Julius's legs stopped shaking, not because he recovered but because his legs became useless in an instant.
Suddenly intangible and impossible to use; His limbs were like ghosts.
Julius felt his entire body falling to the floor, dropping like a meteor through the sky.
His figure was plummeting to the floor, and fast, as his legs were sapped of all their strength.
BANG!
The door to the cafeteria flew open, causing eyes to scatter away and turn toward the opposite end of the room.
A boy stood with a sharp frame of steel, with piercing Tiffany blue eyes, and silver hair that swept over his forehead in a cool undercut.
Adrian stood in the doorway, his unfazed gaze sweeping across the room.
He breathed a sigh of cool exasperation, watching how the students reacted to his presence, with mild irritation.
Then his eyes found the corner of the room, across from him, his gaze reaching over to make out a table with four people.
One had fiery orange hair, like a whip of flames itself, and she sat at the back of the grey octagon table with her legs resting underneath.
On the right of her was a boy with a bowl of snow-white hair and black fingerless gloves, the only one at the table not wearing a cream blazer.
On the left was a girl with hair like cherry blossoms, with eyes like burning pink jewels.
They all sat with their legs underneath the table, facing toward each other.
Except for one.
That was when Adrian caught a pair of dark eyes, a blend of milk chocolate brown and dark amber, aiming toward him.
The eyes were narrowed like a tiger in hunt, coming from a dark-haired boy with broad shoulders, hiding under a cream blazer.
He sat lazily, leaning his back against the table edge, his legs weakly dangling over the edge of the bench he seemed half-settled onto.
It was a confusing sight, his figure looked the weakest Adrian had seen, yet also the strongest.
His eyes narrowed at the unusual sight, watching the boy sit motionless for a long while, before finally taking the next step forward and continuing into the centre of the room.
He passed many tables as he headed to the far side of the room, entering a long queue of students waiting to receive food from the cafeteria front.
A metal slab sat in front of a wall with an opening, with several puppets dressed in tan leather aprons on the opposite side of the wall.
The puppets were made from a fine brown wood, with round faces painted white with two black streaks running down along each eye.
The apron draped from their wiry bodies, as a brass wind-up key whirled around slowly, where it stabbed into the spine of the puppets.
Adrian neared the front of the queue after multiple students "kindly" offered their place in the queue for Adrian in an attempt to garner favour with the son of Zeus.
One student in particular, at the front of the queue, stepped out from the line as they waved toward Adrian with the smirk of a devil.
They had long, fallen strands of volatile purple hair that dropped down their body.
Their hair was like a toxic waterfall of vast poison, cascading down to their waist, with streaks of black hiding between strands.
One side of their face was completely obscured by their own hair, revealing a pale half of their face with an eye outlined in black shadow.
"Adrian, right? C'mere. You shouldn't have to wait all the way back there." The purple-haired figure spoke; his voice was like a ghost wrapped in honeyed silk.
He reached an arm out in an inviting gesture, revealing a slightly shredded cream sleeve, all torn up.
His uniform was missing a tie, with the top buttons of his white shirt popped open to let a half-hearted collar flair lazily.
Adrian stood silently, his eyes cold like stone as he seemingly waited before giving in and leaving his line in the queue to approach the man.
No one in the line seemed to have a problem with the boy's blatant disregard of other placements in the line, or rather, if they did, then they didn't show it.
The truth was that the others couldn't do anything about it, even if they did decide to interrupt and obstruct Adrian; the purple-haired boy was far stronger than they were and could bully them to his liking, not to mention Adrian's assumed strength.
This was the reality of this world; strength could preside above all easily, and these students had long since grown used to it.
Adrian pulled closer, stepping beside the boy as he reached for one of the metal trays stacked on top of each other.
"My name's Tryx, you must be the one that crazy kid hit, right?" Tryx asked smoothly, his voice projecting a false sense of warmth.
Adrian remained silent, standing coolly, his face like smouldering wood as he stood with the tray in his hands, as it was slowly filled.
"I dunno what his problem is..." Adrian finally murmured as he recalled the unhinged eyes on the face of the kid that struck him, like the eyes of a wild dog or a tiger.
He slid his tray along as he furthered along the front to receive more food.
Tryx closed their eye, flashing a content smile, the other eye hidden behind the stripe of straight electric purple hair cascading down one half of their moonlight pale face.
"Stray dogs often forget their place. Hence why they occasionally step out of line." Tryx concluded smoothly in a subtle murmur that never lost its illusory warmth.
He turned away from the queue, where he stood at the end, holding a full metal tray with one hand.
His other hand was gently held in front of his lower half, gesturing ahead of him as he turned over his shoulder at Adrian.
Adrian stood like a rock, his shoulders square where they pressed into the frames of his uniform.
His brows dropped with consideration before stepping off to follow beside Tryx, naturally resonating with the enemy of his enemy.
After all, isn't the quickest way of befriending someone by having something in common?
What could be more personal, when you know nothing about someone, than sharing a dislike for the same person?
Why wouldn't someone prefer someone much more, after they share a similar dislike of a person who offended them?
"You see, I'm sure someone of your kind understands we have a way of life here at the academy," Tryx spoke smoothly, like how a fox would speak if they were capable of speech.
Adrian followed casually, his elegant frame moving peacefully.
"I guess…" He murmured reluctantly, his eyes drifting away from Tryx.
Tryx's single, visible eye widened with excitement, approving Adrian's answer yet not detecting the half-hearted tone.
His calm smirk never wavered as he continued smoothly.
"Aha, I knew we had an understanding… We're the next 'greats' after all."
Adrian's eyes narrowed observantly as Tryx spoke, facing his head toward him now as they walked toward the table in the dark corner.
Meanwhile, all sorts of students muttered to themselves or to another.
"So, the Prince has chosen the crazies…"
"He thinks he's so high and almighty, but he's hanging out with those freaks…"
"Figures the kid without a father figure would pick the goths."
Though whenever one of the two walking boys' gazes faced anyone talking, they immediately stopped talking or had conveniently 'happened' to change subjects.
Adrian seemed unfazed, seemingly used to being judged, yet Tryx spoke anyway.
"Don't mind them, Adrian. Greatness comes with a cost, even the great Edinus knew this well."
Adrian's eyes finally softened with mild confusion, his blue eyes glimmering with curiosity.
"Edinus?" Adrian thought to himself, he didn't have time nor the care to inquire further, finally reaching the table in the dark corner.
"Take a seat, Adrian. I'll introduce you to some like-minded individuals." Tryx insisted with an eager politeness.
He sat at the corner of the table opposite Adrian, toward the back, at the nearest part of the corner where it was darkest.
Adrian sat across from Tryx, placing his tray on the table.
To his direct right was a tall, tan boy with a powerful frame, his head directly turned away to ignore Adrian as he sat brooding in silence.
His hair was short, fine, thin brown, like the bristles of a horse brush.
His face was just as tan, though one side had discoloured pigment of pink torn skin spreading down past one of his eyes, where an old wound hadn't faded.
On his left was a girl who sat in the middle between Adrian and Tryx, with medium-length midnight hair dropping to hover over her shoulders in a flowing lob of nighttime sky.
Her eyes were hollow, full of darkness like an empty abyss.
Her skin was pale, like bone, though her lips were shaded an empty black that matched the colour of her eyes, painting her appearance to be like a delicious, poisonous fruit.
Sitting closest to Tryx, in the far corner, sat a thin boy with greyish-brown hair.
He was the thinnest out of all of them there; his eyes were a muddy shade of honey brown.
Each of them wore cream uniforms, yet this boy's blazer seemed to swallow him and hide him from the room.
His skin was dull and bland, his lips were dry, his eyes were dark with shadows weighing under his bottom eyelids.
He looked like he was a finger flick away from death's door.
Tryx leaned aside, tilting his head until his temple rested against his knuckles, sitting like a mad king drunk on power.
His other hand extended out, hovering over his full dinner tray, a single white finger pointing toward the tan man.
The man was sitting silently still, huffing sharply through his nose with agitation as Tryx's finger pointed toward him, when Tryx spoke again.
"This one is Alecto, probably the strongest person I know."
A pause.
"...Aside from Thurid Odinson, of course."
Adrian blinked, his eyes subconsciously drawing across the room to look at a girl with long fiery hair sitting at the table across from him.
He took a mental note of this girl, remembering how she stood firmly in front of him earlier in the morning after the incident in class.
Yet Tryx's devilishly calm smile never faltered, pulling his finger toward the girl sitting near Adrian.
"Oh, is it my turn?" The girl beamed with a venomous giggle, spinning her neck to Adrian.
"Mm, you look like fun. I'm Soahc..." She murmured gently in a content hum.
The murmur caught Adrian's attention, making him instinctively shudder and lean away an inch, even with the sufficient space between him and the girl.
"Ah, I suppose I should've asked if you would've preferred to introduce yourselves or not..." Tryx realised in the same smooth tone, letting the afterthought ghost the table as he pulled his head up from his knuckles as if rising from a pillow.
"What about you, Wang Yi, do you wanna speak for yourself?"
At once, the thin boy with greyish hair jumped as if startled; the movement was small but abrupt, and he slowly turned his head away in silent refusal.
"Ah, don't mind him, he's like this with new people," Tryx assured Adrian gently
Adrian seemed unaffected; his face was dull and bored as if he couldn't care even if he tried to force himself to.
Then Tryx began to go on, but not before leaning to Wang Yi to whisper a small comment.
Wang Yi slipped away from the table unnoticed as Tryx's charisma flowed from his next words.
"So! The greats are together once again; it's an honour to have you, Adrian. Even the great Edinus would be most interested by none other than the son of Zeus."
Adrian's face turned sour for just a moment, quickly flickering away whilst Wang Yi wandered to a table afar.
"Oh, boldly speaking such a taboo, Tryx. You're lucky half the school doesn't know about that." Soahc rambled in a theatrical purr, dramatically waving a hand to defuse Tryx's words.
Wang Yi disappeared in the crowd, soon finding a table and approaching a sitting figure with dark hair.
Soahc twisted slowly to Adrian, flashing a dark smile toward him.
"So, what does the son of Zeus do for fun?"
Adrian's skin recoiled, the sudden forwardness revolting him enough to make him discard his attention from the rest of the room.
The boy was too distracted to notice a rising figure approaching his direction from across the room.
"Now, now, let's not be hasty. You're smothering Adrian, Soahc." Tryx interjected gently, his smile growing wider.
The figure drew closer, grabbing an empty metal tray from a desk they passed as Soahc continued.
"I'm curious! It's not every day you see the son of-"
BANG!
end of chapter 17