The Academy
There's a big bad coming, and the world needs a group of heroes, however this band of ragtag kids is probably not what the world had in mind.
Chapter Two
Jade slowed for her turn, easing her bike into a space in front of a plain building between two badly parked cars. The girl behind her slid off and stood behind her, nervously fiddling with the clip on the helmet. Jade cut the engine, put her kickstand down, and swung her leg off the bike, "let me help you." she offered, knocking her hands away.
Her deft fingers undid the clip and carefully eased it off, "thanks." the girl whispered, "I'm Tori."
Jade eyed her carefully, still a little weary-but after all Jade was the one who'd rushed to save this girl like some twisted knight in shining armor, "I'm Jade."
"Thank you, for saving me." she whispered, nervously tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, "where did you take me, anyways?"
"Coffee shop." Jade answered, motioning for Tori to follow after her. She walked over to a rusty red door and pulled it open. Tori walked in ahead of her and Jade followed, guiding her with a hand on the small of her back, to a table in the corner, "sorry this is just where I go when things...go bad."
"Do things...go bad a lot?" Tori asked cautiously, sitting down at the table across from her.
"Yes." Jade answered honestly, catching the eye of one of the servers. She recognized Jade instantly and nodded in understanding, giving Tori a confused look, Jade made a signal for two and turned back to Tori, "does that happen to you often?"
"Yeah." Tori answered sheepishly, "I'm usually-like I can control when but Aubrey, she made me so mad. I just wanted to sit at the park and work on lyrics but she went and took my book-oh god my notebook!"
"Oh yeah. I forgot." Jade said suddenly, dragging her bag over her head and dropping it with a loud thud onto the table, fishing inside and handing Tori her notebook, "I figured you'd want it back."
"Thank you." Tori whispered softly, dragging it into her lap where she knew it would be safe. Feeling calmer now she took in her surroundings.
The coffee shop wasn't like the Starbucks she was used to. There weren't any windows out front, just the small one at the top of the red door. The lights were dim inside, making it feel more like a bar than a coffee shop, but most of the people were teenagers, not unlike herself and Jade.
"I like it here." Jade said suddenly, drawing Tori's wide brown eyes back to her, "the kids here are all outcasts, social freaks if you will, like I am. Sure they don't have weird freaky abilities, but they're all freaks. Its comforting to be around people that know what its like to be outcast." Tori simply nodded. What could she say to that?
"How long have you...been like this?" Tori asked after a few moments of silence, during which the waitress came to drop off their drinks.
"Since I was 8." Jade replied, picking up her coffee and taking a large gulp, it burned down her throat and settling in her stomach, "You?"
"Since I was nine." she admitted quietly, "at first I wasn't sure it was me-it had to be a coincidence, right? But it wasn't. It was me. I didn't know until I sent my sister flying across the house one night. She was pulling my hair and then tried to put gum in it because mine was longer than hers and I was so mad."
"It happens. Your powers are tied into your emotions. It takes a lot of practice to get them in check, and anger is the easiest way to fail at doing that." Jade told her, holding the cup between her hands tightly, enjoying the warmth seeping into her palms.
"How do you know so much about this?" Tori asked.
Jade hesitated, but had to remind herself that if Tori's parents hadn't sent her away yet they weren't going to, "I go to a special school. The Van Cleef Academy for Gifted Pupils. Its for kids, and well just people in general who are like us."
"Like a high school or..." Tori asked.
"A boarding school." Jade confirmed, "basic classes and then extra stuff for the weird. You can't just find it, someone has to tell you about it, its very hush hush, cause you know how people are now a days-." she cut herself short, feeling her phone vibrating with a pattern she knew well.
She slipped the small device from her pocket and glanced down at it. There was a message with a link and nothing else. Scowling she clicked on the link, turning the volume down on her phone to watch the video, already knowing what it would be. The video of Tori had gone viral, but worse, so had Jade's rescue.
"You should probably..." Jade trailed off, passing the phone to Tori with a somber expression. Tori took it from her, glancing down at the screen with her eyebrows drawn together.
Jade's heart went out to the girl as she watched her lips turn down into a frown, and then she drew her bottom lip between her teeth, in a clear effort to control her emotions, before she quickly shut her eyes and shoved Jade's phone back at her roughly. Jade reached across the table, setting her hand on top of Tori's, in some sort of attempt to comfort the girl.
"Do you mind giving me a ride home?" Tori asked, almost too quietly for Jade to hear.
"Of course."
Jade didn't want to go back, she would have just parked her bike and snuck back in like she'd never been gone, but that video was proof enough, so she decided to face it head on and pulled into the parking lot, her tires kicking up rocks as she zipped into her space, stopping on a dime and quickly dismounting.
"What were you thinking Jade?"
"Shove it, Sinjin." she snapped, stomping right past him. She had better things to do than deal with the bratty school heir. Her stomping lead her to the training center. She found Sikowitz right where she expected, in his tower observing the students, "so, contacted the girls parents yet?" she asked, trying to keep the edge out of her voice.
"Didn't have to. She called me herself. Can't imagine how she got my number. My personal number." Sikowitz crossed his arms, "look at him, can't even light a simple paper ball." he shook his head in disbelief as Ryder was once again smacked in the face with the paper ball that Sam was flinging lifelessly at him, already having grown bored with her task. All he had to do was set it on fire before it hit him.
Jade chuckled, freezing the next one midair for a few minutes with a wave of her hand, watching as they searched around for her like they were crazy. While Ryder's attention was on the bleachers where he thought she might be, she snapped her fingers and the paper ball continued its course right into the side of his head.
"Found a smashed plant. One of my Jade's, again."
"Sorry." she wasn't, she didn't even try to sound like she was anymore, and Sikowitz accepted this without comment.
"There's more kids, a lot of them, coming in next semester. They'll be in your section. I know we already have an adviser, but we haven't had this many mental based powers in a long time. Most peoples are focused with their hands, or physical things. Not like telekinesis or anti-animation."
"I use my hands." Jade argued.
"Not because you have to." Sikowitz countered. Jade was silent, watching Ryder as he once again attempted to light the ball on fire. This time he managed to shoot a fireball, that just barely missed singeing Sam's hair.
"You should probably go break them up." Jade suggested, turning sharply and heading out of the room.
She didn't want to befriend anyone like her, she didn't want to stay her, she wanted her freedom, but legally the school was her home, the Van Cleef's were her foster parents and they could have her dragged back here every time she tried to run-and they had.
They weren't bad people, they'd never hurt Jade or do anything to put her in harms way-more than her powers did on their own, so social services never stepped in to investigate. Jade simply didn't want to be here. Her parents had abandoned her, left her on her own with strangers because she was a freak. And now she was going to have to show some other freaks the ropes?
"Sikowitz is an idiot." she declared to her empty room, flinging her bag onto her bed before she sank down on her desk chair, starting up her laptop. Sure being a freak with other freaks just as much of a freak as you were was comforting, but Jade found being alone the best.
She went straight to YouTube, quickly finding the video had crawled to the top of the homepage. She was pleasantly surprised that most people thought that Aubrey deserved what she got, and a lot were really impressed with the FX, and Jade was stunned that so many people just assumed it was fake. She supposed technology was a beautiful thing.
Scrolling through led her down a sea of comments, people instantly bashing Aubrey before being a bully and saying that this kind of a viral video was good for the world-nobody should have to tolerate bullies and they should get what they were asking for. Most of them also praised Jade's rescue attempt, and more than a few commented that they hoped Jade and Tori started dating. That is when Jade clicked away from the video.
A few hours later the bell rang signaling the start of dinner for those students who called the Academy home year round, and Jade forced herself to stand up and wander downstairs, feet clumping along loudly. In total there were six students there year round; the Van Cleef siblings- Sinjin and Courtney, Jade, Ryder Daniels, Sam Puckett, and Burf Wilson. With the exception of Sinjin and Courtney the rest of them had been dumped here by parents that didn't want to deal with them or didn't care what they did.
Sam had opted to come here in lieu of jail time, Ryder had come because he was kicked out of his old school, and Burf's parents had dropped him off and gone out of town. They still came by off and on, they didn't want to abandon him, but they didn't know how to deal with a sun who kept randomly growing ten foot trees in their house.
Burf didn't seem to mind, he didn't really care about anything but learning, but he never really joined in with anyone at lunch, choosing to eat by the window alone. That's where Jade saw him today, book in one hand, some weird fruit in the other, completely oblivious to Sam and Ryder fighting two tables away.
"Hey, West!" Sam called, spotting Jade in line. The dark hair girl rolled her eyes, nodding to the blonde and continuing to make her way through the buffet line, grabbing two slices of pizza, an apple, some french fries and a bottle of water before heading straight to the table, taking a seat opposite Ryder beside Sam, "why don't you ever tell us when you sneak out?"
"Because you two are lousy at sneaking." she answered, taking a large bite out of her pizza. She had taken them with her before, well they'd followed her, and they were caught before they even reached the wall. Jade had been grounded, unable to leave the campus thanks to a nice ward, for almost two months. Because they could.
"We're not that awful."
"Sam, you're as subtle as a brick being thrown at a glass house." Jade snapped, "and Ryder's basically a big fucking flame signal. Sure I broke a plant, but I still made it out before anyone noticed."
"Well we haven't been doing this since we were nine." Ryder complained.
"Exactly. If you wanna sneak out figure it out for yourselves like I did." Jade told them with a tone of finality that silenced them, before Sam launched into some conversation about her old school and Jade tuned them out.
Her mind was still trying to wrap around the fact that Sikowitz wanted her to help out this bunch of kids, just because she had mental powers and had managed to mostly contain her outbursts, after years and years of accidentally freezing things and people, but surely there were people better suited for that-like Maria Van Cleef who was a very talented telepath.
Maria would be better, if she weren't in New York.
Sighing Jade grabbed her apple before dumping her tray, wandering the halls aimlessly while eating her apple, letting her feet carry her where they may, trying to figure out anyway to put someone else in charge of this new batch of kids.
