Winter Tree: Roots
Recon

"So," Lance leaned against the lockers next to Keith's personal locker, stretching his arms up into the air while moving his head back and forth so he might also loosen up his neck muscles as well. Keith fumbled with the contents of his lock while his two friends waited for him to decide what his plans in regard to class attendance would be. "Rumor has it we have a new teacher for our History class."

"Wait. So there's no more substitute teacher to terrorize," Hunk said from across the way where he leaned up against the lockers with his arms crossing his bulky frame. His mouth twisted into a frown as if disappointed with this fact."

Keith on the other hand stopped fumbling around with the contents of his locker and said, "I'm not going."

"Figured as much, given the fact you hate meeting new people, particularly adults." Lance smiled at his friend while Keith slammed his locker shut, the look on his face indicating he was indeed far from thrilled regarding the news before he turned away and headed towards their current place for escaping authority figures who might come looking for them, leaving his book bag behind. Lance leaned down and grabbed the book bag, saluting Hunk. "You're in charge of taking notes big guy."

Hunk glowered at his friend, yet didn't argue the matter.

As Lance ambled away, he called out over his shoulder. "Come on! We all know big guy that despite your looks you hate missing out on class, but Keith really does appreciate the notes. And we've tried me taking notes for him before. It didn't work."

Hunk let out a sigh, heading to class with only the device assigned to students so they might take notes in class and even look up information in the electronic version of their textbooks. Keith still lugged around the heavy textbooks, accredited by certain students to the fact he was able to use such things as a weapon should he get into a fight which made the question of why the teachers at the garrison school even allowed him to have the books.

There were a lot of rumors among the other cadets where Keith was concerned.

Hunk slipped into the classroom, sitting down in a chair at one of the desks looking rather out of place because of his large size. The hulking giant ignored the looks of discomfort at his presence given by his fellow cadets and simply opened up his device so he might take notes, setting it gently onto the top of his desk, but not before he checked Lance's message about taking good notes regarding the new teacher. He then waited for the bell to ring and the new teacher to come in.

One of the first things Hunk noted regarding the teacher was the man's Asian features which led to Hunk typing into the file he'd started up regarding the teacher. The name was left as "?" while he typed Asian into the spot for the man's ethnicity. A few of his classmates glanced up, thinking he was sending messages, possibly for some heinous plan he and his friends concocted, yet they didn't say anything. Nobody messed with any member of their small group like they did when they first came to the garrison.

Then the teacher spoke. He spoke in an accent that was definitely not Asian. "So. I'm Officer Sven Holgersson."

Hunk frantically put a line through the Asian and wrote, along with their new teacher's name, that he was definitely not Asian and had some weird European accent. The fact the man's features were Asian also left his mind while he continued focusing on the man, who glanced around as if expecting something unexpected to happen. After waiting for a brief moment, the man cleared his voice and started taking attendance, but when Hunk's name was called, he was quite sure the man looked right at him, almost as if sizing him up.

Hunk of course didn't think anything of this, given the fact he was used to people sizing him up because of his size. The man also seemed interested in Keith and Lance as their names came up, yet this made sense given the fact today they were the only students missing from the class. What happened next caught everyone off guard.

It started with Sven going to his own device, which seemed completely unprofessional of a teacher, but then messages went off on everyone's devices, almost as if he were attempting to catch the ones who'd not put their messages on silent off guard, yet in the back of Hunk's mind he knew the garrison's message board program was set so that during class hours only the teacher's messages would, in fact, go off whereas students were locked out of anything but silence.

Everyone looked at the file they'd been sent as Sven spoke up. "So, we're going to try something we call self-study." One of the students, the more nerdy ones, raised their hand, standing up partially to give themselves more height than the others. Sven pointed his hand at them. "Yes, Goldstein?"

Which meant Sven already knew some of the students' names, which Hunk typed into his file he would send to Lance. "Aren't you just being lazy sending us notes like this?"

"Am I? If you actually looked at the end of the notes which are honestly just an outline of what I might have taught in class, you'll note that there is an assignment due for the next class that you will not be able to complete unless you actually do some of your own diggings. Anyways, class dismissed!"

Hunk watched the teacher walk out of the classroom, his eyes wide, before typing in a note regarding their teacher before sending it on to Lance. He quickly saw a message sent back from Lance. "What does this whole not really Asian and actually European thing mean? And what's up with him dismissing class like that?"

"I don't know. I think he's one of those ones which tries to be nice to their students. You know, the type Keith hates the most because they have a tendency to get up into his business and all."

"You mean get up into all of our business, but yeah. I get what you mean bro. Just what I needed when Keith's already in one of his moods."