SPLAT!

[Cactus]

Ohh, shit. Shit, shit, shit! This was not going to end well.

The scene within the art room would be one that some people might describe as a bit of a pickle. Thing was, Ariana Moretti knew that there was no one to blame but herself for her current predicament. Ariana knew that no matter what happened within the next thirty seconds, she would be on the hook for every single second of it. There was no other way to describe it - quite simply: she was boned.

Ariana balanced precariously on the paint shelf of the art room, one leg trying to hold the shelf up, the other trying to keep flat against the wall, herself basically suspended in mid-air being the only thing keeping all of the paints and the shelf from tumbling onto the floor.

This was what you got when you cheapened out on your shelving units - or left them unsecured, at least.

((Ariana Moretti continued from Disc Rot))

It had started out as innocently as any typical post-school day might have. Ross was off, practicing for some school project that he was - in his true nature, freaking out about, and that left Ariana devoid of any after-school plans for that particular Friday. Naturally, she'd hemmed and hawed about what to do, when she was suddenly hit by creative inspiration. Fuck it - she'd got to the art rooms and fling paint at an easel for a few hours.

Painting was a bit of an about-face for her, but it had been an awfully long time since she'd taken any kind of art class, and she was still feeling particularly prickly after she'd had that run-in the week before with Max, Misty, and the debauchery in the public library that still stuck in her craw a little. So perhaps, she'd surmised, a little creative outlet wouldn't hurt.

But of course, the paints she'd been looking for had been on the top shelf, and true to form, instead of going for the easy solution of grabbing a chair and standing on top, she'd nimbly jumped up onto the shelf, assuming - wrongly, that it would be anchored in to the wall. So here she hung, having not even made it to the top before the flimsy metal shelf started to tilt over.

"Okay... if I lean back the other way, then maybe..."

Ariana tried to lean the shelf back to a standing position, but quickly realized the error of her ways. Her right foot, that was balancing her on the wall, started to slip down the wall. This ship was about to go under, and it was going to take her down with it. Feebly, she tried to readjust.

It was no use.

"No, nononono, SHIT!"

Ariana was able to land off the shelf on her feet, and since she could see what was about to happen, she raised her hands up, grasped the metal shelf part, and shut her eyes, lowering her head to avoid any splashing paint.

CRASH!

The shelf came tumbling down, and all of the paints with it, some of them only loosely fitted, covering the floor of the art room, the walls of the art room, and Ariana herself with a myriad of differently coloured paints, the buckets rolling around the corner of the art room, leaving a mess all over.

Eyes still shut, Ariana slowly lowered the shelf to the ground, herself small enough to pass through one of the shelves unmolested. As the floor took the weight of the metal shelf, she sighed, and allowed it to crash the rest of the way to the floor with a thud. Now that the immediate danger was over, she took stock. Slowly opening her eyes, she was thankful not to feel the sting of paint in them. That was a good first step.

Unfortunately, that was about all of the good news coming her way.

Her formerly black t-shirt was now stained with a combination of grey, light blue, and a sickly green colour that she could see was coming from a now-empty paint-can labelled 'chartreuse'. Chartreuse. What an offensive colour. It stained her hands, her shirt, and was even in her hair. Her leggings were different colours of orange, and as she sat in a puddle of orange paint, her shoulders sagged.

Whoever the fuck said art came naturally to anyone never beheld this sight.

Defeated, Ariana simply sat there, knowing that the crash would undoubtedly bring someone running. Hopefully, it was someone friendly, and they would be armed with paper towels.

Or a fifth of vodka.

[Jilly]

((Kayla Harris continued from Monachopsis))

"...Mhm. Mhm, yeah.

...Yes, Mamma. I'll—

...Yes. That's f—

...Uh huh. Yes. Lov—

...Yes, love you too. Bye."

Kayla rolled her eyes as she pressed the big red button, finally silencing Mamma and her incessant self-answering questions for good. She slid the phone in her pocket and turned to leave the art hallway she had been loitering around in for the last few minutes when—

CRASH!

Kayla jumped. What the hell was that?

It sounded like it came from the other art room. She hesitated for a moment before bracing her nerves and briskly walking to the source. Hopefully no one got hurt or something, and hopefully it wasn't a slasher serial killer; Kayla would probably have to pass on that given the option. Though if it was a dead body, that'd be neat to see in a morbidly curious kind of thing.

It was neither of those last two scenarios as Kayla opened the door and took in the bloodbath. Fresh paints of various colors and nauseating odors were everywhere: it was all over the walls, it was all over the collapsed shelves, it was all over the floor, it was all over Ariana in a near-fetal position on the floor. Homegirl lookin' like she ready for the gay pride parade. Lookin' like Splat Tim money shot her. Lookin' like Rainbow Brite's suicide bomb victim.

All right, Kayla was done. It was time to help a girl out. "Hold up; I'll be right back," she tapped her hand against the door before spinning around and rushing out, her shoes squeaking on the floor.

Moments later, she returned with a bucket full of cloth rags. "Here," she gently dropped the bucket near the living Jackson Pollock and took out some rags for herself to start wiping down the floor. Time wasn't on their side, but it was better than nothing.

[Ruggahissy]

((Tirzah Foss start))

Tirzah was in the art room, looking at her photos in Lightroom on a lab computer. She was looking at the pictures from a recent park outing, trying to decide which, if any would, be a good fit for her portfolio. Her film camera was in her bag while her DSLR hung around her neck, anchoring the girl to the spot where it lay next to her portfolio book. She hemmed and hawed, looking at a few different pictures. The day hadn't been terribly productive.

She was wearing black overall shorts and a hot pink crop top underneath, with white thigh high stockings and chunky black sneakers. Her hair was in a ponytail to keep out of her way as she worked and she had handcuff earrings.

She heard a noise come from the other side of the room and looked up just in time to watch Ariana's foot slip and all of the paint spill everywhere. Tirzah got up, looking at the mess.

"Do you need help?"

Kayla went off and Tirzah went over to the scene of the crime. She tilted her head, assessing it and making inquisitive noises to herself. She framed Ariana with her fingers in the shape of a square as Kayla returned with rags to clean the mess. Tirzah dipped down and stuck her hand in the paint, smearing it across her face so she matched the other girl.

"Yeah yeah, that's hot," she said thoughtfully. "Do you mind if you pose for some pictures before we clean all this up?," she said, holding up the camera with her paint stained hands. "It looks like, very editorial. It's kind of David Lachapelle. The photos would be bomb, honest."

[Cactus]

Ariana sighed and all of the bad feelings and frustration flooded out of her body as reinforcements finally arrived. If there was a situation that demanded a certain degree of rage, or shame, or a big blow-up, this might have been one of them, but all that remained in her body was defeat. The enormous mess that befell the corner of the art room was all on her, and the evidence was all over.

All over the walls.

All over her hair.

All over her clothes.

Everywhere.

Kayla - God bless her, was first on the scene, and immediately jumped in to help. That was just like her, and Ari was thankful that of anyone who'd happened by, it had been her. The two girls weren't exactly best of friends, but she appreciated Kayla's sometimes brutal honesty and straightforwardness. She didn't play games, like a lot of the student body did, and was someone who was more interested in getting shit done versus how it looked.

Right now, Ari needed someone who could get shit done.

Nodding weakly to her as she came back and started to feverishly scrub the walls, she was taken aback a little as the second witness scurried over, frenetically analyzing the scene. Ariana still sat on the ground, almost as though she were trying to will herself up to start cleaning. Thus far, it was a losing battle. The second witness then dropped down, smeared some paint on her face, and yanked out a camera. Tilting her head slightly, she processed the bizarre request. It was unusual, sure, but that was Tirzah, for you. Another member of the student body that Ari wasn't overly familiar with, but she'd had at least a few discussions with and knew well enough to know that she marched to the beat of her own drum.

Oh well, what the hell. She wasn't getting up in the next moment or two, anyway.

Ari sighed again, and nodded at Tirzah. "Yeah, go for it. I don't give a shit. Everyone's going to know what happened either way."

Holding her hands up, she dropped them in frustration, paint splattering on the shelf that she was leaning against. She could feel her hair starting to crust a little bit as the paint in it slowly dried. This was going to be a nightmare to get out. Looking up at Kayla, she grabbed one of the rags she'd set down and started slowly scrubbing the paint off of her arms and hands.

"Thanks, by the way." She let a moment hang in the air. "I had no idea the fucking thing wasn't bolted to the wall. What a nightmare."

[Jilly]

The first order of business was checking to see what kind of paint had spilled. If it was water based, that was okay; it would just be a little annoying to wash out. But if it was oil-based... oh boy.

At least all of the containers looked like they were the same brand, just different colors. Kayla picked up one of them with a rag and wiped down the label enough to read it.

It was... oh no. Solvent-based.

Oh wait, no, she just can't read. It was indeed water. Whew.

She set it down and started furiously scrubbing the walls. As long as she could get it taken down before the paint dried against the wall, they could just panic about the floor. The shelves were probably just gonna have a new rainbow colored coat but they could accept that loss.

Kayla looked back in time to see Tirzah lollygagging around, touching her camera with her paint hands. Kayla cringed, and she was at a loss for words. She could only stutter as her face went through a range of emotions.

"Uh- you- what the hell are you doing? You're getting paint all over your camera!"

Tirzah was such a god damn weirdo, a real cloudcuckoolander. Kayla usually let her antics slide but this was not the time for a photo op. "Are you gonna help or not?" She dumped a wad of paint into the now empty bucket.

Ariana thanked Kayla for stepping in. She kept scrubbing the walls. "Yeah, you're lucky this isn't oil based. It should come off with just water. Maybe soap too."

She dumped another load into the bucket.

[Ruggahissy]

Kayla pointed out the paint that was dripping from her hand all over her camera. Tirzah followed Kayla's eye-line to her camera and then looked back at Kayla.

"Mmhm" she with a nod, as if confirming the observation to be true. Why yes, that is what happened, her reaction seemed to say.

"It's fine. Relax. It'll be fine," she said with a shrug. It was unclear if she was referring to the camera or to the room. She shook her head quickly and briefly like a dog getting dry and turned on Ariana with a grin, since her request had been approved.

"Yeah, get the walls first since they probably stain easier, the floor won't be as hard it's got a thousand spills on it anyway," she said to Kayla, looking still at Ariana. Tirzah felt so excited it was like her heart was going to burst out of her chest and spill all over the floor like the paints. She briefly looked down at her camera, adjusting some of the settings, and then moved swiftly to Ariana. She dropped down so that she was straddling the other girl and pushed her back. Tirzah planted her hand in the middle of Ariana's chest and forced her backwards so that she was laying with her back to the floor and fully immersed in paints.

"Thanks" she said cheerfully as she put the camera up to her eye. She raised herself up a bit while still straddling Ariana, taking the photos from above the other girl. The camera shutter clicked frantically; she'd set it to continuous shoot mode so it would take shots as long as her finger was on the button. The colors smudged and covered her legs and shoes as she took the photos. "Gosh," she sighed over the frantic clicking.

[Cactus]

Sighing as Kayla confirmed her fears, Ariana felt like the energy had been sucked right out of her. There was a lot of scrubbing in her future. Her clothes were almost certainly a write-off, and she could imagine that she would use a ton of soap getting the paint out of her hair. While Ariana kept her hair shorter than most females at the school, she still wasn't looking forward to the task ahead of her.

"Yeah, thank fuck for small favou- ahh!"

To say that Ariana wasn't expecting the pressure of another human being straddling her and pushing her backward would be understating the situation immensely. With very little warning, she found herself being pushed back into the paint, to which she landed with a small splat. The damp rag that she'd been using to clean her arms off fell to the side, and her arms landed in another puddle of paints above her head, staining them once more. The back of her head lightly bounced off of the floor, sending small stars floating into her vision.

All she could hear was the click of a camera.

With the hand planted firmly in the center of her chest, Ariana struggled to try and rise herself to a sitting position. The girl straddling her stopped that attempt dead in its tracks. In another time, another place, this might have been a little hot. Maybe if the person straddling her had been her boyfriend, and they were in the comfort of one of their homes? Sure. But right here, right now?

Not so much.

Hearing the murmured gasp escape Tirzah's lips, Ariana struggled again, this time bringing her own hands to the hand on her chest and trying to wrench herself free.

"Hey, HEY! What are you-" Ariana grunted as she writhed around, Tirzah's body weight preventing her from having too much momentum with which to push the girl off of her. "Kayla, some help?"

She tried to look back at the other girl, once more smacking the back of her head in the paint.

[Jilly]

Kayla cringed as Tirzah told her to do the walls first. This wasn't fine. Kayla didn't fucking need this if she was gonna be the only person even doing work. And then Tirzah had the audacity to tell Kayla what to do like she wasn't already on it.

She just rolled her eyes and continued to scrub down the walls again, launching another wad of paint in the bucket.

Not that Tirzah wasn't right, but whatever. As long as they get the walls, they could just focus on the floor which was gonna be way easier to save. Hopefully there was cat litter in the janitors' closet they can "borrow", or the stuff they threw down to clean up whenever that girl projectile vomited in the girls' bathroom a couple of years ago. That way they could just throw the paint out in the trash.

There was a heavy smack on the ground. Kayla turned around just in time to catch Tirzah topping Ariana in some bizarre Kamasutra position with Ariana pleading for help. It was like one of those weird hardore Japanese adult videos; Kayla could see the title in her head now: "Wet Paint Hell! I Was da Vinci, and Her Pussy Was the Mona Lisa".

Kayla had to do something before she'd get called in as a witness to an assault charge. "Hey, hey! Stop!" Kayla called out to Tirzah. No response. She was gonna have to do something drastic before Ariana got a concussion. Besides, Tirzah was only somewhat bigger than Kayla; she could totally take her on.

Kayla kicked her shoes off in the direction of the dry portion of the room, leaving her with just her black socks on. Sigh. These were a good pair, too.

Kayla stepped in the paint, rushed up close behind Tirzah, and wrapped her arms around the assaulter's waist. She pulled back hard. "C'mon, get off."

Kayla's efforts paid off, and Tirzah was pulled off of Ariana. In a chain reaction, Tirzah fell on top of Kayla who promptly fell on her ass.

Her back hit one of the other paint shelving units.

[Grand Moff Hissa]

((Misty Browder continued from Ashes, Ashes))

The crash shook the very air. It drew Misty as surely as a bell summoned hungry dogs. She made her approach cautious, slow. She didn't want to be first on the scene, because she didn't really feel like being roped in to help with whatever it was. She was here as a lookie-lou, here for the popcorn, nothing more. She saw Kayla dart into the art room down the hall, and gave it a thirty count before she continued sidling in that towards the source of the commotion herself.

What could it be? She amused herself with possibilities as she closed in. A kiln explosion, perhaps? The collapse of a sculpture? A volunteer model falling off a table, throwing off all the freshmen trying to learn anatomy? None seemed quite right. The sound had held a chaotic quality, chased as it was by a series of secondary rattlings. Things had fallen, plural.

Misty didn't walk to the open door. Instead, she moved right up next to the window at the point furthest from the entrance and peered through, taking in the scene. It took her maybe three seconds to realize what she was looking at, but when it finally did click it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.

The room was covered in paint, and so too were its occupants, one more than the rest. That one was Ariana Moretti, almost but thankfully not totally unrecognizable beneath what looked like the results of feeding a unicorn too much Alka Selzter. It looked like Ariana was getting propositioned and/or strangled by Tirzah, the weird photography girl. Kayla entered the melee, dislodging Tirzah only to topple backwards.

That was it. That was all Misty needed to see. Any more would be greedy, and maybe get her caught besides. She ducked back away from the window, pulling both hands to her mouth to stifle a giddy squeal. It had worked. It had actually worked. Okay, maybe she had had something a little more incendiary in mind when she set out to put the whammy on Ariana but she wasn't going to gripe. The girl's clothes were probably ruined, and she'd have to do the walk of shame home in either that disaster of an outfit or else the extra garments kept in the office to be inflicted on those the Nazis in admin deemed in violation of dress code. This was probably an expensive mess too, probably meant detention or at least a stern talking-to or maybe even money changing hands. More than that, Tirzah probably meant pictures which probably meant widespread public humiliation. And even if not, it was perfect enough. Ariana, her true colors on display to the world. Hypocritical bitch. Misty couldn't have come up with it if she'd tried. Perfect perfect perfect.

She pulled her hands away from her mouth and smoothed her skirt despite its not needing it at all and then crossed her arms over her chest, each hugging the opposite shoulder, as she totally failed to stifle her giggles. She beat a quick trail off towards the other side of the school, smiling so wide her cheeks hurt, her mirth impossible to dampen. She toyed, for just a moment, with the idea of letting the janitors or principal know to further seal the deal, but she really didn't need to and besides they might ask why she wasn't helping. No, everything would work itself out for the best.

She'd just received proof of that, after all.

((Misty Browder continued in Dare You Enter My Magical Realm?))

[Ruggahissy]

Tirzah held on to Ariana with her thighs as Kayla started tugging at her. After two tugs Tirzah shrugged and let herself go slack, resulting in Kayla pulling so hard with so little resistance that they both went flying backwards.

They both hit a wall and then fell backwards into more of the paint. Tirzah landed on top of the other girl.

"Hey, you should be more careful," Tirzah noted, laying next to Kayla now, both covered in the soup of pigments covering the floor.

She pulled out her camera, still attached by the strap around her neck, and faced the lens towards them, taking rapid fire selfies with the auto-shoot option. The camera clicked and whirred nonstop while she held her finger on the button.

"Don't freak out, it's just paint. And clothes are just clothes," she said sitting up.

[Cactus]

The expression 'seeing stars' had been one that as a small child, Ariana Moretti had often wondered about. Did you see actual stars? Was it like some cartoons indicated, with stars floating around one's head while you were dizzy and couldn't stand up? As a child, she'd been inquisitive, and her father - while trying his best, hadn't really managed to explain just how the process worked.

As she'd approached her teenage years, she'd found out very quickly the first time she'd had her bell rung - in some sort of childish shoving match with some ho on the playground - that seeing stars was more of a thing that washed over your vision momentarily.

So as her head hit the floor, the telltale flashes that washed across her vision stunned her momentarily. Ouch. She wasn't sure if Tirzah had just gone mad or if this was some bizarre art project that she'd decided on spur-of-the-moment, but the fact that her participation came along with a (likely unintentional) assault was enough to spark her back towards action.

Grunting as the pressure upon her chest suddenly disappeared, Ariana overheard another crash, another splat, more grunting and shortly thereafter, another flurry of clicks from a camera. What the fuck had gotten into this psycho? Ariana blinked several times, trying to clear her vision as she slowly tried to make her way to her feet.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

The question was aimed more in a direction and with a mutter rather than being said in furious anger, as Ariana blinked and shook the stars out of her head. She'd likely have a bit of a bruise on the back of her head in the coming days - once she managed to wash out all of the paint, she thought with dread. The two thoughts combined to fuel the spark that had reemerged and she felt her body becoming hot with embarrassment and anger. Pulling herself back to her feet with unsteady legs, she searched the room and was rather surprised to see that Tirzah's attention had seemingly changed directions.

Seeing her former assailant now laying atop Kayla almost made her feel bad for the good samaritan that had stopped to help her. All that the girl had been wanting to do was lend a hand, and now here she was, newly covered in paint - and Tirzah.

"Hey, Tirzah, get off!"

Ariana couldn't help but wonder if she wasn't already on this whole situation.

She started towards the two of them, and after a shaky first step, cleared the distance quickly and carefully through the puddles of paint all over the floor. As she approached the two prone women, there was nothing for her to do except interject; she owed Kayla that much. Grabbing Tirzah around the shoulders, she put her strength into pulling her up from her seated position and off of Kayla.

[Jilly]

Her pride, or her back? No telling what hurt more. Regardless, Kayla couldn't move. But there was no point in moving, either. She did this to herself, and now she was slowly being enveloped by the sea of chartreuse she was lying on, the cold and heartless paint slowly eating her hoodie. The hoodie Grandma made her for her birthday last October.

A little paint or a lot of paint, it was ruined forever. No amount of blood, sweat, or tears could save this sad forever blue-chartreuse bastardization of a puppy.

Ariana came to Kayla's rescue and removed Tirzah. But Kayla didn't care. She could stay down here for hours, days, weeks. Heck, maybe even a month or two. It didn't matter; nothing mattered.

That's what she told herself when she slowly got up, propelling herself with enough force to stand again. That's what she told herself when she took off the hoodie and the socks, bundling the painted parts together and trying to stop the chartreuse curse from growing even more. That's what she told herself when she put on her shoes barefoot and wordlessly left the art room before the tears were allowed to fall.

Sorry, Ariana; sorry for trying to help.

After all, clothes were just clothes.

((Kayla Harris continued in Just Dance))

[Ruggahissy]

Tirzah was once again picked up like a rag doll and this time set on her feet. She watched Kayal just kind of fold up some of her clothes and then trudge away. Tirzah turned back to Ariana.

"That's like, rude. She's not even gonna help you clean up?"

Tirzah shrugged and set her camera down on a nearby desk. She kicked off her shoes, tied some of the rags Kayla had brought over and started shuffling around the room, mopping up paint.

"What were you making anyway?"

[Cactus]

Ariana Moretti, for one of the few times in recent memory, had absolutely no words for the girl in front of her. Instead, she simply stood, paint still lightly dripping from her clothes, staring a hole through Tirzah Foss as she dutifully got to work helping to clean up the mess. After suffering much the same fate at Tirzah's hand, Kayla had simply stood up, removed her affected clothing and beelined out of the room, likely hoping to forget any of this had ever happened. The poor girl had only been trying to help, and it had cost her an outfit, at the very least.

Letting the other girl's words flow through her, Ariana still stood, agog at Tirzah's disaffected nature. Did she truly not see the problem that she had helped cause here? Was the behaviour not at least a little bizarre to her? She didn't understand who felt that shit like this was okay. This girl had jumped two of her classmates in the name of what, art? It was ridiculous.

She stood in awe for a moment before she clued in that Tirzah - furiously scrubbing away - had asked her a question.

"What... was I," Ariana's brain took a second to put the words together and have them make sense in her head, "making?"

Her temper had a sudden flare-up, but she shoved it back down as quickly as it came up, in the process breaking her out of her fugue. If she blew up at Tirzah, she'd have cleared out any potential cleaning allies she had. With a sigh, she took some paper towels and started to pat herself down. She could start wiping the floors, but it'd be no use tracking any more paint all over. As she wiped off her feet, she glanced up at the photographer.

"I didn't have anything in mind. I was just going to throw paint at the canvas and see if it looked like anything." She was uncertain, her guard still very much up, but still somewhat shocked enough to leave her wit behind.

"Killing time. I- what were you thinking?"

She couldn't help herself. The girl's behaviour made little sense to her and she couldn't help asking. Taking another heap of paper towels, she started to scrub the floors, not waiting for an answer.

[Ruggahissy]

Tirzah had finished shuffling around and had picked up a good deal of the paint. The job was getting accomplished at a fairly quick speed now that they had actually set about addressing the problem. She dumped the rags into the sink in the room and ran some water over them. Tirzah rang out the color and watched the kaleidoscope swirl around the drain.

"Well I think it does look like something," she said, looking back at the canvas. She was very thoughtfully looking at it as if she was going to give it a critique. "It's not bad, really?"

Ariana asked her a question and she rang out the mostly clear water from the rags and returned to moving the rags around the spots off the floor she missed, using her feet again.

"I was thinking about how I didn't really like the pictures I took at the park," she said simply. It was what she had been thinking of immediately leading up to the incident. "Sometimes I don't really think I do think much about things when I do them. I just do them," she said, as if to answer Ariana's real question.

"Why would I? What were you thinking?"