Desmond awoke early the next morning, his excitement quickly quelled by the yelling of his parents, they must have been arguing. The young Fire Pea got up, headed out of his room and down the portrait lined hall towards the kitchen. Upon walking through the servant's door into the kitchen, he was presented with the sight of his Fire Flower mother holding a knife to his father's throat.
"YOU CAN'T GO! YOU NEED TO GO WITH YOUR SON INSTEAD!" Pete was not phased by the knife, reacting as fiercely as Alison.
"IF I DON'T GO, NEWS OF A GHOST ARE GOING START POPPING UP!" Alison started applying slightly more pressure to the knife, making a small incision in Pete's throat. Desmond spotted the chlorophyll trickling down his father's stem, Desmond's expression turned from shock to horror.
"W-What are you d-doing to dad, m-mum?" Alison dropped the knife and looked at Pete in shock, her son's terrified voice breaking her out of the rage fueled trance she seemed to have been in.
"Oh my Dave, what have I done? Pete, I am so sorry. I didn't mean to!" Pete coughed up a little chlorophyll as he steadied himself.
"It's fine… I was being an idiot like normal." Alison nearly threw the knife, at Pete, in anger.
"You aren't an idiot! Stop saying things like that, none of it is true!" Pete looked down sadly, trying to hide from the glare of his partner.
"I guess I could meet his principal when I drop him off." Alison lifted the head of the saddened Peashooter opposite to her, and healed the small wound in his throat. Pete looked into her eyes and saw that she was sorry.
An hour of inconsequential conversation passed before father and son packed their individual packs, Desmond packing mostly books and a bottle, Pete packing mostly medical supplies, including a rare coffee bean container, and his canteen. As the boys packed, Alison cleaned up and readied herself for work. Once Pete and Desmond were finished packing, Alison gave them both a hug.
"Have a good day you two. Be good." She released the embrace and went back to her preparations.
While the walk to school normally took Desmond around half an hour, with his father encouraging him to practice his own hyper ability, they cut the trip in half, bringing it down to only fifteen minutes. The school was a large concrete structure, large, bland, and imposing. Vines snaked their way around the outside the building, sometimes smashing through windows into abandoned rooms. While the brutalist exterior was quite discouraging, being that the building was converted into a school from a barracks, the interior renovations of the school were extensive, and where most of the conversion funds had gone. Almost all interior spaces had been painted a vibrant colour, classrooms were hooked up to a heating system and the updated water piping system allowed for the installation water fountains on every floor. As the father and son passed through the gates that acted as an entrance to the school grounds, a group of six plants approached them. This group was consisted of a Sunflower, a Law Pea, an Ice Pea, an Agent Pea, a Commando Pea and a Peashooter. As soon as Desmond growled at the approaching group, Pete knew that these six plants had been antagonizing his son. Pete stood in front of his son and glared down at the group, the bravado of the plants breaking almost immediately as they turned and quickly scarpered in the other direction.
Once the group of six melted into the hordes of young plants waltzing through the halls, Desmond led his father up to the fourth floor, the offices, straight to the principal's office. A jovial Toxic Pea let them both in, before taking a seat behind his desk.
"My name is Colin, and you are?" Pete smiled as he shook pods with Colin.
"My name is Pete, I believe you know my son Desmond?" Colin recoiled from Pete in shock, muttering slightly."
"Pete, I know that name." Colin looked up at Pete, the Peashooter seemed to be smiling.
"Yes Colin, I do believe we know each other." The Toxic Pea looked like he had just seen a ghost. Desmond just looked shocked.
"My dad, knows my principal?!" Pete laughed as Colin loosened up..
"Yeah, I have had an...eventful life." Colin laughed at Pete's comment.
"Yes you have. How is everyone?" Pete looked down to avert Colin's gaze.
"I don't know how many of them are, I became a ghost for the past twelve years." Colin frowned.
"You know, we are hosting a few veterans from around suburbia to try and teach some of the students about their abilities, I think you would be a great helpe." Pete looked up, his expression between that of happiness and confusion.
"Alright then, I might as well do something useful while I'm here." Desmond nearly hypered all over the room, he knew with his dad there, he had a good chance of getting into that class.
Once their meeting was over, Colin dismissed Desmond to his class as the bell rang out throughout the school. Once Desmond was out of sight, Colin stood from behind his desk, signalling Pete to follow him, as he waltzed through the door and out of the office. Pete followed as they descended to the ground floor via the staircase, the only noise being the chatter they exchanged, and the murmurs of the teachers in classrooms. Once at the ground floor, Colin led Pete down a long hall, opposite in direction to the main entrance, to a set of double doors that, when opened, revealed a cavernous hall that encompassed the space of six classrooms and two floors. Colin gestured towards a row of seats that sat upon the stage at the end of the hall.
"Go take a seat, the other veterans will be here in a few minutes." Pete smiled and gave Colin a hug, his skin tingling as it came into contact with Colin's irradiated skin.
"Thanks, your brother would be proud of what you've done." Pete pulled back from Colin and headed over to the stage, taking the seat farthest from the pedestal. Colin, shocked by the hug, smiled back and headed out.
After a few minutes of patiently waiting, four plants of various species entered the hall, led by Colin. They were all veterans, two of whom stood out to Pete, a Commando Pea named Ajax, and a Jade Cactus, their name Manur. Not long after the veterans began making their way over to the stage, a bell rang out and students soon began filing into the hall excitedly. Once the seventy four students arrived, Colin stood up to the pedestal and addressed them.
"Welcome to this extra-curricular class. All of you have been given the option of taking these classes because of your qualities, personalities and heritage." Colin looked at the helpers, asking them to stand and introduce themselves. First was a Shadow Flower, the shortest of the group, followed up by an Armour Chomper, the tallest of the group, his armour dented. The Jade Cactus, his armour slightly chipped, introduced himself next, followed up by the scarred Commando Peashooter. Finally Pete stood and introduced himself, getting reactions from Ajax and Manur. While Ajax was quite tamed, and managed to remain in his seat, Manur leapt up out of his seat and nearly shot a student.
"You're supposed to be dead!" The Jade Cactus exclaimed in a surprised manner, getting a laugh out of Pete.
"I think you'll find I'm notoriously hard to kill." Pete took a seat, as did Manur, while Colin split the students up into groups based on their species. The Sunflowers would be receiving tuition under the Shadow Flower, Ellen, the Chompers under the Armour Chomper named Daron. The Cacti would be with Manur and the Peashooter's split between Ajax and Pete. Strangely though, Colin assigned Desmond and the group of bullies to Pete.
Pete took his group to the far end of the hall, away from the other groups.
"Alright, I want you all to demonstrate an ability that you can do." Unsurprisingly all but the Law Pea could hyper. All the peashooters in the group that clearly disliked Desmond were shocked when they learnt that the Fire Pea could actually hyper. Determined to try and put the Fire Pea down, they all tried to do a different ability that they knew peashooters could do, but hadn't done themselves. All but Desmond were disappointed in the end. A few of them tried to root themselves and go gatling while another group tried to create chili bean bombs. Desmond opened his pod and showed off his special ability that clearly angered the other peashooters. The Peashooter that clearly led the group of plants that loved to antagonize Desmond, approached him.
"That isn't really an ability, that's just weird." Desmond looked down before swinging the short, thorn covered vine at the Peashooter. Caught off guard, the Peashooter ended up with a long cut along the side of their face. Before anyone really knew what was happening, Pete was having to drag Desmond off the shocked looking Peashooter.