It was a typical Monday morning, as typical as any was on this immense campus with so many unusual and colorful students. It was a foggy morning, like most mornings in the city, but one that felt warm enough to promise to be a sunny day by the time the afternoon rolled around.

Although once one had entered any of the tall buildings that made up the campus, one could hardly even be aware of what the weather may be like outside-- for The Academy was like its own private world cut off from everything else, lit by artificial neon lights and the smell of some cleaning products always hanging in the air.

Class 3B-- found on the third floor of the High School building was almost indistinguishable from any other classroom on campus. Roughly 20 desks arranged in a grid, a podium and white board at the front for use during lecture, a teacher's desk off in the corner. Above the white board were a pair of pull strings that could be used to bring down either the world map or a projector screen. The projector itself would be found on the ceiling.

The only thing that would distinguish it from any other classroom were the various posters on the wall-- a good half of them either being motivational posters that thought themselves cleverer than they really were, posters related to upcoming school events and others that hinted at historical or literary subjects.

One side of the classroom had a very long bookshelf that spanned the length of the classroom with various textbooks that also hinted at the subject meant to be taught in this room.

Donnie made his way into the classroom before the other students. Even if it meant he would need to make up the lost sleep by catching some Z's in the afternoon classes, it was important to kick off the school week right.

He had a small bag prepared and quickly made his way around the room with the efficiency of any man on a mission.

First he stopped by the teacher's desk, plopped a round object onto the chair.

Then he made his way over to the desks. Upon the chair of one desk he placed a small gift wrapped box.

Then, underneath another desk, where a student's feet would naturally go he dropped down a small slimy object.

Then finally he made his way over to one more desk, he opened it up and, after first plucking one last object from the bag, he turned his bag over to dump the remainder of its contents inside before closing the desk lid.

His work complete, he made his way back over to the door. Sliding the trash can over the door and opened the door before stepping outside and propping it open with the trash can. With a quick jump he balanced whatever was in his hands on the top of the door.

Once in the hallway, he tried to look as nonchalant as possible as he made his way away from the room to an alcove from where he could watch.

For most people, each day was taken for granted. Not for Courtney. She had been as close to death as anybody could get, and she had survived. Beaten the odds. But now she was trapped in the future, and her family were... somewhere. They could be dead, a thought she pushed aside. She had survived, maybe they had too! Something in the back of her skull told her that she had survived by the skin of her teeth, and had needed a long time to heal. And she had been wearing the cosmic belt at the time. That was why she survived. Maybe Pat had been able to make it through, inside the shell of S.T.R.I.P.E. But her mother? Her stepbrother? They had no such protection.

She refused to accept it. They had survived! And she was going to rescue them! But first, she had to graduate high school...

She dressed. Just jeans and a t-shirt. Like a lot of her clothes, they were hand me downs. She had no money of her own, and while the JLA would have given her the very best of everything, they had vanished into who knows where. Her main source of everything was now thrift stores. And yes, you best believe that the popular mean girl types noticed, and never let a day go by without reminding her that she was just a poor little orphan girl. It was so infurating! Back in her own time, she had been the queen bee! And had never treated anybody with such disdain! Modern teenagers were just a bunch of entitled, selfish, brats!

She did not want to let it show, just how much it got to her. If they only knew her secret...

Today's t-shirt declared an affiliation or affection for something related to Star Wars, a sentiment she personally found horrifying. She had fought all sorts of evil entities with the JSA, but a war between planets... Why would anybody be remotely in favour of such a thing?

And what, exactly, was The Force? Maybe they meant the mysterious energy that powered the belt and the staff. Only Ted Knight really knew what that had been, and he had presumably died a very long time ago. She had always meant to find the time to ask him how he had made the staff, but things always kept getting in the way of that. Now she never could. Unless he left notes.

She added it to her mental to-do list.

She clutched her rucksack of books and other scholarly parephenalia, and headed out of the dorm, to the first class of the day. She was always early if she could manage it. It was better than being late, and doing the walk of shame. She found that a lot of what she had known was now totally obsolete, and tried to make up for her ignorance with hard study, and the appearance of eagerness. So far, with mixed results. Her knowledge of mathematics was coping, but she was in very serious danger of flunking history, science, and English lit. How could she be expected to cope with things that happened during years when she did not even exist, but everybody else had taken for granted? She received new shocks every day. The news that President Kennedy had been assassinated, this she knew. She remembered only a little of the time just before her time journey, but that she definitely could recall. But then learning that Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr, and John Lennon had all died, all of them having been truly huge figures in the civil rights movement... it blew her mind. Especially John Lennon. She remembered him as the fresh faced and chirpy singer, who made all her schoolfriends scream every time he was on the TV. He sang happy pop songs. What happened to turn him into someone worthy of killing?

And that was only one of the multitude of weird things that had confronted her in the twenty first century. Computers... smart phones... and all the nudity everywhere! Girls younger than her now dressed in a way that would have caused a riot in 1964. And despite peer pressure, she had yet to chance it. True, her Stargirl outfit displayed her midriff, but this was from necessity, as the powerful aura from the cosmic belt tended to make fabric catch fire during a particularly powerful energy discharge. The first time it happened, she came close to turning herself, and much of the room she was in, into an inferno. But other than that, the outfit kept her modestly covered.

She reached the classroom, and went right on in...

BANG!!!

It was exactly like a gunshot going off. She reacted instantly, with the instincts of a prepared superhero. Her rucksack leaped from her hands, and she dived for cover under a desk. She turned to confront whatever had fired the shot, only to see a trash can rolling about on the floor... what the... oh wonderful! Another joke at her expense, and it wasn't even out of first period yet. Today was getting to a truly superb start.

She crawled out from under the desk, and tried to get her heart to stop making attempts to leap out of her chest. She picked up her bag, and flopped into a chair. She took a deep breath, and opened the lid of the desk...

The thing about playing host to a morally dubious sword was that you could put it down but you couldn’t let it go.

When Jacks had first landed in the States it’d all been a bit of a nightmare. She was disappointingly familiar with moving to change school, but all the bad memories and scar tissue she’d built up over the years had at least been earned in a country – city even, mostly – that she knew well enough. Having to drop everything and jet across the pond on the vague edict of an absolute dog’s breakfast of a chair had been an experience, and between the jetlag, loneliness and honest to god homesickness (who knew!) her rhythms had been horrendously thrown off back then. She’d swayed drunkenly along the line between exhausted and wired, and she'd earned herself something of a reputation for conking out on just about any flat surface she could find given the chance.

That’d smoothed out eventually, as things tended to do. The US still felt like something of a bizarro world sometimes, superficially similar to the real thing but shifted just a bit sideways, but even that she could stomach. That was regular weird, and regular weird tended tended to be manageable enough if she just kept her head down and threw out the odd show of force to remind people they shouldn’t mess.

It was the supernatural weird that was the problem. It didn’t matter how far you buried a magic sword under your bed when it was quite happy to feed hell’s own nightmares directly into your brain as a cheeky little reminder that it was still there. That wasn’t really something you could acclimatise yourself to, and it wasn’t exactly something you could tell other people about either, not that Jacks made a habit of talking about herself. Being grouchy and having a bit of a hair trigger just became a built-in feature rather than a lifestyle choice.

So starting the week off the back of a none-too-great night wasn’t exactly a fun way to be.

The version of Jacks that half-dragged herself into the classroom was hardly her at her best. She had the look of someone who’d barely caught a wink of sleep, something her typically light makeup summarily failed to cover up, and one could easily believe she’d collapsed face-first on her bed sometime in the evening and not bothered changing come the morning. She’d deny it of course, but then things were blurry enough that even Jacks herself couldn’t quite be sure. It wouldn't be the first time anyway.

Courtney emerging from beneath her desk got a slightly bemused look – not touching that one – before Jacks just shrugged it off and made her way to her own seat. She dumped her bag on top of her desk, let out that sigh familiar to every kid facing another week’s slog, plonked herself down in her chair and...

OOC: That'd be the slime :)

Donnie snickered from his alcove as he heard the bang and the fuss in the room, although having chosen a hiding place outside the room rather than inside meant that he missed getting to witness the reaction. But setting an elaborate trap then walking away and assuming it did the heroes in is the general m.o. of his role-models.

Donnie waits for a few more students (i.e. nameless NPCs we probably aren't going to acknowledge for the rest of the scene) to stream in before finally coming out of hiding and making it to the classroom himself. He gave a quick glance around the room to see which of his traps were still in place before making his way to a non-trapped seat.

Courtney, upon lifting the top of the desk, would see everything inside covered by very realistic looking plastic spiders-- ones light enough that the regular light rocking of the typical rickety school desk probably has them bouncing around a bit as though alive.

Jacks might have made an even worse choice of seat, for no sooner would her feet touch the ground would something the consistency of playdoh sink itself into her shoe. And only once squished the brown substance began emitting a very strong odor that was closest to that of dog poop, but somehow a much stronger scent that even those a few desks away would immediately pick-up on.

This left one last trapped desk besides the teacher's chair, the one with the gift wrapped present box on the seat.

Andy entered the room with the wave of students having been outside talking with a few of the more popular teens in the class. He had heard the bang in the other room which made him jump out of his skin and as he entered the room the terrible stench gave him pause to keep himself from gagging. Great, someone's making today lively. He made his way to his seat stopping to see a neatly wrapped gift in his chair just waiting for him. Normally he wouldn't think much of it thinking it was a gift from some girl trying to gain his attention. Truth be told from his perspective, who wouldn't want his attention? Though after the bang and with the stench still burning his nose, he didn't trust what he was seeing. He paused looking around to see if anyone was paying particularly close attention to his actions.

He really wished he had "spidey-sense" right now to pick up on if this package was something good or bad. It wouldn't be the first time someone had left him a gift like this but then again someone was definitely going out of their way to make the start of the day an interesting one. Tossing his bag to the side he carefully picked up the small, wrapped box to set it to the other side of his desk so he could take his seat. He'd just leave it there for now and not jostle it any more than it had to be to get it from point A to point B.

Kara's keen hearing had picked up the mayhem inside the room - not that she needed it for the first explosion. And there were days when a sensitive sense of smell was a curse. So she hung about the classroom doorway, chatting and delaying her entrance as long as she could.

Today, she'd dressed in light blue jeans, and a white T-shirt lacking any 'clever' saying or stylish logo or any sign of affiliation.

She was worried about her 'cousin', but not too concerned. He might be in space, or in another dimension again, but he'd be back.

Andy sat at his desk occasionally eye up the small package that was on his seat, noticing the small tag saying "from your secret admirer." He looked away a moment glancing at those around him in the classroom considering the options. For a few moments he resisted the urge to see what was inside the box before curiosity got the better of him and he grabbed the small box and brought it to his desk looking it over again. Two pranks had already gone off this morning, what were the real chances of there being any more?

He slowly unwrapped the gift confident that he was right in the idea this was just another gift from some girl looking to garner some attention from him. As he opened the box slightly a Goblin looking creature flung out of the box popping right in front of Andy's face. He jumped back startled his chair tipping backwards until finally hitting the point of no return and causing Andy to go crashing to the ground along with the desk he was sitting at likely causing all focus to come onto him.

Although he wasn't physically hurt his ego and pride was and for someone like Andy that was much worse. It took him a moment to scramble back to his feet flinging his chair to the side with one hand. SOMEONE wants to get their ass kicked pretty early in the morning! A rage filled Andy's eyes as he held back no just blasting something to help vent his frustrations.

Dude, chill. Another student chuckled. Just a prank, same the energy for practice.

Andy's eyes snapped towards his friend for a moment looking like he was going to say more but instead grabbed his desk then chair setting them back upright. He didn't like being the butt end of someone's jokes and being mocked by others. Brushing himself off and sliding his bag back to where it was before he took the small "jack-in-the-box" prank and slung it against a wall where it promptly bounced into a trash can. He now had a glare on his face as he looked around for the culprit.

Courtney screeched and flailed about a little, sending a shower of spiders hither and yon... and then she realised that the spiders were not actually alive. But still. It had been one hell of a shock! She sat there, covered in toy spiders, looking like a complete idiot, and with a burning ember of embarrassment trying not to give in to just downright anger.

At the back of the class, Donnie snickered with delight at watching the mayhem unfold. The spiders got a much bigger reaction than he had expected, but Andy standing up and shouting was just well beyond what he had hoped. He almost fell out of his chair laughing at the sight of the other boy trying to menace the class.

Of course he probably wasn't the only one laughing, but he certainly did seem to be taking more enjoyment from it than anyone else.

Seeing the teacher at the end of the hall, Kara entered the classroom, and rolled her eyes at the chaos. She helped Courtney clear up her toy spider problem, then sat at the next desk.

"Any idea who the culprit was?" she asked Courtney quietly.

While the classroom is still in a bit of chaos, the homeroom teacher-- Mr. Miller-- made it to the class. He placed his bag on his desk before turning to the class.

"All right, everyone. Let's get started."

Mr. Miller wasn't the kind of teacher who still babied the students as though they were young children, although this was only a sophomore class-- he tended to have the sort of casual professionalism that one might expect from a college professor rather than a high school teacher.

He picked up a piece of paper off his desk that detailed the agenda for home room.

"Seems we have a few announcements about the school events schedule."

"There are still football and cheerleader tryouts for the underclass divisions should anyone be interested in joining either team. The Homecoming Game will be in a month and there is an associated parade and school dance."

"In addition the track and swimming teams are also holding tryouts. There are also many school clubs that are looking for new members, you can stop by the office for a list of registered clubs and where they meet."

Once the homeroom announcements were made, Mr. Miller made his way over to his desk and sat down momentarily to pull his lesson plan from his satchel. As his rear sunk into his seat, a loud farting sound could be heard clearly even at the back of the classroom.

By the the Mr. Miller had come into the class Andy had already calmed down and was idly spinning a pencil in his hand while looking down at his notebook with what looked like random notes and words with much of it scribbled out. Occasionally he flipped the page back and forth to more of the same thing. To any onlooker it wouldn't seem like anything more than doodles with some random stuff written on the pages but for Andy it was a bit more important.

As the teacher spoke Andy gave the least bit of attention a person could muster and still count as paying attention.  Though he did perk up at the mention of the sports tryouts though it fizzled out the moment he stopped speaking. Then the whoopee cushion went off and Andy jerk up towards the noise. Despite finding it amusing he didn't laugh or show much notable attention to it. Having a prank just pulled on him and several other students he realized someone was making a grab for attention and would give such satisfaction to the anonymous jokester. He quietly looked back down at his notes the pencil still twirling idly in his hand.

Courtnry gave Kara a wan smile of thanks as she de-spidered, and tried to regain composure. She looked around the room. There was someone who looked just a little too smug and amused to be entirely innocent, and Courtney's tendency to move to quickly in her assumptions decided he knew too much to be entirely innocent. She gave Kara a knowing look, and then back to the laughing suspect. She did not say anything, but it was hardly necessary.

The whoopee cushion made her wince. Someone was really pulling out all the stops.

She listened to the announcements, and sighed internally. She loved gymnastics, and she was good at it, too. But could she afford to try out, even if there were openings? It would be a risk. Someone might recognise her moves. She had to appear normal and boring. It was a major drawback to being an avenging fighter of wickedness.

Donnie nearly cackled with laughter briefly with the whoopie cushion going off, though this was probably the trap he had put the least amount of effort and creativity into. The important part was that the person in authority had fallen for it.

As he laughed, his folded his arms on his desk and lays his head into them, both resting his head upon the desk and also hiding his grin behind his arms.

Is this what it's going to be like all year? mused Amon to himself from near the back of the classroom. Childish pranks and interruptions to learning?

Shaking his head, he turned his thoughts back to what the teacher had said about tryouts. He knew from talking to his sister that he had to put forth an effort to get to know people, and to try and fit in, if he was going to make the friends he'd told her he needed. Maybe one of these sports could be a conduit. Gymnastics? No, he had no training, and while he considered himself athletic, he doubted that would be a good fit. Football? Did Mr. Miller mean football, or football? Actually, did it matter? He was good at running, and good at kicking. Maybe that would be the answer.

He leaned forward, speaking quietly to the cute blond girl in front of him. "Hey, pssst, hi, do you know anything about signing up for football tryouts?"

Mr. Miller pulled the whoopie cushion from underneath him. giving the indifferent sigh of a man who had dealt with being the target of these sorts of shenanigans for so many years on end that they simply did not bother him any longer.

He placed the whoopie cushion on the desk in front of himself and remarked simply, "Whosever this is, you can come talk to me after class to get it back."

He then stood up and went to the blackboard to begin the lesson....

....

And the lesson somehow went by so quickly that it seemed to be over just as it had begun. All of the students had a vague memory of a lesson having taken place, of having sat through a lecture and time seemed to pass, but if any were to try to cast their minds back on what the lesson was even about-- exactly what had been said in the past 50 minutes, they might find themselves weirdly drawing a blank.

And there was homework reading and an essay about the American Revolutionary war written up on the board too. So it would be an easy assumption to make that the lesson had been about that.

Regardless the bell rang and it was time to get to gym class, so there wasn't any time to worry about how they had somehow must have daydreamed through class.

Donnie started as the bell rang. Was his nap over so quickly? He could have sworn he had just closed his eyes for a couple seconds. He didn't even get deep enough into the sleep to feel groggy yet. He glanced up at the front of the class seeing that things had changed. Perhaps he had fallen into sleep after all.

He rose up slowly, testing his limbs carefully and being sure not to make any sudden movements as if he had fallen asleep, it would mean others would have had the chance to get him back. But, if someone had a hidden surprise for him-- he couldn't pick up on it for the moment.

What was next? Gym class-- he hated gym class. If he had still been in Gotham public school, he would have been able to forge a note from his parents saying that he couldn't participate. But now, on this campus, living in the dorms? Well-- the school very much knows that he didn't see a doctor and have some crippling illness that prevented him from participating.

He leaned back and looked straight up at the ceiling as he took a moment to try to consider any possible plan to avoid the next class that he could still implement. It was pointless for him to rush to his feet anyway as everyone in the desks in front of him would need to be heading out before he could really make his way out. So it gave him a brief moment to ponder.

Courtney turned her head and whispered. "Check the noticeboard, I guess?" She was not really sure about how things worked here with that... did they have a computer for it? They seemed to have one for everything else!

The lesson was... over? It sort of seemed to drag and yet fly past. And she had apparently zoned out for all of it. She needed to get more sleep. And an essay? Damn. She'd need to do a lot of reading, as she had learned precisely nothing at all in class. Still, at least she knew about this topic. It couldn't have changed that much... could it?

She packed up and headed out. Gym class! This was her favourite. The learning in most classes required major changes in her knowledge, but gym? That was what she was best at. Her being out of time made no difference to muscle memory. She headed off with more of a spring in her step. After that tedious lesson she had to get a bit of adernaline flowing.

She changed quickly. She found the gym kit a bit tighter and more revealing than she was used to, but she had to admit, it was more practical, and offered more of a range of movement. She started doing her stretches as she waited for things to get going. She worked through her routine. The familiar feel of it focussed her mind, and she watched the others around her. And put her mind to how to deal with the stupid prankster. She knew she could not let it lie, or she would be the butt of every joke for the rest of her time at the school. Some things changed, but that certanly had not.

"Thanks," whispered Amon in reply, jotting the note down on the first page of his brand-new spiral-bound notebook.

He spent the rest of the class taking meticulous notes, jotting down questions for himself in the margins in red ink rather than the black he was using for the rest. His sister had told him that was important: take notes so that you can refer back to them later when you study. She had impressed upon him that he wasn't being sent to this school to waste time, he was being sent to obtain a Western education (whatever that means, he had thought to himself. Amon was actually there to broaden his world view and to make new friends, not to mention find ways to use his newfound powers rather than attending state functions).

Making sure to underline his homework assignment when the period bell rang, Amon gathered his books and followed the class to gym class, storing his materials in a locker and changing into the school-issued t-shirt and shorts, then joined the other students, making enough space for himself that he could begin stretching and limbering himself up.