Vell dove behind one of the benches in the quad and shoved one of his 666-shooters into the holster to let the magic reload it.

“So, not really going well,” Vell shouted. He peeked over the bench at the swarm of dollar bills chasing down Lee. The swarm had been chasing people across the quad, and was now hunting down Lee. Since it was ignoring Vell, he had plenty of time to shoot the bills out of the air, to surprising little effect so far.

“Paper money is valid legal tender that can be exchanged at a bank unless fifty percent or more of it is destroyed,” Lee shouted. “It’s going to require a bit more than a bullet hole, dear!”

“We need to do something or Lee’s going to get herself killed,” Joan said. Lee had no water to freeze them with, and her other forms of magic were proving ineffective against the horde. “Come on, Vell, can’t you do some pyromancy or something?”

“All I really know how to do is set myself on fire, and that wouldn’t help,” Vell said. He drew his guns and fired another volley at the cloud of dollars chasing Lee. “Don’t worry, I got this. Lee’s a surprisingly good sprinter.”

Approximately seven seconds after Vell said this, Lee demonstrated another thing she was surprisingly good at -falling on her ass. She tripped over the protruding roots of a tree and hit the dirt, hard. Vell panicked and drew his guns again, diving out of cover to try and distract the swarm of murderous money from Lee. The effort was valiant but ultimately pointless.

A wave of green-black fire shot forward, washing over Vell harmlessly, but burning the paper money into cinders in mid-air. The magic that animated the money made slight shrieking noises, almost like dying screams, as the dark fire burned it away.

As the ashes rained down on Lee, Vell turned around to see Joan clutching a black stone, the small rock and her palm both burning with embers of black fire. He stared blankly at her for a second.

“So...before you say anything, I was really hoping to not use this,” Joan said.

“That’s dark magic, Joan, why do you even know how to use it in the first place?”

As the name might imply, dark magic was dark. Both in literal color and that it was bad and evil. Unlike the hydromancy or magikinesis usually used by Lee, which only briefly transmuted mana into a usable form, dark magic actively destroyed the mana employed in every spell. The environmental damage alone was reason enough to dislike the art, but performing it also required a soulstone, the essence of a living being permanently entrapped in crystalline form. Presumably the black rock Joan had clutched in her hand now was such a crystal.

“It’s academic,” Joan said. “Doctors know what causes cancer as part of treating it, same thing here.”

“Doctors don’t keep magic cancer in rocks in their desk drawers,” Vell said. He pointed at the deep black stone in Joan’s hand. “What is that, anyway? Please tell me it’s not a person.”

“It’s a cow, Vell,” Joan snapped. “Your dad owns a ranch, you can’t tell me you never killed a cow so you could make use of it.”

“Yeah, I ‘made use of’ the meat, not the immortal soul,” Vell said.

“Could this discussion wait, please?” Lee pleaded. “Vell, I understand your concerns, but it’s not as if Joan went out of her way to use dark magic. She saved me in an emergency. I believe that warrants some leniency as far as ethics are concerned.”

Joan quickly tucked the soulstone into her pocket, to remove the visual reminder of what she’d done. While Joan worked to erase her mistakes, Lee worked to minimize them.

“Besides, Vell, today isn’t really the day to be having this conversation,” Lee said. Vell couldn’t argue with that. He didn’t like to have important conversations on first loop days anyway. It felt unfair to Joan, since he’d remember it and she wouldn’t. That in mind, Vell holstered his guns and relented.

“Alright, we’ll save this for later,” he said.

“Yeah. We got better things to do anyway, Vell, people are dying.”

Joan gestured ahead, beckoning Vell to lead the way to the robotics lab. He took charge to the best of his ability, which wasn’t very good. He could never be entirely sure where they were, as Vell still suspected the island rearranged itself when no one was looking, but he felt they were in the right place. Vell poked his head around the corner and then jumped back with a yelp.

“What is it?” Joan asked, gauntlet at the ready. “Some kind of golden golem?”

“No, it’s fine, actually,” Vell said. “Just some bad memories. Come on. We’re at the lab.”

Vell took a deep breath and strolled around the corner. The robotics lab waited from the just on the other side, surrounded by a legion of killbots -the very same model Vell had used as his evil minions during his brief stint as a brain-swapped supervillain. Lee also felt a bit shocked upon seeing them, but the moment passed. The killbots seemed to be on their side this time. Vell walked up to the platoon of armed robots and tried to find a way past their ironclad barrier to get to the door.

“Excuse me,” Vell said, looking up at the killbots faces. “Hello? Could I get in there, please?”

The killbots did not budge, but the door behind them did open. Kanya stepped through and waved to Vell.

“Hi guys! Glad to see you’re alive,” Kanya said. “Did you bring any snacks?”

“Uh, no,” Vell said.

“Damn, we already raided all the vending machines around here and I really want some crackers,” Kanya said. “Anyway, Chillbots, let them through.”

The nearby robots immediately complied, giving Vell and company a brief gap in the robot wall to move through. The group stepped through and followed Kanya back into the safety of the robotics lab. A large portion of the students and faculty had taken shelter here, behind the impenetrable wall of killbots. Most of them had been pressed to work building more bots for the defense, and were working with an almost fanatical devotion. A manifestation of the student body’s odd tendency to form cults under pressure, Lee noted. Lee, Vell, and Joan found their way to Harley’s usual workbench, to find it empty.

“If Harley is who you are looking for, she is busy,” Sarah said.

“Busy getting busy, I imagine,” Lee said. Joan sighed at the pun. “I’ll let her know we’re here and she can get to us when she’s done with...whoever.”

“Whoevers,” Sarah corrected. “There are many.”

“Of course,” Lee said. She took a seat, texted Harley, and then waited. While the others sat silently, Vell caught up with Sarah.

“So, uh, weren’t you and Harley supposed to have a talk about those killbots?”

Sarah said nothing. Vell rolled his eyes and rephrased the question to not be a question.

“So, I noticed that your killbots didn’t, well, kill me.”

“Myself and Harley had conversations regarding the killbots,” Sarah said. “The capacity has been removed for targeting human beings and domestic animals from all robots I build. Killbots now are ‘chillbots’, as Harley named them.”

“That does sound like Harley,” Vell said. Owing to the difficulties of having a conversation with someone who would never answer questions, Vell decided to take a seat and wait for Harley with the rest of his friends. It wasn’t exactly easy to make conversation, since everybody was terrified of dying, but they managed to kill time until Harley showed up.

“What up?” She said. “Sorry I’m late, I was en flagrante.”

“For forty-five minutes?” Joan asked.

“Yeah. Why, how long does it take when you bang?” Harley asked, with a coy glance at Vell. Joan went red in the face. Harley couldn’t stifle the laugh that followed.

“Hah, I’m fucking with you,” she said. “I took a shower afterwards, obviously. I’m not gross.”

“Thank you for your strict adherence to personal hygiene, you slut,” Lee said, with nothing but love in her voice.

“Love you too, bitch,” Harley said. “Let me just grab one more thing before we go. Yo, Chillbot!”

Across the room, a seemingly inert killbot sprang to life and made it’s way to Harley. Rather than moving with the stiff, mechanical perfection of the other killbots, this one had a smooth, almost casual gait. This singular killbot was also different in that it had been painted a sunshiney shade of yellow instead of the standard intimidating black, and it was wearing a puka shell neckle and a denim bucket hat. It also “wore” a pair of aviator sunglasses, if one counted having them taped to its head as “wearing”. The oddly surfer-esque killbot stepped up to the group and lazily gave them a shaka sign.

“Greetings, organic dudes,” the killbot said in a tinny voice.

“Everyone, say hello to Chillbot 69,” Harley said. Lee sighed. “You may know him as the killbot that shot Cane in the ass that one time.”

“Wait, what?” Joan said. “Cane got- When did that happen?”

Harley grabbed Joan by the shoulder and pulled her in close.

“Joan, listen,” she said. “Don’t even worry about it.”

Harley then pushed Joan away and clapped her hands together.

“Come on Chillbot, you’re my firepower for the day,” Harley said. Chillbot reached to his back and took hold of a large automatic rifle (with a smiley face painted on the side). “Let’s go chase some paper, people”

The robot followed in lockstep as Harley waved the rest of the group forward. As the motley crew made their way past the barricade of factory-default killbots, Chillbot lifted one of his inert brethren’s arms and high-fived it. The metallic clank was still echoing in the air as Joan made her way up to Harley’s side and tried to act casual.

“From how casual you aren’t acting, I’d say you have a question,” Harley said,

“Sort of,” Joan said, continuing to fail to be casual. She lowered her voice. “Just sort of kind of wondering what you thought of Lee.”

“She’s my best friend,” Harley said. “Why you asking?”

“Oh, you know, we were just talking about relationships earlier, and-”

“I’m going to stop you right there, Marsh,” Harley said. “Just trust me when I tell you a relationship is the last thing Lee needs right now.”

“And why not?”

“Listen, if I had all day I couldn’t explain, so I’m not going to. Chillbot, beer me.”

“Initiating ‘Cold One’ protocol.”

Harley walked away from Joan and held up a hand in Chillbot’s direction. He opened his chest plates, revealing what had once been a rocket launcher, and fired a beer directly into her hand. While she cracked it open to take a sip, Joan stayed on Harley’s heels.

“I’m not taking no for an answer on this one, Harley,” Joan said.

“Well you should,” Harley said. “I’m not gossiping about Lee’s private business. You want to know about her mental state, you talk to her.”

With that ultimatum delivered, Harley turned her attention to other matters.

“Chill out and save the problems for later,” Harley said. “Chillbot, give her a beer.”

“I don’t want a beer, I want to-”

Whether she wanted a beer or not, Chillbot delivered one -at ballistic speeds. The dull thwack of aluminum against skin echoed across the empty quad.

After profuse robotic apologies, Joan had agreed to press forward with a slightly bruised face. Any resentment she had towards the robot vanished when they were attacked by a swarm of bracelets that Chillbot down in a hail of gunfire. While Vell still had the edge on accuracy, there was something to be said for the sheer quantity of bullets Chillbot’s rifle could provide.

“Where’d you learn to shoot like that, anyway?” Joan asked, as the swarm subsided, and Vell holstered his revolvers.

“I don’t know, uh, my dad just sort of took me to a shooting range one day and told me to try and hit the bullseye, and then I did,” Vell said.

“Vell has an innate yeehaw energy,” Harley said. “Scientists are still trying to figure it out. Check this out. Chillbot, give Vell your gun.”

Chillbot obliged, and Vell awkwardly handled the much larger weapon. Harley instructed him to try and hit the trunk of a nearby tree. Not only did Vell not hit the target, the recoil of the large rifle knocked him off his feet. Chillbot retrieved his rifle from the ground, and then helped Vell to his feet. Harley gestured to the sorry display with a shrug.

“See? Completely useless if you take away the cowboy guns.”

“Interesting.”

“We have yet to test if he becomes more powerful when wearing a cowboy hat,” Harley said. “He’s still embarrassed from the last time he wore his giddy-up getup.”

“Oh, he’s worn that a couple times,” Joan said. “Privately.”

“Interesting,” Harley noted.

“If I may steer this conversation in a very different direction,” Lee interrupted. She paused to stifle a quick giggle. “Hah. Steer. I’ve made a cowboy pun. Ahem, as I was saying, while in conversation with Joan this afternoon, I noticed what may have been a brief disruption of the school’s usual magical fields. I have been tracking any signs of a magical burst that may have caused this disruption, and I believe I may have located one.”

“You’re saying that ominously,” Harley noted. “I don’t like that.”

“Unfortunately the disturbance is located in the…”

“Lee!” Harley shouted. “How many times do I have to tell you! None of this dramatic pause shit!”

“Sorry dear. As I was saying, the disturbance is located in the senior labs.”

The grim expressions of his comrades said that was a problem, but Vell didn’t understand why.

“What’s up with the senior labs?” He asked.

“We really got to get you a student handbook one of these days,” Harley said. “And maybe an exorcism.”

“The senior labs are an underwater complex beneath the school,” Lee explained. “They contain private laboratories for promising senior students to develop projects in private, with access to all the schools resources.”

“You have yet to describe the problem,” Vell said. “That worries me.”

“It should!” Harley said.

“The primary problem is that many of the senior lab projects are unstable under the best of circumstances,” Lee said. “A legion of lethal valuables obviously not being the best of circumstances. There will be…”

“Lee!” Harley snapped.

“Sorry! There will be complications.”

Vell didn’t bother asking about the nature of the so-called ‘complications’. He decided to do what he did best and compartmentalize.

“Okay, one problem at a time,” Vell said. “We focus on getting into the senior dorms first. Where’s Leanne?”

“Probably off punching quarters somewhere,” Harley said. “But we don’t need her. I had some seniors in my lab and they say the door got blown off it’s hinges by some evil money. We can waltz right in.”

“Okay, great,” Joan said. “So waltz in and then what?”

“Probably get picked off one by one until the last desperate survivor finds his or her way to the heart of the evil and stops it once and for all,” Harley said.

“Or we all survive and then stop by the pizzeria after a successful mission,” Lee countered.

“Only one way to find out,” Joan said with a shrug.

The door had, in fact, been blown off it’s hinges. Vell could only wonder how a swarm of coins had managed to tear a five-inch thick slab of metal off it’s hinges.

“Well, that’s not ominous at all,” Joan said. “Chillbot, after you.”

“Don’t mind if I do, pretty lady,” Chillbot said.

“Don’t use Chillbot as a guinea pig,” Harley said.

“He’s a robot, you can rebuild him,” Joan said.

“I mean, yeah, but at least ask permission first,” Harley said. “I’ve programmed him to know when things are not chill, and dying is definitely not chill.”

“Things remain chill,” Chillbot said. He was already a few steps into the lab. “I am alive! The coast is clear.”

With Chillbot’s reassurance, the group proceeded downwards into the twisting halls of the seniors labs. A long, dark stairwell spiraled down, surrounding the pylon that anchored the artificial island to the ocean floor. Most of the heavy lab doors were sealed tight, with glowing red lights on the door indicating that something was sealed within. More fearsome by far were the doors left open, exposing yawning gateways into darkened labs that echoed with the legacy of past experiments.

“This is most decidedly not chill,” Chillbot noted.

“Chillbot, deactivate appraisal mode,” Harley commanded. Chillbot deactivated his running commentary. While his comical appearance helped defuse some of the terror of the situation, Harley didn’t want any unexpected noises.

As they proceeded in silence, Lee continued using the divination spell that would allow her to locate the source of magic. She held her hand to every sealed door to get a sense for what was inside. Eventually, she paused, holding her hand in front of single door slightly longer than the others.

“It’s in here,” she whispered. “Harley. The door, if you would.”

Harley went to work cracking open the door mechanism while Lee whispered a breathless warning to the rest of the group.

“Be prepared for anything,” Lee cautioned. “Over the past few years, the senior labs have been host to some of the most vile horrors ever spawned on this campus. I cannot overstate the dangers that may lurk within.”

“Whatever caused today’s craziness is on the other side of this door,” Harley said. “Get your shit ready. Three...two...one…”

Harley flipped a switch and the door slammed open.

“Oh hey Vell,” Ngose said.

In a panicked reaction to the unexpected noise, Joan grabbed at the soulstone in her pocket and drew it. She stopped shorting of blasting Ngose with soulfire, but only barely. Vell grabbed her wrist and gently guided the black crystal back into her pocket.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Vell said. “Ngose, what are you doing here?”

“Cowering for my life,” Ngose admitted. “Prior to that, working on an art project.”

Ngose gestured to a very sheepish looking Senior, who waved awkwardly in Vell’s direction.

“I was trying to make a commentary on how money destroys,” he said. “And I sort of maybe accidentally made money literally destroy.”

“Great. The world ends thanks to a wannabe Banksy,” Harley sighed. “Explain what you did.”

While Harley listened to an elaborate explanation of the senior’s failed experiment, Vell was approached by another familiar face. Adele paced up to Vell and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Oh hey Adele,” Vell said.

In response, she pointed down to her glasses. The frames had been cracked by some of the chaos that ensued from the failed experiment, and the runic software that translated spoken word into text on her lenses had broken. Vell picked up on her meaning pretty quickly.

“Oh, your glasses are broken?”

Adele pointed to her non-functional ears and shrugged.

“Oh, right, your glasses are broken,” Vell said. The enchanted lenses usually translated spoken word into text Adele could read. “You can’t hear a word I’m saying. Lee, do you have a notebook or something in your purse?”

She handed over a notebook and paper. Vell wrote “I can fix those” on the paper and then took the broken glasses to piece the shattered runes back together. He was something of an expert when it came to runic glasses. Lee took the notebook and wrote “Do you need to borrow this?” on the next sheet of paper, holding it out to Adele.

“I can still talk,” Adele signed. “The translation spell isn’t part of the glasses.”

“Oh, sorry, sorry, I forgot it was the spell, and not the- and I also forgot you can’t understand me right now,” Lee said, sighing heavily as she realized her words were wasted. Adele giggled at her mild distress.

“It’s fine, I just had my hands full earlier,” Adele signed. “It’s good to see you again, Lee.”

Lee wrote “Good to see you too” in her notebook, and Adele happily picked up a lopsided conversation with her. While they signed and exchanged notes back and forth like two schoolgirls, Joan leaned on Vell’s shoulder and watched the two from a distance.

“Do you think Lee’s into Adele?”

“I think Adele is into Lee,” Vell said. “Don’t think it goes the other way around, unfortunately.”

“So what are we going to do about that?’

“Not much,” Vell said. “Meddling isn’t nice. However...”

“However what?” Joan asked.

“I’ll tell you tomorrow,” Vell said.

The second loop sort of counted as tomorrow, or so Vell liked to tell himself. He put a plan into action behind the scenes while Joan went about her business a usual. Soon enough she was back in Lee’s dorm, eating an extra-large pizza purchased with Lee’s money.

“Can I ask you a personal question, Lee?”

While Lee would usually deny such a request, she already knew exactly what Joan was going to ask, thanks to the prior loop.

“Go ahead.”

“What’s your dating life like?”

“Nonexistent,” Lee said. “And I’m quite alright with that.”

“Really? Not to, like, second guess you or anything,” Joan said.

“It’s alright,” Lee insisted. “I’m just...taking my time. My upbringing didn’t exactly leave me socially well-adjusted.”

“Well, I think the best way to adjust to something is by doing it,” Joan said. “No time like the present.”

Vell agreed. Which was why he chose that moment to knock on the door. Lee stood up and let him in, and let Adele in while she was at it.

“Hello Vell,” Lee said. “Adele. What brings you here?”

“Well, I was going to help some senior with an art project, but some little robot tore through and the wrecked the whole thing before we could start,” Adele signed. “It was really weird.”

“Since her plans for the afternoon got wrecked, I figured I’d see what everyone was up to,” Vell said. “Maybe hang out a bit.”

“Well, we already have more pizza than we can possibly eat,” Joan said. “Might as well.”

Lee agreed, and Adele and Vell helped themselves to the titanic pizza Joan had ordered. Adele powered her way through a single slice with impressive speed and then started to chat with Lee.

“Been a while since we’ve bumped into each other, Lee,” Adele signed. “What’ve you been up to?”

“Bumping into other people, mostly,” Lee said. “The usual. Hydromancy, RA meetings, that sort of thing. Yourself?”

“Art, more art, chasing the occasional butterfly,” Adele said. “Helping some guy with his project.”

“Right. Was he a friend of yours, or something to that effect?” Lee asked. They had not seemed very well-acquainted on the previous loop. Lee was curious how Adele and the destructive artist came to be involved with each other.

“Oh, our art teacher just thinks he needs someone to rein him in,” Adele said. “He’s got more ambition than common sense. Makes dangerous stuff sometimes.”

“So they assign the guy babysitters?” Joan scoffed. “If he makes dangerous stuff, just kick him out.”

“I mean, he’s not evil, he’s just stupid,” Adele said. “It’s not like he’s out here doing dark magic or something.”

Vell and Lee very deliberately said nothing, and waited for Joan to react. They’d both been hoping for a chance to bring up this topic, now that Joan could actually have a meaningful discussion on it.

“Yeah, that’d be dumb,” Joan said, all too nonchalantly. Then she carried on eating pizza, and acting like nothing had happened -and that she didn’t have a soulstone tucked into her desk drawer. Vell and Lee didn’t know what to say to that, so they said nothing.