[IC] ★Two Sides of the End☆

[Anderiel]

Catheryn

First row, back seat. That's the spot Catheryn claimed for herself in Mr. Q's Math Class. The plain-white classroom was less than empty, it was a fluorescent void that would suck the energy out of any student that took the time to really think about it. The small framed girl was no exception, and while she scanned the room for familiar faces whom seemed absorbed in their work, she couldn't help but drop her head to the desk below in pure disappointment. The sound of her forehead slamming against the desk was heavy, heavier than her small head should have been capable of. It was loud enough to make the large-dark-suited-man quietly pace down the first row's aisle to make his way towards her desk.

The sounds of heavy breathing, groaning, and snoring, all emitted from the now sleeping girl. This wasn't unusual, Catheryn did not discriminate, she'd have her nappy time in what ever class she deemed to feel tired in. More importantly Mr. Q was one of the only teachers that took the time to wake the girl up, usually involving the dropping of a heavy textbook on her desk or the sudden and abrupt drop of his dark brown fist onto the table. Either would usually do the trick in waking the poor girl, but today was a rare occurrence in which this math teacher just didn't feel like making an effort. So instead, he looked over towards Aalis, since she was Catheryn's friend.

"Make sure to wake her up before my next class starts." He stated, bluntly in a deep baritone voice. Sounding more like a soldier than a teacher.

As Mr. Q made his way back towards the front of his class, the sleeping girl shuffled in her rest, probably in an attempt to get more comfortable. Turning her head now to face the second row of student, she visibly smiled in her sleeping, pursing her lips together and muttering intangible words to herself. Finally her eyes would open briefly, the paper on her desk sticking to her face momentarily as she pulled her head from the table.

"You've gotta take a deep breath, and then tighten your chest.. Right below your boobs. Then release, keep doing that and you'll get better Ash---" The pointless mutterings had been directed at nobody, but her forearm rose to offer her semi-sleeping head a spot to support itself.

~Ringidingring~

Almost instinctually, Catheryn's body reanimated into a smiling joyous girl. Waving over to Aalis as she ran to towards the door of the classroom, her friend would see that some of the ink from her paper had transferred onto her cheek in a blueish black color. Rather than math being imprinted onto her cheek, it was a doodle of a stick figure holding another stick figure's head in it's right hand.

"Lunch time!"

[Hawlin]

"Je vous jure que l'horloge a arrêté au moins deux fois..."

Keepa tapped the eraser of their pencil against the otherwise blank page of their diary which sat inside a larger notebook which had pages filled with drafts of a thesis and abbreviation of an outline written sideways at the top of the page. With one hand propping their head up and elbow on the desk, the other ink black hand and arm fiddled with the pencil. The area between the elbow and shoulder was still plated, hinting to the rest having recently been cut off in a fight...the reason for being late to school, today. Thankfully, such reasons often pass because of the reality of their occurrence as well as Mr. H, Hawlaines Krail, who had stepped out for the moment while the class worked on their term papers, allowing Keepa to find a seat relatively unnoticed. Mr. H had a weird way of timing his "smoke breaks" conveniently around the time late arrivals show up. He seemed to have a great interest in the duels, and referred to Keepa's arm as his 'pass', jokingly. There were suspicions of him either being a part of, or maybe even running a gambling ring with the teachers, but the rumors were unfounded and unimportant. Keepa had managed to complete most of the preparation part of the project, so the hard part, now, was finding time out of their busy schedule of procrastinating and getting into fights over their appearance or gender.
They tentatively watched the clock, face boredly smooshing into a funny expression as they tried to remember what time-

~Ringidingring!~

The sudden, unexpected bell jolted Keepa out of their daydream, their hand flicking the pencil into the air and sticking into a ceiling panel out of surprise. Everyone else was piling out of the room and hopefully nobody saw. Quickly packing up to make their escape, Keepa couldn't help but notice that the hand had wasted the rest of the page with a sketch of an ouroboros. It happened more often than you'd think, often when they had a writing utensil and were daydreaming. It also didn't help that Keepa was left handed, giving the Aspect free reign on anything in its grip when the "wielder" wasn't paying attention.
Shaking their head as they stuffed everything into the messenger bag, they grumbled a soft "I wonder if anyone else has zeis sort of problem..." and headed off to lunch.

~~~~~

Pizza line...alacarte...pizza line...oh, one for main lunch- nope, pizza line.

I stood back from the swell, gauging how classmates valued their typical pizza or whatever ghastly slop they served at alacarte upon request. I, on the other hand, had eyes for another; the sleek and fit club sandwich (which I suppose was more lettuce than pepperoni and ham to account for weight), carefully wrapped and set in a pile of its brethren next to a deep pot containing the most recent batch of the soup of the day. I had lost track of the day and my hopes for clam chowder were snuffed underneath a tidal-wave of Chicken Wild Rice.
No complaints...and barely a line, to boot!
I took a moment to check the tally, finding that I had been doodling ouroburo serpents all over the section otherwise reserved for keeping count whilst daydreaming of surfing a sandwich on an ocean of soup. Gawd, I'm hungry. I would be annoyed if it wasn't so darn good at drawing with its machinelike precision which still creeped me out, sometimes. I forgave the hand and concluded that only the group's decisions would matter today, on this glorious day of chicken wild rice...if only I knew where they were. Sheathing my instruments of bookkeeping, I began to make my way across the cafeteria towards the Soup&Sandwich line.

[Zombehs]

As usual for the weekday, Clark was at school and attending class like a student should be rather than doing something “interesting” with his time. He wasn’t exactly the ideal student, fiddling around with apps on his tablet almost as much as he used it for notes by the window side. but generally the teachers took what they could get from the Aspects. He did wonder where the Academy had found such teachers though. Some of them looked and acted more like mercenaries than civilians, including the one currently teaching his class. Miss. Heid, science department, good at teaching and getting points across, doesn’t really try to connect with students, carries herself like a combatant at times. That was about all Clark could really tell about her, and though he was curious about the staff that taught at the school he never really tried to pry further. He couldn’t imagine them simply being “regular” teachers, not if they had been posted to an island to watch over and educated children with the power of myths, but it was for that reason he also never tried to dig deeper.

The lunch bell rang just then, its shrill ringing no doubt waking any students that had fell asleep and bringing an end to the first half of the school day. The teacher wished the class a good lunch as usual before leaving the room and the students to their own devices, to which Clark sighed. He didn’t really dislike any of the teachers at the Academy, but he couldn’t help but be suspicious of authority figures on the island. Pushing those conspiracy theory worthy thoughts away for now, he focused on the present. While some hung back in the classroom to chat and socialize, Clark followed a sizable group of his classmates down to the cafeteria. Coming down from the fourth floor, talk was basically about whatever topic was brought up and he joined in with whatever rumors or information he had come across. The biggest talked about topic was the Duel that had happened between members of the cabals of Xerxes and Vlad recently. Apparently it’d been big enough that a member of the Knights of the Round had stepped in to interfere. Clark couldn’t say if the gossip was truth or not, but it was interesting to hear about at the least.

When the group reached the cafeteria though, it mostly dispersed as students fell away to meet with friends in other grades or to grab their food. Given the cafeteria provided a wide selection, even if the one portion rule made deciding exactly what to have somewhat difficult at times, it was rare that he and his classmates would stick together once inside. He didn’t particularly mind what he ate as long as it wasn’t disgusting, and so Clark always chose whichever line was the shortest. Today it just happened to be the sandwich and soup line, and he found himself falling in step with a familiar face as he approached the station.

“Hey, Keepa.”

[Click This]

It was business as usual in the History Department building. Almost true to its name, the building that housed the department was one of the oldest on campus. Aislinn could never pinpoint the period the hall was built in despite putting her best thinking cap on. It looked Victorian, but several things, such as the uncharacteristically large windows in the main lecture hall that allowed heavy rays of sunlight to shine into her eyes every morning told her otherwise. The class that Aislinn was in right now was Late World History 3001, taught by the sharp but intimidating Mr. Law and his sword-sized pointing stick. By all rights, he was a fantastic public speaker and academic, but the topic for the past few classes was late 20th century global politics, a subject that was so over taught that she could recite its main points on the edge of a coma bleeding out on a road. So instead of paying attention to the stark Mr. Law, Aislinn began drawing an absurd picture of Teddy Roosevelt dual-wielding machine guns and a magical girl Queen Elizabeth fighting flying toasters on her tablet.

The shrill ring of the brass bell in the back of the lecture hall told her the hour and a half long class was finally over. Spinning the capacitive tablet pen in her hand several times, she holstered the electronic writing instrument into the side of her tablet like an old-time cowboy before packing the whole thing into a light messenger bag. Slinging the bag over her shoulder, she looked to her left for Juno, who was completely knocked out and drooling all over the pull-out seat table. Aislinn could never understand why she slept so much when dolls didn’t need any sort of sleep whatsoever. Not skipping a beat, she pulled out her pocketwatch, letting the gold chain drop half a meter before cleanly clobbering the sleeping doll with an arcing overhead swing. With a yelp, Juno jerked straight up like a plank, clutching her head with her two hands as Aislinn popped open the face of the watch.

“Time to wake up,” she said, pointing with an index finger to the apparently still functioning timepiece. “Lunch time~”

Arriving at the cafeteria ten minutes later, the duo found the hall crowded as usual. Such a thing couldn’t be helped, after all, the class she had just left was in the farthest corner of the school campus. Aislinn gave a brief glance at the day’s lunch menu, carefully written in neat writing on a chalkboard above each food line. The school had a difficult and troublesome policy of not allowing seconds at all –no exceptions—but she often didn’t have problems with this. Since she had come to a mutual understanding with the cafeteria staff earlier in the year, all she had to do was nod and smile pleasantly and they would graciously give her a gratuitous single serving. Often times, it was enough to have leftovers, even after the unnecessarily gluttonous Juno went to town on their lunch. She glanced back and forth at the soups and the hot foods, undecided between the menu items of the two lines. Both menus were equally appetizing, but something more substantial was probably better. Finally deciding on the turkey and gravy dish, Aislinn joined the hot food queue.

[Psyker Landshark]

God, Helena hated English Literature. Other subjects like math, science, or hell, even history all had something worth learning. Meanwhile, in English Literature, she was stuck analzying some idiot's poem for symbolism and meaning and whatnot. Or, she would be if it weren't for her laptop. Instead of actually reading the assignment like Professor Waldstein wanted, Helena was busy doing something else she deemed worthwhile, namely writing up more code for a program she was working on. Or she had been, until she'd typed in the last line of code a second ago. After she hit compile, she realized that there would be literally nothing to do for the rest of the duration of the class. And probably even longer. Bloody C++ complied so damned slowly.

Sighing, Helena opened up the games library on her laptop, browsing through what she wanted to play. Any RTS was out, given that the amount of clicking required would attract too much attention from the professor. Well, if she wanted to kill time, there was always Civilization...nah, there was barely any time in class left. She probably wouldn't even be able to get a game set up and load in before the bell rang. Honestly, it was too bad that no one from her friend group was in this class with her. Messing with any of them would have been more entertaining than being forced to occupy herself for an hour and a half. Oh, well. At least some of them were in her next class. Plus, lunch was right after this.

~Ringidingring~

And speaking of lunch, there was the bell. With a slight smile at finally getting out of this poetry-induced hell, Helena stuffed her laptop back into her bag and dashed out of class, heading straight to the cafeteria. And when she arrived just outside of it, Helena gave a wry smirk as she saw a certain molesting bluenette just about to enter.

"Catherine." She said, walking up to her...friend? Sexual offender? Both? Eh, who knew. "No molestation in public, alright?"

[ERode]

Classes were, essentially, boring. Sometimes, Katsuo had to ask himself why he even put up with classes the first place. After all, he doubted that science would help him with his full-time job as an idol manager, unless it was related to pyrotechnics. And even then, he could just ask another Aspect, maybe one of Goemon or Vulcan to handle all the colorful, flaming explosions for him. If mathematics was related to money management, maybe he’d be more interested, but as of now, there were no accounting courses that he could take. Not that dealing with money was his main interest the first place. Out of all the eight different subjects he was managing this year, there was not a single one that interested him in any fashion at all. Maybe he was being too narrowminded, but really, all he wanted to do was to make Ashita the undisputed star of Risen Academy.

And, of course, the Sentinel would serve as a ‘proxy’ for himself in classrooms, sitting in his desk and taking down his notes while he lazed about on the school roof. It was a pretty useful thing really. He was surprised that Helena didn’t do that herself, considering that she could become triplets at a moment’s notice. Sure, she’d be exhausted at the end of it, but she’d have so much more free time to do whatever she wanted! Enjoying the tropical sky and the warm temperatures, he laid on his back with a big smile on his face. From nine in the morning till three in the afternoon, safety was all but guaranteed, with a free meal inbetween.

Anyways, it was much harder to get any planning done after school ends and explosions begin to sound in the horizon. After that nasty scuffle from yesterday, the redhead was almost certain that the Xerxes and Vlad cabals would be at each other’s throats again. A shame as well. Chances were that there would be more than just a few spectators this time as well, considering how the Aspect of Galahad had to come stop the fight last time. Well, hopefully, that large-scale event would be enough to capture the attention of most of the drones flying about the island.

The tomato-boy wanted to start a little project of his, after all.

The lunch bell decided to ring then, and, standing up, Katsuo ran down the stairwell to pick up Ashita. Passing by a few acquaintances and co-workers along the way, he waved and exchanged a few words of greeting, before dashing off once more. He burst into the classroom with the dynamic force of a bicycle, smiled at a teacher whose name he never remembered, before patting his doll’s head at another job well done. Pages filled with elegant handwriting detailed exactly what the lecture had been about, and, after stuffing them unceremoniously into his backpack, he marched off with the Maiden’s Knight in toll.

The two of them eventually arrived at the cafeteria, where Katsuo instantly found a legitimate method to cut into the line. Dragging the raven-haired little girl with him, he waved at Ashita’s acrobatics teacher.

“Thanks for saving a spot in the line for me, Keepa! How’s it going?”

[Jinxlynx]

"Oh my god this suuuuucks." Aalis mumbled to herself, slumping over now that Mr. Q had stopped talking to her. She glanced over at Catheryn whom of course had fallen asleep in her chair on top of her homework. Aalis kinda wished she could fall asleep that easily but she was always restless as an Aspect of War, if she was not fighting or training she was bored out of her mind, video games seemed to be the only other thing that kept her from going nuts at times like these.
Pushing her glasses up onto her forehead she started doodling on her page, decorating the corners with random designs and patterns to pass the time until lunch. Catheryn kept moving around and muttering as she drifted in and out of sleep and Aalis looked over at her, pocking the girls side just as the lunch bell rang and she jumped up out of her chair and ran for the door, making Aalis nearly topple out of her chair as the smaller girl waved to her from over by the door and ran for the cafeteria. "How do we even know each other?" Aalis thought to herself before pushing her glasses down over her eyes and picking up her bag, heading out to try and get her lunch before the lines got crazy.

---

The cafeteria was of course packed by the time Aalis got there and she looked around for Catheryn to maybe get a chance to cut in line hopefully but she could not see the blue haired girl anywhere. Sighing she just got in line for the soup and sub sandwiches, not wanting to wait an hour for a slice of pizza. At least she could find a table to sit at with her friend and eat, then maybe find someone to fight. Aalis had been itching for one since she woke up.

Chowdah and lettuce on bread. was the lunch of the day for her and Aalis looked for an empty table, walking over to one over by the wall she finally spotted Catheryn and also saw Helena beside her, "Hey guys over here!" Aalis yelled, putting her tray down and waving to get their attention. there was no ways she was sitting alone and getting bored like she was in class.

[Anderiel]

Exiting the classroom shortly after the aspect of war, Catheryn began making her own way to the cafeteria. Few faces turned to acknowledge her, though the ones whom did were responded with a dramatic wink, the unconventional tattoo on her cheek making it all the more funny to these people. Fortunately, another friend appeared as she neared the doors of the cafeteria.

"Helena! No.. no.. I restrain my primal urges while in the confines of this institution. Unless, you want to try something freaky~ But if that's the case, we'll need to go somewhere a little more 'quiet'." She slyly grinned to the blonde, making the seriousness of the comment that much weirder..

Laughing her own words off, Catheryn peered towards the continuously flowing river of people entering the cafeteria. She hadn't seen Aalis since she took off from the classroom, and the rest of the group were most likely inside. Processing the whole situation in her head, Catheryn reached to grab Helena by the wrist. Rushing into the cafeteria, with friend in hand, she charged straight towards the longest line available, Aalis announced her location mid-route and in response Catheryn screamed back at the girl "Food!" as she approached her target. Getting 'in-line' however was not something little Catheryn did. Cutting the vast majority of fellow students in the pizza line, with Helena alongside her as an accomplice she would release her soft grip of Helena's wrist as their destination was met.

"No sight of our comrades, and so many enemies behind us.. We should embrace for comfort." Catheryn pressed her body closer to Helena's as she said this.

Further scanning of the area revealed her group of friends in the Soup & Sandwich line. Catheryn's face focused on the bunch in her least favorite line, staring intently with an unamused face. Though as quickly as the face changed, it returned to normal, turning to Helena and then back to the group.

"We made it!" She declared, gesturing to herself and blonde beside her. These words would be aimed towards Katsuo, Ashita, Keepa, and Clark at the opposing line from theirs.

"Aalis already claimed a table!" Catheryn added before looking back towards the doors of the cafeteria, not quite remembering where this table was.

[Hawlin]

Inevitably, due to a lack of general interest, the lunch person responsible for the S&S line was often late. This didn't reflect on the line too heavily, although Keepa almost jumped when Clark greeted them.
"Well, good afternoon, Saint Clark~" they chirped in an otherwise formal tone besides the tease; perhaps due to Clark's aspect of Old Saint Nicholas which was odd to Keepa, Clark being pretty much the only person with such an aspect, did the snake take such interest in coming up with witty names for him. It was never in ill manner or with the intention of being hurtful, just...well...there weren't many people who could say they knew what went on behind those bright violet eyes which narrowed as Katsuo cut in front of them.

"Oh~?" Keepa began, casually sliding closer as the expression that had been annoyance was expertly masked with a sultry smirk as they continued, "I do not remember saving you a spot~." Playing dumb at first, holding their left elbow in their right hand as they thoughtfully tapped their chin with the inky black scales of their left index finger, slowly rolling their eyes over to Katsuo as their expression subtly grew. "Alzough...if you vahnted to have lunch vith me..." they went on, their tone growing softer as they gently shifted their hand from their chin to less than an inch from Katsuo's cheek, making a caressing motion as they concluded, "you only needed to ask~." The resonant chill from the resting aspect seeped into Katsuo's skin as Keepa punctuated the action with a well-timed wink.

~~~~~

With that, I slipped ahead of him, bending slightly to offer a hand for Ashita to shake while I grabbed a tray and pointed out what I wanted, the lunch person well familiar with me as a returning customer. "And how is zeh young Madam doing, today?" I ask, curious if Katsuo had taught her to shake and be civil, yet, rather than forcing the poor doll to do his homework while he skipped class. Of course, I didn't have the time to get an answer...as Lady Catheryn was soon on the scene.
I mean, sure, I enjoyed pizza sometimes, but...hrm. I suppose I shouldn't assume to understand her if I didn't. Heh. Rather than be annoyed, it was easier to play along with what I thought was a joke of some sort.
I throw an exaggerated thumbs up in the air in her direction, the plating of my fingers starting to reform in the same action, adding a glint from the neon light as I called back, "Yes!"
With this, I snatch up my tray, making my tray to the nearest mostly empty table in the direction Lady Catheryn had gestured. Sitting down, I folded one leg over the other, shifting my attire to the side up to my thighs with the swift movement; glancing to the other patrons while viciously biting half of the wrapping on the sandwich off in a single motion, chewing it twice and spitting it into a nearby trashcan in their direction. They didn't look like the fighting type and it showed from how those that didn't move to the next table over slid as far away as they could, whispering amongst themselves.

[Zombehs]

Raising an eyebrow, Clark slowly smiled at Keepa’s greeting. His name rarely stayed the same for more than one meeting between the two of them, but he was sure they’d get recycled at some point. He didn’t particularly mind Keepa’s attempts at renaming him, accepting it was all in good fun. “While I’m sure some people would take great offense at your granting of me sainthood, I shall nevertheless accept,” he said, taking the fact that the server had yet to man their station to bow his head to Keepa.

He might have greeted Katsuo when he raised his head, but it seemed like Keepa was dealing with the young male at the moment. Shrugging as Keepa proceeded to be Keepa, he grabbed a tray off the nearby stack and waved in greeting towards Ashita, though he didn’t expect much response. It wouldn’t have mattered if she had though because Clark was already looking away, having caught a glimpse of someone he thought was Aalis.

Indeed he had, and he took note of the table the raven-haired girl sat at before turning and advancing his place in line. Now that the server was actually here it didn’t take long for Clark to get his lunch given the lack of students ahead of him. Granted there was one, or maybe two if Ashita counted, that should have been behind him, but Clark didn’t make a fuss of things. Thanking the lady over the counter as he loaded his tray with the food and some cutlery, he turned just in time to see and Catheryn gesture at herself and Helena. Given that Keepa had already replied across the cafeteria for “their” line, Clark instead just nodded solemnly before heading off to the aforementioned table.

Wandering over to the table that Aalis had claimed, Clark set his tray down on the other side of the table but off to the side so he wasn’t directly across from her. “Hey Aalis,” he said in greeting as he took a seat and propped an elbow on the table, waiting for the others to arrive before he began to eat. He couldn’t say he really knew the other girl all that well. They’d probably have never met if it weren’t for the fact that they hung out with some of the same people. Speaking of the same people… Clark sighed a bit as he awaited the inevitable “nagging” that’d arrive with Catheryn. Maybe she wouldn't ask today or maybe with others around she'd wait for later, but from how shameless she could be at other times, Clark wasn't holding out too much hope for either. While he probably could have saved a bit of time by just pulling the BBG out, that probably would have looked a bit too resigned on his part.

Turning to Keepa just as she finished “intimidating” a couple of students at another table, Clark raised a hand and gave the younger students a smile as a pacifying gesture. “I’m sure they were wonderfully intimidated by your ability to savage a sandwich wrapper,” he remarked dryly, "but was that really necessary?"

[Click This]

Aislinn smiled at the nice lunch lady behind the counter, giving her signature waist height, single-motion hand wave as she pushed her tray forward with her other hand to be served. It seemed, for reasons unexplained, the hot food line was the shortest and moved the fastest of all the food lines in the cafeteria. Even with lining up like a proper law-abiding student, unlike other certain students, Aislinn and Juno were in and out of the line with a healthy serving of turkey in less than ten minutes. She couldn’t fathom why people would want nasty pre-cooked pizza over some nice, fresh steaming turkey, but that wasn’t her business. As Juno grabbed a couple cans of tea down the line, Aislinn attempted to stabilize the plastic tray, which was bending slightly under the load of plates, utensils, and turkey.

Not moments after Aislinn stepped towards the tables of the cafeteria did Juno spot a certain doll and her master across the cafeteria. Aislinn reached out to restrain her doll by the back of her collar, but she had already zipped away towards Ashita, tossing the two drink cans in the general direction of the sagging food tray. Diving forward with the tray, the brown-haired girl accomplished a feat of acrobatics as she caught the two cans of green tea, one on top of the other with her spare hand. She spun ninety degrees on her foot to regain her footing from the lunge, balancing the two cans precariously. Having narrowly avoided disaster, she breathed out through her mouth in relief, and scanned for a table with some familiar faces. Placing the drinks onto the overladen tray, Aislinn brightened in recognition and headed towards a half-full table, giving up on chasing her eccentric minion.

Unrestrained, Juno continued barreling down the cafeteria aisle, arms outstretched.

“Ashiiiiita~!” The pink hatted girl smacked into the other doll with an embrace that could suffocate a normal girl of her size.

Ignoring the actions of Juno, who was now halfway across the dining hall, Aislinn took the seat second from the corner at the table with Keepa and company, setting her tray down.

“Hey Keepa, Clark. Would you mind if I sit here?”

The question, naturally, was only a formality; she had already sat down of course, and she knew them well enough. Aislinn moved the drinks off the tray.

“Chowder again?”

[ERode]

Yeah, he really COULDN’T get used to Keepa’s weird-ass eldritch abomination arm. While he was already accustom to all the flirtatious or creepy or perverted motions that a certain Valkyrie was accustom to doing, Katsuo wasn’t able to brush aside the words of an ambiguously-gendered person quite as easily. After all, it’d get a whole lot more awkward if the brunette turned out to be a guy. Or a tranny.

It was a question that could probably be solved with a grab at the crotch, but while the tomato-headed boy was brave and impulsive, he wasn’t willing to risk his own crotch. Not against a person with a tentacle arm.

Deciding that cutting behind Keepa was equally good, the teen motioned for Ashita to say something in response to the snake-thing’s question, only to have the Sentient tilt her head slightly to the side and then shrug. It must be a first world problem, when you stress over your Sentient not having enough of a personality. It would be nice if Ashita was just a reserved Yamato Nadeshiko, but the Aspect of Gawain wasn’t even that. Katsuo reminded himself that he should ask Aislinn how Juno had developed such a personality, before picking up a double soup-and-sandwich combo.

Unfortunately, ethnical foods such as Asian cuisine wasn’t present in the cafeteria.

Then, as the two of them started for the table that snake-lady had claimed as her own territory, Juno decided to show of her top-tier acrobatics skills, leaping through the air and pretty much bowling the raven-haired girl over. The two Sentients slid in a tangled mess of hot, girl-on-girl action, as Katsuo decided that he’d rather not interfere with the hyper-positive Juno, before walking over to the table. Placing down his two trays, the red-head found a spot for himself (the table was getting a bit squished though) and remarked, “Really got to reveal the secret of Juno’s personality to me sometime, Aislinn. What did you even do to make a Sentient so active and cheerful?”

After a bit of rolling on the ground, Ashita came to the conclusion that she should probably be by her Master’s side. Standing up with no regards to the purple-haired witch clinging to her, the girl marched resolutely towards the table, no sign of exertion at all on her face.

[Psyker Landshark]

Giving a startled yelp as Catherine literally dragged her to cut in the pizza line, Helena gave her friend an irritated frown as she released the blond.

"Every time..." Helena muttered under her breath in exasperation. "Every damn time this happens, she drags me in for pizza. It's not even good pizza..." She grumbled, stewing over the fact that she could make a better pizza than this fast food shit given that she had the ingredients.

"No sight of our comrades, and so many enemies behind us.. We should embrace for comfort." Catherine said as she snuggled up against Helena, to which Helena could only respond with a shake of her head.

"Maybe later. After all, you do need a free hand to grab your pizza, you know." She said, trying whatever tactic she could to get the girl off of her. Fortunately, it seemed that Catherine's desire for food won out, and Helena was free to walk with her to the table relatively unmolested. Sitting down next to Catherine, Helena took a bite of her pizza as she raised a hand, waving at the rest of the group in greeting before pulling out her laptop to put next to her plate on the table. As the laptop loaded back up, Helena activated her Xeno, diving her body into three copies: one for socializing, one for eating, and one for getting a few quick games of Hearthstone in. They sat next to each other on the bench, with the body designated for socializing closest to the rest of the group.

"So..." The first Helena turned to Aalis. "You down to play some games later? Street Fighter, maybe?" She asked casually. Really, Helena thought she should know better than to split while Catherine was around, given that she'd probably get some harassment, but the thought of not efficiently multitasking whenever she could was just unbearable to her.

[Anderiel]

Tray in hand, Catherine marched towards the direction she assumed their table was gestured to be. Seeing the familiar faces atthe nearby table, she darted towards it's location sitting carefully, scanning the many faces around her. As Helena sat next to her and activated her ability, she began to set up her laptop, multitasking at the table as she did best, Catherine leaned towards the opposing end of the table.

"So.. Any news? Any updates? All I've got to offer to the table is, that Helena's body still feels great against mine. Santa Clark, can I have my free item today? Keepa, Katsuo, anything in the works for Risen's Next Top Idol? Aislinn, direct your loli towards me, I want attention!"

The blue-haired girl's eyes seemed fixated on Clark as she talked, her view simply drifting around the table and then stopping on him, over, and over again. Catherine's head bowing up every single time it did so, as if she were trying to motion the words 'gimme, gimme' with her head. Awaiting any responses that would be directed towards her she picked up the messy pizza with a careful fold, casually dipping it into the ranch dressing next to it on the plate that sat on the white tray. During a meal was one of the times of day that Catherine needed to wind down a bit. If she were flipping shit while eating, it'd ruin her lovely image, or even cause her to make a mess on herself.

During this whole ordeal, a few fellow students could be heard screaming at one another within the cafeteria. Loud enough for students in the south-western corner of the cafeteria to come to an abrupt silence, amplifying the strong words of the two male students.

"Fuck you! You can't just ask a higher-ranking member to step up and take on your burdens. You're going to make us look like cowards! Do you think any of us wants that? Just because you're too afraid to stand up to someone a little bigger than you?"

"Don't you dare get in my face Matthieu! Hypocrites like you don't even belong in our group! No, that's too generous... Meatheads like you shouldn't even be an Aspect in general!"

"What the fuck did you just say?"

Before the situation could escalate, two tall figures dressed in black-mesh uniform quickly entered the cafeteria through the main entrance, walk-sprinting immediately to the two boys location. Each of the black-garbed men took a position behind one of the students, and routinely zip-tied their hands behind their back. While one escorted the two out of the cafeteria, the other stood in a sentry position at the door, as an insurance that no other disruptions may occur in the area.

[Zombehs]

Turning to the newest member of their table, Clark gave Aislinn much the same greeting as the others; namely a small wave and nod. “I’m sure they wouldn’t mind,” he said, nodding at the two distracted females before glancing behind the brunette at Juno’s antics across the cafeteria. Though he gave the girl a raised eyebrow, his reaction wasn’t much more than that and shrugged in response to her question.[/i] “S’alright, and the lineup wasn’t too long. Not like there’s a real difference in quality.” He wasn’t really bashing on the cafeteria, given that it was free food, but to make feeding several hundred kids affordable the ball had to get dropped somewhere.

He gave Katsuo a friendly wave as per usual when the younger boy sat down, and a small, “Hey.” Eyes focusing back on the commotion a bit farther off, he watched with an amused expression as the two’s Sentients tumbled around on the cafeteria floor with one another. Idly, he asked, “Any plans for a concert any time soon?” While Clark didn’t feel particularly strongly about the events, aside from supporting his “friend” in his endeavors, his Divine Spirit did rather enjoy the events. Cheer and happiness, regardless of what its cause was, always seemed to sit well with it.

Like with Aalis, he really only knew Helena by association with a few others, but the greeting she received was nevertheless practically the same. The use of her Xenos had never really sat well with him for some reason, his vision going all blurry if he watched her body shimmer, shake, and separate. Rubbing his eyes to clear them, he managed to blink the spots out just in time for Catherine’s arrival.

“Well, I did hear a rumor about some a duel between Xerxes and Vlad, with the Knights interfering apparently. Don’t really know too much though.” Having given his piece, he looked around for the last member of their group fruitlessly before propping an arm onto the table and resting his chin onto it to wait. He wasn’t exactly ignoring Catherine, as his head tilted left to right with each bob she made, as if he was confused by what she meant. That came to an end soon enough though as something caused the entire cafeteria to quiet down. Looking up at the unnatural silence, it wasn’t too hard to find the source given they were literally in one another’s face and yelling for the student body to hear.

Of course, before things could actually escalate to physical violence the cafeteria doors were thrown open and a pair stepped through. At their appearance, Clark looked away with a sigh. There wasn’t really a need to keep watching when the conclusion was basically written in stone now. Letting the scowl drop, he clasped his hands together for a moment before he dug into the free food. He needed to enjoy something after that little display.

[Mikellh Dejax]

Piccard skipped class that period, and stayed in his own room, if it was either some useful subject like Physics or History, he would definitely not miss it for the world. But the current subject was English, and he already knows everything he needs to about his native language anyway. He was wearing his flight goggles while he tinkered with a certain machine, several sized lenses held up onto an inclined wooden base in no particular order. He set it under the opening in his window where the sun shone through. The sun's beam struck the first lens and focused into the next lens, into the next, and so on. He then put an ice cube underneath the last lens and on top of the ice cube, a piece of glass attached to a small tube, going to a different, sealed container.

The ice then started to melt, some into steam, others into water. The steam collected into the container above, and into the tube. A few drops of condensed water fell into the sealed container. After all the ice was melted, Piccard wiped the table of remaining water, and checked the container, there was only a slightly sizeable blob of water in the container. He sighed and immediately drank it. It wasn't productive, in fact, Piccard himself wasn't even sure what he was doing, but it was always healthy to have a hobby. He looked at the self-made clock hung on the wall, it was just about time for lunch. He went out of his studio-slash-lab, and into his room, he raised his goggles that he had forgotten to take off earlier, and wore his jacket.

He made his way to the cafeteria, and saw how packed it was, he slowly raised his right hand to his face, and slowly bowed his head into his hand. Facepalm. Yes, the consequences of his redundancy was rearing its ugly head once more. He sighed, and waited outside the cafeteria for the line to die down, one of the perks of being a tinkerer was that he was used to frustrating situations, and in turn was much more patient. The crowd finally thinned itself, and Piccard finally entered. Although, as soon as he stepped inside, instead of the usual chatter, he heard shouts and insults, he eyed the commotion with half-parts caution, and half-parts uninterest. He picked up a tray while still eyeing the two students arguing. He went to the hot food queue, got himself some turkey, and went to the soup line and got chowder.

Piccard looked back at the two students and saw that the commotion had calmed when he was finished collecting his food-stuff, one of the black-uniformed men was taking the two students out of the area. He now started searching for a table, and found where Aislinn, Clark, and the always-gender ambiguous Keepa were sitting, Keepa's true gender may trouble some other students, but to him, 'looks like a girl, sounds like a girl, is a girl.' So he didn't mind much. He made his way to their table.

"Hi guys. I'm gonna sit here if you don't mind." He said with a smile, his eyes going to each of them. He set his tray down and sat a few inches beside Aislinn. He gave Keepa a small nod and a smile. He cracked his neck to either side. "So Clark, got anything to trade? I happen to have something back at my room that you may be interested in." He said with a smile. "Aislinn, I got your commission, almost finished, I trust I'll get compensated handsomely?" With a sly smirk and a wink.

[Psyker Landshark]

Looking up as she heard the commotion, the Helena currently eating pizza absentmindedly wiped her mouth with a napkin as she watched the argument occur. Frowning, the Helena designated to socializing shook her head in exasperation at the scene before she turned back to her table.

"And they wonder why I don't join any of their little clubs." She said mockingly as the feuding students were dragged away. Being a Conceptual, members from Athena, Xerxes, and Vlad had all tried to recruit her for their respective factions at one point or another. Helena had turned them all down, though, stating that she rather liked her independence. Naturally, none had taken it well, but repeated ass-kickings had beat it the message into them. And then she met her current friend group, filled with rather powerful Aspects.

As Clark asked about the possibility of another concert to Katsuo, Helena perked up, turning to the boy.

"Please tell me this is happening." Helena grinned, her eyes glinting. "I know that Ashita screws with our heads to look as cute as she does, but I can't help it. She's fucking adorable. I'll even cook you food if I have to."

Even though she knew how Katsuo's Xeno worked, Helena still couldn't resist Ashita's charms. The last time they talked, Morrigan had berated her for simply giving in to the cuteness, but it was so bloody hard not to.

Meanwhile, the third Helena absentmindedly cursed under her breath as her hero exploded in Hearthstone.

"Fucking handlocks...I'm never going to get Legend." She moaned.

[Hawlin]

'Santa Clark'
It had a good ring and I would be sure to work it into the mix. The people filed into their lines and then up to the table, I was a bit distracted with my choices; a container of one of those strange juice that was always frozen by the time lunch rolled around.
After my display I shrugged, it seemed like The 'chew you up and spit you out' motion had worked, more or less. I was surprised by the lack of people who knew anything about my fight this morning, although I suppose it was better that way, I'd hate to accrue distaste from faction...which I suppose is the reason why I've abstained from their call.

I bit off the end of my sammich before dunking it into the thick soup I had gotten as a combo.
"Uhao- no, not at all" I called to first Aislinn Who had wanted to sit at the table. I took a bite, wiping my mouth with one of the excess of napkins that I had made a point to gather. I nodded to Piccard, figuring people had better things to do than nod at each other as I sunk my teeth into the soupy-sandwich that I would make most of my lunch out of....

Not to mention with people so distracted by the classmates being dragged off.

~~~~~~~~~

Keepa paused while the rabble rousers were dragged off, the silence having been broken by the copy of Helena exploding at the sight of Ashita. With little to no understanding of Hearthstone, Keepa let the rest of it be, diving into their soupy sandwich without quarter. The idea of the disciplinary faculty being a sterilized white-coat Gman with zipties frightened Keepa, although they supposed they had nothing to worry about, being an upstanding bystander as they were.

"Top Idol?" Keepa asked, usually kept in the dark about everything that went on. The reason was unknown, but it was still a happening. "I-ehrmm, I do believe that there is...progress"