Waking up again after having fallen back asleep, Louise rubbed the sleep from her eyes and began preparing for the new day. A bit of Frost and Flames to freshen up her fatigues a bit, more Frost on the samples in the corner, eating the remaining yellow fruit before they went bad, and much frustration as she combed her long hair with her fingers. It didn't escape her notice that Hinata was still gone, probably sulking over her dressing down yesterday.
It wouldn't have been necessary if she would just stop being stupid about the whole thing.
Annoyed at the girl's stubbornness, Louise chose to just ignore it for now. Maybe she would come to her senses if given some space. "If not, I'll talk to Master Cynric and see if we need to take drastic measures." She muttered to herself as she slipped on her boots.
Since the Dallons were probably still upset and Hinata was being an idiotic child, Louise set off to find her replacement minion and remind the girl that she was still around. If Madison still didn't show any signs of illness from touching that diseased man at Faultline's establishment, Louise would consider involving the girl in her affiars in the realm. To that effect, she quickly made her way across the city, her invisibility once more conveniently keeping away unwanted attention.
Knowing that Clarendon was for younger children based off a remark from Victoria and using that to discover which other schools were for the wrong age groups, she was left with only three options: Arcadia, Immaculata, and Winslow High schools. From their web pages, she could tell that Arcadia and Immaculata were the better of the three and Immaculata even had a proper uniform like in Tristain. Another quick search showed that Winslow was a decrepit looking building with a crumbling facade, poorly done and clashing murals, and open dissent in the form of uniformed rebels from all three of the city's clashing factions. Considering the child's attire was ill-suited for the season last they met and her easy acceptance of general degeneracy, it was easy enough to determine which of the city's educational institutions Madison could be found at.
So it was that Louise found herself walking through the halls of Winslow, armor stashed on the roof so as to placate Madison and Victoria's strange ideas of separate uniforms for disparate personas.
Not that it even makes a difference. She thought, glaring daggers at one of the children who she caught murmuring about her saving his mother's life with her magic. With how few hair colors these strange people had, it was far too obvious who she was.
Sighing as she passed the same set of lockers for the third time, she approached one of the children who wasn't wearing the colors of a rebel group. "Where can I find Madison?"
"M-Madison?" The boy asked nervously as he looked down at her and tried to maintain eye contact. "Um... which one? There's at least six Madisons that go here."
Oh... oops... I don't think she mentioned a family name.
"She is short, has brown hair, has an annoying personality, and tends to dress like a particularly cheap slag." Louise clarified, seeing a spark of recognition in the boy's eyes.
"Er... not sure about what you mean by slag, but I think you want Madison Clements." He replied in a more confident tone. "I'd check Gladly's class, it's on the other side of the school."
Nodding in appreciation, Louise headed in that direction. By the time she arrived, a loud ringing sound had chimed throughout the building and students began to flood the halls. When she finally managed to wade through the mass of people and reach her objective, she spotted Madison and a group of other girls surrounding a blank faced girl. The comments about her looks, dead mother, stupidity, and even the juvenile remark of how she smelled made it painfully obvious that they were bullying the girl.
Having spent far too long on the receiving end of such abuse, Louise grit her teeth and marched toward the leader of the group. As fate would have it, the one who all the other bullies looked toward for approval had hair almost as red as a Zerbst, only fueling the pinkette's ire. Reaching her target, Louise reached out and pulled the redhead down to her level before backhanding her.
Leaning down over the shocked ringleader as she cupped her cheek, the young Vallière growled, "I hate people like you."
"What the fuck is wrong with you, who do-" Her words died in her throat as she pieced together the plainly visible clues like all of her peers. "Y-y-you're... you can't-"
Louise gave the girl a look of contempt as she fumbled for words and turned her attention to the tiny brunette. While the rest of the ring of girls had backed away and pulled out their phones, Madison was standing awkwardly next to her would-be victim. Said victim was staring at her savior with an expression torn between surprise, gratitude, and abject horror.
"Madison... how very disappointing." Louise began. "With how you acted when we met, I thought you would be better than this... picking on someone to make yourself feel better, do you have no shame?" Turning to look at the the gangling girl who was still just staring silently with mouth ajar, she continued, "And you! You didn't even try to fight back! Not even an ounce of defiance, no punches, no words, nothing but standing there hoping they would leave you alone... Absolutely pathetic."
"I didn't... It was just a game." Madison defended weakly, drawing attention back to herself while the meek little victim fled like a coward.
Trembling as she thought back to her own experiences in the academy and how that horrid Germanian found so much fun in her own 'games', the pinkette stepped into the younger girl's personal space and shouted, "It isn't a game if your partner doesn't want to play! I'd be less annoyed with you if you'd killed her in a duel, but this... I..." Clenching her fists as sparks began to fly, she stepped back and turned her back on the girl to see the redhead climbing back to her feet with a murderous glare on her bruising face.
"Why do you care about some worthless little bitch?" The red haired teen asked as she collected herself, crossing her arms underneath her obscene chest just like her Halkeginian counterpart. "No, you know what, I don't care. I don't care if you're some knock-off Panacea, I'm going to ruin you for this, you little brat."
"Emma, don't..." One of the crowd murmured unsurely, trying to pull the irate tart away.
Reminded so much of her erstwhile tormentor, Louise was sorely tempted to use a fire spell and burn this 'Emma' alive... it would be such delicious irony, given how that harlot Zerbst adored the element. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on the point of view, she maintained enough of her senses to know that publicly killing a child in the academy would likely cause problems for the rest of her stay in Brockton Bay, so she merely gave the girl a derisive sniff and returned her attention to her wayward minion. "Madison, if I find you participating in this trollop's 'games' again, I will find you and make you rue the day you were born."
Snatching the brunette by the arm, Louise pulled her minion away and guided both through the winding corridors of the building. Madison didn't put up much of a fight and the two of them soon found themselves on the roof. The only problem was that they had obtained a shadow along the way... as in a literal shadow was lurking in the doorway to the roof. Given that very few creatures in her scattered lessons could turn to shadow, and most of them were of the man eating variety, Louise was a tiny bit concerned and confused about why the academy staff hadn't driven the thing away.
The only thing she could think of that would explain it would be if the creature could appear human, which would mean it was probably a vampire and therefore an extremely dangerous magical creature.
Status: Healthy
Magicka: (12800/14000)
Choose 1:
[] Flee via Recall.
-[] Leave Madison.
-[] Take Madison.
[] Attack it before it makes it out of the doorway and gets more room to maneuver.
-[] Spell write in.
[] Subtly cast defensive spells and prepare for it to make the first move.
[] POV Switch: Cattleya
