DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING EXCEPT A PART OF THE PLOT!
Chapter 3 – OUR FIRST STRIKE
Today, the weather was fine, bright and sunny. No clouds sprawled in the sapphire blue sky. It was a pity that no P.E. classes were scheduled today. Bummer… I reached school at about 0910 hours, only because of a phone call last night… [Recalling]
"Hello? Zexion? What's up?"
"Hi, Nemix. I wanted to know if you could come early to school tomorrow."
"How early would that be?"
"About 9:20 in the morning."
Crap… My poor sleeping hours… "That's early… Why?"
"It is for an emergency group meeting, regarding the morning session."
"Since when were we in charge of the morning session?"
"It is because the 9th and 11th Grades' prefects had to participate in an important marching competition tomorrow. They are short of manpower so we have to take over their jobs for a day."
"Oh OK. Sure. Fine with me. So 9:20 a.m. then?"
"Yes."
"OK, got it. Bye bye!"
"Bye." [Recall ended-]
"BANG!" OW! I hit a pillar. Damn… It hurt. Why did I have to get lost in reminiscing so much so that I walked into that stupid pillar? I thought of fainting on the spot, but no one was around… (If I fell, who would save me?) Yikes, I guessed I would have to suck it up and head to the meeting. It still hurt…
I arrived at the Reading Room and pushed the creaking door open. No one was there; I was the earliest today. Since that was the case, a short nap would not hurt. I put my school bag aside and then I leaned over with my head on my arms on the table and slept. Time for tea with Duke of Zhou (Duke of Zhou, or Zhou Gong, was who the Chinese associated with slumber. Someone was said to have a meeting with him when that person was sleeping). Zzz… Zzz…
…
Someone pushed me slightly on the shoulders. "Hello? Hello! Wake up, sleepyhead!" I cracked my eyes open to see the table surface before me. I looked up and saw Zexion beside me and Axel in front of me. "Eh? What? You guys are here already? Sorry, I just dozed off…" I said, followed by a yawn. "Yeah, a very deep sleep you got there. It took Zexy a while to wake you up," Axel said and grinned. "Dear Axel, have you forgotten about what happened last week?" Zexion tried his best to hold himself back from unleashing a series of poke attacks onto the redhead. Now I was wide awake.
"Um… Nemix? Why did you have a bruise on your… forehead?" Zexion then asked. Do not remind me that. "Nothing, really, I just walked into a pillar… yeah." "Whoa! Were you sleepwalking? Any bleedings? Concussions? Bone fractures? Brain death? Or-" Here came a punch- "BAM!" -sent by Roxas. "rSince when did you ask so many questions?" Demyx said after Roxas retracted his fist from Axel's spiky hair.
"Hehe… Thanks for your concern, Axel. As you can see, there is a bruise here instead of bleeding. And kindly exclude the other hypotheses because they are not proved to be valid, thank you very much," I retorted with a smirk. Stop wishing injuries on me, thank you.
Finally, Zexion said something, "OK guys, enough. Let us carry on with the meeting, shall we?" "Y'hear that Axel? Be serious." Demyx wanted to nudge Axel playfully, but Axel shifted his position, causing Demyx to fall over and hit the floor. "Ooph!" A muffled sound was heard. Axel stifled a laugh and said, "You're the one who should be serious, Dem. Watch where you're going."
It seemed like today's meeting was about one of the so-called disasters for the students; spot check. OK, I did not know about the situation regarding the disciplinary problems in the morning session, but was it really that serious? All I knew was that students' hair and nails were checked after every morning assembly. Were things as simple as that?
Then again, sometimes spot checks were not announced to prefects, who usually carried out the deed. There were cases where even prefects were subjected to spot checks too.
I did not get it; we were only trainees and were not given the authority to conduct spot checks like the real prefects did. So, why were we discussing this? I posed my question to the boys. They had similar thoughts too. "Actually, this feels off to me too…" Demyx said. I could sense confusion in his tone. Axel merely brushed it off by saying, "Well, we are the prefects-to-be, maybe they are just giving us a chance to adapt to the real life of a prefect?" "You got a point there…" Roxas thought about it and nodded in approval. Zexion concluded, "Anyways, our targets are P5D, E3A and K3M. Clear?" Ooooh, time for action.
In the next few minutes, we were told why we targeted these classes; the Board of Prefects obtained the following intel: these classes were suspected of bringing liquor to school. This offense had reached the most dangerous Emergency Level 9, because the liquor may have contained amphetamine and ecstasy pills. Worse still, students from these classes were planning to contaminate the water dispensing system, the source of drinking water for most students in Kingdom Hearts High School with said liquor! Holy Bananas! It was way worse than we thought. Once again our jaws almost hit the floor. Therefore, our attack later was going to be a surprise attack. We did not have to wait until they were back in their own classroom. Even if they were in the science lab or wherever the hell they were, we would go straight into their original classroom where they kept their stuff in. It would be better if there was nobody in the class, the less the easier. They were finished, big time…
Time: 0945 hours. First target: E3A. The students of this class studied Home Economics as an elective, so there was a high possibility for them to bring in the drugged liquor. To my content, no one was in the classroom. OK, mission start! I was assigned to check the water sources (water bottles and stuff) in this room using a special device. Zexion was in charge of the tables, desks, cupboard and the corners. Axel and Roxas were to check the bags and personal stuffs, Demyx was told to search the restroom, a potential hiding spot. We were also ordered to search for contrabands in this mission.
I inserted a needle-like device to detect alcohol and certain drugs in liquids. If no observable changes occurred, then it was nothing but plain water; but if the needle part of the device changed colour or had powder-like deposits attached to it, then we would have our culprit. After about twenty minutes, about one-third of the water sources were confirmed to be drugged, and not only was the alcohol drugged, even some water bottles with plain drinking water are not safe too. Besides, the others also found contaminated water kept in bags. They also found tons of contrabands like MP3 Players, iPods, iPod Nanos, iPhones and some other gadgets we were not familiar with, but Roxas said they were REALLY expensive and normally not available on the market. They sure were rich, but they did not know the meaning of appreciating and making good use of things given by their parents. Nothing came easy and cheap; did they ever know how difficult it was to earn money?
Time: 1010 hours. Next target: K3M. By now, it was recess. No one was in the classroom, again. The funny thing was, not even a speck of water was found there. Dang, someone must have done recon on us (or should I say "spied on us"?) and now everyone from K3M had taken preventive measures! Shoot, what now?
I paced back and forth, and then a nasty plot slowly formed in my mind. Hehe… I then consulted Zexion about my plan, he went through the whole plan in his mind quickly and he nodded in acknowledgement. "We might be able to pull this off, but there are some flaws… [bla-bla-bla] Corrective measures… [bla-bla-bla] Then it should be fine." "Alright! Let's go!"
About five minutes later, all K3M students were back. There seemed to be a heated argument of some sort. Since I did not know them, I would have to address them with unknowns. A was half leaning on the unoccupied teacher's desk, chatting away, "Hey, I heard from the E3A folks that they were spot-checked!" B immediately asked, "Whoa, who's caught?" A shrugged and answered, "No idea, but, like, a whole bunch of contrabands were confiscated!" (Holy Bananas, that spot check had ended, like, not even thirty minutes ago and he knew EVERYTHING?! Furthermore, we finished the job real quick and left no evidence of trespassing before the students of E3A returned. Hmm, someone must have been either eavesdropping on us, or spying on us. Yikes.)
"WHAT?! Does that means we're done for?!" C screeched, and all hell broke loose. They were now in turmoil. "Guys! Whoa, guys. No worries. We can always ask X. He knows what to do! He always has intel before any of us did. Maybe he can help our collaborators, P5D and E3A. We are sure to succeed in this plan," D suggested, trying to alleviate the situation. (Wait, what? So there really was something going on with you people. Why thank you…)
"Shhh! Quiet, or else the prefects will hear us!" E warned everyone. X then spoke, "The prefects in the morning session are not in school today; they were all at the marching competition. Spot check? Are you kidding me? As if!" (Hey, watch your tone. Also, that was not your line but Mr. Xigbar's! Then again, the prefects were told not to spread the news of their absence, yet he knew about it? Something was not right with this dude…)
At that moment, a person came in, someone in the 9th Grade (Form 3). He said, "Help! I'm out of water!" "Who're you? What's with the trespassing?!" F threatened, venom dripping off his every word. (Let us address the newcomer as Y then) Y said, "Huh? Isn't E3A buddies with K3M? I only came here for some water, is something wrong with that?" His voice was trembling.
B scrutinised the boy before him and said, "You're from E3A? What's the password?" (Were you serious? Password? What was this, James Bond or something?) Y stammered, "What? Pass-password? Uh, 1300177?" A nodded slowly and said, "Correct. You're new around here? You don't seem to know your password really well." "Wow, how'd you know?"
"You said you ran out of water?" X raised an eyebrow and asked him. "Oh yes! But there's something else I want to ask; I tried to get some water from my classmates, why weren't they sparing me some?" X looked at him with slight doubt and said, "Don't you know? We were going to take revenge on this prefect Terra from 11th Grade. He reported on P5D and they had to clean the whole school for a week! We decided to do this with E3A and P5D, since we share the same enemy. We planned to bring in liquor containing amphetamine and ecstasy pills and pour into the water dispenser he always uses. Once he drinks it, he's screwed!" (Oh my god! Poor Terra, he was just doing his job…)
X eyed outside of the classroom and continued, "Actually, our original plan was to pull this off three days ago, but many spot checks were conducted recently. For safety's sake, we delayed the plan. Today's the day." G walked towards Y and consoled him, "I know what your class had been through earlier. Cheer up."
"Cheer up? Heheh, nice one, K3M, but I'm supposed to be the one telling you all to 'cheer up'," Y replied dryly. "What do you mean?!" X realised something was wrong with the blonde boy before him and shouted. But it was too late… Y pulled off the disguise mask that he had been wearing and took off his jacket to reveal a prefect's official badge and a grinning Demyx! (P.S. We borrowed the badge from Mr. Saïx.)
"Pre-prefect! 8th Grade?! Crap! Run!" A flurry of actions all happened at once. The whole class was in chaos. We immediately came out of hiding to help Demyx. Surprise, K3M!
"So what? Can't 8th Graders do the job? What, you mad, bro? Talk about justice with a capital 'J', got it memorised?" Axel snorted. I went up to X and I just had to mock his arrogance, "I seriously can't believe that you people fell for the trap so easily, oh, and don't steal the phrase 'as if'." He glared at me like he was going to gouge my eyes out. Roxas shut all the doors to prevent them from escaping.
Zexion secretly winked at Axel. As if on cue, Axel left immediately. Hmm… Roxas and Demyx searched for the liquor right away. One down, one to go! I meant, two down… My nasty plot worked! Yeah!
But something seemed to be bothering Zexion; I could see his left eye twitch. And for a second, a glint of worry flickered in his usually calm eyes. He ran his hand through his way-too-long bangs and frowned a little. Something was wrong. It must have been. I started looking around. And then-
"BOOM!" A loud explosion could be heard from god-knows-where and a thick mist of white smoke clouded our sights. Uh-oh, it was too soon for victory. The white smoke rapidly spread through the whole sealed-off classroom and we could not even make out a single figure. Whoever did this, they had better hoped that I would not be the one to catch them, or else they were finished, big time!
To make it worse, the air temperature around us increased. I could not breathe. Through the havoc and smoke, I vaguely heard Zexion's muffled voice, "Open the *cough* doors and windows! *cough cough* Now!" I lost count of the amount of random things I ran into while searching and fumbling for door knobs. Finally, when my fingers spotted one, I twisted it violently, swung the door open and rushed outside. "Pooooooohaaaaaaaaaahhh!" I gasped deeply. Oh, how I missed the fresh air outside. I thought my lungs were going to burst from the unstable air pressure.
Demyx came out next, his hair was a horrible mess and he panted, "Damn! They somehow escaped while we're trapped!" My jaw opened wide, not due to surprise, but anger. "They used Pressure Law against us…" We turned around and saw a panting Zexion, supported by a coughing Roxas by the arm. Zexion then straightened himself and patted at where the flour got stuck onto his shirt. Flour? I got it: there must be some pressure cookers containing flour in the classroom. When the cookers were heated, the air pressure in the cookers increased. When the air pressure in the cookers greatly exceeded that of the outside, explosions occurred and the flour flew everywhere. This created a very good smoke screen and they escaped. That was it. Now that you messed with me, you were all going down!
"*Cough* What now?" Roxas asked. "… Perhaps it is just him for now," Zexion shook his head slowly and said. Him? He meant Axel?
After Axel left upon receiving Zexion's secret orders, he raced towards P5D. When he got there, you guessed it, no one was there, again. Where was everyone, seriously? He looked a little surprised but he shrugged. He started the spot check at once.
Meanwhile in the E-Classroom, Roxas and Demyx were the only ones inside. Roxas's fingers danced quickly across the keyboard and a Cartesian plane appeared on the monitor screen. A few red dots later appeared on the plane, followed by lines that pinpointed locations. Soon, the whole plan of the school was displayed.
"I have to admit, this school's wireless internet connection is just too slow!" Roxas muttered impatiently, almost banging his fist on the table. Demyx said in a sing-song tone, "Keep your voice down, Roxas. We don't want any trouble with the CDMU (Computer Data Management Unit) students, do we?" Just then, while the red dots were heading west, only one was heading east, blinking with yellow light. "Huh? Where is this dot going? … Coordinates (48, 96)? Hey, isn't that P5D?" Roxas pondered on the strange observation and pointed at said coordinates, which was indeed P5D. "Crap! Axel's in danger!" Demyx's tone suddenly turned alarmed and pointed at the moving dot. Roxas tapped some more keys and a new window popped up, displaying the dot's information. Both blondes gasped in horror; the dot was actually a knife-wielding 11th Grader. This was BAD. REALLY BAD!
Just as Axel was halfway through his duty, a figure showed up at the door, threatening, "Hey! You! Get over here!" Whoever he was, he sure had a very murderous look on his face. Axel turned around and saw a very tall teen. His hair resembled that of a pineapple and he was much more muscular than Axel. He could be one of the P5D students. "What? I'm on duty, don't disturb me," Axel replied in a bored tone, and narrowed his gaze at whoever this Pineapple Head was. Wow, he had guts. I had to give him credit.
"No one messes with me, you dimwit prefect!" He bellowed and took out his… fruit knife. (Thank goodness it was not a butcher knife!) Axel maintained his cool and calm façade, but kept his eyes on the sharp fruit knife. "Temper, temper," he thought. His instincts warned him to run away as fast as he can, but he decided against it. "Last warning: Do. Not. Disturb. Me, while I'm on duty. Got it memorised?" he said sternly, and then headed for another bag to start searching.
What could I say? Pineapple Head was literally now a burning pineapple. He was not able to swallow his pride, and frankly, no one liked being ignored. He went up and grabbed Axel's arm violently. He pulled and threatened maliciously, "If you don't scram right now, I'm going to slice you apart!" "You'd better let go. If not, expulsion and more bad things are headed your way. Let go. NOW," Axel's tone was as hard as his. He was on fire internally and just wanted to punch Pineapple Head square in the face. But then again, his chances of winning seemed really small. He forced himself to keep his cool (which almost failed) and decided to see how the situation would develop.
"You… YOU DARE?!" He could not hold back his anger anymore. The fruit knife in his fist trembled along with the radiated anger. Here came the finishing blade! Axel struggled but he could not tear himself away from the fuming teen's strong grip. Suddenly-
"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!" A roar erupted from outside and both boys turned their heads to the source. Pineapple Head's eyes widened at the sight; Mr. Saïx. One word: DIE. He saw the whole commotion. Zexion and I popped our heads into the classroom anxiously, but then we let out a sigh of relief when we realised we were there just in time. Axel was safe and sound. Surrender now, Sir Pineapple Head!
Let us just say that Mr. Saïx dragged him into the Discipline Room and we decided not to care about it. What a close call! "Hey Axel, you OK?" I asked when we reached the foyer. "Yeah, got it memorised?" He said. Zexion said, "I am surprised you were not traumatised at all." "Why yes, I was traumatised by his terrible breath. It was, like, he hadn't brushed his teeth for years!" He looked at us, flailing his hands in exclamation. I facepalmed internally and Zexion just groaned. "Oh, right, what about the K3M people?" "They were sent to Mr. Saïx ten minutes ago or so. Thanks to them, we were able to successfully track the P5D student down," Zexion answered. "Why?" Axel asked.
"Roxas found out that they warned the other P5D students while we were trapped. What they did not know was that all their actions were recorded by surveillance cameras. We tracked them down and they confessed everything to Mr. Saïx. That was how we got there on time," he further explained.
Roxas and Demyx rushed over to us. "Mr. Saïx. Prefect Meeting Room. Now," Roxas made a very short summary of his message. "What?" I, Zexion and Axel said in unison.
In the Prefect Meeting Room… "Actually, this spot check was only a trial. All prefects from the morning session were hiding somewhere, evaluating your actions. This was to test whether your Counter Crime group can be established. Congratulations, you all passed the trial," Mr. Saïx sat on the chair and said. But… I did not understand. "What? Why? The whole mission was, like, a total fiasco and we caused so much mess, and… what?" Demyx asked, but the question turned into mumble and finally a whisper. I was feeling the same. What was going on?
"You all were calm, planned your attacks and cooperated with one another. While keeping an eye on K3M, one of you was delegated to P5D to complete the mission. When the pressure cooker exploded, you all managed to escape safely. After tracking down the students, you all immediately informed me to get the delinquent and saved your group member. All of these were taken into account as the criteria to pass the trial. You will be promoted to real prefects along with the other qualifiers. As for the secret normal member, she will be promoted as a helper prefect in your group. That moment is only days away." Holy bananas, was I going nuts? For crying out loud, Mr. Saïx just smiled! Yikes, I could not believe it. We made it.
When it was half past twelve, we had our lunch and arrived at our headquarters. "We are going to be prefects! HOORAY!" Roxas, Axel and Demyx could not help but high-fived and cheered. Zexion had this rare smile on his face and I just could not control myself and almost hyperventilated. "Yeah, let's see if your bruise on your head will be present that day." Axel just had to make fun of my embarrassing moments. I decided to retort playfully, "Oh really? What about that 'bun' on your head? Shall I reserve a VIP seat for it that day?" Roxas stifled a laugh when Axel pouted, which epically failed and looked weird. Demyx clutched his stomach and laughed, "HA! What a face! Roxas sure hit hard!"
"You guys are so childish sometimes… But I still… love you guys," Zexion sighed but mumbled with a smile. We all stared at him for three seconds, and then lunged at him. "GROUP HUG! We love you too Zexy, Right?!" Demyx exclaimed and we chimed in, "OH YES WE DO!" "Cannot… breathe! And stop… calling me that! *sigh*" All five of us then laughed. WE DID IT!
~ CHAPTER 3 FIN ~
TO BE CONTINUED
Oh my gosh… Done the third one… It is one in the morning. I need to sleep… Ratings and positive criticism are the most welcome and thank you for reading this! Bye!