Chapter 18.5 Sneak Peek! - Stormweaver II (Patreon)

Coming tomorrow, though possibly not till the afternoon. This is a weird chapter. I don't like the loop it took back to the Arena, so I'll be I do some major restructuring on it in edits.

Other than that, though, it was fun to set the scene before we dive into combat again!

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The inside of the building—fortunately for everyone—had a familiar feel to it, and despite the pallet and design of the seats being different from Galens, Rei found himself breathing a little easier after they’d mounded the twenty-or-so steps of the entrance. Once in, the place didn’t even feel all that smaller than what he was used to, with the black and red rows rising upward in the much the same way as they did at home from around the standard SCT field that was the center of everything. The ceiling was a lot closer—almost alarmingly so, at first glance—but the constraint of the space was made up for ten times over by the buzz of noise and activity happening all around them. Everywhere he looked, people were moving, many along the walkway that ringed the main floor or split the seats, a few down on the Arena floor—all uniformed officers of the ICSM apparently inspecting the projection plating—and most in the stands themselves. The emblems of the schools, too, were cleanly displayed as massive, hovering projects over ten neatly divided sections of the stadium, and Rei had a moment to take in not only Maston’s mirrored green lions and Kenneth’s own four symmetrical blue-and-grey shields, but the rest as well. There was Sermont’s Point black-and-red serpent, as well as the 105th Military College’s three black, vertical swords. Oyekan’s School of Combat’s mirrored hands and daggers were near the 103rd’s winged, silver skull, while opposite them the 9th Sector Division had it simpler yellow-and-orange diagonal cross marking a big X next to the 104th’s open blue-on-white eye and Deermont University’s golden stag head.

Then, though, Dent was calling their attention back to her again, and they turned left, along the walkway, making for where the red griffin seemed to be almost holding court from its portion of the stands, which crowned the south entrance of the stadium.

Almost immediately, though, Rei was once again distracted, though to be fair he wasn’t the only one.

“Oooh!” Cashe whispered even as voices started up from all around them. “Pretty…”

Rei tore his eyes from the school emblems at last—having been taking in the great red griffin of Galens with no small swell of pride, admittedly—to find the Lancer examining Viv’s right shoulder.

Her shoulder, and the clean glowing white of the Duelist emblem that had suddenly appeared there to hover half-an-inch above the black cloth of her uniform.

Apparently the markers had manifested shortly after they reached the walkway, and Rei was remotely ashamed of his excitement as he promptly turned and pulled at the upper sleeve of his own regulars, his stomach doing a little flip of happiness when he saw that—sure enough—the A-Type symbol was there at once. A quick glance around told him that the others had gotten their’s, too, along with the rest of the Galen’s students, and peering into the stands he realized that every cadet from every school had been marked as well. It was kind of neat, taking it all in. Only those who were clear staff—maybe as a distinction in and off itself—were lacking the emblems, and Rei had a fun half minute as they made their way to the south end of the Arena trying to guess what CAD-Type different students were just based of their physique and posture. Amusingly, he was pretty sure he was right roughly four out of five or so times, but that wasn’t all that surprising. Though he’d only been a User himself for less than a year, you picked up on the difference quick if you didn’t want to get left in the dust.

Rei didn’t even realize he’d chuckled out loud after noting that Maulers in particular were easy to pick out, usually all shoulders and big hands and chins lifted maybe a little too high…

“What’s so funny?” Aria asked him sidelong, looking at him out of the corner of her eye.

“I’ll tell you later,” he promised with another grin.