The Iron Rose: Volume 1

“What’s wrong, Albert?” Below the school where many of the stripe classes were, Albert sat at his desk. He had his forehead planted firmly on its surface. His friends were gathered around him and wondering why he looked so depressed.

“How’re things going with that cute star?” One asked with a toothy grin and fist on his waist as he leaned over him. The atmosphere around Albert had been complicated for a while. But now he seemed melancholy.

“Two. He’s got two!” Another said, wearing a similar smile. He glanced down at him and waggled his eyebrows. “Giving you trouble, are they? I wish I had your problem. Hanging out with two beautiful stars, the professor’s daughter no less. She’s real cute,” he sung cheerfully.

“I like the other one. The red head. She’s got long legs and a nice--” he moved his hands up to his chest. But when he started talking about Tapp, Albert slammed his hands on the desk with a bang. And then he lifted his head with a mean scowl on his face and slid his sharp glare up at him.

“Off limits, cow,” he drawled. “And you know better than to even think about messing with Gudomlay.” He lifted his hand so his palm was open. “Kunagi would crush your skull with his bare hands,” he said. His fingers were twitching as if he had something hard in them to crack. The others winced. No doubt about it. The scariest person at the academy was Kunagi. Though they didn’t know how attached he was to Gudomlay, they did know better than to test fate.

“So, you like red heads?” The others turned around and smiled when Bard entered the classroom. They all surrounded him, greeting him and smiling. They were like a bunch of fangirls in the dusty smelly cold stonewalled classroom.

“Watch out,” they told him. “The red star is off limits,” they jested.

Bard glanced back at where Albert still sat and twitched at his miserable expression. He sighed and went to him, kicking his shin lightly with the tip of his boot. Albert side glanced at him, his head drooping and his hands on his knees. Bard put his in his pockets and picked at the soft lint inside.

“Stop sulking. You know they’re teasing you because we all know it can never happen.”

“Do you know what she told me the first day we met?” Albert asked, staring pensively at his desk. Bard was silent as he looked down at him. “She said she was going to make me hate her so much I’d never die.” He chuckled and then sighed. “You know how she won that flag? Why I never got it back?”

Bard lifted his arms and folded them. Honestly, he’d been wondering about that for a while. As the fourth-year leader of that assault team, he’d been in charge of assigning the stripes to their stations. That one of the two third years, the one being Albert, had been overcome by a third-year female star student. That wasn’t something that made sense. Certainly she’d been trained well and had taken it seriously. But Albert was bigger, faster, and stronger.

“I saw the whole thing. Her fall from the roof, catching herself at the window. Breaking her leg, and using that same leg to kick one of the first years in the face just to get that stupid flag. And when she fell out, I couldn’t help myself. I went after her. I mean. No one was supposed to get hurt anyway. And then she stuffed that stupid thing in her shirt.” He laughed and covered his face with a hand. “I almost went in right after it. It’d be a good excuse to touch her, right? She was gorgeous and tenacious. But I thought if I did that I’d never have a chance.” His shoulders sagged. “But I never had a chance to begin with. I should’ve just done it.”

“How’s her leg then?” Bard asked, ignoring Albert’s very unsurprising desire to get his hands on a girl he was attracted to. That he’d fallen for a star couldn’t be helped. There hadn’t been any female stripes for two years and so no other girls to associate with. Though they didn’t exactly associate with the stars at all. Those people were much too glittery to even want to mingle with stripe kind usually.

“It was never broken,” Albert replied, now smiling softly as he remembered it. “She’d faked it, down to the very end. She was so dedicated to the facade in the case anyone was watching. So much so she risked landing on the other one and breaking it for real. I followed her because I was worried and thought she was cute. And I figured she’d have to give up the flag eventually.

“But when I learned she’d been faking her injury the entire time to lead me into a trap. That she was playing the stubborn damsel in distress and trusting me to not assault her... I knew she was really a femme fatal. That’s when I fell for her.”

There was silence in the room and then there was an outbreak of cooing, awes, and hooting. Albert thinned his lips and his jaw slid forward in defiance. Bard glared at the others and then glanced back at him as the fire lit to the side let out some extra heat on them.

“Don’t worry, Albert. You’re not the only one who’s fallen for a star,” he said with a meaningful glance at a particular few that were there. They winced and hid their faces. “So, what are you going to do about it?”

Albert grimaced. “There’s nothing I can do, is there. She tags along with Gudomlay to watch her train. She’s worried about her, and it seems the whole dungeon lab fascinates her. So, I get to spend an hour or so in her presence and then disappear into this prison.” He gave a glance around. This place really was like the dungeons of a great castle keep. If the academy wanted, they could trap the stripes in there forever.

“And how is that going?” Bard asked, knowing full well the stipulation connected to his training Kunagi’s foster daughter.

Albert groaned loudly. “She’s resistant. I don’t know what it is that’s keeping her back. When we first started, she was showing real promise.” He glanced up at Bard, a pained expression on his face. “The girl is a tank. Not only can she dish out a damaging hit on Kunagi’s dummies, but she can sure as hell take one. But... She’s holding back. And until I can get her to really put herself into it, I have no chance of moving on to fourth year!”

Bard was quiet a moment, waiting. “Is there anything else on your mind?” He asked, his low voice patient.

Albert blinked at him and then pouted at the desk. He poked at it from underneath, making a face when his finger caught on some dried hard gum. “No. That’s it...” He wiped his finger on his pants.

“Good. Now that you’ve vented that out into the open.” He turned to the class and Albert glared at him as he realized. Bard had made him say all those things in front of everyone just so he’d be able to pay attention to the real reason he was there. “News from the second-year surveillance class. We’ve got D.S. scouts checking out the school and its defenses.

“Prepare for an attack from Death Stalker Academy and remember.” He glanced at Albert whose face had turned serious at the news. “Protecting the star students is our number one priority. They will be their target. And just like they’ll be getting graded on their ability to carry out their mission, you will be graded on your ability to prevent them from completing that mission.” He glanced around at the students, his face cool and serious and then he nodded. “That is all.” He left then and the others were in a buzz.

“Death Stalker. I hate those guys.”

“Bard’s so cool...”

“What are you, a girl?”

“Shut up!” The sound of someone getting hit didn’t even seem to register with Albert as he pondered this news.

He frowned and crossed his arms. As the top fourth year student, Bard was someone all the stripes looked up to and respected. It was why he often took commanding positions so that they’d be fired up to follow his lead. But that the all boy’s school was checking out theirs’s to attack? That meant they weren’t just looking at how to get in but who their target was going to be. Depending on how long they waited meant how seriously they had to consider their person of interest.

He stood, and now a little worried, went to the lift that would take him up to Kunagi’s lab.