Chapter Text
Idia’s experience was much different than the rest, as he had been in his room when he was kidnapped. He had been watching the chaos through his tablet but as soon as Riddle went down, his tablet glitched and cut off the video feed. All he could hear was the screams coming from the Mirror Chamber.
The same light that had been supplied by the Dark Mirror filled Idia’s room as the sounds of screams drew him into his own head, memories of a similar terror-filled shout filling his head. His vision grew blurry as tears filled his eyes, whether they were from the light or his own emotions, he didn’t know.
Idia fought his own weakness as he typed on his keypad, trying to restore the visuals from the orientation. Ortho had wanted to go, he should have been there, where was he?! Breathing became difficult but Idia was no stranger to such things, the familiar sensation of a panic attack was actually helpful in keeping him awake and alert enough to power through the sudden drowsiness he was feeling.
Giving up on trying to restore the video feed of the Mirror Chamber, Idia accessed the other security camera around campus to try and locate his brother. He had been useless in his youth but he refused to freeze up this time. He was no hero but he could at least use the skills that doomed his first brother to try and save the second.
The longer he went trying to locate his brother, the more tired he became. From the monitor focused on the Mirror Chamber, he could still hear the chatter from the room. Kalim shouted the name of his vice housewarden but his voice faded out. Great, he had probably been hit by whatever thing was plaguing the school. He had no video feed so he had no idea why people were panicking,
“Roi du Poison!” Oh, that was Rook. How weird to hear the guy sound scared. What was going on on the other side of the screen? “Mon beautiful Vil, please wake up! I implor–” There was a thump that cut off Rook’s next sentence. Was everyone passing out? Was there a gas released in the school?
The familiar sounds of a keyboard clicking filled the room as Idia searched the various security cameras around the school. Right as he had finally been able to restore vision in the Mirror Chamber, Idia’s head grew fuzzy and his eyes drooped. “Wait…no…”
Idia fell out of his chair, overlapping visions of Ortho plaguing his mind as his eyes fell shut against all his efforts.
When he finally came to, Idia’s first thought was of Ortho. He sat up, too fast as his head began to spin from the sudden movement. “Ortho?” He looked around, fighting through the rapidly approaching headache. “Where’s Ortho?!” His breathing picked up, his breaths coming too fast and shallow for air to properly make it to his lungs.
“I’m right here, Idia!” Ortho’s voice broke him free of his panic, his wide and fearful eyes turning to the source. Right in front of him was Ortho and he appeared to be unharmed. “I sense irregularities in your breathing and your heart rate is much higher than normal. Please do not strain yourself.”
Idia allowed his brother to fuss over him, following the boy's directions to sit down and take deep breaths. He allowed himself to relax as he listened to his brother’s voice. “Scanning vital signs once more.” Idia flinched at the sudden robotic tone of Ortho’s words. It was always so sudden to hear his normally human sounding brother turn so…artificial.
“I’m fine, Ortho. I was just panicking ‘cuz I didn’t know where you were and there was that strange light. I tried searching for you on the cameras but then I fell asleep and we have no idea where we are. What are we supposed to do?!” His attempt to reassure his brother grew into a panic spiral, only confirming whatever Ortho was worrying about.
“Cease your panicking, Shroud. It will do us no good.” For the second time that evening, Idia was jump-scared by Malleus Draconia in the flesh. Wonderful! Whoever or whatever did all of this was also able to affect the super strong SSR character Malleus?!
They were doomed. There was no way they were making it out. Goodbye manga, goodbye video games, goodbye W-I-P apps. R-I-P Idia Shroud, felled by magic light, cursed to live out his days stuck in a– what? A theater? Why a theater?
Okay, catastrophizing could wait. Why were they kidnapped to a theater of all places? “Uh, where are we?”
“It appears to be a movie theater! Though I am unable to discern our location, something seems to be off with my GPS.” Ortho frowned. “I’ve already tried using various methods of communication but they were a bust. It’s like something is blocking me from accessing specific functions!” That was definitely not good.
“Let me check, then.” Idia forced his brother to sit in a chair while he worked, checking over all of Ortho’s parts and coding for any malfunctions. He had to fight to ignore the stares of Malleus and his Diasomnia retinue. “There’s nothing wrong, there must be something about the room that’s affecting you.”
Lilia hummed, strangely standing on two feet instead of floating around or hanging upside down as usual. It didn’t take more than a few seconds for Idia to learn why. “Whatever it is must be the same thing that’s blocking us from using our magic.”
“Excuse me…what?!” No magic? Idia sat back down and looked around for his magestone. He found it placed neatly on one of the chairs near where he had woken up. Grabbing the object, Idia tried to cast a simple color changing spell but nothing happened. “No way…what a debuff.”
Wait, Lilia had said ‘us’ before. “Are you telling me that not only did Malleus also get taken to wherever we are, but something or someone was powerful enough to drain all his M-P?!” Once more, Idia began to freak out. This was not how he expected the day to go, he just wanted to get through orientation with no incident and then run back to the safety of his room.
Instead of that, however, Idia had to have a run in with Malleus, lose all confidence in joining his brother at the ceremony, hide shamefully in his room, and then get kidnapped. “This day is literally the worst. Negative ten out of a hundred. Would not recommend this experience to anyone.”
Ortho gave him a few pats on the back. “Don’t worry, Idia. I’m sure we can find a way out. My beam still works, I can try using it!”
“It sounds like our only option if there aren’t any exits.”
Lilia smiled as he helpfully informed the Ignihyde duo of the lack of exits. “We looked everywhere, we even checked for any hidden spots in the walls and floor. No luck.”
“Okay then…Ortho, try your beam.”
“On it!” Ortho gestured for the group to step back and faced one of the walls that didn’t have any sleeping people near it. His beam charged up and after waiting for around ten seconds, a light flash and Ortho’s attack landed on the wall. When the light dimmed, Idia ran over to the wall.
“No damage! What kind of defensive buffs do these walls have?!” Idia checked the wall once more, not believing that Ortho left no trace of damage on it. He couldn’t locate a single scratch, just scorch marks from where the beam hit the wall.
The magicless student and dire beast shared some sort of look with each other but Idia wasn’t focused on them. His mind raced a mile a minute, trying to think of any other options. They couldn’t break out, there were no exits or secret doors, and there was no way to contact the outside world. If Ortho’s communications were down then it was likely they didn’t have their phones. A quick check of his robes proved him right, his phone was nowhere to be seen.
Ortho stared at him as the panic began to set in once more. They were stuck there with no way out.
“What the–? Where am I?!” That was a new voice. Over on the other side of the room, Silver was helping a purple haired boy stand up. “What’s going on?”
Silver frowned, clearly frustrated. Wow, the guy looked like a prince even when he was angry. Was there nothing that could make him look bad?! Those looks were just unfair! “We don’t know where we are. We’ve tried multiple methods of escape but we’ve had no luck.” Blunt as always, though Idia supposed there was no sugar coating the situation they were in.
The boy had a few minutes to freak out which Idia found relatable. “We’re stuck here?!”
“Unfortunately so. Lilia and Malleus thought it’d be smart to wait for everyone to wake up before discussing our options. Maybe there’s a way out that we haven’t thought of or maybe somebody here will know more about what’s going on.” A smart enough conclusion, though Idia would prefer to stay away from such a large group of people, especially when super extroverts like Kalim and Cater were awake.
Speaking of ultra extroverted people, Rook Hunt had begun to shift on the floor where he was asleep. It took all of two seconds before the man was on his feet, looking around for something. His eyes locked on to the body next to him and a smile appeared on his face. Of course the guy was looking for Vil, his obsession with the model was well known around campus.
Idia watched as Rook carefully held Vil’s sleeping form, placing the model in a more comfortable position. The hunter listened intently as Lilia explained what was going on. After the explanation was done, Rook focused on Vil once more.
It didn’t take long for Vil to wake up. Rook smiled as he helped his housewarden sit up. “Good morning, Roi du Poison, though there is no telling whether it is morning or not.”
Vil quickly tore himself away from Rook. “What happened?!” He looked around the room, his gaze causing Idia to flinch when it landed on him for less than a second. “Where are we?!”
“Calm yourself, beautiful Vil. I’ll explain everything I know.”