TBATE| The Walking Catastrophe

Chapter 15 - Victoriad

3 years later

Cordelia Aurelius Pov

I could feel myself nodding off in class as I tried and failed to remember various moments of my cloudy past. It all seemed to be such a blur to the point that I could barely even remember anything about my older brother.

Somehow, I knew that he was really strong and I vividly remembered seeing him fighting against some sort of weird green-looking fish man, but I knew that couldn't have been right. On top of that, it felt like my dreams were becoming increasingly eerie and bizarre.

It was even to the point where last night, I'd dreamed that I was able to use magic without the use of runes... 'how crazy is that?!'

The professor snapped at me to pay attention, but I disregarded the scolding, I didn't need this class anyways. I was easily the strongest kid in the grade...maybe even the whole school. At Central Academy no less!

I'd been told that my brother had once attended here as well and that he'd been on an ascent that ended in disaster. Apparently, he was now some famous ascender, but any memories of him directly became foggy past the age of 6 or so and anything before that I was too young to even remember.

I was constantly being bombarded with questions about my famous brother that I was utterly unable to answer. It was like despite being a highblood, I was almost a celebrity in and of itself. But as I said, I was never able to give any in-depth answers about him. I could barely even remember the news of my father's apparent death.

It had been drilled into me that he had died during a scouting mission on the continent of Dicathen, but how was that even possible? By the time I'd made it out of the...well...I wasn't exactly sure what, the war with Dicathen hadn't even started, yet I clearly remembered answering the door and hearing the news of his death.

Suddenly, the class bell rang loudly throughout the entire academy, signaling the end of class, and when the teacher dismissed us, I made my way back to my dorm.

I feared falling asleep, as this would bring back what the doctor had described as near-lucid dreams, but I was also excited for tomorrow.

Tomorrow would be this year's Victoriad and I had a feeling that I'd get to see my brother for the first time in years. Allegedly, he'd shown up to the last one and defeated his opponent without using any magic whatsoever, so the general public was eager to see the famous ascender fight again this year.

On top of that, my class, advanced striker dueling, was chosen as one of the classes to compete, meaning I got to fight in front of a crowd of thousands. Sadly, however, I had to leave my bond, Callisto behind, but I knew he would protect me if anything went wrong somehow.

Eventually, I drifted off to sleep, praying that I didn't have any more lucid dreams.

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Cordelia Aurelius Pov

'Aqua! Aqua are you there? What happened?' I called out, panicked by his sudden silence despite the signal still being there.

There was no response and I began to grow more worried by the second.

Why had he suddenly stopped talking? Why wasn't he answering me?

'Aqua!'

After 20 agonizing seconds of silence, I heard my brother's voice for what may have been the final time.

'Lia...I'm sorry, but I'm not gonna make it...'

Before I could even react, the signal was cut short and our connection was severed.