“Now, where could she be?” Dogwood Galaxy System Guard Doug Rug looks all around the halls and classrooms for his lovely wife Catherine Antonia Sky Rug, but with no success. “After all that talk about me being on time today, she’s nowhere to be found. Typical. I guess I’ll go hang out with the kids until the wonderful teacher shows up ready to unleash another crazy educational scheme.”
Things haven’t exactly been going as planned as everyone should have already taken off by now, but once again, the yearly field trip of six eager System Cadets is having to wait on the one who arranged it. “I love that woman,” says Doug to Cat’s best friend Jocelyn Meyers, “but one of these days, I’m going to reactivate the location setting on her armor without her knowing so I can keep track of her. I’ve called her four times, and all I get is her voicemail.”
“You know what that means,” Jo says with a smirk. “She obviously died. Probably stopped at a fast-food place and choked on a bacon ring. You should totally go hunting for her corpse by all the food joints downtown.”
Looking at Jo like she’s been eating too many bacon rings herself, Doug asks, “And what invaded your head today?”
Laughing, Josey says, “You know that’s a crazy conclusion Cat would jump to if I went missing for twenty minutes. In reality, what I was going to say is this means she’s got an elaborate exam planned for the kids. Sorry, couldn’t help getting crazy there. Maybe I’ve been hanging around that woman too long.” Jo mutters this last part to herself in disturbed contemplation.
Indeed, the two adults continue to wait for Lady Duplica, as do the students. Speaking of which, we should probably check on these guys and gals to see how the year has been for them since we last met. First thing we should notice is that everyone is taller, except for Kammy and Paul, the former having already expended the majority of her growth spurt and the latter simply being the victim of family heritage.
“Paul’s taller than me, and most girls for that matter,” Kammy clarifies, “so, that’s good enough.”
Another thing you may have noticed is the second picture above with all the codenames that have come about due to Entoni and Kammy’s shenanigans last year. In addition to Edge and K.C. Cannon, we have Owan’s nickname that was given to him by Gracie Grace at the very end of last book, Grace’s old nickname from her New Ruyngard days as well as the two names never before mentioned in our journey. Over the past schoolyear, Kammy has started calling Paul Dr. Spike because of his new finishing move that I’m sure you’ll see later. Now, I bet you’re wondering why in the world Faye is calling herself Little Miss Nightmare. Well, this month-old name was Faye’s idea, with the tricky young lady having the Nightmare Buffet in mind, also known as the Feast of Demons, from last year’s trip.
Faye’s comment is, “It’s like AB once said, ‘We are the nightmares’ nightmares.’ As a System Guard, I want the baddies to know that they don’t control this mind anymore. Jesus has it all for Himself, and everything we do is in service to Him, booyah!”
Now, we look to Gigi’s newest feature as we change the topic to uniform updates. Are those blasters on her belt? Yes, they are. You see, up until now, minors have not been allowed to use laser guns and swords, but the school has changed this policy since it’s kind of redundant to let the students have System Sabers and star-destroying super attacks while prohibited the use of side arms. You can relax, however, as the newly permitted weapons require just as many safety locks via the Infinites’ powers as anything else the cadets use, so no one is in any danger, unlike you real-worlders who should always be careful handling such things. Besides, Gigi is the only one who has opted to use her side arms as everyone else would rather use their own projectiles and energy attacks anyway, and Gigi is only carrying her weapons to copy Missy Millennia’s Time Stopper attack. Oops, sorry for spoiling it, Gigi.
Inner Man Theatre 