There was a fantastic irony Soleil found in the current situation as he and Kiana worked their way up back to the third floor of the school building. First he'd left to the entrance only to have run back to the third floor and defenestrate himself to get out, only to need to double back thanks to the Source's signal coming from that floor now. At this point, he'd lost count of how many trips up and down he'd made that day.
More than he cared too though, that was for sure.
Thankfully, there were far less shamblers to worry about as Soleil and Kiana got to the third floor, though a stairwell littered with Honkai zombies hadn't made it particularly easy to get up there. The problem would only get worse as more and more zombies were drawn towards the Source, so they had to act quickly. It didn't help Kiana was running low on ammo after such a short time of fighting to get up to this floor.
What made things all the weirder to consider was that the path Kiana was leading him on was right back to his classroom. The one he'd long slipped out of as soon as he'd gotten an inkling of what was to come.
"… well this isn't ironic at all," Soleil shook his head as he put his bat to his shoulder. "Didn't think I'd do two loops back to the third floor in one day… at least, not like this."
"Ahehe, guess you were looking to get to the station, huh?" Kiana checked what magazines she had left as they approached the door, then pulling out her phone to check it. "Let's see… Mei should be around here. Probably in the classroom."
"So why is Schicksal even suspecting Mei is a potential Herrscher at all?"
"Do you know about the Herrscher Gems?" Kiana got a nod in response.
"Course I do. They were recovered alongside the 2nd Herrscher's Core after the Second Impact. Schicksal's been using them for R&D ever since. This… this has something to do with them, doesn't it?"
"Well, it's just a theory, but that friend of my thinks that a game that we had, the Gem of Conquest… well it kind of went missing a couple years ago," Soleil raised a brow, Kiana nodding along. "The theory is that it was implanted into Mei… why? Who knows. Just the theory after all."
"That is… prime trouble asking to happen if true," Soleil couldn't help but let his free hand shift to the Stigmata he had. "Though now I'm wondering…"
"Wondering what, Rei-senpai?"
"Uh… nothing. Let's just see if Mei's around here. I'll take point," Soleil got against the wall of the classroom door, Kiana nodding as she readied her handgun. Soleil put his hand to the slat, Kiana nodding.
Slowly, Soleil slid the door open, seeing a mostly empty room as he peered in. Glancing left and right, he opened the door further and entered, Kiana right behind him as he raised his bat. There wasn't a zombie in sight, any that had been around littering the floor outside the room. What did stand out were just how many desks had been arranged into a barrier in the corner. And just through them, the two could make out someone huddled into the barricade.
"Uh… hello?" Kiana leaned ahead of Soleil. "You wouldn't happen to be a zombie huddled in there, would you?"
"I'm pretty sure we would've had a lunge happen if they were…" Soleil gripped his bat just in case, leaning over the barricade of desk's. What greeted him as he stepped onto one of the desks was thankfully not a zombie. Quite conveniently, it was exactly the person they were looking for, Mei looking up to Soleil in an almost daze like way, barely seeming to register him as she looked up, same with Kiana when she popped into view. "Well… this has made our job pretty easy, hasn't it?"
"Doesn't look like she's turned at all. Hey, you good down in there?" Kiana narrowed her eyes when Mei's only acknowledgement was glancing at her. "Could you at least say something? The two of us are gonna get out of here, how about you come with us, hm? We can get you past all those zombies and somewhere safe!"
"Do you even know if anywhere is safe?" Soleil muttered. "For all we know the Impact spread all the way to the main city."
"Yeah, but this one hit so fast I'm sure the emergency shelters are all clear! There's gotta be a couple here in the Academy City. We'll need a home base of some kind, won't we?"
"Fair enough," Soleil glanced at Mei, who was still dead silent that whole time. "Look, there's too much to explain right now, so…"
"Rei-senpai, we got zombies!" Kiana tapped Soleil's shoulder as loud groans became audible, a group of zombies piling at the doorway. "Look, Mei-senpai, doesn't matter if you'll answer! We gotta get moving!"
"…" Mei didn't answer, even as Kiana shoved some of the desks aside and pulled her to her feet. As Kiana was grabbing Mei, Soleil slammed his bat across the head of the first zombie to lunge at them, the burst of blue flames from his swing finishing it as he knocked it right back into the crowd. Soleil leapt onto another desk, vaulting from it and right towards the coming group.
"Clearing the way!" Soleil raked his left hand down the barrel of his bat, the flames igniting from it more intense as he took hold of it. The swing that followed hit hard enough it blew right through the group piling at the door, even blowing out a few windows from the force of the swing as flames arced through the air.
"Nice one!" Kiana chuckled as she hurried over, Mei in tow as they ran back into the hallway. "So, know where the nearest shelter is we can get to?"
"Should be…" Soleil paused to bat another zombie aside, Kiana felling another with a gunshot. "one between here and the station! It'll be empty what with how quickly this all hit!"
"Better for us, more supplies! Let's head for the old school building first! That should give us some room to breath so we can plan a bit!"
"Sounds good to me!"
As the two Schicksal fighters took the lead, their sudden charge still remained silent. Trailing behind without a word, Mei simply watched as the two carved a path through the zombies ahead of them, the path they had made already overtaken yet again.
"Another… that boy is another…" that voice in Mei's head spoke up, and her eyes drew to Soleil. "Flames… I sense flames."