Chapter 7

The sudden reappearance of the missing politicians had no effect on the corridors of New Republic High where the students were more focused on celebrities, fashion disasters and school gossip. However, a new buzz permeated the air through the arrival of two new students.

Alexander was the first one. He was conspicuously dropped off by a much older looking man dressed in suit and tie in a sleek black sports car with heavily tinted windows. Alexander caught the attention of anyone who wasn’t looking by pulling the man out for an early morning show in the form of an aggressive make-out session. His heterochromatic eyes scanned the crowd and sauntered into the school grounds, showing off his crooked smile and throwing a wink at a particularly loud fan, bringing out the trademark star birthmark at the corner of his right eye. The mismatched dreary uniform of white shirt, gray trousers and green blazer with the school logo was described as ‘sinfully delicious’ on him by the female populace and swooned over his performances in various theatre productions, commercial movies and music videos.

The actor-slash-runway model was born and raised in Maybar Street by the woman who pimped out his mother who had died of a drug overdose seven years after he was born. Discovered by one of the richer clients, he aggressively worked in the fashion industry to be discovered by a high-profile designer in the Empire at thirteen due to his slender leonine looks. The world stage bought him unparallel stardom as he pursued multiple avenues of talent in the form of theatre productions and movies. He continued to keep the tabloids in circulation with offhanded comments on the rumored list of his clientele ranging from politicians and businessmen to priests and princes. The politicians back at Bantam called him ‘the dirtiest sewer rat’ and ‘a plague of sin and immorality on the corruptible youth’. The youth continued to blatantly ignore their elders’ jibes and continued to fawn over him.

Selene had heard of him as everybody else had and although she didn’t care for the tabloid sensationalism and punk attitude, she found his theatre portrayals moving. She caught a glimpse of the famed swagger as he waved to his fans from the second floor as she stood in the assembly grounds while the seniors made way to the classes. He was also possibly the only Alchemist who could show off his star sign for the world to see without any repercussions. Even today, the six-pointed star showed proudly at the base of his neck from the unbuttoned part of his shirt.

The Principal stood in front of the class with a bouquet of flowers, flanked by Julie Myers and Jaken Honda as school representatives. While the Principal droned on in his welcome speech welcoming him and boasted of the schools values on ‘integrity, unity and tolerance’, Julie Myers coquettishly smiled at him while she mentally undressed him.

“Wearing jewelry is against school rules.” Jaken Honda said, irritated on having the spotlight stolen away from him.

“Aw, but I love these rings!” Alexander said, wriggling his right hand and showing off the two rings on his middle and index fingers. “They’re silver, and a gift from my new boyfriend.” The girls giggled at the last part. He was infamous for his slew of lovers male and female.

“Well, it’s… you’re new here…” the Principal fidgeted.

“We pride on treating everyone equally, don’t we now, Sir?” he stressed.

 The old man fidgeted.

Alexander ran his ringed hand through his tousled blond hair. “So the rings have to go?”

Jaken staunchly nodded. Julie glared, but didn’t contradict him.

Alexander shrugged and made a show of removing the rings. He kissed each one and threw it in two different directions into the waiting crowd. He winked at the fuming Jaken Honda as he handed the bouquet to a beaming Julie Myers, ignoring the stampede over his rings.

 

The arrival of Raima Jones a week later was relatively solemn. A state issued car dropped her at the school gates where she was instantly surrounded by a group of girls wearing traditional headscarves and skin-colored gloves escorting her to her class and averting interference. Since Selene was in the same class as Raima Jones, she witnessed the complete welcoming proceedings from the class as opposed to the time when she stood in the grounds for Alexander’s welcoming. This time, the class teacher and Julie Myers flanked the principal as she solemnly tolerated the arduous speech. One of the girls adjusted Raima’s brown shawl as it covered her head and shoulders on her command as she deftly removed her brown gloves to shake hands with the management. Selene noted that when Julie Myers excitedly shook her hand, Raima later conspicuously wiped her hand with sanitizer.

When offered to take any seat desirable, she passed over the general area where Julie Myers sat and took the seat next to Selene. Alpha’s voice rang in Selene’s head to remain calm and expressionless.

A smooth voice asked her for a textbook. The entire class turned to them as Selene passed her textbook and they looked into it. Selene observed Raima Jones as she looked into the book. She had the countenance of her father and the beauty of her mother Aleida Jones with her deep brown hair peeking out of the shawl and the tanned skin unblemished by any trace of makeup unlike her dolled-up counterparts. Nobody paid attention to the teacher’s droning lecture as every millisecond of interaction between the two was critically analyzed under the microscopic gaze of the students. Raima gave a sharp look to the curious onlookers which reminded Selene of her father in the shack.

The teacher called out to her. “We can have her switch places if she’s bothering you, Miss Jones.” She said, keeping a critical eye on Selene.

“My partner is perfectly to my liking, Ma’am.” She replied, earning a collective gasp. “It’s the public who thinks I’m a circus sideshow that bothers me.”

The teacher started chastising the students to treat their ‘newest member of the New Republic High family’ like any other student. Selene inwardly rolled her eyes at the blatant sucking up to the spawn of a political bigwig.

At lunch break, Julie Myers and her drones cornered Selene when Raima Jones left with her bodyguards.

“What kind of trick did you pull on my sister, you freak?” she screeched.

She tried to move away from them and just escape but she was too hungry and it had to be the one day she forgot to place a seal on her lunchbox. The last time she escaped them and got back to her seat, her lunch had been rendered inedible �" like a dog had decided to chew it up, spit it out and then dirty it all over.

“Come on, answer me you witch!” she moved to strike her but fell to the floor, clutching her hand.

Selene cursed internally. She had gotten used to putting up shields for self-defense. Alpha had been pleased at her strength when some of the members at the shack had convulsed to the ground after they launched themselves at her to try and escape. They cowered in fear at her very glance.

Judging from the red burn marks on her hand, it would take a couple days to heal. It looked as if she had burned her hand against a hot iron.

“How dare you!” she cried. “Look at what you did to me!”

“It’s not unlike the time you nearly boiled the skin off my hand to see if my ‘tattoo would come off’ isn’t it?” she retorted. She had been forcibly held down by Jaken and his group in the Chemistry while Julie and her cronies tried out every method to remove ‘that Alchemist nonsense’. When iron scrubbing brushes and abrasive detergents didn’t work, the straight-up held her hand in a vat of boiling water and laughed as she screamed and thrashed against her captors. Their next experiment would be an acid bath but Selene was saved when the Principal caught the commotion as he made his rounds with the board members as he boasted about the school. The whole incident was swept under the rug as he explained her parents that Army children would never find a place in any other school if they left midway.

Selene knew she should’ve just let go without drawing attention to herself but somewhere between exploring the extent of her abilities and making grown powerful men wet their pants, her patience had exhausted when it came to irritants like her.

“I knew it!” Julie seethed. “You were a troublemaker from the start, Selene Helryx. Oh, you’ve done it now.”

The crowd watched as Julie launched herself at a startled Raima Jones, knocking the shawl off her head as it rested loosely against her shoulders.

“Oh, help me Sister Dearest.” She cried, using the Mezzalite appellation. “Look at that infidel! How dare she try to hurt one of us?”

Raima Jones pushed her away and stood in front of Selene. At five feet six, Selene was half a head taller than her and had a better chance at intimidation. Selene and Raima stared at each other, assessing the opponent.

Raima seemed to find the answer she was searching for in Selene’s eyes. She slapped Julie with a vicious backhand. Julie Myers was distraught, tears of betrayal and shock filling her eyes and spilling over as the crowd gasped. Raima adjusted her shawl over her head with a flourish as one of the guards attended to her with pins to secure it.

“When you put your hand in the lion’s mouth, you must be prepared for its teeth. Just because your mother married my uncle to become his third wife and had the both of you converted doesn’t mean you’re accepted as a Mezzalite or my cousin. It would do you good to stay away from me, Julie Myers.” She said coldly.

She gently took Selene’s hand in hers. “I apologize for her actions. She won’t bother you again.” Looking into her eyes, she said, “It would be my honor if you would have lunch with me, Miss…” she struggled to get the name, “…Helryx.”

“I’d have to respectfully decline.” She replied, inwardly astonished at Raima Jones’ behavior.

The incident had turned everyone wary of her. Julie and her crowd maintained their distance from her after that. Raima continued to extend the invitation for lunch every other day to which she declined in the same respectful way, causing a buzz of not-so-respectful whispers.

 

She closed the book on portals, keeping a bookmark on the discussion on using them to trap attackers in void dimensions. Her lunch lay untouched as she sat at the unused sports equipment store room.

“Got a light?” Alexander asked, sitting next to her. “Nice hideout, by the way. No interference by noisy busybodies.” He pulled out a cigarette and held it between his slender fingers.

Selene shifted away from him, disgruntled at the invasion of her personal space. “You can’t smoke on school grounds.” She said.

“Well, those books aren’t exactly school-approved now, are they?” he said nonchalantly.

She was taken aback. “I can sense the wards on them.” He winked. “Light it up for me, little bird.”

She snapped her fingers and brought a blue flame between her fingers for him to light it. He coolly blew the smoke in the air, savoring the effect of the nicotine.

“Why did Alpha send you here?” she asked.

“We’re supposed to be working together in our next assignment, so I thought it would be prudent if I introduced myself.” He smirked. “He also thought you might need a little company here. He’s right about that, by the way.”

She ignored the latter part. “He hasn’t bothered informing me about it.”

Alexander smiled. “He’ll probably inform you about it once I get the lay of the land.”

“So who do you have your eyes set on?” she casually asked.

“A mutual source of irritation �" the big man on campus” He replied.

“Mutual, indeed.” She commented. “Getting Jaken Honda won’t be easy either at school or at home.”

“Not even for an Alchemist?” he asked.

“The Honda Estate’s security isn’t as lax as government security.” She snorted. “They hire Illyrian mercenaries as guards. The first thing they’ll do is secure the estate for unregistered portals and invisibility wards. Just because Alpha and Jay used them to capture the politicians without having to deal with all the cameras and intruder alarms doesn’t mean it’ll work on Honda.”

“That’s where my charm steps in!” he said. “We have information that he’s hiding the Mezzalite terrorist leader Zed Shaw who’s here to assassinate the President.”

Her heart beat in double time at the news. She let out a shaky breath.

“What are the orders?” she said, clutching at the books.

“Eliminate him.” He said. “Train up, little bird. You’ll need to sharpen your claws if we need to take these sewer rats down.”