Guardians of the Watchtower: North

Chapter 7

Ivy was in first fighting position sucking air in sharply, Kate lifted her own sword to acknowledge the bow, as one in a fencing bout would do. Once more the whistle blew and Kate came at her, Ivy knew Kate's steps before she took them so when she came at her to strike her face Ivy moved like a perfectly tuned machine and the blade never came close enough to strike. The miss only fueled Kate's anger and made her fight even harder in her attempt to strike Ivy down in some way. Kate lunged forward trying to pull a finishing move but was clumsy and meet Ivy's elbow with her mouth, making her drop her sword. Ivy thinking fast flipped the foil up by the hilt with her own and pinned Kate in the doe in the headlights look, one sword behind her neck, the other wobbling ball resting, in the hollow of Kate's throat. Both girls were panting, half in anger and half in frustration at this clear tension that was now present. Honestly, if looks could kill, Ivy would be dead as a doornail laying on the floor.
"Good, good, again ladies!"
Ivy released Kate and handed her back her sword. Kate took it without a thought and came at Ivy before the instructor blew his whistle. Ivy defended herself, yet again, meeting every blow Kate made with one of her own. Ivy then did something even she did not expect, she stopped defending herself and went on the attack. Striking at Kate with harsh, deliberate blows, harder and harder until she knocked the sword from Kate's hand and had her at wobbling ball point yet again. The final whistle blew. Everyone around them started making their way to the locker rooms, to shower and change before the next period.
"Very good ladies, I like the way you work together. You both shall be paired up for the rest of the school year."
Ivy and Kate protested, but the look the instructor gave the two of them made it clear that it was pointless to try and talk him out of it. Both the girls walked to the locker room in silence. They placed their swords back on the rack with the others, before going through the double doors. Ivy went to her locker to grab her things, and she heard Kate murmur "freak", under her breath when she walked passed Ivy, to her own locker.
"What's your problem?"
"You are my problem!" Kate turned and was coming closer to Ivy pointing her finger as her tone began to escalate
"You don't even know me, how could I be your problem?"
"Just stay out of my way freak, this is my school and Sylar is off limits."
"I can talk to whoever I want "
"Not to Sylar, he's mine, and if you try to stand in the way, I will make sure you regret it."
"I'm not scared of you."
That was enough to push Kate over the edge, she balled up her fist and tried to swing, missing Ivy's face only by inches. Ivy pushed Kate backward and off balance, but Kate didn't fall, she charged at Ivy instead. Quickly sidestepping, Ivy shoved Kate sideways, slamming her head into open locker door. Kate held her head as a rose bud of blood bloomed in her hair, demonstrating that Ivy wasn't going to be bullied by the likes of Kate.
Kate came after her again but Ivy ducked from Kate's swinging fist, and caught Kate by the legs, causing her do a faceplant right on the other side of the lockers, painting her mouth and chin with her own blood. At this point, people had heard the commotion and started rushing in to see what was going on. The scene didn't look good, Ivy was untouched and just out of breath, while Kate was on the floor bleeding from the mouth and the side of her head. When Kate realized how bad the situation looked, she played it up, bursting into tears, begging Ivy to stop attacking her. Ivy looked stunned when the instructor grabbed her by the arm and began yelling at her to go to the provost's office.
"Bullying will not be tolerated in this school."
He started dragging Ivy away and when she looked back at Kate, she was smirking at her from over another girl's shoulder.
"I wasn't attacking her I was defending myself!"
"Yeah, that's why she has a busted lip and knot on her head and you don't have a scratch on you."
"She attacked me!!"
"TO THE PROVOST'S OFFICE NOW!"
"On your first day Miss. Fomalhaut.....fighting?, I expected more from you than attacking another girl?! Dean Morgenstern said, with disappointment in his voice.
"But she.."
"But nothing, this is inexcusable, you will be on probation for the next 3 months. Another incident like this will result in a more severe action."
"Yes sir," Ivy couldn't say much more, knowing that she was not the instigator, but the victim more than once already at the hands of this girl.
"Return to your classes and I hope I do not see you in my office again for some time!"
With that the provost turned to stare out his window, clearly, he was done scolding her. Ivy left and didn't look back. The map to find her next class, which was already half over, and a late pass from Mrs. Davis, in hand, she began to run to her Trigonometry class.
She made her way down the cleared hallways in silence, just the rhythmic tap of her shoes against the concrete, and up the stairs to the next floor. Ivy found her class, knocked gently on the door and waited for the instructor to let her in. The professor opened the door and spoke to Ivy. Tardiness was not permitted in his class. She would have to stay in the hall till class was done. He closed the door on her face. She could hear the giggles coming from the other side.
Sliding down the wall, she brought her knees to her chest and laid her forehead against them. Ivy began trying to process what she had seen. What had happened? The words from the Goddess continued to ring in her ears, "You will understand soon, my child." Ivy could feel something coming, something changing, very fast around her. She feared she was either on the brink of a complete mental meltdown from all the change that had already started happening with the move and all the stuff with her father or she was going crazy and needed to be locked up ASAP.
The ringing bell brought her back to this world, blinking as she was almost instantly surrounded by people. Ivy she stood up quickly and struggled her way into the classroom to grab the assignments and be off to her last class, Philosophy. Hoping this class would be better than her day had gone, she was almost relieved to see Sylar in the back row. He smiled at her, and she nearly smiled back, when her attention was quickly pulled away by a loud thud that came from the other side of the classroom. Kate had slammed her book down on the table. Ivy quickly walked up to the back row and sat down, and avoided looking in Kate's general direction again. The time in class passed sluggishly, it was like the hands of the clock were deliberately torturing her. She had no interest in Plato or any other long dead guy from a few hundred years ago. Ivy was just interested in escaping this hell. All the things that happened today would never have happened back in Denver. She was more homesick than ever before. What had she done to deserve this? With that thought, the final bell of the day rang out. it brought so much relief that Ivy was practically the first one out of the second door, cutting across the courtyard and almost sprinting for the door to the outside world.
The parking lot was littered with people and shiny cars. She urgently searched for her car. Spotting it at the end of the line of cars, she ran for it. Ivy darted passed kids and parents, as she ran as fast as her feet could carry her, trying to make it to the car before her tears broke free. The driver had barely gotten out of the car when she reached for the handle of her door and wrench it open. She dove into the seat and slammed the door behind her. Locking it just as the tears reached their breaking point. She was grateful the windows were tinted as dark as they were. She was never going to let them see her cry.
She hated this school, these people, this place... she was nothing like these snobs. They cared more about their next raging party rather than helping someone in need with a hot meal, more concerned with who had a Prada bag verse helping a new kid feel welcome when they felt alone in a new school. She was different. She just didn't know how different she was, just yet.The tears streamed down her face smearing her mascara like ink on slick paper, staining her face. Ivy grabbed her earbuds and shoved them into her ears. She turned the music on full blast. It was her escape, her freedom from this mortal coil.
The car began to pull away from the curb next to the building and Ivy couldn't have been happy, to see its dark silhouette slip away from her view. In fact, she wanted it to be the last she ever saw of it. Outside it was still extremely bright, the teardrops that still clung to her lace-like lashes began to dry. Ivy rolled down the window, the low hum of the mechanism in the door doing all the work for her. This place all by itself, minus all the snobby people, was beautiful. The rolling hills were now barren and desolate of the life that once filled them. The only life visible appeared to be the many trees that were scattered up and down the roadsides and in what looked like land dividers through the hills, making the land look like stitched up, quilted blankets. The car began to slow as they were nearing a covered bridge that looked as old as time itself, the roof was holey and had planks missing. As they began to cross, the boards whined and protested the weight of the car on its tired strength. Ivy smiled to herself thinking of a scary story that her dad used to tell her when she was little about a woman with an ax that would cut off your head if you looked back before you made it completely across the bridge. Giggling to herself, she had never looked back, but now she knew it was all a game to scare her, so she looked back over her right shoulder and there in the middle of the road stood three tall, cloaked, dark figures. She was unable to make out any of their features through the tinted window. Ivy's heart immediately skipped from her chest to her throat, as she watched them begin to run after the car. They weren't normal, any time the light hit them they disappeared, like living smoke only visible in the shadows and darkness. The car began picking up speed, pulling away from a cluster of trees into the brightness of the daylight. They stopped at the last patch of darkness and Ivy couldn't take her eyes off them, watching them watch her. The further they distanced themselves from the figures the safer she felt something was wrong with this situation, but the whys and whats were still completely elusive to her. Ivy didn't even know if what she saw was real or if anyone would even believe her if she tried to tell them.
Ivy continued looking out the back window even though the cloaked figures were long gone. Only when the car began to slow down again, did she look around to find they were in the gateway entrance to her home. Watching as the gates locked tight into place, she turned around and relax for the first time since leaving Lynn Prep. The only thing Ivy wanted to do was to go to her room. When the car stopped, she was out before the driver was and heading for the front door, which was opened, before she could get her hand on the knob by a bowing maid. Ivy just walked by, not even saying a word, and head straight through the opening door, to the stairs. Taking them two by two she picked up speed, to get to her room faster, ignoring the many maids trying to ask her if there was anything she needed or trying to take her bag from her. Ivy was quickly inside the hallway of framed innocence and through her glittering ivy door to her sitting room. Slamming the door shut she locked it, leaning against it, she slid to the floor. Ivy gripped her bag like it was a flotation device keeping her alive in the middle of the vast ocean. Her world was changing so much she didn't know who to talk, her mother was practically a stranger now. Who could she talk to that would believe she saw anything she said she had seen.
Ivy quickly picked up her things and got to her feet. She went into her room and locked the balcony doors as she passed them, and her bedroom doors as she closed them behind her. Tossing her things on her bed, she went to the bathroom and began running herself a bath, leaving the bathroom only to turn her music on full blast and put her necklace on her vanity table. Kicking her shoes off on her way back to the bathroom she pulled her hair down, just letting it fall as it will, Ivy knew she didn't care at the moment, all she wanted was to be left alone. She was losing a part of herself and it seemed like no one cared that it was leaving. Ivy needed a friend, but after today she knew that she wasn't going to have any friends if Kate had anything to do with it. Slipping out of her school clothes and into the hot tub made the world become less fuzzy, less crazy. Ivy slid herself completely below the surface of the water. She wondered if there was any way she could stay in that place forever. Maybe it would be better? Watching the world above her ripple through her semi-blurred vision, while holding her breath, she studied the way her silk like hair floated through the water on the little bubbles she let escape. It's too bad it couldn't stay this way, Nothing stays, everything must change, no matter how much you wished and prayed that it wouldn't, it always does.