A much needed talk [Jamie]

The next day mostly passed without a hitch. For me anyway. Bill seemed excited about something. He rushed everything, eating, classwork, even conversations. Akumura and Brit walked around like they knew something that they weren't just going to give up, especially Akumura, who tensed up whenever someone asked him a question. Naomi and Scorpio though, were the worst. They seemed sleep deprived, almost as if they didn't sleep at all. Naomi seemed worried, like a huge event was about to happen, and it wasn't anything pleasant. Scorpio though, just seemed, off. She still acted the same, but everything had an air of insincerity to it. I tried talking to her at lunch, but she refused, saying there were too many people.

We all sat down in the bleachers in the arena. "Hello, and welcome back." The teacher looked around. "Good, we're all here." He marked something on a clipboard, "So, today, we are going to be looking into weapons." He pulled out a sword that looked like it belonged to a knight, not a 5'2" guy with sweatpants and a New York Giants jersey, "This is Professor Chasan's sword. He used it during the Crusades, as well as The Angelic War. As demonstrated yesterday, some of you are already used to weapons, such as Mr. Orihara's brass knuckles and Miss Malacent's wand. Each very, different kinds of weapons, to say the least. Today, you will be figuring out a weapon for your use, and putting in an order for it to be crafted. Once you receive them, unless given permission by either Chasan or myself, you are prohibited from taking these outside of the arena, to your dorm rooms, and outside your dorm rooms once you have them there." He handed a sheet of paper to the people sitting in the front row, "This is an instructional paper on how you are to design your weapon, as well as which might suit you best."

I looked at the paper, there was so much on it. Ranges, classifications, weights, styles. I decided a longer ranged one would be best, to ensure air superiority. I was completely limited to guns. Great. Little fun fact about me, I haven't shot a gun. I'm not great at aiming. I cannot use a gun. I looked at my possibilities in the guns, shotguns, snipers, pistols, assault rifles. I looked at the pistols and snipers. It was pretty simple to narrow down which one. I looked at scopes for the sniper, 4x, 8x, 16x. I had no idea what any of this meant. I just decided to go for 8x, because why not? I looked over at Bill's. He had already handed it in, and was doing something on a phone that Scorpio "gave to him". I handed my phone to the instructor, and walked over to Scorpio.

"What the-" I grabbed her shirt and dragged her behind the bleachers. "Let me guess-"

"You're going to talk."

"Fine. I'm assuming you had parents, right?" I nodded, yeah. "Well, my mom, died. A while ago. Only a few months after my sister, actually. As a result, we really only knew our dad. I mean, I have vague memories of her, but they're just that. Eventually, my dad remarried, but she was killed in a similar raid to yesterday. That was two moms. My dad figured that it had something to do with him, so he fell into depression. Of course, being only 8 and 10 at the time, my sister and I wanted to do something to help." She took off her eyepatch, "We tried to bring her back. We looked into our grandma's books, and found a way to bring people back. The Topaz blood is extremely powerful, not just in terms of business, but in terms of psychic energy as well. Normally, it would take 20 people to correctly attempt this, but my sister and I, we did it with only two pre-adolescents. We managed to successfully create our mother, only based on pictures. Well, that's what we thought." She started wiping tears, "If only she took the duct too. We had created our mom, but only physically. Mentally, she was broken. Living on raw instincts, including survival of the fittest. It was clear on what would happen if two weakened children fought a monster with immeasurable psychic power. My sister, nearly lost her arm, and still has scars from it. And I lost my eye." She put her eyepatch back on, "Our dad was there to save us. He shot it. We thought he'd be mad. At first, he was. But then he realized what we did, and why we did it. He swore to take care of himself and us from that moment. Of course, he couldn't do that for much longer, as business started ramping up when we became the only company in the world to sell certain metals, but he tried."

"Then he died." Hearing my own voice was strange. It was hoarse, almost hollow, "Just like my mom." Scorpio looked at me. "Wait. Your mom? What about your dad? Surely he had to be there, right?" I shook my head, "Nope, all I knew about him was stories. And what I knew was awful. He abused her, and even tried to kill me. My mom said enough is enough, and moved away from him. We lived in an apartment in Queens until I was 10, when she was attacked. I was at school, so I didn't even know until I got home. I'll never forget." I looked at the wall, there was blood splattered all over it, on the ground, my mom, with 6 stab wounds, going straight through her whole body. The floor was visible, "I'll never forget that day."

Scorpio stepped toward me. "Wha-" I felt her arms wrap around me. She stepped back, "Thanks. I needed that." She sighed, "If you really want to know what we're doing-" I turned around, "Not really. Mainly because Bill already told me. Normally, I'd be all for vengeance, but not when it comes to them. I've had some run-ins with them before. No way am I going to waltz into one of their bases and say 'Oh, hey guys, wanna uhhh, fight'." Scorpio laughed a little, "You know it's not like that, right? All three of us going have something against them, so we're going to show them a little of their same kindness." I sighed, "You're not talking me into it, that's final. Even so, this is none of my business, it's yours." Bill walked in, "Well, you two done here? I really had it up until the asking her to join us." Scorpio glared at him, "The more numbers we have, the better chance we have." He made a mouthing motion with his hand, "Yeah, but we'd be wasting lives. This is our fight, she doesn't need to be part of it." I sighed, "He's right. If you need, I can provide support, but that's it." Scorpio sighed and nodded, "Well, at least it means you help somehow."