All Sorts of Odd Things

The second installation in the series, everyone copes with God's message in their own way- some better than others........

Chapter 2

All Sorts of Odd Things

"Can you honestly say that you don't have any guesses about the traitor to mankind?" Alessio asked Serenity, his voice fully expressing his disbelief. They sat on the floor of the library, the meeting place for Phoenix. Cynthia had called everyone for a meeting but hadn't yet begun.

"I mean, obviously I have suspicions but they aren't based on any empirical facts." Serenity said, pushing a spoon of vanilla pudding in her mouth. It was her reward for actually showing up for the meeting, given to her by Cynthia via The Creator. Serenity usually didn't show up to meetings that encompassed every member of Phoenix simply because of her hatred of social interaction and therefore crowds. 

"Who do you suspect?" Alessio asked.

"I hate to say it but I think I and everyone else suspects Belle. If they don't then they should." Serenity said.

Dan, who was sitting near them, spoke up. "Clearly, she's the biggest sinner in the entire school."

Serenity shifted uncomfortably at both Danial's proximity to her and his voice in general. Though, she was uncomfortable with his existence period if anyone were to be honest. She could see how this was childish, if you took into consideration her reasons for this of course. Though, just because she recognized things she did wrong didn't mean she could or was even willing to change them.

Alessio gave a sigh, and Serenity looked at him quizzically. She was sure Alessio simply didn't feel the need to worry her about what he felt, and logically it wasn't as if he was sighing at how absolutely awful he thought Serenity was. He hung out with her by choice, in fact their friendship began when Alessio approached her and told her a joke. Either way, within three seconds Serenity had concocted a story in her head in which Alessio secretly hated her and was only using her for power.

She calmed herself from the oncoming session of worrying by looking at her friends and reminding herself of all the things they did for her. They were seated near the back, for Serenity's comfort, and in a group. Almost everyone in the Order of the Phoenix were loosely friends but they were closer. Other than Alessio and his partners and Dan and his, there were three other people. Allen, Lucas and Arai.

"Who's the biggest sinner in the school?" Jamie asked as he sat down.

"Belle. She's obviously the traitor." Dan said, the wrong thing to say because Jamie began to get mad. Right before he raised his voice Serenity piped in: "I agree... with the suspicion I mean."

"As do I. Keep your head and think about it, she's the prime candidate for any traitor. Besides, you've all worked out the existing in two right?" Alessio asked, nearly everyone shook their head no and Alessio let out a huge sigh. Serenity thought he was a little self important but she also knew for a fact he had the skills to back that up. In that case, his self importance could be seen more as a general confidence than anything.

"God exists in three, i won't explain these three to you. The traitor wishes to exist in two. Putting together the fact he's a traitor, clearly he wants to be a human and a demon. Also, my use of he should remind you all that the traitor is male." Alessio explained with an air of intelligence. Serenity wouldn't lie, she was pretty proud to have him as a partner. The guy probably had an IQ that was over 9000. 

"You say that, but Belle is male. Genetically anyways, she's a certified he." Serenity corrected Alessio smugly. Though she found pride in Alessio's intelligence- it felt damn good for her to be right and him to be wrong. 

"What she is, is a liar. She was born a she and anybody who's seen her student I.D can tell you that." Alessio said boredly, whipping out his 3DS and playing a game on it. Serenity bit her lip, the man always seemed uninterested with everything around him. The only times he was interested in something is when the time was entirely inappropriate. It made him extremely hard to figure out.

"Could God giving up on the people he sacrificed his son for be any more boring to you?" Serenity asked him with a joking tone but inside she felt heat rising to her face in anger.

"I won't deny," Alessio started, a half smile appearing on his face; it looked like a smirk but anyone who knew him knew he was smiling. "I find it more than entertaining: this little problem we've encountered. I anxiously await the conclusion to this saga." He finished, his smile turning into a full blown grin.

This guy is definitely a sadist.

A few minutes passed by before Cynthia started the meeting. Her opening was The Creator explaining what Alessio had just explained. Next Cynthia laid out an action plan, they'd be taking shifts protecting the school since the barrier was gone. All the other significant teams in the school were taking shifts as well. They'd then be spending time researching relics to see if they could create something of a barrier and dig out the traitor.

"That sucks, I'll be in the lab the whole time." Serenity finished her pudding but kept the spoon in her mouth after throwing the trash away. She excelled in her field, but ironically enough the only reason she joined was because 'I would look damn good in a lab coat', a quote from the girl herself. The truth in that statement is interpretive but it kept the girl constantly on the honor roll.

"I thought you loved being in the lab." Dan looked at her, Serenity just looked back at him. The statement brought back a memory she'd rather of forgotten. It wasn't that the memory was special, she'd had a lot more memorable moments in her time as Dan's partner. She just wanted to forget all of them.

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Serenity's hair was in a neat ponytail, making the girl look quite studious. She found it very important that she looked cool while doing things and the cool thing to do in a lab was look educated. Though, at the moment she wasn't very focused on cool. She had a chemistry problem on the whiteboard in front of her that she'd been furrowing her brows at for the past six hours. Her instructor gave it to her and she'd thought it would be easy but she'd come to realize it wasn't so at all.

When the door opened to the lab she didn't hear it so when a hand tapped her shoulder she jumped. When she saw the bearer of the voice she smiled softly. "Dan, what are you doing here?" She said, easily dropping everything she was doing to devote her focus to him.

"Wow you're working on some pretty hard stuff, hey that doesn't make sense- I thought hydroxide had a negative..... Anyways, you've been in here for hours. I wanted to get some practice in today." Dan said, pulling the hairband out of her hair so it fell down- almost reaching her hips. Dan liked her hair long, and often pulled out rubber bands from her hair when she wore a ponytail.

"I have to solve this problem. It makes no logical sense." Serenity said, her eyes flickering back to the problem momentarily before looking at her partner. A activity she definitely enjoyed doing.

"You really love being in a lab don't you?" Dan chuckled and Serenity nodded in response. "It suits you." Dan said, turning to leave.

"How so?" Serenity called after him, shaking out her hair for effect.

"You were right, you do look damn good in a lab coat." He said before exiting. She was glad he did exit because tomatoes had nothing on the color of her face right then.

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Serenity reached up to touch her shoulder length hair just as Cynthia ended the speech half of the meeting and opened it up to doing whatever. Whatever was such a broad term to Serenity. Whatever could mean, please leave but I'm being kind enough to not say that. It could also mean, just get out of my face please. Another possibility was have fun and don't stress. Alternatively, it could just mean do whatever but still, Serenity sat for a second trying to decipher the meeting.

Cynthia must of noticed because she walked over to Serenity with a huge smile. "Honey," she began in her naturally authoritative tone. It was the kind of tone that simply made you feel inferior to her whether or not that was true. "just do whatever you want." she cracked a huge grin which made Serenity feel a little embarrassed but not at all worried like she was previously. 

     Serenity still had to admit, even if Cynthia said that- the statement was beyond broad. She didn't really know what to do with herself, she greatly preferred being given a specific set of instructions and simply following it. She was sure that was why she was given powers, as a dominant member she couldn't have made it. Being the submissive partner fit both her needs and her tastes quite well.

     Cynthia was always perceptive, even to the point Serenity thought she could be a little psychic. "Here, why don't you design this years webpage? Actually, I have an important topic I just thought of. I'll need you to come with me temporarily, I'm sorry but, Dan I'll need you to come as well." She said.

     "It's no problem." Dan said, as if Cynthia was apologizing to him. Both her and Serenity knew who she was really apologizing to. "Wait just us?" Dan asked, a serious expression coming on his face as it always did when he was feeling self important.

     "No, I'll be collecting a few more of you as well. Go to my office." Cynthia said, Dan nodding and beginning to gather the things he had with him. "If he says something to you, tell me." Cynthia murmured to her, Serenity knowing that she was willing to accept any excuse that led her fist to Dan's face. Additionally, Serenity knew Cynthia cared for her. It made her feel warm inside, like she mattered.

     Serenity began walking out of the room, walking in an awkwardly fast pace in order to avoid Dan trying to walk with her. The man in question called out "Hey, wait up for a second!" and while she was far enough away to pretend that she couldn't here it; annoyingly she waited. He caught up to her moments later and flashed her a knowing smile, as if he knew something she didn't.

     Cocky b*****d.

     "So, I never said thank you for saving me the other day. Arissa and I were definitely in over our heads. Arissa......." Dan continued on, making conversation with her while Serenity simply stared in response. He couldn't understand why he was talking to her. He had to know that the last thing she ever wanted to do was talk to him. A small voice in her head pointed out the contradiction of her waiting for him but she managed to convince herself that it was only to be polite.

     Dan had gone from thanking her to something funny he and Arissa had done the other day. Serenity noticed a trend of their conversation being focused on Arissa.

     "Are you doing that on purpose?" Serenity found herself asking, an unexpected true outburst of what she was feeling

     "Doing what?" Dan asked, of course he would. Dan was never the most perceptive to other people's emotions.

Serenity rolled her eyes and they walked the rest of the way in complete silence. They arrived at Cynthia's office, an unused classroom, and Serenity made it a point to be on the opposite side of the room as him. Soon, a group of her friends entered. She smiled until she realized how odd this was. Her social group was summoned into a room by Cynthia.

She didn't have to ponder for long because Cynthia entered, and begun speaking immediately. "Listen up, I know you all personally and you all know each other personally. I'm certain none of you are the traitor so I'm putting my trust in you all. I'm sending you all on a mission. It'll be about three days at most. There's a certain priest in Texas, he foretold this tragedy but nobody believed him. This shouldn't be a dangerous mission." Cynthia said then began to walk out just as quickly.

"Then why is it taking us three days? A plane trip there, a conversation and back would take a day- or maybe a day and a half?" Danial asked, "Also, just for safety I'd feel better if we could also take my partner."

"You were contracted to Serenity, you can wield her just as good as Alessio can if needed. It won't come to that though. I need Arissa to stay because I don't know her so I don't trust her. Also, I'm trying to keep the amount of you leaving as small as possible." Cynthia said, turning around to face them.

Serenity reasoned that's why Sarah wasn't coming either. Also, that was why Arai, Allen and Lucas were coming. They were all dominant but had no partners. The Creator was coming as well, but she figured that was their leadership in this mission.

"You didn't explain why it would take three days though." Dan pointed out.

"When you meet him, you'll know." Cynthia said with a small smile on her face. The kind she got when she was in the midst of a plan that would make you believe she was evil incarnate.

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"Hello, we're students at God's Chosen Academy we'd like a moment of your time please!" Serenity pulled out her student ID and extended it towards him with both hands. She looked at him with a large smile on her face, she was nominated to speak to him because she was the only female and Alessio reasoned that a female would be less threatening and get better results.

"Lil' lady," The priest drawled in a pure southern accent, holding on to her card with both hands then pushing it back into her chest. "Get the hell outta my church before I mess up that pretty lil' face of yours, hear?" The man pushed his hands back further, offsetting her balance to the point she fell backwards onto the floor.

"That was uncalled for on every level!" Alessio raised his voice slightly right at the same time Jamie loudly declared, "Touch her again and you'll regret the day you were born!"

Serenity's eyes widened and her lower lip trembled, before she could even blink tears streamed down her face. Not only did his fingers touch hers, but he could do something like that to her. Her anxiety filled up her thoughts, telling her she was trash and she deserved that. Not only that but her friends probably wanted to do the same.

Alessio and Jamie sunk to their knees to try to comfort Serenity. Alessio barked, "Deal with this." He barked, the subject of his command non specific but The Creator took matters into his own hands. He stood in front of Serenity and motioned with his hands for her to stand. Dan and Alessio grabbed her arms (safely covered in a navy blue blazer) and helped her up. The Creator then lit up in flames, literally. Flames rose from his hair, skin and clothes, even his blue eyes turned a fiery red.

"Option one, apologize. Option two, self evident." The Creator said in his usually short, brutish way. "I'll give you the next five seconds. One." He began counting, aggression evident in his voice. Serenity's tears suddenly dried up as she looked at The Creator in awe, he was such a strong wielder of magic he could even use it without his partner's permission. She always knew that he could if he tried hard enough but, it was amazing to see in person.

"You young folk get full of ya'selves mighty fast these days." The priest smirked, cracking his fist. "Guess it's up'ta me to put'ya in your places." He said, The Creator wasn't at all amused. Balls of fire began shooting from his body towards the priest who swiftly dodged them. That swiftness only came from professional training, he was a God's Chosen Academy graduate.

"Creator-" Allen began but Creator put up a hand to stop him from speaking. He wordlessly made it clear that he now understood this man's level of education.

"Maybe, you'd like to see my I.D, boy." The priest said, reaching into his pocket and with a single flick of his wrist sending his I.D slowly spinning towards The Creator. Creator caught it, with a last minute move of his left hand then read it. As far as actual magic wielders (actual in comparison to not a student magic wielder) he was definitely one of the best in the world.

"Somehow I can't find it in myself to care." The Creator said, attacking the priest once more and the priest avoiding his attacks with considerable ease. Alessio then shot a glare directly at the priest, Ash exclaiming at the sudden movement of his body. He seemed to have a sniper in his possession and backed away from the priest to get a good aim. The thing about magical guns were that the bullets were pure magical energy. It hurt, it would wound you but unless you were a demon it usually wasn't fatal- unless of course you were shot in an artery and bled out.

Next Jamie was on his feet and headed towards the priest. The priest lost his cocky look soon enough, he seemed to find it increasingly difficult to dodge Jamie's hammer while looking out for the fire and staying away from the line of sight of the sniper. Allen and Lucas moved towards the front door of the church to avoid the line of fire since they were useless in the situation anyhow. Useless because Lucas' partner was his girlfriend who went to a different God's Chosen academy. The only other one in the United States. For some reason the organization behind God's Chosen felt it was a good idea to put two of them not only in the same country but it the same city when everywhere else there was one per country. Allen had to twin freshmen partners, but they hadn't yet been approved for battle outside of training. So, though they had partners and Allen even had more than one, they were essentially useless.

Alessio led Serenity towards the front door as well, crossing his arms and looking pensively at the battle."Now we know why this is going to take three days." He sighed.

"We need this priest." Allen said in a thick Irish accent, "He obviously doesn't like God's Chosen students and this battle isn't helping our case. It's great you guys want to defend Serenity's honor and all but...." He trailed off, looking at Alessio.

"Obviously I've already come to such a conclusion." Alessio snapped back at him, "Even beyond Serenity, there's the implications of a priest threatening and attacking a woman. What kind of priest is this guy?" Alessio asked rhetorically.

The Creator was technically the trips overseer but a submissive partner couldn't really lead, by the natural order of things it was wordlessly left to Alessio. That was Serenity's opinion at least, especially when Alessio took a leadership role and commanded everyone to fall back. Ash immediately joined the group near the front door as did The Creator, Jamie on the other hand just froze and turned to stare at Alessio.

"We can't just leave." Jamie's naturally loud voice boomed through the church.

"That wasn't a suggestion, it was an order." Alessio said before turning to exit the church, everyone else following. They waited outside the church for at least half a minute before Jamie exited with an enraged look on his face.

"Why don't we ask around about the priest first and figure out his problem with God's Chosen students and no- burning the church down isn't and will never be an option." Alessio shot a sharp glare to The Creator who had set a bush on fire. He gave a disappointed look before putting the fire out.

"That guy was really pale." Serenity said softly, everyone turning to look at her. 

"So?" Alessio asked, the group walking off towards a bus station, The Creator used pure magic which used runes and spells and such rather than needing a weapon to channel it through. He'd teleported them pretty close to the church but now it was the time of day that people were bustling about and they'd get caught if they used that. It always amazed Serenity to see The Creator use pure magic, even most of her teachers needed a tool to channel it through. 

"Nothing really, I mean.... he was just really pale and.... his hair was a really dark black color..." Serenity muttered.

"I'm missing your point." Alessio said.

"Forget about it, it's probably stupid." Serenity said, then changed the subject.

They took the bus to another nearby church, using a similar approach as they did to the last priest. The difference was, this priest wasn't an affiliate of God's Chosen. He was just a normal human. Serenity found those really annoying.

"Hello sir!" Serenity said when the priest opened his doors. "I'm collecting information about the local churches for my school's Young Christians club. It's basically a compilation of nearby churches with information about them to help young Christians without a religious home decide what church to go to." Serenity lied through her teeth. Even so the priest seemed quite pleased at the statement and invited her and the rest of her friends in.

They sat through the man discussing his church and what they stood for and right as he was about to leave Serenity said, "Oh, um do you know about Hope's Peak Church? Nobody was there to speak to us." Serenity said with a pleasant smile.

"Keep them off your list if you know what's good for you. Their members dabble in occult activities, talking about all kinds'a witchcraft." The priest said, his accent seeming a lot more natural than the one of the priest they talked to before. It made the previous priest's accent seem a little exaggerated even.

"Witchcraft?" Allen muttered.

"Incantations and such on. I went there once a couple Christmases ago to show some hospitality. They were drawing these symbols all over the walls, like, um...." The priest scratched his gruff beard before getting a pen and a piece of paper and drawing out a symbol. Serenity easily recognized it as a terrible recreation of a warding spell and was sure everyone else did too. Warding spells were a basic use of pure magic that was so simple it even had some effect when normal humans were using them. What was odd was why a priest who'd even gone to a God's Chosen college would have exposed normal human beings to them knowing the risks of exposing the true purpose of God's Chosen.

"Thank you, we'll warn our club to stay away from that kind of place." Serenity stood, taking the mans hand in her gloved hands and shaking it.

"Just one question miss," The priest said with a bit of an amused tone, "May I ask why you're wearing a cape? That is a cape in'it?" 

Serenity gave a proud look, "Capes are cool!" she declared, the group then walking out the building. Just as they exited, Ash ripped the velvety cape off of her and threw it in a nearby trashcan. "Ash! That's my-" Serenity began to complain but there was never any use in it so she just pouted. 

The group decided they needed to eat, without an adult walking in a restaurant would be odd so they decided on heading to the mall. A group of teenagers walking around in a mall wouldn't look weird at all. They stopped by the hotel to change then soon arrived at the mall, sitting in the food court and enjoying their fill of food on God's Chosen's wallet.

"I like your shirt," A group of people around their age approached them, the voice belonging to a male and seemingly being directed at Serenity who gave a thank you in response.

"Where you guys go, I ain't never seen y'all around here. Small town." The guy said.

"Probably haven't, we're not exactly from here. Whats'sup with you though?" Jamie answered for Serenity in his normal outgoing fashion, annoyingly this served as an invite for the group to pull up chairs, sit and have a conversation. 

Serenity couldn't stand humans, she knew by technicality she was one. She was officially recognized as a human, but among God's Chosen affiliates she was human plus. To her defense, it wasn't all humans. It was mainly teenage humans. All humans had the tendency to shun what they weren't used to but teenage humans had it worse. Beyond that, it seemed as if they didn't even care about the world around them. Global warming, pollution, politics, it was all just a big joke to them.

Serenity started actually paying attention to what the teenagers (Who'd identified as Justin, Rayley, Marie and Lisette) were saying when Hope's Peak was brought up.

"The priest, Kassum, is a weirdo I'll tell you that. Went around talking about the end of the world for a month. Something about a traitor to humankind and sexy lingerie." Marie laughed loudly, the rest of her friends and Jamie laughing loudly too. Serenity's group, save Jamie, were all equally unnerved by the nonchalance of human beings.

"The guy ad his followers are always drawing these weird symbols too, like..." The girl pulled a pen from her purse and drew a on a napkin. When she was done she'd drawn a butchered version of a concealment spell. This was all very perplexing, why would he be teaching his followers drawn spells, or any spells in general.

"He's always wearing black and white too, he looks like he's always trapped in this old school camera. He's mono.... mono... mono..." Rayley searched for the word.

"Chrome." Serenity finished. "Monochrome." She looked at her group, her face paling.