Name: Project Orion

Rating: M (18 plus)

Genres: Action/Adventure/Horror/Romance/Humor (Not always in that order)

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Chapter One: Welcome to Ryu Dorm

I stared up at the school, and a low whistle escaped my lips. No point in denying it; I was impressed. The term ‘gargantuan’ was probably the most appropriate to describe just how large the place was. And its owner was obviously more than rich. Koria Academy was not only so big it dwarfed the largest Mall I had ever been to, it was decorated so heavily one had to wonder if the things had been put up just to flaunt the owner’s wealth. Fountains? Check. Gardens? Check. Really freaking big statues? Check check. There were tons of those.

My initial gaze around the area complete, I nodded and began looking around the fields. Every now and then there was a large building, and I knew those were the dorms. Mine was Ryu Dorm, and I couldn’t see it. The reason I knew which one it would be, of course, was that there was a massive golden dragon (one of those long, snaky ones) that wound around the building, acting as decoration and a ramp to the other floors. Can somebody say ‘I am so rich I can do this sort of thing?’.

Shrugging, I quietly moved forward, towards the main part of the school itself. Time for one brown haired, hazel-eyed sixteen year old boy to join a school full of geniuses. This was bound to be interesting. A chuckled escaped my lips as I continued to move. A loud bell rang, and suddenly there was a torrent of kids coming out of the doors.

“Those classes are so easy… Seriously, I wish they’d give us something harder to do!” someone said. I thought for a moment. You mean all these high-level courses here really weren’t hard? Lame!

“Hey, did you watch Mr. Norga in gym earlier? That guy is such a perv! He wouldn’t take his eyes off of my Artemis…”

“Dude. One, you’re a pervert too, and two, Artemis is mine. So’s Aril.”

“Dream on, Derek. I know she likes me.”

I rolled my eyes and shrugged. Let the lesser beings have their fun, I had other stuff to do. Slipping in past the throng of students (which wasn’t easy!), I managed to make my way into the office. True to the style of the school, it was decorated. And being the office, it had gold everywhere. That figured. The price tag for the room was around half a million, I estimated. Of course, that assumed everything was real, instead of some fake made to make the school appear even richer than I knew it was. The things probably were real.

“Name and purpose of visit?” the secretary inquired dryly. I looked over to her. She was a forty-something woman, with massive glasses, a few wrinkles, a suit, and hair tied up in a bun. The perfect secretary.

“Rai Aquarius.” I said after a moment’s pause. “I’m a new student, so I figured I’d come here and pick up whatever was necessary.” The secretary typed something into her computer, nodded a few times at it, grumbled, and handed me two things. One was a map of the school, showing where all the classes were. I was duly impressed when I saw that it had several floors underground and was more than able to survive a bombing raid. Why that was necessary, I didn’t know, but it made me feel a lot safer anyways. Unless they were going to drop, say, some sort of nuclear weapon. That would blow the school into tiny little radioactive woodchips and pebbles. However, nobody would waste something like that on just a school, so I wasn’t bothered all that much.

The second item was my schedule. I looked it over once, saw no problems, and headed back outside. People were clustered into groups, talking, and more than a few of them gave me odd looks. I ignored them. So black wasn’t a popular color for clothing at this high-end place… They’d get over it. Besides, I didn’t have an ounce of fashion sense, so what was I supposed to wear? I decided to casually listen in on some conversations.

“Ugh, just look at that coat! I don’t know who that guy is, but he seriously needs to learn how to dress right…”

Okay, moving on.

“John is so cute!” a girl’s voice squealed. “And he said yes when I asked him if he’d like to get together sometime!”

“You know that chick in Common, the one who’s always playing around on the computers? She fixed my laptop in seconds!”

“I thought the thing was broken.”

“Well, it was… But she really fixed it, just like that! It’s kind of creepy how she can do that kind of thing…”

“Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeer…”

I grinned to myself. Even among geniuses, there was stupidity. Whistling, I checked my map again and walked around the side of the school to my dormitory. And there it was, golden dragon and all. Ryu Dorm was a long ways from being the most richly decorated dorm, and it wasn’t even the largest. However, from what I could tell, it was probably still one of the best. There was just an aura of friendliness that radiated from the place… And the simple yet elegant decorations still made it look good.

“Wow.” I said. Just to make sure, I checked the map again, and nodded. Yup, this was definitely my new home, and I had a feeling that I was going to like the place. A smile split my face.

With that, I headed up and walked right in. Ordinarily, I would have knocked or something, but it was where I was going to be living. It was very, very quiet. The phrase ‘ghost town’ wandered around my mind for a bit before hurrying away as I heard a regular, sharp sound from another room. Curious, I headed towards the sound, hoping whoever (or whatever) it was coming from would be able to tell me which room was mine. I didn’t really want to go into anyone else’s room, and my map didn’t show the layout of the dorms, only their location.

“Hah! Hah! Hah! Hah! Hah!” my ears perked up almost visibly. After each ‘hah’, I heard the sound of something like a punching bag being hit. Rounding the corner, I saw an exercise room. A girl was practicing in the middle of it, working on a routine of solid hits against a stationary punching bag. She had white hair (think snow, not old grannies) that reached about three-quarters of the way down her back, bright golden eyes, and a slender body. Near as I could tell, she was only wearing her exercise clothes. Sweat glistened all over her body. She had obviously been at this for a while, so who was I to interrupt now?

I quietly observed her form. Her fighting one, not her physical one. It was a fairly rhythmic art, I noted, consisting of a steady stream of palm strikes, elbow strikes, and three-hit kick combos. From the ease of her movements and the fact that she was hitting the exact same spot perfectly every time, same strength and so forth, I knew she had been doing this for a very long time.

Nodding to myself, I decided not to disturb her. She would probably think I was a thief and beat the crap out of me if I just started talking. Slowly backing away from the girl, working to not make any noise, I moved until I was at the door and turned around.

“Looking for something?” the girl asked. I turned around just in time to see her foot fly towards my face. It stopped an inch from my nose. “In case you weren’t aware of it, this is an all-girls dormitory. I suggest you leave.” The girl added, her leg not shaking a bit. Yup, she had practiced a lot, all right. After a moment, I dug out my dorm assignment papers and held them up.

“Sorry to disappoint you… But, uh, I’m going to be living here too.” I said nervously, looking at her foot. The girl didn’t lower it, but she did reach around and snatch the papers. I was a bit shocked to see her body bend that far, even though I probably shouldn’t have been. The girl read the document very carefully, eyes narrowed. I decided not to back away.

“Eh, all right.” The girl said, her tone much lighter. “You’re supposed to be here. Aril should have told me we’d have someone else coming along, though…” she frowned for a moment, then lowered her foot. “Follow me, Mr. Aquarius. I’ll show you around.” She smiled. I had to admit, when she smiled, she was incredibly cute. Nodding, I followed her out into the hall. “On the left is the kitchen. We leave all the cooking to Mia, because she likes that sort of thing. Touch any of her things without permission and she will go berserk. Trust me, I learned the hard way. On our right is a set of stairs that goes down to our bath, which is basically a pool and hot tub set. I think there’s a sauna down there, too…” she shrugged.

Nodding, I peeked down the stairs and sniffed. Oh, yeah, that was the scent of water all right. Impressive… They really spared no expense at this place. Pulling my head back out of the small hallway, I followed the girl back into the main entrance.

“Where we came from is, of course, the exercise room. Just don’t break anything and I don’t care what you do in there. Unless it interferes with me.” She smiled sweetly, and a shiver ran up my spine. I immediately made a mental note to never be in that room with her. “Here on the right is the bathroom; you shouldn’t need any instructions for that. And right over here is the main entrance. That hallway down there leads to the living room. We play games in there… Many, many games… And Crystal always wins, dang her.” The girl spun around and led me up a set of stairs. “Here on the second and third floors (she indicated a ladder by the wall and the dragon ramp outside, obviously the route to the third section) are the bedrooms, which absolutely rule. Don’t go into any of them unless you are invited in or it’s your own. I suppose Aril already has one picked out for you, too, so don’t go into any of them for the moment. Any questions?”

I thought for a long moment, before nodding.

“You seemed abnormally suspicious of me earlier. Why?” I asked. The girl grimaced.

“Most of the boys here are worthless, slimy, perverted scumbags that don’t even deserve to live. It doesn’t help that the girls ranked first, second, and third in the most recent popularity poll all live in this building.” She explained. “If you start acting like one of them, it’s I beat the crap out of you now and ask questions later. Got it?” I swallowed and nodded. The girl was very capable of pulling that off.

“Okay… And what’s your name?”

“Hmm? Oh, that’s right! I forgot to introduce myself!” the girl said, sounding surprised. I immediately felt suspicious. “I’m Shri Haramin.” Okay… That was an interesting name, pronounced as it was; Sh-REE. “Well, then, Mr. Aquarius—“ she continued, interrupting my thoughts, “—I’ll be back downstairs if you need me. Which you had better not, ‘kay?” she smiled sweetly and dangerously once again before heading back down the stairs. I breathed a sigh of relief and headed outside and up the ramp.

A cool breeze blew across me as I headed up to the very top of the building. The view over the territory of the school was amazing; just one more good thing about this place. A grin flicked across my face. I liked the wind, I really did. Something about it was always just so nice, no matter how strongly it was coming at me.

Sadly, it was still just a crawling little breeze today, but that was enough to keep it the perfect temperature outside. I stayed up on the roof for another ten minutes or so before stretching my legs and heading back downstairs. I got off the ramp on the third floor this time, wanting to take a peek around that floor. And peek I did.

To be honest, it was not all that interesting. In fact, it wasn’t even in use; all of the doors’ nametags read ‘Vacant’. Chuckling to myself, I made like a monkey and clambered down the ladder before turning around to find somebody else standing there staring at me, wide-eyed.

Shri had been cute when she smiled… This girl surpassed that without even trying. Her hair was a rich, dark-red in color and made its way down to her waist and made me wonder just how much effort it took to keep it that straight. Four hours a day? Five? Well, whatever, I would probably find out soon anyways. She was still dressed in the school’s uniform, so she had probably come from class, and her eyes were green. Very green, and very wide.

“Uh, hi.” I said, smiling. “I’m Rai, Rai Aquarius, your new dormmate.” The girl stared at me for a long moment before running down the stairs faster then I would have sworn was humanly possible. Wow, was she that scared of me? Blinking, and not wanting to get off on the wrong start with anybody, I went down the stairs after her.

Her trail was obvious… She had gone to the exercise room. A voice drifted out of the place.

“What are you so worried about, Arti? Yes, he is supposed to be here! I checked his papers myself.” There was a bit of a pause before Shri’s voice continued. “She didn’t tell me either. Maybe she just forgot.” I continued to slide along the wall. “Well, he wasn’t leering a bit at me earlier, so he must be okay. And it sounds like he was trying to be polite. Or was polite; whichever. Come on, give him a chance.”

I stepped into the door of the room and coughed to get their attention. The red-haired girl immediately hid behind Shri and peeked out at me. Was I really that scary?

“Sorry to bother you, Ms. Haramin…” I began. She gave me a look that said ‘You BETTER be, mister.’, “…but is there any reason in particular she’s being so afraid of me? I swear, all I did was say hi and introduce myself.” Shri sighed, walked over, and smacked me on the head. “Ow!”

“That’s for asking a stupid question.” The girl replied. “Artemis is just scared of absolutely everybody she doesn’t know. And most of those she does, come to think of it… Especially you, though; because not only will she be seeing you every day, more likely than not, but you’re living in the same building. Just give her some time to get to know you and be unfailingly polite.” She turned around and headed back to the machine she had been working on. “Arti, just relax for now. Aril’ll be home soon, and I’m sure Rai will be introduced then.” She said Rai, not Mr. Aquarius… Interesting. “Now go on, both of you. I have training to do.” I looked at the weights she was lifting with each arm. They were over two hundred pounds each.

Nodding, I hurried back out into the main hall and, having absolutely nothing else to do, sat on the stairs to wait. Artemis moved past me, staying as far away as she could. I decided to not even look over at her, because that would probably have scared her even more. What a weird girl. In these days of females who were so outgoing and determined to be as low as possible (was it fashion or something?), that girl stuck out like a sore thumb. No wonder she was so afraid, especially if the other boy’s at this school were abnormally perverted like Shri had said they were.

I waited. After a few more minutes, there was a loud crash from the exercise room. I nearly fell down the stairs, but managed to right myself in time. Concerned, I headed back down the stairs and headed towards that room once more. When I got there, the reason for my concern was painfully obvious. One of the machines had apparently fallen over and pinned Shri to the ground. Worse, it was right across her chest, so she couldn’t lift it off of herself.

“Um… Need a little help?” I asked the girl. She looked up at me, stared for a moment, then grimaced and nodded. So… she wasn’t going to let her pride get in the way of her safety. That was definitely the right thing to do. Taking a deep breath, I knelt down, put my hands under the machine as far away from where its base was as possible, and began pulling.

I am fairly strong, I’ll admit. However, I am a long ways from some incredible superhero who can lift a thousand tons with his pinky. It was about all I could do to raise the machine an inch or so, but it was enough for Shri to worm her way out. I set the machine down, panting, and took a few deep breaths.

“Hey. Not bad.” The girl said, smiling slightly. “Most people wouldn’t be able to lift that machine at all.” I nodded absentmindedly, my mind racing. Then I remembered what I had forgotten.

“Heh heh… Yeah. Do you need any bandages or anything?” I asked. The girl took a deep breath herself, winced, and shook her head. She doesn’t?

“It’ll heal fine.” She said, stretching. “Thank you.” I shrugged. It didn’t matter all that much, in the end. Shri, to my amazement, then proceeded to lift the machine up, set it in place again, and begin her training again. I shook my head in amazement and headed out of the room.

Girls. They were all a little weird, I had to admit. What were the rest of the girls in this bizarre dormitory like?

The front door, as if answering me, opened a moment later, and a group of three more girls walked in. Leading them was a girl with rather bright yellow hair. I stared. That just wasn’t natural, no matter how you looked at it. Dyes, perhaps? That would explain it pretty well. After a moment, the girl glanced up at me.

“Shri! Artemis!” she called. Artemis hurried past me, and Shri came down the hall, toweling some sweat off herself. If she looked like that in gym, too, I was beginning to understand why she called the guys perverts. In all likelihood, they were quite normal. “Okay, everybody. This is our new dorm mate, Rai Aquarius. Yes, all the official procedures have been done – Artemis, you don’t need to tug on my sleeve, he won’t bite! – and all that.” I waved at them.

“Hello.” I said, giving them my best smile. The yellow-haired girl looked unimpressed.

“Flattery will get you nowhere.” She said, sniffing. “Now, Mia, get on dinner. Shri, what have you been doing all day? This place is a mess!” Shri glared at the girl as another girl slipped into the kitchen.

“I’m not going to bother with an answer to that.” Shri said firmly. “You should already know. And besides, it’s not a mess… It’s… It’s lived-in. No real home should be perfectly clean every moment of every day. It’s unnatural!” the yellow-haired girl tapped her foot on the ground, and Shri sighed. “Yes, ma’am…”

After a moment of dead silence, the girl looked up to me again.

“I am Aril Yelani.” She stated flatly. “I run this dorm, so my word is law.” I nodded. Something clicked in my mind.

“So you’re related to the Headmistress, then? Same last name…” I began. Aril nodded just once. “Okay. And you are?” I asked, looking at the other girl. She appeared just slightly sickly, but maybe that was just because her hair was a sort of pale violet in color. Weird hair colors were definitely in style, then. However, in contrast to her hair and unhealthily pale skin, the girl had very bright, pure violet eyes. If I was poetic, I would make a remark about those eyes being jewels in the sky or something.

“Crystal.” The girl replied. Eerie… I had just been thinking about comparing her eyes to jewels. “Crystal Piscea. How good are you at video games?” Aril smacked the girl. “What!? it’s a valid question!”

“It doesn’t matter; we all know you’ll beat him anyways…” the head of the dorm grumbled. “Scat, all of you. Unlike some people, I have work to do.” The girl who had gone into the kitchen a little while before stuck her head back out into the hall, long blue hair already tied back.

“Hey, what should I make?” the girl asked, looking at Aril. “We should have something special to welcome a new member, but I can’t decide on anything…” Aril rolled her eyes and headed into the kitchen as Crystal moved up the stairs.

That, of course, left just me and the chronically shy Artemis in the chamber. The girl took one uneasy look at me before scampering into the kitchen after Aril. I scratched the back of my head. This was, at least, getting to be a very interesting day. I wondered if it was always going to be like this. If it was, well… I would just need to deal with it.

Aril looked out at me from the kitchen a moment later and pointed up the stairs. “You’re our first resident on the third floor; first door on the right from the ladder. Go to your room, unpack, whatever. But stay there.” She said firmly. I swallowed and nodded.

Following her instructions, I headed up the stairs and proceeded to move up the ladder, wondering why I was the only one who had to go the extra distance. Well… It was probably good for my arms anyway. Emerging once more into the dark corridor, I stretched and headed into the designated room. After a moment of staring into darkness, I flipped on the light.

The room was the exact opposite of the disused corridor. Rich red wood plated the walls, an incredibly thick dark red carpet covered the floor (I felt guilty just walking on it!), and the four-poster bed was made with the same wood as the walls. The sheets, of course, were red. A thought ran through my mind right then, about Artemis coming into this room and vanishing in all the red.

I blinked a few times, then smiled. There was some black in the room… Specifically, a huge flat-screen TV mounted across from my bed. I was going to like living here, even if the people were crazy.

My bags had been set down by the wall; all two of them. Moving to the first, I opened it up and pulled out an assortment of books, games, and gadgets, which were promptly distributed on the shelves. The second bag, which was so light it almost didn’t exist, held only a picture that I put face-down on the table next to my bed. And just like that, I was done unpacking. Restricting a laugh, I walked over to the TV, looking for the remote.

This didn’t take long; the item was hung on the wall right next to it. So was something else, actually. A pair of headphones, those big, ear-covering acoustic ones. A note was taped onto them:

IF YOU ARE GOING TO WATCH TV,

THEN PUT THESE ON.

THE REST OF US DON’T NEED TO

HEAR WHATEVER IT IS YOU’RE

WATCHING. GOT IT?

BESIDES, CRYSTAL RIGGED THE THING

SO SOUND ONLY COMES THROUGH

THOSE HEADPHONES ANYWAY.

MANAGEMENT

I scratched my head, but snatched them up and stuck them on my head before turning the TV on. Sure enough, sound only came out of the headphones no matter what I did. As I had nothing else to do, I began to practice the manly art of Channel Surfing until I saw something that I actually liked.

My mind began wandering, as it was apt to do whenever I was relaxed. This place, Ryu Dormitory, seemed to be an area where I would be fairly safe. It was surrounded by the excellent defenses of the school (people were told not to ask about this), and its members seemed quite capable of defending themselves.

Well, some of them did, anyways, as an image of Artemis popped into my mind. But overall, at the moment, I was perfectly safe, and there was really no strain in my life at all. I was promptly very worried, because nothing was ever this easy.

On reflection, if I had known just what was going to happen in the very near future at that point, I probably would have done something completely different and fled with those girls to some unknown place a long, long ways away. But knowing the future has never been one of my abilities… So I suppose I can take comfort in the fact that I did the best I could back then. If only it had been enough.