WOFAF - Chapter 1

Chapter 1


"But why do I have to do this?" A girl that looked about 16 or 17 asked.

"It's customary..." A woman replied.

"I was raised in this world though! It's not fair and-" The girl started.

"Adriana. It's part of the job and just because you're 'special' it doesn't mean that you can brush all these customs off." The woman snapped.

"We're in the middle of a war Morgan... this is more dangerous and stupid than anything." Adriana replied back just as hotly.

"You're going to need to go into hiding anyways so why not here where she's weakest?" Morgan replied.

"Fine... whatever. Just get me there so I can get this over with." Adriana grumbled.

Morgan led Adriana through a cave until it started to get really bright. Adriana felt a bit of a breeze coming through it and her dark brown hair started to whip around her face.

"Just step through then teleport yourself to your adoptive mother's house. I'll be there on Monday morning to help you get set up with the school." Morgan said.

Adriana just nodded and looked forward at the swirling, glowing, green light in front of her. She took a deep breath and walked through it.

#

Somewhere else in the universe, three preteens were going through the exact same thing.

"This is worse than jail."

Well, maybe not the exact same thing.

The exact same thing would've been zapping through a portal, in another world, to get to school. All Kaleb, his identical twin brother they all called 'Wing'-as he hated his real name, and should anyone ever mention it, he would hate them too- and their blind friend Lyra had done was hop a fence. And then illegally enrolled themselves in a school they knew they'd all hate.

They blamed Kaleb. It was his plan, after all.

"Okay, this is NOT as bad as jail. We've never even been to jail." Kaleb snapped to his complaining twin brother. He looked up at the red-brick school building that loomed before them. The only thing redder was the sunrise above, and Lyra's unnaturally colored hair—bright, apple red. This school was stark and square, but it didn't look as bad as the jails Kaleb had seen before. "It's just school." He pressed on, "And besides, I know we haven't been to a school since..."

"Second grade?" Wing asked, raising an eyebrow. He pushed thick white bangs out of his eyes.

Kaleb let out a sigh. "Yeah, exactly. And we need to lay low awhile. Normal kids go to school, and if we're gonna try and be normal again, this is how we're gonna do it." He said sternly. Kale had already known that Wing and Lyra would protest to his idea. Lyra was blind, Wing could barely read, he knew they wouldn't be able to blend in easily. Actually, that was an understatement. It'd be a miracle if they could blend in at all. "'Sides... it's better than the streets, right? And that's what we're trying to get away from, after all..."

Wing opened his mouth and then just decided not to say anything.

Kaleb facepalmed.

Lyra shoved her hands into the back pockets of her cargo pants. "Look, Kale, I like your big ideas, really I do, but I think we all know this is gonna be a bust. Seriously, can we just scrap it and go? Please?" she asked, shifting a bit as she stood, as if she was nervous. He didn't think she was too worried about the school itself. Their objective here wasn't to become straight A students—as if they could—but they were trying to hide, blend in with the crowd. She didn't like the crowd. "This place smells like dirty flesh and sweat..." Lyra added after a moment, wrinkling her nose. Her eyes were discolored and clouded, looking straight ahead like the glass eyes of a doll, but the rest of her senses were keen and sharp. Her eyes were blind.

"And what's a school supposed to smell like, cupcakes?" Kaleb asked with a raised eyebrow. Knowing they'd retaliate again, he just added, "Look, this school even has dorms we can sleep in, not like libraries or alleys. It's just a perfect chance to lay low and that's exactly what we need, after all the chaos that's gone down the past few months. Unless you'd like to go back to that—" he looked at Wing and Lyra, who seemed even bitterer about this than the school itself— "we're staying. Look, have my plans ever really screwed up before?"

Lyra sighed. It was true his plans had never failed them; she just hoped this one wouldn't be the first.

Wing's attention span had flickered, and he looked off at the school.

"Well, might as well check it out, right?"

Kale chuckled a bit. "And you won't need to break the doors down too. They're unlocked right now." He said, letting Ly put her hand on his shoulder so that she wouldn't get lost in this new place. Wing smirked and went ahead, apparently too curious about what a real high school was even like to keep up the argument. Suddenly, however, he ran into a group of people by the door. Books, people and someone's iPod went flying.

Kaleb sighed. Five seconds and we already stand out? Really? He kept his distance for a moment.

"Gack-! Sorry!" Wing gasped, helping up a girl with perfectly-straightened hair and another guy he'd knocked over. The third person he'd toppled stood up without Wing's help, shaking up his dark hair and fixing aged fingerless gloves on his hands. Wing grimaced and picked up a lime green iPod from the ground. "Here's your iPod..." he added sheepishly to the girl. Upon noticing something else, however, he groaned—both mentally and out loud. The screen on it had gone completely black.

"What are you, a destruction magnet or something?" the girl snapped, snatching the iPod back from him. Aside from the dead screen, there was also a clean white scratch going right across the front. "Oh my god if you broke my music player—you broke my music player!"

"Maybe it just clicked off?" Wing started awkwardly as Kaleb, and Lyra, caught up.

"Sorry about my brother, he's... uh... kinda a klutz...? Well, I guess kinda doesn't really cover it...." Kaleb started, and seeing the glare his twin sent to him, quickly shut up.

The guy with the fingerless gloves blinked. "Man, I must be seeing double, two freaking weirdos run into us and mess up my head..." he grumbled, rubbing his forehead with the palm of his hand. The girl leaned next to him, dangling off his shoulder like a Christmas tree ornament.

"Nu-uh Roland, you're fine." She cooed, her voice suddenly getting much sweeter. "I see him too." She turned to Kaleb, and suddenly her voice got just as snappy as it had been two minutes ago. "Now stay out of a fight that's not yours," iPod girl added, "me and Roland'll handle it. Won't we baby?" she asked, nudging him.

Kaleb looked up at Roland, who smirked assuredly.

"I really hope that guys her boyfriend, otherwise I'm gonna get diabetes off her voice alone." Lyra muttered under her breath. Lucky for her, Roland and iPod girl didn't hear.

"Seriously, I think the screen just shut off, that thing's probably not dead..." Wing tried again to the girl. At this, she seemed to remember the whole reason she was mad in the first place and growled.

"Yes it IS! You even scratched it! Do you KNOW how expensive those things are?" she yelped, and a now-annoyed Kaleb took the music player from her before she could go on, clicking a few buttons. The screen lit up again.

"There. It's fixed. Here, let's go..." he handed the machine back to iPod girl and took both Wing and Lyra by the hand, about to walk off, when the girl yelled out something at them.

"But there's still a scratch! What're you trying to do, just scram and run, you freaks?!"

Lyra hissed and jerked herself away from Kaleb and spun around, in the direction that she figured iPod girl and her stupid boyfriend Roland were. "Oh yeah? Say that one more time and you'll get beaten UP by a freak." She snapped, hand twitching. Let's just say being a 'freak' was the last thing Lyra wanted to remember right now, and it was the one thing she was trying to avoid by coming here. "Kale fixed your freaking iPod, get over it." Ly added irritably, glaring where she thought the girl was. And she was currently giving muscly Roland the evil eye.

"You talking to me?" Roland snapped, his own eyes narrowing.

"Lyra, just leave it, he didn't mean it like that—" Kaleb started, seeing his whole 'blend-in-at-school' idea go down faster than fighter planes in war.

"Yeah, run back inside where some sorry teacher'll protect you, right?" The girl snickered.

Wing glared at her angrily. "Dude, I'm sorry I ran into you, but your iPod's fine! Just get over it!" he yelled.

"Now you weirdos are just messing with my girlfriend. I bet I could take them, what d'you say?" he asked, turning to the girl, who was now adjusting a lime green blouse the same color as her scratched tech. "Huh, Grace?"

"You're really kidding me now if that girls name is Grace..." Kaleb muttered under his breath.

By now more people were streaming into the school, as the day—and the classes—were going to start soon. This meant that a small crowd of amused people had scattered around, no more than a dozen students lingering near the side of the school entrance watching the fight. Kaleb watched them with distaste, feeling himself want more and more to get out of here and just blend in like they were supposed to be doing in the first place.

"You really want a fight?" Lyra threatened Roland, still not looking in the right direction, her clouded eyes mixed with the snarl on her face giving off a weird impression of her—one that was both threatening and yet harmless.

She began summoning her powers, trying to track his aura, to find it. Yes, powers, and that was part of the reason they were supposed to be blending in and hiding. Lyra's powers well suited to fighting—as if she needed powers to help her with that anyway—but when she could sense an aura, she could sense where the person was, and when she could sense where the person was... "...I'll give you a fight."

"No way. I'm not hitting a girl, let alone a blind one." Roland snarled. "Heck, I'll take him; he's the one who's messing with Grace anyway. And he'll probably still be easy." He added with a smirk and stepped towards Wing. Wing rolled up his sleeve, hand in a fist.

"Oh? You wanna bet on THAT?"

While Wing and Roland were arguing, Lyra let Roland's aura materialize completely in front of her. It was heated, angry, shades of red that she remembered from when she could still see. Dirty red. There were also bits of pink—guess he really did like Grace—but Lyra hadn't activated her powers to see trippy colors. That little blip of heat she sensed not with her eyes but with her mind. She knew what it was. Roland. She could fight him if she knew where he was, now—

Kaleb caught on.

"LY!" He snapped, snagging her by the arm, which was already swinging through the air for a punch. "Don't, you're gonna make it worse—" he started, when there was the sound of a whistle blowing and the crowd of students, which had grown by more than just a few in the past several minutes, scattered.

"ENOUGH!"

"Oh crud." Wing and Roland muttered at the same time.

A man in a crisp grey suit appeared, walking with a stride towards them. The stern expression on his face was anything but pleased. Kaleb felt that blending in plan yet again go down, only this time the fighter planes weren't just in war; they were in a blasted Blitzkrieg.

Lyra's fist recoiled, and she let the auras seep away before forcing them to stay knocked her unconscious. Her powers were still very difficult to use. The last aura she sensed was that of a very, very angry man coming towards them before she let herself go back to normal. "I'm dead..." she muttered.

"I'm deader." Wing mumbled from behind her.

The man approached them swiftly, climbing up the school steps until he was right next to the offending five. Grace's face abruptly split into a grin, and she rushed over to the man. Roland even smirked. "Wait till you find out who that is. Then you three are dead." He whispered under his breath. Wing had a sudden urge to flip him off, but managed some self control, for once. He looked up at the strict man.

"Look, I can explain—"

"No need. All of you come with—Grace!" The man looked surprised, and for a moment his harsh tone faded. "Aww, dear, how've you been?" he asked, embracing the girl in a hug. Grace turned around, wrapping her fingers into his hand, and smirked. Kaleb's stomach immediately dropped. He realized who this was now. But Grace said it for him.

"You three? This is my daddy, Principal Franklin."