Dawn hastened towards the commotion in the center of the room with Paul hot on her heels in persistence. The two Alphas jostled past the sea of students and there, low and behold, sat Misty. Her scarlet red hair that once gracefully cascaded past her shoulders was concealed with grease and soda, her clothing wasn't in any preferable conditions either.
Abruptly, Dawn jerked to a stop and Paul crashed into her back with an audible thump, but that didn't seem to phase her as her gaze remained glued to the entire scene unfolding in front of her very eyes. A wave of uncertainty latched into Dawn's mind as she stared on wide-eyed at her normally composed friend who normally lacked the tomato sauce smeared onto her uniform. Dumbfounded, Dawn was utterly speechless, her feet remaining glued to the floor as her conscious went into overdrive as she assessed the situation.
Paul's usually stoic and silent stature seemed altered. The purple haired Alpha trying his damn hardest to remain calm and his every move calculated as to not appear affected. Even time itself seemed to have lengthened, as both Dawn and Paul beheld the preposterous sight of an Omega lifting their pack leader off the floor in an almost gallant parade, exposing the scandalous move, with the entire cafeteria as eyewitnesses.
On the opposite ends of the room, Drew and May were indistinguishably confronting the unexplainable situation in a similar fashion. May's face contorted into confusion amd disbelief while Drew superficially conveyed a much calmer carriage. Though, the teen wasn't immune to the apprehension flowing in the room.
Misty could virtually sense the traction in the cafeteria thicken into a suffocating reticence. The Alpha felt her face flush, the berating eyes of her peers and Omegas further embarrassing her. Unraveling her fingers from the raven-haired boy's, Misty spun awkwardly towards Dawn and Paul. Wordlessly tugging on Dawn's arm, Misty lead the Bluenette to the nearest girl's room, hoping no one would be daring enough to stop the two of them. Especially, once Paul started trailing after them.
As of why he did Misty would never know and, quite frankly, Misty couldn't care less so long as she could take refuge in the nearest enclosed place as speedily as her track legs could carry her. Although, Unbeknownst to her, this also meant abandoning Ash to the remaining deprived, and desperate for gossip, school cafeteria, bound to be egging on for some sort of justification as to why their lunch period had been disturbed.
Fortunately, Drew enacted swiftly, yanking Ash by his tie and guiding him through the cafeteria doors without so much as peering back.
Rupturing through the lunch room's double doors, Drew heaved Ash into the nearest Omega's bathroom. The room's silence ceasing to an end, replaced with abrupt chatter.
"What the hell was that!?" Drew hissed, his death glare making Ash involuntarily flinch.
"I don't know, okay!?" Ash argued weakly, unsure himself as to what had just transpired in the cafeteria.
"You don't know!?" Drew sputtered on, the vein on his forehead popping.
"Know or not Ash, whatever happened in there is not going to end well! Mainly, for you! Look, you're about to become the laughing stock of the school, Paul will most likely beat the crap out of you, and Misty, well who knows what she'll do," Drew persisted.
"Yeah, yeah Drew," Ash shifted his posture, giving his best friend an unimpressed gaze.
"Paul may be on the football and wrestling team, but the school doesn't condone fights between Alphas and Omegas because it's considered unfair. Besides, as an Omega, I might as well be invisible to those blue-wearing* snobs. Misty won't even bother to bat one of her precious eyelashes in my direction ever again, and they can all resort back to their perfectly petty lives," Ash haughtily snorted, disdain of the Alphas evident in his eyes.
"Ready for the outcome of this fiasco or not, you're about to get some real publicity for us Omega's in the Alpha's next school Newspaper," May contributed to the discussion, slipping into the bathroom without either boy realizing. Drew and Ash peered back to the source of May's voice and uncovered the eavesdropping girl leaning freely on the wall.
"May, what the hell are you doing in here!? Can't you read? This is the boy's bathroom, you can't just waltz in here whenever you please. What if another guy was in here?" Drew lectured, his mouth gaping when he faced May, her expression unamused.
"Whatever Hayden, I don't see any guys in here," the brunette argued, gesturing exasperatedly to the vacant men's bathroom beside him and Ash.
"Ugh, I give up, you guys are hopeless, Ash is doomed, and I never got to eat!" Drew mourned.
"How do you think I feel? At least your lunch isn't drenching you," Ash challenged.
"Stop being so dramatic Hayden, pull yourself together and listen to me. Ash finally has a chance to start something, look at the bigger picture here, guys"
"Oh no, you aren't going to make another rally for the Omegas, are you?" Ash whined, recognizing another one of May's rants on the treatment of Omegas bubbling up. The girl had been an activist since forever, resisting the absurd treatment of Omegas and absolutely despising the Alphas at all cost.
"Maybe, maybe not," May shrugged.
"Please don't, I'm still picking out meatloaf from my ears thanks to the last rally," Drew glared.
"I didn't know it was gonna turn into a war zone of food" May innocently justified.
Irrevocably, the 6th-period warning bell obnoxiously rang out, a signal for the trio to start heading to their class. May and Drew, insisted by Ash, left for the next period without him while he endeavored to wash as many stains out of his clothing as possible. Mentally preparing themselves a speech to advise to professor Oak as of why Ash was late to class. Their decision ultimately dwindling down to a trip to the nurse's office, or a run in with aliens.
Misty briskly strode to Cynthia's classroom. Her hair tied back to disguise any knots in it. Her constricting tank top and loose track shorts, consisting of her makeshift outfit for the day. Complimentary from Dawn who wouldn't stop fussing and worrying about her.
Apparently, the dizzy blue-haired Alpha had something urgent to inform her, according to Paul, but that plan seemed to fall short when Dawn saw more lunch on Misty, then what was actually in her own lunch bag. A plausible enough reason for Misty to just drop the issue and let her friend work her magic on the disaster of clothing crisis she had been having. Though, Misty would never admit that.
Swinging around another corner, Misty paced through the Omega's dominant hallway, its walls littered with red and white. Ordinarily, Misty would never be caught dead on this side of the school, however, it was the best shortcut to Cynthia's class and the quicker she got back to class the better.
On the other side of the hall Ash rounded to the final stretch towards Oak's class, praying that he wouldn't be handed the despised yellow detention slip. He had more advantageous things to do that Friday afternoon than sitting around and patching up more rundown Omega textbooks. Looking after his yellow lab Pikachu (odd name for a dog, but his mom insisted it was cute and the name stuck) for instance.
Amassed deep in concentration, Ash failed to notice Misty heading in his direction. The only indicator being her school shoes echoing over the tiled floor. Once Ash eventually looked up, he came, once again, eye to eye (or in his case eye to forehead) with the supreme Alpha. His knees instantly wanting to buckle, and his body disobeyed his demands, consecutively out of fear and an emotion he couldn't quite pinpoint. Ash, though was a good five inches taller, felt the intimidation radiating off of Misty and a glance of an inspection of her face said it all. He was dead meat.
May and Drew waltzed into professor Oak's room without a hitch, the late bell ceasing to have given off even the slightest signal that the period was about to begin.
Drew, being the playboy that he was, shifted his gaze lazily towards his fan club. A cluster of girls with their uniformed skirts inching a bit too high tittered in gossip as soon as Drew stepped foot into the classroom. A clear cry of attention for a certain grass-haired Omega.
Drew played along effortlessly, granting the girls a little flirtatious wink with a flash of his smoldering grin. The action seemingly sufficed as their sighs of contentment made Drew's ego swell.
May gave the socialite an irritated eye-roll, ramming her elbow into his rib cage. Indicating, a bit violently, to the boy that his overly flirtatious act was not going to be tolerated in her presence. Drew, in retaliation, stuck out his tongue to show his childish contempt towards the brunette.
"Ahem," Professor Oak finally interjected, capturing the attention of the two central teens responsible for a majority of the disruptions of his class. The absence of a certain Raven-haired delinquent not going unnoticed by the professor.
"Where's the third musketeer?" Professor Oak inquired, cocking his eyebrow up as his patience dwindled.
"Well, you see Profesor Oak," May elegantly mimicked, copying the tone of an upstanding student that could never do wrong.
"-Ash had an emergency with a couple of alie- OUCH!" Drew flinched, the metallic charms of May's bracelet dug into the flesh of his back through his uniform, a nasty bruise already etching itself into the boy's back. Indicating the brunettes immediate disdain with Drew's little joke.
"What Drew meant to say," May interposed, her sharp glare striking into Drew's forehead.
"-Is that Ash had a little mishap during lunch and needed to go to Nurse Joy's office," May finished smoothly, a smug smirk laying across her face.
"Hmm... Is that so?" The professor suspiciously interrogated. Sipping a cup of his usual Earl grey tea as the steam filtered into the air before fading away along with the professors amusement.
"Yes sir," both Drew and May hummed delightfully, their angelic smiles convincing their purity and innocence, at least, that's what the duo were going for.
Professor Oak ultimately sighed, it was Friday and he was worn down. Indolence appeared in the graying man's hand as he waved the cynical teens away, dismissing them to their seats. Drew and May grinned triumphantly and stalked to their seats in the middle of the classroom.
Drew was instantaneously bombarded by the girls to his right as soon as he swerved into his chair. Initiating pleasantries and conversations with the, as he delicately put it, 'lovely ladies.' His suave persona even coaxing some girls into doing some of his math homework for the night.
Meanwhile, May felt herself grow sick, her stomach turning. Wanting nothing more than to hurl at the thought of the green-haired Omega's scheme to, what she deemed, manipulate the girls around him.
Though, that didn't stop a twinge of jealousy course through the brunette as she witnessed Drew chortle at, what she could only assume, something particularly hilarious said by one of his adoring fans, though May was too proud and stubborn to ever admit it. So, as an alternative distraction, she began furiously scrolling through her iPod to locate a song on her playlist that would drown out the nauseating scene.
The rude and obnoxious behaviors displayed in the average Omega classroom would ordinarily be intolerable and promptly shut down by any average professor. However, Omega Teachers salary's weren't high enough for them to care, and the textbooks rotting away at the back of the classrooms weren't exactly beneficial for the educational engagement of Omega students any time soon.
Abruptly, the final warning bell rung and kids scurried to their seats. Professor Oak stood and made his way back to the blackboard to carry on the geometric equations he had left off on. Everything was going relatively smoothly, that is until the wooden door to the classroom swung open. The knob of the door making brief contact with the plastered wall, engraving a permanent implant of the door handle as proof.
Huffing at the entryway, Ash speedily went to his assigned seat, all eyes of the classroom were locked on the tardy Omega.
Ash pathetically grumbled out a pathetic excuse of an apology to the class.
Professor Oak, after an exceedingly prolonged pause of awkward silence, hung in the air, turned a blind eye and resumed back to the lesson, transparently insinuating that absolutely nothing had just happened.
Drew and May shot bemused glimpses at Ash. The boy's response only being a tense shrug of his shoulders, and the mouthing, 'I'll explain later,' in an absentminded and vague clarification to his two best friends.
After a few more feeble attempts to read each other's minds and come up with a new solution, both the Omegas parts May and Drew dropped it at that, not wanting to further indignant Ash. You could practically see the steam coming out of ears, and his face was flushing multiples hues of scarlet, his mouth drawn into a thin line.
May and Drew concluded that whatever was bothering Ash certainly had an effect on the boy, in maybe more ways than one.
As soon as the final bell went off, Ash rocketed out of his seat, his entire stature tense and rigid. A single glance over his shoulder confirmed that May and Drew were eagerly pinning kids to the side, not making any haste in order to reach him to squeeze out the confession of what riled him up so much in the hallway, no doubt.
Ash rolled his eyes in annoyance at the idiotic persistency of his best friends. With a single side step to his right, Ash blended with the rest of the sea of students eager to reach their dorm rooms, efficiently evading May and Drew for the time being, until they caught on and he would have to use a different escape plan.
Ash effortlessly navigated the cramped hallway, heading towards the Omega Dorm rooms to get some sort of peace of mind. The encounter that went down in the hallway flashed in Ash's mind, only further lighting the candle of fury buried deep in his chest, making his strides faulter. Reliving the regrettable occurrence, Ash faintly remembered what had transpired, the memory still fresh like an opened wound. When he collided with Misty, Ash had the impression that his life was over, a bit dramatic he knew, but he thought it was fairly warranted.
However, Ash had seemed to be in some parallel, Twighlight zoned, twisted Universe. Instead of a knife driving into his chest, Ash was met with a bowing Misty, her face concealed by her unruly hair fighting its restraints of the hair tie loosely wrapped around the flow of red locks. The incredulous look Ash was shooting at the Alpha must have been evident, because when the girl lifted her head she noticed a severe lacking response out of Ash.
Tilting her head, Misty stared on at Ash expectantly, seemingly anticipating a reaction out of the Omega. Though, the only exertion Ash's body physically permitted was his mouth to gape open like a fish on land.
"I just wanted to say that I am so sorry for what happened in the cafeteria," Misty started first, an apologetic look gracing her beautiful features. Ash's drying mouth seemed to still be nonfunctional, because he couldn't seem to utter a single word out. He even began cursing the sweat accumulating on his hands. Misty wisely decided to take that as her cue to continue.
"I should have noticed when I overstepped the boundaries of the Omega platform. I guess I was so hungry that I forgot to check for the Alpha sign," Misty outwardly admitted, only furthering catching Ash off guard.
Swallowing thickly, Ash finally found the courage to speak up.
"Oh, umm it's alright," was the only pathetic response Ash could muster, mentally chastising himself for sounding so stupid in front of the queen Alpha herself. For anything, it felt more like a defeat on Ash's part. This was the one chance he could prove that as an Omega he wasn't completely useless.
"Oh, well I'm glad," Misty hesitantly smiled, relieved that no grudge was going to be bound to her, by any Alpha, or Omega. Reputation as the representative of the Alphas couldn't allow for such a foolish thing as a petty grudge, and Misty refused to ever have to deal with the backlash of one either. For both her conscience and rep couldn't be decremented, not at this school.
The unsettling silence following after the even more awkward conversation left both parties shuffling uncomfortably. Ready to try to break the hush falling over the two, Ash opened his mouth to begin a new conversation starter when-
"Waterflower, gorgeous as ever I see?" a male voice smoothly cut in. Peering over Misty's shoulder, Ash saw a glimpse of, who he assumed to be, Gary Oak. King of the Alphas, if Ash's memory served him correctly. Second fastest on the track team, following after the queen herself, and the biggest flirt of the school, surpassing Drew in both number and variety. Omega and Alpha girls alike seemed to swoon over Gary's dashing good looks and pearly white smile.
Misty sneered at Gary's advancing form, who was otherwise known as Woodland Creek's infamous boy toy. His playboy attitude striking multiple nerves that Misty had failed to notice until she had met him when they were all but children.
"What do you want Gary?" Misty asked exasperatedly, cutting all formalities to her question.
Gary smirked, his airy and cocky attitude only winning in his favor, riling up the one and only Misty Waterflower. The flustered responses Misty provided were always highly amusing. However, Gary's little game ceased to a halt when he noticed Ash peering over Misty's shoulder. Gary immediately recognized him as his Grandfather's pain of a student, the name blanking on him.
Oak was an Omega teacher, but Gary was able to earn and establish the title Alpha when he won numerous running championships and scholarships upon entering Woodland Creek a bit later. All humor vanished from his face once he locked eyes with the raven-haired Omega. His eyes roamed over Ash's stance like a wolf analyzing his prey.
"Misty, what are you doing talking with this mut?" Gary demanded, his expression morphing into obvious disgust.
"Hey, I'm right here. If you have something to say to me, then say it to my face," Ash boldly dared, not quite appreciating the way Gary had been speaking to both Misty and himself.
"What did you just say to me, you little punk?" Gary seethed, abandoning the school policies directly aimed at the tolerance of fighting on the parameter of Woodland Highs' grounds. Especially those designed specifically to avoid overly abusive behaviors towards Omegas.
"What are you deaf? I said if you've got a problem, then say it to my face," Ash snarled.
Misty, sensing the upcoming destruction that could be unleashed if this wasn't stopped, intervened before heads could be bitten off.
"Alright, alright, down boy," Misty's authoritative manner stepping in, her firm glare at Gary signaling for him to step down. Eventually, after a few seconds of cogitating and sneers from the queen herself, Gary reluctantly did so. Retreating and relinquishing a menacing leer at Ash as he went.
"I'm sorry about him," Misty apologized once again, the sincereness threaded in her voice perplexing Ash.
"Why are you acting so casually around me?" Ash blurted, immediately wishing he could extract the fumbling words from ever leaving his mouth.
Misty felt caught off guard by the question. Honestly unsure herself why she had been so kind to the Omega. Normally, she would never engage with one to this level of speaking terms. The most social interactions she ever gave an Omega was during the annual sports festival when she would check to see how they were doing competition wise. Other than that she remained on her side of the building, with the Alphas and where she believed she belonged. So what made this boy so different? Was it his pleading and gorgeous brown eyes that could pierce her own? Was it his undeniably handsome face? Was it his utter disregard to her ranking? Was it all the above? Misty pondered, leaving Ash hanging on a thin thread.
"Um, never mind, that was a stupid question," Ash piped up once more, regret evident on the boy's face.
"Oh, no its alright," the Alpha immediately dismissed, shrugging off the queasy feeling in her stomach, and trying to gain as much of her usual collected composure as she could muster.
"Well, we better get to class. Once again, I apologize for, well everything," Misty concluded, bowing and briskly retrieving back to the class that she discerned she was unbelievably tardy for.
Ash was in a stupor, nearly reaching out to grab Misty's hand to keep her from leaving, but ultimately letting her vanish from his sights.
Anyways, hoped this chapter turned out alright. I will be continuously improving my chapters from now on, so expect some changes to them every once in a while. Thanks for reading!