Winged - Currently Under Heavy Editing

Wings with Power

"Adelphi."

"Adelphi, come on. Were you even listening?" Brennan prodded me with his fork. I was listening, barely, something to do with the scouts...and us.

"This is important Adelphi, the least you can do is feign interest." The blonde boy with glasses chided.

"Then why is it coming out of your mouth, nitwit." I joked as I punched his arm.

"Enough you two. You look like fifth graders fighting over a toy." Nadia rolled her eyes. She was the serious one in the group, most likely because she spent the longest at Hope Academy.

Nadia and Brennan were my best friends, both had classic white wings, something I was jealous of. Nadia had brunette hair as well. "Brennan's right, though. The semester's almost over more will be brought in for safety. It's going to be up to the older kids to reassure them they're safe and to teach them the Academy policies."

"That's us now!?"

"No. Responsibilities! My only weakness." Brennan feigned collapsing on the table, as he dramatically clutched his hand over his chest.

"Thank God, he finally bit the dust." I teased, reaching for his bag and sifting through it. "I get first dibs on his belongi-"

"No. No. I'm alive and well. Perfectly fine. I'll take that, thank you."

"If anyone asks, I don't know you two."

"Sure Nadia. But we all know you secretly love us." I put forward as I held up a heart made with my hands.

"Yea sure. Come on twits, we're wanted up in the office." She jested, picking up her school bag. "Let's go."

Brennan and I relented, sighing as we rose from our table and followed her. I looked back on when I was welcomed to the school, can't say it was the best year of my life, but it was a strange year. The class that was mentoring me and a few others were friendly enough, there was just something wrong with the subject matter. Of course, I wouldn't remember this until now, looking back on it. Now I was to be the fated instructor receiving strange looks.

"Hey, what's that?" Brennan questioned, as he effectively stopped the group.

"Yeah, that looks like a winged," I commented.

"What the hell is she doing?" Nadia trailed off, walking towards the scene.

"Nadia! Wha- what are you doing?" I stammered, but she kept running and so we followed.

The scene we witnessed shocked us, to say the least. I knew winged lived in the forest outside the borders of the school, but I have never -

The young lady was in a full on brawl with several scouts now. I was frozen in place, as were Nadia and Brennan. The raven-haired winged showed no sign of letting up the punches, kicks, and general beat-down she was giving them. Even more interesting, her wings were different colors, something none of us had seen before.

"We should help!" Brennan spoke.

"Help who?"

"The scouts who else! She's crazy!"

All three of us were about to rush in and aid stopping midway when the woman suddenly did something my friends and I had never seen before as her yin-yang wings pushed back,

and she was in the air.

She spat out insults and retorts at the scouts, who now looked to each other dumbfounded.

"Hahnu"

The scouts dropped to the ground and the mysterious woman returned from the air. Nadia quickly ran to the scouts and checked for a pulse on each one.

"Relax, they are only asleep. I'm not granted that kind of power." She stated. "Name's Rii, by the way."

"Okay, first of all, what the hell was that!" Nadia rose, directing her anger towards the stranger. "These people protect us! What were you thinking?"

"Protect? PROTECT! These people hunt us and bring us here. I was here for recon with another when they tried to grab us. Does that sound like protecting to you!" Rii spat back.

"You still didn't answer my question."

"I'll answer your question but first I have a question for you. Why are you attacking one of your own kind?"

"You and I are not the same, no way. You - you - did - you did something that incapacitated all of these scouts! You flew! We can't fly -"

"Because you have forgotten, have not grown, have not received that power."

"Nadia please, we need to be going now." I pushed, I wasn't looking for a confrontation, especially with someone I didn't know much about. Nadia looked at me, then gave Rii a look of disgust - who in turn brushed it off - before turning and rejoined us.

"Let's go before we are put to sleep." I prodded as I forced my feet to move away from the scene. "Besides, we have the seminar we need to give," I muttered under my breath.

"Hey! This 'heaven' you live in....it's all a lie! You don't know freedom so long as you live here!" Rii spit at us. I saw, out of the corner of my eye, Brennan flinch at the insult. Other than that, we managed to walk away without further incident.

The trio of us entered the office of admissions in eerie silence, now unsure of what our new 'job' entailed. Rii's words had embedded themselves in our minds. What if they were true? The academy had told all of us the backstory to each and every one of our arrivals. Each tale held the image of a younger version of ourselves, starved for help and rescued by the scouts that happened alongside us. This place had cared for us for years, how could we suddenly lose faith in our only safe home.

It was a ridiculous thought really, one winged against the society that kept the rest of us safe. That one girl really had lost her mind.

So we continued on and listened to the debrief as well as the names of the newest protegees, the ones we would be teaching.

Yet even through all of that, Rii had never left any of our minds.