Shiro managed to pull Flint out onto the main campus. Flint was so angry, his hands started to smoke.
They came to a fork in the road that diverged into four different paths. One led to a big bustling town; the sign on that path said that it was Rosethorne town. It was where the faculty and staff lived. It had everything that a town needed. Stores, dwellings, restaurants and even a movie theater.
The second path led to Deck Town. This was where most of the student housing was. Large apartment-like dwellings and slightly apart from these were four mansion-like buildings that were adorned with suits from a deck of cards. These four mansions are for the kings and queens of the school.
The third road leads to the educational buildings. This housed the different classrooms, lecture halls and the professors' offices. In that direction as well but further past was a giant sports like arena. It was where the students would train their physical powers. This was also where the duels were held. A way for students to show off or settle arguments.
The fourth path was dilapidated. It turned from broken pavement to more of a dirt path that curved behind the mountain that was the backdrop to the academic center and arena. The mountain divided the settled area from the forested area. The mountain was actually a dormant volcano, but it had not erupted for about a hundred or so years.
The last buffer between civilization and the wild area of the island was Jokertown. It was four duplex-like buildings around a small courtyard. Behind the two houses on the north, were natural hot springs. The south side of the town was surrounded by a deep, dense temperate forest.
Flint stopped at the fork in the road. "Which way to Jokertown?," he asked Shiro. Shiro pointed down the dilapidated path. Flint took off his bag and handed it to her along with his school jacket. He took off down the road running. Once he hit the dirt path, he began to morph.
Flint felt his muscles tense and stretch. He felt the itch on his skin as black fur sprouted from it. His bones and joints changed mid stride, but his speed did not falter. He leaned his upper body down until he was on all fours. By the time his hands should have touched the ground, they were paws. His claws digging up dirt with each stride. Flint kept running down the path until he reached the houses. He veered towards the forest and began attacking a tree to take out his frustration.
Soon the tree was destroyed. Flint, still in wolf form, stood there, panting, deep growls sounded from his chest. He had started to calm down enough that he started to change back into a more human form. A tear ran down his cheek, his stomach on fire with anger and frustration. Shiro and Catherine had finally made it to the outskirts of Jokertown. Shiro seemed unfazed by this outburst, Catherine, however, ran to Flint's side.
"Oh no, are you okay?," she asked. Upon hearing another person's voice Flint screamed and started punching another tree, taking chunks out of it. Catherine started to reach out for him to stop, but Shiro put a hand on her shoulder.
"Don't, he'll be okay. Just let him do his thing." she said, pulling out her phone. Catherine looked between her and Flint. His fist were bleeding, chunks of bark and wood flying all around him. Sweat was dripping off his black hair. With each punch, Flint became more and more human, losing his wolf characteristics.
"Come on, I need your help with something.," Shiro said, pulling Catherine towards one of the houses. Shiro put the burgundy lollipop in her mouth again and was frantically typing away on her phone. Catherine followed her, but kept looking back at Flint. Through his torn up clothes she could see wounds and scars. The white of his shirt was starting to stain with fresh blood red. She was worried about him, but she figured that if his friend was not worried, it would all be okay.
Flint kept hitting the tree until it fell. Flint wiped the sweat from his face making his raw bleeding knuckles sting. He sat down on one of the jagged logs and put his head in his hands. He rocked back and forth as tears streamed down his face. His hands were shaking in his hair from the adrenaline in his veins, and the anger made his vision blur. He was feeling overwhelmed with everything that was going on.
After a while Flint pulled his head out of his hands and assessed his wounds. His most recent wounds from back home had reopened and his knuckles were starting to hurt now that the adrenaline started to wear off. Flint opened his right hand and a small blue flame appeared in it. He touched it to the knuckles on his left hand, but nothing happened. Flint sighed, throwing his head back in frustration. From what Flint knew of his powers, his blue flames could heal, but it never worked on him. He wished he could ask someone about this but he never met anyone with this type of power before, not even his brother had this blue flame.
After a while longer of sitting Flint stood up and felt shaky on his feet. He wobbled towards the first-year Joker house. He sighed making a mental note to apologize to Shiro and Catherine later. For now he needed to figure out what to do about his uniform and his wounds. Flint turned the knob opening the door; he immediately got assaulted with the sound of a FPS game.
Shiro hit pause on her controller and looked up. The theme to Grand Crime Lord 5 hummed from the giant curved TV.
"Welcome back little wolf." she said from the couch that she was sitting on. Flint looked around confused.
"Wait, this was supposed to be unfurnished." he said looking at the fully furnished living room and dining room. Catherine immediately ran up to him and grabbed his arm.
"Sit down! I need to get you cleaned up." She pushed him onto a chair. Flint hissed as his back hit the chair. Catherine's eyes widened. "Did you hurt your back too?," she said and walked behind him.
"Take your shirt off!," she demanded looking at the blood that bloomed on his white shirt.
"What no!," Flint protested, "It's fine they are older wounds, I'm fine." he said trying to stand up.
Catherine shoved him back onto the chair. "No, sit, you need to heal." she said, lifting up his shirt. Flint tried to fight, but suddenly vines were holding him down. Catherine grabbed a gourd shaped bottle from the table and started to pour it on the open wounds. Flint hissed in pain, blinding white pain shot into his brain. Suddenly the lights were too bright, his ears rang.
"What the hell is that?," he asked, continuing to fight the vines. Catherine dabbed at his back and frowned.
"Stay still," she demanded, pulling out a sewing kit and shoving a wooden stick into his mouth.
"Bite down on this." She turned to a candle on the table and held the needle over the flame. She unspooled some sinew using some vines then got to work stitching him up. Flint kept fighting but eventually gave up and sat there trying to breath through the pain. He could feel himself detach from his body, the way he always did when things became too much for him to handle. He didn't make a noise as Catherine worked. She put leaf bandages over the freshly stitched wounds on his back once she was done sewing up each wound, then moved onto his hands.
Flint looked away from her embarrassed. Catherine brows were furrowed and her tongue was sticking out. She was concentrating on cleaning Flint's knuckles, carefully removing splinters, bark and moss from his open wounds. She put more leaf bandages on his knuckles with a type of salve that she scooped out of an unlabeled jar.
Flint didn't want to be rude and wanted to thank her, but he felt the words die in his throat. He hated when this happened to him. Why couldn't he just talk like everyone else?
Shiro had put down her controller and walked to where they were sitting at the table and looked at the mess around them. She grabbed another dark red lollipop from her pocket and popped it in her mouth.
"Thanks for stitching him up." Shiro said typing on her phone again. "He thanks you too." She put a hand on his head.
Catherine looked at Flint "Well I can't let him bleed out.," she said "Are you okay?," she asked him. Flint just shrunk into himself and looked down. He nodded, but he could still not make words come out of his mouth.
Shiro frowned, "Just give him time." she said, turning to go back to the living room. "Please clean up the mess and the blood." she said as she sat down again. Flint got up to help clean up the mess, after all this entire mess was because of him.
After a few minutes of recovering Flint turned towards Catherine. "Thank you." he said, spraying down the table then wiping it down with a rag. His voice sounded small to his own ears, but this was all he could manage at this time.
Catherine smiled at him feeling relieved that Flint was talking to her again. She reached out to touch his arm, but Flint pulled away from her touch. Flint was looking at his knuckles and flexing his fingers. His messy hair was sticking to his forehead with sweat and blood, Catherine could see older scars criss-cross across his body from where the torn shirt exposed his skin.
Flint finished wiping down the table then groaned, the pain hitting him now that the adrenaline had fully worn off. He walked to where his back pack was on the island that separated the kitchen from the dining room. "So what's with all this furniture?," he asked, digging in his bag and pulling out some clothes and an old towel.
"I called in a favour." Shiro said not looking up from her game. "Catherine helped me with setting everything up."
Flint nodded. "So you're moving into Jokertown or something?" He turned to look at Shiro. Catherine had walked to the couch and sat down as well, she had a healer's course text book with her.
Shiro shrugged, "I prefer the quiet, it's all party dorms over there." She didn't look up from her game.
Flint nodded "I'll take the next door dorm then. Isn't it divided by gender?" Shiro shrugged, "Oh come on, don't you want to be one of the girls?" she joked. The three talked and joked around for a while. Even though this was all new to Flint he was starting to feel more comfortable. Talking to Shiro was like talking to an old friend. Catherine wasn't bad company either.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Feilon looked at his phone that kept vibrating. They were text messages from Shiro, He furrowed his brow as he read the frantic texts from her. With each new message he read the more concerned he got.
'Hey teach Flint is kind of going haywire.'
'Teach ima need one of those shakes'
'Teach wolf boy is straight up not having a good time and neither am i'
'Teach we need a pro healer over here'
Then she sent him a picture of Flint. He was facing away from the camera his shirt was tattered and soaked in blood. A rainbow elf girl was holding him down with some vines and pouring something on his back.
'I'm running out of pops; I really need a shake please.'
Feilon put his face in his palm. Why hadn't he looked at his phone earlier? He hoped he wasn't too late. He ran out the door as the ceremony was finishing up. He was lucky his office was the closest one to the welcome center. He burst into his office and grabbed a black back pack. Inside was a jar full of a red powder, a shaker bottle and more red lollipops. He ran out and flew towards Jokertown. From the air he saw fresh paw tracks on the ground. He noticed two downed trees on the edge of the woods as well.
"Hey teach," Shiro's voice called out to him. She was waiting for him outside the first house. Feilon landed in front of her and looked her over. No blood on her, good.
"What happened leanbh? Is everyone okay?" He asked her. Shiro had her arms crossed and was leaning against a tree. Feilon looked behind her, studying the fallen trees. He saw that there were claw marks on one of the stumps. The logs were jagged and there were blood splatters on the second one. In the mud there was a mixture of wolf prints and a human's foot print.
"Yeah, I just couldn't breathe for about an hour and a half." She sounded upset.
Feilon handed her the bag "I'm really sorry it took me a while, I'm just glad you guys are okay." he said. Shiro took the bag then proceeded to open it and make her drink mixture. Feilon looked at her and leaned against a tree.
"What happened here?" Feilon said, studying the jagged edges of one of the logs.
Shiro shrugged, "little wolf Flint went full wolf." Once she was satisfied with the shake she chugged it down and started to make another one. Feilon looked at her confused.
"What do you mean little wolf? Are you talking about the first year joker?" Feilon was confused, there was nothing in Flint's file that said that he was a shapeshifter of any kind.
Shiro smiled at him, "Oh, you're going to have a fun year Teach." she said, drinking her second shake.
Feilon sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Shiro, what do you know about this boy?"
"Test him again, but don't make it obvious." She said "honestly, he's a good kid.You might see a lot of yourself in him though." She finished her second shake and stuffed the shaker bottle back into the bag.
Feilon looked at the picture that Shiro sent him, and frowned. What's going on with this kid?
"Oh, and keep extra uniforms on hand." She pointed towards the trees "He has meltdowns when he's overwhelmed." she handed him the back pack. "Thanks, teacher, you're the best."
"Wait! I should see if everyone is okay!" he followed her "Where are the others?"
Shiro looked back at him "Catherine went back to her dorm, although I think that she might hang here more after that stunt," she meant the incident with Jack at the ceremony "and Flint went to go take a bath." She pointed at the hot springs behind the houses."
Feilon sighed "Alright I'll see them in the morning at team introduction anyway." he said. "Get some rest, leanbh." He said as he shot up into the air. "And keep me posted if anything else happens." He said flying away. Feilon was not too worried, he knew that Shiro was capable of taking care of things. He was, however, concerned about this Flint kid. He needed to talk to Takhi, if one brother was hiding something there was a good chance the other was too.