Before you read: This is my first time uploading anything and I can start off saying that I am a bit nervous in doing so. I am not all that great of a writer but this is something that I would like to see to the end. Second, this is an anthropomorphic version of the characters of PoM. Finally, I apologize if I fall out of character in many places. Its something I am trying to practice and work on.
Thank you.

June 1st 1630 hours.

The school bell rang which had released the many middle school students, in the midst of the group of rambunctious kids a male standing 5"6' awaited by the flagpole that resided in the middle of the school's premises. His deep blue eyes darted down at his watch, it had already been 2 minutes and there was no sign of the rest of his crew. He was getting very impatient, his foot began to tap.

"Where on earth are they, there are going to be extra drills--" he was cut off by a voice from behind him.

"Skippa! Wait up!" a smaller boy chased after him as fast as his little legs could and stepped up to Skipper's side. Skipper looked down to see the pudgier 6th grader look up at him with his usual innocent grin.

"Private, what took you so long?" Was his first question. The smaller one, dubbed Private, was catching his breath before he stood upright saluting up to the other before his hand dropped back to his side and slipping into his pocket.

"I left my bag in the gym Sir, I ran back to get it as fast as I could Skippa," the younger of the two's had a distinct British accent and was obvious he was going through puberty still. Skipper furrowed his brows down at the other and then gave a more relaxed look to him nodding his head.

"Where's Rico?" the next question he threw to the younger one.

"I'm don't rightly know Skippa," he gave Skipper a shrug of his shoulders and rubbed his nose finally getting back his breath. The older boy let out a grunt in dissatisfaction.

"I don't know where K'wolski is either, he may be in the science wing talking with Mista Sykes about something,"

----------------------------------------------------------------

1645 hours.

Its been fourteen minutes now and both Private and Skipper had already began their journey back to the cul-de-sac that they resided in. Both of them walked back to Skippers back yard and dropped their bags off on the desk and went over to the two big trees that had bordered between his house and his neighbor's. The taller one jumped up and climbed his way up to the top and lent him an arm to Private, due to his rounder physique climbing up things was not his strong suit.

Within the tree house the finish was a thick metal which is hard to believe that it could stay up within two trees as it had. The inside was sleek and very simplistic. In the back there was a small television and two chairs on each side of it. Center of their HQ was a mid-sized table that had assorted drawers with items hanging out of it. On the right upon entering, there were four sleeping bags on the floor. If there was an emergency meeting the group would stay the night in the fort. Finally, to the left was a small computer where most of Kowalski's notes, files, and theories stayed. Every now and then the others would use the computer to play solitaire, seeing how they couldn't get the internet in here.

"I should probably start on Rico and Kowalski's drills for being tardy.." Skipper mumbled to himself looking down into his hands starting to contemplate within his head. Private shuddered at the thought of Skipper's means of punishment training. The stuff they did now was quite straining as it is, Private made sure that he was always right on time and up when Skipper commanded. Due to him being the apprentice he did get slack but would try to keep on his leader's good side.

Back at the school a taller more slender male had shoved his stuff into his book bag looking about at the chemistry sets placed out at all the tables from experiments earlier in the day, Kowalski loved this room and this part of the school. Science was his strongest subject and always has been, he was the strategist of his group of friends always coming up with theories and mathematics of their missions. He held a notepad close to a body and a pen in his ear,

"See you tomorrow Mr Sykes, I would like to engage about the Ptolemy theory..its quite intriguing hearing how most people used to believe that the Earth was in the center of the universe," his voice chirped giving the professor a quick wave of the hand stepping from the chem lab and making his way down to the commons where he knew he would find Rico who had the habit of staying after.

His expression changed consistently as he walked down the now quiet hall. In a quick motion his hand reached for his pen and started to jot into his notepad, no one could ever understand what he was writing. Not only because of how in depth of thought he got into, but, also because he had deplorable handwriting.

Upon entry to the commons he found who he was looking for, Rico, the brute force and weapons expert of the team. His body was bulkier, but not enough to make him fat, muscular was the correct word for him. The only thing odd about him was, he wouldn't speak. No he wasn't a mute, no one ever knew why he wouldn't speak. The group even went as far as to ask Rico's mother why he didn't speak but she never disclosed said information to them, she would just play it off with a nervous laugh. Another eccentric thing about the quiet one was he would carry around a very large backpack, bigger more so than most, everything thinks he had it custom made so he could carry around more items for the group. It almost seemed that it was a bottomless pit, just like his stomach.

Taking a swig of his coke the bulkier male turned to look at the slender tall one who stood 6"3' now before him, a goofy smile came over his face. On his left cheek was a large gash that ran from his cheek bone down to his jaw diagonally. Only Skipper knew how that scar came to be on his face since the two of them had quite a story of their past. Both Private and Kowalski have asked once or twice about the scar but never got a straight answer from Skipper, and since Rico didn't speak there was no real way to get it from him.

"Hello there Rico, good school food?" Kowalski managed to ask pulling himself away from his thoughts setting the notepad between his waist and arm. Rico gave an eager nod and began walking off alongside his fellow team mate back to HQ.

---------------------------------------------------------------

1713hours.

Both Kowalski and Rico finally made their ways to Skipper's back yard and up into Head Quarters,

"Rico! Kowalski!" Skipper said with a firm tone his eyes slanting in disappointment at the two.

"Yes Sir!" The tall one spoke up as both took the salute to their higher up.

"You two are 43 minutes late to headquarters! What on earth were you two doing!?"

Still in saluting position the two exchanged glances before Kowalski spoke up.

"My apologies Skipper! I had to do a deeper study in the range of which I could create the force field around HQ," he paused at dropped his hand to his side looking at the slouch posture brute still attempting to keep his salute, "and Rico wanted to engage in the after school snacks they offer in the commons," Rico dropped his arm down to his side and nodded wildly giving Skipper his signature crazed smile.

"Excuses are not an option men!" he replied and tapped his foot before walking over to the table and pressing his hands down on it looking at the tardy duo.

"Both of you, twenty laps around the up street, through Devil's forest, and up the hill again. I want you both back here at 1800 hours, got it?" Skipper rose his eyebrow giving them both the annoyed glare.

"Yessir Skipper!" Kowalski barked loyally the two of them saluting.

"Dismissed,"

Kowalski sighed airily as he stepped foot on the ground under HQ and began to trudge off to the other side of the cul-de-sac, Rico followed up with his silence to the side of his fellow tardy friend giving him his doofy smile. The intellectual turned to look at the other and gave him a chuckle to the expression. The laugh of his friend only encouraged him to make a bigger smile and let out a grunt of satisfaction. Once they made their way to the top of the hill it was only a few moments before the started, Rico took off a few steps ahead of him which was to be expected. He was the slower one of the team, he had the brain but not many physical advantages.

---------------------------------------------------------------

1800 hours. After the mission

Skipper had been cleaning about in HQ picking up the messes that the others had left around from previous missions, while Private rested in a chair watching a soap opera that he was starting to get sucked into.

The two crawled back up into the fort, Kowalski was panting due to the lack of physical skills. Rico kept the spacey goofy smile as he scratched his spiked up hair.

"M--Mission complete, Skipper- Sir.." the taller one now walking over to the --- and pulled a water bottle from the --- popping it open and taking four big gulps from it followed by a long sharp sigh.

"Damn Kowalski..your really out of shape! Maybe I need to put you out on more practice," Skipper gestured with a chuckle. Kowalski only returned the laugh and attempted to shrug the thought off the thought of doing even more of those laps, he didn't need more scratches and cuts. After slamming the last of the bottle he took a seat in the chair next to Private who was tranced by the ongoing drama on the television. The taller one pushed his glasses up and observed over the apprentice and grabbed his notebook starting to scribble the reactions Private had shown from the show.

Rico went to a corner of their fort and began to play on his DS, it kept him entertained for the most part until he was needed. A satisfied laugh came from him starting to shoot the space ships in his way on the game.

It was just a typical day, for the most part.

---------------------------------------------------------------

2100 hours.

It was now Nine O'clock and the sun was starting to set. Nine was the time each of the crew members resided back to their original homes and meet the next morning to walk to school. Private packed up his backpack and waved his goodbyes before leaving out of their HQ and walked down the street until he met at his house. Mother greeting him as she did, offering him a plate of cookies with her sweet motherly smile.

Next to leave was Kowalski, most of his things were already packed up. "I'll greet you first thing in the morning Skipper, I need to speak to you about tomorrow's mission," the leader gave him an affirming grunt and saluted to his taller comrade before he jumped out of the tree stably landing on the grass below. Kowalski lived four doors away from Private. Rico and his leader were the only two left. There was the weird awkward silence between them, this often didn't bother Private because he had gotten used to it by now.

"Rico?" he struck up. Rico turned to look at the other and cocked his head with curiosity. Private folded up his cleaning cloth and shoved it into the drawer resting up against the table holding a notepad in his hands, familiar to the one Kowalski had.

"Could you return this to Kowalski? I need to start working on my essay for class," the other groaned out with grief before handing him the bright yellow notepad. Rico didn't object and nodded with delight taking it from him and gave him a wave before crawling his way down the tree fort.

The big boned boy looked down at the notepad for a moment as he trudged down the cement sidewalk. His eyes squinted attempting to read what his friend had written down. With surprise, he could read it just fine, every line was like a big bold print that you see when getting an eye exam. Rico idly flipped through each page not being able to understand any of it, seeing how it was too in depth for him to figure without help. He got to the back pages and noticed something out of the ordinary, his name was written followed by small profiles of his face from different angles thrown about. Rico stopped and opened his eyes in confusion and shock, a low grunt emitted from his throat. Why was Kowalski drawing his face in the back of his notepad? Or his name, for that matter. Desperate, he shut the pad and gulped, his expression became perplexed still trying to contemplate the reason for this. He couldn't get it out of his head, the thought of Kowalski liking him boggled his mind.

After pushing the thought back with a quick disbelieving shake of his head Rico made it to his house. His hand shook while knocking on the front door. Seconds past which felt like hours, the huskier boy began to chew on his lip until the door finally opened. He let out a sigh seeing Kowalski's same old expression, his tall friend must have been working on a new formation or something to give him that hard in concentration look.

"Hello Rico, this is..unexpected" his voice trailed off giving him a feeble laugh. Rico held the notepad out flashing him a smile. Kowalski lit up and delicately took back his notepad and rubbed his fingers over the side of it.

"Oh thank you! I guess I was so caught up in my thoughts that I forgot to grab my notebook," The genius looked down at his writing and then snapped back when Rico cleared his throat.

"Uh, well..I appreciate you dropping this off for me," the other just gave a nod of his head followed by a shrug before waving to him trudging his way back to his house, which was next to Private's.

Upon returning to his own home, there was no one to greet him. The one called 'mother' was lazily sitting in the recliner with a beer in hand watching The Jerry Springer Show. Rico winced in disgust and slipped his shoes off walking past his mom, he thought that his own family should be on that damned show. He made his way into the kitchen and opened up the fridge and freezer doors. There was slim pickings here, mom had often eaten everything while he was out at school. To not disturb his mother, he shut the doors quietly and turned over to the pantry kneeling down and grabbing his stash of chips he would always grab from the school when the lunch ladies weren't looking. As quick as he could, Rico slipped himself up the stairs and hid in his room the rest of the night.

---------------------------------------------------------------

June 2nd 2400 hours.

Hours have passed and the boy was absorbed into his game, Halo 2. He was kicking ass, which wasn't out of the ordinary. This game was a breeze on any level, only reason he kept playing was to play online even if he never said anything into his headset.

With no warning his room went black, mom turned off the fuse box. She was going to bed and this was her means of saying it was bed time for Rico. An airy sigh left his lips setting down the remote on his chair stumbling around in the dark until he found his bed slipped off his shirt and threw it on to the floor below accompanied by his pants leaving him into just his boxer shorts. His now almost nude body flopped atop of his cool bed sheets making him shiver in appreciation for mother nature's cool breeze that had crept in earlier during the cooler part of the day.

The thoughts of Kowalski arose in his head once more making him shift uncomfortably. Rico stared up at the ceiling letting the idea bubble. Kowalski..the team's strategist, liking him? It seemed almost preposterous, he shook his head in disagreement to it and continued to ponder for quite some time.

His eyes began to feel heavy even if he was still in thought, and it was getting late, or, at least he assumed so. Rico cuddled his way under his blankets and nestled up to his pillow.

Kowalski loving him, Rico, the mute. It couldn't be possible, the idea of it...was weird, but, his mind didn't object the thought. In fact...he liked it.

With that last thought, he dozed off to sleep.