Over an hour ago, before the gala even began, Mesto-Presto stood at the cash register in Burrito Bistro, counting up the change when…

DING!

Mesto looks to see Hunter enter through the front door, his clothes dirty and his stomach grumbling.

At this point, Mesto doesn’t even need to respond as he makes some nachos and hands them to Hunter. Hunter begins to scarf them down as a TV in the restaurant blares a news report about the upcoming gala.

“You know it’s closing time, right?” Mesto remarks while taking off his green apron and putting on a plaid jacket.

“Yeah sure just make me a burrito, Burrito Boy,” Hunter beckons as he continues to eat.

Mesto rolls his eyes as he ignores the request and continues closing. He sweeps up the dust off the floor, wipes down the tables, and closes the register. Hunter, also now done with his meal, stands up and exits the restaurant.

Mesto grabs his bag before turning off the lights, switching the sign in the door from ‘open’ to ‘closed’, and then locking the front door as he leaves. Mesto starts to walk home, however, he is beginning to grow a bit wary as Hunter Huntingson follows him.

“What do you want?” Mesto-Presto asks.

“I’m just looking out for you Burrito Boy,” Hunter replies as he licks the nacho cheese off his fingers, “These streets can be pretty dangerous.”

"Don't worry I think I’d be able to handle them," Mesto replies sincerely.

“You sure? I don’t want anything bad to happen to you since you’re getting up there in age,” Hunter responds.

Mesto stops walking and turns to face Hunter, “How old do you think I am?”

“Well,” Hunter squints as he examines Mesto’s face, “You got the face of a 30-year-old but the gray hair of a 70-year-old. So uh, 54?”

“I’m 16, and that’s blonde hair,” Mesto groans.

“You’re 16?!” Hunter shouts, taken aback, “But how! I’ve never seen you at school! Also, I think I might be color blind.”

“Eh, I’m not exactly the type to attend school,” Mesto responds.

“So you dropped out?”

“N…Not exactly,” Mesto sighs, “It’s just… I can’t exactly head back to school right now even if I tried.”

“Oh.”

As silence fills the streets, the two continue to walk, Hunter looks at Mesto and notices that despite being just two years older, he really does give off the composed and stable look one would expect someone to have if he was older.

Just how much did he get through to become like that?

Though, before Hunter can linger on that thought for too long, they suddenly hear a window getting smashed nearby. The two look over to the source of the sound and discover it came from the nearby Starlight High.

"Is someone trying to break into the school?" Hunter thinks out loud.

"We should probably let some people know," Mesto states as he takes out his phone to alert the authorities, however, Hunter stops him.

"There's no need," Hunter says as he draws out his metal baseball bat, "I can take care of it myself!"

As Hunter walks over to the high school, Mesto sighs as he follows him, just so he can stop Hunter from doing something too reckless. Once they get to the entrance, the two notice that the window has clearly been smashed in and the door looks bent. Hunter, using his metal baseball bat, carefully prods the door open and the two enter the high school.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

As they walk down the dark halls, the two notice just how…empty the whole place looks. None of the lights are even on with the only source of light coming from the moonlight seeping in through the windows, the cameras all seem deactivated with no lights on them, and there doesn’t seem to have been any janitors or late-night staff in sight.

Eventually, the two start to hear an odd noise as they get closer and closer to the cafeteria. Once they enter, the sound becomes more apparent as it sounds like dirt being dug up and tossed out.

Hearing that the noise is coming from the kitchen, Hunter grips his baseball bat tightly before springing into action and rushing toward the kitchen.

“Hey, wait a second!” Mesto whispers as he tries to stop Hunter from running.

But alas, Mesto is too slow as Hunter bursts through into the kitchen to see that it is covered in candlelights with a ginger teen and a muscular man with a red durag using several pieces of equipment to dig a hole in the school’s kitchen.

“Hey you bastards,” Hunter snarls, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”.

“Uhhhhh,” The ginger teen responds, trying to think of a response before answering with, “Groundskeeping.”

“Oh okay,” Hunter says as he turns around, “My bad about that.”

Mesto, the ginger teen, & even the man in the durag all look stunned at how that lie managed to work.

However, just when Hunter is about to leave the kitchen, he quickly turns around and slams his bat into the ginger teen's head.

"Bullshit you are! You're just doing the same thing as that lunch dude did!" Hunter smirks.

However, Hunter's smile soon fades as he sees that the ginger teen managed to catch the metal bat with his left hand, stopping the attack.

“Hey Graham, you keep on digging,” the ginger teen says as he lets go of the bat, “I’ll take care of these two chumps!”

“Just make it quick,” Graham Dirt, the man in the durag, responds.

“Don’t worry,” the ginger teen replies as he rolls up his sleeves revealing his arms are covered in sports tape, “These chumps are easy pickin’ to the likes of Blanko!”

“Your name’s Blanko?” Hunter chuckles.

“Wait but-,” The ginger teen says in shock before realizing his mistake, “Ugh damn it not again.”

“Who’s the chump now?” Hunter remarks.

“You still are, Hunter,” Blanko admits, causing Hunter to be stunned.

“How did you know my-”

But before Hunter can finish his question, the ginger teen rushes over to him. Out of instinct, Hunter goes to swing the bat into Blanko’s side. Though as the bat inches closer to his side, Blanko catches it with one hand once more and counters with a kick into Hunter’s side.

Due to the pain, Hunter’s grip on the bat weakens allowing Blanko to rip it from his hands and toss it behind him. As Hunter sees the bat fly away, Blanko uses the opportunity to start delivering several jabs at him.

Hunter, gritting through the pain, tries to land an overhead hook on Blanko, but Blanko dodges it with ease before kicking Hunter in his calf.

“You’re not much without that bat of yours,” Blanko remarks as he goes for another kick.

Though as the kick lands in Hunter's sides, Blanko goes to pull his leg back only to realize it’s stuck. With one arm holding onto Blanko’s leg, Hunter uses his other hand to slam it into Blanko’s over and over again.

“If I’m not much without my bat what does that make you!” Hunter yells as he swings his fist into Blanko’s.

Getting agitated, Blanko decides to lunge at Hunter and the two crash to the ground. As the two roll around fighting one another, they end up bumping into some oil causing it to spill all over the ground and one of the lit candles also falls. Blanko reaches to try and grasp at Hunter but instead ends up grabbing Mesto’s bag, so he rips it off of him and slams it onto Hunter’s head.

Hunter finally lets go of Blanko’s leg which allows Blanko the opportunity to get back up and away from him.

“I gotta admit, you’re pretty tough for a chump,” Blanko admits.

"Yeah well, now you got me fired up!" Hunter grunts as he stands up.

As Hunter is about to rush Blanko again, Graham exits the hole that they were digging and has an object with him. A wooden box that is sealed with a lock.

"We're done here," Graham replies.

"I see, well it's been fun but we got places to be," Blanko admits.

"Tch, like hell you will!" Hunter yells.

However as everyone else was preoccupied, what they forgot about was that oil that fell to the ground began to spread. And it spread closer and closer to the fallen lit candle until…

FWOOSH!

With flames erupting in the room and quickly spreading due to the low quality of the kitchen, the four of them all simultaneously agree that the best course of action was to stop chatting and to book it out of there as quickly as possible. Blanko is still holding onto the bag he took while Graham holds the box they obtained.

As Hunter, Blanko, Mesto, & Graham continue to sprint out of the high school, Blanko adds, "This school has some sprinklers ‘n stuff, right? The fire can’t be that bad!"

Unfortunately for them, the fire was that bad with them realizing as such as once they exited the school. Now with a look of the whole building, they could all see that the fire had quickly spread to most of the school.

Mesto, Hunter, Blanko, & Graham are all completely silent as the fire continues to engulf the high school.

“Well so much for keeping it hidden,” Blanko sighs.

However while the others seem in disbelief, Hunter’s face turns to horror as he realizes something. Hunter without a second thought begins to run toward the school however Mesto grabs him.

"ARE YOU TRYING TO GET YOURSELF KILLED?" Mesto yells.

"MY BABY! I LEFT MY BABY!" Hunter yells as he sobs.

Mesto starts to panic as he looks at the school, and he says, "Where'd you leave your baby!?"

"I LEFT IT IN THE KITCHEN!"

"WHY WOULD YOU BRING A BABY!"

"BECAUSE HOW ELSE AM I GOING TO CRACK SKULLS OPEN!"

It was at this moment that Mesto realized Hunter wasn't talking about a human baby, but rather his metal baseball bat.

"Yeah, we aren't going back in," Mesto states.

"LET ME GO!" Hunter struggles.

"I SAID YOU'RE STAYING HERE!" Mesto yells back.

As Mesto struggles to keep Hunter still, Blanko & Graham seize the opportunity to get in their car and get the fuck out of the area.

“Let’s hope things are going better on her end,” Blanko remarks as Graham drives off to pick up Vanessa.

With the MSA Winter Gala ending abruptly and Starlight High burning to the ground all on the same night, it all caused one question to appear at the forefront of everyone’s minds…

“What happens next?”

See You Next Chapter!~