When Green stepped onto the bus, a sharp chill slithered down his spine, like icy fingers brushing against his nerves. The interior was filled with the chatter of his fellow first-years, nearly filling the rows of worn leather seats. He scanned the crowd, expecting oddities to match his own, but most looked startlingly ordinary—plain faces, muted clothes, nothing to hint at their rejection. Yet his green eyes caught something more: two figures stood out, wreathed in the strange auras only he could see. One, a boy near the front, shimmered with a faint yellow glow, soft as candlelight flickering in a draft. The other, a girl midway back, pulsed with a mid-red hue, steady and warm like embers in a dying fire.
"What was I thinking?" he muttered to himself, shaking his head. "Did I expect a bus full of green-haired freaks like me? Don't be an idiot. This is a school for social rejects, not a circus of anomalies." Chiding himself, he shuffled to the back, clutching his small black bag—a battered thing patched with mismatched thread—and sank into an empty seat by the window. He dropped the bag onto his lap, its weight a quiet comfort against his thighs.
Through the glass, he gazed at the orphanage, its looming bulk etched against the gray sky. The building rose like a fortress, red brick walls weathered but sturdy, stacked high with wide columns that propped up a slanted roof. Long stone steps stretched from the ground to the massive double doors, their dark wood scarred from years of comings and goings. It mimicked a federal courthouse more than a home for the unwanted, its grandeur a cruel joke. Though maintained well enough to mask its age—over fifty years old, yet gleaming as if newer—Green saw only a prison. "Finally," he thought, "I'm leaving this hellhole, and I'll never come back. Never!" No regret tugged at him; instead, a grin crept across his face, sharp and unapologetic. Wilhelm Stubbe's was a boarding school, a three-year fortress where students stayed unless granted rare leave. There, he might carve out a normal life—if only they'd see past his strangeness.
"Hi there," a voice chirped, snapping him from his reverie. Green twisted in his seat to find a boy behind him—blonde, Caucasian, roughly his height, with a frame lean but solid. His blue eyes sparkled with an ease Green couldn't fathom.
Words lodged in Green's throat, a lump of shock and disbelief. No one had ever spoken to him first, not with his green hair and unsettling stare. The boy—Ryan, he'd soon learn—noticed the hesitation and thrust out a hand, a warm smile breaking across his freckled face. "I'm Ryan."
Green stared at the offered hand, fingers trembling slightly, calluses rough from some unknown toil. A handshake? For him? He'd never imagined such a simple, human gesture aimed his way. His own hand twitched, rising slowly, when a red-haired girl beside Ryan yanked his arm back. "He's such a rude guy, Ryan," she huffed, her voice edged with disdain. "Just let him be."
Ryan's hand didn't return, but his smile held, unshaken. Green turned forward, brow furrowing. "What was that about?" he wondered, the moment souring in his chest. Outside, the two dorm masters lingered near the steps, their heads tilted toward the bus. The fat one's round face glistened with sweat, while the lanky one's mustache twitched as he murmured.
The engine growled to life, a soft shudder rippling through the floor, and the bus glided away, tires crunching gravel. Green's eyes narrowed, tracking the men as they shrank into specks, then vanished. He exhaled, tension bleeding from his shoulders, and settled into his seat. Excitement churned in his gut—high school, a new world, beckoned.
"Finally, he's out of our hair," the fat dorm master said, his voice a low rumble as he wiped his brow with a meaty hand.
"Yes… yes indeed," the lanky one replied, nodding. "What a little devil he was."
"Those weird eyes of his give me nightmares. A scary child," the fat man added, shuddering so his bulk jiggled like a sack of pudding.
"No wonder his parents ditched him. Who'd want that burden? I pity them," the lanky one sneered.
"Ha ha ha!" the fat man bellowed, laughter shaking his frame. "The ones I pity are at that school. They'll lose their minds dealing with him."
"Quite unfortunate," the lanky man mused, twirling his mustache with a bony finger as the bus faded into the horizon.
***
OBSIDIAN CITY, Western Federation.
Wilhelm Stubbe's High School for the Social Rejects
After nearly five hours on the road, the bus groaned to a stop, its frame creaking from picking up stragglers across the Federation. Green pressed his face to the window, jaw dropping as Wilhelm Stubbe's High School came into view. Towers of sleek black stone spiraled upward, their peaks glinting like obsidian blades under the late afternoon sun. Arched windows glowed with warm light, and ivy—dark and thick—clung to the walls, weaving patterns that shifted in the breeze. "Why does a school for rejects look like a king's palace?" he thought. "Regular high schools get crumbling bricks, but this? Wilhelm Stubbe must swim in gold."
The bus rolled toward a wrought-iron gate, its bars twisted into jagged, claw-like shapes. The driver waved a meaty hand at the security guard—a grizzled man in a gray uniform, cap pulled low—and the gate creaked open. The ride from there to the auditorium stretched ten minutes, the grounds sprawling wide with manicured lawns, stone paths, and clusters of trees heavy with crimson leaves. Green's eyes darted, drinking it all in.
They stopped at the auditorium, a colossal circular building that loomed like a titan's crown. Its walls curved smooth and white, unbroken save for massive doors of polished steel. The students spilled out, directed inside for orientation before dorm assignments. Green stepped into the vast space, breath catching at its scale—five thousand seats fanned out in rising tiers, encircling a central stage of dark wood. The air smelled of wax and faint incense, the floor gleaming spotless, reflecting the chandeliers overhead. Their crystals dangled like frozen rain, scattering light in prismed shards. Green's head spun, awe threatening to burst his skull.
"This place," he thought, "it's too much. Too perfect."
The seats, upholstered in deep blue velvet, beckoned as he shuffled toward one, still clutching his bag, ready to step into whatever this strange new life would bring.