Everyone turned to regard Lexie, except Weiss Wavelost. Expressions varied, but Shadowsbane looked determinedly displeased.

"Where's your handler?" he asked.

"What?"

"I assume you wouldn't dare attempt to confront us without someone more powerful close by. If you can even call her that."

Oh. He's talking about Xena and insulting me while he's at it. Nice. "That's rich of you to say, considering there's like four of you against one guy. Maybe you're the one who needs a handler."

He narrowed his eyes, and Weiss sighed in annoyance.

"This has nothing to do with you, Sparrowfoot," she said.

"I know," Lexie said. "I just thought of how seriously tacky it was that the four of you are bullying someone who has done nothing to you."

"Bullying?" Weiss gave her an incredulous look. "You don't even know what's happening, and you're so quick to pass judgment."

"You're right. What I do see is you holding a very sharp object at another student's neck and basically threatening to kill him if he doesn't give you what you want."

"What I want is my family's heirloom, which he stole from me."

"I di-di-didn't," the boy stammered. "I swear."

"Liar," a shorter, long-haired boy said. "I saw you sneaking around outside her tower last night. You had something blue in your hands."

"My mother's Sea Heart." Weiss pressed the blade of her ice against the boy's neck, her eyes narrowing. "Give it back to me or you'll be sorry."

"Just give it back, man," the third boy said. "It doesn't have to be like this."

"I don't know where it is," he said. "I didn't take it."

"Then let the one that did take it come out," she said through gritted teeth. "Maybe I can help you exorcise him once and for all."

"Please don't." The boy whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut, and though Lexie still had only the barest idea what was going on, she couldn't let this continue. She was awash with pity for him.

"That's enough," Lexie stepped forward. "He says he didn't take anything, and I believe–"

Suddenly, Lexie was without a voice.

With a wave of her hand, Shadowsbane sent a small cloud of darkness at her face, and it molded around her mouth, muffling her voice and preventing it from leaving her mouth.

Lexie was outraged. She tried screaming, and it didn't work. He simply gave her a bored look and said, "Your yapping was starting to irritate me."

That's it. She opened up her card inventory, and a card flashed into her hand, but another wave of darkness shot into her hand and cloaked it. He raised an eyebrow and almost smiled. His expression seemed to say, You want to play this game with me?

She smiled back. Yes actually. I do. Even with his blockage, she psychically reached through the dark cloud and connected with the card, activating it.

Phantom hands shot out instantly, and she pushed enough mana into them to attack Shadowsbane. He frowned and jumped from side to side to avoid them. She tried again to grab at his legs, but he avoided it, too. She didn't know how he could see the hands, given they were basically transparent, but it was pissing her off.

He sent her a mocking look.

Lexie was almost mad enough to bring her Eldritch cards into play. Almost.

And then the third boy from earlier said, "Found it!"

They all looked at him. The boy had his hand hovering over his chest and was pulling a necklace out of a portal in thin air. He must have been some kind of summoner.

"He hid it under his bed," he said. "My familiar searched his room and just sent it to me."

"Of course." Weiss spat her disgust as she released the whimpering boy and stepped back.

"What did I say?" the short boy said. "I told you Jett was a thief."

The boy in the chair, Jett, was pale and shaking his head, looking absolutely sick to see the necklace in their hand. Weiss turned to Lexie with a cocked eyebrow, and Lexie's gaze didn't waver.

"I know that criminality runs in your family," Weiss started. "But since you've for some reason decided to become a [Hero], I expect you to behave like one. Make sure you have a basic understanding of what's going on before you act. Alright?"

Lexie could have probably said something clever about how Weiss' being right didn't justify her terrorizing the poor boy, but she didn't have a voice to say anything.

So all she could do was convey her emotions with a glare.

Weiss wasn't done. She walked closer. "You're already in a precarious position being here. I hope you understand that. The fact that you somehow ended up here and managed to make yourself Torin's mentee, I'll never figure out. But believe me when I say that the last person you want to have as an enemy is me. Even Torin can't save you in that case."

Her eyes reminded Lexie of icy diamonds. They were a blue so light it was almost clear, and cutting. Lexie felt a cold draft emanating from her, and she wondered if Weiss had the ability to turn people's blood to ice. Or if she had blood-bending powers, like in The Last Airbender.

Random fear skittered down her spine, and a thought popped into her head. We should kill her before we find out.

The dark, eldritch thought tore her away from her reverie, and she backed away from the girl, who smirked in victory.

"Smart," she said as she turned and walked away. Her posse followed her, including the Shadowbane, who gave Lexie another victorious look on the way out. He snapped his finger, and the void finally left her lips, allowing her to speak again.

Lexie released a breath.

Okay, maybe she had rushed into that one without thinking it through. Making enemies of elementals was certainly not a wise decision. But as she turned to Jett, she found she couldn't regret it. He was still practically shaking with fear. He gave Lexie a pitiful look and stammered as he spoke.

"I-I-I-I'm sorry," he said. "I r-r-really didn't mean to. I didn't know I took it. I'm not a thief."

"It's okay," Lexie responded. "Even if you did take it, it doesn't justify what they did to you. It's just a necklace." Or was it? Weiss had said it was her mother's, a family heirloom.

Heck, she might actually have had a right to be pissed.

Whatever. Lexie still didn't like her, and she didn't like her Shadowy friend even more.

The boy nodded, looking miserable.

Lexie patted his back awkwardly, checking her time. She still had a few minutes left till gym class started, and she didn't want to leave him alone.

"Do you want to walk with me to the gym?" She asked him. She was pretty sure he was in her class, and they all had general combat lessons at the same time.

"C-c-can I?"

"Sure. I'm Lexie, by the way."

He gave her a grateful look as he got to his feet, wiping his face. "Jett."

As they walked out of the classroom, Lexie got curious and asked him, "What did you mean when you said you didn't mean to take the necklace?"

His face heated. "I'm not…Sometimes I do things I don't mean to do. Sometimes he makes me do things."

"Who's he?"

His misery seemed to expand. "Last summer, I pre-awakened as a Summoner. I was so happy. I thought it was pretty cool at first, and figured I could summon something cool to show off to my friends. I started reading some of my dad's old textbooks. He's an archaeologist and used to study a lot of ancient digs and cultures. I figured I could use my new skills to summon a cute creature that would be like a companion, you know?"

Lexie nodded, and he shook his head.

"It all went wrong. What I summoned…it wasn't a cute animal. It was some kind of ancient Eldritch demon that had been asleep for a thousand years, and it tricked me into bonding with it. So now I have it inside me all the time."

Lexie's eyes popped open. Alright, that was absolutely not what she was expecting to hear. He looked at his shoes as he continued,

"Sometimes it makes me do things I don't want to. Like stealing stuff or breaking things. Sometimes I don't know I'm doing it, and other times, it's like I'm stuck in a dream and something else is controlling my body." He swallowed. "But they want me to keep it around because it protects me. Like in Hartville. It helped me fight against the troll."

"I see," Lexie said, even though she didn't remember a video featuring the boy. The heroes must have wiped that part off before it got into the public eye. Maybe they didn't want his powers being advertised.

He sighed. "I just want to get rid of it. I've always wanted to get rid of it, but they said they can't do it here. They say it's good for me too, because if I learn to control it, maybe I can be their secret weapon. That would make me a good [hero], right? Maybe then it would be worth it? That's why I'm taking necromancy and special lessons. It's also why I have this…" He touched the band on his neck. "But it doesn't work all the way. I think it just weakens it, but it still takes over and gets me in trouble all the time." Tears filled his eyes. "I can't control it. It's way stronger and smarter than I am. I just wish I'd never touched that stupid stone or done that stupid ritual in the first place."

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He reached up to wipe his face, and Lexie heard another couple of students walking by. She blocked their view of him with her body so they wouldn't see him cry.

She wasn't sure how to comfort him, but she didn't want him to be embarrassed further.

She also felt a deep empathy for him.

It was a kindred pain they shared, the intimate knowledge of how it felt to share your body with something malevolent. They both struggled with the loss of control and will, doing things they never thought they would.

His was certainly worse, but Lexie's was also insidious in that she had to second-guess every thought she had because she was worried it was the Eldritch side subtly driving her to do things she wouldn't otherwise do. For example, did she come in here and try to pick a fight because she truly wanted to protect Jett, or simply because she was itching for a fight against Weiss Wavelost?

She wasn't sure of the answer, and that gravely concerned her.

"So they can't take it out of you," she asked. "At all?"

He shrugged. "That's pretty much what the Headmaster said. They said they might be able to, but it would take time and a special necromancer to attempt it. I feel like that's basically saying it's hopeless for me and I'll always have to live with these thoughts and keep doing these things that I don't want to do."

Lexie nodded, but she wasn't so sure that his case was truly as hopeless as it sounded. Because, from what she could gather, the [Heroes] were trying to use him like a Hulk, a monster they could control. They might be leaving the creature inside him, hoping for that result.

That wasn't fair to Jett at all, but she was starting to not expect fairness being at this school.

However, wasn't it also dangerous to have an Eldritch-possessed boy living with other students? Didn't they think it would harm the kids?

"Have you ever hurt anyone?" Lexie asked, and he shook his head.

"Just the trolls," he said. "I can't hurt students with violence, or at least not unless my life is severely threatened. For now, the creature just likes to steal and break stuff sometimes because it's bored."

"Huh." Lexie wondered what type of creature it was on the soul tree.

"Have you seen a Saintess?"

He nodded. "Not even she could help me."

Lexie frowned. That didn't seem right. Even if a Healer couldn't help him, it was literally the Saintess' job to get rid of dark energy. Lexie had heard of them getting rid of demonic possession numerous times. It was part of what they were famed for. So what was so different about his case? The fact that he summoned the demon?

Lexie was suddenly invested in figuring it out. The poor boy looked miserable, and while Lexie was getting used to living with her Eldritch side, she didn't think he ever would.

She needed to find a way to fix this. She put that down on her list of things to do today, right after she found a counter for damn Shadowsbane powers.

She was still pissed about that silencing thing he did.

"What if I could help you?" Lexie asked.

He blinked back his tears, sniffling. "What? How?

She'd already been considering making a card that would suppress her Eldritch side. She'd been apprehensive because she didn't know how it would affect the seal between her Eldritch soul and her human soul, so she'd never tried, but Jett's demon wasn't attached to his soul, correct? She would have to read more to know for sure, but if she could make a card that would somehow suppress the Eldritch energy, she could test it out on him first, and if it worked, then she would use it on herself.

Lexie felt a little bad about letting him be a test subject, but this would help both of them. She would, of course, get his express consent first and make sure that it was safe to use on him.

But she didn't really have time to explain all that right now, so she told him, "How about we have dinner together at the cafeteria? Then we can go over the plan."

"Um…okay." He looked a little perplexed but also relieved and maybe a tad grateful. That was all she wanted. They continued on their way to gym class and separated once they got there.

The entire first-year class was there, about seventy to eighty people in total. Lexie had never met most of them, but she recognized a few of them from some other classes. Winifred and Damos from Extraterrestrial Politics even waved at her, and Lexie waved back. Henrietta, who was sitting by Xena, waved too, and Lexie smiled and responded with a wave. Though the other girl was trying a little bit too hard to get into Xena's good graces, Lexie actually didn't mind her much.

The rest of the students' regard of Lexie ranged from curiosity to apprehension to pure hostility and also disinterest.

It was her first official open gym session with Lucretia Bonds.

This should be fun.

The area reminded her of Conrad's gym, mats in the center, bleachers at the side. She retired to the bleachers next to Dewie, keeping an eye out for Jett, who was in a corner by himself. Maybe she should have invited him to sit with them.

"Hey," Xena leaned over to ask her, "Was there something else you wanted to tell me earlier?"

"Oh, um…" Luckily, Lexie was saved by a loud whistle.

"Now, kids, you know the drill," said Lucretia Bonds. "For those who are new here– well, it's only one of you really, but whatever. My name is Lucretia Bonds. Just call me Bonds for short. This is a full-class general combat session. It's everyone's favorite chaotic funday, a chance to save the hostages and eliminate the bad guys. You'll be working in teams of ten against another team of ten, except for the last team, which might be eight people against eight. You will each hold a hostage, and the goal is for you to get the hostage from the other team and prevent your hostage from being taken by them. You will all be fighting to eliminate each other and save your respective hostages from capture. Now you cannot do anything that will break or damage the hostages because it's pointless to rescue someone who's already dead." She leveled a look at a boy with spiky hair. "I'm talking to you, Ian."

The boy grinned and gave her a thumbs-up.

"You're also not supposed to hurt the other team's hostage who is in your custody, although you will only lose half-points if you do. Once your team is called up, you have about twenty seconds to get yourselves together and come up with a plan. You may not have that kind of time in the field, so this is all about thinking on your feet. You must think quick, but also think well. Right, Ian?"

"Loud and clear, Bonds."

"Good," she said. "Now I'm sending a class-wide alert that will show you which teams you're in. Team 1 will go against Team 2, Team 3 against Team 4, Team 5 against Team 6, and Team 7 against Team 8."

The alert came a second later, and Lexie checked it instantly.

"What team are you guys in?" Lexie whispered to Xena and Dewie.

"Team 2," Dewie said.

"Team 3," Xena responded.

"I'm in 7," Lexie said.

"So am I," said a blonde girl seated two rows behind them, who smiled. "Anais."

"Lexie," Lexie introduced, and both girls nodded.

"Team 1 and 2," Bonds called. "You're up."

About twenty students walked onto the field, separated into groups of ten.

"I hoped we would be on the same team," Henrietta said to Xena.

"You shouldn't," Xena responded. "Combat really isn't my strong suit. Unless you think I can believe the other team to death."

Lexie snorted, and Xena winked at her.

Mannequins were drawn forth by robots and placed on separate sides of the floor, behind each team. Then, the bell rang, and it all began.

Lexie got to see a variety of powers in play. There were the common ones, like super strength, super speed, and weaponist. But there were also really niche ones like paper manipulation and sound waves. She saw someone stop metal bullets with a wave of the hand, and someone else reached through the ground, and their hand popped up at the opposite side of the field.

"Sick," Lexie murmured.

It was truly fascinating, more than anything she'd seen in the AFC ring.

Team 2 won against Team 1. Dewie didn't play much of a role in that win, but he did accidentally trip one of his teammates, who glared at him.

"Sorry," he said, and they shook their head and walked away, leaving Dewie with a crushed look on his face. Lexie glared at the teammate in return.

Team 3 and Team 4 were kind of a draw because both mannequins ended up destroyed by Ian's shockwaves.

"Sorry," he said, sending an apologetic look at Bonds, who just rolled her eyes but looked mostly amused.

Team 5 also won but broke their mannequin.

Suddenly, it was Lexie's team's turn.

It was eight people against eight, and the minute they walked on, the blonde girl, Anais, whipped around and said, "Their team has a speedster and a flyer, a swordist, and an archer. I don't know about the other four. But I think we should split up into two teams of attackers and defenders."

"I can defend," Lexie said instantly. "One of my cards is a shield." Though she wanted to use her Eldritch-made card as little as possible, to delay her Eldritch soul growth, she did need the practice. She would look at her simulation tests as a way to practice without using her Eldritch powers.

"Alright," Anais said. She pointed at the boy next to him. "What about you? What's your skill?"

"I'm Gunther. Power is super strength."

"Neat." She turned to the next boy. "You?"

"Muridokinesis, Arachnokinesis."

Everyone frowned. "What's that?"

"I can control tiny bugs, mostly spiders, and also rats."

"Ew."

He looked offended. "You won't be saying that the next time you're stuck in a rat-infested sewer or under a giant bug nest."

"If I were ever stuck in either of those, I would frankly just kill myself." She sighed and turned to the other girl on the team. "Alright, what about–"

The bell rang and interrupted their conversation. Lexie stood in front of the mannequin and threw up the shield right in time for something to slam against it.

The speedster.

He zipped back within the blink of an eye and tried another angle, but the shield moved to block him from that, too. Lexie was about to activate <True Windkiller> and target it at him, right as one of her teammates grabbed him from the back and flung him across the field.

Okay then. Go, Gunther.

"Nice work, Gunther," Anais said. She held out her hand and seemed to have telekinesis, lifting the opposing team's mannequin in the air. It was quickly wrapped up in an amoebic blob by the other team and cemented to the ground.

Two other team members attacked, one of whom was a weaponist with two axes, and the other one, who had invisibility and disappeared. The latter was probably coming for them, and Lexie hoped he couldn't pass through the shields too. She kept herself plastered to the mannequin, observing the fight play out.

The other team seemed to have the same idea as them because four people from their team also stayed around the mannequin while the other four attacked.

Invisible guy almost got to her, but got intercepted by the girl on Lexie's team, who had combat training and maybe some X-Ray vision because she seemed to be able to see him and keep him off. The flyer kept getting zapped at by another of Lexie's team's guards, and the skirmish was turning too messy to follow.

The speedster was back on his feet, and instead of charging at Gunther, who was after him, he went for Anais. Gunther ran but couldn't make it in time, and the Speedster slammed into her, sending her flying.

"I'm okay!" she called after she landed, getting back on her feet. Gunther seemed annoyed and charged at the speedster, who quickly turned it into a game of annoying Gunther even more by dancing around his blows.

Meanwhile, Lexie's shield was being attacked by endless arrows. She couldn't hold it up forever, and so the quicker this ended, the better for her. The rest of the teammates had the luxury of stretching it out with their A and S Rank mana capacities, but not her.

She searched for an opening and quickly found it. Everyone was currently involved in fighting, including the bug guy who had his hand pressed against the ground and some spiders chewing at the blob around the mannequin.

Once he was done, Lexie could use <Handy Helper> or even <Return to Sender> to drag the mannequin over to her, but she didn't have time to wait. Even if she did and tried to take the mannequin over, the other team could just destroy it on the path, intentionally or unintentionally. She needed to take them out first. But it needed to be a clean sweep.

As the skirmish continued and it got close to the time for her shield to elapse, she decided on something. It would require some of her Eldritch mana, but only a little, enough for her not to pass out. She wanted to combine <True Windbreaker> with <Can't Touch This>.

<True Windbreaker> would be used to suck out wind from the speedy guy and from the atmosphere, and she would amplify it before releasing it, turning it into a weapon of mass destruction. However, she didn't want that weapon targeted at either her or the mannequins, so she would need to shield them. The problem was that the mannequins were in two different places. Her mannequin was protected by <All-Around Protection>. She would protect the other mannequin with <Can't Touch This>, which she would turn into an effect card.

It was complicated but doable with the right process.

Not wasting any time, she closed her eyes and partially activated both cards, breathing through her nose as her head hurt. She felt lightheaded for a few seconds before it faded away. She opened her eyes and targeted the speedster, then, after a second, completed activation.

A huge gust of wind exploded around them, throwing everyone on the field off their feet. Squeals and 'what-the-hecks' could be heard all across as teammates and opponents alike were knocked on their ass.

While they were stunned, Lexie ran and grabbed the mannequin from across the field that was still standing. Then she looked at the damage around her and the gaping faces of the onlookers.

"We win," she said. "Right?"

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