Chapter One

What better way to spend the last inklings of summer than go off to the mystical holy land that is Hollywood on a cinema club trip. Of course, the trip was only able to be marred by the unfortunately timed bus breakdown. Humans haven't quite seemed to learn how to properly build things to last, as it turns out. The bus repair would take almost a week in the shop, causing all students on the trip to not only be forced to spend more money on unplanned hotel rooms (which the human high school promised to reimburse after returning) but also missing the first five days of class. The first week is the easiest week with nearly no assignments and mostly 'getting acquainted' time. By the time the club would be able to return, the easy part would be over and everyone would have to begin actually learning about various tedious factoids.

A week longer stuck with off and on annoying humans and being the only troll in the cinema club, Karkat wanted to pull his hair out. Sure, humans had begun to be easier to deal with but he still mostly stuck to his ring of friends. The humans still seemed skittish around trolls but that was natural. Trolls had only begun appearing on their planet for about twenty years now, a considerable bit longer than Karkat and his group had arrived. The trolls that did arrive often came for the novelty of the school system, sports, or tourism. Those aged similar to the school aged often enrolled, which is exactly what the twelve trolls decided to do after the encouragement by both John and Jade, who insisted that education was a blast. Rose informed many of them that the education path often leads to the possession of great power over the world, using Jeff Bezos the great King of Amazon, as her example. This certainly was appealing to some. The availability of like-minded peers in clubs, like the cinema club, also seemed appealing. Dave apathetically mentioned on the topic that school allowed for more time to see one another outside a chatroom, which Karkat admittedly felt rather… eager about. He only really knew the four humans before enrolling and the ability to see some more often gave him a bit of a twinge in the chest. Must've been excitement to be in a school, obviously, nothing else.

Karkat checked his phone persistently over the next few days, aware that all his friends were in the same class. The teacher was no one of importance. Why none of his friends messaged him or checked on him yet, he wasn't sure. Probably too busy?

Finally, bus repaired and students loaded up, the trip home began. By the time the bus came home, it would be Sunday evening. Everyone began to check their emails and messages or school modules to see what they would need to catch up on before the school week. For the most part, everyone was emailed the syllabus and various materials needed to become acquainted with the class policies. Other students were just now figuring out what classes they would be in. Once the checking of classes started, the whispering began.

A few humans in the club started whispering to one another after looking over the class rosters . A few eyes would land on Karkat. He scratched his nails over his palm. Why would they be looking at me after seeing what class I am in? Is it a human thing? Did they see all the troll names? Is that it? Of course, it's just that. Karkat ran his pointed teeth over his dark lower lip. Karkat caught onto a bit of a conversation he managed to catch over the soft rumble of road noise and the jarring music someone up front was listening to outloud, as one respectfully does.

"He's in that one? You think it's true?" He couldn't hear any further.

What could be true, a nearly all troll class? Yeah that's probably it. Karkat thought to himself, trying not to feel oddly on display by the quick glances. Obviously.

After the long ride, Karkat was exhausted. He put away his headphones and closed out of his Netflix. A long banner flashed from the top of the screen. A message from Dave appeared.

TG: rose has something she needs to tell you tomorrow before school because after that she isnt sure itll be in our collective best interests and we are forbidden to tell you ourselves which as much as i would greatly love violating the grandiose rules put in place to obviously manipulate us like sheep this one i think i'll stick to. see you tomorrow. take her seriously too

Karkat blinked. Such an odd and ominous text. He knew it was probably nothing extreme. With Rose as junior year class president, she probably had some ridiculous set of rules she wanted everyone to follow. Maybe community volunteering assignments or something uber generous for the sake of application fodder. He shook his head and pulled up the message to reply.

CG: WHATEVER PRESIDENTIAL RULES SHE HAS, I'M SURE I WILL HATE IT

TG: we all do especially with the potential consequences

Karkat rolled his eyes. Rose really must be going for dramatic with her tiny school government. Consequences, sure, like writing "I'm sorry I offended Rose" five hundred times on a piece of paper and turning it or writing an essay during Saturday detention, as witnessed in a classic, high quality film about a group of teenagers.

With Sunday drawing to a close and his back hurting from the poorly designed and named bucket seats of the school bus, all Karkat wanted to worry about now was taking a miniature hibernation in his warm abode before school. He'd worry about writing his five hundred sentences he was sure he'd be assigned at some point later. He wouldn't really care that much if he had to, as Rose probably had her justification for making the policy.

Now was the time for sleep

The screaming alarm clock finally startled the disgruntled troll awake. Karkat gazed with burning eyes up at the nuisance.

7:45am.

He bolted up, all sleep departing from him as he leapt from the bed and rushed to get ready. Luckily trolls look fantastic with messy hair. He briefly scrubbed his teeth and ran out of the house. School started at 8:00am, which gave him barely any time to arrive and talk to Rose. Hopefully if the conversation fell null due to his tardiness, Rose would find other opportunities to discuss her glorious newly formatted constitution with him.

Once arriving, breathless, his short body shaking from the exertion of running such a distance, he wandered into hall labelled Frog (stupid human hall names). He found room 30 and walked inside. The clock above him said 7:58am. He felt a rush of relief knowing he was at least not late. Kanaya glared at him from her spot by the door.

"You weren't at the meeting Rose requested from you. Dave said he told you to be here. It was critical." Kanaya sneered at him, "Can't you follow a simple order. We can't tell you. She insisted. She just walked out to look for you in the hallway."

Karkat groaned, "Fine, gah, I'll talk to her at lunch about her stupid rule she imposed, alright?"

"It's probably too late, just… follow suit and only talk to those you see others talking to for now," Kanaya glanced around the room then up to the clock.

How exciting, a no talking policy or something? Distraction policies are harsh now, huh. Karkat scoffed to himself, which gained a wide-eyed glance from Jade sitting next to where he was standing.

Rose at this point walked in as the clock dared hit eight o'clock. She opened her mouth, looked at the clock, then grimaced as she made her way to her front row seat, casting a hateful glare towards Karkat on her way. Karkat, nonplussed, found his seat by the curly, ram-horned girl by the window. He figured Aradia wouldn't mind.

The open seat had Aradia to his left, Dave behind him, Gamzee to his right, and Terezi ahead of him. Once sitting down, he started opening his small portable binder that conveniently zipped all the way around it, as much as Dave laughed at it. It was a convenient carrying utility. As a man of minimalism and forgetfulness, he only carried one pen inside the binder to use to take notes or scribble with. As he scrounged about through the binder, his only pen bounced to the floor, rolling to his left and halting to a stop underneath Aradia's desk.

He sighed and looked over to her.

"Hey, Ar- hey!" Karkat shot around to look at Dave, as he had just kicked his desk with enough power to jolt him forward.

"Shh!" Dave warned.

"My pen fell under her desk, what should I crawl under her skirt and grab it myself like some perverted basement dweller?" Karkat aggressively whispered, pointing down. Aradia only glanced over and proceeded to ignore him.

"Yes, take mine," Dave said as he offered forward a standard style pen.

"Or I could just get mine?" Karkat mumbled.

"No, take mine," Dave seemingly demanded, tilting his head down and shaking it.

"Fine, I'll take yours…" Karkat huffed and turned around. Weird.

Gamzee smiled over at Karkat, grinning like a Cheshire cat, "Close one, bro."

"Close one what?" Karkat squinted.

"You know, ohhh, ah, heh," his lip twitches, "nevermind, Karbro."

With a flustered handflap, Karkat sank in his chair and stared forward with a growing annoyance. Gamzee awkwardly glanced around and shrugged. He clearly knew something he wasn't sharing.

What a great start to the day.