＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚　　˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊

The New Norm

THE INSTITUTE WAS THE SANCTUARY OF THE SHADOW HUNTERS. The place where missions were allocated and beginners were taught to defend themselves and oppose others. These people were and are the defenders against everything evil. They fight and have fort demons that induced havoc, taken down the worst of villains and have upheld the honour of the clave.

There once was an era where not all shadow hunters were pure in heart and mind. A generation of shadow hunters whose only mission was to find the mortal cup and control the whole realm. They were dark-hearted and shallow-minded, a group who fort only for themselves. Those shadow hunters were lead by the blackest of hearts and the sickest of minds. Valentine Morgenstern.

But now those days were over and the institute had subsided to doing the more simplistic jobs—as simple as they could get anyway. For instance, there was tonight when the faction of four shadow hunters had been set a new mission by the clave—to find out who was taking Mundane blood and who wished for it.

Arya was on the ridge of a building, at least 100 feet tall. The lofty winds were whipping at her long dark brown hair which streamed in curls down her back, nipping at her exposed arms. The rest of her was covered in a tight pair of black jeans and a skimpy, revealing black tank top. Her stele was slipped into her pocket and her naginata—with daggers made from Adamas on either end—was closed up and concealed in the inside pocket of her jeans.

She spotted Izzy on the building opposite her, her platinum wig making it evident that it was her—had her invisibility rune not been activated then the people on the streets would have easily seen her too. The two shared a smirk before running and flipping onto the bridge linking the two buildings—forming the street which lead to the pandemonium below—the place they were headed.

Below them, Arya spotted Alec knelt with his quiver on his back and bow in his hand, an arrow pulled—ready to fire. His strong arms flexing as he pulled it back in defence. She only realised she had been staring for too long when Izzy had gently nudged her and expressed to her a knowing smirk—which she didn't appreciate. She also caught the eye of Jace who was sauntering along the narrow pathway of balconies that were connected to the buildings, his sword in hand.

All in unison, the four shared a glimpse and a quick nod before they all flipped and jumped off either the bridges or the balconies, before rejoining as a quartet on the street again, the two girls in front and the two boys in tow. Alec eyed Arya up and down—unbeknownst to her, he shared a smirk with Jace as they carried down, splitting up to keep a better eye on the demon which proceeded to change identity.

The lights from the pandemonium sign flickered on and off in the colour of red, leaving the word demon on the inside each time, signalling that was the entrance.

Herself and Izzy entered first, instantly the intense flashing lights, sticky floors and hot bodies consumed the pair. Alec followed them, keeping a close eye on his sister and her parabatai. Jace followed in as the latter after having an encounter with a redhead that claimed she could see him.

They progressed further into the building and towards the glowing VIP sign in the rear area of the club, integrating back into the group of four, they were in previously as they did so. To get a better view, Arya separated away alongside Izzy while Jace and Alec split in the opposite directions.

Arya and Izzy spotted the demon in the purple dress, as well as Magnus Bane as they carried on through the curtains before they were closed behind the quartet and the disguised demon.

"Izzy, Arya," Jace murmured to the girls once he and Alec had caught up with them. They both smirked at one another and then headed over to the two platforms where the other demons were collected. Izzy disposed of her coat and Arya unzipped her tank to uncover the bralette beneath.

They started to dance seductively, attracting the attention of the disguised demons whose eyes never left them. Their gazes tracing over every curve and slow movement they made—distracting them while Jace questioned the earlier target.

Alec watched from behind a pillar, his eyes sternly transfixed on Arya—the way she moved, the way she was smiling, the curve of her waist and the swishing of her hair—she was beautiful. While he was also cautiously watching in case any Demon made a move on the two girls.

Just as Jace disclosed his sword and felt as if the demon was going to give in, an oblivious girl hurtled herself forwards, screaming at the demon "Watch out!" pushing her into the sofa at the side, presuming that Jace was about to kill a naive girl in a club and not aware she was actually a demon and he was a shadow hunter.

As a result, Jace pushed the girl out of the way harshly and turned towards the demon. Her mouth had now morphed into a monstrous feature with sharp and poisonous rows of teeth, covering the four pincers which now appeared in place of the girls' lips. The sight used to chill Arya to the bone, she used to recoil away from it but now it had become such a familiar occurrence that she now felt no fear—it was ultimately another thing that helped to form her outer shell of defence.

Now the girl had interfered, the attention of the demons was no longer on the parabatai pair. Accordingly, as the attention turned towards Jace—Arya pulled out her naginata pressing on the centre of it so that it extended to form a long pole with blades on either side. Izzy's snake bracelet melted back into her whip and they started the fight.

Arya swung her stick between her fingers and readied her stance as the first one approached her. She struck him on either side of his chest with the side of her stick and then stabbed him in the stomach, turning him to ash. The next one came, she did a roundhouse kick to the face—knocking him off guard. While he was distracted she stabbed the blade of the stick into the thigh of his leg and he too disintegrated.

She spotted Alec using his bow and runed arrows, firing them into the chests and the arms and legs of the demonic creatures while Jace slashed with his sword and Izzy whipped with her whip.

Izzy tossed the sword across the room to Arya who was closest when she spotted Alec trapped between two of the demons. Arya flipped over the shoulders of one of the demons and landed beside him—slashing the back of the demon's leg causing him to disintegrate. Alec gave her a great full smile before continuing. She moved back over and grabbed her stick, elongating it again and then hitting away the residual threats and then slashing them with the blade before there was only a few left.

Alec spotted one behind her while she was fighting off another and ran to help her, just as it secured its arm around her neck. She coughed and spluttered as it applied huge amounts of force to her neck, she was trying to reach for her naginata which she had dropped but it was no use. Luckily as the monstrous thing was about to bite her, Alec used his blade and stabbed it into its side, saving the girls life. She dropped to the floor to catch her breath—luckily just as the last Demon had been slaughtered.

"Are you okay?" Alec asked the girl hopefully as he knelt beside her. She nodded breathlessly, dropping her head against Alec's shoulder, silently thanking him before standing up and putting her naginata away and back into her side pocket.

✧

The four of them later subsided to the institute—alongside a stray redhead who Jace claimed he had saved from a ravener demon. He also claimed that she could see him with his glamour on—suggesting she was a fellow shadow hunter.

Thus it resulted in Izzy and Arya tending to her while she lay in the hospital wing of the institute. She was mumbling about her mother in her sleep and clenching onto a purple gleaming necklace. Suddenly—catching the two girls off guard—she jumped up and head-butted Arya.

"Okay, ow." She grunted while Izzy snorted. She playfully glared at the black-haired girl before turning to the red-headed one.

"Wait—I—I don't know you." The girl startled, pushing herself as close to the head of the bed as possible to make as much distance between her and the two girls. "I-I don't know either of you."

"I'm Arya." She smiled warmly in an attempt to alleviate her nerves before she panicked too much and ran away before she had the opportunity to explain. "And I'm Isabel. We've never seen Jace so curious about a mundane...or distracted." She smiled intentionally.

Isabel tended to realise that people had specific emotions towards one another before they did so themselves. She had done it when Alec and Arya started to get close. Arya had denied it numerous times prematurely on in their friendship but now she was more accustomed to it and accepted the remarks without actually confessing how credible or mistaken they were. And now she was achieving the same thing with Jace and the new red-headed stray he had carried home.

"As you saw earlier, distractions are dangerous in our line of work," Arya added warningly—after all the girl had intervened in the mission and could have gotten Jace, herself and the others killed had they not been so well trained or had they not known how to protect one another. The redhead wasn't paying attention regardless and rather was surveying the area of the institute which she could see.

"You can't talk." Izzy scoffed. "Please, you get distracted by Alec all the time." She smirked and Arya rolled her eyes. "I have no idea what you're talking about." Arya defended with a slight smile.

"I have no idea what either of you are talking about." The other girl fretted, shuffling nervously in her spot. "Who's Jace?" She inquired.

"You don't know much, do you?" Izzy pointed out from her place on the bed beside them. The other girl still looked frightened no matter how pleasant the girls appeared to be. Arya could still recall her first official day in the institute. She was terrified out of her mind when she first got there. The place seemed so intimidating and formal that she felt as if she wasn't skilled enough to work there. So she couldn't imagine how scared this girl must be—after all at least Arya knew where she was and why. This girl knew next to nothing.

"All I know is that some psychos took my mother, and now you people have taken me." She said with wide eyes as if she was processing everything that had happened to her for the first time.

"And by "taken" I assume you mean "saved your life" ?" Izzy asked with a smirk. Only god knows what could have happened to her if Jace hadn't taken it upon himself to scout the redhead from the club then they never would have known that she had been attacked—she could have died. "You're welcome by the way," Arya added cockily and Izzy grinned at her again.

"She should be thanking me." Jace huffed as he—accompanied by Alec—finally appeared in the hospital area. "A mundane shouldn't even be here." Alec huffed—he knew that he would get the grief from his parents if they found out and Jace would come out unscathed, even if it was his idea in the first place. He was the golden boy.

"Where is 'here' exactly?" The girl questioned. While Arya felt sympathy for the girl she was also getting frustrated with the number of questions that she was asking.

"She's not a mundane, Alec," Jace argued, crossing his arms and standing tall. "How do you know that?" The black-haired boy asked with a scowl in the same stance. Arya couldn't help but gape at him slightly from where she was sat. "Because the seraph blade lit up when she touched it." He cried out frustrated also. "Look, Arya. can you..." He huffed and so she shifted to sit beside Izzy and near Alec. "I'm Jace Wayland." He sighed.

"I'm, uh—" She began to introduce. "Clary Fray? we know who you are." He admitted and Arya considered how creepy that might have sounded coming from a stranger.

"Am I the only one who finds this unusual?" Alec asked. "You find everything unusual, Alec." Jace snapped slightly, he was more than likely the only one who didn't consider finding a new and random shadow hunter to be something out of the ordinary.

"I have to report this to the Clave." He contended.

"You know what? Dial it down a notch." Jace pleaded—not wanting too much scrutiny on the girl in case the Clave decided to do something drastic.

"My brother doesn't have a dial." Isabel grinned. "I love you, Alec, but you have a switch that's always on." She defended when Alec gave her a defensive stare. "Except when—" She tried to taunt.

"I love you too." Alec glared, cutting her off before too much was said. "But this—" He said, floating his hand towards the girl who was looking around
helplessly in an attempt to understand what was going on and where she was—more than likely scouting an escape route.

"Hey, you know what? Give me a minute." Jace hushed, holding his hand up to get Alec to stop talking for a moment while Arya and Izzy sat and observed the other parabatai pair bickering. When nobody left he huffed "Here's a word you never
hear me say. Please?"

"What is with you?" Alec groaned at Jace. Both the girls stood up ready to remove the other boy from the room to fulfil Jace's commands. "No seriously, what is with him." He expanded when nobody gave him an answer to his question.

"Walk with us, big brother." Izzy coaxed, guiding him away by one of his arms while Arya did the same with the other until they had left the other two entirely alone. "We'll explain it to you," Izzy assured once they had reached a different room.

"We don't know this girl." Alec defended. After Valentine's rain of rage and death—Arya wasn't surprised that he was sceptical about newcomers—she was too. After all, valentine appeared to be an ordinary shadow hunter until his true intentions were revealed. But those days were now over, so those concerns she once had, had now sunk to the back of her mind for as long as she could keep them there. "There's no such thing as new shadow hunters." He added.

"There is now." Arya opposed. It had been proven to them. If Clary could touch the sword and make it glow then she must retain some kind of shadow hunter mastery.

"You don't find that strange?" He asked her hopeful that she—of all people—would understand. "I don't know Alec." She sighed, noticing a mild ache in her neck when she tried to look up to his height. "I'm going to go and get some ice for my neck." She excused with a smile and a squeeze of his arm before she descended the stairs, headed towards the kitchen with Alec's eyes following her until she was out of his sight.

"What I find strange is why you are so rattled." Izzy pointed out, looking at him cunningly once he had turned away from the other girl. "Maybe your still worried about Arya because of earlier and your just pushing all of that away, trying to distract yourself from the way you feel by worrying about Clary instead." Izzy plagued.

"Maybe I'm just pissed that she's ruined the mission." Alec covered up. "We never found out who's buying the blood. That was our one job." The boy stressed.

"And the fact that it resulted in Arya getting hurt isn't plaguing you at all?" His sister asked, noticing the girl as she re-emerged from the kitchen and walked over to the weapons shelf with an ice pack along her neck.

"Yes. It's bothering me. But once again, if Clary hadn't ruined the mission then that never would have happened." He admitted before skulking off towards the same place Arya was and standing beside her at the shelf, leaving Izzy to go and do other assignments.

"How's your neck?" Alec asked her, gently pushing a piece of her hair to the side and over her shoulder to look at the bruising. But unbeknownst to him, even the warmth of his fingers near her neck was making the heat rise to her cheeks and the tingling erupt in her stomach.

"Y-yeah, it's fine. Just a bit sore." She assured him, slipping her hand into her back pocket and drawing out her naginata, placing it back onto the hold. She placed it so her initials were facing the front. The letters A.L for Arya Legacy were on the centre of it. It was besides Alec's, which had the same two initials on it for Alec Lightwood.

✧

Okay, guys!!! that was the first chapter of the shadow hunters book. I hope you liked it...

I'm not so thrilled with the ending but it will only get better from here on out.

Xoxo-LCC

Word count: 3004