Catching Eyes

[Korona Knight]

Prologue

It's been years since I've told this story. Why? Well, it just has. Not many people talk to me, mostly because I'm not around many people. I am who I am, don't go changin', 'aight? Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, the story. See, I'm what is known as 'The Guardian'. Well, okay, so nowadays I'm known as Kora, or Laori, or Kianna...you'll find many of these things out later. But it's usually safe to call me 'The Guardian'. Though, in fact, there are two of us now. You know what? I'm just going to go ahead and get started. I'm sure this is boring you to the highest degree, me blabbing on about confusing things. You're mortal brains are useless when it comes to keeping track with my, er, 'our' brains.

Oh, you aren't mortal? Well then, I just wanted to warn you. That's why you're reading this then, isn't it? You're reading this because you've entered Hawthorn Academy of Natural Skills and Talents, or Hawthorn High for short, correct? Ah, you have no idea what's in store for you. All I'm saying is keep your head up, keep a sharp eye out, and never, ever, be alone with the school director, you hear?

Now, let me begin.

[Korona Knight]

I'd like to take this time to say welcome to my story! This is something I'm doing on the side, just getting a dream I've been having out of my head. Anyway, please feel free to critique, and I'll try and post chapters as often as I possibly can. I'll try and clean up things as I go along as well, as this is a rough draft if it's good enough, well...we'll see x)

Anyway, good luck reading this, and feel free to give me helpful hints or just read on!

[.:Emma:.]

Ooooooo.....never be alone with the director.......I love it! Please keep writing!

[Korona Knight]

Chapter 1

I raised my hand slightly above my head, my oh-so-not-caring expression plastered on my face. This was the single most boring class I'd ever been in. Mortal History.

Not only do I absolutely loathe regular history, mortal history is just about the worst. It's just...disgusting! Mindless human beings killing each other over problems that could be solved easily through talk and words, rather than with fists and death. Human population. Bleh.

And to think I had to protect them.

"Yes, miss Laori?"

I quickly checked the color of my hair. Of course, there was no one in room, or even in this school, named Laori, but you never know. Yep, I was a redhead, with a few blond and dark brown highlights floating around. Even some green ones, bright dazzling green ones, around my face, matching my intense green gaze.

"May I be excused?"

Mr. Berkley looked at me like I must be joking. Or dying.

"On what grounds?"

"This class is boring and a complete waste of my time."

The room went deathly quiet.

It wasn't like my outbursts were few. Especially when I was in this form. I was a hotheaded, crazed teenage girl. How fitting. Besides, when you knew everything that went on in the past, everything that was going on right now, and everything that was going to happen in the future, you'd be as bored as I was too.

"Miss Laori!"

"Mr. Berkley!" I mimicked, watching his face grow tomato red. Score 97 for me. "All I'm saying is I just don't find the purpose of this. None of us are even close to being mortal, let alone me. And I believe I can be excused, seeing as I know all of the information you're teaching us, and on the fact that Mr. Dyke needs to see me."

As if on cue, the intercom crackled to life, and the scratchy voice of our reptilian secretary called me down to the office. A loud beep, and the voices of the office died out.

Without another word, I stood up, stretched, and reached behind my back.

This was my favorite part.

My the nails on my fingers sharpened until they were claws, almost talons. They ran down my back, creating two parallel vertical lines down my back, about a foot and a half in length.

Returning my arms to my sides, I then gave another stretch, and my wings unfolded from their space underneath the skin of my back and pushed through the fabric in my shirt, extending out to their full length of 17 feet. Not bad. These were the wings of a red hawk, made to soar. They were a rustic red in color, so dark near the top they looked almost brown in color, then lightening towards the feathers, and dappled with white.

I walked out into the hallway, gave a small jump, and flew out of one of the skylights. I hovered for a second until my senses got their bearing - only taking around half a millisecond or so - before swooping into one of the open office windows.

"Pardon me, excuse me, coming through!" I yelled as I hopped from one desk to the next, half flying, half falling, as I managed to get to the main office door. I was normally more graceful than this, but then again, 'Laori' wasn't exactly the most graceful flyer. 'Sophie' was, with her magestic white swan wings. She just was graceful.

Ms. Greg looked up from her desk, forked tongue flicking out to confirm it was me. I did mention she was reptilian, correct?

I would take this time to explain exactly what the Hawthorn Academy of Natural Talents and Skills was, but I don't have time at the moment. Let's just say that no one here is normal, or, for lack of better words, 'mortal'. For example, Ms. Greg was half snake, half human. See what I mean?

"Mr. Dyke is waiting."

I nodded, then opened the large oak doors to find the demon of a man sitting before me. I closed the door before changing.

My hair turned an onyx black in color. Instead of being straight all the way down to my lower back, my hair turned into messy and, if I do say so myself, beautiful waves and curls and shortened a bit so it was only a few inches past the bottom of my shoulder blades. My skin lightened in color, and my eyes turned an even deeper shade of black than my hair, if that was even possible. Black flames began to lick at the edges of my hair as senseless rage took over me. My wings got slightly bigger, and were the same color as my hair and eyes. My nails, which were still talons, dug into his desk as I tried to fight back the anger, the repulsion. Once I was under control, the black flames left my hair, and I was able to breath normally, though my death stare still remained.

"I believe I asked for Laori, not Kora," Mr. Dyke chuckled, his red lips peeling back to reveal pearly whites set on black gums. All his teeth were white and sharpened to perfection, as if he wanted to take a bite out of you. Which he probably did. His skin was a fiery red, making him look inflamed. He had two black curly horns on the top of his head, with no hair to be seen anywhere. His ears were near his horns and flared out slightly, like you might see on a dragon or demon. His eyes were a bright and lively red, as if molten lava were sloshing around in his head. His fingernails, which were more like claws, were black, and overall, he was a very heavy set man. Which is the nice way of calling him obese. He looked like some kind of demon. And that's exactly what he was.

My irises expanded until they nearly took up my entire eye. "Well you got Kora. How dare you put me in the Mutt class!" I snarled.

Here at Hawthorn, Every species had it's own class. Of course, for academics and such, everyone had the same mortal teachers, who wore infinity stones, and would combine only then. But they then seperated for Gym class, and then the specialty classes. Witches had Witchcraft, Elves had Magic, Half beings had other classes...Do you see how it works? Well, anyway, I'd been put in with the Mutts. The Mutts! Those were the beings with more than one specie in them. Not like Half beings, where they were half human, half something else. No, these were part elf, part dryad, part demon...you name it, they probably have it. They're practically useless. The only thing worse than being stuck with the Mutts is being stuck with the Unknowns.

"Kora, dear, you know I don't set up your classes." We both very well knew he did. "And anyway, I didn't call you up here to argue with you."

He motioned towards a chair, so I sat on the arm of it. I knew how much he hated me doing this, and by the look he was giving me, I was skating on thin ice. Well good for me.

"I want you protecting a special boy who just arrived. Our psychics sense much power in him, and I'm sure you will too nce you meet him. He'll need a lot of protecting, and perhaps you can even take him under your wing, if you're up for it."

My irises returned back to normal. A babysitting job. Great. I'm pretty sure my 'Guardian' status was being taken advantage of.

"Fine, I'll do it. What is he? An Elf? A Shapeshifter?"

The look on Dyke's face promised me I'd hate it. "He's an Unknown."

My hair burst into black flames, and I stormed out of the office.

[Korona Knight]

Oh, thank you .:Emma:.! Just got done with the first chapter. Not too happy bout how that chapter ended, but I'll hopefully be able to make it flow into the next chapter.

[.:Emma:.]

I love the first chapter! I'm gonna be stalking this topic....

[Korona Knight]

Chapter 2

An Unknown. Are you kidding me? I hate Unknowns! What's so bad about them? They can't do anything! No one has any clue what they are, either something we haven't uncovered yet, a really bad Mutt, or even a really strong mortal. They're pretty much useless, in any sense.

And I was stuck babysitting one.

Of course, Mr. Dyke would call it 'protecting'. The manipulative bonehead. I hated him. He was entirely made up of pure evil and sugary donuts. He knew nothing of my abilities! And yet there he sat, looking all high and mighty, just because he ran this special little school, thinking he could boss me around. Pathetic.

A boy looked up at me as I entered the main school office once again. Ms. Greg took note of my fiery hair and looked away, knowing better. She was still horrible, but at least she knew where her boundries were with me.

The look on the boy's face was petrifying horror. His mouth gaped open, and I'm assuming he was looking at my flaming hair and my overall deathly appearance.

I cut off the heat, and my hair laid down flat, totally unaffected by the fire. I looked over at the boy, feeling the power nearly drowning him. They weren't kidding when they said he was full of power.

"What's your name, kid?"

The boy's jaw tried to work itself out, but all he managed to do was get a squeak out and shake. Aye. This was the kid I was supposed to 'protect'. Lovely.

"Speak!" I barked.

When I saw how scared he was, something in me turned. It wasn't like me to snap at anyone other than Dyke. I needed to cool down.

Closing my eyes, I willed Sophie to come out. She was great at this sort of thing.

My hair turned such a bleach blonde, it looked almost white. It fell in delicate waves down to my butt, and bangs were swept over to the left side, over my left eye. My eyes turned a soft silvery gray, almost white in color as well. My skin tone turned darker, until I had a nice light tan look. My wings shrunk in size until they were only around 14 feet long, and turned such a dazzling white, they could have glowed. My claws turned back to fingernails, and I let out a sight as complete calmness took over.

When I opened my eyes, I saw the boy had gone almost completely white. Uh oh.

"Hey, hey now. It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you," I cooned, sitting down in the chair next to him. He scooted away from me, and from the state of his mind, I had overwhelmed him.

"It's okay. My name's Sophie. I'm here to give you a tour of the school."

"G-get away from m-me," the boy whimpered.

I scooted away, and his trembling lessened.

"My, Kora did some damage to you. Mind telling me your name?" To tell the truth, I didn't know. I was normally able to look into anyone's mind, like a psychic, and there was really only a few exceptions. This boy was one of them.

"I'm Alex," he murmured.

"Well nice to meet you Alex."

"What are you?!" he blurted out, and by the way his cheeks went a rosy red, he didn't mean to say that out loud.

"I'm the school's Guardian."

"Guardian?"

"Yes, see, this school is for special people. And most of the people here are still learning how to use the special talents they were given. Which makes them weak and vulnerable to people who want to hurt them, get rid of them. So that's why I'm here. I protect everyone here," I explained quietly. It seemed that Alex had finally calmed down enough to get some words out and stop shaking.

I stood up, and I saw him flinch. "It's alright."

"Where'd that black haired girl go?" he asked, and I could tell instantly that he was afraid of Kora returning.

"She's inside of me, Alex. One thing about the Guardian is that there are many parts to the Guardian, many different people. It helps for different situations I happen to be in. So unless I get really really angry, Kora won't be coming out anytime soon," I promised.

Alex nodded, though he wasn't sure what to make of this. I didn't have to read his mind to know that.

"Come on, I'll show you around."

Alex stood up, and I got my first good look at him. And boy was he dreamy. He was very tall, around 6' 3", and skinny, though not a twig. Lots of lean muscles ran along his body, so that he wasn't overly muscular, but not overly wimpy looking either. He was nicely tanned, so I assumed he came from somewhere warm. His eyes were a beautiful blue, and his hair was a shaggy brown. It was longer and fell a bit into his eyes, though he swept it out of his eyes every so often.

I nodded to myself, and he gave me a questioning look. Now that I had to look up at him, I think it made him a bit more comfortable.

"Let's go!" I chuckled, and started off towards the first floor, as we were on the third floor of the office building.

Alex walked after me, and soon we were squished in the small elevator that was made for one person, though I'd insisted we could both fit. Woops, wrong on my part! Did I mention Sophie was slightly ditzy?

When we reached the bottom, classes must have been changing, for the grounds were covered with students. Every eye was on us as soon as we stepped out of the building, and though I was used to it, Alex was not. He shook a bit, but I placed my hand on his shoulder, and he seemed to calm down, just a bit.

While the guys' eyes were on me, every single girl's gaze was on Alex. He was going to be the hunk of the school, I guessed that. And it didn't help that he was fresh meat for all the girls around here.

"Stay close, and whatever you do, don't talk to a girl named Tracy." And with that, our tour began.

[Korona Knight]

Haha, well thank you! I've enjoyed writing this so far!

[.:Emma:.]

You are an amazing writer! Don't talk to a girl named Tracy.

[Korona Knight]

Awww, well thank you ^^ I haven't written in a few months, so it feels good to just kinda let the words flow out, though it's taking a while because I'm such a perfectionist, I have to fix every little problem x) And yes, Tracy will be a more evil character later on. Spoiler; her daddy is Mr. Dyke