Sometime in the morning
Quinn started waking up. He got out of bed, noticing his roommates had already taken off. Quinn thought to himself, they must have already gone down to get breakfast. I wish I could, but that's not possible anymore. Quinn resigns to himself. He took a swig from his flask he kept on him at all times. Quinn went to his home room class. As soon as Quinn arrived in the classroom, he noticed there were already a few people in the classroom. He noticed that there were only gonna be 20 people for this home room class which he thought was rather odd.
Quinn quickly sat down, and it didn't take long before Vorden and Peter showed up, sitting on each side of him. As soon as everyone settled down, their home run teacher showed up.
Vincent coughed loudly to silence the gossiping students, so he could start his lecture. It was about the introduction of the school and the Great War.
"A massive invasion force showed up and bombarded and invaded the very Earth itself. Humans were fighting off these invaders with a great fight, struggling against them. Luckily enough, the military weapons were strong enough to hold them back. But these were just basic creatures. The second wave started causing more damage, and they started to lose forces. Mechanized machines were beginning to fail.
with the fourteenth one being the famous punishers who showed up once in a while to help the human race, showed up in spaceships that made the human race completely baffled.
Realizing that there was technology available but the humans weren't purview to it, the vampires helped and pushed back the forces. Of course, the forces were still not enough to really push the enemy forces completely back at the time.
As the chaos was being pushed back, the third wave of these scarab demons showed up. The Scarab Demon's third wave was quite immense. These three spike creatures were truly monstrous, but the humans managed to hold them back. They had a leader; they were four-spike creatures, but there were only a small handful.
When we were about to lose the great war against the Scarp Demons," Vincent began, his voice rising to capture the rapturous moment, his eyes blazing, "That was when they came forward. The 'Originals'. These humans had kept their abilities hidden for hundreds of years, only passing them down to their family members."
He paused and looked around the class to make sure every student was paying attention before he continued.
"Thanks to them sharing their abilities with the rest of humanity, we were able to reverse the tide of war and beat back the Scarp Demons. When we talk about an 'Original' today, we're either referring to the founders of that ability or a member of one of the groups who have refused to share their abilities with the rest of the world."
Vincent then suddenly had a serious look on his face.
"Thanks to them sharing their abilities with the rest of humanity, we were able to reverse the tide of war and beat back the Scarp Demons. When we talk about an 'Original' today, we're either referring to the founders of that ability or a member of one of the groups who have refused to share their abilities with the rest of the world."
Vincent then suddenly had a serious look on his face.
Eventually, the leaders of these great families managed to destroy them. But the losses for the human race were immense. They had never seen such technology before. In due time, Richard Eno introduced such advanced technology to help them push across the solar system and enter another nearby solar system known as the Beast Solar System. The 13 factions established their locations and began setting up.
They managed to push the enemy almost completely out. Only a mere 25% of the beast solar system remained occupied. They were able to hold on to those planets. A ceasefire was called. The human race was pushed too thin. They could not push all the way through, and even with the new allies that showed up to help, they were still not enough to completely wipe out the enemy, just hold the line.
There were many casualties that day. and even in the coming weeks of them securing the Beast solar system, the human race had to rebuild. With this new technology that came through the several years of rapid growth and changes, the human race spreading across their solar system and the Beast solar system was truly immense.
The Punisher faction was occupying an entire solar system by themselves. They opened up the gate that led to theirs and began sorting out everything. Now that the human race had access to two different solar systems, they could do quite a bit more.
"We might live in a time of peace for the moment, but who knows when the war will start again? That is why you are here."
Once the class had finished, it was time for the students to take a break. Vorden, Quinn, and Peter headed outside to grab a snack.
Quinn left the classroom and sat down with his roommates to have a chat. Instead of eating food, he had a metallic water bottle from which he would consume his "smoothies" while his friends ate.
The three of them continued to talk about random things and the experiences they had at their previous schools until a group of six male students approached them. Each of them was wearing a black arm badge indicating that they were second-year students.
"Looks like the rumours were true." One of the second-year students said.
"We have some business to discuss with the three of you. Do you mind coming with us?" another added. His eyes dared the trio to refuse the invitation.
Quinn, Peter, and Vorden were escorted by the second-year students to a separate part of the school. The school was split into different sections and the second-year building was separate from the first-years. As such second-year students didn't really interact with the first-year students.
"Should we just run?" Peter asked Quinn in a hushed tone.
"It might just make the situation worse. If they were going to do something to us they would have waited until we were on our own," Quinn whispered back, "They must have intentionally done this in public to make a statement to all the others."
After walking for a while longer, they eventually arrived at their destination. It was underneath one of the second-year buildings. There were a few second-year students who were walking past, but otherwise, the place was relatively quiet.
"We brought them here, Mono," one of the second-year students informed a tall man with brown hair wrapped in a ponytail who had been sitting on the staircase.
"You guys can leave," Mono waved them off as he stood up from the staircase. The second-year students did as they were told and quickly left them to be on their own.
"Some rumours have reached my ears of a high-level student hanging around with a bunch of low-levels."
"So what? Is it against the rules?" Vorden stood his ground with confidence. However, Quinn couldn't help but notice Mono's wristwatch, which displayed the number 6.
Quinn thought, This sucks. It's just like it was before I gained an ability, the strong picking on the weak. I'm so tired of this nonsense.
Quinn first started gathering shadows.
Mono noticed. "Calm down there, Punisher boy. No point in fighting, here we're just here to talk." Before Quinn had even begun his attack, the older student had taken a step back, making Quinn's fist hit nothing but air.
Looking at Vorden, "I have also been informed about a mysterious figure in a full black suit," he raised his eyebrow, "so I wouldn't know who the person is, would you?"
Vorden, "I don't know anything about that. Do I look like a person who goes running around in the night with a black suit? No, I have no idea who this person is."
Mono sneered at them in derision. "I didn't come here to fight you guys. Consider today to be a 'friendly' warning. There are people in this school that not even the military can touch, and if you continue acting this way, they will get involved."
With that, Mono headed back up the stairs and into the second-year building.
The trio turned back toward the canteen to get some lunch before heading back to class.
"Do you think he's serious?" Peter asked. "I know at school they didn't like this type of stuff, but it seems even worse now that we're in a military school. Why don't the teachers do something to stop it?!"
"Because it works in their favor," Quinn sighed. "With the strong bullying the weak, the latter will try to find a way to become strong themselves. However, if you're weak to begin with and can't rely on your family to help you, where can you go to get this power?"
"The military," Vorden answered in Peter's stead.
"Exactly," Quinn nodded his head. "The teachers and the school don't do anything against it, because it benefits them. After experiencing hell for two years, your mind will likely have been broken down. In that state, you might do anything to seek power and protection… and the military can offer that for you."
Quinn broke off from his friends, excusing himself to head off to the library. He was curious what humans believed about vampires. When looking around in the library, he eventually found the fiction section of the library and started picking up books on vampires. Most of them were romance. He shook his head over seeing such things.
They truly can't believe that vampires are all about love, and there's nonsense; there is some seriousness about vampires. He found himself a table and started reading through books, noting that most of it was complete nonsense. Garlic, why would I be affected by garlic and a silver spike through my heart?
Yeah, it's not gonna kill me. Every vampire knows that you can't kill them through the heart. It doesn't work; they'll just regenerate. It's their head. It's the weak point. Good luck ever getting into that. Or if you're lucky enough, you can get to their blood crystal, but that's even harder to find.
Soon, somebody sat across from him, Quinn, and looked up, "Hello, there. How can I help you?"
"Hi, my name is Layla. Nice to meet you. I see you like to read about vampires."
Layla reached over and hit the orb in the middle of the table, creating a silencing field around them.
Layla said, "I grew up my whole life reading fantasy stories and comics about all sorts of things. Before the whole war started, my father used to work as a writer, so my home was filled with books and stories, and my favorite ones were always about vampires."
She continued with excitement increasing in her voice, "I loved everything about them, how they had to keep their identity secret from the world, the super-strength they had, the super speed, and the fact that they could live on nearly forever."
Her excitement seemed to deflate a little, "When Abilities were revealed to the world, it made fantasy stories a thing of the past. Many people read stories because they were that, fantasy. It allowed them to imagine doing something that they could never do, but now that humans actually had special powers, what was the point?"
Layla's face was glowing as she continued, "However, the love for Vampires never died down for me; it only grew. If abilities existed, then that meant somewhere out there, maybe vampires did too."
Layla had been spying on Quinn since school started. She had a feeling in the back of her head about him. She reviewed in her mind all the things she saw Quinn do since school started, including his apparent weakness in the sun and concluded in her heart, he must be a vampire.
"Well, if you feel that strongly about vampires, maybe we could go find some. Meet me on the top of the roof, three hours before curfew," Quinn said with a winning smile.