V-22 Enrolled (I)

Be mindful of who you tether yourself to, son. I say this not to encourage paranoia, but for you to understand that despite your good intentions and noble heart, there will be those who see you only as an instrument. And worse yet, there will be others who think they are being noble but fall to their vices all the time. You cannot save them, especially because they don't believe their vices are vices.

I have not talked much about our cousin nobility. You might know some things, however. You might have already heard some things from the guards and our people. Besides, we Arrows are not a long and noble lineage. We earned our place through prowess and performance, and though few can dispute that, a great many noble houses claim the same achievements in their past, with some still having patriarchs and matriarchs enduring to this day, leftover champions from the wars of the founding.

Understand that though we are a Republic, we are a stratified one. And though the system, our system of governance, tries to enforce some level of equity so that everyone with the potential to be great might yet find that potential to be true, it is not often the case. For there are mountains of distance between what is allowed and granted to a noble scion and what meager offerings are left over for someone born to ill parentage and abandoned on the streets.

But beyond that mountain of difference, there are still leagues between the nobility as well. The eldest and greatest hold sway over the rural council as well, and they often have their own games to play. They look down upon us, viewing us as someone might a half-breed child. A disgusting notion, but something that those of the traditions believe, and because they believe it, it bears weight, vile as it might seem.

So when you enter the capital, stay true to your heart, but don't be foolish. Stay aware and remember this: your talent, your potential, is a weapon that you can use if someone wishes for you to do something you don't want to. I am here. I can be called upon, but so can several other patrons, especially the ones I told you about.

And above all, be wary of House Stormhalt. I do not think their grudge will extend to you—of everything I can accuse Havel, honorlessness is not one of them—-but it is best to be prepared. Sometimes even good intentions and necessary deeds will spawn miserable consequences.

-Roland Arrow

V-22

Enrolled (I)

As the voice fell silent, Shiv stared at the pin hovering before him. It glinted one more time, and he reached out to take it. He received an ordainment from the ceremony, but he didn't fully understand what that was.

"I just pin this to my shoulder or something?" Shiv said.

"You can pin it wherever you want. Just make sure you don't lose it," the headmaster said.

"Not gonna get another one if it goes missing, huh?" Shiv asked.

"What? No. We've already taken an extract of your specific mana signatures. We'll be able to replace it in a little time. It's just inconvenient, and the paperwork is incredibly annoying."

"Oh," Shiv breathed. “That’s it?”

"What do you mean, ‘that’s it’? Of course you’re saying that. You don’t have to write or fill in any forms and coordinate with the guard about a certain identity-risk incident," the headmaster snapped. "I always have to sign off on the paperwork. Do you know how many incidents we have of students trying to get clever by hijacking the pin's mana frequencies to try and influence the academy’s Idiot Loci?”

“What’s that?” Shiv asked.

“Idiot—the academy’s magical network. The simple, reactive mana-mind I constructed with my Psychomancy,” the headmaster ranted. “It’s practically the main thing people know about me.”

“Yeah, well, it’s hard to remember things when your brain doesn’t receive oxygen for a while,” Shiv replied with a shrug. “Brain damage, headmaster. It’s kind of shi—uh, bad.”

The headmaster did a double take. “Brain damage—oh, you know what, just have the Biomancers look at you at some point. It’ll be good for them. Dear Ascendants, Irons—he’s still brain damaged.”

“Might be, headmaster.” Irons nodded.

“Well. Somehow he still seems smarter than a good portion of our current student body. I don’t know if that speaks highly of him or bodes poorly for the rest of the louts. And us. Because someone has to teach the poor fools how to be Pathbearers. Isn’t that a despair-inducing thought. Anyhow, don’t fiddle with your pin. Do you know what happens when someone overtaxes the mana it has inside it? It explodes. Enough to blow your collarbone into your chest. And then there’s the cost of a replacement pin, along with another trip to the Biomancers.”

“Got it, headmaster,” Shiv said. “Not much of the fiddling kind, anyway.”

“Well, don’t do the other stupid thing, which is trying to sell or get your pin stolen. That is a whole guard inquiry. The good news is that whoever took the pin is usually quite easy to track down, because, well, they're holding onto the pin. Bad news is that they also have a great deal of the student's information, so that's even more paperwork—even some for you. It’s an entire investigative process, and you know how frustrated I am about that already.”

The headmaster yawned. He looked to his left and right and then did an awkward twirl. He faced the rest of the auditorium and held out his hands. "All witnesses present, please clap for our arriving pupil, Marcus Blood."

"Unblood," Shiv said under his breath.

"Unblood," the headmaster corrected. "Yes, yes. Would anyone like to declare their interest? Anyone at all?"

A resounding silence came from all corners of the room, mainly because there was no one in the room aside from the headmaster, Shiv, and Irons. Well, Shiv guessed the gate golems could count, but they were still on the outside, and Shiv doubted they would be offering him any kind of apprenticeship.

I mean, what would I do with them? Shiv thought to himself. Just stand around and stare at the floor? Be security? No, I mean, Marcus is partially crippled, so he's not gonna make for good security anyway. What am I thinking.

"Yeah, probably no one's gonna—" And for the first time, Shiv received a notification through his pin. A message appeared before his eyes, and pulsated with a throbbing vibration. Shiv felt that shudder through his manifold, and he looked down at his pin as it briefly glowed.

Message Received: Special class privileges unlocked for TacStrat 101.

Shiv looked at Irons and raised an eyebrow. The headmaster did the same. "Really? This one? The brain-damaged boy with a body that resembles a deformed potato.”

The Deathless looked down at himself and did his best to hold back his annoyance. “It’s just mostly my torso. And my muscles and stuff…”

The headmaster rolled his glowing eyes. “Yes, and as my dismembered sister said before the second artillery barrage turned her into trench soup, ‘I would’ve run away if my legs hadn’t deserted me first.’”

“I—” Shiv clenched his teeth, but broke. A snort of laughter escaped from him.

“Ah, I knew it,” the headmaster hummed with satisfaction. “The ones with the hard and miserable lives all like the pitch-black jokes.”

"He probably needs the class more than most," Irons said. “And it will likely be useful for him to get some in-field medic experience if he is to ever make the journey back home.”

The headmaster regarded Shiv once more, and shrugged. "Oh, that's probably true. And let’s not be so certain that Old Brunswick will still be our territory in a few years when the Jotun decide they’re stupid enough to try another invasion. Well, boy, you're going to hate this. Captain Irons is an exceedingly reasonable man. And by exceedingly reasonable, I mean, if you perform perfectly in all your duties and tasks, he will not criticize or denigrate you. If you're expecting praise from him, well, you'll probably be my age before nothing at all happens."

Shiv caught a slight shake of Irons' head as the headmaster went on, complaining about how Captain Irons never sang his praises for all the time he'd known the man. "Anyhow, welcome to Phoenix Academy. You have your lapel. You have your..." He regarded Shiv's student robes. "Why's there so much blood on that? What'd you do, boy?"

"Uh, my throat burst earlier. Part of my, uh, curse."

"Your curse has you bleed several gallons of blood down your chest," the headmaster asked incredulously.

"Yeah, it's, uh, it's a real nightmare when it comes to laundry," Shiv shrugged. "It's part of the reason why I got really good at, uh, surgery and biology, you know? Because I just bleed and, uh, stuff.”

"How often do you bleed?" the headmaster said, with a slight hint of disbelief in his voice.

"Oh, like, once a week?"

"Once a week," he chuckled. "You bleed a near gallon of blood once a week?”

“You can get used to it,” Shiv said, lying badly. “The more you bleed, the more blood you get back. After it comes back, you know.”

The headmaster blinked. Irons forced his right arm down before he could reflexively face-palm. “Well. I—interesting. Perhaps tell the Biomancers about your special blood regeneration skill too. Anyhow, you’re going to be very popular with the rest of the student body. I look forward to whatever nicknames they throw your way. Officially, I stand against all bullying and ill-treatment on campus. Unofficially, I don't have enough time to deal with all of these matters, and the nobility will do all they can to make sure your complaints and suffering find itself buried unless it is excessively cruel."

"Define excessively cruel?" Shiv asked.

"Oh, if you actually get injured or someone kills you; mental trauma counts as well," the headmaster simply sighed. "Mockery is one thing, but odd as your situation might be, cursed though you are, you are a student of my academy, and for one student to damage another is an insult to my institution. When that happens, you do not come to me. I will find you, and then I will find them, and then there will be no more discussion about the matter."

At that, Shiv saw both of the headmaster's eyes come afire with kindling mana.

"Something tells me I won't enjoy fighting this guy," Shiv thought to himself. "He didn't know why, but the headmaster seemed a trickster and a deceiver in combat, and between his divination and psychomancy, it was a bit hard for Shiv to hurt someone that might never show up for the actual fight at all."

"Well then, I have stood as secondary witness. Captain Irons, thank you for resolving this situation. Mysteriously resurrected student, I bid you welcome, and if you have any questions, simply direct it into your pin. It will answer everything I can't and don't care to."

With that, the headmaster went transparent. Instead of it being like a normal teleportation with pressure, he simply burst like he was a bubble, and he vanished from sight thereafter.

"Does he do that a lot?" Shiv asked.

"More than I would prefer," Irons replied.

"I'm still technically here," the headmaster's voice echoed telepathically. "And in case either of you are planning to mouth off to me, do not. I might not be able to hear your words, but I can read sour notes stealing over from your minds, and I do not appreciate them. They will hurt my feelings."

And with that, the Legendary-Tier headmaster fell quiet again.

"Well, he seems fun," Shiv said under his breath.

"It's a bit of a game to him," Irons explained. "Part of it is his personality. The other part is performance." He turned and fixed Shiv with a hard glare. "Do not underestimate him. Do not get careless in his vicinity. He already suspects you of a few things, but he will not pry, not unless it affects the academy directly."

"If he suspects me, then why isn't he gonna do anything?"

"Because you are not nearly the only student with dangerous secrets. Dangerous secrets also mean lucrative path-bearers and potential allies for the future. That and the academy is a subversive battleground of another kind. Nobility actively recruiting their own vassals and assets against each other. The houses are arraying their own forces, and between the cracks there are also subversive elements like Aviary and revolutionary groups fomenting."

The Deathless tried to remember where he heard that before. “Fermenting?”

“No. Building up. Gathering.”

“Ah.”

Shiv took all that in. His incredulity only grew. "So then, why hasn't the Prismatic Guard or the Ascendants come down to stamp them out?"

"Because the academy grounds also serves as a hunting tool. No one here engages in heated conflict, at least not in most circumstances." He briefly frowned at Shiv, and the Deathless simply folded his arms.

"Look, I spared you guys from a bloodbath, something that would have probably killed a few thousand students at the very least if it ended up spiraling the wrong way.”

"And from how you described it, it barely didn't." There was a bit of judgment in Irons's voice.

"Best I could do for now," Shiv said.

"Yes, and I'm going to see that is improved however I can.”

“Is that why I'm going to take the same class Adam did?" Shiv asked.

"That, and it would give us an excuse to work together and for me to assign you with additional tasks. Especially if you are to have an alibi for operating in odd places beyond campus grounds."

"Oh yeah, the thing with Melissa. Listen, we can get started on that as soon as you get some details. The only other thing I really want to do is check in my dorm. Shiv paused. "Do I actually get a dorm or something? How does this work?"

"If there's a room in one of the halls open, you will see it assigned to you. However, since you have arrived late, your Marcus Unblood prior living arrangements might have been shuffled or adjusted."

"So you're saying I'm homeless? Well, this takes me back to the time I was eight.”

“Six? You were homeless when you were six.”

“Yeah. Wasn’t all bad if you knew which dumpsters. Hell with it. I’ll figure something—”

Irons shook his head. "Check your pin. It is connected to the academy’s network for information. That’s what it is mainly for.”

“The Idiot Loci thing?”

“Only certain students and the headmaster calls it that,” Irons replied.

Shiv regarded his pin with interest. As he focused on it, a set of notifications appeared before his vision. The same set that materialized when he first arrived on campus grounds. Instead of being an unknown guest, however, he was now a fully fledged first year. He had voting privileges, and they were connected to various events. 

Potential speakers and friends could be scheduled via the Academy's budget, and then there was a special section for on-campus options. A single bullet point remained beneath the options, and he felt a tickling sensation in the back of his mind as he kept his gaze locked to it. It expanded into a subheading titled Housing.

As he kept his gaze fixed to that as well, a descending bar filled with options plunged down to the bottom of his vision. As he looked down, he found the bar to be scrollable. There were over eight options he could select from, a lot of different dorm rooms with their amenities listed behind them. One bed, one workstation, and a shared restroom was the norm. All except for one choice. That one seemed to lack a proper workstation, but the bathroom wasn't shared.

Welcome, Marcus Unblood (First Year Adept)

Votes
- Next Week’s Weather Cycle

- Potential Events

On-Campus Amenities:

- Housing (8)

Manticore (1 Bed; 1 Shared Bath; 1 Workstation)

Dragon (1 Bed; 1 Shared Bath; 1 Workstation)

Griffon (1 Bed; 1 Shared Bath; 1 Workstation)

Mermaid (1 Bed; 1 Shared Bath; 1 Workstation)

Unicorn (1 Bed; 1 Shared Bath; 1 Workstation)

Hydra (1 Bed; 1 Shared Bath; 1 Workstation)

Kraken (1 Bed; 1 Shared Bath; 1 Workstation)

Carrot (1 Bed; 1 Bath)

"Seems like a lot of housing spots are still open, too," Shiv said to Irons. "Got eight choices to pick from."

"Eight?" the captain said, betraying a hint of surprise. "More than I expected." And then a slight frown flickered across the man's face. "Tell me about the choices."

Shiv did, and as he went through each one, Irons slowly shook his head. "You don't have eight choices. You have one."

The Deathless adopted a confused look, as he briefly scrolled through his dormitory options once more. "Why the hells not?"

"For political and convenience-based reasons," Irons explained. "You can technically still select some of the other options, but you will then promptly find yourself watched, surveilled, and then pressured to pledge yourself to certain secret societies."

As he stared at the options, Shiv wondered, "If it's a secret society, why are you talking about it openly?"

"Because it's the kind of secret that appeals to children who can barely be considered adults."

And that made more sense to Shiv. "So what, they're like street gangs?"

"If only it were so simple," Irons grunted with a slight hint of annoyance. "No, they're what the headmaster talked about earlier. Noble factions looking to boost their infrastructure, and expand their base of support within the capital and the academy.”

And that put things into perspective for Shiv. "Okay, so very, very messy politics."

Part of the Deathless was intrigued, however. He wanted to dip a toe in, just to see how messy things could get. Despite the constant carnage the system threw his way, he never really experienced pure political mayhem before. And despite all the warnings he got from Adam, the headmaster, and Irons, Shiv really thought he'd be a good politician. He could see himself being charming—bribing people with his food and stuff.

He wasn't that good of an actor, but his Deception was growing at a healthy pace, and his Psycho-Cartography was good. But once again, he reminded himself of what was at stake. This cover was hard-bought, and painful to lose. Marcus Unblood was enrolled at Phoenix Academy, not Shiv the Deathless. If he exposed himself in any way, or if his Perfect Semblance broke down, trying to establish a new identity could end up being both tedious and dangerous.

"Yeah, alright," Shiv sighed, giving up on his urge to stumble into some more mundane trauma than he was used to. "So that leaves one. Carrot? Why is it called Carrot? Everything else has a monster name."

"That's because it is a relatively recent inclusion to the campus. The name was taken from the Adept-Tier Martyr of the Republic who gave his life to signal the rest of our nation when the Storm King's assassins managed to slip through our borders and silent several monitoring posts in anticipation of a grand raid. It was meant to symbolize that even mere Adepts or individuals without notable bloodlines or houses backing them could still achieve great things beyond themselves and not be limited by their tier."

Shiv frowned and asked another question. “All right, do you think there's some kind of political play to pander to the peasants? Because… after everything, this seems like propaganda to me. People die doing this stuff all the time. It’s not that it’s not heroic, it’s just that it’s way too common. Plenty of low-tier people go down making big differences.”

The captain considered the question for a moment. "I cannot claim to understand the decisions or processes of the Auroral Council when it comes to delicate matters of culture and politics."

Deductive Reasoning 1 > 2

Shiv snorted. That was a plenty political answer in itself. "Let's go with a yes, then. Okay." He licked his lips as he focused hard on Carrot. After a few moments, it came alive with divination mana, and the other options faded. A compass formed at the top of his perspective as well, and it pointed toward the exit of the auditorium. The rest of the notifications receded to the corner of his vision, and they only expanded when he looked that way suddenly.

"You can disable its indicative functions by staring at it for a few seconds," the captain answered.

Shiv tried that, and as soon as he did, every bit of text and visual symbology winked out before him, leaving his field of view mostly clean, at least until the system decided to start spewing its information at him as well.

"Alright, I think I got the hang of this thing somewhat," Shiv replied. "I'm gonna go find my dorm and get settled in so I can pretend to be a normal person for maybe an hour or two before the system makes me fight some kind of Divination-Chronomancy dragon god thing from another realm that's also the single greatest swordsman devil-great-dragon kind."

"I don't think you're in that much danger facing the dragon swordsman," Irons said confidently. "Most of them are primal beasts, with few ever reaching sapience."

At that, the Deathless simply threw his head back and barked a laugh. The captain squinted and cocked his head. “Why did you just laugh.”

"If you ever hear that, you're gonna run into one of my friends. His name is Marikos, and when that day happens, I'm gonna bake you a pie."

Irons still seemed a bit confused. "Marikos, and why a pie?"

"Nah," Shiv just said, "I'm not telling. I'm just gonna wait for the day to come first. Can’t promise you’ll love him.”

A beat followed. “The fact that you are telling me this fills me with worry,” Irons near-whispered.

***

With Shiv’s three-person admission process done, he and Irons left the auditorium to attend to their own problems. As it turned out, being a new vigilante trying to save a missing student didn't mean you could avoid your actual duties in the meantime. So, while Irons set out to his office to get some grading done and prepare his classes for the following week, Shiv followed his new marker and explored the campus grounds. He played around with his lapel pin a bit, but ultimately settled into taking in the sights and sounds on campus—that, and the comforting fact that he could walk in the open on his own without anyone trying to kill him.

This would have been nice before my life turned into a system favored mess, Shiv thought to himself. His earliest fantasies were of becoming a Pathbearer and adventuring across the world. Kill monsters. Explore. Cook. Meet new people. People that wouldn’t despise him for who he was or what his parents did.

With his Perfect Semblance and the academy as a cover, he could do that for a bit. Depending on how well things went… Maybe he’d last longer than a bit.

Night had fallen, but when the Deathless looked up, instead of seeing dark clouds and fragments of a broken moon, it was a glossy sheen of glowing midnight gliding across the firmament like oil over water. Harlock and the city still had the campus on quarantine, but despite this, the students didn't seem to notice, and the instructors didn't seem to care. 

By now, the glow coming from over the horizon where the Yellowstone Supervolcano resided had dimmed as well. Shiv didn't know if that meant the Prismatic Guard had defeated the prisoners or simply contained them to an adequate degree. With how many Legendary prisoners broke out, Shiv suspected things weren’t quite over yet. If nothing else, he strongly doubted that Andra and her band of misfits were the only ones to slip through the wards.

He followed his compass around the length Miriam Hall, just to hear the sound of clashing melodies in the distance. Squealing horns and resounding strings tore through the air in a clash of symphonies. Voices rejoined the song, but rather than be harmonious, they struggled as well. A battle was taking place between rival bands for some reason, and with every passing second the Deathless endured the melodies, he actively fought the urge to dance. 

Some students around him, however, succumbed. A group of well-dressed, elven students with pointed hats went from walking normally to skipping every step.

One of the elves buried her face against her book in silent agony. "Looks like Black Iconics and the Jackal's Scale are at it again. So much for being able to study and sleep in peace tonight."

A taller elf with an eyepatch scoffed. "Yes, well, it's better that they resolve things this way. It's not like we got to sleep last semester when the Manticore and Griffin dorms decided to hold a messy brawl right on Minerva Meadows."

The elf buried against her book groaned even harder. "Maybe they should be allowed to bring their weapons out. If one of the dorms killed the other, surely there would be peace again. Surely."

"If one of the dorms killed the other, then a few noble houses would be at war, and we would all be in the shit," the elf at the back of the group grumbled.

"Like they're not already at war," the first elf muttered under her breath.

Lots of noble tensions, it seems, Shiv said. Don’t know much about them; might be good to ask Adam about what’s up with that.

Getting past Miriam Hall took some time. It was like a fortress bulwark unto itself, and the way it curved added additional distance to the walk as well. The moment he cleared its left corner, another layer of the inner campus revealed themselves to him. The tip of a gateway glimmered against the backdrop of Ascendant-stained night, and it cast a glow on a maze-like sprawl of interconnected buildings.

There were so many structures that ran on like fortress walls, each one resembling a shape or a symbol. The structures resembled sloping tidal waves frozen mid-collapse. Their roofs were curved over, and they were things shaped from alloy, glass, and mithril. Windows were open, and balconies jutted out from the sides. The students that could traverse the air regularly leaped from structure to structure without care. Those who couldn’t took a longer, easier path. The buildings and dorms were linked to nearby or adjacent structures through wood-paneled trenches and overpasses in equal measure, but between the gaps were meadows, gardens, patios, pagodas, and other areas sculpted toward the benefit of community and socialization.

The inner grounds of the campus left him staggered by its sheer size and expansiveness as well. Then, there were the dozen or so towers that hovered around forty meters in the air. Each of them had those looping aerial rings at their tops. However, the steps leading up to each of the towers were practically stacked with students as well. Said steps seemed to cascade downward in transparent outlines, allowing students to walk right through them, or alternative step upon them and rise up to join their fellows.

There were young Pathbearers, of all races, clustered together. Some of them were actively debating, gesturing animatedly at the bottom of the steps in a clash of words. Others shaped fascinating skills together, weaving serpents of fire and flame. They soared across the air as if they were kites, held up, leashed by invisible strings. 

From the nearby trench lines, the diligent men were moving along. More students emerged, battling along the edges of the snow, climbing up, and controlling festivities. Names were called, hands were clasped. More groups assembled around him with every passing second. The deathless came to a brief stop as he took them all in.

Despite being Pathbearers, they were just so carefree, unburdened from worries and woes.

As he watched, a large automaton stopped before him. Its body resembled a mass of compacted steel. The gathered students saw its approach, and they cheered aloud, as if a savior had come to deliver them from bleak circumstances. Shiv soon discovered why. The front of the automaton fell to its hands and knees, and then its back opened, revealing a grill within. A flood of students broke away from the steps. Arguments were abandoned, books left behind, and from underneath rows and within spatulas, people pulled out food, meat, and vegetable skewers of all kinds.

"The grill-bot is here!" one of the students declared. The others had heard what he just said, and raucous laughter erupted from the gathered crowd.

"Grill is hot and food is nigh," the bot said, droning in a full voice of heavy metal. "No crowding, enough for everyone." Drinks were dispensed at the front, and almost immediately, people started putting jugs underneath the golem's head, where all its huge, fresh, and fizzy fluid were piled up. A fizzy fluid, that glowed with a bright-yellow hue.

Shiv shuddered and muttered under his breath, "A bar and grill bot. If we had someonelike that back at the Swan-Eating Toad..."

While this was happening, another group of aerial Pathbearers did another fly-by, and with each tower they threaded a loud voice would boom about which student was still in the lead. Beyond the towers, and the dense crowds, stood towering curved buildings that resembled frozen waterfalls made from alloy and glass. And at the very top, Shiv could see a few uniformed individuals. 

He activated his Farsight, and that's when he realized that the students standing on top of the buildings were holding instruments. They were the members of the dueling bands playing in the background. And from their instruments spewed whistling notes, music as if infused with mana. It was as if the world was a sheet, and each note could slide across. They impacted each other in midair, and detonations followed.

The Deathless stood still and just breathed in; soaked in the world. There were people all around him, and they weren’t running away, weren’t trying to kill hi, weren’t actively hunting him, weren’t people he had to keep an eye on. Even if he was clad in a lie, everything felt—

“MARRCCCUUUUSSS? MARCUS? IS THAT YOU?”

An uncontrollable shiver passed through Shiv’s body. He closed his eyes and tried not to lose his shit. “One second. One felling second, system. Just give me one moment to take this shit in before I have to murder some other poor bastard.”

“MMARRRCCUUSS! YOU FUUUCCKKK!”

Shiv opened his eyes and saw most of the students around him looking past his shoulder. The Deathless fought to keep his rage-tremors under control as he turned to see what kind of bullshit he was going to have to deal with now. He promptly saw Magnolia walking behind three heavyset boys and one girl. The males in the group were all wearing academy robes, while the girl was wrapped in furs—but there was something else: There was a slight bulge to her abdomen.

Immediately, Shiv felt the urge to kill everyone around him or kill himself to escape the situation.

Marcus, if you knocked that girl up too and these are her brothers about to kick the shit out of me on her behalf, I will breach the gates of the afterlife and beat you to super-death with my bare hands.

“YOU PIECE OF SHIT!” The boy at the front of the group was built like a small bear. Shiv couldn’t tell if the guy was bigger than he was without Perfect Semblance active, but damn were their heights and weights probably close. He had some blonde peach fuzz developing on his face, while there was a bear tattoo imprinted over his right eye. The other two boys looked slightly like the first, and one had something like a goat tattoo, while the other got painted with a gray eagle.

“The hell do they feed you guys in Old Brunswick,” Shiv muttered to himself. “I had to get a Skill Evolution or two before I changed.” He began to awkwardly shuffle away, deciding that he didn’t really want to deal with this annoyance right now. He had a dorm to find. “Yeah, listen, I’m not Marcus. You got the wrong guy. Happens.”

And then he started running. Straight into the crowd gathered around the grill-bot. Several students cried out in alarm as three sets of loud stomps hammered behind Shiv in close pursuit.

“Unblood! Motherless bastard! You cannot escape us! We’ll chase you to the ends of the world. Your fortune was to die in that ambush; to live means you answer to us! To live means your life is ours for spilling your bastard seed in our sister’s wommmmbbb!”

Every bit of pity and sorrow Shiv felt for Macus evaporated. He regretted doing that bullshit funeral thing back at the coliseum too. Marcus, you felling fuck, I’m going to breach the gates of the afterlife and beat you to super-death with my bare hands.

And with that, he ducked between two students, manifested his temporal shell, and launched himself up into the air just before the wards came crashing down.

When the flow of time resumed, the three boys and Magnolia were still searching through the crowd, but Shiv sprinted away deeper toward the maze of dorms where the two bands played on in the direction Vimes—because if he had any hope of getting settled in before any more madness happened, it would need to happen quickly.

Fuck you system. Just…  fuck you.