The next few weeks seemed to fly by. Claire and Sophie, despite transferring from a non gifted Harmonia school were 17th and 6th in the student rankings due to their extra circulars and Sophie being student council governor since her freshman year.
They all had to take both the Standardized testing for University, which covered Math, English, science and an essay section where they all had one page to explain what makes themselves unique. They called this the STU test. It was on a scale of 1-40, with 40 being a perfect score.
Sophie and Zander both scored 40s, despite not using their phoenixes as what made them unique.
Sophie wrote about being engaged at a young age while still focusing on high end academics and living with her fiancée while maintaining her virginity.
Zander wrote about the hardship of growing up in his late parents' shadow and how he wasn't given special treatment and had to forge his own path.
Cyrus scored a 38 and Claire scored a 35, all four being the top scores from the school.
The biggest platform the gifted high schools gave was the essay platform for applications. The top 5 students graduating would receive a full scholarship to whichever university they desired. Zander always planned on giving his scholarship away. He didn't need it and didn't think life would lead him to University anyway.
Sophie and Claire were both a huge hit with the boys the first two weeks, until they found out how tied up Sophie and Zander really were. Claire and Cyrus were happy enough, but Claire had big jealousy issues, which annoyed Cyrus greatly.
"I don't know what else I have to do bro, she keeps saying I'm going to find someone better and that I'm going to graduate early like you and Sophie and she'll be stuck behind because we won't want the burden of her not having any abilities," Cyrus said to Zander during one of their lessons.
"It's a shame you don't just magically mate like phoenixes do, but Sophie and I aren't perfect. We don't agree on everything but we are always honest with each other and communicate well," Zander said.
"I just don't know what to do bro, part of me knows she's right about us not taking her along when we leave Harmonia for whatever we're going to look for," Cyrus said with his hand on his head like it was about to explode.
"Everything alright Mr. Hart?" Miss Bishop, their teacher asked.
"Headache. Best man stuff, you know every day teenager stuff," Cyrus said jokingly to which the whole class erupted in laughter and Sophie turned beat red.
"Well, eyes forward Cyrus, you can worry about that later," Miss Bishop said with a kind smile.
After class, Cyrus went and pulled out Claire's chair for her and offered to carry her books. She smiled and kissed him on the cheek.
Zander and Sophie held hands as they walked out front for their lunch, and Cyrus and Claire went to do their own thing.
"I'm going to miss this, I think," Zander said while setting up a picnic for her and Sophie.
"Me too. My parents agreed to early graduation and I can always just say I'm going to SilverCrest Central, and I think they'd be ok with that.
"Well, we will figure it out as time goes. Together," Zander said with a smile. "How are your parents doing with the wedding planning, are they sure they won't accept my help?" Zander asked.
"They want to do it, plus, it's not like we don't have a nice house, over a year for spending time together before the protection spell wears off. It'll be the Harts, the Johnsons, the Harmonys, my family and the orphans. Jackson picked Emily, one of the cute young orphans to be the ring bearer and it'll be at Solace Church, 3 PM Sunday, next weekend," Sophie said.
"Are you going to take me up on that offer for a limo ride on Saturday?" Zander asked.
"Yes, but you don't have to worry about me doing anything," Sophie said, flashing the forever bind she had placed on his left hand. That way, if they were ever walking and holding hands, if it was showing, they'd have forever intertwined.
"I wasn't worried, I'm just glad Jackson agreed to come out. He'll be joining this school next year as well, well, anyway I'll see you after school. I have my free period and I have some last minute stuff to schedule," Zander said and with a kiss, he was off.
With one week until the wedding, Zander thought to get everyone nice suits for the wedding, and he made a call to Ella and asked if would be more profitable to buy out the tailor shop and turn it into a capitol city tailor and wedding dress shop?
She ran some quotes and asked, "who would you have run it if you did buy it?"
"Thomas Franklin was the only green, er good soul there. Everyone dodged Cyrus and I and he came back from break and rushed over and apologized. Not even the manager apologized for their rudeness after I dropped 15 thousand," Zander said.
"Honestly Zander, on Main Street in the capital city of Harmonia, it'd probably be better to get yourself a suit. Aren't the bride's parents supposed to pay for the wedding anyway?"
Scratching his head, he simply shrugged and Ella laughed.
Zander had put the call in to Mr. Franklin, who was quite ecstatic about the news. They'd arrive Saturday and would be taking a limo to capitol city.
Sophie and her friends took a limo to capitol city for a wedding dress and bachelorette party.
Mr. Franklin was quite happy to see Zander. The rest of the sales people looked like they were about to burst. They already regretted not saying hi and ignoring the boys the first time, but now there were 6 boys, Simon, Timothy and Thomas came along with their father and Jackson had come along with Mr. Johnson.
Cyrus' father insisted he would pay for Cyrus and his suit, as did Mr. Grace with his three. Zander wouldn't let the Johnson's pay for Jackson's or Mr Johnson's, which no one seemed to complain about.
Mr. Franklin thanked Zander and told him he had given him the largest commission he'd ever received, and that he was interested in owning his own shop. Zander gave him a business card and said contact me in a month or so and we can have a meeting. Write a proposal and what you'd do with the business etc.
Meanwhile, Sophie was being treated as a queen as she brought some of her previous high school friends, Claire, Mrs Johnson, Mrs Hart, and Ella came along, as he had finally introduced his financial advisor to her.
She thought Zander was monitoring a budget, to which he laughed and said, "my parents would want her there and she's great. I think you two get along well."
Sophie agreed and after two hours, and several dresses, she had finally walked out that made everyone in the shop take a breath. She was truly beautiful and with the makeup Ella helped her out with, and the dress, which wasn't too poofy, but very ornate, and with her now 5'10 height, everything just fit perfectly.
"So this is the one," Sophie asked, with her face bright red.
Even some of the customers in the store told her how beautiful she looked and whomever the lucky guy was would sure to love it.
They then picked out bridesmaids dresses, to which Sophie only wanted four, Claire, Ella, Stacey, one of her longtime childhood friends and Megan, who helped her through her freshman year a lot and remained close.
They went with pink to match Sophie's eyes, and the woman who had taken care of them asked who the young lady would be marrying.
"Zander Elrod," she said in a very quiet voice, to which she gasped and said, "you must be truly, truly special to have the heart of the world's most generous family."
"Thank you," Sophie stated and after that the girls went on a shopping spree and Sophie took everyone out to dinner.
Zander and the gang had eaten dinner, went to one of the four nations matches, which was a great surprise to the Grace boys and Mr. Grace was quite thankful, as his boys had never been to a match.
They were in the 100 level VIP seating, in the center, high enough to see everything.
After Harmonia beat SilverCrest, Zander treated Jackson, Simon, Timothy and Thomas to jerseys of their favorite players.
They went off to dinner then headed back home.
Zander walked into his house, went and grabbed the ring for the wedding and as he did, an unlocking mechanism was heard. Now, where the table was, a winding staircase led downstairs.
Zander safely put the ring in his pocket and walked down about three flights of circling stairs.
At the bottom, he stood in amazement, as the far wall was an entire, detailed map of Earth with green, yellow, red and black zones.
On the other wall, there was a sign that read,
"Zander, if you are here, congratulations on your big day. Here is a list of all known aura colors, per Tej. Love, Leo"
Ping! "System has processed the map and has made a copy in your inventory to bring up at any time. Colors for auras as follows: Blue, animals, Gold, members of solace, phoenixes, or truly great people, green, good and/or great people, yellow, decent people, orange, forbidden who have turned on Theo, violet, murderers, thieves, etc, black: souls beyond forgiveness, black with purple: Theo, red and black, forbidden beings loyal to Theo."
Zander was shocked. He then noticed the floor was softer, like an arena mat and the walls on the other two sides were padded.
Zander clicked a button on the wall and the walls with the map and colors changed to padded walls, matching the gold and white color scheme in the room.
Using his forever bind, he tested the communication to Sophie, "I hope you're having fun, when you get home I'm in the secret room, but I might be asleep. Love you have fun!"
Sophie could hear it loud and clear and a jolt of excitement rushed through her body.
"Zander, it really works! I just have to think about talking to you and think about what I want to say. Wow! I love you too!"
After about two hours of studying the map, he made a mental note and to his surprise, his system marked it with the best route to get there and all notes his parents had on it.
"Location: Haven, the Hidden City. No transportation allowed in or out. No teleporting within 10 miles of Haven. A barrier will kick you out [unpleasant] must present your family name and your home in Haven will be shown to you. List of forbiddens met at Haven with no bonds to Theo: Werewolves, Minotaurs, Chimera, Vampires, Golems. Failed creations: demons, hellhounds and hydras," the system informed Zander.
"Well, this is certainly interesting," Sophie had walked in, looking just as tired as Zander.
"Yes, yes indeed. I suppose if phoenixes exist in you and I, why couldn't other types of creatures exist? I'm surprised some have changed. I wonder how they got away from Theo?" Zander asked.
"Maybe over time the bonds or binds Theo made weren't given to the newborns or he couldn't keep up with bonding everyone so new life just made their own choices," Sophie said with a smile.
"You're right but did you have a good day?" Zander asked while picking Sophie up and walking up the spiral stairs, to where the original table was there with an indentation with two Phoenix feathers.
"I did, and it was good to see Stacey and Megan. I'm not sure Claire is gonna be able to make it very long with Cyrus, she spent the last hour complaining to me about how she's a burden and we're special and she's not. I just told her, 'if you trust Cyrus, why are you worried' and she got defensive."
Zander partially transformed his arm, plucked two feathers and put them in the slots, to which an error message appeared. Sophie transformed very small wings, which impressed Zander, as she hadn't torn any clothes, and when she put her feather there, the locking mechanism sounded and the feathers disappeared. The table locked in place, hiding the secret staircase.
"That was amazing, after our wedding and honeymoon we should probably start researching this Phoenix stuff," Zander said, picking Sophie back up.
They got back to bed, showered, brushed their teeth and prayed and fell asleep instantly.