I'm done! I finished writing all 18 chapters, and have decided to not do the PJO sick fics after all. Instead, straight into the sequel. The last chapter of this will be posted January 24, because for MLK Day (for non-Americans, this is held to celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr.), you will get two chapters. I don't have school that day.

This is another one of those transition chapters, sorry. It's a bit boring, but that's what part of the story we are at. This seriously might be the shortest non-prologue chapter in the story. In fact, it is.

I now have 400,000 words on this site!

COLE'S POV

Konstantin Brockenbough had been arrested on suspicion of being the one to betray the school to the Anglars.

There was plenty of circumstantial evidence to support this, to be sure. However, the fact remained that circumstantial evidence was not the same as real evidence. I'd been to enough juvenile court cases to know that.

Had Konstantin singing "Born In The U.S.A" been enough to put that in those people's heads? I wouldn't be surprised, and yet I was shocked that this was going on.

I just really didn't expect a betrayal. I thought that the Grey Clouds Flight Academy was safe from the Anglars, and yet this attack had illustrated that this was not true at all. Quite the opposite, in fact.

"I have a little announcement to make about how things are going to work from here on out, now that we have moved locations. Are your ears on me?" Bill asked.

All two hundred of us nodded, and so he began.

"We are still going to have as many lessons as possible, as the importance of training to defeat the Anglars has not gone down. Quite the opposite, in fact. However, the frequency of your lessons will no doubt decline, because your safety is our top priority. Besides, it's not like we have flight simulators here, but you will learn how to fly Arwings at some point".

I definitely wanted to learn how to fly an Arwing.

"As for food, we won't have access to our world-class kitchens, so we will have to make the food ourselves. Some of you will have to work to help prepare it, but we can buy whatever we need in the grocery stores in the city, and pick fruits and vegetables from the mountain orchards near here.

"Do you have any questions?" he asked us.

When we didn't ask him any, he said, "You will sleep in sleeping bags on the floors of these rooms. I'm sorry that we don't have four-posters like at the original location, but this is just what we have to work with. We're going to keep it that way until further notice".

Then, Bill left the room, and we were left to think to ourselves, and talk amongst ourselves.

This didn't last for too long, though. Bill came back in five minutes later, before any of us could really get our bearings, and ordered all of us to go to bed.

The sleeping bags were in various colors according to what our standings had been. Mine, Lucas's, Willow's, and others of the lowest rank were purple and turquoise.

They looked pretty comfortable, so I just decided that I wasn't going to protest. It had been a long, stressful day, and it had taken quite a while to get settled even though we had not been able to bring any of our belongings. They'd got sent here with us, so we could mark our territory using them.

I slept next to Lucas, who slept next to Willow, who slept next to Seventy-Four. In general, from what I could tell, former roommates slept with each other for the most part. Konstantin was noticeably absent, and the reason was no secret.

It took me a while to fall asleep, mainly because of the large numbers of unanswered questions lurking in my mind. First, and foremost, however, was the following one:

Did Konstantin really betray us?

LUCAS'S POV

I hadn't intended to wake up early the next morning. I knew that our next class wasn't until eleven, and I knew that I would need some sleep in order to help heal the wound on my leg.

But it was like when we travelled to Colorado, me and my parents (fuck them, I thought). There, I often woke up at five in the morning rather than seven, simply because of the jet lag. That was due to the change in time zones.

Since yesterday had felt so long, maybe we had changed a Cornerian time zone or two. On the mission that had ended so disastrously, however, I hadn't felt any time zone change.

Maybe it was just that the Great Fox was faster than the helicopter for traveling. That would have made a lot of sense.

Either way, I woke up a little before the sunrise. My left leg was still throbbing, as I had been told it would for some time. Even so, it should not be difficult for me to take part in my classes, Dr. Howler said. I was grateful for that.

I noticed Willow next to me, still sleeping peacefully. She didn't seem to be too worried about Konstantin. Or, if she was, she was better at hiding it than me.

When I stood up, I fought to catch my breath. The new school was more than seven thousand feet above the old one, so the altitude was definitely a factor. Since I had been to high elevations at various points in my life, I knew that I was unlikely to get sick if I didn't overexert myself, but someone like Cole might suffer. Aside from the elevation, however, the new location was absolutely beautiful.

From the mountainside, we could see many miles of plains, rivers, and lakes. From here, they looked like no more than planes. I could finally see it from this direction, and it was a far better view than it had been on the way up here for the attempt to defuse the bomb underneath the glacier. And, since I had been unconscious on the way back, I was determined to enjoy the view now as much as possible.

The sleeping bag that I slept in, marked with LUCAS ZANTRY ENFIELD, was placed right below the window, so I couldn't look through it without standing up and/or turning around. It was more than the fact that I hadn't gotten to enjoy the view the first time, though. I sincerely hoped that the Anglars would not manage to reach this new locale, but I feared it was only a matter of time.

We all slept in a single room covered in two hundred sleeping bags. The staff, including Bill, Katt, Falco, Mrs. Hooter, Dr. Howler, and Slippy, all slept in a separate room whose whereabouts we were not told about. They probably feared we'd pull a slumber party prank on them, but those fears were unfounded. The mood was far too grim for that, which was really a shame considering where we were.

There was a hallway going from my room to a common room, which was where Bill had given his announcement last night. There were other hallways, we were told, to the classrooms. Apparently Aquatics would be held in a natural spring, which was a cool thing to think about in my opinion.

A dark hallway led deeper down into the mountain, where I was told Konstantin was being held. This was another thing that Dr. Howler had told me on the ride here in the Great Fox, during which she had kept watch over me to ensure that I was all right.

Based on that, the whole place looked like some rustic mountain resort. Which I guess would be nice, if that's the sort of thing you're into. For me, though, I had a hard time enjoying it, simply because it was always in the back of my mind the reason we had been forced to come here.

Breakfast was held, rather than in a special dining hall, in the common room, which seemed to be used for everything here. In addition, the food was not nearly as delicious as it was back at the original location, which was not surprising. Even so, after nearly six weeks of the best food in the universe, it was a little hard to stomach this. Hopefully, I would re-adjust to normal food quickly.

"What do you think of this new place?" I asked Willow. It was somewhat common knowledge that we were together back at the original building. Here, however, there was nowhere to hide the obvious thing that Willow and I had between us. Everyone knew we were in a relationship. Case closed.

"I don't like it that much, Lucas. I mean, yeah, I love nature and all that, but it's visible from the other building" she said wistfully.

"I know what you mean, but it's not like we can just go back there. Hopefully, we'll be safe".

"Lucas?" she said, the first hint of a smile appearing on her face.

"Yeah?"

"I can understand part of why you went on the mission now" she said. "You must really love the natural beauty".

Truth be told, I'm not that much of an outdoorsy person. I always was a mosquito magnet, even when I was lathered in bug spray.

"I don't want to talk too much about that right now" I said.

I knew that she would understand. There were simply too many people around right now, too many ears to hear and get the wrong idea- or even worse, the right idea, of what was going on between us. That would have to wait.

After breakfast, we didn't go back to the sleeping room in order to clean it up. Instead, we were allowed to proceed to our very first lesson, or, in the case of some people, do nothing.

There were going to be fewer lessons now, we had been told that much. The question was, how many fewer?

That remained to be seen.

My first class was Aquatics, but there was no Olympic pool that had been built in the basement. Instead, we were told, we would be taken down to a natural pool.

"Really?" Cole asked incredulously, and I felt a bit of pity for him. He might have gone to a summer camp in seventh grade, but only for a couple of days, and I didn't think there were that many lakes in the concrete jungle of Detroit.

"That's right" the swimming instructor, Amanda, said. "It's down this long stone staircase, and it's very cold, so I expect all of you to put on a drysuit".

The thing about drysuits is that they, well, stay dry. Actually, that's not entirely the case. You can swim underwater, completely submerge yourself, and yet your clothes will remain completely dry.

"The reason this is necessary is because the spring comes directly from the glacier up on the mountain. We don't want anyone getting hypothermia or anything".

I got the feeling that Amanda was looking at me when she said that, but it might have just been a figment of my imagination.

We all descended the stone staircase, which wasn't very steep. It took a good five minutes to descend far enough to the point where we found a crystal-clear pool amid all of the semi-snowy rocks and dirt on the side of the mountain. The pool was about thirty yards long and fifteen wide, although this was slightly distorted due to the shape of the pool.

The exact details of the lesson are not very important, but it is necessary to say that we didn't do things too differently even though we were six thousand feet higher in elevation.

When we were done and Amanda dismissed us, we walked back up the mountainside to the school.

For dinner that night, we had tilapia with vegetables. It wasn't too elegant of a dish, but it was also going to become the status quo now that we were in a location without a five-star kitchen like they must have had at the Grey Clouds Flight Academy.

However, the main attraction of dinner on January 22, 201Y was not the food. It was Bill Grey's speech to us.

He had told us during lunch that he had a serious announcement to make, but would wait until dinnertime for it, since he didn't want to ruin our lunch. By that logic, however, how on Earth, or Corneria for that matter, could he justify ruining our dinner?

Now was no different than he had promised us. Absent his flight helmet this time, Bill stood before us, looking very grim indeed.

"Students at the Grey Clouds Flight Academy, I do have an announcement to make. It is an update with regards to our most recent student, Konstantin Brockenbough".

We all looked at each other. No matter what the news turned out to be, Willow and I had been right. Konstantin was the big deal here.

"He is currently being held in our dungeons, awaiting trial. The trial will be held a week from today. That is, January 29, 201Y. All of his former roommates will be expected to attend".

Bill took a look at his notes and said, "That would be Michael Kirk, 'Seventy-Four', Willow Foster, William Wexford, Cole McCallen, and Lucas Enfield. They will be asked to testify, as they are the ones who are the most ideally placed to spot any evidence of any unusual behavior. If convicted, Brockenbough may face life imprisonment or execution".

He cleared his throat and said, "And that is all. I will tell you more when I have more information. For now, enjoy your dinner".

Needless to say, that did not help me enjoy the rest of my dinner.

WILLOW'S POV

That night, I headed back to the sleeping room with Lucas and the others. Of course, the rules had been removed, so we no longer had to sleep apart from each other. The same rules about sneaking out at night would be enforced, though, so that would be a little tricky.

I didn't know if there was any way to the roof of this new place, or if we would just have to climb up the side of the mountain. Maybe Lucas could help me with that, since he had gone climbing up a glacier less than two weeks ago. I could hope, at least.

Of course, hope had not been working out well for us lately. Not only were we forced out of the original building to this new location, but one of Lucas's roommates was being held in a dungeon at this very moment, awaiting trial and possible execution. This situation had gone from bad to worse.

Now, I lay in my sleeping bag, holding Lucas's hand. I decided to whisper to him, asking a question.

"Hey, Lucas?" I asked him.

"What is it, Willow?" he asked me sleepily.

There was no point in delaying it. "I was just wondering about Konstantin".

He seemed to grow a little angry, but not at me.

"Honestly, if that fucker really did it, he deserves to be punished. Maybe not executed, but definitely kept in prison for a long, long time".

"Lucas!" I gasped. "I thought you were more compassionate than that".

"Well, I'm sorry about that. Look, I still love you. I'm just...tired. And it's been a long day, and we need our sleep. Don't you get it?"

"I do" I said. "I just...well, if you want to talk about it in the morning?"

Lucas nodded as he kept holding my hand. Eventually, I felt his grip loosen, signaling to me that he had finally fallen asleep.

KONSTANTIN'S POV

At the same time that Lucas and Willow were having their sleeping-bag conversation, I was languishing in a dank dungeon.

The walls were very dark, and my fleshy legs could definitely feel the chains on them. I was reminded of that song from that Phineas and Ferb episode where Candace busts them and they get sent to a military school. Except, I quite literally did have these chains on me.

All for something that they thought I might have done! I mean, really?

Really?

Apparently, that was enough reason for them to lock me up in here. I hadn't even betrayed the school to the Anglars, I didn't know who had, but until they did find out there shouldn't have been any reason to punish me like this.

If I had hated them before, I genuinely resented them even more now. I regretted singing "Born In The U.S.A." even less, which is to say that I was very glad I had flipped the bird towards the Cornerian flag.

The only question was...I was going to be tried. Would there be enough evidence to rule me guilty? Might I get executed?

I supposed that I would find out in a week.

Again, VERY short chapter, but it is a transition one. The next chapter is going to be the trial, so place your bets on whether or not Konstantin will be found guilty!