One way or another I managed to find my way back and for some reason I felt lighter. I felt as though a weight had been lifted from my chest. I suspected that it had something to do with the fact that I was reconnected with Ali. When I first left the school and made life for myself out there, Ali was one of the people that I had missed the most, because he was always there for me. It was easiest for him to be there for me a lot of the time because he wasn't weighed down by other duties unlike everyone else who had a job to do. And there had been times when it was easier for me to talk to Ali because he wasn't an adult yet. In my eyes, he was still a fellow kid of some sort. Now that I thought about it, it had been completely ridiculous that I thought that, but it made me open up to him so much. Losing such a person after I left the academy broke my heart and it took me so long to adjust without all those people around me anymore.
I remembered that each time I needed a dose of confidence, I would clutch the ring that Ali gave me for my ninth birthday present and it had somehow become a lucky charm of some sort. I also had a small pendent which I kept hidden in a small decorated box in my drawers. I used to wear both the ring and the pendent on the same chain but I knew that I couldn't wear it here. If anyone asked to see the picture inside, they'd find out my secret. The picture inside was of one time when I had gone to the beach with my family and it was a picture of me with my parents.
I had a slight feeling that I would continue feeling a lightening emotion every time I encountered someone important from my past. There were only two people left to confront. My dearest aunt on my mum's side, and the school doctor who was a good friend of the family and a good friend of mine too considering the number of times I'd had to go to the infirmary when I was younger.
"Just give it up Dan. Sorry but an opportunity to skip laps and the assault course is too good to pass up." I heard someone grunt. I stepped around a corner to find Dan Zeklos surrounded by four other dhampirs and his hands were currently tied behind his back by something.
"I don't want to do the laps or the assault course any more than you guys do," he scoffed and rolled his eyes.
I watched the scene for a brief moment and the idea of leaving him alone flashed through my mind. And then I blinked and slapped my hands against my cheeks. What the heck was I thinking? Abandonment was not a word in my vocabulary!
Without another thought, I jumped into the fight and shoved away the first dhampir that got in my way. He gave a surprised shout since he probably wasn't expecting to be attacked by someone other than Dan.
"Ah, now we have two people we can capture," another dhampir eyed me up and down like he was analysing me.
"You seem to have gotten yourself into a little bit of a pinch haven't you?" I grinned at Dan.
"You're going to help me?" he seemed surprised for the fact and I turned to him with my arms crossed.
"You don't want me to? Do you think that you can handle those guys all on your own with your hands tied behind your back like that?" I glared at him.
"I just didn't expect it alright, I didn't exactly get into your good books with our first meeting," he said sheepishly.
"Yes well I gave you three your punishment by beating all three of you so that's all in the past so long as you never do such a thing again." I rolled my eyes and ducked just as someone tried to punch me from behind. "You guys really want to be hit don't you?" I glared at them.
"Let's see you trying to take on all four of us at the same time," he sneered and lunged at me. I grabbed onto his shoulders when he was close enough and using a strong amount of force combined with the pull of gravity, I flipped over him while holding onto his shoulders. As I landed I crouched down and threw him over my body, slamming his body front first into the ground. He grunted in pain and I reckoned I managed to incapacitate him for the moment. The next two reached out to grab me at the same time and I jumped up. They ended up grabbing onto each other's hands and I placed my palms on the bridge made by their arms to balance myself. I swung myself around and kicked both their sides of their heads.
I landed softly on my feet and noticed Dan struggling with the last standing dhampir. "Dan, touch your toes!" I yelled at him as I ran towards him. Despite the fact that his hands were behind his back, he still bent down in the right way as though he was trying to touch his toes. I placed my palms on his back and vaulted over his body and kicked the dhampir in the chest. The force of my kick was more than I intended and he sailed backwards and slammed into the wall of the building beside us.
The other three got up and surrounded us again. They cautiously but swiftly approached us and a move that I had always wanted to try out sprang to mind. It was a move that I had seen in Chinese movies and I had the urge to test it out. Taking advantage of Dan's still bent forward state; I placed my palms on his back again and got into a hand stand position with my elbows bent so that I was lower. And then I spread my legs into splits and using my hands, I twirled around and kicked all three of them. I noticed their shocked expressions as they fell.
I flipped off of Dan's back and landed with my knees bent and my hands touching the ground. I lifted my head up and blew at the strands of that fell into my face as a result of the small fight.
"Wow, any more moves to show us martial arts girl?" Dan chuckled as he rested his chin at the top of my head.
"Unless you want me trying them out on you, then nope." I grinned cheekily and stood up. I walked behind him and untied the thin silver chain that bound his hands together. "Gee… where the heck did they get this?"
"Most dhampirs around here have one," he shrugged and rubbed his wrists where the silver had burned his skin.
"Is that painful?" I asked with open concern and gently took his hands in mine so that I could inspect the burns.
"It stings but it's bearable," he smiled and withdrew his hands. "I have to say that I was not expecting you to jump to my rescue. Do you mind if I call you Kai?"
"Go for it." I waved dismissively. "Let's go before we get pounced on by anyone else. If we run back now, we'll get back just past the time limit. I have a feeling that there'll probably be a crowd of dhampirs hanging around there hoping to catch us at the last second."
"Yeah, it'll be the most logical move to them if they've failed to catch us any other time." Dan agreed and the pair of us took off running back towards the training room. Just as I had predicted, there really was a crowd of dhampirs and Moroi waiting at the doors of the training room. Dan and I hung back in the shadows as we contemplated on what to do. We were surprised to be joined by Drew and the twins.
"So now we're stuck." Jacks grumbled when he saw the herd.
"Maybe… there has to be a way through." I frowned as I tried to look for a way in.
"We could always force our way through. It'll be easily done with all five of us working together." Quinn suggested.
"But it also causes a high risk of them holding onto us as we crash into the training room. That would deem them the winner so that plan is a bad idea." I shook my head.
"Do you have a better idea?" they turned to me.
"Maybe." I smirked when I noticed a window to the far side. It was pretty much in the middle between us and the crowd but slightly closer to us. "How good are you guys at breaking open a window?"
"You're asking four elementalists that question?" they stared at me wryly.
"Just asking. Well I hope you four are quick runners because we're going to count on that as our win." I said defensively.
"You're thinking of using that window aren't you?" Drew asked when he saw the same opportunity that I did. "That's very risky."
"But so totally our style, don't you think?" I smirked. "And besides, we have a slight element of surprise since they probably wouldn't expect us to face them head on."
"Well we have no other suggestion so let's go for it. Even if it fails, we can still go with throttling them to get past." Quinn shrugged.
"Then let's go win this game." I cheered quietly and with that said we ran as fast as we could towards the window. Drew and Jacks were in the lead side by side with me just behind them and then it was Dan and Quinn was at the back. We managed to run five paces before someone noticed and called for the others and they began running towards us. I reached behind me and grabbed hold of Quinn's hand and dragged him along with me as I picked up the pace. He seemed to slip a little bit but managed to keep running without tripping up.
I had to say that it was a very close call. The crowd hadn't expected us to go for the window so our sharp turn to the right was a surprise to them and Drew and Jacks both used fire and earth to smash open the window a millisecond before we threw ourselves through and landed in a pile.
"SAFE!" I cheered and fell into hysterical laughter. "My insane plan worked!"
"That it did," the other four laughed and smacked my back playfully.
"Cheers for saving my ass just now." Quinn smiled at me and held out his hand to me to help me up when he'd stood up.
"No problem, there's no way I wouldn't make sure every person of the team got through. It was my insane plan after all." I smiled.
"And your insane plan damaged school property." Joe sighed as he shook his head in exasperation.
"It's alright, we'll take responsibility and pay for it," the five of us chimed at the same time. We turned to stare at each other for a moment before bursting into laughter together.
Joe and Crispin stared at us for a moment before wide smiles broke across their faces. "Have you five got all the signatures?"
"Yep," we chimed and handed the slips over. The pair double checked the lists and nodded in approval.
"It seems that you five are the winners." Joe announced aloud. "That means you all have to do laps and the course on Saturday!" he told everyone else. They let out a collective groan and Crispin stepped closer to give me an impressed light punch to the shoulder.
"That team work was impressive and I thought for sure that with so many disadvantages, at least one of you would get caught," he commented.
"We did nearly get caught but Drew and Kylie here helped us out and broke us out of trouble each time." Jacks commented.
"Oh really? I look forward to hearing the report of other Guardians who've kept an eye on this challenge." Crispin stated.
"How many Guardians were watching us by the way? Because I barely saw any." I frowned. I tugged the hair tie and shook my hair loose so that it tumbled over my shoulders in thick masses.
"They tailed each of you and if they ever lost track they would pass it on to the nearest Guardian to each of you." Crispin explained. "You were watched the entire time and taped as well. This will certainly be an interesting recording."
"It won't be shown to everyone right?" I stared at him in horror.
"No, it will be for analysis purposes only so you do not need to worry about that," he shook his head and ruffled my hair causing me to sigh in relief.
"You five are free to go or do whatever you want since you're all done for today as part of the prize for winning." Joe told us.
"Do you want to sit with us for today since we can leave early?" Jacks offered as he turned to me before the four of them left.
"Thanks for the offer but I'll stay and wait for the other three to finish their laps." I shook my head. "It won't feel right if I just leave without them. Maybe another time."
"I'll have to hold you to that Miss Prodigy." Quinn smirked at me and nudged my shoulder playfully.
"Oh no, not you guys too!" I groaned and smacked my forehead. "Really? Is that necessary?"
"Sure is," they nodded with smirks on their faces.
"Jerks." I huffed but because my tone held no menace, none of them took offence.
"This achievement will spread like hellfire for sure so be prepared." Dan warned me.
"I'll take whatever they want to throw at me." I grinned but was grateful for his concern.
The four of them left and Crispin went off to make sure everyone was running their required laps. When I was sure that Joe and I were alone, I turned to him with a glare.
"You! You are absolutely evil!" I screamed at him and poked hard at his chest. "You made that list didn't you?"
"Yes," he stared down at me in amusement.
"Then why the hell did you make me go look for Ali?!"
"Because I know that he would be hurt if he didn't see you. If you had prolonged it for any longer, you'd be hurting both him and yourself so I decided to give you a hand."
"Do you know how embarrassing it was?" I groaned as I hid my face with my hands. "All those little kids were there and he… argh I'm never going to live this down. If this gets out then I'm so screwed."
"What did he do?" he sat me down and sat beside me.
"Well he recognised me straight away with a glance. He broke away from a pile of kids trying to hold him down. Boy was that an amusing sight. He ran up to me, hugged me for a long time and then decided to shower my face with kisses."
"Aw, so your little dream came true," he teased.
"Joey!" I squealed in further embarrassment. "I can't belief you just said that!"
"Hey, you did have a crush on him remember?"
"Yes I do remember thank you very much. That's beside the point!"
"I know, I just like teasing you Kai," he laughed and ruffled my hair. "So how was it? Seeing him I mean."
"It…" I tried to find a word to describe how I felt. "It was incredible." I sighed a little breathlessly. "Nothing can describe how happy I felt when I saw him. I mean, the same goes for you and Martin and I know that I'll be overjoyed to get in touch with the others as my real self again but you know that Ali was always slightly different."
"Yes I do Kai, you don't have to try and explain. We all know that Al was either your ideal prince or ideal brother to you."
"Prince? Did I really refer to him as such when I was younger?"
"You sure did. What do you think now?"
"I've only just seen him Joey, I have no idea how I feel. At the moment, I'm just trying to sort out my emotions and not to explode from happiness from seeing you all again." I scoffed.
"Finding you so out of the blue was so unexpected. I could barely recognise you but after we boarded the plane and I got a better look at you, I could see the resemblance. I only got the confirmation because of the stake though. There is nothing that could describe how Martin and I feel to have found you. The huge sense of relief that you were alright. Heck you are better than alright, much better than alright. We are so proud of you Kai."
"Thanks Joey." I smiled and gave him a brief hug. We chatted idly for a while longer before moving outside so that I would be able to tell when the other three finished their laps. I noticed with surprise that Ingrid was the fastest out of the three of them, then it was Els, and then it was Roxy. I had wrongly judged that because Ingrid seemed to find combat class challenging, I wrongly assumed that she wouldn't cope well with the running. But it seemed to be her strong point.
"Thanks so much for waiting Kai." Roxy beamed with an exhausted smile.
"No problem. I bet you three are starving now from all that exercise." I grinned.
"I'm so tired I don't even have that much of an appetite." Ingrid groaned.
"Well you guys have to eat or else you'll become ill or pass out." I advised them and gently pushed them towards the dining hall.
"How on earth did you manage to win? I know you're an amazing fighter but surely with both Moroi and dhampirs gunning for you, you would've slipped up. I thought for sure that we would have a high chance." Roxy complained.
"Well to be honest, I didn't really bump into anyone since I spent most of my efforts to avoid you guys as much as possible." I admitted. "I think I only bumped into trouble once on my own. The other times I was either with the twins or Dan."
"I still can't believe you managed to win!" Els beamed.
"You will now officially be known as the prodigy alongside those four Moroi." Ingrid cheered. "Now you can't deny it anymore."
"I can still deny it. Whether anyone takes any notice of my complaints is a different story." I scoffed. "Hey Els, you know how you said that you wanted us to have a fashion show tonight?"
"Yeah, don't tell me you want to pull out? Because I won't let you," she glared at me.
"It's not that drastic, but do you mind if we start a little late? I want to make a visit to the elementary division after dinner." I shook my head to reassure her.
"The elementary division? Why?" Roxy turned to me in surprise.
"Well during my task of acquiring signatures from various people around school, I had to go to the elementary division and it seems that a couple of them somehow got a little attached to me." I smiled sheepishly.
"So not only are you popular with the senior end with the school but also the little kids? Wow now that's impressive." Ingrid whistled.
"It's only a couple of them." I protested and waved my hands around in defence.
"What time will you be back do you think?"
"Apparently their lights' out is at eight so maybe eight thirty?" I suggested.
"Okay, that's fine. We'll start when you get back."
"You guys should start first. You probably have more things to go through than I do. Honestly, I only have one or two things that are remotely suitable for a party type thing." I told them. When I had asked Ana and Louise to help pack my bags, I hadn't anticipated on being invited to parties at all so I only told them to bring over one or two outfits that would be suitable for such occasions. I had asked them to pack as little as possible while still packing sufficient amount since I didn't want Martin and whomever he took with him to help carry my things to have to carry too much.
"It won't be fun to start without you. We'll have plenty of time after you get back so don't you worry about it." Els winked.
"Man, I know what I definitely have to get tomorrow." I groaned when I noticed that my hair tie was missing from my wrist where I normally kept it.
"What?"
"Lots of hair ties. I just lost my last one." I sighed.
"You have another training session after lunch right?" Roxy frowned. I nodded and she handed me one of her spares. "Take this one for now and give it back to me tonight at dinner."
"Thanks Roxy." I smiled gratefully. We walked into the dining hall for lunch and the noise of numerous conversations occurring at the same time continued for a while until someone shouted.
"Hey it's that girl who flew from the sky!" someone hollered as he stood up and pointed at me.
"Um… what?" I stared at him in open shock.
"You fell from the sky right? I mean, one moment I was just staring out of the window along with a bunch of other people in my class, and then you just dropped and landed without hurting yourself," he beamed in excitement. "Hi, I'm Tate, a freshman. You must be a senior since your move was so awesome!"
"Actually… I'm just a sophomore." I told him.
"Wow… you're not even in your final year and you could pull that off…" he marvelled.
"Its nice meeting you Tate but I'm going to get some food so see you around kid." I laughed and headed to the food bar with Roxy, Els and Ingrid. "Well that was awkward…" I whispered to them.
"What did you do?"
"Well I was kind of cornered in a classroom when I collected my first signature so the first thing that came to mind as my escape route was the window. I was on the second floor and I somehow managed to survive without injuring myself other than receiving a small wound where a branch cut me when I dropped down." I explained to them.
"You jumped down from the second floor?" they stared at me in disbelief.
"Yep."
"Are you crazy?!" Ingrid demanded.
"I've been told that on several occasions." I grinned sheepishly and rubbed the back of my neck guiltily.