“This one seems quite useful, purifying water...” muttering to himself, Key was in the library flipping through the book in front of him. The first week of school had finally ended and it was currently the weekend.

“Normally no one would have any use for this kind of thing but it could be kind of find, and who knows? I don’t see why not to learn it...”

So far Key had managed to learn a ‘Drying’ spell, a spell to protect him from the rain, another to carry heavy objects, and a third to easily clean just about anything. He could have been able to learn much more, but for that he could only blame his poor talent in magecraft.

“Ah, Professor did you need me for something?” Key suddenly mumbled, before he flipped the page of his book.

“Yes, actually I do,” said his combat instructor, Professor Schuld, while stepping out from the side of a nearby bookcase, “I came here to tell you there’s an important meeting you’re supposed to be attending when school starts again, and then there’ll be an assembly afterward which you’ll have to be at.” Coming over from the bookshelves he dropped a slip of paper in front of Key before moving back from the table a little.

“You came here just to tell me that? Couldn’t you have just sent a student or secretary?” He lightly responded.

“Haha, well despite how intelligent you are that’s wrong on two counts!” His teacher happily retorted.

“First,” he said while grinning and flashing a card with red lettering on it, “How many people have access to this floor in the first place? Second we can’t risk any of those few people ‘forgetting’ to deliver the message since they’re, well, uninvited".

“Haha, I understand professor, is there anything else you need from me?” Key said, nodding lightly. Clearly the man in front of him had quite a bit of standing for him to have access all the way up to the 5th floor.

“No, you’re free to do your reading, the meeting will be held in the student council room as soon as school starts. Your teachers have already been notified and you’ve been excused from class. It’ll most likely take all day as well.”

“Oh? What’s this meeting about?”

“You’ll find out in a couple of days!” his teacher said, before finally leaving towards the elevator.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Alan wasn’t entirely sure why he had been invited to the meeting, but when he walked in he knew it was high-profile. After a full week of being in school, he had picked up a couple things about the school. One of those things was the existence of a group of top-tier students and faculty members labeled “The Black Cards”. The students within the group didn’t necessarily have black Library cards, but they did have the ability to obtain one.

The fact of the matter was that everyone waiting in the student council room for this meeting was, to the best of his knowledge, a member of the prestigious “Black Cards” which was quite amazing seeing how there were only 150 such people in a school with around 3,000 students. That being said the mystery of why he was there became even more difficult to understand. He knew that meetings like this weren’t uncommon and happened frequently throughout the year when big changes needed to happen or be discussed, however there were only something like 40 students there and the meeting would start shortly.

Then, strolling in as if it was nothing, Key walked in, sat down, pulled out a thin binder and began writing something down furiously. Since he was the only familiar face Alan knew, he decided to approach Key while being not at all curious about whatever was making a high-level honor student like Key write so quickly.

“If you write any faster, you’ll burn a hole in that paper” he said, to which he only got a grunt in response.

“What’s got you so worked up anyhow?”

This time Key paused and quickly glanced up before returning to his work.

“I need to finish Professor Toll’s homework before, oh wait, never mind…” as if realizing something Key suddenly stopped writing, perked up and put his binder away somewhere in the desk he was sitting in.

‘Is he unexpectedly the forgetful type?’ Alan thought to himself, before he asked if Key knew what the meeting happened to be about.

“No Idea, though it looks to be quite serious.” Key replied.

Before Alan could ask how he knew that, with a bang, the door shot open and two important looking people strolled in. The first an aged man, probably well into his 40’s or 50’s, the second a youthful young woman maybe in her early 30’s. Though, really that was pure conjecture, it wasn’t necessarily true. Alan watched as the two strolled to the other end of the room, which he took as a moment to really survey the room. It was rather long, with several student desks pushed toward the back where he was. In front of him was a horseshoe shape made of three long desks. On the right side of the room was a wall of windows with which the entrance of the school could be seen, with its throng of students strolling in. On the left was just the entrance into the room.

“Everyone’s here correct? Good I’ll begin then,” the old man mumbled to the woman next to him before sitting at the head of the table “I’m sure most of you are a little confused as to what is happening.” Now motioning to the woman next to him, he leaned back in his chair waiting for her to finish her expectation.

“Two weeks ago, every school across the country received the same notice, the one declaring the re-instatement of the Apex protocol, most of you don’t know what that means so I’ll explain properly. 30 years ago, the war against the Yavell empire came to our country, and the king had a problem. That problem, to put it simply, was that he couldn’t properly organize his war resour;ces and specifically the students who were being drafted. In order to fix that, he established an inter-scholastic tournament, in which every school in the country was forced to send their best students to compete in various events so that a proper hierarchy and skill level could be distinguished. It worked perfectly and was considered to be one of the main reasons we survived the war, as well as it became a great past time for the whole country to enjoy. With that in mind does anyone have any questions yet?” She said finally, pausing her history lesson.

One person raised their hand and asked “Why re-enact the Apex Protocol now?”

“Save that question for the end please, any others?”

Another student raised his hand “We aren’t at war anymore, what do we gain from participating in this tournament?”

“Good question, firstly you’d bring prestige to this school and most likely the title of ‘the best’, second you’d probably be scouted by some agency or government organization and probably be set for life. That is, of course, if you win”

That quickly shut the last student up, but perked the attention of several more students at the same time.

“Now moving on, everyone here is considered as a potential candidate for participation. The only ways to avoid participation is out of serious consider for a medical condition, expulsion, or simply not being as good as another candidate. This is because there is a chance of death during the matches, and the tournament is considered highly dangerous. You also have the right, as candidates for the starting line-up, to understand why the Apex protocol has been enacted. Make no mistake however, you are all required by law to never speak a word about this. Failure to comply will result in expulsion and execution. Understood?”

Everyone began nodding at once; no one could mistake the seriousness of the atmosphere. The woman began to hand out manila folders to each student.

“Within, you’ll find the documentation on the death of a patrol unit from Oberon. You may keep these and the report attached. The report holds information on the YRA, the ‘Yavell Republic Army’, a rebel group attempting to incite a rebellion and reclaim the Yavell territories. The information within was from 2 months ago, I suggest you all take a look at the contents.”

So saying, Alan flipped open the folder. The documents had all the dates and names blacked out with some kind of marker but the general idea was still clearly legible with the background information they already had. The YRA had come up with some method to take down the shields on Praes machines and get to the operators. If what the documents were saying was true, this was extremely dangerous. The only reason they managed to suppress Yavell was because of the Praes to begin with. It was lucky they managed to build it; In fact the first versions used in the war were horribly faulty prototypes. The history behind how they managed it was pretty illustrious, but the main point is when the Praes lost it’s effectiveness, the Ilad kingdom would lose its trump card over the world.

“This is the part you can’t take home, and the one I advise all of you to forget ever happened once you leave this room. Since then there have been numerous other incidents,” while saying that she pulled up a holographic in the center of the horseshoe arrangement for the students to see. Indicating to several faces and images of Praes wreckages she continued “in total, we’ve had 6 more attacks throughout Oberon, and the YRA have already established an encampment in a quadrant of the city which we no longer have any access too. Not only that, but intel suggests that some of the surrounding countries have started to back them in an attempt to start a war.”

There was a sharp intake of air, and the sound of people’s breath catching in their throat resonated in the air. The next few words that came out of the woman’s mouth were unmistakable.

“Next year, the king will be starting a peacetime draft and mobilization of troops to the borders will happen shortly after. There might not be a war now, but don’t expect that to stay true.”

Cutting off the woman, the man in front of Alan suddenly started talking, “Even if that’s true, our main problem isn’t the Steel Cities anymore right? Even if they can take down Praes machines, it seems to be in limited use, and probably not that effective yet. Wouldn’t it be safer to focus more on external enemies first?”

“That’s a good point, but that’s got nothing to do with this meeting. I’m sure that will be something to deal with when you graduate, so for now, please stay a student a little while longer,” taking the question in great stride the woman politely smiled “ the only thing we need to worry about is the tournament.”

“Well, with that the background is done! Let’s get down to business now!” suddenly the older man cut in. “This is the part some of you are not going to like, so first let’s do this… is there anyone who can’t fight for medical reasons?” No one raised their hands, most of them were perfectly healthy and none had any serious medical issues. “How about those who’d prefer to be expelled, rather than fight?” this was dangerous for Alan. Most of the students were all too eager to earn prestige and fame, or just fight in general, however Alan had a debate on his hands. Risk exposure, or take expulsion and lose all contact with his target? Was it worth following a supposed ‘harmless’ subject? It had already been clearly stated he wasn’t an issue… No something is still odd about him, his name and background are complete mysteries and with the news he just recieved, Alan simply needed to find out what was going on. In the end he didn’t raise his hand, no one did.

“Perfect, let’s get started with the difficult part now…”

(A/N): I'll release the second chapter later today, when some of the other authors calm down with all the updates. In the meantime, the few readers who are out there I would love to read a review and see what I can improve and do better on. Thanks!