High School Revolution

Chapter 40: How to Speed Past Snailed-Paced Students

On Thursday, Strider and Krystal found themselves racing as fast as they could together against a series of unmovable objects. Rather, a large mass that rivaled the ocean sea with the amount of density, a force only a few could overcome.

The slow walkers in the hallway. A group of apathetic anti-spacial awareness able-bodies able to transfer energy to all parts of the body with the exception of their legs.

They took up so much hallway space that the local channels could take a picture of them to use in the opening credits of one of their procedurals and forensic dramas starring a non-threatening-yet-racially-diverse cast. And their Facebook photos would be perfect free advertising to plaster all along billboards in New York City.

But unlike the opening credits, the duo found their efforts to get past them nearly impossible at times. Krystal even compared getting past them to struggling beating Frogger.

"There's only 80 students in this school, and yet these guys take up five times the space. How do they walk slower than baby penguins?!"

"Let's just do our best to get past them, okay?"

To get to homeroom, Strider and Krystal shifted into top gear, squeezing their way through the small blind spots of group after group in order to get past. However, they only had a minute left to get to homeroom and needed at least a minute to review their next book. But this group covered the entire hallway, and Strider noticed most of them weren't exactly keen on listening to him.

Krystal then yelled at him. "Take my hand!"  He correctly assumed she wanted to jump, but was extremely hesitant, especially with the abnormal feeling in his legs thanks to the Aero Burst. Then he saw a look of disappointment in her eyes and felt guilty he wasn't trusting her.

He took her hand and after being taken aback, she unleashed a bright smile, and on the count of three, the two of them took a big leap of faith in an attempt to jump over the entire group.

It sorta worked as the group's members were forced to slide away since Strider couldn't jump as high as Krystal. He would've knocked out two of them in the face, but not wanting Krystal to take the heat with him, he tucked in his stomach and knees to prevent himself from hurting anyone as they avoiding falling on their face and reached the goalpost.

On route to Social Studies, Strider split off from Krystal in a flash, declaring that he needed to gain some more ammo. He only had a 3 minute window to get from one class to the next, so he rushed from the fifth floor to the first as fast as he can, grabbed a bottle of milk, and made haste back up to the fourth, only to find himself stuck on the staircase with familiar faces.

The moment they noticed, he panicked and ran to the other staircase despite the time crunch, only to face a sea of snail cliques, and he couldn't swim. Embarrassed and afraid, he forced himself to raise his voice to get a chance to pass, absorbing snide comments and remarks as he just barely made it into Mr. Kazeshiro's class, where Krystal was worried.

"What did you get anyway?"

"Insurance to help us deal with the next wave. Plan on taking a shower for gym?"

She nodded.

"Good. And sorry in advance."

When class ending, the two had to stay behind a bit since Strider had a question, but was too afraid to ask in the middle of class and Krystal briefly talked to Kevin about it. When they were done, time had passed for the next class to start, and they needed to head up to the fifth and sixth floors respectively, only to be faced with the juniors coming from English, and had occupied the staircase to use as their talking ground, leaving almost no spots for them to pass. Coach had warned them that he would deduct points if they were late to dress after Eliza threatened to go to the principal for unrealistic preparation times.