A fashionably accurate Rubik’s Cube came hurtling at Hezago’s face, only to miss and to come to a stop next to his head. Zack groaned, annoyed. “Oh my god, will you wake the fuck up!” he hollered, shocking Hezago awake. “My goodness, Zack, there’s no reason to scream—”
“We’re already here,” Zack interrupted.
“Okay, but still—”
“Just get your ass off this train!” Zack said, attempting to pull Hezago out out of the train.
“Goodness, let me go!”
“No I won’t you’re always going off on your so-called royal duties, and that is NOT going to happen this time!”
“Alright, alright!” Hezago said, picking himself up. After visiting Gloria and informing them of the recent changes in government, Hezago was very tired. If given the opportunity, he would have slept for three days. Anyway, the two departed the train and went off to meet the rest of the group.
“Oh!” Elenora said, taking notice of him. “Hezago, there you are! Did you see the castle? It was splendid!”
“Oh? Do you, by any chance, know where it is? They must have dropped us off a bit far from the original location.”
“It’s just north of this area; you should be able to see it—”
“Thank you, then,” Hezago said, accidentally cutting Elenora off. A long blue crystallised wand engraved with silver appeared in his hand before quickly turning into an umbrella. “Be right back.” The group watched in slight disappointment as he walked off into the distance.
He reached a clearing, and then proceeded to float into the sky. He went as Elenora had said, went northward, failing to take notice of the teacher who had just taken notice of him.
After passing three highways, a small park, and a few rivers, he came upon an awfully large castle with nearly nine hundred turrets. It could have spanned the entire length of the CNA province of Puerto Rico, which was concerningly large for a castle, and that meant something coming from a person with like twenty castles.
Upon taking in the view, Hezago noticed something rather surprising. This school—Vonellia, was it?—had registered itself twice. First under the name ‘The Academy’ and then under ‘Vonellia’. The purpose? To receive funding from the Galaxian government—twice.
No wonder he found that name familiar.
He came to a soft thud at a crescent-shaped lake that overlooked the floating castle. He was mildly startled when an elderly witch appeared beside him. He turned around and raised an eyebrow. “What on earth are you doing here!? I don’t know what you’re doing, but—” A subtle pop could be heard, and the witch fell silent.
“And you are…?” Hezago inquired.
“O- Oh… You’re Queen Eragonia.” She said, stuttering. Hezago breathed exasperatedly. "Yes, yes, enough of the formalities, straight to the point. Why on earth did you all register twice? If you really needed the funding, you could have just asked me. It’s not that hard.”
“Well, I suppose so,” the witch stammered, “but I’m just a teacher. You’ll have to talk to him about that—”
“Very well then,” Hezago said, noticing the train had just burst through the doors of the school, “You shall be off now.” And so the witch disappeared into the forest, leaving Hezago with his thoughts.
With a bit of magic, or perhaps a lot, it depends, the golden gates the train had burst through opened inward. A grand hallway, perhaps sixteen metres high and outdatedly decorated, beckoned him in, and did so successfully. Hezago took in his surroundings, watching people depart from the train that had somehow landed on a well positioned set of tracks.
“Where were you this time?” Hezago jumped, he had not expected Zack to be waiting for him. “O- oh. Wha-” “Eh, whatever, it’s too late for that.” Zack then proceeded to drag Hezago into another one of those extremely large corridors; towards a crowd.
Avada was standing there, looking slightly off-put, more than likely due to the fact there was a (very posh) man standing there, glitching as if he were from some sort of video game, and struggling to load himself in. The man then began to cough frivolously, but nonetheless came to a stop. The man then spoke up. “Terribly sorry about that, but I am the owner of this school, and as such, I welcome you to the highest (high school) education level here!”
The extremely large doors behind him opened automatically into a big, beautiful, and aesthetically decorated room in which fourteen (large) tables were floating. The large windows were covered with drapings that resembled the crest of Vonellia, though a bit outdated. Once the man entered the room, the tables came to a clattering fall to what was more than likely their intentional positions. “Well then, you all may now take a seat.”
Many people, upon attempting to do so, were slightly shocked when the floor refused to allow them to, and sped them towards another table. The movement, although quite functional for everyone else, refused to work for Hezago. He rolled his eyes annoyedly, as an umbrella manifested itself in his hands. He then used it as if it were a cane, and the floor took this as permission to move him.
Rather slowly, the tile beneath him moved towards a table in the midst of speeding students. The table was sparsely populated when Hezago sat down, but it was nonetheless of good quality. A few minutes later, after everyone else had taken their seats, the tables began decorating themselves, with tablecloths and many other random objects flying through the many doors that connected to the room. Once all of the decorations, vases, and fake fruits had settled down, a banana flung itself through one of the windows and smacked the owner of the school on the side of his head. He then once again started glitching again, but instead of doing so due to coughing, he seemed as if he were in agony. Hezago, slightly concerned, watched as the man shoved his hands into his throat. He then proceeded to turn his hand counterwise, which stopped the glitching, but changed his physical form into one that was similar to that of a cartoon. He continued to do so, changing between different animation styles before settling on one that was… uncannily similar to a human.
The man, after clearing his throat, walked to the front of the sitting crowd, where the floor gave way to a magnificently decorated white podium. “Hello and good day! Welcome to your first year at Vonellia Academy of the Arts, and I’m glad to say, you’ve finally been sorted.”
Everyone was visibly confused by that statement, but he continued on. “First, introducing our most popular yet controversial sector, Nordarin!” Two of the tables glowed a bright red as a substantial number of students came flooding through the door and took their seats at them. “Settle down, settle down. Anyway, now we have Gladico, the smartest of the smart, I think!” Another two tables glowed, this time a dark blue, with another flood of students walking in.
“Alright, then, now for Varias! The bravest of the bunch, but to a fault, if I'm being completely honest.” Another two tables glowed, this time a shiny brown, with a flood of students accompanying it. Upon them sitting down, the man raised his voice again.
“Now we have Nonava, the kindest- that I know of.” Another two tables shone blue, this time an awfully bright shade of it, with their own wave of students accompanying them. “Then we have the unsorted house, not much to say about them,” The table hezago was sitting at glew a light grey, accompanied by another table who did the same.
“Second to last, we have Quaneticus! They may not be the smartest, but they are the wisest. They do our taxes for us, but we’ll ignore that.” A table shone a pinkish blue, and a flood of tired looking students entered the room. “And last but not least, and definitely our most creative, we have Penavier!” And finally, the last tables shone a reddish yellowish colour, and a flood of bubbly students entered the room.
“And now that we’ve got that over with, I can finally announce the final part of our welcome! Duelling!” An oddly coherent groan escaped the returning students of the school. “And our returning superstar, Elisio!” A ginger boy stood up from one of the Nordarin tables, and Hezago took an immediate dislike for him. “But before we begi-” Hezago cleared his throat.
“Aheam.”
“Before we be-” “Aheam!”
The professor rolled his eyes. “Alright, who is doing that!?” Hezago stood up, umbrella in hand, and made his presence known. “Hello there, I’d like to speak to you in private.” “What for-” “I think you know why, Professor.” Rather annoyed, and slightly worried, the professor stepped down from the podium, and they both exited the room, everyone else staring at them.
Taking a seat at his desk, the professor took a breath and looked at Hezago, slightly pissed. Hezago spoke. ”I’m sure you are aware of your double registration of your school in the Galaxian benefit system, yes?” The professor raised an eyebrow. “...And how do you kno-” An awfully quiet pop could be heard, and a scared look appeared on the professor’s face. “Professor Michelton. Do not mistake me for an idiot, I am very aware of your doings.”
“O- oh, Miss, I didn’t mean t- to-.” “Whatever you meant, I don’t care. What matters now is that you pay back the money that you owe.” “But we can’t afford it. That’s why we signed up for it twice in the first place. If you could po-.”
“You have ten years to refund sixteen billion dollars, or the school will be put under the government.” “But I must insist-” “But you must shut up. What your school did was take billions upon billions of dollars that could have been used to help people who actually need it. Just because I failed to be here the first time does not mean I will let you take advantage of it.” “Ehm… I understand, terribly sorry about that." “Good! Glad we could come to a conclusion. I’ll be off.”
Hezago, with a very quiet pop, appeared next to Zack in a room that had apparently transformed itself into an arena of sorts. Michelton stood at the podium and started speaking once again. “Terribly sorry for the interruption, but here are our heads of sectors! First we have Professor Agathra Elisium, whom our returning students recognise as Mr.E, the head of Nordarin!”
An old and stern looking man stepped out of a portal that had appeared next to the podium, and he waved to the crowd, a strained smile on his face. “Next we have Madame Vae, head of Gladico and administrator of the mathematics sector!” A very fancy looking lady walked out of the portal, fur coat, high heels, and everything deemed necessary to make you an aristocrat.
“Professor Enedai, head of Varias,” A very modest man walked out of the portal, a jolly smile on his face, “Miss Raven, head of Nonava,” a very modest lady who had a very spectacular bow tie, stepped out of the portal, “Mr. Atodin, Head of Penavier," A boyishly dressed man stepped out of the portal, “And last but not least, Queen Varias of the Commonwealth of North America! Also our ambassador, industry manager, and head tax calculator, and head of Quoneticus.” And the lady who had invited him into the school stepped out of the portal in all her glamorous modesty.
“And finally, we can begin!”
And so they did.
The podium moved itself into a void that appeared on the floor, and the Heads of School moved to a set of seats somewhere behind Hezago, cuing the beginning of the duelling. Elesio stepped into the arena, and someone who had apparently decided to battle him did the same. The fight began, and according to Hezago, it was rather disappointing. Much to Zack’s annoyance, he kept pointing out problems with the belligerents’ form and things that they were doing wrong, which at this point had begun to get on even Elenora’s nerves. “He should really be putting more stiffness into his form, he’s leaving himself vulnerable to-” “Oh my god, if you really think you’re as good as you claim to be, then prove it for Melbourne's sake!” Hezago simply sat in silence, offended. “You know what, I think I will, thank you.” Zack was taken aback. "Hezago, don’t you dare.”
But Hezago was quite obviously not listening. The second Elisio had beaten his sixteenth opponent, Hezago, appeared in the arena, with an almost oblivious look on his face. Giving a hearty smile to Elisio, his umbrella appeared in his hand as he walked towards Elisio, using the object like a cane.
“How wonderful it is to meet the champion of Vonellia in person.” The heads of sectors were somewhat fidgety, Michelton even more so. Elisio eyed Hezago up and down. “And you are…?”
“Hezago borealis. Enchanté, Darling.”
A smirk appeared on Elisio’s face. “Okay, okay, this is really funny. For the last six duels, all I’ve fought were pipsqueaks and wimps! But a nobody from the unsorted sector? Ha!” Hezago frowned. He was not a nobody. He wielded immeasurable power—something not to be messed with. In fact, if he ever chose to, he could reset the universe to its factory settings, or wipe it out in its entirety. But he didn't; for reasons unknown.
“Hmph. We’ll see about that.” Elesio took stance, whereas Hezago just stood there, as if confused about where he was. Then, out of nowhere, a large and slimy black tentacle grabbed Elisio by the ankle and threw him into a nearby area, much to the displeasure of the heads of sectors.
“Show me what you’ve got, indeed.” Hezago said, smiling. Elisio, in mere seconds, got up and started shooting spells at Hezago, but his barrage would be put to an end when he was once again swung into a wall. “Elisio, Elisio, Elisio. I am very disappointed. I ought to have expected more from a champion, don’t you think?”
Elisio frowned heavily, regaining his balance. “Shut up.” “Hm? It seems you can’t even accept the fact that there’s someone better than you. I’m honestly not sur-” “SHUT UP.” Hezago simply smiled and then turned towards the crowd. “You see? With an attitude like that and a lack of practice, this useless lump could be you.” He said, an utmost jolly smile on his face. He then turned towards Elisio and smiled.
“It appears my work here is done.” And then he walked off. That is, until a sword made its way into his back. The world surrounding the two faded to black as Hezago stood there, a blank expression on his face. The sword melted, leaving not a scratch to be seen.
Hezago was pissed.
He turned to face Elisio, a spec of emotion nowhere to be seen. “No wonder your mother’s dead.”
“Who are y-”
A hush of wind could be heard.
“You know what happened. You saw what happened. Yet you did nothing. And she wonders why that was the case.”
“What are you t-”
“Emilia died trying to protect you. Because she loved you. And this is how you repay her? Disappointing.” Elisio stood there, a mix of shock and confusion on his face.
“Wh- How do you know th-”
“You heard every plea. Every scream. Every. Single. Night. But you took pity. Pity, what an odd word. Something many have for you.” She then paused, her eyes narrowing.
“Emilia held a love that had power. Love that could protect, and love that you threw away. When your mother passed, your father turned to you. You now bear that guilt. Guilt that you, quite frankly, deserve.”
Elisio was speechless. He just didn't understand. ‘Who was this?’ ‘How do they know?’ ‘Was it really my fault?’ Were the thoughts running through his head, all of which would not be answered.
“But I did-”
“Your father is now dead, and for the same reasons as your mother. Although you had no involvement, you’ve proven that you don’t care about anyone, and you don’t want anyone to care about you.”
“Bu- I-”
“Your carelessness has come to this. Your choices have led to this. This was your fault, and don’t you ever think otherwise. In summary, Elisio Adasquez, Congratulations; you are now an orphan.”
What an eventful start to the school year!
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