Chapter Five, Expect the Unexpected
IS Academy, Japan, Earth, April 2015
She stood in a white world, all was white except for the remains of buildings where she stood. Ruins of stone and concrete, metal rebar protruding from random blocks. An ever present aura permeated the world, it was not oppressive merely there, like the non-existent wind. Standing in front of her is the figure of the woman, tall with a head topped with short blond hair and piercing hazel eyes. A black uniform adorns her body, completely covering her yet at the same time emphasizing her subtle curves. She can feel the determination, the pride, the power radiating outwards from the woman, yet there is also sadness, and loss in her eyes. Yet underneath it all is an immovable strength, the strength to do what is necessary, the strength to carry on. The woman closed her eyes for a moment before opening them again, after a short pause she began to speak-
*BEEP*BEEP*BEEP*BEEP*
Cassandra Fraiser groggily opened her eyes, before raising her head of the comfortable pillow. What had that dream been about, as she tried to recall it the details faded from memory. Slamming her fist down on the clock turned of the alarm, for a moment. When it refused to stop it's annoying call to awareness, she rotated her head and shoulders to stare the offending object into oblivion. Looking at the clock her eyes snapped open, crap it was already seven forty-five, her home room starts at eight-thirty. Throwing the blankets aside she attempts to get out of bed only to have her left foot caught in the sheets. She impacted the floor face first with an audible thud.
Picking herself up carefully this time around she returned the sheets to the bed before going to get changed. Quickly swapping out of her pajamas for her school uniform, which was a white shirt with matching skirt, adorned with red stripes, indicating that she was a first year, and black trim that made the whites and reds stand out more. Stopping by the washroom on the way out she spent a few minutes making herself presentable to the rest of the world. She exited a few minutes later with straight hair, and unwrinkled uniform and a face that didn't look several years older than she actually was. Making a quick detour to pick up her bag, which she had almost forgotten, she exited her dorm room making sure to lock it behind her.
Heading down to the cafeteria she didn't pass to many students, still asleep? If they don't get up soon they'll miss their first class. The class lists had been posted in the cafeteria for the past three days, her home room was class one-b, she had meant to ask Cecilia what class she was in but never got around to it. And because the lists were all in kanji script looking through them would be difficult, she could speak Japanese reasonably well but her ability to read kanji required some work.
Entering the cafeteria it didn't take a genius to figure out that most of the school had slept in, on the first day of classes. This was going to end in tears. Picking up a plate of eggs, bacon and sliced fruits along with a glass of juice she made her way over to the back of the cafeteria to eat. She had just started eating when she spotted Cecilia's blonde hair in the crowd. She gave a quick wave over to the other girl, Cecilia returned the wave before going of to get her meal. A few minutes later Cecilia came over with her breakfast, buttered toast with some scrambled eggs, and sat down across from Cassandra.
Deciding to be the one to break the ice, and get the answer to a question that had been bothering her.. "You know I never did which class you were in? I'm in b-one."
"Oh, I'm in class one-b, you, so same class. Do you know the room number? I forgot to look that up."
"Room three nineteen, main building."
"I'll just follow you there. But I'm surprised, if you wanted to find out which class I was in you could have just looked it up?"
"I have trouble with kanji." As she said this she let her shoulders sag a bit, it was kind of embarrassing not to mention a problem considering it was probably what all her assignments and tests would be written in.
Cecilia glanced over at the clock on the wall before turning back to her. "We don't have time before class, but... If you want we can meet up somewhere afterwords and I can help you."
"Really!" She was practically jumping out of her chair.
"Yes, yes, just calm down already, you don't need to get all exited about it."
"Sorry, it just that over the past week I haven't been able to make out most of the stuff that's written down. It's driving me crazy."
"Weren't you supposed to learn kanji before you came here."
"I tried, just my teacher wasn't very good at teaching, though he did teach me Japanese pretty well."
"'He', no wonder you didn't learn it, you should have gotten a female teacher, they would have made sure you had what you needed." Cassandra let out a sigh, Cecilia's pro female stance was kinda annoying, if somewhat justified.
"We'll figure out a time and place later, right now we should get to class."
"Agreed." With that they finished off their meals before grabbing their bags and heading for the cafeteria exit.
Just as they were about to leave, Cecilia stopped, turned around and pushed her back away from the exit. Before she could say anything, like asking why Cecilia just did that a literal stampede of students rushed through the exit and into the cafeteria. Well that explained where everyone was.
It must have taken at least five minutes for the crowd to thin out enough for her and Cecilia to get out of the now crowded cafeteria. Did everyone seriously have to get up at the last minute, if they weren't careful they would miss class. As it was she and Cecilia had the hallway to themselves as they made their way to the main building's third floor.
Cecilia broke the silence that had developed. "You know I think I just might get up early everyday to avoid that crowd."
"What you mean you got up early accidentally?"
"Yes, why else would I get up when I didn't intend to. You intended to get up early?"
"Yeah, the past week I've been getting up later than usual, even today was still later than I normally do." Cecilia looked horrified. "What?"
"How can you get up so early!? It couldn't have been to far past seven-thirty!"
"I'm used to getting up around six thirty, seven thirty's easy."
"How can you do that, it's unnatural!"
"My family's in the military, I learned how to get up early a long time ago."
"So... that explains it." Cecilia gave a forced smile. They finished the journey to the classroom in silence.
Room three nineteen was fairly plain as classrooms went. The wall bordering the hallway was a low wall topped by windows running down it's length. Inside thirty wooden topped desks stood in five rows of six facing a podium and large desk set at the front of the room. Several desks were already occupied by students in no particular order. Entering the room her gaze settled on the board at the front where there was a diagram of the classroom drawn up. It took her all of two seconds to realize that it was a seating arrangement. You have to be kidding me, what do they think this is, preschool. It's high school and they have seating arrangements.
Letting out a sigh and giving into the unreasonable rules for the time being, she went to the board and located her desk. It ended up just behind one of the girls who was already there bordering the window wall, Cecilia ended up on the other side of the class by the windows.
The girl who was seated in front of her was reading a magazine of some kind, but do to the angle she was looking at it from she couldn't make out any details of it. Seeing as it didn't concern her she paid it no mind and continued on to her desk where she set her bag down beside the desk before sitting down.
She had just leaned back in her seat when the girl in front of her suddenly said, "this doesn't make any sense," before dropping her head down on to her desk. Hard, I heard her head crack! That had to have hurt. She did her best to not notice her classmates painful moaning, really what was worth hitting your head on the desk?
After a minute or so of painful moaning her classmate finally raised her head of the desk, she had been getting ready to go grab someone, evidently no additional help was needed. She didn't expect the girl to turn around. "Sorry about that, I just can't make out what this says, and normally I can, and I'm rambling aren't I." She put on her best amused face, well that was an entertaining start to my morning. The girl was also holding up the magazine she had been reading, it was the latest issue of 'GateWay Monthly', in english. Basically a magazine that published scientific papers and articles from the gateway initiative. What did Carter or someone else put in there, it was supposed to be dumbed down, but some people's idea of dumbed down did equate to understandable to the average person, Carter.
No wonder the poor girl needed help understanding what was written down. "Let me see that." She held her hand out for the magazine which the girl turned over. She placed it down on her desk while the girl turned to face her. "So what part don't you get?"
"One of the article that starts on page seventeen." She flipped to the relevant page in the magazine.
"Alright, which one?"
The girl pointed to one the articles. "That one."
It took her all of two seconds to figure out why the girl was having so much trouble. "Well there's your problem, you're trying to understand McKay's ramblings."
"You know McKay!" The girl looked ready to go into freakout mode.
"By reputation only." And being one of Carter's coworkers, but that stuff was top-secret. "He writes papers that contain a lot of scientific wording, so it's no surprise you got lost somewhere."
"Hmmm... You know I didn't expect to run into someone else who reads this stuff, everyone back home thinks it's garbage. But I find it interesting, well what I can understand at any rate. So what parts interest you the most?"
"Mostly I read the stuff by Carter and Lam," mostly because she finds it funny how they pass of offworld tech to the general public. "Though I do just go through most of the articles that I find to be interesting."
"I just end up reading the whole magazine start to finish." Okay, you may be the only one who does that.
"I see. You know I didn't get your name." She really needed to remember to ask for names before getting into a long conversation with someone she didn't know.
"It's Nizru Takanachi, yours?"
"Cassandra Fraiser. You from around here?"
"Yeah, I'm from Fukushima. By your name your from, europe right."
"Ah no. I'm the representative candidate from the U.S."
"Whaaa... PPPPlllleease take care of me!" Thunk, the Nizru tried to bow in her seat and only end up hitting her head on Cassandra's desk.
"Ahhhhh..." Err, what? What just happened, this was not how she intended to start the morning, semester or year.
A presence beside her made her turn her head to face it. Cecilia was standing there looking very upset. What now? "Would you mind explaining?" Cecilia's smile was definitely forced, and gave her the shivers when she looked at it.
"Explaining what?" Would someone explain why the hell everyone went weird suddenly.
"What to you mean 'Explaining what'!, why didn't you tell me you were a representative candidate?" Oh that, that made sense.
"You never asked, and I didn't think it was relevant." Nizru hadn't moved, should someone be informed of this, the girl may have suffered permanent injury.
"Hadn't thought it relevant, do you know what being a representative candidate means?"
"It means you're representing your country at the IS academy."
"So you understand some of it, let me fill you in on the rest. A representative candidate holds one of only four hundred and sixty-seven cores, making them the elite of the elite in the world. I, Cecilia Alcot am the representative candidate from England. We are the elite in this class Cassandra. Honestly, what do they teach you in America."
"You know you're making it a bigger deal than it actually is, the only reason I got selected was because of certain circumstances that put me in the right situation." She decided not to go into circumstances as that was classified information that shouldn't be shouted from the rooftops. Though most people would probably dismiss it anyways. "Besides being a rep candidate doesn't make you a better person or pilot."
"How can you say that?"
"Was it any different from why you were selected?"
"Yes!" She aimed the patented Fraiser glare at Cecilia, Cecilia returned her own glare. "Mostly." She continued on with the glare, "Sort of." Cecilia's own glare was wavering. "Kind of." The glare wavered before falling completely. "No." Cecila's normally stern voice had lost it's edge and confidence that had defined it.
"I thought so." Just then the bell rang prompting Cecilia to return to her seat. In less than a minute every desk in the room occupied, just in time as the prof entered the room. The prof herself was wearing a black and brown version of the school uniform.
A curt cough silenced the remaining chatter. She had just opened her mouth to speak when the loudest 'squee' Cassandra had ever heard came from the wall behind the prof. The prof`s eyes went as wide as they possibly could, Cassandra was pretty sure everyone mirrored the prof`s expression.
The sound of a door being thrown open was quickly followed by a the sound of a stampede of students before silence returned. The silence lasted for about a minute before it was broken by a quiet groan. The prof had buried her forehead in both of her hands and was intently staring at the desk. Well that was an interesting start to the day.
Nizru still hadn't moved.
Later
Main building rooftop
Cassandra was going over the course schedule while drinking from a water bottle she had picked up at the cafeteria. She had gotten the schedule during first period after things had straightened themselves out somewhat. Her classes were organized into a two-week block that repeated itself throughout the year, relatively normal. What wasn't normal for most schools were the six scheduled tournaments throughout the year. The first in line was the class representative tournament at the beginning of may.
The classes were fairly normal fare, with various language courses, science, and math. What stood out were the 'IS training sessions' that happened once or twice a week. Only one school in the world had that as a class, the school she was currently attending. Letting a bunch of teenagers run wild in the most powerful, highly expensive military hardware publicly on the planet.
She took a sip from the bottle before leaning back against the wall behind her. She had picked one of the few places on the roof where there was shade, right next to the stairwell leading back down into the building. She was pretty sure she had most of her schedule figured out, she would just run it by Cecilia later to get a second opinion. Speaking of which she should probably try to talk with Cecilia some time about this morning, that had not gone well.
Her thoughts were interrupted when the door to the stairwell was thrown open quickly followed by the only male student at the academy Ichika Orimura coming around the corner. For a moment they just stayed there staring at each other unable to do anything. Ichika looked ready to bolt at a moments notice while Cassandra was pretty sure she looked dumbstruck.
Hearing pounding coming from below, she quickly deduced what was happening. Standing up she went over to the door to the stairwell, looks like she was saving him form a mob, again. Opening the door she began to making her way down the stairs. She had only gone down a few steps when the lead girl of the mob came around the bend in the stairwell. The girl took one look at Cassandra before her face adopted a disappointed look.
The girl shouted down the stairs, "Dammit, we went the wrong way!"
"I'm sure he came this way!"
"Well he evidently didn't!"
"How do figure that?"
"Someone's coming down."
"Ohh..."
Cassandra felt she should probably say something, "Uhh who are you looking for?"
"No one, just... go back to whatever you were doing."
"O...kay." With that the other girl ran back down the stairs.
Cassandra turned around and returned to the bench, where she had been previously. All without moving her eyes and head. She couldn't believe how easy that had been, maybe playing stupid had its advantages.
"Uhh thanks, again." Ichika speaking to her snapped her out of the daze she had fallen into.
"Uh Oh. I'm surprised you didn't take your chance and run. Besides why are you thanking me again?"
"For that time in the cafeteria, you really helped me get out of a difficult place. And a man always pays his depts, so that's two favors I owe you." Wow, he sounded sorta like Teal'c, a meeting between these two would be interesting to watch.
"Don't worry about it, you get chased around like that a lot."
"Everyday since I got here, and before that every news agency was willing to do anything to get an interview with me. Eventually they went to far and my sister enrolled me here. Though I'm still deciding if it was a good idea."
"Sister?" Does he mean Chifuyu Orimura the ex Mondo Gras champion. They share the same family name but are they really related?
"Yeah turns out she teaches here." Cassandra was pretty sure she would have spit out water if she had been drinking any.
"What!? Why is your sister teaching here? Well it does explain why you were enrolled here."
"Yeah, apparently it was to keep me safe, I don't feel safe here. Almost every waking moment is spent trying not to get killed by a mob of girls. Really you'd expect that they would have tired of it already. Sis didn't give me much of choice though. Rule number one at our house, you don't mess with Chifuyu Orimura, White Night pilot, Mondo Gras champion and the wife of Shinono Tabanae." It was obvious Ichika wasn't exactly happy right no- wait what did he say.
"Tabbanae's wife?!"
"Yeah, though they don't want people finding out about it. Can't figure out why though." She could figure out why, there were certain groups that would react rather badly to that bit of information. How she was interested, it was no small secret that the SGC wanted to hire Tabanae, and any way to get in contact with her was valuable. And here was one just dropped right into their laps.
"You know I really shouldn't be surprised at all, after all except for you only women can pilot an IS, so it sort of makes sense for their creator to have an interest in women." She gave Ichika a look from top to bottom. "You are a guy right? Not just some cross dressing girl looking for attention."
Ichika just gave her a glare, which sent her into a fit of giggles. "Do you want me to prove it to you." He then reached for the top of his pants.
"Nah, it's okay. Only a guy would actually prove his manhood like that." Awkward moment avoided. "When I first heard your name I wondered if you were really related to Chifuyu Orimura, well I guess I know now."
"Yah, though until today I didn't know she taught here. Found out when she hit me with the attendance book, let me tell you that thing hurts when it hits. Well it explains where she had been going off to, seeing as she left me alone at home for pretty much my entire time in middle school."
"Alone, what about your parents?"
"I never knew my parents, for as long as I can remember I've been living with my sister. Though I suppose you have always had your parents around."
"Actually my parents died when I was six."
"Ohhh... I didn't know."
"You had no way of knowing anyways." The pair dropped into silence, neither of them sure what to say.
They remained that way for a few minutes before Ichika spoke up. "You ever wonder whats out there. The IS was originally created for space travel, so wouldn't it be great if we can actually go out among the stars and see what's there."
"No I don't." She knew exactly what was out there, and what was out there was looking to kill or enslave everyone on this planet. "No I don't wonder what's out," softly she added, "I know what's out there."
"Ehh, that's to bad. It's just that ever since the IS was introduced I've been dreaming of going to the stars. Of course I always thought I would just be part of the support crew, I never thought I would actually end up piloting an IS." That might be closer than Ichika believed. "Do you have a dream?"
"Not really." Not one she could actually share with him anyways. She wished to return to the stars, and bring down the Goa'uld. Softly she added, "once you have seen the truth it is impossible to return to ignorance."
Later
Teachers Office
Chifuyu Orimura looked over the idiot seated across from her. In one day he had managed to completely destroy any semblance of of sanity in this school. "In less than one day you managed to turn this entire school upside down. And that's not even counting what you did during the later half of lunch break, and really I don't even want to know. Given how the rest of the day turned out."
"It's not my fault that almost every girl in the school is actively trying to kill me. And I just glad there is at least one girl, who I had talked with during the later half of lunch, who isn't trying to bury me in a dogpile. I swear Houki and Rin are going to rip me in half by the end of the week."
"How you manage to infuriate so many women is beyond me-"
"I infuriate them! How many of them were asking to be disciplined by you this morning, you seem to do your own bit of infuriating yourself. Maybe it's because you're ma-"
"That was the result of one too many drinks-"
"You could have always broken up later though, and you didn't." Dammit stop using logical arguments.
"Irrelevant. Now you said you were talking to a girl during lunch break, which would imply she wasn't chasing you down. Did you get her name?" At least someone used their head rather than other body parts meant for other tasks than thinking.
"Uhh, oops." Why was she not surprised. "She was a first year who wasn't in our class."
"Well you narrowed it down from three hundred and sixty students to ninety, that makes it so much easier."
"Really." She let out a sigh.
"Learn to recognize sarcasm, it will come in really use full during your life."
"Yah, Yah. She also had blonde hair and was here before the year started."
"Still not enough to go on. When you meet people you should make a habit of getting their names."
"Right." Ichika just rolled his eyes.
"I'm trying to help you." He just rolled his eyes again. "Remember who determines your grade at the end of the year."
"So in other words the amount of effort I put in is irrelevant to my final mark."
"Not what I meant." Glancing at the clock. "You should run along now, I have work to do and you have some thinking to do."
"Yeah yeah. Oh, if I don't show up for class tomorrow it's because I've been dismembered and my body scattered around the school."
"You're over thinking things."
"Well you said I had some thinking to do."
"Not what I meant, now I have other work that needs to be attended to."
"I'll try to survive." With that he got up and left. He wouldn't end up dead would he?
Later
Dorms
Cassandra Fraiser looked over the notes she had compiled about the days events, she would pass on most of what went into the notes to carter when they met up again. There was at least one tidbit that the SGC would be interested to know.
She would however make sure that it was accurate, and not just born of Ichika's illusions about his sister. At first glance it didn't seem like it held any truth, but then this involved Tabanae so all bets were of.
Getting confirmation would mean getting close to Ichika, which alone had its problems she had been lucky today, but while she didn't hate the guy he wasn't her type. Being a spy was harder than the movies made it out to be, and if mom ever found out about it she was going to regret it. Movie spies had it easy, they didn't have to deal with moms.
Closing the laptop she focused on her other problem, backing out of the duel for class representative with Cecilia. While she was fairly confident that she could win the duel, she didn't want to win as that would mean becoming the class representative and having more work to do. Really, what made Cecilia think that a duel was the best way to decide class representative, considering she didn't even want the position. And what was with the condition that the loser runs around the school naked, where the hell did Cecilia come up with that!, and what was with the rest of the class thinking it was a good idea.
And the only reason she was even in the running for class representative was that Nizru had 'volunteered' her for the position. And before she could turn down the position, Cecilia had volunteered herself for the position and declared the best way to decide would be via a duel, which the rest of the class had been rather enthusiastic about. Then the prof sealed the deal and it was done, and had left her looking for a way out of it.
So now she had to get out of the duel by the end of the week or she would have to be the class representative or run around the school naked. She wasn't sure what was worse. Stifling a yawn she decided to deal with it in the morning.
At the moment only one bed was occupied as her roommate still hadn't shown up despite the first day of classes finishing. At this point she had given up on getting a roommate, besides Ichika had a room to himself and if there was an even number of students that meant one other person was going to get a room to themselves. Looks like that's me.
Just as she was about to get into bed, someone knocked on her door, well looks like I'm getting a roommate after all. Walking over to the door she opened it up to reveal a long brown-haired girl standing in the doorway, first year judging by the uniform. She was holding the collar of another girl with short silver hair clutching onto a bag and snoring loudly, also a first year. She stared at the pair for a second before closing the door.
A knock came again, she opened the pair hoping the scene in the hallway had changed. The pair was still there snores included. Letting out a sigh, "what do you want."
Clearing her throat the brunette spoke, "My name is Ludmilia Chekov and this," pointing to the silver-haired girl, "is your roommate."
"And does my 'roommate' have a name? And why are you dragging her around."
"Well I'm the class four representative and this girl was sleeping in class and we couldn't wake her up. So being the class representative I was tasked with bringing her to her room. First I had to collect her and her bag from the classroom then we had to go down to-"
"Cut to the chase." Really couldn't people just sum things up.
"She bunking in this room, with you apparently."
"And her name?" Kind of important.
"I don't know."
"Isn't that required to find her room." Really, I don't even think Ichika remembered to get my name today, is there something in this school that prevents people from asking others names.
"Now that you mention it, the desk lady managed to figure out her name, but I can't remember what it was."
"Do you remember what she did to find it out at least."
"I think she pulled out a necklace of some sort and read it..." They both looked down at the girl, Cassandra unburden by holding anything made it down first. Going to the back of the neck she found two necklaces, rather than trying a guessing game she pulled both out. The first one was the school issued ID, convenient, the second looked to be a locket.
Not wanting to get into her privacy she looked over the ID, "Sasha McQuabe."
"What's that?"
"Her name, now can you help me get her in."
"Sure." Ludmiila grabbed Sasha's left arm while she grabbed the right, which brought up something else, instead of the normal skirt Sasha was wearing the pant version of the uniform. Is Sasha really a guy? After thinking about it for a second she came to the conclusion that if Sasha was really a guy, they would be rooming with Ichika not her.
In took the pair of them about a minute to put Sasha into the unoccupied bed and tuck her in. After that Ludmilia left, presumably to go back to her room, Cassandra grabbed her laptop and put it into her safe that had come with the room, her phone and wallet joined it. Before she shut of the lights Sasha's locket caught her eye from where she had put it down on the desk.
Curiosity getting the better of her she went and picked it up. Looking over her shoulder to make sure Sasha wasn't awake she opened it. Inside was a picture of Sasha and a masculine red head, after looking over it for a minute and not finding anything else Cassandra returned the locket to Sasha's neck. She wanted to ask Sasha about the locket but she was tired and Sasha was fast asleep meaning any questions would have to wait until morning. Stifling another yawn Cassandra went to bed.