Heroine Creation: All My Summons Are Custom Made

Back in the Academy, the morning bells rang and stopped as sunlight filled the sky and activities began.

Students returned to their classrooms expecting the voice over the speakers to announce that the next challenge for the Inter-Class Competitions has begun. Instead, every wall screen across the Academy lit at once.

They all froze, halting what they were doing and turning their faces to the screens where the crest of the Administration appeared, followed by the narrow face of Helagreem Pastor.

The little old administrator sat behind a broad desk that made him look even smaller, his dark Academy coat looking like a blanket over his narrow shoulders. He waited until the transmission had spread through every faculty building before speaking.

”Students of Awakener Supreme, you are all aware that Headmistress Danistasia, Dean Ordenance and a selected group of professors and students have temporarily left the Academy under direct order from His Majesty, King Romsgard Goldstone.”

The halls quieted further.

Helagreem continued. ”Because this departure occurred with little preparation, today’s schedule will be adjusted. The ninth Inter-Class Competition challenge planned for today will be postponed until tomorrow while the Academy reorganizes. This means lessons will resume as usual for today.”

That produced an immediate wave of whispers. A lot of students groaned because they had spent the entire night preparing for the next event.

Helagreem did not acknowledge their reactions.

”Class Group Head Instructors will assume temporary authority over their respective Class Groups. You are expected to maintain order, attendance and discipline until the Headmistress and Dean return.”

His expression hardened.

”Awakener Supreme will not become a madhouse simply because its Dean and Headmistress are absent.”

In the Summoner faculty, Arcival Egerton looked up from the stack of reports on his desk.

The Spirit Bird Summoner was already standing before Helagreem finished the sentence. Several small spectral birds resting around his office lifted their heads with him, and one flew onto his shoulder as he adjusted his coat.

”I planned to meet with my daughter today but...” he muttered. ”I suppose she can wait a few days. Come now, Paradox.”

A spectral Time Eagle followed him.

Arcival had spent years managing Summoner instructors, promotion requirements and students who thought possessing a powerful creature excused poor discipline. Acting with Dean-level authority over the entire Summoner Class Group did not intimidate him.

If anything, it simplified things.

Across the Academy, Emmaniel Nightingale closed the book in front of him.

The Head Instructor of the Enchanter Class Group was tall and slender, with pale skin, dark hair and the composed beauty that made it obvious he was part of the Nightingale family.

His Spirit Mage robes fell cleanly around him as he rose from a table crowded with books and crystal notes.

He left the office without hurrying.

Students outside saw him coming and immediately lowered their voices.

Miriam Merryside, Head Instructor of the Specialist Class Group, reacted with less ceremony.

The Wind Swordsmaster strapped her blade to her waist, pushed open her office door and walked into the Specialist halls while the air around her sleeves moved in thin currents. Several instructors stood straighter when she passed.

For the Head Instructor of the Elementalists, his reaction was much more blunt. Merlius Gandicap, a powerful Elemental Mage known for holding a record of kills in the Academy’s most dangerous Dungeon, scowled at the screen until Helagreem finished speaking.

Merlius had never hidden his opinion that Awakener Supreme’s students had been allowed too much freedom under Ordenance’s calm style of discipline. He rose from his chair with a look that promised corrections for problems students had not even committed yet.

”Good,” he said, buttoning his coat. ”Children behave better when they remember adults exist.”

Then he stepped into the corridor.

Across the Academy, students began realizing what had actually happened.

Ordenance’s authority had just been divided among four people who knew their students far better than he did.

They all knew that this was not good news for them.

The Dean usually handled Academy-wide problems from a distance. But Head Instructors? They knew names. They knew which students skipped morning lectures, which dormitories held illegal sparring sessions, who bribed others for homework and which instructors looked away when Tributes were involved.

Rules were about to become personal.

Helagreem’s voice continued through the screens.

”I will serve as Acting Headmaster until Headmistress Ardental returns. The Administration will ensure that Awakener Supreme continues operating at full capacity while those who left us carry out the task entrusted to them by the King.”

His eyes narrowed toward the camera.

”I expect every student to remember that the absence of authority is not permission for stupidity.”

The transmission ended.

For several seconds, classrooms across the Academy remained silent.

Then everyone started talking.

”We’re finished.”

A Year Three Specialist dropped his head onto his desk. ”Miriam knows my mother. She’s going to pick me out once she sets her eyes on me.”

”Yeah, you’re cooked.”

In another homeroom, an Elementalist-B student whispered, ”Merlius once gave an entire class punishment drills because someone drew fire on a bathroom wall.”

”That was you.”

”I know. That’s why I’m worried.”

A group of Summoners crowded beside one of the windows as Arcival crossed the courtyard below.

”Arcival is really strict you know.”

”He’s one of the nicer ones, but he’s not going to let us off the hook like our instructors do. Shit. Dean Ordie! Please come back soon!”

The conversation changed when one student hurried into the group from the corridor.

”By the way, did you hear?”

Several heads turned to a girl in pigtails who had just joined the group.

”A student just transferred here from Awakener Pride.”

Someone frowned. ”Awakener Pride? Isn’t that in Ebonia?”

”Yes.”

”Who transfers between Awakener Academies this late?”

”I heard it’s not just anyone,” the girl said. She lowered her voice, which only made everyone lean closer. ”It’s one of their top Class Group-S students.”

That changed the mood immediately. A boy near the window was wide-eyed. ”Group-S?”

”Yup. Good news is that she’s a Summoner.”

Now even more people listened.

”I heard she’s a Beast Tamer,” someone added. ”From one of those old Ebonian families. And they were legendary tamers.”

They all listened.

”Her entire family died in a Dungeon Gate accident.”

The group quieted slightly.

”Seriously?”

”Yeah. Wiped out.”

”That’s horrible.”

”Maybe that’s why she transferred.”

Someone leaned against the window frame. ”Fresh Academy. New kingdom. Somewhere she doesn’t have to walk past places connected to them every day.”

”That actually makes sense.”

A boy who had been listening from behind them finally asked, ”So... what’s her name?”

********

Inside the Summoner-S homeroom, the answer was already walking toward the door.

The classroom was smaller than any other senior homeroom in the faculty.

But it did not need to be any larger.

Seven students occupied the polished black desks arranged beneath tall windows overlooking the western grounds. The room itself was expensive enough to make lower-year Summoners bitter: showing where all the money and funding the school received went into.

Normally, Class Group-A was where students graduated. Anyone who graduated was seen as elite.

Class Group-S was different.

It existed for those who had already gone beyond what the Academy normally expected from a final-year Awakener.

So because the Summoner Class Group reached it less often than any other Class Group, there were fewer of them.

Just last year, there were twenty-nine of these Summoners when they were in Class Group-A, but only seven had qualified for S.

Those seven were scattered around the room now, talking about the delayed competition, the King’s departure and why several of the Academy’s strongest people had vanished overnight.

The door opened, silencing their conversation as they turned their necks to see Instructor Maxlet, their class instructor, come in.

He placed a thin folder on the desk and looked across the seven students until the last whisper died. ”Hello, everyone.”

”Professor Maxlet.”

Maxlet adjusted his glasses to the light before starting with what he had to say. ”It seems we have a new student.”

Several faces changed at once, someone even laughed.

The instructor looked toward him and the laugh stopped.

”A new student?” another asked. ”Now?”

”Yes.”

”In Class Group-S?”

”Yes.”

The students looked at one another. A girl leaned forward. ”From where?”

”Awakener Pride.”

That earned a different reaction. Out of the five Awakener Academies in all five kingdoms, the ranking had Awakener Pride at second. Sometimes they even competed with Awakener Supreme for the first position.

Professor Maxlet turned toward the open door. ”Come in.”

Footsteps sounded outside and a tall, stunning girl stepped in.

She was dark-skinned, tall enough to stand over several of the seated students and built with muscle most Beast Tamers didn’t have. Her fair was purple and glossy, gathered above her and falling behind and around her, partly away from her face while the rest reached past her shoulders.

Her eyes were gold, bright and direct.

The kind of eyes that made people feel they had already been judged before she spoke.

Her Beast Tamer gear was clearly influenced by Ebonia, her home kingdom. It was a white and deep purple fabric that crossed beneath fitted gold-edged armor, leaving enough freedom around the shoulders and legs for movement.

She wore heavy bracers over her forearms, and several small beast crests had been worked into the belt around her waist.

She stopped beside the instructor.

The room watched her.

One of the seven students straightened without realizing it. Another looked toward the others as if asking whether they were all seeing the same thing.

The instructor rested one hand on the folder. ”Please welcome your new classmate.”

The girl’s golden eyes moved across the room once. She wasn’t smiling, and she definitely didn’t look a bit nervous.

”Nimara Irande.”