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Harper remained planted in the aisle, hoping that the creature would go into some other room, some other section of the school that wasn't where she was. This all seemed a little much to ask a schoolgirl to deal with.

A quick explosion of sound that seemed too much like the like the doors of the library being blown off of their hinges killed the last bit of hope in her system. The other student's voice, though soft, made her jump, as her mind was piqued and still trying to process what it had seen in some sort of way that was not impossible. Harper forced herself to take in her surroundings, until she pinpointed where her companion had gone. Somehow, the dark haired girl had gotten under a table, only discernible by a matching silhouette and a now familiar voice. The shadows around them were more menacing than before. Panic began seeping into her thoughts, imagination taking over where utilitarian needs should have been.

Harper attempted to shake herself out of it. Yes... the hall's probably running mad. A window? She looked to the windows, now crueler than ever with their sunlight and clear skies. They were very clean, as was all of Crystal Academy, but how often they were actually opened was up to question. Still, it was better than the other options, which were to dash into its line of vision to the hall or, no matter how tempting it was, to do nothing.

"I'll see if it'll open," she whispered back. There was a certain irony in that. Steeling herself, Harper quietly put her books on a shelf and then did not so much as take a step as she slid a foot in the proper direction. A sudden slam of a shelf being flipped unintentionally gave her more progress.

Harper halted for the moment when the girl spoke again, not wanting to lose the precious few words they could spare -- nay, were risking. She had been glancing back every couple of steps, peeking through books, worried and terrified of when the monster would strike. Or how. She could only hope it continued to adhere to some rules of Earth physics. As it was, they were already rabbits stuck in the shadow of a hawk.

It was during once of these glances that Harper caught sight of a small bird fluttering through the library. The teal haired girl had scarcely a chance to wonder where it had gotten in from before it hurtled to the ground with a heavy thud, loud and echoing in the quiet of the library. That was no bird -- it was a book. There was a scuffling of feet before the monster descended on the table the other girl had been hiding under. Wood was splintered, cracked, torn asunder. The words "I'll distract it," bored their way to the forefront of her thoughts, right alongside "open the window," and "that window had better damn well open." Her hands deftly flipped the lock -- despairingly dusty -- and jammed her palm underneath the lip.

It didn't move an inch.

"It's jammed!" Harper hissed as she used her entire body in a quick series of shoves on the stubborn window pane. The extra leverage did nothing. She was thankful, at least, that if the monster had to be tearing up the library trying to get at them, at least it was making a lot of noise to cover up their efforts to escape. Without another word, she moved to the next window, flipped its lock, and prepared to give one huge effort against it. If this didn't work, there were table legs and chairs scattered everywhere. This window was opening one way or the other.

Such violent means were unnecessary, however, as this window slid up in a split second and possibly jamming itself open with the amount of force put behind it. "We're out -- c'mon!" Swinging a leg up to the windowsill with a fluidity that came from pulling herself up in a saddle for years, Harper lead the way out of the nightmare.

Flailing forward out of the window with an inertia born from panic, Harper barely caught herself from falling on the pavement. Not a second later came an echo of scrambling limbs that told her the other girl had made it out as well. Relief came to her more as the beginnings of a sob than a refreshing breath. Hopefully whatever the hell was in the library wouldn't figure out that its pray had slipped out, but she wasn't about to stick around to find out. And all they could do was run, chased out of their own quiet school sanctuary.

A shadow passed over her, and Harper couldn't help but flinch. However, this one was gone in a flash, playing the two students no mind -- she was barely able to catch sight of the human figure before it disappeared inside of library through the open window.

"He's crazy," Harper said, as confused as her companion. And there was certainly no way she was going in there after the vigilante.

Suddenly, before she could turn and keep running, purple light flickered in the building, momentarily washing out figures and shadows alike in some strange aura. The monster answered in kind, though its voice was tinted by a sound Harper thought was that of pain. Macabre curiosity was replacing Harper's sense of preservation as her eyes and ears remained trained for answers. Another screaming roar from the monster faded into a gaping silence. The situation was quickly becoming unnerving again without the visual tags or any real sense on how the encounter had played out. "Maybe... we should go..."

The soft touch at her hand from the black-haired girl was oddly welcoming. They had just been through some sort of hell together, and yet, there was a pervasive sense of awe at this moment. It was comforting to have a connection with another human being when one's savoir was just as mysterious -- and perhaps unsettling, in a way -- as one's adversary.

Though Harper had suggested their exit, it had taken the other student's tug to carry the message along to her limbs. She clutched back with a more resolute force behind it, and convinced herself she would think about all of this implications later on a clearer head. She started away from the library, still holding the black-haired girl's hand.

"I don't know who could help him now," Harper said frankly, "but we should definitely go."She thought it was of the utmost importance that someone of authority should be told of what is happening here, quickly, but she did not think there was much to be done about it in time to save that crazy, sailor-suit-esque vigilante. If he indeed hadn't won out in the encounter... hopefully bullets would do a better job.

Though she did not let up on her pace, Harper was taken aback at Penelope's introduction. "We really went through all of that and never even got each others' names?" she thought. The absurdity of that truth brought a small, yet genuinely amused smile to her face.

"My name's Harper," she said, sparing a glance back at her fellow student, "And you were really good at being a distraction, so let's say we're even." It was a strange event to have as the basis for meeting someone, and Harper couldn't say whether or not it would go any farther than that (as people were want to band together during a crisis). The girl was quite different from her usual circle of friends, to be sure. But Penelope, the girl with the demeanor as soft as her hair, was not a person she would forget.