Two kids run through the early morning traffic of San Francisco hoping over the hoods of cars and checking their backpacks every three seconds.
"Did you get the paper!?" One of them take a second and stop to ask the other one
"Yeah…yeah I got it don't worry keep going!" The other kid says in response as he begins to run again
They both begin to slow down once they make it to the school building labeled as Edison Michael Middle School they blend into the crowd and the rest of the students out into the school. Jaiden and Elijah both walk to their lockers which are on opposite sides of each other.
Jaiden stuffs his backpack into his locker and then unzips it, taking out his binder which has a multitude of things stained on it.
Elijah opens his locker and puts his old spice deodorant on the top shelf and neatly places his backpack on the hangar. "You know you have a science quiz today right Jai?" Eli says as he grabs his binder and then closes his locker.
"Yeah of course I know you couldn't go a day this week without reminding me." He says as they both begin walking in the hallway to their first period class in the seconds gym all the way in the B-wing. "You know I'm going to ace this quiz right, there's no need to worry I'll be fine."
"Yeah but it's in my good conscience to tell you to focus since you're more worried about the creations you're making at home than you are actually worried about your science grade." He continues to walk with Jai down the C-wing hallway both moving to opposite sides of the hallway once people get in between them.
The bell that signifies classes are starting rings and both Eli and Jai begin to rush through the halls.
They both finally make it to B-wing where Jai accidentally tackles a young girl with short black hair and glasses. "I'm sorry,We were rushing to class. I didn't see you!" Jai holds the ladies hand and assists her up.
"No it's fine I understand." The lady gets up using his hand and picks up her glasses and puts them onto her face. "I'm Rayden but you can call me Rai." She looks at both of them as she smiles brightly.
Eli shakes her hand "Hey you're in my history class aren't you?" He asks her and then proceeds to stop shaking her hand.
"Yeah I think, are you in the 3rd period?" She asks him and she glances over at Jai.
"Yeah I am, are you the one that sits next to Joseph?" He asks her
"Yeah…yeah I am!" She looks at him and then looks at her watch. "Oh well since we're all late for class I suggest we talk later." Rai walks down the hallway and makes a left.
Eli and Jai both make it into the gym and begin to run in line attempting to blend with the rest of the class.
The gym teacher blows her whistle preventing everyone's laps from furthermore counting so they stop and turn their eyes to Eli and Jai.
"The Sato brothers tardy to the first period yet again, what's the excuse this time? Bathroom break, couldn't open your locker." Their gym teacher says as she walks past everyone and gets in their faces.
She runs around a quick second and blows her obnoxious whistle yet again, the sound echoes through the gym. "Everyone get on baseline, we're running suicides!" She yells to the students and receives groans in response. She then turns her attention to Eli and Jai and takes a deep breath before talking to them. "You know you two are possibly the best display of raw athleticism and agility in this class and possibly the whole school. I'm tired of you two slacking off and being late. Please don't let it happen again, now get on the baseline and start running."
Jai looks at Eli and they both sigh before getting on the baseline and then running back and forth from there to the line at half court.
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Time:7:45 AM
Date: May 12th, 2016
The coach blows her whistle yet again and begins to shout at everyone. "Today we're playing dodgeball, I'm going to split you up into 4 groups and it'll be team vs team, once all members on your team are eliminated you are knocked out of the tournament and will have to wait until one team is left standing." Everyone stops playing around and gets into a horizontal line and remains silent until her next order. As she begins to send the students into different corners of the room
Jai and Eli get sent to two completely different sides of the room, Jai being sent to group one which mostly consists of the unathletic members of their class and Eli has been sent to group 3 consisting of both athletic and unathletic members. They both stare at each other as they go to they're corresponding sides.
As Eli walks over to his side he sees one of his friends and does their secret handshake, both of them smiling at each other as they do so. "We might sweep through this entire thing to be completely honest." He says to Eli as he looks around. "Yeah…yeah we might but I'd say we should look out for group one they're going to win against group 4 it looks like." Eli laces up his Shoes as he completes his scout of the room.
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Two black mats with a red tiger in the middle, each team on separate sides separated by white tape with 14 balls in the middle. "Rules are very simple, no headshots and once you are hit with a ball you sit on the sideline indicating you are out. If any of your teammates catch a ball thrown by the player on the other, that player is out and a player from your team that you chose is in. Once all other players on the opposite team are out your team wins…ok now that everyone understands the rules we will begin in 3…2…1." The whistle sounds and the games begin.
Jai and the rest of his team all rush to the middle, some of them getting hit and the rest rushing back including Jai. They're team only brings back 5 out of the 14 balls, two from the other side fly over and Jai leaps over the first one and catches the second one causing one of their players to be out. A member of his team runs up to the middle catching another ball and throwing it into someone else's thigh on the opposite team. The whistle sounds a plethora of times signifying that 3 players are out from the opposing team and about 7 of the players on team one are out as well. The game resumes and with minority of the players on his team gone it created space for them to move around, one of the members on his team passes the ball to Jai and he gets another one from a horrible throw, he spikes one of the balls which gains the attention of most of their team and he throws the other ball at someone's chest.
Two balls fly from the other side both hitting the two teammates Jai had left. "One player remaining from team one!" His coach yells out to the entire gym. He catches one of the balls thrown to him and he chooses one of his teammates to come back in making it a 2v2, his teammate catches a ball thrown by the other team and Jai drills towards the other player's leg. "GAME OVER!" The gym teacher says as she steps on the mat "Group 3 and Group 2 will start their game shortly."
Eli walks over to Jai and whispers in his ear. "Good game but I'll definitely do better." He says to him as he walks onto the pad and stands still juxtaposing the rest of his team's posture.
Yeah he's lying heavily right now Jai thinks to himself as him and the rest of his team sit on the bleachers.
"The game will begin in 3…2…1!" She blows her whistle and everyone on both teams runs towards the middle and runs back to their sides after they pick up as many of the balls as they can, Eli sits back while everyone begins to throw and dodge. Eli gets back up and moves closer to the line, catching two of the balls being thrown to their side. His movement is far more graceful than Jai's and Jai himself notices this, he begins to tap his foot on the gym floor waiting for this round to end.
The other team has 4 players left however Eli and his friend are the only ones Left, one of the players on the other team throws his ball up in the air to distract both of them but it doesn't work and Eli throws his ball at one of the players, now there's only three. His friend hits another player with his ball taking the total down to two. They both end it by catching the balls thrown at them simultaneously, the whistle blows loudly and Eli winks at Jai. Show off he'd think to himself as he saw his brother towards the side of the mat.
"Group 4 and Group 3 will be matching up in the finals to dictate who wins the first dodgeball tournament championship game in this school's history!" She says attempting to sound energetic.
Both of the teams get into the mat and get into their starting positions, Jai and Eli look at each other intensely waiting for the whistle to blow, they both hear the whistle and rush towards the middle wrestling for the same ball, Eli's friend grabs a ball and Jai moves back avoiding it. The rest of his team is equally matched with the others surprisingly.
Eli's friend throws up a ball and someone else throws his ball at Jai, Jai catches the ball and headshots Eli on accident giving him a warning call. Eli puts his hands up at him and Jai yells at him. "My bad!"
As the game goes on Jai,Eli and Eli's friend are the last 3 in the game, Jai could hear screams and yelling behind him as he focuses intensely on the two in front of him, he watches as Eli's friend throws the ball and then he grabs it.
The gym coach blows the whistle meaning that his friend is out of the game and now it's just Eli vs Jai, they both have members of the crowd cheering their name as they get closer to the middle,Eli picks up a ball and pretends to throw it making Jai flinch, he throws the other ball in his possession at his ankle.
Jai gets out and everyone on Eli's team rushes onto the mat and grabs onto him while hugging him tightly.
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As Jai and Eli both sit in the locker room Eli holds a ziplock bag filled with ice up to the lower part of his eye. "Sorry I didn't mean to." Jai said as he looked at him while attempting to open his gym locker.
"That throw seemed a lil personal if you ask me but I forgive you." Eli said as he laughed. "Don't forget you have a test." Eli said as he looked at him.
"This is the fourth time you're reminding me trust me I didn't forget." Jai said as they walked out of the locker room.
Eli and Jai go their separate paths and meet up with separate people as the hallway splits into two paths.
Eli walks into his science class while being followed by his friends, they all take their seats and Eli sits in the back of the classroom.
Rai walked in and noticed Eli sitting in the back and then threw her book bag onto the floor right next to his seat. "Joseph wasn't here so I just…" she paused mid sentence.
Eli shook his head up and down "it's ok I've been wanting new friends anyways." He said as he laughed.
"So do you know what Ms.Mark has assigned today?" Eli asked Rai as they sat there patiently waiting for their teacher to get up and make an announcement, Ms.Mark got up and rang the Mini bell making the class all take their attention to the front.
"Good morning class,hopefully all of you had an amazing sleep because I know I definitely didn't. Today we will watch a documentary on the element that helped greatly during the war of 1812." Ms.Mark explained as she set up her laptop.
Eli took out his apple headphones and put them in, he then went to Spotify and searched for MF doom. He pressed on a song labeled Rapp Snitch Knishes,he turned the volume to an amount where he can hear those around him and listen to the music clearly.
The documentary begins playing and shows a woman shaking hands with James Madison while in the White House. "While everyone might now know about the story of the elementals of the past and their contributions to human development, a lot might not know about how they were critical in America's victory against Great Britain." The man started to speak loudly.
Rai focused on the projector and it's light reflexes of her dark orange eyes, Rai and Eli glanced at each other and then looked back at the projector. "Ms.Alexia made sure that certain parts of Great Britain were under control and couldn't deploy any shoulders nor work on plans to beat the U.S.A." As time goes by, the documentary ends and the lights turn on abundantly.
Rai and Eli looked at each other. "That was the only interesting documentary I've semi paid attention to." Eli said as he yawned
A kid raised his hand and Ms.Mark called on her. "Why don't we have an elemental?" The kid asked
"Well,ever since the last elemental passed away at a very young age we never got any hints at who the next one could be, usually in the range of 50-80 years a new elemental comes and the last one goes but my guess is that it's still gonna take awhile." Ms.Mark said as she sipped her glass of water.
"But what I do know is that with every Elemental that comes a great evil is complemented with him,her or them." Ms.Mark says.
The bell rings and everyone gets up and gets out of class.
"This is the end of all things Armageddon." Jai woke up in the middle of his science class sweating profusely and the teacher handed out the test papers "you missed the 10 minute study guide and the briefing. This is now the test,and you need to talk to me after class." His teacher said
Jai picked up the paper and then wiped the crust off his eyes,majority of the answers were multiple choice and everyone around him began working."
Jai looked at the paper and it asked the question "What is force?" He then answered that it was the push or pull on an object and then explained the concept of imbalances and balances in force.
He kept working until his hand turned red, he then looked up and saw people begin to turn in their papers and his innate feeling for being in competition kicked in and he began to complete the questions rapidly.
A while later after the bell rang Jai sat on the teacher's desk. "Mr.Brilliant but Lazy,the good news Mr.Sato is that you've gotten a 96% on the test but the bad news is that you keep missing class or skipping assessments that I assign to you so please tell me what the problem is." His teacher Says
"Mr.Skaros there is no problem but-" Jai says before he is cut off. "With all due respect your grades have gradually declined in the past month even if they are still at an A, I think the most logical conclusion would be that something external to what's happening in this classroom is causing this lack of production." Mr Skaros said as he got up.
"You told me that you wanted to go to MIT in order to chase a career in biomedical engineering somewhere in NYC but at this rate and the way you apply yourself I don't think you'd be able to." Mr.Skaros said as he walked around his desk and to Jai.
"I'll work on it." Jai said as he looked up at him.
"That's what I like to hear,now go enjoy the rest of your day. It's a good day outside and remember that innovation will save the world." Mr Skaros said.
Jai and Eli meet up at the end of the hall and walk out of school, they both turn around as they hear a noise come behind them.
Chapter end.