Wait a minute, an update you say? It's true! After over a year of letting this story collect dust, I finally busted out a chapter. This chapter is actually half of what it should be, but knowing that I haven't posted in eons, I threw caution to the wind and thought, "Hey, it doesn't matter if the chapter is short, as long as it's entertaining, right?" So here you go, everyone! I know it probably won't be worth the wait to my old readers, but I hope you can find it enjoyable regardless.
And as for why SSD has more chapters than usual now, yes I did split up Ch. 8: Horror House into three parts like people have suggested. I have realized how much a pain in the butt it is navigating that chapter after trying to look at it from my cell phone. That and I decided it was high time for me to stop being so stubborn. So there you go! Now future readers will thank you for fixing that long chapter. So kudos!
Kudos Corner: Dr. Bob, OkonoMiyagi, Cafe-Publications, kikkiclow88, tiger002, Canada Cowboy, Rogue Soul Alchemist, and Shimonu7661. Thank you to you all for reviewing! I appreciate all of you for your feedback, and I hope that I listened and put into action some of your suggestions.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything pertaining to Tales of Symphonia. If I did, I'd probably be attacked for taking so long to write/type-out an alternate universe re-telling of the gang. Eheh…
Ch. 9: Beware of the Exams!
[Monday]
Weeks have past since the last full-moon hung over the Symphonian gang. The last time they were underneath such a murky moonlight was during the Horror House Initiation. Now, being a month later and back to the civilized city, the boys and girls have settled down their fears of the otherworldly and the undead to focus on more germane matters, like returning to their crucial education at the academy. The first trimester final exams were only a few days away, and that meant a lot of long and sleepless nights devoted studying were to come. For most students, it was quite easy to immerse themselves in the well-known routine of read this book and take notes, read that book and take notes—then, rinse and repeat! However, not all students could be that enthusiastic about a world of knowledge. But with their status as a Symphonia Academy Student at stake, there were few souls willing to chance passing their finals and staying in the program. Of course, you can image who those few souls that did were. A certain idiotic brunette fell under that few.
"Lloyd! Could you be any louder?" spouted Genis, in a mordant tone. The silverette sat on top of his own bed, his legs in a criss-cross manner. Surrounding him, in a half circle, was the ultimate assortment of tools to assist him in his battle against English, Math, Science, Reading, and Writing: a calculator, a writing pad, a pen and pencil, a retractable eraser, a laptop for internet use, and right smack in the middle of his lap was a colossal book—weighing a total of ten pounds!—to solidify his knowledge on all subjects. Distracted by the repetitive shouts and gunshots mere feet away though, Genis tore his nose away from his book, and looked up to grouse at his guest. "You know, I'm trying to study for finals week coming up, and the constant racket from you isn't helping me."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah…" the brunette retaliated without even glancing Genis' way. Lloyd was too busy, also. But opposite to his friend, Lloyd had a different array of arsenal at his disposal that laid around him: a fan, an energy drink, a television controller and a game controller, a bag of chips, a massage pad for excess comfort, and he, recumbent, was more than content sitting in his gamer chair, staring hypnotized at the television screen before him. The flashing lights of gunfire danced across the screen and the sight of enemies falling only enticed Lloyd to lean-in closer, resting at the edge of his seat. He was definitely immersed in his 'work' now.
This caused Genis to release a very stressed groan from the depths of his throat while he shook his head dejectedly at the sight before him. Having experienced days like this before, Genis knew it was futile to try to make Lloyd stop playing his video game, so Genis reluctantly returned to his study-guide booklet, flipping the pages to a new section and picking up the writing pad, as well as a pencil, and began to write.
"Okay," Genis thought to himself, tapping the English passage he was reading with the eraser end of the pencil. "It says here that 'a red herring is something that is used to distract attention from the real issue.'" Switching the pencil to the lead end, Genis then flew to the paper beside him and jotted down notes. "Alright then… Red herring - something that—"
"C'mon, c'mon!" interrupted Genis' writing progress. With a peeved glare, Genis found that Lloyd's video game had gotten severely intense, getting swarmed by waves of minions and, the brunette's forehead, sweat pools of concentration.
"Whittle down the boss-bastard's health already! We're wasting too much time! The other team can't hold the line much longer!" Lloyd urgently commanded the pixel partners in his party. He pressed even more violently on the controller buttons and analog sticks under the pressure.
Genis sighed, shaking his head once more and thought, "What an idiot," then returned to his writing. "Where was I again…" He skimmed over the sentence he wrote. "Oh yeah! Something that"—He picked up where he left off—"is used… to dis—"
"Nononononono!" panicked Lloyd, bouncing up and down in his seat.
Genis breathed deeply then tried again, "To distr—"
"How the hell did you two DIE?" Lloyd threw his hands to his head and screamed in disbelief.
And again, "Distrac—!"
"Do I HAVE to do this by myself, or what?" he questioned no one in particular.
And again, "Distract attention—!"
"WHAT THE FUUUUUU—!" Lloyd shot out of his chair and stood up.
SNAP!
"Huh?" Lloyd paused his game, ending the deafening exchange of bullets and magic, and finally spun his head around to the random sound.
The lead tip of Genis' pencil had just broke off completely and he could write no longer.
"Dang… Sucks for you!" Lloyd bluntly said, sat back down in his gamer chair, and picked up his back of chips and started to munch on more of it, with the occasional swig of energy drink here and there.
Though offended by the childish quip, Genis, relieved, sighed, "At least he's taking a break now… which means I can finish taking notes!" With a renewed spirit, Genis reached for another writing utensil. "Good thing I have a pen—this surely won't break!" And he attacked the pad where he left off. "Distract attention from… the… real…" Genis smirked to himself. One more word until he was finished with 'red herring' and he hadn't heard a peep from Lloyd.
'Issue.'
That's what Genis needed to write, but, ironically enough, it's what he had: an 'issue.'
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Genis' writing hand jerked in surprise. The result: his entire page of notes on English ruined by a single sporadic scribble. It was at this moment when the silverette was breeding with regret. Regret that he had decided on using a pen…
"AH-HA! Eat nuke, you reaper!" Lloyd rejoiced from the explosive sound and the vivid, seizure lightshow coming from his screen. "We humans will never go down without a fight!"
And regret that he ever let him into his room while he was studying.
"Alright… THAT'S IT!" Genis matched the previous explosion with his own, tossing into the air his study materials in the process. "Enough with the games! I've had it with trying to study while you're over there being obnoxiously loud!"
"But I'm saving the world here! Heck, the universe even!" Lloyd defensively retorted, as he paused his game so he could turn his head and face him.
Crossing his arms, Genis raised an eyebrow, questioning, "Oh, really?" He promptly jumped off of his bed, and he went straight to Lloyd, who was still sitting in his gamer chair. Genis, catching Lloyd off-guard, snatched Lloyd's controller right from under his nose, eliciting much cries from the brunette to 'Give it back.' Swiftly, Genis made his way to defiantly walk in the danger zone, the line of sight between Lloyd and his video game. But before the brunette could take action to remove him, Genis spoke gravely, "You think playing a shooter game will save the world?"
"Actually it's an RPG shooter, thank you very much! And heck yeah, of course! In almost every RPG you have to save the world!" Lloyd enthusiastically rocked in his chair, dreaming of such glory.
"Huh, funny you should say that," Genis began calmly, and then he started waving his arms around, "because it's nothing but a virtual experience! None of it's real! Why, the only thing you are saving is yourself from boredom, not the real world of Aselia!" Genis then chucked the controller into Lloyd's gut, causing the brunette to grimace and be unable to talk back. "You do know that exams are next week, right? That's right after this weekend! Only a week away! And here you are playing a virtual RPG shooter, to save the world!" Finally calming down, Genis shook his head with a disappointed sigh. "At this rate, you'll fail your exams."
Despite the honesty in his best friend's words, it hurt him to hear that, making Lloyd's defensive demeanor quickly fade to a stone-hard façade. "So," Lloyd nonchalantly pouted, "I've failed Professor Raine's class many times before. These final exams won't be any different." He tried to shoo the silverette aside, but the little elf was unrelenting.
"And that's the thing, you fail even one area of theexams and you'll be kicked out of the academy, never to be recruited again," Genis revealed somberly. "If that's what you've been setting yourself up for all this time, I really wonder why you even bothered applying with me and Colette in the first place."
Lloyd's arms stopped shooing Genis for a moment, and he became silent. He thought long and hard over Genis' final words before speaking in an unusual serious tone, "It's not like I want to be an idiot and fail." Lloyd paused while lowering his head, determined to search through his limited vocabulary for the appropriate words. "It's just… hard." His brown bush of a head soon bounced straight back up and his own booming voice with it. A new thought had came him. "A-and you! You're one to talk! You can't even get through Artes class without breaks in-between—not to mention your slow reflexes—and that's gonna be on the final exams in its own section! The Artes & Athletics Assessment!"
"I-I can too pass the AAA. And I do not have slow reflexes!" Genis barked, throwing his head hubristically towards the ceiling and crossing his arms.
"Oh yeah?"
"Ye—Mmph!" Genis cried, having been hit by one of Lloyd's gamer cushions.
"Minus ten points for not being aware!"
"Hey, I wasn't read—Gah!" Genis received another pillow to the face, and fell over.
"Minus twenty for being aware!"
"Would you—Ow! Stop that—OW!" Genis yelped, scurrying on his hands and knees for cover. As the pillow cushions continued to rain down upon him, Genis recovered, to pick himself off the carpet floor, and dived behind his own bed for shelter. When the sounds of pelting simmered down to a silence, Genis cautiously poked his head out, his vision just barely escaping the horizon of the bed sheets.
BAM!
"AHHH!" cried Genis, as the last pillow made contact right in-between his eyes.
"And minus thirty more for poor tactical ability to cloak yourself in combat, which means… Faaaaaail~" Lloyd mocked in song, and playfully sticking his tongue out. Spinning his game controller in his hands, Lloyd teased the fallen silverette further, "Hah, and you said me playing video games was bad for me!"
Rising from the ground yet again, Genis made sure this time he held his hands up in surrender, then he reluctantly admitted, "Okay, okay… So video games do help, but only athletically! You still need to raise your skill in the Standardized Examination of Core Classes, the SECC."
"And you with the AAA! If you can't pass that, you're out too," Lloyd reiterated, to remind him.
The dorm-room's lock clicked open at the moment the two troubled teens sighed in unison. In came the figure of Mithos Mortis, clothed in his Symphonia orchestral uniform, with regal red, purity white, and golden yellow school colors, and his instrument case underneath one arm. As he shut the door behind him, he initially began untying the knotted red bowtie at his neck and removing his hefty overcoat.
Expending a tired huff, Mithos said aloud, "Man, today's orchestra practice for the upcoming recital sure was brutal… I thought I was gonna blow my brains out into my pan-flute." He let loose an exasperated sigh, as he turned around and was about to instinctively chuck his instrument on top of his bed. But the blonde stopped in mid-heave, halted by the sight of his peers. "Huh? What's wrong with you two? Why the long faces," he glanced around the room, puzzled at the disarray, "and more importantly, what's up with the pillows scattered everywhere?"
They sighed together once more.
"He sucks at Standardized Tests and dares to only play video games, then chucks pillows at me when I tell him to stop," firstly explained Genis.
"And he sucks at Athletics and sits his lazy butt on his bed studying all day, so I threw my cushions at him, which all of them hit by the way," continued Lloyd, proudly emphasizing the end note.
"So…?" questioned Mithos, not comprehending what the problem really was.
"So, we're at an impasse. At this rate, Lloyd's going to fail the SECC and I'm going to fail the AAA, then we're both going to be kicked out of the academy," Genis decreed somberly.
"Then the solution to your problem is an easy one. You guys become each another's personal tutors!" intuitively announced Mithos with gusto.
"What?" cried Lloyd, astounded by the blonde's suggestion. "Are you being serious?"
Genis, however, appeared to be unchanged. He was logically reasoning in his thinking pose. "Hmm," the silverette pondered, "I did think of that possibility before, but knowing Lloyd and myself, it wouldn't work out. Last time we tried to tutor one another, it was back in Iselia: Lloyd wouldn't pay attention to a word I said, and whenever he tried to explain how to do certain artes, he wouldn't be able to articulate himself well enough."
"Well, you don't have to be an actual tutor. In fact, you can indirectly teach one another just by switching study ethics between the two of you, and that'll work better. So Lloyd can learn by reading and taking notes, while Genis enhances his reflexes through gaming. How's that?" Mithos kindly suggested.
"Me with a book?" Lloyd cringed and shivered at the thought. "Yuck."
"I don't know… I have a feeling this electronic stimulation will just rot my brain," Genis openly admitted, staring menacingly at the television screen.
"You guys have nothing to lose!" Mithos tried to encourage them. "I mean, you both suck one way or another, so you can't possibly get worse, am I right?" The blonde ended nonchalantly, only giving even more reason for Lloyd and Genis to whirl their death stares towards him. Mithos nervously laughed, "Eheh…" and then slinked away, whistling and acting preoccupied as he set his pan-flute away beneath his bed.
"Mithos has got a point…" Genis mentioned reluctantly.
"Hate to agree, but he does. If there was one thing Dirk told me to remember, it was," Lloyd lowered his voice tremendously and puffed up his chest, "'Dwarven Vow #49: It is best to fail trying than succumbing to failure and not trying at all.'"
Genis laughed at Lloyd's imitation. "Oh really? But what about 'Dwarven Vow #7: Justice and Love will always win'?" Genis slyly teased.
"Ugh…" Lloyd groaned upon running into that one. "I hate that saying; don't remind me!"
"Ha ha! Some things never change," Genis laughed at his friend. When his laughter subsided, Genis rolled up his sleeves and gathered the courage to say, "Alright! Now hand me that controller. If playing video games can really enhance your reflexes, I could surely use it and a break from all that studying. Plus, it was bugging me for the past hour that you were shooting the boss at all the wrong places. You're suppose to aim for its eyes or the reactor in its chest!"
"Whoa, wait! Are you serious? Then, give me the controller back! That's the final boss before I beat the game," Lloyd begged for the controller, edging to finish what he started.
"Nope," Genis said flat out, as he smirked and shook his head, "you've got study materials now. So go learn! Maybe you'll get the skills to logically deduce an opponent's weakness on your own the next time you play a game instead of blindly attacking them."
"Hmph, fine," Lloyd grudgingly agreed to the terms, and took up the massive study guide on the bed, flipped it open, and began to read.
Meanwhile, as Genis turned the loud sounds of gunfire back on and Lloyd initiated the flipping of pages and scribbling, Mithos had risen from underneath his bed, having put away his instrument, and crawled into bed. The blonde wore an amused expression, as if he was expecting the spectacle before him. Prepared, he whipped out his earmuff headphones, plopping them snug on his elven ears, and plugged it into his MP3 player, allowing the soothing symphony of music block out the extraneous racket and lull him into a slumber.
~ S.S.D. ~
[Tuesday]
Ding-Ding! Ding-Ding! Ding-Ding!
Click! Mithos instinctively turned off his MP3's alarm. Groggily, the blonde, with shut eyes, sat up in bed, pulling away the sheet covers as he did so. He yawned, as wide as an Eggbear would, and stretched his arms up to the ceiling before his routinely face and eye rub to wake himself. Once he finished his morning ritual, Mithos smacked his lips and blinked open his eyes. As his blurry vision slowly became clear, his ocean-blue eyes grew wider and wider, in disbelief.
Genis, with a hung head and his bangs covering his eyes, was still playing Lloyd's video game. Though, it was evident how badly his energy had dropped; he was barely pressing buttons and the avatar on screen was standing idle, but gameplay was still in motion. As for Lloyd, he was equally as deathly looking. The brunette's face had fallen in-between the narrow crevice of the study booklet's binding, but, surprisingly enough, his hand was still mechanically taking notes on the pad next to him.
Genuinely curious and dumbfounded, Mithos took to his MP3, to check for the time.
"It's already 6:40 in the morning, yet they're still studying?" Mithos thought to himself, a sympathetic frown emerged from his lips. "Guess I should wake them up…"
"Hello? You guys?" Mithos gingerly spoke.
Neither teen responded or flinched at the call.
Taking a deep breath, Mithos bellowed in a strong tone, "Hey, you guys! Wake up, it's morning!"
"AHHHHH!" screamed the two sleep-studiers.
Lloyd bolted from his position, flinging his arms uncontrollably around, causing balls of rolled up scratch-paper to soar into the air and fall to the carpet, blanketing it like snow. A single page of his notes clung to Lloyd's face, however, causing him to be frenetic at 'how dark the room was.' Genis, on the other hand, had convulsed in Lloyd's gamer chair, and accidentally hit the 'extreme recline' button on the armrest. The chair, obeying the command, lurched the back support all the way backwards to the ground, and Genis flew back with it. Even more unfortunate, Genis had a forgotten energy drink that he didn't finish sitting in his lap, which ended up coming along with him too as he flew backwards, soaking him in the face and his disheveled silver-hair.
It took a good minute of Lloyd's nonsense yelling, from the 'darkness,' and Genis' gagging, from choking, and crying, from the sting of soda in his eyes, for them to calm themselves and regain order.
Lloyd reached for his face, his hands finally reaching the paper that blocked his vision. Peeling it off, Lloyd silently mouthed an, "Oh…" realizing his idiocy.
Genis coughed one last time to clear his throat, and used his sleeve to wipe away the soda from his eyes. "Gah…" Genis breathlessly managed to cry.
And Mithos, who had witnessed the entire scene and though hesitant, finally gained a voice to speak, breaking the silence, "So… You two learn anything?"
Still in his awkward position, with his lower body lying on the gamer seat and his upper torso hanging upside-down, Genis directed his question to Lloyd, softly grumbling, "You know what a 'red herring' is?"
"A… fish?" Lloyd replied unsurely.
"Wrong," Genis denied him outright, with no remorse.
And Lloyd, not even wanting to waste his breath, casually picked up one of Genis' bed pillows and hurled it to the ground at him.
"Mmph!" yelped Genis, as he was bombarded in the face for the umpteenth time, making Lloyd smirk in delight.
On the sidelines of the fight, Mithos shook his head, practically expecting this spectacle as well, and answered his previous question, "Guess not…"
~ S.S.D. ~
Since it was a Tuesday, both Lloyd and Genis had the morning Arithmetic 1 course with the 'lovable' Professor Forcystus. And Lloyd especially, having already gone through one traumatic experience from falling asleep in class, didn't want to pass out again. But that was a troublesome feat in his exhausted state. The drowsy brunette could barely keep his eyelids open, and the times he did keep them open, his vision would be so blurred that all the numbers and shapes on the blackboard would just blend into an undecipherable mathematical smoothie.
To his rescue, though, Genis, despite the enthusiastic student he was, didn't feel like learning either. He too was droned from the all-night studying. So, as to help each other, they would take shifts and keep an eye-out whenever Forcystus stopped writing on the board and turned around during his lectures or if he began to go on his lecture patrol towards one of them. If that happened, they'd stealthily warn with a slight cough or a screech caused by the dragging of their chair on the floor. Apparently, that was enough for either of them to evade the 'all-knowing' eye of Forcystus and detention on the weekend, because just as the tag-team duo was both about to black out and call it quits, the end of class bell rang loudly, and students got up from their seats and filed out of class pronto.
Groggy and half-asleep, Lloyd and Genis miraculously got their butts out of Forcystus' classroom and into the Symphonia Academy Cafeteria located a few buildings down. There, they didn't bother to purchase any lunch, but instead, the two, with half-lidded eyes, uncoordinatedly fished out of their uniform pockets some spare gald to insert in one of the vending machines. Though, looking like idiots for missing the coin slot so many times, they finally got their canned caffeine and, like zombies, dragged their feet over to the usual table, where the entire gang awaited their arrival.
Immediately after sitting down in their respective seats, Lloyd and Genis both silently, yet oddly in sync, took their cold can of caffeine; lifted the tab and opened it, letting the fizzing sound erupt then dissipate; and took a single swig. Just as they finished and smacked their lips, their tired heads crashed facedown onto the lunch table, as if they had finally reached their limit.
The rest of the gang, utterly befuddled by their friends, exchanged looks of wonder amongst one another.
"Geez, what got into Bud and the Brat? They look… dead," Zelos pondered with scrutiny, and was tempted to poke the two teens with his fork to see if they were still alive.
"No kidding, they look exactly like the zombie skeletons we saw at the Horror House!" Sheena laughed at the resemblance.
"Well, it's no wonder," Mithos chimed in informatively, "they both were so committed to studying for exams next week that they stayed up all-night."
"Really? That's a surprise, especially for Lloyd! He rarely studies, but when he does, it's hard to keep him dedicated. So good for him!" Colette praised, beaming a proud smile towards the brunette, even though he was passed out.
"What's even more of a surprise is that they've lasted this long with the amount of energy they had," Mithos added grimly. "I even doubted for a bit that I could wake them up this morning from their sleep-studying."
"So that's where Lloyd was last night…" Zelos thought to himself, and then he carelessly shrugged, getting back to his meal. "No wonder it was so peaceful at my place; no video-gaming to disturb my beauty-sleep!"
"Is there a reason for them to be sacrificing sleep for study? At the rate of their work ethic, their studies will end up being more detrimental to them than beneficial," Presea crucially pointed out.
"To be honest," Mithos started meekly, recalling the night before, "their studies didn't seem to be helping them to begin with. In fact, I don't think that either of them got any better. Maybe even a little worse, actually." The blonde boy sighed, as his attention drifted to the two knocked-out. He shook his head. "It's a shame to see them waste so much time and energy trying to improve their scores in the SECC and the AAA, only to end up getting nowhere."
"They're having trouble studying? I told Lloyd before that if he needed help with his classes that I would help," Colette said, in a sad tone.
Mithos tried to explain, "It's nothing personal, Colette, but I think these two need more than just help. I'm afraid they need a professional or at least a legitimate tutor. When it comes to athletics, Genis is a sad sloth; and when it comes to academics, Lloyd's the one dumb as a rock."
"If all things athletics is what needs improving, I'm the girl to go to," Sheena considerately offered. "I'm only on the women's pespila team this year, but last year I was a member of all the women's sports clubs. It was a requirement to keep me fit for my duties as a ninja. So I know the ins and outs of the AAA exam easy!"
"And I with academics! Believe it or not, I have my fair share of knowledge when it comes to Science, Math, Reading, and Writing. I'm at the top of my class, even!" Zelos boasted haughtily.
"Seriously?" Mithos rose an eye-brow, skeptical. "But what about those rumors of your 'hunnies' doing your work for you, like taking notes?"
"Sadly for me, I can vouch for him there," Sheena said, ashamed of herself. "My first year here, I had to be tutored by him, since my grades were pretty low by the end of the first trimester of classes. And, just like you are now, I was surprised at how educated he was myself. Despite Zelos' fan-girls constantly doing chores for him, he is actually an intelligent guy if you get to know him."
"See? What did I tell ya? I'm not only beautiful, but smart as well!" Zelos sang cockily, breaking out a signature suave grin and wink as he did so.
"I guess it's settled then… Zelos will tutor Lloyd, and Sheena will tutor Genis!" Mithos decreed.
As if saved from the depths of purgatory with a Resurrection spell, both Lloyd and Genis bolted straight up from their naps, exclaiming in horror, "WHAT?"
"Did you say that I would be tutored… by him?" Lloyd incredulously thundered, his finger pointing disapprovingly at the red-head across the table.
As if siding with the brunette, Zelos threw his hands up and disapprovingly shook his head, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down there, Blondie. I never said I would help you underclassmen. I'm busy as it is with my own Chosen affairs, and affairs with women while I'm at it." Zelos smirked to himself, while everyone silently wore disgusted faces. He then continued, "But that's beside the point. And even if I wasn't busy, what's in it for me if I do help Idiot Irving?"
"You see," Mithos began, his hand shifting through his pants' pockets, "I believe this would rationalize the terms." When he had said this, the blonde retrieved from his pants his cell phone. Mithos, flipping it open, clicked open a certain file before turning the screen to face Zelos, along with the rest of the gang, and begun playing a fairly recent memory over again.
"You guys, I've learned my lesson! Really! So please, could you come back and help poor Zelos when he's down?"
"Guys…?"
"GUYS?"
The video clip that Mithos played on his cell was the gang's favorite moment from the Horror House Initiation. It showed Zelos' paralyzed body sprawled helplessly across the flat cemented roof, and he was down right pathetic in appearance. His face was contorted from screaming for help, his baggy eyes shot-red from crying, and his once elegant, wavy crimson locks were outrageously out of whack from the static shock bullet he had taken from the Sword Dancer, making his hair look like a bright-red fireball tumbleweed atop his head. Heck, if the Symphonia gang was on Earth, you yourself might mistaken Zelos for a strange, make-up-less Ronald McDonald.
Everyone at the table exploded into laughter from the sight of the abandoned Zelos. Even the usually taciturn Presea uncharacteristically chuckled uncontrollably, though she did try to hide it with a hand over her mouth. The gang's combined laughter began to attract much unnecessary attention, and academy students started to stop in their tracks around the group's table, food trays still in hand, trying to sneak a glimpse of what was so funny.
However, Zelos didn't find it funny in the slightest. And before anyone else could join in on his humiliation, he swiftly reached out and shut Mithos' cell phone, causing the peers around him to groan in disappointment, "Awww…"'
"Now get out of here! There's nothing to see!" Zelos ordered, shooing the crowd that was forming around them with his hands. Once the crowd dispersed, Zelos turned back to Mithos and softly spoke disgustedly, "Fine, you win this time, Blondie. I'll tutor Lloyd this trimester, but after that, that's it." The red-haired let his hand rustle through his hair, as he sighed, "First you underclass twist the rules against me, and now it's blackmail. Either I'm starting a trend, which is impressive, or I'm just losing it and people are outdoing me."
"Glad to hear it," Mithos grinned politely, inwardly satisfied by the turn of events.
"Uh-uh! No way is Zelos tutoring me!" Lloyd interjected loudly, and crossing his arms.
"Lloyd, I hate to break it to you, but," Mithos frankly answered, "he's experienced and has the skills to teach you so you can pass the exams. I'm afraid he's your only hope."
"Hah! Sucks for you, Lloyd!" Genis mocked, slapping his knee in jest, which Lloyd sneered his way for.
"Ah, and Presea!" Sheena said, then directed herself to the petite transferee. "I could use your assistance, in training Genis. I've seen how well you perform in Artes class, and those skills can really help improve the training process."
"Of course, I will do my best," Presea nodded.
"WHAT?" Genis whirled his head to Presea. He looked utterly shaken by the recent exchange. "B-b-but! I-it's okay! You don't have to help, Presea, r-really," Genis, through stammers, tried to convince her.
"It is not a problem, Genis. Truly, my aid will help in the long run, since I can spot you when Sheena is coaching and offering you advice, as well as be your sparring partner due to being roughly the same size as you," Presea insisted.
"Spa-Spa… Sparring partner?" Genis, flabbergasted, repeated. His mind soon trailed to the thought, and his cheeks went crimson in embarrassment. "Not only is she going to be watching my every mistake… but I'm going to have to spar with her at one point?" Genis gulped, his entire being soaked with nervousness.
"Pfft-hah!" Lloyd chortled. "You're gonna get beaten up by a girl, Genis! Ha ha! Have fun with that!"
This time, Genis sent an unamused stare at Lloyd.
"All right, since there's no more problems! It's official. Your tutoring starts tomorrow after a good-night's rest. Everyone, do your best! I'll be rooting for you all!" Colette announced enthusiastically, with a bright smile stretched across her lips while she bounced up and down in her seat.
Author's Note Time!
Time to get the ball rolling again with the old gang! Haha.
In a way, it's awesome to be back, even if it's just for now before I disappear again. To be perfectly honest in regards to my absence, life has been treating me kindly. For one, I've gotten back to my old hobbies of playing video games. Finished Mass Effect 3 and I'm currently engrossed in Tales of Graces f! So I've totally been sucked into those worlds. Not to mention that I got accepted into the college I wanted to go to, so I've been preparing myself in these last months of high school for that transition too. In all, I feel like I've grown up and apart from fanfiction a bit, but at the same time, I really do enjoy writing and seeing so many people that are overjoyed from reading my stories. I can't thank you guys enough for that. So whether I disappear from time to time or keep going strong from here on out, it has always been and always will be a pleasure being on fanfiction with you all!
Fun Fact of the Chapter: (SPOILERS FOR THE MASS EFFECT SERIES!) The scene of Lloyd playing that video game is based off of my experience playing Mass Effect 2. I am unashamed of being obsessed with the Mass Effect series, no doubt! Haha.
Preview:
Next time on Symphonia School Days...
Forced to be tutored by their respective senpais, Lloyd and Genis hit the ground running. Will they be able to learn from their masters? Will they conquer their exams? Or will they both break and get tickets to the fail train home?
Find out in the next chapter, 'It's Time to Hit the Books & the Gym'!
See you all next time!