68 Guilty People Run

Unknown to the students at the school there was currently chaos going on between the upper staff.

Fay one of the sergeants of the school was walking down the hallway at incredible speed. Even though she was only walking, she was causing gusts of wind to hit the students as she walked past them.

Using her ability even her walking speed was faster than most people's top running speed. Eventually, she had arrived at her destination.

A single wooden door in the first-year building which had a sign out front saying the words "General." On it.

"May I come in sir!" Fay said in a loud demanding voice.

"Sure," Nathan replied.

Fay barged the door open and quickly zoomed to Nathan's desk, the wind that came along with her caused papers to be flown and scattered all over the room.

"Hey, I was nearly done with that!" Nathan shouted.

As head of the first years, he was a busy person. He would normally be in charge of looking over the new students arriving and doing research into each of their backgrounds. It was important for the school to know who belonged to which family. As they needed to keep an eye on those with a more powerful background.

"The portals have been used!" Fay shouted, "Two students seem to have been registered to have gone through them."

Nathen started to pick up the papers that were scattered around the room one by one. "Is that all, well why don't you just go and get them back?"

"I'm afraid it's because they have gone through a red portal, sir."

Nathen then dropped all the piles of paper he had picked up from the floor. "What, how did this happen, weren't there meant to be guards stationed at the portal."

"Apparently there was a scheduling conflict, when the guards changed shift, their replacements never arrived."

Nathan then went to sit back in his chair as he struggled to think what to do. "Stupid parents, this is why I said we should have cameras stationed in the school, but it was hard enough to allow them to get those trackers put on them."

The original families had a big say in what went on and what didn't. Although it was compulsory for every person to go to military school for two years at the age of sixteen, the originals were powerful people in the outside world.

During the war, four big families had emerged from it. Each power as great as each other and equal to the military. The structure of the world had changed, money hardly meant anything anymore and a new system was put in place.

The credit system.

Those who were strong and able to contribute to the world, earned credits. An example of this would be those who could kill high-level beasts and obtain their crystals to make weapons.

While the others too weak to complete a task such as this, were continued to be treated as trash and a waste of space.

Of course, the families hated the idea of the military spying on their children. Afraid that they might try to learn their secrets.

"Do we know which students have gone through the portal?" Nathan asked as he picked up his cup of coffee and started to sip it.

"The first one is the student by the name of Quinn Talen."

Hearing this name meant nothing to him, he couldn't remember it so most likely it wasn't anyone important in the school.

"And the second one is Vorden Blade."

At that moment, Nathan spat out his coffee all over the table.

"Him again," After the incident with the second years, Nathan decided to look into Vorden's family background a bit more, and if they were to find out, this would be bad news. "Make sure his family doesn't learn anything, we have to keep this a secret for as long as we can."

*****

The next day morning classes had started, today was the Day of the group assessment and the first-year students would be heading off to their first portal outing.

As class had started for the Day, Layla noticed that Vorden and Quinn weren't in their seats. However, Peter was in his and he had his head faced down looking at the ground.

"Hey Peter, do you know where Vorden and Quinn are today?" She asked.

Peter had completely ignored her.

"Hey, Peter..." She said as she placed her hand on his shoulder.

All she could feel was Peter's body shaking slightly.

"I didn't do anything!" Peter snapped.

"Huh, what?" Layla said confused. "I was asking if you knew where Quinn and Vorden was, did they not come back to the dorm room yesterday?"

"Oh, sorry, yeah they were there when I went back," Peter said with his voice all shaky. "I don't know why they haven't come to class this morning?"

Layla noticed that Peter was sweating like crazy, it was normal for Peter to act a little strange but he was acting extra unusual today. She decided that is was most likely nothing for her to worry about and sat in her seat as usual.

"They wouldn't miss today, we're meant to go out Portal hunting as a team."

Just then Del had entered the room, he didn't have his usual cheery face on and instead had a bland serious look. "I'm afraid that I have to inform you all that today's portal outing has been cancelled for now."

Upon hearing the news, the students groaned and complained.

"What! But I wanted to test out my new beast weapon."

"Yeah, I was hoping to maybe kill a beast as well."

"Quiet down!" Del said loudly, "This isn't permanent but at the moment the school staff are busy with another matter and until they are free, we will be unable to go on the outing."

A single student then raised his hand in the centre of the class.

As Del looked at the student he sighed.

"Yes."

"What matter are they dealing with.?"

"Now if I could tell you that I would have told you, wouldn't I?"

The class then continued as normal, a few of the students were still annoyed but then a big question was on everyone's mind, what happened and why was it suddenly cancelled?

Layla, on the other hand, was more concerned where Vorden and Quinn were. Why hadn't the teachers said anything about them not attending class? If they were injured in a fight last night then the guards should have picked them up and taken them to the nurse's office.

There was also a strict curfew for them and no one skipped class. Yet Dell hadn't mentioned a single thing about them.

As class ended the students continued to speak and it turned out that, Layla wasn't the only one who was concerned about where Vorden and Quinn went.

Erin had then come over to where Layla was.

"Any idea about the other two?" Erin said bluntly.

"No, I have no idea, do you want to go look for them with me?" Layla asked nicely.

The two of them didn't know each other well and their interactions with each other so far had been short. It actually surprised Layla that Erin had come over to her in the first place.

"No thanks." Erin replied, "Now that the portal training has been delayed, I am in no rush to find them, but I came over to tell you some news I heard some students talking about."

Layla leaned in to listen carefully.

"Yesterday, while I was walking by two students, said they overheard the Sergeant shouting at the general, something about two students going into the portals. My guess is that's the reason why this whole thing has been delayed in the first place."

Layla then stood up from her seat and grabbed Erin by the shoulders.

"Wait, what did you say!?"

Erin had moved her head slightly back, she was startled and confused by Layla's actions and felt a little uncomfortable.

"Don't you see, Vorden and Quinn have to be the missing students, no wonder Del didn't say anything about them."

Then suddenly, it felt like she was being handed pieces of a jigsaw puzzle one by one but there was still one missing piece and she knew exactly the person who could give her the last piece.

As she turned her head, she looked Peter dead in the eye.

Peter felt like Layla was staring into his soul, this whole time he had been worried. What if someone had seen him leave the portal room? What if the other first-years reported it was him? He hardly had any sleep last night and couldn't concentrate on anything.

Then when Layla had spoken to him in the morning he slipped up. He was trying so hard to act natural it had the opposite effect. And now the look in Layla's eyes told him she had figured out something.

As soon as Layla took a step forward, Peter got out of his seat and ran for it.

"Erin, we have to get Peter, he knows something."

"What makes you think that?" Erin asked.

"A person who isn't guilty doesn't run away for no reason."

****

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