The feeling of this November, "Defender School" day matched the color of Thorne's eyes perfectly: bleak, stormy, steely, and cold. If one said that the young alchemist was having a bad day, that would just be an understatement. He was having an abhorrent day.
First off, Thorne was late for his first class of the day, biology, so he was marked tardy. That wouldn't have been too bad, except that that was his third one for the second quarter. Now he was expected to show up in detention after school.
In splat class, one of the "jocks", named Rick, had purposely shot goo in the British alchemist's face. After everyone laughed at him, the instructor not only threatened to send fuming Thorne to the principal's office for attempting to punch Rick's face, he also congratulated the jock for making "such a good shot."
During history class, where students learn all about weapons, castles, and their backstories, the young adults got their most recent test back. Thorne, well...his grade wasn't too good. To make matters even worse, the teacher had embarrassed him by loudly announcing to everyone that his test grade was the lowest one in the whole class.
For awhile, British literature class went okay. At least, until the instructor asked Thorne why he couldn't be more like his overachieving sister. The young Defender growled in reply, then continued reading what had just been assigned: Chapter 30 of Pride and Prejudice.
Shaiden was four years younger than him, but she was still at the same senior level as he was. Just because she always did everything right. And the ninja was even marked absent everyday!
Don't get Thorne wrong; he just didn't like being compared to his little sister, and then told that she was a better Defender-in-training than he was.
Things didn't get any better at lunch. While the group of the nine in-training Splatalot Defenders were eating, Kookaburra accidentally spilled his soda all over Thorne's calculus homework, which had taken him half the previous night to complete. Good thing Knightriss was there, or else the Australian bird would have lost both his wings for sure.
After lunch was gym class. The game of the day was dodge ball. Let's just say Thorne didn't have a good time in there, either.
Thorne was out of the gym as soon as the bell rang. He paced quickly through the halls covered with steel lockers, sulking at the ground. Keeping his face out of sight, he stopped at his locker, #117, put in the combination, and threw the door open.
The young Defender-in-training dug through his backpack and took out his test from history class. His final grade? D+. He hadn't been able to study because he was too busy doing calculus homework.
Thorne growled, partly at his final grade and partly at the memory of Kook ruining his math homework. He crumpled his test up and tossed it into his locker.
"Hey, Thorne," a young female voice chimed behind him.
The alchemist grunted in reply as he shoved his history binder besides his biology one. "Hey."
The blue ninja surveyed her brother carefully. Shaiden knew that Thorne was in a bad mood, but she wasn't exactly sure how bad it was at the moment.
She hesitated. "You took quite a hit in dodge ball today. That looked like it hurt a little bit."
Thorne growled, then turned around to face his sister, who took a step back.
"Does this look like it 'hurts a little bit' to you?!" he hissed, pointing to the large, dark bruise engulfing his right eye.
Shaiden's mouth was partly open as she cautiously scanned Thorne's wound. Reluctantly, she answered, "It's not too bad, Thorne. It looks, uh...kinda...cool...?"
"Oh, yeah?" Thorne seethed. "Why don't you get one, then?"
With that, the ninja's brother slammed his locker door shut, denting it in the process, then hurriedly paced away. Sixteen-year-old Shaiden kept her eyes on him until he disappeared from the hall. She sighed, then silently headed off to her next class.
Calculus was up next. And, as you can imagine, Thorne had to explain to his teacher what happened to his homework. Much to Thorne's frustration, the math teacher told him that if he made his work up, he would give him half credit. The young alchemist just muttered "forget it" under his breath and decided it wasn't worth doing the whole assignment over again.
The last class of the day was Thorne's favorite one: chemistry. It was his strongest subject; in fact, he was at the top of the class. And even better, the chemistry teacher wasn't one of those "be happy" people. Almost the opposite, actually.
However, when Thorne walked through the lab's doorway, he saw that there was a substitute teacher. He immediately realized that this period wouldn't be much better than the other ones when she smiled at him.
The sub was a very happy and enthusiastic person, much to Thorne's distaste. All throughout the period, she kept encouraging the young Defender to smile. Eventually, the rest of the class was pressuring and teasing him to do it, as well. Thorne sourly refused and grudgingly looked down at his chemistry book.
Finally, the bell rang. Thorne sighed in relief as he walked out the door, then remembered he had detention that afternoon. He groaned loudly, then stomped off to his locker. Why wouldn't this day end already?
Could things get any worse?
Yes, they could. The substitute chemistry teacher was hosting detention, so he'd be stuck with her for another hour.
"Thorne!"
The said young adult glanced over his shoulder to see Gildar running over to him.
Great, Thorne thought angrily, shoving his binders into his backpack.
The young viking soon reached the British Defender-in-training. "Hey, Thorne, we're all going to see that new movie: Seeing Nothing But Red. Wanna come?"
Thorne slammed the dented locker door shut. "No." He slung his gray and blue backpack over one shoulder and began to pace away.
"But it's a horror sci-fi film," the viking exclaimed, following him, "and I heard that the ending's really sad. You'd love it!"
Thorne growled and walked even faster. "I can't."
The viking narrowed an eye. "Why not?"
"Because I have detention," Thorne stated through clenched teeth.
Girldar groaned sympathetically. "Ah, Thorne, I'm so sorry."
Thorne abruptly arrested his feet and whirled his bruised face to the viking. "Yeah, you should be! It's all your fault! If you hadn't begged me to grab you a stupid shampoo bottle on the way to school, I wouldn't be stuck in detention with Little Miss Happy! This was the worst day of my life and you were the first thing that made it that way!"
After he finished ranting, Thorne looked at the ground and began taking deep breaths. As soon as he calmed himself down, he put his gaze back on Gildar. The young alchemist's hard gray eyes softened slightly when he noticed the viking looked a little hurt.
A moment later, Gildar's eyes sparked, as if he suddenly got an idea. "Little Miss Happy? You mean Miss McGraw?"
"Yeah, whatever her name was," Thorne replied, letting out a deep breath.
Gildar flipped his hair confidently and smiled. "I can get you out."
Despite the huge load on his back, Thorne straightened up. He narrowed one eye questioningly. "How?"
Gildar's smile turned into a smirk. "I'll show you. Follow me."
The door to the detention room swung open. Thorne, who was leaning against the wall, locked his eyes on the exiting Gildar.
The viking smiled as he shut the door. "All taken care of."
Thorne's gray eyes lit up a bit. "I'm out?"
Gildar nodded.
Thorne's jaw was on the verge of dropping. "How?"
The vain viking pointed to his face. "All it took was this award-winning smile, these sparkling eyes, and a flip of my gorgeous hair."
The British alchemist pushed away the urge to roll his eyes. A moment later, he shifted his gaze to the door before looking down at his boots. He took a deep breath, then humbly lifted his head to look back at the viking. "Thanks."
Gildar patted Thorne's shoulder. "Anytime. Now come on, the others are waiting outside! Let's get going!"
The viking then led the way outside, Thorne right at his heels. The duo found the other seven Splatalot Defenders-in-training next to Skabb's car, getting ready to pile in.
As they neared the barbarian's "possibly borrowed" car, Thorne took a quick glance around him. The asphalt was wet and covered with puddles, and the air smelled clean. It must have rained earlier. Looking up, he noticed that the sky didn't seem as gray as before.
Thorne was the last to climb into the van. He found a seat between Shaiden and Kook just as Ballista shut the door.
Right after he sat down, Shaiden looked over the green-haired bird. "Thorne, I think Kookaburra has something he needs to say to you."
The ninja's brother moved his gaze to Kook, who was rubbing the back of his head. "Uh, yeah. Sorry about yer math homework, mate. Um...is there anything I can do to make it up to you?"
Thorne paused in thought. "Get me a large soda when we get to the theater and...maybe...I'll forgive you."
Kook smiled. "Deal!" He sighed in relief. "I thought you were gonna ask me to do your next homework assignment for you! All that math stuff looked really hard!"
Thorne scowled. "It was." Taking a deep breath, he added, "Don't worry about that; I would never ask you to do my homework."
Ballista smirked. "Yeah, that's because he doesn't need Kook dropping his GPA down to a negative number."