"Which means I'll need to know exactly what we're looking for. Um. Which is...?" Nishan inquired.
"Nishan does raise a good point. You still haven't told us what this is all about. What's the big scandal that we're going to reveal?" Jess asked, eyebrows raised.
"I'll get to that. But first, there's still one missing piece in this puzzle... we're going to need one last person. Sakura," Wes stated.
Nishan jumped up and exclaimed, "Sakura?! Why her? What does she have to do with this?"
Wes answered, "Whether or not she knows it, she's got the information that we need."
Jess hummed and chewed her lip in thought. Then she finally spoke, "So all we need now... is to recruit Sakura to our school?"
Wes nodded, "You got it. And I've got a plan for it. I'll explain..."
The gang looked up at Wes expectantly on how they were going to recruit Sakura. Wes took out a picture of her, which showed her playing video games on her laptop, headphones over her ears, lips drawn into a scowl and deep in concentration.
Jess recalled this girl; pink hair, almond-shaped brown eyes, olive skin and dressed in a steam punk outfit. That day when they had gone to Hearst to investigate the quadrocopter thing...
"The grading system at Hearst High is corrupt, but I don't have enough information to pinpoint the details. Sakura's obsessed with competition, and my sources confirm that she's been tracking the grades of everyone at Hearst. If anyone has the data we need, it'll be her." she heard Wes say, drawing her out of her thoughts.
Jess nodded in agreement and licked her lips.
"So it's just a matter of recruiting her to Avalon?" Jess enquired.
"Exactly."
Julian propped his feet up on the table and spoke in his deep voice, "Then let's do this thing. I don't know about y'all, but I'm ready to stop Hearst before they mess with us again."
"There's just one problem... Hearst High is on lockdown. Only students with Hearst IDs are allowed to set foot on campus," Wes pointed out. "But there's still one way to reach Sakura. She always joins a multiplayer online game at lunch. If we get in the game, we can talk to her. Nishan, you know what I'm talking about..." he added.
"You're talking about B.A.N.G., right?" Nishan asked rhetorically.
Mia frowned, "B.A.N.G.?"
"Battle Arena: Next Generation. It's a sci-fi shooter with a King-of-the-Hill competition," he explained.
Mia quirked an eyebrow up and asked in confusion, "Huh? Tone it down on the nerd-speak, Sharma."
"The players are dropped onto a map. At the center is an abandoned alien cyborg hive on top of a mountain. The goal is to capture the hive and defend it from the other players. Whoever has control of the hive when the clock runs out wins," he elaborated further.
Mia nodded in understanding and Julian said, "I'm in. I've played Call of Duty and Battlefield. They're kinda similar to that game, right?"
"Count me in as well, I love playing video games" Jess chirped.
"What about you Nishan?"
"Um... I don't know... I don't think this is a good idea..." Nishan began nervously.
Jess gave him a strange look and enquired, "And why not? It sounds like a solid plan..."
"Yeah? Well, you don't know Sakura," he mumbled under his breath.
Julian heard him though and narrowed his eyes at him.
"And what the hell is that supposed to mean?" he asked.
Nishan looked at him and began replying only to change his mind, "I...oh, forget it..."
Jess cleared her throat to focus their attention on the matter at hand.
"So, what do we need to pull off this plan?" she asked.
"It's going to take a pretty spectacular setup. That game required top-of-the-line hardware to even get past the loading screen," Nishan informed her.
Later...
Jess, Wes, Julian and Nishan walked to one of the Nerd Hangouts and entered the gaming room where the found two of the gamers, James and Taylor busy seated on purple beanie bags, playing Call of Duty: WW2 on the Xbox One and headphones on. The gaming PCs were free at the moment and they walked over to the table, where they were lying with other accessories like mice, gaming seats and headphones.
They sat at different points of the table and got comfortable in the seats.
"Okay, everyone. Like Nishan said, this is a King-of-the-Mountain style game... an all- out war to get to the top of the alien cyborg hive and stay there. Sakura is a pro, so she'll make her way to the top fast," Wes told them.
"Nishan, you're the boss here," Jess said kindly.
"Me? No... I'm no expert on this game. I haven't played since... well, not in a long time," Nishan said, doubt creeping in his voice.
"That's still more than the rest of us. And besides, we've got one big advantage. We're going to be working as a team. Everyone else in this game is only looking out for themselves," Wes told him.
"Let's do this thing!" Julian whooped.
"Right. Just remember to stick close and work together!" Wes reminded them.
They wore their headphones, booted up the laptops and opened up the game and logged in after creating new accounts with the exception of Nishan. After that process, the newcomers chose their avatars and due to time constraints, they had to make do with default avatars of their genders. Immediately, the alien home world materialized around them. Lightning split the purple sky. Twin moons were high above them, illuminating the map. In the game, Cassandra's avatar was wearing a suit of black, battle-scarred armor. A huge plasma blaster was in her hands.
"Holy shit! This looks totally awesome," Jess said in amazement.
"It's weirder than I was expecting... but, yeah, I could get into this," Julian's voice came in over the headphones.
"Dude, It's amazing! I mean, do you see those cyborg arms coming out of the hive?" Jess asked him excitedly.
"They're beckoning us to our doom, as per the cyborg queen's parting instructions to the horde when she was destroyed... er, or so the legends say," Nishan explained.
"A horde of mindless drones obeying your blood-thirsty plans for revenge... there's something intriguing there," Wes remarked.
" Right. So about finding Sakura?" Jess asked
Wes cleared his throat and spoke, "Right, right. Okay, everyone. Stay alert... Sakura's got to be at the top of the mountain already... see how fast players are getting wiped out and respawning on the map?"
His avatar gestured to a tiny map at the base of their display. On it, blue lights flicker, disappearing and then reappearing farther away from the mountain."
"When we find her, we're only going to have one chance to make our case before she tries to destroy us. She's not exactly going to believe that we're only there to talk. Nishan, you're friends with her, so that means you'll be our guy. We get you close enough, and you convince her to join us."
Nishan began stammering, "I'm not... I... I can't..."
Jess frowned in concern and asked, "Nishan, is everything okay?"
Nishan cried out, "I'm sorry. I can't do this!"
In real life, Nishan bolted from the room, leaving the others staring at him. In the game, Nishan's avatar dropped his plasma rifle and stood idle.
"Well, that happened." Jess commented.
"Deserting your friends on the field of battle? Jerk move," Julian grumbled.
Wes remarked, "Seems that this has just gotten more difficult."
Julian's avatar walked over to where Nishan's avatar was and picked up the fallen blaster.
"Don't worry. We're still in this," Julian told him.
Just then, a plasma blast hit the rock behind them.
"Shit! Another player just found us! We're under attack!" Wes swore.
The player took another shot at them and they ducked. Jess reacted by flipping in the air and taking out her gun and shooting at the other player. Her shot was true and it hit the other player and he was vaporized.
Julian whistled and complimented her, "Nice shooting, Jess."
"You seem like you've got this handled... but the players are only going to get better the farther up the mountain we go. Before you go on, try to get some backup. Then see if you can make it up the next level of the hive. I've got something to take care of... I'll be back," Wes told them.
In the game, Wes' avatar ran off, leaving Jess and Julian looking at each other.
"What was that about?" Jess wondered.
Julian snorted, "I'm not surprised, Wes always has his agendas."
"Now what?" she asked.
"It's as he said, we get more players to join us. Lucky for us we have two gamers in the room who can join us.
The two looked behind them and saw James and Taylor wrapping up their COD session. Jess called over to them and explained what they were doing. They readily agreed to join their gaming session and soon, the two gamers materialized inside the game next to Jess and Julian.
"Okay, we've got our new recruits taking point and guarding our right flank. Between the two of them, we should at least be able to make it up the mountain to the base of the hive," Julian told her.
Jess, Julian, and the gamers fought their way past other players until they finally reached the entrance to the hive. They went through narrow pathways, lit by eerie, flickering lights.
"This is it. According to this blinking map thing, the next room is the inner sanctum of the hive. That's where Sakura will be," Julian whispered.
As they went round the corner, they nearly ran into Wes. Jess yelped slightly in fright and raised her blaster in defense.
"There you are. I've been waiting," Wes said, unfazed at the blaster in front of him.
"Dude, what the hell? You could have come and helped us!" Julian exclaimed.
"I was busy. I made some... 'arrangements', " Wes mysteriously said.
"How did you swing that?" Jess asked.
"I promised each player on the server that I would take out Sakura and then give up the mountain to them. It's going to be total chaos when we log out, but, hey, not our problem, right?"
Julian chuckled and remarked, "That's the most Wes sentence I've ever heard..."
"The point is, they'll stay out of our way. We just need a plan for how we're going to get inside the inner sanctum of the hive to speak with Sakura," Wes continued.
They continued with their journey and Wes left them again to look ahead at the situation with Sakura. After a few minutes he was back with a report.
"I spotted Sakura just up ahead. She's taking out everyone around her even faster than I anticipated. We're going to have to buy ourselves some talking time, or else we'll be vaporized before we even have a chance to finish a sentence," he informed them.
"Lucky for us, I've got an idea," Ashley spoke up. The others looked at her curiously. "Everyone, listen up. Wes, Taylor and I will come around the side and hide. Cassandra and Julian, go straight for a frontal assault. When you've got her damaged, we'll hit her with one of these."
Ashley held up a handful of tiny capsules.
"These will trap her in place with a jelly-like glob of goop. But they take a few seconds to activate, so you have to make sure she's distracted and that she's taken some damage. She'll need to heal, and that will buy us time."
"Affirmative," Jess said, indicating she'd understood.
"Signal us when it's time," James reminded them.
"Get into position," Wes ordered them.
Jess and Julian round the corner and saw Sakura. She snapped around, spotting them immediately and shot at them. They dived to avoid getting shot.
'Damn, this girl has some reflexes,' Jess thought.
"Oh, how adorable. You actually thought you could surprise me," Sakura mocked.
Sakura aimed her plasma blaster straight at Jess. Luckily, Jess had some quick reaction times of her own and rolled to the side, dodging the blast.
"Good reflexes! Now's our chance!" Julian told her.
Julian took aim at Sakura, and Jess raised her plasma blaster and sent a plasma blast shooting towards Sakura. Sakura threw herself to the side, but the plasma blast clipped her leg.
Sakura 's avatar glared at her and growled," Oh, you will pay for that."
"Whoa! I just want to talk to you," Jess tried telling her.
Sakura snorted, "Yeah, right."
She glanced down at her leg and started applying a healing pack, which glowed blue.
Jess thought, 'Now it's time.'
Wes, James and Taylor sprung out of their hiding place and threw jelly capsules at Sakura. They landed between her feet and exploded into a glob of goo that trapped her in place.
"Oh, you have got to me kidding me! Argh!" Sakura growled.
"We did it!" Julian cheered.
"What's with the goo? And why didn't you take me out? You had the shot, I saw you," Sakura asked in curiosity.
"Like I said, we really do want to talk to you," Jess replied.
Sakura looked at them in turn and nodded, "All right. You've got my attention. You want to talk? Talk."
Wes began, "I know you've been tracking the grades of everyone at Hearst High..."
Sakura cut him off, "Whoa, buddy. This server isn't secure. You want to talk about Hearst High, do it IRL."
"We can't get onto the Hearst campus. Will you come to our school?" Jess requested.
"Sorry, kids. After a big win, I always spend the night celebrating," Sakura declined.
"Come celebrate with us." Jess invited her.
Sakura sized the group up and shook her head.
"Default avatars? No offense, but I don't think we party the same way. I'm not into spin the bottle and dancing on tables," Sakura told them.
Jess pressed, "We've got gamers at our school. We can throw the ultimate gamer party."
"Yeah? Well, maybe I'll drop by and check it out. But no promises. I actually want to have fun when I celebrate a win."
Julian realized something, "Wait a second. You keep talking like you've won, but the game isn't over yet. "
Sakura smirked to herself, "Isn't it? See, if you actually played this game, you'd know that Freezing Goo holds someone in place... but it also provides a shield against explosives."
The group spun around and noticed Sakura's plasma grenades wired all along the walls of the room.
"That's not good," Julian murmured.
Sakura continued, "So... if those plasma grenades were to go off... I'd be just fine. Can't say the same for all of you. Later, guys."
Sakura pressed a button, and the grenades detonated in a blinding flash of blue light. Text flashed on the screen 'GAME OVER'. Back in the real world, the group took off their headphones and stood up.
"So, now to throw a gamer party," Jess said flippantly.
"Luckily, we can help with that," Taylor offered.
Jess nodded and texted Payton to help the gamers with organizing Party Central for the party that they were to have.
A few hours later...
Jess, Autumn, Julian, Payton, Wes and Mia were in Party Central waiting for Sakura to arrive. Nishan conveniently enough was missing. The place had been decorated with posters and cardboard cutouts of video game characters like Nathan Drake, Commander Shepard, the cast of Overwatch, Solid Snake, Mario and Luigi, Ryu and Ken from the Street Fighter Franchise and many others. Streamers of videogame logos like Nintendo, PlayStation and Xbox hung around. Consoles and gaming laptops were on one end, board games in the middle and snacks on another end.
"No snacks or drinks near the electronics." Jess had constantly reminded them.
The nerds and the gamers were going everything one more time, checking that the wiring was done well and that nothing would short-circuit. Just then, Sakura walked in dressed in black Nightblade outfit. She looked around and whistled and smiled, looking rather impressed at the set-up.
"A LAN setup... board games... and a next-gen console? Not a bad party, actually. At least you guys aren't sore losers." she remarked.
Jess walked over to her and held out a hand in greeting. "It's finally a pleasure to meet you Sakura Watanabe." Jess greeted.
Sakura shook her hand in return and said, "Ah, the famous Jess Miller. I've heard a great deal about you, some good and some bad."
The others introduced themselves to her and soon, they were mingling over video games. One thing that Jess realized about Sakura was that she was rather competitive. As they were playing Tekken 7, Jess managed to win three out of the six matches they played and Sakura would not take that lying down. The other remaining matches, Jess lost Julian played with her Madden and he lost by a huge margin; mind you, it was his favorite game. Wes played some board games with her and lost. Payton and Mia played Call of Duty with her and despite the two working against her, they lost in the fight against her. All in all, Sakura was the ultimate gamer girl.
After the party...
The gang were lying on the couch, exhausted after an evening of partying. "Nice party. I have to admit I enjoyed myself. But you didn't invite me here just to have fun. You said you wanted to talk about Hearst?" Sakura mentioned.
Wes didn't waste any time giving her the rundown of things.
"I know you've been tracking the grades of everyone at Hearst High," he told her bluntly.
"Yeah? So what?" Sakura asked warily.
Wes raised up his hand in emphasis, showing his approval.
"I get it. You wanted to figure out the system of Hearst High... how to 'play the game'. You picked out the consistent high scorers. You made sure you were always partnered with the people who got A's."
"There's nothing wrong with that," Sakura defended herself.
"Not at all. What I'm interested in is your data. You might not have realized it, but when you were tracking everyone's grades, yo were also tracking the corruption at Hearst High," he informed her.
Sakura snorted in amusement, "Oh, please. You want to go play 'Cloak and Dagger', go somewhere else. Like you said, I've got this game all figured out. Why would I help you bring down the system?"
Jess quipped in, "For justice?"
Sakura replied, "Morality's all relative."
Julian decided to try his hand.
"What about for Nishan? He wants us to take down Hearst. Don't you want to help him? He's your friend, right?" he asked.
Sakura stood up, anger in her eyes.
"My friend? I don't have any friends," she seethed.
Sakura turned and left. The others looked at each other, unsure of what to say.
Wes cleared his throat and spoke, "Well, that was unexpected. Seems like it's time we have a talk with our favorite nerd."
Julian agreed, "Yeah. That girl was ten kinds of ready-to-kill-Nishan."
Wes narrowed his eyes and muttered, "Yeah... and I bet he knows why."
Wes stormed into the Nerd Hangout, with Jess following closely behind. "Dude, what the hell? You sent us in with bad intel!" Wes exclaimed.
Nishan had been doing some research with occasional glances through a microscope. He looked up and asked, "What?"
"About Sakura. You should've warned us that mentioning your name was like walking into a minefield!"
Nishan gave him a humorless smile.
"So she's till mad, huh?" he asked rhetorically.
"Oh, she's furious. Want to tell us why?" Wes asked, his arms folded over his chest.
Nishan sighed and began explaining. "When I left Hearst High to come here... I didn't exactly tell everyone that I was going. And by that I mean I didn't tell Sakura."
Jess gave him a confused look, "But... weren't you friends?"
"We are. Were. Kind of? You might have noticed that she's not the easiest person to talk to. It wasn't a conversation I was looking forward to, and I guess I just kept putting it off... And then suddenly she'd already found out from Kara, and that was the end of it! I tried to talk to her about it later, but she didn't want to hear it!"
"Well, this is your fault, and that means you're going to figure out how to solve it, even if you have to use every neuron in that huge brain of yours," Wes fumed.
Nishan chuckled, "Believe me, you don't want to send me in to talk to Sakura. I'm the last person she'd want to see. She's made it pretty clear that she's through with me."
"So what do we do? Sakura said she had a good thing going at Hearst High. She's not feeling very friendly towards you. We've got to come up with some other way to get through to her. How can we get on her good side?"
Nishan rubbed his neck thoughtfully, "Well... Sakura's always had a hard time in art class."
Wes nodded in understanding, "No group projects, so no way to play the system... makes sense."
"Plus, you can't really win at art. It either makes you feel something or it doesn't. I don't think she ever really got that part of it. Before I left Hearst, I think she mentioned that she was actually failing the class..." Nishan added.
Jess licked her lips and asked. "So we bring in an artist to help her and try to get on her good side?"
Nishan nodded. "That's probably a good place to start."
The Next Day...
Jess entered the Artist Hangout where Autumn was hard at work on a painting of an eagle.
"Hey! Autumn. Can we get your help with something?" Jess called out.
Autumn stopped her painting and looked at her, paint splattered on her face and apron.
"Sure, Jess. What's up?" she asked.
"We're trying to recruit Sakura, and we think we've finally found something that she might need help with... art," Jess explained.
Autumn smiled and laughed lightly, "Heh. That is something I can help with. I'll just have to find the right way to reach her inner artist. Oooh, we can set up a whole art studio! Clay, paint, marble, oils... we can even put together a still-life for her to contemplate! What do you think?
Jess chuckled, "Sakura might not be the 'contemplating' type, but it's worth a shot!"
Jess and Autumn began getting all the materials that they would require for Sakura. Thirty minutes later, Sakura walked in, a scowl on her face.
"Okay, I'm here. Wes texted that you wanted to help me with my art problem. For the time being, we'll just ignore HOW you found out about my artistic shortcomings... And focus on the fact that Wes promised to solve them for me, no questions asked," Sakura grumbled.
"Yep, we just like to help people here," Jess quipped.
"Great policy. Really giving the Boy Scouts a run for their badges," Sakura said sarcastically. "So, where do we start?"
Autumn chirped, "Good question! I've set up a still-life with fruit and flowers over here..."
Sakura eyed the materials in front of her and rolled her eyes.
"Fruit. And flowers. Wow, I'm inspired already," Sakura muttered sarcastically.
Autumn sighed, "You're being sarcastic, aren't you?"
Sakura shrugged, "Look, I'm just saying that I think we can do a little better. Something with some more action to it."
Autumn rubbed her chin thoughtfully, "I... guess I could get someone to pose for us..."
"I can do that," Jess volunteered.
Jess walked up to the platform at the center of the art room, and struck a pose.
"There, is that better?" Autumn asked.
Sakura hummed, "It would be even better with a flaming sword, slick with the blood of fallen enemies..."
"You'll just... have to use your imagination on that one. But... that could actually be a good thing... imagination is a step in the right direction."
Sakura muttered, "Sure..."
"Now, let's get to work! These paintings aren't going to paint themselves!" Autumn said excitedly.
"Um... how long is this going to take? I've got a raid in twenty minutes..." Sakura enquired.
Autumn gasped, "You can't rush art! Your inner artist is like a delicate flower. You have to give that side of yourself time to unfurl..."
Sakura interrupted her, "Look, I've got places to go, epic battles to win, and n00bs to humiliate. You expect me to stand here all day and stare at the paint?"
Autumn pleaded, "Just give it a chance. I thought you didn't want to fail your art class."
Sakura sighed and conceded. "Well, I'm not about to wreck my GPA over all this paintbrush twirling, pencil-doodling nonsense, if that's what you mean. Let's do this."
For a whole hour, Jess posed on that stage until Sakura was done. Another hour passed and Sakura furiously worked and painted her paintings. Four canvases and a whole lot of paint later, Sakura was done. Sakura stepped back from her paintings, wiping her forehead and looking at the canvases.
"Um, I hope they aren't terrible," she murmured.
Jess and Autumn walked over and looked over at the paintings.
One of the paintings depicted a figure who looked suspiciously like Nishan being hurled into a flaming abyss. Another showed the same figure trapped in quicksand... and another one had him transforming into a slug.
Autumn reverently and carefully swept her hands over the painting and breathed, "Sakura, this is beautiful. You nailed it."
Sakura smirked, "Heh. This art stuff isn't all that hard. Achievement unlocked."
Sakura's phone rang with an alert and she took it out of her pocket.
"Well, thanks for the help, art girl," Sakura told Autumn.
Autumn said, "It's Autumn."
"Sure. See you around," Sakura said dismissively and began to walk out of the Hangout.
"Wait... don't you want to talk about joining our school?" Jess asked her as she walked out.
Sakura stopped her in her tracks and turned around. "Um, that was never part of the deal. You just said you wanted to help. You helped. I said thanks."
"Well, we kind of thought that you might consider transferring and helping us out with the downfall of Hearst High..." Cassandra trailed off.
Sakura asked her incredulously, "Are you crazy? Like I said, I've got a good thing going there."
"What about Nishan?"
Sakura narrowed her eyes, "What about Nishan?"
Jess nervously asked, "Er... don't you want to go back to hanging out with him?"
"Are you kidding me? That spineless twerp left me in the middle of the school year with about a dozen half-done class projects, not to mention a long-term RPG quest that's still cluttering up my quest log. Look, thanks for all the help. I'm out of here."
Sakura waved and headed off.
Jess remarked, "That... seemed like it could've gone better..."
Autumn looked at the painting with a worried look, "Jess... this painting Sakura did... We've got to show Nishan. She's clearly upset with him. I bet that's the real reason she doesn't want to transfer. If we could just get the two of them to talk..."
Jess nodded and called Nishan on her phone to come over to the Artist Hangout ASAP. A few minutes later, Nishan arrived at the Hangout.
"Nishan... we've got something you need to see. This painting... Sakura made it," Cassandra told him.
Nishan looked at it and grimaced.
"Uh, was the prompt 'depressing things that keep you awake at night'?" he asked with a wrinkle on his face.
Autumn frowned at him, "The prompt was to paint her feelings... and obviously she's feeling pretty depressed and alone right now."
"I don't get it. That's not like Sakura at all. She doesn't need anyone else. She's a lone wolf, prowling the night," Nishan mentioned.
Autumn quirked an eyebrow at him, "Are you sure about that? Because this painting seems to suggest otherwise. I think you should go find her. She needs to talk to someone."
Nishan sighed, "Even if you're right, I'm the last person she'd want to talk to. I tried to talk to her a couple days after I left Hearst, and she bit my head off. Literally. We were playing 'Monsters and Mayhem: Eat or Be Eaten'."
Jess snorted in laughter at this as much as the situation was serious. The other two ignored her and continued with their conversation.
Autumn told him gently, "I get that she might put on a tough front, but she obviously feels something about what happened between the two of you. Let's just say some of her other paintings were a little more..."
Nishan asked hopefully, "Amorous?"
Autumn replied bluntly, "Violent."
Nishan's face fell. "Right."
Autumn sighed, "Look, what I'm getting at is that you need to talk to her, okay? I think she's still somewhere on our campus. Go find her. She needs you."
"Hey... Sakura. So. I, uh, saw that painting you made. That's, uh, some pretty bleak stuff..." said Nishan
"Who said you could go pawing through my stuff?" Sakura asked
"Whoa! Autumn showed me. That's all."
"It was just a class project. It didn't mean anything."
"Really? You, alone in a black hole of doom? Kinda got the feeling that it meant SOMETHING... Autumn had this crazy idea that it had something to do with how I left Hearst."
"Well, yeah, that was low, Nishan. You left without any warning! We were working on projects together in three different classes! We were supposed to do a science fair experiment together! You could have at least said something!"
"I know I messed up. I'm not exactly the best guy when it comes to touch-y, feel-y, good-bye-y stuff, okay? I didn't want to go through all that. Not with you. And to be honest... I didn't think you cared. I mean, you're this crazy-cool renegade loner girl. You're strong and independent and, like, totally in control of everything! I never thought that you'd... care... that I left. I didn't think you needed me."
"I don't NEED you. ...but maybe I want you around."
"You... do?"
"Hmph. Don't let it go to your head."
Nishan reaches out to Sakura and gently squeezes her hand. She look startled, but then gives him a quick smile.
"Nishan..." Sakura blushed
"Sakura... will you join our school? There's nothing I want more."
"Well. When you put it that way... I'll do it. What've I got to lose?"
All of them were gathered at the Prep Hangout and they were seated at the table.
"Welcome to the school, Sakura." Wes congratulated her.
Sakura smiled, "You know, I actually might like it here. At least helping you take down Hearst will be fun. Rebel against the oppressive regime, liberate the people... I'm no do-gooder, but it IS run fighting the evil empire. Especially if you win. Just like playing Resistance Rebels, am I right?"
Julian asked Wes, "Did you take a look at the records?"
Wes replied with a scowl, "Yeah... and the corruption's even worse than I thought."
Jess asked, "Really? How?"
Wes took out a print out from his pocket and unfolded it and placed it on the table.
"You see this chart? This tracks donations from the wealthiest families at Hearst. And this tracks the grades of those students. Every time someone gets a low grade, suddenly there's a big donation, and then just as suddenly the grade is changed." he explained.
Autumn gasped, "That's terrible! They're buying grades?
Julian scowled, "No big surprise there. The Hearst Coach benched me so the principal's son could be the star. The faculty at Hearst have never played by the rules."
Mia grimaced and shook her head, "It was a little suspicious that we had a hot tub in the gym... I guess that money had to come from somewhere."
"And the worst part? It's wrecking the curve for everyone else. After all the rich kids take up all the A's, everyone else has to fight over B's and C's," Wes added.
Payton stammered, "But... that's so sad. It's just...wrong." Payton turned to face Sakura. "Sakura, you knew about this?"
"Hey, I was just figuring out the top people to partner with. I didn't exactly spend hours studying the results. I've got raids every afternoon, and I've been marathoning 'The Last of Us' in Survivor mode at night," Sakura defended herself.
Wes cleared his throat to focus their attention back on him.
"Anyway, I've been studying the patterns here... Mr Onreal stood up to Principal Warren doing the right thing not long he resigned."
Mia asked, "Wait. Aren't we going to need supplies for this caper?"
Wes affirmed, "That's right. Nishan?"
"Just standard, totally routine things... walkie talkies, maps, masks... Infrared goggles, grappling hooks, tiny robot spiders with lazer-beam eyes..." Nishan said.
Jess remarked sarcastically, "Right... Standard."
Nishan frowned and asked, "Look, do you want to caper this caper or not?"
Mia asked, "What about hacking into the computer?"
"I can create a search algorithm that will comb through all of his emails and files. It'll even retrieve any docs he's deleted. If there's any way to find and recover those records, we'll get them," Nishan said.
"But like I said... we can only do this from inside Hearst High... it's the only way to get access to their closed computer system. And you know what that means..." Wes suggested
"We're going in," Jess said, her tone of voice dripping with determination.