Silence filled the mess hall once again. Security personnel at the entranceway to the cafeteria gripped their weapons but didn't point it at Luke yet. Luke would've been impressed at the fact that he was able to add some more range onto his powers right there, but he was too furious to pay any attention to that.

"You have the balls to make fun of a kid from behind a crowd? If you got something to say about him, you say it to my face, you hear me?" Luke was struggling to contain his anger. He didn't like anyone being teased because of who they were: gay, straight, mentally handicapped, male, female, black, Latino, white, Asian, Catholic, Muslim, Jewish...

In the end, everyone deserves respect.

Then a Tempest student stood up covered in all black. He walked over towards Luke, and Luke thought he was about to be apprehended and sent to the Dean's office.

As the student got closer, Luke swore if a koala bear could look like a human, it'd look like this guy. He had a fuzzy black beard, puffy caramel cheeks, wore shades inside a building, and had a turtleneck that looked like it belonged in the late 20th century.

The Tempest student got within an eyelash of his face and said very slowly, "RE—TARD."

Luke took a deep breath. The voice sounded familiar. "Victor?"

"That's right you little pretentious snot." Victor poked his finger into Luke's chest, and it felt like a drill. "Don't you forget who saved your ass from those Aeria that would've had their way with you if it weren't for me."

"If I recall correctly," Luke thought back to when he was heading to the camp with Kevin. "It was Sirius who saved me. Now, which do you prefer." Luke held up both of his hands. "Shock or burn?"

Victor reached for his side where his slingshot was stowed. "I'll teach you to respect your elders you little snot."

"That's enough," a third voice came in-between them. Soon, they were being separated by two hands.

"Kevin?" Luke said. "Where have you been?"

"Busy," he said. "But I see you're getting along with everyone just fine."

"Get out of here Hernández," Victor said. "Go back to failing your job at tower duty."

"Failure is you with that slingshot Victor," Kevin pointed at the thing. "You're playing the whole David versus Goliath card very well. But if you honestly believe you look intimidating with that, then I would question your own mental capabilities before you go around diminishing others."

"Don't start," Victor said without much of a comeback.

"Then don't get me started," Kevin said. "Sit down."

"Yeah," Luke added.

Kevin turned on Luke. "And Mr. I'll look like a hero if I stand up for this poor defenseless kid. You're feeding your own self-worth. In the end, you're standing up for the kid only because you don't want to end up as friendless as him."

"Yeah," Victor added with a smirk.

"Now, both of you, go sit down. I don't want to have to drag this out and involve the Dean."

Victor just chuckled. "This ain't over. I'll see you during training."

The church bells chimed signaling the end to lunch and Victor disappeared amongst a crowd of boys who got up to toss their food away.

Kevin was swept away in the crowd, and Luke barely had a chance to talk to him further.

"Real smooth," Sirius chuckled.

"At least I stood up for him," Luke muttered but immediately regretted it. He didn't want to take out his frustration on his roommate too.

"There are other ways you can stand up for a person. How about just trying to be his friend?"

"And where has that gotten him?"

"I didn't see anyone else calling him names besides Victor," Sirius pointed out. "No one chanted with Victor. It shows not everyone agrees with him." Sirius turned to Alpha and tapped him on the shoulder. "Ready to go to class bud?"

Alpha nodded and devoured the last few nuggets on his tray. "The camel tasted better than the yak."

"Of course it did. Secret Agent Yak was smelly," Sirius laughed.

Sirius walked with Alpha out of the lunch room and was soon joined by a couple of other people who were talking to Sirius and was giving Alpha high-fives.

Luke thought Sirius had the easier job. He got to just be friends with Alpha while Luke had to defend him. Either way, he didn't have to deal with the two of them during his next class.

For his Speaking in Tongues class, Luke elected to choose Spanish. He started taking Spanish in college after four years of Latin in a Catholic high school. He felt learning a dead language was useless, especially since all they did was translate old works. He wished he had taken something like Mandarin, French, or at least Spanish. He had a last name that was Spanish, and people assumed he spoke the language, but he grew up with a white dad and a Vietnamese father. Only English was spoken in the house.

After Spanish class, he reconvened with both Alpha and Sirius at the Iumenti 101: God's Dangerous Creatures class. Sirius was studying Latin, which Luke made known was useless until Sirius said it's the mother language of all the Romance languages: Spanish, French, Italian, Catalan, and Romanian—all of which Sirius apparently spoke a decent amount of.

Alpha was taking a reinforced English class to help him improve his vocabulary. Maybe soon he'll use insults more sophisticated than poo-poo heads.

"Alright everyone take your seats, I don't want to have to say it again," said a man with a British accent. He had caramelized onion skin. His hair fluttered between black and white. He was skinny and had a good-sized mole on the corner of his chin.

"For those of you who are new," he said without looking particularly at Luke. "My name is Mr. Fillay."

Like a Filet-O-Fish, Luke thought.

"And this is Iumenti 101, where we'll learn about extremely powerful creatures God created just to show his might. If you slack off in my class because you think this is a fun and easy class, I'll cut your testicles off and hang them around your neck. Is that clear?"

After seeing Mr. Faustin fling two students from a classroom, Luke believed Mr. Fillay would actually make someone a eunuch for failing his tests.

This should be fun.