"Before we begin, I have small presentation to share to you." Yuuki and Rachael's professor sat on the edge of his desk and placed an empty jar on the surface from his bag. "Is this jar empty?"
Everyone chorused a 'yes', watching warily. Not even the twins knew what this was.
Next, he produced a bag of ping-pong balls, and dumped them into the jar, barely filling it up one third of the way. "And how about now?"
Some people hesitantly said no, others stayed silent, and the twins narrowed all six of their eyes.
Next, a cup of gravel was added, filling the gaps in between the balls. "And what about now?"
The class stayed silent, listening intently.
Sand from another cup, collecting right on top of the gravel and balls. "And now, is it still empty?"
The jar was quite full, but nobody answered. They didn't know the correct thing to say.
Finally, he produced a bottle of beer. Opened it and poured it right into the jar, which filled it right to the top, making the sand seep into the cracks in a gooey sludge. "Now, is this jar finally full?"
Everyone said yes at the same time, all of them nodding while staring at him expectantly for the point of the muddy, gravelly jar of ping-pong balls and a wasted bottle of really good beer.
"What this jar symbolizes is you." He explained. "The ping-pong balls are the important things. Yourself. Family. School. The gravel is the less important things, your job, your car, your house." The professor clasped his hands together after placing the empty beer bottle aside. "The sand is the stuff that's not important. If I put the sand in first, I wouldn't have been able to fit the balls in, nor the gravel. This is a metaphor, about your priorities. Prioritize the important things first, and the rest will just fall into place. Worry about the small stuff, you can't deal with the really important stuff."
"Sir, what about the beer?" A guy asked.
"It's to show that no matter what, you'll always have room to go for a beer with a friend after everything's settled." He smiled as he stood up. "Welcome to the Social and Cultural Studies elective course. In this class you will learn about the ever evolving concept called culture, both locally and abroad. Even this very classroom is a culture."
He clapped his hands together once, staring them each in the face for a moment before continuing. "Now, I'm Professor Glen, I'd like to start by learning everyone's names, and where they're from. I see a diverse mix of students befitting of our class culture. We'll start here, young man, and go by rows. When it's your moment on the spot, please stand up so everyone can see you."
With that, the students gave their name and where they were from, mostly LA itself, but a few were from out of state, and one girl was from France. When it was the twins turn, they both stood up, which raised a few eyebrows.
"We're the Darkwood twins, I'm Yuuki, the older one." Yuuki began, smiling slightly.
"I'm Rachael." Rachael laughed at Yuuki's intro for them both. "We were both born here in LA, but we're originally from Raccoon City."
"Yo, Darkwood?! For real?! The T-Ghouls n' shit?" One guy asked in awe, and the girls nodded.
"Yup. These aren't contacts." Yuuki indicated their six glowing eyes with one hand. "And the sparkling in our hair aren't glitter either."
"Well, I must admit you are the first celebrities that I've had the privilege of teaching, ladies." Professor Glen nodded at them with a smile. "I hope that your perspectives offer new knowledge for the class to learn from."
"Hey, by all means, just don't swarm us for pictures and autographs. We're still regular people, y'know." Yuuki held up her hand to give a dismissive wave. "Sorry about the sidetracking, sir."
"Good morning, students. Welcome to 11th grade Mathematics." The teacher stood with her hands on her hips at the chalkboard, her voice already clipped with that teacher tone to render them quiet. "In my class, you get assigned work in every class, and you get homework every week on Monday that carries you until Friday, to hopefully leave your weekends free for yourself. If you do the homework on Monday, it'll be out of your way for the whole week. Now, come get a textbook and I'll begin today's lesson."
Valentine shook his head slightly as they all stood up to go get the books, commenting in Russian to Sheva, who was quickly learning the language from the entire Darkwood family. "She must be a fan of the show."
As Sheva giggled in reply, their teacher's gaze snapped to them and she spoke up sternly. "Ladies, for the sake of everyone in the class, I ask that you solely speak English."
"I spoke too soon." Valentine smirked as he switched back to English, earning another laugh from Sheva. She was the only person in the class that had been in his classes for the previous school year, so nobody seemed to know them, especially not the teacher.
Under the rigid structure of her teaching style, the bell to signal the next class seemed to rear out of no where for the students, having already received their homework for the week before beginning their day's assignment itself. Valentine and Sheva heaved a sigh as they shoved the textbooks into their bags and went into the hall, sharing a quick kiss before heading in opposite directions, ignoring the catcalls and glares from other students - mostly guys - that had witnessed the apparent lesbians sharing a kiss.
"If only they knew..." Sheva commented to herself in Russian as she hurried to her second class, Visual Art, a credit she had neglected to take for some time now. When she arrived, she sat at one of the heavily paint-splattered and equally grafittied work tables while her teacher was busy gathering some supplies from the storage closet at the back corner of the room.
"I was beginning to worry that you didn't like art, honey."
Sheva knew right away that Serenity was sitting on the table beside her before even looking up to see her beaming smile, which she returned sheepishly.
"Kinda wanted to get the boring stuff out of the way first." Sheva replied, relaxing slightly. Of course Serenity would be here for a guest appearance. She'd been doing them for years, even back when she was still human in Raccoon City.
"I'm surprised Val's not taking this with you. I can sense him on the other side of the gym, what's he taking?" Serenity's gaze lingered in the direction that Sheva had originally come from, clearly sensing Valentine's T-Virus.
"Metalworking. Just like Dad did in 12th grade in Raccoon City, right?" Sheva laughed slightly at the sudden twinkle in Serenity's eyes.
"I still remember that day, and the little metal rose I made for the presentation. Gave it to him at the end as a joke." She laughed as other students began filing in, then switched to speaking in low Russian. "You want a ride home for lunch? Or did you bring one?"
"I did... but I forgot it, yeah. That'd be great, thanks, Sere." Sheva nodded as Serenity winked and faded out of sight, since she'd been cheekily casting a Photokinetic illusion around Sheva and herself the whole time, to seem like Sheva was on the phone to her.
"Now, ladies and gentlemen, the art department has called in a guest speaker to give a short presentation... Mrs. Serenity Cora Avalise-Darkwood." Their art teacher stood at the front of the large classroom, glancing around the room to find the elusive woman that had been here just a moment ago...
"Art... so dynamic, yet rigid... shapeless, evolving, ever broad." Serenity's voice spoke up from the middle of the room, still invisible as she slowly wandered around the walkways between the tables, flickering in and out of her illusion to draw their attention. "Yet traditional, static, even unorthodox. Like the human mind, it is unique to the individual as what they perceive. From a picture in the margin of a notebook, to a figurehead on a ship, the form that it may take is different, but the person that made it started with the same thing... Inspiration."
She fully appeared beside Sheva, one hand on her shoulder, the other on her own hip. "So tell me... are any of you inspired by something? Something that drives you, gives you that purpose! To create bigger and better, more beautiful things? I'm inspired almost every single day... Are you?" She knowingly let her gaze linger on you for a moment, a small smile tugging at her lips.
Valentine arrived at his metalworking class with a smile. The familiar air of a workshop put him at ease as he stood with the entirely male students gathered at the entrance while their teacher, a big burly man with a tribal tattoo on his left forearm, approached them from the nearby office.
"Alright gents... lady. Bags go by the door for today, but after today you ditch them in your lockers before class. I don't mind if you're late by a couple minutes for that. Now, long hair, jewelry, and all that need to be properly secured. Young lady, you'll need to put all your rings and bracelets in your bag for today, get into the habit of it, alright?" He stared directly at Valentine, with his heavily laden fingers and wrists, plus his lacy black gloves just like his oldest sister was practically infamous for wearing at all times.
"You needn't worry about that, sir." Valentine ignored ths snickering of the guys around him. "And as hard as it may be to believe... I'm not a girl."
"Uh huh..." A slow nod of acceptance. "Alright, young man... get yourself sorted, everyone else stand at a workstation."
"Like I said, sir... you needn't worry about that." Valentine repeated his words curtly. "Or do I need to prove it to all of you that I'm not just some ditzy femboy for you to act all misogynistic with?"
"There's no need for that, just for safety..." The teacher began, but suddenly Valentine's T-15a3 extended from beneath his white off-shoulder sweater, locking into place around his torso and limbs as he put both hands onto his hips in a very feminine sternness.
"I work for the BSAA as one of their top engineers. This is my personal T-15a3 Exosuit... That I designed for the BSAA to replace their T-13's. Among other projects, of course. I would appreciate the proper respect that this entails. This class is far less intensive, let along strenuous on my capabilities, nor my existing adherence to safety procedure."
"Prove it, twink." One guy challenged. "My dad's in the BSAA, Delta Team's sniper."
"My dad founded the BSAA, you insolent worm. He's Alpha Team Leader." Valentine flicked his wrist to send his BSAA ID card spinning towards the cocky kid, who fumbled to catch it before realizing who he was talking to as he read the photo ID with several other guys peering over his shoulders.
"Oh."
"Care to explain to me what this is, Zenith?" Alex Wesker glared at her son, who accepted the brandished photograph, examining it closely.
It was a recon drone shot, of Rachael Darkwood walking across the college campus with a very Aryan young man about her own age, sans her older twin, Yuuki. It was dated less than thirty minutes earlier, in LA's local time.
"I see one twin... But not two. Unusual, but I see no additional points of interest." Zenith shook his head and placed the picture on their kitchen table, in their home in Berlin.
"Why does that young man look so much like you?" Alex demanded, frowning at her son.
"Coincidence? He's blonde and seems to have blue eyes, not exactly uncommon in combination, let alone the fact I'm several years older than he seems to be. Not to mention I am taller than Rachael, and Yuuki, by an inch and a half. He seems to be shorter than her by at least that much."
"A mother knows her son... and that looks just like you." Alex pursed her lips, stepping away from the table to take a steadying breath, collecting herself. "So it's just a coincidence that he looks like you? Are you absolutely positive?"
"I haven't been to North America. Ever." Zenith replied. "The only time I haven't been by your side is my trip to South Africa at the end of August. I highly doubt the twins' Hydrokinesis could handle that dry heat for very long, let alone the fact they traveled to Africa in the first place."
"It's a 62% match though..." Alex's cyberbrain's results of comparing him to the picture were too high of a match to overlook.
"And compare it to Father's other son, Jake Muller, Yuuki's boyfriend. We are both reminiscent of him, and if compared, we're both more than 50% of a match to each other." Zenith pointed out. "And it's just one young guy her age, it's irrelevant in the bigger picture. What would he be, at best? A fellow student? Dare I be bold and call him her boyfriend? It doesn't matter, he's a civilian... a mere human, at that. A Ghoul at best."
"You're right... I apologize, I'm overreacting." Alex sighed, then recalled another question she wanted to ask him. "Has the ship reported back yet from the Pacific?"
"I told them not to report back yet..." Both of them shared a glance at the sound of that voice they knew so well speaking from the front entrance of the home.
Albert Wesker, in a clean black suit with white shirt and a red tie, smirked from behind his also brand new sunglasses as he slowly strode into the kitchen after his two year stint at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. "Honey... I'm home!"