Disclaimer: If I owned Rise of the Guardians, would I seriously be wandering around on FanFiction?
The next week had passed without a hitch, and the day that came right after was the day Jack was dreading to come. He was definitely not ready. Oh, so not ready.
During the walk to school, Jack was spazzing out to a very weary-looking Jamie. "What am I gonna do once I get there? What do I say to people? What if nobody likes me?"
Jamie gave him an annoyed side-glance. "Just be yourself. And you're Jack Frost. When did you start caring whether or not somebody likes you?"
"Just because I used to be the spirit of the coldest season of the year does not mean that I have no feelings," Jack huffed. "But... I don't know. I don't think I've ever felt so nervous before in any of my lives. I have no idea what the heck is wrong with me. I'm not even sure if I'll make it to the end of the day..."
"Don't worry, it's natural. Monty came here a few years ago, and he was so jittery when I first talked to him, it was like he was gonna pee his pants," Jamie grinned at the memory.
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"Kinda."
"It's not working then! Now I'm paranoid that I'm gonna pee my pants!"
"Unlike Monty, I'm sure your bladder is under your complete control," Jamie said flatly. "Don't people gain more bladder control when they grow older? You're 318 years old."
"Excuse me, but from what I know, you've never transferred schools!" Jack retorted, growing more frantic by the second.
"That's true. But seriously, you're stressing out over nothing," Jamie said, not even looking as he pressed the crosswalk button that led to the middle school.
"Has anyone ever told you that you suck at making former winter spirits feel better?" Jack asked sarcastically as the light turned green.
"Considering that nobody has ever seen me make a former winter spirit feel better – Whoa, wait a minute, why are you following me?" Jamie stopped walking across the street when he realized that Jack was right behind him.
"Huh?"
"My school is on the other side of the street. Your school is back there on the side of the street we just came from," Jamie motioned to the gigantic building of the high school.
Oh yeah. Dumb moment for Jack. "See what I mean?! This is what stress does to me! It makes me stupid!" he insisted, as he went back.
Jamie grinned and didn't give a reply. He simply finished crossing the street and waved at Jack.
"...Evil, little boy," Jack muttered under his breath. "Has no idea how I feel."
He turned around to face the tall building looming over him. It was now or never. He took a deep breath and walked in. He was greeted by the sight of a long hallway filled with countless rows of lockers on both walls. He looked at the small half-sheet of paper in his hand, which was his schedule, that also had his locker number on it.
"Locker number 7209..." he mumbled, strolling down the halls. He was aware of many loitering students looking at him. It made him feel uncomfortable, but he really couldn't help but mentally roll his eyes. He really couldn't tell why people liked to stare at him. He didn't really stand out. Externally, at least.
He found his locker, and, entering the combination, he successfully opened it. It was a little dusty, but it was generally in good condition. He had his history class first, so he took out all his other books and staff (He had brought it along to school because it made him feel reassured) and put them away. When he closed his locker and turned around to head to class, he found himself face-to-face with none other than the Anderson twins.
"Ah!" He retreated in surprise and his back hit the locker. "Don't do that!"
Zander frowned. "Do what?"
"Never mind," Jack sighed, recovering. "How'd you guys find me so fast?"
"We were right behind you when you came in, so we followed you," Spencer slightly smiled, as if he didn't just sound like a creeper.
"And you're wearing that hoodie," Zander remarked, looking at Jack's blue, signature hoodie.
"Uh, yeah, I thought that Mrs. Bennett would wash my clothes for me, but it turns out that she expects me to do it myself. So basically, this is my only clean shirt left," Jack waved it off dismissively. "Besides, I'm wearing what you guys deem as 'normal pants.'"
"How does your hoodie stay so clean when you wear that most of the time at home, while all your other shirts get dirty?" Zander questioned.
Jack shrugged. "I dunno."
Spencer coughed. "Anyway, what are your classes?"
Jack squinted at the tiny imprinting on his schedule. "Uh, American History Honors for first period, PE for second, Physics for third, then it's Geometry, then it's English 1 Honors, and I have Performing Arts last."
"Huh, so you really do have performance art class with us," Zander started to comment. "...Wait, geometry?" He snorted. "Dude, you suck."
"I'm sorry, but math was never my best subject," Jack snapped. "And anyway, Mr. Kaka did end up getting my classes spot on... Except for Physics. I think that level's a bit too high for me." He wasn't too sure what the physics class talked about, but he had a feeling that it relied on atoms and Newton's laws of motion. Mostly stuff that was discovered after he became immortal.
The bell rang, and many students hurried off to their first classes of the day. Spencer grabbed Jack's arm and proceeded to drag him off to one direction. "Come on, you have history class with me." He turned to Zander. "We'll see you at lunch."
History class turned out to be on the second floor, and once they reached room 226, Spencer motioned for Jack to wait outside the door. "Wait out here till the teacher calls you in and introduces you to the class."
"And I'm supposed to do that for every class I have for the rest of the day?" Jack was not willing to walk into a total of 6 classes in front of all his classmates as if he didn't get to school on time.
"Uh, yeah. Don't worry, the whole thing will only take about 30 seconds."
"I don't care how long it takes! I only care about how this'll be embarrassing!"
Spencer shrugged. "Sorry, can't help you with that."
He walked into the room, leaving a sulking Jack standing outside. A few minutes later, the late bell rang. Jack took a few deep breaths to calm his beating heart, then pulled the hood over his head. He pulled it down just enough to cover his eyes from the outside world, but not enough for him to actually not be able to see.
"We have a new student today," he heard the teacher say and then call out to him. "You can come on in now!"
Jack took one final deep breath and walked in, both of his hands tugging at his hood, as if he was trying to pull it down a little more. He could feel the countless number of eyes on him. For some reason, he knew that Spencer was face-palming at the moment.
He stopped and turned to face the rest of the class, hood still covering his face.
"Mr. Overland, take off your hood," the teacher finally said, once she realized that Jack wasn't about to say anything anytime soon.
Jack did so, and he almost immediately wished he didn't, because now he could see everyone else staring at him. Or more specifically, the guys were looking at him blankly while the girls were practically swooning for some reason. Spencer was just whistling quietly to himself innocently.
Jack turned to the teacher and blinked, not knowing what to do. The teacher exasperatedly said, "Say something."
"Uh, hi, I'm Jack. Jack Overland. Can I sit down now?"
Spencer really did face-palm this time.
The teacher, surprised that Jack was being so curt, just said, "Sure... There's an empty seat in the back."
The moment Jack sat down was the moment Spencer sneezed loudly. He covered his nose and mouth, raised his hand, and asked the teacher, "Mrs. Beemer, may I go get a tissue?"
Mrs. Beemer gave him an eye roll. "No, I'd rather have you sit there with snot running down your face."
Jack bit back a snort, while Spencer gave him a look that just plain screamed, At least I was nice enough to ask.
PE was next. Jack didn't know that he was supposed to change into the uniform in front of everyone else, so he definitely felt violated when he found out that he was supposed to strip down in public. Once he was out of the locker room and into the gym, he shuddered. This wasn't something he could live down. Ever.
Coach Pregger announced that they would be continuing their dodgeball unit, and he split the class up into two large teams.
"Overland, you're on Celine Sanders' team."
Celine Sanders? Jack looked around until he felt something grab his shoulder from behind, making him jump. He turned around to face a grinning Cici... Wait, she's Celine?
"You're the team captain?" he asked.
"Yep," Cici affirmed, still grinning. "Our team's better than the other one, so you got lucky."
"Are you just saying that because it's your team?" Jack deadpanned.
"What? No! I happen to be an expert when it comes to dodgeball," Cici held up her nose haughtily. "And now we'll be even better, now that you're coming into the picture."
"How do you know whether or not I'll be good at dodgeball?"
"My boss at Starbucks told me how quote 'a guy hanging out with Zander and Spencer last week had a huge snowball fight with a bunch of kids and won in a landslide,'" Cici explained. "Dodgeball is pretty much the same thing. Except we don't use snowballs."
"Uh, okay."
"Come on, have confidence! We'll pummel the other team!" An evil glint appeared in Cici's eyes.
Cici and Jack's team did end up "pummeling" the other team – or more like Cici and Jack did. Their teammates ended up striking out one by one, and in the end, Cici and Jack were the only ones left. Cici playfully challenged Jack to see who could hit more opponents, and that was what spurred Jack on. Both of them were on a roll, and it was almost an exact repeat of what went down with Jack and Jamie and friends.
The game wrapped up fairly quickly, and Coach Pregger decided to organize the game to be boys against girls, because "having both of the best players on the same team was unfair." Jack was tempted to retort that life in general wasn't fair – he had more than enough experience to prove that – but he consented instead. Again, the last two players standing were Cici and Jack. The last 20 minutes or so of playtime were spent with Cici and Jack tossing a plethora of balls at each other, trying to knock the other out of the game, and the rest of the class, including the teacher, watched, cheering for either the boy or the girl (though neither of them won by the end of class).
Science. Jack hated the word, but he hated the subject even more. Especially when it came to physics. And now, Jack had one more reason to hate his third period class: Samson Fisher was in it. Jack was already grateful that he wasn't unlucky enough to end up sitting next to him, but sitting a few rows in front didn't prevent the intense glare burning into his back from reaching him.
Jack had no idea why karma was cruel enough to have him take his second least favorite class right after his first. Sitting through math was the even more awkward than sitting through Jamie and his father trying to converse with each other, because the entire class was supposed to work in pairs with the person next to them to do a project. Jack was sitting next to a boy named Cody, and Cody wasn't very cooperative. To be exact, he spent most of the class time staring intensely at Jack, and the latter found it hard to concentrate, so they barely got anything done.
Jack was just glad lunch was next.
"I hate this already."
Those were the first words to come out of Jack's mouth once he got to the lunch table Zander and Spencer were sitting at.
"What'd I tell you?" Zander looked smug.
"That seniors get all the drama. Yeah, I remember that. But there's no drama yet, just...awkwardness."
"It's just first-day-of-school trauma. It'll be gone by the end of the week," Spencer assured. "And just out of curiosity, what kind of awkwardness?"
"Samson has physics with me and the guy who sits next to me in math creeps me out."
"Who's he?"
"This dude named Cody."
"That explains it then. Cody Gay's antisocial," Zander indifferently said.
"...What'd you say his last name was?"
"Gay. G-A-Y."
"We know what you're thinking right now," Spencer intervened before Jack could ask the obvious question. "Not a very normal last name, is it? Cody was a transfer student a few years back like you are, and he was pretty dark and quiet ever since day one. And 2 years ago, Samson spread a rumor around saying that he's like that because he's gay. He doesn't really think that though. He's just making fun of Cody's last name."
Jack really started feeling even more animosity for Samson after that spiel. "Do you guys think he's gay?"
"Only Cody would know for sure," was all Zander said. "But if you want an official answer, no."
"Wait, so Cody has no friends?"
"Nope. It's not that nobody has ever tried, it's just that Cody's attitude kind of...makes him unbefriendable. Not like that's a real word, but you get what I mean."
Something landed hard on Jack's shoulder again, and, like before, Jack jumped. He turned around to face Cici. "Stop doing that! I've been through a lot today!"
Cici shrugged. "Sorry," she said, not really apologetic. "Anyway, nice game of dodgeball this morning." She paused. "But I'll beat you next time!"
Jack smirked. "We'll see... Celine."
"Quiet, you. Call me Cici."
"Whatever you say, Celine."
"Okay, now that's the type of attitude that made Samson punch you. Anyway, I gotta go. Bye."
"Right. See ya..."
Cici started to walk off, and Jack called out just loud enough for her to hear, "Celine!"
She shot daggers at him before exiting the cafeteria. Jack turned back to the twins. Spencer suddenly seemed to find his food a lot more interesting, while Zander was watching him with feral amusement.
"So you have PE with her..." Spencer mumbled quietly, poking at his food with his fork.
"Yeah... Don't think I was trying to make a move on her or anything just now. We were just playing dodgeball, and she's the only one in the class who's competent enough for me."
"Oh yeah, Cici's got quick reflexes. Probably stems from being a cheerleader," Zander mused.
"She's a cheerleader?"
"Yup. There's a football game coming up in a week, so maybe you could come if you have free time. Spencer will obviously be there," Zander smirked.
Spencer's face turned pink. "Shut up!"
In English class, Jack's seat was next to a redheaded guy named Anton. Jack noticed that Anton was also in his history and PE class, and he wasn't so sure how he felt about that. Throughout the day, Anton had been sending him dirty looks. He had no idea what he had against him, but he wasn't about to ask. He just crossed his fingers that the dude wasn't as bad as Samson.
Jack was almost relieved to hear the bell ring, signaling that fifth period was over. Anton had been giving him a particularly long dirty look, so he wanted nothing more but to get out of there. At lunch, Zander and Spencer had told him that having performance art class as the last class of the day was like taking a hot bath after standing out in the snow with nothing but a T-shirt and shorts on for an hour. Jack was still slightly weary of warmth, so he wasn't positively sure what to make of that comparison, though he assumed that it wasn't anything bad.
Once he walked into his sixth class, he immediately started staring. There were chairs to sit in, but there weren't any desks other than the teacher's desk in the corner. Also, the room was twice as big as the others.
"Sup, Newbie?" Zander greeted, as he and Spencer walked up to him.
"Where are the friggin' tables?"
"There aren't any," Spencer shrugged.
"Then what do we do for the entire hour?!"
Zander gave an exasperated sigh, not in a patient mood. "Isn't it obvious? Performance art. Didn't Christine give you the 411 during Christmas dinner?"
"And you expect me to remember everything she said to me? I just remember something about acting, singing, dancing, makeup, switching around, and a huge class."
"Yeah, that's pretty much what it's about. So, which section do you wanna join?"
Jack thought for a second. There was no way he was getting himself involved in makeup and he wasn't too confident in his singing abilities (Not that he's ever tried). He personally thought that he could handle dance, but he wasn't about to risk the possibility of becoming a ballerina. "Acting," he finally said. He wasn't particularly fond of that one either, but it was at least better than the other three.
A certain redhead walked into the room. Seeing Jack, he sent him one more dirty look before moving to take a seat.
Jack really couldn't believe it. "That guy's been following me around all day! What the freak!"
"Who, you mean Anton?" Spencer asked.
"No, I mean the Muffin Man," Jack said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Yes, I mean Anton! He's in my history, PE, and English class! I don't need to get a fourth class stuck with him!"
"That's karma for you. You have no choice but to suffer its bitchiness," Zander said.
"Okay, thanks, that just made me feel so much better."
"What's with you and Anton?" Spencer questioned.
"I don't know – I have absolutely no problem with him, but he kept on giving me glares the entire day. He just doesn't like me for some reason."
"Of course he doesn't. Did you know that he's Samson's best friend?"
That was all it took for Jack to drop all hopes that Anton wouldn't be as terrible as Samson. At least he had a decent explanation for Anton's dislike for him now. "Let me guess, mad that I broke his best friend's nose?"
"That, and also the fact that you managed to win over more than half the girls here, and only on your first day of school," Spencer shrugged.
"What...does that have to do with anything?"
"Anton is a little...full of himself," Spencer struggled to find the right words. "He's pretty much the only guy here who actually enjoys girls' attention. And he gets a lot of attention, so that just encourages him to think of himself as the greatest person in the world."
Jack, failing to out two and two together, simply raised one eyebrow. "And?"
Zander exhaled in frustration. "You're his competition. You have the potential to steal his fans and suck-up cronies."
It took a moment for Jack to figure out what that meant for Anton. "Oh... That's so dumb."
"Yeah, to us. But to him, it's everything important he ever cared about," Zander replied.
"An absolute narcissist," Spencer agreed.
School was finally over, and the three boys were walking out of the school. Jack, to say the least, was distressed.
"It's only my first day of school, and the teacher already says that we're gonna have to participate in a performance at the middle school?!"
"Dude, chill. It's in a month and a half. And it's not anyone's fault that you came here in the middle of the school year," Zander said flatly.
"And don't worry, it'll be fun," Spencer insisted.
"Easy for you to say! I get stage fright easily! We're talking about a play in front of all the kids in middle school!"
"Don't forget about the singing and dancing performances," Spencer piped up. "In my opinion, the play is less stressful than those. Remember, you can sign up for the one you want to contribute in. And we haven't exactly come up with a plot for the play yet."
Jack would've replied if his phone didn't ring. He took it out and looked at the caller ID, seeing that it was from Jamie's mom.
"Hey, what's up?" he answered.
"Jack, I'm with Mrs. Lee at the hospital visiting her mom. Would you mind picking Sophie up from daycare for me?"
Jack blinked. "Uh, sure, I don't mind at all."
"Great, thanks. I'll leave it to you then."
After hanging up, Jack turned to the twins. "Sorry, guys. Gotta go." He hurried off.
Zander and Spencer just stood there for a few moments, before Zander remarked, "He didn't tell us that he got a phone."
When Jack arrived at the daycare, he immediately noticed Sophie waiting outside at the tiny playground, waiting for her mother to pick her up. He was about to call out to her, until Scott Kimberly approached on his tricycle and purposely bumped into Sophie with it. She fell over and started bawling.
"What the hell?" Jack muttered under his breath, and went over. "What'd you go and do that for?"
"She was in my way," was Scott's casual reply.
"You could've went around her! Or at least tell her to move."
"Nah, I didn't feel like it. What's it to you?" Scott shot back.
"He's a big meanie-head!" Sophie whined to Jack.
"Quit your crying. It was your fault that you were standing there," Samson, who had followed Scott, grumbled.
Jack looked at him disbelievingly. "You're taking your cousin's side? You don't find him bullying a younger girl extremely wrong in every way?!"
"She's gonna have to deal with this kind of stuff later in her life at some point, so what difference does it make, pipsqueak?"
Son of a– Jack gripped his staff even tighter, hooked it around Samson's neck, and yanked the boy down so he was at his height. "Listen to me, 'cause I'm only gonna say this once," he said darkly through clenched teeth. "I let your idiot cousin kick down her snowman, I let him throw rocks at me and my friends, I let him endanger Spencer's ability to have children in his future, and I even let him kick me in between the legs, but I'm putting my foot down right now. You and him better leave Sophie alone, or I'm gonna–"
"You'll what? Break my nose again?" Samson retorted.
Jack jerked his staff even harder. "Not only will both your noses be broken, but I will personally make sure that you die of hypothermia and your heads will be set as trophies in my room, and your bodies will be shredded up and fed to the sharks, so nobody will ever know what happened to you for at least the next eleven years." He deviously smirked and let go of Samson. "Come on, Soph. Let's go." He picked Sophie up and walked away, an aura with a sinister intent left lingering in the air.
"So, play ideas. What do we have so far?"
Spencer looked up at Zander, the asker of the question. He flipped open his notebook and found the page that had a list of prompts. "We could do the classic stuff, like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty. But I heard that middle schoolers are really into spy stuff as well–"
"Whoa, wait, shut up for a minute here," Zander interrupted, staring at something outside the window at Golden Spoon. Or rather, someone. He was staring at this teenage girl who looked like a life-sized version of Barbie. She had long, brown hair that reached her waist and her face was caked with makeup. Her pink nails looked like they had just gone through a fresh manicure.
Spencer followed Zander's line of sight and looked at the girl. "Zander, I know she stands out from the crowd, but there's no need to stare at her–"
"Idiot, look closer. Who does she look like?"
Spencer squinted at the girl for a few seconds, and once realization hit, he turned a little green. "Please tell me that I'm hallucinating when I say that she looks like Jack."
"I was hoping that I was the one imagining things."
"Oh god... What is Jack doing, looking like that?"
The girl had walked into Golden Spoon and ordered her ice cream during their exchange, and she had noticed the twins whispering and looking at her. She huffed in irritation and went over to them. "Um, like, excuse me, but can you, like, not stare at me?" she said rudely in a high-pitched voice and a strong Valley girl accent.
"Uh, right, sure," Zander said. "But seriously, what are you doing dressed like that? And what happened to your voice? The last time I checked, you had already hit puberty."
The girl scoffed and flipped her hair. "I'm, like, clearly a girl. I don't, like, go through, like, puberty."
"What are you, some kind of male prostitute?"
The girl inhaled sharply and stamped her foot. "I'm, like, so not a prostitute! I'm a, like, virgin!"
Jack suddenly passed by the window, giving Sophie a piggyback ride. He saw Zander and Spencer inside, and he grinned and waved at them (He momentarily looked at the female look-a-like of him, and his face grew slightly creeped out, but he kept his cool). He disappeared again, leaving Zander and Spencer speechless.
"Okay," Spencer began slowly, turning back to the girl. "Who are you?"
"Jill Underhill. Who'd you, like, think I was?"
"That's not important," Spencer said quickly. "Anyway, we should go, right, Zander?"
"Oh yeah, we really should," Zander agreed.
They both picked up their stuff and left the ice cream shop. They exchanged looks with one another, clearly trading the same message: Let's never speak of this again.
All of us know Jill Underhill, don't we? She's the human alter ego of Jill Flame, and her voice actor is Christina Elm. ;P
Anyway, that last part was pure crack. I have no idea why I wanted to include that in here, but I really couldn't resist. Jill will most likely not be appearing again anytime soon.
Anyway, this is the school chapter. A couple of people didn't want another filler, which is kind of a good thing, since the more I thought about it, the less inspiration I had for a vacation filler.
So, drama should be coming in pretty soon. I swear, I have so many ideas for this fanfic that it's hard to keep track of all of them. To prevent myself from forgetting any of them, I'll put a list down below at the bottom of this author's note. I'll try to keep the list spoiler-free, in case someone who doesn't want any spoilers accidentally reads it or something (Although a few chapters ago, I already promised you guys with a Jack with wild hormones). But this is for my own personal memory, so you don't have to read it if you don't want to.
And all the major OC's are finally at least introduced. There will probably be a couple more OC's, but they'll only be minor ones.
I'm pretty sure at least one of you know who Hatsu Yukiya is. For those of you that don't, she's this amazing author who is more than worthy of your reading time. She has this fanfic called To Have a Home, and I find it way better than my own stuff, so check hers out. ...Wow, this seriously marks the first time I advertise something that isn't my own.
And, uh, I need help with the image cover of Powerless Guardian. I feel like I should set a cover for this, but... I'm brain-dead. If anyone has any ideas they're willing to give me, or even a cover they won't mind making for me, feel free to do so.
Review!
Okay, listing time! If you don't want to see this, turn away now. Not all of these necessarily apply to Jack.
...Ready? Okay. (This thing is gonna end up being at least 30 chapters long...)
–Crush/Hormones
–Gossip
–Self-hate
–Backstabbing
–Attack
–Suicide attempt
–Physical fight (It shouldn't be too hard to figure out which two characters will be having this)
–Villains
–Play at middle school
–Cici and Spencer
–Lots and lots and LOTS of character development
