Original Chapter Title: Aftermath Of The Spring Carnival, Part Two
(A/N: I just want to make it clear for anyone reading these latest chapters that in the next and final act in this book, there will be a lightsaber duel, and given how intense and emotional Freezing is at times, I'm definitely looking forward to writing in a lightsaber duel under the anime's limitations.)
Picking up from where the last chapter left off..
"Me? I'm Marin Maxwell. You got me good in the carnival. Ripped out my eye the other day and made me retire pretty early.. don't tell me you forgot already."
"I see, now I get it. So what? You got a grudge against me?" Arnett asked, causing Marin to look confused and Cameron, who happened to notice, nudged Arnett. "I don't think she's here to see you over a grudge" he said, and Arnett just looked at him confused, before eventually nodding and turning back to Marin.
"So I'll ask again.. why didn't you attend the seniors' meet and greet? And I might as well ask Spears as well, since I didn't see him there either" Marin continued, causing Cameron to just look up from his meal at her. "As much as I really felt like going.." Cameron answered. "..I had business to take care of. I'm still getting thank you calls from various families even now nearly three weeks after the whole graduation incident, once they figure out the phone number of the mansion I stay at. Had another one when the meet and greet was going on."
While Marin nodded, knowing that in Cameron's case, that was a perfectly valid reason, given what happened then, Arnett's answer didn't hold much of the same weight as Cameron's reason did. "Hah! Like I give a fuck about their "meet and greet". Why should I have to go just 'cause they told me to?"
"You do know orders from the upperclassmen are absolute, right? You might be pissing them off and making things hard for your classmates" Marin replied, to which Arnett responded, "Not my problem."
Before Marin could say anything else, Cameron butted in. "So you're saying that even as a second-in-command of an entire fucking military, I have to take orders from people older than me just so my classmates can get by easier?" he asked, his voice noticeably a bit angry.
Marin nodded.
"That's just fucking stupid" Cameron added. "If they want to do things, they should do it themselves. They want people to come to their meet and greets, they should just accept that some people, like me or Arnett, may just have our time occupied by something else or just simply not want to go."
Marin turned her head and held her hand. "You both will never last at Genetics with that attitude. If either of you were smart, you'd go tell the seniors why you couldn't.."
"HEY!" Arnett snapped, before she was calmed down by Cameron placing his hand on her shoulder, causing her to feel some butterflies inside of her for some reason. While Dolly felt a little jealous at this, she understood why he was doing that.
"But anyway.." Marin continued once again. "..isn't it hard acting so rebellious all the time? You two got way more talent than I do after all, especially him.." Marin then winked at Cameron, who despite his best efforts, blushed at it a little, much to both the jealousy of Arnett and Dolly. Cameron recovered his coolness and then did the talking for Arnett. "I don't really think she's rebellious. I think she's just sick of having people like her dad or what not being taken advantage of by the rich. And I would know, since I've talked to many people of the C.I.S over the months before I came here.. and they all have similar stories" Cameron responded.
"So.. and I'll leave with this.. why shouldn't Arnett try to get along with the people around you more? Just a piece of advice from a fellow freshman."
Arnett was rather miffed at the comment.. Dolly was just confused.. and Cameron was now, generally worried. So now I have to protect them from the Upperclassmen, he thought to himself. Ugh.. why doesn't this world make things any easier for me?
—
Meanwhile, Elizabeth had befriended Attia Simmons while out at the pool about a couple weeks later and learned about the cause of Arnett's psychopathic tendencies towards Pandora from upper class families, and that it was the result of the bullying that Dolly had received in boot camp, prior to her being put in Cameron, Arnett, and Dolly's platoon. It at least helped her to understand why Cameron was about as protective over Dolly as he was with her and Arnett, but to her, Arnett's hatred seemed illogical to her.
While she and Attia did find it true that there were many upper class girls that volunteered to become Pandora mainly for the honor and glory of it, Elizabeth also thought that when your comrades were fighting alongside you with all your lives on the line, one's heritage shouldn't matter at all. While she didn't realize it, she was thinking in a way very similar to how Cameron saw the issue. But at the very least, it did make more sense why Dolly Parnell was always hanging around with Arnett and Cameron, as well as Abyss, more than anyone else.
The sound of some juniors shook her from her thoughts.
"Hey, you freshman over there! Can you help us move this thing?! We'll treat you to some Burger Queen for dinner!"
She was surprised when she saw who they were talking to, asking them to help. It was Arnett herself.
"Eh! Hey! You!" one of them shouted, as Arnett just ignored them and kept walking.
"Can't believe someone turned down Burger Queen.." the first one said, while the other one got angry. "Who cares about that?! She just ignored a request from her seniors! That little punk, I'm gonna show her who's boss!"
Elizabeth was about to intervene when a cry from one of them interrupted her mental conversation about intervening or not. She looked up, and there was Cameron, simply using the force to move the object for the seniors. Smiling at the boy's generosity, Elizabeth walked on, still a little worried about Arnett though.
A good long while after that, Arnett was alone looking at her tablet, looking at the photo on it and thinking about her dad, when suddenly someone grabbed it from her.
"What the hell are you doing?!" she shouted, looking behind her to find three juniors standing over her.
"What's this..? Staring at a picture of daddy? Hehe, a Daddy's girl, are you?" the Junior holding her tablet asked Arnett.
"You're Arnett McMilian, the one who got third place in the last carnival, right?" another one asked, to which Arnett nodded.
"Why don't you come talk with your big sisters here? We'll get the picture back afterwards" the Junior holding Arnett's tablet said, only for the tablet to be jerked out of her hand all of a sudden and land back in the hands of a confused Arnett.
The juniors staggered back, surprised at what had just happened. "What the hell? That wasn't supposed to happen!" said one, glancing around for whoever did it. She saw no one, so she assumed they were alone, not realizing that in actuality, Cameron was there, just standing behind one of the support columns on the outside of the storage building.
"No one's here.. odd.." the Junior looking around said to her friends, while the Junior who had been holding Arnett's tablet got angry. "Whatever! Forget about whoever did that! Let's teach this little bitch a lesson! GIVE ME THAT TABLET!" she said, angrily reaching for it.
The girl who tried to take back Arnett's tablet from her then suddenly stopped, even as Arnett pulled back from her reach, and began clutching her throat as she started to choke, being lifted up into the air. "Back. Away. From. Arnett. Now," Cameron growled from behind them, and the two other Juniors did just that before Cameron moved the choking girl some distance away from Arnett and then set her back down on her feet and released her from the force choke, paying no attention as she coughed and gasped for air.
"What the hell are you, Spears? Don't tell you're on her side too" one of the other Juniors said. Cameron just nodded, his eyes yellow - while still in his normal form - and very angry. "Her father made me swear a promise to not let anything bad happen to her, and I'll be damned if I started right now" he said, and one of the other Juniors laughed maliciously, making Arnett realize that something bad was about to happen.
"Okay girls, come on out!" the Junior shouted, and Cameron found himself surrounded by a group of fourteen other juniors, all of them looking ready to punch and kick the shit out of him, with some of them holding baseball bats and lead pipes. However, the dark side force user didn't panic, just got his hands up in a ready position and prepared for the brawl that was about to break out.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth was running.. and running fast. She was worried about Arnett.. very, very worried about her. She had heard from someone else that the juniors had their eyes on her, so she had good cause for concern. She ran into two other Pandora on her way. "Excuse me, have you seen Arnett McMilian?" she asked, slightly gasping for breath.
"The Mad Dog? Yeah, I last saw her near the storage shed" one of the girls replied, before a chorus of shrieks and screams from that direction filled the air.
"Oh my, something's happening down there" the other one said, and Elizabeth made off towards the noise. As she did, she nearly ran into a girl in a sun dress and large hat.
"Oh my" the girl in the sun dress said. "Ah, I'm sorry!" Elizabeth replied. "I was in a hurry and wasn't looking.. I'm so sorry!"
"It's fine, don't worry" the girl replied. "More importantly, might you know where the Principal's Office is?"
Moments later, Elizabeth hurried on, having given directions to the girl in the sun dress, and then she eventually saw Arnett, still on the steps near the storage shed, looking to her right in shock, as well as the three other juniors, who were also looking at something behind the building next to Elizabeth with shock. She ran up, rounded the corner, and she was also shocked at what she saw. All fourteen junior Pandoras that had tried to attack Cameron were themselves down for the count, looking like they had gone up against a very professional martial artist and predictably gotten their asses kicked. Dents in the nearby walls where Pandora impacted them were everywhere. The lead pipes and baseball bats were in multiple parts, with clear evidence of them having been cut by a lightsaber. And yet, there was both very little blood or cut body parts.. and Cameron was just left standing still in his normal form, leading Elizabeth to realize a shocking revelation. He didn't turn into the Cloaked Bulldozer, he simply beat all of them as himself.
"What the hell happened here?!" shouted a voice behind Cameron. He turned and didn't really flinch much, even when standing in the vision of Yu-Mi Kim. "Spears, you better have a good explanation as to why some Pandora told me you were going berserk back here."
—
Later..
Elizabeth and Arnett simply sat on the steps outside their dorm. Cameron had explained to both Yu-Mi and then Sister Margaret what had happened and although he was reprimanded a bit from both of them for going overboard and force choking one of the juniors a bit, they generally agreed that the Juniors had attacked him first in the case of the brawl, and he was generally acting in self defense - and had also caused him to defend Arnett with their actions. Even so, they did tell him to work on his anger management a little, which Cameron promised to do so.
As for the juniors, they received a temporary suspension from West Genetics for what they had done. But the lasting effect of the incident was more then anyone could have ever imagined. For the rest of his time there, unless for reasons that blinded them to how brutal Cameron was, none of the Upperclassmen dared to try to mess with him, Dolly, Arnett, or Elizabeth ever again.
"So uh.. that just happened then.." Arnett said. "Were you just coming to help me? Don't think I'm gonna thank you or anything."
"I was.." Elizabeth said. "..until I rounded the corner and saw that basically Cameron was way ahead of me."
"Was the picture I saw on that tablet of yours.." Elizabeth said. "..quite an important thing to you, even more than your pride?"
Arnett silently nodded. "..yeah."
Elizabeth got up. "Well then, I'll be going now.." She had walked a couple steps before she heard Arnett's voice behind her. "WAIT!"
Elizabeth turned around. "Doesn't it piss you off? Do you really plan on.. following these stupid rules and letting them treat you like they planned on doing to me and probably anyone else that got in their way without saying a word?" Arnett asked her.
"Every organization has its own set of rules. They may be used incorrectly time and time again as well" she said, before pausing for a couple seconds. "I heard that you and Dolly were treated rather poorly at Boot Camp too. What happened to Dolly was truly sad indeed, thank god Cameron convinced her to keep on going. But even so.. just lashing out at people won't solve anything. That's why I plan to rise to the top, where I'm the one who makes the rules. So that I learn their true meaning, and implement them correctly. I believe that only then, will I be able to see what form the rules around us are meant to take."
"There's only one problem to that though right now.." Arnett said. "..and that's Cameron. How you plan on getting past him?"
Elizabeth sighed. "That's the part that to be honest, even I have no clue about it. I don't suppose maybe convincing him to see my views would hurt if it came down to it. That is, if you and Dolly don't get in the way."
"What's he to you?" Arnett snapped back.
"I dunno. And judging how you and Dolly have acted around him sometimes, you both probably feel the same way.." Elizabeth replied slightly blushing as she did so, and Arnett thought about it for a little while before she also blushed.
"Yeah I guess I do feel the same way" Arnett replied.
"Like I said before, I'll be leaving then" Elizabeth said, and started to walk away again, only to stop in her tracks again as Arnett replied to her.
"In that case, I'll be waiting for you to show me what you can do! I mean, that was quite a speech just now.. so you better watch out 'cause I'll always be watching to see if you slip up!"
Elizabeth just walked away, only saying, "Feel free to do as you please", a smile on her face.
Even as the two of them talked, Cameron was worried, for he now knew at that moment as he walked towards Arnett, that his biggest opponent so far had finally revealed themselves. Coming out of the headmistress' office, his eyes happened upon a long-haired girl in a sun dress sitting in a chair with a smiling look on her face that to him, seemed a bit unsettling. While he didn't know her name yet, the aura coming from her confirmed his suspicions that the opponent that had yet to reveal themselves now had appeared. He would find out her name soon enough.
(Fanfiction-specific author's note: If you know who this Freezing character in the sun dress with the smile is, you got a pretty good idea of who exactly Cameron will have to face off against next. And if you do, you can probably already tell that compared to dealing with Astrid, this isn't going to be an easy ride for him.)
