Chiron Academy

Chapter 24: Joining The Big Kid's Table

Wyatt dragged the towel over his head again, yet his hair remained stubbornly wet. He could feel the drips of water still oozing down his neck and dropping on his clean shirt.

Experience told him that his hair would probably be dry by the time the meeting started, but he didn't want to take that chance. Walking in with a dripping wet head, he might as well wear a sign on his chest that said 'I don't belong here." It was sure to draw everyone's eyes right to him. If everything went right, he would blend in seamlessly with the other captains and vice captains.

At least until he found his footing. Then he would start making some changes around here.

Until then, he would quietly disappear into the crowd.

He'd purposefully worn his nice shirt today, the button-up one with the tiny polka dots on it. It was nice, without being too formal. Or so he hoped. He wasn't sure what the dress code was. He had tried to ask William that morning but all he had gotten out of his roommate was that it wasn't in costumes.

This was good to know, Wyatt didn't want to show up in street clothes when everyone else was dressed for superheroing (or, ugh, vice versa) but it still hadn't calmed Wyatt's nerves at all. Were they dressing up? Wearing t-shirts? Should he bring a tie just in case?

His thoughts were disturbed when another drop of water slid down Wyatt's neck. He gripped his hands into fists. Did his hair always take this long to dry after a shower? Was his hair trying to spite him?

He exhaled slowly as he focused his attention back to the present. Class had ended almost twenty minutes ago and he still wasn't ready for dinner yet, let alone the meeting. Ignoring his hair for a moment, he turned his attention to pulling his socks on.

There were only a few others in the locker room at this point. Today's class had been much smaller than usual consisting of only squads 12 and 3. The schedule had said that this week would have purposely very small group sizes so that Achilles could get a better look at each person's progress.

Wyatt had had to trudge through their simple exercises while Achilles gave feedback to each person.

He had been effusive in his praise of Sally, despite her showing very little progress. William had also merited some compliments, despite the fact that the boy's guard was dropped more often than it was up. He had given both of them some pointers but they were so basic Wyatt hadn't bothered to listen to the exacts.

Mariah had merited a quiet word or two from the man as well. It had been too quiet for Wyatt to hear though he was very curious what the comments had been. He could see no particular problems with her form himself but the exercises they had been doing weren't too strenuous and weren't exactly hard to perform without making glaring mistakes.

He himself was curious to know more about the obvious skill she had shown in their sparring match a few weeks ago, but the simple punches and blocks they were drilling today weren't exactly a great showcase to glimpse one's true skill through. He tried his best to look for the telltale details of a truly skilled fighter in her movements, but all he could see were the simple motion of the strikes.

How did a girl like that bust out the kind of skill he had seen during their fight? Weird and irritating though she was, Wyatt made no contest of the fact that she had trounced him. Sure, he didn't have his sword with him, but sword or not, she had been very impressive. He couldn't count on always having his sword with him; fights could happen at any time and he had to be ready.

The class had been almost over by the time Achilles made his way to Wyatt and, predictably, he had gotten hardly a word out of the old man.

Achilles had simply looked at Wyatt quietly perform the routine, nodded a few times, and then walked away to reexamine someone else. He had looked at Wyatt for maybe twenty seconds total.