[IC] Herculean Academy, The Top School for Aspiring Superheroes: Prologue

[Rune_Alchemist]

~Meredith Hillard~

After she had made her grand entrance, things started moving much faster. That was good - it was having the intended effect she desired. At least, that's what she told herself when in reality she didn't have any such plan to begin with. Or maybe she did. Either way, it was good things were moving along smoothly enough.

"So, Anyone else think we've seen entirely too many horrifying monsters today?"

This response elicited a melodic laugh from meredith, a laugh someone wouldn't expect - or maybe they would, from something that looked as she currently did. Whoever this girl was, was probably going to be fun to mess with in the future. Even if she was probably currently dazed, she would be easy enough to mess with probably.

"I don't know, but you look tasty to me, I've never eaten something like you, you must taste quite exotic. So are you going to be my lunch today?"

Before she could reply, however, she was interrupted by...a thing. It didn't faze her, however. Very few things fazed her. All of her eyes focused on the creature before her, her head doing an unnatural 180 turn on her shoulders to look at him. Yuck. He didn't seem very appetizing. He looked like he had a lot of biomass to be sure, but he also looked quite acidic. He probably would give her a bad stomach ache, and she wasn't sure there was enough tums in the world to cure something like that.

"Vous ne pouvez pas manger Madam Hillard!I refuse to allow you to eat Miss Hillard! Madam! Did you have a good summer? I had a brilliant one! We jetted off to the Far East! Japan was magnificent!"

Ah, french. The language of love some might say. Meredith laughed again at hearing Olivia's voice, as her face started to turn back to its original shape. "Ah, Olivia! Au plaisir de vous revoir! Non, mon été a été très calme. Mon travail me tient assez occupé, plus quelques choses avec l'école je ne peux pas vous dire kiddies." She spoke french quite fluently. She spoke several languages quite fluently, actually. The other students would probably be quite bewildered, but she wasn't one to spoil it. By now though, her face had taken a completely human appearance. Brown eyes, blond hair, and pale skin. It was an appearance most would probably find quite attractive, if it wasn't for the whole 'eldritch horror' thing.

"I have seen more scary than you. Hell I have killed scarier than you. I wonder what whatever in the nine hells you are tastes like."

It was then, someone threatened her once again. She was growing tired of these threats, though. The first one made by the walking stomach-ache made her chuckle a bit, but this one merely caused her to sigh. She would have liked to keep talking with Olivia.

"Tsk tsk. Threatening a teacher is grounds for detention, young man." She replied, as her tentacles reformed into her left arm, a few snapping noises being heard as bones snapped back into place. "I would love to see you in my room after class, though..." She grinned, a bit menacingly as she turned towards Paul. Whatever that meant, she left up to interpretation.

"Miss Meredith, this isn't the time for fighting! Some of the students are injured! Yep, definitely broken, And she's bleeding heavily! She needs instant medical attention!"

"Paul, paul, Paul. You should know by now I don't like fighting unless I have too, lest I get carried away." She nervously chuckled at the though, but it didn't seem like she was really nervous about doing it. She seemed rather eager, actually. However, instead she spoke to both Paul and Tony, the older students her currently had enough sense to actually try to do something.

"Paul, Tony, be a dear and go take those who are seriously injured students to the train platform. The nurse should have been alerted the moment the emergency breaks were pulled, and already should be on their way here." She asked, well, more like commanded them by the way she hefted that bone saw that was currently resting on her shoulder.

“HEY YOU! Come on! We gotta go. Come on! GO GO GO! EVERYBODY, GET OFF YOUR ASSES AND MOVE! COME ON, LET’S MOVE IT.”

"STOP RIGHT THERE!" She called out to Graham, perhaps a bit too harshly. It was just to get his and everyones attention. "I'm going to have to ask anyone who is not in need of immediate medical attention, please stay on the tram. Someone was fighting here, and I intend to find the culprit. So please, calm yourself and take a seat on the nearest thing used for sitting, and I will start trying to figure out what exactly happened here, Bein?"

~Alexis Sinclair~

Alexis wasn't entirely sure what had happened. One moment, she was punching some uppity chick in the face, next, she was on the floor with what felt like a hangover. Not that she would know what one was - she had just seen her dad go through so many before to know what the effects were. The hell did she get such a massive headache? She hit her head twice, but she was sure that wasn't enough to give her one this bad. Either way, she was fairly certain she blacked out a bit too - just long enough to miss the entrance of the other horror.

By the time she came to her senses, Meredith had already assumed a more human form, and was telling everyone to stay put. What happened? She vaguely remembered hearing Kitty say something about medical attention, but other than that...damn, this was her fault, wasn't it? Alexis sat up with a groan, holding her head as she rubbed a sore spot.

"The hell happened?"

[XxFellsingxX]

- Cheol Akiyama -

In the darkness of sleep, Cheol became vaguely aware of noises around him, like shouting, though they sounded so far away that Cheol briefly considered just ignoring them and falling back into oblivion.

Then he felt someone shaking him.

'Go away,' Cheol thought sleepily, trying to turn his body away from whoever was attempting to disturb him.

The person didn't take the hint and shook him again, harder this time, and gave a loud shout, causing Cheol to at last snap out of his slumber. He opened his eyes and found himself looking at another boy, a small scrawny kid with glasses, probably only a couple of years older than Cheol himself.

Cheol pushed himself up into a sitting position as the other boy shouted at him to move before leaving and rushing away to someone else. Cheol sat there for a moment, still dazed and half-asleep. He gazed blankly at his surroundings, which seemed to be in a state of chaos. There were several kids, some older than him and some not, lying around the place, some of them injured. Everyone seemed to be startled or angry or irritated, and there were two things, creatures, roaming around the place that looked like they had come out of some kind of nightmare, one of which had suddenly transformed into a fairly normal-looking woman and was suddenly shouting at everyone to stay on the tram...

The tram. He was on a tram... Okay.

To make sure he wasn't still sleeping, Cheol issued a pinch to the sensitive skin on his wrist.

He flinched.

'Okay, definitely not a dream,' Cheol thought to himself as the haze of sleep finally cleared completely from his mind, and gave way instead to feelings of worry and confusion.

His hand went to his side, searching for the shoulder bag he usually wore, which kept one very important object within. It took a couple of seconds, but his hand soon rested on the leather of the bag and he breathed an inward sigh of relief.

Okay, good. He pushed himself up onto his feet, feeling a little unsteady.

"Where... the hell are we?" he grunted aloud, not really directing his question to anyone in particular, only hoping that at least one person in the near vicinity would hear and answer. "What the hell is going on?"

[Nightmare Bunny]

Dorian Lost

When he got the alert that Meredith had stopped the train and all medical support staff members were to head to the site of the incident, Dorian had been in his office drinking coffee. He’d put down his coffee mug, very gently, and then picked it back up and thrown it against the wall.

“Fucking Meredith!”

The mug shattered into a thousand pieces. Dorian sighed. That had been his favorite mug, too. But no matter. Someone would come and clean the mess up, and then he’d have his mug back, all nice and reconstructed.

He strode out of the room and met with the other medical personnel to teleport to the train. Honestly. Trust Meredith to pull a stunt like this. Oh, she’d been doing it to break up a fight? Bullshit! Sane people didn’t randomly stop trains and send a schoolful of unsuspecting students flying just to stop a fight. Meredith pulled this kind of shit because she thought it was funny.

He gritted his teeth. Honestly, whose bright idea was it to let that psychopath anywhere near a child?

By the time they got there, a few older students already seemed to be buzzing around, trying to calm down the situation. A dark haired boy in a metal suit landed directly in front of him. Dorian recognized the kid as Tony Hart: honestly, there weren’t that many technopaths running around the school, so Tony was pretty recognizable.

He was holding a young-looking girl with dark hair in his arms. She looked like she’d fallen unconscious. Dorian frowned.

"Take care of her,” said Tony, and rather brusquely too. “I picked up a broken bone and a concussion."

Dorian scowled. “Take care of her, sir, you mean. Honestly. Haven’t you little brats ever heard of respect?” But he took the girl from Tony anyway, and turned away.

Well, it was pretty obvious that she had a broken arm. Heck, there was blood seeping through the sleeve of her jacket, and— ew. Was that bone?

He’d been forced to memorize a list of the new students: names, faces and powers. He recognized this girl as Kitty Lee, a teleporter. That explained the injury pretty well, actually: the school usually used anti-teleportation handcuffs on new teleporter students, to prevent them from teleporting away before a teacher had the chance to explain what was going on.

Ugh, it looked like she might need surgery, then. He’d have to head back to his office to get it done. He’d block the pain while he carried out the surgery, but once he was done, she was on her own. Kids had to be tough these days anyway.

He was one of the few school nurses in the country who were authorized to handle surgeries: well, he had to be, considering that he was the only nurse at a school full of superheroes-in-training.

With an irritated sigh, he went off to find someone to teleport him back to the school.

[Classified]

Aspen Archer

“HEY YOU! Come on! We gotta go. Come on! GO GO GO!”

Aspen looked up from her hands and realised the kid Graham was talking to her when he moved into the seat behind her. He was yelling at everyone to leave and she was just about to get up when the second monster had begun to morph back into a human. Aspen wondered whether she was even human to begin with.

"STOP RIGHT THERE!led. I'm going to have to ask anyone who is not in need of immediate medical attention, please stay on the tram. Someone was fighting here, and I intend to find the culprit. So please, calm yourself and take a seat on the nearest thing used for sitting, and I will start trying to figure out what exactly happened here, Bein?"

Did that mean her? Was she in need of medical attention? Aspen's hands were bleeding but she couldn't feel anything, not even from the shards of glass that were lodged in her hands from tightly gripping the seat. If it doesn't hurt, then it can't be that bad Aspen reasoned with herself as blood dripped off her hands. Her hands could wait, she didn't want to anger this...teacher. She said stay, so Aspen stayed in her seat.

"Where... the hell are we? "What the hell is going on?" A boy, two rows behind Aspen grunted, she turned to him and attempted to catch his eye, if she did she would slowly and gently shake her head while mouthing 'shhh'. If this boy was as dazed as the rest of them when they woke up then he surely didn't want to be on the wrong side of ...Miss Meredith.

[Ogo]

~Graham Turner~

"STOP RIGHT THERE! I'm going to have to ask anyone who is not in need of immediate medical attention, please stay on the tram. Someone was fighting here, and I intend to find the culprit. So please, calm yourself and take a seat on the nearest thing used for sitting, and I will start trying to figure out what exactly happened here, Bein?"

Positively stunned, Graham didn’t dare move an inch. That thing had noticed him, had addressed him. It didn’t sound pleased. It...also didn’t look like a monster anymore. It was a woman? An attractive woman at that. Others had been talking with her, not even remotely the response he had expected. They were all...wait, they were older. And, they had called her Meredith.

Miss Meredith.

And she(it?) had spoken of threatening a teacher.

No.

Please no.

This thing wasn’t actually a teacher...was it? This place wouldn’t be as cruel as to… Graham thought of the other abomination, previously a student, albeit a rather hungry one. An almost audible click when off in Graham’s head. His mouth started moving, forming the word “No” repeatedly, yet no sound came out.

“Where...the hell are we? What the hell is going on?”

Another new voice. Graham slowly moved his gaze to see the boy he had shaken awake now voicing his confusion. Poor kid. He picked a helluva time to open those eyes. Then again, it was his fault for waking him up. Oops. So Graham gave him the truth, slowly and gravely.

“Welcome to hell, buddy.”

And what that, the strength in Graham’s legs gave out and he collapsed into the seat, eyes now locked firmed on the teacher-creature. He didn’t know what to even believe. He took some solace that there was a chance that he had imagined all of this. He could be locked up in a nice, cozy, squishy room, ranting and raving about hellish beasts turning into women and schools kidnapping people via train.

Yeah...that didn’t sound too bad.

[Rune_Alchemist]

~Alexis Sinclair~
~Meredith Hillard~

Alexis wasn't entirely sure what happened, but there was some lady with a...was that a saw made out of bone attached to her arm? Well, she had to admit to herself that was pretty cool, actually. Still, where had she come from? She wasn't here when she was knocked out, nor heard the conversations that took place during her little daze. She stood up, a bit shakily as she ignored the slow throb from where she had hit her head twice as she walked over to Graham, taking a seat by him and another kid who looked like he had just woken up.

"Yo, graham." She started, glancing towards the woman currently seeming to be directing the shots. "What happened? I kinda got...knocked out there. I think." She said, wincing a bit as she continued to rub her head. "Gah, I feel like I have a massive hangover. That's the second time I've hit my head in an hour..." She grumbled. "And who's the chick with the saw for an arm?"

Meredith herself didn't seem to hear the question or she would have most likely introduced herself to the both of them. Instead, she seemed content with inspecting the tram. It didn't see to terribly damaged - aside from what she had done to it, a broken window and a busted light. It didn't seem the fight had been to violent. She probably had stopped it right before it turned ugly, thanks to Paul pulling those emergency brakes. Still, she needed to find out who was starting the lessons early.

"Alright, so, if I could have all of your attention please!" She called out again. "Anyone want to tell me who was fighting? You'll get bonus points in my class for being a good little human!~" She hummed to herself as she looked around at everyone, before suddenly turning, and looking right at Aspen, pointing the saw right at her.

"How about you? You seem like you saw what happened clearly." At least, she asked before she noticed the student bleeding. "Ah, wait." She interrupted herself. "You're bleeding. I said anyone who was seriously injured needs to be escorted out, little miss. That glass should probably be taken care of. You there!" She called out, before turning her head and saw both towards Cheol, who had just woken up. "If you would be so kind as to escort miss here towards the arrival platform, it would be most appreciated. It's at the end of the rails, just follow the tracks in-" She twirled, pointing her blade arm towards the front of the tram. "That, direction!"

[XxFellsingxX]

- Cheol Akiyama -

At this question, Cheol caught the attention of two other students, one a girl who shook her head at him and shushed him. Cheol frowned and was about to open his mouth and speak again when another student, interestingly the boy with the glasses who had woken him earlier, spoke to him:

“Welcome to hell, buddy.”

'Okay, what the hell is going on?' Cheol thought, feeling even more confused than before, and now even a little panicked, his hand going to his shoulder bag and ready to pull the zip on it and take out his only real weapon...

... when the woman, the one who had once been a monster and now was just a normal person - albeit with a saw for an arm - addressed him. "You there!" she called, making Cheol jump slightly. "If you would be so kind as to escort miss here towards the arrival platform, it would be most appreciated." Cheol glanced at the girl she had been talking about, the one who had shushed him and who's hands, he noticed only now, were bleeding. "Err, sure," he grunted before making his way over to Aspen. "Err, follow me, I suppose," he said, feeling a little shy all of sudden. He wasn't particularly good with girls. "I'm guessing your hands are the only part of you that's injured?"

[Classified]

Aspen Archer

Aspen came face to face with Meredith's saw arm. "How about you? You seem like you saw what happened clearly." Aspen was about to open her mouth to answer her question when she continued. "Ah, wait. You're bleeding. I said anyone who was seriously injured needs to be escorted out, little miss. That glass should probably be taken care of. You there! If you would be so kind as to escort miss here towards the arrival platform, it would be most appreciated. It's at the end of the rails, just follow the tracks in that direction!"

Aspen looked over at the boy that Meredith had ordered to escort her, he looked a few years younger than her, surely she should be the one walking him to the arrival platform. Aspen winced slightly as her hand began to hurt, the adrenaline wearing off now that the choas had ended and the teacher wasn't threating to eat them. Her sudden change in attitude took her off guard but Aspen was snapped out of her thoughts by the young boy from earlier whose name she hadn't yet learnt.

"Err, follow me, I suppose, I'm guessing your hands are the only part of you that's injured?" He asked and Aspen, who still hadn't said a word yet just nodded. Aspen walked over to the door that Paul had entered through and jumped down to the tunnel ground. Aspen began to walk in the direction Meredith pointed, she didn't need any help getting there but felt more of a need to walk the young boy there.

Once they reached the tunnel end Aspen saw people waiting for them, one in particular was man in a white labcoat. Aspen watched the man carefully, not sure what to do, she stood still as she stared at him, he was with the girl from earlier, Kitty.

Dr. Isaac Archer

Isaac was still sat by the table, the coffee in his mug long gone. He lifted his wrist to look at his watch and then tapped it. "They should be here already," Isaac said to himself. He got up from his seat and exited the room to find someone to let him know what was going on. His mind began to race, was there a problem? Are the students okay? Is his granddaughter okay?

As he reached a main area of the academy he saw a few flustered people talking about injuries with the arriving students and the emergency break having to be used. This created more panic in Isaac as he quickly teleported himself to the entrance of the academy and walked down to the arrival platform. He immediately spotted Dorian, a man he knew so well as many students from his class were often sent to him and right now he quite a handful by the looks of it.

[Nightmare Bunny]

Kitty Lee & Dorian Lost

By the time the surgery was over, Kitty was wide awake.

She’d woken up mid-way through Dorian resetting her arm, actually, and had been somewhat alarmed, both at the fact that she seemed to have changed location and at the fact that at soon as she’d awoken, the rather abrasive man who was treating her had started cursing at her to stop goddamn moving because she was getting in his way.

He’d kitted her out with a nice cast for her arm, though, and had even let her choose the color! And add decorations! By the time she was “all fixed-up”, her cast was bright pink and covered in Pokemon stickers. The world would never know why exactly Dorian had those in his office.

“I’m your school nurse,” Dorian explained to her gruffly. “Dorian Lost. You’ll refer to me as ‘Mr. Dorian’, because ‘Mr. Lost’ makes me feel old. And I just don’t like it. Or ‘sir’. Anyway, you’re a teleporter, right?”

“Yes, sir!” Kitty said, rather enthusiastically. She was feeling rather cheery, actually, having noticed the distinct lack of handcuffs around her wrists: apparently someone had removed them while she was asleep.

“Great,” said Dorian, and produced a photograph from his lab coat. It was of a train station… somewhere. “You’re probably not advanced enough for coordinate teleportation yet, so look at this picture and teleport us there. Got it?”

“Got it!” said Kitty. She somewhat tentatively took Dorian’s hand --physical contact was a necessity for side-along teleportation, after all-- closed her eyes, and visualized the station.

Teleportation was always bit of a disorienting feeling. People who weren’t used to it often threw up on their first trip, actually. It was fast, and took less than a split second, but there was pretty much no way around the fact that your molecules were being rearranged in a different location.

Kitty, of course, was very much used to it. So was Dorian, apparently.

“Great,” said Dorian, and sat down on the floor. “And now we wait. Some of your miserable little friends will be here soon for treatment. Wonderful.”

Kitty hummed, inspecting her cast, and then offered it to him. “Sign my cast?” she said, without missing a beat.

Dorian gave her an incredulous look. “Seriously?” he said, but produced a black marker from his lab coat and signed his name across her cast with a flourish anyway.

[XxFellsingxX]

- Cheol Akiyama -

To Cheol's earlier question, the girl simply nodded her head to him before exiting out the train. Cheol blinked but quickly followed after her until he was walking by her side, making his way down the rails towards the platform, just as the monster-woman had said.

At this point, his memory had slowly started to return, and he remembered where he was at now. He remembered the letter, the one from a 'Vice Principal Smith', the one which he had shown to his parents, the one which had led him to reveal the mask to them and the powers that it bestowed upon him. He remembered how had been picked up an American man, saying he was from the Herculean Academy, and then...

Nothing.

He had somehow fallen asleep between then and now, and put into a tram with many other kids, who all seemed a little unusual in there own right. Like that monster with many mouths.

Feeling a little less nervous but painfully aware of the silence, Cheol spoke. "I'm, err, Cheol, by the way," he said to the girl, who he didn't seem to be much of a talker. "Cheol Akiyama." He paused, waiting for kind of response before adding, "Erm... so... I'm guessing you've got powers, right? Like, superpowers."

'I must sound really stupid,' Cheol thought nervously.

It was then the platform came into view, and Cheol noted a girl and man in a white lab coat standing upon it.

'Oh good,' he thought, doing his best to suppress a sigh of relief. The girl he had been walking with kind of creeped him out, the way she seemed so withdrawn. Though, at this point, he noticed that she suddenly stopped and was simply staring at the platform. Cheol frowned.

"Erm, you okay?" he asked.

[Ogo]

~Graham Turner~

"Yo, Graham. "What happened? I kinda got...knocked out there. I think. Gah, I feel like I have a massive hangover. That's the second time I've hit my head in an hour...And who's the chick with the saw for an arm?"

Alexis. She seemed pretty fine, it not a bit out of the loop. Graham broke his gaze of Meredith and offered her a weak smile and shook his head. How did he explain any of this? He wasn’t sure what had happened himself. Not fully, at least. It all happened so fast. But he couldn’t just leave her in the dark. Might as well spill what he thought he knew. He opened his mouth and-

"Alright, so, if I could have all of your attention please!"

Well then. Little Miss Monster was probably going to save him some trouble.

"Anyone want to tell me who was fighting? You'll get bonus points in my class for being a good little human!~"

Graham gulped silently. If she WAS a teacher, he supposed that would be what she wanted to know. Well, she wouldn’t find out from him. Don’t narc. Narcing gets you shanked. Or at least, that’s what television would have him believe. And when had television ever steered somebody wrong?

"How about you? You seem like you saw what happened clearly. Ah, wait. You're bleeding. I said anyone who was seriously injured needs to be escorted out, little miss. That glass should probably be taken care of. You there! If you would be so kind as to escort miss here towards the arrival platform, it would be most appreciated. It's at the end of the rails, just follow the tracks in---That, direction!"

Another gulp. Graham felt bad for the bleeder. Having it look at him made him feel uneasy. Having to talk to it? A silent shudder rippled through the boy. Still, he saw a chance. While she was busy directing the injured to safety, he might be able to fill Alexis in a bit.

“Train stopped. Not sure why. Most of us fell. Kitty got injured, not sure how. So did some others. That woman’s a monster, ripped a hole in the ceiling. Be glad you didn’t see it. Upperclassmen tried to stop her and…”

Graham spoke quietly, but quickly. He paused for a moment, looking down toward Sam. He hadn’t noticed what had happened on that front. He gave a quick nod in that direction then went back to his recap.

“...and now we shut up. I think you know why.”

Good. That should cover most points. And he felt like he spoke quietly enough that the monster didn’t overhear. God, he hoped so.

[Nightmare Bunny]

Dorian Lost

Just as Dorian finished signing Kitty’s cast, a boy and a girl appeared. On further inspection, they seemed to be Cheol Akiyama and Aspen Archer, both new students. Great. More people to treat.

“Right,” Dorian said, hopping off the platform. He didn’t bother turning around to check on Kitty. Now that he was done treating her, she was none of his business. “Which one of you needs treating?”

Well. He said that, but in reality, he didn’t really need a reply. Cheol seemed perfectly uninjured, and Aspen’s hands looked pretty cut up. He sighed. Wasn’t Aspen the one with all that lab coat related trauma? This… might end up being difficult. He pulled a bottle of disinfectant, some cotton pads and a roll of bandages out of his first aid kit.

“I’m Dorian Lost. That’s ‘Mr. Dorian’ or ‘sir’ to you brats, got it?” he said gruffly. “Anyway, come here, Aspen. I’m going to treat your hands, got it?”

------------------------

Kitty Lee

As Dorian headed over to treat the girl (Aspen?), Kitty followed hot on his heels, intent on talking to some of her fellow students.

Well, it looked like Aspen was busy, but that was okay! She’d just talk to the boy instead! Actually, she thought she sort of recognized him. He’d been sleeping in the compartment where she’d met Alexis and Graham… right? She wasn’t quite sure.

“Hey!” she said cheerily, waving her cast at him. She was feeling a whole lot better, now that she had a pink cast with Pokemon stickers on it. Pokemon stickers! Mr. Dorian was kind of abrasive, but he’d given her Pokemon stickers! “My name’s Kitty Lee! I’m fifteen, and a teleporter! Nice to meet you!”

Without waiting for a response, she reached out and shook his hand with her uninjured one, and rather vigorously, too. “I got taken away as soon as that, uh, monster teacher thing showed up! What’d I miss?”

Honestly, she was still kind of confused about the whole situation. She wondered where Graham and Alexis were, and whether they were doing okay. They weren’t injured too, were they? No, they couldn’t be! After all, if they had been, then surely Mr. Dorian would be treating them too?

[XxFellsingxX]

- Cheol Akiyama -

Before Cheol could get a response from the girl - who he soon learned was called Aspen - the man, Dorian Lost, who seemed to be some kind of doctor, approached them and asked if either of them needed to be treated. Cheol started to open his mouth, but Dorian seemed to not need a real answer as he was already talking to Aspen about treating her hands, and Cheol suddenly felt that he had no reason to be there.

He might have tried to speak again, had a second girl, the one who had been standing on the platform with Mr Dorian, came over to Cheol and started talking to him, speaking so fast Cheol could only just process what she was saying.

“Hey!” she said cheerfully, waving her cast at him. “My name’s Kitty Lee! I’m fifteen, and a teleporter! Nice to meet you! I got taken away as soon as that, uh, monster teacher thing showed up! What’d I miss?”

Cheol blinked. "Err, to be honest, I'm not really all that sure," he said, once again feeling shy. "I, erm, was asleep through most of it. I don't even know what was happening." He then pointed to Aspen. "Err, the monster woman asked me to bring her over here. But I get the feeling she doesn't like me much." He paused awkwardly before adding, "I mean that the girl doesn't. Not the monster." He gave a slightly nervous laugh.

"And I'm Cheol," he said. "Cheol Akiyama. Nice to meet you." He shifted his weight awkwardly from foot to foot as he spoke those last words.

[Nightmare Bunny]

Kitty Lee

Oh, bummer. So this boy --Cheol Akiyama, apparently-- didn’t know what was going on either. Well, never mind! Surely someone would explain the situation to her… eventually?

And she was making Cheol uncomfortable. She was, wasn’t she? Kitty could see him awkwardly shifting his weight from one foot to another. He looked nervous. Kitty wasn’t an idiot, she knew she could be a little overwhelming sometimes. Okay, really overwhelming.

She stopped waving her cast, and took a deep breath. Okay, she would be calm! Calm! Caaaaaaaaallmmmmm…

Well, she felt a little calmer. Maybe?

“I’m sure she doesn’t dislike you,” she said, slightly slower this time. “And even if she does, I can be your friend!” Oops, she was speeding up again! Calm, calm, calm… “Um. If you want me to be. Kind of weird, huh? This whole superhero school thing? Like, I always knew I was a super, but. My parents are both normals, so I kind of always just figured I’d grow up to be something ordinary too! Like, a librarian or something. But now I’m here to learn how to be a superhero!”

Did she sound calm? She wasn't sure. Forcing herself to calm down was something that she'd had to do a lot in her old school, but even with all that practice, she still wasn't very good at it. Her innate hyper-activeness was a little hard to suppress.

Kitty smiled awkwardly, and produced the marker that Mr. Dorian had given her… and subsequently forgotten to take back. “Want to sign my cast?” she said, offering it to him.

[XxFellsingxX]

- Cheol Akiyama -

Cheol blinked as Kitty started talking again, still having trouble keeping up with her, when she suddenly produced a pen, one of those big black markers.

“Want to sign my cast?” she asked. It was such an awkward thing that Cheol suddenly burst out laughing. In the last minutes, so many weird things had happened. He had woken up in a train surrounded by two monsters and many injured students, had been asked to escort a girl down to what looked like some kind of underground facility, and now a random stranger who had just told him she had the ability to teleport was asking him to sign her cast.

Once he had stopped laughing, Cheol carefully took the marker from Kitty. "Sure," he said, smiling at her. He suddenly felt a little more relaxed, though he wasn't entirely sure why. "As long as you don't mind me signing my name in Katakana, that is." He paused before quickly adding, just in case she didn't know what he meant, "Err, it's one of the Japanese alphabets."

[Nightmare Bunny]

Kitty Lee

When Cheol started laughing almost hysterically, Kitty honestly had no idea what to do. Like… what was that supposed to mean? Was that a good thing? A bad thing? Had her attempt at being calm finally worked?

When he stopped laughing, though, he was smiling, and took the pen from her. "Sure," he said, and it was like something in his face had un-tensed. He looked… considerably less anxious. "As long as you don't mind me signing my name in Katakana, that is. Err, it's one of the Japanese alphabets."

"No, no!" Kitty said. "I don't mind at all! Go for it! Katakana's… uh, I know this… it's the one that's, uh, not like Chinese. Kanji's the one that's like Chinese, right?" She looked anxiously at him, feeling absurdly eager to please. Kind of like a puppy, really.

"Um," she said. "I think it'll look really cool! It'll be the highlight of my cast… uh. Well, maybe second place. The Pokemon stickers are the stars of the show. But, um! It'll be a close second!"

Coming from Kitty, that was actually a pretty high compliment. After all, nothing was cooler than Pokemon. To a person who didn't know much about the importance of Pokemon, however, that probably sounded like a pretty terrible thing to say. Kitty flushed.

"Not that- uh. I mean. Pokemon's cooler than anything, so, uh. That means your signature is really cool?" Wow, she was starting to confuse herself. She shook her head to clear it. "Uh, cooler than Mr. Dorian's, anyway," she said, and looked around frantically to check whether he'd heard it. It didn't look like he had.

Thank goodness.

[XxFellsingxX]

- Cheol Akiyama -

Cheol laughed again, this time though it was merely a little chuckle. "Right," he said with a nod. He then walked a little closer and began writing his name down his name on her cast, careful to avoid the Pokemon stickers. As he did, he continued talking. "Kanji is both Chinese and Japanese. Katakana and Hiragana are used for words for which there are no Kanji." Once he finished writing, his letters incredibly neat, he glanced at his work for a moment, frowning slightly before handing the pen back to Kitty.

"Though, fun fact, my first name is actually Korean," he explained. "And since the Japanese don't have a character for 'L', my name in Japanese reads more as 'Cheoru'." He chuckled again, rubbing the back of his head with one of his hands. "It's kind of weird, huh?"

[Rune_Alchemist]

~Meredith Hillard & Alexis Sinclair~

“Train stopped. Not sure why. Most of us fell. Kitty got injured, not sure how. So did some others. That woman’s a monster, ripped a hole in the ceiling. Be glad you didn’t see it. Upperclassmen tried to stop her and…and now we shut up. I think you know why.”

Alexis silently listened to Graham. Kitty go injured? Damn it. That was her fault then. They probably somehow knew that they had gotten in a fight and tried to break it up by stopping the train or something. She didn't know for certain, but she had her suspicions. These government types always knew what was going on in their facilities. Hell, she doubted if this 'school' would be any different from...that other place. She shivered a bit at that, though she didn't let Graham know why. However, this offered a rather...unique opportunity for her to get back at little miss princess if this lady was a teacher and looking for a culprit.

"Hrmph. Shutting up was never my strong suit..." She quietly replied to Graham, before giving him a mischievous grin. "Hey, back me up if I need it, alright?" She quietly whispered, giving him a sharp nudge in the side. She didn't actually expect much from him actually. In fact, she expected that he wouldn't say anything whatsoever. But on the off chance he did say something, she'd welcome it.

"Uhm...Hello? I don't think I got your name." She said to Meredith, reaching into her pocket to silence her headphones which were still playing music, rather loudly. Meredith turned to face Alexis, a grin plastered on her face.

"Well hello to you too! Nice to see someone has some manners among all this...chaos." She chuckled. "Meredith Hillard, at your service. Biology teacher and world famous Biologist, if you keep up with that sort of thing. And you...are...?"
"Alexis Sinclair." She promptly replied.

"Well hullo~ Do you need something? You're not injured are you?" She asked, eyes quickly darting up and down to see if there were any visible injuries on the other girl.

"Other than what feels like a hangover from bashing my head into the floor twice, I'm good." The reply elicited a laugh from Meredith, apparently she found her response funny. Good, that meant she seemed like a nice kid to this teacher. She seemed just as easy to fool as those idiots back at the other place. "That person over there was the one fighting." She said, perhaps a bit too bluntly, pointing towards Brett without giving much further explanation.

"Oh? Any details?" Meredith asked, looking at Alexis a bit expectantly.

"Well...uhm, she attacked me. And I had to defend myself and my friends." She replied nodding her head slightly over to Graham. It wasn't an outright lie. Just...stretching the truth a bit. She knew she probably wouldn't get off free, but there was probably little she could do to keep herself out of this altogether. So, she'd just label that other chick as a troublemaker.

"Well well, defending your friends is quite admirable. And attacking someone is a very very bad thing." She finally replied after a few moments of silence. "Do you have anything to add? Is it indeed as your friend said?" She asked, looking at Graham expectantly.

Meredith wasn't entirely sure this girl was being truthful, but so far she had been the only one to come forward to say anything. She would have to work with the information that was given to her, even if said information was a bit wrong. If the two girls were the center of this problem, she'd just take them to her office and have a nice long...chat, with them. If they still didn't cooperate, then she'd have to get the Vice Principle involved. That, would be something she would not want to happen.

Too much paperwork involved.

[Ogo]

~Graham Turner~

"Hrmph. Shutting up was never my strong suit...Hey, back me up if I need it, alright?"

Back me up? And what’s with that grin? And the nudge?

Graham’s stomach shot sharp pains in all direction, revolting against what it knew was coming. It was as if his body was trying warn him to bolt, to get far, far away from these shenanigans. She didn’t actually plan to-

"Uhm...Hello? I don't think I got your name."

All of the color drained out of his face. No, not drained, just...disappeared. Completely. Gone off to a better place, a land of sunshine and rainbows. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe she wouldn’t do-

"That person over there was the one fighting."

Nooo. Alexis, don’t. Don’t do it. Just eject. Was there still time to eject? No, probably not. He had been doomed from the start. He fully realized what she wanted. And it seemed like she was not about to give him an option in the matter. My Little Nightmare wanted details. Alexis gave her details. Those details were...uh...close enough to the truth? Right?

"Do you have anything to add? Is it indeed as your friend said?"

Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn.

Alright. Graham pulled together his mind. Surely any nervousness on his part would just come across as fear from what had just happened. That’s good. That’s perfect. It comforted him quite a bit. But he couldn’t just lie to the teacher. He didn’t even really know Alexis, outside of her liking Pokemon. Was he really about to stick his neck on the line for her?

Yeah. Yeah he was. Idiot.

While he didn’t make lying a hobby, he was alright at it. Sometimes.

They were doomed.

“Y-yeah. We were just minding our business when she jumped us…”

Verbally.

“And we couldn’t really strike back.”

Kitty kept her cool at least.

“So Alexis, well, defended us.”

A good lie always had an element of truth. Even, y’know, blurry subjective truth.

“I mean, I wouldn’t say it was really a fight. Just a misunderstanding. Besides, I’d say whoever stopped the train did MUCH more damage. I mean, what kind of irresponsible asshat does that? Bit of a monster if you ask me.”

Graham punctuated that line with an uneasy laugh. Misdirection: the key to ‘getting away with shit.’ He was looking at Meredith, trying his best to hold his stomach at bay. If she could just not look at him, that’d be great. Just being in her sights made his skin crawl. But he couldn’t look away, otherwise he might as well light a big neon sign saying ‘LIAR’ in bright, multicolored neon letters.

No. Thinking like that was bad. Think positive, y'know, like anything other than the nightmare that was the tram. Something like, baby pigs. Or badgers.

Find your happy place, Graham. Find your happy place.

[Weird Tales]

Sam stopped in his tracks when this woman introduced herself as a teacher and went back to her normal appearance. He had just threatened a teacher and almost immediately his teeth changed back to their regular shape. He felt a little embarrassed at letting his bloodlust and insane appetite get the better of him. Sam watched the others begin to talk and he kept to himself. He took a piece of broken wood from the blast of sound that was made earlier and began to eat it.

Sam didn't stop there, he also began to munch on other things in the cabin. Such a sight would have been very disturbing and frightening for an ordinary human, but he didn't know how his classmates would react to him eating such things. In all honesty he didn't really care, he was hungry and if he wanted to keep up his strnegth then he would have to eat.

"So if you're a teacher then when will be getting to the school?" Sam asked Meredith. How long would he have to wait until they would be at Herculean Academy? He wanted to eat some more real food and not just would and plaster from the walls. Sam also wondered if he should tell any of them about his demonic ties and the fact that he is the chosen host of the power of Beelzebub.