[center][color=00a99d][h2]Ernest Mars[/h2][/color][/center] [center][img]http://i68.tinypic.com/63x8xz.jpg[/img][/center] [center][img]http://i.imgur.com/3R5vYYi.png?2[/img][/center] [hr][center][color=silver]𝕊𝕖𝕡𝕥. 𝟟, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟘 / / 𝕌𝕊𝔸ℝ𝕀𝕃ℕ 𝔼𝕒𝕤𝕥 / / 𝕃𝕖𝕔𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕖 ℍ𝕒𝕝𝕝 ℤ / / 𝟙𝟚𝟘𝟘[/color][/center][hr] Ernie had moved on from glaring out the window (like one of those emo kids he always laughed at) to glaring at the front board, specifically at the printed schedule on it. GLARING, like if he telepathically channelled enough hatred into the cursed thing he could escape the triple deathblows that were the pre-lunch subjects. Calculus AND Physics AND English, first thing in the morning? USARILN East truly was hell on Earth. More interesting was the phrase “Experimental Unit B” that was printed at the top. It seemed that was cherry-picked to be part of some special squad. Strange. The arrival of other students drew his attention. Twenty or so teens, escorted by a beefy crew of security guards. An extra special squad then? Or maybe the security at East was always this heavy. Not enough information. It was time to put that detective cap on and suss out what the damn heck was going on here. A way to do that was to assess his assumed classmates, or just the people who stood out the most to him. A peppy Aberration girl who introduced herself as Emma. Her upbeat little greeting to the teachers had pretty much grabbed Ernie’s attention by the ears, forcing him to acknowledge her existence. And what a weird existence this was. Assessment time. Woah, now this was a shiny person, a real “slow motion down the hall” kind of gal. In any other place, West especially, Ernie would have found her enthusiasm pretty adorable. But in here, coming from an Abe… Man, that was just strange. Hardcore denial, maybe? Sure, it wasn’t his first time seeing a cheery X but considering the environment they were in, considering how long it had taken Ernie to earn his own cheeriness, he wasn’t sure what was up with this girl. Maybe she got lucky with a weak stigma and happened to be a nice girl beforehand too. A lucky combo. There wasn’t enough information to work off for the moment and Ernie didn’t like thinking hard about things he couldn’t figure out. So he’d do that thinking later. Her presence didn’t offer many clues to his situation anyway. An Arbiter with a ridiculous number of scars on him. Ernie was reminded of scored bread when he looked at the guy. The thought of bread reminded Ernie of the fact that his breakfast had only consisted of a small pack of biscuits handed out by the truck soldiers. And, oh god, there were still three hours until lunch break. Ernest Mars was going to starve to death long before he got eviscerated by Dreamcatcher monsters. He tried not to think about his neglected tummy too much, tossing himself back onto his earlier train of thought. Scarface seemed to share some inside joke with the Daisy lady. How long had these guys been at East again? Not long enough to have gotten their arrival requisitions before today but enough to have established little gags with the staff? Then again, these pro mages here seemed zanier than any people West ever managed to pick up off the streets. It was probably best to not base any concrete judgement from the staff’s personalities. It looked like Chestnut Boy already had his own clique of friends too. Other than them, no one else really caught his eye. A dozen or so nondescript faces other faces filed into the room, a mix-and-match of personalities and appearances with varying levels of morning crankiness. Nothing spectacular. The only other person maybe worth noticing was a shades wearing, goth punk chick who looked a lot like… Ernie shook his head. Naw, it couldn’t be. Probably just some random goth girl who also liked wearing sunglasses. A fellow fan, perhaps? His view of the girl was obscured so his interest was lost very quickly. The following lessons and speeches were mind-blowingly boring. Something useless about other Experimental Units, algebra that even he could sorta understand, advanced arrow-drawing in Physics and whatever the heck was being taught by the fancy-pants English teacher. Seemed like a total waste of space to Ernie. And he wasn’t just referring to the sentence diagramming. He’d scoffed when Fred had returned to tell them to not eat the shrubbery. Hah, as if anything from East’s décor would look pretty enough to eat. Classes had passed by without anyone approaching him. That was fair. If no effort is made on one end then why should the other reciprocate? He wasn't going to get anything done by sitting and moping around. It was time to put himself out there and flaunt that stunningly bright personality he'd worked so hard to cultivate. And if those high school romantic comedies were anything to go by, the epicenter of teen socialization was the cafeteria. Delicious foods and new friendships were awaiting him there. Hold up a second. Where was the cafeteria? More importantly, where was anything in this school? Ernie groaned into his hands as his classmates bustled out of the room, presumably to places they actually knew the way to.