The Villain Academy- Chapter Seventeen: Finale
Hi, everyone!
Blergh. I hate geometry. And assignments given over vacations. And school in general. I wish I could go to P.A. and history and then leave, seriously. But despite this, I have the final chapter of "The Villain Academy"! Yay! I'm almost finally done posting it!
This final chapter has a title yoinked from a comic book, grisly discoveries, a troupe of pajama-clad villains, uncertainty, happy memories, technicalities, distractions, once again a lack of empathy, accusations, counter accusations, shocking statements, lol way, a battle royale in the foyer, scenes that would work far better if they were in a movie, an explosive ending, and defeat with a tiny spark of hope. Enjoy! Also, long chapter is is long.
17. Finale
Meanwhile, Felicity and Edgar had covered much ground in the short time they’d been in the Villain Academy.
They were walking along one of the hallways when Felicity spotted a spot of dried blood on the floor.
“Edgar, look at this,” she said in a low voice, bending down.
“What is it?” Edgar asked, eyeing the spot.
“Blood, I think,” Felicity said, her brow knit in concentration.
“Whose blood?” Edgar asked, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“What am I, a walking forensics lab?” Felicity asked incredulously, getting up. “I don’t know. We should look for more, maybe we’ll find someone.”
The hallway lead out to a grand staircase, and Felicity spotted a few more spots of dry blood along the way. The staircase was littered with blood on most every other stair. At the bottom, there was a disgustingly mangled body.
“Oh my God!” Felicity cried, horrified. She ran down the stairs towards the body.
“Oh, that’s just disgusting,” Edgar said, following her, a sickened look on his face.
They both knelt down at the body. It looked eaten, gnawed at by some sort of monster. But even so, they could tell whoever it was had been attired in a superhero costume when they died. A blood stained, once-blue mask lay on the ground near the torn up face.
“Who is she?” Edgar asked, noting the brown hair hanging from what remained of the head.
“A hero…I don’t know who exactly,” Felicity said sadly.
“What the hell happened to her?” Edgar asked, seemingly full of questions.
“Whatever happened to her, it must have been absolutely horrible,” Felicity said, hardly daring to even imagine what could have so brutally mauled this poor girl.
Meanwhile, the six kid villains trooped through the halls of the Villain Academy, five of them managing to look quite intimidating in only their pajamas. They walked almost silently, looking for the intruders in their school. Most children regard their boarding schools as homes, but the Villain Academy was not a cozy, homey place at all. Even so, they were prepared to defend it to the end.
They heard Felicity’s and Edgar’s voices a distance from their spot at the foot of the stairs. Aimee signaled the others, and they all stopped in a doorway just by the top of the staircase.
“I think we found them,” Aimee whispered.
“What do we do?” Altair answered in a hushed tone.
“What do you think we’re going to do? We’re going to take ‘em down,” Angie said, a gleam of fire in her eyes, a smile spreading across her face.
The Snowflakes nodded with an iciness in their eyes that was just as scary as the gleam in Angie’s.
“We have to wait for just the right moment. After all, we don’t know what we’re up against,” Rune said sensibly.
“Yes, the right time is in about two minutes. Prepare yourselves,” Aimee said, once again adopting an authoritative demeanor.
They all listened to the intruders. From the voices, it was a man and a woman, and it sounded like they had discovered the body of the girl hero who’d the Velociraptors had gotten to earlier than evening.
As they listened, Aimee suddenly recognized the voices. The determined expression that proclaimed she was ready for a fight slid off her face. It was her false parents. She wondered how they’d been convinced to come here. Only a call from her false uncle could have called them from wherever they were, saving the world. But he was dead, and he wasn’t smart enough to arrange something in case he died…wasn’t he?
The voices flowed into her ear like the melody of a song, a childhood song. Like the music of the ballerina of a little girl’s music box, the voices of the ones she had thought were her parents until tonight, brought back so many memories. Good memories. Memories of walks in the park, of games played, of picnics and playgrounds, of being cared for and comforted when she was sick, of a thousand wonderful, happy moments all came back to her.
She was still angry that they’d never told her the truth about her past, but surely some of this debt was forgiven after all the wonderful things they had done for her? Hadn’t they made up for it somehow? There was no denying they had treated her like a daughter all her life. The thought of being adopted had never once crossed her mind all her life. Never.
And now she was standing in a doorway with five other villains, plotting to jump out and attack them. Not just plotting…she was leading them.
She felt unsure of her true self once again. She had been so sure she had found herself, that she was Aimee and that was that. But now, hearing their voices, losing herself in the memories she’d always known, memories that had never been locked away, she felt like Torianne again. She felt like she wanted to be Torianne again.
But her long, pale blonde hair was hanging around her shoulders. She could picture herself in her true form, with her delicate face and wide, pale eyes. Two of the brigade of villains she was leading were her sisters. Her long lost sisters, who had always cared for her and never yet broke a promise to her. She should be loyal to them, shouldn’t she? That was the right thing. No, these people had stolen her from her family. Never mind that they had raised her as their own. She wasn’t theirs. She owed them nothing. She’d said it herself; blood was thicker than water.
And, she reminded herself, the heroes her false parents were so unwaveringly loyal to were the ones that had orphaned her and her sisters in the first place. So much pain, hurt, and even torture could have been avoided if the hero side wasn’t so quick to violence. They could have killed her and her sisters that day, and they wouldn’t have cared. Once they were at the asylum they set right back on track trying to kill them. They showed no mercy; she remembered that now. A pained expression crossed her face, her body throbbing and stinging suddenly in places just at the memories of the asylum.
She had no idea where her loyalties lay. And she had no time to decide.
“Come on, we’ve waited long enough,” one of the Snowflakes said, tapping Aimee on the shoulder. “Yes, we must make our move now, before it’s too late,” the other agreed.
“Wait a second,” Aimee said, stalling for time.
“Why?” Angie asked suspiciously, crossing her arms.
“Well…it’s my false parents.” Aimee said awkwardly. Everyone looked alarmed.
“Are you sure?” the Snowflakes asked together.
“Yeah. They were the ones who took me from the asylum after you two escaped. They don’t know I know the truth. So it would be better if I went in first, had them lulled into a false sense of security, and then you guys all come in, okay?” Aimee said, making up a plan. The plan allowed her more time to decide who she was loyal to. She was feeling more sure of herself as Aimee as she planned and plotted, more secure in her identity. She hated not knowing herself; it made her feel so weak, worthless, and vulnerable.
There was a silence as her companions considered this plan. She knew at least Angie was still suspicious of her allegiance, and maybe the others still had doubt in their minds. But Aimee didn’t care. She almost wished they would shoot down the plan, so Aimee wouldn’t have to choose sides for herself.
But after a moment of silence they all agreed to her plan. So Aimee prepared to come face to face with her false parents for the first time in weeks.
She stepped out from the doorway with light steps, hesitantly making her way to the stairs. She stopped at the foot of the stairs and waited. She remembered she looked different and probably sounded different.
Her voice halting, she called out, “Mom? Dad?”
They looked up. It seemed they didn’t recognize her; they just stared.
She began to go down the stairs, faking an excited look. “I knew you guys would come!” she said happily, rushing towards them.
“Torianne?” Felicity said, her eyes wide. “What did they do to you?”
Suddenly Felicity’s mind flashed back several years, to the day she and Edgar had gone to the asylum. The little girl sitting in the bed, terrified, bruised, and bloody, her voice soft and her eyes scared…a grown up, older version of that girl was rushing towards them. Something must have gone wrong. The treatment that changed her, that darkened her hair and set her eyes mismatched, it must have backfired. She looked a year younger as well. It had all been undone. And Felicity’s only question was how?
But to her, it didn’t matter. Despite a change in looks, the girl running towards her was still her daughter, her beautiful Torianne. Felicity got up and caught her daughter in a tight embrace.
“Oh, I’m so glad you’re safe!” she cried happily.
“I’m fine, don’t worry,” Aimee replied, technically not lying.
Distracted, neither Edgar nor Felicity noticed five children with evil glimmers in their eyes sneak out from the doorway, padding across the hard wood floor almost silently.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” Felicity asked, cupping her daughter’s face in her hands. “You look…different.”
“I know. But I’m not hurt or anything. I promise,” Aimee replied, again technically telling the truth. She wasn’t hurt at all.
“You have no idea how happy that makes me,” Felicity sighed, pulling her close again.
After a moment, she pulled away again and said, “Tori…I don’t really know how to tell you this…but we think your uncle might be dead.” Her voice was solemn and somber, her eyes filled with pain, but she felt that her daughter had to know.
“I know,” Aimee said.
“You do?” Felicity asked, puzzled.
“Of course I do,” she replied, her face devoid of empathy.
At that moment, the Snowflakes each hopped up on one of the banisters of the staircase and fired off beams of silvery white energy as they slid down, their long hair whipped back by the breeze as they went.
“Felicity, Tori, look out!” Edgar shouted. Felicity looked up and cried out, but before either of them could do anything they were trapped in orbs of energy by the Snowflakes. They hovered in the air in the center of the room, and Aimee watched them, with a half smile on her face.
The Snowflakes reached the ends of their respective banisters and jumped off lightly at the same time. They smiled identical cruel smiles at their captives. The other three kid villains followed, coming down the stairs and grinning.
Felicity and Edgar didn’t worry much for their own well being at the moment. Their main concern was their unprotected daughter surrounded by villains.
“Run, Tori, get out of here!” Felicity urged, her tone desperate.
“Don’t worry about us, get yourself someplace safe!” Edgar added, gesturing wildly.
“We think she’s pretty safe here,” the Snowflakes said, each putting an arm around her.
“Yeah, you always told me I’d be safe with family,” Aimee added, crossing her arms, putting emphasis on the word family.
“What? What are you saying, Tori? Why aren’t you leaving?” Felicity asked, confused and upset.
“I don’t want to leave. If you don’t mind, I’d like to enjoy my family reunion,” Aimee said, her tone bitingly snarky.
Felicity’s eyes widened. No…no, it can’t be. Those two girls with her, they look just like her! They said she had family…but they left! They left her! Why are they here? Why does she trust them?!
“What do you mean?” Edgar asked, thinking along the same lines as his wife.
“You lied to me. Everything you ever said, it was a lie. Every time you said I was your daughter, it was a lie! Every time you said I was an only child, it was another lie. I bet every time you said you loved me it was another lie!” Aimee shouted at them, her fury returning and building fast.
“What? Tori, darling, we do love you, we really do!” Felicity cried, pressing her hands against the circular walls of her force field prison, trying to get closer to Tori.
“I’m not your daughter! I know the truth. I know I have two sisters, they’re standing right next to me so don’t say it’s not true. I know your people killed my real parents and left us orphans, and I remember the asylum now. I know you locked away my memories to hide it all from me, to hide the truth. My entire life is a lie, all because of you!” Aimee yelled, her voice rising with every sentence. Her throat hurt from yelling but she didn’t care.
“We took you in as our own after they abandoned you!” Edgar yelled back, jabbing a finger at the Snowflakes. They narrowed their eyes.
“We were coming back for her,” one of them began in a low, threatening tone.
“You took her,” the other said. The two of them stepped forward to face the intruders.
“We had to leave that place…”
“We would have taken her, but our powers weren’t fully developed yet.”
“If we hadn’t left we would have been tortured to death…”
“You should be ashamed.”
“What kind of heroes are you?” the Snowflakes demanded to know, their tones still dangerous.
“Your parents were evil,” Edgar spat. “They were looking to destroy the world. We were right to do what we did. If the place was so awful, how could you leave your helpless little sister there? You two are just hypocrites and villains, and you will not take my daughter from me!”
“We are taking back what is ours!” the Snowflakes shouted.
“She deserves better! We never abandoned her!” Edgar pointed out.
“You sent her here!” one Snowflake shot right back.
“You were begging for her to be hurt or even killed!” the other Snowflake added.
“And you know it!” they both yelled together.
“She was the only one for the job!” Edgar yelled.
“You claim she is your daughter, but you treat her like she is nothing!” the Snowflakes yelled.
“I’m inclined to agree!” Aimee said, speaking up. “You heroes sent me here. I’m not an adult, I’m still a kid, but you sent me here. This place is dangerous; not a day went by that I didn’t fear for my life. But it wouldn’t have mattered to anyone if I got hurt. You heroes would have said I died for a noble cause, not caring that I was forced into this! I never wanted to come here! I never wanted to do this! But here I am.”
She shook her head and choked out a bitter laugh. “And now…maybe now you’ll regret it. Maybe now you’ll learn. I think villains have better morals than heroes now. Strange, isn’t it? And it’s all your fault.” With the last sentence, Aimee spat out every word like poison. Horrified expressions clouded the faces of her false parents.
“Tori, please--!” Felicity started.
“Don’t call me that!” Aimee snapped. “It’s not my name. It’s the name you made up for me. A fake name. My real name is Aimee, and don’t waste your breath; I’m loyal to my real family.”
She stood strong with the Snowflakes and the other villains. They all regarded the trapped heroes with expressions of mild amusement.
“Oh, and one last thing.” Aimee said as an afterthought. “Charlie is definitely dead. I should know…it’s his blood all over my shirt upstairs.”
Felicity gave a cry and clapped a hand over her mouth. Down below, the six kid villains began to laugh at their reaction to Aimee’s words.
“What did you do to him?” Felicity asked, her tone hushed and horrified.
“I don’t think you want to know,” Aimee answered casually.
“He got off easier than her, I hope,” Altair said, gesturing to the corpse on the floor.
“Oh yeah. Way easier,” Aimee said, not even taking a moment to think.
It was a small comfort to Felicity.
“I will not be defeated by a bunch of brainwashing villain brats,” Edgar said determinedly. “Tori is ours, and deep down she knows it. I don’t know what you did to her, but I swear I’ll undo it if it’s the last thing I do.”
With that, he began to concentrate. After a few moments, the silvery white force field burst with a massive explosion, sending blue sparks flying everywhere. He was free.
All of the villains cried out and ran for cover as Edgar freed Felicity.
“Don’t worry, Tori, we’ll save you.” Edgar said, lowering Felicity safely to the ground.
“I don’t need saving!” Aimee retorted angrily.
“You will not take her from us,” one Snowflake seethed.
“Never again,” the other finished, her eyes narrowed.
They linked arms and fired off several bursts of silvery white energy. The fight had begun.
“Stay low and hidden!” one Snowflake cried to the other villains.
“Protect our sister!” the other commanded, her face resolute and ready.
Edgar and Felicity weren’t going to go down without a fight, especially not at the hands of children who had brainwashed their daughter.
“I think they’re more powerful when they’re linked together,” Felicity muttered to Edgar.
“So we split them?” Edgar asked, following her train of thought.
“So we split them,” Felicity agreed. She reached out her hands and giant, thick tree roots sprang up from underneath the shiny tiled floor. The roots, covered with dirt and ripping up expanses of the floor as they went, reached for the Snowflakes, who only realized they were coming too late. The roots came up between their linked arms, ripping them apart and sending them flying to opposite sides of the room. Plaster, dirt and dust flew up in the air, sending most everyone into coughing fits.
The Snowflakes got up from their places sprawled on the floor, looking venomous. Their hair was streaked with dirt and dust, and one wiped away blood from a cut high on her cheek.
“You think you can stop us?” the bleeding Snowflake called out.
“We will fight for our sister to the death!” the other shouted.
“We will fight for our daughter to the death,” Edgar said, eyes burning with anger.
“So may the best win,” Felicity said, resolute, her tree roots springing back underground.
“You might as well give up now, then,” the Snowflakes said together, rushing to their adversaries, hands alight with energy.
Edgar raised his own hand, pulsing with blue energy. “I got this one,” he said to Felicity, regarding the Snowflake coming at him, the one with the cut on her cheek.
“Alright, I’ll make do with the other,” Felicity said, turning to her opponent.
Edgar fired off a blue streak of energy, which his opponent deflected with her own. Felicity had long tendrils of ivy reach up and trip the girl charging at her. The long tendrils of green tangled in her ankles and she was sent sprawling to the ground. Nevertheless, she growled and shot her weapon at Felicity’s feet, sending her flying.
Rune, Altair, Angie, and Aimee watched the battle rage on, pressed flat against one side of the staircase. Every now and then a flash of energy, either blue or silvery white, would fly by and scorch a nearby wall. They had to be extremely careful not to get hit, and Angie’s job was to set aflame any plant that came near. Rune, Altair, and Angie knew the Snowflakes would kill them if Aimee got even the tiniest scratch on her.
“I want to help,” Aimee said, her face illuminated by flashes of light as she watched the battle. She said this about every thirty seconds.
“We can’t let you,” Angie said, exasperated, frying up a curling frond of ivy.
“But that’s my sisters out there!” Aimee yelled, pointing.
As she spoke there was a yell from Edgar. It seemed he had resorted to hand to hand combat with the Snowflake he was fighting, the cut on her cheek bleeding and sending trickles of blood all down her face like tear streaks.
“I think they’re doing just fine by themselves,” Altair said as the cut Snowflake delivered a nasty left hook to Edgar. “Ooh. That’s gonna sting,” he said with a little flinch.
“But I want to help!” Aimee said, ignoring Altair.
“They told us to keep you safe, so you’re going to have to stay here. The way things are going, we won’t have to wait long,” Angie said, watching the fight.
Meanwhile, the fight was getting more intense. Edgar was locked in a hand to hand duel with the cut Snowflake, and she showed no signs of tiring. Felicity was trying her best to avoid bursts of energy from her opponent, who was still fighting despite being stuck on the floor with her ankles caught by ivy.
The cut Snowflake was sent sprawling with a swift kick by Edgar, who rushed over to aid Felicity. With a burst of blue light, the ivy tendrils snapped as the girl they held was sent flying into a wall, leaving a very sizable dent and sending dust flying everywhere. The Snowflake sent flying crumpled to the ground, but got up, looking pained but ready to keep fighting.
“How are they fighting like this? It’s insane!” Felicity yelled, tired and weary.
“I don’t know! Just go all out!” Edgar decided.
“We’re going to kill now?!” Felicity asked incredulously.
“We can’t stop them otherwise! They’re too dangerous, Lissie, trust me!” Edgar shouted as his adversary began to pick herself up, recovering from the kick. She ran at him, and he went back to fighting.
Felicity braced herself for the next wave of attacks. She conjured up some massive thorny vines, which crept up on her opponent and caught her tight.
“You won’t take my daughter!” Felicity yelled as the vines threw her opponent around in the air.
“You won’t take our sister!” the Snowflakes both answered back.
“Do you two always have to do that?” Edgar asked exasperatedly.
The cut Snowflake fighting Edgar conjured up an orb of silvery white light, and Edgar summoned up his own.
Suddenly blue met white with a massive sound like a bolt of lightning striking a tree, and there was a giant explosion. The screams of everyone in the room was drowned out by the noise.
Aimee stood and watched, her face contorted in horror, her cry silenced by the explosion. A burst of light blinded her. She couldn’t see, couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. Something awful was happening, and she couldn’t look away.
“GET DOWN!” Angie yelled, shoving Aimee to the ground just in time. The explosion manifested and nearly blew out everyone’s hearing. It reached up through a skylight in the ceiling, sending glass flying everywhere. The explosion through the skylight was visible from miles away.
Finally the light and the noise faded. Shaking, Aimee got up from her place sprawled on the floor, walked out from the shelter of the staircase, and surveyed the decimation.
The room at the foot of the stairs was totally destroyed. There was a sizable crater in the floor from the explosion. A final pane of glass fell to the ground and shattered, joining a thousand other broken pieces.
There was no question about it. The Snowflakes, Edgar, and Felicity were all dead.
Aimee’s breath caught fast in her chest and she gave an anguished cry.
“No!” she screamed, falling to her knees. Gone. All gone. The people she thought were family, who’d raised her, the people who made her smile in all the years of memories in her head, they were dead. The people who really were her family, her only family, who had shown her so much compassion, love, and caring in only a day, they were dead.
She had no one, and she couldn’t bear it.
And it was all her fault. They were fighting over her, weren’t they? She was alone now, and it was all her fault.
She began to cry, burying her head in her hands. The others got up behind her, their faces marked with pity and sadness of their own. The Snowflakes had been good friends, although they would never admit it.
“Good-bye, Gemelle and Tamsyn,” Rune said softly. Angie and Altair glanced at him and gave almost indiscernible nods.
Aimee still knelt there sobbing, her hair and pajamas marked with streaks of dust, which was still settling on the room. Tiny shards of glass continued to fall around her from the skylight.
She seemed to be full of tears, with an immeasurable supply than just kept falling down her face, leaving streaks in her dusty face. After a long while, she felt someone put an arm around her, help her up, and lead her back up the stairs slowly.
Hiccupping slightly, Aimee cleared her hair from her face to see it was Rune, his face somber.
“It’s m-my fault,” she informed him in a tired voice.
“You didn’t ask for them to go to war over you,” he said, meeting her eyes.
“But it’s still my fault!” she insisted.
“You said you never wanted to come here in the first place. I don’t think you ever meant for this to happen, any of it.” Rune said, still leading her. “I just think you were hurt and confused; most villains are. We all just have so much rage and don’t have any idea what to do with it. We don’t realize there’s a way to move on, to let go, to turn all of our hate into something…good.”
“I don’t want to be good.” she sobbed. “I don’t want to be bad. I don’t want to be anything! It hurts both ways…losing them all hurts no matter if I’m a hero or a villain. I never wanted either anyway.”
She sniffled as she realized all her life, she’d let everyone else choose her path for her. When people told her she was going to be a hero just like her parents, she believed them and thought it too. When she found her sisters, and they told her she was going to be an excellent villain like them and her true parents, she’d made the switch effortlessly. She’d never been herself. She didn’t even know who she truly was.
She suddenly realized Rune still had an arm around her. It confused her. She thought he hated knowing people’s thoughts.
“Why are you…?” she asked, pointing to his arm.
He shrugged. “Right now all I hear is confusion and sorrow. I’ll live.” he said sympathetically.
“I want to leave this place,” she said, staring around hatefully. “I hate it.”
“I don’t fancy it that much, either, to tell you the truth.” Rune said, glancing around as well.
“I thought you wanted to be a villain to get yourself un-shunned from your family,” she said, puzzled.
“Well…it’s not a matter of them not liking me. It’s a matter of blood. And being an amazing arch villain isn’t going to make me a true vampire. Why bother?” Rune said, sounding grim.
“So we’re all giving up then?” she asked sadly.
“Guess so.” Rune replied.
They began to slowly walk back down the hall, leaving the destruction behind, not knowing where to go next.
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Shippers are gonna flip, amirite? I can see it now. 9_9
So stay alert for the epilogue...
Quote of the Day: "I am not a tool for you to use to solve the puzzle."
~June