"Alright then," Kitzero muttered, adjusting his opaque eyeglasses with the strange black swirls as he flipped through papers he couldn't even read. The fault lay in his glasses, not in the legibility of the documents that were soon to be burned anyway. "We have an agreement. As our chief and only experimenter, Miss - "
"Kaosu! I haven't seen you in ages!" Rezo cheerfully greeted his old friend from the Holy-Ringing-Staff club. And yes, he was facing in the wrong direction again to say nothing of the fact that Kaosu wasn't even there in the room. The mysterious warrior monk was giving a special seminar on how one can walk around with one's hat low over one's eye and never trip over anything. But we, as always, digress.
"I'm sure this model is not the type or quality you usually work with but it's been modified to handle our specially prepared ammunition." Kitzero handed over the now infamous rifle of the Chemistry Department. It was a real wonder why the thing had never been confiscated by the higher faculty. Or for that matter, why the whole 'academic' department hadn't been disbanded and burned to the ground for all of its 'diabolic' activities. Turning students into gerbils indeed. "We want recorded evidence of the results of each bullet which are labeled so be sure to note that for the microphone on your mobile video recording unit to pick up. A hard copy, by that I mean written notes, would be nice too, for old timer's sake."
The secretly hired, offworld sharpshooter checked the sighting on the rifle. She didn't need to check too hard since this is a fictional story written by an author who isn't very knowledgeable on firearms (worship Kenichi Sonoda and Gunsmith Cats!!). What will hit will hit.
She shouldered the weapon and took a look at the open box of individual bullets; each labeled with a number-letter code and organized in on particularly obvious order. "So it doesn't matter who I shoot with these? Students, teachers, other faculty, random strangers in the street..."
"Nope, though it would be interesting if you shot any of these," Kitzero pointed to a whole drawer of bullets in the box that all had an additional heart label on them, "at either him or her," holds up pictures of you-know-who, "though I'm not quite sure whether these are love-at-first-sight or enhance-normal-attraction since we haven't really tested them yet."
"Understandable." The sharpshooter closed the box of testing bullets with a snap. It wasn't very heavy but the contents were potentially very fragile and the life expectancy of the world probably wouldn't look very good if all of these chemical potions on unconfirmed character were to all mix together. "If there is nothing else, I will be on my way now."
"Um, not quite yet," the chemist gestured with one hand for her to come toward him. He held up a non-descript gray jumpsuit and a matching gray cap that could stereotypically be tipped low to hide the eyes and hence identity of the wearer. "You'll need to wear this. You're the new janitor remember?"
The sharpshooter sweatdropped.
"Get out!!"
Everyone wandering or hanging around in the hallway kept wide berth from the door of the room 3-A, homeroom class of that infamous teacher Xelloss. You know, there was a lot of faculty here who should be, by all normal logic and reason, fired but none of them were. There wasn't even a rival school in Atlas City so everyone had to put up with the idiosyncrasies and sometimes highly dangerous nature of Slayers High School.
Xelloss was deposited on his posterior, let there be no comments about said portion of the body, arms wrapped around his knees, outside of his classroom door which was immediately slammed shut, locked and deadbolted. The deadbolts were both to lock people out and things in, you never know when one of your students may suddenly turn into a raving psychopath possessed by a cursed pencil or such.
Lina dusted off her hands, nodding in approval at the magical lock she had placed on the classroom door. With years of experience in dispelling or undoing such locks on old tombs and treasure vaults, Lina was quite certain that no one would be able to get into the room for the rest of lunch hour. At least, no one could get in through that portal.
"Lina-san, even if Xelloss-sensei doesn't behave very much like a proper teacher, you still need to show him respect for his wise years of knowledge and experience," Amelia disapproved. She had dropped by to share lunch with her chosen mentor. Lina hadn't paid it too much attention before but Amelia's meal box and chopsticks were made out of lacquered mahogany and silver respectively. The little girl had to be very rich.
"Oh be quiet, Amelia. Did you want to sit next to him for the entire lunch period, listening as he flirted and tried to hit on each and every one of us? I like to keep my food in my stomach after I've eaten it."
"The only thing bigger than your stomach is your mouth," snorted a deep voice that just screamed 'I'm arrogant, dangerous, good-looking, sexy, and I know it'. Yes, it was Valgaav, who now also had his own Valgaav Fan Club, or VFC. The number of cross-members was increasing.
"Who asked you??" Lina tried to kick the chair from under him but he had already jumped up off of it, tapping her on the head as he flipped over her to land on the desk behind.
As much as he hated to admit it, he had improved more in school in the way of reflexes and fighting skills than all he gained from the street gangs during the last several years. But he would never admit that Xelloss's advice on how to irritate Lina, it's really quite easy to do, was helping to keep the girl off balance. This was especially good when he was caught in a tight, embarrassing situation like when Xelloss 'accidentally' locked both of them in one of the broom closets. That poor janitor never knew what hit him.
"Stand still and fight you wimp!!"
Lina's taunts were also much less effective now. Valgaav knew he was just asking for a ticket to hell by doing what his head was thinking of doing but heck, you only live once right? Damn it, Xelloss was rubbing off on him. He'd better take a really good shower after this.
"You mean like this?" Valgaav let Lina's punch bring her in close before he stepped aside, using her momentum to pull her face-to-face with him. Ye gods, the look on her face was priceless, resembling a ripe plump tomato he saw at the grocer's once.
"Wha-Wha-Wha-WAAAA!!"
"Oof!!"
"Lina-san!!" Amelia gasped in shock and dismay. "You should do that kind of thing in private!!"
Okay, Zel who had up until now been successfully ignoring the classroom tiff between Lina and Val had to admit his curiosity had been aroused by the last three sets of sounds, and especially by Amelia's comment. So he looked.
Lina was lying on top of Val, both of whom were making various grunts, which only added to the apparently indecent scene. Zel noticed they were collecting quite a interested crowd outside their room. A janitor he didn't recognize was trying to move away. Must be the replacement.
"Just what do you think you're doing?" Zelgadiss calmly asked Lina, his arms crossed as he looked down at them. Irritation toward their continually childish behavior was growing. Or so he thought.
"Sh...Shut...up..." Lina gritted through her teeth, not quite able to glare. It was hard enough just trying to get her head up much less trying to move any finer muscles. "Can't...get...off..."
Zel tilted his head to one side as if that somehow enabled him to observe and understand the situation better. No, Lina and Valgaav were not making out in the floor of classroom for all to see. Lina looked like she was trying to get up but was barely capable of even lifting her head. Valgaav was furious, or so Zelgadiss guessed since why else would his face be so red?
The cursed youth stepped closer, making what would later be recalled as the worst mistake he made in the course of this day if not for most of his life. Suddenly, there was an extremely heavy force pushing down on him. Not a gradually increasing force but more like a big smack down as if a giant had squashed him to the ground like an unwanted insect.
Of course, Zel wasn't flattened to the thickness of paper but the two people below him certainly felt they had been. The lunch bell chose this exact moment to ring, dispelling Lina's magical lock on the door. Xelloss stepped in, perhaps an even wider grin on his face than usual.
He walked up but not too close to the human sandwich. "Hmmm, a threesome? Looks interesting. Why, Amelia-san, I didn't know you liked to watch."
"I...I..." Amelia protested, face bright red at what Xelloss-sensei implied. Her arms flapped helplessly in the air as if they were trying to grab an answer from out of nowhere. Xelloss helpfully pushed her out of the room in that state.
Lina glared at the clock on the wall, trying to push the hands by sheer mental will alone to hurry along to the time for school to end. Besides renewed and increased death threats from ZFC and VFC, she had been getting lewd jokes and looks from all of the guys at school. Lina preferred the looks of death.
Valgaav and Zel weren't much better off. They were getting dumped with all manners of disinfectant to 'clean off' Lina's pollution and with tons of requests along the lines of 'If you want to do it, do it with me'. Needless to say, neither of them was interested though they have smelled quite fresh and natural since after lunch.
They were all quite willing for the day to end. Xelloss was all too willing to make the day stretch out for as long as was legally possible by doing the most boring and dreary assignments today. He paid absolutely no attention to the clock as he continued with his lecture.
The school bell rang.
"Lina-san,howaboutIcomeobertoplaytoday? Pleaseplease,Istillhaven'tbeeninsideyourapartmentyet. Comeonlet'sgotimeisawasting."
Lina's seat was empty with a gush of wind. Then the gush of wind returned to throw all of Lina's stuff into her bookbag and disappeared with it. Everyone else in its wake just stared.
"Amelia-san seems to be very hyperactive today. Well, I suppose that is the end of class for today. Since I didn't have a chance to finish the discussion on the Treatise of Alliance, I want you all to write a paper tonight about the current and future considerations that at least three of the countries involved had kept in mind during the treatise's creation. That paper will be due tomorrow." Xelloss's smile didn't fade in the face of a classroom of moans.
Zelgadiss was occupied by his thoughts as everyone packed up. First that weird incident at the end of lunch, and then Amelia coming in like a whirlwind or as Xelloss put it 'hyperactive'. He hadn't sensed any magic behind either event, the common explanation for anything weird that happens around school. For the most part, the incidents were ignored unless someone was seriously hurt or maybe even killed without explanation. After all, this school did teach some rather strange classes and the faculty liked it when students found new innovative uses for the skills they were taught.
So it probably wasn't anything much...except Xelloss probably had a hand in the lunch incident. Zelgadiss accidentally caught the teacher's closed eyes and grimaced. Wait, Xelloss wasn't looking at him, long years of acquaintance enabled Zel to figure that out even with the teacher's eyes closed. Xelloss was smirking at Valgaav. Now just what was that about?
In a hidden dark room illuminated only by the hundreds of video monitors showing hundreds of locations around the campus, was someone who wasn't supposed to be there. This was the principal's private sanctum though a number of other faculty members had access to it. The new janitor wasn't supposed to be one of them.
She grinned. It was only the first day and she had only been testing the feel of the rifle so she had chosen relatively harmless bullets: increased gravity and hyperactivity. So there was a love triangle brewing where her employer wanted her to try the rifle version of Cupid's Arrows. It'll be more fun if she stirred things up a bit more.
"Chaos gives birth to chaos," she murmured. "I'm going to love this job."