TravelingDog

Chapter 1: Fenrir

 

Our morning routine was simple. I wake up and then I call Loki to wake up. We eat breakfast and go over any last minute homework problems. With any spare time, we head out back to the horse stables, and then go to school. Currently, we were in the middle of that last step.

“Hey, Loki, let’s go!” I called now for the second time today from where I waited for him on the rail fence after glancing at the time on my phone.

“Yeah, coming.” Loki called as he looked back over his shoulder. He stroked the white stallion on the head one more time, then grabbed his bag and walked over my way. I hopped down off the split-rail fence and turned as we walked towards the car that was waiting for us in the driveway.

As we got in the car, I accidentally sat down with an awkward twist and felt the intense soreness in my side from a fight the day before. Loki noticed me wincing and gave me a hard glare “You know, you should have told me that you had to take that guy to Lincoln. I was worried when I didn’t hear from you all day”

“I know, it couldn’t be helped though.” I sighed. “I had my hands full all day dealing with that. You didn’t have to go and get the others involved though.”

“Hey, I was worried you got into a fight you couldn’t handle alone!” Loki defended.

We didn’t spend long bickering, seeing as how that argument never went anywhere, so instead we spent the majority of the short car ride going over a paper that was due that morning.

“Anyways, you understand that sentence now, right?” I checked as we neared the school. Glancing out the window, I noticed we were just about to the academy gates entrance.

“Yeah, I think I’ve got it now.” Loki assured me as the car came to a stand still and we opened the doors.

“Thanks, Briar.” I thanked the driver as we left the car. Just like every other morning, we walked through the gate and made our way to the high school building.

“You should have notified the school if you were going to be out of class yesterday.” Mr. Hunt had pulled me to the side and was now scolding me. “You’re a good student but you can’t keep missing class or you’ll be dropped to Class B. Do you understand?”

“Yes sir.” I said plainly.

Mr. Hunt sighed, seeming to understand that he wasn’t going to get anything more than that “Do you at least have yesterday’s work for me?”

“Yes, sir.” I repeated as I pulled a stack of papers out of my bag and handed him them. He took them and flipped through them.

As I stood there waiting I was shocked when I heard someone walk in the room and say “Hey, Loki.” I looked back over my shoulder and saw a group of students walking in whom I didn’t recognize. Loki, who’d been speaking to another classmate quietly, turned when they called.

“Hey. You guys get settled in?” Loki asked casually.

“For the most part.” The same guy answered as they walked over to some of the desks in the back. The guy who’d spoken was of average height and like one of the girls they were with, had platinum blond hair with some sections dyed blue. Their clothing was also similar so I assumed the two were related. One of the three girls they were with seemed flashy and had long, wavy hair that was dyed pink. The last of the girls was on the shorter side, had large glasses, and her natural brown hair was cut short towards the back with long strands and bangs in the front. The last of this unfamiliar group of strangers was another guy, this one a little taller than the first. He had red, medium length hair that partially covered one eye and at first glance, he seemed much more tired than the others in the group.

“Alright, I suppose this looks good.” Mr. Hunt at last said, drawing my attention momentarily back to him. Seeing that I was still standing there, he directed “Go ahead and take your seat. Make sure you pay close attention today.”

“Yes, Sir.” I was relieved to turn back towards my seat next to Loki as I eyed these unknown students closely. Dimitri, the student who’d been talking to Loki originally. spotted me walking over and quickly retreated back to his seat. The other students that I didn’t recognize now noticed me walking over and seemed surprised. I continued watching them with obvious distrust as I still had to take a good look at them. Loki must have caught their surprised looks as he turned back to see me walking their way.

“Ah, Fen. These guys are new transfer students from that one school that closed for construction the teachers told us about.” Loki explained, however, this meant nothing to me as I continued to scan each of them thoroughly. I found that while they all clearly felt awkward from my hard glare, when my gaze rested on the red haired boy, he seemed more awake as he observed me as well. It was clear from his surprise and the fact that he changed his stance from slouching to standing straight, that he felt threatened by my gaze; He had good instincts. Aside from the taller boy however, none of them seemed the least bit threatening or defensive. Satisfied that at this point they weren’t a threat, I turned back to my desk and sat down without giving them any further regard.

Before Loki could say anything to explain my behavior, Mr. Hunt walked up to the front of the room as he announced “Alright everyone, take your seats.”

To my annoyance, the new students took up five of the eight desks in the very back row which had previously been empty. I was uncomfortable with having people behind us, but it wasn’t like I could do anything about it. Closest to the wall were the two guys. The female sibling was seated behind me and the girl with glasses was sitting behind Loki. The last girl with the pink hair was in the next pair of desks with one of our original students next to her.

Later in the afternoon, we sat around class during our afternoon break which was a quarter of an hour. Loki talked some more with those new students, however I wasn’t all that interested so I was only half paying attention to their conversation.

Suddenly, a commotion could be heard in the hall and the door to our classroom was thrown open. I looked over quickly, defenses rising, until I saw that it was just Delilah. I set my head back down on my arm and turned back to the open book in front of me. She quickly made her way over towards me while several guys quickly entered the room, following her. Delilah ran up to me with no hesitation and threw her arms around my neck; by this point, I was already used to this stunt of hers. The guys who came in followed her halfway, but when they noticed it was me she was hanging on, they faltered and stopped in their tracks.

“How many times do I have to tell you guys, I don’t wanna go out with you!” Delilah insisted amused.

“Just one date!” One of the guys who had a little more guts than the others stepped forward and pleaded.

“Hmm… Alright, fine. If you can take down my, Fen.” Delilah reasoned now. For a second, the guys were silent, and one even took a step forward, but as I lifted my gaze from the book and shot them all a glare, they quickly backed down with fear obvious on their faces and stalked back out of the room in retreat. Delilah laughed as she stood up now, finally releasing me from her smothering hug “They never give up.” Even though her antics seemed unusual and perhaps even clingy to the other students, I had a feeling this was her way of casually checking in to make sure I was in class that day, after having been M.I.A the previous day. Delilah suddenly looked back though, spotting the new students “So, you lot are in this class?”

“That’s right, you’re the girl from yesterday.” The female twin sitting behind me noted. I was surprised as it seemed that Delilah knew them.

“I didn’t get the chance to say this yesterday, but I absolutely love your fashion style!” The pink haired girl suddenly complimented. Delilah was surprised, likely since we weren’t used to anyone from school being all that friendly towards us.

She then laughed though, saying “Thanks.”

“Delilah, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t cause such a scene in our classroom.”  Mr. Hunt suddenly said, unamused by her actions.

“Come on Hunt, it’s a break.” Delilah tried to sway him.

“Yes, and it’s almost over.” Mr. Hunt continued in the same tone “Hurry and get back to your class.”

“Ch, so serious.” Delilah turned from where Mr. Hunt sat at his desk, seeming to prepare to leave, but then stopped and coming in close to me, she said “Hey, try to go easy on them Fen, they seem alright.” I simply scoffed at this as she left the room. I wasn’t as easily swayed as she was, although the fact that she trusted them did earn them some points with me.

Later in band, I discovered that the shy girl and the red haired kid, who by then I’d picked up were called Ashley and Sebastian, were in our class as well. Ashley played the violin and Sebastian played guitar. While I was disappointed that any of them were in that class, I was at least relieved it was just two of them, instead of all five like in our foreign language class.

When we returned from band, we begun our science unit in which we started with some basics. As it was work time, the students were free to talk amongst themselves as long as we got the work done.

“Um, Loki?” We were surprised when Ashley, who’d been silent nearly all day, suddenly spoke up. “After we do the third step on #43, how do we get to the answer from that point?” Since she was directly behind him, he simply turned around in his chair.

“Ah, I guess you guys weren’t doing this in your last class?” Loki asked “Here, like this…” He wrote out the process on the side of her paper as he showed her how it worked.

“Alright everyone, for this next section, I want you all to work in groups of two and let’s keep it “purple”.” Mr. Hunt instructed. I was immediately upset by this; I hated when he did this. Mr. Hunt found that when he had the students work in pairs of two with the opposite gender, we got more done because we talked less. It was ridiculous he did such a thing when we were in high school.

“Well, since we’re already kind of working together, want to partner up?” Loki asked Ashley casually.

Her face turned bright red by this, but she nodded “Sure.” After a minute or so, everyone partnered up, but I remained in my seat.

“Fen.” Mr. Hunt noted me, and the fact that I hadn’t moved.

“I’ll pass.” I said simply, being used to not working with anyone during these.

“I let you work alone before, but now we have an even number of students. Let’s see…” Mr. Hunt looked around to see who the last person was. “Sebastian. You and Fen work together.” I was surprised by this.

“Er, but Mr. Hunt, they’re both guys…” Loki pointed out, also surprised by the matchup.

“That can’t be helped, we have one more pair of guys then we do girls.” Mr. Hunt reasoned.

“I’m also alright working alone…” Sebastian suddenly said as well.

“Geez, these kids.” Mr. Hunt sighed. “Just work together!”

After some seat exchanging it wound up like this: Loki went over and took Jessica’s seat, since her and her brother were working together, while Jessica took Sebastian’s seat, and Sebastian came over and sat in Loki’s seat.

“Well, since there’s no helping it, we might as well get this assignment over with.” Sebastian reasoned as he sighed.

“You know what you’re doing, right?” I checked, not wanting to have to carry him through the assignment.

“Yeah.” He assured me simply.

“Good.”

Grudgingly, we got through class and the assignment without any complications. Sebastian seemed to realize that I was not one for conversing and so respected the silence as we worked until we both finished and compared our work. I was impressed to see that he really did know what he was doing. We managed to finish somewhat early so we sat there in an awkward silence for several minutes.

“So… Everyone calls you Fen?” Sebastian suddenly asked, making conversation after we’d both begun to grow bored from sitting there.

“People call me Fenrir. Some people shorten it to Fen.” I corrected.

“The monstrous wolf huh?” Sebastian said simply, surprising me. “Guess that makes sense if you're always with Loki.”

“You know Norse mythology then?” I checked glancing over at him but not showing my shock.

“Little bit.” He said modestly. This was the first time that I looked at him directly since we’d been partnered and now that we were sitting so close together, I realised that his eyes, though similar, were two different colors; his left green and his right blue. “How long have you and Loki been friends?”

This new question snapped me out of my curiosity and reminded me of my job. Once again, I turned my gaze back down to the textbook and exercise in front of me and stated vaguely “A long time.”

When class finally ended, the school day did as well. Now, Loki and I begun to make our way off of campus and back to Loki’s home. I lived in Loki’s home about half my time since I had the job of protecting him. The rest of the time, I was either at my own home up in the mountains or hanging out at “The Lot” here in town with Agas and the others.

On most days, Briar would pick us up in the car but since he was also Loki’s mother’s chauffeur, he was busy driving her that day. Not many students lived off campus so the roads outside of the academy were fairly empty, with the exception of a few students walking along the sidewalk, so when a group of men started walking our way, they were hardly inconspicuous. Loki and I both stopped in our tracks as we spotted them and we seemed to confirm that they were indeed headed straight for us.

“These your fans or mine?” Loki asked this half jokingly as this was not something we were unused to. Observing them, these didn’t seem like your typical street bruisers because even though they tried to disguise themselves, one of them forgot to take off his shiny new watch. From my experience I could assume they were probably pros that got paid for this kind of stuff.

“Something tells me they’re yours.” I rationalized and then instructed him “You’d better get back to the academy. Call Lincoln and wait for a car.”  

“I don’t really think that’s necessary…” Loki tried to argue, never liking to leave me to fight these guys on my own. As they got closer it was clear that they were battle ready however as I spotted a short pipe in one’s hand and a set of brass knuckles on another’s fists as he hit it against his other palm.

“These the kids?” One of the six guys asked.

“Sure looks like it.” the one with the knuckles smirked as they were only yards away from us now. “You heard the boss. Grab the glasses-kid and try not to damage the merchandise.” Loki and I were both a little more alarmed now that we confirmed their intentions and target.

More seriously I turned to him and pushed him in the direction of the academy as I once again instructed “Get outta here!” Loki gritted his teeth but already knew the routine and so turned and began running back to the academy.

Three of the guys wasted no time as they rushed after him when Loki began to run so I had to quickly cut them off. The one with the pipe had been one of the first two to charge, but I managed to avoid his clumsy assault and throw him to the side since he was off balance. The other two eventually got by me but I hoped that I’d given Loki a long enough head start. Although Loki didn’t run much, he did have long legs and had a good head start on the large set men. I would have chased after them but another two men came charging in to take their place. By the time I finally threw these new two off, I had no chance to catch my breath as they regained their footing and the four remaining thugs came at me at once.

Though they were all quite troublesome, I tried my best to avoid the swings from the man with the brass knuckles on, all the while making sure that any blows from the pipe didn’t make contact with my head or back region. I managed to twist one’s arm and throw him out of the fight when another man slipped his punch through my defenses and landed a blow to my face; I learned the hard way that there was more than one of them with brass knuckles on. As the other man with knuckles rushed in towards me, he threw his punch in low and so I managed to grab onto his shoulders and launch myself over his back where he then stumbled into the rest of the men, hitting the other man with knuckles square in the gut.

Two of the men who’d stayed were now out of the fight but this only gave me a little time to catch my breath before the man with the pipe lunged at me once again. Having not learned from his previous mistake, he once again came at me hastily and off balance. I managed to sidestep his swing once again and this time grabbed onto the pipe as it came down onto the spot I stood only a moment ago. I managed to yank the pipe from his grasp which I then used to hit him upon his back as he tried to catch his balance. He fell to the ground from the blow and I threw the pipe off to the side, knowing that the large and bulky thing would only get in the way of my fighting style. Finally, I was down to the one last man with the brass knuckles as we squared off.

“Guess you guys should have thought twice about accepting this job.” I mocked knowing that this man had no chance against me alone and he likely knew it too.

To my surprise however, he smirked as he said “We’ll see about that.” and then rushed in at me, swinging with both fists in a rash manner. Although his swings were easy enough to dodge, his confidence made me uneasy and so I watched his movements carefully, expecting him to suddenly change his style or pull out another weapon. As I stepped back during a dodge, I was shocked when a massive blow hit me on my upper back, knocking me to the ground. I was stunned and struggled to catch my breath as my head spun from the blow.

“You may be a fast brat but you're lacking in strength.” I barely made out the man who’d had the pipe say, but realized that the voice was coming from the same height level that I was at; He was still pushing himself up so it hadn’t been him that struck me.

“Well?” I heard the man with the knuckles ask as I slowly regained my strength.

“He got away.” This time, an unfamiliar voice spoke and I assumed that it must have been on of the men who’d chased after Loki. They couldn’t catch him and now they were back. I smirked at this, satisfied that I’d done my job as I attempted to push myself up off the ground.

“That was a bad move.” The one with knuckles, evidently the one in charge, said as he turned to me and stepped down hard onto the same spot where I’d been struck, forcing me back down onto my knees and hands.

“Guess you guys failed your job.” I taunted at them still, uncaring of anything past that point. Aggravated, one of them began by kicking up into my ribs, and this seemed to start a trend as the other two then joined in as well.

This proceeded on for what felt like several minutes and the only thing I could do was attempt to guard myself from the blows, but these large men were leaving a heavy impact after each kick. After a while, their kicks seemed to suddenly slow and I heard rushed footsteps approaching quickly. Suddenly, the weight that had been holding me down was lifted as the man that was standing on my back was knocked to the side and fell to the ground. Two of the other men stopped and confronted this new foe. While the last man standing was distracted by this new fight, I saw my chance as I kicked his legs out from under him and he fell backwards, hitting his head on the cement, leaving a slight red stain.

My body ached far worse than it had from the fight I’d gotten into the day before. As I struggled to push myself up, I looked back at the latest fight and saw that one of the last two had been knocked to the ground already. I observed this new comrade and I came to realize that it wasn’t who I’d been expecting. Although my sight was fuzzy and my head still rung from the beating, after the final thug was knocked to ground I had a clear view of the newcomer, and it was Sebastian.

I continued struggling to stand as I observed him while he caught his breath and looked down at the thugs who were struggling to sit up. It was clear that he had taken a couple of blows himself as I noticed a mark on the side of his face that his hair usually covered.

“Are you o…” Sebastian had begun, but now that he finally realized it was me, he said surprised “Fen?!”

I ignored his shock as I was at last once again on my feet and grunted “I’ll live.”

“Need a hand?” He asked as he must’ve noticed how off balance I was.

“No.” I said bluntly as I widened my stance and held my head in my hands, trying to calm the massive, incoming migraine.

“You’ve got blood in the corner of your mouth.” Sebastian informed me. I was surprised by this and brought my hand up to the corner of my mouth and saw that he was right.

“Thanks.” I said simply and began making my way over to where I’d dropped my school bag after I wiped the corner of my mouth.

“You’d better get to a hospital to get checked out.” Sebastian suddenly recommended.

I was alarmed by this suggestion for a moment, but quickly pushed it away and protested simply “For a couple of scrapes and bruised bones? Yeah right.” The only way that I would ever concur with going to the hospital were if I were at death’s door and didn’t have a say in the matter.

“Well then, at least let me give you a hand...” Sebastian insisted.

“You new kids really don’t know a damn thing.” Though my words were harsh, I laughed as I said this, amused by his behavior. He was shocked by this. If anyone else from the academy, except for Agas and the others of course, had seen this scene, they would have stayed as far away as possible and the only way they would be involved would be with the rumor spreading around school the next day. Although it wasn’t in my nature to thank him directly for intervening, I turned back to him briefly as I began to head back towards the academy and said “Those guys were professionals. You’ve got some skill.”

As I got back to the academy, I spotted Loki waiting eagerly next to the high school building for any sign of me or the car with back up that would be picking us up at any moment. When Loki spotted me, he quickly ran up to meet me.

“Fen!” He was quick to look me over as he attempted to assess my current physical state. “I’m so sorry. Because of me, you’re injured again.” He apologized with obvious regret in his voice and concern on his face.

“Don’t sweat it, you know I’ve been in worse situations before. Besides, you were their target so it was better that you got away.” I reassured him although he was still clearly upset. “You are alright though, right?” I double checked.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He nodded. As soon as he said this, his attention was drawn back towards the gate. Looking back over my shoulder, with some struggle, I saw that the car had pulled up directly in front of the gate. Briar quickly stepped out, looking around for any threats, and then looked towards us. “Come on, let’s go get you fixed up.”