141 Cancelled

All of the students from the expedition had been gathered and were taken to the First Year Assembly Hall. They weren't allowed to go back to their dorms or put away their equipment. All they could do was talk to one another and speculate why the expedition had been cancelled.

Slowly a strange atmosphere started to fill the room. It wasn't normal for such a thing to happen especially so sudden like that.

"I saw some of the mechs from the city leave the shelter." A student said.

"Seriously? Why would they mobilize those things, I thought they said the highest tier of beast on the planet was an intermediate tier."

"Didn't you hear?" Another student chimed in. "A student spotted black smoke off in the distance in the desert. It seemed like it was coming from a ship."

"You don't mean—?" the student gasped.

"That's right, I heard it might have been a Dalki." The other student replied.

A head count was made, and it was made more than once. After the counting had been completed it looked like the teachers had a worried look on their face as they talked with each other.

Fay stood in front of all the first years, prepared to make the announcement but she was still waiting for all the information to arrive. A soldier came up to her side and whispered something into her ear, after which they did several more head counts.

"Are you sure?" Fay replied. "Have you checked the school, perhaps they have come back?"

The soldier nodded in response.

All Fay could do was clench her fist, the report had stated that they had found both Hugo's and Ben's body out in the desert. They were able to confirm they had died from the Dalki, however, the other three in their group were never found.

The only thing they could assume was that the Dalki had also killed them. The five of them were part of the group so it was the most logical conclusion.

"Attention!" Fay shouted. The students immediately got in line and saluted her.

Then a holographic screen appeared behind them. It was the scoreboard with all the teams' scores.

"First things first, as you may know, the expedition has been cancelled," Fay explained. "What that means for all of you, is that the points you had obtained in the first two days before the expedition ended will be your final score for this exam."

"What?!" Erin blurted out and she wasn't the only one. Right now their group still had all the winged lizard crystals they had obtained from Berg's group. They hadn't had time to head back to the shelter to have them counted.

As Erin looked at their team's position they still had the same score as before and were placed around the middle of every other group. While Berg's group still sat at the top.

"Enough, there are more important things than the test!" Fay shouted, calming down the chatter amongst students. "Right now there is a high possibility that some of your fellow students have died on this test. And worst of all it was to the threat we have all been training against, the Dalki."

The chatter started once again and this time she slammed her weapon into the ground. It caused a loud banging noise to be heard, as its vibrations bounced from the walls and echoed around the entire hall.

"The Dalki has been swiftly dealt with, and it seems like this was not a planned attack but a stray ship. This was an unfortunate event but these things happen from time to time. But this is a reminder to you all why we need to train so hard every single day, and I hope you will remember that. You will have the next two days off to rest, after that classes will return to normal, rest up for the night. You are dismissed." Fay said, ending her speech.

Immediately after Fay had left, the noise in the hall returned to its peak. The students couldn't believe what had happened and soon started to realize which group had most likely been killed by the Dalki.

But Erin wasn't bothered about any of that. "You!" She shouted and pointed at Quinn. "Why did you hide your strength? If you had fought with us that day instead of hiding under that umbrella we would have gotten a better score."

"Wait, calm down Erin," Layla said as she tried getting in between the two.

"I'm not happy with you either Layla, you knew all this, didn't you?" Erin frowned at her before turning to Quinn, "And what's with your strange power? How did you heal Peter? He should have died! No more excuses, I want answers for everything that happened!" She screamed.

Erin looked at the scoreboard once again seeing that their position was in the middle and then looked at Quinn back again only this time her face was filled with tears. "If you were that strong then why didn't you help?" Tears streamed down her face.

Quinn knew this whole time, from Erin's actions, that this assessment was important to her, but the way she was acting now was almost obsessive. Everyone strived to be the best or come out on top but not like this. These actions weren't normal.

"I think it's best if we all head back to our room," Layla said. "We can explain everything there and I'm sure Peter has a lot of questions of his own."

***

While the first year students were being informed of what happened the three generals were having a meeting of their own. They were at the top floor of the academy and each of them was sitting at a round table in the Head General's office. The only chair that was left empty was that of the Head General.

Nathan, the head of the first years, Duke the head of the second years and the last general Mike who was head of communications. His job was to coordinate with the other military basis and plan either joint exercises or missions together.

The three of them sat there in silence, and Nathan and Duke just couldn't help having a staring match with each other. Until Duke finally broke the silence.

"I wonder how many of your students would have died on that expedition if it wasn't for that Sergeant Leo of yours." Duke said. "I doubt you even have the strength to take on a Dalki yourself."

"Are you upset because you can't bribe him to come over to your side with one of those Earth ability books of yours?" Nathan replied. "It's a pity that your tactics of recruiting only works on those weak minded fools."

Duke then stood up from his chair and looked like he was about to hit Nathan but at the same time, Mike stepped in front of the two. "Guy's both of you calm down, I'm telling you now, if I see an injury on you when I leave this room or when I walk around the academy, I won't be healing you, and I won't let you two go to my niece Hayley either."

Although Mike tried calming the two of them down, he knew most of his words would fall on deaf ears, these two had always hated each other. But then the one person who could calm them down entered the room.

The doors swung wide open and a middle-aged man wearing a business suit came walking in. He had neatly cut hair and a suitcase in his hand. He didn't look like he was part of the army at all. But as soon as he had entered the room all three of the men bowed in salute.

"We welcome the Head General!" They all said at once.

"Calm down, this whole situation has caused enough of a headache as it is." The Head General proceeded to sit down in his seat as he brought up an initial report for all three of them to see.

"We all know these odd attacks have been happening on our Beast planets for a while. It seems like these attacks are happening more frequently, but not just that, if we take a look at the Beast solar system. Every single time an attack takes place they seem to be getting closer and closer to our starting planet."

"Do you think they're aiming for the city station?" Mike asked.

"It would make sense." The Head replied. "For now I believe these solo Dalki are just sent as Scouts. They have no clue how strong we have become in this time frame and they have no clue what security measures we have but I fear this may mean, that the war will be starting again soon."

After speaking of these matters with the other Generals the Head General went on to speak about a few other things. It was rare for him to actually be in the school as he would often get called out for meetings, but after going through all the things that needed to be done there was one last thing he needed to mention.

"In a couple of weeks, we have a visit from Mr. True Dream, which means I will need you to prepare some students for him."

The three generals gave awkward glances at each other as they heard this piece of news.

"Duke, I expect you to do well like you always have." The Head General said.

"You can count on me sir," Duke replied.

****

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