Waking up twenty minutes before she had to be at the School, Sara decided to bypass breakfast completely, changing from her nightclothes into the suit she had selected last night. The second thing was take the time to comb her hair into its long and straight form, pulling some away from her face as she did so. Sara looked at herself in the mirror as she pulled on some fairly expensive shoes that made her add on another two inches to her height, grinned jauntily, and checked to see if CyberSix had kept her promise.

Sara looked in on the empty guest room, smiled, and headed down to her garage, pausing only long enough to grab her coat and shrug into the enveloping leather. Driving out into the open air, Sara paused for a second or two, took a deep breath, and unconsciously smoothed her hair back. Smiling, Sara gunned her bike and tore off to the school, laying out a strip of rubber as she took the sharp and twisting corners without a blink of mental pressure. In five minutes Sara had pulled a decent powerslide into the school’s parking lot, parking her bike neatly beneath a tree.

Getting off of the massive machine, Sara activated the charge generator, then dashed into the school when she looked at her watch and realized that she had about five minutes before all the teachers were supposed to be there. Skidding into the main office, she nodded to the receptionist, who was still blowing smoke rings, grinned and waved at the vice-principal, and discreetly knocked on the door to the Principal’s office.

"Who is it?" was heard from the other side of the heavy oak door, and Sara replied truthfully. "Alright, come in." Sara opened the door to see the principal sitting in his leather swivel chair, and was faintly surprised to see a young black-haired teacher sitting in one of the two other chairs in the room. Sara scrutinised the teacher, noting the glasses, the thin hands, and the very baggy clothes.

Her scrutiny was interrupted when the young man stood up and offered his hand. "Hi. My name’s Adrian Seidelman. How are you doing?"

Sara stammered a reply, caught off guard by how much Adrian resembled one of the orphans that lived in her memories. "I-I’m sorry, but you resemble one of my friends from a long time ago. Did you ever have relatives that lived in Canada? No, never mind. Just some idle curiosity. So, what class do you teach?" Adrian smiled lightly and nodded towards the door as the principal gave both teachers folders loaded with papers.

Sara let herself be ushered out of the office, and as the two walked down the hallway while dodging throngs of students, they managed to have at least part of a conversation. "So, how long have you been working here?"

Adrian shrugged as he dodged three small students that charged down the hall. "About three and a half years. Classes have become a lot less hectic because most of the worst students have either graduated or been transferred to ‘less dangerous’ schools."

Sara snorted at that one, then had to dodge into the middle of the hall to avoid being nailed in the ribs by a student’s backpack, accidentally brushing across Adrian’s shirt sleeve. Adrian pulled away from the point of contact, and Sara paused, confused.

Shrugging it off, she continued on to the room she was going to take over, and privately entertained thoughts of how to keep the students occupied in class. "Oh yes, one of my friends showed up last night, and said that you’d like to talk with me for a while after school."

Adrian nodded, then pointed at the room opposite of the stairwell. "I’ll be able to talk at lunch hour, but right now I have to make sure that nobody has managed to destroy the class. I’ll see you later."

Sara nodded and walked over to the class that she was taking over, avoiding a cluster of thugs standing around Lori. Opening the door to the classroom, Sara instantly noticed that Lucas was sitting in the chair behind the teacher’s desk, apparently waiting for her. "So, why are you sitting around here? I thought you’ve been reassigned to chemistry."

Lucas smiled, then pointed at a stack of textbooks and other random paraphernalia. "You’ll need most of those books in order to survive your first day. Also, I think you should’ve worn a suit of bomb squad armour instead of what appears to be silk."

Sara chuckled and pulled a deck of cards from a pocket in her trenchcoat. "Don’t underestimate me. You saw what I’m capable of two days ago. I think I’ll be able to keep the kids in line."

Lucas nodded, then decided to vacate the seat before Sara used one of the cards on him. "Okay then. Just don’t come running to me when they blow up the desk."

Sara shooed him out of the room by flipping three cards around between the fingers of her left hand. "Git ye gone little boy, or I’ll have to hamstring you. I’ll see you at lunch hour." Lucas grinned and walked out, allowing Sara to put her coat in the small closet, and chuckle as she saw that someone had left her a bag to put her new books. Just as she sat down in the chair, the bell rang, allowing a swarm of students to invade the classroom. Some of the students stopped cold, wondering if they were in the right room, but entered after checking the number on the door. After the morning announcements were out of the way, and the anthem was over and done with, Sara finished the attendance form, gave it to a student to put in the office, and leaned back, waiting for the second bell to ring so she could get down to business.

As if her wishes would be totally granted, the bell rang and the students filed out, most looking like they were going into their version of hell. *Poor kids, almost a month into the curriculum and they get a change in teachers. Their loss, my gain.*

Sara flipped through the folder that the principal had given her, and was slightly surprised to find detailed dossiers on every student in the subsequent classes. *Heh. Lori will be in the first class, and I think that those thugs surrounding her will also be in here. If they disregard what I say, well, there’s always the physical evidence on me. Hello, this person may be interesting. ‘Hazel Smith’ eh? Lemme see, sporadic attendance, disappears for up to a week at a time, and shows amazing intelligence and insight into other people’s actions when she does anything at all. Okay, this might actually be an interesting year.*

Sara looked up as a cluster of students squeezed into the room, looking like they were either half-asleep or utterly apathetic. After the cluster squeezed its way into the desks, Erin Cheng walked in, smiling and bright-eyed, and perched on a stool in the back of the class, binder open and ready to take notes.

Sara waited until everyone had found a seat, and then looked up from the folder and glanced at each student in the room. "Okay kids, before you ask, I’m your new biology teacher. Lucas has been reassigned to Chemistry, so I’d recommend moving away from the back wall before he creates some nitroglycerin and blows up the chem lab."

Sara let everyone laugh at that one, then called the class to order. "Now, because I’m somewhat unfamiliar with your curriculum, today is basically ‘question the rookie day’. So, how do you want to pester me?"

Sara sat back, looked at the class, then pointed at Erin as she raised her hand. "Okay kiddo, shoot."

Erin glanced at the rest of the class before speaking. "Well, I’m probably the only person who knows something about you, so I think you could tell the class a bit about yourself."

Sara looked at the class, and seeing the looks of agreement, sighed slightly and nodded. "Okay then. Lemme see, I was born in Canada, led an utterly uneventful life until university, and ended up getting nice and sick from a biology study in Africa. I’ve managed to travel through most of Europe, Asia, and the Americas for the last four years because of my previous job as a biologist, and now I’m stuck here. Any other questions?"

The class remained silent long enough to hear a dull rumble come from the chemistry classroom, allowing Sara to excuse herself on the grounds that she had to make sure that the faculty would remain alive. Sara walked over to the chem room, and opened the door just in time to be met by a faceful of chlorine gas. Coughing and gagging, Sara pulled her shirt up to cover her nose and mouth, and went inside to see if anyone was in the room. She soon found Lucas lying beside a beaker, so she grabbed him by the scruff of his coat and, with a hefty dose of adrenaline coursing through her system, she pulled him out of the room.

She went back into the chem room, grabbing the beaker, and opened one window. Sara stuck her head out of the room, gasping for some fresh air, and then dropped the beaker out the window, allowing it to shatter on the pavement below. Turning back to the rest of the classroom, Sara used the emergency eye wash station to get any remnants of the gas out of her eyes, thankful that it dissipated fairly quickly after she had managed to open the window. Then, after making sure that Lucas was alive, she went back to her own classroom.

Looking in, she threw six cards at the two students that were arm wrestling in the back of the room near the python. "Hey kids, eyes front. Here’s what happened in there. Lucas managed to nearly kill himself by creating chlorine gas. If any of you were paying attention in history class, you should know what chlorine gas does with prolonged exposure, so I won’t explain that."

One student raised his hand, and asked the smartest question Sara had heard all day. "Just wondering, but is Mr. Amato okay? After all, most of us like him."

Sara nodded, agreeing with the student’s sentiment. "Don’t worry too much. By tomorrow, he’ll be back, and maybe this time he’ll have some common sense to back up his brains."

Sara returned to her seat behind her desk then grinned ruefully. "On thing they never tell you about chlorine gas though. It literally gets stuck in clothes, and there goes a two thousand dollar suit." The class chuckled nervously, but relaxed when Sara smiled and chuckled herself.

Sara then let the class quiet down, surprised at the fact that the class was fairly easy to control. "So, are there any more questions?"

Lori stood up and wiggled her hand in the air. "Okay teach, here’s one for ya: How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?"

Sara smiled and waved Lori down. "If a woodchuck could chuck, then it would chuck as much as a woodchuck could chuck. Better known as thirteen-eighths its body mass per hour."

Lori looked slightly flustered due to the flip answer given to her, so she went into a quick conference with her three friends. One of the two students who had been arm-wrestling, and winning, raised his hand.

After Sara nodded at him, he pulled one of the three cards from the laminated top of his desk and showed it to her. "Just wondering, but how are you able to throw cards like that, and how old is this one? It looks like those death card props from Apocalypse Now."

Sara flipped another card around the knuckles of her right hand for a few seconds before responding. "I said that I was sidelined by a disease, but what I didn’t say was that it was bad enough for me to be hospitalized for about a year. I learned how to express my displeasure at the Canadian medical services non-vocally by using a deck of cards to terrorize the nurses I despised."

Sara let the class chuckle at that one, as she remembered that many of the nurses would draw straws, where the ‘winner’ had to deal with her. "Those cards however, are not props, but an actual deck of Death Cards from ‘Nam. They were for the Second Airborne, but were never used because they pulled out only two weeks into their tour. I would love to have the cards back at the end of class though, and instead of detentions, people will have to run the risk of being cut up by those edges, which are pretty sharp."

Sara let the class pass the cards forwards, then wondered how long the rest of the day was going to take. Glancing at the clock, she saw that first period was almost over, so she let the students out a few minutes early. After the students filed out to get snacks from the vending machines, Sara walked over to where she had propped Lucas up against the wall, and woke him up by dropping a thermos full of hot chocolate into his lap.

Lucas woke up with a gasped exhalation, mainly because the weight of the thermos had landed almost square on his crotch. "Ooof! Who did that? Why am I out in the hallway?"

Sara bent over and snapped her fingers in front of his face for a few seconds, then sat down on the opposite side of the hall. "Well, I did that in order to wake you up, and get something in your system to counteract the chlorine gas you inhaled. Also, you’re in the hallway because somehow you were stupid enough to produce enough chlorine gas to knock you out. The only reason why you’re still alive is because I pulled your ass out of there before you suffered irreparable damage to your lungs."

Lucas coughed experimentally into his hand, looked at the resultant mess, and shrugged. "Well, that really sucks. I was planning on tampering with your bike, just to make people wonder what your machine uses for fuel. I guess it didn’t go as planned."

Sara kicked Lucas’ shin and chuckled. "Well, considering that if you touched my bike you’d have been knocked out for about ten minutes, I don’t think your plan would have worked anyhow. After all, only I get to tamper with my machine. Now, because you admitted that a prank had backfired, I may as well tell you what my current prank is."

Lucas took a swig of the hot chocolate, grimaced at the bitter flavour, then took another swig. "So, what is it?"

Sara grinned. "I laced the hot chocolate with Ex-Lax. Have a good day."

Sara got up and walked back to her classroom, chased by a flurry of swear words from Lucas’ general direction. *Heh. That was too easy. Too bad for him, especially because I didn’t do anything of the sort. Maybe I should do something along the lines of vehicular mayhem. I really don’t like the fact that his car is unicolor. Maybe I’ll use my bike to give it a racing stripe down the middle.*

Sara relaxed, and let the rest of the day’s routine slide by like water around a stone until lunch hour rolled around. As the last class of the morning left, Sara leaned back, cracked her spine, and walked down to the school yard. Arriving in the yard, she saw Lori and her pack of goons trying to extort money out of several younger students, so Sara walked over and let her shadow fall over Lori’s back.

Somewhat angered at the fact that extortion was alive and well in schoolyards, Sara growled angrily at Lori. "You know, I really think you should be somewhere else. However, before you do any thinking on how to run off, give back the money." Lori grumbled a bit at being caught, but gave the students back their money.

However, one of her lackeys turned to Sara, jabbed his middle finger in the air and yelled. "Well, fuck you too!" As he finished speaking, he swung his right hand forwards, trying to clout Sara in the chest. The punch was poorly aimed, wild, and otherwise pathetic. Sara would have automatically discounted the blow, with the exception that the boy had wrapped a two-foot length of chain around his hand to increase the damaging power. Sara neatly sidestepped the blow by stepping into the arc of the taller boy’s punch, and placed her hands at his wrist and elbow.

Less than two seconds later, in a flurry of movement, the boy ended staring straight up at the sky, winded from his solid impact with the ground. Sara had flipped him over her hip without even exerting any effort, and she stood next to the boy, dusting her hands off.

She then kneeled down beside him and looked into his eyes, causing him to look away after a few seconds. "You just made a big mistake. Now, go inside and explain to the principal how you got a two-day suspension for attacking a member of the faculty."

Sara stood up, offering the boy a hand up, which he accepted. Once he was upright, Sara spun him around once and shoved him towards the front door of the school. Lori, quite ready to spit razor blades at Sara, stopped instantly when Sara looked at her and revealed a core of solid ice "Lori, keep your minions under control, or I’m going to have to systematically wreak havoc on your so-called gang."

Sara then walked over to where Lucas was leaning against a tree, eating an apple. When she arrived under the canopy of orange leaves, Sara sighed and sat down on a bench near the large trunk. "Please, remind me why I tolerate those morons. I can’t believe that idiot. Trying to throw a punch at a teacher is not high on the list of self-preservation, especially when the teacher knows martial arts."

Lucas finished the apple he was eating and threw the core towards a squirrel that was begging for some food. "Well, I think you tolerate them because you want to be a good teacher and not show any favouritism. Also, Skeeter always tries to throw his weight around. You’re the only person smaller than him who beat him that quickly. Everyone else has either failed or taken several minutes."

Lucas thought for a few seconds as Sara leaned against the tree at a right angle to him. "You know, I think many teachers would like to learn some martial arts. Just to keep the really rowdy students in their place. Heck, even I’d love to try out something like that."

Sara nodded, then smiled. "Well, if the teachers agree, I’ll start up a mini school for teaching the teachers something like Aikido or Karate."

Lucas grinned and shook her hand, allowing the ring buzzer to work its magic. "HEY! Lucas, that was cheap. I haven’t done anything to you, except make a false implication about Ex-Lax."

Lucas smiled, then took off the buzzer. "Okay, I admit that it was slightly cheap, but I have to wonder what you’re planning to do next."

Sara looked at him cooly, letting her eyes measure him up. "As mentioned, I’m going to see if the other teachers would like to learn some self-defence. To be honest, I don’t think you’ll ever get past a yellow belt in any professionally operated Dojo."

Lucas grimaced at the candid explanation of his apparent skills, then brightened up as he saw Adrian Seidelman walking towards him. "Well, if it isn’t the one person almost every student likes. How’re you doing Adrian?" Adrian seemed to blush for a second, leaving Sara to wonder whether someone like Lori was waiting to ambush Seidelman at the earliest opportunity.

Adrian rubbed his right hand through his dark hair, then smiled slightly. "Hello Lucas. It seems that our newest teacher has managed to not only save your life from a beakerful of chlorine gas, but has also caused some nasty ripples in Lori’s gang. How is it that someone who probably weighs a hundred pounds sopping wet managed to utterly defeat Skeeter in less than three seconds?"

Sara grinned and let Lucas talk. "Well, apparently, our friend here has enough knowledge of the martial arts to be capable of some very fast moves that ended with Skeeter flat on his back, with her fingers about to squash his windpipe."

Sara shook her head slightly and chimed in before Lucas embellished too much. "Actually, Lucas, I used his mass and momentum against him. He just flipped over, landed on his back, and I gave him a warning and two day’s suspension for attempting to assault a teacher. That’s what happened, nothing more or less."

Lucas grinned sheepishly at his embellishments, then saw something at the other side of the school yard, near the parking lot. Excusing himself, he walked into the lot, leaving Sara and Adrian alone. Sara motioned for Adrian to relax and lean against something, then she flexed her back to either side, allowing her spine to crack in three places. Ignoring Adrian’s wince of pain, Sara finished the stretch, then leaned forwards and poked at a small nick on the palm of her hand, which sealed itself as she watched.

"So, how’s school life treating you?" Sara felt Adrian studying her with his eyes, despite the fact that they were obscured by a pair of oval sunglasses.

Sara shrugged and glanced at a group of young students pointing at her and giggling. "Well, it could always be better. After all, I haven’t gotten an accurate ‘read’ on the students in my classes, but some of them are somewhat interesting."

Adrian chuckled at Sara’s tone of voice, but was cut off by the bell. Sara grimaced, then stood up. "Well, time to put my nose in front of the grindstone again. I’ll see you after school."

Adrian nodded as he watched some of the students begin to drag themselves towards the school. "Okay then, just let me tell you where the Café is." Adrian pointed out the directions, then walked into the school. Sara also walked into the school, went back to the classroom, and waited for then next group of students, mentally labelling them victims of opportunity.

Within two hours, she was nearing the end of her mental fuse when the last class finally left. *Whew. I’m glad that’s over. Well, time to take up Adrian’s offer, but he said Five in the afternoon, and it’s only Three. Well, I may as well clean up this place, and check on Lucas’ classroom.* Sara cleaned the few critter cages, gagging on the stench from the corner where the lab rats had been hiding and propagating for the last few weeks, then put some old books away. She then retrieved her cards from where they had landed, and walked over to the chem room.

Looking inside, Sara saw a thin haze of smoke floating around the ceiling, so she took a deep breath before walking in. Looking around, she saw an almost-totally destroyed workbench, with some sort of liquid dripping from the badly corroded ends. *Gross. I’m not even going to touch that one*

Sara walked around the desk, careful to avoid the globs of acid that were slowly eating through the floor. "Dammit Lucas, what did you do?"

Sara walked over to where she heard a muffled groan, and dug through the heap of textbooks until she unearthed Lucas. "Well, it seems that you’ve managed to get dangerously close to another Darwin award my so-called friend." Lucas groaned as he slowly regained consciousness, so Sara dragged him into the hallway, again, and held his nose for a few seconds to wake him up.

"What?" Lucas grumbled slightly as he stood up and staggered around slightly before finding his sense of balance sitting on one of the benches, laughing at him. Sara grimaced as she pointed at the remains of the workbench, noticing another glob of acid sizzle its way through the metal benchtop. "Looks like one of your experiments decided to retaliate against the desk. C’mon, let’s get out of here before the janitors come running." Sara and Lucas walked downstairs, scribbled their names on the teacher’s sign-out sheet in the main office, and walked into the parking lot.

Sara disarmed her bike’s charge generator and started it up. Shouting to be heard over the engine’s growl, Sara asked Lucas which car was his. He pointed at the red sedan on the opposite side of the lot, and shouted something about her already knowing which one it was, so why the confirmation? Sara let her actions respond to Lucas’ question, and drove through the lot to in front of Lucas’ car. Turning her bike, she then drove directly over Lucas’ car, smoking her tires on the way, leaving a straight black line going down the middle of his once-bright red car.

Sara drove past Lucas as he ran to his car, and ignoring his very loud cry of anguish, she tore out of the lot to her house so she could drop off most of the extraneous stuff that she thought she wouldn’t need for the visit to the Café. After dropping off the pile of books, Sara checked the time, saw that she had forty minutes before she had to arrive at the place, and decided that there was enough time to change into something that didn’t smell like chlorine.

*Damn Lucas for being stupid enough to try a prank like that. Well, I may as well try to remain sane as long as possible so I should go for that invite now.* Sara finished changing into a set of jeans and a light shirt, then drove to the Café.

Walking inside, she saw Lucas and Adrian sitting at a table, looking out the window at the giant statue, still visible even in the growing darkness. Sara walked over and tapped Lucas on the shoulder. "G’day Lucas, Adrian. Sorry about the alterations on your car, but I do think that it looks cooler with the new racing stripe down the middle."

Lucas growled slightly, but calmed down when Adrian gestured towards the empty seat. Sara took the seat, and looked at the massive open space in front of Lucas. "So, what are you planning to eat? A wild aurochs?"

Lucas grinned, but shook his head. "Only my usual meal." Sara chuckled at that, and wondered what his average bill per day for food was.

Adrian had ordered a burger and fries, and Sara went for the grass steer sandwich and a bottle of Dragon’s Breath. While waiting for the order, Lucas regaled them with a relatively funny story about one of the things Lori did to a teacher she had absolutely despised. After the food arrived, Sara noticed that Lucas was going to tuck into a plateful of spaghetti, two burgers, a small mountain of fries, and a half-pitcher of beer.

Raising an eyebrow, Sara glanced at Adrian, and stage whispered "That’s his usual? No wonder he looks like a pregnant beer-barrel." Adrian, hearing this, tried to keep from breaking out in laughter and nearly choked on the fries he had just started on. Sara tried out the sandwich and found that it was actually pretty good, but nowhere near what her mother could do with the same materials. Still, she finished off the sandwich, and her beer at the same time as Lucas finished off his last fry.

"My god Lucas. Do you have a stomach or a V-12 diesel? The amount you eat is inhumane." Lucas leaned backwards in his seat, causing it to creak dangerously, and grinned at Sara. "My secret. I wouldn’t worry too much about my GI tract."

He then turned his attention to the nearby TV, which was playing another of the constant soccer matches. Sara watched with a little interest, mainly because she had a greater interest in hockey. Turning to Adrian, Sara decided to fire off a few wisecracks about Lucas’ ability to eat roughly the same as a family of three, and she hit home when Adrian laughed. Out of the corner of her eye, Sara saw Lucas wince, and she looked up at the instant replay on the TV. The replay was excruciatingly detailed, and Sara caught the replay just in time to see one of the home team’s players get booted in the groin by what looked like a football player moonlighting as a soccer player.

"Ouch. There goes his chances of having kids." Sara shot a glance at Adrian, who was also watching the replay, and noticed that he didn’t so much as blink at the impact. *Okay, either Adrian has nerves of stone, or he’s not what he appears to be. Naahhh... I really doubt that.*

Sara ordered another beer, and as Lucas continued to shout at the TV, Sara continued to talk to Adrian, revealing more than she thought she would. As darkness fell over the city, the three talked, joked, and actually had fun. Eventually, after finishing a very involved joke that caused everyone around her to groan from the utter vicious telling of the joke, Sara looked at her watch and raised an eyebrow. "Huh. It’s already eight-thirty."

Lucas nodded, having just taken a swig of coffee, and Adrian also raised an eyebrow. Sara then continued, feeling that she’d better get home soon. "Well, We’ve been talking for almost four hours, I’m feeling tired, and I still have to revise the bio class’ curriculum to make sure that I don’t miss any important bits. So, I guess that I’ll see you two tomorrow."

Sara leaned backwards in her seat, making Adrian wince at the impending pop, but Sara relaxed slightly before the point where that could occur and put her hands on the table, palms down. Leaving five bills on the table, Sara stood up and walked out of the Café, nodding to the waitress who had served them.

Adrian listened as Sara’s bike started up, roaring away a few minutes later. He then turned back to Lucas, who was pointing at a new soccer game and roaring like a wounded bull as several players all goofed simultaneously. Sipping his coffee, Adrian thought about what he had learned from Sara.

The large double doors to José’s office were knocked open by a sliding body, startling José from the porn magazine he was reading. He recognised the victim as the techno who he had told to find M-17, just as the techno slid into the wall with a dull thud. A second later, the techno flashed into vapour, and Jose sighed to himself. In front of him, a shadowy form stood in the doorway, then walked into the room, revealing long brown hair, what looked like an armband made of a grey metal covering the right forearm, and wearing a long black trenchcoat.

José smirked at the sight, then bowed mockingly. "Welcome, M-17. It seems you’ve managed to work out your frustrations about being called from your mourning, so let me give you-kkk"

José suddenly shut up as M-17 rushed up to him and grabbed his throat. "I will never stop mourning. Doctor Von Reichter was more of a father to me than my real father was. Now, if you want to retain your ribs, I recommend you never bring that subject up again."

M-17 let José go, and let him massage his throat, trying to remove the purple marks she had left on his neck. "Well now, I want you to pull bodyguard duty on the Twentieth. I’m going into the city to try and make an agreement with some bounty hunters and some of them are known as being, well, unbalanced. Also, after the bodyguard duty, I want you to find this person and capture or kill her."

José showed M-17 the security photo of Sara, then smiled when she nodded and crushed the picture, viciously tearing it into shreds. "Consider her dead."

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