C H A P T E R   3

I    A M    Q U E E N    I    S L A Y

Author: Raven Orthodox

Checking on my phone, numerous people were already following me on Facebook and Instagram. I quickly installed Arkbook and easily made an account linking it to my social media.

Arkskye had over more than 49,000 student population. Almost as populated as the University of Minnesota.

Arkbook only requires your student ID number, and after that, you are connected to all the forty-nine thousand students privately without teacher interference. Everything you post will be seen, and so the most popularly up-voted will be the most viewed.

If I had to post something, there's a good chance people will follow me and my other social media links. If they do follow me, then I would have an army to support me against the Champions and any other powerful rich-as-hell squads. I wonder who they would be.

Most guys sent love messages as usual, but some girls are warning me for a seeming social discord and what was about to come:

Kenny Cartman: Good luck, girl. I hope you won't lose your life into this mess.

Alyssa Leanne Montefalcon: Be damned, sister. If they hit you first, you should have never hit them back.

Celestine Kerrigan: The Champions influence a ripple effect, they can create an army out of their followers.

"I should probably heed these advices." I spoke to myself.

I turned my phone off. I've had enough of this tense drama for the day, and besides, this girl will come back tomorrow even stronger.

"Oh, look who's here. A puppy." I squat down to pet a cute German Shepherd in the sitting area on a student's lounge. "Are you lost, boy, where's your owner?" I stroked him softly on the head.

"Hey, that's my dog. Stay away from it!" Someone called out. The woman waved a pearl-studded hand to swat me away like the plague. Her adorable canine wiggled its tail on me and it broke my heart witnessing a ball of cuteness was straying away from me, thanks to that overdramatic owner.

"Dammit, that dog was cute." I gave out an exasperated sigh.

Sometimes, one bad day could make me feel as if half of the people wanted me dead. And speaking of the people, the other half of them doesn't even know I existed, but whatever this ridiculous drama is, I'm not going to get emotionally or physically (or even psychologically) affected by it. I sense that they wanted to burn me slow and get crisped on this hell-damned campus, but I am not giving them that satisfaction. Nope!

"Oh, look who's here. The crumb dirtbag of Arkskye. . ." The ginger-haired girl, Cheryl Orlando, spoke up, surprising me from my deep thought. She, with the so-called Champions being here, strutting their stride as if the younger version of Victoria's Secret models.

Their Balenciagas are screaming for clothing quality. I know, right? It was if they existed to make people like me - a poor girl in a rich school - to feel so below in comparison. But in all honesty, I am very immune to their poison.

"What's your deal?" I crossed my arms, puckering my luscious, pink lips to ensure that mine is bigger than theirs.

"Now, now, you're standing in front of an infanta royale. Why aren't you kneeling?" Her arrogant gaze looked up and down on my figure.

"Have you realized already that losers like you remain low and cannot and will never be able to stand a chance to equal to girls like us?" Another rich girl with blonde hair said. "I'm Akita, by the way. Nice to meet you, honey."

Diana pushed herself off from ginger and blonde girl, "You ruined everything from me! Have you any idea this is going to reach my father's attention? Oh no. . . imagine the aftermath on the look of your face when you realize this is going to get real catastrophic."

"What? I didn't do anything that bad." I cocked an eyebrow, a little shocked yet not surprised at her stupid face making an angry entrance. As I sighed again, I delivered my hands with proper grace to explain them my side. "First off, you did the criticizing part on me, and I just did an unapologetic shade. That's all, Diana. Don't make such a big deal to it. Damn. . ." I reasoned her out, hoping to ease her down. I should lower my pride for now, or else, she'd take a dangerous leap and destroy my fate big time, and I couldn't have that, no.

She yelled, "You imbecile! You don't know what you're saying!" She looked around her, as if to seek someone else to swing the sword and cut off my head. "Where's Michael? Get over here, Mikey, now!"

She gave a second to call a boy, or should I say, her personal pet-slave? I'm not even so sure about that part. But she's super-duper angry right now, that's for sure. "Take a look at this, lowlife. You might want to know what the consequences are from who you're dealing with."

"Oh, yeah? And what's that?"

"Have you ever seen something like this, dumb blonde?" She had me look at her phone to see a post with a pic of my beautiful self captured in the cafeteria. They took a stolen shot of me, and her squad, yet they cannot even manage to make me look ugly. How quaint.

"What's up with that, does my gorgeousness dim your shine?" I smirked, wiggling my crossed arms to mock her more. But then, I realized, to my dismay, that this was a very bad move. I knew I shouldn't have provoked her, but it felt really good to watch her go berserk.

"No! I'm saying you are damned in hell, Frostfyre. We will gladly hire students to take your bag smudged and stunk to the trash, squander your grades, publicly shame you and report you for false accusation. Whatever you need, darling!" She screeched, making a gum-bare grin that totally signified her certification for psychopathy.

My blood churned and seethed, as if lava surged the very circulation of my veins. I tried to act poised and ultra professional, despite negotiating with this dumb lioness. But does she really thought that just because I shamed their lame, rich-kids pretend group, they could assume that they could easily toy me as a pushover? And destroy my social life by illegally destroying my reputation as a student? Can she? Let's see.

"You think I'm falling for it?" I quipped at her, while I gave each and every one of her squads a show of my raised middle fingers. I turned my head back at her, emotionless and unafraid. "Think again, honey. I'm not that easy to break."

When the other girls' annoying, generic, boring laughs lower down, Diana calmed herself to say something that would mean the grave of me.

"Fine. Don't believe. But heed my warning when I say this. I will send everyone messages that you have HIV. Yeah, ha-ha! That's right, and I don't care if you do have it or not. But my people here will listen to what I have to say. And for a fact, my followers will run that story so fast and spread my message faster than Covid-19 itself. Get it? Honey?"

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

"That's unfair!" I defended.

How could she? A false HIV rumor? Is she going nuts since the first day we met? That social discrimination was over the top. This woman is cray-cray crazy!

"Oh, yes, it is fair. Do you have any ounce of sympathy and actualization to realize how much suffering you have caused us from that stupid scene you made? It's shameful!"

Diana called out Cheryl Orlando (ginger girl). "Cheryl, tell her the only option to free herself from my chain."

Cheryl's smile widened as she tried to memorize some sort of like a cult-ish phrase. "You, Alexis, must abide by our rules. You only have to do two things for us. First: kneel to the ground and kiss all our feet."

"What?"

"Second, apologize to everyone by posting a sincere apology that you made a "big" mistake, and thinking how foolish and disgusting you were thinking, and that you worship the Champions from now on. And we have to record you on video when you do the kneeling part."

What they just informed me was a gateway to hell. I'm not ever going to lose my reputation on the first day of school.

"Listen, doll-face. You may be born with a dollar sign tattooed on your genes or may be gifted with a Louis Vuitton at the age of 12, or maybe even below that age, but that doesn't make you feel like a star." I delivered her a real-talk blow. "You're a desperate deadbeat 'It' girl, and a retarded one at that. You and your jerk of a brother don't even deserve the riches you have right now. You get that?"

"Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, let the waves of pain carry you off! As if I would succumb on your weak lines. You can shoot me mean kinds of stuff, even at my Lucifer-spawn brother, but we have the upper hand now. So I say, do your duty and follow what we set you out to do. So do it today, or we'll post your HIV-positive rumor. You only have until sunset to do that." Diana laughed as she gestured her girls to the left to leave with tears of hysteria on their faces, making me look like the clown of the town in the end of the story.

I breathed with slow ease as I marched myself onward with a hidden dread agitating my insides.

As I wandered, a bunch of nineteen-year-old kids giggled as they saw the embarrassing commotion. My legs were like noodles walking in uneasiness, yet, I overcame myself on keeping my befalling stance together.

"Don't let them see you in pain, you're better than this." I soothed myself.

I've already built strong walls inside my heart, so dramas like these cannot easily break me down to a spiral drain of tears. What they just did was like setting me up on a time bomb. With each passing second, I felt closer to the death of my reputation.

Thirty-two minutes later.

After all the whirlwind of cataclysm, my feet were dragging me with sonic speed to the nearest school library. I've been meaning to receive all my borrowed books here as fast as I could since I would be most definitely late for class after thirty minutes now.

Flipping my silky, shiny bangs on my forehead, I entered Serpent's Fangs (building number 3). I grabbed a spiraled snake badge to pin it on my clothes.

Most people are negatively shooting me unpleasant looks with their stoic hostile faces. Sweet gorgeous Mongolian girls welcomed me in Serpent's Fangs. "Welcome, miss Alexis.'

"Thanks, babes, you're both a fortune." I blew a kiss.

I put my textbooks on my locker rooms. Whistling with a nonsense tune, I checked my subject schedule, and it was English Lit with poetry and non-fiction subcategory. Next was Chemistry beta and Organic Biology.

I entered the class almost late, and I suppose it's because we were given free two-hours vacant periods to help ourselves in dormitory renovation. I hadn't even renovated in complete shape, so I thought tomorrow will do. "Good day, professor."

"Good day, lowlife." A lame guy uttered. And just with that sentence, it made a ripple until everybody on sight chuckled.

How cliche.

"Silence, silence!" The professor yelled. "You should all learn to treat our girls with respect."

"Thanks, professor." I said, for which he approved and smiled. I walked with sheer confidence, I am pouring out female energy as I walked to the guy who told me lowlife and spoke to his seatmate. "You're in my seat. Get out."

The other guy simply walks out and finds another seat as I serve my bag down, and sat beside the guy who told me 'lowlife' looking like one of Scott Pilgrim's girlfriend's evil ex-boyfriends.

"What's your name, darling?" I told him. He was a bit scared yet felt the need to possess the right amount of confidence to act like a man and speak up to me.

"Geralt."

"So, Geralt." I looked at his eyes. Mystery and mischief run through my eyes. "Tell me, and look into my eyes." For a moment, he looked, and that slightly shivering look hinted fear and lust combined in a confusion of feelings. He looked away. "Does my presence threaten you?"

"Nothing about you threaten-"

"You're nothing but a second rate, trying hard, jester. You suck, and I am really, really hoping you'd try to keep that in mind."

After English, I called Raven and wished to meet her in one of the two-person benches. It had a retractable umbrella, so I could open up a shade.

I watched the school gardeners redecorating and cutting Goldspire Ginko trees into such eye-catching, plume-flourished shapes. Arrayed outside Serpent Fang's entrance, they gave it a yellowish, welcoming appeal.

Raven said she'll be here in a minute. In her defense, she had to finish her mini burger first and run as fast as she could from Eagle's Haven to the Serpent Fangs' area.

One of the two football coaches snapped his fingers, "Hi there, Alexis."

"Hello there, coaches. Looking fine as hell, aren't we?" I didn't even know them, yet those sneakers and thick thighs are rocking them on.

"Alexis!" Raven panted and fanned herself with her small hand. "Phew! I found out about the Frostfyre versus Champions hashtag." She took a deep breath and wiped her sweat and turned her attention to the coaches." Wow, are you two dating? You both look hot."

I chuckled as the coaches chuckled in the distance as they walked away. "Seriously, Raven? You sound way more mature than you look." I looked at the sweats on her face, and goodness me! "Jesus, girl, you gotta stop running. Look what happened to your mascara." I gave her a makeup remover so she could redo her light application at a nearby girls' restroom.

"Let's not concern ourselves about makeup right now. And checking out those coaches doesn't help, because there's a lot of things coming at you."

"Ugh, yes. And I needed to counter-attack Diana. I've lost all my cards in the game, you know, and I don't know what the hell I should do, or what I should be doing first.

I couldn't even focus on my subjects, and it's hard to keep them under control once in a while. I could tell it's not just from those dumb blondes, but also because of that tall jerk becoming a bully just because I made his friends cry a river."

"What did Diana do?"

"She made an unwavering threat on blackmailing me to being HIV positive.

"Are they serious? Really? A freaking disease?"

"It's sick, I know. These Champions girls think they're so powerful enough to overthrow a Frostfyre-"

"And an Orthodox too, let's not forget about that, honey."

"And they thought they have all the upper hand and advantage. I don't want to give up and let these crabs laugh at me like I'm lower than their stance. I hate false HIV rumors, It's just so sick and unacceptable, even if I do get the disease I deserve my own right of privacy."

"Give me your phone." Raven Orthodox ordered.

I immediately fished out my smartphone and unlocked it. "What are you doing?"

"We are doing a reverse attack, honey." She tapped on Arkbook and typed as quickly as she could without making any errors that could ruin the influence of the post:

Alexis Frostfyre: The legendary, untouchable Diana Dayne and Calixon Reaver Dayne are two of the most A-M-A-Z-I-N-G people I know. These two multimillionaire power siblings secretly had (whispers in gossip) HIV. I mean, yeah. . . it's just so sad to say that Diana's mouth slipped from confessing me about it. She did tell me that they both suffered a great deal. Yet, most importantly, they did tell me that I should take the honor of publicly telling them about their illness rather than them confessing it. And it is, for us and for everyone to realize, that we should be respectful. . . I mean, hospitable even, that people like them should be handled well. I am Alexis, and this is my first Arkbook post. Much love. (inserted: Heart emoticon, Blessed emoticon)

"Raven, what in the world?" I almost shrieked. "You don't understand. The term HIV is not an easy word to spill like spilling tea, how dare you!"

"Eh, I figured a comedic-satirical post would do. And don't you look at me like that. Have you forgotten that Diana managed to make some nasty, unacceptable blackmail against you? Do you want her to use the HIV term on you instead, huh? We're reversing the possible gossip here." Her eyes still glued to her phone before turning it off and facing me right up.

I nodded, "I know, but this is a total disrespect to all people who are, in fact, positive."

"Diana, in the first place, was the one who disrespected the term by using it against you like outing you out as a lesbian without your freaking permission. But you're not a lesbian, and that just makes pretty much unfair!"

"Okay, you might be right about that too. I just meant that we just need to be more careful right now. I've analyzed the social play by just an hour and I would rather-"

"Listen to me, sister. You started this game. You might as well have started this war, and even if you didn't, you triggered the retarded Champions. So if you want my advice, do not ever let them feel as if they control you. I posted this to intentionally force them to taste their own poison, and I can very much say that they deserve what's coming to them."

I looked at my Arkbook app and saw five reactions already. And to my surprised frozen self, I could see that Calixon was one of them. Reacting with an angry emoticon.

I made the fastest self-reflection and realized how bomb this was. Raven looked at me. We stared at each other for a moment, telepathic and psychic, as if we made an "aha!" moment once more. This just felt like the good times when laid our vengeance and foresee our victory on executing the biggest revenge against our enemies.

I clicked on my profile and edited the featured bio:

"Strike me back, and I strike even harder. I am Queen, I slay."