The Virus

Chapter One

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Chapter I

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Seraan City.

The Supreme Corps Academy is where the smartest an most powerful kids on Seraan go to train. It has nine branches: Strategy, Combat, Stealth, Elemental, Tech, Senses, Craftsmen, Intel, and Specials. Everyone that attends the academy is in at least two of the branches, most often Elemental, Tech, and Intel.

Issen walks up the long staircase that leads to the main room. He is excited for the start of his second year at SCA and can hardly wait to get to his first class. As he walks into the main room and finds himself staring at the beautiful room, even though it's his second year. The circular room is giant, with nine tall pillars in front of the wall that separates nine large doorways. Above each doorway are banners indicating the branch each doorway leads to. Each banner is an elegant drawing of the symbol of each branch. In the middle of the room is a circle of tables with staff members handing out schedules.

Issen makes his way to the tables and waits in line. When it is his turn the lady asks him for his ID card. He takes it out and hands it to her. She swipes it on something under the table and hands it back to Issen, along with his schedule folder. He moves out of the line and looks at the branch list. Strategy is the first branch on the list. Groaning, he takes out the piece of paper that says 'Strategy classes' and looks for his first class. 'Tactics' is listed first on the paper.

'Really? I have tactics first? At least it wasn't combat this time.' He thinks, then starts walking down the hall to his first class. Finding the door marked 'tactics',he walks inside. Everyone is standing to the side of the room. He walks over and stands next to them, looking around the room. The teacher's desk has a pile of papers on it, probably for passing out.

Before he can study the room too well the teacher comes into the room. She is a middle aged woman with a loud but not annoying voice. Issen is glad that she isn't annoying, remembering some of his teachers last year. She starts assigning seats and gives Issen the back left corner seat. He is also thankful for that, as he doesn't like being in a place where he can't see most of the students. The seat next to him is assigned to a blonde girl a little smaller than him. In front of him is given to another kid who Issen couldn't get a good look at. The girl looks at him curiously.

"I'm Des. What's your name?" She asks, holding out her hand for him to shake.

Shaking it, he answers her, "Issen."

She smiles, "Cool name. I like it." She says. "So what branches are you in?"

"Strategy, Combat, Stealth, Senses, Tech, Craftsmen, and Intel. So all except Elemental and Specials." He answers.

"Awesome! I'm only in Strategy, Tech, Intel, and Combat. But seven is still more than most people." She says. "So tell me, what is Senses like? It works on improving your senses, I know that much."

"It also works on the ability to zone in on one sense and push out all the others." He answers.

"Oh, that's pretty cool." A short moment of awkward silence passes between them before Des speaks again. "So your week is pretty full."

Issen nods, "Yep. Every day of the week is a different branch. Sometimes double."

"My week is only half taken up."

"What do you do during the other half?" Issen asks.

"I usually watch the Stealth branch. It's really awesome how they can disappear and stuff like that!" She answers.

Issen grins, "Yeah. I have a natural ability to be completely silent. It helps me a lot in the silence classes."

"That's awesome!" She smiles.

The teacher gets the class's attention and passes out the papers Issen had noticed before. Looking at it, he realizes that it is a 'rules and expectations' paper. Not him and Des look at each other and roll their eyes.

'This'll be a boring class' he thinks. And it is. The only interesting classes are his Combat class and his Stealth class.

The Combat class is not boring because it just picks up where the last year's class ended and they get to fight straight away. He also shares this class with Des, so that was a bonus. It is her last class of the day but it was his fourth. The teacher tells them that each day they will pair up and have a small fight. The rules are that the first person to fall over loses. No killing.

As the teacher pairs them up, Issen spots Des on the other side of the large room. Her opponent is a large boy that looks like he could smash her into the floor. Issen shrugs and sizes up his own opponent. The boy is smaller but not tiny, and looks like he might be fast and agile.

Both of them getting in a fighting stance and they start to approach one another. Issen shoves forward, trying to knock the boy off balance, but the boy dodges and trips him, sending him crashing to the ground with a thud.

He stands up and grins, muttering, "I guess I shouldn't lead with that move."

Also grinning, the other boy responds with, "definitely not." They shake hands and the boy walks off, so Issen goes to watch Des's fight.

The boy that she is fighting seems to be winning. He isn't as slow as Issen would have thought, but he still isn't very fast. He swings low punches at Des, who barely dodges them. He swings one in a sideways arc that goes over her head, and she chooses this moment to attack. She shoves him a little, pushing him off balance. She then twirls around him and to his back where she jumps and kicks at his back, throwing him to the ground. He gets up and they shake hands, then she walks over to where Issen is standing.

"So how'd you do?" She asks him, beads of sweat rolling down her face.

"Got beat in the first minute." He replies, grinning.

She raises an eyebrow. "Oh really? I bet he tripped you." Issen laughs and nods.

"I was just warming up." He says.

The rest of the day wasn't too bad for either of them. Issen had fun in stealth and Des told him that she would come and watch sometime.

The next few weeks went by normally- until Dikagis.