Work Text:
It wasn’t long after he’d enrolled in Pandora Academy that Vincent Nightray witnessed Ada Vessalius getting dragged out of their shared classroom by a group of other girls in their class. Nobody else seemed to notice or respond, so, after a few moments, Vincent leaned over to Leo Baskerville, the other student council member, and whispered, “What was that about?”
“What?”
“A group of girls just pulled Ada out of our classroom.”
“Oh, that.” Leo looked away. “I—have an idea, but it’s probably for the best that you don’t know.”
Vincent rolled his eyes. He was well aware that he was kind of a persona non grata in the student council—they’d recruited him specifically for his ability to possess people, and Ada was the only person who even pretended to be happy about it—but he didn’t appreciate them keeping information from him.
“I see, I see…” he mused. “Well, I have time before student council starts, and Elly packed me some of his nasty cooking again, so I think I’ll go for a walk.”
Leo rolled his eyes. “I will happily take Elliot’s ‘nasty’ cooking off of your hands,” he said. “Also, you’re not subtle.”
“Excuse me?” said Vincent, happily dropping the box of overly sweet omurice on Leo’s desk.
“I’m just saying,” Leo said, opening the box and helping himself to a bite of the omurice, “I’ve literally got a secret boyfriend and I’m not even that obvious when I’m sneaking off to see hi—oh my God that’s nasty. What the fuck did he put in here, corn syrup ?”
“Nightray Household Secret Pizza Sauce,” said Vincent, rolling his eyes. “I think it should be legally classified as a biohazard. Anyway, you wanted it, you keep it. Bye.”
Vincent left before Leo could try and push the omurice back on him, walking through the halls and asking around until he had gotten a good idea of where Ada and the other girls had gone, and then, telling himself he was just curious, Vincent made a beeline outside, to the alleyway behind the school where he had been told they had gone.
“—fake fucking bitch!” came the voice of one of their classmates. Vincent raised his eyebrows—a fight?—and began to walk in the direction of the voice. After all, it would not be an exaggeration to admit that Ada Vessalius was an excellent asset in a fight, and he looked forward to seeing her at work in a fight that he wasn’t a part of. Her power to make herself invisible to one person and one person only had laid him flat on their first meeting, and there was a part of him still reeling from that—to see someone else experience it—!
She’s not popular with out classmates, Vincent remembered Leo telling him, because she can only hide herself from one person at a time. To everyone else, it just looks like she’s especially violent…
Vincent rounded the corner and got a proper glimpse of the situation. The group of girls from their class had Ada surrounded, backed against the alley wall, and she had a swelling bruise already on her cheek. She didn’t say anything to the other girls as she stood there, her pretty green eyes closed and her golden hair loose over her shoulders.
“This,” said the girl standing in front of her, “is for Rika!”
The girl punched Ada in the face again; Ada’s head snapped to the side, but she stayed silent and straightened herself out again.
“And this is for Yuriko!”
The girl kneed Ada in the stomach and she doubled over, gasping; before she could gather herself, she was kicked in the side again and fell to the ground.
The girls continued shouting names, pulling Ada up by the hair and hitting her in the face and abdomen and legs.
How terrible… Vincent thought, though he refused to let himself feel any pity, remembering how he had been recruited to the student council. It was understandable that people would dislike someone who so thoroughly beat someone’s ass at so little provocation. Then again, it’s not like I can’t understand why she does it…
Long before Vincent and Ada had met, Ada and her older brother Oz had been captured by scientists researching people who had abilities. Ada, whose power of semi-invisibility hadn’t manifested yet, had believed herself to be in a normal school with odd physical exams every day, kept so busy she couldn’t see her brother, but Oz Vessalius, who had had the ability to send messages through mirrors merely by glimpsing his own reflection, had been experimented on and tortured until he could no longer recognize even his little sister. Ada had managed to escape and had been set up with the student council by whoever it was who had founded Pandora Academy, but by the time her brother had gotten free the only place he could go to was a hospital controlled by Ada’s allies. It made sense, then, that the girl would be so quick to neutralize any perceived threats coming her way—
But still, that didn’t mean that would ever make her popular.
Vincent stayed where he was, watching the girls beat the ever-living shit out of Ada, until they seemed to have had their fill and left, leaving her with one last kick to the stomach as they went. Vincent waited until they were well and truly out of Ada’s sight before bracing himself against the wall, taking control of the ringleader, and running her and then each of the girls in succession into the school’s pond; then, satisfied with himself, he walked casually into the alleyway and stared down at Ada, who was picking herself up, adjusting her earbuds, trying for all the world to look as though nothing was wrong.
“Are you alright, Miss Ada?” Vincent asked.
Ada looked up at him and smiled. “Perfectly fine, Vincent,” she said, standing. “I mean, you were only watching, right?”
Vincent nodded. “I didn’t think it was my place to interfere,” he said. “I’m sure you could have taken those girls, if you’d really wanted to.”
“I’m happy you think so highly of me, Vincent,” Ada said, still smiling at him. Her phone dinged in her pocket, and she picked it up as Vincent tried to send death vibes at her— I don’t think highly of you, I don’t think highly of you at all, I hate you, I just watched you get the shit kicked out of you by a mob of our classmates and did absolutely nothing about it, what part of that makes you think I like you?!— before she tucked her phone away and said, “Our associate should be showing up in a few minutes to reveal another location of a student with an ability.”
“I see,” said Vincent. “I don’t suppose there’s time to escort you to the nurse’s office beforehand? You’re rather badly bruised.”
“Oh!” said Ada. “I think so, probably. She never shows up until all of us are there, anyway…thank you, Vincent!”
“Of course, Miss Ada,” Vincent replied.
Don’t think I’m not doing this for myself, you sow, Vincent thought. After all, since the student council was definitely meeting today, that meant that Noise and Echo would be there, too—and Vincent, who was perhaps the only person in the world who knew which of the twins was really dead, had a vested interest in never being around them at all.
So he escorted Ada to the nurse’s office, and waited outside as she got treatment for her wounds—they had a very good nurse’s office here at Pandora, if only because Leo’s ability of teleportation fucked him up so often—and then walked with her to the student council room, passing a few soaking wet and fuming girls on their way.
Fucking bitches, Vincent thought when he saw them. I hate girls.
And maybe this was true, or maybe it wasn’t—but who could say?