It was morning. Justin Russo woke up after not so much as a night's sleep as more a night's string of off-and-on naps. He and his students had all hidden in the WizTech fallout shelter while first Starcrushers and then gods pummeled the school. The clock on the wall read 2:22 AM, but his phone meanwhile said 6:08, and he remembered that nobody had been in the fallout shelter between the last "Duck-and-Cover" drill in the mid-60s and now, so he figured his phone was probably correct.

He also noticed that the loud BOOM!s had ceased. Maybe it was safe to leave the shelter now. So he crept quietly to the door, making sure not to make a sound… then wondered why it mattered, seeing as the place was pretty probably sound-proofed and thus whoever had been assaulting them—if still present—would hardly hear his movements. So he simply crept to the door and unlocked it, and peeked outside. He saw everything appeared safe, so he opened the door and emerged.

"Wow," Justin remarked, "Looks like they barely touched the place."

The site that stood before Justin was a near-totally untouched castle. The only thing different from when the teachers, staff, and students entered the fallout shelter was he noticed a tree in the courtyard had been uprooted and was lying atop the roof of the east dormitories.

"It's a strong roof," he said, "we can leave the tree there for now."

Then his cell phone rang. It was Alex. He answered.

"Justin," she said, "have you heard about the attacks?!" she asked.

"Oh NO!" Justin said sarcastically, "I haven't heard anything about them, even though it's all over our world's news media—as well as WizTech taking cover—and the absurdly loud BOOM!s which can be heard for miles. I just decided to have everybody sleep in the fallout shelter tonight because I thought it would be fun!—Of course I've heard about the attacks! Initially I thought it was the sound of my tomato hitting the ground."

"What!?" Alex asked.

"It makes sense in context…" said Justin. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, they don't know about my penthouse apartment, so I think I'm safe." said Alex.

"Okay," said Justin, "but just be careful, little sis—"

"Since when do you call me that?" asked Alex.

"I dunno," said Justin, "I'm feeling sentimental after nearly having my school bombed out."

"They didn't waste WizTech?" she asked, surprised.

"The only thing out of place is a tree that got pulled out of the ground and thrown onto a roof," said Justin. "I have no clue why they didn't touch us!"

At about that time, Mercury got on the line with Commander Forthwith.

"Commander Forthwith," he said, "I understand that you never attacked WizTech. Why is that?"

"It is simply a school, Mercury," Forthwith said, "we saw no military significance in it, and figured pointless to murder innocent students."

"I understand your reasoning, Commander Forthwith," Mercury said, "though in the event that we need to, I want you to be prepared to level the place for shock-and-awe if necessary."

"We will do whatever you need of us as long as you are able to pay us as promised." said Commander Forthwith professionally.

"Of course," said Mercury, "help us defeat the wizards, and we will give you the location of the ultimate guitar solo."