It's pretty standard for a classroom: A large room with a very high ceiling and bright yellow walls, decorated with paper craft and poems from years long past. The radiators have all been painted over with pretty patterns and doodles of trees and animals. Two corners of the room have been sectioned off; one for the bookshelves, the other to hang up coats and school bags. If it wasn't already obvious, the Mmanuell's class has been in the same room their whole lives. The twenty or so children sitting around the six tables that take up most of the room turn their heads towards the classroom door in dread as the sound of maniacal giggling draws closer.

Mmanuell kicks the door open and welcomes his adoring, participating audience for today's show with a shit-eating grin as he stumbles into the room with a Crystal box that could easily fit seven of them in there. Most of them avoid eye contact out of concern for their well-being. A regular Friday, then.

'You already know what time it is. Has Miss already done the reg-'

He's cut off by the hiss of Yyna Komodia's voice, his teacher for every subject because that's how school works. Her sharp, piercing whispers make people think she's a lizard in disguise, but no one'll dare say that to her face. It's easier to just call her "Miss" though since her full name is a mouthful, however fitting it may be.

'Mmanuell, please do not kick that door open. It's Friday, can you not just be normal? Sit down and-

Ignoring the lambasting of his teacher, Mmanuell lugs his Pallobalt crate towards the coat rack and gracelessly chucks it on the floor, creating an inconceivably loud clang that resonated through the bones of the entire class- shutting up Miss and...whatever she was going on about.

'Yap, Yap, Yap, and I just walked into the room. Can you not just let me exist?'

She's glaring at Mmanuell with vexed, beady eyes...as if staring at him hard enough will let her see into the inner machinations of his mind. Alas, they are enigmatic. Today operation has been in the works for too many days to count.

...

It has been less than a week at most.

But, still. It yet remains completely foolproof!

Victory is 100% guaranteed.

Absolutely...

Yes.

 

Yyna pinches her eyes and groans, '...Why did you bring Pallobalt Crystal large enough to kill someone into class, Mmanuell?'

Mmanuell flashes a fake smile as he answers back, 'It's my school bag.'

A few of the other kids stare at Mmanuell in disbelief as Miss Komodia's eyes twitch, her patience already running thin.

'...And what, exactly, was wrong with your previous one, Mmanuell?'

He dismissively shrugs off the question as starts taking his coat off and rebuts by playing one of his cards early for the fun of it. 'Nothing, but my Mum said I can have this one.' This is a total lie but Yyna is scared shitless of Mmanuell's mother for reasons he's too young to understand. On top of the fact that she was the head teacher of St. Balwarts for a time, Mmanuell having her approval sometimes allows him to take liberties with skipping over stages of authority. It's not an excuse he can use often she'll actually get in touch with Mmanuell's mum and that won't end well. But, just as expected, Miss bites her lip in defeat after hearing Mmanuell say the magic words.

'Oh...that's fine then, but I'll be talking to her about this, so put your stuff away and come and sit down while I take the register.'

Sure you will. As Mmanuell began taking school stuff out of his Pallobalt crate a brown-skinned girl with pigtail box braids, thick, round glasses and star-shaped Gates across her face shot her hand up to get Yyna's attention. 'Miss! I forgot my pencil case in my bag, can I go and get it?'

 

'Of course, Kkele.' Miss gives her a warm smile, as the girl gets out of her chair and neatly tucks it under her table, which is the closest to Miss' desk. That's Kkele: the smartest person in Mmanuell's class after himself, of course, and one of the only two students at St. Balwarts who was born with the ability to use Magic. She's also Mmanuell's best friend. As she walks past Mmanuell to get her pencil case, Kkele leans in towards him and whispers in his ear.

'Are we good to go with the operation? No unexpected setbacks or anything?'

'Nah, we're all good. Be ready.'

Kkele coyly grins at Mmanuell and they both inconspicuously walk back to their seats as Miss calls the names of children organised in orderly groups around their tables. Miss normally starts the day by doing the register, but sometimes she forgets. She gets in trouble for that.

'Ok then, that's the register done.' Miss picks a child to bring the filled-out clipboard to the reception office downstairs, writes down Friday's timetable on the whiteboard, and begins lessons. But, having quickly grown bored of being in school for a grand total of ten minutes, Mmanuell inconspicuously slides a paddle ball out of his back pocket while Miss isn't looking. He's "trying" not to get caught, occasionally darting his eyes across the entire room like a spooked cat, and starts playing with it underneath his table under the impression that nobody can see him.

He sits slap dab in the middle of the classroom. Everybody can see him, everyone can hear the damn thing. Including Miss.

'-Mmanuell!', she interrupts herself from narrating the book everyone is reading as a class to reprimand Mmanuell. 'It hasn't even been half an hour, how dare you...'

Blah, blah, blah, nobody's actually listening we don't have time for all that.

'...Give me that!' Miss made her way to Mmanuell's table at the other end of the room and extends her hand as a signal for him to give up his item.

How offensive!

'But Miss, it's just my bookmark(!)' Mmanuell hugs his paddle ball closer to his chest with a- just, absolutely flabbergasted expression on his face.

Miss raises an eyebrow at this and scoffs. 'Using a paddle ball as a bookmark? I do not think it is, Mmanuell. Now may I please-' Miss was about to tear into Mmanuell for using such a lame excuse, but as she gets a better look at the thing, sure enough, there are little reminders from several different dates scribbled all over it in randomly coloured, dried out felt-tip pen marker about the books that have been read in class over the past few months.

'...You should know better than to use a toy as a bookmark, instead of an actual one.' Miss lowers her voice and retracts her hand, before jutting it back out again and repeating herself.

'But Miss-'

'No "buts", young man, you know the rules. Use a normal bookmark. The toy, please.'

Pretend-sulking, Mmanuell hands over the decoy to his teacher as she walks back over to her desk.

Yeah, that should do it.

Too proud of her false victory to see the macro game, Miss Komodia takes a key from her desk to open the storage room where they school supplies and whatnot, then uses a different key on her necklace to open the "confiscation chest" that's kept within that same storage room, before locking them both and putting the keys back where she got them- If Miss sees a child with a toy, she'll take it and put it the large black chest in the classroom's storage room...and then tell their parents...and exaggerate things to get in more trouble because the suffering of others gives her sustenance, surely.

'I'll be talking to your mother about this as well, Mmanuell.'

Oooh, shiver me timbers(!) Shut up, man! Mmanuell glares at her. Mum won't care. She condones this behaviour, but you know what Mmanuell doesn't condone? Not being allowed to play with toys in the middle of class...but that's okay! Why? Because after days (count: 2) of careful planning and blackmailing persuading his friends into helping him, the "Certified™ Intellectual© Genius®", Mmanuell Ezenha, has come up with a scheme!

Yes, a scheme to end all schemes...to get all the confiscated items back, without Miss Komodia getting so much as a sliver of an idea of what's going on right beneath her nose...ah, sometimes Mmanuell wonders if this is too easy.

He just needs to unlock the confiscation chest and "liberate" everyone's toys, easy as!

But, both it and the room it's kept in are locked; Mmanuell had an idea of where their respective keys were being kept, but that was a risk, and a risk wasn't good enough...so he made a necessary sacrifice to confirm their locations...and now that he knows for sure, the operation can truly begin.

Still "upset" that he was "bested" by his teacher, Mmanuell reads along with his own copy of the book Miss was reading aloud to the class before she was interrupted. About 15 minutes later, three sharp flicks on the paperback cover signalled the beginning of the next phase. A classmate that Mmanuell forced influenced to join the plan with the threat prospect of him snitching to informing Miss Komodia that they'd stolen all the Maltesers from the candy box (which is something Mmanuell also made him do), nervously got up from his seat and goes up to his teacher's desk whilst she's sitting there reading aloud to the class, awkwardly fumbling through her drawer of assorted stationery items before working up the courage to pick up the woman's house keys.

Miss probably wouldn't have even realised what was going on because kids are allowed to get a spare pencil/ruler/etc from Miss' own belongings, but it'd be more surprising if Miss wasn't able to discern the metallic glint of her own keys out of her peripheral vision. One of her better-behaved students misbehaving? Doing something which was very obviously a dare made by the other kids, no less? Behaviour such as that demands a few words in private, outside of the classroom.

How hard Mmanuell had to suppress his laughter as this kid gave Mmanuell a "Look dude, I did it! I'm part of the plan guys!" thumbs up should not be understated.

Like Mmanuell gives a shit. He's a shy, weak kid even quieter than Ssamuell (but at least Sam has a personality; this guy is just plain boring) who's always trying to force a friendship with the more popular kids in class by doing silly things, so Miss is probably going to have a word with him about "standing up for himself", "being more confident", and "being unique". All that jazz.

Maybe he'll actually listen and stop being a...Mmanuell believes Tsunians call people like him a neek? Yeah maybe he'll stop being such a neek.

Now that Miss is occupied with something else Mmanuell is granted the opportunity to casually waltz up to her desk, take the backroom key and replace it with a different but-similar-enough-not-to-notice substitute, whistling and twirling it around as he does so. Kkele gives Mmanuell a wink and a high-five as he goes back to his seat and slips the acquired item into his pocket.

Now for the confiscation chest key itself. Up until just now, Mmanuell hadn't actually seen it since he attempted to make a cast of it using stale play-dough a few days ago (that was for a different plan, just respect the initiative). Unfortunately, that initiative backfired on him and now, instead of on the desk right next to the storage room key, the confiscation chest key is on his teacher's necklace. An, even more so than before, trickier location. This is seriously not good.

Miss Komodia wasn't giving Mmanuell any strange looks as she walked back into the room with whatever-his-name-is-Mmanuell-forgot-sorry-kid, so it's safe to assume he didn't snitch. Regardless, Mmanuell has to think of something quick to deal with getting the second key, or else the plan ends here...

Oh boy. It's improvisation time. This isn't going to end well, but whatever it takes. Mmanuell Ezenha is a generous fellow, the type of child who wouldn't hurt other people's feelings for his own benefit...

 

But this benefits everyone, so that makes it O.K.

 

Mmanuell waits a dozen or so minutes to build up the courage to go against the script, but eventually, he does. Projecting his voice as if he's reading off of a poorly written script, Mmanuell does the only thing he can think of to get the final key at such short notice.

'Hey, Kkele! Won't mind if I borrow that super-rare Land of the Lustrous jumbo pen you have, do you?'

'...Huh?' Kkele turns around in her seat and looks Mmanuell up and down, concerned at the juncture this plan is taking as she slowly drags her oversized sticker-adorned pencil case closer to her. 'Why do you need it? I have other pens you can use, you know?'

'Yeah but I want that one.'

Kkele squints at him, 'Don't you dare.', she whispers.

He nods back at her confidently, 'Trust me', he mouths back.

Squints turn to glares as Mmanuell gets out of his seat and casually strides towards Kkele

'Oh, HELL NO! Mmanuell DON'T-'

Mmanuell snatches Kkele's pencil case from her grasp with a shocking amount of force and empties its contents out onto her table, spilling stationary all over the floor and once again directing eyes towards him. A veritable stream of pens, pencils, rulers and rubbers spilled forth from the oversized, sticker-adorned bag before the rare jumbo pen in question made itself visible- although it was less a "pen" and more, almost literally, just an engraved glass cylinder full of ink with a pen nib bolted on one end; much more of a collectors item than anything you'd actually write with, but that would explain why Kkele, lover of all things rare and valuable, would treasure it so.

So it stands to reason that Mmanuell would snatch the thing out of the air before Kkele could so much as begin to catch it for herself shatter it into pieces in front of her face.

Ink burst across the entire room, speckling the walls with black splotches, ruining the reading books the school just purchased, splattering across Mmanuell's, Kkele's and all the other children's faces, and getting all over Miss Komodia's clothes; she was sitting right there, so that's her fault.

Every pair of eyes in the room kinda just stared at him for like, three seconds straight. Ignoring them, Mmanuell wipes the glass and ink stuck to his hands off on Kkele's shoulder, then lifts her glasses up to look her dead in her eyes, 'You're not gonna want that back are you? I don't see the point in collecting shit if you aren't going to use it, you won't miss it.'

This might not even work and the damaged trust may never be repaired, but Mmanuell didn't come this far to fail because of the consequences of stale play-dough. He didn't want to do that, truly, but Mmanuell needed to provoke Kkele enough for her to act with her heart instead of her head.

Miss practically erupted in anger at the ruination of her clothes. Even though sixteen and twenty-eight may as well be the exact same age to an Arcerran, Yyna's fashion sense sucks (the ink makes it look better if you ask Mmanuell). But, Yyna could barely get sp much as a sentence out before a torrent filled the room and swept up everything that wasn't bolted down into a vortex of pink-hued, glue-like Water Magic.

'MMANUELL YOU DICK, I WILL ACTUALLY KILL YOU! WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!!! HOW COULD YOU BE SO MEAN?! HEARTLESS! INCONSIDERATE! RUDE!' Kkele yelled at the top of her lungs with teary eyes, the Flow seething from her star-shaped Gates responding to her rage and effortlessly Transmuting into her signature Resin Gum, which she promptly shot at Mmanuell...which sent him flying against the wall across the room, dropping to his knees from the impact and clawing at the orb of viscous liquid surrounding his head in an attempt to get it off, but Kkele's adding more volume to it than he can remove.

As far as on-the-spot improv schemes go, Mmanuell's already regretting this.

'Okay....sorry..I'm...(!)...pens...n't...that rare...I..nother...my bag! Stop...hitting....water...'

The world's worst improviser tries to shout and beg for mercy, but that only allowed more Water Magic to rush into his lungs; if Mmanuell really wanted to he could breathe it all in and absorb it, but being bed-ridden with Flow Overload for two days is something he'd rather not do.

Guess he'll drown, then.

Mmanuell's lucky he has dirt on all of his classmates otherwise they probably wouldn't have responded to the signal to start phase three of the plan, which was to commence when Kkele "gets angry" in any sense of the phrase, and proceed to start a full-on riot to serve as a grand distraction: screaming, laughing, throwing stuff around, scooping bits of water out of Kkele's vortex and chucking it at other kids; at this point, it's out of Mmanuell's control (not a fan of that.) and the plan might fail tremendously (not a fan of that either.).

Yyna, on the other hand, was dodging and ducking through various pieces of rogue stationery and water bombs as she bellowed for her class to stop at once, but it was too loud to even hear yourself think; who's listening to a teacher, this far into the madness? We revel in the chaos!

She then tried to pick up Kkele and calm her down, but sneaking up on a Mage from behind tends to make them very jumpy and is widely regarded as a bad move. Instinctively, Kkele created a large explosion of freezing cold Steam Magic that turned the entire classroom into a cloudy, sight-obstructing labyrinth and dropped the temperature by at least 5°C.

Foggy, soggy, and full of noisy children that don't want to listen, absolute chaos ensues...which leaves Miss Komodia with no other option. She rips her necklace off, flings it onto the floor with no regard as to where, and overpowers Kkele's mental connection to her Magic with her own, taking over control of the swirling vortex of Water and Steam Magic filling the room, rendering her powerless. Miss concentrated really hard for a few seconds, and then all the Magic in the room just, dissolved back into Flow. Everyone's vision cleared up and stuff that was soaking wet moments prior dried up instantly, including that orb of water that was this close to sending Mmanuell on a trip to the Great Pantry; all of it, just hissing and smoking with a bright turquoise aura, which quickly faded away and disappeared into the air.

The discord which plagued the room's orderliness died away. Every single child in the room stopped mid-riot petrified, in anticipation of what would surely be their biggest collective telling-off since that November. We...we don't talk about that November.

Miss Komodia stood in the centre of the room: She wasn't glaring at anybody with her snake eyes, her face wasn't red like a plump ripe tomato, hell, she didn't even raise her voice. You wouldn't even have been able to tell she was angry weren't it not for the air around her literally popping and squeaking with Gaseous Lava Magic, commonly referred to as Explosion Magic, so unfortunately for everyone in the room that is not the case.

'Kkele.' Sparks flew across the room as she looked down at the girl.

The poor little thing was sniffling, her breath shaky from the shock of using so much Magic on impulse, which is a big no-no during school in case it wasn't already evident; she also rarely gets in trouble, so realising that she's going to get it worse than Mmanuell usually does probably isn't helping either.

'Y-yes...Miss?'

'Come with me to the first aid room. You might be dangerously low on Flow after using so much Magic.'

'Yes, Miss...'

She gently takes hold of her top student's hand and guides her to the classroom door, not before turning back towards Mmanuell with what might be the calmest face he's seen on her all spring term contradicted by a glare that could split his soul in two a thousand times over, 'You stay there, Emman.'

Shock and confusion overrode Mmanuell's in-control demeanour as he struggled to comprehend how this might affect him in the long run.

A choked "..Y-yeah." escaped the boy's lips as he realises. I...I don't think there's any going back from that. Miss hates me forever. Whoopsie.

As Miss and Kkele leave the classroom, the door closes behind them with a click and a clunk that reverberated throughout the still-silent room and snapped Mmanuell out of his momentary daze, bringing him back to the task at hand.

I'll think about it later. Need to make the most of this opportunity. All that's left to do now is...Oh. Hold on a second, we're actually already done. Oh wow, very nice.

...And that, you see that? That right there? That's why Mmanuell Ezenha is the one who does the things around here. That fancy necklace that stops Miss from using Magic in school to ensure the safety of the children? Which she is only allowed to take off in case of an "emergency"? That "Magic Inhibition Hex"? Yeah, it's laid on the floor like a used toy. And you know why that's good? Because the final key is attached to it, that's why! Last time he checked, a kid who can't use Magic being attacked by one who can is an "emergency", and as expected, removing the Hex also means relinquishing the Key! It went a bit overboard, but the distraction was large enough to shift the centre of attention from Mmanuell to someone else. You see? eh? Eh? EH? Genius.

Winner winner, chicken dinner, brain's big and there ain't much bigger. Except my DI-

Mmanuell can barely contain his overflowing pride as he detaches the confiscation chest's key from its shackles and triumphantly holds it above his head for all to see. His classmates stare mouths ajar, as the kid who succeeded where all others failed made an announcement to the entire room.

'Ladies and Gentlemen...we got 'em.'

Applause. Cheers. Someone threw a pen at him. All is well in the world, but not without sacrifice. RIP Kkele Montiba, Ethraksha rest her soul...but she was a small price to pay for salvation...even so, now is not the time for victory, for there is one last part to this meticulously planned mission. Mmanuell approaches the backroom door and unlocks it with the first key, the satisfying sound of metal locking into place with bolts and latches fills his ears as the dry, dusty air of the back room, forgotten to his kind (year eleven school children) rushed across his face as the door opened.

Ah, yes. At long last, he can finally return to his classmates what is theirs. The second key fits in nicely. Two soft clicks and the seal is broken. The fresh light that seeped in breathed new life into items that have long since been neglected and abandoned, banishing the shadows that have long concealed the pandora's box of fifteen-to-sixteen-year-olds...the confiscation chest.

It was kinda nerve-wracking to be honest, opening the heavy lid and laying eyes on things that haven't been seen in months: Rubik's cubes, those zodiac-themed metal spinning tops, even a couple of garbage-themed sour candies that aren't allowed in school anymore which surely can't still be good to eat. Mmanuell carefully steps into the box and totally buries himself in the cornucopia of artefacts, soaking in their prestige and glory. It's hard to choose what to take as the first reward! Any one item is just as good as everything else, so maybe he'll ask the public. Mmanuell dips his head out of the sea of toys and calls out to his classmates with the same imperious, smug tone he takes when talking to people who aren't his parents. He was facing the back room's window rather than its door, but it was hard to turn around and they could probably hear him anyway.

'Hey guys, what do you think we should take first!? I know it doesn't really matter because we're getting everything back anyways, but this is one of those moments!.'

Silence? Hmm, okay? He knows people aren't the most eager to talk to him for reasons he couldn't figure out for his life, but this isn't the sound of grateful classmates. Mmanuell leans his head closer to the door and calls out to the ones he's done so much for.

'Hel-lo? When I talk, you answer. You all know this, speak up!'

Thank Ethraksha, somebody finally did. You'd think kids'd have a little more respect these days.

'Mmanuell.'

An adult woman. Oh. Oh no. No way. Mmanuell's heart climbs all the way up into his throat as he scampers out of the confiscation chest onto the concrete floor, spilling a bunch of its contents with him. Panicked and uncertain of his next move, Mmanuell picked himself up and met eye-to-eye with the last thing he expected, or wanted, to see.

'...What do you think you're doing?'