Chapter 01: First Day Meetings
September 2026.
It was an early summer morning in Carona High. School would start that day, but for the gymnastics team, it was just another morning of practice before class.
"That's it for today. Good work, people!" Mint Vanguard shouted to her teammates as they started wrapping up. "Keep it up, and we're a cinch to make it national this year! Don't forget our season starts today, so make sure you practice well even outside this gymnasium. Try-outs this afternoon, if you guys want a look at our new members. And hurry up, classes start in an hour. I want you outta here in two shakes of a cat's tail!"
"Pah, who uses that expression nowadays?" Kirielle muttered as she walked past Mint on her way to the locker rooms.
"I heard that, Lockheed. Brush your teeth when you take a shower—or better yet, file them. Your fangs are starting to show."
"Why you—" the blonde clenched her fists into the smaller girl's face. "You may be captain, but I'm still your upper classman…"
"Alright, that's enough you two." Coach Mira stepped between the two girls. "I'm not letting anyone start a fight right under my nose. Especially not on the first day of classes."
She put a hand protectively around Mint's shoulders. Kirielle glowered at Mint, before reluctantly retreating. "Teacher's pet."
"You [exple—!" But Mira's grip stopped the redhead before she could say anything more.
One more slip, and that girl is going to be sooo dead. Mint glared at the other girl's back a few moments more before excusing herself from the gymnastics coach. "I'd better get going myself."
"What section are you in, Mint?"
"2-A. What did you expect? I'm a genius!"
"Last I checked your grades weren't that good." Mira raised an eyebrow. "I'm surprised you made it past the first year."
"He-ey! I passed all my subjects! (albeit barely…)"
"Must've been your extra-curriculars that made them put you in the A section. Are you sure you can handle it?"
"Didn't I just tell you I'm a genius?" Mint grinned at her coach as she picked up her duffel bag. "I'll see you later." And with a wave of her hand she was gone.
After a quick shower and changing into her uniform, she made it to class with two minutes to spare. And then she spent the next several hours staring out the window.
Boooring.
She always took a window seat (whenever class rules allowed her to choose her own), and the teacher droning about the fundamentals of thermodynamics was the perfect example of why. At least she could look at the cloud formations while pretending to listen.
Homeroom was their next class. It's only advantage from her other periods was that there were no teachers. Today they had class elections.
"We have to select a representative for the student council." A girl named Annette was presiding.
Mint stood up immediately. "Of course, that's gonna be me!" There was no question about it. She walked towards the front, preparing to take over the discussion from Annette.
But another girl raised her hand. "I think Rue should be the representative."
The redhead stopped dead in her tracks. Rue? A rival?! Someone actually dares to challenge me? Her eyes narrowed involuntarily.
Rue was seated near the back of the class. Mint vaguely remembered him as Elena's friend, since they weren't classmates last year and she had never bothered to pay attention to him before. He wasn't wearing his cap, but strangely enough he wore a white bandanna across his forehead. It seemed to her that he slouched in his seat. "If Mint wants to be the representative, then that's fine with me."
That comment sent the whole class murmuring. "Let's put it to a vote, shall we? Who wants Rue to be our representative?"
Almost everyone raised their hands.
Whaat?!
"So it's settled. Rue is 2-A's representative," Annette announced. In a tactful display of diplomacy, she added, "And Mint will be his assistant."
The class started clapping, and Mint's face reddened in embarrassment. It reddened more when she realized she was still standing awkwardly, halfway between her seat and the blackboard.
Rue Kincaid put on his cap, grabbed his violin case, decided not to stay after the kendo try-outs, and went to meet Elena outside the school lobby.
"Hello, Polly!" The junior high girl greeted, smiling sweetly up at him. "I heard you got elected class representative."
"Yeah, well…" He shrugged it off nonchalantly. "You said you wanted to see me?"
"It's a surprise." She grinned. "Mel's having a back-to-school promo at the Atelier Soda Shop. You promised you'd take me last year, but you didn't."
"Sorry about that," Rue apologized. He and Elena started walking. "I was busy with the try-outs last year."
"That's alright. How were the try-outs this year?"
"They're okay. We got a couple of new members."
"That's cool. Say, you remember this place, Polly?" Elena asked as they passed by a small street kiosk that sold stuffed toy animals. "Remember two years ago, when you saved me from Blood and Smokey? Those bullies, trying to steal my ice cream money! It was really cute, the way you beat 'em up and they ran away screaming like little girls…"
How could I forget? That stuffed parrot was how I got my nickname…
It all began with Claire five years ago. Claire was Rue's dearest and oldest friend. She was an orphan girl, his keeper, his mother, his sister, his everything since she found and nursed him from an accident that had taken his childhood memories away. They had lived together since then, taking care of each other as they both had no one else in the world. One evening she simply disappeared.
The police had all but given up her case after the first six months, telling Rue that there simply wasn't enough evidence. She could have just run away from home, and maybe she herself didn't want to be found.
But Rue knew that Claire would never leave without telling him. That she had been kidnapped he was sure, and he followed every lead, until after three years his search led him to the town of Carona. It turned out to be another dead end, and he had all but given up hope.
That was the night he met Elena.
She was flanked on both sides by two hoodlums, one of whom was threatening her with a knife. He had grabbed the nearest object from the street kiosk and threw it to distract the hoodlums, before bashing them both on the heads with his violin case that he carried everywhere. The stuffed parrot that he threw had forever in Elena's eyes earned him the nickname 'Polly'.
And then Elena introduced him to her father, Professor Klaus, who persuaded Rue not to give up on Claire. He helped Rue find a place to stay, and enrolled him in the same junior high as Elena. Although Rue didn't live at their house, the Klauses became practically family to him.
Another year later, he found that the Klaus family seemed to have an affinity for vagabonds. He learned from Elena that Klaus had helped a girl—a runaway—find a place to settle in town, and had even accepted her into the school in which he was the principal.
But Rue had never met this girl, had never actually talked to her (well, sort of) until today.
"…I can't wait until I graduate from junior high. I'm going to enter Carona High, of course, and then we'd be in the same school! Wouldn't that be great, Polly? I don't really know that many people from Carona High, except for my parents, of course, and you…" she was babbling again, and Rue had learned that sometimes it was best to just ignore her while pretending to listen. "…oh, and have you met Mint yet? I haven't seen her in months, she hardly ever calls home anymore…"
Did Elena just say 'Mint'? Rue blinked. The red hair and twin ponytails were unmistakable, even from behind the non-glare-resistant glass of the BladeStar Arcade. She was bashing away at the Bonk-a-Bloop™ machine like there was no tomorrow.
"Take that (Whack!), you little [expletive], and that (Whap!), and THAT (Kthwok!)!!" She was almost shouting, and a small crowd had gathered to watch her. "Hey, you almost broke the high score!" someone whispered, but she didn't care. "THAT (Tchok!), ought to teach you (Klonk!) to embarrass… in front of (Thwack!)… (Ptui!) !!!"
The timer stopped, and suddenly the machine started blaring out piped music. "She did it! She broke the high score! Way to go, Mint!" Elena shouted over the cheers and catcalls of the crowd. Dragging Rue by the hand, she snaked through the crowd to Mint's side. "That was really great!"
"YOU!" Mint's exotic eyes flashed dangerously at the white-haired boy. "I was going to be class representative, you [expletive]—"
"You're classmates?! That is so cool!" Elena interrupted, purposely ignoring Mint's anger. "So you finally meet each other! Papa will be so happy!"
Mint glared, whilst she took out two batons from her duffel bag. They weren't her favorite weapons, but she couldn't afford to be picky right now. She readied the batons in a battle stance. "You are gonna be sooo dead. I know you do kendo—come on and fight me like a man!"
Rue unconsciously gripped the handle of his violin case a bit more tightly. In a soft voice, he answered. "I don't want to fight you, Mint."
"[Expletive]!" she shouted, stomping her feet. "You embarrassed me in class! You have to fight me!"
"Err, Papa will not be happy about that," noticed Elena.
"Fine, if you want to fight…" Rue sighed. "Look, you're good with games. Why don't we just play it out on Nightmare Altar, best three out of five."
Mint reluctantly lowered her batons. "Alright, I'll call."
Suffice to say it was a tie.
"Wha-a—? A Double K.O.?!!" Mint stared at the video screen, refusing to believe it. "Noo!!! I want a rematch!"
"That was our fifth game, Mint." Rue turned his amiable face towards her. "You won the first and fourth, and I won the other two."
Mint scowled. To her, a tie was as good as a loss. "This really isn't my day… They were serving pumpkins in the cafeteria for lunch too. [Expletive]! I HATE PUMPKINS!!" she stomped her foot twice in annoyance. "Come on, Rue! You have to fight me again!"
Rue couldn't help but stare. This girl is supposedly captain of the gymnastics team?
Mint felt an arm go about her shoulders, and she turned to see a tall redhead wearing a black cowboy hat looking down at the two of them.
"Say, you two are pretty good. You guys have heart. Heart, I say, the heart that makes a man!" He smiled at them. "My name's Rod—Rod Blade Star. I own this joint." Rod was rather young, no older than 22, and definitely not the businessman type. He had shoulder-length red hair several shades darker than Mint's, and his irises were a deep green surrounded by a darker corona. He had a strong jaw, and his smile was warm, reaching all the way to his eyes.
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Bladestar," Rue greeted. "Meet Mint Vanguard," he indicated, "Elena Klaus, and I'm Rue Kincaid."
"Yeah, any chance of getting free credit?" Mint said as she brushed his arm off. "I mean, I do hold quite a number of high scores here."
"Tell ya what, I judge that you are people to be reckoned with, and since you're such regular customers (well, Mint is, anyway)… If you pay for the game I'll fight you. If you win, you get ten times that amount of credit, agreed?"
"Make it twenty and you're on."
"Nope."
"Plus three ice cream sodas?"
"Nuh-uh. Sorry, missy, but I am running a business here."
"Fine. When do we play?"
Rod grinned. "Right now."
"Okay, but I choose the game." Mint slid her game card across the Nightmare Altar machine's slot. "I choose this."
"Trying to save face?"
"What do you think?! Shut up and play."
"Oh, excuse me." Elena's cellular phone was ringing. The caller turned out to be her father. "U-huh. Hmmm. Okay. Rue," she turned towards him when her father hung up. "Papa wants us back home immediately. He said something about a clue."
Rue's face brightened. "Maybe it has something to do with Claire!" He would've called Mint's attention, but noticed that she was too concentrated on fighting Rod. Already they were halfway through the first level. Picking up his violin case, he turned to leave. "Come on, Elena. Looks like they won't be finished here anytime soon."
Author's Notes
25 August 2002 Greetings! Well, that was fast. 2 chapters up! Thank you to those who reviewed, and to those who didn't but took time to read my stuff anyway.
Okay, so maybe it's not quite *that* close to the game story… I mixed up a little bit from both Rue's and Mint's scenarios, plus I had to, err, play with the timelines a bit, cut some stuff and add others as I found necessary. I hope you guys don't mind too much. I don't own ToF/DewPrism or any (legally) related stuff. But I do own Bloop™.
Just a clarification: The story is set in fictional 2026. Mint and Rue are 15 and are older than they were in the game. I don't know how many chapters. (which is kinda strange for me… I usually outline the whole story before I write anything. This means that I am open to story suggestions!! Biggest dilemma for the moment: Will this fanfic turn out to be Mint+Rue or NOT? At this point it doesn't look like it though.)