"Fair."

"I get that we are on this because we are the team who has Lucia who is both very heroic and able to spot people helping with this, but should there be... more... people."

"--You're not wrong. Do you have, like, ideas, for who to bring in--"

"It depends on what we need help with."

She presses her ear harder against the door. "Well, I think the immediate answer isn't dismantling traps, because the seniors haven't left." 

"If we do need to dismantle traps we're going to want Maria Riviera - the tall one - and Sanjay Reddy."

"We should probably also have a plan for if their plan is to just not leave until the mals start coming up." 

"Well, then you sail in and kill the mals, probably?"

"Well, yeah! But, like, I'm incredibly reckless and bad at normal-people precautions, so it seems totally likely that El is going to point out some obvious other feature to add to that plan to make it less stupid?"

"I guess if it looks like they're going to do that you should post - Liu, she's least recognizable - in the place they'll have to run past, so she can see who they are. And then kill the mals so they don't eat Liu."

"Would they have to run? They could have yankers. That would be safer, for waiting until the last possible moment to flee the ravening hordes." 

"Oh, that would make sense too. In that case I have nothing to add to 'project kill the mals'."

"Fair enough. --It'll probably make a lot of noise when it happens, do you think it would be weird to just go back to doing homework?"

"A little bit but not enough that we shouldn't do it anyway, time is mana."

"Yep." 

It takes a little more than half an hour before the sharp cry of a shrike could be heard, echoing through the maintenance shaft, and then out into the hallway. Then there;s a loud zapping noise, and a thud, and one senior says to another, loud enough to be audible inside the shop, "What'd you do that for?" 

The response isn't clear, but the following noises make a fairly coherent picture of someone hoisting the shrike's corpse through the shaft, and it falling a very long way down. 

Lucia gestures for Liu and Aadhya to retreat to the farthest part of the shop. In only a few moments, there is a rumbling and a growling, both increasing in volume, and then the noise of a lot of yankers being activated at the same time. 

And then Lucia slams through the doors of the shop barely slowly enough not to damage them. 

El goes with her. She is also very good at destroying things, with Lucia taking point and supplying fuel.

Lucia will provide lots of fuel. 

Usually she prefers to kill things with her sword. Usually there are fewer mals requiring her to dispatch them as efficiently as possible, and one sword is not efficient for this many mals. But even mostly using spells instead of her pre-enchanted blade, she is still accumulating mana at quite a clip. 

Eventually the two of them fight their way to the maintenance hatch, and manage to slam it shut, and Lucia gets the tip of her sword under one edge to peel it off before anything can break through. 

"Well, that was exciting." 

"You could keep the hatch."

"Yeah."

She rolls it up and tucks it under her arm. 

"Next time, though, we'll take time to prep, and do it at a time that's good for us, not just awkwardly do our homework right up 'till." 

"Also we can share it around for our actual maintenance assignments."

"Also that! I do also like that. Do you want to wait until dinner, then dramatically stalk into the cafeteria and lay down some ultimatums." 

"Am I supposed to lay down the ultimatums? I thought that was your bag."

"Well, okay, probably, yes, but, 'would you like to lay down some ultimatums with me' sounds better than 'would you like to play Worse Cop to my Bad Cop.'"

"I am happy to stand ominously near you. Let's go tell Aadhya and Liu that the conquering hero has, though."

"Yeah." 

They start trudging back towards the shop. 

"El? I don't say this enough. I'm really, really glad you're on my team."