A/N: The fabulous KatyMaryCatherine has agreed to Beta for me, and so far I really like the changes she has made to round my chapters out. Special thanks go out to her ^_^
Aboard the Jon Grissom Academy, Orbiting the Planet Elysium.
Year: 2185. 2200 Hours
-/\/7-
"All right boss, last Common Hall. One more then we can go question the fuck out of Emile. Seriously, what was he thinking?"
"I'm not sure Jase, but it's pretty clear to me that he's a pawn in one of Woolf's schemes."
"Dunno about a pawn, he seems more like a Bishop or one of those Castles things."
"A Rook, Jase?"
"Whatever man, what I mean is that he's important right? But he could also be just as in the dark as the rest of us? If Woolf treats his guys anything like he treated us then I doubt Emile was given a clear set of objectives."
"It's always possible, but I doubt anyone surviving months on Omega as a double agent stayed alive through ignorance. We'll just have to stay on our toes."
"Not too hard boss. Emotionally unstable Biotics, Psycho VI systems, Vicious mercs and some premo fucked up instructors? It's a wonder we haven't killed anything yet. Just what kind of school is HAX running? What do you do with this shit exactly?"
Ward shook his head. "I don't know yet Jase: Too many variables, not enough context. We just need to keep powering through this to get to whatever or whoever has answers."
Jason nodded and rolled his shoulders as the two stood outside the Common Hall of the Vanguards. Ward activated the door…
…To find the room in utter chaos. The Common Hall was similar to all of the others, a large circular room with hallways and doors branching out at various parts of the curve. Most of them labeled. To the far left of the room were some openings that denoted a kitchen. The rest of the room was spartanly furnished. What little furniture was comprised of tables, chairs and the occasional desk. All of it had been cleared aside for a lowered section in the center of the room. What seemed to be the whole class had gathered around the edges of the pit, cheering on a fight that seemed to be the main spectacle.
Two Biotically charged female students were throwing every weapon in their arsenal at each other. Biotic punches and flares, shockwaves and throws. A tanned girl with freckles and blonde-brown hair seemed to have the advantage over her opponent, a shorter mousy girl with glasses. The Mousy girl had a more stable control on her Biotics, but the taller girl had far more stamina, and whipped out biotic combinations are breakneck speeds.
Ward scanned the crowd, sensing a general excitement among the students. They were whispering to each other and cheering on the fight loudly with no concern for their peers in the pit. On the opposite side of the pit stood two students who looked out of place. They were merely standing with relaxed poses, not cheering or gossiping to each other, but focused watching the match. One was a dark skinned girl with wavy black hair that fell to her shoulders. Her lips were curled into a smirk as she eyed the game. The other student was a bulky young man, built as slightly shorter than Jason but with just as much bulk. A neatly trimmed goatee covered eggshell white skin. A crew cut and cold green eyes conveyed some pretty serious attitude to Ward, and his eyes flickered between the two opponents disdainfully.
"What the hell is this? Another sparring match?" Jason asked earnestly. Ward didn't think the same. Damaged furniture was thrown to the side, and students were opening up Omni-tools to…
"Jason, are those students placing bets?!" Ward whispered to his comrade. Jason looked over and nodded. "They don't have any recording equipment opened, and they aren't typing constantly, but they keep watching the game. I think you are right Ward. What instructor sanctions betting for a class?"
Ward shook his head, turning back to face the mysterious pair, only to find his eyes locked with the male. Without breaking eye contact, his lips moved, and the girl looked up, smirk still unmoving. Impossibly, it deepened as she raked her calculating eyes between the two N7's.
"Jase, we need to stop this fight, I don't see a Professor and I bet your ass this isn't routine."
"All right boss, you give the word and we'll do this." Jason readied himself to jump into the pit, where the taller girl had broken through the mousy girl's barriers. As he did he saw the young man's eyes flare with Biotic, but his counterpart laid her hand on his shoulder in reassurance, and smiled evilly at Ward before nodding in Jason's direction.
'Oh that can't be good.' Ward knew that look before. This was a girl with an ace up her sleeve. Before Ward could react Jason threw himself into the lowered pit dashed towards the taller girl with surprising agility. "Stop this crap, you're killing her!" Indeed, the taller girl had broken through the Mousy girl's barriers and had delivered some light punches to her.
The taller girl wheeled around, tear stained eyes zeroing in on Jason. "How can you stand up to this, thing?! You Alliance assholes think you are always right?!"
And suddenly it made sense to Ward: The taller girl was a colonist, and the Mousy girl was obviously some spacer or earthborn human who had ticked her off. No doubt it was some provincial, derogatory words thrown in the volatile taller girl's direction. Now an Alliance Marine had just intervened on her behalf… Fuck.
Ward raced to the edge and jumped down to try and explain. The taller vanguards Biotics flared and she threw a shockwave in their direction. Jason rolled neatly out of the way, but Ward was unlucky to get caught in the blast, sending him backwards and into the circular wall. The taller girl powered down her Biotics instantly, and the dazed Ward thought for a moment she had stopped to assess the damage and apologize. Only when he could focus on her line of sight did he realize that she was not looking at him.
The silence was so palpable that you could hear a pin drop. Students were all staring out of the ring to Ward's right, and slowly backing away from the makeshift ring. The Colony girl backed away from Ward and Jason, while the Mousy girl's face lit up in a weak smile. Ward watched as a young student descended into the ring.
He was no older than seventeen, yet he carried himself with a grace that belied a far greater maturity. Short, spiky black hair covered his head, while calm blue eyes scanned the ring at the N7's and the contenders. For a graceful figure, he couldn't have been taller than 5'7, and he probably weighed a hundred pounds lighter than Jason.
Ward caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and saw the two conspiring students move towards the edge of the ring up top. The young man with the cold eyes spoke first.
"Well, if the little Cossack hasn't shown up to save the day. Did you file your report to Augustine this time as well, little bastard?" His mocking tone barely hid the kind of seething anger that could only come from past experiences. These two had obviously had bitter history together.
The graceful student calmly peered up at his opponents, eyes shifting from soothing to spiteful in a fraction of a second. "For you two? Would I put time and energy into reporting you? Pitting two students with a history of violence against each other and organizing a betting ring would have been a brilliant maneuver…" The student looked the calculating girl in the eyes directly and finished his sentence. "…For a Vorcha hustler perhaps, but for a pair of Earthborn elitists such as yourselves it is nothing but crass and childish. And to think Helena had such high hopes for you Camilla." Camilla's eyes betrayed a very small level of anger, otherwise masked by nonchalance.
"And Victor, while I understand that the weights are your strongest class, I must correct you: I do not think that word means what you think it means: A Cossack is a Russian soldier, whereas I am Serbian. While I doubt you would tell the difference, it is as clear to me as your Industrialist father is to your streetwalker of a mother."
Victor's Biotics lit up and he charged into the pit. Ward had had enough of this bullshit. "ENOUGH!"
Victor paused, if for the briefest of seconds and faced Ward. "I am First Lieutenant Ward Thompson of the SSV Seattle, N7 Marine. As both a commissioned officer of the Systems Alliance Marine Corps and by the power granted to me by your Headmistress, Helena Augustine X, you will cease and desist all hostile actions or you WILL face the military courts not as a minor, but as a member of the Systems Military!"
"Do you take me for a child?" Victor challenged.
"As an Adult, your process will be expedited and your incarceration all the likelier. Now, stand down." Ward was stable and unyielding. Victor stepped back, and powered down his Biotics. "Very well, Lieutenant. Why are you here our school?"
"Isn't that obvious Victor? They are here for their recruitment programs, and they will leave empty handed as the others have." Camilla's voice was rich and haughty, spiced by a crisp English accent. "And now that you've said your bit, you can go. You and your ape can go back to your superiors and leave this institution well enough alone-"
A roar issued from a side passage, as a disheveled woman came thundering into the room. Ward, despite still wearing off his daze, noted the wrinkled dress blues of an Alliance officer. "BECKETT! WHY ARE THESE STUDENTS NOT IN BED?! AS A PREFECT IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILTY TO HAVE HAD LIGHTS OUT HOURS AGO! YOU ARE ALL TO BE DISCIPLINED NOW!"
Students scattered as if they were rice thrown into a strong wind, with Camilla failing in her attempt to console a very drunk and very furious Alliance Officer. "KARA, VICTOR, FREESIA! YOU THREE, GET OUT OF THE PIT AND TO BED!" The Colonist jumped first, which led Ward to believe that she was Kara, while the Mousy girl seemed to shrink when the name Freesia was called. Even Victor looked a little uneasy when this woman walked into the room. The three students used their Biotics to flee the pit and escape the wrath of their apparent Instructor.
Ward turned to the remaining student, the Serbian mediator. "I need some answers now, and I've danced this dance enough to guess that you are my wolf cub?" The young man looked taken aback. "Erm, Lieutenant I don't think I'm a wolf, the others always joke that I am-"
"No, I mean have you been approached by Emile?"
"Emile? The Cajun transfer? Why would he have approached me?"
"All right then, well… look, what was your name again?"
The young man gave a very skeptical look in Ward's direction. "Kiril Ouradnik, and I didn't get any messages about Alliance transfers coming aboard. Is there some kind of threat-"
Jason, who had been staring at Kiril in a bit of a daze up until now, had broken his lethargy to interject. "Wait, why would you get messages about Alliance personnel?"
Now Kiril looked a bit flushed. "My last name, well you could say I am well connected." In the back of Ward's head he noted the name, which he didn't recognize, but did ring a bell.
"All right, well there will be a signup tomorrow for N7 exams to be held in a few weeks. We could use some strong Biotics such as you and your… peers?"
Kiril shook his head. "I don't have any power, but Bernson up there-"
Jason and Ward's eyes widened, making Kiril stop. "What did I say?"
"Kiril, are you telling me that that woman up there is Lieutenant Commander Carolina Bernson, Bernson the Beast?!" Jason breathed out. Ward had wondered what had happened to the once formidable woman he had heard stories about in basic training. Bernson was once classified as the strongest Biotic Vanguard that the Systems Alliance had, and her list of accomplishments fell just short of legends like Steven Hackett, Jackson Woolf and David Anderson.
"I never thought about it, I'm not military, so I wouldn't really know." Despite an outstanding vocabulary, Kiril had a fairly heavy accent. 'What is this kid's deal?'
"All right, we'll have a word with Bernson. How the hell does this pit rise up?" Kiril opened his Omni-Tool and pressed several buttons. Slowly the pit began to ascend towards the main floor. Camilla was nowhere to be seen, but an increasingly sober looking Bernson was staring at them as though they were ghosts.
"Off Sirs, welcome to Gris-Grissom A-c-c-ademy. How- I help you?" a bleary eyed and trembling Bernson asked Ward.
Ward opened his Omni-Tool and transmitted a list to Bernson. "Those students? You make sure they sign up tomorrow, alongside anyone else who shows interest. If you don't sober up Miss Bernson, it will pretty much spell an end to your career here, and anywhere else in Systems Space. Understood?"
Bernson shook her head feverishly, and Ward hoped she remembered everything by tomorrow morning.
"Kiril, it was good to meet you, and hopefully we can see your skills on display in a few weeks, yes?"
Like a mathematician puzzling out a theorem, Kiril began to work out the display bit by bit. "Yes Lieutenant Thompson, I'll be sure to show up. It was a pleasure meeting both of you."
Ward nodded, and Jason attempted to focus as well. Bernson slouched back to her quarters, Kiril shadowing her to make sure she made it back in one piece.
Love my Vanguards, and because of such I write more about them. Rest assured however, all students have been given convincing arcs and strengths/flaws. No Mary Sue's or other amateur writer shenanigans going to happen here.
Thank you to all for reading so far, and now that the players have been introduced now we can carry on with the story. Please review and send PM's if you have any questions or comments. I promise I don't bite! ;)