Villainess 5: Janet’s Second Retry

Red Pill 28: Suicides, Retry!

Scrambling past many bodies charging after him and breaking through a forest of arms and hands from all directions, like playing a game of mob football, Gavin O’Neill made it past the hallway and came within sight of the upper staircase landing, till he got ambushed and taken to the ground, landing on his face. Stars flew across his vision as more students dog-piled him, their combined weight keeping him still as they punched his sides and his head. Yet throughout the beatdown, Gavin kept screaming, “Get off of me!”

Yet they continued beating on him, then got off of him only to grab him by his arms and drag him to the outside wall behind Classroom 1-3C and pin him there. Then one of the bigger boys, maybe a second-year knight student from the Garrison Quarters, grabbed a handful of his hair and shoved his head against the wall, saying, “What the fuck did you do to Miss Edgeworth? Did you hurt her?”

“I didn’t do anything!” he said.

“Then why did she call out like that?” the knight student said. “What the fuck happened in that room?”

Yet before Gavin could speak, one of them said, “I saw Miss Edgeworth on the ground.”

“And she looked like she was hurt,” another said.

“What?” the knight student said. “How bad?”

“Very bad,” yet another student said.

“You didn’t see what they were doing in that room?”

“That’s why I’m asking, damn it!” the knight student said. “What the fuck happened?”

So Gavin told the truth, saying, “They were beating up on Lady Kessler and Lady Fleming in there!”

Yet the knight student socked Gavin hard in the solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him, and said, “You better tell me the truth, you bastard!”

“I’m telling you the truth!”

“Fuck you!” the knight student said and socked the poor Gavin O’Neill again in the stomach, thereby renewing his beatdown with utmost prejudice.

And so, without further adieu, Gavin suffered the indignity of even more blows thudding against his wiry frame, gritting his teeth against their punches and kicks digging into his solar plexus and his sides and even his stomach, till he felt like vomiting. But when he started retching as if he was about to throw up his breakfast, he tasted blood instead. That’s when he realized, beyond the adrenaline masking the pain, that he had just thrown up a pool of blood on the floor that stopped the beating for just a moment—

(Meanwhile, Janet’s clones, who had followed on Gavin’s heels through the onslaught, now squirmed at the beating they were giving Gavin for his efforts. In fact, distraught at their mindless cruelty, the clones started cussing out the students, especially that brutish knight student. So one clone said, “Damn it, I wish we could beat the snot out of him!”

“I know!” another said.)

—just long enough for a pair of stomping footfalls coming up the stairs to catch the crowd off guard and turn around, because a pair of girls yelled above the din, one of them saying, “What the fuck are you all doing?”

And the other added, “You’re gonna kill him!”

So Gavin summoned what remained of his strength and yelled, “GET THE PROFESSORS! GET THE GUARDS! THEY’RE GONNA DIE IN THAT CLASS IF YOU DON’T HURRY UP!”

And he collapsed to the floor, unconscious.

That’s when the knight student and the others separated themselves from Gavin's limp body, and the knight student raised his hands in a placating manner, saying, “It’s not what you think! We weren’t trying to kill him! We were just trying to ask him what the hell was going on, but he kept lying and— . . . Wait, wait, wait a minute!”

Yet this female duo turned tail and sprinted back down the upper staircase, (and that’s when Janet’s clones all recognized the Drevis sisters, Jean and Saraya, so one clone said, “Quick, after them!”)

Somehow without twisting their ankles on the stairs, Jean and Saraya Drevis footed it down both flights (with Janet’s clones hot on their heels) before cutting across the open-plan parlor area into the Eastern side of the campus building past the restrooms to the Professor Commons Office, where Prince Blaise was still talking with Baron Palmer about how to deal with Lady Fleming’s latest outrage against Miss Edgeworth (a.k.a., Lady Dorian). Baron Palmer had been trying to calm down the Prince, saying he’ll have Lady Fleming reprimanded today pending a transfer to a different homeroom after he’s finished talking it over with Viscountess Durham as soon as she arrives, yet the Prince wasn’t having it. He wanted something more severe to prevent Lady Fleming from harming Miss Edgeworth any further, saying he wanted her expelled.

“You’re being unreasonable!” the baron said.

“And you refuse to punish the culprit!” the Prince said.

“Lady Fleming is not a ‘culprit,’” the baron said, “until we’ve gathered all the facts. Otherwise, you’re just abusing your status as the crown prince!”

“Oh, forget it!” the Prince said, getting up from his chair. “If you don’t want to deal with her, Baron, then I will! Whenever that villainess turns up, I’ll drag her out of this school building by myself!”

The baron was about to protest that—

When the Drevis sisters passed the double doors of the Professor Commons Office, both girls wheezing on their feet, Jean said, “There’s trouble!”

“WHAT?” the Prince and the baron said.

Now the Prince stomped towards Jean Drevis, saying, “What just happened? Is Rosalie okay?” Yet before the girl even answered, the Prince sprinted past the double doors of the Professor Commons Office, passing the restrooms and running through the open-plan parlor area and up the stairs.

Another voice, a female one, called out in the hall and said, “What’s going on? Why are you running?”

“Rosalie’s in danger!” the Prince yelled while running up the lower staircase.

More footfalls later, there came through the double doors Viscountess Durham, saying, “What’s going on here?”

So Jean told Saraya, “Get the guards!”

Saraya bolted through the doors, taking Viscountess Durham by the hand and saying, “We need to get the guards!”

“Why?” the viscountess said.

As Saraya was telling her what Lord O’Neill had told her and her sister on their way past the double-door entrance of the school building, Jean was also telling Baron Palmer the same thing as she led him along the path the Prince had taken past the restrooms and through the open-plan parlor area and up the first flight of stairs.

(So the clones split into two teams, one team tailing Jean and the baron up the stairs after the Prince and the other team tailing Saraya and the viscountess out through the double-door entrance into the courtyard.)

As Jean Drevis and Viscountess Durham (and half of Janet’s clones) made a bee-line past the fountain towards Guinevere House just to their left, cutting across the boulevard and the juniper trees hiding empty benches and the lawn and walkway, Jean and Viscountess Durham called out to the pair of guardsmen stationed at its double-door entrance. Both women were huffing and puffing, so one of the guards said, “What’s going on, mademoiselles?”

Viscountess Durham said, “There’s an emergency going on in the third floor of the Academy! Quickly now, summon the rest here and follow us inside!”

“Will do!” the guard said.

So the guard’s partner manifested a bugle in his hand and blew a short bugle call, rousing the other guardsmen at their posts to gather around their position. So twenty-eight other guardsmen left their positions at their assigned dorm houses in the Halle Complex and the Hayden Complex and the Garrison Quarters and gathered around their summoner, and the two guardsmen of Guinevere House informed their peers of the current situation and assigned them their duties.

With that, all of the guardsmen (and Janet’s clones) followed Jean and Viscountess Durham past the courtyard fountain and through the double-door entrance and up the first flight of stairs, then up the second flight of stairs, where a flurry of yells and screams erupted over their heads.

(“Oh, fuck no!” one clone said.

“What’s happening up there?” another said.

“Please, be okay! Please, be okay!” yet another said.

“I don’t think so,” yet another clone said, looking for any sign of her suicide double standing on the top railing above her head, yet there was no sign of her there yet. “I’ve got a really bad feeling about this!”)

So the guardsmen (and the clones) footed it up the rest of the stairs, passing by Jean and the Viscountess Durham and clearing the top step and drawing their longswords from their scabbards as a flood of horrified students came rushing into the landing with shell-shocked faces and teary eyes, all of them fleeing from Classroom 1-3C. Something had happened in that classroom, something that nobody could have ever predicted, something that took everyone there by surprise—

When Prince Blaise came running out of Classroom 1-3C and through the hallway towards the stairs . . .

Back in said classroom, moments before the Prince’s entrance and exit, Janet and Mindy had their backs against the wall, their bodies full of bruises and internal injuries, their faces jacked up, and their chances of getting out of here alive dropping moment by moment. By now, Janet was grimacing from the stinging cut on her left cheek and breathing through her mouth because of her bloody nose. Janet looked over at an unconscious Mindy, her body standing limp against the wall and her head lolling forward, so she must have suffered kicks to the head when they ganged up on her.

So Lady Dorian asked Lady Childeron and Lady Felton to check on Lady Kessler, but when Lady Childeron walked over and raised the limp girl’s head back while Lady Felton raised the girl’s eyelids, Lady Felton said, “She’s out cold.”

“Good,” Lady Dorian said. “That makes one less witness to mess things up for us. Lady Childeron,” she added, “go inform his Highness about all this.”

Lady Childeron then walked out of the room, opening the double doors and heading into the hallway.

“Watch and learn, Lady Fleming,” Lady Dorian said. “When his Highness comes here and sees what you’ve done to me, he’ll want to kill you, but I won’t let you die just yet. I won’t let you, till you know just how far his Highness is willing to go to please my every whim. Who knows? Maybe I’ll let you have a taste of his Highness before he takes you away.”

(“FUCK YOU!” Janet said.

And her clones rebuked her with more f-bombs.)

Yet Lady Dorian added, “Of course, it’ll be up your ass as you scream like a bitch, which reminds me. Since her ladyship was imprisoned, I’ve heard rumors of how much she screamed when you popped out. You must have put your poor mother through a lot of pain before she died.”

Janet the Clone struggled against her restrainers, so Lady Felton socked her hard in the stomach, making Janet vomit out a line of blood over the bodice of her uniform.

(That’s when a dark halo tinted with a bluish green corona formed around a fuming Rowena Fleming, and a circle of bright bluish green formed around her on the ground, making Lady Graves and Maxine and even RuRu back away from her on tenuous feet. As swirls of energy whirled around Marchioness Fleming, catching even the level-headed DeeDee off guard, she said, “I’ll haunt your dreams tonight, you bitch!”

“Endure it the best you can!” DeeDee said.

“I’ve endured many things,” she said, “but I won’t let that slide! I won’t!”

“Trust me, I get where you’re coming from,” DeeDee said, “but your daughter needs you right now,” and she pointed towards the double doors, where Janet’s club mates and her club advisor were trying to console the inconsolable puddle of tears that was Janet the Living Avatar.

So Rowena ran and pulled Janet into her arms, saying, “I’m here, darling. Please, don’t cry!”

Yet Janet couldn’t help her tears, because there was nothing she or anyone else could do to help her double or Mindy’s double or Gavin O’Neill.)

“Still got some oomph left, eh?” Lady Dorian said. “We’ll see how much you’ve got left when his Highness gets here,” but only after a few moments passed, there came an explosion of voices at the approach of running footfalls and then Prince Blaise’s frantic voice demanding Lady Childeron and Lord Hudson (the second-year knight student) to be let into the classroom. “Ah, speak of the devil!”

Now Lady Dorian adopted her innocent persona again, her brows creased and her eyes wet with crocodile tears, as Lady Childeron told the Prince that Mindy Kessler and Gavin O’Neill and Janet Fleming had all tried to harm Miss Edgeworth (a.k.a., Lady Dorian), so the students in the classroom had to subdue them. In addition, Lord Hudson said that Gavin O’Neill had tried to run away, so he and his knight buddies had subdued him in the hall. When the Prince asked if Miss Edgeworth was all right, Lady Childeron said that Janet had injured her, so she couldn’t walk, and that set him off.

The Prince sprinted towards the classroom and kicked open the double doors, saying, “Rosy!”

“I’m here!” Lady Dorian said, waving from the table on which she sat and looking as pitiful as ever.

The Prince rushed over to her side, saying, “My God, what did she do to you?”

“She kicked my knee cap,” Lady Dorian said.

(“I can’t watch this anymore,” Mindy said, turning her back on the scene as she wiped her own eyes dry with the sleeve of her bolero. “It’s too much!”

“You don’t have to force yourself, dear,” DeeDee said, looking over at Janet still recovering in her mother’s arms. “I know it’s difficult.”

Yet Janet had wiped away her tears by now, saying, “I’ll be okay, Mom. Don’t worry.”

“Are you sure, dear?” Rowena said.

Janet nodded, knowing full well what was about to happen, for the actions of the Prince remained fresh in her mind as if she had experienced them herself. Homeroom 2 in the hallway this morning was Janet’s first glimpse of the Prince’s true nature, and her dream before this experiment was but an expansion of it, yet one look at her double held against the classroom’s front wall was another matter. After witnessing everything tonight, Janet wondered how her beaten and battered double would fare under the Prince’s duress.)

So the Prince wiped away the tears from Lady Dorian’s cheeks and said, “I’m so sorry, Rosy. I’ll make sure that Lady Fleming never troubles you again, I promise.”

Only then did Lady Dorian nod her head in acknowledgment and said, “Thank you, your Highness.”

When the Prince turned in her direction, Janet the Clone caught his eyes flashing at her with a basilisk fury she had never seen before, as if the Prince was about to slay a monster with a sword. Icy adrenaline exploded through her chest when he approached her, and Janet’s restrainers let her go and made way for the Prince. He then grabbed her wrist, making her wince and grimace at his vise-like grip and say, “Stop it! You’re hurting me, your Highness!”

Yet the Prince just leaned over her shoulder and said into her ear, “Your tyranny ends today, you fucking witch! Now on your knees! ON YOUR KNEES!”

And the Prince yanked down on Janet’s wrist, wrenching down on her forearm as she was on her knees screaming for him to let go already, yet he wouldn’t let go even as there came a new hubbub of voices in the hallway when Baron Palmer demanded everyone to cease their madness at once. Then the Prince stepped in behind Janet and bowled her over into an arm-lock behind her back, as the students in the hallway bearing witness to his actions called the baron over towards the classroom.

So Baron Palmer came rushing over, yet the Prince wouldn’t let go even when the baron came through the doorway and said, “Don’t do it, your Highness! Unless you want to get stripped of your title, don’t do it!”

“Then back off!” the Prince said.

Yet Baron Palmer kept pressing his advance.

“I said, back off!” the Prince said, wrapping his arm around the nape of Janet’s neck and wrenching her up into a grimacing portrait of a strangulation. “Back off, or I’ll snap her neck right here, right NOW!”

So Baron Palmer stopped his approach halfway towards Janet and the Prince, lifting his hands in a placating gesture and saying, “Calm down, your Highness!”

“I AM CALM!”

Yet the Prince was anything but that.

In fact, Baron Palmer just stared at him as if he was out of his mind, while Lady Dorian and Lady Felton and the other students in the classroom and even Lady Childeron and the second-year knight student Lord Hudson and the rest in the hallway all had their eyes on him, who seemed like he was about to kill Janet the Clone in front of them.

(And even when half of Janet’s clones came rushing through the doorway, they all halted at the scene before them and raised their hands to their gaping mouths. And just like everyone else, all the witnesses of this ghastly experiment had their eyes on a wild-eyed Prince, as if the fate of the world hinged on his next act. Everyone, that is, except for Janet the Living Avatar, who noticed a change in Lady Dorian’s demeanor where she sat atop the table, her face ashen and her eyes wide and her hands trembling in her lap.

Something had gone wrong, and Janet knew what that was: despite Lady Dorian’s plans and countermeasures, she had overlooked the loose cannon that was the Prince now acting out of her control. She had wanted the Prince to apprehend Janet, not kill her off himself.

With this in mind, Janet pointed out Lady Dorian to her friends and said, “Everyone, look! She doesn’t want to have the Prince kill her—”

“—because he’ll break the spell,” DeeDee said.

“Exactly!” Janet said.)

And just as she had pointed out, Lady Dorian said, “Don’t do it, your Highness, please! I don’t want you to lose everything you have because of me!”

“I’ve already got everything,” the Prince said. “I’ve got you, Rosy. That’s all I need in this life.”

“She’s right, your Highness,” Baron Palmer said.

“Fuck you, Baron!” the Prince said. “Nobody asked for your opinion, so butt out!”

“Don’t make it worse!” Lady Dorian said, pushing herself off of the table onto her good leg. “Let her go!”

“Stay where you are,” he said.

“But, your Highness!” the baron said.

“Stay where you are, both of you!” the Prince said, halting Baron Palmer’s advance again as he had shortened the distance between him and the Prince before turning back to Lady Dorian. “If you think I’m a monster after this, Rosy, then so be it! If loving you is against my honor and my title and my country, then I’d give those up for you.”

“If you truly love me, then don’t do it, please!” Lady Dorian said, seeming to shed the first genuine tears before her beloved. “For my sake, don’t do it!”

“I’m trying to protect you!”

“No, you’re not!” Lady Dorian said. “What you’re doing is jeopardizing your future! Our future!”

And for a moment, the Prince wavered, but his face darkened as if it had turned to stone, as if Lady Dorian’s words had cut him deeper than she knew, as if her words fell on deaf ears, as if the Prince was now hell-bent on committing himself to the deed, and said, “You’re just too naive.”

“Stop this, I’m begging you!” she said.

Yet the Prince still snapped Janet’s neck, and a glowing dark red luminescence emanated from her body as she collapsed to the floor at his feet.

Then Baron Palmer charged at the Prince, yet the Prince had faster reflexes and countered him with a hip toss and threw the baron over his hip and onto his back on the floor with a heavy thud, then grabbed his arm and twisted him into an arm-lock behind his back while he was lying prone, and then knocked him out cold with a rabbit punch.

“You’re a brute!” Lady Dorian said.

“But I got rid of her, didn’t I?” he said.

So she yelled, “She’s not supposed to die like that, you fucking imbecile!”

“But she’s gone, isn’t she?” he said.

“And you’ve just fucked yourself!” Yet when the Prince let go of the baron and offered to help her, Lady Dorian said, “Stay away from me, you brute!”

“But, Rosy, I—”

“I said, stay away from me!” Lady Dorian said. “I don’t need dumbasses like you!”

“I’m trying to help!” he said.

“Just stay the fuck away from me,” she said before calling out to Lady Felton: “Vessy, help me get me out of here!”

Yet Lady Felton said nothing.

“I said, help me get me out of here!” she said, yet when Lady Felton remained silent, Lady Dorian looked at the rest of the students in the classroom and in the hallway. All of them were silent now, and over their foreheads glowed upside-down tetrahedrons, and on the ground below their feet glowed magic seals made of wheel crosses as if they had been sleep-walking under the shadowy woman’s sleep spell. But with Janet’s death hanging over the Prince’s head like a curse, all of their eyes flashed open, and all of the tetrahedrons and wheel crosses dissipated into nothing, and everyone in the classroom and in the hallway started screaming their heads off and rushing away from the ignominious murder scene, leaving Mindy’s unconscious double to fall limp on the ground.

Yet the Prince persisted, saying, “Then at least let me help you get out of this place.”

“Stay away from me, you brute!”

“Look, I was wrong,” he said, “but, damn it, I never thought you’d take it that way,” and he managed to grab a hold of her wrist, yet she pulled away and winced.

“Unhand me!” she said.

So he let go of her, saying, “I’m sorry, okay?”

“‘Sorry’ won’t cut it!” Lady Dorian said. “Now get lost!”

“But just give me a chance to—”

“You’ll get banished if you’re lucky,” Lady Dorian said, “but knowing you, you’ll get executed for sure! I don’t want to have to deal with either, so get away from me!”

Yet the Prince still grabbed at her hand, saying, “Rosy, listen! We can escape this kingdom— . . . Just calm down! . . . Rosy, will you just listen to me?”

“Don’t touch me!” she said, pulling her hand from his grasp. “We’re on formal terms, your Highness! I don’t want to have anything to do with you! Now fuck off!”

And she pushed him away.

(Along with her friends, Janet couldn’t help but stare at the lovers’ quarrel following the same trajectory that led up to her clone’s suicide, yet the longer it went on, the more she felt in the marrow of her bones that it was the Prince’s comeuppance drawing nigh as the scene went on to its inevitable climax. Janet saw the same hollow expression overtaking the Prince’s face, the one Janet and her clone had shared as the Prince now repeated many of the same words.)

“Do you really want me gone, Rosy?” he said.

“I do! Now fuck off, you bastard!” Lady Dorian said, shoving him away again.

The Prince just stared at her soon-to-be ex-lover, then shook his head and said, “Fine, whatever!”

“Then get the fuck out of here!” she yelled.

“Then goodbye, you fucking cunt!” the Prince said and spat in her face, making Lady Dorian explode on him. “I hope you and your ass burn in Hell!”

“You and yours first!” she said.

So the Prince backhanded Lady Dorian across her face, knocking her over onto her bad knee again, which raised a torrent of her screaming f-bombs after the Prince as he dashed out of the classroom (with Janet and the rest tailing behind him) and ran down the hallway towards the upper staircase.

But when the guardsmen (and the other half of Janet’s clones) ascended the stairs, trapping him on the third floor, the Prince doubled back around the balustrade (passing by Janet and the rest before them) and climbed and steadied himself on the top railing overlooking the gap between the upper and lower staircases in front of horrified students and guards. Now the guardsmen and students alike were screaming for the Prince to get down from there, while Jean Drevis and Viscountess Durham were running up the staircase and yelling for him to stop this madness. Yet amidst the chaos of everybody trying to talk him out of it, the Prince looked back down the hallway above all of their heads.

(So Janet looked back and caught sight of Lady Dorian leaning against the door jamb of Classroom 1-3C on her good leg, looking back at Prince Blaise with an ashen face, yet she never called out to him: she just looked away like a stranger. So Janet found herself bolting after the Prince and calling out his childhood nickname, saying, “Donny, waaaait!”

And she was reaching out for her childhood friend in the slow sludgy panic of dreams, reaching out for him when he needed it most, wanting to catch up to him—

To talk him out of it—

To stop him from offing himself . . .)

That’s when he jumped amidst a flurry of screams.

And there was a heartbeat’s moment of dead silence cutting through the clamor of voices, till the impact shattered the latent vision into smithereens and brought the Prince’s last living moments to an end.

(On reaching the balustrade, Janet peered over the railing and saw the Prince’s broken body and disjointed limbs three stories below her, where a bloody halo was now spreading from his head, only to watch his form fade away into the stuff of nightmares. Now feeling sick to her stomach, she collapsed to her knees, crying hot tears through her sniffles, wanting to throw up, wanting to forget what she had just seen, wanting to take back everything she had said against poor Donny—

Before fainting into oblivion.)

On waking up, Janet found herself lying over Rowena’s lap with her club mates and her club advisor and the other witnesses of the experiment gathered around her in the hallway by the closed double-door entrance of Classroom 1-3C, all of them with somber faces after what they had witnessed. She found that they had moved her from the balustrade while she was out, yet when she couldn’t see her clones anywhere in the hallway, Janet said, “DeeDee, where are my clones?”

“They’re inside the classroom,” DeeDee said, nodding towards the double doors of Classroom 1-3C. “They said they wanted to be alone for a bit.”

So Janet sat up and got to her feet with DeeDee pulling her up by her hand, then looked down at herself and saw she was no longer wearing the black veil and white-caped habit and knight boots of her battle attire.

“Your darkness affinity has been exhausted for tonight,” DeeDee said, pointing to Janet’s lamp on the floor that only gave off a bright green glow now. “This experiment has taken a lot out of you, I can tell.”

Janet gulped. “Is it that obvious?”

“You collapsed and cried before you fainted,” DeeDee said. “It doesn’t get more ‘obvious’ than that.”

“What about my clones?”

“They’re taking it just as hard,” DeeDee said.

Janet then thought about her ex-suicide clone and said, “Did you tell her?”

“I told her,” Rowena said.

“How did she take it?” Janet said.

Rowena sighed and said, “She’s inconsolable.”

“Go to them, dear,” DeeDee said. “We’ll wait for you.”

Janet gulped and said, “Are you sure?”

“They need you,” Rowena added.

Janet nodded and turned towards the double doors, then pressed her hands up against them and passed through like a hologram into the room. She then looked and saw her clones clustered around her ex-suicide clone sitting at the third table from the front of the class, her head cradled in her arms over the tabletop, crying with her doubles. Janet wasn’t sure if her clone was crying because the Prince had killed her or because Rowena had told her that the Prince had jumped to his death soon afterwards. In the end, the exact details didn’t matter, because their anguish and their tears told her everything she needed to know, everything that mattered.

Janet walked up to them, and they parted before her, so she could sit next to her double at the table. She sat and wrapped her arms around her sobbing double’s shoulders and let herself fall to pieces with her clones, all of them mourning the passing of their childhood friend.

End of Villainess 5