Miyako took ou seat beside the kid, "Hey. Doing alright. Just checking up on my favourite half-pint," ou said with a shrug, even taking ou left hand out of a pocket so that it'd be visible for a moment. Ou quickly rehid it, "Day's not giving you any trouble again, is it?"
Miru seemed to hesitate for a second before speaking back, as if she wanted to say something and decided against it. "Uh.. Yeah.." The young girl slowly put her book down, and closed, to give more of her attention to Miyako. "It is still a little weird that you found out we have the same lunch hour."
Ou simply closed ou eyes and hummed a bit, before opening one to the kid, "Meh. Gave me an excuse to not have to deal with people to sit with a loner like you-" ou opened both eyes again, "You don't mind that I join you, do you?"
After making a bit of a face, Miru shook her head. "I am not a loaner, I just help people sometimes. And no, I don't mind at all." She didn't mind it at all. In fact she enjoyed it for some reason. Usually if someone were to sit with her she would most likely be apathetic to it. But for some reason with Miyako it was different. She couldn't exactly tell why.
Miyako would guess it was because ou was a cool person and everyone should like ou. If she had known what Miru was thinking, at least. Ou didn't.
"Good," ou said, after having to shake off Miru's loaner-loner confusion, choosing to forego commenting on the error, "I was planning on staying here regardless."
Miru had started to trail her finger along the spine of her bear again to open it as Miyako spoke, returning her book where it was before. "That's pretty.. Uhm.. In-..." She was hesitating. Not that she was afraid to speak, but she actually couldn't think of the word she wanted to use. "Like.." Miru gave it a few more seconds before huffing under her breath. "Never mind. Whatever."
Slightly frustrated she closed her bag up again and pulled the bear into her lap. "Are you okay today?"
Miyako had hardly noticed the entire little thing going on with Miru, as ou was far more concerned on sorting out her entire food situation. Ou gave Miru a glance at some of the words, in particular the end of her stuttering- was the kid that unused to talking to people? Ou'd have to work with her on that. "I'm always okay. I can't afford to ever not be okay. I can count on my fingers how many times I was not okay-" ou smirked dryly, "Don't worry bout me."
With a short breath, Miru nodded and pulled the bear closer to her chest. "Fine, fine." With the pull she more or less positioned the bear to cover the lower half of her face, as if she was hiding her mouth from Miyako. She let a few moments pass before wanting to speak up again, though when she opened her mouth she froze. Her gaze suddenly shot to the side as the doors to the cafeteria sprung open.
In the middle of the doorway stood a girl with her arms held up, no shorter than 5'5" with bright pink hair. Wearing a pink and white striped long sleeve shirt that seemed much too big for her, dark pink jean-short-shorts, knee socks and the shoes to match the outfit; she called out fairly loud into the large room to get the attention of all she could.
"Hello students and staff! If you don't already know, which you should, my name is Chan Chan! Hostess of the a~mazing~ Chan Chan's Challenge Channel!~ While todays broadcast is a liiittle different, I just wanted you all to know you should definitely most for sure run away!"
The pink themed girl had three others in the doorway as well. One focusing on Chan Chan herself and the other two seeming to be 'keeping an eye out'.
"For the little ones and not-so-bright adults, just follow along with the people who know what "The Berets are really pissed off and on their way here right now! This is not a joke either. They are preeety pissed."
Most of the cafeteria seemed either confused or uninterested at Chan Chan's little speech, but after a few moments one of the administrators in the room called for people to start moving.
Chan Chan clapped as they did, just once.
"Perfect!"
Almost as if on cue, there was the sound of an explosion off in the distance, followed by a brief burst of gunfire- the tempo for trying to get out of the cafeteria quickly went from orderly shuffling to growing panic.
Miru sat in silence as the pink haired girl went off about who knows what, and continued to sit as the panicking commenced. "Mi..yako.."
She spoke lightly as she reached down to the back of her bear still up against her chest. "You should probably go too." The girl shifted in her seat to turn and face out as if she was getting ready to stand, but didn't quite yet.
Miyako was already standing up, "Uh, yeah?" ou looked through the spreading panic, and saw through one of the cafeteria windows two of the ones that must have been the Berets. Illuminating them from behind were the burning tapestries of gardens that made the Forest look so well- flickering with haze and smoke.
Ou grabbed at Miru, and spun her around ou, to put ouself in the way of the oncoming--
The glass burst in violently, shattering down as more gunfire came in. Heavy calibre rounds, more befitting a mounted machine gun than whatever the one in the green beret and dark garb was carrying. As the glass rained down, the clattering and shattering, drowning out the screams of faculty and children as a dark haze seeped in along with the smoke.
Plaster from the ceiling fell dislodged by the upward shot burst of fire that spread panic like the flames behind them, and Miyako did the best to try to cover up Miru so none would fall upon her as the Berets shouted over at the Challengers, "You don't just go taking our fucking loot!" It was the green beret'd one- Green Beret coincidentally enough, that spoke. At his side was Red Beret, gently hefting a lit molotov in one hand, and another small device in the other. Their third was nowhere to be seen.
Miru didn't have much of an option other than to let Miyako lead her. Ou somewhat overpowered her and held her beneath ou. The young girl wanted to speak out to get her off but she would have spoke much too softly to be heard through all of the commotion. So for the time being she held still.
As the Berets came through, the three others in the doorway stepped forward as Chan Chan seemed to trail off for a bit. As if she had a goal, whatever the hell it could have possibly been.
"There you are." Chan Chan gave a grin as she stood over Miyako and Miru, only seeing Miyako at first. But that was quick to change as Miru peeked out to see Chan Chan as well. "Oh! And you. How lucky!"
With a small chuckle she held out a finger aimed at Miyakos back, "Bang!" The pink haired girl spoke as a beam of light seemed to strike where she was pointing, then quickly aimed at Miru as best she could. "And~" Miru quickly shot up a hand from under Miyako and aimed it at Chan Chan's upper body and something fired off in her direction forcing her to dodge.
"Oh fuck, hey! Little one is already there! Good." She gave herself a small nod and rushed back off to her 'group' as they were fending off the Berets.
OP had managed to create some form of reflective shield- when Green Beret opened fire upon it, the semi-translucent field reflected the bullets back, much to Green's chagrin. Red didn't care near as much, throwing a molotov against the shield at a particularly accurate angle, causing the fire to spread up and around towards the trio that had been trying to hold them off.
Nerf put his powers to use against neither of the visible ones, but sapped strength from the haze causing the third to make himself vaguely known- well enough that Nerf could aim a golfclub to swing and strike against the magi before fire flickered around the distortion field and onto him.
Streamer gripped her hood with both hands and began to roll aside on her heelies to stay at a safe distance from the combat, trying to keep herself sheltered from the spreading fire, but capable of keeping things in view. It was her job, the stream must go on. With looks across the crowd, gave a quick look about before eyeing Chan Chan and silently nodding. With that, she turned her gaze back to the battle between the hardened rogues of the berets, and the duo of OP and Nerf.
And that's when Miyako began to scream. Not a scream of pain alone, but one of pure unmitigated fear. A desperate fear, of one who is in the struggle of trying to not lose everything they have. Miru flinched and tensed up at the same time. Miyako's scream and grip on the small girl scared her a bit with how sudden it was. And although it only took her just a few seconds to recover from it, she was stuck. Miyako wasn't letting up on the girl at all.
Chan Chan didn't seem to make it all the way back to the others as she suddenly stopped and looked over the crowd of ducking and moving people until someone caught her eye. Some bearded brunette boy not exactly hiding from everything going on, but obviously trying to get away. It seemed as if Chan Chan really didn't need to hide from the two Berets as they were occupied with her own duo, so she simply made her way to obstruct him from passing her up.
"Hey there! Could you hold still for a second~" Speaking as if she was giving him an option. Her hand was already on his chest and a pulse of light went off literally a second after her "question", near the same as the one she hit Miyako with. Regardless of it seeming to be just light it would knock the boy off of his feet and to the ground.
Then with a smile and small wave to him, whether he saw it or not, she giggled and took off in the opposite direction. It looked as if she was leaving the cafeteria completely and letting the others take care of the dirty work.
Following at Chan Chan's coattails for a brief moment was Streamer, before she stopped, spun around to face the combat again, and rolled back into position, stopping not too far from Miyako and Miru of all people. They had a decent seat even if they weren't to be enjoying it.
Not much time passed as Chan Chan didn't want to take longer than she needed before she came to find two more students, Nat and Arian. It seemed as if the two were trying to escape the chaos with one another. Chan Chan couldn't have that. "Hey there~ It's like you all just want to bunch up for me. You guys are great. No really. Perfect timing!" She took her aim yet again and the beam of light was to go off again, striking Arian. And without skipping a beat, Nat was hit right after.
"Man I feel like an assassin or something.. This is great! Sorry I can't stick around you two. Ciao~" And just as quickly as she arrived she took off.
It was now that finally the first sightings of court magi arrived on the scene. The costumes, so lame. The poses, so dumb. It could be no other than the Pepper Patrol. With their seemingly spandex uniforms and 'pepper' based theming, they burst in as Miyako finally began to stop screaming with Miru beneath ou. Ou felt so light headed, but thoughts raced through ou mind as cheesy one liners filtered in through the air. Comments on how the place had been 'peppered' with bullet holes rung through ou ears like lead as ou looked over at Streamer.
The hooded girl brushed herself to the side, filtering away from Miyako and Miru almost effortlessly- she had quite the history of moving between magi during scuffles like this, to the point where it wouldn't have been too far fetched to peg her as either a Grimoire or a Voyage. That was the problem with magi, it became hard to tell when something was skill, or when it was magic.
Afters some time, Miyako finally let go of Miru and turned to her as ou stumbled back to the table, ou eyes wide, "You're a magi? I- I'm one? O-oh fuuuuudge," ou managed to catch ouself, lips pursed, "Crap, uh, we have something we need to do. Now." There was a sense of urgency in ou words, as ou offered ou left hand to Miru as Streamer cast an eye at the two of them. Miyako continued, trying to make clear their need to go now, "We don't have much time, others got hit with that thing too. We need to find them, and help them, before-"
There was another explosion.
"Ugh where is this little shit. She has to be somewhere around here. Er-.. Close.. I know she is." Chan Chan talking to herself was somewhat of a normal thing for her. Being a hostess for a stream had her talking quite often. Which meant to herself as well. Though after taking much longer than she wanted, she finally had her target in her sights. "Finally~ Fuck."
Chan Chan huffed before quickly pacing up to the wandering girl, Laika.
"Hey you. Little girl." Chan Chan didn't give her a chance really to respond or react as her hand was already on top of the girls head and let the flash go. Sadly for Laika, Chan Chan couldn't exactly control the force that came with the light and easily knocked her off of her feet. Hard. "Oh.. Wow. Sorry 'bout that. You should be alright. See ya!" With the glances of the stunned students around she smiled and waved one last time before taking back off towards OP, Nerf, and Streamer.
Back inside of the cafeteria proper, the very structure of the eatery began to wither.
With being let go, Miru already had her hand inside her "backpack" reaching for something inside of it. "W-What? You're a magi too? And why did you scream like that?" The young girl was at a bit of a loss, everything was happening so quickly to her she couldn't get her thoughts straight. The only thing she could do was pull out what she was reaching for. She had marbles in her bag, and now had one between each of her fingers. "What are you talking about, Miyako. We have to help whoever we can-.."
"And we will," Miyako insisted, "The best we can do is to help," ou looked into the crumbling, burning, structure of the cafeteria. Why weren't the sprinklers going off? Ou didn't know that, but ou did know this. They had to find Arian, Nat, Laika, and Devin. Find, rescue, and disguise them. Ou pointed off where Devin was- "Them!"
Poor Devin. Miyako knew he already would be… as he would be for the rest of his life.
"What are you even doing here?" called one of the Pepper Patrol as Chan Chan came back into view. Blasts of neon chile light rocketed forth to strike against OP's shield, only to be deflected away and hit into Black Beret, who began to swear profusely.
Chan Chan came to a bit of a sliding stop as she looked over the battle from afar. "Oh whats up PP? We kinda got chased by the hat boys over there and ended up here. We didn't have much of a choice, really. If you could just take care of em for us we can just get outta here." Chan Chan nodded as if she was content with her answer.
"YOU WHAT?" screamed Red Beret, pulling out another explosive of some sort, "YOU FUCKING STOLE OUR-" Green Beret hit Red in the mouth with the butt of his gun before levying it at Chan Chan, "Shut up, both of you. This is no business of yours, Pepper Patrol. You know Chan Chan does more harm across the city than we ever could. If you just shepherd us both out, we'd be glad to do Kuakilla a favour and finish th--"
A small pebble of rubble bounced against Green's head, having bounced off of OP's shield. Streamer. Green turned towards her with a snarl, and she simply gave a bored shrug, before turning her attention back to her boss.
Chan Chan simply held up her hands for a moment, "Woah woah now~" She then moved her hands to the bottom of her shirt and lifted it up to show off her stomach, as if she was letting something fall from under it. "I don't got anything of yours you uptight weirdo. If anything it's probably just in your pocket."
With the half functional haze of Black Beret around him, Green Beret narrowed his eyes at Chan Chan, and levied his gun at her, "Fuck you, you stupid bi-b-bii-i--" and then he sneezed, pulling the trigger and firing randomly elsewhere as Black Pepper grinned triumphantly.
"I'm always so sneezed with myself when that works!"
Even the other members of the Pepper Patrol groaned at that terrible forced pun, as the Berets began to try to escape the mist to stop sneezing uncontrollably, another bomb lobbed by Red causing a portion of the still remaining exterior wall to collapse, and with it the roof- essentially creating a new wall of burning rubble, locking the entire group of groups in.
Dust shot through the area at the collapse, and Miyako and Miru were only just now getting to the newly paraplegic Devin- quickly trying to explain to him before they'd rush off to find the others. They had to let everyone know what had just happened.
Kuakilla had a new batch of magi, and they were trapped in the chaotic grounds of the Forest with three other magi groups. At best ou'd just be able to rush up to them to explain their power in brief, and expressing the need for a disguise to hide their identity- before having to just tell them they needed to go to the cafeteria again, as a group.
The alternative wasn't to be pretty.
