~one week later~

We were sitting in the computer lab while Ms Stine lectured us. Today's topic was "limitations of ethical hacking and how to know when we need to bend the rules and throw ethics out the window and drive a road roller over them". Her words, not mine.

A/N: Here's the seating plan to visualise it better. The blue boxes are tables, yellow circles are the chairs, the orange circle is where Lory was sitting, and the brown rectangle is the teacher's monitor.

Computer was the only class where we were allowed to sit because they couldn't hang the machines upside down. Nick and Cleo were on either side of me, and Argenta was directly in front of me. There was a partition on the top of the desks, so I could only see her eyes.

Halfway through the lecture, Mr Snow came by to talk to Ms Stine, so she left the classroom for two minutes.

As soon as she left, I looked around to see what my neighbours were doing.

Nick was doodling on the last page of his notebook, and Cleo was hacking into someone's pictoflaunt account.

"Isn't that unethical?" I remarked.

"He's Charles Bateman," He simply said, like that magically made what he was doing ethical.

I'm guessing he got that I needed more explanation because he added, "He's my nemesis,"

"I didn't know techies could have a nemesis," I chuckled but only got a glare from him, so I ended the conversation by looking ahead. And there, I saw Argenta.

She was working on something that was probably troubling her because she was making her "concentrated" face. Her brows furrowed, and her eyes were full of confusion; I couldn't see the rest of her face, but I could've bet she had her tongue out, touching the corner of her mouth.

I moved my foot a little and felt that her legs were just in front of mine and before I could think anything else, I started kicking her from under the table. Don't even ask why.

This had started to happen a lot; whenever I was with her, I didn't think before doing anything, I did it, and then I thought about it. It was usually something cringe-y and stupid.

So, now, I was kicking her from under the table. I saw her eyes widen, severe confusion flashed through them and then she bent and looked down to where our feet were. When she saw it, she sat up again and glared at me playfully. Her eyes crinkled, and I guessed it must have been because she was smiling.

Barely a moment later, she started kicking me back, and we were in a foot battle.

Since she wanted a fight, I gave her a fight and increased my speed; she just raised an eyebrow in amusement and sped up as well.

This went on till Ms Stine returned, then we stopped kicking and placed our feet on the wooden footrest. We were taking support of each other's feet, and so our toes were touching.

For the rest of the period, electricity kept shooting up my toe, where my thumbs were in contact with hers, giving me a tingly butterfly sensation.

The only difference between this feeling and feeling regular butterflies was that these had moved a little south of my stomach.

Does she even know the effect she has on me?

The bell rang, signalling the end of the period, and we all got up to leave.

"What the hell happened to your pants?!" Reyna shrieked, and all eyes instantly focussed on Argenta's white jeans, which were now brown from below her knees.

Ok, so I may have run around in the playing field before coming to class and may have accidentally, totally on accident forgot to clean my soles.

...oops.

"They were white in the morning!" Reyna continued shrieking while Argenta threw me a death glare, and all I could do was mouth a 'sorry' and gave her an innocent smile.

"You, my friend, are an abomination to fashion," Reyna finished.

"Heyy, I'm not an abomination, it was just-" She stopped, and I knew why. Because how the hell could she explain why we were playing footsies?!

Was it even footsies?

I mean- she could have been doing it just as a friend and in a totally platonic way, but the way she looked at me when she did it said that it could've been more.

"-I fell," She said and shut her eyes; I know even she was facepalming inside.

"For youu," Nick sang in my ears, and my head turned to face him faster than you could say "a", "So what was really happening? Because I can see that even your trouser is wrinkled, which I know it wasn't before, because you made it a point to pull out my speaker and plug in your iron, and then shout out a list of profanities on how my music taste is garbage, and I should call it my 'noise taste' and should 'jam with Ms Lily' because 'garbage belongs together' "

"Give me the truth," He added warningly.

"Oh, piss off!" I said as I rolled my eyes.

"Ok then, I did give you a chance," He whispered before speaking loudly, "Argenta, no one is buying that you fell just from your knee down, so, would yo-"

I placed a hand on his mouth to stop his highness from speaking further and kneed him in the back. He let out a muffled "AAAAAAH" and stomped on my foot. It did cause a little pain, but it didn't pain me enough to even scrunch up my nose. So, I just chuckled and shook my head at how pathetic his attack was.

An announcement on the PA broke our little discussion, and we all decided to pay attention to what was being said.

"All first years are requested to gather in the assembly hall for the crystal ceremony," repeated the PA, and we all walked towards the hall.

"I'm so excited," Yara exclaimed.

"Me too!" Cleo said.

"Me three," Jax chimed in.

"Hold up, don't you already have a crystal?" Willia asked.

"Nope, the one he used that day belongs to his dad and the one I-"

Reyna cleared her throat, and Nick chuckled from beside me.

"Intended to use," Adam glared at them, "belongs to my mum,"

Willia nodded in understanding, trying to hold in her chuckles. Along with all of us.

"Just laugh! This is getting way too annoying," Adam huffed.

"Heyy, we're not making fun of you," Argenta consoled him.

"Who are you kidding? We most certainly are!" Willia cackled.

"Giggle all you want, but it's not like you showed a lot of courage that day," Adam defended as he crossed his arms and frowned.

"Yeah, but at least we didn't piss our pants and freeze in one place," Cleo choked out between hysterics.

"Ha ha ha," Adam said, rolling his eyes.

"Keep rolling them; you might find some courage back there," Jax howled and clapped Adam's back. This caused Adam to slightly chuckle too, and before we knew it, we were a bunch of howling hyenas roaming the Gladys hallways. And I wouldn't have had it any other way.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Good morning, students. I hope you're all ready to get your crystals." Our principal spoke on the stage, "Your teachers will give you your respective wrist bands which will attract your crystal to you, so when you walk inside the cave, the crystal will attach itself to the wristband and claim you as its,"

We thought the speech would end there, but our principal had other plans. She then went on to explain how the crystals will boost our characters and even give us some special powers (this got all of us really excited) and how we must use them only for doing good, and how the crystal is not to be misused.

After an hour of torture, from her speech and standing in headstands, she said that we could go and get our crystals.

As soon as the children started dispersing, we all did a perfectly synchronised backflip and ran towards the cave.

Yes, we practised doing backflips and handsprings in sync.

Yes, we were the coolest squad to ever exhibit Earth.

Yes, it was my idea. Not to exist, just the handspring stuff, jeez, who do you think I am? A clairvoyant family planner?!

Just in case you do think I am, NO, I'm not.

We walked and walked behind Ms Lily and Mr Daniel until we reached the cave.

The crystal cave. Sounds cool, right?

Standing in front of the cave with 499 other people my age made me feel like I was a part of something bigger than just me.

It made me feel like I wasn't alone. Like I belonged. And this feeling was something I never wanted to lose, and somewhere deep inside, I knew that my squad will never again let me feel like I don't belong. We had already become family in the few weeks that we had spent together, and I could do anything for them, as I knew they could, for me.

Author's note:

And with this, we are back to the old schedule, Fridays 3:30 PM GMT.

Thanx for reading and don't forget to vote, comment and fan!<3

See you on Friday!