Alkalians (6 page)

As if on cue, attention is pulled to a
woman who emerges from the group of higher classmen. Her immediate
impression is dark and intimidating, more aggressive than Prof.
Kaloss. Her body is lithe and strong, covered in a black and brown
workout suit, sleek black hair falls freely to her shoulders, and
blacker eyes pierce whoever dares stare at her. One can’t help but
stare at the scar across her right eye, shaped like the slash from
a single cut.

“
Good afternoon,
freshmen,” she says in a voice full of authority. “My name is
Professor Orcra Serpanz. I am your gym instructor, and you will all
do the activities I assign you, without complaints, without
hesitation, until you complete them or collapse. My job is to make
sure you are physically fit and prepared to fight with your battle
morph in any situation that comes your way. You are here to be
trained how to fight. There is no room here for excuses or refusals
to fight; you are all Alkalians, and your battle morphs are an
essential part of you. It is my intent, my purpose, to make that
part of you perfection. Are there any questions yet?”

Seeing her speech had put the freshmen
in a cold sweat, she smiles a little, and tells them, “I see.
Before we get serious, though, we’ll have some fun today. If you
look behind me, you’ll notice a few students from the intermediate
class are with us. They are all volunteers for our
inauguration.”

“
Inauguration?” asks
Rose.

“
Yes. In gym class, we
hold an unofficial welcome ceremony for you freshmen on the first
day of school. Today, you will all get a taste of what full-out
combat is like. These intermediates behind me will fight
you.”

The freshmen are suddenly groaning and
frantic, thinking these more experienced students would crush them
in battle. Matt and Rose are surprised, while Sean says, “Whatever
you do, don’t panic. They get a kick out of it.”

Prof. Serpanz unfolds a list from one
of her pants pockets. “When I call your name, please step forward
and choose which of these seven intermediates you would like to
fight. You will then morph and battle until one surrenders by
demorphing. All of you freshmen will participate, and you cannot
choose an opponent who just battled. Any questions?”

The freshmen are silent, many hoping
not to be picked first.

“
Good. Let’s get started.
First to fight will be…” She scans through the list before catching
interest in one name. After a moment of pause, she calls it out.
“Rose Alamence!”

Startled at being picked first, Rose
walks forward slowly. As the freshmen back off to enlarge the
distance, Prof. Serpanz commands, “Choose your
opponent.”

Rose studies the seven students lined
up before her, but she doesn’t pick one yet. She glances at each
one, locking eyes to any part of them, and keeps it up for a long
minute. Finally, with a few of the intermediates getting impatient
and antsy, one guy in a sweatshirt barks, “Will you pick
already!?”

Right after the man’s outburst,
catching everyone by surprise, she immediately points to him and
responds, “You. I choose you.”

The man sneers and walks forward after
a stunned moment. “Think you’re a tough girl, huh? When this is
over, you’ll be so sorry for picking me.”

Rose ignores his comment, and closes
her eyes while clasping her hands together with the pointer fingers
straight up. As the freshmen, including Matt and Sean, wonder what
she’s doing, Prof. Serpanz says, “You may morph now.”

The guy vanishes in a bright flash,
and when the light dims, a large, Golem-like creature, near
thirteen feet tall with an exoskeleton of thick stone, replaces
him. Resembling a humanoid robot that just unfolded from a boulder,
he glares down at Rose eagerly.

Rose then enters her own battle morph.
She comes out of the flash in a full-green battle suit of leather
armor covering her body. Her hair becomes royal red in color, and
energy briefly seems to be vibrating off her mystique form. The
freshmen, once staring in fright at the Golem, gaze with awe at her
majestic beauty and power. She opens her green eyes, no longer soft
but hard, the eyes of a warrior.

The Golem makes the first move by
running straight at Rose, the ground shaking beneath his seismic
stride, and throws himself forward to tackle her. Meanwhile, Sean
covers his eyes with his hands, peeking between his fingers, and
moans, “Oh, that’s gonna hurt.”

Before the Golem reaches her, Rose
does several back flips out of the way, and the Golem’s massive
bulk merely grinds and rolls across the floor. As he gets back up,
she produces and throws leaves that resemble spinning blades. They
cut into the Golem’s upper body, where thin lines of green light
appear to show he is damaged.

“
You’re throwing leaves at
me?” roars the Golem. “It will take more than that to take me
down!” He starts running back towards Rose, who forms a larger
throwing blade behind her back from energized leaves. The Golem
comes right up to her and kneels down, arms outstretched for his
hands to clap and crush her.

Rose then throws the leaf shuriken,
and it saws across the Golem’s face and blinds him in both eyes. As
he growls along with the burst of green light from the wounds, she
dashes between his feet, produces dagger-like leaves, and starts
stabbing at his legs, chiseling more wounds into him.

By this time, Sean is astonished from
Rose’s performance, so he drops his hands to watch and gawk along
with the growing number of surprised students, both freshman and
intermediate. Matt, however, isn’t visibly surprised. He stares at
Rose in combat, his expression calm and focused, as if he is
studying her.

The Golem, realizing he’s being
attacked from below, rotates to have Rose in front of him and lifts
a huge fist to bring down on her. When the fist falls, Rose rolls
out of the way, leaving it to slam into the ground. She then leaps
onto the Golem and climbs to his back, where she forms something
like a seed and plants it between the shoulders. She hops off,
flips a good distance away, and kneels to watch her
opponent.

As the Golem turns around to blindly
face her, he starts to shout, “Hold still, so I can kick your-”
when he feels something happening to his back. The seed suddenly
germinates with energy, and wooden vines sprout and grow from him.
The vines rapidly wrap around his bulk, and before he can grab at
them they constrict him in tightening pressure. He tries ripping at
the vines, but new ones grow and bind his arms, and the
constriction continues as orange light radiates from the spots
being crushed and the wounds already visible on him.

“
Constrictor Weed,” says
Rose to herself, knowing this battle is already over. The Golem
struggles against the vines, but the squeezing force only
increases, and the orange light darkens to red. Almost immediately
after the red energy soaks him like blood, he demorphs. A large
flash of red light swallows up the Golem and its huge parasite, and
the man is revealed, collapsing to his knees from exhaustion and
disbelief.

***

All of the freshmen are speechless,
and all the intermediates, except one man who is in an orange coat
and red pants, are amazed. They all turn to Prof. Serpanz, who does
a satisfactory nod and says, “Not bad, Rose Alamence. Not
bad.”

Rose demorphs, returning to her human
state, and walks back over to her classmates while her defeated
opponent trudges back to his. The freshmen cheer and praise her,
and Sean asks Rose, “How did you do all that? You took him down
without breaking a sweat, and he couldn’t even touch
you!”

Rose, smirking, answers as humbly as
possible, “Well, I guess I was just more skilled than
him.”

The freshmen continue cheering for her
until Prof. Serpanz says, “Now, who will be next?” and they become
dead quiet. She scans along the list, and finds another interesting
name. With a bit of a sneer, she calls out, “Sean
Wyseinburg.”

Sean, after sighing, slowly walks
forward. Looking at the row of intermediates, he says to himself,
“Let’s just get this over with,” and chooses the guy with the
orange coat. The man walks out to meet him. He wears brown leather
boots, has short, spiny yellow hair, and a shaven face. His eyes
are a golden yellow, both sinister yet calm, like the eyes of an
eagle. Prof. Serpanz says, “Morph, then begin.”

The two foes both morph behind flashes
of light. Sean has a brown battle suit with scale-designed,
chain-mail armor. His opponent has the armor suit of a samurai,
missing only a helmet and colored red with streaks of orange and
yellow. Out from between his two hands comes an energy sword of
bright amber, and he dashes at Sean from propulsion at his
feet.

The only thing Sean does is sigh
again. The blade smashes into him, slashing and slicing with great
speed at all parts of his body, leaving spurts of green, yellow,
and then orange light. The shredding continues, and when the wounds
turn red Sean demorphs with a bang, and his opponent stops the
glowing, sharp edge of his blade at his human throat.

The freshmen are shocked and
horrified, while the intermediates don’t look surprised, a few of
them chuckling with enjoyment. Sean turns and walks back to the
freshmen, passing by Prof. Serpanz, whose stare is enough to show
disappointment. He returns to his spot by Matt and Rose, both
gawking at him in confusion before Matt asks, “What happened out
there? Did you even put up a fight?”

Sean replies with an uncaring
attitude, “I didn’t even bother fighting, because I can’t. So I
just picked my poison, let him do his job, and now I’m back
here.”

“
But, what do you mean,
Sean?” Rose asks, not able to believe his story. “Why can’t you
fight? All Alkalians are able to fight in their battle morph; it’s
instinct that you should know how to battle with your
powers!”

Another freshman is called upon to
battle an intermediate. Seeing he’s got time, Sean tells Matt and
Rose his story:

“
A year ago, I was a
freshman here at the college. That’s why I know so much about it
already. I was able to handle all the classes I had, except gym,
because I don’t know how to fight. What I mean by that is I can’t
figure out what my powers even are; without them, I’m just a
punching bag! But I grew to ignore it, and I got around alright.
Until the exams.

“
At the end of the year,
class exams are held. Exams include all subjects you have been
studying, even using your battle morph. The gym exam is set up
where students of the same class are randomly paired to fight each
other, and judges are appointed to rate how well each student
performs. Winning the battle is only a bonus, because the judges’
scoring is what determines whether you pass or not.

“
So I take my exams, and I
passed runes and alchemy fairly well. As for biology, I did
horrible and barely failed. Then came my gym exam, and I was set
against a guy named Dante Goros. We fight, and he tears me apart.
The judges had no choice but to unanimously decide he passed with
flying colors, and I sunk like a rock. With two out of four classes
failed, I was forced to be held back, so here I am with you guys
this year.”

Matt and Rose are stunned, trying to
understand his situation. Rose asks, “Where is this
Dante?”

Sean surprises them by stating, “I
just fought him. The guy in the orange coat.”

Matt is trying to feel sympathetic for
his friend, but is interrupted when a fellow classmate shoves him.
Wondering what the problem is, he turns to see Prof. Serpanz
looking at him. She says, “Matthew Calamos, you’re next.” So he
comes forward and views the possible foes before him.

Matt already knows he doesn’t want to
fight Dante, and he feels he may not be as successful against the
Golem guy. So he points to a blue-haired woman among the
intermediates and says, “I choose you.”

The woman wears a white dress with
blue outlines and short skirt. Also wearing a smirk, she steps
forward and tells Matt, “I may be beautiful, but I’m quite lethal
in my battle morph. I’ll try going easy on you.” She then morphs,
her hair becoming snow white and her dress becoming a sky blue, the
skirt and her shirt’s sleeves frilled at their ends like
frost.

In response, Matt enters his battle
morph. Out of a flash of black energy, he reappears with a knight’s
suit of pure black, plate and mail armor minus a helmet that gives
off a strange sense of power. While the freshmen are in awe of his
form, Prof. Serpanz gives the word, and the battle begins when the
woman summons a large block of ice with a spell and pushes it
toward him in a rapid acceleration. Sean mostly covers his eyes
again, groaning, “And here comes Matt’s beating.”

As the ice cube slides at him, Matt
shows no sign of panic, no fear in his eyes. Like Rose before him,
he is one with the warrior inside. The armor of his left arm twists
and hollows out into a gun barrel, and he aims at the ice
cube.

A burst of black energy bullets flies
from the gun barrel, shatters the ice cube, and smashes into the
Magician, hitting her in the chest and exiting out her back with
yellow, spraying wounds. She falls over from the impact of the
blows, shocked at how the bullets had not only destroyed the ice
cube but also did so much damage to her.