Persona- Burn On, Shining Souls!

[Kiruria]

Halberd
Testa Jones' Classroom

Halberd had listened attentively to everything that had been said thus far. Especially the bit about stuff inside the school. The Court ended last time when the school was blown up... and when it was rebuilt, it happened again. This got him thinking... was there some item or infrastructure inside the school that was specifically responsible for the appearance of the Court of Miracles? Well, even if they did find out what that item was, going in there would certainly not be an easy task, as Wulfgard-sensei pointed out. There were probably really powerful Shadows in there. And then there was the possibility of someone betraying them too this time around...

And then JP and Shinai burst in. With Shinai was a girl who looked like she had been pecked in the eye by a bird and had most of her guts sucked out. Amissa was her name, a quite unusual name. Kind of sounded like the word "amiss". Something did seem amiss about her. She was definitely not the type of girl he would have expected Shinai to associate with. Shinai had always struck Halberd as stuck-up, important, selfish, interested in class and formalities.

Things got even weirder when JP mentioned Shinai having stolen blood bags from the hospital. Why would he do such a thing? Shinai certainly didn't look like he could be a vampire... and vampires didn't really exist in real life anyway. Unless maybe Shinai somehow was able to become one during the Court... no, that was impossible. Nobody else underwent any kind of transformation upon entering the Court, besides gaining the ability to summon their Persona. What in the world was Shinai using those blood bags for? And this had all happened last night, while everyone else was fighting those three Shadow Selves...

So many things to comment on... Halberd didn't quite know where to start. He thought about it for a long while, while Snow was asking another question, and finally decided to speak up afterward.

"I highly doubt Shinai is a vampire," he commented. "He doesn't look part-dead, he doesn't seem to have a problem with sunlight... and vampires haven't exactly been proven to exist in the real world anyway. It's highly unlikely that he would've transformed into one in the Court of Miracles either, as none of us transformed in any way, besides being able to summon our Personas. There does seem to be something amiss about Amissa though. Something just doesn't seem right about her, doesn't it? I can't help but wonder if she has some sort of connection to the blood bags Shinai took from the hospital last night. Maybe she has anemia, and needed them to recover or something."

He wasn't going anywhere with this, wasn't he?

"But anyway, she's probably not going to be important," Halberd continued, "unless she appears in the Court. Another thing I will add is on a different note--in regards to the school. Clearly there must be something in the school that triggers the Court to appear every night. It's dangerous to investigate it during the Court, but why not outside the Court? Maybe if we look around the school in real-world time, we might find something that could be related to the Court."

He liked the sound of that idea even more when he said it aloud.

"And finally, I'm curious about what role our Personas have in the Court. And also the Jester that appeared a couple of times." A pause, during which Testa seemed confused. "During a couple of the Courts, there was this jester that appeared, apparently wanting to toy with us. Wulfgard-sensei, have you seen this Jester during the old Court of Miracles? But anyway, back to the Personas. They represent the Major Arcana of the Tarot, it seems, meaning there must be 22 of them. I keep thinking whether all 22 of these Arcana have to somehow unite and take down the Court for good."

Halberd didn't have anything else to say after that, but he was still lost in thought. Lace had mentioned earlier about wanting to take a break from the Court, and that sounded like a really good idea. However, was that even an option, and was it even the best idea? As he saw it, he wanted the group to really get moving in their efforts to take down the Court, to get it over with so that it wouldn't be this shadow looming over everyone's heads anymore. He knew that if he were to take a break from the Court, it would still be the primary thing on his mind.

[Vivian_Bloom]

Lace Condor

Bellow High - Mr. Jones' Class

It didn't sound like Wulfgard had a lot of faith at all in the group's abilities. Whatever was inside the school during the Court must be extremely powerful if he didn't even bring up the idea of investigating it. They'd been training for months now, but if they're still this weak then their game plan had to change.

Lace wrapped up her trash and tossed it in the trash. Still taking in Wulfgard's explanation she relaxed back into her seat, brushing off her shirt until he finished. Lace gave him a slow nod and turned her eyes to Jones. She understood why Wulfgard didn't want them to go deeper into the school, and hated him for holding back for so long. Still lazily looking around the room she spoke up. "Hey, I didn't mean to snap at you like that or anything," Lace waved her hands around her. "You still got us, chief, and, well at least we know a little bit more about our situation. A lot more than before anyway." Her face brightened up a bit with sad tension of the group gone.

"Yo." There was a boy halfway through the window that Lace hadn't seen in a while.

"JP?" she leaned forward and squinted her eyes at him less than ten feet away. She didn't forget him, but after that accident with Terry he just disappeared. "You missed everything dude! How've you been?" Either JP didn't hear her or he just didn't care, seeing him look all around the room avoiding eye contact. Lace continued staring at him and was almost out her seat when Shinai entered the room.

Okay, JP, that's cool. You've been out of the game for a while. If this is how you get over it then I understand.

Shinai wasn't someone Lace ever paid any kind of attention to. He was always just there. Yeah, he still gives off that same creepy vibe she always got whenever he walked in, but the guy's just being who he is. A little behind him, Lace peeked around and spotted a new face. Amissa. She was pretty cute, and Lace shook with excitement at having another girl join their team. She's gotta have some kind of power! They wouldn't just bring her in our first Persona club, team, group meet-up for nothin', right?

She could tell Amissa was a little nervous with it being her first time here. "H-Hello," she introduced herself to Wulfgard and slunk back to Shinai. Lace swallowed at the thought of having to get past that slimy Shinai to get to know Amissa more, but whom else but her? This is the best club in the school, and a tour around the town, hit all the sweet and lunch spots, she'll love it here! Lace had a small line of drool pooling on her desk with all sorts of scenarios with Amissa around town running through her head. Staring dead at her desk, the zombie woke up at the mention of a festival for the school.

"Fall festival?" she mumbled to herself, wiping the drool off her face. She'd never been to a festival before, but there had to be games and stands there. It's like a carnival just for the school! Who cares if it's November! She'd be dressed in her summer clothes with cotton candy in one hand and a jumbo-sized lollipop in the other, riding in the wave pool with all her classmates. The teachers had their tents and booths set and they were all dressed up as clowns, turkeys, ducks, and baby chicks. Even Lizz would be there, cold and stoic as ever, serving meat and juice with Wulfgard in matching bunny tuxedos. It'd be so much fun. Lace blinked furiously and shot her eyes around the room with a new determination.

She held her breath as she stared at Snow and Halberd, begging them to move on.

Did they hear what he said? What're they even talking about?

"I highly doubt Shinai's a vampire." Hurry up!

"I thought vampires were impossible due to the way their blood coagulated." W-What does that even mean?!

Lace was rocking side-to-side in her seat and stopped herself from falling as she waited for a quiet spot in their conversation. Our first break! She squeezed her fists and gave it a few more seconds to make sure they were through when she slowly raised her hand at Wulfgard.

"Hey, chief. What're we doing for the festival?" she started. "Do we get to dress up like its Halloween again and serve refreshments?" Inching up she gripped her seat. "This'll be the first time we all get to do something together that's not about shadows!" Lace took a quick breath and gave a quick glance to Jones. "I know this might be a last minute thing, but, if it's cool with everyone, can we make a name for our club? We can vote on it."

[Blivsey]

Sigmund Okonkwo
Mr. Jones' Classroom [Thursday, Noon]

Despite being confronted with a torrent of half a dozen rapid-fire questions, some closer to attacks, Wulfgard stood his ground, asserting that everyone who had contracted Apathy Syndrome had returned to normal in short order the last time the court had ended. But the only excuse he could come up with for ignoring the source of the problem was that he "couldn't risk it," and that he had no idea what was actually inside the school, just that it had nobody had returned last time. But now they had the advantage in numbers! And besides, they didn't have to break down the front door to rig the school with bombs. Plant one during the day, or nuke it from the outside, or...

...well, he had probably thought of those already, anyway, if he was already treading this carefully about the subject. It was best to leave that sort of planning to people with the mind for it. Besides, this wasn't even really a strategy meeting. More of a chance for everyone to fill each other in.

Just as Wulfgard was finishing up his defense, people entered the room from two ends¹. Dropping in through the window, standing there as if he hadn't missed a beat of anything, was an old ally nobody had hardly seen for more than in passing for the last couple of months. A solid sparring partner, and a considerable force against the shadows - JP. If he cared a bit more or the situation in which they were involved hadn't just become deeper, Sigmund might want to know exactly why he had dropped off the map. Right now, it was just good to have another hand around for... whatever this might escalate into.

The other entrant was much more severe-looking, as though he had caught the everyone in the room red-handed for some unknown. Had his timing been about fifteen seconds different, that description might not be far off. Their stick-in-the-mud of a student council president was now standing in the doorway of a meeting regarding the occult, trailed today by a skeleton of a girl whom Sigmund couldn't place despite her having an eyepatch to distinguish her. Eh, it was a big school - couldn't catch 'em all. She hardly budged an inch during the entire time it took to chew out JP, make a couple of vague, lording statements at those present, and introduce the girl as "Amissa." Definitely someone new, then.

With a knowing smile, he made a final, quick pass at the teachers, mentioning he took this as a meeting in preparation for the upcoming Fall Festival. Having apparently controlled the entire conversation including the teachers from the time he entered to the time he left, Shinai turned and disappeared through the door with Amissa in tow, JP shouting after him the instant the door had closed.

For bein' so darned skinny, the guy sure loves to throw his weight around.

Of course, now that Shinai had seen them all here and Wulfgard had indulged his assumption, that meant that they were assumed to be a school group of sorts, and one scheduled to contribute to the Festival, at that. As much as he wanted to help, Sigmund had been planning on skipping out on as much of the requisite work as possible to train and rest for the Court. Not anymore, it looked like - Shinai would likely coerce them into doing something no matter what, knowing him.² Practically spitting, JP compared him to a vampire, citing that he'd been snooping around the hospital at night, picking up blood-packs. The two had even gotten in a fight - JP must be losing his touch, then, if Shinai still had his face intact afterward. They'd have to catch up on their one-on-ones, then.

"Hey, with all the stuff that comes out of the Court, a vampire actually wouldn't be that far-fetched," he noted. After all, they fought against demons with summoning magic every night - who was to deny anything supernatural at this point? Besides, the guy looked stressed. Might as well throw him a bone. Which reminded him - Sigmund reached into his pocket for the hard candy he kept on hand to keep Lace in check and tossed a piece to JP, cracking him a brief grin to go with it.

"Good to see you back."

Addressing the group again, Sigmund said, "But Lace is right - we kinda need a cover now. Maybe we could pass as a club that we haven't already got. We've already got half the training to be something like historic re-enactors, like at a Renaissance fair. And yeah, while we're on it, it's been long enough that we need a name. All I've got is BEAST - Bellow's Extracurricular Anti-Shadow Team? I dunno, anybody got ideas?"

---

¹Which was impressive given that the room only had an entrance on one side.
²It occurred to Sigmund briefly that the student council, particularly the president, had an awful lot of authority for students. Maybe he ought to start paying attention to that sort of thing.

[Zincspider]

Garret Wulfgard
Jones' Classroom- Bellow High

Well... JP was a bit nuts it seemed. First he accused Shinai of beating him up last night in the Court. Than for stealing blood because he was a vampire. Worse yet, his classmates seemed to humor him by discussing the validity of vampirism and the Court.

“No one's a vampire!” He finally shouted, as the chatter continued, mixed in with a few other things that weren't nearly so nonsensical. “And JP, I think we need to have a talk before you go accusing random people of being in the Court. Where the hell have you been, man?”

“Are we sure he's not a vamp-” Jones began, reaching for one of his desk drawers and pulling out a different journal. This one much older and soaked in a fair amount of... maroonish crust. Garret was going to give him the benefit of the doubt before jumping towards conclusions.

“YES!” He needed someone who could think straight for a moment. Ciara wasn't here to scoff, Josh wasn't here to agree with her every word, and Izzy was too busy trying to not look Miyuki directly in the eyes. Liza on the other hand... was gone.

“What the...” Wulfgard swore she was there just a few seconds ago. At least when Shinai had walked into the room. Where did she go?

Lace drew his attention away from his missing assistant, asking about what they were doing for the 'Fall Festival'. 'The fall what now?', Garret wondered. He had no clue what she was talking about. While something other than fighting Shadows seemed like a pleasant idea, their meeting was supposed to be a bit more.... serious. Not that Jones seemed to care. While Sigmund agreed with the class and began a conversation among them, Jones leaned towards Wulfgard and started to give him an explanation, apartment seeing his buddy's confused look.

“Well, students usually split up activities by Clubs for the Fall Festival. Us teachers got the notice yesterday about it, so you probably haven't gotten that memo yet. But... we'd have to go down as an official club before we can plan anything, really. So coming up with a club cover is a good idea. Especially now that I blurted that out to Shinai. We'd need not only a name, but something believable for our club's focus to be.”

Well. That seemed simple enough.

“Dude, loving the acronym!”

That had to be Randy. Looking back at the students, he saw the loudmouth attempt to give Sigmund a fistbump. “But if we do use it, it would have to fit our club's objective you know? So why not a paranormal investigation comity?”

Oh. Joy. Wulfgard loved where this was going.

[Niihyl]

<OOC> My writing style is weird as hell now. Just saying.

Mana Shizuko (Finally)

The meeting was looking grim as soon as Testa Jones scribbled 'Court of Miracles' on the blackboard and began listing deaths… deaths that had occurred on their watch. As ridiculous as Mr. "Indy" Jones was, he had done quite a bit of investigating, it seemed. Which made one wonder how incompetent the cops were. Even if they didn't believe in swords and sorcery, Quarterman was the home of events more suspect than homework-eating dogs.

Then Randy explained everything, because why the hell not, right? Randy's little speech was depressingly short, highlighting just how little they really knew.

Then Wulfgard showed up. 'Bout freakin' time, Captain. Here for an epic rescue?

"Here. Use this in case you forget something. Don't worry if something happens to it. I have copies." Liza made like a mafia blackmailer, and Sensei was spilling his guts – guts that he had kept inside his body for several months now. What did she have on the man? Dark secrets? An old affair?

Well, for one, Wulfgard had done the whole Court business before. He'd had a gang of Persona-users before. Where were they now? Dead. All dead because of a traitor in their ranks, who hadn't wanted the Court to end.

The words didn't disturb Mana at all. He simply blinked, tilting his head downward so his hood covered his eyes.

As for being in a previous Court, that wasn't a surprise, since where the hell else would he have gotten the experience? The surprise was that he'd stopped it before via careful application of bomb to school. Obviously, eldritch abominations were weak to petty terrorism, and friendship and harmony were weak to power-hungry morons. Yeah, that Kenneth fellow sounded like an idiot. Manic laughter is for after you've killed the… that is, betraying your team…

The others were angry. Wulfgard hadn't told them. He'd kept quiet, and let people die. No, that wasn't quite fair. Going into the school would have led to death at their amateur level. Still, they had been kept in the dark. As if they were children, too stupid to think out a reasonable plan.

To break up the grim tone, an old friend decided to show up. Well, an old friend and a mysterious, well-combed fellow who looked sort of like Shinai Haitani. Joaquim Pereira climbed in through the window before screaming like a banshee about Shinai – it was him after all – vampirism and panties, or perhaps that last bit was Shinai? The Student Council President verbally beat JP down without a crack in his cool, smug façade. You had to respect the bastard, he was good.

As for the blood bags… there were things one could do with blood. There was a black market for that sort of thing, though Shinai didn't seem the type. One could drink it, the vampire lifestyle was all the rage recently. Shinai didn't seem like the neo-glam-vampire type either. Of course, there were also rituals one could perform with blood. Depending on the mythos, these could be neutral or outright evil, depending on the view of lifeblood.

Mana could certainly imagine Shinai kneeling before a circle, chanting in ancient Sanskrit. Latin was a trite cliché, after all, though some of the most interesting rituals were Enochian.

Shinai introduced a new girl: Amissa. She seemed shy, and she looked to Shinai for comfort. Mana had never met a less comforting figure than Shinai, but whatever.

Despite the baggage it came with, it was good to have JP back.

"Ah, the undead accuses the undead," Mana murmured. "Yo. Welcome back to the land of the living. I'm all for burning the witch, by the way, but maybe you could explain how you know our creepy student council prez has been in the Court the whole time."

Or, you know, one could switch immediately to the topic of the Fall Festival like an ADHD squirrel hopping between a pair of acorns. Mana was still rather fond of BIGTITS, though the school administration likely wouldn't appreciate the club name. A paranormal investigation committee sounded interesting enough, perhaps it would give him an excuse to catch up on his reading, or the new season of Supernatural... not that he watched television dramas, of course. Research.

Mana chuckled quietly. "I would like to reaffirm my support for the Bestest, Incrediblest, Greatest Team of Impeccable Terminators of Shadows, courtesy of our very own Commander Sofiya. B.I.G.T.I.T.S. for short."

[Zincspider]

Liza Monroe
Following Shinai Haitani in the Hallway

It had been a simple matter to sneak out of the class room. As this 'Amissa' introduced herself, Shinai was focused on her alone. All she had to do was slip out the open door while the class was distracted. She wasn't completely sure why she was compelled to.

Maybe it was the girl? She seemed familiar. Or maybe it was Shinai's sudden change in personality. Or reversion is more like it. He was more like his old self. He seemed... happy. And clean. Either way, something in the pit of her stomach knew that she had to follow him. Intuition. Reporter's Intuition!... or Snoop's Intuition, but she preferred to think it was the first.

Soon after Shinai walked out of the room, Liza's cover was almost blown, by a large shout from none other than Jerk Pants. Just got back and already making things difficult for her... typical. But Shinai didn't turn around to face the insult, he simply sighed, and kept going, the new girl at his side completely silent.

“Mas- I mean, Shinai. That man seems to think little of you. Does this bother you?” The girl was the first to speak up. Her voice was monotonous, something Liza tried not to think much of, given her own habit of not displaying how she felt.

“No. I think I... deserved it.” Shinai admitted, begrudgingly. 'Well, put that one down in the record books.' Liza though, 'Shinai admitting he's wrong... hmm... although, I barely know the guy. Maybe he's not as conceited as I thought.'

Her targets were regrettably quiet the whole trip back to the student council room. Liza followed them the entire way until the door closed behind them, locking her out of the hunt. She was left with almost nothing to show for it. Save for a sentence each. Maybe if she put her ear to the door, she could still eavesdrop on them.

Yes. She could hear bits of the conversation. It seemed that Shinai was talking...

“How's your eye? Are you going to be alright?”

“Yes. The surgery was well done enough... It will take time, but it should make a full recovery eventually.”

“Good... it's a delicate thing to work with. And nerve wracking at that. I'm sorry for any pain it might have caused you.”

“Do not worry. I felt nothing. I was not active at the time. Neither was sh-”

Liza had heard enough. There was nothing here. Just a bit of chatter between the two. She felt disappointed, but it happens. Not everything was a big secret.

The meeting would likely be over by the time she got back to the classroom. She should probably just get back to class.

“Eh?”

Turning around, Liza spotted something shining on the ground. Making sure no one else was around, she tip toed over to it and clicked it open.

“Well... damn.” Inside the right side was a picture of Amissa. No... not Amissa. The little inscription on the left said “Assua”. But they looked almost identical. Amissa's hair was a bit longer, and she was unnaturally thin, but there was no denying the similarities.

“Where is it!? It was in my pocket a second ago!”

Shinai was yelling from the student council room. Sounds of things being tossed every which way could be heard clearly. Liza closed the locket and placed it back on the ground. It was best they never know she was there. She had been right all along. Something was fishy here. Who was this girl? Who was Assua? She looked familiar... maybe someone from her old school? Before Bellow High? She'd need a resource for it.

Liza began to walk to class, ignoring the sounds of someone walking out of the room behind her and picking up the locket and returning without a word.

She had an old year book at home. She'd go and check it out this afternoon, see if she could find out something. But that was far across town, she'd need someone to come with her...

Randy Clopin
Quarterman streets
5:00 PM – Nov. 1, 2011


Jones finally broke up the meeting halfway into the 'club' conversation. He had a class to teach coming up, and he couldn't hold everyone up longer than he had anyway. He wrote a couple notes to excuse them, and told them to meet at the stadium tonight. They'd finish this there.

-

The rest of the day flew by quickly. School didn't seem to be such a problem anymore... with what it had to be compared to. Randy himself was itching to get out of here and spend some time with Phil, Ned and the rest of the band. They hadn't done anything to remind him that he was still a teenager in such a long time. He needed this. He needed something that was... normal. For him at least. And going to go get something snazzy and fail at writing meaningful lyrics was about as normal for him as it would get.

He didn't get the chance though. He was drafted. Drafted by a little girl into helping her get home for something he didn't really care about.

“This is your problem now too, dude. Don't worry, we'll wait for you. We'll bring Izzy and Snow to the shop to get some ideas down until you get back.
“Yeah, what Phil said!”

Randy sighed at the thought. He didn't expect to be sold out by his friends so easily. Why were they so insistent he help Liza? It was just to get a year book...

[Son_of_Shadows]

OOC: This post was written sans Wordy since she hasn't been on for a month. So any OOC blunders here are because I'm incompetent.

Joshua Sands/Ciara H. Wright - Tower and Moon Arcana - Ciara's Dorm. SoS is too lazy to check the number. Screw him.

"Well," said Joshua, licking some tomato sauce off his finger, "Was I right, or was I right?"

"Don't get cocky now sweetie, it's unbecoming. But yes, that was the worst film I have ever seen."

"And that's why I love it," he sighed contentedly. The movie in question was The Room, starring the supposed talent of Tommy Wiseau, a man whose bizarre accent and lack of any form of skill whatsoever had catapulted his film to high esteem in the eyes of Joshua Sands. He considered it to be his second favourite film of all time. He had originally suggested his favourite film, Le fabuleux déstin d'Amélie Poulain when Ciara asked for him to pick something from Netflix, but she had no desire to watch a French film... No matter how charming it was. And the pizza had been delicious too. All in all, the afternoon had been pretty perfect so far. Not the most extravagant way to spend one's 18th birthday, but a comfortable one.

"You missed some sauce, by the way."

"Where?"

"Corner of your mouth. Let me..." This was surprising - Ciara so rarely offered to do something for someone else, but nonetheless, she pulled out a small handkerchief, and rubbed away the small red stain beside his lip. God forbid she did it with her bare thumb. Still, her hand lingered, just a fraction of a second more than necessary. Just enough to let him know something was off here. Joshua was seeing a more vulnerable side to Ciara today. Was it all due to her encounter with her Shadow? He felt a pang of sympathy for her. He considered the brutal lectures that Shadow had handed out to the likes of him and Mana and wondered what she could possibly have said to Ciara herself. It was probably even worse, and he felt bad that he'd let his affect him so when his hadn't been even close to the full extent.

Wow, I'm an insensitive jerk...

Her hand dropped, and she averted his gaze just for a second. Maybe the sherry had gotten to her a little more than she'd originally thought. She was feeling slightly light-headed, even if enough time had passed for her to come down a little bit. Her face was still a little red too. Dutch courage still fuelling her, she spoke up, in a subdued tone. "Joshua..."

Bzzt, bzzzzzt. Of all the timing in the world, her phone had to go off now?! "Ugh, one second..."

Jones knows about the Court. Wulfgard told us all a lot of stuff about what happened all those years ago. Jones wants to meet us tonight at 10.30 - I'll fill you and Josh in then. Hope you two are having a lovely time! ;) She bit her lip. Interesting text from Miyuki - what could Wulfgard have said? How did Jones find out about everything? Was he in the Court himself now? She showed Joshua the text, and he was having pretty much the same thoughts.

"I have a bad feeling about this Ciara."

[Vivian_Bloom]

Lace Condor
Bellow High
Jones' Classroom

B.E.A.S.T; an after-school that dealt with dangerous Shadows. It was wild and sounded like an animal; the perfect cover for ducking
any suspicious faculty members who wanted to dig a little deeper. Lace agreed and went over future scenarios in her head fighting with the others as the name went around and the class was dismissed. Wulfgard didn't give her any feedback about the coming Fall Festival, and she really wanted to get involved.

Lace, leaning against the wall in the hallway had an empty-look staring at posters, fliers, and on-going activities for the school. She blinked back at Shinai who retreated with Amissa in one of the rooms down the hall. Her eyes were locked on the door as she backed off and creeped over to the room. A notice to the left of his room told Lace about the school's Student Council group. Student Council sounded like a group of kids who ran the school all day. From what they were having for lunch, when they'd go on field-trips, school uniform policies, these guys knew everyone! And they get to wear jackets!

The idea of a brand-new jacket with the school's branding on it drapped over her shoulder's filled Lace with energy. She hurriedly dug in her pocket for a permanent-marker and signed her name over the notice, before giving three sound knocks and letting herself in Shinai's office. He looked like he had nothing but free time.

Lace was fully in the room and facing Shinai when she knocked on the door a couple times again behind her. "Hello!"

Knock. Knock. Knock.

"Can you hear me?" she paused. "Are you busy?... Hmmm."

Knock. Knock. Knock.

She finished, and grinning, closed the door with her heel before she was in his face. "My name's Lace Condor, and I want to be a part of Student Council. I promise I'll work hard and clean up after myself!" Her hand, wide-open, stretched out to shake his.

[Ysavvryl]

Snow Fields
after school

After making sure that Lace was okay with meeting up later (she seemed to have her mind preoccupied with other thoughts anyhow), Snow found Izzy and told him that he was going to go switch bags back at the dorm. So Randy wanted to try writing something original. Snow still felt worried about them finding out how not amateur (un-amateur? In-amateur? What kind of word did it need?) he was with music, even if they knew how serious he could be. But, it was to help his friends. He ought to do what he could. He grabbed his laptop and put it in its travel case, made sure it had the right wires and speakers, then took it and his guitar to go meet back up with the band.

He came back to the school to meet up with the others, only Randy wasn't there with him. Phil and Ned said that it was 'no biggie' and that Randy would catch up with them later. Shrugging and trusting them, he and the others walked over to where they usually practiced.

Once there, Snow set up his computer. “I've written music before and this is the program that I use,” he explained to the others as he waited on it to be ready. “We can put in the parts manually, but I've also got a cord to hook some instruments directly into it and it'll record what's played. The keyboard at least could be connected.”

The program's starting image took over the screen, a fanciful scroll of various notes around the edges. Then it brought up a dashboard with the tools he used a lot arranged around the main work area. “Whoa, that looks really complicated,” Phil said, leaning in near Snow.

“Oh, it's pretty simple, but the program can do a lot,” he said, not bothered by him. Of course, the reason it could do so much was that it was for serious composers like his mother who worked with a lot of instruments and other elements. But it could be used for simpler pieces too. Snow looked over the screen, sending some tools into hiding as he thought over what a rock song sounded like. “Here, we can start with the beat since that's the backbone... what do you want?”

[Zincspider]

Randy Clopin
Liza Munroe's Home
Nov. 1st 2011, Afternoon

“Nice place.”

“My dad gambles.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Don't be. He's actually good at it.”

“Well, that's.... something isn't it?”

Liza's home reminded Randy of Izzy's. Large and intimidating. Having lived in an apartment most of his life, he was a bit scared to be looking up at the white walls. Liza had to type in a code to get in without alarms going off. Hell, the place had a garden. With bushes shaped like things! Looking back at the garden, Randy actually started to pick up on a few of the shapes. A heart, a diamond... they were card suits. Clubs, spades, diamonds, and hearts. The guy must be really into his hobby.

“And your mom approves?”

“It's how they met.”

“Tell me why I'm here again?”

Liza ignored Randy and walked up to the door. Raising a tiny fist, she knocked a few times, ignoring the doorbell.

Suddenly, Randy began to feel nervous. Why? His palms were getting sweaty, and shivers were crawling down his spine, like so many frigid snakes. He didn't know these people, and here he was following their daughter, for a reason he didn't even know. But he didn't have much time to worry about it at least. The door swung open within a couple seconds.

“Liza!” Mr. Munroe had answered the door... or at least that's who Randy assumed it was. He certainly hoped it wasn't Mrs. Munroe. Unlike his daughter, Mr. Munroe was quite the tall man, having a few inches over Randy. He shared Liza's dusky skin tone, but his hair was pitch black. She must get hers from her mother. Hair slicked back flat, and a small pencil mustache, Mr. Munroe seemed to be quite sharp. A wide grin, long thin nose, and wily eyes gave Randy the impression of a sleek jungle predator, confident in his every move. Mr. Munroe, smoothed his velvet robe and bent down to give his daughter a hug. “It's been too long! I missed you, baby.”

“ ...s'been a week, dad...” Liza said, her words muffled from being forced into her dads chest. She didn't resist though and in fact hugged him back before waiting for her father to release her himself.

“And who's this?” The man asked, looking directly at Randy.

Randy clammed up. Which was a big deal for him. He was never lost for words. But here he was, sputtering like a madman. To which Liza's father only grinned.

“Oh, I get it...”

“Dad, this is Randy. He's part of my club at school. We need my yearbook for our current story, so he came along.” Liza explained, covering for him perfectly. “Don't make a big thing about it.”

“Aw, you're no fun, kiddo.”

“I'm going to go upstairs and get the book. ” Liza stated, walking past her father and into the house.

“Well then, Randy, please come in. I insist. No doubt she'll be a while. Women, am I right?” Mr. Munroe stood back and held out his arm showing Randy the way in. Reluctant to go in, but left with very few options, Randy slowly walked into the Munroe household. He felt like he'd walked into an old Vincent Price film. The floor of the den was a hard, varnished dark wood, lit only by a lively fire, all electric lights having been turned off. A stone staircase to the right of the room led to the upper floors, and was probably were Liza was headed. A large tiger skin rug was laid out in front of the fire place, next to several large arm chairs with matching side tables. Mr. Munroe walked over to the closest and picked a large smoking pipe off the table. Looking back at Randy he lit the pipe and went to take a puff.

“You don't mind do you? Liza hates the smell. One of the only good things about her being out of the house really...”

Randy nodded and took in the rest of the room. It was pretty big for a living room. There wasn't a TV though. Instead, there was a large card table, complete with green felt and a dealer's seat.

“You sure seem to be... um... successful in your profession, Mr. Munroe sir.” Randy finally choked out, shifting nervously in place.

Mr. Munroe smiled and puffed his chest out.

“Fortune favors the bold, my boy! And the bold favor fortune! But please, call me Roger. Not my name, but I like the sound of it.”

Randy didn't bother asking him what his real name was, but he decided it probably wouldn't get him too far.

“Please take a seat, boy, might as well chat until she get's down. No point in standing around and sweating, really.”

Randy attempted a nervous laugh, and shuffled to the chair across from 'Roger', hoping to stay as far as possible, unfortunately, all this did was put him directly in the man's line of sight.
Unable to think of anything to say for a few seconds, Mr. Munroe broke the silence, leaning in towards Randy smiling.

“I know what you two are doing at night.”

Randy turned white. How did this guy know about the Court? How did he know that he and Liza were in it? Did Liza tell him? He thought she could keep a better secret. Deciding that it might be a bluff, Randy tried to play it safe.

“I... uh... don't know what you're talking about.”

'Roger' wasn't buying it.

“Oh, come now. I was a boy your age at one point too. I went through the same thing.”

Holy crap. Now Randy was interested. Only Wulfgard was a vet as far as he knew. Now that he thought about it, it was possible that Wulfgard's group wasn't the only one to exist. Maybe not all of the Court goers had found each other... JP sure seemed to think that Shinai was in the Court. It was definitely possible.

“No way.” Losing his nervousness, he leaned towards Mr. Munroe, all ears. “What'd you do about it?”

Laughing, Mr. Munroe, tapped out his pipe and put it aside.

“The same thing as you, I reckon. To be honest I was worried about her... especially in the past few months with all the... you know. Anyway, I assume you're using protection?”

Well... no. Wulfgard hadn't taught them anything about fighting with real armor yet. Just basic cloth. It wasn't like there was a metal worker nearby to fit them with their own sets of platemail.

“No, not really. I guess I didn't think it was necessary.”

“GREAT SCOTT, BOY! Hasn't your father ever talked to you about this kind of thing?” Mr. Munroe shouted, much more surprised than Randy thought he would be. Although this caught Randy off guard as well.

“MY FATHER WENT THROUGH THIS TOO?”

“Boy, we need to have a talk. It's about the birds and bees, if you will.”

Shinai Haitani
Student Council Room
Nov. 1st 2011- After School

Oh dear. She'd clean up? What was that supposed to mean?

Shinai was staring down one of the most wild girls he'd ever seen. Messy red hair and a manic expression... completely caught him off guard. Just when he was about to put away the student files he'd been studying... although this girl was familiar. Lace. Lace Codor. He'd just finished looking up her record. Nothing terribly bad. She was caught for running in the halls a few times in the past week, but that was only temporary. He threw out the warnings just now in fact.

“Clean up?” He vocalized his question, and took a large sniff. 'Oh dear... oh lord. She smells like burnt sugar. Like... badly burnt. I can't even think sentences good right now. Must get her out of the office.' He recoiled back to his desk and picked up one of the remaining application forms. A lot of people signed up for student council assuming they would get out of class. But that wasn't quite true. Shinai just finished his work early and asked for permission to leave class to perform his duties. Other members have to give time after school. That being said, their membership was actually sorely lacking... something he hadn't really thought about or cared about for some time now.

“Oh, umm... right. If you'd like to join student Council, uh, here.” He handed one of the forms to Lace. “Just fill this out, get a parent or guardian to sign it, and bring it back as soon as you can. The jacket is the only thing you should have to pay for, but anything else will be optional, sure as field trips and the like... just, please take this. And go.”

Shinai had a feeling she wouldn't. He was glad Amissa wasn't attempting to interrupt though. He didn't want her having to insert herself in the middle of this.

Liza Munroe
Her Room
Nov. 1st 2011, Afternoon

Her room was just how she left it. It was the smallest room in the house, but that's how she wanted it. All of her books were on a large shelf, her computer was off on it's desk, and her bed was still made with the pink sheets from the last time she visited.
Before attending to the yearbook, however, she had one thing to attend to. Her jacket. It smelled. Ever since Randy insisted on grabbing her last night, it smelled like his sweat... and there was no better time to change than now.
Walking to her closet, she pulled out her only remaining jacket. It was the same make as her current one, but a light blue instead. Quickly, so she didn't have to dwell on her own body for long, she flipped off her black and white best friend and slipped on the new one.

“A little more snug than I would have hoped...” She lamented, walking back to the shelf, tying to take her mind off of her current train of thought.

It took longer than she thought to find the book. It was so plain, she had to scan the whole shelf at least three times before scouting out the poorly printed book. She was so glad she didn't have a part in making this book. Their color choices were horrible.

She didn't get a chance to crack it open though. Without even a knock, her door swung open.

“Randy! Knock first!” She shouted, embarrassed she hadn't kept the door locked. What if he had followed her in earlier?

“No time. We have to leave now. I've made a terrible mistake.” Randy huffed and puffed. Liza could tell he was holding something in his hand, but it didn't bother her as much as his claims.

“Why? What'd you do?” She asked, a bit of amusement rising to break the monotone of her voice. Randy raised his hand to show her was he was holding, in order to save breath. Her face grew red quicker than she thought possible. In his hand was a small square plastic package, with a circle bulging out in it.

“We're leaving. Now. And we're never coming back. Ever.”

[niedude]

<//JP- Lovers Arcana//3
<//Meeting Room, wherever it was. Faculty Office? //3

“Vampires are impossible...”
“Blood coagulates...”
“Sunlight...”

The “Vampire Shinai” topic seemed to be quickly derailing into a veritable debate on the feasibility of vampirism as an actual thing. This was... unexpected, but so much refreshing.

JP had been dreading the moment of his inevitable return with every day that passed, and the longer he postponed it the worst he felt about it. He felt like he’d make the ambient turn awkward, dark and intrusive. He’d always imagined everyone just circling him and showering him with questions on his absence and... Terri’s death.

But this was the exact opposite. Everyone went on with the conversation with such casualness, such light heartedness that it felt like JP had never even been gone at all. Everything was silly and normal, and that was beyond perfect for him. He felt like he was part of the group, again, and for the first time in these two months he truly felt just how much he missed them.

And then Sigmund threw him something. JP grabbed it with a precise and swift motion and noted just what it was – a piece of candy. It made him smile a bit and, more importantly, the little sweet further alleviated any residual stress JP might yet be carrying. Truly, it was like these two months apart hadn't even happened at all.

"Ah, the undead accuses the undead," Mana murmured. "Yo. Welcome back to the land of the living. I'm all for burning the witch, by the way, but maybe you could explain how you know our creepy student council prez has been in the Court the whole time."

“I missed you too, honey. Tell you what, I’ll tell you all about my one night stand with Shinai next time you’re free. I hear you’ve developed a taste for tea and biscuits recently?”

JP waited a moment before proceeding.
“Don’t look at me like that. And next time, try not to have a tea party in the middle of the dorm. And the bunny ears last night didn’t help. Do you know how many guys I caught checking you out this morning in class?”

Sigmund cut in.

"But Lace is right - we kinda need a cover now. Maybe we could pass as a club that we haven't already got. We've already got half the training to be something like historic re-enactors, like at a Renaissance fair. And yeah, while we're on it, it's been long enough that we need a name. All I've got is BEAST - Bellow's Extracurricular Anti-Shadow Team? I dunno, anybody got ideas?"

Making the court-squad into some sort of extracurricular club? Friggin’ sweet! That’s, like, the coolest thing to come up with ever. Like this whole “study by day, fight monsters by night” thing wasn’t awesome enough, adding in a secret school club with super powers totally made him feel like the hero of a shonen anime. That, and his late nights, his truancies and the general lack of willpower to study meant his grades were getting the shaft. An extra club couldn’t hurt.

“Well, if we want to make it official, we should probably make the name make some sense. Let me think for a bit... I like the B.E.A.S.T. acronym, but we kinda need to change the “Shadow” part of it, at least, to something else.”

JP put his hand to his chin and walked around slowly for a bit. Apparently kinetic motion seemed to aid his brain’s though process. No wonder he got lower grades in everything than PE.

“Got it!” he exclaimed as he punched his own palm. “Bellow’s Extracurricular Abnormality Student Trackers”!”

"I would like to reaffirm my support for the Bestest, Incrediblest, Greatest Team of Impeccable Terminators of Shadows, courtesy of our very own Commander Sofiya. B.I.G.T.I.T.S. for short."

“Or that. I like that one too.”

[Blivsey]

Sigmund Okonkwo
Bellow High [Thursday, Noon]

Besides an encouraging fist-bump from Randy, the conversation didn't get very far beyond more suggestions from JP¹ and Mana², the conversation in Mr. Jones' room didn't last very long - it seemed like just as they were getting somewhere with their discussion, Mr. Jones was issuing hall passes and half-punting them back to class. Where was his sense of team-building? Probably ranked below his sense of being a teacher. Which he could understand if, y'know, there weren't more important things going on every night. He shouldn't be worried, anyway - as far as he knew, everyone was at least keeping their heads above water with their classwork. Besides, his mind was stuck on the Court now, anyways, not Ms. Halls' lectures.

Speaking of which, Sigmund thought while doodling on the back of his past History homework³, Mr. Jones hadn't really answered anything, though he was the one that called them in, and over the intercom at that. In fact, he had just provided new questions, such as: when the deuce did Jones get in on this? It couldn't have been that long ago, if he was already acting authoritative on the subject, but why hadn't he joined up with them sooner? Between him and Wulfgard, they made it seem like the students couldn't be trusted to be kept in the know. Despite the fact that they were allowed to fight in it... ugh. His thoughts about this stuff never got very deep, only frustrating. Annoyed, he shifted his focus to the board, where Ms. Halls was writing out something in Trigonometric, a language which he also found frustrating and not something about which he could think deeply.

Useless as they were to him now, Sigmund took notes down, anyway, in case they made themselves useful later when trying to translate this week's assignment. Having started paying attention to the lecture so late in had convinced him to forfeit any attempt at further understanding whatever the teacher was saying, so he instead took to drawing a hilariously bad sketch of Hua Po between his bouts of scribbling down jumbles of letters and numbers. More than once, he felt a lock of hair fall to the side or over his forehead when jumping his attention between the two sheets and the board and he'd have to push it back up into place. Hmm... maybe it was finally time for a haircut? Except he had to work out early, get stuff done for classes, make dinner, wash the... cat...

Eh, why not. As the bell rang, most of the people he knew more of than their name seemed to have places to be. Might as well join the crowd. Heaving his bag over his shoulder, Sigmund loosened his tie just a bit and popped the top button of his shirt, finally giving his neck some breathing space. Then, weaving carefully through the crowds until he reached the outside of the school, Sigmund flipped open his blocky phone and scrolled down to a familiar number. It took several rings, but the receiver picked it up sure enough - just like her, that.

"Yeah, hi! It's me. Say, you free, like, now?"


Lin Residence, North Quarterman [Thursday, After School]

Everything about Mei Lin was very neat and tidy. The house in which she lived, for example, reminded Sigmund of a display case - very clean and orderly, and there were many pleasant things to look at, but Lord help you should you knock anything over. This feeling prevailed all the way out to what Sigmund had long suspected to be the world's cleanest garage, where he almost felt guilty for not having a rack on which to store his bicycle⁴. Before he could even begin to worry about what to do with it, he found himself already being ushered inside by his host, so he figured that it wasn't really worth the thought.

The two had grown up seeing each other several times per week, but having not seen her nearly so frequently since May made it more apparent how well-kept Mei was. She wasn't physically impressive, more small than anything in all respects, but she had a knack for making herself catch the eye nonetheless, from her simple-but-attractive wardrobe to the elaborate bun she had tied her soft black hair in for the day, complete with a flower tucked in the folds⁵. In fact, that ability was the very reason why he had come in the first place - he'd provoked Mei into giving him his current haircut as a snap decision on entering high school, but the look was increasingly ill-suited to him. Now was about time for a change of pace. After all, everything else about his life seemed to be upset over the last few months.

Mei wasn't one for much conversation, and when she did speak it was so soft and timid that her voice could get lost in the very air, so their talking was kept to a relative minimum - just the quick, short exchange of "How are the others?" and "fine," which lasted them to the kitchen. There, he seated himself in a familiar chair and set his glasses on the table while Mei fiddled with the visible television in the parlor until she landed on an animated movie, a near-future film noir. She had made a habit of this ever since she had started cutting his hair for him in middle school, not that it was ever really to either of their benefit - her focus would inevitably be elsewhere and his eyes would be shut for most of the affair, but it didn't make for entirely unwelcome background noise, so he never made a fuss about it.

"Yeah, just... down to a normal short cut," he reiterated as Mei draped a towel around his shoulders. He heard a muffled noise and shuffling from behind, which he took to be a nod from her. Given that he, as a guy, knew squat about hair styling and she had more than a bit of experience in these matters, the entire process worked better with him only providing a general guideline. As such, the idle time while she worked was frequently filled with equally idle conversation, but not today. Sigmund's mind was still racing, but it had now jumped tracks to last night's events. For the third time since hearing Wulfgard's diagnosis, his thoughts treaded back over last night's events - in particular, his own shadow and how it had so thoroughly evaded him. He'd at least feel better if he had been able to give the damn thing a good punch to the face. Instead, the whole thing had blown up in his face in about three different ways, and even that was better than-

"Is something wrong?"

Upturned from his thoughts, Sigmund let loose the grip he wasn't even aware that he had tightened on the chair. Easing his expression, he attempted to explain. "Yeah, It's nothing. Well, it's not nothing. More like, something -" he sputtered out early, practically able to hear Mei **** her head half to the side in curiosity - and would it really hurt to indulge her? She was quiet enough to listen, and mild enough not to go around spreading stories - the worst she could do was not be able to help at all, which is what she was basically doing now. Obviously he'd have to mask certain details, but it was worth a shot, he supposed.

"So, I'm in this club at the new school," he started, using the cover-up already in place. "Except the high-up guys don't think that we're worth funding. Like, we were going to be cut off and not even be a club anymore unless we downsized. A couple of us wanted to just lay off the late-joiners, and the rest of us wanted to stand our ground and risk the whole thing going down. I wanted to cut our losses, but we lost out in the end. Somehow, it turned out all right, though. It was more of luck than anything - one of the teachers bailed us out and we're still a club and everything, but if I had my way, we would've lost a good chunk of our members. A couple of the younger guys walked out right there, too. So, I'm kinda responsible for that. I mean, I was just trying to save what I could, but I couldn't even do that." By the end, he had gained so much momentum that his story had devolved into a series of half-truths only resembling the real situation. Mei seemed to understand well enough, though, and after a moment of pensive silence, said very simply,

"Hào* zhěng* yǐ* xiá.⁶ You thought it right - no one can ask more."

"Wish it were that simple," he admitted. Her point held true enough, he supposed. But his best wasn't enough. Other people had to pick up the slack from his bad call. And that didn't change the fact that Clarise was stuck in a coma in the hospital, probably permanently if they couldn't wheedle out an endgame. For all his physicality, he sucked at the other half of the Court that they spent out-witting the shadows, and that was what always ended up putting them in real straits. So maybe he should just let the others make the big decisions and stick to hitting things? Even that hadn't worked - he had spent most of the encounter with Ciara's shadow standing around stupidly. But even that they had gotten out of pretty okay. So maybe Mei was right - that strategy, unwittingly employed, had gotten them though other tough spots before now. Why tense up now and send the whole operation crashing? The crease of his mouth eased just a touch.

"Well, guess it's worth a go."

Mei giggled softly to herself. "Glad I could help."

"Heh, with my little problems or my head-scruff?"

She giggled again at his jab, but this laugh ended in a sharp, high-pitched breath, provoking Sigmund to demand, "What was that?"

"Ah... nothing!"

"Don't sound like nothing," he countered, shedding the towel and grabbing at a mirror. At first glance, nothing seemed out of order. It was actually a pretty good job, all things considered - his hair was down to an even quarter-inch throughout, and those "cooler-than-you" dreadlocks gone. His head looked a bit bigger by comparison now, but overall it wasn't a bad look. A false alarm, then? He almost thought so, but as he shifted the mirror, he caught sight of a horizontal notch his hairline, just at the upper-right corner of his temple. The spot had been shaved entirely bare and just large enough to notice, but it had at least come off clean, and it did pretty much follow the rest of his cut well enough. Looked a little B.A., even. He had definitely seen worse mistakes.

"Um, I can even that out..." Mei tried apologizing. Sigmund just waved one of his hands dismissively.

"Eh, nah. Gives it character," he declared, borrowing one of his father's favorite phrases. "So, now that's done - what next?"

"Mmm... milkshakes?" she suggested, hopefully pressing her fingertips together. Sigmund grinned.

"Girl, get outta my brain."


Bellow High Dorms [Thursday, Early Evening]

As usual, it turned out that Sigmund hadn't thought things all the way through, and ended up getting all the way to the shop counter before remembering that the sun was still up. So, instead he mostly ended up some of his safer stories from recent months with Mei, who in turn brought him up to speed on the recent happenings at his old school - which were admittedly few in number - and sipped at a strawberry malt. They parted when they had finished, and the sun was just setting as Sigmund parked his bike outside and strolled into the dorms.

The first thing he did upon entering the door was make a bee-line for the kitchen, tossing a greeting at the nearby Halberd and helping himself a mug⁸ of whatever was in the tea kettle. Biking all the way back from the malt shop had only served to remind him that he hadn't eaten at all since the previous evening, and now he was bordering on ravenous. Looking for something - anything - to eat, he pulled bag of rice from the cupboard where he had stashed it and started boiling a pot of water. And in the meantime, while he was waiting on that... he dove into the fridge and produced a pair of apples. The first was gone in seconds. As he started on the second one, he found himself growing impatient. Figuring that the rice would get hot and cook no matter when he added it, he simply dumped most of a pound of rice into the pot and tossed the bag back in the pantry.

"So, how's the biz?" he asked, turning around to face the others and starting on his second apple. Then, between bites, he continued, "Plans for the weekend? Anyone?"

---

¹ Who suggested a more discrete acronym be used for BEAST, which was an pretty smart idea.
² Who was encouraging Sofiya's standing suggestion, which was totally not a smart idea.
³ Something about the Prussian Empire, of which he mostly remembered that it wasn't really related to Russia despite its name.
⁴ Luckily, Mei happened to live about halfway between Bellow High and Quarterman North High, making it squarely within biking distance.
⁵ Which, while out of season, didn't look out of place on her.
⁶ "Be calm amidst chaos." - Chinese idiom^7
7 Though Sigmund didn't know that.
⁸ He had resigned himself to using his sister's cat mug ever since his first attempt at tea-making went awry (see POP).

[Kiruria]

OOC: Why am I even bothering to post here? After all, I'm still busy and my last post was completely ignored. I think I like this RPG too much, that's what. And it's been over a month since my last post.
IC:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Halberd
Bellow High Racquetball Court, Afternoon

Earlier that afternoon, the main thing on Halberd's mind was the discussion that took place among his fellow Court-goers--or BEAST members, rather--during lunchtime. It was one of the very few times when he found himself unable to pay much attention in his physics class. Instead, his eyes had wandered all over the classroom, as if hoping to spot something that could be a clue as to what caused the Court of Miracles to appear. This entire mission seemed much like a treasure hunt to him now. Only problem was, he didn't quite know what he was looking for.

But all those thoughts finally managed to leave Halberd's mind after school, when the school's fencing club had their "make-up" meeting since they couldn't meet yesterday. Nevertheless, he still seemed a bit more distant than usual at this meeting, mainly checking to make sure everyone had proper protection and good aim with their swords, and occasionally advising some of the newbies to pull out when the action started to get too fierce. Although, every time he saw two fencers salute each other before a match, he briefly thought of Scathach, his Persona in the Court, and of the new tradition he made of saluting to her as well before fencing someone. He acknowledged this, feeling glad that she would be at his side once again tonight.

Towards the end of the club meeting, Bernard, the club president, arranged for a talk with everyone. Some of the fencers, especially those that weren't in Bernard's special cult, rolled their eyes--they knew that perfect-looking blondie was probably going to boast his past achievements again. But no--this time it was actually a bit different.

"So! As you already know," Bernard announced to everyone, "there is a tournament coming up on Friday at ten o-clock over at the community centre. I have recently received word that the members of this club are welcome to enter. This applies to all of you--if you are confident in your (often lousy) fencing skills, feel free to accept this form to sign up." He withdrew a paper-laden clipboard from the cabinet he was standing in front of. "I will be entering of course, and Bill and Jonathan and Cat are attending too." He looked around at his fellow seniors in the club, smiling at the tall and somewhat-pretty girl announced last. "And so is Hell Bird--I mean, Bryan. Sorry. What did you call yourself again?"

The somewhat-big guys standing nearest Bernard snickered. Halberd seemed a bit perplexed, but replied anyway.

"I thought I made it clear last time, that there's no way I will have time for the tournament."

"Oh yes, that's right," Bernard replied, rubbing his chin. "You said you had 'other important stuff' to do that night. You don't have a date, do you? If you want to pretend to be so dedicated to this club, then you really have to sort out your priorities. This is your first tournament, correct?"

Halberd slowly nodded his head in response. Bernard was right--this was going to be his first official fencing tournament, and he had known about it for a couple of weeks now. Initially he had been excited about it, but the thought had been pushed out of his mind every time the damn Court of Miracles happened. Especially since he didn't want to participate in the tournament and then rush back to school for the Court directly afterward.

"And besides," Bernard continued, "I'd be very pleased if I could get a chance to officially have a duel with you during the tournament. I've been looking forward to it ever since after the first club meeting this year."

"I really wish I could enter," Halberd stated, looking down at the floor. "But..." and here he heaved a sigh, "...I'll have to wait until the next one."

"Next one's not until March, dude," Bernard told him. "And I cannot guarantee that we'll be able to enter that one. We're just high school kids after all, you know."

"And the other people in the tournaments are not super-well-known professionals either," Halberd said flatly, as he slipped off his fencing jacket and folded it up inside his oversized duffel bag. "Well, guess I'll be seeing you."

* * *
Bellow High Dorms, Late Afternoon

Even when he was safely back inside the common room, Halberd still felt embarrassed about that talk at the end of the club meeting, and a wee bit depressed overall. What a mess this had all been this year. There was no way he would have imagined his senior year in high school to be this difficult. Especially with the Court of Miracles going on. He even wondered why he was so fixated on this Court. It just seemed so elusive to him, still... he just couldn't understand what it was all about. By his standards, it still defied all sense and reason and all the laws of physics. He even wondered if his perfectly logical plan of searching the school by day to find clues about the Court would get anyone anywhere.

For several minutes Halberd sat there on the sofa with his face in his hands. "What am I going to do?" he muttered to himself.

With a sigh, he sat up and leaned against the back of the sofa. Then he took a quick glance over his shoulder.

I am going to make some tea, he thought. In a quite-possibly-futile attempt to rid these concerns from his mind, he stood up and headed over to the sink, where he filled a tea kettle. He kind of wanted to take a nap soon as well, but possibly as a result of having an adopted brother who was British, he was always rather fond of tea in the late afternoon, and didn't want to give it up. So he simply made it decaf this time. And he made enough so that he could offer some to any of his fellow Court-goers passing by. And certainly none of Bernard's friends from the fencing club. He thanked the deity of his non-existent faith that Bernard himself didn't live in the dorms.

[GoldenHouou]

OOC: I'm half-asleep while writing this. I can be held accountable for nothing. Also have fun JP.

-----------

Sofiya Mikhailovna Ignatova
Testa Jones' Classroom
Afternoon

Sofiya couldn’t hear any of the questions asked after hers. Her mind was racing and her heart beating so fast she started to wonder if it was possible for organs to pop out if overloaded enough – something she definitely had to test later on with her Privates. Without noticing, she had placed a hand on her chest, intent on pushing her heart back in case it tried to escape. She was holding her breath too, eyes fixed on their teacher and begging him to hurry up. She wanted to know. Relief or despair, she didn’t even care, she just had to know.

Their sensei opened his mouth, and Sofiya shut her eyes.

“They gradually woke up. People who had it longer took a few weeks to snap out of it, while a couple of the newer victims snapped back right away. They didn't remember anything about the Court or where they got sick. No adverse affects, mental ones at least, were discovered. They returned to their daily lives soon after.”

They returned to their daily lives.

They returned.

They lived.

Sofiya slumped down in her seat, an indescribable feeling of relief overtaking her in seconds. It hit her like a wave, sort of similar to the one that had hit her when she had tried to rescue her cellphone from their family's washing machine by smashing the frontglass. Except this wave wasn’t wet, and there were no shards stuck in people’s feet for days to come. But still.

She would have cried, but she still didn’t feel comfortable showing tears near others, be they from joy or sorrow. Especially not after displaying anger the night before. She didn’t want people to think of her as unstable or whimsical, or even moody. And yet, Sofiya couldn’t bring herself to smile, either. She couldn’t really… do anything but sit there and stare blankly in front of her, in such a bliss that she didn’t even notice JP jumping in through the window. Which… might have been good, in a sense. Her first reaction upon seeing an unidentifiable creature climbing into a room straight next to her would have probably been to… to push the unidentifiable creature out of the room. Out of the window. Down on the street. Until he went splat.

Even Shinai’s appearance with a girl Sofiya didn’t know wasn’t enough to shake the Russian back to reality. She did momentarily wonder who the girl was and why did Shinai look healthier than before, but in the end Sofiya was too filled with hope to have any stronger reactions or theories regarding the matter. All she could think of was that if Terri and Clarise – two high school girls who faced monsters and nearly died – could pull through with certainty, then surely Pyotr had to recover eventually as well? He was a tough soldier, at least ten years older and he wasn’t done in by supernatural creepies.

Yes, somewhere inside Sofiya did realize that his brother and the two Apathy syndrome patients weren’t connected. She knew that one surviving didn’t mean the other would. But she was quick to convince her otherwise, quick to grab onto the first sign of hope and not let go no matter how much common sense fought back. She had overcome all common sense before, multiple times. She could do it again and again as many times as was needed to keep herself from going crazy over worry. To keep herself from giving up.

What finally shook her from her trance was the sudden talk about vampires setting off her easily piqued interest. From what she gathered, Shinai was a vampire? Except he couldn’t be, because of the way blood con… uh, gratulated, and… Sofiya decided it hurt her brain to try and understand half of the things being said, so she just went with the firm belief that Shinai was a vampire. It would explain why he didn’t want to bake bunnies too; after all, vampires ate blood. Well, now that she knew that, she could be better prepared for next time~! His vampirism didn’t really scare her either, after all, hadn’t they fought much stranger things in the past? Besides, if Shinai was a vampire, he had to know Santa. It was Sofiya’s firmest belief that all magical creatures knew other and held parties. Maybe he could even arrange a meeting with the Easter Bunny!

… Wait. Sofiya’s face grew pale. Oh no, that was it. The Easter Bunny was… a bunny, so by suggesting bunny baking she had… actually suggested they’d cook one of his friends.

Sofiya slapped her hand on her forehead both audibly and theatrically, leaving a red hand mark to remind all those within her presence of her sudden epiphany. D’oh, how could she be that stupid?! She must’ve scared the poor guy out of his wits. She’d be very scared too if someone came to her with the suggestion that they should eat Sig or something!

Having completely lost herself in her own little world and worries, Sofiya once again missed some of the things going on. She did catch that there would be a festival and that they would need to participate as a group – great, they hadn’t done anything together but fight up until now! –, that JP called Mana “honey” – aww, they really were a couple – and that they really needed to settle for a name now. Both B.E.A.S.T and B.I.G.T.I.T.S. seemed to have support, and that actually made Sofiya face with quite the dilemma; obviously, Bigtits was the better choice, because she had been told everyone loved tits, and so the bigger, the more loved right? Right. But at the same time, she didn’t want to insult Sig by telling him that his suggestion was… silly. Nobody liked beasts! They fought and killed beasts! So maybe a combination of the two could fix the issue? B.E.A.S.T.L.Y.T.I.T.S.? She kinda liked the sound of it.


Hallway
Just after the meeting

The meeting was over far before Sofiya could actually come up with proper meanings for the initials however, and so she decided to leave that idea to rest for now. She had far more urgent business to take care of.

Practically jumping up from her seat to exit with the rest of the cast, Sofiya set her sights on the Portuguese man. She took a moment to study him carefully, making sure there were no bruises, cuts or other general injuries present anywhere. There wasn’t. He seemed fine, thank god! And he had actually joined heir company out of his own free will again, even if Sofiya wasn’t sure how – she had completely missed the window scene after all. But the most important question of all was; was JP alright inwardly? He didn’t seem to be frowning or particularly sad – in fact, he seemed like he had been enjoying himself back there. But was that real? Or was it… just a mask?

Just like hers?

Oh, and she needed to ask whether JP’d prefer her cutting off his parts or Mana’s. One of them had to make the sacrifice. For love. And science. But mostly for love.

“JP!” Sofiya called, this time pronouncing the guy’s name right, albeit still with an accent. She walked up to him, fixing her bag and suddenly remembering she had something to show the guy. So, having forgotten all about her intentions of asking whether he was alright, Sofiya started to rummage through her bag until her hand hit the familiar, velvet surface of her album. She yoinked it out and gleefully offered it up to the boy.

“Here, look, look!” She exclaimed, enthusiastic as could be and swinging her arms around at dangerous speeds. “I took pictures of Mana this Halloween! Well, um, Commander did, but that’s kinda me, so basically it was me! He was so cuuute, and, and I thought that since you two are in love, you’d like them…? Oh and, that reminded me, I’m ready to help you two um…”

To be honest, she wasn’t sure how to phrase the offer.

“To... get rid of… parts if they bother you~!" She finally managed to say, all smiles. "I mean, you can’t both have the same parts right, that’s difficult! So I have scissors, and a knife, and ohhh, I’m sure my father could lend me a shotgun! It’ll be fun! It could double as target practice!”

She let show one of her sweetest and, considering the situation, creepiest smiles before adding, not too reassuringly: “I’m sort of rusty with my aim, you see!”

[InnerFlame]

Russell Wilton
Bellow High- Mr. Jones Room

Most everyone gather there Russell assume the ones that didn’t show up were playing hooky after their three shadow self death match. The group that was here talked among themselves until Mr. Jones decided he should go on before the end of lunch break. Pulling up the map on the wall reveal words one in particular was the most notice was the three at the very top: Court of Miracles. How did he know that; knowing about it wasn’t surprising part but he got the name. Russell first experience in it he thought he was in the twilight zone or it was mess up circus act.

The teacher began going through things that he heard first about rumors in the start of the school year that he ignored himself. Then the disappearance of someone; hearing about the person seem to get some of the people attention that was there before him. The following made the redhead cringed as the memory of his first court flash in his head; the sight of someone he seen before dying… he still had nightmares about it. Then he went into the big point which was he was dragged into the court last night yet another person force into this… It seems like you either die, get Apathy Syndrome or you get to live through the ‘wonders’ of the Court until the latter two happens. How many more people have to be pulled into this mess?

“My goal is simple children, and I'd like to discuss it with you. I want to know what the Court of Miracles is, why it exists, and how it operates. I want to know what a shadow is, and what their purposes are. And most of all, I want to know why we're all still alive. So, would anyone like to speak first? Tell me what you know about the Court.”

No one really got the chance to say anything as Randy spoke up not phased about what the teacher just mention. He disagreed with the older boy’s comment about shadow just wanting to kill them… If that was so what was with all the jumping through hoops instead of just doing it. They could have easily done it instead of putting them in a room and telling them to stab themselves. Or have them run through a mirror maze like some lab rats… It seemed Liza also thought that… When did she get here? Without that dark purple hair, his eyes couldn’t catch her well. Mr. Wulfgard entered and the normal quiet barely says anything girl got up thrust what looked like a book into the man’s hand and Russell could have sworn she was… blackmailing him. The school pharmacist see all but happy but he began to tell them a story.

The story was about him back when he used to but a kid like them going to this very school and his first time in the court; before the fourteen year old was even born. The story sounded much like their; them fighting and losing people in their struggle to survive. But the end only a handful of them was left before they discovered the court source. When they tried to get rid of it by destroying the school one of their group, Mr. Wulfgard’s good friend, decided he didn’t want it to end and try to stop them. In the end of the story the court had ended but everyone but Wulfgard had died… Unable to help the people he cared about and having to continue living on, it must be hard. Now with the rebuilding of the school the Court of Miracles starts all over and he again had to suffer through it.

From there people began asking questions like what happened to the people before that got Apathy syndrome. But most talked about entering the school and trying to find the source of the Court. Lace seemed to get rather upset with Mr. Wulgard for keeping this a secret from them. Sigmund also wanted to know why he waited so long to tell them about it. The freshman could understand that hesitation seeing just tell them now they looked ready to go rushing in there. But what were they suppose to do then, when would they be good enough to enter there, do they keep fighting and hope they will be strong enough before they die? Those were the questions floating in his head he wanted to ask but didn’t want to appear as afraid as he really was or pessimistic. JP entered through the window, there was someone he hadn’t seen in months not that he was looking for him much. His grudge against him was still there but the only words of ‘Terri’ calm the short teen angry. Then face he hadn’t seen in awhile, Student Council President Shinai along with another girl he had never seen before.

After his visit their subject changed to the fall festival, to vampires before jumping to a name for their group. Russell voted for B.E.A.S.T. because he didn’t want strange look pointed at him when he they say B.I.G.T.IT.S. Overall talk of the court faded from their mind and the ringing bell ended the meeting all together and it became time to be a high school student again.

Late Afternoon- The Mall to the Bellow High Dorms Lounge Area

When school was out and instead of going back to the dorm like he tend to do, he actual went to the mall area. He had only one goal and that was to take a visit to the locate glasses store seeing that his current pair was slightly damage. Next time they might be unusable. He been lucky so far but spare pair was definitely a must. He browse through them trying different styles only to declare that he just didn’t look good with glasses… Contacts just didn’t seem very appealing either. He ended purchasing some cheap glasses, as cheap as he could find, with a similar look to his current one.

When Russell arrive back at the dorm he spotted Halberd there, it felt like he was always here when he entered. Sigmund was also about two rummaging through the kitchen. Ever since witnessing him attempting to make tea he felt like he had to watch him and make sure he doesn’t do anything that might cause a fire or be bad for his health. Silently he took a peek in and other than dumping a lot of rice, lot for just one person, into that pot there didn’t seem to be any problem from what he could tell. The fourteen year old decided to stay close just incase… But there was that tinge guilt along with a strange nervousness from the pass afternoon as he moved toward the couch. Russell remembered to greet Halberd before taking a sit next to him.

“Plans for the weekend? Anyone?” Sigmund popped out from the kitchen area, quickly chomped on an apple rather ravenously. When the freshman thought about it, he remembered him skipping breakfast this morning. Maybe his lunch was interrupt by there sudden meeting…? He decided to not question it; it was hectic last Court.

“I’m going to get a haircut.” Russell teased lock of his rough dark orange hair when he mention. Most of it was tucked under a cotton hat though the strands that weren’t aligned with his eyes were left alone to reach down his face and cheeks. “It’s gotten quite bothersome. I don’t have anything else planned.” He’d probably just do any homework he failed to finish. His grades weren’t falling but he keeping it maintained was difficult task.

[Vivian_Bloom]

Lace Condor

Bellow High - Hangin' wit Shinai

Lace stared at the boss man's face. "Just take it. Go." Shinai was gripping those forms like she just threw up. She glanced at Amissa while wiggling the form's from Shinai. "Shinai, did you write this up? Your handwriting is so teeny!" she said, her eyes scanning the pages. She started mumbling and after taking some steps back she went over to the office window. Lace had her hand on the blinds and looked up from the papers at Shinai as she pulled. "It's a little moody in here. There we go." She swamped the room with light and stepped back until she was shoulder-to-shoulder with the President. She held it up so they could both read and mouthed out the difficult words. This went on for a minute.

Lace nodded her head and threw the application across the desk. She whipped off her jacket across the chair to sit down and rolled up her sleeves. Gnawing on an ink pen with a confused expression, "This is at least three pages altogether! Where do I have to sign? I-- hold on," she shot a look back and flipped through the sheets with her pen spinning in her hand. Lace scooped up the papers and threw the pen across the ground in triumph as she handed him back the papers and washed her hands.

She was leaning back against the sink wiping off her face and hair with paper towels now messier than ever, she draped the rags around her neck. Lace's name was signed at the top and bottom of each sheet, front and back. "I've never been a part of a club before. Definitely have no idea what Student Council's about, “she said, picking lint of her shirt. “It’s gotta be a lot of fun. You see all sorts of things."

"You get to set new rules around the school, plan events, wear neat jackets, and escort girls around." Lace paused and scratched her hair. "That kinda stuff must keep you really busy, right? I mean, there can't be a lot of time for just you. She sat down at the seat near him and after pulling out some bit-size chocolate she pulled out two chairs, spun hers around, and pushed one his way. It's always been easier to just throw yourself at people, but she's never had an easy time keeping things going. "So what're you up to when you're not around at school? Halloween just passed." She folded her arms over the back and pushed a couple chocolates across the desk to him.

She could worry about the Court later tonight with the others.

"Sorry. I'm not being too personal, am I?"

[Wordy]

OOC: Hark! A mysterious angel appears!

Ciara H. Wright, La Lune Hath Returned
Dormitories- The Wright Room
Late Afternoon/Early Evening


"I have a bad feeling about this, Ciara."

"Really?" she looked at him, and raised an eyebrow, "Really? A bad feeling? Yeah, I got that too, dumbass. A whole lotta bad feelings." She smiled tersely, "Sorry. Just, seriously? Jones knows? That's not just 'bad feelings' worthy, that's like 'oh my god shoot me now' worthy. He's our homeroom teacher, Joshua. It's just..." She made a wailing sound, and began marching around the room.

"This is just taking over our lives. Now we won't be able to go a single day without being reminded of it! And 10.30! Oh my god, that's an hour and a half of my night gone down the drain! I was making plans! It was going to be lovely! But instead... bloody Jones!" She sucked in air through her teeth and thought rapidly.

"Oh well, I can save this. I can totally save this. I can. It's just... god. So annoying."

She looked at her phone again, and quickly tapped out a response to Miyuki.

Jones? Seriously? I totes knew Wulfgard was hiding something, so obvs! 10.30? I'll try for 11.30, how's that? Love you xxxxxx
PS. I will never forgive you for ruining the moment I was having :D xxxxxx
PPS. Girls' Night is sooooo cancelled xxxxxx

Ciara slid the phone back in her pocket, "OK, so, I kinda promised Miyuki to do a Girls' Night thing, but I think it'd probably be easier if it was an Everyone Night thing... So yeah, I think I should maybe advertise it. Like now, before I forget. But for tomorrow, I think, because I have plans for tonight."

She pulled a sheet of red paper out of the mess on her desk, and wrote at the top in big letters:
DORM COMMUNAL DINNER PARTY- CHINESE TAKEOUT!
(free food)- evening, 2nd November (that means tomorrow!)

But how would she get people to come and attend her party? Well, it was sort of like her birthday party, but saying it was her birthday party would probably mean that most people wouldn't come, because she hadn't exactly endeared herself to them so far. But now things would change. People always appreciated free food. And parties. Together, it was the logical equation to change peoples' opinions! And then she would be popular and get to push some poor ugly unpopular girl in glasses into a swimming pool, because that's what popular people did!... Or not. Because she was going to be a nice popular person.

After thinking for a few seconds, she wrote: You will have lots of fun!
Yeah, that would be good. Wait, she had to show how much fun people would have? Now how could she do that...?

You WILL have lots of fun.

There, now people would definitely know how much fun they would have and they would all gather to eat Chinese food! This advertisement poster was practically perfect in every way, if she did say so herself. Which she did. Obviously.

"This is practically perfect in every way," she said cheerfully to Joshua as she skipped out of the door.

When she reached the noticeboard in the lounge, she pulled the pin out from one of the other notices (eww, nobody cared about seeing some stupid band) and used it to attach her bright-red notice, proudly displaying it in the centre. Other people were in there, and she spent several seconds pointing at the poster and grinning slightly maniacally before quickly running back up the stairs and racing back into her room. Phew, he hadn't jumped out of the window or made a mess or done anything.

"Now, do you have anything urgent to attend to? Because otherwise, we have until 10.30, and I was thinking... maybe we could go out and get some baguettes, croissants, brioche etcetera and then watch that French film?"

She giggled and winked.

"Unless you have something really urgent. Like brain surgery or something, I don't know really but I completely and wholly sympathize. If you do. Um. I understand. I don't know. I'm crazy."

[Ysavvryl]

Snow
band practice, after school

After several minutes of just messing around with the music writing software, Snow idly began play 'The Ants Go Marching' on the keyboard while he thought. “So what do we want to write a song about?”

“We could wait and see if Randy shows,” Phil said, playing with a switchcomb. “He was excited for this.”

“We don't have to rely on Randy to start anything,” Izzy pointed out. “Since we're all in this together. But you guys are the musicians more than me.”

“I've worked mostly with adapting classical pieces to different genres,” Snow said. Or rather, that's what his mother had done about half the time, and how he learned from her.

Ned started tapping the drums, much like Snow was. “I want to write a song about Mad Bull!”

“A mad bull?” Snow asked, puzzled at the choice.

“No, Mad Bull,” Ned said. “It's, like, energy drink soda buzz thing, like,” then he started beating out a highly energetic beat. “Like that.”

“Dude, that would be more like advertising,” Phil pointed out.

“Oh yeah. But still,” he continued playing.

Snow laughed, turning his chair around to check to see if the program had caught the drums. “Well it's a nice beat anyhow. You could still base it on how you feel. Could you run that by again?”

“You sound like a monkey hyped up on Mad Bull,” Izzy said, after Ned had tried to play the drum part again.

“And what's wrong with that?” Ned asked, clearly enjoying himself.

Izzy thought about it, then shrugged. “Nothing, I guess. It's good stuff for keeping awake, but I don't drink too much of it or my hands get all jittery. Dangerous stuff around tools.” He then went off to a small fridge nearby to get some drinks.

Phil then grabbed the bass guitar. “I think I can do jittery hands!” he said, then started playing. First a familiar riff, but then trying to go off on its own inexpertly. It was an odd sound, but maybe it could be smoothed into something. “How's that?”

“Well we have to get a sound that we can reproduce,” Snow pointed out, looking over what the computer had recorded.

“Oh, well that could be tough,” Phil said, now trying a different way to make the bass sound 'jittery'. “Think I should try one of the the other guitars?”

“Might as well experiment with several, see how they sound,” Snow said. Looking over what the other two had played, he tried to play something that went along with those parts.

Then Izzy came by and left a tall soda can by him, apparently that Mad Bull Ned was talking about. “Nah, you have to go at it more like a hyperactive monkey, like the others,” he said teasingly

“What, and intentionally play bad?” Snow asked in mock horror. “Not a chance.” Then again, he was going slow while thinking about it. Maybe not thinking? He then tried to play what Phil had by ear, moving his fingers quickly over the keys.

“Yeah, let's play!” Ned said, and for a few minutes, they all tried to keep that hyperactive energetic melody intact, and form it at the same time.

Before long, Izzy cracked up laughing and put his hands over his head. “That was a beautiful disaster,” he said, grinning.

“Then we are on our way to being an awesome disaster!” Ned said, whirling the drumsticks over his head and promptly losing one.

Snow ducked to avoid getting hit by it, laughing himself. “Everyone has to start somewhere,” he said, saving that last bit. Maybe there was nothing salvageable in it. But it had been fun.

Izzy looked over the computer screen, so Snow let him mess with it a bit while he replayed some of the random disaster music. “You've got quite a few files in here,” he said. “What's this Aria here?”

“That's something I'm working on with Josh,” Snow said

“What's an aria?” Phil asked.

“It's an certain kind of song, usually dramatic, that can be found in operas and other places,” he explained, opening the Mad Bull; he might as well try it if Ned wanted to be writing a song about it. “Josh and I play that one on guitars.”

“Oh, so it's like a power ballad,” Phil said. “You could've just said that.

“Hey, think we can get him to play it with us?” Ned asked. “Or if he'd let just us. Because a power ballad would be an awesome piece to start with original stuff. As long as it's not an aria; that sounds girly.”

“We could ask,” Snow said, while Izzy went ahead and had the program play what they had written for Josh's Aria song (which didn't have it's own name, really). “It doesn't have lyrics at the moment. But, I'm sure Randy could sing something amazing with it.”

“Oh, it's that song,” Izzy mumbled to himself, as he heard it play. Which was a good sign on how well they were doing so far.

Since he wasn't sure how long the practice would go, he took out his phone and sent a text message to Josh. 'Hey, I'm at practice with the Crimson Beasts and we're thinking of turning the Aria song into a power ballad. You want to join in, or do you mind letting the band play it?'

[Kiruria]

Halberd
Bellow High Dorms
"Manly Tea Party, Season 2"

As Halberd watched the tea kettle as it started to steam (ignoring any superstitions against watching water boil), he thought once more about the Black Cat Bandits, the boys who were much more than just his fellow gangsters. He remembered specifically their reaction when he mentioned that he was going to attend Bellow High in his senior year, that he was going to move far away from them. He had been able to pass his reason off as a better educational opportunity, and that at least made his parents supportive of his decision. And as for the Black Cat Bandits, he had made a promise to keep in contact with them. So that was good enough... right?

The tea kettle whistled, indicating the water was ready. Putting these thoughts aside for the time being, Halberd turned off the stove and started gathering teacups, arranging three of them on a tray after a quick head count of the lounge. After pouring out the tea, he made his way back over to one of the couches in the lounge. Soon afterward, much to his surprise, Russell joined him. At the sight of this, Halberd cast him a small smile, for he was glad to see Russell not being timid around him for once.

And just then Sigmund broke the ice with "Plans for the weekend? Anyone?" To which Russell replied about getting a haircut.

"Hmm," Halberd began to reply. "Well, as long as you like the way it looks afterward, then that's great." He personally thought Russell's hair looked better when it was uneven like that, but he also thought that might be a bias based on the other Black Cat Bandits' decisions to keep their hair relatively long.

"Oh, by the way," he continued, this time to both Russell and Sigmund, "I just made some tea, and there's enough for all three of us. Would you two like some?" He gestured to the tray he had just placed on the coffee table (tea on a coffee table, how funny) before them. While he was at it, he took a cup for himself. "As for my own plans for the weekend, well, I don't have anything much planned actually. I might wander around the city a bit, or perhaps get back in touch with my family. And probably catch up on homework as well. And then there's two Courts if the trend continues."

Every time he thought about the Court of Miracles, he likened it to a great war they were fighting against the Shadows, one that they could not escape lest they be doomed to a soulless existence. He had seen with his own eyes what happened to Terri. He knew the consequences of neglecting that the Court could cause any real harm. He may not have understood quite what it meant nor how it worked, but at least he recognised it as a threat. Perhapse a curse of some sort, as had been Black Cat Bandit Merlin's guess.

"Well, Sigmund," Halberd continued, lifting his teacup. "I'm sure Russell and I would love to hear your plans for the weekend as well, but first I'd like to propose a toast. I may not be a spiritual person, but I do believe that is good to have hope. So this toast is to the hope that we may triumph over the Court Miracles, whose existence looms as a shadow over our lives."

Feeling much better now, Halberd moved his cup over towards the centre of where the three were sitting, hoping the other two would do the same.

[Son_of_Shadows]

Joshua Sands - Tower Arcana - Ciara's Dorm

In a shocking twist of fate, Ciara smacked him with a sarcastic response before bemoaning their fate. She was most annoyed about losing a portion of her night. Yes, that was the headline in her eyes. But she had a point about how the Court was really taking over every aspect of their life now. That said, it was hardly just a hobby. When one fights to live, perhaps it's natural that fighting becomes one's life.

Joshua was a god-awful philosopher.

Ciara began texting her response to Miyuki, prompting Joshua to start musing, mostly to himself. "On the bright side, it looks like we'll have another ally in the Court, if nothing else. God knows what his Persona could be though. Something as forgetful as him maybe?"

She ignored this. "OK, so, I kinda promised Miyuki to do a Girls' Night thing, but I think it'd probably be easier if it was an Everyone Night thing... So yeah, I think I should maybe advertise it. Like now, before I forget. But for tomorrow, I think, because I have plans for tonight." She picked up a marker and some paper, and started scribbling something out. He had to admit, it seemed like a good idea. They'd all be together that night anyway for the Court at least.

A free Chinese takeout for everyone. For some reason, Joshua had the distinct feeling that his wallet was going to be crying. I am so going to be roped into paying for this... Wuh-tccch... Worst whip-crack ever. I should ask Jones for advice on that, he's mentioned owning one I think...

... Then again, maybe I should just stay away from that line of thought entirely.

Meanwhile, Ciara was finishing the sign. "You WILL have lots of fun." Seemed a little... forceful. Like it was an order to have fun. Sometimes he worried about her social skills. Practically perfect in every way, she said as she bounced out the door, leaving him alone in her room.

... Any other guy right now would be snooping in her drawers. Fortunately, I have more sense. In that case, I would definitely be better jumping out the window... He sat on her bed and gave a brief sigh. He was really starting to feel the pressure of the tension between them. Something was going to snap, and he wasn't sure what.

Ohhh my love, don't forsake me-, take what the water gave me- His phone this time. A text from Snow. Maybe he'd hit a breakthrough on the song, and wanted his help?

'Hey, I'm at practice with the Crimson Beasts and we're thinking of turning the Aria song into a power ballad. You want to join in, or do you mind letting the band play it?' Randy's band wanted to play Aria? Joshua wasn't sure if he was flattered or sceptical. Honestly, he should probably go and help them out a little...

"Now," Ciara was back, and he jumped at the sudden noise, "Do you have anything urgent to attend to? Because otherwise, we have until 10.30, and I was thinking... maybe we could go out and get some baguettes, croissants, brioche etcetera and then watch that French film?" She winked at him.

... Yeah, he wasn't going anywhere. He was determined to spend time with her today. She continued, "Unless you have something really urgent. Like brain surgery or something, I don't know really but I completely and wholly sympathize. If you do. Um. I understand. I don't know. I'm crazy." She finished so quietly. Yet again, he was seeing this change in her. A girl so shy and awkward at her core.

"It's your birthday after all. If you, for whatever reason, want to spend it with me, then who am I to say no?" He cast his eyes downward, still not wholly comfortable with everything over the last 24 hours. "Just... Give me a couple of seconds, need to send a text."

'Sorry buddy, I'm busy today. Maybe tomorrow after school?'