CHAPTER 5

STAR HARBOR HIGH WAS AS IT ALWAYS WAS.

It was bustling. From the elegant wrought iron gate that led into the school, down the flower hedged interlocked path that led to Star Harbour’s primary entrance, a path that split into a fork at the very end and led to other sections of the school, there was a long line of students. Amidst the chaotic early-morning bustle were students, ranging from freshmen to seniors, the vast majority of them moving in pairs or in groups. The only ones who looked to be moving solo were the wide-eyed, innocent-faced, slightly chubby freshmen, who constantly apologized each time they so much as grazed someone else with their shoulders.

Dang thought the chaos had some organization to it now, at least a lot more than it had in his first year there. Back then, the school hadn’t had a designated uniform and they’d been allowed to turn up wearing whatever they wanted, so long as it was appropriate enough. Now, however, they were all clad in the same colors—a white shirt worn beneath gold-trimmed navy blue blazers, paired off with matching pants and whatever footwear they fancied, with the only requirement for footwear being that it be black or navy blue. The only allowance for individuality in the uniform get-up was with the sleeves on their shirts, which could have been long or short depending on personal preference, and they were also allowed the choice between donning the blazer or waistcoat. Most people with long-sleeve shirts went with waistcoats, and those with short sleeves went with the blazers and then there were the select few who cleverly avoided both waistcoat and blazer by wearing cardigans that bore Star Harbor’s badge.

Dang himself had gone with the long sleeve shirt and waistcoat look, as had Daniel and Megan. Dante and Daedalus, on the other hand, had gone with short sleeves and blazers. Daedalus, he thought, looked rather good in a blazer which was sort of odd considering the two of them were identical and yet Dang thought he didn’t pull off a blazer half as well as Daedalus did. Perhaps it was because Daedalus had had his blazer fitted perfectly to his form in a way that made him look rather elegant in it, while most of the others had their blazers a little baggy, with sleeves going a little past their wrists. Serving as perfect example of how good Daedalus looked in the blazer was the fact that Dante, also clad in the blazer, looked rather clumsy in comparison.

As they filed toward the school entrance, Dang couldn’t help but pick up on bits of chatter here and there. From students talking about their schedule for the day, to gushing about a house party over the weekend that Dang and the gang hadn’t been interested in and some fight that had gone down at the party, to asking one another if they’d completed long overdue assignments. Most of it was irrelevant to Dang but he still did like to listen, largely because he didn’t really have a choice—super hearing wasn’t exactly something he could turn off, so he’d grown accustomed to taking in all the chatter, sifting the relevant from the tedious. This morning, the only relevant piece of chatter he picked up on was that there was a new History teacher, one who was supposedly rather attractive and rather young, judging from the way the girls spoke about him.

Daniel, who could pick up on the chatter just as well as Dang, rolled his eyes when he heard about Mr. Saunders, the new History teacher.

“Please,” he muttered. “He’s probably not even all that hot.”

“What would you know about being hot?” Megan asked, smirking at Daniel as she posed the question.

Daniel met her gaze, smirked back, and glowed his eyes subtly so only she would notice. “Come on, there’s not a better judge of who’s hot and who’s not in Star Harbor than me. I literally bring the heat.”

“Being pyrokinetic isn’t the same as being hot,” Megan pointed out.

“Disagree,” Dante and Daniel said in almost robotic unison.

“What’s it matter to you anyways?” Megan asked. “It’s not like any of you even take History classes.”

“We do now,” Dang said, at the same time as all the others, all of them exchanging crooked grins as they spoke.

Once inside the Star Harbor main building, the students started to disperse, separating down corridors and hallways, marching off to whichever designated class they’d be having homeroom in. For Dang and the others and the entire sophomore year in general, homeroom was with Mr. Lincoln, their Geography teacher, and it was in the direction of the Geography classroom they headed immediately, which meant having to go up to the first floor.

They bumped into Chase and Chelsea on the stairwell heading up, classmates of theirs who Dang knew closely enough—or as closely as he could know anyone without filling them in on what he liked to get up to once he was outside of school.

“Hey, man,” Dang greeted Chase, the two of them exchanging a handshake and hug, before Dang frowned at Chase, deciding there was something off about his classmate’s appearance, something rather unusual. After a few seconds, his eyes widened somewhat. “Hang on, did you cut your hair?” he queried.

Perhaps most synonymous with Chase had been his wavy brown hair which he’d always liked keeping long, at about shoulder-length. He treated his hair a lot like his prized possession and there hadn’t been a single day since Dang had met Chase when his hair wasn’t all oily and packed full of product. Now, however, Chase’s hair was short—the sides were trimmed and it was parted down the middle, with a few curly strands falling down the front of his face. Other than his hair, he looked about the same, with the same slightly crooked nose and the slightly round face and dimpled cheeks.

“I thought I’d try something new,” Chase answered with a shrug. “After what happened with the world nearly getting destroyed by God knows what those things were, I figured it was time to start doing things I wouldn’t normally do.”

“So you cut your hair,” Megan said, raising one eyebrow over the other.

“Yep.” Chase nodded, and ran a hand through his hair. “I think I still make it work. Wouldn’t you agree?”

The others all shrugged, and Chase’s face fell somewhat. Chelsea, his sister and twin, chuckled and playfully roughened up his hair.

“Don’t sweat it. It’ll only be about a few months until it’s grown out again,” she said, her light blue eyes twinkling playfully. She turned her attention to Daedalus and Dang thought he saw her cheeks flush. “Hey, D,” she said, waving at him.

Daedalus nodded at her slowly and awkwardly said: “Uh, hey.”

At the same time, Daniel grinned and said: “Hey, Chelsea.”

To Daedalus, Chelsea smiled. To Daniel, she frowned awkwardly.

“We’re all D,” Daniel said defensively, gesturing to himself, Dante, Dang and Daedalus. “Be more specific next time, would ya?”

“You guys hear about Liam?” Chase asked as they continued up the stairs, getting closer to the first floor. When the others shook their heads, Chase sighed. “Seriously, do you guys even try to keep up with anything that happens around here? Feels like you five have got this whole other world that you live in, one that the rest of us aren’t invited to.”

“What?” Daniel laughed awkwardly, scratching at his head. “That’s silly. We’re just…you know…occupied.”

“Right,” Chase said, sounding unconvinced. “Anyways, with Liam,” he continued, just as they emerged onto the first floor and started down the corridor that would take them to the Geography classroom, a crowd of students ahead of them, heading in the same direction. “After the whole weird invasion, world’s about to end thing…well, his parents decided to move elsewhere. Washington, I hear. Put him in some ridiculously expensive, elite school there where all of the government bureaucrats and whatnot send their kids.”

“How’s that keep him safe from another invasion?” Daniel asked with a confused frown on his face.

“Dunno.” Chase shrugged. “But I mean, I sort of understand it…Here’s been pretty odd recently, wouldn’t you say? There’s constantly these fights with monsters and robots and whatnot…it’s like whenever there’s some sort of trouble, this is where the trouble’s drawn to. Honestly, me mom and da were also talking about moving…took both me and Chelsea to talk them out of it.”

“Things have been fine the last couple months, haven’t they?” Daedalus asked in a tone of curiosity. “There’s been no trouble, no monsters, no grand fights.”

“Yeah, and that’s what makes it scarier,” Chelsea replied. “Things get calm like this, it’s usually because there’s a storm brewing.”

“Bit pessimistic, no?” Megan asked. “Maybe the storm’s already brewed and come and gone?” she suggested. “Maybe the guys who fought against the invasion made sure a thing like that couldn’t happen again.”

“You really believe that?” Chelsea asked, looking at Megan as though she were naïve. “We live in a world where there’s people who control the weather and shoot fire out of their hands and mouth…there’s always going to be some sort of trouble, the kind of trouble that’s too much for people like me. That’s not the kind of trouble you can put an end to for good. Trouble always comes back.”

“Maybe not this time,” Dang said then, more hopefully than confidently. “Maybe this time there’s no more trouble.”

“If you feel that way about the city, why get your parents to let you stay here?” Daedalus queried as they arrived outside the Geography classroom. “Why not just move to a different city? Someplace with less trouble?”

“We’ve moved far too many times already,” Chase answered. “We were at four different elementary schools in four different cities. Constantly starting over and having to make new friends, being that new kid who stands out…it’s not a good feeling. We’d rather not have to go through that all over again.”

“Besides, we like it here,” Chelsea added. “All the crazy stuff that happens might be scary sometimes, sure…but it’s also part of why I want to stay. Anywhere else would just be far too boring for me.”

“Boring is good,” Dante said softly.

“Not for me.” Chelsea shook her head. “I like all of the tension.”

Once in the classroom, Dang went straight for his usual spot in the left rear of the class, walking a little briskly so he could get there before someone else did. He knew most of those who’d been there the previous year would avoid his usual spot since it was already associated with him, but he’d also seen a lot of new faces around, most of whom would have no idea the spot was essentially reserved and he rather preferred to not have to tell someone to move.

And just as he’d feared, only when he was a few steps away from his usual seat, a tall, thin boy with wispy blond hair sat there, setting his backpack down against the side of the desk. Dang froze at once, mouth dropping open in horror.

“Oof,” Daedalus said, standing next to Dang and looking the now occupied seat along with him. “That’s gotta sting. Wanna find somewhere else to sit?”

“B-b-b-but,” Dang stammered, failing to find the right words.

“Come on.” Daedalus threw his arm around a glum-looking Dang and steered him in the direction of vacant seats closer to the middle of the class. It was there that they sat, with Dang groaning slightly as he took his seat, feeling a great sense of discomfort.

Daedalus sat to Dang’s left, and Dante sat behind Daedalus. Right behind Dang was Daniel, behind whom was Megan. And to Dang’s right was Chase. Chelsea opted to sit on Daedalus’s left.

The chatter within the class was rather loud, and in addition to Dang’s discomfort over not being in his usual seat, he just felt all around rather nauseated and irritated. As the minutes ticked on though, the feeling started to pass and soon, he was engaged in conversation with the others, doing his best to forget about his occupied spot.

“So Liam,” he said later, bringing the topic back around. “Have you heard from him since the move?”

“Yep,” Chase answered. “He absolutely despises it over there. Says it feels a lot like a military school and honestly, given what I’ve seen about it, it might as well be. But you know, at least he doesn’t have to worry about a murderbot crashing into his home in the middle of dinner, right?”

“That happened to him?” Dang asked, raising one eyebrow over the other.

“Nah, happened to me,” Chase responded, shuddering as though the thought still had some fear associated with it. “Chelsea and I were at dinner, with our parents…spaghetti with meatballs and then, boom, murderbot comes crashing through the wall, gaping hole in its chest. Lands right there in the middle of the table, causes the table to collapse. For a while, thing looks like it might get back up and then it short circuits, head goes boom right in front of us. We look out through the hole it came in and there’s chaos around, hundreds of the same robots flying around.”

“What’d you do?” Dang queried.

“We ran for the basement and stayed in there, just monitored everything that was going on from our laptops. Didn’t come back out till the fighting was done. Honestly, I think it’s incredible that we were able to talk our parents out of moving even after something like that happening to us.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Dang said, all serious and genuine.

Chase snorted. “What are you apologizing for? It’s not like you’re the one who punched the murderbot into our dining room.”

“Yeah,” Dang said awkwardly and cleared his throat. “Right.”

Afterward, Dang got his Math assignment out and got started trying to complete it. Only a few minutes after he’d started, the entire classroom went totally quiet and he glanced up from his notebook to find that Mr. Lincoln was now at the front center of the class, looking a little different than he had the previous semester—his dark brown hair was shorter now and streaked with gray and he’d also grown an impressive beard over the past couple months.

“Morning, lads,” he greeted them all. “Sophomores, am I right? I believe I’m supposed to have the sophomores for homeroom this time, hang on, just let me confirm.” He pulled his phone out, scrolled around for a bit, then paused. “Ah, yes, there it is. Sophomores. Well then, I suppose congratulations are in order on making it through your first here. And if I might add, you all look quite dashing in those new uniforms. I imagine you all have your thoughts on the uniform policy?”

“Yeah, it sucks!” roared a boy from the far rear of the class, with others signifying their agreement by nodding or roaring. The boy who’d spoken was Brian O’Callaghan—Dang recognized him off his voice alone. He was the youngest student on Star Harbor’s lacrosse team and had also been amongst their best performers the previous year.

“Ah well, you’re going to have to get used to it,” Mr. Lincoln continued. “The school thinks it helps present an image of togetherness, which is especially important given the near-catastrophic event just a couple months ago.”

“Yeah, right.” Dang snorted. That’d been in the announcement back when they’d informed everyone they would now be required to don uniforms. Togetherness. Dang knew the real reason for the uniforms was simply because Star Harbor was an elegant, private school intended for a very specific demographic and they’d finally decided it was time to look the part.

“In any case, there are other things to discuss other than the school’s recent fashion shift,” Mr. Lincoln said, his expression suddenly turning a lot more serious. “As I’m sure you’ve all heard, there’s been some staffing changes recently. Following Mr. Donovan’s retirement, History class will now be taken by a Mr. Sebastian Saunders, a highly coveted tutor who was gracious enough to accept the school’s offer. In adhering to his schedule, History classes will now be third period, Mondays and Thursdays, occurring adjacent to Geography classes which means most of you will have to select between one of the two as it appears unlikely that the schedules will be altered anytime soon.”

No one said anything to this although there were a few students whose expressions suddenly soured and turned glum, while there were others who appeared as though the choice between Geography and History wasn’t at all a hard one. For Dang, it mattered little—he’d only wanted to be in History to see the new teacher, but if he would have to choose it after Geography and Mr. Lincoln, then he wouldn’t be taking it after all.

On his notebook, he scribbled down Geography—third period.

Next to him, Daedalus scribbled the same, as did Chase and Chelsea. Megan opted for History, as did Daniel while Dante appeared to still be in the middle, remarking that he’d decide later for himself.

The next few minutes involved Mr. Lincoln informing them of other staffing changes. There would be security patrols on school grounds, particularly around the Quantum Lab which had been the target of a failed robbery the previous school year. At the mention of the Quantum Lab robbery, everyone in the class suddenly roared Paperbag Hero.

In reaction to this, Dang simply stared down at his desk, jaw clenched, considering he was the Paperbag Hero to whom they were referring, having opted to don a paperbag over his head to mask his identity while going up against the robbers. It wasn’t often things like that happened so close to his personal life and so he’d had to improvise at the time. The direct consequence of that was that there’d been a party a few weeks ago where everyone had gone with paperbags worn over their faces in celebration of him.

“Yes, yes, Paperbag Hero,” Mr. Lincoln said, smiling. “Speaking of whom, you lads seriously need to stop writing his name on the toilet stalls. Or on your desks. Or even absent-mindedly on the back of your answer papers during tests or exams.”

“Paperbag Hero!” the class roared again, playfully.

Dang blushed.

“Now for the less exciting news,” Mr. Lincoln said once the class had calmed down somewhat. “As a result of recent events and the traumatic nature of those events, the school has mandated that every student sit with the counsellor once a month—,”

Everyone in the class groaned then.

“And it is compulsory,” Mr. Lincoln continued over the registered displeasure. “Today, you will be required to sit with the academic counselor ahead of first period, figure out your curriculum for the school year. This is a one-time thing, although there will be further sessions for students experiencing, err, difficulties with stuff. The monthly sessions will be with the wellness counsellor, a new counsellor who’s joined the staff here, Mrs. Goldham, and I imagine you will be seeing her in the following days. You are expected to go in to see her on a class by class basis, and going off that, I expect it won’t be your turn till about Wednesday or Thursday, which is more than enough time for all of you to suck it up and realize that this is being done for your good and your good only. There are things that’ve happened that are hard to understand and even harder to talk about, and sometimes, not talking about that stuff can do more harm than good. We’d like to avoid anything that harms our students. We’d like for you to talk. About everything.”

Out of the corner of his eyes, Dang noticed Dante had his fists rather firmly clenched, a dark expression on his face. He frowned, curious if Dante was alright but before he could get his attention to ask the question, the dark expression vanished, almost as quickly as it’d come. Dante’s hand relaxed slightly too.

“What if we’ve got nothing to talk about?” Daniel asked with a smug grin on his face, the question earning nods of agreement from the others. “Maybe we don’t have any trauma or anything to speak of. Hell, maybe we had the time of our lives during the invasion.”

“Well, then I suppose you’d have to tell Mrs. Goldham exactly what you did to have the time of your life during the invasion,” Mr. Lincoln responded flatly. “In any way, that’s about all of the announcements I believe I’m supposed to pass along and I’d like to sit down and gather my thoughts now so…as you were.”

With that, Mr. Lincoln headed to the teacher’s desk in the front left of the class, took his seat, plugged in earphones and directed all of his attention to his phone, leaving the rest of them to do with their homeroom what they wished.

Dang spent the next five minutes completing his Math homework, feeling a little annoyed that they were being asked to turn in an assignment on the very first day of a new school year but getting through the homework was fairly quick largely because he was good at Math and also because whenever he came across a trickier equation, all he had to do was bounce it off of Daedalus.

Daniel, on the other hand, went around interacting with the new faces in the class, putting on a flirty face whenever he was speaking to the new female students. After about ten minutes of doing this, he returned to them with information about all of the new students.

“Guy who hijacked your spot is Sam Samson,” Daniel said, “And no, I’m not kidding, that’s his actual name. Moved here from Minnesota. Had the misfortune of his flight here being the same day as the invasion. Then there’s the three new girls, Carla, Casey and Sally. Carla and Casey both moved from New York, and Sally’s been here her whole life, just transferred from Central High.”

“And which one of them have you fallen in love with?” Dante asked, grinning.

Daniel grinned back at him. “All of them,” he answered. “Anyways, I’m about to head out now, show them around the school and all of the spots before homeroom ends,” he added, rising to his feet and grabbing his backpack. “I’ll catch up with you guys in first period. If the world starts to fall apart before then then I’ll catch up with you even sooner.”

“World’s probably going to be good a little while longer,” Daedalus said, nodding at Daniel just before he left.

As soon as Daniel had left with Carla, Casey and Sally, Megan simply snorted. “He’s about to get his heart crushed,” she remarked.

“Think it’ll happen before lunchtime or after lunchtime this time?” Dang asked.

“My money’s on during lunchtime,” Megan responded. “They look like nice enough people to not do it before or after.”

“Poor guy,” Dang remarked.

For the rest of homeroom, Dang scrolled through social media on his phone and would occasionally be poked by Chase to be shown a page from the manga he was currently reading.

“Dude!” Chase would always say, excitement evident in his eyes. “Do you see how hot this panel is? The art, dude! The art!”

When at last homeroom came to an end and the bell went off, disappointment settled onto the faces of everyone in the class, since it marked the official end of the holiday and a return to usual programming, except this time, usual programming was beginning with a trip to the academic counsellor.

For Dang and the others however, it wasn’t exactly usual programming. After all, they no longer had the problem of having to worry about randomly spawning doppelgangers or pursuing murderbots or the near-unstoppable henchmen of some multiversal conqueror. For the first time in a really long while, they were nothing but teenagers in high school. And sure, it was a little boring, Dang would admit that much.

But he reminded himself of Dante’s words.

Boring is good.

***

“Why is this compulsory now again?” Daniel asked, leaning forward in his seat, looking straight at Mr. Lundgren, the academic counselor. “It’s the first day, shouldn’t I at least have a few days to decide which classes I want to take?”

“Whatever classes you put on your schedule now can be adjusted for another week after this. It’s not finalized,” Mr. Lundgren said calmly. “Told that to Megan and Daedalus who were in before you. But it is important that you have a sense of what you want right now, and what you’d like to work on over the course of the school year. You’re in tenth grade, now’s the point where things usually get serious.”

“Ninth grade didn’t count as serious?” Daniel asked, his eyes going wide.

“Nope,” Mr. Lundgren answered, shaking his head.

“Damn, and I barely made it through that,” Daniel murmured, recalling how his grades in Math, Biology and Literature had been middling at the end of the previous school year.

“I’m aware,” Mr. Lundgren said. “Hence why the school wants students meeting with me. Whatever difficulties you’re experiencing with classes can be expressed freely here, and I can help with arrangements that aid your academic performance.”

“What if my academic performances were shaky because of stuff outside class?” Daniel asked.

“Then feel free to express that stuff too, with me or with Ms. Goldham.”

“Yeah, maybe some other time,” Daniel said, grinning. “So what classes am I supposed to pick right now?”

Mr. Lundgren slid a piece of paper across to Daniel then, with sections for Daniel to fill in his name, age, and class. On the paper, a table filled in with the various classes he could take, and he had to circle the ones he was interested in.

“Astrology?” he asked. “Really?” He scoffed.

He chose his classes then, reminding himself of the classes Daedalus and Megan said they’d gone with. There was Biology, which they’d have twice a week, Mondays and Fridays, first period on both days. Then Chemistry, which was once a week and which he considered mandatory since the only alternative to it was Philosophy. The same applied to Physics, to which the alternatives were Classical Literature or Music. The rest of his classes, he filled out with: History [twice a week], English [thrice a week], Information Technology [once a week], Art [once a week], Business and Economics [twice a week], and Math which was sadly mandatory and would also take place thrice a week.

“PE,” he said at the end. “Do I really have to circle that?”

“I’m afraid PE’s still mandatory,” Lundgren answered.

“Ugh,” Daniel groaned, circling PE on the form, before signing his signature at the very bottom of it and sliding it back across to Lundgren.

“Thank you.” Lundgren smiled.

Daniel rose to his feet then and made his way out of the office, emerging into the hall where other students were lined up. He nodded at Dang who was next on the line. “You’re up.”

***

Dante was the last of them to see Lundgren, and had similar periods with most of them. They’d all gone with Chemistry and Physics, except Daedalus who’d filled Chemistry in with Philosophy, and Dante, who filled those periods in with Philosophy and Music, a decision that earned confusion from Daniel.

“Why would anyone want that?” Daniel queried.

Dante simply shrugged. “Dunno. I like philosophy, and I suppose I like music too.”

“But we all have Biology, right?” Dang asked, glancing at the slip he’d gotten from Lundgren, a slip everyone had also received once Lundgren had seen all the students. The others compared slips and sure enough, they’d all gone with Biology.

“Yeah, I don’t think there were alternatives to Bio,” Dante said, his displeasure evident in his tone.

“Fair enough,” Dang said. “Guess we’ve all got to head to Biology now then. It’s first period and it should be beginning right about—,”

The bells went off.

“Now.”