Ash held the envelope for a long moment, his eyes fixed on it, before finally sliding the contents out. Three papers fell onto the table with a soft flutter:
-An admission letter from an institution of higher learning
- A registration form
- A physical test examination notice
All stamped with the emblem of Rising Gear Academy.
He reread the first line, more slowly this time, as if the words might change on a second pass.
"Congratulations, you've been accepted into the prestigious Rising Gear Academy…"
Ash stared.
Then he blinked.
Then stared again.
"Me? Congratulations? They must have mixed this up with someone else. Right?"
Ash, the original Ash, had pre-registered three years running, knowing he wouldn't ever get in. Kids like him didn't enter elite schools. They weren't allowed to stand near the gates unless they had an ability so amazing, it broke the Talent Scales. He wasn't even on the lowest list of potential candidates.
And yet, here it was: an invitation. Neat. Clean. And Official.
He rubbed his temples.
"A week from now… school starts. I need to be prepared."
He folded the papers carefully, then placed them into a small metal drawer beside his bed that groaned as if to complain about holding important things for once.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The trash dump site sat in the deepest corner of Hollow Hearth, an endless sprawl of rusted metal, broken gears, snapped pipes, and discarded machines. Steam drifted between the piles like ghosts searching for a place to rest. Anyone else would wrinkle their nose and leave immediately.
But not Ash.
Here… he felt free.
He stepped onto a hill of old junk and spread his arms a little, inhaling deeply.
"Home sweet paradise," he muttered.
Some of them had gardens, others libraries.
Ash was having mountains of garbage.
Trash, but not useless. Every single weird object that was here told a story. Every pipe had once carried power. Every broken device had potential. And besides, nobody came here unless they were desperate, which made it the perfect place to train.
He cracked his knuckles.
"Alright, let's get down to the basics. Illusion element. Static clone. That should be doable."
He concentrated. The familiar tingle of Siphon energy rose inside him, strange and cold and whispery. A purple mist gathered around his fingers and slowly molded into a familiar shape.
Himself.
A meter away from him, his rigid counterpart stood frozen, expressionless.
"Good for confusing someone," said Ash, "not exactly heroic or cool… yet."
Try again.
"Attack skill?"
He tried to form something sharp: a spear, a blade-anything.
Nothing.
An illusion had absolutely no attack power whatsoever. An illusion simply deceived the senses and never the flesh. Irritating, but such was his path.
Then a new idea came.
"Invisibility. Illusion coat."
This time, however, the purple mist clasped his body and melted his silhouette into the background. He had appeared as a shimmer of air, hardly visible, just like the waves of heat over metal.
He attempted to take a step.
The illusion flickered like a glitchy video.
"Yeah… movement breaks it. So, no dramatic running escapes for now."
He sighed but kept testing. Hours slipped away. The day dimmed until the huge lamps embedded in Hollow Hearth's cavern ceiling flickered to low-light mode, emulating dusk.
With a labored sigh, Ash sank onto the worn, arched steel bed frame.
"I'm gonna puke," he groaned, "Illusion training plus physical exercise… bad combination. Very, very bad combination."
It felt as if his body was made of old gears and steam pipes, with aches in places he hadn't known could ache.
He finally forced himself to his feet.
"Time to go home…
He took one step.
Clank.
A creaking sound occurred somewhere nearby.
Ash froze. Instinct was back in an instant. He crouched low, powering up the illusion coat. The world swirled around him as he dissolved into a blurred shimmer.
Footsteps approached. Light. Quick. Sure upon the ground.
A girl's voice rang out.
Laura: 14 yrs, Mechanic, poor, orphan. Tinker of trash.
And, to top it off, she hummed happily while navigating through piles of junk; she happens to view this place as her own treasure chest, apparently.
"My material-gathering site," she whispered proudly, hugging a handful of old gears to her chest. "Hehehe… almost done with the project! The boss will be happy. I just need one more part…"
She poked a pipe with a wrench and jumped back as a rat the size of a slipper skittered out.
"Ew, never mind that one."
Ash watched silently from his invisible state.
So she's the one who has been collecting them here. Interesting.
Yet, just before he could go and say hi,
Shouts rose behind the junk towers.
"There she is!
"Take the kid that old man held onto!
Laura's head snapped up, her eyes wide.
"No, nonononono, why now?!"
Three men emerged out of the dark, the metal floor clanking loudly with every step of their boots. Their clothes were patched, and faces masked to veil facial expressions. They moved with the gait of people who used to undertake dirty jobs.
Ash's heartbeat began to flutter.
Kidnappers? Seriously?
Laura ran, and gears clattered everywhere.
"Run!" she yelled at herself.
One of them laughed. "Cute. She thinks she can escape by shouting."
Ash hesitated half a second.
Just half a second.
Then he moved.
He dropped the invisibility, called the mask illusion, and his body flickered, features blurred and unrecognizable, and sprinted down the path, sending dust and screws flying behind him from where he snatched up a metal rod lying beside him.
He swung.
CRACK.
The first kidnapper's back bent forward with a grunt. Ash leaped backward, the adrenaline coursing through his body.
"What the-? Another brat? Where did you come from?!" another man yelled.
Ash disappeared in the middle of a run.
"Invisibility!?"
The others didn't even have time to move before Ash appeared beside the second man and jabbed the rod into his arm. The man let out a yelp, scrambling backward.
The third man clutched Laura tightly. She wriggled and kicked her legs wildly.
"Be still, you little grease monkey!
Ash took a sharp breath. He wasn't a fighter. Not even close. These guys were older, bigger, stronger.
He needed illusions.
"Blind," he whispered, calling up a new trick.
For one instant, the men's sense of sight flickered; everything went black for them. Not for long. Just a few seconds. Yet enough it was.
Ash ran to Laura and pushed her towards a dark corner.
"Hide. Go!" he ordered
"But."
"Go!"
She disappeared behind a heap of scrap.
Ash exhaled sharply, his head throbbing. The illusions layered onto one another, the result being that his brain felt it was being beaten with hammers.
The blind effect began to wear off.
"Found you!" roared one man.
A flash of metal. A knife. Too late to dodge.
Something cold slid into Ash's stomach.
"G—ah!"
The pain came like lightning. He recoiled, coughing something warm.
Blood.
He bit his lip hard to make himself concentrate.
"Illusion… manifest."
A ghostly fist materialized beside him. The attacker flinched and dodged—
But illusions weren't physical.
Ash growled, grasping the knife hilt with shaking fingers—
And pulled it out.
Pain exploded through him.
He stabbed forward, using the attacker's surprise as cover.
Pughh.
The man collapsed with a gurgle.
Ash swayed, huffing hard, his vision flickering at the edges.
"Not… dead. Not yet," he muttered.
The world spun.
He dropped the rod.
He looked around.
While the other two men had already run away, frightened by the wild illusions and the abrupt murder.
Ash leaned against a pile of old metal, pressing his hand against the bleeding wound.
His breath quavered.
"That… sucked…"
There came a cautious tread of footsteps. Laura peered from behind the scrap tower, her eyes aglow with surprise. "You… you saved me," she whispered.
Ash tried to smile. It came out crooked. "Don't thank me yet… I might actually die."
She ran to him in a panic. "D-don't! Wait, wait here! I have bandages, tools, I can fix machines, I can fix people, too! I think!"
Ash gave a weak laugh. "Not… reassuring… but… good enough…" His body slumped, and darkness began to creep in around the edges of his vision.
Before he went full-on black, he thought… I hope Rising Gear Academy doesn't do background checks. And then all went black.