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[code]Town Hall[/code]
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Penny’s face twisted into a look of shock and disgust as her repulsion successfully buried Amethyst’s dagger into one of the archer’s bellies. It was what she had intended to do, but the sight of the girl collapsing before she disappeared through a portal burned itself into Penny’s eyes. There wasn’t enough time to feel the guilt sink in as Amethyst wheeled around on her with another dagger flourishing in her hand. Penny ducked backwards to get out of arms reach and found herself being swallowed by a cloud of smoke. Moments later, Lynette’s glyph exploded and Penny was tossed (almost) harmlessly to the ground by a shockwave. 

“Everyone, let’s go!”

There was no need to tell Billy that twice. Now without a gun and seemingly stuck with a broken abstraction, he was more than ready to make a break for the stairs. It was only when he made it to the steps that he finally paused and looked back, his eyes searching for Penny. However, his concern for his sister was not able to beat back the fear that had only momentarily relaxed its clutches on the man, and after just a couple of seconds he had already turned and bolted up the stairs, through the lobby, and out into the snow. Hopefully the storm had let up.

Penny stayed crouched low to avoid being choked out by the smokescreen. She hated to admit it, but running was really their only option. She blamed herself entirely for things falling to shit. If she hadn’t been so insistent on the group sticking together, they could’ve easily surrounded the Watchers or—now wasn’t the time. As she ducked and ran towards the stairs, she kept an eye out for any robed legs getting near their exit with a pen in her hand just ready to fly loose at their ankles. Only then did she notice the crutch and her stomach sank. [i]Paige.[/i]

Penny was now crouched right by the exit. The others could easily make it up the stairs and to the school. Paige, not so much. There was no way Penny could live with leaving the girl behind. Forget the smoke, it wasn’t like her lungs hadn’t been tainted by cigarettes long ago. Penny stood up and, cursing under her breath, disappeared into the smoke as she rushed to grab Paige. 

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 [code]Grand Ridge[/code]
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Rita didn’t have a chance to speak back up as the Hound stared her down while its fog swarmed around her. The slightest moment of alarm, fear, and confusion was swept away as a strange peace fell over her, albeit not a very calming one. It was impossible to describe. How can someone explain actual nothingness? As the fog drifted away from her and Rita regained her feelings—all of them—a ragged, chilled breath escaped from her throat as she shuddered. There wasn’t an argument to make. Her eyes fell away from the Hound. Even as Justin returned, her reaction wasn’t a strong one. The Hound was right. Why bother?

No, wait, why should she believe that he was right? From the sounds of it, he’d screwed up before by letting Jordan and Madeline live past their expiration date, so maybe he was screwing up now.  Rita bit her lip hard. As Jordan and Madeline accepted their fates and began to say their goodbyes to everyone, Rita looked up from the ground with a strained and screwed look of concentration on her face. The Hound asked if anybody had any last words, and even if it proved to be pointless Rita wasn’t about to just allow them to go so gently with that scary Hound.

“I think you two are cowards,” said Rita. She glared at Jordan as her abstraction fired up. “They’re dead. This won’t bring them back. [b][i][color=lightgray]Do you honestly believe that this is what they’d want? To see you just give up and kill yourself?”[/color][/i][/b] She shot an angry look at Kimberly. [b][i][color=lightgray]“How can you pretend to be okay with this?”[/color][/i][/b]