((((.-)) Zel |||^.^||| Xelloss |{{^.^}}| Lina ||{.^}|| Gourry ((^.^)) Amelia


Seyruun High Jinx

 
Chapter 4



Later that evening, Lina & CO was seated around the only table large enough to accommodate a party of eight.

"Good thing you called ahead to get this table reserved for us, eh?" garbled Lina to Xelloss with a mouth packed with food.

"Can we really go back as many times as we want to?" asked Gourry, half hidden behind a pile of overflowing plates.

"Yeah, kill yourself..." mumbled Zelgadiss. Sitting on the table in front of him was a plate of food, mostly uneaten, all not chosen by him. Amelia insisted that he learn to take care of himself better, and so selected this particular assortment for him to try. "I shouldn't have drunk that orange juice. It just encouraged her..." he moaned to no one in particular.

Actually he and Gourry were basking in the glow of their fencing team's first win of the season. Seyruun High was one-of-one and looking good. A couple of boys called Zangalus and Van formed the other two-some from their school. Their teams were usually made up of one taller player with a long reach, and one shorter player who was quick.

After the final match, Val surprised Zelgadiss by telling him that he "...was impressed...I didn't think you had it in ya." Which was as close to an apology and compliment as Zel was ever going to get out of him. Apparently, he and Lina had almost been thrown out of the gym, where the match was held, for fighting-though with each other or fans of the opposing school, Zel couldn't quite wring out of either of them. Embarrassment? Whatever. Lina was a pretty devoted fan, and always rooted loudest and most threatening of all of them. He wouldn't put it past her to snatch up a sword and take a stab or too at an opponent herself, and Val was always all too happy to join in a fight.

"Oh, the election results are coming in Monday, and I just can't wait!" Amelia sighed.

"Oh, I just know you'll win, Amelia!" Filia swore, supportively.

"Hey, what about me! I'm running to, ya know!" Martina squawked.

Sylphiel looked uncomfortable. "Well, of course we hope you'll win, too," she sighed amid sweatdrops galore.

"Oh, we're just waiting with bated breath," Lina muttered quietly enough that only Gourry and Zel on either side of her could hear.

Zel made an affirmative noise. Xelloss remained strangely silent, for him. He had been pretty low-key for awhile, like the calm before a storm...

"The first thing we'll get to do on the student council is to plan the Halloween dance!" Amelia announced. "I already have a band in mind! There's this college band..."

Filia gasped. "You don't mean the...Suzaku Seven?" she said breathlessly.

Zel found to his disturbance that all the girls, even Lina, went a little (or a lot) dreamy-eyed over that name.

"Oh, do you really think they'd play at our dance?" Martina cried.

"Of course! Some of them are graduates of Seyruun High! It'd be like a reunion! I know I can use my dad's influence..." Amelia assured them.

"Wait, you mean those no-talent pretty-boys?" Val growled.

"What do you mean, 'no-talent'?!" Martina cried with all the other girl's angry glares as back up. "They sing AND dance!"

"They don't even play their own in-stru-ments!" Val protested, not wanting to let this one go.

"Well, what band would you choose, Mr. Val?" Amelia sniffed.

"DBZ!" Val shouted. "Of course."

The girls chorus "Gaaa! No!" and made even eviler faces at him. "All they do is grunt and look bad!"

Zel shook his head at Val. "Don't you ever learn? Notice Gourry isn't saying a word. You have to choose your battles carefully, steer away from those you just can't win. Oh, and here's a clue: this is one you've lost."

Val looked meaningfully at Zel and was probably going to say his own piece, but the conversation had already plowed ahead, and he didn't want to be left too far behind.

"I'm sure I got the anti-Lina vote, but do you really think I can win, Xell-dear?" Martina was hanging on the arm Xelloss was not using to eat with, making a parasite of herself.

"Oh, I'm sure you'll do as expected," Xelloss grinned fetchingly at her, setting off stars and bubbly shojo backgrounds in her eyes. "Lina, I understand the acting teacher has recovered and will be back on Monday, so our class should be starting."

"Oh yeah? That's great news. Where'd you hear that?" asked Lina.

"Oh, that's a secret," he smiled and hid his face by looking down at his plate.





Sure enough, when they went back to school on Monday, the morning announcements reported that their acting class was on board, confirming Xelloss' news. The election returns had been tallied. Amelia had won by a landslide as freshman body president. Junior president was Fuu Houji, senior president was the ever-popular Allen Schezar, and there was to be a run-off election for the sophomore class between Martina and the write-in candidate, Lina Inverse.

"Which of you idiots wrote in my name?" screamed Lina.

"Vote? Were we supposed to vote?" asked Gourry.

"Not I," said Zel, "I was unconscious in the nurse's office at the time, if you remember..."

"As was I," piped up Xelloss cheerily happy to have a ready-made alibi. "Although, I was fully conscious."

Lina turned to Filia and Sylphiel, who shook their heads vigorously. With a ragged sigh, Lina hung her head. "I can't believe this...It's almost as scary as the thought that Martina actually got 50% of the votes!"

"Wow, I didn't know that many people hated you, Lina!" Gourry smiled and patted her head. Smoke began to pour out of the little redhead's ears.

"Or that many people loved her, either," Zel added.

This whole thing was very suspicious to him. Lina wasn't that popular. Most people knew her, but they didn't all adore her. She had her People (like them or not) but past them, she didn't have enough hardcore fans to have amassed half the sophomore class's vote. And neither did Martina. No one liked Martina, as far as Zel could tell, and there really weren't enough Lina-haters to get her that far into the election. Something was up, and Zel wasn't sure he wanted to get into this feud...

The first bell rang, warning them to get the class before the second one, and the group dispersed like rain clouds after a storm.



The next snag in the day occurred in first period during the Advanced Composition class. The teacher had just finished role call when Martina started complaining, "You missed me! You didn't call my name!"

The teacher looked over the updated roster, "Well according to this, you are no longer registered in this class...Let's see, reason code #234 is...transferred to another school."

"B-BUT I'm tied for sophomore class president! I'm here! I-I..."

The teacher cut her off, "You are excused to take care of this problem at the office please."

"That's odd..." whispered Lina.

"That's not all that doesn't add up. Something's weird..." began Zel, who shut-up when the teacher began to speak.

The teacher put a stop to the idle chatter.  "All right class, today we will start a series of essays in different modes..."




Second period was math for both Lina and Zel, though they had different classes. When they met up again, with Xelloss, in the advanced science class third period, Lina had news for her friends.

"Martina wasn't on the list in Trig, either, so it wasn't just a fluke in comp," she told Zel to the background of the teacher's droning.

"Hmm..."

"We'll hear from the rest of the choirgirls at lunch about whether it happened in chorus, too."

"Hell, we'll hear from Martina herself," Zel snorted. "What has everyone's reaction been to you?"

"Hello, Zel? Do you still exist in this world, or have you permanently floated away to the astral plane?!" Lina hissed.

"Uhh..."

"Well, since you haven't noticed," Zel saw that Lina looked a bit sad. Whatever was going on, it was getting to her. "People are saying that I rigged it. Or that you did. We're not on the most popular list right now," she tried to smile.

"I didn't, Lina. I-"

"I know that, you moron. I don't think that any of you did it. But that doesn't solve anything..."

An office messenger entered the room and passed a note to the teacher. "Zelgadiss, would you please come see me a moment?"

Zel ran over the probable good outcomes a special delivery message could bring, "Maybe my grandfather died..."

"Zelgadiss, the principle would like to see you in her office. Go now. You'll have to make up the work later," the teacher said flatly, although clearly annoyed at this rude interruption to his well-thought out and structured day.

"Fine," said Zel, but he was thinking, "Not fine..."





"...is just wonderful! It was so worth the wait. I've got soo many designs I want to try out, and, like, there's so much beautiful clay! We'll have terra cotta, too, this year to work with, and real Boston Slip..." Filia was gushing about the long-awaited ceramics class. Not only ceramics and acting, but the entire art department had been down the first week, though no one gave them a good excuse as to why.

Sylphiel brought brownies today, and Val didn't show up, so they were left for Lina and Gourry to demolish. Val's absence bothered Lina, so Gourry told her he'd check on him after school if he didn't show up. But Val's presence wasn't the only one missing.

Lunchtime was almost over, when Amelia asked, "Mr. Zelgadiss isn't here yet. Has anyone seen him today?"

Lina nodded. She was off her feed, a clear sign of her troubled state. "He'll be along, had to go to the office, noth'n much..."

Xelloss was sitting across from Lina. He wasn't quite as cheery as usual either. But he should have been, he thought to his self, At least there's no more Martina to deal with, but for how long? Lina's pretty upset.  I can tell. Zelgadiss doesn't know a thing, but how long before he does the math and figures out who's responsible…Ah, speak of the …devil…   "Ah Zelgadiss, Miss Amelia was just asking about you," he said aloud, tagging on his usual smile.

Zel sank into an empty chair between Xelloss and Amelia.

"You don't look so good...everything okay...at home?" asked Lina tentatively.

"Yeah…  Listen I don't want to talk about it now...scary...scary woman..." Zel moaned.

Xelloss snapped to alert, "Who's that?"

"The principal...I feel sick..." Zel closed his eyes.

Xelloss dropped his smile and looked closely at Zel, "Y-You were sent to the principal's office? Scary,.. yes. W-what's up?"

Zel locked eyes with Xelloss, for a fraction of a second, until Xelloss hid his with his bangs.  What's got HIM freaked? Zel wondered to himself, and then aloud said, "The staff believes a hacker has corrupted the election results and maybe some student records. I am under suspicion. If no one comes foreword and confesses, they can get a court order to confiscate my computer at home and search it for evidence."  He paused and took a moment to glance up at his friends. Their sympathetic expressions gave him enough confidence to go on, "I have no idea what's going on...I have absolutely nothing to hide...but I have stuff-personal stuff-on my computer that I don't want anyone reading. But if I start deleting files or transferring data to someplace else, that WILL look bad...I am so screwed." He moaned and rested his head on his arms.

Xelloss frowned a little then excused himself, "I'll see what I can find out about what happened to Martina..."





Acting class ended the day, finally. This was the first day activity all over again and then some.

"Now that I've all gotten to know your names, we'll begin a warm up exercise. Everyone stand up now...that's right and stretch...think cat...feel the blood flow...arms overhead 2...3...4... and down 2...3...4...touch those toes now, and stretch 2...3...4...Good now, let's move on to the pretend muscle stretches!"

Luckily the teacher had conducted the exercises with his back turned, and so, didn't notice that most of the students in the class were simply standing in stupefaction.

"We will now get in touch with our inner animal...You there, ah, Filia. Imagine you are a bird...yes...now add movement...and sound...excellent. Now everyone, be birds. Fly...soar...feel the wind beneath your wings...Ah...excuse me but your 'bird' appears to be a little lazy, no?" asked the teacher.

"It broke its wings..." murmured Zel.

"AH... HA! How inventive! See everyone? Let's all have broken wings!" the teacher effused.





"That," Lina addressed her followers after class, "was disturbing."

"I found it...soothing," Gourry sighed, floating along behind her, a look of enlightenment on his face.

"Me too!" Xelloss giggled.

"Birds of a feather..." Zel sighed. Lina thought that was funny. It felt good to smile.

"I just hope we get to do some Shakespeare," Filia said.

"Romeo and Juliet..." Sylphiel and Amelia both sighed.

"Macbeth!" Lina grinned.

"Hamlet," Zel put in.

Xelloss looked surprised at Zel. "But wouldn't you rather do The Tempest? I'm sure there's a character in there just right for you."

"Mr. Zelgadiss is nothing like Caliban!" Amelia cried, stamping her foot and pointing a finger of justice in Xelloss' face.

"Who said I was thinking of Caliban?" Xelloss replied, innocently. "I was thinking of...Miranda!"

"Aren't you going to stop Mr. Zelgadiss from lacerating Mr. Xelloss, Miss Lina?" Amelia asked.

"No. I'm going to allow him to defend his manhood. It would probably piss him off even worse if I intervened," she told her. "You see, for a geeky, angsty, kind of effeminate guy like Zel, a little bit of space is needed. He needs to be allowed to beat up on someone weaker than him to assure himself that he's not just a wimpy victim. Usually, he can do this through fencing or something else that takes finesse and skill, which he has in spades. But without a sword, he needs to use his fists. Xelloss is kind of the same way, except he's at the bottom of the food-chain, so he has to do things differently..." Lina explained.  "Besides, he's not hurting Xelloss. Watch. He's too nice, and he knows it was just a joke. But threats to their manhood can lead males to all sorts of insane things, like dating Martina, for one," she shrugged and readjusted her book bag.

"By the way, Xelloss, where is your, you know, arm decoration today, anyway?" Filia asked. "Not that I miss her or anything."

Between ducks and dodges, Xelloss said, "How should I know? I haven't had any more contact with her than you have."

"But aren't you worried, Mr. Xelloss?" Amelia demanded.

"Not particularly!" he giggled. "She's...a strong woman. She can take care of herself!"

"...And everybody else..." Lina rolled her eyes.

"Kind of like you, Lina!" Xelloss said, admiringly.

Lina grabbed him by the shirt-collar, depriving Zel of his punching bag, and shook him. "Don't you ever compare me with that lunatic girl again!"

"Ah, yes…no…I won't...I'm...sorry..." he cringed. There was no way anyone could get away with saying something nice to Lina.



**** ( ^^ ) ****

End Seyruun High Jinx Chapter 4