A/N: Big thanks to my friend mon-ra for helping me refine this chapter.
Chapter 3: The First Day (Part 1)
Ah, A. Nigma High. I guess you could consider it as your typical high school if you ignore the fact that our mascot is a Tatzelwurm (Lisa and Lucy have been dying to see it for different reasons ever since I told them). When it comes to freshman years, the Loud and Ping houses have had some harrowing tales. Lori was mercilessly hazed due to her appearance (I'd provide pics but I value my life), but she was able to pull through thanks to some love from all of us and the mystery guy who ended up being her boyfriend (don't know if I should pity or salute the guy). Leni ended up repeating the grade, in which Mom and Lisa swore that they'd get her to pass. As for Luna & I, we along with Cam fared little better; the only bright side was that we made it through with new loyal (if a bit eccentric) friend. And for what awaits Luan, well… You'd find that we'd be spending a lot of time together (not to our liking or choice). And it all started with the first day for the rest of our lives…
– –09/10/2012– –
The tires squealed as the black SUV came to a sudden stop in front of the school front. Almost immediately, the sole son of the Ping clan hopped out of the vehicle.
"Remember Lee," his mother instructed, "you best keep your GPA above 3.5 this year."
"Yes, Mom," Lee sighed before walking off while his mother drove to the nearest parking lot.
His spirits soon lifted as he spotted his hermano de otra madre, Cam who was wearing a faux hair-lined, red-orange coat over his regular garb that made him look larger than he was.
"Yo, Lee, what is?" Cam welcomed.
"Hey, man," Lee returned with a fist bump. "Ready to start the year off right?"
"You know it, bro," Cam answered. "We've got driver's permits to earn, house parties to crash, and miles of chiquitas to woo. Speaking of which, when are the Louds going to show up?"
As if on cue, a certain baby blue Honda Odyssey rolled up where Lee's ride once was, and three young ladies dressed in different hues emerged. "I'll catch up with you girls when I've finished parking," called out the voice of the now sole occupant of the vehicle before it drove off.
"Ask and you shall receive," Lee stated as he and Cam waved at the new arrivals.
"Hi, Lee! Hi, Cam!" Leni waved back in a ditzy manner.
"What's rockin', dudes?" Luna greeted while throwing up the horns.
"Hey, guys," Luan spoke, ready to hit them with a joke as they all walked inside. "What do you call a group of stoned fish?"
"¿Qué?" Cam broke into his mother tongue in confusion.
"Here we go," Lee sighed having already figured out the punchline.
"A high school! Hahahahahahaha! Get it?" Luan guffawed, earning a collective groan from her sisters and peers.
"I'd hold off on the jokes if I were you, dude," Luna suggested.
"Why?" Luan asked. Her musical sister and strange-haired neighbor pointed to the unfortunate freshmen that were currently being hazed by their upperclassmen in a variety of humiliating ways. "Oh, I see now," the comedienne realized.
"Yeah, drawing attention to yourself as a freshman doesn't pay off well," Lee stated. Almost immediately, the group was pushed aside by a student wearing a green sweater with a mathematic symbol on the front.
"Dude! Respect much?!" Cam called out at the guy that barrelled past them, only to get a sneer in response.
"Man, we just got snubbed by a mathlete of all people," Luna observed.
"This wouldn't happen if we got some street cred," Cam grumbled.
"Hey, people know us," Lee debated. To prove this, he addressed the clique of skaters as they walked. "How's it hanging, Zed?"
"Dunno, man," the zoned-out skater-dude responded. "I don't study hang-ology."
'I didn't expect my joke to be that accurate,' Luan thought.
"That was when we were in grade school; the game's changed since high school," Cam countered. "Don't believe me? Then explain why none of our classmates showed up at the fiesta last week if we were so tight."
"Point made," Luna sighed. "But after the Battle of the Bands, that's all gonna change. Provided that my partner's got my back." She gave Lee a friendly punch to emphasize her point.
"Right back atcha," Lee winked back.
Without warning, the group of five was suddenly enveloped by a massive hug from a considerably taller young man. He was dressed in a light blue sleeveless shirt, jean shorts, a blue headband, and white-rimmed sunglasses. "Guys! It's me, Holger!" he announced in his vaguely Scandinavian accent.
"Hi, Holgy!" Leni welcomed.
"How's it going, Norse dude?" Luna greeted.
"Nice to meet you," Luan gasped.
"What is and what was, dude?" Cam managed to breathe out, being in the cramped center.
This question prompted Holger to release them. "Holger is confused by this query," he wondered.
"We just want to know how your summer back in the old country was," Lee cleared the air.
"Oh, yes!" Holger realized. "Holger been really enjoyed it, ja; even kissed a girl. It was truly the summer fun-times!"
"Nice," came Lee and Cam's simultaneous response that didn't seem to be shared by the Loud sisters. Luna just rolled her eyes while giving a neutral expression; Leni's usually confused look had a twinge of sadness in it, and Luan was just baffled at Holger's mannerisms.
"So, Holg?" Luna asked the funny foreigner, "Do you happen to get that thing I wanted?"
"Oh, ja!" Holger remembered and took out a CD album. "The latest melodies from the old country. Holger is hoping that this will be pleasing to your ear-holes?"
"Righteous, dude!" Luna grinned gratefully upon receiving the gift.
The atmosphere suddenly changed as another group of students were making their way through the halls: a quartet of sunglasses-clad young women in fashionable casual wear. They drew the eyes of many students like flies to honey. Lee, Cam, and Holger were instantly captivated; the Loud sisters were hit with metaphorical waves of intimidation radiating from this new group.
"Who are they?" Luan asked.
"Those are the Glamazons," Leni answered, "They are, like, on the top of the school, which always confuses me since I've never seen them on the roof."
"That just means that they're super popular, hermana," Cam corrected. "We should consider ourselves lucky if they even talk to us."
As if to take on this challenge, Holger got into a disco strut and called out to the Glamazons: "Ladies! Care to join Holger in disco-party times?"
The blonde, tanned leader in a white ensemble rolled her eyes. "Who wants to deal with him?" A light brown-blonde girl in all pink broke off from the group to handle things.
"Holger, sprechen sie duh," she berated, getting into the young man's face, "there would be no way that any of us would date you even if you and your loser friends were the last carriers of Y-chromosomes. So, toodles-losio!" She then returned to her clique, leaving Holger emasculated.
"Well, would you look at the time," Cam spoke up to break the tension, "It's almost first period; see ya later, Holmes!" And with that, he bolted off to class.
"I should be heading out too, dudes," Luna announced following after him.
"Don't feel bad, Holgy," Leni soothed. "It's just the start of the year."
"Yeah, you made some progress," Lee added, "They remembered your name this time."
"Ja," Holger perked up. "They remembered me! Holger-meister!"
'That's not what I meant, but OK,' Leni thought with a hint of disappointment that was overshadowed by cheer with overseeing Holger's spirits being risen.
Her nerves were starting to get to her. Whose wouldn't if this was their first day being broadcasted to all the classes? What if she messed up the report? Her burgeoning career in journalism would be over before it started! These thoughts were going through the mind of one Tina Kwee. The aspiring news anchor was suffering stage fright at the worst possible time.
And then there's her co-worker, the insufferable Chaz Moneranian, who seemed ready to bask in the spotlight. His ego was so immense that it was practically suffocating, so that's another proverbial hurdle to jump.
OK, Tina thought, I've got to calm down and take it easy. Deep breaths. This was followed up with her attempt at meditation.
"We're on in five," came the voice of the young, toque-wearing cameraman.
'I can do this,' the young anchorwoman recited to herself, 'I can do this.'
The PA system chimed its unique jingle, cueing the two school news reporters to start the morning announcements.
"Welcome back, A. Nigma High students, to the first day of a new school year," Tina started off. 'So far, so good.' "I'm…" 'Oh no, I'm blanking.' "I'm…" 'How am I forgetting my name?!'
Her little panic was the perfect opportunity for Chaz to seize the focus. "She's Tina Kwee, and I'm Chaz Moneranian. And we (mostly me) are your school news team."
'Well, that wasn't the snap to reality I wanted,' Tina self-surmised, 'but it did help.'
"We're in for an interesting start to the school," Chaz continued. "A lot of shake-ups are in the works."
"You've got that right, Chaz," Tina added with a bit of disbelief in what she just said. "One pressing matter is the mysterious disappearance of Principal Wurst who was with us last year. Where could he have gone and why now? We, the student body, have a right to know."
"So true and thanks, Tina," Chaz went on, making sure not to let her live it down. "Not to worry, A. Nigma; we're getting a brand, spanking new principal! They'll make their grand reveal at today's assembly right after lunch."
"And, we're clear," the cameraman announced.
Tina let out a huge sigh. 'How am I going to get through this?' This was her first broadcast, and she nearly blew it! 'Then again, maybe most of the school won't notice?'
"Don't sweat the small stuff, Tina," Chaz spoke up, almost showing a supportive side to him. "After all, you're just glass in the presence of a shining diamond."
'Of course,' Tina figured, 'anyone else's opinion would be better than his.'
Lee could only look on at the school news report with euphoria; he can now look forward to seeing his favorite female specimen that didn't live next door every morning now. It makes stomaching her co-anchor's grandstanding worth it just to see that cute freckled face of hers. If only Lee could build up the courage to ask her out, much less try something crazy like in his hormone-fueled fantasies (some of which including a third party).
Unfortunately for the partial redhead, his train of thought was derailed by the abrupt outbursts of his blond next-desk neighbors.
"Oh, Lee!" Holger blurted from Lee's left, "It's the girl you want to have kissing-times with! Tina!"
'Oh crap,' Lee swore in his head when the classroom erupted with laughter. His physical response was to hide behind a textbook
"That wasn't very nice, Holgy," Leni scolded from Lee's right.
"Most sorrys," the Scandinavian student apologized, "Holger used outdoor voice by mistake."
"Besides, he's obviously into Luna." This blunt statement by the more ditzy daughter of Loud cued another roar of chuckles.
'End me now,' Lee begged to whichever controlling force was out there.
"Dang," Cam cursed, "Wurst is gone? Guess we gotta say 'Adios' to his random candy encounters."
"Who knows?" Luna thought aloud. "Maybe the new dude would be just as good."
"They could also be a big pain in the culo," Cam joked.
"Dang, I hope not," Luna muttered. This wasn't her main concern however; instead, her thoughts drifted towards one half of the school news team. There was something about Tina that she couldn't explain yet gravitated to her.
"Do you have somebody stuck in the old cabeza?" her desk-mate grinned.
"Stow it, Martinez!" Luna growled, unaware of her flushed cheeks.
"Well," a certain girl with partially magenta over black hair thought aloud, "I've seen worse first cases of stage fright." She had just finished replaying the news clip on her personal screen. What she didn't mention was how surreal it is to see Tina's first foray into news (even if it's just for school) and compare it to the segments she grew up watching.
"True, but it's nice to know that our folks had humble beginnings," replied the boy with a green/strawberry blond pompadour next to her. "At least we're not expected to be great straight out of high school."
"Try telling that Nate & the twins," Magenta-Bang sighed, reminiscing on her siblings who seemed to get their talents just when they got out of diapers. "It won't be long now until history happens, and we'll be the ones to record it."
"Oh, so that's why we messed around with the place for the boss-lady?" Green-Pompadour asked.
"Joel, we talked about this," Magenta-Bang groaned. "We have to call her Agent Chrono-Flower while we're here."
"It's just a joke," the now identified Joel jested. "Besides, wasn't that why you went to Aunt Luan's stand-up at the block party? To get a sense of humor?"
Magenta-Bang's communicator chimed before she could deliver a retort. With a press of a button, the device projected a holographic message for both teens to see:
Taylor, tell Joel that we've got an hour left before the big event. – Lian.
"So, should we head out to join them now?" the now christened Taylor queried rhetorically.
Luan was thankful for lunchtime. The first few classes were tough enough thanks to the material, but a few repeat freshmen saw her as a prime target for spitballs. Which is why she's currently having her ponytail picked clean by Leni while listening to Lori's advice.
"Don't worry, Luan," the eldest Loud sister encouraged. "It's just the first day; you can only go up from there. After all, Rome wasn't built in a day."
"Why, because the builders were always Roman around?" Luan quipped which earned her a groan from her blonde siblings. "But seriously, I think I'll get through it like you guys did," she added with a confident smile.
"That's the spirit!" Lori cheered.
"Where?!" Leni jumped in fright.
"Not that kind of spirit, Leni," Lori and Luan corrected at once.
"What's keeping Luna?" Lori wondered.
"She's probably chatting up with her fellow Lunatics?" Luan joked, earning another set of glares. "Come on; I share a room with her. I reserve the right to bust her chops."
Akin to a signal, the Loud sister in question entered the cafeteria with her band of misfits and got in the chow-line, continuing their little chat.
"I'm just saying," Cam complained, "that we shouldn't get homework on the first day!"
"Mr. Einstein is no joke; that's for sure," Luna sighed.
"Holger thinks that a change of topics would be nice," Holger decided. "How about the new reporters of news?"
"Yeah," Cam followed along. "I don't care much about Chaz, but Tina seems to be a sight for sore eyes. Am I right?"
"Lay off, Cam," Lee brushed off.
"What's wrong, dude?" Luna playfully pouted. "Afraid I might get jealous?"
"There's no right answer to this conversation, is there?" Lee sighed while getting a refill of soda.
"Seriously, Bro," Cam whispered while the group started moving towards the rest of the Louds, "You've got to make a choice."
Before Lee could give a proper response, he suddenly ran into a clothed, fleshy wall of a teen boy, spilling his soda on the guy's Zen-cat shirt.
"Uh, sorry?" Lee let out under the immense fear he was feeling.
"Oh, you're going to be sorry," the massive guy threatened, grabbing the partial redhead by his shirt and surprisingly not spilling the rest of Lee's tray on him.
"Biffy T. Goldstein," came a strangely alluring voice, "Let go of that poor, defenseless student this instant."
"Sorry, Vice Principal Victoria," the now-named Biffy complied, releasing Lee from his clutches.
From Lee's new vantage point, he could now see his savior: a lovely redhead in a green blouse-&-skirt combo. Her appearance and her voice were the main factors into why she's been a subject of many a student's hormone-fueled fantasies.
"It's such a shame that we're starting the year on the wrong foot," Victoria disciplined. "So why don't you take the right foot for a little trip down to detention after school?"
Biffy said nothing but gave Lee a menacing grin that promised a future beating before walking off with the Vice Principal. Lee decided to just shrug it off and rejoin his friends and neighbors at their table.
"Way to get bailed out by the smoking VP, dude," Luna congratulated.
"I could've handled it myself," Lee thought aloud.
"Seriously?" Lori doubted. "He literally looked ready to turn you into a human pretzel."
"And seeing how big he is, he definitely would have eaten you, too!" Luan added.
"OK, that might've gone a bit too far," Cam pointed out to hopefully dial the conversation down a tad.
"Whatever," Lee shrugged. "At least I'm not the guy that got detention on the first day." It was then that Lee felt the call to nature. "Watch my stuff, guys; I gotta whiz."
"TMI, much?" Leni objected with a disgusted look.
"Come to think of it," Luan noted as she started to get up, "I need to go to the little girls' room, too."
"Both of you are having the bladder-issues?" Holger blurted. "It's like you two are being in sync."
The conversation would have to stop there as the school's P.A. system came to life, revealing the faces of the school news team.
"Attention, students!" Tina announced in a panic. "We've just received–"
"Breaking news!" Chaz interrupted, blocking Tina from view. "Our new principal has arrived. All students are to gather in the gym immediately!"
'You've got to be kidding,' Lee and Luan thought as they simultaneously groaned. 'Wait, (s)he's not thinking the same thing as me, right?'
Lee and Luan were feeling that all too familiar sensation in their lower extremities rise to undesirable levels once they and their crew reached the last empty row of seats in the gym. They tried to put their minds at ease by letting the general chatter from their fellow students act like white noise; the keyword being "tried".
"This day has got to be a bad, cosmic joke," Luan moaned. "Either that or somebody up there is really spacing out." She resisted the urge to laugh lest she added to her misery in a messy way.
"That's got to be one of your worst," Lee sighed. Wanting to take his mind off his predicament, he looked around and spotted one bright side in all of this.
Standing alongside the cameraman setting up, Tina was ruffling through her notes when she turned at matched eyes with a certain partial redhead. 'At least there's one welcoming face in all this,' she thought. When she waved, however, Lee ducked out of view for some reason. 'Or maybe not,' Tina pondered while moving her outstretched hand to run through her raven black hair.
'Dang it; I just had to avoid her! Curse this bladder,' Lee groaned internally. His only hope now was that the group seated in front of him and his seemingly motley crew could shield him completely from view.
"Real smooth, bro," Cam playfully mocked, earning him a stuck-out tongue from Lee.
Without warning, the entire gymnasium shook with a sound of metal pounding echoing throughout with a shock akin to a small tremor. And it happened again, and again; it was somewhat rhythmic. The lights dimmed, leaving one sole spotlight that shone on a lone microphone stand in front of red curtains. The advancing metallic sound drew closer to the point where the source could finally be revealed. The curtains were slowly parted by a metallic claw and a pant leg that ended with a mechanical boot. The students stared in awe and the faculty on stage looked on with indifference as a cyborg-behemoth of a man dressed in a dark blue service uniform marched up to the voice-amplification stick.
"Listen up, you snot-nosed, baggy-pants-wearin', maggot-covered puddles of vomitized puke!" proclaimed the intimidating, one-eyed new arrival. "Strummin' through life like it's some kind of mini-mall, drinking your fancy la-dee-da chocolate mocha with a peaches-and-cream frappawazzit on the side of your watoozy. Well! Sip it up, Java Joes and Josies, 'cause Principal General Barrage is in command."
Nearly all the students were scared silent by their new principal. Leave it to a Loud daughter to be an outlier.
"Um, why is the new principal, like, a robot?" Leni questioned rather loudly. A red dot soon appeared on her forehead, frightening Lori and Luna who seated next to her as she remained oblivious.
"Are you making light of my life-preserving aesthetics, little miss ray of sunshine?!" Barrage roared. A notable change in his appearance was his eyepatch had retracted into his skull to reveal a glowing robotic eye, the source of the red dot.
"No, sir!" Lori answered for her ditzy sister. "She's just confused, is all."
The cyborg-principal growled lowly in response, taking notice of two seats marked by backpacks in the same row as the girls.
Inside one of the stalls in the rundown-looking boys' room, a shadowy figure was engrossed with a texting session:
Boss: Mr. Ping has left the gymnasium, but another student is absent as well.
Me: Roger-dodger. Another fall-guy might complicate things, but what can you do?
"Could you keep it down there? I can't focus," came the voice of Lee, the fulcrum to the whole operation, from among the urinals.
'Just stay calm,' Shadowy Figure thought. 'Just wait for the moment where he's completely preoccupied.' They didn't have to wait long as an all-to-familiar fluid sound and a long sigh of relief gave them the proper signal. 'As the kids would say, let the good times roll.' The figure switched the messaging app on his phone to one that consisted of a red button image, which he immediately pressed. This prompted a series of beeps to emit from the device.
Those very same beeps could be heard throughout the gymnasium, confusing all the attendees.
"Where in tarnation is that infernal beeping coming from?!" Barrage demanded.
Instead of receiving an answer, the gymnasium began instilling sensory overload through several strobe lights shining from the ceiling and strange techno music was blasting from the speakers. For the few that paid attention, there was a garbled message in the weird melody.
The students were all confused, but a few seemed to get into the music – namely Luna and Holger, the latter of whom jumped out of his seat and started dancing. Things appeared to be at the peak of chaos.
What happened next pushed things even further as lights went out.
Several small bursts erupted throughout the room, but their distinct smell was the main effect. Many of the students with had weak, recently filled stomachs started projectile vomiting, striking less fortunate students. Potato flakes rained down from the rafters, adding to the already noxious substances.
An assault of fauna was thrown into the mix as dozens of frogs ran amok akin to a certain plague. To make matters worse, the school's monstrous mascot went on a rampage, either swiping at students with its strong crimson tail or dragging a hapless one across the floor.
To add fuel to the fire, dozens of paint cans were emptied from the ceiling, drenching much of all present. The faculty tried to reign in everyone, with Barrage attempting to control the situation, but alas that was not to be.
After having attended to her bodily needs, Luan emerged from her stall and headed towards one of the sinks.
"I hate having to ditch the first assembly of the year," she sighed. "But, when nature calls, water you gonna do? Hahahahahahaha! Get it?"
To her surprise, the faucet just gushed out a heavy stream of water, which was peculiar as it wasn't one of those automatic types. Not looking a gift horse in the mouth, the comical Loud put her hands under the faucet just for it to turn off suddenly before she could wash them.
"Dang it," she groaned. She thought she could hear someone running just from the outside, but she decided to pay it no mind.
The water was redirected to the fire-suppression system which exploded in the gym, just exacerbating the chaos below and melding the unsanitary substances together.
This proved to be the final straw with some students as they desperately tried to open the doors, but they were locked. The rest were hysterical and running around, knocking each other into the piles of filth.
"Who is responsible for this?!" Barrage cried out, half-buried in who-knows-what. He didn't have to wait long for an answer.
The multi-colored hair quintet observed the screen with slack-jawed shock. The incident recognized as The Prank was much more intense than what the previous generation described. The atrocious contents in the muck & the outright savagery of both man and beast were played out in graphic detail. It was a while until one of them decided to speak.
"We were recording that, right?" Joel asked, leading to the rest of his brethren to stare at him as if he just asked the dumbest possible question in that situation.
"We should've left you back home," Nate (the one with the orange-black braids) stated bluntly.
"Oh, Luan, hey," Lee called out to the girl question as they walked towards the gym. "Did you notice anything strange earlier?"
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Like somebody running through the halls?" Lee clarified. "I heard some guy rushing straight of the stalls when the pipes started going on and off."
"I think I heard some footsteps past the girls' room; could that have been related?" Luan thought aloud as they reached the gym's entrance.
"Wait a minute," Lee noticed. "Is that techno music playing in there?"
"Maybe the new principal is a DJ?" Luan suggested as they both opened the doors… and beheld a sight beyond comprehension. Seemingly everyone in the gym was covered in caked slime and was glaring at the two newcomers. The two's reaction was by far the worst possible in this scenario: hysterical laughter.
"Oh my gosh!" Lee managed to get out through the giggling. "If you can only see yourselves right now!"
"I know that most students would be green on the first day," Luan squeaked out, "but I didn't expect that to be literal!"
These words stirred up feelings of disbelief & disappointment within their friends & family while the rest of the crowd found their contempt for the two justified.
"You two!" came the domineering voice of Barrage which immediately shut Lee and Luan up as they saw the partially mechanical man marched towards them. "You're not getting a day, or a week, or even a month. You two are sentenced to a full year of –"
"Hold on, Principal Barrage," VP Victoria interrupted, surprisingly untouched by the messy chaos. "May I remind you that section 34 clause 7 of the Charter of Student Rights states, and I quote, 'No student can be given more than a month of detention per offense no matter how severe the act' unquote."
"True," Barrage grumbled in agreement. Lee and Luan breathed a sigh of relief that they are not getting years' detention for something that they didn't do.
"How about that Lee? Looks like the rules rule!" Luan laughed.
"That's it!" Barrage exploded. "If you think that was funny, then try making a joke about this: one month for the general vandalism! One month for the stink bombs! One month for messing with the sound system! …" Barrage continued to add one month for each part of the prank. "And finally, ONE MONTH FOR BAD JOKES!" Barrage yelling in Luan's face. "And by my calculations, that's ONE FULL YEAR DETENTION!" He then turned to Victoria. "I assume that falls in line with your precious charter?"
"You assume correctly, Principal Barrage," Victoria sighed in defeat.
"But sir, we were each in the restroom the whole time," Lee explained. "I mean separately; we only came across each other on the way back here," he clarified to avoid riling up the new principal any further. "It couldn't have been us."
As if on cue, the infernal beeping was heard throughout the gym again. Only this time, the source was found to be a red backpack that promptly exhausted smoke and halted its beeping.
With the surprise piece of evidence in his non-cybernetic hand, Barrage inquired loudly, "Whose bag is this?!"
"It kinda looks like… mine…" Lee answered hesitantly, realizing that his alibi was slowly going down the toilet.
"Well, look what we've got here," the Principal/General declared pulling several items from the bag, "Blue-prints of the school, schematics of the sound system, and recipes for stink bombs among other things! And you have the gall to tell us that you didn't do it?"
"Actually, Sir," Luan protested. "Since all of the evidence was found in Lee's bag, shouldn't that mean (like the prank that I clearly didn't do) that I'm off the hook?"
'That little snake,' Lee thought, feeling scorn towards Luan and dropping her on the bottom rung of his "favorite Loud sisters" list.
"I've seen enough enemy deception in my tour of duty to know when someone is trying to throw someone under the tank to save their own skin, Missy!" Barrage bellowed. "As of today, the two of you will be reporting to the sub-basement every single day at 15:15!"
The gym suddenly resounded with a collective "Huh?".
"That's 3:15 in the P.M. for you smoothie-slurping peaceniks!" Barrage made clear, being met with minimal murmurs of acknowledgment.
"This literally can't be happening," Lori panicked.
"But it did happen, right?" Leni questioned confused.
"How did I miss her planning this?" Luna self-berated. "I'm her roommate for Swagger's sake!"
"I think you are a missing the bigger picture, chicas," Cam pointed out. "Lee and Luan are now personae non gratae by everyone! And that will carry over to us 'cause we hang with them!"
"Ja. But being on the bright side, Mommy of Pings still loves her son," Holger said optimistically.
On that note, Mrs. Ping stormed over to her new boss and the guilty party, getting right up in the latter's faces. "Young lady, you can guarantee that your parents will deal with you," she scolded Luan before switching to Lee. "As for you, you can kiss any free time goodbye! You're grounded for a full year!"
The accused party could only gulp in response.
"Principal Barrage?" Victoria entreated. "Don't you think it would be best to cancel school for the rest of today? I believe everyone is due for a little freshening up."
"Request denied, Vice Principal Victoria," Barrage declined in a softer, more menacing tone. "We might smell like Sam Hell, but A. Nigma High is made of sterner stuff. We'll soldier on so – what are their names again?"
"Lee Ping and Luan Loud."
"Thank you. Ahem. – so Mr. Ping and Ms. Loud don't lose out on their first stay in detention," Barrage finished. "DISMISSED!"
'So much for my sophomore plans,' Lee sighed heavily.
'This has got to be the worst first day ever,' Luan thought sadly.
And this line ran through both their minds: 'And it's all her/his fault!'