Well here it is. I kept it short since i just wanted a feel for the setting. Enjoy, and R&R. I wanna know what you guys think.

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Nikki Chess stared longingly out the window. It had been so long since anything had happened. There wasn’t even any transition to the calm; it just happened out of nowhere. Her sister wasn’t even in any of her boring classes to keep her company.

“Ms. Chess, please try and keep up with the class,” Mr. Reed’s voice caused Nikki to jerk her head up a little. “Would you mind telling me the answer to this problem on the board?”

“Err-” Nikki squinted at the whiteboard. Law of sines?

“…32.4,” a voice only she could seem to hear breezed softly into her ear. She resisted the urge to turn and glare at Sean. His voice made her hairs stand on end.

“32.4?” Nikki tried. Any guess was as good as hers.

“Well, I wanted it to the nearest hundredth, but at least you’ve been studying, unlike our good friend O’BRIAN!” Mr. Reed slapped a yard stick onto the sleeping student’s desk, causing him to jerk up and cry out.

Nikki turned around in her seat at the person at the desk directly behind her. Sean Michaels was leaning back in his chair, twirling his pencil, with oversized earphones clamping his head. Nikki had to admit, he looked quite comfortable.

“Thanks, but I don’t really need the help. You’re the one retaking the class, not me,” she said. She always felt weird talking to him while he had his music in. She knew he could hear her anyway, but couldn’t he take them out anyway? Out of courtesy? Or something?

“It’s easier the second time,” he replied, doing the same weird thing with his voice. It was going to be a long semester.

***

“Alan, wake up. ALAN!”

Alan jerked his head up, sending drool flying everywhere. His lab partner was not amused.

“Alan… try to stay awake during our acid labs,” she said. “Some of us are trying to pass… and stay alive.”

Alan noted the gooey substance stuck to his goggles. He wasn’t sure if they were partly melted when he got them.

“You should have told me I was sleeping in that stuff,” Alan pointed to the eerie green fluid in the bottle near Jolene’s arm. He was pretty sure that it would glow in the dark. Jolene stopped scribbling in her notebook and looked Alan directly in the eye. Her glare seemed to make his headache fiercer. Alan suddenly wished he had kept the melted goggles on.

“Alan, you seem to have come under the impression that I will simply do everything in this class for you,” she said in a sickeningly syrupy voice. Alan was horribly reminded of when he accidentally tripped Paradise Enterprise’s security alarms, alerting the entire building of his team’s presence. He had never heard Rose scream like that before. “You sit there and complain about how much your head hurts, while I work like a maniac, trying to make up for the work YOUR NOT DOING.” She said the last part with extra sugar. Alan’s eyes were occupied with a vein in her temple that seemed to have its own furious pulse. He decided that it was best to exit the premises.

“Yeah… I gotta use the bathroom…” Alan quickly got up and walked brusquely out of the room, massaging the spots around his eyes where the goggles left their imprints. He knew she was right about doing all the work, and that he probably should hold up his end, but frankly, he had had enough of women telling him what to do all summer break long.

*Bzzt-bzzt*

Speak of the devil, Alan thought as he pulled out his phone. For the first time since the fall of Paradise Enterprises, Rose was contacting him. Hopefully, he would get to blow something up in this next mission. Mirror always said it was bad for him to be stressed, lest the foundations of his power threaten to destroy all. Or something like that.