In the time following their return from their first mission, Sean had grown bitter and distant. This soured Nixie's mood as well, and the two seemed to adopt a hostility and resentment towards each other with no end in sight. They could hardly stand to be in the same room as each other, and for most of the classes they spent together, they were separated. The one class where they were kept in the same cluster was Monster Studies, and that was only because Mr. Reaper believed they would never, ever work out their issues if they avoided each other. He was right, of course, but the time in between was awkward, uncomfortable, and all-around unpleasant for everyone involved. One tragedy of the situation was that their Familiars had all grown to full size over the course of this time, but they were so distracted by the negativity they had barely noticed.

"I don't get why he's being so hostile!" Nixie complained at dinner one night. "I didn't even do anything and out of the blue he hates my guts!"

"I thought we established he's jealous," Akora highlighted. She had managed to get out of class early and join the three for dinner.

"Of what? And why won't he get over it?"

"Of your strength," Elvia told Nixie. "It must be bugging him pretty bad if he's not over it yet."

"The only way to resolve this is with a duel!" Akora declared.

Kyle, who had been fairly quiet throughout much of the meal, finally spoke. "That doesn't sound like a good idea."

Akora crossed her arms and, though she was sitting as well, seemed to tower over him. "And what would you recommend, hm? A nice chat?"

Kyle nodded. "Yes, that's what we Earth people do when we disagree."

"Oh, so things never turn physical?"

What little confidence he had at that moment dwindled. "Well-"

"So you've never had a war on your Earth?"

"Um-"

"Nobody ever just snaps?"

"I mean-"

"Then hush!" She turned her attention back to Nixie. "Whaddya say?"

Nixie cast a glance Kyle's way. She wore a mask of anxiety and uncertainty. "I think Kyle's right," she groaned. "I mean, I don't wanna fight Sean unless I have to."

"Yeah don't," Elvia urged, "one of you could get hurt!"

Akora spat in disgust and leaned back a bit. "Fine, don't, but keep it in mind. A good brawl has settled these petty disputes before."

Nixie took a swig of water. "If it comes down to it, I will. Believe me, I will."

And one day, it did come down to that. Nixie became so fed up she challenged Sean to a fight in the courtyard, under the cover of darkness. Akora and Kyle, who were both present to hear the challenge, had very different reactions to this. Akora became so excited she could hardly contain herself, but Kyle was appalled. Was he surprised? No, not really. He was more disappointed than anything. He told Elvia and Aoife. Asim overheard, and he told Zach about it. Somewhere in the mix, Vince overheard, but he did not want to believe it at first, so he simply chalked it up as a rumor.

The sun had set and the night crawled across the land. The group gathered in the courtyard. The Familiars sat aside with uneasy looks. Sean and Nixie were not surprised to see Kyle and Akora, but they were none too thrilled to see Aoife, Elvia, Asim, and Zach crowding around as well.

"Go back to your rooms," Nixie warned. "There's nothing to see here."

"No, stay!" Akora urged. "We're going to need them to help decide a winner."

"If you get caught, there will be no winner!" Aoife reasoned. "You could get in serious trouble!"

"Yeah, Nix," Sean taunted. "You could get hurt."

Nixie threw her jacket down. "That's it, this is happening now!"

Sean tossed his shirt aside. "Bring it on, sister!"

Aoife tried to put herself in the middle to separate the two, but they had already entered a grapple. The two appeared to be evenly matched, as neither showed signs of being able to overpower the other. They stood, pushing against their hands and arms with full force, a force so well matched they looked as though they were completely still.

"Sweep his leg!" Zach called.

"Use your head!" Akora ordered.

The two heard the suggestions, but were too firmly locked to act on anything. He tried to sweep her leg, she pushed him backwards; she tried to headbutt him, he retaliated with a shove. It was very uninteresting for the spectators.

"Somebody throw a punch!" an outsider demanded.

Everyone looked up, in the direction from which the voice came. A group of students had gathered along the walls to watch.

The fighters were also momentarily distracted, and came to this realization at the same time. He shoved her, and she fell, but on her way down she gave a mighty kick that toppled him over. They scrambled to their feet, and immediately returned to their grapple. This one lasted a much shorter period of time. She pulled a hand away and balled it into a fist, then landed it firmly in his gut. He grunted and grabbed her shoulders as he fell, and half-heartedly tried to throw her down. She pushed away but fell back. He scrambled to his feet and tried to pin her. She raised her feet and kicked him off. As she tried to stand, he recovered and threw her back to the ground. He twisted her arm behind her back. "Just give up!"

She yelped and struggled a bit to no avail. "No! Not a chance." She swung her hips and flung her legs into him, sending him off and to the ground. The rest of her followed her feet, and she wound up on top of him. "You're in too deep, buddy!"

"Go, Rainbow!" one of the spectators shouted.

"Get up, Stretch!" called another.

Kyle put himself besides Akora. "I think they're tied, can they stop fighting now?"

"That's their decision to make." Her voice was empty of interest for what he had to say, but clearly she was engrossed in the fight. "Both are impressing me."

Sean attempted a headbutt, and somehow managed to contort his body enough to get Nixie off of him. He stood and charged at her, but at the last possible moment, she stepped away. She placed a hand on his shoulder as he passed, then swung herself onto his back. She held on tight as he struggled to get her off. "I don't even want to fight you!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Kyle spotted a streak of silver rushing into the courtyard. He looked and saw Vince, who had realized when he saw the students gathering that the rumor was a fact. Behind him was the towering figure of Mr. Reaper and the flashy pink of Nurse Leichenbestatter.

"What is the meaning of this!" Mr. Reaper boomed.

The students on the walls scattered. Some dove for cover, others took to the skies and flew off to another part of the school. Zach, too, hurried to leave the scene, while the other Birchwood students (and Akora) stayed and prepared themselves for a scolding. They hung their heads and began work on pulling Nixie and Sean apart.

"That was not a rhetorical question!"

"It appears to be a skirmish," Nurse Leichenbestatter concluded.

"I'm shocked!" Vince gasped.

"Spit it out!" Mr. Reaper ordered.

The students exchanged glances. Aoife and Elvia's eyes seemed a bit puffy and watery. They were clearly nervous. Kyle was nervous, too, but managed to conceal it a bit better. He looked around at the others. Nixie was also starting to tear up, but she wore a deep scowl. Sean, too, seemed angry, but he wore the face of someone caught doing wrong. Asim, too, appeared guilty, and tried to hang at the back of the group, as if this would minimize his punishment for his involvement. Akora, unsurprisingly, just looked annoyed. Everyone was upset in some capacity.

"I'm waiting!" Mr. Reaper shrieked. His voice tore through the quiet, ringing through the air like clashing steel.

"It was my idea!" Nixie spat. "I overreacted!"

Vince regarded her with a look of disbelief. Mr. Reaper, however, simply looked livid. "And what's your excuse?" he shrieked to Sean.

Sean was silent. His head was hung low and he would not make any eye contact. His hands were balled into fists, and his knuckles were snow white.

Mr. Reaper scanned the rest of the crowd. "And what is yours?"

Nobody spoke. Everyone was too ashamed and too frightened to speak.

But Mr. Reaper waited. He clacked an enormous talon on the stone beneath his feet. It was like a steel raindrop, and its echo multiplied it, making it sound like a battlefield. It sent chills up their spines, but still, no student was brave enough to speak.

"It was a poor decision," Leichenbestatter concluded. "We can let them off the hook, and I believe that's what's best for their first offense."

"Yeah, go easy on 'em," Vince suggested with sympathy. "We all screw up now and then."

Mr. Reaper surveyed the scene once more. Then he turned his attention to Nixie and Sean and ordered, "Come with me." He looked to the others and added, "The rest of you, go back to your rooms." He turned around so forcefully that a gust of wind rolled from his feathers into the crowd, then he stalked down the corridor and out of the courtyard. The nurse, Vince, the two guilty students, and their Familiars followed behind.

Kyle and the others stood still for some time after Mr. Reaper had left. They all felt some form of responsibility in the matter. Aoife was the first to find her feet again. She approached Kyle, wiping her eyes, and simply said, "That was bad."

"Yeah." He looked in the direction of their tower. "I guess we should be getting back to our rooms."

Akora placed her hands on her hips. "I'm impressed with how evenly matched they were!"

"Can we stop talking about it?" Elvia moped. She was still clearly very rattled by the experience.

"That was absolutely abysmal and I feel I make no reach when I say we'd rather put it behind us," Asim exhaled in a single breath. He sounded more frustrated than anything.

Akora folded her arms. "Well I think-"

"Oh, hush!" Kyle snapped. "We listened to what you thought and it got us here!" He spun around so violently Fledermaus nearly fell off his shoulders. "I'm going to bed! Goodnight!"

And things certainly seemed to go downhill from there. Flight Class was quite awkward, Aoife seemed to be trying to avoid Kyle and Asim. Beast Class was no better, as Sean gave both Kyle and Akora the cold shoulder. Your Familiar and You was probably the best class, since Elvia and Kyle still got along. Monster Studies was the absolute worse. The table that Kyle, Akora, Nixie, and Sean shared had such an air of hostility that students on the other sides of the classroom could feel it. When it was just Kyle and one other, they sought from him some form of solace.

Meals were not much better. During lunch Sean complained relentlessly about Nixie to Zach, during dinner Nixie complained relentlessly about Sean to Elvia. At breakfast, Aoife became increasingly elusive, as if she was trying to avoid both him and Asim. He wondered if he had done something to upset her, until she approached him one night.

Sean had pulled Kyle aside to vent about Nixie again. As he complained about how she thought she was better than him (or some nonsense of the sort), Aoife approached and asked, "Do you think Asim is acting weird?"

"I think he's weird," Sean spat. "Why?"

Aoife looked around, as though this was a conversation in which absolutely everyone would want to partake, then whispered, "I think he's interested in me."

"You think?" Sean heckled. "Next you'll be saying you think birds can fly."

"Well I wasn't sure!" she hissed. "I didn't want to jump to conclusions!" Then she paused, and took a deep, calming breath. "I'm not interested, and I've told him, but he won't take the hint."

"So that's why you've been avoiding breakfast," Kyle concluded. It was a relief to know it was not something of his doing that caused this.

"Exactly. And this makes Flight Class really, really awkward."

"Don't worry," Kyle assured her. "We don't have any missions coming up in that class, so it's the only time you'll have to spend together for now. You have until then to figure something out, and I'll help you need."

She sighed with a relief, and a broad smile crawled across her face. "Oh, thank you, Kyle."

But then the next mission was assigned.

The mission was for Flight Class. Mr. Hawking had grown very confident in his students' flying abilities, and so he assigned a simple exercise: he had hidden small objects on the tops of various tall structures and landmarks across different worlds. He assigned each group a structure and told them that each one had to collect a "treasure" from the top.

Some students immediately tried to avoid the mission. One student, whose Familiar was a sparrow, argued that they would be unable to perform the mission because they were too large for the tiny bird. Aoife found relief in this point, because Joy was only about fifteen inches tall. Mr. Hawking informed them, however, that Familiars are able to change sizes for a time, and so everyone would be able to do the assignment. This, of course, brought Aoife back down again.

At least, Kyle thought, it shouldn't take more than a day. And hopefully I don't jinx it again.

Towards the end of class, Mr. Hawking began to assign each group a location. Every now and then Kyle looked at the group and could see the symbol they were taught, and sometimes, he could recognize where they were going; one group got the Bridge, a few got the world he had visited for Monster Studies, some were assigned Akora's home planet, and a few even got Earth. He was hoping for one of those places, because he was most familiar with them (and though Akora's home planet was alien, she had told stories of it that gave him an idea of what to expect), but alas the symbol he and his group mates were taught was foreign as well. As usual the symbol was encompassed by a circle, and within were three overlapping pentagons with a diamond hovering over the one in the middle. It reminded him of a crown.

"Your trinkets are due in three days," Mr. Hawking announced in the moments before the end of class. "We are out of time for today, and you all should be able to retrieve them easily. And please, don't just send one classmate to get them, that is not the point of the assignment."

On their way out, Aoife pulled Kyle through the crowd in an attempt to put distance between herself and Asim. "I like the idea of being in and out," she muttered, "but it's still going to be uncomfortable. I'm going to keep you by my side, okay?"

Kyle nodded. At the same time, he saw someone in his peripheral vision. Asim had muscled his way through the crowd and managed to catch up with them. "I'm not convinced that you two aren't lovebirds," he joked. "It seems you're always trying to sneak off like this."

"Once or twice does not always make," Aoife teased.

Asim changed the subject, "So at what time will we embark on our adventure?"

"Well I want to get it over and done with as soon as possible," Kyle said. "I am a habitual procrastinator and if I don't do it, like, now, I'll probably never want to do it."

"You and me both," Aoife chuckled.

"Well then, we'll leave immediately," Asim decided. "And by immediately, of course I mean at our next opportunity. I don't know the nature of your schedules."

"How about we leave tonight?" Aoife suggested. "I don't have any classes after dinner and I don't think Kyle does, either. It'll take two minutes so we'll be back at the school before we lose any sleep."

"Sounds good," said Kyle.

"I second the notion," Asim agreed.

"Then it's settled!" Aoife declared. "Now, I hate to run, but I really need to get to class."

Once the last class of the day had been finished (and once they had each finished dinner with their on-edge classmates), the three gathered outside a door. They were unsure where the door led, or if anyone would be trying to come out as they used it, but it was, indeed, a door. They drew the symbol onto the wood, and went through. They descended the dim stairway and pushed open the door at the bottom. They expected a flood of light to blind them, but instead, they were met with a somewhat less dark environment.

"I believe we are still indoors," Asim whispered, almost afraid to break the calm quiet that surrounded them.

Aoife took the first few steps forward. Her shoes tapped against stone, and she could feel grooves every six or seven inches. "Yes, this does feel like a floor made of stone brick," she announced quietly.

Then there was a gentle breeze, and soft moonlight filled what was revealed to be a hallway. Blowing on this breeze were tattered curtains that had concealed tall windows whose glass had warped somewhat. There were a few carpets on the ground, very regal in design but a bit dusty from neglect. On the walls were paintings that had started to fade, and plaques holding weapons that had begun to rust. In between one set of windows was a suit of armor that, like the weapons, started to rust. It became clear that they had entered either a mansion or even a castle. The three went to a window and peered out, and saw, far below, a rolling greenery that led to a maze of a garden, and beyond that stood enormous trees that swayed gently in the soft night gale. Surely, the three were in a castle.

"How beautiful," Aoife barely muttered under her breath.

"We're up so high," Asim highlighted. "Perhaps we should move to the ground, so that this assignment will actually test something."

"In a minute," Kyle replied. "I wanna keep looking."

Asim looked to the dragon on Kyle's shoulders, and asked, changing the subject almost completely, "So how big is he at full size?"

Kyle turned his gaze to Fledermaus, who was about the size of a large cat at the moment. Then he shrugged and responded, "Not really sure, he stays this size."

"And why is that?"

He reached up and stroked the Familiar's chin. "I like having him this size. I can have him with me all the time." Then he turned to Asim and asked, "How about Leonidas?"

Asim looked to his own shoulder. His Familiar, too, was about the size of a cat at the moment. "When I put him down he's the size of a lion. I keep him up here to save space."

Kyle looked back out the window, and thought he saw something move down in the garden, but chose to ignore it. "Their size changing ability is really useful. The dorms would be too cramped."

"Focus, you two," Aoife ordered. "Let's get to the ground so we can get this over and done with." She looked around, turning her gaze from one end of the gently curving hall to the other. "Now, which way is down?"

Kyle pointed out the window sarcastically. "This way."

Aoife groaned and started off in one direction. "Just come on." Then she paused. "Who has the chalk?"

Kyle retrieved a fresh piece of chalk from his pocket. It had snapped, but both halves were still there.

She pointed to the door. "Please, mark the door. That way we'll at least be able to tell if we're going in circles."

"I mean it doesn't really matter, but alright." Kyle put a big star on the door, but took care to leave plenty room just in case they had to add the Symbol of the Bridge to it. "Now, let's work on getting down."