Less Than Alive: Still Kicking

Tests: They Suck

Like gigantic spires, the towers of the city jutted out of the ground, twelve in all. They sat in a circle around the stubby, fat building that was the headquarters of our grandiose principle. Guardians and students from various schools flew around, their tiny, distant shapes reminiscent of crows after carrion.

Further from there, and bathed in the neon glow that the people here seemed to love so much, were the market districts. Twelve in all, the markets were arranged like a studded ring fitted around the city: the ring of mercantile endeavors separating the towers from the outlying schools and dormitories.

Whoever said a dumbass couldn’t wax poetic?

My vantage point was from one of the hubs separate from the city proper. A testing ground with a facility where (you guessed it!) tests were run on newcomers. Tests to determine just how competent and skilled one was with spell-work. Tests that I had just categorically failed.

“Hey, Wedgie!” came a piercing, feminine wail. The assault on my ears was followed a millisecond later by a tackle from behind.

My legs sprawled out in every direction, and for the briefest of moments, I thought I might actually recuperate from the fall and not look like a complete idiot. Then my face met the rough flagstone roadway with a tender, romantic embrace that felt like it had torn off my cheek. Because why not? My day was already knee-deep in shit.

As I lay there, aware that much more attention was on me than I really needed, I began to have thoughts of home. What? Can you really blame me? Here I am, all happy to be part of one of the greatest palaces ever, hopes all über high, when my hopes and dreams get beaten, tucked into an alley, and the next day my hope’s kidneys are up on the black market and the insurance company’s whining that they don’t cover random muggings.

Honestly, though, I’m not one for giving up after a single blow or two—although I might quit after three. So, laying there, staring at the city towering above me like an unbreachable fortress, I decided that I was going to find a little niche for myself. A corner of hell where I could nestle up and roast marshmallows, while listening to the wails of those surrounding me. Or something like that.

“Wedgie, you inebriated fool! You owe me lunch!” the feminine voice declared, a clear tone of moral high-ground and social superiority resonating with every word. They were probably deserved, too.

“Hurry, get up,” she said, before delivering a swift kick to my shin.

The tall, blond and blue eyed beauty standing above me went by the name Black Ruby. She’s pretty, like, as in, drop-dead gorgeous. To go with that she has high grades, comes from what seems to be a family with connections, and acts like she knows it all, which really bites when you find out that she does, in fact, know it all.

Not to go off on a tangent, but on the first day of school, she walked up to me all smiles—and with a face like hers, I was smiling in return—and ordered me to buy her various things. Notably, lunch.

No, I don’t know why she’s such an insufferable pain in the ass. I’d go as far as calling her a tsundere, but they’re usually nice at some point. After her demands were met with confusion and some drooling, she kicked me. Hence started day one of hell.

“Leave me alone, will you?” I asked. I pushed myself up and tried to brush the dust off my trousers. It did little to wipe off my blush.

She huffed, those perfect cheeks of hers puffing out as she crossed her arms and shifted her weight to one side. “Fine. But you owe me, and I always get paid, be it today, or yesterday. Good-bye for now, Wedgie.” With a pout all too common of high-class snotty brats, she spun on the tip of her heel and left, glaring at the ground with those freakishly blue eyes of hers.