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...:>begin chapter II<:... Lady Une looked around the crowded mess hall at Lake Victoria military academy, trying to scout out a place to sit. She'd finally gotten there after a few hours on a plane with the two soldiers and a few other kids. After sizing up the crowd for a few seconds she realized that there were very few other girls here. She spotted one of the few sitting alone at a table towards the back of the room and cautiously made her way over. "Is this seat taken?" She asked. "Nope, but there's two other guys coming, I think they're still duking it out on the food line." The other girl replied. Relieved, Une set her tray down and sat down across the table. She stabbed into her salad with a fork and started scarfing it down. "You must be new, I haven't seen you around. Just outta curiosity, you're a street kid, right?" The other girl said. It took a minute to register in her mind. " me? Yes, i'm new, and how did you know?" She asked, sounding somewhat confused. " Don't worry it's all good, I am too, it's easy to tell. The rich kids all hate the food here. I won't tell them if you don't want me to." She replied nonchalantly. Une smiled at her and continued to make short work of the salad. The other girl glanced back over her shoulder for a second. "Oh good, here come the others." she said, indicating the two guys approaching their table. Une quickly looked them over as they made their way to the table. One of the guys had long platinum blond hair, almost to the floor, the other had stunning blue eyes, but really freaky eyebrows. Both were carrying trays of the same unrecognizable entree the cafeteria was serving. Within seconds they'd dropped their food trays onto the table and taken seats, but didn't seem to really notice because they seemed to be in the middle of an argument. " No, superman would reign victorious in a fight against batman and Spiderman!" " He would be outnumbered 2 to 1!" " Batman doesn't even have real super powers, just fancy gadgets, and Spiderman just shoots webs at people. Superman would defeat them both." The girl sitting across from Lady Une rolled her eyes. "Hello to you too. And, just one question, if I may, why are they fighting in the first place?" She said, a note of sarcasm in her voice. "Oh, hello, Noin, would you mind telling Treize here that he's sadly mistaken in thinking that superman would win?" Said the blonde guy sitting next to her. " She did make an interesting point though, that battle would be completely meaningless." His friend replied. "May I ask, who's our newbie?" he added. "Don�t I feel like a total ditz, I didn't even ask your name!" the other girl said, obviously feeling exceptionally stupid. " I HATE my name. Everyone back home always just called me Lady Une, there's a story behind it, but I�d rather not go into it right now." She replied. " Aah, so I'm not alone. I hate my name too. Anyway the guy on my right, who is apparently allergic to haircuts is Zechs, and the only one at this table who listens to reason is Treize." The other girl said as she stabbed cautiously at the 'mystery meat' on her tray. "Treize, you might want to be careful, I think your lunch is still moving." Zechs commented randomly. "Thanks for the heads up, old friend." "do you have a name, or am I just supposed to call you 'hey you' ?" Une asked. "Oh, yeah, but as I said before, I hate my name too. Lucrezia Noin. What the HELL were my parents thinking? Anyway, everyone just calls me Noin because they know it really pisses me off if you call me by my first name." she replied with a smile. "Did you get your schedule and room assignment and stuff yet?" Zechs asked absently. Lady Une slid an index card across the table to him. "Fencing/target range...Treize is in there, We're all in War History, which is one of the most boring classes known to man, but our instructor is an INCOMPETENT FOOL!" He yelled just before Noin grabbed the index card from his hand. "Please don't start that rant AGAIN Zechs, the poor girl's only been here all of about 2 hours. Anyway we get the point, that class is an easy nap. And after that we have... combat training, fun, fun, fun." Treize had given up on his mystery meat and was reading over Noin's shoulder. "looks like you have a new room mate, Noin." He commented. Her eyes darted to the room assignment line. 217. "Well, I knew they wouldn't let me have my own room for TOO long. Second floor right near the bathroom. I hope you like hard rock, because we have really noisy neighbours." Noin replied with a smile. "I can live with rock if you can." Une said. "You wanna go up and see the place before next class? So you'll know where to find the place. I'm warning you ahead of time, it's a dump, I never clean." "Fine with me, the guy said they'd put my stuff up there for me when we arrived, not much, just some clothes and things." The two girls got up from the table and headed out the door toward the student dorm building. "You probably won't be too behind on anything, I've only been here 3 months, and as Zechs said before, our war history teacher is incompetent. Zechs and Treize are both older than us and have been here longer." Noin said as they walked out the door. " Are either of them...uh...do they have girlfriends?" Une asked timidly as they walked toward the other building. "I knew that was coming. Neither one of them do at the moment but...let's just put it this way, I have dibs on Zechs." She replied. "Fine by me. He�s not the one I�m interested in." Noin sighed. " Problem is, neither one of us has a chance in hell. The social bit. Treize's family is incomprehensively rich, and I'm fairly sure the same goes for Zechs, the two of them have known each other since, like, birth. Guys like that don't date girls like us." She said sadly. "Figures. Second floor, right?" Lady Une replied, obviously trying to keep her mind off a certain guy she'd met at lunch. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ She walked into the classroom and spotted Zechs and Noin sitting in the back. She sat down next to them. "Welcome to War History, or as it's more commonly called, Catnaps 101." Zechs said. Noin rolled her eyes at him. " Where's Treize?" Noin asked. "I'm not entirely sure. He's either faking sick or trying to get a detailed plan for a good prank to play in class." Zechs replied. Noin looked toward the doorway. " Speak of the devil, here he comes." Treize walked into the room and made a beeline for the back of the room where the others were sitting. " Good afternoon, Noin, Zechs, Lady. I thought of something interesting for the middle of class." He said before taking his seat. " Excellent. Our strategy in this class, aside from sleeping as much as possible, has always been, try to do the most outrageous things possible and still get away with it. Just play along, it's usually hilarious." Noin whispered. Just as she finished saying this, Treize handed each of them a cigarette lighter. "What are these for?" Lady Une asked, staring at the lighter as though it were some alien life form. "All in good time, milady, all in good time. I daresay I've outdone myself on this one. What I planned to do, on my signal, somewhere in the middle of his lecture on the battle-of-whatever-we're-studying -now, spark the lighters and wave them above your head while swaying in unison, as you would at a rock concert, until Baker notices, *IF* he notices, and threatens to give us all detention." Treize finished. "I realize you've heard it many times before, but you're a genius." Zechs commented. " Thank you, my eternal friend." Their teacher, a man who looked to be about 80 or so, walked into the room and called the class to order. After taking the attendance, he launched immediately into a soporific lecture on the leadership strategies of Attila the Hun. A paper airplane sailed across the room. About 20 minutes into the lecture Lady Une noted that Zechs had fallen asleep and was snoring. Treize elbowed him sharply in the ribs to wake him up, and then lifted his lighter. The others did the same and started waving the tiny flames in the air in perfect unison. " In such a situation, it is beneficial to take what little resources you have left and retreat, so as to live to fight another day. This proves itself true in the war of..." The teacher droned on. A low murmur made its way around the room as other students turned their attention to the four in the back row; what they were doing was clearly more interesting than whatever the teacher was saying. "WHAT in God's name is going on back there? MISTER Khushrenada, this disruptive behaviour is something I REFUSE to tolerate in my class, if I have to speak to you again you WILL Have detention! Marquise! NOIN! Une! That goes for you three as well! There are PEOPLE here who want to LEARN!!!" He fumed. On sheer impulse, Lady Une raised her hand. "Yes." he said. "With all due respect sir, I think they all want to sleep." She said. The rest of the room started laughing hysterically. "THAT'S IT!! I refuse to tolerate this INSOLENCE! Une, Noin, Marquise, AND Khushrenada will ALL have detention at 0500 hours EFFECTIVE tomorrow morning!" He continued. He soon got back to his lecture, and soon after, Treize passed lady Une a note. "He does that every time, and always forgets, I wouldn't worry. I must applaud such courage, especially on a first day. I think you'll do well here. - Treize" After reading the note, she smiled at him. |
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