Project: High School

Chapter 1 - "What Did You Idiots Do?"

"Oi! Agent Grumpy!"

The red-head huff's and turns toward the speaker. "What do you want, Parker?"

"That's Agent Parker to you, dumb-ass." The dark-skinned man crosses his arms and gives the red-head a look and a grin.

She plants her fists on her hips, tilting her head up a little to look him dead in the eye. "Remind me, who's the Sergeant here?"

The man sighs, rubbing his forehead with two fingers. "Why are you always like this?"

"Answer the question, Parker."

"You are."

"You are...?" She pauses waiting for the man to fill in the blank.

"SERGEANT MAZE!"

Maze whirls around and snaps to attention, her hand shooting up to rest on her forehead in a salute. "SIR!"

"Glad you can hear me, Maze. Only took me five tries."

Maze's hand drops from a salute to rub the back of her neck sheepishly. She gives him a sheepish grin as well before her focus changes point.

Her brow furrows as she takes in the scene before her, two of her platoon members standing behind the Captain, both with bruises on their arms and one of them having a black eye.

"What do you need, sir?"

The man before her tenses slightly as Maze addresses him as "sir" before shaking his head and flashing her a grin. "You know, I doubt that I'll ever get used to you calling me 'sir' after so many years of it being the other way around."

Maze doesn't bother stopping a wide grin from appearing on her face. "You may not, but that's not gonna stop me. You worked hard for the shiny, and you were rewarded for it."

The man purses his lips as his eyes search her face for any signs of a lie, but finds none. He smirks before voicing his thoughts, "Your right, and I'm going to put this new power to good use. You are now to refer to me just as you used too."

Maze starts at this declaration, and stumbles over her words, "But, but, sir!?"

"That's an order, Sergeant."

Maze purses her lips, glaring at him for a few moments. He gives her a carefree look of triumph as she throws her arms up into the air as a sign of defeat. "Fine, fine. You win."

She rubs her face and looks back at him, her words interrupted by a yawn.

"I didn't realize that I'm the boring, Maze."

She shoots him a glare and jerks her thumb at the guys behind him, "What happened to them, Carlston?"

"They tried to start a fight in the Mess. Two others joined in. Their already dealing with their Instructor."

The crackling of Carlston's walk-talky stops Maze from making a sarcastic comment, and gives Carlston a reason for not having to oversee the recruits punishment.

"Their fate is up to you, Sergeant."

Maze gives him a nasty look, "You are so dramatic, Carlston. Its not like their going to die."

Carlston waves to Maze as he walks away, muttering under his breath. "You may not kill them, but they sure will wish that they had been."

The recruits stiffen with fear written on their faces as they process what he could have meant. Maze notices this fresh fear and chuckles to herself before looking the recruits over once more, reading their emotions.

"What did you idiots do?"

The sound of her voice snaps them back into reality, all their fear returning tenfold. The blonde opens his mouth to respond, but the other faints, the stress and fear apparently too much for him to handle.

Maze sighs, stepping over to the limp body and hoists him over her shoulder. As Blondie gapes at this small show of strength, Parker snickers and slaps the poor man on the back.

"Come on man, better get a move on. Don't want to be left behind, now do ya?"

Parker leads the man toward the barracks, where Maze already has entered. Once inside, Maze points to the Blondie, then points to the couch as if to say 'sit'. Blondie does as instructed and sits next to his buddy.

"So..." Maze looks over the two men, the one who fainted now awake, the front of his uniform dark from the water that was dumped over him, and the Blondie. "Tell me, what so moved you to try to start a fight in the Mess?"

Blondie's eyes widen as if he was just remembering what had happened. Surprisingly, his buddy was the one who answered Maze. "The two guys who the Captain said 'joined' into the fight were the reason we started the fight in the first place."

Maze's eyebrows shoot up her forehead, her arms crossing over her chest. "And why was that?"

He straightens, looking her straight on. "They insulted you. They insulted your rank and your..."

His voice dies off, showing the first signs of hesitation since he woke up. He looks down at his boots, as if their suddenly more interesting than the conversation. Maze crouches down in front of him and gently tilts his head up with two fingers. "And my..."

He gulps, trying at first to avoid eye contact, but gives it up and meets her steady gaze. "They insulted you, your rank and your, your Mother."

Maze freezes, her eyes going wide, her jaw dropping. Her eyes flutter shut for a second then snap back open as she takes a deep breath.

"What exactly...did they...say?" Her voice comes out shaking, though she doesn't bother trying to hide it.

"They said that you don't deserve to have a rank at such a young age, that you were given the rank because everyone felt bad for you, that you've never worked hard for anything cause it was all given to you."

Maze waves her hand in front of her face as if to brush the words away. "Yes, yes. All the normal comments about my rank and what I deserve."

She pauses when she sees how much her hands are shaking, just like they always do when her mother is brought up. She takes another deep breath and makes a fist with her hand. "But, I want to know what they said about...m--her"

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I am going to say this now before I forget, but I will most likely reuse some of the jokes I've used already because I have the memory of a fish and will forget which ones I've already used, so, sorry in advance.

Now, do you know where pirates get their hooks? They get them at the second-hand store.