4 Chapter 3

Its been two years since Viktor started training Alvira and Alastair. The first thing he taught them was combat training. He wasn't expecting much from them at the beginning, he even thought they would give up after a couple of weeks. To his surprise they excelled and even completed his advanced ranger training regiment within a year. After they pretty much mastered combat skills, he started teaching them things like how to survive in the wilderness on their own, how to evade capture, how to move around stealthily. He even started to teach them the few magic spells he knew. They learned it all. Since Viktor only knew of a few surveillance spells, he decided to ask his retired vice commander to train then more extensively in casting. Although she underestimated their abilities at first, once she started that was that. The two kids were now starting their basic academic schooling that the city required all children in the merchant district and above to attend. Even though Alvira and Alastair were far beyond most adults in pretty much everything, they didn't have much contact with children their own age so they were still excited to see what was in store for them. Their first day was what you would expect. There were long tables in 3 sections of the room, left, right and center in lecture hall format. Even though the merchant district was large, the number of first year students was relatively small. There were about thirty kids standing around in smaller groups, laughing and talking to each other about various topics. Alvira started to get even more excited and ran over to introduce herself to the nearest group. Alastair was a bit overwhelmed so he followed Alvira. When Alvira got to the group she was about to introduce herself. When a door opened by the front of the room and an old man walked in. He clapped his hands which signaled for the students to take their seats. once every one was seated he spoke in a deep, raspy voice. "My name is professor Crain. You may refer to me as professor or Mr. Crain. I will be your instructor for the duration of your first year. Im sure you're all excited to meet one another so for today you may talk amongst yourselves. After lunch we will go over the curriculum for the year. After that we will take a few short tests to see where your general aptitude is. I have some urgent buisness to take care of so do not leave the classroom until the lunch bell sounds". After he finished his speach Crain left through the door he entered. The students looked at one another in a state of mild confusion. They wondered why he came in to tell them to do whatever they wanted. As some of the students started to chit chat in their chosen seats, a little girl walked to the front of the classroom. Her voice was high pitched and kind of annoying. She had long straight brown hair and was wearing a red dress with elegant looking frills. In her shrill voice she introduced herself as Alice Corrali. "Hi everyone its nice to meet all of you. I'm looking forward to studying with all of you this year. To make things a little easier why dont we go around the room and introduce ourselves. Lets start with the back row". After she spoke she pointed toward the back row, end seat which happened to be Alastair. He stood up an simply said "my name is Alastair. I am Alvira's brother", and he sat down. Alvira introduced herself and it continued around the room. About halfway through Alastair started to get the feeling he was being watched by someone outside. When he looked out the window he didn't see anything unusual, but he couldn't shake that feeling for the rest of the day. After the school day ended, the two were walking home in silence when Alvira asked " whats the matter? You've been quiet all day like you're on high alert or something". Alastair was glancing back and forth as they walked along the road and replied " I think were being watched, but I cant tell from where. I can't pinpoint where they are exactly, maybe I'm just being paranoid". Alvira looked at her brother with worry. She had excelled in pretty much everything during training except for counter detection. That was Alastair's area of expertise. Even their father was no match for Alastair's detection and counter detection skills. So if he couldn't find someone they must be far stronger than her father. At that moment they passed an alley way and out of the corner of his eye Alastair saw a child his age being pursued. Before he could say anything Alvira had started chasing after the group behind the boy. Alastair followed her and as the boy was about to be cornered by a group of twelve hooded thugs. The boy was now facing a wall of brick or blades, with his back against the wall he saw two kids running up behind the assasins. He was about to tell them to run away when, in the blink of an eye the two kids were standing in front of him with all twelve assasins laying unconscious behind them. The boy stood there with his mouth open in surprise. The girl said " hello there my name is Alvira and this is my brother Alastair. Wanna tell us why those guys were after you? They seemed to be pretty skilled assasins from what I can tell". The boy was still in shock. These two were around his age, she even said they were skilled assasins and yet with just the two of them, all twelve were knocked out cold by kids. The boy started to regain his composure when a dagger came flying from seemingly nowhere. The dagger wasn't aimed at the boy but at Alvira. Before the dagger got to her Alastair caught the blade with two fingers, spun it in between his fingers and returned it to the one who sent it. However there was no one there. After that exchange the presence that Alastair had perceived was finally gone. Alvira didn't even flinch during that scene which unsettled the boy a bit. Someone had just tried to kill her and instead of reacting she simply waited for an answer from the boy with a gentle smile. He then introduced himself to the pair as Clyde. He told the pair that he was the son of an upper merchant who also happened to be a lower noble and even though their political standing wasn't very high the made more money than most mid ranking nobles. Which supposedly made them jealous. Clyde assumed the assasins were part of a scheme to ruin his family or some other nonsense. Alvira then invited Clyde over for dinner, which he accepted. She was confident her parents would like to meet him and hear his story.