*Chapters past what the Wattpad has been updated to, in the google doc, are not as edited or not edited at all so spelling/grammar mistakes may occur
A group of friends and adventurers are given a mission from the Academy's Student Council President, find a man named Aden Long who has gone missing for the last four months. Secrets lie in the path of this group, death and destruction dot the landscape with just a simple search and rescue mission.
It was just a simple search and rescue mission...
The crisp morning air nips at the exposed flesh of students protesting outside of a high rise building. Many of the students stand around, screaming about the unfair advantages that older students gain, and the cruel contests hosted by the school with signs to match. Several passers-by push through the crowded streets to get to their classes, ignoring the others that bellow opinions into their tired ears, but that doesn’t stop the protesters.
One student, who seems to be in a rush to get away, knocks down a protester blocking his path, screaming insults and slurs at the grounded individual. The protester slowly gets to their feet, an expression of rage going across their face for a split second. The surrounding crowd grows silent, exposing the cries of students further away, and they wait patiently for something to go down.
After a stare down that lasts a few seconds, the antagonizing student scoffs and walks away. The protester chuckles and breaths out, “Yeah bitch, run away.”
The student quickly turns on his heels, lashing out with a punch, but it is stopped by an enormous figure who towers over him by at least a head. The enormous man is dressed in a gray cloak that goes down all the way to his bare feet. His pants are tattered and frayed all over with holes showing parts of his chiseled legs and underwear. His face can’t be seen because of the large hood over his head, but most of the students that are standing there know exactly who he is.
The enormous man takes a step back, and a young girl, seemingly half his size, peers out from behind him, staring down the infuriated student. The man pulls back his hood, revealing a cold expression, a face with strong jaws, and brown eyes that pierce through the soul. His hair puffs up in short afro, that he quickly pats down after removing the helm completely. He stares down at the lowly student who, at this point, is close to cowering in fear from the immense amount of energy coming off of this one individual.
Without rhyme or reason, the student lashes out again towards the large man, but he quickly gets reversed and planted into the ground. Once more, the poor kid tries to throw a punch, but the little girl steps in this time. She blocks the punch with an open hand, forcing all of his weight to go down and to the left before finishing him off with a sweep of his legs and her foot proudly planted on his chest. For the second time in one day, he has been embarrassed in front of a large crowd.
The man continues walking towards the massive high rise building, with the girl trailing close behind him. She holds onto the loose flaps of cloth waving in the air behind him, returning to the subtle innocence she was maintaining earlier.
***
The morning sun continues to shine down upon the school, giving a small breath of life to the dreadful aura surrounding the students. The same cannot be said about a young man who is high up in a tree, surveying what he can see of the school’s campus between buildings. His long dreadlocks hang over the side of the branches that he is posted up in, and a massive black sword hangs above him nonchalantly. His face is planted deeply in a bound book, with his brown eyes scanning the pages just as quickly as he turns them and his soft face crinkling as he comes across something strange. He stops in the middle of reading a line, and puts the book down on his chest while holding it in place. He gets up into a crouching position and slowly steps out onto the tip of the branch. His eyes look out at the courtyard to watch the underclassmen protest in vain, knowing exactly how this will go if they continue, “Buncha’ dumbasses if you ask me.”
He climbs up a few branches until he is close to the top of the tree. He looks out into the courtyard again, his eyes scanning deep and quick, as he had done in the book. A massive grey figure swiftly moving through the crowds into a building catches his eye, forcing him back down to a lower branch. The man’s eyes turn a startling color of red, and he brings his massive sword down from the higher branch. He straps it to his back, grabs the book that he left open on the branch, and jumps down the to the ground level.
At the same time, another figure drops down from the tree, brushing off his designer shoes and his thick jacket, “Komece, why did you leave the tree?”
“Huh?” Komece turns around to the figure with a questioning look, but it quickly turns into a soft stare, “Because I saw something that interested me….do me a favor, Kohaku, go and tell the other two to meet me in front of the Council building.”
“No thanks, I don’t really feel like dealing with the two of them right now, so I’m gonna tag along and see what kind of thing ‘interests’ you,” the younger of the two, Kohaku, runs his hands through his short, spiky hair and then strokes his jaw. At the end of the last stroke, he puts his hands down at his sides, and quickly makes a face, ushering Komece to start moving. Komece sighs, reluctantly walking away towards the council building, “By the way, bro, have you talked to Darius anytime lately? It’s been quite a while since we last heard from him, almost half a year, I think.”
“No, no I haven’t talked to him. I don’t even know where he is right now,” Komece tenses his jaw and continues talking, “if anything, he should be coming back soon. He said only two years, but he is a month overdue.”
“You make it sound like he is pregnant with your child,” Kohaku says jokingly. A goofy smile streaks across his face and he chuckles to himself.
“I don’t think that is the case you dummy. Wouldn’t you be concerned if one of your closests friends doesn’t write for half a year and is then late on his own return?”
“Why the hell would any of them be away for that long?”
Komece lets out a long sigh of impatience, “I don’t think you are quite understanding the situation. Take some time to think about it before you answer again.”
“Or how about you go take some time to fuck yourself. Slowly. With your sword. I bet that will make you feel better,” Kohaku puts his arms up over his head while he walks, smiling at his own crudeness.
“You’re honestly the most annoying fucking brother on earth, you know that right?”
“Oh yeah, I know, I’ve known for years now,” Komece turns around to look at Kohaku, but instead smacks the side of his head straight into a pole, “Turn around dickhead! Watch where you’re walking instead of paying attention to me. See what happens when you don’t pay attention to your surround-”
“Shut up,” Komece says calmly, but the scent of hot tar starts to fill the air. Kohaku looks down to see that his brother’s footsteps have started to melt the ground itself, and he quickly decides to stop taunting him for a bit.
The duo continue walking towards the Council building where Komece saw the grey figure at. Their average heights cause them to blend into the crowd, but makes it so that they can’t really see where the figure has gone. Komece pushes through the crowd, while Kohaku slowly walks behind him, not wanting to make much contact with anyone else. Finally, after a few minutes of pushing and shoving, the two of them make it to the back of the crowd where they witness the figure enter the Council building. Komece groans and turns to Kohaku, “I’ll be right back. Check the SCP’s office window in a few minutes to see if that dude went up there. Please don’t walk off on your own, I beg of you.”
“Do I look like a fucking twelve year old to you?” Kohaku walks past his brother and to the side of the Council building, quickly disappearing out of view behind the massive high rise building. Komece looks the building up and down for a second, before his entire body burns away into embers. The embers disperse and Komece is nowhere to be found.
***
Loud music blasts from a window on the higher floors of an apartment complex, waking up most of the people on that floor in annoyance. Inside of the building, a muscular man is dancing around a room with a slender girl, both in their underwear. The song comes to an end, and so does their wild dancing, which is completed by a warm embrace and a passionate kiss. The man pulls away from his girlfriend and turns to go into the bathroom, leaving her breathless on one of the four beds that are in different positions around the room.
Once in the bathroom, the man turns the lights on, looking at himself in the mirror with a smug expression on his playful face. A long scar runs down the right side of his face, going all the way down to his throat near his adam’s apple. He quickly turns the water on in the sink, splashing his face with some before opening his eyes again. His face is an odd one, where his left eye is that of a wolf and his right eye is slitted like a lizard’s, and behaves like a lizard as well. He plays around with it, closing his right eye and opening it again, carefully watching the second film lift up. He chuckles to himself quietly, but snaps up when he hears his name being called by a commandingly deep voice, “Adrien!”
The voice takes Adrien by surprise, causing him to carefully walk out of the bathroom with his guard up completely. He peers out from behind the door, and sees Komece standing near his bed and the girl watching the flow of his hair, mesmerized. Adrien comes out of the bathroom fully with a disappointed look on his face, “Oh, it’s just you. What do you want, Komece?”
“For you to get dressed and come with me. We gotta go get Dash and head back to the Council building.”
“What? Did that bitch call us down again for something? We haven’t done anything illegal in the last two months, so I don’t know why she would be ca-”
“She isn’t calling us down, but I think Darius arrived at the school this morning. I swore I saw someone as big as him walking into the Council building.”
Adrien smiles, but it fades quickly as he realized that he was getting excited, “So what? What does that have to do with any of us. He’ll get around to seeing us when he does.”
“Jeez, are you still mad about him leaving and not writing for almost six months on two different occasions?”
“What do you think?” Adrien crosses his arms and bares his elongated canines at Komece, “Nigga does it look like I’m happy about him just showing up back on campus?”
“Well, I mean you were just smiling a second ago-”
“Shut the fuck up! Get out of my way so I can get dressed,” he pushes pass Komece, but he stops Adrien by grabbing his arm. Adrien snarls, staring at the wall waiting for Komece to let him go.
“Before you completely shut me off, I’ll be at the courts if you need me.”
“I won’t,” Adrien violently pulls his arm free and Komece fades away into embers again. After Komece leaves, he can’t handle controlling his smile anymore, and a massive grin invades his face. The girl, who has been sitting on the bed the entire time, smiles back at him and they start to laugh for no apparent reason.
***
“Mothafuckas got me sweatin’ my fuckin’ ass off out here,” two guys walk off of a basketball court, their clothes drenched in sweat to the point of being stained. The older one scratches his beard, sweat cascading down onto the blacktop cement in droves. He leans over and then stands back up, grabbing his water bottle from the bench and downing the entire thing within a few seconds. He drops back onto his foot and does a jump shot for the trashcan, making it in easily. The younger boy shakes his head at the older’s attempts to play some more, and he catches him in the act, “The fuck you shakin’ your head at me for nigga?”
“Cuz, you look fuckin stupid acting like that,” the younger boy takes a seat on the bleachers and takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly, “Dash, come on, you look like a twelve year old with this kind of energy.”
“And you’re telling me you don’t have this kind of energy? We are brothers for crying out loud! We got the same magic homie! You should easily be able to do this-” Dash moves from his spot to the farthest basket in the blink of an eye, leaving behind a trail of visible electricity, and moving right back to his old spot, “-regardless of how much fucking real energy you have left. What’s the damn point of this if you can’t use your energy to its fullest potential?”
“Nigga I don’t know why you’re lecturing me about speed and energy, I’m faster than you to begin with!”
“You wanna fuckin race for that bitch nigga?”
“On ya fuckin mark bitch-”
“Oi, dumbasses, we don’t have enough time for you two to be arguing like fools,” Komece returns in his ember form, and reforms his entire body in front of the arguing brothers. He walks over to Dash, “Darius is back and I need you to meet me at the Council building.”
“Really? He’s back?!”
“Yeah, or at least I think it’s him. He was as big as him at least.”
“You’re standing there telling me you’re not sure if he is back or not? Have you tried fucking calling him or something? Like, fuckin’ use your damn brain Komece!”
“What the fuck did I do?! The hell you yellin’ at me for nigga?”
“It’s cuz he’s too excited from that crazy ass game we had with the others-”
“Donnie, shut the fuck up! Shut up! Don’t speak for me nigga!”
“You know what-”
“We don’t have time for this shit,” Komece grabs Dash by the arm and they both burst into embers. Leaving Donnie behind at the basketball courts, fuming with anger towards his brother snapping at him.
The two of them reappear behind the Council building where Kohaku and Adrien are standing around having a conversation. Dash sees Kohaku and runs over to him, “Eh! Kohaku wassup bro?”
“Nothin’ you?” Kohaku and Dash dap each other up and end it off by shaking hands. Dash gives Adrien the same greeting and they turn to Komece.
“Fuck y’all lookin at me for?”
“Dawg, you gathered us here, tell us what you want us to fuckin do!” Dash raises his voice causing some looks of concern from the outskirts of the large crowds. He notices this and decides to lower his voice a bit, “Anyway, what the fuck do you want us to do?”
“Go up there and barge in on the their meeting.”
“So you are suggesting that the SCP kills us and then revives us, only to kill us yet again and bur
y our bodies somewhere on the outskirts of the school? I’ll be damned if I’m going to interrupt one of her meetings ever again,” Adrien shakes his head “no” to reaffirm his statement.
“Fine then,” Komece starts, looking around the shaded area behind the building, “We have ten minutes to decide what we are going to do so let’s put our heads together and think of something that won’t get us killed. Uh...Kohaku you can go away now though, I don’t need you anymore.”
“You never needed me in the first place,” he says sarcastically while walking off in the opposite direction of the three boys.
***
Inside of the Council building, in a room on the seventh floor, a young woman is sleeping on a low sitting couch in the corner of her office. Her short, blonde hair is getting blown slightly by her heavy snores, to the point where it starts to tickle her nose. Under the hair that is being blown away, a black eyepatch covers her left eye, giving her the look of a pirate. Suddenly, a loud rapping on her door startles her awake and she falls off of the couch with a loud thump. She mumbles under her breath as the heavy banging continues, “Coming. I’m coming damnit! Knock it off!”
“SCP I don’t have time, just hurry up and open the door!” the SCP stops in her place at the sound of the voice. It’s heavier and much deeper from the last time she heard it, but the slightly unnoticeable nasally sound was almost impossible for her to miss. She quickens her pace, coming up to the door and looking through the eyehole. She can only see the broad chest of a massive man, and an excited grin streaks across her face, “Yo, SCP, what’s the hold up?”
The SCP opens the door slightly at first, gradually letting it come open as she runs to get to her desk on time. The massive man, followed by the little girl, walk into the room and notice the SCP’s chair turned around to face the window. The man grabs a seat and the little girl stands at his side, her expression remaining dull. The SCP turns her chair around, blonde hair flowing with the direction of the twist, and she faces the big man with a huge smile on her face, “Darius Black, welcome home!”
At first, Darius fails to make any movements or say anything at all, but then he notices the eyepatch covering the girl’s eye on the left side, “Delilah….you got the SCP position-”
“Shhh! You can’t just go around calling me by my first name anymore, It’s completely unorthodox!”
“Well,” Darius starts, looking around the office and back on Delilah, “What happened to the old Student Council Prez?”
“She was killed in a fight with robbers. They overpowered her because they had someone who could nullify mana on their side. If they didn’t have that….then she would still be in office today, since she would only be seventeen.”
“When were you elected?” He asks, lowering his gaze to the desk.
“The day she was found dead, I was the obvious choice. I’m the strongest and smartest in our grade, no doubt about it. Who else could they have chosen?”
“Anyone but you,” she growls at him, but he continues to insult her, “Reporting to you whenever I have to do a mission or come back from a mission, is like drinking dirty toilet water. Trust me, it doesn’t have the best taste.”
“Oh? You come back after two years and decide to insult your superior and friend directly to her face, thinking that you could simply get away with something like that?”
“Friend? More like an annoying liability,” he chuckles and Delilah throws a pen at him, “In any case, bitching about you to your face isn’t what I came here for. So, I’m back after two years of self discovery and I just wanted to check in with the SCP, so they wouldn’t catch me wandering around campus with the sole purpose of avoiding them.”
“You made the right choice, but can you tell me who the kid is standing behind you? She is staring at me preeee-ty hard,” Delilah looks away from the girl and back at Darius, a chill running down her spine.
“When I first went out, I stopped in an old city that I’m familiar with, the kid attacked me with a group of other hungry people. She is the only one that survived,” Darius looks at the girl, his eyes showing many emotions, but especially regret.
“So what? You hired her as a bodyguard or something? I mean, someone like you don’t really need a bodyguard of any type-”
“She isn’t my guard, she apparently was being forced to help them because of her magic, she begged me for forgiveness and asked me if she could come along with me. She looked sad and disgusting, so I decided to take her and train her.”
“Train?” Delilah asks. Darius nods and then nods towards the girl. She directs her attention at a plant that is hanging in the corner by the window. She extends her arm out with a claw palm, and quickly closes it, causing the dirt to explode within the pot. Instead of dirt going everywhere, she maintains its chaotic form and steps forward with a heavy stomp. All of the plants in the room explode and the dirt swirls over her head. The SCP looks less than impressed, “Is that it? You can raise an entire fucking mountain and you teach her how to play with dirt?”
“Keep watching,” Darius growls, his voice growing deeper. The girl continues to maintain the dirt over her head, leaving one open claw hand out. She brings her other hand up, and creates the same kind of claw and bring the two hands together. The dirt compresses, creating a dense cube of soil. She lets it down on the floor in front of her and looks at the SCP, with a wry smile on her face. She points out of the window to the small balcony, and Delilah moves quickly, looking back at the girl for instructions. She points up, and Delilah stares into the sky like a madman.
Above the high rise building, a perfect cube of stone and tree roots rests slightly above the building. Pieces of stone fall out from the sky, and the cube itself starts to crumble. The students below begin to panic as the earth around them has been torn apart. Delilah frantically looks at the girl, but she does nothing to stop the mass of rocks that are about to fall on the students protesting below.
Delilah’s hand is almost forced, but the stone and roots dissolve in the air into nothing but dust, showering everyone below. Darius comes up behind the SCP, putting a hand on her shoulder, “There are some things I can’t teach her, because I can’t do them myself. She doesn’t just have raw power either, she is very fast, disturbingly fast for someone who uses the same kind of magic as I do.”
Delilah sighs, walks past Darius, and sits down at her desk with both hands on her head. Darius walks back in the room, closing the balcony window and the blinds as well, and taking his spot back in the chair. Delilah puts her hands on the desk and looks the girl up and down, “Whatever, she is your problem now. I’m not going to deal with another person as hard headed as you.”
“Oh? So you’re just gonna name me the dependant? Without any paperwork or anything?”
“I don’t wanna fuckin’ do paperwork anymore today. I still have to set up your damn placement matches now that you are back.”
“Uh huh, I have to take my placements again?”
“Yes? You’ve been gone for over two years, what the hell else am I gonna do-” a loud bang throws off her concentration, and she stands to her feet in surprise. Before she can move, the door bursts open in a hail of flames, and the wood burns away into embers and ash that reforms into a human figure. Without fail, Komece grabs onto Darius, trying to teleport him away, but the young girl grabs a part of the dirt, playing it and hardening it enough to turn it into a knife. She brings it up to Komece’s throat, making it very hard to get out of dodge.
“Yo, call the little girl off for me plea-” the girl cuts upwards, shutting him up quickly while he dodges the knife. From the corner of the girl’s eyes, she can see Darius stand up and reach out his hand, but she doesn’t move and lets him grab the back of her neck. He picks her up straight off the ground with little effort, keeping her well above his head . Komece rubs his throat and looks up to the giant, who is around another foot taller than him, “Ah, thanks, I wasn’t looking forward to being a human fountain today.”
“Shush, you’re not safe,” Darius crushes the girl’s neck, but the body turns to dust and piles up on the carpet. Delilah sits back down in her chair as well, rubbing her temples in annoyance. The moment she sits down, the girl comes out of the shadows and makes an attempt to stab Komece again. This time around, Darius grabs her and slams her head against the floor with little effort, knocking her clear out. He picks her up by the waist and slings her over his shoulder, “Now it’s safe.”
“Two years and you’re still hurting little girls?”
Darius curls his lip and stares at Komece from the corner of his left eye, “You think that’s funny? Don’t you?”
Komece ignores his question and looks towards the broken door, “The other two are waiting in different spots to get in, should I let them in?”
“Be my guest,” Darius puts the girl in a chair, and watches as both the window and the ceiling are busted wide open . Water floods into the room from the ceiling, quickly turning to pure ice. Adrien drops down and watches as Dash walks in from the balcony. The two boys stand next to each other, back to back, and fold their arms over their chests, “Wow, what an entrance. You do realize this is going to come out of whatever money we earn on missions right?”
“You damn fucking right it is,” Delilah stands to her feet and grabs Adrien by the ears, sitting him in the empty seat. She pushes Dash away into Komece, and grabs Darius by the collar. Despite the obvious size difference, a look of complete and total fear begins to surround the four boys, “Fine, this makes organizing your placements easier, Darius Black. You’ll fight in the arena tomorrow against Komece Faitoia, Dash Tsaimè, and Adrien Shimizu in a four way. Defeat all three, and I'll kick whoever has your title out of the top ten. If I remember correctly, it was fifth place right behind Dash.”
“Killing me isn't going to solve any of your problems. This,” he points down to the unconscious girl, “will hunt you down to throughout the days you continue to live.”
“I’m not terrified of a child,” Delilah lets go of Darius and she walks away to her desk, “Get the fuck out of my office already! I don’t want to see the four of you ever again, like, seriously just stay away from me!”
“Awww! What the fuck did we do though?” Komece asks. He starts to gather his hair up and put it in a rubber band, creating a massive ponytail. He lets it go and continues to talk, “Like...seriously this is a normal everyday thing for us-”
Delilah lashes out towards Komece, tossing a ceramic mug at his head that misses and smashes against the unbroken part of the door, “Get the fuck out already! Before I actually have to start using mana again! Come on, shoo dumbasses!”
“Fine then, I can see that we are not wanted here any longer,” Dash says sarcastically. He mimics crying noises as the four of them leave the room together. At the same time, a figure in a white sundress, long robe, and large conical hat waltzes in in their place.
“Morning fellas,” the voice is heavy for a female, almost boyish, but the four of them ignore the person and continue walking. They all turn a corner, where the figure is yet again standing in front of them, “I said- good morning you goddamn sons of whores! Answer me when I talk to you!”
“Go away you annoying animal,” Komece pushes past the person, and it disappears into thin air the moment he touches it. None of them are taken by surprise, and continue on their ways down the long steps of the building.
Back in Delilah’s office, the figure walks in, its heels cracking ice as they walk. The SCP looks up at the figure and breathes a sigh of relief, “Camille, you’re back today as well. I’m assuming your mission was a success?”
“Ah, no actually. He tricked me by changing the direction of his sent while ghosting to several towns before I completely lost him. I kinda just went around the fuckin continent trying to find the guy, but he let me pick up on his trail again when he was about 25 miles outside of the campus.”
“So….you’re telling me that you let Darius, who can barely control his own mana misdirect you for two fucking years? In two fucking years you couldn’t figure out where he was?”
“Well what did you want me to do?! His mana smells like freshly cut grass! I can’t chase him if he smells like cut grass when there is cut grass all around me. What the hell kind of logic are you trying to use here?”
“You know what, never mind. Just go away Camille, I’ll call you back later for your next mission, but I need to take some time to fix my office. For now, watch the four of them closely, I don’t want you to let them out of your sight anymore. Do you hear me? And don’t forget, this was off the books, so tell whoever asks that you were researching for me.”
“Yes, SCP,” Camille walks out of the room, its heels clicking and cracking the ice.
Delilah looks at the situation around her; the broken window, dirt cube, destroyed doorway, and the frozen water from the ceiling, all of these are signs of doom to her. She sighs, slams her hands on the desk, and grabs a pencil and notebook. She starts to write in it and mumble to herself while she fills out three full pages of math problems, “Hehehe, this is gonna cost them a couple million Draur. I can’t wait.”