The rest of the school week passed in a blur as I attended my classes during the days, worked with the Dicken sisters on my training for the stage and the pole once I got home for a couple of hours, and then had dinner and spent the evening with Selina and the other ‘club kids’ doing homework and hanging out every night until it was time to put my Astrae daughter to bed. Usually, Jess and Melody wouldn’t get off from their training shifts in the club until I put Selina to bed so I would try to spend a little quality time with both of them before taking Melody back to my bedroom to sate the horniness that had built up over the day.

School was… well, it was school. I went to classes and hung out with my friends at lunch. Mallory was meshing well with our friend group, and from what Clarice said, she was doing well at her new after-school job. Mallory was happy for the chance to make a bit of spending money to help make things easier for her mom, and worked hard and without complaint, something that Clarice’s parents were very happy with.

Delilah was still trying to cause me problems, with her minions making more false witness reports, but that tactic was getting old and stale after a couple of days. The headmistress was dismissing more and more of these witness accounts after one of them supposedly took place when I was on the other side of the school talking with Ms. Norstrom about more meditation exercises that I could use to increase my control and focus over my magic. Where Delilah was failing to get to me though, I was having a lot more success getting under her skin.

Three times this week I had managed to freeze her bra (while she was wearing it) when some task or another took me near her during class time. I also froze the inside of the lock on her locker once at the end of the day so she had to wait until it thawed before it could be opened, and made the water freezing cold whenever she was showering after gym. The best though was on Thursday during Art Class, which was our last class of the day.

Since we had gotten some fairly heavy snowfall over the last couple of days and it was somewhat warm outside, Mrs. Bealey had decided to have us make snow sculptures for art class. Thanks to my magic lessons with Ms. Norstrom, I was really starting to get a good handle on manipulating snow and ice without needing to panic, and during class, the fruits of those labors were being channeled into immature pranks on my nemesis. I made sure that my work was well within sight of Delilah, and it wasn’t even all that hard since she spent most of our classes together glowering at me or trying to think of ways to make me as miserable as I was making her. Spoiler alert, I was totally winning that little contest.

First, I formed my big pile of snow into a very convincing replica of Delilia and once I was sure she was looking right at the sculpture I’d formed with my magic, I added more snow as needed to make her replica slowly gain weight until it was morbidly obese and added a few warts and stuff to its face. I could practically see steam coming out of Delilah’s ears and smiled to myself as she stormed off toward Mrs. Bealey to narc on me. That was all part of the plan.

Mrs. Bealey was an Inugami; they don’t have magic, and they can’t sense it worth shit. All their paranormal gifts are physical in nature. By the time Delilah got Mrs. Bealey’s attention, and they both turned their attention upon me, I was staring absently at a featureless lump of snow in front of me. Mrs. Bealey looked from Delilah to me and asked, “Is something the matter, Crystal?”

I gave my very best absentminded blink and innocent expression as I turned to the teacher as if I was noticing her for the first time. “Oh, Mrs. Bealey. I just can’t decide what to make for a sculpture.” It was one hundred percent true too, there were sooo many ways that I could mess with Delilah after all.

Mrs. Bealey gave me an encouraging smile and I almost felt bad for pulling a fast one on her as she said, “I’m sure that you’ll think of something. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.”

The moment that the teacher’s back was turned and she started walking away, I focused on reforming the snow into Delilah’s likeness once again, this time rubbing at her eyes and looking like she was crying. The Fire Mage looked ready to blow her top and called out, “Mrs. Bealey!”

By the time the teacher’s head swung around to look our way, I was once again looking pensively at a featureless mound of snow. “Hmmm… what to make.”

The teacher frowned at Delilah and sighed. “Delilah, I am well aware that you seem to have some sort of grudge against Crystal, but perhaps you should be focusing on your own art project instead of bothering her while she’s trying to work on hers.” Then her attention was drawn away as a pair of Delilah’s minions called out when the snow that they were working with mysteriously collapsed.

The formless lump of snow before me shifted again, forming a copy of me this time which was buck-ass nude and giving Delilah the finger. I thought she might explode, but sadly that didn’t happen. For the rest of class, whenever the teacher or our classmates weren’t looking our way, I kept taunting her with various snow sculptures ranging from naughty and suggestive to childish representations of her doing things like picking her nose. Keeping the teacher and Delilah’s minions from looking our way was as easy as occasionally reaching out with my Ice magic to collapse a snow sculpture in progress.

By the end of class, I stopped goofing off and made a magnificent snow sculpture of me and my sister together. I was even nice enough to help Delilah with hers when she looked away nervously toward Mrs. Bealey, who was starting to look over our projects. Her sculpture was cartoony at best, and not even good cartoons, it was like Picasso was working with snow.

“Very nicely done, Crystal. This is a very lifelike representation of you and… your sister?” Mrs. Bealey offered when it was my turn to receive critique.

“Yes, Ma’am, that’s me and Jess. We’re really close, I can’t imagine my life without her,” I replied cheerfully.

Mrs. Bealey went on to look at two other projects before approaching Delilah, who was furiously trying to change her ‘sculpture’ while the snow wasn’t cooperating at all. It was still very much the cube of snow that I had created with my magic. “Is this…” the teacher started to say as she searched for words.

“The limits of her artistic talent?” I murmured just loud enough for Delilah to hear and shoot me a glare. Maybe I should stop harassing the poor girl and give her a hand? Nah. Why can’t I do both? I ‘wandered’ over and looked over the block of ice and gave it a thoughtful look. “You know, Mrs. Bealey, this looks very familiar. I think it might be a sculpture of Delilah’s car. If she had time to work on the finer details more, I’m sure it would be very impressive.”

The look Delilah was giving me now could curdle dairy products. I was feeling very pleased with myself overall when the bell rang, and Mrs. Bealey dismissed us all for the day. I was walking back to the main building to get my stuff from my locker when Delilah stomped past me through the snow and shoved me, “You suck, bitch.”

I couldn’t resist, the words came out of my mouth instantly. “Only when patrons at the club pay for it. Your dad really seems to enjoy it though. He’s very vocal.” I wasn’t actually working at the club yet, but I was old enough to, and while I might not have actually seen her father in the club yet, she didn’t need to know that, and I did know that he was a regular there. I have no sense of shame or modesty and putting that image in her head would be so worth it. Also, none of it was really a lie since her father wouldn’t come back to the club if he didn’t enjoy it and the last time I had seen him he was very vocal… about his displeasure with his daughter.

She turned around to glower at me, her face red with fury, and snarled, “What?”

I didn’t miss a beat. With my biggest and lewdest smile, I waggled my eyebrows at her. “Oh, I think you heard me. Did you know that your dad has the cutest little mole on his…”

If she had any fire available at that moment, I probably would have been putting just how fireproof I was to the test. As it was, she took a swing at me before I could finish my sentence, which was a blessing really, because I had absolutely no clue how I had been going to finish it and I couldn’t lie. Was inferring something that I had no real knowledge about a lie? Seemed like it since the words had stuck in my throat before I could get specific.

Nuh-uh, bitch, attacking me when I’m surrounded by snow and ice is not going to work out for you. I didn’t lay a finger on her. For one thing, physical violence isn’t really my thing as a Nymph. Lovers, not fighters, and all that. I also didn’t need to since she was currently standing in a foot of snow and her punch was throwing her weight forward. A thought made the snow under her boots into slick ice as she swung at me and I stepped aside as she overextended, slipped on the ice beneath her feet, and fell face-first into the snow.

As she rose from her faceplant sputtering snow, I controlled the snow around us, packing it around her and sending some into very uncomfortable places, like inside her jacket and top. A moment later, she was completely buried with only her head sticking out and I knelt beside her with a smile on my face as I pointed to the camera above the door we had been walking toward.

“See that? I have you on camera taking a swing at me, so this here is just me defending myself,” I told her as I saw some of the other girls from class hurrying toward us, probably to help her. “Too bad the cameras aren’t set for audio, but I think that tells my side of the story pretty well no matter what ‘witnesses’ you manage to conjure up. Funny how that works, huh? You can go to the headmistress, but the only one who will get in any trouble will be you. I suggest you think about that while your minions are digging you out of there. You shouldn’t poke the Fey, Delilah. Bears have nothing on us, and we always pay our debts.”

I stood up and walked away as a trio of girls hurriedly began digging Delilah out of the hard-packed snow. Then I headed back inside and straight toward my locker. If Delilah was stupid enough to go to the headmistress, I would handle it, but I was pretty sure that I’d managed to get my point across.

When I managed to get to my locker, both Melody and Jessica were already waiting for me. “You’re looking very pleased with yourself, Sis,” Jessica commented as I approached.

“Immensely,” I agreed with a grin. “Art class was both fun and productive.”

“Does it have anything to do with that, Babe?” my girlfriend inquired, tilting her head to the four girls passing us as they made their way down the main hallway. One of those girls was, of course, Delilah, who was still liberally covered in snow and glaring at me as they passed us by.

“However, did you guess?” I retorted cheerfully.

Completely aside from my messing with Delilah, I had plenty of reason to be happy this week. My evening practices with the Dicken sisters were going well and I had a bit of a breakthrough with Cinder on Tuesday. My symbiotic Salamander was able to manifest her physical form, outside of my body, for the first time.

She couldn’t get a flame going yet and couldn’t stay outside of my body for long either, but this was a major milestone in her growth, one that I was sure to tell her how happy and proud I was of her for. It also gave me the chance to show her some physical affection for the first time after I got over the confusion. Still feeling her presence in the back of my mind but also having her as a physical presence outside of my body took a little getting used to that first time.

It would be a while before she could stoke a flame or keep her physical form for longer than a few minutes at a time, but we now had a starting point, and it was something that we were going to work on when we had time at home. We were also working more on our communication. I was sensing stronger emotions and nascent thoughts from her young mind, but I had a feeling that we were on the cusp of something more there as well. I couldn’t wait until Cinder was able to put her thoughts into words, or something that was easier to understand than the vague feelings and concepts that I was getting from her up until now.

Things were also going well in Auto Shop and in regards to the Supra in general. On Tuesday, with Bella’s help, I was able to pull the engine from the vehicle so I could start taking it apart, and I even got it onto a lift so I could get a look at the underside and examine the drivetrain. It was in far better condition than I feared, given what the engine had been put through when it blew. Overall, the axles were looking fine, and the driveshaft was still in good condition and really only needed some realignment and some new U-joints, which I had already ordered. Honestly, it looked like most of the work on the Supra was going to be cosmetic stuff and the engine stuff.

Not that taking apart the engine, cleaning and inspecting every single component, and then putting it back together was going to be an easy task. I was certain that quite a few of the blown components were going to have to be replaced with new ones, either from the wrecking yard or custom-ordered, and inspecting every single component in the first place was going to be tedious at best. Not to mention that once the engine was rebuilt, I would have to reinstall it and start running tests to make sure that everything worked properly.

It was going to be a long process, but one that would be worth it in the end once the Supra was running properly and I could start driving it around. I was fully expecting to run into unexpected issues as well. First things first though, once the engine and cosmetic damage were repaired, I could start running the tests and fixing any other issues that cropped up. This was a long-term project, and I probably wouldn’t be finished for months. I just hoped that I would be finished by Graduation.

Thursday afternoon, I got a call from Auto-Worx Parts ‘n Mods to inform me that the parts and mods that I had ordered for the Supra were in. I was on cloud nine when I checked the messages on my phone after school and immediately went there to pick everything up before heading home. I was so eager to get to work on making the Supra look less like an accident victim and more like the beast of a car that it was meant to be.

Now it was Friday, my last class before lunch was Auto Shop, and today was a work day rather than going over book lessons and technical knowledge. “Someone’s eager to get to work,” Alison teased as I practically vibrated with excitement on our way to class.

“Like you don’t want to work on that Jeep of yours,” I retorted, prompting a grin from the blonde Glaistig.

As soon as class began, we all split up to start working on our projects. Even Carmen was starting to get into what she was doing. She had gotten most of the replacement panels and the hood installed and her Kia Optima SX Turbo was starting to look pretty sweet, at least on the outside. I think that seeing what progress she was already making was doing a lot for Carmen’s confidence.

Granted, her car still had a lot of work ahead to make it more than just look like a working vehicle. It would still need a new paint job and most of the work was still ahead, replacing the engine and transmission with the ones we had broken down from the donor car, but she was off to a good start. She might be taking longer doing the work than most of us would, but she was making visible progress with the cosmetic stuff, and it was work she was doing mostly on her own, once she was shown how.

While Carmen tried to finish the outside work on her Optima, and the others worked on their own projects, I was hoping to get the cosmetic stuff done on my Supra today as well. I only needed to replace the headlight, grille, and front bumper panel and the car would look as good as new, at least, from the outside. I was confident that it wouldn’t take me long, and then I would start doing the work on the drive shaft, which would consist of taking it apart, giving it a closer look to make sure there were no hairline cracks or other damage I might have missed, and reinstalling it with the new U-joints.

By the time that class ended, I had finished most of that work. I still needed to properly reinstall the drive shaft, but it was ready to go and wouldn’t take long once I got to it next week. Still, I was in a good mood and feeling accomplished as we all left the shop and headed to the cafeteria for lunch. “You know, this mechanics stuff isn’t so bad, after all,” Carmen said to the group in general as we made our way there. “I know I still have a lot of work to actually get my baby running, but I got all the panels replaced and it looks a lot better now. I’m learning a lot too.”

~ One of us… one of us… ~ Nikki’s musical mental voice teased, getting a laugh out of everyone.