"I'm afraid I'll be a bit useless surrounded by water." Fiona confessed. "Downside of being an elemental." It was true, too- she could barely swim to save her life, and the only reason she'd learned was because her cousins had pulled her into the small lake (or large pond, whatever) on their grandparent's property. Now she tried to avoid bodies of water larger than her bathtub, but it was the only way into the woods.

[Sorry for not being on in a while.]

Having already found the bathroom on his way to the dorms, he now didn't need to avoid seeing or thinking about the lake. The boys' tower was in sight when he noticed something familiar. 'Wait a minute..'

He slapped his face with his palm. All this time he had been looking for his dorm it was right next to where he met Ms. Tensaki. He'd just gone around in a stupid circle! Or square, since the castle wasn't round but whatever..

Before he could start mentally kicking himself something in the lake's direction ahead caught the juvenile's attention. Was that.. a Dragon?

The werewolf's plans for a little rest and relaxation in his room were now replaced by curiosity. His feet started to move but a gaggle of girls began to surround him again.

"Ohh, he's just as cute as the other guy just now!" "I know~" "Hey, hey, do you have a girlfriend?" "Wanna come over to my room tonight?" "Shh, don't be so bold!"

Breaking free, Sena ran at full speed. He caught a whiff of a familiar scent and chuckled.

'Of course it would be her,' he thought as his cousin came into view. She was with the sleepy-looking girl from before and a bunch of other people. 'Always finding new friends and always finding new ways to get in to trouble.'

He greeted Dole with a typical tackle, this time in his wolf form. The cuteness factor might save him from a painful punch.

"Thanks." said the vampire.

"Well now that, that is settled. Shall we proceed to High Maze?"

As Legato was saying this, Dole could have sworn she heard a knock on the door but forgot all about it after seeing Caden run after the Sentinel who had just left.

"Ah-Hey wait!" said the orange haired girl as she ran right after them.

Allen quickly covered his face with the scarf and pulled down his sunglasses before hurrying on after them. He noticed a blue haired girl outside the door but thought she was only passing by. He ran with the group outside but stayed under the comforting shade of witch's cloud as much as he could.

They stopped by the lake and watched the eccentric white-haired demon change into a dragon. After Caden asked "Who wants to do some extermination now?", Dole was surprised when a silver haired girl seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

"I'll take care of it!" she declared. The girl introduced herself as Ice.

After Amy stated her bright idea, Dole introduced herself to the water elf.

"Hello Ice, I'm Dole." the werewolf held out her hand for the elf to shake. "So you're a water elf, huh? You'll probably be able to fight the creatures of the lake better than I can." Dole said with a smile.

Allen quietly listened to his companions conversations, pulling his hood down a little more over his shades. He watched as another girl approached their loud group and asked the sorceress above them why she was on a cloud. A few minutes later, he saw what seemed like a gold speckled, black wolf tackle his werewolf friend.

"Oooch! Hey!" exclaimed Dole, barely keeping herself from falling into the water nearby. "Oh, it's you Sena." After putting her merry cousin down, the girl looked down at her soggy shoes. "Aww, you got my heels wet."

Amy said 'we could freeze them.'

Ice replied 'I don't have to fight or freeze them. All I have to do is talk with them or I could make a Ice bridge' Ice turned to dole in time to see a dog no a werewolf almost knock her in the water. Ice said 'are you ok dole, here let me help you up.'

"Thanks Ice." she said as she grabbed the water elf's hand to get herself back on land. "Oh well, I'm sure my shoes would have gotten wet anyway since we'd be fighting lake creatures."
She hopped onto the dragon's back [if we weren't already on it] and waited for anybody else on land to get on. Dole looked at the back of Legato's scaly [is he a scaly dragon?] dragon neck and wondered if she might be able to do transformations like this if she became a Sentinel.

'I think I'll stay like this for now,' Sena thought, following Dole onto the Dragon's back.

The only downside to transforming to his wolf form was that he loses his clothes. So really.. the werewolf had no choice but to wait until he was in the privacy of his own dorm room. On the other hand, only other werewolves would be able to understand what he's saying. Well, not all the time since each pack has a different dialect.

"'Wynnnnnn. What's going on?" he asked his cousin.

[Sorry it's not a great one.]

"We're going exploring before the opening feast." replied Dole, turning to face her cousin. She understood what her cousin was saying even though it sounded as though the wolf just whined. The orange haired teen wondered for a second why her cousin didn't change back to human form but then remembered that he wouldn't have his clothes on. She forced back a laugh and continued, "Want to come along? That is if it's okay with Caden and Legato."
She looked at the two leaders and then at the seven others nearby. There were her friends, Allen and Fee, then her room mates, Caden and Amy, then the two newcomers, Ice and a pink?/purple? haired girl who smelled like a wolf, then her cousin, Sena, and finally the Sentinel, Legato.

[I didn't miss anyone right?]

"We're not planning a war, Lee." Fiona laughed. 'At least, I don't think so.' "We're just going into the forest to explore a little before the opening feast. Give us something to do, ya know?" At this point, she was so past caring about any rules they could've been breaking. This forest had terrified her last year, when she was so out of control of her powers- now she couldn't wait to go into it. "We should get going, before some teacher sees us and tells us to go back to campus."

Glancing out of his window, Darrien noticed a rather large gathering of students around the lake, spotting Fiona's dark black hair shining blue in the sun among them. He set his game down, getting up for a better look. 'Well, well... planning a trip into the forest, are we?' He grinned. "Ooh, I could have fun with this!" He chuckled before leaving his room.

[[Fudge! That is alot of progress! O__O]]

Caden and Legato watched in stupor as new students came from out of nowhere and gathered to the lakefront. The light-haired elf girl whom claimed that she was Ice, introduced herself as a elven specialist in water and elaborated further into how she could talk to them.

Caden and the dragon Legato, both smiled at each other in mirth at the slight naivety that the elf displayed. To dispel the idea, Caden went to Ice, "Hello Ice, I'm Caden and this is my friend Legato a Sentinel. Are you new? Because the only creatures that the creatures in Lake Mesa are afraid of are the Echo Ghouls and the Screechers in High Maze that often come here during the Summer to feed on them. So I don't think they'll listen to you, even if you tried." Pushing the Elven girl onto Legato's scaly body Caden continued, "Besides at least we'll have some food offering to give to the Echo Ghouls during the Welcome Feast."

Hearing a whine, Caden turned to see Dole cradling [[I think she was?]] a wolf in her arms as well as hearing Dole statment about comming along. "We actually don't mind really, Legato and I kind of want to do this for awhile and the more the merrier as the saying goes."

Legato turning his now elongated draconic head towards the the newcomer, he smiled a rather dangerously looking smile showing his fangs, "Well you could say that it is a war considering that the creatures here are quite...territorial amongst people unless Echo Ghouls are about" Using his tail he nudged the girl to hop on, "Unless you have a death wish, I suggest staying under the mane whilst the others will be figthing."

Turning to the fire elemental Legato was still smiling but it now held a rather psychotic connotation, "Don't worry, since I'm a Sentinel, I've been given certain responsibilites to watch over the school. One of them is to look after the students when attending High Maze Forest."

"Okay, so who is going to help me fend off the creatures?" Caden asked the quite large group of students.

-------------------------------

Facing the music teacher, Ampere greeted Ms Tensaki once again. "Ah, good day Ms. Tensaki. I see that you and Trill are getting along. That's good, he really needs to open up to more people." Ampere giggled a bit, quite happy at the prospect that her friend would be making a few more friends that just her and some of the students.

"I do not! Stop assuming things Ami!" Trill rebuked his face now red as a ripe tomato as his human friend continued to giggle her little head off. "Oh Ms. Tensaki, um...thank you for the sheets."

Giggle. "I told you! Stop assuming things!" Trill exclaimed, as he took the pile of sheets and place them near his cello.

"But it is so sweet that you are finally opening up." Ampere smiled widley as she sidestepped towards the door and out of her friend's lunge. "I'll be taking my leave now. I feel that one of my Sentinels is going to do something rash once again. Hopefully Cadence is with him." Facing towards Ms. Tensaki she whispered, "It'll take some time but if you persist he'll grow to like you." A little giggle was heard before Ampere went off into the hallway and headed towards the lakefront.

"I don't think I'll be able to help much. Not in the daytime at least. I'll just try not to get in your way." replied Allen as he jumped onto the water lung dragon's back. He adjusted his gloves and scarf so it would not fall off easily if anything should happen to him.

"I'm up for it." said Dole, raising her hand. The 16 year old thought it would be a good time to test her swordsmanship skills but only realized a second later that she had left her gear back at the dorm. 'Oh well, hand to hand combat it is' she thought to herself with a grin. She ruffled the fur on her cousin's head and turned to Fee. "Ready to fry some baddies, Fee?"

"Alrighty, maybe a war is too extreme, but this is breaking the rules, isn't it?" She said, obviously lost in the whole conversation. She herself really never thought silly rules were needed, such as not being able to travel into the forest. But if there was a rule, it could have been for a good reason.

A total look of shock came over her face, then lightened up a bit to laughter. "Fry? I do hope that's not the case." She said, giggling a little. It sounded like calm angelic hiccups though, if you can imagine something like that. "You say you're going down into the woodsies*?" She asked, her laughing stopped and her face a bit more excited. "I wanna go too! I don' get the change to do that a lot back where I used to live. But you guy's are gonna hafta sneak and hurt some people, huh?" She said, a little disappointed toward the end.

((*Woodsies = forrest))

[[One question before I start posting as Caden and Legato. How the heck did Ice got into Legato's tummy? O_o I don't remember writing Legato ate Ice... O_o"]]

"No you didn't interrupt anything, it's just Ami's usual teasing." [/B]Trill replied exasperately, his lightly scaled hand covering his blushing face, trying to make the crimson die down from from his face.

Once the crimson has died down as well as the heat of his blush, Trill let go of his face to see Ms. Tensaki facing the door as well as asking the bold statement. This allowed him to smiled a bit, since Trill could see that the music teacher was quite nervous.

"I would love to. I think I see a point in Ami's statement. Maybe, I should start opening up more."

--------------------------------------------------

Heading towards Lake Mesa, Ampere found a large group of students surrounding a albino dragon. Recognising some of the students as well as seeing some new faces Ampere was rather thrilled to see the (assuming) group of friends gathering together. Smiling wider, when she saw her rather psychotic, eccentric but dependable Sentinel Legato she stepped towards the group.

"I see that we are all heading somewhere...May I ask where?" Ampere said with a knowing smile. Ampere already knew that they were heading to High Maze Forest for some exploration, very much like some of the older students before them, but she waned to know why they did so.

[Maybe she meant that she had swam up from under his belly or something like that?]

Allen was thankful that he had his scarf covering his face. After seeing the object of his adoration appear, he could swear his usually pale face had turned red as a packet of blood. The teenage vampire was also thankful for his sunglasses. It helped hide the fact that he could not remove his eyes from her lovely smiling face. She was so independent and so sweet. He was very happy with himself for taking up Ami's art class this year.

Dole nearly jumped out of her skin after seeing the headmistress walk towards them. She held back the urge to run, a conditioned response she picked up from her previous year at Lucid. Though she had been naive at first and often believed that asking a teacher for help if they got into trouble while 'forgetting' the school rules was a good idea, she soon learned from Fee and Allen that it was best to quietly slip away from the scene. 'Are we in trouble?' she wondered to herself. They hadn't done anything wrong....yet....

[Ice did not get eaten she just was pushed in to the body of legato around the mid section]

Ice saw a teacher coming so she started to bend down and start skipping rocks across the lake. when the teacher said "I see that we are all heading somewhere...May I ask where?" she figured to let legato and caden answer the teacher. bending down she looked and saw dole obviously debating about some thing in her head.