Normal Colored Bread/PartOne/BlurbSix

Just then, a loud bell sounded. A robotic-sounding voice came from the intercom, blaring "ALL STUDENTS REPORT TO FIFTH PERIOD, ALL STUDENTS REPORT TO FIFTH PERIOD"

The three of us looked at each other as if we didn't know what the fuck was going on. "You guys should get to your fifth period classes," the Captain suggested, "I'll stay here and see what I can figure out about this place."

"I have biology fifth period," Sarah said. None of us liked biology.

Hanson retorted, "I hated biology. I barely passed it, too. Although you do get to dissect a pig at the end of the year. That part was fun. Chemistry's even worse, though. I can't get stoichiometry. Oh well... Hey, wait, Tanmuk and I have Air Force Junior ROTC fifth period!"

Sarah asked, "Why the hell does Subpar have an ROTC course anyway? It's not like this is the United States of America... or is it. Well, better get going!" She went to biology class.

"I forged this note that will hopefully get me out of doing anything vaguely related to the military," I told Hanson while holding up a piece of paper I pulled out of my pocket. "Of course, my parents will sign anything I tell them to, but I was bored so I taught myself how to forge my father's signature."

"Our Instructor, Major Prick, is, well, a major prick," said Hanson bitterly. "I don't even know if that signature will get you anywhere. You can try, though, I guess."

That said, I found myself presenting the note to a stiff, uptight military man, who barked at me, "NICE TRY, MAGGOT! GET INTO FORMATION WITH EVERYONE ELSE! FLIGHT, TENCH-HUT!" I got into the formation with everyone else, arms pinned to my sides, staring straight forward.

The military man turned to face us. "GOOD MORNING, LADIES! I'M MAJOR ALEXANDER PRICK, BUT EVERYONE CALLS ME SIR! GOT THAT?"

No one said anything.

"I'M WAITING!"

"Yes sir," came a very weak response.

"WHAT WAS THAT?"

"Yes sir!" the formation shouted back at Major Prick, who was still unsatisfied.

While this was going on, a soft voice whispered to me, "Hi." I turned slightly (so as not to tip off Prick) to face a girl with brown hair standing next to me. There was something about this girl, but Prick's constant shouting distracted me too much for me to dwell on it. "I'm Mallory Tenor", she said breathlessly. "I'm a sophomore."

"I'm a newbie," I said. "My name is Nathan Tanmuk. I'm a freshman. It's nice to meet someone who's not overly weird."

Her soft voice grew quieter. "It's nice to meet you too. What do you think of Subpar so far?"

"This school is fucked up, to be honest," I replied. "Hey, you look beat up or something. What's wrong?"

A shocked expression came into her eyes, which were dazed enough to begin with. "Oh, nothing. I just woke up with blood all over me about an hour ago. Apparently I disappeared over the night and ended up in the gym in a puddle of blood. But it's all OK now! There's definitely no otherwordly conspiracy going on here at Subpar! Everything here's normal! Normal as uncolored bread!"

I stood there dumbfounded. "Are you trippin off acid or something, Mallory? Someone tried to kill you, and you act like everything is normal? What kind of insane maniac would write a story like this?!"

"No, I think I'm fine," Mallory replied, still staring at me with those eyes that look almost hypnotized. "There's definitely nothing weird about getting the shit beaten out of you in a gym at night. No, nothing wrong with that at all."

"Mallory -"

"Oh, there you are, Mallory!", an obnoxiously familiar voice yelped. We turned to see Hannah Donnelly coming up. "I'm going to take you to your next class! Isn't that wonderful?" She had this sickeningly jolly smile that was obviously artificial. "Who's that guy over there?" she asked, motioning towards me. Obviously she was hiding something, as we had met earlier at breakfast. What a bitch.

"This is Nathan Tanmuk," Mallory said, apparently under some kinda spell.

"Yeah, well, anyway, we have to go." Donnelly led Mallory to wherever her next class was.

I stood there, pondering. Obviously Donnelly was part of some massive conspiracy, and had brainwashed Mallory to follow her around all the time, even as she made an attempt on her life. Somehow this tied in with the CATS thing on Kappasphere. Was Donnelly one of the agents sent by CATS? Or was Donnelly simply a pawn of another?

"'Lo, Tanmuk. 'Sup?" Hanson came up and flashed a thumbs up in my face. I pushed it away. "I saw you talking while Prick was shouting at us. What was going on?"

"Oh," I replied. "Well, I met a girl who was beaten up in the gym." I lowered my voice in case CATS's spies were around us, which was highly unlikely (yet possible). "I think she was brainwashed. By Hannah Donnelly. I think she has something to do with CATS." We arranged to meet at the front of the building at seventh period. For some reason, they canceled seventh too. Maybe that had something to do with the conspiracy too.

I sat through sixth period listening to a professor talking about technology. Yawn. Engineering class was the pits. I spent the time pondering on the stuff I had absorbed so far. A holographic space captain had traveled through a dimensional rift to tell us to save his world... a cyborg named CATS had taken control of that world and was gunning for ours... we had somehow ended up with futuristic Izwzyzxian-style technology... our Student Council President (who was also involved in some way with this evil cyborg dude) had tried to murder a fellow student in cold blood... It made no fucking sense whatsoever.

The bell rang suddenly, relieving me of my train of thought. I picked up my backpack and rushed out to meet Sarah and Hanson. They were already out there, their presence made so much more sinister by the presence of dark lightning clouds above. We were scared shitless. I mean, we were dragged into some epic interdimensional battle we really should have no part of? What the fuck?

"Keith filled me in during Basic YTMND Design 101," Sarah whispered. "What do we do now?"

"We must find out about Donnelly's involvement in all this," I said grimly. "She is the key. Through her we can discover just how far CATS's conspiracy network goes. We must find out why she targeted Mallory. And we must do this all without her knowledge."

"But how, Nathan?", asked Sarah. "Can we trust anyone at Subpar?"

"Mallory," I replied. "She'll tell us anything. I mean, she's trippin off so much acid she can't be trusted to keep any secrets."

"Let's go get dinner," Hanson suggested. "I'm hungrier than Ugoff right now."

"You idiot," I teased, raising an eyebrow, "we have food in the dorm room."

"Yeah, I suppose so," he stammered. "Let's go see the Captain. He needs to know about all this."

That said, we proceeded to Pirate House. The Captain looked bored. He listened as he played with the nigritude ultramarine holographic projector.

"It seems, then," the Captain said, "that Mallory was targeted for a reason. Donnelly was made her roommate and acted as a spy to keep her in check, and acted when she recieved her orders. But who could be giving these orders...?"

"CATS?" I suggested.

"No, CATS wouldn't act directly through a seventeen-year-old girl. One of his lieutenants has to be here. Hm... Did you say Mallory was in a daze?"

"Daze?" I replied. "Daze? She completely lost her marbles!"

"She may have been put through a mind wipe," the Captain posited. "This would mean that CATS has given her mind technology. She may even possess a CATSian Mind Scanner, which would allow her to read minds."

"Read... minds?" I asked. "Does this mean...?"

"No," the Captain reassured us. "The nigritude ultramarine will repel such attempts to invade your brain. Rest assured, as long as you have me here, you are perfectly safe from CATSian mind haxorz."

"So that's why she's so suspicious of us!" Hanson exclaimed. "The nigritude ultramarine repels her Mind Scanner! She knows we possess tech from the future."

"Exactly," the Captain said. "She probably figured out that we're on the opposing team, too. She would have known if we were on CATS's side. There's something about Mallory too... maybe she possesses Izwzyzxian tech as well, and this worries CATS."

"But that brings us back to the question: Who is Hannah working for?" pondered the Captain.

"CATS?" I suggested again, oblivious to the fact that I had already suggested that CATS might have been giving her orders.

"As I told you before, it has to be one of CATS's lieutenants," sighed the Captain doggedly. "But come on, please tell me more about her."

"She's a bitchy foo," grimaced Hanson. "And apparently, she's working for some nastier foo. What else do you need to know?"

"Hm, you have a point," said the Captain. "Her hairstyle and the color of her eyes have nothing to do with anything. She's still on CATS's side."

I remembered something. "What the fuck about that prophecy? Did you really make it up?"

The Captain sighed again. "No, actually, my Operator recieved it in a comlink. We honestly don't know where it came from."

"Is it possible", butted in Hanson, "that CATS knows this prophecy too and is using Hannah (or whatever foo she's working for) to get rid of us as the beginning of the plot to take over our world?"

"Yes," said the Captain, "but the prophecy isn't all we have. I told my good friend Colonial Man in the Kappasphere to look for other things that might help us. He might just help us get in the right direction."

"A direction would be nice," I said excitedly, "but we'll win no matter what, because I'm fucking awesome and so are all of you."

"It's good to be an optimist," said the Captain, "If we were all pessimists we would have to make our time pretty quickly. Anyway, what are we all going to do?"

"Spy on Donnelly," Hanson exclaimed. "I want to get her back for all the mean things she's said about me. Maybe I'll actually get to steal her bike."

"I think we should try to protect Mallory," said Sarah. "She seems to be an important figure in all of this."

"You guys do that," agreed the Captain. "Nathan, you should observe both of them. Perhaps we'll discover the other agents of the CATSian network inside Subpar. Besides, you need something to do."

I nodded my head in assent. I glanced over at Hanson, and noticed that he was prepared to take names and pity foos, as usual. Sarah shared Hanson's determination, but she was probably just weirded out over all the funny shit that's going on. I think we all wondered whether or not we were on some strong stuff. In any event, I was glad I had something to do besides homework and Ninja Pirate Robot Assault 5: A Dash of Ninja with a Sprinkle of Pirate and a Quart of Robot for Flavoring. Here at Subpar, I could kick major ass and actually prove that I am awesome. And maybe, just maybe, I could finally become a true Knight who says Meh...

Sarah left soon after, and Hanson stayed up all night reading some book. I took a cue from him and knowing that I would not fall asleep so easily with so much on my mind, I turned off the lamps, opened up my backpack, and lain back on my bed.

Slowly but steadily, I removed my Epsilon from the backpack. I pushed the start button on the front, holding the handheld in the mightiest of grips. The Epsilon had been my dearest friend for many years and had entertained me for many long nights. Besides, I had too much on my mind... I had to get it out as fast as I could.

That said, I pulled back on my bed and sliced through an incoming Ninja Pirate Robot on my game. The drops of virtual Ninja Pirate Robot oil-blood that fled the vanquished enemy reawoke a deep love of GAMES, and I wasted no more time in owning more enemies. The ownage was wonderfully gratifying, and the few dead bodies became many, many more very soon. The entire level soon became covered with the gruesomely killed foes, and I found the greatest delight possible from the wonderful pointage I was racking up on my score meter. Sleep came eventually, but it was not until after I had repeatedly beaten level after level so that I could enjoy a new, incredible game (Ninja Pirate Robot Assault 6: The Quest To Find Titles For Sequels).

(tbd)