Melee Academy of Higher Learning for Boys

Year Three

-Seven-

The dreaded midterms had finally arrived. Link spent all morning trying to find his notes for his second exam period, all the while Young Link slumbered in his bed, oblivious.
"My notes from last year aren't gonna help me!" Link cried to the heavens as he threw his Biology notebook to the side and nearly out the open window. He rummaged some more and threw more stuff to the wayside, that is, the growing pile next to his nightstand in between the beds.

"Hey, older me," Young Link said after he got slapped into full awakeness by an old maths folder. He was then pelted by another folder that said, in typical left handed scrawl, 'Folder O' Junk'.

"Can't you see I'm busy here?" Link's voice was muffled since he was still under the bed. Young Link was amazed by the sheer amount of crap hidden under the dark recesses of his older self's bed, and knew that if Marth saw it, he'd have a conniption.

Young Link pointed at the Biology notes by Link's foot. "Mind if I gank those?"

Link fumbled for his maths notebook. "Knock yourself out." He didn't even know why he kept them, but he did. Then again, Link never threw anything out – it might come in handy someday was his reasoning, but some people (most notably Marth) said Link was just being a hoarder.

Not like Link really knew what that even meant. Marth had said it had to do with collecting things, but he didn't think there was anything wrong with being a collector. He still had his complete set of Pokémon cards (and he still collected them) from when he was nine years old, a starter deck for Yu-gi-oh!, and a collection of Magic: The Gathering cards numbering in the tens of thousands. And a rock collection he was quite proud of. And that box filled with paperclips he named in the eighth grade…

All right, maybe he had a lot of stuff. Maybe Marth had a point – collecting too much was bad.

Speaking of the Altean Prince-turned-King, nearly diagonal from Link and Young Link was the room he and Roy shared. Roy was finishing up some last minute homework due the day of his exam (his teachers were crazy) while Marth was in the shower. Normally, Roy would have joined him, but Marth had taken to locking the door due to Link's tendency to barge into the bathroom; he secretly thought Link did it just to see if he could spot anything 'interesting'. Or if they were doing anything 'suspicious', which they never really did, either.

Not that locking the door really did anything since Link played a little too much Resident Evil, and he somehow acquired the ability to, like Jill Valentine, become the 'Master of Unlocking'.

Well, actually, in reality, Link stole Roy's keys once when Roy first came to The Manse three years prior, made copies, and said it was "just incase you get locked in your room or your bathroom."

It was then Roy realized, as he tried to fill out question four on his worksheet, that he knew fuck all as to what he was actually doing – he was just writing down some diagrams and making up some numbers on said diagrams. He sighed and was ready to throw down his pencil and admit defeat when Marth walked out of the bathroom in a blue terrycloth robe. He was, unfortunately for Roy, not the type to walk around starkers. And because of Link's aforementioned 'Master of Unlocking' skills, it was probably, as Martha Stewart would always say, a good thing.

"Marth, were you good at Chemistry?"

The Altean focused on his reflection in the full-length mirror as he brushed his hair. "I got A's. Why?" He peered at his boyfriend's reflection.

"Because I haven't a clue as to what I'm doing, so I'm stumped on the homework."

"Maybe you should pay better attention, then," said Marth matter-of-factly, as he parted his hair just so. He parted his hair in such a way that people would have said he had 'emo hair', had his fringe been shorter on one side than the other. Marth didn't really understand what 'emo hair' was, and really didn't care.

Roy scowled. "I pay a lot of attention and still nothing."

So Marth put down his hairbrush, sat down next to Roy on his bed, and took his homework from him. In his hands was a sheet labeled 'A Short Introduction to Gas Laws'.

After looking it over for all of thirty seconds, he said, "…It's just basic Algebra, Roy."

Roy took his homework back. "Clearly there's more to it than that…"

But Marth shook his head. "Stop trying to over complicate things. Say you need an equation that equals two. Instead of two squared plus four minus six equals two, it's just one plus one. Simple is often best. Etcetera. Besides, it's only an introduction – you'll probably get into the more complicated stuff after exams."

Roy still threw his homework down on the floor when he realized Marth was in nothing but a robe. At almost seven in the morning. This was unusual for Marth.

"Shouldn't you be getting ready for school about now? You have an exam to proctor, don't you?"

"I'd say the same to you," Marth answered, throwing down the towel hanging from around his neck. "Except you have to take one."

"I asked you first," Roy countered, inching his face into Marth's personal space.

Marth idly played with the reddish spread on Roy's bed as he backed away a bit. "There's no help period, so I can stroll in around eight or so. I'll get dressed in a few minutes. You, on the other hand…"

Roy said nothing at first.

"But I still have to write out index cards for my stupid Chem exam. If I do anything else, I'm just gonna get distracted and then I'll be screwed." Then, after seeing the smirk on Marth's face, he added, "Figuratively speaking, of course."

"I'll make sure you get the index cards done. Now go on and get ready for school," Marth said as he left the bed and walked over to his dresser. Pulling out his usual 'teacher ensemble', he went off to his 'changing corner' and undid the belt of his robe. Despite the fact that Roy had seen Marth undressed too many times to count accurately without the use of a calculator, he was still self-conscious. He often felt the need to look in the mirror and trace over his old battle scars, scars Roy thought nothing of since they were both involved in wars. Marth thought them grotesque and tried to hide them.

"Come to think of it, I don't have to show up until ten thirty eight," Roy stated with a shrug as he watched. He shifted and went through his notebook to find his extra cards. "So I can do my index cards, maybe do some last minute studying, and then get dressed. And maybe, just maybe, there'll be some…extra time." He gave a suave little smile that Marth didn't miss at all.

"Oh?" Marth was genuinely surprised as he dropped his robe to the floor. Roy was disappointed when he saw Marth was clad in a pair of navy boxer-shorts.

Dammit, Marth. You're such a tease.

"I'm exempt from my gym exam, so Link'll just have to leave without me." Roy didn't sound regretful in the least. All Link ever did on the way to school during exam week was complain about how his life was over, how he was going to fail at life and school and everything else, how Ike would hate him for failing… And then they would actually get there and Link would start studying like a guy on Speed. Then they would take the exam, Link would go, "Oh, I dunno why I worried so much!" and ace the stupid thing. Meanwhile, before all that, Roy would try to not pull his hair out from Link's melodramatics.

Roy found his cards and saw that they were half-finished. It crossed his mind that perhaps the cards were useless, that it would turn out that all of the stuff he wrote down wouldn't be on the exam, but he decided to take his chances and at least try to finish them.
Marth once again sat on Roy's bed after getting mostly dressed, and looked at the writing on the cards. "You done with those stupid things yet?"

Roy shoved them into his textbook and closed it with a huge slam. "No, but I can do them later. You're giving me that look."

Marth nearly snorted. "I do believe the proper term is 'bedroom eyes', isn't it?"

"'Seductive gaze' is what I always heard, but I suppose that makes sense, too."

Roy grabbed Marth by his tie and pulled on it so Marth nearly fell in his lap. Then he gave him a peck on the mouth, which turned into a long and drawn out romantic one, and then that quickly turned into a kiss where a lot of tongue was involved. Marth placed his arms on either side of Roy's shoulders, pushing him onto his back, and Roy moaned when Marth moved to kiss his jaw, kiss just under his ear, as his hand inched up Roy's undershirt…

As if on cue, Link kicked the door open, all sorts of books gathered in his arms, papers every which way. Clearly the insanity had already begun as Link examined the deepening dent on the door and Marth and Roy sprang away from each other. Marth nearly landed on the floor, and Roy's head hit the headpost.

"You ready?" the blond asked, oblivious to Marth's and Roy's activities. After a while, one became desensitized to the image.

Roy scowled from the sound of wood smacking against plaster. "Don't you knock, Link? Seriously!"

Link sighed and folded his arms around the books tighter. "We've been through this a million times, Roy. In Kokiri Forest, we didn't—"

"—have doors, I know," Roy finished as he sat up. "But I would've thought that, after all this time, you would've, you know, learned to knock. Or read."

Link huffed. "I know how to read! I just figure that, if I don't hear suspicious noises, it's safe to barge in."
Obviously, Link never gave any thought to the fact that Marth and Roy were, nine times out of ten, rather quiet during any 'suspicious activities'. Roy was only somewhat loud at the end of them, and it usually involved some choice cuss words and Marth's name thrown in there somewhere.

Roy grabbed his school shirt and shrugged it on before buttoning it.

"Shouldn't you, uh, be ready to go, Roy?" Link asked as he shifted the books from one arm to the other. "It's nearly seven thirty, you know."

Roy glanced at the clock before searching for his pants. Marth picked up his bathrobe, draped it over the computer chair and went about straightening up the room instead. He often did this when there was nothing else for him to do, and Roy often watched from boredom. Often Marth would find a sock or something and start yelling at it, as if it offended his sensibilities or something. And very often, the sock turned out to be neither his nor Roy's. It was usually a green one, too, and neither of them owned green socks. Only Link did, and the whole scenario usually ended in Marth giving Link a lecture on keeping his laundry with his own stuff.

"I don't have to show up until ten thirty eight," the red head repeated from earlier. He found his pants, slid them half way on, and put everything into his bag for school. Stretching, he got up from the bed and pulled his pants up the rest of the way before buckling them.

Link raised an eyebrow. "Why, pray tell?"

"Exemptions are wonderful things, Link," replied Roy as he slipped his low-tops on. They were almost as tattered as his hi-tops, which unfortunately wore out to the point where they could no longer function as a sneaker. "Maybe if you got an A in the class, you'd be able to experience such awesomeness."

Link nearly dropped his books. Exemptions? He had never failed anything (except Algebra One freshman year, but since Link didn't care much about maths, he decided it didn't count), especially not in gym, which was a class he was good at. Clearly there was a mistake. There had to be a mistake.

This wasn't funny. This was serious business. And Link wanted to know who was in charge of making such a grievous error. Probably his gym teacher.

He would have to confront Samus about this.

-x-

"So how the heck did you get exempt from the PE exam?" Link asked at breakfast five minutes later, after he shoveled scrambled eggs into his mouth. Egg and bacon bits went flying everywhere, and Roy was glad Marth was still upstairs. He never did approve of Link's eating habits. He often scrubbed the table afterwards due to the mess.

"Because I was never absent for anything and I participated all the time," Roy replied. He was raiding the fridge for something edible – he wasn't a fan of eggs and bacon and he didn't trust Link's culinary skills. "You got a B the one marking period, so that brought your grade down, plus you didn't change the last two times." He found some left over ramen under the meat keeper and popped it in the microwave; Link got a second helping of eggs in the meantime.

"You have your Integrated Maths exam, don't you?" Roy grabbed the carton of orange juice from the counter and kicked the fridge closed from his scouring moments before. Link almost aspirated his eggs.

"Are you kidding me?" he wheezed as he tried not to choke. "I'm the only one who isn't failing. And that's saying something." He coughed and the bits of egg went down the right pipe this time.

The microwave beeped and Roy removed his 'breakfast' just after pouring himself a glass of orange juice. He grabbed a pair of chopsticks from the dish drainer next to the sink and sat down in his usual seat.

"Well… That's kinda sad," said Roy as he picked up a nice serving of noodles. "'S kinda sad and pathetic that people don't know four into two is two."

Link finished his second helping of food and stretched before standing. "We've got 450 kids in our grade, and I think numbers 440 to 449 are in my class."

"Does that make you 450?" Roy joked, and Link glared as he ran a hand through his now shortened hair, dirt blond from the lack of sunlight in the bleak winter.

"I'll have you know that I'm in the top fifty. Which isn't bad considering I was held back on account of my not being here for most of freshman year."

Roy slurped a stray noodle. "Good to know."

The Hero of Time looked about the room. "Besides, I'm sure the last ten people of our class are contemplating dropping out, anyway. Or they're waiting to be kicked out. With such a prestigious reputation to uphold, the Academy has to get rid of the people bringing it down, you know?"

Roy nodded as he finished his chicken ramen up and he noticed a certain blonde princess missing. "Hey, Link, where's Peach?"

Link grimaced. "She's gone on strike or something, last I heard. Said she hated cooking for people and not being told 'thank you' or anything. I had to cook my own stuff this morning."

"I bet you earned a Cooking skill point," said Roy sarcastically.

Link crossed his arms. "I'll have you know I maxed my Cooking skill, and it raised my Aspiration level."

Clearly they played too many computer games. Or maybe they just played too much of The Sims 2, where Link once made a Ganondorf sim and killed him in a stove fire.

Roy finished his ramen and placed his fish in the sink. "Anyway, if Peach has gone on strike, that means we'll have to fend for ourselves."

Link nodded. "Yep. We'll order take out for the rest of our days, get fat and lazy, and probably die from clogged arteries. I hope Peach knows that and sleeps well at night." He then stole a pack of Kit-Kats from the counter and took a swig of Mountain Dew. "The best after-breakfast snack is Kit-Kats and Mountain Dew. Mmm."

Roy looked a little grossed out, but said nothing. After all, he liked barbecue sauce on everything, so he couldn't exactly complain about weird eating habits.

And Roy wanted to know how the three of them could get fat and lazy since, well, they were swordsmen. You could tell just from looking at them that they either did Fencing, or perhaps kendo.

-x-

"Please make sure all exam excuse lists are submitted to the main office, otherwise the students will receive cuts for those exams and will be unable to make them up," the monotone voice said. Many complained about how lifeless the Wire Frames sounded, or how creepy that monotone was, but Master Hand was too lazy to create newer and better ones, and he had no resources to do so, anyway. Besides, the Wire Frames weren't supposed to sound human since, well, they really weren't. They were dolls, really. Living dolls that could talk and eat and do other human things, but there was no way you could mistake them for people.

Young Link scratched the back of his neck as he sat down for his first period exam. Like his older self, he didn't really wish to take exams at all. Unlike his older self, however, he was confident he'd pass his exam since he wasn't stupid. Sitting behind him was Ness, who was doing some last minute cramming. Sitting next to him was Lucas, who was totally not enthused about exams. He would have rather watched paint dry, or been abducted by aliens and probed. Popo was in the corner all by himself; he simply stared off into space and awaited his doom patiently. Smatterings of other first year Japanese students, like Alex, were filling in the rest of the space.

They weren't expecting to find a substitute sitting at the teacher's desk, especially since three of the students had seen their teacher just moments before. Did something happen to him…?

"My name is Miss Purell," the substitute said as she twirled a strand of strawberry blonde hair around her pinky. "That's purr-uhl, though my great grandfather did create the hand sanitizer. But that's not the point. Your Japanese teacher has been replaced once more by that…purple thing, according to Principal Karada, but he's decided to go inside a pokeball and get thrown off a cliff, so I'm here instead!"

Everyone stared blankly at her. Young Link sneezed; Ness blew his nose; Popo stared at the light fixtures, and Lucas raised his hand.

"Where'd Mr. Lowell go, then?"

Miss Purell grinned. "I think they said he went off to be, like, a maths teacher or that he, like, didn't show up or something. But that's not important!"

Someone took too many happy pills this morning, thought Young Link as he tapped his pencil against the desk top.

"…So you're gonna give us the exam?" Ness asked. He obviously cared more about taking the stupid test than about his teacher. After all, he didn't want all ten hours of studying to go to waste.

"I would, but, like, I dunno where the papers are, so, like, I'll just give you all A's. Is that okay?"

Ness jumped out of his seat and exclaimed, "What?!" Ironically, he was sitting in Marth's old seat, which was broken from Marth doing the exact same thing junior year.

Ignoring Ness's outburst, Popo asked, "Don't you have to hand everything in so the D.C. can grade it and everything?"

The substitute shrugged, and no one said anything. They didn't know how these things worked, anyway.

-x-

The trek to school was nice, for once. The sun's rays weren't too hot and the breeze wasn't too cold. Over all, it was an unusual day in January, but they enjoyed it whilst they could. However, it wasn't warm enough to go sans coats, so they were still in their jackets and hats and some were in scarves, but it was warm enough for most of the snow to melt. There were a few students here and there arriving or leaving, and they were too drained from exams or studying to say anything to anyone. Unless it was something crude or obnoxious, like Gary Stu Wesker being his normal self.

In short, they looked like zombies from hell. Except without the want for brains or the decayed skin, and the higher learning capacity (for most of them, anyway).

Roy and Link entered the warm and toasty building at ten o'clock, giving them twenty eight minutes before the first bell. Roy ran to his locker, his companion not far behind, and he unlocked his locker, shoved everything in there, and closed it.

"Your first period's on the fourth floor, isn't it?" Roy asked as he shackled his lock.

"Yeah," Link replied. "Yours is in the gym, eh?"

"Mm hmm."

Link looked behind him and saw everyone flitting about. Marth poked his head out of the English office and spotted Roy.

"Roy, can I see you for a minute?"

Roy looked puzzled and then glanced at Link. "Guess I'll see you later then?"

Link shrugged. "Guess so. I'll be meeting you here after second, so don't leave before I do."

Roy went over to Marth and together, they went to a deserted part of the new building.

"Now where'd we leave off from before?" Marth whispered in Roy's ear before capturing Roy's lips in a kiss that sent a shock down his spine.

-x-

Link sighed. "I'd rather be at home sleeping than here." He kept walking and went up a flight of stairs, right to the fourth floor. However, this way put him on the wrong side of the hallway, so he had to run around to the other side, to room 421. As he walked, he pondered what would be on his history exam. Ganondorf, just to spite everyone, would probably make it extra hard. He almost walked past his actual classroom and into the one next to it; he was a little too absorbed in his thoughts.

He'll probably make it super hard to see who'll stab themselves with a blunt object first. He managed to slide the door open and trip into the classroom.

Stupid metal track thing, he mentally screamed at the inanimate door track. It wasn't like it could really 'trip' him to begin with since it lacked legs, but then again, Link wasn't the most coordinated person on the planet, either. He then bee-lined to his seat all the way in the back of the room, where there were practically no empty seats – that was how small the room was. There in front sat Viviano and his friend whose name Link forgot, but they were equally stupid and probably – and this was what Link thought – shared a single brain cell. Towards the back corner was Brendan, and directly next to him was Gary Stu Wesker, the guy everyone hated. Especially if your name was Nicholas Leon Redfield.

Link sighed. Great. Eight minutes with these morons.

He wasn't sure where this pessimism came from; maybe he had a severe case of Junior Depressionitis. Or he just wanted exams to be over. Whichever.

-x-

Roy had just made it in time to his gym class when the bell decided to ring. He collapsed on the bleachers, but no one noticed, as was the Melee Academy way of doing things. Someone could cough up blood and have their head spin around a la The Exorcist, and no one would notice or care. Terry was nearby, and Roy was not in the mood to deal with his antics today. Not with exams eight minutes away.

"Well if it isn't Pherae," Terry greeted, scooting closer. Roy kept staring straight ahead. Many had often compared their rivalry to that of Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. The only difference between them, however, was that Malfoy was redeemed at the end of the seventh book. Terry had no hope.

"What do you want now, Bocheski?" Do I look like I'm in the mood to talk today?

He scooted over more. "Just a little info on how you and your boyfriend are doing." He sneered at the emphasized word.

Why the hell would you care?

Roy leaned into the bleachers and stared at all the frightened looking freshmen, being nonchalant as hell. He almost answered with, "We're doing just fine, thanks," but he remembered that no one knew he and Marth got back together. So instead, Roy said, "Boyfriend? I wasn't aware of my having one."

Terry snorted. "I'm sure." He was very sarcastic. "It must've been my imagination, then."

"Your imagination?" Roy was now staring at Terry.

"I and my fan club saw you and Marth – sorry, Mr. Lowell – holding hands last week," Terry went on to explain. "Now the whole school knows you and him got back together, thanks to our contribution to the school newspaper. I'm sure you'll enjoy the pictures I took and submitted…"

And with the bomb dropped and lit, Terry left after Samus called his name, not wanting to be caught in the impending blast and the huge amount of shrapnel. Roy glared at the brunet's retreating back and even growled.

You're bluffing, Roy thought as he turned his attention back to the frightened First Years. You're fucking bluffing. There was no one within a five mile radius of us when that happened.

-x-

Link couldn't wait to leave the class and go to his history exam. Viviano was discussing some of the questions on the exam, and Link was trying to control his urge to throw him against a wall and scream, "Are you an utter dumbarse or something to not know that seven times six is forty two?!" until he could understand how stupid he really was. They even had calculators, so there was no excuse for such blatant moronic tendencies.

He knew one day he would snap. He would snap like the snap of a bowstring being released after being held by an archer.

Instead he settled for banging his hand against the back wall. Repeatedly. Until it hurt like hell and he was more focused on the impending migraine than on Viviano's stupidity.

I hope to Farore you'll never breed, was all Link could think. The Goddesses help those poor children.

Link was contemplating suicide by a papercut to his carotid, and Roy was contemplating suicide using his tie.

-x-

Roy sat down in his testing seat at his lab table. Laid out on all of the tables and desks were scantrons, pencils, calculators, and the exam packet – Roy was surprised Bowser actually did something that made everything convenient for the student. There were five other people in the room, one of whom was Stephenie. This was her first exam as a girl since, well, freshman year. She happily wrote Stephenie Kennedy in the 'name' field on her scantron. The week before, she had gone to court and had her name reverted back to what it was legally after finding out her father wasn't dead. She doodled happily on her scratch paper.

A kid named Kevin sat down in one of the empty seats, took out his cheat cards, and glanced through the test.

"This thing is long as hell," he said. "And look at all this paper! You could probably kill a cat with this thing."

"I highly doubt that," said Thomas, a boy who looked like a wannabe 'gangsta'. "It just kills lots'a trees, is all."

The rest of the students entered, Bowser behind them. He grumbled in discontent as he slammed the door shut.

"You know the drill – no questions, no bathroom breaks, no humming, no talking, no cheating… When you're done, I don't care what you do, just don't kill anyone."

One guy with black hair mixed with streaks of red and one side of hair in front of his eyes put his machete underneath his chair. "Aww, that sucks."

No one said anything. As was mentioned before, the student body of Melee Academy of Higher Learning for Boys was not very observant. Albert Wesker, the head of discipline, could walk in shirtless, laugh dementedly, and jump out the window without a scratch on him and no one would acknowledge him.

-x-

In room 316, Link was concentrating on his History exam; he knew nothing on it. First of all, it looked like a bunch of gibberish, like the computer printer vomited all over the paper. Second of all, he wasn't even sure if they covered these topics in class – Ganondorf hated his class and so they rarely learned anything. Third of all, there were nine essays and they had to be written in three different languages.

Link then realized that he was the only one who had that exam – everyone else had a normal one.

Just because we're archenemies, Link thought as he began his third essay in Hylian, doesn't mean you have to be biased towards me and give me something stupid to do.

Ganondorf had his feet on his desk, his arms behind his head, and he was taking a nap. After all, he had nothing to do, and he didn't care if the room decided to spontaneously combust. Or if someone had decided to spontaneously combust. Either way, it wasn't his problem. There was a water fountain right next door – someone could get water to put the fires out. Or wipe the blood off the walls.

No wonder Ganondorf's students have a high suicide rate, Link thought, glaring at the warlock. He makes them do retarded things.

-x-

"Mr. Lowell, I have a question," one of the students in the back of the room blurted out. Everyone else in the class glared at him, and one contemplated throwing a desk at him for breaking his concentration. The people in AP Maths were hardcore like that.

"Come up here and ask me then," Marth answered, "so that you're not disturbing everyone else."

The boy named Radclyffe (his parents wanted him to be a 'special snowflake' and so they spelled his name funny) grabbed his paper and came up to Marth's desk.

"What's the problem, Radclyffe?" Marth said quietly as everyone else returned to their exams. Radclyffe pointed out the problem he was working on.

"Are you an utter moron?" Marth asked after he looked over the problem. Radclyffe stared him down as he waited for Marth to elaborate more.

"No, Mr. Lowell," Radclyffe murmured. "I reckon I'm quite, uh, smart. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't, sir."

Marth gawked at him. "Can you even spell 'smart'?"

Radclyffe beamed. This was his moment to prove he was indeed a very special snowflake. "Ess. Ay. Ar. Tee. 'Smart'."

Why did they pick me of all people to take over this class? These people are idiots.

"Don't ever become an English major, or do anything that requires spelling," Marth said. "Now, you use a calculator for this problem, and you use the log button, and it gives you the answer." He handed the exam back to Radclyffe. "Now sit down and finish your exam before I fail you." His voice was low and dangerous, and Radclyffe obeyed. He didn't want Marth yelling at him any more.

"My parents will sue the school for this, though!" Radclyffe said as he sat down in his seat. "I am not a moron and I will not tolerate being called such!"

Marth, however, didn't care. He had had parents bitch at him before. It was nothing new.

-x-

In room 404, Roy and several classmates turned to page eleven and noticed something funky.

What the hell? The questions are repeating themselves!

Apparently, his teacher decided to take the lazy route and copy and paste previous questions. Some even had answers in the questions. Or there were no answers to the questions.

I think he did this on purpose. There's no way someone didn't notice this. None. Unless they were stupid.

Kevin let out a sigh of aggravation and threw his pencil across the room. It ended up killing Machete Kid somehow. Not like anyone noticed or really cared. In fact, most didn't notice he existed, so it wasn't like he was missed. Besides, he was failing the class anyway, and he was in the bottom twelve as far as his class rank went. He slumped over and blood squirted everywhere, and yet still no one noticed.

Except Roy, who noticed everything. The kid sitting behind Machete Kid was getting soaked in blood and he went on with the exam.

There's something wrong with this school, thought Roy. No one was this oblivious before.

Either Tabuu had some diabolical plan, or it was coincidence that people became more and more unaware of their surroundings right after he took over as principal.

Or they were just that unobservant. After all, just because Melee Academy was a so-called 'prestigious' school, didn't mean they didn't have their fair share of moronic people.

-x-

Link was once again listening to his Nintenpod Mini Nano Shuffle, plugged into the sound as he always was. He leaned against Roy's locker and waited for him; he bided his time by scrolling through all 24,098 songs (12,049 of those songs were techno). And that was only half of the music on his Nintenpod. In any case, anyone who might have walked past probably heard the techno music blaring from the tiny earbuds as if they were right next to the stereo monitor. It was amazing Link hadn't gone deaf and the next town over couldn't hear it.

Now the halls were empty, save for him, some kid attempting to clean out his locker, and the janitor, Mr. Six, whistling a little tune as he rolled a trash can to each classroom. The enhanced acoustics made for a very eerie sound, and it was set up like your average B-rated horror movie. Except without the horror stuff. Link didn't notice the distinct lack of much noise because he was too absorbed in listening to 'What Hurts the Most' by Cascada.

"'What hurts the most was being so close,'" Link sang as he danced like someone in a commercial for iPod probably would. "'And having so much to say… Watching you walk away…'"

It was probably a good thing there was really no one around. No one (save for that locker kid and the janitor) needed to see Link dance around in an empty hallway and look like a moron. Roy and Marth didn't realize how lucky they were in not being there at that exact moment.

"Where the heck is this kid?" Link muttered as he stopped dancing and switched the song to something slower instead. "The dismissal bell rang ten minutes ago, that's how long I've been standing here, and he's not here." He folded his arms and continued with his rant. "If he's off screwing Marth in the faculty room again, I'm gonna just…leave. Just walk away and leave them and then they'll have wished they were on time." He checked his watch. "I mean, I have things I want to do, like cram for tomorrow's exams, and study up on how to make some lobster, and screw my boyfriend, and yet I'm waiting here." He tapped his foot impatiently as if to emphasize that point. "Waiting. I hate waiting."

Link was beginning to wonder if Roy and Marth had left without him. Or maybe, just maybe, when Link was so absorbed in his dancing, he missed them. Both were unlikely, but there was that chance of it happening. He sighed.

This is the last time I wait for you guys, he thought. And if you knew Link well, you would know that Link would forget he ever had such thoughts, and tomorrow he'd be waiting by their locker, sitting there, like an obedient puppy promised treats on his master's return.

He could have left, but he didn't. All because he was too nice of a guy to just walk out on someone. He was the good guy.

At least that's what he thought.

-x-

"Took long enough to find you."

Marth finished filling out what looked like a cut slip and put it with his attendance sheet. Then he stood from his desk, grabbed a stack of books, and placed them in a box labeled 'old textbooks' in curly, very neat handwriting. The way he continued to carry on with his work made Roy think Marth hadn't heard him, and so he entered the room.

Marth placed other things from his desk into another box, this one unmarked, oblivious to anything else in the room.

"What's with the box?"

Marth almost didn't hear him. "Hmm?"

Roy inched closer and wondered if Marth developed some sort of hearing impairment. "I said, what's with the box?"

Marth stopped what he was doing and focused on Roy instead. "Packing," he said nonchalantly as he ran a hand through his hair. He looked and sounded as if the very idea of moving to some other classroom bored him. And maybe it did, because let's face it, packing for anything wasn't very exciting to begin with.

"For what?" It intrigued Roy enough, though. Why the hell would Marth be packing, anyway? Did he decide Mewtwo was right about the whole 'teaching' occupation? Was Marth moving to a different classroom? Maybe even a whole different department? Or perhaps he wanted everything in big ugly boxes for organizational purposes? There were so many questions running through his head, and so many different answers to them. And knowing Marth, it could be any one of them. Or all of them, if it suited Marth enough.

Marth continued to pack and flitted about the room to grab various last minute things, unaware of all the questions Roy wanted answered.

"I'm leaving."

Well, thought Roy, that's certainly descriptive. That tells me a hell of a lot of information.

"Leaving where?"

Marth closed the box and left it there on his desk. Mr. Six would bring it to his new place in the morning, or at least that was what Tabuu told him.

"Well," Marth began, finally having a spare moment to focus on something other than what went in what box. "Tabuu wanted me moved to another department. There's a severe understaffing problem at the moment, and Bowser's decided to drop teaching and stay at The Manse and do nothing, so… So I'm going to be a science teacher."

Roy looked dubious. "Like… For how long?"

Marth shrugged and then grabbed his coat. "I don't know. Probably until they can find a permanent replacement."

"Knowing Tabuu, that might take a million years," Roy muttered, and then stifled a yawn. Marth, meanwhile, slung his bag onto his shoulder and made sure his things were in order.

"Possibly," Marth answered as he placed an arm around Roy's shoulder. "But what does it matter? I'd be out of a job otherwise if this hadn't come along… You have everything?"

Roy gestured to his lone bag, slung on his back. "But then you could've just meandered around The Manse instead."

Marth flicked off the lights and the sunlight from the window was their only light source now. "I'm the type of person who needs something to do or I'll go crazy."

"You could've studied something new or something."

Marth hadn't really thought of that. "I'd probably get bored of that very quickly, despite the fact that I don't mind learning new things. Now let's go home before Link has a conniption and thinks we got abducted by unsavoury charlatans or something." He guided Roy out the door and down the hall to the stairs leading to the new building.

-x-

Link was still on the fence about whether or not he should leave the school or continue waiting for his best friends. He stood there in front of the opened locker and had a mental battle with himself so horrible that, well, the Spartans themselves would probably blush and hide behind their bronze plated shields. And the Spartans were not ones to blush in the face of bloodshed, so this was a pretty epic battle.

"Shut up!" he cried, not meaning to scream out loud. Being caught talking to yourself is embarrassing enough; to be caught screaming at yourself is ten times worse. Worse than your pants falling down in public in front of the police and several small children. Lucky for Link, there were no people around. His boyfriend left him to his own plans and Roy was still nowhere to be found.

That bastard. Link must have been pretty agitated to swear – the Hylian rarely used such awful vocabulary.

Then, finally, Roy and Marth rounded the corner together.

"Do you know how many times I nearly got accosted by a freaking cardboard box waiting for you two?!"

Roy sidestepped the seething blond and got his Pre-Calculus stuff from his locker.

"No idea," Roy said after he shoved everything into his bag and locked his locker. "How many?"

Link balled his hands into fists and looked like he would scream at any moment. "Five times."

"Oh," was all Roy could say. "That sucks," he added as an afterthought.

Link shouted something in Hylian and stomped off ahead of them. He refused to talk to them the entire journey home and instead talked to himself.

I think Link's cracked, was all Roy could think. Either that or he didn't have enough Mountain Dew this morning.