The Castle School of Self-Defense

Chapter 2 - The Ride

1458 hrs
25th September
Behind the Thomas Jefferson Memorial

William stood behind the Thomas Jefferson Memorial alone holding 2 huge luggages and a backpack. According to the letter written by the school's principal, William should be at this specific location at 3pm on the 25th of September. William had taken the Metro's Green Line from Fort Totten to Archives-Navy Memorial-Penn Quarter where he walked right into the National Mall to catch the NMS bus to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. It had taken him around 40 minutes to get there, but luckily, he arrived 20 minutes early. Due to the secretive nature of the school, William had to come alone. All his friends and family thought that he was going to a boarding school somewhere in the outskirts of Washington D.C. Exactly on the dot of 1500 hrs, a inconspicuous 7-seater black van appeared around the corner of East Basin Drive SW. The driver opened the back door of the van and a man dressed in a suit hopped out. Although William had only met him once a few days ago, he knew exactly who this man was. He was no other than William's recruiter to The Castle School of Self-Defense, Sam Snow.

"Heya William! How's everything?" Sam asked cheerfully.

"Everything's good! I'm very excited to start my lessons at the Castle......", but before William could finish, Sam swiftly interrupted him.

"Shhhhhhh!! You're in public and no one in public is supposed to know about this!!" Sam whispered loudly in William's ear.

"Sorry! I mean the Waterfall Boarding School of Science and Technology!" William corrected, looking around to see if anyone had heard him say the real school name. Luckily, no one did. Before William could say another word, though, Sam quickly picked up his luggages as if it weighed a single gram (although combined, it weighed more than 30 kilograms) and placed them in the boot of the car. Motioning for William to hop on, he hopped in quickly, taking the second-row seat on the right side. William boarded the van, sitting in the seat on the left side, and placed his bulky backpack in the space between the seats. Once the automatic door closed, William finally got his chance to have a look around at the car's interior. Although it looked like a normal black 7-seater van from the outside (except for its heavily tinted windows), it seemed totally different on the inside.

Sam saw William staring at the different weird looking contraptions, and said: "Intrigued by the different components, eh? It's a weird but cool car!"

"Of course! It looks like a normal van but it's not! Mind telling me all the crazy stuff about this car?" William replied eagerly.

"Sure! Firstly, the whole car is bulletproof. It's a CIA car, after all, I think you should know that. Secondly, the car gas hidden guns everywhere. It's for chasing off enemies and protection of the car. The person on the right controls all the functions in the car. Not only that, it has speed boosters and it is actually allowed to go over the speed limit on roads, but that's strictly for emergencies only. Usually we don't want to go too fast to avoid attention." Sam said while strictly forbidding William to tell anyone at school. By now, William turned his attention from Sam to where they were going. Using his excellent memory and map skills, he knew for a fact that they were making a left on Buckeye Street SW from Ohio Drive SW. He looked out on Sam's side for the East Potomac Golf Links to confirm this, and voila, it was there. A quick left after that meant that they were on the on-ramp to I-395 North. And so, they were barreling through Downtown D.C. at 55 miles per hour.

Approximately what William estimated to be around 1 mile later, the car stayed in the left 2 lanes to Exit 6 of I-395N, exited I-395, and entered I-695E. Another approximately 2 miles later, the car merged onto DC Highway 295 North. Yet another 4 miles later, they merged onto US Highway 50 East. William was very familiar with US Highway 50 as whenever his family always made trips to Philadelphia, New York, or Boston, they always drove along US Highway 50 to avoid the congested roads of Baltimore, especially after the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge on I-695. Up they went on US Highway 50, through the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Not long after, they barrelled through the town of Annapolis before driving across the grand William Preston Lane Jr. Memorial Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Right after passing the Bay Bridge Toll Station, they exited US-50 to Maryland Highway 8.

After 15 minutes, passing 2 airports, and driving about three quarters the length of Kent Island, they pulled to a stop in the Kent Point Marina carpark. Sam quickly hopped out of the car, opened the trunk, and pulled out William's two luggages and signalled William to follow him around the building to a nondescript boat, where Sam placed William's luggage in the cargo compartment of the boat, and told William that the luggages will be brought up to his room when they arrived. He also told William that any questions that he had would be answered when he arrived at the school. This was actually at quite a good time as William had a lot of questions for Sam, but he decided to hold it until he got to the school. Sam bid William goodbye before giving a signal to the boat driver, who started up the engines, and made a quick left turn through the small channel before shooting out of the marina at an extremely high speed. William estimated that they must be going at a speed of at least 80 miles per hour. 

Making a sharp left about 500 feet away from the jetty, they sped down into the Eastern Bay sanctuary. Not long after, William could feel the boat gradually slowing down. When he looked directly in front of him, all he saw was a large island at least 1.5 miles wide with a medieval looking castle gate as the entrance. The boat slowed down even more and parked at the jetty beside the castle gate. The driver stopped the boat and opened the door while the boat auto-moored itself to the dock using retractable ropes. William stepped out and walked toward the front gate. Carrying his backpack, he saw, above the gate, the words in all its grandeur: The Castle School of Self-Defence. He stepped into the school through the gate and walked into the main courtyard. But, before he could do anything or ask anyone what to do, someone grabbed his arm tight, making him trip and fall. Before he could even turn around, they jumped onto his chest, pinning him down to the ground.