Chapter Two:
Junior High

The alarms in their dorms were set to five in the mornings every weekday and seven on Saturdays, with Sundays being time off for anything else that needed done. Like laundry – including their beddings.
After room inspections they had gym, then a half hour to shower before an hour for breakfast and mail/announcements. First class was Formal Latin followed by a class in their native language. For Xander and Winny that was Formal English. Then Geometry and Drafting, rounding out the morning classes. A half hour lunch, after which was Drawing, then Designing, then knifework for crafting. And basics in chemistry rounded out the day with dinner following and games of strategy and tactics in the evening in the common rooms for their dorm area.

Saturday was dorm chores after gym and breakfast, then afternoon classes in crafting skills and abilities to see what each was best at. With Sunday the day of rest.
Their crafting classes involved getting to “know” the item they wished to craft with or on. “Feeling” it. Scrying it. So, they would be able to eventually shape it. The basics they were now learning.

Winny was good with textiles while Xander was good with wood and metals. So, they were separated into these classes to learn what they needed to learn.

And Sundays they all collapsed till noon.

In the boy’s hall he learned of “others”. Dwarves, elves, shifters, halflings. All represented in his hall. And all skilled in something that they were learning there. He learned of the daemon half-breeds in the girl’s hall and the dark ones in the upper years that were blocked from their areas.
Why his year in school at home have only half the number of students it started with in preschool. And how to recognize the hunting dark ones to try to avoid them. And what keeps them away from the ones they deem as prey.

By the time the term ended, he had earned a good grade in geology, geometry, and Latin and had happily signed up for next summer’s courses. And his teachers allowed him to get ahead of things and get his course schedule in school for the upcoming year at Sunnydale Junior High. With the counselors implanting them into the system ahead of time, he would be set.
Gym was bypassed with a note as he was to continue his own exercises ordered and those in charge of the schools (Junior and Senior high schools) were not impressive as far as his teachers were concerned. So, he had metal shop instead for first period, English second, algebra third, and history fourth. First lunch period, then since he already had his science out of the way, he had study hall for fifth, art for sixth, wood shop for seventh.
His uncle had paid for his gym membership, and he was to be there every morning before school for his workout and morning shower. And he would have a trainer that was hired to keep him going to his schedule as his uncle was now a retired engineer from NASA. And held several patents that were still paying out. It was what allowed him the free time now in his pseudo retirement to further work on his own inventions. All the while owning and working at the auto junk yard.

%%%%%

When he got to LA and was picked up by his uncle, he was told his friends had been going to his known haunts to wait for him. And that they were making absolute pests of themselves at his work so please do something about them.

Come to find out Willow was all up in arms about him leaving town as he was supposed to stay in place to be her rock when she needed him. He calmly told her that he wasn’t a blankie she could toss on and off as SHE needed him. He was flesh and blood with needs of his own. And refused to speak to her again till school started no matter the waterworks she poured out.
And, thus, her stalking began.

She, and Jesse to an extent, were even more forceful over his not waiting and signing up for other classes away from them. And trying to have his own life now that wasn’t dictated by Willow, and her need for absolute control.

He snubbed her and mostly ignored his best friend. Telling him to stop being her mouthpiece in making him be her dress-up doll in her Stepford life.
Jesse ended up finding new friends instead and let Willow try to make Xander do her biding all on her own. Which further pissed off the young budding magical to accident magic in getting Xander to do her bidding in a bit of Wish Magic. Till his Uncle Rory broke that with a cleansing and forced a new after school tutor on the budding dark witch. And a magical restraining order against for the rest of their school years.
Telling her to actually get a life that didn’t involve his nephew.

She ended up tying the budding jock, Larry, to her instead deeming him her new protector. And one who would see to it that Xander would be the one paying for thwarting her.

%%%%%

His next summer was marked with the try at advancement to Apprentice Craftsmen in their various fields by the end of that term. And thanks to his two shop classes and a teacher who allowed him to come in after school to handle the materials, he was on course for it.
In wood, he had to test out his knowledge of the various kinds and how to work with them. What they were good for. And their magical properties were. And his final goal was to show his ability to shape a sample of the various types.

In metals the knowledge types were the same but for metals, with the difference in ability was in the knowledge and beginning skills in selecting the right ores from scratch and smelting it down to work on.
His side and school subjects were basic chemistry, physics, and maths to go with them. Getting those passed classes noted in his state record as having passed the classes and getting the credits for them. He was also starting on the runic languages for his work. Starting with the one known to all, the Norse Elder Faruc.

At home, the eighth-grade classes were almost the same with a different schedule. Only switching history for health class. And taking second lunch. In his shop classes he worked to further his ability to shape his projects, getting them in a position to get more intricate with them.
And after school he began to work for his uncle at the auto junkyard. In return his uncle was helping him start to work on putting together his own rehabbed car for when he got his license in a few years.

He was going for an old VW camping van that had long since been abandoned. And was currently working on his shaping and molding skills to get all the rusty cancer spots out to be replaced by new steel in the chassis, and undercarriage. Working on strengthening the whole thing as he went.

That summer, his work truly began as he was now deemed a beginning Apprentice and had to earn his spurs to gain anything further.
Getting further in shaping and working with his medium. Working on strengthening his hands, arms, and body to handle his new abilities he was learning on the forge.
In the metals he had graduated from smelting to actually working with the types of metal gradients and learning how to judge by looks, feel, and sound, what and how the metal was. The same with the woods, though with differences. As they had been alive not all that long ago. And their past life needed to be accounted for in their shaping and working with.
His classes continued with a second term of chemistry and physics. He worked in business math now as they wanted their students to know how to do that part of the work. Starting with accounting math. And the gnome from the magical Swiss branch bank was a hard task master at it. The humans in his group started on elocution and diction. And proper etiquette. Starting with the human side of things and the next years would go through the other main races they might run into.

The classes he would be taking in his upcoming high school freshman year would be the basic mandatory English and Social Studies, Gym was the same, and his math this year was pre calc. He had a new art teacher, and the two new shop teachers and his study hall in the library.

On his roommate’s side, he was a half-elf with his mother, the human in the relationship. He got the body of his father, and the skills of his fashion designer mother. He was going to be going into a specialty school for artists during the school year starting this year thanks to the Academy. So, this was the last term they would be together. Though they planned on staying in contact with each other.

With good nutrition and his workouts and the forge, Xander had shot up to 5’5 and bulked out in the upper body. And he toned himself everywhere else. And he was still in his growth spurt so was on a high calorie diet to make up for it.
His voice was already almost through changing to a deeper tone of a lower tenor, and his uncle planned to get him elocution lessons and voice lessons when he got home.
Which worked well as his dad had already moved him out and over to Rory’s the first year he came back from his summer term. And last year both he and Xander’s mom got in a fiery wreck when they were coming home from a late night at the bar they favored. Neither one survived and Uncle Rory just finished cremating them and spread their ashes out in the ocean. Then they told their debtors the house was theirs and the same with everything inside it.