A/N: I'll warn you now; this chapter isn't long like I promised. I'll try harder next time.

Sadly for me, school has… has started… *sob*. Anyway, teachers have this terrible habit of giving loads of homework. Ok not loads, but I'm not used to it yet. The point is that I won't be getting chapters out so fast anymore, even though they weren't coming out fast to start with. I'd say it's reasonable to expect one per month or maybe two every three months… I really don't know yet. I don't even want to experience university homework… *shudders*

There is a song in here. Before you go saying anything, I wrote it myself, so it's allowed… I think. Just sayin'.

This is the halfway point of the story. As I've said, I've planned out the rest. The second half should be easier for me to write. I feel like it's easier to write the scenes where important things actually happen. XD

Thanks so much to all who reviewed, alerted and aavorited! It means a lot that you're reading.

Thanks to amai-chan1993 for her amazing beta skills!

Chapter 9: Revoked Invitation and Job Day

The next morning dawned bright and chilly. As soon as I got out of bed, I made a mental note to grab a sweater before I left. I grabbed the robe that was hanging on the back of my door, wrapping it tightly around me.

When I came out of my room, the first thing I saw was Terra, Athena and Venus sitting on one of our couches and talking excitedly. Before I could even ask what was going on, Terra ran over to me, grabbed both my hands and started jumping up and down.

"What's going on?" I asked sleepily.

"Job day!" Terra squealed right in my ear, making me flinch. I gave her a confused look.

"Job day. In each gift class, you get to learn about the jobs that involve your gift. You choose one and you go through training. That's how you get paid. I already have a job. I'm still in training for it actually, but I'll have it maybe by the end of the year!"

I perked up a bit. I was looking forward to getting a job before I'd been found to be a descendant, but I hadn't gotten around to getting one yet. My excitement grew exponentially when I thought of all the job opportunities that had to do with my gifts. "What's your job going to be?" I asked curiously.

"I'm going to help keep the school's shield in place."

"What about after you graduate?" I wondered aloud

"I'll keep up the shields for the GSLCs." Terra was too excited this morning.

"Why are the shields so important?" I blurted. I regretted it as soon as it came out.

"They're not as important here because the weather isn't so bad, but down in the states it's more important to protect the campuses from storms and intruders in some cases." Terra didn't seem overly put out by my question.

"I'm learning to turn myself into the air for long periods of time so I can protect people." Athena cut in proudly. "I could even do surveillance."

"I have to be a healer." Venus was glum. "According to my teachers, I have to "get my head out of my ass and treat people right"." She sneered the words.

I pressed my lips together in a tight line to prevent the laughter. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Terra was attempting to do the same. Her attempts were in vain though, because a moment later, the loud laughter that burst from her lips made me jump in shock. Venus pouted petulantly, and a moment later, Athena and I were laughing right with Terra. Venus got up and stomped to her room, slamming the door behind her; she reminded me of myself as a young child.

~! #$%^&*()_+

As soon as we entered the cafeteria, I realized just how much of a big deal job day was. Everyone was so full of excitement that you could almost feel an electrifying energy in the air. The noise level in the large room was twice as high as normal. I couldn't help but feel a spike of excitement jump into my throat as I watched their enthusiastic interactions. Even the first-years who had no idea what it was all about seemed so lively and interested in the explanations of some of the jobs that the older students were giving.

Thanatos found me near the buffet. She tapped me on the shoulder, making me jump a little.

"Hey!" she yelled to me over the noise.

I turned to face her. "Hey!" I called back.

"What's up?"

"Nothing much, you?"

"Not much. Hey, I was wondering if you wanted to come over to my apartment this weekend. We could watch a movie or something."

I agreed immediately. I hadn't made any previous plans for the weekend. It would be fun to get to know her better; she seemed really nice. We made plans to meet up on Saturday afternoon and watch Bridesmaids.

People started leaving for their first classes five to ten minutes earlier than usual. I had to laugh at their enthusiasm. It didn't take a rocket scientist to notice how much more awake everyone was at the mention of jobs. My mum said her job was stressful, and I was wondering when people would learn that for themselves.

The atmosphere in the visions classroom wasn't much different. Nyx had trouble settling everyone down so she could start the lesson.

Once we were all calmed, she proceeded to talk about the reason that we were so riled up in the first place. "As most of you know, today is job day. Each class you have today will be dedicated to learning about the jobs that you could do with the particular skill that you're learning about. You'll choose one by the end of the day and the visions class in the afternoon will be dedicated to job training."

Once again, the noise level raised in the classroom. Nyx raise her hands, and silence fell once again. "Right now though, we'll be working on mythology." Everyone groaned, but Nyx just smiled at us. "You'll have a visions class again later today." And thus begun the anticipatory fidgeting.

Everyone gave a sigh of relief when the bell rang an hour and a half later. The classroom emptied in record timing. I gave a little wave to Nyx as I exited the door, pushed along by the excited crowd.

I couldn't help sprinting to the air classroom. Athena's job sounded interesting, and I wondered what other jobs involved that specific gift.

Selene was standing by the door to the classroom. She passed me a sheet of paper as I went past her and through the door. I sat at a desk and put my bag down before I looked at the paper. The first thing I saw was a note scrawled messily across the top:

To Asteria:

You can choose a job to be trained for, but you'll only be trained half the time. The other half will be spent training to become a leader of a GSLC because of your status as a reincarnation.

Come to my office after dinner to discuss.

Phoebe

I smiled to myself before reading the paper. It was a list of the possible jobs that I could be trained for that had to do with Air. I saw Athena's job on the list along with about a dozen others, though hers sounded the most interesting to me.

During the class period, Selene described each job in more detail. Some of them sounded more interesting, but there were a few that sounded terrible. I suppose it would be a matter of opinion though, because some students looked excited at the thought of being an express taxi service for descendants.

The healing 101 class wasn't so much about the jobs. The only thing you could use that gift for was… well… healing, so there wasn't much use in spending the class talking about it.

Instead, we worked on searching for injuries. This time there were four people who were injured, so we got into four groups and took turns. We were instructed to put our hands on their shoulders and send our gift through our hands and into their bodies. The power of the healing would be attracted to the places that it was needed. I had a bit of difficulty trying to hold my gift back, but I was able to complete the exercise without too much trouble.

The jobs that were involved with shifting were more interesting. The one that sounded the coolest to me was a spy of sorts. You'd use your shifting to change yourself into a different person when you'd do your job so that it would be almost impossible for anyone to catch you. There was also a job where you could be a stunt double for an actor, but you'd need additional training in acrobatics, which… let's just say, I've had enough bad experiences with gymnastics, so I knew better than to choose that job.

Some of the jobs that were associated with visions seemed more like slavery than jobs, but there were a few that were interesting. You could be a fortune teller at the Descendant circus for one thing. That was a job that didn't require too much training. You could also be an assassin, which I didn't really understand. Apparently, you'd use your visions to intersect your target when they're least expecting it. You'd need extra training with your weapon of choice if that was the job you chose. It was wierd to watch Nyx as she described the job to the class; she was such a gentil person, and the image of her doing that job just didn't work for me. As I looked at the list, I wondered what job my biological mother had. I hoped she was sensible enough to choose anything but "predicting" stock prices. I mean, really? Predicting stock prices? Just… wow.

Math and English were self-explanatory. You could be a math teacher for math, and an English teacher, editor or novelist for English. I could tell that not many people would choose those jobs, because everyone rushed out of the classrooms as soon as they could.

Offense and defense class was… interesting, to say the least. The first thing that Ares suggested was that you could be on an assassin team with a person who has the gift of visions. The look on his face as he described the jobs reminded me of a kid in a candy store. To be honest, I was quite scared of him right then. Every job he described was violent and somewhat dangerous. I promised myself right then that I wouldn't do anything that involved violence, even if it was in the name of justice. I'd been thinking about being a cop before I'd known I was a descendant. Now, every time I even thought about doing a job like that, the look on Ares's face as he described all the gore and bloody encounters would flash in my mind, and I'd make a mental note not to think about it again.

As soon as my last Visions class of the day was let out, I found myself with more than two hours of free time. I took out my map and looked at the inner extracurricular ring, hoping that it would give me ideas of what I could do. I didn't really want to go for a swim in the wine glass, I had no desire whatsoever to work out, and I had no use for drama equipment. The two buildings that sounded the most appealing were the art studio and the music studio. I was fairly good at sculpting, and I'd taken music lessons for ten years.

I debated between the two for about five minutes. Finally, my intense need to write a song won over. I followed the path that lead to the music studio. My hands were just itching to touch the piano keys.

The building was quite large and was covered in grey bricks with an old-looking heavy wooden door.

The inside smelled a bit musty. The floors were carpeted and the walls were paneled with wood. As soon as you walked in the door, there were three hallways: one for brass instruments, one for stringed instruments and pianos, and one for percussion instruments. On each door, there was a sign that said what specific instruments were kept in that room.

After searching for about five minutes, I finally found a room that said "piano" on the door. The room was relatively small. There were music stands pushed up against the walls, which were a beige color. There was a small window that was high on one wall. Late afternoon sun filtered through it and onto the ceiling. The piano itself was older; I really hoped that it wasn't in too much disrepair.

I pulled out the bench—which had started losing its stuffing a long time ago—and sat on it. It groaned slightly under my weight, but it seemed like it would survive for at least one more day.

I stretched out my hands and rested my fingertips gently on the keys. My right foot reached for the sustain petal. I took a deep breath and began to play the intro to one of the songs I'd written a while ago.

When the world

Turns to dark

And I can't

Find my way

Through the night,

Will you give

Me your hand?

Will you be

There to make

It alright?

The lyrics sort of reflected my feelings right now. It almost felt like I was wandering through a minefield—one wrong move and I was dead. Would there be someone to help me when/if I made a wrong move?

Will you stay

Next to me

When the world

Turns against me?

Will you do

What you can

To get me through?

Or will you leave

me alone?

Either way

I will know.

My life

Depends

On you.

~! #$%^&*()_+

I was walking along the path back to my room when I saw Thanatos. She had this strange look on her face that didn't seem to suit her. As soon as she spotted me, she waved and jogged over.

"Um…" the word came out more like a squeak. She cleared her throat and tried again.

"Something came up this weekend… my mum wants me home for some reason. Can we re-schedule our fun day?" she looked a little nervous.

I was a bit disappointed, but I agreed anyway. "Maybe next weekend?" I asked.

"Sure." She looked more comfortable again. As she turned away, I could swear that I saw a satisfied glint in her eye.

As I continued walking along the path, I couldn't get what I'd seen—or at least what I'd thought I'd seen—out of my head. If I'd truly seen satisfaction in her eyes, what was it that she was so satisfied about? She seemed genuinely nervous and regretful when she'd told me the news. I couldn't quite wrap my head around what I'd seen.

~! #$%^&*()_+

Phoebe began to speak as soon as the door to her office shut behind me with a light click.

"I was thinking," Phoebe started. She took a deep breath and continued. "and I had this idea. We're supposed to train everyone at every GSLC to use all their gifts to the best of their abilities and then some. I know that you have an extra gift, being a reincarnation and all, so I think we should find someone to help you find out what the extra gift is and teach you how to train the gift. You'll most likely have to do research on how the gift works, which will be harder because there haven't been any other reincarnations of Asteria. It will be harder, but it won't be impossible. You could probably ask your goddess, but she wouldn't be able to tell you what the gift is…" she took a huge breath and continued. "Athena's main gift is knowledge, so she might be the best person to help you. If you aren't comfortable with that, I can find someone else-"

I held up my hands. "Hang on a sec! I missed half of that. Could you maybe go a bit slower?"

She took a few deep breaths and summarized what she'd just said. "I think you should get someone to help you discover your extra gift. Then you should ask your goddess to give you clues on how to use it. Athena might be the best option because her main gift is knowledge."

"Oh." I frowned slightly. "How would her gift help me?"

"The gift of knowledge doesn't necessarily make you smart. The gift helps you to be more perceptive. It only really works for you if you know how to take what it's telling you and interpret it so that it makes sense. We have a joke that the gift comes straight from the gods because it will never give you a straight answer. Anyway, Athena is one of the best students in that class. Since you know her, I figured she'd be the best person to help you. She could probably do it tonight if you hurry back to your room now."

I was about to leave when I remembered why she'd summoned me in the first place. "Didn't you say something about GSLC training?"

She looked confused for a moment, but then her face lit up. "Yes. It wasn't written on your schedule, but job training is every day for an hour after dinner. You complete the training long before you graduate. I was thinking that you could take Monday and Friday nights off to train for my position. Maybe we could meet in my office?"

It took a second for all the information to sink in. "Sure," I said a bit dazedly.

Phoebe grinned. "Have you chosen your other job yet?"

I'd thought about it a bit while I'd been singing. "I think I want to be a healer."

~! #$%^&*()_+

I was a bit nervous to ask Athena for help. Even though we slept no more than twenty feet apart, I didn't really know her very well. I had this thing about asking random people for help. Okay, I know she's not a random person, but still…

I knocked timidly on her bedroom door and it was opened seconds later. Athena stepped into the hall. She was still wearing her uniform. "Can I help you?" she asked.

"Uh, I was wondering… well… Phoebe told me to ask you if you could help me find out what my extra gift was." I pushed my words out in rapid succession.

I could hardly understand what it was that I'd said, but Athena seemed to make at least a bit of sense out of the nervous gibberish that had spewed out of my mouth. "Sure. It'll give me a chance to practice with my gift a bit. Come on in." she smiled as she opened the door to her room a bit wider, stepping aside so I could get past her.

Her room was similar to mine. The main difference was that her walls were a peach color in stead of blue. The room itself was quite bare; there weren't any pictures on the walls, dresser or night tables, and she had no clothes lying around. The only sign that someone actually lived in there was the neat stack of papers that sat on her perfectly made bed.

We sat across from each other in the middle of the floor. I linked my fingers together on my lap as I waited for her to explain more about how her gift worked.

Athena took a deep breath. "My gift isn't just knowledge. Certain things are pointed out to me by my gift, and I just have to make sense of them. I'm not sure how to go about finding your gift though. I haven't learned how to summon the knowledge yet. I usually just take what the gift gives me." She took a deep breath. "Has Phoebe had any ideas about what your gift might be?"

I thought for a second. "I think she said something about visiting and controlling people's dreams…?" it came out as more of a question than a statement.

"Good, we have something to work with. Now, we just have to figure out what it is that you can do so that I'll get some idea from my gift." She fell into her thoughts again. I sat there and watched her as she stared absently at the door to her room. I didn't quite understand what it was that she was looking for.

She sat there, thinking for about five minutes or so. Finally, her entire body jerked and her eyes snapped back to mine. They were filled with the light of excitement and understanding. "I got it!"

I jumped about a foot into the air. I'd been watching her as she thought because there was nothing else to do. Her snap back to reality scared the living daylights out of me. "Y-you got what?" I asked a bit shakily, putting my hand over my heart.

She looked a bit sheepish about scaring me. "I figured out how to find out what your gift is. You have to ask your mum. If anyone could help you, it would be she." The girl explained briefly.

"How did you figure that out?" I was impressed. I didn't even have to do anything to help.

"I analyzed what my gift was telling me about you. It's been pointing certain things out over the past few days. I was a bit confused by it, but as soon as you asked for my help I understood that what I was seeing and hearing would have something to do with what you needed help with."

I nodded, asking another question. "How will talking to my mum help?" Then something occurred to me. "Wait. Do you mean my biological mum or my adoptive one?"

"That's what you have to figure out." She smiled at me. "And think about it. Would your adoptive mum know what your gift would be?"

I blushed, feeling a little stupid for asking the second question. "Thanks for the help," I said as I stood up.

"Any time," Athena replied.

As I left her room, I thought about when I could meet my mother. She'd said that I could come over whenever I felt like it and she'd know. My weekend had been freed up by Thanatos, so I decided that I'd visit her on Saturday.

~! #$%^&*()_+

I had another sacrificial vision that night. It was pretty much the exact same as the others that I'd seen. The only difference was the name of the person being sacrificed.

"Goodbye Phoebe, after the Goddess of Light."

As the figure left the room, I caught the words that she murmured under her breath. "Serves you right for messing with me,"

A/N: Hmmm… any guesses as to what's going on? Things are getting strange with Thanatos. What did Phoebe do to get herself sacrificed? Only I know. What's worse: I take ages to update. *evil grin* … gosh; I just made myself laugh.

I'll try to explain the gift of knowledge more: it tells you to note something that's happening. For example, if someone was killed, the gift could give you some clue of where to find the evidence so that you could use that to find out who killed them. The gift doesn't tell you who killed the person, but it leads you to finding out on your own. I hope it makes more sense, even though I tried to write it in the chapter.

If anyone has one of the normal jobs mentioned in this chapter, I don't mean to offend you. These are Asteria's opinions, not mine.

As usual, feel free to ask questions and give criticism. I love it when people do that… XD

Thanks so much for the support everyone! (:

Tarah xXx