Terrarium (XX) - Interruption

"Let's get this class on the road, shall we?"

Teacher Brutus then walked to his desk, which seemed to be raised, allowing him to stand as he worked at his computer.

"Today, we'll probably be hearing the public address system announcing something, so don't be surprised when the speakers go live."

The television set against the wall then came to life, and a set of slides were in a grid formation. Teacher Brutus hovered around the middle of the screen and picked one to the right side. 

The slide contained a diagram of several highlighted meridians and pressure points on the human body. 

"I'm going to be picking up from yesterday's class, as we didn't have enough time to finish everything. It's a good thing that it doesn't really matter, as we'll be restarting next month with the new students."

Teacher Brutus then seemed to remember something, then announced to the class.

"By the way, I will be gone from August 27th to September 4th. I've been selected to take August's group of Terrarium students on the Bullet Train ride. Hopefully, nothing unexpected happens this time!"

A few of the students around the classroom nervously chuckled while others simply stayed silent and remembered the dragon raid.

Bell wasn't too bothered by the unfortunate event, considering that nobody died, and Bell only got a nice set of scars. Of course, considering her Challenger status, the wounds she had accumulated had healed over the course of the next three days.

"Well, that's a situation that we'll deal with when it's a bit closer. Now, I hope that you all were able to feel the flow of your Stardust, and you'll have made a large step in refining your power if you managed to move it. I'd like for you to raise your hand if you managed to feel the flow of Stardust when you activated your Fragment."

The hand of every student in the room raised at nearly the exact same time. Teacher Brutus saw this and smiled. 

"Now, how many of you were able to change the flow of your Stardust?"

Only a handful of students let their hands fall, and Teacher Brutus's smile only grew wider. 

"Wonderful! Now, I'll be giving those of you who weren't able to move your Stardust flow a tip: You have to visualize it moving in another direction. I actually have a slide for this..."

Teacher Brutus then headed towards his standing desk and clicked a few times, navigating towards another slide. It had two depictions, one of an overhead image of a stream, and then another one but with a brightly colored line in another direction.

"You see this stream, right? In this other image, this is you imagining the flow of Stardust being different. The key to this is your mind, but props to those who managed to those of you who managed to move it. You'll have different homework until the others manage to catch up."

He then swapped the slide back to his previous slide and had a nervous smile.

"Also, to those of you who were in my Combat Class at the end of the day yesterday, I originally had a different plan, but it changed to due to outside sources. We'll be having a normal class today, so you don't need to worry about anything."

Then, Teacher Brutus pointed towards the diagram of the meridians on the slide. 

"Over the past few centuries, we've slowly been learning the process of controlling your body with Stardust. First, we just shoved Stardust in our limbs and hoped for the best, but over time, we refined the techniques."

His slide shifted at his words, with entire limbs being lit up, then slowly being refined.

"We learned that influencing specific muscle groups worked better, and then the individual fibers. However, we reached a roadblock, that roadblock was the meridians and-

Teacher Brutus was interrupted by an intercom announcement.

[Can the following students go to the Main Office, please?]

After a moment's pause, the following names were listed.

[Mars Caesar]

[Mona Chronis]

[Hilia Erikson]

[Michael Erikson]

[Pyralis Erikson]

[Strella Erikson]

[Bellona Finley]

[Ishmael Rossi]

[Gabriel Rossi]

[Penelope Rossi]

[Judas Solace]

[...And Torm Solace.]

Then, the intercom cut, and Teacher Brutus looked in the group's direction.

"Well then. It looks like you've been called to the Main Office, please head over there. I'll probably see you by the end of class, but if not, here is your continued homework. Practice redirecting your Stardust for at least an hour."

Then, Teacher Brutus waited for the eight to leave the room, which happened promptly. Bell made sure to pick up her umbrella today, and her notebook, journal, and pen. As the door closed behind them, Bell heard Teacher Brutus ask the class.

"I wonder what that's all about?"

Bell almost made out a hint of some sort of overdramatic tone in his voice, but was unsure about it.

Mona was the first to speak out amongst the group, "Is this about the shawarma shop stuff?"

Jude nodded and said, "Looks like, we should probably head over sooner rather than later."

'As if that isn't obvious...' Bell thought to herself. 'Well, all I can do is hope my books don't get wet.'

Though, it didn't matter as much if they did, seeing as their covers were quite water-resistant. At least, they felt so.

Soon, the group was in the rain, and everyone had some sort of protection against it, so there wasn't a need to activate Creation. Bell followed her pathfinder towards the Main Office, and the others simply clumped around her and began conversing.

"Did you do the homework?" Hilia asked her two brothers.

Bell knew that from Hilia's seat, it was impossible to see whether or not the two had raised their hands. It was a valid question, and Bell was sure that she would have asked her siblings that if they all had the same homework.

Michael replied, "Yeah, of course I was able to!"

"Same here, come on now, really?" Pyralis asked. "You think that low of us?"

Hilia scoffed and said, "Oh yeah? You remember the bear incident, don't you?"

Michael looked towards her sister with a shocked look. Bell wasn't aware of the situation, nor their history, but it looked like it was a taboo to talk about. Pyralis looked quite shocked as well, and even raised his hands to cover imaginary pearls.

"That's different? And what's gotten into you this morning?" Michael asked.

Pyralis added fuel to the fire, "Did you get enough sleep last night? Did you drink your coffee this morning?"

Hilia seemed to understand that she was out of line for her comment and stayed silent for a long while. So long, in fact, that they had reached the Main Office.

While this conversation happened, the other few students stayed dead silent, not daring to even speak in the vicinity of the situation. 

Mona held open a door for the rest of the group as they filed into the building. Afterward, she followed them into the building with a concerned smile on her face. Bell stayed behind to walk beside her. 

They all stood around as one of the office workers spoke to Torm. From the situation, it looked like they were going to have to wait in a room as Principal David spoke to each student individually.

So they all followed the office worker's instructions through a set of winding and labyrinthian hallways. Upon reaching the waiting room, the eight found themselves calmly sitting in a room with the four that they had fought with a mere few days ago.

Bell saw that Torm, Hilia, Strella, and Mona were all sweating bullets as they waited.

'Well. This is slightly awkward.'