Hero High School

Entering the gym, Marek noticed there were many more students in this class than the others. Makes sense, seeing as there are two teachers. The students were milling about without purpose, so Marek found a comfortable spot against the wall and pulled out his notebook. He was busy drawing an all-too-familiar face when he heard a loud noise followed by a large sigh and completed with a kick. "Please don't tell me you have Double Battle!" Zorra's now-familiar voice called. Marek just handed her his school schedule. "AND Sidekick Stories?! AND Bomb De-fusion?!" Zorra let loise with a few choice words and threw Marek's schedule back to him, storming off and practically dragging her bag behind her. Marek briefly felt bad for the bag, but then went back to his drawing. It wasn't until he heard his name called that he made his way toward the rest of the class.

He gave the teacher a nod and collected his gym clothes, shoving them nonchalantly under his arm. The class was dismissed to change, and Marek followed the boys toward the male's locker room. Zorra was clearly making a fuss about something or another.
"Zorra's in a bad mood," one of the boys joked, and their laughs echoed in the vast gym.
A dark-eyed jock patted Marek's shoulder, commenting, " I heard you have her in a few classes. I feel sorry for ya'. She sure is a handful..."
The boys chuckled again, at what seemed like some sort of inside joke. Marek had a feeling he would figure out exactly what they meant shortly, and followed the boys into the locker room to change.

Zorra quickly changed, but brought an extra set of clothes outside, knowing form changing always brought her back into her jeans and black tanktop look. She listened to many of the girls making comments about her,
"She's a freak, even for standards gere." A red-headed girl said.
"She doesn't act like a side-kick, let alone a hero," another girl snarled.
Zorra growled softly as the girls continued chuckling. Fucking humans, she thought. Good thing no one here is a mind reader. She silently waited until they were called out to class, which wasn't long.
As the girls filed outside from the locker room, Zorra fell to the back. She was isolated from everyone who was furiously picking partners for today's 2-on-2 mock-battle.
By the time everyone was paired up and seated, sure enough the only two left standing were herself and, all the way across the field, staring blankly with deep chocolate-brown eyes, was Marek.
"Of course," Zorra mumbled along with some obscenities before walking to Marek's side and sitting at the only open battle area. The other team consisted of Angel, a blonde girl with crystal blue eyes and pale skin, and a deep-tanned boy with cobalt- blue eyes that had golden flecks, along with raven-black hair. He liked to be called Ren and was a partial shapeshifter who turned into a silvery-gray tiger.
"You better have a damn good power, boy, or they'll pummel you," she said as Marek sat alongside her.

Marek watched the two with calculating eyes. He debated whether he should use strength, reflexes, or agility. Honestly, he didn't want to fight at all; he wished to save his strength and such for the time, but he knew he'd need practice to improve. Judging his opponents' behavior, reflexes won. Marek stood, pulled a cloth out of his bag, and wrapped it tightly around his eyes. He motioned for Zorra to begin, falling into a familiar defensive position.The position of his muscles, the feeling of the cloth, it was familiar and oddly comforting, in a sense. Memories of listening to the slightest sound, of hitting leaves off trees as they fell, of matching hands and feet without sight; the memories were dispelled as the whistle was blown.

Angel took to the sky, observing momentarily before heading down towards Marek, but that wasn't Zorra's concern. Ren charged, morphing into his tiger form. Right before impact, Zorra leaped up, morphing into her usual form of a red fox: orange-red in color, black paws on her hind legs and black socks on the front fading into her red-orange main-fur. She had a white snout, underbelly and tail tip, with black tipped ears and white inner ear fur, the ears, tail, and back paws resembling that of her human form. She easily landed square on Ren's shoulders, and he flopped down. She wasn't nearly as big as he, so she quickly jumped off and changed form to a black panther, changing her eye color to a searing yellow-gold. The height was nearly even now, though her frame was still slightly smaller. In the bright sunlight, you could almost see darker, tiger-like stripes, but they were basically invisible.
Ren got up and leaped, but she swiftly dodged, then butted him with her shoulder, harder than intended. He fell and stayed down momentarily before attempting another tactic. He went up on his rear paws, but Zorra took this chance to headbutt him and again he tumbled down. As he lay on the ground he morphed back into a man, wearing faded gray jeans and a black button up t-shirt. He walked off the field, admitting his defeat, and watched the rest of the battle unfold.
Turning toward the other two battlers, Zorra saw, what looked like, an equally matched fist fight, except that Marek was still blindfolded. Zorra changed into her human form again , running into the battle. Zorra caught Angel off-guard, kicking her in the back of the knee, causing her to collapse. Angel quickly recovered and took off in flight again, and after contemplating flying up after her, Zorra decided to change into her fox form once again. Her eyes were now a blazing red in color as Angel took another dive towards her and Marek.

Marek kicked Zorra in the nose. He needed this. His ever-alert ears followed the girls wings easily. She honestly was no match for him, but that didn't matter. Every movement, whether a kick or a punch, had a sound. He blocked, but didn't attack. All thoughts fled as he let his ears move his body. Slowly, he waited until she tired herself out, occasionally pushing Zorra away. Patience Marek, he warned himself as Zorra once again tried to interfere. He knew his battle was dragging on because he was now drawing a crowd. The coaches were attempting to keep the children from interfering, but Marek still had to hold a few of them back, especially Zorra. She seemed quite irritated with all of the attention and kept trying to just end the battle quickly by attacking his opponent.
All of the commotion was getting Angel more and more frustrated, causing her to attack harder and faster. Marek just continued to defend, but the attacks did lead to the crowd backing up. Angel was wearing herself down, after a while with the class only minutes away from the lunch bell, Angel faltered. It was barely even a second, but Marek caught it. He almost smiled. Angel tried to rekindle her strength, but it was too late. Marek executed his carefully-planned counter-attack. It was simple, really. Find the weak spot and expose it. He just attacked with his palms, nudged with his elbows, tapping rapidly until bruises formed. Within minutes, Angel's wings were useless. Stuck on the ground, she was now vulnerable. As she adjusted to being on land, Marek snatched the opportunity again. He struck her left arm and right leg simultaneously. She winced, grabbing her arm. Marek pushed her chest lightly, and she took a step backward. Her right leg gave way beneath her. Seeing that she lost, she limped out of the ring. An eerie silence filled the gym as Marek removed the blindfold, placed it in his backpack, shrugged the bag over his shoulder and left. The bell had sounded.

Zorra changed into her human form with her usual fox details. She padded quickly behind Marek.
"I don't know who the Hell you think you are, but that SHOW you put on- don't do it again. Last thing I want is more people around me, understand? Honestly, it wasn't that impressive, and-- UGH!!" Zorra groaned in exasperation, "I would rather just be on my old team of one." Or Killroy, she thought, I guess his horns could be considered a power of sorts.
Zorra stormed ahead and, turning into a hawk, grabbed her backpack and flew to lunch.