“I’ve seen the lies that paint the canvas of humanity. A fallen star’s light lost, reignited in the name of corruption and greed, much like my own internal fire; one of us is destined to burn out, the crashing waves of our impending doom heralded by a tranquil and misunderstood sea. It won’t be me.”

- Alyster Oble

The turns came and went as Alyster Oble and Faderius Blask summoned powerful monsters as cards Percy could hardly finish reading by the time they were destroyed. The two men continued to interrupt the other’s turns, Oble increasingly frustrated by it while the headmaster seemed to take it in stride.

From what Percy could gather, the Dark Summoner was capable of spending up to twenty-five mana in a turn, while Blask’s limit appeared to be around ten. Or perhaps he was limiting his expenditure, Percy wasn’t sure.

“You are no more than a child!” Oble shouted.

“Perhaps,” the headmaster replied. “But in my time, I’ve managed to match you, at least.”

The man riding the back of the dragon sneered. “How cavalier. It’s time then, Blask, that I rid myself of you and collect what I came here for.” He reached down to his waist, a single fluid motion snatching up a golden glowing card from another compartment in his deck box.

Blask tilted his head. “Whatever do you mean, Mr. Oble?”

The Dark Summoner rolled his eyes, ignoring the headmaster and speaking to the card in his hand as he swept it through the air around him, “Come to me, Gryselle!”

Flames erupted from his gauntlet when he touched the golden card to it, and Percy could see a form within the fire. A dark shape, jagged as though made of broken glass, floated inside, silver eyes shining from within the shadow in the flames.

“You bid my service yet again, Alyster Oble? And so soon?” a corrupted voice growled. The sound seemed to come from everywhere, whispered on the wind, and Percy found himself checking over his shoulder to be sure no one was there. He pointed the gauntlet at Alyster’s new Summon. The book flipped, pages flying by as the weight grew heavier in Percy’s left hand. The thick paper arced by quickly, the words on the passing pages an imperceptible blur. Then, with a heavy thud, the tome reached the last page, its back cover slamming shut with an audible boom.

“Gryselle,” Alyster spoke, “I require your power.”

Percy’s face grew hot as the flames rose into the sky, the shape of the fire seeming to shuffle and bend around the form of the beast moving within. The leaves on the trees closer to the Dark Summoner curled and caught fire. The bark blackened.

“H-h-headmaster Blask?” Mrs. Balligan stuttered out, a hand over her heart.

The bald man nodded, gazing down at the cards in his hand. “Yes, this is an issue.”

The pillar of fire roared, a massive arm of obsidian guiding an arc of fire to the ground, disintegrating the grass surrounding it. Blask turned around and smiled at Percy.

“Time to go,” he said. His hand raised into the air, three cards grasped in his fist. Then, with a single fluid motion, he threw them. One shot into the ground and another flew away into the distance. The third exploded into a wall of light between the headmaster and the waves of shocked students.

The Dark Summoner sneered from behind the fire as the magical barrier rose into the sky, forming a dome around the two duelists. The flames expanded, covering Blask and filling the dome with white fire. Two eyes of shadow formed in the blaze, pressing against the dome and glowering at the humans gathered outside of it. Percy squinted against the brilliant light. He couldn’t hear over the crowd of terrified students, but the headmaster yelled something to Mrs. Balligan just before he was engulfed in the conflagration.

A portal opened behind the young duelist, and he felt Mrs. Balligan’s iron grip dig fingers like talons into his shoulders, yanking him away from the magical dome and dragging him across the grass. Percy shouted protests, pointing to where the principal had been standing, where flames now filled the air, the only thing visible within them the two eyes of shadow which stared him down. They filled him with cold dread, and his protests died on his lips. Only Mrs. Balligan kept him standing, and she whirled him around.

A massive black owl with silver-tipped feathers and beak swooped down behind her, its wings splayed out to the sides in prideful majesty. And without giving Percy the chance to speak, the teacher hurled him into its embrace. The wings closed around him, and Percy sank into shadow, falling through a void and screaming soundlessly, realizing only as he tried to gasp for air that there wasn’t any.

This is it, he thought in sudden calm realization. This is how I die. After all of it, its an old lady’s giant shadow owl.

A familiar voice snarled back at him, Oh, calm down, Percy! Your existential dread is insufferable.

Silvaroth’s affected tone of anger somehow calmed the boy. The dragon wasn’t bothered by the situation at all. And it was only then that Percy realized that although he couldn’t inhale any air, he’d not yet passed out. Nor was there any pain.

It’s shadow transport, you absolutely intolerable ignoramus. There’s nothing to lose your fire over.

And just as fast as Percy had fallen into the black void, a window of light blasted open before him. His eyes shot wide open, his body falling at extreme speeds toward the rapidly approaching tunnel of light. He felt his body stretching behind him. It was like something out of a sci-fi movie.

Percy closed his eyes against the brilliance before him. And when he opened them, the world outside of the shadows had changed. The fresh scent of nature was gone, replaced by a dank stench that reminded the boy of the orphanage’s basement. Perhaps… had Percy just awoken from his dream?

He could feel himself laying facedown on something hard… A wooden crate, maybe? It was dark in the room, lit only by the torches on the walls.

Wait… torches? Percy squinted at the bright flames that flickered high on the brick walls, piercing orbs of light totally ruining the nightvision he might’ve naturally adopted otherwise.

How else would you expect humans to exist in darkness? the voice of Percy’s dragon responded sardonically.

“I don’t know… night light crystals, maybe?” Percy said out loud.

The dragon chuckled. Heh. As if humans would consider those common enough to waste on something as trivial as lighting a room.

“Percy? Is that you?” the voice of Reina called from the darkness. He glanced toward the sound, and suddenly a ball of white magic blasted into his face, sending him stumbling back. Percy shouted, covering his eyes and waving his other hand out in front of him.

“Oh! I’m so sorry!” Reina yelled. He felt her hand touch his back, and rubbed his eyes with his non-gauntleted hand, blinking away spots. The room was illuminated better, now, the white aura from the floating orb banishing all the shadows around them and giving the room an unnatural appearance. Percy could see wooden crates with canvas coverings stacked throughout the stone-bricked room, spiderwebs connecting the gaps between them.

“It’s okay, Reina… What happened?”

“I don’t know,” she answered him. “One moment, I was inside the dormhouse watching Principal Blask duel that… man… and the next, I was transported here.”

Percy nodded. “Yeah, shadow transport from some giant owl?”

You mean that old woman’s Monarch, Silvaroth corrected.

“Mrs. Balligan’s monarch?” Percy asked.

Reina pursed her lips, nodding to what she interpreted as Percy’s suggestion. “Yes, I think you could be right. I hadn’t seen it before, but that seems sensible.”

Before he could respond, however, a door opened at the end of the room, “Reina? Percy? Is that you?”

Selena stood in the doorway, covered in ash. Her voice was coarse, she’d probably inhaled smoke. The two began walking toward her, and she turned, moving out of their way. Percy tried to ask what had happened, but his voice died in his throat as he entered the grand hallway the room connected to. In true gothic style, high arching ceilings with aesthetically complimenting buttresses rested far above, intricate chandeliers hanging every twenty feet over the plush red carpet, though they weren’t lit at the moment. Instead, light blazed through large pointed semicircular windows.

The three of them gazed out of the window as other new students began pouring out of similar rooms throughout the hall. In the distance– Percy couldn’t be how sure, but he guessed miles away– an island hung in the air, held by unnaturally shaped limbs which confused the eye. They stretched out of portals positioned around the floating land, seemingly lacking a connecting body.

A snowy mountain reached into the sky from one end of the island, while a volcano smoked on the other. Percy squinted then, recognizing the features of the floating puzzle. Somehow, it was the Testing Grounds he’d been standing on, not five minutes before. And it was on fire.