Editing Warhammer High (section)

===Lunch With Cora===
The lunch bell rang and she gave in to defeat. The test had drained her completely and Cora knew she would come up short As disappointing as it was, her mood was further darkened when she realized she was the last student in the room, the rest having long finished and enjoying some free time. With a sigh she turned the test to the front page and verified her name was on it. She inspected her pencils and judged them to be too worn or chewed to be of any future use. Quietly gathering her things, she tried to let her mind drift to happier thoughts, but was brought crashing back to the fact she was now in peril of failing the class overall. Why couldn’t she just study and pass this like any other class? Why was she allowing herself such a dark spot on her, otherwise, clean record? Her melancholy was rising and she felt a small headache coming on. A tear gently rolled down her cheek, which she quickly dried. Fighting back any further tears, she realized it was wasting her time to just stand and stare at her desk. She brushed some eraser shavings into her hand and carried her test to the front of the classroom.  

Mr. Bile was dozing at his desk and for a fraction of a moment she considered something underhanded. Cheating wasn’t unheard of here, but still Cora pushed the thought aside. Deciding there was no reason to make it worse than it had to be she attempted to place her test and make a quiet escape before he awoke. Her effort was in vain, no sooner had the test hit the desk then the biology teacher stirred.

“Ah,” he yawned, “Finished at last! How did it go?”  His tone was, as ever, cheery and friendly, which seemed to make it all the more demeaning as Cora thought of it. Fearing how she might respond, she simply shook her head and continued to avoid meeting his eyes. Wasn’t it bad enough they replayed this scene nearly every test, she wondered, why does he expect her to change? Dropping the pencils and eraser bits into the trash she started to walk away from his desk, as he started paging through her test.

“I’m sorry,” she managed to say softly, as she placed her hand on the door handle, “I just don’t get it.”

“If you keep this up, we’ll have to take serious action,” he began, “I’m well within in rights to make recommendations. You might have to be suspended from your extra-curricular activities.” His face was no longer friendly, replaced by a serious expression with little empathy in it. Even though she had considered the possibility, the fact it was now being waved at her hit something deep within. She wanted to say how she would show them, that she would improve on her own, no matter the sacrifice and that they didn’t need to punish her. Yet, she felt more tears forming and she turned and left the classroom wordlessly, leaving the heavy atmosphere of the nearly empty room with tears on her cheeks.  Fabius Bile was left with the test and  set about to grade it. If she didn’t appreciate his warnings, he decided, she would understand the consequences.

Cora opened her locker and leaned inside, allowing her self to sob for a moment longer. Crying was no solution she knew, but it certainly seemed to be the most natural option at the moment. She dabbed her eyes with her sleeve and took a deep breath. Looking into her locker mirror she attempted to regroup herself. Her eyes focused on her pendant collar and she felt her mood turning. Finding a suitable thanks for Kiara would be a challenge, as she was notoriously hard to shop for. The problem swirled in her head as she finally pushed the test to the back of her mind. Improving her mood took a little effort, but Cora was proud that she could.  As if on cue, she felt a hand fall on her shoulder.  She opened the locker door further and caught the reflection in the mirror.

“Hey, Isis,” Cora smiled, “What’s up?”

“Nothing to much,” Isis said, as she leaned in close behind her. Their eyes caught as each of them looked into the mirror, their faces next to each other. “It seems as though one of my squaddies is having a hard time.” Isis brought her hand up, straightening one of Cora’s bangs and said, “A good captain always should keep up squad morale.”

Cora frowned, she had just gotten over this too. 

“I appreciate the offer,” she said, trying to hide her annoyance as she turned from the mirror to look at Isis’ face over her shoulder, “But, you should consider squad morale restored.”
“Until when?” Isis retorted, “Until they kick you off the team a handful of games from our championship?”

Cora felt a bit flush, but realized Isis wasn’t meaning malice. She sighed, “I suppose your right…”

“Come on, let’s discuss things over lunch.”

Cora relented and let herself be led to cafeteria. Being the peak of lunch, it was quite crowded and there was a great deal of activity. Farrah and Hana were having a discussion about gear drive balancers or something,  Victoria sat in the middle of her clique, apparently oblivious to Athena trying to get her attention, and then she spotted Freya and Remilia lunching with a few extra seats near them. Isis stepped into the food line and Cora motioned to where she was going to sit. Nodding, Isis turned and cursed something, apparently just realizing how long the line really was. Cora walked over and took a seat next to Freya, enjoying her home made lunch of a sizable magnitude. Despite some of her habitats, including her well known drinking, Freya was a bit of a health nut. Having grown up in a culture of binge drinking and near constant fast food when she was younger, but had taken a bit of a turn when her father went through a mild health crisis. She dove head first into healthier lifestyle, forcing her father to make some changes. How well he followed them was debatable, but he was too much of a softy for her to ever out rightly refuse.  Freya took a large bite from a delicious red apple and greeted Cora, with just little apple juice dribbling from the side of her mouth.

“’Sup, Cora? Bomb the test too?” she asked happily, already taking another bite.

“How did you guess?”  Cora asked as she sat down and opened her backpack.

“Eh, you seemed a bit more gloomier than your normal gloominess when you got your test.”

“I am not gloomy,” Cora tried to counter, she was more occupied with trying to find her lunch then defending herself.

Remilia chimed in, “That’s a pretty collar, where did you get it?” Freya looked up and tilted her head, before noticing Cora’s neck, apparently just seeing it. 

“Oh,” Cora giggled, “It was a gift from Kiara, she practically tackled me this morning to--” With a flash, her mind cut her off mid sentence and transferred her to mere hours ago as she was walking to school. Cora had just anticipated Kiara’s surprise attack and braced herself, one of her reactions being setting the small bag, with bagel lunch inside, carefully out of the way to avoid he foot movement as she flung Kiara with her own momentum. She had never bothered to pick it up. Now she was without a lunch. “Oh, no…” she said dejectedly.

“Not gloomy at all,” Freya quipped. Cora shot Freya a look but realized her eyes were closed. “Here,” she outstretched her hand, “Have an apple!”

Cora felt a bit guilty for having come so close to snapping at her, she was just being personable in her own way. With a short bow she thanked Freya and accepted the apple, realizing she was quite hungry, she guessed the test must of really drained her.

“How are you so happy, you probably failed too, right?”

“It’s just a test, besides, I earned enough extra credit with my ecology project that I can coast the rest of the quarter.”

“What happens then?”

“Then all the sports I care about are over and they really can’t do anything about it,” she said with a proud smile.

“Just enough to not get held back?” Remilia joked, pushing her finished tray to the side and leaning her head on her hand.  

“And not an effort more,” Freya concluded, still holding her proud expression. 

“I don’t think Freya’s master plan is a good guide for you,” Remilia turned to Cora, “But just remember the team is behind you.”

Cora smiled, “Thanks a lot.”

With her long-awaited lunch in hand, Isis joined the conversation sitting across from Cora. 

“And because of that,” Isis said straightly, “We want you to take a break from the team.”

Cora blinked, “What?” Isis’ face was serious and unmoving. She looked to Remilia, who tried diverting her eyes before giving her an empathetic nod. Freya seemed to be as surprised at Cora, albeit the sandwich in her mouth contorting her expression. “You can’t be serious. No way. Unacceptable.”

“It’s not a suggestion.”

“Yes, it is,” Remilia interrupted, with a more competent face. She ignored Isis‘ stare as she continued “The team wants to help you, but you have to be willing to show us you really care.”

“But,” Cora tried, “We’re just now starting the tournaments! I can’t just quit!”

“You don’t have to quit. You can still practice with us on the weekend, so you can keep up and you can support the team other ways. During the week has got to be your study time.”

Cora knew they were just trying to help, but she did not want to just give up, “Who would replace me?”

“We were thinking of moving Petra up--”

“And take away your backup as librero? We’ll be weak in the backcourt!”

“We could always try Furia,” Isis offered.

“She doesn’t play ‘low-contact’ sports, she’ll have a hard time too, because all of our opponents have been really focusing on my side. We need someone with experience--”

“I can make Furia an offer she can’t refuse,” Freya entered, “I could move to your spot, we put Furia in front of me, and the Golden Girl can easily pick up the slack on our side. Besides, it will give each of us a little breathing room from each other and we won’t fight over every volley…as much.”

“See,” Isis said, “We can cover for a few games, but we’ll need you down the stretch. I can’t risk losing you later, but I can compensate for now.”

“And you two,” Freya looked at Remilia and Isis, “When did the ‘team’ decide this? I don’t remember being asked.”

“We said there was a meeting, you said you had a party to get to and it could wait until tomorrow.”

“…Oh,” Freya slumped, “Sorry, Cora, I would of said something to make it easier…”

Cora was deep in thought, this was turning into some kind of day. A part of her wanted to believe it was all joke, another part angry that it had to be planned like some kind of conspiracy behind her back.

“Can I at least practice today?” she asked sadly, “I could kind of use the stress relief.”

“Fine,” Isis said, “but as your captain I want to remind you I’m looking out for the good of you and the team. Beat this problem with us, not against us.”

The school bell rang and lunch was starting to finish, Cora stood up

“Thanks for the apple Freya,” she paused, before looking at the others “And thanks for caring, I know it’s for the best, but I still think it sucks.”

“Noted, see you at practice.”

Cora walked away from the table and threw away her apple core.

Some kind of day.