Disclaimer: We do not own Vampire Academy, any of the characters, places, or concepts from VA. We love Richelle Mead, and we love her imagination.

This story is five years after Vampire Academy and Bloodlines.

Chapter 1
A Fiendly Beggining... Sorta

Charles

Alberta came out of her office and gave me that stone cold glare that all guardians had when they dealt with business. And boy did I see that look often.

I'd been called in to Alberta's office at least once a week since coming to St. Vladimir's Academy. Maybe I should get frequent flyer miles for this...

"Mr. Xander," Alberta said, "I wish I could say its nice to see you again, but frankly it's not." I got up and followed her into her office, I knew the drill.

"I bet," was all I said.

"Well would you like to tell me what happened today in class?" Alberta asked with absolutely no amusement. I imagine my record has so many black marks you can't see the paper anymore.

"What's the point? You already know."

"That's beside the point. Mr. Xander All of your teachers say you are bright. They don't understand why you have such low marks in your guardian classes. You are rude and disobedient. Not to mention your are always late to your morning classes, if you show up at all."

"I only really show up for the morning classes when I feel like it, which is never," I answered her, "So yeah, you're right about that."

"Mr. Xander! Do you realize you may not graduate? Have you even considered your future?"

"I don't really see the point in having a future. It's giving yourself false hope in my opinion Guardian Petrov."

"Well as long as I have a say in things you will have a future, and I know just the way to do it."

"Oh, and what's that? More detentions?" I scoffed, "I've been in detention since I stepped foot on campus."

Just then, there was a knock at the door and Alberta called for the person to come in. A female guardian walked in. I didn't recall seeing her on campus before. She had short messy brown hair that stuck up everywhere and green eyes.

"You sent for me guardian Petrov?" asked the messy haired guardian.

"Ah yes," sighed Alberta happily. "Guardian Szelsky, I'd like you to meet Charles Xander."

"Uh, Guardian Petrov please don't tell me she's here because of the hint you just gave me?"

"Oh yes, Mr. Xander, she most definitely is. I've found the best guardian for the job."I did not like that look in her eyes one bit. I glanced over at Guardian Szelsky and found her examining me with a stone face that was worse than Alberta's. "Detention seems not to affect you anymore, so Guardian Szelsky is now your mentor."

"I don't need some stupid mentor taking me under their wing just so I can be steered in the right direction." I said and stood from my chair. "So if you'll excuse me..."

I left Alberta's office blindly. I just had to get away. This was so stupid. A mentor? A mentor who couldn't tame her own hair? How did Alberta think that he needed a mentor?

All these thoughts swam through my mind in a jumble as I crossed the quad to my dorm. When I got up to my room, I threw myself on my bed and put my headphones on. Maybe blasting my eardrums out would help. But I doubted it. I can't keep my headphones on forever.

Roxie

Charles was out of the room before Alberta or I could say another word.

"Well if he wants to run so bad I'll make him run." I said more to myself than Alberta. "This should be fun."

"Give him hell." Alberta stood and handed me a folder thick with paper. I noticed 'Charles Xander' written on the front and realized it was his records. "You really are his last chance. If he can't catch up to his classmates he won't graduate next year. He doesn't even realize that he is digging his grave. Charles is a smart kid, he'll learn."

With that, I left her office and headed to a room that the guardians use for everything. There was a table set up with coffee and water. I made a cup of coffee heavy with creamer and sugar. Then I went to read Charles' folder.

Our vampiric schedule meant we didn't wake up till the sun was going down. However, today I woke up extra early. The sun normally went down around 5:30. It was a quarter to 3 when I finished my morning coffee and headed down the hall of Charles' dorm. I found his room easy and used the master key all guardians had to unlock the door.

As I expected Charles was sprawled across his bed. He didn't hear me because he had ridiculous headphones on, the kind that covered the entire ear and blocked out all sound.

Well this certainly was going to suck for him, I thought as I picked up his Ipod. The playlist had stopped long ago so I turned the volume up all the way and found a song that was very loud. I hit play.

Charles woke up and threw the headphones off his head. He rubbed his ears sleepily. Charles laid his head back down without even looking in my direction.

"Hmm, maybe this will work," I said and picked up the side of his mattress and flipped him off onto the floor.

Charles made a "thunk" when he hit the floor. If this doesn't teach him to be on time in the mornings I don't know what will.

"Oww," He groaned and started moving. "What the hell just happened?" Charles slowly sat up and looked around with blurry eyes that widened when he saw me. "Jesus Christ!" He jumped and pulled himself to his feet clumsily. "How the hell did you get in my room?"

I crossed my arms over my chest. "Get dressed."

"Bite me guardian what's your face." Charles said to me. "Now I'm going to close my eyes and hopefully I won't see your cold face." He closed his eyes.

I shifted my weight to my other foot and waited. He opened one eye and peeked at me.

"God why won't you go away, it's like four in the morning. Shouldn't you be somewhere?"

"Actually it's three and I am where I'm supposed to be." I said and reached into my pocket. "Now if you don't get ready I will blow this whistle till you do."

"Bite me."

I put the whistle to my lips and blew the whistle. Charles' face said it all. He was shocked that I'd actually do it and a little scared too. But after a little more of my whistle and he found a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt. He threw them on over his boxers.

"Oh, for God's sake! Stop with the whistle!" He exclaimed. I gestured for him to follow me out of the room. He did so reluctantly but he probably didn't want to risk more of my whistle.

We continued out to one of the many fields that St. Vladimir's had for training.

"So where exactly are you taking me that I had to be woken up in the rudest way possible, I'm sure that a cold bucket of water would have worked just fine." Charles asked as he tried to keep up.

"Don't put me past the bucket of water." I replied trying to hide my smile. "We are going to have some fun this morning. Now start stretching." I demonstrated the stretches and he reluctantly did them.

Charles groaned, "Whoever invented stretching should be punched in the face right now. And why do I need to stretch anyway and this early?" He said as he plopped onto the ground.

"Well since you ran out on me yesterday I decided that was what we're going to do today." I smiled, "We are running."

"We're... running? You can't be serious." Charles said exasperated. "Isn't there any other way for me to hone my fighting skills?"

"Well we have to start somewhere and since you don't exercise anymore we start with this." I said to him. "It's also a way to punish you for being rude. That is the one thing that I do not like. Now get up or my whistle comes out again."

He groaned and did as I said. He shot daggers at me but he didn't know what I truly meant by "running".

Charles

By "running" she meant sprinting. And instead of laps around the field like a normal person, its laps around the whole campus. I can't believe this woman is making me sprint around this whole god damn campus. I'm still slowly waking up and my lungs feel like they're going to give out. Practically every part of me is screaming to stop running, to stop moving and not care about her scolding me. Except there's also another voice telling me that I should ignore my body's protests and keep going and that I should prove to her that this isn't going to beat me. I'm arguing with that little voice of reason that keeps telling me to keep pushing and pushing.

After two laps around the outskirts of St. Vladimir's I had a new appreciation for how huge this place really was. Guardian what's-her-face finally let me rest. She tossed me a water bottle and told me to drink it all. I had no problem with this order considering I could hardly breathe. When I had downed my bottle, she handed me another one. I didn't drink this one right away because I noticed something. This lady barely broke a sweat compared to me who was drenched and dripping with sweat.

"How the hell are you not sweating?" I exclaimed. She just ignored me and told me to follow her. Which wasn't easy to do considering I just ran more than I have in a long time and not to mention she walked so God damn fast.

When she finally stopped walking it seemed like my heart had stopped beating once I started looking at what was in front of us. It was an obstacle course; my worst nightmare in all things athletic. Dirt biking I can do, hiking I can do just fine when I feel like it, but an obstacle course is my kryptonite. Like taking a lighter from a pyro is their kryptonite. They'll beat you to a pulp and take their lighter back because it's insane to even think of doing that. Me doing this obstacle course, that's insane and cannot be done by someone like me.

"Please tell me that you don't expect me to do all of that in a certain amount of time I'm going to want to quit before I get over that huge board." I said to her.

"Well guess what? You have to do it." She said. "If you want I'll do it too?" She gave me a questioning look. At least that god damned guardian stare was gone.

"I'm sure if you tried doing it with me it would be completely effortless to you while I'm struggling the whole way through so I'll do this by myself if you don't mind." I said to her but as I started walking to the first part of the course doubt started building up inside of me. I wanted to turn around, go back to my dorm room, and blast the music on my iPod and just forget the world. Except she'd probably start this whole wakeup call like she did this morning for the next day. I wouldn't enjoy having another repeat of that while she would have no issue. "How much time are you giving me to complete this whole thing?" I yelled to her from where I was standing.

"Well eventually I want you to get under one minute." She called back, "but for today we'll go for seven minutes." I could practically see her smiling as she stood there with her arms crossed. "When you're ready, start."

This lady has got to be on something, she wants me to finish this whole thing in seven minutes? Forget the time Charles just get what you possibly can done and you won't ever have to do this thing again hopefully. I took three deep breaths and blocked out everything like I was back in my room, then started the course. I ran towards the rope, grabbed onto it with both hands and started climbing up the wall. The prickly rope felt like it was imprinting the inside of my hands but that stupid voice came back and told me to just keeping going, so I did. I got to the top of the wall and put one leg over looked down. I got this feeling of light-headedness washed over me and it seemed like the world started spinning. My body started to feel like Jell-O. The last thing I heard before I blacked out was someone yelling my name and catching me before I crashed into the ground.

Roxie

"Ugh, what the hell?" Charles sputtered after I splashed water in his face.

"Well that's a good sign." I said and helped him sit up. "I didn't realize you were afraid of heights." He seemed to remember what happened out on the course and he looked around his room.

"God did I pass out?" he asked rubbing his head.

"Yeah you did, but don't worry, no one saw." I reassured him.

"Great, thanks for the 'workout' guardian whatever," Charles replied with sarcasm. "I don't suppose I can go back to bed now?"

"Nope," I said. "You have class. And I bet you don't want another morning like this one so don't be late. You've got enough time for a light breakfast" I heard him groan as I walked out of his room. I decided to get some more coffee before I had to start watching the morning classes. I didn't doubt that Charles would be attending them today. Tomorrow I might have some trouble with him, but today I was new and he wanted to figure me out. If he thinks it can't get worse than today, he is dead wrong.

"Guardian Szelsky," A voice called me out of my thoughts. It was Alberta. "Off to before school practice?"

"Morning Guardian Petrov, actually I just got done with it." I replied. Her eyebrows went up at that and I continued before she could ask. "I woke Charles up at three this morning and we went for a run around campus."

"He got up that early and ran?" she sounded shocked and I could understand why.

"Yeah, he didn't much like my whistle." I said and tried to hide my smile. "He will be in class this morning."

"Good work," Alberta said to me with an impressed look. We said good-bye and I got my coffee and a doughnut then headed off to observe Charles' first class.

Charles

In my first class we were told to spar. The guy who was my partner looked at me for a second then spoke to me.

"God what happened? You look like your dead man." He said.

"Well geez, why is it that you need to be so nosy?" I said to my sparring partner, but I kind of felt a little shitty for randomly snapping at him like that. I just didn't feel like being in the mood for apologizing because apologizing is something that I haven't done since I was a kid and I defiantly don't feel like going down that road again. "Look can we just fight I'm really sore right now and I don't exactly feel like telling my life story to someone I barely know".

"Alright we can fight." The guy replied. "I'm Alex by the way."

"My name is Charles, but you probably knew that right?" I said while getting into my fighting stance. I took a deep breath and blocked out the excessive noise it was just him and me in the room now we circled around the mat waiting for the other person to make the first move. He made the first punch but I blocked it I tried to uppercut him in the stomach but he caught my hand and flipped me onto the mat with so much force that the air was knocked out of me.

I'm staring straight at the ceiling in shock when a hand knocks me out of my daydream. I grab onto it and Alex helps me up he apologizes for flipping without any warning and I put on a fake smile and say

"It's okay I should have seen it. Hit me with your best shot this time Alex." I said cockily to him, this time I paid more attention to his weak spot and found an easy target in particular his groin but it would be so unfair to make a cheap shot like that. Then I thought, I'm Charles Xander when have I ever fought fair?

Right when I went in for the kill I saw messy brown hair in the corner of my eye and decided not to scar Alex with the cheap shot I was going to make. I don't know what made me change my mind but it pissed me off. Maybe I didn't want to hear that whistle blown so close to my ear again, or maybe I didn't feel like her giving me some other activity like this morning. So this time I went for punching him in the gut and dodged the hand that flipped me over the first time and punched him with all the might that I could muster.

Alex fell onto the mat but out of nowhere, his legs grasped onto mine and also made me fall onto the mat making another loud plunk sound. So I guess our sparring match could somewhat be called a tie. While were both lying on the mat breathing heavily Alex asked me why I was so sore today.

"Because I was assigned a crazy mentor that likes training me like I'm some sort of lap dog." I answered. "Hey Alex, what do you know about that guardian over their?" I asked him.

Alex looked over to the wall where the guardians stood and watched the class "Guardian Szelsky? She's new; no one really knows much about her except that her last name is a Royal name." He answered. "Is she your mentor?"

Just great, she has a royal name, that's just my luck! "Yea, she's my mentor alright. In fact we did some great bonding this morning with the rude wake up call, and the sprinting, oh and did I mention that I passed out and fell off a wall too." I said pretty much babbling randomly to Alex. I have no clue why I thought I needed to tell him I fell off a wall, l it's bad enough that I still hate heights but talking about it makes it that much more embarrassing.

"Wow sounds like you're in for hell," Alex said to me and got up to start helping the other students clean up before class ends. "She seems like some military drill sergeant." He laughed.

I laughed as well. "I wouldn't be surprised if there was something like that with her past careers. It looks like my life is going to be a living hell." I'm not looking forward to being sore 24/7. What the hell did I do to deserve this kind of torture, kill a dog, kidnap some royal against their will, set fire to a house? Oh no, the only thing I did was ditch a few classes and now she's my mentor someone sound the alarms.

Finally, classes are over and the only thing that's on my mind right now is my nice warm cozy bed and my great pillow. My feet are leisurely trudging along only looking forward to one destination as well my bed but it seems like this walk is just a little too good to be true. Right when I start walking to my dorm building, I see Guardian Szelsky. "Am I ever going to get to sleep or are you taking that away from me forever?" I ask her.

"I'm just making sure you have a normal sleep pattern. Which means you will be exhausted and finish your homework then go to bed." She answered me. "Let's go to the weight room."

"Yippee! Off to the weight room so I can gain even more soreness. Fun times!" I said to her. As we silently started walking towards the weight room, I kept thinking of how great it would be to finally be in my room fast asleep. I'm sure that will be an hour or so from now when we entered the room I saw all of the equipment the weights, treadmill, and elliptical machines as well. Karma really is being a bitch to me right now.

It's an hour later and I'm on the brink of wanting to make a hole into the wall behind me except that would get me into more trouble with Guardian Petrov and Guardian Szelsky. So maybe I should grin and bear all this soreness like a

good little lap dog would but there's one question that's been on my mind since Alex mentioned it to me and I've got to ask so here goes. "Guardian Szelsky, why do you have a royal name?" I asked her.

"Hmm?" she asked. "My dad is a Royal. He married my mom who was his guardian and they had me." She seemed bored by the question. Well she probably got it a lot. "I was raised as a royal but I don't get any special attention like a moroi would, my little brother did though, he's moroi."

"Oh, uh, I didn't know that you had a sibling that's, uh, cool. Are you and your brother close?" I asked her I have no clue what made me ask that question or made me want to know the answer to my question. I guess I just really wanted to know because of part of me was a little curious it seems like she's just a creature that hardly no one knows about.

"Well he's probably just starting high school now." She frowned, "I haven't seen him for a while, not with being a guardian." She stood up then. "I think we're done for tonight. Meet me in the field at five tomorrow morning. And don't forget I do still have my whistle."

"Right five am on the dot." I said through clenched teeth. "So I'm going to go to my room and pass out on my bed. Fun times with the training this morning and I'm sure I won't ever have to do that course again so Bye!" I ran as fast as I could to my dorm room even though my legs were yelling at me to walk, but if I did I would probably fall flat on my face. When I finally got to my door, I unlocked it, crashed on top of my bed, and fell asleep.