The Re-opening (ASSEMBLY)

[Director Troutman]

"Welcome students, to the rebuilt and refurbished Hircine High."

The Director's voice would erupt from the PA system in the new auditorium, which was just slightly larger than the old one that used to be in this same exact spot. It hadn't taken long at all for the school to be reconstructed. For the most part, it followed the same architectual structure and design as the old school. There were a few additions to it, though most of the difference would be seen in the interior.

"Most of you are familiar with Hircine High, though some of you are not. However, I'm sure all of you will find this school more impressive than any school you've ever been to before, or seen on the television."

That, in itself wasn't a stretch of truth either, as it was. With the recent "terrorist" bombings upon Hircine and Paragon, no expense was spared by the State and Federal insitutions alike. Not only had they rebuilt this school in just over a month, but they had rebuilt it better.

"You'll find that every student will be issued their own personal laptop. All school work can and will be completed electronically from this point on. In this generation of technology, you'll find this is more convenient for student and teacher alike."

...and that every laptop has a GPS tracker inside. Only the most technologically intelligent could find it, and even then only if they knew what they were looking for...

The thought brought a smile to the Director's lips, reminding him to continue speaking rather than to dwell in his own thoughts.

"Hircine High is now not only the greatest institution on the West Coast, but the entire United States of America. There have been recent events that have no doubt caused a great deal of pain and worry amongst the student body. That is why, among a number of other security features, there will be another position among the student body besides that of Pillar System.

"The student body will still be able to promote and 'elect' their own School Captain who in turns appoints his own pillars, but there will also be an 'ambassador' position. This ambassador, or Arbiterif you will, will work differently than that of your Pillarship. Just as the pillar's reflect the ire of the student body, the Arbiter's duty will be to keep watch and reflect the interests of the council themselves...all to keep your best interests at heart. The Arbiter is and can only be appointed by myself, and is not to interfere with Captainship duties unless deemed completely necessary, and therefore immune to any lesser authority than myself, as well.

"The Captainship will go under some small changes of itself. Once there has been deemed an undisputed School Captain, official challenges have no longer proven to be necessary. If a Captain loses a fight under any circumstances, he loses his title to his opponent. Pillar's are directly appointed by the new Captain, leaving a choice to keep former pillars, but not making it a necessity."

The director paused long and hard, running his hand's down along the edges of the solid oak podium as he eyed the sheep once again ushered into his herd.

It will be interesting to see which ones can find the loopholes in that system first.

"With that, you're new school schedules have been issued to you via your own personal notebook computers. You're new staff will be making themselves known to you throughout the day. You're dismissed."

[Odin Reeves]

Having stood against the back wall for the beginning of the speech Odin Reeves, or rather now more commonly known as Mr. Reeves according to his teacher registry, felt a certain degree of uncertainty as he had returned to his ‘old’ stomping grounds. While he had only been at Hircine High for a year he had developed quite a reputation for himself, and given the short time he had been away he found himself in need of money to uphold his current lifestyle. And thus a return to his graduating school. However, he wasn’t to certain about the director, but money was money. He had to pay rent, bills, and coaches, cut men, and sometimes even promoters to help fill seats. It was a tiring process, and thus he needed the second job. At least this job allowed him to get exercise while making some money outside of the ring.

Halfway through the speech Odin popped off the wall, trudging his way outside and into the halls. He found it boring, and needed to re-educate himself with the lay of the land. He began to make his way down the hall, turned left and continued down another path. After a few minutes of walking around he found his way down the hall that previously had his old locker. Well, if the hallway hadn’t been blown to shit and rebuilt, and these weren’t new lockers. But regardless, it was still the same area. Turning away he walked back down the same path, returning to the doors of the Auditorium after just a few minutes. He was just about to head back inside, but as he opened the doors a flood of students began to make their way out into the hall. Stepping back he held the door open, watching as the flood of students walked by.

’So I’m a ‘teacher’ huh? Well, at least the schools going to be in shape.’

[Derek Grant]

The whole thing stank.

Derek stood among the morsels, watching from behind sunglasses and remnants of his fringe. He had a lot of questions, and anyone could tell the Director, and his somewhat malevolent aura, was not the one to ask. Derek stood and mulled. The return to a new status quo, and a prompt one at that. He had not been at this school long at all, a couple of months if that, and all he had to go on is it's sterling reputation, which was apparent. He did not expect a fully fledged, terrorist-style attack. On both schools too.

It would not be long, in this new reformed Hircine, until a power struggle occurred. It is inevitable. What pressure on the current school captain, he could be attacked at any point and under any circumstances with no real consequence. With two schools now merged back into one, he can't stop looking over his shoulder. An addition to the student body and pillar system seemed like a wise step. Of course, only being here a couple of months, Derek had no chance of being appointed, but he would have to watch whoever is carefully. He needed allies if his plan were to succeed, and an ally with power is all the better.

For now, while the school, and populace was rebuilding and reaffirming, Derek could do nothing. His games would have to wait. For now, he would have to focus on the less important aspects of his life here, such as his accommodation, or even a profession, if he had time. If not, he would have to think about money, and how best to acquire it. He filed out with the other peons, but took a turn from the rest to return to his locker.

[Jacob B. Dole]

As the Director blathered on and on about how Hircine was now the greatest school in the United States, the 6'4 inattentive junior had already taken out his laptop and began fiddling with it. Compared to the old Toshiba he had at home this thing was a hundred times better. Though it was better he figured it was tuned purely for homework assignments, and that simply wouldn’t do. If he wanted to zip around the Internet at a much quicker pace then the rest of the school he’d have to increase the power outage. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how to do this; it all depends on the operating system. XP compared to Vista had different settings to permit the changing of the battery and the function’s of the computer, so he just needed to head in the right direction to find it.

Given that it’s usually under the battery settings there wasn’t going to be a lock on the program, as it didn’t really do anything bad to the computer, just made it suck away at it’s life supply faster. A few clicks later and his laptop was now running at its maximum output, which severely drained its battery time, but that’s exactly what a charge cable was for. Closing the monitor he put it into hibernation and slipped it into his bag, holding the knapsack between his feet, the bags only remaining strap securely held in his right hand. Despite it being everyone’s first day he still felt out of place. Hircine and Paragon students were all shoved into one place, there was animosity between the groups, and he didn’t fit on either side.

Paying attention to the Director he came in half way though the beginning portion about the school captain and his pillars. The ‘arbiter’ seemed like a sketchy idea, but was probably only there so that the staff and such could keep a more watchful eye on the students without making it seem like their personal space had been infiltrated. This didn’t really bother Jacob one bit; it was the final parting words on the challenge system to a captain. Any circumstance meant that a group could beat down the captain, and from there the leader of that group would become the new school captain.

Frankly, it was just like at his previous school, where gang mentality would rise up and the mobs of people would form. People always felt stronger in a group, which was distasteful for fighting. Proper fights are one on one, one verse a group is lynching, and a mob verse a mob is a brawl. This was just stupid, and disadvantageous to anyone who wanted to form the captainship under honourable ideals… Then again, who really has honourable ideals in this day and age?

As the director finished his speech to the students Jacob stood up, not thinking about moving with the group. At that moment he stuck out like a sore thumb, towering above all the sitting students around him, and being the first to rise. Not thinking much of it he slung his bag over his shoulder, tucking the strap under his arm as he headed towards the exit, wondering if he should attempt the feat of challenging for the captainship of Hircine High.

[Nicky Lee Young]

To say she was nervous was an understatement. Ever since she'd been buried alive, Nicky had grown paranoid about buildings blowing up. This would pass of course, and the chances of a terrorist bombing at the same place (technically) again were probably unlikely. Even still, through the month that passed, she was still a bit shaky, but, she tried not to let it show too much. It was a bit hard to hide at times. Any type of crashing noise made her flinch or dive to the ground (which always got her some curious looks).

Nicky Lee liked the laptop perk though, since it meant she didn't need to share one computer with 7 other people (that was assuming it was a regular old laptop they could take home, for those who lived with their family). If anything, new Hircine was quite the step up. But that's as far as she could follow. Next some kind of Pillar system and Arbiter thingie were being spoken of. Even though she'd been around for a while, Nicky had to admit she still didn't get what those were. But, with this talk about losing a fight and losing the title, Nicky could draw her own conclusions.

As the announcement came to an end, and everyone got off their chairs, she would proceed out of the auditorium along with the rest. To be honest, none of this would change a thing for her. She wasn't going to jump at the Captainship, naturally, and chances are she'd get her ass kicked for doing stupid things still. Same old, same old.

But now she had a shiny new laptop. Yay~!

[Tiao Lei Shen]

Tiao Lei Shen, ex-pillar and Tiger of Hircine High once again sat inside his own domain. Though the new school was notably different in more cases than one, Tiao felt at home once again. He'd take a second wind of Hircine over Paragon Institute any day.

Tiao leaned back in his seat, intrigued to find that the new auditorium seats in fact sat back just a bit, like the seats you'd find in theatres. He propped his left foot against the seat in front of him, bending his knee as he sprawled his right leg over it. Tiao rested his chin between his thumb and forefinger of his left hand, letting his right arm lay lazily in his lap. By the looks of it, Tiao was bored and non-attentive. In reality, though, it was the opposite. Tiao felt more drive in him than he had in a very long time.

Where that drive would take him, however, Tiao hadn't yet discovered. Was he interested in taking the pillarship once more? It was a possibility, but he didn't think so. So far, he hadn't seen anyone worthwhile to team up with, though Darren's shoes would always be too big to fill. There was little doubt that he could take the captainship himself as it was, but a political position like that just didn't seem to interest him as may have been expected. This 'arbiter' was something that intrigued the tiger, however. A bit of nostalgia to the watchers came through his mind. Tiao reminded himself that no matter who they were, or what privileges they were given, they'd best not get in his way.

Tiao continued to look around, seeing if he could spot any familiar faces. He recognized over a handfull of people, but no one that garnered any interest in the ex-pillar. As everyone began getting up to the example of one unfamiliar student, Tiao simply remained where he was. He had no problem's being the last one to leave the auditorium. There was no rush, and Tiao had a few things to think about.

[jayded]

Jacobe looked down at the laptop with a slight sigh.
"They couldn't get Macs?" He said wistfully, thinking of his beautiful Mac Book Pro with 250Gb hard drive. He'd have no use for this, other then maybe some extra ram or a gift for some one. He opened up the laptop lid and looked at the programming, nothing special, basic office things, Internet Explorer as a browser made him chuckle a little. He opened it up and let the Hircine High main page load up on the screen. He tried to log onto his DA... site block, a little fustrated he tried to go to a music site page , blocked. Then, as he tried to log onto another page he saw a little extra bar down the bottom of his Internet Explorer browser bar...a site tracker.
Cleaver, He thought Tracing what sites we try go to could almost make a profile He opened up a word document and simply typed "I Know Your Watching...Hi" And saved it into a html format, and uploaded it into his mail account, with no doubt they would check that as well. He packed up the laptop and put it into his bag, he'd wipe the hard drive when he got home.

As he walked around the new halls he looked at the excited youths all playing with their new toys, uploading music, or even in some cases already, fighting over them. He heard a crunch and a girls sob. He looked over, and thought
Broken Laptop number 1.
He shook his head as headed of to the newly refurbished music room, excited on getting his hands on some hopefully new instruments. Another crunch on the floor
Broken Laptop number 2 he thought, now this school had just a new thing to fight over.

[Samuel Weston]

Samuel lifted his backpack up onto his shoulder as he began to exit the auditorium. The announcement had seemed simple enough. The new student saw a few looks of worry or distrust upon several faces, but he didn't know why. Well, that wasn't totally true. He'd actually imagined a school with a recent terrorist bombing to be more panicked than this. Unless, there was somehow a connection between the distrust and the so-called terrorist attack.

Nah. Quit being paranoid.

Sam had placed his computer in his backpack before ever even starting it. He was never one for high tech gadgetry. Give him a simple engine and he was happy. Computers...best leave that to someone who knew what they were doing. Maybe he'd open it up later to try and give it ago. Maybe he'd eventually be able to work something other than Facebook and Youtube. Probably not.

Pulling out a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket, Samuel was relieved he received a printed form of his schedule by transferring in a week before now. If he had to try and track down his schedule somewhere on the internet, he'd never make it to class. English was his first class of the day, and he needed to find A wing in the next five minutes.

[John Smith]

In hindsight, I had been bought for a nickel. Man. It had probably been one of the cheapest hits in the history of man. 50 grand for blowing up two schools. I didn't know how many had died. Nor did I care. But I was pretty sure that I can't have been paid more than a grand per victim. I would have been a bit annoyed with being paid relatively nothing. But to be honest, I was too damned pleased with my work to get annoyed with it. I closed my new laptop. Amazed that the schools funding could handle both bribing me and handing out thousands of laptops to their students. But once again. I couldn't care less.

I stood there, along the edge of the room and was stuffing my laptop into my bag. I had shown up late and had not bothered to find an empty seat. Didn't want to draw unwanted attention to myself. People were already going to be less than impressed when/if they found out what my new title was. But I would just have to worry about that when they found out. I couldn't prepare myself for everything. Besides, I was mentally exhausted from working like in the old days. I would just have to skip school today and head directly to bed and get some much needed rest. Much of what the director said went unnoticed by me. It was the students I was looking at. Their reactions and their sorrow. Surprisingly, the majority of the students felt no sorrow. The Paragon lot was understandable, they were more detached than the Hircine students, but even many of the students from Hircine wasn't heartbroken.

Had I really failed that much in my bombing? Bullshit. Fucking bullshit. When the students got up to leave, I followed. Brushing past people or powering through those who didn't feel like moving out of the way. Time to recharge my batteries.

[Seth Calloway]

And as fast as it was gained, it's taken away.

The loss of the Captainship didn't particularly bother Seth, as there had been no real effort in taking the position in the first place. Having the title and all of the responsibility without the thrill of claiming it initially had made the experience bittersweet. Perhaps the bombing hadn't been all bad after all, as it had wiped his responsibilities clean and allowed him to start anew.

Not to mention, free laptops.

Sitting in the second last seat at the end of the last row, Seth turned the laptop over in his hands, admiring how up to date the device was. The school had spared no expense, it seemed, something that made the Junior student suspicious. Just months ago, Paragon had been built, encouraging a rivalry between the two schools, and yet now, the board was bending over backwards in how giving it was towards the students. Aside from his suspicions, however, Seth had nothing to cofirm his concerns, and so, he would make a mental note to be careful, nothing more.

"This is bullshit, Seth. You should still be Captain. They can't just take it from you like that."

The voice came from his right, Tamara sitting at the end of the row and looking more furious than he could remember her being in a while. She seemed so wound up that she was likely to explode sooner or later, something that Seth would need to nip in the bud or allow to happen on his own terms. Either way, now was not the time.

"Remember your blood pressure, Tamara. Besides, it's not much of a big deal. With the changes to the Captainship position, whoever has it will end up being a major target. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Captain getting attacked in groups quite often. That's not exactly the kind of pressure I'd like to be under while looking for who blew up Hircine in the first place."

Tamara nodded, seemingly satisfied with his answer, while Seth glanced to his side at the person on his left, who had remained silent, as usual.

"As the only two Horsemen left, it seems we're going to have to replace some people. Have anyone in mind, Mae-Lim?"

[Mae-Lim]

Mae-Lim was being unusual, which may be usual for her in some cases. Instead of her usual straight-back and I-look-so-important approach to sitting, she was slouched down on the chair, arms crossed and looking like an angry, pouting child. Which wasn't too far from the truth. Her deep pools glared right through all the heads infront of her view, all the way to the Director as he blabbed on. The only thing concerning her was this Arbiter position. She wondered who it was, and, if they hadn't picked one yet, who it would be. Anyone working for the council's interest meant the exact opposite of what Director Fishy said.

Council interest =/= Student interest.

She cringed at what's-her-face's voice then, her words ripping through her thoughts and causing a brief shift of her eyes to the side (though, in her position, all she saw was Seth) before shifting them back to the front.

Mae wouldn't look at Seth as he sent her a question. All she did was roll her eyes. Seth must have known her answer already, so why was he asking her?
"Don't know." she'd say softly, pushing herself up lazily, and turning her upperbody to look towards Seth.
"I don't know who's died from the people I've heard about, and there may be potential in the new bloods that are bound to get enrolled here."

She'd turn away then, pressing her back on the seat.
"Unless you already know who you want, it's all about seeking out the potential."

Which made her wonder why chicky-on-his-right wasn't one.

Anyway, she was totally bummed about Conner. Conner was always like a big brother. Pissed her right off (with all that hair scruffling) but he'd been her "partner in crime" quite a few times and now her meat-shield was God knows where. Maybe he was sent back to prison or something. Lame. And August...well, she didn't miss him as much. But she would always remember how they had, excuse the language, fucked him over.

What would it be like with Seth out of the picture? Hmm.

"Anyway, why on earth do you want to find the Mystery-Bomber?" Mae-Lim would ask suddenly, raising from her chair along with some others (who, however, were leaving) in order to look down[/b] at Seth (which she was most comfortable with). She hoped to God it wasn't for a potential Horseman. It gave her an icky feeling.

[valgios]

as the director spoke to all of the students... valgios was thinking about the fight he had his parents to decide his new school... they argued that it would be dangerous to stay in a school that was previously bombed... but he decided to stay in that school... he wanted to know what really happened, he didn't like the loose ends, and for him that was one of them...

valgios took a look to the auditorium... it was really big... and there were a lot of students there... just to think that paragon and hircine students were all in that auditorium...

when valgios checked his new laptop, in the middle of the assembly, he thought that it wasn't as good as his own... but it wasn't a bad laptop, it was above the average laptops... so it would work... but the tracking device was rather troublesome... he just would have to leave the laptop in the school...

and then the director sayed something that took valgios attention from the new laptop, the pillar system and this new arbiter... the conditions of the school captain, were rather unfair, anywhere, anytime, it could be a gang against one... this will just lead to a state of continuous and violent fights... and then valgios reached a conclusion... the truth behind this new arbiter, and the new rules for the pillar system... they wanted to control the students and the system... so that means that if there is a change in the school captain like everyday o every week... that would mean that the school captain tittle would loose almost all his power and viability... and then the arbiter, someone chosen and controlled by the director... would receive all the power and status, the captain lose...

just hilarious... this is gonna be interesting... valgios sayed...

so... you also realized the trick?... sayed to valgios a girl sitting next to him...

yeah, kind of... valgios answered

and then everyone in the auditorium got up and started to go out of the auditorium... when he looked again the girl had already left... but valgios was happy... he thought that it would be interesting staying in this school...