Newport High: A school for smarts. A school for successors. A school for trouble.

Laine walked up to the school, her bag slung around her shoulder. Her purple skirt went down knees,and she was wearing black heels. She was wearing a white tank with a brown belt wrapped around her waist. She fiddled with the bracelets on her arm as she leaned against the side of the school. A guy walked by and she smiled and waved.

Crystal laughed softly as one of her friends drew out a packet of smokes that he had nicked from his parents. Everyone took one and a lighter was produced. A quick spark and a flame was produced, moving along each of the ends. Everyone who had one took a deep breath and started to inhale, quickly. They were not doing it because they smoked, it was a test. Contrary to most people's beliefs they were not smokers. This was to see who could go the longest without coughing. And Crystal was always up for a challenge. Her crystal blue eyes watched as first one person spluttered and coughed.

There was no prize just the knowledge. She took another long drag and she was forcing herself not to cough, she could do this. With a wicked smile she licked her lips and slowly let some of the smoke from her mouth. One of the guys across from her had wide eyes and then started coughing. Crystal laughed and took another long puff, it was only her and the girl next to her now. Whoever broke would have gloating rights, and it would be Crystal. Another drag and the girl couldn't take it, coughing and spluttering all over the place. With a cry Crystal jumped up cheering.

The other girl looked at Crystal with defeat in her eyes and Crystal hugged her. No hard feelings. She stubbed the smoke out and threw it away. Now came the process of everyone pulling out their own respective deodorants and spraying them. This caused more coughing then the smoking did and they all laughed.

With a wink Crystal slung her bag over her shoulder and moved to walk towards the school. She was wearing a pair of black pants that rode low on her hips revealing smooth pale skin. A bright orange singlet was next, revealing that tattoo on her shoulder and quite a bit of cleavage. Her rainbow hair trailed over her shoulders to fall in front of her eyes. She got many a look when she first dyed it this colour but she didn't care. Her parents hated it. Crystal had a chain belt wrapped around her hips that jingled when she walked and a pair of bright orange boots that came up over her pants to her knees.

A quick glance at his watch told Pascal that he was perhaps a few minutes too early to equal his usual late start. He had made it a goal all year to show up after the first bell to make a point to the administration... or was it to make himself look cool to his peers? He couldn't be sure anymore considering he was knee deep in this false persona. It didn't seem to matter though, as he walked up to see only two other girls standing there. Was that smoke he smelled?

The one girl with the rainbow colored hair seemed dangerous, so he would keep his distance from that one for now. The other one in her purple skirt seemed like a normal girl, perhaps a bit on the naive side, but too similar to the other people he had seen walk from locker to class every other day. Maybe it was just a need to kill time, but he decided to have a chat with the girl...

"Hey," he said as he leaned against the wall next to her. He wondered if his tattered jeans, dull, open blue button down shirt, and discolored t-shirt underneath would make her skiddish in reply. "I don't think I've seen you before. New here?"

Jake closed his eyes for a moment, leaning forward until his forehead pressed against the cool metallic touch of the locker door. For a few seconds, it was almost enough to believe that he was bad in bed, the comforting waves of sleep trying to wash over his body once again. An aching in his shoulder was the least of his problems today, another rough day night carrying him to school. He was dressed as casually as ever, denim jeans and a random t-shirt, his letter jacket hanging on his shoulders.

"Jake, how's the re-write coming?" A voice asked from the end of the hall. The boy smirked and tilted his hand back and forth in reply. "Okay. Well, I need it by the end of this week. You can do it," the teacher commented before vanishing again. School was something that came naturally to some students, some kids just so naturally intelligent that studying was really unnecessary. Jake was not one of those kids. Throwing a hard slider on the inside corner of the plate -- that was natural. It wasn't that Jake wasn't an intelligent kid, he just had to work hard to make decent grades. Harder than he wanted anyone to know.

Grabbing a notebook out of his locker and stepping away, Killian felt a brush against his shoulder as he back almost carried him into someone else. Spinning around quickly, the senior tried to quickly see how much damage he'd caused.

Taylor reached her locker, and set her bags down on the ground gently. Her glasses were somewhere in the bottom, and she didn't want to break them. She opened her lock, while quietly mumbling the combination to herself. She cleared her throat from the morning grogginess and shoved her purse in on the top shelf. She opened her backpack and reached for her glasses. At first she couldn't find them, but after a few minutes of searching for them she finally felt the cold and hard case. She grabbed the case, and put it on top of her purse and shoved her bookbag in.

Taylor debated wether she would wear her glasses the first day or not. She looked like a loser in her glasses. She twitched her mouth from left to right and shut her locker door without taking her glasses. She could see decently, just fine details were hard to make out. She flipped her cellphone up and checked the time. She would be best off grabbing a notebook for the first class so she wouldn't have to go back to her locker. She opened her locker again, feeling slightly stupid. "Math, Science, Vocal... Literature!" She said, humming to herself as she grabbed her Literature 10 notebook. She slammed her locker door shut, and walked off to the cafeteria to do a little bit of review.

Jake spun slightly, just enough to avoid his shoulder clocking the girl making her way from the long bay of lockers in the cafeteria. Disaster avoided...for now. The senior flashed something of an apologetic smile as he rose back to his full height, notebook tucked back under his arm as he gauged the girl who he'd almost completely taken out.

"Hey, sorry," he mumbled as he stepped out of the middle of the hallway, back to leaning against the lockers. He knew the girl's face, something about her familiar. "Ehh...Taylor, right?" Jake was terrible with names, glad to someday hopefully be going into a profession where all the names were sewn onto the back of jerseys. No more guessing games then. Still, the girl was strikingly familiar from somewhere, some part of school where he'd run across her before. He knew they'd met, had something in common. But what?

Taylor dropped her books, and her hands flung up by her chest facing outwards, to brace herself if she fell - which she didn't thank god for that. "Yeah, Taylor." She answered kneeling on the ground and picking up her literature books. "And you're Jake. From the baseball team." Taylor said, getting up off the floor and gripping her books beside her arm, making sure she wouldn't drop them again. "I should look where I'm going, sorry." Taylor said, smiling embaressed. Taylor held her hand out, waiting for jake to shake it. She wasn't the greatest at meeting new people. However, Jake wasn't exactly new. She had seen him numerous times around the school.

Jake's hand drew back from Taylor's after a short shake. The senior opened his mouth to speak when something caught his eye over the red-haired girl's shoulder. His face twisted into an expression that seemed anything but pleasant. "Ehh...'scuse me," he said, sliding past her and almost jogging down the hall.

No sooner did the quarterback's shoulders turn away from the girl than they found themselves met with an open-palmed smash, shoving the boy back into the lockers. "The..What the hell, man?" The other senior bounced from the locker and back into the middle of the hall, almost lunging at Jake as the two squared off. Immediately, a circle formed around them, no one wanting to get caught in the middle of their fray.

"You want to try that again and see what happens?" Jake said, hands dropped down to his sides, fingers sliding back and forth somewhat as if warming themselves up for movement. For something, for anything. The two boys stood apart from each other for a moment, each daring the other to make a move. It was then that Jake's baseball coach blasted through the crowd and into the middle of the action.

"Killian! Get your butt over here," he said, grabbing the senior by the arm of the letter jacket. Another teacher shortly followed to deal with the quarterback. "You looking for trouble? You just found some. Get in there," the coach said, near shoving Jake into the main office. He looked back, finding the wheelchaired girl through the sea of faces for an instant before the door closed behind him.

Taylor followed after Jake, a little slower. She saw papers and books scattered about the hallways. "What the hell." She whispered to herself. She saw a cute girl in a wheelchair, looking a little nervous. or scared. or.. something. taylor guessed the papers and books belonged to the girl who was in the wheelchair. Taylor began picking up the papers and notebooks from the ground, and giving glares to anyone who was participating in this chaotic mess. "Can no one be mature here?" Taylor said, loud enough for most of the kids to hear. After the papers were picked up, Taylor handed them back to the girl in the wheelchair. "Hi, I'm Taylor. These are yours, are they not?" She asked, hoping she wouldn't be making a fool of herself.

Crystal made no noise as she headed towards the school, she reached the hallway just as a fight was ending and what looked like one of the baseball stars being pulled away by their coach. A small laugh bubbled from Crystal's lips as she moved towards her locker. A few eyes glanced her way but most chose to simply ignore her. Everyone thought that she was so weird that not many people gave her attention. Except for the group of people she usually hung out with. No one seemed to know just how smart she was either.

She would always get looks and jeers. A lot of people asking how she stayed in this school if she didn't have any talent. Oh, she had talent just they were all too stupid to see it. Another laugh fell from her lips as she saw a rather pretty looking girl, a new girl, helping Madison. Crystal knew a lot of names. It was a habit she remembered them from the first time she heard them. Something to do with her memory. She didn't care.

It was helpful sometimes.

"...even goes through your mind? You've got scouts trailing you around every start and you're picking fights?" The coach had been going on for a good five minutes at this point. Like the trained son of a military officer that he was, Jake stood tall, kept his mouth shut, and stared at the wall in front of him as the words continued to pour. The coach wasn't really that upset with Jake, just taking the product of an unhappy home and late night over and venting his aggression at the pitcher. In the end, Jake walked out of the office with a few wind sprints to run for the rest of the week in practice and nothing else to show for the little display they'd put on for the school.

"Some morning," he muttered to himself as he stepped back into the hallway, dodging back by his locker and stuff the letter jacket into his locker before stepping away again.

"Yeah, I guess you could call me new." Taylor smiled at the look at the messy backpack. "I was here for half of last year. I moved from Canada." Taylor replied, more in detail this time. "How long have you been going here for?" She decided to make friendly conversation; the girl seemed to be really quite a decent person, unlike most of the kids here.

Crystal smiled softly and sidled up to her locker which was right besides the baseball teams star pitcher Jake. She looked at him through the corner of her eye and fiddled with the combination on her locker. She could remember it but sometimes the locker hated her and decided to not open. She let out a small groan of frustration as she jiggled with the door. "Bloody, stupid... Grr." She was wrestling pretty much with the door. Rainbow strands of hair falling in her face as her backpack slid off her arm to the floor.

"Why do you hate me, you stupid locker?" She muttered softly.

Taylor cupped her hand over her mouth.Her eyes went wider than they usually are. She wasn't sure what to say for a few moments. "I'm sorry. It wasn't your fault he went through the red light though." Taylor said, putting a hand on Madison's shoulder. She felt bad but didn't want to go all grade seven girl on her with the, "Ohmigod Im so sorry." bullshit. "Well do you know what class you have right now? I have literature 10." She asked, forcing a smile.

"I'm a complete music nerd." Taylor giggled softly. "I play guitar, but only to accompany my voice. I'm not a big fan of guitar, really." She looked down at Madison and smiled. "I fail at guitar." She giggled a little again. "So, what about yourself? Do you play any instruments, or sing?" Taylor wondered asking herself another question. "And... How long are you in the wheelchair for, if you don't mind me asking? It's none of my business." She said, turning down a small hall.