Chapter 2: Greetings Teammates!

Ivex frowned at the room before him. Two beds sat in the room, a large dresser between them with two lamps beside each bed. "What's going on here?"

Jai laughed and threw her carrying bag onto one of the beds. "Don't worry, Mr. Prude. You and Lior are sleeping in the space through that door," she jabbed her thumb at what Ivex assumed was the closet. "At Haven, the dorms are set up to make any combination of team comfortable. All girls, you get four beds in this space, and extra, fun stuff in that room. Same for four boys. Two on two, you get two beds in each room, etc. etc."

"Hm," Ivex grinned a little when he opened the door. "This will be a sweet pod."

Jai rolled her eyes. "You're like the only sixteen year old who would ever even think something like that," she swung herself over to the drapes and yanked on a cord, revealing a window. "Best part of claiming this side of the dorm; me and Wen get a window!"

Lior slowly shifted his gaze around the room. "Just this room alone is bigger than my bedroom at home." Wenara pushed past him and jumped face-first at the bed Jai's stuff wasn't occupying. "So soft," her voice was muffled by the bed. "Is this heaven?"

Jai sat down on her bed and grinned at her new teammates. "It would surprise you what kind of luxuries people have living this close to the capital."

Wenara rolled onto her back. "All this would be declared useless in Vaccuo and then it would be turning into something 'useful'," she grabbed one of the pillowed and breathed in its sent. "I would argue that pillows like this should be necessities."

Ivex left the girls to chat and began to place his items from home in the top drawer of the dresser he and Lior shared. Their bedroom was a clone of the girls', with matching bedspreads and lamps.

Ivex pulled the picture of his family out of his bag. How was his mom doing? Had his dad come back to the house to make his mom's life hell? Should he have stayed home so he could protect her?

He heard the creak of a bedspread and raised his eyes to see Lior adjusting the pillows on his bed. Lior met his eye and waved, a small smile on his face. "I tend to walk quietly, and I don't talk to strangers very much, so that's why you didn't hear me come in."

Ivex smirked, leaning back against his bed. "So we're going to have two mind readers on our team?"

Lior shrugged. "I wasn't reading your mind, I was answering a frequently asked question. The mind reading is something you'll have to talk to Jai about."

"I don't read minds either," Jai's voice caused the boys to jump. Ivex raised an eyebrow up at her.

"You move quieter than he does."

"It's because you don't exist in the timeline when I move," Ivex and Lior gave her puzzled looks. Jai snorted and waved her hand. "Never mind, I'll explain my semblance in greater detail to you guys later. As I was saying, I don't read minds, I just harness all my powers of observation and intuition to guess at what people are thinking," she clapped her hands together. "Enough about me! Me and Wen decided that we should probably get to know each other, at least a little bit before classes start. We figured since we decided that, we should let you two choose how we do it. Two truths and a lie? The game my family calls, 20 questions?"

"Jai..." Ivex sighed, closing his eyes and letting his head fall back to his bed. "It's been a long day, with initiation and the party…" hoo-boy, that party. Ivex was glad Jai had wanted them to check the dorms out to get away from it. There were a lot of stories he could tell Jodi concerning that party. "I don't think I'm up for any other big thing. Besides, you said I was the only sixteen year old who called a living space a pod, but you're the only one who tries to play icebreaker games."

Jai pouted, glaring down at Ivex. "Come on. Classes start tomorrow! This would be the best time to get to know each other!"

"We could tell each other ten random facts about ourselves, and then call it a night," Lior had lay down on his bed and had shut his eyes. "Whatever we want to tell, and nothing more."

Jai's face lit up. For a moment, Ivex felt a flash of jealousy in his chest. He wanted to make Jai's face light up like that. It left quickly, leaving behind a weird taste in his mouth. "Okay, I can deal with that! Wen! Come on! The guys came up with an idea."

Wenara poked her head into the room. "Wow, haven't even been a student here 24 hours yet, and I'm already breaking one of the rules my brother told me. 'Don't go into the boys part of the dorm'," she sat down and grinned up at the others. "Feels good to break your older sibling's rules, doesn't it?"

"I wouldn't know," Ivex and Lior answer together. Lior pointed a finger into the air, not getting up from his reclined position, but opening his eyes. "That counts as one fact for me and Ivex. Neither of us have an older sibling."

"I had four siblings," Jai said, sitting down in a crossed legged position on the floor. "Two of them were older than me, and the other two are younger."

"That counts as two facts, unless you want to count it as three, telling us that one or two of your older siblings are dead," Lior let his hand fall onto his chest and shut his eyes again.

Jai held up three fingers.

"She says three facts," Ivex said aloud, for Lior's benefit. Ivex crossed his arms and frowned at Jai. How could someone who seemed so happy have lost a sibling? It just didn't make sense in his mind. He racked his mind for random facts about himself to share with these people he just had met. "Um, I had a pet dog when I was like, four. I really don't remember much about it except it's name was Candy Cane. Are you keeping track of how many facts each person says, Lior?"

Lior lifted up a thumbs up. "Yup. I got a head for numbers. Just keep going. I'll tell you when everyone has reached the end of their facts."

"I'm good at mechanic stuff!" Wenara leaned forward. "I can fix pretty much anything thanks to my older brother and my parents."

"My best friend is a girl, and she is wickedly smart," Ivex sat up a little taller in pride for Jodi. He always felt that her brilliance should be something she held over people, but it just wasn't her style.

"As an Olos child, if I make any promises, I must keep them to the best of my ability."

"I'm slightly bothered by Wenara's comment of 'isn't great to break my sibling's rules' because I am the older sibling, and my younger sibling is a girl, that I constantly am concerned about," Lior yawned. "She is a trouble maker and seeks danger every day of her life."

Wenara flicked her wrench from long to short, back and forth. "I have two best friends, both of which are dudes. I saved one from a burning village when I was ten or so, and the other one, I've always known. His mom acts like she's my mom sometimes."

"I got expelled from eight different elementary schools in Vale because I had too much justice running in my veins," Jai snorted at Ivex's comment.

"How is that even possible?"

"I dunno," Ivex half-shrugged. "I guess you could just say I hate bullies."

"My youngest brother has a best friend who is totally his soul mate, but since their both thirteen, almost fourteen, neither one will admit it," Jai giggled. "I've had like three boyfriends, and none of them were soulmate material, sadly enough."

"My soulmate would be someone who would follow me to the ends of the earth and wouldn't be afraid to let me protect myself," Wenara sighed. "Is there such an anti-chivalrous man out there? I, unfortunately, do not believe there is."

Ivex chuckled. "Believe it or not Wen, I want a girl who can take care of herself as a 'soulmate'," he said, enunciating soulmate with air quotes. "She would be beautiful, make me fear for my life and hers, and she would be such a badass, no one could measure her badassery!"

"An angel who's obsessed with anime, a girl who isn't afraid of trouble, and can make up a dance for any song in the world," Lior coughed. "There totally isn't someone exactly like that I already know."

"I don't really believe in soulmates or like, fate," Ivex rubbed the picture of his family that he still held in his hand. "I know the dream girl I want, but a lot of the time, dreams turn out to be nightmares."

"Is that one fact or two?" Lior pulled a tennis ball out of his bag and tossed it into the air.

Ivex shut his eyes and put his picture down. "Two," he muttered.

"I don't really believe in fate either," Jai tapped her fingers together. "I do believe in fulfilling your promises, and to others, that sometimes looks like fate. Next subject, embarrassments!" Jai smiled around at her teammates. "I'll start that part, I guess. I seem like I'm fearless, right?"

"We've known you for like eight hours, tops. How would we know?" Wenara rolled her eyes.

She thinks highly of herself, Ivex thought about Jai.

"She rode on a freaking Nevermore," Lior tossed his tennis ball extra hard. "How is that not meet your requirements for fearless?"

"Anyway, I may seem fearless, but in actuality, I'm deathly afraid of anything that goes too fast and seems like it will toss me out into the wind. Motorcycles, convertibles, open-sided air ships, that kind of thing."

Wenara slapped a hand over her mouth. "That's so random!"

Jai groaned. "I know! I can't help it though!"

"My embarrassment thing, is slightly different than yours, Jai," Wenara grinned sheepishly down into her lap. "So I have this bad habit of getting into… um… situations."

"Meaning you're clumsy," Ivex smirked over at her.
"Shut up, you. But yes. I'm extremely clumsy, and accident prone. I once got trapped in a well for nine hours, and my best friend had to call my brother."

"Okay, everyone but Jai has one more fact left. Then we sleep," Lior caught his tennis ball and rolled it off to the side, folding his arms behind his head. "I get sick when I smell fruit. Sometimes, I'll actually vomit. Ivex, Wenara, you two go and then Wenara and Jai, you guys can leave."

Jai sighed, a small smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. "Fine."

"I used to wear an old second hand Huntsmen cloak to school everyday," Ivex laughed. "I looked ridiculous in that thing."

Wenara sighed. "I already said my embarrassing thing, so I'll just say something random, uh, like my brother started calling 'Wen' because of this show he was watching at the time."

Lior sat up. "Did he call you that because of the character, Wen-An in Flash-Bang?"

Wenara shrugged. "I don't know. He was into a lot of different shows at the time."

Jai stood up and grabbed Wenara by the back of her shirt. "We'll leave you guys alone now! Thanks for doing the little introducing game!"

She walked out of the boys' room and pulled the door shut behind her. Ivex and Lior shared a look. "Having her as a team leader doesn't fare well for my plans to stay on the down low, does it?" Lior fell back against his bed.

Ivex got up onto his bed, reaching over to turn his light off. "It will make thing a whole lot more interesting, you have to admit that."

Jai woke up to the sound of a vibrating Scroll by her head. She blearily picked the Scroll up and squinted at the time. Her alarm had been going off for the last hour! They had fifteen minutes until they were supposed to be in class!

Jai leapt out of bed and shook Wenara awake. "We have class in like, fifteen minutes! We have to go!"

Wenara whipped her covers off and stumbled around the room to find her shoes. "Maybe staying up until two a. m. wasn't a smart idea."

"It's a possibility!" Jai yanked her uniform out of her drawer and threw it on. "Arg! I wanted to make a good first impression, but now we're going to be late!"

Wenara grabbed her weapon and slipped it into it's holder. "I know! Ugh, I can't believe this! I thought you said you were setting an alarm?"

"It's been going off for the last hour!" Jai groaned.

Wenara slammed the boys' door open. "Ivex! Lior! We have class!"

Ivex sat up and blinked at Wenara. "Yeah, I know. Why are you yelling about it?"

"They start in ten minutes!" Wenara pulled the covers off of him with her telekinesis. "Get your uniform on!"

Lior frowned at his watch. He had been waiting in front of their first class for the last half hour. Was he really on a team of night owls who refused to wake up even five minutes before they had to?

Lior sighed and pushed the class door open. They would be here soon, he would just wait for them inside so that the teacher wouldn't count him as late too.

He sat down in the back, pulling his sketch book out. The teacher sat at her desk, sipping on coffee. She glanced up at him when he came into the room, but then returned her focus to the book in her hands.

Lior sketched a couple loose images of the teacher, looking back and forth between her and his sketchbook.

The teacher scanned the classroom, eyeing the clock. She stood up and set her book down. "Hello, promising young students! Welcome to your first combat readiness class here at Haven. I am Mrs. Swarven."

Lior pressed his lips together, closing his sketchbook. Where was the rest of his team? They were late.

"Today, we will be learning about the fundamentals of-" Mrs. Swarven was interrupted by the classroom door slamming open and three people stumbling into the room.

"Bonsai!" Jai yelled, pumping her fist into the air. "We made it!"

Lior groaned and inched down in his seat, pretending he didn't know those random idiots.

Mrs. Swarven glared at the new arrivals as they slid into the seats next to Lior. "If you believe you're on time, you would be sadly mistaken, Ms….?"

"Olos!" Jai smiled. "Jai Olos."

Mrs. Swarven took off her glasses and rubbed them on her shirt. "Well, Ms. Olos, in my class, you will either be five minutes early, or I shall count you as late. Is that understood?"

Jai nodded, glancing over at Wenara and Ivex.

"Now, as I was saying, today we were going to be learning the fundamentals of minimalism in fighting, but since we were joined by obnoxious cocky children, I feel that lesson will have to wait until another day," Mrs. Swarven frowned disapprovingly at Jai and the rest of her team. Lior folded down into his seat a little more. "Ms. Olos, just so you know, I will not tolerate you acting like the last Olos I had in this class. To make that clear, I would like you to come down to the front, please."

Jai saluted to her teammates and jogged down to where Mrs. Swarven was standing. "Yes ma'am?"

"How capable do you believe yourself to be, Ms. Olos?"

Jai tapped her chin, grinning to herself. "I don't know, pretty capable for a first-year, I guess."

Lior sighed and rested his forehead on his desk. Was this how everyday was going to be with this girl?

Mrs. Swarven's frown deepened. "Just as I expected you to say. Do you believe you can take on a team of third-years and win, by yourself?"

Jai shrugged. "It's possible! It would depend on the team I'm fighting, I would think."

Mrs. Swarven smiled humorlessly. "Why don't we find out? I had this problem with Samuel as well, so I must correct it before it thoroughly annoys me."

Jai's smile brightened. "Cool! You were one of my dad's teachers? Sweet! You must have been here for a long time then!"

Mrs. Swarven scowled. "Of course you are his daughter," she snapped her fingers, and her desk slid to the wall, and the first two rows of seats shifted backwards, much to the dismay of those sitting in them. "Prove yourself to me, and I won't compare you to the mess of a father you have."

Jai cracked her knuckles and grinned. "Bring it on, Mrs. Swarven!"

Doors near Jai swung open and four people walked in. A boy with a mace looked like he lead the team. A girl with purple-y hair, a rabbit Faunas boy with a baseball bat in his hand, and another boy with a gold sword followed behind him. "Jai!" The leader boy exclaimed. "I see you were chosen as the scapegoat this year."

Jai waved at them. "Hey Dale, hey Risha! Hello rest of their team!"

"'Ello little miss!" The boy with the gold sword waved back. "You ready to get pounded by your superiors in Hunstmanship?"

Jai laughed and stretched her arms out above her head. "Yup! Though, I plan to do all the pounding, Mr. Strange Accent!"

The boy smirked good-naturally at Jai. "Yes, make fun of th' accent, such a classic."
"Enough bantering, DRGN," Mrs. Swarven snapped at the four of them. "Get into your positions."

Jai pulled out her staff and let the blades pop out of the ends.

Dale nodded at his team, and they all pulled out their weapons.

Lior raised his eye brows, studying the change that was coming over Jai's face. A complete focus had taken over her features, replacing her normally cheery demeanor.

Gold-Sword dashed forward, switching the grip on his sword. Jai stabilized her feet, and dodged out of the way. The Faunas was closely following Gold-Sword, slamming into Jai's side. Jai stumbled, and pressed her weight onto her staff, re-balancing herself.

Jai pushed herself into the air using her Aura. She flickered, and the next thing Lior knew, she was on top of Dale, clutching his mace in her hand. Risha slammed a fist into Jai's stomach, knocking her off of Dale and sending her flying across the room, sparks flying after her. Risha's hair stood up on end, electricity sparking all around her.

Dale stood up, picking his mace up off the ground. "Lesson one first-year, count on your team. Trust them with your life," he lengthened the chain on his mace and swung it at Jai. She caught the chain on her arm, letting it wrap around a couple times.

Lior heard Ivex hiss in sympathy for their team leader.

"Good advice," Jai didn't look up at Dale, staying focused on the ground. "But sometimes, you need to learn to fight your own battles," she raised her head. She stiffening her arm, she brought Dale's chain up to her face. She yanked on it, pulling him off his feet. She jerked her hand down and let the chain slip off. She twisted her body to avoid the dual attack of the Faunas and Gold-Sword. She flipped backwards to get away from the electricity attack Risha sent her way. Leaping into the air, she threw her staff at Dale, hitting him on the head.

Jai landed in a crouch and scooped up her weapon. The Faunas growled, and charged toward Jai, his bat raised. Jai quickly brought her staff up and blocked his attack. The force of the blow knocked her down. She started to rise to her feet, but Gold-Sword was there too quickly. He pressed a knee to her chest, holding the tip of his sword against her throat. "Best for you if you tap out, Olos!" he grinned down at her.

Jai muttered something Lior couldn't hear. The whole class leaned forward in their seats, trying to get a better idea of what was going on.

"Not for long," Gold-Sword raised a hand, igniting it in flames. Suddenly, the boy exploded off of Jai and she was back on her feet, faster than the eye could follow.

"Tips for being strong," Jai's eyes blazed with intensity. "Don't monologue."

Risha and the Faunas shared a look. Their two teammates had been knocked out, and they were left fighting this insane first-year by themselves. With a nod, they begin running at Jai. Risha flicked her wrists and blades rise out of her forearms. Sparks danced in the air all around her.

"My first shock wave should have kept you down," Risha smiled manically at Jai. "Let's see just how much electricity it takes to annihilate your aura!" She dashed at Jai, the Faunas on her heels.

Jai pressed her lips together, and in the blink of an eye, she had switched positions with the Faunas. Risha slammed electricity into the boy and his bat cracked against the side of her head.

Lior's mouth dropped open. Who was this girl? What kind of semblance allowed the user to be that powerful. Jai raised an arm in a muscle pose. "What you going to say about that, DRGN?"

Gold-Sword raised himself onto his elbows. "Freezer burn," he grinned, lifting both of his hands palms up. Flame shot out of one hand and ice out of the other. Jai was hit with a wave of these two competing forces and was consequently knocked down.

Jai lifted her head, coughing. Grinning at the third-years before her, she waved her hand. "I tap out. My aura's almost out anyway."

Ivex leaned back in his chair and whistled. "Happy-go-lucky is going to be fun to live with, isn't she?"

Risha clutched her head as she stood. "Watch where you swing that thing, Norse!" she snapped at the Faunas. "Ugh, that's going to be a headache."

Gold-Sword snorted. "Literally," he bent down, reaching a hand out to Jai to help her up. "Nice job, new girl."

She clasped his hand and rose to her feet. "You guys did a pretty good job yourselves."

"How did you do that quick swap thing?" Norse frowned at Jai. "You would have had to move faster than the speed of light."

Jai just laughed.

"Yup," Wenara sighed. "We're in for a hell of a battle school experience."

A/ N: This was a little bit late, because I can't write fight scenes. Bear with me, I'm sure I'll get it eventually, since there's going to be lots of fights in this story.

About last week's chapter, I wanted to clarify something:

Darci (pronounced DAR-SIGH) is Jai's brother.

Darcy (pronounced DAR-CEE) is Dahlia Rysode's brother.

This was a confusing fact to a couple of my beta readers, so I wanted to make that clear.

Until next time! /Kronos\\