I jump awake with a deep gasp startled by the loud buzzing echoing through my room.  My heart is racing a mile a minute and my body is covered in light sheen of sweat.  The part that bothers me the most is the tears running down the side of my face.  It had to be another bad dream.  I've been having apparently heart wrenching nighmares for over a month now.  The only problem is, I can't remember them.

I let out a deep groan of frustration and exhaustion before grabbing my alarm turning it off.  I just lay there for a bit dreading getting up and going to work.  It's 6am and I like to wake up early so I can exercise, shower and eat breakfast before I go to work.  I work at a school called Heralds of Light Academy as a custodian.  I have been working here for over twelve years, I started when I was only seven.

Heralds of light is a boarding school for the upper class to send their children to be trained in military arts involving magic.  Once they are trained they can hold some of the highest positions in the military, secret service, police, or other government agencies.

Let me tell you a bit about how my world is run.  The world is divided up into 3 main social groups.  There is the Noblis Magus or Nobles for short.  They are the upper class citizens that have an affinity with magic.  All Nobles are linked to a certain sphere of magic in which they pull their spells from.  They power these spells with an inner resource called mana.  After a Noble has depleted their mana they become physically tired and need to rest to recharge.  The more disciplined and trained the Noble is increases their mana pool and they take less time recharging.

The next part of that group and the counterpart of the Noble is called the Fortissimos or Guardians.  They also come from the upper class but do not have any affinity with magic.  Guardians are chosen or volunteer to go into combat training in hopes to be bonded with a Noble.  Not every Guardian that makes it through their training gets bonded with a Noble.  Even if they don't get bonded they still can achieve high positions in society just usually not as high as the bonded ones.

The second group is my group.  We are called Serfs or I just like to call us servants.  We are commoners with the ability to use magic.  Once a baby is born the first test they go through is to see if they possess mana.  If you are upper class you are taught to control it.  If you are a commoner like me you are never taught and it is illegal for us to learn how.  There have been a few exceptions though.  They say the reason the commoners aren't taught to use it is to keep magic using criminals from happening.  I think its just a way to keep the rich, rich and keep everyone else under their boot heels.  Serfs are under constant surveillance to make sure they don't learn to use magic.  The best way for them to do that is to make us work for them.

The last group is called Drones or just normal people.  Drones aren't upper class, have no affinity to magic, they are just plain normal.  This group makes up pretty much 80% of the worlds population.

2: Unfortunate Event

I usually arrive at the school about 8am to start cleaning the cafeteria after their breakfast.  When I am done there I like to move on to the restrooms because the students are usually all in class at this time.  So here I am pushing my pail and mop in to one of the restrooms when I am assailed by the smell of tobacco.  I step further in and see 3 guys standing around smoking.  One of these guys is named Andrew Benson.  He is a little shorter than me also with curly black hair.  Andrew is a guardian in training, he is also a bully to serfs and some of the smaller students.  So far I have been pretty good about avoiding contact with him.  But today I walk further in and say to them,

"You guys can't be smoking in here."

They turn to me and Andrew grins,

"What are you going to do about it serf?"

"Come on, I am not going to repeat myself to you Andrew."
He takes another drag of his cigarette as he walks up to me blowing it in my face.  He keeps his arrogant smirk as he says,

"Make me"

I cough closing my eyes with a sigh,

"Come on don't make me embarrass you in front of your groupies"

 

They all laugh as he looks back at them saying,

"The janitor thinks he is tough."He looks back at me "Now you might have all the other weak ass guardians scared of you.  You know what-"He takes another drag of his cigarette then blows it in my face as he says,"I dar-"

Before he can finish his sentence I smack him in the head with the handle of the mop.  He stumbles backwards holding his forehead.  His friends rush to his side to check on him as I say,

"Maybe next time you will listen. Andrew now jus-"

"You're dead, serf."

I don't get to finish as his friends decide to rush me and he follows shortly behind them.  If this was a one on one fight they wouldn't stand a chance.  But there are three of them so the odds are already against me.  One guy swings wildly at me as I side step retaliating with a jab to his eye.

The other guy connects with his blow, hitting me in the side of the head knocking me against the wall.  I notice Andrew's punch coming straight for my face and I quickly lean to the side as his fist hits the wall.  He yells in pain holding his hand and I right hook him in the nose.  Then his friend punches me in the ribs while the other connects again hitting me in the lip.  That's when the assault really begins as I hunch over covering myself as they continue to hit me.  Apparently a teacher heard the commotion going on and runs in at this time breaking us up. 

He drags us all down to the Headmaster's office and makes us wait outside while he explains what he saw.  I am usually here quite a bit for stuff like this but it's usually not me that starts it.  I usually know how to push these kids buttons to make them attack me first.  Plus they think since they are getting combat training they can fight whoever they want.

Eventually we get escorted in and sit in front of him.  The Headmaster looks to be in his early 20's but is a bit older than that.  He has short dirty blonde hair and baby blue eyes.  Almost every female here has a crush on him, students and faculty alike.  He looks to me,

"Fighting again Fabien?  What am I going to do with you?"

I rub my jaw and can taste the blood from my lip in my mouth as I say,

"They started it."

Andrew leans forward trying to look innocent and says,

"No sir, we just came in to the restroom and saw him smoking."

One of his other friends takes over saying,

"We told him he couldn't smoke in there and he just attacked us."

I just look down at the floor shaking my head chuckling silently to myself.  The Headmaster just nods his head in approval of their story.  He then looks to me asking,

"Is that what happened?"

Andrew says,

"Are you really going to believe this serf over us?"

The Headmaster says,

"I have to hear every side of the story.  Now after I get his side, I will bring in someone to tell me which one of you are lying.  Now before I do, do any of you want to change your story?"

They all looked to each other nervously as I look to them with a smirk.  One of the friends gives in saying,

"Sorry sir it was us smoking.  It wont happen again."The others look to him in disbelief as he says, "What, he was going to find out anyways."

The Headmaster says,

"Well for fighting you are all going to get a weeks worth detention and  Saturday as well."

They all get offended and Andrew motions to me saying,

"What about him he was fighting too?"

"Let me handle Fabien's punishment."He looks to me"He knows better than to fight on school grounds.  Why don't you go to the nurse to get checked out while I talk to Fabien."

They all stand as Andrew glares to me and I just ignore him.  When they leave the Headmaster looks back to me with a stern look.  I say,

"So Daniel, what's my punishment this time?  No pay for a week or I have to clean the stadium?"
His face slowly turns to a smile,

"No your punishment today is you have to eat lunch with me."

I chuckle,

"Yeah, you're an ass"

He chuckles and then orders us some food to be delivered to us.  Daniel is actually a really cool guy and he sympathizes with us serfs.  I think he allows me to get away with some of the fights I get into is because I quickly humble most of the arrogant guardians thinking they can fight whoever.  Or he likes to see how well they are getting trained, I am really not sure. 

I have known him since he was a student going through his Noble training here.  I usually come see him two or three times a week for stuff like this or just to sit and talk.  He will tell me funny stuff that happens around the school and all the issues he has to deal with.  I will tell him about all the stuff going on in my life or any rumors I have heard around the school. 

We sit and talk till the next bell rings and I thank him for the food then head back to work.  I leave closing the door behind me.  Just as I am about to walk out to the hall, I bump into someone spilling their drink on their shoes.  I look and notice it's Ariya, Daniel's little sister and a rotten little terror.

She is almost a foot shorter than me with long golden blonde hair and baby blue eyes.  She has one of those petite dancer's figure.  She use to show it off more with slightly revealing clothes.  Now she seems to dress more conservatively in pants, long sleeve baggy shirts, and jackets.  Along with her new clothing style came a even more bitchy attitude.  Other than when she is with her friends she just seems mad at the world.I might actually find her attractive if I didn't hate her so much.  She gasps from spilling her drink on her shoes and glares up to me saying,

"Watch where you are going you idiot!"

I just ignore her trying not to get into another fight and walk past her.  She grabs me by the back of the collar of my shirt and jerks me back.  I turn to look at her as she says,

"Where do you think you are going?  Clean off my shoes."

I glance down to her shoes then back up to her saying,

"Hell no, clean them yourself."

I turn to walk off again and she quickly removes her shoes then throws them at me hitting me in the back of my head.  She says louder now,

"Clean my shoes now, serf!"

I growl rubbing the back of my head.  I notice people looking at us from the hallway with mixed expressions.  I turn picking up her shoes walking over to her and lean in really close to her.  She tries not to look scared just glaring back at me.  I push the shoes in to her chest and she grabs them as I slowly say,

"Fuck..You"

She gasps and slaps me hard across my face.  Then she turns storming off into Daniels office yelling at him,

"I hate that damn serf!  You need to fire hi-"

She slams the door behind her as people from the hallway laugh and I rub my cheek saying,

"I hate this school, ow that kind of hurt."

Now I head back to cleaning the restrooms.  I am almost done with them all and I am just finishing up the last of the female bathrooms.  Then as I am about to walk out when Ariya and her two bitch friends Traci and Melissa walk in.  They all look to me in disgust and Traci says,

"Oh, that horrible delinquent boy is in here."

I look to them with apathy saying,

"Don't worry I am leaving.  I'm done in here."

I begin to push my pail past them and Ariya steps in front of me blocking my path with a devious smirk.  I just glare at her and she kicks my pail over spilling all the dirty water on my shoes and pants.  She says,

"Oops, I guess you aren't quite done yet."

They all begin laughing walking back out.  I spend another 20 minutes cleaning up their mess.  Finally I get to the last restroom and I am cleaning one of the stalls when I hear my bucket get knocked over, again.  I growl and step out about to tear into which ever idiot did this.  I say,

"You mother fu-"

That's when I see Donovan.  Donovan is one of the senior guardians here.  He is really popular, smart, and a 3 time combat champion.  He stands a couple inches taller than me with a very well built body.  He has short blond hair and amber eyes.  He is actually pretty cool and always been nice to me.  He immediately grabs some paper towels and begins trying to clean up the mess saying,

"I am sorry Fabien, I didn't see that there."

"Oh it's you.  That's fine man, just do what you need to do.  I will clean this up."

He looks to me with concern,

"Are you sure, I mean I don't mind hel-"

I step forward with the mop cutting him off saying,

"It's cool, I got it man."

"Thanks, again I am sorry."

He does his business then leaves and I eventually finish cleaning the restrooms.  A couple more hours go by and I am sitting in the break room waiting to get off.  Then in comes one of the older serfs.  She sees me and smiles coming up to me,

"I'm glad I found you.  Can you do a huge favor for me?"

"Depends on what it is?"

"Would you mind cleaning up Mr. Hamilton's room for me.  They are doing the bonding ritual and I need to go pick up my kid from school."

I sigh not really wanting to do it because bonding rituals get kind of messy.  She gives me a pleading look.  I sigh giving in saying,

"Fine, I will do it."

She leans forward hugging me and says,

"Thank you so much, you are a sweetheart.  I owe you one."

I get me a new mop and pail of water then begin making my way over to his class room.  Most of the students have went home by this time so the hallways are pretty bare.  When I get to his classroom it hasn't started yet and there are only a couple people inside.  As I push my pail inside I accidently kick over a goblet of dragon's blood someone decided to leave on the floor getting some of it on my pants and shoes.  I scoff looking around seeing the few people just ignoring me and talking to each other.  I say to myself,

"Who was the dumb ass that left this here?"

After I am done cleaning I push my pail and mop out of the way till everything is done.  His classroom is one of those huge stadium seated lecture halls.  I decide to sit all the way at the top away from everyone and just wait for it to end.  Most of these bonding rituals can take hours depending on the size of the class. 

Eventually everyone starts arriving and taking their seats.  He begins to explain the steps on how to conduct the ritual and the order the students will be going in.  I have seen quite a few of these over the years.  They used to be pretty interesting to me but now its just a good time for me to sleep.

The main tool in this ritual is 'Dragon's Blood'.  They say that all magic originated from the dragons.  These dragons then passed their magic down to the kings and queens of the past.  This magic was then passed down throughout the years through the bloodlines.

Now how this ritual works is, they draw a large summoning circle on the ground with the dragon's blood and other ingredients.  The would be guardians paint their body with magic runes using the same dragon's blood.  The last part is the Noble would step into the summoning circle and says some incantation.  Then they would take a drink of the dragon's blood.  Doing this is supposed to summon the spirit of the dragon which just looks like a burst of golden light radiating outward from the noble.

The spirit of the dragon then searches through all of the marked guardians for a suitable match for the Noble.  My favorite part is when 2 people get bonded that hate each other.  When the two get bonded they say it links their souls together.

The guardian once bonded with the noble, their strength, speed, and senses all increase by a lot pretty much making them super soldiers.  This is usually why I try to avoid confrontations with bonded guardians.  The guardian is also empathically linked with their noble.  This allows them to sense whether they are in trouble or in some type of distress.  The last thing is for the Noble.  They gain the ability to instantly summon their guardian to their side if they are in danger.

About an hour goes by and I am dozing in and out of sleep till I hear them call Ariya's name.  I sit up in my chair, I just have to see which of these unlucky fools gets bonded with her.  As much as I hate her she is still decently popular amongst the students here.  It probably has to do with who her brother is.

She starts the ritual and it seems like she has done it perfectly.  As soon as she drinks the blood the burst of energy goes off shooting through the whole class.  About 2 minutes go by an nothing happens.  This causes her classmates begin to chuckle as she looks around embarrassed.  She looks to the teacher hoping he knows what happened and he just shrugs to her.  Then one of her classmates says,

"Maybe you are just destined to be a fortune teller."

Everyone laughs at his comment and she gets even more embarrassed almost to the verge of tears.  The reason everyone finds it funny is, Ariya's sphere of magic is divination, pretty much as he said it makes her a glorified fortune teller.  People make fun of it because it's not really a combat sphere its more of a support sphere.

I lean back in my chair laughing at her misfortune. (No pun intended) Just as I start to go back to sleep a searing pain begins on my chest. It feels like my skin is on fire and I can even smell my skin burning.  I fall out of my chair grabbing my chest yelling in pain.  I can also hear Ariya yelling from below.  After a few minutes the pain fades and we are both lying on the ground smoking.  The class is really laughing now.  I hold my chest in pain saying,

"Holy shit that hurt."

I begin to stand looking down at my chest.  The front of my shirt is burnt away revealing a hourglass shaped brand with a dragon coiled around it over my heart.  I glance down seeing Ariya hunched over also holding her chest crying.  With my new empathic ability I can feel she is crying more out of embarrassment and shame then pain.  It's kind of weird feeling her emotions.  It's kind of like they are my emotions but I know I am not feeling that way.  The professor silences the classroom and points to me saying in a stern voice,

"You serf, get down here now!"

I slowly make my way down to him still with my hand over my chest.  People are chuckling and whispering comments about us.  When I get up to him he grabs my hand and forcibly pulls it away to look at the brand.  He then crouches down next to Ariya and says with a soft voice,

"Ariya my dear, may I see the brand on your chest please?"

She slowly moves her hand revealing it to him.  He sighs and his gaze turns back to me like it is my fault this happened.  He stands saying,

"You boy, help her up.  We are going to see the headmaster."

"Really, I just came from there."

"Shut your mouth and come on."

I sigh and lean down holding my hand out to Ariya to help her up.  She slaps it aside and scowls to me saying,

"Don't touch me, I don't need your help."

"Whatever"

We walk out and I can feel Ariya staring at me in disgust.  I just ignore her looking down at the brand.  Then I flinch as I feel a dull pressure in my head.  Her voice echoes loudly in both of my ears as she says,

I can't believe I got bonded with that, a low-born serf.)

I groan rubbing my forehead and look to her walking in front of me unsure what just happened as I say,

"Excuse me I am not a that.  If you knew how to use your magic right this wouldn't have happened."

She stops looking at me with uncertainty,

"What?"

"You heard me.  If it wasn't for us low-born serfs you -"

She stutters out,

"Wait, d-did you read my mind?"

"What, no?  I heard you call me a that and you didn't want to be bonded to a slave like me."

"I never said anything, I thought that."

"Well whatever, you are still a bitch and I don-"

Before I could finish my sentence the professor spins around slapping me hard across the face.  He says,

"How dare you speak to her like that boy.  Now apologize."

I scowl at him rubbing my cheek where he slapped me.  It didn't seem to hurt as bad as it sounded, but the shock of him actually slapping my angered me. Then I turn my gaze to Ariya who has an mocking smirk on her face and I say through gritted teeth,

"Sorry"

We finally get to the Headmaster's office and are told to wait outside while the professor goes inside to explain the situation.  She sits down on the bench and I lean against the wall beside her while we wait.  She looks up to me seeing how close I am and slides to the other side of the bench.  I just ignoring her rubbing my fingers over the brand feeling how sensitive it still is.  Then again I hear her think to herself.  My eyes close tightly at the pain in my head and the loudness of her voice,

Did he really hear my thoughts, guardians can't do that?)

I rub my forehead and eyes in pain still not looking at her as I say,

"Yes, yes I did. Now stop thinking that hurts."

She gasps looking at me,

"You stop it, get out of my head."

I look to her,

"Oh believe me, you are the last person's thoughts I want to hear.  You little brat."

She jumps to a standing position as I feel her anger rising.  My eyes close as I brace myself for another slap.  Suddenly the door opens and the professor steps out telling us to enter.  She growls turning walking in saying,

"You're a jerk"

I follow her in behind her saying,

"Yeah I know"

The professor closes the door behind us and leaves.  Daniel greets us and motions for us to sit.  We both have irritated looks on our faces as we sit down in front of him.  He is trying to hold back a smile but fails as he looks to me and chuckles saying,

"Two times in one day, and now you are dragging my sister into your troubles."

She glares to me as I shrug saying,

"Again it's not my fault.  I can't help she sucks at using magic."

She raises her hand to slap me again my eyes close bracing for the hit.  Daniel holds his hand out to her saying loudly,

"Ariya no!"

She growls turning back toward him with her arms crossed with a scowl on her face.  He grins rubbing the back of his head thinking a second while looking us over.  She begins calling me names in her head blaming all this on me.  I rub my eyes, slowly getting a migraine from her yelling in my head.  Daniel leans back chuckling again and says to Ariya,

"Let me get this straight.  You performed the ritual, and instead of choosing between the what 20 marked students in front of you.  It bonded you with Fabien here that was asleep in the back of the room no where near the ritual?"

Ariya whines to him,

"Daniel this isn't funny.  He is just a serf, what did I do wrong?"

I roll my eyes looking away hearing the just a serf thing again.  I say,

"At least you admit you fucked up."

She gasps again and Daniel's smile fades as he looks to me saying,

"Okay Fabien enough.  The reason I find it amusing is because you two are the worst possible people to be bonded together."

She says,

"Exactly how do we fix this?"

"You don't, at least not right now."

"But can't you get unbonded I hear you can do that?"

"Yeah, but you have to be bonded for at least a year before it can be broken without hurting either of you."

I ask,

"So what are we doing then?"

He thinks for a second then says,

"Well this is a new dilemma for me.  I am not sure how you two got bonded in the first place.  For one, you didn't participate in the ritual.  And two, you are a serf that means you have mana.  That there should make it impossible for you to bond with another magic user."

She says,

"Also he can hear my thoughts, why can he do that?"

He smirks,

"That just means you two have a stronger bond, it's really rare but happens"She rolls her eyes at him then he asks me,"So what is it like?"

"What?"

"Hearing her thoughts"

I look to her as she looks away.

"It's kind of like she is talking loudly in both of my ears.  It comes and goes though."

"Interesting"He thinks a bit more then says to me "So have you ever learned what sphere of magic you are linked to?"

"No"

"Do you want too, and maybe be trained to use it?"

Ariya says,

"Daniel no, he is a serf isn't that illegal?"

"This is a special situation.  So how about it Fabien?"

I shake my head,

"Not really, I think it would cause too many problems.  Plus like she said, it's illegal."

Ariya nods in agreement and Daniel leans back,

"Yeah I guess.  Well I am going to call some people to talk about this situation.  Why don't both of you head to your rooms till I get in touch with you."

I stand and ask,

"So who will clean Mr. Hamilton's?"

"I will get someone else to do it.  Go home and relax till I call you."

"Alright"

I leave and Ariya stays in there still disputing the situation with Daniel.  While I am walking back I am met by one of my friends David.  He walks up smiling and says,

"I heard you got bonded with the ice witch Ariya."

I sigh shaking my head,

"Don't remind me about it.  This day has been the worst day ever."

"So it's true?"

"Yeah"

"How?"

"I don't know, I think the gods hate me."

He laughs,

"Oh this is going to be awesome,  did they say what they going to do about it?"

"I don't know, Daniel said he will contact me when he finds out what he can do. Man if I have to go through with this with her this is going to suck.  Just hearing her voice is like nails on a chalk board."

We continue discussing this while we walk by to my room.  I get back and lay on the bed exhausted and decide to read a bit before falling a sleep.  About 2 hours go by till I am woken up by a constant loud banging coming from somewhere in my room.My eyes open as my normally dimly lit room seems brightly lit from the nightlight on the wall.  I stand covering my ears trying to find what that annoying banging is.  I walk into the restroom turning on the lights.  The brightness of the light is so intense now clench my eyes shut again turning it back off.  I crack my eyes open slowly seeing the water dripping hitting my rinse cup that fell into the sink.

Every time the drop hits the cup the sound causes me to wince in pain.  I quickly move over to the sink pulling out the cup and grabbing the crank and turning it.  Apparently I twist it too hard as it snaps off and water begins spraying out the top.

"What the fuck, damn it!"

Now the sound of the spray is intense making me panic a bit as I grab the pipe where the water is spraying out and bend it squeezing the hole shut.  Now the water coming out is just a slight trickle.  I lean down under the sink finding the water shut off valve and gently turning it off now.

I stand up completely soaked now still hearing the loud drops of water hitting the floor, dripping off my body.  I head back to my room accidently throwing on the lights and quickly turning them off again as I get dazzled by the brightness again.  I growl to myself saying,

"Okay, where the hell are my sunglasses and I need some damn ear plugs."

I easily find my sunglasses then I start searching for anything to plug my ears.  I eventually go with some toilet paper which doesn't really work at all.  As I am looking for something else to plug my ears with I get startled by a loud knocking on my front door.  It sounds like they are beating on it with a baseball bat while my ear is against the door.  I shout,

"I am coming, stop the damn knocking!"

I go to answer it and see a female serf named Carla who I like to flirt back and forth with is there.  She hesitates seeing me soaked from head to toe with sunglasses on and toilet paper sticking out of my ears.  She almost laughs and says,

"What the hell happened to you?  Are you okay?"

I close my eyes tightly as her normal talking sounds like yelling,

"Can you talk quieter please.  I got bonded and my senses are going crazy right now."

She chuckles and says quieter this time,

"Sorry, I was sent here to escort you to the Headmaster's office."

"You really don't have to.  I know where it is."

She smirks and reaches up picking something out of my hair saying,

"Well I wanted to talk to you anyways."

"Okay sure"

We start walking and she can't help but laugh looking at me as she asks,

"So you got bonded huh?"

"Unfortunately"

"So your senses are already going crazy.  Has anything else changed?"

"Well my strength heightened as well and I can feel her emotions already, that's weird."

"Are you still going to be a serf?"

"I think so, I mean it is illegal for us to use magic."

"Good, because I would miss having you around."
I grin,

"Aww, maybe I could ask for you to be my personal serf and I could get you to do all sorts of things for me."

"I might actually like that."

"Me too"

We eventually make it to the office and Ariya is walking out she looks to me like I am an idiot and says,

"About time, what happened to you?"

"You.  You did this shit to me."

Carla smirks to me asking,

"You got bonded to her?"

I give her a displeased look,

"Yeah..."

She snickers and Ariya scowls to her saying,

"What's so funny, serf?"

Carla smiles back to her,

"Oh, nothing ma'am" She turns kissing my cheek and whisper "Have fun with that one."

I look to her unamused by that as she smiles.  Carla starts to walk off as I begin to head inside then I hear Ariya say,

"Serf girl stop."

I turn to look to see what Ariya says.  Carla turns to her asking,

"Do you need something?"

"Yes, I want you to go fetch me a iced coffee with 3 sugars"Then she pulls out her shoes I spilled her drink on earlier today from her back pack"I also want those cleaned and returned to me before class starts in the morning"

Ariya turns smirking to me.  Carla takes the shoes and says,

"The cafeteria is closed so I cannot get your coffee."

Ariya looks back to her,

"You know how to drive right?"

Carla hesitantly says,

"Yes, I can drive."

"Go, and fetch me one."Carla looks to me unsure what to say.  Ariya steps up into her face "Don't look at him.  Do your job, and fetch me a drink serf."

Carla looks back to Ariya and I can tell she wants to hit her but she gives her a fake smile saying,

"Yes ma'am"

I shake my head walking inside quietly saying,

"What a bitch"

Ariya stays outside as I walk in closing the door behind me.  Daniel laughs at my appearance.

"I see the effects of your bond are already kicking in."

As I begin to sit I pull the toilet paper wads out of my ears saying,

"This shit ain't funny.  So whats up?  What did they say?"

"You sir are going to learn what sphere you are linked too and learn to use it.  Also you will be receiving guardian training."

"Really why?  Daniel, I don't want to learn all of that."

"Well sorry Fabien, you have no choice."I give a deep sigh of displeasure looking away.  "I know you really don't want to do this and it will probably be the most difficult thing you ever had to deal with.  But I think you will be able to handle it.  You actually pick up things faster than most of the students here and one of the most hard working serfs we have."

"But how will the teachers and students handle this?"

"Oh I am pretty sure most will hate it and give you crap for it.  But to be honest I am not worried about you."He looks to the door behind me "I am worried about Ariya.  She may act tough but she isn't.  This will be really hard on her and I want you there to look out for her through this."

"You do know, we really don't get along right?"

"Come on Fabien, do this as a favor for me and everything I have done for you over the years."
I rub my face in frustration hating that he would pull that card out on me.  Finally I give in with a sigh,

"Fine, whatever"

"Good, then after a year if you two still wish to break the bond we will discuss it."

"So what do I do now?"

"Well first you need to speak to Minerva to find out what sphere of magic you are linked too.  Then we will work on your class schedule so you can begin your training."

"Do you want me to go see her now?"

"No she left for the day.  You will talk to her tomorrow."

"Alright" I stand up irritated by this and really don't want to talk about it any longer. "Are we done then?"

"Are you going to be okay?"

"Like it matters, you said I don't have a choice in the matter."

"Fabien I am sorry.  You know I am always here though if you have any problems."

"Yeah I know"

I end up leaving and Ariya is waiting impatiently outside to go back in.  She still has her angry face on as I walk out. She doesn't even look at me as she stands walking back inside.  I walk back to my room ignoring all the whispers and laughs finishing out the rest of the night.

3: Irritation

The next morning I wake up and all my senses are still heightened but seem to be more regulated. I head out to do my usual exercises, shower, then head to Minerva's office. With my improved hearing I can really make out people's whispers now about me and Ariya. They make fun of her saying she deserves to be partnered with a servant. I just grit my teeth and keep walking.

Also this morning all the smells are extremely intense. I am getting overwhelmed by everyone's mixtures of colognes and perfumes. Someone could walk by and I can smell their body odor from them not bathing for a few days but they are trying to mask it with deodorant and other smells. If someone gets too close to me I can smell what they ate or drank this morning. All the smells quickly make my stomach want to turn.

Suddenly I get a strange sensation of something dangerous coming at me from behind. Kind of like a weird sixth sense. My new reactions and speed surprise me as I spin around catching a flying object out of the air. The object ends up being a milk carton. As soon as I catch it, milk sprays all over me. This really pissed me off now as I look for the asshole who threw it.

That's when I see Andrew and his friends laughing at me. In almost a blink of an eye I rushed over to him and have him lifted off the ground by one hand around his throat. Just as I am about to punch him with my other hand, someone grabs my arm stopping me.

My gaze turns to see Donovan with his bonded partner Samantha. She reaches up touching my hand around his throat while looking me in the eyes and says with a soft voice,

"Please let him down Fabien. Let us deal with him."

Now either I cannot resist her angelic voice and her beautiful eyes, or she used her enchantment magic on me. But I lose all will to fight lowering him to the ground letting go of his neck. Donovan pulls a gym towel from his bag handing it too me and places a hand on my shoulder saying,

"Congratulations on becoming one of us"

Samantha smiles and says,

 

"You just need to calm that temper of yours but yes you deserve it, congratulations."

I can hear the grumbling from the students around us watching. I wipe the milk off of me then hand the towel back to Donovan thanking him. He nods to me and they both walk off with Andrew talking to him about what he did.

I finally end up getting to Minerva's office and enter. Stepping through the door is like entering into different world. The inside looks like a beautiful forest garden with trees and flowers everywhere. There is a small path leading further in as I follow it. It seems like it goes on forever. It finally leads to a clearing where she is sitting on a ivy covered log.

Minerva is an older black lady in her early 60's with long hair put up in braids tied back with a multi-colored bandana. She is also bare footed wearing a multi-colored dress and feeding two squirrels sitting in her lap.

No one really is really sure what her sphere of magic is. But after just talking to her for a few minutes she seems to know everything about you and can tell you what sphere you are linked too. My favorite thing about her is she is a self taught serf who got to where she is on her own. She is also probably more respected around here than the headmaster. Without even looking my direction she says as I walk up,

"Welcome baby, and congratulations on becoming a guardian." That's when the squirrels notice me and run up to her shoulders and sit. She then turns to me and smiles with her hand out,"Fabien, come sit with me and let's talk."

"Yes ma'am"

I walk over taking her hand and she places it in her lap as I sit beside her. She looks in my eyes and I just feel comfortable and totally at peace as I am near her. I feel like I could tell her anything and its almost like she is looking into my soul. She says,

"Fabien, do you know just how amazing you really are?" I just shake my head no. "You are the 3rd guardian in over 1200 years to also be able to use mana and be linked to a sphere. What we like to call people like you is a savant."

"Why is it so rare? Couldn't you just use the bonding ritual to try and bond two nobles together?"

"Well they have tried that. When the bond formed between the two nobles severe side effects came with it."

"Like what?"

"Well either the bond killed both the bonded recipients, put them in a coma till they eventually died, or both of them were stripped of their magical abilities and the bond fails."

"But, I don't understand why I got bonded. I didn't even participate in the ritual and wasn't anywhere near it."

"Well magic is a fickle thing and the rules are constantly changing. We are looking into why this happened. So I hear you wish to break the bond?"

"Yeah I don't really want to be bonded to anyone, especially her." From the look on her face she needed a bit more explanation as to why I said that. "What I mean is Ariya, the girl am bonded too. She treats all of us serfs like we are garbage and looks down on all of us."

"Maybe this is your chance to change how she feels about all of us. Abjuration"

"What?"

"Your sphere of magic is Abjuration."

"The defense sphere?"

She smiles,

"You pay attention, yes. It also seems like there is another sphere in there but it is masked by the other."

"How can I have two spheres; is that even possible?"

"Not until now, no. I am very excited you have come along in my life time. Maybe magic is evolving and you are the first person experience it."

"I guess. So what am I supposed to do now?"

She stands still holding my hand as I stand with her. She says,

"Now, you are going to escort Ariya to the rest of her classes for today. Tomorrow you will be starting your new class schedule."

We slowly begin walking back and she tells me a bit more about the savants and some of the most famous ones. As I get to her door to leave she stops and says,

"Now I want you to come and talk to me at least once a week telling me how things are going. Also I am hoping to discover what that other sphere is that you have. So come back and talk to me."

"I will, and thank you for seeing me."

"No, thank you Fabien."

I walk out of her office and I see Ariya sitting on the bench outside the office waiting for me. She gives me a displeased look as she stands. She begins walking away saying,

"It's about time come on."

I sarcastically say,

"Yes ma'am."

Again as we are walking I can hear people whispering and snickering about us. Since my senses have heightened I can hear them pretty well now. Which can be quite annoying. Ariya says,

"So what did Minerva say?"

"Something about me being something called a savant and I seem to have two spheres of magic. But she doesn't know what the other one is."

She looks back to me,

"You have two spheres? How is that possible?"

"I don't know, I guess I am special."

She rolls her eyes looking away,

"You're something, but it isn't special."

I raise my hand pretending like I am going to back-hand her from behind. Just as I do that she flinches and I look at her curiously because I did that behind her back. Then I notice someone releasing a water balloon her direction. I quickly pull her to me putting my arms around her as I spin just in time for the balloon to hit me in the back.

People begin laughing and I turn glaring at the person. Just as I take a step towards them to kick their ass, Ariya grabs on to the back of my t-shirt stopping me. She quietly says,

"Don't you will just get in trouble again."

I growl giving in realizing she is probably right. We continue walking and as we get close to the person who threw the balloon I step towards them pretending I am going to hit them. They flinch covering their face and I say,

"That's right bitch you better be scared"

After that I think I see a slight smile come across Ariya's lips as we continue walking. We finally get to her next class and the doorway is covered in strings of beads and smells of incense. I look to the name on the side of the door and it says 'Good Vibes and Relaxation'. As we walk in I cough because of how thick the smell of incense is. I wave my hand in front of my face saying,

"What kind of class is this?"

Then I see a bunch of mats on the floor with students sitting on them. As I look to all the students I realize every one in this class but me is a female and they are all wearing tight yoga pants and tank tops. They all look to me and I chuckle nervously rubbing the back of my head. Ariya begins walking off saying,

"Wait here I will be back."

As I stand there looking around feeling quite awkward in here a older man walks out from one of the back rooms. He seems to be in his mid 30's with curly light brown hair and a full beard. He is wearing a multi-colored spandex outfit that seems pretty inappropriate showing off a large bulge where his crotch is. He sees me and smiles walking over to me. He hugs my tightly saying,

"Welcome my brother, I am so glad you are here."

His hug seems to linger a lot longer than it should and I tense up feeling even more weirded out. He lets go looking me touching my shoulders. I pull his hands off me stepping back saying,

"I am just here to observe"

He turns walking over to a podium with what seems to be a large gift bag sitting on top of it. He grabs the bag walking back over to me handing it to me. Inside I see a couple pairs of black and green baggy yoga pants in it. I hand them back to him saying,

"I think you made a mistake, I am not in this class"

He pushes it back holding on to my hands saying,

"No brother, this is exactly where you are supposed to be. Minerva told me to give you these when you arrive."

I glance in the bag again asking,

"What about a shirt?"

He places one of his hands on my chest with a smile saying,

"You don't need one."

I step back feeling a chill go up my spine from this guy constantly touching me. I can hear the girls giggle seeing how awkward I am feeling. I say,

"Fine, where do I go to change?"

He motions to the door he just stepped out of. As I start walking over Ariya is walking out of her changing room. She is wearing baggy yoga pants and a t-shirt. I stop and watch her walk by wondering why she isn't dressed like the rest of the girls. From what I remember she had a decent body why is she hiding it now. She sees my reaction and scowls at me,

"What?"

I shake my head walking off again saying,

"Nothing."

"Whatever"

She walks over and takes her seat. The girls lean forward asking her questions about me. I walk in changing into these pants then look at myself in the mirror. Apparently since I got bonded my physique changed and I bulked up a bit gaining more muscle definition. I flex at myself in the mirror for a second grinning then walk back out.

When I walk out I can see most of the girls faces seem to light up and the teacher looks pleased as well, which is kind of weird. As I am walking over one of the girls leans over whispering to Ariya,

"Your serf is kind of hot."

Ariya glances to me and I give her a knowing smile. She scoffs looking to the girl pushing her away,

"Shut up, don't be gross. He's still a serf and that is disgusting."

I glare at her as sit down on the mat beside her and she avoids looking at me. The teacher begins walking around the room and talking about what he will be teaching us in the class. He says through the meditation and yoga we will be able to better control our magic as well as our emotions. All this still seems a little weird to me and I raise my hand. He points to me,

"Yes my brother?"

Again I hesitate because he keeps calling me his brother. I shake my head saying,

"Are you sure I am supposed to be here?"

A couple of the girls chuckle again and he walks over behind me massaging my shoulders. This causes me to tense up feeling him touching me again. A smile crosses Ariya's face and I can feel the delight she is getting from this. He says,

"Lady Minerva tells me you are full of bitterness and negative emotions." He crouches down placing his hand over my heart. "She believes my class with bring serenity to your heart." Ariya almost snorts out a quiet laugh covering her mouth when he does that and I look to her not amused by this at all. Unable to take it any longer I quickly stand shrugging his hands off me. He follows me up to a standing position never losing his smile as I say,

"Sir, if you keep touching me I will show you some negative emotions."

Everyone laughs and he just smiles stepping back with his hands up in surrender. He says,

"Understood, but my class will help you open up your soul purging these negative emotions and filling you will only positive ones. If you want to master the mana flowing inside you, you must first control the emotions that guide you."

"Whatever, just stop touching me"

The class giggles again and I look to Ariya who is trying to hold back her laugh. I say to her as I begin to sit,

"This shits not funny."

She looks away smiling and I hear her think,

Oh yeah it is, this might not be so bad.)

I lean over whispering to her,

"Don't tell me you are already warming up to me?"

She gasps pushing my head away,

"Whatever I still hate you, and quit reading my thoughts!"

I laugh sitting back up and we all begin listening to the teacher. Its pretty hard to stay focused to him with his soft monotone voice and the floor being so uncomfortable. He begins teaching us how to meditate and I actually start getting into it then of course Ariya has to ruin it by speaking to me in my head,

Can you hear me right now?)

I keep my eyes closed and just hum out,

"Uh huh"

A few seconds of silence goes by then she says in her head,

Thank you for protecting me from the balloon earlier.)

I quietly say,

"It's all good."

The teacher hears me and looks up asking,

"Having troubles my brother?"

He begins to stand coming over to me and I wave my hands at him then motion for him to sit back down saying,

"No I am fine, just continue what you were doing."

Ariya chuckles again and I glare to her still unamused. The class finally ends and I go back and change. As I walk back out and waiting for Ariya to finish changing one of the females walks up to me introducing herself,

"Hey, I am Anna"

I shake her hand saying,

"Fabien"

"How do you like being bonded with Ariya?"

Ariya actually walks out at this time and I glance to her saying,

"You want the truth? She is an annoying pain in the ass." Ariya narrows her eyes at me giving me an upset look and I smirk "But it's been okay so far. I think she likes me."

Ariya rolls her eyes and grabs my hand pulling me away from Anna.

"Don't be disgusting. Anna you shouldn't talk to him, his stupidness is contagious."

She pulls me down the hall and eventually I pull my hand away saying,

"Okay okay you can let go now."

"Oh yeah"

She lets go and keeps walking while wiping her hand off on her pants like touching me was disgusting or something. I keep following behind her and she glances back at me then stops,

"What are you doing?"

"What? I am supposed to follow you around to your classes."

Now her tone changes to like she is talking to a child as she says,

"It's lunch time now, so go away." She waves her hand at me shooing me away. "Shoo"

"Oh thank god, see ya."

She rolls her eyes again shaking her head as we both go different directions. As I begin heading back to the serf's break room to eat Samantha sees me and says,

"Fabien where are you going it's lunch time?"

"To the break room to eat, why?"

She takes me hand urging me to follow her saying,

"You are one of us now, come eat with me in the cafeteria."

"Are you sure? I don't mind eating in the serf's break room."

"Of course, come on."

We walk to the cafeteria and get in line. The food in here has always been amazing every now and then the serfs were allowed to eat the stuff left over at the end of the day. They have everything from steak to sushi. As I go through the line picking out food to eat. The serfs all congratulate me for what happened they even give me extra helpings of food. A lot of the students start grumbling and complaining. Samantha quickly makes them calm down.

We go and sit down next to Donovan and some of their friends. I glance around the cafeteria getting all sorts of mixed looks. Donovan asks me,

"Hey Fabien, So what did Minerva say about you?"

"She said I am something called a savant. A guardian that has the ability to use magic."

"A savant? I heard about them. I thought they were just fairy tales or made up for books or whatever."

"Well she said I was one. She said there hasn't been a savant in over a thousand years."

Samantha asks,

"Did she say what sphere you were?"

"Well she said I had two but could only -"

She quickly cut me off saying,

"Wait, she said you were linked to two spheres?"

"Yeah"

"How?"

"I don't know but she could only read one which is Abjuration. The other was was masked."

"Wow that is crazy, all this is crazy."

Donovan says,

"So you are a guardian with defensive magic. I am jealous"

"Well I can't use it yet, hell I am still getting use to these new senses and strength I have."

"Oh you will, I will make sure of that. Man if you can learn to control your magic well in a combat situation you could be unbeatable."

I smile and suddenly feel embarrassment and shame coming from Ariya as I hear her think,

One year is going to be too long to be bonded with him. I wish this never happened, it's humiliating.)

As I begin looking around for Ariya one of Samantha's friends ask,

"So what do you think of your bonded noble Ariya?"

I look back to them,

"I just can't wait for this year to be up so I can break the bond and sever her from my life."

Samantha says,

"That's kind of rude"

"Let's just say me and her don't mesh well. This whole bond was a mistake to begin with anyways."

Then Ariya walks in the cafeteria and sees me. I just look to her touching the side of my head with my index finger then pointing at her letting her know I heard her. She immediately understood my meaning and nervously looks away. We finally finish lunch and I wait for her at the entrance to walk out. She glances to me and I motion for her to lead the way,

"Go, I am following you."

We begin walking and she looks back to me,

"What did you hear me say?"

"Does it really matter? Just lead the way."

"Whatever, I was just asking."

"Well, don't"

Then she thinks,

God, he is such a jerk.)

We walk the rest of the way to her next class which is called 'History of Warfare'. As we walk in the teacher a pudgy balding guy looks to Ariya and motions to a seat on the front row saying,

"Ah, Mrs. Ariya please take your seat." He then looks to me and motions to the door. "Fabien, you can wait outside for the class to finish."

There are a few chuckles in the class and I point to Ariya saying,

"I am with her, I'm her -"

"That is fine, but the serfs wait outside." He cuts me off saying

The class snickers more and I begin to feel Ariya's embarrassment rising again. Then someone says to the teacher,

"Mr. Stevens the Janitor is Ariya's new guardian."

Everyone laughs and I just glare at the person who said it. Then someone else says,

"He is going to protect her with his mop and broom."

The class laughs some more as the teacher looks to Ariya as she is sitting leaned over with her head down on the desk hiding her face. He looks back to me and I just shrug to him. He sighs and motions for me to sit beside her saying with a displeased tone,

"Fine, go sit next to her."

I sit and he begins his lecture. As I am listening I just lean back in my chair rocking back and forth bored out of my mind probably because I actually know a lot of the stuff he wants to teach.  Most of the teachers didn't mind if I sat in their class waiting for it to end as long as I don't disturb anyone. Apparently his lecture is boring Ariya as well because she isn't really paying attention all she is doing is doodling in her notebook.

Of course us sitting in the front it wasn't hard for him to notice either of us weren't paying attention really. For some reason he decides to make an example out of her instead of me saying,

"Ariya, who was the first savant and noble team to defeat Magnus Arcanum."

Knowing she would never know that since that wouldn't be in any of the text books. Like Donovan said Savants were actually treated more as a fairy tale than actual historical people so they weren't added to history books. This was one of the savants teams Minerva actually told me about. I scowl to him and he just ignores me waiting for Ariya to embarrass herself by trying to answer. She sits up shocked he actually called on her and begins flipping through her text book hoping to find the answer. The teacher says,

"Ariya, if you would start paying attention I wo-"

My chair slams down startling him as I sit forward saying,

"Benjamin Piedra and Stacy Ivy. Maybe you shouldn't be an ass and ask her a question that is actually in the books."

He gasps shocked by what I just said and says,

"How dare you speak to me like that? Would you like to go see the headmaster?"

I stand saying,

"Sure, I am sure he would like to know how you tried to embarrass his sister in front of the class with a question she would never know."

He hesitates then motions for me to sit back down clearing his throat,

"Fine, but Ariya please pay attention for now on."

The class begins whispering to each other as I sit back down. He begin teaching again and after a few minutes Ariya says in her head,

Thank you)

I lean over and quietly say,

"Pay attention, next time I might not be here to save your ass."

She gasps,

I didn't ask for your help, leave me alone.)

I quietly say in a low angry voice,

"Listen you little bit-"

I get cut off by the teacher saying,

"Are you two done talking or would you like to come up here and do the teaching?"

I glare back to him saying,

"Maybe if you would explain things better I wouldn't have to answer all her 'fucking' questions."

He slams his hands against the podium then points to the door,

"That's it Fabien, leave the room, now!" I stand slamming my chair under the desk staring at him as I walk to the door. He ignores me looking back to Ariya "Ariya from now on raise your hand if you have a question."

She watches me leave saying,

"Yes sir"

I walk out of the room sitting on the bench across the hall waiting for the class to finally end. Eventually it does and she walks out and people glance to us whispering how scary and violent I can be. Ariya stops and looks to me saying,

"Our next class is combat training, we have to walk out to the training yard." I stand and again motion for her to lead the way not saying anything to her. As we are walking she looks to me saying, "Why do you have to be a jerk to everyone?"

"Does it really matter? If I am the asshole they leave you alone right?"

"I guess. But do you have to cuss so much."

"Why does it matter?"

She stops and turns to me saying,

"Because you are my guardian and when you talk and act like that it not only looks bad on you but on me as well."

'I' talk and the way 'I' act affects you? You know how stupid that sounds?"

She sighs walking off again,

"Whatever, like I could ever expect a serf to understand anything about social etiquette."

"Fuck you"

She shakes her head continuing to walk ahead of me,

"You are such a immature child"

I growl silently to myself clenching my fist wanting to hit her so bad.

We continue walking and she has to stop by her locker along the way. At her locker we are met by her friends Traci and Melissa again. They are both very attractive and know it too but are total bitches, like Ariya. Traci has long dirty blonde hair with hazel eyes and a light golden tan. Melissa has long dark brown hair with the ends dyed blue and light brown eyes with a dark tan. Melissa walks up hugging Ariya asking,

"Hey chika, how are you holding up?"

Traci looks to me with disgust saying,

"I can't believe you got bonded with him, he is so gross."

I look to her with apathy as I scratch my forehead with my middle finger flipping her off. Melissa ads,

"He even smells like the trash he cleans up. It's disgusting."

I clench my teeth with a growl looking away then secretly smell the top of my shirt to see if I actually stink. I seem to smell fine. Ariya says,

"It's only temporary. When a year is up we can break the bond."

I grumble to myself looking further down the hallway,

"Thank god"

She hears me and gives me an unamused look. Then I notice a couple of my good friends walking up named Jason and David. When they get to me they bow to me like I am royalty and both loudly say,

"It's Lord Fabien!"

They stand and I push David as he almost falls over laughing. I say,

"You two are idiots"

He says,

"So you are part of the elite crowd now? You haven't forgot us peasants yet have you?"

Traci scoffs,

"As if he would ever be one of us."

Jason grins to her,

"Damn, the perks of being a guardian sure are sexy"

I laugh and Traci gives him a disgusted look saying,

"Gross"

David looks to them all grunting and says,

"Man what I would give to be bonded with one of them." He looks to Ariya "Except her, we hear she is covered in burns underneath all those clothes"

Melissa steps towards him threatening to hit him as he runs behind me laughing. Ariya slams her locker closed turning to look at him,

"Maybe I am, thanks for making fun of me jerk." She looks to me as I curiously look her over wondering if what she says is true. She says, "Nice friends you have, come on."

We end up making it to the training yard and it is huge almost the size of two football fields side by side. There are all sorts of training equipment, a running track, fighting dummies, workout equipment, and even an obstacle course.

When we walk up I notice there are already a lot of people waiting for the class to begin. The two trainers standing next to Donovan and Samantha talking are Dominicus and his twin sister Starr. They are very respected and well known for winning many different tournaments together. They are also the first twin brother and sister bonded group. Donovan and Samantha are their teacher's aides helping with the training.

When the class begins we are all standing around listening to them explain what they will be teaching us . As we are listening two guys make their way over to us and I recognize them as Wayne and his bonded guardian Tyson. Wayne is about 5'10" with short dirty blond hair and dark green eyes. He is one of the most popular guys in school, he is very rich, and his family are very powerful political figures. All the serfs know him as a total player.

His guardian Tyson is a very large black guy standing about 6'8 and built like a wall of muscle. His head is completely shaven bald and he always looks like he is pissed off.

I can already feel many different emotions coming from Ariya as they walk over. I can feel she has feelings fear, anger, and remorse all over flowing from her. Wayne walks up in front of me saying,

"So you are the fabled savant that got bonded with my precious Ariya."

I glance to her seeing she can't even look at him with her head down looking at the ground. Now I have never had a problem with him but for some reason now I am feeling irritated by his presence. I ask,

"What do you want Wayne?"

"I just wanted to meet you and -" He reaches over placing his hand on her shoulder causing her to flinch closing her eyes. She seems genuinely scared of his presence "I wanted to say hi the Ariya here."

I pull her to me putting my arm around her as her body tenses even more. I say,

"Well you did, now we are trying to listen to the teachers so go away"

He smirks to me,

"Alright Mr. Serious."

He looks to Ariya again reaching out to touch her again saying,

"I have missed y-"

I slap his hand away from her and Tyson steps forward getting in my face. Ariya spins around behind me as I stare up to him not intimidated by him at all. Dominicus shouts,

"Do we have a problem here boys?"

Wayne turns giving him his arrogant grin patting Tyson's back saying,

"We were just having a chat with the help"

Some of the class chuckles and Starr says,

"That's enough Wayne. You two move away from Fabien."

Tyson and Wayne walk off and I turn looking to Ariya,

"Are you okay?"

She wipes her eyes trying to mask she teared up a bit saying,

"I am fine"

The trainers go back to explaining the class. They are going to teach us various fighting techniques. We will be taught to fight alone, in conjunction with our bonded partner, and as a larger team. They will teach us how to use our magic without any real concentration.

But before the class actually begins they want us all to introduce ourselves to the class as our bonded teams. Along with our names they want the bonded noble to tell the class what sphere of magic they are attuned too. They will explain how each sphere of magic to everyone just in case they don't know what they represent.

We all line up in our groups, there are 24 people in the class so there are 12 teams. The first group to walk up is a short plump guy named Ronald Rodriguez. He isn't very athletic but he is known as one of the smartest people in the school. He walks up with his guardian Jesse. Jesse is about 6'1 with long dark brown hair he usually keeps tied back. He has a slim athletic build.

They both introduce themselves and Ronald tells the class his sphere is enchantment. Samantha steps forward to explain the enchantment sphere to the class. She says,

"As you all may know my sphere is also enchantment. Some people don't believe it can be as useful in combat as the others. But-" Her and Donovan both glance to each other with a smile "We have won 3 championships together so it's not bad. Enchantment allows me to alter people's emotions and state of mind. This allows me to make the enemy an ally or make an ally an enemy. Also I could force people to do my bidding if I wish, but that is pretty much looked down upon. "

She finishes her explanation and steps back as everyone claps. Ronald gets a big smile on his face as they go back to sit down. A couple more groups go by one is illusion. Illusionists can create figments, false images, and phantasms to vex and confuse their enemies. The other was conjuration. Conjurers can summon creatures to aid them in battle they also have the ability to teleport themselves or others to various locations they have seen.

Next up is Elizabeth Moore and her bonded guardian Melissa, Ariya's friend. Elizabeth is gorgeous. She has long flowing raven black hair and silver eyes. She has a voluptuous body and the tight clothes she likes to wear shows it off perfectly. They introduce themselves and Elizabeth says her sphere is necromancy the death aspect. Dominicus steps forward this time to explain the details on her sphere. He says,

"Necromancers are the masters of life and death. Life necromancers are the healers and medics on the battle field. They can heal wounds, cure all sorts of ailments, even sometimes revive the dead. The death side like Mrs. Moore here are the scary ones. They can drain the life force of others to heal themselves, they can inspire dread and fear in their enemies, raise the dead into zombies or skeletons to fight alongside of them, or even bestow deadly curses on their victims."

Everyone claps at theirs and Ariya and a few others cheer for them. A couple more teams go by one is a life necromancer and the other is linked to a sphere called transmutation. Starr explains this one saying,

"Transmuter's are the shape shifters. They can alter theirs and other peoples forms to look like pretty much anything. They can even make a person stronger, faster, or even fly with wings."

Next they call to the stand is Wayne and Tyson. The cheering for them is louder than the others. Again I can feel the same mixed emotions coming from Ariya. I lean over and whisper,

"Is he your ex or something?"

(Unfortunately) but says to me,

"It is none of your business."

"Whatever"

Wayne and Tyson get to the stand. Wayne bows to everyone then they introduce themselves. Wayne gets silent for a bit smiling to everyone trying to be dramatic then leans forward to the microphone and says,

"Evocation"

The cheers roar out through the crowd as he raises his hands like he won something. Starr steps forward again shaking his hand smiling. She says,

"Well pretty much everyone here knows what evocation is so I won't have to go into great detail.  Evocation is the ultimate combat sphere. The evoker can control the elements to create devastating attacks. They can shoot lightning from their fingers or rain down fire from the sky. Evocation is what most battle field nobles wish they were attuned too."

People cheer some more as he goes to sit back down. His friends bow to him shouting "We're not worthy, we're not worthy!". As he walks by to his seat he looks to Ariya and winks.

This just enrages her further as she stands storming off as Melissa quickly follows after her. I can feel her emotions flooding over me once again. She is full of so much hate and anger towards him I wonder what he did to piss her off so bad. Maybe she was just one of his many conquests with the females at this school.

A few more people end up going by and Ariya makes her way back with Melissa. They end up calling us up to the podium. Her friends cheer really loud while everyone else claps for us. As we walk up there I can feel her nervousness rising along with mine. I really hate being in front of crowds. She introduces herself first then I introduce myself. Again I hear the snide comments and whispers about me so I finish my introduction saying,

"I am also what you would call a savant; a guardian that can also use magic. There hasn't been one like me in over a thousand years."

Everyone gets quiet and all our instructors glance to each other with a nod. Then Ariya steps forward saying her sphere is Divination. Donovan decides to explain this one to the class. He says,

"Divination is a complicated one, because it is more of a support behind the scenes sphere. Not many diviners enter into combat." The class chuckles again and I can feel Ariya becoming embarrassed again. Donovan continues by saying, "But diviners are actually the most valuable and most rare out of all the nobles, everyone wants one on their side. A diviner can tell you the outcome of events, can see things before they can actually happen, they are the ultimate trackers, can tell if people are lying, and can even see through illusions."

Ariya smiles and begins feeling a bit more prideful about herself. Then one of Wayne's friends raises his hand. Donovan points to him and the guy says,

"If she doesn't get in combat then why is she in this class? Is she going to tell us the outcome of our training?"

People laugh and I look at him saying,

"If you want she can tell you the outcome of me beating your ass if you keep talking shit."

People laugh and ooh at that comment, even Wayne claps laughing as well. Donovan silences everyone and places his hand on my shoulder saying,

"Calm down Fabien. Everyone no matter what sphere they are goes through combat training, because you never know when you will need it."

We finish out all the introductions just in time for class to be over. We begin walking off again and I am following behind Ariya. Wayne walks up to her stopping her and she glances to me with a worried look. I just keep walking by saying,

"It's none of my business remember."

(Fabien please.)

Her fear rises even more seeing me continuing to walk off. I get maybe a few steps away then Tyson says,

"Yeah that is right, keep walking boy."

That makes me stop and I clench my teeth. My ego makes me turn around walking back as I say,

"You know what, I forgot Daniel wanted to talk to us both about something."

I hold out my hand to her and Tyson blocks my path placing his hand on my chest. I glance to his hand then glare up to him clenching my fist ready to hit him. I say,

"Take your hand off me."

Wayne laughs patting Tyson's back saying,

"It's fine we will talk later. Come on Tyson."

They begin walking off while Tyson and I just glare at each other. Ariya walks in front of me looking at me and says,

"Thank you for that."

I turn walking off again saying,

"I didn't do it for you. I just really want to hit that guy."

That was the last of the classes for the day so I decide to head back to my room. When I get there my room door is open and all of my stuff is gone. Thinking this has to be some sort of prank I head next door to David's room and bang on the door. A female serf opens the door and I am assailed my the smell of pot. She smiles,

"Hey Fabien."

I step in looking around saying,

"Okay where is all my shit."

David walks up at this time,

"What?"

"All my stuff from my room, where is it?"

"Ohh yeah, we had to move it to your new room."

"What new room?"

"You're staying in the Pegasus dorm since you are a guardian now."

Jason shouts from the couch with another serf sitting next to him,

"All hail lord Fabien!"

I rub my face in frustration,

"Damn it, I didn't want to change rooms."

I turn to leave and the female stops me grabbing my hand,

"You should stay Fabien, it's more fun when you are here."

I hesitate really thinking about staying. After this day it would be great to relax with all of them. I sigh shaking my head,

"Sorry, I really need to see what's going on."

As I am leaving Jason shouts again,

"Don't forget us when you are famous!"

I walk all the way over to the Pegasus dorm. It's been a while since I have been allowed over here to clean these rooms. Apparently some of these rich kids don't know how to clean their own rooms. As I enter I am stopped by a huge 8 foot steel golem. These defense golems are immune to all forms of magic and can withstand massive amounts of damage. They are mostly used in wars against other nobles and their guardians. A red light from its eyes begins to scan me and it says in a metallic voice,

"Fabien... Classification Guardian.... Room number 28... Access granted"

It holds out its hand and a key appears in it. I take the key and it steps aside letting me through the door behind it. It doesn't take me long to find my room down one of the hallways. As I get close I see Andrew and one of his friends bullying a younger student in front of my door. He is pinned against the door with Andrew leaned over him.

I just ignore whats going on and walk up to the door to begin unlocking it. Andrew grabs my shoulder trying to pull me away making me turn towards him. But since I got bonded I am a lot stronger and didn't budge at all. Andrew says,

"Fabien this place isn't for your kind, you should leave."

I finish opening the door then turn stepping up to him looking him in the eyes. The young kid runs in the room behind me as I stare at Andrew unafraid saying,

"Why don't you try and make me leave?"

He stares back at me a second then looks past me into the room saying to the kid that ran in.

"We will finish our conversation later Mikey."

Andrew motions for his friend to follow him and they walk off. I head inside looking for this kid that ran in my room. When I get inside the dorm room is huge its about the size of a 3 bedroom apartment. There is a kitchen, living room, study, a rather large restroom, and 3 bed rooms.

As I look around the little guy walks out of one of the rooms with a tall skinny black guy wearing glasses. The kid points to me smiling and says,

"That's him he stood up to Andrew and made him run away."

I smirk saying,

"He didn't really run."

The black guy walks over holding out his hand saying with a deep voice,

"Are you Fabien? I am Markus."

The short guy says,

"I am Mikey"

I shake his hand looking around again,

"Yeah, so I guess you two are my roommates?"

Mikey excitedly says,

"Yep, it's awesome right?"

Markus crosses his arms and looks to me with question asking,

"Aren't you the guy who cleans the restrooms? Why are you staying here?"

"Well I accidently got bonded with a noble here. So they decided to make me a student."

"How do you accidently get bonded?"

"I have no idea, but it happened."

Mikey asks,

"Who did you get bonded with?"

"The head master's little sister Ariya."

"Wow really? She is so hot!"

"Yeah and a pain in my ass."

Markus says,

"I hear she gained a lot of weight that's why she wears baggy clothes now."

Mikey say,

"I heard she got pregnant and is trying to hide it."

Markus laughs changing the subject and says to me,

"She must really hate being bonded to you knowing you are a serf."

"Oh yeah and she lets me know every chance she gets."

We talk and sit for a bit then they show me to my room. When I walk in I notice everything has already been unpacked. I change out of my clothes, take a shower, then fall asleep.

4: Truth Revealed

That night I have a pretty crazy dream. I dream that I am being forced down on the bed by a couple of shadowy figures and slowly stripped of my clothes. I try to fight them off but they are both way too strong. Then the figures slowly take shape as Wayne and Tyson. Tyson is holding my hands above my head while Wayne is leaned over forcing himself on me.

No matter how much I struggle I can't seem to get free. Then I look to the right seeing my reflection in a mirror. But it is not my reflection looking back at me but Ariya's. Wayne starts kissing down her neck and I see a tear roll down her cheek as she closes her eyes. As her eyes close I jump awake with a loud gasp.

When I wake up I see a very attractive well figured Asian female straddling me kissing my neck. She is wearing a very tight revealing maid outfit. She smiles to me saying,

"Time to wake up niichan."

I hear laughing coming from my door as she climbs off of me. She picks up my clothes off the floor throwing them in a hamper. At my door I see Mikey laughing pretty hard wiping tears from his eyes. I point to the maid asking,

"Who is that?"

He laughs again saying,

"Were you dreaming about having sex with Wayne?"

I sit up,

"Shut up, it was a nightmare. Who is this girl?"

 

"Yeah nightmare my butt, she is my illusionary servant Akane."

She bows to me and they both walk out. I hear him call out to Markus,

"Markus you missed it, it was hilarious!"

I growl getting out of bed and go take another shower cleaning the sweat from the nightmare off of me. While I am in there I am leaned against the sink staring into the mirror. That nightmare affected me in ways I couldn't expect. I am not sure if it is her emotions or mine at this time but a tear runs down my cheek as I am filled with shame and sadness. I quickly wipe the tears away and splash water on my face wondering what is wrong with me.

When I finally finish in there I get dressed and walk out to them. They are both sitting down eating at the dining table. A book is floating in front of Markus as he reads it while he is eating. Akane is straddling Mikey's lap feeding him. I notice they already have a plate of food waiting for me to come eat.

I sit down to eat trying to ignore the Mikey and Akane show that's going on across from me. After a bit there is a knock at the door and they both glance to me expecting me to go answer it. I sigh standing,

"Fine, I got it."

They go back to what they are doing and I walk over to the door opening it. As I open it I get slapped in the chest with a piece of paper as Jason and David both step past me inside. They both look around in awe of the place and David says,

"Holy crap, you have got-"

He stopped in mid-sentence and I turn looking at them wondering what made him stop talking. Then I see them both staring at Akane bent over cleaning the table. I roll my eyes saying,

"Calm down you two, she isn't real."

Mikey gasps and covers her ears saying,

"Hey she has feelings"

"Whatever"

Jason turns to me pointing to Akane,

"How do I get one of her?"

"Be a perverted illusionist."

Mikey gasps again,

"I am not perverted"

Markus lets out a quick laugh,

"Whatever, you are more perverted than a succubus in a room full of naked men."

I laugh and look at the paper they gave me and it's my new class schedule. I notice my first class starts in 20 minutes. I say to them,

"Shit, I have to go. David and Jason these are my roommates Markus and Mikey. Later"

I quickly leave sprinting over to the school and down the hall to my first class. As I am running I get a sudden vision of a backpack swinging at me. I put my arms up just in time to block it. The force of the hit sends me flying back into a wall. I look up in time to for a knee to hit me in the chest knocking the breath out of me causing my to fall to my knees. Tyson crouches over me as I try to stand. He places his huge hand on my shoulder and squeezes causing me to groan in pain kneeling again. He says,

"This is for talking crap to my boy in class the other day. You seem to talk a lot of smack but you aint nothing but a punk."

I groan in pain saying,

"What they can't handle their own shit so they have to get you to do it."

"Nah, I wanted to see how tough you were myself, but you aint nothing. Now I am going to beat your face in."

Then we both hear from behind Tyson,

"Tyson, let me have him."

Tyson turns to look and it's the guy I threatened in class yesterday for making fun of Ariya. Since Tyson is distracted I waste no time and punch him in the groin. He roars in pain leaning over and I reach up wrapping my hands around the top of his head and drop straight down causing his chin to slam into the top of my head. This sends Tyson falling backwards as I quickly stand.

The other guy dashes forward swinging at me and I catch his hand, lunging forward with an elbow to the guy's nose. Then I get a sense of danger from behind me as I side step and Tyson's fist flies by hitting the guy in the face again sending him flying back into a wall. Continuing my movement I spin around Tyson punching him twice in the back and kidneys. He roars again with a spinning back elbow. I barely have enough time to bring both my arms up blocking it.

The force of his hit sends me sliding back into the wall once more. As we start to advance on each other everything freezes. I cant move, Tyson cant move, and all the cheering along with the people around us are frozen as well. Daniel and Minerva walk up at this time. Daniel looks to each one of us saying in a stern voice,

"What do you 3 think you are doing?" His gaze turns to me as he asks "Who started this fight?"

All of the sudden I can feel myself able to talk. He walks up to me glaring at me in anger asking again,

"Who started this; Fabien did you do this?"

Angry that he automatically assumed it was me and he would probably take their side anyways I just glare back at him silently. Then Tyson says,

"I did"

Daniel turns to him,

"Why?"

"Because he is a serf, he has no place with us."

Daniel begins to respond then the guy on the ground holding his bleeding nose says,

"No, I told Tyson to fight him because he embarrassed me in class yesterday. So it is my fault."

Daniel says,

"Well boys, the serf is here to stay. If you two don't like it you can write a letter to the Arcanum Syndicate yourselves. Also if you have a problem with someone talk to me or one of your trainers we will handle it. If you feel you need to handle it yourselves through fighting you take it off school grounds and into the training yard. If I ever catch any of you fighting on school grounds again you will be expelled. Do you understand me?"

They both say,

"Yes sir"

He looks back to me saying,

"Fabien?"

"Yeah"

He looks to the guy holding his face,

"Now Joseph, go see the nurse about your face. The rest of you return to class, now."

We all can move again and I rub my chest where Tyson hit it. We make our way to our classes and when I get there it has already started. When I walk in everyone gets silent and looks to me. The teacher says,

"Ah Fabien welcome, Daniel said you were running late. Please take your seat next to Miss Edwards."

He motions to a chair next to Traci. I walk over and take my seat. Traci clicks her tongue sliding her desk away from mine. Sitting on my desk is my text book titled 'Guide to Invulnerability the Abjurer's Spellbook.'

I lean back in my chair and start listening to the class. It seems pretty interesting, right now he is going over the basics of Abjuration. As I am listening I get another flash of a vision in my eyes and now I see Melissa talking to me saying,

"I just heard Fabien just got jumped by Tyson and Joseph Sanchez. I also hear someone went to the infirmary, I think it was Fabien."

Then I feel anger and concern coming from Ariya as I hear her voice come from me saying,

"Oh god really?"

I quickly realize I am looking through her eyes. She then takes off running to the infirmary and as she opens the door I flash back to my body. My chair slams back down and I grab my eyes as they feel like they someone rubbed soap in them. Traci looks to me like I am crazy and the teacher asks,

"Fabien are you okay?"

I blink my eyes looking around as they adjust back to normal,

"Yeah I am good, I just got a little light headed."

I finish out the rest of the class and I look at my schedule noticing my next class is the Good Vibes and Relaxation class. I sigh and start heading to the crazy man's class. I hesitantly walk in slowly and he greets me again in his awkward yoga outfit. He hugs me saying,

"Welcome back brother, I am glad you made it back."

I sarcastically say,

"Yeeah, me too."

He motions to the changing room,

"You may go change."

I look and see a few of the girls are here already and we smile to each other as I head to go change. When I finish and walk out Ariya is coming out of hers at the same time. I stop looking at her loose fitted clothes remembering all the rumors I heard about her. She stops and looks at me,

"What are you looking at?"

I just just look away and we hear some of the girls chuckling. We start out the class with some more meditation and I keep seeing Ariya glancing over at me with a bit of concern. I look at her asking,

"What?"

She looks away again,

"Nothing"

Then we move on to yoga moves and the different poses. This isn't that bad seeing the females getting in these different poses. Ariya catches me looking at some of the girls and calls me a pervert in her head and calling all guys disgusting. I smirk to Ariya then the teacher comes up behind me placing his hands on my hips to help me get into a better pose. He says,

"If you would pay more attention to the poses than the girls you would get it right."

Ariya chuckles silently and I look to her unamused saying to him,

"Sorry I am just not that flexible."

"Sure you are."

He begins helping me more and it just gets more awkward after that. Then he wants us to break up into partners. He says,

"Which of you ladies wouldn't mind partnering with Fabien here?"

About 4 of them raise their hands and Ariya rolls her eyes. I end up getting partnered with this very attractive Hispanic girl. She has to be a guardian because of how nice and firm her body is. He has us sit back to back and reach back placing our hand on one of each others knees or thigh. Then we would pull our body that direction to stretch our back out. Her hand slides pretty high up my thigh. The teacher says to her,

"Sofia, your hand is too far up his thigh can you move it down a little."

The other girls chuckle again. The class eventually ends and as I am following Ariya out Sofia comes up to me saying,

"We should be partners from now on."

I grin,

"That sounds good to me. I would really like that."

"Yeah I am sorry about my hand being a little too high up your thigh"

I smirk to her saying,

"Now why would you be sorry about that? Your hand wasn't there on purpose now was it?"

She grins looking away. Then Ariya pushes me out of the way as she walks by,

"You are both disgusting."

It's lunchtime again, Ariya and I part ways again. This time when I start heading to the cafeteria, I see Jason and David standing out front talking to each other. I walk up greeting them and convince them to come eat with me. They are hesitant at first because serfs aren't allowed in there but finally decide to join me. When I get my food I get a little extra to share with them.

While we are sitting down eating I can hear all the whispers and people looking over at us. Most of the people don't like that there are eating in the cafeteria with them. I try my best to ignore their rude comments about the serfs, me and my friends. It seems to work for about 5 minutes till a teacher walks up and motions to them saying,

"You two need to leave, you aren't allowed to eat in here."

I say,

"These two are my friends I want them to eat with me."

"You should know serfs aren't allowed to eat in here with the regular students"

I stand getting irritated by this already and say,

"So are you saying my friends aren't good enough to sit in this cafeteria?"

Jason stands between me and the teacher placing a hand on my chest saying,

"It's okay Fabien we will leave." He looks to the teacher "Sorry for causing trouble"

Jason and David start to walk off and I grab Jason's wrist stopping him. Then I get closer to the teacher as he gets a little nervous seeing me so close to him. I say,

"I am a serf, why aren't you making me leave."

"Sir, you shed that title once you became a guardian. I am sorry the rules say they must leave."

I turn grabbing my tray off the table and say to Jason and David,

"Come on apparently our presence is interrupting their meal."

The teacher steps away saying,

"Sir, you must eat here. This is where the students eat."

"So now you are telling me, I can't eat where I want too?" He flinches thinking I am going to hit him as I toss my tray back on the table spilling some of it. "Fuck this, I don't want to eat around all you stuck up bitches anyways."

I walk off bumping the teacher out of the way almost knocking him over. As I am walking out I see Wayne grinning at me and waving bye to me. When I get to the door the meditation teacher is waiting for me. He holds his hand out to me and I step away saying,

"Don't even think about it"

We finally make it outside and I am still fuming about what happened. I am pacing back and forth while they are both trying to calm me down. They tell me that I shouldn't have done that, they know they weren't supposed to be in there. I argue back at them telling them that serfs shouldn't be treated like they are second class citizens. I would rather starve then have my friends treated that way.

There really wasn't enough time to do much after that. We talk for a bit longer till lunch ends. We part ways again and I head to my next class, History of Warfare. Still pretty pissed over what happened and I don't want to deal with this teacher's crap I just sit back quietly and listen to him. Ariya keeps glancing over at me seeing the mood I am and doesn't say anything. Then my stomach growls so loudly that even Ariya heard it. She looks at the teacher acting like she is paying attention then she says to me in her head,

(If you weren't so stubborn and hardheaded you could have eaten.)

I keep my eyes on the teacher and quietly say,

"You should 'really' not talk to me right now."

(You just had to defend those serfs knowing they weren't supposed to be there in the first place.)

I turn towards her leaning in and say,

"Those serfs are my friends. You might want to stop talking."

She looks to me and mentally says,

(Maybe you should try making some friends who aren't the help)

That comment pushes me over and I slam my hands on her desk as I stand. She flinches covering herself thinking she is going to get hit. I look to the teacher saying,

"I am not feeling well, I got to leave before something ugly happens."

I glare to Ariya as I begin walking out. Now she won't even raise her head to look at me. I head down to the restroom to throw some water on my face and calm down. When I walk in I smell the familiar smell of cigarettes. I turn the corner and see a serf crouched down guarding himself.  Andrew is standing over him threatening to burn him with the cigarette.

Without thinking I charge over grabbing Andrew by the back of his head and slam his face into the sink. Blood and a couple of teeth fly out of his mouth as I punch him a couple more times in the face. The serf gets scared and quickly runs out of the restroom. I stand looking down at Andrew's unconscious body bleeding from his mouth and nose. I sigh picking him up and throw him over my shoulder carrying him to the nurses office.

I walk inside and she is leaned over working on another student who hurt his leg. She glances to me seeing Andrew's body draped over my shoulder. She stands in shock asking,

"Oh god, what happened?"

I flop his body on to one of the empty beds saying,

"I slammed his face into one of the sinks."

She hurries over to him and looks down at him, then back to me,

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I don't know. But don't worry I am going to see the Headmaster now"

I walk out and head straight to his office. I don't wait to be invited in and just walk right in. Daniel and Minerva are already in there discussing something important. They both get startled by me busting in. Daniel stands saying,

"Fabien I am busy at the moment, you-"

Minerva stands holding her hand up to Daniel and interrupting him,

"Hold on Daniel, this looks important lets see what he has to say." She holds out one of her hands to me "Come baby, come sit next to me."

I take her hand and sit beside her. She looks at my hand seeing some blood on my knuckles. Again just being near her seems to calm all the anger I have built up inside of me. I look to Daniel saying,

"You might want to suspend me or kick me out. I just beat up Andrew and he is in the nurses office."

Daniel sits asking,

"What; why?"

"Because I am sick of all his shi-." I glance to Minerva not wanting to cuss in front of her for some reason. "Crap. He bullies and hurts all the serfs. This time I caught him burning one with a cigarette. I am just sick of all these people treating the serfs like trash and picking on them never getting in trouble. And your sister is one of the worst."

Minerva says,

"Baby please calm down. What about the other fight you got into?"

"That's something different. I can handle that"

Daniel says,

"Hopefully not by more fighting?"

"I can't-"

Then there is a knock and the nurse immediately enters. She look to me in anger then looks to Daniel motioning to me,

"Daniel, you need to do something about his temper, he really hurt Andrew. His front teeth were knocked out and his jaw was broken. You better hope his parent's don't press charges."

Minerva says,

"Yes Fabien just told us what he did. We are discussing his punishment at the moment."

The nurse glances to me again saying,

"I am not saying Andrew didn't deserve something. Fabien just needs to show some restraint, especially since he is a bonded guardian now." I look to her confused by this change of attitude towards me and they just nod agreeing with her. "I have seen so many serfs and younger students come in hurt by Andrew. We really need to do something about his bullying as well."

Daniel says,

"We will discuss it, thank you for coming in and talking to us Rita."

"You're welcome."

She glances to me with a look of disappointment one last time before she leaves. Daniel leans back in his chair thinking as he looks to me.

"Fabien, I understand how you are feeling."

"No you don't, you have no idea what it is like as a serf."

Minerva says,

"You're right, but I do. I have went through pretty much everything you have. I've dealt with all the prejudice and the hate towards us as well. You just have to brush it off and keep looking forward."

"I can't do that, I am not like you and just sit back and take the abuse. I just want to go back to being just a normal serf again."

"Baby, you have too. Its not going to stop anytime soon. But you have a chance to change things. You can show all these people just how valuable you are. Let these people know that a serf can do anything these spoiled rich kids can do and better. They want you to fail and give up.  Completing this training will be like you spitting in all their faces"

"I do want to spit in their faces"

Daniel smirks at my comment,

"Fabien how would you like it if I held a school meeting with all the teachers and students to talk about the abuse that has been happening to the serfs?"

"Will it help?"

"I think it will. But you have to promise me no more fighting and assaulting the students. If you have a problem with someone come see me or one of your instructors."

"Fine"

"I will talk to Ariya as well about her prejudice against the serfs as well. But just stick with it at least till the year is up. If you still want to break the bond after that then we will discuss it."

"Okay, so no punishment then?"

"Oh yeah you are getting a punishment. You will be spending your lunch break in Mr. Drake's Good Vibes and Relaxation class" I scoff hearing that and he smiles then motions to Minerva "You will also go talk to Minerva every day after your classes are over. Also all of Andrew's doctors and dental bills will be payed for out of your checks."

"Okay. Can I ask why you two are pushing so hard to keep me here and finish my training?"

Minerva says,

"It's not just us, its the Syndicate. You being a savant is a rare occurrence and with you having two spheres they want us to see how you develop through your training. I think this bond will be good for you and it might also change the way society views serfs. But with you aways resorting to violence isn't helping."

"I guess"

Daniel says,

"There can be no more fighting. It is getting really hard for us to keep covering for you."

"Alright"

We finish out our discussion and I head back to the class. I decide to wait out the rest of the class outside. The class eventually ends and Ariya walks out seeing me leaned against the wall waiting. She says,

"Are you okay now?"

I stand off the wall and we start walking,

"Yeah, I had a talk with your brother and Minerva about some issues that need to be dealt with."

She says in a mocking tone,

"Aww, did I hurt your feelings so you had to go tell on me?"

"Nah, I told them whoever replaces me after we break this bond will probably either kill you in your sleep or kill themselves"

She stops looking at me,

"What?"

"Nothing, just go."

We begin walking again and she says to me in her head,

(I really hate you, you're a jerk)

"That's what I have been told."

We walk the rest of the way to class silently. We are meeting in the school's massive gym today. As we get there Tyson and Wayne are standing outside like they are waiting for someone. Wayne sees us walking up and smirks turning towards us. Tyson still tries to look intimidating with his bruised chin. Wayne just walks past me taking hold of Ariya's wrist leading her away saying,

"Babe we need to talk."

Not wanting to get in another fight and still irritated at her from before I just ignore this and keep walking. I can feel the fear rising from Ariya again the further I get away. I walk inside seeing most of the class sitting in the bleachers just waiting for the class to start. Just as I walk in I hear Ariya say in my head,

(Fabien please come back, I am scared.)

I stop in the doorway and sigh contemplating if I should really go back or not. Then I remember the nightmare I had about her and rub my face with frustration shouting,

"Fuck!"

Everyone turns to look at me as I turn to head back. She is backed up against the wall looking away from him in fear. He is leaned over her whispering something in her ear with his hands on both sides blocking her escape. Tyson is turned looking my direction blocking my path to her.

I growl under my breath and charge over to them. Tyson crouches a bit preparing to stop me and I feint like I am going on direction causing him to step that way. Then I spin the other direction around Tyson. I quickly get up to Wayne pulling him away from Ariya and stepping in front of her. Tyson walks up saying,

"Back away boy, you don't want to get beat on again."

I smirk at him motioning to my chin,

"That isn't how I remember it going down." I look to Wayne "Wayne you should leave. Ariya doesn't want to talk to you right now."

He smiles looking to Ariya,

"Aw come on, we were just having a friendly chat, right Ari?"

Ariya keeps her head down leaning it against my back. I say,

"Well its over now"

Tyson begins to step forward and I step up to Wayne feeling her still gripping the back of my shirt and I quietly say,

"I know what you did to her and if you don't leave now I might have to have a chat with her brother."

His eyes widen a bit as I feel her grip tighten on the back of my shirt. He holds up his hand to stop Tyson. Ariya says to me in her head,

(How do you know?)

Wayne steps back holding up his hands in surrender saying,

"Look I don't know what you think I did. But we will stop if that is what she really wants."

Ariya just stays silent hiding behind me holding my shirt. I just glare at Aaron ignoring Tyson beside me. They eventually give in and walk away. I turn around looking at her and her face is all flushed with tear filled eyes. I ask,

"Are you okay?"

"Thank you for coming back for me."

I turn walking off again saying,

"I am your guardian, its my job right?"

We head off to the locker rooms to change into our gym clothes. While I am in there changing I hear her think to herself,

(How does he know what they did it me? Did he read that from my mind too?)

That pretty much confirms to me that the nightmare I had was an actual memory she had. I finish getting dressed head back to the gym. Our school gym clothes are all pretty much the same. They are white and yellow gym shorts or pants and a white t-shirt with the school logo on it. The school logo is a golden hand clutching the sun.

As I am waiting I notice the females walking out in their clothes. I don't know if it was intentional but their gym shorts were skin tight and their shirts hugged their body emphasizing every curve. Most of the guys just stood there and marveled at how good the females looked.

Then Elizabeth walks out with Ariya and Melissa. They are talking and laughing about something. These clothes show off their bodies perfectly and their tank tops barely cover their belly buttons. Except Ariya's again seeming a bit more conservative. She is wearing long sports pants and a t-shirt. They fit her body well showing a bit of her curves. I can't help but stop and say to myself,

"Wow"

I hear a laugh as someone pats my back and quietly says,

"It's a magical sight huh?"

I turn to see Ronald and he guardian Jesse. He smiles to me then looks back to the ladies walking up. Then his gaze turns to Ariya and says,

"You know it's against the rules to date the person you are bonded too."

I give him a look like he said something stupid,

"Yeah I know that, believe me she isn't my type."

"What about her?"

He points to Elizabeth and she glances over noticing him pointing leaned over talking to me. She looks to me and smiles as I nod,

"Oh she is definitely my type"

He chuckles and turns holding out his hand,

"I am Ronald and this is my trusty side kick Jesse."

"Fabien"

We shake hands and he says,

"Yeah everyone knows you; the serf turned savant. I figured you didn't have a lot of friends out here so I figured I would introduce myself."

We talk a bit longer then the class begins. Dominicus and his sister walk up as they start explaining what we will be doing in class. The class will teach us to hone our combat skills and how to use our magic on the fly without very much concentration. They will teach us to fight alone, with our bonded partner, and as a group.

They divide us into our bonded groups having us line up in 3 rows. They come around with a bag full of circular plastic chips labeled either A, B, C, or D. This letter shows what team we will be on. Ariya reaches in the bag pulling out a chip with the letter B on it. We have to go around and find the other groups that have a matching chip.

We end up getting partnered with Ronald and Elizabeth's group. This makes Ariya extremely happy since she gets to be partnered with her good friends Melissa and Elizabeth. I smile because I feel I got partnered with the best looking females out of the whole class even though I dislike 2 of them.

The first part of the class we work on our stretching and Ariya refuses to let me help her and gets Melissa to do it. I end up helping Elizabeth with her stretches which I didn't mind doing one bit. The stretches weren't that bad and brought us pretty close together. One of the stretches she would lie on her back and I would crouch next to her lifting her leg as high as it would go. Another we would sit facing each other with our feet touching and we would hold hands pulling the other person forward. All these stretches allowed me to see how flexible she really is.

After we stretched we worked on cardio and running laps. This wasn't too bad but we had to run at the pace of our bonded partners. I had to constantly slow down to keep the pace with Ariya. Then they started working with people having them use their magic in combat situations. Ariya felt kinds of left out of this not sure how her magic would help in combat.

She was sitting on the bottom row of one of the bleachers just watching everyone. Then I notice Domincus and Starr secretly maneuvering themselves on each side of her holding a dodge ball. Ariya seems too distracted watching her friends practice that she doesn't notice them. Dominicus throws his ball at her really hard and without looking Ariya leans back causing the ball to barely miss her head. She turns looking at him with a grin,

"Ha, you missed."

Then she quickly turns to the other side just in time to get his hard in the face with Starr's ball. Ariya hunches over grabbing her face and I feel her embarrassment and anger rising to the surface. They both rush to her side and I can see blood dripping from the hand holding her face. Ariya looks to them with anger still covering her face saying,

"What the hell!"

I begin walking over as Starr says,

"Sorry we were testing your precognition to see if it could give you better reactions."

Dominicus finishes her sentence saying,

"After seeing that, we think it does you just need more practice with it."

Ariya eyes teared up a bit from the pain and embarrassment saying,

"Next time you should warn me at least if we are practicing."

Starr responds,

"In combat you can never be totally ready for an attack. But we think with your powers we think you can be."

They both look to me as I walk up looking to Ariya with slight concern. I want to find it funny she got hit in the face with the ball. They both say at the same time,

"Can you please escort her to the nurses office?"

I smirk at how in sync they were and turn towards Ariya holding my hand out to her. She slaps it aside saying,

"Don't touch me!"

"Whatever, get up yourself then."

We start walking to the nurses office and she is a few steps behind me. When we get there, there is a note on the door from the nurse saying she will be back. We walk inside and it is empty. Ariya goes over and lies on one of the beds with her head leaned back. I walk over sitting in the nurses chair with my feet propped up on her desk. Ariya speaks to me in her head,

(Thank you again for helping me with Wayne.)

I rotate back and forth in the chair bored saying,

"It's my job right? At least for now anyways. So can you control when you speak to me in my head now?"

(Sometimes its kind of like one of my powers, I still don't have complete control over it yet.)

"Oh, that's cool I guess" She gets quiet for a few minutes and I can feel her nervousness rising a bit. I swivel the chair looking at her asking, "Something wrong?"

(Can I ask you a question?)

"I guess"

(How do you know what Wayne and Tyson did to me?)

I can feel the mixture of her emotions mostly shame and embarrassment. Not wanting to add more to them so I decide to lie saying,

"Well Wayne and Tyson were bullying you. I figured your brother might want to know."

(What, you didn't say-)

The nurse walks in interrupting us. She looks to me saying,

"Fabien get your feet off my desk. Why are you-" She sees Ariya lying down holding her face with a bloody rag. She quickly heads over saying "Oh god, what did Fabien do now?"

Ariya chuckles and I bring my feet down giving the nurse a offended look,

"Why do you automatically assume it was me that did it?"

"Because it usually is you who did it."

I roll my eyes looking away and Ariya chuckles again saying,

"No, it was the teachers that did it. They hit me in the face with a dodge ball."

The nurse pulls the rag away and begins using her healing magic on Ariya's face. She asks,

"Why would they do that?"

I say,

"They wanted to show Ariya that she wasn't useless in combat, which 'apparently' didn't work."

Ariya scowls to me as the nurse says,

"That's a stupid way to do it."

Ariya agrees saying,

"You think?"

"Next time just call Fabien in front of you letting him get hit in the face. He deserves it a lot more than you."

They both grin to me as I scratch my eye with my middle finger flipping her off. The nurse finishes healing Ariya's face and writes us a note to go back to class. When we get back it is nearly over. The last part of the class the teachers tell us about the end of the year tournament. It will be a 3 part tournament. The first part will be between teams A, B, C, and D. The winners of that part will win tickets for an airship cruise during the summer break.

The second part will be between the bonded groups in the class. The winners of that part will receive tickets to see the World Tournaments, showing the best bonded groups from around the world.

The last one is the school championships. The top bonded groups from all the schools in the country will be facing off against each other. They will be competing for a chance to attend Expersia the world's best military training facility. Being trained there guarantees them highest positions where ever they wish to go. The group representing our school this year is Donovan and Samantha.

The class finally ends and I go change then I wait for Ariya to come out. As I am waiting Donovan comes up to me placing his hand on my shoulder saying,

"Walk with me a bit, let's talk."

"Okay"

"I overheard you and Ronald talking about what you thought about the females earlier."

I look to him slightly confused,

"Yeah so?"

"Well you know it is forbidden to date or have romantic feeling for-"

I hold up my hand stopping him,

"Woah woah, we were just talking about how they looked in their gym clothes."

"I understand, I just wanted you to know there are rules against dating your bonded companion."

I laugh rubbing my face in embarrassment,

"Dude, there is no romantic feelings or anything between me and Ariya. We will never be that close I promise you. All I said was she looked hot in her gym outfit."

Donovan grins looking behind me and I can feel slight embarrassment coming from Ariya. I turn seeing her standing behind me with Melissa. Ariya's face is flush with embarrassment. Melissa has a look of disgust on her face and says,

"Wow, pervert."

They walk past us and Ariya can't bring herself to look at me. Donovan laughs and puts his hand on my shoulder apologizing. I roll my eyes and leave heading back to my room. I finish out my day taking a shower then lying in my room studying some more for my abjuration class.

A couple more days go by and Friday eventually comes. I am exhausted from school work and dealing with Ariya's crap still. Nothing seems to be changing with us and we are constantly at each other's throats. It's one of the major topics among the students and some teachers. The only good thing coming out of it is when she doesn't want to be partnered with me in yoga class or during our exercises.

"You're wrong" I say to Ariya just after she answered a question the professor asked her in our History of Warfare class.

Her eyes close with a silent growl already irritated at the sound of my voice. She took in a deep breath and turned to me glaring at me with hatred. The teacher just looked at us in silence. He has learned to avoid us after a few other incidents that happened. I smirked staring back at her challenging her to prove me wrong. She says,

"Everyone knows it's a well-known fact that the war of Dispotia was won by the use of the Diviner's ability to see exactly where they were going to attack from. So they could prepare their defences around how the enemy's assault was going to happen."

"Again you're wrong. If it wasn't for Organen's stealth guerilla tactics assaulting them before they even reaching the base. General Salvatore would have over run them because of their sheer numbers alone."

Her eyes narrowed on mine as another quiet growl comes from her. She studied this war more than any other even wrote many papers on it and the Diviner Henrietta. Henrietta is her idol wanting to be just like her.

"What would a mere slave like you know about anything dealing with Nobles. Why don't you just stick with which type of soap you will be using to clean our toilets."

The class gasped and laughed. I wasted no time and fired back my own insult,

"Wow always the same lame ass insults from you. You couldn't prove me wrong so you had to result to petty name calling and you call me immature. You are nothing but a spoiled little brat who gained her popularity because of who her brother is."

The class gave another gasp and began to whisper to each other excited to see where this fight may go today. Ariya couldn't seem to spit out a retort in time as the teacher nervously cleared his throat saying,

"Alright you two calm down before this gets out of hand. You both sound like an old married couple." the class chuckles at that "But both of you are actually right if it-" The bell rings interrupting him as the class ends.

Everyone begins to stand making their way to the door as the teacher sighs falling back down in his seat. Ariya angerily gathered her stuff and jerked on her bag as she started to stand trying to leave the classroom as quickly as possible. I took a more calm approach almost feeling like I won something by making her so angry. This allowed me to reach the doorway before her. I turned back looking at her with a smirk seeing her backpack had found a way to get tangled in her chair.

I chuckled to myself watching her violently jerk at the unmoving backpack. Ariya looked to me seeing me leaned against the doorway with a smirk waiting on her. Sofia another student who was also in this class walks up to me looking at Ariya with a smile then back to me saying,

"You really know how to get under her skin. It's almost like you enjoy it."

"I kind of do. Seeing her like this does brighten my day a bit."

Sofia chuckles glancing at Ariya once more as Ariya finally pulls her bag free. She looks back to me asking,

"Well I was wondering if you had a girlfriend or a girl you liked?"

I look to her and hesitate most people in her social group would never approach someone like me. Just as I am about to reply a guy comes up putting his arm around her shoulder leaning in saying,

"Better watch out Ariya might go psycho if she saw you talking to her man."

I look to him in disbelief as he grins at me. Ariya scoffs walking up at the point saying,

"Brayden don't be an idiot."

Brayden laughs,

"Man you two just need to kiss and get it over with. The teacher was right you two fight like an old married couple."

I smirk at Ariya as I say,

"That would be a huge mistake because if Ariya and I did kiss she would instantly fall in love with me and that would be annoying for me."

Ariya gasps stepping up to me,

"Oh you think so?"

"I know so"

"Okay let's find out."

She steps closer to me and I try to back up but I am up against the door frame. I totally didn't expect this reaction from her.

"Woah hold on" I say,

"No we are going to kiss and get his out of the way right now, so everyone can just shut up."

She takes another step closer looking up into my eyes and nervousness begins to overtake me. She raises one of her hands bringing it to the side of my face leaning closer. My gaze turns to her supple pink lips. Her fingers sifted through my hair as her hand slid around cupping the back of my head. Her thumb stroked my cheek and my breathing quickened thinking this is actually going to happen.

Everyone grew silent watching us, even the teacher stopped what he was doing to see how this was going to turn out. She brings her lips inches from mine, so close I can feel her breath on mine. Then suddenly she grips my hair into her fist and yanks my head back pulling me out of the room.

"Ow ow ow fuck!" I yelled as I jerked her hand away pulling her to me with her arm behind me. Her body bumped into mine as we sneered at each other. The class laughs as we just glare at each other.

"Okay you two stop!" The teacher yells out to us as we both separate looking away guiltily. "You two need to stop fighting and go to your next class now. And Fabien no more cussing"

"Yes sir" Ariya says as we both turn heading to our next class. At first we are walking silently with anger on our faces. Then she says to me, "Don't ever touch me again and don't think you know more about Henrietta because you don't"

Not even looking at her I say,

"You were the one who touched me. And I may not know as much about her, but you don't know as much as you think you do. Because what I said about that war was right and you know it." She growls and we spend the rest of the day not talking to each other.

About 2 hours go by and I am finally relaxing in my room when I hear the roommates return. They are awfully loud and it sounds like there are more people with them, even some females which usually aren't allowed in the guy's dorm rooms. When I walk out I see the roommates with Jason and David and 3 female serfs. One of the females I dated a while back but ended up breaking it off with her because she was way too clingy for me and always wanted to know where I was 24/7. Her name is Ashley.

The females smile to me seeing me in just my pajama pants without a t-shirt on. David walks over trying to block their line of sight to me and quietly says,

"Come on Fabien, put a shirt on you are making us look bad."

I glance down noticing I forgot to put one on saying,

"Oh sorry"

I start walking to my room and I hear Ashley say,

"Fabien you are looking good now. You should leave the shirt off."

I shake my head and walk back into my room throwing on a shirt. When I come back out they want to drink and play some games since it is the weekend. I pretty much end up playing wingman for them the rest of the night. They try hitting on me and I say I am dating someone at the moment. When they ask who I don't know why but the first name that came out was Ariya. I hesitate looking at the guys but they start going along with it. I just wish I said Elizabeth instead but keep going along with the lie.

5: Weekend Training

The night ends up being a lot of fun and I end up getting pretty drunk. I wake up the next morning with a horrible hangover. Then I glance next to me seeing Ashley passed out next to me in her underwear. I immediately check to see if I am clothed and all I am wearing in my boxers. I sit up rubbing my face wondering what all happened last night. Then I hear loud knocking at the front door.

I groan rolling out of bed trying not to wake Ashley up and stumble to the door. When I open it I see Ronald and Jesse standing there in their work out clothes. I scowl to them still not completely awake with a huge migraine. I say,

"What do you guys want?"

Jesse laughs at me saying,

"Dude, you look like crap."

"Well I was up late drinking and it is not even 7 yet. Why are you two here?"

Ronald says,

"We are supposed to train as a-" He glances past me and sees one of the girls walking by half naked looking for her clothes on the floor. He grins back to me saying, "We are supposed to do team training today. Did Ariya not tell you about it?"

"Hell no, that girl doesn't tell me shit."

He leans over looking past me again at the girl smiling and says,

"Well we are meeting at the training yard if you want, but I understand if you don't want too."

I roll my eyes pushing his head back out of the door way saying as I shut the door,

"Be there in a bit"

I quickly take a shower then change and head over to the training yard. When I get there I am wearing sunglasses and carrying a cup of coffee hoping it will help with the hangover. Elizabeth walks up chuckling and says,

"Wow you look like hell"

"I feel like hell. I am thinking about just going back to bed."

She grabs my free hand pulling me with her,

"No way, I need you to help me stretch again."

I smirk,

"I am sure Ronald or Jesse would love to help you."

"But I would rather have you."

We head over and begin stretching. As I am helping Elizabeth with one of the positions where she is laying on her back and I have one of her legs in the air helping her stretch it. Ronald looks to me with a grin saying,

"Does that position remind you of what you did with those girls in your room last night."

I smirk at him and Jesse asks,

"How many girls were in there?"

Melissa over hears them and says,

"You know it's against the rules for female students to spend the night in a boys dorm."

I say,

"They were serfs and nothing happened... At least I don't think?"

Ariya says to me in her head,

(Men are disgusting)

I look to Ariya,

"Oh, don't be jealous"

She gasps,

"Whatever!"

I continue to help Elizabeth with her stretches then we move on to running laps. Elizabeth and I continue to run beside each other talking and laughing about stuff. She then smiles to me saying,

"We should race."

"Don't you think it would be a little one sided."

"Are you sure about that?"

I smirk remembering what her sphere of magic was,

"No using your magic to make me tired or whatever."

"Aww you are no fun. Fine I wont use my magic then."

"Okay, I will go easy on you."

She grins then we both line up as she counts down. When she gets to one I let her get a few seconds ahead of me then I take off just as I am about to pass her she stumbles hurting her ankle. I run back over to her and crouch down next to her asking,

"Are you okay?"

"I think I sprained my ankle. Ow, it really hurts."

The others walk up as I try helping her stand. She winces in pain falling towards me and I catch her. She looks up to me saying,

"Ow crap! Sorry"

I can feel a bit of jealously coming from Ariya. I smirk looking her direction seeing her just walking away. I look back to Elizabeth,

"Do you think you can walk to the benches?"

"I will try"

She stands again hopping her way towards the benches. She groans in pain again stopping and I pick her up in my arms as she smiles putting her arms around my neck as I carry her the rest of the way over to the benches. I set her down on one side and I sit beside her. Gently I take her foot placing it in my lap removing her shoe. She just smiles to me as I begin rubbing her ankle with some of the ointment from one of the med kits close by. She asks,

"How do you know how to do this?"

"I spend a lot of time in the nurse's office; I have picked up a few things." She winces a bit when I touch the sensitive spot on her ankle. I look to her with concern, "Does it hurt really bad?"

"It's just a little sore but what you are doing feels really good."

I smile,

"If you want maybe I could rub both of them for you."

She starts to say something then Ariya interrupts us saying,

"If you two are done flirting with each other we need to finish our exercises."

I set Elizabeth's foot back foot back down asking,

"Are you going to be okay?"

"Yes thank you."

I help her stand back up and her ankle is still a bit sensitive. I ask,

"Do you still want me to help you with your exercises?"

Ariya cuts her off saying,

"No you are going to help me."

I look to Ariya with confusion as Elizabeth grins at her. I ask,

"What, I thought you didn't want me helping you?"

"Well, we need to do more as bonded partners so we work better as a team."

Ronald says,

"Yeah that does make sense."

I sigh walking away,

"Whatever, come on"

We start doing our exercises then it moves on to us helping each other with sit ups. It almost seems every time I touch her she gives me a look of displeasure. I am leaned down over her knees holding her feet with my hands. Every time she sits up her face comes inches from mine and I begin to smell how good she smells. Then I begin thinking mixed thoughts about her thinking she is actually quite attractive or she smells good. And the sweat glistening on her neck and chest is... Realizing what I am doing I say "Shit" and start readjusting so I am not so close to her when she sits up.

She looks to me curiously asking,

"Whats wrong?"

"Nothing was just getting a cramp in my hand"

Then its time for us to switch and she starts holding my feet down in the same position. As I am doing my sit ups I start feeling a bit of attraction she has for me. Then she thinks (He might be a jerk but he is actually not that bad looking.) Her eyes close in embarrassment as she thinks again (Crap please don't hear that.) I stop in mid sit up and start laughing. She blushes and pushes on my head standing. "Shut up, we are taking a break. I am hungry."

We all take a break and decide to leave school grounds to go eat. After a long discussion between everyone they finally pick a place to go eat. This place is way out of my price range. I say I will just eat something at home. Ronald offers to pay for me but again decline not liking to have people pay for me. Elizabeth wraps her arm around mine pulling me with her telling me I am not allowed to say no. After that I finally give in and join them. How could I ever say no to her.

When we get there I feel so out of place. Everything on the menu is so expensive and its written in a different language. Elizabeth notices I have no idea what I am looking at and laughs.  She leans over looking at my menu helping me find something to eat.

As soon as all the ordering is done its all business as they break into a strategy session about the end of the year tournament. I totally suck at talking strategy and Ariya is okay at giving a few ideas but we pretty much feel left out. They talk about about how Ronald and Elizabeth can use their magic to shut down people on the other teams. I can tell Ariya wishes she had something to contribute and I say,

"Don't forget about Ariya. If she can master her magic she can turn the tide of any fight in our favor."

They quickly jump on board with what I said incorporating her into their strategy. Ariya smiles to me feeling a bit more pride in herself again. We figure the toughest group will be Wayne's. He can dish out a lot of damage very quickly ending the fight fast. He also has Sasha the conjurer. She can control the battle field with monsters, traps, and walls. If she is left alone for too long she can eventually overwhelm us. His last teammate is Craig the life necromancer. He can just sit back keeping his teammates healed and purging all their afflictions making the fight last longer than it should.

Ariya then interrupts them saying,

"But we have a ace up our sleeve." She points to me and they aren't quite sure what she is getting at. She sighs saying "He is a savant, you know a guardian that uses magic. We really have 4 casters on our team."

Elizabeth gets excited leaning over to me asking,

"Oh right, what sphere are you?"

"Abjuration"

Ronald claps his hands with a loud pop startling me and loudly says,

"A guardian with defensive magic, you could be unstoppable! We might have this won already."

We continue to talk about this a bit more and eventually we leave heading back to the training yard. When we get there other teams have showed up to exercise and train as well. We figure this is a good time to test ourselves out on the combat training machines.

These machines allow us to practice our skills using various types of melee weapons against 1 or multiple opponents at once. The melee weapons you are allowed to use vary from swords, to staves, to even long chains with a ball on the end. Pretty much anything you can think of.

I decide to go basic and grab a 1 handed sword like from one of those gladiator movies. I figure the sword would probably be the easiest to learn to use. As I walk up to one of the machines. I notice there is a key pad with numbers ranging from 1 to 10 and a pad to place your hand for it to scan.

I just stare at it trying to make sense of it all. Donovan walks up saying,

"You seem a little lost. Do you want me to show you how it works?"

"Sure, when did we get these? I kind of figured we would be training with other people."

He nods and walks up to the machine saying,

"Well these are kind of new and its pretty much like training with other people. They got tired of people getting hurt in training so they decided to make these. First thing you do is place your hand on the scanner pad thing here"

He places his hand on it and it scans it revealing who he is and his classification which is guardian. It also says who his bonded noble is and also gives him a ranking next to his name which is 7. Then he motions to the other buttons saying,

"See this first row of buttons here? These are for if you are training solo, with your bonded partner, or in a group like your whole team. The second row here is the difficulty level of the fighters they will be putting up against you. If you look at my level which is 7 that's what difficulty of fighters I am at. The last thing you will be entering in will be the number of opponents which also range from 1 to10. After you select all your settings you place you hand back on the scanner to activate it and you are good to go."

"Do you really expect me to fight 10 people at 1 time?"

"In combat you never know. You could end up fighting a lot more than that. But since you are starting out you would start at level 1 with 1 opponent. It wont let you move on to level 2 until you can beat all of level 1 up to 10 opponents." He cancels his options then says "Come on up here, I want you to try it out."

"Alright"

I walk up to the machine and do everything he said. I hit solo, level 1, and 1 opponent. Then I place my hand on the scanners. It begins to count down from 60 seconds so I can get prepared. Donovan motions to a small box painted on the ground saying,

"Stand here"

I walk over standing in the box and a blueish figure made of light appears on the other side holding a sword. I hold up my sword preparing for the countdown to finish. When the count reaches one he charges me and I easily side step its attack hitting him with the sword as he goes by. He immediately spins wildly swinging at my head and I barely duck under it. I retaliate with a stab in his chest. Figuring that would end it I relax a bit. Suddenly he stabs downward with his sword hitting me in the shoulder. The image vanishes and the machine flashes 'You Have Been Defeated' in the air. I look to Donovan with a bit of confusion as he is clapping at me. He says,

"Nice try, you almost had him."

"How did I lose; I hit him twice and he only hit me once."

"Yeah, you have to get 3 successful hits on them before you actually beat them."

"That seems kind of unfair."

"Don't worry, it gets a lot easier. Let me demonstrate."

He walks up to the wall and everyone stops to see this 3 time champion fight. He hits solo, then level 7 with 8 opponents. He activates his choices and grabs a chain for his weapon. A bunch of different colored figures appear wielding different weapons. He get in position and waits for the countdown to finish.

Once the fight begins they all charge him and I can immediately tell the difference in the opponents skill compared to mine. For being such a big guy he is very quick and a lot more agile than I expected. The chain is constantly spinning around him striking in various directions.

He used the chain to disarm one opponent and fling its weapon into another one killing it. He would flip through the air or roll over another one causing them to hit each other. The fight only lasts about 30 seconds before he defeats all of them.

Everyone claps and I am just standing in awe clapping as well at his fighting skill. He walks up to me a bit winded saying,

"It has taken me 3 years to get to this point. I have faith you will be able to do it faster."

I look to his chain then back to my sword saying,

"I am thinking I should switch to the chain. That was awesome."

He laughs,

"You should try them all and use what is most comfortable for you."

I spend the rest of our time out there trying all the weapons I can. The two I liked most are using two swords or cestus. I find that I like to get up close and personal with my opponents. After almost 5 hours of training we decide to end it there.

Everyone is exhausted, sweaty and very sore from this workout. Samantha and Donovan decide to invite us all to a spa for showers, massage and relaxation. I end up catching a ride there with Ronald and Jesse. When we get there the first place I wanted to go was relax in the sauna. I head to the changing rooms to get out of my clothes them make my way to the saunas wearing nothing but a towel around my waist.

After about 5 minutes go by while I am in there and the door opens. I can't really see who is coming in but I hear Tyson's voice say to someone else,

"Move along scrub this is our room."

Tyson and Wayne make their way in. They both freeze when they see me and Wayne smiles his arrogant grin.

"Ah Fabien, just the man I wanted to see."

I sit up expecting a fight. Wayne chuckles holding up his hand to calm me down. He says,

"Calm down tiger, we are just here to relax and talk."

Still looking at them with uncertainty saying,

"I don't really have anything to discuss with either of you."

He sits and leans over pouring some water on a heated rock causing more steam to fill the room.  He says,

"That is fine you can just sit there and listen." He leans back with a relaxing sigh saying, "How would you like to switch teams and join mine for the tournament?"

I chuckle at his audacity to ask me that,

"Are you high or just stupid"

Tyson steps towards me and Wayne puts his hand up stopping him. He then motions to the bench saying

"It's fine Tyson, you need to sit down and relax as well."

I glare up to Tyson still unafraid as he sits next to Wayne. My attention turns back to Wayne saying,

"What makes you think Ariya or I would even consider joining your team? Especially after what you did to her and then you send your attack dog to try and assault me."

"Listen, I only sent Tyson to see how strong you are and if you deserve to be a guardian. Also whatever Ariya told you I 'did' to her was just a lie to hurt me. I care about her and all she did was use me to gain popularity in this school. After she broke up with me and humiliated me in front of the school, I was devastated."

"You can lie all you want, I know what you did. You are sick and deserve to be punished."

"If you don't believe me, go tell her brother. Everyone already knows what really happened. If I really did do something bad why hasn't she said anything?"

"I don't know maybe you threatened her somehow."

He laughs,

"What an imagination you have."

I get irritated and stand. Tyson stands as well getting in my face again and I just ignore him. I say,

"You need to quit bothering her or we won't have to wait till the tournament to-"

Wayne stands looking at me,

"Are you threatening me?"

"I don't make threats; I am just telling you what is going to happen."

His hand lights on fire and suddenly we hear the door begin to open. The fire instantly fades from his hand and Donovan looks in and sees how tense things are in here. He steps in asking,

"What's going on here? Wayne are you bothering Fabien again?"

Wayne turns with a smile patting Tyson on the back saying,

"No sir, it's just competitive talk for the end of year tournament. It was all in good fun I promise."

"Well you are done here." He looks to me "Fabien would you come with me, I have something to discuss with you."

I walk by staring up at Tyson with a sneer. As we walk off down the hall a bit Donovan asks,

"What's the deal with you two?"

"I don't know, Wayne just gets on my damn nerves."

"Wayne has a very big ego and is very competitive as well. He really isn't a bad guy and his family has done a lot for this school."

"Well he has been harassing Ariya and she is terrified of him and Tyson."

"What, I figured he would be over her by now after she broke his heart."

I look to him dumbfounded he believes all the stuff Wayne has made up about her.

"Don't tell me you believe that shit too?"

"Fabien I was there when it happened, it was pretty bad. She made Wayne cry in front of the whole school."

"He deserves a lot worse than that, he is a bastard for what he did."

"What do you mean?"

I stop and look at him reluctantly wondering if I should actually say anything. I take in a deep breath looking around making sure no one is watching then say,

"Wayne raped her and Tyson helped"

He gets a stunned look on his face as he looks around also seeing if anyone heard. Then he quietly says,

"Did she tell you that?"

"No, I saw it in a dream. I think it was her memory or something. Now she is terrified every time they come around."

"A dream? Fabien you can't accuse someone of that over a dream. He maybe a little stalkerish and that may scare her, but rape?" My fist clenches as I begin getting pissed wanting to punch him for siding with Wayne. He continues saying, "Listen Fabien, I will tell him to back off. But you cant accuse someone of rape over a dream you had, no matter how much you hate them."

As he is talking I am overwhelmed by feelings coming from Ariya. I look around and catch a glimpse of her going back into a room closing the door behind her. I close my eyes with a groan realizing she heard what he said. My hands rub through my hair rapidly in frustration saying,

"Damn it, whatever but don't expect me to get along with him."

We talk a bit more as we make it to the massage room. We both lie face down on the tables next to each other. I try my hardest to enjoy the massage and take my mind off everything but I am still being flooded with emotions from Ariya. Then I hear in my mind,

(How did you know?... Did you read that from my mind as well?... Please don't tell my brother, I don't want him involved.)

Suddenly I get snapped out of it when Donovan pushes on me saying,

"Fabien, did you fall asleep?"

I sit up rubbing my face,

"No sorry, whats up?"

"The massage is done; did you hear anything I said?"

"No, sorry"

I stand and we begin walking out as he says,

"Well I was saying, the headmaster asked me to personally train you myself. He has taken a personal interest in you, probably because you are bonded with his sister."

"That's cool, I would actually like that."

"It's not going to be easy. I like to start at about 5am till 7 giving us enough time to shower and eat before classes start."

I look to him not thrilled about waking up that early,

"5am, that's really early. My roommates like to stay up late and are pretty loud."

"Well tell them to keep it down so you can sleep."

I smirk,

"Fine, I guess I will do it."

"Good. Also, hows your abjuration training coming along?"

"Okay I guess, I can harden my skin and make myself resistant to some elements. But it takes pretty much all of my concentration. I don't think I can use it in a combat situation yet."

"We will work on that as well, man what I would give for your abilities."

We continue talking as we make our way back to the showers and the locker rooms. When we walk around the corner I bump into Elizabeth knocking her back. She begins to fall back and I quickly catch her so she doesn't hit the ground. The sudden stop causes her towel to fall to the floor. Her eyes widen and lunges up hugging on to me using my body to hide her body.

I freeze feeling her body and bare breasts pressed against my chest. Donovan gets a look of shock as he bends down grabbing her towel. She quickly takes the towel and spins facing away from me giving me a very brief view of her naked backside before wrapping up in the towel. She looks back at me flush from embarrassment and says,

"Sorry, I kind of panicked"

I nervously chuckle rubbing the back of my head with my hand saying,

"Oh it's okay really. I am really sorry for that."

She pats my chest as she walks by smiling,

"It's fine, was the best part of my day so far."

Donovan and I both chuckle as we watch her walk off. She looks back at me with a smile. Donovan grabs my shoulder and laughs,

"It's never a dull moment with you. I kind of think she likes you."

I smile to him,

"You think?"

"Ohh yeah"

We make it to the showers and finally change. The rest of the day goes by and I head back to my dorm. When I enter I see everyone there having another one of their crazy parties. Apparently they are in the middle of playing truth or dare as one of the girls is leaned against the kitchen counter making out with Akane. I rub my eyes shaking my head at how crazy these people are. They get excited to see me especially Ashley who stands up taking my hand,

"Fabien, I am so glad you are here. You should join us and play some games."

"Sorry, not tonight I am exhausted from training. I think I am going to lay down."

She smiles,

"Would you like a massage or something?"

"Just had one but thanks anyways."

She pouts a bit as I walk off to my room. As I enter my room I just fall on my bed exhausted. A minute later there is a knock and Markus peeks in.

"You okay? Sorry to startle you with that sight."

"It's fine, I just wasn't expecting a lesbian show when I walked in."

He laughs walking the rest of the way in,

"It looked nice right?"

I grin,

"Whatever man. My friends are horrible influences on you two."

"You sure you don't want to join us? It's a smaller group tonight there is only us and the three girls."

"Not tonight man, you have fun. Maybe you will get lucky."

"I hope so. Alright, goodnight"

 

He walks out and I put on my headphones to tone them out as I fall asleep. 

6: Trust Forming

Again the next morning I wake up with Ashley asleep in my bed. This time she is wearing one of my t-shirts and underwear cuddled up against me. I am still in the clothes from yesterday.

I sneak out of the bed to shower and brush my teeth. As I walk out I see Akane cleaning up the living room. She smiles and bows to me saying,

"Good morning master."

"Morning Akane"

The place is trashed. There are clothes everywhere both guys and girls clothes. I head to the restroom to do my business. As I am drying off from the shower I hear knocking at the front door. I put the towel around me and head to the door to answer it hoping they don't want to practice again. When I get to the end of the hallway I see Akane answer the door saying,

"Welcome to my master's sanctum, how may I serve you."

I chuckle and grin at how she answered the door. Then I hear Ariya's voice sounding like she doesn't know how to react to Akane asking,

"Um, thi- this is Fabien's room right?"

Akane gestures for her to enter saying,

"Yes, Master Fabien is right here. Please come in."

Ariya walks in slowly looking at the aftermath from last night's party. She follows a trail of clothes with her eyes up to me standing in my towel. Her eyes widen as she quickly looks away,

"Fabien where are your clothes?"

I look down and realize I am still in a towel,

"Oh, right sorry. Let me go change."

I head back in my room and begin changing. Ashley wakes up while I am in the middle of putting on some boxers. She smiles saying,

"Well good morning to me."

I smirk,

"Morning, why are you in my room again?"

"I missed you, don't you miss me?"

I slide on a shirt saying,

"I really don't have time to discuss it, I have company waiting."

"Oh your girlfriend?"

I hesitate then say,

"Yeah, whatever."

I finish dressing and walk out to see Ariya and Akane talking as Akane continues cleaning. Akane is in the middle of explaining how we are all her masters and what she does to please us. I interrupt her saying,

"Akane enough talking, please just finish cleaning."

She bows to me,

"Yes Master Fabien."

I look to Ariya and she has an amused look on her face. She says,

"Wow, you and your roommates are kind of disgusting."

"It's really not like that, they-"

I get interrupted by Ashley walking out of my room half naked. Ariya looks to her then back to me with an accusing look crossing her arms. Ashley not yet noticing us says,

"Fabien, have you seen my-" She finally notices us and looks to Ariya "Oh you must be Ariya, Fabien's girlfriend." Ariya glares back at me and I chuckle nervously. Ashley thinks I might be in trouble and says, "Oh don't worry nothing happened. I just slept with him last night."

My eyes close tightly because she didn't make it sound any better. I rub my eyes with one hand asking,

"Ashley could you go back in the room so I could talk to Ariya."

"Oh, okay"

She bends down picking some clothes off the floor giving me an apologetic look before stepping back in my room. Ariya looking a bit more upset now says,

"Girlfriend, really?"

I step towards her saying,

"It's a misunderstanding really."

"You bet your butt it is."

I try and change the subject asking,

"So, why are you here?"

"Oh, well I wanted to talk to you about some stuff, but I can see you are busy-" She looks around at the mess and continues "with whatever you have going on here. I am pretty sure it's against the rules."

I chuckle,

"It's not.. I mean.. whatever, I am not busy. What-"

Now Mikey's door opens as we hear giggling as him and another one of the females come out kissing. Of course they are both half naked as well. They both notice us and the girl turns with a smile motioning at Ariya,

"Hey, it's Fabien's girlfriend."

Ariya rolls her eyes with a scoff as she turns to the door saying,

"Goodbye Fabien"

I glare at Mikey as he mouths the words "I'm sorry" to me. She walks out and I chase her in the hall saying,

"Ariya wait!"

She turns looking at me pretty upset now. With a raised voice she says,

"Just go back in there to your sick little orgy or whatever you got going on." She begins walking off talking to herself "It was stupid for me to come here."

"It's not like that, it's..." I sigh rushing up beside her grabbing her hand "You know what never mind. Ariya talk to me."

She turns again stepping towards me almost shouting now,

"How many people have you told that I am your girlfriend?"

Now we hear a few chuckles and some oohs. We both looks around noticing we attracted a crowd. Then I hear Andrew say,

"Shame shame Fabien, dating your bonded partner is a big no no."

She sighs deeply and says,

"Well great"

She hurries off again and I chase after her saying to everyone as I pass by,

"We really aren't dating"

I catch up to her again grabbing her hand stopping her once more,

"Damn it Ariya stop. Talk to me, what's wrong?"

She jerks her hand away,

"Don't touch me!"

"Then tell me what you want. Don't make me read your mind."

"Don't you dare."

"Then talk"

She looks around to everyone still watching us,

"Fine but not here."

We both end up leaving and she rents a sky carriage to fly us around for a while. I can feel her nervousness and then she looks up to me asking,

"How did you find out what Wayne did to me?"

I scratch my head knowing this has to be a very uncomfortable subject for her,

"I think I saw your memory of it as I was dreaming."

"And you assumed it was real?"

"At first I wasn't sure, till I started feeling how scared you were around him. Plus seeing your reaction when I brought it up helped. But when you kept asking about it in your head pretty much confirmed it."

She turns looking out the window,

"Dang it I really hate that you can read my thoughts."

"Can I ask why you haven't told anyone about what happened?"

"Well I wanted too but Wayne threatened my brother's job. He said his parents could get him fired or even worse."

I clench my fist getting even more angry then ask,

"How could they do that?"

"Well everyone knows his parents are big political figures. They could get him fired or even arrested for something he didn't even do."

I growl,

"Now I hate him even more. You know people have said some pretty horrible things about how you two broke up."

"Yeah I know, he played it off well. I would have never done anything like that. I was... I actually thought I was in love with him till he did that to me. We did have a huge argument in front of the school. When he knew everyone was watching he made me look like the bad person. Fabien please, you cannot tell anyone about this."

I just look at her a second knowing she is sincerely scared for her brother. I growl again hitting the side of the carriage with the side of my fist,

"Fuck, I really want to beat their asses for what they did!" I sigh deeply saying "Okay, I won't say anything. But if they bother you or even look at you the wrong way, you better tell me. I am your guardian, I'm going to do my job and protect you."

"For now."

"What?"

"For now you mean. You are only my guardian till the year is up then we are breaking it. Right?"

"Oh right, yeah I guess."

"You still want too right?"

I nod,

"Yeah, yeah of course I do. It's what you want right?"

I feel a bit of reluctance come over her as she says,

"Yeah I do." I look at her almost not believing she wants too break this anymore. Then she says "Thank you Fabien, you're not as much of a jerk as I thought you were."

I smirk,

"Yes I am"

She chuckles,

"Yeah you are right. Let's get you back home to whatever that was going on there."

"Nah I am good. I will make sure you get home okay then stop and grab me something to eat. I think I want to avoid my dorm for a while. My roommates are pretty crazy."

She smirks while giving me a look of disbelief. We talk for a bit longer on the way back to the dorms. On the way back I ask,

"You know, we might not be very close or anything. But if you ever want to talk to me about what happened you can."

"I don't think I really feel comfortable talking about it with you."

"That's fine. Does anyone else know?"

"Melissa does. Her and you are the only ones who do, and I really want to keep it that way."

"Don't worry I wont say anything. Well anyways it's good you have a friend to talk too."

"Yeah I don't know what I would have done if she wasn't there for me."

We make it back and I walk her up to the entrance. She begins walking inside then stops and looks back at me.

"What are you going to do now?"

I look down at the road saying,

"I don't know probably stop by a convenience store and grab a hot dog or something."

She gives displeased look,

"How about you come up with me and eat some real food. You can stay here for a while since you want to avoid your dorm."

"Are you sure that's okay?"

She takes my hand pulling me with her,

"Yeah it is, come on."

I smirk and follow her in. Normally the golems wouldn't allow me to enter the female dorms but since I am her bonded guardian and with her it does. We walk further in. Then I begin to wonder how she got in the boys dorm without me there to escort her. I ask,

"How did you get past the golem at my dorm? I thought females weren't allowed in unless they gained permission or with their bonded partner."

She grins,

"Being the Headmaster's little sister has it's perks. I know all the secret phrases to get in anywhere I want."

"Wow" I say with a chuckle then I glance down seeing her still holding my hand pulling me with her. "You might want to let go of my hand. We don't want the rumors about us to start here as well."

She glances to our hands then quickly lets go saying,

"Oh right, definitely don't want that."

As I am walking through I see all the females looking at us and there is a mixture of different pleasant smells filling the hallway. I have always wanted to see what the female dorms looked like. There is actually some whispers about us dating that I decide to keep to myself.

We finally get up to her room and enter. Sitting in the living room watching TV is Melissa and Elizabeth. Melissa looks to me in disgust saying,

"Why is that here?"

Ariya says,

"Be nice, he can't go home right now so I invited him here to eat."

Melissa scoffs turning back around and Elizabeth smiles saying,

"Hello, my hero."

Ariya rolls her eyes walking off to the kitchen area. Melissa asks,

"What did he do?"

"He saved me from embarrassment at the spa."

Ariya says from the kitchen,

"He made her drop her towel so she held on to him hiding her breasts from everyone else."

Elizabeth and I smile to each other as Melissa clicks her tongue saying,

"Perverts the both of you"

Elizabeth kicks at her from across the couch,

"Don't be jealous"

Melissa laughs looking at me,

"Of him, as if"

We sit and talk for a while as we eat. I can almost feel like Ariya is opening up to me more now that she shared what she did with me. Now I can actually beginning to tolerate her more. Elizabeth and I have some more playful flirting back and forth repulsing the other two. I finish eating and head back to my dorm. Elizabeth decides to follow me and talking to me all the way back. Being Ariya's friend I guess Ariya told her the secret phrase to get past the golem as well. We get to my room and I say good by to her she waves to Markus lounged on the couch before leaving. When I walk in Markus grins at me saying,

"What's up pimp? You wake up with a girl in your bed, leave with another, and then come home with a different girl. Man you are good."

I chuckle,

"Whatever man, where is everyone?"

"I don't know, I think they went to a show or something. I think that Ashley girl likes you."

"Yeah, been there not going back. Well I am going to study, please don't let anyone disturb me."

I turn to walk off and he stops me,

"Hey before you leave. My bonding ritual is coming up, would you want to come watch?"

"Sure, I will ask to see if I can. You know I never really learned what sphere you are?"

"Transmutation, you know the shape changing magic."

"Nice, sounds useful."

"Hows yours coming along?"

"Not very well, I mean I can do a little but it requires pretty much all my concentration to keep it going."

"You should take Mr. Drake's meditation class it really helped me a lot."

"Oh I am in it, the guy freaks me out always touching me and shit."

Markus laughs,

"Yeah he does that to everyone. You will get use to it."

"I don't know about that."

We finish talking and I head to my room to study. As I am working on my abjuration magic my phone begins going off. I look and see it's from an unknown number. I answer,

"Hello"

I hear Ariya's voice on the other line,

"Is this Fabien?"

"Yeah, how did you get my number?"

"Daniel gave it to me."

She gets quiet for a second and I can feel her nervousness. I ask,

"Soooo, why did you call me? Can't you just talk to me in my head?"

"Well you can't talk back. I am not bothering you am I?"

"No not really, what did you want to talk about?"

"Oh, I just wanted to thank you for everything you have done for me lately. I know we have never really got along"

"Yeah you can say that again."

"Can I ask what all you saw in your dream?"

"Not much really, I mean you were being held down by Tyson and - " I feel her emotions flooding into me and I hesitate then say "Are you sure you want to talk about this?"

"Did you see everything he did to me?"

"No, I woke up as he was just stripping you and kissing you. Don't worry I didn't see you naked if that's what you are worried about. Did he really hurt you? Is that why you wear all the long sleeve shirts and pants?"

She hesitates and I start to hear sadness in her voice,

"I just feel sick every time I look at my body. Also I don't want people to look at me like that anymore. It just makes my skin crawl thinking about them looking at me like that."

"But you don't seem that freaked out around me. I mean I feel your discomfort at times but it doesn't seem as bad as you say."

"Yeah well I guess it's because I don't see you as a guy like them. Or someone I would ever want to see me that way."

"Wow, thanks."

"Sorry that came out wrong. I mean you're-'

"A serf?"

"My guardian"

The more we continue to talk feeling all her emotions and hearing her cry on the phone actually begin to make me tear up thinking about what she went through. I cuss myself in my head thinking this girl is turning me into a panzy making me tear up like this. She actually ends up falling asleep from talking to me on the phone for so long.

The next couple of months go by pretty well. Wayne and Tyson seemed to back off a bit. I figure Donovan had a talk with them. Donovan and I continue our training every morning. On the training machines I end up getting to level 2 with 5 opponents ahead of everyone else. The closest person to me is Tyson at level 2 with 3 opponents. Donovan finally makes it to rank 8 which is a school record.

I have grown fond of the cestus or punching daggers over all the other weapons. My magic training has advanced as well. I learned to manifest an invisible force shield to protect me from in coming attacks. Its very reactionary and I have to know the attack is coming. But mostly I rely on my speed and agility to dodge any attack coming at me.

The meditation class is slowly growing on me. It has really helped my concentration with my magic. Mr. Drake ends up bringing his wife in one time to have her teach us some stuff. She is a lot like him hugging people and talking in her monotone voice.

Ariya and I have grown a bit closer as friends. Every now and then one of us will still say or do something to piss the other off. She makes me laugh because no matter how pissed she gets she won't cuss, like it makes her look lower class or something. We spend a lot of time practicing together not taking any other partners.

Minerva found out more information on the savants of the past. Apparently all the savants come from the same bloodline. Since I never knew my birth parents or even who they are I have no way to find out anything. She still hasn't found out the other sphere I am linked too. But after hearing about certain instances and stories I told her she thinks it might be Divination like Ariya.

One weekend while I am getting dressed to go out to eat with my teammates for our weekly strategy session. Mikey knocks and walks in my room asking,

"Hey Fabien"

"What's up Mikey."

"I know you have been kind of avoiding the parties we have been having. But my birthday is coming up and I would really like for you to be there. You can bring your teammates if you want?"

"Sure man I will go. I am going to meet with my teammates now and I will ask them if they want to go as well."

"Cool, thanks a lot!

He leaves and I head out meeting up with Ronald and Jesse to go get the girls. As we are making our way up to their dorm room I am stopped by a female handing me a note. She says its from her friend then runs off. I smirk and begin reading it while Jesse looks over my shoulder. Apparently some girl has a crush on me but is too scared to approach me personally.

Ariya sees us walking us walking in the hall as I am reading the note. She walks up wearing a nice looking yellow and white sundress with no shoes asking,

"What are you reading?"

Jesse smiles saying,

"A love note from one of his secret admirers."

She grins and snatches the note from my hands,

"Oh let me see!"

She begins reading it and I try to grab it back. She turns facing away from me and I try reaching around her. She squirms away laughing then runs off to her room. I chase her inside and she tries running around her couch. I finally catch her lifting her in the air dropping her on the couch. As I sit on her so she cant get away and she struggles not letting me grab the note. I finally catch her hands pinning them over her head. She looks up to me leaning over here and I guess a she flashes back to what happened with Wayne and Tyson. She becomes overwhelmed with fear as she struggles harder saying,

"Fabien get of me! GET OFF!

Feeling her fear I let go standing up as she shoves me aside and runs off to the restroom. Ronald steps in at the time asking,

"What happened?"

I look to him knowing she wouldn't want me to tell him and say,

"I think I accidently hurt her. Still not use to all this new strength I have."

"Oh"

Melissa walks out of her room hearing the bathroom door slam she looks to us,

"What was all that noise?"

Ronald grins saying,

"Just some sexy wrestling between Fabien and Ariya that got out of hand."

"Well be quiet, Elizabeth isn't feeling good and is sleeping."

I say,

"Sorry"

A few minutes go by as we are waiting for Ariya to come out of the restroom. I hear in my head,

(Can you come here?)

I stand saying,

"I will be right-"

Suddenly appear in the restroom. Never actually been summoned before it gives me a crazy head rush. As I begin to steady myself I see her sitting on the toilet. I immediately turn facing away,

"Woah, sorry"

"Don't worry I am not using the restroom." I turn back around as she looks up to me saying, "I am sorry for freaking out like that"

"It's okay, I shouldn't have held you down like that. I should have known better."

"I really don't know why I panicked like that."

I crouch down in front of her leaning back against the wall,

"You went through a very traumatic event. It's probably going to take a while before you actually get over something like that."

"Please don't let anyone know why I ran in here."

"I told them I accidently hurt you while wrestling. But Ariya, you know I would never hurt you like that. You have no reason to be scared of me."

"I know, but you do get pretty scary when you are angry."

I chuckle,

"I mean there are times you piss me off so bad I want to push you down a flight of steps, but I don't"

She chuckles wiping a bit of tears from her eyes,

"God you don't know how bad you make me want to cuss sometimes."

"You should do it, it will make you feel 10 times, no 100 times better if you do."

She gives me a disbelieving smirk,

"I don't know about that. We were always taught cussing makes you less refined."

"Come on try it. Call me an asshole."

She laughs,

"No"

"Come on don't be a pussy, call me an asshole. You know you want too."

She gasps,

"Jerk, no I am not saying that."

I sit up pushing on her leg,

"Chicken shit"

She laughs and kicks at me,

"Stop!"

I catch her foot and grin at her,

"Fine we will do it this way then."

I begin tickling the bottom of her foot. She squeals and begins squirming around laughing.

"No Fabien stop!"

I laugh,

"Not till you call me an asshole"

She continues to squirm sliding off the toilet as my tickling begins moving up her legs to her sides. Her laughing quickly turns to panic as I guess she has no control over what is going on as she really begins to struggle. She shouts,

"Stop! Let go! Fabien please stop!"

The restroom door busts open as Melissa charges in and quickly grabs me pulling me away from Ariya pinning me against the wall. She hits me twice in the face before Ariya yells,

"Melissa no!"

Her hits were so hard I was seeing stars and I know I am probably going to have a black eye. Still holding me pinned against the wall she turns looking at Ariya. Everyone is standing in the doorway seeing what was going on. Ariya sits up wiping her eyes again saying,

"Let him go, he wasn't hurting me."

She hesitantly lets go as I slide down the wall holding my eye groaning in pain. Melissa says,

"Sorry I thought -"

Ariya gives a slight chuckle saying,

"No Fabien was just being an asshole and wouldn't quit tickling me."

They all look at her in disbelief hearing her cuss and I chuckle hearing her finally call me an asshole. Elizabeth got woke up by all the commotion and walks out with a blanket around her looking very rough saying with a gruff voice,

"What's going on?"

Melissa leans down helping Ariya up saying,

"Nothing babe, just go back to bed. Its just Fabien being an idiot."

Elizabeth covers her head with her blanket to hide her bedraggled appearance from me saying,

"Crap, he's here?"

I laugh as I slowly begin to stand still holding my eye,

"Yeah, kind of regretting coming over now."

"Well if I knew you were coming over I wouldn't have come out looking like this."

I chuckle making my way over to her I pull down her blanket from her face,

"Even on your worst day you look 100 times better than the other girls here."

She laughs as both Ariya and Melissa gasp. Ariya says,

"Okay Melissa hit him again."

Elizabeth reaches up touching my already bruising eye,

"What happened to your face."

"It's just a reminder to never piss Melissa off."

Melissa says,

"You got that right"

We all eventually leave to eat without Elizabeth because she is sick. Ariya keeps chuckling at me seeing me pressing my cold drink against my eye telling me I deserved that. While we are out I eventually bring up the party to them all. The girls are hesitant about it knowing how crazy the parties have gotten before. Ronald and Jesse were a lot easier to convince to go. I promise them that I wont let things get too out of hand this time. Ariya finally agrees to go which in turn Melissa agrees as well.

We finish our little strategy session then head back to our rooms. I tell them that they should meet up at our dorm around 6. Also I make sure and tell Mikey that they don't want things to get too crazy like they have been. He agrees saying he wants to keep it a lot simpler and just having his friends there.

About 5:30 everyone begins showing up. Most of the people even brought gifts for him. Akane pretty much greets everyone that enters and serves us all drinks and snacks. It actually is going pretty well and no where near as wild as the parties have been. Most the games we play are like charades and trivia games. The party dies down a bit after a few people leave. I walk over seeing Ariya and Ashley talking. When I get close they quiet down smiling at each other which makes me skeptical. I look to them both asking,

"Ladies, what's going on?"

Ashley grins saying,

"I was just talking to your girlfriend here about when we use to date."

I narrow my eyes at Ariya as she smiles looking away taking a drink of her soda. I ask,

"And what did you tell my girlfriend?"

"You were pretty much bad at dating but great at everything else."

"I don't think I was bad at dating."

"You never wanted to go anywhere and when I finally convinced you to go somewhere we would always take me to the stupidest places." She looks back to Ariya "He once took me to this comedy act with puppets, it was so terrible people were getting up and leaving. But he thought it hilarious."

Ariya chuckles and I ask,

"So why did you stay with me then if I was so horrible at dating?"

"Like I said you were great at everything else."

I look to Ariya and she is blushing a bit still not able to make eye contact with me. I can feel a slight curiosity coming from Ariya which makes me want to keep this going. I say,

"I'm not exactly sure what you mean by everything else."

She glances back to Ariya saying,

"You know, don't make me get into details in front of her."

Ariya looks to her saying,

"Yeah, I don't really need to know about that."

Still curious I ask,

"And what made you two get on this subject about me?"

Ashley says,

"Oh I just asked how far you two have got together."

I glance to Ariya with a smirk and her eyes widen and quickly interjects saying,

"And I told her we were taking things slow. We haven't done a lot yet."

My smile widens at how much she lied about this. She again gets embarrassed looking away from me. Then Ashley asks,

"You two have kissed though right?"

We look to each other and I smirk wanting to see what she will say. She hesitates,

"We...uh."

Ashley looks to me almost in shock asking,

"You two haven't kissed?"

I chuckle saying,

"Well like she said we are trying to take things slowly and we are really aren't supposed to be together so we are trying to keep it on the down low."

She laughs and just as she is going to say something the power flickers then goes out. A voice over the intercoms say that there is a really bad storm hitting and for all of us to stay indoors. I can feel a bit of nervousness coming from Ariya as she looks up at the flickering lights. I look to her asking,

"Are you okay?"

"Sorry I don't do well with storms."

Melissa comes over knowing about this taking Ariya's hand. We all sit down together and they light some candles. Ariya is sitting beside me on the couch while we all begin talking about whatever. It doesn't take long for everyone to start getting tired. Ariya is one as well as I catch her dozing in and out of sleep. I look at her saying,

"Why don't you just go lay down in my room till they say its okay to leave?"

"No way, I am not going in your room. I will be fine."

I chuckle,

"Whatever, just trying to be nice"

We all continue talking for about an hour and some people just fall asleep on the floor. I feel Ariya lean over as she falls asleep leaning against my shoulder. I wait a bit for her to be fully asleep before I turn and effortlessly pick her up in my arms. She turns putting an arm around my neck as I carry her to my room and gently lie her on my bed to not wake her. Feeling a bit tired myself I just lie beside her dozing off myself.

I don't know how long I was asleep but I get woke up by her talking in my head thinking,

(I am really glad I got you for my guardian.)

My eyes open seeing her looking back at me as we are facing each other. Just as she is going to say something to me a loud thunder clap goes off. Her eyes tightly close as she tenses up. I slide over putting my arm around her as she holds on to me with her head buried into my chest. I feel her fear lessen a bit and I can smell how good she smells now. My heart begins to race a bit.  I close my eyes thinking,

"I can't like this girl. There are a thousand reasons why I can't like this girl"

I feel her squeeze me a bit tighter as she asks,

"Do you still regret getting bonded with me?"

"Not really, you have kind of grown on me"

She looks up to me noticing how close we are then stands up out of the bed and moves over sitting in my computer chair pulling her knees up to her chest.,

"So you still don't think I am a bitch?"

I sit up leaning against the head board of my bed,

"No you are still a bitch. Now I think that's one of the things I actually like about you now." She smiles and another bit of thunder goes off as she closes her eyes. I ask,

"Are you okay?"

"Like I said I don't do well with storms."

"Wow you are just full of different problems huh?" She hesitates then rests her forehead on her knees. I close my eyes realizing I said something stupid. "Sorry"

"It's okay, you are right. I am a mess and full of so many problems. Do you think I am crazy?"

I give her a reassuring smile,

"We are all a little crazy. Look at me, I can go from happy to angry psycho in seconds."

She chuckles raising her head looking back to me,

"Yeah you can be kind of scary sometimes. With all my problems that you have seen me have and me being a bitch like you say. Do you think I could ever have a normal relationship again?"

"You are going to get over this. It may take some time but I am sure you will be able to move past this. As for guys, I am sure there are quite a few them out there that want to ask you out but are too intimidated too."

She laughs,

"Whatever, who would be intimidated by me? I am barely 5 foot and barley 100 pounds."

"But you are hot and everyone you hang around is hot. That can be intimidating for us guys to approach someone like you."

She laughs again,

"You are so full of it, now you are just trying to make me feel better."

I smile thinking I was actually being truthful but I will let her believe I was just trying to cheer her up. I say,

"It's working though right?"

She smiles,

"A little bit"

We continue talking for a while till Melissa finally comes in to take Ariya back home. A couple more months go by and we become pretty good friends. I almost talk to her more than anyone else. Of course we are bonded so we have to do a lot together anyways. Markus ends up doing his bonding ritual and gets bonded with a guy named Michael. Ariya and Michael seem to hit it off well when she comes over to hang out. He makes her laugh a lot which is great in my book. One day she calls me asking,

"So what do you think of Michael?"

"He is cool, why?"

"He asked me out."

I feel a bit of nervousness coming from her and I say,

"That's great, its what you wanted right? So what did you say?"

"I didn't give him an answer yet. I am not really sure if I am ready for another relationship. I think I have just been lonely."

"How could you be lonely with me around?"

She laughs,

"You know what I mean. I just don't think I can be in one right now."

"Then tell him that. I am sure he will understand."

"Yeah I guess. You know Elizabeth likes you."

"Did she tell you that?"

"Yeah, and it's pretty obvious the way she looks at you. Maybe you two could go out or something. You are single right?"

"Well other than my pretend girlfriend yeah I am." She chuckles knowing I am talking about her "But you know that could never happen with me and Elizabeth."

"Why not?"

"I am a serf"

"Not anymore, you're a guardian now."

"By title yeah, but I have no wealth, no rich family. Hell I live at this school. You know as well as I do her family would never let her date me."

I feel a bit of remorse from her,

"Yeah I guess"

Several days end up going by and she is really considering saying yes to Michael. I can tell she really likes this guy but is extremely nervous to get close to anyone again. She catches me alone one day saying,

"Okay, I want to say yes to Michael."

"Are you sure you are ready for that?"

"I think so... I mean... I don't know, I still get weirded out when you touch me."

"Well I am a weird person that's understandable."

She pushes me smiling,

"Shut up, you know what I mean. How am I supposed to get into any sort of relationship with someone if I can't touch them without feeling sick or my skin crawling."

"Then wait, your what 18 or 19?"

"I am almost 18"

"You're 17; I figured you were at least 18"

"I will be 18 in August. So do you think I should try going out with him. I am just so nervous I will get hurt again."

"You have no reason to jump back into something until you are ready."

"It's been almost two years. How long do you think I should wait?"

"As long as you need too. I'm sure there is no set time on when you recover from this."

"I don't know I really like him and he seems great don't you think?"

"Yeah he is a cool guy. Listen I am here for you and I know Melissa is too. Anything you need just let us know. Does she know that I know what happened to you?"

"Yeah. Again thank you for helping me through this."

"You are welcome. But I really think you should talk to someone like maybe Minerva she might-"

She raises her voice,

"No, I can't talk to her! She will tell Daniel what happened." She starts to walk off "It's fine if you don't want to help me anymore"

I grab her hand stopping her,

"Ariya" She jerks he hand away looking at me upset "Sorry. I still want to help you, I've just never dealt with something this serious before. Tell me what you want me to do."

"Go with me to the spa"

I hesitate looking to her slightly confused,

"What?"

She pulls out a paper she printed off talking about a healing massage for victims like her. Its supposed to help her get over not being able to be touched. I look it over and look back to her asking,

"I don't think you want me in the room when you are getting a massage."

"You won't be in the room. I just want you to go with me for support."

"Oh, shouldn't you ask Melissa?"

"She is out of town for a while visiting her family." She takes the paper back saying "It's fine, you don't have to go. It was stupid of me to ask you."

"Okay, I will go"

7: Expulsion

So... We end up going down there and she is totally nervous the whole time. They call her away and they allow her to keep her clothes on if she wishes. It actually doesn't last very long before she can't go on and has to leave. She does want to keep doing it though and we come back every few days. She tells me she doesn't want me to let anyone know what she is coming here for. After a couple weeks her sessions begin to get a bit longer. I just end up falling asleep in the waiting room for her.

One day while I am passed out waiting for her to get out someone taps my shoulder waking me up. I sit up rubbing my eyes seeing the masseuse who has been working with Ariya. I look around for Ariya,

"Is she done?"

"She is getting changed. You're Fabien right, her boyfriend."

I chuckle realizing she even said that here. I say,

"Yeah I am."

She motions for me to follow her,

"Do you mind following me so we can talk privately?"

"Okay"

We head to an empty room and she closes the door so no one can hear us,

"I wanted to talk to you about Ariya and how she is doing. She recently has become more open about her situation with me. She tells me how supportive and patient you have been with her through this process. Even though you two have yet to be intimate or even kiss."

I smile thinking to myself 'wow she has really embellished on this fake relationship', then I say, "Yeah I am sure when she is comfortable enough we will get around to it. I can wait as long as it takes; I just want her better."

"That's sweet of you to say. Well she seems to be taking to the healing massages well and I was thinking maybe tonight-" My heart begins racing thinking she might suggest we try kissing then she says "you two could try hugging or even try dancing together"

I hesitate,

"Um, are you sure she is ready for that? Maybe she should do that with her friend Melissa."

"Well I suggested it to her and she seemed willing to try with you. Don't you want to be able to do those things with her?"

I rub the back of my head thinking all of this is just getting out of hand saying,

"Yeah, I do."

She smiles,

"Good, you seem like a good guy. Most wouldn't stick around to deal with all this. Also don't get frustrated if she wants to stop or can't do it."

"I won't"

We talk a bit more then we walk out and we see Ariya looking around for me wondering where I went. Then she sees us walking out together and gives me a skeptical look. The lady talks to her a bit longer then we leave. As we are on the way back to the school Ariya asks,

"What did Lana want to talk to you about?"

I chuckle,

boyfriend' about the progress you have been making." She smiles blushing a bit and I ask "So who else thinks I am your boyfriend?"

"Sorry she asked what our relationship was"

I laugh again,

"And you couldn't have said I am your bonded guardian? This place is like 10 minutes away from our school."

"Sorry, I didn't think about it."

"Uh huh, so is there anything I should know about our fake relationship if she asks?"

She smiles,

"We have only been together a little over a few months.

"So as long as we have been bonded?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

I laugh shaking my head and she repeats

"So what did she say?"

"She was saying how good you were coming along and how great of a boyfriend I am for supporting you through this. She wishes he had a boyfriend as awesome as I am." She rolls her eyes looking away then I say "She thinks its time for us to finally kiss" I turn towards her puckering my lips closing my eyes.

She scoffs pushing my face away saying,

"Gross, stop being weird. What did she really say?"

I chuckle,

"She wants us to try dancing or maybe hugging each other to see how you are doing."

She gives skeptical look,

"She really said that?"

"She said you agreed to do it."

"Oh I just agreed so she would change the subject."

"Uh huh"

We eventually make it back to the school and I walk with her up to her room. When we walk in the TV is going but no one is inside. I look around asking,

"Where is everyone?"

She tosses her bag of clothes in a chair looking around,

"Well Melissa is still out of town and I don't know where Elizabeth is." She shouts "Elizabeth!?"There is no response she looks back to me "I don't know. Are you hungry?"

I fall on the couch saying,

"A little bit." I wave my hand at her acting like I am sending her away "Servant girl go fetch me a sandwich."

She pushes on my head as she walks by saying,

"Get up and make one yourself."

We both sit down eating and watching TV for a while. As we are sitting there she is really engrossed into whatever music show we are watching. In the show there are two people dancing and I begin to wonder how well she is actually coming along. I look over at her next to me on the couch seeing her hand beside her.

Wondering how she would react I reach over placing my hand on top of hers. She quickly jerks her hand away looking at me saying,

"What are you doing?"

"Sorry I was just curious to see how the therapy was coming along."

"Oh. You freaked me out thinking you wanted to hold my hand."

I chuckle,

"Uh, no."

She grins and looks back at the TV seeing the people dancing still. Her smile slowly fades as I feel her nervousness rise a bit as she asks,

"Do you think we should try what Lana said?"

"Kiss?" I say with a smirk,

"Oh my god stop, I am serious about this."

I chuckle,

"Fine. It's up to you Ariya, you have to be one ready to do it."

She looks at me then back at the dancing people nervously,

"I want to try"

"Okay, which do you want to do first."

She turns to me thinking then holds out her hand,

"Let me hold your hand"

"This should be easy we have done this before"

I say as I place my hand on top of hers as she takes hold of it. I can feel she is a bit nervous but not too bad. My thumb rubs over her hand as I ask,

"You okay?"

She just looks at our hands,

"Yeah"

I hold up my other one,

"Want to try the other?"

"Okay"

She hesitantly brings her other hand up to mine and this time our fingers intertwine together. I watch her as a slight smile forms across her lips. My heart begins racing again as I just looks at how beautiful she really is. Then she looks up to me just when her eyes meet mine it hits me... again. I think "Fuck, I think I like this girl. I can't like her, there are a million reasons why I can't like her" I notice she isn't feeling the same as me at the moment.

She cuts through my train of thought when she says,

"I think it's working"

I smile,

"Good I am glad. Want to try something else?"

"Like what?"

I look at the TV,

"Well she suggested dancing?"

She looks at it hesitantly,

"I don't know"

I chuckle,

"Its fine we can wait to try that later"

Another week goes by as we continue to secretly work on things together. That weekend Wayne invites us all out to another party. This time it would be at a club. He invited our whole class and even invited me and my roommates if they wanted to come. I didn't want to go to anything Wayne was hosting but Elizabeth and Ariya forced me to go.

I drive up by myself and there is already a lot of people there. Even people from another school are at the club. Mikey showed up with some girl he has gotten pretty serious with. I see Markus already there and he is flirting with some goth girl up at the bar.

When I walk in I can already feel Ariya feeling a uncomfortable and irritated. I start looking around for her then I eventually see some guy leaned over talking to her flirting with her. He places his hand on her shoulder and she stands shrugging him off telling him to leave her alone.

I start to make my way over there and he goes to reach for her again. Melissa gets there before I do and grabs his hand twisting it and grabs the back of his head slamming it against the table. I grin as I walk up hearing Melissa say,

"I think she said for you to leave her alone"

The guy groans in pain apologizing as Melissa lets him back up pushing him away. We both turn to Ariya asking if she is okay and she says she is fine thanking Melissa. Elizabeth sees me and walks up. She is wearing tight form fitted black dress, that just shows off every curve of her body nicely. She grabs my hand saying,

"It's about time you get here, come dance with me."

"I am not a very good dancer"

She ignores me and continues to pull me on to the dance floor saying,

"It's time for you to learn."

We danced for a while to the upbeat tempo music. I was pretty much entranced by her almost erotic movements as she danced against me After a couple of songs we both were working up a sweat. After the second song ends she smiles saying,

"You lied, you're not so bad at dancing"

"You make me look a lot better than I am."

She smiles and Mikey walks up and whispers in my ear,

"You need to take her home with you tonight."

Elizabeth hears him and grins at me. A slow song starts and she takes my hands pulling me back to her. She places her arms around my neck as I hold on to her waist.

At first we danced pretty loosely just holding each other. It didn't take long for her to change the pace as she moved in closer. Her hips moved against mine as she slowly ground herself against me. One of her hands slid up to the back of my head as her face moved beside mine feeling her cheek against mine. She brings her lips next to my ear as she seductively asks,

"Are you going to take your friends advice?"

My heart started beating faster as my desire for her grows. I feel her lips touch my neck sending a shockwave through my body. I barely get out,

"Is that what you want?"

Her face makes its way back in front of mine as she looks me in the eyes.

"What do you think?"

I knew at this moment I wanted to kiss her more than anything. Just as I thought I built up enough courage to go for it we hear a loud crash interrupting the mood. We both stop and look seeing Wayne and Tyson surrounded by like 8 guys from the opposing school. Elizabeth wastes no time and takes off over there to help him as I follow her. Markus runs over to me and I ask,

"What's going on?"

"Wayne and the team captain of the other school were talking crap to each other then this happened."

The surrounding guys charge in and Wayne and Tyson do well holding their own without the use of magic. Magic is forbidden to use outside of the school grounds or without authorization. All of the sudden Wayne gets lifted in the air by someone's magic and thrown across the room. That's when the people from our school begin jumping in.

I see Tyson getting overwhelmed by multiple guardians attacking him. I run over and decide to help him out. Our rivalry was temporarily put on hold as we stood back to back fighting them off. The tide slowly began to turn in our favor till Tyson turns and grabs me putting me in a massive bear hug where I was facing him. I yell in pain as he starts to squeeze the life out of me. Then I notice his eyes are glazed over like he is being controlled by someone with enchantment magic.

I reach up with both hands grabbing the sides of his head then begin to mercilessly head butt him in the face till he lets go. His nose gets shattered as he begins to swing wildly losing all his combat training as this person controls him. I grab his arm using his momentum to flip him over me onto his back as he crashes through a table.

At this time I glance over seeing Ariya fighting with another guardian. She isn't really hurting him but he can't seem to hit her as she is anticipating all his attacks. I start to head over to help her when I am lifted in the air by magic. I look around finally seeing the noble doing it. Just as he is about to fling me across the room Elizabeth grabs the sides of his face as black veins form on his neck and face. His eyes roll back into his head and he drops to the ground. I fall back to the ground as she turns smiling at me.

I smile back then a guardian steps forward punching Elizabeth in the chest sending her flying across the room into more tables. Melissa quickly shows up and engages the guardian as I run over to check on Elizabeth. When I get there she is barely conscious gasping for air from having it knocked out of her.

Just as I crouch down beside her a guardian runs over to attack me. I turn to block it, suddenly I get a premonition vision of an explosion going off. I turn grabbing hold of Elizabeth and put a force shield around us both as a fireball hits the guardian and explodes sending him flying away. Two more explosions go off as I look seeing Wayne now using his magic haphazardly.

I feel overwhelming fear coming from Ariya as I hear her shout in my head.

(Fabien help!)

I turn seeing her frozen in place paralyzed by the guy who has been flirting with her all night. He walks up grabbing her face and kissing her on the lips. Tears begin to run down her face. The anger and rage I figured I thought I got rid of suddenly rushes back to the surface. I don't want her to have to go through anything like that again. She was just getting better.

Her magic seems to be locked since she hasn't summoned me to her side so I charge towards them. A guardian blocks my path swinging at me. I catch his wrist and pull him across me as I punch his elbow breaking his arm. I continue his momentum past me as he falls to the ground screaming in pain.

I get to the noble kissing Ariya and tackle him into a wall. The wall cracks with the force of our hit. I black out as I grab his head and begin slamming his face over and over into the wall. Eventually I snap out of it when Ariya shouts in my head,

(Fabien stop, you're killing him!)

I let go of him as he slumps to the floor motionless in a pool of his own blood. My hands are covered in blood as I stand there looking at them in shock. Ariya steps in front of me placing both her hands on the side of my face looking up at me with tear filled eyes.

Suddenly a wave of energy blasts through the whole building. We all become frozen in place and all our magic abilities are cut off. In walks the arcane police. Walking in with them is Daniel, Dominicus, Starr and staff members from the other school as well. One officer casts a spell and goes into a trance while the others begin walking around assessing the damage. Ariya says to me in my head,

(I am sorry. It's my fault for what's going to happen. You were just protecting me.)

Starr follows an officer over by us seeing us standing there looking at each other with Ariya's hands on the sides of my face. Her gaze turns to my bloody hands. The officer sees the mangled unconscious student and runs over to check on him. The officer then yells,

"We need a medic over here this one isn't breathing."

Starr's eyes widen as she looks up to me. My heart begins to race thinking I killed this guy. Ariya again says,

(He won't die don't worry)

The officer then notices the blood dripping from my hands as he stands walking over to me. A medic rushes over and starts taking care of the injured student. The officer touches me as magical shackles begin to wrap around me and I am lifted into the air. Ariya says to me,

(I am sorry)

Starr turns to the officer saying,

"That boy is my student, let me take care of him."

"Sorry ma'am the boy is under arrest for aggravated assault and possibly murder."

Now fear begins to overwhelm both me and Ariya. I end up getting escorted past Daniel who gives me a look of utter disappointment. That seemed to hurt me like a knife in the heart knowing how much he believed in me.

Others end up getting arrested for fighting and endangering civilians with the illegal use of magic. The officer that went into a trance used his magic to observe everything that went on. The medic was able to save the guy I attacked but was still left in a coma. I end up getting sentenced to 5 years in prison and the student I attacked parents were pushing for a lot more than that. Wayne and Tyson end up getting off using his father's political ties to get his charges dropped.

Daniel ends up finding out what happened from Ariya and the officer who went into a trance. By talking to the Arcanum Syndicate he got the okay to bail me out of prison. I do end up getting expelled from the school until they figure out if it is safe for me to return.

They have me put up in an apartment in the next city over and they help get me a job working construction to help pay for the apartment. They even make me take anger management classes. I am not allowed contact with anyone from the school even Daniel. Ariya gets really depressed and tries to talk to me every chance she gets through her little mental link with me. She tells me everything that is going on at the school and with everyone else.