Pallas and Athena: School of Advanced Education | Teen Ink

Pallas and Athena: School of Advanced Education

January 30, 2012
By sandhawk3000 PLATINUM, Collinsville, Connecticut
sandhawk3000 PLATINUM, Collinsville, Connecticut
45 articles 1 photo 6 comments

Being the new kid was hard most of the time, but it was a lot easier fitting in when your classmates had something in common with you, that even your family members lacked. Kara Trent had been the new kid at Pallas and Athena, once upon the beginning of senior year. It was January now, and the girl was doing well. She had friends here that knew her completely, those friends being Ashe, Damien and Chloe. That last one though…Chloe, seemed to have some major issues when Kara would hang around Ashe. He had been the first one to say hello to her in the auditorium, during the welcome speech to the new students. Pallas and Athena was a boarding school, so the faculty and the students had a closer relationship than in most public schools.

Pallas Athena, often known as just Athena, was the Greek goddess of Wisdom and War. It made sense, combining those two when it came to this school in particular. This school had three kinds of students. Students that excelled at the academics like math and English, students that excelled at the fine arts. Then there were…the special students that attended Pallas and Athena after hours for a special training of sorts. A mastery of the powers that had been bestowed upon the by either mutation of their genes, or magic that was inherited or self-learned with enough will power, or perhaps both.

Kara Trent and her friends were prime examples of students like this. Kara a girl born with the genetic mutation of hawk-like wings that she could retract and release at will. But also a pyrokinetic, able to control the energy in the air, and manipulate it into flames and similar substances. This last power having been passed down due to a magical ancestry.

Ashe on the other hand was just a normal telekinetic, though there wasn’t really anything normal about the boy. Controlling objects to float with our mind, a bit extraordinary if you asked any of the powerless. He was also a beginning telepath, which meant he could sense the emotions of others, and possibly at some point in time he might even be able to form metaphysical images of the memories of others in his own head.

Chloe had the power to manipulate water, a trait which came in handy whenever Kara would lose control of her own powers. This making her a hydrokinetic. Which seemed to be quite often, due to how hot-headed and reckless the girl could get.

Lastly there was Damien…he never really told the lot of them what his “special skills” were. All that they knew was that he had to see a teacher for a special private training, as opposed to the rest of them who had to take Advanced Gym after school.

Advanced Gym really did sound a tad bit stupid. The faculty probably just didn’t want it to sound like some teen movie about super heroes, or a movie about wizards and witches.

The explanation has been long and tedious enough, now on with the adventures that wait our young students.
-x-

“Ashe…I like you.” Grumbled the girl, looking a bit frightened as the words left her lips. The tall girl bit her lip, as she crossed her arms tightly against her chest.

Ashe paused, his pale cheeks flaring up a bright red color, as he smiled brightly to the girl that stood with her head tilted down before him.

He moved a finger gently under the girl’s chin, before he tilted it up, so that he could look into her eyes. He leaned in and kissed er softly on the lips, and that was how that couple started. Though that was also what caused Chloe to start acting strange, apparently she didn’t much like the idea of Ashe and Kara dating. That would also inevitably be, what lead to Kara’s accident.

This was now though, this was January, and this was Kara and Ashe walking into the student lobby, holding hands.

“Ashe!” yelled Chloe, in a sickeningly sweet way. Ashe seemed to wince slightly, as if Chloe’s emotions were ramming into the telepath’s own mind.

“Oh…hi Kara.” Said Chloe, as if she had just then realized that Kara was there. “Mind if I show you the roof later, since you’re new this year, I doubted that you’d been up there. It’s really cool; a nice place to relax…maybe you could even fly from there.” She said, as she grinned. The actions only causing Kara to grip her hands slightly tighter around Ashe’s hand. Eyes darting away from Chloe’s, as she bit down against her lower lip.

A bright smile replaced the expression that had been left by Chloe’s barrage of emotions on Ashe’s brain. He gave Kara’s hand a quick reassuring squeeze.

“It’ll be fun Kara, you and Chloe should get to know each other better.” He said, as Kara let out a soft sigh.

“Alright Chloe, my next period is an open anyways, so why don’t we do it then?” she asked, as Chloe nodded, and Kara relinquished her grip on Ashe’s hand. The girl quickly led Kara off, and they were gone from Ashe and Damien’s sight in mere moments.

Damien glanced over to Ashe, as he looked off after the two girls and opened his mouth to speak.

“You know that Chloe likes you, right?” he asked, as he stared to the boy with his usual emotionless gaze, to which Ashe merely laughed and looked a little bit surprised.

“I really doubt that…I mean we’ve been friends for years. She’s honestly not my type…and I like Kara more than I’ve ever liked anyone before.” He said.

“Anyways, I have to go and make up my astronomy test; I’ll see you around Damien.” He said, as he waved and disappeared down the corridor.
-x-

Kara stood on the roof, staring over the edge of it as she grinned, the higher altitude causing the wind to whip against her face. Heights never bothered her even as a child, she was born for flying, not for falling.

“Y’know…you should try flying from up here.” Said Chloe, sounding a little bit stranger than she usually did. “It’s not like the faculty will care, students make their powers known around the school all the time.” She finished, seeming to rush her speaking a bit, as if she wanted to just hurry this situation along.

Kara nodded, she really did want a chance to fly from such a high place, and the girl’s dormitory was the highest building on campus. Stepping back, she paused and concentrated on her back, wings gracefully emerging from the slits in the back of her shirt.

Chloe bit down onto her lower lip, her fingers curling and tensing as the water in the bottle she held boiled and moved around furiously against the container that it was in.

Kara stepped back, took one last pause, and was soon taking a running start. She unfurled her wings; the wingspan was incredible to look at in its entirety. She jumped once she reached the edge of the roof, for the added altitude, and with a flap of her powerful wings she was up in the air and moving forwards with a gust of air behind her.

Chloe was concentrating now, her hand clutched even harder as she focused on the veins in Kara’s wings. Concentrating harder and harder, until she veins would eventually give in and burst.

Kara’s eyes went wide; there wasn’t even any time to scream, as the pain shot through her wings, blood splattering against the building behind her as Kara’s eyes closed. She was unconscious from the pain before she even had a chance to hit the ground. She was lucky though, that her mangled wings caused any drag at all, otherwise she would’ve been dead on impact with the courtyard grass.

Chloe merely smirked as she heard screams ring out from the students that had been in the courtyard, and disappeared into the girl’s dormitory building.
-x-

“Will all adult healers please report to the courtyard immediately?” rang out the secretary’s voice over the intercom, as Ashe's astronomy teacher glanced up from her desk.

“Well that’s me, Ashe. No cheating while I’m gone.” Said the woman, as she smiled over to him, and disappeared down the hallway briskly. Her heels echoing with every step she took in the empty hallway.

Ashe nodded and turned back to his test, it wasn’t that hard, but it was tedious and a bit boring.

He paused though as two students stopped, so that one could kneel down and tie his shoes.

“Did you hear?” started one as he slunk back against the wall, “The bird-girl got into an accident in the courtyard.” He muttered.

Ashe shot up and rushed out the door, his heart beating fast, as he scared the two younger students half to death.

“Who!?” he yelled, as he felt his heart start beating a little bit faster. “Who got into the accident…” he said more quietly, his voice shaking slightly.

“T-The fire one…” muttered the frightened boy, staring up to Ashe. “Y’know…the one that’s always flying around during advanced gym?” he asked.

There were no more words spoken as Ashe ran forward, and stumbled nearly falling. Just regaining his sense of balanced, and running off as fast as he could in the direction of the courtyard.

He lifted a hand to shield against his eyes, as soon as he stumbled out into the unfiltered sunlight. He looked around until his eyes fell on a circle of students, and he ran that way quickly, pushing, nearly clawing his way through the students and teachers that had gathered around the spot.

When he saw her and all the blood she lay in, he sank down to his knees, tears welling up in his eyes as he stared to her, until they finally spilled down his cheeks. It took a few teachers and some reasoning from Damien to finally pull the boy back from the girl’s side.
-x-

The infirmary of Pallas and Athena, with their skilled healers and telepaths for both physical and mental illness, could give better treatment than even the most prestigious medical hospitals.

Yet still…the eighteen year old girl lay there, breathing slowly and with light breathes, her pulse on the heart rate machine still slow.

Ashe sat down next to her bed, his hand clinging tightly onto hers. The doctors had told him that if she lived through the night, her chance of living would be very high. He just wished that they could have told him that her chance of living would’ve been one-hundred percent.

“I’ve only had you for four months…I don’t want to lose you already.” He said quietly, as he stroked against her cold, pale hand.

He brushed her hair out of her closed eyes with his free hand, as he leaned over and kissed her forehead, then her cheek and lastly left a lingering kiss on her lips.

“I’m going to find out how this happened, and I’ never going to let this happen to you again. I promise I’ll protect you from now on…” he whispered, as he laid his head down on her pillow besides her own head, and examined her calm face. The doctor’s hadn’t said when she would wake up from the medically induced coma…but her injuries would heal faster this way.

He sighed softly, why was it so hard to say this, even when he knew that she couldn’t even hear him saying it?

He sighed softly once more, and closed his eyes, listening it the faint sound of her breathing. His hand still tight around her own.
“I love you, Kara Trent.”


The author's comments:
Creative Writing project.

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