[center][img]http://i65.tinypic.com/21o8tg4.png[/img][/center]

[color 33ec06][center][h3]Homeroom (cont.)[/h3][/center]
[center]An Autobiography by Marcus Howell[/center][/color]
[hr]

Marcus had walked back to the classroom by himself, neglecting to try and hunt down any of the previous lunch-mates. His mind pondered things slowly, things that he really didn’t want to ponder, but had more than enough of an opportunity to.

“What the hell happened back there?” was first and foremost on his mind. He wasn’t the jealous type…he was more of a ‘let everything roll off and move on’ type. And, while he was certainly sassy, he was never directly confrontational about it. So why now? What exactly had triggered [i]that[/i]? It wasn’t a side of him he liked, and he’d seen the surprise in basically everybody’s face.

Was he just lashing out because he was pissed at the dog? 

That wasn’t it. He knew anger, and he knew anger well. That hadn’t been straight anger so much as just him trying to shoot down a challenger. A challenger for what though? Emma? He had absolutely no right to Emma; any ‘challengers’ were just additional dates, much like he’d done.

Why then? He’d jumped to try and shoot down Ernie; to try and seem like the big macho man in front of Emma. Maybe it [i]was[/i] because of the dog. Perhaps he was over-compensating to draw the attention away from his irrational fear of a goddamned ankle-biting dog. Or maybe he was just afraid of having something snatched from his grasp, even it was as small as a simple date. Or maybe he was just a huge asshole, and his true colors were starting to show.

This was getting him just about as far as any of the other times he’d sat down and over-analyzed himself. He was fairly practiced in pointing out his own flaws (god knew he had enough free time to become a pro) and this was the point where his inner monologue was just going to start calling him names. By now, he had made the journey back to the classroom, and sat down in his seat. 

Fortunately, there was plenty going on to distract him. The addition of elective choices was nice, and Marcus briefly skimmed over the paper before turning his full attention to the topic of ‘Flag and Seek’. His chest swelled a bit with egotistical pride at the mention of how good Blue Team did with their healer, remembering the friendly face that had almost blown him to smithereens. The rules seemed very simple; points for flags, a win for the healer, yadda yadda. Flag football wasn’t a foreign concept to him, and this was just flag football with the addition of superpowers. Every teenage boy’s dream, really.

Sander, Angelique, Grant, and Lily. There were only two names he really recognized from that list, but the opposing team was one he knew only slightly better. His two roommates and Kusari stuck out, and Marcus couldn’t help but give a little ‘it’s on’ glance to his suitemates. There’d be bragging in 430 tonight, one way or another.

And then everything got serious for a moment. The change in tone was so drastic that Marcus’s own heart sank as Fred spoke. His emotion quickly turned to contempt though, the longer that he talked.

“[color f7976a]They've learned well enough by now to stay away from more densely populated cities where the chances of running into a large number of mages are high, but that hasn't stopped them from attacking smaller locales.[/color]”

[color 33ec06][i]Not as important.[/i][/color]

"[color f7976a]...you should know that they've been behaving strangely in the last year.[/color]”

[color 33ec06][i]Is that why…?[/i][/color]

But Marcus didn’t have much time to ponder these things, for as quickly as the tone shifted, it shifted back, and they were left to learn chemistry or something. He was too busy cracking open the new phone that he’d been given and deliberately trying to divert his mind elsewhere. It took a little while for him to get it started up, but he eventually succeeded. Immediately, he pulled the small slip Rosa had given him and copied it into his contacts, following up with a quick text.

[quote Marc][color 33ec06]Finally got a cell phone. They told me you at least got my message, so I hope you haven’t been freaking out too much. Let me know if you’re free for a call later tonight; a lot’s happened since we last talked.[/color][/quote]

The rest of the time was decidedly not spent on listening to someone yammer on about bonds and ions and garbage. Instead, he was filling out his elective form, putting his pencil to his mouth as he went over the decisions; a few of the choices stuck out to him, but he was having an overall hard time trying to decide which ones he liked the [i]least[/i]. P.E might be fun to try out again, especially with the new abilities they all had. But it might just be regular, boring P.E, which would not be fun to try out again. It was strange; they way everything was laid out, you'd almost forget that it was just a facade to help them better adjust. He shook his head, trying to loosen that thought from his mind, and focused more on his elective paper.

[hider=Electives][list]
[*]Art/Photography - 1
[*]Creative Writing - 6
[*]Woodworking - 8
[*]P.E. - 7
[*]Film Study - 4
[*]Music Theory - 5
[*]Home Ec - 3
[*]Computer Science – 2[/list][/hider]

All that was left to do now was daydream, and come up with some strategies for this ‘game’ they were about to play. It’d be easier if he knew everybody’s powers, but that didn’t stop him from coming up with some pretty amazing fight scenes in his head. He looked forward to being one of the first groups out there – [color 33ec06][i]might as well give everyone something to try and strive for,[/i][/color] he thought to himself, a confident smile the only thing betraying his thoughts.