Perfect School

 
 
 
 

Kira:

I took up the gun and began stripping it, I pulled a kit out of a pocket in my pants and began cleaning it as tiny tremors started along my body. What was wrong with me? Was I corrupted beyond just my physical issue? Was something wrong with my head. I gritted my teeth and with eyes closed I assembled the gun and raised it. I fired every round into a hanging training bag, using only one hand. The first shot broke the chain and caused the bag to fall. The rest created a hole through the middle of the bag as it fell. Each shot widening the hole a tiny bit. Before the bag hit the ground I had emptied the rest of the 7 rounds into the bag.

 
 

I stood slowly, gun held loosely in my hand as I walked out the door without him. I was trembling faintly I could feel it. But I couldn't place why. My mind whirred and fought to try and figure out why, but nothing came to mind.

 
 

I raised my eyes to look at him, my gaze unsteady for a moment before it focused. "What? Oh. Yes. Congratulations Jonah, you are back in. Don't ruin it again....things are better when you are around."

 
 
 

"Sprained at least, broken more likely. It won't be fun, but I have dealt with worse injuries and still trained.". I said after moving my wrist to my chest, cradling it gently.

Jonah:

I nodded. "At least you got me back." I looked down at her, had the change in her attitude, what I had seen in her eyes, happened after she pulled the gun? Had that triggered it?

"Which may just make injuries grow. But I can manage.". I stopped outside the infirmary and stared at the door before giving a small shake and heading inside.

Jonah:

The staff took us to separate rooms to tend to our injuries. They dug the bullet out of my leg, gave me a few stitches and bandaged it. It felt much better with the bullet out. I sat on one of the beds waiting for them to finish with Kira.

Kira:

My wrist was splinted tight after I fought having to wear a cast. In the end threatening with my empty gun got my way. I made a note to call Marie and have her pay off the medics or work her magic. Either way, a cast would put me behind and prevent my training. A good splint was something I could maintain and wouldn't interfere with anything I wanted to do. They gave me a waterproof one to appease the dark look I threw them as they brought over plaster.

With a splint and wrapping around my arm I left the infirmary not even waiting for Jonah until I was out in the hall.

Jonah:

I followed her quickly.  “So when will we start training again?”  I asked her it was easy to keep up with her pace even with my injury; my legs were longer than hers.

"Tomorrow. It's late, I want to go to bed.". I replied as I flicked my eyes up to him than to his leg. I didn't feel bad about doing it, but I regretted that it would hinder training.

Jonah:

I nodded. “Rest sounds good.” I paused once we got to the common room. “See you tomorrow Kira.” I said then spotted Emily, no doubt waiting for me, on the couch. With a sigh I made my way over to her.

I noticed Emily the second I walked in, but I simply walked towards my room without a second glance. I still felt odd, and I doubted a little duel with her would end without bloodshed. I wasn't in the mood for her petty games.

~Time skip 6 months to January~

Jonah:

Kira and I were now nearly an equal match for each other. She had a slight upper hand with marksmanship, no amount of training could catch me up; she simply had the better eyes for it. I had an advantage with tactics. Everything else we were even on, the only difference was she acted half a second before I did in instinct, and it took me that much time to think it through. We were the perfect team.

The relationship with Emily took some effort to work out the kinks. She was incredibly jealous of Kira and didn’t like the fact that I was training alone with her. On top of that I spent less time alone with her than I did that first month. Now I was usually ready for sleep after nightly trainings. I still found myself in her room every so often, and if it had been a while she would usually come to mine. She seemed to be mostly content as long as I was paying attention to her when we were with other people. I was a status for her and she liked other people to know it. She liked to show off physically that we were together, so long as a teacher wasn’t around. If Kira was there she was especially clingy, something that would get on my nerves.

After the Christmas break (Emily stayed at the school with the few not going on vacation) the teachers announced that the students would be separated into teams. When advanced enough to go on real assignments we would be in the same teams. Since I was the highest scoring student, only a couple points higher than Kira from the last test, I would be allowed to assemble my team of six first.

I had a couple days to decide. Emily thought I should just pick the top six best. I told her that would be too many girls, she wasn’t pleased by that answer. To be honest it wasn’t entirely the truth. I had no problem having mostly girls as long as they were good. I didn’t want Dayo on the team. I had never liked him too much, and he resented me for being better than him. And while Akiko was very good, she was quiet and worked by herself best, she was not a team player. I thought about Kira then, she wasn’t exactly a team player either, she dominated the team by being superior, but we worked smoothly together. There was no way I would let Kira be on a different team. We had to be together.

Later that evening after our training session we were both laying on the mat catching our breath. I looked over at her after a few minutes of silence. “It’s needless to say, but I want you on my team.” I told her. I also wanted to bounce my ideas off her for the rest of the team.

"Doesn't matter. We belong to Marie. Teams are unimportant. If we aren't together then we will be brought together in the end. Marie owns us. We are hers to serve." I said as I worked on catching my breath.

The past six months had been exhausting in more than one way. Emily was finally starting to fray my nerves. I could ignore the comments, the little petty disputes and arguments. The girl was good at this. She could be considerably better however if she let go of her grudges. Her fixation on power and appearances. But she was starting to interfere with my training and learning. That was something I couldn't accept or ignore.

"If I had to make a team....You, me, Andrew, Christian, Kyra, Joey. You for tacticle support. Me for marksman. Kyra is charm. Joey can do the heavy lifting. He's strong, though he brags. And Christian is one of the best at medicine in this school. Better than us. He has a gift." I named off the names immediately, without even a thought. Pure instinct on building the best team with the least amount of problems.

Jonah:

“Kyra is good and she has a lot of will and potential. Christian is an exhalent medic, though decent with the rest, he isn’t outstanding. Joey is too arrogant, and I think bringing him into this team would only make him more so… especially with Kyra around… I would rather have Pablo.” While Pablo also had a crush on her, he wasn’t as forward nor anywhere near as cocky as Joey. Plus we were friends, and I thought he would be loyal to me.

“Andrew isn’t driven. He is a decent tracker and good at shadowing… But other than that he wouldn’t be as useful. You or I could do better.” I took in a deep breath. There was a lot of tension between Emily and Kira, almost entirely coming from Emily. No one else could step on Kira’s nerves like that girl. You wouldn’t be able to tell that she was annoyed if you didn’t know her wall, but there were very slight tells when Emily was there. But Emily was very skilled, she was motivated, she had potential, and she would be loyal to me. I would have picked her for the team even if I wasn’t sleeping with her.

“I want Emily instead of Andrew. She’s clever. She brings more to the table that he would. I’m not choosing her because I’m with her she’s an asset I can’t pass up.” I told her.

"You judge based on desires than knowledge or common sense Jonah." I sat up slowly and looked at him with contempt. "Paublo is strong, I will give you that. But he is weak in many other areas. Joey may be arrogant but it can be harnessed by a good leader."

Slowly I worked myself up to my feet. "Picking Emily instead of Andrew is the worst decision you have ever made and spoken to me. Emily is good, she is skilled, but she is too driven by selfish reasons. Much like her petty fight with me, she would be too driven to better anyone else in the group that wasn't you. She would undermine Kyra and me especially because she believes she can do better."

A hand was offered down to him, "Think with your head over your groin Jonah and remember that Kyra and Andrew are twins. Do you really think that one will go anywhere without the other? I chose Andrew because Kyra is needed. But more than that, Andrew is smarter than you or the school gives him credit for. Call it my instincts. Call it favortism. What ever you want to call it, its true. Emily will cause nothing but problems. Andrew is a necessity if you want Kyra."

Jonah:

I took her hand and got to my feet. “I’ll take what you said into consideration.” I told her. She was clever and had very strong instincts, but that didn’t mean she could always see the bigger picture. I was looking ahead to the future and what the team could become, and what they could be to me.

I thought about it while we walked back form the gym. I would choose Paublo over Joey, I he could get better in other areas, he just needed a little more encouragement. Maybe Kira was right about Andrew. I didn’t talk to him much but he could be an undervalued asset, especially because he got along well with Kira, and she was probably right that Kyra wouldn’t go along without him. As for Emily, She was driven in a way no one else in the school besides myself was. She would do anything to get to the top and I thought I could use that to bend her as needed. Then there was Christian. He was an excellent medic, he would be a great addition, and he was calm enough to work well with the others, but he didn’t bring much else. Those were the three I was stuck on. Emily, Andrew, and Christian.

There was a reason we weren’t going to get assignments right off the bat, we needed to be shaped into a proper team. I thought I could do that with the people I selected, it would take a lot of effort, but I would make them work.

“Night Kira.” I murmured as we turned to go to our separate hallways. Emily was waiting for me in the corner of the common room as she often did. I walked by like I didn’t notice her.
“Jonah?” She asked, her tone was softer than usual. “Have you decided who you’ll pick?” She asked. I turned toward her but didn’t take the bait to go sit down. “I’m still working on it, I’m deciding between three people.” I answered. She was quiet for a moment. “Am I on the team?” She asked finally realizing that she didn’t have an automatic in. I sighed tiredly. “I haven’t worked it all out yet, Emily. I will let you know tomorrow if you are or aren’t.” I told her. “I’ll see you in the morning.” I left her there to go to my own room.

The next day Emily was quiet but scooted her chair closer to mine while we were working on the computers. I was at my normal spot in between Emily and Kira. Kira was still the onlyone I had officially asked to be on the team.

I didn't turn on my computer, instead I slowly worked on wrapping up my fingers. I spent my morning before class at the gym and I had burst my fingers from hitting the bag. I had a small first aid kit in front of me and I was applying bandages and tape. It was a familiar sight to me on my hands, I often pushed too hard at a bag and broke my skin. But I tried to avoid doing it here, at this school. During training of course I never held back, but in class I was starting to pull back to not shine as much.

Once my fingers were wrapped I cleaned up the kit, and set it beside the computer screen before finally starting to boot up the computer. I didn't load up the teaching program I just let it sit there as I stared at the screen. It was hard to find motivation especially with the idea that soon I would be able to use my skills. Where was the desire to fight? To do this? It was like I was empty.

Jonah:

I didn’t pay much attention to either girl as I worked the equations on the screen. Solving mathematical equations often calmed me and made my thoughts more clear. For the most part I knew what I was going to do.

After class I left without waiting for Emily and caught up with Kyra as she walked out. “I need to talk to you for a minute.” I told her. Andrew looked me over then left the two of us alone, going to the cafeteria by himself. “Alright.” She said as she followed me out of the way of the other students.

“I want you on my team.” I told her simply. She smiled, clearly pleased. “That’s an honor Jonah, but I can’t accept unless my brother is also on it. I won’t be separated from him.” I saw it coming before she said anything. It was interesting to me that she would be pleased to be asked, yet she would turn it down out of interest for another person. I could never see myself giving up an opportunity to improve for someone else.

I knew it would be the case and I had already decided to take Andrew if Kyra insisted. “He’s on my list already. I want you both.” I said with a soft smile. She grinned back at me. “Then we would love to join.” She was stunning in that moment. It didn’t happen often for me, but occasionally Kyra would leave me feeling slightly high. There was just something about her… “Perfect, we will all be meeting in the gym after classes are over. Tell Andrew.”

We walked together to the cafeteria and separated once we got there. She found Andrew, and I sought out Paublo. I felt Emily’s eyes on me, she was at a table with Akiko, Christian, and Dayo, but I ignored it. She would be the last one I talked to.

Paublo:

I adjusted myself in my seat, wincing at the groan that came from the chair below. I had my large tray in front of me. Easily double the amount of food everyone else got. It was all to keep up with my growing metabolism. I had to eat a lot, but I was also easily bigger than everyone else too. As I sat eating into a steak, watching everyone. No one ever sat beside me except on occasion Jonah. My favorite moments were when he did, because then I got to sit with people, interact with them. Everyone saw me as muscle bound nobody. A one trick pony. I had a secret dream that I would get picked by Jonah for a team, but I doubted it. So many people were better than me, and I truly only had the strength thing going for me, |Jonah and Kira mopped the floor with me time and time again and I was lucky to get a hit or two in on either of them.

I was prepared for a lonely lunch, Emily was sitting with some other strong ones. Some of the elite in the school. That group never had kira. She simply got three or so items and a large waterbottle with some kind of black sludge looking stuff. She ate it all while leaning against the wall before taking the bottle with her. But it kept Emily from causing a scene so it worked. But just the thought of the word scene brought Jonah into my view and the daggers Emily was shooting at me as Jonah came towards me.

Jonah:

I sat my tray down on the table next to him and took a seat. “So,” I said, jumping right into it. “I want you on my team.” I ignored Emily’s not so subtle attempts to catch my eye.