Chapter Text
In the hallway of Auradon Preparatory, a third-year student with pale skin and bright blue fire-like hair was being dragged away by a younger student with an identical appearance.
It was undeniable that these two students, who were in some sort of tug-of-war, were related. And despite the unnecessary amount of effort to convince him. The younger sibling - Ortho Shroud counted this as a win to make his introverted older brother step out of the room and even agreed to give him a tour around the school. The teary puppy eyes and threats of skipping the boss raids on the weekend worked like a charm.
“Why do you even need to go and see a bunch of people squashing in rooms?” Idia whined, pulling his hood further down to avoid eye contact with other students passing by. “There are pictures and maps on the school’s website. No need to see them in person.”
“Because I don’t want to waste time playing video games in the dorm room. We do that all the time at home,” Ortho replied.
Today was the first day of school, well, technically the day before, since they had to move things into the dorm first. Still, Ortho was so excited for the first chance to be away from home for a long period of time. This would be his first step to independence and an actual social life before the boring adulthood knocked on his door.
Another unspoken reason was that Ortho knew his Nii-chan needed more social interactions. It would be good for him to open up with others rather than just his family.
“Besides, we will be in a different year, so we won't always have time to hang out together. It would be nice if we could have some sibling time before school starts.”
Glancing back at his Nii-chan, Ortho knew those were the right words to say. Idia seemed to finally find the motivation to lead his dearest sibling.
The tour continued as they were walking through the hallway while Idia explained what each room was for. Lucky for Idia’s anxiety, the school’s building wasn’t really crowded as the students were too busy preparing for tomorrow's opening ceremony. After like 15 minutes, they stopped in front of a laboratory.
“This is the science club room. The club includes different aspects such as engineering, alchemy —” Idia was introducing the club when someone noticed him.
“Mr. Shroud! What a rare sight! Are you reconsidering the offer of joining our club?” A man who appeared to be in his twenties walked toward them.
The newcomer had healthy tan skin and long black hair tied in a ponytail. His eyes were a bright amethyst color. His clothes were a very formal red long coat with a vest, so he probably wasn’t a student. He also had this atmosphere around him that screamed ‘I’m the one in charge of these restless teenagers’. However, the most noticeable feature of him was his ears, which were long and pierced with multiple golden earrings.
A fae, Ortho realized. A long-lived species that hid away in a faraway country that rejected the rest of the world. This was the first time he actually saw one in person. Ortho wondered what this man's actual age was, assuming that their species aged much more slowly than humans. At least according to those books he had read.
“Professor, no offense, but I have said no since my first year. What makes you think it would change now?” Idia pouted. He didn’t stutter, so he must be familiar with the man to some degree to feel comfortable talking like that.
“I thought you would like me enough to join after I gave you permission to take my class remotely.” The man shrugged, but there was obviously no hard feeling behind his words.
The man then greeted the younger student with a friendly smile and raised his right hand. “You must be the sibling that Idia keeps texting with during my classes. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Aster Eldershine, but you can call me Professor Aster. I teach Rune for the second and third year.”
Ortho coughed, feeling a bit embarrassed being referred to as that. “That’s me”.
He shook the man’s hand, “Nice to meet you, my name is Ortho Shroud, freshman. You can just call me Ortho cause there will be two of us from now on.”
“If that is what you want, Ortho. Do both of you want to look around the club? Right now, we have some older students’ projects displayed inside.” Professor Aster suggested. “We have them out for the club recruiting event later this week.”
“Maybe you would be interested in joining,” He looked at Otho. “I have tried to convince your brother for two whole years, but he prefers to work in his dorm room and use the lab at the unholy hours of the night.” The fae sighed.
“I just don’t want people to mess around with my things.” Idia defended his choice as he pulled the hood further down his face.
The fae led them into the lab and introduced them to different projects that were made mainly by the juniors and seniors. After the introduction, Aster left the two brothers to freely look around as the teacher walked up to help another student.
The brothers were walking around when a club member asked Idia’s opinion on their project, and they ended up in an argument about cooling sensors. For an introvert, Idia was passionate when it came to his crafts. Ortho took that as a signal to wander around and see other projects. He stopped in front of a pyramid-shaped device, which looked like some kind of magi-tech. There was a handwritten paper next to it:
[Project #N: Enhancing Magic Device - In theory, to cast a powerful spell, a mage needs a significant amount of magic energy. In situations where the mage doesn’t have enough magic, the spell would fail. It makes me wonder if I use an outside source of magic energy. Could I compensate for the amount of magic energy that is required to cast the spell, or at least enhance simple spells for better results?]
Curiously, he held the device to observe it better.
The event that happened next could only be described as a chain of disasters. From the other side of the lab, somebody’s invention exploded, which startled Ortho, causing him to drop the device. The device then started making weird noises and had energy sparks come out of it.
Ortho started to panic. He debated whether he should pretend he had nothing to do with the broken device or try to fix it somehow. However, before he could decide on what to do, Professor Aster, who had just noticed his situation, rushed to him and pulled him back. A white beam came out from the device and hit both of them.... Then it was darkness.
In his dream, Ortho walked toward a mirror and stepped into a black carriage.
Ah, my dear esteemed benefactor…
…
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the most…
…
Hope is the only good god remaining among mankind;
the others have left and gone to Olympus.
…
Flames that turn even stars into ashes,
Ice that imprisons even time,
…
Trust, a mighty god has gone, Restraint has gone from men,
and the Graces, my friend, have abandoned the earth.
…
Fear not the power of darkness.
…
Men's judicial oaths are no longer to be trusted, nor does anyone
revere the immortal gods; the race of pious men has perished and
men no longer recognize the rules of conduct or acts of piety. 1
…
..
.
“I better hurry up and find that uniform before someone spots me…” A growl came from outside… the door?
Ortho slowly opened his eyes and immediately was greeted with pure darkness. He tried to move his body but quickly found out that his body was cramped in a very limited area. The teen then searched around blindly with his hands. After a minute, he could kinda guess he was currently trapped in some sort of closed space that simulated the shape of a closet.
“Urgggh... This lid weighs a ton!” The voice continued from the outside. As his brain slowly woke up from the nap that he didn't remember taking, Ortho felt the panic start taking over his body. Still, he tried to calm himself and push his body forward. There was only one thing on his mind right now, which was that he must get out of this place quickly.
“Try this on for size! Mya-ha!” Suddenly, the lid of the box was blown up by a flash of blue flame. Ortho lost his balance and fell out of the supposed closet.
*Clank!* An object fell along with him, and the sound of a heavy metal bouncing off the marble floor shook him awake.
“Ouch!!” Ortho yelped as his body slammed onto the hard floor, nearly hitting his chin during the impact.
Ignoring the ache, he quickly pushed himself up and observed the surroundings. He was standing in some sort of large ballroom with purple and black as the main decorated colors. And it was filled with flowing black coffins. Ortho snapped his head at the presumed closet he had been locked into. The flame-haired realized it was actually a coffin that was identical to the others in the room.
"What in the Underworld? Did someone want to bury me alive?" Ortho shivered at the scary scenario. Normal people should have been confused and panicked, but the first thing that Ortho did after acknowledging his situation was to search around his mouth for a coin. "Damn it, at least put a coin in my mouth before you bury me! How am I supposed to pay the ferryman?"
‘Wait, no! Priority, Ortho!’ Ignoring the yapping noise next to him, Ortho searched around for any clue about his location. Looking at the room, he knew for sure this wasn’t any place that he had come across before. Not like he had been allowed to travel many places, but that was why it was easy to know that it was an entirely new area that he had never unlocked in his map. No recognizable saving point here.
'How did I get here?' The flame-haired asked himself, but failed to remember anything besides the light beam exploding from the…
Realizing something, he snapped his head at the metal object that fell out of the coffin with him. It was the exact pyramid-shaped device that he had dropped back at the lab. It wasn’t hard to connect the dots that the reason he was here was related to it.
“Hey! Hey! Hey!” Ortho turned around to face the voice calling him. “You ain't supposed to be awake! Have you even listened to what I have been saying? Give me your uniform.” A talking cat creature with a very familiar shade of blue fire shouted at him.
Listen, Ortho considered himself an animal person. He loved pet videos, games with cute mascots, and owned many plushies. In normal circumstances, he would snap a pic and send it to Nii-chan and ramble about how cute the creature was. However, his current situation was so bizarre that it made the cat a lot more creepy than it actually was.
“Uh… nice kitty, can you tell me where we are?”
“KITTY?! How DARE YOU! I am no weakling kitty! I'm Grim, sorcerer extraordinaire!” Grim yelled.
“Tch! Whatever. You… human! Just gimme your uniform, and be quick about it!” The creature shouted at him demandingly.
Being robbed by a cat a fourth of his size wasn’t on Ortho’s to-do list. That and being put in a strange robe without his own consent. He definitely was NOT going to add being stripped down to his underwear in a completely strange place to the list.
“Hurry up, if you don't… you're gonna regret it!” Grim barked at him, ready to attack.
At this moment, Ortho knew for sure that he needed to get out of here. He needed to find Nii-chan, the Professor, or just any negotiable humanoid being. Making up his mind, he dashed to his right where the pyramid-shaped device lay. Barely dodging a fireball, he grabbed the device and ran out the door.
As the teen ran through the dark hallway, more and more questions popped up in his head. The moonlight gave him little comfort about his situation. Since when was it nighttime? When he and Idia arrived at the science club, it was barely noon.
He ducked into a room, which, judging from the shelves filled with books, was a library. Panting heavily, Ortho leaned his weight onto one of the tables. Maybe he should consider doing more exercise. Being exhausted after a short run at his age was embarrassing.
“This is such a nightmare,” he whispered to himself. Ortho then looked at the device in his hand. “You’re an idiot, Ortho.” If he hadn’t touched other people's stuff, he wouldn’t have ended up in this situation. Before he could spend more time blaming himself, a tail seemed to catch up to him.
“Foolish human! Did you really think you could slip away from ME? Now, unless you wanna get burned to a crisp, take off that—”
*CRACK!* A whip interrupted Grim’s monologue.
“Me-YEOW! That hurt! What gives?” The cat yelled.
“Consider it tough love.” A strange man appeared and came toward them. He was dressed in an extravagant outfit with some kind of bird theme going on. His golden eyes behind the black mask gave Ortho a chill.
“Ah, I've found you at last~ Ah? May I ask what you are planning to do with the lamp?” The bird man pointed at the lamp that Ortho had just grabbed from the table.
Keeping eye contact with the man, the teen slowly put the lamp back on the table.
“Nothing,” he lied. He was gonna smash the lamp at Grim if the man hadn’t interfered.
“Never mind then, I trust you're one of this year's new students?” The man said. “My, were you ever eager to make your debut.”
Student? Was he still in Auradon Preparatory? Then why did the architecture look nothing like the Auradon Preparatory that he had seen until now? Was kidnapping new students a tradition here?
Birdman pointed at Grim, “And bringing a poorly trained familiar with you? That is a clear violation of the school's rules.”
“I've never seen this cat in my life!” Ortho said, but his voice was lost to Grim’s yelling, “As if I'd serve some lowly human! Now lemme go!”
“Yes, yes. Rebellious familiars always say that. Do be quiet for a bit, won't you?”
“Again, he is not my f—”
“Dear me. Of all the students I've dealt with, you're the first with enough temerity to open their own gate and step out of it. Does the very notion of patience elude you?” The bird man cut him out. Ortho's hair was flickering with red, but he couldn’t act recklessly without information. That was always the cause of the first death in tutorial game phrases.
Letting out a heavy breath, he tried to calm down and convince himself that this was just an NPC conversation about a mission that he had to complete. Hades knew that Ortho desperately needed more clues.
“What gate? I was in a coffin.” He asked.
“You awakened in a room full of gates, did you not? All of the students here at the campus arrived by passing through such gates.”
“So those coffins are like… gateways?” Receiving a nod, Ortho then mumbled. “... Kinda edgy.”
“The design is intended to symbolize a parting with your former world and a rebirth into a new one.” The Bird-man answered, not paying attention to the judgmental tone. “But now is not the time for such a prattle. Your orientation has already begun. Let us return to the Mirror Chamber.” He hurriedly walked in a direction with Grim still tied by his whip.
Ortho hesitated. The bird-man was suspicious as hell, but he didn’t really have any better choice. After a few seconds of consideration, he followed the man.
“Can you tell me one more thing: Where am I?” Ortho ran up to catch up with him.
“Hm? Have you not fully regained consciousness? Time-space teleportation must have added to your memories…” Bird-man asked.
So there was some type of teleportation spell involved. Ortho took note of that. How far he had been teleported was the problem, though. If only he could contact his family. Hold on a minute…
Ortho immediately searched around his clothes for the only thing that could get him out of this mess.
“Well, these things happen, I suppose. I shall explain it to you while we walk. Truly, my magnanimity is boundless.” The bird-man continued.
“Ahem!” Ortho’s head snapped at the man. The cough interrupted his search for his phone, the only possible contact form that he had.
“This is Night Raven College. It is an institution for students the world over who demonstrate a rare aptitude for magic. It is the most prestigious academy of its sort in all of Twisted Wonderland. And I am Dire Crowley. Having been entrusted with its care by the chairman, I serve as headmage.”
Night Raven College? Twisted Wonderland? If this were in any other scenario, Ortho would assume this man was a crazy person who says a bunch of nonsense fancy names that nobody knows. But his tone was too assured and confident for that situation.
Ortho bit his lips before worriedly saying, “I’m sorry, but there must be a misunderstanding. I’m enrolled in Auradon —”
“Now, let us attend your orientation.” The bird-man, headmage Crowley, ignored him.
Ortho opened his mouth to reply, but it was when his hand touched a cool metal object in the gown’s inner pocket. In his mind, the flame-haired wordlessly thanked the King of the Underworld a thousand times.
He hurriedly pulled out the phone with a black and blue case from his pocket, but the smile on his face was wiped out immediately when he saw the [No Signal] symbol.
“Hades, why do you abandon me?” Ortho cursed in a low voice that echoed quietly into the empty hall.
