Lord of Annihilation

Chapter 66: Gathering Together.

Hearing that voice, Lucius' begrudgingly raised his head and stared at the newly arrived students.

One was a bespectacled, blonde young woman with green eyes. She was holding her knees and panting while intaking large gulps of air. A testament of her exertions.

The other was a tall, black haired girl with blue eyes. Unlike the previous one, she showed no signs of being exhausted and was breathing evenly.

"Haa, haa, Livia how did you suddenly get so athletic?" Reyna asked while taking deep mouthfuls of air.

"You just stay in your lab too much. If you exercised regularly you will not be having this problem." Olivia replied in a gently voice.

"No time for that. Science cannot wait!" Reyna spoke in a righteous manner before lifting her head to scan the room.

Both the girls noticed the awkward atmosphere in the cafeteria and were confused.

Reyna eyes paused on the red-haired young man standing in the center of the room with his fists clenched. His clothes were dusty and his arms were slightly bruised."

"Alex?" identifying the person, Reyna called out in a questioning tone.

Alex, who had been a world of his own all this time, recovered from his daze. Hearing his name being called out, he raised his head to look at the speaker.

"Reyna?" he too voiced out a question.

"What happened to you? Did you get in a fight?" Reyna's voice was filled with concern.

She then approached Alex, to get a closer look on his injuries.

"Who roughed you up?" Reyna spoke while studying the bruises on his arms. A slight swelling had occurred and his skin had turned purple at the point where Lucius had attacked.

Remembering his loss against Lucius, Alex was suddenly embarrassed by the concern showed by her. Moving his gaze away from Reyna to hide his shame, his gaze landed on Olivia standing next to her.

"It's you!" he sounded shocked.

Seeing his surprise, Olivia was also similarly surprised. Upon asking Lucius the other day she learnt that the name of her savior was Alex Hellwig, a student of the academy.

Till date, she had not gotten the opportunity to properly thank him for his actions. Seeing him here was a pleasant surprise.

Olivia then quickly approached Alex and performed a ninety degree bow.

"Thank you very much, for your help the other day!" she thanked him in a sincere and polite manner.

Hearing her Alex was both pleased and depressed. Both the meetings with this girl, had ended up with Alex being embarrassed.

The first time he tried to save her, only to be saved by her in return. The second time he had lost humiliatingly in a fight and looked like a loser.

'Can I not have a moment to show my coolness?' Alex inwardly thought.

He then realized the person behind both his humiliating moments was Lucius!

Realizing this fact, Alex's will to defeat Lucius burned even more intensely.

Meanwhile, Reyna who had watched this exchange, was overcome by curiosity. One was her best friend/ older sister and the other was a person she knew for a long time.

Reyna's relationship with Alex was quite good. Unlike those 'suitors' of hers, who only wanted to cozy up to her, Alex genuinely treated her like a younger sibling. He was a older brother like figure to her.

Seeing her 'older sister', thank her 'older brother', Reyna's gossipy sense was invoked.

"Hoho! What do we have here? Since when do the both of you know each other?" Reyna asked while giggling.

Hearing Reyna talk like this, Alex face reddened a bit. He wasn't sure how to explain to her.

'What do I say? Me and Olivia are 'chosen', destined to protect humanity from an unknown threat?', for the first time in his life, Alex found himself lacking with words.

Due to arrogant and flamboyant nature, Alex never really minced his words while talking to others. He wasn't very tolerant of others company, hence did not find himself in situations were he had to lie.

To sum it up, Alex sucked at lying and making excuses.

Just as he was deliberating on how to explain this to Reyna, he heard Olivia speak up in his stead.

"Two weeks back, I met with a group of random boys bullying me. Mr. Alex, helped me resolve the situation. Due to various circumstances, I wasn't able to properly thank him." Olivia spoke fluently while gesturing to Alex.

Hearing her Reyna was shocked.

"WHAT! You never told me this! Were you alright? Did they do something inappropriate to you?" Reyna immediately made her way towards Olivia.

"I'm fine. Like I said, Mr. Alex really saved me." Olivia politely said.

Meanwhile Alex was awed by her excuse.

'Not only is she very beautiful, she is also very smart. Being able to make excuses on the spot and hide the truth. As expected of a 'chosen'. ' He nodded his head.

"Why did you never tell me this?!" Reyna sounded a little resentful. She was obviously very concerned about the well being of her closest friend.

Hearing Reyna throw a tantrum, Olivia rolled her eyes and said, "Well, you would have known if you weren't so busy making that thing for Lucius."

"That's not an excuse!" Reyna replied hatefully

Suddenly hearing that familiar, not to mention hateful name, it was Alex's turn to be stunned. He immediately interrupted the banter between both the girls.

"Wait a second! You know Lucius, too?" Alex questioned towards Reyna.

"Duh! Of course I know him." she then paused for a second before announcing proudly, "We are research partners!"

"Why do you ask?" she then continued.

Alex suddenly turned serious and spoke, "You should stay away from that guy. He's dangerous."

Olivia was Reyna were both confused by his words, before Reyna questioned.

"Why do you say that?"

Pointing at the injuries on his arms, Alex spoke, "These were caused by him."

Hearing that Reyna's eyes suddenly shone with bright light.

"He's here?! Where?!" she completely ignored his warning and excitedly started looking around to find him.

Finally spotting him one of the darker corners of the cafeteria, Reyna excitedly called his name.

"LUUUUCIUSSS!!"

She then ran towards him.

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Seeing this overly excited girl spotting him and running towards him, Lucius stopped his earlier chant.

'I am one with the shadows. I am one with th-- Oh great. She found me.' he thought impassively.

There was neither disappointment nor annoyance in his face. It was simply expressionless.

Ka'lor'ah however was laughing in his mind, in a unrestrained manner.

"HAHAHAHA! To think you, who used to be the nightmare of multiple races in the universe, would be scared to meet a little girl. If those terrifying guys who were killed by you knew this, they'd probably be even more unresigned in death.'

"Shut up." Lucius coldly spoke, only to be completely ignored by her.

By now, Reyna had already made it up to him.

"You are also here!" she sounded really excited.

Lucius simply nodded his head in reply, inwardly he was cursing. 'That damn Erik. He surely manipulated our placements to send us to the same planet.'

"It's too dark here. Come, let me introduce you to Alex. I'm not sure why you guys got into a fight, but let me help you make up." Reyna continued speaking while pulling Lucius by his hands.

Lucius mentally sighed, but did not resist. 'This is my life for the next 2 months.' he thought to himself.

This entire series of events unfolded in front of the astonished gaze of the fifty or so students present.

'What is happening now?'

All of them wondered the same thing.

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The group of four then spent the next 10 minutes trying to chat. Needless to say, the atmosphere between the four of them was very awkward.

Reyna continuously tried to mend the relation between Lucius and Alex, but no progress was made.

Alex was arrogant and proud. He would not bow down to anyone, especially this hateful guy who had called everyone a 'weakling' or a 'worm', and had a twisted world view. Even if it's Reyna who was persuading him, he had no intention of forgiving this guy.

Lucius for his part, was already regretting not going back to his room. He simply stood there either nodding or shaking his head. As for apologizing? Why would he so against the plan he had just put into action.

Olivia also stood there awkwardly. She was still confused about her feeling concerning Lucius and kept evading his gaze. She also did not participate in the talks and quietly stood there, lost in her own thoughts.

Reyna was the only person, who was working hard to repair this crack in their relationship. These three people standing with her, were three of the most important people in her life. One was her only female friend and an 'elder' sister like figure, one was her 'older' brother like figure and the other was her best friend and someone she had a crush on.

Seeing the people closest to her be like this, Reyna almost wanted to cry, when suddenly a loud voice interrupted their discussions.

"Ah! Good Morning Everyone. This is your captain speaking." A hologram too form in front of all the students. A middle-aged man with an average build and looks, wearing a Alliance issued commander uniform, addressed the students.

"It seems all of you have gathered here. Welcome aboard the Voyager 16. I will be your captain for the next two months as we make our way towards the frontier planet of Deatov."

"I greet all of you exceptional men and women of notable families. It is my humble request that while you are aboard my spaceship, all of you follow my rules and instructions."

"Travelling in space is a dangerous affair, not to mention very taxing on one's mind. Please do not get into trouble or conflicts with your fellow passengers and try to get along as much as possible."

"If you have any complaints, please inform either myself, or one of the four teachers onboard."

"You are free to use all the luxury facilities onboard at any time. Please take care to maintain your health."

"We have 54 students on board, each separated into four groups. Red signifying the military students, blue signifying the command students, black signifying the intelligence and mech related students and finally white signifying the maintenance and other courses, students."

"Please get along with each other. That's it. You can go back to your rooms for now. We will be taking off shortly and jumping into warp drive." the captain made a final bow.

After relaying his instructions, the hologram turned off, resulting in the cafeteria filled with chatter of students.

"I'll be heading off now." Lucius said and walked off.

"Me too." Alex also immediately replied.

This left behind Olivia who was in a daze and Reyna who was sullen.

"I'll be going to." Olivia said absent-mindedly and walked away.

Reyna was now left alone. Tears started welling up in her eyes, as she thought to herself.

'Why can't we all just be friends. Why do we have to fight amongst ourselves.'

Reyna also started running to her room, while covering her face with her hands.

Tears continued to drop down from them.