The Gifted Academy

2. First Day

* * * The First Day * * *

* * * Amy's POV * * *

The loudest, most resonant gong ever to exist literally knocks me out of bed in the morning. From the spot I land on the cold, hard floor, I can see through the dorm room window that it is still dark out. I swear I hadn’t even been asleep for more than three hours.

“Time to rise and shine, my love,” Max’s face looms over me.

“What do they think the are playing at?” I grumble.

“Time for training.”

“I feel s**t. This is your fault, ‘just one more time, baby’ you said.”

“It was, but then you wanted a third and fourth time. If it wasn’t for that damn gong, I’d be taking you again,” he says.

A knock at the door stops my reply. “Come in,” Max answers.

The door opens without even a hint of sound. It’s Alexandra. In the predawn, I notice she’s already dressed in the official academy uniform, dark green polo and charcoal gray military style pants with side pockets. She looks sufficiently groomed and ready to attack the day. I, on the other hand, still have sleep gluing my eyelashes together.

She offers her hand to me to help me up and I take it. “Do you always look this bright-eyed in the morning?”

“Yes, pretty much. I love early mornings. I like to be productive.”

I sit on the edge of my bed and rub at the crusty flakes in my eyes. “Back home, I wouldn’t even be out of bed until noon.”

“If I were you, I’d get your butt in gear and run to the showers before they fill up. Or you won’t be able to have one before we need to be in our first class.”

She hands me a thick leather folder. “Here’s your class schedule. I hope you don’t mind that I organised it for you. I had an hour to kill this morning before the gong.”

I open it to see a calendar and detailed timetable noting my classes and which God will teach them. As I scan my schedule for the day, I shake my head. I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe I’m here, at this academy, training to be a Gods’ warrior. Training to be the head of the academy.

8 a.m. – History of the Gods – Selene

10 a.m. – Spear and Shield – Ares

12 p.m. – lunch

1 p.m. – Archery - Helios

3 p.m. – Hand to Hand Combat – Heracles

5 p.m. – dinner

7 p.m. – Prophecy – Apollo

9 p.m. – free time

11 p.m. – lights out I kept reading, astonished at the other classes during the week.

“Transformation class?” I look up at Alexandra, dumbfounded. “What the hell do we do in that class?”

“I guess we change one thing into another.”

I look back at the schedule. “Flying?’ I shake my head. “Tomorrow, we have an elemental class with Zeus and Demeter.”

“I know, right? I’m so excited for that one. Poseidon teaches in that class, too. I’ve wanted to meet him my entire life. My family has made offerings to him for safe passage over the seas since I was a baby.”

I want to tell her that most likely the God never got them, but what do I know? For most of my life, I didn’t even think the Gods were real. I’d been told they were real, I said my prayers to Selene because I was told to. But I never truly, honestly believed there were higher beings sitting around listening to the whining and bitching of mortals. And here I am in their school, training to fight for them in some war that doesn’t yet exist. Training to become head of the academy.

At least we have time to make sure we are ready. A half hour later, I, along with Alexandra and Max, meet with our gifted group and stream down the main stone staircase and into the foyer where we first had entered the academy. Little Theia is also joining us, although her training will be lighter than ours. Keera assures me that it will help her when she is old enough as she will have already mastered the classes. The other group that arrived yesterday are gathering away from us. I see Hannah near the front of the group.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to catch up with her. At the bottom of the steps, we are met by an assuming woman with curly brown hair up in a messy bun, a very plain dress, and sensible shoes.

She looks like a librarian. She even has reading glasses hanging on a chain around her neck. She smiles warmly at us. “Good morning. My name is Athena, and I’ll be your guide for the day. I will show you to your various classes and answer any questions you may have about the academy. I’m your TA, along with Pandora for the year. If you need anything, you can come to me or Pandora.”

She leads us down a very large, wide corridor—the whole academy seems to consist of enormous corridors—to a set of gray stone doors with stars engraved into them. “This is where your history of the Gods class will be. It’s a very important class, as you will need to know everything you can about each of the primary Gods and Goddesses to prepare for your trial at the end of the year.”

A tall girl with blond hair raises her hand. Athena smiles at her. “Yes?”

“Are the trials as bad as my old man says they will be?”

Others in the group look around nervously. Athena gives us a tight-lipped smile. “Rumors don’t do anyone any good.”

She gestures to the doors. “Have a good class, and I’ll see you afterwards.”

The doors swing open, and we all enter the dark room. I wonder if anyone else noticed that Athena didn’t exactly answer the question. Probably not, as everyone was busy gawking at the domed ceiling above us.

It’s lit up with a thousand twinkling stars. In the center of the room stands a rising platform, and around it are fifty desks and chairs. There’s a scramble for the desks in the middle, but I opt for one farthest from the lectern. Alexandra follows Max and I to the back.

Is it weird that she’s attached herself to us? I ask Keera and Max.

A little, Max answers.

We shall see. She may just be lonely and have never had a friend. She seems nice enough, Keera answers.

As I slide behind my desk, I’m pleasantly surprised to see Hannah taking a desk in front of me. We smile at each other. Another door at the far end of the room opens and a woman enters.

It’s Selene, our professor. She walks to the center of the room and steps up onto the dais. She wears a long, flowing dark blue dress, and her hair is wrapped up on top of her head with a string of flowers acting like a turban. Jewels sparkle around her throat, her ears, and her fingers, as she lifts her hands in front of her.

“Everything in the cosmos was created by Uranus and Gaia, Heaven and Earth.”

Between her hands, light forms. She twists her hands around until a solid ball of blue erupts then she throws it up at the ceiling. The orb bounces from one star to the next and the next, sending them all spinning, until they are a spiraling mass of stars and light above us. There are gasps around the room as the stars separate and rotate into position in the universe. Then one star grows ten times its initial size into a large globe. Land and sea forms on as it turns on its axis. It’s the Earth.

“Heaven and Earth gave birth to twelve great, ferocious and ruthless Titans. Oceanus…” The thundering sounds of crashing waves fill the room. Then a swirling blue maelstrom spouts from the floor.

Some of the students nearest to it jump out of their seats and scream. It looks so real; I expect to be sprayed by water as it spins through the room, turning into a gigantic monster made of water, with eight whirlpool arms spinning around. “…dominated all the seas and oceans and lakes and rivers, demolishing ships and drowning everyone he came in contact with.”

“Hyperion, made of the sun itself…” Out from the ceiling drops a male form made of fire, with huge fiery wings. A wave of heat surges through the room with every flap of his wings. He lifts his arms, which are columns of fire, and shoots out fireballs every direction. One fireball zooms straight for my head and I duck. I can actually feel the heat as it flies by, vanishing when it hits the stone wall. “…scorched everything in his path…”

For the next hour, Selene introduces all twelve Titans and talks about how monstrous and destructive they are. Then she talks about Tartarus, the stinking, dark, frozen wasteland they are imprisoned in, a place far below the underworld, and how important it is for the Gods to make sure they stay there.

“This is why you are being trained,” she says, her voice rising to a crescendo. “You will be the Gods’ Warriors, to fight by our side in the event our enemies are unleashed on the Earth.”

A chill runs through me, as I think about the repercussions of any of the Titans being released from their prison, and why someone would ever want that to happen. It makes me think about what I had overheard in the academy halls last night.

After history class, Hannah catches up with Max and I. “That class was crazy, huh?”

I nod. “Yeah, seems so unreal.”

Alexandra comes along my other side. “It’s as real as you and me.”

I introduce her to Hannah, and our group of gifted follow Athena and the rest of the group to our next class—Spear and Shield—which is outside behind the main academy building in an open grass field.

As we line up in a semi-circle, three men run out onto the field, shouting and making shiver-inducing battle cries. All three carry a long spear with an arrowhead-like tip and a round shield. I assume one of them has to be our professor, Ares.

Two of the men, dressed in black military fatigues, attack the third man, who is older, and wearing red nylon shorts and a white tank top. His hair is cut short, much like an army general. I remember him from the hallway last night. This has to be Ares. As I watch him dance around the field, deflecting blows from the other men, he reminds me of an old man trying to keep young.

I try to hold in my laugh. But it has already escaped, and a couple of the people around me notice, and basically take a step away from me, singling me out. After Ares makes a sharp cutting motion with his hand, the other two men immediately stop what they are doing and stand at attention with their shield held at chest height, and their spear held upright in their hand, eyes forward, chins lifted.

“Ammmmyyy,” Max groans.

Ares spins around and glares at me. Obviously, he had also noticed my snicker. He points right at me. “Step forward.”

I gesture to myself. “Me?”

“Yes. Get out here. Now!” I step out of the group and onto the field. Both Max and Alexandra look horrified, while a dark-haired girl, whose name I discovered during history class was Raven, openly smirks.

Ares tosses his shield at me. I put my arm up just in time to catch it before it smashes me in the head. It’s heavy, and I have a hard time keeping it balanced. Then he thrusts his spear at me. “Protect yourself!”

I raise the shield just in time, so the spear tip doesn’t pierce my face. It bounces off the metal. “What the hell?” He thrusts it toward me again, this time at my legs. I manage to move the big metal plate down in time, and the clang of metal hitting metal reverberates over my entire body.

My arm shakes, and I nearly drop the shield. “Do you find this funny?” he shouts at me.

“No!” He lowers his spear and takes a step back to address the entire group.

“War is not funny.” He taps the spear onto the ground. “There will be no laughing in my class. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” some of the group say.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes sir!”

He comes back to me and tears the shield from my hand. “Get back in line.”

Head down, I quickly walk back to the group, standing next to Max and Jackson, Sarah and Alexandra. Jasmine leaned in.

“Are you okay?” Jackson whispers.

I rotate my right shoulder; it’s starting to ache from holding the shield up. I nod. “I’ll live.”

“Form two lines.” Ares gestures with his hand where we should line up. “You are going to learn how to use a shield properly to defend yourself, so you don’t get stuck in your pot bellies with a spear and bleed out.”

We all jump into motion. I want to get in line with Max and Jackson, but end up getting jostled around, until I can squeeze into a line, which just happens to be beside Raven. Perfect.

This day is just getting worse and worse by the minute. I can just imagine the joke she is going to make at my expense. He bends toward me. “Not bad, Wolfie.” I don’t look at her, keeping my eyes ahead.

“Oh yeah, I was a real hero there, back in the pack. I’ll be defending the world in no time.”

“Hey, I know it’s not easy holding one of these shields up, but you’re not as special as you think. We all have gifts.

.” When I turn to look at her, I notice the long, thin scar along her jawline. She rubs her thumb across it, then she winks at me, and I can’t stop the frown forming on my face. She’s battle experienced and ready.

Then a shadow looms over me. “I said no laughing during class.” Ares glares at me, his scowl so deep it cuts lines into his granite-like face.

“Technically, I wasn’t laughing. I was smiling.” He gets right into my face. I have to crane my neck to look up at him. He is so close I can smell his body odor.

“You need to check your attitude, Wolf Girl, or I’m going to rip that smug look right off your face.” The intensity of his anger ripples over me. I don’t like how it feels on my skin. Like snakes, a thousand tiny snakes slithering over my body, every muscle quivers, constricting me tighter and tighter. “To help you with this lesson, I want you to go out in the middle of the field and do some pushups. You will keep doing them until I tell you to stop. Do you hear what I’m saying to you, recruit?”

“Yes, sir.”

Raven, who was nearby, starts to snicker. “Sounds like someone else is laughing, sir.”

Ares whips around and glares at Raven. “You can join her.” I walk out onto the field and drop down to my hands and knees. Raven follows me out and nearly steps on my hand as she takes up a position beside me. As we both do our first pushup, she glowers at me, her eyes like dark storm clouds.

“I know you’re a fraud. When I find out how you got in here, I’m going straight to Zeus, and you’ll be expelled from the academy and exiled from your life. Selene was wrong to choose you. Wolves are lesser creatures.”

“Wow, b***h, you really need to relax. You are far too tense.”

As she does pushups, she continues to glare at me. I don’t know how one person can put so much effort into hating someone they don’t even know. It must be exhausting.

It is just another reason, in a long list of them, of why coming here was a bad idea, and one I’m sure I’m going to regret. I should have remained with the wolves and lead the packs to peace from Earth.