Krystal looked out the window of the large blue bus, now full of passengers. She noted that the Cerinians has all congregated in the back while the human majority had migrated to the front. Krystal remembered more than a few humans getting up and moving to the front when the Cerinians sat near them. She also saw Cerinians doing the same thing. She shared her seat with a tall Cerinian youth, he was quite handsome and well built, she wouldn't mind being more than friend with him, but neither of them was talking. The street the bus cruised down was lined by chain link fences, each a good four meters tall and topped with barbed wire. The street passed directly through the Hole on its way to one of the few gates in the DMZ wall and the barriers that held the Cerinians in elsewhere were the same here. There were steel frame passenger bridges that passed above the road allowing transit between the two sides. The bridges were crowded with blue foxes going about their daily lives, none of them giving any heed to the buses driving beneath them.

Eventually the bus reached the massive concrete wall that had been built to mark the border, among other things. Krystal noted a good number of the soldiers and turrets on the wall looking toward the Hole rather than the Cornerian side. The bus came to a halt in what appeared to be a weapons depot. Krystal saw hundred of both human soldiers and CA, Cerinian Auxiliary, running around in orderly chaos. Tanks and armored cars were lined up along one side and a few thin helicopters, the humans referred to them as "Nighthawks", lay idle along the other. Barracks were in three of the four corners or the square depot. The depot was rather small and probably a show of force rather than an actual garrison to defend against Cornerian attack, which if happened would probably see the cities on both sides completely destroyed within hours. A soldier got on the bus, most of his blue fur obscured beneath the dark green, forest patterned camouflage he wore, only his face was showing. He wore a black helmet and a matching armored vest over his uniform. Both read "CA" in big bold white lettering.

"Everyone off the bus! Let's get this done!" the Auxiliary soldier barked motioning his arm back and forth pointed down the steps wanting for them to get off the bus as quickly as possible. Everyone shot up and the bus emptied quickly, even the humans who normally disregarded anything said by a Cerinian listened to the imposing soldier. Krystal stepped off the bus and noticed other buses had pulled up and were also unloading their passengers. There were now hundreds of Cerinians and humans in the depot but the CA wouldn't let it get out of hand. Another group of CA soldiers motioned for the group that had gotten of her bus to follow them. They all complied, Krystal didn't that she was the lone Cerinian in the small group she was moving with. Off to her right she noticed a long blonde haired human youth. Something told her he was special; she didn't really know why she just felt it. She'd been having odd feelings like that about people lately, it wasn't a mere judgment. It was like she knew what a person was really like. It was something she really couldn't explain in words. She hadn't old anyone yet, who would believe her anyways?

The CA got everyone over towards the gates but they weren't opening. One of the CA guys was talking to what looked like a human officer. They looked like they were arguing but eventually the human backed off and made a hand signal. The huge iron door, almost six meters tall began to slide open, splitting down the middle. It was not the smoothest mechanism and opened very loudly, Krystal could faintly hear another gate opening in the distance. Is that what the holdup was about? They had to open the Cornerian gate at the exact same time? Give me a break… Krystal thought to herself as she waited for the CA to give the go ahead to pass through the gate.

The gates were now fully open revealing the nicest school Krystal had ever seen. It was the lone building out on the dusty strip of land that was the DMZ. The two story building almost gleamed in the sunlight, and she had never seen such a nice field.

"Looks just like a school back on Earth," said the long blonde haired youth off to her side. All Earth has schools like this? He has to be exaggerating; there is no way they could afford schools like that for everyone! Krystal launched her mental rebuttal, and oddly the blonde kid turned to her.

"Did you say something to me bluefur?" He asked in English as he turned to face her. He had a menacing tone that Krystal had not expected. He put extra emphasis on the last word. Krystal had been taught English at the school and was quite proficient in it, but still struggled at times when people spoke to fast or multiple people spoke at the same time.

"To you I said nothing." She stated flatly, her English taking on a Cerinian syntax and accent which the humans described as sounding 'French', whatever that meant.

"I'm pretty sure you did but, whatever." The boy then turned and his friends gave her some sidelong glances before continuing their conversation. Odd, did he somehow hear me thinking? Krystal pondered but gave up as the CA were ordering the huge gaggle of students to move. It was only a few hundred meters to the school across a flat dirt expanse and the group of twelve hundred or so made it to the building in short order. The school's fields were an oasis in the dirt fields meant to allow anyone crossing to be spotted easily, and shot. The CA started funneling them towards a large, windowless building that was attached to the side of the main school. As they got close Krystal saw a blue sign with white lettering that read "Auditorium" and under it something was written in an alphabet she'd seen a few times but had no idea how to read, she presumed it was Cornerian. She entered the building and her vision went dark for a moment after being out in the sunlight for so long.

Krystal gasped in awe when she entered the building and looked around. Never had she seen a building so big, not even on the TV. She noted many of the other Cerinians acting the same way; the humans didn't even so much as notice how unimaginably high the ceiling was. Even more CA soldiers were in the auditorium directing the students on were to sit. It appeared they'd already sat a good half the kids and were interspersing Cerinians with Humans. One of the soldiers pointed at her and then motioned for her to go down the row he stood next to and take the nearest seat. Krystal did as she was told and hastily took her seat and set her bag beneath the seat cushion.

Fox waited impatiently as their group of about a thousand Cornerians milled about outside a blue double door with a sign reading "Auditorium" underneath the same word in English. Fox was fluent in English, every single one of the Cornerians accepted were. The government had taught them in four months what it took eight years of normal schooling to achieve. The process relied on eight hour a day sessions of English all while hooked up to these devices that stimulated various parts of the brain as they were taught in English. It was very effective.

The two governments had agreed when setting up this place to set the official language to the Humans "English", which made no sense. Why was their language called English when they were humans? Why not Humanish? The history of the humans book he'd 'read' (more skimmed through on the flight to Cerinia) had said it was their language because the Americans had the biggest business and everyone learned it so they could talk with the American companies. So why not call it Americanish? It was infinitely vexing, but leave it to the humans to make absolutely no sense.

There was then mock cheering as the Cornerian soldiers who had been blocking the entrance opened the doors and stepped back letting the restless tide of Cornerian teenagers through the double wide door frame. Fox and Falco were near the front of the pack and entered to auditorium to find most of it filled with Humans. They were being told what to do by what appeared to be Cerinians but they wore human uniforms and had 'CA' written in English lettering on their black helmets and body armor.

"I heard the humans had Cerinian soldiers, I wonder how they keep them loyal?" Falco stated almost rhetorically as he and Fox climbed the stairs that ran along each side of the block or chairs until they were stopped by one of the Cerinian soldiers.

"Well I guess they do it somehow," Fox replied as the Cerinian soldier motioned them into a row. Thankfully they didn't have to sit by any Humans. It took a few more minutes but the human's pet Cerinians worked very efficiently and had the rest of the Cornerians seated with little delay. Once it was confirmed everyone was there the lights dimmed and two figures walked out onto the stage. Immediately everyone's conversations stopped as the two figures took seats at the center of a table that had ten chairs behind it. One of the figures was a female human, dressed in a black business suit , had long black hair and was remarkably tall. The other was a middle aged, middle height Cornerian Golden Retriever who wore a suit similar to his human counterpart. The Cornerian spoke in English into a microphone that had been set up in front of him.

"Good morning and welcome to your first day at Union high. I'm one of your principles. I doubt you know my name, but I am Mr. Hammer and this lady to my side is also your principle. You may call her Mrs. Gerald." The retriever paused and looked around the room, noting the faces on the mixed bunch of students. He continued his speech,

"Now I'm not going to pretend like this is a normal school, because it is not. You undoubtedly noticed the soldiers telling you were to sit. They will remain here and be posted throughout the school for the duration of our school year. You may also have noticed that this school is built in the middle of the DMZ, which no sane person would ever put a school or any other building inside of under normal circumstances," That prompted a few scattered laughs from the crowd but Mr. Hammer kept talking, "And now, the most immediately obvious fact. This is the first time Cornerians, Humans and Cerinians have attended the same school at the same time. I'm not going to pretend like we all trust each other, however by the end of this year I'm going to expect it. We have set your classes up so that whenever possible the class is equally balanced between the three races. All you're classes will have two teachers and like Mrs. Gerald and myself, one will be Cornerian or Cerinian and the other will be Human." A low rumble rolled through the crowd was this was announced but was silenced when Mrs. Gerald began to speak.

"Without any other announcements, we'll move on an introduce the faculty leaders of each grade…" she trailed on and two by two the leaders of the Senior through Freshmen classes, every time it was one Cornerian or Cerinian and a Human. They hadn't had these 'classes' at school in the Hole, it had been dependant on knowledge not age like here. Krystal apparently was a 'sophomore'. Each of the team Leaders gave their little speeches about all sorts of things: Sports, after school Activities, clubs, all sorts of new things Krystal hadn't known in her school before. After a good hour of speeches the assembly was over,

"Please head to your first class," Mrs. Gerald spoke as students had just started to get up form their seats, "We'll be on a slightly shortened day and get out at 5:00." Five o'clock? Thats a long school day, Fox thought immediately following her principles statement. This was going to be a long year.

"Hey Falco we got first period together right?" Fox called out to his blue avian friend as he pulled out the schedule and school map he'd been given yesterday when he and Falco had moved into the compound. His feathered friend reached into his back pocket fidgeting around until he pulled out a white piece of paper.

"Uh yeah, Physics right?" He paused looking at the schedule closely, "With Ms. Reinard? Wasn't that your mom's middle name or something?" Fox gave his friend an odd look and looked down at his schedule,

"No man you probably read it wro…" He cut himself off when it did in fact read 'Ms. Reinard' "…huh you're right. That's a weird coincidence. My mom got killed in the war remember?"

"Yeah well let's get to class..it's..that way" Falco said pointing down one of the hallways. They walked a short distance, the crowds of confused students thinning the farther they got from the auditorium.

"Lets see…113…115...118..." Fox counted of the room numbers but was cut off by the bell ringing, "What the fuck!" he yelled as he and Falco took off trying to reach Room 120 hopefully before the teacher noticed.

"Maybe if you hadn't got us goddamn lost we wouldn't be late!" he growled at his avian companion who'd taken them all the way to the end of the wrong hallway before realizing they were in the wrong place.

"Oh it's the first day I doubt we're the only ones!" he shouted back as the reached the navy blue door that was left open. The two friends slowed down and tried to sneak in past the vulpine teacher who was turned around facing the electronic whiteboard. It didn't work; she didn't even turn around but began chastising them right away.

"I'll expect you to be on time more often." The voice made Fox freeze, it was like an electric shock to the very deepest reaches of his memory. It can't be. It was then that the teacher turned revealing a relatively youthful red fox. "I'll let this one slide…oh my god." She said and then cupped her hands to her mouth. Fox's knees almost gave out beneath him as he mumbled in a quavering voice.

"M-mom?" The class burst out laughing thinking Fox was mortified that his mother was the teacher, all expect for Falco who stood speechless as he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Without another word Vixy and Fox were deep in an embrace, both of them nearly at the point of tears. The laughter stopped almost instantly as Vixy began to sob softly into her sons shoulder.

"It thought I'd never see you again." She whispered into Fox's ear as they held the embrace. Fox was almost crying himself.

"Why didn't you come back?" It was then that Vixy pulled away from fox and held him looking straight into his emerald eyes.

"Don't you think for a second I wouldn't have come back if I could. I got stuck behind enemy lines and the war ended. I couldn't find anyone to smuggle me out." Fox didn't even know how to handle this moment. For five years he assumed his mother was dead, and now she stood there before him. Fox had gone through early puberty without either of his parents and only his uncle Peppy to be there for him.

"We'll talk later, but I have to teach this class." She dismissed Fox and turned to her class acting as if nothing had happened. Fox stumbled over to an empty seat by Falco; all the eyes were on the dazed fox as he took his seat. Vixy then started to talk,

"As you probably know my name is Ms. Reinard, and though I'm Cornerian I actually living on the human side. It's a long story involving the war that I don't feel like going into right now. You may not have noticed Mr. Grey over there in the back," Vixy pointed to a man slumped over a desk working on something at a large desk that was situated at the back of the room in a corner whilst Vixy's was up front. The man turned toward the class but went back to his work, "Mr. Grey and I will be you're physics teachers for the year and if any of you have Health I teach that later in the day with Mrs. Griffin."

Vixy continued on with her speech but Fox was poked in the side by whoever was sitting opposite him. Fox turned and found a big, gray lupine with a small goatee and purple eyes the culprit. The wolf was quite a bit bigger than fox and looked pretty muscular.

"That really your mom?" he asked in a hushed tone as to not provoke his vulpine teacher.

"Yeah," Fox said sadness entering his voice, "I thought she died five years ago."

"Oh man, I'm not sure whether to tell you sorry or congratulations." He said with a small laugh, Fox couldn't help but crack a smile. He liked this fellow.

'The names Wolf by the way and these two, "Wolf pointed over his shoulder at a Panther with a long scar under his eye and a green lizard, "Are Panther and Leon. We've all lived on Cerinia our whole lives. Our parents were some of the original colonizers." Fox chatted happily with wolf the rest of the period. Yet the revelation that his mother had been alive all these years still made him uneasy. Others had gotten out, even after the war ended. The humans were good about letting Cornerians go, it was part of the treaty. Why had his mother stayed? Glancing up at her writing something on the board he was determined to find out, just how he didn't know. At the end of the day he and his mother were separated by only two kilometers, they simply had to be the two most dangerous two kilometers in the galaxy. But, why hadn't she come back? Was it something he did?

Miyu pulled the gym shirt she'd been given over her head, it was already third period. Miyu's friend Fay was already dressed and followed Miyu out the door. The Gym had been built to accommodate the human sport "Basketball" and had two odd looking metal rings with nets draped off them. Apparently you tried to throw a ball through it and that scored your team points, how hard could that be? Most of the guys had already gotten dressed down; typical of them, always rushing everything, she smirked to herself. Predictably there were three big groups: The Cerinians, the Humans and the Cornerians. All had formed their own packs but she did notice a few exceptions. She saw a Cerinian boy talking too and getting a few laughs out of two Cornerian girls and a fox and a wolf talking to some humans...Hello hot stuff! Her eyes switched back to the wolf who was deep in a conversation with some humans who looked more than a little uncomfortable. Miyu started walking over towards the wolf, Fay following close behind her.

"What are we doing?" her canine companion inquired and Miyu answered with a little smile,

"Hunting tail."

"Which one? The fox or the wolf? Or god forbid a human..,"

"The wolf, you could take the fox if you want, he's cute but, hot damn, that wolf is just gorgeous." Miyu stated her voice getting preemptively flirtatious as she approached the wolf; she managed to hear the tail end of his conversation with the humans.

"…yeah you guys should try out after school, we could use some strong guys like you. Hey Fox you should come too you'd be…" Wolf cut off as he noticed a particularly good looking female headed his way. Turning to greet her she got the first word in,

"Hey, couldn't help but notice you over here. The name's Miyu." She said her deep cerulean eyes staring deeply into Wolf's purple. Wolf flashed a smile, his long white fangs like ivory spears.

"The names Wolf, you from the compound or…" Wolf asked but was answered before he could finish by the excited lynx.

"No, I live with my Mom in the city. My dad's with the Army." The two gym teachers were out in the middle of the gym calling their students in.

"Alright, let's get this over with. We aren't going to be doing anything today but If you could all take a seat," the large white tiger motioned to the ground in front of him, "Coach Hendrix and I will be talking to you about sports programs here at Union High." A very dark skinned human stood from a chair he'd been sitting on next to his tiger cohort. Both teachers wore white shirts with navy blue pants, the schools colors. Coach Hendrix had a booming voice that demanded unconditional respect.

"My name is Coach Hendrix; in addition to being one of the two gym teachers here I am also the American Football coach." Miyu had positioned herself next to Wolf and his fox friend, who kept glancing at her thinking she didn't notice, and saw Wolf's face light up upon the mention of this 'American Football'. What's Wolf doing getting all worked up over a human sport? And what's the difference between 'American' Football and regular football? Humans are always so vexing…Her momentary thought was cut off as Coach Hendrix kept speaking, " I am hoping I don't just get humans out there, this school is all about unity." The human glanced over at Wolf, seemingly noticing the lupines positive reaction to his speach, "I'm hoping to get at least a couple of you Cornerians and Cerinians out there." He then pointed straight at Wolf, "You, young man!" Wolf jumped a little, and pointed at himself to make sure the Coach was talking to the right person. The human nodded, "What's your name?"

"Wolf, sir!" Wolf barked out, a little formally getting a few laughs from some humans who thought the coach was picking on him.

"You coming out for football? You looked about as giddy as a junebug over there." The coach said, getting even more laughs from the humans. Wolf, a little flustered, responded less energetically,

"Yes sir! Planning on trying out for QB sir!" Wolf's remark got a particularly loud snicker from a tall, well built human who, Miyu guessed, was a 'QB' and didn't take kindly to a Cornerian threatening his position. Oh my wolfy will show that boy up so hard he'll take the next plane back to earth. Miyu tried to send the most menacing glance she could at the human boy.

"Good, be sure to bring your friends." Coach Hendrix said and then continued on with speech, but Miyu wasn't listening she was busy starting at that gorgeous face of Wolf's. Out of the corner of her eye she could see that cute fox doing the same thing to her. I should see if Fay will go for that, I can't have that poor boy staring at me like a lovesick puppy.

Three helicopters cut through the arctic air of the Cerinian Northlands, sending a breeze through the wintery evergreen forest only a hundred meters below them. The three bulky troop carrying, "Nighthawks" had their doors open and a manned turret protruding from both openings. General Yao sat in the middle seat of the middle Nighthawk, two human soldiers wearing Arctic camouflaged jackets, vests and helmets that were designed to keep out the frigid cold sat next to him. Yao wore a similar outfit himself. Sitting there flying through the frigid Northlands he swore he was the only person in the entire Empire who understood this war. The Cornerians were the first intelligent life form they'd ever encountered. There had been life on many other colonized planets but they had never found anything like themselves. He truly thought the preemptive strike on Cerinia had been a product of rampant xenophobia and isolationism once it was discovered there was a race of people out there that may be more advanced than humanity. Breaking a six hundred year feeling of Manifest Destiny had been hard on humanity, they had thought it was there right to every planet and every resource in the galaxy, and why not? They'd colonized unopposed until finding Cerinia.

The General was interrupted from his thoughts by a voice ringing through the headset he wore to allow communication in the deafening noise of flying.

"We're on approach to Point North, We'll be there soon. Eyes on the ground don't let any insurgents get a shot off." The pilot said in a no nonsense voice.

The situation in the North was bad. While the south had been mostly pacified out of fear and war, the North had not been nearly hit as hard. The people here were not nearly as accepting of Human rule and had been causing far too many problems. Yao suspected the Cornerians were arming them, he didn't doubt it. Port security was a joke here, with almost ten CA soldiers up here for every human trooper. There were bound to be disloyal troops and consequently 'slip-ups'. Like almost letting a shipment of five thousand assault rifles through port security was a 'slip-up'.

They'd sent Yao here to fix the problem, but there was nothing he could do. Increasing the number of CA didn't help him in the least, some CA soldiers from the more loyal South maybe, but not these lighter furred northern bastards, they were as about as loyal as a whore for a wife. He needed humans. But the humans were spread far too thin, the invasion of Cerinia has been executed flawlessly, but the follow up logistics had been quite the opposite. The 'war', Yao preferred to call it what it really was: Genocide, had been so successful and with no real retaliation form Corneria, Congress hadn't felt the need to send anymore troops to Cerinia. They'd conquered and held the planet this long, why did they need reinforcements now? The human army had better things to do then defend an unimportant border colony from a weak power that was unwilling to defend itself.

The politicians made Yao's blood boil. The only reason Corneria hadn't fought them tooth and nail was because they didn't need to. Cerinia was not the richest planet ever discovered, it didn't have any strategic value until the war started, it wasn't worth sending troops and starting a full blow war over. They'd relied on local troops and only intervened to prevent humans from entering Cerinia Minor were most Cornerians on Cerinia lived. He was one of the few people who could see the cracks forming already. The South remained stable especially the west, they'd been so decimated from the war it had blown a hole so deep into their cultural identity they would be down and out for a very long time. But how long would it last? The Northlands were on the point of open rebellion, how long before such ideas spread southward? No matter how tightly you lock people in ghettos they will find a way to destroy you if you don't watch them. He needed humans, he needed to bring in companies from Earth, he needed to put them to work actually helping the efforts of the Empire rather than barely subsisting of fishing and other such 3rd world jobs they did now.

One of the side turrets opened up, a blinding beam of white light shooting out of it in a long continuous burst. Yao heard small pinging noises as people below the copter opened up with small arms fire. So it's already begun.