Mr. Abrams: “(Wayne. To be perfectly honest I forgot about him. His presence during this incident was so minimal that I question if I should even bother trying to extract data. Would any knowledge he pertains be able to serve my intended purpose for it?

…

…No! What the heck am I saying?! ‘Be able to serve my intended purpose for it’? Fuck that! It’s main purpose first and foremost is to help me gain a better awareness of my student’s suffering while I was gone. He obviously suffered and clearly is my student, so what more of a reason could I ask for? This boy deserves my attention just as badly as any other student here.)

...(But I probably shouldn’t tell him that I forgot about him. No, that’ll only hurt his self esteem greater than Ophelia did. But, he seems to dislike me as his teacher…

Well. You can’t please them all. Now time for those memories.) Ahem- AHEM! Wayne! Get over here, Please. You’re next.”

Wayne: “*Walks over* N-Next? Next for what…? What are you talking abou- Ah-aah!”

Mr. Abrams’s eyes glowed a bright white. This in turn, caused the boy to scream. It was a defensive response to avoid danger. After a day like today, Wayne was unnecessarily alert against all contingencies. If Ian had brought up a myriad of possibilities to confront Mr. Abrams over his actions against them, Wayne considered all of those and more! And for no reason other than wanting to be prepared in case something ELSE unexpected happens.

Unfortunately, due to his rampaging thoughts and his untamed thinking process, he had already assimilated Mr. Abrams’s glowing eyes with either a) activating his teleportation powers, or b) being taken over by a villain and ready to kill his own students under the disguise of a ‘check-up’ to see how they’re doing after the day’s excitement was over.

He also thought of the obvious c) that Mr. Abrams was still good with his psyche intact and only trying to cast another spell like that calming method he used before to relax Wane back at the forest, but that wasn’t one Wayne was keen on paying any attention to right now. He’d already resolved himself to prepare himself for the worst possible scenario first. Everything else can wait. Why, you may ask? Because if the right answer is either a) or c), then he’s perfectly safe and has absolutely nothing to fear...probably. But if the answer should happen to be his second assumption, b)...then he’s going to be screwed before he even realizes it. Only by preparing for b) can he have a chance at living through those three possible realities!

...But how does one prepare for an evil teacher? He couldn’t think of anything, so he screamed.

Of course, Mr. Abrams knew nothing of this. He only grabbed the boy’s shoulder and continued gazing directly into his eyes. The fearful teen tried to twist his body and scream, but very soon felt his mind overcome with a numbing sensation. His scream was instantly hushed as soon as it came forth, and his gaze became distant. And very soon, he blacked out.

Mr. Abrams came across a very familiar scene. Everyone is surrounded by forestry before separating into their own respective groups. Wayne left along with the other boys to find his own dorm room, but that’s where things already differed from the rest. Instead of choosing a room by complete random, he waited for the others to stand near a door before then systematically checking every unoccupied room!

And why you may ask?

For their respective scenery! He was judging each room while looking for the one with the best scenery. A beautiful morning view, matched by a wonderful calculated position for the sunset! How marvelous! But just as he was about finished deciding on his dorm room of choice…

[*BOOM!*]

The explosion happened.

The building rocked and their happiness swayed. This was when each of their personal hells would begin taking form. The start of a massacre.

And the start of his students’ collective despair...the beginning of their waning distrust in Society’s ‘heroes’ who were present and all around them, yet did nothing to intervene. All of who, failed to even take notice.

The villains broke through the school’s defenses so easily; or maybe ‘breaking in’ isn’t appropriate. No, the word ‘hacked’ felt more relative, but even then – something felt off.

Ah, that’s right: most of the dormitory’s defenses stem from powerful magic. There isn’t truly a traditional method to ‘hack’ into them without alerting the caster first, unless you knew the ‘master codes’ before attempting to mess with them. And if that’s the case, then can it really be considered ‘hacking’ anymore? Somebody in charge of its creation clearly would have to be in league with these guys, and only 4 people knew the passcode to deactivate the security defenses.

Mr. Abrams: “It’s a really good thing the principal took precautionary countermeasures and hired somebody from Justice Heights to work on the third building. I find it extraordinarily unfathomable that such a person could be colluding with the enemy. If such a prestigious figure was discovered conspiring against other heroes, Justice Heights’s name would be dragged through the mud. They would never allow that to happen. Those kids should be safe…I hope. Unless…”

Security counter-measures against villainous threats and rambunctious students that wanted them gone failed to activate, even after the villains forced their way in. It remained unclear to Mr. Abrams if they were even aware of the tampering to the Dorm’s defenses, or if they themselves somehow did something special. He could only see, what his students see, after all.

And after the initial explosion…

Immediately following the overwhelming the room-shaking quake…

Wayne jumped out the window! There was no mystery and no sequence of events leading up to his escape. No fights or clashes with villains – he just jumped and ran!

But it was strange, why is he running past the windows? Shouldn’t he be heading for the forest? Is he trying to circle around the building and escape from the front? Certainly that’s the way to go, but…

...That isn’t the direction WAYNE went, according to Mr. Abrams’s search. The boy kept running with obvious haste, until he skidded to a halt at a specific window...a very wide window, and hid.

And there he saw...6 and 5!

Mr. Abrams: “So this is where he went first, thing. To see if the explosion happened naturally or unnaturally, by heroes or by-”

Wayne: “A- AAAAAAAHHH!! VILLAINS!!! AAAAAH!”

Mr. Abrams watched as his precious student ran into the forest without looking back.

He kept running, without pause. He sometimes zigzagged and other times backtracked in order to take a different route.

Mainly, he just kept running. Overall, Mr. Abrams was very proud of him. The boy prioritized safety and knew his limits. It’s only saddening to know that the man called ‘One’ came along. He would have little trouble learning of the boy’s location, if he was capable of finding the general locations of Leos, Oliviera, Rise and Noel. Wayne was truly lucky that Noel hindered One and kept the brutal captain busy, or else a quick teleportation would have sent Wayne to join the unfortunate Leos.

But suddenly, the forest underwent a weird, unnatural change. Trees darkened and flowers withered, rejuvenated and then finally disappeared, replacing themselves with dead foliage. Light, for the most part, was being filtered out. In his panic, Wayne didn’t notice the difference in scenery. It was a forest, and he was bound to enter some parts that lacked sunlight; or so he thought to himself. But once he looked down and saw the natural bedding spring to life, wither and repeat itself before being replaced by different species of plants, like herbs, weeds and flora – only to continue the same vicious cycle; he fearfully stopped in his tracks.

Mr. Abrams: “...What the fuck…what is all of this?”

Wayne: “Wh – What… w-w-where…? Where am I ... what IS all of this?”

All around him, he saw darkness spread thin like a misty blanket or a foggy plague. The trees near to his position were particularly visibly, however only partially.

And resonating throughout the space, he heard a voice. A DEEP voice.

??: “Child, where are you running to? And why have you come here?”

Wayne: “...V-vi...Villains…”

The heavy sentence of this phantom stranger seemed to originate from every space. There was just no pinpointing its exact whereabouts not even for Mr. Abrams! Wayne barely managed to squeeze out a single, stuttered word after it spoke. He already felt like passing out.

??: “Villains…troubling. I would love to help, but sadly, I am already dealing with an infestation of my own. For the time being, continue heading straight. So long as you do this, you will stay safe until rescue arrives.

How very tiring. You humans are always so troublesome.”

A pitch black light swallowed Wayne entirely before dissipating – revealing the bright, warm sun. Wayne stood there dazed for a second or two, before speaking aloud.

---