. From this angle, though, Emma can see a potential problem. If they can't budge the beetle from its spot, then the passageway behind it will block line of sight from them to Hailey.

Emma catches Alisa's eye, then scooches a few steps back toward the front of the chamber, until she has a clear sightline. After a moment, Alisa gets it and follows suit.

Emma grips her staff.

    "Ready!" Alisa calls toward Laura and Hailey.

"Ready!" Emma agrees.

Laura springs forward, sword rising as she crosses the chamber. Rather than use any of her more sophisticated techniques, she slams her sword into the beetle monster straight on, ringing the beetle's carapace like a bell as she drops to one knee and offers her back as a springboard for Hailey.

Hailey darts forward just as Laura starts to drop, leaps just as she stabilizes her crouch, and handsprings off the blue-haired girl's back. She soars just above the enormous beetle, one baton out like a rudder, twisting her in mid-air to face down at the monster, the other hammering down onto it to simultaneously daze it further and guide her flight between its back and the ceiling of the far passageway.

The beetle rattles in anger and hisses loudly. It swipes at Laura with a foreleg, and completely misses Hailey going over its head.

It's legs stab down into the floor, piercing stone to anchor it in place, and flares its jagged, razor sharp elytra, slamming them back down against its golden shell once, twice, with a sound like metal striking metal, then flares them again in a threat display.

    Alisa fires a phantasmal arrow.

The beetle monster twitches one elytron and the arrow splashes harmlessly against the rigid blade-like limb, not even leaving a mark.

Durable beastie, is it? Hailey lands gracefully behind the beetle in an air-cushioned crouch, then darts up to slam two wind-blades into it, one after the other into the same spot, before springing back out of reach. What will it take to crack this thing's shell?

Far more than that. Hailey's attacks don't even scuff the thing's shell. It twitches in place as tho shaking off an irritant, then swings one elytron up to intercept Laura's sword. Steel meets monster carapace in a shower of sparks and Laura leaps back, frowning.

Then a bolt of silver-white light stabs into the beetle's left side. It rocks away from the impact, hiss-shrieking as a spiderweb of glowing lines sizzles on its shell. It spins itself in place to face Emma, bringing both elytra up and forward, rattling them against each other as it guards against her in particular.

    Alisa's eyes go wide, and she shoulders her bow to whip out her ARCUS. "It's shell is permeable to orbal energy! Use Arts!"

    "Got it!" Laura pulls out her own ARCUS and hops backward to give herself room to look down and fiddle with it.

The magical impact scar from Emma's first attack is now facing Hailey.

    Emma doesn't pull out her ARCUS, she just twitches her staff slightly, eyes intent with concentration, and silver-white light forms up into a crude blade-shape that shoots into the monster and chips a chunk out of one of its elytron.

Well, she was looking for a good excuse to try this thing. She touches a fingertip to the selection ring on her ARCUS at her hip and selects her first Art, Soul Blur, getting a mental sense of a single "slot" that feels almost like a blank nametag — so it takes a single entity as a target, maybe. Well, she conveniently has exactly one enemy right now. She slides her finger to the inner ring, and finds only one target, with mental feedback of a very exoskeletal and metallic life force. She pulses a tiny burst of energy through her finger.

A purple-black bolt of time energy arcs out from her, crashing into the beetle's shell and exploding.

The beetle rocks up on its slide, screeching in pain as golden shards break off of its shell and it starts bleeding something that'd be a lot like blood if it actually acted like a liquid.

    Laura's ARCUS goes off a moment later, and a ball of fire crashes into the monster's opposite side. It doesn't do half as much damage, only blackening the shell rather than shattering it, but the beetle does not like it and collapses, its legs scrabbling uselessly.

    And then the whirring clockwork in Alisa's ARCUS rises in pitch as it winds up for something bigger. Alisa herself holds her ARCUS out her hands poised. Chshing! The silence of her ARCUS is lost a bit in the noise the giant beetle is making, but the way the floor under the beetle starts glowing with an unearthly golden light isn't. Orbs of golden light breach upward from the glowing circle, spiraling around the monster for a moment before arcing inward and slamming down on it in an explosive hammering.

The giant beetle can't even get one last screech out. It is instantly crushed against the floor and burst apart like, well, like a squashed bug. Bits of vaporous innards and golden shell fragments go clattering across the chamber.

"Good call, Alisa."

    "No problem. It was obvious once I saw Emma's attack land," Alisa replies.

"Well done, everyone."

Hailey skips back across the beetle wreckage as it dissolves into sepith, grinning. "Seconding the props, Alisa. And all of us. Go us, we just smashed a giant beetle monster."

She starts sweeping some of the widely-scattered bits of sepith into a central pile with little gusts.

Emma once again takes on the task of sorting and dividing the spoils. This time she takes a double-share of Mirage for herself and Hailey gets a double-share of Air.

    "You know, you're pretty good with that thing," Alisa comments, gesturing at Emma's orbal staff. "You did as much damage as the rest of us but you didn't even use your ARCUS."

"Oh, well, that is the advantage of this kind of weapon. I'm just glad I'm able to live up to the promise that its makers envisioned for it."

Emma is pleased to be able to say that and mean it. She's used the orbal staff in practice of course, but using it in real combat for the first time has really driven home how useful a tool it is, even for someone like her.

Through the corridor formerly guarded by the beetle monster, there is an odd round pedestal, shaped somewhat like a chess rook, with slowly rotating crenellations and a glowing top.

It is fairly recognizable as a standard orbment charging station, though how it got down here is anybody's guess.

"Huh. Any doubts I had about this being a deliberate practice labyrinth are pretty much gone now. Also, if I were designing this thing, I'd consider ambushing people at the chargers."

She scans the surroundings carefully. "Take turns charging, starting with whoever spent the most?"

"Works for me. I want to get a look at it anyway. I don't recognize the brand."

Alisa goes up and puts her ARCUS on the glowing top, then crouches down and starts peering around the metal body. It... doesn't actually look like any of the Epstein Foundation's models, to her eye.

"Did someone from Thors build their own orbment charger in-house?" Alisa wonders incredulously. "And then abandon it down here? Or was this actually meant for us?"

There are no tool-marks that Alisa can see either. Or welding seams. It's definitely not hand-made. With more questions than answers, Alisa plucks her ARCUS off the charger and steps back.

Hailey shrugs, still on guard. "Wouldn't put it past them. There are a lot of unexpected skills clustered in an academy like this."

She's deliberately waiting until last, until the other girls have all had a turn. She's had opportunities for rest turn out to be traps before.

Then Laura will go next. She keeps her hand on her ARCUS for the few seconds it takes to fully charge.

Emma doesn't need a turn, since her ARCUS is still fully charged, and there continues to be no sign of ambush or any kind of trap concerning the charging station.

What there is, however, is the faint sound of voices coming from up ahead, Laura notices.

Hailey notices as well, and almost imperceptibly tenses for a moment, before nodding. "I wonder if that's the boys, or if there are other people down here," she comments as she charges her ARCUS quickly.

As they move on, the come to an intersection next to a balcony, and as they round the corner, it is indeed the boys, coming up from the other direction, that they run into.

Or at least four of the boys. The black-haired bishonen. The cute ginger. The tall rugged guy. Joined by Machias, who they seem to have picked up along the way.

     "We meet again," Laura calls out in greeting.

     Alisa sucks in a sharp breath when she lays eyes on the bishonen boy, but doesn't say anything.

"Glad to see you guys are hanging in there."

    "I'm glad the four of your are unharmed as well," Emma says earnestly, clasping her hands in front of herself.

The cute ginger smiles in agreement.

    "Well, it seems you've cooled your head at least," Laura comments at Machias.

He sighs. Grumbling-ly. "Yes. I've calmed down now."

"Good to see you lot," Hailey says. "I wonder if the missing ones will turn up at some point."

She looks around thoughtfully.

"We're still missing the Albarea, and that silver-haired girl..."

The quartet of boys and the quartet of girls come together in two lines, facing each other.

"At any rate, I believe introductions remain to be made, do they not?" Laura says to the boys. "I'm Laura Arseid, from the town of Legram. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

    "Huh... Legram..." the bishonen boy repeats thoughtfully.

    "That's down on the southeastern outskirts of the Empire, isn't it?" the cute ginger asks.

"Correct. It's an old castle town on the shores of Lake Ebel. We're connected to the rest of the country by train, but other than that, it's a fairly remote region."

    "That name sounds so familiar..." Machias startles. "Wait! So your father would be-"

"Yes. My father is Viscount Arseid, lord of Legram. Do you take issue with that?"

    Machias blanches. "N-No! Not at all."

"...Machais, was it? I can only speak for myself, but I don't feel I've ever done anything to bring shame upon myself in Aidios' eyes. And I fully believe the same to be true of my father."

Machias' attitude toward nobles is rather taking a hard back seat in the face of an honorable, beautiful, female example of the class.

"P-Please, I meant no offense. I'm sorry if I... if I, uh..."

Machias quickly turns to the kindest-looking and most approachable-looking person present who is not Laura.

"Say, I don't believe we've been introduced."

Emma allows herself to be used as a distraction in this manner, and bows politely.

"I'm Emma Millstein. Like Laura, I come from a distant region of the Empire. I was only able to attend Thors thanks to a scholarship, in fact."

She smiles in a way she hopes will ease the tension in this conversation.

"It's very nice to meet you."

    "A scholarship. Hmm, indeed. Now that you mention it, our instructor did say yours was the top score on the entrance exam." Machias lowers his eyes and frowns. "To think I was outdone... and by a girl no less..."

    The tall rugged boy chuckles. "You must be quite the prodigy."

Emma's smile gets a little bashfully awkward as she giggles demurely.

"Maybe it seems like it now, but really. I'm not. I don't have any training in the martial arts either, so this is the weapon they recommended for me."

Emma shows off her orbal staff.

"Oh, cool. You got an orbal staff too!"

The cute ginger peers at Emma's staff.

"Yours looks different from mine, though."

He deploys his staff and sets it upright to show off. Where Emma's is purple and hook-shaped, his is a pale green and shaped more like an inverted bell.

    Emma examines it curiously. "So it does. I wonder if it's just cosmetic..."

"I guess we'll have to figure that out. Anyway, my name is Elliot Craig. I'm from Heimdallr, which is about as not from the outskirts as it gets," he jokes.

It may or may not be the case that Alisa is glaring at the black-haired bishonen, but on his end he's definitely interpreting her expression as a glare.

He obviously wants to say something to her, but at a loss for what, he instead simply addresses the four girls as a group.

"I'm glad to meet you all. I'm Rean Schwarzer. I'm from a mountain town called Ymir, and uh, I'm a dabbler in the sword."

He has a tachi, hung on his belt. In the course of not wanting to stare down Alisa, his eyes fall on Hailey.

She looks around appraisingly, nodding. "I'm Hailey Topferin. Before coming to Thors on scholarship, I lived in Parm. I use these orbal batons to channel wind, and have practiced with daggers."

She says "Parm" with a deceptively mild tone of voice that still somehow suggests that she'd never like to see it again. Despite living there over a decade, it is most definitely not where she's from, but she doesn't know these kids well enough to talk about Hamel yet.

"It is a pleasure to meet a fellow Student of the Wind here in Erebonia."

The tall rugged boy offers Hailey a warm smile.

"Gaius Worzel. I'm a nomad from the Nord Highlands. Tell me, how exactly do your 'orbal batons' channel the wind?"

He gestures with his spear, a long red thing with a cross-shaped steel blade at the end.

"The spear I use was laced with Air sepith during its forging, according to techniques passed down through the generations of my tribe, and I have spent much of my life training with it and meditating on its nature, learning to attune myself to the wisdom of my people's element. I must admit I'm rather fascinated to discover a kindred to my Craft represented in the modern technology of the Empire."

"Oh? Interesting. I'd love to learn more about your techniques at some point, if there's anything you don't mind sharing. Maybe we could compare notes. I'm mostly self-taught, and largely stick to wind-blades, concussive strikes, and air cushions when maneuvering. These batons are derived from aileron tech, miniaturized and modified for more portable and flexible use."

Gaius seems pleased at Hailey's interest, though there is a slight edge of confusion.

"It sounds like we'll have a lot to talk about as classmates."

His gaze then moves over to Alisa, who is the last to have yet to introduce herself, and who is still not-glaring at Rean.

Hailey looks over at Alisa, noticing that she's still distracted by Rean, and leans over to give her a gentle elbow nudge. "Introductions, Alisa?"

Alisa huffs reluctantly as she realizes she has no reason to refuse. She's all tense, and she's not letting herself think about why.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm Alisa 'R'. From Roer. It's a pleasure to meet..." her eyes fall on Rean again, and she hates herself for it a little bit but instinct takes over and, "almost all of you."

There is a long moment of awkward silence.

    Emma peers over at Alisa with a disappointed frown. "A-Alisa..."

Alisa ignores her. Maintaining her own composure is taking a lot of effort at the moment.

Elliot speaks up, hoping to smooth over the awkward.

"Roer, huh? What's it like living there? There's probably a new technological breakthrough every week."

    "The Reinford Company is based in Roer," Machias recalls, "and they're the largest heavy-industry corporation on the continent, aren't they?"

Elliot nods.

"I, suppose they are," Alisa agrees, very carefully and very neutrally.

Hailey rolls her eyes at the blatant exclusion of Rean, and quirks a skeptical eyebrow at Alisa's avoidance of acknowledging the Reinford name at all. She manages not to snicker. Somehow.

"So, hey..."

Rean is just going to cast his luck out into the dark waters, here.

"I guess that bow must've been in that case you had with you when we first met, right? I've never seen one like it. Is there some kind of orbal mechanism build in?" he asks curiously.

    "There is but I don't see how that's any of your business," Alisa responds in a flat, rushed tone.

"Ouch..." Rean mutters to himself.

"Umm... Yeah..."

Elliot has no idea how to help in this situation, so instead he's just going to try to nudge things along.

"Anyone got any ideas on what to do now? We've all run into each other wandering around. How about we stick together?"

"I think that would be for the best. It's not safe for a group of girls to travel alone. You may require prot- "

    "You needn't be concerned about that," Laura interrupts with calm poise.

"...I beg your pardon?"

Laura unslings her massive sword and assumes a basic stance with it, again defying the laws of leverage to wield her sword despite its weight.

"I don't mean to boast, but I'm confident in my swordsmanship and in our shared battle prowess. For now, I think it's best to remain in separate groups. There are still two of us who remain unaccounted for."

Hailey allows herself the briefest moment to savor Laura being amazing, in martial prowess, physique, and shutting Machias' overprotective chauvinism down elegantly.

"Given that we can handle ourselves, and that this place is a maze, we can cover more ground in two groups than one. Just try not to backtrack."

"That's right," Emma agrees. "We'll have a better chance of running into that silver-haired girl in that case."

    "Two teams is twice as much ground covered," Gaius also agrees.

"Mmhm."

    "I have no objections," Laura says. "Let us begin our search, then."

"Yo."

Oddly, Machias is the only one who yelps in complete shock, so startled he almost drops his orbal shotgun. Alisa also jumps, but controls her reaction better. Elliot merely squeaks.

Rean and Gaius, Laura and Emma, all four of them are surprised, but each of them sensed the silver-haired girl's presence in their own way, in the instant before she revealed herself, perched on the railing on the right-hand side of the eastward hallway.

Hailey tenses briefly, looking up at the arrival, and lets out a breath. "Oooor, one of them could just show up right now."

Rean takes a step out of line to face the silver-haired girl.

"We're glad to see you're alright. Though... it looks like there was nothing to worry about in the first place."

"Nope," Fie agrees. "I'm small and quick. These monsters can't lay a finger on me."

She hops off the railing and strolls casually to a neutral conversational distance.

"Fie Claussell," she says lackadaisically. "That's my name. You're almost at the exit. It's that way."

She points a thumb behind herself.

"I found it ages ago, but Sara wouldn't let me leave without the rest of you there. Lame. So I've just been exploring."

Hailey rolls her eyes and grins. Figures. "Find anything interesting out there?"

"Just that other guy."

   From the hallway behind her, the sounds of a battle suddenly echo, faint but unmistakable.

"Speaking of which."

Fie pulls out a matched pair of small gunblades: gunmetal pistols each with a broad swooping bayonet that curves back around the majority of the gun, meant for slashing rather than stabbing. She spins, dropping low, moving so fast its more like she flickers and its suddenly facing the other way, then she shoots off down the hall, accelerating from nothing to holy shit in an instant.

"Well. Guess we'd best save our wayward nobleman."

She dashes down the hallway after Fie, batons in her hands.

"Right. Let's go!"

Laura checks to make sure the others are with her, and leads them forward toward the sounds of battle.

The sounds lead to a large, open chamber with a tall ceiling and a switchback staircase on the far wall, leading up to what looks like daylight.

A balcony overlooks the right-hand side of the room, and in the center of that balcony stands a massive stone gargoyle with glowing eyes. Those glowing eyes shoot out a beam of energy as everyone comes into the room, striking the floor at the other end of the room. Where the beam strikes, a crude miniature gargoyle coalesces out of nothing.

Jusis stabs out with his sword, pale bluish battle-aura flowing along the blade of his sword, concentrating in the tip as he stabs forward. The latest minigoyle reels back as his thrust cracks its scales. It lunges forward swiping at him, but Jusis darts back nimply, then pivots into a slash that takes the minigoyle's arm off.

    Fie, who is watching this from the back wall, flicks one of her gunblades into firing position. A small bolt of energy bursts out of the gunblade's barrel and slams into the minigoyle's head, smashing it into an involuntary backflip.

Jusis stabs down, finishing it off. It bursts into sepith beads.

There are... kind of a lot of sepith beads scattered all over the floor. Like, at least a dozen monster's worth, if not more. Jusis is breathing hard, sweat visible on his forehead.

"There's no end to them."

    "I told you," Fie says blandly.

Jusis grunts, glances over his shoulder to see Hailey and the rest bringing up the rear, and backs away from the front end of the room. The large gargoyle's eyes stop glowing.

Hailey skids to a stop next to Jusis, scattering some of the many sepith beads in her slide.

"Is that thing up there the source? And spawning too many little'uns to get up there and shut it down when it was just the two of you?"

"I wish," Fie deadpans.

    "The large statue seems able to summon monsters in proportion to how close one gets to the other side of the room," Jusis explains. "Step too close to the exit, and the monsters appear with increasing frequency."

"If that was the only problem, we could just run past them," Fie adds flatly, glaring up at the archway through which daylight is visible.

"Don't give up just yet, kids!" Sara's voice calls out.

She must be standing just over the threshold of the exit, out of sight at the top of the switchback staircase.

"Now that you're all here, I bet you can figure this out! I believe in you~"

She looks the room over again and then nods. "Idea. Casters and archers, get just as close as you need to for reliable shots; everyone else, keep the minis off them and throw a cast when you have a minute between wrecking minis?"

"Wait."

Rean offers Hailey an apologetic look. He looks over at Fie, then at Jusis.

"I'm guessing you already tried to destroy the statue?"

"Of course I did."

Jusis shoots an annoyed glance at Hailey.

"Each time we shattered the stone, it grew back."

"Ugh, should've asked that. Thanks," Hailey replies with a huff at the statue, then turns to Jusis and Fie. "Does anything else light up or glow when that happens?"

Not that they've seen.

However, among observed properties the class may discover by experimenting, there is this:

If anyone attempts to test the statue's "danger range" systematically, they'll discover a discretized series of ranges in successively smaller intervals approaching the statue.

There is a range in which the statue's eyes do not glow.

There is a closer range in which the statue's eyes do glow, but no monsters spawn.

There is a closer-than-that range in which the statue's eyes glow, and it also maintains the continuous presence of one monster, summoning a new minigoyle the moment the previous is killed.

Likewise, there is a yet-closer range in which the statue maintains two minigoyles. Then three. Then four. Then five.

Also observed. A closer range "activates" so long as there is one person in that range, but additional people within that range does not seem to affect the summoning behavior... but the statue's glowing eyes are... maybe a slightly different shade?

According to Fie, when she made her escape attempt earlier and was thwarted by their instructor, going past the statue produces more minigoyles than she could count. Two dozen at least. It took her ages to kill them all. So tedious.

Hailey tests all those things, then adds a few more. How fast does the statue reassemble itself when shattered? Does the eyeglow color change more if more people are standing in the zone? Does a different eyeglow shade change the reassembly speed?

Fast, according to Jusis.

It does!

It does not.

What about the entire class standing in the zone?

As soon as all ten of them are standing inside the glowing-eyes-but-no-monsters range all at the same time, Emma gasps softly, sensing a shift in the ambient mana.

"Something's happening!"

Stone creaks and crackles, with a sound like melting ice and tearing flesh.

The glowing eyes fade, but the glow spreads to the rest of the statue's bulk, creeping over it, sinking in. Soon, there is a living creature where the statue once stood, golden armor plates over reddish scales and dark blue flesh.

It roars, flaring its wings and brandishing its claws, before leaping down to land on all-fours in front of the nascent Class Seven, resembling a small dragon more than anything.

    "Is this sort of thing common in the empire?" Gaius asks, maintaining a fragile calm.

    "Not outside of old wives' tales," Jusis grunts.

Rean takes up a stance with his sword.

"This thing is the final obstacle between us and the surface. Our only choice is to defeat it."

    "I didn't expect to find the Dark Ages alive and well down here," Laura says. "I don't expect this foe to go down easily."

    "Oh A-Aidios..." Elliot gulps.

"We're in this together. And right now, that's what counts!"

    "It was annoying enough when it wasn't fighting back, but regardless this thing needs to die," Jusis says flatly.

"All together, work to make an opening and take it down. I don't think it's going to give us any more time to pla-!"

A green-tinged glow flows up along the gargoyle's wings, then it slams them forward and a powerful battering ram of wind smashes into the center of Class Seven's formation.

Rean, Alisa, and Machias are scattered like leaves... though Rean acrobatically flips around and lands on his feet, and Machias stays on his feet, sliding a ways back but not losing his balance as a faint Earthly aura surrounds him. Alisa goes down briefly but is back up too as soon as the terrible wind passes.

The gargoyle follows up on its wind attack by whirling toward the left flank and slicing at Emma and Elliot with its claws.

Emma, gripping her staff and staring in intense concentration, makes a small movement toward Elliot. The gargoyle's claws scrape off of nothing, striking sparks against empty space before a crackle of silver seams ripple out to reveal a spherical force shield. Emma twirls aside as the shield shatters under the blow, building up momentum behind her staff as she brings it around. A wave of purplish silver mana arcs out from the staff's head in a great crescent and slams into the gargoyle, sending it staggering backward...

...toward Hailey and Laura.

There are many things about the ARCUS that make it a true leap forward, a "Next Generation" orbment.

Refinements to the clockwork drivers allowing faster and more powerful Arts, yes. A new, more ergonomic case and controls, yeah. More standardized cosmetic customization options, that too.

Next Generation quartz designs to go with it, also that. A built-in communicator that doesn't drain noticeable amounts of EP to use, even that.

None of that is what happens next.

As the ten wielders of ARCUS face off together against this powerful monster, their battle auras mingle and synchronize. Normally this would be of little more than academic interest. Not so, anymore.

A soft, faint glow seems to emanate from the chests of all ten of them, felt more than seen. Felt through that mysterious extra feedback channel on each of their ARCUSes that previously wasn't doing anything at all.

It's not quite like sharing senses. It operates on a deeper level than that. But here, in this moment, the ten Class Seven prospects feel and act through each other, sensing and reacting on the level of instinct. There's no guesswork. There's no confusion. There is just bone-deep certainty and effortless coordination. Each of the others is there, doing that, and about to do this. For that one brief and miraculous moment, their unified will is actualized into unified action, and the ten of them are as one.

By the time the monster's claws strike the shield, Hailey is already darting forward and left, away from Laura and the gargoyle. As it stumbles toward Laura, Hailey drops into a crouch for a jump. Alisa fires a charged shot over the ravenette's head, striking the side of its head, detonating in an orange burst of flame and turning it away.

Hailey airboosts into a leap, kicking at the gargoyle's right shoulder and springing up and away toward a pillar. In the same moment, Rean darts behind the beast, slashing at its left hindquarters with his tachi, backed by a heavy gust from Gaius at the same spot. The monster twists to the side a bit, starting to skid-stumble sideways toward Laura.

As Hailey's feet plant against the pillar, over her classmates' heads, Machias levels his shotgun at the monster's knees, firing a heavy blast at its front right knee, which buckles. Hailey leaps high above the gargoyle, dropping down toward its left side as Fie dashes forward and drops into a slide underneath it. As she passes, Fie slashes her pistol-knives at its front left leg, pulling it out from underneath it.

In that same moment, Hailey twists in midair, wreathing her batons in swirling winds, and slams a hammer-blow into the left side of its back, knocking it the rest of the way over onto its side.

It skids across the stone floor toward Laura, neck exposed, roaring in shock and pain.

Laura gathers her chi and blasts into the air in a whirl of mana that resembles steam, soaring over the monster's flailing wing.

As she ascends, she transfers her momentum to her massive sword in a powerful upward swing. The very tip of her blade strikes a single spark against the stone floor before the broad edge bites into and rams up through the gargoyle's neck.

The gargoyle's head separates cleanly from the rest of its body, sailing up into the air in Laura's wake.

Laura completes the arc of her leap and lands, facing back the other way, just in time for the gargoyle's severed head to bounce to a stop at her feet.

The gargoyle's corpse turns first to stone, again, but rather than regenerate, the stone then crumbles into more sepith beads like any other monster.

Curls and whorls of loose mana escape the crumbling corpse, filling the air with sparkling lights for a few moments before it all dissipates.

Emma closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, relaxing with a small relieved smile as she senses the last traces fade.

"I think that's the end of it."

Hailey giggles giddily, rising out of the crouch she'd landed in and looking around the room at everyone, grinning as she asks, "What the hell was that? All of us worked together flawlessly to set it up for the killing blow."

She turns to Laura, undisguised awe (and disguised arousal) on her face. "Aidios, Laura, that upward strike was glorious."

"Thank you very much, Hailey."

She slings her sword onto her hip and walks back to the center of the chamber, pleased smile shading into pensive frown.

"As for what that... uniquely odd experience we just shared might be, I have no idea."

    "It felt like, we were all glowing," Elliot ventures. "And it was almost like I could see through your eyes."

"Indeed. How strange."

Hailey nods, following the group, adding, "It felt like... I had this idea, of how we could get it tipped and vulnerable, and like all of you saw the same idea, and we all instinctively did the right things. It felt like..."

She trails off for a moment, then finishes in a smaller voice, "Like for a single shining moment I could trust that we were all working together."

Fie isn't the one standing closest to Hailey, but she is the only one with senses sharp enough to hear that last comment. She startles a little, like a cat that just heard an interesting noise.

Then she shrugs to herself and mutters, "Yeah."

Hailey startles subtly at Fie's response, freezing subtly for a fraction of a moment in shock. She gives the silver-haired girl a long, searching look.

Fie stares back, with basically the same expression and basically the same intent.

Then she shrugs again, relaxing with an agreeable air.

No one else seems to notice the silent exchange, with the possible exception of Emma.

A brief, tentative, tiny smile graces Hailey's face for a moment, then she turns her gaze back toward everything and everyone else.

"It did feel like something washed over me for a second there," Alisa agrees thoughtfully.

    "There was a faint blue light around each of us," Machias notes.

Alisa has a suspicion.

Laura nods toward Machias and toward Hailey.

"Perhaps it was just the blur of combat, but I felt like I could sense everyone's movements in precise detail."

    "I don't think it was just your imagination," Fie deadpans.

"That does seem to be the case."

Instructor Sara strolls in through the doorway at the top of the switchback stairs, descends to the first landing, and steps up to the railing to look down at the kids.

    "Agreed," Rean says to Laura, "I have a feeling that what we just experienced - "

"...is the biggest selling point of the almighty ARCUS? Give this man a prize!"

Sara applauds. It is only minimally sarcastic.

"Looks like friendship and teamwork save the day once again!"

Sara winks at them, then smiles.

"I'm so proud of you guys~!"

Hailey quirks an eyebrow at Sara. "That and fifty mira will buy me a cookie."

"Anyway, that about finishes up today's special... orienteering... exercise..."

Sara strolls the rest of the way down to meet her class on the floor of the chamber, but she trails off as the rest of the Class Seven prospects that line up to face her seem no more enthused than Hailey by her enthusiasm.

"Aww. What's with the long faces? I thought you'd all be happy!"

    "Wh-What are we supposed to be happy about?!" Machias blurts.

    Alisa folds her arms pensively. "I have so many questions, I'm not even sure where to start..."

"Oh?" Sara asks leadingly.

    "I'll take a stab at it," Jusis speaks up. "What exactly is the purpose behind this 'Class Seven'?"

    "We... get that it's supposed to be some sort of melting pot that includes a broad cross-section of people..." Emma adds.

    Laura completes the thought. "But why were the ten of us chosen in particular?"

Sara hums.

"That is a valid question. There's no single, monolithic reason why you all made the list, but if I had to name a major contributing factor, it would be those ARCUS orbments you've got there."

    "How so?" Rean is the first to ask, pulling out his own ARCUS to look at it.

As the rest of the class follows his lead, Sara settles back on her heels.

"Well, like I explained earlier, the ARCUS units are developed jointly by the Epstein Foundation and the Reinford Company. Like any battle orbment, they cast Arts, and these have communication functionality built right in. But their crowning feature is what's known as combat linking. That's the phenomenon you all experienced just now."

    "So that's what that was," Alisa says, like she knows exactly what Sara is talking about.

    "Seems like a pretty apt term," Elliot opines. "It did feel like we were all connected somehow."

"Precisely! It doesn't take a genius to imagine how much of an advantage a feature like that would be on a real battlefield."

Sara shuts her eyes and makes a sweeping gesture, as though leading them all to imagine it.

"An elite unit that can sense each other's movements, acting in perfect sync even in the most chaotic conditions! You can hardly put a price on that. It could bring about a revolution in the way wars are fought."

    Laura hums. "It does sound rather..."

    "...idealistic," Fie suggests.

"Well, yeah. The technology has its limits. Some people have a natural aptitude for it. Others just... don't."

This was the dramatic reveal Sara has been building toward:

"Annnnnd~ Out of this year's fresh batch of bright-eyed students, the ten of you turned out to have the highest aptitude. And since aptitude trumps background in Class Seven, we~ell... here you are."

Really? She's one of the top ten students in combat link aptitude this year?

Well. They wouldn't actually sabotage their own program, and the combat link is special enough that it would make sense as being the actual testing priority.

Wait.

"You explained the selection criteria, not the actual purpose."

"Didn't I?" Sara teases.

Wait. Did she? Sara mentally reviews everything she just said.

Huh. The little noirette has a point. But this isn't really the time to get into the unofficial hopes she and the school's board of directors have for Class Seven. The true purpose of Class Seven isn't something she can just tell them. It has to rise up from within their own hearts.

"Suffice to say, the hows and whys of your situation mostly do boil down to being a test cadre for the ARCUS... but we have plenty of time to get into the nuance around that, later. Unless any of you have objections to being in this class? If you do, speak now, or forever hold your peace."

Sara pauses for a moment to measure the class's response, then continues.

"This program isn't cheap to run, so we're not about to force anyone into it if they don't want to be here. You should also be aware that Class Seven's curriculum will be tougher than any other classes' coursework. Just a fair warning~. So that leaves you all with an important decision to make: Will you stick with Class Seven? Or not?"

Sara pauses again after this dramatic pronouncement, only to remember one last fact she forgot to include.

"Oh, if you opt out, you'll be placed in the class you would've been assigned to otherwise. There's no pressure. Nobles will land in Class One or Two, commoners in Three, Four, or Five. It's still just the first day, so there's no real catching up you'd have to do. I'm sure you'd fit in just fine."

Rean takes a firm step forward.

"I'll do it. Whatever Class Seven has to throw at me, I'm game."

    "Just like that?" Elliot observes.

    Alisa's head whips around toward Rean. "W-Wait, what?!"

    "So you're the first, then," Sara says knowingly. "You seem pretty sure about it. Any particular reason?"

"Not really. I just feel like I've put my family out, asking them to send me to this school. So if it gives me more to show for my time here, I'll take whatever opportunities come my way."

    Sara hums agreeably. "A noble sentiment."

Rean stiffens in surprise a little at the instructor's inflection, there, but doesn't show anything outwardly.

This is what'll push her hardest, make her strong enough to actually find all her answers. Nothing else in this school will push her as hard as Class Seven.

"Bracers Onward," she mutters under her breath, shaking her head at herself.

"There's work that needs doing, answers that need finding, and I need to be ready to go after that," Hailey says, stepping forward as well with a nod to Rean. "Push me as hard as it takes to get that done."

Laura glances over at Hailey and smiles.

"Count me in as well."

She takes a step forward.

"The greater the challenge, the more I can push myself to excel. One can't hone a blade without grit, after all."

"Let's make it four."

Gaius takes a step forward.

"Considering how far I came to attend this school, it'd be silly to back down before I even started."

"Looks like we've got the country's strongest freshman on board, our foreign exchange student, and our orbal baton prodigy too."

Sara is possibly having too much fun with this.

"Any more takers?"

"Allow me to take part as well."

Emma takes a step forward and earnestly clasps her hands in front of her skirt.

"I was only able to come here because of the school's generosity, so I feel it's my duty to help in any way that I can."

"S-Sign me up, too!"

Elliot takes a step forward. He scratches his cheek thoughtfully.

"I kinda feel like fate brought us here for a reason, y'know? And you all seem pretty easy to get along with."

"And that's a yes from our two orbal staff testers."

Sara recalls an important detail.

"Though I feel compelled to remind you, your weapons are still in the prototype stage, so on top of your other work, I'll be expecting reports from both of you."

    Emma smiles cheerfully. "Of course."

    Elliot groans. "Maybe I spoke too soon..." He pauses a moment, then glances down the line-up. "Actually, what about Hailey's weapons? Aren't those prototypes too?"

"They are. But her orbal batons were issued through a different contract than your orbal staves, and the company that produces them made its own arrangements concerning test data."

    "Oh."

Alisa huffs in determination.

"Let me join too."

She takes a step forward.

    "Oh," Sara says. "There's a surprise. I was almost certain your rebellious streak would see you opt-out just on general principle."

"It does bother me that you've got us using these ARCUS units that are still pretty clearly in-development, but if I let every little nitpick like that hold me back, I'd never amount to much."

Sara laughs.

"Words to live by, right there. And that brings us to a magnificent seven."

She turns to address Fie directly.

"Now, what about you, Fie?"

Fie knows Sara and is somehow still a little surprised to be asked.

She shrugs. "Don't really care either way. You can choose."

    "Not this time," Sara says firmly. "This is one call you're gonna have to make for yourself. That was the deal, remember? You need to take control of your own life."

Fie just shakes her head and sighs.

"Fine. I'm in."

Fie takes a step forward to join the rest.

Sara sighs in exasperation.

"Well, at least you committed."

She returns her attention to the rest of the line-up.

"We've got a great eight, now..."

Sara folds her arms as she faces Jusis and Machias.

"...which leaves just the two of you."

    Machias merely grunts in displeasure.

    Jusis also merely grunts in displeasure.

"I can see you've got issues with each other, but that doesn't mean you can't at least try to work together."

Sara puts on an optimistic, encouraging air, slightly teasing.

"Why, if you just look past your differences and embrace the joys of youth, I'm sure you'll become the best of friends!"

"Like hell we will!!!"

Machias folds his arms and shuts his eyes.

"The exploitation of the common people by the aristocracy is a blight on every facet of Erebonian life!"

He glares at Sara.

"Unless something is done about it, this country has no future!"

Sara just scratches the back of her head.

"I appreciate your candor, but I don't think you're going to achieve much by lecturing me about it."

"Well, at least that makes this simple."

Jusis takes his step forward.

"I, Jusis Albarea, claim my place as a member of Class Seven."

    Machias recoils. "W-Why?! You're the son of a duke! Just the thought of being in the same class as commoners should make you sick!"

Jusis levels a very flat glare on the green-haired boy.

"I'll thank you not to tell me how I'm supposed to feel. As far as the house of Albarea is concerned there's little difference between lesser nobles and commoners. Besides, this should at least ensure I won't have fools flitting about every day, trying to win my favor."

    Machias has no response to that.

"That said, I have little interest in getting drawn into your petty arguments on a daily basis, either. I think it would be prudent for us to go our separate ways. I'm certain we can at least agree on this, no?"

"I don't need some pompous ass who coasts through life on his father's coattails telling me what to do!!!"

Machias stomps forward to join the rest of the class.

"I'm in, come hell or high water!"

He glares at Jusis.

"You might've had your successes spoon-fed to you up to now, but no outmoded class system is going to hand you trophies anymore!"

    Jusis snorts. "We'll see about that."

Machias bristles like he wants to throw a punch.

"They're going to be like this pretty much all year, aren't they," Rean mutters with a sigh.

    "Sure seems that way," Alisa agrees from next to him. "I wouldn't bet on them ever seeing eye to eye."

The two of them realize at the same moment that they're having a friendly conversation.

    Alisa feels heat rushing to her face and spins away from Rean to hide her blush.

Rean takes this in the spirit of their previous interactions and slumps.

"Oh," he sighs despondently.

    Elliot chuckles awkwardly. "The pots shouldn't be too hard on the kettles."

"Give a guy a break," Rean mutters under his breath.

"Well, how about that. Ten out of ten!"

Sara drops some of her whimsical air to say the next part properly.

(As she's saying this, the grizzled principle of the school and a handsome blonde man in Imperial Red are up on the exit platform having their own conversation, looking on, but nothing they're saying is audible down on the floor of the chamber.)

"I'd like to congratulate all of you on being the first ever Class Seven!"

Then she goes back to a teasing smirk.

"I hope you keep those high spirits all year, 'cause with the workload we've got planned for you, you'll need it! Now, before we get out of here, any last questions?"

Hailey grins wide when Laura comes to stand next to her.

After a long moment — how much did she miss? — she refocuses enough to catch Sara's request for last questions, and remembers something that bothered her earlier.

"Why's it called Class Seven when there are only six classes?"

Two weeks later...

Sara wasn't joking about the intensity of Class Seven.

The first two weeks of school don't give the cadre of Class Seven much chance to do anything but keep up. History, math, science, exhausting amounts of physical training, and so much homework. And not the kind that can be done just by rote, either. No one has even had time to explore the small village of Trista, yet, outside of the straight route to the school campus.

The dorms for the nobles branch off one side of that road, looming majestically and maintained by an army of maids and butlers. On the opposite side of the road, another street branches off to where the crowded commoner dorms sit modestly between townhouses.

One benefit the students of Class Seven do gain, however, is that they get their own separate and newly renovated dorm, just for them, across the town square over by the train station. It's a longer walk, but in exchange they each get their own private room and their own shared kitchen on the ground floor, not that it has seen much use yet. The boys get the second floor to themselves, and the girls get the entire third floor.

Today is the last day of that initial crunch, however. No homework to finish, and yesterday's physical training was much milder than usual. Everyone actually had time to eat dinner and get to bed on time, last night. Their reward for rising to meet Instructor Sara's standards.

Hailey wakes early and abruptly, as always.

She wakes with a silent scream, as she often does.

She knows, intellectually, that the heavy old bricks would muffle her if she let herself make a sound, but old habits die hard, especially habits burnt into her unconscious mind, protective habits that fire off before she's even fully conscious.

She sits up in bed, panting silently, for a minute, then slowly steadies her breathing.

She throws a tank top and running shorts on over her sports bra and panties, washes her face quickly, and then puts on socks and running shoes. She jogs down the hall, down the stairs, and starts a long parkour route, vaulting over things, kicking her way up to the rooftops, darting from ledge to leap to swing.

An hour later, she's walking back to the dorm, sweaty, feeling better, and warmed up for the day. She showers, dresses in her uniform, scowls briefly at the bags under her eyes, straps her batons on, and goes downstairs to the kitchen for a quick breakfast of eggs, toast, and porridge. Then she steps out into the lobby to make her way to class.

In the lobby, Emma and Alisa are chatting by the front door.

Rean and Elliot are just ahead of Hailey, having beaten her there by half a flight of stairs.

As has become a pattern, Rean is at a loss for words, and when Alisa notices him she shuts up and her body-language closes off.

"Good morning," Emma greets with a little bow, doing her best to smile through the tension in the air.

    "Y-Yeah," Rean responds gratefully. "Good morning."

    "Morning!" Elliot waves cheerfully. "On your way to school?"

"Mm." Emma nods.

Alisa turns away from Rean everyone, toward the doors.

"Come on, Emma. We're going to be late."

She pushes the doors open and strides outside.

"H-Hey, wait for me, Alisa!" Emma calls after her.

She gives Rean an apologetic look.

"We'll, um, see you in class."

She follows Alisa out of the building.

As Rean slumps over and hangs his head with a long-suffering sigh, Elliot tries to convey his sympathy.

"I never would've guessed she'd hold a grudge this long. She knows it was just an accident. She has to. Hard to believe she'd be so sensitive."

"No kidding..."

Rean sighs again.

"She's not even giving me a chance to apologize to her."

Hailey huffs and shakes her head at the departing blonde's back. Once the door closes behind her, she grumbles softly before saying, "I was going to let her explain this, but since she's stalling..."

She looks down, then back up at Rean. "She's not still mad at you. She's embarrassed and clinging to fussy propriety as armor."

Rean turns around, unstartled because he could sense her, but still caught a little off-guard. "Huh?"

    Elliot adopts a thoughtful pose. "You really think so?"

"It really seems like she's mad at me... Oh, uh, good morning Hailey."

She nods. "I know so. Thumped her about it a bit in that first 'orienteering' exercise, even. Her reasons are her own, but it's not something you're actually doing, and hasn't been since the first accident."

She sighs. "We've been so busy that I forgot to remind her. I'll try to catch her sometime soon."

"Well, thanks for that. It'd be a relief if you're right."

He scratches his head sheepishly.

"I still feel like I ought to properly apologize, though."

She giggles and scoffs. "For breaking her fall with your face? I feel like she should apologize, honestly, but I'll settle for whatever stops her from sniping uselessly at you."

She grabs the door and starts leading the way toward class.

Elliot tactfully doesn't mention how unnecessary that particular apology would be, momentarily reliving his memory of... breaking Hailey's fall with his own face. He shakes the thought away. He has, uh, noticed, Hailey's crush on Laura. It has been very noticeable. And its pretty cute.

"Guess we're walking together?" he asks cheerfully.

He and Rean follow her out the doors.

And then something clicks in his head, contrasting Hailey and him with Alisa and Rean. "Ohhhhhhh. Wow. Uh. Yeah. I think Hailey's right, about Alisa."

Alisa totally has a crush on Rean. It explains everything.

"Looks that way!"

Hailey would be pretty embarrassed herself if anyone mentioned her enormous crush on Laura. Luckily, she hasn't realized that Elliot knows.

She's socially sharp enough to spot when Elliot has the realization about Alisa, though, and giggles. "Yep. No point in doing anything other than trying to stop the sniping so she can come to terms with it, though."

Rean fidgets with his sword.

"Do I... want to know what you two are talking about?"

"Nope," she replies with a smirk. "Even remembering that we're talking about something like this is a great way to reduce your odds of future fun. Just keep being your earnest, upstanding self, and everything will be fine. So on that note, Rean, what's your favorite class so far?"

Rean starts to reply, realizes he has no idea how, then just shakes off his profound confusion and let's it go.

"I've been enjoying history more than I thought I would," he muses.

"None of our coursework is terrible," Elliot opines, "but to be honest I went into this thinking combat training would be the hard part. The academic side has really been giving it a run for its money."

"It really has!", she exclaims with a tired nod. "I have to work hard to keep up. I'm just a flighty, windy bitch, not cut out for this academic genius shit."

You cheating, airheaded brat, those grades can't be yours. You're just a glory-seeking little cunt, just like your glory-hound parents.

Her smile turns faintly strained for a fraction of a second.

Rean and Elliot both sweatdrop at Hailey's language, but don't press.

As they enter the school's campus, they fall back on the topic of smalltalk that has become something of a default in their class: the ever-growing vitriol between Machias and Jusis. As one-sided as it started, it didn't take long for Jusis to start provoking Machias on purpose.

Classes today are a bit of a cool-down from the frenetic pace of the first two weeks.

Translation: tests and review, instead of new material.

First period, they review science.

Then they review math. With Sara. Who definitely isn't the math teacher. And who mostly just reads out of the textbook.

The morning concludes with a review of history, with Thomas Lysander, their rather quirky and energetic history teacher. Rean and Alisa have another moment during which they forget they're supposed to be at odds. Honestly if they could just maintain that state, their problems would be solved.

Then it's physical training. Two hours of basic exercise out on the athletics field.

After that, a short break to wash up and eat a rushed lunch.

Then two more hours of weapons drills and chi training, with durable (but inanimate) target dummies set up in a widely-spaced row:

The sword-wielders clip extra weights onto their swords (though this is a bit redundant and comical in Laura's case) and burn their arms with swing after swing, occasionally switching to projected mana slashes when they have the spare energy. The gun users of the class are all using advanced firearms that use chi instead of physical bullets, and practice both their aim and their firing speed. The orbal staff pair practice flinging mana, training stamina and speed with their staves rather than anything complex. Alisa is doing her own thing, firing phantasmal arrow after phantasmal arrow...

Hailey slams her batons in swipe after swipe after sweep, bopping with minor air-hammers and gusting in the direction of her sweeps, occasionally mixing in wind-blades as often as she can when she has the chi for it, trying to make her Crafts more efficient in chi use each time, even though she knows there probably isn't much to gain there.

Matter. Mana. Energy.

These are three different things, for all that human intuition often gets them mixed up.

The body is made of Matter and Mana. It uses Energy. But before it can use that energy, it has to get it from somewhere.

As Hailey moves through the forms of her strikes, the force of her body is opposed by the force of the world. The shock of impacts, the recoil of her weapons, the heat generated by her muscles, the chemical reaction that comes with every breath. None of this goes to waste, as it would in a more entropic universe. The mana in Hailey's body absorbs this energy and moves into a state of excitation, storing that energy for later.

Imagine a flywheel, spinning faster and faster as one pours more and more kinetic energy into it. Imagine that flywheel drives a shaft on which there are seven gears. Four of those gears have teeth shaped to catch an aspect of Matter. Three more have teeth shaped to catch an aspect of Mana.

This is a poor analogy, prone to causing confusion in less-studious children, who often make the mistake of taking the analogy too literally and concluding that chi is the same thing as orbal energy, which actually involves spinning gears and the math of orbits. Chi very much isn't that. But, poor as it is, the analogy is compelling.

All that metaphysical momentum waiting to be used. Hailey throws out a wind blade, briefly engaging her metaphysical, metaphorical 'clutch', grinding the momentum of the mana in her body against the mostly-static elemental field constants, warping reality to make the Air sharp. She spends chi, giving up some of that stored momentum, to shove on the fabric of existence and shape it into something interesting, however briefly.

Hailey has a lot of practice at this, so she can shove her chi against reality quickly and precisely, draining less momentum from her body's mana than most girls her age would need, to achieve the same effect. She's far from perfectly efficient, though. Class Seven has only just started the lesson on doing the math, working out the actual energy necessary for a given effect and calculating the metaphysical 'mass' of their own mana and from that working out what percentage of their maximum 'momentum' they actually need.

None of them are above 20% efficiency, but 10% efficiency is impressive for a layman, so for teenagers they're all pretty far ahead of the curve already. The hard numbers mean little, Instructor Sara reminds them, though. Being efficient with the raw energy of chi is only one small part of the infinite possibilities in bending reality to one's will. Skill wins, every time.

Elliot is definitely feeling his own lack of skill, as he swings his orbal staff around. He's between Emma and Hailey in the line, with Hailey on his right and Emma on his left.

He grips the control band on his staff, energizing it with a token drop of chi. He feels the head of the staff physically catch on the ambient background mana, and heaves with his tired, aching muscles. Water mana froths into visibility around the orbal staff's head as it scoops Water out of the aether. He hurls it at the target dummy, formless bluish bubbles rolling lazily toward the target before colliding and bursting with a satisfyingly musical concussion.

He takes a moment to catch his breath, and to glance at the girls to either side.

"Man, you two are both so much better than me at this. I feel like I'm wielding my orbal staff like it's a shovel. No finesse. No technique. Just scoop and throw..."