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carterthornton · 7 years

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The Third Wave | Chapter Fifteen: Another Day at Beacon Hill

Carlo's face lit up immediately as he chewed on his breakfast omelette he took from the cafeteria buffet. "Holy hell, this is a fantastic omelette!" Carlo remarked at his half-eaten egg delicacy. "The way the tomato compliments the feta and the way the oregano ties it all together makes it perfect! It's a symphony of flavour!"

"So, you're a cook then?" Jace asked Carlo, who was off in his own little world as he continued to nibble his dish, savouring it as best he could.

"Huh? Oh, hell no," Carlo chuckled to himself as he finished off the omelette's remains. "I'm no chef, but I am a food critic."

"Seriously...?" Aiko snorted as she imagined Carlo sitting in a fancy restaurant with a stiff upper lip and an impatient look on his face. "You don't really look like the type who critiques stuff."

"I'll have you know that Carlo the Critique was ranked 23rd in the most popular Canadian food blogs last year! That's a ranking I hold with pride!" Carlo grinned, basking in his accomplishment.

"So you're 23rd in the country at talking about food... weird," Jace snorted.

"It's not weird, it's what I do for a living! Well... what I do for a living right now, anyways," Carlo sighed at Jace, who appeared so ignorant towards anything abstract and artistic.

"I think food needs to be talked about," Mura interjected briefly, tossing in her two cents like she had done many times before. "I like food."

"Thank you, Mura! At least someone understands food," Carlo took Mura's compliment, trying his best to ignore the plain piece of toast topped with liverwurst in her hand.

"So what do you do, Jace?" Aiko spoke up.

"Me? I play soccer," Jace replied, his chest puffing up along with his ego. "I was rated MVP two years in a row."

"No, no, I meant for a job," Aiko corrected her previous inquiry.

Jace's face went white at the mention of the word 'job'. "Um... that's what you were asking?"

"Yeah, why?" Aiko wondered, immediately picking up on Jace's anxious expression. "Oh..."

"Oh shit, were you fired?!" Carlo snickered as he sipped on his tea.

"No! I've just had troubles finding the right job..." Jace's outrage simmered down to a low mumble as he continued. "It's complicated."

"Yeah, okay, big man..." Carlo scoffed, patting Jace on the back. "You're working it out." Carlo turned to Mura with a question. "How about you, Mura? Where do you work?"

"None of your business." Mura scowled at him from across the table, her face taking on the likeness of a demon.

"Yeesh, okay!" Carlo shielded his face from Mura's soul-piercing glare, frightened by her sudden one-hundred eighty-degree shift in demeanour. "Sorry I asked..." Carlo looked over at Aiko and Maeve, who sat next to each other at the breakfast table. "How about you two girls?"

"I used to work at a convenience store back in Port Renfrew, but the business went south just after I got a new Mark." Aiko explained, sampling the croissant on her plate. "Some crazy guy with a Beast Mark rampaged through the store, injuring the owner, Sal. I'm not so sure what's going to happen to the store now; Sal is still in the hospital, and now I'm gone."

"Why did you leave?" Carlo wondered.

"Since I was little, I always wanted to follow in my mother's footsteps and join the IMOP. But since they made those new restrictions on those without Marks three years ago, I knew I could never make it to field duty without a Mark." Aiko grinned as she looked across the table to Yuko, who was grinning excitedly. "Then I met this big girl right here, and now I can finally make mom proud."

"Yay!" Yuko cheered, unable to contain her joy.

"That's a pretty good story," Carlo nodded, pleased with Aiko's drive and passion. "You'll do great here." The whole table then turned to Maeve, who had yet to share her story.

"Ugh, fine..." Maeve groaned at their mundane questions. "I have come here to become the top ranked student in the academy and join the Greater Victoria IMOP."

"That's pretty ambitious of you..." Carlo commented on Maeve's seemingly borderline unrealistic expectations as if the endeavour would just be a cakewalk.

"I have the willpower to be ambitious, and so I'll fulfill the promise I made to myself and rise," Maeve scoffed, annoyed by the doubts of her peers regarding her goal. "And you all won't be dragging me away from that goal, understood?"

"Whatever you say, your highness..." Jace sneered as he slammed back his glass of orange juice.

"Why you-..." Maeve cut herself off as she saw Headmaster Colter step through the entrance and into the cafeteria.

"Hello, students!" Headmaster Colter announced as he passed Team 12's table.

The headmaster seemed much burlier up close; he definitely looked the part of "seasoned veteran". He had a handlebar moustache, slicked back ebony hair, and a barrelled chest that stood out even in his beige three-piece suit. His eyes were hazel, and there seemed to be a slight curl in his brow at each end. His voice was deep and commanding, and he walked with purpose. Quickly he made his way to the other end of the cafeteria and turned, holding a microphone in one hand.

"Welcome to your second day at Beacon Hill Academy. I hope you all are well-rested and ready to get some work done. Today is special." He let the tension in the room build for a moment before he continued. "We'll be going to Mount Douglas Park for today's classes, first years; it's reserved for a special training exercise that shall be hosted by Ms. Wendell and some very talented graduates some of you might know— a welcome back gift to you."

"A field trip? On the second day of school?" Aiko could barely hear herself over the commotion in the cafeteria.

"Oh, hell yeah! Finally, some action!" Jace cheered along with the crowd.

"They're really treating us first years like kings, huh?" Carlo remarked, remembering their first field trip in the previous semester.

"Pfft, this is all rudimentary training," Maeve scoffed. "The real training begins once we get to second year."

"Alright, alright, settle down!" Headmaster Colter silenced the eager first years with a wave of his hand. "Sadly, Ms. Northstar had to leave last night for an emergency meeting in Ottawa, so she won't be attending today. However, you'll be training with some of the best young IMOP officers in Victoria, and I'm sure you'll learn just as much from them. The bus will leave in twenty minutes, so I suggest you gather any belongings you may wish to bring along; lunch will be delivered to us there, so don't fret over getting a meal. Be safe, listen to the officers, and have some fun too. I'll see you back here at three."

"What are we gonna do at Mount Doug?" Aiko wondered as she rose from her seat.

"Go wild is what we're gonna do!" Jace's contagious enthusiasm spread to both Yuko and Carlo, who had already developed their own secret handshake.

"Ugh, can't you all act your age?" Maeve huffed as she marched ahead of her group.

"I could say the same to you..." Jace muttered under his breath.

"I beg your pardon?!" Flames spat out of Maeve's mouth as she overheard Jace's sly comment.

"Simmer down and get your shit, Maeve." Mura stormed off, passing Maeve and Aiko as she made her way to the lockers.

"How rude!" Maeve growled, trying her best to contain the rage building within her as she trudged behind Mura.

"Aiko, what's a field trip?" Yuko asked, clasping the ends of her new frilly, pink dress Aiko had given her that morning.

"It's when students go somewhere else besides school to learn, basically," Aiko replied, trying to boil the concept down as best she could for her childish companion.

"Oh, okay!" Yuko grinned as she walked down the hallway beside Aiko, a slight bounce in her step. "What's an officer?"

****

Alistair yawned as he placed his feet up on his desk, nearly dozing off in front of his computer. However, upon hearing his computer suddenly spring to life and buzz, he jumped, falling out of his chair and onto the ground. With a grunt, Alistair recomposed himself as he sat back down in his chair, taking a few deep breaths before he assessed his wailing device. To his surprise, one of the various alarms had gone off.

"Bloody hell..." Alistair was gobsmacked by the absurdity of the situation, and he quickly leapt from his chair, racing upstairs to inform Damian. He zoomed by Louise, knocking the book out of her hand and nearly toppling her over as he turned a corner and ran up a flight of stairs to Damian's room. "Sorry!"

"You could have told me to move if you were in such a damn big hurry!" Louise shouted at Alistair as she picked up her book, trying to find the page she lost.

"Damian! Damian!" Alistair panted as he frantically tapped on his door.

"Yes, Alistair? What is it? You look troubled," Damian waited for a response, but he only got tired wheezes from Alistair. "Out with it!"

"Sorry! The-... ugh... the tracker you placed on that girl downtown! The Asian Shiela with big knockers! It went off just now!" Alistair replied, clearing his throat that had become dry and hoarse.

"What do you mean by 'went off'?" Damian inquired further.

"We've got an alarm system here, yeah? Well, we set up the alarm to tell us whenever some drongo came close to the base that had a tracker on em'. This is that alarm! That girl found us!" Alistair's anxiety caused him to slur his words horribly.

"Calm down, Alistair, calm down. We'll sort this out," Damian insisted.

"Sort this out? No, no, we have to leave! Mount Doug isn't safe! She found us!" Alistair pleaded with Damian.

"There's no way for us to know if she's actually searching for the base from where we stand! We can't pack up and leave, not after we just set up shop! There is still work to be done here and I don't want to put that all on the line for this!" Damian snapped Alistair out of his fear-driven trance. "We need to see for ourselves if your hunch is right, yes?"

"Yeah, yeah... sorry..." Alistair nodded.

"It's okay, Alistair. You're just being protective, like any of us would be in this situation; we all have our own way of expressing our worries," Damian reassured Alistair, placing an arm around his shoulder as they walked downstairs together.

"What's wrong, Damian?" Louise stuck her head out of the library before stepping out into the entryway, meeting Damian and Alistair at the coat rack just beside their bunker's door.

"Alistair has detected the tracker I placed on that woman yesterday; it's in Mount Douglas Park," Damian replied with his usual gentle tone of voice to soften the tension.

"Holy hell... that's not good," Louise shook he head in dismay, stepping aside to let Varg and Camila join the conversation as they turned a corner. "Dammit."

"Shit..." Varg growled.

"What do we do now?" Camila asked Damian, who took a moment to think it over before replying.

"I hope I didn't hear Damian correctly..." Reika gasped as she descended down the staircase.

"You did, sadly," Louise nodded to Reika, who immediately began to hyperventilate.

"My dear, Damian, what are we to do?" Reika snuggled up to Damian, nudging Alistair out of his grasp.

"Hey, what gives?" Alistair whined as he was pushed away.

"Please, everyone, don't panic. We'll be fine," Damian quickly brought them all to their senses, pointing to Camila and Varg. "Camila, Varg, you two grab your communicators. You both will scout out the area for the girl and see if this trip to Mount Doug was ill-intentioned. I'm trusting you with this task, you two. Please, do not get caught, understand? If we are discovered, it could set us back months, and the Paladins will begin to tighten their grasp on the city. We cannot let that happen."

"Right," Varg nodded as he grabbed Camila. "Get the communicators."

"Yeah!" Camila said as she ran into the library, searching for the tiny devices.

"Reika, you and I will be backup in case the scouting mission goes awry, okay?" Damian informed the gentle maiden standing next to him.

"Teaming up with Damian?! Oh, darling..." Reika's cheeks went rosy red as she bit her lip lightly. "Okay!"

"Louise, Alistair, you two operate our security and com system— keep Varg and Camila updated if the sensors pick up anything else," Damian instructed his two tech experts.

"Alright!" Louise and Alistair said enthusiastically.

"Found them! They were on the coffee table, not the nightstand..." Camila stated as she placed one of the communicators in her ear, passing the other to Varg. "I'm good to go."

"Great, then let's be off." Varg inserted the communicator into his ear and marched over to the bunker door, preparing to turn the large valve to open it. However, Varg stopped as he felt Louise tug on his shirt. "What's up, Lulu-? Mmpphh!?" Varg was swiftly silenced by Louise's lips locking with his.

"For good luck..." Louise blushed as she ran her hand down his cheek.

"Thanks, Lulu. I'll be back real soon, don't you worry," Varg gave Louise a toothy grin as he closed the bunker door behind him. "See ya."

"Oh, Louise!" Reika giggled as she hugged Louise tightly. "You two are so cute together!"

"Get off of me, you bimbo!" Louise's face went as red as a stop sign as she felt Reika's ample chest envelop her small body. "Gah! Alistair, help!"

"Huh..." Alistair gawked, feeling his crotch tighten at the sight of Reika's all-consuming bosom. "I always wondered if you could fit in there."

"God dammit, Al!" Louise shrieked as Reika began to unknowingly smother her, causing Damian to let out a barely audible chuckle. "Someone help me..."

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