The Villain Academy- Chapter Three: What's Your Damage?
Hi, everyone!
Yeah, me again. *dodges rotten tomatoes* So, seeing as the last chapter of "The Villain Academy" ended on a cliffhanger and I feel like showing off my NaNo, here's Chapter Three, entitled "What's Your Damage?"!
Maybe I'll post more if you *really* want it...;) Read Chapter Two first. In Chapter Three, Tori enters the Villain Academy and meets a strange cast of characters. This is one of my favorite chapters, writing it and introducing everyone and stuff was amazing.
3. What’s Your Damage?
A minute slid by with a snail’s pace, and no one had yet answered the door. Tori was unsure whether to knock again, wait patiently, or run away while she still had a chance and hitchhike back to her house.
But even as she mapped out a route through the heavy forest in her mind, she heard footsteps on the other side of the door.
She froze and tried to compose herself before the double doors creaked open. She threw off her expression of pure anxiety and terror for one of composed, quiet evil, a sort of mild scowl. She put a hand on her hip and stood at an angle, suitcase leaning heavily on her leg.
The door opened in one sweeping motion, and standing behind it was a man. He was old and Tori could never imagine his sour face curling into a smile. He looked serious beyond belief. The little hair he had left was jet-black, and his eyes were a cold gray. He looked her up and down critically.
“Tori-Lynn Parathion, I presume,” he said in a tone a thousand times more serious than Uncle Charlie’s had been yesterday.
“Yeah.” Tori replied, trying her hardest to sound sour and serious as well.
He stared at her damp hair and clothes. “It’s raining again, then.” he noted.
Tori made a dismissive scoff. “Are you going to let me in, or am I going to stand here all night?”
He pursed his lips. “I am your headmaster, Sorrell Truculent, and you’d do well not to cross me.” he warned.
“Noted,” Tori replied with a hint of a sneer.
Truculent gave her one last critical stare, and stood aside to let her in. Inside, Tori breathed a sigh of relief.
“You came at a good time. The rest of the students are in study hall. You are fifteen, correct?” Truculent said, closing the doors and starting to lead her around. Tori nodded. “You’ll be put in a class with other students your age. There are five others in your age bracket,” he continued. “Now, they may become your friends or your enemies. I truly do not care. Alliances are just as important as grudges, so you should form both, Miss Parathion.”
He led her through winding hallways, up staircases, past portraits Tori swore watched her pass. Gargoyles were perched on the walls, supporting lights with snarling faces. The entire place looked like it was entering a state of disrepair. The carpet on the stairs was ragged and wearing thin, some of the gargoyles were crumbling, and the tiny windows could use a good clean. To Tori’s horror, she spotted dozens of cobwebs, no doubt with lurking arachnids waiting for their opportunity to attack her.
Finally Truculent had led her to their destination: an expansive library. He swung open the wide door to reveal five teenage kids, two boys and three girls, sitting at tables or poring over dusty tomes. They looked up as Tori and Truculent entered.
“Here are your classmates,” Truculent said. “Villains in training, this is the new student, Tori-Lynne Parathion.”
The other kids stared, with unreadable but somewhat surly expressions. Tori stared back, suppressing the urge to wave.
Truculent left the room, closing the door behind him with a leer. Tori got the distinct impression he wanted nothing more than fighting.
One of the girls approached Tori. She had blue-black hair in a messy ponytail and murky green-brown eyes. “So, it’s Tori-Lynne?” she said, apparently seeing no need to say hello.
“Yes,” Tori replied, nervous.
The other girl scoffed. “God, you sound like a goody-goody.”
The other two girls sitting at a table were identical as far as Tori could tell, with matching white-blonde hair reaching to their waists and pale blue eyes, with skin light as snowflakes. They looked up at the same time, with lacy black ribbons tied in their hair.
“Snowflakes, got any ideas for a better name?” the girl called to the twins, gesturing vaguely at Tori.
The twins, or Snowflakes, as they seemed to be when addressed collectively, glanced at each other. “Lyn.” they both replied at the same time.
“With one ‘n’,” one said, “and no ‘e’,” the other finished.
The girl nodded with an impressed grin. “Alright, Lyn, the Snowflakes got you covered.”
“How do they say things the same time like that?” Tori said, peering at them curiously.
The other girl rolled her eyes. “You have a lot to learn, Lyn. You got powers, right?”
Tori nodded, a tad defensively. “Of course I do.”
“Well, we do too. The Snowflakes are psychic. They can talk to each other with their minds, and they can move stuff around. Y’know, just by thinking real hard. They get headaches a lot,” the girl explained.
“Do they have names?” Tori asked, curious as to why they had only been called “Snowflakes.”
Again the other girl rolled her eyes. “Of course they have names, but none of us know how to tell them apart, so we just call them Snowflakes. One’s Gemelle and one’s Tamsyn, but they’re the only ones who know who’s who.”
She then pointed to a boy with hair a lighter shade of brown than Tori’s reading a book at the table on the other side of the twins. “That’s Altair. He’s a flier.”
Tori then noticed with a start that Altair was hovering a bit in his chair. “Can he make other things fly?”
As if to answer, Altair lazily flicked his wrist and Tori was sent into the air like a cork. She screamed and dropped her suitcase. One of the Snowflakes slowed its fall and set it down neatly on the floor, while the other took over for Altair and sent Tori flying into a wall.
“Ouch!” she cried, crumpling into a heap on the floor. They all laughed, save for one boy in the far corner by an expansive window. Tori pulled herself up and walked back to the girl, who was still laughing.
“Shut up,” she grumbled.
“Ooh, someone’s got a temper,” the girl replied coolly.
Tori pointed to the boy in the corner, who was writing furiously in a notebook. “Who’s that?”
“That? Oh, that’s Rune.” the girl replied. “He can read people’s minds and feelings if he touches them. But apparently it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, he’s shunned all human contact. He just sits around scribbling in that notebook. He’s smart, too, when he opens his mouth it’s usually with something important.”
“And you?” Tori asked.
“I’m Angana, but call me Angie if you want to live.” She snapped her fingers, and a plume of flame encased her hand. “I’m a bit of a pyromaniac.” she said with a leer. Her eyes glinted with a spark.
Tori’s eyes widened and she took a step back. Angie’s grin widened, and she engulfed the rest of her arm. The fire spread slowly over her whole body, until she herself was a flame, flitting around the room and making Tori increasingly nervous. And then in a moment, she was flesh, blood, and bone and no longer flame. The smirk seemed to be plastered on her face.
“So, what can you do, Lyn?” Angie asked, expecting something substandard. Tori adopted Angie’s smirk and replied smugly, “I’m a shape-shifter.”
Finally Angie’s grin vanished and her mouth dropped open. The Snowflakes looked up from their book, wide eyes even wider. Altair fell into his chair, apparently forgetting to keep himself aloft. Even Rune paused and looked up from his notebook incredulously and said, “What?!”
“You’re lying,” Angie hissed. The Snowflakes and Altair nodded, but looked unsure. Tori could tell Angie wasn’t entirely confident in her assumption either.
“I’m not a liar,” Tori shot back. About this, anyway, she realized.
“Prove it,” Angie challenged, crossing her arms and swinging her ponytail over her shoulder with attitude.
“I will,” Tori replied. She stared intently at the Snowflakes’ book, and slowly she began to melt.
Angie cried out, the Snowflakes gave a start, Altair fell off his chair entirely, and Rune closed his notebook and capped his pen. The blob of color that was Tori shifted and squirmed and finally took the form of the book, only splotches of black, purple, and dark blue denim instead of parchment-yellow and faded maroon.
The other five gathered around, awe-struck. Rune approached from the corner but stayed a good few feet back from everyone else. Angie began flipping pages of the Tori-book, and it took all of Tori’s strength not to complain. So she vented another way.
“OUCH! The bitch gave me a paper cut!” Angie yelped, jumping up. Rune looked frightened and retreated another few feet.
The Snowflakes looked at Angie disapprovingly. “Such language,” started one, “will not be tolerated, Angara,” the other finished.
“I’ve told you a million times to call me Angie,” she replied in a clipped tone, sucking blood from her finger with a scowl. Altair snickered.
Tori melted back and molded herself into her original form, with the others in a ring around her. Angie had apparently recovered from her paper cut and took center stage again.
“Alright, Lyn, so you have powers. And apparently you like to draw blood,” she said sourly. “What’s your damage, then?”
“Excuse me?” Tori replied.
“Your damage. We all have damage, we’re all villains for a reason,” Angie explained, giving her paper cut one last critical look. “See, my parents tried to beat the fire out of me. And when that didn’t work, they dropped me here. So I’m looking for them, and when I find them, I’ll show them how stupid they are to think they can control me.” Her voice became increasingly angry as she spoke. Tori fought her urge to recoil, to cry out, to protest.
She wanted to tell Angie maybe her parents were just scared, or didn’t know how to deal with her powers. But whatever the case, they certainly didn’t deserve to be burnt to crisps over it. Tori read the vengeful fire in Angie’s eyes, and knew she wanted nothing more than murder and arson in her parents’ future.
But to correct an evil master scheme did not seem very villain-like, so Tori said nothing and merely gave a little nod.
Angie then glanced at the Snowflakes. “Tell her,” she instructed them.
“They thought we were crazy,” began one, after glancing at her sister. “They never gave us a chance,” the other added. Together they said, “They locked us up in the asylum. They said we were insane dangers to society.”
One stopped talking while the other continued, “But really they just didn’t know what to do with us.” The other said, “We escaped.” And together they said sadly, “But they have our baby sister, Aimee.”
“She’s grown up there…”
“Alone…”
“Afraid…”
“She has no powers…”
“But they kept her anyway…”
“We will get her back.” they chorused.
“And when we do,” said one, “we will destroy the asylum,” the other said.
“And all the asylums…”
“Freeing those like us…”
“And if chaos ensues…”
“So be it,” they finished together, identical glints of misery and rage alight in their eyes.
A chill seemed to shoot through Tori’s body, and every bone shivered with fear. True, it was terribly unfair the Snowflakes’ baby sister was trapped in the asylum, but genuinely crazy people were kept away in asylums. If there were no asylums, they could hurt innocent people. Only a tiny fraction of those freed would actually be sane. Wouldn’t it be easier for the Snowflakes to merely take back their sister?
But once again, objecting was not very villain-like, so Tori said nothing.
Angie nodded at Altair.
He gave a little scowl and said, “I’m not quite so dramatic, unfortunately. My parents are pilots, so they were always gone. They never even noticed I could fly. I tried to tell them; they thought me being around the planes all the time had messed with my head or something. So I ran away, to here. Maybe they’ll notice me for once.”
“So you just want them to take the time to pay attention to you?” Tori said sympathetically. Altair seemed relatively sane for a villain.
He gave a harsh laugh. “Oh no. That’s not enough anymore.” he replied, shaking his head slowly. “No, they can’t save their stupid skins just by paying attention for once. I’m going to take over the world, and they can notice me then like everyone else.” Altair’s face curled into a smirk as he spoke, and Tori got the distinct feeling Altair had something awful in mind for his parents.
So much for sane, she thought glumly.
“Hey, you’d better remember us when you rule the world, fly boy,” Angie said. Tori was unsure whether she was joking or not; there was laughter in Angie’s tone, but seriousness in her eyes. She couldn’t tell what was really in the hearts of these kids. She couldn’t decide if their plans were justified retribution for the pain they’d suffered, or if they were merely unable to accept the misfortune they had encountered. She didn’t know if they were born crazy like this or if it was a result of the strain of their awful lives.
Either way, she was quite frightened and wished she had turned back when she still had the chance.
“What about Rune?” Tori asked, pointing to him. Rune was the last one to tell his tale in the room, or as Angie put it, his “damage,” and Tori still had a slim hope for sanity. He was her last chance, the only thing to assure her this place wasn’t an asylum like the one the Snowflakes had escaped from, where their little sister Aimee was, alone and afraid…
“Oh, him? Not much, really.” Angie said. She glanced at Rune; he gave her a gesture that indicated he didn’t want to tell his tale and returned to his corner. Once there, he returned to writing in his notebook.
“Okay then. Rune doesn’t feel like talking. Don’t get offended, if he says more than a few sentences a day we think he’s being too chatty,” Angie explained.
“So what’s his damage?” Tori said, trying to sound casual.
“Well, for starters he’s a dhampyr from a family of vampires, so he was shunned as a kid. Had to rely on himself and no one else, because it was shameful to talk to him. His family’s batty like that.”
Altair laughed again.
“Shut up, I didn’t mean it like that!” Angie retorted. Altair continued to snicker. Angie scowled.
Tori glanced at Rune. He looked sort of like a vampire; he was deathly pale. Tori wondered if he had fangs. She’d sworn she’d seen a glint of red in Rune’s eyes before behind his spider web-thin round glasses. It had to be awful to be shunned by your own family for something you couldn’t help. Nevertheless something that was probably your family’s fault anyway. Tori knew little about vampires and dhampyrs, but she did know being a dhampyr was a genetic thing.
Angie continued, “Anyway, no one would take him, so he left and came here. He’s never said it, but I think he just wants his parents to talk to him for once.”
It was settled; Rune was definitely the sanest of the group. Tori even pitied him a little; like Altair, he craved attention he’d never received. But unlike Altair, he wasn’t planning something awful for his parents. No, he just wanted to make them proud.
“So, what’s your damage, Lyn?” Angie said. The others turned to her expectantly. The Snowflakes stared eagerly with wide eyes, Angie awaited something spectacular, Altair waited patiently, and even Rune stopped a moment to listen.
“Well, I’m an orphan. I had an older brother, but he abandoned me to go off with his girlfriend. So I’m gonna find him, and make him suffer like I did.” Tori said, remembering the story Uncle Charlie had come up with for her. She let herself smirk cruelly and added a bit of edge to her voice.
The others approved with nods and grins, murmuring amongst themselves.
“Well, Lyn,” Angie said, “welcome to the Villain Academy.”
You like, Y/N? :D
Quote of the Day: "Chaotic Neutral: Might save your life, might steal your car."
~June
Yeah, me again. *dodges rotten tomatoes* So, seeing as the last chapter of "The Villain Academy" ended on a cliffhanger and I feel like showing off my NaNo, here's Chapter Three, entitled "What's Your Damage?"!
Maybe I'll post more if you *really* want it...;) Read Chapter Two first. In Chapter Three, Tori enters the Villain Academy and meets a strange cast of characters. This is one of my favorite chapters, writing it and introducing everyone and stuff was amazing.
3. What’s Your Damage?
A minute slid by with a snail’s pace, and no one had yet answered the door. Tori was unsure whether to knock again, wait patiently, or run away while she still had a chance and hitchhike back to her house.
But even as she mapped out a route through the heavy forest in her mind, she heard footsteps on the other side of the door.
She froze and tried to compose herself before the double doors creaked open. She threw off her expression of pure anxiety and terror for one of composed, quiet evil, a sort of mild scowl. She put a hand on her hip and stood at an angle, suitcase leaning heavily on her leg.
The door opened in one sweeping motion, and standing behind it was a man. He was old and Tori could never imagine his sour face curling into a smile. He looked serious beyond belief. The little hair he had left was jet-black, and his eyes were a cold gray. He looked her up and down critically.
“Tori-Lynn Parathion, I presume,” he said in a tone a thousand times more serious than Uncle Charlie’s had been yesterday.
“Yeah.” Tori replied, trying her hardest to sound sour and serious as well.
He stared at her damp hair and clothes. “It’s raining again, then.” he noted.
Tori made a dismissive scoff. “Are you going to let me in, or am I going to stand here all night?”
He pursed his lips. “I am your headmaster, Sorrell Truculent, and you’d do well not to cross me.” he warned.
“Noted,” Tori replied with a hint of a sneer.
Truculent gave her one last critical stare, and stood aside to let her in. Inside, Tori breathed a sigh of relief.
“You came at a good time. The rest of the students are in study hall. You are fifteen, correct?” Truculent said, closing the doors and starting to lead her around. Tori nodded. “You’ll be put in a class with other students your age. There are five others in your age bracket,” he continued. “Now, they may become your friends or your enemies. I truly do not care. Alliances are just as important as grudges, so you should form both, Miss Parathion.”
He led her through winding hallways, up staircases, past portraits Tori swore watched her pass. Gargoyles were perched on the walls, supporting lights with snarling faces. The entire place looked like it was entering a state of disrepair. The carpet on the stairs was ragged and wearing thin, some of the gargoyles were crumbling, and the tiny windows could use a good clean. To Tori’s horror, she spotted dozens of cobwebs, no doubt with lurking arachnids waiting for their opportunity to attack her.
Finally Truculent had led her to their destination: an expansive library. He swung open the wide door to reveal five teenage kids, two boys and three girls, sitting at tables or poring over dusty tomes. They looked up as Tori and Truculent entered.
“Here are your classmates,” Truculent said. “Villains in training, this is the new student, Tori-Lynne Parathion.”
The other kids stared, with unreadable but somewhat surly expressions. Tori stared back, suppressing the urge to wave.
Truculent left the room, closing the door behind him with a leer. Tori got the distinct impression he wanted nothing more than fighting.
One of the girls approached Tori. She had blue-black hair in a messy ponytail and murky green-brown eyes. “So, it’s Tori-Lynne?” she said, apparently seeing no need to say hello.
“Yes,” Tori replied, nervous.
The other girl scoffed. “God, you sound like a goody-goody.”
The other two girls sitting at a table were identical as far as Tori could tell, with matching white-blonde hair reaching to their waists and pale blue eyes, with skin light as snowflakes. They looked up at the same time, with lacy black ribbons tied in their hair.
“Snowflakes, got any ideas for a better name?” the girl called to the twins, gesturing vaguely at Tori.
The twins, or Snowflakes, as they seemed to be when addressed collectively, glanced at each other. “Lyn.” they both replied at the same time.
“With one ‘n’,” one said, “and no ‘e’,” the other finished.
The girl nodded with an impressed grin. “Alright, Lyn, the Snowflakes got you covered.”
“How do they say things the same time like that?” Tori said, peering at them curiously.
The other girl rolled her eyes. “You have a lot to learn, Lyn. You got powers, right?”
Tori nodded, a tad defensively. “Of course I do.”
“Well, we do too. The Snowflakes are psychic. They can talk to each other with their minds, and they can move stuff around. Y’know, just by thinking real hard. They get headaches a lot,” the girl explained.
“Do they have names?” Tori asked, curious as to why they had only been called “Snowflakes.”
Again the other girl rolled her eyes. “Of course they have names, but none of us know how to tell them apart, so we just call them Snowflakes. One’s Gemelle and one’s Tamsyn, but they’re the only ones who know who’s who.”
She then pointed to a boy with hair a lighter shade of brown than Tori’s reading a book at the table on the other side of the twins. “That’s Altair. He’s a flier.”
Tori then noticed with a start that Altair was hovering a bit in his chair. “Can he make other things fly?”
As if to answer, Altair lazily flicked his wrist and Tori was sent into the air like a cork. She screamed and dropped her suitcase. One of the Snowflakes slowed its fall and set it down neatly on the floor, while the other took over for Altair and sent Tori flying into a wall.
“Ouch!” she cried, crumpling into a heap on the floor. They all laughed, save for one boy in the far corner by an expansive window. Tori pulled herself up and walked back to the girl, who was still laughing.
“Shut up,” she grumbled.
“Ooh, someone’s got a temper,” the girl replied coolly.
Tori pointed to the boy in the corner, who was writing furiously in a notebook. “Who’s that?”
“That? Oh, that’s Rune.” the girl replied. “He can read people’s minds and feelings if he touches them. But apparently it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, he’s shunned all human contact. He just sits around scribbling in that notebook. He’s smart, too, when he opens his mouth it’s usually with something important.”
“And you?” Tori asked.
“I’m Angana, but call me Angie if you want to live.” She snapped her fingers, and a plume of flame encased her hand. “I’m a bit of a pyromaniac.” she said with a leer. Her eyes glinted with a spark.
Tori’s eyes widened and she took a step back. Angie’s grin widened, and she engulfed the rest of her arm. The fire spread slowly over her whole body, until she herself was a flame, flitting around the room and making Tori increasingly nervous. And then in a moment, she was flesh, blood, and bone and no longer flame. The smirk seemed to be plastered on her face.
“So, what can you do, Lyn?” Angie asked, expecting something substandard. Tori adopted Angie’s smirk and replied smugly, “I’m a shape-shifter.”
Finally Angie’s grin vanished and her mouth dropped open. The Snowflakes looked up from their book, wide eyes even wider. Altair fell into his chair, apparently forgetting to keep himself aloft. Even Rune paused and looked up from his notebook incredulously and said, “What?!”
“You’re lying,” Angie hissed. The Snowflakes and Altair nodded, but looked unsure. Tori could tell Angie wasn’t entirely confident in her assumption either.
“I’m not a liar,” Tori shot back. About this, anyway, she realized.
“Prove it,” Angie challenged, crossing her arms and swinging her ponytail over her shoulder with attitude.
“I will,” Tori replied. She stared intently at the Snowflakes’ book, and slowly she began to melt.
Angie cried out, the Snowflakes gave a start, Altair fell off his chair entirely, and Rune closed his notebook and capped his pen. The blob of color that was Tori shifted and squirmed and finally took the form of the book, only splotches of black, purple, and dark blue denim instead of parchment-yellow and faded maroon.
The other five gathered around, awe-struck. Rune approached from the corner but stayed a good few feet back from everyone else. Angie began flipping pages of the Tori-book, and it took all of Tori’s strength not to complain. So she vented another way.
“OUCH! The bitch gave me a paper cut!” Angie yelped, jumping up. Rune looked frightened and retreated another few feet.
The Snowflakes looked at Angie disapprovingly. “Such language,” started one, “will not be tolerated, Angara,” the other finished.
“I’ve told you a million times to call me Angie,” she replied in a clipped tone, sucking blood from her finger with a scowl. Altair snickered.
Tori melted back and molded herself into her original form, with the others in a ring around her. Angie had apparently recovered from her paper cut and took center stage again.
“Alright, Lyn, so you have powers. And apparently you like to draw blood,” she said sourly. “What’s your damage, then?”
“Excuse me?” Tori replied.
“Your damage. We all have damage, we’re all villains for a reason,” Angie explained, giving her paper cut one last critical look. “See, my parents tried to beat the fire out of me. And when that didn’t work, they dropped me here. So I’m looking for them, and when I find them, I’ll show them how stupid they are to think they can control me.” Her voice became increasingly angry as she spoke. Tori fought her urge to recoil, to cry out, to protest.
She wanted to tell Angie maybe her parents were just scared, or didn’t know how to deal with her powers. But whatever the case, they certainly didn’t deserve to be burnt to crisps over it. Tori read the vengeful fire in Angie’s eyes, and knew she wanted nothing more than murder and arson in her parents’ future.
But to correct an evil master scheme did not seem very villain-like, so Tori said nothing and merely gave a little nod.
Angie then glanced at the Snowflakes. “Tell her,” she instructed them.
“They thought we were crazy,” began one, after glancing at her sister. “They never gave us a chance,” the other added. Together they said, “They locked us up in the asylum. They said we were insane dangers to society.”
One stopped talking while the other continued, “But really they just didn’t know what to do with us.” The other said, “We escaped.” And together they said sadly, “But they have our baby sister, Aimee.”
“She’s grown up there…”
“Alone…”
“Afraid…”
“She has no powers…”
“But they kept her anyway…”
“We will get her back.” they chorused.
“And when we do,” said one, “we will destroy the asylum,” the other said.
“And all the asylums…”
“Freeing those like us…”
“And if chaos ensues…”
“So be it,” they finished together, identical glints of misery and rage alight in their eyes.
A chill seemed to shoot through Tori’s body, and every bone shivered with fear. True, it was terribly unfair the Snowflakes’ baby sister was trapped in the asylum, but genuinely crazy people were kept away in asylums. If there were no asylums, they could hurt innocent people. Only a tiny fraction of those freed would actually be sane. Wouldn’t it be easier for the Snowflakes to merely take back their sister?
But once again, objecting was not very villain-like, so Tori said nothing.
Angie nodded at Altair.
He gave a little scowl and said, “I’m not quite so dramatic, unfortunately. My parents are pilots, so they were always gone. They never even noticed I could fly. I tried to tell them; they thought me being around the planes all the time had messed with my head or something. So I ran away, to here. Maybe they’ll notice me for once.”
“So you just want them to take the time to pay attention to you?” Tori said sympathetically. Altair seemed relatively sane for a villain.
He gave a harsh laugh. “Oh no. That’s not enough anymore.” he replied, shaking his head slowly. “No, they can’t save their stupid skins just by paying attention for once. I’m going to take over the world, and they can notice me then like everyone else.” Altair’s face curled into a smirk as he spoke, and Tori got the distinct feeling Altair had something awful in mind for his parents.
So much for sane, she thought glumly.
“Hey, you’d better remember us when you rule the world, fly boy,” Angie said. Tori was unsure whether she was joking or not; there was laughter in Angie’s tone, but seriousness in her eyes. She couldn’t tell what was really in the hearts of these kids. She couldn’t decide if their plans were justified retribution for the pain they’d suffered, or if they were merely unable to accept the misfortune they had encountered. She didn’t know if they were born crazy like this or if it was a result of the strain of their awful lives.
Either way, she was quite frightened and wished she had turned back when she still had the chance.
“What about Rune?” Tori asked, pointing to him. Rune was the last one to tell his tale in the room, or as Angie put it, his “damage,” and Tori still had a slim hope for sanity. He was her last chance, the only thing to assure her this place wasn’t an asylum like the one the Snowflakes had escaped from, where their little sister Aimee was, alone and afraid…
“Oh, him? Not much, really.” Angie said. She glanced at Rune; he gave her a gesture that indicated he didn’t want to tell his tale and returned to his corner. Once there, he returned to writing in his notebook.
“Okay then. Rune doesn’t feel like talking. Don’t get offended, if he says more than a few sentences a day we think he’s being too chatty,” Angie explained.
“So what’s his damage?” Tori said, trying to sound casual.
“Well, for starters he’s a dhampyr from a family of vampires, so he was shunned as a kid. Had to rely on himself and no one else, because it was shameful to talk to him. His family’s batty like that.”
Altair laughed again.
“Shut up, I didn’t mean it like that!” Angie retorted. Altair continued to snicker. Angie scowled.
Tori glanced at Rune. He looked sort of like a vampire; he was deathly pale. Tori wondered if he had fangs. She’d sworn she’d seen a glint of red in Rune’s eyes before behind his spider web-thin round glasses. It had to be awful to be shunned by your own family for something you couldn’t help. Nevertheless something that was probably your family’s fault anyway. Tori knew little about vampires and dhampyrs, but she did know being a dhampyr was a genetic thing.
Angie continued, “Anyway, no one would take him, so he left and came here. He’s never said it, but I think he just wants his parents to talk to him for once.”
It was settled; Rune was definitely the sanest of the group. Tori even pitied him a little; like Altair, he craved attention he’d never received. But unlike Altair, he wasn’t planning something awful for his parents. No, he just wanted to make them proud.
“So, what’s your damage, Lyn?” Angie said. The others turned to her expectantly. The Snowflakes stared eagerly with wide eyes, Angie awaited something spectacular, Altair waited patiently, and even Rune stopped a moment to listen.
“Well, I’m an orphan. I had an older brother, but he abandoned me to go off with his girlfriend. So I’m gonna find him, and make him suffer like I did.” Tori said, remembering the story Uncle Charlie had come up with for her. She let herself smirk cruelly and added a bit of edge to her voice.
The others approved with nods and grins, murmuring amongst themselves.
“Well, Lyn,” Angie said, “welcome to the Villain Academy.”
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Quote of the Day: "Chaotic Neutral: Might save your life, might steal your car."
~June