Hey there.

I know I've been spending a lot of time around Jack and Ianto, so I figured I'd focus more on the 'evil' side of Fire Valley that Jack mentioned in Spieluhr. I've named this chapter after my favourite Blue Gillespie song- The Oblivious- simply because I'm listening to it right now and it has provided the inspiration I needed, so my muse is now lactating, and I have to sup the nectar before the flow stops.

Enjoy,

G, xxx

The Oblivious

The Principal looked at the computer screen and smiled. All twenty-seven Units were in place, and all twenty students were safely locked away in... The Principal's smile softened a little to form a distasteful frown. There was something strange about one of the lower cellars. While the twenty students glowed a bright red, four other items below glowed a shocking blue.

* * *

The ventilation shaft was tighter than Jack would have liked, but if he was right, then the three of them would be free within the next five seconds...

* * *

Lisa turned to her double, and hissed like a cat as she struggled against the chains.

"Keep struggling," the double said in a sing-song voice. "You'll only make it worse."

"How the hell could this be worse?"

* * *

Owen looked up at the castle, panted, mopping sweat from his brow and straightened out his filthy clothes. Where was Lisa? She was supposed to be there, with him right at that moment. Didn't she know what was happening today?

* * *

Ianto landed with a 'thud' on top of Jack, and Gwen in turn landed on top of him. She rolled off of them, and shakily staggered out into the open, while the boys followed suit as they clung onto each other for support.

"What the hell..." Gwen was about to finish with "were we doing down there?", but a loud siren cut her off, and people came rushing out of the building.

* * *

Lisa had managed to shake off the shackles and was just in the midst of smashing her double's head against the mirror, scattering the various tubes of make-up and toiletries onto the floor, when the siren ended, and the beeping began...

* * *

Owen spotted the three of them staring up in wonder at the castle, gazing into the purple smoke that spilled from twenty-seven crevices in the walls.

"Principal calls it 'fumigation'," Owen explained solemnly. "It's really gas-bombs placed wherever trapped students are held so that their doubles can escape safely while the original person is quickly and painlessly choked to death."

All three of them turned and looked at Owen with wide, awe-filled eyes.

"Come with me," he said quietly, looking at the floor, and turning to walk to their hiding spot. The others followed, their eyes still glued in puzzlement to the purple smoke.

* * *

"Welcome," the Principal said in Japanese, turning towards the middle-aged Japanese woman dragging her young daughter by the arm across the field. When the woman stopped, he continued; "Don't mind this," he said, waving his arms at the purple smoke. "It's merely our monthly fumigation routine- to ensure that the aura of the school is kept clean and peaceful."

"I'm here to drop off my daughter," the woman said in her native tongue, thrusting the girl into the Principal. She bent down to the girl's level and said; "Take care of yourself, and remember not to blow up the computers like you did at home!" With that, she turned on her heel, and left the frightened girl by the Principal's side. He smiled down into her slanted brown eyes and asked; "Can you speak English?"

"Yes," the girl muttered, edging away from and looking up at him. "It was my best subject at my last school." She had a soft voice, touched slightly by anxiety.

"Don't worry," the Principal soothed. "I won't bite. What is your name, girl?"

"Toshiko," she whimpered. "But everybody calls me Tosh."

"Very well then, Tosh," he grinned, putting his hand on her shoulder and guiding her to the building. "Come to my office- we can arrange your lessons immediately."

"Is this place evil?" She asked. The Principal thought she sounded like she knew, but he dismissed it with another of his smiles. He looked down at her calmly.

"No, but many of the students here believe so." Just to the side of the castle, he caught a flash of the young boy with hard brown eyes and a stern look on his face glaring at him. The Principal's smile faded. As he added; "Pay no attention to them."