"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
--Albert Einstein.
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I settled on a reserved and the most "un-cool" seat of the school-bus, that was on the front lane. Kids from behind threw candy wrappers and frisbeed bottle caps onto my head.
"Guys, stop it!" I wailed turning around, they snorted and giggled, as usual. After a painstaking slow ride, finally, I hopped out of the bus and landed my shoes on to the tasteless asphalt of our pristin-Academy campus.

"That's so cool, Lee!"
Alita grinned when I told her that I was selected as one of the interns for Nova-Gen. I even told her about my encounters with Neon-blaze the other day. She gasped at the info and frowned her face in confusion, "Thats...Odd."

As we were walking down the hallway lost in our conversation, Alita made a horrendous mistake of running into the buffed guy- Faizer, who was some kind of alpha of the cool-dude-battalion or something.

And we knew the consequences looking into his chocolate brown face. He towered himself over Alita's face scaring the heck out of her. She gulped.

"Da heck evil witch? Can't you see, or d'ose white eyes blind, huh?"

She stuttered to say something, but she couldn't of course. I mean, she's a girl who was afraid of ants, let alone this mongrel. And I had had enough, I was called as 'Tomboy' sometimes and by sometimes, I mean all the time. So my last option was to stay quiet when someone picked on my Friend to bully.

"Someone seems to have anger issues, huh?" I Smirked, rolling up my imaginary sleeves and cocked my neck to get ready for the war that was about to begin. I stood facing his eyes, although he stood a whole head taller than me and I pulled Alita behind me, poor thing was shaking in fear.

"Seems like 'Granny-momma' wants a fight today, huh? " He crossed his huge arms, widening his legs apart and whispered into my ear only to create a lame horrific drama.
"Last warning, Get. Out. Of. My way Lee!"

Well, 'Granny momma' was in reference to my silver hair and he had me with that word.

"You get out of 'MY' way, you buff!"
I laid it flat on his face and smirked even more, meanwhile I repeatedly yanked my arm from the constant tug that I felt on my sleeves, which of course was by frantic Alita. But I had had enough of him bullying us around, calling us names and I wanted to end it.

He towered over me and had the audacity to touch and yank me out of his way. I felt the adrenaline rush through my veins. My fingers bent and curled up into tight fists.
'Hate you! I loathe you!' my thoughts chanted the same words over and over again. Until my tensed body pounced at him to smack him in the face.

But right then, somebody's hands pulled me away, pinning Faizer's chest to the wall behind,
"I got this Faiz. Dude! I got this!"

I vexed my eyes at Faiz, until he left the place cussing under his nose. My gaze finally flung towards the one who separated us. I jerked my arm from his grip, as it was the same pair of piercing green eyes. It was Nick.

"All okay?" He asked. I could see his chest widening and puffing up in pride, as if he saved my day. I hated to acknowledge him, but I nodded anyways, pulling my backpack straps farther up.

"Now, how many times have I told you, not to pick fight with guys, Lee?" Nick wailed, as he shifted his weight from one leg to another and crossed his arms. His green orbeez eyes were astonishingly soft and almost appeared worrisome. I kept staring, and staring at them, it suddenly felt like he was the old Nick that I always wanted him to be. But he was not, since he plucked his soft gaze away and furrowed his angry brows.

"Ehem..."
I cleared my throat looking down into my grey sneakers.
"I can stand for myself." I snapped in a calm but stern tone,
"and for 'us', we don't need your help."

"Come on Lee, you are straight up rude at times, ever heard of 'thanks'. Jeez!"
He shook his head and stormed away.

"Ever heard of 'Sorry', huh?"
I screamed into the air after him. My eyes flinted as a thought flashed,
'What's gotten into him? Since when did he start helping people ? And expect a 'thanks' in return for the same?'

"No. He is right Lee, You are really rude at times, he only tried to help us!" Alita stood beside me with her unfailing argument ever.
I made a judgemental poker face. I mean, I am not a monster either. Even I felt a tiny amount of guilt somewhere in the corner of my heart. But, then again, all the memories kept flooding back washing it all away.

"He didn't help us. Alita."

'Cause it's his way of showing his power and arrogance, that's it.' I gulped in the lingering thought before I opened my mouth to speak again.

"Then what do you think was, 'dude, I got this'?" Alita imitated his exact words, almost in his quirky voice. If it was a phone call, she could have easily fooled me with that talent.

"He broke my leg, Alita. And I had to lose my entire year of seventh grade and karate classes because of that. Hell with the class! He didn't even bother to visit me once after the incident, You know that right?" I continued ranting about him, carelessly walking ahead of her.

"Mmm. Yeah. But that was long time ago, why don't you guys become friends again, man! I miss those good old days" she stomped her foot, squeezing her baby face.

"That's impossible. He owes me a 'sorry', and even if he says one, it's not going to change a thing." I sassed up crossing my arms.

Alita mumbled, "yeah whatever..." as she shrugged and tried to cheer me up. "Wanna go for soccer game, it's pristin-panthers against Emerald-Eagles! Come on, let's go..." She dragged me out of the hallway towards the playground.

Soon we settled into a pair of seats, after buying our favourite, but not-so- favourite hamburgers from the school canteen. Our canteen food utterly  sucked anyway.

"Yayy! Whoo!" Alita screamed putting her hands up in the air, along with the school kids to form a crowd wave, as one of the pristin-panthers hit a neat goal.

After a while I spotted the same combination of ocean blue eyes and a solitary dimple.

I knew it!

So Pete played for our soccer team, and that was the reason for the déjà-vu kind of feeling that I had when I saw his face for the first time.
How could I have missed spotting him at school, in the first place?
It became more apparent when he trudged towards the side of the playground, where we were seated.

He poured a bottle of water on his sweaty head, and that made my head go dizzy. My belly butterflies became even worse when he waved and flashed his dimply smile at me. Which was really unexpected of him, as I wasn't sure whether he remembered me at all.

Alita eyed me in shock, "wait, you know him?"

"Yea, I met him at the Nova-Gen." I mumbled, soon it became apparent that the other girls who were sitting beside me, were also shocked and may be a little bit jealous too.

"So what's his name?" Alita asked in a muffled voice, taking a mouthful bite.

"Pete. Umm. Peter Nolan, I think." I answered, I didn't remember his middle name though.

"Awesome!" Alita squealed, as if he had himself spoken to her.

As usual, our team did win that day. Pristin-Academy was just an average public school, but it hosted so many talented kids. The school concentrated on academia and sports and other extra curricular activities in perfect balance.

We attended the last class of the day, which was of the Science club's.
Professor Ed Kurtz, came in with his usual humpy back and thick black spectacle. But that particular day he was also holding a vine glass, which didn't make much sense, since teachers were not allowed to drunk-teach in the school.

The classroom ​echoed with whispers and chatters that we made remarking his unusual entry. He cleared his throat, "Ahem!"

Still, the class didn't go silent, so he banged on the desk "Class!"

All of us sat alert, not that it was scary, but what prof. Ed taught was always fun and interesting.
"So experiment -10, Demonstration of sonic waves. But before that, I have an announcement to make."

He leaned his back onto the desk, crossing his leg, playing with a chalk, as all of us straightened.
"Leela Das has been selected as an intern for Nova-Gen technologies, so everybody, cheer her for the accomplishment!" He raised his hands in an eerie clap.

All others cheered me up with their claps, except for Nick, who of course shook his head giving his signature sarcastic grin which ruined the very excitement of the situation.

After a while, prof. Ed continued his experiment. First thing he did was to place the vine glass on the centre of the countertop, then he went ahead and asked whether we could break the glass without touching it.

"Of course!" Nick muttered playing with his pen.

"Right. Enlighten me Mr. Nick"
Prof. Ed added, clasping his chin just to add some dramatic effect and to gain even more attention.

"Um. Uh..." Nick couldn't answer or just acted dumb, so as to become cool (and not a nerd). I liked to assume the latter, since some how, he excelled in studies as well apart from karate and soccer.

"Anybody?" Prof. Ed turned around and gestured towards us.
As childish as it sounds, I never hesitated at any chance of winning over Nick, ever.

"Match the sound frequency with that of the frequency of glass material and there it is KaBOOM!"
I blurted. But right after that, I noticed that there were already so many hands raised, probably they all knew the answer too.

Great! I am a master at embarrassing myself, aren't I?

"Gotta love your enthusiasm, Lee!", Prof. Ed remarked and the class broke into a huge giggle. Nick's chuckle didn't go unnoticed either, since he was sitting diagonally next to me.

Professor arranged woofers around the glass and dusted his hands, appreciating his handiwork. "That should do!"
He turned the recorder on. A high pitched female voice started singing a melodious song. Ed started dancing comically making us all laugh, he set the frequency to 400 hertz, nothing happened to the glass.

Then he announced,"500."as he rotated the knob on the recorder. Next, "550," while he still danced like a drunk racoon. Finally when the frequency hit 600 hertz, the glass shook and exploded with a loud shatter.

Everyone echoed, "whoa!"
That was kind of cool, probably his experimental approach to everything, was what made us all love the science club as much as we loved the sports and other clubs.

While on our way back on the hallway, I was awestruck and couldn't stop talking about the experiment, although Alita seemed least bothered as she kept playing with her messy brown braid.

"Fest tickets, next week."
Alita and I were handed flyers for the upcoming cultural fest by a boy.
Cultural fest meant fun. It involved dance-offs, dramas, choirs and as cherry on top of all that, was the food, the thought of it made us both squeal in happiness. Probably that was the only day when our canteen food didn't actually suck.

"We should go shopping, we need a total make-over for the fest." Alita squeezed my hands with utmost excitement.

"Sure thing. Yeah. We should." I agreed and waved her a bye as I left for the home.

On my way back towards the school bus, my eyes caught a glimpse of the green notice-board. There were several notifications and memos for the prep of upcoming fest. But what blew my mind, was the news paper clipping that read- "Pristin-town's new super-angel- WHITE HAWK".
Another one beside it read, "WHITE HAWK- pristin's hero reborn, can he fight against the evil NEON BLAZE?"

Neon-blaze!
That word gave me tingles and goosebumps, flashing memory of that scribbled warning on a yellow sticky note, added even more texture to the gooseflesh.