Two hard weeks passed by. I stood in a big training room. I swished my toes around and felt the sand underneath me. A teenager stood about five feet away.

"Alright. Three, two, one... Go!" I called, dashing over to him. Instead of going straight at him, I swerved, knowing he was going was run at me. And that he did. By swerving I dodged him. I went behind him and jumped on him and wrapped my hands on his neck and choked him. He made a weird noise. Worried, I loosened my grip on him a little. He took that as an advantage and grabbed my wrists with his hands and threw me down. I landed with a thud.

"Ow..." I put a hand on the back of my head. The teenager smirked, triumph glowed in his amber gaze.

"You're... decent." He teased, ruffling his fire-like orange hair. I let out a little chuckle.

"What's your name, anyway?" I asked when I got up.

"Phoenix."

"Blaire."

I stretched my back. I looked over to the side, where Ace and General Zane talked. Ace looked my way, and my gaze quickly turned back to Phoenix. Although I was looking at Phoenix, I was mostly focused on the memories Ace and I shared. I missed him, but I knew we had better things to do than just have play around like we used to.

"You okay, Blaire?" Phoenix asked. Shaking my thoughts away, I noticed my eyes were now looking at the ground. I looked back at him.

"Hm? Yes." I told him distractedly.

"Yeah, okay." He said, with a hint of doubt in his voice.

"I should go and get to my lessons." I notified him.

"Alright." Phoenix nodded his head.

I ran to the academy grounds and saw Miss Brown waiting for students to get to the lesson. Kiki was already there, and I stood beside her. "Hi, Miss Brown." I smiled.

"Hello there." She greeted me with her usual british voice. She had her arms crossed against her chest, and her fingers tapped her arms as she waited.  A few minutes passed by. Wow, I wonder what's up with the other students today?

"I can get them if you'd like." I told her. "Oh! Yes, that'd be appreciated." She nodded, relief showing in her eyes. I returned the nod and went inside. I looked around. Where are they? I went through a hall and heard some voices. I walked faster and heard the voice grow louder around the corner. I hid behind the wall and peeked my head a little to see. I saw two boys about my age looking down at something. I realized it was Kash and Gunt, basically the academy's two bullies.

"This is not your place. Go home to your mommy and daddy." Kash sneered. Annoyance built up inside of me, but I didn't speak. I kept looking at them in silence.
"You wouldn't be a help to us, you would only be a total failure to LR." A guy next to Kash said.

"Nice one Gunt." Kash nudged Gunt's arm. A little sniffle came from who they were looking at. That's it. I was going to get out of my hiding space, until I felt my feet lift off the floor. I squeaked in surprise. I looked behind my shoulder and saw Zane holding the back of my shirt, causing me to be held as well. He was holding the weight of me effortlessly.

"You all are in trouble." The general rumbled. I turned my head away from my shoulder to see Kash, Gunt and their friends looking at me and Zane. My squeak must have gave me away.
Now I saw who they were insulting earlier. It was a girl who must be a freshman, because I never saw her before. She was a little chubby, and she had her arms wrapped around her knees as they were pulled up to her face. Though I couldn't see her face very well, I heard her sniffles, indicating she was crying. I felt bad for her.

"I can't believe you all." Zane let go of me, and I landed on my chest, the impact causing me a little pain on my chest. Despite my pain, I lifted my head to see what Zane was doing. The general came to the girl, and lended her a hand. She took it and got up.

"You okay?" He asked with unusual kindness. She gave him a tiny nod and wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. "You are going to go to detention. All of you." He ordered.

"Wait! I was only here to get them to the lesson!" I exclaimed, getting up. Zane narrowed his eyes.

"You could very well be lying." He told me. "And don't question my actions."
***

I paced in a straight line in a room, waiting for the general to tell us what our punishment is. I rolled my eyes. A tiny stream of anger flowed into me. This is their fault. I stopped pacing and looked at Kash and Gunt. They were sitting down on seperate chairs, but they both were looking straight at the wall across them.

"Why jeer at someone? Does it make you feel good or something?" I questioned them. They didn't answer, and didn't even make eye contact. I went to the wall and lifted my hand up, about to bang the wall. Suddenly, I stopped mid air. What am I doing? I realized I was letting anger control me.  I lowered my hand, and looked at it. Anger was replaced with shame. The door creaked open. Zane walked in.

"Come." He commanded. Kash and Gunt jumped to their feet. We followed the general out of the room and farther. We went outside and walked even farther. I stole a glance behind my shoulder. The LR Academy was growing vague as we walked farther and farther away. Where are we going? Suddenly, he stopped, causing Kash to stop and Gunt to bump into him. Kash turned his head to glare at his friend. Zane turned around.

"Run to the academy and back to me! Do it three times!" He demanded. We stood still.

"But I can't even see the building!" Kash whined.

"We only went straight from the academy to here. Now go!" At his words, we turned around and started running like our lives depended on it. Kash was running wildly and sometimes getting in my way. The cold wind felt like icicles sticking to my face as I ran speedily. On the left of me, Gunt turned his head to look at me, then I turned my gaze to him. He smirked then ran in front of me. I wanted to make a harsh remark, but it seemed like I didn't have any breath to do so. My lungs burned, and the cold air was making it worse. With all of my strength, I pushed forward and ran beside Gunt. I turned my head once again to the left, expecting to see Kash. Huh? He wasn't there. I looked behind me and saw Kash sitting down. He was breathing heavily.

I need to keep on going. I turned my gaze back to the path. A gust ice cold wind blew at me. My gaze began to get blurry. I closed my eyes to get rid of it. I opened them back up only to see the blurriness only disappeared by a tiny bit. Gunt was ahead. I was so cold, but I didn't want to show any weakness to Gunt or Zane. I pushed pass with all of my might. At last we did it three times in a row, but every time we finished a lap, the breaks felt like it was an hour long. Zane knew we needed to rest, and that's why he let us, but he made us run, like run. We were back at the Academy, and I lay on my bed. The sun was down already and others were going to bed. When I tried to lift my legs up, it didn't move. My legs weren't going to let me walk anytime soon. The door opened and I saw Kiki come in, having the usual training clothes. She put her pistols down, letting them lean against the wall. She sat on the side of the bed and let out a long sigh. She began taking her shoes off.

"Hard day too?" I asked. Kiki looked up at me and nodded. "Did anyone tell you where I was?" I inquired.

"Um, yes... Everyone knows about the little incident." She explained, giving me an awkward smile.

"You do know I wasn't apart of it, right?" I lifted my head up, leaning closer.

"Of course I do. I was there when you told Miss Brown you were going to get them." She assured me. My head dropped back on the pillow.

"Right." I answered. I took off my shoes and let them drop to the floor. I left my socks on and my eyes suddenly grew fuzzy.

"I'm going to sleep..." I murmured, grabbing my blanket from under me and dropped it on me.  "Night."