A terrorist Group known has Phantom has been blamed for several reported bombings, and a raiding of a military base in Nevada. Gov has been mostly quiet on details. Official reports claim use of explosives, however details of the weaponry used, and casualties in the acknowledged attacks haven't been revealed to the public. Rumors ranging from a full on military invasion from another country to the rapture with demons and hellfire being responsible circulate from surviving accounts but lack credibility. One low quality video however reported some kind of big, flying beast breathing lightning that has been running around on the internet though with heavy skepticism.

Paranoia has started to increase in the public and some religious groups have already started civil gatherings proclaiming rapture and whatnot, expect some nutcases in the city with picket signs.
Conspiracy theorists are also gaining a bit more popularity with blaming of aliens and other strange claims such as flat or hollow earths and what have you.

Increasing paranoia has also lead to a crime increase in cities; in Lakewood looters and robberies are being reported more frequently.
In the past year the average missing person rate in the area has also increased substantially. Though this isn't as widely reported as with everything else going on.

First day of school is September 9th, Monday, 2029.
Weather for this week ranges from high 80's in the day to mid 70's at night. Getting a bit windy but fresh off summer the air is still warm. Fairly frequent rain; on the 8th it is partly cloudy with some rain expected later in the evening.

School starts at 7:30 AM and ends at 2:50 PM.

Expect typical high school classes with some extras like art, computer science classes, advanced mathematics/calculus for some over achievers, etc. Lunch time is at 12:15 to 1:00 and everyone regardless of grade/scheduling should be there at the same time for convenient social potential. Since it's the first week there is not a whole lot of after school activities beyond detention, school store, and just people hanging out.

Coming soon.

There were students still roaming around outside. First day of school meant after-school club activities were basically non-existent for now, and that the halls were empty. What a relief. Mackenzie was departing a talk in the faculty room. It wasn’t as menacing as anything her heartrate had forecasted, just the ‘your parents made sure we’re aware of your condition’ and ‘we have counselors available’ stuff she’d told herself to expect. With that, and an additional feed-scrolling session in the bathroom, Mackenzie’s first day was complete!

It had been… manageable. She’d taken the first step and that was something to proud of, wasn’t it?

‘No,’ the mean – rational – voice in her head chided. Everyone else had done the same thing. The bare minimum was nothing to be celebrated. And really, the fact that she briefly considered it as such totally cancelled out the non-achievement she just made.

Mackenzie’s shoulders slumped. At least she’d be home soon.

The sound of a second pair of footsteps began accompanying hers. She didn’t pay it any mind. They sounded close and were probably taking the same way out as her.

The sophomore went through the door and held it open, only to look up and realize there was still at least a three second walk between her and the older girl behind.

Oh. Oh no…

Savannah blinked. She stopped. Why did she stop? Now, it felt that by her estimation this was a situation. Because she had stopped and was now staring at the other, and she could give no name to the feeling that made her stop walking, it was just a reflex. It was like she just couldn't commit herself to walk quicker, and she couldn't commit herself to make the girl in front of her wait by walking slowly, so her brain just said 'stop'. But now there was much more waiting happening. It was very foolish, because now she felt it would be much more awkward to walk through the doors. She glared.

"Thanks," she still wasn't going through the door. Her voice sounded mean and sarcastic, but she wasn't, that was just the way she talked. What was she doing?

"I can--" Close the door for you? What? No. "Do--" You want to go through? Probably--no, obviously not. Oh god, look at her face. Why was she so mad?

Why were neither of them moving?!

"I'm sorry," Mackenzie blurted, sheer reflex frantically filling the silence for her.

Oh no. Oh no, this was horrible. Savannah's face morphed into some kind of horrible mean grimace, and she thought she might have been trying to smile but her face was not following orders. She took two quick breaths but tried to stop herself before anything more happened. Her face was burning, she realized, she was red.

Her legs could not commit to movement. She stood.

"I didn't mean it." Okay, Mackenzie didn't even know what she was talking about now. The other, much prettier girl looked really upset. Nononono. "You--I thought you were closer."

She could feel tears prickling upwards.

Savannah opened her mouth. What should she say? What could she say? This poor girl suddenly looked so sad because of Savannah's own transgression, because of her own awkwardness. Five more breaths, sharp and fast, and she thought Please not here, not at school, and her eyes were watering, she was going to cry if this didn't let up. Please don't.

The words came dumbly, "You didn't mean it..." it was less a statement and more a pleading whisper to the air, grasping for something.

Ah, she was taunting her. Mackenzie nodded mutely and turned away in hopes her impending tears would go unseen.

Oh no. Oh no, the other girl was crying now, wasn't she? And there was a tear going down Savannah's face. Inhale, five seconds, exhale. Keep it in check. Don't hyperventilate. God, if she passed out at school then her parents would have to find out. Just count the seconds.

After Savannah steadied herself, she stepped forward. Once, and twice, and then several times more until she was just right in front of Mackenzie. In her head she thought she would... she pictured herself giving the girl a hug, because that seemed like the right way to express that this has all been a great misunderstanding, but now that she was in the moment right in front of her she remembered that she didn't like touching people. She couldn't make herself touch the girl. Wouldn't it be weird anyways? It would only make things worse.

So she was now right next to Mackenzie, and she was doing absolutely nothing.

"Um." What was she doing? Approaching to mock her better? Hit her? Did she actually want to go through now? The proximity made Mackenzie take a swift step back. Preserving her personal bubble? No, it was just to wrench the door back as far as it would go.

"I... sorry."

What did she just say? It sounded, for just a moment, like she said the words 'I sorry'. But that was not how the English language worked, and 'I sorry' was something that a caveman would say. But no, that was exactly what she said. There was a breakdown between the start of one sentence and the end of another, and only a fragment of what was trying to say was able to fire in the synapses which made her mouth move and vocalize. All she was able to say was 'I sorry'.

Oh. "Me... too?"

"Okay." She could really think of nothing else to say. She stepped through the door, outside now.

"Okay."

Nodding fast, wiping her nose with her sleeve, Mackenzie released the door. This was over, this was done.

She walked away, brisker than any pace she'd taken in the last six months. Later, she'd berate herself for not giving a proper apology. For not checking more thoroughly if the girl was upset, or mad, or disappointed. For being so freaking awkward and useless as usual.

Later, it would keep her awake. But for now, she was just happy to be gone.

Second day and the cafeteria was already forbidden territory. There were too many people, the convenience of the place made it all too likely she'd run into that girl she upset the other day. Mackenzie had avoided eye contact for most of the encounter but from what she remembered, the stranger was older and extremely pretty. Nice clothes and striking makeup. Someone who looked like that was bound to have a bunch of senior friends ready to gossip and pounce on offenders like Mackenzie. It was best to stay out of their way.

Besides, cafeteria food could never compare to her mom's cooking.

Mackenzie wandered the school with her high-grade thermos. There was a nice shady spot around the back of campus that very few people knew about. The perfect place to cross her legs and eat, surrounded by quiet.

She rounded the corner eagerly, only to find a girl she recognized already in her spot.

"Ah." No, she didn't want this.

The girl glared up at her. She sat with her legs spread apart upon a gradual slope, and cradled in her hands was the most adorable lunchbox, replete with vegetables cut up in cute shapes and ketchup rice molded in the shape of a bear. For a moment, they remained there in silence, a silence broken only by the careful chewing of octopus wiener.

"Ah?" was what the lunch-eater finally said, a menacing growl rumbling through her throat. About as menacing as a kitten's purr, really.

"Well..." She probably wasn't Chinese, now that Mackenzie had a close look. "Sorry, this, um." Didn't seem like a good idea.

Her eyes strayed anywhere that wasn't the unfriendly girl's face, settling on, "Bears, huh?"

"Huh? Gotta problem with that?"

"N-no!" Even the slightest sign of confrontation was enough to set her off. "No, it's... it's rice. I like rice... too...?"

The girl screwed up her face, though whether she was smiling or grimacing was hard to tell with the mask over her mouth. "You can't have any," was what finally came out. But her features relaxed slightly, at least.

"Oh. Y-yeah, that's okay. I have my own food." Mackenzie lifted her thermos for her to see. "So... you're gonna eat?"

It was hard to tell with that mask on.

She gave Mackenzie another look. "Are you?"

"I can... I can eat somewhere else if-if you don't want me here."

Her grasp on the thermos tightened.

"I don't care."

She twirled her chopsticks between her fingers, then sectioned off another portion of rice.

"Just don't bring friends."

Easy. Mackenzie simply nodded, settled down a few feet from the girl, and began to eat her noodles.

Another twitch of the masked girl's eye. She tipped the lower portion of her mask outwards, sneaking in a bundle of rice. Chewed it properly, as always, then swallowed. "You said you liked rice."

W-what? Was it because...

"I... do?" She wanted it to be an affirmation but it didn't sound convincing in the slightest. "But, uh, Mom made noodles last night."

"Hmph."

And with that, the girl went back to eating. Mackenzie, too nervous to question it further, did the same.

"<Just a quick stop. The product here is lovely, I'm sure your father would want a bag. Do you want anything while we're here?>"

"<Not really.> Maybe a milkshake, I guess."

That took place twenty two minutes ago, moments before Mackenzie's mother ran into Mrs Tao by the counter. The hapless daughter watched the dam break, potential hours of gossip and family catch-up springing between the women. They saw each other at the market just three days ago, how many times could this possibly happen?!

Mackenzie herself was seated at a table, waiting. Enduring. She tugged absently at her highlights, being sure to keep her head down as to obscure her anguish. This cafe was a hot place to hang out after-school if all the familiar faces here were something to go by. How typical that she'd learn that by coming here with her mom and not like, actually being invited by someone.

Her frown deepened as the thoughts snowballed. She just wanted to leave, go away to somewhere she'd be less seen. The milkshake could wait another day.

"Old people, am I right?" A voice interrupted the girl's thoughts, as Leah glanced over at her sympathetically, mid-cleaning. "I swear every second one that comes in here'll talk for a whole year if you let them. Which we do."

Mackenzie blinked at the stranger. She looked her age but she was already working. Damn, another person who knew what they were doing with themselves.

"Um, yeah," was all she offered back.

"So, what's your name? I'm Leah. Also, why're you guys in here?" She paused, looking a little flustered. "I-I don't mean that it's bad you're here, just... y'know." Leah frowned for a second, looking wistful; even jealous. "Your mom looks like she's loaded, I guess."

"Mackenzie." The question and justification struck her a little uncomfortably, though she couldn't put her finger on why. "Uh, she said this place was... good?"

"I guess that's fair enough. Just..." Leah shook her head, "man, I'm sorry, don't want to make you feel weird, it's just different worlds, y'know?"

"It's..." It was fine, right? She hadn't meant anything... it wasn't anything bad. "Um, it's okay. I... kinda get it?"

Ah. Discomfort. Sure. "Sorry, I'm new and everything. I, um, don't really know what I'm doing yet." The subtext of that being a not-so-subtle 'please don't complain about me'.

"So don't worry about it, y'know. If it's better me just like, not talking then that's cool too; or like, if you wanna talk?" A sigh. "Sorry, I'm rambling. I'm just bored with cleaning stuff and you seem cool?"

Mackenzie blinked, her hair-tugging momentarily paused. "M-Me?"

Oh no. She hadn't made it weird, right? Not that it mattered; it'd be weirder to act like she was speaking to someone else at this point. "Well... yeah? I'm like, starved for conversation. Most people ignore me or whatever, so. Cool."

"I... won't ignore you." The resoluteness of that statement made her avert her gaze to the table. "Um. People don't really come to me for conversation. So."

"Well, that just means this is like practice or whatever, y'know?" Leah grinned. "Leah, conversation trainer."

Mackenzie couldn't say why she smiled back at that but she did. "You have... a lot of jobs."

"Well, y'know, we've all got our trials. They don't take the job thing as an excuse to skip phys ed though. Which is a shame," she laughed a little, "because I suck at soccer."

"Because of the kicking or the... running?"

"The kicking, mostly. I'm pretty fit for the rest, luckily." Leah glanced back at the counter. "I should probably get back to working properly, though. Nice meeting you..." name. Yeah, she'd forgotten to ask for that one.

"M-Mackenzie," she repeated. Yeah, she was a pretty forgettable person...

"Oh, man, sorry. I'm so bad at names, y'know, and my brain's always fried by the afternoon." But hey, Mackenzie (or at least her mom) seemed like she had cash to spare, so Leah smiled cheerfully, "guess this means you'll just have to stop by more often. That way I'll definitely remember it, right?"

Um. "Yeah. I... guess it does."

"Well, up to you. Either way, I'll see you around."

Mackenzie didn't know why that didn't sound as enticing as it should have been.

"Yeah."

It was nighttime, dark out, and Leah had her hood up. A scarf covering most of her face, hands in her pockets, and a voice in her head that kept her walking regardless. The good thing about gymnastics was the help it gave you on sneaking out attempts. Supposed all that training had to go to something now that actually using it was out of the window.

'It doesn't have to be, you know.'

'I mean, it does, though. At least for now - you're the one that said--'

'Yes, yes, of course. One thing at a time, then, mortal.'

'Please stop calling me that.'

But Leah didn't pursue the point. It wasn't really worth doing with Envy, considering the spirit's borderline addiction to asserting his superiority complex. Or maybe it was just nagging at some crack in Leah's own armor, but that one wasn't worth thinking too hard about right now. After all, she knew she was doing... not the right thing in a general sense, but the right thing for the family. Which she firmly cared about way more than Johnny Random who she just passed on the street.

Ideally they'd end up being, like, bad people, but that one felt ambitious. Not unlikely to be possible, seeing as she was a teenage girl out on her lonesome in the dark, but the best plans were generally the ones with the lowest risk of being stabbed.

Either way, it was better to be in the shadier spots of the town for this, blind alleys and dark corners. Envy resented the secrecy, of course, but only because of its necessity. He liked to be in the shadows, to push and prod and take without being seen, but he didn't want to be confined there by anyone. They weren't exactly big on that side of things, anyway, because right now the whole strength level thingy was "teenager who can do a mean round off" which was apparently not good enough.

Mutuality was the key word, though, and if nothing else Envy had always been honest with her, in a 'slightly evil magic genie' sort of way, but she did have what she wanted out of him, and it only felt right to try and do what was required in return. It wasn't as if she didn't want a lot of things too, so it wasn't like she was doing it because of the requests. Leah wasn't being pushed around, just... guided towards obtaining the things she needed. Or at least it was comfortable to think that, and so think it she did.

Not that it mattered. Back street, cold and dark and unsupervised. Sit down, hands around her knees, and wait, listening for the sound of approaching footsteps. You had to be subtle with this sort of thing, and it paid off eventually. The sound of footsteps walking by, decently heavy, probably a full-grown man if she needed to guess. Not in much of a hurry, and stumbling around. Drunk, then. That made things easier.

She waited for him to pass her, and then... 'Envy'.

Channelling wasn't easy, but it was doable. Vines materialising, flowers blooming across her mask and hood, eyes and teeth shifting; and it was simple enough, with one like this. Not like he was moving fast, or on his guard - she just had to walk up behind, a hand on the arm, and drain. Strength; that was more for her own protection than anything, since even a drunk adult guy was still stronger than she was. Energy, similarly meant to make sure he didn't run off, and maybe because she needed it to get through school and work with all this nighttime stuff.

But neither of them were what she was actually after.

Life force. Vitality. The thing you couldn't really afford to give up. The thing she was taking away. It wasn't like she was evil; this wasn't for her own benefit or anything. But it was something she needed, and that meant it was something someone else had to lose. Drunks were easy, though. And she wouldn't kill, despite Envy's ravenous baying for blood, wanting everything the man had and more. They may have been partners in this, but in a technical sense she was still in charge. Envy had been more than stubborn in withholding the information, but given enough time stuck in her head...

She'd wormed it out of him, anyway.

'If you must know, mortal, we need four minutes. One and a half if you insist on letting them live.'

He wasn't happy whenever they stopped, though. But stop she did. Leaving the guy deathly pale, dazed, and weakened, but nothing that couldn't be recovered from with a few good nights' sleep and a month's working out. It wasn't as if he'd seen her face, and even if he did, he was too out of it to remember that tomorrow. She was sure he'd find his way home or whatever anyway, and it wasn't as if she could do much to stop him from lying in the street a while.

This was the best way that things could work out for everyone, really - but for now, she needed to head home. She couldn't waste much time in using it, after all.

---

"Hey, sis. Made you breakfast. I'll just sit it here, okay?"

"Okay."

"That's good. I love you. Get some rest. I have to start school today, but I'll see you once I'm back."

"Mmmhmm..."

Eyes closed, breathing steadied, and the girl returned to sleep, oblivious to her sister's changing appearance and the palm placed on her arm.

'You know the drill, Envy. Make sure she gets all of it.'

Okay. School had been interesting so far, she'd been late to like every class, and was generally just kind of rushing around on a constant basis. Which she didn't mind so much with like, the actual classes - they weren't tough, really, she could catch up. But lunch was a different story. Staying behind for a minute to figure some stuff out with the teacher was a mixed-quality idea. Good for the academic stuff, bad because whether she liked it or not... the suddenly loud rumble of her stomach confirmed one fact.

Leah was absolutely starving. Which was her own fault for skipping breakfast, probably, but she didn't want to stress out anyone by bringing it up this morning and... whatever. The point was, she needed food, and had zero idea where it was.

So, what better way than to ask someone? There was some girl a little down the corridor, leaning against the wall. Okay, sure, maybe she didn't look the friendliest, but... "Hey, um - sorry, I'm new this year and I just wanted to know, could you tell me how to get to the lunchroom?"

Today, Savannah leaned against this wall by herself because she really had no friends to lean against walls with. Her face was blank, her mouth vaguely downturned in a sort of passive scowl. She'd heard the phrase 'resting bitch face' before. It was just how she looked. She had thought that isolation foments the idea that one should at the very least be the type of person that leans against walls looking like they're contemplating something, or looking menacing. Because here was the thing: if she was alone and was just sitting she might have felt sad, but by leaning against this very wall looking exactly like she did she felt like some 80s movie cool-loner-girl archetype which just seemed to be the most preferable way to go about being alone.

It was much better. And she was thinking about something deeply too. Which is why when Leah walked up to her and asked where the lunchroom was, she didn't say anything. She heard the voice, but it must not have been talking to her, because all of the voices and things that were being said around her had bled away into the background. Because none of that conversation was ever for her. It couldn't have been.

No, the question wasn't for her, she just knew. She didn't look up.

"Eh... excuse me? I appreciate that this is maybe, like. A busy--" Leah looked around. It was not busy. Great. "Well, some kind of moment for you, but food waits for no one and I don't want all the cheap stuff to be gone." Okay. Stop that. Wrong sort of info. And it would be nice to... stop talking at some point, but being ignored was annoying.

'She thinks she's better than us.'

'Probably true, but can you not?'

"So, you know, if you can tell me where the food is then I don't have to ask what your problem is and that way's better for everybody really, y'see? Mutual cooperation."

Savannah, for a brief moment, looked up. Oh no. Oh lord. The words were hers, and she was now being very rude.

"I'm sorry?" there were, probably, two main ways that one could use the phrase 'I'm sorry'. The first, and most common and kind way, is as a genuine affirmation of the fact that you regret an action or thing or event. The other way is as a snide, sarcastic remark that is crafted to express incredulity or disdain. In this situation, in Savannah's head, this was meant to be the former. Howerver, as the words came out of her mouth they sounded more like a question, and combined with the unusual emphasis that she placed on the word 'sorry', completely accidentally, the words sounded much more like the later. She wasn't sure what to say after that. Her brain stopped working.

"Look, I'm not trying to be trouble or anything, but I haven't like, eaten. I don't get why you're mad about it?" Leah looked as perplexed as she was frustrated. "You can opt out of twenty questions about what your problem is at any time by telling me where the food's at."

She tried it again, she tried for the smile. But like the many times before her face just couldn't do it, and it looked wonky and weird because she didn't really want to do it. If anything she looked even angrier, now snarling.

"...jeez." Leah decided this wasn't worth it, a look of slightly annoyed confusion on her face as she took a step back. "I guess I'll go find it myself, then." She shook her head, stepping back and muttering something under her breath that definitely wasn't positive.

"Wait," Savannah said. She pointed off, down a hall, towards the cafateria. "That way," she said, still not sounding partiuclarly friendly.

"Wonderful. I'd say it's been cool, but..." yeah. Leah turned in the given direction and started to walk away.

"I'm sorry." Savannah tried to say, but the girl was already gone. Why did this just keep happening?

At least Leah was getting better at finding her way around the school. Not exactly, um, good, but better. On the plus side, Envy was quiet. Probably because he knew the value of, um, sneakiness.

Yep. Anyway. Only like, three minutes late. She pushed the door open to see a teacher that didn't seem to be paying much attention, stammering out a "sorry, I got lost," to a slight 'mmhm' from the man. Well, it was better than being yelled at. Still left her to stand, awkward, in front of the whole class while he finished drawing his diagram on the board. Looking for a seat... somewhere.

Roxanne Tretter was being the good little student that everyone knew she was the moment they saw her. She'd been taking notes the whole day; making sure that she knew exactly where her classes were, and even took the time to give all of her teachers a quick hello the first week. Further surprising nobody; she was just excited to be back at the highschool. All her friends were here, and there was just something about walking along with a crowd of people that made her happy. Even if they were only walking along, she was happy just being around people; all of them had great stories to tell, and every time she tuned into a stranger's conversation, it was something interesting!

Which is why today's lesson was making her a little bit glum. It was the first hands-on chemistry experiment of the class, and Roxy had somehow ended up being the odd-one-out. Everybody else had a partner, and it was looking like she would just have to do the experiment herself. She was alone, anxious about messing up the very first assignment, and some of her black highlights had been caught between her goggles and her eyes and were really annoying her.

When the door opened and another student entered, Roxy's excitement practically radiated off her in waves.

It would've been hard to miss the slightly terrifying amount of energy that was coming off of the girl. Leah couldn't help worrying that she'd spontaneously combust if it built up for long enough, so... well, what did she have to lose anyway?

"Hey, do you not have a partner yet?" Leah smiled, relaxed but friendly enough. "I'm new, so I figure I'll just jump in here if it's okay with you."

"Nope!" Roxy said, her face quickly turning to dismay as she realized her possible mispeech. "I mean...'nope' as in 'nope I don't have a partner. Not like, 'nope you can't sit here'. That would be super mean. Hop in!"

Roxy scooted her stool slightly to the side, offering up an invitation to the new girl.

This was going to be a little tiring, huh? Leah supposed there were worse things to deal with, though. Grabbing a pair of goggles and dragging over a stool of her own, she finally sat down.

Not that she knew what the lesson was about, but it was whatever. They wouldn't do anything super important on day one. "So, um. My name's Leah, and I..." she winced, "am new and have no idea what I'm doing. So hi."

"Hiya!" Roxy said, giving a great big smile and sliding her notebook over so Leah could see. "You can borrow my notes if you need! My name's Roxanne, but everybody just calls me Roxy. You can call me whichever you prefer!"

"Are you new to Lakewood High, or new to the whole town?" Roxy asked, dropping the level of her voice so the teacher wouldn't yell at them.

"Um." So, tiring was right, but at least she'd anticipated it a little. "Both, I moved a little while ago. Family stuff, you know how it is!" A small chuckle, keeping it light as she glanced over the notebook, "so anyway, science, am I right?"

"Oh yeah, I get it completely!" Roxy said, chuckling also. She looked down at her own notebook, making sure that she'd copied everything down perfectly.

"Yep; some fun chemistry stuff for the first day! I was worried I'd have to do it myself, too!"

"The first day's usually alright. They don't want to drop too much, so..." Leah looked around, eyes landing on something. "I wonder how long it'll take before they let us use the burners. That's fun. Like, real science stuff. So we could figure things out ourselves instead of book learning it all."

"I think we're actually allowed to use it today!" Roxy said, looking down at her notes and then back up to the board to confirm. "It's like, a tutorial experiment to make sure we know how all the equipment works and stuff!"

"Oh, that's cool. Do we get to set things on fire?" Leah looked at the board, nodding casually. So, she was right and this was very far from a hard lesson, but that worked out okay. "I remember the one where it turned the flame green, that was cool, but like, when I was little I thought there'd be way more explosions; like fireworks, but more science-y."

"Green fire sounds super cool!" Roxy said, looking up at the board with anticipation. She turned her eyes back towards the materials provided for them with a slight hint of disappointment, though. "I think we're just supposed to, like, boil some water and pour some salt into it or something. Not as cool."

With the actual lesson being fairly uninteresting, Roxy's mind wandered slightly in line with Leah's thoughts. "Yeah; or things would like, turn all sorts of cool colors and stuff. Or like on those Youtube videos where they freeze stuff with liquid nitrogen and then shatter them! Those are super neat!"

"Do you think..." Leah paused for a moment, before a wicked glint appeared in her eye. Now that was an idea. "We could try putting, like, super cold water in the beaker once it's hot. And see what happens. That's, like, a real science experiment! I mean, we already know salt water exists."

"Wouldn't it just...get warm?" Roxy asked, somewhat puzzled by the suggestion.

"No, it's like... it's just like the nitrogen. When you take something like glass and make it way hotter, then colder really quick, it shatters. It's to do with stuff expanding and contracting or whatever, at least I think. I don't know. That's why it's science."

"Really?" Roxy said. Her expression quickly flashed from excitement, to concern, to looking over where the teacher was helping out another pair of students, over to Leah. "Should we really be breaking things, though? We might get into trouble for that."

"Not if it's an 'accident'." Leah chuckled, adding some quick air quotes for effect. "You know. Just trying to wash it for the teacher. We can't get in trouble for that, right?" Her eyes brightened a little. "Explosions, Roxy."

Slowly, the trepedation in Roxy's eyes gave way to enthusiasm, culminating in a small nod. "It would be really cool..."

"Cool! We should actually do the experiment first, though, keep up with the work and everything." Leah nodded slightly, getting the burner set up. "Could you get the, uh, beaker filled up and stuff?"

"Oh yeah! Good idea!" Roxy said, quickly pulling everything together. She quickly filled up the beaker with plain water from the sink they had at their station, and passed it over to Leah, reaching for the box that every pair of students had been given as part of the lesson.

"Twenty Mule Team Borax." Roxy said plainly, flipping the carton over in her hands and investigating it further. "Not salt; so don't like...taste it or anything." she added as an offhand warning.

"There go my plans," Leah laughed, rolling her eyes jokingly as she started to, "this shouldn't take too long. Plus, it's not too complicated, so I can pay like... half attention. Unless the school has super dodgy equipment."

"It's a public school in Maryland; we should probably just be happy that the burner hasn't set us on fire yet!" Roxy said, giving her own little chuckle. She passed the box over to Leah, picking up the two pipe cleaners they'd been giving and holding them out in front of her.

"Which do you want? Red or blue?"

"Hmmm." Leah didn't hesitate more than a moment before picking with a smile, "I'll take the red."

"Blue for me, then!" Roxy said, taking the pipe cleaner and bending it into a small loop on the bottom.

"Alrighty; so you've just gotta heat up the water and mix in as much Borax as you can before it won't mix anymore. I've gotta find two beakers and wash them out!" Roxy said, half reading from her notebook and half looking through the various drawers along the lab table.

"Sure, sure, no problem." Add the thingy to the other thingy, and wait for them to become one thingy. Leah would start paying more attention once things weren't, like, easy enough to be boring. But unless she had it wrong, that'd take at least a few weeks of class to happen if it ever did.

"I think I spotted a couple of spares on the counter over there, if you wanna grab those."

Roxy hummed quizically, looking over to where Leah was pointing. "Oh! Yeah!" she exclaimed, hopping off her stool to snag them off the counter and returning. Between Leah's mixing and Roxy's moral support, it only took a few minutes for the water to be heated up, the borax mixed in, and the solution poured into the two beakers.

"How do you spell your name?" Roxy asked, having stencilled her own out in marker on a notecard.

"L-E-A-H. Now c'mon." She smiled, looking at the successful experiment. Yeah, that was about as easy as she'd expected, so. Explosions. Because really, things were kind of dull on the science front right now, so... yeah. It was easy enough to disguise it as over enthusiastic cleaning as she moved the beaker to the sink without giving it time to cool down.

Aaaaand, just needed some cold water there...

Well, she was right. Although it wasn't quite as dramatic as she'd hoped. Probably the whole beaker wasn't hot enough for that, but the portion where the burner's flame had been directly on gave way, leaving them with a small, smooth-edged hole. "Huh. I mean, it's not like, an explosion, but that looks kind of cool right?"

Roxy was still in the middle of spelling Leah's name when she saw Leah moving the beaker over, and she leaned back just a bit; enough that she wouldn't get hit by any shrapnel, at least. The sound of shattering glass made her jump slightly, despite it being nothing more than a small hole. The anticipation of an explosion was the biggest factor to her surprise, and she regained her composure almost immediately, leaning in to look.

"I mean...it's cool, yeah." Roxy said, the slightest hint of disappointment in her voice. "Not really what I was expecting though."

"Yeah, I guess 'cause it all heated the most in one spot. I think they'd notice if we tried to heat up the whole thing the same, though, or got some liquid nitrogen." Leah sighed, looking pretty disappointed herself. "Which I don't think I know how to do anyway, so I guess we're gonna have to wait for explosions. Unless something unexpected happens, but that'd be bad 'cause explosions suck if you're not the one making them."

"What about, like, fireworks?" Roxy asked, missing the point completely.

"I mean, sudden fireworks right now would also be bad."

"Would they?" Roxy asked with such a conviction that it might have caught a lesser person off guard. "What if they were like, 'welcome back to school' pep rally fireworks? That'd be pretty neat."

"I... guess? That just seems like a way to make fireworks sadder."

"Nonono." Roxy said, shaking her head. "Fireworks at any event makes it way better. Like...a funeral or something! If there were fireworks, it'd be a pretty sweet funeral!"

As she spoke, her eyebrow raised as if she remembered something, and she finished Leah's notecard quickly and handed it to her; the penmanship was nothing spectacular, but it was the little heart in the corner that really brought it up to eleven.

Despite herself, Leah smiled a little at the notecard, seeming a little distracted, "thanks. And I'll keep the funeral suggestions in mind," something seemed to catch her attention and she laughed, eyes bright, "not that they'll be needed anytime soon!"

"Good!" Roxy said as she smiled widely, allowing herself to be infected by Leah's apparent happiness. Her good mood didn't dim as she twisted her piper cleaner into loops, and then tied it around a pencil, holding it up for Leah to see so she could follow.

"And that's that! We've got cool crystal-thingies in the making, we blew up a beaker with science...I think that's a pretty good first experiment!"

"It sure is, partner!" Leah nodded in agreement, raising her hand to offer for a fist bump.

Roxy returned the fist bump with barely contained excitement. "And we'll make the next one even better!"

6:00 AM EST: Oceanographers report strange sounds originating from several hundred miles off the coast of Maryland.

7:00 AM EST: Meteorologists report a massive thunderstorm forming over the Atlantic. Despite its closeness to the shoreline, it had not previously been detected on radar.

8:00 AM EST: Coastguards receive and answer a distress call from a fishing boat identified as the Atlantic Princess. Full search and rescue operations are deployed.

9:00 AM EST: Severity of the approaching storm forces the search and rescue team to halt the operation early. Atlantic Princess believed to have been sunk or capsized.

10:00 AM EST: Along the shores of the city, panic erupts almost immediately as a great white beast emerges from the waters and sprawls onto the beach. The anomalous creature appears to walk on six legs, and a long finned tail. It has a carapace much like that of a horse show crab, and a circular mouth beneath filled with teeth and a retractable barbed tongue. Following its appearance, a swarm of arthropod-like monsters rushed the shoreline. Shortly after, the city's power grid goes dark. Radio equipment and phone lines within a 1-mile radius of the white monster cease to be functional. Citizens attempt to evacuate as the arthropods flood further inland, but are quickly overwhelmed. Many civilians are trampled, both by crowds and by beasts, and several appear to have been impaled by barbed tails or tongue-like appendages.

10:15 AM EST: Arthropods advance into the city and are met by the local police force, who are already responding to the supernatural disaster. Most firearms are revealed to be ineffective; the tough carapace from the Swarmlings able to endure light ballistic fire from standard pistols. Close range shotgun fire and precise rifle shots are able to eventually dispatch a few, but the impact is deemed insignificant. The Pale Monstrosity makes its way through the city, while the Swarmlings remain behind to pick apart civilian survivors and retaliating forces.

11:00 AM EST: City has been overrun by large groups of Swarmlings. Communications are unavailable, with suspected interference from the monsters. Outside reports detail the power-shortage to have been caused by the storm and designate it as being localized within the city. Lakewood High is ordered to shut down due to the severe weather, but the power shortage and the lack of communication forces the building into emergency disaster mode. Faculty begin to close windows and boarding them to protect from harsh winds. Candles and matches are provided as light sources, as it is quickly discovered that even battery operated flashlights are nonfunctional. Lunch faculty continue to hand out what has been prepared before the kitchen was shut down. Additional snacks are being distributed for free.

11:10 AM EST: Mass panic as monsters breach the school walls.

---

---

The cafeteria was dark and crowded. Every other table had a lit candle, whose collective flames flickered and provided some dim light as shadows danced across the walls. Even the slight reprieve from complete darkness was welcomed, though. What few staff members were present worked tirelessly to keep the lines of students orderly and calm; panic was expected, but they were trying to keep it from overwhelming the student body. Some students asked questions about family members or other people outside the school, but these queries were ignored as the lunch lady handed out food.

Ms. Summer Ford, the Language Arts Teacher at Lakewood High, was trying her best to boost morale with varying degrees of success. "It's alright," she called, her soothing voice attempting to cut through the general buzz of the students. "The storm is only supposed to last a few hours, and your parents have been contacted."

A blatant lie. The landlines and the cellphones were dead, along with all the power in the building; even the emergency lights wouldn't kick on. Plus, they had no idea how long the storm would last. Not a single person in the school had any clue as to what was going on, but it was their duty to provide some figure of stability for the children. After all, it was better to pretend as if nothing was wrong than to allow for a mass panic, right?

"Oh, I have an idea!" Ms. Ford called out, gathering the attention of the closer students. "Why don't we-"

"What the HELL is THAT!?"

The sudden cry of alarm interrupted Summer's sentence, and everyone in the cafeteria turned their heads towards the glass walls of the outside. Crawling on the window was a massive creature; something that Summer found reminiscent of a horseshoe crab, had it been enlarged and pumped full of steroids. For a moment, the room was completely silent as nobody knew what to say in the presence of such a thing.

That silence was broken by the sound of shattering glass.

Another creature, similar to the crab, had charged straight through the wall and easily broken through it. The spray of glass seemed to have no effect on the hardened exterior as it barreled through, knocking students and tables aside with ease. The previously uneasy crowd quickly devolved into pandemonium as teenagers screams and panicked, darting all different directions in an attempt to just get out of the way. Candles were jostled over in the rush to escape, spilling their hot wax across their tables and the floor, crushed underfoot as people tried to exit the cafeteria.

Summer turned her head to look for another figure of authority, her eyes stopping on the lunch lady who was about to join the fleeing crowd. In the moment their eyes met, something massive pushed its way through her face, spilling pieces of skull and brain matter across the cafeteria floor. Her limp body was lifted and tossed effortlessly to the side as the crab-monster's tail reared back, the massive barb that capped the end now glistening with fresh blood.

---

---

'Of course they had to send me to brave the storm. As if I didn't have better things to do that get struck by lightning or some bullshit.'

Jon always complained to himself whenever he was given a task by the principle. After all, it always seemed to be him that got stuck with the little things no one else wanted to do. Janitor couldn't make it? "Oh, just put Jon on bathroom duty, he doesn't mind!" Coffee machine out of order? "Jon can drive to Foxhole! He needs an excuse to get some fresh air anyway!"

He didn't voice his complaints though. Over the years, he'd really started to enjoy his career as a gym teacher. He enjoyed the companions he made in the faculty, and the friend he could be to the students whenever it seemed like they had nobody else. These were both things that made the job worth doing, and he wasn't going to risk it just by denying the incessant requests of some 'to-big-for-his-britches' principal.

The rain dropped like bullets over his poncho, which was tucked up slightly to shield his head from the downpour. It wasn't enough to keep him completely dry, but he wasn't getting soaked at least. Having rushed through the parking lot to get to his pickup truck, he didn't waste any time to hop in the driver's seat and jam the key in the ignition. However, the car wouldn't start. He couldn't even hear the engine turning over as if it were stalled; it seemed like the shitty thing was just dead. He'd just replaced the battery in the damn thing too! What else could go wrong today?

He'd have to open the hood to inspect it. That was something he'd unfortunately gotten used to with his beat up truck, and he begrudgingly left the relative comfort of his driver's seat for the torrential downpour of this horrible storm. He'd just placed his hand under the dented hood to pull it up when he stopped: something big was moving through the woods, mere yards away from him. At first he thought it was a bear, but even bears had enough sense to avoid being out in weather like this.

Jon's jaw dropped agape as he saw the full form of the creature move out of the forest. The scuttling legs and thick, lashing tail of the Swarmling were definitely not a combination of body parts he'd seen on any creature around Lakewood, and the razor tip of its stinger hinted at a far more dangerous nature. The shock kept him frozen in place for some time as he just watched the thing slowly creep closer, but his fight or flight instincts kicked in only a moment later. Spinning on his heel, Jon felt the hard asphalt under each footstep as he sprinted back towards the school. He never cursed on school grounds before, but he couldn't stop the stream of profanities now.

"Shitshitshitshitshitshit what the fuck is that thing!?"

He reached the back door of the gym, his heart pounding as he pulled the door open. Before he could get the door open enough to squeeze through, he felt something cold and...sharp on his leg. The pain didn't even register at first, which was a small mercy for the injury he'd received. As Jon looked down, one hand on the door and the other clinging to wall, he saw that the top of his ankle had been punched straight through by some sort of tongue. It had three barbs tipped around it, each pulling strands of frayed muscle fibers through the wound as they impaled him. The fleshy part of the tongue wrapped around the leg itself, and he could feel it tugging him backwards. Something within the tongue was scraping through the injury; the skin-crawling feeling of rough scratching across bone.

Jon couldn't stop himself from screaming out in utter agony. Fear clouded his mind, and he could feel the warmth of adrenaline starting to take over his actions. He desperately tried to force his way inside, using his one good leg to push himself while both arms pulled the rest of his body through. Even though he was slowly making progress inside, the monster still clung to his leg; he could feel the circulation being cut off as the tongue wrapped itself tighter around his calf. He glanced quickly around, searching for anything that might help him in his struggle, and was rewarded with the sight of a thick, red fire extinguisher slotted into the wall on his left. He let go of the wall to reach for it, slowly being pulled back towards the maw of the beast as he smashed the emergency glass with his elbow. Though the shards cut into his skin, he barely felt the lacerations. Instead, he pulled the metal canister free, whirling around and slamming it over the tongue of the beast.

At first there was no reaction, but Jon brought the extinguisher up once more, grabbing it with both hands this time and bringing it down with all the force he could possibly muster. This time, the creature wailed in pain, and the tongue's grip seemed to loosen: he could feel the sudden warmth of blood as the circulation returned and it poured freely from his wound. With one more strike, the combination of adrenaline and primal fighting instincts guiding his arms, he brought the canister down again. The blunt impact was forceful enough to sever the tongue entirely, fluid erupting from the appendage as the Swarmling let loose a horrific screech and writhed backwards, giving Jon just enough space to slam the door shut.

He fell forward, the adrenaline not enough to support him on his injured leg. Pulling himself up against the wall, Jon inspected the damage to his left leg, or what was now left of it. Right above the ankle was a mangled layer of flayed skin, and he could see bone, tissue, and muscle that had been carved out through the puncture wound. The joint itself was twisted and broken, and he could feel the warm sting of tears in his eyes as he slowly tried to pull himself up. When he could not muster enough strength for that, he pulled himself feebly across the gymnasium floor, leaving a long smear of crimson from where his ankle was bleeding at an alarming rate.

"Help!" he cried out, giving another pull. "Anybody? Someone, help me!"

---

---

"Why aren't we getting food right now?" complained a high-school boy. Garry was hungry, and this little detour of theirs meant that they were missing out on all the snacks in the cafeteria. He adjusted his glasses slightly, squinting his eyes to make anything out in the near-darkness.

"The line is way too long; I've got a secret stash in my locker we can dig into." said Vincent, grinning cockily as he turned to face his peer. He walked backwards for a moment, never taking his hands out of his pockets, while Garry scrunched his face in a mixture of confusion and disgust.

"Who the fuck calls anything a secret stash? You du-"

"HOLY SHIT! Fucking RUN!" interrupted Trevor, pointing forward at the new arrival in the hallway. Down at the other end a Swarmling skidded around a corner and crashed up against the lockers, unable to find purchase on the smooth, tiled floors. The sound of screeching metal echoed through the otherwise silent halls, the lockers nearly bent in half from the weight of the creature. It only took a moment to right itself, and began scurrying towards them with astonishing speed.

Vincent and Garry were already turning in place, their bodies registering Trevor's order moments before their minds did. While Vincent bolted the other direction and Garry only steps behind, Trevor remained where he was. He pumped his fists together, another metallic slamming noise echoing down the hallway. Cold steel wrapped itself around his hands, seeming to fold and melt across his skin before solidifying into a pair of ornate gauntlets. He put one foot backwards, bracing himself for the approaching creature.

"Alright ugly; let's go."

With the screeching sound of rubber on asphalt, a motorcycle skidded out of control and toppled into some trees near the Lakeview Highschool. The bike was wrecked, and as the driver was flung over the handlebars and into the foliage, there didn't seem to be any hope that he would come out any better. Miraculously, however, the driver confidently strode out of the brush moments later. He wasn't wearing a helmet at the time of impact, but the only sign of harm on him was the trickle of blood that poured down from his forehead and past his sunglasses. His personality seemed to be easily discerned from his blatant disregard for road safety, and the fact that he was wearing sunglasses while the sun itself was blocked out by a hurricane. If this was what a savior looked like, the people currently trapped in the school were likely better off with the Swarmlings.

"Yeah, I'm here." the gentleman said to nobody, flicking droplets of blood onto the ground where they could mix with the downpour. As he spoke, he held forward a small trinket shaped like a cockroach, watching for any signs of activity. "What's that?" he asked, pausing for an unheard answer. "Yeah, yeah, hold on a second."

The biker closed his hand over the trinket, turning to look towards the lake. The White Shark creature was slowly sprawling into the waters, but then seemed to stop suddenly. There was a ripple of force across its body as it was pushed backwards. The creature let out a guttural snarl in response, seemingly out of place for its shark-like exterior, but frightening nonetheless.

"Yeah, something appears to be preventing him from that." the biker said, seemingly speaking directly into the cockroach trinket. He lifted his head slightly to shout towards the battle: "Hey Ryleigh! You doing okay, you fatass!?"

While there was no verbal response, a spray of water was launched directly into the man's face. Annoyed and spluttering, he wiped the water from his brow with a gloved hand, leaning back into the trinket to speak. "Yeah, he's alright. Still a bitch though." He paused for another moment, as if he were listening to something.

"Yo! Ry! Did you try-" he started, yelling towards the behemoth creature. It seemed that whatever he was talking to was already ahead of him, however. While the White Shark opened its massive jaws to snarl again, water from the surface of the lake rose up and snaked through the air towards it. The streams forced their way into the maw of the best, pumping in furiously as it seemed to spill from the creature's gills and into the parking lot behind it.

Main Objective (Everyone needs to do this):

• Don't die.

Optional Objectives (Not required, but may influence the story):

• Save people, kill the bugs in the school.
• Fight the big monster outside.
• Help the city?
• Help the monsters?(Why?)
• Bully the asshole.

Ryleigh
A 20 meter long, 10 meter tall white monstrosity. Its body resembles an enlarged hammerhead shark. However instead of any fins, it has six long and muscular human-like arms. As a boss monster you should collab with me for any combat or interaction with it.

The Swarmlings

They range from the size of a large dog to a bear. Tough carapace but can be dispatched with mild difficulty. They also have a barbed tongue. They will generally attack the closest human to them and won't discriminate their targets. As fodder enemies you are free to control them for your own combat. There are about 30 total: 15 outside the school, 5 in the cafeteria, 5 on the roof, and 5 spread out in the halls.

Leah wasn't a particularly lucky person. She'd accepted this by now, really, since it wasn't a thing you could actually do anything about by yourself, and she was a pretty firm believer in one free slap for everyone that said you make your own luck. Then again, in a twisted way she guessed you could call it lucky that she'd ended up here when...

"What the fuck, what the hell is that-- jesus christ, where'd it come from what do we--"

'Please shut up.'

"I don't know, I don't know, please helpmemovethis."

"R-right, sorry!" Leah snapped out of it, at least momentarily, helping the classmate who'd ducked in here with her to shift the desk, ramming it up against the door with seconds to spare. "Oh my god. Those things, are they... do you think they're everywhere?"

The noises weren't stopping, the creature determined to get at the prey it knew was waiting for it. Seemed like it'd only be a matter of time before it got to them, and as Leah stared into the floor, she realised there wasn't any escape, really. They'd ducked into the nearest room when they saw it, panicked screams alerting the thing to their presence and vulnerability.

"I... I still don't know. Do you think we're gonna--"

Her name was Sara; neither of them had wanted to head to the bathrooms alone right then, so they'd walked together, chatted. It wasn't too hard, she was nervous, she was kind, she'd showed her the pictures of her dog on her phone. It was too real and too close but Leah was so afraid that none of it seemed to matter. There was a black bow in her hair, and for some reason Leah's gaze rested on it, fixated on the small and safe detail that let her pretend there was a way out of this.

'Mortal.'

It would be okay, she just needed to wait, they wouldn't let the school go down like this, there were too many kids here so it'd be fine.

'MORTAL! You can't stay here; it doesn't matter if you're right.'

'No, it'll be fine, if I'm right then someone will come--'

'They'll come for you. But who'll come for her? I trust you didn't take your duties so casually, after all I've done for them.'

He - he was right, she realised dimly. Even if someone came to help her, they'd keep them there. They wouldn't go and save Taylor, her family, anyone. She'd lose all of it, everything she'd done, everything she'd given up on for them would all be for nothing. So even if someone came to help them, it would guarantee she lost it all. At that point, it was... 'As good as dying anyway.'

So she had to leave before anyone got here, before there was any help. But there was no way she could rely on being faster than that thing, dodging around it, so... her eyes landed on Sara. Sweet Sara who loved puns, showed her dog to any passing stranger with a few spare seconds, and dressed herself up like she was always preparing for a formal event. Who snorted when she laughed without meaning to. Who did a bunch of little things that she never had to consider before.

'Only one of us is leaving this room, huh.'

Envy didn't say anything back, but she'd swear she felt his agreement. Or maybe that was just a comforting lie.

Vines, blooming hyacinths, snaking around her outfit, pulling up the hood of her jacket as she gritted her teeth and reached out. There was no point in restraint, because it wouldn't help her. It wouldn't help Taylor. This wasn't - it wasn't selfish, it was for them, she knew that. Someone had to help.

She struggled at first, screaming, but Leah at least had more strength than any normal kid her age when she channelled. Probably a little more than most adults, too - and she didn't want to hear it. She couldn't let herself hear it, not like this. Surprisingly, Envy spoke to her calmly, gently, comforting words and affirmations that this was the right thing to do, that you could never help anyone without helping yourself, that she didn't owe these classmates and strangers a single thing. It was better to focus on his voice, calming, easier as she kept her eyes shut once Sara's struggles ceased completely.

7/8ths of vitality. It wasn't likely she'd be able to recover even in a different place; but Leah knew that, and so she'd taken her strength, her energy, everything. As far as she could tell, the girl had been placed in a coma. She didn't want to kill her directly; this felt easier somehow, like it was all for the plan, so at least one of them could make it out of there. That made sense, right? It had to be like this. She dragged the comatose figure over and lay her next to the door, which was creaking dangerously, hinges splintering. Lift her up, pull away the desk, and dump her on the floor in front of the thing.

It pounced; no beast would ever ignore such an easy meal.

And Leah ran, towards the exits, not daring to let herself look back.

It was way too noisy in the cafeteria, and Roxy just needed somewhere to clear her head and get away from the crowds. Maybe it was a bad idea to go use the bathroom during an emergency drill, and maybe it was an even worse idea to go all the way to the second floor to get away from the cafeteria, but Roxy was fairly confident that there wasn't actually a tornado or something coming. It was just a freak storm after all; and the power got knocked out all the time. Or...it wasn't super unusual for that to happen. Sure...the emergency lights wouldn't come on either. That was fine. It probably wasn't a problem.

Roxy's hands trembled violently as she tried to turn on her phone for the fourth time. There was a pit in her stomach that was threatening to turn itself into a loss of her lunch, and her heart was pounding away like a jackhammer. Maybe this wasn't as fine as she made it out to be. Maybe she was just in denial and had slipped away so nobody would see the panic that was starting to set in.

That was probably it.

Even the glow stick necklace she'd pulled out of her bag wasn't helping at all. She still had a few of them left over from the first day of school, but the soft blue glow of the stick around her neck was only serving as a minimal light source, and not the beacon of positivity that she was used to glowsticks being.

Roxy looked in the mirror, splashing some cold water on her face and feeling blindly for the paper towel dispenser so she could wipe her eyes clear. She patted against the wall for a moment, following it along until she found- BONK

"OWCH!"

Roxy slammed her head into the dispenser and stumbled backwards a step, bringing her hand up to her head and just wiping her eyes with her free sleeve; something she was going to have to do anyway since the towels were motion activated, and the power was out.

"Owie...that really hurt." she said softly, talking to herself and rubbing her head where she'd caught it with the plastic corner. It was a fortunate thing that she could see now at least, and she walked back over towards the mirror to examine her poor dented forehead in the dim blue light. Fortunately, it didn't seem like she'd seriously injured anything; she'd probably just have a small bump in an hour.

It was while she was looking at the mirror that Roxy heard the curious sound of scuttling behind her. The soft, slow sound of claws on tile as something crept through the doorway and into the bathroom. With the blue light illuminating the doorway as dimly as it did the rest of the room, Roxy looked deeply into the mirror to try and source the movement of a large figure she could see in it. With a slow, terrified glance, she turned to look at the source of the reflection.

A strange, beetle looking creature, as large as a mountain lion with a wicked looking barbed tail stood menacingly. Right now, the tail was pulled the whole way back, and it began launching forward with astounding speed. As Roxy gasped in fright at what was only describable as a monster, her knees buckled and she fell to the ground; fortunate only in that it caused the creature to miss.

CRASH!

The tail snapped forward to impact against the mirror as Roxy scrambled towards the stalls, the rain of shattered glass pouring down on her. Roxy could feel as some flakes fell down the back of her shirt, leaving small cuts in her skin the whole way down. Likewise, she could feel the stinging pain of the pieces that were driven into her hands as she pushed herself of the floor and ran for one of the stalls.

Roxy slammed the handicap stall shut and slid the lock into place, breathing heavily as she backed towards the toilet. She had no idea what was going on, her hands were bleeding, and there was some sort of monster trying to kill her. It was fair to say that she was panicking right now.

She took a deep breath, steadying herself as she listened for the creature. She could hear the crunching of mirror underneath its large crab-like legs, and the blue glow from her necklace was enough for her to see the front few limbs approaching the door to her stall.

It seemed to wait there for a moment. As if it were also listening for her...

Roxy held her breath.

The creature was just standing there, on the other side of the door.

Her legs were trembling so furiously that she was afraid she'd lose her balance again.

...

...

Was it still waiting for her?

...

SMASH!

The handicap door buckled inwards as the piercing barb punched through it, causing Roxy to squeal in terror and immediately hit the ground again. She slipped under the stall dividers as the thing attempted to wrench its tail free from the door, and crawled on her hands and knees towards the bathroom exit. She let out a slight whimper as a sliver of glass dug its way through her jeans and into her knee, but she didn't allow it to slow her down. She leaped up as soon as she was under the last barrier and darted out.

Roxy ran as fast as she could down the hallway, but even as she made it past the second classroom door, she could hear the sound of the creature bursting out of the bathroom. She dared not look behind her as she ran, even though she doubted that she'd be able to see anything anyway, but she could feel it gaining on her. The way the hair on the back of her neck stood up as the clacking sound of claws approached let her know that it was getting closer.

Thinking quickly, Roxanne darted down the first hallway she saw: the flight of stairs between floors. Obviously, up was a bad idea; all the horror movies had taught her that much. So when the creature slid past, scrabbling at the floor to gain traction, Roxy sprinted down the stairs. As she rounded the bend, she stopped suddenly at a flash of movement, only narrowly ducking backwards out of the range of the tail as it speared through the gap in the stairs. However, the sudden backwards dodge caused Roxy's foot to slip out from underneath her, and she found herself tumbling down the rest of the stairs and into a heap at the bottom. Somewhere in the middle of her fall, there was the sickening 'crunch' of a bone being dislocated.

"Ow...owie...ow ow ow...oh no..." Roxy muttered, steadying herself on her hands and letting out a yelp of pain as she placed weight on her left arm. She was battered, but her left shoulder had taken the edge of a stair particularly hard, and was currently throbbing painfully with every pounding beat of her heart. She pushed herself up and ran towards the nearest door, a slight limp in her stride as she did. It wasn't locked, and Roxy slipped in, closing the door softly behind her. Just as she heard the click of the door latching into place, she also heard the sound of a large creature hitting the ground; apparently just off the stairs after her.

Roxy didn't even move. She stood there, with the doorknob still in her hand, just waiting for the sudden explosion of wood. She had no plan; if the thing came through the door, all she'd be able to do would be to run again. But she only made it out of the bathroom by shear luck.

If it came through the door...that'd be the end of her.

With that thought weighing on her mind, Roxy's whole body shook violently. She had to slowly bring her hand up to her mouth to stifle the slight sob that escaped, and she could feel the warm tears running down her face. She was terrified, and in that moment...she really just wanted her mom to be there with her.

There were still fresh tears on her cheeks when she opened her eyes.

She was dead wasn’t she? She’d been stupid and weak her whole life but she always thought that it’d be the latter quality she’d perish from. There was something so… unpoetic about getting impaled by a giant, evil crab. And all because she snuck out to get her phone. No one else’s was working but surely hers would. She just had to go to her locker at the far end of the building.

Stupid, stupid move. This was what she got for it. She wasn’t in the barricaded classroom anymore, alone and waiting for the end, but rather some open-air temple. Marble columns stretched into the endless sky, flanked on either side by golden fire pits. Cream and polished brown tiles made up the flooring. She could see her messy face in the reflections. Sunset painted over all of it, basking the surrounding mountains in glorious light. From the view, it seemed she was situated on the tallest one in the range.

Despite herself, Mackenzie felt a deranged particle of relief. The architecture was too Mediterranean for this to be Chinese Hell, unless her cousin had left out some details back at her fifth birthday party. It was hardly any solace but she didn’t have anything else going for her at the moment. There was a strange energy in this place. Not something she could cleanly classify as ‘good’, just an urge to take a deep breath and step out somewhere. Towards that sunset maybe. It really was beautiful.

“Magnificent, is it not?”

The voice came from behind her, throaty and low and big. The scale of it was something monstrous. Despite herself, she turned to look.

Glowing reptilian eyes. Its teeth were half as long as she was tall. The air around it looked hazy, distorted like a road in the desert. And its mouth was agape, right where her eyeline rested.

Mackenzie screamed.

The beast threw back its head, an uproarious “YAHAHAHA!” causing the whole structure to quake. It was hard to describe, the closest example she could compare it to being the cry of a wild boar, but the way its amusement conveyed itself in rhythm made it clear to her that this was its version of laughter.

Not that it mattered. She just kept screaming, or was permitted to scream, until it apparently ran out of patience.

“Answer.”

A whimper. “H-Huh?”

It roared to the sky, earning itself another squeal from the girl. Its speech was punctuated with breathy growls. “Magnificent, yes? Grand? Divine?”

“Y-Yes!” she nodded desperately, shuddering, “It’s, um, great. Pretty.”

She didn’t know how a giant lizard could give an expectant look but that’s what she got.

“The mountain is really nice. B-Breathtaking, uh, I should say. Majestic…?”

If the thunderous swish of its tail was anything to go by, it was satisfied. “And me?”

Huh?

“You’re…” No way. It couldn’t be serious. “Y-You’re great too. So… massive.”

“Is that all?”

The growling intensified. Her eyes started leaking again.

“No! N-No, no, of course not. Like… like…” She couldn’t die here. She wasn’t ready. “You’re so big a-and that’s great! It looks like all muscle, you could beat up like, um, fifty elephants easy. And your hide is so eye-catching and your teeth are super sharp a-and so are your unbreakable horns and—”

“Yes. Yesssss.”

The monster leaned in close. Its legs shuffled restlessly (excitedly?). Mackenzie felt its hot breath on her face and froze.

“You will pave the road I stride. Yes?”

“I…” Had no idea what that meant.

“Answer.”

“Yes! Anything you want.”

The name came to her unbidden.

“Whatever you want, Venga… sir.”

It bared its teeth into what was definitely a grin.

There were still fresh tears on her cheeks when she opened her eyes.

She was back in the classroom, unmoved and curled up in the farthest corner from the window. The window that the giant crab was still about to breach.

Glass and wood shattered. It was here.

Mackenzie couldn’t breathe. She looked around for something, anything, to save her. All she found was some toy in her hand. Three rounded prongs branched out from a circular pad, allowing it to spin smoothly. Was… wasn’t this some fad from the 2010’s? She didn’t have this before the vision, did it belong to the monster?

There was a growl only she could hear. ’Unchain me, child.’

Whatever it was, it was her only option.

“Save me,” she breathed, wiping at her face, “Please.”

Her body, or something deeper and less tangible than that, knew what to do. Something invisible spilled out from within, and a borrowed confidence told her it was going to be alright.

The beast was taking form.

A vague reminder came with it. Math class. Something about volume and displacement. Containers and spills.

Ah.

Mackenzie’s eyes widened. “W-Wait, Venga sir—”

The classroom in the corner of the building burst outwards, and while that may have been too isolated to cause concern, no one on campus could ignore the guttural, deafening, “YAHAHAHA!” that followed.

‘Should have left.’

‘Oh, don’t be such a bore, Rust.’

‘Makes my job hard.’

‘Hmm, but you do a good job, don’t you?’

‘Why stay?’

‘Well… you’ve been bored too, haven’t you?’ Ravenna hummed to herself out loud as she watched the city from her perch in the sky. ‘Lyra was going stir crazy too.’

An image of an ocean view flashed into Ravenna’s mind, a clear indication of the spirit’s disapproval of having stuck around. They had a perfectly good reason to go on a trip, didn’t they? Could have done anything they wanted. An-y-thing.

‘Sorry, Lyra. Maybe another weekend.’

Fortunately, with the world so concentrated on the disaster on the ground, Ravenna was free to travel the skyway, seated on Rust’s catalyst like a makeshift broom, as it were. Could she have helped? Probably, but that seemed like an unnecessary risk to herself and her adorable spirits. That, and she'd managed to piece enough information together to dodge most of the problems she could have foreseen. No need to fight when she could just... skip the formalities and get to the final course, after all. Tyet scoffed, a bizarre noise translating itself as disagreement. It would have been able to fight. Better than the other spirits in the fold, at least. Ravenna chuckled to herself, an affectionate warmth prickling through her chest.

“Now, now, don’t be jealous, Tyet. You do a wonderful job keeping the Foxhole safe.” Mismatched eyes narrowed against the sharp winds passing through the trees as she watched the pair before her with a keen interest. Really, people needed to be more careful about what they handed over to her. Especially when they were people of interest—a rarity with Ravenna, honestly.

“My, my, you certainly took your time,” the barista called with a melodic taunt to her voice as she descended from her low perch in the sky, though she remained off the ground. Out of respect for Lyra, of course. The poor thing didn’t need to be drenched in lake water after being denied a quick trip, after all. “The roads were rough, dear?”

The mildly frustrated biker looked to the familiar Barista, at first with unveiled annoyance, then with a shit-eating grin. "Well well, if it isn't that witch's pretty little pet. I didn't think you'd stick around." He said as he turned fully, intentionally trying to block her view of his obviously wrecked bike. "Have you finally decided to ditch that old hag for me?" He'd stroke back his messy wet hair with his hand, as an excuse to try and cover the head injury he suffered from his crash.

Hm, it might have been nice to be a pet. A step up, maybe. Not so reliable though. Ravenna didn't voice that particular thought.

"Oh, darling, you know she isn't that generous." A pause. "...well, to you, at least."

But even that was hardly accurate. Frankly, Ravenna was entirely certain that the strangely fulfilling sense of grounding that she got from her current daily life would be difficult to achieve a second time. That, and she wasn't exactly stupid enough to think that her current entourage was actually interested in the human that was Ravenna Fairchilde. "But maybe one day, dear. You've certainly held my interest for longer than most."

"It must be my good looks, I-" He was cut off by, silence? The man paused as he seemed to listen in to the insect trinket he was holding. "Oh I'm sorry, you think I like having my talents be wasted as your damn messenger?!" He shouted. "I am a fucking legend and you have me sit back and watch this oversized guppy-" A torrent of water knocked him off his feet before he could finish, ruptured from the gills of the shark. He got up, seething with anger. He tried to play it cool however by fixing his leather jacket.

The momentary lull was broken by the sound of yet another motorcycle, emitting a loud roar that eventually showed to a gentle purr as it slowed to a halt. Off it stepped Tachibana Yui, already fully covered in her armor. She gave a curt wave as she stepped off the jet black machine, a judgemental stare hidden behind her helmet.

"PHANTOM sends its regards," she said with a nod. Her English still held a notable accent to it, her voice giving the occasional hint of struggle with what her mind understood. "Though speaking for myself, I hope you don't squabble like that all the time."

"Hmm, I imagine it's usually worse," Ravenna chuckled, the levity in the words blatant even without the light chuckle that accompanied them. Her eyes trailed toward the spirit responsible for the surge of water, and the barista smiled despite the storm at large with a respectful, if subtle, bow of her head. "Am I wrong?"

The man brushed his messy hair to hide his frustration at the new arrival and the comments of the barista. "There is certainly a lack of respect for my talents and ability among my kin." He stated in protest. "I mean can you believe it? The great and mighty steve reduced to baby-sit this overgrown piece of shit." As he gestured to Ryleigh, the head of the beast reared up with the torrent of water ceasing and dispersing back over the lake's surface. The head turned, its maw was open to reveal its oversized human-like teeth, widening into a smile.

"S-Steve?!" Yui repeated, her polite facade crumbling away as she broke into uproarious laughter, her hand shooting up to cover a mouth that was already hidden. The sight of a Spirit sharing her amusement somehow made it even more funny. "And just when I think I have seen everything..." Even Hurricane seemed amused by the revelation, the bike's engines emitting a quick sputter and a puff of smoke.

Ravenna maintained her smile, another prickling warmth crossing through her as she noticed the smile of the larger spirit. She moved through the air as though it were in her nature, lazily drifting toward... Steve.

"Aw, there's no need to make fun of Steve. I'm sure he's doing his best, given the circumstances." There was a subtle knowledge gnawing in the back of her head, a sense of discontent from both Tyet and Rust as the medium placed a gentle hand on the man's shoulder, only to allow slender digits to trace along the side, barely brushing against more sensitive skin along the neck before lingering. "These are greater responsibilities than could be given to anyone...lesser, yes?"

Steve had been glaring at the Phantom agent, and was about to speak, but Ravenna got to him first. Steve raised an eyebrow at the barista, first to her hand, then to her face. "You are absolutely right, however.." He'd place his hand over hers, coyly at first but it sharpened into a tight grip. He wore a wicked grin. "I don't remember giving you permission to lay your hand on me." There was a direct contrast now with how unnaturally warm his hand felt and the cold rain around them, a glint of red and yellow twinkled in his stare, then he leaped into the air. Leathery, bat-like wings erupted from his back as he flew, spinning with her, about 3 meters off the ground. At the end of the twirl he leaned closer to her slighty, like the end to a dance. Just a tease though, as with unnatural strength he'd then toss her up further into the air, assuming she could catch herself with her abilities just fine. He quickly descended with the wings retrating into his flesh, as he looked to the PHANTOM agent with a cocky smile. "Do you want to mess with me too?"

So that was it. One found new information every day, didn't they?

Ravenna caught herself about as gracefully as one could expect to in the moment, the easy smile never leaving her face as she readjusted herself to a seated position on the Staff of the Armory, the only real sign of her little trip the windswept nature of her hair and clothing, and even that was groomed as she returned her descent.

"My, my, there's no need to be rude to our guest, dear." Hm, was it unnerving to be so calm? Ravenna racked her thoughts despite the nonchalance of her demeanor. She was fairly certain it was, if experience served. "I may not mind your rough play, but it's not very becoming toward a new face."

Yui looked up, having been lost in thought for a moment at the sight of "Steve's" display. She had only heard of such a thing; it was another experience entirely seeing it for herself.

"I don't mind it," She admitted, a somewhat playful tone arising in her voice. "I am in a similar situation to "The Great and Mighty Steve" to be honest. If I get to work out my frustrations "messing" with him it ends up serving our cause just as well."

He crossed his arms as he looked to Rav with her 'cute' comment and back to the PHANTOM agent. "Oh don't pretend you know what its like to be in my shoes, all your kind is good for are for food and servitude. I however, was born to rule." He said with an overdramatic, dorky flare, even turning his head to the side in an attempt to do a 'hair flip' with non-existent bangs. "You two peasants could never understand."

Yui's hand balled up into a fist. Even her own Spirit had never been so arrogant.

"My purpose," she started, trudging towards her rather irritating ally. "Is mine to decide." Her bike rolled in front of her, as if to block her path, but she simply shoved it out of the way and continued forwards until she was right in his face. She seethed for a moment, before regaining some small speck of composure.

"Though for someone who thinks of us as servants," she concluded, "You seem to enjoy taking our form, Steve." She had imbued the name with a particular venom, determined to get all the mileage she could out of it.

He was composed, even bearing that shit-eating grin as she approached; as if he enjoyed watching what he thought was a worm get enraged. However that look changed upon her last sting. That seemed to have ticked a nerve, a twitch of the eye even. The rage was barely hidden behind his scowl. Despite his anger, he didn't seem to have a retort to that. A 'chuckle', if you could call the odd, loud, and deep sounds escaping the monster on, broke the silence. Ryleigh seemed to like Yui's comment. Steve's silence was broken. "Oh shut up you." He hissed at the shark-thing.

From her roost, Ravenna watched, judgement lacking in the placid expression she wore in observation. Interesting. Very interesting. Moreso than the tedium of running the cafe like clockwork when things were peaceful.

But not really fulfilling either, if she let herself think too much on it.

The woman smiled just as easily as ever.

"Now, now, we're on the same side right now, aren't we?" But the words lacked much conviction, as if she wasn't entirely thrown behind them. "It might be in our best interests to play nice as long as we are, as it were."

Yui gave a short huff, feeling that she had made her point. Her stance slowly sunk back into something more lax.

"Of course," she said dryly. "I'm eager to see where this alliance takes us." She glanced at Ryleigh before her gaze settled on the lake itself.

"Let's hope this mission of yours pulls through." She added, her tone carrying a subtle nudge of urgency.

"Which reminds me." He regained his composure. "I suppose since you here we should let you know that we found a key to yggdrasil, so I've been told anyway. Dumb bitch here was in charge of getting it but it seems like he can't get to it for whatever reason." He looked to Ryleigh, then to the trinket in his hand. "Alright alright lets give him a voice." He seemed to talk to the inanimate trinket. He then made a baseball pitch with it towards the monster's face. The cockroach trinket became animate, catching itself on the skin of the beast and remaining planted to it.

The beast made several disgruntled noises, and following its beastial sound, a voice echoed from the trinket.

"Barrier blocks way, keeps spirits out. Need Drill, or human." It had no cadence or rythmn either, much like text-to-speech, almost robotic.

"Shit."

"Y-Yggdrasil?!" Yui stammered, unable to comprehend what she'd just heard. "The Great Tree?! You're telling me there's a... a key to it right there?!" Her deep breaths were audible even through the roar of the storm. She raised a finger to the side of her helmet.

"Harper," She said. "Are you getting this?!"

"Of course," A voice responded, just barely audible outside of Yui's helmet. Her tone was surprisingly unenthused by the discovery, to the point that Yui wondered if anything could faze her at all. "I'll need a few minutes to run a satellite scan and analysis. Don't try going through it until then." Yui nodded, reaching to grab a card seemingly at random from her side and insert it into a slot on her free hand. A large revolver began to materialize in her hand.

"I think I'll lend a hand." Yui said with a smirk, giving the cylinder a quick spin.

"Oh, my..." Whatever surprise that Ravenna had felt was repressed in its external reaction. So close to home? Or perhaps she had been given a keen interest solely because of the proximity. Her gaze returned to the shark-like beast for a long moment before gradually turning toward the PHANTOM agent. Surely brute force wasn't necessary if they had humans ready and available. With a reluctant sigh, the barista allowed herself to drop to the floor, her boots and staff dissolving away into a small bird and cat.

It might have been a little out of her depth and a bit beyond the scope of her job description, but there were so few ways a human could be useful.

"If we are in need of a human, I could make myself useful here too."

"Barrier tough to break, key, at bottom. Swim." The monster said. Steve, however, kept his arms cross. "I suppose if you two want to take over in its recovery go ahead, the faster we get over this road block the better."

"I see," Yui said with a frown. She aimed towards the lake and fired a couple of dismissive shots from her revolver, watching for the explosions as they collided with the barrier. "I was hoping to avoid getting wet today." The agent brought her finger up to her helmet again.

"Are you finished yet?" She asked.

"Almost," The voice responded. "I'm getting something about fifteen meters down. Spherical. I would recommend breaking that barrier, though. It's going to interfere with the Remnant Gear."

"Then I won't bring it." Yui said firmly.

"Well you're going to catch a goddamn cold, Yui-" The armored agent simply rolled her eyes as she removed her cards, her armor vanishing into thin air. She paused for a moment, feeling the rain run down her face and hair before she took off her coat and belt, throwing them on her bike as it faded into its Sealed Form.

"Are you going in too, comrade?" Yui asked, turning her gaze to Ravenna as she leaned over to remove her boots.

"It wouldn't be very fair of me not to, dear." Even if she would have loved to avoid hopping into the lake. There were things that she didn't savor the idea of touching. Like algae. Or god forbid, leeches. Rust swat at the back of her calf in response, the closest equivalent to a frown he could make as a cat peering up at her as soon as her attention was taken. "As if you wouldn't come running if there was trouble."

Another swat, this one firmer than the first. Ravenna sighed, but dropped her channeling all the same, kicking her work shoes behind her.

"Now that was uncalled for, Rust." But nonetheless, the hairtie on her wrist and the eerie doll attached to it seemed to dissolve into nothingness--at least, for anyone incapable of seeing the shimmering pegasus and the rabbit-like figure lingering in close proximity. Sending a mismatched glance at Steve and the larger spirit, she gave a calm smile. "I presume my dearest darlings will be safe with someone as great and mighty as you while I'm gone?"

"W-well of course only someone as mighty as myself could do such a task!" It was really that easy. "just don't drown yourselves you two."
The shark beast laid down on its side, seemingly try to relax as it did so. Steve, meanwhile, remained standing in the rain.

"I won't," Yui said flatly. "Don't touch my stuff." She shoved her shirt, pants, and socks under her coat in the vague hopes that it would manage to keep them dry and immediately ran for the water. She tried to get in as quickly as possible rather than worry about the temperature, swimming across the surface until she had determined she was close enough to the center. She turned back to her allies, hoping that her impromptu diving buddy wouldn't take too long psyching herself up.

As fortune had it, beyond the brief initial faltering of the ever-present smile--there might be something slimy and foul in there!--Ravenna didn't seem to care much more as she sank into the water, clothing and all. Which, she realized, was a terrible idea, but the algae. And the leeches. She'd rather take a ruined set of clothing.

...though, she had to admit... swimming with all of it on felt cumbersome. Everything was heavier, like moving through thick cream instead of water, but her progress was quick either way. Strong might not have been her forte, but it wasn't like she ever let herself fall out of shape.

"So much for worming my way out of this in high school," Ravenna murmured as she drew close to her companion, but even the complaint lacked any real resolve. "Here goes, then."

She took in a deep breath, grateful, suddenly, for how restricting some of Lyra's abilities had been, and slipped beneath the surface of the water, trying her best to block out thoughts of slime and muck all the while.

The water was of poor quality, brown and murkey. However a light slowly manifested in the dark as they dove further in, a blue condensed bubble held its form, like some kind of shield. It seemed to stretch from most of the lake's bottom, in what presumably was a half-circle. The water inside the barrier was noticeable much more clear then the surrounding murk. Of note, what would presumably be a lakebed of muk and algae was instead a sea of giant twisted roots, all of which seemed to flow towards the presumed lake's center.

Yui frowned as she stared through the water. It felt like her eyes were burning, but she would have to ignore it for now. She swam ahead and tentatively stuck a hand through the barrier. Nothing. She spun around to face her companion and made an OK signal before quickly diving through.

Well, that probably didn't mean "stop".

Ravenna followed after the PHANTOM agent, equal parts curious and relieved. Clear water was good, certainly, but something about the whole thing felt... off. A nagging feeling in the back of the barista's head. It couldn't be that easy, could it? Surely something would have done exactly as they were if it had been. The unease didn't last long though--it never did anymore--as it melted away into something else entirely. They'd fix whatever bridges they had to when they reached them. Probably.

Or whoever came next would.

Towards the center of the lake, where the roots all seen to converge on a single point, a twisted tree-like pillar spiraled 10 feet off of the lakebed, its top sprouting in what appeared to be almost a gnarled claw, the many fingers curling in a more natural fashion. At the 'palm' of this was a perfectly round orb; glowing faintly in the light of the water. Obviously the key they had been referring to. It seemed unguarded, as there weren't even any fish or invertebrates near it.

Swimming towards the claw, Yui considered a more cautious approach for a moment. If it was a trap of some kind, she might not make it out of the lake alive. Still, she had little patience when it came to this key, and she'd be damned if she let Animus run off with it before she could at least feel the artifact for herself. She ran up to one of the "fingers" and gave it as sturdy of a blow as she could manage underwater. Unable to notice any reaction, she paddled forwards and wrapped her arm around the glowing ball. It felt smooth, like marble, and surprisingly light; she could easily carry it back to the surface with her. She turned to face Ravenna and gave a thumbs up, moving her hand up towards the surface a couple times to emphasize what she meant. She pushed off the surface of the pillar and began swimming back up.

Upon removing the orb, the barrier dissipated entirely. Murky and clear water merged together seemlessly. The growing dark caused the hand-like tree to slowly whither and curl downward into the soil.

Upon this, Ryleigh had already entered the water. His body coasted near the surface, shark fins breaking the surface. He moved towards the pair, and circled. Awaiting their recovery from above. Steve was watching still from the safety of a tree, his eyes squinting out to the lake.

Yui took a long, gasping breath as her head popped out of the water. She twisted about in the water for a moment, trying to regain her bearings, and swam for the shore. As she stepped onto dry land, she brushed her wet hair out of her eyes, working at it with her hands until it fell back into its usual chaotic order. She placed the orb down on the grass next to Hurricane and looked around for a towel.

Oh right, she didn't bring one. Well, a little algae never hurt anyone.

"That takes care of the key." Yui announced. "Is that your only mission here?"

"Essentially." Steve shrugged, as Reyleigh breached the surface to join them. "Looks like we got it befo-"He was unable to finish. As if on que, the lake suddenly spiraled into a massive vortex at its center. The whirlpool revealed straight to the bottom floor, mostly compromised of now whithering tree roots. The sudden currents dragged Reyleigh off the shoreline and into the intense maelstrom of water. Directly above the whirlpool, 100 yards apart, a spacial anomaly ruptured. The air crackled with energy from the opening rift, air rapidly vanishing into the swirling hole into the sky. Between the two vortexes, three black spheres formed in the air. These spheres then grew rapidly, taking a vaguely humanoid shape. A set of identical giants, with elongated, malformed proportions. Their skin was an almagamation of stone, slag, and darkened tree bark. Their heads were misformed, faceless rounded stumps with a large glowing cavity at the center. Heat radiated from their gaze with an intensely bright light, like that of a spotlight.

Once they we're fully formed, both the whirlpool and vortex closed. The lake stilled. The 3 titans stood in the water, 200 feet approximately in height.



"Well shit."

The PHANTOM agent shot straight for her gear, picking her belt and earpiece out of the pile, the latter of which was blaring commands before she even touched it. She put them both on; getting dressed would unfortunately have to wait.

"Yui?! Yui!" Harper's voice was harsh, excited, more than Yui could remember it being in a long time.

"What's going on?" She asked, staring up at the three giants.

"The scanners started picking up after the key left the water. I was reading a gateway, massive amounts of spiritual energy, three Spirits, Category 3. Can you confirm?"

"They look pretty fucking big for Category 3." Yui responded. "But yes. They're not attacking yet, should I engage?"

"Just get ready."

"Yes," The agent confirmed, very glad that her handler could not see her out in a rainstorm in nothing but her underwear and a strange gadget. "I'm ready." She loaded a card, Justice, and let the power of a Spirit flow through her body as she transformed.

Ravenna gave a calm smile, though she doubted she should have felt calm. Getting worked up wasn't really in her nature, and neither was running headfirst into a fight.

'Lyra?'

An image that translated itself into obedience flashed into the woman's head as her clothing shifted again, the Traveler's Boots forming over her feet as she glanced at her companions.

"I'm afraid I'm a little out of my depth with these." But she didn't seem very remorseful. Or concerned. "All this over a little fetching errand."

Oh God... Lucy thought as she sped past a corner, her heeled boots pounding against the floor of the hallway as her heart pounded against her chest. I've never done anything like this before...

"Lucy..."

Like, how the hell does this compare to fighting some ghost in an old warehouse? I still barely know my way around this school. I'm not prepared for this, I don't know how I'm supposed to fucking handle this...

"Lucy!"

And I'm the adult here, now. What happens if one of them dies; am I responsible for that? How am I going to live with myself after today? I just can't-

"LUCY! BREATHE!"

The Spirit's words pulled her back to reality, at least somewhat. She took a long series of deep breaths and tried to recollect herself. She was... in school. Looking for anyone that might have gotten missed in the headcount. She'd transformed and merged with her Spirit pretty much as soon as she was confident she was out of eyesight. And there were... crustaceans. She'd killed one. She could probably kill more. Yeah. Just take it one step at a time...

The feeling that she was going to have a fucking heart attack began to fade. Lucy slowed her pace just a little, giving herself some time to check the classrooms as she jogged by. Still, she heard a crash and a yell, and as she rounded yet another corner she tried to skid to a stop and promptly fell over at the sight of another monster. It either didn't notice or care about her though. It was staring at a door. Was someone in there? Lucy felt herself trembling again as she spun her scepter around, aiming it at the beast with trembling unease.

"Be lax. Let me guide your aim."

Lucy did so, attempting to detach herself from her rigid, unstable control of her own body. She felt her aim honing in on the scuttling creature, charging, letting loose a blast of burning light like it was second nature. It hit the creature right in the eye, burning straight through it as the rest of the body began to dissolve into thin air. It was something she'd done so many times before, but there was something comforting about still being able to do it now. She flipped her scepter back to normal and gave the door a light knock.

"H-hey," Lucy said, managing to keep the stress out of her voice. "Is anyone in there?"

Roxy cowered, the tears still pouring down her face as she tried to take shallow, silent breaths. She could feel the creature waiting for her on the other side of the door. She was basically just waiting for the moment that it came through the wooden barrier and ended her; it was the worst kind suspense that person could likely ever experience. It didn't help that she had to force her body not to crumple into a little ball on the floor. The sound of her collapsing would surely alert the thing in the hall. She just had to stand as rigid and silent as she possibly could, while the mind-numbing fear of imminent dismemberment squeezed at her lungs like a vice.

Then, there was a different noise. It sounded like sand being thrown onto asphalt, or some slight noise like you'd hear from a superhero using their laser vision. It was there for only a moment, and then it was gone. Replaced by another noise; the light tapping of a hand at the door, and someone's voice.

The thought that it might be a trick, or whoever was on the other side of the door might not be a friend didn't even cross Roxy's mind as she quickly flung the door open, rushing into the arms of the person on the other side, still with tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Thank you thank you thank you!" she spouted, the panic nearly outweighing the gratitude in her voice. "Is it gone? Did you get rid of it?" she asked, looking around slightly while her trembling hands refused to relinquish their grips on the front of this new person.

Lucy jumped, startled by the sudden entrance, though she quickly returned the hug. Tears of relief began to well up behind her mask. She could be sure that someone, at least, would make it out of this okay.

"Yeah," she said softly. "It's gone." She took a couple more deep breaths, exorcising the tension from her body.

"Not that I don't want to spend the rest of our day trapped in the clutches of this traumatized grub, but we should get moving."

What do you want me to do, tear her off? Give her a minute.

"I don't want to put you back in a panic attack, but how many minutes do the rest of these children have? Do what you need to do, I'll watch for trouble. Just make it quick."

The Spirit split itself from Lucy. The Medium's wings fell around her body like cloth as the giant moth flew from her back and fluttered about the hallway.

"Are you okay?" Lucy asked.

"I...think so?" Roxy said, a little uncertain as the shaking in her hands slowed and she released her white-knuckle grip on Lucy. She wiped her face with her good arm, and then brought it back over to cradle her damaged one. "I fell down the stairs and hurt my arm really badly, but I don't think it's broken or anything. It just hurts a lot."

She attempted to rotate her shoulder a bit in demonstration, but stopped with a wince as a bolt of pain shot through her. She looked back up to the new person in front of her, giving a curious glance at the creature behind her. She almost took a step backwards in fear, but there was just something about it that seemed...safe. It was a big moth or something, and it seemed to have a faint glow about it. There wasn't anything dangerous about that.

"What's...going on?" Roxy asked, the silence allowing her to be uncomfortably aware of the blood pumping loudly in her ears and the stinging pain that just seemed to be ever-present right now. Her eyes darted nervously from Lucy to the moth, to back down the hallway, and her face started to flush as the circumstances started to weigh back onto her mind.

The masked Medium paused. A good question.

"I don't know..." She admitted. "I'm going to stop them though. I just need you to stay strong for me, ok? You're doing great." She gave the girl another look over. That shoulder was probably dislocated.

"Can you lay down on your back for me?" Lucy asked, sitting down on the floor. "We should get that arm fixed." She wasn't absolutely 100% sure she remembered how to do this, but it was probably best not to mention that. Now that she was a bit calmer, she doubted anyone was ever ready to pop in a shoulder at the drop of a hat, or become a magical girl and fight monsters. It wasn't a test you could study for the night before. She held the girl's arm in her hand and slowly, gently, move it away from her body, aiming for that forty-five degree sweet spot.

"The moth is mine by the way." Lucy explained, attempting to keep the girl's mind off of any pain or anxiety she might be feeling. "It's, uh, kind of like a Pokémon sort of thing, I guess." She gave the arm a steady, firm pull, still being careful to keep it at the right angle and not to be too forceful, waiting for it to pop back into place.

Roxy looked at Lucy a little hesitantly, before slowly lowering herself down to the ground. She made a motion to steady herself with the injured arm, but shifted over to the other side before she could put any wait on it. "Just...lay down? In the middle of the hallway? Aren't there still things around?" she asked; though her tone was slightly worried, she still leaned backwards into a prone position, looking directly up into the ceiling. She flinched a little at Lucy's touch, but slowly relaxed as she adjusted her arm into the proper position.

"A Pokémon?" Roxy questioned, a slight hint of excitement in her voice. She turned her head slightly to look into Lucy's mask, her eyes wide. "So, like, you can have it fight for you? Is what happened to the thing that was chasing me? Where did you even fin-AHN!"

The slight crunch of joint being forced into place and the yelp of pain from Roxy cut off the sudden barrage of questions, and her legs immediately brought themselves inward as she attempted to curl into herself. She grabbed at her shoulder, relaxing her legs back down to the ground and letting out a stifled whimper, followed by a few heavy breaths as she blinked away her watering eyes.

Still glassy eyed, she looked back into the mask again. If she said anything now, it would just come out pained and shaking, so Roxy held her tongue.

"You're doing great," Lucy reassured, with a warm smile. "Take a moment if you need to." She decided to leave the barrage of questions unanswered for the moment.

She slid away from the girl and took a bit of a breather herself, giving her another look over. She didn't quite recognize her, though then again, it was only the first week of the school year. She never met a teacher who could actually remember all their students by then.

"So what's your name?" Lucy asked.

Roxy did take a moment for her deep breaths to slow back down to a normal level. Her shoulder still throbbed with pain, but it seemed like it was slowly fading at least; it'd probably be sore, but at least she could move it around.

"Roxy." She finally said. "Roxy Tretter. Or Roxanne. Either works, I guess."

Her enthusiasm was notably absent now; but that could at least be expected with the way her last ten minutes had panned out. She pushed her self up to her feet, still careful to not put any weight on her previously-injured arm, just in case. "Who are you? And...what's up with the mask? And the moth? Like, I know you said he was yours, but..." she trailed off, leaving the question open.

"Well, Roxy..." Lucy trailed off, suddenly realizing that she simply could not lie to this child if her life depended on it. Best case scenario; it'd have to be their little secret. Lunasa turned back to her for a moment and gave her what Lucy could instinctively tell was a piercing glare.

"My name is Lucy." The Medium started, with a slow huff. "The moth appeared to me in a dream one night, she didn't look like a moth then though. I know I said she was like a Pokémon but I was also getting this sort of Faustian pact vibe to it?" She trailed off again, realizing she probably still didn't have a perfect understanding of all this herself.

"Anyways," She concluded. "We're sort of linked together now. Whenever I summon her we can jump really high and shoot lasers and I have to do a little magical girl transformation into this outfit." She blushed, feeling like she was doing a really bad job with this.

"Well, at least you listen to some of what I tell you."

"Sorry." Lucy said, trying to keep up a smile. "It's, uh, a lot to explain."

Roxy stood, either stunned by the sudden influx of information, or entranced. It certainly was a lot to explain, and for a young girl whose most interesting part of the day was seeing the lunch special, her whole world was being turned on its head in a matter of moments. There were definitely a few uncomfortable seconds of silence after Lucy finished her explanation, where Roxy's eyes just darted across her face in disbelief, as if waiting for her to admit it was all a joke.

"So wait..." she finally said, her voice cracking slightly at first. "...so like...you're like...a superhero or something? Superheroes...exist? And you have actual superpowers and this is your costume?"

Slow at first, the flood of questions began to pick up speed.

"So like, are these weird bug-things from a supervillian? Are you going to go fight him? Are there more of you?"

"Do I need to keep this a secret?"

"I, um..." Lucy stammered. That was a lot of questions.

"Okay, so," She started up again, counting up the questions on her hand in preparation to list them off. "I guess you could say I'm a superhero? I've never met anyone else like me, though. I mostly just took care of things like those bugs which are like the moth but bad... and I try to keep all this a secret. Today is way bigger than anything else I've dealt with, so maybe that rule isn't going to work anymore. We'll have to see." She sighed. This was all going to have a lot of fallout.

"Well don't worry; your secret is safe with me!" Roxy said, excitement slowly blossiming into her mannerisms again. She was part of a super secret mission now...or at least, she was involved in one. But she wouldn't be able to tell anybody about this...that was a little bit of a bummer.

"Is Lucy like, your superhero name? Or is that your actual name? Wait no; I guess you shouldn't tell me that. Does the moth have a name?"

Lucy's embarrassment began to fade as she realized that Roxy was beginning to perk back up again.

"Her name is Lunasa," Lucy explained. "Though I like to call her Luna."

"Please tell her not to call me that."

Lucy ignored her Spirit's request, though she gave the moth a quick smirk. She turned back to Roxy.

"How are you feeling?" She asked. "Ready to get moving?"

"Lunasa?" Roxy said, pondering for a moment. "That's a nice name!"

She rotated her arm slightly, wincing a bit as she did. Still sore, but manageable.

"I think I'm good now." She said; she puffed her chest out slightly and attempted to appear a little more confident, but knowing that a insect bug-monster could come crashing down the halls at any moment put a bit of a strain on that attempt.

"You need to go help other people, right? Do all sorts of superhero stuff and save the day? I can probably find somewhere and hide out if you don't want to get slowed down by me; especially if you're going to be fighting more of those things."

There was the sound of an earthquake as part of the building exploded somewhere; Roxy threw her hands over her head and squeaked in surprise, though it was likely drowned out by the deafening "YAHAHAHA!" that seemed to reverberate through her bones.

"Like that. Like whatever that was. I don't think I can help with whatever just did that." Roxy said, the panic back in her voice.

"I..." Lucy trailed off, her expression pained. Roxy had a point, but she couldn't help her if she was out hiding somewhere...

"Okay." She said finally, placing a hand on Roxy's shoulder. "Just promise me you'll be careful, alright?"

"Pinky promise!" Roxy said, holding her little finger out towards Lucy.

The Medium nodded, sporting a sudden grin. There was no breaking a pinky promise. She wrapped her little finger around Roxy's.

"Pinky promise." Lucy repeated, making the contract binding.

"Alrighty then..." Roxy said as she looked down the hallway. "...I guess I'm going to go barricade myself in somewhere more out-of-the-way. And like...safe from tornadoes and hurricanes and stuff."

Easier said than done, of course.

"Good luck out there, Miss Lucy! And good luck to Lun too! Head out there and kick some butt!"

Lucy, stunned by the show of confidence, gave a slow nod before coming back with a proud thumbs-up. Roxy gave a quick fist pump into the air, a final nod of confirmation, and then turned around and started to carefully make her way down the hallway; listening closely for any signs of trouble as she did. There was a fine balance of 'running quickly for safety' and 'alerting every monster in the building', and the second option was very high on Roxy's list of 'things to avoid'.

Still, it was comforting to know that there was at least one literal superhero around to protect her.

There wasn't much hope left that this was all a messed up dream, really. The sound of the thing... chewing on that girl; Leah knew it wasn't something even her worst nightmares would come up with. There was a weight to this stuff, but it sat wrong with her that she was just running.

Not that she had some silly 'heroism' idea in her head. Just, well, she supposed she ought to have felt bad about it in a general sense. Whew. Morality sure was fun.

Still, she'd decided she was going to move it, and rather than risk one of the main exits, she'd made her way towards the nearest fire door that didn't have insect sounds near it. Surprisingly enough, it didn't seem like she was the first one there. But as she realised who was, Leah decided it wasn't the good kind of surprise. Not that she was about to try and find another door.

"Wow. It really is my lucky day."

Savannah stopped. She turned, but didn't say anything. There were giant bugs everywhere. Something in her eyes communicated fear, but that was all Leah got from her. Savannah's backpack shifted with the weight of Nemeos, who was thrashing around trying to do something, the spirit urging her to speed her egress and stop looking at the other girl and all the people and all the carnage. And there was some other voice in her head that wondered if the person with actual superpowers (which she had yet to use) should be doing something, but the rational-instinctual part of her brain was just telling her to go very quickly.

She pushed through the fire door and held it open, ushering Leah forward.

Well, that was a little better - Leah moved quickly, hoping the, uh, oddness of her current appearance was overshadowed by the big things. Just don't smile and it'd be fine; the teeth were creepy when she did. Yep.

Though it seemed she was out of luck as far as bug avoidance went - there was one about thirty or so metres away, bigger than the thing she'd ran from before. Maybe like... a small bear? More than big enough to absolutely kill her at least, and that wasn't mentioning everything else between them and home.

Okay. This was fine. Just don't show her face to this girl for too long, look away while speaking, and hope the flowers counted as a fashion statement. They'd be fine. Envy was smart enough for this, right?

"I... don't figure you've got a plan to get past that thing?"

Savannah shook her head. And in her mind, she heard Nemeos, who seemed more like a lion than ever, voice a deep growl, 'You're going to have to fight.'

Savannah just shook her head again, this time less at Leah and more at herself.

"Great." And while Leah would have quite willingly left this chick to the bugs, the thing seemed to have its attention on her; plus, she'd need way more time than they had for anything like that. So, that left... eyes shut for a moment, she sighed, words murmured under her breath. "Alright, Envy. You win."

'You don't need to say it out loud, you know.'

'Not the time. How much do we have?'

'So long as you aren't foolish, we'll be fine. Try not to get us hurt.'

Good enough for her. Strength was the best bet for now - no way she was trying to take it head-on, but a few people's worth of physicality meant she could move fast enough. The weird girl was still there, but not dying took first priority.

If she could drain its energy, then it'd all work out - but it looked like they'd need a distraction for that.

"What are we going to do?" Savannah asked, voice quiet.

"I need you to distract it, somehow." Leah finally looked towards the girl properly, hiding the channeling seeming way lower priority. "If I can touch it, I can stop it."

"Distract it..." Savannah bit her nail, looking off to the side, "If you can touch it...?"

She had hardly noticed Leah's appearance before, but she looked up and now she noticed that something was off. Her eyes just looked wrong.

'Nemeos, there are more spirits, right? So there's more mediums too?'

'That's correct, but --'

Savannah didn't let him finish that thought. She looked Leah up and down, and then started to change too. Her hair turned white, and her fingernails grew into claws and her teeth became sharp points, and her eyes became beady and milky white, "You have one too, don't you?"

"Y-yeah. Guess that's... lucky for both of us." Leah nodded slowly, seeming to evaluate the other girl for a moment. Physical? More than them, anyway, at least if the claws weren't just for show; 'At least, for now.'

"Can you distract it or not? We aren't exactly the most durable, but if I'm behind it or something..."

"Distract it. Right," she could do that, couldn't she? 'You don't have to bother with this girl. We could very easily escape by ourselves.'

Savannah didn’t entertain that thought. She wouldn’t just leave her behind. Right? And just looking at that bug thing made her shake. She stood still for several moments, trying to force herself to commit to doing something. But words didn’t come.

‘Do something!’

And she did. Savannah turned, and she ran at the bug. She had gotten to it much quicker than expected, not used to the speed her power granted her. She stopped face-to-face with it because she had absolutely no idea what to do. She’d never expected to see a monster; she’d never expected to fight a monster.

Before she could think about it more, the thing turned to gaze at her. Savannah tensed, and was almost frozen, but it shot out the same barbed tongue that had killed Ms. Ford. Instinctually, Savannah wheeled to the side, only barely avoiding it, body moving on its own.

Leah watched for a second, a brief debate with Envy leading to the choice of not running off. After all, there were enough things trying to kill her here without adding another medium to the mix; it was more practical to help once there was minimal risk. So she circled around, waiting until the thing stopped and shot out the tongue, kept still for just enough of a moment for her to sprint forward and jump onto the thing's back, hands placed on it and trying not to think about how outright gross it was.

Spiritual energy, right? That and the strength of its legs. Thankfully it didn't feel like it'd take as long as--

Anyway, the thing's movements began to slow, slowly but surely, as it kept its focus on Savannah. Apparently they weren't the smartest, or maybe it just figured she was the bigger threat, with the way she was dodging it and getting in its face. Animal instincts or something. Luckily enough, it wouldn't take too long for its energy to run out, legs buckling under it in about a minute or so, much to her relief. It'd take another minute to actually take enough for the thing to be dead, though, so Leah stayed there at Envy's insistence, momentarily forgetting the other girl as she focused on draining every last drop.

Savannah was still coming off of all the adrenaline, or whatever it was that helped her dodge the insect’s mandibles, and her head felt all cloudy and some part of her was still acutely aware of all the danger around them. She spoke, and now her voice seemed less distant than usual, a little more commanding, “Shouldn’t we be running?”

'Don't you dare.'

"In a minute."

Savannah looked over her shoulder. There were more bugs; not immediate threats, but still there. “Whatever you’re doing, just hurry up.”

"Hey, you two!" Alex called from across the courtyard, having made his way over once he exited the building. Those two didn't look like the rest of the bugs, but they didn't look like normal people either. They could easily be the ones responsible! Maybe.

He broke out into a jog as he closed in, though he looked hesitant to actually get within striking distance.

Leah looked up, frowned, and then looked towards Savannah. "You talk to him. I'm focusing."

Savannah wheeled around. Another student, but in a weird outfit. A very evil looking outfit, she thought. She swallowed, trying to catch a breath that had frozen in her throat, “W-who are you?”

"I'm-" Wait, bad idea, he had no idea who this was, "You first!" Genius. The Ram seemed to groan in the back of his mind.

'You'd do well to stay guarded, but it appears they were having trouble with these insects as well. Look around for once.'

"I mean, uh..." Alex looked a bit flustered now, though he hoped the mask hid it well enough, "You're students, right?"

“Right. And you’re wearing a skull mask, so what’s your…” Savannah had to pause for a moment to breath again. Not now. She recomposed herself, tensing her claws reflexively, “Deal?”

'This girl isn't a threat, she's tripping over her words as much as you are,' The Ram commented dryly, causing Alex to noticeably relax his posture.

"Um, surviving? No, I'm looking for whatever's behind this. I think." He paused for a moment after speaking, as if waiting for some kind of unheard confirmation, then continued, "Yeah! So what about you two?" Alex shot a wary glance toward Leah, who hadn't addressed him yet. Not to mention she was sitting on one of those bug things, but Alex wasn't so much unsettled by that as he was just confused.

It took another moment for Leah to stand up, stepping away from the bug with a slight grimace. "I plan on getting out of here. This place is a deathtrap."

Savannah nodded in agreement.

Alex tilted his head to the side curiously, "What about everyone else? They're gonna get slaughtered. I mean, unless there's other... people like us around here."

"I don't know them. Why would I want to die for them?" Leah shrugged. "I'd rather go help my family."

Alex frowned at her comment. It was cold, but it was a very good point. He had no idea what his mother was up to right now, and without any power he doubted there'd be any way to call for a proper evacuation.

"I- that makes sense." He hesitantly looked back toward the school, then to the gate. It was dreadfully obvious he couldn't save everyone at this point, and her argument about not knowing these people was very convincing...

"Tell me what to do," The masked boy muttered under his breath, trying to keep his tone low enough that the two girls wouldn't pick up on what he said.

'Stop concerning yourself with the cattle and follow them outside, the source clearly isn't here,' The Ram chided telepathically, 'The more you deliberate, the more of my power you're wasting.'

Alex cleared his throat before speaking again, "Room for one more?" He gave a lopsided, nervous smile.

Leah glanced between the two of them before shrugging. "I won't stop you. Just make sure you keep up."

"Okay! I'll watch the rear, I guess." Crap, now he sounded like a pervert. He just wanted an advantageous position in case they felt like backstabbing him. He swore he could feel The Ram groaning again.

Leah just shook her head, before breaking into a jog. "Guess I'll lead the way, then. I think this is the fastest route to the city, depending how many monsters there are."

Savannah followed wordlessly, taking Leah's lead. Any innuendo went over her head.

Alex paused until there was a suitable distance between him and the girls, then took off after them. He didn't want to get too close without knowing what their powers were, though he assumed the vaguely animalistic appearance of the one girl was a hint. As for the other one, maybe something with plants? Gee, they were almost a whole phylogenetic tree between the three of them.

Roxy found herself hiding in another classroom. It might have been simpler for her to have just turned around and locked herself in the classroom she'd been in when Lucy showed up, but that one had been proven to not be safe. This one didn't have any monsters near it, so it was far safer than the one that had been cleared out of monsters. In Roxy's mind, that logic made complete sense. Plus, she'd been extra quiet when she came to this one instead of loudly stumbling down the stairs with a glowstick. Theoretically, the extra discretion meant that nothing would be able to find her. Of course, Roxy hadn't even considered the possibility these things might not have used conventional methods of perception; for all she knew, they could hunt by echolocation or thermal vision. Still...she was safe right now, at that was all that mattered. She had crawled under the teachers desk and curled up nice and tight there, and was content to stay there until everything blew over. Her arm still hurt, and there was probably still glass stuck in her knees, but she was pretty sure that she could weather the crisis out from her spot.

Of course, a hidey-hole like hers meant nothing if the whole section of the school exploded or something. When the ground rumbled and the air discharged energy in deafening bursts, Roxy extracted herself from her position. She needed to know what was happening before it obliterated her entire position, so she slowly crawled over to a full-length radiator unit. Her cover was directly underneath the window, and it hummed slightly as she rested against it; a humming that drowned out the slight noises of Roxy trying to gain her resolve. She counted quietly to herself, braced, and slowly peeked over the machinery to try and get a better look at the outside.

In the backyard of the school, all kinds of horrific things were happening. Roxy watched as the three giants formed in the middle of the lake; their long limbs trailing downwards like dropping ink and their giant spotlight heads which passed over the environment and lit up every raindrop as it fell past. Something about these new monsters was even more terrifying than the crab-creatures that were actively trying to kill her, and she hand to put her hand over her mouth to stifle a noise of horror. She slid back down to the floor with her back against the radiator just as the room began to brighten. A sign that one of the giants was looking her way.

'This can't be happening. This can't be happening right now. Please oh please oh please...'

She shut her eyes tightly as the light grew brighter, but found even that was not enough to shield herself. The gaze of the giants lit up her room so intensely that Roxy could see the light bleeding through her own closed eyelids.

After a moment, the spotlight passed, and Roxy was left in relative darkness again.

She opened her eyes and let out a breath that she only just now realized she'd been holding. Every part of her shook in terror, and she had to steady her arm to pull herself back up and look out the window again. She peeked over once more, checking to see if anything had changed with the giants.

When she came face-to-face with a Swarmling that was prowling on the other side of the window, she couldn't help but scream.

The thing launched itself through the glass window panes, sending shards scattering and cracking across the ground. It did not land gracefully; instead, it rolled through the room and toppled desks where it met them, finally coming to rest against a bookshelf on the other side.

The broken glass and sudden entrance made the whole situation eerily similar to Roxy's previous encounter, but there where a few distinct differences: This creature was the size of a golf-cart, and its tail flicked dangerously around instead of the stiff scorpion-like appendage the last one had. The Swarmling scuttled momentarily, rotating unnaturally back into an upright position and turned. Roxy also scrambled to her feet, her knees once again threatening to give out underneath her if she did not concentrate on standing.

For a moment, the world seemed to skip. Roxy's vision scattered, tearing apart like a dying television channel. Where the creature stood, its entire form flickered into static and then back. The sound of the rain and electricity outside gave way to a low, keening wail. It was a mournful, drawn out sound just at the edges of her perception, like the sound of a large machine coming to rest, or the sound of a centuries old creature slowly dying.

Roxy snapped back to her current predicament, dodging backwards towards the teacher's desk just as the 'crack of the creature's tail broke the nearest chair in half. The world seemed to buzz again, skipping like a damaged video, and Roxy stumbled slightly in her haste to escape. She made it to the front of the room just as the Swarmling clambered over the debris to stand behind her. In a moment of fight or flight instinct, Roxy pulled the first thing from the desk and whirled around to throw it. There was a pause in her mind, as the world seemed to slow for this standoff. She hefted the textbook over her head and launched it.

Then Roxy let out an involuntary gasp as the creature's barbed tongue shot directly through her chest.

It felt like someone had punched her in the sternum as hard as they could; a sudden impact that robbed her of all her breath. There was a faint pain in her back, where the tongue had exited her body. She found herself unable to suck in any air, despite the natural reflex to try and do so after being winded. The sound of her ribs shattering with the impact were still ringing in her ears, as were the wet noises of her own blood splattering across the chalkboard behind her.

But the creature had stopped. So had the book she'd thrown, currently stationary mid-arc. In fact, it seemed like everything had stopped around her.

"Wh-?"

"That looks like it fucken' hurts, love."

The sound of footsteps became clearly evident. Steady, confident, unwavering, just like their owner. A dark-haired woman seemed to slip out of nothingness, her height and figure slight, and yet there was something that seemed to fill the space she didn't occupy. Dressed in a crimson cropped jacket with a fur-lined collar and a top cut to end at the start of her rib cage, she seemed flashier than someone that would have been missed in passing. Heeled boots came up to the bottom of her knees, delicately cut to her figure--a fact made more noticeable by the lightly patterned leggings that ran up until they disappeared beneath a pair of snugly fitted denim shorts.

They clicked when she moved, an oddly satisfying sound against the floor of the classroom.

"Juuuus' enough to get me goin'," the woman smirked as she came to a halt before Roxy, a single, icy eye peering down with a keen sense of interest. "Seems like you coul' use a bit 'f help there."

Roxy's confusion was likely the least of her issues here, but it was the obstacle she found herself unable to overcome.

"What? What just happened?" She asked, her eyes settling on the new woman. She'd never seen this person before, but for some reason she wasn't surprised to see her. There was a certain air about her; like she'd been present the whole time. It made sense that she had come out of the shadows, but Roxy just didn't know why it made sense.

Her gaze trickled downward slightly, to the long appendage that was sticking directly through her chest. Her mind registered this as something that she should have been panicking about, but it refused to allow such emotion. She wanted to start hyperventilating, but she couldn't breathe. It was unclear if this was due to the sudden pause of time or the utter destruction of her lung along with her heart, but it was a nonissue now that it seemed breath was unnecessary. Still, the ever-present rhythm of steady airflow had ceased, and the loss of that steady beat only made her want to panic even more. She wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn't form. She wanted to move, but the tongue's position through her body had her locked in place. She wanted answers, but all the thoughts that came to her mind were fragmented.

"What's going on here? Wh-...who are you?"

It was at this moment, with a single sputtered question and the heavy feeling of fear settling over her like a blanket, that something bloomed in her head in an instant; an idea that stuck into her brain like a white-hot needle.

"Did I-? Am I...dead?"

"Well, ya would be, love, if I didn' think it might be interestin' to keep you 'round," the woman claimed with a cat-like smile crossing her features. "The name's Arma, love. I guess you could call me a spirit."

Hmm, a kid probably wasn't going to take too kindly to what kind of spirit that she was, so Arma kept that to herself. There was a certain level of sustenance she could wring from this, after all.

"An' I'm here t' offer ya the opportunity of a lifetime--well, yer lifetime, at least."

Roxy's surprise forced a step backwards, pulling the tongue out the front of herself by about an inch, and the creature shimmered in and out of static once more. It should have been excruciating, but Roxy felt nothing from the sudden action. Even if it weren't the fatal wound it was, the feeling of forcing it back out through her chest should have been horrific. And while she was aware of how it should have felt....it just didn't.

"A...'spirit'?" Roxy asked. That was the only concept she could grasp onto as her mind whirled past her. She needed to focus. To calm down. She couldn't take a deep breath to bring herself back down, but she could try and take things one step at a time. It couldn't have been real...and yet the feeling that it had to be real weighed on her. A paradox of emotions washed over her before she shook her head inwardly, attempting to clear it away. One step at a time.

"What do you mean by 'spirit'? And for that matter, what do you mean by 'opportunity'?" She looked into the grin of the woman before her, finding a vague sense of unease at a smile that seemed to stretch just a touch too far. Subconsciously, that 'unease' was one of few emotions she was capable of feeling at this moment only served to make the feeling worse.

"Oh, y'know, a spirit. Etheric otherworldly bein' with powers or whatever that you li'l guys don' always see. There's a whole lotta drama 'bout all that, but I gotta say, I ain't too inta it." The woman tapped the creature currently impaling Roxy once, a resounding sound accompanying a faint distortion. "These li'l guys are probably 'nother spirit's handiwork."

Arma didn't really seem to mind very much that her conversational partner was, in fact, impaled on the creature's tongue.

"Y'see, spirits an' humans can form preeeetty mutually beneficial contracts together. Ya feed me an' get me a nice form, an' I give ya some of my power. I'm gonna go ahead 'n offer you one of those contracts." Arma grinned, her hands on her hips. "Opportunity, see?"

"Spirit? So, are you like...a ghost?"

Roxy took another half-step backwards. She was only slightly aware of the numb feeling of the creature's flesh grinding across her ribs.

"Hmmm, probably woulda had to be a person t'be one a those," Arma hummed. "Guess a li'l closer t' demon woul' be better."

"Demon!?" Roxy said, the alarm in her voice plain to hear. She backed up another inch in an effort to place some distance between her and the entity, but she could feel the flared barbs expanding outwards against her back.

"So wait...if I were going to accept your 'opportunity', I'd get sent to hell or something?"

"Not at all, love. Like I said, mutually beneficial." Arma peered at the girl, watching the small movements with a dismissive eye. "Ya take this li'l 'opportunity' an' I save yer skin 'n exchange fer at leas' a li'l entertainment. Ya don' an--well, ya see where it gets ya."

"Wh-? Entertainment?" Roxy asked. "You keep saying vague things like 'entertainment' and 'mutually beneficial. Even if I were to accept, which I'm not saying I am, what exactly do you get out of this anyway?"

"The physically tangible thing woul' be 'a body' at the end 'f it. Nice 'n all, but it ain't much use if I don' got anythin' fun ta do with it. Jus' seems like things're gonna get interestin' here, so I might as well look for 'n equally interestin' partner, yeah?"

"Wait...are...are you planning on stealing my body?"

"I think yer gettin' me mixed up with 'ghosts' again, love. You'd jus' be makin' this one a li'l less....selectively visible," the spirit claimed while making a small motion over herself. "I kinda like how this one turned out, so I ain't inta stealin' yer skin."

"O...kay..." Roxy said, growing suspicious of the current 'deal'. "And....what would I get out of this? I know you mentioned a power before...but what kind of power is it?"

She tried backing up a bit more, but to no success. The cavity in her chest was simply too small, and the flared barbed on the back of the tongue were too wide for her to dislodge herself.

"Gotta say, I--" Arma paused, a frown etching across her face. "This is really gettin' in the way."

Two strides was the most warning that Roxy received before the woman heftily removed the girl from the very thing that kept her in place. Unfortunately, the spirit didn't seem to pay much heed to resistance as she tore Roxy from her place. It might not have been real, but the resulting mess certainly would have convinced anyone as bone was severed, crimson lifeblood spilling like rainfall at the harsh movement.

The world seemed to flash like a corrupted video feed as Roxy was forcibly pulled from the Swarmling. The barbs tore messily through her back, segmenting parts of her spine and loosing vertebrae as they did. Ligaments in her chest snapped with the sound of rope being pulled apart, and bones cracked like eggshells as they were wrenched out of place. The sound of blood, her blood, pouring steadily onto the floor was one of few ambient noises in the room. There was no warmth as her own essence oozed down the front of her. It was fortunate for her sanity that her hoodie had flared out in much the same way her skin did, as it prevented her from seeing the extent of the damage from her perspective. A quarter of her torso was just gone, leaving her with a hole in her chest that she could put her arm through if she wanted to.

But it didn't hurt.

"As I was sayin'... I'm a spirit 'f--let's say artillery." If Arma was perturbed by her hand in the destruction of the human in her room, she seemed entirely unphased by it. "You get me, ya get the whole damn cavalry's firepower. S'not a bad deal for a li'l underdog like ya."

"So...a contract with you, and you give me the ability to just blow these things up?"

Roxy walked towards the creature to examine it closer, but it wasn't any nicer looking at this distance. She could see the sections of its mouth where tongue extended outwards, and Roxy traced it back to look at the pieces of her that had been sprayed across the chalkboard.

"Are there any catches? You mentioned 'feeding' earlier..."

"Gal's gotta eat," Arma hummed absently. "I take a few nibbles off yer spiritual energy here 'n there. 'nough ta keep me kickin'."

Well, for Arma in particular, it was a little more than that, but what the kid didn't know wouldn't kill her. Probably.

Roxy paused. The whole contract sounded like a trap. She didn't like it. Arma was a demon, that much she had admitted freely. Any agreement with her could only end in tragedy.

But the alternative seemed worse. Roxy was a scared little girl who couldn't do anything but die. With a little bit of power...she might be able to help people. She'd be able to do what Lucy and Luna had done for her.

She could be a superhero.

"..."

"Mutually beneficial?"

"Mutually beneficial, love."

A smile that the devil might have killed to possess, an open palm laid out flat as a smattering of bullets and cartridges appeared in the same distorted view.

There was a lost cause in every person, Arma had found.

"All you hafta do is pick yer poison."

She was always curious whether she could shape it herself.

A cartridge. Wasted opportunity. Uncertainty. A cartridge didn't tell you what had happened before it was ejected. A cartridge was empty. Lacking.

A bullet. Pure potential. An option. A choice. The power to change things. Ready. Waiting.

Roxy hesitated for a moment. Only a moment.

"Deal." She said, plucking one of the bullets from Arma's hand.

"Good choice, love."

The room fragmented away into sterile white for a moment before the world returned to normal, but not before Arma gave a small chuckle and a minimal word of warning.

"Step lively, 'nless ya want an instant replay 'f what brought ya t'me."

---

Roxy's vision returned to her in an instant; it felt like she'd just blacked out for a second, or just blinked particularly hard. There was a disorienting sense of deja vu that clouded her mind, but she didn't exactly have the time to worry about that; the Swarmling in front of her had just turned around menacingly to face her. She dodged backwards towards the teacher's desk just as the 'crack of the creature's tail broke the nearest chair in half. She stumbled slighty in her haste to escape, making to the front of the room just as the Swarmling clambered over the debris to stand behind her. In a moment of fight or flight instinct, Roxy pulled the first thing from the desk and whirled around to throw it. There was a pause in her mind, as the world seemed to slow for this standoff.

She'd been here before. She would throw the book as hard as she could at the creature.

And she would be dead before it left her hands.

It was like Roxy could see it; as if it were a photograph being held in front of her: the barbed tongue piercing her heart in an instant. Already the creature's mouth was opening to that deadly attack. This had already happened.

Arma had shown her this moment.

Instead of throwing the book, Roxy rolled sideways to kneel behind the desk and take cover. It wasn't a momentary hallucination or deja vu at all; she had made a contract with a spirit. Something brushed against the skin of her neck as that thought hit her, and she glanced down to look at her new adornment. Hanging around her neck was a bullet strung to a makeshift necklace; the same bullet she'd picked from Arma's hand during the contract. She had powers now, but she didn't know how to utilize them.

"Arma! Are you here?"

'No need to shout, love.' A bemused tone buzzed directly into Roxy's head. 'S'long as you have our li'l keepsake 'round, I'll be here.'

Roxy gave an inward sigh of relief. She wasn't crazy; Arma was present, and she had made that deal. That much was confirmed by the sound of her voice. Roxy lifted her head an inch above the desk to look at the Swarmling, ducking quickly as the tail snapped forward in response. It caught the finely sanded edge of desk top, splintering wood and sending it showering over Roxy's head. A step up from glass, at least.

'What the hell am I supposed to do here, Arma!? There's supposed to be artillery, isn't there?'

'Well, can' give ya much if ya don' call for it. Guess we're havin' a crash course practical.' For all the danger it posed, Arma's tone was enough to indicate that she simply didn't care. 'Alright, love. Jus' go with the flow here.'

An instinctual knowledge prickled to life, as though it were some long-forgotten method that Roxy might have known, but never used.

'Nice 'n easy.'

'Nice...and easy.'

Roxy closed her eyes and focused on Arma's voice, on the essence of power that she provided, and on the bullet that now hung around her neck. There was artillery to be found within; she just had to pull it to the surface. Slowly, like tar dripping over her, a pair of dark, fingerless gloves slipped across her hands. They fit perfectly against her palm, as if she'd always worn them before today. A pair of black earmuffs spontaneously generated over her head, clamping over her ears and pushing some of her hair firmly against her scalp; they would protect her from the deafening sounds of Arma's ordinance. A dark bandanna melded up her face, extending from the string of her necklace up to cover her nose; a protective barrier that would obscure her features and protect her from those trying to suss out her identity.

Roxy focused as Arma's power coalesced in her hands; the defining element of their contract brought to a physical object. To anybody else, this might have looked like a normal gun, but this was Arma's Pistol. With their contract in effect, this was Arma and Roxy's pistol. Somehow, she knew exactly how it worked, and the death it was capable of delivering. She also knew that she would need a little bit more distance to show off her new capabilities.

Roxy took a deep breath to steady her nerves. She waited; listening for the perfect moment.

A singsong hum seemed to mark that exact moment in the back of the newly-made medium's head.

The tail twitched, signaling an incoming attack; it was a minuscule motion, but one that Roxy's eyes caught immediately - as if she had a second pair of eyes also watching out for her safety. There was a loud crashing sound as the tail slammed into the floor, but Roxy was already tumbling forward out of the way. She rolled to her feet in a swift motion and whirled around, bringing the weapon up to take aim at the Swarmling.

Roxy squeezed the trigger, feeling the sudden jolt in her hands as the recoil pushed back against her; it was a shock that left her hands with a slight stinging sensation, and an impact that she could feel travel up her arms and into her elbows. Instinctively, she compensated for the force and brought the gun back to center position. She fired again, and brought it back over. Another shot. Another. Arma's weapon fired again, and again, and again.

The electric distortions that sparked outside was mere party poppers compared to the thunderous blasts that echoed through the room. Where the bullets impacted with the carapace of the Swarmling, they burst into flame and concussive force; exploding outwards and scattering pieces of the creature across the room. Deep craters opened up in it, a series of gaping holes that appeared one after another as every shot Roxy fired hit its mark. The thing was big, and decently protected, but even it couldn't stand up against the sudden barrage of leaden death that was being leveled against it.

Not much would be able to stand up to it. For once her life, Roxy found herself as the most dangerous thing in the room.

And that feeling was...intoxicating in a way.

With a final explosive blast, the creature's lifeforce was scattered, and it crumpled limply to ground. The corpse had not even finished smoking when there was the telltale 'click' of another clip being loaded in. With just a thought, Roxy had reached forward and pulled the extra ammunition from the air; she had no idea where it came from, but she just knew where to reach to retrieve it.

There was a slight clattering sound as the old clip fell onto the ground, and Roxy listened carefully for any signs of incoming attention.

'Ha, nice shootin' there, love.' Something about the words was different, a strange sense of exhilaration that didn't belong to Roxy, but didn't bleed through into the human language that Yin used. 'Now get yer ass 'n gear. I bet'cha that hellfire got noticed by somethin'.'

'I'm counting on it.' Roxy said, a sinister confidence to her thoughts. 'We should head towards the roof; see if there's any sort of vantage point to be found. We might be able to give some covering fire on those giant things.'

'Sound like a plan to you?'

Had Arma been toting a form it could be seen with, the would-be sinister smile would have been difficult to miss. Fortunately, that kind of inconvenience had a way of disappearing when she didn't have to be visible.

'High ground sounds like a great call,' Arma chimed. 'Hopefully you can get rid of more of those pests on the way up.'

'With pleasure'

Lucy bit at the edge of her glove as she stared at the lockers lining the wall. Whatever confidence she’d had was quickly lost once she realized that she might have to go back into the cafeteria. And she hated herself for that, but she still couldn’t deal with the possibility of seeing a dead body. She’d just sent Lunasa in to clear the place out. She could still hear the Spirit fluttering about, shooting the occasional laser beam. She hoped she was being careful…

Are you done yet? She finally asked.

”Almost. I’ll take care of these and make another sweep. After that, we should leave.”

Leave?! Lucy looked back towards the door.

”These Spirits are too weak to be of any use to us.” Lunasa answered bluntly. ”It’s simply a waste of our abilities.”

And what about the kids?! Are we just supposed to leave them?!

”As far as I’m concerned, you’ve done enough for them. And you can’t handle doing any more for them. Not like this.”

Lucy didn’t respond. The moth had a point. She really wasn’t holding up. But she’d feel even worse if she left.

”Look, I’ve never heard of an attack like this in a very long time,” Lunasa’s tone softened a bit, perhaps realizing that she might have gone too far. ”This was most likely organized. If we hunt down the source of them, then that helps everyone, right?”

... Yeah, I guess.

”Then let’s at least check outside. There’s definitely some large Spirits out there. I’ll be coming back around, can you open the door for me?

”Sure thing…” Lucy said under her breath. She leaned into the door, pushing it open, and was promptly tackled to the ground. She let out a loud yell.

”Lucy?!” The Spirit’s voice echoed through the Medium’s mind as she struggled with the Swarmling clawing at her leg, making so many disgusting noises as it dug into her. She kicked it away with her other leg, sending it careening into the wall before it promptly jumped right back on top of her chest. Lunasa was saying something to her, but she wasn’t paying attention, putting all her energy into holding the beast back with her arms. A sharp tongue emerged from its underside and stuck Lucy in the shoulder, leaving a bloody hole in her dress. She yelped, and her arm buckled, sending the creature falling towards her, and she was convinced that might have been it until Lunasa appeared behind it, embedding a litany of sickles in its carapace. It promptly faded away, and Lucy slowly rose to her feet, wincing as she attempted to put weight on her arm.

”Are you okay?!” The moth asked, fluttering all around her in an erratic pattern.

”I, uh…” Lucy said through pained breaths, staring at the floor and noticing all the scratches around her leg. ”Not really.”

”Do you think you’re able to fight?”

”It’s probably a stupid idea after what just happened, Lucy started. ”But I think I’ll keep hanging back a bit once we get outside. Maybe try to keep some pressure on this, I don’t know.” She suddenly realized she was speaking out loud again. This Spirit-chatting stuff was hard.

”That works for now.” Lunasa said. Lucy cradled her injured shoulder as she stumbled towards the school entrance. That little bastard waiting for her to open the door like that was a nasty trick. She kept forgetting that these things weren’t just animals…

Wait, was that a wheelchair?

It was weird that this was the first thing that registered to Lucy, but it was. Two women, one in a wheelchair, one carrying a body… There were probably questions to be asked here, but the Medium’s mind was still stuck at “Oh god, I hope I’m not losing too much blood” for that to really register.

”Oh, ummm…” Lucy stammered, her Spirit floating closely behind her. ”Hi?”

An echoed disorted cry escaped from the massive trio, creating a shockwave of pressure strong enough to knock Steve off his feet. The titan in the front, Alpha, took one step forward. The gait of the beast was slow, bringing up its leg revealed the slag-like stump of a foot. It brought it down onto the shore with a heavy, earth-ruptured thud. Elongated fingers darted outward, with its left hand focused on Yui, theright focused on Rav.

Just as Steve got to his feet, he was taken off guard by a bright light. The 'eye' of the left Spirit, Bravo, focused on him, its light blinding. The asshole covered his eyes from the intense rays; he was unable to feel himself be lifted off the ground. By the time he did take notice, he was already being abducted, floating through the light at a rapid pace towards the gaping hole that the light escaped from. He could see it burn brilliantly with a massive, golden flame; the source of the light and its 'eye'.

The third Spirit, Charlie, Started to move towards the right. It seemed to just want to reposition itself onto the shore. However, just as it brought its foot up for the first step, Ryleigh made his retribution. The shark-beast emerged out from the murky depths, and clamped its jaws over the leg of the giant. Both its teeth and the spirit's odd skin cracked at the force. Blood splattered from the jaws of the shark, yet it continued to hold. It thrashed about with violent fury; combined with the factors of the titan's own weight and that it was now only supported by one leg, it collapsed backwards. Like a falling pillar the spirit back breached the water and tumbled into the depths. A drawn out, disorted, 'cry' (Similar to Alpha's), escaped it as it slowly fell beneath the water. One mighty hand fell onto the shoreline, fingers gripping the soil and crushing trees that happened to be in its path. It was starting to pull itself up.

'D-Did you beat them?'

'None can bear my might.'

'Um... that's nice. I-I need to get my phone and-- Venga? V-Venga, sir?'

Less than a minute later, a gargantuan lizard charged out and tackled the shining being's legs with the full force of its weight, sharp protrusions from its body piercing into the creature. Trailing not far behind was a girl, soaked to the bone, sprinting breathlessly and watching the exchange with wide-eyed horror.

'Rust, Dagda, Tyet.'

Ravenna took off from the floor, small puffs of dust kicking up where she had pushed against the earth, a quiet inhalation all she needed for an elegant evasion through the fingers of the beast. Not between, through. The woman's body passed the outstretched hand like air as her available spirits followed the semi-spoken command. Dagda and Tyet returned to their sealed states while Rust reformed into his catalyst, the staff easily falling into Ravenna's grip the instant before she met the air.

Once airborne, the barista took a quiet breath. This wasn't really her speed, especially not with two enormous beasts having a match she didn't want to interfere in and--

'--oh, Steve. You really are a handf...ul?'

Another gargatuan beast tore into the fray, tackling the giant with Steve in what Ravenna could only assume was its grasp, her chest tightening in an unpleasant, hollow ache as it did. Now that was a feeling she thought she'd long since abandoned. Bitter, unpleasant, hollow, longing, painful. How unpleasant. But there were other things to think about, so Ravenna chuckled to herself as she conjured four runic blades, dull pink light moving with a sweep of the staff to catch the would-be victim of a freefall on their flat sides.

She darted after the blades, her amused expression still in place as she came to a halt above her (uncomfortable) makeshift platform.

"Care to show off some of that strength, dear?"

Yui, on the other hand, wasn't doing nearly as well. The quake had caught her off guard, she had only barely managed to avoid the Spirit's attack with a clumsy roll, and now her hands were trembling, her thoughts clouded with a petty desire for violent catharsis. She gave a couple wild kicks to the creature's arm, feeling its "bark" crack and splinter against her foot, and gave a dissatisfied grunt.

Strength... Right.

Yui backflipped high into the air, getting some distance between herself and the trio, and removed the card from her belt, replacing it with another; Strength. She huffed as she felt overwhelming, absolute power course through her body, her armor becoming clad head to toe in bulky, chitnous black and brown plating. Any further tactical thought was rapidly overcome by the desire to tear her foes apart.

Alex stumbled onto periphery of the battlefield and froze, not sure how to react to the presence of all these people already engaged in combat with the... things. Drawing off his experience with the two girls earlier, he tentatively decided everything that looked like a human was probably an ally for now, to say nothing of the giant lizard that seemed to be locked in melee with one of the three monsters.

He closed one of his fists on instinct - or was it his spirit's subconscious goading, it was getting harder to tell in this form - and shortly after felt a sudden weight manifest in it. Between the gaps in his fingers, the same ramshead amulet he kept around his neck when not transformed rested on his palm.

'You desire safety. Throw it,' The Ram ordered in the back of his mind, an unfamiliar eagerness in its voice that Alex had never heard before.

So, he did; Alex tossed the medallion upward, and it erupted into a mass of organic matter that stunk of mildew and rotting meat. Woody tendrils intertwined into the rough shape of a body as The Ram stretched to its full height - made much less impressive, in Alex's opinion, by the literal titans battling just a short distance away. The spirit simply observed for the time being, not rushing headlong into the fight as Alex had expected it would do, given its earlier sense of urgency.

Blood ruptured from cracked stone and torn roots from the lizard-spirit's impact. A disorted cry echoed over the woods as the titan slowly collapsed from the sheer force it endured. The ray of light had ceased as it fell backward, released Steve from its power. Although caught by that witch, he didn't fully appreciate the rudimentary, uncomfortable 'floor' she had created for him. He was torn between showing off, and leaving them to fend for themselves. More importantly, he didn't recognize the new spirit that just appeared, a rogue spirit? Perhaps a spirit wielder...This was getting interesting.

"Oho, so the princess wants my help hmm?" Despite the danger of the scenario, the prideful bastard wanted to milk it as much as he could. "I'm a bit disappointed you don't want to take care of it for me, I'm not the servant here. But I'd be willing to grant you the honor of seeing my form, at a price."

He paused for a moment, and acted as though he was going through made-up costs in his head.

"Let's say...one grand. I take checks of course."

"Oh, dear, I thought you might have learned by now that I'm a lover, not a fighter," Ravenna cooed from the safety of her perch. "Nobody expects much from a little pawn like me, but I can't imagine that my dear benefactor will approve of her toy being broken when someone like you was around."

"That hag..." He grumbled to himself at the thought of her 'benefactor'. Her toy was persuasive if nothing else. "Oh fine... I suppose it would be a shame to lose that pretty face of yours. $200."

"If you're that hard up, dear... why not?" The coy smile that played on the woman's lips and a distinct lack of concern for the danger she was in was anything but subtle. "As long as we keep the orb, yes?"

"Maybe none of you will get to keep the orb since you're not DOING ANYTHING!" Yui roared, having lost any notion of "passive" aggression, and charged back towards her foe.

Bravo fell into the lake with a great impact, water erupted upward and coming down to add to the storm's precipitation. The damage inflicted by Venga spread further up its leg from the impact, due to a weakening structural integrity. Titan Alpha however, continued its assault. Its attention focused to the transformed Yui, as Ravenna had fled into the air. Since Yui had gotten some distance as well, the giant moved with haste out of the lake. It took three long steps, each shaking the surrounding earth with tremendous weight. Its hand clenched into a fist, with an arc-motion, it aimed to crush her like a hammer.

If Yui were thinking clearly, she probably would have tried to avoid such an attack by simply moving aside.

Instead, she tried to catch it.

She let out a mighty cry as she pushed up against the titan's hand, her boots sinking into the mud. Though she strained against the Spirit's efforts to crush her into the dirt, she held her ground nonetheless.

"Yui?" The doctor's voice rang through Yui's helmet. "What's going on?" The PHANTOM agent rolled her eyes and huffed at the question as she attempted to shift her weight.

"Engaging the targets, obviously!" Yui growled, taking a tiny step forwards.

"I appreciate the pressure test, but you don't usually act this... rash. Your heartrate has been abnormally high, too."

"GET TO THE POINT!" Yui yelled, taking another step.

"Another spike."' Harper noted absent-mindedly. "I'm getting readings from an abnormal amount of unaffiliated Spirits nearby. Could be related. I'd advise switching back to Justice, you might be able to blow it off that way."

"You couldn't have told me that a minute ago?!"

"No. Good luck, Yui."

And with that, the PHANTOM agent slid the titan's arm aside, lunged forwards, and grabbed it by the wrist. She dug her heels in and pulled as hard as she could, determined to either topple the beast or pull its arm clean off... Maybe Harper had a point.

While one hand was occupied in lifting Titan Charlie, the other had successfully taken ahold of Ryleigh. The white spirit writhed around violently, like a fish out of water. The titan started to crush him, though thanks to his tough and slippery skin, it bought him some time. The root-like fingers made sure to imprison him in the grip, however, so the beast tried in vain to bite away at the many fingers and stony flesh.

Mackenzie was leaned up against a tree, sparing only occasional peeks at the scene. Thank goodness everyone seemed to be too distracted with the battle, she was in no shape to run now. A piercing sense of shock had taken her limbs. Alarm bells were screeching in her head, amplified with every rapid heartbeat that rattled her thin frame. It took so much to even just keep her breathing stable.

She knew this feeling. Lived it to some extent, every single day. It was different now though. Unnatural.

She lowered herself to her knees for some stability. 'Is this... you?'

The beast gave no response, crying out another "YAHAHAHA" instead and bombing itself into the water where it aimed to clench its jaws around the enemy's neck.

Upon noticing the shark-like being's distress, The Ram seemed to have found an adequate target, rushing at the hand Titan Charlie had rested on the shoreline. It leapt and dug its gnarled talons into the titan's fingers like a cat climbing a tree, aiming to climb its way to the top of the hand. As it went, mycoid tendrils snaked out of the nooks in the spirit's barklike skin, lapping at the titan's flesh to seed it with speckles of crimson spores. With any luck, the giant wouldn't even notice it had been infected until the spores had taken root and its hand was eroding from the inside out.

Alex, in the meantime, cowered behind a nearby bush like the brave warrior he was. Every few seconds he poked his head out to check his spirit's progress and watch for any stray giant monster limbs coming his way, but for the most part, he was just trying to stay out of sight - be it by titan or other human.

Yui's strength began to slowly overtake the titan. Alpha's wrist started to crumble, as roots were being disjointed by the constant pull. It eventually gave way, the entire hand of the titan disconnected from the wrist, the immense weight of the hand now free in the agent's grasp. The exchange caused the titan to stumble back, nearly falling into the water, a soft murmuring hum escaped the hole on its face.

The roots that supported Charlie's infected hand began to rot away. As the roots wilted, the rocky body it held together started to crumble. The titan noticed far too late, as it withdrew its hand closer to its face as if to inspect the damage. Clumps of stone and wilted bark fell, showering the water below with its debris, it presumably wailed in pain, though the disorted noise was too alien to relate. Though roots and stone still trapped Ryleigh, its weakened and rotting structure made it that much easier to tear through. A triumphant, bestial roar escaped the shark-spirit as it dove back into the water; free.

Bravo fought against the weight of its attacker. It stood abruptly from the waters, though it was unable to free its throat from the jaws of the pompous lizard-spirit. The stony flesh started to crack as the roots that held it crumpled under pressure, the spirit's blood sprayed outward with some insignificant hydraulic pressure around the beast's jaws. The titan then moved left to right, in a rhythmic, shaking motion; trying to force Venga off of it with the swinging motion.

Steve had turned his attention away from the Rav to take a look at that action. Did he really need to help? The last he watched was Ryleigh slipping into the depths of the lake, before he returned his attention to that witch.

"Tell you what princess, consider it an I.O.U.." He grinned to her just before he started to crouch. "I'll show you what a real king of a spirit can do."

Flames began to erupt off the body of Steve, his shit-eating grin vanished under the veil of heat and light. Those bat-like wings returned, though they too, we're soon consumed by fire. Heat and Spiritual energy began to rapidly build up from the source of the fire.

The titan's movements did nothing to deter Venga. Its teeth gnawed in further, clawed limbs scrambling against the enemy for a foothold. Something to lever against and tear this cur in two.

Yui wore a determined smirk, the titan's hand smashing into the dirt as she held it at her side. She knew it might be a good idea to swap out, but she also knew a great opportunity when she saw one. She flipped a switch on her belt, and the card slot on the side began to glow with heat. Steam even began to form from the rain that had previously coated it. Yui began to feel the departed Spirit's power go into overdrive, every muscle in her body burning like it was on fire. She could lift that hand like it was nothing now. She felt like she could flip over a mountain. Or a continent. Or-

"A Remnant Charge?" Harper questioned. "Are you sure?"

"Of course," Yui responded, her breathing heavy. "I've got the upper hand." A quiet sigh was her only response. She got a good grip on Alpha's hand and pivoted, swinging the giant fist around before holding it above her head and hurling it straight at the hole in the face of its former owner.

As Charlie brought its crumbling hand closer to what The Ram could only assume acted as its face, the spirit released its grip and vaulted itself upward in a leap toward the titan's "eye". Its mycelial tendrils extended again, though rather than continuing The Ram's fetid assault, they now served as a means of gripping Charlie's barklike skin should The Ram's talons fail to secure a purchase. It had little choice but to crawl around like an annoying tick on the giant at this point in time, given Charlie's height, but as long as it was still over the water, The Ram figured it would be prudent to keep it occupied.

The Alpha titan had prepared a counter-attack, but wasn't fast enough; The severed fist had made a heavy impact to the face. Both the hand and head of the titan crumbled away rapidly from the force, as the body fell backwards. Slayed, the spirit's descent slowed as its body disintegrated in the air. Spiritual flakes rose from the dissolving form with disorted static. The water was barely disturbed, as the last of the behemoth faded away. It had left behind only a remnant: A large black orb. The remnant radiated with black disorted static, similar to the energy that had escaped the vortex prior. It floated in the air just above the lake's surface.

Charlie struggled about, wounded and enraged, it tried desperately to attack at the Ram. In futile efforts it tried to grab hold of it with its other arm, but failed to catch its assailant. In addition to use of its arm, it tried to move about as if it could shake the spirit off of it.

Ryleigh peaked his head out from the lake to observe the action, his attention shifted from the dissolving titan, to the distracted Charlie, and then lastly towards the great flowing light and heat. He knew that energy well, and he is somewhat pissed Steve would be so reckless. With a desire to avoid being caught up as a collateral, the shark-spirit dove back further into the lake and waited.

i.imgur.com/4cpPHgX.jpg

The growing fire where Steve once stood then exploded into a blinding light, like a second sun had briefly formed to deliver its blinding glare. Followed by the light was the battlecry of another spirit; a loud guttural screech. The light faded abruptly with the arrival of a serpentine figure already flying in the air, moving from where Steve had been originally. Green-scaled, winged, and forked tongue; the monstrosity was about as long as the titans were tall.

With the return to his power, all steve could think about was "Kneel before me, insects." Unable to speak in this form however, this translated to a drawn out screech. The dragon flew with great speed, Flames frothing off of its open maw as it charged into Charlie. He bit down on the Titan's side with burning fangs. The section of torso crumbled under the crunch. Fresh roots depeserately tried to fill the void left in its torso as the titan's weight started to shift. Before it could recover, however, the ANIMUS Spirit shot a breathe of flames outward onto the fresh injury. The roots we're incinerated immediately. The rapidly spreading heat caused the body of the titan to light-up with molten cracks. The melting of stone and disintegration of roots caused the titan to rapidly fall apart beyond the point of its original injury. One last moan escaped from it as it, like Alpha, began to dissolve into the air itself; though this time from two seperate halves as it was torn asunder from both the bite and breathe. A remnant had formed just above the water where it had crumbled to, Steve flying off in a continued path.

The sustained wound on Bravo's neck grew from Venga's continued grip. The physical stress had worn enough now that the head was now halfway off the body; which hanged loosely to the left side as more of the spirit started to crumble. With one last effort, the giant tried to fall to the lake, positioned where it could crush the overgrown lizard between itself and the lakebed.

Venga gargled out some muffled taunt and allowed its legs to dangle once more, propping it against the weight of the titan. There it would aim to readjust its jaw and finish it off in one last chomp.

Yui took a deep breath, beginning to come back to her senses: She'd simply watched at all the carnage unfolding around her, but all of it simply rolled over her without really processing. She was still riding that high of satisfaction to the point that she only now noticed the armor beginning to fade away from her power suit.

Oh, right... This one's spent.

She removed the now faded card from her belt and shuffled it back in with the rest, pulling up two more to replace it; Justice, which she loaded into her belt, and The Hanged Man, which she loaded into her arm. She tried to keep her mind sharp as her armor changed to once again embody the locust Spirit's power, focusing on her tight grip on the kusari-gama that had appeared in her hand. She shifted her focus to the Remnant's power, drawing on its more nuanced powers...

Through the height of the storm, a particular gale of wind pierced through. Far from the turbulence around it, this one had a sense of direction and purpose that resonated with the souls it touched. Yui felt the fog going through her mind begin to clear, and gave a quiet sigh of relief, reflecting on her actions just seconds before with subdued embarrassment. She looked back to the Remnant left behind by the Spirit she'd destroyed, focusing power into her legs as she swung her chain around at her side.

The PHANTOM agent leapt high into the air, soaring high over the surface of the lake, and swung the chain towards the black orb left behind by Alpha. It wrapped itself around the Remnant, and Yui pulled the chain back in, the Remnant already beginning to reshape itself in her hand as she fell back down towards the water.

The Ram scrambled across Charlie's skin, desperately trying to maintain its position on top of the titan as the creature tried to swat and shake it off. Not that it mattered, as Steve obliterated the behemoth in a single swoop. From there, The Ram had little choice but to cling to the burning husk as it toppled down toward the water. It wasn't necessarily assuming foul play was involved, but there was always the possibility that glorified flying reptile wanted The Ram out of the way to consume Charlie's remnant itself.

The spirit dug its claws in and rode one half of the titan along its descent, pushing off before it impacted to dive into the water. Its barklike skin splintered under the force of the collision, but the damage was too superficial to truly be a hinderance. After it regained its bearings, The Ram swam for the surface, ever mindful of any falling debris from Charlie's body.

Alex, in the meantime, had fully removed himself from his hiding place behind the bush to gawk at the destruction - and more importantly, his submerged spirit partner.

They were all so eager to throw themselves into the fray, weren't they? Ravenna had made certain to move herself out of harm's way once the fighting picked up, ever-observant eyes drinking in the sights. If the woman were honest, she'd already gotten what she wanted--a little more information, a little more exposure--and it had come at the relatively low cost of a dip in the water.

'You could try to get that Remnant.'

'And put myself in danger? Are you certain you're Rust?'

'You're not interested.'

'Well now, I can't say I have that much need for it.' The woman sighed softly to herself. 'But I suppose if you're so dissatisfied, I could try. A bit.'

She really wasn't that interested though. Power was best left for people that needed it, and certainly, Ravenna wasn't a woman that chased it. Dusty rose hair swept behind her lithe figure as she cut through the air, her breath stilled in her lungs as her body passed through crumbling debris, her staff held firmly at her side. Maybe it would have been safer to use Rust's abilities--no, maybe not. Obstructions were difficult enough to deal with, much less trying to navigate through them with a poor attempt at a runic weapon used as a vehicle. The medium came to a clean stop by the Remnant herself, Lyra's intangibility fading from her with a single exhalation as a delicate hand reached for the blackened orb.

She really wasn't that interested, but if it made one of her darlings happy, then she could do with the effort.

Venga's bite finished off the titan, the jaws cleaved through stone and root. There was a deafening cry that escaped the falling, severed head of the titan as it started to crumble. The body of the spirit remained in place, falling apart piece by piece. As cracks rapidly ruptured over its body, a blinding but harmless light escaped from those veins.

By the time the head reached the water, The body exploded into dissolving chunks and light, leaving behind a remnant that slowly descended to the surface of the lake.

Yui's remnant twisted and spiraled into a small explosion of light, similar to the death of the last titan, only that there was a surge of electrical force that harmlessly moved around her. It was always a strange sensation, no matter how many times Yui had felt it. As she fell back beneath the waves, she held her arm forwards, watching as the power snaked its way up her wrist and into her hand, threading and compressing itself into a flat rectangular shape. The agent shuffled the blank back into her belt; it wasn't ready yet. She began her swim back to shore, reluctant to fly back if it meant losing control again.

Steve had still been climbing heights rapidly in his ascent far above the lake, though in a U-Shaped formation, he directed himself towards the ground and slowly made his descent towards the shore. Ryleigh had already beaten him there, using 2 of his arms to climb about onto the surface. The fish-beast shaked its body like a wet dog.

The three guardians had been defeated, 2 of their remnants remained, one within the reach of Ravenna, the other closer to Venga. The lizard grinned beneath the water and closed its mouth around the light.

Yui climbed out of the lake, and a strong gust of wind blew her armor dry. She took a good look around the shore, her eyes settling on a curious figure hidden behind a tree. A young boy in an odd mask... She knew a Medium when she saw one. She scanned about for any more as she made her way back towards Hurricane, and the key. Maybe someone should have been watching that...

"Oi, Harper." Yui said, putting a finger against her helmet again. "We took care of the three Spirits. Managed to get a Remnant, too."

"Excellent." The scientist responded. "What about the other two Spirits?"

"Haven't given us any trouble... yet. There's at least one Medium here, might be one of theirs."

"I see. You've given me enough test results for one day. Securing that key is your priority." Yui nodded in response, before realizing that Harper probably couldn't see it.

"Got it." The agent answered, pressing a button on the Binding Chain and watching as spiritual power returned to the motorcycle. It revved as if it were stretching as it morphed into its black, unsealed form. She picked up the key and kept the Medium in the corner of her eye, deciding to pretend that she didn't see him.

Alex froze as he heard the motorcycle revving, then swayed side to side hesitantly as if debating whether to run back into cover or not. He'd been so caught up in watching the spirits clash that he forgot to take into account that there were probably other people like him in the vicinity too. If machinery was working again, that at least meant it was over, right? He had nothing to worry about; the other mediums were probably on his side. Probably. The boy reached down to check his phone to confirm electronics were actually working, only to be met with the realization that it wasn't in his pocket. It must've been under his outfit, but he had no idea how to get it off without The Ram around. That meant he needed to go collect his spirit. From the lake. Where all the scary monsters were still swarming around those floating orb things.

He deliberated for a few more seconds to build up courage, then just bolted for the water. As he approached, a clawed hand broke the surface and dug into the muddy shoreline, followed by an impressive pair of horns. The Ram completely ignored Alex in favor of gazing at the other two remnants as it rose from the water, its hollow eyes somehow managing to portray a chilling amount of anger. Or maybe that was just a consequence of their mind link thing. Alex really had no idea how any of this worked.

"Is, um, is everything alright?" Alex questioned sheepishly as he neared the spirit, his posture sunken and anxious like a messenger sent to deliver bad news to a ruthless tyrant.

The Ram shifted its attention downward at the approaching mortal. 'I underestimated the amount of spirits in the vicinity and have been denied my prize accordingly. There's nothing more for us here.' Then, the spirit simply started lumbering back in the direction of the school, with Alex quickly falling into step behind the creature.

The serpent spiraled into the parking lot, deforming just before he made contact with the ground. In plumes of light and smoke, the dragon-spirit vanished. Steve then moved out from the dispersing smoke, towards the lake with a cocky grin.

"How about that for strength, huh?" He called out.

Ryleigh, meanwhile, was still adjusting his injuries. A long tongue licked bleeding cuts and bruises from the fight. Teeth were already in the process of regrowing to replace the ones that were damaged or lost.

Venga snarled at the spirit. Its eyes glanced along its long form, sizing it up. Another low grumble and its skin began to shift, hardening into something formidable.

"I stake my claim on this territory. Take your leave before I--"

The lizard burst into particles and wisped its way towards the school. The specks of light returned to a girl hobbling away from the lake, breathless and shaky.

Yui watched as the Spirit dissipated. That's the last of them...

She picked up the key and wrapped it up in her now thoroughly soaked clothes, tying the arms of her jacket around the makeshift cushioning. Ideally she would have selected something more respectful, but it would have to do for now. She picked it up and strode towards the parking lot.

"We've got the key," Yui stated flatly, giving a look to each of her allies. "I suggest we leave."

Ravenna took a gentle hold of the Remnant--by which she really meant she had barely touched it before it began to do its own thing. It wasn't exactly surprising that her spirits might be interested, but Ravenna had expected Tyet or Lobo to have been the first to make a suggestion to chase power. That Rust had was...odd, even by her standards. The barista hummed softly as she drifted through the air, giving only a languid motion of her hand toward Yui in response. More important and more pressing matters were at hand.

'Satisfied?'

'Hmph.'

'Good to hear, darling.' A satisfied smile played over the medium's lips, another grounding sense of fulfillment burrowing into her chest.

"It's been very enlightening spending time with you, dears, but you have a point. My darling Lobo might try and eat my date if I stick around too long," the woman chimed, her tone almost a pleased hum. With a pleasant laugh and an expression that spoke more of a casual stroll through the park than of witnessing and evading a battle between giants, Ravenna gave a final wave. Its levity hardly seemed appropriate. "Feel free to come visit me whenever you need, dears."

But from the way the woman was subtly gaining a slight altitude, it was evident she didn't plan to stick around.

Ryleigh made some odd low-pitch sound toward Yui, seemingly in agreement, as he already started to stroll at the direction of the ocean. "Yeah we better get going, your lot can play around with that orb, but we expect to learn about whatever you find with it." Steve stated to Yui as he began to follow. "Oh and make sure your hag knows how much I helped you today." He smirked up to Ravenna as she started to fly away.

Yui only gave a delayed nod in response, beginning to wonder if ANIMUS even cared about the key in the first place. She swung her leg over her motorcycle and gave a quick wave before she sped away into the storm.