The SpiralWood Academy

Chapter 5

      The setting of the large, open gym set in. Students gathered around every wall, about nine arenas set up with special scoring forcefields, each hit the force fesil takes is directed to the other student's health. Depending on the power of your attack, an equal amount of HP will be removed from your foe's score. The forcefields are built to protect the students from any real harm from the attacks. For example, if you were to aim a basic water attack at the forcefield, your adversary will have 10 points deducted. Every student resets with 50 health points loaded into their score. You can misfire, and dodge. Look at where the other student is aiming.
Grey clenched his fists. He did not want to fight. He hated fighting. Then, they entered the room. Usually if someone was this late, everyone would be laughing. But instead, everyone froze. It was the Hidden Club. One by one, in a single file line, they marched in. There were seven of them currently, Flux, Jynx, Scene, Riddle, Shift, Click, and the newest member, Tune. Each of them had a somewhat eerie expression on their masks. Scene boasted a disgusted, or annoyed, expression on his, while the funniest of the bunch, Shift, had a super chill look. She liked to joke and giggle when fighting. Grey noticed the same girl he met in his first block, Riley, talking to a female air oddity. Maybe he could talk to them to calm down? Riley was usually very bubbly and the two girls looked like they were excited. Grey informed Alister as to what he was doing, and approached Riley.
"Hey, Riley." He smiled a bit. Riley turned around. She beamed and started bouncing up and down, flaming sparks shooting from her shoes.
"Oh. My. God. Grey! We were just talkin' about you! This is Lily Birch! She's my bestie!" Lily had dirty blonde braids with faux bear ears. They liked this animal ear thing. She waved shyly, her pale blue eyes looking at the ground.
"Nice to meet you, uh, Lily?" Grey looked at her hair. Those braids were so messy! He smiled awkwardly.
"Um, Hi. You're Grey right? Riley really likes you." Lily muttered, she then stepped closer and kicked Grey's leg. "But you will not take my best friend!" Grey screeched.
"What the hell?!" Riley gasped, she started bickering with Lily as Grey backed away and returned to Alister with a bruise on his shin. The brunette snickered.
"Got attacked by a fourteen year old? Really?" Grey glared at Alister. All of a sudden, the coach entered the gym.
"Attention!" Everyone froze to his low shout. "We will be pairing you with your opponents now. We will have a tournament today. Remember, you are training for war." Grey felt his heart race. People began to get called off one by one, Riley was paired against Shift, Lily against some earth oddity boy, Alister against Tune, again.
"No! I can't fight him! He's too tough!" Alister was going to flip out again. Grey gave him a hug.
"You'll be fine..." Alister was ushered off to his battle cube. Grey heard a faint giggle from Tune, who looked very eager to fight him again, shown by his stance. Grey wasn't called to fight, instead he had to watch the others. The gym coach announced the start of the round, the sounds of rocks and water erupting out of nowhere began to be heard. One of the Hidden Club members approached Grey. Shit. Of course it's Scene, he's gonna kill me, they all want me dead I swear it.
"Salutations. I noticed that your new friend is one of our, ahem, adversaries." Scene announced, his voice altered by the devices in the mask. A few other Hidden Club members snickered in the background. What made all this worse is that you can never tell if they're joking or not.
Grey stepped back. What did Alister ever do to them? Riddle stepped into the situation. She whipped out a notepad.
"How much do you really know about Alister. This information is crucial, if you don't tell, well, it's best you not know that." Grey felt anxious. What were they going to do?
"How is he an adversary?! He's such a nice person!" The white haired boy exclaimed, trying not to get on their nerves. Both of them laughed.
"That's what you think. He's pretty corrupt. We're here to keep everyone safe." Scene muttered, giving off a quieter tone. Riddle added,
"Trust us, Grey, we know what we're dealing with. Alister Hawkins is the worst person you can befriend."
Grey didn't know what to say. Alister was so nice.
"You're lying! You don't want to keep anyone safe, you are all just- uh-"
"Just what?" Riddle inquired, pushing some of her brunette hair behind an ear. Grey honestly didn't know.
"Strange?" The two laughed again.
"Right you are, we are very strange. We all are. Alister has breached our identities. He wished to join us earlier last year, and we declined him. Because of that, he went into a conniption fit. He somehow knew us from somewhere, and has spread rumors about our identities." Scene began, showing a fake ID that the school gave him after Alister claimed to know who they were. Alister would never! Grey held his hands in a fist. Did he want to fight? He felt pulses of powerful air swirling around his hands, waiting to be released.
"He wouldn't do that! Stop lying! Alister is good! You are all just egotistical pricks that won't accept him for whatever reason you might have. No one cares about what you look like. I bet you're all so ugly, that the school made you put those masks on." Grey was appalled by his own words. They're going to kill him!
"Well I'll be. I never thought little Grey would ever be so big and strong. I see you holding you powers back. Too bad I'm not reluctant." Riddle snickered, the water oddity effortlessly sending a forceful gush of water at Grey, it hit him hard in the chest, sending him to the hard ground. He wanted to cry. That hurt, and he was soaked. Surely it wasn't allowed. No one cared. All he heard was laughter, and cheers. Was he- was he being looked down upon?. No! Anytime a Hidden member has the audacity to attack another student, the student loses any popularity they had gained. Grey was basically done for. Hopefully Alister and Riley were still his friends.
"Don't mess with us, sweetie. You'll regret it." Riddle muttered, heading back to the group along with Scene.
Grey got up shakily. The first rounds of the tournament were done. Riley lost to her opponent, Lily won, Alister won. Alister came running to Grey.
"What happened?!" Grey had tears shining at the edge of his waterline. He pointed at the Hidden Club, Tune walking back in angered defeat. "Oh... I'm so sorry..."
"Did you actually try to expose them? Tell me the truth..." He looked expectantly at the brunette. Alister looked shocked.
"Of course not! I would never do that! You see... I knew them as kids... they've always been like this. I was only trying to help them by joining the club. They knew it was me, so they couldn't let me in. Now they only fear that I would do that. I'm not that mean. Rumor has it that one of the hidden club members did it herself. Yes, the rumor is that it's one of the female members."
"So that means it could be Riddle, Shift, Click, Jynx, or... Flux..."
"What's wrong with Flux?"
"Dunno... she just looks off."
Grey believed that the leader of the club was the most suspicious. She rarely talks, and is always busy with something. She never participated in their outings. The gym coach began to announce the next participants. Grey was going against a female earth oddity. She had long pink hair, tied back into a low ponytail. The roots were blonde, implying that it was dyed. She was beautiful. He got a glimpse of her ID tag, it reads 'Katie Milla Rose'. She had a double first name. Cool. She was a freshman... like the majority of his friends.
"Greetings. I'm Katie. Your opponent." She smiled, stepping onto her starting block. "Good luck."
Grey nodded and waved back. The coach lowered a light that signaled them to start. Katie made the first move, shooting stunning needles out of her hands at the forcefield. Grey flinched, forgetting the fact that he was protected. He charged a decent blast of wind, which spiraled out with a powerful gust. Katie lost some life points from her scoreboard, but so had Grey. He glanced over his shoulder to see Alister and Riley cheering him on, Lily trying to divert Riley's attention with something else.
Grey tried his best, continuously blasting spirals of wind at Katie. Yet, he still lost. She giggled, flipping her ponytail behind her shoulder.
"Ooh, better luck next time." Grey looked down at the wire ridden floor below him. He actually sucked, didn't he? The boy huffed, shoving out of the cube. Alister and Riley ran over.

"You were really good! You just need some work on-" Grey was about to snap. He cut out their talking and pushed past them, leaving the two with shocked expressions. He kind of wanted to cry. He had never beaten anyone in a fight at the academy. He felt useless.