Chapter 24

As she predicted, Monday was terrible, and she still had three periods left before the day ended. Valerie poked at her lunch, nudging around overly dressed bits of lettuce from her salad with a plastic fork, as she thought about the events of the day thus far. She arrived at the school like usual, braving to walking through the doors of the building with some hesitation. Paulina gave her a quick glance, almost tried to smile before she walked off with Dash in tow, perhaps both wanting to avoid having to be part of the In crowd that would inevitably harass her for her now loser status.

Kwan did offer her a smile, able to get away with it when the rest of the A list, and the school for that matter, wrote him off as a dumb jock. Valerie knew he was more than that but allowed him to keep that image he built up since they entered high school. She might have fallen in social status because of the belt tightening she had to do with her father out of a job, but that didn't mean she had to drag down the people around her that she still thought of as friends.

Calvin, unfortunately, caught Kwan's smile and slapped the other jock, hard, on the back of the head as he told Kwan to stop being a dumbass and treating losers like actual people. Kwan winced, rubbing his head as he walked off down the hall, and Valerie felt guilty that he got hurt simply because he happened to be a nice guy.

Calvin then decided to start with the harassment, approaching her with some snide comment about her being out of money and asking if she was going to have to drop out of school and get some lame-o job because she was poor now. Valerie responded, with a flat glare, by slamming her locker door shut on her his hand. From Calvin's vow to make her pay for that, Valerie almost worried that she made a mistake with that gut reaction. But she didn't regret getting to see that pained look on Calvin's face the moment the locker door connected with his hand. Lancer merely gave her a warning glare when he passed her after the incident, but there was a certain hint of pride in his eyes, like he was happy that she wasn't going to tolerate the jock's bullying, but of course, he couldn't condone her actions of hurting another student.

"Oh my god," Star's exclamation grated on Valerie's nerves. She barely lifted her green eyes to the blonde, who stopped in front of the table where Valerie was eating alone. Star placed a hand on her hip as she glanced at the other woman at her side. "Can you believe she's wearing that? It's so last year." The two women giggled at what they probably thought was a well thought up insult, but it was nothing compared to the cutting remarks that Paulina could think up when she truly wanted to hurt someone. Curiously though, Paulina hadn't been making the effort for quite some time, which Valerie decided to be thankful for now that she was on the receiving end of the A list's cruelty.

"Yeah, kind of like that nose of yours," Valerie responded dully. "I mean, wow! You've had that one for at least a year now. Aren't you going to go crying to daddy and beg him for another nose job?" The gapes of shock and horror playing on their faces would have brought a smug sense of superiority to her not long ago when throwing mean comments at the losers. But now she only felt numb, like she was hardening herself to prevent the insults of the In crowd from breaking her, slicing into her the way her words did to other losers. Let them come at her with whatever pathetic barbs they had. She would prove to them that they couldn't cut her down.

"Come on, Star," said the other woman with curly red hair. "Let's go." She sneered at Valerie before directing the shocked Star toward the In crowd's table. Valerie watched them leave with a scowl on her face. While she hung out with Star as part of the A list, Valerie never really cared for the blonde woman, who seemed to be too much of a sheep to be interesting at all. The In crowd had a lot of sheep, all following in line with trendsetters like Paulina.

"Nice burn."

Valerie twisted around on the bench as she looked to whom spoke. Sam slid onto the bench next to her, setting down her tray filled with what looked to Valerie like she dug up a chunk of dirt from the football field and slapped it down on the lunch tray. Turning her head forward again, she found Danny and Tucker settling onto the bench across from her.

"What do you losers want?" Valerie asked, finding that she lost her appetite completely.

"Uh, you're a loser too now," Tucker pointed out as he lifted his big, juicy burger to his mouth. "Ow!" He winced, and Valerie suspected, from the glares on the other two teenager's faces, that his friends kicked him under the table.

"You know, when you like some, it's generally best not to insult them," Sam said smugly as she twisted the cap off her water bottle. Tucker spluttered as his cheeks darkened a few shades, which made Valerie groan internally. The techno geek was pretty obvious when it came to what woman he had a crush on, but Valerie had no interest in the loser.

"We saw the way Calvin, and Star," Danny threw a glance at the In crowd's table, "were harassing you." When he turned back to Valerie, there was an odd look in his blue eyes, like he somehow felt guilty about Valerie's situation. "We thought you might like some friends to hang out with." He smiled in that stupidly awkward way he had sometimes.

"I don't need you losers." Valerie grabbed her tray as she stood, giving the three friends a withering glare.

"See? I told you it was pointless, Danny," Sam said before Valerie even got out of earshot of their table.

Frowning, Valerie dumped what remained of her lunch in the garbage. It wasn't really that much, a half eaten salad and nearly the crust of her ham and cheese sandwich and some sludge that she couldn't identify. The school still maintained the same barely edible lunch menu it had for the past fifty years, despite an attempt from Sam to make it into an ultra recyclo vegetarian menu. No one in the school was very pleased with that experience.

Valerie left the cafeteria, hands tightly gripping the straps of her book bag. This day couldn't possibly get any worse. The A list she knew she could handle, no matter what sort of harassment they might try to use on her. But actually having losers trying to move in and be her friend was a fact that she overlooked. Why would those three even want to be friends with her? Sam was always quick to throw back insults and antagonize her. Tucker was irritating with his tech obsession and terrible attempts at flirting. Danny - Valerie pondered him for a moment as she walked through the quiet, empty halls.

Danny was a dork, clumsy, and weird. That wasn't surprising though when he came from a family of freaks. His parents having that crazy obsession with viruses and claiming that they could extract viruses and programs from the NetZone, give a physical humanoid form to them. That proved to be true, but that didn't make them sound any less crazy. Jazz actually seemed like the most normal, despite some social awkwardness and constant over analyzing of everything. Danny was just - Valerie couldn't think of how to describe him. He had a sort of air of mystery about him that she couldn't really explain.

With a sigh, Valerie stopped in front of her locker to unload some of the books that she wouldn't need for her remaining classes. School somehow felt more tiring as a loser, but maybe that was because of having to put up more of a defensive wall about her to stave off the comments from the A list. The door banged shut after she finished putting the thick, heavy textbooks into the locker. She turned down the hall, pondering what to do with the rest of her lunch time when movement in the corner of her eye distracted her. Glancing toward the right, she froze at the sight of the spider that was nearly as bigger as her head slowly lowering itself from the ceiling on a thin wiry white string of webbing.

The size alone wasn't the only oddity to it. The black spider had bursts of green light dancing over its body in a pattern that looked an awful lot like the type of pattern she would expect to see on a computer circuit. Valerie backed away from it until her back pressed against the wall of lockers. As much as she wanted to get her vengeance against Phantom, she still didn't have any means of actually fighting against viruses.

"Shit!"

The muttered curse snapped Valerie's head around as Phantom darted down the hall, firing over a ball of green energy from his hand. It sailed through the air and struck the spidery virus, sending it flying down the hall. Phantom's usual visor was absent, the remnants nothing more the jagged edges of translucent green at the sides of his head. A gash ran down over his face, his left eye clamped close as a thick clear substance oozed from his wound like some kind of mucus. Strange whitish green sparks radiated from the injury, dancing over his body and making the program twitch at times as he approached her.

"Get out of here," Phantom ordered her, watching as the spidery virus started skittering toward them again. He raised a hand to fire at the spider racing toward them, but his energy ball fizzled out as his body convulsed and he dropped to his knees with a shout.

Valerie managed to inch slowly along the wall because the spider was growing bigger, bits of it shifting and building upon itself until it loomed over them. Phantom looked rather pathetic in that moment, like she could easily just doing a karate chop to the back of his neck and knock him out. Valerie paused in her crawling escape to stare at Phantom. She could easily take him out at that moment, but there was still the matter of that other virus, which now filled the hall.

Vibrant green eyes snapped toward her. In a flash, Phantom was on his feet again. He grabbed hold of her by the wrist, ignoring the shout of protest, as he yanked her away in time to miss being crushed into the locker when the spidery virus attacked. Running behind him, Valerie gritted her teeth as the sparks of electricity spread from the rogue program and stung as it flickered across her exposed flesh. Phantom turned the corner, grabbing her about the waist and pulling her out of range, using his body to protect her when the spider smashed into the corner, spending chunks of brick flying around the hall.

"Let go, you vicious vaporware!" Valerie twisted her arm, trying to yank it free of his tight hold.

"I'm trying to protect you," Phantom argued as he pulled her along down the hall again to get away from the virus.

"You've done a wonderful job," Valerie stated flatly with a glare. She would have wondered why no one was coming out of classrooms to see what the commotion was, but teachers tended to keep students in the classroom to avoid them getting hurt when a virus attacked the school. Phantom's grip on her wrist, which would probably leave bruises, was impossible to break. Valerie tried to pry his fingers from her wrist to no avail. "Just let go already!"

Something surged through her body, feeling like fire running through her veins while freezing at the same time. She screamed, or thought she did. She couldn't hear anything beyond a rush in her ears. Then her back slammed into the ground, knocking the breath out of her as a lingering tingle made her body feel twitchy. Her eyes were clamped shut, and she slowly opened them, squinting at the world above her. The faded blue of what could be a sky spread wide overhead, and she wondered how she ended up outside until the white circuitry of the sky came to her attention. She sat up suddenly, her head spinning from the action. Her green eyes darted around, taking in the sight of the blocky world that looked like nothing she was familiar with. What kind of world was this?

Upon hearing a groan, Valerie twisted around to find Phantom lying on his back behind her. He sat up, holding his head, and his wound continued to ooze with that mucus looking goo. She shot to her feet and crossed the distance between them in an instance. Dropping on top of him, legs straddling his chest, Valerie slammed him back onto the ground before Phantom could fully sit up. Her eyes glared coldly down while confusion played across her face.

"Where did you bring me?" Valerie demanded, shoving him harder into the ground.

"I didn't-" Phantom's denial was cut off by an angry growl.

Valerie lifted her head and gulped at the large green dog towering over her. Scrambling off Phantom, she tried to put distance between her and that vicious looking dog. Phantom looked like easy pickings at the moment, but the dog looked like it would tear her legs right from her body in one sharp tug.

"Cujo, no!" Phantom shouted firmly as he got to his feet, pointing a finger at the dog. With a whine, the dog sat on its haunches before shrinking down into a much smaller dog, practically a puppy. Once the dog was no longer a threat, Phantom turned toward her. "Val- uh," glowing green eyes looked away with a certain awkwardness about him, "lady I've never met before. I don't really know what happened." He turned his gaze back to Valerie and frowned. "Humans shouldn't be able to enter the NetZone."

"The NetZone?" Valerie screamed, shooting to her feet. It wasn't until that moment that she finally looked down at herself. She nearly jumped in fright at her appearance, the strange black and red suit that reminded of something that a virus would be seen wearing. Her arm shot out as she pointed a shaking finger at Phantom, rage burning in her eyes. "What did you do to me?"

Phantom blinked in surprise at her question. "You - You think I did this?" he demanded, slapping a hand to his chest and looking completely hurt by the accusation. "I didn't do anything! I don't even know how we got pulled in here. I didn't plan for that to happen. I was just trying to get you away from that virus before you got hurt."

"You're the one that ruined everything!" Valerie shouted back at him in fury. Her hand clenched tightly, and it surprised her when something sprung from her wrist. It looked some kind of weapon, something that she would expect to pop up from that annoying Skulker virus. A grim smirk slid onto her face. If this strange suit had weapons, maybe she could utilize it to her advantage. And her first priority was taking out that one that ruined her life. The weapon charged with a whine, and she watched the shock flash over Phantom's face.

He dodged out of the way as a blast of pink energy fired through the air from the wrist ray. There was a look in his eyes when he rolled onto his knees. The green dog was back in its larger form, growling angrily at her. She wasn't going to let her prey escape while it was right in front of her, and now that she knew she had weapons, the dog didn't seem as scary to her. She fired at Phantom again, following his moments as he dodged her attacks.

"Hold still!" Valerie shouted before having to dodge herself when the dog tried to attack her. That was the moment Phantom chose to go on the offensive. His energy ball slammed into her side, tearing a scream from her as she skidded over the ground. That strange feeling she had before, that fiery freezing sensation consuming her body for a brief moment that felt like hours to her. She slammed into something hard before dropping to the ground on her hands and knees. Her eyes blinked several times, staring at the tiled flooring of the hall of Casper High as the weird black and red suit faded out in fuzzy blocks, leaving behind a watch upon her wrist.

Pushing herself back to sit on her legs, Valerie glanced up and down the hall, looking for Phantom, for the dog, for the spider, but it was empty. She frowned as she thought over everything that just happened, her gaze dropping to the watch that displayed a black screen with a red V upon it. Her fingers brushed over the surface of it, tracing the letter. Her jaw set as determination burned in her eyes. Phantom would regret giving her the power of a virus. She would make sure of that.

swagdanny: I'm glad you like it~ 8D They have more depth to them than just being bullies~ orz I, like, can't read fics with them being nothing but horribly mean jerks.

DARKLOVEFORFANFICTION123: Yeah, Valerie... She doesn't have it easy. =( But I still think she's a strong character. I mean, she could have sat around wallowing in her loss of popularity, but she didn't. She took control, even if it meant jumping to the wrong conclusion and thrusting blame onto someone else. orz ;;

Silluevenperrosygatos: 8D Thank you! =) Sadly, from Valerie's point of view, she doesn't see Phantom as a protector. orz *pats Dash* He'l find someone.. I hope. D8 Thanks! *blushes* I'm glad you like my writing!

maltese: Or it could be him or him or even him! 8D;;; Thanks! =)

midnight: So different from how 14 year old them are to 18 year old them, huh? XD;; Well, like, in Lucky in Love when Kwan got booted from the A List for a while, Dash looked really guilty about having to cut out his best friend. =( That part always makes me sad. orz *ponders for a moment* I don't really remember them bullying Valerie after Shades of Gray, now that I think about it.

Sammi: Sometimes I fear I play them too nicely. orz But... I just can't see them as heartless jerks. You know? =( Valerie just has her aggression misplaced. DX