Chapter 4

The plane ride to the school.

Chapter 4

            “Why can’t I have asked where it was?” Vance kept asking himself as he walked down the residential streets of the town of Amarillo.  He was without aim for what seemed like hours wondering the streets of Amarillo.  He could even swear that at some point he was walking in circles as he passed a big yellow house on Bonham Street several times in the same hour.  It took him another hour to find his way out of the maze of residential streets to find the highway.  As he walked along it, he was given a good ten dollars as he walked to the outskirts of the town by passing people.  He assumed they thought he was homeless, probably because of the terrible state of his clothes being burnt on the edges.

Finally, Vance had made it to the edge of town when he saw a few of the huge windmills he had only read about.  It was curious, but he could swear he saw something sticking out of the ground nearby the open field.  A rotten old sign Vance found was sticking from the green ground nearby in the large plain ahead.  Vance neared, curiously wondering what it was.  ‘Magnis Airport’ was etched upon the rotten wood.  As Vance made the words out, his face lit up.  A small arrow pointing into the field before him.  He quickly ran through the grass covered prairie, excitedly, as the sun was just overhead.  He had found it.  He thought that he wouldn’t ever find it and that hologram would revert it’s treatment on Felix and leave Vance completely alone in this world.

Soon after running for only a few seconds, the view of the field changed.  Instead of the large windmills before him, it was an empty field with a large shining airplane smack dab in the middle of it surrounded by pink colored wildflowers.  Vance bolted towards the plane, his blood pumping and his limbs throbbing, not fully recovered.  He wasn’t sure what to expect when he reached the plane, but wasn’t going to stop. 

            Finally, Vance reached the large plane, adrenaline coursing through his body.  He stepped up to the open door of the plane, and promptly stopped on the first step.  An invisible force seemed to grip him keeping him in place.  He tried to move, but he couldn’t, not even to breathe.  A red light like the bar code scanners swept up his body, as if scanning him from the toes up.  Finally, after a few seconds gripped with fear, Vance was released and he finally could breathe again.  He stood there, unsure if he should take another step, when a voice sounded from the plane.

            “Enter Vance Julius Blake; welcome to Angelus,” The voice said, high in pitch, “If you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask.” 

            “What in the world just happened?” Vance asked breathing hard, and still trembling from the fright he had just endured.  He knew one thing now he didn’t before, his middle name; it was the same as his father’s first.  Jeff, nor his late mother, had never told him his middle name before, probably because Vance never asked. 

            “You were scanned to make sure you weren’t non-magickal, but since you are magickal you are allowed on the airplane to go to the community.  If you were non-magickal, you would forget everything and we wouldn’t be speaking,” The voice said sweetly, no sign of annoyance.

            “Oh… ok, so I’m free to go in?” Vance asked peering into the plane, which seemed bright inside.

            “Yes of course Mr. Blake,” the voice replied still in its high pitched and sweet voice.  Vance nodded, staying still.  He took a deep breath and entered the plane slowly.  Inside voices grew louder, and the first look was amazing.  Large circular tables were filled with people laughing and chatting with each other.  As Vance walked through the plane, he noticed that this many people and tables wouldn’t be able to fit in what the plane looked like inside; it was much larger on the inside than the outside, or at least it seemed.  There were nearly a hundred tables, all draped with the same blood red tablecloth.  He made his way through the crowd, to an empty table on the far side of the plane, seeing the blank faces of many others.  He sat down in a chair and peered at his surrounding to get a better look.  The tablecloth had four different circles, three the same size, and one much larger than the others.

            The largest of the circles was really just the three smaller circles overlapping each other multiple times until it made a perfect circle of many circles.  Vance then turned to the smaller circles embroidered on the tablecloth.  One was outlined in a bright white, with the words in a dark black thread.  Words on the emblem read, ‘Luminarium, home of the Pure and Courageous,’ and a small animal’s head, a black wolf’s head, as if it were ready to attack.

            The next of the smaller circles was one outlined in black, and the words in the bright white of the last one.  ‘Arcebrus, home of the Bold and Ambitious,’ were embroidered on the red background of the tablecloth.  A large three-headed dog was roaring in the middle, not moving literally, but Vance would not be surprised if it did, because it looked so real.  The final smaller circle was outlined in grey; in fact, everything was the dark rich grey, the words and even the animal on the interior of the emblem.  The words read, ‘Nocenus, home of the Loyal and Proud,’ and the animal, grey in color was a small lion head rabbit.  Vance studied these emblems as closely as he could, hoping to find out what they were.

            “Hey boy!” A male’s voice said from behind Vance.  Slowly he turned his head to see who addressed him, if they were addressing him.  A tall boy, with bright hazel eyes stared at Vance, with a grin that reminded him of Felix and his father Jeff.  The boy from behind Vance looked fairly innocent, but his face looked like it was carved from angels. 

            “Y-yes?” Vance asked quietly.

            “What are you doing alone?  I mean personally I’d like to sit with others,” the boy said grinning still widely.

            “I-I’m new, I don’t know anyone,” Vance replied softly, barely audible.

            “So is Krystal, Trinity, Matt, Kristen and Zack here,” the boy said motioning towards a group of people behind him.  All of them looked about Vance’s age, but the boy who was addressing him looked older.

            “You won’t know anyone one unless you meet them,” the boy said, “I’m Jace Hatfield, by the way.”

            “I-I’m Vance Blake,” Vance stammered, not used to talking to others, because of him being locked up in that small room, “Nice to meet you.”

            “Blake?” A boy from behind whispered, just loud enough for Vance to hear him. 

            “So Vance is it?  Welcome to Angelus, hope you like it there,” Jace said.

            “Thanks,” Vance said smiling a bit, this wasn’t too hard; it was almost like talking with Felix back home, which seemed to come naturally to Vance.

            “Is it ok if we join you here?” A girl from behind said, “Oh and I’m Krystal, but you can just call me Kris, Vance.”  Vance nodded and the large group sat down at his table, filling most of the seats, leaving but one open. 

            “Nice to meet you too,” Vance said looking at the girl who addressed him.  She also looked an awful like the girl sitting next to her. 

            “I’m Trinity,” the girl sitting next to Krystal said, “Me and Kris are sisters, twins if you hadn’t noticed our striking similarities.  I think I’m cuter though.”

            “Oh ok,” Vance replied, now realizing it; he had only read about twins before.

            “I’m Matthew Jameson the Third, but you can just call me Matt,” a boy next to Jace said, wearing a cap backwards on his head, “I hail from the amazing country of Ireland.”

            “I’m Zackary Cauri, I got on here at New Zealand.  Jace wanted to show us around Amarillo,” A smaller boy said introducing himself to Vance offering his hand.  Vance nodded shaking Zackary’s hand slowly knowing that in theory that was what you were supposed to do when a hand was offered.

            “Who are you?” Vance asked a girl near where Matt was sitting.  She didn’t answer.  No words, just a small movement with her hands. 

            “She is a mute,” Jace quickly explained, “That’s Kristen.  She’s pretty cool.”  Vance looked at the blonde haired girl, who sat silent in her seat.  For some reason she reminded him of someone.  He couldn’t put his finger on it though.  She looked so familiar.  Deciding that he must be crazy, since he just knew what his adoptive family looked like, and well his parents, Vance looked at Jace.

            “So what is this Angelus like?” Vance asked.

            “Yeah I would like to know that,” Zack replied smiling at Jace.

            “Well it’s a great place, most people are nice, and the classes are even fun, well except Mr. Terrell’s classes,” Krystal replied sweetly.

            “Yeah father’s class is the most fun,” Trinity added, “He teaches Offensive, and he has the classroom set up like a dojo.”

            “Father?   So your father is a professor?” Matt asked curiously.

            “Yeah Mr. Pearson,” Krystal replied.

            “Cool,” Zack said smiling widely, obviously excited, “And what about the other professors?”       

            “Mr. Vengence teaches Miscellaneous Spells not falling in Offense or Defense,” Vance blurted out.

            “How do you know that?” Jace asked eying Vance curiously.
            “He told me, in the hospital.  Mr. Vengence kept calling me B,” Vance replied quickly.  He hated thinking about the hospital, even though he was there only hours before.  The image of Felix broken kept intervening in his head and couldn’t push it away. 

            “Why were you in the hospital?  Did someone beat you up?  Oh if they did I’ll beat the living daylights out of them,” Zack said furiously pretending to punch an invisible person. 

“I… don’t want to talk about it,” Vance replied looking down feeling bad about not telling them, but he felt he couldn’t return to the fact that his father was dead and it was all his fault. 

            “I understand,” Trinity said as Kristen made some hand signs Vance interpreted as ‘me too.’

            “I don’t!” Zack pressed, but Vance stayed silent as Krystal gave Zack a glare making him shut up.

            “Well, Vance here is right, then there is Mr. Pearson,” Jace said breaking the silence, “Trinity and Kris’ father, Ms. Washington, teaching history, Mr. Terrell with non-magical studies and Mr. Bryan with Defensive training.  You need to watch out for Mr. Bryan, he’s a Resistance supporter, probably a member, but no evidence on him.  He’s dangerous, so watch out.”

            “O-ok?” Vance said unsure of what to say in response.

            “What about sports is there basketball, football, or what?” Matt blurted out after a second.

            “There’s football and volleyball, both student run,” Trinity replied.

            “Cool, Felix always talked about football, maybe I could make the team,” Vance said thinking about his brother, well not real brother, but close enough.  Felix and Vance used to play the Madden NFL game all the time, and Felix always won, but Vance never cared as long as he was having fun with his brother.

            “Who’s Felix?” Zack asked curiously.

            “Oh, just, well he’s my brother or close enough to my brother,” Vance replied.  No one said anything until Jace spoke after a few minutes of silence.

            “Anyways all of you need to be careful.  The Resistance is able to plant dreams and control a person if their guard is down, especially Vance here, given who his parents are,” Jace replied.

            “What exactly is the Resistance?” Matt asked quickly seeming to be almost as clueless as Vance was, but showed that he was at least used to being out of the house.

            “A group of people trying to overthrow Damien Malatesta’s rule, he’s our leader,” Trinity explained, looking at her sister as if confirming something, “They kill or capture and brainwash; they’re no good.”

            “Really?  Why would someone want to do that?” Vance asked.

            “Well, they believe that all of us are no good, that they’re the best people in the world.  Stupid pure nonsense, I think the term the Jax use is ‘chosen people’,” Krystal explained.

            “And this Mr. Bryan is a member of this, this organization?” Zack asked.

            “Well rumored to be.  However, the Resistance is split into two sects, both don’t like Professor Malatesta.  One is the Jax Sect and the other is the Alpha Sect.  The Jax is led by Jaxon Malus, and Alpha, well the leader is unknown.  Most believe that Mr. Bryan is in the Alpha Sect, perhaps the leader, but not is proven.  Professor Malatesta sure trusts him, but we don’t,” Jace responded a bit unemotional.  Vance nodded in understanding as did Kristen.  For some reason that girl seemed to peak Vance’s interests; for some reason she reminded him of someone, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.  Her blonde curly hair, hazel eyes, all seemed familiar, but he knew it couldn’t be possible; he only knew a few people, and he tried to think of who it could be, but he couldn’t. 

            “Hatfield!” A higher boyish voice came from behind Vance, “Stop spreading all these lies, you know it isn’t true, well most of it.”

            “The Richards Twins, of course you have to come and ruin our fun,” Krystal growled at the people behind Vance.  He turned his head to see one boy, and one girl, both looking much alike.  The boy had short blonde hair and a pair of glasses resting on his nose.  The girl had long blonde hair, but the same nose, eyes, and overall face as the boy, but no glasses like her brother.

            “That is what we aim to do,” The girl said unemotionally, but a small bit of sarcasm could be made out in her tone.

            “Are you really being sarcastic, Liron?” the boy whispered to the girl in almost surprise, and then looked up at Jace who now was standing, “Sit down Hatfield, we’re not here to see you,” then the boy looked at Kristen, Vance, Zack, and Matt “You four, don’t listen to them, they will try to poison you’re minds with lies.”

            “They aren’t lies Richards!” Trinity said angrily, “You wouldn’t know the truth if it were to dance in front of you!” The boy looked like he was about to kill Trinity his face was so mad and strained.  The girl remained emotionless with her facial expressions.

            “L-leave me and them alone,” Vance blurted out, causing the blonde Richards boy to be taken aback, but the girl had no detectable reaction, “If you’re gonna insult my friends, then I won’t listen.  I mean I may have just met them, but they’re actually nice to me, and I don’t know about you.”

            “Luke and I will make our leave then.  I ask that you do not listen to everything they say, it’s not all black and white as people want you to believe,” Liron stated taking Luke’s arm, but he wouldn’t budge.

            “I see,” the boy with the glasses, apparently named Luke said looking over at the group eyes not locking on anyone in particular.  Well that was confusing.  Make sure you do that?  What in the world, was he talking about?  Was the boy completely insane? 

            “Luke, Liron,” a deeper word voice said as a man appeared at the side of the twins, “What are you doing?  You better not be trying to provoke these kids.”

            “Mr. Bryan!  We… we were just leaving,” Luke stammered as  Liron nodded looking at the tall brown haired man.  The man seemed to be ignoring Luke’s comment, and staring at Vance, making the grey eyes meet the blue.  The man looked at Vance for a short time, before inhaling and speaking.

            “Then leave,” Mr. Bryan finally said looking at the blonde haired twins.
            “Hello professor, pleasant day today,” Jace said acting innocently.

            “Hello Jace, you can cut the act.  I’ve had you in class enough to know that you’re acting,” Mr. Bryan said rather viciously.

            “Don’t speak to Jace that way!  We’ll sic Father on you,” Krystal commented in reply to the tone Mr.  used.

            “I’m not afraid of John, but I can tell him how his daughters mouthed off to me,” Mr. Bryan replied, “But I’m not here to talk to either of you.  I don’t want to provoke you into attacking a teacher.  I just want to speak to Vance here.”

            “M-me?  Why?” Vance trembled.  From what Jace said he had to watch out for this teacher, perhaps he could gain trust and learn for himself.  He wasn’t sure if he should trust Jace and the others just yet.

            “Because of your parents,” Mr. Bryan replied, “I knew your father very well, and I wanted to see you, see if it was true that you actually came.”

            “Why wouldn’t I?” Vance asked curiously.

            “I’ll tell you later.  Why don’t you join me and the other main teachers over at our table,” Mr. Bryan replied.

            “I guess I could, but could I speak with Jace and the others first?” Vance said hatching an idea, but feeling deep down it was an idiotic idea.

            “Sure, we’re right over there,” the teacher said pointing at a table across the room, “I’ll see you all in class.”  The tall worn man with grey eyes walked away towards the table he had pointed at.  Vance couldn’t make out the faces of the people at the table, but saw that there were only two others, besides Mr. Bryan. 

            “So you're gonna go sit with the professors?” Matt asked outraged.

            “And with that one guy that is dangerous?” Zack added, but seemed that Kristen, Jace, Krystal, and Trinity had figured out what he was doing and remained silent.

            “Hey, calm down guys, I-I have a plan.  If I get on the professors’ good side, maybe I can get information.  A teacher person on my side is a good thing isn’t it?  So why not?” Vance explained.

            “Wow, good plan Vance.  You better hurry up or they’ll suspect something,” Jace said pretending to not have figured it out before because if he didn’t Zack and Matt might feel dumb.  They were all young and a bit naïve, but Vance actually wanted his own answers, the other side to the story.

            “Ok, well I’m off; have fun,” Vance said turning to leave.

            “FINE! LEAVE!  WE DON’T LIKE YOU ANYWAYS!” Jace yelled standing up.  Vance turned around in confused, but he saw Jace wink, showing that he was just playing it off.  Vance looked towards the teacher’s table and shook his head as if Jace was stupid or crazy.  Slowly he walked over to the table and saw three people.  The one that invited him, a young black man with short black hair, and a very familiar scruffy man, hair going everywhere, were all sitting next to each other, covering half of the table.

            “B!” Mr. Vengence said loudly his white eyes seeming to look through him, “What was that about?”

            “Oh they were just being mean about me coming over here,” Vance replied looking back at Jace and the others, who were laughing, and having a good time. 

            “You don’t have to stay over here, you can go back,” the young black man raising an eyebrow obviously not wanting to come between Vance and people who could be friends and not considered a creep.

            “I know, but I don’t really want to go back right now, they can be a bit… weird,” Vance replied.

            “More like dark-ish.  Jace is definitely much darker than the others though.  Krystal is just pushed into doing bad things, same with Trinity.  Can’t tell you about the others, haven’t seen them before,” Mr. Bertram explained with a serious tone still seeming to stare almost into Vance’s soul.

            “Oh ok.  I couldn’t really tell though,” Vance replied.

            “Mr. Blake, we haven’t been properly introduced, I am Mr. Romulus Bryan, teacher of the defense classes at Magnis Academy,” Mr. Bryan said and then indicated the younger brown haired man, “And this is Mr. Bruce Terrell.  You already know Bertram here, so it’s a pleasure to see you again.”

            “Pleasure to… wait, see you again?” Vance said comprehending what Mr. Bryan had said.

            “Oh, you don’t know?  I thought Mr. Vengence told you,” Mr. Bryan said looking at Bertram with an expression that would scare most people, but since Mr. Vengence was blind, he didn’t react.

            “No I chose not to,” Bertram said gruffly in response, “See Vance, your father was one of the co-founders, as were I and Mr. Bryan here.  There were six of us, including Jonathan Steward.  We were all friends.  Mr. Terrell was part of the first group to be taught by us, as well as your mother.  See we all know each other quite well.”

            “Oh, I didn’t know… If you all knew my parents… what were they like?” Vance asked, realizing that the information given meant that the community was quite new, since the teachers and founders didn’t look that old, maybe in their mid-forties.

            “Your father was a headstrong rebellious guy.  Outgoing, smart, trustworthy, an overall good guy,” Mr. Bryan said, “A pity he wasn’t spared.  Everyone makes mistakes.”

            “What?” Vance asked, spared, mistake.  Was this about that murder he said he hadn’t committed?  Rebellious, yes that made sense, but from what Vance had read in the journal, he didn’t seem like the person to commit murder.  Where had he put his father’s journal?  He reached into his pocket of his slightly burnt clothes hoping he still had it.  He still did.  He held it up and looked at the professors.

            “I have a journal about him… did… did he really kill Jonathan?” Vance asked concerned. 

            “Unknown.  There really wasn’t much evidence, but they sentenced him and his wife to death… because they knew something was going on between the three of them, or at least your father and Johnathan,” Mr. Terrell explained as truthfully as he could obviously seeming to hold something back, “The people wanted to blame someone so they blamed Julius, and your mother was caught in the middle of it, and was killed as a result of it as well.”

            “What?  That isn’t fair at all!” Vance protested.

            “We know, we see that, we saw that even then, but we were overruled, I and Mr. Vengence were.  We knew our friend could never do something like that, given they had you and were completely absorbed by you,” Mr. Bryan explained, “But they were there when Johnny…than, Johnathan had died, so no alibi, and the three of them had spent a lot of time alone prior to the death.”

“Now that is absurd!” Vance said loudly completely outraged.

“We know,” Mr. Vengence replied, “But at least Damien Malatesta has improved things a bit.  Makes it so none of the innocent is persecuted like that.”

“Oh yeah, he’s set up a more fair system,” Mr. Bryan said rolling his eyes.

“Better than you would’ve!” Mr. Vengence retaliated in almost what seemed like sudden fury, but not in Mr. Bryan’s comment, but in something else Vance couldn’t place his finger on.

“Hey don’t fight again about this,” Mr. Terrell warned.

“You’re right Bruce, sorry about that Rom, and you too Vance,” Mr. Vengence said abruptly before Mr. Bryan could reply, which he did seem like he was about to argue back.

“Right…” Vance replied smiling.  Well at least they were human like the rest of them.

“Anyways, do you think I could see that journal?” Mr. Bryan quickly asked eying the journal that Vance had placed on the table.

“Sure, most of them I would think are burnt, but readable, given the circumstances,” Vance said handing the journal to Romulus Bryan across the table.  Romulus Bryan carefully opened the fragile book and looked at the pages.

“What’d mean given the circumstances?” Mr. Terrell asked curiously.

“Didn’t you know?  Bertram… Mr. Vengence!” Vance exclaimed looking at the scruffy professor feeling slightly lightheaded at the moment.

“Hadn’t had the time, sorry,” Mr. Vengence said putting on an innocent grin, “Bruce, see the boy’s house blew up.  We’ll talk about it later.”  Bruce nodded not questioning this at all, as Mr. Romulus Bryan thumbed through the pages of the journal.

“Darn it all to…” Mr. Bryan muttered.

“Find anything?” Vance asked curiously looking at the man thumbing through the journal.  Romulus just shook his head and continued to glance through the pages.  Silence ascended upon the group.  He wasn’t sure what else to say.  However, one thing seemed to stick in his mind, even if Jace and the others had answered him when he had asked it.  He might as well get the opinion from all sides of the conflict.

“Hey professors?  What exactly is the Resistance?” Vance asked.

“Knew you’d ask eventually,” Mr. Bryan said and sighed, “The Resistance is an organization that --” Suddenly (as it seemed everything lately had happened suddenly), the plane began to rock and plummeted to the ground.  The professors hopped up and looked panicked.

“Get against the wall, be quiet, and stay down!” Mr. Vengence shouted taking an almost defensive stance one would take if someone was about to attack the three teachers with their fists.