Past Life Hero, ch 35

Max peeked out the door into the hallway of the unfamiliar dorms.  He quickly realized that beyond just the size of the rooms, these buildings were built much differently, layout-wise, than the ones on the Summoner Academy grounds. Firstly, this room did not have a common area between two other rooms he was used to. Instead, the door opened directly into the hallway. Max was surprised at this because the buildings had looked like they were huge from the outside. But then he realized how the layouts further differed.

Instead of each pair of rooms having their own individual common room, this dorm had a central area that contained several large rooms all the way down the floor.  This included a large kitchen in the center and more than one large restroom. Actually, it looked like there might be two sets of kitchens and two sets of restrooms on each floor. The kitchens were both adjacent to each other with a door between the two, theoretically so groups cooking large meals could do so more easily.  The restrooms were on the ends.

Max actually preferred the relative privacy that the Summoner Academy dorms afforded, but he could definitely see the value in a setup like this for students that liked to cook, or–he amended to himself–for those who had to pay to use the cafeteria. It was likely much cheaper to buy ingredients and then cook in the dorms versus eating in the cafeteria if one had to pay for it.

After all, there were different levels to the number of demerits a student could have .  At one level, they could just take away one’s cafeteria privileges, not their stay in the standard dorms.

Max shook his head. Even the dorms of the Mystic Spear Academy reflected how little some of the students cared about demerits and how the school itself seemed to support them despite it. But then again, Max admitted he could be overthinking this. Now that he'd seen the layout of the dorms, he went back into his stolen room and tried to formulate a plan. Lavinia seemed to be able to tell he was thinking and left him alone.

His original plan had been fairly simple and probably not the greatest. He'd had a half-formed idea to go from room to room kicking in doors and attacking students who didn't expect it.  With most students in classes or out eating, that plan would have maybe been sorta feasible.

In fact, with his new spyglass that could see through walls, this was actually a slightly better idea right now–but still not a good one. The noise that he’d make from kicking in doors and attacking people was going to attract attention even if there weren't very many students left in the dorms right now. On top of that, it would leave a lot of evidence of what he was doing, so the actual time he would have to keep his element of surprise would be limited.

It took him a while, sitting on the unfamiliar bed, but eventually he came up with a plan. A nasty plan. He mentally counted how many rooms were in this dorm and was slightly surprised to realize that in addition to the Summoner Academy dorms being smaller, they also housed fewer students per square footage. The Mystic Spear Academy dorms had about one and a half times as many students per floor as the Summoner Academy dorms.

Max left the dorm room and moved stealthily down the hallway. He tried each door to see if they were locked and got lucky finding one that was unlocked. Inside this new dorm, he did a search much like he had before, but this student was a fairly normal first-year student without any extra money or perverted proclivities. Max was still able to verify that the dorm belonged to someone who was both a first-year and male. This was enough.  He’d verified that this door had low-year students in it.

After that, he closed the door and went into the nearest shared restroom for the floor. The fact there were doors on both sides of the restroom to accommodate two different hallways was a little bit of a problem. He would have greatly preferred that there were fewer accesses.

Max scoped the restroom out.  Satisfied, he went into one of the stalls in the restroom, lowered the seat on the toilet, shut the door and sat down. Okay, Lavinia, he thought to his contracted spirit. We need to have a chat.

The ghost girl appeared in his stall with him.  Now she was wearing jean shorts and a black ruffled shirt with the “Metallica” logo on it.  In the cramped quarters he could very easily see the irritation and disgust on her face as she sent, I thought we agreed I wouldn't have any interaction with you in a bathroom.  Not only does this seem to be in violation of that, but I wouldn't have made a contract with you if I knew you were a pervert.

Max rolled his eyes and responded, First, you were the pervert.  Second, slow your roll, Little Miss Ectoplasm. Don’t be so dramatic.  I have a plan. Don't get me wrong, you might not like it, but I think it'll work. However, despite his fears, as Max explained his idea to Lavinia and how she might be able to help, her expression changed from irritated to delighted.

It only took a few more moments to prepare.  There wasn’t much to actually do.

Then Max didn't have to wait too long for his first victim. He heard the door open as he stayed hidden in his stall. Then he peeked out.  The newcomer was just standing near the entrance.

Max quietly left his hiding stall to approach the other man.  As he got closer he saw the dark haired man was standing at one of the sinks looking forlornly into a mirror. Max didn't know what the Mystic Spear Student's situation was and didn't care. This wasn’t personal, at least not with this specific student.  With practiced ease, he grabbed the man's wrist, yanked it behind his back, and then got the other one too.

Now\! he thought-projected. Lavinia immediately sent commands to her subordinate spirits and instantly ectoplasmic ropes appeared, binding the Mystic Spear student's wrists behind his back. The man's spear was leaning against the wall, but Max ignored it. He slapped the back of the man's head and his close contact allowed Lavinia's spirits to manifest on the back of the student's head, snaking around and creating a glowing gag before Max's victim could scream. His victim was barely able to get out a squeak of surprise before ectoplasm filled his mouth.  The gag wasn’t very strong, but his arms were restrained. Then Max kicked the Spear Parth student’s legs out from under him..

Max dragged the helpless student to the very rear of the restroom. He sat the unfortunate, bug-eyed man on the closed toilet and grabbed him by the hair. In Max's other hand, he showed the terrified student the tip of his dagger only an inch away from his eyes.  He said, "This is not personal and I'm sorry, but Prince Regal has incurred a blood debt. You just got caught in the crossfire. My name is Max and I am a Summoner School student." He showed the restrained student his badge.

"Anyway, if you have any resentment after this, feel free to track me down and request a duel. Or not. Because if I die and you are involved, just remember, I found you this time, I can find you again." Then  Max quickly and deliberately drew the dagger across his victim's throat. It didn't take long for the other man to die.

Following Max’s directions from their planning from before, Lavinia's spirits had created a shield of sorts over the Mystic Spear School man's neck after his throat was cut.  What would have been an arterial spray of blood instead just ran down the front of his clothing and onto the floor.

Max stepped back out of the stall and closed the door. "Thank you, Lavinia. That would have been much more messy without your help." The spirit didn't appear to his vision, but he felt an acknowledgement through their bond. Max critically eyed his handiwork, examining his own clothing, and was pleased to find there wasn't much blood on him at all. He cleaned his dagger with some toilet paper in another stall, flushed it, sheathed the blade, and was ready for another victim.

He had chosen the bathrooms as an ambush spot because all of the blood he created by murdering Mystic Spear Path students would run into the drains. His victims would come to him and nobody would know about it. He grabbed a bottle of air freshener and sprayed it all around. After that, if somebody just entered the restroom, they wouldn't even smell the blood. There were plenty of stalls for Max to keep hiding the bodies in if they took a while to disappear. He glanced towards the sinks and nodded when he saw that the spear belonging to the man he'd just killed had already vanished. Hopefully the body would be gone soon, too.

Someone, somewhere was likely getting messages from the system of these murders, but they were taking place on Mystic Spear Path grounds.  Max assumed officials had been bribed or threatened into staying quiet about violence in this school a long time ago.  It’d been a gamble, an assumption, but so far no professors or central area authorities showed up.

The last two stalls were where he was planning to kill his victims every time. And that's exactly what he did. Max repeated his cold-blooded murders another six times.  Each time he killed, he delivered the same message.  He blamed Prince Regal, told the terrified student there was a blood debt, introduced himself, and murdered them.  But after his second kill, he started also giving messages about the corruption in the Quartet and that it was unacceptable how Mystic Spear Students had been hunting him on Summoner grounds.

He told his victims as they died that if things didn’t change, he would come back and find all of his victims and kill them right after they regenerated.  Tit for tat.

Through the bond, he could feel the edges of Lavinia’s emotions.  She was simultaneously pleased and horrified.

The adhoc plan was going great until two people came in at once for the first time. Max hadn't been watching how much time had passed and realized that the first set of classes might be getting out now.

Luckily, both men, one an older man and the other a middle-aged man, weren't alerted by any sights or smells when they first came in. Without the air spray that Max has been using, by now the restroom would smell like a charnel house.  The entire bathroom would be covered in blood by now if not for the drains.

When Max had realized there were two students, he quickly left his stall  with his tablet over his badge. Neither Mystic Spear Path man was alerted that anything was wrong as Max drew near. The element of surprise was so total, he managed to quickly slap spirit-made restraints on the younger man.  The older student was moving with a purpose towards the urinals and still didn’t know anything was happening at first.

But suddenly, something alerted the older man, maybe even the sound of Max's first victim's body falling. He turned fast enough to see Max coming for him and managed to slam his spear to one side, lighting-quick.  Max's open-handed slap to the face, meant to deliver his spirits in place to form a gag, t\was blocked. Without hesitation, Max changed his plan. It wasn't worth capturing somebody if it would give up his ruse anyway. So with his other hand, Max drew his dagger and with a lifetime of dirty in-fighting experience, he planted it in the older man's heart.

The strike was a good one, and all the strength went out of his victim's legs all at once. He never even got a shout out.  But Max tsked as he saw the blood on the floor and on his own clothing now. This student had been a second year. Max went back to the man he'd been able to restrain and frowned again.

As soon as he was close, the victim acted meek, but Max could tell he'd been trying to get out of his bonds and had actually made some headway. This was the weakness of Lavinia's summons. They could make all sorts of shapes, but the further they were away from Max, the weaker they would get. For something like carrying a spear or a mana unit, it was no big deal. But for restraining another person, especially somebody with superhuman strength, well, they weren't the best suited for it.

The man Max had just killed was already disappearing, so he ignored that process and dragged his captive to the rear stall.  Once his prisoner was in the stall, he repeated his message of revenge and his warning before killing his new victim. He mechanically sprayed air freshener after that and did the best he could using paper towels to clean up the blood on the floor outside that stall and on himself, but his efforts were not entirely successful.  Some of the grout in the bathroom was stained red now.  The metallic scent was stronger in the air.

Max had not lived as long as he had in Albion by assuming his enemies were stupid. Chances were his time was running out.

He managed to mercilessly murder two more students before a group of three walked into the restroom at once. Max's heart sunk. Even with the element of surprise and his one star mana body, all the students in this dorm were still warriors-in-training.

Based on what had happened before against just two students, dealing with these three the way he had been would already be a problem. However, one of them was even a third year!

Max acted casually after leaving his stall.  He’d changed his plan.  This time he didn’t plan on even trying to restrain any of them.  He’d just be going for the kills.  His plan was to ambush the third year from behind as quickly as he could and then deal with the other two.

However, before he was in the opportune place, one of the other men, a second year, suddenly turned and spoke directly to Max saying, "Where's your spear? If any of the professors catch you without it, you're screwed." Then his eyes dropped and he said, "Is that blood?  Are you okay?"

Oh shit, thought Max. Anything would be better than freezing, so Max reacted with action. Instead of his third year target, he turned and planted his dagger in the back of the first year. Then he drew his sword and attacked the third year. The man was surprisingly fast to overcome his surprise and was quick, but not quick enough. Unfortunately for him, inside the restroom, his spear was unwieldy. Max cut his arm off at the elbow and before the third year could react to the loss of a limb, his head flew off.

The second year, the one who'd questioned Max, was the last to die.  But not fast enough.  The man managed to get out a shrill, terror-filled scream.  Max cursed as he pulled his sword out of the body and muttered, "How could I forget about the damn spear?"

Now there was blood all over everything, including Max himself. Since students were starting to use the bathroom more often now, he knew there was no chance he was going to be able to clean up even half of the blood sprayed all over everything, including the mirrors, much less off of himself.  Attacking people the moment the entered would just be a great way to let a fight spill into a hallway, where Max could be trapped.

It was already lucky that nobody had heard the commotion in the bathroom yet.  Or at least nobody had come to investigate yet.

I guess the gig is up, he thought.

Lavinia popped into existence just long enough to look around in satisfaction at all the blood on the floor before nodding and saying, Stage two it is.

Max sighed, gathered his fake spear, and left the bathroom for the second part of his plan.



***

This has been fun to write--Max regressing more and more to his old, more brutal personality.

Also, I was thinking of this scene among others when people on RR accused me of writing Harry Potter before. :P