“The date says 1790?” I asked as I looked at the base of the thing.
“Yeah! Ha! We all joke that the first trophy that the school ever won has a misprint. Kind of funny, huh?”
“It looks like real silver,” I said.
“Yeah. It is. You should see Coach Hellsig freak out when he cleans the case. I think he would marry that thing if he could. Ha!”
“You aren’t kidding with me? It is actual silver?” I asked as I looked at the gargoyle boy and then back to the arm sized trophy. It was just a simple monolith type design with four sides that came to a point at the top. It almost looked as if it could be used as a vampire stake, but the point wasn’t quite narrow enough.
“It is! Hey, let’s hit the showers, don’t want to be late for class. You’ve got Hellsig, right? He’ll get mad if you are late.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said as I gave the trophy case one last glance. It was locked, but I guessed that I could find the keys in Dr. King’s office.
“Oh, and don’t you have that podcast interview today with Kristen? The whole school is talking about it,” Titan asked.
“Oh… yeah,” I sighed and then brought my hands to my face. I didn’t think that I’d even be at school today. Ugh. How was I going to lie through this interview?
Chapter 8
“Sherman! You are here!” Kristen said after she opened the door to the media room. It was lunch time, and the angel girl had invited Charlotte and me to eat with them yesterday. I was a bit nervous about coming here by myself, but I was even more nervous about eating alone at a new school.
“Yeah. I uhhh--”
“Did your sister come to school today? I didn’t see her in class this morning,” Rose said as she poked her head from around the corner of the door.
“She is feeling sick.” I shrugged. “I kind of didn’t want to eat alone so--”
“Oh, that’s totally fine! Come inside!” Kristen opened the door the rest of the way and beckoned for me to enter.
The room was smaller than I had expected. It was still classroom sized, but one corner had a large sound booth set up, the center area was composed of half a dozen large monitored computers, and the rest of the room consisted of a bunch of smaller tables jammed together so that it formed a sort of conference table. Ten other kids were sitting around the larger table eating their lunches, but they didn’t stop their conversation until Kristen cleared her throat.
“Hi guys, you heard me talk about Sherman yesterday. He’s going to be joining us for lunch! Then we’ll do his podcast right after school today!” Kristen clapped her hands together and went about introducing me to everyone.
Lily, Rose, and Kristen were the only angel girls. There was one angel boy named Kevin, but the other kids were a mixture of the enemy races. There was even a devil boy sitting at the far side of the table. He had horns, scales around his neck, and eyes that burned into mine like fire. He did smile at me, though, and Kristen introduced him as Mitch, the school photographer.
“I prefer to be called a photojournalist,” he said. “I try to tell a story with each of my shots. I’m going to be taking some pictures of you during the podcast so that we can have them in the newspaper.”
“Newspaper?”
“Yep! That is my deal-ee-oh,” Rose said as she gestured for me to sit down next to her at the table. “Kristen does the podcast, I manage the newspaper, and Lily does everything on the internet. Everyone else here does all the writing and editing.”
“And the photojournalism,” Mitch added with a roll of his red abyssal eyes.
“And the photojournalism. Of course! We can’t have any of it without cool pictures!”
“Well, we could still have the podcast,” Kristen added with a wink, and the rest of the kids started laughing.
“How often do you do a newspaper?” I asked.
“Twice a month,” Rose answered. “The next one is coming out this Friday, so we’ll be able to fit in all the juicy questions from the podcast, and get the pictures done. I’ve got a great spot for your feature on the front page.”
“Front page?” I winced, and felt my heart forget to beat for a few moments.
“Yeah! It isn’t every day that we get a champion wrestler and pro gamer that lived in Japan transferring to our school!”
“Which games did you help design?” Mitch asked as he chewed on a bite of his sandwich.
“Oh, my God! Chew with your mouth closed!” Lily yelled at him.
“What?” he asked with a surprised look on his evil face.
“It’s not out yet. I was just play--”
“Shhh,” Kristen interrupted me. “Sherman, we are going to save all those juicy questions for the podcast. I have a bunch of them!” Her eyes glittered with excitement, and I felt another shock of terror pass through me.
“I’m really nervous about doing this. I’m not used to being interviewed. Do you think there is a way we could--”
“Aren’t you used to getting interviewed?” Mitch asked.
“Uhhh. Not really.”
“That seems weird. I play a bunch of video games and follow some pro gamers. They are always getting interviewed. I looked you up on the internet last night, and I couldn’t find anything about you. Which company did you work for in Japan?” The devil boy’s voice didn’t seem to be mocking me, but his red eyes were narrowed.
“I signed an NDA. So I can’t talk too much about it,” I lied. Part of me just wanted to come clean, but Charlotte had kind of painted me into a corner yesterday. Granted, she had thought we wouldn’t be here today for me to do the interview, but I didn’t know how much longer I could keep lying. Maybe this whole thing would blow over once I bumbled my way through the questions. I was just something shiny and new, but people would get bored with me and forget about my presence in the next few days.
People always forgot about me.
Except for Charlotte.
Well… and Satan.
“So are you more of an RTS gamer? Or driving gamer? Or fighting gamer?” Mitch asked with feigned boredom as he chewed on his sandwich.
“Oh! That is a good question! I’ll have to ask that in the podcast!” Kristen said with a smile. “What is RTS?”
“Real Time Strategy,” both the devil boy and I said in unison.
“I’m good at a lot of games, but I’m best with fighters,” I said.
“I see,” the devil boy said as he set down his sandwich. His eyes met mine with a red glow of hatred, and he stood from his chair. He pointed out a finger that ended in a sharp nail and then shouted loudly, “I challenge you to a duel!”
Silence descended on the room, and the kids glanced between the two of us with a shocked expression. Mitch didn’t seem to notice their surprise since his unblinking gaze didn’t shift from my face.
“I’m a bit out of practice,” I whispered.
“That sounds like you are chickening out,” he huffed. “I thought you were this pro gamer.”
“I just haven’t played in a few days, that’s all, and I don’t see a system or TV--”
“We have a projector and a PlayStation in the wall over there.” Mitch gestured over his shoulder without breaking eye contact with me.
“I don’t know how much time we have left in--”
“We’ll do Street Fighter Five. I’m sure you’ve played it. After all, you are a pro gamer.” The devil boy shook his head as he said the words and a slow smirk spread across his face.
“I’ve played it a little,” I said with a shrug. The statement was a bit of a lie, but I didn’t want to lose my poker face. I’d spent a stupid amount of time on the latest Street Fighter game, and I couldn’t remember the last time I lost to a challenger in an online match.
“Awesome! Let’s get it on!” Mitch shouted like he was a boxing ref, and he slashed his hand down toward the table. The other kids didn’t move, and he kind of turned around as if he was noticing them for the first time. “Oh, I guess I should set it up then.”
Then everyone else chuckled while he turned to open a cabinet in the wall.
“I’m gonna eat real quick while you set it up,” I said as I looked at the lunch I’d bought from the cafeteria. It was just a wrapped turkey sandwich, bag of chips, and an apple. I sat down in a chair near the devil-boy so that I could eat while he prepped the system.
“Mitch is really good at games, but I’m sure you can beat him,” Lily whispered in my ear. The three angel girls were sitting next to me, and I had to kind of pull my legs inward so that my jeans didn’t rub against Kristen’s or Rose's legs, since the redhead was wearing shorts. She would probably get all creeped out if I accidently touched her bare skin with my pants.
I gave Lily a slight smile and then unwrapped my food. The first bite was surprisingly good, and I recalled that I hadn’t eaten dinner last night, or breakfast this morning. I’d been training a bunch yesterday so I was all kinds of starving, and my stomach growled at me as soon as my mouth tasted the food.
I realized that the three angel girls were staring at me while I ate, and I felt my cheeks flush.
“Uhh. Do I have something on my face?” I asked as my stomach simultaneously spun with nerves and demanded more turkey sandwich.
“Oh, no,” Kristen said, and the three girls turned their eyes to the devil-boy.
“We are going to be good to go in half a minute!” he called out to me, and I made a “ummhmm” sound while I ate. I couldn’t remember ever being this hungry, and the only thing that kept me from scarfing down the food without swallowing was the proximity of the pretty angel girls.
“Ready?” Mitch asked after I’d finished my sandwich.
“Yeah,” I said as I turned my chair around so that I could face the projector.
“Good. I’m gonna see what a pro gamer is made of. Ha,” he snickered and then handed me a wireless controller. “You are two.”
“Got it,” I said. The number designation meant that I would start the match on the right side of the screen. He didn’t really need to tell me because I would figure it out when we made our character selection, but it was basic gamer etiquette.
The game finished loading up, and Mitch selected the versus mode. He had first selection, and picked Ryu, who was one of the most commonly played characters in the franchise. When I had last been playing Street Fighter Five, I’d been working on the Nash character. He wasn’t my best by far, but his combos were freshest in my mind, and on my fingers, so I picked the character.
“Interesting choice. I think that Guile is way better,” Mitch said. Guile had very similar moves to Nash, just as Ken and Ryu played almost the same.
“I like all the characters,” I said with a shrug.
Then the match started.
Mitch opened up by throwing a few of Ryu’s fireballs at me, but Nash’s Sonic Boom air fireballs were just as good, so I easily countered his attacks. He feinted for a fifth fireball, and I threw another one of my own. The move could have been seen as an accident, since Mitch just jumped over it, but I was prepared for the movement and met his jump with an air throw. The attack actually flipped his direction around in the air, and he came down on top of the slow Sonic Boom fireball that I had thrown.
Then I was on him.
Nash was a rather defensive character. He had great fireballs, great air attacks, and a way to teleport across the screen to escape. All of his attacks were a touch slow, though, as was his walking speed, so I had to set up combos that evolved from the falling arc of a jump. He’d already taken a little bit of damage from the throw and fireball, so his health just dropped down to three quarters when my light kick hit him in the air. Then I followed up with a light punch, another light sweep, medium punch to the face, and then comboed into Nash’s Tragedy Assault attack. It was kind of like a throw move, but it ended with Nash slamming Ryu’s head into the ground while a bolt of lightning ran through his arm. The attack also popped Ryu’s body off the ground, and I did a Sonic Scythe move to continue his lift into the air. We’d moved a bit into the corner of the screen, and I executed another air throw at the end of the combo to toss Mitch’s character to the ground.
Ryu got up stunned, and I did a four-hit punch combo that I ended with a light kick Sonic Scythe. This attack didn’t lift him off the ground, it just made him fall backwards a bit, but that was what I wanted. Nash’s EX meter was fully charged, and I made the Critical Art move to finish Ryu off. Nash dashed forward toward the falling martial artist, grabbed him, and then smashed a twirling Sonic Boom into his head.
“You win! Perfect!” the announcer yelled across the speakers.
“Holy shit,” Mitch gasped. “Okay. I wasn’t ready for you. Just needed a round to warm up.”
“Sure, I get it,” I said as round two started.
I played a bit more defensively this time. It was easy to do with Nash, and Mitch wasn’t able to get past my endless array of fireballs, or my Sonic Slash that prevented him from jumping over them. When his health fell to about half, I decided to go on the offensive, and I took him down a few seconds later.
“You win! Perfect!” the announcer yelled again.
“Is that your best character or something? Sheesh,” Mitch growled.
“Naw. I’ve been play--”
“Let’s go again,” he interrupted me.
The character selection screen came up again, and he picked Ken from the list. That character was a faster version of Ryu with a better dragon punch ability. I picked Cammy, who was an acrobatic military fighting girl with long pigtails. She was one of my favorite characters to play, and while she wasn’t my best, I liked her sexy fighting animations.
Both of our characters did best with an aggressive play style, so the match was over rather quickly. Mitch wasn’t bad, but I wondered if he had ever even tried to play the game online. He wasn’t prepared for any of my quick opening moves, and seemed surprised by the length of my combos.
“You win! Perfect!” the announcer yelled after I won the first round.
“Ugh!” Mitch groaned.
“Wow, you are getting your ass kicked,” the redhead angel girl said with a laugh.
“Ugh. Shut up, Rose!” Mitch laughed also, and the rest of the kids in the room joined in.
The devil-boy actually hit me a few times in the next round, but I only lost about 10% of my health.
“Okay, you are good,” he admitted as he hung his head.
“Did you think Sherman was lying, or something?” Kristen asked.
“Honestly, yeah. His story is really fishy you have to admit.” The devil-boy shrugged his shoulders and then looked at me. “Sorry about that. You kicked my ass.”
“No worries. I actually don’t have a system since we, uhhh, moved back to the states. So it was fun to play again.”
“We can play every lunch if you want? I’d like to get better,” he said as he pointed to the PlayStation.
“Sure, but I was actually wondering if we could do the interview now,” I said as I turned to Kristen.
“Now? We’ve only got ten minutes left for lunch. After school is better,” she said with a pretty frown.
“Dr. King wants me in the gym right after class every day for the next week. There is that whole thing with Albert and Giant Gene going on, and I have to--”
“Albert Russo? Lincoln High’s top wrestler? What thing?” Rose asked as she leaned toward me.
“They came into the gym last night.”
“Who?” the three angel girls asked at the same time.
“Giant Gene, Fabulous Morgan, and their wrestling team came into the gym last night while we were practicing.” I quickly told the angel girls what had happened, and the rest of the kids leaned in across the table so that they could listen to us talk.
“How come I’m just hearing about this now?” Rose said with a groan. “We need to change the layout of the whole paper. This is going to go great with your cover feature!”
“I uhh, don’t want to make a big deal out of it,” I said,
but then I realized how stupid that sounded. I had thought that they already knew, and now I told a room full of people responsible for spreading news through the school what had gone down last night. There was no way that this podcast was going to just “blow over.” I needed to figure out how to get Satan’s mission done quickly so that I could get out of here.
“So it looks like I won’t be able to do the interview,” I said to Kristen as I pointed at the clock.
“Darn. What about after practice?” she asked with a smile of perfect teeth.
“Uh, it is late when I finish, and I’d have to--”
“Maybe we could grab a bite to eat and do the interview after?” she asked as she nodded her head. Her gold hair bounced around her shoulders and caught the fluorescent lights of the room like glittering gems.
“Char-- Uhhh, my sister isn’t feeling good, so I probably have to--”
“Oh, that’s right!” Lily said. “She said that your parents weren’t back in the states. Is that right?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“I’m a great cook. I’d love to bring you both dinner tonight. What time is practice over?”
“I’d have to ask Charlotte, she--”
“Lily, I have to do the interview soon,” Kristen said as she looked at the blonde angel girl.
“Oh, I know, but Sherman needs to eat, he is wrestling, and he doesn’t have anyone to take care of him. Maybe he can do it tomorrow morning instead?”
“I have practice in the morning as well.” I realized that I hadn’t eaten the rest of my lunch, and my stomach was begging me to finish.
“What about tomorrow at lunch?” Kristen asked me. “It will be close to the deadline, but I can make it work.”
“That should be okay,” I said as I tried to keep from sighing.
“Great, then what time should I come by with your dinner?” Lily asked.
“I make a great cake. I’ll come by as well,” Rose said as she leaned a bit more into my shoulder. “I also have to ask you some questions for the paper. I’ll have some for your sister, as well.”
Werewolf!: Hell High Book 3 Page 9