Chapter 17 - Beautiful Lunacy

The kid with brown hair and green eyes slowly pulled back his hand from the nameless villain's head. He turned to face the area around him, inspecting anything that may appear suspicious or off before he then fully disappeared from view.

…

Dolian focused his attention back on reality and sifted through the array of memories he just received. As they piled into neatly organized stacks, a plan was rapidly concocted inside his mind within a split second.

He turned to look at the two people beside him, and he rubbed his chin atop his golden throne, 'They're not necessarily needed. Even with just Two, the one with the wormhole quirk, that would be enough to catapult my rapid expansion on that island.'

'If I were to bring them along, while that might make the execution of the plan a lot easier, I would need to resort to numerous memory manipulation to create a seamless story, a story that can be easily countered with the right quirk.' Dolian tapped the edges of his golden throne, 'But if I were to go alone, then I'll be the only witness.'

With a general outline of the plan now formed, more and more details were swiftly implanted into his rough draft, expanding it into a gargantuan tree with countless intertwining branches.

Any mishap, any possible mistake, any potential blunder; a plan was created just for them to ensure perfect execution and guaranteed success.

Finally, Dolian completed his plan just in time and turned to look towards the entrance of the underground bunker with a piercing gaze, "Someone's here."

Dolian whispered under his breath; his voice just quiet enough for the two to hear.

Alastor and Aleksandra immediately tensed up, an instinctual response that was the result of their years of specialized training with the help of their parents and professionals in the pro-hero field.

Wind gathered around Alastor's body while his ocean-blue eyes crackled with subtle electricity. He took a deep breath and felt his blood pump throughout his entire body.

On the other hand, Aleksandra's body visibly bulged as each muscle fiber in her body contracted and flexed. Her gem-like blue eyes dimly glowed with a shade of red, and she felt her senses crank up to 11. From behind the vault, she could hear the sound of a person's breath, and the thud of each footstep they took.

But, even if they were already prepared to launch a barrage of attacks, they made sure to not exclude the possibility that the person behind the vault-like entrance was an ally and tempered their hearts to remain calm.

Dolian opened his palm, indicating for them to wait. As they were the ones closest to the entrance, Dolian slowly sneaked forward until he was only a meter away, and readied himself to attack.

Although in reality, Dolian already knew who was behind the door. As an experienced actor that can deceive both of his parents, acting and fleshing out his character was something he was already used to doing.

Clank. The sound of metal and gears clanking suddenly echoed out from the door, and a suffocating silence ensued.

They heard the sound of their hearts skipping a beat. They felt the sudden constriction around their neck like an illusory noose was about to hang them.

"Shh…" Dolian's resounding whisper echoed in the room, and it brought a strange sense of tranquility to it that calmed down their hearts. They held back the urge to scream and inspected the trio nearest to the door.

With their heads now crystal clear, they soon realized what the trio was doing and started to do the same.

They prepared their quirks, they tightened up their bodies, and they accelerated their minds. Adrenaline, cortisol, and numerous other hormones pumped throughout their entire body as their flight or fight response went full throttle.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The only thing they can hear in that ear-deafening room was the sound of their heartbeats, their heavy breathing, and nothing else.

The atmosphere was tense, the pressure was increasing, and they barely grasped their calm with Dolian placating everyone in the room.

Clack. Clink. Clunk.

The vault-like door rapidly opened as countless gears and wheels churned and spun. Each click felt like impending doom, yet contradictory, it also felt like hope was nearing closer.

With their fates left unto the one behind the vault-like door, the students did their best to remain calm and astute.

Finally, the final clunk was heard, and the door clicked open.

The musty and sweaty air of the room instantly gushed out through the opened entrance, and they felt their hearts drop… Their hearts droop… in relief.

A man stood in front of them, heavily breathing and heavily panting. He wore a strange black suit that covers his entire body including his face. White streaks of what appeared to be lightning were drawn on his suit, like a comical superhero straight out of a comic book or TV show.

And like a dash of reality was salted upon his strange appearance, gashes and wounds draped his body. Blood and sweat spilled out of his exposed skin as slight burns can be seen on his unmasked face.

"Phew…" The man heaved a sigh of relief and walked forward, but because his body's adrenaline was slowly returning to normal, he nearly slipped and planted his face on the ground.

Dolian responded with his enhanced reflexes and caught the hero. Dolian supported the hero's body and helped him sit down and lean his back to the wall to ease the sudden surge of exhaustion and pain.

"Alastor, close the door." Dolian instructed before then turning towards the crowd, "Laura! We need your help!"

His voice boomed amidst the heavy sound of metal being pushed. The door once again closed shut, and the sound of numerous gears turning and churning was heard before a formless wind then returned to Alastor's side.

A girl then pushed through the crowd. She was a petite young girl and was around the same age as everyone else. Her hair and eyes were both green and were nearly the same shade and hue. Just like her hair and eyes, she wore a monotonous outfit with the central color being green.

Upon poking through the crowd, she was greeted by the bleeding hero, and she immediately knew what Dolian needed her help for.

Without saying a word, she quickened her pace and arrived right beside Dolian and the hero she knew and cared for, her teacher, Blitz.

"Teacher! Don't worry, I'm here!" Laura's eyes glowed as her quirk was activated. From the ground, strange unknown plants sprouted open, and a certain green flower bloomed and spewed out glowing green pores.

The green pores flew through the air and landed on Blitz's body. The spores that were expelled from the green flowers seemed to hold mystical properties as a soft green glow enveloped Blitz's gashes and wounds.

As the supernatural phenomena unfolded, his bleeds and cuts were fully covered by the soft green glow, and as the luminous light disappeared, his wounds vanished alongside them like magic.

When they saw his wounds were successfully healed, Dolian, Laura, and the crowd of students around the two heaved a sigh of relief.

"Are you okay, sir?" Dolian asked as he grabbed the first aid kit Aleksandra grabbed for him in advance. They were trainee heroes, so it was a habit ingrained in their very bones to grab a first aid kit in situations like this.

Just as the crowd was expecting "Yes" for an answer, Blitz instead opened up his mouth and coughed out dark-red blood from his mouth, shocking them.

"Dark red blood?" Laura's eyes zoomed in on the dark red blood; a guess was immediately placed in her mind.

"Tch…" Blitz clicked his tongue before coughing up another round of dark red blood from his mouth.

"It seems like their weapons had poison lathered on them. I was careless." Blitz stared at the dark red blood flowing out from his mouth.

He turned to look at Dolian and Laura. He struggled to hold a smile so that he can ease their worries, before then answering the questions that plagued their minds, "Don't worry, I won't die from this."

"My immune system would be able to deal with the poison, but…" He stared at the vault-like door beside him with a grim face, "But I'm unable to help you guys anymore."

"My body is under too much strain because of the poison." Blitz helplessly looked at the students in front of him, and he felt a deep sense of powerlessness at that moment.

He, the famous speedster and one of the fastest heroes in America, Blitz, sits on the ground unable to help his students like a useless cripple. Blitz wants to help them, defend them, and keep them safe, but he can't do anything!

'If only I didn't let myself get stabbed back then…' Blitz sighed and made sure to not let his emotions cloud his judgment. What he needs to do now is to create a method to keep his students safe and out of harm's way.

'Even if I have to sacrifice myself, I'll do it.' He vowed in his heart and took a deep breath to ease the pangs of pain brought by the poison streaming through his body.

Just as he was about to try and stand up, to do a feeble attempt at calming down his students, Dolian pressed his body back down to the ground. Surprised by his student's action, Blitz looked toward Dolian and asked, "What are you doing."

"You need to rest, sir." Dolian patted Laura on the shoulder, bringing her out of her dazed state as he said, "Can you still heal him?"

"Y-Yes!" Laura responded and she made more green flowers bloom around her body on the ground.

"Good." Dolian stood up and cracked his knuckles, "I'll need you to continue healing him, but that won't be enough."

"Nila! Bumi! Boran!" Dolian shouted out names, and as they heard their names, a few students walked out of the crowd as if responding to his call.

"I know you three have healing quirks just like Laura, and Nila can even detoxify poisons. But the poison they used must be quite special because Sir Blitz wouldn't have been this weak if it was any normal poison." Dolian pointed at the helpless Blitz beside him.

"I need you four to help heal him and make sure to keep his state stable. Nila, you also need to accelerate at the speed the poison in his body is neutralized, and I need you four to do your best." Dolian's eyes gleamed, and the four instinctively shuddered.

"Yes!" The four nodded their head in unison.

"Next…" Dolian lets out a turbid breath of air. He turned to look toward the crowd of students in front of him.

He slowly stood up from his crouched position, left Blitz's and the four's sides, and stopped in front of the entire crowd. His face morphed into one that is cold and emotionless, and he gave the feeling of a calm and astute war general.

As his Adam's Apple bobbed down, his voice dropped and he opened his mouth, "Frankly, we are fucked."

"???"

"What?"

"Huh?" The students in front of him wore confused looks upon hearing his words.

They turned towards each other, murmuring and chattering amidst their confused looks. In the middle of all that, Dolian silently listened and waited for the right time. When he found the right opportunity, he coughed and pointed toward the vault-like door behind him.

"While the door is indeed strong, with enough firepower, it would inevitably break down."

"Also, with my preliminary knowledge of biology and poisons, I can assure you that it would take 30 minutes by the bare minimum for Nila to detoxify that poison fully at her optimal state."

"In that half an hour, villains would already enter this very room we are in right now and do unspeakable acts to us."

"We may be killed, raped, or sold as slaves to some cruel bastard out there in the world." Dolian shook his head as if the words he uttered were just normal everyday struggles, but they shuddered upon imagining the horrid acts that would fall upon them once the villains break through that vault-like door.

The students quickly panicked upon the revelation of the true dangers of their situation.

"T-Then… What should we do?!"

"Yeah! Can't we do something?"

"Even if villains attack us, we're still hero trainees!"

"Yeah! We're over a hundred while they should just be a few!"

Numerous students chimed with optimistic retorts and a hopeful outlook on their predicament.

Dolian's face twisted to one that looked like it was about to burst out laughing. He clutched his stomach, and as everyone went quiet, they heard a low laugh, "Ha…"

"Haha."

"HAHAHA!" A crazed laughter erupted as Dolian's face turned insane, and shook his head in disbelief, "NOPE!"

"Don't you all know the saying about how a pig teammate is harder than a dragon enemy?" Dolian snorted, then pointed at them with a piercing gaze, "YOU! Are that pig teammate."

"W-What?"

"Pig teammate?"

"You heard me!" Dolian cackled, "You're that goddamn useless pig! You're that pig that's gonna get slaughtered by those big bad wolves outside and get chopped, limb by limb, and sold off to cannibalistic motherfuckers in whatever degenerate place there is in the world."

"We're gonna get killed and slaughtered at this rate!" Dolian slit his throat with his thumb and wore a cynical face.

"Dolian!" Aleksandra shouted out from the crowd, "What are you saying?!"

"Shush! I'm not finished!" Dolian interrupted her and wagged his finger.

He coughed and turned to look back towards the crowd, "So what am I trying to say here?"

"I'm saying that…" Dolian's eyes turned ominous, and thick malicious killing intent seemed to suffuse the entire room.

Everyone's hearts palpitated in fear upon the sudden feeling of unavoidable death.

Dolian snapped his fingers, bringing them out of their dazed state, and said, "I'm saying, in simple terms, WE NEED TO HAVE THE RESOLVE TO KILL."

"WE'RE NOW IN A KILL-OR-BE-KILLED WORLD."

"IF WE WANT TO HAVE THAT SEMBLANCE OF SAFETY AND HOPE, IT'S EITHER THEM OR US THAT WILL BE SENT TO THE ETERNAL LAND OF SLUMBER."

"Remember when I said you guys were pig teammates? Yeah, I didn't mean all of you!" Dolian laughed, "Because if we're being honest, some of us here are just outright dragons amongst men."

"What I need from all of you right here is the resolve to kill. I need you to understand that we're out of fairy tale land and now in war."

"So, whether or not you're a pig, I need you to have the will to kill."

"Because in a few minutes from now, I'll be heading out there along with a few handpicked people in this very room right here, to be the first to attack."

Silence admonished the room. They felt their hearts tighten up from Dolian's absurd speech. No, it can't even be called a speech at this point. It was just an outright description of the reality they are living in right now.

Death.

Killing.

Being killed.

They found themselves standing in the middle of a sea of blood, with countless corpses lithered around them. Some were there classmates, while others were nameless villains they had to kill to survive.

'Kill…'

'Or be killed.'

That phrase rang in their minds, and they seemed to be hypnotized by that very thought.

Madness and insanity swirled around in magnetic vortexes that sucked their hearts, not wanting to let go of them and wanting to sink them deeper and deeper into this crazed reality.

"You all ready?" Dolian clapped his hands, and he returned to his usual bubbly demeanor. But in the eyes of the people there, a terrifying dragon seemed to stand behind his back, gazing upon them with cold and cruel eyes.

He was first greeted with silence, a suffocating silence that made their hearts only thump louder.

They heard the sound of their every breath, the smell of iron and sulfur in the air, and the madness-inducing heat.

"Yes…" It all started with a silent whisper.

"Yes." That first yes seemed to spurt more and more, and was the reaction needed for a chemical change to occur.

"Yes."

"Yes."

"YES."

"YES." "YES." "YES."

"YES!"

Their voices resonated and boomed into a catharsis of bloodlust and mania.

Blitz stared at the crowd of students in front of him with bewitched eyes. What he saw weren't students, what he saw were soldiers ready to be sent to the battlefield and fight to the death.

From their eyes was not a single shred of fear, nor was there any hint of mercy. The only "thing" he found within those doorways to the soul where hysteria that made his heart shudder, to shudder at the cause of all this twisted fervor.

Dolian stared at this cesspool of madness ahead of him, a direct cause of his cruel yet beautiful tugs at their hearts and minds.

He wore a smile, a smile so bright it could outshine even stars and galaxies.

"Good." He nodded his head, but his voice was flooded out by the opera of lunacy.

AN: This chapter has 2898 words.

Wow, Dolian is kind of a gentle guy.

Now, I know that doesn't sound right but you gotta realize he can just forcefully mindfuck someone if he really wanted to, kind of like Lelouch's Geass but on steroids. Instead, he usually takes a more guiding approach to make someone do his bidding. As to why? BRAUN BABY! HE GOT THAT SLIGHT BIT OF PARANOIA IN HIM LIKE OUR GRAND AND ALMIGHTY SAVIOR BRAUN-SAMA!

(April 6, 2023 - 497th day of writing)