"Then come over here and grab—however many people you can grab—no you don't!"

That last part is directed at a piece of hydra that was trying to sneak past him and who gets thoroughly incinerated.

"Sure, great hero!" Trevor doesn't add that would be easier with Felix had stayed beside him so they could work together on the jumping maneuver they trained for this purpose. But maybe some of that subtext is conveyed in the sarcasm.

Then they perform the other trained maneuver to pull Trevor to his brothers with enhanced jump and dampen impact spells.

Then Felix and Trevor take a freshman and jump out of the hurdle at the nearest opening.

Yeah as if he's gonna just trust random people to know what they're doing.

The more charitable version of that thought is that independent thinking is a terrible idea on a battlefield, you follow your acting commander's orders even if you think they're wrong or bad because if everyone who thinks they know better does their own thing you don't have an army you have a pile of corpses. And yes he has placed himself as acting commander here, how nice of you to ask.

Anyhow, he doesn't waste any time bothering, they seem to have stuff well in hand for when he does provide them with an opening. Two more freshmen follow them regardless of whether Felix and Trevor are actively taking them and Scorpius swears under his breath and burns the piece-of-hydra that tried to get them. Okay that's five fewer people—no, just three, Felix and Trevor were extra and now will hopefully leave—so they're nine, and the hydra pieces are very much starting to rethink their life choices. This is no longer a group of thirty and half of the mal's pieces have been killed already; the freshmen are all going to survive.

If they can't argue about chains of command later, it will be because they won't be here to argue. So they limit to inner dialogue for now.

At some point it even looks like they are going to take their leave, but instead Fenris jumps alongside Trevor while Felix covers with his distracting projectiles.

"—what are the three of you doing just go—Trevor, your name is Trevor, I remembered—the mals are gonna—"

And just then there is a loud banging sound from the vent and another hydra-like thing drops from it, this one with four heads instead so Scorpius shuts up and starts casting something much longer than his usual quick combat spells. It's in French and seems to be a lot about fire.

That sudden new guest to this impromptu party wipes Trevor's mind of any answer.

Felix takes a couple steps for the nearest freshman and uses the spell to jump, super-changing it to the point the two land several feet behind Fenris.

Fenris manages to extend his incantation, so it cushions part of the impact, which is better than none of the impact.

"Don't go back," Fenris tells Felix. "We should try fishing out the others instead."

No you dumbasses—!

He's too busy casting to react though and then his spell is complete and he's

on

fire.

It doesn't seem to hurt him, though, and he leaps for the newcomer mal and hugs it. It screeches, high and keening, as all of the fire on Scorpius quickly goes out and transfers itself to it, burning it to a crisp. That's definitely better than slicing it.

"Thibaut, get them out!" he cries while he's finishing with the fire, and Thibaut doesn't even reply, just gets one of his shields to wink out and strengthens the other one to give the kids more space to go.

All of them do go, then, a single group moving together towards the cafeteria, leaving only Scorpius and Thibaut behind and—

—there's a third asshole coming out of a vent right behind the kids and Scorpius has to go for it—

—Thibaut's shield fails, the first hydra's pieces converge on him—

—Scorpius has to choose—

—he chooses. He loves Thibaut—his first actual friend—

—and the other kids have friends, too, people who will miss them, and he goes for the mal threatening them instead of the ones going for his friend and he ignores his friend's scream and he extra ignores the way his friend's scream dies too quickly, too short, and by the time he turns back the pieces of the mal are each carrying a piece of Thibaut in their mouths and he turns to a corner and vomits.

Fenris is very gladly that his stomach is empty, so he just needs to swallow back the bile that started to come up.

Instead, he helps Felix stand up. While being very much on alert, because that would be the worst possible time for yet another mal to come after them again.

Felix steals a look at the... pieces and hides his face.

Trevor is really not going to look in that direction. Fuck. Instead, he will walk over to where Scorpius is.

Scorpius is leaning against a wall—glowing faintly—and all of the other freshmen have left by now. He's got his eyes closed and every other breath sends a shiver up his spine.

When Trevor gets close enough he immediately whirls around, assuming a combat stance, but he slumps back down when he sees the other boy. "Trevor. Hi." He's soaked through with sweat, but it doesn't look like he's crying. He seems to just be in—shock.

"Hi... we should go to the cafeteria if you want. Is that okay?"

"—right." Of course they would want an escort, after that. He wipes his forehead with the neck of his shirt, nods almost to himself, and straightens up to go with them.

"You shouldn't be wandering the halls alone." Trevor indicates his identical brothers.

Fenris watches as they approach, still very mindful of his surroundings. He is even looking at the direction that the other three are making an effort not to look, to avoid it being a vector of attack.

Felix's face is turned away from everyone.

"It's fine, I'll notice if anything comes," Scorpius tells Fenris, still not looking.

Fenris looks at him with an extremely blank expression, like someone's perfectly anatomically correct picture of a human face without any emotion behind it. He nods. And doesn't go completely out of vigilante mode, but turns towards Felix. He sort of shields Scorpius from seeing Felix's face.

Trevor quietly nudges their group forward because he really thinks this is one of those situations where they will both stay stuck here forever if they don't.

The cafeteria isn't even very far is what's most tragic.

And what's extra tragic is the senior bell sounding, and the host of seniors getting up from their chairs to go to their first class of the day. Most of the freshmen have already gone through the queue, too, and they are the last, left to scrape the bottom of each tray.

(Scorpius doesn't look at the NY enclave table right now where he's sure the other kids have gotten him some extra food. He doesn't. He doesn't want to know, right now.)