"S-Sorry Carmen..." Tyrell held out his hand to help her up. Carmen grabbed hold of it after looking at it for a moment. As Tyrell looked down, he noticed her smirking and tried to pull it back, however she quickly stood up and pulled him towards her. Carmen swiped her leg against his legs and due to him being off-balance he fell down. Before he reached the floor Carmen pulled her leg back and kicked him in his gut, knocking him to the other side of the pool, into the water. In the water, Tyrell grabbed at his stomach trying to ease the pain. He then felt something pushing against one of his arms. It was one of the other student's animas. A dugong kept nudging its head against him. Tyrell tried to swim backwards and hit the side of the pool, with the dugong still following him and grabbing his leg. He looked around, seeing the different water-based anima bumping into each other and throwing each other against the border of the pool. The students dove into the water and grabbed onto their animas, colliding into each other at high speeds. After their animas collided, the students would start fighting underwater, throwing quick and calculated punches and kicks towards each other, using the water so calmly flow and dodge their opponents' attacks. Tyrell looked back at the dugong and reached his hand against its head. He caressed it and blew bubbles at it, the dugong got distracted and chased the bubbles, letting go of Tyrell. His eyes darted around the pool, his mind was slowly starting to calm down. He felt at ease, his body felt a warm embrace coming from the water. After a few minutes, Tyrell swam back towards the surface. Just before he stuck his head out, a hand went into the water trying to assist him, it was Carmen. He grabbed onto it as she pulled him out, she sat on the edge of the pool and Tyrell sat next to her, shaking his head and passing his hand over it to get rid of the water.
"You always scare me when you do that you know…" Carmen said, scooting over closer to him.
"Do what?" Tyrell asked.
"When you stay down there for so long. You were underwater for at least five minutes. The others are almost done with their sparring."
"That's understandable. I mean, you're a mammal type anima user, so it makes sense that you wouldn't be comfortable with staying underwater for a while."
"I always admired you fish types. It's pretty cool that your bodies manoeuvre the best in water. But sometimes my heart just stops until you come up for air again…"
"I don't know why I always choose to stay down there Carm. My body just relaxes, my mind is clear, I'm so at ease and calm. Almost feels like I'm home." He said putting an arm around her.
"Okay acuático-boy. As long as you don't stay there for all of eternity it's fine with me. Just…come back up for air again. Come back to me, okay?" Carmen said, putting her head in his shoulder.
"Always. I feel at home with you too so, I won't be missing out on anything anyways."
A big wave of water came over them, one of the dolphins had been punched out of the water by one of the students. It landed behind them, flipping over andusing it's tail to wiggle over back towards the water. Before it got to dive back in, the school bell rang. The students in and around the pool all withdrew their animas, Tyrell looked at the dolphin trying its hardest to get back into the water as it got engulfed in a dark cyan aura and slowly disappeared into it. All of the students ran back towards the stairs that led to the swimming pool's building.
"Guess it's time for lunch. I wonder how many snacks Tyler is bringing this time." Tyrell said, standing up with an arm still around Carmen.
"It's Friday, so probably too many for his bag to carry." Carmen grabbed his arm with both of her hands, brushing them against his arm. "You don't think he'll have problems with the vending machine again, do you?" As he heard this Tyrell laughed out loud, his laugh echoing through the staircase as they walked through the dark blue door into the P.E hall again.
"Well, I'd be surprised if he didn't. Lets hope he doesn't though. And by the way, let's not act like you don't have problems with reaching high places-" As Tyrell responded, Carmen slapped him on the back of his neck, the cheeks on her face turning red. They both went into their locker rooms, changing into their everyday clothes and walking out, holding hands once they saw each other again. Tyrell and Carmen went up the stairs towards, back in the school's main building, where they made their way into the cafeteria. It was brimming with students, all the tables were full and covered in leftover food from the students who ate there beforehand. Tyrell looked to the left and saw Jamar's group again, this time staring him down. He looked back at them, worriedly, then looked at Carmen. His facial expression changed in a matter of seconds, looking back at them, now with anger and disdain. Their gaze didn't shift, not even the smallest bit before Carmen pulled Tyrell's arm so they could stand in line to get food.
"Don't worry about those pendejos Ty. Just focus on me okay?" She said pulling, him closer. Tyrell sighed in relief and nodded. The line shortened and they grabbed a tray for their food. The school cook behind the counter heavily slammed his fist on it, cracking the counter. The two looked up in shock as they saw the school cook noticing what a mess the students had made. A Norway rat ran down his arm and started aggressively squealing at Carmen and Tyrell.
"Every damn time I prepare food for you filthy animals, all I get in return is more work. Cleaning the damn tables after you devour what's on those god forsaken trays." The cook said grabbing the rat and putting it on his hat. Tyrell and Carmen looked at each other and took a step back from the counter. "Just make sure you clean up after yourselves. I've been dealing with this shit for far too long."
"Sir, with all due respect, we ain't the ones that need a scolding like that. Me and Carmen clean up after ourselves every time." Tyrell said taking a step forwards again in front of Carmen. The cook leaned over the counter to get closer to Tyrell and stared at him blankly. An entire minute of silence followed until the cook shrugged and grabbed a dinner bell.
"Okay you animals, get off the table and wait until cleaning time's done! If you lose a finger don't come crying to me. You know the drill." The cook said. Tyrell and Carmen stepped to the side of the counter to avoid the 'cleaning' the cook was about to preform. He went into one of the cabinets and grabbed a frying pan, with his right hand he would smash the frying pan against the trays in front of him. As he did so, a may-green aura filled up the kitchen. The other cooks went into the pantry for safety, the aura violently shook as a horde of Norway rats jumped out of the aura, they flooded the entire kitchen and jumped over the counter to get to the leftover food on the tables and floor of the cafeteria. Dunes of earth scattered around the kitchen and got stomped in by the amount of rats. The rats started eating every single piece of food in sight, rampaging through the room. Their squeaks were unnerving, unsettling and got so high that students covered their ears. The little taps of their feet hitting the ground repeated over and over. The rats started eating the food, ripping apart both meat and veggies in a matter of seconds and going on to the next source of sustenance, even breaking and eating the bottles of water and fizzy drinks. They crashed into each other as they started covering all the tables and the floor in between them as well, none of what was wasted was left to be picked up after the rats made their way across the cafeteria. One of them separated from the horde and hit its head on Tyrell's shoe. It looked up at him and hissed. The size was abnormal due to it being an anima, it was 2 feet long and was built like a football ball.
"Okay, come back now, damn vermin." The cook said, slapping the frying pan onto the counter again. His aura covered the whole cafetaria, slowly engulfing and making the rats vanish. All that was left were deep scratches and small sized bites on the tables, clawmarks on the floor and a few crumbs by the vending machine. The students sat down again avoiding the cook's side of the cafeteria. As he and Carmen were about to sit down with their tray, Tyler came running in, out of breath.
"Yo! I heard the cook...was gonna do the whole rat king thing...again. I wanted to see!" He said trying to catch his breath, eyes brimming with joy and excitement
"What's up Ty. You just missed it. Normally you'd be here faster, you good?" Tyrell asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.
"Y-Yeah don't worry. Just got off the phone with my dad after class. That's all."
"Speaking of...did you two talk about what happened?" Hearing Tyrell say this, Carmen looked at Tyler from behind him. He looked at both of them and nodded.
"Don't worry about it guys, I got it handled." Tyler's eyes were devoid of any positive emotions after his response. Tyrell noticed and grinded his teeth, making sure it wasn't noticeable. Carmen took a few steps toward Tyler and slapped him on his back.
"I don't know what's going on but if you need help with anything, I have these two hands to support you. Don't forget, I slap hard." Tyler laughed and gave them a thumbs up. The three of them walked to one of the lunchroom tables and sat down, Tyler put his bag on the table and revealed his stash. The bag was almost bursting with the amount of chip bags, cookie bags and other sweets he had obtained that day.
"Told you." Carmen said, nudging Tyrell.
"Should've known better." Tyrell said.
"Yes, you should've. By the way, on my way to school today I took a little detour. Don't be mad though-" Tyler said scratching the back of his neck.
"Okay? What kind of detour?" Tyrell responded.
"Through the park...to see if that guy with the scratch marks on his clothes was there selling restra..." Tyrell facepalmed, sighing in disbelief.
"Are you serious right now? Are you stupid?" Tyrell said, making eye contact with him.
"Look I know–"
"No. That was dangerous. What if you saw the guy again huh? What would you do? This isn't a game, Tyler. If he decided to attack you and you weren't fast enough to escape, you'd end up hurt."
"I..." Tyler looked for words to respond with, but nothing came out.
"You don't have an anima. You can't do what Carmen can, or Alfonso. When we went through the zoo you saw firsthand how aggressive and savage anima users are."
"I know that... but that doesn't mean I can't do anything! I know you've been telling us to avoid danger, but this is something I just have to find out about. People are becoming homeless, attacking each other and stealing money for this restra bullshit. It's classified as the most addicting drug in the concrete jungle!" Tyler said standing up, looking down at Tyrell.
"You have a point, but why tackle this on your own? Why not just inform the police so you don't have to throw yourself into that situation."
"Because... It's personal" Tyler said, sitting back down.
"Personal?" Carmen asked him.