Sanctuary

(Friday, 8th of Dawnstar Moon, 2021)

Jack, Alice, and Mifu arrived at Sanctuary just on time at 5:25, meaning they still had some time before the coronation ceremony. When they arrived at Sanctuary, they instantly marveled at the sheer size of the castle for a couple moments before Mifu snapped her fingers in front of Jack and Alice's faces, snapping them back into focus. There was a large gate they had to enter through, but to enter the gates they must walk through a curved bridge. There were also guards on either side of the gates, and they were checking ID's to make sure people were who they say they are. Due to Sanctuary being the greatest school in the continent, many people try to fake their way into the school. Sometimes it's well thought out, other times it's pathetic to look at. Like right now, there was a drunken man who looked to be in his 40's trying to convince the guards that he was actually a student here, even though the oldest student that goes here is barely into their late 20's.

"What do you mean I'm not welcome here?!" The drunken man wore dirty clothes and had messy hair. "I live in Oneiro, so I should get access to the resources inside!"

"Abraham, we've been over this, those are for students and refugees only." The guards held axes with long hilts, and the hilts were long enough to form a cross over the gates. "We ran a background check on you already, you do live in the slums, but your job is well paying and you're using it for nothing but alcohol. If you're after resources, then cut back on the drinking and use that money for important things."

"Fuck off, I work my ass off everyday and this is all I get in return?!" The drunkard sounded pissed, and despite that the three students kept walking like nothing was wrong. Their walking didn't go noticed however, the drunkard noticed them walking. "Oh come on, they get to enter because they're students or 'privileged'?!"

"They get the privilege of being students because they were scouted, worked hard to hone their skills, and are risking their lives to protect all of us from monsters, terrorists, and other dangerous groups." The second knight stated as Jack, Alice, and Mifu approached the second knight with their identification in their hands. Alice showed her Kingstagram account, Mifu handed some kind of small scroll, and Jack showed his driver's license. "Things appear to be in order, thank you for risking your lives for us, future guardians."

The knights moved their axes out of the way, allowing the three of them to enter while the drunkard could only gawk in response. "That's a load of horse shit!" The drunkard tried following them, but he was stopped by the guards again.

"You need to relax before Headmaster Herakles shows up, if he hears you came back, he'll throw you at your house!" The first guard warned, and Jack decided to add this 'Herakles' fellow to people he did not want to fight.

The trio entered the palace, and the place ahead of them was a long hallway that was lit up by several torches. Why did this castle need torches? Isn't that kind of outdated? Electric lighting is better, but for a place this big, it might cost a bit on the electricity bill.

"Wait, that guy earlier said something about refugees, what's that about?" Jack asked his friends.

"Sanctuary serves two primary purposes, to educate the greatest guardians in Desponia, and to serve as a safe haven for refugees from wars and other such conflicts." Mifu explained. "There are two layers to 'Sanctuary's inner town', as people like to call it. 50% of this town is full of apartments for the refugees to live in, the rest of the property is student dorms, specialized facilities, and the cafeteria."

"Huh, and here I was making memes about Sanctuary's name being a false advertisement." Alice sighed in shame as the three were suddenly stopped by three figures in front of us.

"Prepare for trouble..." The first figure was wearing New Years glasses, a fuzzy scarf, fake jewelry, and a top hat.

"...and make it double." The second figure was wearing a detective's hat, a fake mustache, glasses, an oversized ski jacket, and carried a cane.

"Meowth, that's right." The third figure was just Zane wearing cat ears, and he looked exhausted/dead inside. "Wait, where's Othelia?"

"I'm sorry for being late!" Othelia was rushing towards everyone, out of breath and exhausted. "I had to wait with my mech for the garage to open, and apparently I'm one of the only vehicle users on campus."

"Vehicle user?"

"Basically a warrior class whose special weapon is a vehicle, like Othelia uses a mech, I know one of our classmates uses a ship because I rode with them here." Mifu explained, and Jack thanked her. "You really lost all your memories, haven't you?"

"Yeah, I have." Jack rubbed the back of his neck. If Jack was already having this much trouble with just general knowledge, then the official year is going to be much worse. "I hope I can keep up with everyone, if not, I don't know what I'll do."

"Don't worry, we'll back you up just enough so you can stay here, but also not enough to prevent you from embarrassing yourself." Rico began. "Besides, we all had this goal together, so we're seeing it through to the end together."

"My, now I feel like I'm intruding in this little friendship you people have going on." Mifu awkwardly scratched her cheek. "Shall I introduce myself or will you introduce me?"

"Oh right, this is Mifu, she is our friend now!" Alice gestured to Mifu whilst waving her hands to gesture to the swordswoman. "I expect you all to treat her with respect and dignity! Just because she joined the squad late, doesn't mean we should discriminate!"

"Mifu, run, this is your only chance to run away from Alice and live a normal life." Zane warned the samurai girl while clinging to her clothes. "Save yourself before it's too late."

"Oi, don't give her the wrong impression of me." Alice karate chopped Zane's head.

"It's true, you demon witch."

Othelia pulled Alice away from Zane while Jack pulled Zane away from Alice, noticing how light he was. Does Zane even eat? It was hard to tell because he always wore his jacket. Everyone then decided to go to where the ceremony was to begin. They kept on walking through the castle-like walls and followed the sound of people talking. Moments later, they all arrived at a large archway that led into some kind of square shaped courtyard. The ground there was made of cobblestone, and there were bushes lining the edges of the courtyard. Surrounding the courtyard were the walls of Sanctuary, and dead ahead of them was a stage. The courtyard itself was square, but it was large enough to fit a whale in, but right now it was fitting in dozens, if not hundreds of soon to be students. On the stage, there were a large variety of people. Though the three that got Jack's attention the most were a crocodile man, a steam-punk looking guy, and a blonde doctor. The crocodile man looked excited to teach while the steampunk man looked more interested in whatever device was in his hands. As for the doctor, she looked tired. Jack's focus then shifted on the two men that were at the microphone stand on the stage, the first one was a large man dawning all red and looking like he could kick anyone's ass with nothing but a flick. He wore a red leather trench coat with a tail, black pants and boots, blood red gloves that extended up his forearms, and a white dress shirt. Despite being elderly, this man was absolutely jacked and was rocking long, gray hair along with a beard.

"So that's Headmaster Herakles...?" Alice asked in a hushed tone before noticing the man beside Herakles. "Wait...Grandfather?!"

"Your grandfather is the Great Geppetto, the legendary Mystic Puppetmaster?" Mifu wondered out loud while pointing at Geppetto. "He's one of the strongest, is he not? Now I can see how you got in, Alice, Jack."

"I didn't even know he was that strong to be honest, I thought he was powerless." Alice bit her thumb in frustration. "I thought he just knew Herakles as an acquaintance, but if he's such a guy, why would he hide such an important fact from me?"

"I'm sure he has his reasons." Othelia looked nervous about something, so she quickly changed the subject. "Say, what is Herakles doing with the microphone?"

"I think he's having trouble with it." Rico commented on Herakles' behavior, which looked like he accidentally crushed the microphone.

"He is definitely having trouble with it." Nico nodded as we watched Herakles struggle with the microphone, and some people were even laughing. Herakles heard these laughs and grit his teeth before slamming the broken microphone onto the ground.

"Fuck it, I don't need it." Herakles stomped on the now grounded microphone, and it was official, Jack was scared of this man. "Now listen up you brats, you may be a big shot where you lot come from, but until I decide you're worthy of becoming Guardians, you all are maggots underneath my boot."

"That's mean!" A random student threw a tomato at Herakles, who caught it without even looking at it. When he did look at the tomato, he was confused as to how it got there, and began eating it.

"As I was saying, I'm not gonna hold your hand on your journey, but I'll give you what you need on your journey." Herakles' bit into his newly acquired tomato. "I'm not gonna be your friend, I'm gonna be a drill Sergeant who's gonna scream at you every waking second of the day to push all of you to do your best. If not, annoy all you snot nosed brats."

"You suck!"

"And you swallow, anyways." Herakles pulled out a folded piece of paper. "You idiots may have been accepted to come here for this opportunity, but we don't have unlimited resources, so we're gonna thin out the numbers a bit with a test I made myself." Herakles smiled. "You all are gonna kick the crap out of each other in the arena we had built the other day!"

"Tomorrow of course, most of you must be exhausted from your journey!" Geppetto had to shout so we could hear him. "There are sleeping bags for all of you to borrow and room for you all to sleep in the ballroom. Just so we're clear, if any of you try doing the dance with no pants, do the janitors a favor and wait until you all get dorms and know how to use this place's washing machine!"

"Wait, that's it?" Alice questioned as she looked at the stage with a judgemental stare. "Where are the fireworks?! I demand fireworks as a reward for working our asses off!"

"Fear not Dearest Alice, we just have to go through one more test before we become official students of Sanctuary." Mifu informed her new friend in a matter of fact tone. "I read on the official school page that they are having us fight each other to make sure we didn't lie our way into Sanctuary, since Headmaster Herakles was tired of people lying to get into Sanctuary."

"What happened to those who lied anyways?" Jack wondered out loud as the crowd began talking amongst themselves.

"Guys, I think the testing has already begun." Nico pulled his friends all closer to one another in a huddle before whispering. "In the second story windows, there are people watching over us."

"What should we do?" Othelia asked the orange haired boy, who didn't have an answer, and he thought to himself. "If they're going to watch us sleep, isn't that a bit creepy?"

"Creepy doesn't even begin to describe it." Alice pulled out her glock, but Mifu stopped her before things could escalate.

"Remember, Sanctuary has incredibly high standards, I believe those figures we're seeing are judges." Mifu suggested, and that was a possible theory.

"I'm hacking into their phones as we speak, and given what I've seen so far, they appear to be writing notes on each of us." Zane was already on his laptop, looking at the intel for each person. "Jack is being observed by some guy with a gas mask, Alice is a blue haired woman, Mifu is a purple haired woman, the twins are the crocodile, I'm scouted by a guy from somewhere I've never heard of, and Othelia is getting scouted by a commander."

"Just act natural, guys." Nico brushed his hand through his hair before undoing the huddle and walking with the crowd, heading to the ballroom.

After some walking with the crowd, everyone reached a massive set of doors, which some guards opened up for them. When everyone entered the ballroom, they all instantly noticed how massive it was, with windows that had arches over them and lengthy curtains pulled aside to allow us to see the beautiful city of Oneiro below. It was dark out, but despite that, the sky around the main city of Oneiro was yellow and golden thanks to the many lights from the city. However, if Jack looked up, he could see rainbow colored stars covering the night sky and the two full moons peering from the darkness, illuminating the ballroom. Above our heroes were glamorous chandeliers made of various crystals, yet they were not lit for some reason. Despite not being lit, the room was well lit because of the moons' lighting the ballroom in a soft white hue. Jack looked at his feet, noticing how it was a chessboard patterned floor made of marble. Jack was instantly worried about a bad back in the morning, that is until Othelia handed him an incredibly thick sleeping bag, one that could possibly double as a futon, along with a pillow.

"Here, the sleeping bag is enchanted to prevent back pain in the morning, even if we sleep on marble." Othelia handed Alice the sleeping bag and pillow. "These are usually for guardians out in the field, but Sanctuary has their own enchanter, so they can make stuff like this."

"We should probably change into our pajamas, since only sociopaths sleep in jeans." Alice suddenly began glaring at Zane in particular, something tells Jack he does that from time to time.

"Yeah, let's do that." Jack agreed with a nod. "I'll go set up the area we'll be sleeping at, you guys can head over to the bathrooms and change." Jack decided to go ahead, but he didn't go alone. Zane, Nico, and Rico decided to come with him, allowing the three girls to go on ahead while the rest of them took their sleeping bags.

"Oh hey, that looks like a good spot, we should set everything up over there, by the window." Nico suggested, and it was a good idea, so they all walked to the window to set up everything. Jack laid his own sleeping bag down, noticing how it was soft orange in color, like autumn. Zane set down Alice's next to Jack's, and it was pitch black. Mifu's lavender colored sleeping bag came after that, followed by Zane's cyan one. On the other side of Jack was Othelia's soft yellow sleeping bag, and after her were Nico and Rico's sleeping bags, both of which were silver colored. "So Jack, you think you'll need some help during the test tomorrow? If so, you can use Nico and I."

"If he didn't know you two were demon weapons, that would sound weird as hell." Zane pointed out as he began looking through his bright pink bag. "Say, Rico, you've been pretty quiet."

"Because I'm taking off my makeup." Rico was holding up a pocket mirror as he used some kind of wipe to get makeup off his face. "All this..." Rico gestured to his face. "Doesn't happen naturally."

"Hence why you need to apply a brick of makeup." Zane put on his headphones and some kind of device to play games on, then Rico threw a pillow at Zane's face, knocking him down. "Ow!"

"It's a pillow, it can't hurt that bad." Jack commented as he took off his boot at the edge of his sleeping bag.

"We're guardians in training, anything can be a weapon with us, including ourselves." Nico laughed to himself as the girls came out wearing their pajamas.

Alice wore a black skull t-shirt that was slightly too large on her, along with pitch black gym shorts, and black knee high socks. Jack also noticed how Alice had her long black hair in a braid, her makeup/lipstick was gone, and she had her ear piercings out of her ears. As for Mifu, who let her hair down, she was wearing a soft looking, kimono-like nightgown over a purple tank top and shorts. As for Othelia, she wore sunflower patterned pajamas with matching pants.

"Alright boys, your turn." Alice pointed her thumb towards the bathrooms.

"Fear not Jack, I removed the camera Alice put up in the stall she thought you were going to visit." Mifu held up what was left of some kind of device, and Alice avoided eye contact with Jack while whistling.

"SHAME." Zane pulled a spray bottle out of his bag and sprayed Alice with it. "Go to horni jail."

"Hey, don't spray my hair, you have any idea how hard it is to take care of hair this long and thick!?" Alice prioritized her hair, and considering it reached past her lower back, Jack assumed it took forever. "Also, Rico, if you make a single dick joke I'm sacrificing you to one of the devils."

"But they flat out told you to stop sending us to hell." Nico pointed out as he got his clothes from his duffel bag. "We keep breaking shit."

"Just because I shouldn't doesn't mean I wouldn't." Alice crossed her hands as she sat down on her sleeping bag.

Deciding not to test her wrath, the four boys went to the bathrooms to change into their own sleepwear. Amazingly, the bathrooms were pretty standard, completely contradicting the glamorous design of the rest of Sanctuary Academy. Though the bathrooms were standard, they were spotless, so maybe these aren't your everyday bathrooms. Jack's pajamas were an old brown t-shirt with a metal band logo on them and a pair of orange pants with a fossil pattern on them. Zane was next to him, and his pajamas were a cyan teddy bear onesie. Nico and Rico practically wore the same outfit, being orange and silver gym shorts and t-shirt. After changing, the four of them exited the bathrooms and decided to get some sleep since tomorrow will be a long day. Jack laid on his sleeping bag as Alice laid on his left and Othelia lay on his right. Jack was lying on his back, thinking about tomorrow. Jack will have to fight someone with close to no magic abilities on his side.

Will Jack survive tomorrow?