Great Teacher Lung!

Lung was escorted inside the PRT's main office, and into one of those neat, tidy interrogation rooms. To be honest, he had no idea what they though they could get out of him. And even if they suspected he had some important information, how on earth did they think they could get it out of him? After all, the power of escalation made torturing him a very counter productive solution to anything and, besides, he was already fucked, so he had no incentive to say anything.

He had not been dropped straight into that hell hole that was the Birdcage, so he didn't have any right to complain. But it was kind of boring. And they were late. They were supposed to be here five minutes earlier, but they weren't. That was inexcusable. He might be a criminal, but he had his reasons, and there was no excuse for being lazy. Well. At least they had left a bold of cookies there.

He didn't eat them, of course. He just dropped the cookies on the table, and piled them up in a mount. A little mount. That annoyed him even more that their tardiness. Anyways. Finally Miss Militia-that walking, black armoury- and Armsmaster entered the room and sat down in front of him.

Lung stared.

"You must be wondering why you're here, instead on your way to the Birdcage. Like you should be." Armsmaster said. "For some unfathomable reason, the higher ups consider you a very valuable resource, too valuable to lock you away in the Birdcage for your heinous crimes. And I don't get it. Yeah, you're dragon, you're kind of cool. But you're also a dragon."

Armsmaster jumped from his seat, and slammed his fist down on the desk.

"When you have a dragon running around you don't coddle it, hug it, give it kisses and tell it that it isn't the murderous beast it obviously its. You don't give the monster a second chance. You take its fucking head off before the bastard as the chance to melt all our faces off. But did they listen to me?! Did they?! Obviously not."

Miss Militia coughed.

"What?"

"Colin." she said, holding his gaze. "Shut up."

They had a small yet vicious staring contest. Meanwhile, Lung was too busy not giving a fuck.

"Fine." Armsmaster huffed. "You win this time."

He stormed out of the room, slamming the door on his way out. Miss Militia watched him go, then turned back towards Lung. She saw the cookies he had piled up in front of him, and reached a hand out to grab one. Lung promptly slapped her hand away, without even looking. She slowly brought her hand back, not taking her eyes off of Lung. Then, she tried it anyway. He slapped her hand away again.

"Seriously, Lung?" she said.

Lung just stared.

"Anyway, since Colin is not here, is up to me to explain. Frankly, your power is too great to just let you waste away on the Birdcage. So the higher up's told us to try to reform you. And… I think you could. I think you really could, if you tried. You must be tired for all that fighting, all that you had to do. I think deep down, you're good person. Maybe." she didn't sound sure at all. "You could at least try."

"You might be right." Lung gravely said. He couldn't hardly remember why he had gotten involved in this whole crime thing, and, anyways, lately he had gotten utterly sick of it. A change of pace could be nice.

"Good." her smile was nice. She put a few documents on the table. Applications for job interviews. Lung chose one at random. History teacher at Arcadia high school. Eh. Good enough. "Are you sure?"

Lung just keep on looking at her, annoyance clear on his face. He might be a thug, but he was an avid reader and his intelligence was above average.

"Okay, okay." Miss Militia said. "This is it, then. You will go to the job interview tomorrow, and if you pass you start on Monday."

Then, she reached for one of the cookies again. Lung slapped her hand away. He stood up, taking the little mount of cookies in his hands.

"Fuck off, woman. Get your own damn cookies." he hugged the mount of cookies to his chest. "These are mine."

Then he left. Like a dragon. Because Lung was a dragon. They could defeat him, defeat his men, pluck out his eyes and take away his stolen goods, but they couldn't take away his instincts. Dragon's hoarded. That was just how they worked. But he had promised to try to be a good guy. He had to start small. So cookies was it.

It was not the best of starts to his hoard, but it was a start.

The PRT had brought an apartment just for him, which was better that he was used to, to be honest. The only thing was that he wasn't accustomed to not have people around on his beck and call. But well, such was life for the good guys. He had to start getting used to that. Besides, the silence was nice. He hadn't even remembered how much he missed the silence, the peace, but he had. So fuck them!

Besides, he really was sick of it. His career as a villain had started with a crazy woman trying to suffocate him by pressing his face down in drugs, and hadn't gotten much better from there. Being defeated twice by a little girl who wasn't even half his size, with bug powers of all of things, was simply the last straw. Not to mention that his crotch had rot off once and he had got his eyes plucked out. And likely that very same girl had done both.

He was too old for that shit.

Or at least he felt like he was.

Miss Militia knocked on the door of the headmaster's office. Lung stood right besides her, in a sharp business suit. The door opened. The headmaster was on the wrong side of fifty, and bald. He nervously eyed Lung. As for Lung, he still didn't give a fuck. He was here for the exam, not the examiner.

"Oh, my, Miss Militia! Didn't expect to see you here, too."

"Well, the PRT is making an investment in Lung, so I'm here to make sure everything goes smoothly."

"Yes. Smoothly." he wiped the sweat off his forehead and then, for some reason, he laughed a little. Miss Militia humoured him, and laughed with him. Lung didn't, of course. Dragon's didn't laugh. They roared.

So, they went into the room. Lung sat down on the first open seat he saw, and Miss Militia sat down at his side. It was annoying. The headmaster gave him his exam, and sat on the teacher's desk. Lung started on it. It was easy. Really, fucking easy.

In the middle of it, he raised his head and looked at the headmaster. The old man very nearly jumped. He looked so weak, like he could fall over at any second. But Lung was now a good guy. He couldn't defenestrate him for being a useless, scaredy piece of shit, so he was out of ideas of how to dealt with this situation. He stopped, and thought about it, one hand under his chin. It didn't take him long to come to a conclusion. If he didn't know how, the headmaster just had to tell him.

"What's wrong?" Lung asked.

The headmaster eeped.

"You," Lung suddenly stood up, and slammed his hands down on the desk. "Tell me what I need to know or I'll rip your fucking spine off!"

The headmaster eeped. His face was as pale as a corpse.

"Lung." Miss Militia simply said, her tone clearly irritated.

"… Sorry." Lung said, giving a sheepish smile. "Force of habit."

As a villain, if he really need to know something there were two ways to get it. Threats and/or torture.

Lung sat back down and continued the exam.

It didn't take him long to finish. He passed with flying colours, so he would have to start tomorrow. And he did. He went to Arcadia in the same suit as yesterday, in the car the PRT had given him. He entered his designated class, and suddenly, the chatty students fell silent.

"Wait a minute." Dennis, better know as Clockblocker, suddenly spoke up. "Are we seriously going to have Lung, that Lung, as our teacher? Whose bright idea was that?" he leaned forward on his seat. "And what's up with your face, anyway?"

"This is my good guy face." Lung said.

"Well, put on your bad guy face then. That smile is creeping me out."

Lung frowned. Damn kid.

"Much better."

"Shut up." Lung said.

And Dennis shut up.

To be honest, Lung had expected teaching to be a horrible chore. And it was a chore, indeed, but at least it didn't make him want to pluck his eyes out with his own claws. Aside from that brief conversation with Clockblocker on the first day, the rest of the week went swimmingly. It was Friday already, and he was beginning to think he could get used to this.

They all were very, very obedient and didn't make even a noise unless they were told to do so. And teaching was all a back and forth of explanations, questions and answers. Very easy, very simple. At the very least, it would keep him from getting bored. Lung turned around, and saw a student who was… sleeping? In his class? He wasn't on the front row, but did he seriously think he could get away with it? His teeth gritted. That damn idiot. He just had to fuck up his day, right?

"Michael!" Lung shouted. The student almost jumped out of his seat, looked around for a brief moment, then looked at Lung with wide eyes.

"Yes?" he asked, his voice shrill.

"What was the date of Scion's first appearance?" he decided to ask him, remembering that he had never asked anything to this student and he hadn't never volunteered to answer a question during all the days he had been here. His body was slowly beginning to be covered by armour.

"Eh, eh… uh..."

"That's not an answer!" Lung shouted, his hands gripping his desk so hard it was starting to crack. His body was already completely covered by armour. You see, it was true that Lung's power was escalation during the course of a conflict, but his power interpreted conflict somewhat loosely. Like now. And stupidity… god, that hit him hard.

"Eeeeep!"

"That's not an answer either!" Lung threw his head back, and roared. Then he exploded in flames.

Needless to say, class ended earlier that day.