Somewhere Between Half A Dream 9 Another Side Three: Acceptance And Goals

~Three years prior, after the training incident~

Six students were brought into the princ.i.p.al's office after a training session went wrong. Professor Flynn had seen to it personally that he brought the six students into the office himself as he gave the princ.i.p.al, Felixi Tempus, his report on the incident. Most of the students were in a sorry state as they sat in the chairs outside the office. Two of the girls were an absolute mess of tears, the other students had sorry looks on their faces. "It'll be okay Eevi, Lily.. The princ.i.p.al will know how to get him back." Damian tried to calm the two girls down. They were both bawling, saying it was their fault and that they could have saved him. No one currently knew how to calm these two down enough. Damian stole a glance at the others; his other teammate Artemus was sitting there calm as ever staring into the ceiling. Jacob currently had his arm around Leona as she sobbed quietly into his shoulder. They all were in a rather sorry state and he felt useless.

After a moment or two Professor Flynn came out of the princ.i.p.al's office with a gloomy look on his face. He walked over to the students thinking about what to say. "So, what's the plan? How do we get him out?" Damian asked in a half desperate voice, he wanted his best friend back. "Lily, Jacob, Leona. Ms.Tempus would like to see you." Flynn told them in a monotone voice. Jacob moved first of course and helped Leona and Lily into the office. Soon as the door was closed Flynn turned to the remaining three "There is no plan for the current moment. We still need to grasp the situation.". "Grasp the situation!? My best friend is in there! He could be dying for all you care!" Damian yelled as fire surrounded his fist while he pulled back a punch. Artemus quickly got up and held Damian back with his arms under the other boys "Hey get a hold of yourself! He's a teacher!" Artemus yelled. Flynn only stood there staring at them all.

Meanwhile in the office the three students stood before the princ.i.p.al. Felixi Tempus, a gorgeous 5'7" tall, moon white haired G.o.ddess of a women whose ever changing colored eyes stared at them with a sorrowful glance from behind her desk. "First off I am sorry to hear what happened. I want you three to know that we will do everything in our power to get, Mr.Falchion, out of there... No one wants their students to go through such a traumatizing experience." Felixi told the three as she glanced at the trapped students file briefly for his full name before finis.h.i.+ng her sentence in a sorry tone. "What should we do?" Lily asked her through teary eyes. Felixi sat there for a moment contemplating. "For now, you forget." Felixi said as before any of them could utter another word they were each surrounded by a large swirling bubble. Once within the bubbles their memories would be seemingly wiped clean of the incident and replaced with fake memories of that days events. Once this was done the students stood in front of a smiling princ.i.p.al yet again. "Great job on the exercise today team M. You are dismissed, enjoy your summer break." Felixi told the three as they all smiled at each other before giving her a thank you and leaving. Their memory of the current conversation was that they had been giving a report to the princ.i.p.al of their last training session as per custom for an end of year team report, so it was normal that they heard those words from Felixi before leaving.

As the three left the office they noticed Damian, Artemus and a crying Eevi. "Hey, what happened?" Lily asked as she approached them. "WhWhat do you mean what happened?" Damian stammered as he looked at her. He had a very strange feeling as he looked at the three who came from the office. They all seemed to be fine, even Lily who was just bawling moments ago. It only took Artemus and Eevi a minute to realize what happened, they quickly got up and stood behind Damian. "Ah, it's your guys turn now it seems. Team M have a nice summer." Flynn told the three before turning to Lily and her team with a smile. "Uh, yeah. You too Prof.Flynn. We'll catch you guys later." Lily said in a cheery tone as her, Jacob and Leona left while waving goodbye to their friends. Once they were gone Damian couldn't hold back anymore as he walked with his friends into the princ.i.p.al's office. "What did you do to them!? That- That isn't how they should be acting right now!" Damian shouted angrily at the princ.i.p.al as they entered while pointing out the door.

"What did I do? What any caring princ.i.p.al would, I helped my students." Felixi told them waving her hand in a half faked hurt tone. "As for you three, I think you need that same help for the trauma." She said as she went to use her power. "Eevi!" Damian shouted and before Felixi could blink the students were gone. In the nick of time Eevi simply touched her friends and they popped out of the room traveling as far as her power would currently reach. Felixi stat there for a moment bewildered as they left. "Pulled a fast one eh? Seems I underestimated my own students. Well no biggie, they'll be back eventually." Felixi muttered as she turned around in her chair staring out towards the sea and the setting sun.

~Elsewhere minutes later~

In an old building located close to the outer edge of Matin Town three students appeared in a dusty room. They all coughed as the dust was kicked up in the room and the girl slid down to sit on the floor, they each got their bearings about them after a moment. "Matin town? I didn't know you could get this far Eevi." Artemus said rather impressed as he stared out the hold of a broken gla.s.s window. "Yeah.. But it takes a lot out of me." Eevi panted as she glanced at her friends. While she recovered Damian and Artemus both worked on moving what little furniture was in the room around to make it more comfortable. Lucky for them there were two couches, a chair, some lamps which they didn't bother lighting, and some bookcases. The boys moved the couches over so they were across from each other with the chair nearby, they then helped Eevi up onto a couch to rest after doing their best to dust it off.

"So, what's the plan?" Damian asked Artemus while Eevi fell asleep curled in her uniform. Artemus stood there for a moment thinking of a plan before he sighed deeply and rubbed his eyes. "Look, I a.s.sume we are in the north east district of Matin Town from the look of these buildings. This is a section of the city ESFI students don't come to. So let's just lay low here for a while, find some work, and gather some knowledge." Artemus told him as they both sat on the same couch. "Sounds like a plan.. What about Eevi? You know he and her were a thing.. I hate to see her this way." Damian said with a hint of sadness as he looked towards the sleeping girl. "I know.. We can only hope we can get him back sooner rather than later.. Better get some rest, we start tomorrow." Artemus told him as he got comfy to try and sleep. Damian only stayed awake thinking of what they could do. In the end he couldn't think of much and went to sleep.

~Two years later~

Damian and Artemus both sighed. They were currently standing out back of a small restaurant catching their breath. Both were dressed in all white with black ap.r.o.ns tied around their waists, typical dishwasher uniform. This was their third job in two years, they had managed to get by with small jobs and finally landed this gig which paid well. They still stayed in the same run down place they first appeared in with Eevi, although they renovated it so that they had separate rooms and living quarters to make it much easier to live in. Currently the boys lived on their own, Eevi had ran off at the beginning of that year. Though they briefly saw her here and there with a green haired girl causing a lot of trouble. They themselves caused trouble as well their first year in the town with a local gang, even earning the nicknames "h.e.l.lfire" and "Windblade" respectively. After a while though the two decided to just let Eevi do what she wanted since she was the one who was hurt the most from the incident. When she lived with them it was constant crying everyday and occasional random disappearances using her powers. They had taken care of her as best they could but eventually she left them, which was probably because the two had grown to accept the current situation.

One day as the two males were wandering through the south east district of matin town looking for side jobs they stumbled across a flyer for a teaching position. Though it wasn't anything special, it was actually just a trainer position. Though what caught the boy's interest was that it was for ESFI. The boys took the flyer back to their place that day and sat on it for a good while. Eventually they decided to apply under fake last names. Two weeks went by and they were given the job after both interviewing twice. Three full months went by before they were actually properly trained to handle the many students various powers with their own, which was important as a teacher.

~Three months later~

Finally after waiting three months and teaching students for another three months it was finally summer, thus Damian and Artemus began to work on a plan from the inside to get their friend back. One rainy night Damian and Artemus snuck around campus into the old training center. They moved down the familiar hallways to the old training room and slowly pushed the metal doors open. They were of course greeted with a sight they didn't necessarily want to ever see again. "Long time no see.." Damian muttered as he looked into the room of metal spikes and a lonely sphere. The two males carefully moved their way through the room till they were close enough to the sphere they could make out a human shape. "I'm getting you out of there." Damian said as flames danced up his right arm turning a more blue color as he focused.

Artemus stood back a ways though he was preparing as well, wind swirled around his body violently. "Come on! Spike!" Damian roared as he shoved his right hand forward using his left to hold his arm up. Suddenly a huge blast of blue flame seemingly struck the sphere, the force of which shook the room. "I won't forgive you if you die! Spike!" Artemus roared as he left fourth a howling gale to mix with Damians flames to amplify them. The mixture of the two seemed to start to hit the sphere, but to the two's shock the huge blast was met with a metal wall that sprang up before the sphere. If one were to see this scene from the side they would notice that the wall was really thick and that the blast was barely starting to melt through it. "You always were a stubborn one! But you're coming home with me buddy!" Damian yelled as he amped up his flames putting his all into the attack. The building shook as they started to burn through the wall, Damian of course had a plan to get through the wall then cut his flames down a bit so he didn't hurt his friend.

Currently though that plan was going rather slowly as the wall melted inch by inch. Damian though suddenly felt two quick blasts of wind go by him, which afterwards he heard two loud banging noises as the wind blades crashed through spikes that were closing in on the boy. "Damian! We need to go! It's not working!" Artemus yelled as he defended his friend. At the current moment they were starting to struggle more and more as spikes launched around them defending the area. Artemus had been defending Damian the entire time while supporting him but couldn't keep it up after so long. "No! We can get him!" Damian shouted in defiance as he tried to intensify his flames more but came up short. As he pushed Damian started to feel his strength leaving him, he had hit his limit and was starting to fall. "d.a.m.n it all.." Damian muttered as his flames died out and he physically started to fall.

Artemus caught his friend as he fell moving to his side in a single bound using the wind. Though as he caught Damian he felt a sharp pain in his side. A spike had pierced his leg, which in turn caused him to call out in pain for a moment. As he broke the spike and tore himself away from it with Damian in his hands he noticed something in his peripheral vision. A figure was standing just on the other side of the wall, though they seemed to be standing over someone with blonde hair who was on the floor. "Who's there!? Were you the one attacking us!?" Artemus yelled as he waved his hand blasting wind at the spikes that shot up near him crus.h.i.+ng them to pieces. Though before he could try to make out who it was the figure vanished from his view and left the blonde haired person on the floor. Artemus didn't have time to worry about anyone else as he dragged Damian out of the room and off out of the building. Once they were safely outside Artemus made a call to the school nurse's office as she should still have been awake at this hour.

Not minutes later did the nurse arrive with professor Flynn in tow. "What happened? Are you alright?" Flynn asked Artemus as Damian was moved onto a stretcher by the nurse and her a.s.sistant then hauled off to the office. "I was just out on night patrol, Damian met up with me, and we were attacked just a few minutes ago. I-I couldn't make out who the attacker was. But they used a variation of wind skills I think." Artemus told Flynn leaving out the detail of being in the building and making it seem like they fought outside. Flynn looked Artemus over, and sure enough the boy did seem to be battered to h.e.l.l, especially with the cut to his leg. "Well let's get you to the nurses office to get that fixed, we'll write up a report later, for now, you rest." Flynn told him as he placed a hand on the boys shoulder and with little effort teleported them to the nurse's office. Once all fixed up Artemus went with Flynn to the princ.i.p.al's office and gave her their report. He did mention he saw someone go into the old training building which the princ.i.p.al just sent Flynn to go look into it and told Artemus to go get some rest which he reluctantly did so. Even though the boys had failed that day they knew they would have a chance to get their friend out another time. Little did they know though that the blonde boy Artemus saw would later become the key to doing so.