full conversation between Student Council

As you talked between the two of you, Kaitlin seemed to be talking to a tall, blonde man which Taichi recognized as one of his clubmates, and the vice-president of the Student Council, Alexander Tanner. You had not heard their first exchanges, but now they seemed to be deep in conversation.

“So what are you three going to do now?” Kaitlin asked, her eyes looking more serious than ever.

“Could we ever sleep again if we left it as is? And you know how Rose is… we’re going to take everyone here to the dorms’ safe-zone, and then we’ll round up the volunteers we can get to investigate that room. We might have to fight something dangerous… but there is strength in numbers, and we are talking about at least a hundred people here. We can’t just leave them alone.” Alex answered, and then was interrupted by a new voice.

“If we have any luck with getting people to follow us, that is. How many do you think that will risk their lives on this? We’ll be lucky if we can get the gang to follow us for this, at the very least.” The voice, full of thorns, was that of Rosalin Lovell. You did not know much about her, but her rather acid attitude was well known around the school.

“Then it might be better to not return to the school, after all…” the red-haired girl mumbled.

“No, we really cannot…” once again, the boy was interrupted by Rosalin.

“How many food do you think that there will be in the dorms? Maybe enough for a day or two to feed all the survivors, if we are lucky. Meanwhile there are the school’s supplies which might be three month’s worth, more or less… look, I really don’t trust that little monster, but people that have come here in the last hour or so are saying that they didn’t run in any monsters after a while. And now the… thing says that there are no monsters left except whatever is up there. We really need to use this chance and retake the school. We know nothing of what is outside, after all.”

“Well… it seems to me that people here are looking up at Rose like their leader… just let her do the talking?” Kaitlin suggested.

“Yeah, we were thinking on that but she… has not been well since this all started.”

“Which is understandable… I do not look forward to how people will act once they are out of the shock phase and everything that has happened catches up with them. We need to keep these guys moving…” Rosalin stared at Alexander, who smiled tiredly under her glare.

“Half an hour left. We want to give anyone who has not gotten here yet a chance, after all.”

---

“Interesting… and nah, I think I’ll leave that be for now… I don’t think people here need more drama for now.” Jozefa mumbled to herself.

“Well… you were unluckier than we were. When we fell Ray did something and stopped us from being harmed… we were on the basement, and when we started moving this one lone zombie attacked us and hit Gabe in the face.” Her expression became somber as she recalled the fight. “I… disposed of it pretty easily but… well, we did not stop. We grabbed Gabe and just ran all the way to here… and then something really weird happened.”

She stopped, and it became evident that she was trying really hard to put something very strange into words. “Have you ever seen… well, you probably did… it was like TV static is what I’m trying to say… it looked exactly like that… there was a slime that tries to attack us and that weird static appeared and ate it… it did nothing to us and just let us pass.”

“… I really ought to tell Alex and Rose about this. They seem to be running things in the lobby…”

---

“Yeah… I think they were around… here.” Jozefa led you through the people in the Lobby, until you happened into a group of people you mostly recognized: Alexander, Rosalin and a red-haired girl that you didn’t know.

“Hey guys! I’m back! And here’s Jordan too, he has some questions to ask to you guys.” She announced. “Ah, and before I forget, Kaitlin, this is Jordan, he is… in a lot of clubs. And this one is Kaitlin, the president of the Swordsmanship Club.”

Kaitlin nodded towards you as a greeting, while Alexander showed a small smile at the way Jozefa happily introduced the two of you. Only Rosalin’s scowl remained unchanged.

“Well… what did you want to ask, Jordan?” asked Alex.

---

"Nice to meetcha, Kaitlin. I'm glad to see you guys made it," Jordan said with a smile. He made sure to give Rosalin his most perfectly innocent grin. Deep down, he was also glad she and Alex had made it. They needed people who were used to being in authority. "I figure we should pool info and all that jazz, and since you're in charge, that makes you the guys to hear it."

Then the joking attitude vanished as Jordan cast his memory back into the very recent past.

"When I woke up here," he said eventually. "I was at this giant... street light. That's not so important though. As soon as I woke up, I saw this... well, you'll think I'm joking, but I'm not." A bit of a blush appeared on Jordan's face. He knew exactly how silly he was about to sound.

"There was this... witch. Yeah, pointy hat, that kind of witch. She wasn't old or anything though. Looked about our age. Long black hair. Didn't recognize Zeus when I asked her if she was a student. Called herself Zeta. There was this moving portal thing, like one of those magic mirrors except motorized. She was on the other side, so I could see her, but she couldn't come over."

"Anyway, before a bunch of zombies showed up, she said she'd been exploring... some place, when our school literally fell out of the sky and landed here. Still not joking, by the way. Anyway, she fried the zombies that'd been chasing me with some kind of Kamehameha-type thing. Almost collapsed the hallway doing it, too. Then she told me the school's been warped somehow, that she actually can turn into a cat, and that it would be safest for everyone to get out, before the portal broke from the other side and I lost contact."

He paused for a moment and awkwardly scratched his head. "Then I met Jozefa, and she can probably tell you the rest."

"I know it's silly," he said again. "But if this place has zombies, freaky floating brains, mutant crows, super powers, and static that randomly swallows stuff, I think a witch wouldn't be out of the question. So yeah, I don't really know what you're planning for us, but I recommend we get the hell out of the school before it collapses on us like a pile of cards."

A second passed by.

"Oh, right!" Jordan laughed, at ease again. "The question: Do you guys have any idea what the hell is going on here?" It was possibly the most laid back approach to such a serious question the world had ever seen.

---

“A witch…?” The general reaction was… well, you expected more disbelief, but given the experience of these guys with monsters… they weren’t very surprised.

“Wait, the school can fall on top of us?” Kaitlin asked, looking pretty startled.

“That little monster mentioned something about that… whenever buildings enter whatever this place is? They are warped and changed like our school was. Sometimes they stop being structurally sound and collapse. But the thing said that if it had not gone down by now, it was not going to go down… and I think she’s right there.” Alexander explained.

“That thing?” The one who asked now was Jozefa.

“We’ll explain that later” interrupted Rosalin, “now, tell me about the static, that and the witch are the only new things here.”

“Ah yeah…” Jozefa then told the group about the static that had swallowed the slime and done nothing else.

“… Do you think that is what is cleaning up the monsters? If so, then it might really be true that there are no more of these creatures around.” Alexander mumbled to himself.

“Well, the creature did not seem to know jack about why exactly there were less monsters. She just said they were disappearing.” Rosalin added.

“Whatever… if this is our chance we really need to use it.” Kaitlin concluded.

You got no idea of what they were talking about, and for the looks of it, neither did Jozefa.

---

"Uh, guys?" Jordan interrupted the conversation before it could go further.

"Not to stop you or anything... but mind giving us the low down on what exactly is going on? I get that we're not in Kansas anymore, but that's still not explaining anything. Creature? Chance?"

"I mean, if Joze doesn't get it, how am I supposed to? Cut the little guys some slack, please!"

---

“None of us has any idea of what is going on here apart from the school being full of monsters, but we can tell you about our plan… wait, hold that thought.” Alexander looked towards one of the sides of the room, where some sort of scuffle seemed to be happening.

“Well shit, Rosalin, explain things to him please, Kaitlin, help me, we need to stop this before it escalates.”

Saying these words, Alex started running towards the epicenter of the fight with, with Kaitlin close behind. Meanwhile, Rosalin summarized the plan Alexander and Rose had come up with, as well as the details they knew about it, like the food problem.

“I see… so if there really aren’t any monsters except the thing in the fourth floor, we can use this window of time to retake the school… but… we really cannot leave the people there alone. If they are in any danger, then I’ll rescue them, even if I have to do it alone!” Jozefa exclaimed. Rosalin just shrugged.

“We’ll probably get a bunch of volunteers… Rose could really convince one of these zombies to dance a vals if she put her heart on it.”

---

"...tch."

He should've been pumped. The idea was a brave one. Go upstairs and rescue the people there! Fight and defeat the monster! Save the day, get the girl, pass Go, win two hundred bucks!

But, having tasted true pain, having fought for his life, Jordan J. Jones knew he never wanted to expose anyone else to that kind of horror ever again. Besides, Alex's plan had holes.

"...he's not thinking it through," Jordan said bitterly as he watched Alex push his way into an argument. "Joze, Ros, it's a good idea, but... we need more than that. A lot more. If we're gonna be risking our lives again, we gotta prepare for something that can take on all the monsters we've seen, and then some."

Cogs began to turn. It was simple. The goal was to save the people on the 4th floor, evacuate the wounded, and eliminate the last monster. It wouldn't be a cakewalk, no matter how many people they gathered.

Lavrenti. What would the Captain do in this situation? He'd bring the team together, give everyone a role, make a plan, and be sure that everyone knew exactly what to do. He'd check each player to see that they were in good condition, make adjustments to the roster, and double check everything.

"...these super powers," Jordan said, extending one finger from his right hand. "They're not endless. I could do all kinds of crazy shit earlier, and now I can't even bring up a breeze. This stuff runs out. We get tired. I'm betting everyone here is at least half-spent, especially those who used their powers. If we go in there now, we'd be going in out of shape and in crappy condition. That's practically asking to get wrecked."

"Info." A second finger came out. "We've got nothing but a vague assertion. What the hell's up there? How dangerous is it? Do we even stand a chance? Captain never made us play against an enemy team without watching a bunch of videos of their old games. We need to investigate the situation somehow, get all the info we can. Rushing in blindly is a no-no."

"A plan." And the third. "Yeah, I know going up there is 'the plan', but I'm talking logistics. All that complicated shit I never paid any attention to. Like who goes where and does what. Who's got what super power and what they're gonna do with it, that kinda stuff. If Captain Lav was awake, he'd be all over that, but he ain't, so we have to do it ourselves."

"And then there's the food stuff. But I'm pretty sure we'll figure it out. Maybe one of the students has the power to make cake appear out of nowhere or something." Jordan shrugged. He couldn't hold on to a serious mood for longer than a few minutes.

Then he noticed.

"Hey, where's Rose? I thought she'd be planning with you guys, but she's not here..."

---

Jordan

Rosalin turned to you, and looked at you as if she was seeing you for the first time. It was a bit unflattering, but it seemed like you had sort of impressed her.

“Well, we do have thought it through much more than you think,” she mumbled bitterly, “but both Rose and Alexander have agreed they have to waste the less time possible to get there. If there are lives at risk they cannot afford to wait until we are all rested up, or something like that… well, I reckon most of us should be able to regain whatever sort of energy we use by resting for a while. I myself seem to have recovered all of it but I have been here for hours…”

“And on the other two things,” she continued, “it is very hard to plan on them without knowing who will be going with us on the first place. I am very good at logistics and tactics, if I do say so myself, but without knowing our resources on the first place, we won’t know how to use them. The thing that worries me the most is the lack of information, especially because I cannot think of a way to obtain it on the first place.”

“So let’s hope someone with a power that can be useful that way joins us. There also seem to be a lot of normal non-superpowered people that are interested in coming with us, which worries me…”

At that point, Tomomi and Taichi interrupted the conversation, asking their question to Rosalin. In a bad mood, she turned to them, but fired off one last nugget of data towards Jordan. “Rose is talking with that little monster over there. They seem to be quite busy so it might be a bad idea to interrupt them.”

Tomomi

Rosalin turned towards you, and you instantly noted that she was not in a good mood. However, she seemed to consider the question all the same, and gave it some thought before answering you.

“I imagine you are talking about the twin sister of the girl that entered with you… no, I haven’t seen her in the Lobby, but there were a lot of students in the dorm, two hundred or so. She could be there.” She paused, and then seemed to put some care in the words she was going to say next: “And the Petrov girl… well, she was with a group that came in earlier, the one with the agent… she was very wounded, but was treated by the people in charge of the medical resources, and is asleep. The nurse was taking a look at her last time I looked, so she’s probably alright.”