I barely got a week before the next incident of note, though thankfully no-one died this time. Unfortunately for me, Ford and his gang were right in the middle of it. I’m not sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing that I wasn’t there to intervene at the time. Instead I heard about it through the security team’s radio chatter.

I recognized Marissa’s voice as she exclaimed, “Well shit! They’ve strung Jerome up a tree by his ankles!”

Mark replied, “Who? And does Jerome look to be particularly injured?”

“Jerome’s saying it was Ford and his two goons. Hanse is getting him down now.”

Mark sighed, “All teams, find Ford Carpenter and the Gray twins. We need them for questioning.”

In my office, I groaned. I just knew this would involve me sooner rather than later, and I really wished it wouldn’t. But an incident this severe would need to be addressed.

Less than thirty minutes later, I was proven correct. Mark showed up a couple minutes before the students in question to let me know what happened.

“It’s a doozy, Adrian. Turns out that Ford and his friends weren’t just stringing up Jerome for the heck of it; he’d been bullying a friend of theirs and they apparently decided to take matters into their own hands. We’ll be bringing in Jerome to talk to you right after.”

I groaned, just in time for the three teenage students in question to enter my office.

“Hello Ford, David, Sarah.”

I dearly wished to simply mind control them, but unless I could get a warrant for it that would definitely end up with me in jail. So I simply stared at the three of them for about a minute as I tried to figure out what to say.

Eventually, Ford said, “Headmaster I can explain. Jerome wa-”

I cut him off, “Jerome is none of your concern right now. I will be speaking to him after you.”

I continued, “Do you three have any idea just how monumentally stupid what you just did was!? This school is a ticking bomb at the best of times! Just a week ago someone’s art project killed a student, and that was entirely accidental! If you three start a gang war between the students, it could easily result in the entire school being reduced to a smoldering crater and getting everyone killed!”

I only then realized I was shouting.

I immediately reduced my volume, “I apologize for yelling.”

Eventually Ford spoke up, “I didn’t realize that could happen, Headmaster.”

I growled, “No, you didn’t. I recommend you look up the statistics on schools like this. Frankly it’s a miracle the building is still standing after how Humbernot ran it.”

Sarah Gray immediately nodded; given her bookworm tendencies I had every expectation she actually would read up on the matter.

I stared at Ford, “All three of you need to promise me that next time someone’s getting bullied? You report it, instead of trying to solve it yourselves. The safety of everyone here is at stake.”

“Understood, Headmaster.” with a total lack of enthusiasm or sincerity.

I sighed. “Right. Mark, I’m assigning these three so many extra classes they simply won’t have the time to get in trouble, with extra emphasis on Civics, along with Ethics and Safety of Magic. Make damn sure they attend said classes.”

My head of security nodded. “Understood. Shall I show them out?”

“Yes.”

Jerome came in immediately after, and I could tell from his smarmy grin that he was totally unrepentant.

“Don’t think you’re getting off easy just because I was hard on Ford and company.”

I glared at Jerome, who looked at least a little scared now.

“What did you get from bullying Selene? Emotional validation? A feeling of power? Extra dessert? Whatever it was, it’s not worth it.”

The pimple-faced youth chuckled, “’Course it’s worth it. And she deserves it for showing me up in math class anyway.”

“Ford could have easily had you killed, you know. We probably wouldn’t have been able to stop him until it was already over, seeing as we only learned you were strung up after the fact.”

That seemed to get Jerome’s attention, the memory of getting strung up that tree clearly still strong and painful.

I sighed, “What you need to understand here is that every single student at the school is here because they know magic. Magic is incredibly dangerous, so much so that it’s literally illegal to know it in a populated area below the age of eighteen. On my very first day I confiscated a heart-stopping device that was mere seconds away from being used on a bully not too different from you. The instant someone snaps or gets pushed over the edge here? People die.”

Now Jerome looked properly terrified. But I continued.

“It gets worse than that, Jerome. Because that sort of magical violence spreads in an environment like this. Before you know it, everyone’s in a curse first ask questions never state of mind because the alternative is getting blasted yourself. Eventually one of two things happen. And I want you to guess what they are.”

Jerome guessed “Um… one side wins or the police shows up?”

Huh, hadn’t actually accounted for that second one but he had a point. “Right, one of three things happens. The third thing that could happen is that someone goes beyond what they can use safely and sets off a chain reaction that gets everyone killed. It’s happened in underage magic schools before, and I’d really prefer if it didn’t happen here.”

Something finally clicked in Jerome’s mind, the raw fear of death managing to punch through whatever complex he had.

“That’s why Ethics and Safety is required to take any of the fun classes isn’t it? You need to make sure that students who know how to fling fireballs and lightning around won’t.”

I nodded, “That is exactly the case, Jerome. Anyway, I’m not allowed to expel you, but I will be giving you two weeks of detention with Mister Slate. I want you to think long and hard about if you’re willing to risk your life before bullying someone again.”

Jerome’s expression had gone very somber as he left my office.

And so I sat to think for a few minutes about what had just transpired. I probably got through to Jerome, hopefully. I highly doubted the same could be said of Ford and his gang, at least for the time being. Still, that’s why I’d shoved them through such an intensive course load.

Only now did I look at the clock. Ah, it was lunch time.

I sat across from Jethro after getting my food; apparently the kitchen staff had decided it was Eastern week, so it was decent-ish stir fried noodles today. Better than the noodles from yesterday at least; those were barely edible.

My best friend in this horrific school nodded, “Nice to see you Adrian. Heard about what happened earlier. You want to talk about it?”

I sighed, “Do I have to?” before pushing a lump of noodles into my mouth.

Jethro shrugged, “It’d probably help. Bottling that sort of stuff up for so long isn’t good for you.”

I hummed, finished the mouthful of noodles, then replied. “I don’t know how I can get these kids to stop antagonizing each other. It’s bad enough that total accidents can get people killed so easily, but I swear not one of the students has figured out that angering other mages is incredibly dangerous.”

“And how many well-behaved students end up in your office, Adrian?”

I blinked. That… was actually an excellent point Jethro had there. If I only ever saw the worst of the student body it would be very easy to fall to cynicism.

“Maybe I could set up some sort of club or something? Responsible students getting to spend a free study period with me? But that seems difficult to execute in a sensible way without just breeding more resentment among the student population.”

Jethro nodded sadly, “It’s not an easy problem to solve. Better folk than me have tried and failed. It’s why I stick to fixing up the building; it’s not terribly likely to fight back when you fix it. Well, most of the time anyway.”

I sat thoughtfully, “That one time I provided paper airplanes for the students was pretty fun, honestly. Maybe I should make a point of spending an hour or so being approachable every day? I’ve gotten through the entire paperwork backlog from Humbernot’s time here, so I have the time to spare.”

“Heh. Not too different from office hours at a university, at least in concept. Might be worth a shot.”

So that afternoon I printed out some notices about my new office hours policy, and had them pinned up on the bulletin boards around the school.

I hadn’t expected for the first student to take advantage of it to be Geoffrey Blue, though I suppose it made sense. He came into my office about an hour before supper, and sat as the small table I’d had set up for students.

After a few minutes, he asked, “Headmaster, how do we do archmage things? Xiu and I are stuck with each other now, but we still haven’t figured out a way to combine our skills into something more.”

I thought for a moment “Well, one of the more common ways to do it is for the Ductile member to work their skills through whatever the Sharp is doing. Thing is that’s not always applicable, depending on the Sharp’s transcendent skill.”

Geoffrey and Xiu nodded, before asking “Er, could we see how you do it maybe?”

I sighed “I’m actually one of the cases where it isn’t applicable most of the time. My Sharp side is a transcendent bureaucrat, which imposes notable limitations on what we can actually do. Still, I might be able to come up with some helpful ideas if you tell me what bits you already know.”

Geoffrey took a bit “Well, I know a bit of Craft and that thingy that got Xiu in here instead of dying. And Xiu makes the best pillow forts and igloos and stuff. She put a whole ice rink inside one of them once.”

I blinked. Xiu was a transcendent builder? Now that was both interesting and very very odd for one so young.

“I think in your case you two should probably do it backwards from the way I said. Use Craft to get materials ready and in place for Xiu to work with, and Xiu can build them into structures that wouldn’t be possible otherwise.”

Geoffrey and Xiu blinked as they thought that over. “Huh… That’s actually a good idea. Would you mind if we brought some modeling clay in here to practice tomorrow?”

I nodded, “I think it would be very interesting. See you tomorrow.”

I didn’t have anyone else in for the rest of the day, and went to supper. Thankfully it wasn’t eastern cuisine again; that had been getting very samey.

Jethro greeted me with a dour expression, “Hello, Adrian. You look to be in a decent mood.”

I sat down, “Is something wrong?”

He growled out, “Some joker thought it would be funny to set off an instant swamp in the corridor just outside the second alchemy lab. It’s really really not! It’s going to take days to drain the water, cut down the trees, remove the scum, repair the structural damage, and that’s not even mentioning the crocodiles! Two of my people lost limbs to the fucking crocodiles before we could get security in to deal with it!”

I nodded, “I have a pair of glasses that can see the past. Want me to swing by and see who did it?”

Jethro nodded angrily, “Would you please? I really really want to rip that idiot a new one, people almost died over this!”

I thought for a moment, “Would you mind if I took a bit to check the exact rules here? Because I think that this is the sort of deliberate malicious action where I’m supposed to get law enforcement involved.”

Jethro agreed furiously, and we parted ways for the time being.

As soon as I got to my office, I got out the regulations book about how the school was ostensibly supposed to run. There was a conveniently labeled section about when to involve law enforcement, and reading it would be a very very good thing. Double-checking indicated that yes, this was a situation in which I was supposed to involve the National Magical Crimes Unit.

So I got out the telephone and called their number.

“Hello, this is the National Magical Crimes Unit. Why are you calling today, headmaster?”

Figures they’d have the number on record. “Hello, one of my students has committed a crime. Specifically they set off an instant swamp, causing serious structural damage and severely injuring two of the custodial staff. I’m requesting that you come arrest them, please.”

“Do you know the identity of the student?”

I answered, “Not yet, but I will by the time you can get someone out here. I have a retrovision item, so finding out who they are should be quite easy.”

It would be admissible in court; I already knew that from a long time as an insurance investigator. Legally, it was about on par with security recordings.

“Understood. We’ll have a team over there as soon as possible.”

Right. Phone call over, next thing on the list inform security to be ready to receive law enforcement. That done, I started making my way over to where the disaster site was located.

I could smell it before I could see it, the stench of a swamp being very evident despite the school’s air purifiers working as hard as they possibly could. Then it came into view. Yep, that was a swamp alright. Mangrove trees and everything. I spotted Jethro on the other side of the sunken pit in the floor, getting a pump ready to remove the water.

“Hey Jethro, about how long has this swamp been here?”

The head custodian replied, “About three hours. Guessing you need that to dial in how long ago to look?”

I nodded, and got out my glasses again. Dial in the correct timeframe and… Oh. That was two perpetrators, not just one. Fifteen and sixteen by the looks of it, red hair, freckles. Let’s just activate the “Print Person” function on there and…

I was now holding a page for each of the pair, with both a whole-body shot and a close-up of their face. No names sadly, but I definitely recalled seeing these two around the school before. One of our sibling pairs if I recalled correctly. Right, check for identity masking wards and other such obfuscation… nothing. They hadn’t even bothered to shield against retrovision.

I nodded, “Right, I’m going to run these through the photocopier a bunch of times.”

It was only then that I heard the roaring noise and realized that the NMCU hadn’t taken the train. They’d taken an aircraft.

I quickly dashed out into the courtyard just in time to see the sleek troop-carrier hovering to a landing. Several officers in full tactical suits got out of the vehicle, and they immediately turned to me. “Greetings. Have you identified the perpetrator?”

I passed them the pages, “These two, though I haven’t had time to match names to faces.” even as I felt a truthfulness probe scraping up against my mind.

They nodded, “Understood.” and fed the pages into some sort of device. Immediately I could feel the Mancia sweep crawling through the school, raising the hairs on the back of my neck.

Something beeped, and the squad immediately dashed off down one of the corridors.

I barely had to wait a few minutes before the tactical squad returned, hauling two terrified teenagers in immobilizing spells. They were the ones I’d seen setting off the instant swamp in that corridor, no doubt about it.

The officers and the two teenagers were quickly hauled aboard the troop carrier, and off they flew.

That incident dealt with, I went to tell Jethro about what happened. As he busily drained the water from the crater he remarked, “Hmmmph. Hope those two never get to see the light of day again.”

I sighed. “That’s not terribly likely. They’ll be given a fair trial, and if convicted they’re going to have their ability to use magic brainwashed out of them, spend a few years behind bars, then get released. Side note we can probably expect detectives to be crawling all over the school for a few weeks. So we’d best document the exact state of the swamp before you finish fixing it up.”

Jethro took a deep breath, “I know. I’m just really really mad; some of my best friends here almost died. Even if Anne has them fixed up good as new in a few days, that really isn’t easy to get over.”

That’s about when three other custodians showed up. “Hey Jethro. We just got here from the infirmary; Becky and Tim are stable, and Anne says she’ll have the new arms ready for them by tomorrow.”

Jethro continued to pump “Anything else?”

I read Reed’s nametag as he said “Yeah. Boss, you’re dead tired. Why don’t you let us take over this mess so you can get some sleep?”

There was no response for a few minutes, then Jethro relented “Alright.” passed the pump tube to Reed, and wandered off towards his bedroom.

You know, going to bed seemed like a really good idea. This evening had been absolutely exhausting.

A few minutes later, I had made it to my room. Brush my teeth, get cleaned up for the night, then clamber into bed. The next thing I knew I was sitting across a table from myself. Ah, one of those dreams where the both of me could discuss things…

“So. That’s the first time some of our students have been arrested. Did we really make the correct choice there?”

I thought for a moment, “One way or another, what the pair of them did had to be addressed. People could have died over that. And unlike the paper tiger incident they did it on purpose.”

“True, but we both know what they’re in for in juvenile detention. They use Mancia to forbid all inmates from using magic or trying to escape for the duration of their sentence, and the bar on magic could easily be for life. They’re never going to have a chance to get better.”

“Even so, they were an active threat to the safety of everyone else here. They couldn’t stay, or they’d have just kept doing things like that until their actions killed someone.”

Other me remained silent for a moment, and I continued, “Also, we’ve seen that type of behavior before. As far as they’re concerned other people getting hurt was never their fault and it wasn’t that bad anyway, even when it was absolutely intentional on their part.”

“… I know, but I still have misgivings and doubts about how that went.”

“I do too Adrian, I do too.”

The next morning we felt dead tired despite having gotten to bed on time. A quick check of the clock revealed the reason: it was about two in the morning. Despite our best efforts we couldn’t get back to sleep, so we staggered over to our office at around four to get today’s routine paperwork out of the way before our thoughts dissolved into mush.

The next thing we knew, Lucy had come over.

“Adrian? Are you alright? I found you here passed out on your desk.”

I groaned, “Woke up around two in the morning and couldn’t go back to sleep. Came here to get the routine paperwork out of the way.”

Lucy gently patted me on the shoulder, “Sorry to say it, but I don’t think that worked out as planned.”

I looked down at the papers I’d done overnight. What was normally crisp legible handwriting was indecipherable scrawl, and the ink had run thanks to me drooling on it in my sleep. Well that was a waste of time and effort.

Sensing my distress, Lucy noted, “I think you should take the day off. The school’s not going to explode if you leave it be for a day, and you’re clearly not in any state for complicated thinking right now.”

I gurbled something about tigers and swamps, but it was pretty incoherent.

Lucy nodded sadly, “Off to bed with you. We’ll have your meals brought to your room.”

I hated to admit it, but Lucy was right. So I stumbled off to bed, just in time for a levitating food tray to arrive with a stack of pancakes and some breakfast sausages. Ah… this was nice.

The rest of the morning passed uneventfully, as far as I knew. Security’s radio chatter certainly didn’t say anything particularly dangerous was happening. Still, by the afternoon I felt rested enough to at least try to get back to work.

I’m not sure why I was surprised that one of the first things I encountered was Ford Carpenter prowling the halls looking for bullies again. Oh right, because I’d explicitly had his schedule altered to deny him the opportunity to do this. Though his two buddies didn’t seem to be present at the moment.

“Hello Ford.”

He whirled to look at me, shock evident on his face.

“Looking for bullies to fight again, even after I had that little talk with you?”

Ford’s response was the least convincing ‘no’ I’d ever heard, and that was after several years as an insurance investigator.

I groaned and checked the planner, “Aren’t you supposed to be in civics right now? We’ve been over this, you picking fights with other students here is a threat to everyone’s safety.”

Ford tried walking away, and I let him for the time being. Fine, if that’s how he wanted to play it…

I let my other side open a random door, and we stepped through it into my office. I got myself settled in my chair, and about twenty seconds later Ford wound up coming through the door. It closed behind him before he realized where he was.

Oh watching the expression of confusion on his face was delightful.

“What? Er. But this isn’t… where that door goes.”

I groused, “It was for about five seconds, when you opened it. Now, I’m going to be incredibly blunt. Since you somehow evaded security when they were supposed to ensure you stayed out of trouble, I’m going to be directly preventing the mere possibility.”

Ford involuntarily twitched in fear. Huh.Not what I was going for but I’d take it.

I let my other side take over, “As headmaster of this school, I hereby forbid you from involving yourself in any further bullying incidents. You can still report them to security, or defend yourself if attacked. But if you try to get involved in a fight that isn’t yours, you’ll find yourself on the other side of the school before you can cause any problems!”

We glared as Transcendent Authority flared “Do you understand me, Ford Carpenter?”

He froze in place, like a deer in the headlights. After a few moments, he silently nodded.

Not quite good enough for the Obligation to snap shut.

“A silent nod isn’t enough, Ford. Do you understand me?”

Finally he relented “I understand, Headmaster.”

And with that the Obligation locked into place, hopefully keeping Ford from setting off a magical gang war in the middle of Red Point magic academy.

“You may go, Ford.”

Silently, the boy turned and left. As soon as he was gone we slumped down in our chair over the enormity of what we’d just done. It was technically legal, but oh was it problematic…

I hoped tomorrow would be a bit better.

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