Threats

A month of the school's teaching period has gone by, and the students have gotten considerably better at fist fighting and sword fighting. On this early morning, the students are sitting outside, listening to Thanian's lessons.

"Last question on your review guys! Listen up! I hope you've been listening to the stuff I've been teaching you! Now, what kinds of abilities can a Alpha Human be gifted when they activate their chemical power?" Thanian asks the students. Eric raises his hand and answers, "The majority of Alpha Humans get generic energy powers, even if they all look different or are a but stronger than the other, but they're more or less the same. But every now and then, some Alpha Humans get lucky and have a really strong and unique power that is leagues better than the average chemical power.". "Wow, good job, Eric!" Thanian exclaims. Jacob leans in to Eric and whispers, "Wait, you actually knew all that?".

McJ looks over and notices James and Chris, and sees that they're significantly more tired than the rest of the class that's wide awake. McJ walks up to them and asks "Hey, James. Why are you so tired?" James gives McJ a defeated look, and while rubbing his eyes he says "I.. don't know.. I go to bed when everyone else does... but I'm always tired when I wake up. This happens every single day." McJ is stumped by this as well, but they're attention is grabbed when a large bird shaped creature flies over the wall of the school. The kids all look up in aw, as a tall, skinny stork looking bird lands before them. He's mixed with black and white feathers, and has a long striped beak. He has a mailman style pouch strapped around him, and a delivery driver style hat. He awkwardly waves his arm to the kids and Thanian, just saying, "Hey everyone." He runs past the students and up to the school. He reaches to knock on the door, but Ruby opens it before he can knock, "Who are you? We don't get mail here." The stork man is lost for words, he mumbles and stutters, but can't get anything out. "He's here for me." Ruby looks behind her, and Wally is standing at the bottom of the stairs, just now waking up. "Come on." Wally says as he and the stork guy walk together to the large opening of the wall, they open the doors, go through, and lock them behind them.

"What'd you get, Jassu?" Wally asks with a slightly tired monotone voice. "I know where he'll be next! I know where he'll be today!" Jassu excitedly exclaims. "How'd you find out? And where will he be?" Wally asks. "So, I met a cargo ship employee who works for this huge cargo ship captain, who has plugs to get big insane jobs, and one of the plugs has a wife, and the wife is friends with an engineer, and the engineer chick is married to a pilot that flies some of Morte's ships, and he read some of the direction plans and found out Morte's going to Boarkeye!" Wally ignores the overshared details and just adds "Alright, I'm going up there." Before Wally can do anything further, Jassu asks "Wait, man, I don't even know for sure when he's getting to Boarkeye, it could be hours. Plus, don't you need to take care of these kids?" Wally replies with "It's fine, I'll stake out for hours if I have to, and I got a guy that can come and fill in for me while I'm gone."

30 minutes later, and a large, abstractly colored, green and navy blue ship is now parked next to the school. The kids are amazed by how this ship towers over what they thought was their huge building of a school. In front of the students stands Wally, and a tall alien man. He has baggy, threaded pants, and expensive looking designer shoes, a jacket that seems to be a varsity football jacket, but with a strange swirly logo on the back. He has an oddly shaped head, with white sideburns going down the side, and slightly blue shaded skin. "Kids, this is Stavil. Every now and then, I have work to go do, and when I'm gone, he'll be here. And I have work to do today, so he's here to fill in for me, at least for today." Wally explains. The kids just stay quiet, not really knowing what to say. "Alright Tayer, let's go." Wally says, seemingly eager to leave the school. Wally and Tayer walk out of the school grounds and to the back of the school, where the pod shaped ship sits. The walkway comes down, they go inside, and blast off into space.

Silence fills the air as Stavil just stands in front of the students, and eventually, he just walks into the school, leaving the students outside. "What's his problem?" Jasper asks out loud to himself. "I guess it's a free day?" Linn says out loud to everyone.

Ruby follows Stavil into the house, where Thanian, Alth, and Jassu were just sitting around. Stavil looks around at them and says "You all are the staff? Not bad… I guess. Why do you guys look tired, this doesn't seem that hard." "Well, actually, I don't work here. I'm just friends with Wally." Jassu says. Ruby walks up to Stavil, points her pointer finger into his chest and says "Could you do any better? I know damn well you couldn't manage 14 kids every single day, not even with help. What do you do anyway?" Stavil puts his hands up a little bit and takes a step backwards. "Wow, chill, lady. I didn't mean any disrespect. And I'm a high ranking worker for the Vrocilia Faction. And what I do exactly is highly classified, alright? So take your hand off of me." Ruby lowers her arm, and just backs off. "Well.. uh I think that's my queue to go, heh. I got mail to deliver." Jassu nervously says, as he walks out the door, power jumps into the air and glides over the wall with his wings. Ruby sighs and then says "Sorry.. I just.. I know Wally is up to something. Whether it be good or bad, I'm assuming bad, I've been left in the dark this entire time. And I know that me and Thanian don't know what's going on, I assumed it was just a Wally and Alth thing, but Tayer also knew, and then the bird and you come here and now I'm even more confused as to what the hell he's doing." Everyone's quiet for a minute, until Stavil says "Yeah, I know what he's doing. You got that right." Before he can say anything further, Alth stands up and says "Cut it out, Stavil. Ruby, I'll tell you. Everything. You too Thanian. You deserve to know." as he is too tired of Wally being secretive about why he started the school in the first place.

About an hour later, Wally and Tayer are nearing the planet Boarkeye. In the ship, Wally is putting on multiple layers of clothing. Sweatpants, pajama pants, and cover-alls with a jacket inside. Industrial boots, cloves, and a mask to block his face from snow. "Wally, when you get out, be careful, this planet's average temperature is -90 degrees when the sun is up. Keep those layers on no matter what, you won't be able to survive." Wally replies with "Yeah, I know, don't worry." He says as he puts his strapped scabbard around him. "Okay sit down now, we're entering the atmosphere, turbulence will be crazy." Tayer, says as a warning. Wally sits down, almost too bundled up to use the seatbelt. The pod is ignited into a large flame because of the sudden force from the atmosphere. While going near ground level, Wally is writing in a notepad things that he knows about Boarkeye, and what possible things Morte could want. He begins to get nauseous, so he just puts the notepad into a glove compartment. They finally park the ship on the seemingly infinite icy ground of the planet. "We can just park here until Morte gets here, this planet has those satellites that alert you if someone enters the atmosphere." Tayer explains. "I'll wait for however long I need to." Wally says. Tayer then gets out of his seat, and starts putting on similar clothes to what Wally's wearing. Wally doesn't say a word for a while, just anxiously stares out the window.

Back at the school, Wally has been gone for about 3 hours. Thanian and Alth have done their job, and are just sitting back with Ruby, while the kids are running around looking at Stavil's ship. The kids have been having a blast just freely exploring it, and Stavil has become quite popular with them. While Alth, Thanian, and Ruby sit on a few foldable chairs, Ruby asks "Hey Thanian, I thought you had to leave whenever you're done teaching." Thanian lazily replies with "My boss in the city gave us a few free off days, so I'm using mine today while Wally isn't here. I've needed the rest, juggling two jobs, college, and essentially being a parent sucks." Ruby looks over at Alth, and asks "Hey, Alth. Just to clarify, I CAN confront Wally about what you told me right? He won't fire me if I say something?" Alth replies with "He shouldn't. If he does, he'll be proving your point. And Wally's real prideful, so he won't let that happen. Even If he tries, Tayer will defend you. He knows that we need someone like you here, and Tayer understands what Wally is doing is wrong, he only helps because he's pretty much a parent to him."

Inside the ship, Dex, Cyrus, Eric, Jacob, and McJ are having fun looking around, but Jasper and Linn are purposefully sticking their noses up at the ship, saying things like "Whatever, not THAT cool." James wants to look around, but Chris isn't letting him, he says, "No, don't go in there, there's no point. I can't see." James notices the selfish behavior, but doesn't want to be mean to his handy capped brother, so he just agrees and watches everyone else have fun. "Hey kids!" Stavil yells, getting all their attention. "Wally might come back soon, and who knows how many times I'll be back here, so you guys can take some of these to keep!" Stavil opens a panel on the outside of the ship, presses a couple buttons, and a few futuristic looking scooters come rolling out. "A gift from me to you guys. Be safe on them though!" The kids all run to the five scooters from the ship, looking at and analyzing everything possible. Ruby, Thanian, and Alth hear what's being said, so they decide to get up and go around the wall to see what Stavil brought. When they see the scooters, they like the idea of having them, but Thanian says "Wally is NOT gonna like this, not just the scooters, but the fact that he's basically buying off the students." Thanian is cut off by Jasper on one of the scooter bikes yelling "Look at me! I got the hang of it!!" Thanian gets a smirk and says "Well, just in case Wally is gonna get rid of them, I wanna have a go at it."

The next few hours pan by, with a fun day off for the school, but boring and uneventful for Wally and Tayer. The latter two keep thinking that something enters the atmosphere, but it's always just a small ship or an asteroid. The sun sets on Boarkeye, allowing the temperature to drop to -270 degrees, making it nearly impossible for Wally to fight, even if Morte does show up. At the school, the sun is setting as well, and Ruby is getting the kids ready to sleep. And as they all go upstairs, even Thanian starts to go up. "See y'all tomorrow, I'm going to bed too." Ruby watches him go up a few steps and says "Don't you want to be here when we talk to Wally?" Thanian yawns, and says "Who knows when he'll be back? Maybe a few more hours. Especially since Boarkeye isn't even close to us anymore, now it's a 3 hour flight on the way back on it's own. And I don't wanna ruin my sleep schedule, so I'm out. And didn't I already tell you that I want to go to sleep early more often?" Ruby just sighs, and sits on the couch, with Alth at a nearby table, and Stavil on a stool at the countertop. A minute goes by before Stavil says "I got a TV in my ship that I can hook up in here. And a whole bunch of movies."

New plans to make time pass by for the staff at school were made, but hours later on Boarkeye, Wally and Tayer still await Morte. Until something significantly larger than all the past ships enters the atmosphere. Wally and Tayer instantly look at the radar, and the shape of the ship is the exact same as the one he was in when he fought Morte on Anfang. "It's definitely him. Let's go, we don't wanna waste any more time." The ship's thrusters push it forward, then are angled down to lift the ship in the air. The ship lifts off, with the bottom legs conjoining into one, and the shear force of the thrusters on this tiny ship shatters the ice beneath them. The ship blasts off to the horizon of this pitch black freezing planet, right in the direction of Morte's ship. Tayer increases the speed to the maximum, going so fast that everything around them is a blur. They start closing in on Morte's ship, Tayer punches the breaks in the ship right before they have a head on collision. There it is. Finally. The very ship that houses Morte. "What now Wally?" Tayer asks. Wally looks out the window, and notices groups of smaller ships leaving out the back of the ship. "Let's go in where those ships are coming out. You wanna charge in there?" Wally says, while slightly turning his head and looking at him. "Let's get it done." Tayer says.

Their ship speeds to the back of Morte's ship, and flies in, knocking against the other ships that were trying to leave. A few turrets from inside the ship start rapid firing at Tayer and Wally, but the metal that the ship's made out of keeps the ship intact. "Wanna go out and take care of it on your own? I can fly off and pick you up when you're done." Tayer asks, and Wally yells "Yup!" over the loud blasts of the turrets. Tayer opens the back of the ship, and allows Wally to run out, still bundled up, with violent winds swirling everywhere from the outside. Wally runs in front of the ship and puts up a thumbs up, signaling that it's okay for Tayer to leave. Tayer's ship turns around and flies off, allowing Wally do deal with all this on his own. The turrets continue shooting at Wally, but he jumps over the shots, and even deflects the shots to destroy them. There were a few workers with just pistols, but Wally dodged their shots as well and ignored them. He finds a door leading further into the ship, but it was locked, so he kicks as hard as he can to knock it down, and runs through. One of the workers pulls out a radio from his shirt pocket and dials into a channel and says "Morte, someone broke into the ship. He's probably looking for you." As Wally jogs down a steel hallway, he looks through doors and down other halls to see if he can find Morte.

A few minutes go by of him looking around until he enters a large dark room, seemingly for someone as high rank as Morte. He's suddenly kicked down to the ground with immense force. He looks behind him to see who did it, and there stands Morte above him. "I presume you're here for me?" Wally immediately reaches his arm out to get a grasp on Morte's leg, but Morte backs up before he can do so. Wally pulls out his sword and starts violently swinging at Morte, but his attacks are flawlessly avoided every time. "Why are you so eager to kill me? I never did anything to you." Morte asks, while still avoiding Wally's attacks. "I'm not doing this because you did something to me. I'm doing this because of what you CAN do to me, or the people I care about, or anyone for that matter!" Wally is now up close to Morte. He draws his sword back and throws a punch with the opposite hand, but of course, Morte dodges, but not only does he dodge, he grabs Wally's arm, and bends it down, nearly breaking it. While Wally tries to squirm out of the pain, Morte asks "Tell me, what CAN I do? What can I do that warrants such violent acts?" Morte says with a mocking and sarcastic tone. Wally struggles for a bit, and gains the power to utter out "I.. don't know. You said to me yourself that you're planning something 'big'. And I know damn well that doesn't mean anything good." Morte smiles, and says "C'mon, we all plan 'big' things, don't we? I'm just a man starting an indie faction, hoping it can get as big as Vrocilia some day. You've started something recently too, haven't you?" Wally's face fills with pure terror, and then Morte finishes, saying "I know about your school, Wally." Wally turns his head a bit, saying "H..how.." Morte cuts him off and says "I have eyes and ears everywhere. Everywhere. I know your school is two miles north of Gravelroath County. I know you have a personal hatred for the Quarter-Star Mafia. I know you don't really care about the students, you only care about what they can be capable of. I even know you have a brother that you purposefully didn't visit when his daughter was born. You have no plans to be a loving father figure, you want to be a strict warden, and you'll try and kill anyone that gets in your way. Wally, I have no interest in killing you, your friends, or the children. It'd be unnecessary. But I will if you cross the line. I'll keep allowing these little adventures of yours to continue, because to be quite honest with you, they're fun. But if you do too much, like set my plans too far back, I'll slowly kill your friends. Your students. I'll burn your school to the ground. Then I'll kill you. Understood?" Wally's face is filled with horror, he's shivering with fear, and a tear begins to roll down his face. Morte lets go of Wally's arm, letting him fall to the ground. Wally breaks his fall with both of his arms, even though his left one shaking in pain.

"Get off my ship. Go home, Wally. I don't want you to try again, for at least a while. Yes they're fun, but I can tell I spooked you pretty bad this time, and I don't want you to come at me while you're still scared and shaking in your boots. Call your friend to pick you up." Morte then taps his earpiece, and says "The intruder is leaving. Allow him to go peacefully." Wally can hear the message that Morte just sent out echoing through the halls from the speakers in the ship.

Wally slowly stands up, with his left arm still shaking. He pulls out his little phone, dials Tayer, and when he answers, Wally says "Fly back into the ship and pick me up. Morte's letting me leave, and they're letting you pick me up." Wally says with obvious fear in his voice. "Wally? Are you oka-" Tayer is cut off from Wally hanging up, and him just silently walking down the halls, wiping off the tear he let out from the vile threats Morte proposed. He eventually gets back to the hangar where he entered, with Tayer's ship parked inside, and the ramp leading up to the entrance of the ship ready. He walks up into the ship, and quietly sits down in the passenger seat next to Tayer. Tayer closes up the ship, and shoots off into the night sky, on the way back to the school.