ACES (On Hold)

Chapter Seven

THE HUGE HALL has still plenty of space, but, I only see a few dozen of people there.

I thought maybe they were in another room. 

"So, this is the hall where trainees like you stay when there are announcements to be made." Rezen stated.

I guess there will be some announcements because, well, obviously the people are right here.... I'm not really sure.

"There will be an important announcement to be delivered by one of the mentors here, he normally does these meetings. His name is Aldwin Baltimore." Ruel said.

Oh, another mentor, I bet he has some amazing ace, too.

"If I were you, you just listen, don't talk, you won't want to hear Aldwin shout." Rezen said with his index finger pointing to his ears and with an eyebrow raised.

Allen and I didn't quite understand what he meant by this Aldwin guy shouting, but we must just listen to whatever they're pointing out now. 

Just minutes after being in the hall, Rezen and Ruel had to leave the hall because Cora summoned them to her office. 

Allen and I were left in a room, basically.. where we are new and not yet comfortable. 

Allen suggested to meet other people, and hopefully, befriend them. I thought it would be a good idea, but, I was never good with speaking to people. 

We approached a girl who was looking at the paintings in the hall. 

"Hi. We're new here." Allen opened the conversation. 

"Oh.. that's why you were with Ruel earlier." The girl said with an expressionless face, still looking at the paintings. 

Allen looked at me as if he's suggesting that we may have approached someone too serious. Well, we were wrong, too, about approaching someone who's in the middle of doing something.

"Oh, you noticed... uhm.. my name is Allen Perry, and this girl right here is my friend, Heidee Quimby." Allen introduced himself and me in a polite manner. 

The girl then ran out of paintings to look at on that side of the hall, so, she faced us. I honestly thought she will just ignore us and go to the other side and check out the paintings.

"Hello, Allen and Heidee.. friends, huh? That's nice. You already developed friendship here. I've been here for two weeks, well, in Ellez clock, and you were the first two to approach me. My name is Justine Across." She casually said. 

I was about to tell her that Allen and I had been long time friends, but, eh, bringing that up will probably include back stories... like I said, I'm terrible with people. 

I'm quite curious what kind of ace does Justine possesses.. I just didn't want to ask questions about it yet.

Apparently, Allen and I are different. He asked, he was too curious, I've said this a million times.

"So, Justine, have you discovered your ace yet?" He asked with a pinch of excitement on the side. 

"Uhm.. yes, I have the Ace of..." Justine said.

"Duplication" and a girl said, the voice coming from our back. 

We looked at front, then back, then front.. it was just mind blowing. Two Justines right before our eyes. Maybe they were twins! 

"Woah this is..... so cool!" Allen burst in fascination. 

I was still unable to absorb what my eyes were seeing. Aces are incredible!

"Hahaha. I.. We.. I figured out you'd be surprised." Justine said.. the two Justines said, at the same time. 

Then right before our eyes, again, we saw the duplicate Justine get absorbed by the original one. I don't know what proper term to use.. she was like, by she, I meant the duplicate one, got inside the original one's body. 

Justine bowed as she saw our dropped jaws. "Thank you. Thank you." Justine said with a smile turning to me then to Allen.

We had to get over what just happened because we know we'll be encountering even more interesting aces. This was a good start, I have my high expectations for this place now. I can't imagine myself having one, though.

We had a short conversation and within there, Justine mentioned about her roommates.

I was not aware about this room sharing thing going on. Oh, well. I'm good as long as people would be nice to me. The thought of interacting with people still chills my spine, but I will try my best not to look as awkward as possible. 

She was able to name some of her roommates, and Allen and I were surprised that boys and girls could be in the same room together. We also thought that it would be great if we will be in one room, together, so we at least have a person for one another.. to count on. 

I remember Justine talked about three people, if I'm not mistaken, I heard she said Claire Grey, Jody Oz, and Siegfred Salavine. She also mentioned their Aces. She informed us that Claire has the Ace of Bending Light, Jody, the Ace of Force Fields, and Ace of Smoke for Siegfred.

Justine narrated to us how one time, she used her ace to prank Siegfred to making him buy a bottle of water, then she placed her duplicate between the way from their room and the cafeteria, every time Siegfred will go back to the room to bring Justine what she asked, he'll bump into the decoy who'll be demanding for a bag of chips, some candies, and else, until, Siegfred figured it was only a product of his roommates' ace. When he came back, Justine was laughing, it was not funny for Siegfred, so he used his ace and covered the room with smoke. Jody and Claire entered their room and the smoke was too thick, Jody used her force field to avoid it, and Dorothy needed to open all the lights and create trails in mid air to make the surrounding visible even the smoke was overpowering. 

Her story was really exciting! We laughed so hard when Justine reenacted how she looked like when the smoke was about to suffocate her to death. I felt an adrenalin, and I wanted to discover my ace very soon. 

We continued chatting together until a man standing on the stage, spoke with the microphone, and called for everyone's attention.