FIGHT

Time passed as Travelers who entered Parallel began to gain education and insights into things not commonly encountered by students on Blue Star Star....they were taught art, woodworking, martial arts, and more...

Days turned to weeks and weeks into months..... we now find ourselves in the new year...

Throughout this school year, Ian Archer and his three friends CJ Ward, Suki Sato, and Gabriel Forest formed a friend group of sorts....they were bonding day by day, but their unified objective has been, and will always be, to escape Tower Prep.

To that end, many discoveries were made during this time....they learned of a secret observatory not used anymore, simply functioning as a storage room. This was their secret "home base" which housed all they know about the school...

They discovered tunnels that snake their way through the underground leading to almost everywhere in Tower Prep and many of them branch off from the main campus....they didn't have enough time to map them all, but they know enough to get from each other's rooms and to the observatory where they meet.

Today, while eating in the cafeteria in which food simply appears within microwave-like appliances after you tell the managing AI, Whisper 119, your order... the group's discussion is interrupted by three melodic dinging sounds coming from the speakers.

All screens and monitors turned on, and the Tower Prep logo swiftly changed to show the Headmaster in his office, looking through the camera. It was obvious that an announcement was going to be made, so the entire cafeteria hushed..... not even a whisper could be heard.

Wearing a grey fitted suit with hands folded together above his desk, the leader of the school had a stern air while speaking...

"Good Morning. There's been a lot of commotion in recent days about the activities of a certain student society, and I want to make Tower Prep's position crystal clear..."

"The Rooks are not sanctioned by Tower Prep......... Make no mistake, if The Rooks disrupt Tower Prep in any way, the students involved will be immediately transferred to West Campus..."

The announcement ended there, and everyone began to talk loudly about what they had heard...

Before anyone in the group could speak, Suki started...."please, who would want to join The Rooks in the first place?"

"...haha, Right? Oh, wait, I know, people who are awesome..." Gabe quickly rebuked Suki's statement, showing his staunch support of the "fraternity".

"You mean people who are sexist..." quipped Suki.

*Scoff*

"Oh, this again..." Gabe seemed like this topic exhausted him when talking to his petite friend.

"Gabe, it's a fraternity, no girls allowed....I don't even think that's legal..." the petite girl huffed in annoyance which only made Gabe more determined to convince her.

"First of all, of course, it's allowed. Second of all...look, bros just need a place where they can like chill and hang with the bros..."

"Haha, big talk for a bro who plays with dolls..." Ian and CJ laughed with Suki after she made that comment, to which Gabe became defensive.

"Okay, Woah, Woah,.....that's uncalled for..." he leans into her ear and whispers loudly...."Senior Guapo is an action figure okay? He just happens to have.... button eyes and a cute squashy bottom..."

*laughter*

........

That afternoon, Ian had an appointment with Coach to do a quarterly assessment on his preflex's training progress...

In a room bare of all equipment, Gabe stood beside Coach watching as the teacher held a paintball gun, shooting yellow sticky balls at Ian who is currently dodging and catching the said ammunition.

None of the projectiles were able to touch him, as his preflex could predict where each bullet would hit and how to catch them...once they left the barrel of the gun.

Wanting to take it up a notch, Coach took out another gun, and while dual welding, he opened fire on Ian, shooting as many as possible.

Ian was able to dodge and catch most, but after the session, Ian looked down to find a yellow ball stuck to the centermost part of his chest, where his heart was...

*scoff*

"...d@mmit" Ian cursed.

"Now now, no need to be disappointed...your preflex can't process multiple input sources yet, but it will...just give it time. Just compare yourself to when you first got here, you should be blown away..."

With that, Coach picked up the gear and left Gabe and Ian alone in the training room.

"You know he's right, you've made incredible progress.."Gabe consoled the downtrodden Ian.

"yeah, progress at being hit..." Ian said, starting to run through his martial arts forms as a way to decompress.

*hah*

"I'm serious man, just look at me! Before I got here, I could barely talk my way out of anything....but now? I can pretty much convince people to do anything I want..."

"....even The Rooks?" Ian gave a sharp reply, he knew how much Gabe wanted to join the secretive group.

"Trust me, if I could Hypersway The Rooks into letting me become a member, I would. If only I could find them, these guys are like frekin ninjas..."

"Actually, it's funny Ian, I heard when they wanna tap you to join they just swoop in and grab you, without making a sound..."

Grab turned back to look at Ian, but the man was gone....without a trace or any noise whatsoever...

"IAn?...IAN?....." just when Gabe was going to call out once more, his vision went black as a sack was placed over his head from behind.

A muffled cry came out of the captured Gabe's mouth....."OH YEAH! ROOKS RULE!"