Guardians of Anteverum City

Chapter Four: The History of Anteverum City

The elevator brought us up to the 7th floor, where we stepped into what seemed to be a maze of filing cabinets. There were a couple of students in the room working diligently on computers and running around with papers.

“Before we go down, I thought we should show you the Control Room,” Rubus explained. “All of the information that we deal with comes to this room. Our handpicked student scouts start with the paperwork and, depending on the urgency of the issue, they will either deal with it or it will get passed up to their senior advisors who make up the guidance branch. After Guidance, even more prominent issues get passed to Sanctions, which also carries out larger-scale punishment measures in the city, like anti-crime sort of stuff. Any questions so far?” Everyone turned to us. Reese shook his head, but I went ahead with my question,

“What branch is Skits in?” Jaden chuckled.

“Ah, our ‘Executive branch’ is essentially a publicity branch. They act solely as the face of Operations,” he explained. My suspicions were confirmed; Anteverum City definitely has a fishy government. If the Executives were just there for publicity, then who called the shots?

“What we tell you guys about today might be a bit of a rude shock… to say the least,” Sapphira called out from over by the elevator. “We don’t have any more time to tour up here. Lets get moving to our next stop.” The group moved back towards the elevator. Rubus clicked the button to go down to the first floor.

“Back there?” Reese whispered to me.

“Not quite,” Rubus smirked from the other side of the elevator as he moved to stand in front of the door. “Did you guys notice that the floor of this elevator is made of stone?” Reese and I both looked down. Indeed, the flooring was composed of polished stones of varying sizes.

“Is there something special about it?” Reese asked.

“Sit on the railings,” Zircon instructed. We were both confused, but after everyone else did so, we followed suit.

“Who will do the honors?” Sapphira asked the group. Esmeralda extended her arm glanced up silently, looking me purposefully in the eyes. I was caught up in the fact that though her gaze was somewhat severe, her rich green eyes were captivating, so I missed what happened next. I heard a low rumbling and reluctantly tore my eyes from the Esmeralda’s. The floor had disappeared leaving a dark pit below our feet. I let out an involuntary shriek and wheeled my gaze over to Opal, then Sapphira, then Rubus; none of them even flinched while my fingers were locked tightly around the railing.

“In addition to our own abilities, we all posses earth-type powers,” Jaden said, as if to explain the crumbling of the stone flooring.      

“How is that possible?” Reese asked, as bewildered as I was. The six Operations members all hopped off the railing into the darkness save the green-eyed girl. Reese cleared his throat and called out to her,

“How deep is it?” she sat there unflinchingly and refrained from replying. After a few awkward moments of silence, he turned to me.

“What do we do?” he asked. I bit my lip as I looked down seeing nothing but black.

“What’s going on?” I implored, looking up to the spot Esmeralda was sitting in, which was now empty. “When did she…” I stopped talking and sighed. These Operations people were providing me with more confusion than answers and I was starting to question the purpose of them wanting to meet with me. However, I had no other choice than to play their games, or whatever this was. To my annoyance, Reese seemed to relax.

“Don’t worry, we can just stay up here and push the alarm button. I mean, we’re not jumping, right?” He waited for my answer. “Right?!” he asked again agitatedly. In one swift motion, I grabbed his arm and pulled him along with me as I jumped off of the railing. I reacted quickly and made a force field to cushion our landing.