Chapter 3 – The Lost Momo Fruit

The gym had been successfully rebuilt, and Sturm was released from his solitary confinement in time for the new semester, and to everyone's dismay and amazement at the same time, DayBunny had once again miraculously recuperated from one of Pypski's epic something-or-other-to-the-groin shenanigans. As everyone hurried to the gym for their first lesson with Dr Sergei, StrangerD3RK and Kari were in the dormitory.

"Kari, seen my bag of momo's...?" Derk yelled, while looking all over her room. She didn't want to be late for the first lesson of the semester, but she can't leave without both her Momo fruits and her whip. Kari was helping her to look for them, but so far, no luck.

Derk's head popped up over the side of her bed, her pink hair bobbing up and down. She then hurried over to her bookcase, and partially pulled out a certain book, which triggered a section of the wall to open, revealing a key pad. She quickly keyed in a certain stream of numbers, which caused an iris scanner to reveal itself on the wall opposite. She scanned herself with the iris scanner, causing a compartment of her roof to open, which dropped a key onto the floor. She took the key and went back to the bookshelf, pushed it aside, revealing a safe. With the key, she unlocked the safe, and took a complicated-looking device - which resembled a remote control with many more buttons than usual - from amongst her giant stash of Momo fruits. She then pressed the buttons in a certain order, which caused a section of the floor to descend, revealing staircases leading below the ground.

"Am going to check my cellar...!" came Derk's voice.

"I'll keep looking up here, then," was Kari's reply.

Derk headed down the helical staircase. One hundred... two hundred... three hundred... she lost count of the number of stairs as she tried to prevent herself from collapsing to dizziness. After what seemed like hours, she finally reached the bottom. Ahead of her was a fingerprint scanner and a locked door. She took a deep breath and held her finger to the scanner.

The door opened, revealing a network of lasers. Derk weaved between the lasers with expertise, dodging all of them. The lasers became even denser and harder to navigate the further she went, and eventually, when the lasers were so tightly packed to the point where she couldn't navigate any further, she took out her gun and fired a single bullet at a precise parabolic angle. The bullet continued through a parabolic gap in the lasers until it struck a certain button on the far wall, at which she was aiming, which disabled the laser field temporarily and opening the other door. She seized her chance and quickly ran through the opening of the door, which slammed shut behind her, reactivating the laser field.

She emerged into another section of the long corridor, and moved forwards. A whip shot out of the opening in the wall to her left, which she dodged expertly. A tranquiliser dart fired at her from the ceiling, but this was also made to miss. A sniper turret sat in a corner of the corridor, its infrared tracer leaving a telltale line as it followed Derk's movements. As Derk progressed further, weaving between the bullets, whips and darts, she thought that she was probably going to be late for the lesson... but then her thoughts turned to the missing bag of Momo fruits, and she resolved to get to her cellar no matter what, to try to retrieve it.

Dr Sergei walked into the gym, where the students were gathering for their first lesson.

"This should be interesting," remarked Pypski, looking sideways at Hatake, Hideki and DayBunny. "Good job on the charming, Day," she joked.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Day's face was a blank, while Hatake and Hideki burst out chuckling.

"Hey, what does it mean?!" DayBunny turned to his cousin BlissBunny, who was sitting on his oher side. Bliss avoided her cousin's gaze and stifled a chuckle as well.

"Oh... nothing, good job, Day~" came the reply.

"Hey, tell me!" sighed Day, frustrated. He was finally out of the Nurse's healing pad, and now this...

At that moment, Kari ran into the gym, panting heavily, but there was no sign of Derk. She ran past Day and Bliss, still arguing over something. She found her way over to the owls and sat down near Magics and Sturm.

"Where've you been?" Magics asked casually.

"Lesson's nearly starting," Sturm said.

"H-have you guys seen Momo?" Kari panted.

"Derk? Nope, why?" MaximusArk, who was sitting in front of Kari, turned around to face her as he replied.

"Oh... I was hoping she came here, she couldn't find her bag of Momos and we were looking for it... she's not here yet?"

"I'm afraid not," Magics said. "She's probably gone to her cellar, right? I know she keeps security ridiculously tight around that place."

"That's only because you went through her bag of Momos..." Sturm replied.

"She can't stillbe holding that against me, right?! I mean, it's been three years already..."

Before anyone else can reply, the door to the gym opened, and Dr Sergei entered. He stopped when he reached the group of students, who were now sat by school, and cleared his throat.

"Ahem... good morning, everyone. My name is Dr Frank Sergei. I will be a new instructor at your schools from now on. Feel free to approach me with any questions or concerns you may have. As I am not yet familiar with any of you, please forgive me if I fail to remember your names for the first few days.

"As for me, I have a solid background in studying Marble Energy. I have previously worked in a scientific lab dedicated to Marble Energy research, and I am sure that I can enlighten your minds on such matters as well. However, we must not lose focus that the main point of these lessons is to get you trained in proper combat, should the day come again when you will need it.

"Therefore, I want you to split into teams of five within your schools. Two teams will battle it out here in this gym. But this is by far not a normal five-on-five. I have set up a virtual reality field generator in order to simulate absolutely any situation possible. You must be able to withstand fighting in any condition at all. But be warned, this is a virtual reality field which will encompass the both schools. As long as the field is active, any virtual reality will seem very real indeed.

"Any questions?"

Everyone sat in silence, each wondering what it would be like to experience such a lesson.

"How long ago did you work in your lab?" piped up a voice from the Dragon school. A girl with two guns strapped to her belt had raised her hand and asked. Dr Sergei looked slightly taken aback.

"Natsu..." Runaria, who had been sitting next to the girl, looked slightly disturbed at her question, but to her surprise, Dr Sergei answered.

"I think it was around five or ten years ago. I was researching the effects of Marble Energy and its effect on the environment."

Natsuki Kuga seemed content with this answer, and Dr Sergei looked around the gym, but nobody wanted to ask any more questions.

"No more? Very well then. Split into your teams, and let's begin!"

And thus the silence was broken as the students split into groups of five.

Derk sighed as she pressed her finger onto a scanner to activate the door. The infrared tracer of the sniper turret was fixated onto her shielding device, but with the firing mechanism temporarily jammed with a bullet, she could at least breathe easily as she progressed onto the next security mechanism..

The door slid open and she entered. The red dot vanished as she moved out of range of the sniper turret on the ceiling, and the door slammed shut behind her again. She could hear the sound of spells being cast some distance above her, which meant that she was probably directly underneath some part of the gym. She suddenly realised that she was late, and that made her hold on to her whip a little tighter in case any retribution came her way later on when she returned to her dormitory.

She was in a room with a control panel and a massive hole in the floor. After making sure nobody was looking (as if anyone would be), and with an enormously embarrassed look on her face, she began to sing. At first it sounded like a nursery rhyme about a certain girl and her lamb, but the lyrics had been altered so that Derk's own name was in place of the girl's, and "Momo fruit" was in place of the lamb. As she half-sang half-stammered the song, her face became redder and redder, until she finally finished. From the ceiling fell precarious platforms forming a path across the chasm. She ran across the path as fast as she could, as the platforms crumbled underneath her feet. With a final jump, she landed on the other side, and dodged another tranquiliser dart fired from the door. Derk then slammed her finger down on a fingerprint scanner nearby, which doubled as a button. A trapdoor opened beneath her feet.

"Oops...!" She yelled as she fell into the trapdoor.

In the gym, the class was well and truly under way. Dr Sergei had activated the virtual reality field and set it so that meteors were raining down on the gym, which now laid in ruins underneath a crimson sky. The ground itself resembled

Magics aimed a disruption field towards MaximusArk, who managed to jump out of its way, and into the path of a falling meteor, so that the disruption field hit Sturm instead. Despite Sturm and Magics being on the same team, Magics for one didn't seem to mind, except for a half-apologetic hand gesture. Sturm restored his energy with a healing spell in equal silence after his ears stopped ringing from the disruption field, and he regained the usage of his spells, while Max rolled on the floor, trying to put out the fire, his energy meter decimated by the meteor impact. Nearby, Natsuki, teamed with JapansAce, Kalysto and Usui, were up against Day, Bliss and Pypski - their other two team members had each been taken out by fiery meteors and pinned to the floor.

Frank Sergei grinned, and took out a device from one of his pockets - the same device he used to activate the virtual reality field. He coded in a few sequences, and immediately the weather changed from a meteor shower to a thunderstorm. What used to be red was now a dark gray as the rain torrented down on the duelling teams, which was enough to force Cpt. Tatsumiya and Alyse, who were duelling nearby, to stop their exchange of bullets. As the Captain tried to wipe his glasses clean, Sergei fiddled with the controls again, and the temperature plummeted, which left the students resorting to use flame spells to attempt to warm themselves up, and effectively turning all the Elementalists into pyromancers. The Captain tutted impatiently and threw his now-frozen glasses aside as Alyse shot a flaming bazooka towards him, which he just manages to dodge, and returns her favour with a few flashbombs.

Frank Sergei wasn't done. He plummeted the temperature even further, so that the torrential rain was frozen and the gym ground to an icy halt...

"Are you sure they're alright?" the Dragon Headmaster peered towards the gym from atop of a hill in Hillville. The gym now somewhat resembled a skating rink.

"I'm sure they're fine," the Owl Headmaster replied, being his usual ditzy self. "It's good practise, after all."

"Yes, but even so..." the Dragon Headmaster was unconvinced.

"It's fine," stressed the Owl Headmaster, not even looking at the gym rink. "They need to be prepared for anything at all... but if you're this insistant, I guess I'll go and check on them."

The Owl Headmaster reluctantly headed towards the rink.

"Hey, isn't this going a bit too far?!" yelled Bui in frustration as he was forced to Asgard Smash the ice in front of him just to be able to move around. "What's the big deal?!"

The Virtual Reality field was now Dr Sergei's sandbox. He could do whatever he wanted to now that he had control of everything. He wouldn't miscalculate... not this time...

"Aww, and Momo's missing out on all the fun here," Kari sighed. "I wonder if she's made it to her cellar yet?"

Frank Sergei nearly did a double-take. He stared towards Kari in disbelief. No... not after he had thought it out so much...

With a huge heave, he forced his foot out from the ice, and ran towards the Owl dormitories.

"Hey, where's Dr Sergei going?" Zulfequar remarked, staring at Dr Sergei's retreating figure.

"Who knows," Runaria Newbreak answered, she certainly didn't care right now with all the freezing things going on, and the only thing stopping her from keeling over were Zulfequar's claws lodged in the ice.

Dr Sergei barged into his office and grabbed a grappling hook, then, with a huge crash, threw the door to the owl dormitory wide open, panic etched all over his face. He raced down the halls until he found Derk's room, and threw the door wide open with his weight. To his horror, he saw the trapdoor to Derk's cellar wide open, and raced down the stairs.

He emerged at the bottom and narrowly avoided colliding with the wall. As virtual and actual reality were merged into one by his virtual reality field generator, Dr Sergei was able to get past Derk's security measures. He walked through the laser room as if it wasn't there. The door opened to his single command, and he rushed through the next room, into the room with the chasm, where he used his grappling hook to get across.

"Good, at least the trapdoor seems to have worked," he thought to himself, marvelling at how ingenious his creation was, and heaved a sigh of relief.

"Helloooo~~~~?" Sergei shouted into the trapdoor. "Having fun down t-"

A flaming shell from the trapdoor grazed his scalp and smashed into the ceiling of the chamber, forcing Dr Sergei backwards - Derk had lodged her gun into a nook into the trapdoor, and was in the process of climbing out using her whip as a makeshift rope, latching it on to crannies in the rock wherever she can. Upon hearing Dr Sergei's voice, she had instinctively fired a bazooka round at the entrance.

Dr Sergei stumbled backwards, avoiding the raining napalm from the ceiling. The virtual reality field control slipped from his hand and dropped to the floor. Unable to do anything with virtual reality to save himself, Sergei fell headfirst into the cavern, as Derk climbed out of the trapdoor.

"That was weird..." she said to herself, "Could have sworn heard someone...!"

She opened the final door, revealing a room full of torture tools and stained with blood - as if the people she brought here hadn't suffered enough already by the long journey - not to mention her singing. In a corner of the room was a large bag marked "Momo's", as well as a machine labelled "Virtual Reality Field Generator", but she only had eyes for the bag of momo fruits.

"There you are...!" she exclaimed with relief, grabbing the giant bag with ease and heading back out of the room, patting the skull of a skeleton chained to the wall as she left. The door slammed shut behind her, and she was left staring at the trapdoor.

"Don't remember putting a trapdoor there..." she thought to herself, oblivious to Dr Sergei's remote control sitting next to it. She threw her bag of momo fruits down next to the trapdoor - crushing the remote control in the process - and began to reset the security system as she began her journey out of the cellar.

The Owl Headmaster arrived at the gym to be greeted by his students, in teams of five, duelling each other. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, except that Dr Sergei was nowhere in sight. He smiled to himself, and headed back to the Owl Campus.

Derk had managed to reset the security by this time, and resealed her cellar. She emerged from her dormitory room humming happily, and was on her way to the gym when she ran into the Headmaster.

"Is the lesson over...?" she asked the Headmaster, anxious for his reply.

"I'm not sure," the Headmaster replied. "It doesn't seem like it, but it looks like Dr Sergei ended it early. Why don't you go and have some fun?"

Derk took the Headmaster up on his word, and ran to join everyone in the gym.

The Owl Headmaster returned to the Dragon Headmaster on the hill.

"You know, I had my doubts about Sergei, but he seems to be a nice teacher," he said pleasantly. "The students are getting lots of practise, and seem to be enjoying themselves. I doubt they even realised the lesson was over!"

The Dragon Headmaster grunted his agreement. Dr Sergei didn't seem so bad after all.

Clink.

Frank Sergei's grappling hook came into contact with a jagged edge of a stalagmite.

The man himself heaved his body out of the chasm, and collapsed onto the floor in a heap.

And then he spotted the remains of his remote control.

To be thwarted again... by a mere oversight... no, not even that... everything would have worked... everything SHOULD have worked according to plan... thanks to one single oversight, delaying the repair work seemed to be that much further away...

Sergei's eyes began to emit an ominous red glow as fury coursed through his body.

"StrangerD3RK...

"YOU WILL PAY."