St. Anne Academy of Magic

Gym

Dian heard Marianne as he walked away, but said nothing.

A few minutes later, he walked back out of the changing room fully clothed.

He walked by her, and in a flat tone said simply:

"No."

edited 3rd Sep '15 6:13:30 PM by Daydre

Straza pouted, and went back to her regular, red-skinned, sluttily-dressed form. "Man...You two are such party-poopers...Well, hopefully, my regular form is sexy enough."

Isra's mouth pinched shut as she worked on reigning in her powers. The sudden disappearance of that aura had - she refused to admit that it was saddening to feel it go, but it was fine to say that it left her a bit offbalance, like a vacuum appearing suddenly. She pulled back the errant threads of herself, envisioning her skin as a fine, tightly-woven net, tucking the questing pieces back inside and pulling the edges tightly shut. "What, is this the first time that trick hasn't worked perfectly?"

Lab

Cody helped Julia up of her feet, then said "Sorry for the whole asking you questions during the magic thing. I just kind of forgot that that wasn't a great idea."

Cody looked at the creature they had created, and realised somethig was missing. "Oh, we should probably get her a collar or something, right?"

Felicidad shook her head lightly at Straza's playfulness, then she answered to Isra's question "No, it doesn't, because she took the form of my current girlfriend, which ain't cool at all."

"It's..okay," she said dejectedly to Straza. "You just didn't know about my situation yet, besides, you're alright with your original form...So anyway, Imma go shower and get dressed, meet me at the school gate then we be going. See ya there."

She walked away from the duo, grabbed her stringer bag and walked towards the door, though she slow down for a bit to see if anyone needs anything from her.

In spite of Julia been drained of all of her energy towards Artemis revival, or perhaps because of it, she still managed to laugh at Cody's dumb joke. Or some dumb set of priority.

She allow Cody to help her up, then she grab the wooden stool over to her and sat on it, leaning herself onto the lab table behind her, feeling relieved that her work is done. She looked over to the side to check on her creation, only to be alarmed as fuck when she saw that Artemis was licking Al's head.

"Hey, Artemis, no! Bad deeeAHHH!" Julia tried to command the deer to stop as she try to get up but it ended up with her rolling to the side and landed on the dirty tile floor face first.

"Ow," she moaned, muffled by the floor.

Lab

Julia found a hand reaching down to help her up. Justin gave a slightly wry smile.

"Hey, you okay there?" He waited to see if she would take his hand.

Straza watched Felicidad leave, specifically, her backside. Then she turned to Isra. "If it's a guy, I can usually get them into bed pretty quick. Girls are way harder, most of the time."

Lab

Cody ran after Artemis, not even noticing Julia falling. "Hey Artemis! Get back here! Bad Deer!" As he reached Al, he began pulling at her neck, trying to take her off of Al.

And somehow, Felicidad can sense that someone is watching her well developed glutes but she just set that silly thought aside and went straight to her dorm.

She clean herself up, after throwing the martial arts dummy out of the shower stall, styled up her hair so as she can allow it to flow seemingly effortlessly and lusciously from top of her head to her shoulder as opposed to the usual pony tail that she always sport on for practicality. As for her clothing, she opt for a plain white tee, red plaid jacket and dark blue fitting jeans, a bit plain but she's just exploring the nearby town so no need to be so extravagant.

As she exit her room, she wondered if the Straza and Isra would be there and not just dismiss her sudden invitation as a joke.

Julia quickly took a hand as leverage to get herself up very quickly and turned to help out Cody by grabbing the torso part. The good news is that they managed to move Artemis away from Al. The bad news, with the way Julia's been grappling the thing, she got down onto the floor again, this time hugging a 125 lb deer on top of her, now licking onto her hair instead.

And she's having a rather hearty giggle about it.

Lab

"Need any help?"

Now finished with his own construct, Victor approached Cody and Julia. Sitting on top of his head like a strange hat was his beetle construct, which was quietly buzzing. "Nice deer, by the way." Victor added, looking at Artemis.

edited 4th Sep '15 11:17:04 AM by svenorzokarkoff

Bookstore

"A brain is a terrible thing to splatter on the wall, too." Hela said. "Subtlety is cool," she shifted into Leo's voice, "and I would know," then to Antoin's, "but you should really consider putting a bit more of a smokescreen behind your oh-so-clever applications into Life Magic, ah-ha-ha-ha." She twirled an imaginary mustache around her snout and slapped her cash onto Vecna's desk. "We all watched Avatar as kids, so stop."

Al swiveled his head around to tap Justin on the shoulder. "Thanks man. Good to know the community has Allies who're willing to lend a helping hand. Herschel." The other Golem swiveled his eyelights around to look at Al and Justin. "This man is named Justin Henderson. He's a friend."

Bookstore

"Must every speech of interesting applications and open-mindedness be tainted by such bad examples?" Antoin shook his head.

Hela got no overt reaction from Antoin. He just kept smiling - in no way a malicious smile, but instead just a mirthful expression.

Though one perhaps somewhat without cause.

Magical Theory

Justin supposed that this was good. So the Golem named his creation. Well, I did style mine after that thing and named it accordingly. Perhaps I should put a bit more soul into my Magitech - but for such a chain of creation I need to understand...

"Yeah..." After helping Julia up, Justin almost slipped a little, but rebalanced and went to take his seat, "I'll see you guys around."

Though, it is rather nice to have friends.

edited 4th Sep '15 9:11:09 PM by NickTheSwing

Vecna's Books

For a moment it seemed like Dagan wasn't even there, everybody else busy with their books and/or customers. True to form, he was nowhere to be seen.

Well, until he had emerged from the darkest corner of the library with two books, carefully held in his slightly inappropriate hands. Perhaps that was why he cradled them as if they were to shatter the moment he shifted.

Slowly, he placed them on the desk. "Couldn't get the description for that one." He gestured towards the book without a name, in a solid black cover adorned with various religious symbols painted white. The other one titled How To Homebrew Your Own Poison seemed almost innocent compared to it. Good thing it was a tongue-in-cheek comedy rather than an actual trainer on brewing poisons.

((Mr. Halpert's class is a rather large infodump. It's there if you want it, though reading it is unnecessary. I'm doing a timeskip. If there's stuff you still want to do in this scene, as with the previous time, you're welcome to do it via flashback.))

Book Store

Leo had no idea what Hela was on about. Something about splattered brains? She was talking in...Was that really what he sounded like? Was he really that high pitched? Yeah, it must be, 'cause now she was talking in Antoin's voice.

"That does sound like something a bad guy would say." Leo said to Antoin. His voice sounded a fraction of an octave deeper. "I really just want to know how to make my own minions. My Magical Theory teacher isn't going to teach that unit, so..." He looked at the clock. It was getting near the deadline. He didn't know if Mr. Halpert would notice him being gone, but he didn't want to risk it.

"I'm going back to the plaza. It was nice hanging out with you guys." He said. The door jingled as he walked out.

Ruckersville Town Square

Mr. Halpert left the coffee shop with a much redder face than normal. He had made sure to hide his hip flask before leaving. He grinned as he beheld his students, gathered in front of the statue. He was tipsy enough that he could give his lesson, but too tipsy to make sure all his students were there.

"Hello class~" The professor said, grinning. "You all look great. You guys are great. You're so great I'm gonna teach you about the history of Ruckersville!" Leo was sitting on a bench. The History Teacher sure seemed to be in a good mood.

"Did you know Halloween got its start in this very town? Well, there were traditions around the autumn harvest in most of the western world before it. But! Most of the Halloween traditions we follow got their start here."

"Like I said earlier, a lot of monsters came to the Americas with the pilgrims. This was back before the Avalon Treaty. Most of them were hoping to evade persecution. Like, at least 95%. But the other 5% were the ones that liked to eat people. There were also rogue Mages who wanted to use people as subjects for experiments, and Heroes who wanted to use their powers for personal gain. The New World was relatively lawless. There were human militias, but the only reason early colonial towns survived was because monsters and humans worked together. So the American colonies were relatively progressive in regards to human and supernatural relationships." Mr. Halpert seemed to be getting into it. He took a step to the side, because he was worried the students would miss the giant statue behind him instead of himself.

"See this? This dragon. This dragon right here! He wanted to take over the American colonies. A really old dragon from Scotland. There aren't a lot of dragons around today. They were built as living weapons by ancient wizards, and nobody knows how to do it anymore. But this dragon! His name's Xecilgarasp. He woke up from suspended animation, and he decided to go and take over the newly formed colonies. He just started going to different towns, and if they didn't give him taxes he'd burn them to the ground. But see this lady?" He was pointing at a statue of a woman with a ponytail, wielding an immense hammer.

"That's St. Anne. Well, back then she was just Annabelle Pierce. She was head of the Ruckersville Militia. One of the greatest heroes of her time. Built a barn by herself in one day, she could carry cows around in each hand. She heard about this Xecilgarasp asshole, and she's like "No way that guy is gonna burn down my town!" So she travelled to some other settlements, and recruited nine of the strongest warriors she could find. There was Ronaldo the Sharkman, and there was Lenny the Lizardman, and I have an action figure of Titania, the Fairy Queen."

"Anywho. All nine of them battled Xecilgarasp. They met him..." The teacher searched the horizon, and then pointed at the top of the ferris wheel, which was just visible beyond the buildings. "The old amusement park is built over the site of the battle. They finally killed him when Halloween, the Fire Mage, flew into Xecilgarasp's mouth and then exploded himself within the dragon. Honestly, I think that was a little excessive, but that's probably why I'm a history teacher and not a great hero."

"The fight was a pretty huge event in Human-Monster relations. It was a bunch of humans and a bunch of monsters working together to save each other. It had happened before in other parts of the world, but it did allow humans and monsters to coexist in the colonies a lot better than in many other parts of the world. It's also why we celebrate Halloween. There were many traditions associated with the fall harvest before, but it was...Shall we say, made Official after the Battle of Ruckersville. Originally, kids would just dress as the nine militia members, but it ended up with them dressing in costume in general."

Mr. Halpert checked his watch.

"It's a little early, but I think that's all I wanted to tell you guys today. I need to...Um. I left my wallet at the cafe. Yeah." The history teacher said, stumbling back to the coffee shop.

"That was...That was a lesson." Leo said, nodding. He wondered if he was supposed to take notes. He wasn't sure he could remember that. Hell, he doubted Mr. Halpert would remember all that tomorrow. He looked back and forth, not sure what to do.

"I guess we're supposed to go back to the school?" He said.

Magical Theory Class

Mr. Strake had been helping students when he wasn't standing by in case a construct went crazy and tried to murder someone. He had been keeping his single eye on Artemis as he helped a student create a carrion crawler, but luckily, it seemed it was taken care of.

"Good job today, everyone. Nobody was maimed, which I consider to be pretty good. I'd ask you all to leave your constructs here so I can grade them, but we'll be looking at them in-depth tomorrow, and sometimes it's good to bond with them." Mr. Strake said. "So you can leave them here if you need to, but you're welcome to take them home if you like."

Ruckersville, Virginia - Logan's Flowers

Leo placed the last flower pot on the shelf. Three weeks had passed since he had gotten his grimoire. It had taken him one to find a job. Ruckersville had a good, stable economy, and finding work as a Mage wasn't difficult. Most businesses could benefit from it somehow, and usually paid handsomely.

"Good work today, Leo. Man, I'd kill to be able to do the crazy stuff that Mages can do." Leo's manager, Logan said. He was a stout man, with a black goatee and twinkling hazel eyes behind a pair of rectangular spectacles.

"Th-Thanks." Leo said. He was never good at dealing with praise. He'd spent the past hour using his magic to accelerate the growth of Mr. Logan's flowers. It took him about an hour every day. If he was a better life mage, or just a novice plant mage, he'd be able to cast a spell that would simply make the plants grow faster throughout their lifespan. But for now, all he could manage was about a day's worth of enhanced growth. He supposed this way, he did make more money, but he couldn't help but wonder if he should be thinking like that.

St. Anne - Hallways

After saying his goodbyes to his boss, he had returned to the Academy. The ides of october were upon them, and the orange of the trees contrasted with the bright blue of the sky. The sun was just starting to dip low in the sky, tinting it with flecks of yellow and peach. Leo found that if you were coming in from town, the fastest way to the dorms was through the school. He stopped in the halls to look at the bulleting board by the office. First off was the Halloween Dance. He had known it was coming, but it did remind him that maybe he should think about getting a date. It also advertised that The Backstreet Boys were playing. Leo didn't even know they were still around. Wouldn't they be like 40?

But the poster that really caught his attention was a poster advertising for positions on Student Council. Elections were coming up soon. They were normally a bit earlier in the year, but the Vice Principal had gotten lost in the ceiling, and he was the one who was in charge of most of the paperwork. Leo was kind of interested in it. Not for President, he doubted he'd win, but he did want to join an elective. He decided to head down to the student council room and see what it was about before dinner.

It's been a while since Felicidad has been going out with some of her friends she has made in class, most frequently Isra and Straza. The former she hangs out with because she's, with all intents and purposes, mysterious but she is rather friendly for a girl that is unwilling to open up her past, though it might also might be that Felicidad respected her personal space too much.

Straza, on the other hand, her friendship with her is much harder to explain because it seems like Straza's been riding on nothing more than thoughts of fucking, which makes sense since she's a succubus but nonetheless hard for Felicidad to stay clean for the sake of her girlfriend since Straza's been flirting non-stop, so why even bother making friends with her? Well, Felicidad would have told you that she'd been wanting to ask some questions regarding Hell and everything surrounding it but never got around to asking due to Straza's carefree lifestyle and the morality difficulty of her questions. Really, she only hangs with her because she's the closest person Felicidad has to a brah, if that makes sense, as the boys in St Anne, unlike her homies back home, are rather tame and, quite frankly, boring in her opinion. Plus both of them likes hip-hop, and that's basically good enough of a friendship to hang onto, just to argue whether or not To Pimp A Butterfly is the greatest of all time.

Oh yeah, and speaking of rap, that was this concert that they went to, it ended rather badly...

About a week ago

Felicidad was draped in a black hoodie with the hood up, already feeling the cold from the autumn winds, as well as a pair of jeans that she put her hands into as she walked towards the open grass field at the other end of the town. An open air rap concert was held there, $5 entry fee plus an assortment of merchandise to be bought and the headlining act is rising superstar Cal Chuchesta, that's a bargain that Felicidad can't miss, so she, along with her two buddies, come along to the show, see what Ruckersville have to offer and-

The knock on the door awoke the groggy Felicidad off her bed. She yawned loud and long as she sat up and rolled herself out of bed, with her blanket wrapped around her, she only wears a black bra and panties to sleep and, while she is has no instance of body dysmorphia and not afraid to show off her body, she rather not expose herself to the other guys in the hallway.

"Hey sis," Julia greeted meekly as soon as Felicidad open the door.

"Hey, what's going on, sis?" Felicidad greeted back with a sudden resurge of energy, scuffling Julia's hair as she does so, making Julia looking more ruffled than usual with her oversized T-shirt with a panda on it with a small pink shorts, fitting for a lazy Sunday afternoon. She beckoned her over to sit on the bed with her.

"So..." Julia started as she let herself down onto the mattress, though she paused for a bit when she realized that the mattress is harder than expected "You know about that Halloween Dance that's coming up soon-"

"And you wanna ask some dude out for a date," Felicidad interrupted Julia's question bluntly. She have heard this before. "No problem, just go up to that fucker and asked if he wanna be your bf or nah. That's what my girl did and we cool...mostly."

"I...ermm...uhh..." Julia mumbled as she blushed from the bluntness. "So I should just go to his room and ask of my intentions, basically?"

Felicidad nodded in confirmation and encouraged "Go get em, tiger." and a hard slap onto her back.

"Ahh, that hurt!" Julia complained but instead of going away like what Felicidad predicted, Julia slap her back onto her bicep.

"Oooh," and instead of angering her, she was rather amused. "My baby sister got sass. Ain't no hard times in slap city." and slap her back on the shoulder. What entails afterwards is a fast-paced turn based slap-a-thon, with each hit on Julia make her more jittery and whimper while every hit on Felicidad just make her laugh more until it accumulated into a thousand mini slap on Julia's head, playing it like a bouncy ball between a rock and a hard place with a headlock and some noogies to top off this mini sister moment.

"Haha, keep up like this and nothing will stop you," despite the outcome, Felicidad still commend her sis for being sassy, even if Julia ended up on the floor tired and slapped around. Julia still gave two thumbs up and a weak smile to that comment and quickly got onto her feet and make her way out of the door, saying "Yeah, I will, sis! Nothing's gonna stop me, I will take Cody out for a dance and fuck him silly!"

"Erm...exclude that last part and you're golden."

"Yeah, no, I won't actually do that last part, but Imma still get him!"

Then with a hearty grin and a stomp out of the room full of excitement, Julia exited the room.

Then she poked back in and asked "Oh, and how is Sherane nowadays? I kinda miss her."

Well, what a way to sour the moment, Felicidad thought. Still, it's reasonable that she ask that, whenever Sherane comes around to their house, she basically treated her like any normal caring sister should probably do and Julia laps it up like an easily excitable dog. Felicidad kept her facial expression untouched by the question and answered "Oh, she's alright. She missed us dearly but I promised her that we'll be back for her and stuff so that she don't worry too much, you shouldn't too."

"Ah, okay, just checking," seems like Julia satisfied with her answer and dashed off for real.

In reality, it's anything but alright. Over the past few weeks, Sherane has been progressively grouchy lately, over phone calls and text. Said something about her long transformation to a full vampire being upping her predator instinct inside of her, that's what her seniors told her. At first Sherane thought they were full of shits and just carrying on the violent stereotypes of vampires like eating fried chicken and watermelon as blacks.

But she couldn't help but feel that she has been so aggressive lately, not helping were the vicious gossiping about their now exposed intimate relationship costing her a few friends and even some goodwill from some teachers. That reached its logical conclusion when she heard her ex-friend of accusing her being a dyke ho right in front of her face and spat onto Sherane's shoes, that ended in a beatdown madness, broken nose, black eyes on both sides and a dislocated jaw for the thot and a bleeding knuckles, counselling, daily detention till next week and a taint on her previously spotless permanent record for Sherane. Hearing her cry over the phone while not being there to offer a shoulder and wipe away the tears is just so...

Ah man, am I shedding tears, Felicidad thought as she feel herself sob. It didn't help that last night, Sherane thought that she was cheating with her with some demonic girl and have been scolding her relentlessly over the phone throughout the night, hence why Felicidad was just getting up right now. Felicidad tried her best to explain that Straza is just a friend, she knows Sherane won't take that for an answer but she still continues on. Felicidad thought that a gangster vamps have been spying on them and snitched on her to add fuel to the family feud back home that she had just found out about. Now she's just wondering if they can manage to stay together at all with this long distance relationship.

Texting In Class!

Hela shot a text to the group she'd labeled THE SQUAD. Adrienne, Marienne, Felicidad, and Julia, all people who'd witnessed the incident from a few weeks ago and who were all at least in part interested in uncovering what the fuck that key was supposed to be for. Sneaking a hand under her desk, she texted them a recent floorplan of the school, with sections drawn on in MS Paint to show sections from older blueprints found in Vecna's book and anything the team had dug up in the library.

searching all the markd areas tonight. lemme know if any of u guys want in, tell me wher u wanna look and ill work around that.

Al pinned yet another poster to another board in the school, perfectly flush with the edges—literally inhuman precision. He'd made his poster a bit minimalist, co-opting some stylized Golurk imagery to evoke the image of a strong golem, and used his own handwriting to emphasize his own relatability. He had many more to put up, but it was going to be worth it.

Cody and Victors Room

Cody lay on his bed, half asleep, maintaining eye contact with Artemis. The Deer lived in his room now, with Julia coming around every few days to recharge her with Necromancy energy. He'd been training her with the usual dog tricks, like fetch and sit and lie down, but for the past while he'd been working on something a little more complicated.

Entering animals dreams could be quite useful. They were way easier to influence than people, due to their weaker minds, and he'd actually used birds dreams when he was first learning magic, in an attempt to improve his abilities. The problem was getting her to sleep. Artemis was still a dog in brain, and so went to sleep fairly sporadically, like dogs are known to do. For the past while he'd been researching a new spell, to allow him to put creature to sleep. Artemis was a good target, as she had a fairly simple mind.

Holding up his hand, Cody snapped his fingers, and the Deer fell asleep. Closing his eyes, Cody lay back, and, activating the runes around his bed, he too fell asleep, entering Artemis's dream.

The Hallways

Marianne was defacing election posters, whose didn't matter to her, writing VOTE NO THANKS! across them in marker when Hela texted her. She ducked into a corridor and replied Im bored and I'm In.

Antoin kept his mouth shut, deciding evidently not to pursue this further while Hela was around and butting in. He listened in dutifully after paying for his grimoires, thinking about how this whole area was founded on battle and such.

It did at least make his job somewhat easier.

The teacher was a louse, and he'd make sure to rate this poorly on Rate My Teacher, but for now it was good enough.

Back to school, back to the routine, and back to whatever he was doing this week.

Justin decided to take Kardiak Mk2 with him purely so he could make modifications and alterations on his creation, by and large its size and capabilities. He thanked the Professor as the class ended, “Thank you for another good day...woah...”

He almost fell and managed to catch himself.

“Uh...yeah. I suppose I'll see you next class.” He left for his dorm, and as soon as he arrived he fell into his bed for what he thought was just a quick nap.

He slept for ten hours.

Three weeks later, Matthew was thinking about what to do with his free time. He had occupied a pretty high position in his old school, but he didn't miss that terribly much. For now he would settle into practicing how to get out of grapples and new ways of using his heroic gifts. He really hoped Felicidad wouldn't hold his “unorthodox tactic” against him.

Right now he was walking through the halls, and coughed when he saw Marianne defacing some of the posters. Though he said nothing on the subject.

I swear, its like the statue attack weeks ago made everyone stir crazy...

He also thought about what he saw in the cafeteria. That was definitely the same man who started the fighting the first day, but nobody seemed to mind.

I need to get to the bottom of this.

Justin smiled as he looked over some of the posters – he didn't have the time to run for office being that he had dedicated most of his free time to his magitech, but he supported Al's run. He chuckled a little at the Golurk Poster, and wondered who the primary opposition might be.

He had spent his three weeks working on Kardiak Mk2 and other magitech creations, including some more combat-oriented models. After the statues on the first day he reasoned one can never be too careful.

He decided to reach out and try to talk to Adrienne.

But first he'd need to find her.

Maybe I should talk to Arlen before going forward about the key, given he was there and all...nah. What Mr. 1488 doesn't know won't hurt him any. Besides – I honestly think it'd be in his best interest to forget this talk about keys and destiny.

Arlen spent his three weeks putting himself through the wringer. He had stopped eating the same meal day after day, ran and did lunges to and from the local town. He'd even started making use of a training mat in his room. And for whatever it was worth, he stopped posting and associating so heavily on certain boards online.

All in order to make sure he was prepared adequately for what he believed was an actual, worthwhile fight that had him thinking constantly.

He was returning, thus, from a run to the town when he came across Leo, evidently returning similarly from the town.

It was then he recalled something that was four weeks ago extremely important to him. Honestly, with everything going on, I forgot about the key and all that destiny stuff.

He didn't know presently if that was a good thing or a bad thing. He just had a lot on his mind recently. Given he hadn't been in contact with the old gang he had gotten some rather nasty messages, but this simply brought to mind something else Arlen had been contemplating.

Maybe it was time to say goodbye to the old...and join in with the new.

Electile Dysfunction

Al stepped back as Marianne moved down the hall on her quest for defacement, snapping ten seconds of video as she did so. Then he moved in, placing a red clay hand on her shoulder. "You want to maybe stop that? Or at least spare mine?"

Marianne's head drooped in defeat. "Okay, fair cop. If you don't turn me in I'll stop. Deal?" Then she added "You do realize elections are pointless right? These positions are just figureheads for the real powers behind the scenes, people we never meet or see."

Felicidad's smart phone started to laugh like a demonic CT Fletcher, in other words, Hela send her a text. Felicidad lay back down on her bed and grabbed her phone which was lodged in the crack between the bed frame and the wall. She reads the text, then put it down for a moment to think for literally a second. No class, rest day, already done some cardio, now resting inside of my room crying about my bae, yeah, I should get something to take things off my mind.

She texted back, "Yeah, sure, why not? You know where we going and we're meeting where?"

Julia got the text too but she wanted to focus on her problem for now before checking her phone.

"Hey, Cody! she greeted while knocking on his door, then placed her hands back to her knees to subconsciously shake them about in anticipation.

Dorm Room

Adrienne smiled as she opened a large package that she'd gotten from the mail room earlier. Her mom had been working on this for a while, but it was finally finally done.

A short time later, she stood in front of a mirror, wearing her entirely new enchanted armor. It wasn't full plate or anything, but it had been made to help her fight. A pair of boots made to make her faster and more agile (and jump higher too - she'd tested some preliminary versions over the summer and felt like a grasshopper,) magically-toughened bracers with small foci embedded inside, torso armor that fit neatly under her clothes, and a late addition - a mask that would protect her nose, mouth, and eyes that she'd asked for after seeing Arlen try to kill Hela.

She ran a few drills with her sword, checking the fit of everything. Satisfied, she activated the last feature, and pulled all the armor into her bracelet's space.

Adrienne pulled out her phone as it buzzed with texts. We can try checking the maid tunnels under the school. They haven't been in use for ages but they go under the dorms and the older buildings.

Hadar whistled as he posted posters. He wasn't planning on running for Stu Co president, but there were lesser positions up for grabs. It was a bit stereotypical, but he thought he had a good head for numbers and so was running for treasurer.

Hallways

"Like The Jews?" Al said with a laugh. "Don't worry. I've been accused of being an enforcer for a grand conspiracy enough times to come clean if that turns out to actually be the case. Best case scenario," he pointed to Hadar, "maybe we'll get some better monstrous representation on student council and the school becomes a nicer place to live. Worst case, nothing changes, which makes this a positive-sum game, you know?"

all that sounds good. Hela texted back. mayb we can find some longlost sexy maid costumes for the halloween dance thing. realtalk tho im goin and i wanna know if yall got plans too.

Hela had her own plans for the party. Honestly, she'd just been fucking around with Adrienne for too long. Comrades in battle was one thing, but being close enough to defer to her, to ask questions, that was another thing entirely. It felt dishonest to not at least give that a shot later.

Mariane looked offended and said, "Just because I wear black leather does not mean I'm one of Arlen's goosestepper wannabes. Besides Zionist conspiracies are passé. It's not the Jews." Her voice dropped into an ominous whisper. It's the penguins! They're in league with a race of sentient tofu!. Then she wiggled her eyebrows Groucho Marx style to show she wasn't serious. "Nah, really, I have no theories about who's pulling the strings, just that someone is. I mean it would be a piss poor conspiracy if some lowly student could suss it out wouldn't it?"

edited 6th Sep '15 7:45:30 PM by tricksterson