Issue 1 Downtime

Haley hugged a large stack of books to her chest as she pushed her way through the crowded hallway just shortly after her last class had let out. Passing periods were always a pain in the ass for her--she was short so she could barely see where she was going, the mansion wasn't exactly laid out like a normal school building, and the mass of people around her trying to get to all corners of the building at the same time invariably made it hard to focus on much of anything thanks to her telepathy picking up all of their thoughts at once.

On this particular day, she wore an extra large scowl on her face since her head was still hurting from yesterday's incident in London, and she'd gotten into it with her father about her perhaps unwise choice of taking a taxi cab all the way from London to Maldon and paying with his credit card. At least she managed to avoid having to explain why she was even in London in the first place since he was practically apoplectic once he saw his credit card statement.

Haley rounded the corner on her way to science class, pushing her way through a crowd of senior boys aided slightly by her TK. Annoyed by the young girl shoving them out of the way, they groused audibly at her, and she responded by turning back towards them as she continued to walk forward and flipping them off, thereby no longer looking where she was going.

And promptly running into Sid, who is leaning against a wall and not paying attention, relying on her ability to create a people-free zone around her with her amazing power of being a bitch. It usually works pretty well though it doesn't account for tiny Texan people who aren't paying attention to where they're going. Sid head snaps around, ready to dispense an insult when she notices it's Haley and her snarky expression turns into more of a snarl. "Watch where the fuck you're going!" she barks at her.

The barked warning came just a second too late and Haley whipped around just in time to run directly into Sid, sending her pile of books tumbling onto the floor. Raucous laugher erupted from the seniors she'd been insulting seconds prior and her scowl only intensified.

"Well who the fuck stands right there in everyone's way?"

"Me. And this here?" she gestures around her, "That's the no dipshits zone."

"I cannot believe that i ever thought you were cool. You're a huge bitch and you look like a reject model from a fucking hot topic catalog."

"Oh fuck off. You're such a god damn wuss, Haley. You had no problem flirting with him but only as long as you could pretend you weren't."

"I wasn't fucking flirting with him!" she screamed.

"Now who's being quiet about it."

And that's when Haley shoved Sid with both hands. She was either stronger than she looked or was inadvertently aiding the shove with her TK slightly.

Sid certainly wasn't expecting that and goes sprawling. "Oh man, now you've done it..." she says as she jumps back up and propels herself forward to throw a punch at Haley. To her credit she's only aiming at her shoulder though. Meanwhile the flow of students around them has more or less stopped as everybody watches the two.

The punch connected solidly, Haley far too pissed off to try and block it with her TK. She roared and tried to tackle Sid, her shoulder ramming into her midsection (aided by years of wrestling and playing football with her family, and certainly given some extra oomph by her TK. )

Sid is shit at blocking anything, aided by at least a year or two of not having to avoid anything anymore due to her mutation, so she goes down in a heap, which doesn't really stop her from trying to slam her elbow into whatever body-part of Haley she can reach.

The elbow connected and split Haley's lip wide open, but it wasn't solid enough to knock out any teeth. Haley remained on top of Sid, tears streaming down her red face, and punching her with limited success.

"I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!"

At least of the punches connect, inflicting various amounts of harm on Sid that more or less heal up immediately.

Haley kept punching, though with each blow, her strength seemed to be sapping away, and her crying more pronounced, and her chin and shirt were covered in her own blood.

"I THOUGHT YOU WERE MY FRIEND! YOU STUPID BITCH!"

At that point Sid shoves Haley off of her with her palm against the tiny Texan's chin. "You done yet?"

A minute or two into the altercation Trev rounded the hallway on his way to a classroom observation and slowed as he saw the crowd of students and heard the bawling screams.

Ah fuck...

He set his notebook on a side table underneath a portrait of one of the Braddocks and rushed in.

"Hey, hey!" he shouted at normal volume to push his way through the crowd.

"Hey! HEY! THAT'S ENOUGH! he shouted, his words echoing painfully through the mansion. Trev grabbed Haley by the arms and pulled her away from Sid.

Haley blubbered something incoherently along the lines of "she started it"

Sid just stands there, knowing all too well what's going to happen now with her having not a single scratch on her and Haley having a bloody lip and who knows what else. Might as well take the punishment that's about to be dished out. She doesn't even object to Haley's claims because who cares, she's the bad one in everybody's eyes anyway.

Since Trev could barely understand the bawling girl he eyed Sid, who seemed pretty untouched for someone who appeared to have been brawling on the ground with a little kid.

"Alright. What happened?" he asked Sid.

"Hey." he said sternly, looking at the crowd that hadn't dispersed, "Get to class. Nothing you need to see here."

"Whaddaya think?"

Trev glared at her. "Don't get smart. How did this start? Is she telling the truth about you starting it?"

"Sure, whatever."

Trev sighed. "Alright. Both of you to the infirmary with me, and then we'll see who's around to get the whole story from you both. C'mon girls."

"I'm fine." she spits out. "I can see myself to the head-mistress' office."

Stan had been rounding a corner, on his way back to the offices after finishing up a class.

He came up, just as Haley and Sidney (mostly Haley) were dusting themselves off.

"Everything ok, mr Anderson?" He asked, looking Trev's way.

"No, I don't especially trust you to do that since you don't seem all that ready to tell me what actually happened," he said curtly at Sid.

"Dr. Bowen. I was just taking these two to the infirmary then probably the Headmistress' office. Maybe you're a bit better equipped for that?" he asked. "I'm supposed to be shadowing one of the high school teachers in about two minutes here."

"Go ahead, I'll take them down to my office. I've got some first aid supplies there."

Stan motioned the two students to follow him, moving again down the hall.

Sid does a massive eyeroll at this total waste of time and follows along.

Haley ripped a strip of fabric from the bottom her very bloodstained shirt using her TK and bit down on it to absorb more of the blood coming from her split lip as she bent over and gathered her still-scattered books, still sniffling before following Stan wordlessly.

Once they arrived at his office, he motioned for Haley to take a seat! as he checked her injuries.

"Could you get the first aid kit down from the shelf, Ms. Young?" He asked, as he checked Haley's lip.

Sid flops down on a chair, apparently pretending she didn't hear Stan.

Haley sniffled as Stan looked at the lip. It was a pretty bad cut, but it would heal alright on its own without stitches or anything. Would hurt for quite a while though.

After Sid ignored Stan, he went to get the kit himself.

"Here, press this gauze pad to your lip, and hold this cold pack on to keep the swelling down. The cut doesn't look too bad, Ms. Crusek."

Haley did as instructed, still sniffling.

While Stan is taking care of Haley Sid's cellphone rings and she answers it.

"Yo."

"Great. Are you around?"

"Yeah yeah, just--"

"No I don't want to check it out. Seriously, why do you listen to that shit."

"Ugh. Fine, I'll be there."

"No, you can keep that shit for yourself."

"I've heard that before. I'll see you there." she finishes and hangs up.

Ms. Young, please put the phone on vibrate and place it on my desk until we are done here."

She rolls her eyes again but does as she's told.

Haley just sat quietly in her seat, tears mostly subsided now.

"Ok. So, what happened?" Stan asked, after being sure Haley was alright.