After Javqua finished eating Tom’s surprisingly delicious human food, she made her way to the bathroom.

Polishing her claws and cleaning underneath her scales, she was ready to leave; Tom, on the other hand, was still adjusting his school uniform.

She hadn’t realized how many pieces of clothing he had to wear - her school uniform consisted of only two pieces: a shirt and a skirt. “Tom, why are there so many pieces to your uniform?” She asked.

“Hm? Oh, I don’t really know. I was given this to wear by my home government. Why, does it look bad?” He asked, and Javqua tensed.

“No! Not at all! You look great!” She exclaimed, and Thomas smiled as he straightened his blazer.

“Thanks. Okay, let’s go.” He said.

Thomas and Javqua walked out of their dorm, walking to their school that was only a few blocks away. While they were walking, Thomas noticed a large, bipedal insectoid sentient holding a camera - resembling an eight-foot-tall praying mantis-cockroach hybrid, which began to follow him and Javqua.

It seemed to think that it was being stealthy, and it was half right - Javqua didn’t seem to notice it, while Thomas heard its heavy footsteps behind him.

He decided to ignore the sentient - walking into the school, as he and Javqua went to their first class of the day, which happened to be history.

They took their seats, as Mr. Hacat, another Magistra teacher, raised a claw to notify the class that his lesson was starting.

“Okay class, today, we’ll be learning about the worst war in galactic history. I’m sure you’ve heard of it? The twelve-year war? This war was so terrible, the only way to stop our enemies was to threaten them with our concept of nuclear bombs.” Mr. Hacat’s voice was serious, and the cheerful atmosphere of the class had turned somber.

Thomas turned to look at Javqua, who had a grim expression on her face. He stared at Mr. Hacat, confused. How could an entire species surrender after just being shown a concept for something?

Especially if that concept was just a nuke - last time he had checked, the Americans had made antimatter bombs, powerful enough to destroy entire stars.

Mr. Hacat spoke up, addressing the class.

“Remember everyone, if this is too much for you to handle, you can leave this class for a little bit.” Thomas liked the Magistra - his voice was gentle and sincere, he definitely meant what he was saying.

“How many died in this war?” Tom asked curiously.

Mr. Hacat paused, lowering his voice. “There were around one hundred million casualties. It was truly a tragedy.” He murmured.

“Oh, so like WW1 and WW2 combined,” Thomas said.

Mr. Hacat stared at him. “What?” The Magistra said slowly.

“They’re old human wars,” Thomas said, and Mr. Hacat paused.

“You humans...have had two wars which added to around one hundred million casualties in total?” Mr. Hacat said slowly.

“Yeah,” Thomas answered, and he heard soft thuds and thumps. He looked around to see that several of his classmates had fainted, and he stared at Mr. Hacat, who was clutching his desk.

“Who...who were you fighting?” The Magistra’s feathers were ruffled, and Thomas scratched his head.

“Ourselves,” Thomas answered, and even more of his class fainted.

“How...h-how long did these wars last?” Mr. Hacat breathed, and Thomas paused to think.

“Around ten years in total - within twenty years of each other.” Thomas watched as Mr. Hacat fainted as well, and he looked around. His entire class was out cold, including Javqua.

He quickly got up and fiddled with some of the buttons on Mr. Hacat’s desk, until a call started.

“Hello, this is the main office. How may I help you?” A female voice said.

“This is Thomas Winters, I’m in Mr. Hacat’s history class. My entire class is unconscious.” Thomas said.

There was a pause before the woman on the other end decided to speak again. “...is this one of those things you humans are known for doing? Pranks, if I remember correctly…? This is one of those, right…?”

“Uh… no, I’m being serious right now,” Tom said slowly.

He heard a quiet oh no from the other end, before the sound of audible typing greeted his ears, shortly followed up by a gasp. “St-stay right there, we'll be over shortly!” the woman stuttered as the call ended, but not before the scrambling of hooves could be heard.

Barely even five minutes later, around twenty nurses arrived, all of them gasping and panting - most likely thanks to their sprint from the other side of the high school.

After what seemed like hours of questioning from members of the school's staff, most of it just him proving that he hadn't done it on purpose; he was finally released. It would have been shorter if he hadn't had to hear the same questions multiple times by every member of the present staff.

Sighing to himself, Tom decided to wait around until he would be allowed to check up on Javqua. He ended up wandering around the school, trying to memorize landmarks and other fascinating structures and furniture - whatever caught his eye.

Another thing that caught his eye was an abundance of students staring at him. Whenever he would look their way, they'd try to act as if they hadn't; it reminded him of that one insectoid he had noticed before class.

He decided to walk around some more, to see if the insect he had noticed previously was following him. Even if it did turn out to just be a coincidence, it would still sedate his boredom for a while.

Or at least, until Javqua’s eventual awakening.

Valus had no idea what to think of this hyu-mon, or whatever it was supposed to be called. It was so small and harmless-looking, that at first glance, he had momentarily stopped producing pheromones after finding out the thing was a predator.

A hellworlder at that. Still, it shouldn't be that hard - at least, that’s what Valus told himself at the beginning. But by the Queen was he wrong - every second of his time spent around the small mammal was a constant struggle.

Usually, he could observe his oblivious targets with ease. But not the human - it seemed to be constantly on the lookout for an attacker; subconsciously or not was another mystery in itself.

So when he found out he would have to keep tailing the guy, even after what he had done to his entire class, was soul-crushing. Even to the point of him meekly demanding some aid, to allow him a break now and then during the job.

The human had taken out his entire class. Twenty other students and his teacher. Valus trembled. He had to find the human again, who was Queen know where.

He straightened his antennae and body, determined. He had a job to do, and he’d - Valus turned a corner and spotted the human a couple of feet away. Valus promptly ran in the opposite direction.