"There are two kinds of mess in this world.The kind you clean with bleach…And the kind you clean with a flaming mop, a half-broken soul contract, and a severely underpaid attitude."— Mop
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Previous Chapter:
"Let me get this straight," Talia whispered, holding her notebook like a cross before a vampire."You mopped five vice-principals into unconsciousness, used a cursed family seal to open a secret dungeon, and now you're banned from the staff room for cleaning too aggressively?"
Mop took a long sip of stale coffee. "You forgot the part where I beat a cursed roach colony using only lemon-scented holy water."
Talia stared. "I'm pretty sure you're not even on payroll."
"Nope. Technically, I'm a legally dead contractor."
"...This school is insane."
"Welcome to Sablehart Academy."
Part 1: Breakfast, Bureaucracy, and Bad News
It was Monday morning, and the school cafeteria was quieter than usual.
Mostly because part of it had been accidentally teleported into a swamp dimension during a miscast food spell. So students were now eating breakfast outdoors, using levitating trays and hovering toast. One toast had gained sentience and tried to unionize.
Talia sat across from Mop, who was slicing eggs with surgical mop precision.
"So what's our plan?" she asked.
"Survive the week without being assassinated by the Debate Club," Mop muttered. "Or worse—attending a staff meeting."
"Isn't that optional?"
"They added magical attendance. If I miss three more, I get re-absorbed into the Janitoral Hivemind."
"…That's a real thing?"
"We don't talk about The Spill of '99."
Suddenly, a massive shadow fell over their table.
It wasn't a student.
It was a chair.
A literal walking chair. With arms. And a monocle.
"You are Mop?" it rumbled.
Mop didn't look up. "Depends who's asking."
"I am Chairman Chesterfield, temporary liaison from the Office of Magical Maintenance & School Discipline."
"Ah," Mop said, stabbing a sausage. "Bureaucracy on legs. Just what I needed before coffee."
Part 2: Mop Gets Suspended Again (And Promoted?)
"You've been suspended for the following infractions," Chesterfield droned.
– Unauthorized Dungeon Access– Use of Restricted Custodial Enchantments– Making Eye Contact with the Forbidden Fish in Basement C– Inspiring Student Rebellion– General Unjanitorlike Behavior
Mop chewed slowly.
"That last one's vague."
"We also found a complaint from the Board of Education." Chesterfield unrolled a scroll. "It reads, and I quote:'Too cool. Makes other staff look bad.'"
Talia burst out laughing.
"However," Chesterfield continued, "due to… recent mop-related heroics, you have also been temporarily reinstated as Emergency Custodial Investigator."
"You people can't make up your mind."
"We're the education system."
Part 3: Welcome to the Library of Echoes
Mop's "first" mission as ECI?
Investigate the Library of Echoes.
According to the report:
Books were whispering.
Students were forgetting their names.
A vending machine tried to sue someone for libel.
Talia followed behind, scribbling in her notebook.
"Shouldn't we bring backup?" she asked.
"I have a mop."
"We're going into a possibly sentient archive full of cursed knowledge."
"I have two mops."
The doors opened with a groan.
Inside, books floated midair, muttering in different tongues. Shelves creaked as if they were breathing. The card catalog hissed.
"Shhhh…" said a librarian.
"That wasn't me," Talia said.
"It was the carpet," Mop added. "It has opinions."
Part 4: The Bookwyrm Appears
Something massive stirred.
A ripple passed through the magical air.
Then—
A roar made of vocabulary and overdue fees.
From the center of the library emerged the Bookwyrm:A dragon made from unreturned textbooks, coffee-stained papers, and half-finished essays.
Its eyes glowed with red ink. Its tail left trails of footnotes.
"Mop…" Talia whispered. "That thing's made of overdue assignments."
"It's the embodiment of every forgotten deadline."
"So what do we do?!"
"Turn it in… early."
Mop leapt forward, brandishing his enchanted mop.
"By the authority of Janitoral Code 3.14, I hereby demand all overdue knowledge be sanitized!"
[Boss Fight Begins]
The Bookwyrm attacked with:
Citations like shrapnel
Thesis-laser beams
A passive-aggressive bibliography whip
Mop dodged with style.
Talia threw a dictionary.
It ate the words.
Bad move.
"It gets stronger the more you feed it with content!" she yelled.
"So we give it what it hates…" Mop said, grinning.
He reached into his jacket.
Pulled out:
A blank notebook.
"You're a manifestation of expectations and knowledge, right? Well here's your greatest fear—ignorance."
He hurled the blank notebook into its chest.
"NULL SUBMISSION!"
The Bookwyrm screamed as it collapsed into a puddle of half-digested footnotes.
Part 5: Hidden Lore
As silence returned, the library whispered one last time:
"She remembers you, Janitor."
A shelf slid open.
Inside: a glowing, ancient map of the school. A red X marked something beneath the teacher's lounge.
"What's that?" Talia asked.
"It's where all the real trash gets dumped," Mop replied.
"You mean...?"
"The Faculty Secrets Vault."
Part 6: The Principal's Toothbrush
Mop stood in the secret alcove behind the library shelf, holding the glowing map.
Talia peered over his shoulder.
"So… what exactly is the Faculty Secrets Vault?""It's where they store banned textbooks, forbidden lesson plans, and the Principal's toothbrush."
"…That last one sounds oddly personal."
"It is. The toothbrush once gained sapience. Tried to run for school president."
They followed the map through a series of hidden passages.
Talia scribbled furiously in her notebook.
"This school is like 90% hidden rooms."
"Most schools have drama in the classroom. We store ours under the floorboards."
They passed:
A door labeled "Cursed PE Storage"
A hallway that looped back into itself
A room with thirteen janitor mops standing in a circle, chanting in Old Custodial
"Don't look at them," Mop said. "They hate being seen without uniforms."
Eventually, they reached a massive bronze vault door.
Talia raised an eyebrow.
"How do we open that?"
Mop just… knocked.
The door groaned, shook off three cobwebs, and reluctantly swung open.
"It respects me," Mop said simply.
Part 7: Vault of Very Unwanted Things
The vault hissed open with a puff of stale air that smelled like burnt chalk and regret.
Inside was a cavernous room stacked with… stuff.Not just any stuff—the kind of stuff no sane person would store without binding it in sixteen magical contracts and three layers of duct tape.
There were:
A taxidermied math teacher that occasionally sneezed.
A jar labeled "Please Don't Feed."
A self-playing violin that only knew off-key national anthems.
A broken vending machine that hissed every time someone said the word "snack."
Talia blinked.
"This place is like a museum for mental breakdowns."
"More like a landfill for academic cover-ups," Mop replied, stepping over a cursed stapler.
In the center of the room stood a pedestal, with a locked black briefcase.
It pulsed faintly with dark energy.
"That's new," Mop muttered.
"You know what it is?" Talia whispered.
"No. Which is worrying. I thought I knew all the dangerous trash in here."
As he stepped closer, a magical rune lit up on the floor.
A deep voice echoed through the chamber:
"Unauthorized Janitor Detected. Activating Custodial Defense Protocol."
Talia froze.
"Uh… is that bad?"
"Only if the floor starts grow—"
The floor started growling.
Then it rose.
Then it punched Mop in the face.
Part 8: Boss Fight – The Custodial Golem
The floor morphed into a massive stone golem, made from mop buckets, rusted lockers, and broken cafeteria trays.
Its eyes glowed with janitorial fury.
"Name: S.C.R.U.B. – Sentient Custodial Reclamation Unit Beta.""Status: Triggered.""Mission: Neutralize rogue cleaning staff."
Talia backed away.
"Did the school really build an anti-janitor defense golem?!"
"Only after I cleaned the headmaster's office too thoroughly."
Mop cracked his neck.
"Alright, big guy. Let's mop dance."
He charged.
SCRUB swung a rusted trash can like a warhammer. Mop ducked, spun, and slammed his enchanted mop into the golem's leg.
Sparks flew. Detention slips rained from the ceiling like confetti.
"WHY DO THOSE EVEN EXIST?!" Talia shouted, dodging a flying 'Late Homework' form.
The battle raged.
Mop used:
"Spin Cycle Slash"
"Lemon-Scented Barrage"
"Detergent Overload"
SCRUB retaliated with:
"Hall Pass Slam"
"Detention Lockdown Beam"
"Powerpoint of Doom" (a 187-slide magical presentation that nearly bored Talia to death)
Finally, Mop leapt into the air, mop glowing blue.
"Final move: Spring Cleaning Catastrophe!"
He struck the core of the golem—
—with a perfect figure-eight mop twirl.
SCRUB exploded into confetti and a single sad whistle.
"Cleanup complete," Mop muttered.
As the dust settled, Talia stared.
"You just beat a magical security system... with a mop."
"I'm a janitor," Mop said. "That's what we do."
Talia slowly approached the briefcase.
It had opened during the chaos.
Inside was a single, old-school ID badge.
It read:
"Professor Isadora Vex – Former Head of Magical Ethics"Status: TERMINATEDLast Seen: 18 years ago.Clearance: Omega-Level.Note: Do Not Trust.
Talia gulped.
"Who's she?"
Mop's face darkened for the first time.
"Someone I used to know."
"Used to?"
"…She was my teacher."
"…Oh."
"And my killer."
Part 9: Ghosts in the Broom Closet
The walk back to the janitor's office was unusually quiet.
Talia clutched her notebook, occasionally glancing sideways at Mop—who was unusually… still. No jokes. No mop tricks. Just silence.
Until they passed the vending machine that spat out expired soda.
It hissed at them.
"Don't look it in the eyes," Mop muttered.
Talia blinked.
"It has eyes?!"
"Only if it's thirsty."
Back in the office, Mop flicked a switch.
A side wall rotated, revealing a dust-covered bulletin board, cluttered with photos, maps, and red string so intense it looked like a spider on espresso built it.
Dead center:A faded photo of a smiling woman in professor robes.
Talia pointed.
"Is that her?"
"Professor Vex. She taught Magical Ethics, Philosophy of Forbidden Things… and how to properly fold enchanted towels."
He tapped a pinned article:
"Professor Disappears After Ethics Scandal – Accused of Mind-Control Experiment on Students"
"They said she vanished."
"You don't buy that?" Talia asked.
"I was there. She didn't vanish.""She burned the classroom, erased ten memories, and stabbed me with a teaching wand."
"…Yikes."
"Yeah. Still hurts when it rains."
Talia studied the photo.
"So if she's dead… why's her ID badge in a forbidden vault?"
"Because someone wants me to know she's not."
"That doesn't even make—wait, what?"
"It's bait," Mop said simply. "And I'm the mouse."
Suddenly, the lights flickered.
The air grew cold.
A glowing figure appeared in the corner, holding a mop.
"Ah crap," Mop muttered. "Not him again."
The figure groaned in ghostly tones:
"Mooooppp… you forgot… to dust the… fourth floor…"
"That's the ghost of Carl," Mop explained. "Ex-janitor. Died from over-polishing."
Talia gawked.
"There are janitor ghosts?"
"Only the persistent ones. Carl's been haunting me since '08."
The ghost continued moaning:
"Also… you borrowed my stapler and never returned it—"
Mop threw a salt packet at it.
Carl vanished with a whiny puff.
"Anyway," Mop said, dusting his coat, "We've got bigger problems than passive-aggressive undead coworkers."
Talia sat down, brow furrowed.
"So what's our next move?"
Mop sighed.
"We dig."
"Where?"
"Into the faculty's deepest secrets."
He pulled out a folder labeled:
"Operation: Mopocalypse."
Talia's eyes widened.
"…Please tell me that's not a pun."
"It's always a pun."
Part 10: Operation: Mopocalypse
Later that night…
Mop crouched in the rafters above the Faculty Conference Room, holding a pair of enchanted binoculars shaped like two coffee mugs glued together.
Talia lay beside him, munching silently on contraband cafeteria cookies.
"Why are we spying on the teachers' meeting?" she whispered.
"Because no one gossips harder than overpaid faculty with tenure and wine."
Below them sat the school's entire teaching staff.From Professor Daggermouth (Alchemy & Explosions), to Madame Whisperfang (Subtle Threats & Passive Aggression), they were all present.
And in the center—the Headmaster, a towering figure who wore five monocles for no reason.
A senior teacher stood.
"This meeting of the Secret Faculty Council is now in session.""First item: someone has broken into Vault #13."
The room gasped.
Another teacher muttered, "That's the toothbrush vault."
"Second item," the speaker continued, "an unauthorized janitor—who we all agreed was too competent—has been spotted near forbidden sections."
"We must assume… he's cleaning something important."
Gasps again.
Madame Whisperfang whispered, "He must be stopped."
Talia glanced at Mop.
"You're officially the faculty's worst nightmare."
"Took me years of underachievement to earn that title."
Down below, the Headmaster stood slowly.
"Begin Operation: Tenure Lockdown."
"Find the janitor. Detain him. Mop if necessary."
A heavy silence.
Then… laughter.
Soft at first. Then louder.
From the shadows of the meeting hall stepped… Professor Vex.
Alive. Well. And wearing a very stylish, very ominous cloak.
"I appreciate the concern," she said, voice as smooth as silk and twice as dangerous."But there's no need to fear the janitor. I'll handle him myself."
Mop's eyes narrowed.
"She's back."
"And she's evil again?" Talia asked.
"Oh no," he said grimly."She was always evil. She just used to grade on a curve."
Suddenly, Vex looked straight up—right at them.
Her smile widened.
"You can come out now, Mr. Mop. It's rude to eavesdrop on your coworkers."
"…Run," Mop whispered.
Talia didn't argue.
End of Chapter 2..
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