- But it isn't Daniella on the other side. Instead, it's an unpleasantly familiar blonde girl, her normally carefully tended curls a wild mess, a nasty burn splashing over her left shoulder and up her neck, her carefully nice blouse in burnt tatters that leave her bra the barest nod to decency, and it looks like the left strap melted into that charred mess - blood splattered over her right, a chaotic criss-cross like she stabbed someone multiple times -

It's a girl with a sharp grin and a sharper knife, which immediately dives for El's stomach as soon as the door is even a little open.

Aaaah shitshitshit!

She gasps in pain and stumbles backwards from the door.

Luthien lets out a howl of fury and dives for the door, her own knives coming eagerly into her hands. 

And Jacky steps in with a grin, the door slamming shut behind her. She draws another knife, leaving the one she'd stabbed El with in place - it feels odd, like El's blood is clotting much too fast around it. Good for not bleeding out (unless she removes it), probably adds up to some kind of horrendous poison if left in. 

She meets Luthien almost casually, parrying her with the grace and energy of a maleficer glut on malia. Her eyes are pure white, her skin crackles like old paper as she moves, and she's as much of a close-quarters specialist as Luthien.

"Is that all you're willing to do, Luthien?" she croons.

"Fuck off and die!" 

She laughs and dances around another blow. "Not so long as you keep holding back on me."

Bandage bandage she needs the emergency bandage- Under the lower shelf and she can lean on the wall-

"Lu," she gasps. "Don't let her-"

"No helping, Tinuviel," Jacky sing-songs, trying to dance around Luthien to get closer. "Be a good girl and be quiet now ~ "

It must be a spell, because the knife in El's gut pulses with a sickening swell of malia, like it's digging little hooks into her.

Snarl, and furious redoubling of effort. 

"Won't you do more to help her?" Jacky taunts Luthien, her attention drawn back. "You could be so much more than this - you could be so beautiful - I'll help you, you'll have so much fun, you and your sister both - "

Aaaaaaaa fuck this no that knife's coming out now she's almost got her fingers on the bandage-

She yanks, and almost faints from the pain.

The blood pouring from her probably doesn't help! 

"Not much more time..." Jacky taunts Luthien. "She'll bleed out soon. And you could stop it - just take what you know you deserve."

"Fucking shut up!" She's accelerated, but that fucking bastard is matching her blow for blow, and she hadn't thought to grab a crystal before leaping and she can't afford to disengage and grab one now, and she's already teetering on the exhausted edge of her always too-small mana reserves -

"This school wasn't meant to hold someone like you," she croons, another almost spell weaving around her. "You're not like everyone else. This is our trap, but your chrysalis. You could consume every drop of mana here - in the world - if you'll just reach - "

"You'll die first!"

She just laughs. "The only thing keeping you from killing me is you," she taunts. "Take my mana if you want my life. Consume me, and become what you were meant to be - "

El tosses Jacky's knife aside and presses down on the stab wound to try to slow the bleeding while her other hand still scrabbles at the underside of the shelf until her fingers close on-

-not the bandage.

A knife. One of Lu's. She can't cast a spell like this but she can push mana into the knife no problem and the inscription on this means it'll explode with a paralytic burst if she does that and Lu's grounding knife will channel that back into useful mana for her-

Just breathing right now is enough for El to have mana to spare. She pushes all she can into the knife and underarms it in Jacky's general direction.

Jacky dodges it - but doesn't realize in time what it is - and she's caught in the blast, muscles stiffening and eyes going wide, and she falls.

And the lightning crackles around Lu - who abandons killing Jacky, flinging herself at her sister, fingers scrabbling for the bandage which they need to get on -

"Lu. Lu. I'm. I got this." She takes the bandage. "Get. Get her."

There's something animalistic and almost but not quite broken in her gaze - or, broken like glass is broken, into a thousand shards like hungry teeth - something scared and made bigger in its fear - 

She doesn't have any words now, just snarls and heavy breaths, and she obeys El - of course she does - and turns back to her enemy with an enraged yowl. But she doesn't kill Jacky - she falls on her with knives like claws and teeth like broken glass, with all the fury of a cornered rat rendered suddenly victorious and starving.

She pulls on Jacky's mana. It's almost an accident. And when it comes away it doesn't feel like malia should, doesn't claw her brain or leave hooks in her soul - it's shining, and delicious, and hers, and Jacky said she deserves it.

She deserves to kill Jacky, too. Slowly and painfully.

More pain than El's in will be a stretch. But that shouldn't stop Lu from trying.

Jacky's mana means she can refresh that paralytic spell whenever she wants - means she can reach for El with blood on her lips and offer sweet kisses, healing and alleviating pain - and asking -

Would El like to watch Lu take Jacky apart at the seams? 

Yes. Yes, she would.

She throws a silencing spell over their door when Jacky's too fucked up to do anything about it, and lets the paralytic wear off enough she can scream. That only drives Lu into a greater frenzy, of course, and it's only showing off for El that slows her down, slightly abates the violence into something more prolonged - though she doesn't want Jacky to die yet, and that seems to currently mean 'therefore she isn't,' no matter how much a normal human should've died from massive shock by now. 

And then the warning bell for curfew rings all too soon, and Lu snarls, furious and wild.