Capítulo 225: For My Friend
For the rest of the day Naomi thought over her actions to be taken, ways that she might counter Otstoy again. Whether this action was right or wrong did not graze her mind. Slowly, she had adopted bits of her friend Julia's cynicism; it was Julia's observation that a woman must take opportunities even when she cannot fully inhabit them, for if she does not then an undeserving man will. It was typical of her philosophy; that life doles its winners out with no examination of their morality.
The system of choosing presidency was outdated, she believed; it prioritized the strict misanthropy of Matoi and Kate over the empathetic strength of Serena or others. She had planned for some time to do this, to circumvent it somehow; this for an academy whose students she had rarely liked nor liked her. She despised the thought of anyone considering Viktoria a model president, so this was what drove Naomi, her nobility yet her amorality towards her enactment.
At home, she would lie to Kate and tell Serena the truth. It was how she had treated them throughout the year.
The following day, Naomi & Viktoria were walking much as they had the day prior. Viktoria seemed to have not told Iris nor cared enough to swap, so Naomi presumed she planned on surviving this day. She was not wary; if Viktoria counter-attacked she would merely amplify her own injuries and report them to Kate, faking grief much like she had before.
They were on their way to the train station and upon a typical urban sidewalk, and as usual, it was in the next instant that they heard a scream rising from the restaurant across the street. Viktoria glanced to Naomi, expecting her to attack in her distraction; yet instead the amnesiac had her stone arm summoned and was already running across the street to the restaurant.
Avalanche's arm ripped the front door off as she heard another scream, and as she swept inside, she saw a party of 5 seated -
- with short (1ft tall) goblins crowned upon their heads, pulling at their hair and stabbing forks at their eyes as they screamed; Naomi raised her stone arm and shouted for Avalanche -
- and a barrage of stone bullets erupted outwards towards the goblins -
- but they pulled their steeds' hairs to yank them into the shot; but for the next instant scene.
A second barrage of stone bullets shot out at an angle to the first, lighter & faster; they ricocheted against the first barrage and veered both out of the path; sudden counter too quick, the goblins were helpless as the barrage hit a concrete wall rising up from their left -
- and the ricochet slammed a dozen bullets right into their meager little skulls; blood spurted as they unhanded their steeds and hit the floor, darting around in all directions.
Behind, Naomi heard Viktoria enter the restaurant, and shouted to the civilians: "Huddle underneath your tables! Get real close!"
They did, and domes of stone formed over them; part of the usual civilian-safety most decent students develop, though for Naomi it additionally ensured no witnesses to what she might later do. A dozen goblins were skittering around the restaurant floor, grabbing utensils & knives; Naomi felt a steak knife enter her leg -
- but by the time she reached down its wielder was already gone; more goblins leaped from one of the tables and onto her hair, pulling, yanking her down to the ground as their forks sought her eyes -
- but the next scene was instant. The floor shifted like a revolving door and she flipped underground, leaving the goblins behind; they stared stupidly for an instant, and in the next -
- Otstoy's tendril curled around three and constricted them tight, pulling them up to Viktoria's sight, grabbing, twisting and threatening to constrict them apart; below, Naomi unflipped out of the floor -
- and a stone fist slammed right up into Viktoria's slimy skull; she staggered back and shouted the bitch down, forced to completely slime herself to avoid another barrage; but as she was backing up, she backed into an archway of stone and a guillotine formed above it -
- slicing her slimed body in half, her heart half-exposed yet not damaged; she tried to reconnect these two halves of herself, but a grater of stone formed, configured in such a way that only a few miniscule pieces could escape.
She grunted as she saw Naomi rushing ahead, shouting back to her that she would search for the host. Her slime wrung and ripped apart the few goblins that had become embedded in them, and no slime to waste, she shot a tendril into the ceiling and swung her way forward to Naomi, two rushing to the entrance of the kitchen and coming inside quick, a hallway-esque room with the expected utensils & appliances, a freezer door at the far end.
As they ran deeper in, Viktoria said: "I'm surprised you did not simply run away once you heard screaming."
"I have an obligation to protect civilians. Not you." said Naomi, and in the next instant -
- a goblin thrown from behind slashed a deep gash into Naomi's right arm as it passes by; she braced Avalanche's arm as she turned -
- and the next goblin's knife impaled into the stone & kept its wielder there with it, the second, the third coming after, three goblins hanging from her stone arm and their knives embedded within -
- but the next scene was instant. The top layer of Avalanche's stone unformed, then reformed like a closing stone shutter and trapped the goblins by their ankles; she bashed her stone arm against the wall to try to break them into pieces, yet they were durable and would not yet relent.
Beside, Viktoria's tendril slashed through another two coming in from behind, until -
- a gust of white flame burst into her face from the side; she staggered back as burns seared heavily into her slime, still only half a woman as she saw the source of the flame. A few goblins were standing upon the gas stove, wielding an odd fashioned pipe; its base was at the flames, and the pipe led up through their asses and ended out through their -
- another breath of fire shot towards her -
- but she swept right and shot an Otstoy tendril to plug up the (disgusting) pipe; it still burned, but she slammed them into the flames, and felt Naomi readying to shoot the oven beside -
- a barrage of stone bullets entered the oven and the explosion began -
- but she seeped all of herself she could into the wall at her back, keeping her safe as the explosion erupted with only goblins harmed. Two, three seconds she waited, reinforcing her heart with more slime, then reformed out of the wall to see Naomi bashing one red goblin into the wall.
"Where is he?" she said.
"W-Why are you assuming m-my host i-is male?!" screeched the goblin.
"You're right. Sorry." Naomi slammed it in to the wall and held it up by one leg. "Where are they?"
"He's in the freezer!"
Naomi shrugged, threw it up in the air, and with one punch blasted its guts into the ceiling. She ran up to the closed freezer with Avalanche's arm drawn, knocking at it with her flesh hand and speaking gently: "Hi, is anyone in there? I'm a student. Please say something if you're a civilian, okay?"
No response. Naomi snickered to herself, then felt mentally within the room; a stone cube encased the interior and shrunk until it crushed alive whoever was in there. She ripped the door off and dissipated her cube of stone, revealing a crushed corpse with a still-beating heart atop it; she raised her stone arm and pockmarked it with bullets, enough that it could not be scanned. "Wanna lead the way back out?"
Viktoria's tendril shot out and yanked herself out of the kitchen; when Naomi came back out, she was fully reformed and sneering as Naomi approached her.
"Twice you have attempted and twice you have failed. No matter: I'll merely let Iris know when I am with her tomorrow."
Naomi laughed. "I don't give a shit what Iris thinks of me."
"Your protege does."
"If she didn't fault Natasha for you, what makes you think she'll fault Olivia for me?"
"Precisely why I should have done more to connect you two in Natasha's mind. Even if she is dead, perhaps I could have-"
- a stonefist slammed into Viktoria's stomach and a glob of slime shot out of her throat as she hunched over; another stonehand smacked her to the ground and she hit the concrete bleeding in heavy spurts.
Naomi stood over her but wouldn't openly kill her. "That one was for Serena, bitch."
She walked away. They wouldn't run into another Revenant before Viktoria was with Iris, but things would ripen as needed. She had secondary and tertiary plans, ruthless and detailed, modeled after Mia Schultz, who she had seen as almost unnaturally correct in any circumstance, an agent of what she could cast and mold into her life.
After a minute or so laying there, Viktoria stood up, shrugged and reconstituted the slime she had used to fake injury. By letting Naomi believe she had the strength to murder her, she might prevent such; that if her revenge appeared successful then she would not fulfill it.
REFLEXIONES DE LOS CREADORES 
RowPin
RowPin Naomi was difficult here, as I wanted to both develop her while keeping her to her established characterization. It was generally always the plan she would adopt some of Julia's cynicism… and have trouble finding a good boyfriend.
And to be honest, Viktoria completely deserves it; if you don't believe that now, you will later.
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