Ember walked into Casper High. Not for the first time, nor the second. In fact, it would probably be something like her five hundredth time or so. Even if you ignored her various escapades trying to conquer the world through music, this once had been as familiar to her as the back of her hand. Even now, years later, she didn't need to be told where to go to meet the administration.

The halls hadn't changed much. The lockers had been updated, the floors had been replaced, and the ceiling had been fixed, but the school itself was the same. They could repaint the exteriors as much as they wanted, but they couldn't change what they had been.

Which meant she scowled as she walked by the trophy case. The girl in the reflection made her flinch. She had spent more time than she should have this morning just staring at herself in the mirror. The body she was inhabiting still didn't feel like it was her, but at least she was feeling more comfortable in her… this body.

Her new body… Rosie's body… it had been more than a few days in this body, and she hadn't quite grown used to it yet. It didn't feel right. She knew what living felt like. She had craved it for years, and this wasn't it. There were a million little things that didn't quite match right. She was constantly being assailed by a hundred sensations that as one of the living she would have never thought twice about. The constant stimulation reminded her that she wasn't actually alive, she was just borrowing a body that wasn't her.

Plasmius, the creepy fucker, might have said the heart beating in her chest wasn't her own, but this body moved with her will. It was her decision to do what she wanted.

And that was life enough for Ember.

At least so she told herself.

Ember walked into the small office, the vice principal felt like someone she should have remembered, but frankly she didn't care. He was just another authority figure, drunk on whatever miniscule amount of power he had over the people in his charge, probably useless at actually helping or protecting them in any meaningful way. She had more of those in her first time around the living world, let alone her afterlife.

It wasn't just the two of them there, however. There was another student, this one she did recognize. She had… encouraged him to act as a bouncer for her at one point or another. She frowned as she walked in because god damn it couldn't Vlad have made this body a little taller? She really should have given him a series of requirements for the new body. She hadn't expected to just wake up in a living body. She had been able to look into his eyes without having to look up before, but now she was quite a bit smaller.

She glanced at his letterman jacket, (and really? He was walking around the school with that jacket on? It was cold outside, sure, but it wasn't that cold) and saw that he had several chevrons on one of the sleeves which indicated that it had in fact been several years since she last saw him.

Which… didn't make her feel much better about her new body's height, considering she supposedly wasn't going to grow.

God damn it, Plasmius.

"Ah, Ms. McCann," the vice-principal said, looking down at a set of papers spread out across his desk. "I'm the vice principal, Mr. Lancer, hopefully you'll just remember me as one of the teachers, not the one in charge of detention." The man laughed, as did the other student in the room. Mr. Lancer turned toward the other student and indicated him by patting him on the back. "This here is Dash Baxter, one of our finest students here. He's in the same grade as you, and he'll be showing you where your locker is, along with where your classrooms are."

Ember looked up at that. She supposed she should be thankful. She'd have thought that they'd have had Phantom be the face of Casper high, considering the reason why the place was still standing was because of him. Well, it was no skin off her new back if Phantom was too busy to show someone new around the school.

Dash held out his hand. "Nice to meet you," he said, giving her a smarmy grin. His head tilted to the side while flashing a smile. His entire posture screamed cocky and self-assured. The type of person Ember had once looked up to.

She knew better now.

Ember glanced down at Dash's hand and then back up at him. Leaving him hanging long enough just to be awkward.

Reluctantly she reached up and shook his hand, and he gave her a wider grin and held onto her hand longer than Ember wanted him to. She yanked her hand out of his and reached over to the papers on Mr. Lancer's desk. She picked it up, "This is my schedule, right?" She clarified, looking it over.

The science classes were still in the C wing with her's being in C-4. English and art were in the A building, in the same rooms she had the last time she went to school here.

She flipped the paper over, and saw that a map of the school had been printed on the back. Something she hadn't needed at all.

Of course, that also meant Dash here wasn't needed at all either.

"Yes, it is," Lancer said, raising an eyebrow at her. Ember wasn't sure if it was 'cause of her blowing off the jock in the room, or at her general attitude, but frankly she didn't care. She had more important things to do than stroke the ego of some big, dumb baboon and his handler. He put together the papers and handed the rest of them to her in a stack.

Ember folded up the schedule and shoved it in her vest. She then took the rest of the papers. "And these are?"

Mr. Lancer shrugged. "Study guides for the few weeks of school you've missed, and various notes to help you adjust to school here." Lancer turned toward Dash and nodded. "If you have any other questions, you can ask Dash here for any help."

Dash folded his arms and straightened his back, his face out of Mr. Lancer's eye-line as he leered at her. "Really, if you need anything…."

"I'll remember that…" Ember said flatly, resolving to forget it immediately. She glanced at the papers before seeing nothing that needed to be looked at now. So she put them in the messenger bag she was using as a backpack, and then pulled out her schedule again. She looked up at Lancer. "I'm gonna go ahead and assume I have textbooks somewhere."

Mr. Lancer nodded. "Of course, they're left in your locker."

"Peachy," Ember said flatly before turning on her heel.

"Wha-" Dash began as Ember marched out of Mr. Lancer's office. "Hey, wait up!" Dash said, jogging to walk side by side with her. He held up his arms and indicated himself. "Don't you want to know where your locker is?"

Ember rolled her eyes and held up her schedule. "My locker number is C314, I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that means it's in the C wing, on the third floor. Am I close?"

Dash frowned, but then shrugged. "Huh, you know… I never noticed that." He shook his head, and Ember couldn't help but picture him clearing the etch-a-sketch that was his brain. He shrugged once again and then kept pace with her easily, his longer legs keeping up with her march. Damn it, Plasmius! "Well, anyways, I figured I should tell you about our teachers and what not." Dash started ticking down on his fingers. "You've met Mr. Lancer, he's pretty chill. He's one of the favorites. Mr. Falluca is the math teacher, he's alright, but kind of a stickler you know? Then there's Ms. Tetslaff, and she's awesome-"

Ember didn't even glance in his direction as she made her way up the stairs. "Let me guess, she's the gym teacher?"

Dash blinked. "Wait, how did you know?"

Ember glanced at Dash's letterman jacket, noting the fact that he had several sport patches stitched on, and no academic ones. "Call it a lucky guess…" Ember scoffed and then continued on.

She made it to her locker and started putting in the combination that was on her paper. Dash crowded her space by leaning against the locker, putting on hand on the locker next to hers and leaning on it. His arm length made it so he was practically breathing down her neck. Could this guy not take a damn hint or something? "So, what's with the vest? And what's with the dots over these letters?"

Ember stopped and turned around. "Are… are you serious?" She asked, glancing at the other students as they began to make their way to their own lockers. She confirmed the patch Dash was pointing at. "You really don't know the Mötley Crüe?"

Dash scratched at the side of his head. "Uh… no? Should I?"

Ember rolled her eyes and went back to her locker. "Yes. Yes, you should."

She had intended to leave it at that, but unfortunately, the silence was broken by Dash asking again. "So… uhhh… the vest?"

Ember yanked on the lock, and it popped open and she was finally able to get her books out. "It's called a battle vest, di-dweeb," she said, changing the word at the last second. Plasmius had stressed the importance of breaking some of her habits that gave her away. Going around calling all the dipsticks dipsticks would probably blow her cover.

"That sounds awesome," Dash breathed out.

Ember couldn't help but laugh. So his opinion wasn't total shit, she should have known considering she had brainwashed him at some point with her music. "Yeah. That's fair," she allowed as she looked at her schedule and confirmed what her next first class would be. She grabbed a few of her textbooks and put them in her bag as Dash circled behind her. She glanced back at him before shutting her locker. "It's a bunch of my favorite bands and stuff like that." She said, sliding out and away from him.

"Oh! Cool! So it's like my letterman jacket!"

And just like that, any respect Ember had begun to grow for him died. "No," she said flatly, "No it isn't."

Dash scratched the back of his head as he tried to figure out what he said wrong. That jacket Dash was wearing was very different than what Ember was wearing. Dash's jacket was all about his athleticism and tied to his time here at the school. Ember's was about her passion for music and had nothing to do with school.

Ember refused to acknowledge the fact that yes, both clothing items they were wearing were representations of things that they cared about. There was nothing in common, no matter what anyone said.

Dash, however, had not figured that out. Instead, Dash jogged around her and cut her off at the corner. He leaned against the corner putting his hand up against the wall and blocking her path. "So… uh… you like quarterbacks?"

Ember paused and blinked. She probably looked pretty stupid at the moment because she literally couldn't understand what the point of that question was. She looked up at that same smarmy grin he had on earlier and it clicked.

"Oh my god… has that line ever worked for you?" At his shocked expression, she felt something inside her die, and as a ghost, she was an expert on that. "It has hasn't it? Holy shit, that's just sad…" Ember ducked under his arm and continued walking past him. She turned and said, not quite shouting but definitely making her voice heard. "Listen, I don't need a creepy, mouth-breathing monkey-brained jock chasing me around. So just… don't. Just don't."

And hopefully, that'd be the end of that.

Of course, it couldn't have just ended there.

Ember knew that there was a social hierarchy in high school, that wasn't exactly something that had changed since Ember was last here. But, she hadn't expected how rigid it was this time around. She had told off Dash at the start of the school day, and while no one had really reacted by her first class of the day, her second class had already started trying to avoid interacting with her.

By the third class, she was a social pariah. Again.

Which… didn't bother her as much as she thought it would. Years ago, ages ago, that had bothered her. When she was the weirdo who no one liked… The lonely girl who no one loved… The…

No, an age ago, that bothered her.

And she'd leave it at that.

Now? Now she scoffed at the people following the whims of an egotistical jock bitter about rejection. And sometimes the dipsticks wondered why she wanted a damn revolution when this shit was the pattern everywhere.

To be perfectly honest, being the social pariah was probably a good thing. The last thing she needed was anyone poking their noses into her business.

But as Ember turned away from the lunch line, a tray of gross cafeteria food in hand, (And she was fixing that as soon as she got back to the apartment, school lunches hadn't improved. They had gotten worse.) looking for a place to sit, she realized how quickly she managed to get herself ostracized from the school at large.

Her eyes looked over at every table to see that they were all staring at the "new kid" which wasn't a surprise.

However, the fact that every table she looked at proceeded to turn away from her, clearly isolating her was… well, it wasn't anything new, though, but she certainly didn't expect it.

Apparently, the school at large liked Dash more than she would have expected. Or they were scared of the big lummox, but what the hell could he do to all of them?

Maybe after all this, she'd burn down the school too. It obviously wasn't a great place of learning after all. Frankly whatever school everyone else got shunted to after she torched this one would be better than being stuck in a weird dictatorship run by idiot football players.

As she walked through the cafeteria, every table she approached pulled chairs in closer, closing off friend groups, or they spread out, preventing from finding her a seat. Either way, making their opinion clear.

We don't want you to sit with us.

If it weren't the middle of January, she'd have said screw this and ate by herself outside, but alas, zero-degree weather did not make for a comfortable lunch experience.

That still left her with a table to sit at.

The only table left, however…

Tucker put half of his burger back on his plate. "Yeah," he said, talking around the burger in his mouth, "so anyways, that's why I'm on like three government watchlists and owe the plumber a new plunger"

Ember sighed. "I take it back, being cold isn't so bad…" It was at least better than having Dash around. Phantom was annoying, sure, but at least he used his brains more than his muscles.

The three of them looked up at Ember, and Ember felt a little bit of her inside freeze when she realized Phantom's eyes were focused on her alight with recognition. But he leaned back and smiled weakly. "I saw you at the community center! Rosie, right?" He glanced about at the rest of the cafeteria and then back at her. "So I guess you're the one who called Dash an idiot."

Ember shrugged. "Actually, I called him monkey brained, but the sentiment is the same."

Phantom smiled and pushed out a chair, inviting her to sit with the three of them. "And just like that, you're now my hero."

The goth at the table leaned back and folded her arms. "That also would explain why he's been on the warpath today. We already had to keep him from trying to shove you in a locker twice today."

Ember frowned at that. Why the hell was Phantom worrying about getting shoved in a locker? Said dipstick (and she really needed to avoid thinking that word, she could feel it on the tip of her tongue) must have thought she was worrying about him because he shrugged. "It's not like he can really hurt me. Better he's trying to come after me than any of the band geeks."

She really wanted to ask a couple of other questions, but the first to come out. "Why the band geeks versus… I dunno. The tech geeks?"

Tucker looked up from his burger and shrugged. "Dash won't touch the tech nerds, they're the ones who usually wind up doing his papers."

Sam put her chin on her hand and leaned against the table. "And the drama kids are also pretty protected. The school plays might not bring in as much as the jocks, but they at least bring some money in."

Oh, now Ember was getting it. Phantom was protecting everyone and being the good ole superman for the town, but Dash was his own level of importance. Unfortunately, that tracked. At least they didn't get on, Ember mused. God knows how bad it'd be if Phantom and the Baboon actually joined forces. She'd have to break cover and burn them both just to deal with the sheer annoyance. "Wonderful," Ember groaned, "so I take it this means that Dash is the school's golden boy?"

"Three touchdown passes in nationals during football season, and fifty percent accuracy on three-point shots in basketball," the three of them groaned at once.

"Greeeaaattt…"

Phantom sighed. "Yup. Some people's mind is like a steel trap, sharp and useful…" He looked up at Ember and gave her a half-hearted shrug while his smile filled with mischief. "Dash, on the other hand, has an etch-a-sketch."

Ember barked out a laugh. "I noticed!" She said, finally taking the offered seat. No one else was gonna take her, and well… the idea of buddying up with the town protector without him knowing did have a certain appeal. "That's a little unfair though. Those toys can be fun!"

Sam looked between Ember and Phantom a few times. It made Ember, and Tucker, raise an eyebrow, but Phantom hadn't noticed at all. Sam's eyes narrowed as she looked for… something, but Ember couldn't tell what. "So, gonna apologize to him?" Sam asked, a bite behind her words.

"Who Dash? Fuck no," Ember scoffed. "I bent over backwards to appease people like him back when… at my old school. I'm not doing that again."

Danny smiled at her and indicated the table with a wave of his hand. "Whelp, welcome to the weirdo table."

Ember shrugged and began to eat. The hunger her body got was… a weird sensation. She now understood why Vlad had wasted no time in getting her into it. The hunger it felt was stronger than what she had felt while she was alive. It was a little too easy to let that distract her.

Phantom leaned forward and put his elbows on the table. "So… you wanted to put on a live music session at the Spring Festival?"

Ember paused as she got ready to eat her food. She looked up at him. "You actually care about that?"

Danny shrugged, not quite non-committal, the interest on his face was too obvious in order for it to be apathy, but it also wasn't serious enough for her to be worried about his interest. "It sounded interesting. So I thought I could try to help out with that."

Ember scoffed. "Really?" She said, leaning forward, "And how do you know I'm not some criminal that's doing this as community service as part of my probation?"

Danny shrugged. This time, a bright smile on his face. "Well, I figured the chances of two people doing that was very unlikely."

The snort that left Ember's nose ruined any chances of her looking cool.

Not that she really cared.

Hazama: Continuing the self indulgent nature of this fic, I love the idea of Ember having a battle vest so she gets to have one. Part of this was inspired by me going back to my old schools to visit, getting to see everything being the same but so very different was... weird... to put it lightly. Also, we have chapter titles now. I usually don't title my chapters but Kilaknux made a comment on a future chapter we're working on and I basically went, "wait... that's awesome. We should do that!" And, since we're in charge of such matters, we started doing that.

Kilaknux: This is a chapter I didn't have a huge amount to do with. Most of my contributions were adding some comedy (Dash trying his usual line on Ember and Ember dying a little inside was me, for instance), adding a few descriptions and passages, that kind of thing. So instead I'll use this to praise Haz for doing most of this himself! I'm more heavily involved in the next few, I promise.

Also, sound off in the comments if you notice something kinda off about Ember's perspective here, because I assure you it's intentional.