PinkShell Academy

Kai walked through the corridors of PinkShell Academy. The academy was known for commanding excellence from its students, and as far as excellence goes, he was near the top. It wasn’t necessarily because he was gifted in academics, but he worked two…no three times as hard to ensure that he performed. 

As he continued toward his homeroom he could hear his mother’s voice in his mind, behind the pounding headache, 

“A place that even the claws of The Hold couldn’t reach...” Kai held his head in pain. He was so absorbed in thought he did not hear the voice calling out from behind him. 

“Kaaaiiiii!” a female voice shouted. 

He snapped back to reality and turned to face a young, teenage girl. She was caucasian and had long black hair that was bleached at the ends. She wore the school’s white shirt and lime green skirt uniform (even though it wasn’t mandatory). The only unusual sight was her skirt being shorter than the school’s required length. 

“Oh… Hey there Jalia.” Kai replied dully.

“What do you mean ‘OH’?!” Jalia asked, playfully punching him in the shoulder.  “You're supposed to be excited when you see your best friend.”

He laughed slightly, “Ok ok, you win alright! You can stop punching me now.”

“What’s up with your face? Is that a bruise?” She questioned while touching his reddened neck. He recoiled slightly from the pain.

“It’s nothing. You should see the othe…”

“Criiiiiinge!” Jalia replied, punching him again.

Kai narrowed his eyes in fake annoyance.

“Anyways, I’m not going to ask you about it, because I know whatever it is, you can handle it Kai,” she assured him resting her hand on his shoulder. 

That’s the thing he loved about Jalia. Even though she was the same age and slightly shorter than him, she always moved with an air of maturity about her. She felt more like a big sister than a friend.

Although he smiled on the outside to her comments, he still felt some doubt in his heart.

Jalia grinned, “Good a smile, that’s how it should be! After all, it's your birthday! You should be smiling a ton!” 

Jalia awaits Kai’s response while hiding a small plastic bag of ginger snaps behind her back.

His expression fell once more.

“Well…it is also the day that she...you know…” Kai trailed off. 

Jalia’s eyes widened as she realized what he was trying to say.

“I’m sorry, I completely forgot.”

“It’s alright, I only told you last year…”

Quickly, she decided to change topics while slipping the ginger snacks into her skirt pocket.

“Um, So did you hear about the new students joining our homeroom today?” She asked.

“We’re getting new students? That never happens. Usually people are too scared or too demotivated to even attempt attending PinkShell.” He responded.

“Apparently they transferred from outside the ITCU. So it’s very unusual.” Jalia explains.

“Interesting. Could it be…” Kai thought to himself.

Before they could finish talking, the bell rang for students to enter their homerooms. The pair entered Room 22 and headed to their separate desks. Kai took his seat on the far left side of the room and stared out the window. He heard his mother’s voice once more.

“Persons with abilities so strong, all nature bends to their will.These people are called The…” 

“Mr Smith!” A voice interrupts Kai’s thoughts. Kai jumped in his seat and turned to face his homeroom teacher.

“That is the third time I had to call your name Mr. Smith. I’m trying to have everyone’s attention.” The teacher informed him.

“S-Sorry…” Kai stuttered as he scratched his head.

“Anyways, as I was saying, I would like to welcome these two transfer students to our homeroom.” His teacher stated while gesturing to two students standing in front of the white board. 

Kai looked up in surprise. He hadn’t noticed when they entered the room. Even as he sat there watching them it was almost as if he was looking straight through them… as if they weren’t there. What’s more, it was that boy again! The blonde boy who helped him earlier was present in the flesh grinning stupidly at the class.

“So he was real! Even stranger, he’s a transfer student?” Kai thought to himself.

He didn’t want to admit it but now that he had a closer look at the boy, he appeared…impressive. He was quite tall, 6’2” by Kai’s estimate. His blonde hair was silky, but wasn’t that well kept. Still it suited him somehow. He bore a very cocky smile on his face and radiated carefree energy. Wait, didn’t the teacher say there were two? Kai’s eyes shifted to the right and locked on to the beautiful girl standing next to the boy.

Immediately, Kai noticed that she smiled with great genuinity. She was considerably shorter than the boy, only about 5’4”.  She also had blonde hair which was styled into two ponytails. Her presence felt somewhat comforting to him, so much so he soon found himself staring at her.

“Let me introduce Jack and Jane Johnson! If you haven’t already noticed, the two of them are twins!” The teacher announced. 

Chatter started to flow around the classroom as the pair were introduced.

“They’re twins? How unusual…” Kai thought to himself, “ Not to mention Jack and Jane are such Old World names...What’s up with that?”

The girl turned her head and noticed Kai staring at her. Her expression brightened and she walked across the class approaching his desk. He lifted his head and immediately became nervous. He wondered whether or not he should apologize for staring, but didn’t know if he should confess that. However, while his thoughts were still fumbling, the girl arrived at his desk, leaned down and kissed his forehead. Then she leaned over to his ear.

“Welcome home.” She whispered.

The class bursted into an uproar. Everyone immediately started chatting and whispering about what they just witnessed. Kai’s mind went completely blank and he didn’t know what to think or say. His face turned red and he placed his palm on the spot where she kissed him. Then he turned his head to look at the class and met eyes with Jalia who had a massive frown on her face. Before he could say anything she stood up and left the room in a fit of rage.

*THWAM* 

The teacher slammed her meter rule on the board, immediately silencing the entire class. 

“That’s quite enough!” 

“Ms. Johnson, while your affectionate behaviour is certainly appreciated, I must request you respect the sanctity of this learning environment.” 

The girl smiled and apologized by bowing her head slightly. She then walked to a desk two places behind Kai and took a seat. Kai watched her walk the entire way. It was at that moment he noticed her brother sitting directly behind him with his feet up on his own desk.

“When did he…” Kai thought.

“Anyways,” the teacher continued, “If there are no further interruptions, can someone please go and tell Jalia Hopsworth that she is not allowed to exit my class as she plea…”

BOOM!

A massive tremor shook the entire academy building. The sheer magnitude of the quake threw several students to the ground and disoriented all of the students. Several people began to scream and panic.

Kai’s head slammed against his desk and his ears started to ring. He couldn’t hear anything clearly for several seconds until he heard the shriek of one of his female classmates tear through the muffled noise. 

His blurry vision began to clear and he could see one of the girls near his table looking downward and pointing at something. Kai slowly looked down to his desk. His vision finally adjusted to see a severed hand bleeding in the center of his desk.

Kai's chest tightened as he found himself unable to breathe. After a few seconds, he finally found his voice to yell and kicked the desk over to get the hand away from him. But as he watched the desk topple over in front of him, his eyes looked upon something even more horrific. 

His homeroom teacher laid dead and mutilated in the left corner of the room as if she was blown in half. Her entire body was ruptured and there was no sign of the rest of her person. A great wave of fear swept over Kai. His stomach wrenched as he looked upon the horribly disfigured body. He was about to scream when he noticed what floated at the front of the room.

Kai’s eyes locked onto what appeared to be a magical slimy disc hovering vertically in the front of the classroom wall. It was massive dripped in a yellow and black swirled pattern. Most of all, it was disgusting to look upon and gave off a malicious feeling.

The class continued to panic as multiple people screamed and cried. Multiple students jumped out of their seats in terror. Suddenly, a screeching, grinding noise filled the room. Everyone including Kai covered their ears as the noise continued to increase in volume. 

Skrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

The noise grew louder and louder as it completely filled the classroom. As the volume of the ear shattering noise increased, the disk expanded slightly. Then, without any warning, a massive hoof tore through the slime disc, plopping some of its sludge onto the ground. Everyone froze in fear. 

Ploosh!

This time a humanoid hand covered in fur reached out from the slime and grabbed the side of the disk. Two red eyes began to glow through the drooping slime and grew nearer and nearer to the opening.

Sliisssh….

Slowly but menacingly, an eight foot tall, humanoid bull-like creature emerged from the slime. The bull snarled and dragged something behind it, which appeared to cause the shuddering noise. Before anyone could get the chance to panic they heard a voice speaking to them.

“Quick, everyone! Over here!”

Kai turns to see Jack Johnson ushering everyone over to the classroom door in the back. Hewas stunned at how the boy made it over there so quickly. Strangely enough, everyone in the class instantly became more settled after hearing his words and began to quickly exit the classroom. He started to move as well but then he felt a hand on his shoulder. Jack Johnson stood behind him and was preventing him from fleeing.

“Wait a moment,” the boy stated calmly. Kai pulled away from his grasp in fear. He was so confused at the boy's sudden appearance behind him that he couldn't organize his thoughts to argue. The boy raised his head toward the door and began to speak.

“Mina, take him and head to the courtyard. I’ll slow this thing down.” 

Kai looked over to the classroom door once again to see Jane there as she nodded her head. She gestured for him to come over to her and although he was extremely confused and scared, he grabbed his still open bookbag and followed her out of the room.

The bull-like creature finally fully emerged from the portal to come face to face with Jack. It had dragged a large cracked battleaxe behind itself and clutched its wooden handle tightly. The boy stood confidently with his arms at his side and his fist clenched. He had a calm but extremely focused look on his face. The bull grunted angrily at him and began to raise its axe as the portal closed behind it. Before it could swing the boy pulled back his leg and launched a nearby desk into its face with a powerful kick. The desk shattered on its head, sending splinters and metal chunks flying across the classroom. The creature recoiled and was momentarily stunned by the attack. When it recovered it snarled at the boy and bared its teeth. 

The boy wasted no time and dashed over to the class door. While there, he gripped the door and ripped it off the hinges with his bare hands. He then forcefully hurled it into the bull's abdomen, causing it to fly backwards and crash into the blackboard wall, breaking it apart. The destruction of the classroom caused the roof to start to crack and cave in. The boy leapt through one of the class windows shattering it, and slid across the courtyard, narrowly escaping the collapsing roof.

He ran across the courtyard to meet Jane and Kai, the latter stunned by what he just witnessed through the classroom windows.

“That’s a Stage Four in there,” the boy said to the girl, “I’d give us one, two minutes tops.” He turned his head to look at Kai. 

“Before we go… Kai, do you have the text?”

Kai looked at him with pure confusion. What was the text ? He just stood still and stayed quiet. The boy closed his eyes and sighed.

“We don’t have time for this…” He mumbled.

The boy's eyes suddenly shot back open and Kai could feel his bright blue eyes staring into his soul. Suddenly, those same blue eyes turned to a shade of bright gold. Jack’s irises were brilliant and Kai found himself unable to look away.

“Give me your most valuable possession.” The boy stated calmly, holding out his hand.

As soon as he spoke those words, Kai felt himself lose all willpower and his body felt numb. As if he was being puppeteered, he subconsciously reached inside his bookbag and removed something. He then handed the boy a black covered book. The book had a golden circle imprinted on the front of its black leather cover. Upon the boy collecting the book, Kai snapped back to his senses.

“Hey! That’s my…”

GRAAAAAAAAAAGH!

Before Kai could finish, they all suddenly heard a mighty roar from the collapsed classroom.

The twins immediately started running across the courtyard to the hallway that leads to the exit. Kai, with no time to compose himself, sprinted after them. The two bursted through the double door exit into the back of the school and began to vault the back fence. Kai exited the door and began to pursue them but then, he heard a faint, shaky voice behind him.

“K-Kai?”

His body went cold as he recognized the voice and turned to face his best friend, Jalia. She was limping to the exit and there was blood streaming down her face from her head.

“J-Jalia?” Kai stammered in horror.

Jalia continued to hobble toward the exit. Suddenly, the bull creature bursted through the wall of the hallway. Time appeared to slow for Kai as he watched the ferocious beast run towards her. It raised its arm and smashed Jalia into a nearby wall. The wall crumbled to pieces as she crushed into it.

“NOOOO!” Kai cried out. 

His distress was interrupted by a hand tugging his arm. 

“Come on! We have to leave!” Jane told Kai as she forcefully pulled him away.

Jane vaulted the back fence and Kai reluctantly followed her. They headed toward the foot of a hill that was behind the school. Tears streamed from his face as he thought about his friend. In the distance they could hear the roars of the creature.

“What’s happening?! WHAT’S HAPPENING?!” he yelled to himself.