[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/sno7KOz.png[/img][/center]

The faculty and psudo-faculty members at Marrywell Academy were an eccentric lot. Yes, to the magical girl community at large, Marrywell was the best place a magical girl could hope to go. Loads of like minded friends, tuition for your magical and mundane life, the works. But anyone who spent even a moment behind its shiny walls knew that the faculty wasn't quite right. Likely an artifact from living hundreds of years. Most of the time it was innocent. Maybe they would choose to take the form of a cat at all times or look younger than most of the attending students. Other times it manifested itself in less kosher ways. Maybe they drank on the job, maybe they believed they served a cosmic horror. But this was the first time Stripes could remember being used as bait to lure out a dangerous magical girl who controlled pageless... so that they could talk to her. 

That wasn't to say Stripes didn't have faith in Ozma. If she really felt that talking to someone like this was the best way to go forward she'd trust it. But it wasn't an ideal place to have a chat. Stripes hadn't initially thought about it, but there was a weird coincidence here. Even though Ozma seemed to think they were flying around and drawing out the pageless earlier, Ozma had chosen to "ambush" the masked woman in her lair. Was this intentional or just happenstance?

She listened and observed. Everyone had a right to react with hostility. They weren't exactly on even footing here. The masked woman was a lone magical girl, but she had an untold number of pageless under her command. Everyone seemed to be taking the situation pretty seriously except for Eternal Rose, but that was pretty much expected from Olivia at this point. But it was impressionable sorts like her that needed to be looked after. The real star of the show though was the masked woman, monologuing like a villain. No one interrupted her. Ozma had started to give her opinion on it and press for more questions when Stripes squinted her eyes.

[color=tomato]"...Seriously?"[/color] Stripes looked incredulous. Her mouth hung open just enough to show her tongue. [color=tomato]"You're going for the 'oh please, just think of the pageless!' shtick?"[/color] Stripes's voice was perfectly monotone, as per usual. But there was no hiding how repulsed she was in her words. [color=tomato]"Even if we ignore the countless human lives that pageless would take without our intervention we are sworn enemies."[/color] She extended her arms towards the small army of pageless behind Roma. [color=tomato]"Pageless, eat, grimoires."[/color] She swung her torso to get her arms pointed in the other direction at Lupin, but did not take her eyes off the masked woman. [color=tomato]"Magical, girls, need, those, to, transform. They, eat, our, stories. They, eat, us."[/color] Another exaggerated hand motion. Her finger cracked like a whip as Stripes pointed at Nessie. [color=tomato]"Before you suggest we feed our stories to the pageless or some other appeasement ritual, that girl over there hadn't even seen her grimoire yet and the pageless were going to eat her. If I had fed my grimoire to a pageless, if I had never picked it up-"[/color] Stripes lowered her finger and stared off into space. [color=tomato]"It's just a dumb thing to suggest."[/color] She looked back at the mask wearing magical girl. [color=tomato]"A magical girl that sides with pageless is like a tabby that befriends vermin."[/color]

Just in case Stripes's opinion on the matter hadn't shined though her words, she summoned four magic missiles that hovered over her head.