NOTES:
——
Hi, Hello.

Reminder: Its still very early in the school year in the timeline, so I'm going to be writing Epel with more of his accent, since he only recently started dealing with Vil, therefore he would definitely still talk with a slight accent.

Yea that's it, ONWARDS!

——-

They had been walking, ok, ACE had been walking for a stupidly long time.

Carrying Ophelia and Dragging Deuce should have been infact very difficult, and the fact it wasn't did not help the absolute shitshow that was going on in his head.

Like a consciousness trade off, one of the two fell asleep a couple minutes before the other woke up.

Deuce shot up like a rocket, missing the grogginess Ace had fully expected, instead breathing heavily, eyes wide as he glanced around.

"Where are we? What happened? Did you—"

It didn't take a genius to figure out he witnessed exactly what Ace had, and was recovering from the sheer panic of it, eyes locking in on Ophelia for a moment before snatching her off Aces back.

"What the hell?!"

He was paying absolutely no attention to what the redhead had to say, laying her on the grass.

"Do you have medical tape on you?"

"Why the hell do you need medical tape?"

"Her leg is broken, it'd be easier on her when she wakes up if we splinted it. Why didn't you do that in the first place?"

Lifting her back up, he glared back at the ex-delinquent, pointing at the small growing hives now decorating her wrist.

"She's allergic to grass, idiot! Theres not exactly anywhere to put her down between that and the road! Why do you think I was heading towards town? For shits?"

Teeth grit, Deuce pulled the somehow still unconscious prefect back into his arms.

"I wouldn't put it past you, considering you stole her notebook when she—"

The bluettes face paled, realizing his own slip.

"Shit."

Ace crossed his arms, eyebrow raised.

"I knew it. You saw it too, didn't you?"

He did his best not to meet the eyes of his counterpart.

"Depends on what you're talking about."

Rolling his eyes, the other stepped forward.

"I know you're stupid, but you're not that stupid. You know exactly what I'm talking about."

"What proof do you have of that?"

Pointing towards their slumbering friend's forehead, then towards the bluettes chest, Ace countered back.

"The only people who know I got my hands on the notebook are me, her, and that purple jackass of a cat. And the only people at this school who know you used to be a total jackass punk in middle school is you and her. That good enough proof for you?"

Deuces shoulders slumped, head drooping a slight bit as he stared down, unintentionally giving the other the opening to lift off the prefect and begin walking back towards the street, turning on his heel once he realized Deuce hadn't moved.

"What are you waiting for? Are you coming or not?"

———————

They weren't sure how far from town they were.

So far, they had walked in silence, trading off carrying the prefect, and it became increasingly harder to keep his mouth shut after seeing...er..feeling? No, it was both, but not really? There wasn't a word for it he could think of.

Like...witnessing all the stressful and bad moments of someone else, for as long as you've known them, from their perceptive? Even during the times you weren't there? Does that make sense?

Just...he couldn't explain ... but It was alot to take in.

It didn't help that she seemed to trust Ace with it all more than him. Did she think he wasn't someone she could depend on?

After, 10 minutes, if he had to guess, he cracked.

"Why?"

The other raised an eyebrow, as if he totally didn't know the reason he was being addressed.

"Why what?"

"I—Just—"

With a sigh, Deuce looked as if he took immense interest in the ground while he solemnly speaking.

"Why didn't you guys tell me any of this?"

Ace scoffed, facing away.

"It's not like I knew all this crap either, so how about we talk about this when we aren't in the middle of fucking nowhere."

Annoyingly enough, that made alot of sense. They should focus on getting to safety, plus, it was probably just nerves, but Deuce felt like they were being...followed?

———————

He'd heard him since they entered the forest, crackling of leaves under work boots, short bursts of cursing usually following the sound of a twig snap or the untangling of vines.

It was distracting him from trying to focus on trailing Ace and co.

"Stop following me."

No response.

He kept moving for a while, seeing if the other would back down. Given who he was sure it was, it didn't come as a surprise when that didn't happen.

After a few minutes, he turned around, staring at the area he last heard his classmate.

"Epel, I can hear you from behind that bush."

Still nothing. Picking up a small stone, he aimed towards exactly where he heard his friend and slightly to the right to guarantee a miss, the friend in question shooting out from his hiding spot in mild rage, wincing with a hand near his heart as he stood.

"The hell, Jack?!"

"I told you to stop following me."

"Not when you're actin' all suspicious, tailin' after those three like a weirdo! Did Rook possess you or somethin'?!"

Knowing he wasn't going to change his mind, he allowed the lavendette to follow him as he kept moving.

"Somethings going on with those three. Something thats got Deuce stressed out of his mind, and his friend dragging him and the prefect off unconscious isn't a good sign."

"You think he's up to somethin'?"

"It's possible."

A soft, sweet, admittedly somewhat calm ingested humming began softly circling them, a blur hopping from tree to tree as the voice started to speak.

"He might pretend to be heartless, but when it all boils down, he couldn't bring himself to truly harm either of them, her, but him aswell."

Although Jack personally didn't recognize the voice, Epel's forehead scrunch made him think he was trying to place it.

However, they didn't have to wait long for an answer, as when Vyr came tumbling down from a tree, landing face first onto the ground while his bag was caught hastily by a cocoa colored hand from within his previous hiding spot, followed by Elephys coming into view.

"You ok?"

The alchemist groaned, pulling himself up.

"Note to self: Never try doing that again without protective gear."

From above him, the pink haired fae swung upside down on a branch, balancing with ease as he dropped the bag carefully to the alchemists feet, Vyrs familiar dashing down the others arm to reach its owner.

"Welp, anyway, there goes the element of surprise. Hello to you two."

Epel was in no way amused, chucking a small rock in Elephys's direction, which he simply caught.

"The hell was that whole humming thing for?"

"Just for fun, really."

"Well it sure ain't for me!"

Jack paused for a moment, just now taking notice of the jingle from the faes earrings.

How did he not hear this guy coming? With all that jewelry he was wearing too?

"Thats somewhat the point, isn't it? To not be heard?"

He glanced up, heart jumping a little when he swore was face to face with glowing pink eyes one moment, but when he did a double take, the guy was back where he had been before.

Did this guy read his mind?

The fae looked to him as he flipped off from the branch he had previously been hanging from to help Vyr up.

"No, I didn't read your mind, just intuition."

"You're not helping your case. I'm guessing you two are following me for the same reason Epel was?"

Vyr nervously began shifting his bag, gaze flitting around.

"Yes, but also, theres another reason...."

Still grumpy from being spooked, Epel stared him down.

"Whats that?"

"Don't worry about it, just something sorta kinda important."

One could practically envision smoke coming out of the lavendettes ears as he yelled, stomping towards the alchemist while clenching the front of his uniform, like he was in pain?

"The fuck ya mean "Don't Worry About it"?! If it's sorta kinda important, maybe ya should sorta kinda tell us!"

"I just want to make sure theres no averse side effects to the prototype! Thats all! I promise!"

Jack stepped between the two with a drawn out sigh.

"Arguing and yelling at eachother isn't going to help us catch up to them. Speaking of which, we might lose them if we don't start moving. "

As the now grouped four moved off, only the beastman heard something shift from within the darkness of the forest, and this time, it wasn't the bubble maker beside him.

Oddly, Epels sour mood, which probably directly connected to his bad temper in the previous moment, near completely vanished once they got far from that area, him mentioning something about an unknown pain in his chest disappearing instantly only further unnerved Jack.

A possible heart pain, paired with the undead they witnessed...... all of them still had their hearts, right? Even if they weren't beating.

The smallest memory of Vil explaining the plot of a movie after asking Jack to practice lines with him years ago threaded itself to the front of his mind.

It was a stupid connection, really. A famous ten year old cold case of Necromancy from the Sunset Savanna had nothing to do with this.

Right?

As they walked, his mind trailed off a bit, mulling it over.

Vil had said some theorists believed the actual culprit was just a young child at the time, considering the thought to be victims were a family of five, but the middle child had been missing when investigators arrived.

Some say the family had been dead before any of it happened, and the middle child subconsciously had brought them back out of grief.

Others think he had been sacrificed the bring the others back, or his body was somehow lost.

Of the only two possible witnesses, one died of heart attack, and the other was seemingly trampled to death, but the corpse was missing a heart.

Vils theory was the second victim killed the family, and it was a revenge kill, and the other was just a magic based accident.

For apparently a year or two after that major case, several reports came up of heart pains to the point of the victims fainting preceding many thefts, gang members or alley way thief's saying their flesh and bones felt controlled while fighting the unknown figure that turned them in, people being "forcibly"controlled into giving away things, although the last of the cases often happened miles away from eachother, sometimes on the same day.

How old did they say he was? 7? That would make him 17 - 18 today...... Just the right age to have attended Night Raven for a year or two....

Whatever, not the time to think about that.

———-

What the actual FUCK was going on?!?

Sure, Deuce gave him the low-down that shit gets pretty weird around them sometimes, BUT SERIOUSLY?! WHAT IN THE FRESH FUCKIN' HELL WAS THIS SHIT?!

First he hears what he's 80% sure is LEONA FUCKING KINGSCHOLAR of all the damned people trying to intimidate the female prefect, then said prefect comes flyin' through a damn wall while Ace got yanked off (and Rook aswell, but that was fine by Epel, a blessing actually.)

Next thing you know, she gets crushed by the ceilin' and a pillar, those two fuckin' pussy-ass cowards come in lookin' for her for some damn reason, and knocked Deuce and him out flat.

Two seconds later, they're trapped in a freezer or somethin', she don't even remember none of it, and just like Deuce had been tellin' him, she was sweet as pie.

I mean, he heard from some of the guys that she kicked total ass, so he may have had...some expectations n' hopes...but regardless, she didn't put up a fuss when a total stranger used her as a heater, and even tried crackin' a joke or two to lighten the mood.

So for what in the Sevens themselves did she do to get thrown in every damn mess?

The answer was apparently just...exist.

Kinda like how he existed and Vil decided he was his protégé whether he liked it or not. That Bitch.

Kicking a rock in frustration, he faced the mountain, realizing just how far away they were. You could barely make out anything but the big ol' castle and the windmill.

Did he really have ta go back to all that mess? If he wanted to make a gun for it, this was the best chance he'd get for a'while.

Could just try'n catch a boat to shore, but hitchhikin' all the way back to Harveston after would be near damn impossible.

Meemaw would be real disappointed in him too. So would Ma'.

Glaring up at the castle again, Epel gritted his teeth.

Runnin's for cowards. Man up, it ain't worth it anyway.

———————-

How to fuck up a mission: Get distracted by a suspicious lake.

In his defense, he was a (kind of?) Necromancer, but he was also an unmedicated 17 year old with Autism and ADHD running around a strange forest at night with no supervision.

With the addition of being able to sense and (partially) control anything as long as it had a heart (Living not required) , and trying to use this ability in a forest to find a group of people after loosing sight of them, its probably not shocking to know you end up in the wrong fucking direction a solid 9 times out of 10.

Several hearts at the bottom of a lake is something he, personally, would qualify as a decent reason to deviate. It gives you a sinking feeling.

No? Not funny? Whatever.

So yea, he may or may not have accidentally found a serial killers dumping ground. Thats neat. Should he tell someone? Probably. Was he going to? Absolutely not.

Great way to get instantly suspected as either the killer  or "Hey! Isn't controlling hearts the thing from the Elephant Graveyard Cases?" and then they'd do the very obvious time tracking and Voilà, his status as a professional conspiracy theory is no longer a theory.

Out of extremely morbid curiosity, he easily summoned the heart to the surface to check if—

Yep, thats a human heart. Amazing. Encore.

After a solid 20 minutes, he had unintentionally amassed a pile of hearts, all but one being human, the not human one was a pigs heart, which was generally pretty fucking weird. But so was several human hearts at the bottom of a lake.

Seven help him if some poor idiot saw this at three in the morning.  A pile o' hearts and a guy with white hair and blood red eyes that was at the current moment, soaked, from just now falling into the lake because he got whacked in the back of the head by a bat or something with wings.

Ok, new problem, what was he supposed to do with the newly acquired heart stack? Throw them back in?  Go to the police and casually drop off a bag of human hearts? Prank people with them? Hold on, too morbid.

But it would be funny to chuck one through Leonas window just to see what happens.

The thought of "Hey that one kinda looks like a deformed apple." trailed off to "What does it taste like?", and then was shot down by the very obvious issue that he was 60% sure that eating a human heart counted as cannibalism.

Wait.  Wasn't he supposed to be doing something important right now?

Something important.......

——
____________________

NOTES:

I LIVE I PROMISE!

This took so long. Mostly because I procrastinated but shhhhhh.

Is the (Not Entirely) Necromancer obvious yet? I tried since I kinda from the start wanted Lilia and Treys plan to absolutely go to shit (sorry guys) due to unintentional outside interference.

Why you may ask?! REALISM, BITCH!

Same goes for the Necromancer (screams silently because I want to write his name), I wanted to portray a bit that they are all still just teens by him getting way off track and Lilia bonking him for it.

(ok technically the third years are 18-19 and depending on the second year they will 18 later on in the story if their borthday passes because the second years are 17-18 but my point still stands)

Also before anyone says it i'm well aware I can't write Jack for shit. Gruff characters are tough to write for me but IMMA TRY MY BEST.

Also I'm not saying Jack and Vils theory is entirely right but I'm saying it's pretty close. Hehe.

ONWARDS.