"There's a game the Senior Villains play in the Forbidden City."
"The one Vhalerie could've been in if, you know, she wasn't kidnapped or something," Roger said.
I tossed my pink hair to the side. "Yeah. I know of it. Villains team up to find the Medallion hidden within the—"
"Forbidden City. Yadda yadda yad," Roger cut in, spinning his hand to further the conversation. "We know it, bud. What do you want us to do?"
"You want us to steal the Medallion," I answered, staring at Trent.
Roger's eyes widened. "Please tell me you're actually shitting sandwiches this time. Because I don't think I can handle another joke."
Trent shook his head. "Kanye West serious."
"YEZUS!" Roger exclaimed and threw his hand up in outrage.
"Guys. Citizen jokes. I don't get them. You know what, never mind." I faced Trent. "You can't get food anywhere else?" Although I loved a good challenge, going back to Villain Academy suddenly seemed so displeasing...
Since, like, half the school still hated me and 80% of what I learned was a lie.
Trent moved over with the rest of the group, sitting down on one of the barrels. "How else do you think we could get food? Grow it out here?" He scooped a handful of sand and let it run through his fingers. I noticed the odd tattoos inked across his palm and wrists.
I closed my mouth shut. "Well, no."
"We either bargain for it, or steal it." He looked out in to the cool night, it reaching out with dark arms to take any willing survivor who dared to get swallowed by the night. "It isn't easy out here for a Civilian. We don't have academies and schools to educate our children. We have guns and bread; children grow up fighting for their life because they know that no one else will."
Someone passed Trent a bottle and he took a sip of what was left of the water. After a few drops on his tongue, he tossed the bottle on the sand. He squinted, pointing towards the distance that seemed endless from here. "Villain Academy is just eight hills down from here. Steal the Medallion so can we can exchange it with the witch."
"You can't be serious," I said.
"Usually it's me and our strongest Civilians to fetch whatever the witch wants, but I trust you and your pet will do something smart."
"Pet?!" Roger exasperated and I yanked on the leash. "Hey! Hey! Get this rope off of me. I'll obey and I won't transform into some ultra Beast of Villain thinga-ma-doodle, okay? Okay?!"
I muttered curses and untied the rope, letting it fall around his ankles as he stepped out with a smile.
"Why are you trusting us?" I asked Trent, who watched Roger get free. "How do you know we won't run?"
"We have sources in the academy. We have eyes everywhere, sugar. We'll know if you lose a few marbles and get stupid by trying to leave us here."
Roger's stomach growled and he hiked up his pants more. "Alrighty then." He collapsed on the sand, making an imprint of a starfish outline with his body. "When do we leave?"
"Now," I replied.
"How convenient. Just when I'm starving my butt off and find the sand ridiculously relaxing, you ask me to get up and pull a heist at what, one in the morning? Thanks. Really. This friendship has helped me so much," Roger purred.
"What friendship?" I snapped, the betrayal still fresh.
"Is it going to take a number one, top charter single for you to accept my apology? Or is it too late to say sorry?" Roger asked.
"You and your Civilian jokes are not helping," I dryly stated.
"But Vhalerie, I've been missing more than just your boooody."
"Don't get killed," Trent said with a grim smile. Civilians arrived by our sides with weaponry as a pretty neat sword was strapped to my back. One bulky man put the backpack straps through Roger's chubby arms and when he let go, Roger stumbled at the sudden weight.
"A khaki backpack?" Roger gasped and a cheeky smile stretched across his lips. "How did you know?"
"I don't make promises I can't keep," I replied to Trent. He nodded and stuck his hand out. I stared down at it, eyes drawn to the ink and naturally took his hand.
"Good luck," Trent said and broke our hands apart.
I didn't even try to give him a smile. I headed towards the hills, making it a few steps before I forgot something. "Roger!" I turned around and groaned. "Roger! That's not a sandwich! Put her foot down!"
+++
It turns out eights hill meant half a day's travel. No wonder they made us hike this madness in the sand. Civilians couldn't last out here without shelter. The sun glared down our backs, having no mercy on my burning shoulders that carried nothing but a sword.
"You're nuts you know," I told Roger.
Might as well stir up a conversation if there wasn't anything to do but walk, right?
"I know. It's grrrrrreat," he chirped, steps bouncier than ever. "Now I know what it feels like to be you."
Silence ate up the air between us and I was afraid we'd run out at this high altitude. "When were you going to tell me?" I asked him.
He kicked the sand a bit. "At graduation."
"Ten months from now?! You were going to tell me then?!"
"I wasn't supposed to even tell you."
I whirled my head around. Anger blew up across my face. "Tell me?! I think I have the right to know you've been babysitting me, and that it wasn't the other way around. And the small fact that you're, like, a fucking beast from the legends—oh my god."
Realization trickled into my mind and clicked into place. My eyes grew big. "It was you all along. You were the beast in the forest. You were the one who slaughtered all those villains. Archer never appeared by your bed with a knife. It was the other way around wasn't it? You chased him into the freezer. It was all a set up."
"And bingo was his name-o. B-I-N-G-O, B-I—"
"Roger. What the actual fuck. Why?"
"It wasn't my fault. It's just my nature." I still gave him that 'WTF' face and he sighed, rolling his eyes. "I'm a beast. Like you already know, it's hard to contain a beast. It can only hide for so long before it needs to stretch out of the shadows and take a nice swim...in blood...And plus, when heroes are around the Beast of Villains, it starts to mix in with the hormones and it just gets me off in the wrong way. Like in the blood thirsty, I-wanna-tear-your-head-apart way."
Like you already know...?
"I'm not like you. I have a beast inside of me. I'm not an actual beast," I corrected. "There's a difference."
"Right. So you're like the eggshell and the beast is the yolk? Riiiight. Whatever you say, Miss-I-Thought-I-Knew-It-All-But-I-Really-Didn't."
"Don't make this about me! You lied to me and killed hundreds of Villains! You're a beast for hell's sake. I grew up thinking those were extinct."
"Baby beast actually. I'm tiny compared to the others—"
"And the fact you're the Beast of the Villains! You. Hells Bells, next thing you know, you'll tell me you don't like sandwiches!"
He gasped. "I may have been living a whole lie since I met you, but I would never lie about food."
"Never say never," I quipped back.
"Look who is making the Civilian jokes now."
I rolled my eyes and he continued, "The Headmistress knew I was babysitting you. But she didn't know I was the Beast of Villains. Neither did Archer and the boys. Headmistress thought I was a beast tamer, a type of Civilian. There's a few beast tamers undercover in the academy—to help control the Villains. She has this pact with the Civilians—why do you think we don't get any Civilian invasions like Hero High does?"
"If there's a pact, then why do we have to steal from the Villains?"
"Civilians are dirty," Roger repeated. "They double cross, back stab and will cheat for survival. The Headmistress didn't promise them food or water. And there is only one place you can that in these parts of the land."
"How do you know so much about Civilians?"
"Well, when Trent kidnapped me during my midnight snacking and brought me to the Civilians, he bothered to dump all this information because it was my 'time to know' or some shit like that."
I drew my brows together. "Hm. 'Time to know?' Do you have some destiny that you haven't told me about?"
"I know nothing of such," Roger spoke. Before I had time to register his tone of voice, he asked, "Am I forgiven, oh wonderful Vhalerie?"
"I do not accept your apology," I said, but a smile twitched on my lips as I elbowed his side. "Beast of fucking Villains... what does that even mean?"
"You'll learn soon enough," he answered.
A response dangled at the tip of my tongue, but familiar lights arrested both of our eyes. Below sat the castle I had been living in for all my life, bright lights leaking through the academy's tall windows. Now that I could see it from the outside, everything looked much different.
The sand stopped midpoint down the hill, dirt growing on the way down to encompass Villain Academy. Within the academy, it looked like a forest had surrounded it.
From the outer view, four types of land caged the academy to isolate it from others.
The forest was on the west side, the sand dunes to the east. The lake Archer had used to kidnap me was in the north and in the south, was the Forgotten City. Some Villain Academy classes involved taking the students there to train or participate in senior games.
They only let the senior students travel there because most of them didn't come back alive.
Less graduation gowns to order, am I right?
I was never registered for those senior classes who got to go to the Forbidden City. The Headmistress forbid me from taking those and I never understood why until now.
"C'mon," I ushered and jogged down the sand dunes. Roger hobbled after me, but tripped and rolled down in a series of grunts, groans, and flying flubby arms as sand blew up at his final impact.
I quickened my pace, and saw the freshmeat laying with his eyes closed, backpack still magically attatched to him. I looked down at him. "Your falls are so majestic."
"I used to do ballet," he answered.
I snorted and reached a hand out. "Get up, loser. We got shit to blow up."
+++
Forbidden City was eerier than I dreamed it to be. A whistling tune followed us around, it creeping from the buildings we passed and after the doors that creaked. Hairs stood up on my arms, musty curtains flapping in the high rise apartments.
"There's a reason only some Villain classes come to this part of the land," Roger pointed out. A cat meowed in the distance followed by a crash. "Citizens gone insane hang here."
"Can you shut up?"
We strolled down the strip, abandoned stores and shattered glass spread among the sidewalk.
"Sweet baby of little pickles," Roger exclaimed and plastered his face against what was left of a deli shop beside us. "Those are sandwiches! Real sandwiches!"
"Roger, now isn't the time—"
The little bell chimed and Roger disappeared into the abandoned shop. I clenched my fists. "Hells Bells." Taking a step towards the door, Roger came munching back out with sandwiches in his pockets.
"Let's get on with it," he said with a mouthful as crumbs spilled down his shirt.
It wasn't long until I found what I was looking for. Where Villain Academy always hid the prized goods: The Bank.
The door already blown off from previous years, I crept through with all senses on alert.
Cruunnnnch.
I whipped around and saw Roger's teeth chomp down into his bread.
"Roger. Put down the sandwich."
"But—"
"Now that food has replaced sex in your life, you can't even get into your own pants," I said.
He pouted and miserably stuffed the sandwich in his pocket, pink salami hanging out of his khaki shorts. "Vhalerie, you always make the decisions"—he began counting off his stubby fingers—"When we eaaat, when we sleeeep. Now that we know I'm a pretty bad ass mother fucker like you, I think we should treat each other equally—"
"Hey!" Creeping through the dark hallway, I crouched low and hissed behind me. "For once can you not complain while we're about to pull the most evil stunt Villain Academy has ever seen?"
Now—If you were a smart Villain student (we're idiots), you would've already hiked up your balls and held your boobs as you ran for the safe, stoned castle; Villain Academy while the Civilians had left you astray.
But no. We wanted to stick with our ah-mazing kidnappers, the Civilains and help them steal food from our ex-school for survival.
We were bloody nuts.
And not the good kind.
"More like the most heartless and brutal stunt," Roger, the short, overweight freshmeat, grumbled. Unlike the secured sword strapped to my back, his gigantic hiking bag kept jostling on his shoulders, shit clinking and banging inside.
"Why do always carry that piece of annoying crap?" I hissed, my footfall as soft as feathers and his louder than a lawnmower. "Like, do you have some fat bag fetish?"
"What if we need paper towel? Or a toothbrush? Or mini cooler?" he named off.
"Yes, because I need paper towel to kill somebody. 'Oh, what's that sir? Your heart is cut open and won't stop bleeding? Let me get some paper towel. It'll soak it up like a sponge!'"
He went as far as his biggest threat—a simple glare, and hobbled after me in the dead halls. "Why can't we just grab the Medallion and leave?"
Outside, the rainfall fell to a hush pitter patter on the glass, wind whispering through the open window and the curtains shifted. Roger and I had planned on the hike here to change the plan...for the sake of our 'early' graduation.
"Because we're badass Villains, not Civilians. We don't do what's expected of us," I scoffed.
Then the hairs stood up on my arms. Something is off.
A/N:
Look at my updates. On point or what?
Do you like this 'little more sassy' Roger?
Here's more ah-maaaaazing fan art sent in by you:
Please, don't forget to vote for Villain Academy as Story of the Year by going to my profile and clicking on the link!
And check out my new dark comedy 'Boys of the Dark'. A little bit of Vhalerie slang is in there too. ;)
xx
love you lots,
twister