Ayla and the New School is the third Phase story by Diane Castle. It narrates the events from September 7 to September 25, 2006. It was initially published on April 6, 2008. It is preceded by Ayla and the Blackmailer and followed by Ayla and the Tests.
This is a mostly slice-of-life story... for a millionaire kid at a superhero school with super-bullies, that is. Ayla begins classes, meets more students, is invited to the Golden Kids, purchases clothes, redecorates his room and bonds more with the other Kimbas. He also meets Dr. Bellows, his new counselor.
Among the new acquaintances, he finds some old ones: his childhood friend Mal and his sister Jadis are studying at Whateley, and he sees a boy he knew from Chilton at his first Golden Kids meeting.
We get to see from Ayla's point of view some of the major events of other stories, such as the Tennyo trial, Fey's problems with thunderstorms and crystal wavers and Chaka's duel with Montana.
On the bad side, it seems every bully at the school chose Ayla for a target, including Aries, the Whateley Martial Arts Cheerleaders, Bravo, the Gold Stallion and Farrago's group. Since Ayla's powers are well-suited to defense, they aren't very successful at first. In the course of all this, he gets to meet personally Amelia Hartford and Headmistress Carson. But eventually, Aries comes back with Hamper, Damper and Icer and put him in the hospital.
Of course, Ayla won't let this slide. He decides to invest in equipment: an utility belt from Möbius and some weaponry from Sin d'Rome's Mercenary Emporium. On the next attack, Ayla is able to deal effectively with them. And he ends up with a valuable intelligence resource.
Characters[]
- Kitteridges:
- Yagimuras:
- Hatamoto
- Hatamoto's "uncle and ... cousins"
- Dynamaxx
- Kenners:
- Venus Inc (mentioned)
- She-Beast (mentioned)
- Techno-Devil (mentioned)
- Dr. Hardy Lester (mentioned)