Chapter 15

  (Revised Edition 2)

  Half an hour had passed before Harmony, Maya, and Steven managed to locate the Twilight Academy. If they had a map they likely could have found it sooner. Unfortunately, they didn’t have access to a map, nor could they ask anyone for information, mostly because they hadn’t seen anyone.

  Maya speculated that this was because everyone was on break. School was almost out for the year, and most students could go back to meet their families.

  If the students weren’t on break, the school day would already be over, so the students would likely be inside their dorms. Harmony never liked being outside after school, unless they were going shopping. Why would any other kids be any different?

  “What do you think this academy will look like?” Harmony asked Steven.

  “I think that it will look like a giant manor, but in all likelihood it’ll probably just look like our school in the Eclipse,” Steven theorized, “hopefully one of the exits isn’t the roof, that was certainly an exciting end of year party.”

  At the end of their Junior year back at the Ecliptic Academy, one of the members of the Senior class decided that it would be a good idea to test the limits of their aura by jumping off the roof of the third story. Luckily they made it out with only a minor sprain.

  Harmony missed the Ecliptic Academy and the friends that she had made there. Although Maya and Steven were by far her fastest friends, she didn’t like the thought of not having any communications with her other friends anymore.

  The thought of emailing them had flickered across her mind, but she remembered that the messages likely wouldn’t go through. In all likelihood the Eclipse would intercept their message before it got to the recipient.

  Looking around, Harmony looked at all the houses, realizing that they were the student houses. From what Harmony knew these houses were the homes to the students throughout the school year. She wondered what the requirements were for student housing.

  Peaking out from around the houses was a giant wall made of what appeared to be granite and marble. As they got closer, a large castle-like structure became visible from behind the wall. The structure was very grandiose in appearance.

  “No wonder most people don’t need a map…” Steven commented, looking at the building.

  If there weren’t so many tall trees in front of houses they might have been able to see the academy. Though, if they had kept a sharper eye out they also would have likely seen the school. It had probably been visible at different points along their walk.

  Passing through the gates to the school, they were able to see the true majesty of the building. The school ground looked much different than the surrounding neighborhood. Most of the buildings outside looked new, but the school itself looked old.

  Weathering was visible on the facade of the school. Yet the stones still looked pearlescent as the sun shone on it. In spite of the weathering, the fine details seemed to also still be visible.

  Two massive doors closed the rest of the building off from the outside. Harmony wondered how they would get inside. How would they be able to get the big doors open?

  Her concerns were alleviated when she saw that there were smaller doors built into the big doors. Looks like they didn’t like opening the giant gate very much either.

  “This place is quite marvelous,” Maya noted, as they approached the front of the school.

  “I wonder how old it is?” Steven also noted the age of the building.

  They entered the inside of the school, which was just as grandiose as the outside. Red carpet lined the halls on the inside of the castle-like building. Numerous paintings and portraits lined the walls.

  One of the main art fixtures depicted all of the Grand Judges of the Solar Sword. Harmony tried to count them all, but got pulled along by Maya and Steven before she could finish.

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  At the sides of the hall there were classrooms, auditoriums, and even laboratories. What could the budget have been for this school? From first glance it was definitely more than that of the Ecliptic Academy. Harmony expected this out of a college, not a general academy.

  “I had heard that the Twilight Academies were big, but I didn’t realize that they would be this big,” Maya looked around at everything in their current area.

  They had learned about the Twilight Academies during their time at the Ecliptic Academy. Turns out that they used to have exchange students between the schools. That was before the second Shrine War officially began. Made Harmony wonder what it would have been like to go to school here.

  Moving through the school was rather sensical. Each classroom usually had an auditorium attached to it. Most science labs were placed in one corner of the school, and any other activity was placed in another.

  When they went upstairs they found the cafeteria, gymnasium, main auditorium, and many club rooms. Most of the classes seemed to be downstairs, which was great organization in Harmony’s book. It just made sense to her.

  During their escapade, however, Harmony saw movement out of the corner of her eye. Maya seemed to as well as she stopped in her tracks. Steven almost walked merrily along… until he noticed that his sister wasn’t following him anymore.

  At the end of the hallway, admiring a painting of a dragon was a young girl wearing robes. Harmony made her way towards the girl, observing the painting that she was looking at.

  Harmony realized that the painting depicted not only a dragon with obsidian scales, but a white feathered phoenix, and a demon with an eye instead of a head.

  She knew the dragon to be Obsidious, the Dragon Emperor. During the first Shrine War he led the dragons in many campaigns against the humans, as well as the newly formed Unity.

  The phoenix went by the name Aetheria, and she was the Sovereign of the Phoenix’s. Her cunning led both the dragons and the phoenix to victory on multiple occasions.

  Finally there was Okaja, the demon autarch. During the first Shrine War, the demons were the most difficult mythical creatures to contain. Okaja was among a group of five demons that the Unity had to divert all resources to contain them.

  During that first Shrine War, the Unity dubbed these three the Monarchs. The painting that both Harmony, and the mysterious girl, were looking at shared that name. They were the most dangerous entities known to the Unity.

  “Hello,” Harmony greeted warmly, walking up to the girl, “what are you doing here?”

  The girl turned towards Harmony, her robes brushing against Harmony’s leg. At first, Harmony was in awe of the girl’s appearance. There wasn’t a single blemish on her skin, and her brown hair looked perfectly maintained.

  In one way, Harmony could describe her appearance as ethereal. Then again, it could just be that she was really good at hygiene.

  “Just looking around,” the girl said, “I am Mori, it is nice to meet you.”

  Harmony found that it was strange that another person was just ‘looking around’. That’s what they were doing too. It could just be a coincidence, but Harmony’s brain came up with another solution. There was a non-zero chance that this girl, Mori, was sent to keep an eye on them.

  Maya and Steven were nowhere to be found. They had likely gone into a classroom, or into another hallway.

  “What brings you here today?” Mori asked, turning back to look at the painting again.

  “We were just outside, and we were told that this academy would be a nice place to check out,” Harmony answered.

  “I would say that the person that directed you here was rather smart,” Mori said, laughing slightly, “I was also told that this place was nice. Looking at the paintings and stained windows displays so much history.”

  Moving in front of one of the giant stained glass windows that lined the hall, Mori started to marvel at it, “this place is rich with history. I quite enjoy places that are like this… reminds me of home.”

  Mori’s eyes darted around at everything in the room, which Harmony found disconcerting and fascinating at the same time. It was like she was trying to absorb her surroundings all at once.

  Before Harmony could ask a question that was swirling around in her mind, giant shutters closed off access to the windows, doors to classrooms barred themselves closed, and the lights went out.

  Red emergency lights flickered, allowing visibility in the darkness, but not much. What was going on?

  A loud ding resounded through the halls, then, a voice pierced through the darkness, “warning, remain where you. Those of you in the hallways, please make your way to the nearest entrance.”

  There was a nervous look on Mori’s face. Looks like she didn’t know what was happening either. This only slightly alleviated Harmony’s concerns that she could be a spy in disguise.

  “Follow me,” Harmony said quickly, starting to run down the hallways, “we need to find my friends. It’ll be safer together.”

  She needed to find Maya and Steven immediately. There was no telling what would happen next, and they would be safer as a group.

  Running down the hall, Harmony hoped that nothing bad had happened to them.