(A/N Well, 'ello, my ragamuffins! (I don't know what that means, just heard it somewhere) In case I insulted any of you, I can make it up to you with this new chapter! Read on, my friends!)
Disclaimer: It's not mine. Neopets, I mean. Like, nothing's changed in the last week; I still don't own it. Yep.
Defenders of Neopia 2: Brotherhood chapter 8: No hard feelings.
After Jeffory's meeting with Luneth, life was certainly easier for him. He no longer was forced to listen to the wretched voice taunt him day in and day out, he didn't have to control his temper to the point that he felt like a hippie, and best of all, he could sleep in peace, without fear of the Void. Yes, the last four days had been some of the best days in Jeffory's recent memory.
On top of his usual studies, Jeffory had to train very hard. A week from now, teams in their second year at the Academy were participating in an exam. Every team that was qualified would face each-other in a sparring match. Three commanders from three different Academies were going to be there to judge each teams performance. Every team that did well enough would be allowed to join more advanced classes, giving them access to better missions. Naturally, the students were excited: doing well in this exam would get them one step closer to being true Defenders.
Among other things, Jeffory had generally been a lot happier. His friends had been caught off-guard by his new-found positivity. He hadn't told them about his dream with Luneth, and decided he would keep it that way for now.
Jeffory rolled out of bed the next morning. Today would consist of the usual training regimen: Breakfast, training, lunch, training, dinner, sleep.
Well, that's what was supposed to happen.
"You're not serious!" were the first words out of Jeffory's mouth that fine morning. "Why would I lie about this?" Hunter responded, looking offended. Jack, who had been lying face-down on his bed said, "Because you wanted to get back at us for putting a mootix in your soda yesterday." Hunter opened his mouth to respond but froze. He looked at Jack and said, "What, wait?!"
Jack blanched. "So, the exam..." Hunter shook his head. "Look, it sucks, but there's nothing we can do. Larx is commander; what he says goes." Jeffory could only sigh. Just because Larx was commander, it didn't mean he could just do whatever he wanted! Well, it did, but that was besides the point.
After cleaning up, the trio went down to breakfast. On their way down, they passed by Scott, Tom and Josh, the latter was being dragged along by his hood by Tom who looked less than amused. "Ow, ow, ow, OW!" Josh cried as he kicked his legs violently, trying in vain to escape the older teen's iron grip. Jeffory rolled his eyes, as he moved next to Scott, who looked more than a little embarassed to be in the same vicinity as them. "What's up with these two?" asked Jeffory, curiosity getting the best of him.
Scott groaned. "Oh, Josh dumped a cup of water on Tom's head while he was sleeping. Tom's taking Josh to the bathroom for a swirly, now," he explained, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Jack, who had sidestepped the two teens, arched a brow. "Uh, shouldn't you be, I dunno, stopping him?" he asked in confusion. Scott shook his head. "Nah. See, if I got in Tom's way now, I would be in his other arm headin' to the same place," he explained. After a pause, they all nodded, accepting his logic.
As they rounded a corner, Tom dragged Josh in the other direction from them. They could now see Josh's face as he waved pitifully at them, ceasing his futile efforts. The party just shook their heads and waved back. After this little detour, they all climbed into the elevator, making idle conversation. And yes, the hoagie VS. sub debate came up, yet again.
When they exited the elevator, Jeffory had his ears plugged. Even Scott had joined the discussion, making Jeffory wonder what he had done to deserve being stuck in a small elevator with these three. Jeffory surmised that he had done something in his past life to deserve this. Yeah, that must have been it. As they walked into the cafetieria, they dodged the throngs of students in a hurry to get their breakfast and start their training.
As they piled into the cafetieria, they met up with Kendra who looked exhausted. "Kendy, what happened to you?" asked Hunter, concerned. She sighed. "I was up last night working on my magic..." she said softly, trying not to draw attention.
After she awoke from the coma, she had begun trying to use more spells. Given the fact that her horn was broken, the most she could use was a weak fire spell. She was guilty for falling into a coma and causing her team to go on their mission to the Station alone. She claimed she was "Going to make herself useful". Jeffory thought it was bull. She was more than useful already and he didn't believe she had to feel guilty at all.
They eventually got their breakfast and (with much difficulty) made their way to an empty table. Jack almost immeadiately began stuffing his face with his pancakes, causing Kendra, who was sitting next to him, to make a sound of disapproval. To Jeffory's surprise, Jack acknowleged this and ate at a much slower pace. Hunter and Jeffory looked at each other, both thinking the same thing. Jack was so whipped! Jeffory grinned at Jack in an evil way, which caused the oblivious mynci to tilt his head to the side, much like a confused puppy.
Scott sat down in the remaining empty chair, next to Hunter. He had a plate of waffles, piled high enough to rival even Jack's plate of food. Almost as soon as he had sit down, Kendra asked, "Where's Tom?" This got her a weird look from most of the group and an irratated look from a certain mynci. "...and Josh?" Kendra added, trying to make her question seem not as strange. It was a nice try, at least.
"Tom is currently in the bathroom with Josh," Scott said simply, not realizing how weird that had sounded. He just got blank looks from everyone at the table; even Jack had stopped shoveling food into his mouth to stare at him.
"I mean he's giving Josh a swirly for dumping water on his head when he was sleeping," Scott corrected his earlier statment. Kendra still looked a little disappointed that Tom wouldn't be joining them for breakfast while Jack, on the other hand, looked quite pleased.
The team spent the next couple of hours training with each other. Sometimes, they would spar with the other students and other times, they would practice alone, simply working on their technique. By the time they were done, it was already past noon. The exam was at 3:00pm, meaning they had enough time to go clean up and rest before it was time to assemble in the conference room for their briefing by none-other than Commander Jerk-face himself.
Jack, for the fiftieth time, voiced his opinion on the exam as he, Jeffory, Hunter and Kendra made their way to the conference room. "I mean, Larx coulda told us at the beginning of the week that we had some field exam to do!" he complained. Jeffory couldn't help but agree, it was very sudden. Kendra, on the other hand, thought differently. "Jack, our training as future Defenders is very important; being prepared for the unexpected is part of the job," she stated, getting a whine from Jack. Hunter nodded. "Yeah, I bet this was to weed out all the trainees who weren't cut out for this job." Jeffory nodded at him. At another whine from the mynci, Kendra continued. "Well, I agree Larx can be a bit of an..." she trailed off, trying to find the correct word. Jeffory jumped in. "Ass?" he suggested, getting snickers from Jack and Hunter. Kendra wasn't as amused.
"No, smartass," she replied, catching them all off-guard. Kendra wasn't much for cursing, but sometimes, Jeffory and his partners-in-crime deserved such nicknames. "I was going to say extremist. But he is doing his job correctly at the moment," she explained. Jeffory simply huffed. He wasn't willing to compliment the Commander, or side with those who would.
"So, we are fighting as a team, right?" Jack asked. The entire group face-palmed. "Dude, you are so hopeless!" Jeffory groaned. "What?!" Jack asked, oblivious. "I just told you what we were going to be doing, WHILE we training! Why did we just work on our TEAMWORK?!" Hunter questioned, completely baffled by Jack's lack of listening skills.
"Sorry! I wasn't paying attention!" he defended himself, holding up his hands. Hunter sighed. "As usual!" he muttered under his breath. Jeffory rolled his eyes. "You guys are wasting our time by arguing like this!" Kendra complained. Jeffory nodded. "She's right. Keep it up!" Jeffory encouraged. Kendra's head to snapped over to look at him. "Wha-?" she exclaimed. "If we're lucky, we may miss Larx's speech!" Jeffory said, quite happily. Kendra sighed. "You are all so immature..." she sighed.
To Jeffory's displeasure, they got there before Larx had even arrived. He would've hoped to miss at least the first hour of it... "Dang, this is packed!" Jack said, surprised. The conference room was extremely crowded. Almosy every student in their second year and higher was here. The room itself was fairly large, but unfortunately, there was an even larger amount of students to fill it up. "Kendra, you're smart; where do we si- Kendra?" Jeffory was going to ask his telekinetic friend where she thought they could sit (he was too irritable to worry about doing it himself) but she had wandered off.
"What the-?" Jack asked, only to let out a low growl when he saw her making her way through the crowded room to Tom, who was sulking in a corner. Jeffory could only sigh when he saw Jack's face turning red with anger before he childishly huffed and looked away from the two. Hunter nudged Jeffory's leg, causing Jeffory to look down at him. "Hmm?" he asked, having to raise his voice over the chatter. "What are we gonna do about that?" he asked, gesturing over to Kendra and Tom who appeared to be-surprise!-flirting with each other. Jeffory looked back at Hunter, wondering what he was getting at. "What if we have to fight Scott's team in the exam? How do we know Kendra's not going to be conflicted about fighting her 'boyfriend'?" Hunter asked. Jeffory let out a long sigh. "It's not like we're going to be fighting to the-dude, watch it!- death anyway," Jeffory said, pausing only to snap at a rather rude Meerca who bumped into him.
Hunter nodded. "Yeah, but still..." the kougra sounded very worried. Jeffory couldn't help but feel it too. These exams were going to be tough, and not just becuase they may have to fight some of their friends; Larx would be rating them. This meant that the team would have to have a very good performance in able to not be disqualified.
Jeffory, Hunter and Jack (who was dragged along by the back of his collar), made their way through the large crowds, finding a nice corner to settle in while they awaited their commander. Hunter exhaled loudly, enjoying the less crowded-feeling air. "We can finally like, breath!" Jeffory exclaimed; he had never enjoyed tight spaces very much. Hunter rolled his eyes. "You can talk goodly..." he mocked, earning him a whack on the head. Jack was still abnormally quiet.
Jeffory decided not to get involved with it at the moment; Jack needed to think about whether or not Kendra was important enough to him to tell her how he felt before Tom took her away from him.
Suddenly, the door burst open and in came Larx, looking harsh as ever. His usual sneer was on his face, and his arms were crossed, almost as if he was uninterested in doing this sort of thing. The room grew silent as he looked over his students.
"Greetings," he said, spreading his arms wide. Well, as wide as a chia's arms could go. "as many of you know, I am Commander Larx. You may adress me as 'Sir' or 'Commander', understood?" he informed them all. "You have all been called here today beacuase of the Exam," he explained, placing his stubby little arms at his sides again. "in this exam, each team here will judged on their performance against another, randomly selected team. I, myself, will be judging you. If I like what I see, you will all move up to the next class".
He decided to pause for dramatic effect. Jeffory was pretty sure a punch in the face would be dramatic enough.
"This means you will be given more advanced missions, bringing you teams closer to becoming true Defenders of Neopia in the future."
With that, Larx finally ceased to drone on. Jeffory had to force himself from cheering. Next to him, Jack was glaring over at Tom and Kendra. It was obvious who he was hoping to face off against. Jeffory, however, didn't think facing Tom was a good idea; he was a fierce fighter with strentgh and skill. And not to mention a little older than Jeffory's team.
Larx opened his mouth, yet again. "Without further ado, please turn your attention to the monitor in the center of the room..." Larx told them all curtly.
A monitor came down from the ceiling, blinking to life. On it, there were all of the team's leaders faces. The screen began shuffeling them around. After several seconds, the screen stopped shuffeling. Now, the opponents had been set. On the left side of the screen, Jeffory saw his face along with several others, some of which he was acquainted with. On the right side was the rest of the teams. He immeadiately saw Scott's face on the other. He gulped when he saw an arrow extending from his face to Jeffory's.
At least Jack would be happy.
(A/N Please leave a review, and I will see you all next week.)
LaDude out.