THE SCHOLARSHIP

We left Archer's mansion, and we reached the airport. I had never been inside the plane before, so I marvelled the design of the plane. There were ten more adults on the plane with us, as they had their own missions to do. 

We were the only kids there, and the adults peered at us with confusion, as they didn't know about the Academy's secret project. Whispers arose around us, and Archer and I did our best to keep our head down. 

Right before the door of the plane was about to close, a burly middle-aged man walked in. His eyes widened as he noticed Archer, and he walked towards us. "Archer, m'boy! I'm proud of you!" He said. 

"Thank you, uncle." He said politely, and his uncle went to take his seat on the plane. 

"He's Mateo's father." He explained to me. 

I nodded, "Makes sense."

I was quite anxious as I had never been on a plane before, so I fastened my seatbelt extremely tightly. My eardrums popped as the plane took off, and they were paining badly. It was just a little pain, nothing I hadn't been trained to handle. 

We spent the rest of the flight in awkward silence, and a couple of times our arms brushed together. I couldn't help going red everytime that happened. Archer had kissed me! And looking at him definitely wasn't helping! He looked so indifferent about it, I started thinking maybe I had imagined it. 

After around three hours, the plane landed in a real airport in the outside world. It was night time, and the airport looked dazzling with all the colorful lights. I was so excited I jumped up and down just as the plane landed. That earned me some weird looks from the adults, but c'mon! I was outside the society and the academy. 

Archer maintained his calm demeanor throughout the journey. His stoic face showed no emotion, probably because his uncle was monitoring us closely. 

I noticed a vending machine with tons and tons of fast food, and my longing eyes stared at the godly food. Don't make this so obvious, Aurora!! I yelled at myself. 

We were supposed to meet up with two assassins, Greg and Riley, who would 'act' as our parents in this mission. We exited the airport, and we saw a man in his late forties holding a card saying, Archer and Aurora. 

Beside him, an uninterested woman stood, scrolling her phone. I smiled at them, and walked towards them. 

"Hello! Are you Greg and Riley?" I asked. 

"Yes, let's go." Greg grumbled. 

We followed them to their car, and I could sense that something didn't feel quite right. I stopped in my tracks when Archer said, "Wait. Tell us the code first."

Riley stammered, "I didn't get any code."

Greg held a gun to my head, "Get in the fucking car!"

My body went on auto-control. I did a roundhouse kick, which made the gun fall out of his hand, and I shakily picked up the gun. "Who are you?" I asked. 

"No one. Go on. Shoot me." Greg taunted me. 

My lips turned into a cruel smile, "I can do much worse than that."

I dragged him to a back alley, and Archer had already dealt with Riley, and we tossed them in the corner. 

"You're going to give us information." Archer said. 

I took a deep breath, "Let's start with an easy question. Who are you?"

"We won't tell you anything, you society rats!" Riley yelled. 

"Let's try this again," I said holding the gun up, "Who are you?"

"Kill us. We would die before we tell you anything." Greg said calmly. 

I looked at Archer and he nodded. I fished out a silencer from my backpack. I attached it to the gun, and two silent gun shots later, the 'supposed' Greg and Riley were dead.

I looked at their dead bodies for far too long. I hadn't been thinking right when I shot them. It was just a result of my training, nothing else, I told myself. 

"Aurora?" Archer said, tugging my arm, "We need to hide the bodies, and find the real Riley and Greg."

"R-Right." I said, and we got to work. After thirty minutes, we finally found the right spot to hide the bodies, which were two suitcases. We somehow fit both of them in the suitcases, and threw the suitcase into a lake nearby. 

With the oil that we'd covered the bodies in, they would fully decompose in two days, so we just had to hope that no one found the suitcases till then. 

We waited in the airport for around thirty minutes, and in the early hours of dawn, the real Greg and Riley came to pick us up. 

We soaked in as much sleep as we could before the entrance and scholarship exams in the next 7 hours. 

I woke up at 10:30, and took a shower and freshened myself up. I went to the kitchen to get something to eat, and Archer was already there, in his neatly ironed clothes, looking as good as ever. This was probably the first time I'd seen him in other clothes apart from the academy uniform.

He was wearing straight long black pants, and an untucked green shirt with its sleeves rolled up. Green was definitely his color. As for me, I was wearing a knee-length semi-formal light blue dress. 

Greg drove us to the school, and we were registered in, and taken to a huge examination hall. There were around a hundred seats in the hall, and forty seven students were already seated. The seating was alphabetically so my seat was right beside Archer's. 

This school was both, a day school as well as a residential school. Archer and I had to get into the residential course, as Greg and Riley wouldn't be there for long enough to take care of us for four months. 

Our targets were already registered and admitted into the school, Blackwell's son, Avila's son and Griffith's daughter. Blackwell and Avila's sons were sophomores, and Griffith's daughter was a junior. Both of us planned to join as sophomores, so we could hit the mark where they were not looking. 

The examination hall filled up in the next five minutes, and the exams were handed out soon after. At first glance, I could solve the entire paper easily. Too easily. 

I could've solved it when I was six! I took a deep breath, and started reading too deeply into the paper. The questions were so easy. Surely this was a trick. 

Why was it so easy? I couldn't find any other way around the question to find the trick. I glanced over at Archer. He was flying through the paper with ease. 

I answered the question straightforwardly, then I cut the entire answer. I did it by another method, a much more complex one, but it still was too easy. 

It made me suspicious. Archer looked over at me, and signed discreetly, 'What happened?'

'I can't solve this paper!' I signed back. 

'Solve like a five year old would.' He told me, and turned his attention back to his paper. 

Five year old? Alright. So it has to be basic. We had three hours to finish our paper, and I glided through the paper easily. I still was dubious about the simple questions, but I solved it normally. I finished the entire paper in thirty minutes. 

I was sitting ideally, and the invigilator came up to me and very politely asked, "Are you stuck on a question, dear?"

"Oh no, ma'am, I have finished the examination." I cleared. 

"You have? So soon?" She questioned. 

"I have finished the paper too." Archer said from beside me. 

The invigilator took our papers, and went to her desk to correct them. The students around us looked at us with awe or disappointment? Why would they be dissapointed?

After twenty minutes, the invigilator came up to us, and said, "Please follow me, children." 

We were taken to the principal's office. 

"Did we do something wrong?" Archer asked the invigilator. 

She said, "Quite the contrary, actually." 

"Miss Collins, Mr. Johnson. Please have a seat." The principal said. 

This gave me a weird sense of deja vu. "Never in the history of this school, has a child gotten full marks in the entrance examination. Yet, today, both of you got full marks. Even Mrs. Robin, the strictest checker, couldn't find a single mistake in both of your papers."

"You make it sound like such a bad thing." I said. 

The principal pushed his spectacles up, "I wouldn't call it a bad thing, as I'm not necessarily sure of what you did. I am going to need you to give another paper, right under my supervision." 

"Alright." Archer shrugged. 

Mrs. Robin, gave us new papers to solve. I picked my pen and started writing. This paper was also very easy, but a level higher than the previous paper. As I did not undergo the same dilemma again, I could finish this paper in twenty minutes. 

"Done." Archer and I dropped our pens at the same time. 

The principal looked at us in amazement, and took our papers to check them himself. I got bored while he was checking my paper, so I glanced around his room, and took in every detail. 

The infrastructure of this school was very old, but the school had been newly renovated. That could mean that there were trapdoors in the school, but it could also mean that it was just simply constructed. The rug on the floor was shabbily placed, while the rest of the office was immaculate. 

I noticed Archer looking over at me, and I caught his eye and smiled at him. He smiled back, and we silently waited for the principal to finish checking. 

"I don't believe it." The principal said, grading our papers. "The students giving the examination are still struggling to complete the paper, while you have finished two papers?"

I nodded. 

"Your second paper was for seniors. How did you manage to solve it?" The principal asked. 

Archer and I had no idea about the American schooling system. So far, it was very easy. But we didn't know the level of learning this school provided. 

'Level 1' Archer signed to me under the table. 

"Sir, we were homeschooled up until now. Our parents made us study a lot." Archer said convincingly. 

"You are relatives?" The principal asked

I corrected him, "Friends."

"Let me get this straight. You spent your childhood studying?" The principal asked. 

"In a manner of speaking, yes." Archer replied. 

"So you must not be good at athletics. This school values intelligence as well as athleticism." The principal retorted. 

I said, "I play all racket sports, sir. Archer is also skilled at sports." 

"If you defeat our resident champions in badminton, I will give both of you, 100% residential scholarship." The principal challenged. 

"We accept." Archer smirked.

"If you lose, you don't get into this school." He warned. "They are national players."

We silently contemplated upon this. If we lost, we failed the mission. Our first mission. The first step to freedom. We had zero idea how good these 'national players' were.

Archer met my eyes, and I gave him a small nod. 

"We'll do it" He confirmed. 

The principal said, "Why wait?" 

"We don't have our rackets, and we aren't wearing proper attire!" I protested. 

"We'll provide the attire and rackets." He said, and Mrs. Robin came back with two school sports uniforms. 

We were led to the changing rooms, and I quickly changed in the girl's changing room. The T-shirt and shorts were a little oversized for me, but it was fine. 

Mrs. Robin then led us to the badminton courts, and there stood two tall guys, who looked very skilled. 

"We'll give all of you half an hour to warm up." The principal said, and gave us two rackets. Not my racket, but it could work.

We did some basic exercises, then started doing drills. We were careful to not show our smashes to the players who were watching us intensely. After some court exercises, I told the principal that we were ready. 

"Love all." The principal said, refereeing the match. 

The guy did a clever serve, and I could retrieve it, which shocked the poor unprepared guy, who was so relaxed and assured that he would win. 

We got a point, and Archer served. The other guy did a high lift, which I was sure would land on the last line. I recovered, and jumped high, and smashed the shuttle down and we got another point.

I heard a ripping sound. "Sir? My racket broke..." 

"So much power." A guy said, finally acknowledging us. 

"Get her a new racket." He told Mrs. Robin. I didn't use power. Perhaps the only thing I lacked was power. I could use every muscle in my body, and use the momentum to gain the power I didn't have. 

I got my new racket, and Archer served again. The guys took the play seriously this time, but Archer and I still overtook them in terms of skill. 

"Do you want to defeat them by zero?" He asked me. 

"You know me too well." I smirked. 

"Seven, love." The principal gulped nervously.

This time, Archer smashed right into a guy's face. I couldn't help but laugh. We were defeating so-called 'national players' so easily. 

We had already gotten seventeen points in a row, and finally by mistake, the 'national players' managed to get a point.

"17-01" The principal said. 

"Let's finish this." I told Archer. 

And finally, the 'national players' were huffing and puffing from exhaustion, but Archer and I hadn't even broken a sweat.

"So do we get a full scholarship now?" I asked the principal. 

"Yes." He replied gloomily. 

 "We did it, Arc!" I exclaimed and high-fived him. 

He smiled, and pulled near him me, and kissed me. We broke apart after a few seconds, and I smiled at him.

"Okay! I don't need to see this!" The principal said. 

"I really like you." He whispered in my ear. 

"I think I like you too." I told him, and squeezed his hand.