A/N: Thank you to the reviewers, you guys are awesome as always. Here is the Thursday update.

Real quick announcement: November starts NaNoWriMo. If you do not know what NaNoWriMo is and you're a writer, punch it into google and find out, then participate! And if you do know what it is and you're a writer, I suggest you participate! Anyhow, I plan on semi-participating this year. I won't actually be starting a novel, I plan on writing the 1600 words a day in the form of short stories that I hope to post on my blog...yes, I have a blog. If anyone's interested, here's the link (remove spaces...): www . dastardlyreads . com

I update it infrequently, (no time, I swear) and some of what I've written recently is crap, but hey, go see what I do when I'm not writing fanfic.

Chapter beta'd by Greg, huge thanks to him. He didn't really like this chapter, so I hope you guys at least enjoy it...

Read.

VII.

It was almost eight o'clock and Jimmy would have to go meet his 'students' soon. He sat outside the community center gnawing his inner cheek raw and ragged, staring distantly at the gray horizon, which splintered with a pinkish hue as the sun rose. He'd spent the entire night ticking off the hours, and he wondered how he might look at that moment, sallow skin and bloodshot eyes. Maybe it would work for him, maybe his students would see him as the eccentric fighter and listen to his every word out of fear he might snap and kill them all.

Or maybe they would see him for what he really was, a worthless kid too afraid to sleep at night.

All around, Jimmy could hear the 2nd Mass stirring to life. He sniffled, his nose running from the nighttime chill, and his shoulders tensed a moment, then he lifted himself up and stretched. He could smell breakfast cooking; they would be having canned beans apparently. Several civilians were already wandering around camp, beginning their daily chores.

Jimmy wandered around the community center, brow furrowed, nodding acknowledgment to passerby that offered him a 'good morning'. He spotted a small gathering of fighters around the backside of the building and meandered towards them.

"Hey, Jimmy, how's it going?" the first one to notice Jimmy greeted.

"Hi guys," Jimmy returned, shoving his hands in his pockets and scrunching his shoulders up meekly as he questioned, "Any of you got a cigarette?"

One of the boy's, a blond named Mick, raised his brow, "You're still smoking kid? I'd hoped you'd of quit by now."

Jimmy shrugged response, accepting an offered cigarette from the darkest featured of the gathered boys, Tony.

"What?" Tony pressed when Mick smacked his shoulder and gave him a meaningful look, "He's more likely to die by Skitter claws than lung cancer. Let the kid have a smoke."

"Besides, I'm down to like one every few days," Jimmy added, then set the cigarette betwixt his lips and prompted, "Light?"

"Only thing left in this world in abundance: cigarettes and porn," Helena, the only girl in the group, commented, "What'd'ya suppose that says about our society…or the one that we had before?"

Mick tugged a lighter from his pocket and flicked on a flame, igniting the tip of Jimmy's cigarette. It burned a cherry red, and Jimmy took a short drawl, removing it anxiously between two fingers and quickly expelling the smoke.

"You know, they say these'll stunt your growth," Mick remarked, indicating the cigarette in his own hand, and Jimmy rolled his eyes, taking another toke.

"I started smoking when I was eleven, whatever damage it'll do is already done," he remarked easily.

"Shit. Eleven," Tony gaped, and then teasing, "So you were always a little punk then, huh? And here I thought the war was what hardened you."

Jimmy shuffled uncomfortably and flicked the ashes off the tip of his cigarette, taking a long drawl and savoring the feel of the smoke curling its way down his throat and warming inside his chest. He'd never mentioned things like that before, never talked about himself before the invasion, not that it usually came up in conversation, but it was easier for him to just keep it all bottled inside and pushed into the darkest recess of his mind, hidden away from even himself. Lately, it had been coming out more and he wasn't sure how he felt about it.

"Advanced team is on its way out," Helena noted and the gathered fighters all turned to follow her gaze across camp.

Jimmy felt his heart jump to his throat at the sight of Ben, wandering towards the bikes with Hal, where Dai and Pope were waiting. He lowered his eyes and flustered, taking several quick hits off the cigarette, just barely drawing the smoke in before violently shooting it back out.

Ben hated when Jimmy smoked, commented once that he could taste it on his tongue like a thousand ashtrays. He only said it the once because Jimmy had avoided him for two days afterwards, smoking the entire time out of spite, but the words lingered in the back of Jimmy's mind, a constant stinging rejection.

"It seems weird," Helena whispered, "Trusting our lives in the hands of that kid. It almost doesn't seem right. He's so young, you know?"

"Better him than me," Tony mused, with a careless smirk.

Jimmy flinched, taking one last drawl of his cigarette, before stubbing it out on the wall and sending a dark look at the older boy.

"It is better him than you," Jimmy noted sharply, "We'd all be dead if it was you. Thanks for the cigarette, asshole."

"What's his problem?" Tony murmured to the other fighters, who shrugged response.

Jimmy shoved his hands in his pockets and stalked up towards the community center, watching out of the corner of his eyes as Ben mounted one of those bikes and kicked it into gear, then the four together roared off down the road and into the horizon. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Ben was off to do his job, now Jimmy just needed to focus on his own.

Inside of the community center, there was more hustle and bustle, civilians rushing around attending to their daily activities. Many of the younger children had started up a game of hide-and-seek, and were running rampant through the halls, laughing and playing without a care in the world. One of the small girls raced around a corner, ramming headfirst into Jimmy, and he just barely caught her before she tumbled back to the ground.

"Watch yourself," he warned, straightening the girl and ruffling her hair. She grinned up at him impishly, squeezed out of his grasp, and sprinted off down the corridor. He smirked; shaking his head, then scowled and set his eyes forward, stalking along his own path.

Outside of 9C, Jimmy paced uncertainly. He reached for the knob, hand shaking, pulled back, and shook his head, paced a few more times. He wasn't entirely certain that someone was waiting on the other side of that door, but he didn't know if he could go in and face them just yet.

Personally, Jimmy didn't know any of the other unharnessed kids. He wouldn't be able to pick them from the crowd. He had known a few things about them, that they were all roughly his own age, maybe a year or two older. Two of them were boys, two were girls. Weaver had given Jimmy their names, brief descriptions, and a quick overview of their personalities – not that Weaver was the most reliable source on such information. Jimmy honestly wasn't entirely sure what to expect of them.

Jimmy sighed, rubbing his hands together, and deciding it was time to bite the bullet; he was already ten minutes late. He placed his hand on the knob, gave it a twist, took a deep breath, and pushed the door in, entering the classroom.

Four pairs of eyes turned onto Jimmy the instant he tentatively stepped inside the room, eight bright spotlight beams burning a hole right through his humility. He let the door shut heavily behind him with a click that resounded loudly in his ears and he pressed himself instinctively back against it, sweeping his eyes over the four teenagers before him. His first impression of them was not a polite one: haggard, weatherworn, rough around the edges. If it were at all possible, they looked worse off than any other member of the 2nd Mass.

In a way, their disheveled appearance made sense and Jimmy felt he should've foreseen it.

When Ben had been unharnessed, it was to be returned to his family, his father and brothers. When the others rescued along with him were unharnessed, it was to be returned to no one. Half of the 2nd Mass made it publicly clear they didn't want the unharnessed children there, the other half were outwardly congenial, but they wouldn't go out of their way to ease the unharnessed children's experiences in camp.

So where did that put those four teenagers? Between a rock and a hard place. Jimmy had been there – an orphan himself. He understood; he imagined their first impression of him was not unlike his own of them.

It took him a moment, but Jimmy actually recognized them. He had seen them hanging out on the outskirts of camp, the fringe of the 2nd Mass. They were always together. To be honest, he'd never taken much notice of them; there were a lot of loner types in the community. People tried their damndest to get along with one another, but small cliques naturally formed. This clique, however, had probably formed by default than out of an actual close kinship developed over time and fueled by complimentary personalities and shared interests. On the outset, they were quite an eclectic group. So distinct from one another were they that Jimmy had no problem identifying each one from Weaver's descriptions.

The tall, lanky boy with stringy brown hair was Douglas, he was fifteen. He had been the shortest of the children when rescued, but shot up nearly a foot and a half seemingly overnight a month or so ago. He had a long face and huge chocolate brown eyes that stared blankly, taking in the world in large gulps. In an odd way, he reminded Jimmy of a moose. Weaver had warned that Douglas was very cynical, perhaps because he was the most intellectual of the four, and that Jimmy should be prepared for his bouts of depression and lengthy pessimistic diatribes. Jimmy was kind of hoping that would give them a common ground. Douglas had taken a seat on one of the desktops, arms folded in his lap.

Next to him sat Gia. She was fifteen as well. She had her thick black hair wound in tight knots all over her head; her skin was a pretty bronze-mocha color that shimmered in the low morning light streaming through the classroom window. Her eyes were a light green, striking against her dark skin. She had a high forehead and cheekbones, slim, tiny nose, her lips were full and deeply rouged, and she was slender, but stocky, with well-defined muscles evident in her bare arms. Weaver had mentioned that she was like a wild cat personality-wise and Jimmy instantly thought of a puma when he saw her; dangerous, quick-tempered, she appeared a bit long in the tooth and gave the impression that she might pounce at any moment. Jimmy probably wouldn't be getting anywhere near her any time soon, she made him nervous with her unpredictable shifting gaze.

Hovering in the back was little Kelsey, youngest of the group at fourteen years old. She had buck-teeth and untamed strawberry blonde hair, the type that frizzed to gigantic proportions in the humid summer and lay damp in the winter. Her eyes were small, brown, and flighty; they reminded Jimmy of a rabbit's, always darting about at every tiny movement. She was the second tallest of the four, coming up to just about Douglas's shoulder, but in the way she held herself, she seemed the smallest person in the room. She seems sweet at first, Weaver had mentioned, but she's got a bite to her. Jimmy wasn't sure what the captain had meant but he made a mental note to remain wary of the girl, it was always the quiet ones, after all.

And then there was Roman. He was sixteen, a few inches taller than Jimmy, compact, bulked with lean muscle. He had a square jaw and broad nose. His eyes were a copper-hazel color; they glinted in the sun like a hawk. His expression was hard-lined, an intense grimace fixed firm and unwavering on Jimmy and Jimmy felt a flutter in his chest. He had to swallow down hard the stir of foreign, unfamiliar emotions within him. He'd thought only Ben could pull off a burning gaze like that, and he found himself instantly disliking this older boy. Weaver had said, 'Roman is the one you need to win over, gain his trust and the others will follow his lead', but Jimmy wasn't certain he could manage speaking to the boy, let alone stand in the same room as him.

But Ben was out there in the early morning risking his life for the 2nd Mass – hell, for all of humanity, Jimmy reminded himself, and somehow that was all he needed to muster his courage, clear his throat and step forward.

"I'm Jimmy," he announced. The four teenagers glared at him, blank-faced and clearly unimpressed. He fidgeted with his sleeves, nibbled his inner cheek and more quietly than he would have liked, explained, "I'm supposed to train you guys to be fighters."

There was a long, drawn out silence, stretched over the span of time it would take to run Jimmy over with a bulldozer, back it up, and run him over again. He drew his breath in and let it out slow.

"You're a kid," Douglas finally spoke up, pointing out the obvious. Jimmy flinched at that then perked a brow.

"So are you," he returned sharply.

"Yeah, but…" Douglas scoffed, "I don't sound like Mickey Mouse."

Jimmy opened his mouth, no sound came out, so he clamped it back shut hard. He blinked once, and shook his head, flustered. He did not sound like Mickey Mouse. At least, he was fairly certain he didn't. Sure, Douglas had a much deeper voice than him, but it wasn't deep enough that he should be so proud of it, and Jimmy still had some growing left to do, his voice would get deeper, and god dammit, why was he arguing about this with himself?

"How old are you?" Gia queried in a sumptuous voice, slipping off the desk and sauntering towards Jimmy. Subconsciously, he took several steps away from the advancing girl, watching her warily, while darting uncertain glances to her friends.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Jimmy answered, putting a desk between himself and Gia, leering at her from across it. Her lip curled up in a half-snarled smirk.

"That means you're younger than us, doesn't it?" she surmised.

"Age doesn't mean a thing," Jimmy bristled, "Some of the best fighters in the 2nd Mass weren't much older than fifteen when we started out."

"There's no way you're fifteen," Douglas commented.

Jimmy smoldered, a heat slowly building in his veins. He narrowed his eyes on the older boy and bit out, "So? What's your point?"

"Oh isn't he cute. Got a little bit of an attitude," Gia teased.

"Fuck you," Jimmy spat out and Gia reeled back from his words, her expression flipping instantly into a fierce glower. He took a step away from the desk between them, dropping his chin down and peering up at her through loose strands of shaggy brown, heart pounding vicious in his chest, and hands in loose fists at his sides. His mother had always told him to never hit a girl, but Maggie once advised, 'hey, if the bitch strikes first…'

"Oh, you did not just say that to me, little boy," Gia hissed.

"She doesn't like foul language," Douglas cheerfully informed Jimmy, bouncing on the balls of his feet and looking positively giddy at the sudden prospect of violence breaking out before him.

"You're Jimmy Boland, right?"

Every one froze at the sound of that low, throaty voice; all eyes were instantly on Roman. He was lounging casually back in his seat, the perfect picture of boredom. His eyes swept lazily over Jimmy, scathing and searing everywhere they roamed. Jimmy struggled to breath, he knew he was trembling and could only hope it wasn't too visible, but from the careless smirk on that older boy's lip, he knew it was.

"Rumor has it you blew yourself up," Roman said.

There was a question in that statement, but although Jimmy could easily guess what it was, he wasn't all too clear on the motive behind asking it or what exactly Roman hoped to assess from Jimmy's answer. Gia and Douglas glanced to one another, and then turned their scrutinizing stares back on Jimmy. He squirmed involuntarily from all the attention, color warming his cheeks.

Jimmy had never given anyone a full account of what had occurred in that warehouse, mostly because he didn't personally want to relive that day or the blurry ones that followed, but partially because it would have cast troublesome accusations onto a fellow fighter who in many ways made the best decision – though debatably not the right one – that he could have in that situation.

However, apparently Jimmy had left enough clues behind for people in the 2nd Mass to speculate something close to the truth; the detonator was found under a pile of rubble in the warehouse basement floor, there weren't many logical reasons why that would be.

"Is it true?" Kelsey piped up suddenly, her voice barely louder than a whisper. She stood beside Roman, chewing her thumbnail to its bed, her beady eyes boring in Jimmy, interested, appraising. Jimmy shrugged, shuffling back a step or two and lowering his eyes.

"What do you think?" he muttered.

Douglas coughed, to unsettle the phlegm in his throat, and Gia paced back and forth around the desk where Jimmy had left her. Kelsey sighed.

"Not possible," Roman decided.

"Then I guess that's the truth," Jimmy replied flatly.

Roman snorted, soft and without noise, and tilted his chin to the side, glaring sidelong out the classroom window. Jimmy dropped his eyes to the ground and shoved his hands into his pockets, having nothing else to really do with them.

"I told you guys it didn't happen," Gia exclaimed, "People are so stupid. There's no way a scrawny runt like him gets caught in an explosion like that and walks away."

"It could've happened," Douglas argued, "The explosion wasn't complete, and they said the warehouse didn't collapse entirely. If he were standing in the right place-"

"Weaver must think we're all stupid," Roman silently lamented and the squabbling teens fell silent again, looking to their friend curiously. Jimmy peered up also, a brow quirked. "We're supposed to learn how to be fighters from you? Some snot-nosed brat? And what does he expect? That we should hero worship you because of some lame-ass fairytales floating around camp about you saving the 2nd Mass a few weeks back? Maybe you weren't even in that building, hell; maybe you weren't even the one to push that button. Maybe you got lost, pissing out back, while the real fighters were down on the battlefield, and Weaver just came up with that story about you bringing down that building at the right time so that we would all go back looking for you because, God forbid, he lose his little lapdog."

Jimmy raised his eyes to meet with the older boy's, a chilly hailstorm raging in their blue depths. They stood there, deadlocked a moment, until Jimmy broke away first, shaking his head and muttering, "Whatever."

It wasn't worth it to argue. Part of Jimmy figured that maybe it was better they thought that of him. He didn't want that moment to go down in history as his crowning achievement anyway, not when he'd rather it was scored from memory. The only real hero was Ben, and everyone always forgot it.

"I'm not here to prove myself," Jimmy grumbled, "I'm just here to train you."

"What if we don't want you to train us?" Roman challenged and he might as well have just kicked Jimmy's legs out from under him, not that he had anything to stand on walking in that room from the get-go anyhow.

"You guys want to be fighters, well, I can teach you everything you need to know to do it," Jimmy stated plainly.

"So can a lot of others around camp," Roman pointed out.

"True. But no one else will do it," Jimmy returned, fixing Roman with a meaningful glare, and if the words came as a surprise, or hurt the older boy in the least, he showed no signs of it, "Look, no one is asking you to like me. All that's being asked is we put up with each other for a short period of time, maybe a week tops, I'll show you the basics, then we'll go our separate ways and you'll never have to see me again."

The four were silent. Douglas, Gia, Kelsey, they all had their eyes on Roman, awaiting his next move. Roman gazed out the window, setting and unsetting his jaw. Jimmy fidgeted with the edges of his sleeves, chewing his inner cheek until the tangy taste of blood spilled onto his tongue, waiting for a response he was starting to suspect would never come.

"Tell me something, brat," Roman suddenly said in a quiet tone, "Why did Weaver choose you?"

"What?" Jimmy stammered, furrowing his brow.

Maybe it wasn't an odd thing to wonder, but Jimmy thought he'd made it fairly clear that he was the only one that would train the four teenagers in the room and they had to know why no one else wanted the job. Did Roman really want him to say it aloud?

"Rumor also has it you hang around that razorback a lot."

Jimmy's blood ran cold.

"Ben," he corrected, trying to keep the angry shake from his words, his hands balling instinctively into fists at the off-handed slur, even as his brow furrowed in confusion at it. Couldn't these four also be called that same terrible word?

The other three teenagers had their eyes on Jimmy again; there was a strange darkness tainting their features. Roman, however, seemed suddenly disinterested in the younger boy altogether. He stood slowly, lazily, from his seat, and strolled towards the classroom exit, a faint smile on his lips. His friends shuffled after, falling in line behind him.

"Right," Roman murmured, as he breezed past Jimmy and swept the door open, "Benjamin Mason: the razorback."

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A/N: And there you have the four unharnessed kids that Jimmy must train. Feel free to bash on them I suppose. Someone asked if Rick was going to be one of the kids Jimmy trained and as you can see, the answer is no, but he will be in this story. I'm not sure how prevalent his presence will be, because I'm still debating on the role he'll play, but I'm leaning very heavily towards him having a semi-big role. Because I liked Rick, he was interesting, and he was one of the few characters that got to be explored more than other that were killed off in an untimely fashion...ahem.

Right, let me know what you guys think. Review, people, review!

And to the reviewers: FacePalmer123, lol, yes, you are young, but youth is no excuse! And I'm okay with being hated...just don't take my cookies away and we're all good. Game of Thrones, huh? Never read it, but I understand it's very good. ScarlettLynne, yeah, older siblings seem to just be there to grate the younger's nerves, right? Actually, being an elder sibling, I kind of understand Hal's perspective...but being a younger sibling too (and thus, a middle child like Ben) I can of understand Ben's side too. About Pope, no, he doesn't strike as a person to fall into prejudices, but he does strike me as a realist and a self-preservationist. Ben was obviously changed by the harness, and no one is quite sure to what extent, so it would make sense to me that he wouldn't trust Ben. He tried to drive Tom from camp because Tom was the aliens' hostage for a short time, and Tom had no obvious changes made to him. Good luck on your homework! Haley, I'm glad you felt bad for Hal too, even tho he's a jerk, there's not many with sympathy for him. IcicleLilly, oh, I'm happy to hear you think Hal's character is accurately portrayed. Yeah...Jimmy doesn't find out about the lying in a pleasant way either. WhisperMaw, missed you last chapter, still distracted by the baseball? Well, I'm glad you liked that passage so much, you're a bit of an angst lover, huh? Which is cool, because I got some very angsty scenes coming up in this story that I'm hoping you'll dig. Heracratzarism, yeah...Hal and Ben do that a lot in this story. I almost think that's all they want to do...no worries though people, there will be some nice, touching brotherly-love (not in the incest way) moments in this story too. And there will be moments with Matt also, of course.

Right. I have to get breakfast then go to class. Need...coffee...desperately!