Soki was shirtless and kneeling ten-toed in front of an alchemy return circle, holding a piece of paper in his hands."I fear the worst is yet to come, and a battle beyond what we could possibly imagine won't be long now," he said to himself.He was quietly reading the contents of the paper. It was a report, sent to him by Horace.It spoke about the findings of team Charlie, team Stevens, and team Kayla. Earl's familiar, the secret base and the storm drug, project Chimera and the slave traders... There was a lot that they discovered in their one month away from the school.Team Charlie strangely hadn't encountered any of the ORA and had stuck to basic training—Team Soki wasn't much different.Though as a result, Team Charlie had made the most progress training wise and covered the most distance.It spoke of the identifying of the moles within the school, as well as the progress of the other children back in Welgrid.Thankfully, the children who were kidnapped for the slave trade and e

Ruby, Damian, Christopher, and Soki, all laid eyes on their targets. As the cave shook from the impact of Soki's fist he turned to Damian, "kill the flame," he said.Instantly, Damian extinguished his flame, and all four of them slammed their feet into the floor and blasted at their opponents.The men who stood in the center shook in confusion, illuminated by light. Not a second more had passed and now they saw shadows approaching them from the dead of the night."When facing an opponent," thought Ruby, as she held her hand in front of her, "it's best to retain them first and hinder movements," thought Damian as he held out his own hand."However when fighting the ORA," Christopher held his hands out in front of him, "breaking a few limbs would be best," thought Soki as he slammed his foot right in front of one of the men.Throwing out both hands, he grabbed two of the men by the face and hoisted them high into the air before slamming them into the ground.*BOOM!!* an echo bounced off

Christopher waited quietly and watched Lee. His guard was up, he wasn't going to let whatever Lee was about to say bother him."So, what's your name kid? If we're rivals we'll have to know each other's names," smiled Lee.Christopher raised his hands, "I don't know what you're planning, but you're not getting any info out of me," said Christopher.Lee stroked his chin, "well that's a problem. How am I supposed to hell out your name in anger now?" Asked Lee as he paced up and down.There was still quite a distance between Christopher and Lee, and Christopher made sure to keep an eye on Lee and keep it that way.He wasn't planning on making any mishaps. He would look for a small window when Lee's guard was down, and then take him out.He hadn't been training with Soki for no reason. Still, he was the weakest amongst his group. Ruby and Damian had made leaps and bounds in improvements compared to him.He knew getting careless could cost him his life. He wasn't planning on dying, he stil

A child, no older than ten sat in the corner of a dark room. His eyes dark, his heart darker. His dark scraggly hair sat right on his head.He swayed back and forth murmuring something to himself. It was a nursery rhyme. It was humpty Dumpty.He didn't like that one in particular very much. He'd thought it a tragedy how Dumpty would fall from the wall and shatter into so many pieces that even all the king's horses couldn't piece him back together.He was singing it only because it was the only one his mother had taught him. Not just that, he sang it because it distracted him.It distracted him from the bad sounds. From the sounds of his mother getting beaten in the other room.He rocked back and forth and tried singing louder. But his voice was too sore. He was already exhausted and his fresh bruises from his own beating still hurt.It was his fault that his mother was getting beaten in the first place. If only she'd kept quiet and let his dad beat him like he did every other night.B

The info dump was quick and direct. It needed to be, there was no point in talking if they'd die before much was spoken about.The plan they came up with was simple in concept but hard in practice. The dragon could sense the flow of mana and could vaguely predict their moves.The fact that Ruby was able to land an attack on it that it panicked and used its weight to try and crush was proof that it wasn't completely proxy to the exact spells they were able to do.But regardless, it could tell when they wanted to do, something. But now that meant that they were walking on eggshells.The things they could do were quite limited. The dragon turned around and whipped its tail against the ground. Ruby was seated on the floor behind a rock, her back facing the dragon.Meanwhile, Damian and Christopher were standing beside her on either side of the rock facing the dragon. Damian's arm was still in terrible shape, and while Christopher had his fair share of injuries, he was in by far the best