Amity

Chapter 37: The Hall of Legends

Dré put his senses on overdrive as the large group of twenty-two students, being led by McManus, walked down the opal path towards the gates. There was a new person in the guard shack, a young woman with a wavy, dark blue ponytail, who was too focused on her laptop to guard anything. She wore a black tank-top with a dark green pair of cargo pants. The light of the laptop reflected off her thick glasses, shielding her eyes. "How can she guard the gates if she isn't paying attention to it?" Dré quietly asked McManus.

McManus put a finger over his lips before he pried a round stone from the path. He inclined his head towards the shack and hurled the stone, full speed, directly at her head. She caught it in the blink of an eye before any of the students had a chance to cry out to her, not taking her attention from the computer. "I am getting real tired of this, Demetrius," she sighed in a low voice as she released the stone, closing her laptop.

"What's up with your hair, Brianna?"

"Some of the human-born Journeymen call this fashion. I just so happen to like it," she said as she raised her head. She had a beauty mark under her bottom lip, with a large scar over her right eye and cheek, which looked like it was in danger of taking her eye out. "Look at my hand. It stings now."

"Well, maybe if you had dodged it like I expected from you-"

"Don't you have to be a McManus somewhere else? Like, somewhere far away from here?" she sighed.

"Yeah, yeah. Let's go students. Don't want to bother the techie in her natural habitat of wires and circuits. I hear they can get violent." He gestured the students forward, winking at Brianna. "See you later, Bri-Bri," he stated before following the students.

"Whatever," she simply said as she opened her laptop.

"How did she know that we were here?" Kim had asked as the class marched into the city.

"In case you didn't know, Bri-Bri is a Spirit Elemancer. She uses her elemancy in a different way than others. See, she always has two layers of energy surrounding her at all times, and if anyone or anything goes into either of the energy fields, she is instantly alerted and is able to react faster than normal people, depending on how fast it enters her energy fields."

"Can anyone who uses spirit elemancer do this?" a random student asked.

"Yep. Spirit and fire," McManus began. "It wouldn't be easy, though. Spirit elementals are the strongest of the five elementals. Yet, they have the most difficult element to use. See, each element has its own requirements to be able to use it. Spirit requires a calm and centered mind at all times, otherwise, they won't be able to use their element. Not to mention the constant strain her body goes through in order to keep up a force field for so long. That amount of elemental manipulation takes years of practice. Bri-Bri, however, is so well-versed in her elemancy that she can even block other people's elemancy at will. It's pretty risky, though, since after she blocks it, she'll lose all five of her senses."

"Wow. She must be really good then," Kim said to Dré, who was looking around the city for any sign of the Edge Walkers. "Hm? Are you okay, Ke'Undré? You seem a bit paranoid."

"We're in trouble out here, Kimmy. Big trouble," he whispered back. "Megumi and I came down here to get a bottle of Marathon Nectar, and while we were there, we were attacked by a pack of Edge Walkers. We would have been killed if it wasn't for Loyalty and Sakura."

"Oh dear." She covered her mouth with her fingertips. "But we're out here with Mr. McManus. He should be able to protect us from them. Try not to worry too much about it, okay?"

"Okay," he lied, returning the smile. It would be impossible to enjoy the trip with the knowledge of an invasion going on right under everyone's noses. He could tell Mr. McManus what happened, but he remembered that he wasn't supposed to even know about it. Instead, he tried to focus on the lecture, while searching for the Edge Walkers.

The class voyaged deeper into the city, turning at the same street Dré and Megumi took to go to First Steps. The place where the Edge Walkers attacked. He looked around for the damages done to the buildings, the indent on the wall where Megumi was swatted against, or the remains of the Edge Walkers or the water from Ichi's ice. Everything had been erased. It was as if there hadn't been a battle there at all.

"So, just so you all know, this shop over here is First Steps. This is the store that you guys went to earlier today. They sell your basic needs for Apprentices; maps of the city, marathon nectar, and whatnot," McManus said, pointing to the store that Dré and Megumi had left before the Edge Walkers attacked. He could see Lulu's silver hair shimmering in the sunlight as she swept the cobblestone floor in front of First Step's door. She looked up from the floor to the crowd of Apprentices, smirking as she waved. Dré wasn't too sure if she was waving at the group or at him.

Dré looked around as the class walked down the road. The townspeople didn't even seem worried about the Edge Walkers, and they had experienced it firsthand. The many shops were not only open, but Amians were even shopping, completely oblivious to the fact that they all could have died an hour earlier. Guards passed them by, looking at ease, as if they weren't fighting Edge Walkers an hour ago.

How did they manage to cover up everything so soon?

"Any places that you see with a sign hanging over the door," McManus continued, "is a store of some kind. Much like that one." He gestured to the store two buildings down from First Steps. The wooden sign above showed an image of a black wheelbarrow broken in two with a vast assortment of fruits, vegetables, and meats spilling from both sides. The building itself was made of a what looked like travertine, with large, oval-shaped windows. There was an olive-skinned Maeg'tol woman outside of the store sweeping the cobblestone pavement. Occasionally, she'd look up from her broom, greeting incoming customers with a toothy grin that showed off her elongated canines. "That's The Broken Wheelbarrow. It's one of the many general stores around Amita. Just, if you decide to shop there, don't mention me, okay?"

"Wouldn't it make more sense for them to know that you suggested them?" a female Apprentice asked.

"The less you know, the better. Anyway, the shop across the street from us is A Touch of Tech," McManus said before anyone could question him. He gestured to a building on the other side of the of the street. This store, however, looked out of place from the other stores. Whereas the other buildings looked as if they came from a Final Fantasy game, made of different types of stone, this building looked to have been made entirely of black glass, reflecting the city's streets and surrounding buildings. A rectangular sign glowed over the sliding entrance door, flashing the words "A Touch of Tech" in blue lights. "They sell all types of sci-fi equipment, from light shields, to plasma swords and firearms. You'll have to be certified before you can even step foot in there, so don't get your hopes up." In the back of his mind, Dré was glad that Megumi didn't hear that. Knowing her, she'd consider it a challenge.

The group made it to an intersection and turned left. "Okay, young'uns. The museum up ahead." Directly in front of them was a large brick wall with pictures scattered over it. Some of the pictures looked to have been from ancient times, while others looked to have been from different cultures. The windows had been covered by a red curtain. All except for two on the second floor, where Dré saw two people looking out at him. The person on the left was dressed in silver scaled armor, the scales almost as long as an eagle's talon. He looked like Kamatsu, only instead of silver hair, his was blonde. The person on the left was an Asian man with a dark-red ponytail and a black samurai yukata. They both looked at him with a hardened expression before turning around and disappearing into the darkness.

"K-Kimmy? Did you see that? Those people vanished up there!" he whispered.

"Hm? Up where?"

"There! On the second floor! Where the windows aren't covered by the curtains!"

She looked up at the building, shielding her eyes from the sun. "I don't see anything."

"That's because they disappeared, like ghosts!"

Kimmy strained to look for whoever Dré had seen. "I don't see any Come on. Everyone's going in."

Oh, great. We get to go into a haunted museum. Just what I've always dreamed of.