If life’s taught Jayden anything, it’s that every action has a reaction and more often than not that reaction tends to be a fist to the face. It’s not as if she’s trying to pick fights with every boy, girl and inbetween on the playground, she just... trips up occasionally. With her fists. In other peoples’ faces. And maybe some insults.

What can she say? She’s a low tolerance for bullshit and stupidity.

Growing up, her mother used to be downright paranoid about the whole thing. Every time she’d come home with a sore arm, leg, jaw - in her defence, she gave thrice as good as she got - her mother would flip her shit. Was she wounded? Did she need to wear a bandaid? Did anyone see? Was there any blood? Did she break anything? Blah, blah, blah.

Even thinking about it gives Jayden a headache, yikes.

Granted, up until she was around twelve, Jayden did used to try her best to ’blend into the background’ like a good little brainless wallflower. She kept to herself, got crappy grades, sketched the scenery, played relatively nice - and hey, if she happened to deck every prick stupid enough to tough her sketch book in the process... oh well. Accidents happen.

If only mother dearest saw it that way.

At the end of Prep, Jayden had everything set up for the ’perfect’ Pre-Selection result. The council would come in, look over everyone’s marks and when they got to hers they’d ship her straight off to Art School, no questions asked. Her mum was going to love it, her dad was going to love it - she was going to hate it, but whatever, she was still trying to please her parents back then.

So the day came, she had her headphones tucked in her hoodie’s left pocket ready for some quality slacking when Peter fucking Evans decided that, right as the Pre-Selection Council was passing through the courtyard, to shove his hand into her pocket and try to steal them. Now, if it were anything else, she might’ve just tripped his dumb arse and went on her merry way to a lifetime of misery but, fuck you Evans, those were her god-damned red-striped surround sound headphones she’d been saving for months to buy from Level 3 and there was no way some Level 2 entitled dipshit was going to waltz up to her and take them to wave around as some kind of demented ’hail the loser’ flag.

Fuck. No.

So she decked him. In the face. With her fist. Hard.

Needless to say she didn’t get shipped off to Art School, or make her parents dreams come true. Turns out the council were so impressed by her ability to defend herself that she was offered a spot in the Level 2 Military School right on the spot. The MS representative practically begged her to take the position. It was amazing.

Her mother blew a gasket. In retrospect it was kinda funny - who knew her face could go that red.

After securing herself a fast-track to a future that wouldn’t bore her to death by the age of twenty-five, Jayden just... stopped faking it. Gone was the angsty wallflower no one cared about - rest in pieces - and here was warrior she always knew she was meant to be. She kicked arse, she took names, she forgot names, so she started the cycle anew and she excelled at it.

Military School was the best time of her life, and, not gonna lie, Jayden’s almost sad to see it go. With the awards ceremony tomorrow and her first flight amongst the clouds the very next day... yeah. She’s looking forward to it.

She closes her eyes and hums to herself. So much for staying out of the spotlight, huh?

Next Chapter: Chapter One; Valedictorian