Chapter 37 - Preparing For What's To Come

"You need to revolt!"

"I'm doing what I have to."

"You wouldn't understand."

Those words ring out in Marcus' head as he shoots up awake out of his bed in a cold sweat. After calming his breathing he goes about his normal morning routine on yet another dreary winter morning.

He brushes his teeth, puts on his clothes, and makes food for himself before heading outside for some fresh air. However, throughout it all, he still can't stop thinking about what happened a few days ago. What happened with Vanessa.

Just as he's about to head back inside, Marcus notices that on the side of the road where the house Vanessa stayed at is the couch he painstakingly helped move.

Still a bit sore from lifting that hunk of junk, Marcus walks over to it. After seeing that there's been some snow that accumulated on the top of it, Marcus tries to push the couch so the snow would fall off.

Only, the couch moves, and it moves easily.

Marcus takes a look at his hands as he realizes there are two possibilities in front of him. Either he magically got stronger overnight, or that couch is lighter than before. His thought is put to the test as he grabs the seat cushion and lifts it. With the seat cushion pulled up, Marcus sees that what was below the seat cushion was a storage compartment.

An empty storage compartment.

THE MIRACLE CLINIC

For the students of Starlight High, it's yet another average cloudy day in Starlight City. Just the same as usual. Bundled up in a winter jacket is Alex Smith, who's stuck in class trying to take notes when his best friend, Christopher Wrinkle, nudges him.

"Hey, you need a hand warmer?" Christopher shivers in his tank top, "Also what did you get on the homework?"

"You need those more than me," Alex replies with his teeth chattering due to the cold, "And I forgot we had some."

"Wait really? How come?" Christopher inquires.

"Oh well, it's because…" Alex begins to quietly say before he suddenly snaps and yells, "I didn't think we'd be having class when the school when the school went up in fucking flames and is an ash pile!"

Alex, Christopher, and a few other students are all in the park next to the school, freezing their butts off in the cold snow and harsh wind as Ray Ramirez tries to teach them evolution by drawing pictures into the snow.

"Hey! Who said you could be talking in class!" Ray snaps, also having enough of this situation.

"Who said we were having class today!" Alex yells, "And how the hell are we the only ones who have it!"

"Don't take it up with me, take it up with the shitty principal!" Ray responds, "And if you can say the Pythagorean theorem, then I'll end class early!"

"It's a^2+b^2=c^2!!" Alex yells.

"CONGRATULATIONS, CLASS DISMISSED!" Ray yells upset.

"THANK YOU!" Alex yells also upset.

With class dismissed a few students – mostly Hamster, Bennet, Rebecca, Carli, & Christopher – all come over to chat with Alex as he walks away while Ray & the rest book it back to their homes.

"Thanks so much bro, any longer and I'd have gone into hypothalamus!" Christopher says.

"I think you mean hypothermia dumbass," Rebecca 'politely' corrects Christopher before talking to Alex, "And I heard you were at the Winter Gala when that stuff went down, what happened?"

"Yeah, I was busy talking to someone at one of the booths when all the lights went out!" Hamster says, "Almost gave Bennet a heart attack!"

Bennet the hamster shakes at just the reminder of the experience.

"What did you get for the homework?" Carli asks.

Alex addresses all of them simultaneously, "Don't mention it bub. Don't talk like that to my bub, bub, and I don't know. Thank god the bub's still with us otherwise I don't know what I'd do. And I don't know what the hell that shit is about, bub!"

As Alex storms off, the other four freshmen and hamster are left standing there trying to figure out which person he was addressing for each sentence. Eventually, Christopher decides to catch up with Alex so they can keep chatting.

"I can't believe the school's forcing us to go to the park for classes, I get they have to have like a required amount of days we need to go to school but this is ridiculous!" Alex complains, "And how come none of the other grades showed up!"

"You're telling me bro," Christopher replies before adding, "but hey, the cold really helps get my blood ready for a workout! Wanna hop by the gym?"

"Suit yourself man, I got a club meeting to go to," Alex admits.

"Woah, you still have those?" Christopher says shocked.

"Yeah well it's a bit of a special circumstance," Alex replies.

"Okay bro, well next time we're gonna push ourselves for a new bench max okay!"

"Definitely!" Alex says with a smile on his face.

The two bump fists before parting ways. As Alex is now left to walk by himself, his face turns from a smile to a stoic one as he contemplates all that went down a few days ago.

"What have you been up to…" Alex murmurs as he continues to approach The Miracle Clinic's temporary meeting spot.

_________________________

Inside the Starlight City Bookstore, Selina is at the front counter trying to chat with Ronnie, Cameron, & Elizabeth who are all inside the cramped place. Cameron is a bit preoccupied trying to take a look at all of the books on the stacked bookshelves. When he goes to grab one, several fall down onto him.

"Ugh, I'll be over in a second," Selina remarks as she grabs a ladder from behind the counter and walks over to the pile of fallen books. As she does so she begins to ask, "So what brings you guys here?"

"Well, we're trying to have a club meeting and uh- can't exactly do it at the school now," Ronnie remarks, "Our next option was Burrito Bistro but that's closed for the day so we decided to go here."

"Guess today this place is the hot spot for high schoolers," Selina remarks as she drags Cameron out from underneath the pile of books, "Wild to think the school would burn down the same day the gala got canceled."

As Cameron gasps for air, Ronnie & Elizabeth help Selina pick up some of the books that fell.

"The gala was…certainly something," Elizabeth affirms.

"Wait, you guys were at the gala?" Selina asks as she takes out a pen and notebook, "Can you guys tell me what happened! I've been trying to listen to the news but they've only said it 'ended prematurely' and will be 'rescheduled to some other day'. Powell & Turnip got to go since they had a vendor spot but all they knew was that the lights went out."

"Well, you see," Ronnie begins to say before hearing the bookstore's front door chime.

The group looks to see Marcus & Alex both entering the store.

"Sorry I'm late, I went to class unlike the rest of you," Alex explains.

"Wait, we had class today?!" Ronnie panics, "My mom's gonna kill me."

"I thought that email was a joke," Elizabeth admits.

"People went to that? I just skipped," Cameron admits.

"I forgot we switched locations and went to Burrito Bistro," Marcus admits, "I waited for a bit before realizing it was closed."

"Ouch," Ronnie remarks, "But hey now that you two are here we can get our club meeting started!"

The whole group is silent for a bit, each of them standing motionless in the bookstore.

"What do you guys even do at your meetings?" Selina questions as she finishes putting the books back up.

"Usually someone comes to us and asks for help," Ronnie remarks.

"So uh, did you tell anyone about your club still being open?" Selina asks.

"Nope! Not really," Ronnie responds.

"....you didn't think this through, did you?" Selina questions.

"Nope," Ronnie laments.

"Well, if you wanna hear something fun," Selina begins to say, "You should try talking to the other weirdo that's here, he's got the scoop on the whole fire at the high school."

"What weirdo?" Ronnie asks before he hears approaching footsteps.

The group all look to see a person exiting from one of the hallways created by the bookshelves. Ronnie's eyes widen as he sees that person is none other than Hunter Huntingson, who is in the middle of reading 'The Great Gatsby' by Francis Scott Fitzgerald.

Hunter glances up from the book to see the whole group staring at him, he sighs before saying, "Hey."

Cameron waves back but stops as he sees the pissed-off faces of Ronnie, Elizabeth, & Alex. Marcus is standing behind the three unsure what to say.

"What do you want?" Ronnie hisses.

"I was checking out a book," Hunter says.

"This isn't a library y'know!" Selina yells.

"My bad, I was renting a book," Hunter says, "Is it illegal to go shopping now?"

Hunter has a smug grin on his face while Ronnie looks like he's ready to beat him up, however Marcus makes his way closer to Hunter.

Knowing the rebellious punk all too well, Marcus sighs and asks, "You know something about that fire, don't you?"

Hunter smirks and replies, "You betcha."

Hunter begins to describe the events of a few nights ago to the group – how he caught Blanko & Graham digging something up from the kitchen, how they had a scuffle, and how the fire they caused was an accident – as he finishes his story, he hands them a clothes tag.

"During my scuffle with Blanko, I managed to take this tag off of the shirt he was wearing. It seems like he didn't notice it was still on," Hunter explains.

Elizabeth looks at the tag and sees that written on it is the name 'East Side Express'.

"They're from the eastern borough? That must suck," Elizabeth says.

"Hey the east side isn't that bad," Alex replies.

"Yeah but that's not the only thing," Hunter adds, "I did a bit of research on Google and it turns out, the East Side Express only opened today, so they probably work there."

Hunter begins to walk out of the store by saying, "I'm gonna go teach them a lesson not to mess with the North, if you guys want to go tag along and do your 'miracle' bullshit, then feel free."

As Hunter leaves, everyone is silent... Everyone except Selina of course, who's grabbing a broom to chase Hunter with since he forgot to pay for his book. But once Selina has left, Cameron clears his throat.

"I don't think I can go to the east side, my parents don't really like me going there," Cameron says.

"That's fine, you don't have to go if you don't want to," Alex says.

Ronnie looks over to Marcus and asks, "You okay buddy?"

"Yeah I'm fine, just didn't expect to see him today," Marcus replies.

Ronnie looks to see that Marcus' hands are still shaking, and Ronnie says, "We can stay here if you want."

"N-no I'm fine, we can go," Marcus says.

"Are you sure?" Alex asks, "You don't need to push yourself."

Marcus stops as he thinks about what he should do for a second as several thoughts flood his mind. He thinks about Vanessa, the way the whole event was covered up, his worries from before, and how his friends see him.

Eventually after letting out a huge sigh and his hands stop shaking, Marcus answers, "I don't know what you guys want to do, but at least for me I want to go to The East Side. Hunter's just going to go there and beat them up, but I don't want to do that. There's so many things that we don't know about from that night that I want to figure out so we can figure out what the right thing to do is."

As Marcus finishes, the group is taken aback for a bit.

However the silence is broken by Alex Smith as he smirks and then walks over to Marcus.

He playfully messes with Marcus' messy hair before saying, "Well bubs, you heard the club founder, let's get to it!"

"Guess it's decided then," Ronnie says as he begins to walk toward the store's exit, "Let's show The East Side what we're all abou-."

"That's cool and all," Elizabeth begins to say before asking, "But how are we supposed to get there?"

The group is taken aback for a bit as they try to think of an answer.

"Well I can ask my mom for a ride-," Ronnie begins to say before remembering he skipped class by accident today.

"My parents are too busy at work," Elizabeth admits.

"Last time my dad drove my friends anywhere he had us listen to disco," Alex shudders.

"What's wrong with disco?" Marcus asks.

"He kept replaying the same song over and over and over and over again," Alex trembles, "I still have that song stuck in my head."

As the group stands there puzzled as to what to do, Cameron remembers something as he pulls up his phone.

"While I can't go with you guys, I think I know just the person who'll be willing to drive you on over there," Cameron speaks up.

"Who?" Elizabeth asks.

Cameron starts to make a call to someone before he responds to Elizabeth by saying, "My tutor."

___________________________________

"I told her it was a fucking rental," Hunter grumbles as he tries to pull some loose broom straws out of his hair.

A bump is on his head as the punkish teen makes his way towards the train station. However as he makes his way closer, he sees a familiar face also approaching the station.

Mesto-Presto.

"Well well well, if it isn't Burrito Boy! What brings you to this neck of the woods?" Hunter asks.

Mesto rolls his eyes and responds with, "You know where those guys you fought went?"

"Yeah, some shop called The East Side Express," Hunter answers before asking, "Why do you care?"

"East Side Express huh?" Mesto says with a look of calm rage, "Let's hope they still have what they stole from me, for their sake."

Hunter follows Mesto as the two enter the train station. But just as they do, a black sedan passes them.

In the car, Elizabeth is sitting in the front while Alex, Marcus, & Ronnie are crammed in the back.

"You couldn't have let us take the front?" Alex grumbles.

"You should've called shotgun then dumbass," Elizabeth says.

"Hey watch your language," the driver scolds them.

"My bad sir," Elizabeth replies.

"I must say I didn't expect Cameron would have a tutor, let alone that it was you," Ronnie says.

"Small world isn't it," The driver, Aken Amnestor, remarks, "I must say I'm very pleased you all wanted to partake in a school project."

"Heh heh, yeah! You know us, we just love learning!" Ronnie awkwardly remarks before he whispers to Marcus, "What the hell did Cameron say to him?"

"He told him we were going to The East Side for a research paper that involved us meeting with Vanessa," Marcus whispers before speaking to Amnestor, "Thanks again for driving us!"

"Not a problem," Aken Amnestor, the driver of the car, says.

With two groups of people heading to the east side of the city, all wanting to reach Vanessa & her companions for different reasons, almost all members of each party were ready for the danger they were all speeding towards.

The danger that is The East Side.

See You Next Chapter!~