章 30: CHPT 30: Scouting
Claude floated through his other classes pretty easily. He wasn't really learning any new or important information since it was the first day and his father was a Tangent Biologist who studied everything from Orcs and Elves to Pit-Wolves.
Claude now navigated his way through the giant buildings as he followed arrows on the walls with a sword logo above them that directed him to the Training area, this was one of the classes he was most excited for since he would be going into his first Tangent in this class.
He followed the arrows down staircase after staircase receiving odd looks from students and Professors. After about 10 minutes of walking he hopped down a final set of stairs and stepped into an opening with two large doors about 80ft in front of him.
The floor had a giant Phoenix insignia on it, its blazing wings pointed to two long hallways to the left and right of him.
The hallway to the right had the familiar sword logo plastered on the doorway signifying that the right hallway led to the Training area. He walked towards it while looking at the Phoenix art he was walking over.
"OOF!"
Claude made a noise as he bumped into someone.
His head hurt and his eyes watered as he was hit with the sour smell of body odor and....blood?
"I-I'm sorry, I shouldn't be walking with my...." Claude trailed off as he raised his head and saw the familiar predatory and mindless eyes that belonged to the leading guard of the south wing looking at him.
"Your head down? Huhuhuh." Jack responded trying to finish Claudes sentence as he let out a quiet and odd laugh.
Claude wanted to respond but he was too focused on Jacks seemingly even worse appearance. His nails were dirty, something clumped under them leaving the tips of his nails caked with some black or dark red substance. He was also breathing heavily as if he just got done running or moving heavy weight, every time he exhaled he sent waves of the rotting smell of death towards his face.
Claude had to fight off the urge to puke all over him as he responded, "yea, sorry about that, sir. I better get going to class now."
Jack smiled revealing yellow stained teeth and large canines. "Hmm, your heading out to training aren't ya? Allow me to escort you."
Claude panicked internally before responding. "That's alright, I know how to get there just fine."
"Ohhhhh I'm sure ya do, but your late kiddo. So allow me to take you and explain to the professor that it's my fault.....you don't want to be late on your first day now...I hear your becoming a promising student..hehe."
"Where the fuck did he hear that?" Claude thought before he accepted Jacks proposal and followed behind him.
As he walked behind Jack he noticed his hair had something in it. A blonde strand that stuck out like a sore thumb in his greasy black locks. For some reason seeing the random blonde strand made Claude uneasy, as if his subconscious was screaming something to him but the message wasn't getting through to him.
They headed down the long and skinny hallway in silence until they made it to a pair of doors. Jack pushed them open and Claude was immediately hit with the smell of fresh outside air along with the jumbled noise of students voices.
He stepped outside and saw something similar to the training area at his old academy. There was a large field of grass with a wooden platform that held various kinds of fitness equipment along with training dummies stuck into the ground nearby and in the center of the field there was a large spot with no grass, just dry grassless ground. This intrigued Claude.
Prof. Brennan lead the students as they ran around the field in a militaristic manner. As they circled around and headed towards Claude and Jack Prof. Brennan broke off from the line of runners and approached them.
"Hey, he was with you?" Prof. Brennan asked, not even sounding fatigued.
"Yep, hehe."
For a moment the Jack and Prof. Brennan held each others gazes. The Professor seemed to be wary and almost suspicious but Jack seemed to be sizing up the hulking red haired Professor— despite the crazy size difference there wasn't a speck of fear in the mans eyes.
Jack didn't leave until Prof. Brennan broke eye contact to speak to Claude.
"So, all you missed was the start of the warm up laps which you could do right now. But be fast because we're getting right into training today."
"Yes, Sir." Claude said before he was dismissed and began to jog around the large field following behind the dense mob of students that was the rest of his class.
After they went around the field once, he was able to tell more or less what his fellow students classes were. Even though Claudes whole class was way ahead of him in the beginning, a couple students now hung back and even lagged behind Claude. "Mages." He thought as he blew past a student with long black hair and chilling grey eyes. He remembered him from his Aura/Elements class as the student who had an affinity for Ice and Lightning.
After two more laps Claude felt his leg muscles warming up and his breathes becoming clearer and falling into rhythm as the cool wind blew against his face. He made his way towards the front where the students in the very best shape were.
"Of course." Claude thought as he saw Samuel and his lackeys spearheading the line of runners.
"So, did you plan on not saying hi to me or were you just building up the suspense?" A familiar female voice asked from his left.
Claude almost jumped in surprise as he turned towards Ursula. She ran with the bulky fluidity of a bear, but she didn't seem fatigued like most of the other muscle bound students that lacked proper stamina and resided at the back.
"No, nothing like that. I just didn't know you were in this class." Claude responded sheepishly as they continued their run.
He watched Samuel and the others run with impressive pace and synchronization as if they'd been running together for years.
"Wait....aren't they upperclassmen?" Claude thought as he observed the much older looking students that ran with Samuel.
Almost as if one of them heard his thoughts, a tall and tan skinned student with a brown and black speckled Mohawk turned and met eyes with Claude before turning back and speaking to Samuel.
Claude sped up closer to them to get away from Ursula since he could tell something was about to happen. Not even 30 seconds later, the assumed upperclassmen that saw him before aimed his arm at the ground and it began to glow a faint light brown and yellow.
"Earth Manipulation." Claude thought immediately.
A small chunk of the ground rose meant to trip Claude. He instead jumped over it gracefully as he heard students behind him stop and slow down to avoid the chunk of earth jutting from the ground.
Claude landed confidently thinking it was all over until a foot came in front of his sending him rolling through the grass.
"You gotta pace yourself, Claude!" Samuel yelled back to Claude sarcastically as Alessia sped up from her position near him to reach Samuel.
Claude lay face down in the sun heated grass hearing the sounds of students running past him carelessly. He opened his eyes facing the University and saw Prof. Brennan talking to Prof. Demetria. She looked angry as she spoke to him urgently but he couldn't make out what they were saying.
Claude turned and face the other way from some unknown reason.
He now faced a forest in the distance, his vision was fairly shaky but he could make out the figure of a man against the backdrop of the forest greenery.
His pulse quickened as his vision straightened and revealed the man standing in the forest.
He watched as Jack looked at the line of students..more so Samuel, with a sick sort of excitement as if he was scouting him for something.
Jack noticed Claude staring at him and snarled. "God damn pesky RUNT!" He thought before turning and running into the forest at unnatural speeds.
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