Chapter Text
Leona knew he should have ditched the orientation ceremony when he had the chance. He didn’t sign up for whatever was going on. Kalim had been set on fire by some weird weasel monster, a random student had left before orientation began, two of the freshmen ditched once they were sorted, the whole thing was just a mess.
To put the icing on the cake, the Dark Mirror decided that there wasn’t enough chaos already. The glow was too bright for his eyes, causing him to cover them with his arm. From his peripheral vision, Leona could see Riddle trying to approach the object but the boy fell unconscious before he could even take one step. His vice housewarden, the guy with the clover face paint, ran to catch him but quickly followed his housewarden into unconsciousness.
A bunch of people began to freak out, running around like a group of startled gazelle. Crowley tried to calm them all down but Leona couldn’t make out what he was saying. Ruggie had just been beside him, where did he–? Oh, Ruggie was kneeling on the ground holding his head. “Leona…?” Wait, what was going on? Why was Leona feeling so tired?
‘Fuck.’ Was his last thought before his world went dark.
Ugh, there were too many voices. “Be quiet, I’m tryin’ to sleep…” He could vaguely make out Ruggie’s sigh from above him.
“Leona, wake up! This isn’t the time to be taking a nap!” Ruggie sounded…afraid? That was odd, Ruggie didn’t scare easily, even when Leona tried.
With a purposely dramatic yawn, Leona opened his eyes. He was met with the concerned eyes of Ruggie and one of his dorm’s new freshmen. “You’re awake! Great!”
An obnoxious laugh rang in his ears, causing them to twitch. “Wonderful. That just leaves those from Heartslabyul. If my calculations are correct, they should begin to wake within the next few minutes.” Leona could recognize that voice anywhere. Azul. Just great, that damn cephalo-punk was here? Wait, where was here?
Green eyes scanned the room. A theater? A weird choice for a kidnapping. There were five people still asleep, probably the ones Ashengrotto had mentioned were all from Heartslabyul. “What is goin’ on?”
Of course the octopus was the one to answer his question. “We are in some strange movie theater, there are no exits, and none of us are able to use our magic.”
One of the twins shrugged, Leona didn’t care to learn the differences between the two. To him they were equally annoying. “This sucks! There’s nothing to do here!”
Leona ignored the complaining eel, digging into the pockets of his robes in an attempt to find his phone. As he expected, their phones were likely taken from them while they were unconscious. So, no magic, no phones, and no exits. Great.
“We decided to wait until everyone awoke to try and figure out what was going on. For now, Ashengrotto has compiled a list of all who are present.” Another pretentious voice, one that Leona arguably found even worse than Azul’s.
“Not the lizard…” He groaned, sitting up. There was no way he’d be able to sleep in such conditions. Once he was upright, the cephalo-punk handed him the list of names. He skimmed the page but didn’t bother to memorize any of the names on it. He quickly handed the paper back to Azul, not wanting to interact with him more than necessary.
“You could be a little more grateful for my efforts. I went through the trouble of identifying everyone here out of the kindness of my heart.”
Leona rolled his eyes. “Right, you definitely wouldn’t have used a contract if you were able to.” The look on Azul’s face to tell that he hit the nail on the head with his deduction.
One of the new freshmen from Diasomnia, another Malleus fanboy from the looks of it, seemed to take offense to Leona’s words and interrupted his conversation with Azul. “How dare you refer to the Malleus Draconia as a simple lizard?!”
Headache number two, the Diasomnia sophomore, sighed at the loud freshman. “Sebek, please calm yourself. We can’t afford to fight amongst ourselves.”
The freshman, Sebek, was about to reply to his upperclassman but a few groans and the sound of shuffling distracted him. The group of Heartslabyul students seemed to be waking up, finally. The two juniors were the first to awake, not totally coherent or aware of their surroundings. “What the–?” The one with the diamond face paint muttered.
“Where is this? What happened?” The one with the club face paint wondered. Since Leona hadn’t bothered to learn their names, he was unable to properly identify them.
Like he had with Leona, Azul approached the pair to explain the situation. He had probably done so for everyone who woke up after him by the looks of things. Oh well, Leona didn’t care what Azul did, he’d rather go back to sleep until something important happened.
As he went to lay back down, Ruggie stopped him. “Leona, you can’t sleep this off! We’re in an actual emergency here!”
“So loud…” Leona swatted away the hyena’s hands but Ruggie was nothing if not persistent.
“You can’t just go back to sleep! We’re kidnapped and have no idea where we are! Even Malleus Draconia can’t just magic us out of here!”
Those words gave Leona pause. Sure, Azul explained that they couldn't use magic but Leona hadn’t really expected Malleus of all people to be effectively powerless too. “You’re joking.”
Ruggie shook his head. “I’m not! We’re stuck here, who knows where ‘here’ even is, and we have no clue who took us or why. This is kind of an emergency and not the time for you to be taking naps!”
More groans came from the Heartslabyul group but Leona ignored them. Azul and his little sidekicks could deal with the people who were just waking up. His eyes looked around, taking in the rest of the group. Aside from those he already saw, there was Vil and two other Pomefiore students. He recognized the hunter but not the short one.
Obviously, along with Malleus and his two knights, there was also the vice housewarden of Diasomnia. Next to them, chatting up the bat fae was Kalim. Jamil stood with his housewarden, eyeing the rest of the group with a suspicious gaze.
Hiding in the corner was the radish sprout and his little brother. They seemed to be whispering amongst themselves but Leona didn’t care to eavesdrop. On the other side of the room stood the random student and fire weasel that interrupted orientation.
As he continued his observations, he wondered if he should have memorized the list of names after all. “What a random group to kidnap.” Sure, some of the choices made sense. A celebrity, two princes, and the Asim heir were prime targets for such schemes but Ruggie? Ruggie was just one hyena among many, why would someone target him?
Nothing about his current predicament made any sense and now he was stuck in a place full of random students. At least there were other housewardens, most of them knew what they were doing so they’d be of some help.
Heartslabyul’s vice housewarden had finally come to his senses, disturbing the relative silence in the room. “Riddle? Riddle, wake up!”
Ah, so Rosehearts was the last one to wake.
“He’s the only one still asleep…” Cater Diamond, Leona recalled. It was odd to see him without that perpetual smile on his face.
The freshman with the spade face paint had joined his fellow Heartslabyul members at Riddle’s side. “Is he dead?!”
“He’s obviously still breathing, idiot!” The one with the heart face paint rolled his eyes. His words caused the other freshman to glare and they fell into an argument. The vice housewarden for their dorm tried to split them up while Diamond stayed at Rosehearts’ side.
Jade, wait no, Floyd? Either way, one of Azul’s cronies approached the sleeping boy. “Goldfish, if you don’t wake up, I’m gonna squeeze ya!” The grin on the eel’s face told Leona that he was completely serious with his threat.
The mer’s words seemed to be the catalyst to waking up the housewarden. Riddle sat up faster than he probably should have. “I’m up! Don’t you dare touch me Floyd!” The boy shut his eyes, likely to let them adjust to his surroundings. With a groan, he slowly opened his eyes again and turned to his vice housewarden. “What happened? Where are we?”