New Semester

[Brandon Bailey]

Brandon sighed, walkng into the large, ornate gates, past a stone fence- no... a wall.

Even a haven such as this was bound to have some kind of confinement. The boy loved the island. It was happy, and for a moment, he could forget that the world past the ocean surrounding the island would fear him, and discriminate.

Maybe they should. After all, even among his fellow "gifted", the boy was a bit odd. He didn't have a dark past, he wasn't abused, he was simply a guy who had an odd ability.

Okay, so odd didn't exactly cut it. More like wild, insane, and utterly amazing ability.

Brandon prided himself on his powers, which were quite incredible to say so himself. Few people with a gift for elemental control were able to manipulate two elements. The ones that could usually didn't control exact opposites. As far as he knew, maybe only 10 people could control fire and water, and he was one of them.

Of course, that was just guessing. He never could really know who else had his powers, but he knew that he loved his anyway.

Reaching into his hoody pocket, he pulled out a box of pocky, and began to chew on a chocolate covered stick of heaven.

He had just gotten back from a pleasant stroll through Crystal Park, having to come back because it was just simply getting too hot outside, rather early for it just being spring.

Brandon wasn't the only one coming into the school. New kids were signing up now for classes, and old faces were returning.

He looked around for someone, anyone he recognized, walking down the road toward the huge school.

His home.

[collinmars]

Collin breathed in the sweet spring air around him, catching some of the heavily applied perfume and cologne of his more odor-conscious classmates. And sunlight. He was breathing in the sunlight. He'd been mulling it over for a while now, and he'd decided to begin calling his sun absorption "breathing." It had a nice simplicity; it suggested that he was intimate and comfortable with his abnormality-- no, his ability. He'd lost track of how many times he'd been told that he, along with his classmates, were "normal." Maybe it was 27? No, that was too low...

Such hot days always made Collin energetic, for obvious reasons. He'd been shaking with excess energy constantly on his taxi ride to the Academy from the airport. A pang of homesickness dug into his side, but the sun seemed to respond with a little burst of extra fuel. The ache for the familiar was soon whisked away in the comforting breeze.

He looked around, shading his eyes, observing all of the students that were wandering around the Gates. As he did so, he couldn't help but compare this sight to the one that had greeted him back in September.

It had been easy to spot the freshmen at the beginning of the school year; their confused and anxious faces were the main form of identifying them. But now, swelling with confidence after surviving first semester, their height seemed to be the only way to pick them out. Some of the sophomores, a great deal of the juniors, and nearly all of the seniors could have been seen rushing into the Academy's main building, seeking to call dibs on the prime dorm rooms. But now the gates were crowded with packs of friends discussing their winter break, most of their faces glum from the prospect of another semester of school.

Of course, there were always the ones who loved returning to the Academy. For a lot of them, it was the only place they weren't persecuted. This was certainly true for Collin; after discovering his powers through accidentally injuring a classmate with them, the Mars family had been forced to move from Vancouver to Edmonton. Even after all this time, he still wasn't used to his house in Edmonton. It was Ashburn that had remained a constant; a resolute rock in an ever-churning ocean.

It was to this rock that he now strode, soaking in the sunlight as he did so. No, breathing; he was breathing it in. All of it.

[Brandon Bailey]

Brandon grinned. He found someone he at least knew by face and name.

"Collin! Hey! MARS!"

Figuring it'd have gotten his attention, Brandon broke into a light jog to catch up with the young man, who was a few paces in front of him.

"Hey man, it's been a while? What's up?"

From what he knew, Collin was a native of Canada, and he felt a mild kinship to that fact. His father was from Washington State, and Brandon occasionally went to visit family with him, and had been able to go to Canada a few times before passport laws had been enforced. Now, it'd be too much a damn hassle getting a passport, being as "gifted" as he was.

He mentally sighed, but kept a straight face as he met up with his classmate.