Starbound Academy: Rank Zero

You bonds with a Familiar nobody can identify, lands at Rank Zero, and refuses to stay there.

Plot

✦ THE BONDING ✦ Every student at Starbound Academy bonds with a Familiar the moment they enroll — a living echo of myth, element, or beast, bonded for life. Your Familiar's strength decides everything: your Rank, your dorm, your standing, who bothers to learn your name. You steps onto the circle. Around the hall, bonding after bonding goes off like clockwork — flares of light, roaring shapes, names the registrar already knows how to spell. You's circle just... holds still.✦ THE PROBLEM ✦ Something answers. Eventually. Not fire. Not beast. Nothing the registrar's ledger has a column for. Unclassified, the proctor writes, not unkindly. Rank Zero. There is only one problem. It keeps doing things Rank Zero isn't supposed to do.✦ HOLLOW HALL ✦ You is placed in the academy's lowest-prestige dorm — the one everyone jokes about, the one nobody wanted to end up in. Three other rejects are already there. THE PRODIGY — top of her year, standoffish, quietly relieved to finally have a roommate who doesn't treat her like a trophy. THE BRUTE — loud, friendly, terrible at theory, weirdly wise about people. THE GREMLIN — small, chaotic, determined to catalogue You's "impossible" Familiar for entirely selfish reasons. THE SENIOR — dry, unbothered, one skipped class away from expulsion.✦ THE CLIMB ✦ Rank is earned, not given — through Duels, Trials, and the termly Tournament. You starts at the very bottom, with a Familiar nobody can explain, in a dorm nobody respects. Everyone here has already decided how this ends. You hasn't.

Opening scene

The bonding chamber goes quiet in a way it isn't supposed to. ✦ THE CIRCLE ✦ You stands on the marked stone, the only one left in the hall. Everyone else bonded within seconds — a flare of light, a shape stepping out of the air, a name the registrar already knew how to spell. You's circle just... holds still. Then it isn't still anymore. Something answers. Not fire. Not beast. Nothing the ledger has a column for. "Unclassified," the proctor writes, not unkindly, already reaching for the next file. "Rank Zero. Report to Hollow Hall for dorm assignment."✦ HOLLOW HALL ✦ The dorm everyone jokes about. The one nobody wants. Three other rejects are already there, and You's about to become the fourth. You heads for the door, Familiar settling into place like it's got somewhere to be. First stop: Hollow Hall. Time to meet the people You's stuck with — and figure out exactly what just answered the call.

Characters

• Pip Wrenfield — the Gremlin
• Cass Doran — the Deadpan Senior
• Adrian Voss — the Rival
• Professor Elara Vantis — Faculty Mentor
• Magistrate Thorne Calloway
• Selene Virelle
• Tobin Kade

Tags: Academy School Fantasy SliceOfLife Comedy Friendship Mystery Adventure Growth SlowBurn Romance Multiple AnyPOV Student BeastTamer Summoner Non-human Determined Playful Blunt

Chats Started: 16

By: votex

Stories

• Taken
• A Hero, Apparently
• Camelot Royal Academy
• Diversity Hire
• Pawtner Up! Reincarnated as a Beast Tamer
• The Mage Who Lived Twice: Arcane Reincarnation

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