2 Call To Arms

The day was young, and the sun still low. Low enough to precisely send blinding beams of light through the see-through curtains covering the small window.

A sunny day was extremely rare, appearing only once or twice a month. Some even started viewing sunny days as bad omens.

The sound of instructor Gard doing role-call in the courtyard in front of the dorms seeped in through the noise of the two, Seth and Aria rustling through their stuff to make it out there in time.

Seth's and Aria's uniforms were black and yellow. So were all the other kid's uniforms. Black and yellow meant they did not have a manifested fume, also called a fume prop, thus meaning they had no powers. They were part of the emergency evacuation and small fume extermination forces. People like instructor Gard who had powers, given to him by the fume prop had a black and red uniform.

Aside from the red uniform, there was also a violet uniform, which was worn by the dome guard's special unit. These guys had the strongest abilities. When a silent one was spotted, it was these guys whose job was to take care of it.

"Hurry up Seth!!!" Aria shouted to Seth, already jogging out of the door.

"I'm right behind ya!" Seth shouted back and sprinted out of the door behind her, one shoelace still untied, and the top buttons of his shirt undone.

The two ran into the courtyard.

As Gard heard the two panting behind him, his face turned red with anger.

"You rascals..." he said, shaking, looking at Seth do his shoelace and shit buttons last minute.

"What did I say would happen if you slept in one more time!!"

"We're sorry Mr. Gard!" the two replied in unison.

"Fifty handstand push-ups! NOW!!"

"Yes, Sir!"

As the two were busy with their handstand push-ups, Gard explained to the rest of the novices, the training regimen of the day. Today was a sparring day. Which meant one on one combat, with the rest of the class as judges.

The class had already made their way to the training arena when Seth and Aria finished up with their fifty handstand push-ups.

"You really gotta stop forgetting things man," said Aria to Seth and punched his shoulder.

"You don't have to tell me."

"Hurry the fuck up!!!" Gard yelled from the inside of the arena.

The two made quick way across the gravel courtyard towards the small training arena. The arena had an open roof. Resembling that of a mini Colosseum.

"Let's make today's training extra fun," said Gard with a mischievous smile on his face, "Seth! why don't you fight everyone in class one by one, to those you lose to, you are going to have to buy lunch. But those you win against, have to put their money together and buy you lunch instead. How about it?"

"Yeah!!" shouted most of the class.

"But that's unfair," said Aria to Gard.

"Did I ask for your input? You are not to speak up to me after being late."

"Yes sir," Aria replied and took a step back.

Seth cracked his knuckles.

"I have nothing against it. Free lunch, eh?" Seth smiled.

"We'll see about that," Gard crossed his arms, "who is willing to be first?" Gard asked, but nobody replied.

Everyone's attention turned to the sky. The sun was covered by grey clouds quite a few minutes ago, but the clouds kept getting darker and darker. Clouds getting darker meant fumes.

"Bad news. Emergency fume extermination protocol!!" Gard shouted to the students, who immediately mobilized.

They ran into the dorm building's first floor. Into the suit room, where they attached special gauntlets to their hands, as touching the fumes would cause humans to start decomposing into a black mist, which was one of the most painful experiences known to man. These gauntlets allowed them to fight fumes without serious damage to their hands.

They heard thumps outside of the building. It was the fumes falling. There were several.

They rushed outside but stopped in their tracks. There were three twelve fumes, three of whom felt weird. They were bigger. They had long lanky arms, stood in a slouched over posture and had a long grin from ear to ear. One of them was standing on top of something. It was Gard's half-decomposed body. Some of the kids including Aria acted fast and ran into the building, where a bunker was situated. Some froze in place like statues, Seth among them. The thought of meeting a silent one, the type of fume to have ever broken through a dome, never even crossed his mind before. His legs became weak and he fell to his knees. Their overwhelming power was certain to all of the kids without the silent ones even moving a muscle.

People were living in a false sense of security. The rich had nothing to really worry about. They had an impenetrable shield with the perfect set of soldiers protecting the shield itself from the outside. And so, the people kept overproducing and pumping waste into the sky, living in a belief, that went something along the lines of: "nothing worse could possibly come, right?"

The silent ones appeared. As the name suggests, they did not make any noises. Only a slight buzz was exerted from their bodies. The silent ones were very unstable. Coming into contact with one would not create human decomposition on the scale the fumes did. More along the lines of the bigger chirps. But they had unrivaled strength. Even though they were an extreme threat, they were very rare, and only a few domes had ever been breached by them, mostly thanks to the help of the anti-fumes corp. And thus, the flame known as the human's false sense of security kept burning.

Seth stared at the silent ones, as they came closer to the kids, some of whom had already fainted. Even the fumes were too scared to come closer to the silent ones and started grunting and wandering around the complex, away from the silent ones.

One of the silent ones menacingly walked past the kids and into the building.

As one of the other two started approaching Seth, exerting a kind of mental pressure on him, he lost control of his body and also fainted.

Aria noticed Seth's absence in the bunker, but refrained from opening the door, as one of the silent ones that came in had made its way to the door. She could tell by slightly hearing the aggressive buzz coming from the silent one's body through the door, which felt a little like acid to the ears. Gard taught them this. Thinking about Gard made her emotional, but thinking about Seth nearly brought tears to her eyes. She sat down. The sound of the other kids calling out using the emergency phone inside the bunker didn't distract her enough. She was scared for her best friend, a comrade with a similar past. She balled up in one of the corners, letting her long black hair cover her face.

The buzzing suddenly stopped.

Kids inside the bunker fell silent. Hope arose in the midst of the kids. Many let ought sighs of relief. But their peace was cut short.

BANG!

BANG!

The silent one started beating on the bunker door. The door began to bend inwards. It made the thick steel door look like it was made out of tin foil.

Aria slapped herself. She steeled her resolve and stood up. The other kids started balling their eyes out and shivering in the corners of the bunker.

Aria too was shaking from fear, but she forced herself to confront the silent one. The silent one thrust its claws through the metal door and pulled it off its hinges. Its wicked smile crept through the doorway as it slouched to make it in through the tiny opening for its size.

It stared at Aria for a few seconds, the other kids saying their last prayers.

Suddenly, the silent one started eroding away into small flickers of ash.

'No way?!' everyone including Aria thought. This meant it had started manifesting as a fume prop! But that had never happened before. A silent one manifesting as a fume prop had never in the history of the world happened before.

It manifested slowly into a long, dark blue single-edged blade, with a dark black scabbard with a blue dragon on it. The edge of the sword shined white, and the hilt of which was in the shape of a black flower. The wrapping on the handle was blue and white.

It levitated towards Aria, who then tossed her gauntlets away and grabbed the sword and the scabbard. She felt the power surging through her body. With normal fume prop fusions, they were warned to have the feeling of power surging for five to ten seconds, depending on how powerful the prop was, but this lasted longer. It was nearing thirty seconds and she couldn't take it anymore.

She fainted and started to fall, but was caught mid-fall by a tall guy in a purple suit.

"Hahaha woah woah woaaah!! You guys said there was a silent one behind the door right? Hahahaha, where did it go?" the guy in the purple suit asked.

The class all pointed their gazes at Aria and her sword.

"Hahaha! There is no way, right?"

"TARGETS NUTRILISED, CAPTAIN" spoke a woman's voice through the small communications device attached to the man's chest, "THE OTHER SILENT ONE HAS BEEN DESTROYED. NO TRACE OF A THIRD SILENT ONE FOUND."

"Hahahahaha, we have a special situation on our hands, regroup."

"ROGER."

"Do not leak information about what you just saw until given permission to do so by me, haha, understood?" the man told the class in a specific tone of voice.

Everyone nodded.

"Hahaha! Good." the man said and left carrying Aria.