Zodiac Academy

26. R.S.

  "I thought you were completely against fighting?" Jaxson asked, lifting an eyebrow.

  Char shrugged. "A pretty face asks you to join some random cause that you have no opinion on; would you reject them?" He winked at me.

  My eyes widened and my heartbeat betrayed me by jumping. I dismissed him with a roll of my eyes. "All I did was ask. And he said okay."

  "Okay?" Jaxson repeated. He looked at Char with a blank look, not exactly expressing happiness that his friend was going to follow him to their possible deaths.

  I nodded. "He said okay."

  "I did. Is there a plan or am I just going to go into this blind?" Char asked.

  Jaxson ignored him and stared at me. "So does this mean you are really going to be siding with us? Not gonna lie, I thought you would take it back."

  I crossed my arms. "Yes, okay? I really am going to fight against the system. As I said before, I don't agree that it should be completely obliterated, but it should be fixed."

  "Are you sure it's not just because of your mom?" Jaxson raised his eyebrow.

  I grabbed the nearest object and threw it at him. Char caught it halfway and showed me the book. "Don't throw my shit. Especially not my books," he threatened.

  "It is not because of my mother and she isn't my mother, dang it!"

  He raised his hands, leaning against one of Char's many bookshelves. "Alright, alright." He turned to the owner of the dorm room we were in. "Yes, there is a plan. The R.S. are setting up defenses outside. And once they have those up and all of their backup shows up, they should be storming the academy at any time."

  "R.S.?" I asked. "And what backup? Why do you never tell me anything?"

  "Until just now, I wasn't sure you were going to be fully engaged," Jaxson huffed.

  "What! And yet you'll say everything when Char asks just once?"

  He nodded his head, gesturing at the black-haired man. "Yes. I trust Char one hundred percent. You, maybe ninety-six point five percent. You avoided Adeline, the leader, the entire time you were there."

  "Because she was claiming to be my mother!" I countered.

  Char stepped between the two of us. "You're both pretty. Now can we please get back to the correct subject?"

  "R.S. is the name they gave themselves. It stands for Rogue Signs. Personally, I believe they could have come up with something more original and flashy but Adeline shot me down and said that was not the point.

  "Adeline had been setting up Magic and regular defenses for a while now. She should have all of those set up and ready. She's bound to just be waiting for the backup to arrive. Which is just a whole bunch of people from other cities with the Zodiac System in effect who agree with her cause.

  "I know you don't like Adeline, Aquarius, but you're going to have to suck it up and deal with it. She is the boss lady and you can't just rebel against her rebellious rules because you don't accept the fact that she is your biological mother," Jaxson replied.

  I tried to wipe away the shock off of my face but it was almost impossible. Now that was the most he had ever spoken. I guarantee it.

  What he said was true, however. I had to set aside the fact that I just had mommy issues and put on my big girl jeans. If I was going to try to help them better the System -while convincing them to not destroy it completely- then I had to work with them. Not whole-heartedly, but surely somewhere near that.

  How did we know for certain that these other people from different cities weren't laced with spies that just wanted to out their -our- cause? They could just be waiting to see what Adeline had set up to go down and tell the Zodiacs from their own cities what was going to happen. How would she be able to tell who was against her plans and who wasn't?

  I voiced these thoughts and Jaxson shrugged. It was amazing how concerned he was for this fight he was charging into. "I'm sure she thought that through. She would be stupid not to have."

  "How many cities have the Zodiac System?" Char asked.

  My business classes finally paying off outside of the classroom, I answered smoothly. "There are currently sixty cities altogether. Fifty-three of them have completely succumbed to the Zodiac System's principles and way of teaching and way of living out life. The last seven cities have been pushing back as hard as they can as to not have to adopt the Zodiac System. We live in City 23, the twenty-third city to adopt the Zodiac System on this continent."

  Jaxson laughed. "So you actually do pay attention to your professors."

  I rolled my eyes. "What led you to believe I didn't?"

  "In Air Manipulation you would always stare at your pencil as you made it spin slowly in an even circle," he replied nonchalantly.

  "Were you watching me?"

  "Explains why his grades are so awful," Char snorted.

  Jaxson smacked him with a wall of Air, making him cough. "Not the reason, bro," Jaxson said, highly unamused.

  What a bunch of dorks. "So what do we do in the meantime? Twiddle our thumbs?"

  Jaxson nodded. "Exactly."

  "We wait," Char said. He sighed, rolling his shoulders. "I hate waiting."

^~^
Some needed information about how many places use the System. Even though it wasn't very much information....