Chapter Text
Katie Holt, her friends call her Pidge or they would if she had any, looked outside the car’s window as her father drove them away leaving their hometown behind. Her father, Samuel Holt, was humming happily along some old jazz song playing in the radio while her mom talked to her brother.
Following them was the truck carrying their belongings, looking at it through the rear mirrors was one of the few distractions she had during the trip, and the sun was still high in the sky, so she was not only bored, but also still half asleep and currently trying to turn that into fully asleep, but no matter how hard she tried the constant talk around her kept her awake.
Not being able to sleep and refusing to be part of whatever chat was going on at her side, Katie let her mind wander to the events of the last few days, first her father finished the prototype for a new engine he had been working on, she and her brother decided to test it by strapping it to his bike, of course recording the whole thing, specially the moment when her brother lost control of the bike and it’s now too powerful to control engine and ended up making a whole in the fence, of course the video had been too funny to not post in the internet.
Two days later her father got a call and Altea industries offered him a job, which he of course accepted, the day after he was signing the contract and was told that he would need to move to Arus City for this new job, the next few days the company even helped them find a new house in the city. One day later Katie and her brother were, to the delight of her parents, officially transferred to Altea high, and this morning they packed everything they owned in a truck and left their old town (at arse A.M. she would add).
“Katie, Katie” when she was finally drifting into her dreams she heard her mother’s voice which she decided to ignore and keep her eyes closed until she felt a hand on her ear “Earth to pidge!! Are you alive?!” her brother shouted in her ear. She pushed him away and started rubbing her ear trying to stop the ringing her brother had so kindly gave her.
“No, I’m dead! Now let me sleep”
“Honey, you will screw your sleep schedule if you sleep now, you know it” her mother said from the sit in front of her
“We were talking about your new school, don’t you want to know more about it before going back to sleep?” her father said far too cheerful for the early morning even if he also had bags from lack of sleep under his eyes.
“uhg ok ok” she said as she sat straight in her sit “what was that about the new school?”
“For a start it has an indoor pool, so we may get to swim without fear of burns” Her brother Matt said with a wide smile “been years since we did”
“If only you had any muscle to show off at the pool” she gave Matt a smile before sticking out her tongue.
“The school also makes regular field trips to the facilities both Altea industries and Marmora Innovative, so you may get to see the lab where your father works at” Colleen added.
“I still can’t believe they didn’t get you a job too mom” Katie crossed her arms as she spoke.
“it’s fine, the positions at their labs are filled and my investigation is not really in line with their products, there is no much reason to hire me” her mother explained, eyes focused on the road or well the sky over the road ahead “do you think it will be raining there?”
“We have umbrellas and rain coats, and the house has an automatic garage, we’ll be fine” Samuel quickly reassured her
“Yeah mom, it will be fine, it’s not like some rain will kill us” Matt joked.
The rest of the trip continued in the same manner, they talked, Katie fell asleep and after hours of travel and the back pain that 8 hours of travel in a car will cause you, the car finally stopped. And with the words “And here we are!” coming from her father Katie finally woke up for real.
“Finally!!!” the siblings cheered jumping off the car, or in crawling through the window in Matt’s case “we should have mailed our stuff and taken a flight” she said stretching and feeling the bones of her back pop.
“This way is cheaper” her mother interjected
“Dad now makes enough to buy a new house, I’m sure we can afford it”
“Technically I only make enough to start paying our new house” Sam corrected “and talking about that, what do you think?” he said pointing past her, following his finger Katie’s eyes landed on a wide 2 story building with a modest front and back yard, the entrance had 2 bed of flowers flanking it’s sides, pale green walls and wooden windows completed the place, a nice house, that despise being bigger than her old home, seemed to try to blend with the nature and plants from the yards.
“Loos great” Matt answered before she could
“And wait till you see the rooms, they are way better than the coffins we had back at Kerberos” Samuel stated opening the door and promptly getting out of the way, while Colleen rolled her eyes anticipating what was coming.
Matt gave her a smirk and bolted inside “First comes first served!” he shouted already pass the door “Cheater!!” Katie ran behind him, she was not going to let him take the best room, whichever room that was, while Colleen sighed shaking her head.
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After a small race and a fight with her brother, fight she won by climbing on his back and pulling his hair, driving him out of the room like a certain rat chef from the movies, Katie had claimed what she had deemed the best room in the house’s second floor, one of the corner rooms with great view of the back yard and positioned in such a way that the sun would only hit it directly during the morning, time where, much to her dismay, she would have been long gone to school.
Now she only needed to make herself at home in the room and the first step was to get the curtains set up over the windows, of course this were not normal curtains but the same thick and heavy curtains used in theatres, they also could be buttoned so there would be no chance of them spreading, why take all this measures? Well, being woken up by the sun hitting her face was a very, very uncomfortable! Experience she refused to go through, in reality she just wanted to avoid the sun as much as possible unless she was wearing her special sunscreen.
Once she was done making her room as sun proof as she could, at least until she could get some blackout film for the windows, Katie focused on unpacking the rest of her stuff, opening the boxes her father so kindly had brought up to her room while she set up the curtains, she looked at their contents: some portraits of their family painted with oil, her cloths (mostly comfy hoodies some shorts and a few skirts) some posters but most importantly all the parts of her computer which she built by herself, with some help from her dad, soon enough she started setting everything up.
Getting her room ready took the better part of the day and the sun had already set by the time she finished setting up her computer and she was feeling way more refreshed and energized with the night coming, once she was done her mother called them all for dinner.
Once she went down to the kitchen she found her family eating pizza and laughing “Pidge come get some Pizza before it gets cold” Matt said once he noticed her, she sat down at the table and looked at the pizza it was split in half one side being peperoni and the other being covered in pineapple. She of course grabbed a slice of pineapple pizza.
“How can you eat that monstrosity?” Matt made a horrified face as he looked at her
“What? It tashtes good” she answered with her mouth stuffed as her father grabbed a slice of the same kind “shee dad agrees”
“Monsters both of you” her mom deadpanned drinking her soda “how can you destroy a perfectly good pizza like that”
“Let’s not re-start the pizza wars, our marriage was close to never recovering after the last battle” he smiled before turning to the siblings “and talking about monsters are you two creatures of the night ready for tomorrow?”
“Hell yeah! First day of school, first chance to sweep everyone off their feet, gotta work my charm” Matt responded, flicking his hair trying to look like some sort of model
“Matt don’t get suspended on the first day because of harassment, I don’t need to be labelled the weirdo’s sister”
“Just remember classes start at 8 A.M. so don’t stay up late” Colleen reminded them.
“UHHGGG why is it so early?! No sane person would be awake that early!” she yelled earning a laugh from her family.
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Keith and Krolia Kogane’s day started early, as they would wake up at 5 A.M some times 4 A.M. and were usually ready around 6 A.M. one would say they raised with the sun, but it would be more accurate that they would go out with the sun, this meant that Marmora innovative’s security chief and CEO’s bodyguard Antok Gilman’s day starts even earlier as he was supposed to be waiting for them with the limousine as soon as they left their home, this meant waking up every day at 4 A.M. which in all honesty was absolutely dreadful but on the bright side, his husband Ulaz had to wake up just as early since he worked as lady Krolia’s personal assistant (or backup CEO as Krolia would call him when she didn’t feel like filling paperwork).
As lovely as it may be to walk to work together and be able to spend most of their time with each other, it was nothing they could enjoy greatly when both of them ran on 3 hours of sleep and enough coffee to drown an elephant some days, today was one of those days. Last night they both had to review job applications to the company, review some of last year reports and meetings.
They were already outside of the mansion waiting in front of the limousine for their employer and her son and their bodies wanted to sleep more if the moment when both of them opened their mouths in a yawn that would rival a hippopotamus’s.
“I hate Mondays” Antok finally said looking at the gate
“Why? You don’t get to rest any day of the week, shouldn’t you hate all days equally?” his husband retorted.
“You are more tired Mondays and that means no one will keep me awake, so they deserve extra hate” he explained earning a chuckle from Ulaz.
“You do know this is mostly just protocol, you could meet them in a couple of hours at the office if you are tired, and they don’t really need a bodyguard”
“Same could be said about you being here” he responded before fixating his gaze on the door to the mansion “they are here” it was easy to know when the Koganes were approaching, no matter the season or weather, the area around the was always warmer than usual and the warmth would increase the closer they got.
Soon enough the door opened revealing a young man and a mature woman, both sporting well fitted suits though they were of different colours, Keith Kogane a young man of slim but fit complexion, short for his age, of fair skin and dark hair shaped in a mullet, of sharp features and dark eyes that in the right light would reveal themselves to be in reality a dark purple with an unnatural golden tint around them, his suit white and with a red V on his left breast, the uniform used by the staff at Altea high, or well in his case the uniform the students that volunteered to help with the activities of the first day of classes were required to wear.
At his side Krolia Kogane walked in a black suit with purple accents on the sides and the end of the sleeves, the tall woman’s height contrasted with her son’s, her dark hair tied in a ponytail that reached the middle of her shoulder plates, her skin pale like her son’s, her face adorned by two purple lines on her cheeks that complemented her sharp features, unlike her son her eyes were more obviously purple and the bright golden tint around them was easier to notice.
“As punctual as always, I see” Krolia was the first to greet them with a smile, far too chirpy and energetic for the hour “hope you had a good weekend”.
“Good morning you two, you don’t look like you had a lot of rest” Keith continued as he and his mother scowled at them.
“Its fine Madam, we drank enough coffee to keep us up” Ulaz assure them opening the door of the limousine “now should we get going?”
They nodded and made their way inside greeting the driver “good day Alex, could you please avoid the sixth avenue entirely? Not a good road today”
“As you wish madam” the driver answered with a smile as they hit the road.
Ulaz and Antok sat in front of the Koganes as they started to review their schedules for the day, a honestly incredibly boring process that was chipping away at the energy the coffee had given to Antok as he even started to feel his eyes get heavier, event he would never admit nor accept in normal circumstances but this was not a normal circumstance. No matter how hot it got near the Koganes it was never uncomfortable, on the contrary it was as comfortable as sitting bellow a tree shade taking the spring breeze which was horrible if you were trying to stay awake in their presence.
“You two should try to sleep at least you could get some rest until we reach Thaldycon” Krolia said looking at them
“oh there is no need mad-“ Antok was not able to finish his words before he caught a small flash in Krolia’s eyes and by Ulaz’s reaction sitting straight and looking at both Krolia and Keith, he had caught another one in the young man’s eye
“Ulaz please cancel the meeting at 3 p.m. with Hira Hayes and tell her to not worry taking care of her daughter is priority” the woman ordered.
“And please make sure a car is waiting for Mr Martin between seventh and Pine Street his car is not going to be working greatly today” Keith added.
Yeah this was the real reason why both of them were trying to stay awake and were ready to work this early, it was vital to the smooth running of the company that this usually spontaneous and strange changes and orders to be completed as soon as possible. Their trip continued this way for about 20 minutes until they finally got to their first stop, Altea high.
Even when there were still almost 2 hours till the time the school would open its doors to the students the building was a bustling with people running around perfecting the final details for today. As soon as the limousine stopped in front of the main entrance a girl with dark skin and silver hair ran towards them, wearing a uniform similar to the one Keith was using, the biggest chance was a long skirt that replaced the pants and the V on her left breast, that was coloured pink instead of red.
“Keith! Thank the ancestors you are here, I need your help connecting my interface with the new network!” she addressed the younger Kogane as soon as he got out of the car.
“Have a nice day!” Krolia waved goodbye to her son as the car drove off, knowingly leaving her son with the girl who would surely work him to the bone until the other students came. This would be a very interesting first day.
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The first day of school was important for Allura, well it was important for Altea high and therefore it was important for Allura, the families of many of the students worked for their company as such it was their duty to in return give their children the best education possible, and she would NOT allow the students first impression of the school to be anything less than stellar, and the first step was to get her damn terminal to work!
Her terminal, a small tablet, was supposed to connect with the school’s servers specifically those that had the data about their students as well as some minor other admin permits for stuff like scheduling the use of certain facilities by the students after class, this would allow her to access some of the most…… sensitive information about some of them, this may be a bit of an abuse of power but it was necessary to be able to fulfil the most unique needs of their students.
But this data network wasn’t developed by Altea industries, no it was developed by their allied company Marmora innovative, and this fact was evident in the amount of security the entire system had, Marmora did not mess around when it came to gathering or protecting information and as such when someone tried to connect with their most secure networks just like the one they had kindly donated to the school, it did not allow any mistakes, much less something as basic as when entering the code confusing the letter “o” with the number “0” like Allura had done when she was distracted organizing the other volunteers, and now she was locked out of the system until she “contacted the administrator”.
She could ask Coran for help, he had the admin permits to get her into the system again but he was busy at the moment rehearsing his speech for the new students and she didn’t want to interrupt, she had to admit she was more than happy with the security of the system, she had been trying to get through for the last 15 minutes and she had been blocked every time. Allura was about to give up when she saw a car approach, a limousine she knew very well and she thanked the ancestors for this gift as she ran towards it
“Keith! Thank the ancestors you are here” she greeted him with a hug before saying “I need your help connecting my interface with the new network!” after he returned the hug, Allura then explained the whole situation.
“Ok I think I can give you access, give me a minute” Keith said pulling a tablet from his bag as they walked “I told mom we should allow 2 tries but according to Kolivan it could lead to a ‘security breach’ ” he complained while typing something in his tablet, a few minutes later her own tablet beeped and she could finally connect to the network.
“Marvellous! Now we just need to check that everything is ready and wait” Allura commented reading the information in her tablet “well we will have a few interesting students this year, good thing we resupplied the materials for our special menus at the cafeteria”
“Yeah we will have a bit of everything this year, we better keep our guards up in case someone thinks of starting trouble” he mentioned looking over her shoulder at the files.
“I’ll trust on your eyes to spot them before they do” Allura smiled at him “I’m sure we can keep things running smoothly” she finished patting one of his cheeks “you may even make friends this year” she smirked
“I have friends”
“Kosmo doesn’t count” she laughed as she said.
“What? you don’t count anymore?” Keith said raising an eyebrow.
She giggled “I’m your friend but I shouldn’t be your only friend”
“Not like I need more” He shrugged “I’m more than ok with you and Kosmo”
“Just promise me you will try ok?” she pleaded until Keith let his head down in defeat.
“One week, if I hate everyone after that I’m back to just spending time with you and Kosmo” he said holding one finger up.
“That’s all I ask for” she smiled and stood up “well now, we should go check everything is in order for the student’s arrival”
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Lance was not having a good morning, his sister stole his mascara, he had to wake up super early to catch the bus to school, it was Veronica’s turn to make breakfast and Lance had forgotten how horrible her cooking was so breakfast mostly tasted like pain, how do you manage to replicate pain in food form? He didn’t know but his sister had managed to do it. The deadly food was eaten and promptly expulsed from his body as soon as he left the apartment, even if the process had left a horrible taste in his mouth, and taken some time, time that he now wanted back as he saw the school bus driving away into the distance.
Now Lance had to run all the way to school on an empty stomach, thank the ancestor he at least had mints to erase the smell from his mouth but that didn’t help him with his other problems, so first he had to sprint his way to school, he had gone to visit the place the day he moved with his sister, so he knew the path he had to take in order to get there. Putting his hands on the ground and getting in a good starting position for his sprint, kicking the ground he was on his way.
He ran through the streets of the city, turning around corners and alleyways, he was making an excellent time or he thought he was, he might even make it on time if only he pushed it a bit more, he just had to cut through the small park just ahead of him, and he could have been right had a small girl with brown hair and pale skin not come running from around the corner, now had this been some romantic comedy book or show, they would have crashed, tumble a bit and fallen into the ground in a compromising situation where their eyes would meet and their love story would begin.
This did not happen, honestly he would have taken your normal crash and fall to the ground on your ass, but that didn’t happen neither, no, they crashed in front of the park, her size made her more like a bump to him so he was promptly sent flying, making a front flip over the girl that fell on her ass, sadly Lance was no acrobat so he did not stick the land, nope, he didn’t even land on his ass, his entire back hit the ground and his momentum made him roll until he was sitting on his rear.
“Watch were you are going you mutt!”
The words snapped Lance off the daze the fall had put him in, mutt? Did she just called him mutt? He paid attention to his nose, the smell coming from the girl, blood, the special kind of bloody smell that accompanied only one kind of creature.
“Oh what is a blood sucker doing here?!” he said looking at the girl who was scowling at him, the girl move forward and put a hand on his mouth causing him to panic.
“Can you be less obvious?! Remember the masquerade” she whispered and Lance calmed down enough for her to free his mouth.
“You started it” Lance retorted annoyed.
“I was far less obvious” she said picking up a bag he supposed she dropped when they crashed “now if you excuse me, I need to get to class” she started walking through the park.
“No way” he said standing and following her “h-hey aside from Altea is there another high school this way?”
“Not as far as I’m aware, wait” she turned looking at him “don’t tell me that you attend Altea”
“Oh ancestors” they both let their heads hang, how much worst could the day get? Lance thought looking down, catching a glance of the girl’s watch, which said they had 3 minutes to get there
“We are late!!!” he said running ahead of the girl, who caught up surprisingly fast.
They ran like their lives depended on it, and in a way his did, Veronica would end him if he was late for his first day of school. The building soon came into view and in front of the gate a group of what he assumed were students was standing. Both of them made their way to the front of the group. He was now standing next to that bloodsucker girl and what he could only define as a human mountain dressed in yellow and mumbling, deciding to catch his breath instead of talking to the ball of nerves at his side, he looked ahead of them. In front of him there were standing a group of young people in uniform, they seemed to have his age, amongst the uniformed men and women two of them stood ahead of the group.
In few words they were probably the most beautiful people he had ever seen, the girl had a lustrous silver hair that reached her waist, chocolate skin, prominent cheekbones that made her smile stand out, her cheeks adorned with pink makeup that looked like small V under her eyes. The boy wasn’t bad at all, on the contrary Lance had as much of a hard time keeping his eye off him as he did from the girl. He had white skin and dark raven hair styled in a mullet, his bangs working as a frame for the two dark eyes that he swore were purple.
“Greetings, my name is Allura Altea, the current student council president” the girl said stepping forward “and this is Keith Kogane my vice president” she introduced the boy at her side and explained that the people behind her were volunteers that would be giving them a tour around the school grounds before the entrance ceremony at the auditorium where the teachers and the head master would formally greet them.
The boy named Keith along with other volunteers helped the students form groups and set them off with one of the guides, he went from person to person putting them in a group until he finally reached Lance and his group.
“Lance Serrano, Katie Holt, Henare Garret” he said looking at them, his eyes glowing slightly under the sun, and then to the guides who were rapidly leaving with other groups “I guess you all will be with us” he called Allura over and exchanged a couple of words
“Yes I’m sure we can give them a tour” Allura smiled “welcome to Altea high, I’m sure you will find it very interesting here this year”