*An army is one man's courage and a thousand men's discipline*
(A thankful bow to Frontma for another round of editing)
(Yes, this tale is supposed to be somewhat humorous and outrageous too. While not always comedic, I'd like to think it is mostly a good-natured romp.)
*
The post-midnight meeting with Cordelia and a rag-tag group of students was probably the most insane stunt I'd pulled for some time. I thought Cordelia was nuts but my opinion was not solicited. I was wanted for my upper body strength and long reach. See, one of the Administration's greatest tools was the school's surveillance network.
As Cordelia saw it, there was one point of weakness for the system and that was in the heart of the Security Center -- the system servers that coordinated all the incoming data and video feeds. We weren't going to sabotage it; that would be simple. No, we were going to steal it, and that's exactly what we did.
I had to admit that was the last thing Gorman would have suspected us of trying to pull off and the best part of it was that all the surveillance devices were rendered impotent because we stole the objects that held the information of our misdeeds. We stole out the back gate of the campus and buried the equipment out in the woods.
LIGHTNING STRIKE
I knew there would be hell to pay and I couldn't contact my normal shower-mates so I went to the shower early and was back in bed by the time Dana Gorman stomped into my room.
"You weren't in the shower," she growled, "but several other students were."
"Why are you angry for me not being in the shower with the girls?" I yawned.
"Because it would give me leverage to make you give me back my security system, you Jackass," she snapped.
"And you blame me...why?" I slipped out of the covers, naked, and started to get dressed. Dana didn't seem to mind looking me over.
"This is no longer a game," Dana pointed out. "You've stolen thousands of dollars of University property. If I can't find things and quickly, I am going to have to bring in the Sheriff's Department and that equals criminal charges."
"Should I take it you've made no progress in the assault on the students yesterday, or is their support for Christina good enough reason for you to let them suffer?" I continued.
"You are being an idiot again," Gorman accused me. "We can deal with that once you and the others stop treating this like some social experiment and get back to your studies."
"I think this is the point where we cease having anything to discuss, Coach," I muttered. Gorman looked down at the ground and clenched her fists in frustration.
"A third of the Soccer team walked off yesterday. I lost half the Karate club as well," she ground out. "Archery disbanded, and it looks like Orienteering and Marksmanship will do the same today. I'm telling you, this is nuts. I've worked my ass off making this school athletically competitive and everyone is throwing that away."
"I don't know what to tell you except that I doubt any of this would have happened if someone hadn't been gunning for Rio on our first day," I said. "I certainly made mistakes but you made the first one. I do have one thing I want you to think about."
"What is it?" she asked warily.
"How do you like your war now?" I stated with intensity. She didn't laugh it off this time.
"You think this is going to keep going?" she questioned.
"You have our backs against the wall; you are beating and expelling us," I explained. "We don't have many options."
"I won't let you win," she said evenly.
"I'm afraid it is out of our hands, Dana," I warned her. I didn't know for sure things were going to spiral out of control but I couldn't see any way out of it. Dana shook her head and left.
Around 6:45 Alice came to escort me to breakfast. She talked; I remained quiet until I picked up Rio, Valerie, and Iona. We were crossing campus to the Dining Hall when Valerie nudged me. I looked in the same direction she was and saw Hope walking across the lawn on a definite mission. It didn't take me a second to see where she was heading; Rhaine and two of her associates were in huddled conversation.
Rhaine never saw what hit her. Hope did a spin kick to her head and sent her flying. She punched the other two, followed up with a heel kick to one and two blows to the head to the last one. Hope then swooped down, snatched up their phones, and rapidly walked away. The first attack hadn't lasted ten seconds.
"This is your last chance to get out of this," I whispered to Valerie.
"I'm sorry, Mother," Valerie sighed. I didn't have time to know what that meant because I figured the open nature of Hope's attack was Christina's way of telling the rest of us it was time to strike back for what Rhaine's people had done to our side yesterday. I turned and clocked Alice hard enough to knock her down.
"Rio, get her phone," I hissed to my friend. Rio was surprised for a second, then jumped on Alice's body. People around us began murmuring but most were in shock. I didn't wait around because I had spotted a group of five of Rhaine's people a few feet ahead. The ripples of Hope's attack started to reach them when I kicked the first one in the back.
Valerie was right at my side, flipping a second girl over before she had a chance. I saw Iona grabbing up their phones even as we fought on. The remaining three were able to turn and face us but it didn't do them any good. We steamrolled over them, punching and kicking them into the ground. The first girl near us began to scream as I closed on the next group.
This turned out to be Joy and Mercy. Valerie was about to pummel them but I held her back.
"Joy, Mercy, sit on the ground and give us your phones," I growled. They hesitated and tried to back up.
"Mercy, do it," Rio hissed. "I don't want to see you get hurt." That did it for Mercy, and she took to her seat and handed her phone to Rio.
Rio showing compassion toward Mercy was unlooked for and something we'd have to talk about when this bout of madness ended. Joy went down beside Mercy, allowing Valerie and I to move on. By the time we closed on the fourth group, the general student body had figured out something bad was happening and parted like the Red Sea as we approached our quarry.
The three girls we approached knew we were coming. I could read their disbelief in their eyes; they couldn't imagine that the attacks they'd perpetrated on our people were coming back to haunt them. One got a blow into my stomach before we finished them off, giving their downed forms a few extra kicks before heading for our last targets.
There were four of them, with the added complications of a history teacher named Mrs. Cunningham who was a matronly, sixty-something-year-old instructor. They were standing at the four doors that entered into the Dining Hall and if I had been them, I would have run, but I guessed that the teacher standing so close made them assume we'd hold back; we didn't.
The first girl stepped up to say something to me when I split her lip and sent her stumbling back. I kicked the one farthest away while Valerie punched another one in the throat. I chased the second girl down and while she was bent over, I pounded her in the cheek and planted her in the ground.
I spun back and kicked the first girl in the face, flipping her over, and witnessed Valerie run the fourth girl into a door and knock her out. Mrs. Cunningham finally recovered enough to grab my arm.
"What are you doing?" she muttered weakly.
"Yesterday, these girls thought it would be fun to kick some of their fellow students down some stairs, landing them to the infirmary," I responded. "Today they reaped what they sowed." I had no idea if any of the girls I'd attacked had actually beaten up any of Christina's people, but that wasn't the point.
The Administration had let Rhaine's girls know that they wanted Christina's people intimidated and suppressed. Not being schooled in the application of force, things had escalated when Christina's people had not backed down. The Chancellor had let them think they were entitled and we'd just shown them they were not; they were going to be held accountable for what they did.
Mrs. Cunningham released me and bent over the first moaning girl. Iona came up with a handful of phones.
"What do we do with these?" she asked.
"Give them to me," chuckled Rio. She took the phones, took out the memory cards, and chucked the phones up on the roof.
In the end, Christina only used twenty of us to send eighty of Rhaine's people to the infirmary, and we accomplished it all in under five minutes. We brazenly arrived at breakfast, most of us making for the food line but Rio sprinting for the bathrooms to flush the evidence. Up with the teachers, things were in utter chaos.
Gorman's walky-talky didn't seem to be working (thank you, Cordelia) so she grabbed the closest student and wrote them a message. She handed it to the girl (a freshman) who promptly read it, then ate it right in front of the coach. Coach sat that girl down, grabbed a second girl. This one took the message and ran straight to the bathroom and flushed it.
Around Chancellor Bass a storm was boiling over. Several teachers had witnessed the violence and wanted something done about it before one of them was drug into the matter by means of a physical confrontation. They were demanding the attacking students to be rounded up immediately.
Several teachers, led by Dr. Larson, were begging, pleading, and demanding that the Chancellor call it quits with this whole suppression scheme. Bass refused to budge, ordering Gorman to round everyone up and hold them in the parking lot. Gorman was trapped.
"That's insane," Dana snapped. "What am I going to round them up with -- students? We've seen how well that's worked. I don't have enough security guards to peacefully bring them in and my only alternative is to bring in the Sheriff's Department and use force, and I'm not going to do that."
"You will if I tell you to," the Chancellor threatened. Dana threw her hands up in the air and backed away. She paced for about a minute, long enough for us to get our food and take our seats...which were all in one section of the Dining Hall due to some 'screw up' (read: Cordelia) in their seating assignment. There appeared to be around three hundred of us now and morale was high.
I caught sight of Gorman angling toward Christina and starting to talk. Christina signaled for her to stop but only long enough to summon three people to her, one being me. Temperance, the senior, was one of them, and the third was a girl I'd only known by her photograph. She was Hannah Cartwright, the Sophomore Class President.
"I'm asking for a cease-fire," Dana reiterated. "The fighting ends on both sides, strict discipline will be enforced for any and all infractions, and there will be no administrative actions for what has happened over the past forty-eight hours."
"We want our phones, tablets, and laptops back, plus the ability to use them," Temperance stated.
