-- ALL PART OF THE PLAN && [kiya]

[ANNABEL LYNNE DALE]

Libraries were boring. She didn't care how many times her brother impressed their importance on her and went into some intellectual-type ramble about their usefulness, she thought they were boring. Not that she didn't like to read on occasion, for she did, but when it came to studying her attention span went right out the window. "We really should study for this test, though," her friend grumbled, sounding about as enthusiastic about the whole thing as she was. "Yeah." The two dragged themselves from their comfortable spot on the common room couch all the way over to the first floor of the library, the smell of book pages hitting them straight upon entry. "Do all libraries smell like this? It's like, universal or some shit." Her friend laughed from beside her. "Ooh, big word. Be careful, they like that in here." She rolled her eyes and punched his arm. "Not that big of a word." She knew it wasn't and so did he, they were merely joking around playfully as Waters tended to do. She liked that she could have a lot of friends at the Academy just like she'd had a lot back home. She fit in well with the Waters and was adapting slightly, finally.

Though they'd made their way into the book-filled room for the sake of studying, only half of their time was spent doing so and it was sub-par at best. They spent the rest of the time discussing games and comics and movies, all the things that teenagers could use to avoid reading the textbook like they should have been doing. Then her friend's phone went off, signifying a text and obnoxiously alerting those around them to their presence. A few loud 'shh!' sounds and a couple of glares later, he glanced up apologetically and told her that he'd need to take a bit of a rain check for their study session. "Why?" she wondered, not bothered by the idea of being thought of as nosy. "Family stuff." She opened her mouth and started, "Like wh-" but he was already standing up and heading out the door. The girl rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the stack of textbooks. Great. Did that mean that she was actually going to have to get shit done? She really didn't feel like it, though. Annabel could be called lazy in some aspects of her life, at least where studying was concerned. It was such a bore. She'd much rather play video games like they'd been talking about doing.

Which gave her an idea.

She knew that the second floor of the library had pretty decent wifi and that it was where the majority of the laptop owners would do their online research when the first-floor computers were not freed up. She had a laptop, thanks to the fact that her family was so wealthy, and it was all good and set for wireless. The school network had a password and you were meant to get it from the librarian but she had some decent skills in bypassing the weaker securities of technology. She loved her computers, that was for sure. Besides, she needed to mess around with the blocks anyway to take off the restricted internet access rule. She needed to be able to launch her game from the client and that meant connecting with the web without the library blocking her from the network. It took longer than she'd expected because she was unfamiliar with some things but after careful searches and a lot of trial and error, she was in. "Haha, yes," she crooned in satisfaction. She didn't like that she couldn't put on her gaming headphones and talk to her online friends while she was playing but anything was better than studying, at least.

[KIYA MINA ANDERSON]

Unforgettably it was that time of year again. It was that time where you either had something to play or you had to find something to play and for Kiya it just has to be the second one. Even though she was still playing either Diablo 3 or World of Warcraft until 3 in the morning she felt as if she need something new. The next big release for a game was still months away and she really didn't think that she would be able to wait that long. However it was Assassin's Creed 3 and Connor did look hot, so, that was the end of that in her mind at least. After saying good bye to all of her amazing friends online she decided that she might as well get some sort of study done, at least until she was bored beyond belief and she would boot up her trusty laptop and just start playing again. The only thing she wasn't look forward to was the walk from her dorm room to the library. Though, she really didn't like walking outside at all, unless something or someone got her out of course.

After getting a coffee and changing out of the clothes that she had been wearing yesterday she packed her bag and was on her way. Not forgetting to wear a hoodie to that she wouldn't get sun burnt. The only down side to never going outside was how easy you could get sun burnt! But all that was going through her mind was of the pain that she had gone through while trying to get through 'hell mode' of Diablo 3 while having that and she decided to wear more and more layers! Going through that was hard enough without your wrists going insane from a sun burn. By the time she had finished thinking about that she had arrived at the library and started to sit down in a very lonely, quiet and most of all sort of dark corner of the large room and tried, the main word being tried, to study for some subject.

Studying slowing turned into read about random romance about weirdness and it was just discussing, which then turned into trying to fall asleep in a weird position on the small chair and that just turned into giving up. She knew that she wouldn't be able to study with the image of one of her character killing mob upon mob just trying to kill her and then her killing them back and so on and so forth! It was maddening to think that she could be doing that, and it was then that Kiya decided to give in. She wasn't going to get anything done anyways so why not! Having been at the school for a couple of year, Kiya knew all of the good spots to play online games in the library.

After finding a place to sit and starting up her laptop Kiya couldn't help but realize what the person sitting next to her was playing, or more the fact that the person playing was a girl. She knew that not to many girl actually played games let alone ones that were online and mainly played by the male gender. Thankfully, she did know a few people that where really female, many males did play as females, that played but she never knew anyone at her school that did. Kiya knew that this may be the only chance to meet someone like this so she might as well go for it! "Hey, I could help but see what you were playing!" Kiya said while trying not to sound like a massive creeper, "I am just about to start playing, my name is Kiya but I go by Tails online. What is yours, we should totally play together!" and all that was going through her head was, 'please don't think I am weird!'

[ANNABEL LYNNE DALE]

Annabel liked to think that she had been playing long enough and was good enough at most games to consider herself a gamer. She knew that a lot of guys did not take gamer chicks seriously but that did not intimidate the blonde, instead only spurring her to become better at what she did and kick all their asses one by one. A couple of the guys she talked to (much to her older brother's distaste) online had become friends through the earning of their respect. She convinced her brother not to stop her from chatting to them by assuring him over and over again that she would not give out her name or address or anything like that. She didn't even put her real name on profiles, going by Lynne Hill instead of Annabel Dale. It was a part of her name, sure, her middle, but she didn't think anyone could stalk her with that. She was confident, often over-confident, and did not think that she had anything to worry about at all.

Perhaps it was her social nature that allowed her to thrive in the gaming community. As she approached a group that were killing mobs together and noticed that they needed another tank in their group (they had two healers, they were all good there) she approached and asked, Got room for one more? They agreed and suddenly their party had another. She liked her character with her badass axe, swinging the huge weapon around and bashing her foes to bits. That was the way that Annabel liked things. Power and control. She had a healer, too, though, equally high in level, because it was always a good way to get into a party if they already had the brute force they needed. And a buff character. And an archer. And a magician. Annabel liked to be able to offer any sort of role to a party. Unfortunately the party had to break up after three of the five members had to leave and so she was mulling over whether she should solo or go find another group to join when she was approached.

Friendly as ever, the Water girl offered the unknown Wind a bright smile. "Hey hey, what's up?" She was such a people person. She would have assumed it was why she was not a Fire but then there were plenty of social Fires, as well. She thought of her friend Adam and wished they didn't have to hide. No, she was Water because she didn't have a bad temper apart from being a sore loser. The girl introduced herself as Kiya, but more importantly a fellow gamer. Happy day! Annabel's smile melted into a grin as she said, "Oh, awesome! It's always cool to meet a new gamer!" She was fine with having loads of her friends online and all but it was always really cool to get to know gamers in her area. Her best friend Kelly wasn't really into it hardcore but her brother was so she got along with her friend's sibling almost as well as the girl herself. "Name's Annabel!" She didn't ask Kiya to call her 'Belle' because only her older brother was allowed that sacred right. And Nell. Nell could call her it, too, because she was technically family.

She was about to name her own gamer tag when something clicked. "Holy shit!" she exclaimed, because she had a mouth on her and didn't feel the need to hide it when she was not around her brother or any of her teachers. "Tails, you said? Are you like, the Tails, because I know someone with that name." Feeling excited now, she didn't pause before adding, "I go by Lynnear, I don't know if you've heard the name?" Annabel was actually hoping that Kiya had. "Most of my friends call me Lynne." Her online friends at least. Lynnear was a joke concerning the word 'linear', pronounced the same way. She'd wanted a tag that was unique enough that it probably wouldn't be taken but still easy enough to say and remember. She'd seen some people that put some word and then a string of numbers. Not her style. "Sure, I'd love to play with you! What game, what server, what kinda character? I have a lot!" This was why she liked to have variety. She could play with anyone!

[KIYA MINA ANDERSON]

For Kiya there was nothing better than actually finding people that she gamed with in real life. Though, in the back of her mind she always knew that even though that was all well and good but it also meant that there were even more people that would stay up all night WITH HER and play games which lead to even less sleep than she would usually get. It didn't help that she had recently been missing out of her class time because she was sleeping in them and then she was always in detention because she wasn't doing any of her assignments. Which had recently led to her teacher just making her sit in a room with no technology and just making her do her work, because they knew that she wouldn't do it. Kiya may have been a leader but she also had some of the worst homework and organisational skills. She was getting better though, she had made a whole heap of friends that she hadn't meet online, which was very new for her, and they seemed to have made some sort of effect on her study habits and just the amount of time that she would actually take to game. Which was also a new for her.

Just looking at the girl that sitting next to her brought many memories into her head and thankfully they were all good ones. Things like the first times that she played MMO's because her brother would leave them on when she got home from school so that she could play them, because she wasn't old enough to have her own account. Those where good times. Back when she would play and half the time she would have no idea what was going on and was just clicking all of the buttons and somehow gaining levels. It was a magical time and skill that she some how had forgotten to do over the years, but she still somehow got through them and get to her goals when she wanted! But now that she thought of it, if she was to pay this much attention to her school work than she wouldn't be in her current situation with her teachers... Mehh.

Kiya looked back to the young one to she her smiling back, this was always a good sign! Though the girl did look a little familiar to her at this point. It was on the tip of her tongue but she just couldn't get it. It was times like this she wished that her memory was like that animals that has really good memory but Kiya couldn't really remember that either. "It is good to meet you Annabel!" It was at least good to know that she wasn't scaring the younger child at all. That was something that she had done in the and also something that she didn't want to happen now! But as soon as she had heard Annabel kind of yell she had gotten just a little worried. It wasn't until she had asked her about her gamer tag that she knew what that yell was all about! "Oh My Diablo, Lynnear! I can believe that this is you! It is so good to know that someone around here has some sense of amazing!" Now it had clicked. She was Josh Dale's sister. Kiya had just recently meet up the the collage fire and it was at this point that she feeling pretty bad that she couldn't get who the younger girl was. "I was planning some WOW if you wanted to join? I really just play whatever character so I am not bothered!"

[ANNABEL LYNNE DALE]

Annabel loved meeting new people. She and her brother were complete opposites when it came to their social habits and maybe that was why he'd been so wary when she'd started to talk to people online, get to know them. It had really bothered her at the time to know that her parents and brother were trying to 'spy' on what she was doing in the gaming world but they hadn't stopped her. It was a good thing, too. She had a lot of friends in the real world but she had a lot of internet pals, too, and it would sadden her to consider leaving them behind because her family did not approve. Still smiling broadly at the stranger, she said, "Yeah, same to you!" Acquaintanceship was an adventure. Annabel loved adventures. You really got to know a person over the course of a friendship, all their ins and outs and ups and downs. She hoped she'd be friends with this chick, at least, because Belle never introduced herself to a person assuming that they were going to turn out enemies. Unless they were alliance enemies, that is.

She laughed at the familiar 'Oh my Diablo' expression that her friend used, realising that they could skip the acquaintance stage all together. They already were friends. This was exciting, really, because she didn't often get the chance to meet her online friends in real life. Her brother would probably flip his shit if she started to give out their address, not only because of the fact that she was young but because it was his house. Oops. Good thing she never did that. "Well, duh, we practically define amazing." She grinned. Annabel was confident and could be cocky but in this case she was mostly joking. Mostly. She had to admit that anyone who gamed was automatically a lot better than the others in her books. A different breed. Her family were exceptions to the 'gamers only' rule because she looked up to Josh and Nell, her parents were 'too old', and Bryce... no, he wasn't an exception. She didn't like him.

Though she played many more MMOs apart from World of Warcraft, it was definitely something she considered a part of her roots in gaming. It was one of the first MMOs she'd actually gotten deeply involved in. Her gaze lit up at the mention of it and she nodded with enthusiasm. "Sounds good! Maybe I'll give my hunter a go." She'd made her hunter a night elf, simply because 'night elf' had sounded pretty badass. She really liked the whole thing about having creatures along when she played as a hunter character. Feeding it was a pain though. "What are you going to play as?" She was already shutting down the game she'd been about to play, nimble fingers dancing across the keyboard as she opened up World of Warcraft and typed in her login information. She liked to consider herself pretty smart with how complicated her password was. She didn't want any hackers getting into her stuff. "And what do you want to get up to?" She'd leave that decision up to her friend.

[KIYA MINA ANDERSON]

This was a pretty rare thing for Kiya. It wasn't very often that she would play with someone that she knew, at least this sort of game anyway. There really wasn't to many people that would play who played these sort of games at the academy in the first place, let alone people that actually played an sort of game in the first. She was lucky enough to have Annabel and Devin because for Kiya, it was like a blanket. She would always become calmer and some what normal then she would when she would spend all of her time inside gaming. It was only a little but it still has a bit though. For anything really she was just happy to have really good friends like this, people that didn't that she was really weird because she was the way that she was, or even for the way to she acted. Fifteen was still pretty young are her brother still didn't like the fact that she would game as much as she did. At this point Kiya could help but laugh, Annabel was like the little sister that she never really had, but living in a house full of guys could do that to a girl. "You better believe it! I swear that amazing must run through our veins!" It was true though. The two of them together, in game, were pretty amazing!

To even know that Annabel was up for WOW was good, seeing as she had this needed for it recently. After getting a few new games over the past couple month she had gone further and further away from her original gaming love. WOW was where she had started, well that and RuneScape but no one really plays that anymore. At least not since they changed everything so you had to have a paid account to play and have anything good in the game. She my only be fifteen but she was almost at the age where she was going to need to get a job to be able to support her gaming habits. Going through her character list in her mind she knew that her Rouge needed some love so, "I might as well go with my Rouge character. She needs some love!" Most of her characters where 'she's' but there was a character every now and again that she would think looked better as a male but she would never tell people who she really was. Nope, that was one thing she would never do while playing a male character. But when it came to what to do, that was a hard one. "Did you just wanna go around a grind some stuff? That is always fun to do when you are bored.." Well, it was fun for her anyways.

[ANNABEL LYNNE DALE]

Annabel really did love having friends and did not require having things in common to click with someone but that did not mean she didn't appreciate those few that really understood. She loved her brother to death and she enjoyed talking to him and the occasional hanging out but it was not a common thing between them any more. As she'd grown older and kind of grown into her own friendships and interests she was really able to appreciate how different they were. She could bet that she and Kiya were a lot more alike, though, and that was what excited her. "Ooh, a rogue," she enthused, clapping her hands together once as a sign of excitement. "I have one too, haven't played him in a while but he's a pretty high level so he'll live without me for a few more sessions." She waved her hand dismissively. It might have seemed a little weird to talk about her gaming characters like they had minds of their own but it was one of the little things that she did. It was fun for the sake of conversing and joking around. She gave all of her gaming characters 'personalities', too, as if the talking about them thing wasn't strange enough. Belle didn't care if people thought she was a bit of an oddball, though. She considered it as being unique.

"I really love the ranged in WOW," she hummed as she went through the process of logging into the server and hoping that the Academy's wifi would not detect that she was hacking into the system and block her out. It did not, and after a while of loading ("Ugh, my internet is way faster than this at home," she told Kiya) she found herself in the world. The internet comment might have sounded a bit bratty considering that the connection was not notoriously slow or anything like that but Annabel was used to gaming on a top of the line desktop with top-tier internet. The wealth of her family meant that she was pampered. Christmas and birthday gifts came in the form of all the latest consoles and games. Sometimes she got multiples but she usually ended up giving those to friends as gifts instead of getting rid of them, since a lot of games had a no-return policy. She wasn't wasteful about it, at least. Annabel bobbed her head in agreement to Kiya's suggestion, grinning. "Should we try and find a group to grind with or should we go it on our own? Sometimes I solo when there's too many noobs around." She made an 'ugh' sound in her throat. She hated when people did not understand gaming etiquette. To her, noobs were not just the actual newbies but anyone that didn't seem to understand how things were supposed to run. "Oh and I hate trolls, too, they fucking suck." She had a mouth on her, like most almost-fourteen year olds did if they hung around foul-mouthed friends.

[KIYA MINA ANDERSON]

This was how Kiya liked to spend her days, even though it wasn’t in her room. It was even better because she was playing with someone that she knew really well, or at least sort of well. She was an amazing friend and it was amazing to have people around her that she was able to game with and just a have a good time all round. It wasn’t very often that they actually meet outside of their little gaming universe but when they did you knew that shit was going to go down, if you know what I mean. On top of that it was just cool to have someone that didn’t judge what types of characters you played and what types of this you did. As soon as Annabel had said that she had had a rouge character herself she was just a little happy, you know just a little. Not too many people liked playing rouges at all and knew who to play them well. At least the people that she knew really didn’t like people when they couldn’t play their character to the full advantage in general. That is very true. You have to know when your characters are worth playing and when they need some love.

[/color] It was true, some people just didn’t know that yet.



Ranged was something that Kiya wasn’t very familiar with, that was for sure. She had played a few ranged character in WOW and in other games but the school had laggy internet some times and it really made it hard for her to play those types of characters. She had promised herself to get really good internet as soon as she moved into Maple Hollow, she may have to live in the middle class of the town but her internet would have to be second on her list, after rent of course. You are so lucky, the internet here during the night only gets a little better because so many people aren’t trying to get on at the same time. It gets so annoying sometimes! [/color] It was true. The only reason it was slow during the day was because so many people would be trying to get on and research or do whatever during school hours. Once Annabel had mentioned a group grind, Kiya was happy. They were something very interesting to do when you had some really good people in your group. Every group grind was different from the next and the last because something would always happen and whether or not it was good or bad, she wouldn’t know until it happened. A group grind sounds alright. We just have to find a really good group. The last thing I need right now is a bunch of noobs![/color] That was just something that Kiya wasn’t in the mood for.





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[ANNABEL LYNNE DALE]

Annabel prided herself on being well-rounded when it came to gaming. She wanted to make sure that she could assimilate easily into any crowd—male or female, hardcore or casual gamers. She didn't like to be disliked. Who did? So instead of simply accepting the fact that people weren't going to always accept her into their circles, she tried to make sure she had the best chance possible. Don't like archers? She'd pull out her warrior. Already have a tank? Well she'd toss in her cleric!

Annabel didn't often bother with the library internet, mostly because it was such a hassle. It was only when she became bored and desperate to play her games that she would hold off on simply waiting until the night when she could enjoy unhindered speeds from a top-tier internet package. They had to pay a lot each month simply because of how much bandwidth she used but Annabel never thought about the bills when she was gaming. She only thought about how much fun that she had with it. "So do you use the school connection a lot?" Belle wondered, tilting her head as she turned it to look at Kiya. "I always thought I was one of the only people that knew how to hack it!" She agreed with the amount of users, though. That definitely affected the speed of an internet connection.

Being as social as she was, she had no problem casting around for a group that looked like they could use a few extra players. Sometimes Annabel would hang around areas with higher level monsters and help out soloing adventurers that bit off more than they could chew. She liked that World of Warcraft didn't restrict more than one person killing a monster at a time. That made it all too easy to get killed.

Annabel saw a mage who was fighting off monsters in the area they picked and grinned, giving Kiya a look that suggested, "Let's do this!" It was a good thing that she couldn't be heard by the actual game itself as she sing-songed, "We're off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of WOW." She could be a little silly and strange at times but that was absolutely fine with her. Annabel didn't try to come across as completely normal. She was all right with only her good friends understanding her. "Should we ask her if she wants to team up with us?" she asked as she helped pitch in with the monster-killing.

[KIYA MINA ANDERSON]

Kiya always knew that there was going to be some things that she wouldn’t know about the games that she played. Not matter how much she played them, there was always something that would change the stakes and would eventually change the way that she played her games. It wasn’t until she started playing Single Player games that she really noticed this. Up until the seventh grade she always played with her Dad or one of her brothers, which was always something that they would too together but as soon as her brother started to work more and her Dad got really sick Kiya had to learn the hard way that Single Player was so much more different to Multi Player. It wasn’t like she hadn’t played games like that before, it was more the fact that it was just different not to have someone next to her while she played. On top of that as soon as her Mom would let her play games online, even though she did it without talking for year before that, it was something new on top of that but that is a story for another time. It was always such a long story.

As soon as Annabel started to mention the school internet connection all Kiya was able to think about was the very few good spots in the school with the wireless. Half the time she really wished that she was able to afford some really good internet, to be able play her games and not have to cry just a little bit when she wasn’t able to play. “Well, living on campus has it’s annoying points I have to say.” Kiya said with just a little bit of a smile on her face, but that was her goal for the next year. She had always wanted to move into Maple Hollow within the next two years, so that she could be closer to work. Well, at least it was a goal that wasn’t in a game. “Hacking it is the easy part, being able to get a good connection, or at least a good enough one to be able to play a really good session is something completely different!” Well it was true, the last time she was able to do that was a few weeks ago because she had a really good friend over that helped her get just that little bit of a better connection.

As soon as Annabel had seen the Mage that needed help and mentioned it to Kiya, she really couldn’t help but just laugh a little to herself. That was how she had met half of her online friends and because she was just amazingly awesome like that! It was a gift, cough cough. Though she had to admit that the song that she started singing was really awesome and just all around cool. “Only you could come up with that song Lynne!” She looked at the Mage on the screen and thought for a second, as far as she could really know it could have been a new player that had just gone into the wrong area! “Let’s do it!” Kiya smiled as she went to the Mage and just started to spawn some amazing fighting skills to help!

[ANNABEL LYNNE DALE]

She listened to the other girl's words with interest, wondering what it would be like to live at the Academy. She'd thought about it, all freshmen had a choice of whether or not they wanted to stay at school during the year, but ultimately it hadn't made much sense to when her brother and soon to be sister-in-law lived so close. The mansion was where she'd grown up, where she'd spent her entire life, and she knew it would feel weird staying away from home for an entire year. Some kids didn't have a choice, though, and she wondered if Kiya was one of them. "So do your parents live far away or something?" She didn't consider being sensitive, didn't take into account that some people did not have parents. Quite a few elementals were adopted, some of them were abused and opted to stay at the Academy out of fear no matter if their parents lived in the Hollow or not. She'd had such a good life that it didn't cross her mind at all. "I live with my brother and sister." She didn't think anything of leaving 'in-law' off the end of sister. She saw Nell as her sister and the fact that her brother wasn't married to her yet didn't count for anything. It would probably sound pretty strange and incestuous to anyone that knew Josh and Nell were, uh, engaged. Annabel made it sound like her blood-related siblings were getting married. She'd probably mentioned the engagement to Kiya before in all of her excitement. Oops.

She grinned as her friend bashed the shitty internet connection at the school. It definitely wasn't as good as her internet at home. "Ours is so much nicer. It never goes out or anything unless there's a bad storm and the power cuts. And it's unlimited." Since in Canada ISPs charged by the gigabyte of bandwidth usage, unlimited internet was a prized rarity among gamers that guzzled that bandwidth like it was nothing. You had to pay more but it was so worth it in her opinion. She didn't think anything of bragging. "I guess you really can't expect much of a school connection, though. It's not meant for what we use it for." It made her feel like a bad ass when she hacked into the system. She knew it was wrong and that rush came with doing something against the rules. She'd never been incredibly rebellious so even small things like this were enough. "Not really! I just stole it from the Wizard of Oz!" It had been one of her favourite movies as a kid so it was not much of an effort to belt out a tune at random. With her ranged character she stood back and fired arrow after arrow into the thing they were meant to be fighting, then greeted the person with the wizard in her usual friendly way. Sometimes people were anti-social when gaming and went their own way but this one seemed pretty receptive. She divided her attention between talking to Kiya out loud and typing to their new friend on the computer. "Hmm. We need someone that can help us out with healing stuff."

[KIYA MINA ANDERSON]

It wasn’t Kiya had thought that Annabel’s last comment was un-needed or anything like that, and she defiantly didn’t take it bad or anything. The two of them really didn’t know too much about each other’s families or their lives before the academy. To be honest, not to many people knew about Kiya’s family or her home situation. She only told people that she had been really close too and she only knew one or two people that she was able to put in that category. “Yea, I live away from my parents. My mother lives with my younger brother back in America and my father is in hospital at the moment. Nothing too big, you know?” It wasn’t like she didn’t trust the younger female or anything, she saw the younger water kid as a younger version of herself really. She trusted her with the tale and there really wasn’t too much to it really. As soon as she had mentioned that she lived with her brother and sister her mind straight went to Josh, her sister, but she didn’t know that she had a sister. “Hmm, I know Josh. He helped me with a Bio assignment once.” She wasn’t going to push the whole sister thing unless she was alright with talking, there were playing so that was still the main focus.

As soon as they had started to talk about internet connections and things like that she really couldn’t help but smile. It wasn’t like she really had the best internet connection in the word, considering her was the schools internet and she pretty much had to hack into it every time she wanted to play. It wasn’t like she didn’t like it or anything. It was more the fact that she found it really annoying after doing it for so long. On the other hand, she really couldn’t help but feel just a little bit jealous of the younger girl’s internet because that was the thing that ran Kiya’s life of course. "You are so lucky! I am defiantly jealous of you.” The fact that she had unlimited was one of the more amazing facts that she could see. Though as soon as Annabel had relayed the fact that the song that she was singing was just a rip off of the song from A Wizard of Oz. It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen that film before, because she had, the original comment was more because she wasn’t able to comprehend the amazingness of the song that she had just sung. Though at this point most of the elder girls concentration was on the game that she was currently playing. “You do have a point there.” A healer was always someone you wanted on your team. “Healing stuff is always good, isn’t it?”

[ANNABEL LYNNE DALE]

Before she'd came to the Academy, the only people she'd known that were from outside of Canada were limited to a select few, not including the people that she'd met online (most of whom were from America). She'd found out that quite a lot of elementals were from outside of the country, though. The Canadian population was still the majority but it was a lot more common to meet someone from Germany or Japan in the school as opposed to simply wandering around Maple Hollow. That said, it didn't really shock her to find out that Kiya's family were not from Canada. Concern gripped her at the last words, though. "Oh geez, is he okay?" Hospitals generally meant sicknesses and the like. The fact that both her father and brother had ties in the medical field did nothing to assuage any worries she had. Apparently the Wind elemental had met her brother before and Annabel rolled her eyes. "Ugh, he's obsessed with Bio, I don't get it. You too, huh?" She said it lightly, joking around, but she was also wondering aloud whether or not Kiya had a strong interest in Biology. It wasn't Annabel's thing, that was for sure. She didn't like the idea of dissecting things or squinting at cells through microscopes. She preferred things that had to do with technology and computers. She'd like to work in the gaming industry, testing or designing or something like that. "You haven't met Nell, huh? She's really nice." She didn't realise that in calling Nell her sister she might throw off anything obvious.

She might have been a bit spoiled and she had almost anything a fourteen year old gamer could want but Annabel was also generous and didn't mind sharing with friends. So at mention of jealousy, she grinned. "Hey, you should come over after school or something! I'm sure Josh and Nell wouldn't mind." She was usually allowed to have her friends over. Besides, it's not like Kiya was a guy so she doubted that her brother would get overly suspicious or protective. "We have an indoor pool, too, and a lake in the backyard if we want to go swimming. And there's a tennis court but I'm not that great at tennis." She made a face. Josh had tried to teach her once but it hadn't gone over that well. She was good at swimming and soccer, mostly, so she tended to stick to those sports the most. And gaming. She was glad to have another member to their team and so she frequently paused in her conversation with Kiya to make sure that she didn't go silent in-game and leave their poor new friend out. "Totally. They can be hard to play when you're soloing, though, which kinda sucks." She sighed. She usually preferred to adventure in large groups but sometimes when the server she preferred was sparsely populated she avoided her types that were harder to level up alone. "They can be kinda hard to find just wandering around though, ugh. Uh. I'm not sure if the school internet could handle the crowded areas. What do you think?" She didn't look away from her screen but she was concentrating on the conversation nevertheless.

[KIYA MINA ANDERSON]

Going to a new school was always a hard thing. Kiya had done that a few times, that was for sure. As soon as her parents had made the decision to move to America she knew that she was in for a bumpy ride, theoretically speaking. After spending a few years there and then moving here to the academy, is was like second nature to her. Moving houses, school, counties was starting to feel just a little too familiar, though she really didn’t have that many friends to be able to care about leaving them behind when she did move. Though as soon as Annabel had asked about her father she couldn’t help but smile just a little bit. Not many people wanted to know that kind of stuff and it was nice to know that someone did want to know! “My mum really doesn’t tell us to much about it, Dad really doesn’t want us to have to worry about him while he is sick. From what I know, I have a feeling that it may be something wrong with his heart and lungs.” She never really knew for sure and with the bits and pieces of information that she was given that was the most that she had been able to get from it. But getting off of the topic was something that she really wanted to do though and she was happy to get off of it. Once she had mentioned that it was Nell that she had mentioned as her sister Kiya really couldn’t help but laugh, that was who she was talking about. She remembered the detention that she had had just recently with the earth graduate and the fun that they had had during their time. “Ahh, Nell. That is a name I will never forget, I had detention with her once. Cool girl!” Well, she wasn’t lying about that, which was for sure!

Leaving at the academy had its advantages and its disadvantages. The internet connection was one of those really big disadvantages that she really didn’t like to deal with on a daily basis, thankfully she had to leave her house because she had recently gotten a job at Timmies in Mapple Hollow. “You know what, as long as they were alright with it then I don’t see why not. Might be a little easier to raid if you have a better connection, right?” That was always something that she hated but had gotten just a little too used to over the past couple years. Though once the younger girl had started to list off the amount of things that she had around her household Kiya really couldn’t help but be just a little jealous of the younger water gamer. “Tennis? Got to agree with you on that one. I swear that I am allergic to sport in general! I always come out hurt!” Well, that was a true fact after all! Though, it wasn’t until this point that she realised that she was talking to a real person while gaming. After all her year she had to admit that this didn’t happen very often! “I know right. I hate having to play all on my own. It just a little lonely when you start to think about it, am I right?!” It was true though, she would usually try her best to game with her friends on steam as much as she could, because playing a game link this was meant to be played with people that are just awesome! “People just think that it is cooler to be a bulky character than a healer, which really sucks when you think about it! But I have to say with experience, that is a very true statement! The school internet can’t take too much!” And all that Kiya could think that this point was, ‘MULTI-TASK FOR THE WIN!’

[ANNABEL LYNNE DALE]

Though she could unintentionally come across as nosy, Annabel's inquiries really were out of concern for her friends the majority of the time. There were people out there who would stick their noses into your business without giving a damn about how you felt about it and Belle had never aspired to become one of those people. No way. Her brow furrowed with worry when Kiya explained further but she quickly brightened, not wanting to be Debbie Downer or anything like that. "Well I hope everything turns out okay!" She decided to leave it at that, because even if she wasn't the most empathetic or perceptive person on the planet she could guess that a sickness in the family might be a painful thing to talk about. Instead they could spend their time talking about more entertaining things like games and like their mutual friends and acquaintances. It turned out that Kiya knew Nell, too, which Belle thought was pretty cool. "Small world, huh?" The world was actually really big, it astounded her sometimes. The world in Minecraft was even bigger than Earth, though, and she'd always thought that fact was really cool. She should probably have committed more real-world facts to her memory like the size of the literal Earth but Annabel tended to care more about her games than her schooling. She was the opposite of her brother in almost every way but she'd never been ridiculed for it by her family and so it didn't bother her at all.

She nodded enthusiastically when Kiya spoke, always up for raving about the glory of a fast internet connection. "Oh it's way better!" she said, the energy present in her voice. "And it's the best for when you need to snag the best loot before everyone else does! It sucks to get ninja'd all the time on the school's net." She huffed out an irritated breath. She didn't like to sit around and game for hours using the shitty school connection only to have the super rare items taken from her despite how much work she'd put into the raids. At home with a connection that didn't falter or lag no matter how much strain was on the server, she was the one doing the ninja grabs. She should probably have felt bad for the people with bad internet as she stole all their hard work just like they'd stolen hers in the past but there was no taking away from the satisfaction of getting a rare drop. "Oh, you've gotten hurt from it? That doesn't sound very fun!" She made a face. She wasn't the biggest fan of tennis and the fact that her friend had been injured while playing made it that much worse. She knew a brief pang of worry for her brother, he loved tennis, but brushed it off. He played a lot and he was really good. He'd be fine. "I usually switch to my tank classes when I'm alone. That way I don't need to waste all of my health items." Soloing with her magic or archery classes was possible if she managed to keep her distance but it could be a real potion sinkhole if the monsters she was attacking managed to creep up. "Ugh, and aggros are the worst, especially when you're trying to get somewhere." There was nothing less fun than being killed en route to a new area because you attracted all of the naturally aggressive monsters in the area.