A dull thwack sounded through the room as Marcus slapped his folders down on the table at the front.

The hulking man in the first row, snoring with his head cradled on his arms, jumped up and looked around. He absently wiped off the string of drool that connected his chin to the table and blinked the sleep out of his eyes.

"Now that we're all fully present, let's begin." Marcus picked up the top folder and went around to perch on the front edge of his table. "This is Anti-Villain Re-Training, so if you're supposed to be in Weapons or Safe Cracking or How to Be A Villain People Love To Hate or Chemistry, you're in the wrong place."

He waited while the group looked at each other, then he waited an extra minute more. There was always one.

An embarrassed smile flit across the face of the guy sitting at the end of the front row. He slowly tucked a paper back in the pocket on the leg of his cargo pants and zipped it closed. All eyes turned to him at the sound. He half-coughed, half-laughed and rose from his seat with a loud scrape of his chair. "I wondered why there were no Bunsen burners. Good luck with your re-training." He glanced around and snickered before bolting to the door, barely making it through before bursting out donkey-like brays of laughter.

Marcus caught the door before it latched and called out, "You want Level B1, room 333," then very quietly added, "Dr. Scissors needs a new lab rat."

A distant "Thanks!" drifted from down the hall followed by the hollow thud of a stairwell door.

"Alright, boys and ... boys, huh, no girls this time. Alright, let's start by getting to know each other. I'm Marcus Tenton, your instructor." Marcus flipped open the first folder in his stack. "Fred Peyton, tell us about yourself."

The drooling man in the first row smiled nervously and gave a little wave. "Well, I'm Fred Peyton. As you already said. I grew up in-"

Marcus waved a hand cutting him off. "Sorry, sorry, just tell us about the relevant stuff. What have you accomplished?"

Fred frowned, thinking hard. "Well, I came in third in the grade nine track meet, and..." Fred looked at Marcus who had covered his face with a hand. "That's not what you meant either?"

Behind his hand Marcus mumbled, "One night in Reno wasn't worth this."

He scrubbed his face, then looked at Fred, who was promisingly dressed top-to-toe in black gear , and said, "Your exploits. The jobs you've done. Your gigs. Whatever you want to call them."

Fred held up his hands in a 'calm down' gesture. "Alright, alright! Geesh, don't get so wound up."

Marcus leaned forward, frowning, "Do you think it's wise to tell your teacher to calm down, Mr. Peyton?"

"Uh," Fred looked sideways at the man beside him who was cleaning his nails with a sharpened pencil.

"Dude," was all the man said, shaking his head in reproach.

Flipping open the folder Marcus read out, "You wrote down anti-consumerist on your admission sheet. How exactly do you go about that?"

"Oh, yeah, that stuff." Fred's smile faded as Marcus rolled his eyes.

"Well, I really hate how these big companies are pushing products down our throats and making us want to buy all this stuff that we don't really need." A few others nodded their heads in agreement. "So I torched my town. Every single shop. All the houses. Town hall. The school. Even got the hospital."

"You torched your whole town?" Marcus asked incredulously.

A long moment of silence ensued wherein Fred beamed around him.

"Dude, how did you manage that?" the guy beside Fred asked, pencil paused under his pinkie fingernail.

Fred huffed a bit. "It took a super long time to prepare. I posed as all sorts of repairmen and whatnot to get all the explosives in place. Then I had to go back around to arm them all. Then it was just a matter of timing."

"You kill many?" asked the man with a face creased in a scowl and dressed in jeans and a t-shirt from the end of the second row.

"No, I called in a gas attack on the town, so everyone evacuated, then I blew everything. I didn't actually want to kill anyone. Just stop the stinking conglomerates."

The man beside Fred got his attention by poking him in the arm with the sharp end of his pencil. "So, how many buildings did you take out?"

Fred frowned at him and rubbed the spot. He looked at the ceiling while his lips silently moved through numbers. "Well, I guess it was about 400 in total."

"400 shops?" the man asked.

"No, no, 400 buildings total. My town is pretty small. There were only about 18 shops, including the pharmacy, the dentist and the doctor's office. I was sad to see the diner go, though. They had great pancakes."

Fred's face pulled down dejectedly. "Miss sleeping in my own bed, too. I've had to resort to sleeping in my car. I used all my money to buy the explosives, and I lost my job at the hardware store when I blew it up."

"Pfft! You call yourself an anti-villain?" chided a man in a three-piece suit from the middle of the third row.

"Wait, wait, wait," Marcus stood up and shook his head as if to clear it from a stupor. "How is blowing up the hospital and the school anti-consumerist? The doctor and dentist? And all the houses? Certain people's houses maybe, if you had a valid reason. But just regular citizens who don't actually own any businesses? And your own house? I just... Please explain your rational, because I'm stymied."

"I wanted to be thorough. I didn't want anyone to tell me that I was playing favourites about this place or that. It would be bad for my image."

Marcus glanced at the paper in his folder again. "Your application says you have a PhD in Economics."

"Well," Fred drawled and scratched at a spot on the table. "I might have forged that. Lying is a villain thing, isn't it? I mean, Dr. Scissors isn't a real doctor, is she?"

"Dr. Scissors has a medical degree, and a PhD in not only Chemistry, but Biology, and Astrophysics."

"Oh. I guess she earned the "Dr" then, huh?"

Marcus closed the folder and picked up the next. "Uh huh. Well, you are definitely in the right class, Mr. Peyton."

Fred sat up and grinned. "I am?"

"Oh, yeah." Marcus replied drily. "Next we have Mr. Phillip Rose. Identify yourself."

The man next to Fred sat up straight and waved the hand with his pencil-lead-blackened fingernails eagerly in the air. "Oh, that's me! I'm Phil Rose. You can call me Phil."

"Alright, Phil. Hit us."

"I'm a serial killer."

Someone in the back snickered.

"And...?" asked Marcus.

"Well, I hold the world record for eating a bowl of Cheerios in a minute."

Marcus tilted his head forward, squinting in confusion. "And...is that going to help you take over the world or something?"

Phil smiled and looked around at the others. "That's it. I'm in the Guinness book and everything."

"How fast can you eat it?" asked Fred.

"18.6 seconds!"

Several awed gasps filled the room.

"Why exactly are you here? In this room?" Marcus questioned.

"Well, I'm a serial killer," repeated Phil. "I killed that bowl of Cheerios, and no one has touched that record in two years!"

"Just a second," said Marcus and darted out of the room. He returned a few minutes later and handed Phil a dictionary, then wrote two words on a piece of paper and handed them over. "Please look these up. Read them out for the class."

Flipping to the first word, Phil loudly read, "Cereal. An edible grain, a breakfast food." He flipped some more. "Serial. Occurring in a series." Phil's shoulders sagged as he closed the dictionary and slid it onto the desk.

"How many people have you killed, Phil?" Marcus asked.

Phil hung his head and tears began to drip into his lap. "None."

"Think you might be in the wrong class then?"

Phil nodded and stood up, head hung in shame.

He was about to shuffle around his desk when the guy in a track suit seated in the fifth row piped up, "Aw, prof, give him a break. It's an honest mistake. It's totally cool he's in the Guinness book of records. Let him stay!"

A few others echoed "Yeah!" "Let him stay!"

"He can be an honorary member of the anti-villain club!" said Fred, nodding excitedly.

"Just like you," murmured Marcus, then aloud, "Alright, Phil. You can stay. Let's move on to you, Mr. Track Suit."

"Well, I'm Jeffrey Snyder. Ya'll might have heard of my family down Mississippi way? Yeah, well, I grew up around all that nasty business they're into, and it soured my stomach somethin' awful. So I became Moth Man. Ya'll heard of me?" He looked at the man scowling furiously at him from the end of the second row.

"Yeah, well, that was me. But my family found out, see. They kept sabotaging my ops. Killing the people I was tryin' a' rescue. Forced me back into a life of crime. After I couldn't take it no more, I swore revenge on them. So, now," Jeffrey climbed onto his chair and ripped off his tear-away track suit, revealing a white-and-black speckled one-piece with a flowing black satin cape. He struck the hero pose and near-shouted, fist raised to the sky, "I go out as Pepper Moth! I won't stop until I take down my family by any means necessary!"

"Hmmmm," said Marcus. "You'll get a lot out of our lesson on 'anti-hero vs anti-villian', because you are crossing a very blurry line there, my friend."

"Pepper Moth?" asked the scowling man.

Before he could answer, the three-piece suit chuffed. "Everyone knows that in England during the Industrial Revolution the Pepper Moth, which used to be white with black specks, gradually changed its colour to being almost black so that it could blend in with the trees which were being coated in coal dust. It has since returned to its original colour." In a stage whisper he added, "Ignoramus."

"Repeat this?" the scowling man asked, half rising from his seat.

"Children, children," Marcus called. "Let's not fight amongst ourselves. How about you Mr. Scowl?"

"Jaromir Szczescie. Sniper. My boss make me come here because I maybe mess up a few jobs."

Marcus found the right folder and quirked an eyebrow.

Jaromir burst out. "Alright! I mess up all of dem! But I almost get target. See, I get the Vice-President, and the corrupt politician's wife, and the mobster's right-hand man. Dey were all good hits. Very difficult shot to make. Make bad people very sad. But big boss very picky. He want right person dead!"

"Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, Mr...." Marcus walked closer to the end of the row. "Sorry, say your last name again?"

"It's Szczescie."

"Man, that's hard to get. Say it again?" Marcus walked closer to hear better.

The man finally lost his scowl when Marcus was directly in front of him giving him his full attention. He said his name very slowly. Marcus tried again and the man shrugged. "Close enough. It Polish. Mean 'happiness'."

"Interesting. How about I just call you Jaromir." Marcus began walking backwards toward his table again. "So far, my guess is, you're the only person who knows why they are here. Hey..."

Marcus walked closer to Jaromir, then away, then closer as Jaromir babbled, "But big boss say no pay! And my wife is about to have baby any day, and rent is three months over because wife can't work with such big tummy, and how am I going to buy the diapers? My boss say he give me loan money if I take this class, because I already got best in the shooting for third time. He say he don't want order hit on me, because I'm his favourites, but he don't know what else to do wit' me."

"Jaromir, how many fingers am I holding up?" asked Marcus who was standing near the blackboard.

Jaromir scowled deeper. "Two?" Marcus walked closer, hand aloft. When Marcus was close enough that his legs pressed into the table, Jaromir grunted. "Huh, four."

"Let me guess, your boss always gave you written directives?"

"Yes! How you know? Mr. Rentaldo is very careful man. He worry about the cameras. He give us whole paper of people near to target, and then point at the person he want deaded, then we eat the paper...." Jaromir's eyes popped as he realised the truth.

"I think you need a trip to the optometrist for glasses. Did you never wonder why things were always so clear through the scope?"

Jaromir looked sheepish. "Sure, ya, but, I just think I am 'in zone', for killing, you know?"

Three-piece suit scoffed and muttered, "Idiot!"

Marcus smiled. "You can stay for the class so you get your loan."

Jaromir jumped up shaking his hands in the negative. "No, no, no. Owing to Mr. Rentaldo very bad idea. I get the glasses. Mr. Rentaldo has big job soon. He say it be my last chance. I do correctly and pay all bills. Even enough for the diapers." With a quick salute at Marcus, Jaromir practically ran from the class.

"Alright, then. Who else do we have in this circus?" Marcus flipped open the next folder. "Dr. Clifford. My guess is that's you."

The man in a white lab coat sitting in the third row sat up straighter and nodded seriously.

Marcus held up his hand and tweaked two fingers for the man's story.

"My niece got stung by a bee that had become trapped in her soda can at the family picnic. She was thoroughly traumatized. Not to mention the incident ruined the picnic! So I've vowed to find a way to kill every single bee, wasp and hornet on the planet! I'm working on a very secret gas right now. It has been successful at temporarily ridding my laboratory of rodents, but so far, the bees are resisting."

"Are you completely mad?!" snapped three-piece suit.

Dr. Clifford frowned. "Well, no, I just don't want any more children to suffer like my niece did."

The suit crossed his arms and glared. "Are you aware that without bees and wasps and hornets we will all die?"

"They don't do anything except sting people. Well, the whole honey thing, too, I guess. But we have agave and stevia and all those artificial sweeteners. People will get over not having honey."

"You complete bumbling moron," the suit shook his head at Dr. Clifford. "You deserve a Darwin Award."

Dr. Clifford looked confused. "Darwin was a great scientist, so I take that as a compliment."

Marcus held up the dictionary and said, "Please look up 'pollinators', Dr. Clifford. I'll expect a 3,000 word essay next class - and a cessation of your experiments until you have successfully graduated. Moving on to... Sargent Barrow!"

"Sir, yes, sir!" A man in green military fatigues jumped up and snapped a crisp salute. "Reporting for duty, sir!"

"At ease, Sargent." The man spread his feet shoulder width apart and clasped his hands behind his back as Marcus referred to his sheet. "It says here that you've come for retraining to learn how to make your troops nastier."

Sweat broke out on the Sargent's forehead. "Sir, yes, sir!"

"Tell us how you've been training your troops so far."

The sweat began to roll down the Sargent's face. "My superior officers want our soldiers to be battle-tough. They have designed a program that puts them through the Boot Camp of Hell. I have been put in charge of teaching the soldiers how to endure torture, sir!"

Marcus circled his fingers to encourage the story.

Unexpectedly the Sargent burst into loud sobs and covered his face. "I couldn't do it. I just couldn't do it! They wanted me to whip the soldiers with a cat o'nine tails, but I just couldn't. So I... I used boiled spaghetti instead."

It was all Marcus could do not to join in the chuckles coming from the other students. "Sargent, why did you join the army in the first place?"

The Sargent took out a camo handkerchief and noisily blew his nose. He voice was shaky when he replied, "The uniform, sir! Love me a good-looking uniform!"

"Then may I suggest you get a job as a pilot, or perhaps join a marching band?"

"Love me some tuba, sir!"

"Alright, well, you go knock 'em dead!"

"Sir, yes, sir!" After another snap to attention and salute, the Sargent quick-timed it out the door.

Marcus shook his head. "You guys are dropping out like flies - no, Dr. Clifford, they're an important part of the ecosystem, too."

The doctor lowered his hand and closed his mouth, the smile slowly fading from his face.

A tentative hand went up from a man wearing a Hawaiian shirt. "Would you say that worms are too? Because I really hate worms. I mean, Hate with a capital H." The man stood up as he spoke and began twisting his hands, his lips pulling back into a grimace. He lifted one rubber-boot wearing foot and stomped it on the chair. "When it rains, they litter the pathways with themselves. It's disgusting and just rude. So, I get on my biggest pair of boots, and I go out there, and I start smashing and crushing and grinding them into oblivion. I have vowed to take down the Worm Nation!"

The rest of the class stared in quiet stupefaction at the man who was now standing on his chair, hands raised in claws toward the ceiling. He looked down at them. His face instantly relaxed into a 'guy next door' smile, then he hopped down and sat, leaning his chair back.

He flicked his fingers in greeting. "I'm Bob, by the way. Bob Fairchild."

"Dude, I know you think 'taking down the worm nation' is badass, but, like, holding a Guinness world record? That's badass," said Phil who had twisted around in his front row seat.

"How many complete and utter dunderheads are in this room?" the man in the suit exclaimed. "First of all, if you took down the 'worm nation' as you call it, you'd probably end up killing all the other creatures in the soil as well. And without all of those, we wouldn't be able to grow food, and hence, we'd all die!"

"Huh, you sure do know about a lot of things for a bad guy," said Bob. He sucked his teeth. "Well, what about caterpillars? They don't do anything. They're just nasty ugly."

Marcus closed his eyes and shook his head. "Bob, your homework is a 2,000 word essay on ecosystems, and another 2,000 each on the role of worms and caterpillars. We'll discuss exactly what villainy is and isn't later."

"Hey!" protested Bob. "Doctor Bee only had one essay!"

"Well, you're special, Bob," Marcus replied.

"You're probably going to give that guy an essay too. On how to shave!" Bob snickered and jerked his thumb towards an enormous gorilla, hunched down from where his head brushed the auditorium ceiling, that was sitting in the back right corner of the room with its hairy finger up one colossal nostril.

Marcus waved at him in dismissal. "Ignore him. He's just here because we needed ten enrollees to cover the cost of the course. The whole anti-hero/anti-villain blurriness really works in my favour sometimes. If he starts getting antsy, just throw him a banana. The city zoo will be by to get him later. Moving on to... Bjorn Ester."

Marcus looked between the suit and a man hunched over his desk wearing a bathrobe and fuzzy green bunny slippers who dropped a used tissue onto the pile that had accumulated at his feet, then grabbed another from the box on his desk to blow his nose with a loud resounding honk.

The suit shook his head and jerked his thumb derisively at the man in the bathrobe. "That sodden mass of snot there."

"Mr. Ester?" Marcus asked. "Mr. Ester?"

Slowly the man sat up. He blinked his red-rimmed eyes and sniffed loudly.

Marcus started and stared hard at the man. "Are you... Ester Dragon?"

A loud gasp went up from the others when the man nodded.

"The Ester Dragon who replaced all the Botox with Chemical-425X because you wanted to show that the President was lying about getting injections?" said Fred.

Phil chuckled. "He looked hilarious all swollen up like a balloon! That was a hell of a way to show he was a liar."

Ester nodded and let out a wailing sob. "That's why my wife left me! I didn't know she got Botox injections too! She said it proved I didn't pay attention to her since I not only paid the bills, but I was the one who drove her to the clinic for her injections and even waited inside for her. I thought it was a tanning salon!"

His voice cracked on the last word and he buried his head in his folded arms on the table.

The suit tutted. "What kind of imbecilic moron doesn't watch his incomings and outgoings?"

In hushed awe Fred asked, "Did you really stop all that mob money laundering by exposing that water polo is fixed?"

From his arms, Ester's muffled voice said, "Yes, but now my kids won't talk to me because it's their favourite sport, and the whole league has been indefinitely suspended for investigation."

He sat up and said between sobs, "I lost everything in the divorce. My wife even unfriended me on Facebook! I sleep at the homeless shelter on Fifth Street when I can get a bed, otherwise I sleep on the roundabout in the park. I don't want to be an anti-villain anymore! It sucks!"

The other men shifted in their seats as Ester Dragon wailed miserably and honked into another tissue.

"Should we give him a hug or something?" whispered Phil.

"Pathetic," sneered the man in the suit.

Marcus shook his head. "I think he needs a psychological evaluation and an anti-depressant. I'll call downstairs for someone to pick him up."

"You've got a psych department here?"

"Nah, but the chemistry class always needs guinea pigs for their new concoctions. Plus, it'll give him somewhere to sleep."

Marcus picked up the last folder. "So that leaves you, Suit. What's your story?"

The man in the three piece suit wiggled excitedly in his seat and tugged on the lapels of his jacket. "Yes, leaving the most deserving for last."

He pointed around at the other students and said, "Every despicable miscreant will fall to my magnificent plan! I will make all of you fashion disasters a quivering mass of self-pitying loathing slugs with my disparaging words. When you infants are lying quivering at my feet, begging me to stop speaking, I'll crush your frail egos into total submission, thus ridding the world of your evil influence!" He smiled around at them with his lips pulled back in a twisted smile.

He pointed at Ester Dragon and laughed wickedly. "See! My evil plan is working already!"

Bob scratched his head. "That's it? You're going to... insult us into submission? And buddy, you call me a fashion disaster, but you're the one wearing white after Labour Day. Hawaiian shirts never go out of style."

Marcus rubbed his face with both hands. "This is going to be a long semester."