Chapter Text
jimmy woke up in the lower east side base to the sound of beeping from his alarm clock. "jimmy. today is a Monday. you need to go to school." jimmy jumped up in a panic. "AH!" jimmy jumped up, bumping into lizzie who was standing in the base kitchen with toast for him cub and sculk. "eat up you three!" cub and sculk nodded, devouring their toast in under a minute. "thanks lizzie, we'll meet you and jimmy at the bus!" lizzie sighed and turned over to jimmy. "come on. let's go." jimmy nodded, toast in hand and mouth. "i sware, i'm neber gonna gebt used to cub's whole 'i've got an alien slime best frienb' thing."
yuma had never appreciated astral as much as he did now in this strange world. so...disconnected. he had no clue how they all lived symbioteless. astral got on his nerves a lot, sure, but when they'd been separated for only 15 minutes when he first got here...well to be honest yuma and astral would have rather died then have to live for even five more seconds of that crippling loneliness. how could none of them feel that they were missing half of themselves?!? "Yuma?" tori put a hand on their shoulder, causing him to flinch. "GAH. TORI. WE WERE... THINKING." tori face palmed. "the bus is here yuma, and you're just sitting on a hammock staring at a wall." yuma jumped out of the hammock in a panic. "what?! we must have slept in!"
astral muttered to yuma, bypassing his ears entirely, the sound entering straight into his mind. "this is not a we situation yuma." yuma thought back aggressively. "i thought we agreed that if i slept in you'd take control for a bit." astral sighed. "that was the idea, but when we tried that last time tori's mother hired an exorcist because she believed you to be demonically possessed...whatever that means." tori coughed. "yuma, i didn't sleep in. you did." yuma frowned. "right. sorry. let's go."
yuma jumped on the bus. so quiet. so, so quiet. ping!
astral and yuma both felt the pleasant tingle of connection run down their spine. one they'd not felt since they'd seen jaden and yubel weeks ago. "hello?"
cub stepped back in shock at the pair of voices suddenly resounding in his mind. "who's there?" a young boy with strange hair waved his hand, smiling at him. "we're yuma and astral. it's nice to meet you." cub blinked. "are you also..." yuma nodded. "yes. yes we are."
gem plopped herself down onto her desk. "yes! we got science! you know what that means?" joel nodded. "MR YUSEI!" the two squeed in unison. mr yusei was everyone's favourite teacher. he was nice, he was friendly, he let people use his first name and...he was actually cool. he had a motorbike and everything!
coach atlas, who was not a weird geography teacher like most people assumed when they started, and was actually the pe teacher came in. "GOOD MORNING EVERYONE! NOW YOU'RE PROBABLY WONDERING WHERE YUSEI IS. HE CALLED ME AND SAID HE'D BE LATE. SO FOR THE FIRST 15 MINUTES, I'LL BE COVERING THE LESSON." gem sighed. "oh. okay coach atlas."
yusei frowned. he'd been stuck in traffic for the past fifteen minutes. he really didn't want to be late for class- suddenly he felt a weight jump on back of his motorcycle and a pair of arms wrap around his abdomen. "can i come with you?" yusei turned around to see a purple haired boy gripping on for dear life. "sorry kid i-" the boy stared at him with misty eyes. "please. i'm being followed and i need to get away from him." yusei heard a horrible squelching noise, and turned to see a dark purple slime crawling up the bridge. "kid. hold on tight. we're about to go very fast."