03x19: Internal Conflicts

Austin falls further in love with Janella. He also becomes closer with his section and his school which causes some conflicts in terms of his priorities.

INTERNAL CONFLICTS

 

     The only remotely interesting thing that happened that Saturday was Austin begging Ernst or anyone actually, to tell him the story Sister Irma told DDN using his and Janella’s names. They refused, claiming it would protect him.

     Aside from that, there was also the briefing. It wasn’t that interesting because Austin was simply repeating information he had already told people again. Also Janella wasn’t there since she and Berna were searching for the portal leading to the Mastermind’s base.

     The briefing got a bit more interesting after the exposition.

     “So, now that you know what the hell is going on, which means a lot to me since you guys signed up with no idea how dangerous this upcoming crap is.”
     “Trust us, we know!” John said.

     “John made blogs,” Michael said. “Half of us already went through worse crap and, for the love of everything good in this world, what’s up with the ‘being bored every waking moment’?”

     “First, I did not make blogs,” John said. “Second, not all of us are bored every waking moment. I’ve been working on our mode of transportation, which is, to say the least, awesome.”
     “John, I can’t thank you enough,” Austin said.
     “Okay John, allow me to retort. First, I believe in ‘see to believe’ so unless I witness the aweosmeness that is your unnamed jet, I refuse to believe it. Secondly, does anyone here have a laptop? Just go to www.ASGBlogs.com and you can see a very thorough account on what happened during last year’s scuffle.”

     “My turn, first, I can take you to the jet right now, all it needs is a bit more tweaking and secondly, I did not make that blog!”

     “Then who did?!”

     “I did,” Cedric said. “It was cool. And you were cool so I used your name. Hope you don’t mind.”
     “Dude, we didn’t even get to know each other!” John said.

     “Okay, John, I am sorry for accusing you of creating the blogs,” Michael said, extending his hand. John gave him a firm handshake.

    “Now we have another target, Cedric!” John said.

     “Guys, let’s settle down!” Austin said. “Kyle, I received a mental message from Janella�"“

     Cue screech tease.

      “Kyle, check your e-mail. They just emailed the pics they took of the portal and the schematics of the area where it is located.”

     Kyle turned on the laptop in the base as Austin continued.

     “Okay, as for your first assignment. You just gotta master your powers. That will be all.”

     They stood up and exit the Base. Austin stopped John from leaving and told him to go to him.

     “What is it?”

     “We have the portal’s location. Is there any way you can locate Double M’s base?”

     “We just have to use the Portal translator. It gives us exact coordinates to the other side of a portal. Then we can input the coordinates into a portal of our own and infiltrate that base.”

     ‘That’s the thing. I need a portal big enough to fit the jet.”

     “Or you could just teleport the jet using the Space Loop. That’s much more convenient. Once you know the coordinates, it’ll be easy to use the Space Loop.”

     “How do you know? You’ve never controlled a Space Loop. It depends on your intuition and your knowledge, not coordinates.”

     “Austin what is wrong with you?! We look it up in a map and you can start from there. Are you okay? You seem to be acting, no offense, pretty stupid lately.”
     “I gotta agree with John, Austin. What’s wrong?” Kyle said.

     “It’s just that. Well… I’ve been feeling strange lately.”

     “Like you’re turning into a psychopathic psycho again to ravage the streets of New York?” John said.

     “No. I mean… it’s Janella.”

     “Oh, crap. Does she like someone else?” 

     “No! Will you let me finish?! I think I’m truly in love with her.”

     “And you already said the big three words before, eh?”

     “I mean, I did before but this feeling is a whole lot different. It’s like I feel like I can tell her anything.”
     “Can you tell her you love her? I mean face to face not the desk phone-text-telephone bullshit,” John said.

     “I guess so.”

     John gave Austin a significant look.

     “Look, if this is distracting you�"“
     “My grades are fine. I’m acing my AP tests thanks to this inspiration.”

     “But what about your life tests. Especially the part where you’re supposed to save the world?”

     “And don’t you think you’re rushing into this?” Kyle said. “You gotta take these things a bit slower.”

     “Look. Let’s just get over there and get the coordinates. Do you have the Portal translator?”

     “I can make one in ten minutes if you let me,” John said.

     “Sure.”

     John went in the elevator and Austin and Kyle waited.

    John emerged from the elevator after nine minutes and thirty-seven seconds.

     “Let’s go!” John said.

     “Wait a sec, I’ll get the car.”

     “Why the hell do we need the car? We can just… I don’t know, teleport there?!” John said.

     “But it’s cooler with a car!”

     “Are you in any defensive power spoke right now where a psychic slap or a metal slap would be relatively ineffective?”

     “No… not really.”

     “Good. Kyle, we give him two slaps each. Hard. You’re his best bud so you go first, on the left, that’s your right. Then I follow on his right, that’s my left then it goes back to you. You take his right again, that’s your left and it goes back to me where I take his left, that’s my right. You charge your hands with a psychic field and I turn mine into metal. If he truly is in this state, knowing him like you do, you’d presume that he would be thinking of her and not of defending himself.”

     “Umm… John? I’m right here,” Austin said.

     “Do it, Kyle! Now!”

     Kyle charged his hands with psychic power and hit Austin’s face on the left. John followed through with the right side. Kyle hit the left again and John hit his left.

     “D****t Kyle, you hit his left twice. You were supposed to alternate but that’s beside the point. You out of the phase, Austin?’

     Austin, dazed and confused, glared at John.

     “I guess that’s a yes. Let’s go.”

     Austin turned the Band to Space Manipulation and teleported them to Janella and Berna’s suite. This caught them by surprise.

     “Guys!” Berna said. “We didn’t expect you here!”

     “I know!” John said. “Austin could have totally teleported outside your door, allowing us to knock beforehand! Right, Kyle?!”

     Kyle nodded.

     “Oh, now you’re against me?!” Austin said.

     “I’m not against you but he was right.”

     “Austin…” Janella said. She was on the top of the staircase in pajamas.

     “You guys searched Double M’s base in pajamas?” John said as Austin hit him with his elbow.

     “Look, we’re here to get the coordinates of the Mastermind’s base using this Portal translator. Austin got a bit… how shall I put this… off and teleported us directly in here,” Kyle said.

     “Are you okay?” Janella asked.

     “I’m fine. I was just… excited to know where the portal was.”

     “That’s not the only thing he was excited for,” John whispered.

     “Well, this is kind of a bad time. I was gonna go to bed already. I’m tired from turning that place upside-down all day,” Janella said.

     “Well, you still look great,” Austin thought. Only then did he remember that she could access his thoughts through their link. He nervously looked at her and she was smiling as if she just heard this.

     “I’ll take them,” Berna said.

     “Yeah, I’ll stay and… err… play with your transforming console. Does it transform into a NES? I always wanted to play the original Super Mario Bros,” Austin said.

     “It does. We got that cartridge in the box,” Berna said.

     “No, Austin. We’re gonna need you,” John said.

     Austin looked at Janella. This was a bit awkward.

     “It’s okay. You go ahead,” she told him via their link.

     “Okay then, I’ll go with you guys,” Austin said.

    

Berna led them into the portal inside the Mastermind’s old base as John confronted Austin about what happened.

     “Can you please focus on the mission?!” John said.

     “I am focused!”

     “You were more interested on playing Mario in her presence than playing ‘Let’s Find the Portal’ with us.”
     “’Let’s find the Portal’ is a terrible game title.”

     “You’re missing the point Austin! Keep your head in the game.”

     “Here it is!” Berna said. There was an empty circular portal frame there.

     “Was it open earlier?” Kyle asked.

     “Nope. It’s the only portal in this entire place so I guess this is it.”

     John put his hand on the control pad and the portal opened.

     “Okay, don’t you think they might see that THE FRICKING PORTAL OPENED AT THEIR END?!” Austin yelled at John.

     “You could stop time and save our asses. Just a small suggestion.”

     Austin switched to Time- Manipulation and stopped time for everything except the four of them and the portal.

     John took out the portal translator, which was shaped like a gun, and fired it at the portal. He held the trigger and the beam stayed in the center of the portal.

     The screen at the back of the Portal Translator began to register coordinates. After a few minutes, it was complete and John noted the coordinates.

     “Now turn back time to before I turned it on and let’s just leave.”

     “Wait, won’t that make us see ourselves?” Kyle asked.

     “Yeah, if you’re a noob. Austin can do it right.”

     Austin concentrated and focused on bringing the four of them and the portal along with him I the reversal instead of leaving them behind. It worked and they got out safely.

     They went back to the lodge and John input the coordinates into a locator program.

     “Holy crap. This base is in the friggin North Pole. Oh, boy, what a glorious cliché!” John said.

     “But it makes sense since he knows that I love movies. He knows that North Pole or South Pole or basically an icy base is clichéd and I don’t like clichés since I’ve seen a lot of movies. So if he makes me think that he won’t put his base into an icy location, I would look there. But by putting it in an icy location, he tricks me into not looking. I’ve got him by the balls now!”

     “Or he wants you to find him so he can mindrape you and perform the greatest genocide the universe has ever known. The thing is this: we found him. We should formulate a plan now.”

     “It’s getting late. You guys better go,” Berna said.

     “Hey, thanks for the help,” Kyle said.

     “Bye, see ya!” John said, rushing for the door.

     Austin slowly turned to Janella, looking her in the eye with a loving expression. Unfortunately, this only came off as an awkward attempt at a connection.

     “Austin, if you don’t get your a*s to the door now, Kyle and I will ask for Berna and Janella’s aid in giving you the treatment. Don’t even test us!”

     Janella waved goodbye and slightly smiled at him. He waved back and smiled back.

     Austin walked to the door and John closed it.

     “I really hope you’d stop that,” Kyle said.

     “Why?”
     “Didn’t you see the way she was looking at you? That was awkward,” Kyle said.

     “I felt awkward, but I got her to smile.”
     “Why are we walking home? Let’s teleport!”

     Austin switched back to Space Manipulation and teleported them to the fourth floor of the hotel.

     “I guess this is goodbye,” John said. “Austin, you get a good night’s sleep. I don’t want you being Mr. Loverboy until Monday, you hear me? I agree with Kyle, that was too awkward!”

     “I’ll try…” Austin said sadly as John walked to the elevators.

     “Dude, was I really that awkward?!”

     “Words cannot express�"“

     “Okay, I get it.”
  

Sunday was uninteresting except for the fact that Austin slept off the awkwardness. He was pretty much back normal that day but he still missed Janella. He didn’t see her the whole day.

     Around 6:30, he received an anonymous message that said “Hey! Expo trip’s tomorrow!” Nobody had texted him all day and he knew that this had to be from CV since nobody from the section they were going with tomorrow (SK) would bother texting him.

     There were only a few people from CV who would text Austin. He eventually narrowed it down to one person.

     “Marise? Is that you?” he replied.

     “Yeah, how’d you know?”

     “Just a hunch, I guess.”
     Then he remembered that the Expo trip was tomorrow and he hadn’t packed anything yet. He packed up his usual stuff and his trusty old camera. He was going to do a good old vlog.

    

Austin sat beside Jericho at the second seat from the back of the left side. Mo-on and Rica were in front of them. Clutch and Justine were to their right. Behind them were (from right to left) AD, Marise, Kristina, Tasha, and Pat.

     Marise also returned her first rental (she rented The Notebook last week) and Austin gave her Sherlock Holmes. Mo-on also returned his DVD of Chamber of Secrets. (Small thing about Mo-on that was left unmentioned, he started reading the Harry Potter Series and was loving it so far.)

     Austin started his vlog saying random stuff and their destination.

     Eventually, it got boring and decided to focus the camera to the back.

     “Chilling at the backseat! Chilling at the backseat! For this segment, your host is Marise Madlangbayan!”

     This caught her by surprise.

     She didn’t say much so…

     “And your co-host is… AD Acosta. So… what do you think of Chilling at the Backseat?”

     “We’re chilling!” she said.

     “Where?”

     “AT THE BACKSEAT!”

     Austin focused the camera back the host. She gave a nod of approval whilst smiling. When he turned the camera to Kristina…

     “Hi Kristina! How’s Chilling at the Backseat doing for ya?”
     “Umm… ok?”

     All four of them had a good laugh at this random moment.

     They stopped over at a McDonald’s at the side of the expressway. Austin bought a hash brown and some fries. When he went back, Rica sat beside Bettina and Mo-on decided to seat beside Austin. Jericho sat somewhere in the front.

     They started Tropic Thunder. Austin was mildly humiliated when the first shot was of Alpa Chino singing and rapping with his face surrounded but two hot chick’s buttocks.

     This escalated when the movie really began and the blood and gore were so over the top, Ms. Mac glared at him as the rest of the class laughed their asses off.

     They stopped it after a while since the player couldn’t read the disk any further.

     Rica then transferred to the middle seat beside Mo-on and they borrowed Giannina’s speakers. Austin could have amplified it but what the hell?

     They played a medley of A7x songs but settled to other songs after a while. The Backseat cast sang along as well and it was the most fun they’ve had so far.

     After a long playlist, they arrived at the first destination: Paete, Laguna.

     They went in the church and the speaker told about the history of the church. Being the teens with short attention spans that they are, Austin made another episode of Chillin' at the Backseat, this time featuring guest star Jib Lidasan. He simply zoomed in the camera on him without him knowing.

     After this, they went the stage and they showed off some veggie carvings and CV took home a souvenir for Sr. Jojo.

     After this, they finally showed them the ice sculpting which was the best part of the trip, really.

     The sculptors formed a mermaid and pictures were taken. Unfortunately, the battery of his camera ran out and he just wanted to enjoy the rest of the day anyway so he kept the camera.

     Austin plugged in his earphones and listened to the Inception soundtrack. Coincidentally, He, Rica, Justine, Clutch, Marise, and Kristina fell asleep.

     Eventually, Mo-on woke Austin up with his not-at-all-subtle movements, trying to recline his seat but failing. Austin did it for him and went back to sleep. He then noticed the other sleeping and went back to sleep.

     He had a dream of them all in battle but there was no sign of Janella or Ernst or any of the other guys.

     Austin woke up and Rica was already awake. It was as if they were in shared dreaming. Austin laughed at this reference to Inception.

     Clutch and Marise woke up followed by Mo-on and Kristina. This humorous “coincidence” was short lived but entertaining nonetheless.

     “Hey, Austin,” Marise said. “You know how Jasvir and Owen are best friends and Jasvir has dimples and Owen likes stars?”

     “Yup. Why?”

     “We just saw a jeep with ‘Dimple Star’ on display. Funny, huh?”

     It was another funny coincidence for him. He was subconsciously hoping for a third.

     They arrived at the factory but it was still too early and they had to wait in the bus. Mo-on was complaining that the radio was playing bad music and kept on screaming at it to change.

     Everyone was starting to agree with Mo-on.

     “Seriously? What kind of music is this? Trick question, this isn’t music. This is… I don’t know what this is! This is not music!”

     They finally changed the station and Bruno Mars’ “Just the Way You Are” began playing.

     “FINALLY!” Pat said form the back as she sang along. The entire bus jumped on right before they told everyone to get off.

     On the way out, Bettina got a wad of gum on her jogging pants and Jericho, and all the other’s she has wronged silently or mentally fist pumped in celebration.

     It was the Gardenia factory and they had to watch a short video. Rica, Austin, Mo-on, and Yara (who happened to be seated beside Mo-on) planned on a standing ovation afterwards. They failed but it was a funny vision.

     They walked through the factory and went back out. It really wasn’t a very eventful exposure trip.

     That was until they stopped over again and Austin and Clutch bought a drink from Starbucks.

     They were on their way back the bus when the three teachers spotted them.

     “Ms. Mac, Ms. Joan, we have a violation,” Ms. Rose said.

     “Didn’t I say, ‘No Starbucks’?” Ms. Joan said.

     Austin didn’t catch that part.

     “What? Miss�"“

     “You could’ve asked,” Ms. Mac said.

     “Miss, I didn’t hear. I was at the back. I’m very sorry.”

     “There will be consequences for this, especially on your grade,” Ms. Joan said. Austin’s grade in TLE was already on the verge of knocking him off the honors list, he wasn’t going to lose this two years in a row.

     “Please, Miss, I’m sorry. I’ll do anything make up for it. Please just do�"“

     “Just rush on back to the bus and don’t let too many people see that.”

     Austin switched to Lumokinesis and turned his and Clutch’s drinks invisible.

     They headed back the bus and Austin waited in anxiety.

     Mo-on, Rica, AD, Marise, and Kristina arrived a bit later.

     “Something completely stupid just happened,” Mo-on said.

     “What?”

     “We were standing in line in KFC when we decided to fuse our order with Marise’s group. TO save time.”

     ‘Then this woman behind them starts yelling at us!” Marise said.

     “What did she say?”

     “She said something like, “that’s wrong! You shouldn’t be doing that! That’s a shame since you’re a Catholic school!’”

     “And the worst part was that she left afterwards,” Mo-on said.

     “Actually, that wasn’t the worst part you mentioned to me,” Marise said.

     “Oh, right. This woman… she was massive. She was lining up for KFC after all but she was massive and she’s going to yell at us for that, indirectly causing her to leave. We probably saved her life!”

     They all laughed at this.

     “Oh, by the way, how’d you get to buy at Starbucks?” Marise asked.

     “Oh, right, Psychic… yeah. Umm… I didn’t know it was off limits so I got yelled at.”

     “Oh, bummer…” Marise said.

     “It’s gonna be alright. At least you didn’t get yelled at by Aunt Marge from Prisoner of Azkaban!” Mo-on said.

     They all laughed but Austin’s was a bit weaker since he was still worried about his fate.

     They passed by the SM Sister Irma stopped in front of and they all teased Basti with his infamous “Yes!” answer to Sister Irma’s rhetorical question.

     When they finally got there, they all rushed to Sr. Jojo with the souvenir but unfortunately, he was gone.

     Austin passed by Ms. Sharon’s office and picked up his DVD of V fro Vendetta. He asked for her opinion of it and she loved it.

    Back the bad news, nobody would still tell Austin the story.

     Still, this didn’t stop him from giving Ernst his DVD of Kick-A*s for them to watch on the bus in case of boredom.

 

The next day was DDN’s expo trip and it really sucked since he wasn’t able to see Janella for five days straight if he didn’t count the awkward Saturday.

     Sean was talking to his best friend in SC, Chiara. Ibarra was sketching. Austin had nobody to talk to.

     Eventually, Sean went back inside and took out his iTouch. He played around with it a bit until Sr. Dan passed. He immediately teleported it back to his pocket and kept it there.

     “It sucks how if you go to school too early, you can’t play with your stuff,” Austin said.

     “I know right?”

     “Eh, whatever.”

     During English, Marise asked Austin what other movie he would recommend. He remembered a movie he watched ten days ago, Moulin Rouge! He absolutely loved it. Marise took it.

     It was another sad day to be honest. Austin decided that instead of letting this day be sad, he wanted it to be awesome.

     He brought back an old joke and took out a piece of paper.

     When they got back the room, Marise was missing (she was in the clinic due to headaches) and he was stuck with Pat for an hour. This hour was on the verge of suckiness so he decided to kick start the gag right here, right now.

     Giannina passed by and Austin took out the paper.

     “Giannina, would you kindly read this for me?”

     “Sure. Umm… ‘I love talking to Mike Hawk…’ What is this?”

     “Excuse me?!” Jasvir said, high fiving Austin.

     Austin showed Jasvir the paper and he laughed his a*s off.

     “Why, what is it?” Aika asked.

     “Austin, you cheeky b*****d!” Giannina said, also laughing.

     “Sorry, Giannina but look at the bright side, you got a new gag!”

     “I don’t get it,” Aika said.

     “Get what?” Basti asked.

     “Basti, read it,” Jasvir said.

     He showed Basti his own message.

     “I like to play with Mike Hawk. Wait, Jasvir!”

     “I still don’t get it,” Aika said.

     Math class began and Austin overloaded Sr. Geck’s recitation threshold, causing him to tell Austin to cool down for a bit. He definitely cooled down, introducing Pat to the gag as well.

     “I still don’t get it,” Aika said.

     “Well, you don’t need to. Don’t corrupt her mind,” Basti said.

     Marise came back from the clinic.

     “Hey guys, what’s so funny?” she asked.

     Jasvir showed her another version.

     Marise read it as she sat down. After a while, she finally got it and burst into laughter. Sr. Geck looked at them in curiosity.

     Austin, Marise, Jasvir, and Pat began spoofing songs with Mike Hawk like “Baby” becomes “Mike Hawk”, the lyrics “you are the only exception” became “Mike Hawk is the only exception” and so on.

     This continued until the end of the day. Austin managed to turn the whole thing around.

     DDN arrived early and he was able to talk to the guys.

     “Austin, I regret to inform you that our comrade, Ernst De Vera,” Bianca started, “is now a Gleek.”

     “No I am not!” Ernst said

     “Oh, dude! You guys didn’t watch Kick-A*s?”

     “Nope, someone brought the Season 1 Boxset of Glee and we had a Glee marathon on the bus.”

     “I pity you guys. Anyway, how about that story?”

     “No, Austin.”
     “As friends! No secrets, come on!”

     “It’s for your own good,” Ernst said.

     “Fine, let’s play this game long enough until we are all… gone.”

     Austin teleported to his room in frustration.

 

Wednesday was a free day. Austin watched Amadeus and discovered a newfound appreciation for classical music.

 

This definitely manifested on Thursday where Austin listened to it in the morning. He was able to sense people coming from a mile away so he could put them away anytime.

     Austin got increasingly pissed off at Ernst, Bianca, Nica, and yes, even Janella for keeping this relatively small secret into the “Big secret” category. There was absolutely no reason for them to keep it and yet, they still did.

     During Lunch, Bianca finally pitied Austin enough to give in.

     “Fine, bro, if it means so much to you, I’ll tell you.”
     “Really?”
     “No. I mean yes, I will.”

     “Bianca,” Ernst started, “this could jeopardize the entire universe.”
     “Shut up, Chin-azoid. Anyway, it is called ‘Singsing ng Utak Mo’”

     This literally meant “Ring of your Mind’

     “There were two lovers name Austin and Janella, DDN’s request, they have been together for 11 years, seven of them engaged. One week before the marriage, they were on a date in a small canoe in a lake. Janella asked Austin if he really wanted to do this and he said yes. She took off the ring and threw it into the lake and called the wedding off.

     “A few weeks later, his best friend, Ernst visited him and asked him if he was okay. He was sad so he invited him to go fishing. It was the same lake. They caught a bunch of fish and cooked them. When they were eating, Austin bit into something hard.”

     “The engagement ring?”

     “Everyone thought that too,” Ernst said.

     “I’m telling this story, Chin-huahua. Anyway, everyone was mistaken. It was just a fishbone. And that was the end.”

     Austin was silent for a while.

     “Well, that was a relatively poorly told story. “

     Austin feared that this story might subconsciously affect their relationship.

     Nothing else interesting happened that day. Austin rode in a transport car on the way back pumping Ode to Joy at full volume.

 

The next day was the first day of October. There was a rosary program that morning where the entire high school department prayed the rosary together. Some of them weren’t exactly praying so Sr. Jojo made a sign saying “Louder” on one side and “Pls. Reflect” on the other and showed it around.

     They also had a seminar on the rosary afterwards. Once again, Austin was beside Janella who was beside Mo-on. Austin decided to give her another origami flower, this time a rose. She thanked him again.

     “So, what’s your favorite movie?” he asked.

     “Umm… I don’t know.”

     “Come on, you gotta have a favorite movie.”

     “I can’t think of one.”
     “I ought to convert you into a movie nerd… if you’d allow me of course.”
     “I don’t know if I’d have the time.”
     During Lunch, it was the usual routine.

     “I don’t know what’s wrong with us…”

     “It’s gonna be fine.” Ernst said.

     “Who asked for your opinion?” Bianca said.

     “THAT’S IT!”

     The entire table became silent.

     “I’m tired of your disrespect!” Ernst said to Bianca.

     “Ernst... calm down! Jeez…” Bianca said.

     “You have the balls to say that to me?!”

     “Actually I�"“

     Austin switched to Aerokinesis and released Laughing Gas at the table, cooling everyone down.

     “That’s the new chill pill guys,” Austin said. “Let’s keep this nice and peaceful.”

     Ernst and Bianca didn’t talk to each other for the rest of the day as far as Austin knew since they were a classroom apart.

     During Math time, Sr. Alan was observing Sr. Geck’s class so Austin’s recitation kind of lowered.

     He tried to seek comfort in conversation. Jasvir and Austin were becoming pretty good friends but he was busy doing algebra at this point.

     “Hey, Marise, need help?”

     “No, it’s understandable. Why?”

     “I need to talk about something, anything, umm…”

     “How about Mike Ha�"“

     “Something this group hasn’t talked about yet.”

     “Oh…”

     “Hey, about the TWP... You mentioned you were a member once, right?”

     “Yeah. What about it?”

     “Well, I was kinda wondering if you knew the start of it all.”

     “I don’t think anyone knows who started it. It was just there. People started joining until it got real big. After a while… I quit, the group got bigger and… here we are now.”

     That was only a shortened version of the full tale since the full tale was quite long and they had a lot of time after all. It was quite an interesting and epic story.

     “That’s interesting and kind of epic for a simple group in a batch.”
     “I know right?”

     “I better try to overflow Sr. Geck’s recitation threshold. Thanks for the info.”

     “No prob,” she said.

     Austin raised his hand to answer and screwed up badly due to Sr. Alan staring straight into his soul.

     “Don’t worry, Austin. We all make mistakes,” Sr. Geck said.

     After the class, he went to Sr. Geck apologize for the screw up.

     “I’m sorry. I mean, he was staring at my soul and I couldn’t think straight.”

     “Austin, Austin, it’s okay. It’s understandable what happened. Everyone slips up once in a while.”
     Sr. Geck walked away and he sat back down for another boring AP period.

     English was a bit more interesting. They were in the AVR and were talking about Japanese culture. They got to the topic of the Geisha where Sean was immediately a victim of…

     “GEISHAWN!”

     “Hahaha… very funny.”

     “Hahaha!”the class said.

     “Here’s another one,” Austin whispered to Ibarra and Marise. “Prostitu-sean.”

     “HAHAHA!” They laughed. Marise reiterated it to Sean.

     “AUSTIN!” Sean said.

     “What?”

     “Nothing, just kidding.”
     “Hahaha! Geishawn is a professional at Prostitu-sean!” Owen said.

     “Go Owen, keep on going,” Sean said. Austin noticed now that Sean was really cool. He knew how to keep his cool in these situations.

    

They had another contest that Saturday. Austin arrived and much his surprise, Ivan was there.

     “What are you doing here?” Austin asked.

     “I’m in the speech choir. Ms. Sharon recommended me so… Yeah…”

     Ms. Rose and Sr. Geck were also there.

     “Sr. Geck? Is Sr. Alan here?”

     “No. I represent Math. You have a problem with that?”
     “No, sir, I was just curious,” Austin said as a reflex action to Sr. Geck’s unsurprisingly surprising response.

     They went all the way to De La Salle Canlubang for the Interschool SciMath Challenge.

     There were a lot of them, presumably due to the Speech Choir. Sr. Dan, the Subject Area Coordinator for the English Department, sadly cannot be there.

     Austin was in the SciMath Quizbee with Ate Christel Jimenez and Ate Frances Vista (President of the current Student Council).

     They watched the opening performance and went off in their own ways. Austin and his teammates went to the auditorium.

     He spent the waiting time listening to Mozart while answering the questions. Sr. Geck demanded he take off the earphones but Austin asked nicely to help him focus. He got 90% of the questions right. Unfortunately, it was the elementary quiz bee but it was still a nice exercise.

     “Austin, you really should stop listening to that and rest your mind. When you get there and your mind only on music, you know what that’ll mean.”

     “Don’t worry, sir. I’m listening to Mozart. If babies get smarter by listening to him, I can’t imagine why I can’t.”

     It was time. Austin went to the table with his teammates, to seniors. He said his prayers.

     He didn’t expect to answer many questions but again, he surprisingly answered more than he expected. In the end, they got the silver medal.

     Ms. Rose wasn’t there so Sr. Geck took the honor to put the medals on them.

     “Thanks, sir,” Austin whispered when he put the medal on him. “And we better thank Mozart.”

     Sr. Geck smiled at this and they smiled for the camera.

     Austin thanked God, Mozart, and last but not least, his inspiration. Last time he only got her a bronze. Now he got her a silver.
     He spent the rest of the time waiting in the Seton room (Room 7C). The speech choir was rehearsing. Fatima Vista (Ate Frances’ little Sister, a junior) was asking about Austin’s lucky one, jokingly claiming it’s her. Austin didn’t tell her her name but Maan did.

     A bunch of the guys in military costumes were walking around the campus pretending to hold someone hostage. “Ms. Righteous” Jasmin Buensalida was there as well.

     Austin walked around with Ivan first then Rudi-Anne, talking about random stuff like school, how Mozart helped earlier, and his favorite topic as of the moment, love.

     Finally, the speech choir had their time to shine. They were really good.

     The awarding ceremony finally came and they came in second place only short of a hundred points to none other than San Beda. They must’ve gotten their revenge from last time.

     They went home and it was just another day for Austin. He told his friends about the victory and they had a small celebration at the lobby that night for their victory (Ivan and the other members of the speech choir got third place)..

     Ernst and Bianca seemed to have made up since they were back to normal but his mind was on other things. How were they going to destroy the Mastermind’s base, let alone the Mastermind himself? They barely had a plan…