Landing

The Bridges and the Shaws gather in the courtyard of Saint Kenneth's Academy.

When he had been admitted to a school he had purposefully set out not to join, Kenneth Bridge had hatched a rather simple plan to get himself expelled.

The leaf fell from its tree and landed gently among a collection of mostly stationary humans before it was crushed by a black leather shoe. The boy who owned that shoe sighed. He was bored out of his skull.
Or so he pretended to be.

The people in the courtyard stood talking to each other in groups. Porters wove through them as they ferried the new arrivals' luggage indoors.
“What's your main objective, Matthew?”

The Bridge twins and their father stood with the Shaws: a family from their city. The boys had inherited their father's black hair, green eyes, and his passable good looks.

“When I win the Bronze Laurels,” the boy announced “I shall-”

“You mean when I've won them,” interrupted Benita, the Shaws' offering to the school that year.

“Bronze is for losers,” Ken was cocky enough to snort “I'd go for Gold or Platinum.”

“Bronze is for freshmen, you idiot,” the blonde Benita corrected him.

Everyone in the group, asides from the “lesser twin”, knew the ranking system. Bronze for freshmen " as Benita had said " Silver for sophomores, Gold for juniors and Platinum for seniors.

Ken looked away as the conversation went on. He wasn't in the mood to argue with anyone that morning. All he wanted to do was pick a fight " a real fight " with the first able-bodied male teacher he met.

His eyes settled on the statue of an eagle on a pedestal in the middle of the courtyard. It looked irritated. He would have tried to read its plaque, but reasoned that it must have said something boring anyway.

The massive double-doors at the entrance to the school building had been wide open when the Bridges and Shaws arrived. Ken wondered for the umpteenth time why they didn't just go indoors.

Benita spotted the quartet when they appeared at the top of the steps. One of the figures lifted the hand-bell it was holding and rang it. Despite its size, the implement could be heard all over the courtyard.

The porters began to inform the parents and guardians that it was time for them to leave. Brian Bridge and the Shaws had no need of their notices.

All alumni knew the traditions.

“Good luck, kids,” Brian Bridge stated as he began to walk off.

“See you at Thanksgiving,” the Shaws added as they too began to make their way to the gates.

“Bye,” the students said to their departing guardians. Even Ken joined in, despite his mood and intentions.

--

They waited for the parents and guardians to leave the compound before they acted. They had to be quick: the guards could not be allowed to see them in the courtyard. Especially not when they stood out so much.

The wind picked up and they cast something bright-looking to distract the dogs in their kennels. The barking and scratching was enough to distract the men in uniform, who scrambled to placate their canine comrades.

It was all they needed to act. The gates swung shut and their rusty creaking was masked by the howling wind. They were definitely one Strike down.

--

A rather tallish, older-looking boy walked across the courtyard with his back to the building. Ken could see that he was in uniform and wondered why he wasn't indoors. He seemed out of place among all the freshmen.

The boy stopped in his tracks and stared back at Ken, as if he had sensed that he was being watched. The twin shuddered as an icy chill went up his spine, but he kept walking toward the building like the others were doing.

Something bright caught his eye and he turned to look at it.

The eagle's eyes glared as two slivers of light shot out of them and coalesced into a beam. His eyes were wide open despite the intensity of the glare, and everything else seemed to melt away. Even daylight and the sounds of the multitude of people around him were gone.

All he could hear were the footsteps of someone running towards him.

The plank came hurtling out of nowhere " swung by a pair of arms attached to an unseen body " and whacked him right in the face.

The sudden fury of the attack made him fall to the ground, and everything went dark.