The quest begins OPEN

@Kaegen Deathmote

Everyone had to leave. That was what Koko realised as she saw the scene of chaos swirling around her. She whipped out her wand, aiming it at Kaegen, and she shouted the word:

"Steleus!"

She had aimed perfectly; the spell should have at least hit him if not hit him in the centre of his body. Koko kept a steady hand on her wand, unaware that the little death book was beginning to peek out of her pocket. Perhaps it wanted to help her, or perhaps it should help its owner. She didn't even know who was the owner! She moved to block the window, seeing Kaegen's motions towards it before she had hexed him. So many people were knocked out... Under normal circumstances, Koko would have been fine with this, but she would have been the one being chaotic.

Koko gritted her teeth, keeping a dueling stance and keeping her wand pointed at the killer. She wouldn't be strong enough to feed him off on her own, but she could at least buy time for a teacher to get here, or maybe for Aurelia to wake up. "Steleus," Koko said confidently, casting the spell yet again on Kaegen. It was just her being hopeful that someone would walk in from all of the noise... Otherwise Koko might very well be knocked out the window if she didn't keep hexing the boy. Koko, with her other hand, picked up a large shard of glass from the floor and held it, just in case Kaegen tried to get any closer. She held her wand at him, and then she raised the hand with the glass in it to where she could easily maneuver her makeshift blade. "STELEUS!" Koko shouted again, trying to make noise, shouting as loudly as she could. If she couldn't win this fight, she should at least have back up.

Tried to block Kaegen, used Sneezing Hex three times.

A sneezing spell? Oh, no. Kaegen's grin only got wider with each successive sneeze. He didn't have the lung power for big ones, anyway. They were more like little rasps. If he couldn't even laugh, why would he sneeze loud enough to be more than annoyed? And then the girl picked up a piece of glass, no doubt cutting her own hand as she did so. It was pretty funny, somehow. That time after time these little students rose up to fight him, and time after time he sliced them down and kept moving.

A tiny shard of glass was hardly a weapon. You couldn't stab or slash anyone without doing more damage to yourself than to your opponent. Even from here he could tell that her hands were soft. They all had soft hands, none of them were used to this.



He kept moving forwards.



Kept walking until he was close. And then his knife hand shot forward as he ducked low. When someone picks up a knife, they're guarding their core, and their head. It's cumbersome to duck down and block a low blow, it's slow. And she was busy casting her spell again and again. His knife would find it's way into her leg, and then quickly be pulled out as he passed past her and to the side.

He would find himself against the wall by her side, as she was still blocking the window. He grinned at her with another

"Choo!"

As his knife hand flung the knife for her midsection, blade first. As he did that, almost with the same motion, the hand that previously held the knife shot straight for her face with the intent to claw, rip, tear and otherwise destroy as much as possible with a single strike. His body, too, rushed forward. Because he had thrown and then struck with the same hand, the girl would have to contend with the force of his body, his dully pointed, unnaturally strong fingernails, a knife and his open hand that held a wand. A wand that quickly moved to form the same spell that had struck down the other girl mere moments before.

"Diffindo."

What was her sneezing spell compared to all that, anyway? He had a wonderful feeling that she was probably only a first year, which would give him an entire years worth of knowledge and strength to exceed her own.

If he succeeded in hurting, or shoving away the girl at all, he would then proceed to leap out the window again, flying off towards the grounds.

In case my writing was too confusing. (left hand)-knife thrown at gut -claws at face (right hand) -diffindo (body) -rush forward

"Calm down! He isn't here!"

The Gryffindor boy had somehow broken the panic. Mari grimaced at him. Despite the fact that her heart was racing, she realized, something was wrong. Her fingers lightly grazed her body, half-investigating, half as a coping mechanism. It reminded her of something.

"...up the water spout" her mother cooed as she ran her fingers up the babbling baby's arms. Mari squealed; her mother, upon finishing the song, smiled: "You are my greatest Joy."

She found it. The wound. Mari vaguely remembered the knife entering and exiting her gut. That evil, evil boy; he could get expelled for such manners! Why had he been carrying a knife on himself, anyway? No one attacked in the halls of Hogwarts; the only person she had seen attack, of course, was Kaegan. Mari winced. The stalls were beginning to darken; it seemed that people were leaving, but Mari could not register anything other than the fact that bodies were shuffling. "Mummy," she moaned, "Mummy please!"

"Oh my sweet Lucy, you are my greatest joy!" Her mother cooed at the sickeningly-sweet four-year-old girl. Lucy flashed a smile back at her, and when their mother wasn't looking, flashed a leer at the hidden Joy. Dad was gone, it was just the three of them, and Joy had often felt like she wasn't actually present in the trio. Usually, that feeling revealed itself in a dull twinge, but this felt like a stab to the gut.

She gazed up at the Gryffindor boy and looked into his eyes. They were blue. In the last moment of consciousness, Mari moaned, "Please just get me out of here...I'm so sorry..."

She saw her father's blue eyes glisten as she rushed to give him a hug upon his return. "Daddy!" she shrieked in her girlish scream. Lucy was giggling too. "My sweet Joy! Lucy!" Her father returned as he hugged them so tightly Mari wasn't sure she had enough air to get out the words, "It's Mari, Dad." Mari noticed him jolt with surprise and nod. Her name change was finally complete.

With that, her world went black.

Ruby walked in gracefully. As she stepped up to the door frame, she froze. Her green eyes widened shockingly. All around her, a gory blood scene, people passed out everywhere, and two people standing by the window. It looked like to her, a Crime scene.
As she focused and steadied herself, she recognized on girl standing up, her back to the window.
“Koko!” Ruby’s shook her head, dazed by the commotion. She gasped, “I just came in here because I left my pencil in here... Maybe I should go...”
She felt queasy inside like she going to barf, but she suddenly was hit with a wave of adrenaline.
She scooped up a handful of broken glass in her hand. She lifted her arm and stared at the other wizard. He was a Ravenclaw. Kaegen was his name, and apparently murder was his game. “When I came to Hogwarts, I thought Slytherin was evil. Apparently I was wrong!”.
Even though Ruby didn’t know what was happening, she hurled the glass at Kaegen, but she missed. It was probably she was a terrible aim; she had secretly skipped archery camp in 3rd grade, but that’s not your problem.
Enough was enough, she hadn’t to be brave. If Koko was going to go down, she would go down too. As she stared at the monstrous gash in Koko’s leg and shivered. She swallowed a chunk of fear. She would be ready, whatever happened.

Okay, so now he was trying to claw at her? That wasn't a good idea. Her hands weren't as soft as one would think. She could grip the glass tightly without it cutting into her skin, which was, on the underside of her hands, as rough as sandpaper. She was used to doing housework of sorts which had made her hands callouse.

Koko took Kae's hand, which was clawing at her face, and gently moved it away. Meaning, well, she wrapped her fingers gently around his arm. She, however, kept a strong enough force on it so that he couldn't go back to whacking her. She let go of his arm as he moved, though...

She had leaned backwards as she glimpsed his hand chamber to throw the knife--a child who also had skill, just like Koko herself. The knife only grazed her jacket, and Koko dropped the glass in order to catch the knife. Her fingers closed around the hood, which she had caught inverted, and she rolled it over her fingers so that it faced the correct direction. She wasn't going to stay him, at least not yet. Instead, she let the heel of her combat boots crash into his shin with one hell of a kick, and she immediately rechambered her leg and set it down on the ground.

The other child cast the Severing Charm. Koko moved her arm just enough so that her sleeve got severed on one side. It was only her analytical side, the fact that she was very smart with a thirst for knowledge. That was what had saved here there.

She knew that his knife had hit her leg; however, it wasn't too deep. She'd need new leggings, but that wasn't what she was worried about. Hell, she wasn't worried about the other children in the room anymore. Only about her life, and the fact that she might actually lose it to this Ravenclaw.

"Why? Why are you trying to kill everyone? What's the purpose? Are you even trying to kill us?"

The Slytherin's soft voice echoed through the quiet room. It carried no negative emotions, only what she actually felt (she was trying to be genuine)--true curiosity. She didn't want to get hurt, and she didn't want to hurt the other boy. Her voice actually embodied the peacemaker side of her, the side that wanted to make the other child feel calm. What if he had been scared and that was why he was acting this way?

She made no mistake in taking her eyes off of him, because she knew that he could skip peaceful talk and try to attack her. "I'm sorry that I kicked you," Koko said, keeping a steady eye on the other child. "I'm sorry that you felt the need to do this. Can you tell me what... what's going on?"

She was still aware of the fact that the Ravenclaw could still hurt her somehow--he was much stronger than he looked, as was Koko. Wit helped make up for anything they might lack physically. Koko shifted her defensive stance so that she was poised to jump out the window if she absolutely had to, but she also didn't want to provoke the other child further. She kept her golden gaze steady on him--aware and alert, but caring as well. She truly felt for this kid, and the emotion was some form of empathy that she'd never felt before.

Just as she was about to apologise once more, the door flew open. Koko cringed at the noise, and she saw a girl who she'd met in her common room, Ruby Reyes. She kept her gaze on Kaegen, though she could still keep an eye on Ruby through the corner of her eye. Koko was ready to block if she had to, she was ready to attack him, but she didn't want to.

Kicked Kaegen in shin, apologised, asked question. She did get hit in the leg by his blade, but she caught the one to her gut and moved his hand which had been clawing at her face. She moved her arm so that the Diffindo severed off half of her sleeve. Koko doesn't want to die yet!!

This girl was pretty darn stupid. Her leg was slashed and bleeding, and she didn't even seem to care. Well, if she passed out due to bloodloss, it really wasn't any skin off of his back. She had dropped the piece of glass in order to push away his arm, but then immediately dropped the arm to grab the blade, which meant his arm was able to easily reach her face. If he was moving forward, their really was no point to block something if you were just going to unblock a second later.

He would shred his claws across her face, roughly from the ear to the mouth. He couldn't see what had happened to his diffindo, but he didn't care. If she was sort of adequate around blades, he would simply remove them from the equation. It really was sad though, for one moment, as she blocked his hand, he had thought that this was perhaps an opponent worth fighting. And then here she was, losing more and more blood. Pathetic.

"Flippendo"

The knockback jinx. It didn't matter where she got hit, she would fly backwards. And dodging wasn't possible with his wand only about an inch away from her. She couldn't block it, because even if it hit her wand or knife, she would still be blasted back. Through all the glass shards strewn around the room, through a literal minefield of shards. Whatever her plan had been, her design, this would stop it. Assuming she didn't get a concussion, which she probably would get if her head hit the wall.

She had kicked him hard in the shins, it hadn't been as bad as it could have been, as he hadn't braced his leg, but had let it be kicked back, only to bring it back in place. His balance was extraordinarily good, just a little bit beyond what a boy his age should be capable of doing. The blood of something stronger, swifter, ran through his veins, and it showed, especially in fights like this one. The blood rushing through his body wouldn't let him recognize the pain, it was irrelevant.

The blood mixed with the adrenaline. It was a bruise, it wasn't even a very big bruise. He had been too close for the girl to build up much momentum with her heavy boot, which made the weight of the thing work against her. It was hard to make something heavy move fast when you didn't have a runway. And a bruise wasn't enough pain for him to stop, not by a long shot. It was enough to make him want to shred something, a lot of somethings.

Black eyes turned towards the other girl, the one that had just entered, the one throwing glass. He would deal with her in a second, as soon as he was done with the girl that had caused him pain, that had kicked him. He would leap at her, slipping his wand back into the sleeve of his robe more by habit than by design. Lunge like a wild animal, fully aware that she was probably going to use something to fend him off. He would use both hands to shred her skin as much as possible. If he held back his hands he would simply twist his and claw at her hands, or use the opportunity to kick her.

If she tried to kick him off he would shred her legs as he was pushed back. As soon as the girl (koko) went limp, he would turn, and rush at the girl who was throwing glass. His mind was mostly gone, there wasn't much left. The slytherin's calm voice fell on the deaf ears of one who didn't have a mind to control his actions. Or, at least, not a rational one. It looked like someone had replaced his eyes with lifeless obsidian, but he could see just as well as before, if not better.

There was no answer to her question, not even an acknowledging snarl.

Sapphire was curious as she walked near the abandoned toilets, fiddling with a large, broken piece of glass that she'd picked up, which was as big as a knife blade and just as sharp, if not even more so.

No, the chunk of glass had not come from the explosion that had recently occured, but from her own anger, which she'd released on a window in the hallway. She'd gotten cut multiple times, and her jacket was turning a deep crimson from a cut in her forearm. She had a sharp shard buried in her leg, though her brain barely registered the pain.

As she was taking her 7th year spells book, which she'd taken from the library, out of her bag, she heard a lot of commotion; a familiar voice screaming the sneezing hex at someone, or something, perhaps aiming to hit a target, or to catch attention. Either way, catch attention it did. There was also another Slytherin, Ruby Reyes, who was entering.

Slightly wary, Sapphire followed. She didn't have shoes on, they'd been left in the common room in her storm of anger, and she used that to her advantage, keeping her steps quiet and going mostly unnoticed by anyone else. There were glass shards covering the floor, but none of them were nearly as large as the one she was holding with one hand.

She slipped the book into her bag again and got onto one knee, flipping her snowy white hair over her shoulder and taking the large shard out of her calf before wrapping it in a spare length of bandage, which she had conveniently stored in her bag. She stood up after wrapping up the wound and peeked into the room, examining the situation.

Koko was standing near a second year Ravenclaw, and Ruby looked like she'd just thrown something, while there was multiple bodies on the ground, belonging to people from various houses. She then observed that the second year had barely any marks, compared to Koko, who had multiple cuts, some of them notable caused by the Diffindo spell. Koko was also holding a knife, but it didn't seem like it belonged to the caramel haired girl.

"Well, isn't this interesting..." she said, her voice barely audible. She determined that the second year was the cause of the chaos, and most likely the explosion as well.

She stepped in quietly, ignoring the sharp pain of glass against her bare feet and weilding her shard like a weapon. "What the hell is going on in here, and why in Tartarus are there a bunch of bodies on the floor like litter?"

Oh HELL no.


She went flying backwards. Koko didn’t weigh enough to go too far, but she didn’t weigh too little to go flying back like nobody’s business. She felt air whistle past her as she was sent backwards a few feet. She’d taken enough martial arts to know not to hit the back of her head, so she forcefully lifted it up. Her hair tangled in the glass. Koko knew that her thick jacket would protected her from the worst of the glass, but the jacket’s back would be shredded. She now realised that she had in fact gotten hit by the diffindo, but right below her rib cage on the right side. The blood was already clotting due to the thickness of the jacket, but new problems were coming to mind. New problems, such as the fact that her leg was still bleeding. Even though her legging helped clot the blood, it was still coming fast and she knew that if she lost too much more, she’d pass out and maybe even die via blood loss. Her face stung, but if the Ravenclaw had even looked, he would’ve seen a few light scars etched onto her face, right where he had clawed her. The skin was still soft, but it grew a bit stronger on her face than even on the backs of her hands. It would still split under enough pressure, but there was a slight chance that it wouldn't scar.

And then he was on top of her, clawing as if his life depended on it. Koko bit back a smile, knowing that a few things could happen. She wouldn't try to kick him off, as that could result in more damage to her skin. She wouldn't hold back his hands, at least not yet. That left two options: play dead, or take the advantage. Koko was much more likely to do the latter.

First she created the tiniest bit of space between herself and the Ravenclaw, taking a few things she had learned from grondfighting classes at martial arts. They were all the same size on the ground; they all had the same possible advantage. First, as he clawed her face, Koko twisted her jaw and bit him on all of the fingers that would fit in her mouth. The crunch of skin under her teeth was somewhat satisfying. Koko kneed the other kid in the crotch, and then she hooked one of her legs around the other childs, rolling him over so that she was on top. She didn't want space. She held one of his arms to the ground, this time tightly. She leaned forward, so that she didn't have to let go of his fingers with her mouth. She had discarded her wand, letting it roll somewhere where she knew no one else would find it. She pressed the knife to the Ravenclaw's throat, not exactly gently. In fact, she would press down enough to begin a small cut in his throat. Because she only had her legs which were free now, she made sure that she was in a position where she could kick him if she needed to.

Her question hadn't gotten answered, and after this show of violence, she didn't really care. The door creaked open once more and out of the corner of her eye Koko saw Sapphire Riddle walk in. She kept her attention on the kid she was fighting, though she was aware that the other people had spoken. One reason Koko was somewhat happy about this new development was because having something pressing against the cuts in her leg could help stop the bleeding--that being said, she would immediately press her leg on the Ravenclaw's, not really for his discomfort but for her own benefit. She... she really wasn't too stupid.

When the girl on the ground tried to move back and make a little space between them, Kaegen just didn't let her. It really was that easy, after all she was on the ground, and he was doing fine. He felt her teeth bite down and almost started laughing all over again. Her teeth were dull. So very, laughably dull. They felt more like crushing stones than anything you could actually use offensively. And the very, very best part of all of this was that he knew that she was expecting him to pull out and hurt himself. He wasn't.

Balling the rest of his hand into a fist, he shoved forward into the delicate teeth, held in place only by some very squishy gums. When her jaw inevitably loosened, he would rip his hand out, tearing as much of her mouth out as he did so. And without any room in between them, she couldn't really use her legs at all, at least not to effectively knee him. That was why predators did this, closed in past the range of the elk's horns. He felt her leg reaching around his own to try and flip him, and pushed away.

He had won. Gloriously won and all it had cost him was pain in a few fingers and a bad knife he had stolen from the great hall. She had been knocked back, he had followed up and now he was by the open window, and she had a gash in her leg, a gash across her chest and a messed up mouth, more likely than not.

He was still grinning like a madman when he jumped out the window. 4 students had tried to stop him, and only one had sort of managed to slow him down. Sort of managing to slow him down didn't even register you a place in the honorary deathwitch hall of fame. That made him, at least in his mind, 4 times more dangerous than most. And sure, there had been other people in the room that he had been planning on taking out, but his time limit had run out.

Two students had gone for help, after all. It was probably a good idea to not be there. As he flew away, Laying down on his back in the air, he looked at the three fingers the girl had bitten. Yeah, that was going to bruise. He stuck them in his mouth and sucked them a bit, before bringing them back into the light to inspect them. No difference. It wasn't as if he had expected his spit to be magic. But it would heal in a week, at the most. Those girl's woulds wouldn't heal for quite some time indeed. He smiled to himself, as the adrenaline wore off, and the blacks of his eyes slowly started to retreat back into their usual shape.

Life was pretty good sometimes.

Kaegen has yeeted out of the thread. THANKEE PEEPS FOR THREADING WITH ME. T'was fun.

Ruby stood there; her eyes wide. Even though she hardly knew Koko, she had been secretly rooting for her.
Ruby was shaking even though she was not the subject of the fight. She had nearly walked by and noticed a commotion. She did not know why she was shaking. Maybe it was the adreneline, maybe it was the anticipation, maybe it was-- Wait a second!
She saw Koko still holding the now dull knife. She saw that there was a splatter of scarlet liquid on the blade.
As all the thoughts rushed through her head, she cleared all but one thought.

""KOKO!"

Ruby rushed forward at the scarred girl. She was worried, but she stayed her distance from the injured girl's leg. She gasped as she saw dark red blood rushing out. It was coming slower than before, but it was still wet. "Are you okay!" It was more of an exclaim than a question. Ruby's face was tight with sickness. The sight of blood makes her sick...
"Koko, let's get you to the Hospital wing! I'm sure they will fix you right up." she breathed.
Even though Ruby sounded confident and sure, she was queasy and worried inside. Her mind was like a bee hive; it was swarming with doubt. She was tempted to run from Koko, run from the whole school, even run from her own life. She would run until she was sure she left this life behind. She would run six thousand miles just to get away, but Ruby didn't have a single cowardly trait.
"Koko?" she kept saying her name just to make sure she was still conscious. "Koko?"
She may have seemed annoying, but it was just to be certain. She was probably just as annoying as a sibling. Gosh, she wished she had a sibling. Everyone hated a small midget follower that pranks you, but she just didn't get it at all. It confuses her all the time.
Enough was enough, she needed to keep focus. Koko was severely wounded, and the others that were fetching help were taking moons!
Ruby listened to the coarse breathing of Koko and groaned; this was going to be hard for the other Slytherin. Very hard. "IN THE NAME OF HOGWARTS! SOMEBODY HELP ME!" she screamed over and over until her lungs burned with exasperation. "Help, please..." she whispered to herself.