Chapter Two
New Girl on Campus
Hiro Harmada was working on his latest invention: a new computer. It didn't sound like much, but to him it was important. He needed something he could use whenever he needed to fix something, instead of just heading back to his house. He was trying to make it small and compatible, but capable of becoming larger. So far, all of his attempts had resulted in Wasabi's work area having permanent burns, Honey Lemons beakers to all break, and Fred's sign to be destroyed. Hiro knew he should've been discouraged. But he wasn't. He wasn't going to give up.
It was only until he heard a loud crash, that he looked up. Crashes were normal. Either Fred had his sign hurling into a project, or someone's project had exploded. Those were normal crashes. This crash was the sound of someone running into something.
Hiro put down the chip he was working on, and began to search for the source. He found it. It was a girl, a little bit taller than him. She'd crashed into some of the spare parts they had, incase someone needed something, and didn't feel like searching the entire school.
The girl had light brown hair, that was shoulder length. Her skin was pale and she had blue eyes. She wore sneakers and had a small backpack on her backpack.
"Are you okay?" he asked, holding out his hand to help her up.
"Yeah. I wasn't expecting there to be a bunch of spare parts right there, that's all." She said, accepting his hand. She had a soft voice, high pitched and very musical sounding.
"Are you new here? I don't think I've ever seen you around here."
She nodded. "Yes, this is my first day. Do you think you could help me? I'm so lost."
Hiro felt himself smiling. "Sure. My name's Hiro, by the way."
"Mine's Karlia. Nice to meet you." Karlia dropped Hiro's hand.
"C'mon, let me introduce you to my friends." Hiro headed towards the area where GoGo was working on her bike. "This is GoGo. GoGo, this is Karlia. She's new here."
"Nice to meet you." GoGo didn't even look up, as she blew another bubble and put yet another wheel on her bike.
Hiro wasn't offended. He was used to GoGo's attitude and her love of speed. He knew she was determined to get her bike finished soon, so she could stop carpooling with Wasabi like everyone else did. Hiro just walked to school.
Hiro headed over to where Wasabi was working. He was on a new project, though his laser induced plasma was still set up for the simple purpose of cutting things when people needed things supper thin.
Now he was working on a robot that would sort all of his tools, which seemed to be a tedious task because everytime he needed to use one of them, someone had either borrowed it, or had made a mess of his system.
"Karlia, this is Wasabi. Wasabi, Karlia." Hiro said, gesturing to each person as he said their name.
Wasabi put down his wrench. "Pleasure to meet you. Don't step over the line and don't mess up my- things, and I think we'll get along nicely."
GoGo appeared. "Need this." She snatched a screwdriver from Wasabi's work bench roughly, casing everything to go out of it's place, yet again.
"Seriously?! Now I have to put everything back in it's place! What the heck!" Wasabi ran after her.
Hiro chuckled, feeling a sense of déjà vu. He even saw Honey Lemon rolling a large orange ball of chemicals his way.
"Excuse me Hiro! Watch your feet." She said, rolling it right over to where her space was.
Hiro followed, with Karlia close behind him. "Honey Lemon, this is Karlia. She's new."
"Oh my God, it's nice to meet you!" Honey Lemon smoothered poor Karlia in a hug.
"Nice to meet you to?" Karlia said when she could finally breath.
"Ooh! Watch this." Honey dashed over to her chemistry set and began to mess around with the liquids. She finally came back with a glass spray bottle full of icy blue liquid. She ran around her huge ball of orange and sprayed the blue liquid, completely coating it in the substance.
"Now really watch." She said, and gently tapped it with her finger. Instantly, I blast of cold air issued from the ball, freezing everything in close proximity of it. "Ta da!" She said, taking off her glasses and finding a cloth that wasn't frozen stiff.
"Cool. I've never seen someone create a sphere of chemicals that can issue a blast almost as cold as the winds of Canada." Karlia said, smiling at Honey Lemon.
"Yeah, it's awesome! Glad to finally find someone with a love of chemistry and science."
"I love all things that have to do with technology and science."
Hiro turned around, getting ready to search for Fred, when he found him creeping up on Karlia.
"Seriously Fred? Don't scare the new girl." Hiro said loudly, making Karlia turn to where Fred was creeping up in his mascot costume.
Karlia turned to Fred, and studied him. "School mascot?"
"Yep." Fred replied, pushing up the mouth to reveal his face.
"No major, extremely large supporter of science and a fan of superheroes?"
"Yep, yep and yep." Fred walked over to his recliner and sat down.
"Figured. No offense, but you've got that look about you."
"None taken. New girl? What's your major?"
Karlia smiled. "Several things. Mostly new technology, but I have a strong knowledge of other things too."
"Cool. Hey Hiro, if you're finished introducing her to everyone else, why don't you show her your stuff and give her a space?"
"I was just about to get to that, Fred."
"Are we having a meeting on Friday?"
Hiro gave him a warning look. "Maybe. I don't really know."
As if on cue, Karlia nodded, symbolizing that she was ready to see his project. Hiro walked back to his place. It was the closest to his brother's old workshop. He couldn't bear to use that place, there was just too many things that were still Tadashi's.
"Here's what I'm working on." Hiro gestured towards his unfinished computer.
"What is it? Or rather, what's it going to be?"
"A compact computer. It'll be able to fold up enough to fit in your pocket and be used like an iPod, or it can be unfolded into a laptop. It'll still have the capability to do things that a normal computer can do and stuff like that."
Karlia nodded. "Interesting. I hope you succeed with this invention."
"Thanks. C'mon, you need a space of your own."
He took a deep breath and entered Tadashi's old workshop. It was bright, and had pretty much nothing in there, except for a few old papers, which surprised Hiro. Karlia walked right in without a problem. She examined everything, and nodded.
"I like this room." she told him.
Hiro gave her a weak smile. "Great. I'll help you get settled in and everything."
Karlia noticed his sadness. She stepped forward and looked at Hiro with a gentle gaze. "Someone used to be in this workroom. Someone special and close to you?"
"Yeah. My older brother, Tadashi. He died in a fire when he tried to save a professor, but the professor didn't need saving. He died in vain, I guess."
Karlia remained silent for sometime before speaking. "I will honor your brother's memory, by creating something based off of him. I'll need to get more information about him though."
Hiro gave another sad smile. "He wanted to help a lot of people."
"Then I know just the thing. I promise to show you it first. You deserve that much."
Hiro felt as if an unsaid friendship vow had just blossomed between them. He nodded, his smile broadening. "I look forward to that, definitely. Thank's Karlia."
"I may be new, but my family is no stranger when it comes to sadness and death. We have suffered more than anyone. Such is a price, to be pure. That's what my mother always says."
"Hey, what's your last name?"
Karlia gave a mysterious smile. "All of us are simply known as 'Firehades'. No matter if you're married or a descendant. You always have the Firehades name."
"Firehades." Hiro repeated. It was a strange last name, but every time he thought of it, memories of laughing, the sound of a campfire and warmth spread through him. "Well, nice to meet you, Karlia Firehades." he said at last.
"A pleasure to meet you, Hiro."
It would at least be a month 'till Karlia would be finished with her project, and even longer for her to open up more to Hiro Harmada and his friends.
A/N
Leaving really dumb cliff-hangers sucks. AND FOR THE LAST TIME, I'M NOT GIVING SNEAK PEAKS JUST SO YOU'LL KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON! Stop PMing me about it, it's annoying, and then I can't see the other people who have genuine questions for me. Btw, you guys can PM me if you have a question about something. I don't take story requests (meaning I won't write something you guys want me to write), although if you actually take the time to talk and stuff, I may read your stories and such. I've done that before. Still working on my other stories and such. Don't worry.