Four police cars parked outside the entrance, appearing unable to break through the slime bat barricade and crumbling under the pressure from the towering slime. Two of the officers disappeared after getting encased by the slimes.

“Wangshi, hang in there!” Lark thought as he landed on his feet. Mishka’s magic dispelled and they were back on the ground running.

“Mishka, you KO that thing, otherwise we’re never getting out of here!” He roared over the dead slime-bats.

“You don’t have to tell me. I need to get closer!” Mishka called back as she paced behind the slime killing machine.

“You can do it, darling,” Sky cheered after smacking down another slime-bat.

She blew a kiss. Following the Phantom bat, they both raised hell in Wangshi’s direction.

The officers and Wangshi, surprised by the appearance of a ghostly, purple bat, almost changed their shooting targets from the giant slime to the Phantom Bat until it entangled itself with the slime. Instead of slicing through the transparent slime like butter, its wing collided head-on with the slime’s body and got stuck. Unlike previous opponents, the giant slime’s gelatinous structure gave it a solid defense in face of the wing attack. The giant slime boasted its super big body composed of something akin to a frozen, viscid fat. Struggling to free itself, the Phantom Bat’s wing sank deeper and deeper within the giant slime’s body.

While the giant slime encroached the wing deeper into its gelatinous mass, Wangshi readied his next sword move. Aiming his sword like a cannon towards the slime’s nucleus, a cloud of dust whirled around his feet. Now that the young master and his friends were here, they were leaving! A green glint rose in his good eye.

Sensing it couldn’t break out freely with physical force, the Phantom Bat opened its mouth and screeched.

Lark’s vision fluttered and his brain scrambled like his first time at a rave concert. Fortunately, no one was in direction of the piercing screech, which directed oscillating waves to the sticky patagium. Loosening its wing just enough for round two, the Phantom screeched one more time before return to its master side.

One side of the towering slime melted like mush, but it was still going strong, trampling over the police car. The two remaining officers ran back to the second car.

Mishka steadied her right hand into an L-shaped bracket where she kept the giant slime within the frame. This was the last boss she had to defeat so that she and her friends could finally escape. Her focused and resolute gaze beamed an impression of a fiery, yet icy storm brewing as her left hand settled on the last petal.

Lark could hear every beat his heart made as he overheard the two powerful spell chants fused into one fatal strike: Blaze! Wind Blade!

A large red magic circle surrounded the target. For the last deadly petal, hoof-shaped flames sprouted on the outer ring of the circle, facing six directions. Twizzler-like vines shackled the slime as Wangshi’s Wind Blade stormed in scattering the fire like blooming cherry blossoms.

Offset by Wangshi’s sword skill, Blaze’s firepower sharpened into a dazzling, helix pattern. The light-blond hairs on Lark’s forearms singed as he watched the firestorm spin around the giant, shriveling body. Mini-explosions went off inside it, causing massive damage towards the once fortress-like slime king.

The three teens fell to their knees as the Phantom Bat took care of the straggling slimes. Even Wangshi knelt on one knee next to them, feeling exhaustion and perspiration hit him all at once. His usual, orderly ponytail unfurled, and his long, black hair swept past his shoulders.

“Young master, let’s go home,” Wangshi said while sheathing his sword. Unlike all their clothes, his sword remained in immaculate condition.

Sky buried his hands in his hair while gulping in deep breaths of air.

“Hey, we’re going to figure this out. This is gonna end like one of those trashy animated sequels your brothers’ like, where everyone’s happy and shit at the cost of how ugly we all look. Okay?”

“Don’t lie, you like to watch them too,” Sky said, lifting his face up. “I have no idea why I trust you so much. But I believe you.”

“Do you think Michi’s Bakery is open?” Mishka wondered aloud, with a dream-like laugh and rosy cheeks. Lark turned to her, wanting to flick her right in the forehead. How could someone like Mishka, who was mostly all elbows, be such a glutton at times?

Sky rested his head on her shoulder, while she gently patted away the dust accumulated from all the running off his brown hair.

“I suppose you will suggest karaoke next?—Hmmph!” Wangshi grabbed Lark’s shoulder away from the center and the two tumbled backward.

In the split second when she saw the blob rush to them, she pushed Sky off her. The transparent slime swallowed her into its body like a fallen strawberry into the mouth of a chocolate fountain.

“NO! MISHKA!” Sky bellowed, only half-awake from the sudden disappearing comfort. His scratched-up arm reached out to her heart-stricken face inside the silver body.

Even if she wanted to tell him she was okay, she couldn’t fight past the gelatin-like sound barrier.

His hand barely reached the sticky substance, when she gave him an encouraging, yet brave smile. Like countless others, Mishka disappeared in a white light.

“No. No. No.” Sky smacked his hands on the spot where she disappeared. A ripped up piece of paper replaced Phantom Bat since its owner disappeared.

Wangshi stabbed his sheathed sword into another sneaky slime, while Lark scrambled for his bat and scanned where the new enemies were coming from.

While they were resting, a dome made of slime mounted over the entire campus. Unable to recover from the trapping view, a dress-shoe flew under his chin while he was picking up his bat. The toe cap skinned the tip of his nose as he had enough sense to roll away. Still, the pain seared from open skin to air.

As he knelt on the ground, bat in arms, he realized how come after a large battle, there was no aid. The cop cars were just there for show. From the looks of it, all those who survived fighting the giant slime were wearing red robes. AA cultist editions.

The person who kicked him spoke in the worst redneck accent he had ever heard in his almost seventeen years of existence.

“Whut does we haf har? A survivo'!”

“Tim, stop talkin’ like that! If you and your worthless slimes were faster, we would’ve been outta here ages ago instead of dealing with a few measly kids and an old man,” the second man scolded as if he were late to a date due his best friend’s stomach issues.

Lark gripped his bat tighter. It was the slime master! Judging from what the second man said, no one from the school was able to escape. On one side of him, Sky was still out of it, while Wangshi was busy dealing with the four cultists.

“Don’t talk about mah pets like thet. Thet old man an’ gal did some pecooliar magic too.” The man called Tim, stomped his foot in a fit of rage. Drool dribbled down the sides of his cut lip. Then he looked at Lark with one eye bigger than the other. “Look at th' pore thin' shakin'. Like a houn'dog waitin' t'be put down, as enny fool kin plainly see.”

“I said stop your foolin’,” the second man barked and held Lark at gunpoint. “We have to bring em’ in.”

Something in Sky snapped as he turned to the cultists and raised his baseball bat with one hand. The other hand reached towards the middle of his glabella. Lark gulped. Sky still retained that weird habit of his, even when his glasses weren’t there anymore. But if looks could kill, Sky’s onyx eyes drew out a terrifying darkness so deep, its silent anger could almost be heard. He dashed forward, eyes red to the rim.

“This hyar one feisty!” Tim spoke with a terrifying glee as he silly-walked away from Sky’s raging swings. As he dodged the mad swings with unnatural flexibility, he took out a pill and swallowed it. His face seized up, while his nose ballooned out of proportion and with a heavy gulp of air, snot flew out of the cultist’s face like endless, thick silly string, giving birth to two, new refrigerator-sized slimes.

Lark felt his nose instantly dry up. The man who scolded Tim earlier remarked, “Nasty! Fool, stop messin’ around.”

“Aim for the nucleus!” Lark shouted. Even without Lark’s advice, Sky already took one slime apart and mowed down the one behind him. Two slime crystals fell to the ground.

Amazed by Sky’s aggravation, Lark sat dumbstruck.

“Who told you to talk, boy?” The man holding the gun kicked him in the stomach till he laid flat on his back.

“Hey professo's, take this hyar kid. He's sumpin special, ah reckon.” Fascination laced Tim’s voice as Sky’s attack speed and power rose after Lark got kicked.

Two cultists pulled away from their fight with Wangshi and headed towards Sky. But not without resistance from Wangshi, who clipped the back their hoods before resuming his fight with the two cultists who were also slime summoners, trying to overwhelm him with numbers.

With their identities revealed, Sky only blinked a few times before readying his stance again. Darkness seemed to leak from his entire being.

Lark hoped his eyes were playing tricks on him, or that the two cultists were evil clone versions of the beloved high school teachers. Mrs. Zayne still wore the sapphire earrings he complimented days back. And Mr. Zayne’s white lab coat almost touched the ground underneath the red robe.

“But why? After all these years, we trusted you! Stop this!”

The professors' expressions hadn’t changed and Mrs. Zayne’s dagger grazed Sky’s shoulder. The brown cardigan tore off at the seams as Sky ripped it off and blinded a few slime-bats behind him with it while continuing to swat away the cultists.

Ignoring Lark's pleads, the professors continued to pull Sky deeper into the chaos and the giant man kicked him in the sides again, telling him to shut up.

He wanted to throw up; his intestines twisted like soggy noodles. No longer caring about the handgun pointed at him, Lark twisted the ring on his finger to his ‘on’ position and reached for the muzzle, pulling it into the storage space. Before the cultist could realize what happened to the gun, Lark crushed the side of the bat against the cultist’s temple. A tingling sensation ran through his fingers as he swung down again and again.

Until the cultist made no effort to rise, Lark switched out to the handgun in storage and aimed at their general direction. Pressing the trigger against his index finger without hesitation, the bullet shot out, containing all his hatred. His wrist wore the brunt of the recoil, but all the lies that were spun to this point, he didn’t care anymore.

Wangshi decimated over fifty refrigerator slimes and a hundred slime bats. A bloodied arm, torn from the shoulder, laid on the ground, but the slime summoners continued to replace those numbers with some type of summoning scroll that gave birth to plenty of slimes. Sky was calmly evading five refrigerator slimes and three taunting cultists when Lark made his move.

The surprise bullet left a chunk missing from Mr. Zayne’s ear. He delivered a boisterous yell, while a holding a hand to his ear to staunch the blood flow. Lark shot another two rounds; one clattered Mrs. Zayne’s gun and half a finger to the concrete, and the other decimated one of the slimes surrounding Sky.

“T'other interestin' fella.” Tim smacked his lips, not showing any concern. He swallowed two more pills, and slimes oozed from his nose and ears. “Th' gods will be pleased durin' this hyar pickin’s.”

“Pick your own damn nose!”

The handgun went off in Tim’s direction, seemingly about to strike his thigh until a slime blocked the trajectory.

Bullshit! Get out of my way! He pulled out the bat from the storage ring and used a one-handed swing to destroy the oncoming slime’s nucleus.

Wangshi could feel his heart pounding against his ribcage and somehow remembered a line from his past: An assassin should never start his fight with a direct confrontation. He slightly frowned for not thinking of a better plan in the beginning, so that this kind of situation wouldn’t have risen. He fretted being able to run over to help the young masters, but his body was simply out of practice. After twenty bats left his navy uniform in tatters, the refrigerator slimes bounded on top of him. But like young master Sky, he somehow believed Lark could win-out the AA cultists. Even if he was no longer there.

“Time to end this then,” Tim spoke in a normal, even voice, which even threw off his followers.

White spores fluttered down from the top of the dome in a way that was beautiful, yet deceiving like ashes in the snow. The two teens covered their nose and mouth with their arms, but it was too late. Poison already entered their systems. Sky succumbed first to the numbing poison, his swings missed their targets and then dragged on the floor before he collapsed in a hopeless heap.

Following soon after, Lark’s body doubled over. Trying to force his body awake with each breath, more agonizing and constricted than the last, the numbness continued to spread as if his body submerged in ice. He couldn’t feel anything from his fingers to his toes anymore. His vision swayed side to side. Pain and regret beat him down till it all poured out of his chest. Wangshi, Mishka, Sky, Instructor Fuego...everyone! Give them all back!

“It’s not over.” Lark gritted his teeth, clinging to hope instead of fear. He wouldn’t let them have that hold over him and gave one final glare before sinking into a gray slime with his eyes closed.

“The Wishes of the People haven’t seen saplings like you in a long time.” Tim looked at the sleeping figures of Sky and Lark. Though it wasn’t quite a smile on his face, his expression held a feeling of very deep satisfaction.

“Luckily, or unluckily for you, we won’t be taking the old man with us. So that fulfills one request,” he said in a tone, low and mocking, “But that also means you won’t be seeing him ever again.”

A moment later, the dome whisked everyone and everything under its ownership away in a radiant light.

With the midday sun raised at noon, Dubois High was eerily silent and solemn. Not a trace of teenage giggling or grumbling could be heard within its once rambunctious halls and walkways. Even the hard-working staff members that exercised good thoughts and practices were missed. It was as if there was a lull within Dubois High that not even the sensible silence of a library could withstand.

A group of men in tactical gear arrived at Dubois High; all strapped and ready to go for a big gunfight. Each tactical team arrived at each entrance, only to find the school entirely empty except for one sleeping boy.

Five yards away from the school parking lot, men in masks peered down at the unconscious Lark Rune.