(And they can make sure no one gets cold feet.)

(That had better not be a problem.)

(There's a couple moments where it feels like it might be, but... Ultimately, everyone does as promised, going down in order without significant delay.)

(El won't have to shoot anyone, then. Save Shinta's bullets for the mals.)

Getting down is difficult enough, too - the shaft has shrunk until it's barely large enough to contain them and the ladder. She's constantly bumping against it, and the metal is hot, thrumming with a constant deep vibration. The shaft opens into a relatively safe chamber, one convered by a thick layer of soot.

By the time she and Luthien are out, the other students are already crowding around a section of the wall that's been turned as transparent as glass. The graduation hall is enormous, and the mals are crowded in a heaving mass around the enormous sliding doors the seniors will be entering through soon - leaving an open path from them to the machinery.

Maybe this won't be so difficult. At least Lu will have a clear shot. They'll be using one of her knives as a target for one of El's spells, like one of the guided missiles Shinta suggested. It'll be a variation on the paralysis bomb mixed with an arctic light evocation and her chain lightning. The supervolcano spell was actually the key to getting the disparate elements to hang together, providing the bones of a structure strong enough to shape and channel the forces involved. The mals that it doesn't kill outright should be stuck in place at least long enough for the group to cross and erect the shield.

El starts her soft chant. (Anyone who's listening will quickly decide they had better not. The cadence and words alone are enough to back up her reputation and then some. Hazy wisps of static electricity condense out of the air to crackle and zap and if she had a cloak it would be billowing very dramatically.)

Jiana's casting a critical eye over the scene as El casts, issuing a few modifications to their orders to everyone else who isn't also consumed in their own long casting time spell.

Luthien and one of the maintenance kids are ready when El is. 

She steps over and jerks a nod as she nears the end of the incantation.

They open the hatch - Luthien throws her knife - two of their shielders stand ready to slam the hatch shut again -

El points, and the spell launches off her finger like the wrath of an angry goddess.

Which of course is exactly what it is.

And they slam the hatch shut as it goes off - 

To massive disruption in the graduation hall - the lightning, by design, grounds harmlessly in the metal that makes up the actual Scholomance, but the mals are very thoroughly blasted, making a burst of a debris field - and they yank the hatch back open immediately after the shockwave settles, once it's even maybe slightly safer to go out -

Time to sprint (in formation - Luthien and El at the back again).

Time to see how many they lose on the run over.

One girl - Ellen, a artificer - just ahead of them trips on a loose tile - her allied shielder pauses and turns, not fast enough to save her, fast enough to damn himself - 

Luthien stops on a dime - turns - doesn't even leap but catches the mals surging for them - she's moving quickly, a stuttering slide out of reality, and it's difficult to track where the flashing blades strike - 

But the mals fall to pieces, and the girl's alliance member is helping her up, and they're about to get separated from everyone else. 

Not if El can help it. Which she can.

She and Luthien together can get the four of them caught back up - and for all the massive size of the graduation hall the sprint is short. Less than a minute at the longest. 

The shielders fall in, switching to the complicated chant Luthien had designed, getting their shield up as the surviving mals come roaring for them. 

Time to kill.

They might be killing longer than planned - the maintenance team runs into a snag. Both Luthien and El know Mandarin, of course, but that might be a 'in theory' here - there's a lot of technical words they never learned. 

Luthien, at least, isn't faltering. Everyone else...

Knew it knew it knew it fucking knew it, nothing's ever easy. El and Lu will keep fighting, keep the shield up, as long as there's still mana in the sharers. But if it comes down to the end- She's getting herself and Lu out and back.

She might have to drag Luthien out - she's enjoying the fight, something feral and challenging in her eyes - but only on one level - she's protecting not just El, dragging herself out of the murderous trance she keeps trying to fall into every time a mal goes for one of her allies rather than her - 

And their allies cover for her, too, when gaps open, better than they had in practice - 

(Maybe she's a monster. But with the graduation hoard bearing down on them - it becomes very easy to appreciate that she's on their side, her back to them and her exceptionally sharp teeth bared at everything outside their circle.)

(This is her spell, her idea, and somewhere in the discussions and relentless drills she became friends with Clarita, began to cheer for Maya, learned to smile back at Ellen - the very same girl she saved on the run over, now casting like she owes more than a life debt - )

(David Pires is the first to fall. Maya is the second. Their strikers collapse soon after them. Luthien steps into the gaps, and the other shielders step after her.)

It's two hours between morning bell and graduation. Getting down ate some of that - the preparation before they went in ate more -

It didn't eat enough, it feels like at times. It ate too much, it feels like at others. 

There's no way to track time in here. No way to know. But even with Luthien's lightning rod knife allowing them to recycle some mana - even with a school's worth and more on their wrists -

Things are starting to feel a bit thin. 

Five minutes. That's El's cutoff time. At five minutes to go, she's grabbing Lu and they're leaving, and damned be everyone else. She's got a countdown going in the back of her head and when it hits-

The artificers had better hurry up.

In the meantime, she slings her spells a bit wider to cover the gaps. Fills time with Shinta's gun to take a breath before launching something bigger, walls and blasts and slows to buy others their own extra seconds.

It's five minutes until her mental cutoff - Ellen's shielder collapses, his striker soon after - two - 

As the seconds fall (and Clarita's striker collapses - leaving El and Jiana their only strikers - though Clarita's standing strong - )

One minute -

(Jiana's shielder crumples silently. Clarita steps in, covers Jiana - it's her and Luthien now, holding the line alone together - )

The seconds fall -

Just before the final thirty seconds before El's secret deadline - 

The maintenance crew give a triumphant shout, and begin their final chant. Maya's striker drags herself to her hands and knees, face grey, and begins crawling - stumbling - fumblingly arming the yankers on the fallen, all the fallen, and strings them together so she can activate them all - 

The last piece clicks into place -

And Jiana shouts "Go! Go now!" as the machinery hums to burning life.

El is already grabbing Lu and tossing one final spell and getting them both the hell out.