Chapter 2: How Battles are Done

From Worldsofharuhi

Celestia/ Fantasia Academy/ Campus main lobby

The main lobby was packed with students. Solipse nervously sat and waited for the exam to start. If Solipse read the exam information right, there was exactly two thousand people in this lobby who were here to take the exam. Solipse was not surprised at how all these people could fit into one building. She had already read all about this academy before she applied for the exam, all the rooms in this academy was actually separate dimensions which could expand and contract depending on how many people were inside.

There were many students who looked like they knew each other. Some students were talking merry with each other, while others were talking about how nervous they were.

Solipse also wished she had someone to speak to about her nervousness. Back at Northern Celestia, Solipse had never really traveled outside her village. Coming here was her first trip to other regions of Celestia. As Solipse was the only one who passed the regional exam in her village, she did not know anyone here.

Solipse did not blame the environment that she grew up for her lack of friends. She loved North who raised her and all the servants in the castle. She’d never blame them for anything.

Thinking about North calmed Solipse down by little bit. Solipse stood up to take a walk. Maybe walking around might calm her down more than just sitting in one place.

Solipse walked towards the vending machine that seemed to be located at every corner in this room. Solipse pondered as to what to buy. She knew what the vending machine was and what it did thanks to her readings. But, there was no-vending machine where she came from, and in truth, she hadn’t drunk anything other than tea and water in her entire life.

Solipse sighed and thought, ‘I’m missing out on a lot of stuff huh…’

“Excuse me.” A voice came from behind Solipse.

Solipse turned around and saw a girl about her age. She was wearing a large hat decorated with flowers. She would have looked like a very peaceful person only if you counted out her attire. Parts of her clothes with the flower decorations looked like they were on fire. This gave off a feeling of staring at a flower burning and withering away while looking at her.

Strangely, the burning flowers never died out. In fact, if you looked closely, it looked like the flowers were actually giving off the fire.

“If you don’t mind, can I choose first? You seem to be taking your time choosing so.” The girl asked politely.

“Ah, sorry about that. Go ahead.” Solipse said shyly then moved away from the vending machine. The girl hopped in front of the vending machine and pressed the number for her drink.

‘Pyro flower flavoured? I wonder how that tastes like.’ Solipse wondered while looking at the vending machine pulling out the can of juice that the girl had ordered. Surprisingly, by some chance, it pulled out two cans.

“Lucky~! is this what they call catching two birds with one stone?” the girl pulled out two cans of juice. Grinning happily, she pulled one can out to Solipse.

“Here, if you had no idea what juice to take, you might as well take this one. It’s really good.”

“Ah, thank you.” Solipse carefully took the pyro flower juice. Solipse then stared at the burning flowers decorating the girl’s clothes.

“Those flowers on your clothes are pyro flowers right?” Solipse asked.

The girl seemed bit surprised. “That’s right. You’re pretty good. Even the people who drink this stuff regularly don’t know that pyro flowers are actual plants. They just think it’s a creative name. How did you know about them?”

“I read about it in one of the books back home, they are supposed to be really rare. They only grow in deep inside of eastern forests of Celestia.” Solipse answered shyly.

“Yup, they are really rare. Did you know? These juices aren’t really made out of pyro flowers, it only tastes like the real one.” The girl took a gulp out of her juice.

“Kyaa, this really helps. Aren’t you going to try it?” The girl urged Solipse to drink her juice.

Solipse stared down at the drink wondering how it would taste like. It would probably be rude not to drink it. So Solipse opened the can and slowly brought the can to her lips. When the liquid touched her lips, Solipse was confused as to classify the drink as hot or cold. It was in the refrigerated vending machine so it should have been cold. But at the same time it was very warm. That wasn’t all, the taste was very sweet and it gave off a fragrance that flowers would have given off.

“It’s really good.” Solipse said as she started to drink without hesitation.

“Isn’t it?” The girl smiled as she drank more out of her can. “This stuff really helps you cool down and get you fired up at the same time. It’s really good before exams like these.” The girl sat down at nearby table and motioned Solipse to sit down as well. Solipse hesitated in as to whether to sit down or not.

“Don’t be modest; we’re drinking buddies now right?” The girl said while holding up the can of juice. Solipse nodded shyly and sat down across the girl.

“Let me introduce myself, my name is Hanami, I come from East Celestia.” After the introduction Hanami gave a gesture similar to saying it’s your turn now.

“Solipse, from North.” It took Solipse quite an effort not to stutter.

“Oh, you’re from Northern regions? I’ve only been there once and it was to find this rare flower that only grows there.”

Hanami started to talk about her various travel stories. Apparently, Hanami loved traveling with her father and visited quite a few places in Celestia. For Solipse, who had only read about some of these places in a book, Hanami’s stories were pretty fun to hear.

Solipse was glad that Hanami was quite a talker, Solipse would have had trouble talking about any story that came remotely close to being interesting as Hanami’s.

“Hey do you want to team up during the exam?” After talking about her travel stories, Hanami asked Solipse.

“Team up?” Solipse was puzzled, as far as she knew the exam was a solo event.

“You don’t know about it?” Hanami gave a questionable look then started explaining.

“There’s two thousand people taking this exam right? Also, only the top 500 students will get to enter the academy. Apparently there are no rules against creating a team and working together on the exam. Rather, it should be said that teaming up is encouraged. If you think about it, it does sound like it would give you better chance at making the top 500 right?”

“Well… probably…” Solipse wasn’t that keen on the idea. She never worked as a team with anyone before.

“So let’s be teammates drinking buddy~!” Hanami tapped Solipse’s shoulder in friendly gesture.

“No so fast.” A group of boys wearing glasses showed up out of nowhere. One who looked like a leader stepped in front.

“The Snow Princess isn’t going to be team up with the likes of you. She should be in teams with us.” The leader spoke.

“Huh? Snow princess... You mean Solipse?” Hanami asked.

Solipse facepalmed, she was sometime called Snow princess because she was the daughter of the goddess North. Apparently there were many paparazzi who attempted to take pictures of Solipse only to get beaten up by North. However, North couldn’t be on guard forever. So some pictures probably have been leaked.

But for those pictures to have fallen into hands these freaks… Solipse couldn’t hide her embarrassment.

Apparently these guys were explaining about how they were the Snow princess fan club and was showing some pictures to Hanami to explain how awesome Solipse was.

Solipse tried hard to look at those pictures beyond Hanami’s hat. After few agonizing jumps and hops, she finally managed to see one of the pictures. It was one picture of her wearing her embarrassing pyjamas…

“Nooo!! Don’t look at that!” Solipse let out a giant gust of ice without noticing. Some of the unlucky people who was around the area were blown away.

“Woa, that was pretty close.” Hanami who barely managed to dodge the attack spoke while dusting off the snow that gathered on top of her can of juice.

The leader of the boys with glasses was dazzled. “Truly magnificent, you must join our team, then the Snow princess fan club will finally be completed. We’ll take you by force if you refuse.”

The boys slowly approached Solipse, and Solipse backed away in fear. “I- I really don’t want to…”

The boys in glasses were closing in on Solipse. Then a bright beam of flame appeared and blasted one of them away.

Everyone looked towards the direction where the fire came from. Hanami stood there holding her hat as if it was a shield. The hat was giving off smoke, indicating that the blast of fire had come from there.

“I don’t really care about this Snow princess or whatever, but Solipse is my partner. I’d recommend that no one touch her unless you want to get burned.” Hanami warned.

However, the guys with glasses did not look alarmed. “Are you challenging us? All of us whoa are taking the exam are around same skill level; there are 5 of us and only one of you.”

Hanami smirked. “Good, that will make a nice handicap.” Her hat lit on fire and then began to rotate. The hat gave off sparks as it rotated.

The commotion had already caught most people’s attentions. There was a huge circle of crowd surrounding them.

“Stop!” Someone jumped out of the crowd. A young male jumped out and stood in between Hanami and the group of Solipse fan club.

“You guys are fighting against girls by outnumbering them? Can you still call yourselves man?”

The guy who jumped out glared at the group. Apparently, Hanami knew who this guy was already.

“Thales, you don’t need to jump in like a hero, I can destroy these guys myself.”

Thales turned around to face Hanami. Thales smiled and scratched his head.

“Long time no see Hanami. As you can see, I’m merely trying to keep these guys from getting killed.” Thales then turned around to face the guys.

“Hanami, you should just let me take care of this. You and your friend can save up your strengths for the exam.” Thales said as he pulled up his sleeves.

“Dumbass, you think I’m going to let you have all the fun?” Hanami’s hat was still spinning. It started producing more sparks. Solipse didn’t like the idea of fighting in front of so many people. Also, she was worried that North might be watching this from somewhere. However, she felt obliged to help her new friend Hanami. So she reluctantly summoned her icicle staff.

---

From far away, Kelona, Rewrite and North were watching this scene. Kelona was in her ultimate relaxing mode. She was collapsed on her table to get much rest as she can until the beginning of the exam.

Kelona spoke lazily. “Rewrite, can you go do something about that?”

Rewrite was having fun watching this scene and did not want to stop it. “But it looks fun, isn’t that right North?”

“This will be a good lesson for Solipse before the exam; I’m not going to stop it.” North agreed with Rewrite.

Kelona stood up lazily, and then said. “I’m not telling you to stop it, just go introduce how things are done around here.”

Kelona stretched then added. “It might even make a good opening act for everyone, and you can be the star of it.”

Rewrite’s eyes shined. “Ok then, I’ll be off!” In truth, Rewrite was itching to see Hanami again. It’s been a long time since they last met.

Rewrite disappeared in an instant.

---

A sudden burst of wind blew everyone who was watching the commotion back.

When the wind cleared, Rewrite stood in the middle.

“If you kids are going to have a duel inside this academy, you must follow the rules here.” Rewrite grinned.

“Rules? No one told us about that.” One of the fan club members spoke out. Most of the crowd who was watching looked confused as well.

“That’s because the battle rules are only revealed right before the entrance exam.” Rewrite reached inside the pocket of her vest and pulled out what looked like bunch of cards. She threw one pile towards the fan club, and another to Solipse’s group.

“Since you guys are new here and don’t have your own, I’ll lend you some right now. Those are world cards; each of them represents how conflicts are resolved in a particular fictional world.” Rewrite explained.

“When conflict arises from now on, you guys will activate these cards. Then you guys with settle it by using the method described by your world cards. Understand?”

Everyone nodded. Rewrite was enjoying all the attention.

“Now, one more thing. The duels in this situation will be out of three rounds. The courtesy goes to the team with fewer members. Each rounds will be one versus one.”

One of the guys tried to speak out an objection, but Rewrite stopped him then added. “Since you guys have more members, you guys will choose the world card for the first round. Got it?”

The leader of the club thought about how choosing the first card might be a good advantage. He agreed to the rules.

“Now the twist is that the final round will always be what we call a random round. It means the world card for that round will be randomly selected. The winning team of the battle in the whole will get to keep that last randomly generated card, understand? Why is it random? According to Kelona, Sliders should be able to deal with any rules in any different worlds. So that’s why.”

“Anyways, enough of me blabbering. This is the opening act of the exams, so make it flashy as you can will ya?” Although it sounded like Rewrite meant for everyone to be flashy as they can, but actually those words were directed directly at Hanami.

“Then whoever is going to fight in the first round, please step in front.” Rewrite finished.