Sidestory:
Plagosus Orbilius

It was a typical morning at William Fleming High School: the halls were crowded with students grabbing books and supplies from their lockers, the large, open quad in the center of the campus was filled with various social groups milling about, and teachers prepared their lesson plans for the day in their classrooms. Perfectly on cue (to the second, noted a student who had timed her watch to the school bell system), the first bell rang and students slowly made their way to their classrooms in the allotted ten minutes.

Of all the teachers, Mr. Campbell was perhaps the crankiest at this moment in time. He had been forced to substitute for the other Latin teacher at Roanoke Catholic due to an illness on top of his duties at Fleming and ISAS. He watched with a wary eye the entering students.

"Good morning, Mr. Campbell!" chirped the girl who had timed her watch.

"Good morning, Ms. Young," replied Mr. Campbell, deadpan. The second bell rang, signaling the beginning of class, and Mr. Campbell turned away from his favorite student to shout at the others. "Everyone, in your seats! No more of this nonsense every morning! IN YOUR SEATS!"

Thankfully, Mr. Campbell's tirade was cut short by the morning announcements. Nobody paid attention to the daily recitation of sports events, club meetings, and whatever award ceremonies had occurred recently. In this case, it was the Regional Youth Science Fair results.

"Jace Kellen, first place, engineering," the announcer said.

At the sound of her name, Jace Kellen dropped the paper plane she was busily constructing and stopped dead. Then she burst out in wild laughter and whacked her desk hard enough to make yet another crack in it.

"What a bunch of retards! All I did was spill concrete on my shoe, then I peeled it off! Ha! Suckers!"

"Ms. Kellen, we are all pleased that you won, but SIT QUIETLY IN YOUR SEAT!" bellowed the teacher. It was a little redundant, since Jace was, of course, stuck in her wheelchair.

The announcements finally over, Mr. Campbell began to take the attendance. There was a knock at the door, and Mr. Campbell looked up for a moment. "Class, we have a special visitor today. One of my students from ISAS has offered to come and tutor some of you in Latin, and you most certainly need it, Ms. Forma." The accused student, Letalis Forma, squirmed in her chair. There was nothing Mr. Campbell liked better than to make an example of his students, and Leta was a particular favorite given her poor performance.

There was a click as the doorknob twisted and the door opened. In walked a tall boy with brown hair and glasses dressed in khakis, dark blue pullover vest, and a white dress shirt.

"This is Theodore Parfett, a student from England," Mr. Campbell continued.

"G'morning," Theodore said. "Call me Tibby."

Later on, people swore that Jace's eyes turned red and her teeth grew little points.

"-Theodore-?" she exclaimed. "Your name is THEODORE? What the hell was your mom thinking? And Parfett sounds like a kind of cake. But Tibby... that has promise. Makes you sound like a cat, teaboy. Tibbs. Tibberiffic. Tibberlicious. Tibbydoodahday." She grinned ferally, evidently sadistically happy about this turn of events.

Tibby took one look at Jace and instantly began to scowl. "You-!" he snarled, not finding any insult more sufficient and allowable on school property than "you."

"Is there a problem?" Mr. Campbell queried, furrowing his brow. Tibby ignored the teacher a moment in favor of Jace.

"What in blazes are you doing here?" he demanded.

"I live here, darlin'!" Jace beamed, folding her arms together. She gave him a mock-sultry look. "Aren't you happy to see me? Or is it because I beat the crap out of you the last time?"

"I beg your pardon!?" Tibby exclaimed, pushing his glasses up on his nose.

Clearly disturbed by the events in the classroom, Mr. Campbell threw his arm in between the two combatants. "Ms. Kellen! Mr. Parfett! Especially you, Mr. Parfett! I don't know what you two have between you, but I have a class to conduct! Mr. Parfett, please sit down next to Ms. Forma there."

"Terribly sorry, Mr. Campbell. I promise we won't disturb your class again," Tibby said respectfully. Mr. Campbell gave a curt nod.

"Wuss," Jace supplied, just loud enough for Tibby to hear.

"I really expected better from you, Mr. Parfett."

Red-faced at his public humiliation, Tibby sat down at the indicated desk, but did not stop throwing angry glances in Jace's direction.

Leta almost squeaked with excitement as Tibby sat next to her. He was kind of cute, in a dorkish, smart guy kind of way. But that accent was so incredibly hot. Was he from Ireland or something? Whatever. Leta was determined to get a little attention from the new kid. Giving Jace a look as if to say: "Don't screw this up for me," she "accidentally" knocked her pencil off her desk, on the side Tibby was sitting. Half the males in the class leaned forward with wide eyes as Leta leaned forward to retrieve her fallen pencil, making sure Tibby had a nice view to see a bit down her shirt, and that her pink skirt hiked up ever so slightly.

Tibby's face went even redder as he averted his eyes away from Leta, much to Leta's disappointment.

He was supposed to stare!

"Duh," stammered one boy, sitting in front of her who happened to lean back to get a view also.

Mr. Campbell cleared his throat. "Class!" he cried, desperate almost because of all the interruptions. "If we could kindly return to our lesson,"

Pouting cutely, Leta picked her pencil off the tiled floor and wiped off the eraser. She began chewing on it.

"Tibby doesn't need to see your boobs, Leta. They're nothing special," Jace sniggered as she hissed her insult over to Leta.

It was Leta's turn to blush as she bit halfway through the eraser with embarrassment.

"'Sides, I'm way sexier than that," she expanded, making sure both Leta and Tibby could hear her. "Tibby knows that. He liked me being on top." She gave Tibby a beatific grin, hoping she was on to a good thing and he'd have a coronary. "And rough, mmm, sugar?"

"What are you insinuating?" Tibby hissed back, eyes warily watching Mr. Campbell as the teacher lectured on, oblivious. "You ill-mannered, uncouth barbarian!"

"Barbarus," Mr. Campbell was saying, "is Latin for 'beard.' The Romans went out to France and saw these strange man with beards. That's where the word 'barbarian' comes from, as well as 'barber...'"

Equally oblivious to the teacher, Tibby continued. "I don't give a sodding piece of shite what you tell yourself for flattery when you're home alone late at night." He punctuated this insult with a particularly smug sneer.

"Teaboy, honey, sugar," Jace admonished him, mock- distressed. "Haven't you realized yet that me smashing your thick-skulled head into the floor is the closest thing to wild monkey love you're ever gonna get?"

Tibby could only broaden his smirk, extracting the perfect insult from her own mockery. "Oh, dear me, I'm sorry. I forgot you never made it past that point on the evolutionary scale!"

Whatever witty retort Jace had in retaliation was interrupted by a sharp bark from Mr. Campbell. "Class!" he ordered, "take out your workbooks and open them to page forty-five. Mr. Parfett, you can help Ms. Forma."

"Done, Mr. Campbell," replied Tibby obediently.

"Wuss," muttered Jace amidst the flurry of books opening.

Having had their exchange interrupted by the silent time of classwork, the two warring nationalities were forced into a temporary peace treaty. Tibby turned his attention to Leta instead.

"So, you're having trouble with this?"

"Uh, a little," Leta replied, dumfounded about Jace and Tibby. Had they really made out and were just hiding it so as not to let anything slip because Jace wasn't all that popular? Probably. Well, it was Leta's job to find out the real truth. She scooted her desk a bit closer to Tibby's, and studied her work book. "I don't get it," she squealed unhappily, twirling the edge of her braided pigtail around one finger. Then, a little quieter, she muttered to Tibby: "Do you like Jace?"

"Good heavens, no!" Tibby instantly hissed back, indignation in his voice. "She's the most vile, hideous thing I've ever met! I suppose you've got to feel sorry for her, though. She probably wants everyone to feel sorry for her." Tibby broke off from his tirade long enough to correct Leta's work. "Here, no, that's 'agris,' not 'agros.' It's the ablative case."

Leta squeaked happily. "Yay! I get to dot my I's all cute now!" she exclaimed as she fixed her mistake and, instead of making a circle for the dot of the I, made it a cute little happy face. Giggling happily, she looked at Tibby with a serious look. "Oh, I don't think she wants attention. If she wanted attention she wouldn't be so mean right?" Leta then sniffled, and continued: "She made fun of my ears. Anyway, I think she is just lonely y'know? Not having any friends is tough." Leta then squinted at her paper. "Hey, what does agricola mean?" Leta questioned, struggling with the Latin word to pronounce it correctly.

"Farmer," Tibby supplied. "See how it has 'field' in it? Ager, agri." In response to the ongoing conversation about Jace, Tibby could only shake his head and sigh.

"Alright, class, everyone done?" Mr. Campbell suddenly said, glancing at the idle students. No one answered. "I'm coming around to check your papers."

Class after that point proceeded uneventfully. Mr. Campbell eventually managed to gain the full attention of most of the students and instill in them a small amount of learning before he was cut short by the bell. Everyone seemed to sigh blissfully at their release from the arduous lesson.

Jace didn't waste time with verbal motions of relief. She merely shoved her books in her bag like they were poisonous, and pushed back the desk with a clatter.

Upon passing Tibby's desk, she stopped her wheelchair and attempted to give him a wounded look. "I hope our meeting has taught you something, Tibbers. How can I and Teaboy Junior survive? You never write, you never phone..."

The redhead passed him on and sniggered, giving a snort by way of goodbye to everyone else.

"The nerve of that girl..." Tibby muttered, barely noticing when Leta threw him a cheery wave on her way out.

"Mr. Parfett?"

Tibby looked up. It was Mr. Campbell. "Mr. Parfett, would you mind taking this to the main office for me while I collect the workbooks?"

"Sure, not a problem," Tibby responded, taking the red attendance folder from Mr. Campbell's hand. He smiled as cheerfully as possible and walked out into the hall.

Whatever Tibby had expected, it was surely not this. The hall was filled with a massive throng of students, heads bobbing up and down as they moved towards their next class or retrieved books from the off-white lockers lining the walls. The noise level was deafening. It seemed everyone was holding a conversation, shouting to be heard over the din of other people talking, slamming lockers, or fiddling with a noisy key chain. Desperately, Tibby pushed his way to the near exit, relieved when a gust of chilly air hit him in the face. Outside it was much quieter, though Tibby could just hear an even larger mass of noise coming from the central area of the campus. At the moment, that was not Tibby's concern. He had to find the main office.

The Fleming campus was an array of disjointed brick buildings. Any one could be the office. Tibby was facing towards the area he had passed on the way to the classroom from the parking lot. He recognized the large building housing the gym and the similarly sized auditorium, but the smaller surrounding buildings bore no signs or markings as to their designation and purpose.

A shorter boy brushed by Tibby, heading for the door leading back into the math hall where Latin class was held. Quick to take advantage of the opportunity presented him, Tibby called after the boy, "Wait!"

Immediately, the short boy stopped, turning around slowly to fix Tibby with an emotionless stare. Tibby shivered slightly, perhaps from the cold, perhaps from a momentary lapse of confidence.

"Eh-excuse me," Tibby began, smiling nervously at the boy's fierce gaze, "but could you direct me to the main office?"

For a while, the stranger said nothing, content to let the silence speak for him. Tibby seemed very uncomfortable. The strange boy pointed to a nearby building. "Go down to the end, take a left, then take a right at the cafeteria."

"Thanks," Tibby squeaked, a little surprised at the sound of his own voice. He began to head towards the indicated building.

"Tibby!"

A small creature poked its head out of Tibby's breast pocket. Timocharis wriggled her nose once and said, "Tibby, wait! That boy is a senshi!"

Tibby turned back around to face the boy, but spoke to Charis. "He is?"

"Yes! Yes! You are Sarin Knight, Astra Senshi of Balance . . ." The mouse trailed off in sudden realization. "But you already knew that, didn't you?"

The stranger nodded, his black eyes showing no emotion.

"I just don't understand," Charis moaned. "I never get to awaken anyone! It was Gawain, wasn't it? Or Tycho?"

"Gawain," the boy supplied.

Before Timocharis could get too upset, Tibby extended his hand. "I'm Theodore Parfett, or Horologium Kamen, Astra Senshi of Clocks. Call me Tibby."

The other smiled slightly as if to say, "Clocks, yeahhh, that's stupid," but took Tibby's hand. "Talib-Ravi Skada," he stated. "I go by Ravi."

Suddenly, it occurred to Tibby that he had forgotten how to get to the office in the course of the conversation. "Do you think you could show me the way to the office?"

Ravi glanced at his watch and nodded, motioning for Tibby to follow him. They talked as they went.

"So, you go to school here?"

A nod.

"I'm a student at ISAS. I'm just here helping Mr. Campbell with his Latin class."

No noise, just another slight nod from Ravi indicating that he had heard. Ravi stopped suddenly and pointed. "That's the office."

"Oh." Tibby had been almost hoping that the walk would be longer, since there were more questions he wanted to ask, like who Ravi had met and if he had fought with the enemy yet. Instead, he settled for, "Is there some way I can contact you?"

Ravi seemed slightly uneasy about the question, but nodded. "Got a pen and paper?"

"Of course," Tibby replied, taking out a small pad of paper and a blue pen. "Always prepared!"

"555-0127."

"Thanks." Tibby wrote some extra information down for future reference and put the pad away.

"It was nice meeting you!" Charis squeaked, huddled down in Tibby's pocket with only her nose sticking out so as to prevent being seen.

"I'm sure we'll meet again," Tibby added, waving as he headed towards the office with the red folder in hand. Ravi seemed to consider a moment, then waved back. Once he and Charis were out of earshot, Tibby remarked, "Not a bad chap, that Ravi. I wonder how many of us there are?" Before Charis could offer an answer, Tibby opened the door to the office and entered. He already knew that his stay in Roanoke was going to be far more interesting than he had ever expected.

return to the legend