During lunch I sent a text to Belle but I didn’t get any response. He was probably pretty sick then, maybe sleeping it off at the moment. I know I shouldn’t push the issue……. but keep feeling a weird prickling at the back of my neck. It’s like walking into a room for something super important but you completely forget. It needs to get done and should be happening now. The only question is what is it? Maybe I’m just worried? Even my body feels wrong and like I need to run.

  It’s probably stress. With all the weird people and that up coming fight ter. Or my instincts are picking up on something stupid? Damn it!

  I looked over at Steph with my brows pressed together in frustration. “Hey….uh do you feel like something’s off?” I asked, sounding unsure of myself. Maybe it’s a mana sense thing?

  “Hm? Not really? But I am worried.” Her eyes shifted over to Emily who sat between us.

  I looked at her, my eyes narrowing into a focused suspicion. “Yeah… I have some worries too.” While we stare, Emily busied herself with a fruit sad, inhaling everything off her fork in seconds and bouncing in her seat. She’s all happy yummy sounds with each inhale, completely unaware of her friends watching from either side.

  “As much as I like keeping an eye on her, I’ll have to ask around. Who knows, maybe the monster side of my family might help. Might be a good idea to ask Nana too. She’s better at this stuff.” Steph said before taking a small bite of a turkey burger.

  “Nangerine!” My eyes widened. Deep in my gut I felt she could definitely help or at the very least, give me an idea. “Is she still at that little shop on Gato’s Tail?” I quickly asked.

  “Yeah but she said she’d be sizing up after a few weeks. You wanna go see her together?” Steph asked, a small smile on her face.

  “Uh-well, I was going there for the fundraiser-” As I said that, Steph’s little smile grew wider. “My brother invited me.” I quickly added before she tried to invite herself. A girl with a smile that big only meant she wanted in.

  Steph’s rge smile shrunk a little. “Oh. you too?” She looked over at Emily, her eyes softened before she turned back to me. “Emily and I are going too. She could use a change in scenery. If you see us poking around, don’t be shy.” She waved her tail at me. “Say hi.” Her smile growing back to its rge status.

  I nodded. “As long as you don’t say anything weird to my brother. He-” I began but paused, wincing a little. I didn’t want to tell them but Emily could make things weird and I don’t want him to hate my friends too. Damn it! “I’m trying to make things up with him.” I finally said, sounding hopeful but feeling like I ripped my skin off.

  Steph quickly nodded but it was Emily who spoke up. “I’ll keep my observations down to a minium.” Steph agreed with a thumbs up.

  “I-” I swallowed, feeling oddly warm. “Thanks, thank you guys.” I pushed out. It felt weird having her say that when she said some strange warning. And weirder that she even offered that and yet it feels nice? Well Belle knows, so he probably told them, right? “Just don’t get into any trouble while you’re there.” I added.

  Steph hugged Emily and gave a smirk as she cutely pressed her face close to Emily’s cheek. “No promises.” She said, throwing in a wink.

  Great, risk chance, why don’t you. I looked over at Emily who stared at Steph with a questioning raised brow. “Emily…keep Steph in check and I’ll-” I can’t believe I’m asking or even offering this! “Let you ask some of your more weirder questions.” Emily’s eyes grew huge as she bounced in her seat like an excited puppy that just discovered treats, almost throwing Steph off her. “SOME! As in five! And nothing that’ll be considered identity theft!” I quickly crified, I am not going to answer Pi!

  Emily stopped bouncing and settled on a jittery vibration as she grinned at me. “I will keep her in check sir!” She quickly wrapped an arm around Steph’s waist, an action that made Steph squeak and her face light up like a mp. “I’ll keep my devious cutie in her pce!” She added with a serious, ‘I’ll kill too if ya want’, face.

  “Hey! Don’t I get a sa-Mhmmm~?!” Steph began to argue but Emily pnted a kiss on her lips, shutting up the glowing snakegirl. She struggled…. a little. But that stopped when Emily leaned into her, nibbling on her upper lip. Emily tried to look her in the eyes but got nervous and looked away, ending the kiss a second after. A clear line of saliva still connecting the two.

  Once their lips separated, Steph’s body slumped onto Emily’s, a huge giggling grin on her face. Emily looked at the floor, her cheeks glowing a soft red. “I d-don’t know w-where…. I-uh went too far?” Emily quietly asked, her eyes wildly moved around in their sockets.

  I put a hand on her shoulder, she looked up at me with big searching eyes. “I appreciate your consideration but, and I say this as a former guy. Maybe blow some steam off.”

  It was a pretty long day, all things considered. I did some more mana training With Miss Shogone, dealed with a few more grumpy hallway students to and from csses. Flight css wasn’t too bad this time but I did see something amazing.

  We were outside for this css, close to the gardens but no where near its buildings. The giant mount loomed to my right with all its dark rock and snow capped tops and at the base, was the meeting point of my fight. Pins that grew into hills which then and sharply transitioned to jagged cliffs that made the base look more like a giant came up from under the ground. Its weight and size pulling up the buried rock for what looked to continue all around the giant mountain.

  To my left was the right corner of the school. A rge semicircle the size of either a baseball or football stadium, crowned the area with white pilrs near the bottom. That gave it more of a white rib cage poking out of bck flesh sort of look. The corners curved into rge gss panels that you’d see at a huge food court, though the gss did bump up into domes a ways back. The weirdest one had one thick tower coming out the middle which then split into three smaller towers. These formed what looked to be a ptform with several flying monsters circling it.

  “Today css, we brought you here to experience one of the reasons many schools throughout the coast and pteau cities all the way to the east still train rescue teams. It is also why we don’t have a mountain range anymore.” Tavis announced to us, ending it with a few clicks. He even nodded his head at Dragon’s point with closed eyes.

  Several cssmates looked around with wide eyes, some even looked nervous, scared even. A few huddled close to a few human students with bat like ears. Others leaned forward on their legs and arms, ready to run for the school.

  “A nd eruption?” “The sky’s not going to fall on us…is it?” “An upheaval?! Why aren’t we warning the city?”

  A few cssmates whispered to each other, they even looked at me for some reason. I was just minding my own business waiting for whatever we were going to learn. Those cssmates nodded to each other and sat a little closer to me too. We’re not going to see a volcano erupt are we? I eyed the mountain like it was some mastermind ready to enter phase three of its pn.

  But despite our watchful gazes, nothing happened, other than a few cssmates shifting on their rears like they had ants. I looked over at Mr. Argen, he stood still like a statue, his sharp gre on us made him look possessed. It didn’t help that his dark feathers covered his body like a reaper’s cloak and his sharpened thumb cws. The odd part was I even heard a soft chuckle or maybe a gurgle from him.

  Was he going to actually kill us and watch the whole thing? He was a nice teacher but it’s always the nice ones you have to look out for. My eyes narrowed. I might have to butter him up. He noticed me watching him and he raised a mirthful brow at me. Just gotta be sure….

  As we sat there waiting for our possible doom, a shadow slowly crept up on us. And before we knew it, the sky turned bck. The darkness covered the nd almost all the way to the mountain and some of the forest behind us. Everyone either jumped to their feet, screamed or rushed to the school walls. And at least six students materialized themselves around me, the two smaller arachne huddled by my right wing, the brown raccoon guy clinged to my p like a nervous dog.

  “Ehm!” Tavis cleared his throat loud enough that we all looked at him.

  Only to see Mr. Argen looking up at the skies. Everyone’s heads quickly snapped upward, spotting a huge rock floating there. It had four nubby peaks of brown and bck rock, it drifted slowly in the blue sky like a moving isnd. It slowly hovered toward Dragon’s Point, cutting through clouds and when the sunlight hit its sides the bck rock glittered a soapy green and purple. Around the edges of this upside down mountain were hints of green, some of it hanged off the sides like loose wires or melted string cheese.

  “Oooooh… he’s talking about the trapped nd.” “It's been a month already?” Maybe I’ll get tickets to the next show?”

  The first one to ask a question was the imp with spider legs coming from his back. “Don’t several corporations own nd on celestial isnds? How does the government keep track of them and keep people from using them as floating weapon ptforms?” He quickly shot at Tavis with narrowed eyes like he just found a rat.

  Tavis stared at the imp with a baffled expression. “I’ve studied the technique and history not th-” He began.

  “I heard the Silk Comet tried to buy one too. Only to be beaten out by the Caulerpa Globe, are they using it to protect people or…” He looked up at the sky isnd as if to hint something else.

  But before Tavis or the imp could say anything, Mr. Argen cleared his throat. “Above us students is the floating isnd, A. Once a part of Dragon’s Point, north-eastern mountain peaks, it along with most of the range was shot up into the sky.” He said, speaking over them like their conversation was just a buzzing fly.

  He pointed to the glittery rock at the isnd’s underbelly. “As you can see, the isnd is held aloft by huge mana condensed corundum. These powered stones, filled with both air and earth aether both carry the peak and trap it to the pnet’s magnetic pull. In a typical terra jolt, aether from above the ground finds a way underground. It then seeps into existing mana ore, devouring the pure mana from within. But it also becomes trapped inside the ore, with no way to release its energy, the aether cycles inside like in a washing machine on turbo. If enough aether infused ore exists in one spot, they rip up the ground from below and send it into the air. And if they don’t stabilize, which is often the case, they explode. Sending chunks of earth back down like meteorites.”

  What?! I stared at the floating rock for any sign of it swaying or losing altitude. My eyes zooming on the magic filled rocks, hoping to god that there wasn’t a crack in them or them falling off. For now though, it seemed like that floating nd mass wasn’t going to fall. At least for now that is.

  “Don’t worry everyone. The isnd’s aether stones have stabilized so it will not fall. But as a safety precaution, there is machinery to monitor the aether and mana consumption. So if one were to fall we would get a warning long before it even dipped past its normal altitude.”

  So we’re safe from floating timebombs? Maybe. I looked up at the floating isnd, it floated away enough that I managed to make out a rge white building next to a dome shaped one. Then again, maybe not. That Imp might be onto something.

  As I looked over at him, Mr. Argen stepped in front of him. “Even if a corporation managed to remove their monitor or falsify its readings.” The isnd’s shadow moved, allowing the sun to bathe Mr. Argen and cloak his face in shadow. “The Demon council and even the inspectors will notice. And well.” His eyes glowed a bloody red as embers wisped out of them like smoke. “The st ne’er-do-well is remembered as a crater.” He said, his voice dropping into a horror narrator’s croaking final warning.

  The imp looked up at him with fear filled orbs as he shrunk so low to the floor that it looked like he dug a hole to hide in. which only made Mr. Argen appear to tower over him like an evil monolith ready to make a leather purse out its next victim. The imp y frozen, still at this info. And either happy or possibly fulfilled by this, Mr. Argen straightened up. The blood red vanishing from his eyes like it was nothing more than some trick of light.

  “Now then css. It’s important to understand that, while we are assured ample warning of a falling isnd. We still need to evacuate, some will fail to escape or become trapped and others may see it as an opportunity. The real danger comes from how we all choose to react.” He said with a heavy tone.

  He looked over at the isnd, it slowly drifted over to the mountain, it was only a few feet away from us. But its shadow was still covering half the css like some giant creature.

  “Rescue teams are trained on how to act and help in such situations. Since they can fly, they are often the first to many sudden disasters such as a falling isnd or terra jolt. And while I can’t fully train you as one, I am allowed to teach you of their techniques. After all, part of gaining a flight license is to know their safety procedures.”

  After css ended, I went to my locker to grab my things. Lifting my jacket and sliding my arms into it, only to feel something bunch up in the pocket. Oh right, that mino girl gave me something. I reached in and pulled out the paper, unfolding it as I reached for my bag only to freeze.

  ‘Your friend is wasting his time with a brat like you. Give up or else you trampling hell! You’ll see soon enough.’

  Mark? The hell is this?! I double checked the paper but the only other thing was something about the hall and air? Are they trying to be funny about my flight css? Without thinking further I rushed, passing past Maria.

  “O-Oliver?! Wait! W-what about your things?!” She called but I was already rushing through the door, through the front and into the fall.

  And hanging on the bulletin board was a picture of Belle with a note underneath.

  ‘We have your fuck toy.’