The Halls of The Mountain King

Reputations

      "Fine. I'll get a rep." He replied with a huff, turning around and walking off, whistling as he walked. She sighed and began setting her part of the plan in motion. She hoped he didn't pull anything that made it difficult for them to just get this over with. Prom wasn't until the end of the year. And it was only the Fall, but she wasn't in the mood to sit around and bide her time with the 'getting to the top' part of this. The less work she had to do the better, and the less time she spent on this nonsense the better. It wasn't like she enjoyed any of this. She preferred to help people; to see them smile, but that stopped being an option when she had become a target for bullying. Once she stood up for herself and gained confidence, she began attracting guys who liked her confidence and 'take no bullshit' attitude. Too bad the boys were not even close to her type. Not like she knew her own type. Either way, she didn't really enjoy messing with peoples' lives. Once she got to the top and got Mal up there with her, it wouldn't be long until everyone's lives settled back into the status quo of 'same-old, same-old'. Where she could remain popular without much work and slowly slip into a simple daily routine.

Taking a deep breath, she carried her typed note with the anonymous tip about Josh to the principal's office, leaving it in his mail box at the end of the day. Now all that was left to do was wait for the blow out.

It didn't take very long. A few days, a quiet investigation behind the entire team's back, even the coach to ensure he wasn't providing Josh with the steroids to boost his team's rate of winning. Drug dogs were brought in and everything. It was only a week until they had all the evidence to prove Josh had performance enhancing drugs and he was off the team. The story got around quick, and once she heard the story from one of the preps, she put on her best acting face and started to cry into the other girl's shoulder, acting as though she was devastated. Immediately, she was interrupted by the whistle of Mountain King. She glanced up from her spot on the girl's shoulder to see Mal looking right at her with an almost concerned expression. His hair was spiked up and out of his face, meaning she could see both of his eyes at one time. That was a new look for him. He looked good. He even wore a different outfit than usual. A red button-up shirt with a black T-shirt underneath it. A studded bracelet graced his left wrist.

"Is something wrong?" Beck stared at him, not really sure of what to say, he looked so different, and she was still trying to work that through her brain, let alone keep up her act. He'd caught her so off-guard.

"Her boyfriend Josh was caught on steroids." The girl, Brianna answered for her, snapping Beck back into her 'popular girl' façade.

"H-He's not my boyfriend anymore..." Beck looked to the side a little and Brianna grinned a bit, Beck's voice had wavered just right, making her still sound pretty upset over Josh, and a little angry at him. Sometimes she wanted to thank her mom for those acting lessons from when she was a child.

"What about him? He's cute. He'd make a good replacement." Brianna joked. Mal smirked at them and Beck shook her head.

"I-I don't know... I mean... I barely know him..." She whispered to Brianna and glanced at Mal, wondering what kind of plan he had. She hoped he wasn't expecting this to just work. Walking up like that. He needed more of a dramatic hook than that. And this attempt was rather pathetic so far. Had he never seen a teen movie before? This wasn't how it was supposed to work. A sudden noise interrupted her thoughts. The fire alarm blared and Brianna turned away from Beck and towards Mal, who was standing in front of the stairwell towards the exit.

"A fire drill?!" Brianna squeaked. "Damn... let's go..."

"Give us a minute, let Beck and I have a little time to get to know each other." Beck stared at him for a second and Brianna shrugged and headed down the stairs yelling something about 'don't get in trouble' or something like that. Mal and Beck stood alone in the hallway, the blaring siren cutting through their staring contest.