Chapter 582 - Debut (1/2)

”Nik, what happened in 1963?” The bespectacled teacher inquired the disinterested young man with promising scores in the exams. A mistake that the teacher committed oftentimes. ”Many things Mr. Karl. Annie was born.” Nik stated as his nose twitched for the briefest moment as a few students snickered. Mostly girls. Nik had earned his fair share of hate and envy from his class early in the years. ”Who's Annie?” The teacher puckered his lips as Nik looked to the side, towards the windows. With his classroom situation on the first floor near the labs of the school, the students sitting near the windows could see the busy street and pass their time. Sometimes, students were also lucky enough to capture feeds with the most stupid situation that would go viral. Twice, this happened in Midtown Highschool. ”Annie him...” Nik pointed at the window as the students at the corner were already flinched in fear. Their mouth gaping as a ferocious green monster hovered on some form of a flying object.

His physique thin, ruby-red eyes, and his body garbed in tough, leather-like body outfit of purple and yellow, giving him that perfect halloween image. ”What do you mean Mr. Nik—” The teacher looked at the scene, his words stuck in his throat as the hovering monster smiled, revealing a set of yellowish jagged teeth, his gaze falling on Nik and Gwen. Then, the monster looked towards Flash, who had decided to attend the class. With the soft echo of the collective breathing of the students and teacher filling the room alike, all of them waited silently. Most of them afraid to do anything to aggravate the monster.

”I'm not Annie!” Showcasing high auditory senses, the man hovering cackled, his shrill voice causing everyone to finally gulp as Karl was the first one to take a step back. ”I'm Red!” Peter screamed, the gatling guns on the flying object clinking into action and started to slowly rotate when Karl shouted, ”Kids, get outta here!” Not willing to be the subject he taught just yet, Karl rushed out of the classroom as the students already began shouting.

”F.u.c.k! Fatass, move already!” One of them shouted.

”Hurry! Just stop packing!” Another girl panicked when she found her friend hurriedly packing the books instead of moving.

”Time's up—”

The sound of the barrage of continuous rounds of the two loaded gatling guns instantly attracted everybody's horror as the bullets pierced through the windows, causing the shattered glass to fly around while the students continued to scream and run as if all hell broke loose. With the bullets piercing through the floor and the desks, raising a cloud of splinter and smoke out of sheer bullets, Red's long nose twitched as he heard a strangely jittery noise within the fog as if metal collided against each other. Before long, the dust settled and the streets below Red was already emptied. Hearing the police sirens from afar, Red furrowed his brows and jumped down from the hover with his skin shifting. Soon, Peter's grizzly face turned into a rather modest-looking blonde youth while he took out a remote from his suit and pressed a button, causing the hovering object to fly up to the roof of the school.

---

Before the two machine guns rained hell on the entire classroom due to hatred directed towards Flash and Nik, himself, Nik's gaze glowed momentarily as he stacked the space right after the window pane and manipulated them to shift in between the stack itself, creating a shredding layer of space that would crush anything that passes through that particular wall of space shredder. This was his enlightenment on space locking. A wall surrounding a perimeter filled with an invisible shredder that would simply block anything and everything. Of course, there were still many methods to bypass this kind of blockade, all Nik now needed to do was find these methods out by himself.

As the bullets got shredded and continued to impact against each other and the fragments of glass, the entire place was soon filled with a cloud of powdered metal and glass meanwhile the class was emptied quickly with the security rushing up and students filling the corridors with curious gazes. ”Man! That's a monster!” One of them shouted before pushing his friend away, ”I'm leaving! Y'all need to get your asses out, too!” The youth with slightly disheveled clothes and blonde hair shouted before turning away. Instead of leaving, the youth entered the bathroom and saw a n.a.k.e.d, unconscious student lying with his outfit. Smiling, Peter took off the casual clothes once again and started wearing his outfit.

With his boosted senses, Peter could easily hear stuff from almost 8 meters away and he heard many panicked cries, trying to filter his target.

”We need to leave! Now!” Anna held one of her friend's arms, pulling him and his boyfriend away. On the other hand, Peter could also hear Mj's voice, ”Harry! Are you alright? Help! He- he's seizing!” Peter's expression crumbled slightly but he continued calmly. ”I'm getting out of here! Jenny, hurry along!” He shouted with finally Gwen's meek shouts echoing amongst others, ”Nik?! Where are you?!”

Hearing all of them, Peter sneered. However, his thoughts shook when he heard a soft voice regarding him calmly.

”That's quite a nice hairstyle... considering you were bald? You can shift your appearance? How convenient, Annie,” Turning back with a sharp expression, Peter found Nik standing with a curious expression. ”Don't feel confused, I could smell you out. Your scent stuck out like a sore thumb,” Nik closed the door behind him while scratching the top of his head, ”Now, tell me why you just tried to kill me.”

”It's me!” Peter's face slowly shifted onto the unusual blonde guy as Nik took a second to process everything. ”Peter!” Nik acted in a betrayed manner, ”How could you?!”

”You all watched me as the expendable guy! The butt of all jokes!” Peter gritted his teeth before smiling, ”But don't worry! After I get even with all of you, I'll vanish from society! Even that goblin won't find me!” Snarling, Peter took out a compact knife from his belt and gazed at Nik, ”I have the physical strength to crush your bones... but this will make it less painful. You aren't Flash, after all.” Slowly walking towards Nik, Peter suddenly stopped as his outstretched knife was instantly shredded as he continued to walk forward.

”Butt of all jokes? You go to therapy with such problems, not a gun store!” Nik shrugged, ”And what were you thinking? You are completely defenseless. I won't even enjoy removing you from existence,” waving at Peter, Nik smiled, ”Well, see you. This is what painless death should look like.” Nik pointed out before Peter simply exploded. His blood and gore instantly entered shredder of a spatial lock and formed into an artistic blood fog, ”And you can't just copy my style. I'm Vanish,” Nik mumbled while walking out.

”But... the stronger a person is physically, the harder it is to shift their bodies and induce the inflation of their body until the explosion... does that also apply to the atmosphere?” Closing the door behind him so as to keep the smell from spreading at the moment, Nik thought seriously, ”Maybe, there might be a different atmosphere that can reduce the effectiveness of the manipulation itself.” Not willing to get his hypothesis confirmed by Sky, which would prove to be a buzzkill, Nik began jogging towards the exit.

”So Peter was abducted by the Goblin? The same guy to attack the debate. Peter's actions seemed personal though.” As Nik jogged out of the exit, he found the front perimeter surrounded by police vans and multiple officers in black helmets and robust outfits covered the area alongside the local PD taking over the situation by questioning the students present in Nik's classroom.

”Hey, kid! Get here!” One of the men gestured Nik towards him as the apostle nodded and hurried towards the older cop. ”Did you see anything inside? Are there any more kids left?” The cop's answer was answered as more kids and a few teachers rushed out. ”Ugh, nothing officer. I was finding my pants. Some of the kids had hidden away in the locker room.” Nik lied with an embarrassed expression as the cop sighed, ”Kids these days. Almost got you in harm's way. Go, get yourself checked up and an officer would take your statement there,” The cop pointed at the line of students as Nik nodded.

Finding Mr. Karl, his history teacher shivering with a blanket over him, Nik restrained his urge to spook the man out and got through his procedures when he finally found Anna standing close to Brandon. Making his way over, Nik instantly hugged Anna as she breathed against his neck in relief, her hands coiling around his waist tightly. ”I was almost worried!” She complained in worry as Nik ignored Brandon's unusual gaze before pecking Anna and smiling, ”That's assuring then. I'd worry if I were you, too.”