Chapter 2: Friends.
DAMMIT! I literally had this whole chapter typed out and accidentally cut it! Now this is gonna take longer to get out. Sorry guys.
Chapter 2: Friends.
I woke to the sound of my alarm clock thrashing around. 6:00AM. Forgot about that part. I slumped out of the surprisingly comfortable bed and onto the floor. I am not in the mood for any type of learning today.
Getting up from my spot on the floor, I headed to the bathroom to have a shower. Again, these aren't dormitories, these are apartments. I turned on the shower and stepped inside. My body was overcome with the warm water flooding down my body. After cleaning myself, I stepped out.
The school uniform was fittingly depressing, a grey shirt and black pants. Skirts for the girls. The upside was that since the school didn't have any jackets as a part of their uniform, we were allowed to wear whatever kind of jacket or sweater we wanted. I put on my uniform, black socks and a black hoodie.
Seeing that it was only 6:20, I sat down to watch some tv. Though it may be a mortal invention, I still loved it. I flicked through the channels until I found something I liked, How I Met Your Mother. I've still got 40 minutes to go. Breakfast is served at 7:00.
7:00 rolled around rather quickly. I swear at exactly 7:00, I heard a knock on my door. My hand instinctively reached for Riptide, my sword disguised as a normal ballpoint pen. It wasn't as if I carried around a full sword all day. Remembering that I was in a school, not in Vegas after pissing some mobsters off, I got up to answer the door.
Standing there was none other than the two di Angelo siblings. Nico was wearing the normal grey shirt and black pants, no jacket. He still looked extremely tired, as if he had not got to sleep after being woken up by Mrs Gottschalk. Bianca was wearing a black skirt and grey top, but she had a brown coat over that. Must be really got here. She had obviously had a shower and had freshened up. She didn't have bed hair anymore.
I blinked once. Then again. Why are they here again? I Could swear I had something to do today with them. "Hey Lucifer! You ready to get some breakfast?" Bianca's words cut off my thoughts. That's right, they were showing me around the castle today. "Oh, uh, sure. Yeah, let's go!" Bianca looked confused for a second but shrugged it off. Nico looked indifferent to my weird behaviour.
We walked down throughout the castle until we reached a large, magnificent hall. It was like the kind of large hall you'd see in Hogwarts. There were many tables all around the room, with one large one at the front for the staff members. Not that many people were there yet, so me and the di Angelo's would be able to get one all to ourselves.
In terms of food, Westover didn't have much variety. For breakfast, you had three options. One: you could have a bowl of cereal without sugar. Two: you could have a few pieces of toast where the only spread is margarine. Or three: you could starve until lunch and see if you survive.
We each grabbed our food, Bianca and I had cereal while Nico had three pieces of toast with some margarine. The cereal was ok, it was some sort of brand that only cared about nutrition, not what kids actually wanted to eat. That company's gonna go down in flames. When it does, I'll be sitting here, eating the last of their cereal and I'll be smiling.
Deciding to make small talk, I looked up at the two of them. "So, what exactly does one do for fun around here?" Bianca was the one to answer my question, as usual. Does Nico even talk? "Um, well I play guitar and watch tv mainly. Nico always has his head in his stupid card game." Her voice sounded uncertain, it quivered. It was as if she expected me to just get up and leave because they didn't do anything exciting. Then, something amazing happened. Nico spoke.
"Hey! Mythomagic is not stupid!" My eyebrows raised. "You play Mythomagic too?" When I was ten, I was living in Sydney and I had got addicted to Mythomagic. The addiction had followed me to Phoenix and by the time my love for the game had dwindled, I had almost collected all the cards and figurines. I still had all the ones I had collected in my bag back in my dorm.
Nico's eyes widened at my words. "Wow! I've never met anyone here that plays Mythomagic as well! What's your best card? Do you have all the cards and figures? I'm pretty close to collecting the figures, I've got all the cards though. How many wins do you have? What's your-" His questions just kept coming and coming. It's funny, for a kid that doesn't talk much, he sure does talk a lot.
As Nico kept rambling on and one about Mythomagic, I caught a glimpse of Bianca smiling at me. I looked over and sure enough, she was. I smiled back and she grinned. I couldn't hold it in anymore. I grinned back and started laughing. Soon enough, she was laughing too and Nico was just looking at us, confused. "What's so funny" Bianca and I couldn't stop laughing.
Eventually I calmed down but she was still giggling a bit. Gods, her smile is so beautiful. "It's nothing Neeks." Nico looked extremely confused but he just went back to his toast.
The bell for first period rang not long after and slowly, everyone in the hall left, leaving only us and two other people. A bald man with glasses in a shirt with a tie on came over and started yelling at us to get to class. "Hey! What are you three still doing here? Get to cl- Oh, Mr Jackson, I didn't notice you were there. Are you about to head on your tour of the castle?" I nodded. "Very well then. You two." He pointed at Bianca and Nico. "If I hear good things from Mr Jackson, I might consider letting you off homework for a few days." As he left, Bianca grinned and Nico fiste pumped. "Yes! Science is the hardest!"
Since we were now officially the last ones in the hall, we got up and left. The tour had begun. "Okay, so what classes do you have Lucifer, we might share a few." Bianca was asking me. (They are both 14 and this is TLT time). I pulled out the little card Mrs Gottschalk had given me last night and handed it to Bianca. She read it over.
"English, history, Italian, science, PE and math. Wow! Same as me." Her eyes widened at my period card. "Why are you taking Italian?" She seemed curious to know why I was taking a language that not many others do. "Well, it's the only language they teach here that I didn't know enough about to not get me killed if I ever go there." We laughed. "What about you?" That was a stupid question. I definitely needed to take Italian because if I had already learned Italian, I would've noticed the 'di Angelo' is Italian for 'of Angel'. How fitting. "Oh, Nico and I are from Italy, we moved when I was six, we've been taking it incase we ever decide to move back to Venice."
"Well, maybe I'll have to come with you two, as a little vacation." I saw Bianca's face light up at the first part but it went back to normal as I finished. Weird. "That'll be cool!" Nico piped up. My thoughts went back to the castle. "So where are my classes." Bianca shook herself out of her thoughts. "Yes, right. Math is closest, let's head there first."
The math classroom was just two hallways down from the dining hall. Inside was what I assumed to be one of the older years. A middle-aged man with ginger hair and a set of facial hair from the late 1800s was teaching. "That's Mr Taft, he's pretty nice but he can be strict if he's tired." Bianca explained.
The next stop was PE. That took place in the gymnasium. A gymnasium in a castle? The students there were sweating their brains out. And it's been 20 minutes since class started. The class was being taken by some old boot camp marshall, or at least that's what he looked like. "That's sergeant Harding. He's a jerk. If you falter for one second during PE, he's got you doing push ups." I almost forgot this was a military school. Turns out I said that out loud because I heard them both laugh.
Next was social studies. It was run by some batty old woman named Mrs Clinton. Not much happened there. A kid got yelled at for looking out the window for 10 seconds though.
History was boring, as usual. Some ancient man named Mr Eisenhower taught it and half the class was asleep. He didn't do anything though. He's probably used to it.
Science was not far from history. The students all looked bored out of their minds. The science teacher, who Bianca told me was Mr Truman, saw us. "Ah, Mr Jackson! I trust Mr and Miss di Angelo here are showing you around properly?" Bianca and Nico looked at me almost pleadingly, as if asking me to say yes. "Yes, Mr Truman, they're doing a great job." I felt Nico pull my hand for a fist bump behind our backs. "Good. You two have no homework until Thursday. Now, back to it." At that we left for our final destination: English.
English was taught by none other than Mrs Gottschalk. I found out then that she was only nice to you if you got here less than an hour ago. Otherwise you were treated like you normally would be in a military school. She yelled at the kids she was teaching for coughing, she gave extra homework for looking anywhere other than the board, she even sent a kid to detention saying he was sick because he was apparently 'trying to skip class.' We hightailed it out of there.
The bell rung for the end of second period and it was time for Bianca and I to part ways with Nico. "See ya' Neeks. Be safe. Remember, if you get into trouble, come find me." Nico nodded and walked off. I turned to Bianca. "What was that about? Why would he get into trouble?" Bianca sighed, and we both started to walk to our second class: history.
"It's just… I worry for him. He has a bully. He's our age and he's your generic high school bully. A jock, rich and always has a band of cronies following him around. They always pick on Nico, whenever I try and help him they just hold me back, they make me watch as they beat him to a pulp and both of us are just so… helpless." Tears were in her eyes now. She turned away and wiped her eyes. I put my hand on her shoulder. "Bianca, don't worry. I'm always here for you and Nico. I know we just became friends today but… I can tell this is friendship is gonna go a long way."
She smiled. What a beautiful smile. "We're friends?" I was genuinely confused. Why would she think we weren't? "Of course we are. Why wouldn't we be?" She shrugged. "I don't know. I guess because we've only known each other for a day and Nico and I aren't exactly the popular kids around here. You definitely could be. We'd just hold you back." I was in disbelief. "No! That's stupid! You two could never hold me back. We're friends and that's final." We finally reached the history class just as the bell rang.
History was boring. Much more boring than how Lucifer taught it. We learned about some battle in the seven years war. Not exactly memorable. In fact, the rest of the classes seemed like that. All boring, more boring than how Lucifer taught it. I missed his teachings. Now that we were one and attending school, there wasn't much need for them now. Anyway, every single class aside from PE was like that.
PE was an… interesting experience. Bianca and i were chosen as partners because I was new and didn't have one. Usually Bianca just went with another two: a boy and girl named James and Serena. We both got yelled at a lot by sergeant Harding. Oh, how I hated that man. Everytime he raised his voice I just want to pull out Katastrofi (His sword, greek for destruction.) and slice his head off. That wouldn't go down well with the rest of the mortals though, so I kept my cool. Still, he seemed to go extra hard on me since I was new. I sighed out of relief when the bell rang.
Walking down the halls to our dorms since dinner was still three hours away, I suddenly felt the 'urge'. "Hold on guys, Poseidon is attacking my bladder." As I entered the nearest bathroom, I heard Nico saying "Cool reference." the relief flooded through me as I relieved myself and it all flooded out. Washing and drying my hands, I exited the toilet to see a sight I wished I never would.
It was just as Bianca foretold. Nico, in the corner, was being beaten by a large blonde guy about my age while Bianca yelled at him to stop, two other big guys holding her back. I marched over. "STOP! STOP IT!" Fury overcame me. I threw the two guys off of Bianca and into a nearby wall. I charged at the guy beating Nico. He somehow didn't see me and I slammed him into another wall. I got on this guy and started repeatedly punching him in the face. His two cronies came over and tried to grab me, so I elbowed one in the face and socked the other one in the chin. I pulled the large guy up and pinned him to the wall. Though he was bigger, he was still my age and I could defeat beings in a fistfight centuries older than me.
"What is your name?" the guy quivered. "Zachary Taylor." I was not letting this guy off easy. "Listen here Zachary Taylor. If you ever, EVER, touch me or my friends again, I will not hesitate to behead you and kick your decapitated body down to the depths of Tartarus." My eyes glowed red for a few seconds and the guy raised his hands in surrender. "O-okay man. We'll leave you guys alone. Just don't hurt me!" I dropped him and he ran away, pushing his stumbling friends over to get away.
I walked over to the crying, shivering Nico and held out my hand. He took it and as he stood up, I could see he had a bloody nose and a black eye. Those bastards. "You alright Neek?" He nodded. "Bianca?" She nodded. "Yes, thank you for helping us." I smiled and turned back to Nico. "Hey, Neek. how about the three of us go back to my dorm, skip dinner, pull out some doritos i snuck in, watch some tv and have a few rounds of Mythomagic?" He smiled and nodded. "Okay, but first, we have to get you cleaned up."
Together, with Nico and Bianca, we went back to my dorm and had a great night. Bianca went and got some movies from her room and Nico and I played some Mythomagic. He won most of them. By one midnight, both of them were passed out on my sofa, tired after the day they had just had. I smiled and found some blankets that the school provided for the winter months which, in a castle surrounded by snow, was pretty much all year round. As I got into bed and shut my eyes, I smiled at the thought of my new friends asleep on the couch with blankets draped over them.
My new friends.
Done! Again. I'm still hating on myself for accidentally cutting it. Almost 3000 words! One of the longest chapters I've ever done. Anyway, chapter 3 will be out soon. That'll be Nico and Bianca learning the mythologies are real and chapter 4 will be about Bianca and Lucifer's relationship. After chapter 4, we leave Westover Hall and enter the PJO world. See you guys soon.