Otherworld Academy Vol. 1 Capitulo 18
Chapter 18
Darren tossed Glint contemptuously at Beatrice, and Levi’s eyes narrowed as the Crane upperclassman stomped toward him. Levi’s fist tightened around his walking cane, and he felt his power surging through him. It would be a simple act to blast Darren so hard the smug canid ceased to exist, even in his towering, half-lupine state. Levi was angry, but he wasn’t yet ready to kill a fellow student over bullying and cultural racism. The look of superiority on Darren’s face didn’t make it easier.
“Nice light show, nobody. You think you’re going to scare a real magus with that parlor trick?” Darren growled out.
Levi didn’t back down from the canid thundering toward him, instead stepping into the man. Darren raised his hands as he prepared to throw a punch at Levi, but the tamer didn’t give him a chance. “Hey Darren?” he called.
“What?” the huge wolfman snarled, his ears turning towards Levi as his lips peeled back aggressively.
“BAD DOG!” Levi bellowed as he suddenly lashed his foot up in a snap kick he’d learned from Nox. The crimson glow around his body flared and coalesced into a spark of energy that compressed between Levi’s foot and Darren’s stomach. The spark flashed and a boom echoed as the canid went flying backwards. Levi felt his energy drain and he shook himself while the red glow around his body faded. Darren bowled students out of his way as his body flipped and slammed into the wall of the cafeteria. The stones provided an unkind surface, and Levi swore he heard several bones crack.
His attention turned to Glint and Beatrice and he realized the other Crane students had released the minotaur. They were backing away, though his hand flexed around his cane as he considered giving them their own lesson in bullying. A flash to his right caught his attention. When he turned to look at it, he had no time to react before bands of golden symbols slammed into him. Levi found himself flying back and then jerking to a halt in mid-air. Runes of energy spun around him in four rings and held him off the ground. Each line seemed to be made of a different type of symbol. When he thrashed, trying to flex his power—the light flared and drained at him. His cane clattered to the ground with a series of metal chimes as it bounced on the stone cafeteria floor. Zuzan chittered, and Levi saw she had made it to safety on Beatrice’s shoulder. The sylvan squirrel squeaked in outrage from her place of safety on the minotaur.
More concerning was Flix, her wings spread as she flapped protectively in front of him. On the far side of her stood house master Vardis, glaring as he kept his focus aimed at Levi. Levi caught sight of a few other faculty pushing their way through the students, so he focused on taking slow, deep breaths to calm himself. Vardis made no move to lower his long-handled hammer, and Levi saw him whispering, more magical power forming around the head of the weapon.
Levi struggled against the bonds holding him, but he couldn’t get any traction. His arms and legs struck the barrier and caused ripples of crimson to pulse outward, but he didn’t move at all. Evelyn Shade, the mistress of Crane House stepped out from behind Vardis. Contrary to her name, she was a tan woman with green hair that descended down her spine in an elaborate braid. She had large amber eyes and silver spectacles on her heart-shaped face, and her expression held contempt as she stared at Levi. The white power suit she wore suited her. The glower that told him she couldn’t stand the sight of him, less so. That’s just my opinion though, he thought. A white-gloved hand rose to press against the corner of her glasses, but then she was shoved to the side by Tawny Goldenrod.
Tawny was in her customary black suit coat and skirt, and the white blouse beneath was pristine as usual. Her hair had been gathered into a bun and her ears stuck out to either side as she placed a hand on Vardis’ wrist to delay whatever magic the metal-skinned faculty was casting.
“Perhaps, before you attempt to banish my student, you would be kind enough to explain what is going on?” she uttered with absolute calm. Levi looked at her face and saw no sign of the desperate woman who had come to his room.
Vardis didn’t answer—he paused in his chant, but refused to lower his hammer. It was Evelyn Shade who gave a response: “Your student attacked my upperclassman in the middle of the cafeteria.” The woman flicked a hand in the direction of Darren, the canid being helped to his feet by others from Crane House. Levi spotted Elizabeth in the crowd, but the white-haired girl made no move to join her House.
“Your ‘upperclassman’ was about to beat the shit out of me!” Glint protested. Levi’s eyes swung to him and saw that he and Beatrice had moved to stand by Tawny. Zuzan had climbed onto Beatrice’s head, creeping up one of her horns like a tree branch. Glint had a bruise forming on one cheek and some purple blood dripped from his lip. The sight caused anger to churn deeper in Levi’s stomach and the red power around him flared once again. The runes circling around him sparked orange in retaliation and Levi felt an icy pain spread over his skin.
“He’s trying to break free!” said Vardis, and the man made a motion as though to hurl his held spell. A screech sounded, and Levi realized that Flix’s throat had begun radiating an intense blue-white light.
“Flix, no! Easy, love, easy. We can’t attack our teachers, okay?” he said in hopes of calming the dragonet. The last thing he wanted was to see Flix harmed by one of the teachers, and he wouldn’t put it past Vardis or Evelyn to insist she be put down if she actually attacked. Her serpentine face turned to look at him over her shoulder and she let out a hiss of distaste. Then she spat a globe of brilliant plasma, and when the power hit Vardis’ shield around Levi, the spell shattered.
Levi dropped to the ground with a thud, barely catching himself before he fell over. Flix swooped to land on his shoulder, and her tail curled around his neck as he reached up to scratch the back of her head gently. “Calm down, girl, we’re going to be okay. Let’s relax,” he whispered to the reptile, ignoring the people around him for the moment.
Tawny stepped forward, and then turned to place herself in between Levi and the other faculty, her hands clasped behind her back. “I think we should take a moment. Mr. Walker is demonstrating that he is calm and rational, and I for one would like to hear the story from everyone who took part. Shall we retire to one of the meeting rooms?” She kept her voice level, but Levi saw the hands hidden behind her back and her nails were digging into the flesh of her palms.
Evelyn Shade sneered, then ran her finger down the outside edge of her spectacles. She whispered a quiet incantation and suddenly a tremendous wind swirled around them. Levi staggered when he found himself standing on a disk of white stone in the middle of a black void. In front of him stood Tawny, and Glint and Beatrice were on either side of him. Zuzan took that moment to leap back onto his other shoulder and squeak quietly. Through the darkness Levi saw another disk of white. On top of that stone stood Vardis, Evelyn Shade, Darren, Elizabeth, and four other members of Crane House. The students were behind their teachers, most of them glaring in his direction.
“Really, Evelyn, a judgement hall? This is rather dramatic for a small confrontation between two students in the cafeteria,” came the exasperated voice of Regina Applebottom. The small, stout woman stood on a square of red stone with two other members of the faculty. Levi realized that he was looking at all six of the house masters for the Academy. His stomach fluttered as he realized he was in some kind of trial chamber. Glint’s ears drooped and Beatrice looked down, scuffing one of her hooves against the stone.
“I don’t think it is dramatic at all! What kind of freshman comes from a world with no mana yet has the sheer power to send a canid flying across a room without chant, symbol, or focus?” Vardis rumbled out.
“More to the point, the boy is supposedly a tamer—his energies meant to support and reinforce his companions—yet his first beast is a sylvan squirrel that no one has ever bonded with before; the second, a dragonet of unusual power. Moreover, we are supposed to believe that this same tamer has used offensive magic, raw and inelegant as he’s wielded it, and destroyed numerous Horrors? Tell me, Regina, has there ever been a tamer to kill four Horrors in a single encounter before?” Evelyn’s words were clipped and sharp. The disbelief was clear, and Levi grimaced at being referred to as a boy.
The three faculty on their red square began speaking to each other, but try as he might Levi couldn’t hear a word they were saying. Tawny turned back to look at them and shook her head. “Remain calm. No matter what they say, remain calm. Understand?” she said. Glint and Beatrice nodded, both looking anxiously at Levi.
Levi himself wasn’t sure how he was feeling. He was still happy to have kicked that prick Darren into next week, and his adrenaline hadn’t stopped swirling through his system. He felt his power coiled inside, no longer hidden and out of reach. He knew he could call it up and use it if he had to, but the look on Tawny’s face told him that would likely be a mistake. He looked and found his cane on the ground; the transportation spell had brought it with them, and he sighed with relief. When he picked it up, he saw Vardis twitch and noticed that Evelyn had a flicker of emotion cross her face.
Are they… are they afraid of me?
He turned his attention to the other faculty, pretending to dismiss the pair that were against him. His hand tightened around his cane’s knob and he ran his thumb over the engraving while he waited for their conversation to include someone else. Regina turned to look at the rest of them and a sphere formed above them all. It floated like a bubble of amorphous white light, and Levi had to squint to look at it.
“Very well, it would appear accusations are being made that must be answered. Levi Walker, do you consent to questioning by the house masters of the Academy to determine from where your powers come?” she asked in a manner that made Levi think that this was some kind of formal event.
He looked up at the big glowing ball and then the rest of them. His hand tightened around the knob of his cane until he felt his tendons creak. He saw that Tawny was attempting to tell him something. She turned to look at him, he saw her lips move—but he wasn’t listening. He ran his eyes over Regina and the two behind her, then looked at Vardis, Evelyn, and the bullies from Crane House. He felt anger flare to life and his blood sang. He saw a faint crimson glow reflect on the inside of his glasses and realized his eyes had to be shimmering with light.
“No. I fucking don’t,” he snarled with anger open on his face. “You… assholes dragged me here with some mana machine, stealing me from whatever afterlife or rebirth I was meant to have… You trap me in a new life, in a body that isn’t mine. You shove me into a school as though I’m a kid again, and you expect me to just accept when some trumped-up werewolf wants to kick my friend’s ass? Then you try to make it about me? The hell with that. Whatever I am, I’m what YOU all made me to be.”
Glint cheered, Beatrice let out a bellow, and Levi saw Tawny cover her face with one elegant hand. Maybe I… could have phrased that better, he thought.
Levi watched as various forms of anger came over each of the staff staring at him, but before he could say anything further, a new voice resonated in the space around them. “Well said, Levi Walker, if perhaps a touch crude. I think it is time I take a more personal hand in this matter, don’t all of you?”
Levi had no idea who spoke—he wasn’t even sure it was actually a voice. The words rang off the inside of his head like a tolling bell and a sense of purpose like he had never known washed over him. There was a focus, a direction of willpower in the aura that was stifling. To his left, small flashes of green were appearing. Floor tiles lit up with an emerald glow each time they were stepped on, and a shadowy silhouette slowly emerged from the black, though Levi couldn’t tell what was illuminating it. The voice had been androgynous, neither male nor female. The being that appeared also lacked any real gender; it also lacked feet, which was bizarre since the floor lit up as though walked over.
Standing before them, watching them, was a gray robe that hung nearly to the floor. The robes were old, torn in many places, and they widened as they descended. A pair of gloves covered the being’s hands and slid up into the voluminous sleeves, which were a darker shade than the robe, but still gray. Those hands were clasped together before it and they held no focus that Levi could see. He tipped his head as he tried to take in the face hidden by the deep hood, but all he saw was a bronze mask that looked like it had been hammered together out of sheets of rough metal. Square slits marked where the eyes would have been on a person, and another slash might have been for a mouth, but the crude visage had no real features. The being radiated a strength that Levi felt on his skin. He felt like he was standing in the sun after having slept in the shade, but the energy had a strange flavor, like it was conscious and staring at him.
The mysterious figure tilted their head upwards and turned to look at each of them. They didn’t rush, didn’t hesitate, moving at a steady pace that seemed to maximize their opportunity to look at each person for the same amount of time.
“For those of you who do not know me, I am the Director of the Academy. I think we can dismiss this inquiry while I have a word with Mr. Walker,” the figure said, then they raised a hand and snapped their fingers.
Everything went white.
