Disclaimer: I do not own Darkest powers.
Chapter four – Xavier's school for Gifted Youngsters.
Chloe P.O.V
The first thing that came to mind was a medieval castle. It was a massive complex of old-looking buildings, two tall ones like turrets on each side, and you had to walk across a bridge to get to the main buildings. It was almost like when you see modern day adaptations of TV. The designer clearly had a very good sense of humour.
I started laughing, which set of Corey and Matt. When Derek looked at me questioningly, I pointed from the bridge to the building opposite, and that was all that was needed for his deep grumble of a laugh to join the mix.
"It's nice to know that the students find the school a joke purely upon entry."A female voice commented as a person appeared next to us.
The woman was about thirty, definitely no older than thirty-five and was incredibly short, around the five ft mark. She was actually shorter than me! But her height didn't diminish the stern expression on her face.
I felt the compelled to explain, and wondered why Corey hadn't already started to. I looked to my left, but all that was there was empty space; I had forgotten that she couldn't know he was with us. That didn't explain why I couldn't see him though.
Not dwelling on it too much, I decided to tell this mysterious woman the truth.
"I'm terribly sorry. I found that the building reminded me a little of a castle." I tried my best to sound contrite and even left out the medieval part; I really didn't think she would appreciate it.
To my utter surprise, her face transformed into an amused smile, an action that made her look much prettier, though also a good few years older. And I had always thought that smiling kept you looking young. Damned lying magazines.
"My name is Miss Harris. I am the head-teacher, or principal, as you guys call it, at this school. Please state your name and type."
"What type are you?" Tori had never been particularly good at following instructions.
"I'm a necromancer." She smiled, not at all put off by Tori's attitude; she was probably used to it. Necromancer. That explained Corey's absence.
"My name is Tori, I'm a witch." Everyone introduced themselves in turn, until everyone looked at me; I must have been the only one left.
"I'm Chloe. I'm also necromancer." I smiled politely, and waited for her next instruction.
"Wow, this is our fourth and fifth werewolves, and our seventh and eighth necromancers. It is nice to have higher numbers in classes. Especially when kids who take their powers classes with only a couple of people feel slightly ostracized. I think it's good to make the kids feel comfortable here, and some of them only want to talk to someone similar!" God, give me strength. She was probably one of those people who did the beat bullying campaigns. Everyone knew that they got followed by a piss take bullying of anyone similar to those discussed. Seriously.
She clapped her hands together in an almost childlike manner, before resuming her stern exterior.
"I will show to your rooms, where you will all receive information about the school and the school rules." Without further ado, all of us except Corey – who was still AWOL-, followed her across the bridge and up the stone steps to the building in the middle.
In the building, we walked down a large corridor, through a large hall, and up a winding staircase, that split off two ways at the top. The left was labelled male, the right female.
"The boys are to the left, girls to the right." She explained as if it wasn't obvious.
"Teachers are all in the first building behind. Chloe and Tori, I will get you settled first. The rest of you, stay here and I will be back in a couple of minutes." On that line, she started walking, not even giving Tori and myself a chance to say goodbye. We shared the 'she's weird' look before obediently following in silence.
She stopped fairly quickly, outside of a room labelled 13, which almost made me laugh.
"The sleeping areas are split into four different sections, each in different buildings, and every building has 15 rooms." Talk about OTD. Obsessive talking disorder. I didn't really care about knowing any of this, but being dense enough not to catch on, she continued.
"This is the only girls are with free rooms."
"Lemme guess, before we arrived, there was three spare. Now there are two." I spluttered a laugh as Miss Harris pretty much repeated what Tori had said. The woman really needed a filtering system.
At least she was thorough.
Finally, she took out two identical keys and used one to open the door before giving them to us.
"Here we respect the privacy of our students; although the keys will be taken back if either one of you refuses to behave in a sensible and mature manner." She warned, before stepping aside to allow us into the room.
It was fairly large, considering we were in a school, and had one door connecting from the back left of the room. A bathroom, I guessed.
The actual room itself was well furnished, but fell into a pattern of brown, white and black, clearly waiting for the residents to bring character.
"There is an information package and a schedule on each of your beds, and you are free to decorate in any non-permanent way, such as posters or anything else that isn't too much trouble to remove." We nodded, and she made her way back to the door.
"You won't start your classes until tomorrow, however, should you need them beforehand, you will find your notebooks and pens in the cupboard between your beds. Your laptops will be in the bottom draw. They are for working and there is a filtering system. If you have any questions, feel free to ask."
We both just looked at her. It was more than a little overwhelming.
"Okay. Then I'll leave you girls to settle in."
"Thanks." I mumbled, more out of politeness than actual gratitude. She smiled in a way that was probably mean to be kind and welcoming, but it came off a tad false.
Once the door had closed shut behind her, we both snapped into action, having a little snoop around our new room.
I found my way to the bed with the information pack labelled Chloe and was about to sit down, when Tori stopped me.
"Can we switch?" I gave her an odd look. Tori really was strange sometimes.
"Why?" I was prepared for a fairly ridiculous response, like not being able to sleep on a bed that was touching two walls instead of one, or something equally absurd.
"Just because that woman pretty much just told us where to sleep." Ah, just her normal brand of defiance then.
"Okay." I picked up the pile of paper and flopped down onto the other bed.
"How quickly do you think I could remove the filtering on out laptops?" I rolled my eyes. I knew she could do it, and I bet really bloody quickly, but I wasn't going to tell her that.
"Stick with just changing the sleeping arrangements for now."
"Fine." Clearly she knew that it was a fairly stupid idea as she didn't even bother arguing it. Instead, she lay back onto some black pillows and started idly flicking through the booklets.
Two minutes later, and she groaned in an aggravated manner.
"I feel like I'm in a bloody English boarding school. There is a dress code." That was something that didn't appeal much to me either.
"How bad?"
"It could be worse, I guess. Black trousers or skirt and a black, navy or white shirt. Same colours for cardigans, jumpers or jackets. No slogans or pictures." Plain and practical. At least Derek would love it.
It was a simple rule, so I guess none of the students really objected.
"We're going to have to find Corey then. So he can tell Lauren or Kit to go shopping. We're both wearing blue jeans."
"And, don't forget, we are currently wearing all that we own."
That was true. The only extra I still had on me was a bank card.
"I go find him later today." She nodded, and turned back to Paper Mountain.
"Everything is in here, no kidding. Eating times, sleeping times, map of the school. Even the rules for leaving the grounds, what times we can leave, and where we can actually go." I guess all of that was to be expected. It was a school after all.
"Hey, look at your schedule. I want to know what classes I'm not going to be a complete loner in." I picked up my schedule and laid it next to hers.
"History of the supernatural races, literature, and information technology. So, three in total."
"No. We have four. Look. We have chem. Together as well." She was right. That left loads of lessons on my own though. I really wanted to know what lessons the guys had.
Even Matt, who I barely knew, would be welcome company in this unknown place.
I settled down to literally read the information guide, Tori doing the same.
About three hours later, when we were both getting bored but feeling too nervous to wander around the school, there was a knock on the door. I opened it to find Corey, who was wearing an electric pink suit with a matching hat, and this one had a blue feather. (Seriously, where did this guy shop? It was highly eccentric.) He was carrying five plastic bags in each hand.
I let him in, and when I shut the door, he went and stood right in from of Tori before becoming humanly visible, laughing when it made her jump about a foot into the air.
"Nice to see you too." She muttered, but was smiling nonetheless. We were both happy just to be brought out of the tedium of sitting there in silence.
"I came bearing information and clothes." He put the bags onto the floor.
"Firstly, it was Byron and Derek who went to do all the shopping. Derek seems practical and Byron might as well be a stylist, so I think you both have at least something that's wearable."
We looked at each other and smirked; it couldn't be worse than when Margaret tried shopping for us, the malicious bitch.
"Thank you." We both replied- that solved out issue from earlier.
"So, what's the information?" Tori really was an impatient girl.
"Including Chloe, Matt and Miss Harris, there are eight necromancers. We registered Matt as only necromancer earlier, to fit in better. That means that there is only six people I have to run and hide from when I see their different glows. Because the necros are so low in numbers, it should be fairly easy for me to sneak around."
"How did you hide earlier?" I was actually kind of curious.
"Behind a tree." No real trick then. I laughed, imagining the feather from his hat sticking out from behind a tree branch.
"Nice. Hey, Corey, when are we going to see the rest of the guys? I want to compare timetables and stuff." Stuff. That basically meant that Tori actually wanted to spend time with them. A month before and I bet she would have rather stuck pins in her eyes than admit to liking them. Except Simon. It really was brilliant that she had gotten over that before learning of her parentage. But Simon still didn't know. At least, I didn't think he knew.
"Oh, you'll probably see them at dinner. Also, there is a large area belonging to the school- fields and a forest and picnic areas. Well, fairly large. We can all meet up outside quite discreetly."
"Good." Tori nodded, and I smiled before thinking of the message to pass along.
"Can you tell Kit something for me? That he needs to tell Simon about Tori. He is now the only one who doesn't know." Tori gave me a grateful smile; clearly it had been plaguing her as well.
"I would, but when I left he was asking Simon to take a walk with him, so I think he just found out anyways. I'll pass on the message though, just in case."
"Thanks." Tori replied for me. She really was just so incredibly different from when this all began. Now she acted more human. Not that she wasn't to begin with. Just a little …indifferent to everything.
"No problem. I think I'm going to take my leave about now. The current class ends in 10 minutes, and it is easier to move around discreetly without large groups of people wondering around."
"Okay. We'll see you later, then." We both waved as he walked to the door, pausing for a second- I assumed it was to make himself 'invisible'-before exiting. I turned to Tori, who looked excited. I had a feeling that I didn't want to know why.
"We have an hour before dinner." She looked at the clock. "An hour and ten minutes before dinner. So let's play dress-up!" I stared at her. She truly was odd.
"I mean, take a look at what a combination of shopping by a gay man and a fashion impaired bloke is like."
"Sure." She had a point. I looked at the bags apprehensively.
"Firstly we need to find out whose is whose." That was sort of a no brainer, considering our size difference and all.
"That shouldn't be too difficult. I barely reach your shoulder."
"Point." She picked up a black sweater that would have fit two of me. Not that Tori was fat or anything. Proportionally she was a taller but thinner figure.
"These ones are mine then." Thank you, captain obvious, I thought, dragging the other set of bags towards me.
I tipped the bags upside down on my bed, and for a mass of fabrics, it was pleasantly surprising. I began to sort through it, and looking to my right, I saw tori doing similar.
Once separated into piles, I noticed that everything was plain but stylish. I also noticed that the boys had been smart enough to pick up underwear and socks as well, even two pairs of shoes each. They had actually bought everything necessary.
Since Derek knew absolutely squat about shopping, if all of these fit then Byron truly would be style queen. Or king. I wasn't going to stereotype because he was gay. Whichever he actually preferred.
I picked out a cute, clingy t-shirt with a v-neckline that was fairly high, black skinny jeans, and an electric blue bra, pants and socks, just to feel slightly colourful.
I headed towards the bathroom to change, before Tori's voice so rudely interrupted.
"I'm going to change in here while you're hogging the bathroom. So don't come back in until I give the all clear, okay?" I agreed, feeling immediately regretful. What if she was one of those people who took pretty much forever to change?
I pulled on the clothes fairly quickly, then hesitantly looked in the long mirror and the back of the door. Then blinked a few times. I was completely amazed. The black colours made me look pale, but not in the Goth way that my hair managed to. The clothes were stretchy, and with the jeans I looked slightly taller, more my age and a good deal more curvaceous than normal.
Well done Byron!
A minute of two of actually admiring my appearance, and Tori knocked on the door.
"You can come out now." I did, and noticed that Byron had worked wonders on Tori too.
"Looking good." She smirked.
"You too." I smirked back. Looking at the clock, I noticed that we had wasted nearly an hour sorting through the clothing and then actually getting dressed. I picked up the map. Time to go and look for the dining hall.
A/N-
Guess who is currently the most shady character?
Thank you to the few who have actually reviewed so far!
R&R please peoples. 3
