Fillmore had to marvel at his awful luck.

Within three seconds of cuffing Mindy, Mandy had called. Leaning in to listen, he had heard every last horrifying word. And mind you, he was horrified. Parnassus was his own personal nightmare. Too good to touch through the system, he was running for class president this year. His popularity was at an all time high. The world was falling over itself to bow down to him, to love and admire him. He lapped it up, reveled in it. But though he appeared to be flawless, Fillmore had always sensed in him that capacity to be evil that so many criminals had. There was no line with him. No one was off limits for his plans. Parnassus had no mercy.

And now, as Fillmore raced off to find the boy and Ingrid took Mindy into custody, his walkie talkie buzzed. Mandy had escaped from the detention room. He groaned, and increased his pace. Ingrid and Mindy would arrive in a few minutes on the central campus, golf cart en tow, and he would be out here looking for two sociopaths in a snowstorm. He had a sinking feeling in his stomach as he approached the school's storage building. Not for Mandy. Oh, no, Parnassus had met his match in her. His sociopathic, cold blooded, dark hearted equal. Fillmore was most afraid for what Mandy would do to him once she got a hold of him. She had her cellphone and the school would give her easy access to computers. She would track the blond boy down in a heartbeat. She would find him, and she would corner him.

She would kill him.

Mandy was not merciful. She could be, with time, but it wasn't in her daily nature. Now, with every reason to seek revenge, she would be ruthless. Billy was her best friend. She had her moments of madness, in which Fillmore wouldn't be surprised if she'd considered hurting Billy. She'd never actually done it. She reigned herself in. Mandy was not a slave to her madness. She was the ruler of her own mind, through sheer force of will and planning. That kind of genius could be deadly if she wanted it to be.

Once she had heard them speak, she had realized they knew who to look for. Mandy had somehow gotten out of the holding room them, to try and track Parnassus down on her own. If this had been anyone else Fillmore would've thought it was impossible. This wasn't anyone else. This was Mandy, winner of awards, creator of plans, inventor, schemer, fighter. The well connected, dementedly good counterpart to Parnassus. The other side of the same coin. Quite frankly Fillmore didn't care if Tehama was annoyed at him for randomly calling her and asking for the other boy's location. Her paperwork could wait. This was serious. He had to stop her.

Unless, of course, she got to Parnassus first.

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Nergal Junior was an imposing figure at best, and a near demonic one at his worst.

Puberty had been kind to him, having given him the height he had lacked in childhood. Tall, thin, with long limbs and a sort of graceful gait that mirrored his father, he was referred to at X as being somewhat of a male version of Ingrid Third. His black hair was slicked back, pulled into a ponytail at the base of his neck, and he wore all black, which only seemed to emphasize his inhuman proportions. His eyes were a sickening green-yellow behind his glasses, but it hardly mattered. He possessed a kind of charm that made people equal parts uneasy and intrigued.

He was well aware that his reputation had carried over somewhat from Endsville. Trouble had a way of following him. To cross him was to suddenly find yourself failing every class, without lunch, and without a coat in below zero cold. To anger him was to vanish for a few days and come back mauled. Disasters could befall anyone who he wanted them to, and he would always, always, get away with it.

Unlike Mandy, who had long ago decided to control her mind, and Parnassus, who had turned his insanity into a weapon, Nergal knew that he wasn't quite right. With that knowledge in mind, he had decided to make himself untouchable, too well connected and powerful and evil for anyone to blame for anything. All the while, he made himself just enough of a polite, charming, gentle suck up for anyone to ever believe the rumors about him were true. What he was left with was something of a dichotomy of reputation and personality. He wasn't anything that could be pinned down, and this pleased him greatly.

He knew Mandy's first thought would be to go after his boss. Unfortunately for her, Nergal knew her far too well. Having spent the better part of his childhood being shunned and ostracized by her, he knew her mindset. She would take the most deserted route possible, because she had no allies, only enemies. She would run through empty hallways and duck out an abandoned classroom in the hopes of avoiding the Safety Patrol and teaching staff in one swift move. Clever. He would have done the same thing in her position.

There were only a few rooms on the first floor not in use, even on the far side of the building, even at night. He slipped in to one, shutting the door silently behind him, and moved into the near total darkness of the corner. Darkness was falling upon X in the winter. Only the faint blue light of street lamps reflecting on snow lit the silent classroom. In this moment there was no one in the world who could save Mandy once she was outside, because the outside was devoid of even a single lone figure.

The door opened, and Mandy entered, not even bothering to look around. She made a beeline for the window, dark emerald eyes glinting with anger. Before she could even touch the glass, a textbook connected with her head, sending her sprawling. The blonde's eyes widened as she stood just in time for Nergal to grab her hands and pin her arms behind her.

"Hello there, friend," he sneered into her ear as she struggled violently. He responded by simply lifting her off the ground, given that he was a foot taller than her. "How very nice to see you."

His giggle would have made any other girl scream. Mandy, however, was not any other girl. Glaring fit to kill, she turned to face him as best she could. "Let me go, Nergal. This doesn't have to involve you."

He chuckled coldly, eyes glowing in the dark. "You're in no position to be giving orders, Mandy. You're going to stay with me for a little while, and you'll do it willingly." His tone was soft and breathy, warm in her ear. She thought she detected a hint of longing in his voice, but he used that seductive tone so often she was immune to it now. What registered instead were his words.

"You're insane!" She snapped. "Why would I do that?"

"Why, my dear," he grinned, revealing fangs, "If you don't, the Safety Patrol will just end up blaming you. A possible suspect running off in the dead of night doesn't sound too good, now, does it?"

It struck Mandy then that she was two steps ahead of Parnassus. He had no idea Mindy was in custody right now, or that Mandy had a solid alibi. He still thought he had total control over this entire thing. He had orchestrated this, for whatever sick reason, but he hadn't thought that Mandy would crack. He didn't realize, or didn't want to realize, that his brilliant scheme could have holes in it. She was above him. She knew her own plans were screwy. That was why she had backup plans. Now that those had fallen through, she would have to do something Parnassus could never even dream of. She would have to call in Grim.

Slamming her head back into Nergal's, she heard him groan as he dropped her. In the split second it took for him to make that mistake, her foot made solid contact with his groin, and he crumpled to the floor. In an instinctive act of violence, she grabbed a textbook and went to work making him unconscious. He would probably make her life a living hell for this, but it was the only option. Speed dialing Grim, she opened the window and stepped out into the night, running at lightning speed. Enough was enough, she had decided. Now she was going to end this with force.

Nergal would never have revealed his true nature to Parnassus. Nergal's entire life revolved around deceiving and cheating other people. His rise to power was based solely on information and his skill at manipulating it. Parnassus thought he was dealing with ordinary kids. Whatever he was getting out of this, why he was doing this, she didn't know. What she did know was that with Mindy in custody, Nergal knocked out, and Grim on the way, she stood a real chance of having her vengeance tonight. Except now she wasn't gunning for Parnassus.

Now she was aiming for Irwin.

He had done this. He may have been tricked into it. It didn't matter to Mandy as she rushed to meet Grim. The simple fact was that her second best friend had murdered her best friend. He had done so for one simple, obvious reason: With Billy out of the way, his one sided love for her would be unchallenged and uninterrupted. It was so obvious Mandy cursed herself for not thinking of this earlier. Mindy, Nergal, Parnassus – they could be dealt with one on one, later. Right now what mattered was getting the real mastermind under Safety Patrol control before he escaped completely.

Mandy had never been totally clear on what her morals were, or what she stood for. Rule breaking for the sake of rule breaking was something she just did. Lying, cheating, manipulating, controlling. She was no hero. All her life she had tried to be a loner, set apart from everyone else. She had been unforgiving, cold, unloving. Billy had stayed with her anyway. Irwin had loved her anyway. They were the constants in her life. Constant annoying from Billy, admiration from Irwin. Except now everything was topsy turvy. Now Billy was gone and the one person she thought the most harmless was at the center of it all. Was it right to be out here in the middle of the falling snow, chasing him down when it was quite likely he'd get off without punishment? Was it right to invoke Grim's supernatural power against a bundle of preteen control freaks? Would any of this even work?

She wasn't sure.

But she was about to find out.