High School Revolution

Chapter 23: A "Proper" First Day Begins

Strider woke up reminiscing about the past five days. Two days in high school and he met his cousin, fought his former friend, started a semi-counter revolution or something to save everyone's reputation, it was all so surreal. And they're picking clubs today.

And all of their classmates amazed him. Even Janill shooting him out of a cannon somehow worked out and got a chuckle out of him. The wounds he suffered were healed but he wanted to be cautious. That move he pulled against Akira was powerful but he wouldn't have won that fight without Krystal's help.

He wasn't sure what to think of her. Part of him still wanted to thank her for helping him out, but he was still wary. Mom always taught him to be careful around white girls and seeing some stuff on the news about older ones going after kids like him left him cautious. Then what she told him when they first met popped up in his brain.

"You care?"

He then smacked him in the face. "Wow Strider, you hate when people don't give you the benefit of doubt, and now you're doing the same to her, huh." He got up and left, resolved to talk to her and Kevin, his heart was telling him he could trust her. The school had enough surprises before, he was looking forward to what happens next.

When he got to the school, he noticed the new installations. For every floor he checked out, there were at least two to three water fountains packed on every door, and two functioning elevators that read students and teachers respectively. Confused as to why, he saw Mr. Kazeshiro use a card to go up one. When an upperclassmen tried it a few minutes later it didn't work. He questioned whether or not it'd be best to use it since the elevator would be slow with everyone having to go to one floor at some point but digressed the situation.

As he began walking up and around, his eyes swung back and forth at the eyes gazing upon him at the staircase, most of which were not giving him friendly interpretations and prompted him to shift lanes to the second floor where he hoped he wouldn't face any more opposition.

Unfortunately for him when he got there, he immediately remembered the second floor was home to all the seniors, where even more of them had their stares on him, clutching his backpack straps in a quick sense of security. On the bright side, he got a good luck of the "decorations," Natsumi mentioned as the hallways and some of the lockers were painted and colored in an explosive random assortment of colors. One side of him wondered why Kevin didn't have it clean it off but the other side was glad he didn't.

Then Strider found himself surrounded by four familiar faces, Jeb, Luke, Tempest, and finally Akira, who mostly had bandages and gauze wrapped around small, but noticeable parts of his body as Akira raised him up by his shirt collar. He only had this to say.

"I'm glad you're not hurt too badly," genuinely happy he wasn't hurt.

"It's your fault I'm like this," Akira roared at him.

Strider raised a finger. "To be fair, you tried to shoot me with a cannon. I just fired the energy back at you," before getting serious "I just hit you back with the same energy."

He could tell Akira wasn't having it at all judging by the fact he just pushed him aside to the mercy of his former friend's pack, all of whom directed more vitriol towards him.

"You're the reason we actually have to do work now!"

"You like smacking people in the face?"

"When I'm done with you, that spiky haired bike freak and that rich hag are next!"

Strider tightened his fists, ready to get calmer and focused to fight. There was absolutely no way he could beat them all at once. A thought came to his mind, using Akira's injuries to get the others to focus on helping him while he escaped, but chose that would be too awful.