Academy

Chapter Four : Jungle

‘Won't you follow me into the jungle

I lost my mind, in the city of lights (yeah)

In the backstreets buildings and the neon lights (yeah)

When I heard the thunder, I could feel the rain (yeah)

It's the same to me, just a different name’

X Ambassadors, Jungle

"Take a seat Miss Read," The Headmaster offered, gesturing at the seat opposite him.

He was old, like really old, but you wouldn't know it just by looking at him. He was certainly weather worn with grey streaked black hair and wrinkles around his eyes but Pan knew he was the oldest man on the planet and yet, he was tall and thin and moved with ease and grace, with perhaps a subtle strength. He didn't seem as fragile as she'd imagined he would.

He was staring at her with an intensity that was sharpened by his crystal blue eyes. Even behind his wire-framed glasses his eyes were bright, so much so they almost seemed to glow. Kinda of like the way Pan's grey eyes sometimes shone silver.

Pan slid into the seat across the small glass table from the Headmaster. Atop that table was a glass chess set that she eyed curiously.

The Headmaster chuckled, "I was hoping you might play a game with me?"

"Play - uhm, yeah, I mean I'm not great but I can play, " she stuttered like a bumbling baffoon. This was not the impression she wanted to leave on her Headmaster. "I mean, uh, I'd love to play chess."

The Headmaster grinned, "Relax Miss Read, this isn't a formal meeting. I merely want to be sure you're comfortable and prepared for the Academy."

Pan almost shuddered. "Prepared?" She squeaked. "I mean uh… well, I guess I'm a little unprepared for the squad I've been placed in but-"

"Ah," He chuckled. "Worry not, Miss Read - may I call you Pandora?" She nodded numbly, sputtering with nerves. "Pandora, Ashbourne Academy is a school not a competition, your squad is a learning opportunity."

Pan squeaked. "So I'm really stuck in Jupiter squad? That wasn't a mistake - I won't be moving to a… a different squad?"

Still grinning as though he were amused by her, the Headmaster shook his head. "I'm afraid, Pandora, that no placement is ever a mistake. Each and every placement is an opportunity to grow as a person and a Guardian."

Pan refrained from rolling her eyes. That sounded like something her mother would say, the kind of circular positivity that drove Pan and Bella mad.

The Headmaster laughed, "I know, it sounds like an easy excuse for making mistakes - but I, personally, do not believe that any one of my students deserves more than another. You have an excellent squad this year Pandora, embrace it." As he spoke he gestured to the chess board.

Pan stared at the pieces, hers were white stained glass and his were black. Her move first. She flitted her fingers over the pawns before moving the one in front of her queen up two rows. "I mean- I'm like… grateful to be on Jupiter squad, but I just don’t… I don't understand how?"

Headmaster Abrahim didn't even look before moving his own piece. "Placement isn't quite so clear cut as rumour has it," he mused, peering at her intently behind those spectacles.

Pan moved another pawn, her tongue between her teeth while her concentration flitted between Headmaster Abrahim and the glass chessboard. "I always heard that first year Placement is based off Primary scores and combat testing."

He glanced at the board for a fleeting moment, shifting another piece. "Those are some of the factors that come into play of course, but the Placement board consists of six Guardians, myself included."

Pan blinked, "Who's on the board? Is it the teachers?"

He grinned. "This year the board consisted of two teachers, and of course myself, a representative from the Queen's Guard and two former students of Ashbourne. One of those former students conducted the interviews for first years."

"Guardian Amintah," Pan nodded, moving another chess piece. "He was scary," she mumbled without even thinking. Her face burst into flame and she sputtered out an apology, "Well not scary - I mean uh, not like, but like - like…"

"Intimidating?" The Headmaster offered.

Wincing, Pan nodded and hung her head. But he only laughed.

"Yes, Guardian Amintah is rather stoic, after graduating from Ashbourne many years ago he became somewhat of a nomad - travelling where the trouble took him. He has seen much in his lifetime. But he was impressed by your interview."

Pan froze, she curled her fingers around the arms of her chair as the pod shook and rattled. The glass chess pieces wobbled precariously on the table as the transport dropped from the dock. A light whirring caught the fall and the transport pod began to rise, to float up, up and over the mountain.

Through clenched teeth Pan managed to grunt, "My interview?" As far as she could remember she'd been a total mess in her interview. There was nothing impressive about that catastrophe.

At the same time her eyes widened and her mind emptied. Bella had told her about the ride to the Academy. Her parents and her uncle had told her about the view on the way there. But there were no words for the beauty she was looking over.

The location of Ashbourne Academy was known to only a few, it was well hidden and well removed from Arcadian society. When the Founders designed the school they knew they never wanted the world to threaten it's duty, to influence it's students. Ashbourne, like it's namesake, was borne to break the mould. Made outside of the laws of Arcadia, the school could only be reach by its transport pod, each was programmed with the coordinates to take passengers between the school itself and the mountain sound Placement Hall.

The journey was long, Bella said it often changed to keep it's passengers guessing and always there was a period of darkness where the path was lost even to the most cunning eyes.

Why? Pan couldn't fathom.

"Yes Pandora, your interview," Headmaster Abrahim's soft tone cut into her disconnected thoughts. She startled, her gaze snapped back to the chess board awaiting her turn and she recklessly moved a piece without thinking. "Here," The Headmaster offered, he pressed a button and a hologram lit up above the table.

Through the grainy footage Pan could see herself, perched on a sofa that she distinctly remember. It had been in a warm, sunny office, she'd sat facing an old man who'd stared her down, hard and heavy. "Pandora Valerie Read?" He asked.

She nodded, a big jerk gestured that her wince to look back on. Her hands, clasped tightly in her lap, were shaking, her knees bouncing incessantly. Not a muscle in her body was still. "Yuh - yeah - yes that's me, Pandora." She was awkward and uncomfortable, it was written on her every feature.

Sitting at the glass table Pan was cringing. But the Headmaster seemed mildly amused.

"And you are how old?" Guardian Amintah had asked.

"I'm uh- um - I'm fourteen," She'd stuttered in response before panicking and adding, "But I turn fifteen two weeks before the Academy school year starts!" She was too loud, too sharp and the horror had made her sink further into the sofa.

Watching from the chess table Pan groaned, but the awkward didn't end there.

"Miss Read," Guardian Amintah continued. "Why have you applied to Ashbourne Academy?"

"Because I want to be a Guardian," She'd responded, blatantly confused by the question. Why else would she have applied?

"Why is that?" He parried. "For glory? To be a hero? Because you wish to fight monsters?"

"No," She'd scoffed before realising her mistake. "Yes - No wait, no - but I… I don't mean… I mean, like, of course I want to fight the Sharr but I-"

"Why do you want to become a Guardian Miss Read?" He repeated levelly, never flinching or wavering.

Her cheeks were flaming, sweat was pricking at the back of her neck and Pan remembered feeling, in that moment, that she'd tanked her interview.

"I uhm…" Her chest was heaving, she was wringing her hands in her lap and curling her toes inside her shoes. "I uh- my parents, and my uhm my uncle, they're Guardians…"

"So you wish to continue a family legacy?" Guardian Amintah pressed again, raising an eyebrow.

Pan frowned. "No… maybe… no I just mean that, well they're Guardians, and ever since I can remember they've been telling stories about being Guardians… about saving people, helping whenever and wherever they were needed - I just, I want to be able to help people like that… someday."

Through the hologram Headmaster Abrahim smiled at her and readjusted his glasses. Reaching over the table he made his move on the chess board. Pan didn't dare look away from the holograph, her pale skin aflame with embarrassment.

The Headmaster turned the hologram off and Pan sunk into her seat.

"Don't be embarrassed Pandora, I found it refreshing to see that a young person still believes in the cause that Holland fought for."

Pan was still squirming, her face on fire. What she wouldn’t have given to disappear. Become transparent like the glass she sat amongst.

Speaking of, Pan had stopped watching the scenery change, and so had missed the fact that they'd been travelling over water. Until the pod was shrouded in blue-tinged darkness - it had taken a dive beneath the water. So far down Pan lost all sense of where they were or where they might be headed. But the view was spectacular.

Her skin erupted in bumps, tingly and electric. Once again she was a scrawny blonde bob gaping like a goldfish. But this was not a sea of people, this was the literal sea. Schools of fish parted frantically, desperate to avoid the giant pod. And that there - holy gods, that was a shark, it had a fin and everything.

And way down there, there were brightly coloured coral and swaying seaweed.

She was way, way down beneath the surface.

"It is beautiful," The Headmaster murmured, the clack of his chess piece moving startling her from her trance. "One of the reasons I have the journey directed this way - there is nothing quite like the ocean. Nothing so unexplored and untouched as the world beneath the sea."

Pan nodded but she wasn't really listening. She was lost in the colours, in the swirl of them. Distracted by the constant movement of the plant life, and the sea creatures that never seemed to still. Much like Pan herself.

"It's amazing," She breathed, reaching toward the glass. "No one told me it was like this…"

"Well," He laughed, "Very rarely is anyone's pod but my own directed to this depth - it's an unnecessary and somewhat more difficult path to take, but one I enjoy."

Pan nodded wordlessly. The longer she spent with her eccentric new Headmaster the more Pan realised that she was abnormal. Or, at the very least, her circumstances were. This crystal eyed, sharp old man had the air of someone with many secrets. Pan wondered what it was he expected from her.

She cant possibly be the only kid in the entire Academy who wasn't in it for the glory. And she definitely wasn't the only one with a strong family history at Ashbourne - for crying out loud her older sister for one. And that struck her as odd.

"Sir?" She asked, twisting in her seat to face the Headmaster again, dimly checking out the chess board between them. Her knee was bouncing, up and down and up and down, and she couldn't quite settle it. "If… if this whole Placement thing wasn't a mistake… why am I here?" she gestured at the glass chessboard and the seats and the Headmaster with jerky uncoordinated movements. Her toes were curling inside her sneakers, her stomach fluttering.

"You're here Pandora because I understand that I've sort of… well, thrown you in the deep end."

Pan laughed under her breath. "Yeah kinda…"

The Headmaster gave her that ever-patient gentle smile that made his eyes crinkle behind his wire frames. Pan tried to focus on his eyes - on the bright blue colour of them, flecked with something lighter. She tried to hold his intense gaze but her vision started to blur. She blinked rapidly, her gaze raking over his face rapidly. Wire glasses, the weird lights and refraction from the glass pod left strange reflections fractured across the lenses. He crinkly old face was weathered and lined heavily. He was old… like really old - like older than her grandparents. He was ancient - unnaturally so. She didn't know how or why but he was like immortal or something. So was Queen Aurora - and Raven Elex's grandfather was too… except, he died. Or was killed. So maybe not immortal…

"Pandora?"

She startled, jumping it her seat and rattling the glass chess table. "Sorry!" She squeaked. "I uh…"

"I understand," The Headmaster nodded calmly, smiling as if it were perfectly normal for a fifteen year old to be so much of an airhead. "I was just saying that I hoped to give you a bit of a 'heads-up' about what is expected of you this year."

Pan tried not to wince. She nodded. Deep end, she was flailing in the deep end. She needed help - she'd definitely need help. "Uh…. Thank you? Thanks…" she tugged at the hem of her t-shirt, her shoulders drawing up to her ears.

"I understand that for some time it will seem that you are out of your depth - I am hoping, however, that you are willing to put in the time and effort to reach the same level as your teammates."

Pan nodded, watching over the Headmaster's shoulder as the ocean floor dropped and they began the slow climb to the surface. The same level… the same - because she wasn't good enough she wasn't ready for this - so why was she in Jupiter squad? Because she had a good attitude-

Pan winced when the transport pod pulled back above the water and the sunlight became suddenly far more intense. Her foot started to tap on the floor. She wasn't keeping eye contact - should she be? It was really hard to focus when she was this worked up.

"If I… If I…" The words were on the tip of her tongue. She must look like a moron, struggling to get one simple question out. "If I'm not - not as good as the others, then why - why am I on this Squad? It can't just be because of that interview - I was wreck and - and I'm not up to their standard, I'll only drag them down!" The dismay must have been written all over her face because the Headmaster actually grimaced.

Somewhat of a pitiful, amused grimace but a grimace none-the-less.

"Perhaps," He mused softly.

"Perhaps?" She cried, casting her gaze aside to watch the ocean and the ground slip away as the pod rose and rose and rose. Her heart was beating so fast her ribs felt shaky. "Sir, I really think this is a mistake… I don't want to be the reason Raven Elex loses the exams… Or Gabriella Jaro or Connor Daryen - I mean they're the top students at Ashbourne and-"

"Pandora."

"Sorry Sir, I- I just-"

"Pandora." He was laughing. Definitely laughing at her. Silently and behind kind eyes - he was mocking her. Because this was all some huge joke and - and- and she was gonna be sent home because her dad was right and she wasn't cut out for this and - "Whatever you're thinking right now my dear, it is entirely false."

"Huh?"

"You're here Pandora, in Jupiter Squad, because you are special - far more so than you even understand."

They left the chess game unfinished.

Pan was shaken, to say the least, by the time the transport pod landed atop the Holland building where the Headmaster's office and dormitory took up the entire top floor. His secretary Miss Belliveaux lead her outside and told her to go to the Rosewood building and speak to the Dorm co-ordinator there. This was it - her new life at Ashbourne Academy was beginning.

And she was so damn lost.

It was big. She expected big; Bella warned her it was big, her parents constantly spoke about the sheer size of the school, of the world really. But Pan lived a somewhat sheltered life, she lived in a farm house far secluded from the nearest town where she attended a small Primary school.

This was… this was something new.

The Holland building alone was bigger than her old school. And it was surrounded by sprawling fields and small forests of trees and cobblestone paths. There were benches and fountains and statues. A campus so massive that Pan could barely see it all from the transport pod in the sky.

It was incredible. The colour so intense, the sunlight so fierce from the high altitude, it took a minute - or maybe five or ten it was hard to tell - for Pan to get her bearings.

Her senses were being bombarded - good gods it smelled like flowers and open air and summer breezes. It was incredibly vivid. It filled her lungs to bursting and made sparks fly inside her brain.

She breathed deeply, fully, and exhaled, her whole face pulled up into a jittery grin.

With a spring in her step Pan set off down the cobblestone path.

Find the Rosewood building, find her dorm, meet the team - oh gods, meet the team.

There were people, all around her, they were buzzing with chatter.

"Hey how are?"

"I can't believe we didn't catch up over the break!"

"You're so lucky to be in that Squad!"

"I can't believe this!"

"Can you believe that Milo Eide got accepted into the Queen's program!"

And on and on it went while Pan found herself becoming more and more lost.

The Holland building left far in the distance she managed to stumble across the Torrine building and the Hūxī building and… and the Torrine building again. Had she gone in a circle?

Maybe if she took the other turn at the fork in the path-

"Hey uh-"

Pan startled and whirled when a hand tapped her shoulder, her half broken backpack swung wide.

"Sorry!" the face she found herself looking into was actually one she recognise from her many hours obsessively studying Ashbourne's top teams. Akyra Karnes, now in her sixth year, had been in… was it Poppy - Popio- Papio Squad, they came in fifth and Akyra was a stand out. And up close she was rather pretty, all milky skin and high cheek bones, upturned eyes and thick, dark hair. Pan shrank away. "I am so sorry," she said gently, holding her hands up in surrender while she smiled - perhaps too warmly - at Pan. "I didn't mean to scare you, I was just going to ask if you were lost?"

Pan knew her shoulders were too drawn, her fingers hidden beneath her sleeves, she looked like a child and she could practically hear her father demanded she stand straight. And she knew her mother would reprimand her for ruining the sleeves of yet another jacket. But this was Akyra Karnes and… and she was a sixth year, a god for crying out loud and Pan was some first year nobody standing in her way.

She managed a squeak - perhaps a minor miracle in itself - before nodding like a rabid dog.

Akyra Karnes laughed but her face pulled into that uncomfortable sort of smile that people force when Pan acts like a bumbling i***t. The blush that crept up her neck burned her skin so fiercly she was probably one wrong breath away from combusting. "Uh," Akyra Karnes tilted her head and gestured vaguely down the path. "I could show the way - You're Pandora Read right? On Jupiter Squad?"

Again with the crazy nodding Pan fumbled for her voice. "Yeah - yes," she grunted, her eyes zooming amongst the trees and sunshine and leaves, anywhere but Akyra Karnes' confused, possibly cocerned face.

"Uhm, well your dorm is this way - we're in the same building, I'm in Regulus Squad this year, with your sister actually."

It was an admirable effort at friendly conversation - unfortunately Pan hardly heard it over her own ragged breathing and the slight tearing of the stitches holding the hems of her jacket sleeves. Damn. Pan grimaced, staring at her uplifted hands, her fingertips poking out the ends of the sleeves. Now she needed a new back pack and a new jacket, and it was only day one.

Strangely enough, once the silence settled between Pan and Akyra Karnes the older girl seemed to relax a little more. Silence, it's always better to stay silent her father would have said. If you're not sure, don't say anything. Of course, her mother had disagreed, something about no question being a stupid question. Pan rolled her eyes at the thought.

In a windy twisty path through maple trees that cast a green glow to the warm, fading sunlight. Students were dispersed throughout, some were even wielding spirit! The Earth Wielders were growing flowers and making the ground rise and fall. Pan grinned. Now this was more like she expected of Ashbourne Academy.

"So," Akyra Karnes tentative voice cut into her admiration and Pan whirled to face the older girl who edged away from her. She pointed down the path to were it split toward three massive buildings. The one on the left said in big brass letters sprawled across the entrance 'Rosewood'. "There it is - uh, I've gotta get over to the festival grounds and meet up with my team but, uh good luck I guess. It was nice to meet you Pandora."

"Thank you," Pan sighed with relief, looking past Akyra Karnes to where the sky bloomed in orange and pink and faint purple. "I would have been lost out here all night if you hadn't helped me."

She got a smile and wave before a curtain of brown-black hair swung and Akyra Karnes was strutting back down the path.

Pan squeaked and bounced excitedly, she turned on her heel and bounded for the Rosewood dormitory.

She had to get the dorm attendant to tell her the room number and when she get there, though the place was a mess of scattered belongings, there was no one else there.

Glancing out the window Pan watched the last glimmer of sunlight as it faded over the horizon. She was late - everyone would already be celebrating at the Festival.