“As you say, his reputation as a formidable ranger precedes him across the country,” Dante says. After eating the rest of his bread, he adds, “They call him ‘The Black Wolf of the North,’ and mothers tell their children if they don’t behave, he will come and eat them.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” Sean agrees. “I grew up having nightmares about the guy. I’ve even heard rumors that, during a full moon, he becomes like a ghost. Nothing can touch him, and he can vanish and reappear at will to maim his foes from nowhere!”
“Hah, oh yeah, we’ve heard stuff like that about him, back in Riaquen,” sneers Buster through a mouth full of meat. He swallows and says, “Of course, we don’t believe half those rumors, but we’ve had a few training simulations to be prepared for such things. Personally, I would love the opportunity to fight him in a duel. Imagine, me tangling with the Black Wolf! So, Lyn, do tell, just how much of those rumors about him are true?”
She laughs, and then replies with a smirk, “Sorry, you’ll have to find out for yourself. But what I can tell you is that he’s not all mean and scary like they say. Did you know, on his tours across the state, he’ll stop at the village or town checkpoints, helping out the locals with random tasks or playing with the children? Believe it or not, if you’re not his quarry, he’s actually very kind and admirable. He’s gained the love of many of the citizens of Tirez through his deeds, and I’m proud of him for it. If you don’t believe me, just ask Matt here. His father is a ranger, too, and the two of them are good friends.” She turns back to him at her side, placing an affectionate hand over his. “Isn’t that right, Matt?”
Glancing to Lyn’s hand on his, Matt blushes before replying, “Heh, uh, yeah, that’s right. Whenever they’ve happened to be patrolling the border between our states, they’ve come across each other a few times, and have even worked together on assignments. I haven’t heard much of those rumors about Fenrir, but all my father’s told me about him have been good things. He’s said he’s a man you can trust with your life, and a hardy ally you can afford to have on your side. He also made sure to remind me how formidable he truly is in his morph. One time, he witnessed him wrestling with a rabid horned bear, where he nearly tore the thing apart without using any of his spells! So overall, yeah, he’s a pretty impressive guy.”
“Oh yes, he certainly is that, and more. I think it’s the greatest coincidence that our fathers happened to be become such boon companions. It would only make sense that their children should become the same, don’t you agree?” Lyn leans in closer to Matt, her silver eyes twinkling before she softly kisses him on the cheek.
Then blushing a beat red, Matt gulps to recompose himself, quick to change the subject under the stares of the others. “So, anyway, on to the business at hand. Anyone have any ideas about how we can finish off Cain’s tyranny?”
They all think over it for a moment, each one coming up with a different idea, except Sean. He was trying to come up with something when his gaze falls over the cake. He interrupts the brainstorming by pointing to it, saying, “You know, that cake’s starting to look really tasty. Anybody mind if I have a piece, or two? Or three?”
Lyn, after shooting him a sharp look, then chuckles. “Oh yeah, I almost forgot about it! Diane, Jasmine, why don’t you two split it up for us, now?” Two of her maids step up at her request and go about cutting and serving slices.
“Hehe, ah, thank you much,” Sean says as he receives a piece. “So, the words on it, ‘Alkalian College Liberators’, whose idea was that? Is that who we’re supposed to be? Because I like it!”
“That was me, and yes, that’s who we are,” Cynthia replies, smirking at him through a scoop of cake she eats. “I’m glad you like it, Sean.”
Sean flashes back a more wary smirk before eating his own cake, as the others are, when Dante throws out a suggestion after some bites of his own. “The Royale Project is coming up. That could be the best time to make the most impact upon Cain.”
“Royale Project? What’s the Royale Project?” asks Rose.
“Why, it’s the best time of the year for us battle lovers!” Buster, with jolly, answers. He explains, “Every school year, in the late fall, all students have to participate in a school project that’s more like a battle tournament. Everybody gets a red, blue, or green badge, and is then encouraged to fight anyone of a different color to earn points. The amount of points determines the percentage score for your project, which means one hundred points gives you a perfect grade. But, if you are one of the four highest scorers for your badge color, you move on to the battle tournament finals and try to become the Alkalian College Battle Champion, a high honor to achieve that looks good on any application!”
“Ah. So,” Rose says while putting the pieces together, “what if we stopped Cain at the tournament finals, and one of us became the champion?”
The seniors nod in agreement while Matt, Sean, and Dante’s eyes light up at the idea. “That would be the final stone upon Cain’s tomb,” Lyn says with confidence. “It would be proven to the whole school that the days of Cain, and others like him, are gone and replaced by a new generation of student society, founded by Matt Calamos and his allies.”
“It could work, I guess,” Matt says, agreeing with the facts. “Anyone with a better idea?”
No one replies. They all believe the Royale Project would end this war over the college. Seeing this in their proud stares at him, Matt raises his glass for a toast. “Then it’s settled. Our first, and final, operation as the Alkalian College Liberators. To become the Alkalian College Champions!”
His friends and the seniors copy the motion and solidify their fellowship with a unified call. “Champions!!”
***
“HOW DARE THEY!? How dare they, those traitorous curs!” Cain punches the wall of a dark-lit room in a senior cabin, the room with the long table he used for meetings between him and his colleagues. He snorts like a bull for a moment, venting his rage, before turning back to the man cowering by the corner of the table near him. He asks, “Anything else you want to tell me, Johnny?”
“Gah, uh, no, no sir, that’s all,” Johnny replies, shaking like a leaf.
“Good. Then get out of here. Now.” When Johnny hesitates, his temper flares again. “Did you hear me, dog? Get out of here, before I beat you until you’re lame and crawling out that door!” The threat gets Johnny moving, bolting across the room and through the door like a scared rodent.
Once he was gone, Cain sighs and turns his attention to the other people in the room. Irene stands across the room on his left, leaning against the wall, and on the other end of the table sit Tony and James. He goes back to his seat, sits down with a palm to his forehead, and begins. “Do we want to keep our position over these lower-class vermin or not? While that freshman freak is brainwashing more people to his will, we are being forced into the little shelter we have left to avoid his cult worshippers. Lyn’s bitches and Dante’s grunts hound and brutalize our men, they’ve taken over the flow of money in the pit arena, and now, even Cynthia and Buster, two of my best tools, seniors like us, boss students like I, have betrayed us and joined him!” He whirls upon Tony, demanding, “You, Tony. What are you and your officers doing around the casino, while Matt and his minions run wild? Certainly not your jobs!”
In his own defense, Tony tries to explain to his boss, “You know, they all do gang-up on us and fight at the same time. They outnumber and outmatch us when they see the opportunity. And, half the time, Dante or Lyn are with them…”
“And you think that’s an excuse for your miserable failures?” Cain sharply interrupts him. “Don’t you think after they’ve jumped you so many times that you might actually be somewhat prepared for the next time they attack you!?”
“Gah, well, that’s hard to do, sir. They either stay low-profile until we become distracted reprimanding someone else, then surprise us, or they get us when we’re out drinking, or…”
Cain hammers the table in rage, spitting, “You
and your pitiful excuses of officers are still drinking!? In case you haven’t figured it out yet, we are at WAR here, Tony!! And I will not have my troops drunk on the battlefield so that any simple-minded fool, besides our foes, can come over and bonk you on your brainless skulls! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME!?”
Tony recoils in his chair at Cain’s roaring, mewling out, “Ye-yes, sir…”
“And as for you, James!” Cain whips upon his cousin next. “I will hear no more of your complaining about you disliking to get your hands dirty. You will assist us in silencing Matt and his misguided friends, whether you like it or not!”
James doesn’t reply for a moment before he says, “And what makes you think I won’t switch over, like Cynthia or Buster did, the way you’re addressing your own cousin?”
“BECAUSE YOU KNOW BETTER, YOU IGNORANT LITTLE PIECE OF…!!” Cain catches himself before going too far, fights it down, and tries again. “Because, you have as much reason to as I already do, now. In case it slipped your mind, if Matt and his allies have their way, we boss students will lose our dominion over others at this school. If you don’t help out, I imagine it’s going to become very difficult keeping your place over other students, especially the women you fancy to indulge in. Is that clear enough to you, cousin?”
James glares back at him a moment more, but then sighs and relents. “Alright, fine. I’ll see what I can do in order to sabotage Matt’s efforts.”
“Good, thank you. That’s all I wanted to hear from you. So now, if all of you will do your jobs, perhaps we will put those freshmen and our double-crossing classmates in their places!”
From the side, Irene huffs in disapproval, bringing the men’s attention to her, before she remarks, “All this ranting and yelling you do is nothing but wasting breath, Cain, when the biggest problem here is the fact you’re not doing anything yourself.”
“You dare question my own efforts here!?” Cain snaps at her.
“Certainly. I thought you were supposed to be the Invincible Warrior. What are you doing here, pushing all of us around, when you should be out there, beating down the inferior students?”
“Because that would be the best way to guarantee my defeat, you simple-minded whore!” A hint of madness crosses Cain’s eyes as he goes on, “If I went out there, rampaging across campus as I ought to do, he would come. Yes, he would come, out from the shadows, from behind the corner, from out of the trees, he could even spring out of the ground! He would come and cut me down, shoot me in the head, or obliterate me with magic, and I could do nothing, nothing to him! What good are my powers when they cannot serve me against a Dark Warrior!?”
He stands and madly paces, continuing, “And to make matters worse, now Cynthia and Buster are with him. Cynthia is a fiery aggressor when roused, and Buster is always bloodthirsty for combat. What could I do if all three of them came at me, at the same time? It would be the ultimate symbol of a coup de tat, the coup de grace to finish me off! No, no, I myself cannot go out there fighting, no, it must be done another way. We will not defeat Matt and his horde in open combat, we must bring them down through deception, corruption, and manipulation!”
The others have wary looks upon them at Cain’s rant of an explanation before a knock upon the door echoes through the room. Tony rises to answer it, and returns to them with a letter in his hand. “It’s for you,” he tells Cain, and he hands him the envelope.
His schizophrenic rage preventing curiosity, Cain rips it open and pulls out the letter. As his eyes skim over the writing, his anger shifts to fear before he cries out, “No, no, he can’t come back now!!”
“What is it? Who’s coming back?” asks Irene while the other two exchange glances.
“He, he’s coming back, for the Royale Project. He was supposed to stay at his military school for his senior year, but now he’s coming back, just to win the Alkalian College Championship again. Just when I thought Matt Calamos was my biggest problem here, he has come back to haunt me!”
Disgusted that he won’t answer her question, Irene snatches the paper out of Cain’s trembling fingers to see what it said. Reading over it once, she chuckles and says, “Oh wow, he’s even singled you out to be on your best behavior, or he’ll beat the daylights out of you. Yeah, you are totally screwed when he shows up.”
James thinks about it and guesses, “You mean, Nicholas? Nicholas is coming back?”
“Yes, of course that’s who I mean, who else!?” Sheer delirium is in his eyes as Cain bellows with flailing gestures, “Nicholas Narqailein, the Wrecking Wave, the Drowning Dread, the savage brute from the bleak waters of Corrasin! The four-time Alkalian College Battle Champion, that’s who! Forget about Matt or someone else taking me down on campus, he’ll be the first to do it himself if he ever catches me!!”
“Ah, right, him. That could be a problem,” James muses. For a moment, he and Tony have looks of worry themselves, given the reputation and character behind this Nicholas. Then, Cain’s eyes light up with a sudden idea, he mutters things under his breath to himself, and what starts out as a few giggles soon becomes hysterical laughter. Looking at him as if he has truly gone mad this time, Irene asks, “Now what’s the matter with you?”
Thumping his fists on the table, Cain says, more to himself than his henchmen, “This is perfect!! This is the opportunity I have been hoping for! If anyone will be able to stop Matthew Calamos and his little friends for me, it will definitely be HIM!!” He continues laughing at whatever he thought was ingenius, ignoring the looks from the others as he strolls past them and out of the room.
Once Cain was gone, Tony lets out a sigh between relief and exhaustion, groaning, “The sooner we graduate, and I get as far away as possible from that guy, the better. No offense, James, but I think you’d understand.” He stands, throws out, “Have a good night, you two,” and walks away to the door and leaves the room.
Left alone with a brooding James, Irene has a quizzical look in her expression as she weighs the significance of recent events. Nicholas Narqailein, the one Alkalian student who could make even the boss students look weak, is coming back to win the championship again. She is sure when he gets mixed into this contest between Matt and Cain that both sides were going to drown.
A little voice then reminds her of what Dante had told her earlier, about always following others and never making a move for herself. When she looks at James, who does not appear thrilled about being bossed around by Cain again, she wonders if this was a great opportunity to follow his advice. With a sly smirk she comes over, takes a seat next to him, and says, “If Cain is always like that, you must have a blast at family reunions.”
“Huh? Oh, him,” James grunts. “He’s always been the spoiled brat of the family, but he’s never been this bad before this all began, when he became a senior, and therefore a boss student. I think all the power went to his head, and now, he’s losing his head because of it.”
“Hmm, perhaps you are right.” She puts on an air of being curious, asking, “Is he older than you?”
“What? Uh, no, I’m a year or so older than him.”
“Uh huh. And, is his family higher up than yours?”
“Heh, they could have been. Our halves of the clan share blood and wealth, but it was my side of it that came to rule through the majority vote in Tirez, and so my father is Prime Minister, not his.”
“I see. So, how come he feels obliged to push you around and insult you, like he’s superior to you?”
James sighs, looking for an answer, before telling her, “I guess it’s because he’s been raised to think he’s better than everyone. My parents did a great job not spoiling me, despite our wealth and status. They sent me off to work in a logging company for a year, and I quickly got into shape involving hierarchy and humility, when to be the boss or the servant, through that rough experience. Cain’s parents, however, were not so foresighted. They gave him whatever he wanted, clothes, money, entertainment, women, and even used their friends in high places to get the drugs that g
ive him his powers of invulnerability.” He sighs again, mumbling, “There’s no question he’s gone mad with power, but I don’t know when it happened, or if anything can be done to save him.”
“Yes, I guess that is tragic. As he aims to rise above the flames, they’re going to consume and burn him when he falls.” Irene flashes him a knowing look. “And I’m sure you don’t want to be dragged down with him, yes?”
“Yeah, I’m afraid that’s so. He’s family, but, if he can’t listen to reason, to learn to accept losing, then what can I, or anyone, do for him? I actually wonder if the Cain I once knew is gone, and something vile and terrible has taken his place.”
“Hah, the superstitious type, eh? You think the spirits have come and possessed him? As much as I object to such a silly idea, I can also say one thing we may both agree on. You should be nowhere near Cain Incarein, once everything comes tumbling down on him.” She softly runs her left hand through his long hair, saying in a sultry tone, “Am I right?”
At first puzzled by her touching his hair, he then shrugs and replies, “Yes, I suppose. And what would you suggest I do, otherwise?”
“Why, what you’re best at around here, James. Lie low, and let them knock themselves out. With Nicholas coming, I’m sure things will really get exciting around here, and the two sides will be beating each other into the dust during the Royale Project. While they focus on each other, then, we could make our move and cause enough havoc to ruin them both.”
“We? Why do you say that?”
“Why, because we’ll be partners, of course. I’ve come to my senses, finally seeing the madness in Cain’s methods, and I won’t stick around in a tree about to fall before the storm. With you, however, we could lie low, bide our time, watch and wait, and at the right moments, we take what we want. Together, we would rule over the school. And besides…” She leans in closer next to him, seduction clear in her whisper, her breath hot against his neck. “I think you’re much friendlier company than him.”
Alkalians Page 30