This is sort of a remake of a story I had on Quizilla (no my user name on there is not kiarashadowdragon2 so do not bother), before I gave up on the site for making me rewrite stories 100 times, because of errors. Finally I just gave up, and spent a lot of time rewriting this, and making improvements, mainly, actual paragraphs. I hope to have all of my stories transferred at some point, however, it takes so much effort do to my love for major improvements I might not bother with some. In fact, I'd say this story is almost unrecognizable. It's still not my favorite, but it's not now.
There were whispers as the students studied the unknown girl at the front of the classroom. She was obviously new since no one recognized her, and it was weird to switch classes in the middle of the year. Her clothes were all black and her dark brown hair was either extremely wavy, or slightly curly depending on whom you asked. That and her iridescent blue eyes were her most notable features. Without them, and the fact that she was new, everyone would have instantly forgotten about her. She simply blended in with the background far too well. Nothing about her short-sleeved shirt, or dark washed jeans told anyone anything about her. In fact, the only thing that did show personality was her bracelet. It was a charm bracelet, with everything from valuable jems, to a string tied in a knot, to small metal charms in weird shapes. Both Jeremy and Yumi noticed that everything, but the knotted string was either valuable, or worth a decent amount of money. Yumi made a mental note to tell her later to never take it off, or hide it in a very good place before someone stole it. She could already see Sisi eyeing it from where she was sitting.
"Now, now, everyone settle down," the old science teacher was done looking over some papers that were handed to her when she first walked in to class and was now eager to quickly introduce the new student and get on with class, "we have a new student here named Lightning, please give her a warm welcome."
"Um, hello…" she looked fairly uncomfortable with the now awkward silence despite looking fairly confident earlier. A couple of other people called out hello to her as well, but apparently they felt just as uncomfortable with the awkward silence as she did.
"Now then, where should I put you, hmm… how about next to Odd. I'm hoping his bad behavior won't pass on to you and you won't start making paper cranes during tests?" Her eyebrows raised accusingly in the boy, Odd's, direction.
"But you have to admit, I do make some great paper cranes!" He joked grinning at the teacher. The majority of the class smiled too, although many tried to hide it.
"Humph, stay after class then and we can have a nice long detention where you can make up those tests you miss in favor of cranes shall we?"
"Nope, no, I think I'm good actually," He gave a nervous chuckle with his words that were said a little too fast.
"Well maybe if you actually try to do your test today, I might hold off on some of those plans." The teacher snorted, now some of the other kids were chuckling.
Lightning's POV: Generally, I enjoy being forgotten, and fading into the background. I actually make a conscious effort to do so most of the time with my clothing and actions. When you aren't noticed, you're left alone, when you're left alone, your life tends to be fairly peaceful. However, after I sat down, and my new teacher announced that there was a test and that I didn't have to participate because I was new (to Odd's obvious annoyance), I started getting a few mischievous thoughts with the conversation earlier in class still fresh in my mind. Coming to a decision I knew I would regret, I put down my half picked up book, and grabbed some scratch paper out of my bag, and began folding.
By the time class was over I folded 15 paper cranes and finished my book from earlier. The rest of the class laughed at the teacher's expression when she looked at my desk and saw them.
"I sincerely hope you don't do this with actual tests, Lightning." There was no humor in the teacher's voice compared to when talking about Odd doing the same thing, and I knew why. I gave her a sheepish grin and shook my head.
As I was leaving, I looked around trying to find the blond kid with glasses I had seen earlier.
"Excuse me, Jeremy?" I said finally finding him, he was absorbed in a conversation with a girl I didn't know.
"Hm? What is it? You're Lightning right?" He said turning around.
"Yes, uh," the girl was staring at me making this a lot harder than it should've been to ask, "The curriculum at my old school was slightly different than here, so the principle decided that it would be a good idea to ask someone to help with what I don't know, so…" I trailed off a little before rushing on; I didn't like asking for help at all "So could you?" I didn't have to finish the 'could you' sentence because thankfully, it was quite obvious what I was asking.
"I guess so, if you told me what you don't know, and if it's okay if Aleita here comes too, we've been working on an experiment together." Right, they want keep working whatever it is they're working on every possible chance they get during my little tutoring session.
"Yeah, don't worry, it shouldn't take that long, and after you taught me the basics I can learn the rest on my own."
"We can meet in my dorm after class if you want. The doors are labeled so you shouldn't have any problems." (AN: I don't know if they're actually labeled or not, but I don't care, they are now)
It had been about an hour after class, and I was about to part from Aleita, and Jeremy, to learn the rest on my own like I said I would. As I previously suspected, they were working on something to do with robots every second they got, but I didn't mind, and actually found it some-what interesting. Jeremy probably knew more than Aleita did, and I'm fairly certain he went a little out of the curriculum with what he taught me, but Aleita was extremely good at remembering numbers, and was probably the better teacher because she didn't treat it like a chore. She didn't even have to help Jeremy tutor me, but she did which I was thankful for. Suddenly the door was slammed open, and the P.E. teacher, Jim, came in with a weird marking in his eye, and a club in his hand. I noticed that Jeremy, and Aleita were panicked, but not as scared as most people would be.
"J-Jim?" Jeremy tried, I don't think he really expected an answer, and he didn't get one.
We all jumped in different directions, and out of the way when he swung the club at us. We all ended up pressed along different walls though because the room was so small..
"What's going on here, Jeremy, Aleita?" I knew it wasn't my past catching up to me, but I couldn't help but be a little scared, and they seemed to have some idea of what was going on. They did seem a little surprised when he tried to swing at me again though.
Long experience with fighting was the only reason I was able to dive under him in time to avoid injury, roll past, get on my feet again, and run a few feet away fluidly, and barely stopping in my movements. It was also why I was able to so easily forget that I had left the closest people I had to friends around here, behind with an insane psychopath.
As it turned out, I needn't worry; even though Jeremy somehow got hit out of his dorm with the club, he was only some-what dazed from hitting the wall across from his dorm, and being electrocuted, from what I could tell, he'd only have a few bruises later. Aleita also took the opportunity to dash past the psycho since he was no longer blocking the entire doorway, while I went back and helped Jeremy get back on his feet. Then like any normal person would do, we ran. Not sure where we were going, but I knew it was sure to be better than here, so I just followed Aleita, and Jeremy.
"Why was he attacking you specifically?" Jeremy asked clutching his head. Huh, maybe he took more damage from that hit than I thought.
"What's going on here?" I countered.
"That's kind-of a long story…"
"I have nothing planned for the next 60 or 70 years of my life, and you have the rest of the night, and every day of the rest of the school year, spill it!" I growled. Mean, but I was nearly killed, and that deserves answers, not a brush off.
"Um, well," He glanced at Aleita, "why don't you wait until the others get here…"
I ran in front of them, forcing them to stop, and waggled my finger at them "Oh no, you're telling me exactly what the hell is going on here, or you can face the psychopath behind us." I knew I was probably not doing myself any favors being this forceful about it, but there was also no way I was letting this slide.
"W-what, you realize he'll attack you too, right?" Jeremy tried
"Yes, but I don't care, I want answers, and I'm confident I can get away again."
"Just tell her, she won't remember after we return to the past, and we don't have any time to waste," Aleita said, looking back behind her
"Fine, but I explain while we run," Jeremy glared a little.
I nodded in agreement and moved aside, before we began running again.
"A while ago I started up a super computer that had a sort-of virtual reality on it."
"Umm, okay…" I said not really seeing where this was going.
Aleita continued for him "The program had a bug we call Xana, that tries to bring disaster to the real world, because when one of the towers in the virtual world is activated it allows him-" I cut off Aleita.
"It," I corrected
"Huh?"
"If it's a bug, it should be an 'it', no matter what you call it, but continue."
"R-right well, I was trapped in the virtual reality, and they decided to keep it running to get me out again, but when they did, Xana made sure that they still couldn't turn it off without killing me because h-it, corrupted my data." Huh, maybe they were right to call it a 'he' it must have been a pretty big mistake to be complex enough to do that.
"We're… still working on a solution." Jeremy admitted reluctantly.
I nodded and asked, "So, are we going to deactivate the tower then?"
"Yes, then we return to the past so we don't have to explain the broken door to our dorm."
Which all sounded well and good except for one thing. I was determined to remember what happened.
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