"Yep! Chiro! That's definitely my name!"
"No," I shook my head, "Avar-A very good friend insisted on making lunch for my first day."
"Intuitive?" what had, oh right, I'd slipped that I'd reacted to Mr. Brown's sin, "I guess I've always just gotten hunches. Girl power, you know?" I fibbed awkwardly.
I growled at Castitas. "I literally made the monster in the first place! [...] As if! No Castitas, I simply didn't want to give you any excuses about protecting civilians when I crush you like the bug you are! No, today you shall understand the true horror of Invidia Bat!"
"Right! To be clear, Castitas, it's because in the depths of my envy I have copied your pronouns as well as your face! Not, like, any other weird reason or anything!"
Invidia, you
suck at lying. Find a job which involves less of it.
And even if I did trust it, I still looked almost exactly like Inessa. Were the girls going to buy a strange transfer student who looked like Inessa with an odd hair color when they already had literally seen me transform until I looked strangely like Inessa?
They were willing to buy a strange transfer students who looked like Gula Shark without the...I dunno...teeth or fins or
cat ears or whatever.
A few times Temperance noticed me staring and gazed back, the faintest hint of a smirk appearing on her face. I felt like I would die.
Inscrutable smug looks.
"You do look better in a skirt," she said, rising to her own feet.
Okay, I think I've scruted what they were about.
As it turned out, I had Ida and Inessa in second period english lit.
"AP Chemistry with a, umm, Mr. Brown?" The room wasn't far, otherwise I'd have had a great excuse to run.
Ida grinned. "Oh nice, I'm in the same class, so I can show you where it is."
Chiro just cannot catch a break.
That was a tough one. I obviously couldn't talk about my taste in media; it was mostly osmosed from Inessa, and Ida would absolutely push us closer together if she saw a chance. Besides, it was embarrassing! The weird fanfics and online fiction were even worse. No one would ever be allowed to know my browser history even if I had to die to protect it.
Ha ha, what a weird and unfamiliar feeling. Ha.
It was distinctly possible that I had acquired a small encyclopedia of bat facts in the time I'd spent avoiding Superbia. That was fair, bats were amazing. Honestly, I didn't even really deserve to be one.
Invidia, hon, you could be Invidia Paramecium and you'd come up with reasons you weren't fit to be associated with them.
Ida hesitated, clearly not quite getting it. For all her sympathy, she didn't understand how much being the object of attention could exhaust people like me.
Fuckin' extroverts.
Charleton was gross and unmemorable. If he got attention from anyone, it usually meant they were secretly working for the Abyssal Forest.
Let's see...Mr. Noir and Lupin versus Temperance, Ida, and Inessa. Math doesn't work out in your disfavor, kiddo.
Ida frowned. It was easy to understand why. Avaritia turning out to be an evil wolf was the best I'd seen any of Inessa's pining turn out.
Inessa had crushes that turned out
worse?
"Oh," I said awkwardly. I was pretty sure I knew all of Inessa's friends and she'd never mentioned anyone like that. "Who's that? He sounds worth meeting."
Torn between giving this poor bat a hug or shaking her by the shoulders until she realizes that she is not and has
never been a worthless piece of human detritus.
Seems like having a stranger do that would be weird, though. I should probably let Temperance handle those duties.
Ida was there. She was talking with Mr. Brown, probably pushed by our conversation to see if he was okay and to see if she could be an obnoxious do-gooder about his feelings.
I see the villain lingo is rubbing off on Invidia.
I shifted Ida to a more comfortable position and followed my creation into the hall. At least the fight wouldn't be happening next to her.
Villainous attitude, not so much.
"Fine, Invidia, do we have to do this?" Castitas slammed one foot against the concrete, sending a wall of flame in front of her that served as a makeshift firebreak. At the same time, she aimed her bow and shot, loosing a barrage of arrows against Beaker Breaker with pinpoint accuracy.
I opened my mouth to say something.
"Also, umm what are your pronouns now?" Inessa followed up.
I like this. It really
is an Inessa line, whatever costume she's wearing.
I kicked off the ground and spread my wings, chasing after Inessa, only to quickly drop into a frantic roll as it turned out that spreading my wings to fly down a narrow hallway toward the archer actually made it very easy to accidentally throw yourself into arrows that weren't even aimed at you.
Someone needs to play more Fire Emblem.
I'd won; I'd beaten her in a way I hadn't really believed was possible. And yet, I wasn't sure what to do. The heat of the fight had suddenly left me and I didn't know how to end any of this. Was I supposed to keep pressing, to do that for real?
"GET OFF HER!" Ida's voice—carrying a heat I'd never heard from the stoic Saint—saved me from myself.
Villain of the century. Look at that killer instinct.
To cope with the Abyssal Forest's increase in power, the Saints decide to spend the weekend training. However, when Avaritia's latest Resinner interrupts the girls' training, a shocking development is revealed! Inessa Brandt... can't transform!?
Sounds like some juicy character development that we are probably going to miss because Invidia's juicy character development is blocking it.
