"Wow! Olympia!" Jeremy looked away thinking about how big and comfortable Corinth's dorm must be since it was on the teacher’s floor. Their rooms were so much better than the students were.
Corinth noticed and decided to dispel that myth quickly. "It’s not as cool as it sounds. They have me in a little shack compared to the ministrant’s offices and dorms. But it's all just for me, so that's kind of cool. No sharing my space with roommates." Corinth felt confident for the first time out on his own. He usually drew strength from others, but he was making a friend all by himself. It felt good.
"Thanks a lot, Corinth. I can't wait to practice," Jeremy said, with an identical glint in his blue eyes to that of Corinth's turquoise peculiars.
"All right, all right, this Draconian love fest is holding up his next opponent?" Lindle didn't want to break it up, but he'd eventually be stalling the entire room if they didn't move on to the next match up.
Corinth beat player after player with ease. The cards Evan gave him really charged up his deck. He was learning new strategies along the way as well. Some of his opponents knew how to play the game better than him, but his cards were just so powerful. He took a new lesson from each match, which made him more adroit as he went on dismantling eight more opponents. The room cleared out as sore losers cut their losses, leaving before the ultimate victor was crowned.
It was down to Corinth and ... Lindle! "Wait, how are you in the tournament. I thought you were a score keeper." Corinth hadn't even noticed him play. He had different score keepers nearly each match, and none of them seemed to sit down at a table and break out a deck of their own. So why is Lindle all the sudden the person sitting opposite him at the last active table.
"I'm the champion," Lindle said solemnly.
"The champion of what? They just started this game back up," Corinth spewed with a frowned.
"There's an international ranking system. It's not nearly as popular as it used to be, but that doesn’t make me any less the champion of it. Just because Aurora Boreal school ditched out doesn't mean everywhere else did. Rank still counts. Here at school and abroad, in fact. I've -been playing for years back in Arco. Sena. Mira decided that my ranking put me in a class above all of you. She said there was no reason for me to compete throughout the early stages. There's no chance any of you could seriously beat me, that’s why. I'm level nine. I have 9,000 lifeline points to your 1,000. It would take some sort of divine intervention for you to win this."
"But that's not fair!” Corinth shouted like a brat. He couldn’t believe what he just heard. Why had no one informed the competitors about all this? Neither he nor Emmy knew. He wondered if everyone else were already up to speed or just as clueless as he was.“Somebody might have had a shot if you gave it to them." Corinth didn't like the thought that Lindle got to skip all the preliminary matches and start at the end.
"What…?” Lindle questioned sarcastically.“Are you scared to face me?" His timid disposition of earlier had completely disappeared. He looked at Corinth from across the table with an absolutely firm composure.
"Corinth, I understand your doubts about my decision making process." Sena. Mira stepped down from the makeshift stage walking toward Corinth. He didn't see Sena. Hendrix, he figured she had left at some point while he wasn't paying attention. "I was trying to help others like you. If you had faced Lindle in the earlier stages of the tournament you would have been unfairly knocked out because of his high ranking."
Her striking gray eyes looked different to him now that he knew that she was the reason Anvard was hurt back at his old school. He didn't see her the same. He was sort of thankful about the circumstances since he wouldn't have met Andy otherwise. But she hurt his friend, and he didn't like that thought anymore than Emmy did. Though he wanted to be mad at her, he realized that she held a good point. Many kids would have been auto-ousted. Not able to show their full potential against other amateurs, because Lindle is no amateur.
"Okay, I'll go with it," he tried to sound pissed for Emmy and Anvard's sake. They were some of the only spectators left. It was late and everyone began clearing out. Not just the sour losers anymore. Really, nearly all that were watching in the chairs setup for an audience had gone back to their dorms.
"You jealous at all?" Andy nudged his sister playfully.
"No, I'm mad!" she said quickly.
"Why?" he frowned curiously.
"Aren't you?" she retorted with cat-like reflexes. "Why is she here? Hasn't she done enough already?" the volume of her voice rising from word to word.
"Calm down." He looked around to see if any of the few stragglers left had noticed them. The coast was clear. "You can't let people get you so upset. She's just a lady. A small-minded lady, who even had the courage to admit her mistake when she noticed it. We can't hate her forever," he tried reasoning with the little blush-eyed beauty.
She sat next to him with her arms folded. The olive hue of her face getting redder and redder as she tightened her brow. She tried her best to suppress the rage that was becoming a bit of an issue since-they left Imperativo. She felt perpetually angry over the circumstances surrounding her brother’s expulsion. But she didn't quite know why. She was much happier at Aurora Boreal, still the fits came whenever she’d think about what happened back in that wretched World. She turned to him with a stormy attitude brewing behind her pink eyes. "You'd call someone like that courageous? You need to find out what side of these social debates you’re on! And quick!"
"You jump to the end result too quick, I’d say. People don't change overnight. Even if you force their hand, their hearts are, and will be, ever still the same." He touched her hand gently and looked deep into her eyes. She calmed down just a little. "You know, when you used that Annihilate spell back at the Pavilion, I wanted to kill you?"
"What?" she barely remembered what happened that night. She tried to push all of it out of her mind. As she usually did with uncomfortable situations. It was such a scary night for such a young girl.
"I told you guys not to use lethal magik, but of course, you did it anyway. You could have used so many spells, but you let anger almost make you a killer."
That last word hit her hard. "I'm no killer!" She touched her hand to her chest like a damsel in distress.
"Yeah, you’re not because I stopped you. You can't let evil people turn you into an evil person. That's what they want anyway. They want to spread their ideas. They want to be heard and in charge of people, because they most likely can't control themselves. That's why they force people to live the way they see fit. Even though most of them break all of their own rules at one point or another. You have to stop allowing other people’s actions to dictate your own. Stay fresh with your ideas. If you're so certain of something that you don't even question it from time to time, then you have a closed mind. Just like Sena. Mira did." Him comparing her to that witch really opened her eyes. "Don't shut down your brain activity like that ever again, okay? 'Cause you're way too young to be a murderer." He smiled at her with that puppy dog look sweeping over his youthful face.
She couldn't manage to give one back. She just put her head up against his shoulder, and watched Corinth try to keep this from being the fastest ever recorded beat down. Still, a peculiar thought trundled into her mind, as she gazed at the two remaining competitors engaged in an enthralling monster trading card battle. She then looked up to her older brother while leaning -up against him in the empty seated audience.“Is there ever an appropriate age to become a -‘murderer?’” she asked, with a grin.
“Shut up and watch Corinth lose,” Andy chirped in response, with a grin matching her own.
Chapter 19:
Lessons In Session
May 22, 1002 ~ Daylight
Corinth once again found himself dreaming of a dark green sky and a coaster up high. He jumped again from the high-speed cart, and again it came plummeting down with him. He twisted and turned as he fell through an endless sky. The dragon in the distance seemed to be closing in on
him and the two shadowed figures that surrounded him. They descended toward the water as individuals, and then magikally shot back up into the sky as a trio. A trio set one in the same.
He could barely see through the dense fog clouds. They almost looked like smoke and smog, they were just so thick. He thought he made out an image of someone he knew. It looked like Walker. Walker was in the clouds holding something in his hand. It appeared to be the green dog whistle he'd given Corinth weeks ago. The winds carried the cloudy shape of Walker closer and closer, until the dragon breathed a single breath of white fire on him, knocking him out of the sky. Corinth screamed out, and then covered his eyes as the shadow figures tightened their circle around him. They pulled in close, but he fought them off as best he could. One grabbed at the back his neck, his arms, and his legs. It tried to carry him away through the clouds over the waters below.
Then the oddly shaped metallic dragon unexpectedly opened up its large mouth in front of him. It was drastically closer than it had been only moments ago. It shot a white stream of fire into Corinth's face. The shadows around him started to fade, as his face began melting away. He pleaded with the beast to no avail.
Then like a shooting star, another figure in white rushed down from the heavens above and below all at once. He couldn’t tell what direction was what. He lost that mysterious sense of awareness to all things that he usually possessed. The mysterious figure came between him and the dragon, without recognition of fear. The blinding figure possessed eyes of fire encased in crystal spheres, standing beside the small boy with the turquoise-colored eye of the sky, which held all things in sight. Then the crystal and fire-eyed figure shined its light so bright that everything went white.
Next Corinth knew… he explosively woke up in his bed covered in another drenching sweat.
His breaths, hard. Harder than he ever remembered. Like Emma kept reminding him, he isn't very athletic. So he never worked up much of sweat doing anything too active. But these dreams were becoming more and more vivid, turning into marathons of their own sort. The voice not to mention. He could hear the Nexus plotting inside his head, just as well as it heard him thinking his thoughts and everyone around him thinking their thoughts. The Nexus was taking a massive toll on his body, heart, and certainly his mind.
I gently whispered inside his mind. "Don't be afraid, Corinth. I can protect you from the storms of tomorrow." But it was no use.
He rolled out of bed onto the floor screaming and gasping for air. "Leave me alone!" He smacked his own head with both hands, pounding away until he hit himself in the eye. He saw dazzling lights and had double vision when he tried to open them up again.
He looked tired and felt alone. He slouched over, lying there balled up on the cold floor of his single dorm for several minutes. He thought about all the things that went wrong. Why they had to happen to him of all people? He kept his eyes closed for a long period after he resealed them, so as not to get dizzy from the double vision he encountered from the smacking. When he tried opening them again, he saw a much-welcomed sight. He reached out with his hand and smiled, turning his head upright from the chilled floor.
"Good morning, buddy." He rubbed Oliveto's fresh looking green fur through his fingers. The dog licked his face in return. Corinth didn't like being licked like that, but he needed a kiss and hug from somebody right about now. He sat up quickly and pulled the pup in tight. He rocked on the floor of his small dormitory with Oliveto for a while. Until he heard the waking bells ringing from the Watchtower.
He stood up like he was ready to take on a new day. He brushed off his insane outburst as if it had never occurred, even though he really wanted to crawl back into bed and let the madness overtake him. Then it’d be done. But no, he wasn’t that boy, so he pressed forward nevertheless.
He stretched his arms and yawned, looking down at his little friend. "I've got to get you to the PuP Pound quick." The dog whimpered in response, putting his head down. "Hey, don't give me that face. You got to spend all weekend with me." He bent over and tossed around Oliveto's long fur. "I'm going to miss you too, but it’s Monday. Start of a new week and the same old classes. But I have to go to class, don't I? Hum?" He didn't expect an answer, considering he was talking out loud to a growing puppy, like he understood English. Though he didn’t know English, per se, Oliveto still understood where he was headed. It became a matter of routine. The pup knew that once those bells rang Corinth would be up and taking him to the PuP Pound farther away from Olympia. They housed all the student and ministrant animals there. And that's why Oliveto hated it. He was more of a people animal, rather than an animal ... animal.
Once he dropped Oliveto off at the pound, he didn't waste any time. He darted through the semi-outdoor corridors. The stone masonry of masters were used as stepping stones to propel the young boy forward. He jumped over a mini-wall, cutting through a grass field that could get him faster to the back gateway into Olympia. His former skateboarding skills were in full effect as he finally reached the Diamond Atrium.
He came up upon Sena. Hendrix’smassive house at the center of it. He stopped and wondered why they put the PuP Pound so far away from Olympia, as he peered in past her open curtains. He didn't see anything particularly interesting inside. Just old looking furniture and no TV. That bummed him out. He hadn’t gotten the chance to watch TV in so long. The commons around school were riddled with kids day and night, and they weren't keen on sharing. He stepped down from a barrel he climbed on to get a better view. He dusted the dirt off his hands and navy-blue uniform pants. He kept running along the path after he hopped another wall out of Hendrix’s backyard garden. He figured they needed the space to accommodate all the animals, so the pound couldn't be inside Olympia. But it being closer to the student dorms didn't help him at all. He had to leave Olympia and walk all the way to the far side of Delphi dorm. He passed Concordia Nova and Elysium dormitories on either side during the walk that he felt took forever.
The atrium he traversed was formed by way of the four featured buildings of the school. They were set up at four different points to make a diamond in the center. He remembered seeing the outline on that map Emma had stolen from Sen. Bernard. He saw from the map that the walkways above his head were what really gave it its diamond shape. They reminded Corinth of miniature versions of the Puente del Cielo. These mini-versions were also high, but not nearly as high as the sky bridge that connected the Worlds. They connected at the tallest point of each building. The twelfth floors. Though Olympia was still wider and simply more massive than its counterparts setup about the school grounds behind it and toward the Central Lake.
He got back with no time to spare. Coming into Olympia from the back entrance presented a challenge. His first period class was much closer to the main gate side of the building. And it’s on the second floor. He rode the elevator up with no one but himself. Normal people had already reached their destination several minutes ago. Those people would be late as well. But no one would be more late than little Sen. Gambit.
When the doors opened, he sprinted down the wide hallway. The room doors all looked the same to him. They had no class numbers marking them for guidance. It was strange to him that the dorms had numbers, but none of the classrooms did. He always counted the torches on the wall to remind him which class was his.
"Three, four, five, six, seven!" He made it to his classroom just as Sena. Lilith was opening the door. She nearly hit him with it in the process.
"Oh! I'm sorry Corinth!" She reminded him of his mother, so in his eyes she could do no wrong.
"That's all right, I'm fine." He scratched the top of his scalp, covered in thick jet-black hair.
"You're late, as usual, but I'm going to let it slide, as usual. But this seems like it is becoming a bit of a bad habit. You might want to look into breaking it sooner rather than later," she said while giggling. She was very good with kids. She was the perfect ministrant to instruct rotations class. "Go in and find a seat then." She waved him pass.
But before he could enter, a hyperactive gentleman walked out abruptly. The man roughly bumped Corinth in the doorway, sending his flimsily held stance wobbling to the floor. "I'm sorry, man, but you should watch where you're headed!" the rude guy blurted out.
"Uncle Evan?" Corinth looked up from the ground where his uncle had knocked him down. He was beyond surprised to see him jetting out of Sena. Lilith's fully filled classroom. "Where ya going?" Evan's blue eyes seemed wild and confused when Corinth first spoke. His hair and clothes were so disheveled that Corinth barely recognized him as the spiffy and dapper fellow he loved so much. It looked as if the man had not long ago been crying too.
"I'm on my way. No where special, just getting away from here." He suspiciously looked to Lilith when he stated his case to the boy on the floor. He didn't bother to help him up or anything.
"Here, honey, let’s go into class." She extended her hand and Corinth took it.
She continued waving him in through the door, even pushed slightly on his red and blue backpack. But he couldn't help but look back, wondering what was up with his uncle. He hadn't seen him since last Friday. He took him out for an awkward lunch after he heard about him losing to Lindle at the tournament. He seemed distant and cold then. But not nearly as bad as right now.
Original Souls (A World Apart #1) Page 34
