Magical Fracas, Episode 4: School Rumble?

[Arhra]

Being in the seat directly behind Iriumi, it was difficult for Mitsuko not to notice the thing that ws happening between her and Kaemon Juro. It could have worse - Kaemon could have chosen not to venture into unexplored territory. Sakiko nodded at her knowingly, noticing Mitsuko's thoughts were clearly running in the same direction.

Lurking in Kaemon's shadow was Rei Shoda, another old classmate. She'd always wondered why he hung out with him.

Mitsuko supposed she ought to step in and diffuse the situation. Then Takuso stole her idea before she even came up with it.

Why do large bodyguards never materialise for me? Mitsuko pondered. Whoever this girl was, she was very popular.

[Unnecessary.]

Mitsuko jumped a little at Bright Day's mental voice.

"Oh, she's so cool!" Sakiko whispered next to her simultaneously. Iriumi's fan club had just gained a new member

Looking up, Mitsuko noticed Demi furtively moving into the desk in front of Iriumi's, almost obscured by the small crowd of people around Iriumi's desk. She started making strangled noises. She had seen Demi before - a pale maniac at the center of a snakes' nest of black thread.

"Are you alright?" Sakiko asked. "You're very twitchy today and you keep making strange sounds."

Mitsuko turned it into a cough. "Oh, I came down with something on the weekend. I guess I'm not completely over it."

Sis! Mitsuko thought with all her might towards Akari. One of the Verda-type mages is here! What'll we do?!

The second bell went off, the home room teacher stepped in. He was a athetic and angular looking man, a slight, but seemingly permanent smile on his face. He walked briskly to the board, picking up a piece of chalk. "For the students who haven't had me before, I'm Mr Yamada." He wrote it down. "I'll also be your PE teacher this year. We have a number of new students, so you should all get to know each other properly. We can not have a schism in our fair school! Could all the new students come out the front? We must introduce everyone to everyone!"

OOC: Eh, you don't have to put any real detail into intros. This is mainly to let everyone who would recognise each other do so. New students are in the minority, they make up about 1/3 of the class. If there's not any objections, I'll leap straight to lunch after this?

[phil_]

Synopsis: Ohno is concerned by Panko's twitching. Erika is annoyed by Ohno's concern. Panko wonders if Alex is a mage. Yamada shows up. Erika texts Panko to make fun of her. Ohno is concerned again. I dropped the -san's and -chan's and stuff that I used in that dream two threads back because they're not important.

Not expecting a reply, Panko jumped in her chair when she heard Alex's voice in her head. Ohno gave her a concerned expression. "Are you really sure you're alright? Maybe you didn't quite get over your cold yet, Kowaiza."

Panko gave a quick shake to get her head back together. "No, I'm fine, Shiawase."

"Really? Let me check your forehead." Ohno reached across her desk toward Panko.

"Ohno, quit acting like her mom," Erika looked up from her phone to grumble. "If she says she's fine, she's fine. Kowaiza's never sick, anyway." She added the last part while looking back at her phone, her thumb rapidly tapping the keys.

Shortly, Mr. Yamada walked into the room and the new students started introducing themselves. Panko still wasn't sure if she had actually heard Alex, or what she was thinking trying to talk to him. She thought that she could never see him as a magician, but now she gave it some consideration. He did stand out with his long hair and delicate features. Magical people tend to stand out, right? Her skirt pocket buzzed, interrupting her thoughts. She surreptitiously pulled out her phone and slid it open.

"lol jelous much?"

Panko wondered what Erika could mean by that. Her phone buzzed again.

"looks lk orphans got im. tuff luck"

Panko blushed as she realized that she had been staring at Alexander for the last few minutes. Not wanting to get caught with her phone out, Kowaiza opted to give Erika a silent gag. A look of concern returned to Ohno's face. All Panko could do was shake her head.

[Arhra]

Alright Mitsuko, keep calm. Mitsuko thought to herself as she walked to the front of the room, feeling like she was walking in front of a firing line. Demi apparently hadn't noticed her. She hasn't spotted you yet. Maybe she were too distracted by your flashy costume to remember your face. She can't start anything here. Stay cool.

She foundelf almost at the end of the line in front of the blackboard, Sakiko on her right and Akari on her left. Sakiko went first, nattering happily about here likes and dislikes and her club memberships at Chuuko before Mr Yamada cleared his throat meaningfully and she cheerily brought to it to a close.

Mitsuko was next. She stepped forward, trying to control her nerves. "Hello everyone, my name's Mitsuko Shimizu and I hope to have a good year with all of you. Uh, I like sports and I was class rep back at Chuuko, hopefully I get to know all of you better..." she gulped - was the creepy thread girl was looking at her? "Oh, I also help out at the Tatsuda Shrine, and -"

There was a solemn tone like a huge bell and everything slowed and stopped. Colours dimmed and desaturated while shadows vanished. Everything brightened as if the room was lit by harsh, omnipresent light.

Mitsuko jumped and flailed in alarm, arms bumping into both Akari and Sakiko.

"Uwa, what's happening?" Sakiko said, steadying Mitsuko. Some sort of weird aura was hanging around her.

"I don't know." Mitsuko said, looking around with alarm. Two thirds of the class were deaturated and immobile, the rest wreathed in that strange aura. The sky outside was black. It felt vaguely like a Phantom Zone.

["Appears to be stasis magic. Mana reserve is shielding us from the effect, but once depleted we also will be trapped. Locate and destroy source."] Bright Day thrust into her mind helpfully.

The unfrozen members of the class were starting to babble in alarm. Mitsuko tried to take charge. "Stay calm everyone! Uh, Akari, Shimizu," she tried to look like she was picking out the fellow Autekka-type mage at random, "and I will go and see who else is unfrozen, everyone else stay here."

"What about me?" Sakiko asked, looking scared. "I need you to stay her and keep people from panicking." Mitsuko said in a low voice, improvising valiantly. "There's no-one else I know who can do it."

Sakiko summoned a determined expression. "OK then. Good luck."

"Hurry." Mitusko said to Akari and Shimizu, heading for the door.

[phil_]

If Panko were asked that morning to make a list of things she didn't want to happen at school today, "A magical eclipse freezing everyone but her and a few others" would have been near the top of the list. Maybe, if she sat still, no one would notice? No, no way. Sliding out of her desk, she tried to make her way to the door, hidden behind Ohno and Erika. Slowly, she slid open the back door and slipped into the hall.

She tried calling Picky, since she didn't have anyone else to call when the world stopped making sense. "Hey, Picky, what the heck just happened?"

She waited for a moment before hearing Picky, who sounded more concerned than she'd expected. "I'm not sure, but I'm on my way. Find somewhere to transform, and I'll meet you as soon as I can. Just try not to start crying or anything until then."

"Right," she said outloud as the front door to the classroom opened and one of the new girls stepped out.

[Teal Mage]

Alex's back went rigid the instant he heard Mitsuko call herself Shimizu. But he didn't have much time to put his thoughts in order before Miranda's mental voice chimed urgently into his mind.

Magical anomaly detec- The sound of a ringing bell cut off whatever else she had to say as Alex shot up from his chair. The sudden gray scale hit most of the class from what he could see. Except the person who mattered. There she was, Mitsuko Shimizu, entirely unaffected by whatever this was. He recognized her now, she'd held a spear in an outlandish costume last night, but her voice-her last name-was more then enough to trip all the right alarms.

Then she called another name he recognized, Akari, the bow girl. Had he paid closer attention, he might have realized that the third name hadn't just been a pause in saying her sister's last name. But right then, his mind was whirling from the suddenness of this whole thing.

Alex forced himself to take a deep breath, and relax before stepping fully out of his desk. He glanced toward Demi, and noticed with some relief that she wasn't greyed out. The blond also noted Iriumi had escaped that fate. Does that mean? He gave his head a small shake, Later. He told himself firmly.

He glanced to the door in time to see Mitsuko exit, and barely managed to stop himself from grimacing. I have to go after her. He resolved, taking a step forward, before pausing by Demi's desk. He needed a cover.

"Demi," he said putting hints of nervousness and worry into his voice, not that they were much of stretch right then, "I'm going to check on the others." Whether or not she followed was up to her. Without looking toward her again, he forced himself to walk toward the door taking careful measured steps. He wasn't moving too quick, so had someone rushed out after Mitsuko, they'd easily get to the door first.

* * *

Black Ankh earrings glinting darkly in the eerie gray scale that had descended on the school, Mia Tsukino thrust open the door to her classroom. The bell had frozen all the others, and she had a sinking feeling she'd be next.

Heart pounding loudly in her ears, the Goth walked hurriedly down the Touhou's grayed out hallway. But first, she needed to find Alex. If he was frozen too...

She'd cross that bridge when she came to it.

[PhoenixFlame]

Akari went over and over what she was going to say in her head, trying to reherse it to get it right. In all honesty, a short introduction that would be almost immediately forgotten didn't warrant anything near as much stress, but she wasn't about to make a fool of herself. Some things about Shimizu Akari didn't change, even if she had a little extra responsibility and courage than a normal girl. Things like problems following her around to make those extra responsibilities meaningful.

She almost hadn't noticed the time freeze effect until her sister began to panic, and Mitsuko'd already volunteered Akari and Shimizu to come with her and look for the others before they could react.

"Priority Alert." Ceres' voice wasn't far behind, "Maleviolent anomaly detected. Triangulating... Please stand by."

"H-hey, Sis!" Akari called as she rushed after Mitsuko, "Shouldn't we um..." looking back at the classroom, noticing not everyone had been entirely frozen yet. With a lowered voice she continued her concern, "Try to find it as soon as we can, before it gets everyone else?" Admittantly, she didn't know precisely what the field was up to, but the effect seemed to be localized to only part of the classroom, and it was highly improbable all of them were mages.

[Naqel]

Daichi, who was still pretending to be taking a nap, felt a strange sensation, few voices around him started to talk about frozen people and magical stuff.

"This ain't looking too good, better if I pretend being frozen too."

He slowed his breath down and tried not to move as he listened to what's happening. Hopefully nobody would actually bother to give a bump to everyone in the classroom. He also tried to apply one of the mental exercises for hiding magical potential, though he doubted it'd help much without the component, which he had forgotten what it was anyway.

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

Iriumi didn't really register the names of the two sisters as Autekkan. They were new people to her, and so she listened attentively to one of them babble. There were so many new people to make friends with, Iriumi thought she'd definitely be busy this week!

What she didn't expect was for the world to suddenly go a little brighter, washing away the colours of the surrounding people and environment, seeming to freeze almost everything in place. Iriumi sat there like a stunned mullet for a few moments. Alex seemed to get up so fast he was a blur, mutter something about checking on other people, then left.

Iriumi, I'm reading some fancy sort of signature magic here, Ivy's mental whisper rustled into her mind calmly, stay where you are until everybody has left. Pretend to try and wake people up if you have to make it look authentic.

Iriumi didn't really listen, but she was already doing what Ivy had told her. Getting up woodenly, she turned around. Takuso was frozen, in the act of drawing phallic symbols on a piece of paper pointed at a stick figure, Chichyuu and Shana were at the front, still frozen in attentive blankness. She didn't need to act as if panic set in.

"H-hey guys? What's going on?! Takki!? Wake up! P-please, w-wake up," she tentatively pushed the boy. Takuso's stiff body was rigid and unmovable.

"I--Iriumi? What's going on?!" Tayuumi's voice called out, panicked. Iriumi knocked her chair over in the process of racing over to the girl's table. She was leaning over another friend, crying and trying to wake him up to no avail.

"It's no use, Tayuumi, I tried too. They're stuck like that," Iriumi thought she sounded braver than she actually should be as she hugged Tayuumi. It must be the fact that she knows what's going on, and better act on it before it gets worse.

"This is a n-n-nightmare! W-what's guh-going on?!" the other girl hiccuped, "Oh guh-god, I remember this in a d-dream! People wuh-were just suh-suh-staring ahead and ignoring me-...." At that time, Tayuumi too faded out into pale wash.

No use. She had some magical residue on her after contact with us, but now it's been drained, and I can't confer anymore onto her. Get going, the Verda will need you.
Iriumi unwrapped her arms from around the frozen girl and, looking around panicked, dashed out of the room. It looked like the girl finally snapped, and is going home.

~~

I sense no movement coming our way.
Alone in a corridor somewhere in school, Iriumi was walking calmly, waiting for Ivy to gather data of her surroundings. The girl nodded, and spread out her arms. Ivy, back on her neck again, sent her vines down Iriumi's arms and unfurled large leafy fronds, gathering as much as possible the energy they absorbed from the eerie bright light shining all around them.

"What do we do?"
"Nothing yet. I have yet to pinpoint a general direction of the source's origin. Until then, stay on the move, make sure all corridors you are in are either filled with emptiness or frozen people."
"... and if we're found, could you at least make those leaves a little less conspicuous?"
"I concur," Ivy responded, folding the leaves away slighly so that it merely looked like Iriumi was wearing a thin cape made of green-gold leaves. With that completed, Iriumi started moving, directed by Ivy's sensitive movement-detectors as she silently and restlessly paced the empty, white corridors.

[Relm Zephyrous]

And suddenly, the classroom went almost totally gray, no not the gray she occasionally got when she bumped her head a little too hard those few times, don't ask about that, forget I even mentioned it. But a total lack of color, and it stayed that way. Well, there were a few glows of radiance left in this torment of dusk, most notable to her right now Alex, who was moving up to her right at the time and talking, saying... something. She couldn't hear too well for being too caught up in her own internal discussion.

Hey, what the hells going on? Why did everything just... do that?
"Its not just color, everything has stopped moving. Look, the pencil you dropped just now... its hanging in the air!"
"~Precisely. I'm not too sure on what is causing this disturbance in the natural order of things, but merely keeping out of its effect is eating up our mana. Further... most of the surroundings aren't yielding anymore.~"
Thats... bad, isn't it?
"~....~"
"I thi-"
"~...!!!!! Yes thats bad! Very very bad! We don't have the mana reserves to deal with this for much longer, Mogura, extend yourself around Demi, the strings retard magical effects, like it does with the red star, I think it'll slow down the need for shielding from this as well.~"
"But-"
"~DO IT~"
"Fine..."

The doll Demi was carrying began spreading out like fabric, almost melding with her clothing. She held it close to her bosom, partly to disguise the fact that it was now practically sown into it. Its threads weaved throughout her clothing, and on her head formed an extremely thin but nethertheless effective beret.

"~Ok... good. That bought us some time... not much though.~"
Um...
"We need to find more mana... I can actually feel the strain..."
Er...
"~Or, for a solution that'll actually do something, find the source of the disturbance. Only problem is, I haven't gotten an exa-~"
Hey!
"~What?~"
I think we should follow Alex.

They stop their internal debate to notice Alex almost at the door in quite a hurry, looking like he knew where he was going. Immediately, Demi stormed after him, taking glances around at all the students that were frozen, and more importantly, at the surprising amount who weren't.

"~Yeah that works, least until I can actually find the source myself, shouldn't be long now.~"
Yeah yeah now hush, I'm trying to figure out what he's doing.

[ApatheticFoxboy]

The new students lined up at the blackboard, all pale as ghosts. He heard the pretty Chuuko transfer rattle off how brightly she shined back at Chuuko. Try as he might, Dojima lost focus. His thoughts about the upcoming year, like exposed negatives, blurred and burned in the morning light. He remembered Mr Yamada from swim practice last quarter.

Dojima was looking forward to his daily thirty laps, when he heard the faint BEEP. Swimming was a sport he really excelled at and enjoyed. It almost got him a big damn trophy. Another BEEP caught his attention. It was at this point Dojima was sure his possessed backpack would freak out his instructor along with the rest of the class and ruin the year for him.

A strip of paper flew from the zipper and Dojima ripped it from the maniac device. It read, “Triggering Event has occurred. Please vacant the premises before-” A low deep tone boomed in Dojima’s ears. He looked back to the blackboard. He recognized the other transfer as Mitsuko, the girl he had meet Friday with the spear. The color had run out of her face. The color dripped off everything else. Then there was the neat effect of the sky turning black. BEEP went Jax bringing Dojima back to the device’s note, “-latent stasis field activates.”

He grabbed the backpack, and hugged it to his chest, “OK, stupid robot, get me out of here.” When it didn’t miraculously teleport him out of the weird classroom, Dojima punched it. Jax remained stoic. It’s mana reserves scorched Jax’s circuits just keeping the field effect off the both of them. Nothing went to the teleporting drives. Jax printed a message, “Warning 100% USAGE///Danger of EXHAUSTION! Source radar ON.” And with that Jax started binging just like underwater sonar.

“Fine, we’ll do this your way,” Dojima put on the backpack and headed to the door. A pair of wraparound sunglasses appeared over his eyes, while a single glove covered his right hand. “I’ll follow this trail, turn the sun back on, do my thirty laps,” He pointed his finger up with his gloved hand, “and get home early enough to make Ami dinner.” With that Dojima walked out of class, Jax binging incessantly.