Karen watches to see whether this will work.

"Room for me?" asks a girl who seems like she should be your last possible choice for people to hang out with even though she's not actually doing anything besides scraping up the last bit of her gravy off her plate with the side of her fork.

OH NO.

Okay, the thing to figure out right now is whether she's plotting to kill them or not plotting to kill them so long as she gets what she wants. Um. Uh.

After some hesitation he decides that actually it's okay if he dies as long as it's very clear to everyone who did it so they're warned. "Uh, yeah, okay, um - what was your name?"

"El."

"El. Nice to meet you, El, as we all know it's pretty implausible that a mal would kill us today but we'll all be safer if we work together just in case." He's aiming for subtle and plausibly deniable, but his voice is just a tiny bit too loud and his smile is slightly forced. He's doing his very best around the internal screaming, anyway.

- that girl seems like bad news and Val seems not sure how to tell her to sod off? Miguel wasn't even sure if he meant to go, he's already got a supply run in, but he has talked to Val about gangs and that makes him sort of want to intervene here. He...doesn't know how, though. 

"I think we...already have as many people as we need, actually?" he says, which is kind of a bold move, but....

"Then don't yell about it in the cafeteria, you ridiculous bell-end!"

Oh, are we going to fight, Miguel can fight a girl if she's an evil girl.

"...are you wanting to come with us?" she asks Miguel, because she feels like 'we have enough people' is both a weird thing to say about three people and a weird thing to introduce yourself with. "You shouldn't count me as much as a full wizard, probably, I don't have a lot of spells."

"None of us have a lot of spells. And yeah, I'll come with." Has she not noticed Bad News Girl.

There is probably not a good way to say 'okay, but really, I have two spells and neither one of them fries mals'. Oh well. At least they have one person. Probably she should let Val handle this?

This has gotten completely out of Val's control and he doesn't know what to do. El is going to murder Miguel, probably, now is there a way to keep her from murdering anyone else? And is there a way to do it without looking weak?

"I'm okay with any of you coming but I don't want a fight on the way, so, maybe another time, El."

"Sure, next time you yell in the caf I'll be sure to come running, I can tell you're excited to get to know me." She picks up her tray and stalks to the busing station.

"- you realize she's bad news?" Miguel says once she's left.

Good time to wander up without annoying more anyone-in-her-classes than necessary!

"You going to the main stockroom?"

"I noticed," he says to Miguel.

"We're going for school supplies," he says to this other person.

Well, Miguel can't think of anything else to say that isn't so obvious as to be rude, like "then you should have turned her down". He will - nod. Yeah. Nod.

School supplies can be exchanged for goods and services. "Cool. I'll come."

"If none of us have it in for the others I think we should get going before that changes."

"Yeah, sounds good."

Snort. "We'll do our best to put it off."

Oh good, four people seems a lot safer than three, given that she's kind of dead weight. She can follow them out of the cafeteria and head for where Leander pointed out the main stockroom?

Watch watch, follow follow, firm belief nothing will actually attack them.

That's a pretty justified belief. It's the first day of class and some of their class has been hunting mals for fun and profit since getting here.

Val leads the way, shoulders square, whistling the Battle Hymn of the Republic unless and until someone objects. He does a surprisingly good job of giving the impression of being casual and unconcerned, given that in fact he's looking all around for potential enemies and trying to figure out what to do in case of more interpersonal tension. That kid earlier who kept spinning around made it look more like playing than watching his back; that was very cool and Val copies it.

Well at least they're not going to immediately get murdered by murdergirl. She might try to take revenge later but she'd have to find them in the cafeteria, she doesn't know where they live.