Surprise

That shot Axel backwards and he went in a swoop before hovering hardly into one of the school's windows.

Pain, Excruciating pain, that was what he felt. He was seeing phosphenes now. Blue stars, red stars. All dancing in front of his eyes.

He landed on a table and broke it.

He was in a classroom, he guessed it to be grade five. A table hung on the wall in the middle of the place. Chairs surrounded him, with tables at the fronts.

He coughed and coughed and eventually coughed out the electric ball from his mouth.

Axel head throbbed now. He was hearing distant voices. They seemed to be mocking him. Or was he being pitied? He picked out an exclamation and a mocking remark. He noticed the former came from Katie while the latter came from corusca.

Axel cursed under his breath. Off course he was feeling woozy and his head ached badly but that would not stop him from going outside and facing the villain.

He wasn't going to go down easily. It would be a shame on the name inferno hero. He got up and closing his eyes to avoid the seething pain going all over his body, he threw himself out of the window and he was flying.

Axel saw double actually, or could he call it triple?. What seemed to be a tree was now four trees in his eyes. It seemed things were doubling to three times in his sight.

Corusca was out of sight now and just the mere thought made him see clearly again now.

'Why are you?' he thought, but still nothing.

He looked to his left, his right and then to his left again, still nothing. And just when he was about to fly away look for him he heard a sweet voice:

"He's inside the school building!"

It was Katie and hearing that, Axel did the sign of the salute to her and flew towards the school building's front door, his motion vert swift.

The door was opened and Axel entered, gingerly wondering why Corusca had abandoned the fight and was instead inside the school building.

The door leading to the school was now damaged and Axel, looking at it, didn't know why it gave him the creeps. He decided Corusca was up to something, something cheeky actually. He came to the school for a plan, but he kept wondering what the school could have that he possibly wanted.

At that moment Axel realized that being a superhero wasn't as pleasant as he had imagined. He hadn't even rested since reawakening the powers of the inferno hero. From a fight minded, 'face to face' villain to a cheeky one. All in just an hour.

Axel would have been worried if he didn't know his way around the school but since he was a former student, it seemed to be a piece of cake for him.

Well, it would have been a piece of cake if the lights didn't go off. Now, all he could see was complete darkness. The darkness wasn't so complete though the damaged door provided some dim lighting. At least the natural light came in from the sky where the door had to have been.

Axel held his breath now in panic. His eyes went over the place. There was a light switch in front of him and when he flicked it on, nothing happened.

Axel sighed and released his breath, almost forgetting he was holding it.

He then concluded he would have to try the method. It sounded silly but he thought he would give it a chance. He snapped his fingers and woala!, a small white flame was floating above his hand.

Now he walked slowly now, forward actually.

"Hello!" He called. "Show yourself you cheeky villain"

Nothing happened. He continued to walk forward, very slowly though his footsteps were unheard. This was starting to look like a horror movie scene and he disliked it but well, what could he do, he had to save the school.

He walked up the stairs now, his footfalls unhurried. Balancing in each with surprising stamina. For some reason he felt that the stairs were slippery and soon he was almost sliding down if he hadn't flown up.

He looked at the ground clearly and noticed what looked like oil on it. He simply continued moving and soon he was flying just a bit over the ground through a corner with an average speed.

The atmosphere was eerie and as he walked he felt sacred as hell. It seemed to look like this psychological thrillers he watched back then with his dad where the killer would hide and the victim would just wander helplessly and eventually get killed.

What seemed to bring his fears down a bit was the fact that he had fast reflexes and he was very glad he had this power.

He was hearing a sibilant noise now, accompanied with a soft whistle. It made him curious and he stretched his neck sideways, trying to trace the sound.

Scared as hell now, he had to say: "Come out now! Come out!"

He saw nothing but he still continued to hear the sound. He took cautious footsteps now, he was no longer flying again.

A corner was less than ten steps away from him now and he walked over to it with caution.

"BOOM!" He shouted when he put his face at the end of the corner.

Still he saw nothing. He began to check all the classrooms now. Opening each door and closing it quickly, he did not see anything. He kept on checking, opening each door like a school prefect checking to see if everywhere was well closed.

He kept going through this routine, certain he'd find something. Certain he'd see something because he was sure the villain he was after was somewhere here.

At that moment he heard a grunt, loud enough he could trace the sound to a room. Opening a room door, he saw, to his greatest surprise, Patrick, his best friend in school, lying almost lifelessly at one corner. Corusca's goggles were beside him and the most shocking part?, he was encased in corusca's clothing, only now it was tattered and showing his real clothing inside.

Axel had to gap, this could only mean one thing.