You see, the world isn't fair, and it never has been. Even more so now after the test became widespread. See now, everybody living in this world, even people in the slums, has to take a test at age 13. A test that discerns how many extra lives you've been gifted and what exactly your force is. People tend to have between 1 and 5 extra lives; the higher the number, the better for that person. The real discerning factor in society is your force, though. It doesn't matter what it is; it matters what people judge it as. Some might think you're weak because of what force you're presented with. Forces are ranked in several categories: common, uncommon, rare, heroic, legendary, and the most honored force level you can get, mythical. The higher up on that scale your force is, the higher the government puts you on their list, and the more they keep their eye on you. Forces can be used for anything, so the government developed a way of surveillance to keep order. They're dangerous, and some people can literally spit fire, fly, or manipulate ice, stuff straight out of fairy tales.
But of course, there are special cases and exceptions.
Avoided like she was a disease to be caught, and one of the said special cases or exceptions was Akuma. Akuma Kaorin, to be exact. Parking in her high school's parking lot whilst grabbing her backpack, ignoring the whispering and the strange stares, as well as giggling from other students. An almost straight path to the entrance of her school, or as she refers to it, a gateway to hell. The blank echoes in her head causes her to wince slightly, brow furrowing as she continues her trek towards her school. At only twenty minutes past seven in the morning, it was too early for all the shenanigans the other students seemed determined to thrust upon her. She was so close to the school door that she could almost smell the rancid mystery meat the lunch ladies were making, and a small part of her had hoped that she'd be able to walk into the school normally, like she was able to a few months ago. The smarter part of her knew better than to have such hopes, though. Her eyes were glued to the ground, focused on her walking and noticing the drizzling of rain starting. "Ah." Shoes stopped her march towards the door. She could see the arch of the door in the corner of her eye. So close, although it wasn't exactly like she wanted to go to school in the first place, but she had something to prove to not only everyone in there, but to herself, before she lost all hope. A sigh escaped her diaphragm before she looked up, utterly unimpressed with the recognition of who was blocking her way before she'd even done so.
See, here's why she was the special case, the disease, the freak, the psychotic idiot, the weakling, the outcast. She was the only known person to present with no force and no extra lives. Along with a few other reasons we'll get into shortly, but that was the main one. Her dark brown eyes met the eyes of the shorter, red-eyed discipline committee leader. Akuma was taller than a lot of girls her age. She stood at a sturdy five foot seven, or one hundred seventy-three cm, and hadn't grown since 7th grade. A voice cut through her thoughts, high-pitched and the type that grated against all of your senses like a bad cold. Kylanie. "Where do you think you're going? You know you cause an uproar or make it awkward for everybody else when you walk through the halls." Hands on her hips and all, Akuma had to stifle a laugh out of amusement paired with boredom. You'd think that after all this time of attending school together, the girl would find a different way to block her entry besides the same spiel every day. You'd think so, right? Wrong. To think that this five-foot-one, or one hundred fifty-six cm girl in front of her was known as The Fire Fairy, or Akuma's personal favorite, The Roaring Phoenix. It fit her description down to a T, from her cut slicked-back red hair to her baggy cargo jeans and black combat boots, all paired with the way she yelled. It was a fitting nickname for a girl with as much…spunk as she had.
"It's not my fault that the immature hormone-hungry teenagers within the school you've claimed as your own have branded me as an 'inferior' person and like to gawk at me like I'm a circus animal. No escort needed, discipline prez, I'll take my usual route. Out of sight, out of mind, yeah?" Akuma didn't give her a chance to say anything back before spinning on the heel of her new gym shoes, leaving Kylanie to gawk at where she was previously standing, heading to the side of the building. She returned each dirty look the students gave her tenfold, snarling and running up the old emergency exit stairs. This daily routine helped her build her stamina, on the bright side. These weren't the stairs they used currently to escape from her hellish high school in case of an emergency, no, of course not; these were the old stairs that were in practice before the renovation four years ago. They were metal, creaky, and if not due to her knowing to watch her step, Akuma may have fallen through the gaps by now. Instead of an all-encompassing echo playing in her head, as if somebody had been shouting in a valley, she heard laughter, and louder this time. An actual stumble in her trudge up the stairs to the third floor. She shook her head, sighing and cursing her life, wishing the day was over even if it had barely begun. She panted as she climbed the ladder up to the top and exhaled, placing her hands on her head to increase the airflow to her lungs. She'd scoured the building to the roof of her four-floor school building, great. Now she had to sprint down not one, but two staircases to the third floor and to her first class at the end of the hall. If she ran, she wouldn't be late. There was another inconvenience at the roof door, though.
"Let's not do this today, Nyli." Her best friend, well, ex-best friend, and chief of making her school life a pain in the ass. Nyli loved attention more than anything, so when Akuma didn't present with either a force or any extra lives and asked her to keep quiet about it, she did since she thought she'd be the more popular one. Despite Akuma's best effort to wear long sleeves, somebody saw that there was no number signifying her extra lives on her arm. For the first month, Nyli let her have the disposition of the mysterious girl who wouldn't tell everybody what her force was. And then she got sick of it, so she told everybody, spreading rumors she was insane, using the constant laughter Akuma heard as fuel to the fire. Thus, Nyli got the attention of the person who pitied Akuma enough to be friends with her but just couldn't do it anymore, and then she stated her rare force, giving her more attention to bathing in.
Akuma and Nyli became friends in second grade when Akuma found Nyli crying about how a boy knocked her lunchbox over. As typical and cliché as it was, Akuma shrugged and gave her lunch to her before punching the boy in the nose. Ah, yes, sweet memories. That was the first time she'd broken a nose! From that point on, Nyli stuck herself to Akuma's side, and Akuma was fine with it, a person she could depend on outside of her family, finally, a source of relief, a friend. A friend who had now turned into a frenemy. A sound that signaled a plane or maybe even a helicopter landing not too far away, probably in the richer areas' private airstrips. "You're a disturbance to the learning environment." Nyli had somehow made it to be the student body president during their freshman year within the first semester, so with it being their senior year now, she was used to wielding the power. Well, that's what most would think, at the very least. Akuma couldn't help the snarl that escaped her body, and her words came out rougher than intended, resembling more of a growl than a sentence. "Move out of the way, you know I hate being tardy. If I have to say it again, I'll just move you myself, force or no force." A mood swing. Her foot tapped against the ground in annoyance, and her entire body tensed as if the prerequisite for battle. She didn't feel like going through this whole immature nuisance of a weird girl thing Nyli had going for herself today. Due to some miracle, the bell signaling that they had five minutes to get to class rang, and Nyli clicked her tongue with a murmured sentence before making her way down the stairs herself.
Akuma still couldn't fathom how the girl made it up here earlier than she did just to be a bother for a while before going to the same class as her when she claimed to despise her very being. If she had that much time on her hands, shouldn't she be practicing her skills? A groan came out of Akuma involuntarily as she made her way down the stairs, humming on her way down and through the halls towards her classroom. Pushing her thick, black hair out of her face in annoyance a few times before she made it to her destination, letting out a large sigh just as the bell rang again. A carton of chocolate milk with a sticky note on it and a smiley face sat on her desk, awaiting her arrival. She had to give them maybe a B- for creativity this time, she thought, sitting down and making herself comfortable. Milk is what most people tell their kids to drink to grow taller or strengthen their bones. A sticky note was haphazardly placed onto the front, reading, 'Make sure you drink your milk to grow your force nice and strong.' She picked the carton of milk up and began mock sniffling, causing the perpetrator to high-five her friends. She wouldn't give these morons the satisfaction of breaking her, of course not. Soon, the cart of milk was launched across the room into the girl's head, eliciting a gasp that mimicked the sound of a drowning squirrel. Bullseye. The teacher entered the room and raised a brow at the dairy-soaked girl, but said no more, considering she didn't either. Akuma was already settled back at her desk by the time she came in, leaving the whole thing to resemble an accident. The teacher knew better, obviously, but it's not as though she could point them out with a clear punishment, especially when the other girl had started this first. She didn't remember names, but she recognized the faces, laughing, the handwriting, and the way they picked things up. She memorized all the right and wrong things somehow.
A slow first period of history on life before forces, an even slower second period consisting of reading, trying to learn a second language, and a third period of her trying to learn math that she'd never use in her daily life. At least all her classes were advanced, so she didn't see the immature kids that bothered her often, except in maybe two classes, which counted for something at the very least. Most of the boys were bigger and taller, with love interests or fights or more dangerous situations they were diving into, and the girls had developed their own cliques already, whereas Akuma was just…there. The outlier in every situation. She refused to drown or crumble in front of these people because of these people. It wouldn't do anything but make life more troublesome, and she would never allow that to happen. She, in fact, was usually a playfully violent person, opting for play fights, pillow fights, food wars, all of it! But they didn't make her want to be playful. They made her want to inflict true, everlasting, soul-shattering pain on them, to hurt them in ways they hadn't even known possible. Geez, someone sounded like a villain during their internal monologue, huh? A pang interrupted her thoughts, followed by various other things. Echoed laughter. Dizziness. A deep breath and a refocus on what was happening. It happened for a split second, and nobody ever noticed it occurring when it did. A sigh came when she heard the familiar bell signifying it was time for lunch, or as she liked to call it, her hour free of horror. She grabbed her lunch from her bag since the school food was absolutely appalling to her, a 17-year-old with a specific palate and high food expectations due to her father's occupation as a chef. She climbed the old stairs back up to the roof instead of going to sit in the lunchroom and be gawked at and alienated by the rest of the morons in the school. Upon reaching the door to the rooftop, she pulled out her keychain and locked the door to the roof. Of course, the girl had pilfered the key from the janitor; it was her only haven in a school filled with beasts. Akuma slumped against the door, taking a bite of the spaghetti from her thermos that she'd made last night. It all happened so fast, the wind whistling throughout her afro as she closed her eyes, inhaling the fresh air and appreciating how close she was to the sky. She blinked and closed her eyes, taking another bite of her food before opening her eyes with a yelp. Then there they were.
A group of three individuals was standing in front of her, and she had to wipe her eyes at what she was seeing to make sure she wasn't hallucinating before looking up again. She'd never seen such good-looking people so close up before, especially twins. The two resembled angels of sorts, with pale skin and an unfathomable aura around them. Unruly, blonde hair on both of them, while one was mean-mugging her, and the other twin had a playful grin on his face. Pale yellow eyes on them, almost icy looking, too. "I really can't use it? This is just more of a chore, then." The mean-looking one said while looking at the woman in between them. The grinning twin that was currently looking at Akuma smiled, holding his hand out in a friendly gesture. "Hey, I'm Axe- Whoa there!" She pointed her fork at him, although it was still covered with the spaghetti she was eating as she slowly stood, assessing her situation. Two twins, one named Axel, and another twin, whose name was unknown, were accompanied by a drop-dead gorgeous woman who looked dangerous, like she could make people literally drop dead with a look. Long teal hair, black stilettos, a white dress with a slit in it with a deep V cut to it, and a black blazer over her shoulder. Was that a gun and knife holster on her thigh? Danger. She was more than likely in danger, that was for sure. Axel, the twin in front of her, was dressed casually, hair tousled with sweatpants, a graphic t-shirt, and gym shoes on. The dangerous-looking twin, however, had on a white button-down tucked into black dress pants with black dress shoes, scowling. He spoke, voice gruff in comparison to his brothers. "Can you come with us? We just want to talk for a while. Your parents agreed to this."
So her parents had sold her off to pay for their debt right before she'd turned 18, huh? Damn it! Wait a second, no, they didn't have any debt. Something wasn't adding up, and as she dropped her thermos to fiddle with the keys to the door in her free hand behind her back. Spaghetti splattered across the concrete with a wet sound. The scowling twin was staring her down, deadly looking, sending worried shivers down her spine. Come on, come on. She'd opened this door so many times, you'd assumed she'd perfected the craft of being able to do so without looking by now! "Archer, quit scowling. The poor thing's petrified! God, how can we look the same but you're somehow soooo ugly?" So the other twin's name was Archer, noted. She felt a chill go down her spine as she looked back at the door behind her just to line the key up, and her head whipped around to meet piercing silver eyes staring down at her. Silver? She didn't know eyes could be silver, but the woman before hers was. She'd never seen anything like it before, her hair color seemingly natural as well. She was the most dangerous; she could be sure of that. The look in her eyes was telling her something, and she was looking at her like she was some sort of prey. Amusement. Akuma must've scowled at her without meaning; she hated that look. She got that look in her everyday life from a plethora of students, or at least she felt as though she did. "Oh my, feisty." Her voice was smooth, velvety, intoxicating. You could drown in her. She was a walking honey trap, a siren out of water. "Come with us, brat. We'll return you in one piece." Archer spoke to her, and she weighed her options. She took a deep breath and slowly twisted the key in the door, cursing under her breath. This is why she felt this day would be different, she guessed. She would get kidnapped. Not without some fun or a fight, or both. That simply wasn't her style, nor how she planned on going out. She put on a more defeated look, walking towards them slowly with her hands in the air. Now, the door was right behind her, so if she could trick them into letting their guard down, she could make a run for it towards the door and down the staircase to the back door that led into the forest. Axel was standing near the outer stairwell, the metal one she'd climbed up this morning to get into the school. She walked towards Archer, seeing as he was the closest to the staircase and the best chance she had at turning back around and booking it. Axel nodded his head in approval, grin widening. "Good, good. See, it wasn't that bad-" Akuma had taken a deep breath and mumbled "It's now or never Kaorin." before she booked it towards the door leading back into the school, yanking her key out and locking the door behind her before she booked it through the fourth floor, ignoring the blatant stares and flipping people's lunches on the floor. She had no idea if she'd be chased, but she sure as hell wouldn't be giving up or following them without a fight. She was relishing in the other students' surprised faces as she ran through the halls, utilizing all the shortcuts she'd managed to map out during her years here, before making her way down the stairs and out the back door, panting as she took off into the forest. Squinting up at the trio right as Axel finally managed to break down the door to the roof, and saluting them, she started running deeper in. They'd have to work to catch her. The woman's voice echoed in the twins' ears as she spoke, licking her upper lip. "This one's mine. I want her, I can tell she'll be the most fun already." A bit of her bloodlust was floating around in the air due to the sudden, smug provocation before it was retracted. The teal-haired woman kicked off her heels and blazer, leaving the twins to fumble, catching each item before she jumped off the roof. The woman was running after Akuma, grinning as if this was the most fun she'd had in months.
...….
And thus, the chase began.