Turns out, not only did was I in two of Cato’s classes, but I was also in the same lunch as him, which was very, very nice. As it turned out, he had changed a lot since I last saw him. He had managed to get a lovely girlfriend named Applejack or “Jackie” as he called her, and a supportive group of friends. Even more crazy, the nerd who was a top scoring student only because of how jacked the school system was back in Panem City was practically the social king of the school. When I asked him how he managed to do it, he looked at me with the thousand yard stare look and said this.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Jackie hugged him and kissed his cheek to make him feel better. I was about to ask more, but was interrupted by the sound of singing, just straight up lovely singing. I turned around and looked in the direction of where it was coming from. There stood Adagio and her sisters at the entrance to the cafeteria. As they sung though, something weird started to happen. Lots of kids began leaking green mist or some shit out of themselves which flowed into the sisters’ amulets. When they came back to consciousness, they started arguing with each other. For some reason, Cato, me, Applejack, Cato’s friend named Flash Sentry, and Applejack’s friends were not affected by it, but the others were.
“Cato, what in the hell is happening?” I asked him.
“One word, buddy: Magic. Bad Magic.”
I was in shock. Magic? Here? Are you kidding me? It didn’t seem like it could be possible. Three singing girls causing some sort of magic spell to make people argue with each other? It didn’t make any sense at all to me, so I, naturally, was confused as hell. The fact that I couldn’t stop staring at Adagio didn’t help. I mean seriously, there’s something about her, aside from her bad magic stuff, that makes her so attractive to me. I just don’t know what the hell it even is.
After class that day, I caught Cato as he was about to head out to the front door and yanked him to the side.
“What the hell- Urchin?!” he yelped, surprised.
“Cato, what the hell did you mean by magic? Explain.”
That simple yet forced request of mine caused to explain everything. How his rise to power was due to a nearly suicidal stunt he pulled a couple of weeks ago the night of the Fall Formal against a demonized school bully who was actually a unicorn from another dimension using a crown belonging to a princess from said dimension to get revenge on that realm’s rulers for not making her a princess. Turns out that same reformed school bully happened to be me and Adagio and her sisters’ tour guide. Small world, isn’t it?
Anyway, he told that he met Applejack when he saved her from this former bully’s minions, and that his stunt had unintentionally toyed with her feelings for him, causing both of them to confess to each other after the bully was defeated. For the two weeks between Fall Formal and now, all had been quiet.. until today.
Taking the bus home, I tried to process the information Cato had given me. I’ll be honest, this day wasn’t normal for my first day as a transfer. Neither was the relationship between me and Adagio. She was a magic-using girl, I was a boy who for some reason was immune to her effects. How? I had no fucking clue. It was really weird.
It was then that my bus got to my stop and I got off. As I was walking down the street, I felt a familiar pair of eyes and turned around. Across the street from the bus stop, there stood the girl that was gradually becoming a curious mystery to me. Adagio Dazzle herself.
She smiled, winked at me and left, leaving me to wonder more questions about her, as well as contemplate my very strange relationship with this girl.