And then barely ten minutes after she saw him slinking off to the showers, a confident knock comes at her door, the faint lingering miasma of dead mal wafting through the gaps. 

- It's enough to surprise a small smile out of her (no one except Orion seeks her out like this, and, well...), and she decides she's feeling lonely bored and magnanimous enough to open the door for him, a "Oh alright - " spilling from her tongue -

- But it isn't Orion on the other side. Instead, it's an unpleasantly familiar blonde girl, her carefully tended curls pinned back with a nice barrette Lu last saw gracing Luisa's hair, a carefully nice blouse arrayed artfully over her shoulders with a bra strap peeking out - 

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

What the fuck!!!

Lu twists mostly out of the way, calling one of her own knives to her hand - not fast enough, Jacky's blade still grazes her stomach -

Jacky pushes her way in, kicking the door shut behind her, and presses the attack. 

"What the fuck, bitch?" Lu says, parrying and summoning another knife she can return the attack with. 

"Luthien," she croons, matching Lu blow for blow. "You're so pretty. I knew you'd be even prettier with some blood on you."

- What.

What?

What?!?

She's so busy blushing she almost misses a step in their fight. But only almost. "Next time ask me out like a normal person you fucking creep," she blurts out, almost automatically. 

Giggle. "But you and me aren't normal people, Luthien," she keeps crooning Luthien's name, saying it like she's savoring a very nice chocolate. 

"I'm nothing like you."

"But you are, Luthien. You're beautiful, and you could be so much more." Their fight is almost a dance, and with little flicks their shining blades get through but never land a solid blow, drawing thin lines of blood. "This school was never meant to hold you."

"Shut the fuck up."

"Why? This school is our trap - but it could be your chrysalis if you'll just reach out and take what you deserve - if you want me to shut up, make me, rip my mana from me - "

Luthien shakes her head in denial - 

- And leaves an opening.

And Jacky's knife gets through, burying in her side. 

She crumples with a strangled cry. 

Jacky kneels over her, stradling her. "So pretty. My prettiest Luthien. We're going to have so much fun."

"Fuck - you - "

She lashes out, knife cutting a brilliant silver arc -

And catching on Jacky's forearm instead of tearing out her neck, drawing a moan and a little wiggle from her as she presses her hips down on Luthien's and draws another knife, apparently trying to cut Luthien's clothing off. 

!!!

- And there's a sharp concerned knock on the door, nevermind it's nearly curfew, and a raised concerned voice - a familiar one -

- Orion?

- And a loud curse, and then the doorhandle melts, again, and Orion bursts into her room (also again).

And Jacky turns slightly - pretty clearly in the middle of Up To No Good - and looks at him with blood on her face -

And he raises his hand and begins to cast -

- And Luthien - 

- Yanks his mana out - doesn't stop at the snippy threat she gave earlier - pulls and pulls and pulls - 

Orion Lake had a lot of mana.

Luthien Higgins now has a lot of malia, and also a corpse lying in her doorway.

It's too much - 

A spell - she doesn't even know which, a clear focused burning intent of just fuck all this - rips out of her, through her open door - through the walls - 

A shockwave tears apart her hallway, thin flickers of roaring hungry mortal flame shoved out - landing and clinging everywhere they can - and then taking hold, and starting to grow -

And then the screaming starts. 

Which is, by the by, exactly when Jacky decides is a great time to kiss Luthien on the mouth, moaning and wiggling and apparently totally heedless of the knives buried in both of them. 

- ?!?!

...Jacky actually isn't a bad kisser...

...No. Focus. 

Luthien heals the knife wound in her gut with a powerful wave of malia, spilling out to all her other cuts - then to Jacky's wounds as well - 

- Disappointed whine! 

She undoes that a little by punching Jacky in the stomach, then shoving her back and shouting, "What is wrong with you?!"

"Nothing!" Wiggle wiggle. "That was the hottest thing I've ever seen."

She - can't help it. She snorts, and then starts laughing helplessly, as some extremely hot mortal flame roars around them. 

She'd expected drawing malia to feel like drawing sludge through her veins. That's what it felt like in maleficers. Grimy. Sick.

That's not what it feels like now. It feels like a drug, like a powerful buzz, like she imagines drinking must feel. 

It feels an awful lot like wanting to kiss a pretty girl, who just might want to kiss her back. 

'Might just' more like 'will kiss her whether she wants it or not.'

Jacky starts taking off her very tattered and bloody shirt, saying - "There's so much more in this school, you should take everything - take me - "

"Are you asking me to kill you or have sex with you?"

"Either!" Kiss!

- And Luthien doesn't push her away - and she can't help but think that this school is full of quite a lot of everything, and it could be all hers, and if she doesn't start taking first then the school will call a tribunal and she'll lose so she might as well jump ahead - 

There's over a thousand little lights around her. Over a thousand terrified beating hearts. And they could be hers. 

- Which is, more or less, exactly when a pipe above them groans and gives way and dumps a holy fuck shit number of mals on their heads. 

- Oh come on. 

Excuse you school Jacky was having a moment here. 

She still has her knives now, and more malia than she did before she went into Luthien's room - Jacky, for one, isn't going down without a fight. 

And Luthien's reached for malia for the first time ever - 

And is quickly figuring out why everyone's so scared of her. Her carefully hoarded mana stores are a drop next to this, and the mals attacking them have her on her back foot, unable to get enough of a breath to yank the life out of all the students around them - not when she's so new to it - 

But this is still far more than she's ever had in her life, and - her control isn't reduced at all, which means she can wield it to very devastating effect. 

This dorm hall is going to get very, very wrecked.

Jacky fortunately is experienced enough at drawing malia to grab some from their terrified - wounded - dying classmates, even while being pretty fiercely attacked. 

She'll even share some with Luthien, if they get an opening.

She flinches the first time - sends a quick look at Jacky - nearly gets taken out for her efforts - she recovers, though. Gets her equilibrium back. 

Not too bad at all. 

Which is precisely the point where the ground vanishes under them, opening into a deep, wide pit into an inky darkness.

Yeah she can't do anything about that especially with all these mals attacking her fucking damn school -

Gravity asserts itself, and Luthien begins to fall. 

Yeah she's not nothing except 'more murder', except they're very quickly out of the range of anyone who isn't the two of them or a mal. And she can't, actually, draw malia from mals. Yet but her window to learn is rapidly closing.

The hoard of mals pours down after them, any side passages snapping shut to forcibly channel them in a torrent down to the girls. 

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck -

- And Luthien snaps out spells, slows their descent enough the fall doesn't outright kill them, fueled by the last vestiges of the malia Jacky gave her - she could steal more from Jacky, she's keenly aware of that, she could kill the other girl and it might not even be futile -

- Except -

- Orion had somehow grabbed mana from mals, and the malia she'd taken from him had been more than usable -

"Shield me," she shouts at Jacky, as if that would help. 

- Except it does, as Jacky throws herself into an intense, reckless defense of Luthien, damn the risk to herself.

- Are they allies now or something -

- No. Focus. 

Luthien takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, and feels - 

- Searches for that tempting thing always lurking at her fingertips, the wealth of power to be had if only she reaches out and takes it - 

It burns brightest from Jacky.

But - as she focuses - she can feel, like a dark current under the surface, like something moving in the sludge, a thrum of power from the mals. A power like hunger, like the dark rot spreading through Jacky's core.

It's HERS.

It's worse than sludge pouring into her veins, worse than screaming shattering her ears, worse than fire scorching her skin, worse than ice freezing her heart - 

Worse than hunger. 

And it's hers, now. 

She screams - and a wave of death ripples out through the mals - 

Jacky laughs triumphantly, and then slightly ruins Luthien's building aura of doom and despair and eternal unceasing hunger by grabbing her shirt and yanking her in for a kiss.

Shove! "Will you stop doing that?!"

Thoughtful hum as she regains her balance... 

"Nope! You're too hot."

Huff.

(...Though the horrible buzz in her, that overwhelming tidal wave, has apparently crested and crashed in on itself in confusion. Luthien is confused too. Jacky had made a lot more sense yesterday. Luthien's own mind had made a lot more sense yesterday.)

They're not being attacked right this instant at least,  so...

"Let's get out of here."

"Back to the dorms?" And more tasty snacks.

She pauses, and thinks about that, and...

"No."

"Let's get out."

"To the graduation hall, then?"

"This school can't hold us anymore."