Chapter 1- Love Is Like a Sword

She flipped her dull, orange hair behind her shoulders. It had lost it's luster weeks ago when her new "intensive" training began. She thought the training was just a way to get her to do more work at the academy. Her school, The Training Academy, as it was formally called, was an elite school. There were only six people actually in the school, considering the fact that they were the only ones with powers.

She ran her fingers across the dark purple-handled sword she held and thought about Ryan. He was right about what he had said last night, "We can't be together anymore," he had whispered in her ear, sounding hurt, "we just can't. If something happened to one of us, we wouldn't be able to keep on fighting like we're supposed to. We can't fall in love." The last part hurt Nina the most. Sure, he was right, but if she already loved him, how could she stop now? Things just kept getting harder. First the slowly increasing attacks on their six respective planets, and now she couldn't love Ryan anymore? This was just too much.

She wondered if Ryan had ever really liked her and was just using this as an excuse to let her down easy. Easy, hah, right. I wish things were easy. she thought to herself. This was true pain, only caused by true love. Her eyes started burning, but she held them back. She knew class started in only a minute, and if everyone came in and saw her with those stupid puffy red eyes you get after crying, then everyone would make a totally big scene and no one would leave her alone and stop asking what's wrong. So she bit her tongue, raised her sword, and prepared for the worst thing ever, school.

"Alright guys," Nina could hear Mrs. Whitner's voice growing louder, "today we're just brushing up on the basics and then we'll get down to business and learn some new things."

"Sure thing teach," She heard Kade say from just outside the door. "Well hellooo there Nina. You're looking mighty nice today."

"Shut up, Kade." Ryan mumbled as he walked in. He must not have wanted Nina to hear him because he looked down quickly when she smiled at him. Maybe he did still care about Nina.

"Well, looks like someone is feeling protective of his little girlfriend today." Kade remarked.

"You're a jerk, you know that Kade?" Ryan said out loud this time. A smile played
across Nina's lips, but let it go because Ryan wasn't going to be nice forever.

"Hey Nina! How's it going, I didn't see you last night at the party." her friend Raya said as she hugged Nina.

"Oh, sorry. I wasn't feeling well." She stole a glance at Ryan and quickly regretted it when he turned and caught her. Nina could feel the tension in the air. Ryan took notice of it too, but mentally swatted it away, he didn't fell like being bugged right now.

"Oh, I'm sorry, but at least you feel better now, right?" she said with a quick smile at the end.

"Uhm, yea, right, better." she said, sounding distracted. She cringed when she saw Marlee and Martin walk in. Marlee twirled her black hair around her finger, while Martin blew a bubble with his gum. They thought they owned the whole planetary system. They were twins from two different planets, who happened to look just like each other and were born at the exact same time, so they got similar names and are called twins. No one is sure yet about how this happened, people just try to ignore it.


"Okay children, let's seat ourselves and start today's lesson." Mrs. Whitner cooed.

"Geez Mrs. Whitner, we're not kids anymore. You know we all just turned 16 last year at some time." Kade blurted disrespectfully.

"Well, Kade. If you would speak properly like a gentleman of your age, then maybe I wouldn't call you a child."

"She's got you there, Kade." yelled Marlee.

"Shut up Marlee, no one was talking to you." Kade huffed.

"Okay, that's enough out of both of you, shall we try starting again?" Mrs. Whitner continued with the lesson. The class lagged out for a whopping four hours and everyone, including Ryan who could normally take these rough lessons, was beat. They left the small building and dragged their feet across the lawn to the benches. They plopped down and leaned on each other for support to even stay sitting up right.

"Oh my god. I didn't know I could run that much. Or actually, I don't think I can run that much. Something seriously possessed me in there." Moaned Raya.
"Ugh, you're telling me? Who knew my foot work was so slow, I didn't know my feet moved so slow. I swear if I ever actually have to fight, I'm so going down." Kade forced out with an effort to be more hurt than everyone else.
"What do you mean if we ever have to fight. It's totally obvious we're going to have to fight. I mean come on, why would they be training us this hard just now. We're not just being trained like this 'cause they want to." Martin said. Nina thought to herself about how at least Martin wasn't as annoying as his obnoxious sister.

Nina and Ryan kept their mouths shut. They didn't want to talk because they would start to think about last night, like they weren't already. They couldn't talk this close without water works, anyways. Ryan was mad and sad at the same exact time. He was mad that he had to do that to Nina because he truly loved her. But he was also sad because Nina hadn't put up as much of a fight as he had thought she would. But he was also sad and mad at the same time because he had made Nina cry. Soft tears because of love, true, but tears nonetheless. He tried not to cry in front of her, but he did, which in turn made her more confused and hurt. She had leaned against him and hugged him and begged him not to do this. He had ran his hand down her soft orange hair to try and comfort her, but it probably just made things worse. He held onto her as long as he could before she ran home a mess. Her tears were still on his skin. He could still feel them there. It made him want to cry again. But he bit down and held them back. He wished he could take it all back. He wished he would have never said anything. Maybe they would have been fine if they stayed together. Maybe it was possible to work together and love each other at the same time.

Ryan looked up and peeked at Nina to see if she was okay. She seemed to be staring off into space to her right. He wished she would be okay, but he wasn't sure if she ever would without him. He was sure he would never be okay without her back in his arms.

He just wanted to smell her sweet hair again. It always smelled like coconut and lilacs. Her whole being always smelled like it. The scent wafted over to him and it made his eyes water. This was too much to bear. He got up and ran over to the bathroom. He couldn't have Nina see him like this, it'd be too hard for the both of them.

"Where's he going running like that?" Kade asked.

"Who knows. What's wrong with him Nina? He's so quiet today." Raya asked.

"I don't know, Raya." Nina said with spite in her voice.

"And you're really quiet too, and sort of spacey. Did something happen between you two?" Raya asked again.

"Ugh, no Raya. I'm going to the bathroom." Nina got up and ran in the same direction as Ryan did only 30 seconds ago.

"God. I can't believe this. I miss him so much. I just want him back. I don't care if it interferes with our work. I love him. I can't change that. God Ryan, I just want you back, don't you see that?" Nina said to herself between sobs which were now growing in loudness. When she reached the bathroom she locked the door. She didn't bother wiping her face because she knew it would just be soaked again. She wailed and hoped no one would hear her, but Ryan did. He walked out of the boy's bathroom and knocked on the door.

"Go away, please." Nina moaned in between sobs.

"Nina, it's me. I really need to talk to you." Ryan pleaded.

"No, I d-don't want you to see me like this. Just go away." She spit out.

"Nina, please. I just think we need to talk about this." He begged more.

"No. There's nothing to talk about. Y-you broke up with me, end of story."