Over the next week Ethan settled into the routine of his new life at Hinan Academy. He’d go to class and then go to the library in order to do homework with Bella. He expected homework when he came to Hinan but the sheer amount of homework he received was shocking. Did these teachers not expect students to have a life outside of school?

Ethan actually probably wouldn’t have been able to keep up with it if not for Bella. She was much smarter than she let on and was a godsend for his Math homework in particular, which was easily his worst subject. Math just didn’t make sense to him. Sure he could add, subtract, and multiply with ease but now they were throwing all of these weird formulas at him which just were impossible to figure out even with him paying attention in class and reading over the book before attempting them. How the hell did 5-(x+2)=5x? That did add up at all. Was x even a real number?

Bella was a saint though. She took time away from her own, much more difficult homework to help Ethan understand and finish his. Better than that though she didn’t ever make him feel stupid or patronize him which he appreciated greatly. He hated feeling stupid even though he spent a majority of his time at school feeling this way outside of P.E. and History.

Outside of school and the mountain of homework he was being given, the other consistent in his life was the unfamiliar voice in his head which was even less welcome than the homework. Ethan had since learned to ignore it though it seemed to be growing more and more persistent as the days went by.

At the end of the day on Tuesday he finally attended his first Drawing and Painting class and it was even worse than he expected. The teacher, a younger woman named Ms. Phelan, really didn’t seem to appreciate that he’d skipped her first class. When he pointed to his head and tried to explain that he’d fallen, hit his head, and knocked himself out on the way to her class she actually rolled her eyes at him. This story wasn’t true of course, but what was he going to do? Tell her that he got lost on his way to class and stumbled his way into a magical dungeon that tried to kill him. Yeah that wouldn’t go over well.

He lost points for the homework he didn’t do the night before, he lost points for skipping class, and then she assigned him extra homework and gave him detention to boot. Worse yet, he was truly awful at drawing and she was completely unwilling to help him. In fact, she almost seemed to enjoy watching him struggle. It was definitely going to be a long year in this class and if he passed it would be a miracle.

Detention in contrast really wasn’t so bad. It was served in a classroom on the main floor of Hinan hall and ran from the end of classes until dinner. There was only one other student in the room with Ethan and they were both instructed by the teacher that they couldn’t talk or leave but could work on homework, which is probably what he would have been doing anyways.

All in all it was actually a pretty productive time for Ethan as he finished all of his homework before heading to dinner in the dining hall where he met Bella.

“Where were you tonight?” Bella asked sitting at the table across from him. “I looked for you all over the library, but you never showed up.”

“Sorry,” Ethan muttered taking a bite out of a chicken strip. “My lovely Art teacher sent me straight to detention after class for skipping her first lesson.”

“Didn’t you explain to her about your injury?” Bella asked.

“Of course,” he answered. “She was having none of it and I’m pretty sure I’m on her bad side now. Outside of giving me detention she made sure to make my life hell in her classroom.”

“That’s not fair,” Bella replied outraged. “You told her the truth, suffered an injury, and she’s punishing you for it.”

“Life’s not fair Bella,” Ethan said. “If it was we both wouldn’t have needed a financial scholarship to get into this school.”

And besides it’s not really the truth he thought to himself. The truth is even more bizarre.

Changing the subject Bella asked, “So are you going to join any clubs?”

“I don’t know,” Ethan replied. “I’ll probably try out for soccer starting on Thursday but I haven’t thought about much besides that.”

“Yeah you’re good at that,” Bella said smiling at him. “One of the best during P.E.”

“One of the best because Quincy is always making the rest of us look like fools out there?” he asked smiling at her.

“Well Quincy is amazing,” Bella said in an annoying admiring way. “You can’t expect to play at her level. I heard Ms. Rockfort talking with some of the other instructors and apparently she’s a shoe-in to make the girl’s varsity team.”

I bet she is, Ethan thought sourly. In the now three times they’d played against each other in P.E. no matter how hard he tried Ethan just couldn’t get the better of Quin. The stupid girl had an unnatural ability to control everything on the field and she was bigger than him which made going head to head against her all the more frustrating when this girl shoved him off of the ball. He hated losing to her and couldn’t stand her stupid arrogant face.

“Come on, don’t look like that,” Bella said throwing a french fry at him. “You’re good too, really. I’m always impressed watching you out on the field. Tell you what, I’ll come watch your tryouts on Thursday and cheer you on.”

“Oh thanks Bella,” Ethan said feeling a bit embarrassed that she saw his feelings about Quin bubble to the surface. “Hopefully I can make the JV team, but we’ll see. Are you thinking of joining any clubs or trying out for any teams?”

She laughed at this and said, “Well I’m definitely not trying out for any sports. Look at me and you’ve seen me out there during P.E. I have absolutely no coordination or athletic talent whatsoever.”

She has a point there, Ethan thought looking at her. She really is awful at P.E. and I don’t think any coach is going to look at her round figure and think that they can mold her into an athlete.

He wasn’t going to say this too her though so instead he said, “I’m sure you could make a team if you tried. Maybe soccer just isn’t your sport. You could try volleyball or cross-country.”

This caused Bella to laugh even harder and she said, “I appreciate your kindness but seriously look at me. I won’t be doing either of those. No, I think I might join model U.N. You know something a bit less physical.”

“Yeah, you’d be great at that,” Ethan said quickly glad to be getting away from the sensitive subject of Bella’s body. “You’re really smart, like really smart.”

“I’m just average,” Bella said and then smirking added, “but I guess compared to you…”

“Hey,” Ethan exclaimed and threw a french fry at her causing both of them to laugh.

The next couple of days went by quickly until Ethan found himself out on the soccer field at 6:30 on Thursday with quite a few other Freshmen and Sophomore boys. Seeing the older boys and how many of them their were made him nervous. He hadn’t considered that it wouldn’t be just Freshmen trying out for this team. All of the Sophomores were taller and generally bigger with their extra year of growth benefiting them. He’d definitely have his work cut out for him if he wanted to make this team.

True to her world Bella was there and found a seat on a bench near the field where she could watch the tryouts. Ethan was also please to see that Lee was there to try out as well which meant at least he’d have a couple friendly faces around.

To his surprise it turned out that old Mr. Thorton was the JV soccer coach in addition to being the Biology teacher. Apparently back in the day he was quite the player himself, though judging by his age and appearance Ethan guessed this must have been a long, long time ago.

Still Thorton took his coaching seriously and jumped right into tryouts by setting them all on a two mile run much to Ethan’s dismay. Sure he could run and play, but he was nowhere near in good enough shape to handle a two mile run without a problem.

The run was exhausting and Ethan definitely didn’t make a good impression on Thorton with it by finishing in the last third of the boys. When he finally finished he bent over with his hands on his legs breathing hard. He really thought he was in better shape than this but apparently not.

Not giving the students a chance to recover Thorton then divided them up into group and set them to doing various drills. Ethan’s first drill was dribbling the ball in a figure eight around and through some cones.

At first it was easy as he was allowed to dribble around the cones in whatever manner he wanted to, but then Thorton got more restrictive with them by requiring the students to dribble around the left with the outside of their left foot and the right with the outside of the left foot. Then they switched and did the inside of their right foot while going to the left and the inside of their left foot while going to their right all while dribbling as fast as they could.

Ehtan was proud of himself that he managed to mostly maintain control fo the ball the whole time though he definitely struggled a bit with his left foot. He was right foot dominate and it felt awkward using the other foot as much as he was being forced to.

The next drill was better as it saw a group of students standing around in a small circle passing the ball back and forth to each other without settling it while one player in the middle tried to intercept it. This was actually a fun game of keep away and Ethan was much better at it and started to enjoy himself. Several of the other boys trying out struggled to keep the ball in the tight circle and either flubbed their passes or popped the ball up in the air and over their intended target, but Ethan felt like he had a handle on controlling the ball without settling it. He was only forced into the middle once and he intercepted the ball right away to get out.

Next they were forced to do a dribbling, shooting, and passing drill that involved a player passing the ball to another player who then dribbled the ball through some cones towards goal before passing it outside to another player who then passed it back. As soon as the ball came back the player was then to attempt a first time shot on goal trying to beat the goalkeeper.

This caused some spectacular misses as players struggled with the movement on the ball coming at them while they tried to blast a shot. Only a few players ended up scoring though Ethan was fortunate enough to put it in the net twice.

He was slightly worse at passing than he was at dribbling and shooting but he was downright awful at playing the goalkeeper. He definitely let in a couple of goals that should have been saved because he wasn’t good at reading the shot. Still he wasn’t super worried about this because he really didn’t want to be a goalkeeper.

Lastly Thorton split them up into teams of seven and set them to scrimaging against each other. Thorton actually divided the field in half and dragged out some smaller nets to accommodate multiple games going on at once. Ethan lined up in his preferred midfield position for the red team as they took on the blue team.

The game did not go well. His team was vastly outclassed by the other team no matter how hard Ethan worked and how much of the field he covered. He felt like he ended up spending most of the time helping his teammates out on defense and then whenever he won the ball back they’d give it away immediately again.

His only opportunity on goal he missed as he attempted an audacious diving header in the box and sent the ball a full ten yards over the crossbar. By the end of the scrimmage his team had lost five to nothing and he was completely exhausted.

“Ethan, you need to trust in your teammates more,” Thorton barked at him as he dragged his heavy legs off the field. “Also if you’re going to play a box-to-box midfielder you’re going to need to work on that stamina. They could hear your wheezing back in the quad.”

“Yes sir, I’ll work on it,” Ethan said hanging his head.

He felt totally deflated. Night one of tryout certainly didn’t go as well as he’d hoped. At this rate he might not make the team. Out of the twenty-eight boys trying out there were only fourteen to fifteen spots on the team so a good chunk of them would end up getting cut. As he walked over to where Bella sat he vowed to redouble his efforts Friday night and Saturday afternoon.

“Good job,” Bella said standing up as he approached her bench.

“Thanks, I’m not sure Mr. Thorton was all that impressed with me,” Ethan muttered.

“Well I was,” Bella said. “I thought you were great. Really he’d be crazy not to put you on the team.”

“I don’t know, there’s quite a few quality players out there,” Ethan replied, “and I’m really struggling with my stamina. I really wasn’t expecting that two mile run to start.”

“Yeah that looked painful,” Bella said. “I would have probably quit right there as soon as he said to do that.”

As the two of them walked back towards the quad the two of them caught Quincy running laps around the soccer field, tennis courts, baseball field, and football stadium.

“Didn’t the girls have tryouts earlier?” Ethan asked staring after her incredulously.

“Yeah I think they held the girls tryouts on the baseball field,” Bella said staring after Quincy as well. “She’s been at that for the last forty minutes or so.”

“She’s insane,” Ethan muttered. “If their tryouts were anything like ours I don’t know how she’s able to run. I can barely walk right now.”

“She’s amazing,” Bella said appreciatively.

“That’s one way to put it,” Ethan muttered sourly.

“Don’t be so sulky about it,” Bella said. “Just because a girl has beat you a couple of times in P.E. doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to appreciate how athletic she is.”

Not a couple times, Ethan thought, every time. Besides that’s no girl, that’s some sort of olympian alien disguised as a girl. This thought made him smile as he laughed internally at his own joke.

“There you go,” Bella said misunderstanding his facial expression. “Really learning from her in P.E. will probably help your game.”

“Yeah,” Ethan muttered not really wanting to discuss Quincy any more.

They walked in silence for the rest of the way until they split up in the quad with Bella heading for Wildcat House and Ethan heading back to Salamander.

He was so tired all he really wanted to do was to collapse in his bed and fall asleep forever. Hopefully when he woke up his legs wouldn’t be so weak. He didn’t even care that when he got home, Alex was there and playing video games loudly. In fact it didn’t even keep him from falling asleep because he past out almost as soon as his head hit his pillow.

Unfortunately when he woke up in the morning his legs were even worse. They were now sore and stiff and had trouble responding to his mental commands. He tried to loosen up his muscles in the shower but only had moderate success.

By the time he got to tryouts that night he was worried that he might collapse during the two mile warm up run. Miraculously he didn’t, but he really struggled in the run and finished dead last out of all twenty-eight players.

When he finished Thorton just looked at him and shook his head muttering, “Stamina Russell, stamina.”

While it was bad enough that Thorton noticed how badly Ethan ran the two miles, it was even worse when he didn’t let up or give any sympathy. Instead he threw Ethan and the rest of them right into drills once more. Ethan only got through them by sheer force of will by mentally screaming at his legs and forcing them way past what he was sure their limit was.

By Saturday, the last day of tryouts Ethan was even worse. His legs were lead and he even pulled a Gavin in P.E. by not putting in any effort. He figured if his legs had anything left he needed all of it during tryouts.

He ended up walking part of the two mile run and was thankful that he wasn’t the only one. Thorton coaxed on Ethan and the rest of the strangers but Ethan wasn’t sure that any amount of coaxing would get his legs to operate any better. Somehow he finished the run and somehow Thorton didn’t seem to notice how close to collapsing half of his players were as he threw them all immediately into drills.

Ethan cheated a bit during drills. At this point he wasn’t above that and everytime Thorton started watching another group he stood around lazily trying to rest his legs as much as he possibly could. It sort of worked at least until Thorton brought them all in to play a couple more scrimmage matches.

This time he didn’t play well and he knew it. Ethan just wasn’t mobile enough to be effective and he ended up making a couple key defensive mistakes that cost his team a goal. All in all he was pretty exhausted and dejected when Thorton finally called it.

“I want to congratulate you all for working hard over these last three days,” Thorton said. “You all should be proud of yourselves regardless of whether or not you make the team. On Monday I will be posting the final results of who made the team outside of the Gymnasium so please make sure your stop by and check because the first official team practice is Tuesday night.”

With that he dismissed them all and Ethan limped over to the bench Bella was sitting on.

“Good job,” Bella said standing up. “Did you make the team?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I won’t know until Monday, but going by today’s performance, probably not.”

“You look like you could use some ice on those legs or something,” Bella said looking at Ethan over.

“I don’t know if I need ice,” he replied shaking his head. “Probably just need to stretch them out a bit. They’re so stiff. Maybe some light walking would help instead of all this running.”

“Okay, why don’t we take a walk around all of the fields and maybe head out onto the beach?” Bella asked. “I’ve been wanted to check out the beach anyways and see how good it is.”

“Yeah that works,” Ethan said allowing the girl to take the lead.

Maybe a swim in the ocean would help too he thought hobbling next to her. Either that or he should soak in a hot bath for the rest of his life. As they walked he scowled as Quincy blew past the two of them running her laps again. Does she ever quit? She’d already run circles around him and everyone else in P.E. this morning and now she was running again. Jesus, she was the worst.

“You join Model UN yet?” Ethan asked Bella trying to distract himself from the pain and Quincy.

“No, the first meeting isn’t until this coming week,” Bella replied. “Unlike athletics, the clubs seem to want to give students a couple weeks to settle in before bombarding them with activities.”

“Let’s hope they treat you better than Thorton treats us,” Ethan replied. “He seemed to be pretty good natured in Bio. Little did I know that a sadist hid under that old man’s mask.”

“He seems to be doing what all soccer coaches do,” Bella replied. “One of my older brother’s plays and they are always having to run. I think they just give you the ball and trick you into thinking that it’s a game, when really they are just trying to get you to exercise.”

“I’m beginning to agree with you,” Ethan muttered. “This is why you’re smarter than me though. It takes an old man almost killing me before I realize it.”

“That’s not saying much Russell,” an unwelcome voice quipped from behind Ethan. “You’re probably the dumbest person at this school.

Turning around Ethan found Alex standing there with a mocking expression on his face.

“Don’t you have anything better to do than to bother us?” Ethan asked annoyed.

“I do,” Alex replied, “but on my pleasant stroll to the docks who do I run into but the Shipper couple. First there’s the idiot who can’t think or walk and then there's the fat one who I should probably report to immigration enforcement.”

Anger surged instantly through Ethan and he snapped, “Take that back Alex. Bella doesn’t deserve to be treated like that.”

“Aw I’m touched,” Alex replied sarcastically. “Look at how defensive he gets over his girlfriend.”

“She’s just my friend,” Ethan spat starting to hobble towards the other boy, “but you need to apologize to her right now.”

“Ethan, just let it go,” Bella said grabbing his arm. “He’s not worth it. It’s fine.”

“No it’s not fine,” Ethan snapped at her harsher than he meant to. “He’s been a jerk to me since day one for no reason other than the fact that I’m not as well off as he is and now he’s picking on you as well. I’m not going to stand for it anymore.”

“You’re going to what? Fight me?” Alex asked looking Ethan up and down. “Good luck with that. You can barely walk, but by all means come at me and see how it goes for you.”

Growling Ethan limped faster toward the other boy only to freeze a moment later as he caught the image of a large winged dog swoop down and land only a few feet behind Alex. It looked sort of like a german shepard but with brown and white fur and large wings protruding from its back. It’s fangs were bared and the hackles on it’s back were raised as is silently crept towards Alex.

Something must have showed in Ethan’s facial expression because Alex said, “Yeah that’s what I thought you coward. You’re all talk.”

Realizing that there were only seconds until Alex was mauled by whatever this dog was Ethan sprang forward using the adrenaline surging through his body to ignore the pain in his legs. This caught Alex completely off guard because his facial expression changed from one of condescension to one of surprise.

The dog sprang forward right as Ethan reached Alex tackling the other boy to the ground. Ethan landed on top of the other boy with a thump and heard the snarling, snapping mouth of the beast miss his face by inches. He wasn’t so lucky with the long claws on its front legs which raked across his exposed back ripping long tears easily through his light athletic shirt.

Gasping in pain he seized arching his back and pushing his stomach into Alex who was underneath him.

“Gah, get off of me,” Alex yelled shoving Ethan and rolling him to the side. “Jesus, what in the hell is that thing?”

With Ethan out of his way, Alex finally caught sight of the dog who was slowly turning around to face them.

“I don’t know,” Ethan said through gritted teeth pushing himself up onto his knees and staring at the animal.

Ethan Russell, a voice said in his head. You can not ignore us. You have been bound to the dungeon and you must continue to attempt it.

“Leave me alone,” Ethan yelled at the dog. “I don’t care about you or your dungeon. I didn’t ask for this. Find someone else.”

I cannot, the voice said. You are not the only one, but no one who has been bound is allowed to ignore their duty. Such is the compact. You will either fight through the dungeon and claim the heart or your will die.

With that the dog sprang forward launching itself directly at Ethan. Before he even realized what he was doing Ethan pressed the tattoo on his wrist summoning the spirit sword and armor and catching the dog’s mouth as it tried to bite down on him with the blade of his sword turned sides.

It’s weight pushed down against him causing Ethan to fall backwards but he held the blade steady preventing the beast’s deadly fangs from making contact with anything except for the sword.

Rolling to the side he pulled the blade sliding it sideways out of the dog’s mouth and slicing it along the joint near its jaw. He then pushed himself to his feet and slashed wildly at the animal grazing it near its midsection and drawing a trickle of blood.

“Leave us alone,” Ethan yelled at it as it yelped and jumped away out of his swordreach.

Eyeing his sword the dog took one last look at Ethan before turning, running, and launching itself into the air where it flew away towards the nearby mountains.

Exhausted, he stood their panting watching it fly away and wondering what he did to deserve this.

His train of thought was broken a second later by Alex asking, “what was that thing and for that matter what are you wearing and where did that sword come from?”

Ethan looked down at the sword in his hand and then back at Alex with his mouth hanging open. How on Earth was he going to explain this one?

“Ethan?” Bella asked a moment later. “I’m a bit confused as well by what is going on.”