The Villain Academy- Chapter Eight: Thicker Than Water
Hi, everyone.
Keeping my mind off my aching stomach by staying busy. So here's the next chapter of "The Villain Academy." :D Before you check out Chapter Eight, you should probably read Chapter Seven first, it was important, after all. In this chapter, Tori learns more of the Snowflakes' sister Aimee, and takes a chance.
8. Thicker Than Water
Tori sat at the same table she’d been at for breakfast, and once again the Snowflakes joined her.
“Good afternoon, Lyn,” they chorused.
“Hi, guys,” Tori said, taking a bite of her turkey sandwich and smiling.
“Where did you spend your morning?” they asked.
“Oh, you know. Just looking around. Exploring.” Tori answered casually.
“Find anything of note?”
“Nah. Not really. A couple abandoned classrooms, some old books. Nothing really interesting,” Tori shrugged. She took a spoonful of soup and remembered Uncle Charlie’s odd interest in the Snowflakes. He’d said he didn’t want her to ask them any further questions, but his interest had gotten Tori interested.
“So, uh, can I ask you some things?” Tori asked.
“Pertaining to what?” they replied together.
“About your family. Your sister, mainly. Aimee, right?” Tori started.
The Snowflakes nodded solemnly.
“How did you two and Aimee end up in the asylum? Surely your parents didn’t bring you there in the first place,” Tori asked, thinking of Angie, who’d said her parents tried to beat the fire out of her.
This time the Snowflakes shook their heads no. They glanced at each other and one began their tale.
“Our parents desperately wanted super-powered offspring…”
“They were scientists, you see…”
“They spent their years in their lab trying to figure out how one got superpowers…”
“They found it was genetic.”
“So they engineered us and Aimee…”
“With the ideal gene combinations to facilitate superpowers….”
“We were a success…”
“Obviously.”
“But you said Aimee didn’t have powers,” Tori asked, confused.
“Well, we never really got a chance to find out,” one Snowflake replied.
“Powers make themselves known in late childhood.”
Tori nodded. What they said was true. A baby very rarely showed signs of their powers.
“Just how much younger is Aimee than you guys anyway?” Tori asked.
“She is about two years younger than us,” they both answered.
“Tell me more about your parents.”
The Snowflakes shared a sorrowful glance and nodded again.
“It was Aimee’s third birthday.”
“We were five.”
“Our parents were in their lab in the attic…”
“Working on a special present for Aimee…”
“When something went terribly wrong,” they both said.
“We heard an explosion from the attic…”
“The entire house began to crash around our ears…”
“We saved Aimee from the debris with our powers…”
“We knew we weren’t fast enough to get her out of there in time otherwise.”
“When the police showed up they saw us…”
“Suspending bits of the roof above our baby sister’s head…”
“They didn’t know what to make of it,” they chorused.
“They said we were too dangerous for the orphanage…”
“And no one in the foster care system wanted us…”
“So they sent us to the asylum.”
In a hushed tone, one Snowflake said, “It is the most awful place we have ever had the misfortune of being in.”
“We were terrified,” the other said in an equally quiet, little voice.
“We slept with Aimee sandwiched between us…”
“We were terrified something would happen to her…”
“We promised our parents we would care for her, should anything happen to them…”
“And now that they were gone…”
“We were all she had…”
“And she was all we had.”
“We love our sister so,” they both said mournfully. Their sad energy was spreading to Tori. No wonder they were so vengeful and wrathful. Their suffering must have been great.
“We tried to make life as easy as we could for Aimee…”
“But it was hard.”
“They took us for testing…”
“Inhumane, awful testing…”
“Our parents would be ashamed for their scientist colleagues.”
“They were not as intelligent as our parents…”
“No sense of morals either…”
“They couldn’t find why we had powers…”
“They became frustrated and the tests got worse and worse…”
“But then they took Aimee for testing.”
“She had no powers…”
“She was a baby…”
“But they didn’t care.”
The Snowflakes shook their heads and closed their eyes. “They didn’t care at all.”
“Hearing our baby sister scream and cry as they tortured her…”
“Tortured her for absolutely nothing…”
“It is our worst memory. No question,” they said together.
“When did you guys finally escape?” Tori asked, her voice low as theirs.
“After five years in the asylum…”
“When we were ten…”
“We figured out how to levitate…”
“But we couldn’t levitate others…”
“And they were close to killing and doing an autopsy on us…”
“They were extremely frustrated.”
“So we had to leave Aimee there.”
“She was only eight.”
“We left when she was sleeping…”
“But she woke up as we were escaping…”
“We will never forget the look on her little face…”
“Seeing us leave…”
“Calling our names…”
“But they were coming…”
“We couldn’t let them hinder us…”
“So we left.” they finished together.
Tori’s eyes stung just hearing about it. She could picture it perfectly. The Snowflakes with one foot out the window, and their little baby sister watching them go, confused and sad. Tori pictured Aimee with scratches and bruises from the testing, and the Snowflakes as well. She could imagine the pain the Snowflakes felt as they were forced to leave their sister behind. Alarms going off as the authorities realized their prisoners were escaping encouraged the Snowflakes to leave. Tori could imagine little cut-up Aimee calling for them, and watching them go, and crying as she was left alone.
Who knows what they did to her after the Snowflakes left and couldn’t protect her anymore?
“So you guys made your way here? To the Academy?” Tori asked. The Snowflakes nodded.
“We came here to learn…”
“And learn we have…”
“We need our Aimee back.”
“We can’t let her suffer anymore.”
“She must be twelve or thirteen by now…”
“She probably hates us…”
“She’s probably been tortured beyond all belief.”
“Do you know the meaning of the name Aimee?” one Snowflake asked Tori, meeting her eyes.
Tori shook her head no. “It’s French, right?”
The Snowflakes nodded. “A pretty name indeed,” one said.
“It means ‘loved’…” the other revealed.
“We love our sister very much.”
“We would take bullets for her…”
“In a heartbeat…”
“Without a second thought…”
“She deserves a perfect life for ever now…”
“For all that she has suffered…”
“We will give her what she deserves…”
“And we’ll bring justice upon those who harmed her…”
“If it’s the last thing we ever do,” they swore together.
The Snowflakes were an odd pair to Tori. One moment she was feeling sorry for them, pitying them more than she’d ever pitied anyone. The next moment, they frightened her beyond all belief. They were so wrathful and quick to exact revenge, and the tone of their matching low voices as they swore to save their sister made the oath ominous. Heroes made oaths to save family members; it was a noble sort of thing. But the way the Snowflakes swore sent a shiver through Tori’s very bones.
Silence settled at the table as Tori took a long, slow sip from her soup, which was quickly cooling. From the fire in the Snowflakes’ words, Tori had half-expected the soup to be boiling. She thought of one last question for the Snowflakes as she ate.
“Oh, and one more thing, you guys. Is there any way anyone could ever tell you apart?” Tori asked, looking at them closely.
The Snowflakes turned to each other and examined each other critically for a moment, not moving a muscle save for those in their eyes.
After a long few minutes of silence, the Snowflakes turned back to Tori, shook their heads, and answered together, “No.”
“Does Aimee look like you?” Tori asked, thinking of another question.
This time they nodded simultaneously as one. “Aimee looks a lot like us,” one Snowflake began.
“Pale blonde hair…”
“Blue-gray eyes…”
“Big as saucers…”
“Like two perfect little moons suspended in white…”
“Our sister is beautiful,” they said together.
“But, no doubt by now, bruised and scarred…”
“Mangled and marred…”
“Not just her face, unfortunately…”
“Her soul as well…”
“Rendered imperfect by now,” they finished, voices hushed and sorrowful.
“I’m sorry,” Tori said, not knowing what else to say.
“Why apologize…”
“For something that is no fault of yours?”
Tori shrugged. “I just…I don’t know what else to say.”
“Better to say nothing at all…”
“Then say something you would soon regret.”
“I suppose. But I didn’t just want to say nothing.” Tori said, struggling to explain.
“You didn’t say nothing…”
“You said you were sorry…”
“For something you had absolutely no control over…”
“Something you couldn’t have influenced in any way…”
“You do not keep an asylum, we assume….”
“And even so, you did not keep ours…”
“There were no other children there.”
“We tried looking…”
“We wanted to find a play mate…”
“More like a peer…”
“For Aimee, but we found none.”
“Did you two have to teach her how to read and write and stuff?” Tori asked.
They nodded. “Our sister Aimee is quite intelligent…”
“We taught her letters and numbers…”
“We taught her all we knew…”
“We stole books from the asylum’s library for her.”
“The asylum had a library?” Tori asked, confused. She would not expect an asylum to have a library. Then again, prisons had libraries and the world was a crazy place, so nothing should really surprise her anymore.
The Snowflakes nodded yet again. “We weren’t allowed…”
“Because we were dangerous…”
“But we needed the books to teach Aimee…”
“So we stole them, seeing no other option.”
“Thievery is not something we are proud to do…”
“But sometimes, the undesirable option is the necessary one.”
Tori swept a nice soft roll through the remaining dregs of her soup, thinking. The Snowflakes just kept surprising her. She couldn’t make up her mind about them. It seemed they sacrificed everything for their sister. How could two people with such compassion for others be so cold and cruel? How could they so easily plot to unleash destruction and pandemonium when Tori could so easily picture them teaching their sweet baby sister how to walk, trying to make her bleak life better trapped in an asylum?
After a long while of silence, as Tori focused as best she could on her meal, the Snowflakes silently made their leave. Tori didn’t notice them getting up or walking away. It was as though they walked on air. How could they move so silently, like a breath of wind?
“But I’m so glad I’m not them,” she muttered to herself, chewing her roll thoughtfully.
She finished her lunch and cleaned up her dishes, wondering what she was going to do next. The day was going by so slowly, it seemed surreal. She wondered if the Villain Academy was on the time frame of an alternate universe, where things moved in slow motion. Tori shuddered. She really hoped not. The thought was terrifying; for some reason Tori wouldn’t find herself to be very surprised if the universe was out of whack at the Academy and in the general vicinity.
She left the dining room, one hand adjusting the strap of her bag, and decided to go the opposite direction that she’d gone that morning. She hoped she could spy on some classes and learn some things about the classes at the Academy.
If anyone ever shows up to class to be taught, that is, she remembered sullenly. She was still resentful that the Academy didn’t seem to enforce its schedule. Maybe then the day wouldn’t be crawling by. She desperately needed something to do.
Tori stopped where she stood in the hallway, which was, as per usual, eerily empty. She considered where random journeying got her last time: in a basement lab staffed with incompetent morons who let dinosaurs run rampant, where she’d almost been discovered. She really didn’t want that to happen again, she doubted she’d be so lucky to escape a second time.
But then, if she wasn’t off being the hero and risking her life, what would she do for the rest of the day?
Tori deliberated and decided she’d had quite enough danger for the day, thank you very much, and turned heel back to familiar territory. Perhaps she’d find something interesting in the library. In the very least, she knew where it was, she knew it was safe, and she was familiar with the library’s apparently permanent fixture, Rune. Maybe she could even get him over to her side to help her.
So she headed back, past the dining room, up flights of stairs, past portraits, stained glass windows, her steps echoing in the empty halls until she found the big double doors to the library. She swung them open, looking around for signs of life.
As Tori expected, Rune was still in his corner in the back, with storm clouds rolling behind him in the window. The sight of the swirling gray storm through the wide window always struck Tori for some reason.
He glanced up as her footsteps echoed as she entered the room. “Hello, Lyn,” he said simply.
Tori gave a little wave, and then mentally slapped herself. With each passing minute she felt she was acting less and less like the vengeful villain Tori-Lynne Parathion.
To her dismay, the wave seemed to put him off a bit, but Rune didn’t mention it. “Weren’t you here just this morning?” he asked as she crossed the room over to him, for lack of anything better to do.
She nodded. “Yeah. But it gets kinda boring around here. You can only plot revenge for so long,” she said, trying to sound casual and vaguely threatening.
He gave a little nod, as if she’d made a good point. Glad for this, Tori glanced over at Rune’s notebook. “So, what’re you up to?” she asked, valiantly attempting to read his handwriting.
He shut the notebook quickly, with a slam, making her jump. He gave her a critical stare. “No,” he said firmly.
“Okay then,” she said. He continued to meet her with that penetrating gaze for another minute, and then glanced out the window. Tori wasn’t sure what to do next. If she had to place her trust into a single person she’d met at the Villain Academy, she was fairly confident it would be Rune. She definitely wouldn’t trust pyromaniac psychopath Angie, or the oddly graceful but completely terrifying Snowflakes, and Altair gave her the creeps. But Rune, despite his bookish tendencies and evident inclination to villainy, was surely the only one she could even hope to trust.
But how to approach this? “Hi, Rune, guess what? I’m not actually a villain named Lyn. I’m Torianne Roennigke, hero in hiding, child of the world’s most prominent superheroes, and I’m a spy! Wanna help me bring down the Villain Academy?”
Yeah, that’ll go over so well, Tori scoffed at herself. It’d go over worse than a lead balloon, and it definitely meant giant mutant electric squids and lasers for her. Maybe they’d even sentence her to the atrocity of NaNoWriMo. She hoped beyond hope even they wouldn’t dare to subject her to that.
“Zoning out much?” Rune said, interrupting her train of thought.
“Oh. Um, yeah. Thinking,” she said awkwardly, giving herself a mental shake. Then she realized what she could say.
“Look, Rune, I was going around the Academy this morning. Exploring, y’know?” Tori began. He nodded slowly. “It’s typically what one should do when in a new place,” he reasoned, looking unsure. Tori swore she saw a glint of red as his dark eyes caught the scant light of the library. It threw her off a bit.
“So I found a dead end, only with a staircase going down a floor,” she said, remembering her encounter in the basement. “And it was like a basement, and I didn’t see much, but I think the Academy’s doing genetic testing and stuff.”
Rune fixed her with a confused look. “What sort of genetic testing?” he asked disbelievingly.
“I dunno, I didn’t get a good look around, there were weirdo scientists going around. But there were like, dinosaurs and shit running around, it was insane,” Tori said, quite truthfully. “What do you think is going on?”
Rune adopted a contemplative expression and adjusted his glasses with one hand. “I really have no idea, Lyn,” he said after a minute. “I mean, I highly doubt they intend to hurt us. Most likely it’s something to get the heroes.”
Tori nodded. “I thought so.”
“In which case, it’d be a good thing for our side.” Rune said.
It took some difficulty for Tori to nod and grin, forced to act her role as vengeful villain and be happy with this development. “It just sort of freaked me out, you know?”
“Yes, I understand. Knowing they’re breeding…dinosaurs, did you say?” Rune asked. Tori nodded. “Yes, it’s a bit alarming if there are dinosaurs in the basement of the Villain Academy, going around while we’re sleeping.” He shrugged. “But still, what are we going to do about it? Some things we just have to learn to accept.”
Tori noted that the last sentence of his had a sort of resigned air, as if he had learned this rule long ago and always abided by it. Tori assumed he meant his status as a dhampyr and an outcast to his kind when he said some things could only be accepted. It made her pity him all the more. She couldn’t imagine life without her loving parents and fun uncle always there by her side, watching out for her. In fact, she couldn’t uncover a single memory of herself without her family, without the love they had given her.
“Why have you told me this?” Rune asked curiously. Tori began to panic and fought her hardest to keep her face calm.
“Oh, you know. I just couldn’t keep it to myself, I was pretty freaked out. And…well, to be honest, I didn’t think I could tell anyone else,” Tori said, surprised at how honest she was able to be during this encounter.
He gave her an odd look which she couldn’t quite read, and suddenly something almost like a smile spread across his face. “Thanks, Lyn,” he said.
She nodded and smiled, still unsure if he was actually smiling or if his mouth had just twitched. She turned away, picked a dusty old tome, and settled into a long afternoon of reading.
Yaaaay, I've been so inconsistent posting these lately...
Quote of the Day: "I feel like butt! I feel worse than I did when you made me lick the swingset!"
"No, I said 'Sam, don't lick the swingset' and you said 'Don't tell me what to do, Benson' and you licked the swingset."
~June
Keeping my mind off my aching stomach by staying busy. So here's the next chapter of "The Villain Academy." :D Before you check out Chapter Eight, you should probably read Chapter Seven first, it was important, after all. In this chapter, Tori learns more of the Snowflakes' sister Aimee, and takes a chance.
8. Thicker Than Water
Tori sat at the same table she’d been at for breakfast, and once again the Snowflakes joined her.
“Good afternoon, Lyn,” they chorused.
“Hi, guys,” Tori said, taking a bite of her turkey sandwich and smiling.
“Where did you spend your morning?” they asked.
“Oh, you know. Just looking around. Exploring.” Tori answered casually.
“Find anything of note?”
“Nah. Not really. A couple abandoned classrooms, some old books. Nothing really interesting,” Tori shrugged. She took a spoonful of soup and remembered Uncle Charlie’s odd interest in the Snowflakes. He’d said he didn’t want her to ask them any further questions, but his interest had gotten Tori interested.
“So, uh, can I ask you some things?” Tori asked.
“Pertaining to what?” they replied together.
“About your family. Your sister, mainly. Aimee, right?” Tori started.
The Snowflakes nodded solemnly.
“How did you two and Aimee end up in the asylum? Surely your parents didn’t bring you there in the first place,” Tori asked, thinking of Angie, who’d said her parents tried to beat the fire out of her.
This time the Snowflakes shook their heads no. They glanced at each other and one began their tale.
“Our parents desperately wanted super-powered offspring…”
“They were scientists, you see…”
“They spent their years in their lab trying to figure out how one got superpowers…”
“They found it was genetic.”
“So they engineered us and Aimee…”
“With the ideal gene combinations to facilitate superpowers….”
“We were a success…”
“Obviously.”
“But you said Aimee didn’t have powers,” Tori asked, confused.
“Well, we never really got a chance to find out,” one Snowflake replied.
“Powers make themselves known in late childhood.”
Tori nodded. What they said was true. A baby very rarely showed signs of their powers.
“Just how much younger is Aimee than you guys anyway?” Tori asked.
“She is about two years younger than us,” they both answered.
“Tell me more about your parents.”
The Snowflakes shared a sorrowful glance and nodded again.
“It was Aimee’s third birthday.”
“We were five.”
“Our parents were in their lab in the attic…”
“Working on a special present for Aimee…”
“When something went terribly wrong,” they both said.
“We heard an explosion from the attic…”
“The entire house began to crash around our ears…”
“We saved Aimee from the debris with our powers…”
“We knew we weren’t fast enough to get her out of there in time otherwise.”
“When the police showed up they saw us…”
“Suspending bits of the roof above our baby sister’s head…”
“They didn’t know what to make of it,” they chorused.
“They said we were too dangerous for the orphanage…”
“And no one in the foster care system wanted us…”
“So they sent us to the asylum.”
In a hushed tone, one Snowflake said, “It is the most awful place we have ever had the misfortune of being in.”
“We were terrified,” the other said in an equally quiet, little voice.
“We slept with Aimee sandwiched between us…”
“We were terrified something would happen to her…”
“We promised our parents we would care for her, should anything happen to them…”
“And now that they were gone…”
“We were all she had…”
“And she was all we had.”
“We love our sister so,” they both said mournfully. Their sad energy was spreading to Tori. No wonder they were so vengeful and wrathful. Their suffering must have been great.
“We tried to make life as easy as we could for Aimee…”
“But it was hard.”
“They took us for testing…”
“Inhumane, awful testing…”
“Our parents would be ashamed for their scientist colleagues.”
“They were not as intelligent as our parents…”
“No sense of morals either…”
“They couldn’t find why we had powers…”
“They became frustrated and the tests got worse and worse…”
“But then they took Aimee for testing.”
“She had no powers…”
“She was a baby…”
“But they didn’t care.”
The Snowflakes shook their heads and closed their eyes. “They didn’t care at all.”
“Hearing our baby sister scream and cry as they tortured her…”
“Tortured her for absolutely nothing…”
“It is our worst memory. No question,” they said together.
“When did you guys finally escape?” Tori asked, her voice low as theirs.
“After five years in the asylum…”
“When we were ten…”
“We figured out how to levitate…”
“But we couldn’t levitate others…”
“And they were close to killing and doing an autopsy on us…”
“They were extremely frustrated.”
“So we had to leave Aimee there.”
“She was only eight.”
“We left when she was sleeping…”
“But she woke up as we were escaping…”
“We will never forget the look on her little face…”
“Seeing us leave…”
“Calling our names…”
“But they were coming…”
“We couldn’t let them hinder us…”
“So we left.” they finished together.
Tori’s eyes stung just hearing about it. She could picture it perfectly. The Snowflakes with one foot out the window, and their little baby sister watching them go, confused and sad. Tori pictured Aimee with scratches and bruises from the testing, and the Snowflakes as well. She could imagine the pain the Snowflakes felt as they were forced to leave their sister behind. Alarms going off as the authorities realized their prisoners were escaping encouraged the Snowflakes to leave. Tori could imagine little cut-up Aimee calling for them, and watching them go, and crying as she was left alone.
Who knows what they did to her after the Snowflakes left and couldn’t protect her anymore?
“So you guys made your way here? To the Academy?” Tori asked. The Snowflakes nodded.
“We came here to learn…”
“And learn we have…”
“We need our Aimee back.”
“We can’t let her suffer anymore.”
“She must be twelve or thirteen by now…”
“She probably hates us…”
“She’s probably been tortured beyond all belief.”
“Do you know the meaning of the name Aimee?” one Snowflake asked Tori, meeting her eyes.
Tori shook her head no. “It’s French, right?”
The Snowflakes nodded. “A pretty name indeed,” one said.
“It means ‘loved’…” the other revealed.
“We love our sister very much.”
“We would take bullets for her…”
“In a heartbeat…”
“Without a second thought…”
“She deserves a perfect life for ever now…”
“For all that she has suffered…”
“We will give her what she deserves…”
“And we’ll bring justice upon those who harmed her…”
“If it’s the last thing we ever do,” they swore together.
The Snowflakes were an odd pair to Tori. One moment she was feeling sorry for them, pitying them more than she’d ever pitied anyone. The next moment, they frightened her beyond all belief. They were so wrathful and quick to exact revenge, and the tone of their matching low voices as they swore to save their sister made the oath ominous. Heroes made oaths to save family members; it was a noble sort of thing. But the way the Snowflakes swore sent a shiver through Tori’s very bones.
Silence settled at the table as Tori took a long, slow sip from her soup, which was quickly cooling. From the fire in the Snowflakes’ words, Tori had half-expected the soup to be boiling. She thought of one last question for the Snowflakes as she ate.
“Oh, and one more thing, you guys. Is there any way anyone could ever tell you apart?” Tori asked, looking at them closely.
The Snowflakes turned to each other and examined each other critically for a moment, not moving a muscle save for those in their eyes.
After a long few minutes of silence, the Snowflakes turned back to Tori, shook their heads, and answered together, “No.”
“Does Aimee look like you?” Tori asked, thinking of another question.
This time they nodded simultaneously as one. “Aimee looks a lot like us,” one Snowflake began.
“Pale blonde hair…”
“Blue-gray eyes…”
“Big as saucers…”
“Like two perfect little moons suspended in white…”
“Our sister is beautiful,” they said together.
“But, no doubt by now, bruised and scarred…”
“Mangled and marred…”
“Not just her face, unfortunately…”
“Her soul as well…”
“Rendered imperfect by now,” they finished, voices hushed and sorrowful.
“I’m sorry,” Tori said, not knowing what else to say.
“Why apologize…”
“For something that is no fault of yours?”
Tori shrugged. “I just…I don’t know what else to say.”
“Better to say nothing at all…”
“Then say something you would soon regret.”
“I suppose. But I didn’t just want to say nothing.” Tori said, struggling to explain.
“You didn’t say nothing…”
“You said you were sorry…”
“For something you had absolutely no control over…”
“Something you couldn’t have influenced in any way…”
“You do not keep an asylum, we assume….”
“And even so, you did not keep ours…”
“There were no other children there.”
“We tried looking…”
“We wanted to find a play mate…”
“More like a peer…”
“For Aimee, but we found none.”
“Did you two have to teach her how to read and write and stuff?” Tori asked.
They nodded. “Our sister Aimee is quite intelligent…”
“We taught her letters and numbers…”
“We taught her all we knew…”
“We stole books from the asylum’s library for her.”
“The asylum had a library?” Tori asked, confused. She would not expect an asylum to have a library. Then again, prisons had libraries and the world was a crazy place, so nothing should really surprise her anymore.
The Snowflakes nodded yet again. “We weren’t allowed…”
“Because we were dangerous…”
“But we needed the books to teach Aimee…”
“So we stole them, seeing no other option.”
“Thievery is not something we are proud to do…”
“But sometimes, the undesirable option is the necessary one.”
Tori swept a nice soft roll through the remaining dregs of her soup, thinking. The Snowflakes just kept surprising her. She couldn’t make up her mind about them. It seemed they sacrificed everything for their sister. How could two people with such compassion for others be so cold and cruel? How could they so easily plot to unleash destruction and pandemonium when Tori could so easily picture them teaching their sweet baby sister how to walk, trying to make her bleak life better trapped in an asylum?
After a long while of silence, as Tori focused as best she could on her meal, the Snowflakes silently made their leave. Tori didn’t notice them getting up or walking away. It was as though they walked on air. How could they move so silently, like a breath of wind?
“But I’m so glad I’m not them,” she muttered to herself, chewing her roll thoughtfully.
She finished her lunch and cleaned up her dishes, wondering what she was going to do next. The day was going by so slowly, it seemed surreal. She wondered if the Villain Academy was on the time frame of an alternate universe, where things moved in slow motion. Tori shuddered. She really hoped not. The thought was terrifying; for some reason Tori wouldn’t find herself to be very surprised if the universe was out of whack at the Academy and in the general vicinity.
She left the dining room, one hand adjusting the strap of her bag, and decided to go the opposite direction that she’d gone that morning. She hoped she could spy on some classes and learn some things about the classes at the Academy.
If anyone ever shows up to class to be taught, that is, she remembered sullenly. She was still resentful that the Academy didn’t seem to enforce its schedule. Maybe then the day wouldn’t be crawling by. She desperately needed something to do.
Tori stopped where she stood in the hallway, which was, as per usual, eerily empty. She considered where random journeying got her last time: in a basement lab staffed with incompetent morons who let dinosaurs run rampant, where she’d almost been discovered. She really didn’t want that to happen again, she doubted she’d be so lucky to escape a second time.
But then, if she wasn’t off being the hero and risking her life, what would she do for the rest of the day?
Tori deliberated and decided she’d had quite enough danger for the day, thank you very much, and turned heel back to familiar territory. Perhaps she’d find something interesting in the library. In the very least, she knew where it was, she knew it was safe, and she was familiar with the library’s apparently permanent fixture, Rune. Maybe she could even get him over to her side to help her.
So she headed back, past the dining room, up flights of stairs, past portraits, stained glass windows, her steps echoing in the empty halls until she found the big double doors to the library. She swung them open, looking around for signs of life.
As Tori expected, Rune was still in his corner in the back, with storm clouds rolling behind him in the window. The sight of the swirling gray storm through the wide window always struck Tori for some reason.
He glanced up as her footsteps echoed as she entered the room. “Hello, Lyn,” he said simply.
Tori gave a little wave, and then mentally slapped herself. With each passing minute she felt she was acting less and less like the vengeful villain Tori-Lynne Parathion.
To her dismay, the wave seemed to put him off a bit, but Rune didn’t mention it. “Weren’t you here just this morning?” he asked as she crossed the room over to him, for lack of anything better to do.
She nodded. “Yeah. But it gets kinda boring around here. You can only plot revenge for so long,” she said, trying to sound casual and vaguely threatening.
He gave a little nod, as if she’d made a good point. Glad for this, Tori glanced over at Rune’s notebook. “So, what’re you up to?” she asked, valiantly attempting to read his handwriting.
He shut the notebook quickly, with a slam, making her jump. He gave her a critical stare. “No,” he said firmly.
“Okay then,” she said. He continued to meet her with that penetrating gaze for another minute, and then glanced out the window. Tori wasn’t sure what to do next. If she had to place her trust into a single person she’d met at the Villain Academy, she was fairly confident it would be Rune. She definitely wouldn’t trust pyromaniac psychopath Angie, or the oddly graceful but completely terrifying Snowflakes, and Altair gave her the creeps. But Rune, despite his bookish tendencies and evident inclination to villainy, was surely the only one she could even hope to trust.
But how to approach this? “Hi, Rune, guess what? I’m not actually a villain named Lyn. I’m Torianne Roennigke, hero in hiding, child of the world’s most prominent superheroes, and I’m a spy! Wanna help me bring down the Villain Academy?”
Yeah, that’ll go over so well, Tori scoffed at herself. It’d go over worse than a lead balloon, and it definitely meant giant mutant electric squids and lasers for her. Maybe they’d even sentence her to the atrocity of NaNoWriMo. She hoped beyond hope even they wouldn’t dare to subject her to that.
“Zoning out much?” Rune said, interrupting her train of thought.
“Oh. Um, yeah. Thinking,” she said awkwardly, giving herself a mental shake. Then she realized what she could say.
“Look, Rune, I was going around the Academy this morning. Exploring, y’know?” Tori began. He nodded slowly. “It’s typically what one should do when in a new place,” he reasoned, looking unsure. Tori swore she saw a glint of red as his dark eyes caught the scant light of the library. It threw her off a bit.
“So I found a dead end, only with a staircase going down a floor,” she said, remembering her encounter in the basement. “And it was like a basement, and I didn’t see much, but I think the Academy’s doing genetic testing and stuff.”
Rune fixed her with a confused look. “What sort of genetic testing?” he asked disbelievingly.
“I dunno, I didn’t get a good look around, there were weirdo scientists going around. But there were like, dinosaurs and shit running around, it was insane,” Tori said, quite truthfully. “What do you think is going on?”
Rune adopted a contemplative expression and adjusted his glasses with one hand. “I really have no idea, Lyn,” he said after a minute. “I mean, I highly doubt they intend to hurt us. Most likely it’s something to get the heroes.”
Tori nodded. “I thought so.”
“In which case, it’d be a good thing for our side.” Rune said.
It took some difficulty for Tori to nod and grin, forced to act her role as vengeful villain and be happy with this development. “It just sort of freaked me out, you know?”
“Yes, I understand. Knowing they’re breeding…dinosaurs, did you say?” Rune asked. Tori nodded. “Yes, it’s a bit alarming if there are dinosaurs in the basement of the Villain Academy, going around while we’re sleeping.” He shrugged. “But still, what are we going to do about it? Some things we just have to learn to accept.”
Tori noted that the last sentence of his had a sort of resigned air, as if he had learned this rule long ago and always abided by it. Tori assumed he meant his status as a dhampyr and an outcast to his kind when he said some things could only be accepted. It made her pity him all the more. She couldn’t imagine life without her loving parents and fun uncle always there by her side, watching out for her. In fact, she couldn’t uncover a single memory of herself without her family, without the love they had given her.
“Why have you told me this?” Rune asked curiously. Tori began to panic and fought her hardest to keep her face calm.
“Oh, you know. I just couldn’t keep it to myself, I was pretty freaked out. And…well, to be honest, I didn’t think I could tell anyone else,” Tori said, surprised at how honest she was able to be during this encounter.
He gave her an odd look which she couldn’t quite read, and suddenly something almost like a smile spread across his face. “Thanks, Lyn,” he said.
She nodded and smiled, still unsure if he was actually smiling or if his mouth had just twitched. She turned away, picked a dusty old tome, and settled into a long afternoon of reading.
Yaaaay, I've been so inconsistent posting these lately...
Quote of the Day: "I feel like butt! I feel worse than I did when you made me lick the swingset!"
"No, I said 'Sam, don't lick the swingset' and you said 'Don't tell me what to do, Benson' and you licked the swingset."
~June