Spandex Is Never Fun

Chapter One:  The Obligatory Life-changing Moment

                It was lamentable.  But under the circumstances, he would have to be killed.  It wouldn’t do for the Captain Bisbal to live; that would leave the Messy Love Triangle, which of course was always amusing, but in this case would leave messy implications for all.  The dilemma was, though, how to dispatch of the rogue exactly.  He had beaten the Squid of the Caves of Eldergast, and fought off the Mighty One Hundred.  A mere vampire master or mutant killer whale would leave everyone expecting him to show up at the next formal event.  Heck, the plebes would be looking over their shoulders for the rest of their lives!

            It would be interesting if he died of a triple heart bypass or a stomach ulcer, though.  Heroes of song never seemed to be defeated by the common cold.

            “She’s staring off into space again...”

            “Wonder how long it will take for her to realize that she’s staring directly into Sir Al.”

            Sir Al?  Egad!  Damnation, girl!  Now the fools would think you are in love with him.  It’s too bad for his fling with that coed, but it turned out all the better anyway.  Better now she realized she preferred her own other gender than a few decades from now when she has popped out a few kids.  Ooh, that’s disturbing imagery.

            Hey... I wonder if I can work that into the subplot...that’ll be a nice touch.  It’ll be a nice angle from that simpering damsel-in-distress role, as compared with the raging-barbarian-princess; the LESBIAN raging-barbarian-princess.

            Oh, wait.  That’s already been done.

***

            Alex Galeno was heartily wishing for a bottle of booze.  Besides the split with Selena, numerous visits from his model cousins and their friends, he still had to handle these classes. 

            Oh, yeah.  And there was that alter ego to consider.

            Dammit.

            He took a look at all his students.  Why oh why did he have to teach in a girl’s private school -Roman Catholic, no less!  Visions from his college days of picking up his cousins with their twittering gal pals giggling at him mirrored the scene before him...one of his students was even putting on lipstick!

And to think that this was his first year!  As far as cover-up jobs went, this one sucked. 

***

Then again, the fair princess Flora was merely cannon fodder for the dragon.  True, it was a stereotype, but so was the princess-who-can-deal-with-her-own-enemies.  Obviously, a compromise had to be reached, here.  Hmm...Character development could be fun, couldn’t it?

What was that sound?

***

What was that sound?

Alex looked around for the source.  If it was what he thought it was...there!  On the building across the school campus was his ticket to freedom.

Strange, though.  In broad daylight?  What a modus operandi. 

He supposed he better get to his real work.

***

Alex Ibarra snapped back to attention when her classmate firmly poked her in the ribs.  She loudly protested, causing many a peer to peer curiously at her.  Blushing, she looked down at her scribbles in the notebook.  It was a good thing that they were discernable only to her.

She-male dragon?  Androgynous beasts, all right!

Chapter 1: Lt. Foley MUST gain the Golden Bezoar.

Mmm...Mrs. Alexis Ibarra-Aglipay

She crossed that one out.  It wouldn’t do for her classmates to learn that she had a crush.  God forbid her doing anything girly.

That was a good line.  Alex wrote it in, for future reference.  She looked up, and then blinked.  What, Geometry already? Was I spacing out for that long? 

“Where’d Sir Al go?” she whispered to her seatmate.  Ann shrugged.  “Something came up,” she replied, intently examining the cuticles of her nails, “So he asked Miss to sub for him.”

Ah.  So she wasn’t spaced out for that long.  Unfortunately, she had to concentrate on the lesson...session tests were due next week.

And so on commenced Alex’s day.  It wasn’t that bad, actually-she managed to embarrass herself only twice in class.  The last class ended, and she raced out the door—

No she didn’t.  She packed her things first—she was curiously meticulously slowly thorough about it—and then raced out the door.  Getting banged up by her assorted bags on the way, of course.

Alex walked down the corridor.  As she ambled, she looked around her.  She blinked; there was something strange in the air; several ‘somethings’, in fact—globs of silvery liquid hanging motionless.  The odd thing was that no one seemed to notice it.  Okay, we teens are supposed to be self-absorbed, but come on, that’s ridiculous!  And at that moment a tiny little bird whose name was Chicquita told her to look up.  Belatedly wondering why she chose to name her instinct ‘Chicquita’, she complied anyway.

And what she saw would change life as she knew it.

Then again, everything changes life as people know it.

***

            Alex was exhausted.

            Then again, who wouldn’t be?  Two hours of slaying and vanquishing beasts-from-other-dimensions would tire out anybody.

            And what he did was heal the warriors—which drained more energy then one would believe.  

            His companion, a rather handsome, bit on the pretty-boy side older man, winced.  He was tall, of a fair complexion, with curly black hair.  He looked like a movie star; not surprising, considering he was.  “Dammit, Alex,” he said, the Brit accent coming out rather strongly, “Did you have to bind the wound that tightly?”

            Alex raised one eyebrow.

            To the far side of the roof, another young man stared down.  This one was also in his twenties.  He was taller than Alex and shorter than the other man.  “Are you sure you set the wards?” he asked the wounded actor.

            “Of course I did.  Why do you ask?”

            Why indeed, the young man thought, as he saw the girl poke out the air in front of her.

***

            Yep.  It was definitely there.  The question was, though, why wasn’t anyone freaking out yet?  Silvery blobs hanging in the air?  Pshaw!  How positively mundane.  Maybe they couldn’t see it, and she was just going bonkers.  Alex felt like an idiot.

            “Do you see it, too?” a voice said behind her.  Alex whirled around, since the situation seemed to require it.  There in front of her was an elderly Japanese man.  Frankly, she couldn’t tell the difference between Japanese, Chinese, or Korean people—rather dense, on that particular aspect of observation she was—but that was an honest-to-God hakama he was wearing.  And that was a biiiig sword.  What was a kimono-wearing, katana-wielding man doing in her school?

            She checked her mental calendar.  Nope, it wasn’t October.  Hence, it could only mean one thing...

            “Yes,” she whispered, her face cast down.  “I see the silver orbs that shine in the air.”

            “Then you must go with me.”

            Alarmed, she jerked her head up, to protest that hey, she was kidding, she thought that he was a figment of her imagination, or that crazy camera people were lying in the bushes waiting for her to freak out at the samurai-costumed man, and catch her on national television.  But it was too late to babble that yes, she was just kidding, as she saw the old man extend his sword outwards, and cause a vortex to appear.  It sucked her in.

            Think before you speak.  Think intelligently before you speak.

*************

AN:  Well?  How is it, so far?  Reviews (and especially constructive criticism) are VERY appreciated.  Flames would be rather pointless...if this story’s such a piece of trash, why bother wasting the effort to deride it?  Cheers, people.