Shards: Intro- Part 1 (old)

Chapter Two: Chaperone

Elliot let go of my hand and began speaking. I was still looking down in fascination at the ring until I subconsciously heard the words, "Lance, this is Paige."

I looked up to see him right in front of me, with a large portion of the assembly line up behind him. He was holding his hand out in front of him.

"Oh!" I gasped.

As I bought my hand up to shake his, I almost tripped on one of the stage wires. After spazzing awkwardly for a few seconds. I shook his hand with a sweaty palm and a tomato red face.

Lance chuckled genuinely, while the teenagers lined up behind him snickered and snorted.
"Quiet down now," he calmly instructed the group behind him.

Turning back to me, then to Elliot, he asked with a raised eyebrow, "So we have a Echelon Five?"

Any remaining laughter behind Lance immediately ceased at the mention of the word. I froze and looked at Elliot in disbelief.
"Echelon....What?" I asked him.

"Lance," Elliot said in a hushed voice. "I suggest talking with you and the girl in private. Perhaps......away from prying eyes and pricked ears? And a lot of them in fact?"

Lance crossed his arms and sighed. After a while, he nodded. I followed the two men to an isolated spot outside the assembly. We sat down in seats at a conference room a two minute walk away.

I was still pondering what Elliot had told Lance, so I just rested my chin on my locked hands and stared blankly off in front of me. Lance sat across the table from Elliot; who was sitting next to me.

"Elliot, what did you find out this time?" Lance asked with a concerned tone, tapping his pointer finger.

"May I?" Elliot beckoned for me to hand him the ring. I reluctantly handed it to him while still looking forward.

"Well Sir, I was walking down the aisle when this young lady's ring apparently conjured a spark. I thought this was common horseplay and arrogant tampering with magic. But she gave me it without hesitation. What she didn't know was that it was her shard the whole time."
Elliot waved his hand over the ring, and it opened to again reveal the purple shard.

Lance leaned forward and studied the ingot. "Apologies, but that still doesn't explain how you can be certain this young lady is an Echelon Five, or that the Shard even belongs to her. It would explain that perhaps she somehow came to possess a misplaced one and didn't know somebody had hexed it to appear as a ring. It happens all the time. I should know; I lost mine after my own Endeavor."

Elliot raised a hand and attempted to speak, but only stuttered after Lance interrupted him.
Lance shifted his glance towards me.
"Ms Paige."

I shook off my otherworldly stare, and gave the captain my full attention.
"Yes sir?"

"Can you recite from what you know, what the Echelons are?" Lance asked me quizzically.

I nodded informally, and started from the first up. "Echelon Ones possess no magical ability whatsoever. Mostly Humans. Echelon Twos have some magical abilities and can conjure spells and charms with a wand. Echelon Threes up receive Shards and can use them for magic on more advanced levels such as for Hexes and shadow morphing. Echelon Fours can morph on their own. And I have no idea what an Echelon Five is, or if I even heard right."