"First level threat," a voice blared at some point during the night, "Students years one through three please make your way to the main school building. Years four and five, put on your armor, gather your weapons, and get to the outer wall."

Sora awoke with a jolt, waiting until the message played a second time. First level threat? What was that? 

Danique was already up and moving to the closet to change clothes.

Zaria didn't bother changing. She didn't really care what anyone else thought about her sleeping clothes and, in the case of an attack, she wouldn't have time to worry about her appearance if she had to fight.

Alannah rolled her eyes and kicked her legs over the side of her bed to stand. She knew this would be a waste of time. A small skirmish where the beasts were outmatched followed by the fourth and fifth years drinking as celebration of their victory. Unless it wasn't. Unless they were seriously outmatched. In that case, they could stop it.

Aurora frowned, watching her roommates carefully. Was this a drill? Or were they actually getting a small scale attack? She hopped lithely off her top bunk and walked with the other two out the room.

Callum didn't wake up until Hoku hit him with a pillow a few times. He did indeed have a crick in his neck, but he wasn't awake enough during the interaction the night before to remember why. The large boy looked to Luca's bunk, finding it empty.

The three rooms converged in the kitchen, looking each other over with a mixture of bleary and clear eyes.

"Where's Luca?" Alannah asked, her suspicions confirmed. 

This was going to be the beginning of a host of problems she hadn't let herself wander down the paths of.

"I don't know. He wasn't in his bunk so I assumed he left already for that meeting place in the school," Hoku shrugged.

Alannah's eyes glowed under her lids as she closed them, and she seemed to choke on her breath, "No. The nymphs came. That's what they're calling the threat. Luca went out to meet them." The girl opened her pink eyes, grimacing. 

Damn it. Damn it damn it damn it. 

Zaria tensed, "If there's nymphs, that's not a small level threat. Just a few of them could decimate an army if rightly provoked."

"They thought they're just humans. It's only a band of thirty of them."

No, every member of a secret group of elite nymph warriors. Why!? Why are we taking this path!? Alannah's mind yelled at the voice that had guided her her whole life. Of course, now it was silent.

She kept the stress of this particular set of events off her carefully crafted mask of nonchalance.

"Only," Zaria scoffed back, "Ok."

Alannah glared, but immediately put her mask back up, "Are we going to take it upon ourselves to stop them?"

The group looked between each other. Hoku shrugged, "I've always wanted to make one of those grand entrances. Why not?"

"Because we could get killed?" Danique suggested.

"Unlikely, actually. Especially you and your sister," Alannah corrected.

Danique sighed, "Ok. I can agree to this as long as you watch us to make sure we don't do whatever leads to our deaths."

Alannah grinned, pink eyes fading back to red, "Deal."

You're being cocky, she told herself. But this threat couldn't be handled by anyone with any less knowledge or any other intents.

Oh, she hated having this power.

"How long do we have?" the scarred twin asked as she tightened the laces on her boots.

"The sooner we go, the more likely we are to stop it."

"Well, let's go," she stood to her feet, a glimmer of excitement in her eyes.

"What are you planning?" Zaria asked.

Danique looked to her twin, "We have to get over there somehow. The bridge to the school is made of stone."

"And if it's spelled?"

"There's ground beneath us."

Zaria nodded. Sora blinked, her face going blank with confusion. Apparently she wasn't good at figuring out what the twins meant when they used so few details. Or maybe she was still very much asleep.

They walked out the front door and to the edge of the bridge. Danique flicked her wrist and a piece of the bridge moved. Up, left, right. It wouldn't move down unless it was no longer matched up with the rest of the bridge. 

So that was how that worked.

"Everybody on," Danique instructed, then moved them closer to the ground.

Hoku had yelped, his heel barely on the platform.

And their teacher yelled at them to get their butts in the school, her shouts distant from the bridge far above.

Danique set them down on the outer wall, looking to Alannah, "Get someone killed and you'll be next."

Alannah nodded, but didn't meet the girl's eyes. Her eyes were already scanning the ground below them. There was a tiny army of maybe seventy students. And the thirty nymphs. 

Luca jogged to the bridge section, now on the wall, "You're planning on stopping this?" He looked to the sun behind them, barely peeking over the castle-turned-school wall.

"I'm surprised you're not down there," Sora said, raising a brow.

"I'm not stupid or suicidal. Either the nymphs wouldn't recognize me or the students would think I'm part of the attack."

"What do you mean the nymphs wouldn't recognize you? Should they?" Zaria asked, suspicion etching her words.

"My mother was a nymph," he blinked, forgetting they wouldn't know that.

"Talk later," Alannah instructed, "Right now, we have about thirty seconds before they start fighting. If we're unlucky, that would be a declaration of war." 

Incorrect. If you're unlucky, you're looking at the end of the world. You have no choice here.

"Right. Get down there, box them separately in whatever you can," Danique said. Solid strategy.

"Or... we could make a splash, no pun intended, and Callum could strike the ground between them with lightning," Hoku grinned.

"Ten seconds," Alannah warned.

"Then hurry up and do it, Callum," Danique glared.

Callum also glared, but at Hoku. He closed his eyes, raising his right hand to the sky. The sky above them clouded unnaturally quickly. He clenched his other fist, sweat beading on his brow, and brought his right hand down in a chopping motion. The lightning struck, dead center between the two masses of humanoids threatening to spill blood. They had paused at the clouds, but they panicked at the lightning.

That was a unique ability. Something that hadn't been seen in centuries and probably wouldn't be seen for centuries more. Neither side had someone like that.

As soon as the flash of light disappeared, Luca jumped from the wall, landing nimbly on strong limbs. 

"Uh, show off much," Sora scoffed, laughing a bit at the boy in a hurry.

Danique smiled and picked up the segment of bridge they were on, palms to the sky as she brought it to the area of charred earth. They touched the ground as Luca reached the nymphs. He spoke to the woman who stood at the front of the group. The fourth and fifth year students glared at them.

"Do we have a group of traitors here?" One of the young men asked.

"No, you dumba- idiots. We came to save your hides. You were about to attack nymphs," Callum spat back. 

Even being younger than them, the older students seemed to take in his hulking form and the storm cloud still dissipating and stood down.

"How do you know those are nymphs?"

Callum pointed. Not at Alannah, but at Luca, "Apparently he lived with them."

"Nymphs are all females, aren't they?" a different student, a female herself, asked, obviously confused.

"My father was a triton," Luca replied, having walked back to the group in time to hear the question, "My mother a nymph. I had more nymph than triton characteristics so I grew up with the nymphs."

"Wait... can you breathe under water!?" the same girl asks.

"Because that the relevant question here, Mae," the first young man says, but he was smiling at her. 

"Well, it's good to see no one was killed," a rich, booming voice sounds from above.

Every head turned to look at the headmaster. He took a step off the wall on what appeared to be thin air, but he didn't fall. Force fields. A unique ability seen only in him. 

The three separate groups continued to watch as the figure got closer to the ground with every step.

"You were the one who called this meeting," one of the nymphs said, "I was wondering if you brought us here and thought a few of your student would be enough to be rid of us." Her accent was crisp and clipped.

"I second that concern," Luca openly glared at the headmaster.

"Oh, no, my apologies. One of my employees saw you gathering outside the wall and thought you were going to attack. They sent the warning out. If any lives had been lost, they would be punished, but seeing as how our new students stopped any and all possible bloodshed, they will be seriously reprimanded," Headmaster Flinte reached the ground and gave the first years a restrained smile.

"Why were the nymphs asked to be here?" Luca asked, crossing his arms.

"They wanted to inspect the place you will be residing in for the next five years. They're apparently very protective of their young. I decided to call them sooner rather than later," the man nodded at the group of centuries old beings.

"Wait," Aurora said before anyone else could speak, "Don't nymphs need water to survive? How would you travel this far inland without... well, dying?"

"That's a myth spread to cause other species to underestimate us," one of the nymphs with dark skin smiled. Her accent reminded Danique of the tribal elder from her father's village.

"Maybe we shouldn't try our luck staying out here questioning the guests," Alannah suggested, then said in a stage whisper, "Headmaster Flinte is giving us dirty looks."

"Ok. We'll just interrogate Luca," Hoku smirked.

Luca frowned.

"And be in detention tomorrow," Headmaster Flint added.

"What happened to there being so few rules?" Zaria asked.

One of the older students coughed to cover a laugh, "You're meant to figure out how many rules there are as you go through the school. Be prepared to compare the ones you've found at the end of each year with the other classes in your year."

"How are we supposed to be punished for saving lives?" Callum argued.

"You yourself could have died," the headmaster said.

"But we didn't. Instead of being punished for things that could have happened, why can't we be let off the hook for what did happen?" Callum pushed.

"You're not being let off because you saved lives or punished because you could have died. You're being punished because you messed with the bridge and didn't follow the warning for only fourth and fifth years on the battle field."

"Callum. Let it go. We got detention. I said I wanted to make a splash. What's better than getting detention before our first day of school actually starts?" Hoku grinned.

"I still don't get it."

"Brains over brawn," Alannah said and patted his shoulder, laughing at the venom laced glare he sent her way.

"Yes. Now go and fix my bridge," Headmaster Flinte smiled, this time more openly, at the students.

Danique waited until Luca stepped back on the platform and lifted it to the air, small beads of sweat trickling down her temple. Aurora couldn't help but watch in wonder as they flew through the air, then settle down in the exact area that lined up with the rest of the bridge. A bit of smoothing out and no one could tell the piece had ever been moved.

"What do we do now?" Danique asked, wiping the sweat off her skin.

"Interrogate Luca?" Hoku suggests.

"Or... go to class so we're not late and don't get any more detentions," Luca counters. He doesn't wait for a response before he walks away from the group.

"I do not trust the headmaster," the nymph filling position of leader of the city said, "When you go to that school, be careful. There are too many horrible rumors surrounding the Flintes for them all to be false."

The memory haunted Luca now that he saw the nymphs sent to the school. Not the low ranking nymphs usually sent on errands. No, these nymphs could dissipate into the water vapors in the air. And they weren't all from his city. In fact, none of them lived there. They traveled from underwater civilization to underwater civilization and they stopped the largest of threats. 

Pollution. Storms that would destroy a city. Currents that could carry the young into unfriendly territory. Those threats and many more no one heard about. They were the group whose combined power bent the will of nature.

So what were they doing here?

What are they doing here?

He didn't know. And he wasn't sure he wanted to find out.

"Luca?" Alannah's voice broke him out of his thoughts, "Do you know where you're going?"

Luca glanced at her, his group behind him, then at the four sets of stairs leading down, "No. Do you?"

"I can if someone starts going down each set fo stairs. Stop when I say to and come back to me."

He nodded. Sora, Callum, Zaria, and he started on their way down separate stair cases.

"Ok! One in the middle right. Zaria, Luca, Callum, come back. We still have a whole maze to figure out after this."

The other students groaned but Alannah was grinning in delight. The secrets she could find just by their intentions were limitless.