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"Hey, daddy! How's your Vulpix doing today?? ha ha!"

Zane nearly tripped over his feet as the Grovyle rushed past him, absolutely shocked at the comment the grass-type had shot his way. Did he know Kira was pregnant?? He thought they had kept it well under wraps! She didn't even have a noticeable baby bump yet, she was only nine weeks in...

It took a yell from Coach Waldrum to get his head back into the soccer game. The rest of gym class went without incident, though he thought he heard his name followed by some snickering in the locker room at the end of class. He didn't have time to investigate though, needing to rush off to his last class of the day, history, instead.

After that, he made the short trek from his history classroom to Mr. Barretto's eighth-grade history classroom upstairs. He was nervous but excited for his first history bowl practice session - and was somewhat surprised when he saw a sizable group of students already there, only one of which he knew was another seventh-grader. The Nidoking history teacher seemed very pleased, though, and after a few minutes that included another student straggling in, he called the practice session to order.

"Alright everyone! Wow, there's a lot of you - that's great! Now, most of you know me, and you know how I like to start anything, so we're going to have some fun -" some students groaned "-well, humor me, I think it's fun - by starting with a pop quiz!" He produced a stack of papers from one of his desk drawers, then started passing them out as he walked among the nine students gathered. "These quizzes are a selection of questions from the national history bowls of the past three years. And I really want you guys to 'pop' on these - I'm only giving you fifteen minutes, so we can actually get to knowing each other and actually starting practice. No-one should get anywhere near finishing; I just want to see what you know overall so I can tailor our next practice session so everyone gets the most out of it. Okay, does everyone have a quiz now? Okay... go!"

If his heart hadn't been pounding at this unexpected trial by fire, Zane probably would have decided he liked Mr. Barretto's attitude. As it was, his mind was a frantic flurry of names, places, and dates as he bounced around the quiz, trying to just see what he even could try to answer. To him, it was all too soon before the Nidoking announced "Okay, time's up! Pass them to me, then scoot your desks into a circle." After the nine had done so, the history teacher got up and stood in a small gap in the ring.

"Okay! Now that that's out of the way, that'll be the most stress you guys should ever be under in these practice sessions. I presume you all are here because you enjoy history, so I want history bowl to be fun for you. Even at competition, I hope you enjoy it - though I know just the fact that it's competition will stress some people out and make others simply tense up, so I'll do my best to keep these practices relaxed and conducive to learning. Anyway! I know most of you but not all of you, and I'm sure you don't all know each other, so let's do introductions! We'll go around the ring with everyone stating their name, their year in school, their favorite historical year, and one other thing about yourselves. Okay, who wants to start?"

The room was silent for a moment, but then a guitar riff sounded from Zane's backpack, making his face instantly feel quite hot.

As he reached down to fetch his phone, the Nidoking said "Ah now, you haven't been in one of my classes before - Chris, isn't it? Whenever a phone goes off, I get to answer it." He held out a hand towards Zane smiling (not meanly) as a few other students either smirked or recalled a time when their phones had gone off.

Embarrassed still, Zane got his phone - and saw that it was Kira calling. He instantly was reluctant to hand the cell over, his gut sense telling him this call was bad for some inexplicable reason, but after a moment or so of indecision he extended it out towards the teacher. "Be nice to her," he said quietly.

Mr. Barretto gave him an odd look as he took the phone from the Electrike, wondering what Zane meant, then answered the phone, trying to sound light with a "Hello! Chris' phone, this is Mr. Barretto, how may I help you young lady?"

Zane watched tensely as the Nidoking's friendly smile faded into concern. He then shifted his weight toward the Electrike, as if preparing to hand the phone off, and said "Oh, don't worry, I can hand -" but cut off suddenly before pulling the phone away from his ear and looking at the screen dejectedly. He held the phone back toward Zane.

"Call her back."

Zane didn't say anything, simply standing up and taking his cell phone back before quietly walking out of the room. Out in the hallway, he hit redial and mumbled to himself "Come on, come on Kira, pick up, pick up..." as the phone rang. Finally the other end picked up, and even before Kira began talking Zane could tell she had been crying; he hated how his gut feeling earlier was correct.

"Z-Zane? S-Sorry I forg-got you h-had history bowl t-today... Aren't you b-busy?"

"I was told to call back. Mr. Barretto was worried, and you don't sound good. What's wrong, Kira? And are you still at school?" The last line was added as he started walking in the direction of the seventh-grade lockers, hoping to maybe find her.

After a sniffle, Kira responded "Picnic table outside the counselor's office...", making Zane spin on his feet as he switched directions. "W-Well, you know Bethee?"

"The Meditite? Isn't she the ringleader of that city clique? Just kinda mean in general? I know she's the best girl battler in our year."

"Yeah, sh-she and her gang are... kinda thugs. They pick on everyone, especially in gym class where they've got the game to compliment the taunts..."

"Okay... So what happened? You aren't hurt, are you?" he asked, re-passing the door to Mr. Barretto's room.

"W-Well, I mean, they do trash talk all the time anyway... But y-yesterday I thought they were going after me a b-bit more than usual... *sniff* And then today... They obviously were. And... and some of the other girls were keeping their distance, or snickering, or even j-joining..."

That reminded Zane of the small incident he had experienced earlier, but it sounded like what Kira was describing was a level or two above the normal sniping some of the girls did, which was itself already more intense than any shit the guys tossed around. Zane was scared to ask "Well... what were they saying?" Still, he had to ask; if they had gotten into his girlfriend's head, he needed in there too to help clear it out.

It took a moment before Kira spoke again - it sounded like reliving the ordeal was bringing her back toward tears. "W-Well, her group uses 'ugly bitch' as almost every part of speech, so th-that's no biggie, hehheh... ...but, w-with me, they go for m-my marks" (Man, if they were guys, I would throttle them,[/i] Zane thought,) "and m-my flat chest, but they started making 'fat' jokes... and calling m-me... all k-kinds of s-s-slut-t..."

"Kira, -"

"Keith, they know I'm pregnant!"

"WHAT??"

He passed the counselor's office them and burst out the school door to see Kira sitting at the table under the tree. She stood up and set down her phone on the table as he strode over; she hugged him, starting to cry. At least the Electrike could tell his girl's tears were cathartic this time, not panicky like a month ago, not hard enough to disrupt her speech, which helped him feel a little better about the situation.

"Yeah, they know..." she finally said, continuing where they had left off. "I mean, after it was getting really obvious how much they were teasing me, Melanie tried sticking up for me, and that's when Bethee finally slung out h-how.... how 'everyone knows that whore is knocked up, surprising her best friends doesn't know, huh?'..."

"That bitch..." Zane growled.

"I... I was completely floored. I couldn't form a response at all... I think just seeing so many of the other girls nodding j-just... undid me, I couldn't even really hear what they all said after that. I... I ran," she finished, drooping a bit in her boyfriend's arms, apparently embarrassed at herself for that course of action.

"You ran?"

"Y-Yeah... I mean, gym was alm-most over anyway, so I didn't miss much, but I didn't go to science... About h-halfway through last period I made my way to Ms. Ferber's office to talk, so I'm b-better now... At least, I know all their taunts were stupid, but it still..."

"Still stings, huh?" Zane asked, to which Kira just nodded. "Kinda scary, though, you wonder how people found out... One of the guys in my gym class shot a barb at me today, too."

Kira broke the hug at that, a look of fear crossing her face. "D-Does the whole school know??"

Zane shrugged. "No clue... I don't think many of the guys in gym knew, or if they did they didn't show it; same with history class and the little amount of history bowl practice I was in so far."

"Oh, yeah... you probably need to get back to that..."

"Eh, Mr. Barretto just gave me my phone and sent me off, I don't think I'm in any hurry. What about you? Didn't you miss your dad? Or your bus?"

"OH!" It was obvious she hadn't thought of that yet. "Umm... Well, Keith and I were going to take the bus; dad's home, but conferencing with a client, so he couldn't come pick us up... I wonder why Keith didn't text me when I didn't get on the bus..." She reached for her phone, a moment later saying "...oh, he did, I just missed it I guess... Keith should be close to home by now. Oh, Daddy's going to be worried about me, I hope he doesn't cut his meeting short to come get me..."

"Well, if you want to wait for the activity buses, I'm sure you could sit in on history bowl practice with me."

Kira looked surprised at the idea, then gave a hint of a smile. "Oh... You think I can?"

"Yeah, I'm sure Mr. Barretto wouldn't mind, he seems really friendly."

"Okay. I guess I should call and let my daddy know -" At that moment, Kira's phone rang. "Oh, yup, it's him," she said, seeing the name before raising it to her ear. "Hello? I'm at school, hanging out with Zane at his history bowl practice. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Yeah, sorry about that, it was kind of a snap decision... Sorry... Well... something did happen earlier today, kinda gave me a minor emotional breakdown, but I think I'm okay right now. Mmmm... well, can we talk when I get home? Yeah, I'd like to get back to the history bowl practice. Okay. Yes, daddy, I won't miss the activity bus. Love you too, thank you! Bye bye."

"So ready to go back inside?" Zane asked, holding out a hand as she hung up.

"Yup."

A minute later, they slid back into Mr. Barretto's classroom, Zane taking the seat he had earlier and Kira moving a desk right behind him. One of the other students wrapped up their introduction, and the Nidoking then announced "Alright, well that's everyone - except for our other seventh-grader. Want to introduce us to you and your friend, Mr. McKenzie? Actually, wait - does anyone think they have all eight introductions so far they can restate?"

One of the eighth-graders, a Breloom, took on the challenge, and got everyone and their information except for the other seventh-grader there, an Oshawott that Zane already knew from math class named Matej. The summary of the eighth-graders went in one ear and out the other for the Electrike, but he cut in with a smile to give Matej's name and even correctly guessed the Oshawott's personal fact, only needing the water-type to supply his favorite historical year before Zane finally took his turn for introductions.

"Well, my name is Zane, I'm in seventh grade, my favorite historical year is... 1204, and my fun fact... my best friend Keith and I placed first in the under-16 age group in pair battling at one of the summer festivals several months ago."

"Impressive!" Mr. Barretto said. "And 1204... the end of the first Kalos Neighbors war, yes?"

"Yup. Of the Kalos wars, everyone remembers the Great Kalos civil war, just because, and the second Neighbors war, since Parfum Palace exists, but I like this first Neighbors war a bit more. The winners write history, right?"

The Nidoking chuckled. "Indeed. One thing, though, I thought your name was Chris..."

"Ah, yeah well.... My full name is Christopher Zane McKenzie, but I don't like my first name, it sounds too formal to me, so I go by Zane."

"Ah, I see. Well, we'll make sure to remember that! Anyway, might you introduce us to your friend as well?"

"Uh, sure!" the Electrike said, turning a bit in his chair so the others could see Kira better. She seemed a little nervous and embarrassed to being brought into the group, but she was still smiling a little bit, so Zane felt okay introducing her. "This is Kira, my girlfriend, and Keith's twin sister, also in seventh grade."

"Ah, nice!" the teacher said. "Good to have you with us today, miss Kira! And may I say, your golden coat is gorgeous? How are you doing?"

Kira shifted a little in her seat before answering quietly "Oh, thank you... I'm... alright. Could be better, gym class wasn't good, but I'm good for now."

"I'm sorry to hear that... So are you sitting in just for today or might you be joining our little history bowl group?"

That made Kira laugh and relax, which in turn made Zane smile, something not lost on the other students. "Oh, it's just for today, I'm not all that good at history. I'll leave all the dates and names to Zane."

"Ah well, too bad; if you ever want to visit, you're welcome to, of course. Alright, well, now that we're all introduced, let's get started being history nerds, shall we?"

---

The weekend went fine for the most part; Zane met Keith and Kira at the park to spar with Keith a bit before their weekly battle club meeting after school on Monday. Zane though he saw some other classmates pass by his periphery at one point whispering to each other, though, and he couldn't get rid of the suspicious thoughts that followed him after that.

Kira had Melanie over after school on Monday, so once battle club was over Keith decided to take the activity bus back with Zane instead of disturb 'girl bonding'. It gave them some 'guy bonding' time, aided by the fact that Marcus had two of his college buddies over at the same time, working on a project for a community planning class. It was then, while browsing Facebook on his phone, that Zane got the notification.

Click.

...

Scroll...

...

"...WHAT THE FUCK???"

"Whoa, Zane!" Marcus exclaimed, looking up from his work, "you don't curse, bro, what's up?"

All the guys were looking at the Electrike now, but his gaze was still locked on his phone, a look of suspended rage on his face as he continued scrolling through whatever he was looking at. The energy he was radiating made all the other guys uncomfortable and unable to return to what they were doing.

Finally, he violently slammed his phone down, making the other guys jump a little bit, and just fumed, glaring into space for a little. After a minute or so of tense silence, Keith finally ventured a tentative "...Zane?"

The Electrike gave an angry sigh before saying "I want to throttle about half the school right now. Kids are disgustingly cruel. THIS," he said, picking up and brandishing his phone around, "this is how they all know!"

"They all know... about...?" Keith repeated uncertainly, not following.

Marcus got it, though. "Wait, about you and Kira being knocked up?"

"There's a seventh-grader knocked up??" "Dude, shut up!"

"Yes!" Zane yelled, ignoring his brother's friends. "Well, about Kira at least; a good portion of people aren't convinced it's me, and those who are aren't even "spreading the love" in my direction much at all! Hey, Keith: you know Kirstie?"

"Uh, the Skitty in our year?"

"You've said before that she's the biggest gossip ever, right?" Marcus asked.

"Right! Well, apparently she was in the councelor's office at the same time Kira was last week while they were discussing how to handle next semester."

"Doesn't Mr. Ferber also close her door so no-one can be overheard?"

"Yeah, but that damn kitty can read lips! So she made this hidden Facebook group "Kira Sune Is Pregnant!" and now half the school has been invited apparently, and they're just ripping into her! Not sure if Mitchell invited me out of spite or on accident. Probably the latter, he's a dunce and probably just blanket invited all his friends to the group, he's not bright enough to do anything out of spite."

"So you're in the group but refrained from posting back? I'm impressed," one of Marcus' friends said, the other one typing away at his laptop.

"Oh, don't be - I'm to incensed to really think right now," Zane replied, the look in his eyes supporting his statement.

Keith, now on his phone, spoke up next. "Yeah, I got an invite from Mitchell, too; probably a blanket invite. I'm reporting the group to Facebook. And writing a reply."

"You think they'll just delete the group?" "They better. Officially, they should." "No! Don't reply yet!"

"Why?"

"Let's let it sit and see what Facebook does," Marcus said. "Besides, the group is up, not sure if it would make much of a difference to stoop to their level now versus wait for Facebook to remove it."

"In the mean time," Marcus' typing friend, a Luxio, said, "we can stoop below their level."

"Uuhhh, how so?" Zane asked, a mix of curiosity and uncertainty temporarily erasing his rage.

"Hacking."

"Hacking?"

"Stan... I know you're a CS major, but do you really want to take on Facebook's security?" Marcus asked. "That could get you in trouble..."

"Yeah, what are they gonna do? Delete the profile I don't have and sue me for breaking a terms-of-use contract I never agreed to?"

The Manectric just facepawed, while the other sophomore asked "Geez, Stan, why are you suddenly to involved?"

"Let's just say my family has a history of experiencing middle-school bullying..." was all the Luxio growled in response.

Keith and Zane walked to stand behind Stan as he attack his keyboard, the other two older guys trying to get back to their class project. After a minute or two of watching the Luxray's screen and not understanding what was going on, Keith asked "So what are you doing?"

"Right now? Just setting up my Facebook page viewer. I made it last year but it was really rough, and I've been slowly trying to update it since I had the first version complete. I'm close, though, gimme another minute or two and I think I'll be able to view Facebook pages without having a login..." On cue two minutes later, Marcus' profile page popped up on-screen. "Ha! Looks like I'm in."

"So you're in Marcus' account, now?"

"Say what now?" the Manectric asked, again looking up from his work with a concerned look on his face.

"No, I'm not in his account. I just know I can't see his profile using Facebook not-logged-in search feature, so the tunnel I've created should be able to see through some privacy features. At least, I think that's what it means if I can see his page. Could be that I've just bypassed privacy features that happen to let me see his page. Lemme see here..." He clicked on one of Marcus' friends, a female Arcanine that had posted on his page a lot, then clicked to someone else from her page. "Looks good.... Now, what was the name of that hidden group we want into?"

"Uh, just "Kira Sune Is Pregnant"," Zane replied, which Stan typed into the search bar.

"Hmm... I'm not seeing it... Darn, I guess I didn't get through all of Facebook's features like I thought... Though, come to think of it, I bet groups are coded rather differently than people are... Man, I guess I'm gonna have to create a whole new tunnel, especially if I want to mess with group mechanics."

"So what were you going to do once you got into the group?"

"Well, since you two were invited into the group, I was thinking I could turn you two into group admins and remove the current admins - I assume Facebook group have admins, right? - so even if Facebook doesn't delete the group, you can control it in a way to want to."

"Ah, that'd be nice..." Keith mused.

Zane thought for a moment. "Well, current group admins have the power to make members into new admins; do you think you could hack into people's accounts?"

"Ah, really? Well, I guess I could... The theoretically easiest way to get in would be to find their e-mails and passwords and get in through the front door, but that's assuming their passwords aren't impossible, and I don't have a password-guessing program at the moment. I could probably try to get in by trying to find another back door in Facebook's code, but that would probably take quite a while..."

"Well, we are talking about petty middle-schoolers here, I'm sure at least one of the admins has a somewhat-weak password to their account."

"Dang, Zane, you're really bitter today!" Marcus observed.

"Hey, this is my girlfriend everyone's slandering, damn right I'm pissed!"

"So there's more than one admin to this group?"

"Yeah, here," Keith said, placing his smartphone down on the table next to Stan so he could start browsing.

"Oh, thanks kid! I can see their e-mails easily this way, too, and maybe find some hints among their likes and such. Will probably take me a while, but nowhere near as long as writing new code. Alright, let's see, we have Kirstie, group creator... Bethee, a Meditite -"

"Oh, she scares me," Keith said, "she could beat up most guys in a one-on-one fight, and always looks ready to do it too."

"- and the Kwame guy, a Grovyle..."

"Ah, he's in my gym class, and shot some comments my way on Friday," Zane said.

"Anyway, as I said, give me some time to start researching hints and hammering at some password guesses."

"Okay, thanks Stan."

The Luxio spent the next hour plus trying to log in to Kirstie's account to no avail, then started on Bethee's account. But then Keith had to leave - no-one mentioned anything to Mr. Sune yet - and not long after Marcus and his two friends left to meet more of their friends for dinner. Stan promised to Zane to continue trying to get into one of the 'evil group's admin's accounts on his own time. It wasn't until after dinner the next day, when Marcus ate with his family instead of his friends, that the Manectric's phone rang. He and Zane were in the living room while their mom was cleaning up around the kitchen.

"Hey Stan, what's up? Oh, really? Hey, that's awesome! Hey, Zane," he said, getting up and turning to his little bro, "c'mon, get on Facebook now, Stan says he's in!"

"Ah, great!" Zane said, jumping up and jogging to the office to hop on the main computer there, as he preferred it to his phone. Sure enough, when he logged on to Facebook he saw a notification saying he had been made an admin to "Kira Sune Is Pregnant". "So how did he get in?" the Electrike asked his brother.

"Yo, Stan, who'd you hack? ... Uh-huh... Oh, hahaha! Zane, get this: that Kwame guy's password essentially was "password", just with a five, a zero, and a capital D. Stan spent so long trying to think of semi-clever passwords, he didn't start trying the stupid ones until an hour ago or so."

"Hey, whatever works!" Zane said, accepting his adminship of the group, then whipping out his phone and dialing. "Oh, come on, pick up... Ha, there you are! Hi Keith! Hey, get on Facebook now, Marcus' friend got us in as admins to the bully group. Yeah, you can kick out the old admins, but don't remove any group members, I'm gonna type up a group message."

"Stan says he left some gifts for the old admins... Apparently Kwame has a new password and a fun status about Bethee..."

"Eh, the new password is funny, but the status sounds like it's kinda low... Especially since Keith and I will probably be blamed for this," he said as he typed.

"Yeah, I told him that... Oh well, it's done."

"Yeah...." Zane spent the next several minutes finishing his note, then letting Marcus look it over.

Hello Hassenburg South Middle School. This group is now under new management, courtesy of one of my brother's comp. sci. college buds. You all should be ashamed of yourself, especially with the anti-bullying campaign our school has been pushing the past few years. Even if Kira has never seen this group, all of the bad-mouthing and rumor-spreading that started here has tormented her in real life for almost a week now. What I really don't get is all the cruetly flung her way, with almost no harsh comments directed toward "the father", whoever you thought the father was. Double standard much? All offensive content is being removed, and let me set the record straight: yes, Kira is pregnant. Yes, I am the father - not some high school student she seduced, not someone on the HSMS football team she couldn't resist; me. We concieved the last weekend of September when I didn't use a condom and she hadn't used birth control correctly. We have already started talking to the people at the Kendall Family Services Center to find a nice family to adopt this kid. We made a mistake, but we're sticking together through this ordeal and trying to make the best of it. If any of you have a problem with any of this, honestly ask yourself why, and what you get out of attacking Kira like you have been. If you want to just leave this group and create another hidden group, go ahead and try - but we have screenshots to let Facebook, the school, and whoever we want to show know the kinds of things that have been said and shown here if we think this sort of stuff is being continued.