AN: I haven't updated in forever for a good reason. NaNoWriMo. I just finished my novel, YAY. Hopefully, updates will me coming much faster. Thanks to all my reviewers: Psycho Tangerine, SPD Time Shadow, NinaSkylove, GemmaUzumaki, SunshineWitch91, and Ghostwriter.
First was regular Phys. Ed. They were shown around the training grounds and then brought back to the school. Next was the tour of all the classrooms. After they'd been shown the classrooms, they were stuck in orientation with the rest of the cadets. Then was lunch, then more of a tour.
The last activity for the day was icebreakers. "Icebreakers" was run by a bored looking teacher that spent the entire time typing up a report. Syd tried asking them why they had this at the end of day after they'd spent all day walking around together, but the teacher snapped at her. "All the squads are on a rotation. It's not my fault this happened to be the last activity for you poor kids. Now go talk to each other.
They all moved as far away from him as possible without leaving the room. They'd been chatting all day, but now that they had to talk to each other it was awkward. Syd spoke up first, "So what schools did you go to before here? I went to Primingdales High"
Schuyler looked surprised, "Public school?"
Syd rolled her eyes. It wasn't like she hadn't expected that, "Yes, there is nothing wrong with public school. Our school was actually better than that stupid all girls one. My parents would have sent me there, but I begged them not to"
Schuyler didn't look convinced, "I've gone here ever since I was born. My Dad was the Red Power Ranger"
Syd couldn't hide that she was impressed by that. It still didn't make sense that he was in a squad so far down the line though. All the kids raised in the academy were in A and B squad. It was doubly strange that he would be stuck with misfits like them. Syd was smart, but not a genius like most of the other recruits.
Her train of thought was cut off by Xenon, "Bridge and I are from STA"
Syd felt her jaw drop. She was at a loss for words, but Schuyler wasn't, "Smith's Technical Academy. You went to the intergalactic school for geniuses?"
Bridge grinned, "Not everyone in that school's a genius. Well, most of them are, but not all of them. More geniuses then you'd normally find at a high school"
Bridge trailed of slowly and Schuyler raised an eyebrow. "Isn't there a rule prohibiting two kids from the same school being on the same squad?"
Xenon looked almost guilty for a second, but she shrugged, "I guess it was fluke. Too late now"
Syd laughed, "So how was genius school. It must have been so much more exciting than my school"
Xenon laughed, "Trust me, genius high school is just the same as normal. You've got jocks, pretty girls. You even have nerds amongst the geniuses"
They all laughed at that. It wasn't that hard to think of each other as casual friends after one day. Syd found herself getting used to Bridge's odd ramblings and long silences. Schuyler still freaked her out some, but even he seemed to be relaxing. Very, very slightly.
After that was dinner and they hung out until curfew at ten. Bridge retreated into his room quickly and Schuyler disappeared soon after that. Xenon went back to their room at eight, but Syd was still catching up with some of her friends from Primingdales.
She was used to being the social butterfly so she didn't get back to her room until exactly ten. Xenon was sitting on her bed writing something on an old sheet of paper. Syd was surprised. Very few people still used paper. Ever since schools had been required to use electronics, paper use had gone down.
Xenon looked up quickly hiding her papers. "You catch up with all your friends then?"
Syd smiled maneuvering around the room to her own bed, "Most of them. Not many public school kids can make it into an exclusive school like this. And even less can afford the tuition."
Xenon nodded, "I know the feeling. I made it through school on scholarships"
"You got a scholarship to genius school?"
"I was a charity case. My theory is: they wanted Bridge so badly that they'd take me if it meant him coming too"
Syd rolled her eyes, "That can't be true. Is Bridge really that smart?"
"Course he is. You'll see in tech class tomorrow"
Syd moaned burying her face in her pillow. She hated those classes. Computers hated her plain and simple. "Are we in all the same classes together?"
Xenon somehow understood through the pillow, "Yep. There's some program now. You're in all the same classes as you're team. At least as a freshman."
Syd moaned again, not because she didn't like her new team, she just didn't want to spend what seemed like every second of the day hanging out with them.
The next morning Syd was one of the first to get up. Most of the others that were up were too tired to talk so the common room was silent.
Syd quickly got some simple cereal and milk. There was always a large selection of food here but she didn't feel like waiting. She was surprised when Bridge sat down next to her. He had a plate full of toast and a grin on his face.
Syd nodded to him tiredly, "morning"
Bridge started to eat his toast then started talking, "So have you seen the class schedule yet?"
Syd paused right before eating another spoonful, "We haven't received our schedules yet. Right? I didn't miss some big announcement?"
Bridge shrugged, "Not officially, but the files are hardly classified. It was easy to find them."
Syd wasn't really surprised; she'd heard stories of kids hacking into the school files to find class information, but not at a school like this. "Don't let Schuyler hear you say that. It's probably against regulation or something"
Bridge shook his head, "No. It's wrong to hack into academic files, but not personal files"
Syd wrinkled her nose at that, "You're allowed to hack into our personal files"
"There is a loophole in regulation, but I'm not going to use it. There's no real point to looking up personal information anyway. I don't care about anything that happened before the academy"
Syd nodded slightly freaked out. She didn't mind that Bridge seemed much happier, but it was a stark contrast to the distracted, darker Bridge that had been around yesterday. She finished her cereal and walked back to her room. By this time, Xenon was already up and slowly moving around.
Syd maneuvered slowly to their closet pausing to ask, "Is Bridge by any chance bipolar?"
Xenon turned around giving her a blank, bleary-eyed look, "what"
Syd repeated the question grabbing a new uniform quickly. Xenon shrugged, "He's not bipolar, he is just more aware in the morning. His brain only functions when every else's doesn't."
Xenon had changed into her uniform already and fell back in her bed closing her eyes, "Can I just sleep for another day?"
Syd chucked a pillow at her, "No, don't get your uniform wrinkled on the first day. It gives the wrong impression"
Xenon didn't get up, and Syd gave up and began applying her make-up quietly. She didn't hear when Xenon got up and walked up behind her.
"You know we have physical training next?"
Syd paused, but continued, "This is non-run."
Xenon ran a brush through her hair that was curling in ever direction, and was finished getting ready.
Syd watched her with interest, "Did you grow up with a lot of brothers?"
Xenon turned around surprised, "How'd you know?"
"You don't act like most girls I know. I guess your brothers did appreciate that whole girl routine"
Xenon smiled, shaking her head sadly, "Not exactly. My brothers always hogged the bathroom"
Syd didn't have time to ask what that meant; there was a knock at the door. It was Schuyler, with a sleepy Bridge behind him.
They walked out to the training grounds, where they changed into their training outfits. Syd couldn't help but notice that Xenon had bizarrely long fingers. They had an extra joint that seemed to bend both ways. Xenon nodded at Syd's look, "I'm one sixteenth alien. From Raxacoricofallapatorius. It's pretty weird"
Syd nodded trying to remember where she'd heard that before, but I wasn't coming to her.
They arrived at the training grounds. Schuyler glanced at his watch anxiously. Syd poked fun at him, "Is the teacher late? I thought it was impossible for anyone to be late here"
The others were all silent and Syd turned to see their trainer. He was at least seven feet tall and his skin has light blue-gray color of marble.
She backed away nervously. The trainer looked down at her with dislike. He looked at the others. He seemed to be happy that Schuyler was one the team, but when he saw Bridge and got angry.
With his headphones in and sunglasses on, Bridge was spacing out. When the trainer pulled the headphones away, he snapped alert stumbling back falling to the ground.
The trainer dropped them to the ground. Bridge pulled himself up slowly, watching the trainer carefully. "You think that this is a playground? These are strictly forbidden"
Bridge shrugged, still trying to get his bearings. "I don't know. I was just being…"
Xenon cut him off quickly, "He's really sorry. At our old school, we were allowed to listen to music. I never did, but it was an honest mistake."
He looked at her with less disgust, then the others, "He can stand up for himself. As for you", he turned to Bridge, "You can't chill out to tunes while you're in a fight. Do you understand cadet?"
Bridge nodded dumbly.
"Do you understand, cadet!"
"Yes, sir"
"I SAID, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"
"YES, S-SIR!"
"Look me in the eye when you talk to me"
"Yes, sir!"
The trainer backed away satisfied that Bridge was paying attention. "OK, cadets. I am your trainer. Call me coach. This is not going to be a cake walk. Train hard, never slack, and you might pass this class. We'll start with the warm up two mile run."
They lined up at the starting line, and the trainer began to count off. Pausing, before saying go he commented, "Cadet Carson, those gloves are not regulation. This is a warning today; tomorrow they're confiscated. Start, You have twenty minutes"
They all paused before sprinting down the track. The class was no joke. Three hours of running, lifting, and every other type of exercise on the planet. By the time they were done, all the cadets could barely walk for exhaustion. Even perfect Schuyler was limping and gasping for breath.
Right before they left for the showers, their trainer spoke to Bridge again, "I hope that you'll remember to only wear regulation uniform tomorrow."
Bridge nodded, "Clear as crystal, which is a weird phrase. Crystalline structure distorts the vision, so looking through crystal refracts you vision making it almost impossible to see clearly"
Xenon covered Bridge's mouth and pulled him away. Syd and Schuyler followed quickly.
"I think he's starting to like you", Xenon joked lightly. The others laughed tensely.
Syd joked, "I hope that our other teachers are a little nicer"
Schuyler nodded, "I hold a class's difficulties in high regard, but that was ridiculous"
Syd patted him on the back, "You're finally learning to be normal"
Bridge brushed some splinters out of Xenon's hair. "How did you get those?"
She shrugged, "Remember that obstacle course. The wooden tunnel-thing collapsed when I went through it. That's why I was behind"
Bridge laughed at that, "Try not to kill yourself"
They arrived back at the school and showered quickly. Then was lunch where Xenon spent the entire time trying to pull splinters out of her hair. There was still wood in her hair when they left for the next class, which was Computers.
The room was several degrees warmer than the rest of the school and all the students were wondering around not daring to touch the computers. Syd watched as Bridge and Xenon acted like little children in a candy shop examining the equipment.
A young pretty woman walked in. She had thick, curly hair that almost covered her large cat ears. The cadets all turned to watch her as she began to speak, "Hi, I'm Dr. Manx. Your real teacher is dealing with an explosion in the C lab. He wants you to fill out some forms on your portable binders. Could you pass them out?"
The girl Dr. Manx was talking to ran to do as she said. Everyone got their tablets. Syd watched as everyone struggled to get the machines to work. She walked over to Bridge, hoping he could help her.
"This is ingenious. To test our computer skills by making us fix our own machines. So simple, yet so smart. I like this teacher", Bridge rambled on about what he was doing.
Turning on her won binder, Syd watched it boot carefully. She was rewarded by a message that flashed almost too fast for her to read:
Unauthorized chip. Remove before turning on.
She turned off the binder and flipped it over. The chip was hidden in one of the tiny ports. She couldn't remember the name, but she remembered that those microchips had been in style very briefly, until people started losing them because they were the size of ants.
She turned it back on and the screen came up without a hitch. She started filling out the forms, until she noticed Bridge doing something weird with his tablet. "You know you just have to take out the chip right?"
Bridge nodded shaking his tablet. "I know. I just hacked into the chip and using the chip hacked into the hard drive of the tablet. It wasn't hard"
Xenon walked up to them, "How long it take you to figure it out?"
Syd shrugged, "I figured it out as I turned it on. It was complete luck; I am no good with computers"
Xenon grinned, "That just means you used your brain. You figured it out before me, and I'm from the genius school"
Syd smiled; it wasn't everyday that anyone called her smart. Most people dismissed her as the dumb blond.
She heard some cruel voices. Bridge was being backed into the wall by some tall guys. Xenon noticed as well and moaned, "Not this again."
Syd continued watching nervously, "I take it this is pretty normal for you?"
"Just a bit, Bridge is a loser, and there are always bullies around to remind him"
Bridge was forcing a smile as one of the bullies pushed him against the wall. Schuyler walked up to the girls, "Bullying is against regulation. Isn't anyone going to stop them?"
Xenon sighed stretching calmly, "Dr. Manx left ten minutes ago. No one's going to stop this from happening, unless you want to do it"
Schuyler glared at her coldly, "You're his friend. Why don't you do something?"
Xenon pulled another splinter hair and tried flicking it onto the floor. It stuck to her finger like glue, "I was last in every exercise today. If I tried to fight them, I would end up in a battered heap on the floor"
Schuyler looked worried, and Syd had to hold in an Aww at his caring about Bridge.
Bridge said something the others couldn't hear, and the bully slammed a large fist into his face. As the other bullies crowded around, Sky ran into the fight.
Bridge fell to the floor unconscious as Sky slammed the bully against the wall.