Scarlet
“My apologies for our companion,” the man says with a light bow of his head, “she… can be a little too caring for her own good sometimes. And is lacking the filter to stop herself from doing things she shouldn’t.”
I make sure to keep my eye on the girl in case she tries something else as I slowly answer, “It’s alright. Just, don’t do that again.”
A few seconds pass in awkward silence before the guy puts his hand on his neck in what looks to be embarrassment as he says, “Well, we were going to show you around and give you a welcome to the Association, and the university, but things…” he trails off with a glance at the Denise girl, “…didn’t pan out as were planned.” He turns back to me again and says, “Let’s start over. I’m Michael Winters. The one hiding behind me is my sister, Emily, and the idiot is Denise Harley. We’re all Guardians who’ve contracted in the last few weeks and were scouted to join the Silver Association just like you.”
I glance at the girl hiding behind him before looking at him again. Then I repeat this a few times.
“You both contracted and still somehow ended up with the same hair color?” I ask with a confused frown.
Unless they both dyed their hair or something. Which is entirely possible.
Emily just hides her face behind her brother’s shoulder as he chuckles and says, “Well, that just sort of happened. Both of our magics are kind of green in nature, so our hair mimicked that.”
I notice his sister flinching at the word ‘magics’ but decide to ignore it as I focus solely on Denise, who is literally twiddling her thumbs. In all honesty, I’m a little surprised she didn’t say anything to being called an idiot. But at least she looks apologetic.
“My name is Scarlet Asger. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I tell them with a nod of my head before glancing at Michael again to find his sister behind him peeking out over his shoulder at my ears. But I ignore that to ask, “You mentioned something about a tour?”
He immediately nods his head, a relieved expression showing on his face as he says, “Yes! This place is rather large, so it’s pretty easy to get lost without knowing the place!” Michael then turns around, startling his sister in the process before calling out over his shoulder, “Follow me!”
Some of the awkward atmosphere begins to dissipate as we walk through the building. Although Denise still hasn’t said anything since her first outburst. But in all honesty, I don’t mind that.
“And this is the cafeteria, where we have quite the number of top class chefs hired to keep all of the Guardians on a healthy and tasty diet,” Michael says, almost making me pause as he talks as if he had something to do with that. Which he clearly didn’t, considering that he’s only been here for a few weeks himself.
Maybe he just has pride in the Association he’s a part of now?
Either way, I listen to his spiel – which sounds just like what a real tour guide would give – just taking the important information out of it. Which generally comes down to the locations of the training halls, the cafeteria, meeting hall, the public gym, garage, experimental fields, research sector, the library, the dozens of bathrooms, and, of course, the common area.
Which is a lot to keep track of.
A lot of the other areas he showed me aren’t places I’ll ever be going. Hopefully. Like the photo gallery, where photo shoots are taken of the Guardians who want a little bit more money and are fine with being turned into public celebrities or models or whatever. Or the control center, which is basically where Sage lives despite having a suite of her own. It’s where the more technical and not directly combat focused Guardians tend to work. Meaning I won’t be going there unless I am asked to.
Also, when we went outside to see the experimental fields, I saw that the blood moon was gone and the sun was high in the sky. Meaning that the Demonic Assault had ended at some point while I was asleep.
I am happy that we were able to eat while touring the cafeteria though. Even if I seemed to have eaten a lot more than planned.
After showing me everything and describing it all like a salesperson, Michael turns around in the common area and asks, “So Scarlet, would you like to join ou-” His words are cut off by the sound of the speakers high in the room clicking on and Sage’s voice echoing throughout the entire common area, bringing the attention of a few dozen people up to the ceiling as she says, “Scarlet Asger, please meet with Cipher in training hall 1 to get yourself evaluated.”
Then the speakers click off again, leaving the common area in silence for a few seconds only for quite the number of eyes to turn to me – the new girl. And some of their voices enter my ears, questioning why I’m being evaluated by Cipher himself and not Sage or someone else. Only for them to be answered by people showing them some of the videos of me fighting online.
My eyebrow twitches, but I focus on Michael anyways as I ask, “You were saying something?” breaking him out of his stupor.
“Uh, yeah. But that can wait till after your evaluation,” he says, stuttering once before continuing as normal. “Good luck!”
I watch him for a few seconds before nodding my head in appreciation. Then I glance at the other two, who both mutter well wishes as well.
Right as I’m about to head towards the training hall though, I hear Denise speaking up, “I’m sorry for earlier! I hope we can be friends!”
The corner of my lips twitch upwards slightly as I raise my hand without saying anything.
Was wondering when she’d get around to it. It was obviously eating her up, the mistake she made. So I’ve been wondering how long it would take her to speak up.
Anyways, time to see this evaluation of theirs.