Author's Notes: The following fanfic is set during S4 and will coincide with events from "Moonlight Desires" at the start. From there, consider everything a side story fantasy while the usual teen-age angst is going on.
Hikari/Yami
Chapter 1: Harbinger
by HA
As Kendra Mason looked up the steps of Degrassi Community School, she couldn't believe how plain-looking the building was. Her fellow students walked up the stairs while chatting with each other and dreading the terrors their teachers had in mind for them. It didn't seem like a place where something exciting would happen, yet something did. Sadly, it hadn't been a good thing.
It had been a while since Rick Murray shot Jimmy Brooks in the back and died while struggling with Sean Cameron. These three boys weren't celebrities, but their names became well-known around the campus: Rick, the bullying victim who had been rumored to beat his girlfriend and even beat her into unconsciousness; Jimmy, the star athlete now confined in a wheelchair, possibly for life; and Sean, the quintessential tough guy who heroically prevented more deaths and became the media darling, but never returned to Degrassi for reasons only known to him. Kendra knew Jimmy because he was friends with her brother. She knew Sean since he used to hang out with her brother and dated Emma Nelson, the school activist. She didn't know Rick, although she saw him occasionally in the hallway hanging out with Toby...
The Chinese girl sighed. Toby Isaacs, a.k.a. her ex-boyfriend. She wondered why they broke up over the summer. They had shared the same interests, especially anime and computers. That sparked their mutual attraction, which almost got destroyed by her overprotective brother. He was a sweet boy who doted on her and did his best to be with her. She paused and found her answer. Toby was nice, but too nice to the point he crowded her. One time, he had decorated her locker without her knowledge, but she let that pass. He had wanted her to come to a summer camp where he'd be a counselor. She didn't want to go. No big arguments happened, but they drifted apart, and the closest she got to seeing him was in the hallway from a good distance occasionally.
"Kendra!" a girl called out from behind her.
Kendra turned around to see Nadia Jamir rolling up to her in her wheelchair. "Hey," she greeted in a dull voice.
Her fellow grade nine looked into her eyes. "Are you okay?" she asked as she positioned herself in front of the handicapped access ramp.
Kendra let out a deep sigh as they went up the stairs. "Do I look okay?" she said as she walked with her head down.
They made it to the top. "So...it's true?" Nadia whispered.
"Yeah," Kendra said glumly.
They entered the school with their peers. To their surprise, they didn't pass through metal detectors, and security guards weren't watching their every move. "How did your parents take it?" Nadia asked, keeping pace with her friend.
"Almost exploded," Kendra answered, keeping her eyes in front. "I mean, he always got in trouble, but this...this did it. This really set them off. I'm amazed they didn't kick him out."
"So it is true," a blond boy in a denim jacket and matching jeans said as he joined the two girls. "You okay, Kendra?" he asked with a kind smile, revealing two rows of elaborate metal tracks being utilized to straighten his teeth.
Kendra frowned at him. "Do I look okay, Oliver?"
Oliver Wagner took a few steps away from Kendra. "Er, forget I asked that," he said, his knees shaking as he adjusted his red baseball cap.
Kendra looked at her friends. "Sorry, guys, but I'm trying to take all this in. A boy gets shot, and the shooter dies. Then, I find out my brother was partly responsible for Rick Murray losing it and shooting at people."
Gavin Mason, better known as Spinner, had a reputation for being a tough guy. He delighted in tormenting the members of the lower grades and participated in various sports like soccer. His friends loved him while lower classmen feared him. Kendra recalled how happy he was with Paige Michalchuk, the most popular girl in grade eleven and leader of the school's Spirit Squad. She had to fight the urge to throw up when they got lovey-dovey with each other when she visited them. The term "honeybee" made her wince when she heard it.
Unfortunately, they were through. Kendra didn't know the details, but Spinner and Paige, the dream couple of Degrassi, had broken up over a misunderstanding. The school rumor mill had said he had been taking advantage of her and had hooked up with Manny Santos, another member of the Spirit Squad. She also heard of the trouble her brother gave to Rick over what he did to his girlfriend. The girl in question, Terri MacGregor, had been a close friend of Spinner and Paige, but Rick abused her, and after recovering from a coma rumored to be caused by Rick, her father had taken her out of the school. From what Kendra had heard, Rick definitely deserved Spinner's tormenting after what he had done to Terri, and the whole school made the bespectacled girfriend abuser a pariah. Everyone rejected his claims of changing for the better. In a rare show of cooperation, activist Emma and cheerleader Paige teamed up to force Rick out of Degrassi. Despite being reviled by most of the student body, Rick found a friend: Toby. Kendra thought about that. It baffled her as to how Toby could befriend a girlfriend abuser, but she did notice Toby and J.T., his supposed best friend, rarely hung out together. Perhaps he and Rick shared the same interests. She knew they were on the school's Whack Your Brain team together.
Kendra gulped. Whack Your Brain. The TV trivia competition was where Rick possibly snapped. He had helped Degrassi win, and as he stood there in his moment of triumph, the unthinkable happened. A rain of feathers and a yellow liquid descended on him, and a fragile mind snapped. Kendra had been watching, but she had wanted to see how Toby would do. She blinked. How Toby AND Emma would do. From there, a boy was shot in the back, and the abuser-turned-victim-turned-avenger died at the hand of his own instrument of death.
She should have noticed. Spinner had been acting funny ever since the shooting. He never went to the hospital to check on his friend, and he seemed to be hiding something. Sometimes he would sit on his bed with his head bowed and his hands clasped as if waiting to be judged for some horrific crime. When Jimmy came back to school in a wheelchair, Spinner had done his best to help his friend out. Days later, it happened. Kendra gleamed what occured from the yelling her parents and Spinner engaged in. He had gone to the principal to tell her about the Whack Your Brain incident. Seems he had helped commit the prank with a Jay Hogart. The principal expelled both boys, and Kendra noticed how downcast her brother had become. None of his friends showed up at their home, and the school rumor mill told of how low he and Jay had been in committing the cruel deed.
"Things will get better," Oliver said, smiling at Kendra again.
"You just have to believe," a tall girl with a mop-top of frizzy brown hair said as she joined the three grade nines.
Dressed in a white blouse and pleaded skirt, Henrietta Veracomo looked like she belonged in parochial school save for the brown sandals and pinks socks on her feet. A silver chain hung around her neck, and Kendra wondered what was at its end.
"What? You want us to pray things will get better?" Oliver said.
"It couldn't hurt," Henrietta said. She placed her hand on Kendra's shoulder. "I'll pray for your brother."
Kendra blinked at Henrietta's hand. "Er, thanks."
"So you'll be praying for the guy who loves to stuff the new kids in lockers?" Oliver said, earning him a glare from Kendra.
"As well as for Rick," Henrietta said.
Kendra raised an eyebrow at her. "And why would you do that? He knocked a girl into a coma!"
Henrietta met Kendra's eyes with calm, clear, half-open green ones. "We can't change the past, and no one deserves to be bullied, not even Rick. He said he had changed. He overcame the darkness in his heart."
"How can you be so sure?" Oliver said. "He could've snapped at any moment. Maybe hurt someone else."
Henrietta sighed. "I worry for this world. All the suffering we put each other through because of the darkness in our hearts. I wish humans would be able to put their pettiness behind them and..."
"Sing 'Kumbaya?'" Oliver said seconds before feeling something roll on his foot. "Yeow!" he yelled, hopping on one foot and looking at the other, which sported a brief impression of a wheel.
Nadia looked at Oliver. "You were saying?" she said, smirking.
"Look, Henrietta, it's bad enough my brother got expelled from school, but now..." Kendra gestured towards a group of girls standing next to their lockers. They stared silently at her, and she knew they had been talking about her earlier. She noticed them whispering with each other and pointing to her. Now they frowned at her and looked away. Others gave her dirty looks and whispered among themselves as they made their way to their classes.
Oliver shrugged. "Not like many people noticed you before anyway," he said, leaping away from Nadia in order to save his feet.
Kendra rolled her eyes. A recent transfer to Degrassi, Oliver befriended Kendra and Nadia at the start of the school year, and despite his wisecracks, the girls accepted him. No matter how serious the situation was, he always cracked a joke or two. Like her, he loved anime, although he tended to argue the merits of Dragon Ball Z a little too much for her taste. Action was good. Watching two guys grunt and glare at each other during a fight that took several episodes to finish wasn't.
"You just need faith," Henrietta said calmly. "Although darkness exists in the human heart, there is still light."
Kendra stared at the girl with frizzy brown hair and feet covered in pink socks and brown sandals. Henrietta's fashion sense wasn't the only odd thing about her. Although her parents were devout Christians (her father was a prominent preacher in Toronto), she tended to not go along with their train of thought. For one thing, she liked anime, especially mahou shoujo shows. She loved Harry Potter despite her parent's objections to the series as being supportive of witchcraft and Satanism. In fact, whatever her parents believed in, she tended to believe in the opposite. That didn't make her odd in Kendra's eyes, though. Henrietta tended to speak about the ills of humanity like Emma, but when she spoke, she spoke of the darkness in the human heart and how people must overcome it. She spoke of the need for people to let the light outshine darkness.
Kendra remembered how she and Henrietta first met. It had been under unpleasant circumstances. Near the end of the previous school year, a group of girls had surrounded the tall girl and were teasing her about her looks, especially her hair and clothes. Kendra had butted in, and the girls proceeded to beat a hasty retreat. Henrietta had been wearing a pink vest over a blue shirt and green trousers. When Kendra was about to ask if she was okay, Henrietta smiled and said, "Your light is strong."
"Huh?" Kendra had said as she stared in disbelief at the girl.
"You do," Henrietta had said, still smiling.
Kendra managed to divert her attention to the Sailor Moon folder in the other girl's hands and started talking about it. The conversation became a normal one about anime, and the two befriended each other despite Henrietta's dottiness. Looking back, Kendra wondered if she liked Henrietta because of her oddness. Suddenly, she found herself looking at the girl with frizzy hair and green eyes with concern.
"Are you okay, Henrietta?" she asked. "You're looking really pale."
"Yeah," Nadia said, looking over the tall girl with the pink socks.
Henrietta blinked. "Actually..." Her green eyes focused on Kendra. "Can you feel it?" she whispered.
Kendra blinked back. "Feel what?"
"Something's...here," Henrietta said softly, her eyes filled with concern. "Something from the darkness."
Kendra and the others stared at their odd friend as other students passed by them. Kendra didn't notice the dirty looks aimed at her or the cruel whispers. The footsteps around her seemed to fade away into nothing. She did feel a slight chill, though.
Oliver took it upon himself to end the awkward silence among the four grade nines. "Uh, guys, we'd better get to homeroom. I'd like not to be late," he said, pointing in the direction of their destination.
"Good idea," Nadia said.
Kendra nodded and led the way. As the group walked through the classroom door, she looked at Henrietta again and wondered if she had gotten paler. The kids already inside stopped talking upon seeing the sister of Spinner Mason, and Kendra did her best to ignore their staring.
"Not late," Oliver said, looking at the wall clock. "Thank God," he added with a sigh of relief as he took a seat next to Kendra. "Hmmmm...where's the teacher?"
Nadia wheeled herself to a table in the back. Henrietta looked at a seat next to Kendra and was about to sit in it when she stopped moving. Her arm began to tremble, and it spread to the rest of her body.
"Henrietta?" Kendra asked, and the chill came back.
The trembling stopped, and Henrietta fell to the floor just as the teacher appeared in the doorway. As her friend hit it, Kendra sprang out of her seat.
From a nearby alley, he looked upon the plain-looking structure of painted bricks and plaster and grinned. A low chuckle escaped from his lips as he recalled what had happened there as kids swarmed inside. He sensed the pain there, tasted it, and found it appetizing. That building, Degrassi Community School, was a good place to start. He leaned his head back and took in the feeling of his surroundings. Yes, it was delectable. The taste of pain, misery, suffering, and agony...so delicious! Appetizing! Children, especially those approaching adulthood, made the best meals.
As he watched the children enter the school, he paused and sensed his target wasn't there. Of course, the others were targets, in and out of the school, but he wanted the instigator. He regreted not arriving in time to claim the shooter, but he liked the one who pushed him to do it. That boy made him snap, so to speak. He lamented the low number of victims; he had been to places where the death count was magnificently higher. School shootings were rare incidents, but such sources of sorrow for him to exploit like the bloody battlefields! The maiming, the killing, the cries for change, the illogical blaming...it all helped him perfectly, and it was the same wherever students vented their frustration through bullets and bombs. Still, this school interested him. Before the shooting, the school had been considered one of the safest in Canada. After the shots rang out in the hallways, it became vulnerable and ripe. Yes, he would begin here. He found starting here refreshing. The darkness was growing stronger in this eastern metropolis, especially in the little institute of education before him. Nothing could stop him.
Suddenly, he felt a powerful presence within the school. With his gloved hand tightening around the top of his cane, he tapped it on the ground as he tried to recall why it was familiar. A frown crossed his face as he remembered. It had been rare, but it proved troublesome to his existence. He recalled he would be found soon, but his pursuer didn't bother him. Darkness always won. Darkness always dominated. It was the status quo of the world. To fight it was futile. However, he knew a good number of people fought the status quo daily. He marvelled at their persistence. The recent one proved to be a pain to his operations, and death could not stop the heir to the tireless task. He stood still and felt the presence again. No, it wasn't the same person. The power seemed weaker, but he sensed the potential to become stronger. He knew he was stronger, but throughout his lifetime, humans surprised him, which annoyed him to no end.
He decided to let it go for now and refocused on his first target. He wanted him, and after that, more would follow. Humans were weak creatures. So easy to bend to his will. So easy to immerse into the darkness. He knew who to send after the target. He needed to make sure his plan worked. He pulled out a pocket watch and checked the time. Ah, time. Time wasn't a factor to him, but he knew the importance to sticking to a schedule. He would dispatch his operatives at once, but only after getting the information he needed.
Stretching out his dark-clad arm, he snapped his glove-covered fingers at Degrassi Community School. With dark thoughts swirling in his head, he turned around and started walking away with the back of his coat flapping behind him. As the children ran inside the normal-looking school as the bell warned them about their tardiness with its loud ringing, his footsteps and the tapping of his cane echoed softly until they faded away into darkness.
