"It's Maverick," Luke explained. "When I got here this morning, I waved to him and said 'good-morning' like I do with all of my friends. He responded by sucker punching me in the gut and telling me to-" Luke stopped to clear his throat and impersonate Maverick's voice: "never talk to me here".
Peter and Axel were silent at this story. They couldn't believe it. "How can someone who is supposed to be 'noble' do such a horrid thing?" Peter asked. Axel opened his mouth to chime in, but before he could say anything, a voice at the front of the classroom cleared its throat, to get everyone's attention. The teacher had entered the room, and the bell had rung, Axel, Peter, and Luke had not heard it though.
The teacher, Mr. Webster was one of the longest-serving teachers at this school. He taught both English and Mythology classes. He was maybe in his forties. He was a studious-looking man in a blue blazer. He entered the room with a white coffee mug that read: "I'm silently correcting your grammar". A thin trail of smoke came from the cup, showing it was fresh and hot. He set the cup down on the desk and pulled out a grey cloth and cleaned the lenses of his horn shelled glasses.
"Good morning class," Mr. Webster said. The class echoed the pleasantry back, but some of them were not genuine. For them, it was just a societal norm. Mr. Webster sat down at his desk and the classroom's door opened. A girl clad in mostly black entered the room.
"Morgan, you're late again." Mr. Webster declared. She casually walked by him and took her seat without a word to anyone. With that, Mr. Webster began to go into the day's lesson plan.
In truth, Morgan had not really changed much since they day Axel met her at Arthur Elementary School. She still wore predominately black, accenting maybe with purple on occasion. She always wore black nail polish. Axel never did find out why those older students did as she asked and tried to beat him up. But, when he looks back at it, if it wasn't for her, he wouldn't have met his best friend.
Mr. Webster turned on the projector and an image appeared on the board. The image was of a creature that seemed to be a mixture of a cow and a person. The whole class, other than Morgan looked at it intrigued. Morgan was silently filling her nails during the lecture while she propped her feet up on the empty desk in front of her.
"This is the Minotaur." Mr. Webster explained. "It is the offspring of Pasiphe and a snow-white bull. It was imprisoned in a labyrinth by Pasiphae's husband, and one of Zeus' many children, Minos. Upon Zeus' instruction, the Athenians had to submit to Minos' demands after they killed his firstborn son. Minos demanded periodic sacrifices of, every, depending on the source up to nine years. Each sacrifice had to be of seven young men, and seven young women, all of whom had to go into the labyrinth and be sacrificed to the Minotaur.
The Minotaur eventually met its demise at the hands of Poseidon's son, Theseus. Theseus had brought a ball of yarn with him when he was to be sacrificed and used it to find his way back out after he defeated the monster." Mr. Webster went on to explain more of the aftermath of what happened to the hero after his escape. before going on to talk about other creatures from Greek myth.
Before long, the bell sounded dismissing the students. They all started to collect their things and head for the door. When Axel filed out from the room he set out to find Maverick and decided to find out why he attacked Peter like that. After all, they can't be fighting amongst themselves.
Axel found Maverick standing off in a corner brooding. Many students were going out of their way to avoid making eye contact with Maverick. He certainly did have many of the students here scared to even look at him, that was for sure. Axel approached Maverick and cleared his throat.
"What?" Maverick asked irritated at Axel's presence. His eyes glared at Axel as if he had just kicked a puppy. This glare did not intimidate Axel, however, who quickly went into what he wanted to say.
"Luke mentioned to Peter and me today that you were rude to him and punched him in the gut." Axel stopped and looked around to ensure that no one was eavesdropping, which they weren't and continued. "We are a team now, we can't fight evil if we are fighting each other." Axel was trying to sound like the confident leader he wanted to be seen as, to try and help keep the peace between the members.
Maverick was unhappy about how this conversation was going. "Helping with the monsters is one thing, but let me make this clear: you four are not my friends. Keep me out of the Kumbaya circle, alright?" Without waiting for an answer, Maverick turned around and walked away. A few students at this point realized that Axel was talking to Maverick, and didn't get beaten up. these students were intimidated by the brooding bad boy and feared him rearranging their faces if they so much as accidentally bumped him.