Gavrus hunched behind a pillar, waiting for Fadius to make his way from the dining hall. It had taken only a few days of stalking to find a vulnerability in the routine of one of his two targets. Fadius loved to put in extra sparring with his housemates every other evening. After training, he went to the cafeteria to get stacks of meats and flirt with the voluptuous chef.

As Gavrus saw it, there was no nonviolent way to accomplish his task. He’d considered using poison from Runist Pilus’s laboratory, but he did not know enough about Archon physiology to know what would be effective; never mind the risk of stealing such a substance. Someone that had the ability to sniff out trails like Dex would track the chemical back to him. He couldn‘t try to make it look like a training accident, because the Headmistress expressly forbade him to train anywhere near Fadius and Velia. Another possibility, he really liked but vetoed, was convincing the chef to sleep with Fadius, thereby violating the Archon matrimony laws.

That plan blew up in his face after a quick investigation. He discovered that the chef was an enslaved lust demon that had come with the palace. Night time, when Fadius visited her, was the only time she was allowed to walk in public; but even then she used an illusion. Gavrus had learned about her nature the hard way after sneaking into the kitchen in the morning to speak with her. He still shuddered when he thought about her naked form. Her laughter as he stumbled away in a daze haunted him at night.

Sarrius laughed his ass off when Gavrus asked him about the demon in the kitchen. He said she was under strict geas not to engage in the one thing she wanted to do most in the world. It was a punishment by the previous ruler for some failure. Gavrus suspected that she channeled that pent-up passion into making excellent meals.

With no other ideas, Gavrus decided a physical confrontation was best.

Unfortunately, that came with a host of problems of its own. There were too many servants running around on the House floors to risk attacking near Fadius’s home. Besides having to worry about witnesses, he struggled with trying to figure out how to cover up the deed. Blackstone staff did not have a way to read his mind, but if there was a body proving that Fadius was murdered, it wouldn’t be too hard to figure out who killed him. At the least, through mind reading everyone, they could decide he was the guilty party via the process of elimination. And speaking of Archon staff, what if they had a way to find a body, or talk to a spirit? Death was one of the Loci after all. Finally, there was the problem of Fadius himself. The rock Archon was no slouch in combat and a nearly eight-foot-tall stone hardened giant.

It had taken a lot of thinking, but Gavrus had gotten that part figured out. He would just do what he did best: ambush the prick. If he couldn’t get away with killing him yet, then he’d just hurt him bad. Demoralize him and make him useless to anyone else.

After over a month with the other Archons, he’d learned how they played games of social dominance with one another. Snide remarks in cliques, quips, and smack talking during duels were the most common. Or at other times the bizarre posturing at hosted formal dinners. Strangest to Gavrus was the extravagant shows of wealth to embarrass poorer initiates. Gavrus had no use for that kind of punishment. He did not see the world the way that they did. The streets required severity, and that was what he intended to teach not just Fadius and Velia, but all his detractors.

When he spotted Fadius shuffling his feet down the hall, Gavrus couldn’t help but smile to himself in the dark. Fadius looked exhausted from his extracurricular combat training. This would be even easier than he’d accounted for.

For good or ill, his plan worked flawlessly.

⍏

As Gavrus made his way to the first-year training grounds the next morning, he could already hear the hubbub echoing down the hall. Squeals of laughter, shouting, and more hit him like a wave when he stepped onto the grounds.

There was chaos.

Sarrius was trying to hold back a screaming Velia and several other members of House Day with lightning. One girl from House Dawn, who Gavrus thought was a healer, was crying her eyes out. Not but a few feet away, a trio of other members of her House stood laughing. Students from the second and third years had even come down from their training to take in the site.

Obran spotted Gavrus as soon as he entered the courtyard and glared daggers at him. It didn’t take others long to notice him either. Sarrius had to hit Velia with a blast of power that knocked her unconscious once she screamed like a barbarian and charged for Gavrus. His casual takedown reminded the other initiates of the reality they were in, and the students from House Day that had begun to converge on Gavrus stopped. After that, the others whispered to each other quietly.

Gavrus ignored them all, walking over to Severa who was watching the scene with interest. The normally shy demon demigoddess, looked at him when he stood next to her and said, “Did you do this?”

“Nah,” Gavrus said, shrugging his shoulders. “Probably some kind of House Day ritual, I’m guessing. I always heard military types like to stuff like this. They call it hazing, or something like that.”

Severa looked at him incredulously, mouth open and eyes wide. “Hazing?” She asked.

Gavrus turned from her without answering to watch the scene he’d labored to create. Another student from House Day assisted the first in carefully extracting the House Day flag out of Fadius’s exposed anus. The rock boy whimpered at the movement but kept his head low to the ground. Not that he had much choice, being hogtied to a bench.

Fadius had not done enough of his ordered remedial wrestling to stop Gavrus’s choke from behind. He’d gone down in seconds, never having time to see who his attacker was. That was Gavrus’s only real concern. Well, other than dragging Fadius’s heavy ass to the courtyard. That ended up taking more effort than he expected, but it had been worth it in the end.

Dexsia strode up to the other side of Gavrus side and commented, “Wow, remind me not to get on your bad side. What is that white stuff aroun--”. Dexsia stopped speaking for a second. “You didn’t!”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Gavrus said.

“That smells like glue!” Dexsia stated, her incredible sense of smell getting it right on the first try.

Gavrus didn’t respond.

The three housemates stood silent together for a few minutes longer watching the scene. Someone had gotten a solvent from somewhere and was gently pouring it into the Fadius’s butt to make extracting the flag easier.

“Aren’t you worried about what the Academy will do?” Severa asked, speaking to him again.

Gavrus looked over at Sarrius, who was pointing and yelling at students. Before he decided on this cruel course of action, he’d considered the likely consequences from Sarrius. He had the misfortune of knowing the man far better than any of the other students.

“Nah,” Gavrus said.

As if to lend his support to Gavrus’s conclusion, Sarrius yelled out to everyone, “Alright enough fucking around! Fadius is fine, even if he has a weird way of showing House pride.” Sarrius chuckled at his own joke. “Now let’s get some training in! We are fifteen minutes late, and that means we are gonna work fifteen minutes later this morning! Fadius, go see a healer, then get your ass back down here! ASS!” Sarrius laughed even harder.

⍏

Combat training that day ended up being more tense than usual. The spectacle was on everyone’s mind, which caused them to make mistakes. Mistakes incurred the wrath of Sarrius, which meant harsher training. By the end, it utterly exhausted everyone. The lucky ones only had cuts, bruises and sores. Four students got sent to the healer for electrocution burns, failing to heed Sarrius’s most excellent advice that, “You should be more afraid of me than a stick!” Gavrus laughed uproariously when Velia ended up being one of the four.

Though he didn’t get through the prank as unscathed as he intended.

After Sarrius dismissed the morning combat class, he approached Gavrus.

“It is come to my attention, that you might have too much free time on your hands.” Sarrius said.

“You haven't assigned us an advanced course yet,” Gavrus responded.

It had been a point of frustration with his Housemates. Though the semantics class had given them all the information they would need to graduate from the academy, they still needed training on how to apply that knowledge.

House Dawn, Day, and Obran were all already assigned advanced practical courses. House Dawn and Obran with them attended courses on interrogation, healing, and arguing legal precedents. The Empire even shipped in convicts and members of criminal organizations for them to train on. House Day, meanwhile received command of a company of Imperial Troops. Each of the members of that House commanded a squad of six soldiers on drill and ceremony, making and reducing camps, inspection, logistics and of course war games.

Sarrius told house Sunset they would have to wait until their disciplines expressed further. Dexsia tried to get the others to train combat with her, but Severa refused so she could go to the library. Gavrus also refused because he only cared about stalking his enemies.

“Yeah, I know.” Sarrius conceded. “I plan to rectify that. Be on the training grounds tonight at the sixth bell, with Dexsia and Severa. I’ve decided to speed up your training.”

Gavrus nodded and left for lunch.