On the outskirts of the city, inside a nearby forest, four people were gathered on a small plain surrounded by trees.
Although of course, the word gathering would not be the most adequate to describe this, after all, one of the people was not here of his own free will.
Lying against a nearby rock, with both his mouth and eyes covered by black bandages, Vilda was in a deplorable state.
His clothes were dirty and several bruises were visible on almost every part of his body.
These bruises had two origins, the first being that the process of abducting him had not been easy at all, which had resulted in more use of force by his captors.
As for the second origin, it was because the latter were in a bad mood, especially one of them, who was able to let off some steam by using Vilda as a punching bag.
"Do you think he'll be long in coming...?" Asked a tall young man with brown hair, wearing a leather jacket along with jeans.
"He's supposed to come soon, I don't think he's going to stand us up this time too. I mean, if this guy really is his friend, then he'll have to come." He was answered by another boy, who was of average height and had straight black hair, as for his clothes, they were similar to the first one.
A few meters away from them, a blond young man who was wearing a white shirt along with black pants was busy drawing magic circles on the ground.
"Instead of discussing nonsense, why don't you two better start checking the surroundings in case he arrives?" Said Nico, who was in no mood for unnecessary chitchat.
Unlike the other two, whose behavior indicated that they were not worried in the least, Nico was visibly nervous, the proof of this being the fact that he was even making preparations such as magic circles.
Since he was normally proud of his strength, he didn't bother making preparations, but thanks to the fact that he knew who they would be facing, he preferred to do something that most mages did on a regular basis.
"And I, as the new leader of this group, tell you to relax a little, you're wasting your time with all those circles." Replied the tall young man, Tom.
"Ah, this is why you shouldn't give positions of power to idiots, because it gets to their heads almost instantly..." Kai added, with a look of ridicule.
"Heh, you're just envious that the baron's right-hand man personally selected me!"
"Yeah yeah, whatever you say..."
Faced with this, Kai could only look away as he knew that continuing the conversation would be in vain, especially when Tom had a point.
Although people normally didn't take Nico seriously when he said he was part of the baron's group, this was actually true, going so far as to the point where he had even had contact with people directly related to said character.
Among the latter, the baron's right-hand man was the one who was in charge of appointing the leaders of the other groups of students who were willing to follow the baron.
Until recently, because Nico had performed well in the entrance exam and even before it, the right-hand man had chosen him to lead a small group of students.
However, after his failure to recruit Vedran, plus the fact that he had disbanded the group to form another one entirely on his own, adding to that that he had wasted a lot of time, had caused him to lose that position.
As a result, the leader of this group of three, under the instructions of the baron's right-hand man, had become Tom.
Who, it should be mentioned, did not take a day to carry out his own plans, which, unlike Nico, who preferred to recruit people, were more focused on building his fame and prestige.
Tom believed that once he became well known enough, people who would want to join him would come in dozens, and he was not without reason indeed.
But of course, amassing fame and prestige were easier things to say than to do, and most people would have a problem finding a way to go about it.
Nevertheless, Tom had already thought of a solution to achieve at least one of these two things, all thanks to Nico and his previous failures.
First of all, he had to make a name for himself and the other two.
As supers, the easiest way to do this would be to defeat someone stronger or at least someone with some level of fame, but there was also another way.
People liked drama, and academy students were no exception to this rule, although they enjoyed a fight as much as any other enthusiast, if there was a story behind the fight, then it was going to draw attention to a higher level.
Therefore, Tom had taken it upon himself to create a story that was perfect for the situation they were in, mixing real but mostly fake facts.
Using nothing more and nothing less than his own Palu profile, Tom had made not just one, but already almost a dozen posts, each of these telling a part of the story between Vedran and Nico, although many of the parts had been changed to suit what Tom wanted.
In his story, they were originally a group of friends made up not only by the three of them, but also by Nico's original group.
This group of friends spent their days at the academy studying and chatting with each other in peaceful places like the city's cafeterias, until one fateful day when neither he nor Kai were present, their study days were interrupted.
Suddenly, on one of his normal study days, three thugs entered the cafeteria and apart from treating the workers as if they were servants, they also made everyone present uncomfortable with their presence, being loud and condescending.
Up to that point, although it was uncomfortable for everyone, they could only wait for them to leave, however, one of the crooks, the one with the neck-length, wine-red hair, noticed that Nico's group had the notes from a class he had missed.
Without much more to say, the thug then stood up and put his hand on their table, asking to borrow the notes for a while, and that that's what classmates were there for.
The student, despite being nervous and a little scared, knowing full well that if he handed over his notes he would never see them again, instead offered to help him complete his own homework.
And that was his mistake, as immediately, the thug grabbed him by the collar and snatched the notebook from his hands while shouting obscenities that would make even a gang member blush.
Seeing this, both Nico and the others got up to try to calm the situation, but taking this as a provocation, the red-haired thug's friends approached and took them out of the cafe by force, before taking them to an alley and beating them to a pulp.
From that day on, none of them were ever the same, with both their efforts to be good students and their honor as men having been trampled upon, the group could do no more than split up.
When Tom and Kai learned of this, it took them no time at all to take matters into their own hands in order to claim justice for their comrades, who, even if they did not rejoin, would be avenged one way or another.
With such a story, Tom had managed to turn his originally deserted Palu profile, with the help of a few tags to make sure it reached students at the academy, into one that received a steady stream of students interested in this story of justice.
By doing this, although it could in no way compare to the fame of famous artists, let alone prominent supers, he had amassed a decent following for the story.
Now, each of his publications, as long as they were related to his mission of justice, would be guaranteed to have at least a hundred people seeing them, of which, most were students.
Tonight, since it was the day this story would come to an end, also thanks to Tom's skill at raising people's expectations, the number of spectators reached half a thousand.
"Ah, I think it's about time for one more update, don't you think?" Tom said as he turned on his smart watch and moved closer to Vilda, "Hey, it's time to get up, I need you to pose well."
However, Vilda, who was apparently unconscious, did not respond and remained motionless.
"I said... wake up!!!"
*BAM!*
Thereupon, Tom lashed out with a hard kick towards Vilda, which caused the esper's body to fall sideways, writhing shortly after as this had truly woken him up.
"Hngh!"
"That's what you get for not paying attention when I first spoke to you... anyway, as I was saying, I need you to pose well for our followers, ah yes, make sure you put on your best villain expression."
With those words as his last, Tom then squatted down and sat Vilda back down, before putting his face next to that of the last mentioned.
With his other hand, in which was his smartwatch, he took it upon himself to select the camera app and set the timer, a bright smile forming on his face.
Seeing this, both Kai and Nico turned away, as although they were following Tom's plan, they preferred not to have their faces captured in something like this.
"Tch, you cowards, now then, say cheese-"
*Swoosh!
"!"
At that moment, a breeze reached both Kai and Nico, who were the ones closest to the part of the forest that overlooked connected to the city.
Instinctively, Kai could feel that this breeze was not natural, as for Nico, he knew even better what this was due to, as the lesson had been roughly etched into his body and memory.
"Watch out!"
The first to shout was Nico, wanting to warn Tom, but unfortunately, at the same time he did so, bringing with it a strong current of wind, a dark figure shot out of the darkness of the forest.
In just a matter of seconds, the figure, moving at breakneck speed, passed by both Nico and Kai, heading straight for the person who had not yet noticed its presence.
*CRASH!!!*
"ARGH!
*Click!*
In a single instant, three different sounds were heard in the surroundings.
The first of two solid objects, one softer than the other, suffering a sudden and violent collision that caused the partial destruction of both.
The second sound was that of a young man, specifically, Tom, who could not help but let out a cry of pain as his skull was brutally pushed against the rock on which Vilda had originally been lying.
Finally, the third sound, which was the slightest but certainly not the least important, was none other than the signal from the smartwatch indicating that it had taken a photo.
As for the content of the photo, thanks to the fact that it had been taken at the right time, it showed Tom's face deformed because it had already made contact with the footwear of the unknown figure that was moving at great speed.
A small cloud of dust formed due to the partial destruction of the stone, but fortunately for Nico and Kai, it only lasted a couple of seconds before it dissipated, clearly revealing the person responsible for this disaster.
"...Nico, I was thinking of dealing with you in the future, but with this, you saved me the trouble of having to find you..." Said the unknown figure.
His appearance was strange, wearing a hooded sweatshirt along with sweatpants, both completely black in color and covering most of his body, as for the parts where skin was supposed to be seen, it was in these where the problem really started.
Both his hands and face were wrapped in bandages, only revealing the emerald green eyes of this strange individual.
Having this figure in front of him, Kai had no idea who this person could be, but thanks to the fact that the figure had spoken, Nico was able to identify who it was almost immediately.
Then, turning his head with his emerald eyes completely focused on Nico, the bandaged man continued, "Don't think this will end like the other time."
