As we arrived at the location of this mission, we all looked around first. Mr Lavez did not supervise us there anymore, so we knew that it was 100% real this time. We looked around, searching for a place to either wait for the target(s) or the target itself. Jessica didn't interact with us at all and seemed very uninterested. As the targets suddenly came dashing towards us, we all flinched but immediately started acting after that.
Jessica stood in a corner and watched us a little. I roundhouse kicked a few of them while Valentina and Daisy took them out together, one after another. Aaron fought them alone too. Simultaneously supporting the others. Luke and Jakob also took them out pretty quickly. Sophia and Jocelyn distracted or scared them so we could take them out quicker. Valerie had gone up onto a higher place and sniped them all away. Jessica seemed impressed and then started using her healing to support us. As one of the targets came running toward her, I put a shield around her and snapped his neck from behind. I waved at her and moved on to the next one. After we were done with all of them, we brushed off some dust and started talking real quick.
"Ash, your strategy was great!" Jocelyn said, and Valentina agreed. Jakob and Luke were play fighting in a corner, once again, with Daisy and Sophia cheering them on. Valerie was slowly on our way back to us from the roof. Jessica looked a little sad as she sat in the corner alone. When we returned, we all sat down in the common room, and I prepared some snacks for all of us. I sat them on the table. I was quite surprised as I saw Jessica approach me.
"Guys... I'm sorry for how I acted. Can I please be part of your amazing team?" she asked nervously, and every one of us was shocked.
"Why now?" I asked.
She scratched her neck and said. "Well, I saw how great you all work together as a team and how strong you are together, and I just want to be part of that..." I chuckled and looked at the others, they all nodded in confirmation, and I turned back to Jessica.
"Of course, if you get rid of your old habits, we can all be a team. Together." I said.
"Well, let's play a game again!" Jocelyn suggested, and we all agreed, even me. Although, I wasn't that thrilled and gritted my teeth.
"Who Would Rather?" Daisy asked, and we all agreed.
"Who would rather... jump off a cliff if there was no water beneath?" All the fingers pointed at me. „Guilty as charged," I said, raising my hands jokingly. They all laughed lightly.
"Who would rather... become a beauty YouTuber?" We all pointed at Daisy.
"Guys!" she whined and then giggled.
"Who would rather kiss the other gender?" We all smirked and pointed at Sophia. She squealed and turned bright red. We played the game for a long while before Jakob came up with an interesting question.
"Ashlyn, what was it like having a scientist as your father?"
"Uhm- pretty cool, actually. He taught me a lot of science stuff and he taught me all about the rankings and such. I helped him a lot with his studies and with the rankings because I could understand everything pretty quickly as a kid."
"Oh! Tell us about the rankings! What exactly happened at the mental test? It was so scary..." Jocelyn asked me.
"Well, it showed you one of your phobias in the beginning. It was there to weaken you so you would be more vulnerable to any mental damage. And to do the said damage, it showed you one of your most traumatic memories or a big regret of one of your parents. And while it shows you that memory, it makes you dizzy, so you would start to panic." I explained, and everyone's jaw dropped.
§It- it makes sense..." Daisy said and shook her head aggressively.
„Do they also go that Hard on Little Kids?" She asked.
"Well, this test is even worse for kids because they can't understand the normal traumas or have no very traumatic memories. So the machine makes up a memory that would hurt the child, so it gets damaged somehow."
"Wow..." Luke said, and Aaron just looked at me.
"That would be the only thing that made sense. That's why we both knew how to fight it off immediately." He said and snickered.
„Well, how exactly do you fight it off?" Jessica asked.
"Eliminate whatever would damage you mentally." Aaron and I answered simultaneously, but I continued the explanation alone.
"For example, you kill the spider if you're afraid of it. Or kill the person that is the main character of your most traumatic memory."
"oh," Jessica said. After that, I yawned and decided to go into the dorm room. Since everyone was still outside I decided to sing. It wasn't very comfortable to think about my mental problems again. And if I have a problem, I sing it away. After that had been done, I laid down on my bed and fell asleep shortly after.
Meanwhile, in the common room, the others started talking about me.
"Ashlyn is a little bit scary sometimes..." Sophia said. "And she changed so much since elementary..." Her face looked so sad and painful.
"Well... that may have been my fault..." Jessica said, catching everybody's attention. "In Middle school, there was this boy. His name was Jack. Ashlyn fell in love with him. But since I hated her, I told him, to fake liking her and then break her heart ruthlessly. Well... he went through with it, and on top of all the bullying, it was too much for her. After one of the longer holidays, she came back as a completely different person. The whole school was afraid of her, and Jack fell in love with her new self. But since she was afraid of love then, she rejected him coldly. I don't exactly know what happened in the holidays, but I don't think it was just the things at school that changed her. She also gained some muscles and became physically strong. I didn't know who she was anymore."
A tear rolled down Sophia's face. "She changed... so much... she went from sweet and helping to cold and ruthless... I want to know what happened to her... I could've helped her."
"No, don't blame yourself, Soph...!" Jocelyn said and hugged her.
The next day, Mr Lavez announced that they would have another mission. They were all pleasantly surprised because it wasn't usual for two missions to be right after another.
"But this mission will be a little different. Because it is a huge area, you will be split into pairs and fight as pairs of two. You will not choose your partners. We will throw every one of your names in a little bowl and pull the pairs out my random." We all nodded and wrote down our names on pieces of paper. We then handed them over to the teacher, and he started pulling the pairs. They went as following:
Jakob x Valerie
Jocelyn x Sophia x Jessica
Luke x Isabelle
Valentina x Daisy
Aaron x Ashlyn
"The two strongest out of our class are in one team!? You going to have to tell us how it went after, okay?" Jocelyn exclaimed.
"Sure," Aaron said, scratching his neck softly. He then turned to look at me. We both expected it to not go well, because we both had so many different possibilities and such different abilities. We then all each got assigned one part of the area. We all wished each other luck as we split up.
YOU ARE READING
Hillside Academy
Science FictionA 16-year-old girl named Ashlyn is starting her first day at Hillside Academy and she is really excited. But also really nervous - when she was younger, she was told to keep her ability secret and was called a demon. Her ability is a bit... particul...
