There was something different in the air today, Zel noted on his way to school. Hopefully, it wasn't some paranoia arising from the fact that the last two stories began with him walking to school and entering some sort of spell hurling. Let's see, what was going on around him as he walked to school as always?
There were still the vacant-headed, giggling members of the ZFC trying futilely to hide themselves behind corners and trees, some even disguised as trees, as they tried to catch a glimpse and a picture of him. Zelgadiss never understood what they were so worked up about. And perhaps it was especially because of that, that he didn't pay them much attention. People who are so excited over a monster like himself must be a few points shy of a dozen.
"Mommy, why does he have blue skin?"
"Shush, don't point dear. That's because it isn't human. I want you to stay away from it. It just might eat you!"
"The mayor should just ban all non-humans from the city."
"Yeah, just look at the disaster at the Slayers High School festival. Those people get too much leniency I tell you."
Public opinion, fickle as ever, was swinging toward the xenophobic side again. There were always problems with youth gangs and monster incursions but they were either passed off as a teenager thing, as the former was, or as too rare to be of major concern, as the latter was. But here in only the last, what was it?
Oh gods, was it only a week since that red-haired, red-eyed troublemaker showed up? Zelgadiss felt it was more like a year with all of the trouble that's happened. Eastern destroyed, indirectly of course but still it was because of her that there was a golem running around. Then, there was the school fair with the school nurse transforming into a dragon and stomping through the city. His ears rang faintly with the memory of her wailing that the prize money was going toward the city repairs.
And all of that trouble would not have happened if she wasn't here. Or so Zel had convinced himself.
"Hold it right there."
Zelgadiss was jolted out of his internal grumbling by a rough, barking voice. It belonged to a burly man with hairy arms who was a head taller than Zel and probably twice his mass, Zel's human mass that is and not his current one. The man looked Zel up and down.
Zel waited.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Briefly, Zel considered some not very polite answers.
"To school."
"Trying to make yourself like a human huh."
Zel refrained from retorting that he was human, if only partially.
"If you'll excuse me, I'm going to be late," Zel said softly, sidestepping the belligerent man. A thick arm slammed into the wall, blocking Zel's path.
"I'm not done talking with you, monster!" spat the hairy man. "You monsters think you can waltz in and do whatever you want. Well, ole Hedgar here is going to show you what a real man is." He flexed his muscles.
Zel wasn't impressed. And the urge to shove this Hedgar into the asphalt was becoming too tempting. All he needed was an excuse.
"Come on, shrimp," sneered Hedgar one moment, the next he was hugging a tree. All of the bystanders blinked. Zelgadiss was already two blocks away.
"Mommy, is that a koala?"
"No dear. It isn't."
"Yo! Zedagsil!"
Theoretically, there was only so many ways Zel's full name could be messed up. Somehow, Gourry was able to come up with a new one every time. Zelgadiss slowed down as he crossed the large courtyard toward Southern to let the blond upperclassman who called him to catch up.
"What is it?" Zel asked shortly.
"Back down, I just wanted to say hi. I haven't seen you at club recently." Gourry smiled cheerfully, gesturing to the practice sword he also carried with his school bag.
Zel wanted to say that it had only been a week.
"But I guess that's what happen when you get a girlfriend," continued the blissfully ignorant upperclassman.
"A WHAT?!?" Zel stopped dead in his tracks and jerked Gourry down to his eye level. "Lina is not my - "
"Is that her name? I haven't heard. Though Sylphiel was probably mentioning something about it."
"I told you she is not, oh forget it. You'd never remember."
"Remember what?"
"..."
"But it was a shame that we didn't get to the duel portion of the festival," Gourry said wistfully as they again began walking toward the building as the clock's hand approached the hour. "I was looking forward to it."
"So was I. But who was your partner for that? Not Sylphiel."
"Why not Sylphiel?"
"Why not? Because she can't a single offensive spell that's why!" And if they had reached that level of the duel, Lina would have blasted Sylphiel away.
"But she's a great cook."
"Always thinking with your stomach. That has nothing to do with combat ability."
"I fight better on a full stomach."
"Why do I even bother?" Zel sighed, standing before his shoe locker. Surprisingly, it was not waiting to explode. Cautiously, he looked inside. His school shoes looked fine. There didn't look like there were any unwelcome surprises like chocolates or tacks. That meant only one thing.
"No running indoors!" yelled a teacher as Zel dashed by on his way to the teachers' office. "Students."
"XELLOSS!!"
Xelloss looked up from his desk and papers to smile blandly at the fuming, and steaming, student who stood in the doorway. He shook a finger.
"Now now. You should call me Teacher Xelloss or people may think we have a much closer relationship."
Of course, Zel was already pretty angry so that little remark didn't add too much to the meter. All of the veteran teachers quickly cleared the room by any portal other than the door that Zelgadiss still blocked. The newer ones who were hired after Zel transferred to Eastern were hauled out by the collar for their own safety. It was well-known that Zelgadiss Graywords did not get along well with Xelloss.
"Where. Are. They."
"The other teachers?" Xelloss asked promptly. "Currently searching for the nearest spell shelter."
"You know what I'm talking about. What the hell did you do with the letters!!"
"I thought you didn't want them."
"I don't. But knowing you, I'd be better off if I personally answered each and every one of them than leave them in your hands."
"What makes you think I have them?"
"You expect me to believe that you don't?!"
"I swear by the Superintendent that I don't have a single letter."
"From my shoe locker?"
"From your shoe locker."
"Put your hands where I can see them."
Xelloss showed his hands, fingers uncrossed.
"Now say it all again."
"I swear by the Superintendent that I don't have a single letter from your shoe locker."
"So who did you give them to?" Zel growled when Xelloss wasn't struck down for falsely swearing to oath.
"I already said - "
Ding!
Suspiciously, Zelgadiss jerked open the top drawer of Xelloss's desk. It was empty of all but one piece of paper. Picking it up, Zel read over the small fine print on what looked like a receipt.
"Sent: An innumerable amount of letters. Recipients: Southern Principal Zelas Graywords, School Counselor Terim Graywords, Chemistry Department Head Rezo Graywords, Chemistry Department Vice Head Kitzero Graywords..." With growing horror, Zel's eyes followed the long list of what amounted to his entire family employed by the Slayers High School until he reached the very end. "Replies: Good work, Xelloss. The bonus will be in your next paycheck. From: The Superintendent."
Zelgadiss was literally aflame as he crushed the receipt to the Graywords Grapevine. Xelloss began to wonder if he pushed him a bit too far... Nah.
"You..."
The school clock chimed, signaling all students to go to their classrooms before the indecently short passing time interval ended. It basically lead to a stampede of students rushing up crowded stairwells and across recently waxed floors. Some of the sneakier students used to fly up to their classrooms but that was before all of the windows were lined with electricity spells that were triggered by a touch on the outside window frame.
"Zel-kun, time for class," Xelloss smiled brightly, holding up a fire extinguisher. "And if you don't put out those flames I'll be forced to use this to prevent the smoke alarms from going off. It's an old can too."
The flames did diminish, but only because Zel's face became colder than hell when it froze over. It was an expression that would have done Northern Principal Dynast proud, Xelloss thought.
"If you think for one instant that - "
"Oi, Zel!" Gourry stuck his head and arm in the teachers' office, snagging the younger classman. "It's time for class!"
Amazingly, Gourry was able to drag Zel behind him up several flights of steps, despite Zel's heavier mass and of course Zel's thrashing.
"You should calm down. What's there to get so angry about?"
"With a family like mine, what is there NOT to be angry about!"
"I'd love to have a family like yours."
Zel paused in his struggle to get out of Gourry's grip. "Come to think about it, I've never heard you say anything about your family. What's up with that?"
"Gourry-sama!" Sylphiel waved from the empty space that the rushing students left her. Being school idol gave her lots of respect and people always made way for her no matter what. "If you don't hurry, the teacher will arrive before us."
"Oh yeah. See you at club Zel. And introduce me to your girlfriend!"
If he could, Zel would have broken something. But since he couldn't, and it seemed like Gourry wasn't going to forget about this girlfriend nonsense, Zel added one more irritation to his simmering pot of frustrations. Someday, his father predicted, all of that buried negative feelings were going to explode. Just to spite his father, Zel was going to prove him wrong.
Leaving only an afterimage, Zel went from hallway to his seat by the window in the last second before the chimes to begin class sounded. His homeroom teacher blinked, and then scowled, looking at the roll sheet. That Graywords kid was going to be trouble, even if he was the principal's son.
"Alright, it looks like we're only missing one student. As you all know, the spring break is coming up."
Cheers erupted from around the school.
"But before that are the final examinations."
A dark cloud of foreboding fell over the school and the students. Several classrooms had to brighten the overhead lights in order to see.
"The central administration of the high school knows that all of you are having a difficult time with the new class arrangements - "
"The exams are canceled?" called out a voice in the back of the room. Zel repressed a shiver as that was the voice of the class clown. And he really was a clown from his overly large shoes to his brightly made-up face.
"No, the exams will continue as usual. All of you, despite being from different campuses, are learning the same curriculum more or less. What I was going to say before being so rudely interrupted," the teacher leveled a glare at the class clown who only honked his nose, "is that despite the shuffling, there will be no excuses accepted, you will not be allowed to progress if you do fail."
Zel wondered why the teacher even bothered to mention it.
"I'msorryI'mlate!!!!" shouted a very disheveled and very breathless Lina Inverse who had slammed open the sliding door of the classroom with enough force to break it out of its holding frame and cause cracks to appear on several windows. Half of the students and the teacher had fallen over from the force of her entry. "Is something happening?"
"Miss Inverse!" barked the homeroom teacher, trying to recover some semblance of authority and control after ducking under a desk and cowering like a coward from Lina's loud arrival. "You are late!"
Lina bowed her head to hide her rolling eyes. No kidding she was late. "I'm very sorry," she lied between her teeth. "It won't happen again."
"Humph. Be seated." He ordered, turning toward the blackboard.
Lina stuck out her tongue and the classroom muffled its giggles.
"What was that?"
"Nothing," Lina replied innocently, scooting to her seat. Several students gave her conspiratory winks or thumbs-up. The only person who didn't have any reaction to her quiet insubordination was Mr. Stone-face himself. He was probably teacher's pet. Lina ignored him as she sat down and pulled out her thick modern literature book, standing it up and opening it wide so she could fall asleep behind it.
"You blew up your alarm clock didn't you."
"WHA - " Lina clamped her mouth shut as the teacher looked suspiciously in her direction. When he resumed writing the list of famous literature writers on the board, Lina glared at Zelgadiss. "It's none of your business!" she hissed.
"You're going to regret sleeping through modern literature."
"Why would you care?"
"It doesn't matter to me if you get held back a year."
Lina looked at him puzzled. "Just what are you - "
"Now class," called the teacher, rapping the board with a pointer stick. "I've listed the sixteen writers whose works you have read and studied this year. The final will include all of them and be a combination of true/false, multiple choice, identification of passages, and two essays."
Lina blinked. Final? She tapped the student in front of her and whispered, "What final?"
"No talking in class!" yelled the teacher, throwing the thick class textbook at the offending student. As Lina was much shorter than the student in front of her, and that student ducked, the book flew over both of their heads and struck the other student behind Lina.