Looming Storm

Sam's sister was on duty, and so she insisted on checking out John as Snakey was being taken care of. Thankfully, the Tamer's Club had extra uniforms in all sizes and by the time the checkup was finished, John was able to take a quick shower and change out of the dirt and blood covered clothes. Someone had come by to take the the pistol and clips back to the lockup and when John checked his balance he was happy to see a refund of 12 credits.

As he stepped out, Sam walked up to John with a worried expression on his face and said, "You better not of fucked up! I vouched for you, and now Ms. Winslow and the Vice-Principal are waiting for you. Follow me."

"Don't worry, I didn't fuck up. Some friends and I ran into a Rank 7 Night Rush Panther in the safe zone. They just want to confirm what happened."

"FUCK!" Sam said, "I would've preferred it if you had fucked up. That would've been a shit storm, but this..."

Sam shook his, then suddenly sped up while yelling, "Emergency!", forcing John to sprint to keep up as they ran through winding corridors. People quickly got out of the way as they ran past, as if this was a regular occurrence.

They came to a stop in front of an open door, John panting as he heard a voice say, "There'll be a full recovery?"

"Yes," Ms. Winslow said respectfully, "Mike is on his way here now and they were able to fix everything. Snakey," Ms. Winslow seemed displeased at the name, her lip curling a bit as she said it, "has already been treated and is sleeping."

"Good, good." The voice said.

Sam knocked on the side of the door, forcing me into the room and saying, "John Caplin as ordered."

"Good, you stay too as his sponsor." Ms. Winslow said.

"Yes, Ma'am."

"When your parents asked me for a favor," The man who'd been speaking to Ms. Winslow turned to look at John whose jaw dropped. "I didn't expect it to be a saving grace for us as well. In the last 100 years we haven't had a single student die in the safe zone, and not one week into the new school year we have three of them survive by a hair's breadth."

"Uncle Max?" John asked, completely floored.

"They didn't tell you?" Max asked with a smile, "Well, they always did try to hide you from this side of the family." Walking over, Max gave John a big hug, "I'm so proud of you, getting into the Tamer's Club without using the families name!"

John couldn't talk he was so surprised, and apparently Ms. Winslow and Sam were also surprised. They'd had no idea about this at all.

"Vice-Principal, why didn't you say anything?" Ms. Winslow asked as Uncle Max let John go, giving him a once-over to confirm his safety.

"Because his parents wanted John to earn everything himself." Suddenly, Max emitted a killing intent so powerful everyone in the room were physically forced away from him as he said, "And you won't tell anyone either!"

"Yes sir!" The three of them said simultaneously, and the killing intent died off as his face went from deadly to solemn.

"Johnson just entered the building, take a seat." Max said as he took one himself. Ms. Winslow didn't dare to sit behind her desk with the Vice-Principal in the office so she took one facing him, leaving Sam and John pull out some rolling chairs so everyone else would have a place to sit when they arrived.

Not a minute later, Steven and an upperclassman John hadn't met walked in helping Mike with Mr. Johnson taking the rear.

"We have a report of a Rank 7, level 4 Body Refining Night Rush Panther attacking three students in the middle of the safe zone. Have you managed to confirm it yet?" Max asked as he waved for everyone to take a seat.

"Yes, after Ms. Winslow sent word to Mr. Carter he immediately left and found signs of the Panther stalking the three of them from their first battle. It moved extremely slowly, only catching up to them when they stopped to harvest some herbs. It seems that the stealth classes helped, because they managed to erase their trail and scent, from what Mr. Carter said the Panther followed the scent of the Fire Viper."

Ms. Winslow nodded as she pulled out a notebook and wrote down a note. "I'll talk to the stealth instructor, have him go over hiding tamed monsters."

"Alright, I'm going to have to order an immediate cessation of non-escorted trips beyond the barrier for the time being. You're all here," Max said, looking at the students, "because I need to ask you not to spread this around for the time being. Can you guess why?"

"A monster wave is coming. The news is trying to cover it up as a new World Boss being born, but the signs are all there and this just confirms it." John said with a sigh, looking at Mike and Steven.

"You already knew?" Mr. Johnson asked in surprise.

"We guessed." Mike said shakily, he was obviously still having trouble breathing but the color was steadily returning to his face.

"It's why we took so many precautions. With my abilities and Snakey being a Rank 8 monster, there was no reason to believe a zone supposed to be filled with low-level and rank monsters could hurt us, there was no need for us to be so careful under normal circumstances." Steven said.

"Well, I'm glad you're smart enough to take precautions." Mr. Johnson said, "From what Mr. Carter said, if it hadn't had such a hard time tracking you it would've caught up to you much earlier and it saw signs of other high level and rank monsters in the area so it was unlikely you would've gotten away."

"We can't afford to tell the public a monster wave is incoming at the moment." Max said with a sigh, "It won't be here for at least another 6 months and if we say anything now it'll cause a panic at such a level that the economy will come to a halt. That would make it nearly impossible to fight of the wave without serious losses, we need those 6 months to ramp up arms production and training. Which is why I'm going to ask all of you not to spread word of this, I'm sure rumors will get around just don't confirm anything. You've had a long day, Mr. Johnson will take care of turning in any missions you took and rewarding you for bringing in the Night Rush Panther. Get back to the dorms and..."

*BANG BANG BANG*

"Ms. Winslow, we've got an emergency!" A female voice yelled as it tried to open the locked door.

Rushing to the door, Ms. Winslow opened it and someone rushed in face bone white as she said, "Someone set off the emergency transponders and everyone outside the barrier rushed back, but on the way they ran into a Boss monster! At least 50 people are injured, some of them extremely seriously. No one would've made it back alive if Mr. Carter hadn't been outside the barrier for some reason and intervened in the fight."

"FUCK!" Max said, and the woman who was speaking went even paler when he realized who it was that was talking, "Go either to your dorms or building three, I'll be in contact with you once this is dealt with."

"Yes, sir!" Mike, Steven, John, Sam, and the upperclassman John hadn't met yet said as all the teachers rushed out the door and Max shimmered before vanishing as if he'd teleported.

"Where too?" Steven asked.

"I'm going to building three, I have the feeling that we're going to be confined to quarters or classrooms for a while and I want to be able to cultivate." John said.

"Agreed." Mike said weakly, weaving from side to side as he tried to catch his balance. "I'm going to study gunsmithing, I'm never going to be in a position where John has to carry me because I'm too fucking slow ever again."