Synopsis: Alfred and Matthew have begun to settle in to the strange routine at Hetanatural High, but there is a new arrival to the school: Ivan Braginski, water elemental and downright scary. At least, Mattie finds him scary. The hero doesn't! Major filler, not going to lie.
Matthew's POV
My brother is a little insane, as you've seen by his antics so far. He charges head first into trouble without a care in the world. I love him, honestly, but sometimes he can be a bit much. I remember-
Alfred's POV
The awesome heroic me was determined to make Hetanatural High a better place for the weaklings! My first call of duty had been to make things right with the Magic Trio, which had been successfully done with a lot of tears, bribery and small stab wounds. The tears had worked on Arthur, who informed me that it was only because I reminded him of his little brother; bribery was successful on Vlad, who accepted the extra desserts he would be getting for the next three months quite happily. Lukas was the source of the stab wounds. I wound up being a test subject for a few ice spells he had been working on and it hurt, to put it simply.
"You look like shit."
"Gee thanks. Didn't realise." I dropped my tray with a clatter onto the table and sat down with a heavy sigh. Francis and Yao were too busy discussing the finer aspects of cooking that I didn't really understand, so I started a conversation with Arthur instead.
"Hey, there's a soccer team here, right?" Arthur's eyebrow twitched.
"Football."
"There's a football team too? Awesome!" Arthur was slowly descending into his rage, until he brightened up and started talking to himself.
"Uh, Francis? What's he doing?"
"Talking to his invisible friends." Alfred stared blankly at him.
"What? I don't see anything."
"Well, they are invisible." Mattie and I tried very hard to ignore him. Very, very hard. However, as soon as 'murder' and 'parties' were introduced in the same sentence, I couldn't just sit and listen.
"Look Arthur, I want to try out for the Soccer Team."
"What?!" He half-yelled. He looked around embarrassedly at the curious stares he got. "Listen, you can't do that," he hissed, "it's a really bad idea." I really didn't want to get into another argument with Arthur, especially after the whole pizazz with Francis' hair. It still hadn't grown back properly and had an odd green tinge to it. I didn't have the heart to point it out to him.
I was still curious as to why I couldn't try out for the soccer team, so I asked Eliza and Gilbert.
"Kesesese~! Isn't it obvious? Eyebrows is on the football team!" That hurt a little. Arthur didn't want to hang out with me? Was that it? Gil went back to attempting to seduce Eliza, which was painful to watch, so I went up to my room. It was pretty spacious and I had it all to myself, which was awesome! I hadn't had much of a chance to decorate, but I'd put my American flag up over the top of my bed and the trash everywhere made it feel more like home.
I was still trying to figure out where all of my lessons were and what... Exactly... They were. Tactical? There were magic lessons? And what on earth was Department Nineteen? I sighed through my nose and took off my glasses, before throwing myself onto my bed and letting sleep consume me like I was a hamburger.
By the time I woke up, it was to the bell.
"Oh fuck! I'm late to... Something!" I grabbed my schedule and fled the room, trying to figure out where I was supposed to be, and for what. I burst through the doors of Tactical and collided with the idiot standing in the doorway. Unfortunately for me, that idiot was Yao.
"Westerners are so rude aru!"
"Da, I agree." Whoa. Back the star spangled all-American pick up truck up. Who was this guy? He was taller than me, the height difference between him and Yao was hilarious, to put it lightly. The next thing I noticed was the massive nose, and the third was his eyes, which were purple like Mattie's.
"As I introduced earlier," the teacher for this class, Mr Smith according to my schedule, sighed, "this is Ivan Braginski. He's new as of today, so be nice." Be nice? To a Commie? He had to be kidding! I sighed and tried to figure out the point of the lesson. There were climbing walls and tanks of water and beams everywhere. Apparently, this was like PE by the looks of things.
"Artie! You're in this lesson too, thank God!" I saw one of Arthur's majestic caterpillars twitch.
"My name is-"
"Feliciano! You're up first!" My eyes widened in surprise. It was the bipolar Italian kid! It was also the guy I ran into on my first day who had burst into tears when I ran into him. Feliciano took what looked like a grappling hook with a grin, before scurrying up one of the climbing walls with practiced ease.
"Oh my God what's he doing Art?" I whisper screamed. I very nearly did scream when he leapt off the top of the wall and swung like a pendulum across the vast room.
"Nice job, Feliciano, Lovino, you're up next!"
"Che palle, this is-a stupid." Wait... What? There were two Italians? Twins? So Lovino was the angry one and Feliciano was the excitable one. Lovino snatched the grappling hook from his brother's hands and clomped up to the climbing wall, eyeing it distastefully. His ascent was much less graceful and his pendulum-ing was even worse. His grip slipped on one of the beams and he went plummeting into a net.
"Nice try, Lovi~!" Antonio cooed. It wasn't malicious, as Alfred had expected, it was more-
"Jones! You're up!" I cringed as I took the grappling hook from Lovino (Well, he more threw it at me) and edged towards the wall. It was a lot higher than it looked, now that I was here. Chewing my lip, I scrambled for some handholds and heaved myself up. I could hear Lovino snickering from the ground and I used that to fuel myself to the top. Now I was here, it was all a case of physics. The angle from here to the next beam could be easily reached, but after-
Arthur's POV
"We don't have all day, Jones!" Mr Smith called. I could see Alfred floundering- excuse the pun- as he launched himself from the top beam and fired the grappling hook. I realised with a start that he was calculating up there. To many, it was impulse, to most, it was unnatural. Very few actually worked out the angles of trajectory. Could he clear it on the first go?
I realised quite promptly that no, he could not clear it on the first go as he went hurtling and screaming towards one of the thankfully uninhabited tanks of water-
"Oh fuck." I cursed to myself. He hit the water and immediately began to transform. It turned out that he was quite a pretty merman. His scales were red and blue, even if I winced internally at the colour scheme of freedom, but in the eyes of an art student, he was a beautiful subject. I could see Feli thinking much the same thing. His glasses had flown off somewhere along the way and it was revealed that he had gills. Gills.
"Kesesese~ He has gills Arthur. Like, Gill-Bert? You get it?" I left Gilbert to laugh at his own pun as I ran over to the tank.
"Alfred, are you... Hurt?" 'Okay' seemed like a cruel thing to say. Alfred shook his head in the negative and Mr Smith began the tedious process of draining the tank, before opening a small glass door and wading in to Alfred's rescue.
"I feel like a damsel in distress. This is totally unheroic." He muttered.
"Arthur, would you take him to the Medical Room? I still have a lesson to teach and you're fairly competent. Feliciano, would you go with him?" Carrying a very pissed off Alfred between us, we staggered down to the Medical Room once again.
Alfred's POV
"Mr Jones, you must like my company," Gil's dad-who-was-not-a-woman said exasperatedly. Admittedly, that was not my first time in here, not even that week. My first day had obviously been a catastrophe, but there hadn't been any other instances that week, besides accompanying Francis after the hair incident and occasionally asking for plasters after Lukas' experiments.
"In my defence, this is only my third time in here this week."
"Alfred, it's Wednesday." I heard Arthur snort and slapped him around the back of the head, good-naturedly, of course. As per usual, I wasn't the only person in there. There was a blonde boy, who almost looked like Francis from the back view I had. His hair wasn't nearly as wavy though, nor was it green tinted.
"Is that Feliks or Vash?" Arthur inquired, as if reading my mind. He and Feli dropped me onto a bed and I swear I saw Arthur wink at me. Could he really read my mind?
"Feliks. I wouldn't disturb him."
"That would be wise." I hadn't even realised, but Feli had vanished very quickly and very quietly from my side. Probably returning to class. It had only been a few minutes, but another figure burst through the doors, with a very tall shadow in tow.
"I'm very sorry but Mr Ivan had an accident!" The shorter boy stuttered, trying not to meet anyone's gaze.
"It's okay Ravis," Arthur said soothingly, "let's go back to class, hm?" He tugged the shaking boy back to class in a vice like grip, leaving me alone with Ivan, Feliks and the not-guy-Gil's-dad. Ivan smiled at me, but it seemed to drop the temperature of the room by a few degrees.
"Nice to meet you, comrade."
It had been one day. One day since I met that damn Russian. I didn't like him at all; he seemed so... Fake. His smile didn't reach his eyes. I voiced my distrust to Arthur, who simply snorted.
"Alfred, you just dislike him because he's Communist. That's not even a decent reason to dislike someone. After all, Yao is Communist but you get along perfectly fine with him."
"Américain, Arthur is right. You need to stop holding something like that over his head." Francis interjected. It wasn't until I was sat with Gil in Advanced Poisons that afternoon that I found someone who agreed with me.
"I used to go to school with him, I hated his Russian ass!" Gilbert spat, with an ironically poisonous tone. The teacher shushed us and we ducked down to look at our worksheets. Somehow, I'd made it into this class (probably thanks to chemistry, which had been my best subject back at my old school) and we both finished the sheet a little early. I tore a piece of paper out of my notebook with the intentions of writing a note to Gil, when I felt my phone vibrate in my shirt pocket.
To: HERO_
From: THE _AWESOME _GIL
Kesesese~ This is how most people do it mister hero!
To: THE_AWESOME_GIL
From: HERO_
This is pretty cool! So tell me more about Ivan?
To: HERO_
From: THE_AWESOME_GIL
Yeah he has a couple of sisters and was pretty popular. Probs because everyone was scared of him LOOL
You met Ravis? Kinda short, brownie?
That threw me. I did remember Ravis, but I didn't get the significance of the brownie part. Why was Gil asking me about chocolate at-
To: HERO_
From: THE_AWESOME_GIL
Brownie as in the CREATURE you unawesome American!
To: THE_AWESOME_GIL
FROM: HERO_
Hey! Yeah I know him. What is he one of Ivan's minions or something?
The teacher announced that the time allotted for the worksheet was over, but there was a barely noticeable nod from Gilbert in my direction. He held up three fingers, before the teacher started lecturing again and we scrambled to take down notes. Three fingers... Three minions? Ravis was one, two to go...
I was about to send another message to Gil, when my phone vibrated.
From: CaptainKirkland
To: HERO_ ; THE_AWESOME_GIL ; FryingPanFury ; Lovi-is-BAE
You may wish to be a little more subtle if messaging in class, you four. - A.K.
Busted! I didn't know who the other two were, but there was a jingling from Eliza's direction as she put her hands in her blazer pockets, red faced. She must be FryingPanFury. Who was the other? Lovino wasn't even in that class, nor was his brother. How strange...
I was itching to know more about Ivan and his super secret weakness- every villain has one!- when I walked into a wall right outside of the lab. I heard the painstakingly familiar laughter of Gilbert and Antonio, accompanied by a snicker from Arthur. I shot a middle finger vaguely in their direction as I readjusted my glasses with my other hand. It looked like I had... Map work... Next. I'd never understand why the heck they made us take such dumb lessons, or where classroom M3 was, but I wandered around looking for it for a few minutes, until I got a message.
From: FryingPanFury
To: HERO_
You might find the M Block if you head outside ;3
There was a whole separate block... With a sigh that echoed around the empty hallways and a creepy realisation that Eliza must be around somewhere if she knew I was lost, I found a set of doors and headed outside, where I saw a building with the letter 'M' over the doors.
"Perhaps they should be a little clearer with their labelling." I growled. In an understandably foul mood, I found M3 five minutes late. Apparently though, that didn't seem to matter, as the class was in complete chaos. Feli was on one side of the classroom screaming and wrapped around Kiku, who looked incredibly uncomfortable; one guy was asleep while all of this was happening; Eliza was sitting texting, her feet in her boyfriend's lap while he was composing music and Lukas was near where I was standing, screamo bleeding from his earbuds. Asides from the few familiar faces, there were plenty of people arguing and shouting at each other or on their phones completely ignoring the world. I chose a seat next to a blonde guy with glasses, who was focused intently on his laptop.
"Wassup dude?" I said without much enthusiasm. It had been a long day. He barely looked up as he greeted me, his eyes locked on his screen. Trying not to seem like I was being nosey, which would have been totally unheroic, I peered over his shoulder to see a webpage filled with coding.
To: HERO_
From: NorwegianRidgeback872
Stop prying, American.
Damnit Lukas. I shot him a glare, to which he didn't even have the decency to look surprised at. I stomped out of the classroom as the bell went, signalling the end of the day, in the worst mood I'd ever been in in my heroic life.
Fortunately for all, my bad mood had lifted by the next day. I mean hey, it was pizza today! Who could be in a bad mood when they were serving pizza? I raced down to the canteen only to find-
"Good morning! I trust you slept well, da?" Oh hell to the no. He... Was at our table. This was so not cool!
From: BeauFrancis
To: HERO_ ; CaptainKirkland
Alfred, control your temper mon ami. Arthur, mon amour, please come and stop Alfred from punching Ivan, hmm?
I heard an indecipherable string of curses come from the breakfast queue as Arthur came hurtling over with his trademark scowl and sat on the other side of Ivan. I shot him a grateful look for taking that seat as I sat between Arthur and Francis.
"You look stressed Anglais. What's wrong?"
"I can't find my bloody history homework."
"Probably because I have it dude!"
"Wanker! I turned my room upside down looking for that!" And thus, Ivan became an unquestioned presence in our group. That doesn't mean I liked him or anything though!
Ahh. That took a while. I'm sorry that this was a filler chapter and that it took so long to get out. Seeing as I forgot to mention it, I've basically stolen all of the teachers from Attack on Titan (the anime is pretty gory, they really aren't teachers). I also took the 'Tactical Ed.' lesson from HIVE by Mark Walden. They're seriously cool books. Anyway, that's all for now, I'll try to get the next chapter out soon! O-O