Chapter 14

About a month had passed since the first day at the Interstellar Academy and while he was never into studying in the past, Jim took his studying very seriously. He knew that both he and Jasmine were brought here under mysterious circumstances, but that didn't stop him from wanting to do the best he could. His adventures to Treasure Planet with Jasmine had really inspired him to become a captain of his own ship one day and he didn't want to miss out on any opportunity to get him through that door. Although he wasn't the smartest boy in the school, he did have help from Bryce and Professor Price, whom he's come to admire. The way his professor treated him and the rest of the students, reminded him of the way Silver had treated him, minus the backstabbing and the times Silver tried to kill him of course.

When he wasn't studying or trying to keep Morph and Percha from getting out of his room every other day, Jim did make sure to hang out with his friends as well as have some alone time with Jasmine. For once, Jim felt like he had it all and prayed that nothing would ruin this feeling. Walking down one of the schools hallways, he stopped due to what sounded like running footsteps coming behind him. Turning around, he watched as Bryce, Blake, and surprisingly Castor all ran down the hall.

"Run!" Bryce yelled, laughing as he ran.

Jim didn't hesitate as he joined his friends, just as one of the guys from one of the other dorms yelled "You're dead Harthington!"

"Catch me if you can loser!" Bryce called back, not looking over his shoulder.

"Why is he chasing us?" Jim questioned.

Blake looked over his shoulder, but then kept on running as he saw the murderous stare coming from their pursuer. "Bryce just had the lovely idea of pulling a prank on Gale and just had to drag us into it!"

"Oh come one, it was worth it!"

"Not if it means getting pounded to death!" Castor states.

"Come on Castor, don't try to deny how funny it was! You were just as giddy as I was about pulling it off!"

"No I wasn't!"

"Liar, liar, pants on freaking fire!" Bryce teased, earning an irritated glare from his roommate.

"Oh please, that is so..." Castor stopped in the middle of his retort, just as everyone stopped running altogether.

In the middle of the hallway, the smug expression of Captain Crosswater met their faces. "Having fun, are we?"

"Uh no, we were just on our way to meet someone." Blake lied, knowing that he would be the most convincing out of all of them.

"Oh really, then what's this?" Captain Crosswater pulls out his disc, tapped a few buttons, and a hologram appeared.

Bryce, Blake, and Castor worked together to carefully carry a mattress, with Gale asleep on top, outside. The hologram showed them placing the mattress in the middle of the pond, they found in another courtyard, and begin yelling in Gale's ear to wake him up. What ensued was a hilarious video of Gale falling into the pond and then the boys began running for their lives from the now soaked victim.

"So, you boys fancy yourselves as a couple of troublemakers? Well, it seems today is my lucky day. Now march!" Captain Crosswater pointed in a direction and the boys had no choice but to follow.

The boys found themselves on kitchen cleanup duty and even though they tried to persuade Captain Crosswater that Jim had no part in their schemes, Jim was forced to help his friends do one of the worst jobs ever. The amount of dishes in the school's kitchen, made cleaning dishes on the R.L.S. Legacy and the Benbow Inn feel like a breeze.

"You just had to get us in trouble, didn't you Bryce?" Blake retorts, scrubbing a pot that was used to make one of the various soups for lunch.

"I'm sorry that I'm the only one making up for years of lost fun, and you didn't have to go through with it!" Bryce exclaims, scrubbing furiously at another pot. "Plus that guy is a jerk and he totally deserved it!"

Blake sighed, Bryce continued to scrub, and both Castor and Jim looked each other, wondering what to do. Knowing how things would go if Castor spoke, Jim decided to be the icebreaker.

"Look Bryce, that prank of yours was pretty hilarious, but did you have to go that extreme?" Jim questions, drying one of the wet dishes the ginger had cleaned.

"I guess maybe not. It's just, whenever I see an ample opportunity to laugh, I just have to take it and its hard for me to know when I've taken it too far sometimes." Bryce admits.

"You mentioned about making up for lost time, what did you mean by that?"

Bryce sighed and pointed at Blake, muttering "Blake can tell you the story better than I can."

Jim's and Castors curious faces turned toward the dark haired boy, who's face had become somber as he continued to do the task at hand. It took a few moments for him to start, but when he did, he had everyone's full attention.

"Our family has been in the merchant industry for decades, starting with our great grandfather and then it grew from there. When both of our dad's took over the company, they wanted to expand their trading routes to different planets. One day, our parents went to do just that in Loibos and everything was good. Bryce and I were born on the planet and we were all treated like equals. Then one day, my father was sold an artifact and just before he could put it up for sale at his stand, some gaurds came by to take both him and my uncle away. Turns out, that artifact was stolen from the royal treasury and since our family was caught having it, both of our dad's had to be put on trial. Bryce and I both watched our dad's be taken to prison. Word got out about what happened and long story short, we lost the company." Blake stopped to rinse his dish.

"So how did you get the money to survive?" Castor questions.

"Blake and I did whatever work we could get to help our family stay afloat. However, we both knew that we wanted to get an education that could help us get off that stupid planet. So, we each took turns doing each others jobs while the other snuck over to the school and take notes. By the time the truth about the artifact was revealed and our dad's were released from prison, we both surprised the Loibosian's with our intellect by playing detective and finding out who the real thief was. It turned out to be the king's brother and to apologize to our family, he gave us the funds to rebuild the company and as an extra thanks, got us into the academy." Bryce answers, deciding he better pitch in if his cousin wouldn't continue.

"So why did the kings brother do it?" Jim inquired.

"We found out it was because he hated that his brother was building a friendship with our family, because he was a traditionalist who didn't like the idea of humans living among his people and so he planted the artifact in our dad's hands in order to build mistrust."

"You boys were very brave to endure such an experience." Castor complimented.

Speaking up from his long silence, "It's just goes to show that there are people out there, who will do whatever they can to see you fall. To keep you at your lowest point until they make sure there is no one around to pick you back up." Blake muttered somberly.

"We're just the lucky few that survived, because we didn't stop fighting back." Bryce agrees and the room fell silent.

Author's Note: Wow, I'm on fire! Seriously three chapters in two days, I'm on a roll! Anyways, again I want to thank Sirrah K for your constant reviews and I especially loved reading your response to my AN from the last chapter, especially your theories that I'll take into consideration for future chapters! I honestly didn't think you were rambling at all as long responses tend to be my favorite as it shows just how interested you are in this story of mine. Now I wrote this chapter because I felt like Jim hadn't been getting a whole lot of screen time and I really wanted to explore Bryce's and Blake's backstories ever since I had Blake mention its a long story when he and Jim first met, so here we are and I am pretty satisfied with how it turned out. I haven't decided what I'm going to do with the next chapter yet, so I'll be doing some deep thinking about it. I'm trying not to make this story too long by branching out the amount of time everyone's been at the academy and so if it feels like I'm jumping quite a bit, that's the reason why. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter and I shall write another one soon!