Alice stared at her before grabbing her wrist and snapping it like a twig. "Nice to meet you, 'sis'. Mouth off to me like that again and I'll f*** you up so badly even Daniel won't be able to fix you." She walked off in a huff towards where she could feel the presence of a familiar spirit. Phora followed her.

"You know why you can't remember her?" Phora said. "She used her Filarum powers to cut ties with you , before I was tame. That's why I didn't hurt her. She started doing that to your parents, too, after she noticed their scars."

Alice breathed heavily. This was the wrong time to have horrible memories resurface. The world was at stake, yet her insufferable younger sister chose now to reappear and mess with her emotions.

"You want her to die. I can feel it." Phora said.

"Not by your hands." Alice replied. "You've done enough damage already. What a demented child... I imagine her own actions will be her undoing."

Daniel bristled. "Your spirit is wavering. Meditation can help you recover from your loss," He said, putting the pieces together slowly.

Heather grunted at the noise her wrist made. Despite the pain Heather felt her wrist analyzing the damaged Alice had caused.

Ok, good not broken. Just dislocated. Heather let out a sigh before snapping it back into place. That wasn't so bad.

She then shrugged her backpack off her shoulder. She rummaged through it pulling out a brace, some painkillers, and her lunch box. Heather opened the painkillers using her good hand and her mouth. Heather took a couple pills before opening her lunchbox and grabbed her ice pack. She quickly slid her hand into the brace before putting the ice pack on it. Heather began to dig through her bag again retrieving some duct tape. She taped the Ice pack to her brace. She nodded at her work before shoving everything back into her bag. Heather stood and walked towards Apollon.

---

Lotus stopped walking to stare at Alice. She managed to see what happened from the doorway to Apollon. Lotus shook her head.
"Hey, You should be nice to your family you don't know how long you'll have them in your life." Lotus quoted Alice. Lotus knew she was fast enough to block or dodge any moves Alice made towards her.
With that Lotus continued to walk down into the plaza where the rest of the students were.

Well that was something. Suddenly this group of teenagers seemed wilder than ever. Damian felt he should've done something but it was Alice after all, he could've just ended up in her bad graces as well. It was too late anyway, he did nothing more then walk by Heather, making a comment to her. "Protip, don't provoke your blonde sister. You'll have a better time around here if you don't." He passed her then, offering nothing more as he made his way over next to Fiona. "What's up?"

Alyx followed as instructed, paying close attention to Miss Rachael's words. "Wow... Thank you, for all of this. It's all very fascinating." She paused, taking a seat next to her on the fountain. "It's just... I couldn't help but notice my stone's reaction took longer than the rest of the girls'. Did I do something wrong?" Alyx lowered her head and frowned slightly. "I m-mean, I suppose I'm not entirely 'here' yet... Part of me still thinks I'm dreaming or something. --- But if this is real, I do really want to be a part of it. I want to do the best I can to learn and develop this gift. This all feels... correct." She lifted her head to make eye contact with Miss Heather once again. "So please, if I started off on the wrong foot, help me catch up to my classmates before the gap gets larger than it clearly already is."

"My dear," said Miss Rachel in response to Alyx's query, "You've answered your question yourself" she said with a gentle smile. "By following us into the s****, you took the first steps into a new world. A world in which not everything your five senses tell you, or don't tell you, can be trusted. You will have to learn how to see with omnividence, and interact with the spiritual world through your own abilities and arte. There is no room for doubt, or believing this to be a dream. You must be firm in your resolve to defend humanity from that which it cannot see, for we are the seers. Do not fret, you will catch up to your colleagues soon."

She completely ignored Alice's behaviour, instead walking over to Heather's side and observed as she put together a brace and an icepack onto her wrist.

"Nope," she stated calmly "No time for braces, young lady. Go ahead and take it off, you're completely fine." Although what Miss Rachel had said sounded quite casual, the hairs on the back of Evelyn and Damian's necks prickled as they sensed a powerful flow of energy flowing between Miss Rachel and the new girl. Heather had not noticed anything in particular, until she realized that she felt no pain at all, not even any fatigue despite travelling to school that morning; she was completely fine as Miss Rachel had said. What they hadn't realized however, was that Miss Rachel had not cured the girl of her clinical deafness, as that would require even more power than she wished to dispense in that moment.

"Now!" she said, letting Alice continue deeper into Apollon. "As most of you have suspected, there is a reason why you have been brought back to Apollon together," she said with a twinkle in her eyes. "While I could allow you to run free through the city, to do some meditation mumbo jumbo, I have decided that I would much rather play a game."

"Let's see," she said while counting each student "Perfect! Excluding, one of whom I shall deal with, and two others who have not returned from their winter breaks yet, there is enough for two teams of seven"

"Adi, you will be captain of team 1, comprised of Logan, Daniel, Fiona, Alyx, Derrek, and Idelia.

"Li, you will be the captain of team 2, comprised of Maximilian, Evelyn, Damian, Tsubaki, Heather, and Lotus.

"Now, this game is quite similar to our previous game of capture the flag. There are two balls; one is red and the other is blue. Each team must get the corresponding ball into the tower of the other team. The twist however, is that there are key positions. The charger is the only individual allowed to hold the ball, and they cannot use any of their abilities. The strikers are the protectors of the charger. There are three strikers, and they are able to use their abilities as they see fit. The defenders are the protectors of their side of the playing field. There are two defenders, and they cannot go beyond the middle into the other side's territory. Traditionally, they use their powers primarily for defensive measures, setting up traps, etc. Lastly, the keeper is the protector of the tower, something of a goalkeeper, if you will. The keeper is the last line of defense, and are the only players allowed inside the tower aside from the charger."

"Alright, Li and Adi, you are both each of your teams' chargers. Split up and everyone choose their positions. I will begin the game shortly after."

"Now, to deal with Alice" she said under her breath with a tired sigh as the groups went to their respective towers.

Daniel looked regretfully at Lotus as he let go of her hand. "See you on the field, then." He trudged towards the tower next to Adi, wondering if it would be acceptable to use magic during the game.

Alice and her totems ambled about through Appollon. She felt energy flowing off in the distance, and wondered what Rachel planned to do to her. Forgiving Daniel had taken a load off her shoulders, more so than she had felt since winning back her family.

Phora sensed Alice thinking of the incident over winter break. "So, let me get this straight..." She said. "Daniel is tied to the world in a way that we aren't?"

Alice climbed up a large boulder and sat down. "I suppose." She replied.

"So if we were to kill him, the balance of the world would be thrown off, and it would be our fault?"

"Yes. Mother nature wouldn't take kindly to it, and neither would the spirit realm."

"Does this mean we have to protect him?"

"For now. Once he masters his powers, he will be able to protect himself. We need to guide him, and make sure he doesn't go down the wrong path."

"What does that make Lotus?"

Alice laughed and smiled. "My rival."

Phora pondered this as they 'watched' the others with spiritual perception. She missed Grayson.

"You're right, she is pretty fine," Derrek added to Miss Rachel's healing words.

Though quickly he groaned when he heard they had to play a game instead of napping, and double groaned when his team wasn't exclusively filled with the ladies. He almost completely ignored the rules of the game after 'similar to our previous game of capture the flag', but withstood his nodding off, because he did kind of enjoy it. Of course one of the positions sounded too idea for him, but he was loathe to speak up.

"Hey, I'm loathe to speak up, but you should probably put me as Keeper. I'm Dormientis, so I'm not going to be good on offense or defense, but staying in one place for a long time? I can do that."

---

Tsubaki was glad that Heather was ultimately okay, even if Alice's attack had shocked her. She guessed she hadn't really been in the 'getting to know people' business very long, but she had thought she was at least doing okay with it, at least until now. She didn't speak up during the explanation, although she did smile and wave at each member of her team, except for Heather, and only with trepidation at Max.

She did speak to Heather instead in the moment's before Li's squad assignments. "Hi, I'm Tsubaki. Uh... um... are you sure your wrist is okay? I have some athletic gaze in my bag if you need it. Better safe then sorry, right?"

Heather became frustrated with the random ruffian commented at the incident between her and Alice. Heather's frustration began to release at her school adviser.. "You mean you just stood there and watched me make a brace and put it on with one hand just to fix my wrist!" She began to remove the brace and put the items away, ignoring Derrek's comment. "I mean, thank you for healing it but could you have done it sooner?" She looked up only to notice Miss Rachel had moved on to explaining the rules to some kind of game. After hearing the rules and positions Heather decided to wait. She needed more information are her allies before deciding what role would best suit her.

Heather huffed before turning to the gentle and kind Tsubaki. Heather opened her mouth before stopping she began to think to herself. She'd rather not offend this girl, Heather's mother would be disappointed if Heather didn't make at least one 'friend'.

"Um...No thanks Tsubaki. However I would like a copy of the Apollon map and a drink if you could point me to the nearest soda machine." Heather said as she threw her backpack around her shoulder yet again.

---

Id chuckled. She loved this game. To bad last time She ended up getting her team disqualified. Id took notice of several things that Miss Rachel would've taken into account this time when she created teams. Id laughed at the separation of the couples. She then noticed that the water elemental was on the opposing team as well as the other flyer. Id then looked at her team which she saw and believed superior in every way, despite having Derrek on it.

"Hey a******," she said addressing Adi by the name most kids only called him behind his back. "Honestly still surprised that name stuck. But that's beside the point, I got striker or I roast our keeper." Id knew that her power, unpredictability, and arte made her a clear choice for striker. "Also I have a plan that you're going to love." She couldn't help but smile at her rudimentary flawed plan.

(OOC: It was in Adi's profile, had to use it.)
---
Lotus nodded "Stay safe, I still expect to go to dinner tonight." said Lotus smiling as Daniel left to join the opposite side. It had been a while since she smiled. Lotus wiped away her tears before looking over to Li. Lotus waited for some kind of instruction as to where he wanted her. She personally wanted defender but would play any role ask of her. Dot begin to appear beside Lotus. The tiger let out a huge yawn.

"About time you let me stretch my legs. I was beginning to worry about you dear." Dot said rubbing against the now crouched Lotus.

"I know, I just needed some time. Thank you for respecting that though." Lotus whispered to Dot as she ran her hands through Dot's soft fur.

Maximilian looked over the forming opposing team for a short while and attempted to their gauge their strengths and weaknesses by their Artes before turning his attention towards his own team. It was hard for him to really tell how many of his classmates were actually interested in the game, mostly because he himself was barely enthused by the idea of playing yet another game to train- but that wasn't the only reason he found it a bit hard to focus. Being in Apollon once more only served to remind him of the last time he was here with Evelyn, he couldn't help but think of how fragile she was then and how they talked for sometime about her troubles. Of course things were much different now and Evelyn was doing far better now than she was back then... Just thinking about any of it made Max feel like an idiot, it really wasn't even a serious issue.




"So then, Captain..." Maximilian finally broke his lost train of thought with a deep exhaling sigh of words. "how are we going to split the team up?"

Huh, another game. Damian looked around, finding that his team was very similar to the team he was part of during capture the flag. Good thing too, atleast in his opinion. "Alright, time to go 2-0. Establish a name for myself as part of winning teams." He cracked his knuckles, feeling invigorated, ready to go. He then remembered his insane performance last game, trying to electrocute a tiger from the inside, generally flipping out in rage. It brought a chuckle to him. He should probably try to stay in control this time. He looked over to Evelyn and proceeded to stroll over to her, standing next to her. He dropped his excited grin, realizing he had almost never seen her smile. "Heyyy spiritorum bud, er uh Ev...elyn." He wondered about how she manages to be so intimidating. He supposed she was his superior after all, atleast in their artes. Either way, avoiding nicknames is probably a good move until it seems like she genuinely doesn't want him to fry himself. "So I was thinking we should go and strike cause you seem more offensive minded and whatnot, maybe I'll somehow learn something from you... in the heat of battle." That didn't seem very likely.

"You're right... I will." Alyx said with a smile to Miss Rachel. "Thanks again." Slowly getting on her feet she listened to the instructions and made her way towards the group she was assigned to afterwards, now mind at ease. "Hi... Um, I guess I'm okay with whatever position you assign me to. I don't know how my powers work yet but I'm no pushover. Push me, I'll push you back." She said, determined. "You guys know more about this than I do though, so feel free to choose this time. I'll learn quickly."

Placing a gentle hand on Alyx's shoulder, Fiona smiled warmly at the girl. "According to the ceremony, you are a Naturae disciple gifted with power over wind. There used to be someone else on our team with the same gift" she said with an almost sad air, before perking up with another smile. "I never got to know him personally, though from what I know about most artes, is that they're triggered by emotion."

"My flight first arose out of being super happy about getting into Arclight Academy" she said with a giggle while slowly rising into the air, "Meanwhile, my chains manifested when I wanted to protect my brother. Ms. Shields told me that while this was a great way to learn how to initially trigger my abilities, it was not a reliable means to control them; emotions are kind of crazy and unpredictable. But whatevs! It should definitely help get you started, you can worry about the rest later," she said with a wink.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Slowly glancing in Damian's direction as he referred to her as "spiritorum bud", she resisted the urge to glare at him greeting her so casually. She had to remind herself that she had found him at the very least competent with his abilities in the previous term. She did also appreciate that he was willing to learn, and his noteworthy strength was a good asset to have on the team. In short, she found him bearable. However, she was not about to smile.

"You're right," she agreed with curt nod "I believe that you and I would make good strikers. Our ability to sense the enemy before they can sense us will prove invaluable on the battle -er- playing field."

"Maximilian's powers lend him to being any position, really" mused Li aloud "Personally, I feel like he could make a good defender or keeper, now that he's learned to wield ice." He looked over at Heather with a questionable expression, "I've never really met a Filarum...I'm sorry."

"Filarum are known for their ability to manifest and manipulate spectral strands of energy" spoke up Evelyn in a mildly condescending manner. While in truth, the arte was rarer than most others, she acted as if it were quite common. She turned to address Heather "If you could learn to weave your threads into some sort of net, or trap, that would be useful"

Adi barely paid any attention to anything ever since that conversation with Yuriel. It had occupied his thought. At night his dreams would replay it, word for word. Still the Angel had taught him how to properly harness his feelings. He had to shape his hatred like a hammer. It allowed him to strike harder, lending weight to his blows. The girdle of contempt allowed him to move faster. Adi, however, wasn’t sure if his contempt was directed at the demons he fought or at the law of physics that governed the world. Speaking of the world, he had largely returned to it.

Since his mind was mostly occupied he went through the motions. There was not even a, “home sweet home,” uttered as he stepped off the plane. Nor was there even a bit of concern when he had learned that Li had himself been grievously wounded before the eventful ball. It could be said that he had never returned from his training with the Angel at all. The shell of his old self had returned, a mere mask of ‘Adi’ had returned. It was easy, it was familiar, but most of all, it was the most comfortable.

Even the one time where he broke the façade, when he had been asked to imbue an object with holiness, had not been noticed. Since then, the occupation had doubled. Clearly something had answered his desperate plea. Was this the higher power that Yuriel had alluded to? He doubted it. Nothing had intervened to save his friends on that fateful field trip so why would it intervene now? Where was it then, or better yet, what could have possibly prevented it from acting? The questions floated around his mind. Yuriel had told him to have faith but nothing so far had convinced him. Perhaps that was the key? To believe in something so much that it blinded you? It wasn’t a palatable or desirable state to Adi. Despite the supernatural about his life, he somehow had to be convinced of such a thing as a higher power.

That left the pursuit of an impossible ideal. He had tried and he had felt no different though he supposed it was something that took time. Dr. Dawn had been consulted but offered nothing but cheap platitudes. Or at least Adi found the answer of, “It is normal to be unsure of your path in life at this age,” to be supremely unhelpful. Then he was thrust in to another team-bonding exercise. Adi was beginning to think that Dr. Dawn perhaps too busy for her own good.

“Hey a******,” an uppity junior called him, “Honestly still surprised that name stuck.”

He would remember her disrespect but really didn’t have time to interject as she continued,

“But that’s beside the point. I got striker, or I roast our keeper.”

Adi got his head back in the literal game. Ah yes, his assigned team of juniors consisting of Douglas, Sweeney, Brennan, Santana, Loansfield, and the rude Saxson. Aside from junior Scotsman, Adi had no idea who the hell these other whippersnappers were. Well he had read up a little on their abilities.

“Junior Loansfield, you’re the keeper. Try not to fall asleep on the job. Juniors Brennan and Santanna are on defense. The rest of you are with me. I would suggest a plan of attack but Li knows me too well. Junior Douglas, I cede command to you.”

It rankled somewhat when he had been assigned a command so it was thankful that he had been able to delegate to Junior Douglas. He had high hopes, if not a little respect, for the second year boy after all. Despite being unable to utilise the Artes, both Li and him knew how to handle themselves in a fight. If it came down to it, he would have to complete the objective himself.

Heather turned as the group was addressed. It was only when she was addressed personally did Heather bother to say anything.

"Oh, No." Heather summoned a single bright blue strand in her hands before she began to shape it into various string figures using her fingers. " I can't make anything with my threads. I'm as useless as a water bottle with a hole in it." She paused every now and then to show the figure she had made.

"Now let's get to more important matters shall we?" Heather remarked as the string vanished. "Now I would like to be keeper. It sounds as though you guys will be able to defend me quite nicely from my perch up in the tower. Not to mention if I do create a net or trap in the hallway or stair well it could prove quite effective."

---
"Oh boy, He put Mc.Meaty in charge. So what's the plan? Run and hide? That worked so well last time." Id said with harsh sarcasm. "I just wanted to know so this time I could have a heads up. But If you don't want to go about your normal tactics, We could use Ego. I mean I plan to use him either way, But he can carry me and a plus one. The if CarrotTop would like to he could use his shield as a dog sled. Using Ego to pull him along. But then we have Mr.Lovebird." Id paused to look at Daniel not quite sure how to get him over quickly. "Eh he can walk."

With that Id let out a sharp whistle. It began to echo off the walls of the city. A few seconds passed before a screech was heard and Ego descended from the air onto Id's shoulder.

---
Lotus finally decided to speak up.

"Well I could go either Defender or Striker. I mean technically me and Dot count as one player." Lotus said motioning between the two. "And her-...Our senses could help. Also having four beings attack the tower could help but I also understand that they have fire pycho and bird brain over there and who knows where they'll be going."

Daniel quietly acknowledged his orders. If he was to be a striker, it meant he would have to deal with Maximilian, Evelyn, Damian, and Lotus. The other two were of little concern, but the extra heads would need to be accounted for. Looking over his team, he grew slightly more confident, as the majority of them would likely be able to hold their own, but he knew it would be largely up to him to deal with Evelyn. Worst of all, he was on the team opposite of Lotus. She was capable enough to cause major problems for his team if he avoided her, like he wanted to. Perhaps he could incapacitate her without causing any pain.

Troubled, he gazed upon his glass instruments and the enchanted short sword, when he felt a sort of spiritual "nudge" from Alice. Although it caused him to jump, he recognized the feeling; she had taught him the method of communication over the course of winter break, and this time it served as the go-ahead to use the new tricks he had learned. He returned the gesture graciously, looking forward to trying them out against more equal opponents.

He spoke to Adi. "Leave me, I will gather energy. When I am finished, I will meet you on the front lines. If I'm correct, our victory will be decisive." Walking near to their team's tower, he sat atop the hill where he first found the sword, a place where magical energies pooled, perhaps more so than anywhere else in Appollon. He fell into a deep meditation, feeling the air around him, the excited bustle of spirits preparing for battle, and the flow of magic as it condensed around him.