42 Before the Competition

I walked over and healed them hoping to apologise but as soon as they became conscious, they scampered out of the building as fast as humanly possible, not recovering fully and even forsaking their friends.

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I watched the cowards run off one by one and I felt wrong, but right. There was a certain unnerving pleasure I derived from seeing them scamper off like a bunch of abused puppies. It was morally wrong and I myself became a little scared, at the fun I was having. I was completely conscious during my entire outburst. Granted sanity wasn't exactly the one at the reins, but I was still thinking through all of it. I could have stopped myself, and that was the problem. I wanted to hurt them, and keep hurting them until they begged for mercy, not that they would since they were unconscious, but still. And to think, all of this for a little piece of food?If Lyrics face hadn't snapped me out of it, I shutter to think of what else I might have done.

I give a downcast look at Lyric and returned to my now destroyed seat. Using telekinesis and void magic I realign and solidify the pieces together so that I can sit down and finish eating. The room was still and silent as I ate quickly and flagged down Nicholas, paying for the food, and repairs and a little extra, before giving everyone in the room an apology for causing a ruckus, and leaving.

Tanya tried to follow but lyric stopped her. I'm thankful, I just need a minute to sort myself out. Take a second, calm myself down and we'll be good.

I got outside and jumped my way onto a roof, the gentle wind bringing a light hum to my ear. Taking a deep breath I lean back and contemplate my situation. I've noticed I'm a lot quicker to anger than I used to be and the thought of hurting someone, doesn't bother me nearly as much as it did before.

I thought in frustrated circles trying to figure out what was wrong and how to fix it but, it was hard. I couldn't trace it back to anything specific. I finally relented, giving up my pointless thoughts. What happens, happens I'll see where I want to take life at the end of my third year, till then I'll keep trying as best I can.

I looked up to the sky, the sun was just starting to peak over the horizon, bringing a soft orange glow to the vast expanse of white buildings. A beautiful sky of bright blue and neon orange painted a surreal, borderline fake looking view.

I hopped down and tried to find the others. Reentering the building I looked around to see if I could find them, but they were gone and the table was cleared so I may have been staring off into space for a lot longer than I had initially thought. It couldn't have been too long though because the sun has yet to fully rise, so I walked out to find them.

As I started to try and track them, I turned it into a small little game. It was a fun little game of hide and seek, just they didn't know we were playing and there was no real hiding involved. I ran down the street scanning faces and using anything I could remember to identify my friends. I caught up not too much later, and with a good solid leap, I tackled Tanya to the ground.

I sat on her back as she lurched forward onto the ground from the sudden arrival of my weight, The whole time I had a smile on my face. I was back to normal for now, and I was raring and ready for the day. Not that we had plans.

Tanya yelled at me and I covered my ears and crouched to the ground with my tail around my ankle giving an exaggerated sob that I was sorry. Crocodile tears work every time. Tanya just sighed seeing I was back to my old self, and she wasn't really hurt. We hugged it out and we we back to normal.

Now might be a little late to mention it now, but I can be a very expressive person at time and a very stoic and silent person at others. It all depends on my mood. This is something I've always dealt with, but I was never around people I liked enough to have many opportunities to be my melodramatic self.

We chatted as we continued along down the stone paved road, passing all assortment of shops. The buildings looked pretty uniformed but we were what was inside them was not.

Some of the stores had breads, some fruits and vegetables, others had items tailored to adventurer, some were tailor shops, their was even the rare pastries shop that I had contemplated entering and eating their entire stock. It was a pretty diverse collection of places that could accommodate to almost anything a person could want.

Tanya and Chloe were window shopping the whole walk back, thinking of uses for every single thing we found from potions to pebbles. Lyric and I were slowly walking behind them it was fun for the first shop or two, but we walked about four blocks to get to where we ate and there were a lot more to go through.

I lasted a little longer than Lyric but I quickly joined his side in silence trailing behind as the other two babbled more than I have ever seen two people in my life. I was confused when they had the opportunity to take breaths. It's a skill I want to learn but never plan to use.

Once we hit about the half way point a thought occurred to me. We could just leave them. There's two of them and two of us so no one's being left alone, so no one should get mad. While the other two were distracted with a store, we calmly and silently ran past them.

Almost making it back something shiny flashed and caught my attention but disappeared shortly after. I had a feeling I knew where it came from so I switched paths, no longer running towards the guild but a store a few side streets down from our previous target destination.

"Where are you going, Alice?" Lyric asked as he saw me change paths

" Shiny." Was all I said in reply

I look back behind me half expecting Lyric to abandon me but he just mad a face the basically screamed ' The hell is wrong with girls', but he still followed.

Weaving between a few streets Lyric had a look of concern as he realized I wasn't going for one of the flashy stores on the walk back to the guild Caroline and Tanya were taken with.

" Do you even know where were going? How did you see something shiny this far away?"

" Got a Feeling." I said as I continued moving weaving down streets

" What do you mean ' Got a feeling?"

"Dunno, just do."

I just heard a sigh behind me before my running led us straight to a street vendor on a road that had very few people walking on it. The surroundings were not all that much different than the main street but it had a slightly off feeling.

The street vendor had a cloak and hood on so you couldn't see their face, and they were sitting with an array of objects spread out on a cloth. They stood out like a sore thumb with the white buildings surrounding them. I also noticed the thing that caught my attention was near the man.

None of the items seemed very significant but they were kind of creepy. There was a set of candles, some black dust in a small cloth pouch, a crystal ball, a ritual knife, some pin cushions full of pins and a collection of peculiar yarn dolls. You know, your standard occult inventory. It was almost comedic, seeing him and I was slightly curious why he wasn't arrested for being creepy.

As soon as I made it into range of the man I could feel the guys eyes lock on and follow me. Even though I couldn't see them, I could feel his gaze crawling on me, appraising me, like he knew I was coming. I shivered slightly and almost second guessed my decision to approach the guy. I tried to turn back but Lyric just gave me this look that basically said ' You did not just drag me around for us to back out now', so, I turned around.

We walked up to the guy and looked at his wares. I searched each one individually but they weren't what I was looking for. I closed my eyes and tried to find the object again and I felt it in front of me. Opening my eyes I see a rectangular book that glowed gold through his cloak before disappearing. I moved to the side of the man and I tried again and the rectangle was smaller this time, and it reminded me of something. As I did this I felt an ominous aura descended upon me and Lyric made some distance and seemed to be ready to fight.

" Is it a book?" I murmured thoroughly enamored by this mysterious object. The object of interest helped me ignore the feeling of danger that seemed to be emanating for the man on the ground.

"Child what are you looking for?" the man finally spoke with a slightly raspy voice. The man sounded relatively young.

"You wouldn't happen to have a book on you?" I asked

" I do, but I doubt it the one your looking for." He replied

" I didn't really have anything in mind so you never know."

" Hmm, I'll humor you child if you can read the first page of the book I'll let you borrow it how does that sound?" The man then takes a seemingly normal book out of his cloak and hands it to me. Before I take it however he pulls his hand back. " Don't blame me for what happens to you if you cant."

I shuttered slightly. He certainly wasn't lying with his warning. At least I don't think so anyways. I cautiously take the book and crack the book open and as I do a black smoke comes from the book making me cough.

Waving the smoke out of my face I look at the first page of the book It was full of random symbols that seemed familiar, but made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.

" I can't read a word, sorry for doubting you. " I said handing the book back, but the man had frozen stiff.

Waving my hand in front of his face I failed to snap him out of his daze. Lyric walked over and almost opened to book when the man finally came too. He rushed forward and snatched the book from lyrics hand before stuffing it in his cloak. He moved so fast, his hood fell off his head revealing a relatively handsome young man with blond hair and black eyes

With a snap of his fingers the blanket on the ground with all the items on it rolled itself up and seemed to be eaten by the shadow. The man ran over to the shadows down an ally way. He turned back to me, " Little girl what's your name?"

I looked at the man and in light of his unusual actions I looked at the man and shook my head. "Mommy told me to not tell my name to strangers." I said playing innocent

I saw his eyes go from my face to my figure before he nodded to himself and disappeared into the shadows as if the shadows had eaten the man the moment he stepped foot into them.

" That was weird." I say

" Alice, your not allowed to chase shiny things anymore." Lyric said unenthusiastically before starting to walk off.

" What! Why not?" I wined, as we started walking back.

I followed him as we followed the series of turns and detours that we had taken to get to the guy. The buildings all looked similar and so did the streets themselves. If I didn't have borderline photographic memory I would have gotten lost but Lyric knew every turn, it was both scary and incredibly impressive at the same time.

Although our little side route took a while to do and was probably as far away from the breakfast place maybe further we still made it back with ample time to spare before the other two made it back. We met up with Caroline and Emmy, and they said they were going to find a place to eat with the others and since we both thoroughly enjoyed our meals we recommended the place we went and told them where to find it. Some actions were omitted from that conversation, mainly my little outburst, but nothing too major.

At this point it was just a waiting game till the competition started. It was recommended that people don't practice too much in the public training areas because it would give away ones hand and people could build strategies against them, sometimes its this foresight, or lack there of that leads to a person being knocked out the first round or making it first place.

In the process of waiting for the competitions to start, I decided to do some small shopping, namely for clothes, and just walk around the city. I asked Lyric if he wanted to join me, and he declined telling me to ask one of the other girls to accompany me. Not that I dislike any of the other girls but their affinity for shopping far exceeds mine and I do not believe I will make it out alive if I were to make a mistake like that.

It took some begging and some other forms of coercion before I managed to whittle him down to finally relenting. To be honest I feel like I can relate to Lyric more than any of the others. I don't know if it because we've spent more time together or not but I feel more comfortable around him.

The clothes shopping took about six hours to complete but that's only because I wasn't going to waste my money on uncomfortable clothing, and I had to find a place where the person who was making the clothes wasn't going to try and dress me up like a doll. It was actually really hard. I only ended up getting one set of clothing. It was a pair of black leather pants, with a white lab coat like jacket that went down to my mid calf, and had a slit In the back starting at where my tail was. It had two side pockets on the outside, a breast pocket, and four thicker pockets on the inside. This was paired with a black slim fitting shirt that should hug my form. This was a custom order and cost me a pretty penny, but I had enough to get it and it was made from monster parts, so it was more difficult to tear.

It wasn't completely clothes shopping however, otherwise both lyric and I would have given up. We stopped at a few weapon stores, and looked at the gear seeing what they had and if it could spark some ideas of the type of armor we would need to continue with school. We also stopped at a few food places for some snacks, which were all amazing by the way. We both came to an agreement that the best was a pastry shop a few streets down from the guild, and that we would definitely return a few more times before we left.

We also walked into a few pawn shop like places because they had shiny things in them, or we were just curious. The shiny things ranged from really cheap to way more money than I am capable of paying. There were only four shiny things that I found, and three I actually looked at. One was a ring that looked extremely clunky, like it was begging to be stolen. This ring allowed you to place items inside it's internal storage that was about One cubic meter of space. The second was a necklace that looked like a wolf eating a star. The necklace reminded me of Fenrir. He was a wolf Norse mythology that was the son of Loki, and was said to be able to devour worlds, or at least that's what I remember hearing. I got this while Lyric wasn't looking, I think I'm going to give it to him as a present. The third thing I found was a throwing knife that once it moved a certain distance from it's sheath before it teleports back to it. It could only go a meter or so away from the sheath so it was kinda useless, but it was still sorta cool.

Now I'm not entirely sure what the last one was, I never actually saw it, but I don't think I want to know either. It was in a place down an ally way and had an unusual black door on the front. No sign whatsoever. Lyric and I were both skeptical, but we were also curious. This was the last of the shiny things we found, and lyric had to admit I had an impressive eye for finding these things. They were actually called magic artifacts, but I like shiny things better, because I see them glow a sparkly gold outline through other objects that impede my line of sight to them. As soon as I opened the door my nose was assaulted by a musky smell that burned my eyes and made me dizzy. I turned to Lyric to see if he was okay, but a strange thought ran through my head. The massive red flag, caused me to immediately sober up, grab Lyrics arm and bolt out of the door without hesitation.

" Alice ease up on the death grip." Lyric complained while I was dragging him back.

" Shut up!" I turned and yelled at him, my mind in turmoil.

" Alice! your face is really red, are you okay?" He asked in concern putting the back of his hand on my head to feel if I had a temperature, getting a little too close so I could smell him. I could feel the warmth surge in my cheeks as the thought reappeared.

Swatting his hand away I reply " I'm fine now come on." I grab his wrist again this time squeezing harder.

" Alice your trying to hurt me aren't you?" Lyric asked as he tried to free he's hand

" Your imaging things." I said curtly, and picked up the pace all the way back to the guild.