Elements: The Chronicles of Katerina Starling

Chapter 9: C.A.N.D.I.E Chronicles

                  

(A/N: It's Flashback time!)

Eight years after the attack on Element, Kat and Arthur have lived a comfortable life on Earth with them both working as agents of C.A.N.D.I.E. Arthur being a head officer at the age of 26 and Kat being a field agent at the age of 14. Kat with her best friends Brad and Ruby attend training as field agents while Arthur is usually away leading missions.

With the memories of Element fading away, neither of them had talked about Element in years. Until of course one faithful day.

"Hey Kat, check this out." Brad nudged her shoulder.

"What?" she replied, not taking her eyes of her book.

They were in a crowded room with about thirty other students, the walls were painted grey with C.A.N.D.I.E written in bold at the back. Groups of tables were grouped together and had students working on each of them. It was a classroom.

Ruby, Brad and Kat always sat together. They found it was easier for them to work together than work separately. Brad was staring at something on the other side of the room, Kat was not bothered to see what it was. She was re-reading her notes. Mr Parker, their teacher/trainer was a man in his mid twenties with jet black hair and an intimidating glare. He was handing out a mission for the student who scored the highest in their ranking exams.

Ruby was frantically reading her notes. Ruby was very competitive, she probably wanted a new mission more than anyone else. Kat was also getting bored, her last mission was two months ago, she was getting restless.

Brad nudged her shoulder again, this time poking Ruby who was sitting opposite them as well.

"What is it Brad?" Ruby asked, clearly frustrated.

"We have a new kid." Brad whispered.

Kat and Ruby perked their heads up. Mr Parker had walked into the class, next to him was a boy who looked oddly similar. The boy had straight black hair, swept to the side, large brown eyes and a large slightly overenthusiastic smile.

"Attention everyone" Mr Parker's booming voice silenced the room.

"We have the results and today four students have been selected for an extremely important assignment." He continued.

Kat, Brad and Ruby exchanged eye contact, they were all very excited. Mr Parker cleared his throat.

"The students who will be receiving this week's assignments are Ruby Aine, Brad Michaels and Katerina Starling" He announced, a smile forming on his lips. The class erupted into a sequence of applause and jealous murmurs.

"Ok, the rest of the class report to the training room for warm ups. Brad, Kat and Ruby, you three will follow me outside." Mr Parker addressed.

"Yes sir" The class responded in dreary voices.

Kat and the others followed Mr Parker outside, Kat was curious about this because after the person got a mission, they would get to skip class for a week to complete it. They never had to discuss it with their teachers.

"Ok so this mission is slightly different than usual." Parker broke the silence outside.

The usual mission would include stuff like helping the seniors with security at important C.A.N.D.I.E meetings and events or disabling hackers or Kat's personal favourite, undercover operations in schools for recruiting new agents.

"You will head to the head office upstairs where Ms Hiran will give you further information."

Ms Hiran was the mysteriously single head officer of the Sydney base; she was in her early thirties and was the woman who took Kat to her first day at school at C.A.N.D.I.E. She had long straight black hair and thick rimmed glasses.