"Mally... what have you done?" Lucas said, dumbstruck, watching with wide eyes at the chaos around.
Benjamin and William were looking at each other, laughing in disbelief. Ray was spinning his head back and forth, his mouth hanging, shocked by the whole situation. David was smiling, mumbling to himself, covering his face.
Malakai brushed off Dillon's hands. Dillon's grip on his collar loosened as soon as the chaos started. He glanced over at his friends, his expression clearly showing he knew he fucked up badly. He looked at the scene around and could see people looking at him with frightened eyes.
Malakai raised his arms with open palms,
"I WAS JOKING! I WAS JOKING! I DON'T HAVE A GUN! IT'S FINE!" he shouted, scrambling to sort out the gigantic mess he'd caused.
His attempt was useless. The screams drowned out his voice. Malakai, raising his arms, made it worse.
At this point, even Dillon was sick of this. He didn't want to deal with this anymore, so he slumped back in his seat, crossing his arms.
From this interaction alone with Malakai, he knew he was not serious. It was the total opposite of how he'd expect a student would act here at this academy. Dillon wanted to establish a powerful, strong image early on. He got ahead of himself when he heard the different accent and started picking on Malakai instantly, which was clearly the wrong move.
At least now he knew who Malakai was. Despite looking like a kid, he couldn't be easily intimidated into being an errand boy. And this academy was different from what he thought.
Meanwhile, Malakai had a hand on his head, "fuck... what did I do?" he mumbled.
"THAT'S ENOUGH! CALM DOWN, CALM DOWN!"
A voice shouted down the aisle of the hall and echoed around the walls. Much louder than Malakai's halfhearted shouting attempts.
"NO MORE SHOUTING! EVERYTHING IS FINE!"
Everyone's attention shifted to the figure walking down the aisle. A tall blonde woman who looked to be in her early thirties walked down the middle of the hall in a suit.
Her heels thumped against the floor with every step she took. As she kept walking past rows of students, they slowly took their seats and cowered in them, avoiding any interaction with her.
The woman instantly knew who the orchestrator of this mess was as she watched this whole thing unfold before her. Keeping her stern straight face, she locked eyes with Malakai.
Malakai was the only person still standing. Everyone else was seated as if nothing had happened. He was tempted to look away, but he couldn't because he didn't know where else to look. It felt like he was maintaining eye contact for hours. It was that uncomfortable for him.
All the scared students before were secretly excited now. They were eager to see what was going to happen next.
Eventually, she reached Malakai's row. Malakai was sitting in the middle of the row, so the positioning was already awkward.
"Come here and bring your bag," she ordered, gesturing with her index finger.
Malakai bit his tongue and kept his mouth shut. He picked up his bag and just accepted it.
He carefully stepped over everyone's legs. His friends tried to further embarrass him by tripping him up as he went past them. Fortunately for him, he avoided their legs and got out of the row. Out of the row, he was standing in front of the lady.
He handed her his bag, "There's nothing in my bag. It was just a joke," he said, doing his best not to smile.
The lady gave him an ice-cold stare, clearly not finding the joke funny and unzipped his bag. She started rummaging through like she knew there wasn't an AK-47 in there. It was like she was looking for something else. All she found was the usual stuff you'd see in a student's bag until she spotted a bottle. She pulled it out, revealing a pink coloured drink.
She spun the bottle around, looking at it, confused.
"KA fruit punch?" she read, unfamiliar with the drink.
At this point, she thought she grasped the situation in her head. She thought Malakai was taking the piss and trying to play on words, as AK and KA are just a switch of letters.
Malakai's mouth opened, and his eyes widened. He totally forgot he bought his favourite drink today. At that instance, he saw an opportunity and smiled. Everyone was confused in the room as they'd never seen this drink in their life as it was sold in the UK. Malakai wanted to seize this opportunity and do what he does best, take the piss. He slowly turned to his friends, started rubbing the back of his head and said,
"Lads, I think I might be dyslexic".
The people around him, already confused, looked at him, questioning if something was wrong with him. Was this guy crazy?
"You do not have dyslexia", William quickly said.
"How'd you know?" Malakai returned.
"You're too smart" Lucas butted in.
"Well, I can identify as dyslexic", Malakai replied.
"No, you can't", Benjamin commented.
"Bro it's 2023. I can identif-".
"I'm sorry, miss, he won't do it again," Malakai was cut short. Before he could finish his sentence, David stood up, who was at the end of the row, and spoke. David looked into the woman's eyes with a serious look to show he was not encouraging his friend's actions.
"I was being serious", Malakai said in a lower tone. David gave Malakai a death stare. Malakai quickly took a salute position and said,
"Yes sir", he somehow, in this situation, took the piss.
All this happened while the lady stood with the drink and Malakai's bag. She was confused, just like everyone else. She thought she handled that well and hit the nail on the head with the boy's intentions, even though she got it completely wrong.
"Ahem, okay. Make sure you don't cause any more trouble in this assembly. This is just a warning", the woman said, struggling to find the right words and trying to articulate herself professionally. Her head was all over the place, as this TV show-like scenario had never happened to her before. She zipped up Malakai's bag and gave it back to him. "I'll be taking this drink; make sure I don't see it again."
"Nooo, my favourite drink". He whined
The lady started walking back down the hall while Malakai stood in the middle of the hall. He looked around and saw everyone looking at him like he was an idiot. He smiled and returned to his seat, satisfied.
On the other side of the room, two guys watched on.
"What'd you think? Will he be a problem?".
The other guy kissed his teeth and continued to face forward. "No. He looks like an idiot and acts like one. If anything, this is good. There are idiots all around us. Nothing to worry about."
A few rows behind them, two girls also watched on.
"Well, that was something. What an idiot. Does he think that was funny? He looks annoying", the girl rolled her eyes and stopped looking in Malakai's direction. The other girl continued to stare, lost in thought. "Hellooo? Are you daydreaming". Her friend asked.
"No, no. I was… thinking", she replied
"Waaiit, do you like him?", she teased.
"No! I was just confused. I've never seen anything like that before", she tried to convince her friend. Her friend looked at her, not believing her. "Why are you like this!? You say this about every guy I look at", she complained.
"I was joking, I'm sorry. I was just teasing you. It's fun teasing you and seeing you embarrassed", she said while pulling her cheek. Her friend couldn't help but start smiling, reluctantly accepting her apology, which she'd heard a thousand times before.
This stunt by Malakai caught the attention of many people across the room, potential friends, foes, rivals, who knows? Was this Malakai's intention? Well, he got eyes on him, which was his primary goal.
8:43 AM.
A tall white man who looked like he was in his mid-forties appeared on the stage. After an eventful morning, the assembly was about to start. Everyone already looked drained; by what? You can try to figure it out, but they were ready for the assembly.
"Well, that was quite the start. In my eight years of teaching here, I've never seen something so chaotic in the introductory assembly. The most we've had is someone come late and disrupt my speech", he said while looking at the sea of new students.
"I'm not disappointed, by the way. If anything, I'm happy I got to see something different for a change, and we've got one person to thank".
He raised his arms and gestured to Malakai. Malakai, being the troll he is, started turning his head left and right, acting like he was looking for someone and wasn't the one getting pointed at. The man smiled.
"Anyways, welcome to Astral Academy. We are all glad to have you here and excited to see what you achieve. My name is Mr White, and I am the principal". He then started slowly walking around the stage.
"I won't go into too much detail on what you should expect; I'll save that to your teachers when you reach your classrooms. But I will highlight some important information that you will need to know. So, as you may know, this academy is not like an ordinary school. All of you here will be around the age range of 18-20, so normally, you would either be going to a college or university and working towards a degree". He stopped walking and returned to the centre.
"However, you saw this opportunity and achieved it by enrolling at this academy. Before I continue, I am proud of all of you here today. Getting through the application phase and being accepted isn't something someone can brush past. You've all done extremely well to get here. Now, all of you here are students, but in reality, you are all competitors. You are all working towards the same thing, and that is to be number one."
Students were looking at each other, sly glances, side-eyes. For the students, it was impossible not to look at each other.
"These three years teach you a lot, so even if you don't turn out at the top, you can go into the real world with new skills and valuable experiences, so you are not left empty-handed. But being here, I know you all applied because you saw the perks of being the winner". He smiled and laughed a little.
"I know you all saw the hundred thousand dollar cash prize", he said while waving his fingers towards the students. Students started to smile, and their eyes lit up.
"BUT, it's not only the money you will be awarded. You will be given a ray of opportunities at big companies that will need your knowledge and skill set, which you would have acquired if you turn out on top".
The students were sitting up, anticipating what the principal would say next. They were all fired up; some wanted to start right away. Mr White smirked.
"I can see you all excited now. Well, don't worry, you have three years. This year is not useless, but try to get used to the school and how things work. Don't slack off too much. This year is preparation for the next two years, but it is also important as it may be the difference in getting that number one spot", he looked at the students, noticing some of them were losing focus and just wanted to get started.
"I'm nearly finished, just a few things before I let you go. All of you have been given a phone. This is a specialised phone that is used for this academy. It can do whatever a normal phone can: add contacts to message your classmates or teachers, post pictures on social media, and watch videos. A message has all been sent telling you what class you will be in. There should also be a map on your phone showing you the layout of the academy, so I don't want any excuses for being late because you were lost. The phone will have everything you need for your studies, like your timetable, notifications for homework, assignments dates and exam dates. In short, this phone will be your best friend if you want to succeed. That's all from me. Welcome to Astral Academy, and we are all delighted to have you here. Best of luck to all of you."
Claps roared around the hall. Mr White left the stage, and a pinging sound echoed around the hall. All the students looked at their phones, and it was a notification telling them their class and the time of the lesson. Everyone looked at each other, waiting for someone to make the first move.
"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR GET TO YOUR CLASS!" Yelled a teacher.
Many students stood up in an instant, and the rest followed. Everyone started making their way out of the hall via different exits, and you would have thought it would have been messy with the number of students, but everyone left in an orderly fashion.
"THAT MEANS YOU LOT TOO!" The teacher yelled again, looking towards the upper floor.
"Well, that's our signal to go", Leon said in a deadbeat voice. Leon, Chloe and Richard started to leave while Micheal, who looked stuck in the moment, was still leaning on the balcony.
"Yo, Micheal, let's go", Richard called out. Micheal stayed there, completely ignoring Richard. "This guy. I'm leaving, I'm not turning up late because of him again". Richard annoyingly said, walking away.
Chloe kept on looking at Micheal. "You two go ahead, we'll catch up later". Chloe said. Richard rolled his eyes and quietly went with Leon. Chloe walked towards Micheal and copied his position, leaning on the balcony.
"Sooo, what'd you think? Think they'll be good?" Chloe asked.
Micheal smiled. "Heh, Who knows? Only time can tell", Micheal replied. Micheal stood up and stretched as if he sat in an office chair for several hours. He turned his back to Chloe and started walking away. He then said,
"Maybe things will be different this year. It might not be so bad after all".