Villainess 5: Janet’s Second Retry

Red Pill 27: Instigators, Retry!

Janet loitered in the hallway, watching her clone’s afterimage fade away before her, and wondered how her double was going to handle the reenactment of her death. Turning from that thought, Janet remembered her clone’s admonishment after Prince Blaise had left her shaken in the nurse’s office yesterday afternoon (“I know you meant well, Janet, but don’t ever say that again! I’ve already done it once, so don’t do the same! Please, promise me you won’t!”), for it rang true. If yesterday morning’s false vision in the mirror of the women’s restroom had taught Janet anything at all, it was the meaning of her clone’s words: Don’t throw away your life for that asshole, for you’re worth more than whatever he thinks you are.

Then DeeDee said from inside the classroom, “Janet, are you coming in or not?”

“I’m coming,” Janet said, turning on her feet and entering Classroom 1-3C, the room where she and her clones had suffered under the guile of a two-face.

Yet passing the open threshold was like déjà vu, because Janet recognized the coffered ceiling, the tall windows letting in daylight, the floating lanterns illuminating the interior, the rows of tables lined up in columns, and many of the students seated at these tables and talking amongst themselves. She then spied Prince Blaise and Lady Dorian at the back of the class next to the last window, where the Prince was telling her that Janet won’t be a nuisance anymore, because he’ll talk to Professor Palmer and have everything settled. So Lady Dorian thanked him and told him to come back before Janet comes and does something else to her, to which the Prince promised that he will. Janet squeezed her hands into knuckle-white fists, wanting to throttle those two, as the Prince left Lady Dorian’s table and asked the other students around their table to look after Lady Dorian, then walked down the column of tables and passed by Janet on his way through the open double doors to the Professor Commons Office downstairs.

Incensed at their words, Janet was about to cuss out the Prince behind his back, when Lady Kessler and Ladies Jean and Saraya Drevis called out to her amidst the other observers of tonight’s experiment.

(“What is it?” Janet said.

Mindy and the Drevis sisters walked up to her, pointing past her shoulder as Mindy said, “Behind you.”)

Janet looked back and saw another Lady Kessler seated at the front table before a column of tables by the wall, chatting with a male student seated beside her about their ghost-hunting club. This under-sized specimen of a student had long tousled hair and shadows under his eyes, and he was asking Mindy’s double when Jean and Saraya were coming, so they could have them join their club and have it approved. To this, Mindy said they’ll arrive soon enough if they haven’t stayed up telling each other ghost stories, but then she asked him if he was fine with having Janet join the group. The young man seemed to waver and asked Mindy if Janet was even into ghost stories, so Mindy said she had heard from her maid that Janet was into ghost stories and even mystery stories. That seemed to decide the matter, for the young man said it was fine to let her join.

(Janet turned back to her friends and said, “How come you’re all in this class?”

“I have no idea,” Mindy said.

“Wait, were you all transferred after the first week?”

“Saraya and I weren’t transferred,” Jean said.

“Only I was,” Mindy added.

“But this is your clone’s memory, not yours,” Saraya said, then looked over at Lady Dorian talking with the other students sitting by her table, all of whom seemed to hang on her every word, especially the males. “For all we know, maybe there wasn’t a reason for her to have us transferred.”

“At least, not yet,” Janet said.

Her friends winced.

Then Mindy breathed out a sigh and said, “You’ve got a point, but what must have happened to make her do that to us?”

“Maybe you must have intervened?” Janet said.

Mindy smiled, saying, “Maybe you’re right. I don’t take kindly to bullshit, and Lady Dorian’s full of it.”

Janet looked back at the mysterious student and said, “I don’t remember seeing him while I was in Classroom 1-3C. Do any of you know who he is?”

“Again, no idea,” Mindy said.

“But he looks friendly enough,” Janet added.

Yet the Drevis sisters paused for a moment before Jean added, “We saw the Prince beating him up in the hallway once, but that was on the first week of school.”

“We never saw him afterward,” Saraya added.

“We’ll ask DeeDee to look him up for us,” Mindy said.

“You think he knows something?” Janet said.

“If he does,” Mindy said, “then we’ll have him join our group. We need all the help we can get.”)

Then, after Lady Dorian finished talking with these students, one of the male students stood up from his chair and knocked three times on his table and said, “Attention, everyone. Miss Edgeworth has something to say.”

“Thanks,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” he said, sitting down.

When Lady Dorian got up from her chair, the whole room went silent as she cleared her throat and said, “Before his Highness comes back, I must warn all of you about Lady Fleming’s actions against me this morning.” When a flurry of questions erupted from her audience, many of them asking what had happened, was she okay, where was Lady Fleming now, did she tell the Prince about it, and the like, Lady Dorian added, “I’ve already told his Highness, so he’s going to Professor Palmer’s office to have Lady Fleming suspended.”

(“You lying fuck-face!” Janet said—

Which roused Janet’s clones and friends into a frenzy of curses, saying that Lady Dorian and the Prince belonged together in hell, that they were worthless pieces of trash, that there’s a place waiting for them when they kick the proverbial bucket, that she’s a bimbo and a gold digger and a bitch and a cocksucker and he’s an idiot and a miser and a bastard and a dickhead, adding other expletives too numerous and vulgar to recount in these pages—

Which also roused the ire of Baron Underwood and Rowena and Celeste and Maxine and RuRu and even DeeDee, all saying less colorful versions of their remarks.)

And while Mindy Kessler’s double and her table mate sat silent in their chairs, the overall feeling amongst the rest of the students was in favor of Janet’s condemnation. In fact, amongst the collective judgment from Lady Dorian’s followers in the class, they included but weren’t limited to several of them saying, “Serves her right, that villainess!”

And: “She should get expelled!”

And: “No, imprisoned!”

And: “No, exiled!”

And: “No, executed!”

And: “No, assassinated!”

And: “No, tortured and executed!”

And there were more twisted variations of the same.

(Which made DeeDee say, “I’ll have MiMi, RaRa, ReRe, and NaNa refrain from giving these students any titles.”

Janet turned and looked over at DeeDee and said, “You can actually do that?”

“Yes, I can,” DeeDee said.

Janet beamed at her with a smile.)

But amidst the collective condemnation, Mindy’s double stood at her desk and said, “Miss Edgeworth, what exactly did Lady Fleming do to you?”

“She insulted my humble origins,” Lady Dorian said, “called me a slut for stealing his Highnesses from her, and threatened to have me killed if I didn't relinquish him.”

Which had its effect: a flurry of voices erupted from the rest of the students, and more curses rained down on Janet’s unforgiven head.

(“Bullshit!” Janet said amidst other objections from her clones and her friends.)

“So you’ll have her killed?” Mindy said.

“Don’t equate me with that villainess,” Lady Dorian said. “I don’t go around cavorting with things that go bump in the night, nor do I salivate over lollipops. Keep to your own prospects, Lady Sweet Tooth.”

Yet Mindy’s friend stood up beside her, fisting his hands and saying, “Leave them alone!”

“Oh, what’s this?” Lady Dorian said, walking down the column of tables and heading towards theirs. “And here I thought the late Earl O’Neill’s son was a weakling.”

“Stop it!” Mindy said.

“I’m not a weakling!” Lord O’Neill said.

“Then why did he die in a duel, eh?” Lady Dorian said, pausing just a table away from theirs at the front of the class. “I even heard he died crying.”

“I said, STOP IT!” Mindy said.

“Or what, Lady Sweet Tooth?” she said. “What are you gonna do? Piss yourself?”

“You know what? Fuck you! Gavin, let’s go!” Mindy said, grabbing Lord O’Neill’s hand and pulling him with her straight for the open double doors—

(Till Janet saw Lady Dorian reach out her hand towards the retreating duo and fisted it tight in a trembling grasp, stopping both of them in their tracks.

“No way!” RuRu said.

Janet turned back towards RuRu and the others standing by the lectern and said, “What did she do?”

“She used the Obedience Skill,” DeeDee said.

Janet was about to ask them what that was, but RuRu and DeeDee put their fingers to their lips and nodded their heads in Lady Dorian’s direction, so Janet observed with the rest, keeping her eyes on Lady Dorian.)

Then Lady Dorian said, “Get your asses over here and sit the fuck down!”

And Lady Kessler’s double and Lord O’Neill returned to their seats and sat down, though Lady Kessler seemed to be struggling under Lady Dorian’s spooky hold at a distance. Then Lady Dorian approached their table, then turned towards her audience and said, “I don’t need to tell you all this, but you’re all sworn to secrecy. Nothing about this leaves this room, got it?” When they all affirmed with nods and ’Got it’-responses, she turned back to the pair and said, “Here’s how we’ll do this, Lady Sweet Tooth. When I ask you a question, you answer ‘Yes’ with a nod or ’No’ with a shake of your pretty little head. Now answer me: were you going to tell his Highness?”

Mindy shook her head.

“I know you’re lying,” Lady Dorian said, then to Lord O’Neill: “What about you? Oh, wait. Why should I tell you? Let me think,” and she leered at both of them for a time while tapping her foot, then smiled and clapped her hands as if she had an awesome idea for a birthday party. “I know! Why not up the stakes a bit? Why not have you both strip naked and start fucking each other in front of the class?”

“Oh, fuck yeah!” one student said.

“They’re perfect for each other,” another said.

And more responses of the same ilk resounded throughout the classroom, till Lady Dorian said, “Is that what you want? A little bit of heaven for a lifetime of hell?”

Both of them shook their heads.

“Then do we have an understanding?”

Now they both nodded.

“Good,” Lady Dorian said, then came around to Mindy’s side of the table and leaned over her shoulder and whispered into her ear, “Tell you what, Lady Sweet Tooth. Since you know my secret now, let me tell you his Highness’s secret. Truth is, he’s a massive pervert, especially for anal creampies. He can’t get enough of those.”

(“Oh my God!” Janet said.

The other observers had similar reactions, many of them with hands raised to their mouths, their expressions molded into masks of disgust.)

“All I’ve gotta do is blue-ball him a bit, and he’s all mine,” Lady Dorian added. “Just give him as much as he wants in return for leaving his bitch-ass fiancé, and he’ll do whatever the fuck I want. And it’s not just me and his Highness. All the guys in class have had a taste of me, and all the girls have had a taste of his Highness, except for you and those Drevis bitches and that limp-dick pussy-ass boyfriend of yours. Now enjoy the show, Lady Sweet Tooth. If you behave, I’ll let you have a taste of his Highness, too.”

(“Fucking sicko!” Mindy said.

Then Janet stormed at Lady Dorian, swinging her fist at her face, yet her hand passed through her.

“Fuck!” Janet said.

“Girls, calm down,” DeeDee said.

“How do you expect us to do that?” Janet said.

“She’s right!” Mindy added. “That fucking piece of shit—”

“I know,” DeeDee said, “but if you think this is hard, just imagine how hard it’s gonna be for Janet when she comes through the double doors!”

Both girls paused at her words.

“I know it’s hard, but that’s why we’re together!” DeeDee said. “It’s not just about you or me or even the clones: we’ve all got skin in this mess!”

Only then did both girls relent.

“Just keep watching to the end,” DeeDee said.)

Lady Dorian then headed for the double doors and pushed them shut before heading to her table in the back corner by the last window of the classroom, where she sat and said, “I want all of you to stay silent and follow my lead. And you two,” she added, referring to the stock-still Mindy and Gavin at their table in front of the classroom, “are going to play your parts to a T. Now we’ll just wait for our leading lady.”

(As they all waited, Janet thought about Lady Dorian’s use of sex to manipulate people into siding with her. Doubtless, it was more than just attraction or arousal or orgasm or even love. In fact, if Lady Dorian had used a mirror to access the Prince’s mind to sow the seeds of her manipulation spell in his sleep, then sex would imprint the spell onto him. If she had used the same method with the other guys in class while they were under the sleep spell’s influence, then it would work the same way, but with the girls, the Prince would be the one to imprint the spell while they, too, were under its influence. But why anal sex? Wouldn’t vanilla sex work as well?

Rather than asking her friends and getting weird looks, Janet walked towards the others near the lectern and pulled DeeDee aside and whispered, “I’ve been wondering.”

“What is it?” DeeDee said.

Janet bit down on her lower lip, her cheeks flaring red with warmth, wondering how she’ll phrase such a delicate subject, then said, “It’s embarrassing for me.”

“Then close your eyes, and I’ll do the rest,” DeeDee said, and when Janet did so, DeeDee placed her hand over her head and began probing through her thoughts. “Ah, I see. You wanted to know how that works, eh?”

Janet blushed while nodding: “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” DeeDee said. “The human body has seven chakras in ascending order along the spine, the first by the anus and the second by the genitals. Sex involves an exchange of spiritual energies as well as fluids between two people. Vaginal sex combines the second chakras of the male and the female into one, making a mutual contract of conception between equal parties, a contract between husband and wife. That’s marriage.”

Janet gulped and said, “And anal?”

So DeeDee said, “Anal sex combines the second chakra of the male with the first chakra of the female or another male into one, making an unequal contract between unequal parties, a contract between a master and a servant. And in her case with the Prince,” she added, pointing out Lady Dorian sitting pretty at her table, “it’s a contract between a mistress and a servant. That’s companionship.”

Again Janet gulped at a new thought surfacing through her mind like a nightmare, so she braced herself and said, “And if the wife or servant is unwilling to comply?”

“Then it’s rape,” DeeDee said.

That’s when it came together for Janet: Maybe Lady Dorian got the Prince drunk or drugged before taking advantage of him in his bedroom and imprinting the manipulation spell on him with anal sex. Or maybe she used her Obedience Skill on the Prince when he refused anal, making his body move and his voice to obey her whims. Or maybe she started with foreplay, then escalated it to oral and then vaginal sex before getting the Prince into cunnilingus and then anilingus, so that when she asked for anal, it was given. No fuss, no muss. Or maybe the Prince was a pervert who masturbated in secret, and Lady Dorian caught him with his pants down, and all she’d have to do was provide an outlet for him: either that or blackmail. Whatever methods she employed, Lady Dorian had him by the balls in the most literal sense of the word.

In addition, the same must have played out for the other students in the class: with the shadowy woman’s sleep spell affecting Baron Underwood’s students during his class period, Lady Dorian must have seduced or blackmailed or used her Obedience Skill on the guys and helped the Prince handle the girls through her Obedience Skill. By extension, the students of Classroom 1-3C must have turned the students under the influence of the sleep spell in Baron Underwood’s other classes by spreading rumors about Janet amongst them. As such, Lady Dorian must have turned most of the students in Lassen Academy against Janet with the help of these students. Hence, they stood by and overlooked Janet getting bullied, spread rumors about her, egged on her tormentors, misreported her as the perpetrator, kept tabs of her movements, heckled her on her way to and from class, and joined in Lady Dorian’s ruses to ruin her reputation in staged public condemnation events. Therefore, all Lady Dorian had to do was let her shadowy helpers set up Janet with accusations and incriminations that led to her expulsions, imprisonments, banishments, executions, and assassinations, while nobody at school questioned the narrative she had woven around Janet and her clones over God-know-how-many iterations.

Nobody, that is, except for her two maids Susan Wilton and Marin Irvine, her friends Mindy Kessler and Jean Drevis and Saraya Drevis and later Gavin O’Neill and Kevin Sydney and Ridley Woodberry, and even her professors Father Robinson and Baron Palmer and Viscountess Durham and Count Cosgrove, who all stood up for her. With that in mind, Janet rejoined Mindy and the Drevis sisters with renewed vigor and waited for her double’s entrance.)

All the while, after washing her face and drying it with the side flap of her bolero, Janet the Suicide Clone exited the women’s bathroom and stalked through the empty parlor area by herself, save for some truant students talking amongst themselves and glancing her way. She ignored them and ascended the first flight of stairs into the second floor and a second flight into the third floor, where her homeroom class awaited her beyond the staircase landing, the first classroom on the Western half of the third floor facing the South through its windows: Classroom 1-3C.

(Janet the Living Avatar heard faint footfalls and approached the closed double doors, followed by Mindy and the Drevis sisters, then Janet’s other clones, and then Kevin and Ridley and even Baron Underwood, all of them surrounding Janet in front of the the double doors, all of them awaiting the designated ‘leading lady’ to appear on the scene of her condemnation, Janet pausing with bated breath.

Only DeeDee and RuRu and Lady Graves and Rowena and Maxine stayed where they were at the front of the classroom near the professor’s lectern.)

Yet just as she stalked up to the double doors, expecting the familiar hubbub of talking students ten minutes before class, Janet the Clone paused at the threshold when she noticed the silence. She wondered what was going on, so she pushed the doors open and entered a large homeroom with a coffered ceiling and tall windows letting in the daylight and floating lanterns illuminating the rest of the classroom. She looked at her fellow peers and saw them looking back at her as if she was a criminal, including Lady Dorian sitting at her usual spot at the back of the class next to the last window, yet Prince Blaise was absent from her side.

“Where did his Highness go?” Janet the Clone said, yet none of the students answered her and kept on staring at her. “Won’t any of you say anything?”

None of them answered her.

“Fine! Be that way!” Janet said, fed up with their insolence. So she gritted her teeth and approached the last column of tables next to the windows to ask her nemesis where Prince Blaise had gone off to, till several of her male and female peers rose from their seats and blocked her path. “What’s going on here? Why are you all acting so strange?”

Yet none of them answered her.

Janet looked at the stern faces of her peers surrounding her, and she began to suspect that Lady Dorian had something to do with it. She glared at her and said, “What’s going on? What did you tell them?”

“I told them the truth,” Lady Dorian said.

“And what’s that?” she said.

So Lady Dorian got up from her seat and approached Janet, yet the students blocking her path to Janet said that she shouldn’t tempt fate, since they all knew that Janet had it in for her. But Lady Dorian was adamant, saying, “I have to get this off my chest. Otherwise, I can’t live with myself.”

Her words moved them, so they stood aside and let her pass, letting Lady Dorian walk right up to Janet, step for agonizing step as if in slow motion.

(Janet the Living Avatar gulped down her qualms, anticipating those fatal words that would spiral the situation into a new level of hell, and felt the minuscule hairs on the back of her neck standing before her own labored breathing and thundering heartbeats arrested her attention. So Janet took a deep breath and exhaled, then said, “Here it comes.”

At her words, Rowena Fleming left the group by the lectern and joined the group surrounding Janet the Living Avatar and Janet the Clone for moral support.)

Lady Dorian leaned close to the clone’s ear and whispered, “I told them you’re born out of wedlock, bitch!”

Janet the Clone grabbed a hold of Lady Dorian’s bolero in both hands, ready to throttle her, but she let go just as two male students grabbed her wrists, another male student hooked his arms under her shoulders, and a female student wrapped her arms around her waist. Yet through it all, Janet the Clone kept struggling against them and yelled, “Take that back! Take that back, or I’ll have you imprisoned!”

So Lady Dorian backed away on tenuous legs, as more students got up from their seats and shielded her from Janet struggling against her peers.

“But, my Lady,” Lady Dorian said, looking at her with tear-filled eyes, “I only wanted to apologize to you for catching his Highness’s attention. I never meant you any harm by it, I swear.”

“Stop lying, damn you! You said no such thing! Let go of me!” Janet said, struggling to free herself from the four students, yet they all kept their grip on her. Seeing that struggling was useless without, Janet launched a tirade of f-bombs against Lady Dorian before spitting in her adversary’s face.

So the one holding her left wrist said, “Be still, you piece of trash!”

While the one holding her right wrist added, “Accept the punishment you deserve!”

“Fuck off! Let go of me, you fucks!” Janet said, struggling against the combined strength of four people before turning her evil-eyed glare to Lady Dorian. “You’ll fucking pay for this, I swear! When my father gets here, he’ll—”

“SHUT UP!” Lady Dorian yelled, dropping her innocent act and backhanding Janet’s face before wiping away the spittle. Then she pointed out two of the students sitting at the front of the classroom, Mindy Kessler and Gavin O’Neill, snapping her fingers and saying, “You two, stand up.”

So Mindy and Gavin O’Neill moved like puppets on a string, leaving their seats and standing at attention, though Mindy still showed twitching signs of struggle against Lady Dorian’s Obedience Skill.

Lady Dorian pointed at Gavin O’Neill, saying, “You, close the doors and don’t let anyone enter.”

So Gavin O’Neill went over and closed the doors, then stood in front of them like a guard.

Then at Mindy, Lady Dorian said, “You, beat up that bitch for me,” and she jerked her thumb in Janet’s direction.

“Yes, my Lady,” Mindy said, walking over.

“That’s a good girl,” Lady Dorian said. “I’ll send in a word for you to his Highness, and you can have him all to yourself tonight. What do you say?”

“Thank you, my Lady,” Mindy said.

(“Fuck you, you disgusting piece of shit!” the other Mindy said and hurled more f-bombs at Lady Dorian, calling her a fucking sick-twisted fuck in many variations.

So Janet and her clones and the Drevis sisters and the guys all started saying that Janet doesn’t hold any grudges against her, that Lady Dorian will get her just desserts and that Mindy will get her chance to dish out punishment on her.)

When Mindy’s double approached Lady Dorian, she turned to Janet the Clone, held by three males and one female, all of them keeping her still.

“Where do I hit her?” Mindy said.

“In the body, but not the face,” Lady Dorian said. “Her face belongs to me.”

So Mindy took up her stance, raising her fists like a boxer, yet she remained still.

“Come on, hit her!” Lady Dorian said.

“Yes, my Lady,” Mindy said yet remained still.

Now Lady Dorian was screaming, “HIT HER, YOU DUMBASS!”

“Yes, my Lady,” Mindy said, yet she stayed still even under her Obedience Skill.

“Then fucking do it, damn you!”

“Yes, my Lady,” Mindy said without moving.

That’s when Lady Dorian sprinted down the column of tables back to her table at the back of the classroom, fished through her book bag, and pulled out a fountain pen, then rushed back over to Mindy Kessler. She flashed the sharp metal nib of the pen across Mindy’s field of vision, saying, “Hit that bitch right now, or I’ll jack up your face!”

“Yes, my Lady,” she said—

Without moving.

But Janet the Clone said, “It’s okay.”

Mindy then stared at Janet for the longest moment, tears now trailing down her cheeks, her face emotionless, yet her tears did all the talking.

“It’s okay,” Janet repeated.

“See? Now hit her already!” Lady Dorian said.

“Yes, my Lady,” Mindy said, and only then did she start throwing punches at Janet’s body, using her like a punching bag. With more tears flooding down her face, Mindy’s fists thudded against thin fabric and tender flesh over and over, and Janet was wincing and grimacing with every blow, straining her body and sifting her groans, so Lady Dorian wouldn’t have the satisfaction of her own tears.

“Harder, damn you!” Lady Dorian said.

And without a word, Mindy redoubled her efforts, cluttering her now-swollen fists into Janet’s sides in vicious hooking body blows, putting her weight into them over and over and over. Janet’s face was pulling uglier contorted expressions of agony, blood and saliva seeping through gritted teeth and a line of blood leaking from her nose as she started coughing up blood with more and more strikes. All the while, more tears kept falling down Mindy’s cheeks as she kept going and going and going, her swollen knuckles turning red.

Only then did Lady Dorian discard the pen, placing it in the pocket of her uniform dress and saying, “Good, girl! Now keep it up, till she begs for mercy!”

(Janet the Living Avatar looked over at RuRu and Lady Graves and Maxine consoling her mother, who was now crying over her own daughter getting beaten up. Then she looked over at the double doors, where her clones and the Drevis sisters and the guys were consoling a sobbing Mindy Kessler. And now Janet found herself fighting back her own tears, because there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about this except watch. And when Janet recalled her double’s tear-stained face, she thought to herself, Was this what she remembered? Was this what she had to go through? What’s she thinking now?

She couldn’t know, not with the physical intimacy of firsthand experience, not with the iron taste of blood on her tongue, not with her gullet coughing up phlegm and blood and saliva with blow after blow after blow. Janet wanted to say something, yet when she opened her mouth, she tasted salty water and put her hand to her face: she was crying. So she looked away, wanting to run out and fall apart in someone’s else’s arms, wanting to lose herself in someone else's strength . . .

That’s when DeeDee wrapped her arms around her, pulling her down over her shoulder, so Janet could shed her tears there, keeping her from falling apart, and said in soothing tones, “Cry, child. Let it out.”

And as DeeDee rubbed circles around her shoulder blades, Janet bawled an exorcism of tears. Only when the punches and groans paused did she look back and gaped at what she was seeing, not believing her ears.)

With blood dripping from her chin and staining the collar and bodice of her school uniform, Janet the Clone was now smiling and laughing through wheezing fits.

“What are you laughing for?” Lady Dorian said.

“You’re a pitiful bitch,” Janet said.

“Look who’s talking,” her enemy said, crossing her arms over her chest. “You look horrid, you know that? Maybe I’ll start punching you in the face. Maybe that’ll knock some sense back into you.”

“Then try it,” Janet said.

“But why do I have to dirty my hands,” Lady Dorian said, “when I’ve already got others to do it for me?”

So Janet spat a wad of blood at Lady Dorian, staining her clothes and part of her face dark red, and said, “Then you’re useless! Can’t do jack shit!”

That’s when Lady Dorian socked her right on the nose, jerking Janet’s head back, yet the strength of Lady Dorian’s four helpers held her body in place. But Lady Dorian was now wincing and grimacing as she wiped her blood-stained knuckles on the side flap of her bolero.

Yet even as her nose ran blood like a faucet, Janet smiled and said, “You call that a punch, fuck-face? My mom hits harder than you, and she’s already dead.”

“FUCK YOUR MOM!” Lady Dorian screamed, winding back her arm for a solid punch, yet she was telegraphing her move like a rank-ass amateur.

So Janet flung her head forward and met her face in the middle, ramming her noggin into Lady Dorian’s nose, and heard crunching cartilage and bone, then punted her foot into her left knee cap—

Which crumpled Lady Dorian to the ground, her angelic face contorted in a gush of blood, grabbing her knee in both hands and shedding hot tears.

“How’s that, bitch?” Janet said, struggling against the four students dragging her back, while more of Lady Dorian’s helpers rushed from the tables and joined the four holding her, slamming her against the front wall of the classroom and dazing her, keeping her there as they pummeled her with more body blows. Now Janet was flailing her legs and cussing out her attackers in a string of f-bombs and other expletives, while other helpers came to Lady Dorian’s aid.

Now wailing and cursing as one of her helpers hooked his arms under her armpits and lifted her up into a one-legged standing position, she was screaming, “Fuck her up, Lady Sweet Tooth! FUCK HER UP!”

Yet Janet’s head-butt had rocked Lady Dorian’s focus, breaking her Obedience Skill. So instead of following orders, Mindy came rushing over, swinging at Lady Dorian’s jaw and knocking both her and her helper onto her bad knee. With Lady Dorian’s screams echoing throughout the classroom and attracting a growing hubbub of other students in the hallway behind the closed double-door entrance, a wave of Lady Dorian’s helpers rushed over and tackled Mindy to the ground and kept her there in a frenzied crush of stomps and kicks.

Yet through the onslaught, Janet screamed at Gavin O’Neill, saying, “Get the Professor here, NOW!”

So Gavin O’Neill pulled open the doors, startling the other students there into backing off, yet Lady Dorian was yelling, “Stop him! Somebody, STOP HIM!”

As if her words were a spell, the crowd responded and surged after Gavin, so he dived through an opening and scrambled through the mad tangle of uniformed bodies with arms and hands grabbing at him in the hallway.

(“Follow him outside! Find out what’s going on out there!” Janet yelled at her clones, so all 31 of them disappeared into the madding crowd, exiting the mayhem of inside Classroom 1-3C for the mayhem in the hallway just outside of view, where voices erupted in an uproar.

Then Janet joined her friends gathered around and consoling a crying Mindy in front of the double doors, while DeeDee and the others did the same for a crying Rowena near the lectern. Janet was trying her best to stay strong for Mindy and Rowena, but she found herself crying at the unfairness of it all. What had been a miraculous turn of events against such overwhelming odds just a few moments ago now devolved into an impending double murder as both assaults continued.)

Meanwhile, after two of her helpers led her limping self to one of the tables and lifted her onto a tabletop, so she could sit, Lady Dorian ordered, “Shut the doors!”

The crowd of students stopped their kicks and stomps and headed for the doors, leaving Mindy a wheezing mass of bruises and blood over her face, sputtering blood and loose teeth from her open mouth. After her attackers pushed the doors back into place, shutting out the mayhem outside from the mayhem inside, they returned and grabbed Mindy’s limp body and dragged her to the front wall of the class, pinning her there next to a battered and bloodied Janet. Both girls were limp against their restrainers, who kept them vertical against the wall, all of them awaiting Lady Dorian’s next order.

Lady Dorian wiped the blood from her broken nose with the sleeve of her bolero and winced, then said, “When Professor Palmer and his Highness get here, tell them I was assaulted by those two. As such,” she added, “tell his Highness that you all defended me.”

“What about those two?” said one of the two female students that accompanied Lady Dorian by the table.

(That’s when Janet and Mindy and the Drevis sisters gaped at the sight of these girls, for they were none other than Janet’s so-called friends, Lady Jenna Childeron and her rival Lady Vesper Felton.

“They’re here, too?” Janet said.

“How the hell did we miss them?” Mindy said.)

“They’ll be imprisoned pending their trial and execution,” Lady Dorian said. “If we’re lucky, I will become his Highness’s next fiancé when he asks their Majesties for my hand in marriage. And when all of this is over, we’ll make sure to reward you all on our wedding night,” and she reached into her dress pocket, fished out the fountain pen, and gave it to Lady Felton. “Do you know what to do?”

“I do, my Lady,” Lady Felton, taking the pen and approaching a dazed Janet pinned to the wall, and ran the metal nib across her left cheek and drew blood as Janet winced. “How’s that, Lady Scarface? His Highness and Lord Woodberry won’t want you anymore with that fucked-up face!”

To Be Continued