Chapter 68: In Control
Middle of April. Sunnier days were coming up, but rainclouds still had one last fight in them.
It was a rather quiet day at school for Lunalei. Her students were taking a test, and she was using her free time to organize her thoughts regarding recent scuffles with 'Dregs' under the disguise of filing away paperwork.
"The identity of the Devil…"
"Mark proposed that they're the same person who is working undercover inside his police department."
"And given the Devil exposited that they're Mark's 'guardian', that theory holds a lot of ground."
"I'd ask Mark directly to tell me which people in his unit he's closest with, but given the reckless patterns he's started to develop lately I worry he'll force a confrontation he'll come to regret."
"...Accessing the police database would be easy…if I hadn't succeeded once before and fell into a trap because of it."
"They'll see me coming. And under these circumstances who knows if they wouldn't lay another trap that would expose my identity, or worse, the place I'm living at."
"And speaking of my identity, the Devil clearly doesn't know anything besides the fact I'm a girl…and some alleged presumption that my justice is immature."
The point riled her up on the inside, but she calmed down so as to not alarm her students.
She took her pressure out on a pencil she happened to have nearby, giving it an occasional twirl as her thoughts resumed.
"But given who the Valkyrie was and the timing of their death, it might not take long for the Devil to put the pieces together."
She glanced at her students with the pressure of paranoia weighing her down, "Assuming someone else hasn't already infiltrated this school."
She took a moment to catch her breath and rubbed her glasses clean. It was a little humid inside, "Really should get a repairman in here…"
That was enough time for her to shake the paranoia off, "No. Focus Lunalei. If someone from 'Dregs' was in this school to figure out my identity, they likely would've snuck in here after the Valkyrie's death. And there's been no updates to the student roster since then."
"...Is my only option to keep confronting him until he slips up? …Or I do..."
"Then there's the matter of the nightmares. Lucid dreaming…I don't know if it wasn't enough, if I wasn't good enough…"
"..." The inadequacy reminded her of that horrible nightmare.
"...I have NO information about where they're at, or what they're like."
"...Except." There was…ONE bit of info she retained.
"W-Wait…some of these soldiers are…people I've already arrested?!" An otherwise throwaway remark from Mark in the midst of combat held a lot of weight.
"...Eye contact with those soldiers transfers the nightmare. The soldiers belonged to 'Dregs', and were arrested by Mark…which means whoever is responsible for prisoner transfers would be the Devil."
"...Ok, that doesn't help with figuring out who the nightmare wielder is, but it's SOMETHING. Next time I have S.A.N.C.T.U.M. meet up with Mark, I'll ask him about this."
It was around this time she received the first test from Leo, who seemed to be in a good mood. Even his posture looked less slack.
She put on an air of professionalism and remarked, "Thank you. Feel free to take a seat until the others are done."
A few more students turned in their tests, and at the end of this line came Zelene.
One quick look at each other and all Lunalei saw was a beast looking back at her. She did a tight gulp and watched her return to her seat, upon which she rubbed the side of her own cheek.
"Damn you…" She thought bitterly.
She was half-tempted to dock points off her test, but what would that really accomplish?
Eventually the testing period came to an end, and she was allowed to enjoy her lunch break while grading tests.
…For about five seconds, when she got a ring on her phone, asking her to come to the principal's office.
"Ugh, what now?" She grumbled, and then secured her belongings and headed to the office.
There she found the vice principal by himself, still as grimy as ever.
"You took your sweet time." He said, eating from a bag of sour cream and onion chips, and doing that annoying song and dance of pretending like she can't be seen over the desk.
Lunalei crossed her arms and rushed the point forward, "This is my lunch break too, so what's up?"
"Hmph. Just because you've gotten lucky in earning tenure here doesn't give you the right to act like that to your boss."
Lunalei nudged her glasses and had no trouble biting back, "The principal is my boss. You're like a sub-boss at best. Speaking of which, where is the head honcho?"
"Y-You…" He nearly choked on his chips, "...If you MUST know, he's on a break…having lunch with his daughter."
"So I…" The vice principal put his chips down and held his salted fingers together atop the desk, "Am going to finally address a…small issue regarding your teaching methods."
"And here we go…" She groaned and folded her arms.
"The curriculum we teach here is on a set schedule. So everything important should be covered by the end of the year. Does that make sense?"
"I'm well aware, why?" Lunalei noted.
"Don't play coy with me. Your schedule is lagging behind the other classes!" He muttered in annoyance.
Lunalei nodded, "Yes, but if you actually paid attention you'd realize-"
"Always with the counterarguments," He grumbled rudely, wiggling his fingers in the air, "A school is a tightly knit unit of…hmmm, you have an interest in machines, from what your application says so…gears. A tightly knit unit of gears."
"If one cog moves slower, another-"
"Yes I know the metaphor," Lunalei put her foot down and quickly countered his bullshit, "But my slower pace has provided results. By focusing on the student's specific shortcomings, it's kept them from lagging behind or being overwhelmed by later subjects."
"And by my logic, they'll retain enough information to get high enough marks on their final exams. Anything I miss, they can always review during summer break."
The vice principal scoffed, "That's insane. Do you even HEAR yourself, or is your voice too quiet for even your ears?"
Lunalei rolled her eyes and mumbled, "Wow, really scraping the bottom of the barrel for good material huh?"
"Enough of your sass!" The vice principal stood up sharply.
Lunalei remarked, "Oh, I thought I was too quiet."
He wagged his finger at her and scowled, "Get your schedule in order, or I'll make sure that you're fired."
Lunalei glared, "You CAN'T do that."
He wagged his finger harder, raising a smirk to add to his sliminess, "I can. I will. And there's little you can do about it."
He then got serious, explaining in a grim and deep tone, "This is the world of grown-ups. And don't you forget it."
Lunalei's eyes widened and her innate fury wanted her to strike back someway, somehow. But his smug aura, while slimy, felt impenetrable.
She left the office with her fists taut and her mind racing, "He can't do that. There's no way!"
And she could think that with confidence, "But AUGH! Just the fact that he's threatening to do that is so annoying! I'm trying to teach here! And I do a good job of it damn it!"
At least ONE facet of her life needed to be going in her favor right about now or she'd go crazy.
"If only there was some way to get that bastard out of here!" She grit her teeth and growled, "Maybe an investigation would turn something up…"
"Doubt it."
Her train of thought was swiftly derailed by none other than Erin, leaning against the wall next to her.
"Ah!" Lunalei flinched, then immediately turned and looked annoyed, "Oh, it's you. How did you…?"
She shook her head and then swung her hand out and started walking away cause she looked as smug as ever, "You know, I just want my lunch. Say anything funny and I'm suspending you."
"Aw, don't give me the cold shoulder, cuz. And here I was going to offer you a chance to get that slimeball out of this school."
Lunalei paused and her pupils shrank. She leaned over her shoulder and saw she wasn't laughing, or putting on a front. No, that look on her face was deadly serious.
Lunalei crossed her arms and turned back a few steps, remaining cautious as she asked, "What kind of dirt do you have on him?"
Erin peeled off the wall and shrugged her hands up, "Nothing."
Lunalei immediately turned around and walked off.
"Sheesh, is your patience as short as you are, cuz?" Erin's taunt pulled her right back in.
"I meant it, Erin." Lunalei muttered firmly.
Erin then grinned, a slightly off putting, eerie vibe surrounding her, "Do you want him gone, or not?"
"..." Lunalei barely had to think about it, "I just want to do my job damn it."
"Fine, sure. Whatever. But stop wasting my time." She laid out quickly.
Erin then started walking around her as she explained, "Let's face it, cuz, that grease stain only has eyes for attractive people."
"Mmmm…!" Lunalei groaned, thinking that this impromptu team-up was not worth the 'subtle' jabs, even if she had a point.
"And I think…No, I KNOW…" Erin laid a finger on her smiling lips and whispered, "He's a pedophile."
Lunalei flinched, "L-Look, I hate the guy as much as anyone, but there's no way a school with this much prestige would hire a pedophile."
Erin laughed, "You're kidding right? It'd be easy…especially if he had no prior known offenses."
"...You have a point." Lunalei grumbled.
Erin then twirled her hand around and waltzed about with her eyes closed, "You're good with machines, yeah? Set up a camera in the abandoned classroom on the second floor, and I'll take care of the rest after class when most of the building is vacated."
"I…" Lunalei thought about this plan a bit, and had discomfort in her gut, "Look. I DON'T like you, but the idea of you putting your body at risk to get his ass out of here is NOT something I can consider."
"Relaaaaaax, cuz, he won't lay a finger on me," And then Erin whispered the words she needed to hear to stop holding back, "This is all in the name of justice, yeah?"
"Hmmm…yeah," Lunalei then poked her dead in the chest and firmly commented, "But if you somehow turn this against me and get me fired, I will make SURE your mom doesn't hear the end of it."
"You can trust me." She said with doubtful sincerity before walking off.
Lunalei tugged at her collar slightly and then made her way back to the classroom to eat lunch. And when that was over she went and installed a camera in the other classroom.
She didn't like to resort to this. This is essentially fabricating a crime. But Erin's assumption of the vice principal's character would line up with his seedier gestures in the past, and why he's so critical of her in particular.
"All this time he wanted me gone because I looked TOO childish. Ugh, maybe I should forget about Erin's plan and strangle the bastard!"
She got through the afternoon class with Erin constantly looking at her with high expectations for their plan to work out.
Lunalei tried to get her out of her mind, but she had a strong grip on it, "I should make SURE that she isn't able to pull anything off."
Cause there was no way Erin Dark was doing this out of the "kindness" in her heart.
So in the few minutes between the end of class and her plot, Lunalei set up two more cameras in the other room.
And she managed to sneak out without being seen by Erin arriving on the scene.
"What are you doing here, you little idiot?" She blurted out sharply, "If you get caught, it's all over."
Lunalei took the insult head-on and remarked, "Wait, he's coming NOW?"
"Uhhh, duh!" Erin gestured in disbelief, "Move!"
Lunalei quickly scrambled back to her classroom and immediately pulled out a secret phone that was capturing the footage.
The scene played out like so…
The vice principal invited Erin into the room with a childish giggle exiting his fat lips.
Erin strutted in with a smile, but once his sight was off her body she firmly scowled and glared over her shoulder.
But she played along with his advances as he locked the door slowly, trying to poke his head out in the middle for any other faculty members.
Erin rolled her eyes and then put her hands on one of the stacked desks, leaning into it to really put chills on the vice principal's skin.
The man was already sweating in his pits and gave his tie a light tug while still pretending he was a respectable figure of authority.
"Sooo, what did you call this private meeting for?" He wiggled out of his tongue.
"Oh please," She spat up bluntly, "We both know what you want."
"Y-Yes?" He said, a little shaken up.
She hooked the front of her top and gave it a light tug down, "This."
And her other hand glided down her right thigh, "This."
And as his pupils began to dilate she licked her lips, "And this."
The vice principal turned his head around like he thought he was being watched, and played up his "professionalism" in a proud and dignified voice, "This…is a breach of etiquette, Ms. Dark. I have a reputation to u-uphold."
"Awww…" Erin purred, leaning her upper body forward so her chest hung, "See, I'm so lonely."
"After my bastard father left my family, I've needed someone with…a reputation. Someone with money, a little power. You get what I'm laying down, right?"
The vice principal nodded like an obedient puppy, and then took another look around.
Erin leaned her head back and laughed, "It's just us."
"So…what do you say? Why not…live a little? You work sooooo hard here."
The vice principal guffawed, "That is true. I guess you are consenting, so…"
"Just as easy as that, huh?" Erin murmured with rising delight.
"Huh?" The vice principal remarked.
"Heh heh. Well? What are you waiting for? Let's start having fun~"
The vice principal's shakes stopped happening and he embraced what he saw with fingers wiggling at his target.
…However, what was really happening, from Lunalei's perspective, was something a little more visually upsetting.
She watched the vice principal waltz into the abandoned classroom, and all that was there was a few desks set up and a single picture on one of them.
Erin was nowhere to be found.
"Hello?" The vice principal murmured, locking the door behind him.
He then advanced towards the desks, his footsteps looking a little unnatural.
He leaned over the picture and as he did, Lunalei zoomed in and noticed that it was a risque shot of Erin lying on the ground in nothing but a bikini and panties.
"Wh-What the hell, why's she taking pictures like that?" Her concern was overwritten by a vested interest in what the vice principal would do next.
He started clearly sweating, not even uttering a word as he picked the picture up.
She saw a lump in his throat, and as he started looking around she zoomed out the camera.
"Ok Erin, where are you?" She started to look over her shoulder for any signs of her sneaking up on her, and then realized she probably should've put a camera outside of the classroom too.
But when she looked back at her phone she recoiled and dropped it from sheer disgust.
"UUUUGH!" She picked it back up only because she had to, but FELT the slimy crawling out of the screen onto her fingers.
With a glare exhibiting both joy and anger, she muttered to herself, "Oh that's it, you are DONE."
She used her expertise to convert the recording to a video file and then had it sent off to the police.
The next day proved to have an explosive start, as three police cars and a prisoner escort van came rolling up to the school, sirens blaring.
And before anyone could understand what was going on, the vice principal was being forcibly escorted out of the building in cuffs.
"Unhand me! What is the meaning of this?!" He shouted in a feral manner.
The lead cop on the scene, a latino man named Vida, muttered to him with disgust, "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be-"
"I know the laws! And you have NOTHING on me! NOTHING! My lawyers will have your HEADS!"
Vida grit his teeth, spit in the man's face, and said, "Shut up, pedophile."
On his way out of the school he happened to run across Violet, and his attitude got carefree, "Hey! Sorry for interrupting your class, chica!"
Frankly, most of the students were cheering despite lacking context. The principal remained behind, flabbergasted by what was unfolding.
But throughout it all, Lunalei kept her distance so that no one would see her smirk growing wider and wider, "You get what you deserve, asshole."
"Satisfied?" Erin caught her by surprise.
"Ah!" Lunalei blurted out, and then turned to face her after adjusting her glasses, "...Alright, confess, what did you want in return?"
Erin poked her grinning cheeks and whispered, "Relax, cuz. I got everything I could've ever wanted…Enjoy your stress free teaching days."
She then walked off, leaving Lunalei to feel a chill in the air, "...There's something I'm missing here, there has to be."
But once the shock of the arrest was over with, she returned to her classroom with lighter shoulders.
Meanwhile, it didn't take long for Erin, cheeks positively radiating with joy, to have her mood soured by a run-in with her brother around the corner.
"Erin," He stated firmly with a hint of concern, "What were you and Lunalei just talking about?"
Erin furrowed her brows, especially once Alex took an accusatory tone with her, "Did you…have something to do with the vice principal's arrest?"
Erin rolled her eyes and was too high off her success to care, "You want to know? Fine. I'll tell you."
She then lowered her voice, gleefully enjoying every second of this, "Recently, I awakened to my true potential. Yes, brother, I now have powers similar to our parents."
"Y-You…when? When did this HAPPEN?" Alex said, likely wondering why their mom didn't know about this, but who cares what she knew?
Erin bluntly told him, "Does it MATTER?"
She then gestured a finger at her eyes and smiled, "That slimy vice principal thought he was in control of a power dynamic between us, but instead…I used my illusions to trick him into an abandoned room, where that creep went and jacked off to a picture of me in front of the cameras Lunalei set up!"
Alex's pupils shrank as his voice got raspy and breathless, "He did…what…?"
"Ha ha ha!" Erin celebrated, "And it was so damn easy! What a fool!"
"Uuuugh! I feel so great! Look at me, Alex, I'm positively glowing!" Erin exclaimed, but then lowered her voice to a more…bitter, blunt, and taunting level, "And I did it all on my own."
She then took off her jacket and forced it onto him, "I don't NEED this anymore."
She stretched her arms up so her chest jutted out prominently, "Everyone deserves to see my greatness, unobscured by society's veils!"
She then marched off, her brother continuing to remain frozen in place, and her jacket sliding out of his hands.
Right as he bit his teeth down, his vision blurred, and then snapped to dark crimson…
Later that night, in a police van…
Vida sits face-to-face with the vice principal with three other cops sitting around him. He's busy looking at his phone with a dead silent expression.
The freeway they were on was rocky, the rain was coming down hard.
The vice principal panned his gaze around and then tried to relax, causing Vida to remark, "Getting cozy?"
The vice principal smirked, "I'll be out of these cuffs eventually."
"Cocky too." Vida said in a mocking tone.
The vice principal flattened his smile and then gestured at Vida, "Know your place, Latinx. You work for people like me."
"Oooh, if we're pulling out the race card, I got a gooood one for you," Vida raised his head and murmured in a thick accent, "L'inferno è troppo bello per te."
The vice principal sweated, and Vida went back to his phone.
"D-Do you know who I am?" The prisoner uttered.
Vida coldly answered, caring a bit of carefreeness to his voice, "Dario Montiago. Son of the infamous drug dealer Carmine Montiago. Arrested for five charges of pedophilia, all swept under the rug by dear ol' daddy's deep pockets."
"But as punishment, he forced you to America to keep his reputation intact."
"Pah…" Vida spat in disgust, and while the vice principal's sweating increased he grit his teeth and grinned.
"H-Heh…Then you know the deal. Money runs the law. Money is YOUR collar, boy."
Vida slanted his brows and smirked, lifting his head with a simple but bold remark of, "How's your daddy doing lately? Been keeping up on your calls?"
"No…? He's a busy man."
"Yeah, I bet he is," Vida then pulled out a pistol aimed at the man's chest. His expression turned cold, "Hell's coals aren't going to rake themselves."
Dario looked around in a cold sweat before mumbling, "Y-You're not a cop…!"
He then rubbed shoulders with the other cops while yelling, "Help! Police!"
The officers shoved him off coldly, and as Vida took off the safety the man looked him dead in the eyes and muttered, "Shut up."
Dario begged to know, "Who sent you…? Was it the Parmino family?!"
"I'm a cop," Vida remarked firmly, and then raised his body with the barrel trained on the man's head, "Just not by your definition."
Dario stared death in the eyes and started laughing, "Ah, I get it now. You're one of those upstart vigilantes I hear about on the news."
"Wrong." Vida skinned his ear with one bullet to shut his confidence down.
"Now…" Vida relaxed his gun between his legs and put on a friendly voice, "You're going to answer two questions for me."
"W-Why should I?!" To which Dario had more of his ear skinned off by a bullet.
"Augh…!" He wailed.
Vida then sighed, "I wish you'd cooperate. I'm late for dinner with my favorite chica."
He then flicked his hand up and gave it a twirl, "Let's start there…Did you EVER have your eyes on a girl named Violet?"
"T-The troublemaker…? Never! Too rowdy. Too rude. That athletic body wouldn't be worth the tro-"
Vida shot him in the knee and he howled in pain.
And fighting through it, he declared, "T-Torturing me will get you nothing!"
Vida put his finger on the trigger and remarked, "You don't get it. I'm taking you out to pasture no matter what you say."
"So…" He held the trigger until a light click came out, "Pig. Squeal. I want to know the name of the teacher who-"
The van came to a rough and violent stop, with the sounds of metal crunching from the hood.
Vida got up and opened the security hatch to the driver's seat, "What was that?!"
The driver declared, "I-I don't know! I saw someone standing in the middle of the road for a brief flash and my hands froze up…"
Vida clicked his tongue and groaned, "Now? Really?"
Right as he turned for the back door, the hinges shrieked before the door was ripped straight off.
And then a flash of lightning covered their attacker, but revealed a string of destroyed, burning cars along the road, all of them bleeding out.
The figure raised his head slowly, as his back seemed to bulge like an opening cocoon.
A coat was shredded apart by the emergence of a blood red feathered wing, and one more flash of lightning put the spotlight on the attacker's face.
Little more than a teenage boy with black bangs over one eye, and the other eye containing red sclera.
His manic expression grinned as he declared in a vicious but righteous tone, "Dario Montiago! Your existence has been deemed irrelevant to this world! Pay for your crimes in blood!"
Vida hesitated but then pulled his gun on the boy's face and shot through it.
The head lurched back, still grinning madly as it pulled back slowly, the pierced flesh sealing up with blood.
He then jumped into the van with a laugh.
An hour later, a few more police cars arrived on the scene, with Mark leading them.
The moment he arrived at the scene of carnage he jumped out of the car and ran for the front of the closed off zone.
He flashed his badge, followed procedures, and then went straight for the van.
It had been tipped over, crunched down, and slashed apart with blood spill out of the back.
As his heart started to race he heard faint coughing coming from the side and rushed to find Vida lying down with his body in bad shape but nothing that required critical care.
"H-Hey amigo…talk about a shit night, huh?" He coughed up a little blood and tried to smile.
"What. Happened?!" Mark asked, helping to lift his friend up and escort him to safety.
"Prisoner transfer went poorly. Some freak attacked us out of the blue and killed both him and all my men…I-I barely got out with my skin still on."
Mark looked at the pools of blood until Vica remarked, "Isn't it sickening? That's our comrades, Mark…"
Mark turned pale. Despite everything, Vida had a laugh, "There's some really messed up things going on in the world lately, eh?"
Mark held him tightly and whispered, "Save your breath man. I-I'll get you some medical attention."
"...Thanks amigo. I'm just…glad to be alive."
It was just another unexplainable night for most people. And come the end of the week, this would be a distant memory…
However, this was only a sign of things to come…
Next Time: A Jealous Pair of Girls