Darren/Plot

## Season 1

### Beginning

When he was first seen, Dr. Darren was reprimanding John for getting injured yet again and gave him a healing tonic that would heal John's broken arm. John tried to leave the infirmary, but the doctor knew better than to let John go out in his injured state and forced him to stay until his arm healed. Later, the doctor saw Seraphina come in and anticipated trouble knowing that John and Seraphina are partners in crime, but let her in anyway. While John and Seraphina were hanging out in the back, Doctor Darren angrily left for reasons unknown, but not before warning John to stay put.

It turned out that Doctor Darren left the infirmary after hearing Blyke and Isen fighting and proceeded to drag them towards the infirmary. Dr. Darren then gave them a good scolding and threatened to send them to Keene. When the two started to argue again, he permanently broke up the fighting by bashing their heads together. As Doctor Darren started to mention that both Blyke and Isen would have to face the consequences, Gavin crawled into the infirmary, bleeding and injured. Furiously, Doctor Darren looked at the bed and realized that both Seraphina and John were missing.

### Investigation

Dr. Darren was one of the three groups of people interviewed by Isen, the others being Crail and Mardin, and Gavin. When the Doctor was questioned about John, he angrily responded, "*JOHN? WHO THE F\*CK IS THAT?*" Isen decided this was not an ideal lead for his assigned investigation, and apologized for wasting the doctor's time.

### Suspension

As news of Seraphina's absence spread, Doctor Darren made a bet with Keene to see how long John could go without being beaten up. Not even four hours after Seraphina left, John was already in the infirmary with a broken arm, ribs, and a black eye. Doctor Darren was in a good mood however as he won the bet. Fortunately for both John and the doctor, the tonics that Doctor Darren had been making could now heal injuries faster than ever before.

After John left, he was cornered by another group of students to be used as "target practice", but fortunately, Doctor Darren overheard this and intervened saying that he had a date that night and if anyone made him work overtime, they would be dead(including John).

By the time John returned to the infirmary with two broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, and other minor injuries, the Doctor was reaching the end of his patience and told John that he should know how to avoid being bullied by now. After his lecture, Darren called his girlfriend Leilah and arranged a date with her for that Saturday. Upon hearing a loud slamming noise from the patient's room, the Doctor furiously ended his call. As an enraged John was going to walk out of the infirmary, he was forcefully stopped by the Doctor, who convinced him to stay in the infirmary.

### Aftermath

One day, Darren was in the infirmary, listening to Keene rant about his investigation. The two staff members got into a discussion regarding Leila and the doctor revealed that his girlfriend Leilah was "a project manager," "really smart," "a high-tier," and "super hot." The Doctor also said that he was going on a date with Leilah later that week. However, the conversation was cut short as an injured Arlo walked in to get himself healed and Darren started preparing a tonic for Arlo. After the Doctor sent Arlo off with a slow-working tonic, the two staff members wondered who could have injured the King that badly. Keene guessed John was the culprit. While Darren initially disagreed, he realized that John had been acting irritable as of late. Darren then suggested to Keene that they should report what they witnessed to Headmaster Vaughn.

Darren's before-mentioned date with his girlfriend got canceled as she got a call from her employer and was sent away for two weeks. He spoke about this with Keene.

### Rage

One Saturday at 6:00AM, the resting Doctor received a call from Arlo’s phone, but immediately hung up. When he received a call from the same caller again, the Doctor angrily answered the phone...only to hear from John that he had no idea what was a going on. After some unintelligible mutterings from the Doctor, he agreed to meet John and Seraphina that morning. After performing some check-ups on the school’s Ace, the Doctor confirmed that Seraphina’s bodily systems were perfectly normal, save for her ability being gone. He promised to get back to the duo after he gets the test results and advised them to keep quiet about the situation.

### Change

John went to Darren for a tonic to heal injuries he sustained the previous day from Zeke and Mardin. Seraphina followed not long after for help with a minor head wound. He admonished her for walking around in full view of the school with blood trickling down her face, to which she replied she didn't realize just how much blood there was. As he was telling her to sit tight as he prepared a remedy, John interrupted them with a greeting, annoying the doctor. After Seraphina spent some time with John while her wound was healing,

Darren called her over to discuss the test results he had received.  He regretfully informed her that her condition was beyond his expertise. Whatever it was she was injected with, it showed no indication that it was going to leave her system. He told her he would send her results to Wellston Hospital for further examination.

Later on he was once again drinking coffee, with Keene keeping him company. Things went as usual until Keene was suddenly alerted to a powerful individual setting foot on campus grounds. Doctor Darren wondered if it was someone they needed to worry about and Keene left to find out.

Remi helps Seraphina to the infirmary after the latter was pushed down the stairs. Darren tended to her injuries and had her rest. Seraphina was visited by John, whose face began to contort with anger when he heard what had happened. Seraphina warned him he could wind up looking like their grouchy nurse.

### Capture

Weeks later, Seraphina had gone missing. While searching for her, a frantic John stopped by the infirmary and asked Darren if she had come by. Before the doctor could ask why he wanted to know, John had left.  Isen was brought to the infirmary after being beaten unconscious. He eventually came to, but Darren had him remain until he fully healed. Seraphina was eventually found and brought to the infirmary with severe injuries. After Darren had her patched up and resting, he sat at his desk and looked at his phone. Remi and Blyke noisily burst into the room, and the nurse angrily told them both off for disturbing his patients. He pointed them towards Isen before going back to his phone.

He began messaging with Leilah, who was exhausted from her heavy workload. Since she was set to return Friday, they rescheduled their cancelled date night for the upcoming weekend. Leilah asked him his opinion on her new hat, sending him a picture of her wearing it along with a bikini. He was gazing longingly at the picture when Remi bid him farewell and thanked him to for looking after Isen. Nose bleeding, Darren told her and Blyke to get lost.

### Joker

Shortly after the kidnapping incident, a masked student known as Joker had begun targeting Wellston's top-ranked students one-by-one. Naturally, Darren and his co-workers knew that the powerful Joker was really John. Darren did not approve of John's new approach to dealing with problems, but The Headmaster had ordered all of Wellston's staff not to intervene.

On the evening of the date, Darren met up with Leilah at StarLight Restaurant. who told her boyfriend about her extended absence due to a new branch opening in Leilah's company, ZetaSci. Leilah's superiors called her to train the new employees of the branch. The couple continued to discuss about ZetaSci until Leilah changed the subject to Wellston students. Darren admitted that John had been causing trouble across the school due to his best friend losing her ability from an ability-dampening drug; he also admitted that he had been losing sleep for the past month as he, the doctors of Wellston Hospital, and the Authorities had no idea how to reverse the drug's effects. Darren then asked Leilah if she could get ZetaSci to help reverse the drugs effects, but once he told his girlfriend that the identity of the ability-lost student (Seraphina), Leilah spilled her wine on her blouse and left to the bathroom to clean the stain up. After returning, Darren noticed her lack of interest throughout the remainder of the date.

Next day, Darren ranted to Keene about how poorly his date went and how all his previous relationships ended due to him ranting about his job. In desperation, Darren attempted to ask Keene on how to keep a woman interested. However, he was interrupted by an injured student that he, as the school nurse, was forced to tend to.

## Season 2

### Fallout

Not much changed in Darren's life following John's victory against the Royals (at first). He continued to take care of injured students. He was drinking coffee in his office one day when Seraphina came in with Evie. He expected he needed to heal Seraphina again, but she said that it was Evie's sprained leg that needed looking at. He had Seraphina bring her to the back to be checked on. As he watched Seraphina help Evie, he realized she reminded him of Leilah. As he pondered why this was the case, he burned himself with a mouthful of scalding-hot coffee.

There was a spike in the number of students being sent to the infirmary thanks to the emergence of Fake Jokers, which naturally infuriated Darren. Some students overheard him venting about this development to Keene.

### Responsibility

The Doc got a visit from Blyke one day. Dr. Darren checked the bruise on Blyke’s back, and told him the injury wasn't as bad as it looked. Handing Blyke a healing drink, Darren assumed Blyke clashed with Isen again and told him to try talking their issues out instead of fighting next time. The doctor reminded him that he already had enough to deal with. Blyke promised to stay out of trouble, which Darren highly doubted.

### Tyrants

Darren got a visit from Keene following the latter's attempt to talk some sense into Vaughn regarding John's hell-raising ways. Apparently, Vaughn decreed that the laissez-faire policy would remain upheld, on the grounds that students' pain and suffering was a teaching experience. Darren thought it was an insane idea that showed no signs of working. Keene was unable to convince Darren that Vaughn knew what he was doing, as the nurse had long felt that such a reserved and aloof man was untrustworthy. Keene agreed that Vaughn was a strange one, so Darren asked him whether he truly placed his trust in the headmaster.

### Revelations

Soon after treating injuries from Blyke's fourth beating by John and sending him to Vaughn, Darren had a new assignment from the headmaster delivered to him by Keene: analyze the drug that Blyke was carrying. Irritated, he protested that it wasn't in his job description as the school nurse to conduct science experiments. Keene failed to convince Darren there was fun to be had in the assignment, as it wasn't even possible without the proper equipment. Before Keene could finish his suggestion of filling out the necessary paperwork, Darren interjected that Vaughn was focusing on the wrong issues. In his own opinion, there should be greater effort in improving the sorry state of the school instead of analyzing some foreign substance. Griping about the management didn't get Darren of the hook, as Keene left the broken vial in the office so Vaughn's order could be carried out.

### Square One

With amp research *and* injured students to deal with, Doctor Darren began complaining twice as much. His griping served as a statement for a Wellston Weekly article on the school's overworked medical staff (ie. him and him alone). Darren had no choice but to sent a text informing his girlfriend that he had to cancel the upcoming date night they had in the works. His complaints over the situation got muddled by his phone's auto-correct. Twice. Leilah encouraged him to try and have fun.

At work the next day, Darren was in the middle of tending to two students when Arlo and Remi walked in with severe injuries of their own. He prepared medicine for them, which was ready by the time his initial patients were cleared to leave. They thanked him and bid him a "See you later," much to his chagrin. As she was taking her medicine, Remi tried to chat up Darren by asking him what inspired him to become a nurse. Though the story would have been short, Darren refused to share it.

Before he even had the chance to hand Arlo his tonic, Vaughn and Keene entered the infirmary with John and Seraphina in need of treatment. Keene's greeting did little to assuage Darren's rage at his increase workload. When Vaughn instructed him to prioritize John and Seraphina, Darren lost patience altogether. In his most professional angry tone, Darren demanded that the headmaster refrain from telling him how to do his job. After a tense silence, Vaughn abided Darren's wishes, and amended his orders to simply having Darren send the two of them to his office as soon as he was able.

Darren was only able to send John over, as Seraphina remained unconscious late in the evening. This troubled Darren, and not just because he'd have to work late again. As Darren wondered how Seraphina got her ability back, he got a text message from Leilah. She informed him that his resume went over well with her boss, and that he could expect a call from him soon. His dreams of leaving his dead-end job to work for ZetaSci were on the verge of coming true.

This euphoria is interrupted when John, with packed bags in his hands, barged in and asked if he could talk to Seraphina. Darren asked why John was still in the building, and told him to return to his dorm. John pleaded that he get the chance to speak to her, swearing that he wouldn't be long. Darren relented and directed him to the back of the room where Seraphina was still resting. Noticing that Keene was behind John, Darren asked what was going on with the boy. He was notified of John's indefinite suspension, a turn of events that gave him pause.

But the affairs of Wellston and everyone in it would no longer be any of his concern. Darren was no longer employed at the school by the time John returned from his suspension. His old post was assumed by a new nurse.

### Escalation

Darren is in the middle of meeting with Leilah when Kayden and Seraphina suddenly showed up. The latter surprised at seeing the former Doc. Likewise, Darren also wondered what brought the teen to their place.

Leilah eventually explained the misunderstanding, with Darren questioning why his girlfriend withheld this information before they dated. She answered that she didn't want to burden him with "unnecessary" information while their relationship were still fresh. Darren then asked Seraphina on what business she had here, before Leilah told him and Kayden to leave her office so she could had a private chat with her sister. Kayden used this opportunity to get himself acquainted with the chemist as well as requesting his help for the homework.

After the siblings finished their one-on-one conversation, Leilah in save.vited him back into her office where she came clean about her job. He was bewildered with the information, disappointed and angry being lied to by his partner. He wondered whether their relationship were genuine in the first place.

Darren was still dealing with the aftermath of the revelation when Leilah called him. He told her to give him some time and space. However, the frantic tone, as well as the mention of her sister and her best friend being in critical condition forced him to push aside his disappointment for now. He had two patients to save.

He arrived at the office, wondering what happened to his least favorite brats. After patching them up, Leilah thanked him for showing up and treating them. He quipped that this is nothing new for him, then asked her about the unconscious Kayden. He also questioned why the latter didn't bring the teens to the hospital. She explained about his ability's weakness.

The man in question woke up, leading Leilah to inquire him of the occasion. As he elaborated, Darren saw her composure faltered. He instinctively grabbed her hand to ease her. She noticed the gesture, so he pulled his hand away. He apologized for the old habit, which turned them into a flustered mess.

Later, they worked on their respective laptop. Darren absentmindedly stared at Leilah, apparently still harbouring feelings for her despite the betrayal. She caught his gaze, causing him to awkwardly look away. Their moment were interrupted by John, who were screaming after his nightmare and rushed to Seraphina's side. Darren attempted to reassure him, but the boy almost elbowed him. His quick reflex saved him from the attack, before he threatened to kick the former King out. He were later seen sipping his coffee as Leilah defused the situation.

Darren was practically drooling (and so was Kayden) at the arrival of the group's pizza. When Leilah were surprised at John's lack of response to her offering the food, the former nurse explained the teen's tight bond with her sister. He was credited by John as one of the saviors as the recently awake Seraphina wondered how they managed to escape the altercation with the ice assassin. Darren listened as Leilah got the teens up to speed with Spectre and what happened.

He requested a private chat with Leilah after John and Seraphina fell asleep. He voiced his concern about the latter two having to fight against a scheming tyrant. Leilah told him that they were attacked while minding their own business. He complained on the fate that befell those two. She grabbed his hand, convinced him that he can walk away from all this, even willing to go as far as ensuring he won't be bothered by the organization. Darren asked how long John and Seraphina had to depend on the machine to not get themselves killed. He's told that it would be the case until another, more permanent solution is found. When asked how long that would take, Leilah admitted that she doesn't see it happening soon. She swore to resolve it when the time does come, but Darren is not reassured.

## References

1. ↑ Chapter 6
2. ↑ Chapter 25
3. ↑ Chapter 29
4. ↑ Chapter 32
5. ↑ Chapter 59
6. ↑ Chapter 67
7. ↑ Chapter 76
8. ↑ Chapter 88
9. ↑ Chapter 90
10. ↑ Chapter 92
11. ↑ Chapter 124
12. ↑ Chapter 131
13. ↑ Chapter 132
14. ↑ Chapter 142
15. ↑ Chapter 162
16. ↑ Chapter 166
17. ↑ Chapter 171
18. ↑ Chapter 200
19. ↑ Chapter 218
20. ↑ Chapter 221
21. ↑ Chapter 225
22. ↑ Chapter 234
23. ↑ Chapter 266
24. ↑ Chapter 267
25. ↑ Chapter 274
26. ↑ Chapter 275
27. ↑ Chapter 276
28. ↑ Chapter 277
29. ↑ Chapter 285
30. ↑ Chapter 286
31. ↑ Chapter 290
32. ↑ Chapter 305
33. ↑ Chapter 306
34. ↑ Chapter 309
35. ↑ Chapter 310
36. ↑ Chapter 321
37. ↑ Chapter 322