PREP Highschool

[Earl of Purple]

PE Block

"Like they'll be able to figure it out. They've not noticed I've been cheating on my maths and geography homework and it's been three months. This is something way more important than my academic future, there's no way they'll find whoever did it." Fred sighs and rolls her eyes at the suggestion. She'll outright hand Mary the orb, and puts the storm-bottle in her own pocket. "Best they'll do is confiscate the lot and give us detention for breaking into the locker and touching stuff that's not ours." Fred doesn't have the best opinion of the teachers, it seems. Granted, she might be a bit of a troublemaker, given her arrival on the first day, ploughing through the gate and churning up grass with an obsolete tank.

There's another trail of the aftershave leading away from the locker, two in fact. One is stronger than the other, implying it's more recent... though the more recent trail heads straight to the showers, which might prove an issue if they washed themselves. The other is older, and leads to this locker, with a branch off towards the locker that Synthia had used, presumably to steal her face and use it as a warning.

[bc56]

Room ???
"You b..." Mary begins, angered by Aiko's callousness.

Snap!

The dream vanishes. Aiko is back in her seat in class. That strange woman who appeared is standing over her, unharmed.

There's a crash from Mary's hiding place in the hall just outside the room. Then another sound.
"Ribbit."
One croak is followed by another, and another, and the chorus of frogs is accompanied by a thick cloud of black smoke.

The stranger (Mary's mother?) wastes no time in rushing out into the hallway.

[Ironsmith]

[PE Block]

"Well, we should probably still at least tell them." Tahara replies, hands on her hips. "...Tell you what, I'll even take the heat for it. Say I broke into the lockers and stole the stuff myself. Then if it turns out that, yeah, they really are as useless as you think, at least we'll know that instead of just speculating." She turns on her heels and starts in the direction her roaches were trailing off into, before stopping short of the shower and letting out an involuntary shudder, layers of roaches peeling away from her front and crawling back away from the room in fear. "...Er... I guess you'll have to do this part on your own, though." She says with a sheepish little smile. "Just don't do anything I wouldn't do, okay?"


[Room ???]

Aikobaz snaps up from her desk, sitting up with such speed that she might end up bonking the woman behind her in the lip with her head. She's not aware of the demon queen's presence at first, but when she does realize there's someone in the room with her who isn't a student or her teacher, she wheels around to face her...

And promptly lets out a little shriek of surprise and fright, stumbling back against the desks.

Oh gods, she's real after all.

Which... probably means Aikobaz is in a lot of trouble.

ribbit, ribbit

The empress's gaze snaps over to the hallway door, where the smoke and the frogs are pouring through, and swallows hard. She is... definitely in a lot of trouble.

"I hate group assignments." She mumbles to herself.

[bc56]

PE Block
Mary frowns. She's pretty sure the staff are more competent than that. But she wants to have a hand in stopping this creep.
She nods to Tahara. "Coming, Fred?" She steps into the showers.

Room ???
"We'll talk later," Sekhmet says to Aikobaz. She's less of a demonic specter outside the dream, more solid and dressed sensibly in heavy winter clothing instead of in shifting flames and shadows.
The Witch and her frogs follow the smoke cloud into the classroom. But this witch has batlike wings, horns, and a barbed tail. "Mary! Mary, please listen to me!" She rushes towards the witch with the same maneuver she used in the dream - a hug.

[Earl of Purple]

PE Block

Into the showers they go! Except Tahara, since she's afraid of cleanliness. Not really a surprise, I guess.

There's five cubicles on each side, the partitions not reaching all the way from floor to ceiling and the doors even shorter. Inside the cubicles, the floor slopes to a drain in the middle and bolted to the wall is a pipe with a shower head at the top and there's two buttons at different heights in the wall; each turns the shower on for a set period, one slightly higher than comfortable for human-scale folk and the other placed much lower, for those shorter than humans. At the far end there's another door to a small toilet, the door of which is shut. Nobody's using the showers at the moment, though there's lingering dampness and a large puddle, running from an out-of-order shower cubicle across to another drain. Somebody wearing shoes has stepped in said puddle, and left footprints leading to the toilet.

Fred will push open all the cubicle doors with the tip of her sword, eyeing the empty spaces within suspiciously.

[Ironsmith]

Room ???
"We'll talk later," Sekhmet says to Aikobaz. She's less of a demonic specter outside the dream, more solid and dressed sensibly in heavy winter clothing instead of in shifting flames and shadows.
The Witch and her frogs follow the smoke cloud into the classroom. But this witch has batlike wings, horns, and a barbed tail. "Mary! Mary, please listen to me!" She rushes towards the witch with the same maneuver she used in the dream - a hug.

[Room ???]

Aikobaz sticks out her foot to catch Sekhmet before she gets too far, and climbs onto her back to keep her on the ground if she's successful. "Are you out of your mind, lady?" She demands, doing whatever she can to convince the demon queen to step back. "You just got stabbed doing that. And you don't get immunity out here in the real world. Are you trying to make her an orphan again?"

Harsh, maybe, but somebody had to say it.

"Here's what we're going to do. We're going to get everyone else out of this room. Then we're going to close it off so she can't escape and burn the rest of the school to the ground. And then we're going to get her back. Understood?"

[Rebonack]

[The Library]

Not the library in the arcanium.

Just the regular library.

The one with regular library books.

Khannie isn't after arcane tomes at the moment. Nothing about magic or spells or elemental spirits or even on the topic of weird pokemon stuff. That isn't what Khannie is after today. No, she's perusing the history section of the library. Not really looking for anything specific, honestly. Just walking along the shelves and reading the spines looking for something that catches her fancy.

Because Khannie likes history.

And sometimes reading a good history book is fun.

What's not to like about learning how people in the past overcame their problems?

...usually through wars.

That's what most of the history books focus on, anyway. Kings and wars and empires and stuff. Mostly because that's what people boasted about on their historical monuments.

[Earl of Purple]

The Library

On a section detailing modern war, Khannie will find Gemini. She's a fourteen-year-old girl with straight black hair, hazel eyes, olive skin and Mediterranean features, wearing a school uniform altered by the addition of goggles which hang around one of her necks and a handkerchief tied around her other neck. One of her bodies is currently reading a book on chariots whilst her other body is making notes. The reason why Khannie might want to interact with them is because of where they are- sat in the middle of an aisle, taking up all the room. There's no easy way past them.

[Rebonack]

[The Library]

There are a LOT of weird kids at PREP.

Some weirder than others. Khannie doesn't know all of them. She doesn't even know OF all of them. And there's more than one pair of twins with unusual features or abilities in the school. So suffice to say Khannie has no idea which of those twin pairs this one is. She's not some kind of social prodigy after all. Her protagonist power isn't having all the friends. It's being a secret pokemon. And a super hero. And having crazy shadow magic. And a digimon partner. Previously being a magical girl was on that list, too.

But she's glad to be rid of that one.

"Hey, I need to squeeze by here," Khannie says, pointing to the books on religious history nearby. She's always liked mythology and she's settled on what sort of book she wants to check out. After maybe kind of joining Keiko's cult she wants to learn a little more about religious stuff since that has been a pretty big blind spot in her life in spite of going to a temple-school for years.

She never really thought of joining anything related to Inari's since she didn't farm rice and she wasn't a fox.

Wasn't.

Past tense.

[bc56]

Room ???
Sekhmet trips, but rolls out of the way of Aikobaz trying to sit on her. She actually does get immunity here in the real world, but Aikobaz does make some good points. A barrier of darkness springs up over the exit, and a portal opens. "Everyone, go!" she motions to the portal while getting back to her feet.
The portal leads directly into another portal which leads to the front entrance of PREP. Sekhmet hasn't been to the infirmary or she'd have sent it there.
"Mary! Come back! You're safe here. I love you!"

PE Block
"Look. Footprints." Mary points them out. She follows them into the bathroom carefully. They may or may not belong to the mystery creep. She's not sure. But it won't hurt to check, right?

[Earl of Purple]

Library

Both halves of Gemini stop and look up as Khannie speaks, and get up in the same way. "Sorry about that, we didn't expect anyone to be coming by." Both girls say in perfect unison. One of the girls reaches into a pocket of her blazer and frowns, before the other mimics the movement and pulls out a phone to check the time. "What lesson are you looking up for? I didn't think there were any on religion." Only one of the girls speaks this time, though the other is reading the titles on the shelf Khannie gestured to. The speaker can't see what that shelf's dedicated to from where she's standing, unless she looked at it when they arrived.

[Rebonack]

[Library]

Oh yeah that's definitely creepy.

Not like...

Hungry frozen ghost sort of creepy. Twins perfectly mirroring each other is a different sort of creepy. Apparently they don't always remember which of them is holding their phone?

Anywho!

Khannie gives her head a shake. "Nah, it isn't really for any of my classes. I mean, they talked about some religious history in my history class but that's not really the focus, y'know? I just spent most of my grade school years going to the school at Inari's temple and I haven't ever really looked into that stuff. I've known lots of religious folks but I never really got the point so I figured I may as well see what the big deal is, right?"

Also religious materials often times has information on afterlives and whether or not ghosts are a thing and subjects of that nature. Given that she has met actual ghosts and had a brief chat with an actual psychopomp Khannie is thinking that MAYBE learning a little more about spiritual matters might be a good idea just practically speaking.

[Ironsmith]

Room ???
Sekhmet trips, but rolls out of the way of Aikobaz trying to sit on her. She actually does get immunity here in the real world, but Aikobaz does make some good points. A barrier of darkness springs up over the exit, and a portal opens. "Everyone, go!" she motions to the portal while getting back to her feet.
The portal leads directly into another portal which leads to the front entrance of PREP. Sekhmet hasn't been to the infirmary or she'd have sent it there.
"Mary! Come back! You're safe here. I love you!"

[Room ???]

Aikobaz is quick to usher the other students through the portal, but notably refuses to go through herself. She's not going to step out until she's sure everything is fine.

...Wait, did Sekhmet just...

"Seriously, do you have a deathwish?"

Since when has shouting "I love you" at a concentrated ball of madness been a good idea?

...Maybe it still will be. But Aikobaz doubts it.

If Sekhmet's attempts at calming her daughter don't work, Aikobaz will try a different course of action: get the Witch's attention and let Sekhmet try something a bit sneakier.

"Hey! Brignole!" The shout will come, followed by a thrown eraser. "Forget her! You want me, right? 'The bitch'?"

[bc56]

Room ???
Shouting "I love you" is a lot safer than throwing things. Sekhmet looks at Aikobaz as if to ask, "Are you crazy?"
The Witch's head snaps around to focus on the green-skinned empress. With a beat of her wings, she glides across the classroom. Those rusty metal claws look sharp. She reaches out to disembowel her quarry...
And Sekhmet grabs her from behind and focuses power into her. She uses a spell she's used on Mary dozens of times, one that she hopes will render the Witch mostly harmless until her sanity can be restored.
The Witch shrinks down and folds up into a black-furred kitten, which Sekhmet holds by the scruff of the neck. The kitten mewls and squirms impotently.

[Ironsmith]

[Room ???]

"...Now, see, I'm more partial to mallards, myself, but this? This works." Aikobaz gives Sekhmet a little smile and teasingly waggles her finger in front of Mary, withdrawing her hand before the tiny cat's claws can get at her. "Heh. She hates me so much." The empress snickers, before fixing her attention back on Sekhmet. "...So I take it you're planning on handling her from here." She says conversationally, as though she hadn't caused any major problems throughout this whole adventure. "What did you have in mind?"

[Earl of Purple]

PE Block

"Oh, good spot." Fred stops what she was doing and instead pushes open the toilet door. Inside, there's a single toilet and a sink, with a handdryer mounted on the wall next to the sink, and a pair of bins- a round basket and an oblong bin for feminine products. It's all covered in white tiles, with a mirror above the sink, and there's a rectangular window near the ceiling. The footprints continue into the room, and don't leave again.

The window is open, but getting up and out through it looks like it'd be tricky for many people; it's not very tall, so one would have to wriggle out on their belly, but it's too high to reach easily. There's a strip of mud on the edge of the sink. "I'll get Tahara, see if she can figure out where they went from here. I ain't got a clue." Fred will turn and leave, unless Mary stops her.

Library

In this case, at some point they took their blazers off at the same time and swapped without noticing. It's a problem when wearing uniforms on two seperate bodies; you forget which pockets are used. So the body that should have the phone doesn't.

"That makes sense. My uncle left as part of a religious pilgrimage years ago; they all did, the Dalachrechians, if you've heard of them. Mum's been keeping me away from religion ever since." One of the girls says. "Maybe I should investigate it, since it'll wind Mum up. What do you think, any recommendations on religions to avoid?" The other girl says, whilst looking over the shelf to see if there's anything interesting there.

[bc56]

PE Block
Mary nods and lets Fred go. "It looks like she climbed out the window; I'll check outside and see if there's any trace." Mary points out the open window and the mud on the sink. She doesn't need to duplicate the voyeur's climbing. Instead her wings collapse into her back and her legs fuse and lengthen into a serpentine tail. From there, she can use her arms and coils to lift herself up to the window, then slither through.
She tries not to think about how much of her body is touching the bathroom floor.

Room ???
"I'm going to enter into her mind and undo the damage you did." Sekhmet is not happy. "It wasn't right for her to invade your mind, but if you want this grudge to end, you both need to work towards fixing it." She closes her eyes and focuses.
This will only take a couple minutes (from an outside perspective). If Aikobaz doesn't want to be there when Mary comes to, she should probably leave now.

[Ironsmith]

[Room ???]

"'Grudge'? You make it sound so petty. Like I'm just holding on to the slights of the past without any regard for the present." Aikobaz frowns, crossing her arms. "I would have it known that I do no such thing. No, I'm at odds with your daughter because I do not like her. As in, who she is as a person. She disgusts me. So unless you intend to re-arrange the rest of her mind while you're in there (don't, I would take an even dimmer view of that), I don't expect that will be 'fixed' any time soon."

But she'll still be there when Mary snaps back to reality. This seems like an important moment she shouldn't miss.

[Rebonack]

[Library]

"Nah haven't heard of 'em," Khannie admits as she scoots past to look at a few more titles. "I just know that there are, like, a TON of different ones. And different worlds have got different ones. But I guess most of the Earths have kind of the same ones? My dad isn't from an Earth, though."

Khannie wrinkles her nose s bit.

"Though the religion Inari is from is. I guess maybe I can start with Earth religions and religions from dad's world?"

She had already read about Greek religion. Those stories were cool.

"I dunno if you should do stuff JUST to upset your mom," Khannie reasons.

[bc56]

Room ???
Sekhmet glowers. That sounds exactly like a petty grudge to her.

When Mary finally snaps out of it, she's fuming. The kitten points a claw at Aikobaz and snarls, "Aiko! You b..." Mum! Put me down!" Sekhmet complies, and a moment later the demon princess is back to her normal shape. "I'll teach you to..." "Calm down, Mary. We don't use our powers to hurt people, remember?" "Mum, I... She..." "It's okay. You've had a rough day. But you need to do better from now on. If you hadn't broken into her mind, you wouldn't be in this situation." And a hug. Isn't that sweet.

[Ironsmith]

[Room ???]

Aikobaz won't interrupt the hug, but it should be clear from her expression that she's not pleased with how this turned out. A sentiment she'll voice as soon as the hug ends.

"So, how exactly do you intend to punish her?" Aikobaz frowns, arms crossed. "Because it doesn't sound as though she's internalized the appropriate lesson. She violated a lot of boundaries when she invaded my mind, and no, even though it didn't turn out well for her, this is not a satisfactory outcome." She gives Mary a little glare before turning her attention back to Sekhmet. "Maybe you're afraid to discipline her because of what just happened. You think she's going to stop feeling loved if you have to be hard on her now and then, and if she stops feeling loved..." She kicks aside a dead frog to emphasize the point. "I can assure you, you're not doing her any favors if that is the case. You're only teaching her to regard anyone who does not show her the highest degree of affection to be an enemy, and an enemy to everyone around her, because of that thing in her head."

Aikobaz taps her temple irritably. "I know how you must regard me. Your daughter thinks of me as a 'tyrannical little bitch', and I am sure she has shared that sentiment with you many times. You must wonder who didn't love me enough as a child, for me to turn out the way I did. And the answer to that is absolutely nobody. I had no critics, no checks, nobody to tell me 'no'. Never once was a paddle applied to the royal bottom." She gives Sekhmet a haughty little glare. "So unless you want her to turn out just like me, I suggest you avoid making the same mistake."

Of course, depending on how active Sekhmet's psychic abilities are, she might be able to tell that Aikobaz doesn't fully believe what she's saying. She doesn't think of herself as being as bad as all that. In fact, she tends to think of her assertiveness as a good thing. But she does think the underlying point is valid, and she clearly does not think highly of either of them; she expects Mary to react badly to her proposal, and Sekhmet... admittedly, she doesn't know Sekhmet well, but from what she gathers, her speech might as well have fallen on deaf ears. She expects to have to follow this up with a declaration that she will defend herself if Mary attacks her again and won't be responsible for what happens, leaving the heavy implication that Sekhmet would be.

But she'll give the demon queen a chance to surprise her, at least.

[PE Block]

When Fred comes back to the locker room, she'll find Tahara sitting against the wall, cupping her hands together, gently and affectionately stroking one of her roaches and crooning to her.

"Nonono... Rochelle, don't cry." She says, with a forced little smile. "It's okay. We all knew this was coming. Besides, it's... it's a good thing, in a way, isn't it? You'll all get to be your own beings again. Aw." She raises the tiny insect to her cheek and gives it an affectionate nuzzle. "...I know. I'm going to miss you, too. You've all been so kind to me. I-"

Oh hey Fred.

"...I think we're needed." Tahara says, standing up and tucking the roach back into her shoulder. "What's up? Find anything?"

[Earl of Purple]

Library

"They worshipped an insect god or something, everything was covered in creepy crawlies." One of the bodies remarks casually. "Now I'd say that that would depend entirely on your mother and the relationship thereof." "And in my case, that seems pretty reasonable." Gemini swaps which body is talking with the end of the sentence there, whilst she also closes both her notebook and the book on chariots and joins Khannie in looking at books on religious history.

[Rebonack]

[Library]

"That seems like a weird thing to worship," Khannie comments whilst selecting a book on the pantheons of Golarion, the world her father was from. "I dunno what the point is, exactly? I guess you do rituals and stuff and gods do... things for you? It sounds like the sorta thing you would need to do if you haven't figured out, like, modern farming yet or whatever."

Khannie just isn't understanding the point. Is it just transactional relationships to get blessings while the gods get.

What?

Souls?

That's what the priests at Inari's seemed to be implying anyway. It all seems pretty weird.

[Earl of Purple]

PE Block

"Yeah, it looks like they went straight through the showers and into the toilets at the far end, where they climbed out a window. If you don't want to go through the showers, you can maybe meet us outside? I think Mary climbed out the window." There's a window in the locker room, though it's shut and doesn't open. But next to it is a small vent with a small fan; if Tahara turns the lights off, she could go out that way quite easily. Or she could just find a door or other window somewhere and leave that way; it shouldn't be too hard, the PE block is mostly large rooms of various sorts.

Meanwhile, Mary climbs out the window! The outside drop's even longer than the one inside, due to the PE block being built on a slight slope. Immediately outside, there's a picnic table and scrapes in the earth where it's been dragged closer to the wall and then back again. The table's located in a bit of a blind spot; the building is L-shaped, and they are inside the L at the moment, with very little overlooking this small area. Which does mean nobody's noticed Mary's window-climbing. The grass is quite long, up to mid-calf, with five trails trodden through it, all ending at the picnic table.

Library

"Says somebody who's never wondered about flowers. Bees pollinate those, y'know, so the flowers become fruit and grain we can eat. And that animals eat so we can eat meat, too." Quite important, when one thinks about it.

"Sometimes you do it so they don't do things you don't want, too. Like sacrifice to prevent the volcano erupting, or whatever. I don't really know, it's not something I've thought about much." Souls are tasty; just ask a liche. Though some gods thrive instead on belief.

[bc56]

Room ???
"You little..!" "ENOUGH. Both of you." A bit of the terrifying, powerful demon queen shows through Sekhmet's normally mild demeanor. "Aikobaz," How does she know her name? "Do not presume to tell me how to raise my children. Mary," looks like the princess is not going to escape unscathed, "Your bickering with this spoiled child reflects poorly on you, myself, and our kingdom. Need I remind you that our position in this world relies on fostering a good relationship with others." "Yes'm." Mary looks regretful.

PE Block
Mary uses her tail to lower herself down onto the grass. Their quarry must have used this table to climb in and out of the bathroom - they might not be a girl at all (although why would they set up their scrying system in the girl's locker room if they weren't?).

[Ironsmith]

[Room ???]

Aikobaz doesn't flinch when Sekhmet yells at her, unless maybe that slight upturning of the corner of her lip counts. So Mary did talk about her at home. Gratifying to know that.

"...Of course." She says after a moment, giving Sekhmet a well-rehearsed little bow. "Your children are very clearly a part of your domain, your highness, and an important one at that. Please forgive the intrusion." There's a slight shift in Aikobaz's voice here; she's not talking as an uppity PREP student trying to get a leg up on her classmate, but as one queen to another. Less conversation, more diplomacy.

"...But I would still have an answer." She continues, standing up to her full height again. "How do you intend to punish her?"

She's still expecting the answer to be "I won't". Mary didn't get that spoiled by Sekhmet failing to bail her out on a regular basis. But it's better to ask and get that answer than to cower away from the demon queen; as her tutor back home would say, "Never let them see you bleed".

[PE Block]

"Great. I'll be there before you can say [unintelligible]." Tahara smiles and steps out into the hallway, before taking the next turn she sees to end up just outside the toilet.

Probably just in time to appear next to Mary.

[bc56]

Room ???
Did she? Mary always calls her "Aiko." Sekhmet used her proper name.
"That is not your business." Aiko will almost certainly take that as a no, but Sekhmet is being genuine. She doesn't want to give the "empress" any form of sadistic pleasure from knowing Mary's punishment.
(She isn't going to be very harsh. Mary effectively was briefly dead, and that's punishment enough.)
Mary, for her part, is silently fuming, until Sekhmet adds, "Mary, shouldn't you be in art class right now?" "Yes'm." The demon princess shoots Aiko a glare before leaving the room.

[Ironsmith]

[Room ???]

That certainly sounded like a no. But Sekhmet isn't in any position that requires her to be less than forthright; if "no" was the answer, she could easily have said so. Rebuking Aikobaz instead implied that there either was, indeed, going to be a punishment, or that Sekhmet respected her enough to not rub her current impotence in her face.

Either of those was a win, really.

"...As it happens, we are still exactly where I am supposed to be." The empress continues, slowly sliding back into her desk, sitting with her back sraight thanks to years of posture training. "And the rest of the class will either return or have moved on within the next fifteen minutes. Your highness..." Aikobaz folds her hands in front of her on the desk. "...I wonder if we might speak until then. I... do not find myself surrounded by peers here at PREP. People my age, certainly, but never any who have ever worn a crown. The closest I have is Nana, and suffice to say, our leadership styles... diverged."

One was the queen of a barbarian horde, and the other the head of a magocratic empire. A crown was probably all the two positions had in common.

"...Provided you are not urgently needed elsewhere." Aikobaz offers, as a polite way to decline the invitation.

[bc56]

Room ???
Sekhmet can be as forthright as she wants. She's the one who can casually turn people into animals in this conversation.

"I have time, but..." Sekhmet looks confused. "Whatever for? I've made it clear I won't accept parenting tips from a self-declared spoiled brat who is younger than me with no children of her own, and there are things I'd rather do than listen to you complain about my daughter, so I hope you genuinely want advice. Otherwise, this will be a short conversation." In other words, she's willing to talk, but Aikobaz better not push it.

[Ironsmith]

[Room ???]

"And I have better things to do than allow her to continue mucking around in my head long after she has left." Aikobaz replies with a nod. "Though I'm afraid I see little point in asking you for advice. I am far from my empire, which is a great deal more earthly than yours. If there was any counsel you would part with that was not placed in the broadest possible terms, it would likely falter in its application on my return." She straightens. "I... simply wished to talk. To share experiences. To..." She frowns. "...There's a term for this the common people use, I know. 'Shooting the...' something." She waves her hands. "Something rather vulgar, in all likelihood. Such phrases tend to be."

"...I... am rather curious about a few things." She says, reaching over the side of her desk and pulling up a pristine white binder, flipping it open to a section that opens with what appears to be a photocopy of an ink drawing of Sekhmet on her throne. "Queen Sekhmet Brignole, daughter of Queen Sapphira, correct? Forgive me for saying so, but... you do not seem to be at all like your mother. Or, for that matter, like yourself." She holds up the picture, tapping the frightened-looking portrait. "Where ever did this image of a... vulnerable queen of hell come from? Some propagandist who wishes to undermine your rule, perhaps?"