Chapter 4

JAYCE

    She woke up the next morning at 6:30 because of the loud banging on her door. Dragging her feet across the carpet of the dorm, she yanked open the door in a sleepy daze.

    “Oh my gosh -- you’re the new girl aren’t you?” another girl, presumably a classmate, asked.

    “Yeah. I’m new, and it’s 6:30. Can I help you right now?” Jayce groaned. She assessed the girl in front of her. She wasn’t conventionally beautiful, at least not to Jayce; her hair was a short pixie cut and her skin was dotted with light freckles. Physique wise, she wasn’t not tall and she wasn’t not super skinny either, but there was just something about her that made her seem pretty cool (I think it’s the smile). Overall, Jayce didn’t hate her. But she could totally slam the door in her face right about…

    “Did you forget? Class is in half an hour and I didn’t see you at breakfast today,” she said, holding out a croissant.

    “Oh my god,” Jayce muttered worriedly under her breath, now completely awake. “Thanks! I’ll be right out!” she yelled to her classmate as she shut the door and ran to change. She threw on the skinny jeans and dress shirt she had laid out the night before and rushed to her bathroom only to discover that her bathroom was now a closet. That’s weird, she thought. She could have sworn it was a bathroom last night; Did the bathroom change sides? Looking over to the other side, Jayce quickly strode to the door where the closet used to be. No way…, she thought as she pulled the door open. “Oh my god,” she said quietly but in panic, walking into what was now the bathroom. “Oh my god,” she repeated, staring at the new adjoining door (now green instead of blue). “It changes sides. The bathroom actually changes sides. What kind of world am I in?,” she said to herself, running a brush through her hair and grabbing a dark blue tie on her way out.

    The poor girl was still waiting outside. “Do we need anything for first class?” Jayce asked her, tie still in hand.

She shook her head. “Nope. You don’t really need anything for classes but yourself. I’m Minhee, by the way.”

“Jayce. Nice to meet you.”

xXxXxXx

As they walked down the stairs, Minhee asked Jayce about her schedule.

“Great,” Jayce said miserably. “First day and I’m already unprepared.” Minhee smiled at her new friend.

“No worries,” she assured her, “I’m your, um, designated buddy, for lack of better term, which means I has the same classes as you.”

“Oh… Sorry for making you do this for me, Minhee,” Jayce said awkwardly.

“No problem,” she said laughing a little, “just make sure you don’t get tired of me.”

xXxXxXx

“First, we have to go eat, but then our Warm Up starts at 7:30.” At Jayce’s confused look, she continued explaining: “Everyone’s first class is Warm Up, but everyone has it at different times, depending on the hall. Oh, don’t look like that, Jayce. How else are we supposed to get our powers in check?”

The bad thing was that Jayce was staring at her tie the whole time they were walking down the stairs. Fun fact: Jayce was really, really bad at tying ties. Go figure that it was the one required accessory for the “uniform.” So, because she was not focusing while walking down the stairs (which was admittedly stupid in itself), she gracefully kicked the back of her right heel with her left foot, catapulting herself forwards. As she awkwardly fell down the stairs sideways, if you can imagine that, Minhee yelled her name in panic. I’m already way too far away for her to catch me, she thought to myself. She closed her eyes and rolled slightly into a ball, bracing herself for the pain of impact. Spoiler alert: it didn’t come. She felt a cold, gel-like substance surround the side of her body before it gradually hardened into rock solid.

A warm hand came down onto her un-encased shoulder, and someone -- definitely a guy-- said, “you can open your eyes now, if you want.”

“Jungkook, at least help her out of your freaking ice mold,” Minee chided. Jayce looked over her shoulder at a mass of black hair, which she assumed was Jungkook, and Minhee scowling. He made a noncommittal noise, and Minhee cracked a smile.

“Yoongi, come help!” he called out to another boy watching, who Jayce presumed helped stop her untimely fall down the marble steps of Allegron. Yoongi strolled towards his friend and put two hands firmly around Jayce’s arm. Jungkook glanced at the ice trapping the side of her body briefly, and it slowly cracked off in clean slices and shattered onto the ground before melting. After the encasing was off, Yoongi gently yanked her arm a little so she could stand first before waving the water into the drain on the side of the stairs.

Sensing her amazement, he said, “You’re new, aren’t you.” Jayce nodded slowly.

Yoongi gave her a pat on the back before joining Jungkook again. “Wait!” she yelled after them. They both stopped and turn back towards her. “Th-thank you!” she choked out.

“Just don’t make a habit of it, new girl,” Jungkook said, smiling slightly. “We can’t always be there to save you.” Yoongi just smiled and waved back at her.

xXxXxXx

    “Jungkook is nice once you know him -- him and Yoongi are in our hall so they’re both in our class. I think Yoongi is actually the door on the… left of you? Or right. I can’t remember,” Minhee explained. “I’m the one next to Yoongi, and Jungkook is way on the other side of the floor, I think.”

    “Oh,” Jayce said intelligently. Minhee laughed at her obviously confused friend.

    “I know -- it’s a lot to take in. It’ll get better as the year goes on, so don’t worry too much. Time to go to Warm Up! Oh, just leave your plates here. They’ll disappear after a couple minutes.”

xXxXxXx

    The Warm Up instructor was a pleasant looking guy. He had black hair and a really cool accent -- New York accent, maybe. He was African American, so yes, he was really pretty cool. “CLASS!” he bellowed, “We have a newbie this year! Jayce Lancaster?” Jayce timidly raised her hand. “Can everyone see her? This is Jayce. Don’t be jerks, okay?” The class laughed as if it was an inside joke (Jayce laughed lamely along with them). “Okay, Jayce, since you’re new, let me explain a little. I’m Mr. Reese, by the way. So, Allegron is a school of magic, yeah? But everyone has that one thing they’re good at. For me? I’m good at telekinesis -- kinda like your guardian, Faide. Like I can move pianos. But you don’t know yours yet, so just watch everyone else warm up, and then we’ll find out what your special affinity is.”

    Jayce nodded uncertainly. “Okay, Mr. Reese.”

    He nodded back sharply and said, “Go.” Immediately, the whole class whirled into action. Minhee, to her right, put her hands together and her brown eyes bled into a pale, electric, almost white-blue color, and white tendrils erupted from her fingers as the air crackled with energy around her -- her hair also started to stick up. All of a sudden, her eyes widened and she abruptly ripped her hands apart, breathing heavily. Then, she smiled at the teacher, who shot her a thumbs up.

    “Good job, Minhee! You didn’t faint today!” Mr. Reese said.

    She replied, “I’ve been working on it.”

The girl in front of Jayve crouched down, put her hand against the dirt of the practice field, and waited for...something. The tree probably a good twenty feet away shook violently and Jayce fell a step back. A huge root lifted the girl off the ground from under her stomach, and for a scary moment, she struggled to find her balance on it before scrambling on top and hugging the root. She lowered herself down to the ground like nothing had ever happened before shoving the root under as well.

Yoongi and Jungkook worked together again -- everyone was acting like it’s normal, so Jayce could guess that there was nothing out of the ordinary there. Their powers complemented each other beautifully, creating miniature hail storms or ice showers out of nothing. Jungkook stopped Yoongi before whispering something to him, and a wicked smile broke over both their faces as they approached the instructor. Mr. Reese looked at them suspiciously before motioning the class to sit on the bleachers at the side of the field.

“Namjoon, you’re up,” Mr. Reese said. Jayce scanned the people around her, but no one stood up. “Namjoon,” Mr. Reese repeated.

“But I don’t want toooooo,” complained a mass of blue hair in the front row(who was assumed to be Namjoon). “Their experiments always go wrong.” Nevertheless, he trudged towards the field. He carelessly waved his hand and a wall of earth shot up in front of him, just as ice daggers flew at his face.

A girl in the audience suddenly stood up, looking at Jayce. Mr. Reese gasped, reaching a hand

out towards the new student. “Jayce, duck!” he yelled.

    Jayce was very confused. Then, she saw the icicle form and shoot her way. She squealed and held up her hands in front of her face.  Jungkook swore loudly, running up the bleachers towards her, Yoongi following.

    “Jayce, are you okay?” Yoongi asked worriedly.

“Yea--yeah. I’m… I’m fine,” she said shakily, before slumping back down onto her seat, her breathing labored, almost falling out of her seat. The boy to her right’s eyes widened and his arm blurred with the speed it moved to wrap around her back.

“Jimin --” Jungkook started.

“She’s freezing!” Jimin exclaimed.

Jayce was indeed frozen, but in more ways than one. Not only was she about to faint and thus was becoming rapidly colder, but she was also very confused. The dagger had never come. She looked past Yoongi’s and Minhee’s worried faces to see a sizzling puddle of water, slowly evaporating. Jungkook was looking at it as well. They locked eyes.

xXxXxXx

JUNGKOOK

    Jungkook noticed that the new girl looked scared and came to the conclusion that she was either tricking all of them or truly clueless and unfortunate.

    “Jayce-- are you okay?” Mr. Reese said cautiously to her. She looked back at him shakily before promptly fainting against Jimin’s arm. Startled, Jimin yelped almost dropping her before steadying himself and calling his friend, Hoseok, to help him lay her down on the grass. The two boys carried her down the bleachers under Jungkook’s careful eye and set her down on the ground.

    Jungkook regarded Jayce critically. There was no way she had melted the icicle on purpose -- her scream had been of sheer terror. He walked up to Mr. Reese. “I think we found her,” he said quietly.

    “Yes, Jungkook. I think we did.”

AN:

Fourth Chapter!! I really hope you guys enjoyed it ^-^ and BTS is finally here!!! I think I finally found out how this story is going to go :) I’m so excited!

Thank you to the 26 subscribers I have -- every one of you means so much to me. Please subscribe and leave feedback!

--aperfectworld