Magical Girl Lyrical Taylor
(Worm/Nanoha)
by P.H. Wise
3.3 - Rivals
Disclaimer: The following is a fanfic. Worm belongs to Wildbow. The Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha franchise is owned by various corporate entities. Please support the official release.
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"At what point did you realize that Victor was stealing your powers?" Armsmaster asked.
Sunset was bleeding away into twilight in the western sky, and I was back at the marina giving my statement to Armsmaster and the PRT. I shook my head. "He wasn't stealing my powers. I still had all my mana, he was just stealing the skills I needed to cast spells."
Armsmaster looked at me speculatively. "What skills would those be?"
"Math, mostly."
We went along like that, with him asking question after question, interrupting my story at least a couple times a minute. He didn't seem terribly interested in knowing that Rune was unhappy as part of the E88. What he was interested in was Victor and the group I had caught a brief glimpse of when the darkness dropped: the Undersiders.
Armsmaster looked frustrated when we finally got to the part where the Undersiders used that barrier to evade him and his PRT backup. Or at least he pursed his lips. I took that as looking frustrated. "Tell me everything you can about the Shaker/Stranger effect they employed," he said.
"Raising Heart is really the one to ask. I can tell you what she told me, but…"
He looked directly at her staff form. "Raising Heart?"
"The effect employed against you was a Time-sealing Force Field," Raising Heart said, and went on to give almost a word for word repetition of the explanation she'd given me earlier: "It is a bounded field inside of which the flow of time is altered. Such barriers are often used on Non-Administrated Worlds to conceal magical effects,"
Something about Armsmaster's body language seemed to tense after that explanation. "How is the flow of time altered?"
"I'm uncertain of how the words are being translated," Raising Heart replied. "English words, English grammar, they are inexact. Inefficient. It is an alteration to the fabric of Space/Time. A zone is created where only those who the spellcaster allows or who have the ability to enter the field can exist. Unauthorized beings who can't enter the field and are within the area will be unable to perceive or interact with the Field and its contents in any way until the barrier is dropped. I was not able to analyze the field much wanted Armsmaster."
I raised an eyebrow. "Much wanted Armsmaster?" I asked.
Raising Heart paused. "As much as I wanted, Armsmaster," she corrected. "It's possible that it could have been a different Wide-Area Force Field with similar effects. I don't believe it was Gefängnis der Magie, but others exist."
"How do I protect myself against it?" Armsmaster asked.
"Unknown. There are spells to break through, but without access to magic your options are limited. Perhaps you could Tinker a way to stabilize your locality-space/time-radius."
Armsmaster looked like he'd swallowed a lemon. "Magic," he echoed. He turned his attention back to me. "You're sure you could sense two distinct energy signatures coming from the group?" he asked.
I nodded. It was a bit of an abrupt topic shift, but I went with it. "I'm sure," I said. "I can give you a video recording if you want it. Raising Heart monitored the entire encounter."
Armsmaster nodded. "Acceptable," he said. "Thank you, Starfall."
I went home, after. After my statement, after all the explanations, after going over the details with Armsmaster again and again, I went home, and through statement and journey alike, I did my best to ignore the anger that was coiling inside my chest.
I'd already spent time researching local parahumans, but I'd been focused on the major gangs: the Empire Eighty Eight and the ABB. I'd researched Uber and Leet, too, but not because they were a major group. There were others, though. Faultline's Crew was a mercenary group that operated out of the city. The Merchants were a tiny gang of drug pushers who had a handful of parahuman members, and they were always trying to expand, but the ABB and the Empire had them penned in. There was a villain named Coil somewhere in the city, but nobody knew where exactly, and there was a lot of argument on PHO about whether or not he was even parahuman. The Maniacs had been a parahuman-led motorcycle gang that had tried to set up in Brockton Bay last year, but the Protectorate and the police had shut them down hard.
And the Undersiders. I hadn't actually known they existed before today, and I wasn't going to be blindsided like that ever again. I devoted my third mental partition to learning everything I could learn about the group. I looked them up on the parahumans wiki, I read through their thread on PHO, and I went through a bunch of news sites looking for any time the group had made the news.
There wasn't much.
There were four members of the group: Grue, Hellhound, Regent and Tattletale. I wasn't really able to find anything on Regent or Tattletale besides a lot of speculation on PHO, but Grue was the group's leader, maybe, and he could make darkness. Which really didn't sound that impressive on paper, but while darkness did technically describe the smothering cloud of almost total sensory deprivation he called up, it was a little like calling a Hurricane, 'very windy.' It was true, but it really didn't do it justice.
Hellhound had the most information available. Her name was Rachel Lindt. She was a known factor. She could turn ordinary dogs into mid-tier brutes, and holy shit those things were dogs. There were a few news articles that mentioned her, and one of them said that she was a suspect in the death of her foster-mother. All the sources agreed that she was dangerous, and that if you ran into her, you shouldn't approach but should call the PRT immediately. There were a few recent photos, and she looked… not like what I expected. I was expecting something more like, I don't know, gender-flipped Mowgli? But mostly she just looked like a butch homeless girl.
I was assuming the blonde girl was Tattletale, and the boy in the Venetian mask was Regent. There wasn't anything here about the ferret I'd seen riding on the blonde girl's shoulder, but I guess there wouldn't have been. … A ferret riding on a blonde girl's shoulder. Why did that seem vaguely familiar? But try as I might, I couldn't remember where or when I might have seen that before.
And for the first time, the unwritten rules of cape conduct seemed… stupid. Was it just me, or were they basically designed to ensure that the status quo never changed, and that we'd always be stuck with a bunch of villains running around terrorizing people with impunity? Or was that just my frustration at being unable to send a Wide Area Search to track them down talking? Whatever. I would have my revenge against the Undersiders soon enough. In the meantime, I edited all their wiki pages and updated their information as thoroughly as I could based on my encounter with them, and I did it with a sense of vindictive glee. Take that, Undersiders!
Unfortunately, none of that could actually distract me from what was bothering me. It was one of the downsides of having the ability to fork your consciousness into multiple parallel streams: no matter how focused you were on distracting yourself from uncomfortable subjects, you always had attention to spare to worry about uncomfortable subjects. I guess I could have just collapsed my mind down to the base level of a single partition and distracted myself in the real world, but I barely even felt alive like that, and I had a hard enough time doing it just to go to sleep.
I kept going over the fight with the Jewel Seed Monster, the confrontation with Victor, and the fight with the Undersiders, over and over, replaying every moment first in my mind and then on a holo-display. [What did I do wrong?] I asked.
[With which part of the battle?] Raising Heart asked.
[All of it. Any of it.]
[Enemy skill-thief Victor was allowed to leave the field of battle with knowledge of magic and an awakened Linker Core.]
I grimaced. [He's going to be a problem, isn't he?]
[Yes. A larger problem the longer he remains unaddressed.]
[What do you think I should do?]
[The optimal course of action cannot be recommended due to moral and ethical concerns.]
I blinked. "You think I should kill him?"
[I do not. But it would be optimal resolution of this threat. With PRT sanction, if possible. Track him down with Wide Area Search. Disable stun protocols and commence bombardment from an altitude of two thousand meters. Continue bombardment until enemy skill-thief Victor's life signs have ceased.]
I stared at her gem, horrified by the suggestion. [... I can't just kill someone, Raising Heart.]
[I know, my Master,] she replied gently. [Optimal course of action cannot be recommended due to moral and ethical concerns. Possible legal concerns as well if PRT sanction cannot be achieved. I don't know what to do either.]
I sighed. [Right. Okay. What about with the Undersiders? What did I do wrong there?]
[The error goes back to before the Undersiders, Master,] Raising Heart said. [While there are generalist mages, many mages have specialties. Do you know what yours is?]
I frowned. [Long distance bombardment?]
[And battlefield reconnaissance. Though you have other capabilities, you are at your strongest when you are in your enemy's Out Range, and your enemy is inside of your Long Range. Your Strike Arts training will shore up your vulnerabilities at Cross Range, but Cross Range engagements will never be the optimal use of your powers.]
[... Sensor spheres,] I said. [Reconnaissance. I should be using that ability to ensure total battlefield awareness and apply bombardment wherever it's needed.]
[And you require support. No mage, however powerful, functions best independently. A team is best. Your powers make you well suited to the position of Center Guard; you can provide a central hub, a command point to coordinate your teammates and from which you can provide long distance fire support to your allies. Guest User Victoria Dallon would make a strong Front Attacker. Allied Parahuman Vista's powers make her well suited to the support position of Full Back. A well coordinated team is essential to success, Master. And your previous efforts to secure Jewel Seeds were done with help. Vista, Assault, Battery, and Armsmaster against the first, Myrddin and the PRT and Philadelphia Protectorate against the second.]
[... So my first mistake was in not asking for help from the Protectorate when I found out Vicky was busy.]
[Yes. There were other errors; many of them are things that will be corrected as you gain experience in combat. Image training is an invaluable training tool, but it does not replace the necessity of real life battlefield experience, and even with the assistance of an Intelligent Device, true mastery of magic takes years. But after the mistake of not asking for backup, the second biggest mistake that you made in the encounter was in firing a second Divine Buster after the first was thrown off course. It is set to stun, but that won't save the inhabitants of a building if you destroy a crucial support or otherwise accidentally cause a collapse. Destroying a fast-moving vehicle with the stun setting will result in the unprotected expulsion of its unconscious occupants onto the road with the same speed and momentum that they had prior to the vehicle's destruction. Greater care must be exercised.]
I swallowed heavily. I hadn't even considered what could have happened if Regent had thrown off my aim in just a slightly different direction. I felt like an idiot, and I was either really, really lucky, or he'd been going out of his way not to kill people when he'd made me miss. [... Shit,] I said. [... What about the spell that the Undersiders' new mage used? Chain Bind? Is there a way I can counter that? And can you teach me a binding spell? It seems like it would be really, really useful.]
[If that is what you desire. Would you like to learn these things in Image Training?]
[Yes. Thanks, Raising Heart.]
Raising Heart glowed in response.
From there, Raising Heart and I worked on a few new combat strategies, we went over the math for a very basic bind, and I did a modification of Divine Stinger to bring back some of the barrier-piercing properties. I was thinking of calling the new variant 'Breaker Swarm.' It had a smaller payload than Divine Stinger -- only 120 shots instead of 1200 -- but it looked like it would be useful, at least. I wasn't any less annoyed with the way things had gone when I got home, but there was a direction to it now, a way forward, and that felt better, at least.
Dad was already at home when I arrived. He was making dinner, and he looked up as I walked in.
"Hey Dad," I called.
"Hey Taylor, welcome back." He let a beat pass. "... What's this I hear about you being a princess?"
…
God damn it.
I whirled towards dad, though I was more embarrassed than angry. "I am not a magical princess," I insisted.
He blinked. Then I realized how completely ridiculous that had sounded. And then I saw the laughter in his eyes, and the way his lips were twitching as he tried not to laugh. "Okay, Taylor," he said placatingly, and he started to lose the battle with his laughter. He took a moment to recover, and then said as seriously as he could, "You're not a magical princess."
"I'm NOT!" I insisted.
His serious expression cracked, and he put his hand in front of his face to hide his grin. "Of course not."
"Damn it, Raising Heart," I snapped, "This is all your fault!" I had no idea how a pendant managed to look sheepish, but she did. I ignored her, though, and dad, too, and I stormed upstairs and slammed the door to my room. God, could this day possibly have gone worse? January 3rd was now officially the worst day of my life.
I threw myself onto my bed, my bad mood bubbling away at a low simmer. I didn't know why dad's question had set me off like… okay, no, that was a lie. I knew why I'd gotten so upset. It wasn't that I didn't want to have powers. I did! I'd always wanted to have powers. Hell, when we were little, Emma and I used to pretend to be superheroes together. We'd run around the back yard at the Barnes' house with beach towels tied around our necks as capes pretending to be swooping in and saving the day. Emma's house at the time -- it was before they moved to their new house closer to ours -- had been just outside of town on top of this big wooded hill, and their property had extended a ways down the hillside. Sometimes we'd climb up onto this big beech tree that was right on the edge of the lawn. Dad and Mr. Barnes had built us a tree house up there, and one of the first things we'd done was put a sign that said, 'SUPERHERO BASE: GIRLS ONLY, NO BOYS ALLOWED' and beneath that, 'NO ANNE ALLOWED EITHER.' Not that there'd been any boys in our families except our dads, but it was the principle of the thing.
Letting my thoughts go down that path had been a mistake. Thinking about Emma always made things worse. I mean, I tried not to miss my best friend, but it never helped. Was it something I did? Did I do something wrong that made her hate me?
… but she was the one who had always wanted to be a princess, not me. Maybe if mom had told me, if she'd explained it and hadn't kept it this huge secret, I wouldn't be so mad about it, but … I don't want to rule anyone, and I can't stand feeling like my life's already been decided for me.
Raising Heart didn't say anything in the real world, and that was fine; I didn't want her to. We did very frustrating image training in my second mental partition -- it felt like we were starting over from scratch with my spellcasting, and I really REALLY hoped that Victor stealing my skills wasn't permanent -- and spell design in my third, and all my real life troubles were relegated to this one, where my body actually existed.
"Taylor, dinner's ready!" dad called when I'd been in my room for an hour. I didn't really feel any better, but I got up and went downstairs to eat anyways.
"Sorry about earlier," he said. "I shouldn't have laughed at you."
"... it's okay," I muttered.
I didn't say anything as he piled spaghetti and ground beef in store-bought spaghetti sauce on my plate. I kept my silence while he served himself, and while he filled up both our cups with water.
Then he sat down opposite me, looked me in the eye and asked, "What's bothering you, kiddo?" I didn't answer, and after a moment, he started eating. A few minutes later he paused and said, "If you don't want to talk, that's okay."
I nodded, and we ate dinner in silence. But it wasn't a bad silence, dad didn't say anything else about it, and he just let me eat in peace, but I knew he was there, and that was enough.
After dinner, after all the dishes were done and put away and the cooking mess had been cleaned and the kitchen was as close to spotless as it ever got, I told him everything.
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I woke up a few minutes before 6:30 on the morning of January 4th, and before Raising Heart's 'good morning' was even halfway spoken, I was out of my bed and starting my morning routine. As usual, Dad was downstairs by the time I was ready to head out for my run, and he smiled when he saw me. "Be careful!" he said.
Careful. I hadn't done enough of that, lately. He'd said as much last night. "Taylor," he'd said, "I know you've got powers and I know you can take care of yourself, but please be careful. Your mother had powers, too. Don't forget what she said in her message."
I hadn't forgotten, it just… had seemed so far away. Like it wasn't real. Everything was going so well for me now, I had friends, I was going to a new school away from the bullies, and…
"I don't know if the people behind this… Project Fate were really responsible for your mother's death, but I don't think we can afford to take any chances. Maybe there's no way to stop them from finding you eventually, but you don't have to make it easy for them." He'd looked me straight in the eye, then, and he spoke his next words like a promise: "And when they do come, they're not going to find you alone."
I hadn't said anything at the time. I hadn't known what to say. Dad didn't have any powers, and if mom couldn't stop them even with her magic, I doubted Dad could do anything. But I don't think that was going to stop him from trying.
I needed to find out who these people were before they found me. And Dad was definitely right about one thing: I couldn't afford to let them find me alone. … Maybe the Protectorate could help me. They're the good guys, right? Right, then. I needed to talk to Armsmaster or Miss Militia about this.
I headed out the door and started my morning run. I'd gotten about two blocks when a young boy's telepathic voice said, [Um, excuse me, miss? You're Tayl… I mean Starfall, right?]
I forced my sudden shock and panic into … not the partition where I was working on spell design. That sounded like a terrible idea. Instead, I forced the majority of it into the mental partition where I was doing Image Training, and my performance immediately suffered. It wasn't all bad news for Image Training, though: the draining effect on my skill at spellcasting had vanished around the second time I woke up in the middle of the night with horrible aches going through my entire body. Stupid magical puberty.
[Who are you?] I demanded. [What do you want?]
[My name is Yuuno. Yuuno Scrya.] His telepathic voice sounded very, very uncomfortable. [... and I was with the group that took the Jewel Seed yesterday. Please don't be mad! I'm just trying to help, and…]
I wasn't mad. I was FURIOUS. But that, too, was something I could dwell on in my Image Training partition, and only a little bit of that fury trickled into my telepathic voice as I asked, [How do you know my name?]
[I researched you online. I think your 'internet' is really neat. We have something like it back home, but it's not quite as--]
I blinked. [Back home?] I asked, interrupting him.
[On Midchilda.]
My anger slowly drained away, and I felt a little bit empty for its lack. If he'd been anywhere in my field of view, I would have stared at him in shock and surprise. [... I think you'd better start at the beginning.]
Raising Heart interrupted, then. [Due to local laws I must inform you that I am recording this telepathic conversation.]
There was a pause on Yuuno's end. I ran as I waited for him to reply, my physical body losing itself in the movements of running and the impacts of my feet on the sidewalk.
[You have an Intelligent Device, Starfall?] Yuuno asked.
[Yuuno, meet Raising Heart. Raising Heart, this is Yuuno.]
[Hello, Yuuno,] Raising Heart said. [I would be more pleased to meet you if you had not attacked my Master.]
There was another pause. [I'm sorry, Raising Heart.] Yuuno said after a moment. [I didn't want to attack anyone. … You don't sound like an Intelligent Device, though. Are you a Unison Device?]
[I am an Intelligent Device,] Raising Heart replied.
[Ah,] Yuuno said with uncertainty in his telepathic voice. [Starting at the beginning. I guess we should talk in person. I'm sitting at a bench about a block away from you. I can see you right now. If you come join me, I'll put up a Barrier, and we can talk.]
[How do I know this isn't a trick?] I asked.
Yuuno seemed embarrassed. [Oh. I didn't think of that. … Um… how do I convince you this isn't a trick? I really need to talk to you, and I guess we could just talk telepathically, but it's a little clunky, and you miss out on … oh, hey, you have your Intelligent Device, right? We could set up a communications protocol and talk via virtual avatar if you want.]
Okay, now I was pretty sure it wasn't a trick. I didn't want to take the chance, though. [That sounds fine, Yuuno.] Inside my spell design partition, I opened a comm channel and sent a ping along Yuuno's mental frequency. A moment later, he connected, and the face of a young boy with vivid green eyes and neck-length hair somewhere between light brown and dirty blond appeared on the holo-screen.
He smiled nervously. "Um, hi Starfall. Do I have to call you Starfall?"
I raised an eyebrow. "... You already know my name. But it's Starfall when I'm in costume, okay?"
"Right. Sorry, Taylor." He seemed to think about what he was going to say for a moment.
"Why are you hunting Jewel Seeds?" I prompted.
"Because it's my fault that they're here. On my home world, I'm an archeologist. My whole clan is, really. It was my first independent dig, and that's a big deal for us. It means I'm ready for adult responsibility! And one day, while I was on a dig, I discovered something in an old rock formation: a Jewel Seed. I investigated the site further, and with the help of my team I eventually unearthed all twenty one of them. I followed the proper protocol; I called in the Administration Bureau to help secure the artifacts so we could take them back to where they could be studied safely. It was loaded onto a transport and a pair of Enforcers went along with the shipment to keep it safe."
"And something went wrong," I said.
He nodded."The transport ship had an accident. There was an explosion. … I woke up right in the middle of it, and I tried to stop it, but…" he trailed off, and his look of haunted grief looked strange and out of place on the face of a ten year old. He sighed. "I must have missed something. I must have… forgotten to do something. Maybe something wasn't secured the way it should have been? But because of me, the twenty-one Jewel Seeds were scattered across this region of your world. I'm not strong enough to seal a Jewel Seed on my own, but L… Tattletale had the idea that I could use a Jewel Seed as a makeshift device and seal others with it if I could just get my hands on one." He paused. "Why are you hunting the Jewel Seeds?"
"They're dangerous. They've already killed people and hurt plenty of others. I have the power to stop them; I don't think I could live with myself if I didn't try to help."
"Oh," he said.
I stopped running. I walked over to the bench where he was sitting in the real world, and I sat down beside him. He looked startled, and afraid, and sad, and worried, and there was way too much responsibility weighing him down. I wanted to hug him, but I didn't: not yet. "Do your friends know you're talking to me?" I asked out loud.
Yuuno got even more uncomfortable. "Um…" he began, and couldn't really find a way to continue. After a few moments, he looked away.
"They don't, do they."
Yuuno shook his head miserably. "No. You have to understand, Taylor, they're not bad people. And… and Tattletale helped me when no one else could. She saved my life, even, and she's helping me to try to clean up the mess my shipment made, I just... I don't want anyone else to get hurt because of me. Can you put me in contact with your teacher? I tried to send a distress signal to the Administration Bureau when I arrived here, but I don't think the signal got out," he looked up at me hopefully, "And I could really use the help of an experienced mage."
This time, I couldn't stop myself: I hugged him. He stiffened for just a second, and the hope faded from his eyes. "... You don't have a teacher, do you."
I shook my head. "Just Raising Heart. I'm sorry, Yuuno."
"But you're Midchildan?" Yuuno asked after a moment. "Aren't you? I mean, you're using kind of an old fashioned dialect, but you're from Midchilda, right?"
... what?
"I'm not…" I began. The words tasted strange in my mouth. They weren't English, and I hadn't realized it. [Raising Heart, what the hell?]
[My translation matrix rapidly speeds language acquisition,] Raising Heart said.
[Are you saying that I've been learning Midchildan all this time, and I never realized it?]
[Yes. I have many useful functions. My processes are linked directly to your brain. I can lend processing power to your thoughts. Is the translation matrix unwelcome? I can deactivate it, my Master.]
I'd… I'd known Raising Heart was connected directly to my brain, and it made sense that something like this could happen, but having it happen without me knowing sent creeping horrors up and down my spine. [Raising Heart, pause Image Training. I want to know exactly what you can do, and what you've been doing since we've been partners, okay?]
[All right,] she said.
Meanwhile, in the physical world, I shook my head. "I was born here on Earth Bet," I said.
"Oh," Yuuno said. "Well, you speak Midchildan very well."
I smiled slightly. "Thanks," I said. "So you know that the Undersiders are a villain group, right?"
Yuuno looked down. "... Yeah."
"Are you okay with that?"
Yuuno shook his head. "I don't want to be a criminal," he admitted. "I just…" he trailed off. "Are they really that bad?" he asked.
I shrugged. "As far as I know, they're mostly a group of thieves. They're really good at getting in and getting out with stolen goods. Hellhound is wanted for murder, though."
"Hellhound?" Yuuno asked, not recognizing the name.
"Rachel Lindt."
"You mean Bitch?" Now that I was actually listening to his words, I could hear the Midchildan rhythms and subtle tonal shifts. The word he used for 'Bitch' literally meant 'dog-female' but there wasn't any connotation of scorn or derision in it. It was a specific, almost technical term.
"Does she really call herself that?" I asked.
Yuuno nodded. "I don't know why. It should be [human-female], shouldn't it?"
My brain really wanted to translate the word he'd used as 'woman,' and I had to pay close attention to hear the word Yuuno actually used, which was the word for 'human' with a feminine suffix. As I considered it, I realized that you could do this for any noun in the Midchildan language; one would make it feminine, one would make it masculine, and just not including a gendered suffix entirely would make it gender-neutral. Was it going to be like this with every word I'd never heard Raising Heart use before? … and had I really never heard Raising Heart use the word, 'woman' before? Weird.
I shrugged.
"I guess I could believe she's capable of that," Yuuno admitted. "Rachel is, um, odd. I don't think she relates to humans very well. She tried to have her dogs eat me when I showed up for the first time in my ferret form. And Regent can be mean, too. I think there might be something wrong with him. But Grue and Tattletale are nice!"
"Nice isn't the same thing as good," I said.
"I know," he admitted. "But I don't know what to do. What do you do when you aren't sure what the right thing is?"
I thought about that. "Honestly? I talk to my dad."
Yuuno let out a bitter laugh, and I was struck by how utterly weird it was to hear a kid who couldn't have been more than ten make a sound like that. "I've tried to make contact with my clan to talk to someone. Anyone. I think something is blocking the transmission, and nobody on this world should be able to do that."
My thoughts immediately turned to Project Fate, and I felt the return of that increasingly familiar sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"Taylor?" Yuuno asked.
I swallowed and took a breath. "... you could talk to my dad if you want," I said. "It helps me. Maybe it'll help you, too?"
"I…" Yuuno shook his head. "I can't. I need to talk to Tattletale about everything. I'm sure if I explain it to her, we can find a way to work together. This doesn't have to escalate."
I smiled. "All right, Yuuno. Good luck. And let me know if there's anything I can to do help you, okay?"
He nodded. "I will. Thank you."
It was almost anticlimactic to finish my run after that, and the talk with Yuuno had cut into the time I had available for my other exercises. I did them anyway. Raising Heart could be kind of a slavedriver when it came to physical conditioning, and I didn't want to give her the excuse.
I showered when I was done and got ready for school in a hurry, and being able to set my barrier jacket to look like whatever I wanted helped speed that along. Before too long, I was ready for school and heading off to the bus stop.
So began my second day at Arcadia High.
