I don't know if actual schools do this, but a made-up city means made-up rules.

Some notes: We decided to go with an H theme when naming Hubert's family, and Flayn and Ignatz did end up paired off in the same playthrough where my co-author married Seteth so we decided to take that almost seriously.

And did we put Hanneman in here just to make a stupid joke? Yes. Yes we did.

Jonah looked over at the high school seniors, all of them excited for Friday night's traditional event. The senior lock-in, where they got out of class early and then spent the night at the school, the chaperones supervising a game night. No one knew how it started, but when Jonah and his sister had attended there was a rumor about a student named Chrom teaming up with the Robinson twins to blackmail the principal at the time into allowing it. Given that there was no proof, but the three had been active participants of a city-wide event in their college years, it was a possibility. Or they'd merely gotten into so much trouble that Chrom's uncle and older sister had to bribe the school into keeping them at all.

Regardless of how it had started, it was the second most important night of the seniors' lives after prom. Which meant that for Jonah, his current lesson was forgotten by most as soon as he started.

He tried anyway. "The Civil War," he started, and was surprised to see a few heads turn back to him, "was not fought exclusively over slavery. The freeing of the slaves was just the greatest benefit to its end, and most other reasons have been forgotten for it. This development eventually led to the end of segregation, and we've come a long way in fifty years. Not that we don't have a way to go, but do you know when it is currently acceptable for a paler person to wear a gorilla mask and throw eggs at an African-American man?"

One of the more familiar students raised her hand. Harmony Vestra, the youngest sibling of Jonah's friend Hubert. "Never?" she said hopefully, and one corner of Jonah's mouth turned up in the closest he ever gave his students to a smile.

"Look at you, having hope for the world. Unfortunately, the answer is not 'never.' The answer is, apparently, 'in the highly specific situation where said man is running for governor of California as a Republican.' You can find records of the incident online." He stood up straight, looking around at the class. "By the end of the Civil War, the nation realized that it was dumb for people on the same side to fight. Do you know why?"

"Because they all wanted what was best for America?" Lysithea asked.

Jonah shook his head. "Because the north had so much more resources that the war lasting more than a day was a miracle." He allowed the class a moment to laugh and question why he told the more modern story. "I told the modern story because people will always fight for their beliefs, even if their beliefs are stupid. People didn't want General Lee to surrender. People don't want a Republican as governor of California, even though it's a toilet either way. Fighting for your beliefs is usually a good thing, but it isn't worth actually hurting others to -"

The last class bell rang. Jonah immediately stopped his lecture.

"Well, I'm off the clock and off to a bar. Later."

"Aren't you in charge of the lock-in?" Elise asked.

Jonah punched the wall in frustration.

Revan stood in front of a large building, double-checking his notes to make sure it was the right one. His notes told him so, and he leaned against the door to his car in an attempt to look cool and intimidating.

He looked like a jackass, but that wasn't the point. Beruka was hiding somewhere, scanning the other side, and she'd commented on it before taking her position.

He perked up when he saw a young man with beautiful, bright orange hair, and for a moment he was jealous of it. Then he focused on the name tag on the man's work shirt. It matched the name Beruka had given him with the Silent Dragons - not the greatest or most deadly player in the game, but one with enough status that the assassin had been mildly afraid of him.

"Aegir?" he asked, and the man turned around, confused.

"I am Ferdinand von Aegir," he confirmed.

Then he yelped as Revan tackled him, pinning him to the gate surrounding the building. "Tell me your secret, Aegir!" he hissed, and Ferdinand made a noise not unlike an upset puppy.

"Do I have to?"

"Yes!"

Ferdinand squeezed his eyes shut as if it would shield him from embarrassment. "When I was in high school, I read that a dog's mouth is cleaner than a human mouth and wondered if it was their toothpaste, so I did an experiment and used dog toothpaste for a week and then I got seven cavities!"

Revan's grip on Ferdinand loosened, and he stared at his captive in utter bafflement for a good ten seconds. Then he remembered why he was here in the first place. "That's not what I meant, Aegir! The secret of the Silent Dragons! Tell me that secret!"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Ferdinand protested. "That's my only secret, and you can see why I wanted to keep it that way!"

"I will take a razor to your head!"

Ferdinand's confused pleading was answered, however, when Beruka stepped out of the shadows and put her own hand on Revan's.

"Wrong Aegir. Let him go."

It was Revan's turn to yelp, and he quickly released Ferdinand, awkwardly smoothing the creases out of his shirt and offering him a $50 bill as a bribe. "Sorry about that, sir. Please take this money and don't press charges."

Ferdinand glared at him, but he took the money and continued on his way with a simple "Go screw yourself."

Ferdinand may have claimed to be unbribeable, but there were things more important than certain morals. Namely, certain other morals, and this led to him sending a quick text to his wife.

The old man is up to something again. Call the police and the news crew.

Dorothea replied with a thumbs up and a kissy face.

Takumi was laughing hysterically as Revan was faceplanting on the table, groaning in embarrassment that was only made worse by his brother's behavior.

"And after all this stalking...and plotting...you assaulted the wrong guy."

"I was there, Takumi," Revan said weakly. "I know what happened."

"And then you bribed him into not pressing charges."

"That was my last 50."

"And he took a bribe of $50 and left."

Revan lifted his head from the table. "Can we change the subject? What about Sakura's lock-in?"

Sakura, who had listened to the story with a silent smile, immediately flinched back. "I'm n-not sure I'm going," she admitted. "I've heard it gets k-kind of wild."

"But aren't your friends going?"

Sakura gave her brothers a disappointed stare. "Have you met my friends?"

Takumi nodded. "Yeah, good point. Those girls can make anything wild - didn't one of them get in a car chase?"

"Allegedly," Sakura insisted, despite knowing that Lysithea had indeed gotten in a car chase. "And it's n-not just them I'm w-worried about. You all told me sto-stories about yours. R-Ryoma was forcibly shaved..."

"He had a really ugly mustache, remember?" Revan interrupted. "He tried to look like Dad, but his teenage face just couldn't pull it off. Also, it was surprisingly bushy."

"I would've done it myself if the other teenagers hadn't gotten to him first," Takumi concluded.

Sakura ignored them both. "Hinoka accidentally joined a-another cult...Takumi, y-you were the one who drew that..." she cringed, "image, on that p-poor boy's face..."

"Hey, he fell asleep!" Takumi slammed the table to prove his point, and Azura looked up from writing in her notebook, annoyed. "If you fall asleep at the lock-in, you're free game. He knew that going in."

Revan, feeling better about his embarrassment, looked over at his cousin with a grin. "Remember our senior lock-in, Azura?"

Azura's nose scrunched as the most unpleasant memory of the night returned to her. "Didn't Saizo set the cafeteria on fire?"

Now it was Sakura's turn to slam a hand on the table, and she pulled it back immediately, surprised at herself. Then she cleared her throat and made her point. "The s-senior lock-in is trouble," she declared, "and I want no part in it."

"But I volunteered to chaperone!" Takumi protested. "They let me do it!"

"And the other vo-volunteer cha-chaperone is Leo Nohr!" Sakura objected. "I know h-how this will turn out!"

"Nohr's coming?" Takumi huffed. "There went my plans to relive my glory days. He'll be on to me."

"Then you have to go," Revan said, nodding in the way older siblings do when their decisions are final. "Someone needs to be the lone voice of reason."

Sakura slumped in defeat. She knew that her objection was overruled.

Dorothea was a woman with connections.

She was merely a weather girl at a local TV station, but she got the job through her friendship with Ingrid, one of the reporters on the 5:00 program. She was the adopted daughter of a high school music teacher, but she'd gotten into one of the best colleges in the area and had married the son of a millionaire.

And the connection she was currently exploiting had led her here.

She'd met Edelgard Hresvelg years earlier, and the two had dated once or twice before Dorothea had realized that Edelgard was far more emotionally invested in the tall, dark and bitter man that got his fun from playing with dead animals and tormenting his roommate. She was maid of honor at Edelgard and Hubert's wedding, pulling every string she could so that Edelgard's terminally ill father could see it happen - it had been more of a bonfire with a judge as a guest, but vows were said and papers were signed, and that was all Dorothea (and Edelgard, Hubert, and Ionius) had cared about.

After that, Edelgard owed her a favor. And that was why the two women were sitting in the large house Edelgard's father had left to her, sipping cocktails and discussing girly things as Hubert scanned his contacts.

"What did Ferdinand say this woman looked like?" he asked after a moment, looking up to Dorothea.

Dorothea swirled her straw. "Pale. Teal hair. Thin but muscular."

Edelgard grinned. "Sounds hot."

Hubert grunted in mild irritation, getting a roar of laughter from Dorothea and a playful nudge from his wife. "Regardless," he said through his teeth, "I do have an acquaintance who fits that description. I sent her after the judge once."

"Which judge?" Dorothea asked, but Edelgard merely nodded along.

"So do you think she's the one who stepped in for Ferdinand?"

"That depends on how much either of them know about what the strange man wanted."

This, Dorothea decided, was a good sign. "Well, the man asked about the Silent Dragons. Does that sound familiar to you, Hubert?"

"Just because I look suspicious, you automatically assume -"

"You're looking it up," Edelgard interrupted.

"I've heard it in passing," Hubert confessed. "Now leave me be, I'm doing research."

He knew better than to think that Beruka would answer his questions, but he had quite a bit of confidence in his ability to get information from what she wasn't telling him.

Joanna Eisner, literature teacher and the one who drew the short straw in the chaperone selection, stared up at the school building with a loathing that was usually absent from her eyes. Jonah Eisner, history teacher and the one who had been nominated by his sister's begging, merely parked the car and stepped out, resigned to his fate.

Since he was the one who was more at ease with babysitting a bunch of 17 and 18-year-olds locked in a school, he was the one who gave the list of lock-in rules.

"So," he said, taking advantage of the moments of faux respect that the students were giving him, "I'm sure you're all itching to get to the party, but this is a school, so there are a few rules we should clear up before we begin." He paused to allow the kids a groan of frustration. "First of all, shaving your classmates is strictly forbidden. Even if they have a really ugly mustache, or a disgusting mullet." Elise and Sakura both shivered. Jonah didn't notice. "Second, the science lab is off-limits as always, and no one is allowed in the cafeteria, not even chaperones. We'll eat our pizza in the classrooms."

"Saizo," Sakura muttered, knowing exactly why. Elise gave her a strange look, but said nothing.

"Third, no one even try to do anything that could get you arrested or classify as publicly indecent. Fourth, don't say 'yeet' or any variation. Better yet, keep memes to a minimum, your teachers are old. And, lastly, the school is not responsible for anything Takumi Hoshido draws on your face." Takumi grinned. Leo growled. Jonah ignored them both.

Joanna cleared her throat. "Other than that, you're free to do anything that is legal to do on school grounds. If we catch you doing something you can't do on school grounds, we will evict you from the lock-in, ban you from prom, or have you arrested, depending on the level of severity of your actions. This includes starting cults."

There were a surprising amount of student groans.

Half an hour later, the students were enjoying the party. The cafeteria and science lab had been blocked off, of course, but they were allowed to wander across the rest of the school while the Eisners patrolled.

That led to Elise and Sakura heading into the gym to play two-person basketball. The game started, and since neither of them were athletic in the slightest and were barely passing gym class, Elise slapped the ball out of Sakura's hands and it bounced away, smacking into a wrestling mat propped up against the wall.

The mat grunted. The girls stared for a moment.

"Did the m-mat just make a grunting noise?" Sakura asked.

Elise grinned. "Maybe it just ate something that upset its stomach," she joked, as a boy emerged from behind the mat.

Sakura recognized the boy and immediately calmed down. "It ate Cyril."

"That'd do it," Elise said, nodding.

Cyril kicked the ball back in their direction. "That joke isn't as funny as you think it is," he told the giggling girls.

"That's a matter of opinion." Elise shrugged. "What are you doing here? You're a junior."

"That's not my fault!" Cyril pointed at the school doors. "I'm the oldest kid in the junior class. I could've been a senior."

"You couldn't even read until you were thirteen," Elise reminded him. "You hid your dyslexia even from your mom. They wouldn't let you move up."

"Does your mom even know you're here?" Sakura added.

Cyril immediately turned guilty. "I told her I had a book report and wanted to be left alone to listen to the audio version," he admitted. He reached behind the mat and pulled out a backpack. "I brought the book and headphones! I won't be a liar! It's just that all my friends are seniors..."

"Aww," Sakura and Elise cooed together, to Cyril's obvious irritation.

"You guys too, I guess," he said, "but I was talking about Flayn, Lysithea, Ignatz..."

"I forgot about Ignatz," Elise admitted. "He's so quiet. He doesn't do much."

Sakura shook her head. "Friendships aside," she said, attracting their attention, "we d-do have to report you to the chaperones, Cyril. I'm p-pretty sure hiding in gym mats is il-illegal."

"Not illegal!" Cyril protested. "Just against the rules!"

"Still. They agreed to look after the senior class."

Elise peeked out the door. "I don't see them," she announced. "I guess Cyril can hang with us until we do." She came back and clapped him on the shoulder. "Come on, buddy. I'll do the writing of the report for you."

"I'd prefer Lysithea," he started, but the girls just laughed again.

"Of course you would," Sakura said, as gently as she could with the maniacal smile on her face. "B-But for now you're stuck with us."

Harmony Vestra stared at the floor. Her older brothers had been in much more trouble than she had in their high school years - half the time Hubert was sent to the principal's office just for looking suspicious when things went wrong. He only confessed to half of it. He insisted that he was a man of vengeance, not a villain.

Hugo was the villain, despite making the same claim for his morals. Hubert's revenge usually fit the crime, unless it would be really funny or someone hurt the people he cared about. Hugo was the one who got a pocketknife at ten years old and slashed bike tires because some bullies had painted insults on his own bike.

Harmony's father had died years ago, but she'd been his favorite child for a reason. He'd taught the boys vengeance. He'd taught her that if you behave as you're expected to, you would be rewarded.

Well, the golden child was still a Vestra. Everyone expected a fall from grace, and she always behaved as expected.

"You know how they've been repainting the hallway by the art room?" she told the chaperones. "I spilled some paint."

"Seriously?" Joanna complained.

"Let's go clean it up," Jonah decided, "before the janitorial staff kicks our asses."

Harmony led them down the hallway. By the time they realized that it was a trap, Harmony had already locked them in the janitor's closet.

"For the record," she said through the door, "I am sorry about this. Just not sorry enough."

Jonah glared at the door. "I should've seen this coming."

"Yeah, no shit." Joanna reached for her phone, only to find her pocket empty. "Did I drop my phone out there?"

Suddenly recalling his time as Hubert's roommate, Jonah reached for his own phone pocket, coming up just as empty. "The little demon swiped them! I didn't know her brothers taught her to pick pockets! The brat."

Despite his words, he was angrier at himself than at his student. He'd underestimated a Vestra. The first rule of living with Hubert was to never underestimate a Vestra. After seeing an undead-looking taxidermist-in-training win a fight with half the guys on a college football team, he'd vowed to never do it again.

He'd let a non-threatening face and good grades blind him to her family heritage. At least Joanna knew Hubert mostly by association and had only witnessed the aftermath of the football team incident. Jonah had no one to blame but himself.

"Well," he said, rolling up his sleeves, "time to do what Eisners do best - break stuff."

He threw himself at the door and bounced off. Joanna tilted her head slightly.

"Dad made it look so easy," she commented, and Jonah huffed.

"Well, Dad had his RV."

At least she'd led them into a trap with an air vent. She must have been planning this for a while.

When Harmony returned with the news that the main supervision had been dealt with, she didn't expect the consequences she ended up facing.

She expected a big party. What she got was complete chaos.

It started simply. Sakura, timid as she was, had stood up and said that they should still follow the rules of the lock-in. Elise, on the other hand, had immediately dared Lysithea to build some Spider-Man web shooters out of soda cans, and Lysithea had begun her project, Cyril hovering over her shoulder and giving suggestions. Harmony didn't know how Cyril had gotten in, but she wasn't about to throw him out.

Then things got a bit ugly. Takumi had defended his sister's choice, saying that he and Leo had signed a contract to keep the party under control. Leo had then defended his own sister, pointing out that all they really had to do was make sure no one got pregnant, caught on fire, or died. And when Leo had argued that he didn't have a good time at his senior lock-in, Elise took the opportunity to ask if anyone wanted to turn out like Leo. Soon enough, it was an all-out war.

So Harmony did what anyone in her position would do: she pulled out her cell phone and called her big brother.

She didn't even wait for the voice, only the click. "Hubert! I locked half the supervision in the janitor's closet and now there's a war breaking out!"

Hubert was quiet for a second. "Who is this?"

"Harmony!"

"Huh." Hubert sounded genuinely impressed. "Not the name I expected to hear. What do you want?"

"I want advice." Harmony looked over her shoulder, where Lysithea was attaching soda cans to a garden glove and Flayn was on the phone herself, promising her father that nothing world-ending was going on. "What happened at your senior lock-in?"

"I wasn't allowed to go," Hubert answered immediately.

"Why not?" Harmony asked, and her brother's maniacal laughter was all the answer she needed. "Ok, but what did you do to help Hugo out with his?"

"He had a handle on it, until the dog caught the scent of gravy. What did you expect to happen?"

"I wanted a party. I got Lord of the Flies."

"Really? Has anyone died?"

"No."

"Then it isn't Lord of the Flies. What you've got on your hands is merely a civil war."

"And how do I stop this civil war?"

"Well," said Hubert, readjusting the wizard hat on his favorite project, "is there any side you want to win?"

"Um...Elise is fighting for what I wanted, pretty much."

"Then you have two choices. The first option is that you do whatever it takes to ensure Elise's victory. The second option is to face the consequences of your actions, let your teachers out of the closet, and accept your punishment as they fix this."

In the end, Hubert thought with a smile, his sweet baby sister was, in fact, a Vestra.

"What are you doing, Hoshido?"

Takumi glanced over his shoulder at Leo, dismissing the sounds from the other side of the door he was leaning on.

"Help!" a feminine voice screamed.

"We need somebody!" a masculine voice joined in.

"Help!"

"Anybody!"

Then the two voices joined forces with a desperate cry of "Help!"

Takumi shrugged. "Listening to the worst cover of 'Help' I ever heard." He then turned his attention to the paper in his hands. "Making some sweet-ass money on this silly war."

"How?"

Takumi laughed and held out a wad of cash. "Taking advantage of the situation," he answered, before pocketing the cash. "Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of Sakura for standing up to anyone. But I'm not gonna let a crisis go to waste."

"What are you, a politician?"

"No!" Takumi sounded disgusted by the very idea. "I'm better than a politician! I get shit done!"

"Ok," said Leo. "But I still don't know what you're actually up to."

"What I'm doing," Takumi hissed, "is selling ammunition to soldiers. Or, selling dodgeballs to high schoolers. Same thing."

As much as Leo wanted to back out, he was interested. He hadn't had a good experience at his own senior lock-in, since he'd fallen asleep and Takumi had drawn on his face. Would it really be so bad if he had fun at his little sister's?

"Give me a dodgeball," he said, and Takumi threw it at him like they were actually playing the game. Leo, surprising even himself, caught it just as well.

Flayn was enjoying herself.

Her father never let her go to parties, unless it was a birthday party where he knew who would be attending and which parents would be supervising. He hadn't been willing to let her go to the lock-in at all until Joanna had come home, complaining about being stuck on chaperone duty.

After what had happened to her mother, Flayn understood where his worry came from. But the odds of her getting mugged and murdered while she was with a bunch of her friends was slim.

The odds of her getting soda-drunk and challenging Maya to a cookie-eating contest, on the other hand, was quite high.

"How are you already on your seventh?" she complained as Maya continued to shovel the treats into her face. They weren't small cookies, and Flayn had to bite a few times to get it all in.

"I have Raphael as a big brother," Maya answered as she picked up her eighth. "Grandpa and I learned pretty quick that you should eat fast if you want to eat at all."

Maya chomped on the cookies, too, taking no time to move the pieces to her cheek like Flayn did. Ignatz and Lysithea had stopped what they were doing to watch.

"It's disgusting," Ignatz commented, eyes wide behind his glasses. "It's like a car wreck. I can't look away."

"I know, right?" Lysithea shuddered. "Those beautiful cookies should be savored."

Flayn looked at them in irritation, but only paused the contest when her phone vibrated in her pocket.

It was her father, for the fourth time that hour. Flayn, Joanna isn't answering her phone. What is going on?

Like any teenager interrupted in the middle of fun, Flayn was tempted to answer with "Ritual sacrifice." But she caught herself. I'm hanging out with Maya, Ignatz and Lysithea. We're fine.

But her soon-to-be stepmother not answering her phone? Surely Joanna knew Seteth wasn't exactly a calm, rational person when it came to the safety of those he loved. "Contest over," she said as Maya reached for another cookie. "Has anyone seen the Eisners?"

Ignatz took a step back. "I haven't seen them since the party started," he admitted.

"And Cyril's still here," Lysithea added, as Cyril looked up at the sound of his name...and was promptly hit in the forehead by Harmony's stray shot.

"Ok," he said calmly, picking up the dodgeball. "I'm going to war."

Maya looked up, startled. "You're a vindictive little man, Cyril."

Cyril threw the dodgeball at Maya. "You've just made an enemy for life!"

Seteth had invited one of his brothers over to help keep his mind off of what he knew to be a wild teen party. Indech was a quiet man, rarely making jokes at Seteth's expense, and had suggested they watch dumb game shows and make bets on the winners.

Then, after Flayn had reassured Seteth that she was merely hanging out with a few of the friends he knew, Indech had stolen Seteth's phone and sat on it.

"She's fine," he said, as serious as he could be - which, for a man who had his fun making conspiracy theory posts online, was actually pretty serious. "I leave my house once a week, I'd like to have some actual conversation for a change."

"But why sit on it? What if Joanna can't keep her students under control? What if the students start a cult?"

"That sounds funny, actually." Seeing the look on his brother's face, Indech looked away. "Flayn needs to have some space, and you need to trust your future wife with your child. What if you and Joanna have a baby?"

"Indech," Seteth warned, to the other man's awkward amusement.

"I meant it as 'eventually.' You're the one who assumed I was saying something." There was a barely restrained chuckle when he spoke next. "Was there a reason to be worried?"

"No!" Seteth insisted, realizing as he did that it came a bit too quickly. He made an irritated noise and pointed at the door. "Get out of my house."

"No," Indech said simply, and Seteth sat there in silent frustration, just like when they were kids.

The war had intensified to the point where the windows were dangerously close to being broken by the force of the rampaging teenagers. Harmony and Elise were leading the charge for chaos, while Cyril and Sakura stood firmly on the side of order - mostly for revenge on Cyril's part. Everyone else, it seemed, just liked throwing dodgeballs at each other.

Everyone but Flayn, who, while pleased that her father had stopped texting her, was very annoyed by the fact that her neutrality meant nothing and that she could be hit by a flying ball just as easily as anyone else. So, taking a stand on a nearby desk, she blew into the rarely-used safety whistle Seteth had given her, attracting everyone's attention.

Ignatz got hit with the last flying ball, right to the back of the head and knocking his glasses off. Other than the wince of pain, he didn't react. He just picked the glasses off the floor, put them back on, and looked back at Flayn.

Flayn waited until his eyes were on her once again before she spoke.

"My friends," she began, looking over the crowd. "We did not come here to fight. We came here to do homework, drink copious amounts of soda, and play stupid games like Truth or Dare, or Pin the Tail on the Cyril."

"Hey!" Cyril protested, but Lysithea laughed.

"You broke in," she reminded him. "I guess you do deserve some kind of punishment..."

She said it much more suggestively than she usually would have, brushing his arm with her shoulder as she said it. Flustered beyond his usual limits, Cyril put on his headphones and pretended to listen to his book, making a note for revenge later.

Flayn, not hearing a word, continued with her motivational speech. "Order. Anarchy. Can one side truly exist without the other? How could we decide to break the rules, without first having rules to break?"

The leaders lowered their dodgeballs, looking to each other apologetically.

"I guess this was taken a bit far," Elise admitted. "I just wanted to have as much fun as my siblings did. Even Leo told stories about building the, quote, 'mother of all stink bombs.'"

"That was taken out of context," Leo mumbled.

"Dude," said Takumi, "no it wasn't. It was pure luck that you took a nap in the science lab after breaking in to get the supplies."

"You could have just taken the supplies away from me, you know."

"Eh, I was a dumb kid. I'm way more mature than face-doodling now." He fanned himself with his cash to make a point. "Now I'm into war profiteering."

Without a word, Leo removed a much smaller stack of money from his pocket. Sharing a cocky smile, the two fist-bumped, signaling what was, if not the beginning of a beautiful friendship, certainly the ending of at least one long-held grudge.

"Now," Flayn continued, looking around as the leaders of the war hugged it out, "I suggest we find our chaperones and fill them in on what happened."

Harmony scooted back. "I've got it," she mumbled, and pulled not one but two phones from her bag as she left the room.

"We will also be telling them of the war profiteering," Flayn added. "But for now, I would like to ask you all to do one thing. We should focus on our common enemy." She pointed to Leo and Takumi. "Those guys."

The Eisner twins had given up. They had accepted that they were terrible chaperones and idiots who should not have gotten teaching degrees. All they were waiting for now was for Leo and Takumi to notice they were missing and free them.

"Pop quiz," Joanna said after a long silence. "How panicked do you think Seteth is that I'm not answering my phone?"

"Very," Jonah answered without hesitation. "He might not be alive anymore. That man is one stressful situation away from a heart attack."

Joanna almost objected, but then she gave it a second thought. "You're right," she agreed. "Flayn still doesn't have much in the way of a normal life, does she? Her mom's gone, her dad is Seteth, she knows she's the result of an unwanted pregnancy and is fine with it -"

"I wouldn't say unwanted," Jonah interrupted. "I mean, it obviously wasn't asked for, but you've seen Seteth with her more than I have." He chuckled. "I just want to know how that apple fell from that tree?"

There was another long moment of silence.

"Are we going to turn out like Dad?" Joanna asked, the dread in her voice audible only to those who knew her.

"No. He's always comparing us to Mom."

"Good."

"I know."

The twins fell silent again, this time because they heard the click of a door. The woman on the other side wasn't Harmony, but another familiar face, one much more welcome.

"Manuela!" Joanna sighed in relief as her brother waved. "Finally, a responsible adult!"

"Yes," Manuela agreed, glancing irritably over her shoulder at the man behind her. "A responsible adult, and one Hanneman, who wouldn't let us leave the grocery store until we got his particular brand of toothpaste..."

"You know how I feel about Crest!" Hanneman snapped back.

"And you should know how I feel about our friends being in danger!"

"Their father drove his RV into their apartment and they shrugged it off. I knew that they could wait a few short minutes more."

"Actually," Joanna interrupted, "we did get evicted after the RV incident."

"We're lucky we're not homeless," Jonah finished.

The older couple stopped their bickering, Hanneman falling into an ashamed silence. "Well, I knew you wouldn't die," he defended himself, meekly.

After Harmony had returned their phones (and apologized to Jonah for hacking his to call Manuela in the first place, which he suspected was more Hubert's doing) she had been kicked out of the lock-in and had been given a choice of which family member would come and get her.

She'd chosen Hubert. A choice she was now regretting as they drove in silence, the stench of his work chemicals still on his clothes.

"Honestly," he said to break the silence. "Who gets evicted from a lock-in before midnight? It's barely past eleven."

"You didn't even get to go to yours," Harmony pointed out. "And that was just because they decided that someone who looked threatening had to be up to no good."

"No. I was banished from the lock-in because of an incident involving a dissected frog."

"Did you make it into a fantasy character?"

"The Slizard," Hubert said, somehow making a made-up word sound threatening as he talked about his favorite project, "is a one-of-a-kind work of art..."

"It's a dead snake you dressed up like a wizard."

"...made so that my career path would not seem 'creepy' to my sister's friends," Hubert finished as if she hadn't interrupted. "Edelgard just happened to like it and give it a name."

Harmony rolled her eyes. "Sorry. I just thought that with all the chaos that went down in school history the last few years, I could do something to prevent it from going down in school history. There were students forcibly shaving each other, Ignatz's brother started a cult as a joke, Takumi drew on Leo's face...some even say that the cafeteria was lit on fire once." She shrugged. "And all of that happened with chaperones. I figured that if we only had adult supervision from outside the school, our party would be epic and we wouldn't get in trouble."

"And I suppose you learned from that experience?"

"I learned that adult supervision is important, and that sometimes people fight for their dumb beliefs." Harmony went silent again. "If you tell Mr. Eisner that he pulled a Boy Meets World on me, I'm telling Edelgard that you're the Death Knight."

"She already believes that." Hubert parked the car in front of his mother's house. "But your secret is safe. Go on."

"And I learned that war profiteering is bad." She grinned as she hopped out of the car. "That's why we stole Leo and Takumi's pants."

Harmony had been kicked out of the lock-in, and they were debating if she should be banned from prom. Manuela was for it, but Jonah put as much blame on himself as he did on his student. They had interrupted the students pretending to sacrifice Flayn, though not before Elise sent a photo to Seteth from Flayn's phone, meaning it was only a matter of time before Seteth drove his car into the school.

Now the teachers were planning reforms for the future of this event, and Leo and Takumi were being punished for their crimes by spending time in a janitor's closet, just like the Eisners had.

"I get why they had to refund the students," Leo complained, "but why did they take our money? We didn't trap them in here."

"Why did the Cyril kid take our pants?" Takumi asked. "I don't even think he's in this class! And are they gonna leave us here all night? What's going to happen when the janitor comes and finds two dudes chilling at a high school in their underwear?"

Leo went pale, and immediately started banging on the door. "Help! We need somebody!"

"Help! Anybody!"

Jonah shook his head. "That's the worst cover of 'Help' I've ever heard."

Fortunately, Seteth did not drive his car through the school. Jonah had decided to punish the 'soldiers' for the dodgeball war by forcing them to listen to the history of the Great Emblemme Nerf War, leaving his sister to meet with Seteth in the parking lot.

"Joanna, you were ignoring me for hours -"

"I wasn't ignoring you, Seteth, my phone was stolen." She tilted her head slightly, giving him a blank stare. "I understand that yours was, as well?"

Seteth immediately backtracked, mumbling something about how he was just glad Indech didn't fart. "But when I received a picture of Flayn being sacrificed -"

"You drove on over without thinking." She smiled slightly. "I get it. But teenagers need to have fun, and as long as I'm there, I'm capable. The photo was her idea. She's fine. Her friends would never let anything serious happen to her. You need to learn to trust them."

Seteth wasn't impressed. "Cyril broke the rules by escaping Rhea's house and coming here despite it being an event for the senior class. Elise and Sakura started a war. Lysithea stole her father's car. Ignatz..."

He didn't have an answer for that. Joanna shook her head.

"Ignatz is a guy," she said. "You don't like him for that reason alone. You're worried that he might date her."

"I don't have anything against Flayn dating," Seteth objected. At her skeptical look, he cleared his throat. "In theory. In practice...well, I admit you have a point."

"She's fine," Joanna repeated. "And so is Ignatz. He's the least troublesome of them all. If you can't trust him, then maybe you should trust me."

The moment of silence that passed between them almost hurt. "I will," Seteth promised. "Just keep an eye out for traps this time."

Joanna nodded. "I will."

It wasn't particularly romantic. It was still enough that the rumors had spread by Monday, thanks to students looking out the window to escape their boredom.